267: Why Putting Yourself Last Is Making Your Health Worse

You know what to do. Eat the vegetables. Get to bed earlier. Move your body. You've known it for years. So why does it keep falling apart the second life gets hard — or honestly, even when it doesn't?

In this episode, I'm making a case that might surprise you: the reason your healthy habits keep falling apart has almost nothing to do with food, and everything to do with how much you believe your own needs matter. Not in a therapy-speak, abstract kind of way. In a very real, very practical, happens-at-the-dinner-table kind of way.

We're talking about the connection between putting yourself last and why your health keeps sliding - and what it actually looks like to start changing that. Not with a bigger, better plan. With something much smaller, and honestly, much more powerful.

This one might make you see your health struggles in a completely different light. Give it twenty minutes.

Free Quiz: Still saying "I know what to do, I just don't do it"?  You don't need more information. You need to know why you're not applying the information you already have. This free quiz identifies the exact reason your healthy habits keep breaking down, and it's not willpower. 15 questions. 3 minutes or less. 4 possible patterns. 1 honest answer. 

Go to https://elizabethsherman.com/quiz

If you’re a woman in midlife who wants better health without obsessing over weight, you’re in the right place. I’m Elizabeth Sherman, a life and health coach and host of the Total Health in Midlife Podcast.

After coaching hundreds of women, I know the real problem usually isn’t “not enough information” – it’s too much of it, and not knowing where to start. With close to 300 episodes, this show can feel that way too.

To make it easy, I created a free Listener’s Roadmap that helps you figure out which episodes are right for you right now. Tell me what you’re struggling with – low energy, emotional eating, stress, sleep, exercise, or all of the above – and I’ll point you to a curated path of episodes and resources to get you moving.

Download your free roadmap at https://elizabethsherman.com/roadmap.

