11. How I lost 85 pounds | Traci Brown (47 yo)

In this "How I Did It" episode, Traci Brown, a 47-year-old health coach from Boerne, TX, shares her inspiring journey from nearly 250 pounds to a thriving, healthy lifestyle. She opens up about how a shocking photo from her 20-year reunion motivated her to take control of her health, lose 85 pounds, and ultimately transform her life.

She’s now empowering others to regain their health and confidently take control of their lives. Listen in to hear Traci’s journey, practical advice, and the lasting impact she's making in her community, having helped over 2,000 clients restore their quality of life.

Traci@IdealHealthBoerne.com
Ideal Health Boerne 

Topics Discussed
0:00 - Introducing Traci Brown
0:25 - Family dynamics and work
0:55 - Weight journey begins
1:46 - Adoption of foster daughter
2:12 - Early weight struggles
4:02 - Unhealthy eating habits
6:49 - Becoming a weight coach
7:31 - Shifting to nutrition
9:10 - Teaching healthy eating
10:07 - Learning from her daughter
12:03 - Focus on protein
14:29 - Example daily meals
17:17 - Importance of resistance training
19:40 - Helping others transform
22:36 - Success stories shared

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Transcript

Jollie (00:00)

Thanks for joining us today. we have Traci Brown

from Boerne, Texas, one of my neighbors. She's going to take us on her own personal journey to health. But then also she's going to pivot and you're going to hear how she's helping others with their health now as well. And she's making a really big impact in Boerne. And just texted her the other day, I can't really go anywhere in Boerne without running into somebody that knows Traci. So I think this will be really good conversation.

Traci Brown (00:24)

That's fine.

Jollie (00:25)

station today. So with that Traci, just kind of introduce yourself and tell us if you won't mind in this first little bit here what your family dynamics about and what you do for a living because I like setting the stage for those two things because somebody listening they could hear you or see you and think my gosh she's like my age and her family dynamics the same or she does this for a living and like they can relate.

to you and your struggles and your journey. So with that, just kind of introduce yourself.

Traci Brown (00:55)

Yeah, I love that. Thank you for having me. This is super exciting. I actually love telling people my story because I feel like it does make it more relatable. I love that a lot of the comments I get when people come see me is I come to see you because you understand, you know, so I've walked in their shoes. I've I've been almost 250 pounds in my lifetime. So and then now I'm on a personal journey to how how healthy can I be by 50 is what I told Dr. Stahl. said.

That is my goal. I want to see how healthy I can be by 50. So I'm 47. I'm almost 48. So got about two more years there. anyway, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I am a mom of three. We have two biological sons, Blake, who's 26 and married to our beautiful daughter -in -law, Maddie. And they live in the Houston area. Colby, who is almost 21 and at A loving life.

Jollie (01:29)

Plenty of time.

Traci Brown (01:46)

And then we are about to adopt our foster daughter. She is nine years old and currently in the foster system, but she's soon to be a Brown. So very excited about that. yeah, yeah, yeah, we're really excited. It is the journey, right? Like we were empty nesters for a little while and we're like, we'll just get on an airplane and go vacation. And then we're like, God was like, no, I have another little job for you. So anyway, that's where at right now.

Jollie (01:55)

That is so cool.

Yeah. Both of our families journeys are very, very similar. So I that's why we connected so much. Okay. So great. So just take a few moments to tell us about kind of your, your struggle with weight and some of the, you know, just the.

Traci Brown (02:12)

Yes, absolutely.

Jollie (02:25)

you know, from as far back as you want to go. Sometimes it starts in elementary school or middle school, but as far back as you want to go and just kind of like what it was like for you before you decided to make a change as far as, you know, what it was like with your relationship with food or how you were eating or how it made you feel and just kind of take us along this journey.

Traci Brown (02:41)

Sure. Sure. Yeah, so I wouldn't say I always struggled with, as a kid or a high schooler, wasn't necessarily overweight. I wasn't like super thin, wasn't necessarily overweight, but probably I would say a typical high school kid. I played sports, so I ate whatever I wanted to. We live in Boerne, so we ate at one of these local restaurants every day at lunch, and now if I did that, I'd gain 20 pounds just looking at the meal, but.

