#33- How to Lose Weight - Your Nutrition Jump Start [Series: Episode 4]

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Episode 4: WEIGHT LOSS MADE SIMPLE –  NUTRITION FOR WEIGHT LOSS JUMP START FOR BUSY MOMS

If you’re a busy mom who wants to lose weight but feels overwhelmed by food rules, meal plans, and diet noise… this episode is where things finally start to make sense.

In this lesson, we begin your first real nutrition system for weight loss. Not a diet. Not a reset. Not a 30-day plan.
But a sustainable, repeatable way to eat that supports fat loss, energy, and consistency.

This episode is part of my How to Lose Weight coaching series, where I walk you through the exact same steps I use with my 1:1 clients. Each lesson builds on the last — and this one is all about learning how to eat with intention instead of confusion.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
 • Use calorie tracking the right way for weight loss
• Set up your custom calorie budget with the Cronometer app
• Understand what a calorie deficit really means
• Start tracking food without judgment or perfection
• Build a simple snack prep routine that works in real life
• Increase hydration in a realistic, sustainable way

This is where weight loss actually starts to work — not from cutting foods, but from understanding how your body uses energy and learning how to guide it.

Your focus this week is not eating “perfect.”
 It’s building awareness.
 It’s learning the system.
 It’s creating habits you can actually keep.

If you’ve ever said:
 “I know what to do but I don’t do it,”
 or
 “I start strong and then fall off,”

This episode will show you how to build structure without burnout.

🎧 Press play and let’s start building your smart nutrition routine for real life.

📩 Have questions? Email me at hello@thehealthhobby.com

💬 Watching on YouTube? Drop your questions in the comments!
🎧 Make sure you’re following the podcast and subscribed to my YouTube channel so you don’t miss the next lesson - FOOD SELECTION, MEAL PREP

I’m so proud of you for showing up and doing this work.

👀 #17 - MUST KNOW NUTRITION Vocabulary for Weight Loss [PART 1]:  https://youtu.be/T8MBA9kbQxg

👀 #20 - THE POWER OF CALORIE TRACKING for Weight Loss [PART 4]: https://youtu.be/Ij2Yr_Lz3pw

👀 Cronometer App: https://cronometer.com/index.html

👀 Bathroom Scale: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DJX4B216?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1&th=1

00:00 - Simple Weight Loss for Busy Moms: Podcast Welcome & Real Strategies  

00:58 - Week 2 Nutrition Basics: How to Lose Weight for Busy Moms  

02:30 - Calorie Deficit Explained: #1 Key to Weight Loss Without Starving  

05:45 - Strength Training for Moms: Build Muscle, Boost Metabolism & Get Toned  

09:20 - Smart Nutrition Mindset: Patient Weight Loss Tips for Overwhelmed Moms  

14:54 - Cronometer App Setup: Best Calorie Tracking App for Beginners & Moms  

19:00 - Custom Calorie Budget: Safe 0.5-1 lb/Week Weight Loss & Deficit Guide  

24:30 - Track Weight & Progress Photos: Handle Fluctuations in Weight Loss Journey  

28:15 - Track 3 Days of Food: Easy Calorie Tracking Habit for Busy Moms  

33:40 - High Protein Snacks for Weight Loss: Simple Mini Mea

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👋 Connect & Subscribe

If you loved this episode, please subscribe, share it with another busy mom, and leave a 5 STAR review — it helps more women discover Simple Weight Loss For Busy Moms!

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💌 CONTACT: hello@thehealthhobby.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Welcome to Simple Weight Loss for Busy Moms, the podcast that cuts through all the social media noise and gives you real strategies to lose weight without fatigue or complicated plans. I'm Amanda Ford and I teach Busy Moms how to use calorie tracking, simple nutrition skills, and strength training to finally lose the first 10, 20, or even 30 pounds and keep it up. If you're tired of starting over, overwhelmed by your schedule, or wondering if lasting weight loss is even possible while raising kids, you're in the right place. Each week you'll get practical tips, tough love motivation, and repeatable routines that fit into your real life so you can feel strong, confident, and in control. This is Simple Weight Loss for Busy Moms. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01: 0:58

