Ep. 67 You Can Do This Too - Karen's Story
Hi. So today I have another special client story for you to share. I think this one is particularly useful because not only is this client a medical professional, she's a doctor, but also transitioning into sharing what she's learned with other people in terms of starting her own coaching practice.
So just keep that in mind. As you listen, there'll be information on how to connect with her and work with her. If that's something that you're interested in today, we're just going to talk about her biggest wins. So like how she got out of the short term quick fix mentality, how she redefined discomfort, what it was like for her to get through some challenging parts like weekends, which I know I've struggled with as well, and exactly what to say to yourself on the weekend when you want the food, right, but you also want the scale to go down on Monday. So what does that look like? She's going to talk about that. She's also going to talk about, from her perspective as a medical professional, how to keep things in perspective when so much of the research is contrary to keeping the weight off.
So she talks about how she was thinking about that and how that shifted for her. And then there's some, inspiring takeaways at the very end. So I really hope you enjoy this episode.
Paula: Okay. So thank you so much for coming on here and doing this today.
Karen: Thank you, Paula for having me.
Paula: Okay. So first, um, why don't you just tell me a little bit about, I know you did a lot of work before you reached out to me.
So tell me a little bit about the before picture, like paint a picture for us.
Keren: You know, the before picture was somebody who just could not stick with a program, a routine, a protocol. So I'm sure many other listeners would relate to that experience of I got this, I can do this, losing the weight, getting through it, getting to a point where you're like, yes, I've arrived, I'm here and then not losing it.
So it's like something hadn't really turned on in terms of my mental programming that allowed me to continue the process and know that I could do it long term. So that's where I am now versus who I was in the past.
Paula: Yeah. And then how much weight did you want to lose?
Karen: I think I just wanted to lose maybe 15 to 20 pounds.
It wasn't a significant amount in my life. I have been at least 50 pounds heavier than I am now. So I've known what that hurdle is like, but I had gotten to a point, but it wasn't exactly where I felt like I was healthiest. And so that would have been another 15 to 20 pounds.
Paula: And then tell me a little bit about when you say I wasn't able to stick with something.
Why do you think that is now?
Karen: Looking back. I think it was just the mindset that you can do something short term that there is a quick fix and accepting that there isn't there needs to be a change that happens internally that you carry with you. For the rest of your life. So that's what flipped on for me was that realization that, you know what? I can't go back. This is, I'm a new person now. This is a new way of being in the world. And then just the coaching is about accepting that and learning how to, to move forward with that.
Paula: Tell me more about that. Like how, how did you get there? Do you think in
your own brain?
Karen: How did I get to the point where I realized that it was like a long term thing?
Paula: Yeah.
Karen: So I had to redefine for myself. This was a huge moment for me was redefining what it means to be a little uncomfortable as you're going through a change. And historically it had been. This is punishment. This is punitive. This is shaming or whatever was something about the process of restricting.
Food or having to exercise more, whatever the habit change was that felt, uh, that I was defining for myself as being somehow being mean to myself. So it was a total shift in understanding that that process of being a little uncomfortable is actually, you can look at it in a super positive. Healthy light.
And that was the moment it was like I'm going to redefine what discomfort means for me. And it was like a light bulb went on and from that point forward anytime where I thought no I really want to have this thing that's, you know, I know I probably Wouldn't have, if I wanted to reach my goal, then I could tell myself, yeah, but aren't you, are you curious to know what it'll feel like on the other side of, of having the thing that would be better for you?
Paula: Yeah. And even like how gentle that is, but yeah, you could have it, but aren't you curious to see what it'd be like if we just go a different way, like, right. That had such a different energy to it. And I've been having a lot of these types of conversations lately, and that's a huge. The theme that I'm noticing is that different how they how people are reframing discomfort of, oh, this is growth.
This is not, as you said, punishment or deprivation or something that this is so long that, you know, I'm nourishing my body and everything is. It's moving me closer to what I want and who I want to be rather than I'm doing this because I have to or I'm this is a punishment because I need to do it because I do it because I've been wrong in the past.