Yeah, so I didn't really watch my food intake a whole lot growing up and then went to college and just continued eating like I was still in high school but then was not an athlete and so that does not go well. And just coincidentally at the same time my mom had passed away and so the only person that would speak into that space, right, being my mom, is gone. And so all of a sudden it was like,

Big Macs and supersized fries and things like that. And I didn't think anything of it. So before I knew it, I was pretty close to 200 pounds, not quite. And then got pregnant with our older son and gained, you know, 60 pounds. And, know, it was just kind of a kind of a snow snowball effect at that point. And so knew nothing about nutrition at all. And so tried, you know, the same things that we did in high school. Let me just stop drinking Dr. Pepper for a week and I'll lose 10 pounds. That didn't work, you know, or

Jollie (04:00)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (04:02)

whatever the little tricks were and knew nothing about anything. And so it wasn't until my 20 year class reunion, actually, I had put on an outfit and it was one of those moments where you're like, everything's on point. My jewelry is great. My outfit's great. You know, looking awesome. Felt really good about what I was wearing. And then went to our 20 year reunion, saw everybody. It was a great night. And then a friend of mine posted some pictures on Facebook the next day. And

and I looked at the pictures and I literally was shocked. mean, it was like I was looking at somebody completely different than I saw in the mirror. And so this is probably not a thing, but I've coined the term for myself, reverse body dysmorphia. Totally did not see myself as large as I was or as unhealthy as I was. That was really the worst part, right? So at that point in time, a good friend of mine,

Jollie (04:46)

wow.

Traci Brown (04:55)

was doing a program, kind of a packaged meal replacement program that had been around for about 40 years. And she said, hey, this works. Why don't you come do this with me? So I went and did it with her in 2015 and then lost 85 pounds and just really felt like at that point, I still knew nothing about nutrition. So just knew how to do the program, you know, and but I felt like it gave me my life back. I felt like all of sudden I was, you know, because at this point I'm a mom of two boys and they're very active.

and very into sports and I would just watch their life go by. I would sit there and watch them play sports or watch them zip line, watch them throw balls and watch them have fun. I was not an active part of that. And so that moment when I decided to make a change was really like, hey, what kind of mom or what kind of grandma do I want to be? know, who do I want to be? Do I want to be this person that is cheering the loudest on the sidelines or do I want to be a part, like an active part of their life? And so when I lost all my weight,

Initially, that was the initial decision is like, hey, I am now an active member of my kids lives. This is fun. You know, this is who I want to be. I want to be an active mom, a fun mom. I want to be an active grandma someday. Fun grandma. You know, I want to do all those things. And so that became my why. So my initial why was weight. My initial why was like, my gosh, I can't believe I look like that. I need to look different. My why quickly became health. And so.

Shortly after that, the same company that I had lost all my weight with hired me and I became a weight loss coach for a couple of years in a clinic here in Boerne. Still just teaching that program, still nothing about nutrition really. And so, you know, not a whole lot anyway, just kind of like little tidbits here and there, which started to bother me. So I was like, okay, I really want to know why this works or how this works or not just can I get people skinny, but can I also get people healthy? So that became the focus.

Jollie (06:49)

I like it.

Traci Brown (06:51)

So in 2019 I paired up with a local doctor here in town and we initially opened under that same program, but then it morphed into him saying, hey, if you'll go back to school and get a nutrition certification, I think this can take off. so, and then it became an absolute passion of mine. So I love to learn and I love knowledge. I love to know things. So going back to school for nutrition certification became

nutrition certification, then weight loss specialist certification, and then personal training certification. I was like, okay, how many more letters can I put after my name? Not because they're after my name, but because I just crave knowledge once I begin doing that. So yeah, yeah, it's fun. It's fun. So the fun thing for me, the really fun thing is in the last two years, I guess, it's our business has shifted completely from

Jollie (07:31)

You got a taste of it. Yeah.

