Your Friday Five: The 5 Lessons That Changed My Health This Year

In this year-end episode, I’m sharing the top five lessons that transformed my own health—and the health of so many patients I’ve worked with. These weren’t quick fixes or resolutions that fizzled out in February. These were identity-level shifts that changed how I eat, move, think, and show up for myself.

You’ll hear about how my tastes evolved (yes, your palate really can change), how movement became a true non-negotiable, why structure creates more freedom—not less—and the mindset practices that kept me anchored during the busiest seasons. I also share the patterns I’ve seen repeatedly in patients navigating GLP-1 medications, metabolic healing, emotional eating, and long-term weight management.

This episode wraps the year with grounded wisdom, compassion, and tools you can start using today.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why your taste buds genuinely change over time—and how to create the conditions for that shift.
• The identity shift that makes daily movement automatic (and non-negotiable).
• How simple routines and structure actually reduce stress, emotional eating, and evening overeating.
• The mindset training required to maintain weight loss and navigate busy seasons with less friction.
• The role of community and support in sustaining long-term behavior change.
• Why building momentum—not perfection—was the biggest theme in both my life and my patients’ successes this year.

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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Get my free Podcast Roadmap—a simple guide to help you find the episodes that matter most to your journey. Whether you're on GLP-1s, navigating plateaus, or just starting out, there's something here for you.

Transcript

0:29

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I cannot believe that we are toward the end of the year here as I'm recording this. We've been doing weeks and weeks of the Momentum Challenge, and it has been so fun and it got me thinking as I'm going through these calls and as we're connecting in the WhatsApp group and everyone's doing amazing, it made me reflect on what are some of the. Sort of top lessons that I learned this past year and some trends emerged, some things really shocked me and some things I know, but just got more solidified. When I was thinking about it, I think there's about top, there's a top five lessons here that I could go through. I wrote these out and I wanna go over them today. And the point is, we're all at different places in our journey and one thing that I always stress is that this road is never done. Overweight and obesity, it's a chronic, relapsing and remitting condition means you have times when things are amazing and you have times when you struggle, and I found that this past year. Despite, I don't even know how much I lost. I haven't done the exact math, but this year was a big mindset year change, and I'm gonna go over that here. And so I wanna tell you that it's not always about what the scale's doing. Yes, the scale went down for me, but that is actually not the biggest win of the year. There are some things that occurred here that are just landmark for me, that if these can stick around. We're gonna have a different future. Maybe you can take some inspiration from it. Maybe you've already accomplished these things. Maybe you're heading into these things. Maybe these are never gonna be a thing for you. But I think it's always fascinating hearing what other people learn and their wisdom, and then seeing if any of it can apply to me. Here's where I'm at at the moment. Number one, your tastes will evolve if you give them space too. This past year, I really watched my own palate shift, so I now much more enjoy cooking at home, which is something that, again, I'm not cooking all the time, but there are some recipes that I enjoy and I find it to be a very mindful experience to do that and savoring whole foods and crowding out a lot more of the ultra processed foods. They're just less appealing to me. And it used to feel like a lot of effort to do that, but it became easier this year. I think part of it was that I allowed a larger exploration of things. I know this is gonna sound so silly when I say it, but I just had not had oranges. Honestly, I think we just didn't grow up eating a lot of oranges. I mean, we'd have clementines, but we just, were not a big like orange family. This past year when I would be in the 30, 30 challenges, I would go into the food store and I would say, I always think we have a member in our group I, who I absolutely love Nina. And she said one year how she went into the food store and. She thought in her mind, taste the rainbow, right? Which is a skittle saying that used to be in ads. I encourage in my program for people to eat all different kinds of fruits and vegetables and we get in more diversity. And so through doing that. I realized different fruits, that it was not intentional. I'd not meant to not have those, but I started to bring in more things and I started to have different combinations of things. And I also think I lowered restriction in a way because I would make, for example, a bag of spinach, wilt it down, and I would put in some whipped cream cheese. And again, it's not a lot, but it makes it so amazing with the right seasoning