129: Do You Trust Yourself Around Food with Jaime Morocco

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps after Babies radio episode number 129

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, wife, and mom of four.  Each week, 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.

Amber B  0:46

Hey, hey, hey,  welcome back to another episode of biceps after babies radio, I'm your host Amber Brueseke. And today I am interviewing Jaime Morocco. And we dive deep into talking about building trust and building trust with yourself, building trust with yourself when it comes to food. And this is a topic that I find so timely because a lot of you listening to this podcast either have been in the place or had the experience of not feeling like you had you trusted yourself around food. Or maybe you're in that experience now where you feel like you can't have things in the house or you have certain trigger foods or there are things that you just have to abstain from you, you can't partake because it becomes this cascade and if one cookie turns into 12. And I know what that's like like I have been there. And I have experienced that feeling like hey, I can't eat, I got to eat clean, I can't eat pizza, I can't eat any sugar, and being able to hold on to that for a couple of days. And then having that turned into a binge and you know hiding in my closet eating a sleeve of Oreos. And so I've had that experience like I've had that experience of feeling like I couldn't maintain control around certain foods. And here I am years later feeling very much in control very much have a trust that I built with myself.

Amber B  2:14

If you listen to Episode 123, then you heard me talk about my relationship with food and where I'm at in terms of how I view and my perception of food. That's an excellent episode to go back and listen to if you're wanting an example of what I consider a good relationship with food, not that it needs to be your relationship with food. But I feel like I have a very healthy relationship with food and I share more about that in Episode Number 123.

Amber B  2:42

So you know, I've been on both sides of the coin. And in this episode, Jaime talks a lot about building trust with yourself and what that can look like, and how if you don't feel like you have trust with yourself now, what are some of those first steps that you can start taking to rebuild that trust with yourself.

Amber B  3:00

I do want to make a note, we kind of glaze over this idea of reverse dieting in this episode, Jaime mentions this as one of the phases that she talks about. And while she gives a little bit of an overview of what it is we don't dive deep into that topic. So if that's something that you're curious about, or you want to learn more about reverse dieting, how this process works, who it's for all that good stuff, I really recommend you go and listen to episode 9, and 42 of the podcast, and also episode number 114. So if you don't have any idea about reverse dieting, or you want some more information on it, Episodes 9, 42, and 114 are good ones to listen to. And we'll link those all up in the show notes. But those are going to help you to understand who should be reverse dieting, what it is how you do it. And 114 in particular is a really good episode that kind of gives the back-end view of somebody else's experience of going through that process. I talked with a past client about her experience going through her reverse, and so you can kind of hear from somebody's perspective of what that journey is like.

Amber B  4:06

Now before we jump into the episode, I do want to highlight something that we talked about in the episode, Jaime talks about three different phases where you go into a fat loss phase and then a reverse phase and then into a transition into intuitive eating or informed eating as I like to call it. And I just want to want to make clear, we kind of gloss over that a little bit and don't really dive into the details. But one of the things that I think is really important to remember is that the fat loss phase and the reverse phase are not like one-two. So a lot of times people think and I talked about this in my mistakes made it a reverse diet that a lot of people think that they should not reverse it until they have hit their goal. And I think that's one of the biggest mistakes that people can make is feeling like oh, I haven't hit my goal yet. I'm not at my goal weight and so I don't even have to think about reversing until I hit that point. And that's actually incorrect for many and majority of the women, I would say, need to go through cycles of seeking like having a fat loss period, maintaining that weight, that fat loss, going through that reverse maintaining it, and then going back into a subsequent fat loss cycle. And it's through those cycles of weight loss, that you're able to actually then hit your goal weight. It's not this one long, big marathon that you need to keep hanging on and pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing until you hit your void before you go into that reverse. So before we dive into the episode, I just really want to make sure that's really clear, because the last thing I want is for you to listen to us talking about this and say, Oh, well, I don't need to go into reverse until I've hit my goal weight. No, actually going into reverse often is one of the things that will help you get to that goal, get to where you want to be.

Amber B  5:46

Alright, without further ado, let's jump into the interview with Jaime.

Amber B  5:52

I am so excited to welcome Jaime to the podcast. Hey, Jaime, how are you doing?

