Welcome to Episode 2 of our podcast that’s all about making healthy lifestyle changes fun and achievable, especially for women over 35! 

 

In this episode, get ready to unleash your inner superhero and discover how taking small steps can lead to big changes.

We’ll explore the power of setting exciting and inspiring goals, and how breaking them down into doable actions can make all the difference. Discover how to stay accountable to yourself, even on those days when you’d rather sit on the couch and watch Netflix while you eat all the things.

And let’s talk about cravings!

We’ll reveal the secrets to managing them and understanding the hormonal forces behind them. Plus, we’ll give you some fun visual reminders to keep you motivated and on track.

Say goodbye to overwhelm and hello to a lifetime of healthy habits!
Our Small Steps approach is all about building trust and confidence in yourself, in a way that’s simple and easy.

Check out Episode #2: Sticky Notes and Small Steps

We’re on Youtube and on Spotify

Mentioned in the podcast:

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Just click the link and let’s get this party started!
Link for Template: https://bit.ly/SmallStepsTemplate

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Join the Change Method Progressive Membership.

Each month you’ll get easy-to-implement food, lifestyle and mindset tools to help you reach your health goals, along with support, accountability and a wonderful community of like-minded women.

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#soiwaslisteningtothispodcast #fatfoggyfatigued #paulettekydd #metabolism #cravings #goals #smallsteps

stressStress is the root of so many problems. Most of my clients have significant chronic stress that interferes with their ability to achieve their health goals.

Stress is often inescapable but we can minimize the impact on our health. We NEED to minimize that impact. Chronic stress impairs sleep, interferes with weight loss, causes inflammation in your body and increases your risk of disease including Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Disease.

I want to repeat that last point: stress can lead to Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Stress increases blood sugar. It’s supposed to do this…giving energy to your muscles so you can either FIGHT or FLEE…fight the enemy attacking you or run away.

If you’re experiencing chronic stress, your blood sugar is constantly elevated. This means that your pancreas needs to keep pumping out insulin in response to this, in order to get the sugar to your cells.

What happens when insulin is constantly present in your blood? Your cells stop responding to insulin.

Brain fog? Memory problems?

Stress might be shrinking your brain. Seriously.

When you’re stressed, your body releases cortisol. Cortisol serves many important functions…it’s not a bad thing.

Yoga saved my sanity….it’s true. Really.

 

I felt compelled to write this post the other day. As I write this, we’re approaching September and a new school year.  There’s always a sense of excitement but also a bit of anxiety. Back into the regimented schedules. Busy days ahead. New projects on the go. My kids have new experiences ahead of them that they need help navigating. It’s a ‘full’ life. Then I remembered how much yoga helped save my sanity a while back. Even though I do yoga every day now, I don’t always use it in the most effective way. Sometimes it’s more about stretching than it is stress-reducing.

 

I had tried to get into yoga many times throughout my life and just didn’t get it…it was way too slow for my cardio addicted body and mind.

 

I don’t respond well to someone telling me to just ‘do’ something. Don’t just tell me that I should do yoga (or drink water or eat vegetables). I want to know WHY I should do yoga (or drink water or eat vegetables). I took a course at my local community centre to find that out. But even that didn’t help me to make yoga a regular part of my life.

 

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I started to have unexplained anxiety, that I gave yoga another try and it ‘stuck’.

 

This Stress Was Different

 

Like many people, I’ve always felt stress physically, but this was different. I would be standing at the counter at work and suddenly feel tightness in my chest for no apparent reason. It felt like I was having trouble breathing and that my heart was beating faster, but I’m not sure that either of those things was actually happening. It felt out of my control. I also experienced some new digestive stress and headaches, probably related to the distress I felt with this unexplained anxiety.

 

Meditation was the first thing that popped into my head. I should start meditating…it helps with stress.

 

But the idea of sitting still for any length of time and trying to stop my mind from racing seemed like an impossible task. And that made me more anxious!

