Mar 30, 2020
If you don’t have the fitness and energy you want, or you’re not in love with the body you’re living in, this is for you. Look, I know we’re in the midst of COVID19 as I record. My hope is that for you this walks the delicate space between your reality of the body and energy you live in every day – that hasn’t changed from 3 or 4 weeks ago (as of March 30) and now as we also have other things on our minds.
I don’t know about you but this is a surreal place for me. I flirt between the moment I’m in, wondering about the COVID situation and then back to me and what I want for myself and my body, mind, and life in decades ahead.
The mindset conversation now
I’m diving into this conversation about mindset right now. I encourage you to stay with me all the way through this episode. Above all, don’t let COVID19 be an excuse for not pursuing the fitness and energy you want. Let it be a reason to do what works for your immune system AND your hormone balance.
My story
The late summer sun felt delicious on my skin. It wasn’t warm enough for a bathing suit any more, but I’d rolled up my sleeves and kicked off my shoes to lie on the lounge chair for a few minutes. I wanted these moments to last. These moments when I was a young adult just beginning to take on responsibilities and still at home for a long weekend feeling cared for, safe, secure. It was predictable. And beyond this was anything but. First job, new apartment new city.
But then my mom dropped a bomb on me. I had assumed from some random segment of a conversation I remembered incorrectly that my mom’s marriage to my step-dad was because of me. It was the right thing to do. I very likely had overheard a conversation or had one with my mom and that was where I apparently had left the room.
I carried around guilt or the impression that I had to be good or that my parents had settled for each other to provide security and safety for me. (and my siblings too, but I was the youngest)
Can you imagine what that would be like and how you might feel pressure to be perfect, never make a mistake, stay within boundaries? Whatever those things looked like to you?
Your Optimal Energy in These Times
Look, we’re in strange times right now. And this may feel like a story for another time. But stay with me here. This is absolutely a story for right now. Because I don’t know about you but I can create stories inside my head and believe them for years- like the example above I believed from the time I was 7 until I was 25 that my parents were married because of me, not love. I made decisions about what I could and couldn’t do, who I could and couldn’t be based on that for a very long time.
We all do make choices based on information we got in the past. But sometimes those are false assumptions. We get messages that stick for whatever reasons, and could be wrong. We believe them so strongly it’s our reality, our perception. We can feel really bad or awkward or lazy if we stop doing it the way we’ve always done it. If we don’t revisit why we have these limiting beliefs they will hold us back. Forever.
If we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always got.
You may have heard that quote. The truth is, with exercise, and with diet, it’s not always true. Unfortunately the body will adapt, and not for the better. So the exercise you’ve done for a month or two won’t continue to give you results. The amount or type of food that gave you results once or for a short time will begin to have either less effect, or a negative effect. Meaning you could gain weight, and your fitness level could decrease if you’re still walking 3 miles 3 times a week at the same speed three years later.
What got you here won’t get you there.
I often hear or get letters from women who tell me, “I just want to get back to where I was. I’m trying to think what I was doing then that was working. I keep asking myself what was different then vs. now.”
Oh, just everything. First, your body changes constantly. Your hormones – stress level, sleep – are influenced. Your brain changes constantly – thinking, worry, and focus on limiting beliefs or the wrong image (like being overweight, wanting to lose weight) will perpetuate your current problem.
Avoid This
The worst thing you can do is decrease calories without looking at quality of the food you’re eating and your nutrient density. You can eat MORE food provided it’s the right kind. Don’t ignore your need for sufficient micronutrients (test to confirm or reveal a need and work with a coach to decide how much and when). If you increase exercise dramatically at the same time as external stressors your immune system and endocrine system will both be under attack.
But that’s the calorie deficit model you’ve always been taught right? Eat less and exercise more? You may be tempted to exercise harder, longer, or more often. Right now that is a nightmare for women who are also in hormone chaos.