Jaime  5:57

I'm good. Amber, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Amber B  6:01  

Of course. Yeah, this is we're gonna have a good conversation. I'm excited about what we're going to create together. So first of all, will you just introduce yourself to my audience? And tell us a little bit about you and what you do?

Jaime  6:13

Yeah, absolutely. My name is Jaime Morocco. I am the founder of the dream body dream life coaching program, I help women all over the world, reach, you know, their weight loss goals in a sustainable way and teach them how to become part of the 3% of people who actually lose it and keep it off for life.

Amber B  6:35

That's awesome. So I'm curious a little bit about you. You know, most of the time when we have people who get into fitness coaching, it's because they have some sort of journey themselves that kind of drives them to that point. So I'm curious what that looks like for you. What did you do before you started coaching other people in this process?

Jaime  6:53 

Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up overweight for the better half of my life. I mean, both of my parents actually were very lean naturally. And I feel like what happened to me when I get those genetics, I didn't eat healthy as a kid, I developed some health issues like high cholesterol, I had to have my gallbladder out at age like 17. It was, I was not leading a healthy life. And it really affected me mentally, it affected my school performance. And then you know, one day, my dad dropped me off at college, downtown Boston, and I realized I was going to be off on my own. And I also realized I had to do well in school and that the reason I wasn't doing well in school before was that I didn't feel good about my body. So I there was in college and I decided to make a change. And over the course of the year and a half, I lost about 50 pounds. And you know, it just it really changed my life, it really changed my level of self-confidence. And from like a C-student like A-student, like I just attracted better friendships, relationships, I had just held, I was holding myself to a higher standard. I kind of went on the other end of the spectrum and got a little too skinny. So I get on all all-ends.

Jaime  8:09 

And, you know, after college, I found myself a little too thin. And then I decided to become a trainer. And I put on some muscle not about 1015 pounds of good quality muscle. I was a trainer for several years, worked my way up at a personal training studio, taught classes, manage trainers, coach clients, of course. And then I knew I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. So I, you know, as I work my way up in studios like there's nowhere for me to go. So I actually went back to school for an MBA in entrepreneurship. Knowing that one day I would kind of start in a fitness business of some kind. I finished my MBA still didn't know what that business will look like and ended up getting launched out in the world of Silicon Valley doing the whole startup thing for a while. And you know, that job market is a bit tumultuous. So I went through several layoffs and in between layoffs, my boyfriend now husband, said, why don't you start the online fitness business, you're training your friends on the side, you're giving writing programs, and I was like, totally so I actually built my online business in 2015. And then, you know, I got laid off again in 2016 and decided that's it I'm going all-in on this thing. So I've been all in about business ever since.

Amber B  9:23

And that's so awesome. And when you talk just a little bit about you know, maybe what your business looks like or what specifically you feel like is your superpower in terms of helping and coaching clients to whatever their goals are?

Jaime  9:37

Yeah, I would say that my superpower and this is what my clients tell me as well. So I feel you know it holds true is that I, we are able in our coaching program to help clients shift their mindset. So I always say people like a big part of the reason why most people lose weight and gain it back is that they don't actually trust themselves to keep it. You know, they don't know how to change their story with food, and they don't know how to develop a new relationship with food. So our program is very mindset heavy, and that we help our clients rewrite their story in relationship with food, which ultimately boils down to self-trust. So that's really, you know, kind of the magic of our program. And the reason I call it dream body dream life is because when somebody not only feels good in their body and has that alignment, and sense of self-trust with food, knowing I can go out to dinner, I can go on vacation and know-how that operates in my body, it starts to permeate into other areas of their life, like relationships, jobs, and things like that. So yeah, so that's kind of this superpower, I would say.

Amber B  10:46  

That's awesome. So you've mentioned having a better relationship with food and I feel like this is something that gets tossed a lot around in the industry. It's like, yeah, I have a better relationship with food. And we don't actually, like, get to the granular level of what that actually means. So for somebody listening, it's a two-part question that I have for you. The first one is, how does someone rate their relationship with food? Like how could someone figure out Hey, this is something that I need to work on? Do you have some questions they could ask themselves are a way to kind of pinpoint where they're currently at in that journey? And then the second part of that question is, how does somebody know when their relationship with food has improved? What are some indicators that they can be looking for?

