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The Rejuvenating Health Podcast
Join Women's Health Nurse Practitioner, Lindsey VanSchoyck for a weekly dose of Precision Medicine as she addresses the hot-button topics specific to Women's Health, Fitness and Nutrition, interviews expert guests and hosts round table discussions with the team of dedicated functional health care specialists.
The Rejuvenating Health Podcast
E131 | The Real Reason Women Fail To Hit Their Goals
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What if the problem isn’t your willpower but the goal you’re chasing? We get candid about body change and the hidden expectations that push women toward burnout, resentment, and a constant restart. Instead of obsessing over the scale, we unpack the real drivers... Belonging, approval, control, and safety, and show how to align your health goals with who you are right now, not who you were ten years ago.
We dig into identity nostalgia, why confidence doesn’t appear at a target weight, and how perfectionism and comparison quietly drain motivation. You’ll learn the Five Whys exercise to uncover your core values, plus a season audit to adjust training, nutrition, and recovery to your current bandwidth. We share practical, real-world strategies for shift workers, new moms, and women navigating perimenopause: short strength sessions that build muscle, protein-first meals you can assemble in minutes, screen curfews to protect sleep, and non-scale wins that actually measure progress.
This conversation reframes success with metrics you can feel: steady energy after 3 p.m., calmer digestion, stronger lifts, fewer PMS symptoms, and confidence that comes from capability. If restrictive plans have ever “worked” but left you miserable, this episode offers a sustainable path forward—one that respects your season of life and still delivers results.
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Welcome And Topic Overview
SPEAKER_01Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on the Rejuvenating Health podcast are solely those of the speakers and are intended as such. Please consult your trusted healthcare practitioner for medical advice. Let's go, girls.
The Real Why Behind Weight Goals
SPEAKER_00Hello, ladies. Welcome back to the Rejuvenating Health Podcast. I am your mindset coach Lakin, and we are uncovering deeper layers and thoughts and beliefs, as always, things that we are grounded in. And I'm here today with Lindsay, our women's health nurse practitioner. And Lindsay, what are we chatting about today?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, today is going to be juicy because we're diving into a topic that a lot of women wrestle with body change and weight loss expectations. Specifically, we're going to talk about getting honest with ourselves about the why behind our goals. So you can say you want to lose 20 pounds, but if you don't have a strong why, you're never going to stick with it. And like a lot of times we're very surface level with our goals.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I don't want to just talk about the surface level whys, right? Like this is not just the I want to feel confident or I want to be healthy, but the deeper, more vulnerable why. And this is very often tied to a past version of ourself or potentially a season of life that no longer serves us. And can we ask, you know, are these reasons that we're wanting to make these changes, are they aligned with who I am today and what I need today? Because those are often not on the same page and we don't have the context to know until we actually take a deeper look at it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think I do calls a lot and they're like, I want to weigh 130. And I'm like, why? And they're like, because that's what I weighed before I have kids. Well, you're not gonna weigh what you weighed before you had kids, you know, like maybe that's not reasonable. And I'll like flat out be like, that's not a realistic goal, you know, like your body is different and your life is different. But the reason why this matters so much is because we often set goals for our body, like without questioning where they're coming from. And it's so far out of alignment with our goals, our life, reality, right? That it leads to frustration and burnout and even resentment towards our bodies, towards the actions that we're doing. Like, we can get resentful for towards like daily healthy things. Like you, I've seen women get resentful about going on a walk because they're not hitting their weight loss goal by going on a walk, like which is right.
SPEAKER_00It's like any amount of perceived effort is like, you know, which is funny because we'll do all these other things that don't yield a positive change that are quote unquote effortless, right? But anytime that we put in any amount of perceived effort, it's like, well, I want to return on that investment immediately. And it doesn't work that way.