Hey there, welcome back to the Simple Weight Loss for Busy Moms podcast. We are jumping right back into week number two. This is the second lesson for week two in my series called How to Lose Weight. I'm your host, Amanda Ford, Weight Loss Coach for Busy Moms. In this series, I am coaching you exactly as if I was your one-to-one coach. You and me are having weekly check-ins together. We're going through the process nice and easy, just me and you, as a continued reminder. These episodes can stand alone, but the series is meant to be listened to from start to finish as each lesson builds on the next. If you're joining me for this series for the very first time, welcome, welcome to the podcast. I am so glad to have you here. I have many, many episodes for you to binge on. But if you're interested in this series in particular, please be sure to start at episode number 30. Then be sure to come back each week for your next coaching session. The first couple weeks, there are two episodes each. And I'm pretty sure as we move away from this second week that I am going to drop it down to one episode per lesson, but we'll see how it goes from there. This has been so fun thus far. It's been a major hit with all my loyal listeners because this series is just like you and me talking one-to-one, just two friends working together. But you know, it's really been a blast for me to do, and I cannot hope and pray enough that this is the series that will get you to the place where you are losing weight for good. This is gonna be your final starting over. You're going to have skills and understanding and confidence about how to eat, to lose weight, how to move your body, how to manage those feelings of overwhelm. And sometimes when we have a lack of motivation, we're gonna hit all of those areas together. If you have questions as you're listening to this series or any of my episodes, be sure to go ahead and leave them right in the YouTube comments or send me an email to hello at the healthhobby.com. And be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel. Many of you listeners, that's you, my friend, are solid listeners on my podcast platform. So Apple and Spotify, but you're not subscribed to my YouTube channel. So be sure to connect on both Apple, Spotify, andor my YouTube channel. Make sure you are subscribing. It really helps to grow my podcast. Finally, don't forget to sign up for my email list as well because I share all sorts of other weight loss tips to my email subscribers. This is a really great way to connect with me because I really don't use social media much anymore. All right, all that stuff, YouTube, email list, any links that I happen to reference in this episode all live down in the show notes, the show description. So pop down there. So pop down there, check it all out. Thanks so much for supporting this podcast. I appreciate you guys so much. This is so fun for me, and I hope that it has been a major life changer for you. And be sure to share this podcast with your favorite mom friend or bestie. Okay, jumping into the second episode for week two. This is going to be your first lesson in nutrition management for weight loss. All right, buckle up. And before you start to run away on me, this is where people are like, I don't want to do it. This is the place where you are locking in, my friend. And I have a really simple way of kind of getting your feet wet, trialing, getting used to these changes in your nutrition routines and the skills that you need to maintain to successfully lose weight. So just stick with me. Take each step as they come one at a time. Have an open mind. Be patient with yourself. You are learning something. You're not gonna be perfect at it right out the gate, or even for the first few weeks or even months, it's okay. You're gonna find your rhythm and your flow, and you're gonna be like, wow, I really got this after you know a few weeks or so. And it just takes time. So I want you to get out a notebook and we're going to do a few things together in this episode to get you started in what I like to call smart nutrition. And very quick, I'm sure you can tell my voice doesn't sound great. This is actually the second time I'm recording this episode because I've been very sick. Both my kids were sick. I had to go to the ER, I had to go to urgent care, everyone's on medication. Now it's my turn. So I recorded it and I just didn't have a lot of energy, but my voice sounded okay. But now my voice sounds terrible. But I just I just wasn't happy with the first go. So I apologize for the cold that I know you can hear my voice, but the show must go on, right? So let's dive in. So I said that you're gonna be learning what I call smart nutrition, and that is because once you get your wheels creased in this area, you'll be making smart choices instead of poor choices that are keeping you stuck from reaching your weight loss goals, but are also keeping you from feeling energized, feeling motivated, keeping you marinating in poor mood, and even experiencing anxiety and depression, ruining your sleep quality. Fill in the blank. Nutrition is that powerful. It gets into every aspect of our lives. I can't stress this enough. Getting up to speed with smart nutrition practices can change your life and will. And please listen carefully, you guys. I can set all of you up on a path for weight loss, right? Like we're walking more, we're moving more, you're paying attention to your personal wellness in efforts to keep yourself motivated, like we did in the last episode. And coming up, we'll even start lifting weights. So we're doing all these things. We have all these new actions and routines that we're building slowly into our life. But really, the key to losing weight is to lock in your nutrition. Period, done. I could, you know, mic drop, it's over. So let's talk about this for a second. You are unique. Everybody on this planet is their own person, their own body. Everyone has personal needs, different needs. Everyone requires their very own amount of calories each day. And then you'll need to eat just a little bit less. So that's called being in a calorie deficit. And this is what skyrockets and guarantees weight loss. Yes, I can say guarantee because it's true. It's basic math. So basically, all this means, simplified down, is that you're going to be eating a little bit less food than your body needs. Then your body is like, hey, I need a little bit more energy. So it's going to pull from your energy reserves, which is your body fat, and poof, you lose weight. I always feel like it's it's like