Jaime  11:25

Yeah, that's a really good question. So the first thing is going to be when somebody comes to me, like a good question I like to ask is like, well, what do you consider trigger foods. And you know, you'll find a lot of dieting programs out there, be like, avoid your trigger foods, avoid them, and I tell my clients, I actually want you to eat that. Because it's never the food itself, it's always the lens that we're bringing to it. What I like to tell my client says, hey, let's say cookies are right now something that you call a trigger food, I can guarantee you there was a point in your life where you could just eat one cookie, and it was just one cookie, and that was it. Somewhere some weird down the line, somehow down the line, you picked up this pattern where you had one cookie, and that turned into 10, which turned into 20 or whatever, so we really have to do is change, you know, the trigger and response that's happening. So somebody might be able to determine their relationship to a particular food by simply asking themselves the question like, how do I feel if I hear that, um, you know, I somebody is going to have cookies at their house, or somebody is going to have one isn't gonna invite me over on they're gonna have pizza? Does that bring up fear? What emotion does it bring up? For me? That's a really good indicator to start to take an evaluation of your perception or lens or relationship that you're having with food. I'm sorry, I can't remember the second part of your question.

Amber B  12:43 

Just how would somebody know if that's improving? What are some indicators that they can look for?

Jaime  12:49 

So again, it's all about emotion and what comes out for that person. So let's say for example, that before the cookie would then cascade into emotions of fear, anxiety, if they ate one, then it would turn into I have to eat 10, more the sense of urgency and disconnection with their body. A sign that would improve is if somebody just ate one cookie, and they just ate one cookie and they felt good about it. Because it's never the actual food item itself. It's always the lens that we're bringing to it. And I mean, a perfect example of that is I could have one client that has pizza as a trigger food or food that induces internal anxiety. And I have another client where they're fine with pizza, and it's a birthday cake. So it's like never the actual food. It's always the lens that we're bringing to it.

Amber B  13:37  

That's awesome. So I'm curious, your perspective on this, sometimes there's this idea that there are two different types of people, right, there are people who do better with moderation and there are people who do better with like, just saying no, and just saying like, this is the way that it isn't I do better if I just know that I can't have it. And it almost is like a finite like, this is the way it is. I've had a lot of experience of having women be able to come over to that moderation and be able to learn that moderation, even if it's not their natural default. But I'm curious what your experience has been with that idea of moderation. Is that something that is available to everyone or is that something that is more of a personality trait?

Jaime  14:22  

I really believe that it's something that's available to everybody. I have had clients come to me and they have been like, I just need to not have the foods haven't, not haven't. I've never been it's all or nothing for me it's all or nothing. And they have changed and they have learned to start to trust themselves around those food items again. I mean, the research shows that the more we restrict, the more likely we are to kind of have this more up and down tumultuous relationship with something. So I firmly believe that everybody is capable no matter how black and white all or nothing that you feel like you are that you can learn this idea of moderation because it really does. It just boils down to learning how to trust yourself again, because all of us as kids knew moderation. That's what I tell people everybody did. No kid understands the concept of all-or-nothing behavior. It's something that we've actually learned over time. So I do find that you know, and when I tell my clients is like, my goal for you is that you can be sitting in a room, and it's full of all the foods that one might consider. I don't like labels like junk food, or whatever. And it's full of it. And you trust yourself to know how to eat it in a way that makes you feel good and supports you. That's kind of my goal for you know, my clients and what I help them achieve. So I really do believe that everybody can learn moderation if that is a desire they have.

Amber B  15:44 

Yeah, so good. And the word I was trying to think of before that I couldn't say was abstainers. So sometimes people will say, there are moderators and there are abstainers, and like, I'm one or the other. And I think it's so important when we have that fixed mindset and for those of you who listening who maybe relate to that abstainer mindset, you're like, it's just easier for me to say, no sweets, that's kind of that abstainer mindset. And if you approach it with this idea that like, that's a fixed mindset, that's who I am, I am an abstainer, you aren't going to be able to go for moderation. But I will tell you that like I've seen it, just like Jamie is kind of testifying like I've seen it time and time again, people will come to me who have been abstainers in the past, you can learn to be a moderator, it is possible.