Traci Brown (07:46)

What was just a packaged meal replacement program like hey, if you just eat these three things every day and eat one real meal, you're going to lose weight too. Hey, forget all that. Let's look at the quality of everything we're eating. Let's look at food. Let's look at nutrition. Let's look at actual diet, not not a diet, but your actual diet. Like what are you actually eating and how can we make that better? The other fun part is that now that we have a nine year old in our life, it's been really fun to.

just offer her better nutrition, right? Then even my other kids had, I mean, they're 26 and 20. So, you know, I wasn't thinking nutrition when they were little. So they were eating the common kid things, you know, and what's been really fun for her and for us is seeing how healthy she is now and how different lots of things are like mindset, just focus all these kinds of things. And she doesn't feel like she's missing out on anything. Everything that we offer her to eat,

is similar enough to what her friends are eating that she doesn't feel like there's anything different, but it's all super healthy. So that's also become a passion of mine now is teaching parents how to feed their kids healthier versions of food and get the junk out. I feel like there's so many things we can correct in the classroom or in the house with just nutrition.

Jollie (09:05)

Yeah, I think about getting to the parents through the kids. Because you look at a lot of adults I talk to, it doesn't bother them, different parts of your life. Most of the people that lost a significant amount of weight, there was an instant in time, a switch was flipped. But when you focus efforts on your kid...

Traci Brown (09:10)

Absolutely. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah.

Jollie (09:28)

Like you'll do anything for your kid. so, it's also like you got life and it's stressful and it's busy and it's so much easier to eat processed crap. But then like you don't want to be, I know for me personally with Enz, our six and a half year old, like I don't want to be like the ultra processed food Nazi, right? Like I don't want to give her a complex at six years old, but she, so it's a bouncy nag, it's juggling.

Traci Brown (09:29)

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

You

Yes.

Right, right, right, right.

Yeah.

Jollie (09:57)

and trying to figure out just the right amount, like what is it about healthy? And like the other day she turned something over before she started taking a drink, she turned it over and it had like red 40 in it. And she's like, there's chemicals in this. I don't want to drink it. Like give me water, dad. I'm like, hey, hey. Yeah.

Traci Brown (10:07)

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. That is the same conversation we have. Ours will say, did that scan well? You know, because we scan things and look at chemicals and but not to say that, you know, last weekend that the

Jollie (10:19)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (10:24)

father daughter thing that Mike and she did. She came home with a giant thing of cotton candy. I mean, she is, she still has fun. We don't, we don't say, no, you can't eat cotton candy, you know, but she did say, I probably shouldn't eat this whole thing. And we're like, that's a great decision. You know, so we love that, but it's just fine. It's fun that she's learning how much better she feels not having those things. And so every once in a while, you know, we do let her have something or just a normal day

Jollie (10:32)

Yeah.

Wow, look at that!

Traci Brown (10:52)

or you have whatever, and she'll, she notices it. She can feel that she's a little more hyper that day or whatever it might be. You can't focus kind of thing. So that's been kind of fun. And that's what I work on with my adult clients too. My adult clients, I always tell them, I do not want this to ever be about food elimination. That's not anybody's goal. My goal is I want you to choose to or not to eat something based on how that thing makes you feel.

So do you feel good when you eat ice cream? Most people are like, no, I don't. I tell them all the time, I love ice cream. Ice cream does not love me back. It's terrible. So I'm not saying I never do. We sometimes go to the rim and have some. But it's in these super small slivers of the percentage of what I do in my life.

Jollie (11:29)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (11:41)

I tell my clients all the time, we shoot much higher than the industry standard. The industry standard is 80 % good, 20 % discretionary. And I tell my clients, look, we shoot for 90 -10 because then that gives you a little bit of wiggle room and then you're still within 80 -20. So shoot high. That way it kind of gives you a little bit more room to enjoy things. We went to Disney and I did not think about food one time. yeah. We try. We try.

Jollie (12:03)

I it.

Sounds like a good balance. Yeah. So like basically today, why don't you talk us just a couple go -to meals for breakfast and maybe lunch, some snacks, just talk about like what's a typical week look like for eating right now?

Traci Brown (12:16)

Yeah.

So I am a big proponent on focus of protein. So we focus a lot on protein in our clinic. We do talk about calories. We do talk about, how many calories do you need? Where you at on that? But our number one priority is always protein. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. So most of the time, if you're hitting your protein needs, the hunger is not there. You're not just ravenous all day long.

