My Top Fitness Tips! You're Probably Under Eating

Is it possible to lose weight without tracking calories? Today I'm answering all of your top fitness questions. Sharing my strategies in the gym, what foods and snacks I recommend, dieting vs bulking, creating healthy lifestyle changes, and more!

TW: Talking about weight loss, dieting, etc

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Transcript

Hi, hello! Welcome back to another episode of the Unrelatable podcast. Today, I will be discussing my fitness routine and my diet from the last several months. If diet, weight loss, anything along these lines are a sensitive topic for you, I would love for you to listen to a different episode.

Because while I feel very comfortable speaking about these types of these types of things publicly. I also recognize that it is more normalized for me than others, and I think it's more normalized for me than what is normal. You know, I've done bodybuilding shows, as you know. And so, I'm a bit more on the extreme level of I don't wanna say I'm an extreme level of diet culture, but I do talk about I feel like maybe I can talk about it with less sensitivity than what some people might need. So this is just this is just your warning.

I guess that yeah. If if you're not in the head space for that, that's totally fine. But, yeah, I just I've just had a lot of exposure to it. And so if anyone out there is going through something similar as what I've been doing and you just wanna hear about my experience, or if you're curious, you know, and you don't have any intentions of doing any sort of diet or anything, and you just wanna know what I have to say about meal prepping. I'm gonna be talking about my current workout routine schedule.

A lot of things around picking your food choices and making different lifestyle changes. I am very excited for this episode. I think it's going to be really, really good. And with that, welcome back to the Unrelatable podcast. Alrighty, let's just get into a recap of my past year and my fitness journey.

So since my last show, I feel that you guys are pretty updated. All the way up to my last show, I have done 2 other gym and fitness episodes. And so if you haven't listened to those yet, those will provide a lot of context. And, honestly, a lot of really great valuable information when it comes to building your own workout, and how to know if you're doing your best during your exercises, if you're really pushing to the level that you can and and whatnot. So, anyways, this episode, I'm going to be first recapping about what I've been up to.

So since my last show, my last show was in May of 2022. It was kind of a roller coaster of mental health struggles and balancing coming out of a diet like that. I always think, oh, Hannah, I'm gonna be just fine. This is the time where it's gonna be just great. And, honestly, it was really great.

The first several months, I think, June, July, August, September for 4 ish months, I was doing really well. But then I was getting into personal therapy for this first time, and it was bringing up a lot of situations from my past that I needed to work through. And I was really dipping back into, kind of, my mental health issues at that time. So I decided to try antidepressants. I ended up gaining a lot of, quote unquote, a lot of weight throughout September 2022 August of 2023.

And the thing is is I this was last year. So last year, I got to go on some really great trips. I went to Thailand and Switzerland, Italy, And I am super grateful that I did take time off of dieting and prep and all of that to do that kind of thing, because I do feel like that actually helped my mental health. That was something that I really needed to do. And those experiences, I will forever be grateful for.

And so, yeah, I just took several months of traveling and being able to explore. When I do travel, I I still I don't know. I still know in my mind what good portion sizes are for me, since I have tracked macros for so long. So I can kind of guesstimate kind of well, I would say. I can look at, you know, salmon and say, okay, that's probably 5 ounces or that's probably 8 ounces because 5 ounces is more so what I eat on the daily.

And then, you know, same thing for black beans, for example, or salad dressing. All of these things, I I'm that's why it's like, I don't ever wanna act like, I've got it all figured out if I'm not tracking macros. Because I just have I guess, my eye has just been used to it and the portions. And anyways, so long story short, September through August September 2022 through August of 2023 was when I was kind of navigating my mental health while traveling. And that November, I decided to start coaching again or just start up again with my coach.

I was I'm pretty sure doing workouts with her that entire time, just not the nutrition part of it. And so started back with nutrition. But my big goal was to eventually go back into bodybuilding and to do another show. Not because I thought, oh, I just really wanna lose all this weight, but because consistently in my life over the past 8 has it been 8 years? I've wanted to go pro.

And so, a little part of me each time that I stopped competing is disappointed because I really want to go pro. And realistically, at this moment in time, it feels like a really massive goal that just isn't within the next, I don't know, year in my future, because I just know how long it's going to take. And so right now, I'm kind of trying to focus on each day in front of me and just being on my plan and my routine and whatnot. So, yeah. Anyways, last November, I began tracking macros again.

