9 Habits I Swapped to Transform My Body Composition & Relationship With Food

If you feel like you’re constantly stuck in the cycle of under-eating, overeating, saving calories for later, obsessing over food, or doing everything ‘right’ but still not getting the toned, healthy body you want… this episode is for you.

In this episode, I’m sharing the 9 habits I personally had to change to completely transform my body composition, improve my metabolism, build muscle, and heal my relationship with food after years of dieting, restriction, food guilt, and all-or-nothing thinking.

We’re talking about:

•  why constantly chasing fat loss can keep women stuck 
•  the habit that fueled my nighttime/stress overeating (& how I stopped it)
•  why building muscle changed my physique more than dieting ever did 
•  learning to stop fearing carbs and food 
•  healing food obsession and binge/restrict patterns 
•  why your scale weight does NOT tell the full story 
•  how to stop viewing workouts as punishment 
•  eating to fuel your body instead of shrink it 
•  creating a healthy lifestyle that actually feels sustainable 

If you’ve been trying to lose fat, get toned, improve your relationship with food, or feel healthier and more confident in your body without extremes, I think this episode is really going to resonate with you.

Links to my Macro Guide Nutrition Framework and Macro Count (where I help set your macros for you) are in the show notes below: 
https://lainijojo.com/macro-guide 

Like more content like this? 🕊️ 
Instagram: @lainijojo
YouTube: lainijojo 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Her Revival, the place where we talk about how to build a strong body, a strong mindset, a healthy relationship with food, and a lifestyle that helps you become the best version of you. Today I'm sharing nine of the habits that I swap to transform my body composition and my relationship with food. Because diet culture really just did a number on a lot of us, didn't it? I grew up hearing burn more, eat less, that skipping meals was not only okay, but actually a great strategy for us women to get the body that we wanted, that carbs were the absolute devil and would make me gain fat, that smaller is always better, and that you should do just basically pursue getting smaller and seeing the scale go down at all costs. So I spent so many years restricting and trying to burn as many calories as I could, being so afraid of food and seeing the scale go up. And man, did my body composition and my health and my relationship with food absolutely pay for it. And luckily, after a lot of trying and failing and stopping and starting over and lots of learning, I found my way back to the right path to finally enjoy and see actual progress on my fitness journey because ultimately I was able to make it a lifestyle that prioritizes my goals and my health. So I wanted to share a few habit swaps that made such a big difference, both in my body composition, so I can now actually maintain a lean body composition pretty easily and finally have a really healthy relationship with food and how I feel my body. And if your fitness journey sounds similar to mine, what genuinely made the biggest unlock for me was finally fixing my understanding of nutrition to finally help fix my relationship with it. And not just learning about calories and how like protein was important because all that really made me do was think calories were something I that they either made you gain weight or that you had to control out of fear, basically. And I wanted to go deeper, I wanted to actually learn about it on a deeper level, how to actually eat for my body, my goals, and heal my relationship with food and exercise and make it a sustainable lifestyle, one where I could actually enjoy what I ate and live life in the body that I worked so hard to take care of. And I didn't have to stress that every little decision would steal any progress that I had made. And learning macros is more than just numbers and understanding how food actually affects your body and not just at surface level, like protein is important stuff, and like it is, but that's a surface level. Like that changed everything for me because for the first time I stopped feeling like I was constantly guessing with food. I finally understood how to eat for my body, how to support my goals, how to build muscle and lose fat without extremes, and how to create a lifestyle that actually felt sustainable instead of obsessive. And I want to be able to give that clarity to as many women as possible. It is, it is the most incredible feeling. So I'll link it down in the show notes, but I created a full nutrition framework that teaches you how to actually understand your body, your metabolism, your macros, and how to eat in a way that supports both your physique goals and your relationship with food. And not in an overwhelming textbook kind of way, but like in a practical and realistic way that actually helps you finally stop feeling confused around nutrition. So if that's something that you've been struggling with, you can check it out in the show notes or at lenyjojo.com/slash macro dash guide. And for today's episode, I want to get really specific on things that I know that you're gonna hear and feel so seen with and relate to. And that you can change literally today to start seeing a change in your body composition and your relationship with food. So it's nine of the habits that I swapped to transform my body composition and my relationship with food and nutrition. And these are also habits that I work on with my one-on-one clients and just literally any woman in my life who comes to me with questions wanting to help with changing their body composition or finally feeling free and in control around food. So the first habit that I used to do that I changed, and it this one was massive for me, and I know so many women do this, is I stopped quote unquote macro hoarding, which is essentially saving all of your calories for later. Like you're hoarding your calories or your macros to eat them later at night. So I was doing this, and why most people do this because I knew that I just had this tendency to go overboard. Like I just could not control myself later in the day. I'd be stressed. It was a long day, just get back from work, whatever was going on. And I just I would just go into this frenzy and I would just eat all the things in the pantry or the fridge. And it was never stuff that really nourished my body, which is okay to eat those things sometimes, but it was every day, and it would get to the point where I would eat and I would just feel kind of sick, full, and I would just sit there and just think, What did I do? Like, why did I do that? And it kept happening every day or at least multiple days a week. And I didn't realize that this was setting me up to feel so hungry and so restricted, not eating all day, because I just knew there was gonna be that