Latest / Dr. Danielle Difference / 185. Why Am I Gaining Weight When I’m Eating Well and Doing What Used to Work?

Transcript

185. Why Am I Gaining Weight When I’m Eating Well and Doing What Used to Work? · Dr. Danielle Difference

• 0:00
  You're getting dressed, and the jeans that fit a few months ago are doing something completely different now.
• 0:07
  You pull them up, you turn sideways, and you look in the mirror and start going through the list in your head.
• 0:13
  I'm eating better, I'm walking, I bought the freaking protein, I'm doing the thing, so why is my body changing and not in the direction I want it to go?
• 0:22
  And maybe for you, the scale has gone up.
• 0:25
  Maybe it hasn't changed that much, but the way your clothes fit has.
• 0:29
  Either way, you are frustrated because you cannot figure out what else you're supposed to do.
• 0:34
  You used to be able to cut back on some food or, you know, carbs or something for a little while, get back into your routine and feel better.
• 0:42
  Now, you're doing that, you're doing what used to work, and you're standing there wondering whether you need to eat even less, exercise even more, and you're like, "Okay, do I even have time for this?
• 0:52
  Do I even have the energy?
• 0:53
  Can I handle even dropping my calories anymore?"
• 0:57
  Or you're in this place that you just accept that this is just what it is and it's what happens to women as they age.
• 1:04
  So I want you to stay with me today because I want to help you look at this.
• 1:09
  I want you to understand that we're going to...
• 1:13
  In this, in this episode, we're gonna talk about your food, your movement, your sleep, the symptoms you might be brushing off, and what you're really actually using to decide whether anything is working.
• 1:24
  And by the end, I'm gonna give you something to actually do, something you can start in your real life with your actual schedule and the people who still need dinner tonight You've tried doing all the right things.
• 1:38
  Let's get to what actually makes a difference.
• 1:41
  Welcome to The Dr.
• 1:42
  Danielle Difference.
• 1:46
  Hi friend, I am Dr.
• 1:47
  Danielle, and if you're new here, welcome.
• 1:49
  And if you've been with me for a while, you already know that I'm going to ask you to look at some things that you may not wanna look at.
• 1:55
  I also want you to know that when you tell me that you're trying, I believe you.
• 2:01
  I believe you're buying better food, and I do believe that you're trying to make time to move.
• 2:05
  I also believe that you are tired of spending your money and your energy on things that were supposed to help you.
• 2:11
  But we need to get very specific about what's happening because when you think that you are doing everything right, it doesn't give us enough information to actually help you.
• 2:20
  Neither does, "I guess I'm just getting older."
• 2:22
  That is an excuse.
• 2:23
  The, "I guess I'm just getting older," that is an excuse.
• 2:26
  I need to know what your actual day looks like, what has changed, and what is your body doing right now.
• 2:34
  So you can take responsibility for looking at your patterns and still need medical care.
• 2:39
  Those things can happen together.
• 2:41
  So let's walk through all of this without deciding before we start that you must be doing something wrong and without deciding that there is nothing you can do.
• 2:51
  You ready?
• 2:52
  So first What does eating well actually look like?
• 2:56
  Okay.
• 2:57
  The first place that I want you to look is your food, and I want you to think about an entire day, because the healthy meal you remember eating is not going to tell me what happened the rest of
• 3:08
  the day.
• 3:09
  So let me give you an example.
• 3:11
  Say you wake up and you make your coffee and you get everybody moving and realize that you haven't eaten, and you're busy, so you just keep going.
• 3:18
  While you're packing a lunch, you eat a few bites of something later.
• 3:22
  Later, you grab a protein bar because you bought those on purpose and you know you need protein.
• 3:27
  You finally make a beautiful dinner, meat and vegetables, the whole thing, and then after dinner, you're back in the pantry because you still want something.
• 3:34
  When somebody asks you what you ate, you only remember that dinner.
• 3:38
  Of course you do.
• 3:39
  You had to plan it.
• 3:40
  You had to thaw the meat.
• 3:41
  You had to cook it.
• 3:42
  You had to wash the freaking dishes.
• 3:44
  The little things you ate while doing something else may not have registered the same way.
