Ep. 122 A Sprint/Marathon Approach to Your Desired Weight

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Hi, and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I'm Paula Parker. I'm a life coach specializing in weight loss. So today I want to introduce you to a concept. I have coined the sprint marathon approach to reaching your desired weight. So here's what it is. Essentially you're going to be eating for the rest of your life.

Okay. So we need to learn how to not overeat versus something like alcohol, where if you feel like you're overindulging with alcohol, you can literally just cut it out. with nothing but emotional, potentially social consequences, but I would still count those as emotional consequences. But with food, it's a little bit different, right?

So I think of it as a marathon. When it comes to not overeating, it's like a marathon. You're going to be doing it for a long time. So this is like your baseline. You're still on the path. You're running, but it's a sustainable pace. You can keep it up for long term. Also, it can be a challenge. Right?

Sometimes it feels effortless. You're on a runner's high. It's no problems. And then other times, it feels harder to keep going. Like you're going up a hill. If you are a runner, you know that some days it just feels like your legs are concrete. It's like you're having one of those dreams where you just can't push forward.

And then other days, you just, you're just racing around feeling so fit. Like it's so much, It's easier, right? So it's kind of the same thing with a marathon in terms of your eating. Some days it can feel really hard not to overeat. Other times it feels effortless. So the focus here is to stop the overeating, the focus when you're in a marathon.

Okay. So your first goal is to get here and have this be your baseline. Have this be your normal, how you show up with food is just. Eating what I call like a natural desire for food, which means you're gonna reach your natural weight, which likely You know, we could think of it as desired weight your desired weight.

Okay. So what does this look like? So to reach your desired weight, you're going to need To stop overeating and allow your body to release excess fat. And there are three steps to do that. Super simple, not so easy. Okay, so first step is only eat when you are very hungry. Not the, you know, I could go for some food.

When you eat, when you're, you know, only slightly hungry or you have the suggestion of food and you feel a little bit twinge of hunger, but you're not. Very hungry. You're likely to maintain your weight. You're likely to stay at your current weight So you'll need to allow your body to get hungry if you're never hungry You're preventing your body from using the fat stores as energy and releasing weight If you eat three big meals a day With snacks, you may not be feeling that much hunger throughout the day that will need to change to release weight.

The next step is stopping at enough. So what's enough food for you? Yes, it might be helpful to know the basics of your macros. Now I used to work with a couple of bodybuilder guys and they gave me a macro budget essentially to follow. And although I don't necessarily recommend that for everyone, I do think that it can be helpful just to track maybe a day of your food intake just to get an idea of how many carbs, how many fat you know, grams of fat or how many grams of protein you're really taking in for, I think for me personally, and for most women.

We're just much lower on protein than we think. Okay, so most women need approximately around 100 grams per day. Now again, if you really want to dial this in, I would recommend talking to a nutritionist or looking this up for yourself based on your age, what your weight goals are kind of like your activity and any kind of health issues that you have.

Okay, but in general, if you want to get a sense, it's approximately 100 grams per day. When you get skilled at tuning into your body, you'll be able to sense when you've had enough food. Now, something that can get in the way of that is any kind of leptin resistance. Leptin, of course, is the hormone that tells the body that it's had enough food or, or, you know, tells the system that it's had enough food.

So if you have leptin resistance, you might notice that you. finish your meal and you're still hungry or you just notice you're eating a lot more than other people around you. It could be some leptin resistance there. So you're going to need to address that by essentially diet changes, right? When you're eating, how much you're eating and what you're eating.

When you make some dietary changes that will change. And then you will really be able to trust your body to know, okay, I feel full. I've had enough. That's enough food for me. You'll know when to stop, okay? The harder part for most people is then stopping once they've sensed that. So how many times have we overridden our body's cues and put more food in than it needs?

Because we're thinking, it's so delicious, or we don't want it to go to waste, or you know, a little bit more won't hurt. It could even be a subconscious prolonging of the eating experience. So maybe you've had enough physically, but you don't want it to end. You don't want to transition to the next thing after you're finished eating.

So you really need to learn how to stop that habit and not listen to these practiced and often very convincing justification thoughts. All right, step three is choosing foods that serve you. You'll want to be, of course, choosing foods that make you feel satiated and energized. protein, vegetables, healthy fats.

You'll want to be reducing foods that cause your body to stay in fat storage mode. These kinds of foods are going to spike your blood sugar, spike your insulin, sugar and flour being the main ones. Okay. So this marathon stage might be all you ever need to do to release the excess fat from your body and reach your desired weight.

You might need to start there. Eat only when you're really hungry, stop at enough, not one bite more, and choose foods that serve you. Okay. Also, there will be times when you might want to accelerate or optimize fat loss. It might be because you're feeling very inspired and you're feeling like you're ready to challenge yourself.

You feel really good and you feel confident, and you're a little bit curious about what you can do when you put your mind to it. Or maybe it's because you've been at the same weight for a few weeks or more, or you have actually. Recently gained weight, which happens our weight fluctuates. It's not a problem, right?

