The Feed My Health Podcast

Mastering Your Health: 10 Traits of Successful Women

• Rosalind Tapper

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In this episode, we explore the top 10 traits of women who succeed in their health and fitness pursuits, helping you identify potential gaps in your approach and providing actionable strategies for improvement.

• Taking radical responsibility instead of blaming external factors like kids, time, hormones or age
• Prioritizing consistency over intensity—understanding that B+ effort consistently beats A+ effort occasionally
• Developing identity-driven habits by shifting from "trying to be healthy" to "I am a healthy person"
• Balancing self-compassion with high standards—not beating yourself up over bad days while maintaining ambitious goals
• Using data, not drama—tracking progress objectively instead of spiraling emotionally when results aren't immediate
• Practicing preparedness over perfection by pre-deciding meals, workouts, and priorities
• Investing in support systems through coaching, mentorship or community rather than struggling alone
• Managing energy holistically through sleep, stress, food and thought patterns—not just focusing on workouts
• Embracing discomfort as a necessary part of growth rather than a signal to stop
• Setting vision-backed goals with clear understanding of why you want change and what success looks like to you

Join us for our upcoming free live webinar on May 28th where you'll receive valuable insights to implement immediately into your life. Look for more details coming soon!


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Speaker 1:

Welcome back to this week's episode of the Feed my Health podcast with your host, rosalind Tapper. I hope you're all having a wonderful, wonderful start to your week. I know if you're listening to this on the day that it comes out, you're feeling fresh still, even though you will be. I think it will be the midst of the bank holiday, monday. At that point, I hope you're feeling good and excited for a new week.

Speaker 1:

Today, we're going to be talking about the top 10 traits of women who succeed in their health and fitness pursuits. So within these 10 traits, you might see yourself, and if you see yourself in a lot of them, then that's absolutely phenomenal. There might be some gaps that you are missing and it might be where maybe you're struggling, and so we're going to identify these traits together, look at what they actually mean, and then I'm going to talk around them and hopefully provide you with some actions that you can take away, because if there are gaps and I'm sure there probably will be we're not all you know, we're not always all on it all the time, but there'll be things where you're thinking, oh, I'm really struggling with this area or I'm struggling in this area, and this should give you some insight into potentially what needs to change. So let's talk about top trait number one, and that is they take radical responsibility. So what does this mean? Well, to put it bluntly and I'm gonna be blunt with my explanations of each of these traits they stop blaming their kids, they stop blaming their lack of time, they stop blaming their hormones and they stop blaming their age and they start owning their choices without guilt or shame, and they understand that no one is coming to save them. Okay, radical responsibility.

Speaker 1:

You also have to remember that by not having radical responsibility, you are giving away so much of your power. You are essentially saying this life that I have been given, which is a privilege I am going to be, it's going to be determined by my situation or by my circumstances or by the choices of others, and I know that that's really hard to hear sometimes and hard to understand, especially if you have children and you have a partner and you have a job and you've got lots of other things and people relying on you. But this is where I see a lot of women giving their power away very, very quickly and suddenly they stop thinking for themselves and making decisions based on what they want for their lives and it starts to become a what do we want? And then, oftentimes, what do they want? And, honestly, as soon as you start to remember who you really are at your core, what your dreams were, what you wanted for your life and still want for your life, suddenly it becomes a lot easier to take radical responsibility. So one thing that I would definitely say with this is to actually write a list out of all the things that you love about your life, and then a list of all the things that you love about your life, and then a list of all the things that you don't love about your life, and start working towards changing the things that you don't like so that the list of things you do like grows and you'll really start to get a lot more clarity on where you are potentially passing the buck. Number two is consistency over intensity. So a successful woman with the health doesn't chase extremes. They commit to showing up even when their motivation is low or dips, and they know a B plus effort consistently will beat an A plus effort once a week. Okay, consistency over intensity.

Speaker 1:

I do see a lot of people who think that because they can't be quote unquote good or weak, they think that that's a failure and so they suck it all in. Or maybe they had planned to do three workouts that week and they don't feel like doing it on one day. Or maybe they don't take radical responsibility and they blame their kids, or they blame time or whatever, and so instead of just thinking, well, I'll do it tomorrow, or I'll do it anyway, or I'll aim for two, they think, well, if I can't do it perfectly, then I won't bother. And this is such a shame, because this is an area that I really identify. That held me back massively. I'm not talking about the workouts, um, I'm talking about food.

