081: Self-Sabotage, Weekends, and Believing In Yourself – Live Coaching Session

Intro

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 81

Hello and welcome to Biceps after Babies radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PRs. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, online fitness coach, wife, and mom of four. My guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise mindset, personal development, and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel, and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you, my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in, now let’s jump into today’s episode.

What Makes Me Different? 

Hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host Amber Brueseke and this week we have a special episode for you, because I am bringing you on the inside. I'm giving you a little bit of an inside look to my style of coaching, I always say that I coach like no other coach out there. I coach macros in a different way from any other coach. And my just coaching in general is something that makes me so unique. And it's something that makes me be able to get clients results in in a way that they never thought possible. And that is because a lot of my coaching is based on the idea and the premise that you have the answers inside of you, that you have everything that you need to be successful already within you. And you just need help from somebody like a coach to be able to access that. And what I find for most people in their journey is that they are asking themselves really crappy questions. The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask. And when you ask yourself a really crappy question, you get a really crappy answer. And so one of my jobs as a coach is to help empower you to ask yourself better questions so that you can get better answers and you can tap into the answers that are already inside of you. I did a whole podcast episode on this idea of asking yourself better questions in your fitness journey, and I teach you kind of how you can start to ask yourself better questions. So if you're interested in that, go back to episode number 51. And you can learn about this concept of how you can start to ask yourself better questions in your fitness journey and thus get better outcomes.

Behind the Scenes of Coaching  2:27  

But today, I wanted to bring you behind the scenes and invite you into a couple of my coaching sessions. Because I think just listening to some of these ladies get coached through some of their struggles and some of their problems is going to be so beneficial to you because you'll be able to immediately apply the questions I'm ask asking the client into your own unique journey. So I have three coaching sessions here for you on the podcast today. Two of them are from my Free Coaching Fridays. So I've been doing Free Coaching Fridays on Instagram. That's been super fun just giving out free coaching anybody who wants to get coaching, they bring them on and we do a coaching session on an Instagram Live. And so two of these are from that and one of them is from inside my MACROS 101 coaching. So in MACROS 101, I do coaching sessions where anybody can come and get a hot seat and be able to get coached through what they're struggling with. So I not only do coaching inside of the Facebook group, if you have a question and you want an answer, but if you need more in depth coaching, you can hop on a call and be able to get that coaching.

FCF – Heidi  5:04

Alright, so first up, we have Heidi, and Heidi had a question about weekends and about going out to eat. And so we dive into her question on that. And if you struggle with weekends, or if you struggle with staying on a plan, when you're going out to eat, you're gonna find a lot of value in listening to this coaching session.

Amber  5:24 

You don't want to cook dinner on Friday and Saturday. And so because of that, your weekends go to pot. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Heidi  5:35

And I'll try to fit them in like My Fitness Pal best as I can. But even that, I just feel like it. I feel like it still sets me back. Like come Monday morning, I feel like I'm, you know, I've gained a little bit. And by Friday, I'm back to where I was, but it's like, I reset myself every weekend and it's just like this cycle which you Maybe then my macros aren't quite right, or I don't know what it is.

Amber  6:02

But okay,so what specifically you said at the end of the weekend, you feel like you've been set back. And you mentioned that maybe this scales up a little bit, is there anything else specifically that at the end of the weekend is making you feel like you're restarting or like, you messed up and you have to restart again?

Heidi  6:20

Not necessarily. I mean, it's not like my clothes fit different, even though I'm maybe off up, you know, a couple pounds or something, you know, whatever it happens to be. So it's not, I just, I know that I feel better. When I don't when we don't necessarily eat out or, you know, I try to make good choices or as best as I can. And I'll make better choices throughout the day so that I can try to fit it in. And sometimes I just won't even track dinner which, again, I know that that's not the worst thing in the world either. But I just feel like I there's a number that I'm at and I'm just stuck there and I haven't ever I can't get past it. So I'm like, I know that something And I need to do but just can't got it.

Amber  7:03

Okay, so is it a matter of like, you not feeling like good after you eat out? Because you because you're not hitting your macros, or is it because of like the fact that you're eating out and that the food isn't what you're not used to or whatever?

Heidi  7:17 

Combination of both I think.

Amber  7:19 

So if you don't feel good after eating out Why are you still eating out?

