"I don't think I'll ever sleep again!" I sobbed. 3 months of night sweats left me rung out and exhausted in every way possible: mentally, emotionally, and obviously physically. Menopause hormone therapy is first line treatment for night sweats and hot flashes, and for me it was a life saver.
How To Maintain Your Weight
This article is transcribed from episode 49 of The Fitness Simplified Podcast. Click HERE to listen.
Kim: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the Fitness Simplified Podcast. I’m your host, Kim Schlag.
On today’s episode, I’m joined by a member of my @kimschlagfitness Instagram community who messaged me with a question.
Fiona has spent the last year crushing her weight loss goal and as she is just reached her goal, she’s now thinking ahead and wondering, “uh, what now?”
Want to find out? Let’s listen.
Hi, Fiona.
Fiona: [00:00:33] Hi Kim, how are you?
Kim: [00:00:35] Good. Thanks so much for joining me here.
Fiona: [00:00:37] Great. No problem. Thanks for the invite.
Kim: [00:00:40] Oh, I’m so thrilled that we could make it happen.
Fiona: [00:00:43] I know. It’s great.
Kim: [00:00:44] Isn’t it amazing how we can be connecting all the way across the world?
Fiona: [00:00:47] I know. Yeah. It’s a small world nowadays.
Kim: [00:00:50] It’s crazy.
So, look, we don’t know each other at all, so why don’t you introduce yourself a bit; where you’re from, what you like to do, a little about your life.
Fiona: [00:01:00] Sure.
So, I’m Fiona. I will be 49 in July. I’m from Ireland. My mother is from Belize in Central America, but I was brought up in Ireland. I love to work out and my newest fitness journey probably started in January, 2018, whereby I realized I should be tracking calories and macros and should be basically doing weight programs with kettlebells and dumbbells. And it’s changed my whole attitude towards food and towards working out.
I was doing it completely wrong for years and that’s when I discovered you and the likes of Jordan Syatt and Susan. So I’ve been following you for a while now and I think you’re great and thanks very much for all the information that you put up, ’cause it really does help and it makes a difference certainly to me, and I’m sure a lot of people, when you put stuff off, you know.
Kim: [00:01:59] Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
So, have you been to visit– do you still have family in Belize?
Fiona: [00:02:07] I do. I have lots of family there. I was there in 2017. I hadn’t been back in 10 years. So yeah, I’ve lots of family and believes and lots of family in the States as well that would have originated in Belize, yeah.
Kim: [00:02:22] Okay. Well, Belize and Ireland are two very different places.
Fiona: [00:02:25] I know! But similar in lots of ways, too, I guess, you know.
Kim: [00:02:32] What way are believes in Ireland similar?
Fiona: [00:02:34] Well, of course my family are Catholic and obviously my dad being Irish, by default we’re Catholic, as well. So, we have that in common. Our love for food and drink is very common.
So, it was fascinating journey that my parents took to meet one another. So, we ended up basically being brought up in Ireland. And my mom’s actually living here in Ireland now, and she’s been back here now for the last, I want to say 15-16 years now.
So, fascinating. Yeah.
Kim: [00:03:17] So it sounds like you’ve had a very interesting fitness journey, done some things differently over the course of the last year. What were you doing before this year as far as nutrition and exercise?
Fiona: [00:03:29] So I started my newest fitness journey, I guess, in January, 2018. So, up to that point, I guess you could say I was always active, even as a child growing up. In my generation, we were always out playing.
I grew up playing tennis. I did some horse riding when I was younger as well and so I always kind of went to the gym always. I always did a bit of rollerblading, so I was very active. And I guess when I hit 30, I realized that my body was starting to change and that I couldn’t eat as much as I used to.
I used to eat and never think about it because I’d never gained weight. But as soon as I hit 30 things, literally started going south and I became more aware of my body and how it was starting to change, but I was always active so I never really worried about it.
But then, I guess about five years ago, I basically went into perimenopausal stage in my life and I didn’t really realize I was going through it because I was still getting my period, but I was getting other signs, like being wide awake at three o’clock in the morning for no reason.
And literally wide awake, so much so I could get up and do a day’s work. And I didn’t realize until I started missing my period that something was wrong. And then of course I went to my GP and she confirmed, “okay, you’re menopausal.” Then the weight gain really started sticking.
And I’m quite small, I’m only like 4’11” so a couple of pounds to me is a lot. And all of a sudden, I went from kind of a size 10 up to a size 12 and I guess two years ago I decided I wasn’t comfortable being uncomfortable anymore and I started following the body coach. I have to say, he got me going initially in terms of exercising and doing HIITs and maybe becoming a bit more aware of food, but it wasn’t till I discovered actually a guy, his name is Matt Chow and he actually, I saw a couple of things on Instagram where he said, just download MyFitnessPal and start tracking your calories. It’s all about your calories.
And initially I was a bit kind of like, “Oh God, I’ve heard this so many times before,” and I just thought, “you know what? Let’s just give it a go.” So, I downloaded it and my whole life changed. My whole attitude towards food changed. I didn’t have food guilt anymore about the things that I enjoyed.
Kim: [00:06:30] And why is that? Tell people why that change happened.
Fiona: [00:06:34] I think because for years I believed the hype about, you know, you can’t eat carbs, you can’t have bread, but you can eat as much healthy food as you want. All of that is untrue. And then when I would have something that I would enjoy, I would beat myself up about it and think I’ve instantly gained weight there because I had a bag of chips or I had an ice cream or whatever.
But as soon as I started counting my calories, I realized, “well, okay, so what? I’ve had a bar chocolate. I’m just going to adjust what I have for dinner so that I remain within my calorie limit for the day.” So, I instantly stopped worrying about food and I stopped also mentally trying to track what I’d eaten in the day because all I had to do was look at my phone.
So, it took a massive burden off me.
Kim: [00:07:29] That’s amazing.
Fiona: [00:07:30] Yeah. And I have to say it also changed the way I think about food in terms of what I eat. So, in terms of, I would probably always make the healthy choice. I was always a bit aware of that, but now we make a better choice in terms of eating foods that would keep me feeling fuller for longer.
So lots more vegetables and making sure now, especially in the last six months, I’ve realized how important protein is. So, I always make sure that I hit my protein targets. Because I don’t feel as hungry.
Now, I still feel hungry, I have to be honest. I still feel hungry, but I’m not starving. But I feel when I feel hunger, I actually turn it into a positive, and I think “well, if I’m hungry, I’m burning fat.”
Kim: [00:08:27] Got it. Got it. Well, yeah, and you’re very wise to know that though you can do a lot to mitigate hunger and to make it so you’re not ravenously hungry, that in a deficit, some hunger is natural.
And I like the fact that you’re looking for a way to kind of accept that and think about it without being so negative or alarmist. So that’s fantastic.
So, this brings us closer to what your ques
tion for me is. I think people are probably listening, thinking, “well, it sounds like she knows what she’s doing. What could her question be?” So why don’t you tell everybody what your question for me is?
Fiona: [00:09:01] Sure. So just to give a little bit of a background, I kind of had given myself stages in terms of losing weight. So, two years ago when I started out, I was 145 pounds, and I kind of gave myself– my first target weight loss would have been 135 pounds.
And long story short, I got to 133 pounds last month. Now, I got injured last year– actually this time last year with my back. So that kind of put me back a little bit and went on vacation and you know, the weight kind of went back on so, this latest journey kind of started for me in May.
