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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
This ONE change helped me drop 30 lbs (and keep it off)
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello. What is up you guys? Welcome back to the show. This is your host Brady. We're going to be getting into a topic today that is I'm very passionate about I've been thinking about this so much lately because honestly social media is very much designed to make us feel like we are not doing enough in every single area of life. But of course, for the sake of what's relevant here, we're going to be talking about fitness and health. So I want to talk about one change that I made that helped me lose and keep off £30 long term. Still going strong, still seeing progress after having two kiddos. And this one thing is no longer having an overwhelming trying to do it all type of routine. And this is why I bring up social media. Because in the world of social media, you are going to be presented with a million options. You're going to see people who look like they are literally doing it all. You're going to compare yourself. You're going to feel like if you want to get those same results, you need to also do all of those things. So we're going to be talking about that quite a bit today and how to drop the overwhelm and drop this like kind of all or nothing of I have to be doing XYZ if I want to see these results so that you can actually stay consistent long enough to see the results that you want. So let's get into it. Most people are not failing fitness because they're lazy. It's because we are overwhelmed. And this can come from a lot of different things. Like I mentioned, social media is a big culprit of the overwhelm. All of the information that we have access to all of the rules that we think that we need to have diets, that we're seeing, all the new trendy workout things, we're seeing peptides this big, that there's all of these things now that it's like, oh my gosh, what should I actually do if I want to see results? And so when we're trying to start a fitness journey, or maybe just like actually stay consistent with something, too much information, too many rules, too many expectations, and trying to overhaul your life overnight results in burnout and consistency. Perfectionism starting over every Monday and just honestly feeling like you're never going to be as successful as you know this person that you're seeing on social media. So consistency is usually destroyed by the size and complexity of the plan we are trying to follow. It's not that you're not motivated enough. It's not that you have crap genetics, it's just that typically we are trying to bite off more than we can chew, and when we get overwhelmed, we give up. Okay. So we're going to talk about kind of why that happens and what we can do instead, how to take a more bite sized approach to all of this so that you can stop with the, like spinning your wheels, seeing progress one week, and then falling back into old habits the next week. So why does overwhelm happen? So modern fitness culture is all about extremes, extreme transformations. I did all of these 80 different things. I had a, you know, 30 minute morning routine. I had to start my day at 5 a.m., I had to have these perfect workout outfits. I had to go to a fancy gym. I had to do these types of workout classes or protocols. I had to take peptides. I had to take all these supplements. I have to have a kitchen that looks like something from a magazine with all these perfectly prepped, elaborate meals, right? It feels so out of reach. Everything needs to be optimized. There's conflicting nutrition advice, conflicting advice on supplements and workouts, and what I should be doing or shouldn't be doing for fat loss or for fitness progress. Not to mention just the social media comparison of what you're seeing out there and feeling like, oh my gosh, I'll never look like this person. So what's even the point of trying? So this kind of gets us into this all or nothing thinking. Sometimes we get in these cycles of being extremely motivated, and that's when we get into our all part of the cycle where we're going all in. We're committing to this like crazy, non sustainable routine, a diet with a name where we're cutting out creamer and sugar and no carbs, and getting up and doing fasted cardio every single morning. Right. All of these things. And then when you inevitably reach that point where you cannot continue doing it or you fall off the wagon, then you go into the nothing part of the cycle and you're just like, I give up. I'm going to go back to what is comfortable for me. So common overwhelm thoughts are I need the perfect workout split. I have to meal prep everything. If I don't have, you know, an hour to commit to my workout, then it's pointless. I've already messed up today or this weekend. I've already been social and eating out and so the whole week is a wash. Okay, so here's the thing. The brain is going to resist uncertainty, excessive decision making, and huge lifestyle shifts. AKA when we feel overwhelmed, it leads to avoidance, procrastination, emotional responses, backpedaling to where we feel is our comfort zone, and kind of just avoiding the stuff that feels extreme to us. I notice myself doing this all the time. It's like when we get really overwhelmed by a task that's like looming over us. Okay, so for me, it's