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October 7, 2025 38 mins

Episode #226

We’ve all been there — things are going great, the scale is moving, fasting feels easy… and then suddenly, everything stops. In this episode, Coaches Terri and Heather open up an honest conversation about plateaus: what causes them, why they’re normal, and how to move through them without losing your motivation.

From dialing up your fasting rhythm to rethinking “healthy” foods that might be slowing your progress, this chat dives into the real-life adjustments that make a difference. They also explore how stress, sleep, and lifestyle habits play a bigger role than we often realize — and how to find balance again when things stall.

If you’re feeling stuck or discouraged, this episode will remind you that plateaus aren’t failure — they’re part of the process. Listen in for encouragement, practical tips, and a few laughs along the way.

💭 What’s one lifestyle habit (not food or fasting!) that could help you move past your current plateau?

 

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Timestamps:

00:00 Not coming for your cheese — promise!

00:16 Why plateaus happen after early success

02:59 When to go beyond 24-hour fasts

05:23 Are “healthy” foods slowing you down?

08:00 Surprising glucose responses & tracking tips

10:43 The cheese and nuts conversation

14:10 Sneaky foods and inflammation

17:07 Restaurant traps and “hidden sugars”

18:24 Stress, planning, and lifestyle habits

21:14 The importance of “safety foods”

24:57 Why stress management = weight management

27:59 Proactive self-care and emotional awareness

30:46 You can’t change your body without changing your life

33:20 Focus on lifestyle, not just fasting

37:04 Pick two tips to carry with you

 

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. You should always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before doing any fasting, changing your diet, taking or adjusting any medication or supplements, or adopting any treatment for a health problem. The use of any other products or services purchased by you as a result of this podcast does not create a healthcare provider-patient relationship between you and any of the experts affiliated with this podcast. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
For our own personal safety.
I do just want to reiterate that we are not
coming for your cheese, everybody.
[laughter] You decide how much cheese you eat.
[music]
Welcome back to another episode of The Fasting
Method podcast.
This is Coach Terri, and I

(00:22):
am joined by the amazing coach
Heather Shuker.
Heather, how are you doing today?
You know, ironic you say that I am doing
amazing. Thanks, Terri.
How are you?
I am not surprised by that.
I'm doing very well.
So, Heather, last month when we got together
to record, it was back-to-school time:
all the excitement, getting your new notebooks

(00:43):
and pens, and getting organized,
and getting started, I was busy
doing my bulletin boards and everything.
And things started going well

for a lot of people (00:53):
you
know, weight loss started happening,
body starts changing, they can't
believe how well they can do this fasting
thing.
And suddenly we're in October.
What are the things that you are hearing
about moving through that reset
and now kind of hitting

(01:15):
the drudgery of continuing
on?
Well, like we talked about last time, one
of the issues that come into play
is a fresh start happens and
then we start to peter out.
Notoriously, the year starts strong
for most people, and then Quitters Day comes.
And so that might be happening for some people

(01:37):
now, that took that back-to-school spirit
and got themselves reengaged.
And they had that initial water
weight loss, feeling so excited,
and now reality has settled in and
they realize, "Oh wait, this isn't going
to stay fun and exciting,
and the scale is not going to move in big,
you know, motions." We've got

(01:59):
to kind of buckle in and we've got to take it
day by day.
That can sometimes feel a lot less fun,
and so people can maybe
lose their commitment and motivation
a little bit. It just kind of slides away.
And now is the time to kind of recommit
and recognize that, okay, the easy part's
over. Now it's time for us to really

(02:22):
recognize that this is a slow and steady,
consistent process that requires
just perseverance.
I think from what I've heard you talk about in
various places, Heather, is some recognition
that it also requires some commitment
for certain changes to be made.
Like maybe it means dialing

(02:42):
up that fasting dial to that next
notch, to getting
beyond, maybe even getting beyond 24-hour
fasts. You've spent the last month or
so kind of building up.
Where do you go next?
Do you need to dial up the intensity
a little bit?
Well, that's definitely true for the people
that are still kind of going well with their

(03:03):
TRE and not seeing much happen.
You know, when you look at what happens on the
timeline of a fast and
you think about how the energy
is used, in what order in your body.
At first, your body uses what's the
easiest, right, the sugar that's floating
around in your blood.
Once that gets used up, then it

(03:25):
starts to empty out those glycogen stores
in the liver, and then it starts
to be like, "Wait a minute, where's the rest
of this easy energy?
I don't see it." And if
you push through that point, it's going to
start tapping into body fat for fuel,
but a lot of times that happens
right at the witching hour, right at that

(03:45):
24-hour mark.
And so people are like, "Oh, I'm not ready
to extend fasting past 24 because
I'm so hungry at that point," you know, "I
don't feel comfortable," even though they're
right on the brink of when
fasting really shows its true colors
and the magic that can happen
with a longer fast.