So, it’s taken me from May, say to the end of January, to get to 133 pounds. And it’s amazing and I never thought I’d get there, but I did. So, my next stage would be– my absolute ultimate target weight would be 125 pounds. But when I first reached my goal of 133 pounds, I was like, “well, how do I maintain that and not be in a calorie deficit?”
So, in other words, how many calories do I eat now to maintain that weight?
Kim: [00:10:16] Yeah, and that’s a question that a lot of people don’t think of when they’re first starting out, like, “wait a minute, once I reach my goal, what do I do next? How do I maintain my weight?”
And so many people, myself included multiple times, then end up doing the perpetual yo-yo dieting.
We lose weight, we get to where we want to be, we stop doing what we did so specifically, you know, to lose weight, and then we regain some weight, and then we lose it, and then we gain it, right? And so, we end up in this cycle and the big piece we’re missing is calorie maintenance and what does that look like.
So, I’m glad you’re asking the question and it’s a really good one.
So, there’s a couple of things to talk about. One, when a person is going to go to calorie maintenance, one of the things that can really help is to slowly increase your calories to find out what exactly your true maintenances is.
Just like for a calorie deficit, you could use a formula to get maintenance. There is a general formula. But since you have been tracking your calories so closely, the best plan is always to go with what is known. We know how many calories puts you in a deficit, and then we work our way up from there. So, it makes no sense to pick a formula that’s going to be an estimate when we already know where you’re at.
So, can you tell me how many calories do you eat for your deficit?
Fiona: [00:11:41] So at the moment, my next target weight would be 130 pounds. So, at the moment I’m eating 1,430 calories a day.
Kim: [00:11:52] Okay. So, 1,430. And you do that deficit every day? So, it’s 1,430 7 days a week.
Fiona: [00:12:00] Yes. And now, I have to say there might be a day or two where I go mental all together and I might have one or two– I have to be honest, the days I work out, like say for example, Saturday and Sunday, I would do my bigger workout, I call them, so I work out on Saturday and Sunday for about an hour on Saturday and Sunday. During the week, I would only maybe manage 30-35 minutes. But I do find that the weekends I’m more hungry. And I don’t know, is it because I’m working harder in my workouts at the weekends, or if it’s a bit of boredom because you know you’re not at work.
Kim: [00:12:40] Yeah. It could absolutely be a combination of the two.
Fiona: [00:12:43] Yeah. So, I tend, sometimes I try not to, but sometimes I do give myself maybe 100 or 200 calories more at weekends, but nine to five Monday to Friday I’m spot on 1430.
Kim: [00:12:58] And what rate have you been losing weight at? Do you know about how much you’re averaging per week?
Fiona: [00:13:04] You see, I don’t know. I can’t answer that honestly, because I literally only weighed myself once this year. And I would say that I was at probably 142 pounds in May, and I weighed myself in January and I was 133 pounds.
Now very slowly, and I know that it’s good thing, so I’m okay with that. But I have to say that I tend to stay away from the scales in case I get disappointed. I know that sounds a bit sad, but I felt it. I feel it mostly in my clothes and I know that’s how I know whether or not I’m losing weight or if I’m stalling or if I’m gaining again.
Kim: [00:13:52] Got it. Got it.
Fiona: [00:13:54] Yeah.
Kim: [00:13:54] This next little bit, as far as trying to find your maintenance calories, how would you feel about weighing yourself daily for a time so that you can watch what your weight is doing?
Fiona: [00:14:06] Yeah, I actually kind of thought about that as well, and I probably need to start doing that to have a bit more control and maybe turn it into a positive rather than negative in terms of the scale.
And it’s something I need to know, I think, in order to get to my ultimate goal of 125 pounds. I need to know the weeks I’m losing as opposed to the weeks I’m gaining and then, you know, maybe change things up or understand it a bit more.
Kim: [00:14:44] Yeah.
And I definitely want you to understand that you don’t want to look week to week, you really want to look at a bigger picture. You want to look month to month, what is happening with your weight in the big picture? Within a week and even week to week, your weight will fluctuate, so when you first start weighing, you might be very surprised to see you could have several pounds different from day to day, depending on a whole myriad of factors: how much more carbs you had than usual, if you had something particularly salty, if your weight is fluctuating due to your cycle. I don’t know how far into perimenopause you are, I am peri-menopausal and I still have a lot of the regular PMS stuff going on, including weight fluctuations.
So, for lots of reasons, your weight will fluctuate and sometimes when you have a hard workout, the scale can be up. So, a lot of times you can’t even pinpoint why, so it’s good to be expecting it will go up and down. The thing that we’re going to be looking for: when you’re working on weight loss, you want the trend to be a downward trend. It’s going to be a downward slant. Even though you will have big spikes up and big spikes down, you want the trendline to be a general trend down.
When you’re looking for maintenance, how you’ll know when you get to maintenance is when your trendline is straight across.
Right? So, there’ll be spikes up and spikes down, and even when a person is maintaining their weight, you don’t get to a certain weight and then just stay every day at 133, right? It’s not like if you decided to maintain at 133 you will always be at 133, but you want it to average there. And so, the reason I say it’s helpful for you to be weighing at this time is because the way to find your maintenance calories is to slowly increase the number of calories you’re eating until such time as we see the trend line stop going down, right?
And so, to do that, we would need to be watching the scale.
So, we’ll talk about the scale again in just a minute. I do want to talk to you a little bit more about your feelings about the scale, but let me talk you through a little bit of what it would look like to bring your calories up to maintenance.
So, you could start very slowly. You could add in about a hundred calories three times per week. Do that for a couple of weeks, watch what the scale does. Again, looking at the big trend over several weeks. Then go again, add in some more calories. And you’re going to keep doing that until such time as you don’t see yourself losing weight on the scale anymore. You see that trend line go flat.
Does that make sense?
Fiona: [00:17:09] Sure, yeah.
Kim: [00:17:11] Okay. And then when you get there, you will know that
you have found your maintenance calories.
So, talk to me about your relationship with the scale in the past.
Fiona: [00:17:21] I suppose I never really had to worry about it, to be honest, like I said, until I kind of his peri-menopausal five years ago now. And because I never had to worry about my weight before, and all of a sudden it was an issue for me, I sorta would get on the scale and think, “oh Jesus, I’m putting on another pound or two,” and then I suppose it was negative because I was gaining weight, so I equated the scale with negativity, like I’m putting weight on here and I didn’t really know what to do or how to get rid of the weight.
So, I just stopped weighing myself. And even when I started on my positive journey two years ago, like I said, I might’ve only weighed myself twice and the last time was only last month.
Kim: [00:18:18] Gotcha.
Yeah, it can be a very emotional thing, especially like, as you said, because you were weighing yourself at a time where the scale was not moving the way you wanted to. You weren’t happy with your weight, and so you associated it greatly with negativity.
The way I like to help my clients develop a better relationship with the scale is to really emphasize the fact that it is a single method of gathering data and it’s not the be all and end all. It is not the only thing.
So, if you’re working on losing weight, you should be looking at your pictures, you should be looking at measurements, you should be looking at the fit of your clothes, all of those things in combination with the scale. It is a piece of data, and just like if you were trying to figure out about where to go on a vacation, the only thing you would look at would not be the temperature, right?