And instead of doing a cut, I jumped right into a bulk, because I know that I usually come in really small to bodybuilding shows. I don't have as much muscle as what is needed to go pro. And so instead of putting my gut, my hormones through a diet, because you don't always wanna be dieting. It's not good for your hormones. It's not good for your gut.

I decided to start a bulk. And so, during this bulk, I did start off on a higher weight, and I was putting on muscle. And so December, January, February, March goes by, and I'm feeling I'm feeling it. I'm feeling like my, my muscles are being covered in a layer of fab. I I mean, I'm like, in my mind, I'm thinking, okay, Hannah, your muscles are growing.

But it just looks like my fat's growing. Right? And, obviously, my mind I'm thinking, Hannah, I know this isn't the case. But my confidence was just really I think that it was hard because I had gone 5 months into this bulk. And it's kind of hard to see progress in a bulk if you're starting a bulk when you have a bunch of fat on you.

I love starting a bulk when I'm immediately post show because then you can slowly see the progress happening and you can kind of do a I don't wanna call it a clean bulk. There's these terms called clean bulking and dirty bulking. And what dirty bulking is, quote unquote, is when people will eat whatever they want, whatever junk food they want, whatever whatever food that they want, and just say that it's a part of their bulk. And then what people refer to as a clean bulk is essentially just raising your macros and still eating good foods for you, whole foods, all that kind of jazz. And so, even though I had been doing a pretty, I don't wanna call it clean, But I really kept the processed foods at a minimum because I know that whole foods are going to be the best thing to build my muscle.

Even though I'd done that, I was kind of feeling super bulky and not very stoked about it, especially because we were coming into summer and I was going to the pool a bunch. And honestly, I was just feeling a little bit self conscious. And so my coach and I decided, alright, Hannah, it it probably be good. Let let's do it. Let's do a cut.

It'll also help me be able to put on muscle more efficiently as well. Because if I weighed a bit less, then my performance in the gym would also be able to be better. Because instead of just pushing weight with my body weight, if I weighed a little bit less and I was pushing more weight because I'd have more energy and more muscle. Is this making sense? This might not be making any sense.

But long story short, I started a diet in April. And by June, I had lost about £5. That's not very much. That's all of April, all of May. And then, I guess, the beginning of June.

So 2 and a half ish months. You know, £5, it's okay. It's not a lot. It was still, you know, something where my weight was still fluctuating a little bit. And I did have a question of how may how much weight I had lost.

So in those 3 months, I lost about £5. But in June, I was a bit on a diet break as I was out of the country for, I think it was 25 days. And then I get home, I jump right back into my program and it's July. So July through September, I still travel to Utah twice. And I stick to my regimen, really, the whole time.

I just go grocery shopping and meal prep and whatnot, and it was actually easier than I expected it to to be for some reason. I don't know if it's because I'm going back to my hometown each time. And so it's easy for me to just jump right back into the gym and know what's going on. I mean, I guess that's not completely true because I do go to Vassa when I'm in Harriman. And have we talked about the Harriman Vassa before?

I have never seen this is sorry. This is totally left field. I've never seen so many fit people in my life. If you wanna be insanely inspired, go to the Harriman Vassa. It's a different breed of people out there.

I was shocked and inspired. And, anyways, that's why I worked out for about half of my trip the last time I went to Utah. And it was great. Anyways, I lost £10 from July to September. And so, yeah, in 8 weeks I lost about £10.

So it kind of snowballed, and that felt really good. So I have lost £15 from April to September, which is honestly nice and slow and pretty maintainable. You know, if I end up having to take a week off or if something happens and I end up not being able to get in my meals or, you know, something like that, it's gonna be fine because I have maintained this lifestyle nice and slowly. And we haven't dropped calories super drastically. We've done it really slowly.

Have I emphasized that enough? And I'm gonna talk about that later too about why that is important. But, yeah, typically, you do have to push through the 1st 8 to 12 weeks of any type of diet or a bulk. When I'm talking for the rest of this episode now, unless I'm referring to my diet, You can honestly swap out diet for bulk. Because bulking, if you're trying to do it efficiently, can take the same amount of dedication as a diet would.

And it's just as hard in my opinion. It's mentally hard. It is physically hard. And so, I want you to, while I'm talking about diet and food and macros and your workouts, to also think of it in regards to your goals. So whether you're trying to lose weight, you can apply it to that.

