10 Ways to Get Dangerously Ahead of Your Health

If you’ve ever set a health goal—lose weight, build muscle, balance your blood sugar—and wondered, Why can’t I stay motivated?, this episode is for you.
Today I’m sharing 10 Ways to Get Dangerously Ahead of Your Health, not through willpower or perfection, but through mindset shifts that create real momentum. We’ll talk about why discomfort is a gift, how curiosity beats guilt every time, and how small, focused actions can completely transform your body—and your life.

Transcript

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Jolie Life Podcast. This is Julia, and I'm so excited you're here with me today to discuss 10 ways to get dangerously ahead of your health. So many times we have health goals and we have places we want to be in our health, whether it's a weight loss goal or we're trying to build muscle or we're trying to back off of high glucose numbers, whatever the goal is, we have a goal and sometimes it's hard to see how do we get there or how do we motivate ourselves to get there? And if you have experienced this, if you are experiencing this, this podcast will help you so much. So let's dive in to 10 ways to get dangerously ahead of your health. Firstly is to become deeply dissatisfied with where you are now. Now this might seem counterintuitive because there's so much out there about gratitude, which is so important, about being happy, where you are accepting yourself as you are, and that's fabulous.
(01:22)
However, there is when we're trying to make a change, sometimes focusing too much on what's good, what's positive puts us in a state of inaction because let's face it, we change. When we become really uncomfortable with where we are, when we're comfortable, when we're happy, where we are, when we are, doesn't cause us too much pain. It's really, really hard to make the changes that will lead us someplace else. Because to get to a new place in our health, at some point, we're going to be uncomfortable. At some point, we're going to have to make a decision that is not our routine decision. At some point, we're going to have to change how we eat or how we move or how we live or how we schedule ourselves. So how do we give ourselves the motivation to do that? The quickest way? The easiest way to motivate ourselves is to realize how unsatisfied we are right now, because pain is a motivator.
(02:44)
Pain forces us over the hump to get to something that is better. So when we think about where we are, what is it about where you are that you don't like? And it can be very simple things. For example, when I began my weight loss journey, the things that made me deeply unsatisfied was that I didn't like that I couldn't just go into a store and buy whatever I wanted. I didn't like that. If I was on vacation and forgot something, it was hard to replace that item. I didn't like that. I couldn't wear some of the latest fashions. I didn't like that it was getting harder to get up and down from the floor or harder to go up a flight of steps, or if an elevator was out and a building, for instance, going up the steps was really, really embarrassing, laborious. It was laborious to an embarrassing extent.
(03:47)
So those are things that made me uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable that I loved food and I was overweight. It made me uncomfortable that I wanted to talk about food, but I felt like I had a problem with food. And so focusing on the things that you are deeply dissatisfied with helps you to move forward because I knew I didn't want to feel limited. I didn't want to feel ashamed of the things that I was passionate about. I didn't want to live in a small space. I didn't want to be embarrassed by my body or what it could do or what it couldn't do. And focusing on the things that made my life less than optimal, less than what I wanted it to be was the fire, was the motivation to get to the space that I wanted to be. I wanted to be where I could go up the stairs with no problem.
(04:48)
I wanted to be with. I could play and go up and down and do all the things with no problem. I wanted to be in a space where if my suitcase got lost or left, which actually happened, that it wasn't a tragedy. I could just go to any store, get a couple pairs of pants, get a sweater, get a skirt, and be on my merry way and wouldn't have to worry about it. I wanted to be in a place where if I saw a dress that I love with horizontal stripes, I was like, okay, let me get that. I wanted to be in that space. So becoming deeply satisfied with where you are now allows you to see, okay, what you're actually giving up and are the sacrifices worth it? So for instance, if you find that you can't get out of bed in the morning that it's hard to get out of bed, that you're always tired, and then the choice comes, do I eat this or do I eat that?
(05:50)
By focusing on the things that you don't like that you're experiencing now, you can say to yourself, actually, I'm going to make the better decision because in the morning I want to wake up and I want to feel good. And this skill of being deeply dissatisfied with where you are now is not only going to get you ahead in your help, but it's going to keep you ahead. I use this all the time. So let's say I'm out having drinks, having cocktails, and the question is, do you have another cocktail or not? I think about how bad do I want to feel in the morning? Do I want to feel completely shot in the morning or do I want to feel like I can get up and go about my day in the morning? That is what keeps me from having that extra cocktail. It's not like, oh, that's more calories, or, oh, I shouldn't, or, oh, that would be too much.