But if you've gained weight higher than your weight range, which is about three to four pound range, you might be considering What am I about to talk about which is the sprint aspect of it or maybe you notice that you're in a drift Which I just talked about on episode 121, tapping into determination.

So if you're curious, what is a drift and how do I get out of it? Right. You get a sense of what it is by the name, but if you're noticing, you're kind of drifting away from your healthy habits and your weight loss goal. Be sure to listen to that one if you haven't already. Okay. So you might want to optimize fat loss because you have a wedding coming up.

And you want to feel super comfortable in your dress and look your best. There is literally no judgment over here for your reasons. So long as you feel good about them. Okay. And for you, maybe it might not be so much about fat loss. But you want to feel better. You want to double down on your healthy habits.

Maybe you've noticed you're on your phone a little bit more than you'd like. You're not drinking as much water as you used to. You're just feeling kind of puffy and lethargic and not optimal in your body. So think of this as a sprint, okay? It's simply a period of time when you're going to take a break from something, maybe phone usage, alcohol, sugar, peanut butter, just taking a break during your sprint.

It's not something you plan on keeping up forever. Although you might, you might notice it feels so great. You keep it up. You incorporate it into your marathon to use this analogy. Essentially, you're highly focused. We've all heard, don't try to take on too many things at once, right? And I think that can be good advice, but I don't know.

I'm sure that you've been able to do more than one thing at one time. So I don't really have a hard and fast rule on this. I other than, you know, you decide what you have the capacity for. I see benefits to both. I can see a real benefit in focusing in on one change that might be a challenge like eating only when you're hungry.

If currently you really avoid hunger. And I see a real benefit with pairing that with other changes to like drinking more water or going to bed early. So I think the general guideline around this is don't try to take on too much at once and then quit. That's the risk. You fall into that all or nothing trap.

So, but also, what is too much for someone else may seem pretty manageable and doable for you. So personally, I like leaning into the idea that I can always build my capacity. I'm always working to build my capacity. Even on tough days, still building, right? Still working to handle more. Which might include a nap, which might include, you know, knowing when to rest so that I can bounce back and build my capacity up.

This isn't about hustle or anything like that, but you know, I digress. Okay, so where are we? Okay, a sprint. So, you are on a sprint, you are essentially trying something new. Changing things up to your way of eating or your health protocols to stimulate change or challenge yourself now You may be thinking isn't this a little all or nothing There's a whiff of diet starts Monday mentality lingering in the air here and I see how you might be thinking that I want to clarify how it's different so that you don't fall back into that diet mentality trap.

When you are not in a sprint, meaning you, you know, sprint is highly focused on something in particular, fat loss, fasting, taking a break from ice cream, you're running the marathon. Meaning, you're not on and off, you are always on, you are always running, okay? You're just not overeating. And remember, for some of you, this is enough work in and of itself.

So only consider a sprint when you have already been running your marathon effectively. Meaning, you're not overeating or overindulging. If you are, a sprint is not for you, okay? I'm sorry to say. But your job is to get back up running. Eating. without overeating. That means allowing urges to overeat eating only when you are very, very hungry, stopping in enough and choosing foods that serve you.

It's not a time for a sprint when you are, you know, cramping up and can barely walk. This approach also may seem like a contradiction to things that I've said in the past. Like, how you lose the weight is how you keep it off, or don't eat in a way that you can't do for the next three years conceivably, which, you know, I've said these things before.

So how does a sprint factor into those ideas? Well, again, you're going to be eating for the rest of your life and paying attention to what's going on with your health, your weight, and your body. So there will be times when you are more flexible in your eating habits and you have, you're having more indulgences like Christmas or whatever, and then there will be times over the course of your life when you want to dial it in.

When you're focused. So I don't really see this as a contradiction. I think where it goes wrong is when we try to maintain a sprint. So a diet that's not sustainable given who we are and the lifestyle we want, or it's simply just too impractical. So you will change. Your desires will change for how you want to eat and what you want in terms of your weight.

You might decide you're far less focused on the scale and you care more about your health. You care more about the blood work that you're getting back from your doctor. You care more about your flexibility or increasing your muscle mass, the ease of movement in your body. So this sprint marathon approach allows for that.

Inevitable evolution. I hope that was helpful for you. I think sometimes having a framework helps us think about food, eating, and weight loss with a new perspective. If you're finding it hard to simply not overeat or overindulge, give yourself at least a few days Weeks or even a couple of months of getting that under your belt before you double down and go for a sprint but if you are feeling mentally physically and Emotionally ready to take on more than I say go for it.

Just be sure to be kind to yourself during the sprint, right? It's a challenge time There will likely be hard parts, but you can do it and I'm here to help. So book a call with me. It just might change your life. I know that sounds audacious, but I see it every day with my clients. It's so amazing. It's so incredible.

The change that we can make with our own brain. So if you are up for it, go to mindfulshape. com or you can click the link in the show notes and book a call with me and we'll get started. Okay. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.