inevitable feeding frenzy later. And I would be so hungry and so restricted during the day that I would overeat at night. And during the day, I was then super low energy, especially during my workouts. Like I was really not progressing in the gym because I wasn't eating very much because I had to quote unquote save all that food for later. And I was really, really food focused. I was thinking all day about what I could or couldn't eat, knowing that I needed to save as much for later. And I finally realized I was perpetuating this cycle for myself. By restricting all day, I was making my body so hungry, so deprived of food, so focused in thinking about food, that it was just setting me up to inevitably do this every single day and open those floodgates and make it be this just way bigger than it needed to be. So I finally realized that food is not something to quote unquote save up. It's something to use strategically so your body can actually perform and feel its best. And I was missing that link. I was thinking of food as it was just something that would make me gain weight and I had to control it. And I never thought about that I could use it strategically to actually help me. So now I evenly space my food throughout the day because food quite literally is energy. That's why we eat food. Food gives us energy. That's what calories are, they're a measure of energy. Like miles measure distance, or liters measure volume. Calories measure energy. So food is energy, and I definitely need energy for my brain and my body during the day. And I don't need an insane amount of energy before bed. In fact, that made my digestion and my sleep not good. And then I kind of didn't want to eat in the morning because I'd eaten so much at night and I just my I was bloated. I felt just gross in the stomach, I was super inflamed, and it just perpetuated this cycle. So when I started evenly spacing my food throughout that day and thinking of food as like this energy that I could be strategic to fuel my brain and my body with, my digestion uh improved so much. I did not wake up super bloated and inflamed and puffy and think about food all day. So I now view food as fuel versus just calories that make me gain weight. That was massive. That was a cycle I was in for so many years. And with changing that, like I quite literally will never go back. I will never save all my food to eat later. I will never eat an insane amount of food late at night just because I know how bad it made my body feel. Not even just mentally or about gaining weight, but like it made my body feel so bad. And it also made me food focused. But I just want to treat my body as good as I can now, and that's one of the ways that I really do that. The second habit is I now spend the majority of my year not in a deficit. So I used to, just like how so many women do, spend all year basically chasing fat loss. Maybe I would have a period where I would just be sick of it and I would, you know, stop doing my workouts or my cardio and I would eat whatever and then I would go back into that deficit because it didn't last very long because I felt like I was kind of spiraling and losing control. So I'd spend most of the year chasing fat loss and doing lots of cardio and trying to be in a calorie deficit or eating as little as possible. And honestly, all that day, and especially doing it for as long as I did, it crashed my hormones, crashed my metabolism, which made it so easy for me to gain weight because my metabolism was so slow. Every time I would rebound and eat more, I would gain weight back. Or every time I would stop doing all that cardio, I would gain weight back. And so I screwed my metabolism over. Um, it made me feel so weak in the gym. I could not progress because I wasn't feeling myself. I wasn't building any muscle. So I just felt skinny fat. And I was putting in all this work in the gym and it really didn't look like it. And of course, again, I was still super food focused because I was trying to be in a deficit all the time. I had to think of how can I eat as little calories as possible, which is not a fun way to spend your mental energy, in my opinion, at least. So now this is very different and countercultural than I think even what the diet industry and everything kind of talks about now is I spend most of my year either at maintenance or in a slight surplus to build muscle. So this changed everything. First from a metabolism perspective, because I initially did this to heal my metabolism and actually get it up to a healthier, faster point. Because I wanted to not only get the body I wanted, but I wanted to be able to maintain that eating way more food than I was. I didn't want to restrict the rest of my life. So my metabolism was much healthier and faster. So now at this point, especially with me spending most of the year not in a deficit, part of what I'm doing is building muscle, but the other part is getting my metabolism to a healthy spot. So now for me, my maintenance calories are hundreds of calories higher than they used to be. It's over 2,000. And my deficit is hundreds of calories higher than they used to be, too. And I also finally built muscle because I realized I was chronically in this calorie deficit chasing fat loss all the time. Because I thought that was what was going to give me the toned body. But when I would lose the weight, I still just look skinny fat and puffy and just not how I wanted. And it finally clicked for me that, oh my gosh, I need muscle. Like I need way more muscle than I thought that I did. So I had to spend time actually building that. And now I finally have the toned, lean look that I want with way more muscle than I ever thought that I would want or actually like on my body. And then I stopped feeling so restricted and food focused. And I credit this to being a massive thing that healed my relationship with food because not spending time in a deficit is incredible. I was able to eat way more food. I did not feel restricted. All of the food that I thought was quote unquote off limits because it was just too high calories. I was able to eat those every single day and see my body and my energy and my health just keep getting better. So I could eat honey, I could eat aseebos, I could eat bagels, I could eat eggs with the yolk, I could eat granola, I could eat like trail mix, I could eat all, I could go out to eat and get some pasta or have some pizza. And I didn't have to stress about it because I knew that my body could actually handle it because I got it to a point where my metabolism actually not only could handle that food, but needed that to be able to maintain the muscle and the workouts and all the things that I was using all this energy for. So that freedom and the results that I have now came from fueling more, not less. All right, number three, the habit that I swapped is I started eating more whole foods, not just like diet or quote unquote macro friendly foods. So I