CONSISTENT by Primal Potential

I get a lot of questions about fat loss, family & friends. I guess, more specifically, I hear from a lot of people that their family & friends make their fat loss more difficult. Today, I want to tackle those challenges (and I do believe they can be simply tackled without trading in your friends or abandoning your family). A lot of this comes down to personal responsibility & understanding that you are the only one controlling what does (or doesn't) go into your mouth. But, I totally know it's not as easy as simply ignoring other people's comments, questions or challenges. So today we're tackling fat loss, family & friends from both tactical & mindset standpoints. http://primalpotential.com/156-fat-loss-family-friends Fat Loss, Family & Friends In today's episode I cover some of the most common challenges I hear about between fat loss, family and friends including: How to tell your friends that you're trying to make healthier choices without coming across as judgemental How to handle fear of missing out in social situations if you choose not to drink or indulge How to indulge in social situations without going overboard How to handle an unsupportive spouse or partner The ways by which you might be setting your partner up to be negative about the changes you're making How to handle a partner or kids who don't want to eat the healthier food you're preparing How to handle situations when your children or partner bring tempting foods into the house Quotes in today's episode If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Today we're having another Primal Potential Book Club episode all about the end of self-sabotage! I read a lot of books and I'm constantly going through books about health, nutrition & fat loss but I only want to share a book with you when I feel a sense of, "Oh my goodness, they NEED to hear this." I most recently got that feeling with a book that has nothing to do with fat loss, yet EVERYTHING to do with fat loss. The book is called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. The book is written for anyone struggling with internal resistance - excuse making, procrastination, quitting - and is perfect for individuals who are trying to get healthy, burn fat or improve their food choices. In today's episode I share the passages that moved me the most & discuss how they apply to health & fat loss. http://primalpotential.com/155-end-self-sabotage/ The End of Self-Sabotage “There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.” This is 100% true of weight loss. It’s not the good choice that is hard. It’s the thinking about it. The debating. The internal arguing back and forth and the situations you create and battle with in your head. That’s the secret that most people who have lost weight know that people who haven’t lost weight haven’t yet accepted: It’s not the fat loss part that’s hard. It’s tackling the junk in your head that is hard. On the very next page he writes, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands resistance. I think if you have any amount of weight to lose you get this. I think you get this if you feel like food is controlling your life. It's this sense that there’s the life I am living and the life I plan on living after weight loss. Or, the life I wish I could live if I could just tackle this battle. What does resistance look like? What does it sound like? As soon as I explain how Pressfield explains it, I think you’ll start to see it pretty clearly in your own life. I know I can. I see it immediately in my clients. It stands out once you recognize it. “Anything that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long term growth, health or integrity. Here’s one of the first ah-ha moments I had when I was reading The War of Art: “Resistance” can be an incredibly valuable tool. If we aren’t sure what we SHOULD be doing – what is BEST for us – look to where the greatest resistance is. You can USE it in that way. The more important or significant something is, the more resistance we often feel. That’s so true in weight loss. You know where I’ve seen this most with clients? Alcohol. There is so much resistance to dialing back or working on moderation with alcohol (for some people.) Where there is the greatest resistance is often a fantastic indicator of where we need to be doing more work, Now here’s what I think is scary: how does resistance gain strength? From us. We feed it. We feed it with our fear. It has ABSOLUTELY NO STRENGTH of it’s own unless we fuel it with our fear and our belief and our focus. We can choose not to do this. We can starve resistance by not giving in to it. When you give in to resistance, it gains power. One of the most common forms of resistance is procrastination. We aren’t telling ourselves “no”, we’re just saying “later” (even though we know that we don’t do it later.) I took a picture of the page Pressfield writes about procrastination. Well, just a couple sentences, really. "NEVER FORGET: This very moment, we can change our lives. This second, we can sit down to do our work." This second, we can make a good choice. This second, we can do something that will move us forward. Pressfield writes about sex as a form of resistance – distraction – but I think his argument there is maybe even more true of food – I’m going to read what he wrote but replace the word sex with food, okay? You’ll love this: “Sometimes resistance takes the form of food, or an obsessive preoccupation with food. Why food? Because food provides immediate and powerful gratification. Resistance gets a kick out of knowing that it has distracted us with a cheap, easy fix and kept us from doing our work. Of course not all food is a manifestation of resistance. In my experience, you can tell by the measure of hollowness you feel afterwards. The more empty you feel, the more certain you can be that your true motivation was not real, but Resistance. Uh – yeah, ya think? The immediate and powerful gratification? The hollowness afterwards? Yes. And no. Say no to that. That is fueling resistance. Resources The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

