Worth the Weight: Recent Episodes

Heather

Heather is an Advanced Certified Weight Loss Coach who helps women leave the cult of diet mentality behind them for good. She teaches simple sustainable weight loss through changing your beliefs and habits around food.

Welcome to Season 4 of The Love Life and Lose Weight podcast! In this episode 89, Heather opens with a behind-the-scenes update on her “Big Move” and what it taught her about change — and then she takes you deep into a mindset shift that can be a game changer for your weight goals this Fall.

If you’ve ever caught yourself saying things like “I’ll start again Monday,” “It’s just one bite,” or “I’ve been good all week, I deserve this,” this episode will show you why those small exceptions matter more than you think — and how to stop letting them quietly undo your progress.

You’ll learn:
✨ What “exception thinking” really is and why it feels so harmless in the moment
✨ How these tiny “permission slips” erode self-trust and stall fat-loss results
✨ The 3-step method to identify, map, and rewire your exception triggers
✨ How to adapt your routines through this Fall season so you don’t experience the ‘Fall Slide’ that so often kicks in when the weather turns chilly and the holiday season kicks in
✨ A simple recommitment practice to rebuild momentum and confidence without perfection

By the end of the episode, you’ll have a repeatable framework for spotting the patterns that keep you stuck — and practical tools to follow through even when motivation fades.

So, grab a pen take notes as you listen now to discover how to outsmart the “just this once” voice in your head, strengthen your consistency, and keep your promises to yourself with ease and self-trust.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Are you stuck in the weeds with your weight loss? Counting calories, labeling foods “good” or “bad,” tracking overeats, and starting over every Monday? That’s what I call tactical hell — where every little action feels exhausting because there’s no bigger vision guiding you.

In this short but powerful episode, I’ll show you how to rise above tactical hell and step into the light side of strategy. When you commit to being a strategist, everything changes: setbacks become feedback, the details stop feeling like punishment, and the exhausting inner war with yourself finally ends.

✨ Imagine no more daily debates about whether you’ll work out. No more tug-of-war over alcohol. No more believing that overeating somehow benefits you. That’s the power of strategy — a clear, realistic commitment to your larger purpose that makes the path to sustainable weight loss so much easier.

By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

Recognize the signs you’re stuck in tactical hell
Understand the difference between a tactician and a true strategist
See how a strategic commitment makes daily actions flow with ease
Ask yourself the key question: Am I living in tactical hell, or am I ready to step into strategy?

🎧 Listen in and discover how shifting your mindset from tactician to strategist is the missing piece to making weight loss sustainable — and finally reaching your goals.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

What if the very moments you think you’ve “blown it” could actually become the turning point that accelerates your progress?

In this episode, you’ll discover how to flip the script on shame and hiding so you can:
✨ Break free from the cycle of ghosting yourself and stalling your results
✨ Rebuild trust with yourself and your body—even after a setback
✨ Stop wasting time in self-judgment and start moving toward the life you want
✨ Use four simple steps to return to your goals with more power, resilience, and clarity than before

Instead of letting shame keep you stuck, you’ll learn how to turn every slip into a springboard. The future you want doesn’t come from being perfect—it comes from learning how to repair, re-enter, and lead yourself with confidence.

🎧 Tune in now to see how fast you can shift from self-doubt into self-trust.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

If you’ve ever thought, “I can’t trust myself with carbs” or “If I let myself have dessert, I’ll lose control…” — this episode is for you.

In Episode 86, we’re breaking down one of the most misunderstood tools in sustainable weight loss: permission-based eating.

You’ll learn:

What permission-based eating really means (and what it’s not)
Why your brain panics when you even think about allowing certain foods
The step-by-step “Permission Experiment” that helps you rebuild trust with food
How to work through your biggest fear: What if I gain weight?

✨ We’ll talk about how to listen to your body’s wisdom, practice calm curiosity instead of judgment, and make food choices from trust—not urgency or fear.

By the end of this episode, you’ll feel more equipped to:
✅ Step out of the restrict-binge cycle
✅ Stay present with food without panic
✅ Move toward your weight goals without harsh rules

🎯 Try the Permission Experiment this week and grab your free Permission-Based Eating Worksheet to help you reflect.

📥 Get the worksheet by joining the VIP email list at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
📩 DM me on Instagram with your biggest insight or breakthrough after listening

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Have you ever seen a photo of yourself that made your stomach drop?

Maybe it was a candid at the beach, a group shot someone tagged you in, or just a moment caught at the wrong angle—and suddenly, all your recent progress feels invisible. You're flooded with self-doubt, shame, or the urge to hide.

If this sounds familiar, this is your episode.

In today’s powerful conversation, you’ll discover:

Why unflattering photos can feel like a threat to your identity
How to break the spiral of self-criticism before it leads to self-sabotage
The truth about what photos actually show—and what they never can
A 4-step emotional reset plan you can use the next time this happens
Why reframing this moment may be the turning point in your journey

This isn’t just about photos—it’s about protecting your progress, your peace, and your power.

🎧 Listen now and build the inner resilience to keep showing up for yourself—no matter what your camera roll says.

Want to feel confident and grounded in how you see yourself—on camera and off? Press play now.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

🎯 In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

If you’ve ever thought you just need more motivation, more willpower, or more structure to stay on track with your weight loss goals—you’ll want to hear this.

There’s something happening behind the scenes in your mind that’s quietly sabotaging your ability to focus, follow through, and stay consistent. And no one’s really talking about it—until now.

In today’s episode, we’re unpacking:

✨ A sneaky source of mental exhaustion that’s hiding in plain sight
✨ Why even high-achievers struggle to stay present and consistent with food habits
✨ The surprising link between this mental clutter and emotional or mindless eating
✨ What you need instead of more willpower to finally feel in control
✨ A weekly practice that can create instant clarity and long-term follow through

This is the hidden work that makes sustainable weight loss feel easier—because your brain finally has the space to show up for the life (and body) you want.

💭 If You’ve Been Saying Things Like:

“I know what to do, I just don’t do it.”
“I feel like I’m always behind and overwhelmed.”
“I eat on autopilot when I’m tired or scattered.”

Then press play now. There’s a good chance this one shift will make everything feel lighter.

📔 Ready for a System That Helps You Follow Through?

This episode is inspired by the exact method I use (and teach) to help you feel clear, calm, and back in control—even when life is chaotic. Take a peek at my Follow-Through Planner at HBeardsley.com/planner. If you want a discount code, just hop on the list at HBeardsley.com/ftp.

🎯 Links & Resources

Your Time + Tasks Planning Sheet is built into the Follow-Through Planner

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

If you're doing everything "right" but the scale isn't moving—or worse, it moves the wrong direction—this episode is for you. You’ll learn how to stop obsessing over your weight and instead use smarter tools and metrics that actually reflect your fat loss progress.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Why fat loss ≠ weight loss—and why that matters
How to protect your muscle while shedding fat
Why smart scales and body fat percentages often lie to you
What to track weekly, monthly, or quarterly for real results
How to fuel your workouts for better energy, metabolism, and long-term success
Why eating more (strategically) is often the key to losing fat

Whether you're mid-journey or just getting started, you'll leave with clarity, confidence, and a doable tracking system that supports both your goals and your sanity.

📝 Key Topics Covered

The difference between fat loss and weight loss
Muscle mass, metabolism, and midlife physiology
Why strength training and protein matter more than ever
How to use InBody scans or other tools to track actual fat mass and muscle mass
Strategic fueling for women in peri- and post-menopause
Avoiding the mistakes of fasted workouts and chronic under-eating
The truth about nighttime snacking, urges, and protein timing
Why calorie deficits should happen at night—not first thing in the day
How to get off the perfectionist roller coaster and track what really matters

❓ This Week’s Coach Homework

💪 Track your real fat loss progress this month by checking:

📏 Fat mass in pounds
💪 Skeletal muscle mass in pounds
🔁 Waist circumference (optional)
🌙 Sleep quality
🔋 Daily energy rating
🧠 Mood and mental clarity
🏋️‍♀️ Strength personal records (like your deadlift, squat, or curl max)

👉 Use the Follow-Through Planner or start a custom tracking system in your journal.
Stop letting scale weight or body fat percentages define your success. Real progress is found in tracking data that matters.

📌 Resources & Links

🧠 Next Level by Stacy Sims, PhD
📚 Forever Strong by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
🖥️ Get your InBody H30 home scale: HBeardsley.com/inbody – Use Heather’s affiliate link to save $50 + free shipping

🎯 Final Thoughts

“Fat loss isn’t magic—it’s about creating momentum. Protect your muscle. Track what matters. Throw away percentages. And keep going.”

This episode will reframe the way you see progress and empower you to track fat loss in a way that’s motivating, sustainable, and deeply rooted in physiology—not frustration.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to make the most of the 12 weeks between the summer solstice and autumn equinox by creating your own summer protocol. You’ll discover how to divide the season into intentional phases, design habits that reflect the energy of summer, and stay aligned with your goals while enjoying the unique rhythms and pleasures this season brings.

Whether you want to simplify your food prep, increase movement, reset your energy, or just feel more present—you’ll leave this episode with a simple but powerful framework to design your summer with purpose and freedom.

📝 Key Topics Covered

Why summer deserves its own protocol
What it means to live seasonally and plan intentionally
The 3 phases of summer and how to use them for momentum
Summer mindset shifts that support energy, presence, and joy
How to create seasonal structure without over-planning
5 reflection questions to help you build your own custom summer protocol
How summer protocols help with weight loss, consistency, and lifestyle freedom

❓ This Week’s Coach Homework

Take 10 minutes and answer these five questions to build your own summer protocol:

What do you want to experience this summer?
(Think: feelings, events, sensory pleasures, vibes.)
What seasonal foods or movement routines are calling you?
(Let your body lead the way—notice what feels good.)
What needs simplifying right now?
(Where are you overcomplicating food, movement, or scheduling?)
What’s your recovery plan?
(How will you rest, regulate, or reset when summer gets chaotic?)
What will make this summer feel like a success?
(Let your definition lead your planning.)

Your answers are the raw material of your protocol. Once you answer, pick 1–2 habits for each of these five areas:
✔️ Movement • ✔️ Food • ✔️ Sleep • ✔️ Recovery • ✔️ Mindset

🎯 Final Thoughts

A protocol is just a plan you’ve thought through. It’s not rigid—it’s responsive. Summer offers the perfect environment to lean into freedom, but freedom without a little structure often turns into exhaustion, distraction, or regret.

Creating your own summer protocol gives you the power to be flexible on purpose, so you can enjoy this season while also feeling proud of how you showed up.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this final episode of the spring season, you're getting a full-circle coaching experience designed to help you reflect, reset, and head into summer with clarity and confidence.

We’ll start with two powerful listener questions—one about how to track hunger and stay intentional while using GLP-1 medications like Wegovy, and another about how to identify your personal overeating patterns and recognize what it really means to feel 70% full, 80% full, or just satisfied. You’ll learn how to use your planner in new ways to support both self-awareness and sustainable habit change.

Next, you’ll get a guided review of the six episodes from this spring season—so you can revisit any topics you missed, or simply reconnect with the insights that resonated most.

Then, we’ll walk through a gentle but powerful spring reflection and summer planning session together. You’ll have a chance to assess your routines, reconnect with your goals, and create a realistic plan for the summer months—even if travel, social events, or unpredictability are part of your life right now.

🎯 By the end of this episode, you’ll have:
✔️ New strategies for eating intentionally—even without strong hunger cues
✔️ A simple framework for identifying your overeating patterns
✔️ A clear plan for how you want to feel, show up, and follow through this summer
✔️ An exclusive, limited-time opportunity to save 20% on the Academic Year Follow-Through Planner—your year-long system for creating the results you want with less stress and more consistency

🗓️ This special pre-launch offer ends June 30 at 5 PM EST.
Head to HBeardsley.com/ftp to get your discount code now.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Do you catch yourself deferring to others for things you could easily handle yourself—from what to eat, asking others to fix things that break, or constantly asking your spouse where your damn phone is?

This episode is your invitation to reconnect with your inner authority.

In a world full of opinions, expectations, and endless advice, taking responsibility for your capacity and capabilities requires effort — especially around food decisions and your food lifestyle. Today, I’m talking about self-reliance: how to cultivate it, why we outsource it, and why reclaiming it can shift everything from your weight loss journey to your confidence in everyday life.

You’ll learn:
✅ Why over-relying on others erodes your self-trust
✅ How to stop mirroring other people’s eating habits and follow your own cues
✅ The emotional payoff of solving “small” problems yourself
✅ What self-reliance really means (hint: it’s not isolation)
✅ How this one skill helps you feel calmer, clearer, and more in control—especially when life gets chaotic
✅ A two-week challenge to help you build your self-reliance muscle in easy, empowering ways

Want to become the kind of woman who makes confident decisions and follows through?

My new Academic Year Follow-Through Planner begins July 1st!
It’s your personal system for staying focused on your food goals, planning your time with intention, and showing up consistently—without burning out.
Explore the planner get a discount code & plan with me for the summer season by signing up at HBeardsley.com/FTP

Join the conversation:
I’d love to hear how this episode resonates with you. Come share your thoughts on Instagram at @ThriveInMidlife and tag me in your two-week self-reliance challenge!

Self-reliance doesn’t mean doing everything alone. It means learning to trust yourself first.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

If you’ve ever struggled to follow through on a plan you were totally committed to in the moment… this episode is for you.

Whether it’s your eating habits, exercise routine, or just showing up for yourself, real transformation doesn’t come from being perfect—it comes from building the skill of follow-through, especially when life gets “farkakte” (Yiddish for covered in shit).

In this episode, I’m breaking down exactly why follow-through is so hard—and how to make it feel easier, more sustainable, and even enjoyable.

You’ll learn:
✅ Why habit change starts with interrupting your automatic patterns
✅ The dopamine trap that keeps you stuck in a negative self-image
✅ How to shift from “planning mode” to actually doing the thing
✅ The surprising connection between follow-through and self-trust
✅ What to do when life derails your best-laid plans
✅ Why small wins matter more than perfect plans
✅ How to become the “CEO” of your weight loss journey

This episode isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing the right things consistently in a way that actually feels doable in real life.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Today’s podcast is an honest, personal, and experiential-informed conversation about my experience with crash dieting, chronic stress, perimenopause and hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I tell you about how and why I chose HRT when I was navigating perimenopause, dealing with burnout, and struggling to lose weight—even while doing “everything right.”