Transcript

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So here's something that nobody in the health and wellness space is talking about. The reason that you can't stick to your healthy habits has absolutely nothing to do with food. And it has nothing to do with your metabolism, your schedule, or the fact that you haven't found the right plan yet. It has everything to do with how much you believe your own needs matter. And now I know that that might sound like a stretch, but stay with me for the next 20 minutes because what I'm going to share with you today reframes the entire conversation around health in a way that if it lands the way that I hope that I think it's going to land, it's going to change how you see yourself. Not just your health, but you yourself. We're going to talk about why the hardest part of getting healthy isn't the food or the exercise. It's the moment right before you say, This is what I need out loud. And everything in you wants to take it back. We're going to talk about what's actually happening when your habits fall apart. And I promise you, it's not what you think. And we are going to talk about what it actually looks like to build the kind of self-trust that makes healthy habits stick, not because you finally found the right motivation, but because you finally started treating yourself like someone who is worth showing up for. Today's episode is for the woman who knows exactly what she needs to do and still cannot make herself do it. Now, if that's you, do not skip this. Welcome to the Total Health and Midlife Podcast, the podcast for women over 40 who want peace with food, ease in their habits, and a body that they don't have to fight with. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Total Health and Midlife Podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and I am really glad that you are here today because I am talking about something spicy. So today I want to talk about something that doesn't get brought up enough in health and wellness. And honestly, when I first made this connection myself, it kind of made me pause. We spend so much time talking about what to eat, how to exercise, when to sleep. And all of that totally matters. I'm not dismissing any of it. But I think what we're really missing is a big piece of the puzzle. And that missing piece is the reason why so many smart, capable women know exactly what they need to do and still cannot make themselves do it. Here's what I mean. When you decide to take your health seriously, like really seriously, not just I'll start over on Monday, but something uncomfortable starts to happen almost immediately. You start realizing that taking care of yourself requires you to start saying things out loud and advocating for yourself that you have never done before. So things like, I have to go to bed, I need to leave, or that restaurant doesn't really work for me. Or the one that will absolutely get you some side eye at the dinner table, I'm going to bed at nine o'clock. And what I've found both in my own life and in working with hundreds of women is that the hardest part of getting healthy isn't the food. It's not the exercise. It's the moment right before you say one of those things out loud when you feel the pull to just go along with what everyone else wants because it's easier, because you don't want to make it weird. Because honestly, who are you to have needs? That feeling, that little internal negotiation and do just before you put yourself first, that is what we are talking about today. Because I think your health and your sense of self-worth are more connected than most people realize. And I think that once you see the connection, the way you think about your health and about yourself starts to shift in ways that make it actually stick. That's what this episode is about. Now, I want to ask you something, and I want you to really think about it. How many times have you started a health goal, a diet, an exercise routine, a plan to stop eating after dinner? And it worked for a little while and then it just didn't. It petered out or whatever happened. And when it fell apart, what did you tell yourself? Now, if you're like most women that I work with, you told yourself some version of, I have no willpower. I am lazy. I just can't stick to anything. Maybe you figured that you hadn't found the right plan yet. Maybe you told yourself that you would try again starting Monday. Maybe you just quietly filed it under things that work for other people, but not for me. Here's what I want to offer you today. It's not the plan. It was never the plan. The reason your healthy habits keep falling apart has very little to do with food and everything to do with how much practice that you've had putting your own needs on the list. And for most of us, women in our 40s, 50s, and 60s, that number is embarrassingly low. Like I want you to think about it. From a pretty young age, most of us were rewarded for being agreeable, being the nice girl, being low maintenance, for not making a fuss. We learned in a thousand small ways that keeping the peace was more important than saying what we actually needed. We saw it modeled for us by the adults in the room, that other people's comfort and needs and opinions and wants come first, that a good woman doesn't inconvenience anyone. And so we got really good at it. We got good at eating what everyone else is eating, even when it doesn't work for us. We got good at staying up late because everyone else wanted to stay out and we didn't want to be a wet rag. We got good at ordering the thing on the menu that doesn't blow up our digestion because we don't want to be the difficult one at the table. And every single time we do that, every single time we override what we need in favor of what someone else wants, it does something to us. Now it's not something big, it doesn't feel like this big deal in the moment, but it becomes this tiny tear, like when you snag a piece of fabric and it's such a small pull that you almost don't notice. But you do it enough times, and eventually the whole thing unravels. That's what happens to our self-advocacy. These micro tears, one after another over years, over decades, and slowly, quietly, they add up to a belief that your needs are not important, that you are not important, that it's easier and maybe even a little bit more virtuous to just go along with what everyone else wants. And then you wonder why you can't stick to a health goal. Well, of course you can't. You've had no practice sticking up for yourself. Health requires that skill constantly, it requires you to say, I need this and mean it. Even when someone else is disappointed, even when it makes things awkward, even when the voice in your head is telling you that you are being selfish, and that is a skill. It's not a personality trait that you either have or you don't have. It is a learnable, buildable skill. And your health, the small daily, unsexy decisions that you make about food and sleep and movement, is actually one of the best places to practice it. That's the reframe that I want to offer you today. So let's get a little bit personal here for just a second. When I started getting serious about my health, and I mean really serious, not just I'll have salad for lunch, serious. I was living in Mexico. So this was actually