(04:05):
So getting past that 24 and
into an overnight (whether that be a 36,
a 42, or beyond),
that's where the fat loss really can
accelerate.
And so if you've got kind of the low hanging
fruit of losing the excess
water (because you've pulled kind of
the really egregious things out of your diet),

(04:26):
and now you're not really seeing much
happening, if not much is happening,
then it might be time to up it a little bit,
like you said, Terri.
It might be time to go beyond that
24-hour frontier, and
it might also be time to tighten
up how many refined carbs that you're allowing
in the diet, because that also can be a thing
that's slowing down your progress.

(04:47):
I knew you were going to say that, [laughter]
and I was waiting for it, because
I think this is the other thing that becomes
really important. Almost any
time we make a significant change,
we can see some benefit.
I joke sometimes, but you or I
could go on a potato-only
diet and, at first, we

(05:08):
would lose weight.
Our body would not know what to do with that.
It would dig in and burn some extra
fuel somewhere else, and things would look
pretty good, maybe for a few days
or a week or more, and then suddenly
not.
So what changes
do we need to look at in our dietary

(05:29):
approach if we find that our
body's kind of slowing down a little bit,
maybe even we've been at this for
a little while and we find that we're kind of
at a plateau.
We've lost some weight and now nothing
is budging, but we know we're doing good
things.
You mentioned refined carbohydrates, and I
think that's a really important one for people

(05:50):
to think about.
Any processed foods, things
that we just know are not helping our body.
I also encourage people to think about
are they choosing some things that might
still fit on the healthy food
list but that, for them,
cause inflammation?
Because again, switching things up,

(06:11):
you know, you might jog the body into losing
a little bit and getting some fat loss going
until it kind of hits that resistance point
of too much inflammation in the body.
So I often encourage people, too, to look at,
are you consuming things that cause
you inflammation?
Well, Terri, I know from experience

(06:32):
that we are on shaky ground right now.
[laughs] When you start coming after
healthy, whole foods
that people think are safe, they can
sometimes get very defensive about
the choices that they're making.
I just want to lay the groundwork for anyone
who is listening.
Terri and I-- well, I don't want to speak

(06:53):
for you, Terri, but I certainly will say
it is your decision what you eat and what you
put in your body.
Please don't let anybody else tell you
what you must eat.
That is not what we're here to do.
But what I encourage my clients to do
is take a really hard look
at the results that they're getting and their
lived experience with these foods.

(07:14):
So, you know, a million experts
might say what you're eating is healthy
and you should be able to eat it, but
if your body is not reacting in
such a way that is congruent with that
advice, then you need to listen to what
your body is actually telling you.
Now, there are two ways that you can take
a look at your diet that I recommend for

(07:35):
my clients that I would encourage you to try.
The number one way, and probably the easiest
thing, would be to track, right?
Use a food tracker.
I know nobody wants to do it, [laughs]
least of all me, I hate it, but
it can be a self-diagnostic tool to
see what's going on.

So you can see (07:52):
am I getting enough protein?
Are the carbs that I'm eating interfering
with my ability to lose this weight and to get
things moving?
The more kind of committed thing to look
at is a continuous glucose monitor.
I've recommended that lots of times.
And here in the United States, we can get that
over the counter without a prescription.
There is a cost associated to it, but

(08:14):
the number one thing that I
hear clients say that use one -
eye opening, so eye opening.
So you might think, "I'm eating cherry
tomatoes from the garden.
That's so healthy." And then
you wear a CGM and you see,
"Oh my gosh, those things are taking
my sugar through the roof.
Maybe they're not as, quote-unquote, healthy

(08:36):
as I thought they were." And, you know,
just as a side note on cherry tomatoes.
Most people say, "They taste like candy."
Well, my warning to you, dear listener,
if it tastes like candy, it is probably having
that reaction in your body, and that, in and
of itself, might be something that's getting
in the way of your weight loss.
Now, please don't come at me