 

Then I thought about how yoga is like meditation in movement. You use breath and focus while moving in a sort of meditative state. This is how my perception of yoga changed and allowed me to be more open to trying it again. This time, it worked. It was like magic.

 

I can’t put words to the emotional RELIEF I felt when doing yoga this time. And several years later, I still feel this way.

 

 

 

How I Got Started

 

I consulted good old Google and searched ‘Yoga for Stress Relief’. There were lots of YouTube videos to choose from. I decided to start with a short 15-minute video for beginners and did this for a few days in a row. Low and behold, I started to feel better. My digestive stress calmed down quite soon after and the headaches lessened. I started to look forward to these yoga videos and decided to try some longer ones. I could feel the tension leaving my shoulders with each ‘child’s pose’. I literally felt my muscles release.

 

It got to the point where I was doing 60-90 minutes a day. I didn’t have time for this but it seemed so essential to my health and well being that I made it work with my schedule. I tried all different types of yoga and various instructors. At that time, I preferred the slower moving Yin or Restorative Yoga. As my flexibility and health improved I looked to see if I could use yoga for strength and cardio fitness to replace some of my regular workouts. This is when I discovered Power Yoga.

 

My Favourites

 

Currently, my two favourite YouTube Yoga go-tos are Sean Vigue Fitness and SarahBeth Yoga.

 

Both have a huge variety of videos in varying lengths, for every level of experience. They offer lots of tips along the way on how to do the poses properly and how to modify based on your needs and skill level. Both instructors have paid sites as well, but I’ve only ever used their free content.

 

I like Sean’s references to 80’s tv shows, movies and music, and he doesn’t engage in a lot of typical ‘yoga speak’. He just gets right down to it in his sweat pants, tank top and ball cap. Sean’s expertise is Power Yoga but he has lots of other slower-moving videos too. One of my favourites is his 7 Day Morning Yoga Challenge.

 

SarahBeth is the one I go to when I need to relax and deal with stress, or if I have pain that I want to alleviate. She has videos for all sorts of symptoms and talks about how she uses yoga to relieve symptoms of IBS.

 

What I Do Now

 

I still do yoga every day, usually in the morning and the evening before bed. It might be for 15 minutes at a time, or it might be 45 minutes. Sometimes I go to a class (I love Hot Yoga) at a local gym but I usually use YouTube and just do yoga at home. I decide based on how I’m feeling and what I want to achieve with yoga that day.

 

I love the feeling of being flexible. I don’t moan and groan when I stand up from the couch like many of my peers do. I can easily sit down on the ground and jump back up. I don’t have those unexplained anxiety symptoms anymore.

 

 

Afterthought

 

Several years ago, before yoga, I started experiencing episodes of back spasms that seemed to come out of nowhere. This was new to me…I’d never had back issues before. It started one morning when I awoke with shooting pains in my middle back that actually caused me to yell out loud!  My family didn’t know what was going on. As the morning progressed and I dragged myself to work, the pain eventually lessened and the yelling stopped but I had residual pain for a few days. This would happen every few months and I still have no idea what the trigger was. However, I realized after doing yoga for a year that these spasms didn’t happen anymore and I’ve not had one since!

 

Yoga helps me to feel younger.

 

Yoga helps me deal with stress and anxiety.

 

Yoga saves my sanity.

 

You might also like: Moving Outside My Comfort Zone

 

 

 

Eating With People Who Don’t See Eye to Eye with You….

 

Maybe you don’t want to offend the cook. Or maybe you don’t want to explain for the 110th time why you choose not to eat bread or pasta…or dessert. Do people give you a hard time when you say you eat Keto diet? How do you eat High Fat Low Carb in public, with people that don’t understand?