a magic wand, but it's not. It's just basic math. And if we can just recognize it for that, I feel like it's so simple. What I'm trying to get across is that the concept is simple. It your body is not that complicated when it comes to like gaining weight and losing weight. So I want to just drive home the importance of locking in your nutrition. Because even if your workouts aren't on point, your nutrition really should be when at all possible. Okay, so you're probably like, well, then why do I need to work out? A lot of people don't really like to work out. I have a friend at work. She's she's always like, I don't know how you go to the gym. I hate working out. I I was like, oh, well, you could go for a walk in your lunch. She's like, no, I don't want to even do that. Like, she she's just like a hardener, like, won't work out. She looks great. She shouldn't need to work out. Everyone should work out, actually. Workouts are not just for weight loss programs, by the way. Um, but you get so many benefits from lifting weights and strength training and cardiovascular training. You know, and we'll get into this in another episode. But in short, it helps boost your calorie burn per day. So that's why we do want you to work out. We want to make sure you're moving more. Remember, you're walking every day to get your movement up. You're thinking about ways that you can be standing more throughout the day or getting more steps in throughout the day. Well, having a strength training workout just gives you a cherry on top for calorie burn. And then it's a host of other metabolic benefits, mood benefits, uh GI benefits, physique benefits, right? Where we want that toned look. Um, more importantly, in my mind, you know, it helps with bone density. The list goes on and on. However, when we're on a weight loss journey, we don't just lose fat, we also lose muscle. So, one of the reasons why we want to eat high protein is because we are losing muscle. We want our body to be able to rebuild and maintain muscle mass. And then we want to build more muscle to get that toned look, that nice physique that you have in your mind. I know that you can get and you'll get there, but also having more muscle mass burns more calories, calories throughout the day. And it's a really small fraction, but we're talking about we need to optimize our body for weight loss. And it's not just for, you know, those strong, sexy tank top arms that we're like lifting weights every week or a six-pack. That's not the only goal. It's really, really important to work out for other reasons. But as far as calorie burn, we want that cherry on top to get a little bit more calorie burn throughout the day. We want to get, we want to gain muscle because we're gonna be losing weight. We want to make sure we're maintaining our muscle mass or and building a little bit more so we can optimize our calorie burn. And of course, everything else that comes with strength training and making sure we have a little bit of a cardiovascular workout. Again, these are topics for another episode. They are coming. It is, I always say this, it's my favorite topic. I'm actually gonna say this here in a few minutes too, but I just love this stuff, you guys. So, yes, you need to work out, but locking in your like you essentially could still lose weight without look working out because of the math. You ate a certain amount of calories, you ate it. So basically, all I'm saying is you ate a certain amount of energy, you ate a little bit less, so you're in a calorie deficit, your body pulls from your fat stores, then you lose weight. Okay, you could do that without working out or walking, but we want to do this the right way. So we are gonna move our bodies. I just want to make that clear, but that's how important nutrition is in a weight loss journey. Nutrition and maintaining a calorie deficit is how you lose weight. This is probably not news to you guys, but I want to continue to stress the point, okay? And I want you to just take a deep breath and know that like it's might be hard for you. For some of you, it might be easy to lock the stuff in, but it just is what it is. It's this is a trial and error, it's an experiment. What works for you? I have a really great simplified approach when learning nutrition. I don't want you to dive headfirst into making meal plans and meal and meal prepping and like trying to figure out your macronutrients. I know I'm saying a lot of crazy vocabulary words. If you need to learn nutrition vocabulary, go back and listen to it's episode number 17, must-know nutrition vocabulary for weight loss. That is a must-listen. And it will help you kind of get up to speed on some of the vocab that I've been using: calorie deficit, calorie, energy expenditure. Uh, I go into macronutrients, all the words that I'll be using throughout this series. It's it could be really helpful for you to go back and listen to episode 17 before you get into the series if you haven't already listened to it. So I'll be sure to link that below. So let's get in to our lesson. What do you say? I think you get that it's time to start locking in nutrition. You've got a good routine about managing your time, you've got a walking routine going, you know how to do a personal check-in, you've got your starting metrics all locked in. Now it's time to get your feet wet with nutrition. So today we're gonna be doing, it's gonna sound like a lot, but it's not. We are gonna get your calorie tracker app locked and loaded in your cell. We're gonna calculate your custom calorie budget and deficit. We're gonna talk about your routine for this week where I want you to track three days of food. We'll talk about what I mean by that. We're gonna start a mini meal prep routine and we're gonna talk about hydration and water. You know, keep staying hydrated. It's not as much as it sounds. And remember, you have seven full days to work through all of this. Play around and get your balance. So, again, I always love saying this because I think it's so important. I want you to take a learner's approach as we work through this particular episode and everything else moving forward because I feel like moms, we're so busy, we can easily overcomplicate things. And I hope that I'm simplifying and breaking down things into micro actions enough that it doesn't feel like it's complicated. And if you are feeling like that, just let me know and we can work through it together. Send me an email or put your questions or you know, any feedback of where you feel like you need some support in the YouTube comments.