• 3:50
  Now, let me remind you, as a woman, women I know are going to lie to me about 30% of the time, and it's not on purpose.
• 3:58
  It's because of this, because you only remember what you remember.
• 4:02
  You remember the things that were hard, the things you actually were very intentional about, and that may sound like you.
• 4:08
  It may sound like nothing to you, actually.
• 4:11
  I want you to look before you decide, and I want you to pay attention before you decide and make a decision that actually matters because so many practitioners will give you, and even, uh, coaches and things, will give
• 4:22
  you macros.
• 4:23
  They'll give you the exact things you're supposed to be doing, the supplements, all of those things.
• 4:28
  But if they're not taking to, into account that you are likely not paying attention during the day and you are on autopilot throughout the day, that is a problem, and we have to step back and stop you from
• 4:39
  cycling in that place.
• 4:41
  I want you to really listen in because some of you here that are listening are actually eating regular meals and, and taking care of your portions.
• 4:49
  Like, you're really paying attention with your portions, and you still have a change that deserves further assessment, and we still need to go further.
• 4:58
  We don't get to hand every woman the same explanation because it makes a nice social media post.
• 5:04
  I am so over social media at the moment.
• 5:08
  I can't tell you how much I feel like I'm working for someone else and someone else's attention on social media.
• 5:14
  So if you happen to see my social media, would you please like and share it?
• 5:18
  Would you please interact with it to help the algorithm?
• 5:21
  Because anytime you see it and you're like, "Yeah, I like that," and you don't like it, you don't comment on it, and you don't share it, it doesn't help me, and that is the freest way you can help
• 5:29
  me.
• 5:29
  If you believe in what I'm doing, please help me with that, um, and be grateful for that.
• 5:34
  But I want you to understand a few things.
• 5:39
  When are you eating?
• 5:42
  Not just what, I mean, I do wanna know what you're eating, but I wanna know when you're eating.
• 5:46
  Are you able to sit down to meals, or are you piecing food together between your daily responsibilities and things?
• 5:54
  What happens after dinner?
• 5:56
  What does the weekend look like compared to Monday through Thursday?
• 6:00
  Yes, I said Thursday, because Thursday is the, is one of the hardest days, and most people want to eat out on Thursdays, and they go gluttonous, and they just want the fried foods, and they don't care about their
• 6:13
  protein come lunch and dinner time.
• 6:15
  They just want what's easy and fast because they've been making so many decisions throughout the day and throughout the week at that point that they don't even want another decision, and they just wanna feel good.
• 6:26
  I want to know where you...
• 6:28
  Like, I do wanna know where you bought the food, but I don't really care if you're shopping at Whole Foods or you're shopping at Aldi.
• 6:35
  I don't care if you're shopping at Trader Joe's or you're shopping at Walmart.
• 6:38
  I- because that doesn't tell me how much you ate.
• 6:42
  It doesn't tell me whether your meals were satisfying to you, and it doesn't, uh, tell me how consistently you were able to feed yourself.
• 6:50
  Some of you need help seeing the food that you're eating on autopilot and don't even know.
• 6:55
  Others need help building meals so that they don't keep, uh, getting to dinner and after dinner, and they're, like, starving.
• 7:05
  And more of you, some others of you, I should say, need someone to look at your food alongside your symptoms and your health history because the explanation is more complicated than your dinner plate.
• 7:17
  And I want to be very clear that I'm not telling you that eating too little magically creates body fat.
• 7:24
  I'm not telling you that we need to see...
• 7:26
  Or I guess I'm also not telling you...
• 7:30
  Hmm.
• 7:31
  This is a lot because I wanna make sure you hear this right I am telling you that we need to see what happens across your whole day, your whole week, before we actually start giving you macros, before you-
• 7:45
  we start taking food off your plate.
• 7:48
  Because the...
• 7:48
  Even down to the food choices that you are leaning into tell me what's going on in your body.
• 7:53
  Isn't that crazy?
• 7:55
  If, if you had every attempt to be, quote-unquote, good, if that turns into you skipping meals and then feeling out of control later, we have got to address that pattern.
• 8:08
  Think about how quickly we turn this into character issues, though.
• 8:11
  You ate something for dinner, so now you have no discipline.
• 8:13
  Really?