You’ll walk away from this episode knowing how restrictive dieting affected my body and hormones and how I sought answers and navigated my way through it. My hope is that in sharing my story and what I’ve learned in the process you might yourself become a more empowered to advocate for your health and well being during peri/menopause and beyond.

You’ll learn:
✅ What HRT is and why it’s so misunderstood
✅ How menopause impacts metabolism, mood, and weight
✅ The hidden damage of under-eating and extreme dieting on hormones
✅ How I used HRT to reverse hot flashes, and extremely disruptive sleep issues
✅ Why finding the right doctor matters—and how to start that conversation
✅ What the Women’s Health Initiative got wrong—and what that means for you today
✅ How to track your symptoms and create a personalized plan

If you are struggling I want you to know that there are options to help you feel better. You deserve to understand your body and what it needs.. I hope this episode be the beginning of a helpful conversation and a beautiful journey for you!

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Think bone health is something to worry about later? Think again.

If you’re in your 40s or 50s and starting to notice signs of hormonal shifts, now is the time to take action to protect your bones, your strength, and your future. In this episode,I'm talking to you about menopause, muscle, and the real story behind preventing osteoporosis—without falling for outdated advice.

You’ll walk away from this episode with a framework for understanding what’s happening with your bones as you age into your 50's and beyond. I'm sharing with you what experts in the field are talking about —simple, proven strategies that work to keep your bones strong as you age.

🎧 Inside, you’ll learn:
✅ Why Gen X women are rethinking menopause and taking their health into their own hands
✅ How hormonal changes really affect your bones—and what actually helps
✅ Why it’s not just about calcium and vitamin D anymore
✅ The truth about strength training, jumping, and building dense, resilient bones
✅ The critical connection between undereating and weaker bones (and how to fix it)
✅ What a DEXA scan is, and how to get one—even if your doctor says wait
✅ The easiest way to start supporting your bones and weight goals—right now

💡 Don’t wait to be diagnosed with osteoporosis before you think about your bone health.
Be proactive. Be strong. Be informed.

✨ You don’t have to slow down after menopause. You just have to get strategic.
This episode will show you how.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

If you’ve been working out on an empty stomach hoping to burn more fat, this episode will help you understand why that strategy can backfire—especially for women over 40. Today, I’m talking about the power of fueling your workouts to support fat loss and boost energy, muscle growth, and hormone balance.

You’ll learn what happens in your body when you exercise without fuel, how cortisol plays a role in stress and metabolism, and how simple pre- and post-workout nutrition can change everything from cravings to recovery.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why fasted workouts often do more harm than good for women
- How to eat before and after exercise to support fat loss and muscle retention
- The link between cortisol, stress, and metabolism—and how proper food timing helps
- A simple strategy to help you fuel in a way that feels good and sustainable

This Week’s Coach Homework:
Try adding a small pre-workout snack with carbohydrate and protein (100–250 calories), and follow your workout with a protein-rich (30 grams or more) meal. Track how your energy, performance, and fat loss responds over the next few weeks.

Resources Mentioned:
- ROAR by Dr. Stacy Sims
- Next Level by Dr. Stacy Sims
- Research by Dr. Abby Smith Ryan

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Episode 75: The Follow-Through Digital Planner—Your Shortcut to Easier, More Consistent Weight Loss❌ Tired of starting over every Monday?
❌ Feel like you “know what to do” but just can’t stay consistent?
❌ Wish there was an easy way to stay on track without overcomplicating everything?

You’re not alone—and that’s exactly why I created The Follow-Through Planner.

In this episode, I’ll show you how this simple, structured, and affordable digital planner makes weight loss feel automatic—so you can finally break free from the cycle of stopping and starting.

🎧 Listen now to find out:
✅ The #1 reason most weight loss plans fail—and why this one simple system changes everything
✅ How to plan or just log meals, workouts, and habits without wasting mental energy
✅ Why paper planners often work against you (and what makes digital planning a game-changer)
✅Exactly how the Follow Through Planner helps you stay on track even on your busiest days—without wasting time

🚨 Limited-Time Offer!

I’m giving 15% off the Follow-Through Planner—BUT there’s a catch…

👉 The discount is ONLY available to my email subscribers! Sign up now at HBeardsley.com/ftp

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Welcome to Episode 74! Today, I’ll guide you through reviewing your winter season and setting actionable goals for Spring 2025 and Q2. We’ll assess your progress—from body composition and sleep quality to food habits and movement routines—so you can apply key insights moving forward.

Grab your journal or digital notes as we reflect on the past 12 weeks. By revisiting your data, you’ll uncover valuable patterns that shape your next steps.

Next, we’ll turn those learnings into habit-based goals for weight management—whether it’s fat loss, muscle maintenance, or mindful eating. I’ll help you create simple, measurable action steps, like tracking overeating or practicing mindful dinners. Plus, I’m launching a new digital planner this summer to streamline habit tracking and goal setting!

By the end of this episode, you’ll have a clear, data-driven roadmap to embrace spring with renewed focus. Let’s shift from an all-or-nothing mindset to one of curiosity and growth. Connect with me on Instagram (@ThriveInMidlife) to share your progress—this season can be a turning point in your journey!

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

I’m excited to share some game-changing insights into how feeling stressed and the stress hormone cortisol can make or break your weight loss efforts—especially when it comes to stubborn belly fat during perimenopause and menopause.

In this episode, I’ll explain why your body needs cortisol to function but how chronic stress pushes it into overdrive, directing your body to store excess blood sugar as fat and wreaking havoc on everything from your sleep to your energy levels. You’ll learn to recognize how your daily stressors—like meetings, deadlines, or the “lion-chase” feeling you get under pressure—contribute to elevated cortisol and sometimes increased visceral fat.

We’ll dive into why it’s crucial to keep tabs on your stress responses, using simple tools like the Oura Ring for biometric insights. You’ll see how everyday choices about food—like leaning on processed sugar—can compound stress responses and make it harder for your body to manage blood sugar.

Next, I’ll walk you through practical tips to break the chronic stress cycle and support your weight goals. By the end of this podcast, you’ll understand exactly how to manage your stress triggers, positvely influence your body’s hormonal responses, and keep your health on track—even when life is chaotic.

Your Coach homework this week is to track your processed sugar intake for one week, then swap at least one sugary item with a whole-food alternative in the week that follows. I can’t wait to hear your progress, so be sure to connect with me on social media to share your wins and challenges. This week, we're tackling stress head-on so you can keep making progress with your goals.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, we’re talking about how to create movement habits that stick—no matter how busy or unpredictable life gets. If you’ve struggled to stay consistent with exercise, this episode will show you how to overcome common obstacles and develop routines that align with your lifestyle and long-term health goals. You’ll walk away with practical, research-backed strategies to make movement an enjoyable and unbreakable part of your daily life.

What You’ll Learn Today:

Why movement habits are hard to maintain and how to overcome the challenges.
How habit loops and your environment can support consistency.
Simple, effective strategies to build movement routines that feel natural and rewarding.

We’ll explore the reasons movement habits often break down, like all-or-nothing thinking, relying on motivation, or starting with too much too fast. Then, I’ll introduce you to tools like BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits method and the science of habit loops to help you build lasting routines.

You’ll also learn how to use environment design to make movement easier and more accessible. For example, placing your workout gear in plain sight or using apps to remind and reward you. We’ll discuss the importance of choosing activities you love—whether that’s dancing, walking, or gardening—and pairing them with existing habits to make them stick.

Coach Homework:

Identify a small, achievable movement goal for the week (e.g., 5 minutes of walking, stretching, or yoga).
Pair your new habit with an existing routine, like brushing your teeth or enjoying your morning coffee.
Celebrate your success each time you complete your goal by marking it on a calendar or simply acknowledging, “Great job!”

Remember, consistency beats intensity every time. The goal is to create movement habits that fit your life, feel enjoyable, and are easy to maintain over the long haul.

Connect With Me:
I’d love to hear your movement goals and celebrate your wins! Share them with me on Instagram at @thriveinmidlife. Let’s move toward a healthier, happier you—together!

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

If you’ve ever felt trapped by food planning or overwhelmed by the pressure to stick to your meal plans, this episode is for you. Today, we’re diving into why food planning might not be the best strategy for your long-term success and how to replace it with a more intuitive, sustainable approach. By the end of this episode, you’ll feel empowered to make confident food choices in the moment, build trust with your body, and find freedom in your eating habits.

We’ll start by exploring the signs that food planning is no longer serving you. Are you eating just because it’s “on the plan,” even when you’re not hungry? Or maybe the thought of planning leaves you anxious or guilty because you’re tired of trying to follow rigid rules. When food planning becomes restrictive, it disconnects you from your body’s natural cues and prevents you from learning how your eating habits affect your energy, hunger, and results. I’ll guide you through the transition to food logging, a flexible tool that builds awareness without the rigidity of planning.

You’ll learn practical strategies like using a two-column food log—one for what you expect to eat and one for what you actually ate—or letting go of expectations altogether and simply observing your habits. We’ll talk about planning for types of food rather than specific meals, how to set intentional “overeats” in advance, and why reflecting on your weekly patterns is the key to making lasting changes. By the end of the episode, you’ll understand how to use food awareness tools to create sustainable weight loss, not as a compliance tool that forces you into perfection.

Coach Homework:

Reflect on your current relationship with food planning—does it empower you or restrict you?
If it feels restrictive, commit to food logging for the next week instead. Decide which days you’ll try it and track your experiences.
Mark your calendar for a review session at the end of the week to see how food logging works for you.

It’s time to step away from rigid plans and into a new way of eating that feels aligned, flexible, and supportive of your goals. Listen now and start creating the freedom and trust you deserve in your relationship with food!

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Are you struggling to lose weight or maintain a healthy lifestyle despite doing all the right things? In this episode, we dive into an often-overlooked factor that could be holding you back: sleep. Drawing on insights from Dr. Casey Means’ book Good Energy, I unpack the science of how your sleep impacts your hormones, metabolism, and even your hunger cues. By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why quality sleep is a cornerstone of your weight regulation and health in general and how to optimize it.

You’ll learn why poor sleep sends your body into oxidative stress and disrupts your microbiome, leading to inflammation, insulin resistance, and even weight gain. We’ll explore the powerful role of circadian rhythms in regulating your metabolism and how exposing your eyes to natural light in the morning can reset your internal clock. I’ll also break down how sleep deprivation alters hunger hormones, driving you to overeat, and explain why aligning your meal timing with your body’s natural rhythms can improve your health and energy levels.

I’ll share actionable, research-backed strategies to help you optimize your sleep, from simple changes like blocking blue light and setting a consistent bedtime to more advanced tools like wearable trackers for monitoring your sleep quality. Your homework? Choose at least three of these strategies to try over the next two weeks. Whether it’s spending five minutes outdoors every morning, dimming lights in the evening, or moving your meals earlier in the day, these small changes can add up to big results for your health and weight.

This episode will empower you to take control of your sleep and, in turn, your health. By the end, you’ll know how to build better habits around rest and recovery and feel inspired to prioritize sleep as a key part of your weight-loss journey. Tune in and get ready to transform your nights—and your life.

Homework:

Choose three sleep strategies to implement over the next two weeks.
Track your sleep duration, REM, and deep sleep using a wearable device.
Experiment with meal timing and light exposure to support your circadian rhythm.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, I’m encouraging you to set smarter, more effective weight goals for 2025 by focusing on body composition—not just the number on the scale. You’ll learn why traditional weight loss strategies, especially for women over 40, can leave you weaker and less metabolically healthy. You'll learn how to use a smart scale like InBody to accurately track your changes in body fat and skeletal muscle. you'll also learn why this data is critical for setting realistic, sustainable goals that set you up for long term vibrant health.

You’ll hear me debunk the myth that you can’t build muscle while losing fat. For those of you who are new to strength training—especially if you’re overweight or have been inactive—this can be a game-changer for you this year. We’ll also dive into how tracking different data on smart scales can be more motivating and enjoyable than chasing a number on an old fashioned scale.

To make these changes actionable, you'll learn how to create personalized health goals using a smart scale. Plus, I provide practical strategies for how to be successful losing fat and reatining or gaining skeletal muscle mass.

Your Coach Homework:

After listening, commit to reviewing your body composition data by finding an in-body scale near you.
Set individualized weight and fitness goals for 2025 based on the insights from your InBody or other smart scale readout and your takeaways from this episode.
Commit to weighing in monthly using a Smart Scale and note your progress. Analyze trends to make data-driven adjustments.
Focus on prioritizing protein at every meal and ensure you’re strength training at least three times a week.

I'll be supporting you all year to stay accountable to your intergrative weight goals! If you’re ready to take your progress to the next level, join my VIP subscriber email list by visiting https://hbeardsley.com/subscribe find out how. Let’s make 2025 the year you achieve your healthiest, strongest self!

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In Episode 68 of Love Life and Lose Weight, we explore the transformative power of reflecting on your weight journey—without judgment. If you've ever struggled to assess your progress or felt stuck in a cycle of frustration, this episode is for you. You'll discover how a thoughtful, data-driven review of your past year can unlock valuable insights and set the stage for meaningful, personalized goals in 2025. This reflective approach empowers you to see the bigger picture and focus on what truly works for you.

Uncover the Patterns in Your Weight Journey
Many people fear looking back at their progress because it feels too tied to self-criticism. This episode shifts that perspective, showing how the scale, body composition changes, and your habits tell a more nuanced story than numbers alone. By identifying patterns—such as vacation habits, work stress, or restrictive eating cycles—you'll learn how to pinpoint what’s working and what might need adjusting. Reflection allows you to move past surface-level judgments and dig deeper into the "why" behind your journey.

Practical Tools for Meaningful Progress
This episode is a working session designed to set you up for success. You'll gather your weight data from the past year, note significant events, and analyze patterns without judgment. The goal? To identify your wins and challenges, then use that knowledge to create tailored strategies for the year ahead. By embracing self-compassion, you’ll replace self-criticism with actionable insights that drive real change.