Karen: Exactly, exactly. And then that component of. Self love comes in, which is so cringy when you hear the word self love. It's like, Oh God, really? But you have to come to terms with the idea that you are doing this because you are showing up for yourself and how, whatever terminology you want to use for that, but that's the place you've got to get into.
Paula: Totally that you're doing it for yourself, not to yourself. Yeah. And I think you mentioned it can take a while to get there in our own brain, right? It's not like you, you gave it a lot of thought you put in a lot of effort. You said you got the coaching on it to kind of get there in your mind. And then it clicked and it was like, okay, this is just how it's going to be now.
Karen: Yeah. Try like 47 years, it takes a while we all get there in our own time. And I think that's part of it too is just the patience of when I get there, I get there, it's available to me, I can get there. And just giving yourself that grace to take the time that it needs for your brain to finally make that shift.
Paula: What do you think was the most challenging part for you?
Karen: Weekends. Weekends are hard because for me, those were the days where I can loosen it up a little bit. No, I'll have this thing or I'll have the glass of wine or whatever. Um, so. Again, it was a curiosity around what if I get to Monday morning and I'm not weighing myself and being like, Oh, what have I done?
What if I get there and I've actually come down a pound. I wanted to know what that felt like and I wanted to see that I could get through the weekend without needing the food to reward myself or to be part of whatever fun I was having and still enjoying. My weekend, enjoying the time with my partner, enjoying the time with my step kids and seeing that food did not need to be the biggest component of that.
And then also, um, recognizing that you can still enjoy eating. You can still love food and finding, you know, creative ways to enjoy what I was eating without it being something that I knew very well was not. Was not going to get me to my goal. So yeah, weekends where, where my entire life had been. This is your time to relax and let up and, and relaxation and letting up every once in a while, that is totally part of a protocol.
You can still do that, but it's just not, it's not every weekend anymore. And getting to that point was the challenge.
Paula: And so part of it sounds like part of your success strategy was let's just see if I can do it. Like, let's just see if we can handle a weekend where I'm not turning to food in this way and see what happens, see if the scale will go down, see what happens.
So there's a, it sounds like there's a real like curiosity, real openness, real interest in the process.
Karen: Yeah. And again, in the moment where people around me are eating the foods that I normally would have to kind of just be in that moment and sit with those sensations of like, Hmm, I do want to have it.
But I also don't. Yeah. So, you know, let's let the other side win this time.
Paula: What was easier than you expected?
Karen: Finding food that really Made me feel happy and healthy and not feeling as deprived as I thought I was going to be. You know, the protocol that I have is very heavy on veggies first, and then I, I do eat meat and I have a lot of fat in my healthy fats, so olive oil, avocado. I do have dairy, so having foods that were satisfying and made me feel like I wasn't really being deprived. You know, I feel like a lot of diets are like, Oh, you have to have, um, dry chicken breast and raw broccoli or whatever. And it's like, who's going to want to do that? This is the rest of my life. I don't, I can't eat like that. I need to know that I'm going to have some slices of avocado, which I love.
And to be able to have whole grains, because I'd sort of grown up in this low carb culture. And so I have. lentils and I have garbanzo beans and I make this amazing farro, spinach salad thing and it's delicious. And so when you're having that moment where you're like this food is really good and I'm really happy, um, I don't need the other stuff that was sabotaging me.
And I think that was surprising where I was like, gosh, I really feel happy and satisfied and we're good and I'm done eating.
Paula: What would you say to people who say, oh, I can't give up sugar and flour? How do you think about that? How do you approach that now?
Karen: I would question what that really means to someone like what?
Why is that? What is it about those things that you don't feel like you can have? And can we talk about the reasons that you may not want to have them and look at your goal and reconnect with your why? And in reference to whatever your motivation is, those foods may not serve your ultimate goal. So we can really examine what that belief is for you and change it and see if it's possible to have some of those things still as exceptions - does that make you crazy or do you kind of need to cut them out completely for a little while and see how that goes because it's not true.