don't know about you guys, but I used to live off of protein bars and protein shakes and protein powder, and then those like low-calorie like hacks and like diet foods. Like you mix protein powder with egg whites to make a pancake and put Walden Farm syrup on it, like that kind of stuff, or like the lean cuisine, frozen dinner meals because it said lean in it, so of course it was gonna make me lean, or like all that kind of stuff. And my digestion, let me tell you, first of all, was a mess. And we're gonna go there for a second. You know, when people talk about protein parts, yeah. So you girls struggle with her digestion, that was part of it. Um, and just feeling blocked up and all those things. And when I finally, um, lo and behold, improved the quality of the protein that I was eating. Cause at first I thought it was, oh, I'm just eating too much protein. Oh no, I wasn't eating too much protein. If you eat the proper amount of protein, but it's from a lot of process or low-quality protein sources, so a lot of protein powder, a lot of protein bars, yeah, your digestion's not gonna be happy with you. So when I cleaned that up and I had better brands that I used for it, but I didn't eat it as much, my digestion changed so freaking fast. I was like, oh, okay. Um, I wish someone had told me this years ago because I literally was eating like one to three protein bars every single day, having one to two servings of protein powder, whether it was that was a shake, whether that was in my oatmeal or whatever, my yogurt, was always putting protein powder, protein bars in things because I thought that's what you were supposed to do. Nobody told me that we should limit that. So now I most of my food is whole foods and I focus on nutrients in it as well. And that's the other benefit with the whole foods is I'm actually finally getting all of the nutrients that I need. So when people talk about like you need to eat three to five servings of fruits and veggies a day, you need healthy fats, like there's different types of fats, you need healthy fats, not just fats in general. And you think about those things and you think of okay, fruits and veggies, and let's have fiber in it, and we need enough fiber. And I actually thought of food like that versus just, oh, I need it to be macro friendly. When I thought of like the nutrients that my body needed, and that people don't recommend that, like just for shits and giggles, like you literally need those to have your every single cell of your body function. You need the vitamins and minerals and everything. My digestion, my energy, my cravings, the type of food that my body actually preferred and wanted to have, my inflammation, my hormones, my ability to recover and build muscle and lose that. Like all of those things improved when I started eating more whole foods. And I think the biggest thing here that people noticed is their cravings and their inflammation just like disappear. Like not like literally, but actually kind of. Like, I don't crave those like quote unquote unhealthy foods really ever, because I love the foods that I eat. My body craves the food that I eat because I've been eating like this for so long, and my body knows what it felt like when I didn't eat like this. It did not feel good. So it's a very stark contrast. And when I do have something like that, because every now and again, maybe I have some pizza or I have like things like I'm I'm human, right? I'll have some ice cream, I'll have a cookie because my husband loves treats and loves eating out. So yes, we go on date nights and we do things like that, but I'm still I'm I'm now more intentional with what I order, and it's not from a calorie perspective. Yes, I keep that in mind because my body doesn't need 5,000 calories in a day. That's a lot for my little body to handle. Um, it doesn't, it doesn't need that. But the quality of the food, I'm very intentional with. So if I'm gonna have something that's more fun, I'm mindful, okay, the other foods that I'm eating like throughout this week or this day, I do want those to be foods that serve my body a little bit better. So if the entire day is a little bit more of those fun foods, I'm gonna be a lot more inflamed and just not feel good. My digestion's gonna be off. I know that about my body. So I don't want to eat this food that tastes good, but it makes me feel bad. Or I don't want to eat an amount of the food, let's say I go to eat a pizza and I eat like a whole pizza to myself. I'm not gonna feel good. So maybe it tasted good, but I felt bad and those cancel out. So whenever I'm eating, I'm thinking of okay, most of it is going to be whole food and nutrient dense. And when I have those other more fun things or more processed things or quote unquote less nutrient dense things, I am intentional with how often I have it and how much I have it purely from a perspective I just want to feel good and I want to treat my body good. And that's not very kind to my body to put something in it that makes it feel really bad. Uh, and that has made a really big impact, like I said, on how I look, on how I feel, on how I function, on how I progress, and just the type of foods that I pick. And it's very, it is so easy for me to be able to make these choices with nutrition that really honor my body and my goals because of this reasoning for it, and not from like a fearing calorie or like body composition perspective, which is so super cool. I never, I didn't, I never really thought that that was possible to get to this point. And a another habit here that this one comes up every single week with multiple of the women that I work with with our check-ins, is I stopped letting the scale dictate my mood because I used to let the number on the scale absolutely ruin my day. It was pretty much the sole thing that I based my progress off of. And I had this specific number that I was always trying to get to because I had this like goal weight, and I was like, when I get there, I'll finally feel so good in my body and like I don't know, everything's everything's gonna be amazing. And I had also had this specific number that I was always trying to avoid. And if I saw that number, it would put me into an absolute spiral. But now I understand that the scale is simply just data. It is not the be all end all. It is not what I base everything off of, and especially not how I feel about my body that day. If I see the scale fluctuate, I don't freak out over it anymore. I don't react to it because I understand that I am a human and I'm also a woman. And with a woman, we have our menstrual cycles. And as our hormones fluctuate and change every month, unless you're on like birth control and it's the same. But like your uh your hormones are changing. So when you're in your luteal phase, which is right before your period in that first bit of your period, you are going to be holding a little bit more water, maybe inflammation. And it's very normal to