335: If I Wanted To Lose 20 Pounds, Here’s What I Would Do

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 335.

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 PR's. 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.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and today's topic is such a good one because it's one that is so pertinent to so many of you who are listening to the podcast, and that is this question of, how do I get started? How do I get started on the right track if I have 20, 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds to lose? What are the first steps that I should be taking to be able to make that happen? And boy, do I have an answer for you. Now, as I was outlining this episode, I kept going back and forth between wanting to give you a lot of content and ideas and ways to get started that feel really doable, and then walking this line between giving you a lot of content and not making you feel overwhelmed or you have to implement all of these things at once. So I just wanted you to know up front that I'm walking that line, and I am going to give you 10 things that I would do if I wanted to lose 20 pounds. And you will see that some of them are really practical, and some of them are more mindset-oriented or more ways that I'm thinking about this. So while there are 10 things, I don't want you to get overwhelmed and say, oh, I got to implement all 10 of those things right at the get-go. No, I'm just giving you kind of steps that you might want to be thinking about as you embark on this process. 

The Transtheoretical Model (also called the Stages of Change Model) 02:07 

But before we dive in, we have to address this elephant of the room of why haven't you started yet? And if you ask yourself that question, there likely are some reasons that have come up of why you haven't gotten started. I think there's a model called the transtheoretical model of the stages of change. And I think it's really good in helping us to understand that we're not always ready for change. And there is a process that people go through before they become ready for change. And as I go through this, you might kind of identify of where you're at in these stages and how close you are to that stage of being ready to make a change in your life and being really honest with where you're at in this process.  

So in the transtheoretical model of change, there are five stages, and it starts with pre-contemplation. So this is the stage where you're not ready. You don't have any plan to take action in the next six months. Maybe you're lurking. Maybe you're following some people who are demonstrating change that you want to make or you're following macro counters, but you don't really have any plans to take action. You're just kind of watching.  

And then the next stage is the contemplation stage. This is when you're getting ready. You have a plan in your mind that you're going to take action in the next six months, but you aren't really ready to do it right now. You're just kind of thinking about it, thinking maybe it will happen in the next six months. 

Then we have the preparation stage. This is when you're ready. You're ready to take action in the next 30 days. You're feeling that push to actually be ready to make that change.  

Then we move into the fourth stage, which is action. That's when you're actually making the change. You're actually changing your behaviors. You're changing the way that you're eating. You're changing the way that you're working out. You are actually in that action stage, but you've been making that change for less than 12 months.  

Then we move into what is called the maintenance phase, where you made the change 12 plus months ago. Now we're into this phase of keeping up the change. Hopefully a lot of this has become habit, so you're not having to consciously think about it so much. It's just kind of become the way that you maintain and live your life. That's 12 plus months after you've made the change. 

As I go through those different stages, maybe you can kind of identify where you may be at in that model of change. Maybe you're just kind of a lurker or a looky-loo, and you're just kind of watching and thinking, I'm not really ready to make the change, but someday maybe I'll be ready to count macros. Maybe you're in the contemplation where you've been thinking about it. You've been testing it out. Sometimes we go in and out of phases. I hear people a lot who are ready to make a change. They start taking action, and then they back off, and they kind of go back into that preparation or that contemplation stage. We can kind of go backwards and forwards through these, but I think this model of change helps us to understand that it is very normal for us to move through these cycles of thinking about change, kind of planning for it in the future, and then finally being ready to actually make that change.  

Embrace imperfection and start messy 05:08 

I will say one of the things that I see holding a lot of people back from moving into that action phase is this idea that they would need to do it perfectly, or if they're going to get started, they want to do it right. While I appreciate the desire to, you know, if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it well, I think for a lot of people that actually becomes a barrier or a roadblock that stops them from even getting started, because this idea, it's like, I'm going to do it well. I'm going to go all in. I'm going to be intense. If they can't do that right now in their life, if they can't do it perfectly, then they don't start. And so I think it's really important to be honest with ourselves and recognize one of the things I tell my MACROS 101 clients all the time is to make it messy. Make it messy. It doesn't have to be perfect. Make it messy. And by lowering that barrier of entry, because I think that idea that it needs to be perfect is a very high barrier of entry, and it keeps a lot of people out from getting started. So if we can lower that barrier of entry and make it messy and make it, it doesn't have to be perfect. And let's just get started. We can give ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, to not do it right. But the fact that you're getting started puts you ahead of everybody else who's holding back because they can't make it perfect. 