Speaker 1:

Actually, I used to be again, quote unquote good in the week, when it seemed to be easier, when there was structure, when there was routine, when a lot of the meals I was spending for myself you know, the typical breakfast and lunch when you are a stay-at-home mom and then in the evenings, when I'd spent all day being lonely and a little bit stressed and tired, we would sit down together and me and my husband, partner, boyfriend at the time we would sit and that would be our time to unwind, to relax, and we would do that whilst eating very indulgent portions of food we would eat. I always laugh at this now because, like we have five children, five children we have five people in our house and they eat. We all eat like five adults essentially, and we eat. We'll eat like an enchilada kit together or something. Maybe we'll buy an enchilada kit and we'll make that stretch, we'll divide it by five, even though it's spent, supposed to be for four people, and we'll have a big salad to go with it to kind of eek it out. And me and my husband at the time used to sit and eat one of those between the two of us and I would eat half and he would eat half. So even though he's six foot one and a man who requires a lot more food than I do, I would eat exactly the same portions of food as he as he did.

Speaker 1:

Um, so that was the evenings, and then at the weekends we wanted to just do things together. So that would typically evolve around food. Again, we'd go out for lunch or we, you know, we'd go for a pub meal or whatever, and I wouldn't hold back because I felt restricted all week. So I'd be like, yeah, I'm having the las. Yeah, I'm having the lasagna. Yeah, I'm having the garlic bread. Yeah, I'm probably going to have the chips. Our go-to, actually in the early days was gammon. So we have gammon chips, a fried egg, pineapple, onion rings, the whole shebang.

Speaker 1:

And because I couldn't stick to being perfect all week long, I just thought this is not working. I'm failing what? Stick to being perfect all week long? I just thought this is not working, I'm failing. What's the point? So number two is to have consistency over intensity. Number three, and this is one of my favorites, is identity driven habits. So a successful woman will shift from I'm trying to be healthy quote unquote to I am a healthy woman.

Speaker 1:

Their choices reflect the future versions of themselves and not the past. If you are currently struggling to move forwards in your life, in any area of your life, then it's because you are identifying as the current version of yourself who's struggling, or the past version who really, really struggled. You really have to learn how to step into the shoes of the person you want to be, and in order to do that, you have to visualize who that person is. How do they show up, if you think? Actually, a good example of this would be, if you think about when you were maybe a young, preteen, teenager.

Speaker 1:

If you were anything like me, you would spend a lot of time in your bedroom with a hairbrush or a microphone and a full-length mirror making up dance routines to Britney or Christina Aguilera or whoever your go-to was. For me it was very much Britney Bewitched. I swung along to a lot of Boyz N' Out songs and, yeah, I'd make up dance routines and I imagined being them, and all of my childhood into my early 20s, I dreamed and worked ultimately to become a singer, a pop star. I'd spent years visualising that and so when I got my little hairbrush mic and I got in front of my full length mirror and put that music on, I became them and I was them. Just for that split moment I was them. It's the same with when I would get on stage. I would visualise what a great performance would look like.

Speaker 1:

So I used to struggle a lot with stage fright and that's because I was operating from the mindset of somebody who got stage fright. As soon as I get on stage now I become the person that did the great performance. I'm already working 10 steps ahead and that's really where I want people to start operating from if they are struggling. And I actually um, we did a whole training on this this week which I posted to the community uh, feed my health community all about this, because this is such an like an integral part of why people struggle and it's normal to struggle as well, by the way. You just have to shift gears. I won't go into that now, but definitely something that is so important. So, identity driven habits. Number three is self compassion paired with high standards. They do not beat themselves up over one bad day, but they also don't lower the bar just to feel comfortable. And again, this is something that I will see happen a lot.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's just use an example of weight loss. Let's say you decide on day one that you are maybe your starting weight is 90 kilograms and you decide that you want to get to 60 kilograms because that would mean that you were a healthy weight. You were happy, confident, all the rest, and and as time goes by, it becomes more and more difficult um, because new levels, new devils, and so, rather than saying to yourself, I've now got to double my efforts, you think to yourself I'll just lower the goal, I'll just aim for 70 kilograms instead, and that's where you've lowered the bar just to feel comfortable. And this is a big trait that I see happen a lot. So just remember this if it starts to get more challenging, that's an excellent thing to be looking out for, because you need it to be challenging. When it starts to get challenging, you know you've reached the next level and you have got a decision. At that point, you either lower the bar, aka lower your standards, or you change gears and you get into gear five and you up the ante. I know which one I'd take.

Speaker 1:

So self-compassion paired with high standards. Number five data, not drama. So a successful woman will actually look for what's happening, not how they feel about it. Okay, they will track, they will reflect and they will reflect and they will adjust instead of emotionally spiraling. Just because you jump on the scale on Monday and it doesn't give you the result you think you deserve doesn't mean that you should emotionally spiral out of control. It's just data. It's just, you know, an opportunity for you to reflect and think well, okay.