Coach Homework to Get Started
1. Write down your weight for each month in 2024 (or up to 18 months).
2. Reflect on the events, habits, or circumstances that influenced your weight each month—without judgment.
3. Identify patterns of success and challenges. Where did you make progress? What areas need improvement?
4. Use this reflection to set specific, achievable goals for 2025, focusing on strategies that have worked well.
Approach this exercise with self-compassion, celebrating your progress while acknowledging areas for growth.

**To be invited to special quarterly coaching calls in 2025, join the VIP subscriber email list by visiting https://hbeardsley.com/subscribe .

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode of Love Life and Lose Weight, learn how to enjoy holiday meals without stress or guilt. You'll discover strategies to release restrictive thinking and fully embrace your favorite holiday foods while staying aligned with your wellness goals.

Key Topics Covered

Food Guilt Origins: Understand how cultural messages label foods as "good" or "bad," leading to overeating and feeling out of control. Learn to replace this with a more empowering mindset that keeps you in control.
Mindful, Integrative Eating: Shift from rigid rules to listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues. Tips include slowing down, savoring each bite, and noticing your satisfaction to enjoy holiday meals fully.
Freedom in Food Choices: Plan your eating so you can confidently enjoy favorite holiday treats without feeling you need to "make up for it" later.

Homework for This Episode

Practice Mindful Eating: Notice hunger before your next holiday meal, check fullness throughout, and replace any negative thoughts with positive ones.
Plan with Hunger Cues: Make a plan to follow your hunger and satiety signals, enjoying foods that may have previously felt "off-limits."

Stay Updated for 2025 Planning
Join Heather for a special 2025 planning call—sign up on her email list for all the details!

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, Advanced Certified Weight and Life Coach Heather Beardsley helps you set up for a holiday season that feels calm, controlled, and aligned with your goals. Perfect for anyone who wants to avoid the holiday overwhelm and end the year on a high note, this episode provides tools to help you stay intentional and meet your December weight goals without stress. Grab a pen, paper, or open a digital note for this one!

Why You Should Listen:

Craft a Holiday that Fits You: Heather guides you to identify what you value most in December, so your month is filled with meaningful moments rather than overcommitment.
Achieve Your December Weight Goals: Whether you aim to maintain, lose, or simply stay mindful, Heather’s method shows you how to set realistic weekly overeats and create a simple holiday eating protocol.
Stay One Step Ahead of Overwhelm: Plan your events, eating, and self-care on your calendar, so you’re prepared and empowered, even during busy weeks.
Reduce Burnout by Focusing on What Matters: Heather’s tips for prioritizing traditions using the Eisenhower matrix help you spend energy only on what truly brings you joy.

Homework:
Take some time to reflect and journal on what’s most meaningful to you this December, noting your top three priorities. Next, set a weight goal for the month and use Heather’s table method to create your holiday eating protocol, ensuring it aligns with both your commitments and your goals.

Stay Updated for 2025 Planning:
Join Heather for an upcoming special planning call for 2025. Join my email list for updates.

Join the Conversation:
Connect with Heather on Instagram to share your goals and planning progress for December. She’d love to hear how you’re making December a month of meaningful choices and mindful enjoyment.

Don’t forget to share this episode with friends or family who could use a more peaceful, intentional holiday season.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In Episode 65, I’m talking about embracing change—a fitting theme as we head into the end of the year and think about a new year of possibilities. Here’s what's covered:

Why We Resist Change: Our brains are wired for safety and routine, so when faced with change, the amygdala (our fear center) often triggers anxiety. This is a natural response, and understanding it can help us navigate transitions without judgment.
Reframing Change as Growth: Resisting change is normal, but growth often comes from discomfort. Looking back, we usually see that the challenging moments brought us the most progress. I reference Carol Dweck’s "Growth Mindset" to illustrate how embracing uncertainty can foster resilience.
Strategies for Managing Change: To support a growth mindset, I suggest:
- Becoming aware of your thoughts around change
- Practicing self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others
- Using mindfulness to stay present
- Setting intentional goals and using smart time management to focus on what you can control
Homework:
- Identify and reframe any negative thoughts around change.
- Set personal intentions for the future and make actionable plans.
- Try a self-forgiveness exercise to let go of lingering guilt.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, I introduce three powerful tools to help you overcome overwhelm, overplanning, and overdoing. These tools are designed to make it easier for you to prioritize what truly matters to you including weight loss. There more you can do that, the better chance you have to reach ALL your goals.

In this episode you'll learn:

•How overwhelm affects your weight loss journey and why addressing it is critical
•How to use the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance
•Strategies to shift your mindset around time scarcity and regain control over your schedule and tasks
•Practical tips for time blocking and restraining your to-do list to 3 items daily.

Coach Homework:
1. Download the Eisenhower Matrix worksheet by visiting my instagram account @ThriveInMidlife and comment MATRIX on any of my posts, and I'll DM you the link to download.
2. Practice leveling up your thinking about time and agency to experiment with decreasing overwhelm. Find 10 power thoughts about your time and practice thinking them every day for at least two weeks.
3. Classify your current to-do list tasks into each of the four quadrants using the Eisenhower Matrix: urgent/important, important/not urgent, urgent/not important, and neither urgent nor important.
3. Schedule out the days and times of your Quadrant 1 and 2 tasks into your digital calendar. Practice following through and give yourself the gift of completion.
4. Time block recurring tasks into your calendar so you can take those tasks off your to-do list forever.
5. Use this system for 4-6 weeks to organize your tasks, prioritize what’s essential, and delegate or delete tasks that don’t move you toward your goals.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, Advanced Certified Weight and Life Coach, Heather Beardsley revisits the concept of anti-fragile weight loss and delves into the "fuck-it/distracted cycle"—a common pattern where life's disruptions cause you to lose focus on the new habits. This episode focuses on how to shrink that cycle and regain your sense of agency when life gets messy.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

What the "fuck it distracted cycle" is and why it happens
Why these cycles are completely normal and how to recognize when you're in one
How to avoid using these cycles as evidence of failure and instead see them as growth opportunities
Simple strategies to regain control, even during chaotic times, like jotting down a quick food plan or drinking water
How small intentional actions can help you refocus and stay committed to your weight loss goals
The power of asking yourself, “How do I win the moment I’m in?” to shift your mindset in challenging times

Key Takeaways:

Everyone experiences cycles of distraction and chaos—it's part of life.
The key to success is minimizing the time spent in the "fuck it distracted cycle" and refocusing with small, doable actions.
These cycles do not signal failure; they are a chance to practice resilience and self-compassion.
Heather encourages listeners to let go of self-judgment and focus on what they can control in the present moment.

Homework:
Create a list of small, simple ways to make the next best decision when you're in the "fuck it distracted cycle." Start with things like making a quick food plan or hydrating. Focus on what you can do right now, rather than worrying about what went wrong before.

Join the Conversation:

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In episode 62, you'll explore the concept of "should" thinking—those thoughts that stem from societal expectations and external pressures—and how they impact not just your food choices but other areas of your life, like relationships and self-care. By recognizing and reframing these "should" thoughts, you'll be able to move away from outside ideas of how you 'should' live your life that can create chronic feelings of guilt and frustration toward a mindset that allows for more freedom and the self-fulfillment that comes from living a self-directed life.

The episode equips you with tools to become more aware of how "should" thinking affects your behavior and provides strategies to shift toward more empowering, self-directed thoughts. By the end of this episode, you'll gain clarity on how to let go of restrictive internal dialogue and replace it with affirming thoughts that support your values and internal preferences. You CAN feel confident about building a lifestyle that aligns with your values, free from external pressures and expectations, ugrade your internal world, and live a more meaningful life.

The episode includes homework to help you put these concepts into action. This week, you'll track your "should" thoughts by keeping a journal for a week, reflecting on where these thoughts come from, and identifying whether they are driven by external or internal sources. Next, you'll change up the 'shoulds' by practicing reframing these thoughts into empowering statements, such as "I choose to" or "I'm curious about," you'll start to build more self-directed intuitive habits of thinking and doing.

Support the show

🎁 Become a VIP Subscriber at HBeardsley.com/subscribe
Get two free gifts, subscriber-only tips, and an exclusive VIP discount on my digital Follow-Through Planner.

🛠️ This planner is the perfect tool to help you reach your weight goals & build the habits —and your future self—will thank you for.
Check it out here: HBeardsley.com/planner

📲 Connect with me on Instagram @ThriveInMidlife and join the conversation under this Episode's reel.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

A common recurring theme I see with my clients is a struggle to break free from diet mentality. Restrictive diet mentality is the belief that there are "right" and "wrong" foods you 'should' eat in order to lose weight or maintain your weight.

When use restrictive diet mentality to lose/maintain weight, what happens is you prioritize choosing those virtuous foods above your own internal tastes and preferences. When we ask ourselves to consistently eat virtuous foods over what we prefer to eat, we experience scarcity thinking. There is manager you telling you all of the things you should be eating and then there is the part of you wants what she wants. This pits inner and outer selves against each other; and what we see is the dynamic of 'being good' for a while, which is always followed by 'being bad, overeating, feeling out of control, and self judging. We can participate in restrictive deit mentality for decades, even though we all know this approach is flawed, as evidenced by people we know who eat "unvirtuous" foods yet maintain a healthy weight.

How do I know when my clients are grappling with diet mentality? One sign is that they make a food plan, but then don't end up following it consistently. Another sign is a resistance/fear of putting the bad/unvirtuous foods on their plan; even though they might be eating those foods daily without permission. A third sign is using shaming/judging self talk to increase compliance with virtuous choices. This disconnect between planned and actual eating is a key indicator you might be stuck in restrictive diet mentality.

Your coach homework for this week is to take a look at your food planning from the previous seven days and identify any foods they overate. Plan for those foods intentionally this week, by practicing enjoying them with permission and following your hunger and fullness cues. The goal is to create emotional satisfaction in the experience of eating those foods with permission and safety; which tells the brain the way to lose weight sustainably, for life, is to tune into your own choices internal cues for answering the questions of what, when, and how much to eat.

Support the show

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Success in changing habits around food relies on having tools ready to respond when you have an urge to eat outside of being hungry or already having eaten enough food. In today's episode, I give you fifteen good responses to practice and have at the ready when you find yourself having an urge to overeat.

Using these will help you redirect how you think in those moments to help you respond differently AND help it feel easier to choose to not overeat.

Here is the list of fifteen good responses for when you have an urge to overeat.

This will taste even better when I'm hungry again.
It tastes so good AND overeating won't allow me to enjoy this any more than I already have.
If I stop at enough, I'll be able to have it again the next time I'm hungry, which will be sooner than if I overeat now...PLUS I'll be proud of myself.
I’ve already decided on this issue.
If I say yes to eating more right now what am I saying no to?
This is my chance to practice a new habit.
I want it, but I also want to (lose weight this week).
I will meet the discomfort of stopping now, or I will meet the discomfort of my overeat when I fill out a discovery sheet tomorrow. Either way, it’s uncomfortable.
Of course, it tastes good. If I put it away now I get to enjoy it again tomorrow.
Yes, it tastes good, but so does going to bed knowing I've had my own back today.
Food can’t make me feel better, only my thoughts can do that.
What do I really need right now to feel better? Am I tired, stressed, overworked, or need to give myself a break?
Can I acknowledge my needs beyond what food can give me right now?
The price of learning how to change habits is my willingness to be uncomfortable for a while.
I won’t always feel this way about stopping the more I practice this skill.

Your Coach homework this week is to PRACTICE and REHEARSE thinking these so they are fresh in your mind when the urge to overeat happens. Then, practice using them, and see how your typical responses to urges to overeat might change.

For a downloadable PDF copy of these responses, comment 'LIST' this episode 60 instagram post and I'll DM you the link.

Support the show

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode I introduce a strategy that you can use to help you be more intentional AND feel better during times whenvoyu notice you tend to overeat.

Emotional time blocking is deciding how you WANT to feel ahead of time instead of reacting to or resisting to how you feel when you are in automatic mode.

Time blocking your day can encompass more than just identifying when you focus on what tasks you want to accomplish that day. Time blocking can also take into comsideration how you want to feel intentionally during each segment or section of your day. When you both plan for how you spend your time AND how you want to feel during that time, you are practicing emotional time blocking.

Emotional time blocking can be used to be more intentional any time you notice you tend to overeat. Successful emotional time blocking will depend on your ability to identify the core need underlying the problematic desire or want, and I give you examples of how to do that inside the episode.

Your coach homework this week is to try emotional time blocking, not just for overeating patterns, but also as a way to level up your overall experience in any challenging times where you'd like to feel better and get different results. Doing so will allow you to feel more in control and with a plan for how you want to show up and feel in the process rather than feeling like you are always reacting to emotions you typically eat over like feeling tired, overwhelmed, or stressed.

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Today I answer three questions from the VIPs on my email list:

Allison has recently lost 40 lbs over 15 months with the help of Wegovy. Her question is what happens when the meds go away? How does a person deal with the brain chatter they've had for 30 plus years when the meds are gone?
Kay Ann is very judgmental of her body shape. She needs to loose 30lbs, does strength training, and core. She says she has nice arms, not bad shaped legs, but her middle torments her.
Julie has lost 123 pounds and is thrilled to now be at 135 pounds. She has been taking Ozempic and is now stretching out the number of days between shots and prioritizing movement and weight-bearing exercise. She is asking for any advice that I think would be beneficial for her at this part in her journey.

Thank you everyone for submitting your questions I hope my feedback was helpful. To get your question answered; join the VIP email list by visiting https://hbeardsley.com/subscibe.

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Anti-fragility means that a system becomes stronger when faced with disruptions, variations, or outlier events.

Variability in a system like weight loss are often things like holidays or vacations, which are are often viewed 'hard' for weight loss and as such we tend to respond by resisting these stressors which makes everything harder, or more 'fragile.'

Making your weight loss or weight maintenance system 'anti-fragile' means embracing the variability of life that put stressors of your system in order to learn how to make the entire system stronger. This way we can view stressors event as opportunities for growth and learning, rather than viewing them as failures.