So as we talk about what I would do, if I was trying to lose 20 pounds, that's one of my biggest things is like, let's make it messy. It doesn't have to be perfect. Lower that barrier of entry for yourself and allow yourself to not do it well, but getting started is going to put you ahead of where you would be if you had to have it perfect. And then you don't ever get started. Okay. So I have 10 things, again, don't get overwhelmed, 10 things that I would do if I wanted to lose 20 pounds.  

Be proactive and not reactive with a cut 06:53 

Number one, I would be proactive and not reactive with a cut. Let me explain the difference. Somebody who is reactive and going into a cut is somebody who steps on the scale. They see a number that they hate, they freak out and they're going, you know, jumping in today. They're just start their cut today. Or you look at a picture and you hate it and got to start today. Got to start eating healthier today. And listen, I'm not above like, I'm not saying that we can't have those pivotal moments where like your life really shifts and you really hop into that action phase. What I think is really important is that we're going into a cut that we're planning for it, that we're scheduling it, and we're fitting it into our life. What I see a lot of women do is being reactive and jumping into a cut and it's not a good time for you. You are slammed with things at work. 

It's the wrong time of the year. You have a trip planned in three weeks and you're making this decision to jump into a cut, which requires time and energy and effort. And you're doing it in a phase of your life where you're really not, it's not really not the best time for you to do a cut. You're just doing it reactive because you don't like the way you look, or you don't like the way they feel, or you don't like a number on the scale. And I think that that is probably the worst way to make a decision about when you're doing a cut. And instead, I love to have my clients step back and say, how can I plan for this? When is a good time for this? When can I have the space to dedicate the time, energy, and effort to this process? And I think like doing that is going to already set you up for so much more success. So if I wanted to lose 20 pounds, I would be looking at my calendar and saying, when can I dedicate this time? When can I dedicate this effort? And how is this going to fit into my life?  

Plan out when to do a cut 08:36 

Now don't mistake that for saying that there aren't things that you can't do right now. So that's step number two is, yeah, I'm planning out for when I'm going to be doing my cut, but there are things that I can be doing right now that are going to set me up for success. And the biggest thing that I want my clients doing is gathering data about what you are doing right now. Do not start a cut without this information. This is a big mistake I see a lot of women making is they just dive into macro counting, they set their macros and they're going, and they don't have any context or information about what they're currently doing. It's important to understand that what you are currently doing is creating the results that you currently have. And if we can get familiar with that and understand that a little bit better, we can zero in on what are the easiest things to shift? What are the little tweaks that we can make? Instead of having to make these over like huge shifts in your life, we can do little tweaks that are going to net you a big benefit down the road.  

So I want you to be able to answer the question, how many calories are you currently consuming? How many steps are you taking on average? What's your current workout schedule? And how many days are you actually doing that schedule? How much fiber are you currently eating? How much protein are you currently eating? What's your current weight? What's your current body composition? What's your current measurements? And taking these over a period of time without changing anything is going to give you so much context and data that will be incredibly valuable when you actually start your cut. So again, if I'm thinking, okay, I want to start my cut in a month from now, because that's a good time for me to start. This month is very, very valuable to be able to set me up for success, to dive into that cut. So if I'm thinking about that over the next month, I'm going to be tracking just my normal intake. I'm not necessarily changing the way that I'm eating. I'm getting into the habit of tracking. I'm getting over the learning curve of tracking, and I'm just gathering data and just seeing how many calories do I consume on an average basis? How much fiber am I currently eating? How much protein? Again, I'm not trying to do anything different. I'm not trying to change anything. We're not making that change yet. We're just getting aware of what you're currently doing.  