Speaker 1:

So over the last seven days, how compliant was I to my nutrition targets? How compliant was I to my movement? How compliant was I to my sleep? How compliant was I to trying to manage my stress levels? How often did I train, look at the data and then make a decision based on that. So if you aren't doing the things that you're supposed to be doing, then of course, you're not going to get the results that you think you deserve. And then, ultimately, what happens is the emotions kick in and you think, well, I'm not worth this, I'm a piece of shit, this is never going to work. What's the point? I'm working really hard, are you? Let's look at the data.

Speaker 1:

And it's the same with anything it's not just with your health Like, if you look at your bank balance. I remember years and years and years ago being I listening to something and they were saying like, if you look at your bank balance every single day, you will never be broke, and I can guarantee that for most people who are in the red with their finances probably don't look at their bank balance every day because it's a source of stress, but also it's a really easy route to bury your head in the sand. At that point, you know, if you don't know what's going on, it's a lot easier to you know, tap your card. But if you know to the penny how much you have in your bank account, you start to be a little bit more considered in your decisions. And it's the same with any data that you collect, whether it's your scale weight, whether it's measurements, whether it's rating how you feel, you know, looking at how many hours you're sleeping, things like that. So data, not drama.

Speaker 1:

Number six is preparedness over perfection, is preparedness over perfection? So they pre-decide things, they pre-decide meals, they pre-decide their workouts, they pre-decide their priorities. They do not just wing it, they do not wait until they feel like it. If you wing the week, you wing your results. If you do not plan what your week is going to look like, of course you are going to let your emotions determine the outcomes or the decisions that you make. If you sit down and you plan right, this is what we're having for dinner.

Speaker 1:

Regardless, you are more likely going to eat those things If you don't. And then you have a long, stressful day and your kid's like tugging on your arm, or you feel guilty about something, or you feel tired about something and you just leave your meals to chance. The chances are you're probably going to go to McDonald's. The chances are you're probably just going to put a slice of toast in the toaster and hope that that sustains you. You know this planning is so important. It gives you so much more flexibility as well, like once you put things down on paper or in a calendar, it frees up your brain to think about other things that you care about, and that's so important.

Speaker 1:

Otherwise, you will just find that you go through life consumed with thoughts of what should I eat? I can't eat, that I should eat, that. You know all the rest of it. All the rest of it. Number seven is support systems. So they invest. They invest in coaching, they invest in mentorships or a community, because they know that white knuckling alone has never worked before. It doesn't work.

Speaker 1:

You can think that you know what you're doing, right. You can think it's like me. I am terrible at gardening, and I'm probably not terrible at gardening, by the way. The reason why I am terrible at gardening is because I'm telling myself I'm terrible at gardening, so let that be a lesson um, but I don't make time for it. It's not something I enjoy, it's not a priority.

Speaker 1:

Now, I could decide tomorrow, right, I am going to be good at gardening and I'm going to go outside, into the garden, and I'm going to start looking at things, trying to figure out what a weed is, trying to figure out how I should prune a tree and what level I should have my little mower set at to cut the grass efficiently. It could take me a few hours to figure this out. I could go on Google. I could read a couple of books. I could look at other people's opinions by the way, which is what books and Google are, it's not fact, it's other people's opinions. Or I could ask an expert Now, which one do you think is going to yield me a better return on investment?

Speaker 1:

You know, I could hire a gardener for a week and I could ask to shadow them and learn the ropes, and then, yes, I could potentially go on my own shadow them and learn the ropes, and then, yes, I could potentially go it on my own, and that's an option. But the thing about gardening is, for me, it's not something that I find easy, so I'd have to be very motivated to do it. It would have to be warm. I wouldn't do it if it was raining, and so you can see how the accountability to actually keep the grass cut and the shrubs pruned is going to go down quite quickly. The shrubs pruned is going to go down quite quickly. The novelty of the idea is going to go down quite quickly, because it's hard. People can't stick to doing hard things on their own for too long usually for a week, if that.

Speaker 1:

So investing in somebody who is going to help you is not only going to help you get to the end result much quicker, but you're going to learn things that you never even considered before. You know, when I'm coaching my clients, they might think oh, you know, I've got this piece of information. I didn't hear about it before, but it probably took me 10, 15 years to learn that you know. So if you try and learn the right things on your own, it's probably going to take you a similar amount. If you're lucky, maybe half the time, because things are different now. You know, back in the day when I was studying, it was very much textbooks. Now it's. I don't know what it is. But, yeah, everything's changed. But don't be so stubborn that you think that you should know how to do everything on your own, because the reality is it's not the case at all, no matter how simple you think it should be.

