The Feed My Health Podcast

Want to Lose Weight This Year? Start Here!

• Rosalind Tapper

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What if tracking your health progress could be as empowering as budgeting for your dream home? Join me as I kick off 2025 with a powerful episode of the Feed My Health podcast where we unravel the secrets of setting specific, actionable health and fitness goals. Forget about those vague New Year's resolutions—it's all about breaking them down into habits and strategies that stick. Drawing from my own experiences with fad diets and lack of planning, I share why taking weekly progress photos might be the game-changer you need to celebrate achievements and keep yourself accountable. This episode dives into the art of embracing progress without letting numbers weigh you down. 

Let's explore the transformative power of tracking through photos, measurements, and weigh-ins, turning them into tools of motivation rather than dread. I open up about the regret of not capturing more "before" moments in my own journey and how regular tracking can reveal the powerful link between our habits and results. It's time to take control, shed any emotional baggage tied to the scale, and embrace a mindset of self-love and empowerment. I also invite you to join the conversation on Instagram, as this podcast is as much yours as it is mine. Together, let's embark on this new year, feeling amazing and in control of our health and body image, while setting the stage for future fitness journeys with excitement and determination.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back everybody to 2025 and the Feed my Health podcast. This is officially my first podcast recording in 2025. Last week's was recorded in 2024 and I feel super proud today just because this podcast has come full circle and represents for me a year of commitment. And represents for me a year of commitment, consistency and dedication to my goal of 2024, which was to start this podcast in the first place. And again, I know I said this in the last episode, but I'll never get tired of saying thank you to you all for listening, for your comments, for your sharing on your social media. It really does help support the podcast and allows me to put out episodes every single week for you and, of course, this podcast is as much for you as it is for me, and vice versa. So if you ever have any topics you want me to discuss, people you would like me to chat to, please let me know. Just message me on Instagram, rosalindfeedmyhealth. I am so open to suggestion.

Speaker 1:

Today we're going to talk a little bit about the new year and also the steps that I would take if I were to start my health and fitness journey from day one. Now, this is coming from a place of a person who'd spent a lot of time doing the wrong things and thinking that they were the right things. And actually what I realised was and I realised a bit too late is that when it comes to change, when it comes to goals, it's more than just creating this lofty goal Like it's not enough just to say, right, this year I want to lose weight, this year I want to run a marathon, or this year I want to start lifting weights. We need to be more specific about the goal and then we need to break those goals down into habits, routines and strategy. And I think the reason why my goals didn't work as well in previous times was because I was just creating these big, audacious goals but not really having a roadmap to get there. And then I would get to, you know, whatever point of the year and have not achieved anything and wonder why. And I think that the thing that I was doing was the reason. And obviously, when you're embarking on specific fad diets, juicing keto, all the rest of it without the right intentions, without the right guidance, it's never going to be successful. But, coupled with that, I didn't have any strategy and I didn't realise how to break those things down, and this is actually going to be something that I'm going to be covering in a lot more detail on our client webinar on Wednesday, which is all about levelling up their life. So I'm going to be covering in a lot more detail on our client webinar on Wednesday, which is all about leveling up their life. So I'm going to go into goal setting, breaking it down, giving them a blueprint to actually execute and achieve their goals.

Speaker 1:

But today I wanted to share with you the first step that I would take if I did my time all over again, and this is actually something that I still do to this day. There is never a day, there is never a week that I miss, and I just know for a fact that, if I was to do nothing with my health and fitness, I would do this every single time, because this is a surefire way to keep you on the straight and narrow. And the thing is, this is going to be the thing that will scare most people, and that's why most people don't do this, and sometimes they don't progress. So I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. My job is not to do that. My job isn't your best friend. My job isn't your mom. My job is a coach, right, and the job of a coach is to guide, to tell you what you need to hear and, you know, support you through the difficult times and the struggles, because life's life, there will be difficulties, there will be struggles. That's just part of parcel of a journey and it's necessary. So this, this episode and these strategies might freak you out, and actually that's a good thing, because what scares us is often the thing that we need to do the most. So the first thing that I would do if I was starting my health and fitness journey all over again is to start by tracking my progress. Ok, so this can happen, whether you mapped out the big end goal or not. This can happen first, it can happen after, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