Heidi  7:23

Yeah. My husband.

Amber  7:26  

Okay,great. Okay. He's an important part of the equation. Yeah. So what like, what, what does your husband say?

Heidi  7:34 

He enjoys going he enjoys getting out of the house. I mean, we take the kids 95% of the time. Yeah, he likes to do that because he'll get to enjoy his beer while we go out. And I, I prefer I don't I don't like to drink my calories. So that's not an issue for me. Yeah, but yeah, so ultimately, it's most although I'm starting to get him on like on board with me. So I feel like maybe we're starting to turn a corner where I can say, hey, let's plan, you know, dinner in, but.

Amber  8:09

Okay, so, um, we definitely have to work with your husband, right? Like this is, this is an important like he's an important part of your journey, but at the same time, he doesn't control your journey. And I want to offer to you that there are plenty of options that you could choose, that would still allow you to feel good and hit your numbers and feel like you're making that progress that that don't have to do with you just telling your husband No, like, No, we can't go out. Um, now I really want to make this clear for everybody listening. We would be having a different conversation if Heidi Heidi right. If Heidi was telling me that she really enjoyed eating out and she liked it was something she looked forward to and she really wanted to quit it we would have been having a completely different conversation. But what I'm hearing Heidi says that she doesn't feel good after eating out like, she doesn't really enjoy it. Like she doesn't really enjoy the way that her body feels. And so if that's the case, like we need to make some changes that are going to help you to feel your best. And so have you ever considered going to dinner with your family and bringing your own food? or eating ahead of time and just enjoying like a Diet Coke while your family eats?

Heidi  9:24 

I haven't.

Amber  9:26 

Like, what would you think about that?

Heidi  9:30 

I don't I mean, I guess I mean, I could I mean, I've got the I've got the ability to do that.

Amber  9:39

Do you do want to do that?

Heidi  9:42

yes. And no. I mean, I, I guess I probably wouldn't bring food along with me. I would probably eat beforehand. Well,

Amber  9:52 

Yeah.

Heidi  9:55 

He would, he would probably get mad at me. Not mad but like, you'd be like, why are you doing this? He would end up turning into probably a little TIFF. Like, well, if you're going to do that, then we just won't go out. And then I would do some great, unnecessary drama.

Amber  10:10 

Awesome. Have you had a conversation with him about this?

Heidi  10:14  

Um, no. But I guess I feel like I'm quote like, well, I will now but um, yeah, like, I'm kind of at that tipping point where I'm just like, enough enough.

Amber  10:27 

Yeah, so so this is a great conversation to have, because I feel like so often we as women, and like a lot of people experiences this way. They like set a goal they have, you know, they want to work toward something they like, are doing their thing. And they're like, why isn't my husband supporting me? Why is he making this harder for me? Why am I having to choose between him and my goals without ever having the conversation and sitting down and having a heart to heart with him ahead of time. So what I really encourage you to do and anybody else listening who is going through a fitness journey, if you have a partner, boyfriend a girlfriend like spouse, whatever it is who is going to be around you a lot. I really encourage you to have a heart to heart separate from any of this event like I would not have the heart to heart right before you go out to dinner. Right like have it on like Tuesday night, right like it's completely separate from the decision. But when you sit down and you have this heart to heart, you come from it from from the perspective of like I am doing this. And here is why it is important to me. And we don't do that often enough where we're like okay, I want to lose 30 pounds. Like I'm going I'm counting macros I want to lose 30 pounds and that's all they hear and what and it's really hard to like get on board with that. But when they hear from you being like I you know what honey like I really want to lose these last 10 pounds. Because I'm at this point I don't feel comfortable in my body and I know that you say that you love me but I know that when I'm feeling my best, I'm able to show up better for you. I just I will feel better if I am 10 pounds lighter and I will really need your support, like you are so crucial. And you're so important in this part of my journey, and I need your support. And here's exactly how you can support me. And then you make the request, right? Like, the thing that I want you to be really careful about when you do this, though, because what's happening in your husband's mind likely, is fear that you changing means he has to change, right? And if it doesn't, and I think it's really important to make it clear that like, honey, this is my journey, but you don't have to change a darn thing. You don't have to change anything. We can go out to dinner, we can do whatever, but I just need you to know that, like, here's how you can support me best. And that may mean that like, yeah, we can go out to dinner every week, but maybe every other week, I'm gonna like eat ahead of time. Okay, and it had but you don't have to change. You don't have to do that. Like we can still go out and have a great time as a family. But I just need to let you know that like for me and my journey, this is what's going to be supportive for me. And when you come back from that angle, if somebody really loves you Like, they're going to want to support you. They're going to want to like, do whatever they can, especially if they feel like they don't have to change. And maybe he will, right. Maybe he'll watch you and He will want to change. And that's great. But you cannot be the driving force in that.