(06:43)
No, it's very concrete. I would be deeply dissatisfied, waking up in the morning, hungover, I would be deeply dissatisfied, waking up in the morning and not being able to do the things that I wanted to do. So this habit of focusing on what you don't want in your health and realizing what you don't want is the fire to push you forward. And when I say focus on, I mean be aware of. I don't mean to dwell on it, just to be aware of it. Be aware that there are things that you don't like that you have power over that you have agency with, and your choices in the present will change those factors. It will move you to a place where you feel good, where you can do the things you want to do. Where going to the doctor isn't an issue. It's February almost before we know it will be in swimsuits.
(07:44)
Let's say this summer. You don't want to go through feeling horrible in your swimsuit. So every time you have a choice, the focus is I don't want to feel horrible in my swimsuit, so I'm going to make this decision. I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to eat this thing. I'm going to have a salad. So that's number one. Number two is view everything as a learning opportunity and stay curious. This is probably the second most important point is everything is a learning opportunity. And stay curious. The way that this helps you get ahead in your help is it helps you to know yourself and to learn workarounds. So it's very easy to white knuckle your way through a month of a program or through a month at the gym, but you can't white knuckle your way through life. And this is where everything becomes a learning opportunity.
(08:55)
So say you wake up in the morning and you're like, I'm going to have a great day, and you know that three to five o'clock window is your danger time where you want to go downstairs and downstairs from your building and you want to get a coffee and you want to get a croissant because you need that pick me up. So use this as a learning opportunity. Let's say you've been perfect all week and then Friday comes and you do that. So what's to be learned here? Perhaps by Friday your willpower is gone. So let's find a new way of approaching our Friday afternoon. So let's say Friday afternoon, we're programmed to have a reward of some type. So let's get curious about, okay, why do we do this? We do this because it's Friday and we want a reward because we've gone through the entire week.
(09:51)
Okay, let's get curious again. What about the reward makes me happy? What makes me feel good about that? Perhaps it's an acknowledgement of the hard work you did. Perhaps it's a moment of quiet. Perhaps it feels decadent. Perhaps you like the ritual of giving yourself something on a Friday. And so we use that as a learning opportunity and we say, okay, what else could we do that's more aligned to my goals that will give me that same feeling? And then you begin to develop new habits and new ways to satisfy and celebrate yourself. That is what comes out of staying curious. In contrast, when we do something that is say, off program, we might guilt trip ourselves. We might tell ourselves, oh, we'll never get this right. My goal is too big, I won't be able to reach it. You just shut down curiosity and you made it a lot harder for yourself.
(11:03)
So instead of directing negativity toward yourself, view it as a learning opportunity. View it as a way of learning what motivates you, what you actually need, how do you want to treat yourself? And through that curiosity, you'll develop new habits that affirm your basic desires, which are good. A desire to give yourself a reward at the end of the week is not bad. It is good how you do it may not be aligned, but you by being curious can find new ways of doing that. And so you can honor yourself and be aligned with your goal. That is what comes out of viewing everything as a learning opportunity, particularly failures and remaining curious about your process. The third point in 10 ways to get dangerously ahead of your health is to set a focus and put on blinders for everything else. And I generally suggest that you have one thing to focus on and only that one thing, and you put blinders on everything else.
(12:26)
And here's where we step out of goal, focus to process focus. So there are some decisions that if you make that decision over and over and over and over again, it's going to automatically push you towards your goal. So let's take for instance, let's say you're a soda person and you love soda, not diet soda, but you just love soda. Your focus for a week or two might just be to not drink soda and to learn to drink other things, and that's your focus and you put blinders on everything else. There might be 10 things that you want to do to get ahead of your health, but we focus on that one thing and we put blinders on everything else. This frees up energy for one, and by having one thing at top of mind, you can work through it and you can learn through that focus how to change habits.
(13:34)
So if my focus is no more soda, then I know, okay, I'm about to go out to dinner. Let me think about what else I'm going to drink. I'm going to drink seltzer. I can have the house stocked with seltzer. I can try putting lemon or a little bit of apple juice in my water and see how that feels. I can focus there and I will find success and that will push me toward my goal versus trying to do 10 things at a time. Okay? I am trying not to eat gluten. I'm trying not to eat meat. I'm trying not to eat soda. I'm trying to go to the gym every day. I'm trying to wake up early, I'm trying to go to bed early. I'm trying to not eat during the bewitching window between three and five. That's a lot to focus on. A lot, a lot, a lot.