like taxes. Like literally doing my taxes as a business owner keeps me up at night because I get so overwhelmed and then I avoid it. I just keep putting it off, keep putting it off because it feels like it's in that bucket of too overwhelming. I don't even want to look at it right. This is what happens to us in our fitness and health habits. So how do we avoid this? How do we actually override this and stay consistent? So sustainable fitness is ultimately going to be built from reducing friction and overwhelm. It's not by increasing our intensity. So I want to talk about kind of how I've experienced this in my own life. If you guys have been listening to the show for a while or following me on social media, you've probably seen my story that I've shared. But I spent much of my 20s in a very frustrating cycle of trying to do everything and feeling like I couldn't get the results that I wanted, which then would lead me to just feeling like I needed to do more and more and more all the time. So when I talk about like a general week in my life, it was like, okay, I'm going to be doing at least 5 or 6 hit and light weight style circuit classes that are 40 minutes long, really intense, going as hard as I possibly can, and those same days also going for a run or doing hill sprints. And I did that at least six days a week, two times a day. Okay, so two days. Most intense type of workouts you can think of I was running, you know, 3 to 5 miles, sometimes more training for half marathons, thinking surely running will help me lose weight, right? On top of that, I was almost always following some sort of diet. I was always cutting carbs. I was always trying to cut out sugar. And then inevitably on the weekends or social events, I would feel like, oh my gosh, I can finally like have a little bit of a break, I'm going to have a cheat meal. And then it would kind of turn into this free for all. And so then I would like, you know, course. Correct. And by Sunday I would feel so much guilt and shame. I feel like I ruined everything. And then I go into the next week vowing to be even more intense and even more dialed in. Okay, so by trying to do so much, I was feeling constantly overwhelmed and I would get to a point every week or every two weeks where I just couldn't do it anymore. Like, I just could not keep restricting and keep doing more and more and more and more. And so because of that, because I was constantly cycling between all or nothing, I kept myself stuck in this cycle for years, and instead of slowly losing weight, I was slowly gaining weight because I was undoing so much of my progress. Whenever I would cycle into the, um, you know, I'm just going to say screw it type of mentality. So it's really important that we address this because I am living proof, and I've experienced this with hundreds of women over the years that I've coached that this one mindset, this limitation, limitation in your mindset of feeling like you have to do everything can absolutely keep you stuck. When you are constantly overwhelmed, it's going to affect your progress. Okay, so we're going to get into small things that we can do, small tips to combat overwhelm in your everyday life so that you can beat this perfectionism. Beat the all or nothing mentality. Okay, so let's dive in. Number one is to shrink the goal. So instead of constantly telling yourself I need to lose £30, I need to lose £50, I need to lose £100. That type of fixating on the end goal is going to just feel overwhelming, right? It's like, of course that feels like too much. It's hard to actually break that down. So instead, we're going to focus on the small behaviors that you need to do every single day that will actually reap the benefits that will get you to that goal. So things like I'm going to have protein every morning at breakfast, I'm going to go for a walk every weekday for 20 plus minutes. I'm going to start doing at home bodyweight workouts for 30 minutes three times a week. Okay. So trying to really nail these types of behaviors consistently instead of just fixating on the end goal because you can't just obsess or hate yourself or shame yourself into achieving that goal. Ultimately, it has to come down to the frequency and consistency of the actions that will lead you to that result. Okay, so those tiny wins are going to not only build momentum, but kind of shift your identity of like, these are just the things that I do now. And you no longer have to overthink it so hard and it just becomes second nature. Number two is to create some non-negotiables or kind of minimum De standard. So even on the craziest of days where nothing is going as planned, you have small versions of success. So maybe even on the craziest days, you're going to vow to still do a ten minute at home workout, or you're still going to go for at least a ten minute walk. You're still going to have one healthy meal that has a foundation of protein and veggies and fruits. Okay, you're still going to go to bed before 10 p.m.. Having a few of these things as non-negotiables might seem so minor. It's like, well, what can ten minutes really do? But when you look at ten minutes compounded over an entire year, yeah, that really, really adds up versus doing something on the opposite end of the spectrum. Those negative patterns really, really add up when you look at them week after week, month after month, year after year. Okay, so instead of