• 8:14
  What happened before dinner?
• 8:16
  Had you actually eaten lunch?
• 8:18
  Were you hungry?
• 8:19
  Were you overwhelmed?
• 8:20
  Were you standing there because the kitchen was finally quiet and you didn't know what else to do with yourself, so you went in and started eating?
• 8:25
  Those are very different situations.
• 8:27
  They are very different approaches, though.
• 8:30
  And so you and other providers cannot coach you well if the only thing that you are willing to write down is, "I had a bad day," or the only thing that they're willing to...
• 8:44
  the other providers are willing to do is to provide you a supplement, a medicine, um, a, a peptide, a, um, nutrition plan, a meal plan.
• 8:52
  That doesn't tell us anything.
• 8:56
  And I don't want you to hear this and immed- immediately go out and clean your kitchen, because that's inappropriate as well.
• 9:01
  I don't want you buying another stinking protein powder unless you absolutely want it or need it.
• 9:06
  And I don't want you to make 12 new rules because you feel a certain way about yourself.
• 9:10
  You have got to start examining your patterns.
• 9:14
  You already probably know a lot about health.
• 9:16
  Let's be real.
• 9:17
  And I want you to understand how, how that knowledge or lack thereof of, of application or the misinformation or the half-truths are actually showing up in your real life.
• 9:28
  So the first step, or the first thought when it comes to us putting on weight and not getting any kind of results when we're doing things, is that we actually need to look at what eating well, your definition
• 9:42
  of what eating well actually looks like down in the nitty-gritty of your day.
• 9:48
  But the second thing we need to do is that we need to be willing to ask ourselves, "What am I asking my body to actually do?"
• 9:56
  All right?
• 9:57
  So we're gonna talk about some movement.
• 9:59
  If you're walking If you, if you're walking, keep giving yourself credit for walking, okay?
• 10:06
  I love that you're getting outside or making time or walking around the house while you're on the phone, getting on that treadmill and watching TV or answering emails or things like that.
• 10:16
  I want you to recognize that walking is important, and that effort that you're making for the walking matters.
• 10:23
  But I also want you to know whether you're doing anything to build and maintain strength.
• 10:28
  The people that when you say, "I want to tone up," when you say, "I want to tone up," it means I want muscle on my body.
• 10:35
  You are not going to get muscle on your body, and biceps and shoulders and leaning out throughout your waist and your legs if you are not lifting weights You have got to focus on strength and building muscle tissue.
• 10:53
  Walking and strength training work To give you different things.
• 10:58
  The step count, your arbitrary step count, and I'm gonna say this again for any of our new listeners, and if you haven't heard me say this in a while, 10,000 steps was randomly made up because the character that
• 11:10
  looks like a walking dude in the, um, Asian...
• 11:14
  I don't know which exact language it is, but in one of the languages that uses the characters, that was a walking dude.
• 11:21
  Okay?
• 11:22
  And that represents 10- that, that walking dude, like, that character, represents 10,000.
• 11:28
  And so people magically thought that 10,000 steps was magic.
• 11:31
  That's not the case.
• 11:33
  Your step count doesn't tell us what your muscles are being asked to do throughout the day.
• 11:38
  The general adult actually has an activity, like we need to be doing aerobic activity and muscle-strengthening work at least two days a week.
• 11:48
  That is your minimum.
• 11:50
  Your starting point needs to fit your capacity, though.
• 11:52
  It needs to fit where you are in your health and, and if you have any limitations that you're working with.
• 11:58
  I'm bringing this up because a whole lot of women will hear, "Move more," and only think about adding more cardio.
• 12:06
  There's a whole other part of that conversation because I want you to think about what do you actually want your body to be able to do?
• 12:14
  Do you want it to be able to carry groceries, get off the floor, pick something up without needing help, go on a trip and enjoy the walking?
• 12:19
  Those are things worth training for.
• 12:22
  They also give you something to notice beyond whether you burn enough calories to feel allowed to eat dinner.
• 12:28
  I hate that, and that is part of diet culture and what they're doing.
• 12:31
  But then I also need you to look at your day outside of that workout.
• 12:34
  If you exercise a few times a week but spend most of your time sitting, you've gotta put that into play as well.