And I'm telling you, if you take the time to do this, it is going to make your cuts so much easier, so much faster, and so much more successful, because you are going to know how to zero in on the things that are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck. I'm also starting to take a daily weight. Again, we're not trying to make this go up or down. We're just getting an average. We're just starting to understand our body. One of the things my MACROS 101 clients say a lot to me is that they gain so much by doing a daily weight over a longer period of time, meaning women are tracking their daily weight over a month's period of time for the first time in their life, and they're starting to realize, hey, during my cycle, it's very normal for me to just shoot up six pounds. And then I start to know after my cycle that those six pounds come off. 

So now you can anticipate that, because you understand your normal body cycles. You understand your normal water weight fluctuation. And so just even taking that daily weight and looking at it over a month's period of time is going to give you so much context for when you jump into that cut to be able to understand your body a little bit more. I know you're excited to change things. I know you're excited to dive in and make all of the adjustments. But I promise you, this is part of the process. If you take this seriously, you take this data gathering period of time seriously, it's going to support you so much when you actually do go and jump into that cut.  

Determine your non-negotiable 12:17 

Okay, number three, I would determine my non-negotiable. So I teach this in MACROS 101 about how to really decide what is important to you and what you're willing to let go of. So I call non-negotiables things that I'm not willing to change about my life in order to get the result that I want. So for some people that maybe I'm not willing to give up date nights on Friday night. If you put it before me and you said, Amber, do you want a six pack and never go on a date night again? Or would you rather have a date night every Friday and not have a six pack? Which one would you choose? And I would answer that question honestly. And that would determine how I set up my plan moving forward. If date nights for me are non-negotiable, well now I build my plan around the fact that I'm going to be doing that. Some people's non-negotiables is like, I will not weigh my food. That's a non-negotiable for me. Great. Awesome. 

Knowing that we can build your plan around not weighing your food. Some people really want to limit tracking. They don't really love tracking. They want to make it as fast and as easy as possible. So maybe that's a non-negotiable for you is being able to track my food in less than five minutes a day or whatever you want to set a number on it. Then we might make decisions in your plan about, hey, let's repeat meals. Let's have you eat the same thing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or let's repeat every Monday you're eating the same meals. That way you're limiting that time of tracking. And maybe you're giving up a little bit of variety, but again, you have to decide what's your non-negotiable. Is it I want variety every single day and I'm willing to spend the extra time to track it? Or I'm okay with not having variety if it means that I'm spending less time tracking. Determining your non-negotiables is incredibly valuable because it makes decision-making as you set up your plan and how you're going to approach this fat loss period of time. It answers questions for you ahead of time, right? If I'm having to choose between going out to dinner and getting extra fat loss, I know what my priorities are and I'm able to structure my plan accordingly. 

Create a moderate deficit 14:23 

All right, number four is to then create a moderate deficit. Now, if you have done what I told you to do and you spent that time ahead of time tracking your normal intake, then you're going to have a really good set of information to be able to know what would be a moderate deficit for me, right? If you have been tracking your food for the last three to four weeks and you know that on average you eat about 2,200 calories, you know how to create a moderate deficit. We're creating maybe a three or a 400 calorie deficit. I usually go in percentages, so it's usually like a 15 to 20% deficit of whatever you've been maintaining on. And that becomes really easy to create if you have that data. So this is another reason why I think spending some time just tracking what it is that you're currently doing can be so valuable when it comes to trying to create this moderate deficit. 

We're looking for something that you can do for weeks to months, right? If you are looking at your goal calories and it is scaring you and you're worried about it, that is not a good sign. You want to create a caloric deficit that you can sustain because that will always, always, always get you more results than something that you will fizzle out on. So I'm always looking for creating this moderate deficit. We're not looking for anything extreme because we're in this for the long haul. I not only want to lose 20 pounds, I want to keep it off. And that requires a very different process than if I just want to lose 20 pounds as fast as possible. 

And so many women come into this process with the mindset of, I want to lose 20 pounds as fast as possible. I get it. You don't like where you're at. And you have this idea that there is going to be better than here. So of course you would want to get there as fast as possible because you don't like where you're at. But what I got to tell you is that that mindset of going into a cut with that mindset of like, I got to get out of here. I got to get to my goal as fast as possible is going to set you up for long-term sadness, long-term not being successful. Because the process to get somewhere as fast as possible is very different than the process to get somewhere permanently.  