Misaligned Expectations And Burnout
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's wild. And this, I know you guys talk about this a lot in mindset work. And I know that a lot of times whenever someone joins Rejuvenating Health, they might dig into this, but it's like then they get started and they completely forget the reason why they even started anything to begin with. So let's kind of start with like where these expectations come from. So, Lakin, and your work as a mindset coach, what what do you see most often?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, honestly, what I see most often is rooted in external validation and identity nostalgia. So, what I mean by that is women carry unspoken rules about what their bodies should look like. And a lot of times this is influenced by culture or family or exes, potentially, people from past seasons of their life. Um, and in sessions, I'm gonna hear things, you know, like similar to how what you mentioned earlier. I want my college body back, or I want to fit in my pre-baby jeans. I want to feel like me again, or if I just lose 20 pounds before, you know, my class or union or whatever it is, people I see will think that I've got it together, or that, you know, I'm I'm better than them in some measurable way. And underneath, it's rarely about the actual weight, right? It's almost never about the actual number on the scale. It's about belonging or approval or control or safety. Those are the things that are gonna come up most often.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I see the same. A client will say, I need the scale to move. Okay. Why? Like when we peel it back, probably what she really wants is more energy after three o'clock, or to be able to like put a bikini on and feel confident in family pictures, or walking in a room without feeling judgment from others. Like I did a call with a woman the other day and she was like, you know, I am on Zoom. Like we live in a world where you can do remote work now, right? And so she was on Zoom and she met up with a per with some with like her colleagues in person, and someone said to her, like, Well, you don't look like what I thought you were gonna look like.
SPEAKER_00And then she immediately Well, you mean I don't look like my floating head?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she immediately like was taking that as judgment, which who knows if it was really judgment or or whatever, right? But uh so often we value a scale, a number, when we and we forget about what we really want. And those feelings don't magically arrive when the number changes. You don't magically get self-confidence when the scale hits 135. Like it doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00Right. And this is where we ask, you know, why am I holding this expectation? And is it rooted in who I am now, or is it tied to a past season that doesn't even fit my life anymore? Because chasing an old identity can keep you stuck in this loop, right? And what we do is we keep moving the benchmark to an area that we have decided is unattainable for us, and that enables us to be able to say nothing's working or it's not gonna happen for me. And so why put in the effort to begin with?
External Validation And Identity Nostalgia
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And you know, a lot of times, like our bodies change through different seasons, right? They change. I'm I'm watching my kids' bodies change drastically now. Like Time Hop came up today and it was a picture of Gunnar two years ago, and I'm like, whoa, I don't even know who that kid is. Like this chubby little like kid, and two years later, he's this he's tall and lanky and you know skinny. And then I know two years from now he's going to look completely different. Like he knows he's gonna have muscle and like be turning into a man, and then 20 years from then his body's gonna change again. Like and it's the same with women. You cannot expect your body to look the same from teenage to post-kids to perimenopause to postpartum. You can't expect your body to look the same through stress and grief and changing schedules. And so you really have to honor the season that you're in and give yourself realistic expectations. And it's not all about like lowering the bar and just accepting. We're not saying like just accept where you're at, it's about like changing the metric so that you can tell that your effort is actually paying off, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. There are like examples of this, right? So we have like someone that was maybe a past athlete. This happens a lot. So if I'm a former D1 soccer player and I'm trying to train like I did when I was in college, but I'm juggling a 50-hour work week and toddlers, right? That's going to result in either an injury or constant shame. Right. Or if I'm looking at a pre-baby ideal weight that I'm chasing, and I've got currently two kids under four, and I'm chasing this bounce back, right? Getting snatched after pregnancy while probably sleeping less than five hours a night, right? That's not realistic. I'm gonna have cravings and mood swings and resentment and all these things are gonna be coming up. I'm it's not going to, it's not going to work for me. It's going to work against me, right? And then we have this the comparison spiral.