The point is start and continue to do it. So what does that look like? Well, just like if you wanted to save for a house. You would need to know how much the house cost, know how much money you brought in, know how much money you needed for a deposit, know how much money you needed to borrow like. You need to know all the numbers and once you know those numbers, you can actually start creating a strategy to save more, um, to put more into a pot, to actually get your dream house right. It's exactly the same with your health and your fitness, and what gets measured gets managed bottom line, which is why I irrespective of your goal, this is something that I would highly highly recommend you do every single day, because it will help you to understand your body. It will help you to understand whether you're maybe consuming a bit too much and you need to pull back a little bit, maybe not consuming enough, so important.

Speaker 1:

So here's the first thing that I would do I would take progress photographs every single week. I know that this could be super daunting. I know this. Honestly, I have been in your shoes. If you feel like this sounds absolutely horrendous, I get it. I really, really do. I can't tell you how long it took me to pluck up the courage to actually take these pictures, but the thing that annoys me now, on reflection, is how few pictures I actually have of that time of my life, because I now I'm in a position where I want to look back and celebrate everything that I have achieved and I'm no longer thinking about those progress photographs as a negative, horrible, oh my god, look at my body place I'm looking at and going wow. You know you've come a long way. You've learned so much, you've educated yourself so much. Look at what you've achieved and that's an amazing feeling and I promise you that you will get there too, and I know it's really hard to believe, but just know that you will get there. These photographs will show changes that your scales just cannot show you. They become undeniable proof of your progress. So I would take these every single week.

Speaker 1:

First thing in the morning I would get into my underwear underwear I would definitely pick something that's somewhat nice, like my first photographs I was wearing like a mismatched bra and pants. I had no real intention of this ever being a thing. You know, I didn't have any intention of it being a picture that I would share to the masses. It was just purely for me and for my um starting point. So if you listen to this and you think, right, I want to start something and I want to take these pictures, maybe, just maybe, get yourself a nice pair of matching pants and a bra. Maybe you want to wear a bikini or something like that. I would get a tripod. I would. If I'm going to tripod. I would put my phone on video mode and I would put it on a window ledge press record and I would get a nice shot of the front, the side and the back.

Speaker 1:

Now the second thing that I would do is track my body weight daily. Now I use the Renfo scales. I've had my scales for years now and I swear by them. You can connect them to your phone. They're super accurate. I just absolutely love them. And if you've got multiple people in the family, they can all use the same scales as well and they can track their weight if they want to. But tracking your body weight daily is so, so helpful. It helps you to see your trends over time. It helps you to understand how your body responds to certain things, whether that be specific foods, whether it be the you know your menstrual cycle, stress, inflammation. It really helps you, in a snapshot, educate yourself on your body and what it likes and what it doesn't like when it weighs more, when it doesn't weigh more and by understanding this it actually begins like it really helps you to remove the fear of what that number means and gives you a lot more clarity on what's going on.

Speaker 1:

One thing that people find is that the scales can feel intimidating, especially at the beginning. But that's obvious, right? Because you're not happy with where you are, you're maybe you're overweight and you want to lose weight. Of course you're not going to be super thrilled jumping on the scales and going. You know, oh geez. You know sometimes you need that kind of shock to kick start your journey and that's fine. But use that for what it is just data, data and inspiration. To be like this is maybe the heaviest I'm ever going to allow myself to be. That, for me, was my thought process, that was bottom line, my thought process and that really helped me to make much better decisions because I really wanted that change for myself.