see the scale up about one to two pounds is pretty average. Maybe your body's a little bit different. You can notice those patterns. If you so being a woman, we're gonna have it fluctuate throughout the month. And just being a human, if I'm really sore from a workout, especially from a leg day, your legs are really big muscles. And when we are sore and when we basically beat our muscles up in the gym, they have to recover. And part of the recovery process is inflammation. So now we have inflammation in those really big muscles. Yeah, the scale's gonna be up a little bit, like one to two pounds is again pre-average. If we're really sore after a workout, it's not body fat gain. It also, I wish we could gain one to two pounds of muscle like that fast, but it's inflammation and it's water. Let's say you are finally increasing your carbs. Now your body can store glycogen in your muscles, which is an amazing thing. It's meant to with every gram of glycogen. There's three to four grams of water. So now we're holding that in your muscles. Your muscles are stronger and fueled and hydrated and fuller and they look better. But we see that scale go up from that, not from body fat, but from finally being fueled and hydrated. So if we saw that it went and we base our progress off of, oh my gosh, the scale went up two pounds. I need to cut immediately, pull these carbs back. Well, now we're just shooting ourselves in the foot and going right back. Like that was supposed to happen. So now that I understand those and I can understand the data that's coming from the scale, it helps guide these decisions instead of being emotional and reactive like I used to be. Or if I went out to Mexican food the night before and there's more sodium in it, maybe I had more green and there's alcohol, right? Maybe we ate dinner a little bit later. So I had more food later in the day, there's more food volume in my system. All of those variables would also cause the scale to be up a little bit. Let's say I traveled and I was flying and I'm dehydrated from that, and then maybe my sleep was off because we were on vacation and we like it, maybe some alcohol, the sodium, all those kind of things. I'm gonna come back a few pounds heavier, not because I gained body fat, but because my body is inflamed and holding water, right? Maybe we're really stressed, our cortisol is really high, there's a lot going on. We're holding inflammation, we're holding water from that. If you didn't sleep as well, holding inflammation, holding water. So there's so many variables that are gonna cause the scale to fluctuate. And if I solely base my progress and how I feel about my body, and honestly, if I decide to eat as much or not that day, or if I feel like I need to burn more calories or not that day off of that scale, I'm always gonna be reacting to probably the wrong thing if I'm not actually looking at the it as data. So I now track trends over time instead of single weigh-ins. So I'm looking at, I'll get maybe three scale weights during the week, and I will look at the averages of those. And I can also make note, okay, I weighed myself today, but I'm really sore after legs, and this scales up a pound and a half, and like I'm it's definitely because I'm sore because of legs. So now I'm also able to use that data to see how my body's responding. If I notice, okay, yeah, when I go out to eat and I eat a little bit more than I thought I would, and a lot of sodium, a lot of alcohol, and the scales up a good bit, that's kind of my body communicating with me, like, hey, girl, like we didn't fully love that. And maybe we do something a little bit different next time. Or maybe I'm just like really not sleeping. I'm going through a period of that and I'm really stressed and I'm just not managing it. And the scale is always up a little bit, and I'm really inflamed and I'm holding water, and I can tell that. That's my body saying, Hey girl, you need to take care of me a little bit better. Or maybe it's your cycle's just coming up and we just know our cycle's coming and we don't do anything different about it. We just know that it's happening. So we can use that information objectively versus subjectively to help guide how we want to treat our body and how we want to care for it. Um, and the actually, I don't, the other thing I will say here, I actually don't really focus on the scale. I use it to help just kind of gauge, like I was saying, that, or let's say I'm in a deficit. I do. Want to see that go down not too fast and not too slow or at all. And if I'm in a surplus trying to build muscle in it, like a muscle building phase, I don't want it to go up too fast because I know my body can't actually build muscle that fast. So I'd be gaining a little extra body fat. And that's informing me, hey, I can slow that surplus down a little bit. So I'm using it objectively. But the biggest thing that I focus on is my strength in the gym. If my strength is not going up, I'm not building muscle. Um, I look at either if I take measurements with things, I like to be able to just look at um progress photos. I think that's really helpful to be able to compare those because you look at your body every single day. Like you're not going to notice those differences. But if I can't compare a photo of how I look now to a couple of months ago, I'm able to see, oh, I actually have built a lot more muscle in my shoulders, in my glutes, in my quads. You know, my back has a little bit more detail and definition in it. So I can visibly see those changes. And I'm also able to look at how my clothes fit. Let's say I'm trying to build muscle. How I actually can tell is that I'm on the right track, even without looking at the scale, is okay, my pants are starting to get a little bit tighter on my butt and on my thigh is like, heck yes, that's the goal. I'm trying to build muscle there. Um, and going off of how I feel too. Like, I want to feel good. I don't want to feel inflamed and tired and puffy or whatever weak. I'm going off of how I feel. Like, I care about all of those things I just mentioned more than what the scale says, because no one's ever gonna come up to you and be like, oh my gosh, girl, you look so good. Like your arms are so toned. Like, I see those glutes. How much do you weigh? And they're gonna hear your answer and they're gonna be like, oh, never mind. That's that's not what I thought. You actually don't look good. Nobody gives a crap about how much you weigh. Like, literally, nobody's ever gonna ask that. They're not gonna ask what size you are unless they're just like, oh, we kind of have similar like legs, like maybe that size would fit me. But nobody actually cares. They care about like you look strong, you look fit, you look healthy, you've got energy, like you're repping out pull-ups, whatever it is. Like, that's what people care about. They're like, dang girl, like your arms look so good in that tank top. Nobody cares about the