We're so protein deficient as just humans. We're just so protein deficient that we're stealing amino acids from our muscle tissues. So we're losing muscle as we get older. We don't have to do that. People don't realize that. Like we can look pretty darn good at 70 if we focus correctly. So I tell people that all the time. If your primary focus is complete proteins, so you've got to know what you're eating, right? You've got to have a protein that has all nine essential amino acids in it.

So we talk a lot about that in clinic because those amino acids, those are the building blocks of your cells, of every cell in your body. So if you're eating complete proteins, you are forming muscle, you're protecting muscle, you're boosting your immune system, you're transporting nutrients where they're supposed to go, you're repairing cellular damage, you're doing all kinds of great things, plus you're not hungry. So it's just kind of all these great bonuses. So my personal

Breakfast is a little bit of coffee in my 20 ounce cup. do coffee and then I do one scoop of essential amino acids, which is, I'll explain this a little bit later, but it has the equivalent of the amino acids that you would get in about 30 grams of whey protein. And then I put an actual 32 gram protein shake in my coffee. So it's got that 32 gram protein shake, but then it's also got

all of those amino acids that I would have gotten had I added another 30 gram shake to it. So it's really got, you know, amino acid profile wise, it's got, essential amino acid profile wise, it's got the equivalency of what would be like a 62 gram protein shake. So it's just feeding my muscles and it is great. I love it. It keeps me full till I leave from work around two o 'clock and I go home and I have a normal lunch. It's usually like,

Jollie (14:29)

wow.

Traci Brown (14:42)

Four or so ounces of meat with some veggies leftover from the night before or a salad or something like that. And then dinner is always meat and veggies. We've had meat and veggies for dinner probably since 2015 when that became kind of my norm. But it's always like I think tonight is steak and we're going to have steak and I don't know broccoli or something like that. Some kind of vegetable, but there's always a decent amount of broccoli or something on the side and meat. 6 to 8 ounces of meat at dinner so.

My personal goal every day is a little over 150 grams of protein.

Jollie (15:15)

Okay, all right, got it. What about like some go -to snacks? Everybody's looking. I was looking for healthy snack ideas.

Traci Brown (15:20)

Yeah. So mainstream, like you can get out there where there's like chomps, beef sticks and stuff. A lot of people like those. We personally sell the brand First Form and First Form has a beef stick that's got double the protein and it's got 20 grams of protein. So a lot of our clients eat those. I don't snack a whole lot. I will be honest. That was my previous life. I was kind of a grazer. you know, we grew up in the 90s when there was that whole like

Keep a log on the fire eat something every two hours whatever and in our industry has since gone Maybe that wasn't the greatest idea because we just created people who eat all day And we never give our gut a break, you know So I don't I kind of got out of that habit a little while back and I'll be honest if you are hitting your protein goals every day You're just not snacky. It's just different. It's just it's different. But if you are snacky, we do suggest

Jollie (15:50)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (16:13)

You know, some good nuts, we give our clients lists of everything, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, you know, good quality cheese stick, a beef stick, you know, things like that. Something with protein. We're always looking for protein.

Jollie (16:17)

Mm

Yeah, I found my favorite snack like at 3, 3 .30 in afternoon, like oatmeal, just rolled oats oatmeal, some frozen blueberries and some raw nuts. And that's just fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's good.

Traci Brown (16:30)

huh.

Yeah, awesome. It keeps you going. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, and I try to work with everybody on like, what is your goal? You know, if your goal is weight loss, then it's these foods. If your goal is, you know, muscle building, it's these foods. If I've got a client who is about to run a triathlon, or he's actually going to do an ultra in September. And so he eats wildly different than the vast majority of my clientele, you know, so.

It depends on our goal, you know, and so I teach people how to read labels and I'm like, you've got to read this label to see if it's going to meet your goal. It's here to meet somebody's goal. It just may not be your goal, you know, so teaching them how to read those labels for themselves is important too. Yeah.

Jollie (17:17)

Very good. Well, what about like exercise? What are you big on?

