381: Want to Lose Fat But Don’t Know Where to Begin? Start Here

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 381.

A quick heads up before we dive into the episode, if you are just starting your body composition journey, you might be wondering, what should I be doing on day one? Well, this, my friends, is it. I created a free resource called Day One Data to help you collect the starting information that actually matters in your journey. This allows you to track real progress and not just obsess over the scale. Now, most women skip this step, or they do it halfway, and then they wonder after they get a couple weeks into their journey why they feel stuck or why they feel discouraged. You cannot build a solid starting point or solid progress without knowing your data, because this is going to tell you what's working, what's not, and how far you've come.

Now, this Day One Data is the exact process I walk my clients through, and it makes a huge difference in how confident and clear they feel moving forward. So go grab it now. It's free at bicepsafterbabies.com/data. Again, that's bicepsafterbabies.com/data. All right, let's get into the episode. 

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Baby's Radio. I'm your host, Amber Bruesekei. And if you're listening to this episode, I have to imagine that you have some sort of weight loss goal and you haven't quite figured out how to achieve it. Maybe you have tried, you know, tons of diets. Maybe the weight gain is something that's new to you. Maybe you're postpartum or you're menopausal and you're feeling a little bit like you don't really understand your body or where the weight gain is coming from. Maybe you're somebody who has tried macro counting or, you know, maybe you're someone who's totally unfamiliar with that term. Maybe you have lost weight before, but then you regained it back and you experienced the shame of feeling like you failed yet again. Maybe you feel like you're eating pretty healthy, but it's not working. The pounds aren't budging. And maybe you feel like you know you need to eat healthier and exercise, but all the information out there is so overwhelming and confusing that you just don't even really know where to start. So you don't do anything at all. All of these are so common. They're things that I hear every single day from the women that I work with, but I want you to know that it doesn't have to be that way. This is not an unsolvable problem. And that is exactly why I'm here to help. I am going to, in this episode, break through the confusion through the very, very, very noisy space that the online health and fitness space is, and really help you get started with just a few easy steps. Because honestly, getting started is sometimes the hardest part.

Fence Sitting 03:22

Now here's where I need to interject some coaching. Because one of the things that I see a lot with women that is keeping them stuck is what I like to call fence sitting. This means that you kind of sit on the fence and you tip your toe into something. You don't really want to go all in on it because you're not sure if it's going to work. So you try it a little bit and you test it out and you sample whatever it is that you're doing. And what I want you to start to understand and realize is that fence sitting is often one of the very reasons that you aren't successful. When you don't play full out, when you hold back, when you only test things out and try them and kind of half do something, you don't tend to get very good results. 

And listen, I get why people fence sit. It's because they're not sure if something is going to work. So why put your all into something if you're just going to fail again? There's this part of us that feels like if we hold something back, if we don't go all in on something, then if it doesn't work, then we're safe and it doesn't mean anything about us. We can always fall back onto the, oh, well, I didn't try my hardest. I didn't really give it my all. But I want you to understand that fence sitting is one of the reasons that you likely haven't been successful in the past, because there's that part of you that keeps holding back, that doesn't really give it your all, that doesn't really play full out. Now, at the same time, playing full out does not mean you're being perfect. I think people get that confused.

Commitment vs. Perfection 05:06

So I like to call this the difference between commitment versus perfection. So if I asked you, hey, describe the difference between someone who feels like they're committed and is committed versus someone who feels like they need to be perfect, how would you describe the difference? In my mind, commitment means you've decided to do something and you keep showing up even when it's messy, even when it's not perfect. You keep coming back. Perfection means you only feel successful when it's done exactly right. And here's what I see happen all the time. Women sit on the fence, they tip a toe in, and they say, I'll try this, but they haven't really committed. And then when things don't work out perfectly, they quit and then they call it a failure. And then they feel bad about themselves and they feel like their body's broken and they're not gonna be successful. But guess what? You cannot make progress without commitment. And you cannot sustain progress if you think you have to be perfect in order to deserve it. 