Amber B  16:26

And I love that you're bringing up this concept of trust. Because I think, you know, if we think about our relationship with someone else, or our relationship with your child, and that trust element, when that trust is broken, it needs to be rebuilt. And I think what we see a lot of times with women is that they've broken that trust with themselves in the past. And so it's a process to rebuild that trust with themselves. So Jaime, for somebody who is listening to this and like raising their hand, they're like, heck, Yes, that's me, right? Like, I've broken that trust. I've tried moderation, I've tried the thing, and I've broken that trust with myself. What could be maybe a first step that somebody could do right now or in the next, you know, 24 hours to start to rebuild that trust? Because I think it's important to recognize, and I'm curious what you think about this, I don't think we jump to trust, just like you don't rebuild trust with your partner or your kid or whatever, if they break that trust. We don't just read jump to that trust, just like that. So what could be maybe a first step that would allow someone to get on that pathway of rebuilding that trust with themselves?

Jaime  17:34

Totally. So I'll give you the more mindset more energetic metaphysical, and I'll give them more tactical, I think the first step is that if you think about unwanted weight gain for most people when we put on unwanted weight, and I know been there, done that there's a huge disconnection, right? So arguably a lot of not saying everybody, but for a lot of people. There's almost like an Oh my god, how did I let myself get to this point? Or an Oh my god, how did I gain this or that. And one thing I always say is, if you don't forgive yourself, for the weight that you've put on, you're never going to trust yourself to keep it. So it's not that I encourage people to forgive themselves in a way that's like you did something bad. Now you need to forgive yourself. It's more just like, hey, it happened. It's totally cool. Your past doesn't need to dictate your future. But you need to forgive yourself. Because if you approach your diet as a punishment, see, look what you did, you put on all this weight, and now you can't eat any cookies. That's not gonna work. So we have to almost be like it happened. It's totally okay, I forgive myself for whatever happened and let it go. That's the first. That's the first key.

Jaime  18:42

The second key again, on a more mindset level, is you have to focus more on the person that you want to become. And the person that you once were, meaning that it doesn't matter how much weight you put on, it doesn't matter what your relationship with food looked like in the past, what do you want it to look like? Like, where are we going? And I feel like that's, you know, our job as coaches is a client says, I want to go there. And we're like, cool. Let's focus on that versus like, all of the things that happened before. So you have to be more focused on who you're becoming. And if you can ask yourself the question, what would that version of me do who's at my goal weight and she's maintaining with ease and she feels free around food, what would she do right now at this moment? And if you can start to ask yourself the question, you know, when on your weight loss journey, especially in the beginning, you're going to start to align yourself with her because you're making decisions from that place versus well you put on all this weight, what are you doing? So that's the first step.

Jaime  19:38

And on a very practical level. For example, if a trigger food for a client, I always go-to cookies, because I think that's such a common one. What I tell my clients is if we want to change the relationship, all we have to do is create what I call a tripwire and focus on doing it at one time. So you're gonna take get a cookie to have it in the house. Pre-planted in your day and focus on just getting through that one day with that one cookie one time is enough to start to break a pattern now, is it going to be perfect? No, you might have a few slip-ups and that's okay. But all you need is one experience to start to anchor in your new story with food, the more that you do that, the more you have one cookie, and you're like, Okay, I just had one, I can do this, then you do it again, then you do it again, it's gonna start to tip the scales, literally and figuratively, in the favor of your future self.

Amber B  20:33

That's so good. So one of the things that you teach is talking about three different phases that women go through in their journey. Can you share more about each of those three phases?

Jaime  20:43

Yeah, absolutely. So our framework is called the 3% framework. And the reason that I call it that is because unfortunately, the research shows that 97% of people who lose weight, gain it back. And it is, so my mission to help people become part of that 3% of people who keep it off for the rest of their life. And this framework has three phases. And it really helps people set up for success in the long term with fat loss, because you and I know how much you know, unfortunately, bad information is out there in the dieting industry. And, you know, I know we put out so much trying to help people good information, trying to help people become part of that 3% of people who have a good relationship with food who keep it off. So I found that the best way to approach fat loss is in three phases.

