PCS Series: Top 3 tips for not letting a PCS derail your diet with retired Navy wife Lizzie

[00:00:00] Alison: today on the show it's a a little bit different of a take. We have Lizzie and Lizzie is a retired Navy spouse. So you're on the other side. You're where I wanna be, where I wanna be the promised land of no more moving, we're staying put. Oh my gosh, I'm ready to be there. But anyways, you know I think that, so one of the things that.

[00:00:25] Alison: We haven't really talked about on the show very much is health and fitness, which I would really like to start talking about more because I am incredibly passionate about health and fitness. That is my other side hustle aside from the podcast. And Lizzie is a weight loss coach, but Really has a beautiful way to look at weight loss and how can we be more gentle with ourselves and look and focus first on what's going on between our ears and then the other stuff will follow as opposed to, here's this new fad diet, let's do this, or let's take this medication or try this type of workout.

[00:01:04] Alison: There's a lot happening between our ears that. Rolls down the line of what happens in our bo, what manifests itself in our body. So Lizzie, welcome to the show. I'm happy to have you here. Thank you, Allison. I appreciate it. It's so good to be here. Yes. Okay. So we, I always like to start with what is your military affiliation?

[00:01:23] Alison: And I know you're out now, we already said that. Mm-hmm. But what was your military life look like? What did your military life look like? 

[00:01:32] Lizzie: Absolutely. So my husband was a Navy helicopter pilot. He flew the Seahawks and he was in for 20 years. And we were married for 14 of those 20 years and we moved 10 times in 14 years.

[00:01:44] Lizzie: Mm-hmm. So I got really good at PCSing. Mm-hmm. And I actually took certain pride that like, you know, when, when we would move that our pound allowance for our household goods was like way under what we were allowed. I was like, yeah, I'm super lean. And now that we're retired, things like seem to be like, Multiply in the night.

[00:02:04] Lizzie: Weird. 

[00:02:05] Alison: It's weird. Anyway, 

[00:02:06] Lizzie: weird as, as happened with military spouses. I left my job when we were beginning to move and so forth, and so mm-hmm. You know, we had our, our kids and then a military spouse friend started a stroller, fries franchise, and she said, Hey, you have to come. Okay, great. So I was her first client and then She ha went on maternity leave one summer and she asked me to teach for her.

[00:02:29] Lizzie: And I was like, well, sure I can do you this, this favor for like a temporary time. Right, right. And it turned out that I loved it. And I just didn't really enjoyed teaching the moms you know, how to kind of get back into shape after having their kids. Mm-hmm. But as that grew, my imposter syndrome also grew.

[00:02:47] Lizzie: Because I, I did not feel comfortable in my skin. I did not feel like I had achieved whatever that after picture is. I was like, I'm still trying to figure this out and, but these women are like looking to me for the answers. And so I kind of went on this quest of like, okay, I'm gonna find the diet, the exercise plan.

[00:03:03] Lizzie: And I remember sitting at my kitchen table with a yet another diet book and was like, this is crazy. Mm-hmm. I mean, if diet and exercise are not helping me get. To where I really wanna be, which is happy. Mm-hmm. And maybe it's more, there's more to it. Maybe it's more about what's between my ears mm-hmm.

[00:03:22] Lizzie: Than what's on my plate. Mm-hmm. And so, kind of couple that with an overseas move where you know, you don't know any friends and there's lots of loneliness, it's sort of self introspection. I went through a, a period of time of really trying to discover what does it take to feel comfortable and confident in your own skin, and how do I learn to love my body and be in partnership with my body because mm-hmm.

[00:03:42] Lizzie: You know, me and my body we're gonna be together for a long time, so we might wanna figure this out. And so over time that's how I you know, kind of got into the weight loss industry and I'm much more interested in. Kind of what are the mental roadblocks that are holding you back from doing those things that, you know, like we are, we all know what to do.

[00:04:01] Lizzie: It's just Yeah. Between them, that's the problem. And so let's get, you know, underneath what are the things that are holding you back. Mm-hmm. Because there's so much under the surface. 

[00:04:11] Alison: Yeah. A hundred percent. Yes. That's very, very, very true. And, and I think, so we're gonna look at this through the lens of being a military spouse, right?

[00:04:19] Alison: And we, we were kind of talking about this beforehand in that our lifestyles inherently have a much higher baseline level of stress than most people do. Right? And, and take and, and not. And that's not an excuse to, oh, I'm 20 pounds overweight because of our lifestyle. Our lifestyle might, contribute. I don't know. There's a lot of things in our life that are really hard that a lot of other people don't have the additional stressors that we do as military families. And I think that, If we can, if we can start looking at it, just like you said, as as how can I work with my body and be accepting of where I am and what I'm doing, and, and go from it from that way as opposed to like just with more kindness and more gentleness and just taking a notice of like, Hey, what's happening here?