Or if you're trying to build muscle, you can apply it to that or just maintain, you can apply it to that. This is kind of all across the board. But I do wanna say that typically, if you are doing, you know, a diet or a bulk, it's gonna take 8 anywhere from 8 to 12 weeks without, you know, going completely off the rails, you know, while understanding that it is okay to still, you know, go out to eat once a week or whatever. And to have that balance, it's gonna take around 8 to 12 weeks to see any progress. And so how did I do it?

Well, I still made sure to eat foods that I enjoyed, and I didn't really change I can't say I didn't change my diet all that much. Because recently, as the entire world knows, I started eating meat again. And so that has really opened me to a world of new possibilities with food and everything. So my diet because of that has changed a lot because I've had a lot more options of things to eat. But typically, in the past, if I enter a bulk or a diet, I usually don't change a lot.

Usually, it's just the amount of food that changes a little bit. For example, in my bulk, I would put lots of chocolate chips in my Kodiak cakes and my pancakes. I would eat banana bread with my breakfast. I would, I don't know, eat more, like, a whole fat sour cream instead of a lower fat sour cream. All that jazz.

I don't know if that's making making sense. I I just believe that I the most the best diet that you can do is the one that's the most maintainable. And so if you are jumping all in and you're trying to change every single part of your lifestyle, you're trying to change your daily habits, your workouts, your nutrition, it's gonna be really hard. And so just try to work with what you've been doing nice and slowly. And so for my workouts for sorry.

I think I'm jumping back and forth a little bit. I'll get back to to the diet stuff. But now I'm gonna say what I did for my workouts. And after I finish what I've what I've done the past few months, then we'll jump into your guys' questions and whatnot. So, yeah.

For my workouts, I worked out about 4 times a week for the first two months. And I did 30 minutes of cardio, 3 times per week. I actually think it was 20 to 30 minutes of cardio, and it's cardio of choice. And so my choice was the treadmill. And at this point, you know, I was £15 heavier.

I hadn't been doing a lot of cardio. And I started with the treadmill. 0 incline. I remember visiting Utah once. And I went to go do cardio with my sister and she put the incline at 10 and I tried it.

And after literally 2 minutes, I was dying. I was completely dying. We also did the Stairmaster and after 10 minutes, I couldn't even believe it. In my mind, I was thinking, Hannah, you have lost yourself. But that's not true.

That's not true at all. I'm just I was just comparing myself honestly to my 21 year old self. Maybe I wasn't 21. Maybe I was 22 when we are living in Texas. And I would do an hour of the StairMaster holding listen to this.

I would hold £20. So I would hold £10 in each hand and do the StairMaster for an hour on anywhere from 8 to 10. And then the last 3 minutes, I would do sprints. Yeah, I don't know her. I don't know who she is.

She is gone now. And now here I am. I have replaced her. Luckily, actually, as of recently, I've been able to get back on the StairMaster. So it's been nice.

I've been able to it's not just been a weight thing. It's been how I feel. It's been my cardio. It's been my activity levels. It has felt really good.

So, anyways, long story short, I was doing 4 times or 4 workouts a week, and then we went up to 5 workouts a week, the last several months. And I would do 30 minutes after each session of my lifts. I would do about 30 minutes of cardio. And what were my workouts? Well, I had 2 upper body days, 2 lower body days.

And then my 5th workout is usually about 45 minutes and full body. So it would be something like hip thrusts, deadlifts, some shoulder press, shoulder raises, maybe a lat pull down, All that that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? Not technically full body. I guess, when I say full body, it's like full full body for a bikini bodybuilder, where your focus is shoulders and legs.

You know what I mean? I'm not doing chest. I I don't ever lift chest because I have implants. I don't I don't know. It just feels uncomfortable, and I'm not trying to build my chest muscles at all.

You know, they kind of already get hit a tiny, tiny bit if I do any sort of inclined shoulder work. And I know it's important to have a strong chest. I mean, I don't think my chest is weak by any means. But when I say full body, it doesn't include chest. That's, I guess, really the only thing that I don't lift.

Because I do lift calves. I do do triceps, biceps, all that jazz. Okay. Now that I feel like I've covered what I've been doing the last several months, I am going to address your guys' questions because I did get some really good questions. The first one is, do you ever get burnt out?

This one is a really good question because Absolutely. I feel like we might look at people who have worked out for a long time. And maybe we see people in the gym all the time and just think, wow, they are so lucky. This comes so easy for them. But realistically, no matter how long you've been lifting, I feel that it always takes the same level of discipline and consistency.