Jaime  21:31

The first phase is where we're working on the fat loss itself, that's where we're intentionally working towards the goal. I like to keep calories as high as I can keep them for clients, especially in the beginning. Because fat loss is a marathon, not a sprint. If you start out mile one on a marathon running your fastest you're gonna burn out by mile three. So the metabolism is highly adaptable, right, and you know that the metabolism adapts if I give somebody 1300 calories, who wants to lose 50 pounds from the beginning, where am I gonna pull from when they hit a plateau. So with fat loss, we keep calories as high as we can keep them especially in the beginning, and I keep cardio as low as I can keep it, I just start clients out with walking 10,000 steps a day. And the bulk of their training is going to be resistance training, which I know you're also a fan of, but that's what's gonna help the body retain lean muscle, as you hopefully shed almost exclusively fat, you're gonna lose a little or you're gonna lose a little bit of muscle anytime you're fat loss, but resistance training. So key to help make sure that you're retaining and in some cases, even building a little bit of lean tissue. Depending on the person, you know, different strategies might need to be used. If you have 100 pounds, you want to lose, I like to utilize different strategies with clients like diet breaks, calorie cycling, just to make sure that you're not going straight through, like in a fat loss phase, you do want to give the body a break if you have a larger goal. So that's kind of the first phase.

Jaime  23:03

Once somebody has reached their desired fat loss goal, the next phase in the system is called a reverse diet. This is obviously not something I made up you know, learned it from those who have pioneered the research before me. This is where we essentially rebuild the metabolism. So what we do is let's say somebody ends their dieting phase at like 1400 calories now we have to walk those calories back up to a more sustainable level. That helps all of the hormones that get kind of jacked up during fat loss restabilize. A reason why this is so important is that most people will just go right from fat loss to eating intuitively, which is not always the best thing to do for a variety of reasons. Number one, when you're in fat loss your hunger hormone, ghrelin is going to increase, your satiety hormone leptin is going to decrease and your fat storage enzymes are had increased. So there you are, you're more hungry, you're less satiated, and you're primed to store fat. The worst thing you could do is eat intuitively. So the reverse dieting is kind of this nice bridge in between fat loss and intuitive eating. So reverse diet, you slowly walk those calories up, I like to get my clients to at least 1900 to 2000 calories a day. And that allows all of those hunger and satiety hormones to stabilize.

Jaime  24:29

So then you can embrace intuitive eating, which is the third and final phase. So once you're, you know, at a good 1900 2000 calories, like I said, you can start to trust those hunger and satiety cues a bit more and it's much easier to transition into intuitive eating.

Amber B  24:44

That's awesome. So, because one of the questions I get a lot is do I have to count macros forever? Do I need to eat you know, eat this way forever? Do I have to track and with my food forever? And the answer is Heck no. Right? Right. We want you and I both want to take our clients to the place where they are, you call it intuitive eating, I call it informed eating. Because I think one intuitive eating is a branded idea, you know, trademarked by somebody else. But two, I think we want to be using our intuition and our body mechanisms hunger and satiety and fullness, and all of those things, in addition to understanding the nutritional components of food, right, so it's like taking both of those is taking the brain, which is like informed about portion sizes, and taking the body cues and putting them together. And I think a lot of times, intuitive eating is just about like the body cues and it's not necessarily about the nutritional components. And I think you can have both to be able to really get to that place where you are eating more intuitively, but you aren't forgetting, like all of the things that you learned. And I think that's a really beautiful place for women to be. So for somebody who feels like that's very far away. Like, they're sitting here listening to us and they're like, yeah, that sounds really nice number, but that feels very far away for me to be able to be at that place. What would you say to that woman?