and a little bit of that creaminess where it is something that I genuinely desire. And so I stopped thinking that these veggies somehow need to not taste amazing or whatever the case might be. I, I just really leaned in and changed with that. And I think that as we have repeated exposures. Our palate changes. I really think that it's about neuroplasticity and it's not willpower. And when I'm always talking about crowding out ultra processed foods, it really works, but it's a slow and sustainable process, and you have to meet yourself at where you're at. I typically see when I'm working with people, they want that change to occur quicker. They want to. Be this other person faster, and usually it's that the number on the scale is driving that. But if we were really to work on your relationship with food and let that naturally evolve as we work on it, you end up in a much better spot years down the road. For me, the tastes evolving and what I like to prepare very different. One of my friends, she was, she was joking, and the Instagram dms with me that I used to not like chia seeds and now, and she's like, now you're raw dogging it because I literally just put chia seeds in a glass of water. One of you gave me the tip online as well, that. Did you say in Mexico? I forget where you said it was, but that, that people put chia seed in lemonade and I thought that's an amazing idea because because Minute Made zero, they have all these amazing lemonades. And so that's actually something that I'm gonna go today to try to see if I can get those different flavors and just see if I put chia seeds in there. By the way, a pro tip from someone that's now done it a few times, now I'm an, now I'm an expert at it. What I do is I use like, let's. Six to eight ounces of fluid, and I put in a teaspoon of chia seed. The point here is not to have three tablespoons of chia seed, 10 11 grams of fiber. It's not that it's a little supplement to your meal. It's the drink that will go with my meal. I just wanna be super clear on that. This is not a thick gelatinous thing. You hardly notice that it's happening. You can almost swallow it without, even chewing. Sometimes I do like to just chew on the chia seeds, but again, it's. It's almost something that you don't realize is happening. And so I found that that was a way just to sneak a little bit of fiber in there. Alright, lesson number two. Movement has to become a non-negotiable identity and not a decision. So this is something For a long time I have worked on a little bit of movement every day, no matter what, but this year I stopped deciding whether I would walk or not and I just walked. Every morning. If my husband was home, I'd get up at five 30, be at the track by six, get that walk done. My husband was outta town two days a week, always during the work week. And so those days I would've to get my son on the bus, it's like seven o'clock, and then I would right away go over to the walking track and guess what? I had to adjust my working schedule to accommodate this. And I did it because it's a non-negotiable. It wasn't an option for me to not get the movement in and to not feel my best. It's really interesting if you stop debating and negotiating and you're just like, no, this has to happen. Then you're gonna figure out how to do it. I really reduced negotiations and a lot of that friction by just pre-deciding. Your decisional fatigue is gonna be so much lower at the end of the day if you have already made the decisions and you're just executing on things. So this identity of I'm someone who moves daily, that works better than any motivation of I should move today. It's a core thing that's been solidified at that at that point. If you're at a place where you have not moved at all for you a few times a week, walking around the kitchen twice, that might be a massive step to you. When I first started five, six years ago, I would, we had a treadmill that was something that I got when I was pregnant with my son and I had gestational diabetes. So after every meal I tried to move to help with blood sugar regulation I would get on that thing and I would walk even if I just had my socks on, even if I had flip flops on, and I was too lazy to. Go upstairs and get socks and put things on. I didn't care. I got on the treadmill. And then you've heard this evolve over time and I've gone through all these different phases. So someone said to me the other day, oh, I thought you weren't doing weights because you hear different parts on the podcast, me doing more or less strength training. And it's, no, it's not that I'm not doing strength training, it's that I do just what is necessary for me. For me personally, I don't have to do that much to maintain my muscle base. A few times a week at the track, if I'm doing 10 20 squats, 10 20 lunges, 10 20 of a few other moves, that's enough for me to maintain the muscle mass that I'm at. And I've just personally found if I do too much, I get way too hungry and it backfires on me and it makes it really hard for me to. Literally maintain my weight, have, be able to do anything to control hunger. I just have certain genetics that are dictating this. And that was not the point of number two here. But again, just really saying, I'm gonna move no matter what, and it's not gonna be a decision. It is happening. Number three. Structure creates freedom, especially during busy seasons. So I think that people think, that. You want this freedom and you want to be able to eat what you want when you want and do what you want on vacation and all of that kind of stuff. And I'm here to say that I don't think structure is restriction. I think it's a scaffolding. It's the thing that, it's the bumper rails at the bowling alley that makes sure that your ball's actually gonna get to the end of the road. So even during vacations, holidays, things like that, I still kept up my habits. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But. I just got out of this, oh, we're gonna do whatever we want and then we're gonna come back to reality, which. I don't think even last year I did that much. But again, just it's a total mentality shift when I realize I day to day am living my dream life, it is no different on vacation. It's just that I might not physically be seeing patients that day. That just really taught me small routines, sticking with the morning walks, sticking with the structured meals it is a recipe for me to overeat at night if I don't get in some food in the morning and at lunch. And it might not even be a lot. I might not even be that hungry, but there's just something about how it builds up for me and then it's outta control at night and I just really didn't wanna do that anymore. I would prioritize really getting those things in. If you don't have a lot of structure. You can slowly build this out, and it's not about a task master where it's like, I have to do X, Y, Z, but you slowly build out things when you say, when I do that, I feel better. That's what we're looking for. Okay? What I see, like with my patient population is, especially those on GLP one medications, they, the structure prevents the two pitfalls you see most, which is number one, under fueling during the day, and number two, overeating at night. We end up solving a lot when we get this structure in place. Gave me a lot of freedom and I had a lot of times this year where I didn't realize I was doing it, but I would launch a lot of things at the same time. I really didn't know. I was, uh, joking with my assistant Christie, there was one time, I forget if I talk about this on the podcast, we had four programs go live at the same time. And I, it just, it happened on accident and then I realized, oh, I need to be more planned. Again, that structure creates the freedom that I don't get bogged down by everything happening at the same time. Number four, you can't outsource your mindset. You have to train it. You think that, well, I'm just gonna take this saying that someone said, and now I'm gonna believe it. It takes time for it to become who you are. Reinforcing. What is that self-compassion that you're practicing the decisional minimalism of how can I decrease decisions? How can I make it easier? How can I make my environment support me more? How can I keep going? That energy behind it? You have to integrate more of that into your own routines. Mindful meals, catching your thoughts, choosing how you feel. First, these things take time you think you're just gonna hear it once and have it. That's a joke. That's a joke. I think the reason that, that we have so many people that do repeated rounds of 30, 30. It's that they get in there and they realize, oh my gosh, I'm hearing it differently this time. Or, I'm at a different place in my journey right now. I'm ready to take a next step. Right? This year was a year in the middle of the year, I really made the decision I'm gonna be working on emotional eating much more. It's not that you can't have lost a ton of weight and had a bunch of results, but there might still be something where, you know. That's my Achilles heel. That's the thing I need to work much more on. I joined a program. I got a one-on-one coach with it. I just really committed to, I'm gonna work on this, but you wanna know the ironic thing? Yes, I did all this, but at the same time I went slower about it. One of the reasons that I had the one-on-one coach, in addition to the group that I joined. And it's the same ladies program. The reason I did this, it's because I knew that I can take small steps and I'll have accountability, but we will take it slow enough versus if I do the program on my own. I knew if I do the one-on-one aspect, I am gonna say, okay, I'm gonna practice this thing over the next two weeks and then we're gonna meet. So that was a commitment where I, I really had to train this mindset. And it was, it's not something where other people can do it for me. It was a, but just a really big thing this year. Alright, number five. Community and support matter more than any individual tool. What I see just from every program I run and from myself that firsthand, people stay consistent when they feel support. It's not because of discipline, but it's because they're connected. You don't have to do these things alone. Community, I have seen accelerates behavior change. It's insanity and I don't know what it is about it. Is it that we feel connected? I'm all day long learning amazing things. Oxytocin actually plays an amazing role in our metabolism. I know. Go figure. So I think to myself, okay, we have more oxytocin'cause we're connecting, probably our dopamine levels are higher because we like hearing what people say or we feel a warmth and connection. We have more ideas top of mind. We are reengaged