Overcontrolling the weight loss system sytem can make it more fragile; for example virtuous eating, all-or-nothing thinking, indulging in 'I'm off track' thinking, and obsessing over 'streaks', can introduce fragility into your weight loss system. Instead, focus on understanding the underlying reasons for your actions and results and use those as a way to build a more robust and anti-frgaile weight loss system.

Weight loss does not occur in a vacuum, and fragility in weight loss may be indicative of fragility in other areas of life, such as finances, relationships, or past trauma. Addressing these broader issues can help build the tensile strength into your habits around food needed for sustainable weight loss.

Coach Homework:
1. Identify what are the fragile components of your weight loss approach. List as many as you can think of.
2. Explore ways to think and approach these variations and how you can make your weight loss system anti-fragile or stronger as a result of when these things happen.

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Human beings have the unique ability to think, feel, take action, and listen intentionally by using the prefrontal cortex part of our brain rather than do all of those things automatically or reactively.

Being curious and aware of 'how' you listen to and then interpret what you hear can completely change how you see yourself and how you view and understand others.

Without intentional listening, our past experiences and expectations will always be filtering and shaping the way we interpret what we hear in our self talk and what we hear from others. This can be a significant obstacle in weight loss, as our automatic, habitual thoughts and beliefs about food and our behaviors can prevent us from making meaningful changes. [00:15:17]

By actively listening and questioning our beliefs, we can gain a deeper understanding of the underlying issues driving our behaviors, such as overeating. [00:19:51]

Intentional listening means developing the habit of not believing everything our brain tells us. Considering alternative perspectives, separating facts from our automatic interpretations and then choosing the meaning we want to give to our experiences is a powerful tool for breaking free from unhelpful patterns and creating lasting change. [00:19:59]

If we want to work on active listening, it's important to balance those efforts with regular periods of mental rest like meditation daily or even serveral times a day. [00:30:51]

Intentional listening is a great way to reclaim your life, your beliefs, and your perspective of yourself and others as your own. To be truly free requires listening actively, using discernment, and then choosing what to think in response in a way that that serves you and the person you want to be. [00:34:12]

Coach Homework assignment:

Has there ever been a time in your life when you thought what you heard was a wrong interpretation and that had big consequences?
Has there ever been a time in your life when someone misunderstood what you were trying to say and that had consequences? [00:34:46]

Deeply listening to other people without your own agenda or old beliefs filtering what you hear can give you a deeper. truer understanding of yourself and why you do what you do. Once you are aware of your behaviors, you have a shot at being able to change them. Active or intentional listening can give you that, and it's something you can work at every day in little ways with your self-talk and how you communicate with the important people in your life. [00:36:18]

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, I teach you some techniques for how to eat less and feel satisfied with less.For most of us, this means changing your habit of how you determine what is enough food that still allows you to lose weight without feeling restricted.

Our old habits of determining what is enough food is usually using visual estimations of what is enough like preportioning or using a certain sized plate or bowl. Or, we are waiting to feel physical fullness (stretching in the stomach) as a cue for when to stop eating. These methods not a reliable or effective ways to determine how much food is enough to lose weight AND also represents enough to feel emotionally satisfied.

Listen in and take notes on the full 6 step protocol for how to eat less and feel satisfied or visit me on the Instagram reel to grab the steps. The link is below.

Homework:

What exactly does it feel like when you’ve eaten to completely full, 10 out 10 parts full?
What does it feel like when you are done eating a meal that will maintain your weight?
What does it feel like when you are done eating a meal that is physically enough food, but a number of bites less than you would typically eat to maintain?
What does it feel like when you are done eating a meal that isn’t enough food physically?
Why do you suppose you might have resistance to eating a little bit less? What is you worried about if you have in fact, eaten enough food physically to 7/10ths full?
For your answer to number five, what can you do to anticipate this need and meet it ahead of time knowing you will feel this way when you practice eating to 7/10th full?

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Welcome to the first Bonus Q&A episode where I answer questions from listeners who are on my email list.

Today I answer three questions, tune in to listen to the coaching feedback I offer on these questions, and then see how you might be able to apply the concepts to what YOU are working on in your own life.

1 from Cindy :

I have Chronic Pain Syndrome and wake up several times a night. I have been eating up to 50% of my calories at night and while my stomach does growl sometimes, it has definitely become a horrible habit. I was planning all the snacks! Not good.
What can I do? How can I stop this. I have had a lot Of regain at this point and don’t want to regain all my weight.

2 from Joyce:

Any tips on how to get back in the healthy habit routines?

3 from Mary Ann:

A question or topic popping to my mind would be something along the lines of getting past the diet mentality of doing all the things NOW. Lately, I’ve been focusing on Basically stopping (at half my portion). I still struggle with hunger and enough. (Stopping at half) has helped a lot - especially if I’ve planned ice cream and really want it after dinner! So, curious what insights you might offer about letting go the speed trap diet mentality told us was possible and effective. (No shade to the people who have been able to do all the things, I’m just not one of them).

A big thank you to Cindy, Joyce, and Mary Ann for submitting questions. I have not yet gotten to them all, so stay tuned for the next Q&A episode in a few weeks.

If this podcast was helpful, please take a moment now to open up your podcast player and rate the podcast! I strive to earn your 5 STAR review. 5 star reviews help the podcast get found by so many more people just like you. THANK YOU.

To bed able to submit YOUR question join my email list by visiting www.hbearsley.com/subscribe.

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

Why is changing reactive and automatic eating habits important if you want to get to goal weight and keep it off?

Reactive and automatic eating are two adpative habits that respresent habitual overeating. If we always look to food to resist, react to, or escape from how we feel OR we use eating as a form of escapism then you are chronically overeating; which is in the way of weight loss.

I offer three approaches to work with decreasing reactive and automatic eating; working ahead of the build up of negative emotions, directly processing how you feel and cultivating a relationship with your emotional/thinking patterns, and practicing acceptance to what is and tell the truth about what is happening in your life. Finally, you can increase your awareness of how your thinking and feelings affect your nervous system and whether you are in a stressed state or not.

Questions to ask regarding reactive and automatic eating:

If you are not hungry for the food then what am I thinking eating is going to give me?
My need in this situation is for _____________________________.
How else could I meet this need more directly? List as many as possible.
What is this situation trying to tell me is needed and or needs to be accepted?
How can I give time and space to process my day and the emotions I am feeling before I eat?

Homework:

Challenge yourself to practice a different response (other than eating) when you want to reactive eat or automatic eat up to FIFTY times. At the end of fifty times responding differently, you will start to fundamentally change your habit of reactive and/or automatic eating.

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Audio engineering by Young Cub Audio.

In this episode, I go over the main tenets of weight loss without restriction, and I give you the exact data-driven steps I use with my clients for how to get the scale to start moving consistently (or remain consistent if you are in maintenance.) If you feel like you are tired of f*cking around with your weight loss goals, this is the episode for you.

Previous episodes mentioned:

Making Peace with Hunger

How To Break The Habit of Overeating

Support the Show.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get the FREE 40 page companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? CLICK HERE to join the email list and find out how.

Sustainability is the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. In order for your weight loss to remain sustainable, we need to find a way to regulate and attune to our energetic, financial, emotional, physical, and interpersonal needs enough to sustain our desired habits around food. It requires deep listening and paying attention to your limits and boundaries of what's possible.

Doing a review of the periods of time in your life that have resulted in weight gain can reveal unsustainable circumstances. These might be able to be made sustainable with practice or maybe not. What do the clues tell you? When do you find it impossible to not overeat? What does your inner knowing tell you about your life in those times and your competing desire to lose or maintain your desired weight? Is it time to make some big changes to stop making things so hard so that the life and weight you desire can BE sustainable?

Coach Homework:

Is my life as I've created it in this phase of my life truly sustainable?
Are there signs that elements in my life need some restructuring or change?
Go back and listen to any episodes in Season One that you missed or want to relisten to and/or purchase the Love Life & Lose Weight book on Amazon. The paperback is now available.

I'm taking a sabbatical from the podcast for the fourth quarter of 2023. I'm not exactly sure when I'll be back, but my best guess is the beginning of 2024 for Season Two. I want to reassure you that between the 51 podcast episodes of season one and the book, you have everything you need to lose weight without restriction. Thank you for coming on this journey with me.

In the meantime, the best way to stay in touch with me and my work is to join the email list HERE.

Stay focused and so long. xo

Coach Heat

Support the show

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

What I'm suggesting today is to make your relationship to receptivity an intentional component of your weight loss to help make that process easier and take less time than it has to.

Allowing and receptivity are cousins in this regard. Limiting habits of thinking about food, indulging in doubt as to whether you can lose weight, and allowing competing priorities are just some examples that take us out of receptivity to weight loss.

Being receptive also includes being willing to allow the discomfort of habit change to suck and be hard, but that difficult process also creates the alchemy of change we are after. Just allowing receptivity for the process to be an intentional part of your journey will help you reach your goals. It's about opening up to the process. Let it change you, and watch everything shift in your journey. Commit yourself to getting out of the way and stop throwing resistance into the mix.

Stay tuned for special announcements as we are now in the last few episodes of season one of the podcast!

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

Relational capacity, as I define it describes your ability to meet your expectations of what you know you need to think, feel, and do in order to lose weight.

Weight loss will always involve noticing what level of performance you are at; especially when you notice you did not take the desired actions you are after. Understanding these letdown moments is so much more helpful if you frame the situation in terms of where your capacity level was at that moment.

Noticing how you aren't doing what you know you want to do will be so much more fruitful if you frame that level of performance as a capacity issue and THEN commit to slowly building your capacity with a commitment to BUILDING that capacity.

As a coach, I so often see my clients viewing their capacity limits, for example, when they overeat pizza again on Friday night as seeming PROOF of inability, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead, you can approach your current level of performance and habits around weight loss in terms of optimizing your capacity and working at the edges of where you are at. Relentlessly notice your progress and wins, and never use your current capacity against yourself and your goals and dreams.

Coach Homework:

Write about what you think is in the way of you reaching your goals? Make a list.
For each item, consider where you are with relational capacity for it.
Can this area be optimized with focus and practice?
How exactly can you work at the edges of your current level of performance? Describe what would that would look like. Then make a plan to start this week by writing it into your weekly and daily planner. To get a copy of these planners, join the list.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

In this episode, I explain how to translate the top eight negative emotions to learn what might be needed. The emotions listed below are the top eight negative emotions that we often eat over. If you are in a place of wanting to move beyond reacting to them, resisting them, or avoiding them, this episode is for you!

For any negative emotions we experience, we can take 100% responsibility for them by how we have chosen to think about the world and what's happening that created them. When we do that, we create a space of intentionality and agency over our lives, even when it feels hard.

Coach Homework: Identify 1-3 of the most commonly felt negative emotions listed below for you. Using the translation below, explore in your journaling whether there is a message from your particular negative emotional experience that is trying to get your attention about what is needed.

Anger is trying to tell you what you're passionate about, where your boundaries and values are, and what you believe needs to change about the world.
Disappointment is trying to tell you that you tried for something, that you did not give in to apathy, and that you still care.
Anxiety is trying to tell you that you need to wake up to the truth of how life is right now, that you're stuck in the past and living in fear of the future.
Bitterness is trying to tell you about what needs healing and where you're still holding judgment of others and/or yourself.
Resentment is trying to tell you where you're arguing for things to be different, living in the past, and not allowing the present to be as it is.
Guilt is trying to tell you that you're living life from other people's or external expectations of what you should do.
Discomfort is trying to tell you that you need to pay attention right now to what is happening because you're being given the opportunity to change, to do something different than what is typical for you.
Sadness is trying to tell you the depth of your feelings and care for others and/or the world.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

In this episode, I discuss our internal human experience of how we think both spontaneously and intentionally, how I understand it and frame it as a weight loss coach for my clients, and how to accommodate it and shape it with the intention of helping you lose weight.

Your habit brain is going to resist changing your habits around food. We want to expect that and accommodate it without making its resistance mean anything about what is possible for us.

Ways to create thought leadership in your mind's eye:

Identify what area of your brain the thought is likely originating from - the manager brain or the primal brain.
Ascertain why it makes sense that you would think that.
Shape and direct any primal thinking by adding to, correcting, or rejecting the thought to provide thought leadership in my internal world.
Do not expect impulsive negative, fearful, or resistant thinking from your primal brain to ever go away.

Your coach's homework is to write about how you want to respond to negative primal thinking in the moment. Make your process easy so that it takes less than one minute to complete.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

My book, Love life And Lose Weight, Eat What You Love, Trust Your Body, and Lose Weight Without Restriction, launches today, so we are having a virtual party to celebrate.

I kick off the party by reading you the introduction chapter, so you can decide if purchasing the book is right for you. Next, I will tell you exactly HOW I launched a podcast and wrote a book in less than ten months. Finally, I tell you about what this journey has meant to me personally and WHY I wrote it.

If you want to support my work, there has never been a better day than today to show your support by purchasing the book [CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE], telling your friends, and spreading the word on social media. With each of these actions, you and I together take small but significant steps to help women everywhere leave the cult of diet mentality behind them, free ourselves from conditioned thinking about our bodies, our weight, and our relationship to food, and in the process figure out how to love life and life at our desired weight.

If you prefer a physical paperback book, stay tuned for the release of that version of the book sometime next month! Thank you for your support and for celebrating with me today!

XO Heather

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

Food planning is the workhorse habit of sustainable weight loss and maintenance. Making a daily food plan is a tool to help you become an adept self-manager who is keenly aware of her true tastes and preferences for food. Food planning helps you design the food lifestyle that is right for YOU. It's also a way to practice keeping promises.

You also need to be willing to get planning wrong many times in order to learn your true tastes and preferences around food because you are learning how to plan for what and how much is right for you without thinking there are good food or bad food choices.

We also plan because we want you to be able to practice telling yourself no successfully. When we say, 'No, we can have that tomorrow; we didn't plan for it,' we practice the skill of delayed gratification and learn how to stay focused on the benefit of the long-term goal of weight loss rather than always following your in-the-moment urges around food.