It might be a thing you would take into consideration is like, “Oh, what is the temperature there?” But it’s not the only thing. And so, looking at it as some useful data and trying to approach it very scientifically, and each day the goal being, “I’m going to weigh myself, I’m going to write that weight down, and I’m going to move on and know that that weight is not defining who I am.”
It’s not saying anything other than my relationship with the scale at that moment. My relationship with gravity, like this is my pull on the earth right now, and it will fluctuate again tomorrow just like it fluctuated yesterday, and it’s only useful as data.
And it’s something you might have to say to yourself when you get on, like before you get on, like, “this is, I’m just collecting some data.” Weigh yourself, write it down or put it in your phone or wherever you’re collecting the data, deep breath, “that’s just my data for today.”
And then make a conscious choice that you’re not going to let it dictate your mood or what you do the rest of the day as far as your decision making. Because what the scale says can make a person– well, it can’t make, but a person can then make choices like, “ugh, that is not the number I wanted to see. It’s not working and now I’m gonna eat all the things.”
They can also, see the scale and it’s really interesting– this one’s interesting to me and they can be like, “Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. That’s exactly what I was hoping to see. It’s going so well,” and then they still might go and eat all the things cause they kind of start coasting. Do you see what I’m saying?
Not taking into account the fact that like, “Hey, the reason that the scale is going the way I want it to, it’s because I’m being very consistent.”
And so, the idea is you start using it simply as data.
Fiona: [00:20:51] Yeah. Okay.
Kim: [00:20:51] How would that feel?
Fiona: [00:20:53] Yeah, I mean, I hear you and I kind of thought about that myself when I did weigh myself, and it was a very positive way for me because I didn’t expect the weighing scales to say 133 pounds. So, I felt great that day and I was like, “you know, that’s great. It’s working.”
And so yeah, I think absolutely I need to start doing that and just be more positive. And just like you say, before I step on the scale, just even say the words, “I accept whatever this tells me. And move on.”
Kim: [00:21:28] Yeah. And I would say it not even necessarily looking for it to be positive, but just looking at it as neutral. Like, this is just data. Trying to be less emotional about the number.
Fiona: [00:21:38] Yeah, sure.
Kim: [00:21:40] And remembering you don’t have to do this permanently. For this stage when you’re trying to find maintenance, it can be really useful for you. And then you could go back to what you were doing before, which was not weighing, and it was clearly working very well for you.
This is just going to be a tool for you to help you find your maintenance calories. Now, once you get to your maintenance calories, hanging out there in maintenance for a while and practicing eating in maintenance can be really useful.
So, you have gotten to this weight that you’ve wanted to get to by doing things that are going to translate really well into a maintenance phase.
A lot of people don’t, right? A lot of people do all kinds of crazy crash dieting, and they haven’t developed the habits and skills and lifestyle of, “how can I maintain this weight?” You, on the other hand, have, because you’ve done things like worked out and upped to your protein and eaten more vegetables, and those things are habits you’re going to want to keep.
There’s a temptation that people fall into of like, “Oh, I’m not trying to lose weight now,” and they just don’t think about any of those things when in reality, those are things you have to do the rest of your life.
Fiona: [00:22:53] Yeah, I hear you. Like, I actually agree completely. Like I said before, it’s changed my whole entire attitude towards food.
And eating the things that make me feel fuller for longer, which means a lot of vegetables and eating a lot of things like yogurt that I probably would never have eaten before.
I definitely didn’t eat as much vegetables even though I would always make a healthy choice, but now I’m eating vegetables every day of the week.
Kim: [00:23:25] That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And that’s exactly the kind of habit that is going to help you to be able to stay at that healthy weight.
Are there any things that make you nervous about the idea of moving to maintenance?
Fiona: [00:23:41] I suppose I’ve worked so hard to be where I am today and I’m very disciplined as well, which I know is a really good thing in terms of doing stuff like this. But I suppose I’m afraid of gaining back the weight because it took so long for me to lose it.
Like, six months– well, actually you could say nearly two years all in, you know, to get where I am today. That’s a long time.
Kim: [00:24:15] Yeah.
Fiona: [00:24:16] And I’ve been disciplined for 90% of the time. And I know because of perimenopausal and all of that, that it is more difficult and it does take longer. So, in a way, I actually don’t mind being– I don’t mind working hard for it because I feel great.
And I’m not really suffering too badly with perimenopausal issues. Like, I don’t wake as much at night now. I started taking some CBD oil and that’s really, really helped me. My moods are totally fine. So, I’m not, I just don’t really get my period anymore. But I don’t suffer from the mood swings, night sweats, yes, that does keep me awake, but not for too long during the night.
So, I could say that I’m, kind of going through an easy patch right now. But in terms of weight loss, I know it’s really slow.
Kim: [00:25:17] Well, let me ask you this, you’re worried about gaining the weight all back?
Fiona: [00:25:21] Yes.
Kim: [00:25:22] What evidence do you have that that’s going to happen?
Fiona: [00:25:25] So when I got injured this time last year, I would say at a guess, I was pro
bably at 135 pounds. And then I got injured, so my workouts weren’t as intense. And then I went on vacation for three weeks to Australia, and even though I worked out pretty much every day I was there, I still over ate, which is, you know, it’s hard to not overeat when you’re on holiday. So, I realized when I came back from my clothes not fitting me the way they did before I left, that I’d gained back the weight.
And so, from the end of May last year up to, you could say December-January, it had taken me that long to lose 10 pounds, basically.
And I didn’t feel necessarily really good about being uncomfortable in my clothes again, because I remembered what it felt like when I’d lost the weight initially, how great I felt and how great I feel now, getting into clothes that didn’t fit me, and now they’re actually too big for me.
So, it’s a real fear. I don’t know if fear maybe is a strong word, but–
Kim: [00:26:44] Worry?
Fiona: [00:26:45] Yeah, worry. And I suppose I probably feel a little bit of disappointment in myself too, if that happened again. But then, maybe I just need to, I don’t know, look forward instead of back.
Kim: [00:27:01] Well, I do think that’s fantastic advice to give yourselves to look forward instead of back.
And also, something you said was interesting, you gained weight– so you had an injury and then you went on an extended vacation. How often would you say that you go on extended vacations.?
Fiona: [00:27:17] I would say we probably go on a big vacation once a year.
Kim: [00:27:23] Okay. So that’s definitely a sometimes event. And I’m assuming you’re not injured all that often either.
Fiona: [00:27:29] No, I haven’t been injured since, thank God. Yeah.
Kim: [00:27:31] Okay, good. Well then, I would say that that right there is something to focus on, is the idea that progress, even maintenance, it depends on what you do most of the time, not what you do some of the time. And so, if for most of the year you are in your normal routine implementing habits that you have really built up over time here, it is likely that you will be able to maintain your weight.
If most of your life was spent doing, you know, vacationing, you’d have to then tackle like, “alright, I need to eat differently on vacation.” But if we’re talking once a year, that’s a sometimes thing and what you really need to focus on is the everyday things. So, your progress, your ability to, to maintain your weight, is gonna be dependent on what you do most of the time.
Fiona: [00:28:20] Yeah. I hear you.
Kim: [00:28:23] And so– you hear me, but I don’t know if you believe me yet. You sound highly skeptical.
Fiona: [00:28:31] That’s the Irish in me, you know. We’re suspicious of everybody.