That's not to say that it doesn't get easier. Obviously, when you're in the stage of building the habit, it's difficult. But for me, struggling with my mental health again, you know, the beginning of this year and kind of the last several honestly, just yeah. The last, I don't know, 6 months. I definitely had a hard time because I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed my workouts all the time.

And I know I've already touched on this during my last several gym episodes or gym updates or whatever. So I won't touch on it a lot, but it has been push and pull for me. It's been showing up and almost going through the motions and not leaving until I go through all of the motions, because it has been that difficult. And not to say that I've only gone through the motions the last 6 months because that wouldn't be the case. Sometimes working out is just something where you have to do it even if you don't want to.

And that is where grinding grinding it out is important. And, yeah, like I said, I would be lying if I said I always enjoyed lifting because the last 6 months have definitely not been it. I feel, honestly, the last, probably, 30 days, I have felt like I've been making progress. And, really, it's because I've noticed that my cardio is a lot better. And I've noticed that I am I don't know if I have more energy because I have been pretty stressed.

But, yeah, I just feel like I've had a lot more exciting lifts recently. And so, yeah. Feeling burnt out, I feel is part of it's part of the process. And if you need to, it's always okay to change the way that you're working out. You don't have to strictly stay with weights.

In fact, I really, really love it when people have, you know, yoga in their routine, when they cycle, when they do group fitness classes, when you're running and you you have a nice balance. I think that is amazing and really, really, really important. I don't have I don't wanna say I don't have that because I have been taking spinning classes kind of intermittently the last few months. I have done yoga several times. But I think it's just important that if you are feeling burnt out to take a look at your routine and make sure you are resting enough.

And if you if you are resting enough, if you're just kind of feeling low in your confidence, and that's why you might be, quote unquote, burnt out, then it might be time to readjust your goals to maybe raise your calories to maintenance if you've been on a diet and give yourself a bit of a diet break. And, you know, like I said, I did have a whole 25 days in the middle of my diet where I was out of the country. And so I was I think I actually under 8, not on purpose, but because we are working so much where we usually only had, I would say, 2 meals a day during the really busy work times. I did bring a lot of protein bars, though. So, hopefully, kept my protein up.

But okay. Let's move on. This next question is really great. This next one is, is it possible to lose weight without calorie tracking? Yes.

And I think this would be the absolute best way to go through life. As I've mentioned previously, is to not be hyper aware of calories. I want you to know that most people are typically under eating to begin with, especially the nutrients that you need. Fiber, protein, your vegetables. I think it's important for everybody to eat all 3 meals a day.

And in addition to that, 2 sorts 2 sorts of snacks. You know? What most people do for their snacks or even their meals is eat calorie dense foods that don't make you feel as full. And this is why it can be confusing when you hear that you need to eat more, but it's more of nutrient dense foods. And why are nutrient dense foods important?

Well, they help your hormones be set up properly for weight loss? I would love to say that there's no good foods and there's no bad foods. Because it's true. There's no there that it's good to maintain the mentality that no food is bad because then you assign guilt to something and and shame. And we want to avoid that, and I will actually address that later on as well.

But it's no secret that processed foods, you know, they're not the devil. And I don't want you to ever feel like you're restricting any kinds of foods. But it's important to have the knowledge that they do have chemicals that can interfere with your hormones. And your hormones are a huge factor in any type of weight loss goal or building muscle. They're also much higher in calories while being very small in size, you know, physically, which makes your stomach and your mind not as satisfied.

And so when I recognize that, you know, a handful of Goldfish here you know what I mean? Goldfish, like the is that what it's called? Goldfish? Not like the actual fish, but like the little Goldfish crackers. Yeah.

When I realized that a handful of Goldfish here and a handful of pistachios there, actually equated to eating several corn tortilla tacos with my protein of choice, with some avocado, lettuce, and some Chipotle Cholula. I was shocked. That doesn't only fill me up for much longer, but it fuels your workouts better. It combines your carbs with proteins which helps you hit your protein goal easier. A lot of times, I feel like people have a hard time hitting their protein goal because they feel the only source of protein is meat.

But when you eat foods that have both protein and carbs in it so, for example, I know black beans, they don't have a lot of protein, but they still have some protein in there. Right? Or Kodiak cakes. They have protein in it rather than having a pancake mix that is just carbs. This has protein in addition to that.

And then for snacks, I like to stick with a protein, a veggie, or a fruit. So beef jerky, protein, carrots with hummus, that's a good carb, and, you know, a veggie, and blueberries. Blueberries are high in fiber. And, you know, you can also do something like a I don't wanna say a salad because that kind of sounds like a boring snack that takes a lot of work. But, yeah, just really easy snacks, a protein, veggie, or fruit, and to have them on hand.

