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Half Size Me episode 612 brought

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to you by the Half Size Me community. In

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order to join us, please go to halfsizeme.com

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forward slash join.

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Hello

0:58

lovely listeners.

1:01

I am your host Heather and today you

1:03

are going to be very fortunate in hearing

1:05

a wonderful interview with Susan.

1:08

Susan is amazing. She

1:10

grew up in the 60s and the 70s. She is in her 60s

1:15

and she shares with us how

1:17

she chose to lose the weight for

1:19

the last time a totally different

1:22

way and with a different mindset.

1:24

And I loved this conversation with

1:26

her because she really dispels a

1:28

lot of kind of myths that float around out

1:30

there that when you get to a certain age

1:33

or if you're a woman and you're going through menopause

1:35

you really can't lose the weight and

1:37

that is so not true. She

1:40

really helps people see that

1:42

this is more about learning a new

1:44

way of doing things and just not falling

1:46

victim to that lower brain chatter. So

1:48

I really appreciate Susan and her

1:50

willingness to come on the show. And I

1:53

just want to encourage you if you are listening

1:55

to this and you are loving

1:57

today's episode

1:58

and you want more of the Half

2:00

Size Me show, do I have

2:03

more for you. This

2:05

is episode 612, which means there

2:08

are 612 episodes. If

2:11

you become a podcast premium subscriber,

2:14

you will have access to all 612, including

2:17

our coaching call with Ms. Payton next week.

2:20

So every other week, there is an episode

2:22

that goes out for our podcast premium subscribers

2:24

and just doesn't show up here on the public feed. I

2:27

would encourage you, if you like getting

2:29

a show every Monday, if you enjoy

2:31

listening to all the old episodes, if

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you would like to hear different coaching series

2:36

like the one we have with Carolina

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and Sarah, to go to signup

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at halfsizeme.com forward

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slash fan. All right,

2:45

you have a fantastic week.

2:48

Enjoy this coaching call with Susan, and

2:50

I will be talking to you soon. Have

2:53

a great week. Take care, bye-bye.

2:59

All right, wonderful listeners. We

3:01

have Ms. Susan on the line with us

3:03

today. Susan has been so wonderfully

3:05

gracious, and she is coming on to

3:07

share her story with

3:09

us. So Susan, I would love for

3:11

you to say hello to everybody,

3:14

and then maybe just give us a little

3:16

bit of background on when

3:18

you can remember either weight or

3:21

body image issues starting for

3:23

you.

3:24

Okay, hi everybody. I'm really happy

3:26

to be here. My

3:28

story, I think, is as old as time. Heather

3:32

just asked when I

3:34

can remember my food and body

3:36

issues starting, and honestly,

3:38

I don't ever

3:40

remember not having any food

3:42

or body issues. They

3:45

started when I was quite young.

3:47

I was always a chubby kid,

3:50

chubby probably all the way through high

3:52

school is how you could describe me. But

3:55

I'm 62 years old, so I grew

3:57

up in the 60s and 70s. And

4:01

skinny was really the only

4:03

way to be. So even though

4:05

at that time, I

4:08

was a little on the chubby side, in

4:10

high school maybe, five, 10,

4:14

maybe 15 pounds above

4:17

my ideal weight. In my mind,

4:19

I might as well have been 100 pounds

4:21

overweight because that's

4:24

just the time that I was growing up in. So

4:28

I think I went on my first self-imposed diet

4:30

when I was eight years old. And

4:34

I shudder to think of that now, but

4:36

I did. And from

4:39

that point on, I

4:42

did everything under the sun. I did Atkins,

4:45

I did the Stillman diet,

4:48

I did calorie counting,

4:50

like extreme calorie counting,

4:53

carbohydrate counting. I

4:56

could go on and on, everything that you can think

4:58

of. And of course I did Weight Watchers

5:01

too. And I actually ended

5:05

up working for Weight Watchers at

5:07

one point. And that's a whole

5:09

story all in itself.

5:12

All of these diets. So

5:15

obviously you said you started when you were eight. Were

5:17

these all going on like through your 20s

5:19

and 30s? Or was

5:22

there a time period where maybe you laid

5:24

off focusing on weight? Cause you said it's always

5:26

been an issue. So I'm just kind of curious.

5:28

Yeah, I guess, you

5:31

know, off and on, my

5:34

weight didn't become

5:37

really out of control, I

5:41

guess until after

5:43

college, after I got married.

5:46

That's when my weight really

5:48

started to pile on. And

5:51

I did try, I

5:53

felt like I feel like I was either

5:56

constantly on something or

5:58

not doing anything. anything

6:00

at all. So,

6:03

you know, I would, I would die

6:05

it, whatever I happen to be doing,

6:07

I would, you know, try something, it would work

6:09

for a while, I would go off of it.

6:12

And,

6:14

you know, and then I would begin to gain the,

6:16

I mean, you know, the story, it's the same

6:18

cycle with,

6:19

you know, almost all of us.

6:22

You lose

6:24

weight, you stop what you're doing, you gain

6:26

weight. So, you're either trying to

6:28

lose weight or you're gaining weight.

6:31

I just wanted to ask one question because you said it was like kind

6:33

of a 15 pound thing when you were younger.

6:36

But then you said once you got married,

6:38

it really piled on. What

6:41

do you attribute to that in reflection

6:43

and what would you say was kind of the

6:46

highest weight you got up to during

6:48

that time?

6:49

Well, what

6:51

would contribute to that? That's,

6:54

I think, just the cycle

6:58

of dieting and not dieting, I think

7:00

is what contributed to that. And it just

7:02

kept piling on

7:04

every time I stopped doing something,

7:07

I would gain weight and I would end

7:10

up weighing a little bit more than

7:12

I did when I had started the last

7:14

time and it just compounded itself.

