The Right Ingredients to a Nourished Life and Taking Control of Your Health

Let’s talk about the pesky scale. My passion is helping women turn their health around so they can feel younger as they grow older, and what I often see is initial goals for health and wellness that are notoriously linked to a number on the scale. The scale, when used as a guide, can be valuable on your path to improved health. It’s a useful tool for tracking weight loss progress, but at the end of the day it’s a piece of plastic with a fancy digital display.

It doesn’t account for life’s little nuances, like… maybe you need to poop! This is where the “Food-Mood-Poop” tracker comes into play. It considers variables like timing, meal schedules, and even your unique bathroom habits. To compensate for all the fluctuations that affect the number on the scale it’s helpful to weigh daily but take an average of the week as the number you track your progress by.

Examples of what causes these fluctuations of your body can be having higher carbs, salt, or something your system is intolerant to. This is why a bonus to my 12-week signature system, Balanced Body Breakthrough, is a 14-day natural detoxifying cleanse. This Body Reset is the perfect way to start identifying those intolerances that you’ve been living with. Reactions that you’ve chalked up as part of aging or just normal because it’s become a fixture feeling of your days. If it doesn’t feel comfortable, it’s highly likely that it’s not normal.

Another factor is higher stress levels that increase your cortisol levels. The cortisol hormone controls what gets processed through the kidneys, so you may be holding more water weight. Plus, cortisol affects your sleep, which is when your body is scheduled to do its house cleaning and waste regulation. If sleep is off, your weight will reflect it. A day with a more intense workout will have your muscles holding on to weight to repair themselves. All the above add up to why focusing on a weekly average is a better healthy mindset habit than using a narrow view of the number from one moment in time.

After years of trying all the standard diet actions I learned I was leaving one IMPORTANT action out of every plan I'd tried.

It was MINDSET!

You can start adding in mindset TODAY when you download my FREE "Body Bliss Blueprint" Guide.

👉🏻 Click here to get your copy.

Diet plans, calorie counting, and supplements are all tools we can use on our health journey. But beware of using them mindlessly. Restrictive diets, devoid of real nutrients, and meal plans that are only for a small section of time in your life, often lead to yo-yo weight gain. It’s easy to think that following a strict plan of what not to eat will solve all your problems. But has it?

Restrictions just for the sake of following a plan, rules that have nothing to do with your end goals of how to be consistent in life, will lead to rebound weight. Instead focusing on foods that truly work for your unique body is where the win is. When you clearly see what isn’t working, it becomes easier to let the foods that aren’t working go from your diet (even if you think they’re your favorites).

Calorie counting can be a useful tool but can also quickly turn into a time-consuming obsession. When it’s not giving you the return on investment for your time consider a more intuitive eating style. Following your internal hunger and fullness ques is how to stay consistent with goals long after you’ve reached them.

Supplements are your wellness sidekicks, meant to complement your diet and support your body’s natural functions. Whether it’s a high-quality Omega to bridge nutritional gaps or a Probiotic to nurture gut health, these little powerhouses play a vital role. Consider them as reinforcements for your body’s troops, ensuring everything runs as smoothly as it should.

Take, for instance, sugar consumption – it’s an area I personally watch because excess sugar can sneak into my routine quickly. By maintaining my gut health with a quality Probiotic, I can curb those unnecessary sugar cravings. Think of making bread, not that I make it, but the yeast wants sugar to help it grow. If the gut has high yeast production, it’s going to signal the brain for more sugar to feed the yeast. Supplements are about giving your body the support it needs to thrive. They’re meant to be a tool to do just as the name implies…supplement.

Wellness tools come in various forms and some of my favorites are food logs, journals, wearable trackers, tape measures, … and even the bathroom scale. These are not just gadgets, they’re your personal data companions. When used wisely they provide valuable insight into your well-being. It’s like having a private detective for your health, uncovering clues, and connecting the dots about what leads to a healthier you. Your best weight loss habits will be to evaluate different methods of tracking and find the one(s) you can be consistent and objective with.

How do you know if you're using a tool as a weapon?

Imagine you’ve been diligently following your wellness routine, and the number on the scale starts to trend in a favorable direction. It’s a cause of celebration, right? ABSOLUTELY! You deserve to acknowledge your progress and pat yourself on the back. However, there’s a slippery slope that many fall into: The “I deserve a treat” mentality. It’s easy to think that a small indulgence won’t hurt after all your hard work.

Warning: this seemingly innocent treat can quickly turn into a full-blown detour from your wellness journey. One becomes two and two becomes a week-long indulgence. The key is balance – celebrating your victories without letting them lead you down a path that veers away from your health goals.

Remember, success in wellness is not about perfection but about consistency and moderation. One of the best ways to do this is by having many goals that remind you why you’re on this journey. Number goals are fine if they are supported by emotional and feeling goals. Setting those are a topic for another day.

Now it’s your turn to focus on the actions that you want to be natural habits, and being consistent with these actions is something you can start to track. I’ve yet to meet a woman who doesn’t cringe at the thought of the tape measure but it’s a tool that can give you more data than the scale. Several clients just say no about wrapping a measuring tape around her body, but I continue to encourage it! A specific client always comes to mind for this topic, because she did take the measurements. She was implementing actions and reviewing the data to see what was working for her and what wasn’t.

The goal is not to spend too much time on actions that don’t give us results.

After weeks of working together, and the scale not showing a significant difference, she measured again. Even though the scale wasn’t showing progress her measurements had changed. I can’t explain why this happens other than body composition, and that’s not a bad thing! She admitted that if she’d been solely focused on the scale, she would have been inclined to quit her new actions, citing they were not working for her.

By setting goals in areas that allow you to see and celebrate the non-scale victories you’re building evidence that the goals you’re working towards are goals within your reach. Examples of non-scale wins are energy levels, stamina, mood, strength, rebound times.

Support is a tool that is underutilized. The number of women who feel they NEED to be able to improve their health on their own is a crime. It’s so common place to hire a coach or guide for any area your children want to get better in, but it seems absurd when you think of it for your health. What could be more important than your health?

Accountability is the compass, the gentle but firm reminder that keeps you on track when temptations arise. Even the enthusiastic have days when motivations wanes and old mindset tricks sneak back in. Life will throw you curveballs and having a guide by your side to help you see new ways of navigating problems is the best way to get out of old mindset loops that have kept you stuck in patterns that don’t support your health goals. Often these mindset loops are at the root of why past results haven’t happened or haven’t stuck.

As your guide I help you break free from the drama of weight loss weapons and shift your perspective of success from merely the number on the scale to several goals that encompass the total transformation that you’re desiring. Together we can identify unhealthy patterns and the thoughts that are deeply rooted keeping those patterns on replay. Then we’ll develop healthier habits and focus on milestones beyond the scale.

Start by scheduling a no-charge virtual Unlock Your Wellness Session where we’ll determine your next best step.

👉🏻Book your session HERE.