[00:05:15] Alison: So, okay. So in the interest of, of saving of not because we, we are talking. This is a really broad subject. There's a lot of ways that we can go about this and there's a lot of different things to talk about. And Anne, I'm gonna try to not go down too many tangents because I also, again, love health and fitness, incredibly passionate about it.

[00:05:34] Alison: We Lizzie and I both have done Spartan races. I think we might have even be been at a same Spartan race in Florida in 2017. I cannot remember. I have. A sprint from 2017, but I cannot remember where we were. I'm like, where were, I think I did, I think it was in Flo. I think we might have been at the same one in Florida.

[00:05:52] Alison: So that's kind of cool. But anyhow, okay, so what we're gonna kind of focus today, just to keep it, you know, clean is this is gonna come in our PC s series, so as we're PCSing, right, that is a huge stressful time in our, in our lives. And it, I think it tends to be or can be. Almost like the tipping point.

[00:06:13] Alison: Like, Hey, I'm doing really good. I'm feeling really good. I've got this really great routine down. I go to the gym on these days. I walk on these days. I've got, you know, this is what I have for breakfast. I've got a good kind of system going on. And then, Here comes a PCs and your whole life is just kind of thrown into upheaval, and it can sometimes be that slippery slope that you slide down to, and then you get to your next duty station and you're lonely and you're stressed about setting your house up and starting all the new things and finding all the new things and.

[00:06:42] Alison: You're just sliding back into poor eating habits and things like that, and now you've PCs and you've gained 15 pounds. Ha ha. How fun is that? So, so we're gonna kind of look at approach this as what are some strategies that we can use as we're moving through these stressful seasons of PCSing to help us.

[00:07:03] Alison: Be gentle with ourselves and kind of take some ownership. No, I don't wanna say ownership cuz that sounds like we're failing. How can we be successful? How can we Yeah. You know, set ourselves up for success as best we can as we're going through PCs seasons. 

[00:07:16] Lizzie: Yeah. So a couple things that you said kind of triggered different ideas.

[00:07:19] Lizzie: So first I loved when you were talking about like, we're, we're on track for, you know, I'm walking regularly, my, my meals are dialed in and then suddenly tipping point and it's just sort of all downhill from there. Yeah. And. I remember very vividly, , when I was really getting into getting back into shape after having our kids, I would feel like I was on track for maybe two and a half, three weeks.

[00:07:41] Lizzie: Like, all right, I've got this dialed in. And then inevitably something would come along, like, we would go away for a weekend, or someone would come to visit, or you know, somebody got sick, something weird would happen. Mm-hmm. And it's Monday. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, God, I just undid all of my progress for the last three weeks.

[00:07:59] Lizzie: Yeah. And that would be of course very frustrating. Mm-hmm. But over time, I began to notice that there was a relatively predictable pattern that three to five weeks would go by of being sort of quote unquote on track and then mm-hmm. Something weird and unusual would come and derail me. Mm-hmm. And I was like, okay, if that is predictable, then maybe it's not so unusual.

[00:08:21] Lizzie: Mm-hmm. Because life is unpredictable, like Yeah. In, in a predictable way. And it really helped me. Kind of shift my perspective on kind of on track or off track, what it meant. And if I could expect that every three to five weeks something would happen, where I was less disciplined about my eating or less kind of dialed in, then it made it really less of a big deal to get back on track.

[00:08:46] Lizzie: It was like, oh, I was expecting this, this is normal. Yeah, nothing's gone wrong. Okay. And so that's kind of a little way to think about what happens during PCs season. We have a duty station that lasts however long it does, a year or two, what have you. But you know, a PCs is coming along and so it's not unusual.

[00:09:02] Lizzie: It's not like this big weird life event, which is not exactly true. Like moving is, is a big life event, but at the same time, when it's coming along, if you're expecting. That it's gonna be stressful. You're expecting those, these unexpected things to happen and you can give yourself some grace around it.

[00:09:20] Lizzie: It's not as a huge mountain to, to quote, get back on track cuz you're like, I knew this was coming, I knew it was gonna happen. I'm just taking it one day at a time. 

[00:09:31] Alison: So like if, if we wanna look at this as like, oh my gosh. Okay. I, I love that. I, I what you described in the beginning of, I have this new diet book and I keep doing this and I'm good for, and then I find myself back in and I'm just like, I just keep failing.

