09:41:02 Hey friend, welcome back to the podcast. Last week, we talked about plateaus, why they The science of it all, what's happening in your body, why they're normal and how they don't mean something's gone wrong.
09:41:14 But this week, I'm going full coach mode and I want to take a second to tell you what that really means.
09:41:21 Because coaching isn't just me handing you tips and tricks like a Pinterest list of the top 10 ways to lose weight fast.
09:41:27 I know I Googled that too. Coaching is about helping you understand what's going on and then making small doable changes based on where you are right now.
09:41:37 That's the concierge part of how I help. It's about unlearning the diet drama, reconnecting with your body, and giving you tools that actually fit your real life, not someone else's highlight reel.
09:41:49 So today's episode is packed with small intentional tweaks, the kind that are simple to implement and powerful over time. Think powerful.
09:41:58 Nutrition, movement changes, some mindset reframes. Without the overwhelm.
09:42:05 Let's get into it. Okay. Let's start with nutrition, right? Because we're starting there with that food because it's Let me say it's not about controlling it.
09:42:19 We're going to get curious about it. Everyone thinks, oh, it's all the rules. Give me all the rules. I'm just ready to do them so I can be done losing weight.
09:42:27 We're going to do this different. Ready? Okay, tweak one. At the whisper of hunger.
09:42:35 So many of us wait until we're completely ravenous, starving before we eat.
09:42:40 Waiting for the belly roars, not the whispers. But when you wait too long, that urgency kicks in and suddenly your brain thinks, I need all of it right now. And you overeat.
09:42:52 Eating at the whisper of hunger lets your body know, hey, we're good.
09:42:56 I'm going to feed you anytime you get hungry. You're not being deprived.
09:43:01 Most of my clients realize that they don't actually need nearly as much food when they don't let hunger get so loud first.
09:43:09 All right, ready for the next one? These are so fun. Tweek two, leave two bites behind. That sounds silly, right?
09:43:15 If I was eating with you, you'd absolutely give me a couple bites and not think two things about it, right?
09:43:22 This isn't about wasting food. It's about breaking the habit of cleaning your plate just because it's there.
09:43:28 It teaches you to stop when you've had enough, not when your plate is empty.
09:43:34 It's so simple. I love these. The next tweak. All right.
09:43:38 Start with half of your normal person. Serve yourself just half.
09:43:42 Eat it and then pause. Ask yourself, am I still? Physically hungry. Do I need more? Do I want more?
09:43:49 That moment of pause, it interrupts the autopilot eating and gives you a chance to check in with your body.
09:43:56 Still go get more, but you'll be shocked at how often you easily decide, hear me, decide, make a decision that you just don't want anymore.
09:44:06 This is part of that old habit. Of just eating and overeating, cleaning your plate.
09:44:12 And it gives you the option to make a choice. We start eating and so much is on autopilot. We're reading something or we're looking at our phone, we're talking to a friend.
09:44:22 And so it gives us that interruption, that moment to actually check in and make a decision.
09:44:29 All right, the next tweak, add volume, not rules. And this one's kind of funny, right? So if you're feeling snacky at night.
09:44:36 Try adding some extra veggies, some bulk, right? Some volume, or maybe some lean protein.
09:44:42 Or a healthy fat to your earlier meals, changing up what you're eating so you're not scavenging by 9 p.m.
09:44:50 Tweak number five, change one meal. A lot of times changing one meal is all it takes for us to focus on.
09:44:58 And that is going to just have this rebound effect of how much it helps all the other meals.
09:45:04 You focus on one meal, not all of them. And if lunch is always a rushed afterthought, maybe you start there. Maybe you're not even starting with your dinner meal that is sometimes the hardest for people.
09:45:15 Make that one meal just a little more balanced, a little more satisfying, maybe paying attention to your hunger a little bit more.
09:45:24 You're only paying attention to that one meal. That's what a small tweak is. That's what makes it doable.
09:45:30 You do not have to count every calorie or point or whatever the thing was that you used to do.
09:45:37 To become a gourmet chef. This is just about gentle changes, not dramatic diets.