Have them available. If you need to have a protein bar, then always have a protein bar on hand with you. Oh my gosh. So this last week, I was running around so much. Luckily, I had just bought a box of those cashew barbell protein bars.

They're not my most favorite thing in the world, but they are the protein bar that I feel is the most edible at the moment. And, oh, it was a lifesaver because of the times where I didn't really have very good time management. I could eat that, and I knew I was getting in some protein. I knew it was higher in carbs, and I think higher in fat as well. And so, yeah, it was just a really good option for me last week.

The next thing is how to get in enough protein. Well, a lot of protein will help you feel satiated. And having enough volume in your meals, I have talked about this in my other fitness episodes, but volume in a meal is is a food that is big in size. So the volume is big in size. And so you could even say let's say, you have tacos, but then you want even higher volume meal for dinner.

So instead of your carbs being the tortillas, you have a huge bowl of lettuce. You have a bunch of black beans. I like corn. I know corn isn't good for you. I know corn is, like, the most genetically modified food out there, but I love me some roasted corn in a salad.

So we got some black beans. We got some corn. We got some red peppers, even some chickpeas if you want, then you have your protein, whether it's chicken. I was doing beef for a little bit and having this, like, taco salad mix, and then avocado. And then I made dressing out of fage yogurt.

It's spelled Fage, so f a g e. And then I just dump a bunch of chipotle cholula in it, and then some southwest seasoning. And it makes this really yummy southwest type of dressing for my salad. Anyways, that volume wise is a lot more food than, you know, 3 3 tacos. And so, yeah, having enough volume is going to make you so much more full as well.

Whereas, that could also be eaten in a couple handfuls of chips. Not to say that you can't eat the chips, but if you find yourself being hungry throughout the day, swapping that out for something that'll make you more full will probably help you feel happier. And it will also fuel your brain because your brain needs healthy fats. We love avocado over here. Okay.

So my other note is that protein is just as important when you're dieting as when you're bulking. Because, yeah, of course, you need to be eating a lot of protein when you're bulking. That would just make sense. You're trying to build muscle. Well, why do you want it when you're dieting?

Well, you want to reduce the the amount of muscle loss as much as possible because muscle underneath our fat is what gives us shape. Right? And so by lessening the amount of muscle that we burn during any type of diet that we might do, we're able to retain that muscle. Okay. This is all still in regards to the question of if we're able to lose weight without calorie tracking.

So, so far, I've talked about make sure you're not under eating, and make sure you're eating nutrient dense foods and good snacks. Make sure you have high volume foods. And next is really looking at your lifestyle and raising your activity just in your daily activities. So daily steps, which is important regardless, but hitting higher daily steps is going to help you achieve that without tracking calories. So I find that I can do this.

Well, honestly, I do have a walking pad at home, which is nice because I work from home. So I can walk on that several times a day and hit my steps. But something that really helps me feel good is to walk for about anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes after each meal. And this is not to burn the calories you just ate. Okay?

But to number 1, raise your daily steps and just get into the habit of walking with with something. So when you pair one habit with something you do already, it makes it a lot easier to achieve. So I've used this example so many times. But for drinking water, when I was in college, I would fill up my water bottle before class, drink it all during class, go to the bathroom after class, arrive at my next class, and then fill up my water bottle, drink it all during class, go to the bathroom after class, and then walk to my next class. And so that's how I drank a gallon of water a day in college.

And so that's because I just paired it with something I was already doing. You know, I paired it with walking to class. I paired it with sitting in class and all that kind of jazz. So when you pair walking after eating, it also raises your total daily energy expenditure, promotes smoother digestion, and helps you have more steady blood sugar levels, which is also important, obviously. Okay.

So workouts, depending on your current routine, it always depends on what you're doing right now, which is why I have a hard time giving recommendations of what you should do today. But I never really necessarily promote working out more than 5 times a week. You don't want to begin losing muscle mass instead of fat. And you have the potential of doing that when you don't rest. When you don't allow your muscles to heal, you also don't allow your hormones to regulate your body properly.

And so, however, you choose to work out, just keep it consistent. If you're doing, you know, 2 times a week right now, maybe go up to 3. But don't ever I don't wanna say don't ever pass 5. But I believe that 5 is a really good threshold, because I typically will rest either after every 2 days or after every 3 days, depending on how my body is feeling. Because we're not really our body doesn't just follow a 48 hour schedule where, you know, the timer starts the second that we end our workout, and we need to, you know, wait 48 hours, and then we're good to go again.