Coaching Session #2

Alright, coaching session number two is Christie . Now Christie had a question about trying to stick to a plan. And we start to identify in this coaching session that what she's experiencing is something that I see a lot of clients experiencing, which is self sabotage. And I define self sabotage as having a plan. You know, knowing what you think you should be doing, and then for some reason, not doing it. And so with Christie, I help her to get really clear on what's causing that self sabotage and what are some steps that she can start to take right now to begin to break through that.

So you have this injury. It's changed maybe the way that you are able to physically exercise and then you said so you've been trying to focus on nutrition but that's hard. So tell me more about what like what's hard about it.

Christie  14:06 

um, I guess the hardest part is probably, so I understand and like the benefits and the the awesomeness of macro counting and I really like it when I have done it. I guess it becomes really hard to stick with that when trying to like feed a family I guess. Sorry, my dog, to feed a family and just stay strict. Not strict but just long term with it. Does that make sense? Like just

Amber  14:48

Yeah, sure. I'm curious though. Like what, what feels the hardest about that like what? What stops you from not continuing on with it? Is there something specific?

Christie  15:04  

Um, I think that's a hard question is it's like Why don't I I guess it just cuz I when I think about it, it's maybe it's just I don't see results very fast and then I lose my motivation and like oh why I just eat this the snack and finish my child lunch instead and I don't want to track that and.

Amber  15:31

Okay, awesome. Very very good job self identifying that. We, that is called self sabotage okay, and it is super super common and the first step to overcoming self sabotage is recognizing it. Okay, so you have already done step one and and what and what I love that you just did Christie and why asked you those questions is because until we can really figure out what you're struggling with, is consistency right now. Okay? Inside MACROS 101, I teach a four step process. Believe it, you have to believe it's possible. Second, you have to learn how to track macros, you know how to do that, right? You know that. The third part is consistency of applying that macros. And that's right where you're at. And once we have that consistency, then we can adjust your macros to be able to align with the results that you want. So that's awesome. You're on Step three, that's great. And you're experiencing what's called self sabotage. And sometimes even just being able to put that into words can be really helpful. What self sabotage looks like, is you don't actually believe the results that you want are possible, or you're frustrated because you're not seeing those results yet. And so then you don't take the action that you need to take in order to get it right and that's what goes on in your head when you're like, the scale was up today. Why would I like not eat this cookie? Right? It's not working anyway, like, why am I gonna like log dinner. It's such a pain. And it's not working anywhere. Right. So that is self sabotage. And one of the biggest things, and I coach this a lot inside of my program, one of the biggest things that that impact self sabotage is all the way back in step one that I talked about, right? So the first step I said is that you have to believe that your success is possible. Right? And then we can learn and then we can get consistency, and then we can get a job adjusting, like accurately. So I want to bring you all the way back to step one. And I want to ask you first, What's your goal? Like, if I could wave a magic wand? And like, magically you woke up? What would it look like for you? What's your goal?

Christie  17:46

Um, I mean, I guess like when I first think about my goal is weight loss,

Amber  17:52

like, specific get specific.

Christie  17:55 

Like, like how much weight loss or like

Amber  17:58

I'm waiting on Maybe there wasn't one What's happened? What happens?

Christie  18:08  

What's happened? I mean, I guess I wake up and I've lost my 20 pounds I can confidently go in the kitchen and eat what I want to but need to and I can do I you know, I don't know, I guess I have the habits I guess that I want that I might wake up I can do what I want. I'm excited to do this. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Amber  18:37  

No. And what I'm doing here is and for everybody listening, right like I'm talking to Christie but I what when I'm talking about and what I'm coaching through, I want you to start applying to your own journey. Because what I'm doing here Christie with you is I'm helping you get clear on what you want. You don't know what you want. You're never going to get there. It's like running a marathon that has no finish line. Right.