7:17

Yeah. Well, do you feel like that might

7:19

have come in? I'm just curious in your reflection

7:22

on this. Do you think that, because

7:24

it really doesn't sound like you had a huge

7:26

weight issue, but during the time you grew up, any

7:28

extra weight was a problem, right? So, in

7:31

your mind, it was perceived and you now know more

7:33

about the lower brain. You're like, well, of course, my

7:35

brain is going to find a problem to fix and

7:37

there it is. But

7:40

what's interesting is because there was

7:42

so many attempts of restriction,

7:44

which you mentioned some pretty restrictive diets,

7:47

do you feel like when you were off

7:49

the diet, because you said that you

7:51

think that was what contributed to the piling

7:53

on of the weight, was it because you

7:56

had been mentally so restricted with what

7:58

you were doing that maybe you eating

8:00

in a way that wasn't

8:02

what you were doing prior because you are

8:04

coming from a more restricted diet. Like

8:07

when you look back on that, did you see a period of overeating

8:09

or maybe trying out all the things you couldn't have on

8:12

the diet and that might be where the weight came from?

8:15

Oh definitely because as soon as I

8:17

would stop doing whatever diet

8:19

I happen to be doing, I

8:22

would run right back to my favorite

8:24

foods, my problem foods

8:28

and I couldn't get enough of them. So

8:30

that definitely, definitely

8:32

was an issue. And where did that process

8:35

take you as far as, I think

8:37

I asked this earlier, but like how much weight did that

8:40

cause you to gain over the time that you were doing

8:42

it?

8:43

Well I mean at

8:45

my highest weight,

8:47

which was three years ago,

8:49

I weighed 207 pounds and I'm 5'1". So

8:52

that gives

8:59

you an idea. That's where

9:02

it ended up taking me. So

9:04

you know and during you know during that

9:06

whole time, say from

9:08

you know in my adulthood,

9:11

I was every size

9:13

imaginable. I mean I had times when

9:16

I was very thin and I had times obviously

9:18

when I was very heavy and I

9:21

had times when I was in between. You know

9:24

so my weight was like

9:27

people talk about yo-yo dieting

9:29

and you know fluctuating.

9:32

Oh you know my I just go up 10 pounds

9:34

and then I have to lose it. No no no no

9:37

that's that's my weight fluctuated 50

9:40

pounds, 60 pounds, 70

9:43

pounds. That was my yo-yo. I

9:45

mean I would lose huge amounts of weight

9:48

and then gain back those huge amounts

9:50

of weight plus some. That

9:52

right there what you just said is

9:55

really the crux for why I started all

9:57

of this because I was like you.

10:00

I had that tendency, I could gain 50, 60 pounds, I

10:02

could lose 50, 60 pounds. But

10:05

what was happening over the course of time is I was

10:07

gaining more than I was losing and

10:10

I could lose weight really well.

10:12

I could be diligent, focused, six

10:14

months, whatever, get it off, but

10:16

I could not keep it off. And

10:19

I'm guessing from what you're saying

10:21

in your experience, this concept

10:23

of how do I find a way

10:25

to lose this weight that I can

10:27

sustain for the rest of my life so I can stay in

10:30

the same size clothing that probably

10:32

was not on your radar or was

10:35

it? No, it was not on my

10:37

radar. I don't even remember thinking

10:40

about, all right, how am I going to keep this

10:42

off once I get there? I don't even

10:44

remember even

10:45

having that thought or

10:48

even wondering that. That was never

10:51

part of

10:52

my thinking. My thinking was

10:54

just how do I get down to this

10:57

number,

10:58

whatever it is. And I

11:00

never even thought past that

11:04

point. But this

11:06

time, this last time, that

11:08

was different. That

11:11

was my focus almost

11:13

from the start.

11:14

And how did that paradigm shift

11:17

happen? Because you said as early

11:19

as three years ago, so obviously,

11:21

and you said you're 62, so you're about 59 when

11:24

this moment started to shift for you.

11:27

Was there something going on for you personally? Often

11:29

for somebody to kind of have that aha

11:32

moment where they're like, wait a minute. I've

11:34

spent all these years doing all

11:37

these extreme things to lose weight and I've gained

11:39

it all back and I keep bouncing around.

11:42

And so obviously, there's something flawed

11:45

in my approach to this. And maybe

11:47

I need to look at this from a different perspective.

11:49

I need to start thinking about the after

11:51

after part, not just the during getting

11:54

to the goal weight part.

11:55

So how did that shift start to happen

11:56

for you?

11:58

Well, gosh, I. I

12:00

wish I could really put my finger

12:02

on it. It's, it's, it's hard

12:04

to say, but you know, where

12:07

I was at that point, three years

12:09

ago, um, of course we were

12:11

in the middle of the pandemic. And

12:14

I was, you know, like everybody

12:16

else, I was, had been home alone

12:19

for quite some time and

12:21

I had just been

12:23

eating myself into

12:25

oblivion and I guess

12:27

I got to the end of that summer, 2020.

12:31

And I just realized

12:34

that things were like, I

12:36

had felt out of control before, but

12:40

this time I felt desperately

12:42

out of control.

12:44

And also you probably at that same time,

12:46

if I'm thinking about that time correctly, you probably

12:49

felt out of control, not even just with your

12:51

eating, but with your life circumstance,

12:53

right? Like here you are, you're

12:55

kind of what your life normally would have looked like

12:57

has been taken away from you. You're

13:00

eating in a way you realize this isn't going to end tomorrow.

13:03

So it's kind of like probably a realization of lack

13:05

of control in many areas of your

13:07

life, not even just the food.

13:09

True. True. And I

13:11

just, I just knew, I mean, I physically,

13:14

I felt terrible. Um,

13:17

I was quite uncomfortable as

13:20

you can imagine. And I just,

13:23

I just felt like I needed to get some

13:25

kind of control back in my life.

13:28

So I, I started

13:31

and I, and I, I thought I needed something new.