SPEAKER_00: 14:53

All right, let's get started.

SPEAKER_01: 15:02

Okay, I'm pretty sure I say this about every topic I talk about on this podcast, but I have to say, like, this fires me up the most. Nutrition is probably the most important and most motivating, in my opinion, because it's so powerful when we think about how it affects and literally how we utilize it and respect how it works for weight loss. To be able to take advantage of this power, we need to have some information to help guide decisions and track progress. In this step, so in this lesson, we're gonna be downloading a nutrition tracking app to your phone. So, this is the first thing I'd like you to do today. If you're taking notes, you can just write this down and we're gonna talk about each step a little bit as I go through. So, the app that I'd like you to download is called Chronometer. You can download it on your cell, on your iPad. There's even a desktop version. And you can get a premium version or you can get the free version. I am a cheapskate and I use the free version. Um I don't know how much the premium version is. I think it's$20 a month. I can't I feel like that's a little bit steep, to be honest with you. But if you if you would like their premium version, by all means, please get it. But you really it's not necessary. I will say though, the mobile app in the free version, it has a lot of ads and they're very intrusive. They like pop up while you're inputting your food or you know, adding stuff to the food diary or you know, putting something into the app. I'm just being super honest with you, I don't care. I just like let it happen. I walk away and then come back and finish up. So if that is bothersome for you, you you might want to consider the premium version. But if you use the desktop version on the free app, the ads are on the side of the screen and don't impinge on your ability to input data. So I actually just found that out the other day. I was like, oh, this is way better. I actually like to be my laptop more anyway because it's less eye strain for me. And I just I like typing with both my hands, and my hand doesn't get cramped up. But whatever works best for you guys, mobile, desktop, premium free, I don't care. I just want you to have a chronometer app locked and loaded and ready to go. Throughout your journey, you'll use this app for the following actions. This is gonna be your bestie when it comes to this process. So you're gonna calculate your calorie budget. We're gonna do that today. And as we go on, so as you lose weight, you have to adjust. And so that's kind of something people don't really think about. They're like, I calculated my calorie budget. I lost seven, eight pounds, and now I'm kind of stagnant and not nothing's happening. Well, you have to eat, you have to continue to adjust your deficit and your your calorie intake. But we'll talk about that as time goes on. But the next thing you'll be using this app for is to tracking is for tracking your weight. So every day I pop open this app and I just track my weight in there and it keeps a nice graph for me so I can see where I'm going up and I'm going down. I love having visuals for things like this. You get to store your progress photos in there. So if you took your photos like you're supposed to in week one, you can pop them in there. And then as we do uh photo check-ins throughout the process, you can put them in there. I love this because you can see them all lined up and in the same space. So you can see your body just transforming in front of your eyes. You also, and this is the big dog, you're gonna track your food in there and your water intake. And finally, you're gonna track your calories burned from workouts and general activities of daily living and your walks. So it is a robust tool. It's literally everything we do in this series. You need this app to be able to do your weekly check-in. So it, like I said, it is your go-to, it's your bestie, it's your information, it's your tracker, it's all in one for you in your hand at all times. So today I want you to download the app. You can do it right now if you'd like, or after this episode. Again, it's called chronometer. It's available in the app store on all the mobile devices. I'll be sure to link it below. And then the next step for today is to set up your chronometer profile. The app is going to ask you a set of specific questions for you to build your custom to you calorie profile and goal profile. It actually does the calculations for your custom calorie budget for you. So I bet some of were like, oh my gosh, we're calculating our calorie budget. I'm gonna have to do algebra. I used to want to show people the algebra that it takes to get down to your calorie, your your estimated daily calorie budget and then calculating a deficit. The reason I like to show people the math is because it proves that it works. The math doesn't lie. You know, it really qualifies that this is the real deal, this is science, this works and it helps me stay on track. So I'm not gonna do that with you guys. If you guys want to work with me one-to-one actually that is something that I do show my clients. I don't make them do the math but okay it's not just me telling you this and telling you that the numbers don't lie. Well they don't because I show you the math but the app does it for you which is so great because it is a multi um it's a multi-step alge algebra I can't talk it's a multi-step algebra equation to get to these numbers. So we have so much tech now that it just doesn't you don't even need to worry about learning the math but if you're interested let me know and I'll send you a little worksheet and you can do it yourself. I've actually double checked just sidebar I was I'm always like kind of like does this thing actually does it actually know what it's doing and I've actually double checked the math by hand manually and it's pretty close. So I'm feeling really good about that. And let's just talk about your calorie budget and the calculations even though it is doing it for you I want to talk about a couple things. So although you know we have the the the tech that's gonna do the math for us it's going to tell you your estimated calorie budget your estimated intake for the day and then it's also going to tell you what your deficit should be it's pretty self-explanatory. When you get to the end of the profile building it's gonna be like around step five when you're building your your profile and chronometer it's going to ask you how much weight you want to lose per week. So you can tell it up to two pounds per week but let's talk about that. That's super excessive weight loss it's extremely rapid and I do not recommend this. In fact chronometer is going to pop up a warning to you that this is actually an unsafe it's not unsafe but it's just not recommended. It's too rapid and you probably won't be able to you know depending on how much weight you need to lose some of you um to to lose weight that fast you would have to undereat which we are not going to do so undereating really fast would be anything so if you're and it's