So let's have a little bit of a conversation before we dive into the meat of this episode around commitment, because that's really the first step. If we're talking about, you know, where do you begin? I think this conversation around commitment is exactly where you need to begin. Because so many times I hear people say, I'm going to try. Why do we say that? I'm going to try to count my macros. I'm going to try to work out. And notice how, like, honestly, now I want you to start to pay attention to how often you use the word try in a day. For a lot of us, it's quite often, and we do it as a way out. It's a way to give ourselves an out. So I'm going to try to count macros. And then we like tip our toe into instead of what does commitment sound like? Commitment sounds like I'm going to commit to tracking my macros. I'm going to work out. Do you feel the difference between I'm going to try to work out and I'm going to work out? That may feel scary. It may feel scary to dive into the world of commitment. But I honestly, commitment is one of the very first pieces if you want to be successful. So what else does commitment sound like? But first of all, it sounds like shifting from I'm going to try to I will, or I'm going to. But commitment also sounds like, you know, I missed a day of tracking, but I got right back to it. I'm learning how to be consistent, not perfect. I'm still in the game even when the week wasn't perfect.  And that's very different from feeling like we have to be perfect, which perfection sounds like I missed a day. So I blew it. I didn't hit my macros exactly. So the day was a waste. If I can't do 100%, I shouldn't do it at all. 

So hopefully you're starting to see the difference. And if you're listening to this, oh yeah, that's me. I've started things before. I've tried keto. I've tried tracking macros. I've tried working out, but I haven't stuck with it. I want you to ask yourself, did you actually commit? Or were you just tipping your toe in? Were you just sampling and, you know, playing around with it? Or were you chasing perfection and quitting the moment that things got hard? The truth is you don't need to be perfect, but you do need to be committed. You do need to go all in on showing up for yourself, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's inconvenient, even when it's slow, because that's how real change happens. It happens with consistent effort over time. So that's step number one. If you are wanting to start a fat loss journey, the place that I would start is first with your language around commitment and starting to notice how often you give yourself an out with the words I'm going to try and starting to shift that into I will. I will meal prep today. I will go on a 20 minute walk. I will track what I'm eating. Big, big game changer.

Clarifying Desire: What Do You Really Want? 09:06

Okay. Second thing we have to have a conversation around. I know you're like, okay, tell me what to eat. Amber, tell me what to work out. Like tell me all the how to things and we're going to get there, but we have to have these conversations first because these are the foundation for what has caused you to struggle in the past and why the future is going to be different. It's not just going to be different because of what you do is going to be different because of how you approach the things that you do. So step number one: commitment is, there's a commitment that needs to happen. Step number two is a really important question that you have to ask yourself and answer. And that question is what do you want? Now, many women that I asked this question to are, have a really hard time with it. They're really terrible at answering this question because they don't actually ask, ask, answer the question of what do you want? They answer the question of what they think they can get. They answer the question of what they think they deserve, or they answer the question in a way that is way too broad to have anything that's remotely helpful. So let's address those issues.

When I'm asking you the question, what do you want? I'm actually asking the question, what do you want? What do you desire? If I could wave a magic wand, what would you wish for? Again, I don't want you going into, well, here's what I think I can accomplish. Here's what I think is possible. No, no, no. That's not the realm we're playing in. We're not playing in the realm of what's possible. We're playing in the realm of desire, of excitement, of what you want, not what you think that you can have. Because when you play in the what you think that you can have, or what you think is possible, that's not very exciting. That's not super exciting to you. When you play in the realm of desire and want, it creates an excitement that's going to push you through even when it's hard.

So I really want you to spend some time with what do you actually want? Again, if I had a magic wand and I could wave it, what outcome, what transformation would you actually want? Now, if your brain can only come up with a weight, a scale weight, like I want to weigh 150 pounds. Again, I'm going to do a little bit of coaching with you. I want to push you a little bit on that because, and this may be an aha moment for you, you don't actually want the goal weight. You want what you think the goal weight will give you. And here's how I know that that's the fact. If you said, okay, I want to weigh 150 pounds. Fantastic. What do you think will be different at 150 pounds? What will that give you? Maybe you feel like at 150 pounds, I'll be able to fit back into those jeans that have been in the back of my closet. Or at 150 pounds, I won't take so long to get dressed in the morning. Or at 150 pounds, I will feel much more confident when I'm naked. 