Speaker 1:

So I know the scale can feel intimidating, but honestly, if you stand on that scale every single morning and you make it part of your routine and all you're knowing is that you're just gathering data and using it to progress yourself, you will get less and less afraid, you will become kind of friends with it and you'll also help you, because when you lose weight like it's not going to be a linear situation there are going to be days where, know, maybe you tick every single box and your weight goes up and maybe it goes down and up and down, and up and down and you know, the first couple of weeks, the first couple of months, you're going to be thinking, oh my God, what am I doing wrong? This isn't working. You're going to be questioning all your life's choices and once you realise that, as long as your scale weight is is trending down over time, that's all that matters. Each little day your body is going to weigh different amounts because you've got different amounts of water in your body. You know there's so many different fluctuations going on that you can't see that you have no control over. So using that scale as data and just information can be the best thing you ever do, and the more you expose yourself to that it's called exposure therapy the easier it becomes and the calmer you will feel around the scale.

Speaker 1:

The third thing that I would do is take body measurements Now. I would recommend that you do this on a monthly basis, because the changes are going to be much, much smaller than the changes that you will see, obviously with scale, weight and with progress photographs. Now just a caveat, going back to the progress photographs you'll take your pictures every single week and some weeks they will look identical. They will look absolutely identical and then they'll just be one random week where you could definitely see a change and that's just a magical moment. It's's so, so, flipping, exciting. So really remember that when you're trying to change your body and you're trying to change it forever and make it sustainable you're not going to see massive, dramatic drops on the scale. You're not going to see massive, dramatic changes in your photographs. You don't actually want those things, because if you have dramatic changes, it's a sign that what you're doing isn't going to be sustainable. It's a sign that you're probably losing a lot of muscle mass alongside body water and alongside body fat.

Speaker 1:

You predominantly want to be losing your weight from your fat sources, not from sorry your storage of your fat, not fat sources, thinking about food rather than your muscle. You know your muscle is responsible for the health of your metabolism. It's responsible for your shape and how toned and defined you look. You do not want to be losing that, and this is a huge, huge issue that we see with people who take fat loss injections, like things like ozempic, for example. When you take that, you're losing weight, and when I say weight, that's everything that your body encompasses. It's not just fat. Sometimes it's very little fat and it's mostly muscle and it's mostly water, and that's why people end up feeling pretty ill and then, when they stop using those fat loss products, the weight goes straight back on. And it does come back on in the form of body fat. You don't suddenly regain your muscle again. So it's a really slippery slope to go down and it should be very, you know, handled with care.

Speaker 1:

But going back to body measurements, taking these monthly, I think, is more than enough, and I would suggest, if you're a female, I would suggest simply taking your bust measurements, so all the way around your your back, across the fullest part of your boobs, the smallest part of your waist, so your tape measure will go about an inch to two inches above your tummy button, and then your bum, so putting it around the fullest part of your bum all the way around, so that's kind of like your bum hip area. I think those three are perfectly fine, and if you get the Renpho tape measure, you can also link that to the app that you use to weigh and then you'll get a nice little graph with that as well, and I just think that's so. I just love looking at the stats as well. So body measurements are a really great tool.

Speaker 1:

Now, obviously, I've spoken a little bit about why these are important. So psychologically tracking data, tracking your body, really will help to build awareness and it will really help to reduce emotional attachment to numbers. And this won't happen overnight, like it won't happen in the first week sometimes. It depends on how, I guess, psychologically traumatised you are. If you've been somebody that's been to something like Weight Watchers or Slimming World where you've weighed yourself once a week and you've been sort of chastised if you've put a pound on, you know it can be a lot to overcome and you know as coaches it's really important to recognize that. But we also have to give you strategy and be truthful about how you're going to overcome that. And you certainly will never overcome that if you bury your head in the sand. And that is where I feel really strongly about not listening to certain experts out there who use terminology like the sad step, because again you're demonizing it, you're saying it's a bad thing, you're making it seem like a bad thing to track stuff and you wouldn't go to the bank and tell the bank that you're not going to. You know, look at your bank account, because it's a sad account, you know that's just ridiculous. But yeah, we're quite happy to do that to the scales and the problem is it supports your bias. So if you're fearful of it, if you don't like the number on the scale, and somebody tells you, some expert tells you I don't worry about it, like I don't think you should worry about what the scale says. You're going to go oh, thank God for that, but it's never going to progress you forward and you're never going to remove that psychological attachment that you have to those numbers. So, so important if you want to overcome this.