Jaime  26:05 

Yeah, so I would say the journey is where you're going to grow strong. And one analogy I like to give is, let's say, for example, that today, you decided you wanted to be a surgeon, if tomorrow you woke up in the operating room having to perform surgery, you wouldn't have any idea how to do it, right. So you don't need to know tomorrow, but all of the training and the time and the experience stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks on top of each other. That's where you know, right? The years of medical school, not that it's going to take somebody years, but I'm just giving an example or is what makes a surgeon a surgeon like you're not going to have the answer tomorrow and that's okay. But the beauty of macro tracking, which is something I know you and I both love, it's like you learn so much about what is in your food. And then when you get your metabolism to a place after a reverse diet, where it's just humming along, it's gonna be very easy, you know, to start to make that transition into intuitive eating, because you've taken the time to understand portion sizes and food composition and how your body feels on certain numbers of calories. So it's like, you're gonna know how to do it once you get there.

Amber B  27:22

Yeah, did you know my husband's a surgeon?

Jaime  27:25

No.

Amber B  27:27

That's a good analogy, my husband is a surgeon. So I know all of like the training and stuff that I took to get there, he did not just wake up and like walk into the OR. Anything, I think, you know, to kind of paraphrase, or something I pulled out of what you just said was, you know, the first step is just to believe that it's possible, right to just believe that whether you want to be a surgeon or you want to get to that place where you aren't tracking and weighing your food like the first step is to believe that you can get there. Are you going to wake up one day, and it's just going to be magically there? No, like Jaime saying, it's going to be a process and you're going to work through it. But if you actually can get to that place where you actually believe that it could be possible for you to maintain your weight without tracking, without weighing your food, then we can just sort of trust that you're gonna need to take the first step, and then it's going to be a process, but that you will eventually get there.

Amber B  28:17

Now I'm curious. If somebody comes to you, do you always start with a fat loss phase? Or do you sometimes start clients with a reverse or like a maintenance phase? Or is it always in those three? I guess it's always those three phases in that order? Or do sometimes you mix up the order with clients.

Jaime  28:38  

It really depends on most of the time we do go straight into fat loss because the type of clients that tend to be attracted to us have been yo-yo dieting, but not to a point where I feel like they're metabolically compromised. If somebody has been like, if somebody's like, Jamie, I've been eating 1200 calories for six years. I'm like, okay, like, let's take a look here and see. But still, in those situations, what I often find is even though they might mentally have that as a memory and a belief, it's usually there's something happening where there's over and under, and it's kind of negating any sort of progress. So most of the time, I still do start people off in a fat loss phase, unless, of course, there's like a specific situation where they're definitely metabolically compromised and could benefit from a reverse diet first. And then I do have a few clients. Yes, this isn't something I talk about a ton, but I do have a few clients who we just use intuitive eating, or I know that that's like a trademarked program, but we do use this kind of idea of body cues and intuition as a form of fat loss. Although I'll be honest, it is definitely not the most efficient way. So yeah.

Amber B  29:56

So what do you think is the most, the scariest thing for women who are going from that place of like having gone through the reverse having trusted the process going into this, this phase of doing more informed eating, what would you say is the scariest thing for most women? And how can we start to combat that?

Jaime  30:18

Yes, the scariest thing for people is often like, but how am I going to survive without the scale and My Fitness Pal? And I'm like, I always say like, look, it doesn't mean you can't use those things ever. It's just that you want to know, again, how do I trust myself without them, so that you can go to Europe and have macaroons in Paris, if that's what you want to do without feeling like you have to carry a pocket scale with you, right. So I would say the biggest thing is remembering that they can lean into all of the knowledge and experience that they have attained. That's often the biggest, the hardest part for people is just them being okay and comfortable with putting their tools away. The way I like to teach clients through it is like just start off with maybe like, one day a week of intuitive eating, or maybe just start with one meal, and see how that feels. So it doesn't need to be like this all-or-nothing thing. And also, I feel like people sometimes get really hung up on the labels, like just because you said like, now I'm just gonna, you know, eat out of intuition. That's it, I can never try again, it's like, you get to do what feels best for you. If sometimes you want to pull out your My Fitness Pal, do it, it doesn't mean you can never again, do this, you just want to know that you can trust yourself again to like, if you have to eat intuitively, you know how to do that, right? And you know how to live that lifestyle. And that's another tool in your toolkit versus feeling like you always have to use the scale and My Fitness Pal.