Now, what we can do is we can say, okay, cool, let's pretend you're 180 pounds right now. And I could make it so, hey, you're still 180 pounds, but you can get dressed in the morning. You can wear those jeans that you want to wear. You can feel confident in a swimsuit. You can feel confident naked, but you still weigh 180 pounds, but you have all of those things. And I say, will you take that? Most people would say, heck yes. Heck yes, I'll take it. It's not actually the 150 pounds you want. It's what you think the 150 pounds will get you. And that's a really, really important distinction because the clearer we are on your actual goal, what you actually want to achieve, the more likely we're going to be able to create the steps to be able to get there, right? If you're very clear on the destination, if I want to go to Hawaii and I'm very clear that that's the destination I want, I can figure out what pathway I need to take to get there. I can figure out what planes I need to go on, how to rent a car, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If I don't really know, if I'm like, I just want to go somewhere warm, that's a lot broader. It's a lot less specific on how, what I need to do in order to get there. And I, if I just say, I just want to go somewhere warm, I might end up, I don't know, in the middle of the jungle and the equator. And that's not really what I had in mind because what I had in mind was a beach, right? So hopefully you're starting to see when we can get really specific on what it is that you want, you're going to be so much more likely to be able to create it. 

The more specific you are, the more successful you will be 13:43

And that leads to my second point. When I ask people what they want, oftentimes they are very broad with what they want. So the more specific you can get, the more successful you're going to be. I'm going to say that again. The more specific you are, the more successful you will be. So can we get really specific on what you want? Is there a specific dress you want to wear? Is there a specific way that you want to feel when you get dressed in the morning? Is there a specific way that you want to think about your body? Again, the more specific you can be with what you actually want, the more likely you are going to be to create it. Having some broad goal of like, I want to weigh 150 pounds is going to make you way less likely than if you can get, you can figure out what that 150 pounds means to you, what it represents, what the outcome is that you actually want, and you can be really specific on it. 

Specificity and Mindset over Mere Action 14:35

Okay, so we're like almost 15 minutes into this episode and we haven't even talked about what you eat or how you work out or anything like that. And that's very intentional. A lot of people think that the gap between where they are now and where they want to be is action. And sure, you're going to need to do some things different than you're currently doing. That's kind of a given. But the difference or the gap between where you are now and where you want to be is not only lack of action or different action. It is a lot about how you approach it. It is a lot about how you're thinking about it. It is a lot about your mindset, about how you speak to yourself. These are all the foundational things that make a world of difference that most people aren't talking about. And most people aren't focusing on because they just want the tangibles. They just want the how-tos. Tell me what to eat, Amber. Tell me when to eat. Tell me how often to eat. Tell me how many calories to eat. Tell me what workouts to do. My friend, if that worked, it would have worked by now because there are plenty of meal plans out there. There are plenty of workout plans out there.

So let's spend a little bit of time kind of talking about why maybe some of those things that you might've tried in the past have not worked and kind of let yourself off the hook a little bit that they were never created to work. So to put it succinctly, you've been trying all the wrong things. Let me back up a little bit. In order to lose fat, I guess that's why you're here. You're desiring to lose fat. In order to lose fat, you have to create a caloric deficit, which means you have to burn more calories than you take in. That's science. That's how the law of thermodynamics work. Now to do that, many people turn to rule-based diets. What does that look like? It looks like, okay, I'm going to try keto. And the rule for keto is that you eat a certain amount of carbs each day, right? You eat a low carb each day. Or they turn to, I'm going to do intermittent fasting. And so I can only eat between this window and this window. Or I'm going to cut out all processed food or all sugar. I can't eat sugar or processed food. And that's the way that I'm going to be able to get results. What I think is important to understand about diets is that they teach you rules to follow. They do not teach you awareness. They are based on you following somebody else's rule. Only eat between this time and this time. Only eat this amount of food. Do not eat X, Y, Z food. 