But it makes sense to you because it’s either a gut reaction to stress and maybe due to a lingering (false) belief that hard work is a virtue.
The example you had
Say you had a father who worked really hard. Many of us over and 60 now were raised by parents who valued hard work. And you may be known as someone who works really hard. Yet, with exercise for hormone balance, hard work or long work is backfiring on you.
You won’t get to a point where more work does work better, or that you finally have a breakthrough. Because we're not plowing ground or driving a team of horses or bailing hay. You’re not spending more hours to work with more clients and customers even. More and longer pushes hormones further from what you want.
Stuck
And you may also be stopped in your tracks. You have more to do because kids are home, there are more mouths to feed at more meals, more clothes to wash, less time for you.
You may be in paralysis right now. COVID19 is doing that to many. Is it you? You kind of want to hole up with a blanket and suck your thumb? Or dig into chips and watch old movies… whatever it is, it’s okay for a while. But if you’re ready to take some control and feel better because of it, then keep listening to this episode.
Self-doubt Now and Before
Self-doubt may actually be leftover from your youth. Some message you got, even if it was WRONG could be influencing you still today. Between the ages of 3 and 7 your foundations are laid. Did you know you could be operating on a set of beliefs that are only that, but they’re so powerful they are the basis of how you make decisions, choices, and take action or avoid action.
- What happened the year you were 3?
- What happened the year you were 4?
- What happened the year you were 5?
- What happened the year you were 6?
- What happened the year you were 7?
Seriously, this may seem a little odd. I promise you there’s no couch and I’m not a therapist nor do I play one on YouTube. But this is the kind of personal development work that if you’re stuck you may need to do. Not another walk or interval training or more abs.
The Real Question
(1) Are you operating on the wrong belief?
Do you really know WHAT it is to do now? For hormone balance AND immune boosting exercise you need LESS and is MORE important than ever.
Too little and too much right now taxes your immune system.
There is an “if this, then that” blueprint. It’s inside the Flipping 50 Café and one of the very first things that as a new Café member you should do. It will help you understand the value of learning how to eat for your body right now. And why sleep it crucial and how to do it. And what kind of exercise is best right now for you to be at your optimal weight and energy and lose cravings and mood swings.
It’s changed from what you were once led to believe. It’s not dieting and deprivation, it’s not that if you “love food” or “love to eat” you can’t be healthy – the two actually are both required and need to co-exist. And it’s not that you have to exercise because you love to eat, because that kind of statement “I have to exercise, I love to eat” has so much wrong with it. There’s the implication you’re going to burn off what you eat, and that you should adjust your exercise to accommodate your eating. All creating a worse relationship with both food and exercise.
What else has changed?
Foods you learned to eat as “healthy” no longer are a one-healthy-foods-list-fits-all. Your gut health changes based on hormone changes you’re in the throws of. And 70-80% of your immune system is in your gut, sister we’ve got an opportunity! Defining your best foods will boost your immune system AND benefit your hormone balance. That means? The optimal fitness and energy you want right now.
Exercise you learned to do is no longer the best way to attain energy, optimal hormone balance. And no, it ruffles my feathers a LOT, when women think they should exercise less because of age.
That is NOT it.
You want to exercise less because it takes less. It took less – at 30 and 40 too – and because you may have dug yourself into an adrenal fatigue hole. You have to… RESTORE BEFORE MORE.
Then when you’re in balance again and your body is at a fitness and energy level you love, you get to decide. Do you really love more exercise or were you just doing it because you weren’t loving the rest of your life? You will have options. And yes, if you want to do more you can, just smarter. So much less exercise – as long as it’s the right kind – will serve you best!
The fitness and energy answer
The calorie deficit alone you thought was required is not the answer to long term success. You’ve got to integrate quality food, quality exercise, quality lifestyle habits, and your mindset.
Your mind is creating the current physical reality that you have. As much as sets, repetitions, salads, and protein.