13:33

Like I had always just, you know,

13:35

or in that recent

13:37

past, I had kept going back to Weight Watchers

13:40

and trying Weight Watchers and it just was not

13:42

working for me anymore

13:43

and I needed to find something new.

13:46

So I did find another program

13:48

that unfortunately I hadn't

13:51

found half size knee at that point, but

13:53

I found another program that

13:55

very much like half size knee

13:58

had a focus on. the

14:00

psychology piece, you

14:03

know, and they had different

14:05

terminology for it, but definitely

14:07

the lower brain versus higher brain piece.

14:11

And I dove into that. And

14:14

that's when things started

14:17

to really click. And I started to understand

14:19

the reasons why

14:22

I had these

14:23

issues with

14:25

food and eating and my body

14:28

image. And things

14:30

started to finally make

14:32

a little bit of sense. Love

14:34

that. And it always is a thinking

14:37

problem because, you know, we

14:39

are bombarded with facts. I mean,

14:41

you can look up anything, right? What's

14:43

the amount of calories I should be eating? There's tons of

14:45

calculators. You could look up, you

14:47

know, what are the appropriate breakdowns of macronutrients?

14:50

How do I start working out? How do I start? Like, if

14:52

you want to know the how, there's tons

14:54

of content out there. And I always say

14:56

your thinking proceeds your actions.

14:59

So if you're doing actions that

15:01

you do not like or are not in

15:03

favor of your goals, you're

15:05

probably going to keep wanting to look at the how,

15:08

but really what you need to look at is the

15:11

why. What am I thinking that's

15:13

leading me to take these actions

15:15

with food, with body, being restrictive,

15:18

you know, not allowing myself to have treats, forcing

15:21

myself to do all these boot camp style workouts.

15:23

Like, where is all that thinking coming

15:25

from that's navigating me

15:27

to doing self-destructive patterns?

15:30

And it sounds like you kind of got your first glimmer

15:33

into this idea that it wasn't just

15:35

a program issue. It was

15:37

really more of a thinking issue. Absolutely.

15:40

Definitely. Definitely.

15:43

Love it. So you're getting a different

15:45

perspective. And how did that transform

15:49

the how? So as thinking

15:51

changes, all of a sudden sometimes things

15:53

that felt really hard, because

15:55

you'd lost weight many, many times,

15:58

right? So Sure. I was a pro. What

16:00

is a losing weight pro? Yeah.

16:03

And there had to be this residual thought

16:05

that even showed up that said, well, you've lost

16:07

this a bunch of times. So what's going to make this

16:09

different? Why are you even trying, right? To

16:12

convince you to eat the donut today. Like,

16:15

have the donut today or the cake today

16:17

because, hey, you know what? This is going to be a long

16:20

process and or you're probably

16:22

going to gain the weight back anyway. So

16:24

why not just enjoy yourself today, right? That little lower brain

16:26

kind of convincing you. How did

16:28

this knowledge start to affect

16:31

your actions? What did you see starting to

16:33

change for you with the way you went about

16:35

the process?

16:37

Well, first of all, I

16:39

didn't restrict myself from anything,

16:42

any types of foods. I ate

16:46

literally whatever I wanted, but

16:49

I was counting calories. So

16:52

portion

16:55

control was definitely a

16:57

thing, but I didn't

17:00

restrict myself from anything.

17:03

I allowed myself treats.

17:06

I allowed myself whatever I wanted.

17:09

So

17:11

that took a whole

17:13

load off right there because

17:17

it just took a lot of the pressure,

17:20

a lot of the pressure off. And

17:23

after a while, and of course, when I started,

17:25

I

17:26

did the whole thing

17:28

like we would always do and we would start

17:30

losing weight. It would come off

17:32

fast in the beginning and then you would get

17:34

all excited. And

17:36

then I would start looking at my calendar and going,

17:39

okay, well, if I lost this much this

17:41

month, and that means by next month,

17:44

I'll be this. And the next month after that,

17:46

I'll be this. And then by the summer,

17:48

I'll weigh this and I'll

17:50

be a size six or whatever. And

17:53

you start doing all those calculations.

17:56

And then of course, that's not how it happened.

17:59

you hit those bumps in the road,

18:02

you get, you know, hit those little plateaus.

18:03

But what was, and

18:06

then that's where in the past

18:08

I would derail, you know, when things

18:10

weren't going the way that I thought they should

18:13

be going. Okay,

18:15

you know,

18:16

I've had enough of this, forget it. But

18:18

this time, and I don't

18:20

even, I can't even really say exactly

18:22

where this came from. But

18:24

when I would hit those little bumps

18:27

in the road when I hit those plateaus,

18:30

instead of saying to myself,

18:32

okay, that's it, I'm done, I'm out

18:35

of here. I said,

18:37

you know what, I am so

18:39

much better off than I was when I

18:41

started. So guess what?

18:44

If this is where my weight loss ends

18:46

for me this time,

18:48

this is where it ends.

18:50

But I'm okay with that. I'm

18:53

just going to keep doing what I'm doing, because

18:55

I feel better, I feel healthier. So

18:59

I'm just going to keep doing this. But if

19:02

I don't lose any more weight, I'm

19:04

okay with that. Because I'm better

19:07

off than I was back

19:09

in August, you know, of 2020.

19:14

And so I just kept

19:16

going on like that. And of course,

19:18

then those plateaus would end.

19:21

And I would start losing weight again. And,

19:23

you

19:25

know, and I

19:27

just had a whole completely

19:30

different outlook. I didn't,

19:32

yeah, I didn't, I didn't have that,

19:35

that pressure anymore that

19:37

if I don't get to this particular

19:41

number, whatever it was at the time that I

19:43

thought I was to get to, if I didn't

19:45

get there, that the whole thing was

19:47

a failure and a

19:50

waste of time. Like that thought

19:52

just wasn't in my head

19:53

anymore.