I used to talk myself into indulgences & exceptions by saying things like, "This one thing won't hurt" or "it doesn't make a difference." But the small choices can hurt and one thing does make a difference. In today's episode we're talking about how to make the small choices count. One of the tough things about food choices is that they don't usually have immediate negative consequences but they do often have immediate positive consequences. What do I mean? Well, if you have a handful of M&Ms, your pants aren't immediately tighter but you do get an immediate sugar rush. Imagine if our bodies responded to food the way Pinocchio's nose responded to lies. Whoa. Game changer, right? Even though we can't see or feel immediate negative consequences, that doesn't mean they aren't there. Today's episode is a short one but helps you see that nothing is without consequence, nothing is free and everything is either an investment in our health or costs us our health. http://primalpotential.com/154-make-small-choices-count/

Today we're talking about some of the best vegetables for weight loss & how they make fat loss easier! We start off by exploring how you can determine which vegetables are the most (or least) fat loss friendly and then we take a closer look at cruciferous & allium vegetables and the ways they support fat loss. Allium vegetables & cruciferous vegetables support insulin, metabolism, detoxification & much more. They are certainly some of the very best vegetables for weight loss. http://primalpotential.com/vegetables-for-weight-loss/

What a special episode today! Some of the amazing folks in my Winter Fat Loss Fast Track are sharing their progress, struggles, challenges & successes! Yup! Real life success stories! My hope is that you can see yourself in them & have hope in your ability to transform, to get consistent & to achieve the results you want. http://primalpotential.com/152-success-stories/

Last week I shared a personal episode about my experiences with binge eating. I talked about how & why I binged & how I stopped. The response to that episode was overwhelming. Whether you could relate to binge eating or just emotional eating and overeating, hundreds of you reached out for help and support. Today I want to help you take that next step. I want to cover how to stop overeating & repeatedly giving in to temptation. So many people feel like it's beyond their control - like they just can't stop. You can. I will help you. http://primalpotential.com/151-how-to-stop-overeating/ How To Stop Overeating & Giving In To Temptation I was a champion overeater and binger. I used food to cope with emotions and I would often eat until I felt (or became) sick. I felt that in many ways food owned me and had more control than I had. I was wrong. There were a few strategies I began to gradually implement to help me radically change my relationship with food, my mindset & my body. I strongly encourage you to listen to the episode because I think it will be helpful to hear exactly how & when I'd implement these strategies. The first step I encourage you to take, before implementing any of the strategies described in this episode is to identify the lies you tell yourself. For me, the lies were often, "I'll start tomorrow. Just this once. It won't hurt. I deserve a break." I want you to challenge those lies and ask yourself, "Is that true?" When you tell yourself, "I'll start tomorrow", is that true? Do you? Or is this how you make yourself feel good about being indulgent? Are you telling yourself what you want to hear? Then, you can try one of the following 4 strategies: Just for today The 3 questions How do I want to feel in 1 hour? How will this choice make me feel? Is it worth it? 1 more (rep, choice, minute, hour) Do not go back to what broke you In today's episode I explain how these work & how I apply them in moments of indecision.

I want to challenge you to pay more attention to your body & less attention to everyone else's. I want to show you how to interpret the signals your body sends every single day & use them to your advantage. The reality is that your body is constantly communicating with you. It's letting you know what's going right, what's not, which hormones are struggling and which ones are cruising right along. Many of us, however, are so busy living life & paying attention to other people and things that we don't pay attention to the signaling & signs of our own bodies. Today we'll take a dive into keeping a journal of what you eat & the signals your body sends without the cumbersome tasks of counting calories or macros. We'll uncover the common sense approach to fat loss & hormone balance. The primary signals we get from our bodies related to fat loss & hormones are quality of sleep, hunger, energy, mood & cravings. Those are the signals we'll evaluate today. http://primalpotential.com/episode150/