• 12:43
  That walk or that strength training does not erase, um, does not, um, erase your workout, but instead we have to understand that you're sitting, and you're staring, and you're...
• 12:57
  Even if you're standing at a standing desk, you're still not moving.
• 13:00
  You're just now standing with more gravity on your pelvic floor, which may cause you to start standing funny and changing your posture and all of that, so there's...
• 13:06
  That's not even a fix.
• 13:09
  We have got to move.
• 13:11
  Can you walk a few minutes more between your tasks?
• 13:14
  Can you park at the end of the parking lot and then go into your store so you have to get a few extra steps in?
• 13:21
  What about when you take a phone call, or you're in a Zoom meeting, or you're, um, doing something?
• 13:26
  Can you get up and take a short walk with it?
• 13:29
  Can you take a short walk with your family?
• 13:31
  Start somewhere.
• 13:32
  Moving the body more than you're sitting.
• 13:36
  If you have pain or an injury or something, obviously you need help in, um, choosing what is appropriate, and those are the kinds of questions and things we talk about inside Wilderness to Wellness where we can give you
• 13:45
  more personalized support with your assigned coach and care coordinator and your clinician.
• 13:50
  But we are able to help you with that as well.
• 13:52
  There is no prize, though, for forcing your way through something when you're unable to move for the next week.
• 13:59
  Like, that's not appropriate.
• 14:00
  We don't wanna do that.
• 14:01
  You...
• 14:02
  We need a starting point, so you can build on it and actually, I don't know, stay consistent with yourself, okay?
• 14:07
  So movement, the way that we think about movement has to change.
• 14:12
  Just because you do a one-hour workout, and then you only get 2,000 to 4,000 steps a day tells me you're actually...
• 14:18
  You are not in an active lifestyle.
• 14:21
  An active lifestyle is where you are consistently moving throughout the day.
• 14:25
  Uh, third thing I want you to think about if you are gaining weight, and you're, um, struggling with doing all the things that you used to do that used to work, here's what I want you to think about.
• 14:35
  I want you to ask and analyze how are you at sleeping, and what are you actually thinking about?
• 14:42
  Here's where some of you are gonna wanna move on to the next part.
• 14:45
  Food, and even exercise, feels easier to change than your schedule.
• 14:52
  You can buy your groceries.
• 14:54
  It's a lot harder to admit that you're staying up late because nighttime is the only time that nobody is asking you for anything.
• 15:03
  Let's say the house is finally quiet.
• 15:04
  You sit down, you open your phone, and you're just sitting there, and you're like, "I just want a few minutes to myself."
• 15:10
  Then a few minutes becomes an hour, and you know you have to get up early, but you don't wanna give up that first part of your day that felt like yours.
• 15:17
  You don't wanna give up that nighttime where everything just felt like, "I can now just, like, come down."
• 15:25
  I need you to pay attention to that.
• 15:27
  I need you to pay attention to that feeling, that habit that you're seeking because you do need space in your life.
• 15:32
  If the only way you're getting it is by taking it out of those hours that you could sleep, we have something else that we've gotta work through.
• 15:40
  Sleep belongs in the weight loss conversation, and so does stress and the choices that you're making while you're, while you're feeling exhausted.
• 15:49
  How realistic is your plan, your health plan, when you barely slept?
• 15:54
  Everything that you are going through, it feels irritating.
• 15:59
  How realistic is it when you forgot to pack your lunch and somebody just added another thing to your calendar?
• 16:06
  We have to have a plan that accounts for that life, that woman too.
• 16:11
  But I'm also going to ask whether you have had an opportunity to sleep and still cannot sleep.
• 16:17
  Are you waking up hot?
• 16:18
  Are you having night sweats?
• 16:20
  Is there pain?
• 16:21
  Is there nerve pain?
• 16:23
  Are you waking repeatedly?
• 16:24
  Do you get a crick in your neck or, like, a, um, a headache at night?
• 16:30
  I wanna know those things and bring those into a clinical conversation, because telling you to put your phone away doesn't answer or doesn't fix those other symptoms.
• 16:40
  It doesn't fix you waking up hot, or having a night sweat, or pain, or having to get up to pee.
• 16:45
  It doesn't do that.