more often. Endless what a group does. But all I know is that I see people that are in a group setting, they just get places a lot faster. It's just true and it's not only getting there, but staying there. Remember, I'm obsessed with you being able to maintain where you get to, and I find that when people are sort of, I'm gonna be on my own, I'm gonna make the strictest meal plan, I'm just gonna hammer this out in six months. You isolated. You got way weird about it. There's no way you can continue this in real life. And then you wonder why you can never maintain it because you went about it in an absolutely nuts capacity, and you would've never been able to sustain that level anyways. This is not a failure. You just truly did not realize that. A solo intense energy was not sustainable long-term for you. There are a few of you out there where that's your personality type, and that actually is you, and it's always been you. I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to everybody else. Even one touchpoint weekly, daily. Asynchronous, I don't care. It can hold you to a different trajectory, so just keep that in mind. This can look really different. This could be a group of friends that you have where you once a month do a coffee and everybody checks in what they're doing. It could be a group program that you join. It could be journaling daily, but in some capacity. This like checking in, and I typically just find that the community goes a lot further, but in some capacity, community and checking in. Number six, you don't need drastic change. You need steady momentum. So the biggest, personal and professional lesson this year, for me, it's that consistency is more powerful than intensity. I really made the decision this year. One of the words that I had going into it was connection. I wanted to be very intentional with after work that the hours at night that I spent with my husband and son and step kids, I wanted that time to be intentional. I wanted to intentionally plan. Not quote unquote vacations, but time of being with them. Sometimes my son would have an e-learning day, and then he, the, the day would end early and I blocked that in my schedule and made sure to have some of his friends over. And listen, it's honestly, it was exhausting to do that. But I know that I want to see him have the connection. I want to be present for these years. So that. Meant that maybe I do things in my own business a little bit slower, or maybe my own health goes a little bit slower, but I feel more balanced and sane, and I feel like I'm not missing the things that are valuable to me. We talk a lot about where your time is going. That is what you are saying is valuable to you. If you are. Thinking, oh my gosh, I'm overworking all the time and I'm not spending time with family, or, I don't have any hobbies. I don't have time for that. It's not that you don't have time, you are not making time, you are not prioritizing it. You are not getting it on the list. This is just this like steady momentum. When you do things, things very quickly develop when you keep slowly going at it. Don't chase like the big Monday reset, if you were just one degree better today, you're succeeding. Momentum is really, it's built. It's not something that's found. It's almost as you're doing these things, you don't know they're happening, and then you emerge on the other side and you say, oh my gosh, that was a 20 mile tunnel that I just stuck. But you have no idea that happened because you kept working at it. So this is one of those things. What really helped me with not having drastic changes, but really having steady momentum. It's the yearly planning and quarterly planning and monthly and weekly planning. I know that sounds intense, but I go to two conferences a year. My, coach hosts them and they're women physicians and we get together and they are massive brainstorming time. It's a three day time where we like bunker down in a, in a, a Airbnb somewhere, and we go through. What is everything that has happened in the past six months? What is everything that we want to happen? What things are holding us back? What things do we want to invest in? What things do we want to create? What things do we want to toss? And you make some intentional decisions instead of letting life just happen to you. You do not need to have a business to do these things. You can do these things just for your own life. Actually my coach is the same one that told me that she does family. Meetings where they talk about, okay, what's one thing that each of them wanna do over the next few months? They each need to have a goal. Is it that they wanna do a different class or read a book or learn a different skill, but everybody is working on something, then they decide what trips do they wanna do as a family? So they'll visit a lot of the different presidential libraries. You have to decide that, it's not just an accident at the end of the year that they've done a few things. They have decided. At some point, we are gonna do these things and here's what it's gonna look like. We're in a day and age where you have to be very intentional to even get little things done, let alone collectively get big things done. So for me, going to those things, I get the perspective, but that's not enough. It's not enough to just have that. What I end up doing is I then come home and I