Kim: [00:28:37] On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “absolutely no problem,” and 1 being “I can’t do it,” where are you on believing that you will be able to maintain your new weight?
Fiona: [00:28:53] I think probably an 8.
Kim: [00:28:55] Okay.
Fiona: [00:28:55] Yeah. I think when I weighed myself recently and realized that I was at 133 pounds and not even expecting it, I thought, “Oh.” That was a bit of a game changer for me, and was thinking, “Oh, okay, I’ve done it.”
I had done it and didn’t even realize I had done it, even though, you know, like I said, I can feel the difference in my clothes, but the scales kind of showed me, “Hey, you’ve actually done it, and you can do it again.” I can go down if I want to, I can keep going until I get to my 125 pounds.
Kim: [00:29:29] Yes. You sound very confident in that. And so, it sounds like you have the confidence that like, “Hey, I know how to do this.” And you actually, at the beginning of this podcast, you explained to us in great detail why you were able to lose the weight. Remember? And I said like, “I’m sure people are listening and thinking like, this woman has it all together.” Right? Like, what’s her question?
But you know very clearly how to lose weight in a sustainable manner.
Fiona: [00:29:52] Yeah. I guess, I suppose for anyone listening who is in perimenopausal stage, it is tough and it will take longer than, you know, if you were 20 years of age trying to lose weight.
And I think when people realize that, it kind of takes a little bit of burden off them because, you know, it’s not just you, it’s anybody in this stage who’s trying to lose weight. It’s going to take a little bit longer.
Kim: [00:30:23] Well, we have additional hurdles.
Fiona: [00:30:25] Yeah.
Kim: [00:30:26] We do.
Well, I’m excited to hear the confidence in your voice there and I want you to rely on that.
I think it would be actually a really useful thing for you to put in writing somewhere; whether you just put it in the notes on your phone or whether you make an Instagram post about it, what you have learned about losing weight. Like, how did you lose this weight so that you can feel confident in your skills and habits.
Maybe a nice list of like, “what habits have I built that have helped me lose this weight,” would be a good one. Is that a challenge you’re willing to take on?
Fiona: [00:30:59] Sure. Yeah.
Kim: [00:31:00] Amazing. I really do think you need to rely on that so that you can feel confident, ’cause it’s not a great way to live, to be in constant worry that you’re going to regain your weight all back.
Fiona: [00:31:10] Yeah. Okay.
Kim: [00:31:11] Right? That just doesn’t feel good and you know how to lose the weight. So even if he did gain a couple pounds back, you know how to lose the weight. But the likelihood that that’s going to happen isn’t great based on the fact that you have developed so many amazing habits that are going to lend themselves to maintenance.
I’m trying to think if there was any, something else you had said I wanted to talk about. Well, now I can’t think of what it was. See, there you go. There’s the menopause.
Fiona: [00:31:40] There it is.
Kim: [00:31:42] All right. Are there any other questions, things you want to talk about here today while we’re together?
Fiona: [00:31:49] I just want to say thanks very much for including me and I find your stuff really, really helpful. I follow a lot of people on Instagram and I’ve kind of turned my Instagram page into a positive thing where I’m basically following people that give what I feel is really good advice for anyone like me or– not just me, you know, as in perimenopausal women, but anybody trying to lose weight.
And I think that for too many years, people have kind of– and I fell for it too, you know, the old advice of, you know, “sugar is the enemy, carbs are the enemy, eat as much healthy food as you want,” kind of attitude.
And you know, even when I talk to people nowadays, you know, when they say, “I actually eat whatever I want to eat. I just don’t overeat,” I still find a bit of resistance to that. Some people are just like, “Oh no, I just stay away from sugar or stay away from bread.” And I’m like, “Why? Why are you staying away from stuff like that?”
You know, eat the food that you enjoy and, you know, some people have said to me, “but you’re still restricting your diet.” You know, I might be restricting calories and other people might be restricting what they eat. My answer to that is, “well, what’s going to last longer? What diet is going to help you in the long term, not just in the short term? It’s the foods you can eat, the foods you want to eat, just don’t overeat.”
It’s like the old saying, you know “everything in small portions.”
Kim: [00:33:22] Yeah. Yeah, and it’s amazing, and it can be different things for different people, but what you’re hitting on is so
important is that you have to find a way to eat that will last the longest, like you just said.
And for a lot of people, doing some of those other things that you just said, like cutting out all the bread, cutting out all the sugar, they think it’s the answer when in reality they can’t stick with that because most of us want to eat some sugar, and most of us want to eat some carbs.
Some people don’t and people are okay living without those things, but most people, most people do.
Fiona: [00:33:55] Yeah. Most people crave, you know, potatoes and pasta. Like, I hadn’t eaten pasta in years because I thought it was my enemy. It was like, “Oh no, it’s awful for you.” And it is not unless you’re allergic.
Now, you know, some people have allergies, I get that, people can’t tolerate gluten and stuff like that, but generally for me, I just fell for that, “oh, you shouldn’t be eating pasta. You’ll instantly gain weight overnight if you have a bowl of pasta.” I mean, seriously. But I fell for it.
Kim: [00:34:36] I was right there you. And interesting, I’m making pasta tonight. And I’m in a weight loss phase.
The idea is nutritional compromises. I’m making that pasta fit today by not having something else. I took calories out elsewhere because I want this pasta this evening, right? So, I planned my meals, I planned how much protein, where am I getting my vegetables and then put my pasta in.
Fiona: [00:34:59] Yeah. And that’s really important too, I think, isn’t it? Planning. Like, I plan the night before, sometimes two days before.
I know exactly what I’m going to eat and if I, in work, you know, have a sweet or two, that could be 30-40 calories that I’ll eat, but I’ll have to just then adjust my dinners so I don’t have to worry about it or feel guilty or think that I’ve gained a couple pounds ’cause I’ve had two sweets.
Kim: [00:35:28] Yes. That’s huge. I love the idea that you’re planning ahead. It’s again, it’s one of those habits you have built that gives me great confidence that you’re going to crush it at maintenance. You know, planning ahead is so key. It is so key.
So, it sounds like then your plan is going to be to slowly bring your calories up. Like I said, a hundred calories, like three times a week, keep doing that. Watch the scale, after a couple of weeks add some more calories back in. Do that until you see the trend stop going down and it evens out, and then you’ll know your maintenance.
You can hang at maintenance for however long you want, and then when you’re ready, if you decide you do want to keep losing weight and go a few more pounds like you had thought, you can go right back to your deficit.
Fiona: [00:36:08] Yeah.
Kim: [00:36:10] All right, so that’s going to be the plan, and then you’re going to write that nice list of what you have learned, the habits you have built, the behaviors that you have changed to lose this weight so that you have it very clear in front of you. So, you don’t have to have this constant fear of like, “what if I gain all the weight back?”
Fiona: [00:36:25] Yeah. Sure.
Kim: [00:36:27] All right! Thanks so much for being here today, Fiona. I so appreciate it. It was wonderful talking with you.
Fiona: [00:36:32] And you. Thanks very much.
Kim: [00:36:34] All right, my dear. Talk soon.
Fiona: [00:36:36] Take care. Bye.
Kim: [00:36:45] Thanks so much for being here and listening in to the Fitness Simplified Podcast today. I hope you found it educational, motivational, inspirational, all the kinds of -ational.