Christie  19:00 

Yeah.

Amber  19:01

How are you gonna know when you get? There's no finish?

Christie  19:03

Yeah. I mean, I guess like I say like, for me, I guess it is I want to, I would really love to lose 15 to 20 pounds because I know that's where I'm happiest and most comfortable. But I guess I'm uncomfortable saying that again. Because like, I know there's this whole be happy where you're at and everything, but I'm like, I do want to lose that weight. But sometimes I feel bad when I'm like, Well, I mean, I am okay with where I'm at. But I know that I'd be happy, like not necessarily happier, but I feel better and know that I'm healthier if I lose the weight.

Amber  19:35 

Yeah, so this is this is something that I hear repeated by a lot of women. And I want to empower you with the ability for you to set any darn goal that you want. Okay? Nobody can tell you what goals are okay to set and what goals aren't okay to set. I'm all for body positivity. But when you start telling women, what goals they can and can't set about their bodies, that's gone too far. You can do it, you have body autonomy. Okay, so first of all, I don't think that there should be any shame with any goal that you want to set. Okay? So I'm going to give you permission to say I want to lose 15 to 20 pounds.

Christie  20:17 

Okay, okay.

Amber  20:19  

But what we're going to do right now is we're going to get clear on why you want to do that. Because here's the truth. You believe that when you lose 15 to 20 pounds, you will feel something different. So what I want you to get really clear on is what you think is going to be different. What's going to be different. When I wave that magic wand. Boom, you've lost 15-20 pounds. What is different about your day? What is different about the way that you feel, tell me.

Christie  20:51 

Well, I'm, I feel like I would feel more confident. I think, right now it's a very not confident in my own body.

Amber  21:00  

Okay,

Christie  21:01  

Um, I feel like if I got to that point, I've also, to reach that point, I feel like I have to be like I would be better with my nutrition. So that's something I'd be more confident with. And I would be happier I think with with the way that I would be able to eat and just be able to prepare meals and just be able to do that kind of thing.

Amber  21:31 

This is great. Yep. Anything else?

Christie  21:35 

Well, I feel like also at this point, it's like, I'm, I'm tired too. And I feel like if I can get to that point, I'll be better with playing with my kids and just being able to do things that right now I'm like, oh, like and I can tell like, I'm like, I can't. I can just feel bigger. And so I'm like, I can't move as well. So I'm like, I feel like that would help me with just being better at doing Other things, you know?

Amber  22:01 

Yeah. Awesome. Okay, those are great. So I had three specific things. I heard confidence. I heard that you felt like you'd be eating better. And I heard that you'd be able to like, play with your kids and like, do the things that you want to do. Okay, yeah. So let's, let's pretend that I waved a magic wand. And all of a sudden, you felt confident. You were able to play with your kids and you felt like you were eating healthier. And you stepped on the scale and zero weight loss has happened? What would that be like? What would you think?

Christie  22:33 

Um,

Amber  22:33  

Would you be okay with that?

Christie  22:35 

I feel like I'd be okay with that if I had okay, because that's so I guess. Last year, I guess I was kind of like, when I was weightlifting. I was comfortable with not necessarily losing pounds if I was like, fitting better and things and like the measurements were maybe changed me not necessarily pounds, like I guess I'm not totally set on pounds. That's kind of

Amber  22:58  

That's that's totally fine. Ask you the same question though. If you felt competent, and you could play with your kids, and you felt like you were eating more nutritious food, and you nothing changed, your body looked exactly the same, but you had all those three things.

Christie  23:13  

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I'm not sure if I had the confidence and everything, I probably would be okay with it. But I probably would be questioning a little bit as to like, Well, why is nothing changing? Physically wise, if that's one of my goals, I guess.

Amber  23:33

Yeah. So what I'm trying to do is to help you get really clear on what you want, because the truth is when we set goals like a weight loss goal, or like an aesthetic goal, like there's nothing wrong with that, but when we are setting that goal, the reality is is we have created this goal, because in our mind, something will be different and what I want to offer to you is That all of those things that you told me are available right now. And they are available to you without seeing a change in your body. And so when we can sort of shift this in our mind, and we start going through this process and just looking at the weight loss as success, then we can continue it and not get frustrated.