Sometimes you need another day. You know what I'm saying? So, yes, this next question says, what do you feel is the best amount of time to be spent in the gym at once? I have a hard time not overdoing it and have an all or nothing mindset. This can be really hard, especially if you are looking outwards at other people and kinda seeing, you know, what are they doing.

And especially in I feel like in Utah, it's very Utah could be very extreme in a lot of different ways. And I'll just speak to myself. You know, I've been extreme in a lot of different ways, especially when I was teaching. You know, I would work out my I do my own personal workout, and then I would do sometimes 2 classes in a day. That's extreme and doesn't need to be normalized.

You know what I mean? I did have to do that because I was preparing for a show. But if I was doing that today, I would just do one workout a day, and I would count that as my workout. So, typically, I spend about 60 minutes on upper body days and then an hour and about 15 or 20 minutes for lower body days. Lower body days are longer because setting up lower body days takes longer.

And what I mean by that is you're loading up plates on bars, you're unloading plates, you're usually picking up heavier weights and moving them to different parts of the gym. Your rest times are longer or, in my opinion, they should be. My rest times for each set at the gym is anywhere from a minute and a half to 2 and a half minutes. And then for myself, I have cardio after, which is another 30 minutes. But you don't wanna jump into doing cardio 5 times a week if you haven't already been doing that.

So in my in my opinion, an hour hour and 20 ish minutes for lower body is a good balance that I like. But then again, my circumstance is so much different than a lot of people out there. I'm not raising any kids. I don't have any kids in, you know, daycare that I'm having to pay for with a specific time limit. If anything, you know, working out from home for 45 minutes.

I mean, I think that anything, you know, at least 30 minutes a day, 5 times a week is the recommended activity levels. And so if you're at 30 minutes or above, you're already you're already doing more activity than most Americans, and you can be proud of yourself. Okay. I feel that it's so important to understand that the smaller changes you make, the better. Not just for consistency and to build habits slowly, you know, all of that matters, but also because your body will eventually get used to your program.

This is what I was talking about in in the episode earlier. It'll eventually get used to the amount of calories you're eating. It'll eventually get used to the cardio you're doing and the workouts that you're doing. What you're doing now will eventually become your new maintenance. This is when you've been steadily losing weight, and then suddenly for more than 3 or 4 weeks, it stops.

And you're wondering, okay, what's going on? You know, at that point, and also for bulking too. Let's say you stay the same weight for several, several weeks. Well, at that point, you're gonna have to lower your calories once more and or raise your activity level. So if you create a massive difference in the beginning, a massive drop in calories or increase of activity, hoping that you'll, quote unquote, jump start your weight loss, which is, you know, same for building and bulking just in reverse.

Well, yeah, you're going to see results for a few weeks, but then suddenly your body will readjust and that will be your new maintenance. And you're going to have to drop it again and again and again. So you'll have less and less and less calories to work with, macros to work with. And that's damaging to your hormones, to your gut, to your mental health, to your overall experience, to your sustainability. And so that's why I really promote starting slowly in order to create a sustainable route for either your weight loss or your weight gain.

So for cardio, add it in slowly. Start with 2 or 3 times per week for 10 or 15 minutes. And then maybe add another 5 minutes onto that the next month. But definitely, don't look at what everyone else is doing on Instagram and on TikTok and think, okay, that is the weight loss formula. Because everybody's calories and maintenance and muscle mass, metabolism is so, so, so different.

You already know what you've been at this whole time, and you're the only person that knows that. And so unless you have a coach writing you an exact regimen, nobody else is going or is able to tell you the perfect thing to do when they're posting it publicly and over generalizing it for everybody. So be careful if you're taking advice from people online that are giving you very specific numbers to hit or very specific amounts of cardio to do. I think that there's something out there about the, you know, 30 minutes on level 10 treadmill at level 3 speed, and that that is gonna give you the most weight loss. It's like, okay.

Yeah. If you're going from never doing any activity to doing that, of course, because you are raising the amount of calories that you're burning in the day. But how maintainable and sustainable is that? Wouldn't you rather start lower with 15 minutes and slowly add on to that? You know what I'm saying?

I I guess I'm speaking just from the terms of how sustainable is this going to be? How maintainable is it? How easy is it gonna be to build these habits? Because that's what's important is keeping your hormones safe, especially as as women. We're not getting, you know, any younger, and so we gotta learn how to work with our body as I mean, we're not we're not freaking, you know, 85 years old.