[00:09:46] Alison: Mm-hmm. I don't wanna fail anymore. , what are first steps that you would take to because again, a lot of times it's not, it's, it's not, you don't lack discipline. It's that there's things that you can do, there's habits that you can make and things to set yourself up for success.

[00:10:03] Alison: So maybe we can just touch a little bit on, like, I'm, I'm in that, I'm in that right now. I'm in the. I have tried all of these things and I'm successful for a little bit, and then something comes and throws me off and I feel like I gotta start over again. , 

[00:10:18] Alison: , what would you say to, someone that you're talking to that's like, I I, that's me. What you said at the beginning. That's me. I'm just looking, I'm, I'm trying the next thing. Nope, this didn't work. Let me try the next thing. How do we get off that hamster wheel? Yeah. 

[00:10:31] Lizzie: I would say that, It all comes down to perfection and redefining success and what does success mean?

[00:10:38] Lizzie: Okay. Mm-hmm. So diet set us up for failure because they try and make it seem so simple. Like, just follow these seven steps, eat these 10 foods and you'll be fine. Right. And it seems like a relatively intelligent person could follow these steps. Like I, I can do this. Right, right. But then I can't, I'm like, what's wrong with me?

[00:10:56] Lizzie: I must be the problem. Mm-hmm. And. Diets. Like I said, they set us up for failure because they don't under, they don't address all the underlying factors. Like the dog got sick, there's a PCs move life. Life is messy. Mm-hmm. Diets are perfect. Mm-hmm. And so diets work on perfect days. Diets don't work when life is not perfect, which is pretty much most of the time.

[00:11:18] Lizzie: So I would say aim for imperfection, strive to be imperfect. But do so consistently. And so there's a couple ways I talk about this in my book that like, imagine you're so I have even a drawing of it. So imagine a person kind of rolling a ball up a hill and so, or a, or a big boulder. And so there's a lot, a lot of effort to get up the hill.

[00:11:41] Lizzie: That's when we're trying to establish a new habit. Mm-hmm. And once it kind of gets to the peak and then it can roll down, then that makes it, the, the habit has become established. It's easier, but getting it up to that peak is really, really hard. Mm-hmm. And that's what we're doing. When we take on a whole bunch of changes all at once, we're trying to like, I'm gonna get in shape.

[00:11:58] Lizzie: We're, we're rolling this giant boulder up a supers steep hill. Mm-hmm. So what you do instead, number one, is you make the boulder smaller. So instead of saying, I'm gonna run five days a week, like I'm gonna walk to the mailbox and if I do more, great. But winning is, is getting movement, is is doing something.

[00:12:17] Lizzie: Also you make the hill smaller, so you make it easier to feel successful. So instead of like, My goal was to run for 30 minutes, but I only ran for 22. So fail. It's like, no, it's a, it's a, it is like a light switch. Yes. I did it. No, I didn't. Any kind of effort is a win. You have to kind of lower your standards, lower that bar of success.

[00:12:39] Lizzie: Mm-hmm. So that you can feel successful. And here's such, such a key point. I discovered this recently. Like we all know that small winds matter. Yeah. There's some science to the brain as to why it is so, so important. So a lot of us are very achievement oriented and we're like, I'll feel successful when I x when I lose weight.

[00:12:58] Lizzie: Yeah. When I finish the job, when I get the promotion, whatever. And so we put our happiness on the other side of that goal line. And in the brain, the neurotransmitter of effort is epinephrine and neuroscientists have studied as epinephrine rises. There's a tipping point where. The brain can keep trying and then it stops, and it's called the quitting effect, that once epinephrine gets too high, the the, what happens in the brain is like, that's it, I'm done.

[00:13:28] Lizzie: It's never gonna work. It's hopeless. I'm out. But when dopamine, which is the neurotransmitter of reward, is also present, the brain can tolerate higher levels of epinephrine. Meaning when we give ourselves credit, For the little wins along the way. And we allow ourselves to feel good for doing you know, walking to the mailbox for doing a seven minute run instead of a 30 minute one for eating one vegetable instead of having a salad.

[00:13:54] Lizzie: When we give ourselves that little boost of dopamine, that enables the brain to keep trying longer, so we can eventually get to that goal along the way. So, Giving yourself credit for small wins, lowering the bar to success and allowing yourself to feel successful for less mm-hmm. Is not cute. It's not nice, it's not fluffy.

[00:14:14] Lizzie: It is a must in order to keep going. Okay. 

[00:14:18] Alison: Okay. I, I, I understand that. But then me in my competitive, like mm-hmm. No, I should, I should be able to walk. I haven't been doing any exercise whatsoever, but it's just walking. Why can I, I mean, 30 minutes, that's like nothing. I should totally be able to do that.