Speaker 1:

The other thing I find that's really beneficial is it's actually really motivational when progress feels slow. Your photos and your measurements can really remind you of how far you've come. Like I said at the beginning, my biggest regret, I guess, is not having as many pictures or taking as many pictures when I was at my biggest, because I'm not able to look back. All I have is how I felt, my memories, that sort of thing, and when you get to look back at how far you've come, it really reinforces how much work you're putting in and that the juice is really worth the squeeze.

Speaker 1:

Another reason is accountability. So regularly tracking keeps you focused and it helps you to adapt things when you need to. It's a really great way to stay accountable to your goals. So don't disregard that either. And then, physiologically, it can highlight the connection between your habits and also your results. So that means that you can then tweak those habits for a better outcome. So if, for example, you have a specific step target that you're trying to hit every day and you start to see that your scale you know maybe you keep your nutrition exactly the same, but your scale weight is plateauing you know that something needs to change. And that's an amazing thing to be able to be in that much control. So there are so many benefits.

Speaker 1:

With all that being said, I know that it can feel really, really scary. I know this. Okay, bravery is everything. If you are the kind of person that feels scared, who feels daunted, if it freaks you out, I get it. Okay, I get it, but what you're really doing here is you're taking control. You're saying enough's enough. I am not going to let these numbers define me. They say nothing about me as a human being. They say nothing about how great I am as a mother or a friend or a sister or whatever, and actually, you know, I'm just taking control. I want better for myself, I'm doing it for me, I'm doing it for them, I'm doing it for my family and whatever the number says is what the number says. As long as my habits are in line with my goal and I'm getting you know to where I want to be, my health is improving, my body's improving. That's all that matters. That's honestly all that matters. So if you are starting your health and fitness goal this week, maybe you're starting it next week or maybe it's something for the future. These would be the first things that I would do. So progress photographs, daily ways and monthly measurements, and you will be on to a flying start.

Speaker 1:

And just um, just a bit of a side note as well, because you know, know, I said like that's something that I do every day, regardless, regardless of whether I'm trying to lose body fat, regardless of whether I'm trying to maintain whatever the goal is. My morning routine always includes jumping on the scales and logging it, and it's just part of my routine and I don't tie any emotion to it at all. And if that number starts to creep up too high, I just have a little small word with myself in that moment and go. That's it. That's it, roz. You know this is what we're going to do today and we pull something back and that's absolutely fine, absolutely healthy and absolutely normal. So you know, if this helps I really hope it does then great, because I know for a fact that this is the methods that we use with our clients and they get such great results and they're no longer scared of the scales.

Speaker 1:

And if you've been, you know, if you've spent 10, 20, 30 years afraid of seeing that number, afraid of your reflection in the mirror, not loving what you see, you know, in your underwear, then it's time to take control, because you deserve to feel amazing, you deserve to feel empowered. You deserve to look at yourself in a reflection of a shop window and go flipping heck, I look amazing. Flipping heck, you look amazing. And not many women feel that way about themselves and that's really, really sad. So please be brave, take that first step, take a deep breath, deep breath. Go to the loo, jump on the scales, record this number, get on with your day. That's as overthinking of it as you have to.

Speaker 1:

That was not good english, um, but I would love to share more with you, kind of like next steps on a fitness journey. So I am going to carry on this little bit of a series and I hope you enjoy it. Please feel free to give me any feedback that you would like on Instagram. You know I'm so open to suggestion. As I say, it's just as much your podcast as it is mine. I want you to hear what you want to hear and I really want to educate as many people as possible on a no BS approach to weight loss. So happy new year, everybody. I hope you are all doing well. I hope you're having a great start to the year and we are going to keep feeding our health every single day, and I hope that you continue to do the same.