But it is important to treat your body correctly and nicely from day 1. From day 1. And if you haven't, that's okay. Welcome to the club. We're just we're doing the best that we can.

Okay. So meals. The best thing you can do is plan ahead. Knowing what meals you're eating the week before that it begins is so, so, so relieving for me. This way, I avoid, you know, the desperate run to a fast food place or, you know, grabbing something on the go.

Or when you're grocery shopping, you end up grabbing that veggie sushi that was just made a few hours ago. No. I'm just kidding. I love that. I will make time for that in my macros any day.

Okay. So, yeah, meal prepping tips would be amazing, was one of the submissions. So I don't know if I've already shared this. I might have. But prepping your proteins for the week and or not even for the week, but 3 to 4 days at a time will help you not get sick of what you're eating so much.

Because, you know, eating meals that you already love is important. So if you prep a protein you love let's say you love chicken. For example, I did some crock pot chicken last week. It was shredded, and I put that one day in tacos with sour cream and cholula with some lettuce. The next day, I put it on top of rice with some sweet and sour sauce and some broccoli.

And then, let's say, the next day, you decide to put it in some bone broth soup with beans and veggies. This brings a lot of variety into your week so that you don't get as sick of the meals that you're eating. Add nutrients to the foods that you already love is something that helps me hit my protein as well. So I think I already shared this. But with Kodiak cakes, I add an egg white.

I also add some phage or fillet yogurt. And then I do add a Truvia packet, which Truvia is from the Stevia leaf, because that fillet yogurt tastes like sour cream. So I feel like I have to add a little bit of sweetener and then chocolate chips. Well, look at that. You've just added 10 more grams of protein.

And then I love to mix some PBFit, which is powdered peanut butter. And this is very high in protein, so I love to mix that up with some a little bit of almond milk. I think it's only, like, a tablespoon of almond milk, and it creates this, like, yummy peanut butter to go on top, and that's another 8 grams of protein. So you're walking out the door with this pancake. That's what?

Thirty grams of protein? I don't know. It's just it's just helpful. Right? I've also seen people who blend up cottage cheese and cook it with their egg whites.

That's an option. Cottage cheese in your Ninja CREAMi does change the game. I know it sounds crazy, but you just blend it up and then you pour it in. And go to I think her Instagram is called my protein pantry. Yeah.

My dot protein pantry. This is JC's amazing recipe Instagram, and she posts the most delicious ninja creamy sorry. I just opened up one of her reels. She posted most delicious recipes for meal prepping, healthy foods, and yeah. She has the best hacks for adding a little bit of protein into your food here and there that really helps you to enjoy your food and not have to overthink the protein as much.

Finally, I wanna tell you to not restrict. Don't cut out groups of foods. I have talked about this in the past about my love of dieting throughout junior high and high school. It's hard to learn because we grew up with parents who went through diet culture in the nineties, and it's been making a swing back in 2024, honestly, with Ozempic, with the Kardashians being at the forefront it forefront of it. And the Kardashians' bodies might be a trend and a status, but your body isn't 1 and it doesn't have to be.

They created that to be the case, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean that you have to fit into that mold. You don't have to fit into that social box, not to mention that Ozempic is rampant out there and can trick us all into thinking that we should restrict certain food groups to achieve the insane weight loss that we're kind of seeing all around us. Right? Now, I eat out at a restaurant every single week, and it's important to do that in my opinion.

If it's in if it's in the budget oh my goodness. We've been going over our budget. I just can't believe how much groceries are right now, how much food is. I don't know. It's been it's been a little bit wild.

But, anyways, it's important to feel like you still have a social life. It's important to still enjoy life and going out, and I love ice cream, so I eat it every day. And, specifically, I buy the Yasso bars. Oh, they're so good. They have so many flavors they have.

Let's see. Cookies and cream, chocolate cookie dough, salted caramel. Pretty sure they have a double chocolate. They also have a coffee flavor. They are so good.

They also have ones that are dipped in chocolate. I haven't tried those yet, but these Yasso bars are delicious. I'm pretty sure they're made from Greek yogurt, but the texture is just like ice cream, 10 times better than any halo top ice pint you'll ever buy. Delicious. This question said, do you ever experience feeling guilty after eating something?