Do you ever have silent debates with yourself? You know, you make a decision to eat clean & then find yourself debating Girl Scout Cookies? The cartoon depictions of the devil & angel on opposite shoulders certainly originated from someone who knows exactly what I'm talking about! In today's episode we're talking about how to win internal debates and how to identify, understand & overcome them. http://primalpotential.com/149-how-to-win-internal-debates/ Have you ever heard the Cherokee story about two wolves? I share it on this episode & adapt it to the internal debates I have over food & health. A fight is going on inside me. It is a constant battle between two lions. One is stubborn & lazy. She is greedy. She stands for pity, guilt, resentment, lies, abuse, avoidance, excuses, exceptions and delays. The other is beautiful. She is hopeful. She is strong. She is optimistic. She is determined. She cares for me, believes in me and knows that everything is possible. She is my guardian and wants to guide me to my potential. The same fight is going on inside you and inside every other person, too. Which lion will win? The one you feed.

Today's episode is different. It is intense, it is personal & there are tears. I am talking about binging. I am taking you inside a binge. I'm not doing this to share my secrets or cleanse my soul. I am sharing this episode for 3 reasons: It feels like the right thing to do To publicly share details that most of us never talk about. We talk about dieting, we talk about being frustrated and dealing with temptation, but most people aren't talking about binging. My hope is that by sharing my own experiences, you will feel comfortable asking for help. Maybe not asking openly to the world, but at least you'll know that I understand and I want to help. To give you hope. I was so deep in a cycle of using food as a drug that I didn't think I could ever break through, but I did. So, I share my story to give you hope. http://primalpotential.com/148-personal-intense-inside-a-binge/

Hidden food sensitivities - sensitivity to foods or types of foods you don't even know you have - might be contributing to fatigue, joint pain, headaches, depression, weight gain or a whole host of other challenges. We need to keep in mind that food sensitivities are possible if you aren't truly "allergic" to an item. Unfortunately, many of us see sensitivity and allergy as all-or-nothing scenarios. That's not the case. Chronic discomforts that you attribute to "aging" or "just the way you are" might very well be avoidable causes of a food sensitivity. In today's episode we're looking at these hidden food sensitivities and the common triggers as well as how they might manifest themselves. I challenge you to eliminate the common triggers for 2-3 weeks and slowly add them back in, one at a time, so you can understand what you're truly sensitive to. http://primalpotential.com/147-are-hidden-food-sensitivities-hurting-you/ You might think that a small paper cut on your finger is no big deal, and you'd be right. But what if you kept getting paper cut after paper cut in the same place on the same finger 3-10 times each day? In just a matter of days you'd have a pretty serious problem on your hands, right? (Pun intended. It's okay to smile and think I'm cute.) This is the exact thing that happens with hidden food sensitivities we might not even realize. With each meal or snack, we introduce an inflammation-triggering food that on it's own is pretty harmless but with repeat exposure creates a serious issue. These implications of hidden food sensitivities might be as mild as acne or bloating and can be as severe as chronic, systemic inflammation. Symptoms like eczema, acne, headaches, depression, joint pain, weight gain and mood swings can be the result of repeat exposure to foods we don't even realize are problematic for us. In today's episode I will introduce you to the most common food allergens, I'll share how they impact health, where we find them and how to avoid them. I'll challenge you to eliminate them for a few weeks and slowly re-introduce them one at a time. Most Common Food Allergens: Dairy Eggs Gluten Sugar & artificial sweeteners Soy & peanuts When we eliminate processed foods and focus on whole foods, we avoid the majority of these. It's not as simple as skipping the omelets and the yogurt. We have to keep in mind the huge array of processed foods that contain dairy, eggs, gluten, sugar, artificial sweeteners, soy products or peanuts. Keep in mind that you don't need to avoid these forever. You need to, however, remove them for long enough to allow the inflammation to die down and your gut to heal. Just the like example of the repetitive paper cut, it's not enough to stop cutting your finger, you also have to allow ample time for your finger to heal. I've put together a detailed list of meal ideas, recipes & snacks to help you in your quest to eliminate these common allergens and monitor your body's response.