scale. So what I when I stopped caring about the scale like that, whoo was that like a nice little weight off my shoulders. All right, next habit number five that I swapped is I stopped labeling foods as good or bad. I hearing those words are nails on a chalkboard to me. Like, I was so good today, I was so good this weekend, or I was bad this weekend, or I ate that like bad food, or whatever. I'm like, food is not moral. So I used to feel so guilty for eating certain foods, or thought that I quote unquote messed up my progress after one treat because it was quote unquote bad. And that led to the all or nothing cycle being quote unquote perfect all week or for a while and then overeating on the weekends, or what I finally was just couldn't handle all that restriction because I needed to be quote unquote good all the time. And usually, quote unquote, good was like some lettuce and chicken and call that lunch. Like, no. So now I see food on a spectrum. It's not good or bad, it's not black or white, it's not all or nothing. It's on a spectrum. And there are more foods that are more nutrient dense, and that's on one side of the spectrum. That's like our whole foods, our fruit and veggies, lean protein sources, healthy fats, all that kind of stuff, more nutrient dense, not quote unquote good, but nutrient dense, and all these nutrients to help give your body what it needs. And then they're on the other side of the spectrum, they're foods that are less nutrient dense or just a point of nutrients, and they're probably a little bit more of those like fun foods that we think of, like fried chicken or a milkshake or whatever. Both have a place in a healthy lifestyle. You don't have to just live on one end of the spectrum, you get to fluctuate. For me, I decide how often I want to be on one side of the spectrum versus the other. I know people talk about 80-20. I personally like 95, 5, 90, 10, like closer to the hundred. Like I said, I've been eating like this for almost a decade, like focusing on like health and nutrients, and like I tried different things along the way, but intentional about feeling my body. So at this point, it's been so long. I just like how my body feels. Like I just really want to do right by my body and take care of it. So I spend most of my time there, and I'm very intentional when I have more of those fun foods. And I'm not saying that's how you have to do it. I'm just sharing for me personally, that's what I have found helps me feel my best. And really, like I just really value taking care of my body, and that's what I like. So the only quote unquote good or bad that I would ever use with food, and that it would invite you for the only times you would use those words, is if it tastes good or bad. Like if it tastes bad, don't eat it. If you don't like broccoli, don't eat it. Um, or if it makes you feel good or bad. Like for me, like if I eat a bunch of broccoli, like cruciferous vegetables like that, they don't usually digest well for people. So I feel bad if I eat a lot of that food. It's not a bad food, it just for my body, it doesn't digest as good. It makes me feel bad. So I either don't want to eat it or eat as much of it or eat it as often. Uh so good or bad is does it taste good or bad? And does it make you feel good or bad? And we also can think of like the amount that you have. Does it make you feel good or bad? If I have a piece of pizza, I'm fine. If I've got seven pieces of pizza, I feel awful. Not just bad at all. So that's how I kind of gauge uh my nutrition on that spectrum. Okay, habit number six is I view workouts as a way to build muscle, to get stronger, to get more fit, to challenge myself not to burn calories because I I used to live and die by my Apple Watch and the number of calories that it said that I burned, which is, mind you, pretty inaccurate. Uh, so do not base off of those. And also as a side, if your Apple Watch or something tells you that you burned 300 calories in your workout, do not eat an extra 300 calories back because your calorie target or your macro targets already account for how many calories you are burning throughout the day and it's giving you all the energy you need for all the activity that you do. So the 300 calories that you burn in your workout, the quote unquote 300 is not actually 300 because it's inaccurate. Um, but those calories that you burn in your workout, they were already accounted for when you set your targets because you already said, oh, I work out this many times per week. Like it already knew that. So we don't have to eat those back because then it just either takes you out of your deficit or puts you to surplus. So as an aside, I had I had that question in an email the other day, and I was like, let's address that here. Um, but either way, I used to live and die by that Apple Watch or how many calories I burned, or like on the treadmill that I burned a certain amount of calories and I would be chasing that number all the time, or I was gauging it off of how much I sweat. Like if I was like super sweaty and just exhausted and dead and just like just beat my body into the ground, I was like, that was a good workout. No, burning calories and sweating and feeling tired does not equal muscle growth. So, like I used to work at Orange Theory and not like fully throwing shade at Orange Theory, but like I don't, I don't ever recommend that to people, especially with the goal of wanting to like look toned and all the things. Um, but I just thought that if I just felt absolutely exhausted and burned as many calories as I could and was as sweaty as I could, like that was gonna give me the toned body. It wasn't because again, I needed muscle, was the biggest thing I needed, and none of those equate to muscle. Like none of those are a prerequisite for muscle growth to occur, for hypertrubia to occur. And there is lots and lots and lots of literature and research on this to back that. So never ever base it off of that, please. Um, lifting, lifting weights as, and that's my primary form of exercise, because like I said, I that's what helped me build muscle and actually give me the toned look and have a faster metabolism from having more muscle. And I just genuinely love it and enjoy it. Uh and I think I talked about that in the my episode about you know building muscle for women and not getting bulky if you want to hear more about like the strength training aspect and building muscle things. But lifting itself is meant to challenge and build muscle, like challenge your muscles enough to the point where your body says, Oh my gosh, I could not do that, or I could barely do that. That's why we need the struggle reps at the end, like I talked about in that episode. So I need to get stronger and I need to build more muscle. It's not meant to burn calories. Burning calories doesn't make you build muscle. So chasing numbers in the gym. So what I mean by that is like setting strength goals. Let's say I wanted