[00:14:40] Alison: So how do you fight that part of your head and put the bar at a successful place because I think we always wanna, we wanna push ourselves, right? We wanna, you challenge ourselves, so how do you marry that? I need to set the bar where I can be successful with that kind of competitive, I should be able to, whatever the case might be.

[00:15:02] Alison: How do you kind of 

[00:15:03] Lizzie: bridge that gap? Yeah. Great question. So I like to tell my clients, create a goal on a spectrum. Mm-hmm. So, Like I said, diets are set, are, are in perfect land. So for on the perfect day, I'm going to eat exactly the way I want. I'm going to exercise exactly the way I want and, and so forth.

[00:15:22] Lizzie: A perfect week looks like X and so again, let's, let's go with, I'm gonna run five times a week. Okay. My week goes perfectly. That's my goal. That's my, I'm challenging myself to this. Okay. But on a spectrum of when life is messy, when life doesn't go perfectly, I'll still feel happy that I at least did something.

[00:15:42] Lizzie: So I'll still feel happy that I at least walked around the block. That's something I got moving. And so that's how, how I like to help clients. Like the goal is to feel successful. Yes. You wanna push yourself towards that stretch goal. But you don't wanna feel like a failure for doing, you know, two thirds of your stretch goal.

[00:15:59] Lizzie: You wanna always be able to give yourself that little hit of dopamine, of, like, I, I feel successful. My day didn't go perfectly, but at least I did something. Mm-hmm. And so I, I like to say like, strive for imperfection consistently. 

[00:16:12] Alison: Yeah. Okay. That's good. That's good. We don't do that. Yeah, because 

[00:16:18] Lizzie: if I can't hit my stretch goal, it's like, well, I failed, so I might as well give up and sit on the couch.

[00:16:22] Lizzie: She's like, no. Yeah, allow yourself to feel that little bit of success for doing something, because then that enables you to get up tomorrow and go for that stretch goal again. 

[00:16:31] Alison: Yeah. Okay, so, so I think that, I like that. So sit down and figure out what your goals are and if your goal is, you know, to run five times a week for 30 minutes.

[00:16:43] Alison: But you haven't been doing that. Well, let's start out at walking or you know, and just like really break it down really small. So that's kind of what it is. Like this is what I wanna do and now how can I break it down really small so that I can, again, like you were saying, you need to be able to have those wins.

[00:16:59] Alison: And that's so true because it's like, I'm, I don't how many other people do this, but I love lists. I think a lot of people like list, I love Mia lists. Like I, that's like, I make it every day. This is what I'm gonna do. I try to put it in order, da da da da. And I will legit, like, I'm, I'm just putting it out there.

[00:17:20] Alison: I will do something extra that I remembered I want and I'll write it on my list just so I can cross it off. Right. Oh, look at that. Yeah. Right? Yes. Dopamine right there. So it's the same thing. It's like, how can we like just setting yourself up for success? So I, I like, and, and again, we're gonna try to keep this focused because like, I have so many more questions and we can go down so many different paths, but let's keep it focused, shall we?

[00:17:48] Alison: Okay. Now looking at it at, from, , , we can come at it from two points, right? So from the first point is I'm coming into PCs season. I do Okay. Going, , throughout my life, I try to eat as healthy as I can and I try to exercise and I've got a pretty good routine going.

[00:18:05] Alison: Sometimes it goes off the rails, but it's pretty decent. But now we're coming into a pc s and I know that it's just gonna be crazy stressful. What are some things that I can do? It from that, coming in, from that path. Of I already have a pretty good routine. How do I keep myself moving forward and progressing even through the p a PCs season?

[00:18:27] Alison: And then we will circle back and we can come at it as, I haven't done anything and I just know I hate PC s and it's super hard. How can I do better? 

[00:18:35] Lizzie: Awesome. So I remember quick story. I remember when I was teaching a class and at the beginning of class we would have the question of the day. And so I went around the, the circles were warming up and said, okay, what's something that you're proud of yourself for recently?

[00:18:49] Lizzie: You know, trying to have a positive start to the class. Yeah. People go around and there was this one woman whose husband had just gotten back from deployment and she said, you know, husband got back from deployment and we're still alive the kids. Ate cereal for dinner a lot, but like they're alive and we're still married, so it's a win.

[00:19:07] Alison: It was messy. Yeah. But it's a win. Yeah. And I'm like, I 

[00:19:10] Lizzie: tell you what, Alison something about her saying it was messy, but it was a win. I. Cracked me open because we have this, we're we're human beings. Like we compare ourselves to others. And so I'm comparing myself to the Navy wife who always seems to have herself put together, who's got the kids, like all looking great for kindergarten and everything.