19:55

I wish I could tell people

19:58

exactly how that happened. happened

20:00

for me so that, you

20:02

know, I could share it, but

20:04

I can't. I don't really know

20:07

exactly how or when it

20:09

clicked in,

20:10

but I'm grateful that it did. Yeah. I'm going to throw this

20:12

out there. I think it happened because you

20:15

fell in the same pit so many

20:17

times. It's that there's like a little like

20:19

poem slash short story where this person's

20:21

walking down the road and they fall in the pit and the pit

20:23

is representative of

20:26

habitual behavior, right? Whether it's drinking,

20:29

drugs, you know, overeating.

20:31

And they do this multiple times, but each time

20:34

they do it, they see themselves changing.

20:36

Like the first time they're screaming for help, they

20:39

feel helpless. The second time they decide

20:41

they're going to dig their way out. But basically

20:43

by like the fifth or sixth time they decide

20:45

they're going to walk around the pit or they're going to go down

20:47

a different road altogether, right? They're

20:49

not going to follow that same pattern because they're

20:52

learning. And sometimes I feel

20:54

we want to tell people how not to

20:56

fall in the pit, but I make the argument

20:58

as a coach, often everyone

21:01

has to do it. The question becomes how

21:03

many times do you have to do it before

21:06

that message really clicks?

21:08

It sounds to me like you invested a lot

21:10

of time and effort into falling into

21:12

the same pits over and over again. And you kind

21:14

of learned a lesson. Wait a second. I

21:17

see

21:17

my old self

21:19

doing really well, planning everything

21:21

out. But then when it doesn't happen, I stopped

21:23

doing all those things and

21:25

then my weight always comes back. What

21:27

if this time I were to count my losses,

21:30

walk away from the casino table as they like

21:32

to say, right? I got my cash in my hand. I'm going

21:34

to go to the door and just cash out. I

21:37

take my winnings and I go, but

21:40

I just keep doing the same

21:42

thing. And then what happened for you

21:44

is more weight loss, right? Because you didn't stop

21:46

the process. But had

21:49

you sat at that table and just kept banging

21:51

your head against the same thing over

21:53

and over again, you probably would have gained

21:56

all that weight back yet again, right?

21:58

It was the choosing not to do that. the same process.

22:01

Right, exactly.

22:02

I love it.

22:04

So you had this like

22:06

epiphany moment where you're like it takes as long

22:08

as it takes. I'm much like you said

22:10

that I'm much better off than I was back in

22:12

August. I see that I've made improvements.

22:15

Better to be here than to be there, right?

22:18

Right. And I didn't want to go back.

22:20

I was not I had made up my

22:22

mind that I was not going to go backwards.

22:25

Standing still was okay. But

22:28

going backwards was not. Beautiful.

22:31

So then let me ask you this because all

22:33

total you said it was kind

22:35

of like well you're three years out from when you started this

22:37

process, right? So there's several

22:39

things that I hear come up for people

22:42

in their I'll just say 50s through

22:44

70s like in that timeframe. There's several

22:46

things. One is I'm too old

22:49

to do this. I've tried this too

22:51

many times. I'm too old. I've

22:53

spent too much of my life on this, too much of my money,

22:56

too much of everything, right? So that's

22:58

one. A lot of times ladies are going through

23:00

menopause or they're in perimenopause

23:03

and so that seems like this daunting

23:06

thing that's kind of hovering there that

23:08

could be a problem. And they

23:10

often say things like well kind

23:13

of like what's the point? You know so I get there

23:15

and I have to live on these little bit of calories

23:18

for the rest of my life and they're kind of already future

23:20

tripping about all the things that they may have

23:22

to do in the future. As you reflect

23:25

back on this last three years, how

23:27

did you combat any of those thoughts?

23:29

Did any of those kinds of thoughts show up for you

23:32

and then how did you work on not

23:34

giving them a lot of credit or

23:36

focus?

23:38

Well I think you

23:40

know when you hear people say I'm too old

23:42

for this or I'm too old to

23:45

do this, I think

23:47

I had kind of flipped it around and said

23:50

I'm too old not to do this because

23:53

I'm getting you know we're all getting older. I

24:01

wanted to be an older person

24:03

that could still do things. I

24:06

wanted to be an older person that could still

24:08

get around. I wanted to be an older person

24:11

that aged healthfully. I

24:17

didn't want my weight

24:20

to cause healthy issues that

24:23

were unnecessary. So

24:26

I was too old not to do

24:28

it. Yeah,

24:31

and as far as issues with menopause and

24:35

things like that don't hate me, but I

24:38

went through menopause quite early. So

24:41

I've been out of that for years. I

24:46

went through menopause almost 20 years

24:48

ago. And

24:51

so I don't even, for me, I

24:55

don't even think of that as an issue because

24:57

that hasn't been part of my life for a while.

25:01

And as far as metabolism

25:04

issues, I'm small, I'm 5'1", I'm 62,

25:08

I was 59 at the time when I started. So

25:13

I thought, I always

25:15

thought that I had a slower metabolism,

25:18

but now when I look back,

25:22

I think that I

25:24

probably have been blessed with a

25:26

rather high metabolism. Because

25:29

when I look back at the way

25:31

that I used to eat, I'm

25:34

surprised that I only

25:37

weighed 207 pounds. I'm

25:42

surprised that I didn't weigh much more

25:44

when I think about how I used to eat.

25:48

And yeah, and right now, my

25:50

maintenance calories right now are

25:53

between 17 and 1800 calories, which

25:57

I don't think is bad for some. on

26:00

my age and height. Yeah,

26:02

so I don't, yeah, so

26:04

for me, I don't, I don't think that part

26:07

was much of an issue.

26:08

And I love that you brought that up because it seems

26:11

as of late in the community, we have the maintenance

26:13

group and everything. We've had some ladies more

26:15

on the Batiste side and they're kind of

26:17

coming to that realization for them that their maintenance

26:20

calories are far, far lower than that.

