How I'm Using Business and Mindset Principles to Lose Weight
Hello, hello, and welcome to the FastForwardAmy Show, the show where we talk about how you can lift your life and business with simple strategies. I'm FastForwardAmy, your host and coach, and I'll bring you a new episode every Tuesday. I'm going to be honest with you, I recently discovered by accident that I had gained a lot of weight and I decided to take action on it. And today I want to share with you which mindset and business principles I am borrowing from my business and applying to my weight gain or weight loss in the future, without obsessing about it and just having it run on autopilot.
I'm going to share with you my 100 Days of Data Protocol to measure my progress and to really look at my as-is and my to-be in my life and business. You're going to be able to apply all of this to whichever area you want, be that in your personal life or in your business. This is episode 75, and if you want to read about all of my tips that I'm sharing in here, you can read the recap of this episode through fastforwardamy.com/75. A few weeks ago, I drove to a clothing store on a rainy Saturday with my best friend 'cause we were going to go out and get clothes actually for our podcast recordings.
And I knew that I had to buy pants. Now, buying pants, I don't have to tell you, this is one of the most annoying things there is in first world problems. Buying pants costs money. It's not fun. You don't get a lot out of it, but you do realize it when you don't really have pants that fit you well at home.
And throughout the past years, I've gained weight gradually, but I did gain it. It kind of started happening after I stopped my work as a fitness coach, started sitting down more, having a lot more stress and all of that. But that Saturday in that store I was like, hey, hello, I'm going to buy fun clothes and then I'm also here to buy pants. Put on the pants and the pants did not go over my thighs.
And the next one didn't go over my thighs, the next one and next one. And I think that day in different stores, I tried on about 10 pairs of pants and none of them fit me. Now, fortunately, I was with my best friend who was cheering me on as we were there.
And I didn't really let it get to me that much, but that night as I came home, it did kind of get to me because I was like, you know, I know I gained weight. And you know when you're always at home and wearing sweats and chill clothes, so you don't realize it that much? And I wear a lot of dresses, so I didn't really realize it had gotten to that point. I've also been struggling a lot with intolerances over the years. I know a lot of it had to do with my stress, so many different things. But recently I had also discovered I just had cut my movement probably not in half, but maybe in half of the half I had cut it by sitting down so much, by not going outside.
10 years ago in university, I would walk around all day. When coaching people, I would be standing up, you park your car somewhere, you walk there. But if you're always home, it can kind of creep up on you especially if you kind of like just bombard your system with a lot of cortisol as well.
Yeah, so I realized, okay, gained a lot of weight. But that night, that wasn't the thing that I was thinking. I was mainly thinking, whoa, be that as it may, I don't feel comfortable having to lose weight. I want to lose weight for me, for my health.
I don't want to have to lose weight because the pants don't fit me. So I did what anyone my age and of my profession would do and I turned to my Instagram Stories and I shared my story on Instagram Stories and I felt a little bit uncomfortable about it because the thing is, I don't like getting a bunch of unsolicited advice about it because I have tried a lot in the past years with my nutrition. But I think for me, a lot of it has to do with stress and movement. And being a role model in some aspects makes it so that people are like, "You should have better work-life balance, you shouldn't work too hard, you should work harder.
You're only 28, pay your dues, chill more, do more." And there's so much advice out there which for women, young women, anyone basically, can sometimes just feel very judgy and very overwhelming. So sharing about it online, it made me uncomfortable despite being used to it and having 60,000 followers, add to that the imposter syndrome of having been a fitness coach and seeing that you're gaining weight, but not really being able to fix it in that moment, there were a lot of feelings.
So my feelings and I, we opened up our iPhone and I shared it on my Stories and I put up this question box and also a poll. And I was like, do you also feel personally attacked by the clothing industry? And I got so many responses. I think I got the most votes on a poll I've ever gotten. My story views doubled that night. And in the question marks, I was like, how do you feel about my story? And people were like, "Oh, a while back I was in a fitting room, I started crying.