If you enjoyed it, if you found value in it, it would mean so much to me if you would go ahead and leave a rating and review on whatever platform you are listening to this on. It really does help to get this podcast to other people.
Thanks so much.
Kim: [00:00:04] Welcome back to the Fitness Simplified Podcast. I’m your host, Kim Schlag.
On today’s episode, I’m joined by a member of my @kimschlagfitness Instagram community who messaged me with a question.
Fiona has spent the last year crushing her weight loss goal and as she is just reached her goal, she’s now thinking ahead and wondering, “uh, what now?”
Want to find out? Let’s listen.
Hi, Fiona.
Fiona: [00:00:33] Hi Kim, how are you?
Kim: [00:00:35] Good. Thanks so much for joining me here.
Fiona: [00:00:37] Great. No problem. Thanks for the invite.
Kim: [00:00:40] Oh, I’m so thrilled that we could make it happen.
Fiona: [00:00:43] I know. It’s great.
Kim: [00:00:44] Isn’t it amazing how we can be connecting all the way across the world?
Fiona: [00:00:47] I know. Yeah. It’s a small world nowadays.
Kim: [00:00:50] It’s crazy.
So, look, we don’t know each other at all, so why don’t you introduce yourself a bit; where you’re from, what you like to do, a little about your life.
Fiona: [00:01:00] Sure.
So, I’m Fiona. I will be 49 in July. I’m from Ireland. My mother is from Belize in Central America, but I was brought up in Ireland. I love to work out and my newest fitness journey probably started in January, 2018, whereby I realized I should be tracking calories and macros and should be basically doing weight programs with kettlebells and dumbbells. And it’s changed my whole attitude towards food and towards working out.
I was doing it completely wrong for years and that’s when I discovered you and the likes of Jordan Syatt and Susan. So I’ve been following you for a while now and I think you’re great and thanks very much for all the information that you put up, ’cause it really does help and it makes a difference certainly to me, and I’m sure a lot of people, when you put stuff off, you know.
Kim: [00:01:59] Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that.
So, have you been to visit– do you still have family in Belize?
Fiona: [00:02:07] I do. I have lots of family there. I was there in 2017. I hadn’t been back in 10 years. So yeah, I’ve lots of family and believes and lots of family in the States as well that would have originated in Belize, yeah.
Kim: [00:02:22] Okay. Well, Belize and Ireland are two very different places.
Fiona: [00:02:25] I know! But similar in lots of ways, too, I guess, you know.
Kim: [00:02:32] What way are believes in Ireland similar?
Fiona: [00:02:34] Well, of course my family are Catholic and obviously my dad being Irish, by default we’re Catholic, as well. So, we have that in common. Our love for food and drink is very common.
So, it was fascinating journey that my parents took to meet one another. So, we ended up basically being brought up in Ireland. And my mom’s actually living here in Ireland now, and she’s been back here now for the last, I want to say 15-16 years now.
So, fascinating. Yeah.
Kim: [00:03:17] So it sounds like you’ve had a very interesting fitness journey, done some things differently over the course of the last year. What were you doing before this year as far as nutrition and exercise?
Fiona: [00:03:29] So I started my newest fitness journey, I guess, in January, 2018. So, up to that point, I guess you could say I was always active, even as a child growing up. In my generation, we were always out playing.
I grew up playing tennis. I did some horse riding when I was younger as well and so I always kind of went to the gym always. I always did a bit of rollerblading, so I was very active. And I guess when I hit 30, I realized that my body was starting to change and that I couldn’t eat as much as I used to.
I used to eat and never think about it because I’d never gained weight. But as soon as I hit 30 things, literally started going south and I became more aware of my body and how it was starting to change, but I was always active so I never really worried about it.
But then, I guess about five years ago, I basically went into perimenopausal stage in my life and I didn’t really realize I was going through it because I was still getting my period, but I was getting other signs, like being wide awake at three o’clock in the morning for no reason.
And literally wide awake, so much so I could get up and do a day’s work. And I didn’t realize until I started missing my period that something was wrong. And then of course I went to my GP and she confirmed, “okay, you’re menopausal.” Then the weight gain really started sticking.
And I’m quite small, I’m only like 4’11” so a couple of pounds to me is a lot. And all of a sudden, I went from kind of a size 10 up to a size 12 and I guess two years ago I decided I wasn’t comfortable being uncomfortable anymore and I started following the body coach. I have to say, he got me going initially in terms of exercising and doing HIITs and maybe becoming a bit more aware of food, but it wasn’t till I discovered actually a guy, his name is Matt Chow and he actually, I saw a couple of things on Instagram where he said, just download MyFitnessPal and start tracking your calories. It’s all about your calories.
And initially I was a bit kind of like, “Oh God, I’ve heard this so many times before,” and I just thought, “you know what? Let’s just give it a go.” So, I downloaded it and my whole life changed. My whole attitude towards food changed. I didn’t have food guilt anymore about the things that I enjoyed.
Kim: [00:06:30] And why is that? Tell people why that change happened.
Fiona: [00:06:34] I think because for years I believed the hype about, you know, you can’t eat carbs, you can’t have bread, but you can eat as much healthy food as you want. All of that is untrue. And then when I would have something that I would enjoy, I would beat myself up about it and think I’ve instantly gained weight there because I had a bag of chips or I had an ice cream or whatever.
But as soon as I started counting my calories, I realized, “well, okay, so what? I’ve had a bar chocolate. I’m just going to adjust what I have for dinner so that I remain within my calorie limit for the day.” So, I instantly stopped worrying about food and I stopped also mentally trying to track what I’d eaten in the day because all I had to do was look at my phone.
So, it took a massive burden off me.
Kim: [00:07:29] That’s amazing.
Fiona: [00:07:30] Yeah. And I have to say it also changed the way I think about food in terms of what I eat. So, in terms of, I would probably always make the healthy choice. I was always a bit aware of that, but now we make a better choice in terms of eating foods that would keep me feeling fuller for longer.
So lots more vegetables and making sure now, especially in the last six months, I’ve realized how important protein is. So, I always make sure that I hit my protein targets. Because I don’t feel as hungry.
Now, I still feel hungry, I have to be honest. I still feel hungry, but I’m not starving. But I feel when I feel hunger, I actually turn it into a positive, and I think “well, if I’m hungry, I’m burning fat.”
Kim: [00:08:27] Got it. Got it. Well, yeah, and you’re very wise to know that though you can do a lot to mitigate hunger and to make it so you’re not ravenously hungry, that in a deficit, some hunger is natural.
And I like the fact that you’re looking for a way to kind of accept that and think about it without being so negative or alarmist. So that’s fantastic.
So, this brings us closer to what your ques
tion for me is. I think people are probably listening, thinking, “well, it sounds like she knows what she’s doing. What could her question be?” So why don’t you tell everybody what your question for me is?
Fiona: [00:09:01] Sure. So just to give a little bit of a background, I kind of had given myself stages in terms of losing weight. So, two years ago when I started out, I was 145 pounds, and I kind of gave myself– my first target weight loss would have been 135 pounds.
And long story short, I got to 133 pounds last month. Now, I got injured last year– actually this time last year with my back. So that kind of put me back a little bit and went on vacation and you know, the weight kind of went back on so, this latest journey kind of started for me in May.