26:22

And I think this goes back to that idea

26:25

of what I always tell people, use your

26:27

own biofeedback. I've also seen

26:29

other clients in their 60s and

26:31

70s who have much faster

26:34

metabolisms than they would have thought, but

26:36

they didn't know that, you know, until

26:38

they actually tested it out to see what

26:40

happened, right? So we can sometimes

26:43

get so scared about what things are going

26:45

to be that we don't even give ourselves

26:47

a chance to figure it out. Yeah,

26:49

yeah, yes. I think that may

26:51

be what was what I was trying to say,

26:54

but I did it in a much more long winded

26:56

way. It sounds like

26:58

you pushed past a lot of this stuff by

27:00

really just reframing your thinking. I'm

27:02

not going to say I'm too old to do this and

27:04

that I've already wasted quote unquote so much time

27:06

on it. So why bother? It was one

27:09

of those like, wait a minute, what do I want the rest

27:11

of the quality of my years to be on

27:13

planet earth? And what do I, what am I taking

27:16

away from my experience by

27:18

not dealing with this, right? And

27:20

then also by kind of even

27:23

noticing, I love, love how you said

27:25

that. I only weighed 207 pounds based on

27:28

how I used to eat. I could have

27:30

weighed a lot more than that, you know? And

27:32

it kind of goes back to that idea. I tell people all

27:34

the time, we micromanage our

27:37

weight going down. Like we're watching every

27:39

pound, every ounce, like why isn't this

27:41

happening faster? But then how

27:43

many people do that when it's going up? You

27:46

know, you're eating, you know, you're overeating,

27:48

but you don't sit there and weigh yourself every day and go,

27:51

come on scale. You should be up another half

27:53

a pound today. We

27:55

have a, we have a reverse thing where we just ignore

27:58

it completely, right? It's like.

27:59

I'd rather not know.

28:01

But if we did that,

28:03

we might be shocked at how long it actually

28:05

takes us to really gain all the weight too,

28:07

right?

28:10

Yeah, it doesn't feel that way. Time

28:13

is a funny, funny thing. So

28:16

tell me, so you started this journey at 59, you

28:18

had a much different mindset, much

28:21

different thought process, hence why

28:23

you were able to work through. So would

28:25

you say at this point you feel you're kind of

28:27

a maintainable weight for you?

28:30

About how long did that process take

28:33

to get you to that level?

28:35

Yeah, it took me

28:38

about, well,

28:41

of course, you know, I still had that number

28:43

in mind that I wanted to get to. And

28:46

it took me about two and a

28:48

half years to

28:51

get there. I had lost

28:53

about 75 pounds or so.

28:59

I was trying to get to 128, just

29:02

pull a number out of the air, right? And

29:06

as I finally got close to that

29:08

number, I

29:12

was really struggling with, because

29:15

I felt pretty comfortable. I felt comfortable

29:18

in my body, I felt comfortable in my clothes,

29:20

I felt good about everything,

29:23

but I hadn't hit that number

29:26

yet. And it was just dogging

29:28

me. It was like, you know, I could

29:31

get really close. I could get

29:33

to 130, I

29:33

could get to 129, but

29:35

I couldn't get to that 128. This

29:38

was just this past

29:39

spring, I was going through this. And

29:41

I'm like, well, do I change my goal weight?

29:44

No, I can't change my goal weight. I'm almost

29:46

there, I can do it, I can do it. And

29:49

then I finally thought,

29:51

you know what? This is ridiculous. This

29:54

doesn't even make any sense. I'm

29:57

not gonna worry about

29:59

my goal weight.

29:59

and I'm not going to worry about maintenance

30:02

calories,

30:04

I'm just going to let my body decide

30:06

where it wants to be.

30:08

And I knew that

30:11

I felt

30:12

comfortable with 1700 calories

30:13

a day. Like

30:16

I knew that I could do that.

30:20

I can be happy eating an average

30:22

of 1700 calories a day. So

30:25

that's what I'm going to do. And

30:27

wherever my body ends up

30:30

weight wise, that's where it ends up weight

30:32

wise. I'm going

30:35

to let my body decide. You

30:37

asked that question, I want to say it

30:38

was a webinar. I remember you asking that

30:40

question. Oh, yeah. And I was like brilliant

30:43

because what so many people do

30:45

struggle with is that idea of like,

30:48

where do I let my, like I have

30:50

this number in my head, this goal number that

30:52

I want to be. But really

30:54

going back to what we talked about is kind of like, well,

30:56

what is sustainable long term? And you

30:59

had said in your question, you're like, I can live on 1700

31:01

calories. So this idea

31:03

of just kind of free falling and letting it be

31:05

what it is, right? And just eating

31:07

at 1700 calories. And if the weight goes

31:10

down, the weight goes down. If it doesn't, it

31:12

doesn't. You've put

31:14

your marker in the sand. You said,

31:16

I'm not willing to go below this point, right? And

31:19

so then what was the outcome of trying

31:21

that? What did you see happen with that?

31:24

Well, guess what?

31:26

I never hit 128 pounds. But

31:30

my weight since

31:32

then has fluctuated

31:35

between, say, 129 and 132. That's

31:38

where I'm kind of have

31:40

settled in. And

31:42

yeah, and that's fine. That's

31:45

fine.

