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 f...
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 importan...
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 happensWhy these cycles are completely normal and how...
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 ...
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 t...
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...
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 y...
Today I answer three questions from the VIPs on my email list: 1. 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? 2. 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.&nbs...
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...
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 int...
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...
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, i...
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...
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 HungerHow To Break The Habit of Overeating Support the showVisit me @thriveinmidlife on In...
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 weigh...
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...
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 d...
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...
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 leadersh...
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. ...