So diets really train you just to obey, not to actually think. They train you to follow somebody else's rules rather than how to make decisions. This is a really important point. If you've been trying to follow somebody else's rules instead of learning your own body signals, instead of learning how to make your own choices, that's not your fault. That's how the whole dieting system is built. It's also why it will never work long-term. Because if you don't know how to make decisions, if you're just listening to somebody else, tell you what to eat, tell you what to do, tell you how to work out, tell you how to do all these things. And you're just following, following, following. Again, you are not training yourself how to think and you're not training yourself to learn your own, your unique body. So the answer is not another set of food rules. The answer is how can I learn my own body? How can I learn to work with my body to be able to learn to make decisions that are going to be the most beneficial for me? So the real solution to your struggle is to learn how your body works. That's the actual cure. And that is what no diet will ever teach you. It's actually the antithesis to a diet, because if you don't need the diet anymore, if you don't need somebody or coaching, a lot of coaches will do this, where it's like, if you don't need the coach anymore, then now you don't need their services, you don't need to pay them anymore. So there's this built-in dependence on the diet, on the coach, on the person who's providing you the solution. And that's never going to be a long-term solution. 

Importance of Data Collection 19:01

So the question starts to become, how do you learn your own body? It's a great question and an important one to answer. The answer is pretty simple. You have to collect data. You have to collect data about your body. You have to pay attention to the variables. I like to think of each of our bodies like an assembly machine, kind of, where if you kind of think about it, if you have this machine, and let's say on one side of the machine, well, imagine a machine, and then there's something that goes into the machine, and then it pops out something on the other side of the machine. Something happens in the machine. So you put something into the machine, something happens, and then something pops out. That's like your body. And it's kind of a black box, honestly. A lot of our bodies are black boxes, and you may feel that way. It's like, I don't understand my body. I don't understand what's going on. Yeah, it's a little bit of a black box. But if we pay attention to everything that goes into the body, and then everything that pops out of the body, we can kind of figure out what's happening in the middle. Think of it like a math equation. I have kids who are in, like, high school math, and they get these equations, and the first thing that they do is they don't really understand the equation, but they start popping in numbers, and then the equation pops out a number, and from that, you're able to figure out what the equation is, what's happening to the numbers in the middle. Okay, so if we want to get to know our black box of a body, we have to start paying attention to the invariables, what's going into your body. Things like how much cardio you're doing, how much weight lifting, how are your clothes fitting, how many calories are you eating, how do you feel, what's your relationship with food. These are all kind of those in variables. 

And then we pay attention to the out variables. What is your weight? How are your progress pictures changing? How is your measurements changing? How is your relationship with food changing, right? So we have these in variables, something happens in the black box of your body, and then these out variables. And if we pay attention to both, we can start to understand and figure out your body. So in order to do this, you want to get familiar with data collection. This is actually the next step. First step, we got to talk about commitment, right? We got to get off the fence and we have to go all in on something. The second one is we have to figure out what it is that you want, what are you trying to achieve? And the third one is we got to get familiar with data collection. This is the next step. Because when we talked about, okay, I want to, step two, I said, you got to figure out where you want to go. Fantastic. But do you know where you are right now? Okay. That's what data collector is going to give you. You got to collect data on where is your body right now? You know the outcome, you know where you want to go, but where are you right now? 

Macro Counting as a Tool, Not a Diet 22:00

So I want you to think about this whole process, like running an experiment on your body. You're going to collect data. You're going to observe the results and you're going to tweak as you go. And the subject of that experiment is you, you and your body. So this is where we start to run into the tool of macro counting. And you may or may not have heard this term before. So I'm going to do a little brief synopsis on what this even means. What is a macro? A macro is just short for the word macronutrient, which are nutrients that our bodies need in large amounts. That's hence the term macro. So when we, and these are usually your carbs, your fats, your protein, those are the three macronutrients that our bodies need in very large amounts every single day. So when we utilize a tool of counting our macros, it simply means you're paying attention. You're bringing awareness to how many calories you're eating, how much protein you're eating every single day. Now people get this really wrong and they turn macro counting into a diet. Instead of being about data collection, it becomes about restriction and here's your numbers, you have to hit them. Doesn't that sound like the problems we were talking about before where you have to have to follow these rules and somebody else tells you what to do and then you just have to follow through. It becomes, that's a problem. It becomes obsessive and it has all the other problems with all the other diets where you're not actually learning your body. You're just following somebody else's rules about what to do. 