(08:57):
saying, "Great, now I can't eat tomatoes!"
You cherry tomato hater, you! [laughter]
Exactly! Eat what you want to eat, right?
I am not the food police.
I'm only here to try and help and
to let you know you might be surprised
that there are foods that you're eating you
think are completely benign, that are not.
Benign in the fact of, like you're describing

(09:20):
here, with a glucose response.
How possibly could a natural food that
I just pulled out of the garden possibly not
be good for me?
Also, taking into consideration a topic
that I did an episode about a while back is
the dose makes the poison, but the dose also
makes the treatment.
And so maybe you can have a couple
of cherry tomatoes here and there, but you

(09:40):
can't have 27 of them a day
and get the results that you want.
So learning how your body responds to those
things. And again, going back to some foods
that might be inflammatory or
foods that might be a little more
insulinogenic for your body.
One of my favorite examples that I often share
with clients is from client

(10:01):
history.
I would have clients tracking, like you
mentioned, Heather, and they would come to me,
and they'd say, "Terri, I just don't get
what's happening. Look, I'm eating
low carb and I'm not eating a lot
of highly processed, highly palatable
foods. And I'm doing the fasting
that you told me.
How come nothing's changing on

(10:21):
the scale or in my clothes
or anything?" And I'll take a look at their
tracking. And sure enough, low
carb, good adequate protein,
nice healthy fats,
but then I notice this little glaring thing
like they're eating 6
to 8oz of cheese a day.

(10:41):
Yup.
You know, it's still it's helping them be
low carb in their approach, but
is it causing inflammation in their body?
Is it causing a high insulin response?
So, in that way, I don't care
that the number of carbs is low if
it's still causing some kind of interference.

(11:02):
So, at the risk of being
excommunicated as their coach, I
suggest decreasing the
amount of dairy.
Now, it might mean for some that they need to
cut it completely, but for some I just
say, "Well, let's see.
Could you bring that down to less
than two ounces a day?" instead of
the six or eight that they had been doing.

(11:23):
Lo and behold, two weeks later they come back
to a coaching meeting and they are down eight
pounds.
Even though they're still eating the same
foods, they're using a different
dose of that particular food,
and their body responds well to it.
So sometimes, people, I think, only hear us as
saying, "Get rid of it, get rid of it.
You can't have that." And that's not what

(11:45):
either of us, I think, are saying.
Sometimes it really is just looking at
how often can my body handle
managing this food, or to what
degree? How much of it is safe for my body,
and at what point is my body no
longer capable of managing
the insulin response or the inflammation
response of this food?

(12:06):
Yeah, and for our own personal safety, I do
just want to reiterate that we are not coming
for your cheese, everybody. [laughter]
You decide how much cheese you eat.
But that is so true.
When it comes to cheese and nuts,
I know how hard it can feel
to be told you need to limit those too,
because so many of us, especially

(12:28):
those of us who struggle with our blood sugar,
we very obviously liked a whole
lot of high-carb foods, and that's
what got us into the mess.
And so part of what we had to do
in the process of going low carb was
give up a whole lot of foods that we really
like, or strongly diminish how
much we were eating. Dose makes the poison, to

(12:48):
be sure.
And so here we've given up all of this stuff,
and now we've clung
[laughs] to cheese and nuts to be that
kind of 'dopamine-inducing
slot machine, bells and whistles' reward
food that we're craving.
And now here's Coach Terri and Coach Heather
coming after those two.
What are we left with?

(13:09):
It can be really hard. It can really feel
like, oh my God, do you guys not want me to be
happy? Yes, we do want you to be
happy and we want you to be healthy.
And unfortunately,
it just so happens that most of the foods
that taste like more, we
tend to overeat, and they tend to give us
problems when it comes to our overall health

(13:31):
and well-being. That just seems to-- it just
matches up for some reason.
So many of the truly healthy foods
are self-limiting.
We don't tend to overdo a
stack of pork chops, or steaks,
or salmon, or sardines,
or what have you.
I'm sure there are other foods that aren't
meats! [laughs] But our point being that