I was somewhere and the sales woman was really angry at me." Other people were like, "I can't go to stores anymore because my size is just not available anymore." Other people said, "Wow, XL alone just makes me feel really bad." Someone else even said like, "Oh, Amy, I don't even recognize myself in your story because I am at a larger size."
We had a chat about it, 'cause I had posted about not really recognizing myself in the anti-diet and the body positivity messages out there online. And we had a good chat about it, but I was mainly saying I'm not rejecting any of it, I really like all of the messages, I think actually what we need is to be less judgy online. But I just said, "I don't recognize myself in it because what I want is, honestly, I do want to lose weight. I do want to shed some of this heaviness that I've been carrying and I think some of it is mental too. But I don't want to have to do it because of the clothing industry." So that was my whole point that night.
But that Sunday, I was like you know what, despite, I mean, I have this quote that says, "Clothes should be made to fit you, you shouldn't be made to fit clothes." And I fully 100% support that. But today I actually want to talk about something different that happens as I was thinking about it, which is what I just said is I want to be allowed to lose weight.
And I have felt recently like there isn't a lot of space to talk about that online and there isn't a lot of recognition about it online, because with all of the positivity, it's like you're not allowed to anymore want to change something about yourself while also being positive about yourself. So I'm all for body neutrality, but again, I have no judgment towards all of the messages out there. I think the goal of this episode for me is to share with you how I'm feeling about it. I feel uncomfortable sharing this, but I think if it helps me to see other people talking about you probably or like at least one person will get something out of it.
So I will bare my soul here. And I mean, I was going to make a joke about baring my boobs when naked, but I'm not going to do that because that would we be weird on a podcast. So long story short, I felt sad for an evening. I ranted about it with my best friend. And then on Sunday, I woke up and I was like, you know what? Be that as it may, I'm also just not feeling comfortable, and that is a different thing I need to tackle. I want to feel more healthy.
And I had been working out already, I had been moving more, swimming more, walking more, but I was feeling like, you know what? It's still not cutting it. And apparently, I might have to work harder for it than anyone else. And I had been feeling victimized by that. And there are a lot of influencers online, let's look at, for example, Kylie Jenner.
I know she's undergone surgery. I know that's not the role model we should be looking at probably as women our age, but she also works really hard to get the body she wants. And the thing I want to talk about here is it's fine to want to achieve something even when that might not be a popular opinion, which is why I am creating this episode. So I looked at it and I was like, you know what? Kylie didn't get there by accident, I'm not going to get there by accident either. I want to feel fit, healthy, and strong again, I want to go back to feeling like the strongest woman in the room, because I remember when I was lifting heavy and eating well and managing my stress and doing a lot more self-care, I felt super strong.
I remember being in a room with 100 people and literally thinking to myself, I am the strongest person in this room, strongest woman in this room, because you know, men. Not a man-hater by the way. I'm a feminist, not a man-hater. And I thought, yeah, I think I've obsessed so long about my business the past few years and so much has changed in my life. I've gotten two full-time teams with a bunch of team members.
I got kids last year because Charlie has kids and now we have kids living with us 50% of the time. So much has changed. And while building my business and taking care of so many people, I have taken care of myself, but maybe I didn't direct a lot of energy toward myself in that area. And when I was a fitness coach, it was part of my profession. And where your energy flows, the results go. And I decided that weekend, that Sunday, like you know what? I'm going to have more energy flow to me.
And it's also fine if I want that to be my body, because looking at my measurements, 'cause I took my measurements that day, by the way, I should've said this episode might be triggering. Yeah, I said it now. This episode might be triggering or you might not want to hear this.
I'm going to talk about numbers now and stats about my body and relate that to your business. So if you're not interested, you can stop listening or reach out to a health professional if that's needed. So I took my measurements, 'cause I accidentally stumbled on a file from 2016/2017 when I had taken my measurements all around and what I realized is throughout the years I have gained 150% of my weight. Not only 150% of my weight, but I had also gained 150% of my belly.