 

I think it’s easier for me in these situations simply because I’m a nutritionist. People are interested in why I eat the way I eat but they don’t often challenge me, perhaps because they figure I have done my research. Or maybe because even though they may have a strong opinion about why Keto or Low Carb is bad, they really don’t have much to back it up, and realize that I probably do 🙂

 

Why Such a Strong Reaction?

 

Most people don’t fully understand the science behind Keto or Low Carb diets or how they can be done in a healthy way. Furthermore, they may be swayed by media that dramatizes the potential side effects when these ways of eating are not done in a healthful way (i.e. with low carb foods devoid of nutrition or high-fat foods made of the wrong kinds of fats).

There’s also a very real possibility that who ever is giving you a hard time is actually feeling guilty about the way they choose to eat or their lack of willingness to make healthy choices…and you get to be on the receiving end of that guilt (cue the ridicule and the ‘challenge’ questions).

This can lead to some uncomfortable discussions and leaving you in the position of defending your choices once again. OR, you decide to pretend that you eat like everyone else and just fill your plate with carbs.

 

Strategies

 

Here are a few strategies for you to use if you’re eating with others who may not understand:

• If you’re going to someone’s house for dinner, let them know well in advance what your food preferences are and offer to bring a delicious item that everyone can enjoy but that fits your way of eating. That way you know there’s at least one item you’ll feel good eating. Make it something substantial like a casserole that you really enjoy. I like this Bacon Cheeseburger Casserole recipe. Or you could try Reuben Meatballs with Cabbage which can be baked ahead and warmed up in a casserole dish.

   

• Don’t feel the need to justify the way you eat. Simply say that you feel better and have more energy when you avoid ‘items x, y, z’ and since you want to enjoy the rest of the evening and have enough energy to provide captivating conversation later on, you’re going to stick to your plan.
• You can always blame it on me….’my nutritionist says that I need to eat this way in order to keep my blood sugar balanced and maintain my good health….she gets really mad at me if I don’t listen to her’.

 

WHAT are you eating?

 

• Often times it’s the ‘HIGH FAT’ part of the High Fat Low Carb way of eating that triggers a strong response from others. Just tell them that you eat Low Carb. Somehow that seems less controversial and you won’t need to explain any further.

   

• Unbalanced blood sugar can cause mood swings and ‘hangry’ behaviour. You don’t want to be responsible for what might happen in your host’s home if you eat that bread/pasta/potato. Really, you’re improving the social environment of your get together by avoiding carbs 🙂
• You can offer to educate them on the health benefits of a High Fat Low Carb lifestyle, either until you change their minds or drive them crazy enough that they back down.
• Or simply decide that you don’t care what other people think. You know what you need. There is no perfect way of eating that works for everyone but if a High Fat Low Carb way of eating helps you feel better, have more energy, ditch the cravings, lose fat and think more clearly, then eat that way and be proud of it. Be a good role model and eat your olive oil by the spoonful, right at the dinner table 🙂
• If you decide that you really want to have a piece of cake/bread/chocolate…do it. But do it mindfully, not impulsively. Take a moment and think about it. Are you willing to not feel so great later? Is it something that you will REALLY enjoy? Do you actually want it (or are you just ‘joining the crowd’)? Yes? DECIDE to eat it. Enjoy it. Savour it. Maybe don’t eat a double portion of it 🙂 DON’T FEEL GUILTY about it.

 

In addition to those tips, choose unbreaded protein (chicken, fish, beef, pork, eggs), cheese, non-starchy vegetables, olive oil, butter, olives, avocado and avoid rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, and other starchy vegetables. Drink water, sparkling water, coffee or tea. If you choose alcohol, drink it in moderation and stick to dry wine, gin or vodka for the lowest carb content.

 

If all else fails, get new friends and family who support your choices 🙂 Just kidding. Invite them to try a challenge. 5 days of eating a low carb breakfast…..or send them to me and I’ll do my best to convert them.

 

You might also be interested in: Cravings: Why Willpower Isn’t Enough, or Moving Outside My Comfort Zone