(13:52):
some foods are self-limiting, they're
satisfying, their nutrition, we're done, it's
great. And some foods call
from the living room, right?
We think about them, we obsess over them.
And that's usually a sign that those are
probably something we might want to take a
break from. [music]
[coaching promotion] Are you new to fasting
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(14:14):
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(14:35):
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(14:55):
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(15:17):
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[music]
I think another area to think about in

(15:39):
things slowing down or a
plateau is are there some things
that are sliding in that
just don't work really well for you?
Like, for whatever reason, you're eating
out more often and your food has
more dressings, and sauces,
and little things, which

(15:59):
often have added sugar or
stabilizers in them that can increase
inflammation, cause an
insulin response that you're not expecting
because it's just a salad with nice dressing.
And so really kind of see, am
I losing sight
of some of those slippery-slope,

(16:19):
little factors that actually
manifest pretty largely in my
body? For me,
at times when I've needed to check that,
I've decided I'm not going to eat any
dressings out.
I'm going to carry my dressing with me.
Yes, I'm that person [laughter] who carries a
little container of dressing with me at

(16:39):
times, because it's not
the fact that I'm eating a salad, per se,
that's the problem, it's what am I adding
to it or what are they putting on it
that I then don't know how it's affecting
me?
I justify it or feel affirmed
in choosing it because it's a healthy food,

(17:00):
but I don't recognize the
slippery slope ingredients that are coming
in more and more often.
I think this is also true after we get past
that back-to-school time - we get busy.
Some of us have big projects happening at
this time of year, and we have some holidays
and plans that we're getting ready for,

(17:21):
and so we spend less time creating
our own foods.
We spend less time creating those
dressings or sauces rather than just using
the pre-made ones.
Also sliding into things
like a little more snacking.
It's getting a little colder out.
Oh, it feels so good to sit by the fire and

(17:42):
just nibble on something at night.
So oftentimes, without a real
recognition of it, smaller
habits, we're losing some
kind of grip around the edges,
and things are starting to interfere
with how we started back
last month and back to school, where we were

(18:03):
right on top of things and everything was
coming in just right.
So I encourage people to look at some of these
things.
How are you doing with your sleep?
Have you started to sacrifice going to bed
at the right time and getting up at the right
time for your body?
Are you losing track of some of those details
and your body is paying the price for it?

(18:24):
Couldn't agree more about the sleep, Terri,
but I want to go back to that restaurant thing
you were talking about because I literally
had a client today who said
that she had a meal of tofu and
vegetables. She happened to be
wearing her CGM and saw a huge
spike. Unexpected.
Why? Because you don't expect it from those

(18:46):
core ingredients, but, because it came from
a restaurant, lord knows what
was in there that was causing that response in
her body. So I love that you
made that point.
It is incredibly difficult
to stay really on point when eating
at a restaurant, and so I couldn't
agree more in this very busy back-to-school

(19:06):
time. And not even just back-to-school.
Life is busy, right?
We've got a lot on our plates in modern
society, and it's so much easier
to get some help and let somebody else cook
for you. When you come home from the end of
the day and you don't really have anything
left to give, you just want food
in front of you and you don't have to deal
with it. So even if you're

(19:27):
making the right choices, you're still
probably taking a little bit of a hit
on what's going into your body.
I like to say there are two big things
that get in the way of weight loss.
Number one is poor stress management
and number two is lack of planning.
And so we need to really do both
of those things. We need to have a plan.

(19:49):
So if you're looking on the horizon of your
week and you can see there is a lot going
on, then you probably need to be proactive
to make sure that you have healthy foods in
your house, maybe even easier ones,
so that you are not coming home to meat
in the freezer and no ideas on what to cook
and an app on your phone.
Also, I'm a huge proponent

(20:11):
of stress management, so as to
not get you to the point where you don't
care about your goals anymore because you're
overwhelmed.
So that's why I really like to talk to clients
about having something like a regular
walking routine, a regular meditation
routine, so that you do
have more capacity to make these

(20:31):
tough choices of dietary
changes that are required for sustained weight
loss.
Absolutely.
I think both of those are really important,

Heather. One (20:41):
the planning part.
If I got 10 cents for every
time I've said this in the past six months, I
would retire very wealthy right now, but
the idea that most of us need
some healthy food choices readily
available at all times.
One, it will be meal time eventually,

(21:02):
so we need some safe things.
We may get into a little bit of a crisis in
our fast and need to stop our fast early.
Do we have something safe to go to
or do we go to something more problematic?
Having readily-available, safe
foods-- I refer to them as 'safety foods.'
I have a few.
They're not the most amazing foods as

(21:23):
far as taste and texture and everything,
but they are so safe for me.
So for example, I like to have cans
of tuna fish in the cupboard because,
if I am between meetings and
suddenly want to eat my meal now,
I don't have time to make something.
I don't even have time to order on an app,
and, where I live, that would take days.