31:46

I'm totally okay with that. And if I never

31:48

see 128, I never see 128. Who

31:51

cares? Right. And

31:53

you know what's funny is 128 for you. I

31:56

don't know where that originated from,

31:58

but what you often find the more... people you

32:00

talk to, it's usually

32:02

like something that happened in your

32:04

past that made that number meaningful

32:07

to you and your

32:09

lower brain has glommed onto it

32:11

and said, this is what we have to be. Like

32:13

that's the pinnacle of everything

32:16

being okay. It could have been like

32:18

your best friend in high school weighed that and you

32:20

thought she had her life together. I mean, there's all

32:22

these like weird things that could happen

32:24

at some point in your past that somehow

32:27

make that feel important but

32:29

your brain latches onto it and it's

32:31

like a dog going after a bone. It's just not going

32:33

to let up and because

32:36

to the point, do you really feel the difference

32:38

in a pound or two pounds? Probably

32:41

not, right? Like if you never weighed yourself, you wouldn't

32:43

know what that physically even feels like difference

32:46

but it's got that number that

32:48

it's just fixated on just like it can do with

32:50

calories, just like it can do with anything

32:52

else, right?

32:55

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Like,

32:59

you know, some mornings I wake up, I

33:01

weigh myself every morning. It's first

33:03

thing I do after I make my bed. I get

33:06

up, I make my bed, weigh myself and

33:08

some mornings I wake up and it's like, oh, I feel

33:10

so skinny this morning and

33:13

I get on the scale. It's like 132. It's

33:15

like, oh, that's disappointing.

33:18

I thought I felt skinny and then some mornings

33:20

I wake up and I feel kind of bloated

33:23

and I get on

33:25

the scale and it's 129. It's

33:27

like, oh, where did that

33:28

come from? Yeah. So

33:30

it's almost like you can't trust how you feel even or

33:32

meaning how you feel doesn't directly

33:35

correlate into scale weight, right?

33:37

Right, exactly. So

33:39

you just have to let it go. You know,

33:42

I do it every morning now. I, you

33:44

know, it's just I do it for the data.

33:48

I don't do it for the validation.

33:49

Love that. All right. So

33:52

just give me a little bit. So since making that decision

33:54

and submitting that question and kind of settling

33:56

it to 1700 calories, I guess

33:59

a couple of questions. questions. One,

34:01

how did you stumble into

34:03

half-size me and decide you wanted

34:05

to join the community and

34:08

then also about how long would you

34:10

say that you've been maintaining this

34:12

range of the 129 to the 132? Okay well you know

34:14

as I was I guess

34:17

it

34:21

was last summer, yeah

34:25

summer of 2022, you

34:28

know I was I was starting like

34:31

I was within 10 pounds of where

34:33

I wanted to be so I was really starting

34:35

to seriously think about

34:38

how I was going to maintain this once

34:40

I got there and this

34:42

program that I was on didn't

34:46

really have much help

34:49

in the way you know right you know there wasn't much

34:52

to

34:52

talk about with maintenance they didn't really

34:55

deal with that end of things

34:57

much so I was

35:00

really trying to seek something out

35:02

and I belonged to a Facebook group you

35:06

know for this other program and someone

35:09

I guess

35:11

who was in the same boat as me you know

35:13

was posting about hey you know I'm

35:16

at my goal weight I'm thinking about maintenance

35:19

but I found this really

35:21

great podcast so if you know

35:23

if anybody's looking for a podcast to listen

35:26

to I recommend it and of course

35:28

it was half-size me so

35:30

I started listening to the podcast

35:33

and I'm like oh yeah this is exactly

35:35

what I need this is exactly

35:37

what I need so that

35:40

was that was great that's how I

35:42

found my way there so you

35:45

know since that time I've become a community

35:47

member and you know podcast

35:50

premium so I have I have a lot I

35:52

haven't gotten through nearly

35:54

all of the podcast you've got

35:56

a lot of content to cover right

36:00

I've got a lot of content to cover. So

36:04

that's how I ended up there

36:07

and it's been such

36:09

a big, big help. And

36:13

now I forget the second part of your question.

36:15

You asked me about how I got to heft size me. Yeah

36:17

and then about how long would you say you've been

36:19

kind of officially like locked

36:21

into your 1700 calories, maintaining

36:24

your weight, like in the skull range.

36:27

How long would you say you've been doing that?

36:29

I would say unintentionally

36:35

since about last January

36:37

or February, but intentionally

36:40

since like last

36:42

April, say. Yeah.

36:44

All right. So yeah, so you're, so

36:47

officially you'll have been maintaining in this range

36:49

this next January for one full year,

36:51

but not like you said, intentionally.

36:54

Right. Yeah. It was, it was, you

36:56

know, that's where

36:58

I was around January,

37:00

February, weight wise

37:03

and calorie wise. But I, at

37:05

that point I hadn't made up my mind

37:07

that, you know, that's

37:10

where I was going to stay. That didn't

37:12

come until a couple months later. So

37:16

yeah.

37:17

So it's, it's been not quite

37:19

a year. What would you say for

37:22

you in this transition? Because I mean, you have spent

37:24

a lot of time either what we'll

37:26

call dieting or not dieting, and

37:28

you have obviously spent two

37:30

and a half years or so getting

37:33

to this point. But let's just

37:35

say that maybe you've been spending eight

37:37

months maintaining and then maybe

37:39

even a little less than that intentionally

37:42

maintaining. But what do you see as maybe

37:44

being different this time with

37:46

this intentional maintenance with

37:49

the daily practice, but maybe

37:51

not getting the reward of seeing the scale go

37:53

down? How do you, how have you been kind

37:56

of processing that?

37:57

You know, I thought of. That

38:00

a lot lately because I've been hearing

38:03

that come up on some of the other podcasts.

38:07

And I know that some people have, you

38:09

know, they have problems with that because

38:13

yes, seeing the scale go down was the

38:15

reward. That was the big prize. And

38:19

I don't know, I just feel like every

38:22

time I get on the scale and I'm in that range,

38:25

I feel like that's my reward. So, I

38:28

don't feel like I'm missing that piece

38:30

of it. It's just

38:33

the priority

38:34

has shifted. I'm not looking

38:36

for the weight loss anymore. But every time I

38:38

get on the scale and

38:40

I'm in that range, I'm

38:43

still feeling that same sense

38:45

of receiving a reward,

38:48

if that makes any sense. Oh, absolutely.