Coaching Session #3

And coaching session number three is with Kristina inside of our MACROS 101 coaching call. And Kristina had a question about trying to figure out which goal she wants to chase. And I hear this a lot where people like, well, I want to gain muscle and I also want to lose fat. And so I help coach her through this and ask her some questions that you can start asking yourself to really get clear on what your goal is and how you can reach it.

Kristina  24:45  

But my question is, I want a little bit confused. So I have a vacation that I'm trying to go to the beginning week of June. Yeah. And I'm just, I want to overall slim down so I can feel content in a swimming suit. But I know with sliming down, you'll lose your butt. And so I'm like, Is it better to build and then cut or my better to slim? Like, I'm not sure how to set my macros to get where I want to be,

Amber  25:09 

Oh, this is a great question because everybody wants to lose fat and gain muscle. Right? So we all want to do at the same time, but I know that at the same time and like I was telling Sarah they're like, opposite processes, correct. So, so it's like, if you try to chase both, it's like, What's that like? There's like the saying like try to chase two rabbits and you catch neither of them. That's what kind of happens when you try and chase fat loss and muscle gain. It works much better if you focus your attention on one and then on the other. So you have a vacation in June. What what like what is your goal like let's let's take me forward like it's June right now you're ready to go. You're like I look great. I'm I'm at the perfect like body because fill in the blank.

Kristina  25:59  

Oh, we can I want to run on the beach with my kids and play in the water and not.

Amber  26:03

I mean, that's great. That's all great. I want to know what your body is going to look like how like what are we what are we shooting for?

Kristina  26:09 

You know what I'm happily content with just I don't have to be ripped. I just want to be able to fit into a bikini and feel great. I don't have to have a six pack. I don't have to be chiseled. I just want to put on that and look good.

Amber  26:20  

Okay, and so how, like what will need to happen because you don't want it to happen before you get there. Are we talking about losing 20? Like, I don't know anything about you? are we really talking about losing 50 pounds and gaining 20 pounds of muscle? Or we thought like what are we talking about here?

Kristina  26:33  

Yeah, losing 40 pounds and gaining? Probably 15 pounds of muscle would be ideal.

Amber  26:38

Okay. So I'm gonna I'm going to give you a little bit of a reality check. Okay,

Kristina  26:43

Perfect. That's what

Amber  26:46  

we're looking at probably six months to eight months for this to happen, maybe even a year if you're asking to gain 15 pounds of muscle. So okay, um, so That being said, um, I definitely think if with that when someone has something like 40 pounds to lose, starting with the fat loss phase is going to be really helpful for you. Because I know you said that you're gonna like lose your butt you won't lose your butt that much. And and what you will start to find is that you don't really know what muscle you already have. Right? So let's find out what muscle you already have. And then we can go into a building phase from that. So definitely I would set you at a cut, I would put you in a deficit, you have, you know, we could definitely get you 30 to 40 pounds in the next six months to be able to be at that point. And then what I would say is after that, then you could come back and then we could like we could really go on a building phase find out. Do you need to build a butt? Do you need to build like, arms? What do you build and then we can work on that.

Kristina  27:55  

That answers everything. Perfect. Thank you so much.

Amber  27:59

Okay. Awesome,

I hope that that was fun for you to kind of listen into behind the scenes of some women getting coached and kind of start to see the value of how important it is to be able to have somebody with an outside perspective give you guidance, Einstein said that you cannot solve a problem on the from the same level of consciousness that created it. And the truth is, is that our brain creates most of the problems in our life. And which means that you have to get outside of your brain to be able to solve it. And so that is really one of the things that makes coaching so valuable is being able to have an outside perspective, being able to have somebody who has been there has done that and can guide you through the process and can walk you through the steps. I teach four steps inside of my program. The first one is action, and you want to make sure that you're taking the right action. The second step is collecting the right data and we walk through this a lot in MACROS 101. The third step is being able to analyze and interpret that data accurately and I find that this is what separates the women who are able to be successful and keep going and the women who get frustrated and quit. And then step number four is once you understand how to analyze that data that your body is giving you, your body is telling you how what it needs in order to be able to reach the results that you want. Now, step number four is really fun. And this is where we have the right adjustments that can be made to customize this process to you and to your body and to your goals. And that is the steps that I walk my clients through inside MACROS 101, in addition to giving them the coaching that they need, the accountability that they need and the community that they need to be successful. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber now go on and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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