to finally do a push-up, and then I wanted to finally be able to do 10 push-ups, and I wanted to be able to do a pull-up, and then I wanted to be able to do like multiple pull-ups in a row, and then I wanted to be able to squat a certain, you know, number of like a certain weight. I wanted to be able to shoulder press a certain weight for a certain number of reps. Like I would always set goals like that in the gym. And number one, it made the gym so much fun, like being able to go and challenge myself. Like, I that is part of why I love the gym of being able to try to get stronger and like you physically get to see a manifestation of your hard work and your dedication dedication. And no one, you can't buy that, no one can do it for you. It's just you showing up for you, pushing yourself, doing something hard and getting better at it over time and delaying that gratification. And oh my gosh, is it so much sweeter when we finally get that? Because it was delayed and we had to work hard for it. Um, but chasing the numbers in the gym like that versus chasing a number on the scale, that is gonna change your body composition so much better and so much faster. Like, period. Okay, number seven is I finally eat enough before my workouts, and especially my lift day. So I used to train fasted, so meaning I didn't eat anything before, or like very little food. Like, I'd be like a plain rice cake. What is that, like 35 calories and like seven carbs? I was like, perfect, that'll fuel my life day. Yeah, I just wanted to eat as low calorie as possible, so I didn't care. And I also admittedly thought that not eating before my workout would make me look skinnier before my workout. And oh my gosh, it was so not like I just feel do you ever think that you think you think bad on like younger you? And you're like, girl, I'm so I'm so sorry that you thought that. I'm glad you don't now. I'm glad you learned. But what that did was it left me struggling to progress. Like, I remember sitting on the leg extension and I was like going down in weight every week. And I was like, this is not okay. That was finally one of my like the final straws, just like, I need to do something different. This is not working. Like, I am not meant to regress with my workouts like this. Um, but I never felt strong in the gym. I wasn't seeing any change really with muscle growth because I wasn't eating enough, but I couldn't perform in my workouts, despite how consistent I was. And I was super low energy, I couldn't get pumps, I couldn't progress. And it started making the gym just feel like this chore that I had to go and like really wasn't getting anything out of it. And I didn't like that feeling. Like I was like, I'm I see all these people loving the gym and loving lifting and progressing and looking so toned and strong. And I was like, I want that. What am I doing wrong? And it was a multiple, it was a multitude of things, but like this was a big one. So now I actually prioritize eating something before the gym. So I prioritize like 30 to 50 grams of carbs before my workout. So I've got some good energy. Um, and I, as an aside, the carbs that you ate the day before is what actually fills your glycogen stores, which is like the stored carbs in your muscles. So make sure you're eating enough the day before because that's what's actually fueling those muscles, the muscles pull from those glycogen stores or the carbs in your muscles when they're doing the exercise. But actually, eating before gives your body stable energy and blood sugar levels to help you be able to push through, helps you get a pump, um, all that good stuff. So I make sure I eat some carbs before I lift. And then I also try to get some protein in. Like if I can get like 25 to 30 grams of protein is ideal because that's as much as we need for this process to called muscle protein synthesis. Basic synthesis is like making, basically repairing and building new muscle tissue, which is hello, we need that to build muscle and get toned. Um, so we want to get if we can get like 25 to 30 grams of protein. Sometimes it's not quite as much, and that's okay. My overall protein intake is high enough, so we good. Uh, but that's what I try to aim for. And I so I go in actually fueled and good with stable energy to go into my workout. And even like right now, I train a little bit earlier in the day. I've just found that's what works best for my work schedule and just me mentally. And I don't have time to eat a full meal and like digest it because then I go into the workout, just feel it sitting heavy. So right now I'm actually loving, if you know what dates are, like majoule dates, they're first of all, nature's candy, they're like caramel, they're delicious. But I'll eat those, and like one of them is like a little, like you guys can't see me. This is a podcast, but it's like a little nugget, like let it smaller than a chicken nugget from McDonald's. Like it's it's small. But if you have like two of those, that's like 30 to 40 carbs. It depends on like the size of the date that you're getting. But they're tiny, they taste like caramel. I'll put a little bit of cashew butter in there, like almond butter or something, for a little bit of fats to hold me over fat slow digestion, which is a little bit of that is good before you work out, like bug 10 grams. And then I put some protein powder in my little iced matcha latte that I have in the morning. I do put a shadow two of espresso in there. It's like a little dirty matcha situation. It's really good. Um, the snickerdoodle flavor protein from Raw Nutrition is my current favorite. Uh, code PR for physique revival, which is my husband and I's coaching company, uh, saves you if you do want to try that protein powder. It's so bad in that latte or anything. But that is a way that I can get in essentially. That's my one way of saying that. That is my favorite pre-workout little snack right now. I've been doing it for months. It tastes so good, it's so quick to digest, and it actually gives me really good energy before my session. So try that out if you train early. I know a lot of people do, and they're like, what do I eat? You don't have to eat like a big bowl of oats or something. Like something small like that is perfect. Okay, number eight. I, this was a big one. I learned to rest without guilt. So I used to think that more workouts meant faster progress. And I also just struggled with resting in general, which is like a whole other thing with like our nervous system and stuff. But for just from the context of like taking rest days from the gym, I just wanted to work out pretty much every day, as much as I could, do cardio every day, lifting every day. Like I just thought that was gonna, I was gonna progress better from that. I needed to do more. But all that did was burn me out, make me super, super, super inflamed. Oh my gosh. And really just stalled progress because rest is where your body actually repairs