09:45:42 You don't need food rules. You need awareness. And these kinds of tweaks help you build it.
09:45:49 All right, next section, movement tweaks. Let's talk movement, but not in a way that feels like punishment. This is about self-care. This is not boot camp.
09:46:00 We are not exercising ourselves thin. So first tweak, we're going to add five minutes. If you are already moving, add five more. If you're not moving yet, five minutes is a great place to start.
09:46:13 This is about creating a gentle pattern, not logging hours. In the gym.
09:46:20 All right, next week, switch it up. Your body, it's going to adapt so quickly. So if you're plateaued.
09:46:28 And you need to see something else just change something, switch it up. Your body is going to break that adapted habit. If you've been walking the same loop or doing the same workout, just try something new.
09:46:41 Strength, stretching, dancing in your kitchen. It all counts. Everything that is movement counts.
09:46:48 Gardening. That's one of my favorites. Gardening is not my favorite, but one of my favorites is that you can My husband does the gardening at our house. I am not, let's be honest. I always tell him like, oh, my massage job, I can't get thorns in my hand. I can't do all those things. But anything you're moving, even cleaning the house, that's probably what I do.
09:47:06 I will clean the house and be like, I'm counting this for the day. I moved for whatever amount of time.
09:47:12 Whatever gets you moving, it counts. All right. Just move more often. That's the next tweak. Instead of focusing on one big workout that you have to schedule in like dread or think like, oh, I got to get this in.
09:47:25 Just sprinkle it in. A few squats after the bathroom. You're already sitting down to go to the toilet. So maybe you pull your pants up and you do a few more squats or you do a dance break between phone calls or while you're on the phone, maybe you're doing high kick marches or something while you're doing the dishes.
09:47:43 Movement counts even when it's not in your leggings or in your athletic tennis shoes. It counts.
09:47:51 Whatever kind of movement, just move more often. Switch it up, move more often.
09:47:56 And this one I had to add to the list. Get outside. That's my last tweak in this section because moving your body outdoors, it does more than just burn calories. It helps regulate your brain and your hormones and your mood.
09:48:09 And when you feel better emotionally, you're less likely to be turning to food to fix what you're not feeling in other places.
09:48:19 So that short walk or quick stretch outside, it might help more than you think, especially on tough days.
09:48:28 All right. I'm a coach. So I have to talk about mindset, right? Mindset tweaks.
09:48:33 So now for the real work, the mindset stuff. This is where a lot of people feel stuck.
09:48:38 Not because they're doing it wrong, but because the brain is saying the same old stuff on repeat.
09:48:45 We don't listen to just one record. And that's exactly what mindset is. A lot of times it's listening to the same old broken record at that.
09:48:54 So first tweak in the section, shift from judgment to curiosity.
09:49:00 Instead of saying, oh, I messed up again, right? Because we're on a plateau. So of course I must have messed up.
09:49:06 Or what's wrong with me? Maybe you try, hmm.
09:49:11 What's going on for me today? Or what has changed lately?
09:49:15 Curiosity opens the door for learning. Judgment slams it shut, completely slams it shut.
09:49:22 And that curiosity is going to transfer not just into what you have been doing, but what you could be trying. So I'm giving you the list of tweaks, but let your creativity, your curiosity.
09:49:33 Just run wild with what could I do? My mentor has always said, what's 1% level up I could do today? And a 1% level up is the same thing as a tweak. It's so minute that it feels like by itself, it wouldn't make any difference.
09:49:47 But when you just keep looking for those. Look how many 1% level ups, how many little tweaks that you added to your day.
09:49:54 All right, next week, change the conversation in your head. So the last one was shift from judgment to curiosity, which is super important. Now, this one's where we're actually changing that sentence.
09:50:05 I gave you a couple options in that changing from judgment to curiosity. But if your brain is always saying, this isn't working.
09:50:13 Guess what? You'll start proving it true. So try on a new thought like I'm learning.
09:50:19 What works for me in the season. I'm figuring out how this is going to help or not help.
09:50:26 It's not fake positivity because that's what we hear all the time, right? You're just being fake.