It’s not overwhelming if you take time to learn. Learn what is the right thing for you right now. I am an action taker. I like to be in control. We tend to feel like we are in control when we’re doing something. Do you do that? Jump into action? You want to do something so you go workout. Even if it’s the exact wrong thing for your immune system and hormones you feel better because you did something? Is that you?
So I’m going to leave this question for you. Do you REALLY know what to do now for optimal fitness and energy? For the moment you’re in, the stress, the hormone changes, the change in the way your body stores fat or gains or loses weight?
Then I have another question.
(2) Are you not doing it once you DO know what to do?
When no one is looking? Are you doing the right things repeatedly?
I would ask my clients to check in. When I’m not with you, are you doing the workouts? Are you reaching fatigue? Are you lifting heavy enough? Are you doing it the way I instructed you? What happens between sessions when we’re not together?
When no one is watching do you:
- Drink enough water?
- Take the 10 or 20 minutes and do the intense exercise in the morning?
- Do the relaxing exercise later in the day?
- Take the steps to get quality sleep?
- Eat enough protein at every meal?
If you find this is you. You have done the research or studied with me, and you still are not doing what you know you need to do… I want you to look at two things. Legacy and Vision.
First, are you living the legacy you want?
Is this the life you want to lead?
Right now are you living it? If not then you want to create a new legacy.
Is this really in alignment with your values?
One that is in alignment with your values.
Do you truly want time and money freedom and value working hard to get there?
This gets tricky because a lot of us say we want to make more money, but we actually struggle with valuing money. Maybe the message you grew up told you that people who make money or have money are greedy. If there was a “who do you think you are” kind of message projected onto those people around you who had money. If that was a certain “kind” of people, and it wasn’t your people who had more money, nice things and a different lifestyle.
That will be something you have to work on so you don’t get in your own way if you choose to pursue more financial freedom and nice things.
You may also believe that you have to work hard, really hard in order to ever get what you want.
That's a roadblock
That can be an obstacle for you two ways. First, why, right? You could work smarter and consistently do the right things. You’d better create the kind of life you want from the beginning, though.
Second, you have to be sure that you don’t just “work hard” in the wrong direction.
You’ll potentially convince yourself that it does not work.
The Myth of Losing Weight and Getting in Shape
You’ve been told this at some point: Dream really big, work really hard and you’ll achieve what you want.
That hasn’t worked well for many of us.
There’s not a void… it’s a space that has to be cultivated
And you think you’re the problem
You can’t mind-over-matter yourself through a process you don’t have the skills to get through.
For instance, you can’t work harder and do more exercise, and eat less and attain your goal. Because any one of those things alone, and definitely ALL of those things together, will sabotage your hormones completely. Without balanced hormones you can’t be at optimal fitness and energy.
Right now make three choices:
1) You want to do nothing or you’re going to take action
2) You want to do it alone or you want to get support
3) You want support from me right now.
Right now the Flipping 50 membership Café is open. We’re at the end of a ten day special open window while it is usually only open twice a year. It is the best way to get support, workouts, and a plan, not random videos and content all created specifically for you, a woman in perimenopause, menopause, and post menopause.
I guarantee you the workouts and the supportive exercise nutrition, and lifestyle habits are proven and based on science. I guarantee you that we’ll work together on getting your mindset in shape too.
During COVID19 this special podcast release comes out March 30. The message is relevant any time. The special COVID19 Café offer is only good right now. Visit the show notes at flippingfifty.com/fitness-and-energy for details.
To Join the Flipping 50 virtual gym & coaching clinic – the Café during COVID19 before April 1, Use code: bewell
If you’re listening to this after the end of March you can get on our notifications list to learn when it opens again. If private coaching is something you want to explore, I will post a link so you can book a session and discuss what’s happening for you so I can offer my insight.
By the time we’re done we will together decide if we are well-matched for working together and what your options are.