Amber B  31:49

Again, it's really about I mean, I think you said it so well. It's really about shifting that trust from an app into yourself, right. And a lot of women have built this trust because they've done macro counting, they've seen it work, and they've built trust in an app. And that's great. That's a good stepping stone. But ultimately, we want to build that trust in you. And so it's starting to shift that trust over from an app to you. Now, I will say there are some women who are like, I love tracking I, it doesn't bother me, I don't really want to quit, I don't want to move away. And to you, I would say great. Like you don't need to, it's not like you failed this process if you don't ever get to that step. But it's for the woman who is like, No, I want to get to that place. And I don't feel like I can or I don't feel like it's possible for me, that's kind of who we're speaking to, of like, what are some of the first steps that you can take to start to build that trust in yourself if that's where you want to get to. And I think it's where a lot of women not all, not all women want to get there. And that's again, that's okay. But if you want to get there, we're kind of walking through some of those steps that you're going to need to shift that trust into yourself.

Jaime  32:58  

Yeah, and I would say it's something that I noticed can come up for people a lot. And this is just something to be aware of, like, mindset wise, for those listening is like, I tell my clients to use a concept called borrowed belief, meaning that like, I have other clients who have are intuitively eating 2000 calories a day, and they're within your same age range. If they can do it, you can do it. And sometimes that can be really helpful to start with like, wait for a second, she's like, same age, same goals, she did it. Okay, I can do it. But then what the brain likes to say is no, but you're that one special snowflake where your body is going to gain all the way back and, you know, go down that hole, you know, that whole limiting belief story. So be really cognizant of like, what are you telling yourself internally, about your body? And know that again, like, you know, if you want that lifestyle, you can have it and be super cognizant of the limiting beliefs that come up that tell you otherwise.

Amber B  33:59 

Yeah. And so I would ask yourself the question, if you're like, Yeah, I don't really want to stop tracking, like, I don't really feel the need to. Are you making that decision because you really don't want to? Or because part of you believes it's not possible, right? It is part of you seen that? It's not possible. So then you kind of lie to yourself, and you're like, I don't really want to. So that's a great question to ask yourself, and maybe it really is coming from a place you don't want to and that's fine. But I think a lot of women are like, no, I really like tracking, I don't really want to do it. And the reason they're saying that is because they just don't really feel like it's possible for them to be able to replace and it's kind of covering up those beliefs around what we think we can actually accomplish.

Jaime  34:38 

Exactly.

Amber B  34:39

So what do you see as the biggest mistake that women are making in their journey?

Jaime  34:48

The biggest like in their fat loss journey, or just in their or I would say…

Amber B  34:53 

Whatever you can do each phase. You can do whatever you want.

Jaime  34:57

Yeah, so  I would say that they're in a state of more of a state of resistance versus ease. This is so huge, I can't even tell you both energetically and physiologically. So if you find yourself in a constant state of resistance, and some science would be, like telling yourself, I can't do this, I'll never lose the weight, the scale isn't moving, why is everybody else but not me, if you're spending 90% of your time in that state, it's gonna be really hard for you to get to your weight loss goal. And I'm not saying that those beliefs won't come up, but they should be 10% of the time, not 90%. 90% of the time, you want to be in what I call a state of ease, meaning like I can do this weight loss can be easy for me, even if you have to fake it until you make it you want to start to flood your mind with those sorts of thoughts. Because if you're in a state of resistance, not only I mean, I'm kind of into energetics of like attracts like, and I'm kind of into the manifestation, even if you don't resonate with that totally cool. Because if you think about the physiology, if you're in a state of resistance thing, that's what happened for me, I'll never get there. Why can she do it? But I can't, it's not fair. What does that doing? It's releasing cortisol in your body. What happens when we're too cortisol-driven, it makes it harder for the body to want to lose weight, right? Stress causes water retention, and the output of cortisol, which can you know, makes burning fat a little bit more challenging. So, you know, you really want to pay attention to how are you feeling internally and what are you telling yourself, that's the biggest mistake that I see is people spending too much time in that resistant state versus trying to be more in a state of ease.