09:50:32 It's not fake positivity. It's grounded hope. And it is so much more useful than just picking out negatives all the time.
09:50:41 So I love this when I talk about how would you talk to your best friend? How would you talk to a crying little child? You're doing a great job. You are.
09:50:49 You're figuring it out, you're learning. And guess what? Everything that you do is more than not doing it.
09:50:55 So it's helping you learn. You're figuring out maybe how it is.
09:51:00 And so these are things we're going to do most of the time forever. We're not always going to be like jumping rope or running down the street or, you know, doing whatever the exercise of the day is maybe.
09:51:12 But whatever the tweak is, we're going to be tweaking our lives all throughout as long as we're still breathing. We're going to be doing things for our health.
09:51:20 And that's how we don't regain weight. So these are things that are just little tiny tweaks. We're always figuring it out, living in that place of curiosity.
09:51:29 And changing that sentence for ourself. And then I wanted to make sure I added this to this section This tweak, my last tweak for you, celebrate the real wins. And real wins is not a place for you to judge what a real win is.
09:51:46 Did you make a different food choice? Maybe you were like, you know what?
09:51:50 I'm going to have a small french fry. Don't judge that you still had french fries. Tell yourself.
09:51:56 A small fry instead of a large. I can tell you that is absolutely a real win.
09:52:01 Show up for your walk, that is a real win. I don't care if you just walk to the mailbox.
09:52:07 That's a real win. Saying no to leftovers, maybe even some that you didn't even want. So you're like, well, I didn't even want them.
09:52:13 One of my clients said, I used to leave cheese off the sandwich. I told her that's a win. She goes, I don't even like cheese. It's still a win.
09:52:20 At some point, you probably ate the cheese because you didn't want to have to say anything. Now you're getting what you like.
09:52:25 Those are wins. Did you pause? Did you pause? Just a pause, right? That's a win. A pause instead of just finishing up cleaning your plate.
09:52:33 And maybe you did clean your plate and you still paused and asked yourself and you said, I still want it today. And you're like, well.
09:52:40 Today's not the day we're practicing this. But I do recognize that I paused. I'm not on autopilot anymore. It was a decision to finish the plate.
09:52:49 Those are still wins. All of those are wins, my friend. And wins Fuel progress.
09:52:55 When you stack up all those small wins. That's what builds momentum.
09:53:00 And momentum drives motivation. That is how you create the motivation that you think you're supposed to be starting with.
09:53:08 Momentum, doing things. Just start stacking small wins. That's how it happens.
09:53:13 All right, here's the deal. Plateaus are part of the journey. I know if we could get rid of them, it'd be great, but we can't and they're there and it's normal.
09:53:22 And they are part of the journey. But staying stuck doesn't have to be.
09:53:26 You don't need a complete overhaul. You don't need big giant things to do and figure out.
09:53:32 You just need one small tweak and then another. And that's where I come in because progress restarts when you stop waiting for perfect And start doing possible.
09:53:45 If you are thinking, okay, Kara, this sounds good, but how do I know which tweak is right for me?
09:53:51 That's exactly why I created my free webinar. Everything your doctor wants you to know about losing weight. Sometimes I call it doctor secrets to losing weight.
09:53:59 In it, I walk you through a simple method that works with your body, what and how to eat without all the tracking.
09:54:07 How to stop feeling out of control around food I do give you plenty more tips for sustainable progress, whether you're on medication or not.
09:54:16 And how to stop thinking about food all the time. Go save your seat at coachingara.com forward slash sign up. This is the place to start if you're ready to feel confident and supported.
09:54:31 And clear about what to do next. And if you're already ready for that one-on-one help applying this to your life.
09:54:37 Just start with a free personalized solutions call. You can jump Pass the webinar and go straight to the free call. Tell me I am ready.
09:54:44 You'll tell me what's going on. I'll help you figure out your next move. You can do that one at coachingkara.com forward slash free call.
09:54:52 All right, that's it for today. You don't need big changes just small powerful tweaks that work for you.
09:55:00 You've got this and I've got you. Talk to you next week.