I'm going to say that again. The process to get somewhere as fast as possible is very different than the process to get somewhere permanently. And what I see a lot of women doing is because they want it to happen as fast as possible. They go very extreme. They cut out food groups. They drop their calories super duper low. They're adding on tons of cardio. They're restrictive in their food intake and they fizzle out. They're not able to sustain it long-term. And so what happens, and if you're listening to this and you've seen this in your life of where you yo-yo, you can lose the weight, but you can't maintain it. And then you just yo-yo back up and then you lose the weight and then you yo-yo back up. And oftentimes the hard part about this is when you yo-yo, you end up at a higher weight than you started at previously. This is the cycle that we see for so, so many women. 

And it's because you're approaching it with this idea that I want it to happen as fast as possible, rather than I want this to be the last time I have to do it. They're very different processes. So when we're creating this moderate deficit, again, we're not going anywhere extreme. We're trying to make honestly the smallest changes possible to get the biggest bang for our buck. In MACROS 101, I'm always trying to help clients look for what I call the low hanging fruit, right? We want the things that are like super simple to change or easy to shift that produce a big, huge result. You know, things like maybe you're drinking a coffee that has 500 calories in it every day. And you're just now realizing, man, that has way more calories than I thought. And it would be fairly easy to get that from 500 calories down to maybe a hundred calories. And that's not too hard. 

Now we've just cut out 400 calories with one little change that we're making, right? That's a low hanging fruit. Alcohol also becomes a low hanging fruit for a lot of people. You don't have to cut out alcohol, but as you start tracking macros and start making decisions about what's worth it and what's not to you, alcohol becomes a lot of calories and doesn't have much nutrition to it. And so again, we're not saying you have to cut out alcohol, but that can become a low hanging fruit. Even if you're cutting back on your alcohol consumption, that can net you a ton of extra calories that were essentially wasting in alcohol. So I'm always helping clients look, let's look for the low hanging fruit, right? Maybe you didn't realize that the peanut butter that you were putting in your smoothie was netting out to, you know, 300 calories. And it would be very easy to scale that back to 100 calories. You just save 200 calories with one very little switch. So look for the low hanging fruit when we're creating this caloric deficit, this moderate caloric deficit. We're not trying to overhaul everything. We're just trying to make little tiny tweaks.

Set My Macros Guide 19:18 

And if you are looking to set your macros, I do have a free setting macros guide that I'll link out to in the show notes, or you can go to bicepsafterbabies.com/setmymacros, like all one word. And that's a free guide. I think over 60,000 people have downloaded that guide. So it's gotten a lot of use, but it's a free way to be able to set your macros and be able to get started creating that caloric deficit, moving in the right direction when it comes to your calories. Again, you can find that guide at bicepsafterbabies.com/setmymacros. Or if you go to the show notes for this episode, we'll link it in the show notes as well.  

Focus on your protein, calories and fiber 19:59 

All right. Number five is I want you focusing on three things when it comes to your nutrition. I want you focusing on your protein. I want you focusing on your calories, right? Creating that moderate deficit we just talked about and focusing on your fiber. 

And when we're talking about protein intake, I want you to be eating around 0.8 grams per pound of body weight. This is an average. If you have a lot of weight to lose, right? We're talking like 75 plus pounds. I don't know, maybe 50 plus pounds. You may want to drop that a little bit. You can kind of get away with a little bit less protein intake, maybe like 0.6, 0.7. If you are pretty lean and you're wanting to get leaner, we need to bump that up to like that one gram per pound. If you're like trying to get stage lean, we might pump that up to like 1.2 grams per pound. But on average, I find for like the average woman, 0.8 grams per pound is going to stretch you. It's going to require you to focus on your protein intake, but it's not going to be so high that you get frustrated and discouraged that you're never going to be able to hit it. 

Another tip here is again, and this comes back to what I said before, taking that time to take inventory of what you're currently doing is look at your current average protein intake and increase it by 20 to 25. If you're taking your average current intake and let's say it's at 60 grams, instead of calculating 0.8 grams per pound, I might just bump you up to 80 or 85 grams. That's going to be a stretch for you. It's going to require focus and effort, but it's not going to be so far that you get discouraged because it's unattainable or unachievable. So aiming towards that 0.8 grams per pound is where I'd love you to be, but we can stair step our way there so it feels much more achievable. But I'm focusing on those three things. I'm focusing on my protein and hitting that protein daily. I'm focusing on hitting my calories, having that caloric deficit, and I'm focusing on my fiber, which I encourage my MACROS 101 clients to get between 25 and 35 grams of fiber a day. And if you're hitting those three targets, protein, calories, and fiber, that's like 95% of your nutrition and getting the best results for probably the least amount of effort and energy and mental work. 