(14:25)
You'll get farther if you've set one goal, one process, actually let me restate that one process that you're committing to and put blinders on to everything else and just practice that till it becomes rote until, okay, you go out to dinner or you go out to lunch and you no longer automatically ask for the soda when you get to that point. Now let's tackle the next thing. The next thing might be putting your gym bag in your car every day. So the focus is let me put my gym bag in the car every day because my excuse is I get up at work and oh my gosh, I don't feel like going home and getting my gym clothes. Let that be your focus. And you see these are all process oriented things that will get you in the end ahead of your health. Fourthly, don't be afraid to fail and don't be afraid to experiment.
(15:19)
So I guess these are kind of like a two for one, which actually might work out for us here. Don't be afraid to fail when you're learning anything, you're going to fail. That's part of the learning process. And if we point back to our second way, staying curious, when we fail, we get curious to develop workarounds to develop, okay, what else could I have chosen to do? So don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to have a plateau week. Don't be afraid to. You think you're doing so so well and you want a certain number to come out of your blood work and it's not quite there. Don't be afraid of that. That gives you information. It gives you an opportunity to experiment and try new things. And lemme just say how important experimentation is, and I do this now with my body all the time.
(16:18)
I want to know, okay, what will happen if I do X, Y, and Z? What will happen if I do this? What will happen if I fast during the day and then I go out for Italian food? What will happen? That's an experiment that I do. How will it impact me if I have Jo Life lunch and dinner and for breakfast, I have, I dunno, whatever it is that I like experiment. The pleasure of experimentation is it allows you to customize and to learn yourself and to learn what works for you because there can be great diets, there can be great workout plans, there can be great nutritional philosophies, but they may not entirely work for you. So for instance, when I was going through my health journey, I became primal. Primal is meat, vegetables, dairy, a little bit of fruit, and I loved it.
(17:20)
It was great. I lost weight. I started looking younger, I started feeling better. It was wonderful. And then I began to experiment. I'm like, okay, how much can I occasionally have a croissant because I happen to love croissants. If you haven't realized this yet, because I've mentioned them twice, can I have a croissant? What will happen? That's an experiment to see if there is elasticity in my diet. So feel free to experiment because you are literally making it own your own and you're creating a lifestyle that you can live in for the rest of your life and that will definitely get you dangerously ahead in your health. Okay, fifthly, simplify the process and this hearkens back to don't have so many things happening that you lose track of where you are in your health process, your health journey. Simplify it. One of the things I love about Jolie life wellness programs is it simplifies eating.
(18:31)
It takes the choice out of it, it takes the prep out of it, it takes the shopping out of it. You have a meal, it comes, it's designed for you. You eat it and you know what's going to happen. You're going to get closer to your goal. That's simplifying the process. Getting a trainer is another way. You simplify the process. Instead of going to the gym and you're looking around, what weight do I use? How many reps do I do? When do I rest? When do I not rest? How do you use that machine? Should I be using that machine? Should I be doing this kind of plank? Should I be doing that kind of plank? Simplify it. Get a trainer. They've done all the legwork, they've done all the study, they've done all the education. Let them help you sculpt your body, join a class.
(19:20)
The class is already done, all that background. So you just go, you do the class and you get the results that simplifies the process. Let's say, what are my weekend groceries? Have the same thing every weekend. There's nothing wrong with that. Have two eggs and some strawberries for breakfast. Have the same soup for lunch. Have grilled fish and broccoli for dinner. Make routines. Simplifying your process will free up space in your life and it will make achieving your goals so much easier. It will also make maintaining your goals so much easier. So staying in the process by simplifying it will make everything accelerate. Everything, everything, everything. Next, less is better, and this is our sixth way of getting ahead of your health. Less is better, and when I say less is better, you can apply this. In many ways, less food is better than a lot of food when we're changing, particularly with health, oftentimes it's changing portions.