(21:44):
I'm just going to open a can of tuna fish and
grab some homemade mayo, and I've got a meal
in about 43 seconds.
Super safe, super fast, super
easy, and I like the way it tastes.
So having things planned,
having groceries already purchased
that you need to make certain things,

(22:06):
having those go-to things that--
like my can of tuna, I can keep that in the
cupboard for six months and it's going to be
fine. Freezing some food,
making some food where I can freeze some
leftovers.
So again, all I have to do is throw that in
a pan real quick and heat it up and I've got
an instant, healthy meal for me.

(22:26):
Planning, I think is so important,
and one of the key features that I think most
of my clients connect with at
some point.
When they're doing better, they're better
planned.
And when they're struggling more, they are
less well planned.
They are scrapping for things quickly,
and those decisions are usually

(22:48):
not as spot-on for us.
And then again, the piece you said about
stress. And I actually said this today in
one of my small-group coaching sessions.
I said, I think coach Heather actually says
this regularly, that weight loss
is stress management, that
if you want to focus on weight loss, you can't
do that without focusing on stress management.

(23:10):
Even if all your food choices are great,
even if you're doing a
healthy amount of fasting for your goals,
if your stress has gone unchecked
and is not being managed,
it will prevent those
powerful tools from having the
effect that you want them to have.

(23:31):
So it's really important to be
planned and to be
working on your stress management, stress
reduction.
That can look like all kinds of different
things. In our community, I know we often
refer to Coach Lisa's 39
Ways to Lower Cortisol, but
I encourage everyone to look for

(23:52):
5 to 10 things that they
know work for them
to reduce stress.
Because if I say, "Oh, you know
what works so well for me, is taking a
long, hot bubble bath and
listening to an audiobook," that is
fantastic, except
when I am on a Zoom meeting for work,

(24:12):
[laughter]. I can't go hop in a
long, hot bubble bath,
so I need something that I can do right
here and now while I'm in this meeting
to help me bring that stress level down.
So whether that's, you know, doing some
tapping, or doing some breathwork,
doing a very brief little meditation
that just allows me to kind of relax

(24:35):
my body or activate my vagus nerve.
That's necessary.
And again, I sometimes hear people
focusing so much on eating
precisely the right food at precisely
the right time (which of course
we encourage), but, without
managing our stress, it's not going

(24:55):
to have the same effect.
Facts. Hashtag facts.
Life is going to get in the way.
It is going to come at you.
It is not a matter of if, it's a matter of
when.
And as far as stress-management strategies,
I'm so glad you eventually got to meditation
because I was like, Coach Terri, how dare you!
I mean, like, Coach Jamie has made

(25:16):
an absolute believer out of
me when it comes to using meditation for
stress management.
It has so much evidence behind
it. It's been used for thousands of years.
I've always known about it on the periphery,
just like we all have, but her passion for
it and her patient teaching has
just really led me to embrace it and

(25:37):
to make it a part of my life, and it's been a
game changer.
So I absolutely recommend it to everyone
that can hear my voice, and certainly my
clients. At least give it a chance because,
like you said, we cannot necessarily
quickly take a bubble bath when life
comes at us, but we absolutely
can focus on our breath.

(25:58):
We absolutely can be mindful, and present,
and drop into our body, and take
a moment before we make a decision
that's either going to move us toward our
health or away from our health.
So thank you for bringing that up.
I absolutely-- I absolutely do say
all the time, "Stress management is weight
management," because so

(26:19):
often people fixate and focus
on, like you said, eating the right things,
doing the perfect protocol, but,
if life gets in the way and you don't
have the capacity to do any of those things,
does it matter?
Does it matter what your perfect macros are if
you're hitting the drive thru, stressed out?
No.

(26:39):
The only way it matters that you
know what all of the best things to do
is if you have the bandwidth to do them, and
you're not going to if you're
underwater. So the stress management piece is
a non-negotiable.
Also, regarding having
a safety food, I absolutely have one too.
I'm an egg scrambler.