telling yourself that it has to look perfect, look at how much progress you can make. If you even dedicated ten minutes of your day to something productive and healthy for you. Think about it like a tiny bank deposit. Yes. Does $10 seem like that much to put into your bank account every single day at the time? No, no it doesn't. It doesn't seem like that much. But when you look at it week after week and then you get to the end of the year, yeah, that's actually a lot of money. Okay. So the same goes for your health. Think about it like those tiny deposits. Number three. Stop with the starting over rhetoric. When you constantly tell yourself, I'll start Monday. I'll start after this vacation. I'll start January 1st. I'll start after. Like I quit this job and start a new job. You are literally priming your brain to constantly come up with excuses for why you can't just do your best today. This constant like procrastination of romanticizing a future date to start something is like, honestly, a brain phenomenon that should be studied. Because we all do this right? We're all like futuristic. It'll be so much easier. It's not going to be easier, though. It's never easy to actually put in the work and just do the thing that we know we need to do. Okay, so stop looking at a futuristic time and stop starting over, okay? One off planned meal is not a failure. So think about it. Like popping all of the tires in your car because you popped one. So then you just decide, oh my gosh, I popped a tire. I might as well just slash the other three and leave my car here on the side of the road. That's literally what we're doing when we say, well, I had a really rough weekend, so I just can't really look at this anymore. I'll try again next month. Okay. Same exact idea and it doesn't make any sense yet. This is how we rationalize it. Okay, so you want to really avoid that mundane mindset. The guilt spirals and the perfectionism beating perfectionism seriously, is the biggest fitness hack that you can possibly have. This is why mindset matters so, so much. So instead of thinking about it like you have to be perfect. Perfect. Think about I'm not going to miss twice. So yes, I had a really rough week and like I was out to eat a ton, had too much alcohol, had a ton of apps or whatever. Okay. So really try to set yourself up for success next week and learn from the mistakes and say, okay, that wasn't awesome. Okay, how can I actually do better next time I'm going out to eat? What are some things that I learned from this experience? Number four is to reduce the amount of decisions that you have to make. Decision fatigue seriously will destroy your habits and your momentum because when we reach a point of being decision fatigued, we just don't care anymore. We're no longer being rational or making decisions from a place of like, really trying to hold true to what we know we need and want to do. Okay. So this is why going to social media for advice will keep you stuck and feeling super overwhelmed. This is why trying to do way too much, or trying to piece it all together by yourself is exhausting. Mentally. There just are some things that you are going to want to have automated in your life. So having repeat breakfast, rotating 3 to 4 lunches, 3 to 4 dinners, maybe throw in some new ones every now and then. When you get bored with those pre selecting your gym dates, trying to go for a walk at the similar time every single day. Keeping grocery staples that you just always order every single week so that you don't have to think so hard about this stuff. Because when you have to overthink it, that's when you're going to get overwhelmed and say, okay, I'd rather just order DoorDash because this is too overwhelming. Boring is a superpower. If you can be okay with being boring, being very consistent with the same basic stuff, you will win in the end. Okay. Number five is to focus on additions versus restrictions. So I hear all of the time like oh, I just can't eat carbs or I gain weight right away or I just can't have any sugar. I can't do this. I can't do that. And when we come from this restrictive mindset, it tends to just make us a little bit more fixated and we're going to be more miserable, miserable. In this process, it's really important to focus on actually being able to enjoy life while you are trying to make healthy changes, build healthy habits, and ultimately, you know, lose the weight, right? So we need to focus more on what are we trying to add, what are we trying to make sure that we do get into our diet versus just what we need to avoid? So instead of always saying I can't eat carbs, maybe focusing on I'm always going to pair carbs with a protein source. So I'm making sure that I balance my blood sugar, or making sure that I get protein at every single meal, making sure that I'm actually getting 1 to 2 servings of veggies every single day. Making sure that I'm getting my walk in after my meals restriction is always going to feel stressful, whereas addition feels manageable and like something positive that you can control. Number six, build your environmental support. This is so, so crucial because your environment will absolutely affect your mindset, your ability to follow through with things and what you start to kind of deem as normal and acceptable. Like if you have people in your circle that are constantly kind of tearing down what you're trying to accomplish