[00:19:27] Lizzie: I'm like, I am such a mess over here. Right. In my workout clothes and like I need to put on deodorant and forgot 

[00:19:32] Alison: that today. Right. You know? Yes. And that's where most of us are, right? Yeah. 

[00:19:38] Lizzie: So when she said it was messy, but it was a win. It just. Gave me permission to be messy, and that's okay. Mm-hmm. And so taking that to your question of, all right, I normally do okay, but I got PCs staring me in the face.

[00:19:51] Lizzie: How can I, survive it, that I'm not, , three months later being like, I'm 15 pounds ha heavier. , what just happened? 

[00:19:57] Alison: Yeah. So we'll go with 

[00:20:00] Lizzie: practical tips and mental tips. Okay. With the mental part. Understand that this is hard. And, you know, we all know that, but we also have high standards for ourselves.

[00:20:12] Lizzie: So it's hard to allow ourselves that, to give ourselves that break. Yeah. And so it is so crucial to give yourself some self-compassion and on the, on the surface, it, that can feel like a glass of wine. I'm like, no, let's, let's look a little bit more deeply. This is, you know, in your heart when you're like, today was a really tough day.

[00:20:32] Lizzie: I, I, I feel frustrated with all these things. How would you treat a friend? How would you comfort a friend and give yourself that self-compassion, that same you know, compassion towards yourself. Mm-hmm. There's a great exercise that I read in a book called Self-Compassion by Kristen Neff, and it's Imagine your younger self as like a six or seven year old is coming into the room to talk with you and your younger self is feeling all of the emotions, all the painful stuff that you're feeling right now.

[00:21:00] Lizzie: And what would you say, how would you comfort your younger you? And when I first did this kind of visualization, it was just so powerful cuz I imagine like, like comforting my child, you know? It's like I pull myself up on my lap and you know, say, it's okay kiddo. You know, you're doing the best you can. And it just, it's about giving yourself some grace.

[00:21:19] Lizzie: And that is so important. And getting back to the science, studies have shown that self-compassion is much more effective at long-term behavior change than self-criticism. We think that beating ourselves up and being like, I'm so stupid, why did I do that right? Is, is a way to make change and it's not self-compassion is much more effective.

[00:21:39] Lizzie: Yeah. So that's the mental piece for the tactical piece. I would do a couple things. Number one, identify. What are some of like the, the takeout places, the restaurants that, that your family likes? Is it, you know, is it McDonald's? Is it Wendy's? Is it more like Mo's Chipotle, whatever. Mm-hmm. Because you know you're gonna be eating out a fair amount.

[00:21:59] Lizzie: Mm-hmm. Identify, you know, three or four that you can find in any city. And then look for the healthiest thing on the menu at those restaurants. So you have a plan for those nights when you're like, I am way too tired. We're, we're getting takeout tonight. I can either get takeout from this place, this place, or this place, and I know the healthiest thing on that menu.

[00:22:20] Lizzie: Yeah. So it may not be, you know, the healthiest thing you could ever get, but it's, it's definitely a, a leg up from let's just get pizza. Mm-hmm. Speaking of, let's say you get pizza, can you also get the salad? We get, here's another tangent we could get into, is like the order in which your food. The order in which you eat your food matters too.

[00:22:40] Lizzie: Yeah. So the salad first, that's it. Way better than eating all the carbs and stuff first, and yeah. One tactic. Look at the takeout places. Find the healthiest thing you can on the menu. Secondly, I would also say for exercise, again, look at it as a way to decompress, as a gift to yourself, not a punishment.

[00:23:00] Lizzie: Is there a way that you can go for a walk and just, , put the, the chaos away for a minute? Mm-hmm. , be gentle with yourself in regards to exercise and look at it as a a way to treat yourself rather than a like, oh man, I didn't get my exercise in today. Yeah. And when it comes to weight loss or maintaining your weight, Exercise is much more important for mental health and actual, weight loss.

[00:23:23] Lizzie: The, the food portion is more effective for weight loss. Mm-hmm. I would also say, as we've talked about before we got on the call that emotional eating is a, is a big factor for a lot of us. Yeah. Know that in advance. Know that you're gonna wanna eat emotionally, and there's nothing wrong with that desire.

[00:23:42] Lizzie: That is your brain trying to protect you, and it's just being in survival mode. So plan for it. Make a plan. What am I gonna have after dinner or in the evening when I'm just like, this is it. I've had enough. I need a break. What is your thing that you want? Allow yourself to have it, but put boundaries around it.