Now, I didn't use to store a lot in my belly. And I know that has to do with stress where your fat gets stored there. So I was like, okay, so it's consistent over the entire line and now I know my situation and now I can do something about it.
And now it wasn't like, oh, I washed my clothes or something something. It was just like, this is the situation, and if I want to change something about it, I can. And that's just like when you are posting on Instagram and you're trying, but you're not really being super consistent or you don't really know where you're headed. You're busy, but it might not be working for you.
You might not be getting sales out of your Instagram. I was like, I've been paying attention to my body and myself, but not very extremely mindfully and I didn't really paint this picture of which direction I want to go. So I decided to tackle it like any other work project. And this being me, the work project, and I created my 100 days protocol.
You might have heard me talk about it before, but my 100 days protocol is testing something for 100 days or 100 items. So back in, I guess it was 2016 or 2017 when I grew on Instagram, I started making infographics and everyone thought they were really ugly and no one thought it would work. And I was like, yes, it will work. I had about 8,000 followers back then I think and I started posting infographics.
They were really ugly. You can still scroll back on my Instagram feed, FastForwardAmy, all the way down to see them. And I started making them and I was like, well, some of these perform very badly. Some of these perform very well.
And let me just make 100 of them and reevaluate afterwards if it worked or not. So I wrote down my as-is of my current body, my measurements and all of that. For example, I also weighed myself. I don't weight myself in kilos. Also, if you feel emotionally attached to a number on a scale, it's probably not good for you. But again, I'm not giving health advice here, just talking about myself.
I painted this as a situation which in IT world we would look at the as-is of your organization and then we would look at the to-be, where you want to go. But looking at where you want to go without knowing where you are right now is difficult to make a plan. So I looked at the as-is and I decided, okay, let's give this a shot for 100 days. Because in those 100 days, I can track how my results change, for example, every week, and take averages. And I can also track everything that I'm doing.
Now, I'm not going to be tracking my calories, for example, or other stuff. I do enjoy wearing an Apple Watch and seeing how I'm moving and closing my exercise rings on my Apple Watch and stuff like that. I am the kind of person that's a little bit driven by data.
For other people, it can go overboard. I feel good obsessing about it a little bit because I'm having fun with it. If I would see that I'm tipping over the edge, I wouldn't be doing it, because I feel mentally good about this. So putting that as-is of my measurements, then looking at what am I doing every day. And I'm doing that because in the past I've tried a lot of stuff and that's what I was going to say.
By the way, sorry if this is a little bit all over the place but this is literally like in real-time I'm talking to you about what I'm currently doing. So I've tried a FODMAP diet. I have had intolerances, gluten-free, lactose-free, oh, it's not lactose, it's all milk, it's eggs, it's not eggs, it's tomatoes, whatever. I'm convinced there's a lot of it has to do with stress or had to do with stress over the years that got built up without noticing it. But I thought I'm not in a position right now to go to a specialist and be like, hey, my adrenal glands aren't working or something is super wrong with me, because I haven't been consistently seeing does it work for me or not.
So I thought if for 100 days I do the things and I track the things and there is no movement after 100 days, I can go up to a specialist and be like, hey, here's my data. Help me out. But at this point, I feel like there would be no point in going to a specialist because I have seen so many people, I know so many things and it's just time for me to put all of that knowledge to action. So that's the 100 days protocol. By the way, I have created a tracking sheet for you. So you can do this for your Instagram too.
Doing this for your Instagram would be saying, okay, I want to, for example, get X amount more sales or get X amount more followers or reach and look at where you are right now, write down your stats for followers right now, your average likes, your average reach per week, for example. Then you could look at what are you doing every day, tracking it like, oh, I'm posting once a day, I'm posting once every two days, I'm posting three times a day. You can track that afterwards and look at is something changing. But you can actually see, did I actually do anything to create a shift or have I just been imagining it? Because for example, as a fitness coach, I was always like, oh, I know what I need to do, but I wasn't actually doing it. And in your business, it's often the same.