in these habits that you're trying to build, you're going to start to think that it's abnormal to want to try to be healthy, right? So here are some examples of your environment supporting your goals. Having protein visible. Having things in your house ready to go so that you're not constantly trying to scramble and figure out how am I going to get my protein in today? Put in workout clothes out the night before. Keeping healthy snacks accessible to you. Deleting food delivery apps if that's like a really bad habit for you. Having a supportive partner who's actually going to hold you accountable. And this might require a somewhat awkward, maybe hard conversation where you have to say, hey, this is a priority for me. I really, really need your support in this. So here's some ways that you can show me support and hiring a coach. Ultimately, if you feel like you are not going to stay consistent on your own, you can kind of know if this is going to be a good route for you based on your prior. Experiences and patterns. If you're someone who always has good intentions to like make the changes but doesn't follow through, then yes, a coach would definitely be helpful. If you're someone who can like make the changes on your own, no problem and really follow through, then maybe that's not the avenue for you, but I would say most people struggle to get the momentum going on their own without someone to really, like troubleshoot where we're getting stuck. Talk through some of those mindset roadblocks, personalizing a program for you as an individual, and not just being like a cookie cutter type of deal and actually following through with going through all of this process with you, checking in, making sure that you're seeing the results that you want to see. So it's going to make good choices easier when you have that environmental support that's constantly keeping this stuff at top of mind for you. Number seven is to use time anchors instead of just falling back on always relying on motivation. So attaching habits to existing routines is so, so helpful because it's really hard to just all of a sudden out of nowhere, be like, I'm going to totally overhaul everything about my day, right? We might have the best intentions, but it's just not realistic because our brains take that overwhelm and then we just want to quit after a few days when it feels like too much. Right. But what does feel manageable is attaching a new habit to something that you're already currently doing on autopilot that is just part of your routine. So, for example, I always like to talk about this one. If you're wanting to get your walks in in the morning and not just like sit and scroll your phone forever, maybe you grab your coffee to go and instead of sitting in like reading on your phone, you do an audiobook, go for a walk, bring your coffee in a to go mug. Okay, so you're still getting that like relaxation time easing into the morning, but instead of just sitting on your couch, you're up and you're moving. You're starting the day with some sunshine. Okay? Or maybe you're going for a walk after lunch every day. You're already having your lunch, so now you're just adding in a ten minute walk after that thing that you're already used to doing every single day. Or maybe while you're watching TV in the evening, that's like a really ingrained pattern for you. You have yourself like march in place for the first 20 minutes before you allow yourself to sit down on the couch. Okay. Routine is going to beat willpower. So if you can start to build these little routines where you're tethering new, maybe kind of difficult habits for you to already ingrained ones, it's going to make it so much easier. Number eight again, we're back to the content. But stop consuming so much social media and fitness content because too much information actually creates paralysis. That is why we are kind of in this spot that we're in right now, where we're in the biggest health epidemic the world has ever seen as far as just lifestyle choices leading to people's death ultimately and just being sick. This is not due to a lack of information. We have more information accessible to us than literally ever before in history. So why are we not seeing improvements? It's not because there's not enough information. It's because so much information is not really translating to action. It's not translating to actually implementing the things that we're reading about and we're seeing on social media. Okay. So oftentimes what this actually looks like is we're constantly switching plans. We start to do something. Maybe we don't see results within five days. So we switch to something else that we see on Instagram or TikTok. We're always chasing hacks. Easy routes, the fastest possible way from point A to point B, instead of doing the hard work addressing mindset issues, looking at your deeply rooted habits, and really in doing the most important things long term, right? Comparison fatigue. It also feels exhausting because we're constantly comparing ourselves to what we're seeing people present online, which is the best versions of themselves. Okay, I know this from posting on social media for the past seven years. Absolutely. People might look at my feet and be like, wow, she's so healthy. She does all these things when I still struggle with, like, my own mental health and my own motivation and not feeling like I'm doing enough. I'm