And adding in that fiber goal is also going to be really helpful in steering you towards more filling foods and more whole foods. So we're also balancing that, like getting nutrition in. That's one of the biggest beefs that people have with macro counting is that technically you can hit your macros and eat McDonald's all day long. And you could. That's possible. When you add in that fiber goal, it helps steer you towards, there's no way that you're going to eat just McDonald's and hit your macros and hit your fiber. So I like adding in that fiber goal because it helps people to get steered towards some of those more whole foods. Again, foods that are going to make you more full because fiber increases satiety and it kind of helps with that balance. So that's what I'm focusing on, protein, calories, and fiber. 

And listen up, I'm only being as accurate as I need to be. This is a big one when it comes to macro counting. I see a lot of women feeling like they have to be super uber accurate and maybe because it like attracts some type A type people. Listen, I'm a type A person. Like I get it, but we come into this idea that it has to be perfect and I have to zero out my numbers and I have to like weigh everything. And if I can't weigh it, then I'm not going to log it. And let me tell you, that is only working against you. Instead, I like clients to only be as accurate as they need to be. Meaning if you're just starting out estimating, fantastic. Let's see what results you can get just estimating all of your intake. And then you can make the decision of like, Hey, I'm not getting super fast results, or I'd like it to work faster, or I'd like to, I'm excited about this. I want to keep moving. Okay. Maybe then we move to something a little bit more accurate. Now, maybe we move to weighing your food because we can turn up the accuracy. We can turn up that a little bit. And maybe you do that, but you're still like estimating when you go out to eat and you're still estimating sometimes when your partner's making dinner or whatever. Right. 

So there's still estimation going on. And maybe you're like, okay, you know, I want faster results or I'm, I'm in this. I'm, I'm, I'm ready to go. Okay. Maybe now we're weighing everything, right? We're moving into like weighing more than not or weighing almost everything. And then if you need to, maybe we move on to, I'm not eating out anymore. Now I'm only eating food that I prepare. Usually I don't, I don't, clients don't need to go that extreme unless you're trying to compete in a fitness competition and you're trying to get like super uber lean, you know, you follow some of these like fitness competitors and you'll see that, you know, they get to the point where it's like, they never eat food that they don't prepare. They never go out to eat. If they go out to eat, they're bringing their chicken and broccoli and rice with them. Everything is, is weighed and logged and pre-portioned and they know everything down to the, to the gram, right? That's, that's an extreme form of tracking that women that I coach don't need to go to. That's like a fitness competitor. 

So, but my point is, is still really pertinent here. It's like, let's only be as accurate as you need to be to get the results that you want. And that helps people kind of chill out a little bit when it comes to being perfect with their tracking. And then we can ramp that up if and when you want to or need to, but diving in, feeling like you have to be super perfect. You have to track everything. Everything has to be exactly on is just a recipe for disaster in my opinion. 

Add cardio on workouts 25:48 

Okay. Number six, with our workouts, I personally would start be moving towards getting to where I'm lifting two to three days a week. And I'm doing one to two days of cardio. And when I'm doing my lifting, I'm doing heavy lifting. I'm, you know, hitting that failure point on, on most of my sets. I'm, you know, lifting with my compound lifts. I'm lifting in that low rep range, that one to six rep range. Um, you know, with my isolation lists, maybe I'm in that like hypertrophy six to 12 rep range. And if I'm saying words that don't mean anything to you because you're, you aren't working out at all, then if I were you, where I would get started is just adding some cardio. If you aren't doing any workouts right now and you want to lose 20 pounds, I would start with adding cardio. Let's get your cardiovascular fitness up. That's going to be really good for helping burn some extra calories. And that's a great place to start. If you're someone who's already doing cardio, then maybe let's think about adding that weightlifting on. And if you're someone who's already doing cardio and weightlifting, I would be moving towards two to three days of heavy lifting and one to two days of cardio. 