Speaker 1:

If you aren't happy with where you are right now and you have gone it alone for so long, then maybe that's the sign Number eight is energy management. So they manage their sleep, their stress, their food and their thoughts. It's not just about workouts, guys, it's not just about booking in that gym session. It's about managing your sleep, your stress, your food and your thoughts. They don't just burn calories, they actually build energy. It's very, very hard to burn calories when you are stressed, when you are sleep deprived, when you're eating crappy food and all that consumes you are negative thoughts. Let's go back to COVID times. I'm just going to swig my smoothie. That smoothie is so good today.

Speaker 1:

I remember waking up during COVID and all day, from the moment we woke up until the moment we went to bed, we had the news on and I'm a pretty positive person. I am very much like a glass half full. Is that right Glass half full kind of a person. But when you get consumed by noise and opinions and negativity all day long, eventually that's all you think about and you start to sound like those people. You start to think like those people and getting into a good mindset is quite challenging actually. So if you have a system of people around you maybe a partner, kids, friends who are all really positive people, it's going to be a lot easier for you to become a positive person.

Speaker 1:

So when you think about thoughts, it's not just what you're sitting there thinking to yourself, it's what's coming in. What am I exposing myself to? What am I watching on social media? What am I watching the news? Am I watching TV shows about crime? Am I watching films which is all blood, guts and gall? You know, think about it. Who am I hanging around with? What are the conversations that we have Is so-and-so, bitching about so-and-so all the time. You know, think about that.

Speaker 1:

Number nine, our two more, two more to go. So number nine is to embrace discomfort. So a successful woman will expect resistance. They will lean in when it feels hard, knowing that discomfort is part of change. It is not a sign to stop. So let's take an example of weightlifting. You imagine you're lifting some dumbbells. Eventually it's going to get very, very hard for you to lift that dumbbell to the point where you feel like you need to stop. In other words, in the bodybuilding industry it's called going to failure. Now what most people do is they will lift those weights until it feels like a little bit uncomfortable and then they'll stop.

Speaker 1:

But if you are brave enough to embrace that discomfort and really push past that level of, you know, pain. That's when your muscles change because you're giving them a stimulus that they haven't experienced before, and so that's when the muscle fibers tear down even more, and then, when you rest, they grow to become even bigger, even more. And then, when you rest, they grow to become even bigger. But if you don't get to the point where it is so uncomfortable um, you will never get to that point. So it's like anything in life you actually need discomfort in order to grow and to change. So avoiding it is one of the worst things that you can do, absolute worst things that you can do, absolute worst things that you can do. If something feels uncomfortable to do, whether that's, you know, going outside for the first time on a walk by yourself, whether it's stepping into the gym for the first time on your own, whether it's spending an extortionate amount of money in your opinion, on something, if it feels uncomfortable, it's probably the right decision. So just let that sink in for a moment.

Speaker 1:

And then number 10 is to have vision backed goals. So they know why they want the change, not just lose weight. That's a very, very broad goal. It's to feel confident, to feel strong, to feel visible, to feel free, and they could actually identify what that would look like for them. So remember, going back to the visualization, you know, when I visualized my great performance on a stage, I didn't just visualize me singing it really well and the audience clapping or whatever. I visualized what I was wearing, I visualized what I looked like, I visualized smells and sounds and all of those things. And when I say to somebody, you know what does it look like to be confident, they have a real hard time telling me what that looks like. So getting a really good understanding of why you want to change and what it looks like on a really in-depth level is a game changer, is a game changer.

Speaker 1:

So they are the top 10 traits of highly successful women, even women, women in their health and their fitness. And maybe you identify that. You know there's a few gaps for you and things that you need to work on. Maybe you've learned some things that you didn't even know were a thing. Maybe it's given you some some food for thought. But just know that where you are right now in your journey is exactly where you need to be, but in order for you to progress to the next level, we need to start to incorporate these traits and when I say incorporate them, don't think like try and overhaul your life in one night, but let's, let's take one of them just right.

Speaker 1:

Today I am going to focus on taking radical responsibility. So if my child is going to play up today and typically that would promote me to go and emotionally eat or blame them for why I've gone off my diet or whatever, then stop doing that and let's start taking some radical responsibility and start owning your choices, because you have the power and the ability to design your own life. But I just see so many women not taking that choice, not taking that option, and then they get to the end of their life with look back, with regret. There are so many things that they didn't do, so many experiences they didn't experience, so many people they never met. So just some things to think about.

Speaker 1:

Another little exciting nugget is that at the end of May it is scheduled for the 28th of May I am going to be hosting a free live webinar for non-clients of Feed my Health, and I'm not going to go into any more details about it right now, but just know that if you are not currently a client at Feed my Health and you would like to be involved, then look out in the next few days, slash weeks, for more information about it. It's going to be absolutely incredible and you're going to go away with so many in quite speak. That's how excited I am about it so many nuggets um to implement straight away into your life. So stay tuned for more info, information about that. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and remember as always, you know what I'm going to say make sure you keep feeding your health.