and grows. Like we break down and we beat the heck up muscles in the gym, we give them a stimulus. But outside the gym is when your body takes the food that you're hopefully giving it and actually repairs from all that damage that you did during your workout. And if we're not resting, we're doing the damage, but we're not repairing. We don't repair and build in the gym, we build outside of the gym. So now I take rest days very intentionally in my week. And I actually genuinely look forward to them because before I the gym was my whole personality, and I just like was unwell on a rest day. It's like, what do you what do you mean you take a rest day? What do you do on your rest day? Like, what? Like, aren't you gonna lose progress? No, it doesn't work like that. But now my rest days, when people are like, what do you do on your rest day? I don't know that work, or if it's like a Sunday, I don't church and groceries and like see a friend, go to the beach. I don't know, like just I live my life. And I will do like active rest days. So like I always go for walks because I just love moving my body, it's good for it. And if it's nice outside, I want to get outside and I'll maybe train my abs because abs are muscles and we can build those and strengthen your core in general too. Maybe I do those on my, you know, day that I'm not lifting, if I have a little bit more time. Maybe I'm definitely stretching because I don't know about you guys, but I'm like sitting most of the time, and then my hip flexors are tight and my hamstrings are tight, and this is tight and that is tight, and I'm like, I'm not even 30, and I feel like I'm 90 because I'm old and cranky and like tight. So I stretch on my rest days too, but like I'm not actually trying to do anything crazy. Like, I actually just want to take care of my body and let it recover. Um, and it also just helps me get done the other things that I need to in my life, so I'm not feeling like I'm constantly on this hamster wheel, like never getting a second to just like breathe and take care of myself. So I love, I love a rest day now. So I usually take at least one full rest day off of like everything, like I don't do cardio or anything on those days either. And then I usually have one day during the week that's a rest day from lifting, but I still do cardio and abs. Then that off day maybe I do a little bit of abs too. But and I go through phases of maybe it's a really busy season and I lift four times a week. My preference is five. I just love lifting. So, like right now, I do five days a week, and like I said, I've got one complete rest day and then one where it's like an active rest day, and I'm like doing cardio on it. And you don't have to do that. That's just how I structured as someone who loves to lift, but I'm able to balance my recovery with it too. Okay, number nine is a really big one here, you guys. And I know it doesn't sound super sexy, but like it's so important, especially when you understand the science behind all this, you guys. I stopped constantly changing my plan. Oh my goodness. I used to program hop every few weeks and switch things up if I got bored or I jumped back into a calorie deficit if I was scared of gaining weight. But progress from building muscle, let's say, comes from progressive overload, which is we're doing the same movement pattern, the same workouts, long enough to get stronger. So we do a workout, we get closer to failure. Again, I've the whole episode about building muscle talks about that. And then we need to do that same workout, but either get more reps or heavier weight to progressively overload to keep making it a little harder to our for our body. Because if it's hard at first and we don't keep giving that same stimulus, but a little bit, like a little bit harder, like a little bit more weight, a little bit more reps. Our body doesn't have a reason where it's sensing that pattern of, oh, she keeps working out her glutes like that, and she's pushing it harder and harder each week. So I finally adapt and catch up, but then she pushes harder again the next week. So I have to adapt and catch up again. I have to get stronger, I have to build more muscle. That is how we build muscle. We do the same thing and we push our body a little bit harder each time and we progressively overload each time. If you're doing random things all the time, there's no pattern. How do you there's very, very unlikely that your body's actually getting the stimulus that it needs, unless you're a brand new person to lifting ever, and your body will like basically just breathe on a weight and it'll grow a little bit of muscle, like you get those newbie gains. However, I would actually have some structure because you can progress way faster. And those are kind of my favorite clients to work with. Not my favorite, but I love working with clients who are newbies because when we get them started with an actual structure and schedule, holy crap, they changed like in six months. They look like they've been lifting for a long time because they took advantage of the newbie gains doing it right. So don't change your plan all the time. Get a plan and stick with it. Make sure it's a good plan, but stick with it. From like, let's say you want to lose body fat and you're actually in a calorie deficit. If you're changing around all the time, how is your body gonna actually actually be the deficit that it needs to lose weight? If we want to build muscle and you do it for a month and then you finally say, Oh, I feel fluffy, I want to cut, I don't want to eat as much. You did not build muscle. I promise you, in a muscle in a month, you did not build muscle. It does it, like not anything that would you would notice any difference, right? You wouldn't look at the before and after and be like, whoa, we can't build muscle that fast. Unfortunately, our bodies don't work that way. It'd be nice if it did. But if we're constantly changing our plan, whether that's our workouts or what we're doing with our nutrition or strategy and our focus, your body is never doing something long enough to actually adapt to what you want it to. And that's why we're doing all this, is it gives your body a stimulus to adapt to. So you have to do the same thing for a period of time for your body to actually get to that goal that you want. So you have to commit to a goal and follow that plan. So now I focus on consistency. I track my lifts. I personally like a physical like pen to paper notebook. I just have a pen to paper girly in this tech age. Otherwise, you can use an app or something, it works great. But I actually track my lifts. Like I have a set program, I do the same thing each week, and then I track what were the weights that I use and the reps that I got. And each week I try to improve those for each of my sets as much as I can so I can ensure that I'm progressively overloading. Again, that also helps me work towards those strength goals, which