• 16:47
  And we talk about those things inside Wilderness of Wellness, the women's wellness membership, because these are pieces, the clinical pieces, and the symptom, and nutrition, and lifestyle, and all of that together, it re- it is, it is something
• 16:59
  that we have to think about.
• 17:00
  But no, when we are putting on weight, we automatically go to our food, don't we?
• 17:05
  But with stress, I want you to get specific.
• 17:08
  When you say, "I'm stressed," that can mean so many things to so many different people.
• 17:13
  Is it work?
• 17:14
  Probably.
• 17:16
  Is it caregiving?
• 17:17
  Maybe you are a new mom, or maybe you're a middle-aged woman that is taking care of elderly parents, or maybe you are, um, have a constant feeling that you're behind.
• 17:25
  Maybe you're saying yes to things when you do not even have the capacity to do it.
• 17:29
  Maybe you're expecting yourself to keep going without ever being cared for.
• 17:33
  Maybe you are thinking about everybody else, but you're feeling so lonely because no one's thinking about you.
• 17:39
  Yeah.
• 17:40
  And this stuff raises your cholesterol, along with the belly fat, but it raises your cholesterol as well.
• 17:47
  So I'm not gonna look at your middle, your middle of your belly.
• 17:50
  I got one too, guys.
• 17:52
  And I'm not gonna tell you that I know your cortisol level.
• 17:55
  Mm.
• 17:56
  That is another Instagram or social media post that is gonna draw you in and not fix you.
• 18:01
  Mm-mm.
• 18:02
  We have to have more information than that.
• 18:04
  Like, I need to know- I need to know what I do.
• 18:12
  A- how do I get you to stop leaving stress and sleep out of the story?
• 18:16
  I need you to figure out all of those, and I don't have you figure it out on your own.
• 18:21
  You figure it out alongside me and my team.
• 18:23
  That's not fair to you to say, "Well, you've just gotta get white space on your calendar."
• 18:28
  I don't know about you, but my current season, they tell you, um, you know, we know that babies and having newborns and stuff like that, and young kids are like...
• 18:34
  They're demanding of your time and whatnot, and they are, and don't get me wrong, 'cause you're meeting every, every need they have.
• 18:40
  But it's more physically demanding, isn't it?
• 18:43
  But then when your kids get older and you're in your th- late 30s, early 40s, and probably 50s, the demands are more emotional and the...
• 18:52
  and presence.
• 18:54
  And so you can't, you can't negate that a busy schedule...
• 19:00
  We are in 2026 as of this recording, and it's like you're not going to be able to just, like, randomly find white space.
• 19:06
  You have to force it.
• 19:08
  You have to create it, and it should not be when we're sleeping and when we should be sleeping.
• 19:14
  So the fourth thing I want you to think about, um, when it comes to gaining weight is what has changed besides the number on the scale?
• 19:23
  So now we're gonna talk about the questions you've probably already typed into Google.
• 19:27
  Is it perimenopause?
• 19:28
  Is it my thyroid?
• 19:29
  Is it insulin resistance?
• 19:30
  Is it something that I'm taking?
• 19:33
  Those are some reasonable questions, and I want you to bring the rest of your symptoms with you when you ask them, not just the weight.
• 19:40
  You've gotta ask, when did this begin?
• 19:43
  What else changed around that time?
• 19:45
  Did your sleep change?
• 19:46
  Did your cycle?
• 19:47
  Did your energy?
• 19:48
  Did you start a medicine?
• 19:49
  Did you start a new supplement?
• 19:50
  Did an injury change how much you could move at the time?
• 19:54
  With midlife, we need to distinguish gaining weight from changing where you carry it.
• 20:01
  Aging is a major contributive to, contributor, quite frankly, to midlife weight gain.
• 20:06
  While menopause can shift fat f- toward the abdomen, that helps explain why your shape might change even when the scale doesn't move much.
• 20:14
  But it doesn't tell us everything that is happening to you.
• 20:19
  If you're waking at night with night sweats and your periods have changed, tell your clinician, tell me that.
• 20:25
  If your clothes fit differently and your energy is different, tell me that.
• 20:30
  When you simply say, "I gained weight," and that is your starting point, and that's your only frame of reference, you have got to realize that you're not going to get, you're not going to get any answers that man-
• 20:43
  like, help you improve that.