So what's really important to understand is that how you use the tool matters even more than the tool itself. There are plenty of people who are teaching macro counting in a way that just turns it into a diet. It just turns it into more rules. It just turns it into more obsessiveness. It just turns it into more of you have to follow through and you got to restrict yourself if you want to get the results that you want. That is not how macro counting has to be. It is just how a lot of people utilize the tool. This is why I spend so much of my focus when I'm coaching and when I'm teaching on the person who is using the tool rather than just the tool itself. The tool itself is important. I can teach you how to count macros. I can teach you how to make decisions around food. I can teach you how to collect data and how to make adjustments and all those things. I can teach you all those things. But if the person utilizing the tool, who's wielding the tool, doesn't know what they're doing, it's going to be a problem. This is why I started this conversation with, okay, you want to lose weight. Let's talk about commitment first. Let's talk about what you want. Because again, those things matter. That is the person who is utilizing the tool. So when you start there and you focus on the person using the tool and you focus on using the tool in the right way, then macro counting is not a diet. It is a data collection tool. It shows you how much protein, carbs, and fat you're eating. It helps you to see how those inputs into your body affect your energy, your hunger, your weight, your measurements, your muscle building. It teaches you to track what's going on and what's going in and what's coming out, just like a scientist does with an experiment. So diets make you very dependent, right? You're dependent on the diet and you have to follow the rules. And if you don't follow the rules, then you're not going to get the results. Macro counting makes you self-reliant so that you can make decisions from a really empowered place. Diets are very binary. Either you're on the diet or you're off the diet. You're following it or you're not following it. Macro counting is much more flexible. It gives you a lot of room to adapt. It gives you a lot of room to be able to make decisions. You're not on or off.

From Rule-Follower to Scientist 25:59

Diets stop working the moment that your life changes, right? When you're doing keto and you go to a party and there's something that has carbs in it, now like you're stuck in this between a rock and a hard place. Macro counting is able to evolve. Again, it's built in flexibility. It just helps you to understand food, how to make decisions from an empowered place, and to start to understand your body and be able to work alongside with your body. Because when you understand your body, you stop guessing. You stop starting over. You know how to adjust. You know how to tweak. You know how to make adjustments on the fly. And that is the difference between just following some diet and actually stepping into your power to be able to make decisions that are right for you and for your body. This is when you become what I like to call the scientist. Not the rule follower, not the dieter, but somebody who is able to make decisions about their body based off of the data that you're collecting.

Okay. So we know where you are, you know, where you want to go, but now the question is, is how do we do that? What are the steps in order to get there? And you know, the short answer is it depends. The bigger question that I think that is so valuable for people to answer as they embark on a fat loss journey is what are you willing to do to get there? Said another way, what is the outcome worth to you? This is a question not enough people ask themselves before embarking on a weight loss journey. Instead, what do they ask? They say, what do I have to do to get there? What's the rule? What do I need to do? Which is a very different question versus what am I willing to do and what am I willing to do consistently? Can you see the difference? What do I have to do to lose weight versus what am I willing to do consistently to do it? 

Defining Willingness and Building a Sustainable Plan 27:53

The difference is need based versus desire based, externally based versus internally based. So the question is, what are you willing to do? And what are you unwilling to do? You say that you want to change. You say that you want to lose weight, but what are you willing to change in your life? What are you willing to learn? What are you willing to give up? Are you willing to collect data? There's not a right answer to this, by the way. The only right answer is the honest one. Are you willing to change your eating habits? Are you willing to reduce or stop alcohol consumption? Now, I'm not saying that you have to do any of these. I'm wanting you to be honest with yourself about what you're willing to sacrifice and what you aren't. This is where you get a lot of clarity on the next step. Are you willing to do cardio or increase your cardio? Are you willing to increase your step count? Are you willing to lift weights? Are you willing to track your food? Are you willing to let go of all or nothing thinking? Again, I'm not saying you have to do any of these. Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying. You may not. And that's the point. Having somebody else tell you that you have to stop drinking alcohol or that you have to go do cardio is not going to work long term. It may work in the short term, but it's not going to work in the long term. 

