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Monthly Archives

June 2022

Jun 21
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Is Self Sabotage robbing you of thyroid healing?

By | Autoimmunity, Hypothyroidism, Metabolic Balance, Mindset
Let’s get down and dirty with self sabotage

Self sabotage can do a doozy on us when it comes to food & health goals, and thyroid recovery requires a lot of self commitment.

So how can you tackle self sabotage?

I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t experienced that little voice convincing them to abandon their commitment to their health.

You might find yourself eating the birthday cake at the office party when you’ve committed to not eating gluten for autoimmunity.

Or eating a whole bag of corn chips when all you really needed was a handful.

Maybe you are a chronic Monday-morning-er, forever putting off your own health needs for another day.

Why do we do it to ourselves?

1. Fear of the Unfamiliar
Each one of us have 3 basic needs (once food, water and shelter are taken care of!). They are:

  • Love
  • Safety
  • Belonging.

When our subconscious mind realises that we are making changes, it freaks out and worries that one of these needs will be compromised.

Self-sabotaging behaviours stem from the concern that if you change, one of these needs will no longer be met. It’s the fear of the unfamiliar, which is a very human fear.

2. Food FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
We fear that we’ll never be able to eat the food that tickle our tastebuds ever again.

I think we all know that this simply isn’t true and in many ways this becomes a scapegoat mask with one of the other two base fears above hiding behind it.

When you apply a balanced approach, you can and will enjoy celebratory foods at special occasions without sabotaging your results.

I’ve said it hundreds of times but I’ll say it again, you do not have to be a food nun to get extraordinary results.

This thinking really stems from a deprivation & dieting approach where food is bland and you have to stick to it forever or you reverse your results (thanks weight watchers!).

You also learn to luxuriate in the flavours that nature provides.

One of my incredible clients was telling me recently how the sweet & sour pork that was always her favourite take away is no longer appealing, her palate has changed.

Another client said this about my Metabolic Balance coaching…

“Everything feels balanced so that when you want to have a treat with your kids or with your friends, you can! I’ve been describing it as the easiest, simplest way that I’ve ever lost weight or improved my health since I was probably 25.”
– Rachael

3. Fear of Success
No, that’s not a typo!

Fear of success is another very real (arguably the most common) reason we sabotage our efforts.

What will you have to face or do differently if you finally succeed? Will your relationships change? Will you have to do that thing you’ve been forever afraid of?

When we up level one area of our life & wellbeing we can feel pressure and fear the consequences in other areas too.

For some, poor health has become a subconscious victim badge they are reluctant to part with.

For others, their weight gain is an unconscious protective mechanism against romantic or sexual attention.

So, what can you do about it?

  • Awareness. Bring a gentle awareness & curiosity when these thoughts pop up.
  • Analyse, what is really going on? With a dose of self awareness you can unmask those fears. Bring them out of the darkness into the light and pull them apart, turn them over, analyse every nook & cranny. Are they really true?
  • Rewrite the story. Once you have teased apart the fears and removed their power you can craft an affirmation to combat them next time they rear their ugly heads.
    Self sabotaging thought: ‘If I regain my energy then I’ll have no excuse to not start that business I’ve been talking about for years & make it a wild success. If that happens I’ll be exhausted and too busy to spend time with my family. I’ll finally be able to afford that dream car and then my friends will think I’m a snob and won’t like me anymore.’
    Your affirmation might be: ‘I am committed to eating in a way that reignites my energy so I can be present for my family, fulfil my dreams and have no regrets’.

If you want to get down and dirty with your self-sabotage then the two books I recommend are The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks & The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Hendricks refers to it as the ‘upper limit problem’ and Pressfield as ‘resistance’, but essentially what they are referring to is self sabotage, holding ourselves back from growth.

Self-sabotage is such an issue with my clients that I have a whole step dedicated to it in Food Freedom.

Did you know that all my Thrive Method clients get Food Freedom as a gift to help them create powerful habit change and long term success? It’s important to me that all the incredible women I work with are equipped with strategies so they can finally get the incredible results they desire for good.

You can book a free health chat here if you want to talk more.

Jun 07
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The link between Hydration & Weight Loss

By | Digestion, Fatigue, Gut Health, Weight Loss

 

I bet you didn’t know this!

Water, it’s the elixir of life right?

But why do so many of us struggle to drink the amount we know we should?

What if I told you that hydration is an essential element to healthy weight loss and maintenance?

I’ve got your attention now! But first let me explain something.

When I start working with a client they undergo a huge transformation very rapidly and release excess weight quite quickly. I’ve had a few conversations with clients that go something like this:

Client: ’10kg in 12 weeks that won’t be possible for me!’
Me: ‘Try keep an open mind, give or take this is usually the results I witness when a client commits to themselves & their plan.’
Client: ‘No, it will take me closer to a year to shift that kind of weight!’
Me: ‘Ok, we’ll see how you go.’
(12 weeks later) Client: ‘I cannot believe it, you were right!’

This is a quote from an interview I did with one of my clients Rachael last year:

It’s been the best thing that I have ever done. I can’t believe in 12 weeks, you told me what would happen, and then it actually happened! It surprised me! I didn’t believe you!

I’ll get to the point…

When you are transforming your health and releasing weight those stored lipid cells in your body have been home to a number of different hormonal metabolites and other toxins. They will vary depending on what you have been exposed to over the time that weight has been stored on your body. It’s another way your body protects you, by storing toxins away in lipid cells where they can’t harm you. When you regulate your blood sugar and lower inflammation with nutrient rich whole foods your body starts to use up that stored energy. Guess what happens to those toxins? They get released back into circulation and your liver has to deal with them again.
Here’s the important bit, if you aren’t helping your liver out by remaining super hydrated it won’t be able to flush out a lot of those toxins through your kidneys. And even worse, dehydration will lead to constipation so they won’t be getting out of your system via a nice, healthy bowel motion daily either.
Here’s the kicker, when your body is dealing with a lot of toxins not only can you feel awful (headaches, join pain, pimples, low mood etc) but the stress can cause your body to go into survival mode. When your body is in survival mode it wants to hold on to those energy stores on the body which will make your healthy weight maintenance goal much more difficult to meet.

But dehydration has other draw backs too:

  • It causes the liver to release glucose into the blood stream, thereby increasing insulin your weight storage hormone.
  • It will make your lymphatic system sluggish, another toxin draining pathway.
  • It can cause you to overeat due to mixed thirst/hunger signals.
  • It causes low energy & poor cognition which impairs your ability to make healthy choices that will support your health goals.
  • I’ve already mentioned this but it’s so important, dehydration causes constipation which will leave you sluggish, inflamed and make weight loss much more difficult.

Have I convinced you yet?

You are probably asking yourself how much you should be drinking? Calculate your optimal daily intake by multiplying your weight in kg X 35ml of water. For example 80kg x 35ml = 2800ml or 2.8litres. More than you expected?

The good news is that herbal tea counts, the bad news is that alcohol consumption increases your need.

One of the easiest ways of tracking whether you are hydrated is simply to look at the colour of your urine, it should be quite clear with only a hint of yellow. So if your urine is yellow (unless you’ve taken a B vitamin) keep drinking until it’s closer to clear.

I’ve also attached a handy guide if you know you need to work on this aspect of your health. It’s also a colouring in sheet because who doesn’t love a colouring in (so satisfying!). Calculate your water and divide it by 8, I recommend tracking your water intake for a few days once a month until you know you’ve nailed this healthy habit.

Tessa