Food planning is not a way to parcel out food to yourself, unlike the restrictive dieting food plans you've followed before. It's a way to make decisions ahead of time about 'what' to eat while leaving the questions of 'when' and 'how much' to your body. This is a process of converging your managerial brain together with the wisdom of your body to create lasting and sustainable change.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Want all of the best tips and strategies from the podcast in one place to help you lose weight? Order the Love Life And Lose Weight book and get a free companion workbook to complete all of the coach homework questions in each chapter.

Want to work with me? Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

Today I'm sharing with you how I coach on maintenance. This can be helpful for those in or approaching maintenance (within 10 pounds or so). Learning about the unique challenges and skills of maintenance is also a great way to give you some insights about what comes after active weight loss mode even if you're not there just yet.

Maintenance is always a range of weight rather than an exact number (usually 1-3+ pounds) due to natural fluctuations in water weight, inflammation, your menstrual cycle, if you are sick, having traveled or flown in an airplane, and what kinds of food you eat. I recommend using at least a five-pound range for you to consider yourself to be 'at goal weight.' I call this your green zone.

Then you can add a yellow zone where you specifically design exactly what weight above the green zone; you will enact a protocol where you have a plan for exactly what you will do to revert back to weight loss mode. Your weight loss journey should have given you insight as to the habits and strategies that result in weight loss for you. you want to put those into a protocol for yourself now and then use it as a living strategy that gets continually tested and adjusted as needed.

If you are still in weight loss mode, this is the perfect opportunity for you to develop your yellow zone protocol. For example, I know I tend to lose weight if I can keep my overeats to two or less. What is your magic number? What about sleep, stress, and water? What kinds of foods help you feel satisfied and lose weight? Write them all down in a weight loss/yellow zone protocol.

Maintenance is all about getting confident about how to stay in your green zone through all of the different exceptional times, like holidays, vacations, and stressful times that can pop up.

Also important is developing a practice of trusting and relying on yourself about your commitment as to what you will and won't do to stay in maintenance. If you miss brushing your teeth for a day or so, you don't question whether you are an adequate teeth brusher, so don't fall into the trap of doubting your skills the first tie you pop up into your yellow zone. Instead, use the yellow zone as an opportunity to trust yourself to take action even if you don't feel like it.

In maintenance, you will need to trust your body's hunger cues to tell you how much to eat instead of relying on your assumptions about how much you 'should' eat that worked when you were actively losing weight.

You'll also want to be open to allowing your relationship to certain foods to change and evolve over time. By the time my clients get to maintenance there can be an over-attachment to eating 'certain foods' that allowed you to lose - which can drive you to think you need to keep eating that way in maintenance. But you can maintain eating any foods, and you just want to stay open to that experience and experiment with it!

The last thing you'll want to watch out for in maintenance is unintentionally recreating the dopamine hit of weight loss by gaining over the weekend and then taking the gain back off during the week. This is a cue to develop a more compelling next goal for your life and be open to exploring that.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Join the VIP subscriber list to be the first to learn about my upcoming book release this summer and get your free daily food planner.

Join the No BS Weightloss Membership to work with me.

Creative Visualization is a tool for mental rehearsal. It involves creatively exploring mentally what it would be be like to engage with being in a potential situation. It’s a way to mentally get practice in without actually needing to practice. The interesting thing is that the brain doesn’t exactly know the difference between creative visualizing something and actually doing something!

You can use creative visualization to help you get in visual practice doing something or NOT doing something that you are working on as part of your weight loss goal. You can visualize what it would be like to eat when you are physically hungry, or not eat if you are not physically hungry. You can mentally relate to all of the nuances of those situations; how it would feel, what you might think, and how you would engage even if it feels hard in the moment step by step.

You can also creatively visualize what its like to be wiling to stop eating when you’ve had enough. You can visualize how you want to handle the situations when things don’t go as planned and how you want to handle those instances too. You can think about how you want each part of your day to go from the moment you wake up until you go to bed. You can visualize how you want to eat on your vacation or any other ususual type of day. You can even imagine what it would be like living at your goal weight and all of the enticing aspects that go along with that as a way to connect you to your compelling reasons why you want to get there and what that means about who you have become in your relationship with food.

I encourage you to creatively imagine as another tool in your weight loss tool belt. If you know what to do, but you don’t know why you can’t do those things often enough; creatively imagining desired actions can be a great way to focus and get more practice in.

You coach assignment this week is to schedule 5 minutes 2-3 times this week to experiment with this powerful tool! See if it makes a difference for you to creatively visualize one aspect you want to get better at with your weight loss this week.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Join the VIP subscriber list to be the first to learn about my upcoming book release this summer and get your free daily food planner.

Join the No BS Weightloss Membership

Here are all of the details about the Love Life and Lose Weight book! The official title is Love life And Lose Weight: Eat What You Love, Trust Your Body, and Lose Weight Without Restriction. It will be available on Kindle format on August 15th, 2023, on Amazon. The paperback format will follow a few weeks later.

Mark your calendar for August 15th to purchase the book on that date. My goal is to sell as many copies as possible on that day in order to become a Kindle bestseller in my book’s category. To entice you to purchase on that day, I’m offering some sweet bonuses!

Get The Workbook: The Love Life and Lose Weight Digital Workbook contains chapter summaries and all your homework in one convenient place. Here’s how to get your copy:

Purchase the book on launch day, August 15, 2023, and screenshot or take a photo of your order number.
Visit hbeardsley.com/book and submit that order number and your email.
I will email you your digital workbook. You can download and/or print it to work through as you read the book.

Get The 30-Day Quick Start Webinar: Watch this prerecorded webinar to help you apply the book's concepts consistently in your first 30 days to get momentum with your weight goal. Here's how to get access:

Purchase the book on Amazon and read it!
Submit a reader review on Amazon and take a photo or screenshot of your review.
Visit hbeardsley.com/book and submit that review screenshot/photo and your email.
I’ll send you the link to watch the Love Life and Lose Weight 30-day Quick Start Webinar.

Thank you for supporting the launch of this book in any way you are able to and for your continued listenership.

Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Join No BS Weightloss Membership

Get your free daily food planner when you join the email list.

Validation is a practice of being aware of and deciding how to think and feel about something in your life. Validation is your sense of focus and awareness about where you ARE in relation to where you WANT to be with your life.

Calorie counting, counting points, macros, or other people’s opinions are all external sources of weight and food lifestyle validation. You might be drawn to counting programs that tell you clearly how you are ‘doing’ when you measure yourself against their standards to know how to feel about how you are doing or feel good about your compliance, but it can never compare with developing your own process of self-validation with your weight and your chosen lifestyle with how you eat. Here are some good questions to practice self validation:

What emotion am I feeling?
In what parts of my body do I feel it?
What was I thinking that created this feeling?
Is the thought absolutely true/honest or is there another side of the story that I am not considering?
Is what I’m feeling uncomfortable, neutral, or positive?
Is thinking, feeling, and acting this way part of who I want to be? Why or why not?
What is this feeling trying to tell me?

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 41 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going. Join the VIP subscriber list to be the first to learn about my upcoming book release this summer.

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In this episode, I discuss two kinds of energy. One is feeling energetic the other is a physiological capacity of energy (gas in the tank). These are two aspects you want to work together to drive a state of increased overall energy.⁠
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I include six ways to build up your emotional and mental reserves and some do’s and don’ts for increasing and/or conserving your physical energy.⁠
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Your coach's homework this week is to do an energy study of your week to understand better what is depleting and increasing your energy balance so you can identify energy leaks and start experimenting with optimizing your energy levels. ⁠

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 40 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Now that you've been using the daily planner for at least one full weigh-in week (as explained in episode #38), it's time to learn how to use the Weekly Planning & Assessment Worksheet to optimize &/or troubleshoot your weekly results when you weigh in.

You can use any weekly planner that works for you or the one I created and demonstrate with in this episode. To get your copy, you'll need to join the email list by visiting HBeardsley.com/subscribe.

Next, review this podcast in your podcast listening app and REPLY to my welcome email telling me your name associated with your review. You'll get an email reply from me your Weekly Planner and Assessment Worksheet.

In that email is the link to watch the companion video that shows the weekly planner I describe in this podcast so you can see each section as I go through it.

If you are already an email subscriber, search for the email that went out on June 26th with the following subject line 'video: how to use the WEEKLY planner and assessment to lose this week'.

This week your Coach Homework is to apply the concepts I talk about and use in the weekly planner for your next weigh-in week.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 39 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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In this episode, I explain how to use a daily food plan to lose weight each week.

You can use any daily planner that works for you or the one I created and demonstrate with in this episode. To get your copy, visit HBeardsley.com/subscribe, and you'll get an email immediately with instructions on downloading your copy.

In that email is the link to watch the companion video that shows the planner I describe in this podcast so you can see each section as I go through it.

If you are already an email subscriber, search for the email that went out on June 11th with the following subject line 'video: how to use the daily planner to lose this week'.

All the details for how to lose weight by planning are in the episode and/or video.

This week your Coach Homework is to apply the concepts I talk about and use the planner each day this week.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 38 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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‌In this episode, I share with you how to create BOOM Goals! As a No BS Team member, we do these as part of our self-development work. A BOOM goal stands for = Blowing Our Own Minds.

To start, journal on this question:

What are the things in my life I would LOVE to accomplish, and if I did, I would blow my mind and my current idea of what’s possible for me?

These BIG dreams should feel improbable but not IMPOSSIBLE.

List them in order of importance. Then decide how you can, over the next year, make PROGRESS toward them. How will you take the first steps toward making it happen?

As a team, we list our BOOM goals so everyone can see them. This is important! Goals can’t grow under the cover of darkness and seclusion. As a team, we update and check in with our BOOM goals progress every 4-6 months or so for accountability. It’s SO interesting to see what lights up my team members, and it also allows me to cheer them on quietly from the sidelines.

For BOOM goals, the only criteria is that it’s something BIG. It can be ridiculous, and you likely won’t get there, but you’ll get farther along in life than you would setting a smaller goal, OR it can be HARD but possible.

There’s no right or wrong on this. You can have as many BOOM goals as you want. Some people do one; some do many. Depends on how much you enjoy setting goals and how you best work. It’s more about figuring out what is calling you forward to create something that feels exciting, good, and a little scary.

We all learn a LOT about what is needed in the process. MANY times it’s not so much about IF it can be achieved. It’s learning how slowly figure out the path to make it doable (sound familiar?) and adjusting the process to get there and the time needed. Sometimes the BEST thing that can happen is that you realize you don’t really want the thing you always THOUGHT you wanted, which is awesome because now you make space for something NEW. So it's 100% ok to change and update your BOOM goals as YOU update and change.

This week, Your Coach Homework is to dream BIG and create your BOOM Goals list. Let your imagination run wild and feel how good it feels to name the thing you’ve always wanted. Then watch your brain get to work figuring out how to make it happen over the course of the year.

Do this with your accountability group or partners. Create a BOOM Goals mastermind where you all get together every 4-6 months to check in with your goals progress and mastermind on those results and support each other.

Have fun with this!

Visit me @‌thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 33 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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In this episode, I talk about Semaglutide (often referred to by the brand name Wegovy), the new class of weight loss prescription drugs used to treat obesity by medical doctors.

My role with my clients on any topic, including any prescription medication prescribed under professional medical advice, is to support them in their health goals by figuring out actions and thinking that help make reaching those goals easier.

This includes how they think about what it means to be on the medication and helping them do troubleshooting and thought work around side effects, weight changes, changes in appetite cues, and changes in habits around food.

I discuss the nuances around helpful ways to think about the side effects and titration dosing to find their optimal dose and know what that is with the help of their doctor.

Comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 36 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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In this episode, I explain snacking as a habit that I often see gets in the way of weight loss

A snacking habit is often the solution to a very calorie restricted approach to weight loss where we feel hungry all the time. We hold on to snacking as our savior from feeling super restricted and hungry all the time.

When you change from restrictive calorie counting to intuitive eating; what changes is that you are now eating to a neutral place where you are are no longer creating overt chronic hunger, and you are responding appropriately to hunger by eating. So, the snacking habit is often no longer needed.

There is no place in which eating when you aren’t hungry fits within intuitive eating.

Snacking as a verb can quickly become a crutch that supports limited thinking about how you can’t handle hunger, or hunger is a problem, or how you ‘need’ a crutch of snacks to ‘make it through’ to the next meal. These stories can feel limiting, foster distrust between your body and your actions, and make weight loss feel harder and take longer than it has to.

Coach Homework:

Think about the relationship that you DO want with snacking both as a noun and a verb.
1. Does the habit of snacking make sense for you given how you are eating?
2. If you want to keep certain snack foods as part of what you choose to eat, how do you plan to incorporate them specifically? You can plan for some portion of your meal to be snack foods, and/or you can plan for an entire meal that consists of snack foods.
3. Look at your data, how many ‘snacks’ are you eating in a week’s time? How many of those were eaten without physical hunger present?
4. Do you think removing snacking as a verb could help you in your weight results? If yes, what is the easiest action you could take to reduce snacking when not hungry?

Just remember that any food eaten without physical hunger present is a form of overeating; and overeating will always be in the way of weight loss or weight maintenance.

What do you think? Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 35 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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I generally use about six different levels to troubleshoot weight loss with my clients. I give you an overview here so you can use the same approach for yourself.

Level 1: Commit to regular weigh-ins (or data gathering (like taking measurements or gathering habit data) on the same day of the week, weekly.

Level 2: Look at the frequency of overeats. How many times over the past seven days did you overeat? Are you aware of the cumulative overeats? Do you need to work on that awareness?

Level 3: How many times did you eat food that was not on your plan? If more than twice a week, then make sure you plan those foods the following week.

Level 4: Look at your data for water and sleep. Ensure you get a minimum of 64 oz of water and about 7 hours of sleep.

Level 5: Do a detailed food review. We look at the data for exactly what was eaten over the last seven days. I look for evidence my client might need to adapt to eating slightly less to accommodate their new body weight, especially if they have been losing and their body is adapting to needing fewer calories because they weigh less. I also look for snacking when not hungry as a common culprit that interrupts weight loss.