The biggest focus is on what you're willing to do. I would rather a client comes to me and is honest with themselves and me and says, Hey, Amber, I want to lose 20 pounds. I'm not willing to give up my weekly date night where I have two glasses of wine with my husband. And they're really clear on like, they're not willing to give it. Like if it came down to it and they can lose the 20 pounds, but they would have to give that up. They aren't willing to do it. I love working with people who are very clear with what they are willing to do and what they aren't willing to do. Okay. You know, maybe you're like, I want to look good in a bikini and I am willing to do 20 minutes of cardio day to look good in the bikini, but I am not willing to go over 30 minutes a day. Fantastic. Well, now we're getting somewhere because we can focus on the things that you are willing to change in order to get the results that you want. So figuring out and being very honest with yourself. Again, this is an honest with yourself moment. What am I willing to do? And what am I unwilling to do? Maybe you're unwilling. You're like, I'm willing to change the way that I eat, but I I'm never going to meal prep. That's just like, I'm not willing to do that. Or I'm not willing to eat the same meals day after day. Or maybe you're like, I'm willing to go on an extra walk a day, but I'm not willing to have to go to the gym. I don't know. It doesn't like, honestly, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that you are really honest with yourself because from that place, from the, I'm willing to do this. Now we can start to make a plan of attack of starting to implement those things that you are a hundred percent willing to do and not making changes on the places where you frankly aren't willing to change yet. 

Now, one thing that I would say is a little bit of a non-negotiable is if you want to not fly blind, being willing to collect some data is, is vital, right? If you aren't collecting data about how your body is responding, you're just guessing. And you're not even getting any feedback on if what you're doing is working that feedback, that feedback loop of like, I do something, I gather results and I figure out if it's working is a vital feedback loop that we have to be familiar with if you're wanting to get to know your body. So I'm not saying exactly what collecting data has to be, but I am saying that if you don't want to, if you're, if you don't collect any data, you're just going to be guessing along, along the journey. 

The Seven-Day Data Collection Challenge 31:49

Okay. So then our next step, and this is where we finally get to like, okay, Amber, give me something to do. I got you. I got you, but we had to work to this point, right? Because the person who is using the tool is almost more important to, to focus on that first before we get into the, okay, what am I actually doing? So your first starting point needs to be getting some good solid data. So for the next day, next seven days, my challenge to you is to track what you're eating for seven days. I actually think everybody in the world would have so much value from just tracking their normal eating for seven days. You're not trying to hit any targets. You're not changing the way that you eat. You're simply tracking with honesty and curiosity and bringing awareness to the things that you're already doing. Now, I know this sounds hard, especially if you've never tracked your food, but I promise you, this is one of the most important steps is again, before we make changes, we have to figure out what it is that you're already doing so that we can make better changes. We can make more helpful changes. 

So this is where I start all of my clients track your normal intake, normal, meaning what have you been doing for the last month? That's your normal intake, whatever you've been doing, even if you've been trying to hit numbers or whatever, like doing what you've been doing for the last month, but tracking it is going to be so important. Tracking with honesty, curiosity, getting out of judgment. We're not judging what you're tracking. We're just bringing awareness to it. I also recommend for the next seven days, you take a daily weight. And then what you're going to do is over the next seven days, you're going to average that weight. What this does is it helps to smooth out a lot of the peaks and valleys with our weights. Our weight fluctuate normally. A normal person's weight fluctuates all the time. Totally normal. It doesn't mean you're losing or gaining fat. It's often is just water weight that's shifting. So to kind of smooth that out and give us a better data point, I recommend taking a daily weight and then averaging it out over the week. And then comparing this week's average to next week's average. I also recommend you take your beginning measurements. I recommend taking beginning progress pictures. I recommend for this next seven days, tracking how many hours of sleep you're getting, tracking how much cardio you're performing and how much time you're spending weightlifting, how many steps you're getting. 