Slowly increase your daily movement 26:54 

And that kind of bleeds into a little bit of number seven, which is I would slowly increase my movement daily, my daily everyday movement. So this is where I remember one of the first things I said is like taking that current data and information about what you're currently doing in your life. Most phones have a step counter embedded into them. So even if you don't have like an Apple watch or a Garmin or something like that, most phones have a step tracker that it's like tracking your steps currently. And since most of us carry our phones around almost everywhere we go, um, it's going to be fairly accurate. So looking back at your history and seeing how many steps on average am I getting per day? And then let's add 500 to that this week, next week, let's bump that up another 500. Let's bump that up another hundred. So I'm, what I'm doing is I'm slowly increasing my daily movement and adding 500 extra steps in a day is like a five minute walk. So it's very doable. It's something that we can, you know, definitely ratchet up over time, but I see a lot of women coming to me who are currently getting 4,000 steps. And then they feel like they have to jump up to 10,000 steps because that's what everyone tells them to get. And that's 6,000 steps is a lot of extra steps in a day. 

So I would be focusing on slowly increasing my movement 500 extra steps per day every week. I would be bumping that goal up weekly so that I'm increasing that everyday movement because honestly a lot of our caloric burn doesn't come from your workouts. It comes from all the movement that you do throughout the day. The, you know, pacing, the walking to and from your car, the jiggling your leg when you're typing, just any movements that we're doing, the cooking dinner, those everyday just general movements are actually what burn a lot of calories throughout the day. That and then the calories that are burnt just to keep your heart pumping and your lungs expanding and your digestive system running. That takes a lot of calories, but then just your daily average movement is the second most thing that consumes that many calories. So I'm just increasing that everyday movement.  

Layering habits 29:03 

Okay. Number eight, I'm focusing on layering habits. And I think maybe you've seen this kind of, as I've described each of the steps is I'm not going all in on things and changing everything at once. I'm layering habits. I'm making changes slowly, right? That's a great example would be increasing your step count, right? I'm seeing where I'm at currently and I'm adding 500 steps to it. That's a very doable, very reasonable, you know, goal for me. I feel like I can achieve it. I, you know, take an extra five minute walk, boom, I'm there. Now I layer on another habit, right? Now we're going to increase that 500 more steps. And I'm slowly layering on these habits that allow me to progress without getting discouraged or overwhelmed or feeling like I have to change everything about my life. So really focusing on layering of habits is the key to success because where we want to get this to is where you don't have to think about it anymore. That's what a habit is. Something that you do that you don't consciously think about it.  

Funny story. We have two cars. We have my husband's car and my car and I park on the left side of our garage. And my husband parks on the right side of our garage. And I drove to the gym today and I actually took his car because he took our son to the beach for, um, he does like a basketball beach workout. We live in Southern California. So it's funny. The things that happen, like they take the whole basketball team to the beach to do a beach workout. Anyway. Um, I came back from the gym and pulled the car and got onto my stuff, started recording this podcast. And my husband just came in and he was like, did you mean to park my car on your side of the, of the, um, garage? And I was like, What? I did? He's like, yeah, you parked my car on the left side of the garage instead of the right side. And I would not have, I didn't even know. I just like went into habits. I went into just like parking my car, parked it on the side of the, the, um, garage that I always park it on. And I didn't even think about it because that's what a habit is. 

A habit is something that you do, that you do not think about consciously anymore. That's how we want your nutrition and your workouts to be. It's like something that you don't have to consciously make decisions about. It's just on habit. And that takes time. It takes time. It takes repeating of things. And if you're layering on these habits, it makes change happen so much easier and have to be so much less cognitive, right? It just, it just happens. I just eat this way. This is just the way that I eat. This is just the way that I work out. It's just the, I always take my phone calls outside so that I can walk, right? These are just habits that are built in. I'm not making these as conscious decisions. And that's the goal. That's where I want you to get to. 