SPEAKER_01So when clients see that with our clients come doing that to me either. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like they'll follow an influencer or someone that they, you know, that's like it has a body type that they want to aspire to, but they're doing, you know, they're they're in a place of life where you're comparing your first quarter to their, you know, overtime.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, like, I have been exercising since I was 16. For like, and I have been weightlifting for the last 10 years. You cannot try to compare your body to mine, who I've been doing work for 10 years. Like, I like 10 years later, just now have like the abs that I want.
SPEAKER_00Well, and it's not even just the foundation of working out for 10 years. Like, you've also been self-experimenting, yeah, for you know, not only just like all of the things, nutrition, sleep, uh, taking out inflammatory foods, looking at hormone replacement therapy, looking at optimized biomarkers, right? Like it's all of the things. And that's what we have to understand, ladies, is it it is not ideal. And as we age, it takes all the things. There is no one thing that's going to move the dial, right? And so we have to make sure that we're adhering to, again, that season that is relative to now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what happens when the goal doesn't match the season?
SPEAKER_00Uh, we tend to see two traps that come up most frequently, and that is perfectionism, and as I've already talked about, comparison, right? So perfection sets these rigid rules. If I miss one day, my inner critic is gonna say, Oh, it's all for nothing. I have to start over Monday, right? Or a comparison is gonna say, if she can, then why can't I? Or if it works for her, then why am I not getting the same results? Ignoring her schedule, the amount of support that she has, her, you know, biology or genetics, and both of these traps lead to shame, which is going to drain the very motivation that you need in order to get closer to what you're looking for, what you're aspiring towards.
Confidence Isn’t A Number
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then that leads to misalignment, like physically, mentally. We see women all the time that are over-exercising, under-eating, they're not recovering properly from their workouts, they have dysregulated hormones. Like, I've literally seen women white knuckle through HIT workouts six days a week that are sleeping four hours and barely eating a thousand calories, and then they're like, why can't I lose weight? Why do I feel inflamed? Like you're literally working against yourself at that point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Why do I have this little bit of puffiness that I can't get rid of? Or why is my body just holding on to weight for dear life? It is literally holding on for dear life. It's super upregulated, right? And the irony is like, even if you hit the old goal, it often feels hollow because it wasn't rooted in something that is aligned with your current values. So it's like climbing a ladder and realizing that it was leaned against the wrong wall the whole time, right? Because you're aspiring towards this thing that served a previous version of yourself. And when you get there, it's like, this actually doesn't work with my current life or my current lifestyle or what's important to me right now anymore. And so then what are you left with? Again, more resentment. And then you're gonna decide that what you were doing wasn't really working for you and it was not worth it.
Bodies Change Across Life Seasons
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think that happens a lot with those restrictive fad diets, right? Like you do this crazy intense thing, and oh, you hit your weight loss goal, and then you get there and you're like, okay, now I have to live like this forever to maintain this weight. Like, is this realistic? Is it worth it? And then you're resentful towards that thing that you did. You're resentful to the good things about that thing. Like, yes, that thing might not have been an ideal, but you learned a lot of good, healthy habits along that way that you can incorporate and you just throw in the towel, right? Where if you were more aligned with looking towards, am I getting better sleep? Am I getting better energy? Do I feel more comfortable in my body? Like, am I less in pain? That is like you're gonna be able to stick to that plan and not get so resentful when you're not fighting your body.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And also what we'll see is like women will then double down, right? So when they've done these very restrictive measures, and then that's where they've, that's the only place that they've seen success in in a previous season of their life. They've been convinced, because this is the only evidence that they have that that is what works. That's the only thing that works, right? So it's very hard from that point to convince yourself that putting in slower, steady, consistent reps over time is going to yield the outcome that you want because you don't have any evidence of that. You only have evidence of what worked in a previous season. But it also did it really work, right? Because you're where you are now. And obviously it wasn't sustainable and it wasn't realistic and it wasn't something that fit with your life. And so we have to be realistic with ourselves about that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think so. For me, like my body composition is right where I want it to be. But my reason for it being where I want to be probably doesn't have anything to do with my body composition. Like, really truthfully don't care. It's the fact that like now I can go run and not crap my pants. Like, I like don't have crazy GI symptoms anymore. I have energy now. Like, yes, I still want to go to bed at seven o'clock, but I get up at three in the morning and I'm like ready to pop out of bed in the morning. I have energy again. So yeah, like I do have the body composition I want, but if that was keeping me from having energy and being able to do the things that I want, like I wouldn't care if I put on a little bit of extra weight. I my results are tied to like, oh, I can go do this run that I enjoy doing without my stomach like keeling over during the run.