(26:59):
It's always a good time to have scrambled
eggs. I love that you pointed that out.
So often I've made that recommendation
to clients. Like, well, could you just
scramble an egg?
And they're like, "I never really thought
about it." And that's the problem.
They don't think about it, right?
You know, we don't-- we just are so reactive
sometimes.
And so that part of planning is not

(27:21):
just have a plan for when everything's
going great, when you have plenty of
bandwidth, plenty of time to think about
things. It's also having a plan
for when things go to crap.
So if you know, okay, if things go to crap,
I've got Chomps in my purse, I've got
eggs in the refrigerator to eat, and
I can take a walk in the woods.

(27:41):
And if not, I can do some deep breathing.
There's your emergency plan.
And so, like you said, different people have
different ways of managing their stress.
Make sure you have that kit put together
ready to go.
You don't want to wait and have a first aid
kit when somebody's bleeding. [laughs] You
want that to be ready ahead of time.
And I think another piece that's so important
with that is the more proactive

(28:04):
we are with safety plans and
with doing things that bring us calm,
peace, joy,
the less we need to lean into the
problematic things. Now, some of you have
recently listened, maybe, to an episode of
mine where I talked about that, but I can't
emphasize it enough.
When I ask people to really identify

(28:25):
where does your food plan fall apart?
It's when they are stressed.
It's when they are tense.
It's when difficult things are happening.
It's when they're emotionally charged.
It's when they're tired.
But if I am putting more moments
of calm and peace and joy
in my life, I have fewer

(28:47):
reasons to have to resort
to problematic food behaviors
to bring me those things.
So those things that cause or those things
that are stress management,
I get to choose the healthier versions
by doing them proactively, like you're

(29:07):
saying, Heather, rather than reactively.
And let's face it, once we're already kind
of feeling like we're mentally in crisis,
it's really hard to figure out
what's the good, healthy thing I should do
right now.
Do more of the good, healthy things
proactively, be really
well-practiced at them so that, when you most

(29:28):
need them, you've got them, but also
because they're doing the preemptive work.
I don't need to go to bad foods for
me if I've already resolved
the tension in my body or prevented
that tension from even building.
Terri, this is what I have learned from
being a coach.
I thought in the beginning it was all

(29:50):
about me teaching people
about low carb, about fasting,
even though my lived experience
was one that I really needed to fix
a whole lot of things in my life
in order for me to have the capacity
to eat low carb and fast.
Now, as a coach, I maybe didn't have that

(30:12):
insight locked in, and so I was like, okay,
they just need to know that you gotta eat low
carb and you gotta fast. No no no.
They were all just as smart as me this whole
time. [laughs] It's not like
my clients were living under rocks.
They knew this stuff too.
They were struggling with the same things I
was struggling with and what you are talking
about just now.
We try to isolate weight loss

(30:34):
as if we are eating
and fasting in a vacuum and we're like,
"Oh my God, why can't I do these hard things?"
Girl, take a step back.
Look at your forest, not just this one tree.
I was speaking with a client today with young
children, right?
One of them is three and a half years old and
just learned how to climb out of his crib, so
they're not getting any sleep, right?

(30:55):
She's got stuff going on at work.
I have another client that has this whole
remodeling thing and her house is chaos,
and that made her food go off track.
And we start to realize that you can't make
these changes without addressing
the whole picture.
You are a human person.
You are a creature that is within the context

(31:16):
of your life, and, if it is chaos,
the chances that you're going to make perfect,
healthy choices with your food and your
fasting are really low.
Because like you said, when you get to the
point where you have just bottomed
out in overwhelm, and
stress, and fatigue, and you have nothing

(31:36):
left, you're not thinking about your goals.
You're thinking about feeling better, right
now. And you know that garbage
food is going to make you feel better, because
it will, because it always has, at least for a
little while.
So if you don't want that to be your continued
pattern, you must take a
step back, and take a look, and be like, "Huh!