[00:24:01] Lizzie: What's a serving size? That is fine. What is a serving size that you would regret tomorrow? Know that in advance so that you've, you've given your prefrontal cortex, you're deciding part of your brain, a chance to have a say, because if you leave it in the moment, your impulsive part of your brain is always gonna be that one that's making the decisions is gonna be saying, I don't care about my weight.

[00:24:22] Lizzie: I care about having another piece of chocolate. Mm-hmm. So to sum that one up, I would say plan on emotional eating. No one advance what you wanna have. No one advanced the portion size you want so that you can have that to look forward to, but also you don't find yourself you know, looking at the bottom of a ba, of a bag of chips being like, what just happened?

[00:24:42] Lizzie: Yeah, 

[00:24:43] Alison: I think that's really smart. And, and, and now I'm like patting myself on the back cuz I'm like, yeah, we've done that. , we've got our four places. , we like Chipotle. Yeah. We like Chick-fil-A, we like Panera, we like, and they're everywhere. Right. And you can get a salad at any of those places.

[00:24:58] Alison: And, and sometimes they're not easy to find, which is frustrating. But it is doable. And I think that's a great idea. Like, you, it it, and just, and this is one of the things, so. We'll have to we'll mention the title of your book and definitely link it in the show notes at the end. But you have written a book and it's fantastic.

[00:25:15] Alison: I, I'm not all the way through it yet, but I'm getting there. And it is, it's so easy to read. , it's like you're talking to a friend and it's not a super heavy read. So I've, I've been enjoying reading it. But I think that that one of, one of the big takeaways that I've gotten so far is what you were just saying, the allowance, .

[00:25:35] Alison: I know that this is a really stressful time for me. I know I'm an emotional eater. I'm gonna make space for that. And, and then, and I feel like you can take that in a, in the same way. Like, Hey, I know PCs is coming. We're gonna be eaten down the house. We're gonna be on the road. Like, what are some places where I can go, and this is what I'm gonna order when we go there.

[00:25:56] Alison: And then you're on, at least on the healthier side of it, you can do the same thing with your snacks. Right? And with those treats that you have, like, Hey, I, okay, so, oh my gosh. I'm, I've become obsessed with we shop at Costco and right now at Costco they have dark chocolate covered mango , 

[00:26:15] Alison: wow. That's so good. It's delicious. So there's that, which is, it's a treat, but you're actually eating fruit. , I'm sure you know, , it's dried fruit, there's more sugar, but it's better than a freaking Snickers bar 

[00:26:28] Lizzie: well actually, I love that you brought that up.

[00:26:30] Lizzie: Yeah. Cause there's a a, a hack that I have learned over time that not all treats or desserts are created equal. Yeah. So, Anything that's made with flour is going to make it harder to lose weight over time than just plain sugar. So for example, if your choice after dinner is to have a piece of cake or a bunch of m and ms, go with the m and ms because it doesn't have the flour.

[00:26:57] Lizzie: Okay? Starchy foods that have like bread, rice, pasta, those are going to soak up water in your body and hold onto weight longer than things that don't have that. You know, that, that kind of element that's gonna soak up the water. Mm-hmm. So if you think about you know pastries or, or any kind of dessert thing that's made with flour, cookies mm-hmm.

[00:27:18] Lizzie: Brownies. Yeah. If, if that is your go-to, great. Like go for it and enjoy it and be present with it. Allow yourself that moment and, and, You know, don't give yourself the excuse of like, well, I was just emotionally eating. Like, do it on purpose. 

[00:27:32] Alison: Yeah. But if you do have the 

[00:27:33] Lizzie: choice of like, well, I could choose the brownies, or I could choose the dark chocolate, or even just plain chocolate.

[00:27:40] Lizzie: Go with the thing that doesn't have 

[00:27:41] Alison: flour. Okay. Yeah. That's a, that, yeah, that's a good, that's a good one. And then another one right now at Costco is in the frozen section by their ice cream. They have raspberries covered in dipped in dark chocolate. And they're frozen and they're all so delicious. , I get a little container after I put the girls to bed and I put some of those raspberries in there while we're watching TV or whatever we're doing and decompress in the evening.

[00:28:08] Alison: That's what I'm snacking on. And again, , you're having a treat, but it's just, , a healthier version of that. But I like, I like the. Looking at it as being intentional. And you talk about that a lot in your book of like, if, when you're making a plan, you should always have a plan, right?

[00:28:23] Alison: So that you're not making a decision in the moment, which is usually not the best. Like we all know, don't go grocery shopping when you're hungry because that's not gonna go well. But it's the same thing for as you're, as you're moving, right? When if you make a plan for what you're gonna do, then even if you are like, Hey, I, I.