How do you deal with that? Well, thank you for asking this question, first of all, because I feel like this is a universal experience, but we don't talk about it all the time. And I want you to know first that the guilt that you're feeling is okay. It is not something to shame yourself for because it's not your fault. You weren't born thinking certain foods were good or bad, and you weren't born thinking, okay, should I eat this?

Is it contributing to my goals? You know, we've been taught this. We've seen it everywhere. We've been taught it. We I have contributed to that, obviously, because of my lifestyle and my hobby of bodybuilding.

But know that it doesn't make you a bad person. What you eat doesn't show your character. I know, feels crazy. I don't know. The thought that you don't have to earn food was something I didn't realize for a long time.

But it's true. You don't have to earn your food, and you don't have to punish yourself for food. Sometimes, our brain feels like something is the end of the world. And we don't have to repress that emotion, but we can take the same or sorry. We can take the shame and guilt out of it.

We usually feel less out of control when we eat, when we don't feel the guilt and the shame. So I don't know if that made sense. But, essentially, we won't stop feeling guilt and shame when we're eating unless we stop punishing ourselves. So if you eat a food and you immediately decide, okay, now I don't get to eat dinner, or okay, now I have to go do some cardio. That's punishing yourself, and it is just reaffirming this negative cycle that you're trying to break out of.

But it can stop, it can be learned. And something that I've had to learn is that our body is in a measurement of the discipline that we have. I did say this a few weeks ago, but it's so important. And, you know, maybe for people that are athletes, it's obvious that they're disciplined people. You know, people in the Olympics.

Okay. We can say that their discipline is totally seen on the outside, but we can measure our discipline in so many other ways that are outside of our body, such as celebrating the consistency that you have for waking up early and getting ready each day, for attending class in college and working really, really hard on your grades, for the hard work that you've put into your job and meeting deadlines, for the exciting hobby that you've been committed to and invested in learning all summer, Or maybe it's the children that you've kept alive and have been growing, and helping to, you know, helping them become good people. These are all things that you have been practicing discipline with. And for a long time, and, you know, I believe that I would only be seen as disciplined if I looked or ate a certain way, and that's just not the case because we're not robots. We're not robots, and our bodies change oftentimes with the seasons.

We rest a little bit more in the winter time. We sleep a little bit more in the winter time. Our cycles affect everything. They affect how you feel the week before your cycle, the week after your cycle, all that jazz. And the years will continue to come and go.

And one quote that I saw says, if your dream body is a nightmare to maintain, it is not your dream body. So if you're feeling guilt for eating specific foods, maybe work these foods into your daily routine or eat them a few times a week to take away the stigma that they're bad because you'll realize, oh, this is actually not the enemy and it's not gonna break any goals that I have or discipline that you practice. Also, know that logically and scientifically, it's actually hard to gain fat, given that, you know, you're not working with a chronic illness or disease or anything like that. You have to eat thousands of calories extra more than you're expending to gain even a pound of fat. So that entire bag of nerds clusters, guess what?

You're gonna be fine. Don't punish yourself by not eating a meal. Don't punish yourself by doing extra cardio. That's just gonna make your hormones feel out of whack. It's gonna bring you more stress and it's gonna hurt your metabolism.

So, yeah, I just want you to know that other than that, water. If you're eating a lot of carbs, water binds to carbs. So if you do have a higher carb day, you might have an influx on the scale, but know that that is water weight. And that weighing yourself every day or every other day or even more than once a week isn't gonna help you feel any better because it's not an accurate representation. And, lastly, know that you are more than your weight.

We are all more than our weight, more than our body, more than our external image. I sometimes feel guilty because though, you know, though I do and did talk about my weight loss today, I I want you to know that this isn't saying to anybody listening that you need to jump on to any sort of diet, weight loss plan, anything like that. Everything that I've mentioned can be applied to lifestyle change. Like I said in the beginning, most people are not eating enough. So before you jump into any diet, any crazy lifestyle change, I think it would be great if you just started making sure that you're eating enough.

Enough protein, enough fiber, enough veggies, and that you're getting outside enough, and you're walking enough, and you are practicing gratitude for you and for who you are today, not who you hope to be in 6 months. And, yeah, that is today's episode. I hope that this was helpful in any kind of way. It wasn't necessarily what I was, I guess, even thinking I was going to be talking about today. And so that's why I really enjoy when you guys submit any questions and why I really appreciate any feedback that you give.

And yeah. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I would really appreciate if you could rate and review my podcast. And I hope that you have the most wonderful rest of your week because you deserve it. And with that, thank you so much for listening to the Unrelatable podcast, and I will see you soon.

Bye.