comparing myself to other people online who I'm like, man, they get up at 5 a.m. every day to work out and I can't be bothered to do that. Like, there's so much more motivated than me, right? Okay. So comparison is always going to make you think that what you're doing is not enough. And oftentimes it's that notion of I should be doing more instead of just doing the most important things consistently. We obsess over the the really unimportant, tiny details that ultimately don't matter, like what time of day you work out. You're not going to get a better workout just because you get up at 5 a.m.. Okay, so really obsessing over that and feeling like I'm not good enough because I don't get up at 5 a.m. to work out is a waste of mental energy, and it's just going to derail me. Okay, so you really don't need more information. You need repetition, accountability to actually follow through with a smart plan that fits your life with flexibility. It's not as like sexy or exciting as the things that you're going to see marketed on social media. But that is the secret sauce. If you actually want to get results and then maintain them afterward. Yes, you can get fast results with like the flashy stuff and the fads and all of that, but most people are not actually maintaining. If you look at their success rate a year after they lose the weight, two years, five years, most of these people are yo yoing over and over again. Okay, number nine track something, but not everything. Sometimes when we try to do too much right out of the gate again, it leads to overwhelm. So trying to track calories, macros, steps, weight, protein, sleep, water, workout supplements it just becomes too much. And then we are more prone to throw in the towel. So instead of trying to do everything all at once, pick 1 to 2 key behaviors and really nail those for like a couple of weeks. Once you get in the groove of doing that, can you start to add and layer in some more habits? Absolutely. But start with just 1 to 2, and if you are trying to lose fat, you're going to want to focus mostly on things like calories, protein, steps, workouts. Those are going to be your most important, like big heavy hitters. Okay, so maybe start with just calories and steps and then you can build from there. And our last one, number ten learn to normalize imperfection. I wish that more people talked about how trying to be perfect is going to be the enemy of long term sustainability and success. Real life is going to include vacations, having visitors, stress sickness, injuries, birthdays, low energy days, being on your cycle, emotional eating moments, or stress eating. We cannot only stick with the plan when life presents us with perfect circumstances because it's just not realistic. So you need a plan that is flexible to your life. That's why I'm such a fan of personalized coaching versus just these cookie cutter things where everybody's following the same stuff. It's not going to work long term, it just isn't. You need something that can ebb and flow with the changes of your life, with a real human helping you navigate that. Right. So consistency is not about being perfect. It's about returning quickly back to those important habits that will carry you through for the rest of your life. There may be times of life where you want or need to like, really ramp things up, dial in to get a certain desired result. But honestly, 80 to 90% of life is just going to be nailing these basics consistently enough to see the results that you want without overwhelm derailing your consistency. Okay, so it's really important to get comfortable with all of these ten points that I talked about today. If you want this to be a lifelong pursuit. So if you are someone who is chronically overwhelmed trying to piece together a plan for yourself, not really staying consistent, always breaking promises to yourself, or saying that you'll start again Monday or next month or after this thing. We do have five available spots to work with. One of our amazing coaches on the right fitness plan for you to actually see results. So this could be a fat loss plan with long term maintenance in mind. Hormone gut testing if necessary to troubleshoot why results aren't happening. A fitness plan that's going to support your big outdoor goal. A big hiking pursuit that you have for this year. These are all things that we help focus on in this program. So if you want that next level of support and you're tired of trying to do it on your own and taking one step forward, two steps back, you can apply at the link in the show notes. That's where you'll fill out a couple questions and then we'll take it from there. All right, you guys, I hope that this episode has been helpful and informative and really addressing some mindset stuff that is kind of at the root of all Success when it comes to fitness and nutrition and lifestyle changes for your health. If you guys have episode requests, things that you'd like to hear me talk on. Shoot me a DM at the Fit Underscore for Hiking Instagram page. I'd love to connect with you here. And and also just kind of hear what's like resonating with you guys, what you've been learning. Um, shout us out. You know, give us a review and a rating that is so, so helpful. Or you can share on social media to get the word out about the show. Very much appreciated. And I will chat with you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.