[00:28:43] Alison: I wanna have this birthday cake here, here, here, here. Or I want, I like a dessert after every meal that I have. Put it in your plan and then it's not like, oh, I'm cheating. Like just if you put it in there, then it's, again, it's that dopamine hit, you're getting your win. Right. So we looked at it as, Hey, I already am doing pretty good.

[00:29:00] Alison: , those are some great tips that you can use as you go through. So now if I'm looking at it as I am like, I don't have anything going for me right now. , I'm all over the place. 

[00:29:10] Lizzie: So when I have somebody who's who, who's just, just getting started, we'll say, yeah.

[00:29:15] Lizzie: I'd say super, super important is pick one thing. Don't pick two, don't pick five. Pick one thing. You wanna make sure the reason why you pick one thing is because y your, your brain can only focus on so many. And if you're in the middle of a PCs, one is more than enough. So again, it goes back to do whatever you can to feel successful.

[00:29:34] Lizzie: So you do that one thing. So let's say it's drinking water. You wanna make sure it's something that feels within your control. So this, so that, that brings up a whole nother tangent we can get into, which is the scale, which is not always a result that's within your control. So you wanna focus on the actions that are, did I, you know, drinking water, going for a walk, eating a vegetable stopping eating at a certain time of night portion size, anything like that.

[00:30:01] Lizzie: So let's say for example you got somebody who's just starting out and they've got PCs coming up and they're like, I, I. I wanna kind of keep it within the rails. I'm not expecting a ton for myself, but I don't want it to be , off the rails and crazy. Mm-hmm. Let's say it was like, you know, all right, here's your options of things you could think about that you could choose from.

[00:30:21] Lizzie: You only get to pick one drinking water, going for a walk, stopping eating after 9:00 PM or portion size, and they're like, all right, portion size. I can do that. Awesome. Then going back to that goal on the spectrum, if your weight goes perfectly, What sort of portion, portion size do you want to eat?

[00:30:38] Lizzie: Mm-hmm. And then if your day is completely a mess, what sort of portion size feels reasonable that you would still feel proud of yourself, that you, , had a dinner on a smaller plate, or that you ate with a smaller por fork or something like that. Portion size might not have been the best example, but another, in other words, I would say choose one thing.

[00:31:00] Lizzie: Make a goal on Spectrum. Give yourself the best chance to feel successful. 

[00:31:04] Alison: Okay. What? Yeah, that and, and that, again, that's, that's doable, right? If you're like, okay, I'm gonna just, I'm just gonna make sure during this PCs that I'm well hydrated, right? Yeah. Like, I'm gonna make sure that I drink, you know, 60 ounces of water a day.

[00:31:20] Alison: Ideally, you wanna be drinking half your body weight, ounces of water a day, but you might not be there if there's, yeah, most of us walk around chronically dehydrated, so if you're not, if you do that math and you're like, holy cow, I drink mostly soda or tea or whatever all day long, I really don't drink water at all.

[00:31:37] Alison: Drinking a hundred ounces of water might be, might be a bit of a stretch. So why don't we just, Hey, I'm gonna drink, I'm gonna drink one full bottle of water today and then, right. And just add it on again, making those small steps. Okay. 

[00:31:49] Alison: Wrapping it up so that you, and, and just circling back, so great tips for if you're in the PCs season setting to set yourself up for success, right? , look for those healthy options for eating out. Just ahead of time having that plan and then Just knowing what your healthier options are and having those, right, like I'm gonna have the dark chocolate covered mango in the house at the time.

[00:32:14] Alison: Cause I know I'm gonna wanna treat and I would rather eat that than go grab something at the gas station. You know? So just try to like plan that stuff ahead. I think that's really smart. Okay, so so tell us a little bit about the business that you have and your coaching business and Your book and how if people are, are like, yes, I dig her.

[00:32:34] Alison: I wanna talk to her more. How can people get in touch with you? Cool. Thanks. 

[00:32:39] Lizzie: I will definitely get into that, but I first wanted to one final comment on the PCs stuff and like the biggest thing I think is be careful of that feeling of like, I've been trying hard, I didn't work, I quit. Hmm. Aware that your brain is gonna wanna do that, that's normal.

[00:32:57] Lizzie: Nothing is wrong, but know that that's coming in advance. And so protect yourself against that by saying, I am okay with being imperfect. Mm-hmm. I am okay with that. If I'm aiming for 64 ounces of water, if I just had one day where I, I drank one glass of water, , well that was something , be careful of that.

[00:33:15] Lizzie: , I didn't get it, I didn't nail it. So I quit. Be, be aware that that's gonna be What your brain wants to do and help yourself keep going because your goals are inevitable if you just keep going. 