Level 6: If my client still feels like overall weight loss is not working. To check to see if that perception is true; we do a year’s worth of weigh-in data. Doing this will highlight your weight loss and weight gain patterns through different parts of your year. This will show you a more nuanced story about where weight loss typically happens and when so you can understand WHY. This allows you to troubleshoot in a targeted way to get the momentum you are looking for.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 34 reel and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Inevitably in our weight loss journey, exceptional phases of life happen (both positive and negative) that put a ton of pressure on our ability to apply our typical daily weight loss strategies effectively. I see my clients unconsciously grasp onto this idea that they need to apply weight loss exactly the same way during these exceptional circumstances. This creates a ton of self-judgment and tension during those exception times, creating this perception of failure.

What’s needed is not to 'try harder' or ever think you are falling off anything, but rather to develop different habits. The first is one of anticipating these exceptional times as a normal part of the weight loss journey. The second is to adjust expectations by flexibly switching to an exception protocol when circumstances change.

Exception protocols and plans are unique to you and the circumstance right now. We don't want to force the typical strategies for weight loss into exceptional times. Weight loss has to fit into a fully dynamic life with typical weeks and many different exception times. Our weight loss strategies must be flexible and adapt to flowing between those times. This will help you be consistent and experimental rather than just falling into all-or-nothing thinking that you fell off the wagon.

Coach Homework:

Look at the calendar and identify at least one exception time happening over the next three months. How will you know when you are entering this exception time, and when will you know it's over? Mark the calendar.
Create your exception plan by identifying what expectations need to change. Project yourself into that time by thinking about your days and needs in DETAIL and comparing and contrasting what you typically do/don't do with how that will change during the exception time. Write out your adapted expectations one by one and then gut-check that you are making this EASY and DOABLE (meaning able to be done).
When thinking about the extent to which you want to stay attached to weight loss during this exception time, remember that the Pareto Principle of integrative weight loss is to follow your internal hunger and satiety cues to know when and how much to eat. Everything else we do supports that foundational practice.
Decide what your re-entry will look like so that you can make the transition easy and flexible as you shift back to typical circumstances for weight loss.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 33 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Eating when you are tired (but not physically hungry) is a habit that will get in the way of weight loss. Why do we push past tiredness and eat instead when we know it works against us in weight loss?

The habit of pushing past tired can be created for many reasons:

Wanting to take back time for yourself when you have a lifestyle of never scheduling that during waking hours, so you eat to stay up and reward yourself.'
Wanting to get more done or believing you HAVE to get more done even if you are tired.
A lifestyle of chronically driving yourself past your upper limits of being physically, mentally, or emotionally tired that triggers your nervous system to find relief through food.

There are lots of other reasons too that you can explore for yourself. Here are some ideas for how to help yourself change this habit:

Deliberately schedule 'me time' daily that is designed to spend time on things you WANT to do. Then practice keeping your word to establish a sense of safety and self-trust.
Take visual breaks from the computer.
Take regular physical breaks from hard physical work or workouts.
Take breaks from intense social stimulation and structure these events deliberately in planning your day so that you don't get wired and tired.
Journaling on your thoughts regularly to get emotional rest and perspective on your thinking.
Get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep, more if you are a Big 'S' sleeper.
Become someone who practices protective self-care to guard against feeling too tired with how you manage your life.

The big takeaway is that a body that is chronically tired is not going to feel safe enough to allow you to lose weight optimally. Getting your sleep/rest needs met is part of your responsibility in your weight loss journey.

Coach Homework: Write a letter to future you who is feeling tempted to eat when she is tired. What does she need to hear in that moment that she is too tired to remember? Read it to yourself in those moments when it feels hard to choose not to eat.

Bottom line takeaway: You have NEEDS for rest, and in order to have a chance of stopping your habit of pushing past tired (but not hungry) with food, you will need to start observing what your upper limits are for rest (physical, emotional, and mental) and then get to work meeting those needs by experimenting and trying new things.

Book Recommendation: Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, Amelia Nagoski, et al.Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 32 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Saving up calories is a restrictive strategy to push past hunger in order to eat less. It's about believing that you must put off eating as long as you can tolerate it.

Saving up calories as a strategy comes from a belief that you can't eat an amount that feels satisfying and still lose weight. If you believe that, then you can see it would make sense that you have to override normal hunger cues and allow overt hunger in order to lose weight. In this way, a practice of saving up calories allow generates feelings of chronic restriction, an uneasy relationship with physical hunger, and an over-desire for food you think you can't have if you want to lose weight.

Saving up calories also has a delayed response of deservingness and permissiveness to overeat later because you've 'been so good' by saving up calories and not eating on the front end of your day.

Paradoxically, chronically saving up calories can create physiological adaptions in the body to a food environment that is unpredictable that can work against your weight loss.

The best thing you can do is to create an environment of food safety and predictability if you are someone who has chronically practiced saving up calories or delaying eating by ignoring hunger.

Since every body is different is different gather data to see if saving up calories actually works for you to get you the long and short-term results you are looking for. Also gut check the practice - does it feel compassionate and helpful or disconnected and harsh?

Questions, comments, ah-has, or takeaways from this episode? Keep the conversation going on Instagram by commenting on the Episode 31 reel.

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Performance eating is a habit of eating differently in front of other people because you are conforming to your belief about how you SHOULD eat (perform with food) as opposed to how you eat differently when you are not in a social setting.

If you think you performance eat, when does this tend to happen and why?
How do you feel about performance eating afterward?
What do you think you get out of practicing performance eating?
Are there patterns of overeating that follow performance eating for you?

Performance eating is taking actions that, at some level, we believe help keep us safe in some sense. To figure this out, ask yourself what you are getting out of your performance eating. The journal on this concept and see if you can gain some perspective on why you are performance eating.

Once you understand why you do it, then you can work to unravel this habit by reminding yourself that safety comes from what YOU think, not other people's opinions. It takes some practice, but with awareness and curiosity, you can change your habits of performance eating over time.

The core tenet of intuitive eating is that we learn to trust that we can have the food we want based on our honest tastes and preferences for foods. Intuitive eating also shoes us that we can regulate our weight as long as we eat those foods by listening to our inner sense of physical hunger and satiety.

Our job is to shape the habit of our thinking to more and more support that INTERNAL process and care less and less about what others or the diet industry says we 'should' be doing.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 30 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Middle-of-the-night eating is just a habit that can be developed by believing that eating helps you get back to sleep.

Middle of the night eating is like a dashboard indicator light that is trying to get your attention about unresolved things in your life that need your attention.

Try these strategies for at least two weeks to help you break the habit of nighttime eating.

What are the thoughts you think about when you wake up in the middle of the night? The next day explore those thoughts in your journaling by using curiosity and compassion. We want to get a clear idea of what the problem is and explore options for how you want to think about it in a way that feels right for you.
Create a protocol that gives you clarity around what you will or won’t do when you wake up in the middle of the night.
Be sure you are getting your movement in, so your body is physically tired, which makes it easier to stay asleep throughout the night.
Give yourself clear options for what you will and won’t do if you are awake in the middle of the night.
You can lie there without getting up.
You can jot down what you are thinking about. Then be sure you journal around these thoughts during the day.
You can also read a book on Kindle with the backlight on low to give your brain something boring to focus on so you can access getting sleepy.

Try it for two weeks and see if you can make some progress toward breaking the habit of eating in the middle of the night.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 29 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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One way to quantum leap your results is to experiment with detaching yourself from believing that you are the sum product of your past events. We all have been conditioned to believe that as a person, you are always affected NOW by the sum effects of your past events and experiences.

When we participate in that past-focused narrative, it limits our perspective as to what we are capable of because we are believing the past limits what is possible NOW.

The story of your past does not have to filter what is possible for you or your weight loss (or anything else you want to achieve.)

When you look at it this way, you can see that if you are attached to the past, then you would also be attached to harsh inner talk as a strategy to overcome the past limitations that we drag with us into our present way of thinking and being.

Self-sabotage happens as a result of thinking we can't be different than who we have believed ourselves to be. You can work with this by noticing that the moment you want to self-sabotage is actually an opportunity to shake off a past-focused narrative and instead change how you see yourself and what you are capable of by deciding to show up differently.

To change something you must be willing to take new actions from a place where the past doesn't govern how you see yourself.

Your coach’s homework for this week is to journal for 5 minutes each day over the next week about how you can unhook your idea about weight loss habits that are based on your past experience as it relates to:

Waiting for hunger
Stopping at enough
Getting in your water
Sleep
Movement
Food choices (good versus bed food mentality)
Review the limiting stories you wrote about this week and then tell a new one not rooted in a past narrative. Who CAN you be without the attachments to past limits?

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 28 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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If you have a habit of making yourself promises around your food and often feel frustrated or deflated that you break your promises, this episode will really help you start changing that.

Breaking your promises is just a habit. Take heart, because you can turn this around with a little bit of focused effort and persistence. Keeping promises is a practice which means it’s an intentional interaction with how you engage with the world where it’s never done and you never arrive. It’s the practice itself that brings the rewards in the engagement of making and keeping those promises.

Here are the six steps to help you become someone who keeps your promises:

Stop making shitty promises. Promises must be meaningful and logical and not an excuse to order yourself what you ‘should’ do because you don’t like who you are.
Get clear on the consequence of breaking the promise and the benefit of keeping it.
The promise must be reasonably able to be done ‘do-able.’ Gut check the promise where you give final agreement and commit to the follow through.
Clearly identify what will get in the way of you keeping the promise and make a plan to overcome it. (Visualize, rehearse your compelling reason, etc.)
Write down the goal you commit to and/or communicate your promise for accountability (if that feels motivating).
Define clearly how you will know when you have kept your promise (don’t leave it up to interpretation) so it is easy to validate your promises kept.

Your Coach's Homework is to journal on this question:

If you focused on being a better promise-maker and promise-keeper, how would that change your weight loss journey?

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 27 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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In this episode I talk about developing a practice of selective ignoring of thoughts to overeat rather than giving them negative attention.

The practice of selective ignoring is a weight loss superpower that requires:

Awareness
Intentional decision making (boundaries)
Detaching your attention and energy from the thought and a shift of attention toward something you DO want.

I think selective ignoring is one of the most underused skills in ANY habit change. I’ve used it professionally, as a parent, and with all my goals. When you get good at ignoring what’s not needed and relentlessly focus on what is, weight loss feels easier and takes less time.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 26 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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I'm so excited for you to meet my boss and mentor, Corinne Crabtree.

Corinne is a Master Certified Weight and Life Coach. She is the founder and CEO of the No BS Weightloss Program. Over 1 million women have taken her free weight loss course and her podcast, Losing 100 Pounds With Corinne, has been downloaded over 50 million times in 160 countries.

Corinne is an 8-figure earner on a mission to help every woman lose her weight. She is a maverick who is changing the way we think and approach weight loss that actually works without restriction.

In 2022 No BS Weightloss was awarded the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Businesses of 2022. Last year Corinne expanded her mission and founded The No BS Business Women’s Membership which provides online entrepreneurs with simple frameworks, advice, and tools to build profitable businesses.

I invited her here today to give you all of her expert advice about what makes for effective coaching for weight loss and why. I was one of the first students to be trained in her Advanced Coaching Certification program. Going through that program made me the coach I am today.

If you are a coach, doctor, nurse, or healthcare professional who is seeking advanced training in weight coaching that teaches essential mindset tools and weight loss without restriction check out the No BS Advanced Weight Coach Certification atTheWeightlossUniversity.com

If you join the next cohort you can attend the Get It Done Business Bootcamp In-Person Event FREE. You'll spend 2 full days getting No BS business coaching, and mentoring from Corinne, myself, and the No BS Business team of experts. We will help you shit done on the business side of weight coaching. CLICK HERE To learn more about the in-person event.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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So, what is happening with body envy? Body envy and resentment reveal limiting beliefs that we can't have what other people have or that it's harder for us than for others.

But when we focus on envy/resentment as true, we miss how unfair our overeating habits are to our own bodies. If you resent your own body, it proves that unfair belief about the world as true.

Do you want to practice your bias of the world as unfair, or do you want to practice figuring out how to get what you want?

The moment you feel resentment toward your own body or envy toward someone else's body, it's trying to tell you that at that moment, you are missing the opportunity to practice belief. When you do that, you miss the opportunity right in front of you to figure out how to get what you want for yourself that is there for the taking.

So use envy and resentment as an invitation to practice the belief that we can have what we want. The next step is to get into action.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Focusing on a 'problem' as THE way to 'fix' it is paradoxically a habit that can keep you locked in a cycle of overeating.

Because when you judge your overeating as 'bad,' you lose the ability to look closer in that moment and be curious about why you are using food in the first place to meet a need. THAT curiosity and willingness to see the need underneath the habit of overeating is how you work WITH your current habits to start shaping them and changing them to meet your underlying needs in a more direct and helpful way.

Instead of thinking you are messing up, not getting it, or staying stuck, instead you could think:

My overeating makes sense in this situation because at some level I was thinking that it would help me.

Coach Homework:

Before or after you overeat, pause and write out the answers to the following two questions to try and figure out what is really going on:

What am I thinking food is giving me if I'm not hungry right now?
What has the emotional weather of my day been up until this point? Could that be affecting my desire to eat right now? If so, how are they connected?

Compile your responses to these questions for as many overeats as possible over the course of the next 30 days. At the end of 30 days, go through the answers and see if you can spot patterns of tension in your life that you are solving with eating.

Ask: What is/are the thing(s) in my life that are waving red flags that are trying to get my attention about what needs changing?

It's not about the food it's about the life that is calling you forward.

I'm so curious to hear how this 30-day experiment unfolds for you and what you discover in the process.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 23 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Today your coach's homework is to write your weight loss success story by creatively imagining what is needed to get to your goal weight.

Answer these questions from the version of you in the future who has lost all of her weight. You can imagine I'm interviewing you about how you got to your goal weight.