Again, the goal of this next week is not to change anything. You're not changing anything. You're not changing how many steps you're getting. You're doing the same thing that you've always done. You're just getting more familiar with where you are now. You're just getting better familiar with your own body so that we can work alongside with your body. 

Moving from Intention to Action and Using MACROS 101 34:38

Now, that's a lot. And I know some of you are like, okay, well, after I do that, Amber, what's next? What's next? I got it. Let me be real with you. Most people won't even do those steps that I've talked about. Most people will listen to this episode. They will nod their head. They will say that makes a ton of sense, Amber. They will feel very inspired. And then most people will do absolutely nothing. They won't spend any time drilling down what they want. They won't spend any time tracking their normal intake. They won't spend any time or energy taking their measurements or, you know, tracking their steps or taking their progress photos, but that's not going to be you, right? Right? Because if you're serious about changing your body, this is where it starts. It doesn't start with a new diet. It doesn't start with some 30-day plan you get off of Instagram. It starts with data. It starts with understanding yourself and your body. So I built a free tracker that is going to help you to get this baseline. Not guessing it, not winging it, but actually know what's going on with your body. So if you're like, okay, Amber, I'm not going to be one of those people. I'm going to actually go and do the things that you just told me to do. I have a free tracker. That's a place that you're going to be able to dump all of this data in, and it's going to get you actually started. You're going to move from just thinking about starting. You're going to move from just listening to a podcast episode to actually doing the dang thing.

So if you want to go grab that free tracker, again, this is a place where you can put all of those data points together. Go to bicepsafterbabies.com/data, D-A-T-A, and you'll be able to download and grab it. It's free, and it's going to be a really fantastic starting place for you. And if you're not willing to do this simple step, then that's okay. Maybe you're not ready for the results, and maybe that sounds harsh, but again, I think being honest with ourselves of when we actually are ready to do something different, when we're actually ready to change, is really, really true. Now once you've done this, this is your baseline. This is where you're at now, and once you're clear with where you're at now and where you want to go, now we can start to have conversations about what to change. But we can't have those conversations if you don't have the data. We can't have those conversations if you're not willing to have a snapshot of what you're currently doing. We can't figure out what to change if we don't know what you've been doing. So you've got to collect that data first, and that's why the next seven days are going to be really, really valuable to know a little bit more about what you're putting into your body and what's coming out so that we can know how do you set your right macros? How do you adjust them? How do you know what to tweak first? How do you know what habit to work on first? How do you figure out how to stop self-sabotaging? So once you have that data, now we can make much better adjustments moving forward to be able to get you where you want to go, and that is where MACROS comes in. 

MACROS 101 is not a diet. It is a program that helps you to become the expert on your own body, your own unique body. So I teach you how to gather data from your body. I teach you how to figure out what that data is telling you, where to start with that data, what adjustments to make, what tweaks to make, where to start first. How do you make sure that you aren't changing too many things at once, and you're doing it in a systematic manner? I teach you a step-by-step system of how to understand, adjust your macros, figure out when to tweak them and why. I work through the mental aspect of fat loss. This is an aspect that a lot of people don't even think about, but that mental side of weight loss cannot be overstated. I've heard it said before that some of the heaviest weight that you need to lose is between your two ears, and I really, really see a lot of truth to that. There's a lot of mindset blocks that are preventing you from being successful, that once we work through those mindset blocks, the doing, the checking the boxes becomes a whole lot easier. And I've taken 10,000 plus women through this process. I've helped them to really become, like I said, an expert in their own body. We call it becoming a macro scientist, really starting to understand and work alongside with your body to be able to get the fat loss that you want. 