Traci Brown (17:21)

Yes, I love muscle building. love strength training. So I am a huge proponent of resistance training because most of my clientele is over 40. And once we hit 40, if we're not already working on building muscle, we're going to get behind the ball real fast. my favorite, favorite workout is resistance training. And I would say quickly after that would be Pilates of some sort. I love Pilates. I think it's a great workout and it's

Jollie (17:38)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (17:50)

much harder than I ever thought it was. And then we also love things like Zumba, mixed fit, those kind of modalities too. But again, because we're over 40, we really focus more so on anything building muscle than cardio specific.

Jollie (18:06)

So for you, you personally, when, do you find time to fit in your exercise? And is it, is it the same every day or is it, does it change?

Traci Brown (18:10)

Yeah.

It's the same two days a week. Tuesdays and Fridays, am like, nobody's interrupting the class I have on Tuesdays and Fridays. The other days, I'm like, can I fit this in? Can I not? And so right now, I'll be 100 % honest, I'm doing two days a week of resistance training and I need to add that third one in and I have not done it yet. Our life got a little more chaotic a couple months back and so, you know, I've not figured out when that third one's coming in.

Trying to get my steps every day. That's a big one, you know trying to hit a very bare minimum of 7 ,500 steps a day on up to 10 ,000 or more That is something I do pretty regularly and I will say That is also a form of self -care for me. So that's a something I do that I'm like, hey I gotta put my shoes on and head back out the door with a podcast in my ears because I just need something that's just me by myself, you know in my head and walking so

Yeah, so I'm really big on resistance training walking your steps moving your body every day and Anything you can do to build muscle that is my favorite

Jollie (19:15)

It feels, yeah, feel, I am so off when I miss a workout now due to, you know, my day job or whatever it is. But then even if, especially if I've missed like two days in a row and then the third day I get back at it, like it's just like everything, you know, the trees are so much brighter and you know, the birds are singing louder and like life is just good again. Yeah, that's cool. Cool, cool, cool. All right.

Traci Brown (19:21)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yes. I agree. Yes, I agree. I totally agree. Yeah.

Jollie (19:40)

This is, okay, so this has been good so far, but let's like pivot now because you've been able to help a lot of people in these last few years and it's pretty amazing. just, yeah, take us down that journey a little bit.

Traci Brown (19:50)

Yeah, it's fun.

Yeah, so it's been fun. It's a lot of fun. When my passion became helping other people basically reenter their life like I did, I felt like I got my life back when I lost a bunch of weight. And so my passion became, how can I get moms back in their photos? That was one of my big things is moms hide. They're not in photos. Or you'll see like this much of their face in the back behind everybody else.

or we're taking the picture, you know, a of times moms are like, I'm good, I don't need to be in the picture. Well, I can attest to the fact that when we are not here anymore, our kids still want to see that photo, whether we thought we looked great in that picture or not. one of my absolute passions is getting moms back in their life. and it's really cool because when I say that to people, a lot of times both of us will start crying, you know, because they're like,

my gosh, I haven't been in a photo in five years. Yeah, I mean, it's it's real. So when my passion became that it became like how many people can we help? You know, so we paired up with Dr. Stoll over at Boerne Family Medicine in 2019 and opened a clinic and it just blossomed because with his support and my passion, you can't it didn't have any other choices. Kind of cool. So it was really fun. We did initially start

Jollie (20:47)

It's real. Yeah.

Traci Brown (21:16)

in that packaged meal type idea. And then like I said, he challenged me to go back to school and get my nutrition certification. And so in the last two years, it's all been about nutrition. And so when he started prescribing GLP -1s, which is what, know, the Ozempic, Monjaro, those compounded medications that are out right now, we decided, hey, we got to...

we gotta come on board in like a nutrition space. And so all what he was telling me is all of the research is saying if you pair these meds with nutrition, then you don't see 77 % of people rebound and regain all their weight. So that became a big deal. And so when he prescribes the medications, their clientele has to come see me for nutrition. And so it's been fun. I would say probably over the course of the last five years,

seen, gosh, I would say probably two or three thousand people. So it is fun. It's so fun. Currently I see about four hundred or four hundred fifty people and it's a blast. I love it. I love every single day. mean, it's somebody said one time, find a job you love so much you could do it without getting paid. And I truly am at that point right now. I really, I really don't even care. I just love what I do. I love talking to people all day long and changing people's lives. It's fun.