gonna pop up notes and things and warnings if this is you. So um anything under 1200 calories a day is not enough food. So if you're if you're eating 1200 calories or less I want you to highly reconsider what you're doing. It is not safe your body needs everything your body needs this fuel, this energy to function, to breathe, to be able to talk, to think, to pump your heart to keep your immune system going. So you need to think about the food you eat is is actual fuel for your body and not just like a numbers in and out so you can lose weight. We don't want to starve your body just so you can fit in your bathing suit when you go to Hawaii. That's not what we want to do. We want to do this the right way and that's why I'm always emphasizing you know we're either we're the hair I'm sorry we're the tortoise in the race not the hair we're going very slow. This is a slow trip. So when you get to the page we're asked how much weight do you want to lose per week I recommend anywhere from 0.5 to one pound loss per week. That's a really nice safe steady weight loss pace. So I want to talk about that for a second and then once you enter that it's going to I yeah on step five it's gonna give you a goal overview and it'll tell you if you stay on track starting on you know whatever day you open up this profile it'll give you a forecasted date where you're going to hit your weight loss goal which is really fun. So it's gonna be like okay you started it on January whatever you told me you wanted one pound per week you want to get to X goal weight it'll calculate that for you and it's gonna say I'm just making up a date it's gonna say okay you're gonna hit that weight on June 15th 2026 or whatever date. So it it does it for you and it's kind of fun. So you can like put it on your calendar you can be like okay that's my that is the day that I'm finally going to reach my goal of course depending on how you go through the program and how you you adhere to our steps here and your personal uh calorie needs and workout uh consistency that all can shift but I love how it just kind of gives you that date because it is something fun to look forward to um it finally in that same step you're gonna get an energy target which is going to be how many calories that you get to eat every day. And I like to say that you get to eat because eating is fun. It's part of our livelihood. It keeps us alive it keeps us healthy it keeps us from getting sick if we're eating the right things right if it's enjoyable it's fun it's social um it's so fun. So we get to eat. So your energy target is how many calories you get to eat every day. It's up to you how you use that that target amount and then below it's gonna say daily energy deficit. So um it might be depending on how much weight you told it you want to lose per week it will calculate that and will give you the deficit. So it'll probably anywhere from like 300 to 500 negative. So but you don't need to worry about that you just need to worry about the energy target because the energy target has already taken into consideration that deficit for you. So the other cool thing is for this app is that it syncs with your fitness wearables. When you walk or just move around and you're wearing your fitness wearable like I I recommended in week one, it records those actions as calories burned just so activity of daily living and of course your walks. And then also if you are working out you know you say you're strength training you know my Apple Watch I can tell it hey I'm going for a run and I you push start and it tracks the workout or I'm strength training, you push start and end and it's tracking that specific time it tracks your heart rate estimated calories burned really cool but all of that stuff if you sync your wearable to chronometer which I recommend you do it goes automatically into your daily journal and it will adjust your calorie budget for you. So sometimes let me give you example my calorie budget for the day so my energy target is about 1500 calories so if I go to the gym and I sometimes I work out at the gym for quite a long time I burn an estimated you know 400 400 calories well that is energy that I still need to replace so it adds it to my energy target. So I get to eat a little bit more which is one reason why I like working out. Do I get to eat more? Yes please that is great. So anyway all that math I know it seems complicated as I talk through it but all of this is done for you. So if you have a fitness wearable sync it to chronometer it'll ask you if if you want to do that and it will just populate each day for you and um at the top of the diary the food diary um I do want you to play around with the the app and kind of get used to where everything is it'll adjust for you and you'll you'll see your energy targets shift based on how much you know how much you worked out maybe you went on a hike maybe you're cleaning the house all day like all the energy all that takes energy even if it's not a I'm doing air quotes workout. So it's really nice it's a no-brainer it's it's like you really don't have to do much it does so much for you. I love love love this app and one thing I do I did share at the beginning of the series that I was gonna pop in some bonus episodes. I do have a goal of doing an app walkthrough of Chronometer so I can show you what it looks like to set up your profile. I can show you what it looks like to enter food, track your weight put in your photographs, things like that. Just a quick tour of the app so you know how to do things. But I feel like it's pretty intuitive when you get in there. I don't have that ready yet and there's some there's some uh tech I need to figure out so I can do screen share um which I have never done before from my cell phone to my computer. Anyway when that's ready it will be on YouTube. You want to watch it because it will be a video and it will have um my screens and things like that and I'll show you how I you know add things and how to use the barcode scanner which is really nice. So if you're adding a food you can just flip the packaging over scan the barcode it populates in there for you. It's so nice. There's so many great things I love about this app. Another tip is to use the favorites as you enter foods in there's some foods that I eat almost every day I star them i.e adding them to the favorites so I don't have to search them up they're just in my favorites list. I can just add them you can copy and paste from previous days to other days it's very simple and I would say user friendly especially for busy moms. So that's not like this whole head scratching thing like which food should I enter what did I have yesterday when I had that I mean it's just it starts to build this nice library for you and it are and it also has if it's a food you've never entered before it has a robust food library. So it's really really helpful I love it and make sure you download the app. So the next thing you'll be doing in the app with which I mentioned is tracking your weight I like to track my weight every day I know I've kind of said different strategies throughout previous