We were born to not eat sugar and processed food and flour. And it's possible to be in that space. It's a matter of how you're looking at it.
Paula: How do you approach exceptions for yourself and your own protocol?
Karen: I am just incredibly mindful about them. And when I'm having the exception, I am so in that exception.
It's like, you know, I'll have a dessert or a couple bites of a dessert and I'm just really present and I, and I savor it and I have the. Experience of what the food is doing and I'm very aware of the moment where it's like, you know, you've had enough and do I win every time? No, sometimes it's like I'm eating the whole thing, but more often than not, it's okay.
Whatever it is that needed to get hit in my brain, whatever neurotransmitters needed to fire, they did. I'm good. We're done. And then as you see the results with the weight, it's motivating. It's like, Oh, that works. That worked for me. So you continue doing it.
Paula: What else have you learned about yourself along this journey?
Karen: Oh, wow. Um, I've learned that weight loss is a portal into knowing yourself.
Paula: Tell me more about that.
Karen: I think that we all want to lose weight for so many reasons, but at the end of the day. It's not as much about the weight itself or how you look. It's how you relate to yourself. It's how you show up in your life.
It's how you care for yourself and you can learn how to do all of those things. It's almost like you're being tricked to learn those things by, Oh, I'm, I'm on a weight loss plan, but I think you have to do it the right way. I think you need the support of a coaching. Program I think or a therapist or a friend or I think just trying to do it on your own or thinking I'm just going to cut calories and exercise more is not going to get you there.
You need to do this processing and it takes some courage and learning that I had the courage to do it was huge.
Paula: And one of the things I remember that came up for us, if you don't want to share this is totally fine. Um, but was changing what you thought might be your natural weight or what you thought what you were capable of in terms of what that looks like for you. Tell me about that process for you.
Karen: Yeah, you know, so I'm actually a physician. I'm a doctor. You know that- the listeners aren't going to know that, but I'm a doctor. So we get taught a lot of stuff. And when you're learning medicine, you get really programmed into believing what's true and what's not true.
So, I wish in my own studying of medicine and obesity and the clinical side of it, um, you know, there are studies out there about the set point. There's studies out there about, you can't really keep the weight off. You're going to regain it. So I had to struggle with the science part of it and understand for myself that.
The studies are flawed and you know, they don't nutrition research is so difficult to do and weight loss studies are so hard to do. And none of them look at mindset. None of them look at the work that I was doing. So in my mind, I had a certain weight that I could get to without killing myself.
And in my mind, I thought this is where my set point is. This is where my metabolic point is. I'm not going to get below it because I have this journal article that says so. So I had to, um, kind of go against what I had been taught and just see if it was possible. And it was so possible.
And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that I got down to, for me, my goal was just a healthy BMI. And when I got there, and it was so doable, it was, um. Really rewarding.
Paula: I'm so glad that you shared that because that can be true where we look if we look at medical studies or we look at well, what are the stats and if we use those stats, it can be very depressing and disheartening. And then why do we ever want to, you know, why would we want to say no when we're having an urge if we think, well, it's hopeless anyways. So I'm so glad that you shared that. Because I think that happens, right? And so we need to believe that it's like actually possible.
We might not 100% believe it, but we need to know that. Yes. Okay. There's a reason why they put the way back on. And it's because they went into it with the same way of thinking, right? They're just trying to reduce the calories and increase the whole, like biggest loser concept, right? Is usually what they're studying.
Karen: Exactly right. I mean, you take somebody who is 300 pounds and you suddenly cut them down to 800 calories a day and work them out five hours a week. Of course, that's not going to be a natural, normal way of losing weight and the body is going to fight against that. So do it in a more sustainable and manageable way and work on the self love and the motivation and connecting with your why and all of the coaching points and it is, I'm a believer.