So, it’s taken me from May, say to the end of January, to get to 133 pounds. And it’s amazing and I never thought I’d get there, but I did. So, my next stage would be– my absolute ultimate target weight would be 125 pounds. But when I first reached my goal of 133 pounds, I was like, “well, how do I maintain that and not be in a calorie deficit?”
So, in other words, how many calories do I eat now to maintain that weight?
Kim: [00:10:16] Yeah, and that’s a question that a lot of people don’t think of when they’re first starting out, like, “wait a minute, once I reach my goal, what do I do next? How do I maintain my weight?”
And so many people, myself included multiple times, then end up doing the perpetual yo-yo dieting.
We lose weight, we get to where we want to be, we stop doing what we did so specifically, you know, to lose weight, and then we regain some weight, and then we lose it, and then we gain it, right? And so, we end up in this cycle and the big piece we’re missing is calorie maintenance and what does that look like.
So, I’m glad you’re asking the question and it’s a really good one.
So, there’s a couple of things to talk about. One, when a person is going to go to calorie maintenance, one of the things that can really help is to slowly increase your calories to find out what exactly your true maintenances is.
Just like for a calorie deficit, you could use a formula to get maintenance. There is a general formula. But since you have been tracking your calories so closely, the best plan is always to go with what is known. We know how many calories puts you in a deficit, and then we work our way up from there. So, it makes no sense to pick a formula that’s going to be an estimate when we already know where you’re at.
So, can you tell me how many calories do you eat for your deficit?
Fiona: [00:11:41] So at the moment, my next target weight would be 130 pounds. So, at the moment I’m eating 1,430 calories a day.
Kim: [00:11:52] Okay. So, 1,430. And you do that deficit every day? So, it’s 1,430 7 days a week.
Fiona: [00:12:00] Yes. And now, I have to say there might be a day or two where I go mental all together and I might have one or two– I have to be honest, the days I work out, like say for example, Saturday and Sunday, I would do my bigger workout, I call them, so I work out on Saturday and Sunday for about an hour on Saturday and Sunday. During the week, I would only maybe manage 30-35 minutes. But I do find that the weekends I’m more hungry. And I don’t know, is it because I’m working harder in my workouts at the weekends, or if it’s a bit of boredom because you know you’re not at work.
Kim: [00:12:40] Yeah. It could absolutely be a combination of the two.
Fiona: [00:12:43] Yeah. So, I tend, sometimes I try not to, but sometimes I do give myself maybe 100 or 200 calories more at weekends, but nine to five Monday to Friday I’m spot on 1430.
Kim: [00:12:58] And what rate have you been losing weight at? Do you know about how much you’re averaging per week?
Fiona: [00:13:04] You see, I don’t know. I can’t answer that honestly, because I literally only weighed myself once this year. And I would say that I was at probably 142 pounds in May, and I weighed myself in January and I was 133 pounds.
Now very slowly, and I know that it’s good thing, so I’m okay with that. But I have to say that I tend to stay away from the scales in case I get disappointed. I know that sounds a bit sad, but I felt it. I feel it mostly in my clothes and I know that’s how I know whether or not I’m losing weight or if I’m stalling or if I’m gaining again.
Kim: [00:13:52] Got it. Got it.
Fiona: [00:13:54] Yeah.
Kim: [00:13:54] This next little bit, as far as trying to find your maintenance calories, how would you feel about weighing yourself daily for a time so that you can watch what your weight is doing?
Fiona: [00:14:06] Yeah, I actually kind of thought about that as well, and I probably need to start doing that to have a bit more control and maybe turn it into a positive rather than negative in terms of the scale.
And it’s something I need to know, I think, in order to get to my ultimate goal of 125 pounds. I need to know the weeks I’m losing as opposed to the weeks I’m gaining and then, you know, maybe change things up or understand it a bit more.
Kim: [00:14:44] Yeah.
And I definitely want you to understand that you don’t want to look week to week, you really want to look at a bigger picture. You want to look month to month, what is happening with your weight in the big picture? Within a week and even week to week, your weight will fluctuate, so when you first start weighing, you might be very surprised to see you could have several pounds different from day to day, depending on a whole myriad of factors: how much more carbs you had than usual, if you had something particularly salty, if your weight is fluctuating due to your cycle. I don’t know how far into perimenopause you are, I am peri-menopausal and I still have a lot of the regular PMS stuff going on, including weight fluctuations.
So, for lots of reasons, your weight will fluctuate and sometimes when you have a hard workout, the scale can be up. So, a lot of times you can’t even pinpoint why, so it’s good to be expecting it will go up and down. The thing that we’re going to be looking for: when you’re working on weight loss, you want the trend to be a downward trend. It’s going to be a downward slant. Even though you will have big spikes up and big spikes down, you want the trendline to be a general trend down.
When you’re looking for maintenance, how you’ll know when you get to maintenance is when your trendline is straight across.
Right? So, there’ll be spikes up and spikes down, and even when a person is maintaining their weight, you don’t get to a certain weight and then just stay every day at 133, right? It’s not like if you decided to maintain at 133 you will always be at 133, but you want it to average there. And so, the reason I say it’s helpful for you to be weighing at this time is because the way to find your maintenance calories is to slowly increase the number of calories you’re eating until such time as we see the trend line stop going down, right?
And so, to do that, we would need to be watching the scale.
So, we’ll talk about the scale again in just a minute. I do want to talk to you a little bit more about your feelings about the scale, but let me talk you through a little bit of what it would look like to bring your calories up to maintenance.
So, you could start very slowly. You could add in about a hundred calories three times per week. Do that for a couple of weeks, watch what the scale does. Again, looking at the big trend over several weeks. Then go again, add in some more calories. And you’re going to keep doing that until such time as you don’t see yourself losing weight on the scale anymore. You see that trend line go flat.
Does that make sense?
Fiona: [00:17:09] Sure, yeah.
Kim: [00:17:11] Okay. And then when you get there, you will know that
you have found your maintenance calories.
So, talk to me about your relationship with the scale in the past.
Fiona: [00:17:21] I suppose I never really had to worry about it, to be honest, like I said, until I kind of his peri-menopausal five years ago now. And because I never had to worry about my weight before, and all of a sudden it was an issue for me, I sorta would get on the scale and think, “oh Jesus, I’m putting on another pound or two,” and then I suppose it was negative because I was gaining weight, so I equated the scale with negativity, like I’m putting weight on here and I didn’t really know what to do or how to get rid of the weight.
So, I just stopped weighing myself. And even when I started on my positive journey two years ago, like I said, I might’ve only weighed myself twice and the last time was only last month.
Kim: [00:18:18] Gotcha.
Yeah, it can be a very emotional thing, especially like, as you said, because you were weighing yourself at a time where the scale was not moving the way you wanted to. You weren’t happy with your weight, and so you associated it greatly with negativity.
The way I like to help my clients develop a better relationship with the scale is to really emphasize the fact that it is a single method of gathering data and it’s not the be all and end all. It is not the only thing.
So, if you’re working on losing weight, you should be looking at your pictures, you should be looking at measurements, you should be looking at the fit of your clothes, all of those things in combination with the scale. It is a piece of data, and just like if you were trying to figure out about where to go on a vacation, the only thing you would look at would not be the temperature, right?
It might be a thing you would take into consideration is like, “Oh, what is the temperature there?” But it’s not the only thing. And so, looking at it as some useful data and trying to approach it very scientifically, and each day the goal being, “I’m going to weigh myself, I’m going to write that weight down, and I’m going to move on and know that that weight is not defining who I am.”