episodes of this podcast on you know what is the best routine for tracking your weight um so what I've heard all my favorite smart people all my the PhDs I listen to all the podcasts I listen to are like mostly it's mostly politics or or nutrition podcast but I've heard the best way is to track it each week and then you take your average weight loss over the month that is what I've heard. However I like to see it every day and the reason I do that is because it helped me learn that my body really does fluctuate in weight every day even if I'm eating 100% on point no messing I don't want to call it messy up no veering off the the root the plan your body just shifts with stress with sleep with hydration and it's with your period it's really kind of interesting to watch and with specific food. So say you ate on track you you ate within your energy target and you're like hey I was in my deficit I should have lost you know a few ounces this morning um or at least stayed the same or even lost more you know you should have lost a little bit of weight in the morning when you you should check your weight in the morning if you can um but for example if I have even one glass of alcohol I am bloated for three days like like retain a ton of water. So I'm able to see those things because one I'm tracking everything I track my beverages I you know including alcoholic beverages I track all the food I eat um so you can see patterns so it's really interesting obviously I'm I'm kind of into this it's my hobby to kind of learn and and see those things but if I was coaching you I would ask that you track your weight at least three times a week so I can identify those patterns. So I want you to be able to identify those patterns too I want you to be able to coach yourself. So I do recommend you track your weight if possible first thing in the morning right when you wake up after you've gone to the bathroom open up your phone pop it into your chronometer weight tracker. Another sidebar I have this really cool scale that I got on Amazon I'll link it below and there's an app for the scale but the scales app links to my Apple Fitness which links to my chronometer. So once I just step on the scale I literally don't have to do I I'm not even kidding you I don't have to do anything I just step on the scale and it's logged into my chronometer. So the tech is cool out there you guys I mean I'm trying to optimize everything we're busy moms. If I have to do one less um I have this thing at work I was training uh one of my um colleagues who was a new employee to our department and I always told her less clicks and type you know anything I have to do like you know less clicks in our software the better. So I'm always trying to optimize my time in the micro ways to save a bunch of time in the end. So anyway I I'll put the the scale below it's pretty cool. All right just like you track your weight in there you can pop your progress photos in there. Um progress photos I like to do maybe once a week but every couple weeks they're pretty good. So every two weeks is um you can probably see more results um you know a bigger change in your body and try to do them in the same outfit if possible in the same space in the same lighting. Again that's just me being a perfectionist it doesn't have to be that way but you want to be able to see the shifts in the body and the way that you do that is try to keep consistent um you know consistent visuals in your photos so you can and see like oh these jeans are fitting a little bit looser you know than they did in the in the beginning photo or maybe you're in a bathing suit and you're like wow I my waist is kind of uh tacking in a little bit from you know my walk routine and my nutrition routine this is really working and I love doing not only love tracking my weight even if it goes up like I don't care like that's the other thing I just want to go back to tracking the weight for a second even if it goes up I really want you to just take a breath and take a step back because if you that that's why I like people to track their weight every day because you'll see the natural shifts that like you like I am not the same weight every single day even at my very fittest I fluctuate like five to eight pounds like I'm not even kidding you throughout the month that's normal. So it's I want people to see that because we can get in our heads like oh my gosh I gained eight pounds well it's like is your period about to come up did you did you go out and drink like seven cocktails with your girlfriends last night like there's all these different things or like maybe you you know happen to eat I'm just making stuff up these things happened to me and this this is what I have experienced with myself and other people I've coached like maybe you kind of uh stepped back on your dairy a little bit and then for the last week you you know you had milk in your coffee and then you had more cheese than usual and it just kind of made you a little bit more bloated and heavy it's okay it's just good information to have so you understand why you're fluctuating in weight yeah you might be gaining weight because you're overeating but you'll know if you're overeating because you're tracking your weight that you're I'm sorry you're tracking your food and your energy intake. So this is why nutrition is so important and tracking your nutrition is so important. I have an episode called it's number 20 the power of calorie tracking for weight loss it kind of goes deeper into why calorie tracking works I don't talk about um calorie deficit and calculating your calorie deficit in more detail but it is my number one episode of the lifetime of this podcast it is number one it remains number one every single week people download it every single week and listen to it like sometimes that's the first episode they go to and it's the 20th episode. So I highly recommend you listen to that but that's because it is so critical to this process for you to be successful that tracking these things getting to know this data and is my personal strategy for you to understand it and just kind of step back and be like this is just information and I can make positive choices and take the direction of success with this information. Now that you have your chronometer set up in your foam I want you to take three consecutive days this week and track your food. Now I don't want you to worry about eating within your energy target eating over it or what you're eating how much you're eating um I don't I mean you're gonna have to know how much you're or estimate how much you're eating and put it in there but I don't even want you to you know measure stuff get your food scale out I don't even care. I want you to just wing it and be like I think I had a cup of rice I think I had you know four ounces of protein just do your best it might be totally off but the goal of this is to just get in a routine of getting in the app and tracking your food and also kind of taking an inventory of how you're currently eating. And we're doing this without judgment we're doing this one to build that routine of getting the app