[00:33:30] Alison: Mm. Too 

[00:33:31] Lizzie: often we quit and that's why we fail. It's not the failing in the one day effort, it's the, the not keeping going.

[00:33:38] Lizzie: So do everything you can to keep going imperfectly. And to answer your question my book is called You Are a Miracle. It's on Amazon. And I wrote it because I. It just felt like diets don't tell you all of the things, the emotional and mental side of weight loss that is kind of underneath the surface.

[00:33:57] Lizzie: And so many of us walk around feeling anywhere from mild dislike to straight out loathing of our bodies and mm-hmm. You know, if you think about it, our bodies. Are a miracle, like yeah. They heal themselves for gonna sakes. They, they, you know, if you're a parent, you know, your, your body grew an entire new human with not a lot of input from you.

[00:34:19] Lizzie: Like our bodies are crazy intelligent, and so we don't spend a lot of time marveling in these amazing organisms that we get to walk around in each day. Mm-hmm. And so I wanted, To kind of help women in particular, but really anybody feel like there is so much to enjoy about your body no matter what you weigh, no matter what you wanna weigh, you can lose weight, but you can also love your body too.

[00:34:44] Lizzie: Yeah. And my website is Confident body.coach. My podcast is The Confident Body Podcast and I just, yeah, I just love helping people feel amazing in their 

[00:34:55] Alison: skin. Yeah. And your podcast is great too. I I've really enjoyed listening to that as well. So there's, I think Lizzie, I think you're awesome and I think that the book is fantastic and all the resources that you have out there.

[00:35:08] Alison: So if anybody is interested in, you know, getting more information or just following a different path, right? It doesn't have to be what's this diet, what's this? If you're like, man, I definitely can see, cause I feel like as we get older, You have more self-awareness, I feel like, I don't know, maybe not, but like you just, you start to notice more.

[00:35:26] Alison: And, and, and so I think you get to that point where you're like, yeah, I know this about my, I know about my, I am an emotional eater. I get stressed. I want the chocolate, I want the sugar. Like I know that about myself. So knowing that, , you know, give yourself grace. And I think, I think it's so beautifully said, and it needs to be reiterated to ourselves over and over again.

[00:35:45] Alison: , just like that story that you said, imagine. That your six year old self walks in, when you're in one of these pits of despair, what are you gonna say to your six-year-old? You're not gonna berate them and tell them that they suck and that you're awful. And why can't, why don't you have more self-control?

[00:36:00] Alison: You're gonna be, you're gonna give them so much compassion. You gonna say, of course you 

[00:36:04] Lizzie: turn to the m and ms. It's 

[00:36:05] Alison: okay. Right. I know. They're so yummy. I get it. Like, why We need to have that kind of compassion. So I think that's like that constant reminder. Of, and then the other part too, of just the small wins, like, okay, my goal was to drink 64 ounces of water today.

[00:36:21] Alison: Went to hell in a hand basket, and I drank eight. And you know what? I drank some water. That's a win. And we don't do that. It's like, oh, I wanted to do da, da da da da da da da da, and I only did the first three things, so I just totally suck. No, yeah, you did tho. Those were important things that needed to you, you know, they needed to happen, so you didn't fail, you just didn't meet.

[00:36:43] Alison: Whatever crazy high standard you have. For yourself. And I think that we need to really start to bring that compassion to ourselves in more and more. So I, I appreciate that, for sure. Okay, well Lizzy, I appreciate your time and and hopefully wait, we should, I think we should have you come back on the show and talk more about nutrition stuff.

[00:37:01] Alison: So you guys have to let us know what else you wanna hear about. Yeah, 

[00:37:05] Lizzie: I'd love it. And you know, we, we didn't get a chance to get into it, but the scale can really get into our heads. Mm-hmm. And I mean, we could have a whole podcast on that. So yes, I would love to come back. Thank you very 

[00:37:13] Alison: much. Yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:37:15] Alison: I feel, and that's why I was saying, I'm like, we're have to be really specific with what we're gonna talk about. Right. Because because it can go so many different ways. And again, the, I, I feel like the health and fitness journeys are so. There's so much that of it that's in our heads and, and that's hard to, because again, there's so many different, there's the scale and then there's this, and then there's like stuff that you've had in here, but there's all kinds of things that impact, 

[00:37:41] Lizzie: there's, my spouse just came back from deployment and what's he gonna think?

[00:37:43] Lizzie: Well, he looks at me the first 

[00:37:45] Alison: time. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's all that stuff. So I definitely feel like there's more, more topics to talk about, for sure. Mm-hmm. More to talk about, for sure. Okay, Lizzie. All right. I appreciate your time. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much.