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, I think it's important to get realigned and to be able to do that, it takes curiosity, right? And self-awareness. And so if you were, let's look at um an exercise that I would do like the five whys essentially, right? So it's like write down your current goal for any change that you want to see with your body. And then I want you to ask yourself why five times until you hit the feeling or value, meaning something along the lines of vitality or presence or strength or ease or freedom, right? Like, what is the thing that you're actually searching for that's below the surface level? So that means like when you ask yourself the original body goal, why do I want this? You know, that surface level is like, oh, to feel more confident or oh, to wear that pair of jeans that I've always wanted to get back into. Okay, why do you want to get back into those jeans? Why do you want to feel more confident? And then ask yourself why again. So we're going down these levels to assess what is the actual root, what is the feeling or the value that you're seeking. And then I want you to, once you identify that, label it. Is this a past why or a now why? And if it's a past why, then I want you to rewrite what that would look like for this season to serve the you now. And that is very, very important. So for example, if there was a past why that said, look like my wedding photos, look how I did my wedding photos, right? The now why might be wake with consistent energy and be strong enough to carry my toddler around without hurting my back. Right. Like what's realistic for right now? Or, you know, a past why might be be small so that I feel accepted by other people. And a now why might be to feel confident on camera and comfortable at events in person after I've been meeting people online on Zoom, right? Without obsessing. Like those are the things that we have to dig into.
Perfectionism And Comparison Traps
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and they're it's hard asking yourself questions like that, right? I think you also can like do a season audit. So, you know, rate rate yourself zero to ten. Where's my sleep on a scale of zero to ten? Where's my stress? Where's my time? This is time autonomy. This is a hard one. People, you have no idea where your time is going, people. Like if you actually wrote down where your time is going, you could find a lot of extra time in your day, I bet. If you wrote how much time you were doing Netflix and and chill and scrolling on social media, but anyways, side tag rate your support, rate your symptoms, right? If if you're two plus or under four, you know, you're you're probably constrained, right? And so scale the plan to adjust to that, not base your identity upon it, right? So, you know, you can't do 60-minute workouts, okay. Who cares? Do a 20 to 30 minute viable dose of a workout, right? You know, you can't be perfect 24-7. Okay, we'll be 80-20. Note that 80-20 is maintenance and you might not get a lot of weight loss results, but it's at least sustainable for you, right? Daily weigh-ins make you freak the heck out. I don't recommend daily weigh-ins. Um, but maybe you do weekly non-scale wins, and we do this inside of rejuvenating all the time. Like Friday's your win day, right? Like it doesn't have to be a scale thing, but what was an energy win this week? Did you max out a lift? Um, is your digestion better? Did you have less PMS symptoms, right? Like and you can do this practically, right? So a lot of times we'll get like shift workers and their sleep is K. Um, and it's hard, it's hard to make a lot of change on night shift. In a real world, you would get a different job and not do night shift, but that's not feasible for everyone, right? But you know, maybe for a night shift nurse, you're doing two strength training days and two walks. If you're working a 12-hour shift as a nurse, you're not gonna get in all you do is work that day. Like it's not like you're gonna do two strength training workouts and two walks on your four days that you're off, right? Do protein first at every meal. Like, you should not be getting up at 3 a.m. to do a workout before a 12-hour shift at the hospital, right? If you're a new mom, like take your baby on a walk, get some sunshine, right? Like do some quick workouts during naps. Do simple, like protein and fiber at meals. Like you don't have to everyone thinks that it has to be this glorious meal prep. And I'm like, literally, sometimes I'm going to Walmart and buying a rotisserie chicken and a bag of vegetables.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it works, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Or even if you're doing takeout, right? Like it's not ideal, but if you have to, there are options. Like you can get meat and vegetables.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, like Chipotle, go get a bowl. Like super that might tear my stomach up, but for if you don't have stomach issues, it you know. Um, if you're perimenopausal, like do you don't have to hit the gym every day. Like, do some progressive strength training three times a week. Like put your screen on a curfew so you're not scrolling and it's interrupting with your sleep. Eat protein first at every meal. Like really focus on managing your hot flashes so you can get better sleep with supplements or hormones or you know, whatever that might be.