and also just kind of seeing well what do I typically eat there was that's really good to know because some of that stuff you might really enjoy. We want to make sure we're including many of those things that you enjoy in your upcoming meal planning as we move along this this program together. The next thing that kind of goes along with that is I want you to think about doing a mini meal prep this week. And what do I mean by that? Well a mini meal prep when we're just getting started the what I like to do is I like to recommend that you meal prep snack for the week. So it could be one or two snacks that you're gonna have throughout the day I like to have a snack in the morning and a snack like late afternoon like in between think of like school pickup time you know like your kids are hungry like I get hungry at that same time too so I like to have a snack you know around 10, 1030 3334. And I want them to be simple. This is not a I need all day Sunday to meal prep and buy a bunch of food and containers and things like that. No, I just want you to get in a routine of preparing something healthy for yourself. And that could look a lot of different ways for a lot of different people. It could be as simple as going to Costco and getting the box of protein bars. And you're like, okay, that's my morning snack. That's fine. Or it could be something a little more involved, like apples and peanut butter. You're like, okay, well, I need to cut these apples and I need to have some peanut butter. Again, I don't want you to worry about measuring anything yet. I just want you to get used to having a snack and I want it to be ready for you. So snacks are great because a lot of things are grab and go. Even if it's just a piece of fruit, you're like, okay, bananas and almonds, I can grab those and go. Like it's not this whole involved thing. It's very simple. And so, what are some things that you like to snack on? Think about that. Write down what you want to have for your snack. And I want you to prepare them ahead of time for yourself each day this week. And if you are ready to take this a little further, I would recommend that these snacks are high in protein if possible. So it could be like a protein shake that is pre-made for you. Um, you know, you can go to Costco, you can get boxes boxes of them. You just grab them, like I said, the protein bars. Or it could be individual yogurts and, you know, fresh fruit. It could be um, these are some ideas about high protein stuff that I like to have. I like to do a sliced deli turkey from direct from the deli. Our deli here, one of our delis does like a fresh roasted turkey rust every day and they'll slice it up for you. It is so good. I love having, you know, a few slices of that with some, you know, bell peppers that I slice up. Really high protein, or maybe it's trail mix, or maybe it's um, I don't know, maybe you had leftover chicken a couple nights from dinner. So you could, you know, portion that up and just have that as a snack. But it doesn't have to be any of those things. You're like, I hate all of that stuff. I don't want it. I want you to think about what you like. Um, get in into Chat GPT or Google and and and research high protein snacks. Tell it what you like to eat. You use Chat GPT or Grac, you guys. It is so helpful. Tell it like, these are the things I like to eat. I'm looking to make some high protein snacks, just one or two options for the week that are easy for me to make. I'm a busy mom. Tell it everything about yourself. What are some ideas? Tell it to make it a brief list for me of what I could do that's fast, simple, and that can easily track in my calorie tracker. That is a hot tip. Do not forget that I just told you that. It will save you so much time and brain power that you're gonna be like, I can't believe I've never done this before. Go tell your friends. That might be the most helpful thing I told you all day. No, I don't think so, but like, don't overthink it. Like for me, it's like I have I I got I shop mostly at Costco. You guys, I have these two teenagers, you know, we're a family of four, it's very cost effective. And I get uh pre-made protein drinks. So those are already the portioned out, they're 30 grams of protein. I have that, that's one of my snacks. I go back and forth between having a protein bar every day. I don't usually do that. My other snack is usually like a fruit or a vegetable with, you know, like I said, I do turkey or um sometimes I do yogurt and fruit. But I I really like the idea of think you thinking about high protein, whole foods if possible. Like I said, I use I do prepackaged foods, like I'm no hate. Um and how you can get in some fruits and veggies throughout the day. Snack time is a great time to get fruits and veggies because, like I said, I can grab a banana, I can grab an orange. I eat an able, a naval orange pretty much every day. The big oranges, it is so filling, it's so good for you. It tastes good. Um, I can just grab it and peel it. Like there's not this whole involved thing going on. So this week is you starting to think about how you're going to look ahead, plan healthy meals for yourself in the snack space. This is not a big meal prep situation. It's gonna be very simple. So that is your first step in preparing healthy meals for your stuff. So you're doing that this week. All right, our final topic today is this is a this is a robust episode. So thanks for sticking with me here. Um, is hydration. Everyone asks me, well, how much water should I drink? The real answer is, well, that depends on how much you're doing for the day. So are you going on like a 10-mile hike where you're gonna need a lot more water than you do when you're sitting at work typing for eight hours, doing absolutely nothing. But as you are walking probably a little bit more than usual, you probably need a little bit more water. As you're gonna start strength, strength training as we go on. Same, you're gonna need a little bit more water. What I like to do personally, I have a goal of a hundred ounces of water a day. I hardly ever hit that goal, but I work towards it. And the way that I do that is the following. When I wake up in the morning, I down a glass of water. Every time I have a meal, I drink water. And that doesn't mean that I don't have other types of beverages throughout the day. Obviously, I drink coffee for sure, but I always drink water first before I have my coffee. And if you're someone that's a heavy energy drink person, you're a soda drinker, you are like, I don't like plain water, you know, get some ideas about flavoring your water with fresh fruits. I like cucumber, lemon in my water. I mean, it is so refreshing. It's like you're at the spa. Um, you can put like strawberries and pineapple like into your water and it fuses the water with those flavors. It's really delicious. But the easiest way to do that is just okay, you're like, I'm eating something, I'm gonna have a glass of water. And then the other way that I do that is I always have a water bottle with me. So if you remember back in week one, there's a checklist, your get ready checklist. On that checklist is have a large water bottle. I used the Stanley Cup as an example because of the size. You don't have to get a branded Stanley cup unless you want to, but I just want you to have an idea. I think they're about 30, I think those are 32 ounces. There might be a little bit more than that. But I have a 64-ounce Hydro Flask. It's a generic hydro flask that I got on Amazon, and I just fill that up and I drink off of it all day. So not only am I having, you know, glasses of water throughout the day, I'm just kind of sipping on this giant jug of water throughout the day. Look, I track it in my chronometer. Sometimes I hit my goal, sometimes I don't. And depending on your body size and again, your physical activity, the water, the amount of water that you need is unique to you. So I, you know, the standard recommendation, and we've heard probably since we're little, right? 