block the next day home. When I get back from these conferences, I need a full work day. To implement what I saw. So I will make lists of how I'm gonna get that done sequentially, what needs to happen before the next thing can happen. And then I have these lists and I check back on them often, okay, where am I at quarterly. I usually think in three month increments, because you can't really get that much done. You make these big plans. But at the end of the day, I've gotten a lot more realistic with what realistically I can do in certain periods. I know what's gonna happen over the next three months, and then I'm continually checking and it is not a shock at the end of three months where I am, I'm not like, oh no, I set these 10 things and I didn't achieve it. No.'cause I've been checking in the entire time. And it's loving. Why is it loving? Because every so often you'll catch that you are way, way out at sea. You had set a north star and you were in the opposite direction. Isn't that good to find out after a week or two or like with patients when every month we're doing a body composition and then they find out two, three months in that what they're doing is massively not working? Isn't that amazing verse? There was a clinic that I heard the other day where they're yearly checking the body composition, and I thought to myself. You could have done mass damage in that point. I can't fathom having it be one year between body compositions. Now, maybe if you're at maintenance, but even then, that's just like a really long time to not be checking in on your health. And so when you find that's a problem, I can course correct. I can change things often, the plan will change as well. I don't need to hold myself to, well, that's what you set out with different things emerge. That's why you don't do this drastic change all at once, because even when you're going toward what you want, things will change and you can just little bit course correct, but you keep staying on top of it, and that's how you really have amazing momentum. I am recording here an episode where I talked about what are things that have happened in the business this past year and where am I headed this next year? Because I like to involve all of you because you're listening along and. That you can just see the direction that things are going, and I was honestly shocked at how many. Programs I'd created. How many people had changed their relationship with food. When I was looking at all these different things, it just blew my mind. I never set out with that big a vision for this past year, but what ended up happening is I would see, okay. When I'm looking at my community or my patients or the podcast, who's writing in this is what I see as a pain point. Or the other clinicians in my life, some of them were having trouble growing their practices. Well, that was not a challenge for me, and they saw what my social looked like, and so they asked for that program. That was not something where I set out, oh, I wanna do social media and I wanna have a course where I help other people on this It came out of some friends approaching me that they wanted the help in this, and that was part of my value because I truly believe that everyone should get the best healthcare possible. And this direct care model, it provides that. I want all those doctors to be successful. So that was actually. Part of my values as a company means helping them. Again, it's just this moment where you do not need to have drastic change. It might end up being that way, but when you set out, you're always coming back to what your North Star is. All right. I got a little bit derailed, but these were the main things that really stood out to me. I think number one was really the thing that shocked me the most with just how much my taste buds changed and how much I am. Liking being a different person with food and how none of it is diet culture. And I said a sentence a few years ago to a coach and I said, I just don't know if I'm ever gonna be able to be someone that, that does not emotionally eat, or that doesn't have this sort of, tortured relationship with food. And it was really powerful because the coach did not correct me. They weren't like, it's gonna happen, don't worry, it's gonna happen. There was no false reassurance. And they were like, that's really powerful that you're noticing that, that you're observing that. And then we started to unpack why did I have that belief, these things are years in the making, but I really do believe it's possible if we want to move in a different direction, if we want to become something that we truly can. And it's just a question of how long is it gonna take? Maybe the path looks way different. I just thought that within a year or two I would have all this solved. And what I've really realized is I'm just, I'm in no rush anymore.'cause I always like the direction I'm headed. I love my life, I love the things I'm doing, and there's no urgency here. Nothing magical gets to happen if tomorrow this is all solved. And I really think that in life you always have problems. I'm gonna end it here. I hope that you all have an amazing end to the year here, that you have a great New Year's. I'm not sure exactly when this is gonna air, but this might be the last episode of the year. And so if I don't see you again until the new year, have an amazing New Year's.