38:51

Yeah. And it really is, again,

38:53

it's a shift in focus. It's a shift

38:55

in attention, right? In the past,

38:58

I'm sure whenever you were doing the actions, it

39:00

was with your deadlines. It was with, okay,

39:02

we got to hit these numbers on these days to

39:04

make sure we're at this number. And

39:07

it probably wasn't ever a thought

39:09

about what you're going to do the day after

39:11

you do that, right? Like, I just got to get there

39:13

wherever there is. Now,

39:16

you're saying, okay, kind of like what you did in your weight loss

39:18

journey, which was a great practice to

39:21

put in to prepare you for this, which

39:23

is better for me to stay where

39:25

I'm at than to go backwards,

39:27

right? And what you're starting to

39:29

see is you stuck with the habits,

39:32

you stuck with the probably the journaling, the food

39:34

planning, all that kind of stuff, even

39:37

when the scale wasn't going down. So, even

39:39

though you didn't want to call it, you know, maybe maintenance

39:41

at the time, you were practicing maintenance because

39:44

you saw the benefit to that.

39:47

Yes, yes, yes. And

39:49

I still do all of those things.

39:51

Like, I still track

39:54

everything I eat. I still count

39:57

my calories. I still

39:59

do. I weigh and measure

40:01

everything. I still

40:04

do all of that and

40:07

I'm okay with that. I

40:10

know that that doesn't cut

40:13

it for everybody, not everybody can

40:15

do that or wants to

40:18

do that, I

40:20

should say. I don't mind

40:22

it. So I keep

40:25

doing all the things. Nothing really

40:27

has changed at all about

40:29

my behaviors or my

40:32

habits from when

40:34

I was losing weight to now

40:35

when I'm maintaining. It's all the same

40:38

and

40:39

that's okay

40:40

because I've only done things. Yeah, I've

40:42

only done things that I knew I was willing

40:45

to do forever. Exactly

40:47

where I was going to go with my next question. So when

40:49

I heard you say that, you said I'm willing

40:51

to do it and you said I know some people that's not

40:54

true, right? They may not feel that way. But

40:56

as I listened to your list of old approaches

40:59

to weight loss, you were probably giving

41:01

up a lot of things to get to

41:03

that end goal but then the promise

41:06

on the other side might be, oh, well, if

41:08

we're going to do without carbs, once we

41:10

get the weight off, we can have carbs again, right? It

41:12

was like that. Exactly. Yeah.

41:14

And so what you decided this time was,

41:16

no, no, no, we're going to have all those things while

41:18

we're losing because we're willing to do this. And

41:21

then a lot of times you will see

41:23

people very much strongly,

41:26

intimately like, hey, I am not willing

41:28

to track my calories, I'm not weighing and

41:30

measuring my food. How

41:32

do you feel peace with that

41:35

and not feel like it's a quote unquote waste

41:37

of your time or it's

41:39

one of the things that people would say is disordered

41:42

in some kind of eating behavior. How do you make

41:44

peace with that for yourself?

41:46

I don't know. It's just

41:48

become such a part of my routine

41:51

that I don't really

41:55

think about it. I mean, it's not, it's

41:57

just, it comes very naturally to me. me

42:00

and I think it suits my personality. You

42:03

know, whatever you do, not

42:05

only does it have to be something that you're willing to do

42:07

for the rest of your life, but it also has to suit

42:09

your personality. And,

42:12

you know, for

42:14

me, it just, it

42:17

just, it suits me. So I go with

42:19

it. Why not? You

42:23

know, and then I mean,

42:26

if you're realistic, there are times when

42:29

that's not going to suit whatever

42:31

situation I am in. So for

42:34

instance,

42:35

you know, this past August, I spent two

42:37

weeks down at the shore,

42:41

one week with friends, one week with

42:43

family. And

42:46

my intention was to not

42:50

count calories, not

42:52

weigh and measure, but to write

42:54

down everything that I

42:57

ate. I

42:59

had done that back in May, when

43:02

I was on a cruise, I had done that and

43:04

it worked out really well. But

43:09

because I'm so used

43:11

to when I'm at home and in my normal routine,

43:15

doing the weighing and measuring, doing the calorie

43:17

counting, when I have those times,

43:21

those short periods of time when maybe I don't,

43:26

it just makes it easier

43:28

for me to stay mindful

43:31

about what I'm doing.

43:32

And to, oh,

43:35

how do I say this? You

43:37

know, I don't

43:40

go on vacation and get out of control

43:44

because there's so

43:46

much now that is just ingrained.

43:49

I can look at a meal on a plate in

43:51

a restaurant and have a pretty

43:53

good idea of how many calories

43:56

is on that plate because

43:58

I have the pressure.

43:59

practice of doing that every single

44:02

day. You know, I know what four ounces

44:04

of this looks like and what a half a

44:06

cup of this looks like and how many calories

44:09

is probably in this. And

44:11

so maybe it's not as exact

44:13

as it would be when I'm at home weighing

44:16

and measuring, but I've got a pretty good idea.

44:20

And so it translates. Love

44:22

that.

44:22

Okay. So it sounds like generally

44:25

though, you are doing what works for you. And

44:27

even if you have to maybe switch how you're going

44:29

about recording stuff, you're just kind of taking

44:31

personal accountability for what

44:33

you're eating. And even if you're not, which

44:36

I tell people this all the time, calorie

44:38

counting or tracking or recording

44:40

your food, it's less about the

44:42

accuracy of it. It's more about the

44:45

practice and the self-awareness

44:47

because if all of a sudden you see a habit

44:49

coming in and you're like, wait a minute, I don't normally

44:51

eat three candy bars in a day. That's

44:54

kind of unusual. If you've written it down on a sheet

44:56

of paper and you're seeing it, it makes it real.

44:59

Whereas if you just do something and you're not

45:01

aware that you're doing it, that's how habits can

45:04

kind of spiral out of control very quickly.