64 ounces. Maybe that's your goal because most people really aren't getting enough water anyway. And something else is we just talked about eating more fruits and veggies. As we increase our intake of fruits and veggies, well, there's a ton of water in, you know, especially if you're eating like a raw fruit or veggie, there's so much water in there that you're getting that water from those things as well. So a lot of different strategies here. The goal I want you to take away from this is for this week at least, is if you are if you are not a water drinker right now, some people are very into water, and this is not hard for them. If that's not you, I want you to use those tips. Like when I wake up, drink water. Before I have my coffee, I'm drinking some water at every meal, even with your snack. I want you to grab some water. And look, if you don't finish the glass, that's fine. You're just working to get more plain water in throughout the day. It is going to make you feel a thousand times better. Your skin is gonna start to glow. You're gonna have more energy. I mean, water, it is life, you guys. Literally. So it again, I'm not into this hard and fast thing, like just do your best. You know, maybe you like to have a soda with your lunch. Can you have a bubble water, you know, bubbly water, sparkling water instead, you know, a few times a week. Um, or I know a lot of people are soda drinkers like morning until evening. Where can you cut out soda? Can you have soda, you know, at lunch only? And then around it, can we have water only? So think about what works for you. And one final hack is I always have water in my car when all when at all possible because we're in our cars a lot, especially as busy moms. And so, you know, anytime I stop at the stoplight, I can drink the water. You know, if I'm commuting somewhere, I can just sip on my water. You know, you're just sitting there doing nothing. Yes, you will have to go to the bathroom more. You're going to notice that. Um, but that's not a bad thing. You're gonna get up and get more steps while you're going to the bathroom. But again, don't make it this complicated thing. I'm not gonna give you a hard and fast number. I can't. I just don't think that's appropriate. So just, you know, I like to start with the 64 ounces. That's the standard recommendation. My personal goal for people is work towards a hundred ounces, but you just you might not need it. You might not need a hundred ounces of water um every day. So it's a goal that you're working toward, working towards. And just in general, I just want you to think about getting more plain water in throughout the day. That's really it. Um, when we get into strength training, I'm gonna really encourage you to like drink a lot more water because you're gonna you're gonna need it. You're gonna, you're gonna just crave it anyway. So it'll be pretty easy to to include uh more water as we get into more physical exertion in our strength training. So, you guys, you have seven days to do all of that. And the majority of what I talked about today is how we utilize the app. So just get in chronometer, play around with it, get to know, you know, where you know, the food diary. There's a little plus button like adding, how do you add food? There's like 30 different ways to do all the things. So just uh, you know, push the buttons, play around, um, play around with the food scanner and get used to using that. Um, get into your profile and like where do you put the your weights? How do you get into, you know, putting in the photos? Just play around with the app and get used to it. And then we want to work on tracking your food without judgment for the next three days. Something I just want to share. Something that happens when my clients do that that exercise is that they they end up without really thinking about it, eating healthier than they typically do, which is great. I love that. But if you don't, if that's not you, it's fine. Remember, I just want you to get used to the routine. And also, I just want, like I said, I want you to capture what you typically eat right now because there could be some things that we do need to really consider reducing. Um, depending on how it's making you feel. I might ask you to, if we were working together, I might say, hey, we really need to think about eliminating this. I don't like saying that, but if it's not making you feel good, I don't want you having it because I want you to feel good throughout this process. But again, track your food for three days, no judgment. I don't care what you eat, could be McDonald's, four, four meals a day. I don't care. I just want you to get it in there, get used to getting into the app, make a plan for your snacks, and feed yourself that healthy, high protein fruits and veggies snack a couple times a day. And I want to know what is your snack going to be? Get into the YouTube comments, let me know what you've decided on your snack so other people can get ideas. I want to cheer you on too, because this is a huge step in cleaning up your nutrition, creating that smart nutrition routine that you're going to build and get so good at as we go on through this process together. And finally, we just talked about this at length. We're going to work on increasing our plain water consumption throughout the day. All right, you guys, that was a lot. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this whole time today. This was a long episode, and I'll catch you on week three. Don't forget, if you haven't already, get into my YouTube channel. Make sure that you subscribe. Share this episode with a friend that helps me out so much. If you have questions, leave them in the YouTube comments or send me an email at hello at thehealthhobby.com. Catch you on the next episode.

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But I'm not your doctor or your personal health guru. Before diving into any nutrition or fitness plans I talk about, make sure to check in with your healthcare provider. They know your body best. Think of this podcast as your cheerleader in a place for healthy living idea inspiration, not your prescription pad. Stay safe, stay smart, and let's crush those goals together. Until next time.