(20:44)
And so sometimes we'll look at something and we'll say, oh, that's enough for me because we're changing how we're eating and we're eating less. I encourage you to try the less first. Try the less first. Wait 10 minutes and see if that's enough and go in with the idea that less is better, less is better. And notice that little twist on that. Less is better. Oftentimes we'll tell ourselves this is not enough. We're going to flip that. Less is better. And if you eat the less and you're still hungry after 10, 15, 20 minutes, then have some more. But we start with at a space that gives us room to actually get to our goals, unless it's better in terms of complicating how you're getting to your goals, have one, two things to focus on and use those to get to your goal. Less is better. Next up is learn about nutrition.
(21:52)
And I do a ton of education. You're listening to this podcast, so obviously you're in the space of wanting to learn about nutrition, learning about nutrition, and you don't have to become an expert, but just having your eyes and ears open, picking up a book once or twice a year is going to help you to know what is steering you in the right place and to know what is gunking up the journey. So learn about nutrition. There's a ton of misinformation out of there out in the world about nutrition that can steer you in the worst direction. And so to learn about it helps you parse through that information. It also gives you confidence in your choices and it makes the road a lot clearer. It's kind of like looking at a map and seeing where you're going on a road trip before you jump in the car, learn about nutrition.
(22:57)
And number eight is to track everything. Why I say that is tracking particularly your results helps you to see your gains. When I began my journey, I would track my bust measurement, my waist measurement, and my hip measurement. That was my tracking and it helped me to see how my body was transforming and seeing that transformation gave me even more juice to keep going, even more energy to keep going. I have a friend who's a runner. She tracks her runs, she tracks her speed, her heart rate, that gives her inspiration to keep going and keep training where she sees, oh, this run I did a lot faster and my heart rate was even lower than it was the first time. Or I see over this month I've been doing a lot of cross training and my speed by the end of the month was faster than my speed at the beginning of the month.
(24:09)
That helps her to know her cross-training is working. Her cross-training is something she still wants to invest in. So I say track as much as you can and track the things that motivate you. For me, it was measurements for her, it's time and heart rate. For you, it might be, how many times did I go to bed, not with a full stomach? And you might track that. How many days a week did I wake up and I felt energized? Maybe you track that. Maybe that's the thing that's going to keep you on point throughout the day. So tracking in a way that boosts you up is really, really key. The ninth point in 10 ways to get dangerously ahead of your health is a bias toward action and agency.
(25:05)
You have the power to transform your health. The power is yours. You just have to take it. And that's what I mean by agency. And action trumps everything. I encourage you, even though I said learn about nutrition, do not get stuck in the weeds. Do something by doing. You will get clarity and by doing, you will get in the space of committing to your goal in the process. And so a bias toward action. When I dove in to transform my health, I didn't have all the answers. I didn't know if it would work, but the only way to find out is to actually start doing it. A bias toward action. Maybe I liked solid core, maybe I didn't like it, but how would I know I could keep thinking about it, which I did for probably a good three months. Or I could just dive in, take a class and see if I liked it or not.
(26:05)
That gave me more information than my three months of stalking Instagram and TikTok and asking people about solid core. Instead, taking a class bias toward action, I acted. It gave me clarity. So I very much encourage you to dive in to do something. The Nike, just do it. That's the line here. Just do it. Just dive in. Don't think to yourself, oh, should I do optimize? Will it work? Will I actually lose weight? Dive into it. Do it. That action is going to get you way closer to your than sitting there and thinking about, oh, will this work? Is this the right thing? Are the macros all right? This, that, and the other? That's not going to do anything but keep you exactly where you are. Instead, dive in. Go toward action. Go toward owning your agency. And lastly, know that you will get there.
(27:06)
Know that doing all nine of these things, you're going to get there. Maybe you want to get there in three months. Maybe it'll take longer than three months. Maybe it'll take six months. But the point is you'll get there. And if you go back to 0.1, where you are right now is not where you want to be. There's something about where you are right now that's not fully satisfying. So know that you will get there. And if you get there in three months, if you get there in six months, you still got there and you didn't spend another 6, 8, 9, 10 months feeling unsatisfied with your health status. So know that you'll get there. And the sooner you act, the sooner you jump in, guess what? The sooner you'll get there. So that's it. These are your 10 ways to get dangerously ahead of your health. I'm Julia. I am here to help you. Jolie is here to help you. Jolie will make all of these things better. So if you need any more information, check out our website@thejolielife.com. I also love to hear from you, and you can contact me at julia@thejolielife.com and I will speak to you next time.