We can get super tripped up about not getting any sales or not getting any results, but we're actually not putting in the effort. So I thought I was going to do that and I created a tracking sheet that you can use too, for example, for your Instagram, for your email list, for your business numbers, sales stats, whatever you want. It has the as-is on one side of tracking what's happening and then it has tracking what you're doing, because results and your process is different.
You can control your process, but you cannot control your results per se, right? You can assume that certain things you do will lead to the results, but you don't know unless you track it. Again, I'm going to reiterate, if you're someone who obsesses over eating and food and who struggles with this, don't use this for that, right? I hope I'm being clear about this. Coming from someone who has struggled in the past with this, if you feel triggered by this, definitely go and talk to someone, okay? There are people out there who can help you. So the first thing I'm going to be doing is the 100 days of data. After 100 days, I'm going to evaluate, is this working or not? If it's working, I'm going to keep going.
If it's not working, I'm going to go see someone about it and ask for more help. In the meantime, I'm also getting help, because I have identified a few bottlenecks which is my second tip that I wanted to share with you about how I am applying my business principles to my body right now. So it's like a business plan turned into a body plan. At the end of the week, I often do reflection meetings with my team. We do like a debrief at the end of the week.
And we tend to talk about what went well, what could've gone better, what are we missing for success in the future. And last week we were talking about bottlenecks. I'm like, okay, so there is a few bottlenecks popping up for some people. For me, sometimes it means that things get to me unfiltered and I need to review things, for example, pieces of copy. And it takes me too long because there are still mistakes in there. Whereas I can adjust the tone of voice and the mistakes, but someone else could be adjusting the mistakes and I could just be adjusting the tone of voice, which would cut my time in half.
Me writing a lot of copy is definitely a bottleneck for me. So we're looking at hiring a copywriter to solve my bottleneck. What did I see being a bottleneck in my health which is what I want to improve by doing all of this, because I feel like if I improve my health, my body will follow. It's kind of just the same thing for me. I'm stopping work too late. That happened since the start of COVID.
I was just always very good at my rhythm in my days. And then just always working from home, never having meetings anywhere else, never having to commute. The commute being the office to the living room and just like going from computer to food, probably. I wasn't winding down, there was no stopping it.
So I looked at it and I thought, you know what? Instead of getting a personal trainer for the mornings or doing workouts in the mornings, why don't I put a fixed structure that at the end of the day at five o'clock, I will train with a personal trainer, by myself, walk it out, whatever, and I'm going to be disciplined enough to stick to that. So I identified one of my bottlenecks that was just working too late, having my stress go up too high and then that probably led to my belly increasing by 150%. Notice how I'm jokingly saying this. I'm laughing with the 150% because my team was begging me, was making so many 150% jokes that they were like, "Amy, go and make a podcast about this so you can just share this with the world and then you can stop making jokes about 150%."
So 150% is my new joke that I'm just making about everything. I mean, I could talk about my weight and stuff, but I feel like it's very funny to talk about it as such an objective measuring point, because no one ever talks about their weight in percentages or their weight like waist gain in percentages. And I think that really takes the emotion out of it if you would have any and just makes it very objective and something you can change if you want to. So yeah, I felt like the stress is definitely not good for the belly fat. So I thought, what if I figure out a way to solve this by getting a personal trainer or your workout in at the end of the day so that I can wind down from work hours kind of like having your commute to home, but the commute is my workout.