• 20:46
  Because people that are on GLPs, they don't wanna be on GLPs forever, right?
• 20:50
  That's what they say.
• 20:52
  But if we are b- if we're, if we're on GLPs even, and we are not addressing these things at a deeper level, we need to think about, how am I gonna get off?
• 21:03
  Well, if I can't get off this GLP because I don't have my lifestyle under control, I'm not paying attention to my symptoms, I'm not paying attention to the whole picture, that's a problem.
• 21:12
  With thyroid, fatigue and weight gain can happen with hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, I have that.
• 21:18
  But they also happen for other reasons.
• 21:20
  Your symptoms alone cannot confirm a diagnosis.
• 21:24
  That is why appropriate testing and clinical assessment truly matter to the whole conversation.
• 21:29
  So please don't diagnose yourself from a checklist and start buying something because the bottle says, "Thyroid support."
• 21:36
  That's what we're trying to help you with inside Wilderness of Wellness, is like really drill down and ensure your foundations are working properly.
• 21:44
  Because we don't need...
• 21:45
  These symptoms are tip of the iceberg issues.
• 21:48
  Weight is a tip of the iceberg issue.
• 21:51
  We need to figure out what is actually causing all that change, and it's usually something to the foundations of our health And if you're wondering about insulin resistance, take that question to someone like me that can review your
• 22:04
  health history and decide where, what you need to do.
• 22:09
  When you are on Instagram, you're on TikTok, you're on all the social medias, and you're seeing all of these ads, you're seeing all this, and you start Googling or going to ChatGPT asking these questions, you do not have
• 22:21
  a clinician that is thinking about your whole health history.
• 22:25
  Some of you have been pushing yourself harder while brushing off the symptoms because you assume that everything came down to your habits.
• 22:33
  And yeah, I do need you to take those symptoms seriously and your habits seriously.
• 22:38
  If your weight is changing rapidly or you have a persistent unexplained change, arrange a clinical review with me.
• 22:45
  Join Wilderness of Wellness for crying out loud.
• 22:48
  Get access to the personalized and customized care, making sure that you are following the way that the body heals.
• 22:55
  I don't want you to think that you have to have, like, everything dialed in on your own right now, because that's not how it works.
• 23:02
  I don't want you to think you have to have everything dialed in in order to even ask for help.
• 23:05
  That's not the case.
• 23:08
  So then when we are thinking about, you know, things changing and women, when I'm talking about, like, what has actually changed, people will inevitably, when it comes up to this, like with our symptoms, they'll be like, "Oh, do
• 23:20
  I need HRT," hormone replacement therapy.
• 23:22
  They'll ask me about GLP-1s.
• 23:24
  These are questions that are coming up because hormone therapy can help appropriate menopause symptoms.
• 23:31
  Notice that?
• 23:32
  It is not a direct weight loss treatment, and it's not a direct fix-all for your hormones.
• 23:40
  A GLP-1 may be appropriate tool for some people after pr- after, you know, working with me or someone else, but those are individual treatment conversations once the body is prepared for them.
• 23:53
  I am not opposed to HRT, especially bioidentical HRT, but I am opposed to using it if you are eating low fat, you have a fatty liver, you have never detoxed your liver, your kidneys, your colon, your skin, or
• 24:04
  your lungs.
• 24:05
  You have never gone through my roadmap to health.
• 24:07
  I don't recommend any of it.
• 24:09
  You know what's funny?
• 24:10
  Most people on HRT don't go back to HRT once they work with me.
• 24:15
  It's very interesting because it means that their body is working properly.
• 24:18
  If you're having hormone problems, you're having weight problems, again, it's a top of the iceberg issue, you have got to get the foundation solid.
• 24:26
  When the foundations are solid, magically, symptoms just start to disappear.
• 24:31
  And so I want you to start thinking about what is your goal How are we going to follow up?
• 24:42
  How am I going to take care of myself alongside my treatments, alongside my thyroid treatment, alongside my hormone treatment, alongside, you know, all of these things?
• 24:55
  I really think that we need to be thinking about if I'm taking a supplement, how am I going to follow up?
• 25:01
  How am I going to know that I'm making progress?