Jollie (22:11)

That's amazing.

I've seen some of the, yeah, I mean, your passion, it comes through loud and clear, but it's, I love some of the pictures that you've posted on social or website that show like people hitting, you know, different goals and just the smiles on their face. I mean, there's a lot of pictures. So it's pretty cool. Yeah.

Traci Brown (22:36)

Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah.

It's really cool. It's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's neat. The stories we hear are really cool.

Jollie (22:59)

Very good. Yeah, so like, it'd neat, like talk to me about, like you gave your own personal kind of before and after, like what it was like.

before you made the switch to get healthy. What are some of the personal goals, not asking you specific people, but what are some of the goals that they talk about, what they wanna do, and then what's it like when they actually achieve those, yeah.

Traci Brown (23:25)

Mm

Hit them, that's fun. Yeah, so I ask everyone what their goal is and they always say my weight goal and they're always surprised when I say, I don't even care if it has to do with weight. I just wanna know what is your goal? it health, is it medical diagnosis, is it getting off of medications? What is your goal? It doesn't matter what it looks like. And I would say a very small percentage, very small percentage say it's just weight loss. I just wanna be x pound, however many pounds.

Most of my clients say I want to be healthy. want to be confident again. I want to feel good in my clothes. I want to hit a certain percentage of body fat. I want to be able to run an ultra. You know, I want to do these things. And one of the things I ask them all the time is if you're thinking about yourself a year from now, what is something you dream of doing a year from now that currently your weight is preventing you from doing? So,

Jollie (24:23)

That's a good

Traci Brown (24:24)

Yeah, and it's a cool. It's a cool answer. I mean, it's neat to see like one person one day was horseback riding She said I have not been on a horse since you know, whatever age and she said I can't wait to get on a horse again So it doesn't even always have to do with a number on the scale per se It really has to do with I really want you to re -enter life, but you know, I'm really passionate about getting people back in their life So yeah, it's fun to kind of uncover people's

goals and then also they all they text me they're like my gosh I didn't need a seatbelt extender on the airplane today or you know whatever and I love that those are my favorite messages to get so yeah yeah yeah

Jollie (25:02)

It's a big deal. Yeah, you can imagine. What about, I can't imagine some of those moms that are comfortable getting their picture taken again. That's gotta be pretty cool. Yeah.

Traci Brown (25:14)

Yeah, it's really cool. It is really cool. And it's fun because because we live in a small town, a lot of times I see it, you know, a lot of times I'll see those photos on social media and I'm like, my gosh, you know, I get so excited when I see those things happen. I know you, you had asked me a while back how I define success, right? And so, and I've thought about that ever since we talked about it and I love, I love defining success as really habit change.

Jollie (25:28)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (25:44)

Like how can we change your habits, right? Because if, I don't really care as much, like I said, about weight on the scale. If I can change someone's habits, then that changes not just their habits, but their kids' habits. And then eventually their grandkids' habits. And then it goes down the line from there. So then we've got generational change, which is really cool. So, because we see the opposite too, right? We see that generational weight.

Jollie (25:47)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Traci Brown (26:09)

Also, we see people who eat the same thing that their mom and grandma and everybody else ate down the line and everybody seemed to have a weight problem. So we see it go both ways. And so I tell my clientele, if we change your habits, then we change everybody's habits from you down. And it's really cool. It's kind of one of those moments where you see this light bulb turn on, especially in men, which is pretty cool, because they're like, wait, that's true. My family does every, you know.

Jollie (26:24)

our family.

Traci Brown (26:36)

do what I do or do what I say or model me. You know, they're good models. So, it's pretty cool.

Jollie (26:40)

Yeah. I like saying the, like talking to folks about this, about habits, developing new habits. And it's kind of.