45:06

Is that how you see it or is it different

45:08

for you?

45:10

Yeah, no, that's pretty much how

45:12

I see it. Like

45:14

I don't eat mindlessly

45:17

anymore.

45:19

Like whenever I'm eating

45:21

anything, whether I'm at home and I've weighed

45:24

and measured it or whether I'm on

45:26

vacation

45:26

and I'm a little more loosey

45:29

goosey,

45:30

every time I eat something,

45:32

I am well aware of what

45:35

it is that I'm doing. And

45:39

that makes a big difference. I

45:44

never look at an empty wrapper of something on

45:46

the counter and go, where did that empty wrapper

45:48

come from? I don't remember eating

45:50

that. That doesn't

45:52

happen anymore. Yeah, no,

45:54

that's perfect. So let me just ask you this one

45:57

last question then. So if I

45:59

could send you back. in time to any

46:01

of the previous versions of

46:03

you, could be you and your teens,

46:06

could be you in your 20s, your 30s, 40s, where would you

46:08

want to go and what message

46:10

would you want

46:13

to take back for yourself knowing what you

46:15

know now? Like if you could have maybe

46:17

influenced some changes earlier

46:20

or maybe dropped some wisdom nuggets,

46:22

what would those have been and to what version of

46:24

yourself would that have been with?

46:28

I guess

46:33

probably back, I'd

46:35

go back to maybe high school, you

46:38

know, and try

46:42

to make myself understand that

46:46

just because I'm not model

46:48

skinny, that doesn't mean

46:51

that I have a huge problem.

46:55

But if I don't

46:59

learn how to manage things now, it's

47:02

going to turn into a big problem.

47:06

So let's sit down and have that discussion.

47:10

And you know,

47:13

and just try

47:15

to get that

47:17

high school girl to understand

47:19

that she's okay.

47:23

That she's okay. And

47:27

I

47:28

don't know.

47:30

This is bringing up

47:32

a lot right now. So this is hard.

47:36

This is hard. I,

47:40

you know, when I look back at

47:42

myself in junior high and high school,

47:45

and I think I started saying this at the beginning

47:47

of the conversation, I felt

47:50

like I had a huge weight problem.

47:54

But in hindsight, when I look back, I

47:57

did not have a huge weight

47:59

problem. I had

48:01

a slight weight problem and

48:04

a few food issues that

48:07

if they had been dealt with

48:10

appropriately at the time it would have

48:12

saved me a lot of anguish

48:15

later on but

48:19

that's not that's not how it happened.

48:22

Yeah we can't go back and rewrite the past

48:24

but I think the message you delivered is

48:27

a good thoughtful one that if we can

48:29

always remind the younger generation

48:31

that we always see things

48:34

differently in hindsight you know and our

48:36

perceptions of what's if

48:40

we could really teach them how their brain works

48:42

that's a huge one because then they can understand

48:45

their brain will not be satisfied

48:47

with anything they weigh right now and

48:49

it's gonna always say what now is not good enough

48:52

we need better and it's always gonna

48:54

project this future image of them that

48:56

is thinner is this you know refined

48:59

version but the reality

49:01

is even when you get there then it will

49:03

still find fault because there's other things most

49:06

kids can relate to on that they can see where

49:08

they've had that pattern show up in other areas

49:11

right and maybe getting them to see

49:13

that if they could understand that applies

49:15

to their weight in their body as well that

49:18

if they let and honestly getting enough older

49:20

people who can show their pictures

49:23

when they were their age and how their weight

49:25

escalated over time trying to diet

49:28

I think that would be super powerful for the kid

49:30

who's receptive and willing to listen

49:32

to that you know what I mean mm-hmm

49:35

yeah I mean I look at pictures

49:37

of myself from that time high

49:40

school college and

49:43

I see a thin

49:46

person not not skinny

49:48

but a thin normal weight

49:51

person that is not how I

49:53

felt then that is

49:55

not how I felt

49:57

you've learned you've moved on you

49:59

fell in your pit enough time. And

50:03

now you

50:06

get to enjoy the rest without having

50:08

to do that. So

50:11

let me ask you this for those people who are listening

50:13

to this and they're like wow this

50:15

story really is resonating

50:18

with me. I would love to ask a question

50:20

or I would love to be able

50:22

to say thank you. Do you have

50:25

any kind of social media presence

50:27

like a Facebook page Instagram page you would want to

50:29

share and if not one

50:31

thing I do offer up is for people to email

50:33

me and just include this episode number

50:35

and I could forward it on to you. What would you prefer

50:38

to do?

50:40

Well if you know if anybody is

50:42

part of the community I'm on Facebook

50:45

there so they could always

50:47

reach me that way. Other

50:49

than that I do have an Instagram account

50:52

but I'm really bad about going on

50:54

there and checking it so I wouldn't

50:56

suggest that so maybe if

50:59

they could reach me through you that would be

51:01

fine. Awesome okay

51:02

so if you've loved this conversation

51:05

today and you would like

51:07

to be able to send an email

51:10

just email me directly and then

51:12

let me know what you would like to send

51:15

and I will forward it on to Susan.

51:17

Sound good? Sounds good. Thank

51:19

you so very much for

51:21

your time today for sharing your

51:23

wisdom for your experience. Every

51:26

person who hears this that

51:28

maybe has felt like they're not going to get it figured

51:30

out it's just a reminder that

51:32

if we continue to do things

51:35

and learn and grow I think anything

51:38

is possible at any point but

51:40

we just have to be willing to do something different

51:43

than we've done before and that's what you did and you

51:45

shared today so thank you so very much.

51:48

Oh you are welcome and this was

51:50

a pleasure thank you so much.

51:52

Thank you for listening be sure to visit

51:54

have sizing calm check back

51:57

often for your daily dose of inspiration

51:59

because you

51:59

You are worth it.