Amber B  36:45

Yeah, and people know that I am a nurse. And so I am into, like, all the sciency things, but just to add another sciency thing to like, kind of backup, what Jaime is saying on the energy side, consider placebo effect, right? I mean, the placebo effect is a well-documented, well-understood, well-researched phenomenon, where when somebody believes they're getting certain medication, it can cause them to get better, even if they're not receiving the act of medication. And so, you know, we can get, we can get into the woo-woo stuff, too. And I'm all here for like the woo-woo. But I, you know, there's a lot of science behind the woo-woo. And the placebo effect is real. And we know that when people think something is gonna happen, or they think something's gonna fix them, that oftentimes it does. And you know, that's just kind of more evidence to the fact that what you're telling yourself and what you're believing and the lens through which you're looking at life, it matters for the results that you're going to see. So good.

Amber B  37:42

So last couple of questions that I have for you. And this kind of relates to the last question that I asked, but maybe it's a different angle, that you can approach it from somebody, the women who are listening to this are all different parts of their journey. Some are just beginning, some are in the middle of a fat loss, and we're reversing, some are bulking, some are maintaining, right, some are working on strike like that's all over the map. But, you know, there are some underlying fundamentals that everybody can benefit from in every situation. So I'm curious if you could just say, you know, one thing to the women who are listening to this podcast, what is one thing that you like, really want them to understand about their journey, no matter where they are at in it?

Jaime  38:27 

Yeah, absolutely. I would say that the most important thing and this is I feel like I've just, I've repeated myself so much, but this is what just keeps coming up for me is just this going back to this idea of I can trust myself, no matter what, even if I fall off track, even if I overeat, even if I miss a workout, I can trust myself to get back on track with the gym, I can trust myself to have a meal, my next make my meal be one that's gonna support how I want to feel, that is the foundation of everything. And if all of us just worked on expanding the level of our ability to trust ourselves, I feel like we would, you know, we would conquer any goal that we have because that's what everything is rooted in. That is what will ground you.

Jaime  39:19 

A big mistake that I used to make early on my journey was that I didn't trust myself. When I lost the weight and I didn't know how to transition so I ended up getting way too thin because I was like, well, I'll do another five pounds because I don't trust myself to just be in maintenance. I'll do another five, I'll do another five and pretty soon, I was 100 pounds and I had no more five pounds to give right? That was rooted in my ability to trust myself to maintain my weight. And ultimately I had to put on weight at that point. But that's where everything is rooted because if you think about it too, like any time we're overeating and we're putting on unwanted weight keyword being unwanted because sometimes you want to put on weight. Keyword being unwanted we put on unwanted weight. Oftentimes, we're not in alignment with ourselves, right? If we diet it down too hard, and we're pushing ourselves to the limit, and we're going, we're not paying attention to how we're feeling out of alignment with ourselves. So what is the key I have found the key is to turn inward and say, like, I just need to work on my level of self-trust, I can trust myself to do this, I can trust myself to eat in a way that supports I want to feel. And even though it feels far away, I can trust myself to know how to maintain it.

Amber B  40:33

That's awesome. Well, I think repetition is the mother of mastery. So I think we cannot ever repeat things that are important to me at times. And this idea of trust, and building that trust with yourself has come up and I love it. I think it's such a key point for so many women on their journey. Thank you so much for coming on Jaime. If people are wanting to connect with you further, where can they find you?

Jaime  40:53 

Yeah, they can find me on Instagram. My handles just my name Jaime Morocco or my website is also Jaimemorocco.com. So feel free to drop me a note, send me an Instagram dm, and connect with me there.

Amber B  41:08  

Wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your expertise.

Amber B  41:11

I hope you enjoyed that interview with Jaime. And we're able to take some things away from it about building trust with yourself and what that can look like. And maybe what are some of the first steps that you can take to start rebuilding that trust if you feel like you have lost it with yourself. Or if you feel like you have, you know, pretty good trust with yourself how you can continue to improve. And I think this is a question we can be continually asking ourselves, how can I continue to improve that trust, and that relationship with food that I have is my relationship with food effective for me. I mentioned Episode 123 at the beginning of the podcast, where I talk about my relationship with food and that's something that I really hammered home in that podcast episode that there's not a right relationship with food but we can ask ourselves is my current relationship with food effective. And if it's not effective, what can we do to start to build some more of that trust so that it is an effective relationship.

Amber B  42:08

That wraps up this episode of biceps after babies radio? I'm Amber now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

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