Set an end date, not an end weight for your cut 31:45 

All right. Number nine, if I wanted to lose 20 pounds, I would set an end date for my cut, not an end weight. And this is a big one because especially if you're like, I want to lose 20 pounds, why would I stop my cut before I've lost the 20 pounds? Great question. The reason there's a couple of reasons for this one. I truly believe, and I've seen this play over and over again, that if you have a defined period of time for your cut, it is much easier to stay on target during that period of time, right? If I know my cut is for six weeks, I can double down. I can focus and I can give my, my all and that intensity for those six weeks, because I know that I'm getting to the end of the finish line. When, when you run a race with no finish line or where you don't know where the finish line is, it is an entirely different experience.  

Let me tell you a quick story. A couple of years ago, I was watching the CrossFit Games and they had this event where it was, they told the athletes that it was like an unknown mileage, but it was like around like between three and a half to like five miles or something. They gave a range for how long the race was. And so they sent the athletes out, the athletes are running, they're running. And you know, they come around this bend and they like see the finish line. And so you have like athletes that are like sprinting and, you know, running through the finish line. And the Matt Frazier, who's like the, one of the greatest CrossFit athletes of all time, raises his hands, thinks that he won. And the competition creator, as he runs through the finish line, says to him, actually, you're only at the halfway point. You now have to turn around and run the whole thing backwards. Can you imagine? Like you think you just ran this like three and a half mile race and you think that you're done and now you're just being told, no, no, no. You're at the halfway point. You have to run backwards. And the discouragement that you would feel and that Matt felt in that moment, he was so mad that he had to turn around and literally run the whole course backwards to actually get to the actual finish line.  

But that's the experience that I see a lot of women have when they don't set an end date where it's like, you just, it's this ambiguous, like, I don't know how long I'm going to be doing this. I might as well eat this, eat this food right now because I could be in this cut for four more months. I don't even know. I really think that having a set date for the end of your cut allows you to have a more effective period of time where you're focusing on this, the singular goal. 

The other reason that I think this is really important is because I see this a lot. Well, I see two things happen a lot. One, I see people moving the goalpost. Tell me if this is you, where you like lose the weight, but you don't look or feel how maybe you thought that you would look or feel when you hit that goal. And so then the goalpost moves and I want to lose now five more pounds and then it's five more pounds and then it's five more pounds, right? We continue to move the goalpost because I thought I would look way different and I don't actually look that different. So I'm going to move the goalpost. And so you end up having this moving goalpost with that. You never end up reaching that end result that, that you're actually satisfied with. The other thing that I see with a lot of people is that that just becomes this like slog of like forever. 

And again, they're not really intense on it because they don't know how long it's going to be. And it just becomes this, like, you're always in a cut, right? I have women coming to me and I've been in a dieting for like years and I've never gotten to where I want to go. And what you're now coming up against is metabolic adaptation. The longer you're in a caloric deficit, the more your metabolism adapts to that deficit. And now your body is actually burning less calories every single day. So you think that you're in a deficit eating 5, 1500 calories, but now your body, no, no, no. It's conserving energy. It's downregulated its metabolism. It's only burning 1500 calories. So you're eating, you're feeling like you're in a diet. You're eating, you're feeling like you're eating less food than your body needs. But in fact, your body has adapted and now it doesn't need more food. And so you get stuck in this, like eating less and then trying to eat less and then trying to eat less and then trying to eat less. And that's a recipe for never getting to where you, it is that you want to go. And that is why making sure you have cycles of cutting and then reversing your calories up periods of maintenance, and then going into subsequent cuts and cycling through those phases is the way to have lasting long-term achievable weight loss. That is the last time that you have to lose that weight because you are working with your metabolism. You're keeping your metabolism high. You're able to not only hit your goal weight, but maintain it and maintain it on more calories. 

More info on Reverse Diet 36:30 

And that's the beauty of a reverse diet. If you want more information on reverse dieting, check out episodes 9, 42, 114, and I think 170 are our reverse dieting episodes, but that is such a game changer. And so by setting an end date for your cut, you're essentially saying, I'm going to go into my reverse this date. You're leaving energy in the tank to be able to complete that reverse, have that period of maintenance, and then go into a subsequent cut if you're still wanting to lose more weight.  