I also shared some very exciting news in this podcast! I am turning this podcast into a book! Make sure you are connected with me via email to get updates about the Love Life and Lose Weight book (link in profile)

Here are your questions:

What caused you to gain weight in the first place?
What was the negative consequence of weight gain? How did it change how you saw yourself?
What were your greatest obstacles in losing weight?
What did you decide in order to lose weight this time? Answer: I decided ______________.
What specific changes did you make that worked for you?
What kept you motivated to keep going?
How did you deal with setbacks?

Creatively imagine your future self in the answers that come up for these questions before you even start writing. All weight loss success stories start with the decision to never return to the thoughts and actions you know stand in the way of your weight loss.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 22 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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What if our nighttime snacking urges are just trying to get our attention about what is REALLY needed beyond what food can give us for our life? ⁠
⁠
That is the real work called for when we look at our habit of eating when we are not hungry. ⁠
⁠
Nighttime snacking is in the way of consistent weight loss if you eat at night after dinner without physical hunger, AND you aren't losing weight, or your weight loss is inconsistent.⁠
⁠
Why is nighttime snacking especially problematic? Because adding food/fuel to your body interrupts your greatest fat-burning window, the overnight fasting period.⁠
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Eliminating nighttime eating will help you maximize your fat-burning window, making weight loss easier. ⁠
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When we want to lose weight, we make a deal with our bodies that we will eat a little bit less than what is required to fuel the body to trigger the body to start using its stored fuel to lose weight.⁠

Tips:

Go back to a specific time when you were eating and not hungry. Think about what you were thinking and feeling in the greater context of your day. Ask: What am I getting from eating if I know I'm not hungry?
Take it further- pretend I'm there and I'm going to take the food from you. Ask: What am I taking away?
Once you have the answer to what you are thinking food is solving for you, take on an experimental mindset to solve for that need proactively without food.
Change up the environmental cues that surround your nighttime snacking habit. Create a new protocol where you change up what you do and how you show up during that nighttime eating window.
Keep your hands and mouth busy during that window of time.
Tell the truth about the urge when the urge to snack when you are not hungry. Power thought: No snacking habit is worth my weight loss.
If you want those snack foods, present them to yourself with your meal.
Litigate your urge to eat when you are not hungry. Make an argument for the contract you have with yourself to eat a bit less in order to lose weight.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 21 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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This week we take a closer look at the important relationship of intentionally loving yourself to help you make not only your weight loss but your entire life richer and more meaningful.

We often take on the conditional and judgmental messaging we grow up with that if you have weight to lose your body and therefore you as a person are somehow less lovable. We then rationalize that assumption by unconsciously believing that when we lose weight, we will give ourselves feel love for ourselves and others easily. This condition we put on permission to love ourselves can be a major contributing factor to what makes weight loss feel harder and take longer than it needs to.

This is the great lie we participate in that keep us apart from the life we year for.

Loving ourselves fully and without conditions only needs our willingness. Once we are willing, it becomes a practice of devotion. What does it mean to devote yourself to loving you?

To devote yourself is to demonstrate in action your loyalty, pledge, and allegiance to that practice. We do this with our partners and with our children and we can do this with ourselves.

Recommended Reading: Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant - Kamal gives lots of tips and ideas for practicing self-love. Tune in to hear tips for beginning your practice and for a description of how to do the self-forgiveness exercise that can clear the way to begin loving.

Coach Homework:

Do you love yourself like your life depends on it?
Make yourself a Valentine's Day Card, then post it on Instagram and tag me so I can see it.

Let's keep the conversation going. Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 20 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework takeaways, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

--Heather

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Here are your six steps to a drama-free weigh-in.

Review your week by skimming your daily plans, assessment, calendar, journal, and memory recall of the week.
Count the number of overeats you had.
Note all other data, including body measurements, progress photos, journaling your observation of areas of progress, and areas for improvement around your eating habits. Note your levels of energy, patterns around sleep and water, and the emotional weather of each day.
Assess all of the data above and take your best guess as to what the scale will say based on your actual habits around food for the past week.
Based on your projection, journal about how you want to think and feel about your week on purpose before you even get on the scale.
Take your weight. Compare that with your weight guess and assess any differences. Is there anything you may have overlooked, or do you need to look closer into your week to figure out why the scale and your guess are different?

If your guess and the scale result are within about half a pound of each other, you're doing pretty well matching your actual experience to your body's response to your habits around food.

Try this 6-step process to help you create a data-driven rather than a drama-driven relationship with weighing in.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on episode post number 19 and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

--Heather

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By understanding dopamine’s critical role in human desire and survival, you can understand the powerful effect it has on your habits around food which can help you in your desire to lose weight.

Dopamine gives us the will and desire to get up and pursue activities that keep us alive, like drinking water and eating food, by urging us to get up and get them. Without dopamine, we lose the will to survive. Other modern-day pursuits also elicit a powerful effect on dopamine response like gambling, pornography, alcohol, and concentrated forms of food like sugar, fat, and flour.

Dopamine is a liar because it can’t deliver the pleasure it promises in its urging us to consume. Dopamine only gives us pleasure in the pursuit of consumption, not from the consuming itself.

Your brain just wants a steady diet of dopamine and it will urge you to get all kinds of things in order to get it. That's why I say you 'think' you want the cookies, but the brain just wants the dopamine that getting the cookies gives it. Dopamine rewards human brains with pleasure in exchange for the pursuit of consumption. Your brain doesn't give a shit if the fallout from dopamine-driven overeating is making you miserable, it just wants you to keep pursuing your desires.

So now that you understand the limitations of dopamine and the hard wiring in your brain for it, you can understand that it can be challenging to change these habits, but that doesn't mean you can't. Tune in to learn exactly how to override your dopamine desires to help you lose weight.

Homework: Write down as many ways as you can think of to give yourself new forms of dopamine. Try one this week and experiment moving forward.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode post and comment with your ah-has, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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After nearly 10,000 hours of experience weight coaching hundreds of clients, I've noticed six elements that tend to be in place with clients who start losing weight consistently.

Today, I'm sharing them with you as a way to check in with your own process. If your weight loss isn't consistent, you look and see which of these elements you can focus on and add to what you're already doing. Everyone is different, of course, so take what resonates and leave the rest.

6 Elements for Consistent Weight Loss:

Don't make weight gains or stalls mean that you should doubt your ability to lose weight. Instead, use the gain or stall and the disappointment that goes along with it to fuel you to know that this is something you truly want, so you focus on trying new things, questioning your assumptions, and double down on your commitment and patience in the process.
End the option of doing another restrictive diet again. When you take the option off the table, it forces you to get scrappy and go all-in on your commitment to making intuitive eating work for you. This will help you figure things out instead of having one foot out the door believing the lie that what never worked ever could.
Do not restrict what you give yourself permission to eat. It is not WHAT we eat but how much of it we eat that is primary for weight loss (unless you have a legitimate medical condition that says otherwise.) When you do plan the food you want, do not overeat it! This means being willing to have a dessert as a meal or a half portion of your meal, but NOT trying to fit that food in on top of what you are already eating. When you eat the food you like and choose to eat less of it you will not feel restricted, and you will lose weight.
Figure out your blueprint for when and how much to eat. To do this, you must recognize and be aware of your physical hunger signals and be willing to wait for for them before you eat. You must recognize your physical satiety cues in your eating that tell you when you have had enough and be willing to stop eating at that point.
Give yourself permission to be a student of intuitive eating, make mistakes, and learn from them as THE way to get better and better at stopping overeating. Maybe you are better at recognizing hunger than stopping at enough so you'll practice that imperfectly until you get better.
Use compassionate and encouraging self-talk to motivate you always to feel good about your progress and find the wins rather than focusing on judging your performance.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 17 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode, and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Weight loss is not a goal to task yourself with in order to get yourself to do what you don't want to do. It will be much easier to attach your weight goal to a vivid and compelling version of you who has normalized her relationship with food.

In order to embrace this new version of yourself and start, it can help to say goodbye to the previous version of you so you can step into this new relationship.

Homework: Write a goodbye letter to past you.

Start with gratitude. Validate that version of you and all she went through. Thank her for all that she did, all of her efforts, all of her feelings, and how she continued to show up.

Then tell her how you are different now. Note all of the ways you can think of. Then say goodbye. Tell her that you need to focus on the future and all you now know.

We will ALWAYS create our weight results as a reflection of how we see ourselves (self-identity). So if you want to take your weight loss to the next level, you must start seeing yourself differently to support those changes.

Answer the following journaling prompts to help you flesh out how you start to see yourself when you focus on acting from the future you who has lost the weight.

The Day One journaling App - has a speech-to-text feature.

25:14 Future- Self Journaling Prompts:

How will I feel when I am at goal weight? (One word that describes a feeling)
What are 5 ways that I can create that feeling for myself now?
What does future me know that I haven't figured out yet?
How does future me at goal weight go about her day differently? Be specific and list as many different things as you can think of.
What is exciting about the future at goal weight? What will be the same?
What does my future self need to do for weight loss that I'm not currently doing? –—–What is the key first step that is doable to create this in my life now?
What does my future self need to STOP doing in order to lose weight I am still currently doing?
What is the key first step that is doable to create this in my life now?
How will I know when I am my future self goal weight/range?
If I had a magic wand to bring me the future I want immediately, what would I regret not having learned for myself that I know I want to figure out?
What will moving into my future self cost me?
What is the cost of staying where I am?
What will I choose to say goodbye to when I decide to become my future self fully?
What will I choose to make room for when I become my future self?
What are three words to describe the past year and why?
If I could travel back to the beginning of the year last year, what advice would I give myself that last year was going to teach me?
What is the status of the goals I set last year (use data to form your conclusion), and what goals do I want to set for the year going forward?

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework and/or questions from this episode and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Mind Control is developing the skillset of controlling thinking patterns or allowing thoughts to slow down or even stop altogether. Meditation is one form of mind control. that allows you to practice the skillset of slowing the cadence of your active thinking.

Why is meditation helpful for weight loss?

We know that when we intend to stop overeating, what gets in the way are patterns of thinking that create feelings we try to avoid, distract ourselves from, or react to by eating.

Meditation is a proactive practice that will help you keep those patterns of thinking or feelings from gaining so much momentum that it is hard to refrain from overeating.

Meditation helps you center internally to a state of being without active thinking. This creates a response in the body that allows your nervous system to return to its home base of safety and a feeling of well-being.

Mediation creates a path or practice to reaching well-being no matter what is going on in your life. Meditation allows you to hit the pause button on momentum of thinking that you likely have a habit a habit of eating over.

This pause button of your meditation practice is an access point to a state of well-being. When you know how to access well being no matter what you are thinking, you drive NEW habits of thinking that over time can decrease the habit of overeating.

When you know how to access relief and well-being, there is no longer a need to overeat to feel better, and that overeating habit can extinguish over time.

18:48 Begins the 10-minute semi-guided meditation.

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Feeling emotions on purpose is one tool that can help you to regulate your nervous system and help you reach your goals. You will learn the usefulness of processing feelings and how that process helps you in the pursuit of your weight goal.

Feelings are always taking place in the context of habits of thinking. So, if you have urges to eat when you are not hungry, your work is to become aware of these thinking patterns. Some common patterns of thinking that can drive overeating are:

worrying
hypervigilance
overdoing
identifying with being 'broken' or constantly needing fixing

Many of us who have trouble losing weight have developed habits of thinking that create chronic tension that we look for relief from by overeating.

We want to process our feelings/emotions when we feel in a way that we are resisting, reacting to, or avoiding.

We use meditation as a proactive tool to prevent those negative habits of thinking from creating so much momentum that it feels too hard to resist the urge to overeat in order to feel better.

At minute 28:40, I take you through an intentional processing emotions exercise.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework, and/or questions from this episode and let’s keep the conversation going.

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Losing weight requires you to break the habit of overeating. Like any other habit you've ever broken, you'll need to follow a few steps in order to allow the habit to extinguish and replace it with a different response/behavior that also meets your needs.

The first step to breaking the habit of overeating is to become aware of when, how often, and the physical and emotional environment in which overeating occurs. So you are aware of when you can interrupt the overeating habit cycle from playing out.

Step 2: You'll need to make a plan ahead of time of things you can do or not do when you think you want to eat but you are not physically hungry.

Homework: Make a list of as many situations/triggers as you can think of that in which you know you eat for comfort or relief. Note the environment, too. Is it a delayed response? Were you alone?

Step 3: What do I think eating will give me right now? Can you identify the feeling you believe eating will give you?

Your habit of overeating is trying to tell you something about what is needed in your life. Use this inquiry process to uncover that need that you believe eating is meeting. Then get to work meeting those needs directly.

Weight loss requires you to support yourself differently than you've been used to. Your work is to develop a new relationship with your life to meet your needs directly and in integrity with who you are becoming.

Step 4: Learn how to feel your feelings. If you are a conduit for feeling, your feelings can give you a skillset of insight that lets you know more clearly what is needed in your life. I will teach you this skill in Episode 14.

Visit me @thriveinmidlife on Instagram on the episode 13 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, homework and/or questions from this episode and let’s keep the conversation going.

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In this episode, I explain common objections I see in weight loss and how to overcome them to go all-in on your weight loss. It is normal to both want to lose weight and then at the same time feel conflicted about doing all the things. We need to uncover those quiet beliefs that are opposed to weight loss.

What will I have to give up?
I already failed all my other diets.
Diets don't work.
My partner/family/friends don't support me or sabotage me.
I don't have time to spend on weight loss.
I don't have money to spend on weight loss.
It will take too much time.
I have no support.

I explain how you can think about any of these objections and 'litigate' them with the whole truth and compelling whys to sell yourself on your weight loss journey without splitting your commitment and your energy against your goal.

Here is your coach's homework:

Write down the reason(s) why you DON'T want to lose weight in a list so you can take these hidden reasons out of your head and look at them objectively in the light of day.

Then for each one, apply compassion and search for why it makes sense that you would object to weight loss in this way.

Can you find an access point from this objection to work from and overcome it?

Visit me @ThriveInMidlife on Instagram on the Episode 12 post and comment with your ah-ha's, takeaways, and questions from this episode or your coach's homework for accountability.

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In this episode, I teach you how to adjust your food expectation to get the scale moving.