• 25:06
  And these are, again, higher level things, right?
• 25:09
  Because you still need support with your meals, your strength, your sleep, and the life you're living.
• 25:14
  You do not have to prove to me that you've suffered enough to deserve a conversation about this.
• 25:21
  Get the information, ask the questions, and make decisions with appropriate care.
• 25:26
  We can talk about your options without turning them into a judgment about your character, about how good you are, how bad you are, you know, uh, how old you are, none of that.
• 25:37
  And I think when we are, when we are thinking about what has changed beside the number on the scale, we forget, again, that we're not the same person we were in our 20s when that, when what we were
• 25:49
  doing before was working, were we?
• 25:51
  We're not.
• 25:53
  And then the fifth thing I want you to think about if you are gaining weight, even though you're trying to do all the things, I want you to ask and think about what would getting better actually look like?
• 26:07
  If I took the scale out of your bathroom for a little while, how would you tell me that you were doing?
• 26:13
  Would you talk about your clothes, your energy, whether you feel stronger or not, whether you can go through the afternoon without needing a nap?
• 26:23
  Would you tell me about your sleeping patterns?
• 26:26
  What would you actually want to be different?
• 26:31
  If your answer is, "I want to lose weight," you're allowed to say that, absolutely.
• 26:36
  If you wanna feel comfortmer- comfortable in your clothes, I really...
• 26:40
  Like, that's, that help, that makes you feel confident, right?
• 26:43
  I want you to say that, too.
• 26:46
  I want us to know what you mean, so we can actually be useful in our approach.
• 26:52
  For example, say you've been doing more in your strength workouts.
• 26:57
  You're eating more consistently.
• 26:58
  You have better energy during the day, and so those changes are what I want you to notice, even if the scale hasn't done what you wanted it to do yet You need to recognize improvements and wins while we're
• 27:13
  investigating the, the we- equation.
• 27:15
  You have to.
• 27:17
  And if the scale is barely changing but your waist is changing and you feel different, that deserves celebration as well.
• 27:26
  The number on the scale alone doesn't describe your symptoms or your strength or how your clothes fit.
• 27:31
  I care about whether you can live the life you wanna live, whether you can be present with your family, do your work, serve your community, and enjoy the places that you're going.
• 27:42
  I want you to think about that when it comes to progress.
• 27:48
  So here's what I want you to do after this episode.
• 27:50
  Remember I started the episode out saying that I have, um, a task, something for you to do.
• 27:55
  For seven days, I want you to take inventory.
• 27:58
  You can use a notebook or a note on your phone or something like that, something that you'll actually open and use, but I want you to write down what you're eating and when you eat.
• 28:10
  Include the drinks, the bites that you're...
• 28:12
  While you're cooking, what happens after dinner?
• 28:17
  When are you hungry?
• 28:19
  When are you satisfied?
• 28:21
  When does your energy drop?
• 28:22
  Write those down in the moment.
• 28:26
  When are you moving?
• 28:28
  When do you go to bed?
• 28:29
  How much sleep are you getting?
• 28:31
  How did you sleep?
• 28:33
  Are there any symptoms that are standing out to you?
• 28:36
  And give yourself enough detail to recognize the day later.
• 28:40
  Like, busy day, ate healthy isn't going to help you see much, is it?
• 28:45
  Had coffee, first meal at 1:00, got hungry while making dinner, stayed up until midnight, that kind of gives you a little bit more that you can look at.
• 28:54
  I want you to resist the urge to become a completely different person, though, because you know you're writing it down.
• 29:00
  You can't coach falsehood.
• 29:03
  You can't coach, you can't change for who you, for who you want to be.
• 29:10
  That doesn't work.
• 29:11
  That's why templates don't work.
• 29:12
  That's why programs typically don't work.
• 29:14
  That's why doing, you know, 12-week programs or challenges or things like that don't always work, because you have to keep doing it.
• 29:21
  You have to be real.
• 29:23
  When your workday runs late, you're...
• 29:26
  When somebody needs you at last minute, when your weekend goes funky, like, you need to be able to understand how you react naturally.
• 29:34
  And I want you to think about your patterns.
• 29:36
  Think about your patterns and make a next step based on that pattern.