SPEAKER_00It's so interesting that like almost across the board as we age, we are more resistant to sleep. I wonder if it's like uh like a rebellion against like the structure, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01But it's like I don't know, it's wild because my 16-year-old will sleep. Like if she's not like if if Lainey is not at school or cheer, she's asleep. I'm like, you like sleep more than any person I've ever met in my life.
SPEAKER_00I wonder where she gets that from.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I don't take naps during the day. Well, she that's her dad.
SPEAKER_00She's still growing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00She gets a pass.
When Effort Backfires Physically
SPEAKER_01I guess. All right, let's wrap this up. So some key takeaways from this. Like, get honest with your why. Really, truly, truly get honest with your why. Ask yourself like if your body goals are truly aligned with who you are today, or if they're tied to a past version of yourself that no longer serves you. Because I guarantee most of you women, it's tied to some past version of yourself that serves you, doesn't serve you at all.
SPEAKER_00And you can meet yourself with compassion in that, right? Like, I get it. If that's the only version that you connect that positive feeling around the way that you felt when you looked in the mirror, I understand why that is the draw. And there has to be some radical honesty about how realistic that is and if that even fits into your current stage of life, right? And so it's not necessarily that you have to tell yourself, like, well, shit on that, I'm wrong and I'm not like I'm a dreamer, right? It's like you can rationalize why that's important to you and then look for that deeper why as to what was rooted in that. What did you get from that and how can you apply that to today? And then second, honor again, honor the season of life that you're in, right? Your body is constantly evolving and your goals should evolve with it. So focus on what your body needs to feel supported and energized right now for what's happening in your day-to-day life, not the version of you pre-kids or 10 years ago or when you were in an athlete in college or whatever it is that you're chasing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, finally, like redefine what success means. For a lot of us, we have some really unrealistic success measures. Like, I'm just gonna throw that out there. Like, let go of the number on the scale. Like, who gives a crap? Honestly, really, like you should care more about what the muscle says on like a DEXA scan or an in-body than you do about a number on your body weight, right? But also, like, how do you feel physically, emotionally, mentally? Because at the end of the day, like your health and your happiness are what truly matters. Caveat to that, you need to be your health, right? Like, I don't want you weighing 300 pounds and being like, I'm happy, so I'm not gonna make any changes.
SPEAKER_00But like Well, and and really that you're not really happy. You're not really happy if you're that unhealthy, you know. So it's like be like the happy that is serving you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's that being honest with yourself, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. This is a really great conversation today. And I would say if it resonates with you, we'd love to hear your thoughts. We'd love for you to reach out to us, share the episode with a friend who you think might need it, and please don't forget to rate and review us. We really appreciate it. Follow along with us online on socials, lots of free advice on there that's really helpful. And uh by you guys going in and rating and reviewing, it really helps us to reach more women who are ready to rewrite their stories.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks for hanging out with us today, ladies, and we will talk to you next time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.