Step 1: Serve yourself a little bit less than you're used to eating. If you are doing this right, you will hear a flurry of old shitty thoughts like:

--This is what a toddler would eat.
--This will never be enough.
--I'll never make it to dinner.
--I'll wake up starving.
--This is SOOOO much less than I used to eat.

Do not allow yourself to be distracted by these thoughts that feel so true. Treat them like a bee buzzing in your ear; just know they go away if you ignore them.

Step 2: Eat that smaller amount. Ask your stomach: Is it enough? The stomach will NEVER lie. Most times, the stomach confirms, 'Yep, it's enough.'

Step 3: Repeat this at every meal for about 2 weeks.

What I am describing is an adjustment process to visually re-estimate what is enough to allow weight loss. This MUST happen with weight loss because a smaller body operates with less fuel.

This is how it works: Eat less --> get used to less being enough --> accept less as the NEW enough.

We know it's true because those at goal weight and maintenance do not report feeling hungry all of the time or restricted by the amount of food they eat. They have allowed this re-acclimation process to play out.

To allow this to play out requires:

A willingness to accept eating less food as part of the process.
Sitting in fear/discomfort by allowing less to be enough even though we currently think it's not.
Noticing old shitty thinking about 'not enough food' to be a cue that what you are doing is working; not use them as a reason to go back to eating more.

Your coach's homework is to practice adjusting your food expectation at every meal for about two weeks. Don't make this hard by serving yourself a lot less than you are used to eating; just adjust it enough to challenge your thinking slightly.

Visit the episode #11 post on @thriveinmidlife and share your experience, thoughts, takeaways, or ah-has in a comment over there for accountability.

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When you want results you don't have, it requires you to go into the real world and experiment with your actions to get them lined up to create the result you are looking for.

The actions that create these results are some combination of:

eating less often
eating less food

Creating weight loss can't happen just by 'thinking' about weight loss. It HAS to include analog (real world) actions that will create different results from what you are doing now.

Think about doing hard things as a badge of honor. To do this, you'll need to be willing to mess up without any reassurances you are doing it right; experiment anyway and see what happens. Being willing to make mistakes, not use that against yourself, and keep going develops the qualities of grit and resilience.

Thinking about what you need to do without taking the necessary action is an exercise in frustration and exhaustion.

Weight loss never requires perfection; it only requires you to minimize overeating enough to allow weight loss to happen consistently.

What if feeling afraid to plan to eat certain foods or feeling scared to stop counting macros or calories is not a reason to avoid eating a little less but rather a chance to show up for your life scared and unsure and figure out that doing it that way is something to be proud of.

The price you pay for different results is paid for by doing hard things feeling fear and uncertainty and being willing to take action anyway.

Coach Homework:

What are some things that you doing or not doing that are in the way of weight loss? What is the MAIN one?
This week take ACTION on that one thing that is the way. Keep track. and see how many times you can get it done this week.
Make a guess and see how many times you think you can take that action. Then see what you can make happen this week.

Call To Action: Leave me a comment on Instagram and let me know what that ONE action is that you commit to doing (or stop doing) this week to get results in your weight loss.

I can't wait to hear what y'all are up to.

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Sustainable weight loss requires a responsibility to tell the truth about what you do and your awareness of how you are thinking.

How I learned to tell the truth and align my actions through teaching 8th graders.

The excuses and justifications we use in weight loss are lies we tell ourselves.

Why it’s so important not to lie about your progress in weight loss. Look at the data to get perspective on whether what you think is true or not.

Examples of common thoughts that indulge in the habit of lying to yourself in weight loss.

18:30 Coach Homework:

What little lies do you tell yourself that sabotage your weight loss, make it harder, and take longer than it has to be?
How can you tell yourself the truth that will help you with your weight loss?

Common examples of ways we commonly lie to ourselves in weight loss.

Come by @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and leave a comment on the episode #9 post with your takeaways, thoughts, reflections, ah-has, or questions about how to stop lying to yourself in your weight loss.

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In this episode, you're going to learn a perspective on overeating that will help you no longer want to overeat, which will make weight loss so much easier for you.

Overeating is a normal human experience. Overeating can also be a learned habit and or a learned strategy that gives us a reward.

Power thoughts to think:

I no longer want to overeat
I'm learning how to love not overeating

Coach Homework: Write down the reasons why you do not want to stop overeating. What do I need to be willing to give up? In what ways might it not be as hard as I think it will be?

The difference between how so-called normal eaters overeat and those who want to lose weight often think about overeating is in how they think about it.

Overeating is a fuel overflow problem. Give yourself permission to unlearn the habit of overeating without making having the habit mean anything negative about you.

How to become aware of when to stop eating for the right amount for you. You can use Hara Hachi Bu or develop an awareness of when you are no longer hungry (the clarifying bite) and then experiment with a certain number of bites after that and see what result it gives you.

The magic formula for weight loss. Keep your overeats to 2 or 3 or overeats per week maximum. Plan them on purpose. Keep track of your overeats. Make sure you are planning to eat the food you really want to eat in order to be willing to eat a little bit less.

Come by @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and leave a comment on the episode #8 post with your thoughts, questions, ah-has, or takeaways from the episode.

Start calling overeating the dream stealer that it is. Treat it the same way as changing any habit. What if you are just mistaken when you think eating less will be hard? Start being the expert authority about how much is the right amount for you to eat by experimenting. Resolve to meet any other needs that you've been solving with food in other, more direct ways.

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In this episode, you will learn why it’s important to develop a peaceful and accepting relationship with normal physical hunger so you can lose weight sustainably.

You will learn how restrictive dieting leaves us resisting hunger. When we avoid hunger, we eat more often than we need to and/or we try to avoid feeling future hunger by overeating. Chronically overeating can lead to leptin resistance which makes weight loss harder.

Physical hunger is how your body communicates the level of ready-to-use fuel. Hunger is designed to get your attention and cue you to eat something. Physical hunger is your built-in tool for natural weight regulation.

I describe how to think about your hunger in waves to become more aware of your own personal hunger cues and how to differentiate different levels of building hunger. You want to develop the habit of waiting for physical hunger to be present before eating but not waiting too long to respond.

Positive thoughts that create a positive relationship with hunger:

—If I want to reset my weight, a period of hunger is to be expected. I just need to be willing.
—I understand that being willing to wait for hunger to eat is a part of the weight loss process.
—Waiting for hunger cues can be slightly uncomfortable, but I know that I’m just not used to it; it doesn’t mean anything is going wrong.

Coach Homework:

Explore your thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the questions below in your journaling. Come by @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and leave a comment on the episode #7 post and share any insights, takeaways, or journaling with me over there to keep the conversation going.

What are your top 5 physical cues that signal you are hungry?
What does the first slight wave of hunger feel like?
What does the second wave of hunger feel like?
What does it feel like when there is too much hunger (desire to overeat)?
What would happen if I welcomed hunger as a sign of fat-burning and a cue to eat?
How would my weight loss journey change if being hungry is part of the solution, not a problem?
Hunger signals are a cue that my body is ready to burn fat for fuel. If that is true, how could I think about hunger differently?

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In this episode, you will learn how your brain works with the feeling of expectation to prove what you are thinking is true whether that expectation is positive or negative.

Expectation establishes an attraction to the expected result.

Expectation = desire + belief.

With positive expectations, there is an absence of resistance to what you want. This absence of resistance is an essential part of successful and sustainable weight loss.

Practicing negative expectations seems logical but it just makes reaching your goal harder. It's normal to doubt if you'll meet challenges. But what if you doubting is just an invitation to redirect those thoughts around to thoughts that allow positive expectations instead of indulging in negative expectations?

At a minimum, you can allow doubts to be there but do the things you know you need to do anyway. This is why I say desire is the most important component of positive expectation. When you let what you want to lead the way, then belief WILL follow.

16:00 Your coach's homework is to come up with 5-10 thoughts you can think that will help you feel positive expectation with your weight loss or maintenance.

*Come by @thriveinmidlife on Instagram and leave a comment on the episode #6 post with your favorite thought that creates a positive expectation for you with your goals.

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This episode invites you to take a closer look at whether you believe you can’t have certain foods because they are ‘bad' and/or block weight loss. I dig into the implications of beliefs like this on how they can create feelings of restriction and create an overdesire for the food we are trying to avoid in the first place.

I discuss the cult of diet mentality and how this secret belief that you can’t eat certain foods and lose weight keeps us over-desiring those ‘bad’ foods. When we overdesire food but try to resist that; it sets us up to overeat. Then when we overeat, it blocks weight loss. When we don't lose weight even though we are trying SO HARD, it keeps us thinking we are broken. When we think we are broken with weight loss and we can't control our eating, we will continually turn to restrictive programs to ‘control’ that overdesire, and the cycle of thinking we need to depend on restrictive diets continues.

Are you ready to leave the cult of diet mentality?

I challenge you to journal on some of these questions to discover if you have work to do to normalize these ‘bad’ foods by giving yourself permission to eat them in an intentional way by planning them and testing your results to see if you CAN have them AND lose weight.

Your Coach Homework questions to journal on:

What foods have I been thinking are bad or cause me to gain weight?
Is this just diet thinking or have I actually experimented to see if I CAN eat these foods (without overeating) and lose weight?
How often am I giving myself permission to eat these foods now?
How often do I WANT to give myself permission to eat these foods? Is there a difference between your answers to #3 and #4?
What am I going to plan to eat this week? Share your food choice and let me know how it went on Instagram. You can find me @thriveinmidlife over there.

Corinne Crabtree and the No BS Weightloss Membership

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This episode invites you to take a closer look at your current habits and thoughts and compare those with lifestyle habits that allow for weight loss.

Your Coach Homework is to journal and then TAKE action on the following questions:

If you had a magic wand and could create any lifestyle habit, what food lifestyle elements would you create for yourself that would help you lose weight?
What is ONE small change you can make today that moves you toward that change?
How will you do it in a way that feels easy and that you can build upon step by step?

Timestamps:

01:50. Thinking that you are in charge of your food; not the other way around.

04:12 Planning your food ahead of time that creates a day that is appealing and allows for weight loss.

11:30: A practiced habit of eating what you planned to eat to become someone who keeps her promises and does what she says she will do.

012:50 An easy relationship with hunger that includes an awareness of when you are hungry and a willingness to wait for physical hunger before eating.

16:00 A willingness to become someone who no longer wants to overeat.

18:00 Having strategies in place to help you in those times that you tend to overeat.

21:25 Cultivating an intentional life of pleasure and enjoyment outside of food.

23:35 Developing an ability to not eat if you are not hungry, even though you are thinking you want to.

27:30 Coach Homework

Corinne Crabtree and the No BS Weightloss Membership

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This episode contains an introductory explanation of what works and what doesn’t for weight loss. The diet industry has spent billions of dollars teaching you impossible approaches to weight loss that keep you stuck in the yo-yo cycle of losing and gaining. To lose weight sustainably you’ll want to stop using unsustainable methods that don’t work and focus instead on what does work.

What Doesn’t Work:
1. Exercising to burn calories, justify overeating, or lose weight.

Playing the calorie restriction game where the program goal is for you to ignore your own body’s hunger signals and eat as little as possible.
Stop believing there are good and bad foods. Doing so judges our natural human preferences for certain foods, leaves us feeling restricted, and paradoxically creates an over-desire for those ‘bad’ foods that we self-restrict from.
Eating from in-the-moment urges to eat.

What Does Work:

Allowing your internal sense of physical hunger and fullness to tell you when and how much to eat.
Making a plan for what you will eat ahead of time that resonates with your sense of what serves you and your weight goals.
Being willing to stop believing that overeating benefits you.
Developing your ability to feel emotions without thinking you need to eat over them.

Timestamps:

03:10 What doesn’t work for weight loss.

00:19 What does work for weight loss.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Rosenbaum 2008 study

Corinne Crabtree and the No BS Weightloss Membership

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In this episode, I ask you to tell the old story about why you are overweight in the first place. When we make being overweight a justification for our perceived limitations, it can become part of how we see ourselves and part of our self-identity.

The default story is usually one that includes judgments about our faults or stories about lacking self-control around food.

The truth is that being overweight is just the result of learned habits of association around food and the normal human desire to feel better.

Your Coach's Homework is to journal on the following questions:

Write your old story about why you are overweight, and what you made that mean about who you are because of that.
Proclaim that you are not that person anymore. Write the truth about being overweight: you learned habits of overeating around food. Write as much as feels right, then SAFELY burn or rip up or trash that old story about why you are overweight to mark your willingness to let go and detach yourself from believing and agreeing with that old story. Now we can get to work with telling the new and true story, and start learning NEW habits around food.

Timestamps:

04:00 How we create our overweight story.

05:00 The role of the harsh inner critic with our overweight story.

05:35 Awareness of self-talk and challenging your assumptions around overeating.

7:00 How to start trusting yourself by telling a new story about why you’re overweight.

9:30 Your thoughts can never compel you to take action.

10:30 Are you ready to break up with overeating?

11:15 You can start to think about yourself as willing to become a normal eater.

13:30 Coach Homework

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Corinne Crabtree and the No BS Weightloss Membership

Become a VIP subscriber and get your free gift.

Join me on Instagram

Love Life and Lose Weight is a podcast that will teach you how to become a normal eater by changing your thoughts and habits around food.

Season 1 will cover the basics of weight loss without restriction. I’ll teach you how to lose weight without feeling restricted, overly hungry, rebelling against your own wishes, or hating your scale.

By the end of season 1, I’ll teach you how to incorporate all of your new eating and thinking habits into a new way of thinking about yourself as a normal eater who can feel in control and confident around food.

I introduce myself to you and give you some personal and professional background about me.

Your Coach Homework is to journal on the following two questions:

Why is now the right time for you to stop contemplating weight loss and start figuring out what does work?
What is inevitable if you don’t lose weight?

Timestamps:

01:20 Why the name

02:12 Why weight loss is easier now

02:50 What we will cover in season 1

05:38 How I teach weight loss without restriction

09:31 What you need to decide to begin

11:56 About Heather
21:38 How to connect with me
22:12 Coach Homework

23:49 What my sign-off means

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Corinne Crabtree and the No BS Weightloss Membership

Become a VIP subscriber and get your free gift.

Join me on Instagram