• 29:39
  What are you gonna do?
• 29:41
  Guarantee you probably don't need to take food off your plate.
• 29:44
  You just need to put more on your plate and quit eating between.
• 29:48
  If you're eating snacks constantly in between, you're not eating enough at your mealtime, and you are self-harming if you don't...
• 29:54
  If you're eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I told somebody, um, I said, "You're worth more than a peanut butter sandwich."
• 30:00
  Seriously, you're worth more than a peanut butter sandwich.
• 30:02
  You're worth more than a protein bar.
• 30:04
  Eat the freaking food.
• 30:06
  Eat it.
• 30:07
  Don't sit there and, and snack in between and put your hands in other places.
• 30:11
  And if you're doing that, it means you did not satisfy yourself and take care of yourself before.
• 30:16
  It's as simple.
• 30:17
  We can eat three meals a day and be done and satisfied and not need the sweets.
• 30:21
  If you want the sweets, that's one thing, but sometimes it feels like sweets are a need, right?
• 30:27
  If you want somewhere to start, I do have a free guide for you.
• 30:31
  It's called Why Am I Gaining Weight When I Think I'm Doing Everything Right?
• 30:35
  We'll put the link in the show notes.
• 30:36
  It's actually in Substack.
• 30:37
  You have to subscribe for free on my Substack.
• 30:40
  Subscribe there.
• 30:41
  If you're already subscribed and you haven't gotten it, please let us know.
• 30:44
  You can send us an email at hello@wildernessofwellness.com and let us know that you did not receive that, and we'll confirm that you're subscribed and get that sent over to you.
• 30:52
  But you can get this by simply subscribing to Substack for free.
• 30:56
  All you have to do is download it and read it and use it alongside what we talked about today.
• 31:01
  And if you're realizing that you need help putting the pieces together, I want you to look at Women's Wellness inside of Wilderness Wellness.
• 31:08
  This is where we work on applying the foundations to your real life with education and coaching and accountability.
• 31:14
  And it's not a membership like you would think.
• 31:16
  Like, people think that memberships are, like, DIY, unless you show up and get chosen to ask your questions.
• 31:21
  No, you're assigned a coach, a care coordinator, and a clinician.
• 31:26
  You have s- you have three people that are constantly paying attention to you and coaching you and making sure that you don't slip through the cracks.
• 31:36
  I love the Wilderness of Wellness because you can learn from the questions that other women are asking too, because sometimes somebody else puts words in the exact thing that you've been struggling with, and they get it explained.
• 31:49
  I don't want you to keep listening and ingesting this.
• 31:52
  I want you to actually do something.
• 31:55
  You can come into a space where we help you look at your patterns and practice taking care of yourself while life is happening around you.
• 32:02
  That support is there for you.
• 32:04
  It helps you do the everyday work that still needs to be done in, in, in this space.
• 32:11
  So if you came into this episode thinking, "Why am I gaining weight when I'm s- doing what used to work?"
• 32:15
  I want you to leave willing to look a little closer.
• 32:18
  What does your day look like now?
• 32:20
  What has changed?
• 32:22
  What have you been brushing off?
• 32:24
  Are there random Oreos making it in when you're stressed?
• 32:27
  Are you still stress eating so you can feel something?
• 32:31
  Where do you need help?
• 32:33
  You can be honest about those things.
• 32:34
  In fact, you have to be honest, because change doesn't happen until you're honest.
• 32:39
  You don't have to punish yourself for the, those things that you realize come up as well, but you do need to do something about it.
• 32:47
  Get the guide, take your inventory, and choose the next best step.
• 32:51
  And if you need us, come and look at what we're doing inside Wilderness of Wellness.
• 32:55
  I want to make sure that you do subscribe to The Dr.
• 32:58
  Danielle Difference so we can keep this conversation going.
• 33:01
  Check the show notes for resources and ways to work with me, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
• 33:08
  Let's lock shields and move forward together.
• 33:10
  I'll talk to you next week Be sure to subscribe to the Dr.
• 33:13
  Danielle Difference so we can keep this conversation going.
• 33:16
  Check the show notes for resources and ways to join me and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
• 33:21
  Let's lock shields and move forward together.
• 33:23
  I'll talk to you next week