Prepare for reverse and maintenance, not the cut 37:00 

And then the last thing, and I kind of already talked about it, but I'm going to talk about it again because it's so important. That is prepare for the most important part, which is the reverse and the maintenance, not the cut. Most women are very comfortable cutting. It's very familiar to them. It's not easy, but it's like mentally easy because, yeah, they can totally buy into a deficit even less. That's easy. That's what society tells them all the time. What is much more challenging for a lot of women is this concept of eating more food and taking a period of time of not focusing on weight loss. That mentally is very, very challenging. And I want you to be preparing for that and be ready for that and know that that is coming so that you can execute those phases properly and be able to get the long-term results that it is that you want.  

If you're looking for a good podcast episode on the four phases of macro counting, episode 266 of my podcast is a good one. And I talk through the different phases, through the cut, through the reverse, through the maintenance and through bulking, because those are four phases that you need to understand because you're going to be cycling through those phases. So many people think macro counting is just about cutting. It's just about losing weight. It is not. It is about like nutrition periodization. It is about cycling through these different cycles to be able to set your body up for getting the fuel and energy that it needs while also being able to create the aesthetic that we're wanting. 

So I know that people think that the cut is where all the magic happens, but preparing for and executing that reverse diet after the cut and that maintenance period is where a lot of the magic happens, and mentally, also physically. And so really being ready for that. I think a lot of women prepare for the cut and then get surprised when it's time to reverse and maintain, and they didn't have any concept of that or they weren't ready for that. And so knowing that your long-term success is not just about cutting, but it's about that reverse and that being able to maintain those results long-term. And that is a skill that a lot of women need to learn. And so knowing that those other phases are coming is really, really important. 

Take it slow, make it stick 39:06 

So that's it. Those are the 10 things that we do. If I was setting out to lose 20 pounds or 30 pounds or 40 pounds or 50, I mean, honestly, this doesn't change based off of the number. These are still the same things that I would do to be able to be successful as I started on this weight loss journey. And take it slow. Take it one by one, right? I gave you 10 things. My goal was to give you some good content and hopefully not overwhelm you or feel like you have to implement all of those things at the same time, because really the recipe for success is to take one step at a time, one foot in front of the other, take it slow, make it stick, right? If we can make these changes that you're making habitual so you don't have to think about them, it changes everything and it makes things so, so much easier. And that takes time and it takes patience with yourself.  

Opening doors to MACROS 101 soon 39:59 

If you want help in this journey, if you want a coach to guide you through this, if you want to learn more about the phases and how to cycle yourself through and how to take the right data points and how to analyze those data points and how to figure out how we can build a structured, customized plan for you, for your body, for your goals, for everything that you want, MACROS 101 is the place to be able to do that. We will be opening doors soon to our fall round of MAROS 101. And so I highly recommend getting on the interest list for that. If you go to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist, you can add your name and email. Those are the people who know first when we open doors to MACROS 101, which will be on September 16th. It's a quick opening for enrollment. We get the women in who are ready to learn about themselves, learn about their body, learn about how to make macro accounting work for them, how to get the results that they want without relying on restriction, without relying on deprivation, without relying on cutting out food groups.  

My goal for my MACROS 101 clients is to help take them, help them figure out how to make macro counting work for them, their unique body, how to create a customized plan for them and their lifestyle and what they want to achieve. And then give them all of the coaching, the framework, the education so that you can continue doing this on your own. I don't want you to rely on me as a coach forever. So my goal is to teach you. It's to teach you how to fish, right? I'm not just giving you the fish, I'm teaching you how to fish. And our MACROS 101 clients come out of that experience knowing way more about their bodies, knowing way more about how to gather and analyze data from their body, how to figure out what their body is telling them, how to know what kind of macros they should be eating to be able to achieve their goals. 

And then the coaching that happens inside of this space is nothing short of life-changing. I get this feedback all the time that the coaching inside of MACROS 101 changed their lives. It changed the way that they think. It changed the way that they viewed their body. It improved their relationship with food. It improved their relationship with themselves. The coaching that happens in MACROS 101 is the thing that sets it apart from any other program that you're thinking about joining. So we'll be opening doors to that September 16th. Make sure to get on the waitlist, the interest list, bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. If you're listening to this after the fact and doors are closed to MACROS 101, you can still always get on that interest list and you will be the first to know when we open doors in the future to that program.  

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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