I don't think until you actually start and you go through it and you talk to other folks that you really truly comprehend what that means. Like, I'm just going to exercise more and eat better, right? I mean, that's what so many docs used to say. Hopefully they're not saying that as much anymore. like, like if you want to change your life, like you have to actually change your life. I mean, it's, it's not cliche. Like you really do have to change the environment you live in because it's, it's so, if you don't.

Traci Brown (27:04)

Yes, not as many.

You You do. Yes. Yes.

Jollie (27:22)

Then once the motivation wears off and the spark wears off, then you're going to revert back to the old habits. yeah, curious. Curious about, is it mostly individuals? Do families, do couples or families go at the same time?

Traci Brown (27:27)

Absolutely, absolutely.

It's mostly individuals. But what we see typically is really kind cool because it'll be one spouse or the other typically. But then the other one's losing weight too or getting healthy too. They're kind of like they come alongside because just kind of everybody, we do things in pairs. We just don't necessarily always come here in pairs. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Yeah.

Jollie (27:54)

Yeah. And it does make it so much easier when you're both like on the same path. Yeah. that's very good. Wow. So this is being good. Is there, is there anything else you want to share with folks either about your own journey or what it takes, some tips or just anything?

Traci Brown (28:03)

Yeah, it's fine.

You know, I would say even if you think you know everything there is to know about nutrition or whatever, have a conversation with somebody. You know, have a conversation, sit down with somebody who's passionate about it and just see if there's something we can.

something we can tweak. Because a lot of times people will come in and they've got some weight to lose and they'll say, I already know everything there is to know about nutrition. I don't even know why I'm here. Or I eat well all the time. I can't figure out why I can't lose weight. There's got to be something wrong. And that was me at one point. I definitely remember going to see Dr. Stahl and telling him, I want you to run all the blood work because there's got to be something wrong. Because I eat really well, I work out all the time, and I can't lose weight. And I hear that all the time.

And it's interesting because a lot of times once we just sit down one time and have a true conversation about nutrition, they get up and when they leave they say, I learned so much today. So I think a lot of times we've got to remember the different.

Decades of time we've all grown up in right we've all grown up in the low fat craze of the 80s We've grown up in the low sodium craze of the early 90s the keto craze. We've you know, all the things we've we've gone through all these things and And I don't think it has to be any of those things. I tell people all the time I don't think it has to be any one thing. I think we can eat

Jollie (29:22)

Yeah.

Traci Brown (29:36)

pretty liberally. think we can eat a lot of the things that we want to have. We just have to be very mindful or get to a space where that's okay first. I do tell people, if you want to lose weight, let's lose weight first and then reintroduce some of those things that you love and let's see where that threshold is. Let's see where the threshold of enjoyment stops and weight gain begins. Let's see where that is for you because it's different for everybody.

some people can handle a whole lot more carbs than I can. And I wish I could enjoy carbs more than I can, but I just can't. But that's not everybody. Some people can enjoy a whole lot more, and that's okay. Our bodies are all different. And so I think that's why it's important to be open to sitting down and talking to somebody and being open to saying there might be even just one tiny little thing that we need to just tweak a little bit, and it just makes all the little pieces fall together.

Jollie (30:12)

Yeah.

Yeah, sure. the, a lot of what you're saying is just developing a healthy relationship with food, right? This has been good. All right, very good. So last thing. So, like you're, you're posting a lot. A lot of people get to see some of your successes and when and where can folks learn more about you?

Traci Brown (30:34)

Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes, yep, absolutely. Yeah, good, good.

Yeah, we're on Instagram and social media or in Facebook. We're Ideal Health Boerne. So if you want to look us up, that'd be awesome. And other than that, they can email me too. We can put that in the show notes if you want. It's tracy at idealhealthbernie .com. T -R -A -C -I, yes, a little different. I forget that that's not the norm. Yes, Traci at idealhealthbernie .com. I would love to chat nutrition with anyone. So whether you want to lose weight or not, I'll chat nutrition. So I love it.

Jollie (31:07)

T -R -A -C -I. Got it? All right. Yeah.

That's wonderful. Well, thanks. This has been fun. Thanks so much for joining me today. This has been really neat. Alright, cool. Thanks a lot. Bye.

Traci Brown (31:22)

Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Jollie. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. All right. You're welcome. Bye.