It’s not saying anything other than my relationship with the scale at that moment. My relationship with gravity, like this is my pull on the earth right now, and it will fluctuate again tomorrow just like it fluctuated yesterday, and it’s only useful as data.
And it’s something you might have to say to yourself when you get on, like before you get on, like, “this is, I’m just collecting some data.” Weigh yourself, write it down or put it in your phone or wherever you’re collecting the data, deep breath, “that’s just my data for today.”
And then make a conscious choice that you’re not going to let it dictate your mood or what you do the rest of the day as far as your decision making. Because what the scale says can make a person– well, it can’t make, but a person can then make choices like, “ugh, that is not the number I wanted to see. It’s not working and now I’m gonna eat all the things.”
They can also, see the scale and it’s really interesting– this one’s interesting to me and they can be like, “Oh my gosh, it’s amazing. That’s exactly what I was hoping to see. It’s going so well,” and then they still might go and eat all the things cause they kind of start coasting. Do you see what I’m saying?
Not taking into account the fact that like, “Hey, the reason that the scale is going the way I want it to, it’s because I’m being very consistent.”
And so, the idea is you start using it simply as data.
Fiona: [00:20:51] Yeah. Okay.
Kim: [00:20:51] How would that feel?
Fiona: [00:20:53] Yeah, I mean, I hear you and I kind of thought about that myself when I did weigh myself, and it was a very positive way for me because I didn’t expect the weighing scales to say 133 pounds. So, I felt great that day and I was like, “you know, that’s great. It’s working.”
And so yeah, I think absolutely I need to start doing that and just be more positive. And just like you say, before I step on the scale, just even say the words, “I accept whatever this tells me. And move on.”
Kim: [00:21:28] Yeah. And I would say it not even necessarily looking for it to be positive, but just looking at it as neutral. Like, this is just data. Trying to be less emotional about the number.
Fiona: [00:21:38] Yeah, sure.
Kim: [00:21:40] And remembering you don’t have to do this permanently. For this stage when you’re trying to find maintenance, it can be really useful for you. And then you could go back to what you were doing before, which was not weighing, and it was clearly working very well for you.
This is just going to be a tool for you to help you find your maintenance calories. Now, once you get to your maintenance calories, hanging out there in maintenance for a while and practicing eating in maintenance can be really useful.
So, you have gotten to this weight that you’ve wanted to get to by doing things that are going to translate really well into a maintenance phase.
A lot of people don’t, right? A lot of people do all kinds of crazy crash dieting, and they haven’t developed the habits and skills and lifestyle of, “how can I maintain this weight?” You, on the other hand, have, because you’ve done things like worked out and upped to your protein and eaten more vegetables, and those things are habits you’re going to want to keep.
There’s a temptation that people fall into of like, “Oh, I’m not trying to lose weight now,” and they just don’t think about any of those things when in reality, those are things you have to do the rest of your life.
Fiona: [00:22:53] Yeah, I hear you. Like, I actually agree completely. Like I said before, it’s changed my whole entire attitude towards food.
And eating the things that make me feel fuller for longer, which means a lot of vegetables and eating a lot of things like yogurt that I probably would never have eaten before.
I definitely didn’t eat as much vegetables even though I would always make a healthy choice, but now I’m eating vegetables every day of the week.
Kim: [00:23:25] That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And that’s exactly the kind of habit that is going to help you to be able to stay at that healthy weight.
Are there any things that make you nervous about the idea of moving to maintenance?
Fiona: [00:23:41] I suppose I’ve worked so hard to be where I am today and I’m very disciplined as well, which I know is a really good thing in terms of doing stuff like this. But I suppose I’m afraid of gaining back the weight because it took so long for me to lose it.
Like, six months– well, actually you could say nearly two years all in, you know, to get where I am today. That’s a long time.
Kim: [00:24:15] Yeah.
Fiona: [00:24:16] And I’ve been disciplined for 90% of the time. And I know because of perimenopausal and all of that, that it is more difficult and it does take longer. So, in a way, I actually don’t mind being– I don’t mind working hard for it because I feel great.
And I’m not really suffering too badly with perimenopausal issues. Like, I don’t wake as much at night now. I started taking some CBD oil and that’s really, really helped me. My moods are totally fine. So, I’m not, I just don’t really get my period anymore. But I don’t suffer from the mood swings, night sweats, yes, that does keep me awake, but not for too long during the night.
So, I could say that I’m, kind of going through an easy patch right now. But in terms of weight loss, I know it’s really slow.
Kim: [00:25:17] Well, let me ask you this, you’re worried about gaining the weight all back?
Fiona: [00:25:21] Yes.
Kim: [00:25:22] What evidence do you have that that’s going to happen?
Fiona: [00:25:25] So when I got injured this time last year, I would say at a guess, I was pro
bably at 135 pounds. And then I got injured, so my workouts weren’t as intense. And then I went on vacation for three weeks to Australia, and even though I worked out pretty much every day I was there, I still over ate, which is, you know, it’s hard to not overeat when you’re on holiday. So, I realized when I came back from my clothes not fitting me the way they did before I left, that I’d gained back the weight.
And so, from the end of May last year up to, you could say December-January, it had taken me that long to lose 10 pounds, basically.
And I didn’t feel necessarily really good about being uncomfortable in my clothes again, because I remembered what it felt like when I’d lost the weight initially, how great I felt and how great I feel now, getting into clothes that didn’t fit me, and now they’re actually too big for me.
So, it’s a real fear. I don’t know if fear maybe is a strong word, but–
Kim: [00:26:44] Worry?
Fiona: [00:26:45] Yeah, worry. And I suppose I probably feel a little bit of disappointment in myself too, if that happened again. But then, maybe I just need to, I don’t know, look forward instead of back.
Kim: [00:27:01] Well, I do think that’s fantastic advice to give yourselves to look forward instead of back.
And also, something you said was interesting, you gained weight– so you had an injury and then you went on an extended vacation. How often would you say that you go on extended vacations.?
Fiona: [00:27:17] I would say we probably go on a big vacation once a year.
Kim: [00:27:23] Okay. So that’s definitely a sometimes event. And I’m assuming you’re not injured all that often either.
Fiona: [00:27:29] No, I haven’t been injured since, thank God. Yeah.
Kim: [00:27:31] Okay, good. Well then, I would say that that right there is something to focus on, is the idea that progress, even maintenance, it depends on what you do most of the time, not what you do some of the time. And so, if for most of the year you are in your normal routine implementing habits that you have really built up over time here, it is likely that you will be able to maintain your weight.
If most of your life was spent doing, you know, vacationing, you’d have to then tackle like, “alright, I need to eat differently on vacation.” But if we’re talking once a year, that’s a sometimes thing and what you really need to focus on is the everyday things. So, your progress, your ability to, to maintain your weight, is gonna be dependent on what you do most of the time.
Fiona: [00:28:20] Yeah. I hear you.
Kim: [00:28:23] And so– you hear me, but I don’t know if you believe me yet. You sound highly skeptical.
Fiona: [00:28:31] That’s the Irish in me, you know. We’re suspicious of everybody.
Kim: [00:28:37] On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being “absolutely no problem,” and 1 being “I can’t do it,” where are you on believing that you will be able to maintain your new weight?
Fiona: [00:28:53] I think probably an 8.