Not only did I establish the 100 days of data and did I look at the bottlenecks, I also made a mindset shift. So I was talking to my best friend about all of these insights. And I was like, yeah, I feel like, I mean, I don't want to be the skinniest I've ever been, I also don't really have a weight goal. I was just looking at the measurements, taking into account that I'm older now than I was then, that my lifestyle is different. My body is probably very ready to make babies right now, but I'm not making babies. And I look like yeah, I think that range of weight would probably be healthy for me, would be my natural set point if I wasn't sitting all day and working so much.
And she was like, "Oh, but won't that be like very, very skinny for you? And I was like, you know what? I don't know and I'm also not going to go after the weight, I'm going to go after the feeling and the, yeah, like I said, the set point. But the weight is also a measurement. And I said, "I think I would be more excited about being able to play to win." I'm more excited when I allow myself to look at I want to be the strongest person in the room, instead of telling myself I'm going to get a little bit more fit and I'm going to get a little bit more strong. Like, who gets excited by that? No one. I am a type-A person, I am a high-achieving, high-performing type of person.
I want to win. So I want to be able to be super strong. I want to be able to lift all of the things I want to, just like crush it in this. And I'm very result-oriented and driven like that.
You might not be. But for me, I was like, I want to set some big --- targets for myself that are actually exciting enough for me to go after them. So what I want to say by all of this, and I created something for you, the tracking sheet.
I don't know I was talking about it earlier today, link it. It's fastforwardamy.com/trackingsheet if you want to track the stuff. So yeah, if you want to track your stuff as-is and triggers, I've created this Excel file that you can use. It's fastforwardamy.com/trackingsheet.
But what I was going to say right now is because of everything that happens online, because of all of the different experiences and you've seen how many things I have had to disclaim in this episode and take into account how everyone feels and what people's opinions are, it is also okay to just want something for yourself. If you want to go and make a million dollars, epic. if you want to go and make five babies, epic. if you want to spend three hours every day becoming a master chef in your own kitchen, epic. If you want to lose weight, you are allowed to lose weight. You're allowed to work on being more fit.
You don't have to apologize for wanting to go all in on yourself. And that's something that I have heard a lot of friends talk about. Like, that's why they don't recognize themselves in a lot of the online messaging. So that was the gist of my story today is: I'm going to go all in on this, I'm going to get super fit.
And if weight is one of those measurements that can tell me if I'm doing the right things or not, then I'll use that. And I will also take into account that I won't be restricting or tracking calories too much. I'm not tracking calories, I'm also not going to be restricting too much because I know that that will lead to me emotional eating more and stuff like that. Like, be aware of yourself, but also dare to fight for what you want. I am not comfortable in my body right now. I'm already more comfortable right now as I'm recording this because I bought new clothes that fit well.
I mean, these pants are a little bit tight, but because I'm working out every day, I feel myself running up the stairs after just a few weeks of exercising more and just feeling good about it. I can take two staircases, no, two stairs at a time, two steps at a time, and not feel winded when I reached the top of the stairs. That feels really good and that has an effect on my business, that has an effect on my sex drive, on my relationship.
So it is okay to want to lose some of the excess weight that got there because of stress or a sedentary lifestyle or just not taking care of yourself. And I know sometimes it's easy to admit that, but you know what? You do you, that's the whole gist of this episode. So play to win even if what you want to win is not something other people care about, and where energy flows, results go. And that's why I created that tracking sheet for you. So if you want to track whatever thing you want to change, if you're like, Amy, I want more sales or I want more Instagram followers, although I know I don't need more Instagram followers for sales, I just want to be famous on the Gram, you do you. Go and grab the tracking sheet, insert your data and let's get going, okay? The link is linked up in the description and this was episode 75.
I feel wildly uncomfortable about recording this. So if you liked this, share it online, no haters, please, and share it and tag me in your stories if you want to leave a little review. And then I hope to see you again next week. And next week, I'm sharing with you what I would do if I would start all over again with zero followers or email subscribers, okay? Have a happy Tuesday. I'm FastForwardAmy, and I'll talk to you next week.
2021-04-28 05:15