And it is totally possible.
Paula: What are you most proud of?
Karen: That's a good question. I'm most proud of the work that went into changing the mindset. I do a lot of reading. I meditate. I journal. I do a lot of processing. I worked with you, et cetera. So it's like actually doing the work and seeing it show results.
I'm really proud of sticking with it.
Paula: How did you get yourself to do the work?
Karen: Well, part of me, again, going back to being a doctor and being taught that lifestyle is one of the biggest interventions that we have as our tool to provide to patients to help them get to a healthier place. And knowing that as a physician.
I never learned those ways of helping a patient into that new space. So I felt like in order to be able to teach it, I had to learn it for myself. And that was incredibly motivating. That was my why. That was why I wanted to go into this was so that I could give it to somebody else as a tool. So if I could figure it out, I could teach it.
Paula: Yeah, so tell me about that because I know that you are now leaving medical practice and moving into coaching and helping women release the weight. So tell me about, tell me a little bit more about that.
Karen: Yeah, so I've been, you know, working in the clinical world for over 10 years. I'm a gynecologist and I also got board certified in obesity medicines just to get that little extra book knowledge.
And then figuring out the book knowledge isn't where it's at. It's... It's actually a lot more intuition than they allow us to believe. But because my favorite part of being a doctor was sitting with patients and connecting with them and really getting into their motivation I wanted to do more of that work.
So I just wanted more time with people to really share what I had learned in a deeper way. So yeah, I've cut back a lot on my clinical hours and I'm developing a coaching business so that I can share that because I think I have the knowledge and now I have the practical application of it, knowing that it's possible and I want to give it away.
Paula: And then what kind of people do you want to help or like who would be a good fit for you to reach out to you?
Karen: Probably more women, just because being a gynecologist, those are the ones I'm most familiar with. You know, women that are probably aging, getting into perimenopause and menopause.
That's where I am in my life. And I feel like that's where we have the most messaging from the world, that that's the time when your quote unquote metabolism slows down. And that can be hard, and it's a shift in body perception as you age, and I feel like that is an overlooked population, an ignored population, and there's so much wisdom and value in that population.
And women who maybe aren't strangers to kind of the self help world, maybe have dabbled in some, Spiritual practice or open to meditation and journaling and just willing to, to be a little bit more open minded than just, you know, let's figure out what food, like let's make a food list and go off that.
Paula: Okay. And then how would people reach out to you?
Karen: So my business is called Intention Wellbeing. I have a website intention wellbeing, all one word, no hyphen. And I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook. My email is Karen at intention wellbeing. com. So those are all the ways that you can find me.
Paula: Okay, that's great.
And then I'll also obviously put all that information in the show notes to this podcast episode. So if people are interested in reaching out to you, connecting, they can totally go there. And I would highly recommend that they do that. They reach out because yeah, I think you have all of the tools. I think.
Like myself, you've like walked, what do they say? Walk the talk, talk the walk. Then there, you know what it's like, and you're on that journey and you've already achieved so much. So, I guess the last thing is I, my favorite question is what do you wish other women would know about when it comes to releasing weight?
What do you want to share with them? Tell them?
Karen: Have faith. Know that that place is there for you. You can't see it now, but it's there. I promise you. So stick with it. And be patient with yourself and be kind to yourself. And once you get there, your mind will be blown and it's so worth it. But you just have to be a little comfortable with, I'm not there yet, but I can get there.
Paula: Yeah, I'm on my way. That's so great. I love that. So inspiring. I got chills. We want to hear that. We want to hear that over and over. I don't think we can hear that enough. Like, you are where you are and you're on your way. Okay. Well, thank you again. I feel like this is really helpful and really inspiring.
And I just want to tell you how much I am so impressed with the work that you've put in and your progress. Thank you so much for sharing part of your journey with us.
Karen: Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I feel like you were a huge part of my transformation. So I obviously owe you a lot of gratitude as well.
Paula: My pleasure.