makes it really fun to push hard and see progress in the gym. And I'm doing the same movements for that period of time. I'm adding small improvements over time. If I'm in a building phase, I commit to that building phase. I'm doing it for, let's say it's like seven to nine months, is usually as long as I do them. So I actually build a good bit of muscle and I can really see a difference. I don't want to just do it for like a couple months and not really see a change. To me, that just didn't feel worth it. I commit to it and I stay there and I stop, I stopped constantly changing that plan, and my body finally was able to see a phase through and get that result that I wanted to. So, and this is like where that delayed gratification comes from. Like, this is one of the many reasons why your fitness journey and finally committing to doing it right and working with your body and how it works is not only gonna obviously change your body, but change how you think about your body in like a really good way because you're working with it. You're like, Oh, how do I treat my body good and get it what it needs to get to where you want to get to and like feel good with it? But it helps every other area of your life. Like they say your fitness journey is the gateway to personal development. It a million percent is like no one will ever tell me otherwise. And that's why, like, the quick fixes, things like that, like that is not it, because it doesn't get you the body you want, you can't maintain it, and it doesn't teach you any of the things that your fitness journey is meant to teach you that's gonna help you be able to, yeah, reach those goals, but maybe like for me, quit my job, start a business, like do all the things that I've done, move across the country like multiple times just by myself on a whim, because of the confidence and the delayed gratification and the hard work and the being like seeking out discomfort and pushing through that to get to the other side. I learned all of that, you guys, from my fitness journey, from lifting, from pursuing these goals. It without a doubt shaped me into the woman that I am today. So it is such a shame. It would be such a shame to want to miss all these things or not commit to that process long enough to get to that goal and prove yourself that you can and be able to now believe in yourself enough to do that in those other areas of your life and set these big goals and actions. Actually, achieve them. Like, that's why I'm so passionate about this stuff. And it's not, it's not always an overnight thing to completely swap these habits and just never think about doing the old ones again. Because your brain remembers the old habits and it reminds you of them. Like that's that's normal, right? Like you're changing these pathways, you're changing these habits. Habits are habituals. Your brain's gonna remember them and say, Oh, you always did this habit. Do you want to do it again? I'm gonna remind you. I know you didn't ask, but we just always do, do you want to I'm gonna help you out? We just say, brain, thank you so much. I actually am changing that habit. I want a different one. So I picked a new one to replace it because it's way easier to change a habit by replacing it versus just stopping it. I'm gonna replace it. And that's normal to still maybe have that thought of that old habit sometimes. So my biggest encouragement here is number one, get so clear on your why, like the reason that you want to change these habits because you realize, hey, your current approach is just it's not serving you and it's not getting you the results that you want anyway. So it's so not worth it. And that change can be scary. Like our brains don't love change, that's why it wants to keep us doing the same things, because even if we don't like that outcome, at least it's predictable, right? Like, you're not gonna die. We don't like where we're at, but we ain't gonna die because your brain can't anticipate what's gonna happen with the change, and it's just trying to keep you safe. But we as humans, we're actually meant to grow and do new things and evolve. That's why we have the ability to build muscle, why we have the ability to have our metabolisms adapt, why we have the ability for neuroplasticity, like change your brain and how it works. Like all these things can change. We're meant to do that, we're meant to do new things, we're meant to evolve. Like, we literally evolve. And us as women, especially, like we are basically superwoman. Like, think about this for a second. I'm just in awe of like just women and how we are adult. We were made to handle periods every month, which like don't love that, and to handle pregnancy and childbirth. And then that just I've never had a child, but from what I've just seen and learned, that like year afterwards, oh my goodness, how women survive that and like just take care of the raids and be all the whoa, like women are incredible, and then you're doing all of that and you're taking care of maybe your home or your work or your family or all of the things that you do. Like women are so, so capable. And I'm not saying like do all the things, burn yourself into the ground, like rest, right? Treat your body, right? But like you are so capable of doing hard things. So if it feels hard to change a habit, but you know on the other side of it, like that's gonna get you the result that you want, hear me when I say you can do it. You are more than capable. You just have to, honestly, you just have to believe it that you can. And hopefully me, like all like we are actually made and designed our human bodies, our women bodies to do hard things. You are capable. So if any of these habits stuck out to you, I I just really want to encourage you to pick the one, one that really stuck out. If it feels overwhelming to change multiple, but you're like, I do see the benefit of a couple of those, pick one and do it today and do it for the next week. Give it seven days, right? We're gonna keep doing it after that, but don't think huge, like, oh, I'm gonna change for the rest of my life. Let's just for one day and then we'll one week, right? That's all we're focusing on. You don't need to overhaul everything overnight. So work on building that habit. See the incredible benefits that you get from actually working with your body and with science, right? Instead of against it. And that is gonna build so much confidence and so much momentum for you to tackle another habit. So that is that is all I got for you guys today. I love you so much. I am supporting you. I am in your corner. Thank you for letting me pour into you and share this with you today. If there's anything that you want to chit chat about with this, feel free to message me on Instagram at Laney Jojo. I always include that in the show description. And I hope that you have a phenomenal rest of your day. And now go do something that your future self will thank you for. Bye, guys.