(31:56):
I keep getting there.
Every night I get there." Whether
it's your job, whether it's in a relationship
that isn't working, whether it's these kids,
or whatever the case may be,
if that's your pattern, then that
needs to be addressed before you're
likely to have the capacity to do
this hard work of habit change

(32:18):
that's going to give you the weight-loss
transformation that you're looking for.
Amen, sister. [laughter] I couldn't have said
that better. I love that.
I think you can all tell, as
you're listening, that Heather and I are
pretty biased, and I think all of the coaches
are, Megan is.
You know, we really look at this being about
a lifestyle.
Obviously, we focus on two of the levers

(32:40):
a lot - what you're eating and how
often you're eating (or not eating) -
but, without the focus on
these other life factors,
those levers won't do enough work.
They can't.
They're hindered from doing enough work.
So I hope that this episode has
really kind of lit that up
for us again, that there's a bigger picture

(33:02):
here that we're all working on.
If we want to truly transform,
we can't only focus on food and fasting.
We have to focus on lifestyle.
We have to focus on our stress management.
Putting joy in our life.
Self-talk. Believing in ourselves.
Using the knowledge that we know.
We just want everybody to be happy.

(33:22):
[laughter]
That's right.
Happy people make healthier choices.
And so, hey, you know, I was just speaking
with some clients last night.
When it comes to weight loss, because
it's not enough to focus on these things,
we need to take that broader view.
We need to focus on overall well-being.
What have you got to lose, friend?

(33:43):
Right?
You know, okay, so maybe
focusing on your well-being doesn't
do as much for your weight loss as you had
hoped, but you just felt
better. I mean, like, isn't that still
something? Isn't that worth it?
What if all that happens is my stress goes
down but I don't lose as much weight?
Well, aren't you still better off?

(34:04):
Just saying.
And, I really believe-- and,
you know, it's one of those things sometimes
people can't trust until they experience it.
By feeling better, it
frees you up to make different choices.
One, you don't have to make the kind
of punting choices
of, "I've got to feel better right now, and I
don't have a better way." I feel okay

(34:26):
right now, and I know feeling better
is right around the corner, and I have some
choices I can make that help me feel better.
It really changes what our options
even feel like they are.
When we're in that deep state of of
tension, it's really hard to find good
options. But when we set things up well
and don't get into that same state

(34:48):
so easily, we have more access
to better options.
It's just so true.
It is. I have seen it in clients,
people that kind of cling to some of those
foods that are problematic.
I am trying to get rid of the phrase "comfort
foods," because I recently had a client
that said that she ate comfort foods, and, of

(35:08):
course, they made her feel worse.
Those are not comfort foods.
Those are uncomfortable foods.
Those are discomfort foods.
But we know that, when we're in a good place,
we're more likely to stay on track.
And so I don't know how else to say it.
I completely agree, Terri.
This process seems,
on the surface level, as if it's all about,

(35:30):
you know, how many carbs are in this, or
how many days a week fasting,
and what fasting aid should I use?
It really is more about, "I
want to be a healthy person that makes healthy
choices," and that involves
a whole lot more than our nutrition.
And so I think that the people that are
successful in this journey are looking at that

(35:51):
bigger picture.
You just reminded me of the saying-- I
actually had to look it up because I'm like,
oh, I don't want to say this wrong, but...
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of cure.
And I know so many of us are at a place
in our journey where we're working on a lot of
pounds of cure, but, in
this process, if we can keep focusing
on building in more of the prevention

(36:13):
from future need of cure,
I think that's really a powerful way to look
at this.
Absolutely. In my nurse training,
part of the nursing model is health
promotion and preventing disease.
So I actually had a whole class
in my bachelor's program about going
upstream.
These are the consequences.

(36:34):
This is the illness.
Well, what preceded this?
How did we get here?
And so what you and I are really talking about
today is taking a look there, right?
So, okay, it's 8 o'clock
at night, we're in front of the TV, we're
stressed out, we're overwhelmed, and we're
eating problematic food.
That's the problem, but what led to that?
Can we pull back the camera

(36:57):
and see the chain of events that led to
that situation, and see if we
can't do things differently next time?
Absolutely.
Well, Heather, once again, I feel like you and
I could talk about this for hours and hours,
but we do need to let these people go
so they can go implement all of these things
that we've been talking about.

(37:17):
So thank you for being here and having this
conversation with me again, and thank
you to everyone for listening.
I hope that you will try and pull at least two
things from this episode, two
little gems that you want to carry in your
pocket with you to remind you
of the possibilities in this journey
that you're on, and ways that you can help

(37:39):
support yourself.
Thanks, Terri. Make good choices, everybody.
Until next time, take good care
and we'll be back with another episode.
[music]
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