I only open doors twice a year to MACROS 101, and they are opening soon. So if you are interested in gathering the data that you have, right, that's where I want you to start, and then figuring out what to do with that data, that's what we do inside of MACROS 101. So you can go to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist and get on the waitlist for when we open doors. That way, once you put your name and email on that waitlist, I email you when we open doors, we give extra goodies and extra promotions to those people who are on the waitlist, and you also are the first people who are allowed to be into the program. 

Building Understanding Through Data and Commitment 39:48

You, my friend, do not need more rules. You do not need more diets. You need more understanding. You need to learn your body. You need to focus on commitment and why maybe you haven't been committed and why you fence sat in the past. And all of these things come together inside MACROS 101. So your first thing to do though is to go download that tracker, bicepsafterbabies.com/data, and spend the next seven days gathering data, getting to know your body. This, I mean, honestly, if you actually do this, if you actually go and do this, the next seven days will be transformative for you. You will learn so much about your body. You will learn so much about what you have been doing, and you're going to start to see areas that you could start to focus on to start to even improve right after, right after you collect that data. So again, don't let this just be another podcast where you just smile and nod and say, that sounds fantastic, Amber, and then don't actually do anything. Make this the start of something new. Make this the start of transformation. Make this the moment that you look back on and say, you know, when everything changed was when I listened to that podcast episode, because it got my butt into gear. It got me doing something and it got me ready to make the change.

So go to bicepsafterbabies.com/data, go grab that tracker, spend the next seven days gathering information about your body. And then let me know when you finish it. And you're one of those people who actually follows through and actually does it, man, that's going to feel so good. And I want to celebrate that moment with you. So send me a DM on Instagram. I'm bicepsafterbabies. Send me a DM and let me know how proud you are of yourself. When you commit to something, you download that thing and you do it. It's going to be a really, really big moment. And I want to celebrate it alongside with you. 

Next Steps: Data, Waitlist, and Real Coaching 41:41

Okay. We talked a lot about a lot of things in this episode, and I hope that there were some aha moments for you. We talked about how important commitment is and commitment starts with your language. So you're not going to try to gather your data for the next seven days, right? We're not going to try, we're going to do it, right? That commitment. We talked about figuring out what it is that you actually want, not just a scale weight, but what does that represent to you and getting really clear on what it is that you desire, not what, not just what it is that you think that you can achieve. 

We talked about why diets and rule-based diets have never worked and will never work and how getting to know your own body is really the key to long-term success. You're unique. You're not like anybody else. You got to get to know your own body and work alongside with your body in order to be successful. And in order to do that, we got to collect some data. We got to figure it. We got to get to know your body through the numbers. The numbers are going to tell us a story and they're going to tell us where we need to go next. And so you're going to go download that tracker, bicepsafterbabies.com/data, and you're going to spend the next seven days tracking your food, not changing what you eat, just being honest about the food that you're consuming. So you can get a good snapshot of what you've been doing. You're going to take that daily weight. You're going to take your beginning measurements, your progress photos. You're going to track how many hours of sleep, your cardio, your weight time, your steps. Again, we're not changing anything yet. We're just getting a snapshot of where it is that you currently are. So we can start to see what are the things that we need to start changing. 

And then you're going to get on the wait list for MACROS 101 by going to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist so that I can help you go from there, figuring out your body, understanding it, making changes so that you can finally be successful, not just in the short-term, but you be successful in the long-term. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber. Now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything. 

Outro

If you've ever wondered what it actually looks like for me to coach you through your weight loss journey, here's your answer. Some of my most powerful podcast episodes aren't interviews or my solo rants. They're real raw coaching calls straight from inside MACROS 101. You'll hear women just like you working through plateaus, perfectionism, and the I'm doing everything but nothing's working spiral. These live coaching shows show you exactly what it sounds like to break through the mental junk that's been keeping you stuck.

So if you're even a little bit curious about what it would be like to be coached by me, or if you're thinking about joining MACROS 101, these episodes are a must listen. So here's your next move. Scroll back through the podcast feed and look for titles that end in Live Coaching Session. Start there. You'll walk away with more clarity, more strategy, and maybe even that one mindset shift you didn't even know that you needed. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.