Kim: [00:28:55] Okay.
Fiona: [00:28:55] Yeah. I think when I weighed myself recently and realized that I was at 133 pounds and not even expecting it, I thought, “Oh.” That was a bit of a game changer for me, and was thinking, “Oh, okay, I’ve done it.”
I had done it and didn’t even realize I had done it, even though, you know, like I said, I can feel the difference in my clothes, but the scales kind of showed me, “Hey, you’ve actually done it, and you can do it again.” I can go down if I want to, I can keep going until I get to my 125 pounds.
Kim: [00:29:29] Yes. You sound very confident in that. And so, it sounds like you have the confidence that like, “Hey, I know how to do this.” And you actually, at the beginning of this podcast, you explained to us in great detail why you were able to lose the weight. Remember? And I said like, “I’m sure people are listening and thinking like, this woman has it all together.” Right? Like, what’s her question?
But you know very clearly how to lose weight in a sustainable manner.
Fiona: [00:29:52] Yeah. I guess, I suppose for anyone listening who is in perimenopausal stage, it is tough and it will take longer than, you know, if you were 20 years of age trying to lose weight.
And I think when people realize that, it kind of takes a little bit of burden off them because, you know, it’s not just you, it’s anybody in this stage who’s trying to lose weight. It’s going to take a little bit longer.
Kim: [00:30:23] Well, we have additional hurdles.
Fiona: [00:30:25] Yeah.
Kim: [00:30:26] We do.
Well, I’m excited to hear the confidence in your voice there and I want you to rely on that.
I think it would be actually a really useful thing for you to put in writing somewhere; whether you just put it in the notes on your phone or whether you make an Instagram post about it, what you have learned about losing weight. Like, how did you lose this weight so that you can feel confident in your skills and habits.
Maybe a nice list of like, “what habits have I built that have helped me lose this weight,” would be a good one. Is that a challenge you’re willing to take on?
Fiona: [00:30:59] Sure. Yeah.
Kim: [00:31:00] Amazing. I really do think you need to rely on that so that you can feel confident, ’cause it’s not a great way to live, to be in constant worry that you’re going to regain your weight all back.
Fiona: [00:31:10] Yeah. Okay.
Kim: [00:31:11] Right? That just doesn’t feel good and you know how to lose the weight. So even if he did gain a couple pounds back, you know how to lose the weight. But the likelihood that that’s going to happen isn’t great based on the fact that you have developed so many amazing habits that are going to lend themselves to maintenance.
I’m trying to think if there was any, something else you had said I wanted to talk about. Well, now I can’t think of what it was. See, there you go. There’s the menopause.
Fiona: [00:31:40] There it is.
Kim: [00:31:42] All right. Are there any other questions, things you want to talk about here today while we’re together?
Fiona: [00:31:49] I just want to say thanks very much for including me and I find your stuff really, really helpful. I follow a lot of people on Instagram and I’ve kind of turned my Instagram page into a positive thing where I’m basically following people that give what I feel is really good advice for anyone like me or– not just me, you know, as in perimenopausal women, but anybody trying to lose weight.
And I think that for too many years, people have kind of– and I fell for it too, you know, the old advice of, you know, “sugar is the enemy, carbs are the enemy, eat as much healthy food as you want,” kind of attitude.
And you know, even when I talk to people nowadays, you know, when they say, “I actually eat whatever I want to eat. I just don’t overeat,” I still find a bit of resistance to that. Some people are just like, “Oh no, I just stay away from sugar or stay away from bread.” And I’m like, “Why? Why are you staying away from stuff like that?”
You know, eat the food that you enjoy and, you know, some people have said to me, “but you’re still restricting your diet.” You know, I might be restricting calories and other people might be restricting what they eat. My answer to that is, “well, what’s going to last longer? What diet is going to help you in the long term, not just in the short term? It’s the foods you can eat, the foods you want to eat, just don’t overeat.”
It’s like the old saying, you know “everything in small portions.”
Kim: [00:33:22] Yeah. Yeah, and it’s amazing, and it can be different things for different people, but what you’re hitting on is so
important is that you have to find a way to eat that will last the longest, like you just said.
And for a lot of people, doing some of those other things that you just said, like cutting out all the bread, cutting out all the sugar, they think it’s the answer when in reality they can’t stick with that because most of us want to eat some sugar, and most of us want to eat some carbs.
Some people don’t and people are okay living without those things, but most people, most people do.
Fiona: [00:33:55] Yeah. Most people crave, you know, potatoes and pasta. Like, I hadn’t eaten pasta in years because I thought it was my enemy. It was like, “Oh no, it’s awful for you.” And it is not unless you’re allergic.
Now, you know, some people have allergies, I get that, people can’t tolerate gluten and stuff like that, but generally for me, I just fell for that, “oh, you shouldn’t be eating pasta. You’ll instantly gain weight overnight if you have a bowl of pasta.” I mean, seriously. But I fell for it.
Kim: [00:34:36] I was right there you. And interesting, I’m making pasta tonight. And I’m in a weight loss phase.
The idea is nutritional compromises. I’m making that pasta fit today by not having something else. I took calories out elsewhere because I want this pasta this evening, right? So, I planned my meals, I planned how much protein, where am I getting my vegetables and then put my pasta in.
Fiona: [00:34:59] Yeah. And that’s really important too, I think, isn’t it? Planning. Like, I plan the night before, sometimes two days before.
I know exactly what I’m going to eat and if I, in work, you know, have a sweet or two, that could be 30-40 calories that I’ll eat, but I’ll have to just then adjust my dinners so I don’t have to worry about it or feel guilty or think that I’ve gained a couple pounds ’cause I’ve had two sweets.
Kim: [00:35:28] Yes. That’s huge. I love the idea that you’re planning ahead. It’s again, it’s one of those habits you have built that gives me great confidence that you’re going to crush it at maintenance. You know, planning ahead is so key. It is so key.
So, it sounds like then your plan is going to be to slowly bring your calories up. Like I said, a hundred calories, like three times a week, keep doing that. Watch the scale, after a couple of weeks add some more calories back in. Do that until you see the trend stop going down and it evens out, and then you’ll know your maintenance.
You can hang at maintenance for however long you want, and then when you’re ready, if you decide you do want to keep losing weight and go a few more pounds like you had thought, you can go right back to your deficit.
Fiona: [00:36:08] Yeah.
Kim: [00:36:10] All right, so that’s going to be the plan, and then you’re going to write that nice list of what you have learned, the habits you have built, the behaviors that you have changed to lose this weight so that you have it very clear in front of you. So, you don’t have to have this constant fear of like, “what if I gain all the weight back?”
Fiona: [00:36:25] Yeah. Sure.
Kim: [00:36:27] All right! Thanks so much for being here today, Fiona. I so appreciate it. It was wonderful talking with you.
Fiona: [00:36:32] And you. Thanks very much.
Kim: [00:36:34] All right, my dear. Talk soon.
Fiona: [00:36:36] Take care. Bye.
Kim: [00:36:45] Thanks so much for being here and listening in to the Fitness Simplified Podcast today. I hope you found it educational, motivational, inspirational, all the kinds of -ational.
If you enjoyed it, if you found value in it, it would mean so much to me if you would go ahead and leave a rating and review on whatever platform you are listening to this on. It really does help to get this podcast to other people.
Thanks so much.
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