relatively recent, which, if you've never been, is a culture where dinner happens late and people stay out until two, five, six in the morning. And saying no to food or drink that someone offers you is basically a social cry. And my partner and I had a whole life built around a certain kind of togetherness. We'd go out for dinner on Saturday night for pizza. We'd go out drinking, we'd stay up late, indulging in all the things together because that's what we did. That was us. So when I decided that I needed to prioritize my bedtime, go to bed at nine, eat earlier, limit my alcohol, change my relationship with alcohol, and then get up the next morning to exercise. I wasn't just changing my habits. I was changing the terms of our relationship. And nobody warned me that that was going to happen. It was uncomfortable. The first few times I said, I need to go to bed, I felt guilty, like I was abandoning someone, like I was being a bad partner, a bad friend, a bad guest. There was this very specific discomfort of being the person at the table who was suddenly not adhering to the rules, who is different, who had means, who wasn't just going along with the plan. And here's the thing that I noticed nobody was doing anything wrong. My partner wasn't trying to sabotage me. My friends were not being malicious. They just wanted what they wanted, which is what people do. People are generally speaking pretty focused on their own preferences. If I always said yes to pizza, of course, my partner was going to want pizza. That was the deal that we had. I was the one who was changing the terms of the contract. And changing the deal felt terrible at first because it meant accepting that sometimes the people that I love were going to be disappointed in me. And I had spent a very long time making sure that that did not happen. But here's what I started to notice slowly over time. Every time I kept the commitment that I had made to myself, every time I went to bed when I said that I would, every time I chose the restaurant that worked for me, every time I left the party early because I had to work out the next morning, something shifted. And not in my body. It was about how I felt about myself. It was like each one of those small decisions was a vote, a vote that said, you matter. Your needs are real. I am someone who is worth taking care of. And I want to be really clear here because I think that this is the part that gets misunderstood. This had nothing to do with my appearance or how I looked. I wasn't doing any of this to lose weight or to fit into something or get a certain number on the scale. I had thrown my scale out at this point. I was doing it because I wanted to feel better, because I was investing in the version of me that was going to show up tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, 10 years from now. That distinction matters more than I can tell you. Because when you tie your health to your appearance, you are always at the mercy of your mirror. Some days it'll tell you what you want to hear, and some days it absolutely does not. And your motivation lives and dies by that. But when you tie your health to how you feel about yourself, to the fact that you are someone who keeps promises to herself, that is something that nobody can take away from you. I remember being younger and looking at women who took care of themselves, who ate well, who exercised regularly, who went to bed at a reasonable hour. And honestly, I judged them. I thought that they were boring, uptight, not fun. And I realized now that what I was actually feeling was insecure. Their self-respect made me uncomfortable because it was far from where I was. We just weren't operating at the same frequency, at the same level. And that wasn't their problem or fault. It was all me. And if you have ever felt that way, if you have ever rolled your eyes at someone who ordered the salad or skipped the wine or left the party early, I'm not judging you for that. I totally understand. But I'd also gently ask, what was that reaction actually about? Because sometimes the things that bother us most in other people are the things that we want for ourselves. Now, here's where I'm going to say something that is going to sound completely counterintuitive. And I need you to stay with me. Starting small is not the answer. I mean, it is, but not for the reason that you think. And if I don't explain the reason why behind it, it's just going to sound like another piece of advice that you've already heard and ignored, which, fair enough. So let me back up for a second. When most women decide that they are going to get serious about their health, they go big. They sign up for the gym, they commit to going five days a week for an hour at a time. They overhaul their entire diet on Monday. They download the app, they buy the groceries, they set the alarm, they go all in, usually from a standing start of doing basically nothing before. And for about two weeks, sometimes maybe three or a little bit longer, it works. They're doing it, they feel great, they're proud of themselves. And then one day they're exhausted or they're traveling or work blows up, or they're just not feeling it, and they miss a day. And then they miss another. And then it's been two weeks and they haven't been back to the gym. And now it feels too awkward to go back. So they just don't. And then comes the familiar story. I have no discipline. I knew I couldn't do it. I never follow through. Does that sound familiar? No, here's what's actually happening. It's not a discipline problem, it's a setup problem. They set themselves up to fail by biting off more than any reasonable human could sustain. And then they blame themselves for being human. That is an all or nothing trap. And it is absolutely brutal because every time you go through that cycle, the big launch, the crash, the self-blame, you add another layer to the story that you can't be trusted to follow through on your own commitments. And that story, that is the thing that is actually keeping you stuck. So when I work with clients and we're building an exercise habit, for example, I tell them we are going to start so small that it feels almost insulting. I want you to put your shoes on. I want you to walk to the end of the driveway, and then I want you to walk back. That's it. Every day. And without fail, every single client will look at me like I have lost my mind and say, Elizabeth, that is not going to do anything. It's not going to get me to my goal. That's not going to get me my results. And I say, maybe that walk is not going to change your body. But the point is, is that I want you to commit to yourself and follow through. I want you to set a commitment and keep it. I want you to be someone who does what she says she's going to do, even on the days when she's tired, even when it's raining, even when life is a complete mess. Because here's what that tiny walk is actually building, right? It's actually building self-trust. Not fitness, not weight loss, but self-trust. And self-trust, when it comes to your health, is everything. It's the thing that makes the difference between a woman who keeps starting over and a woman who trusts herself to keep going, even imperfectly, even slowly, even when the results aren't dramatic yet. Because when you consistently show up for the commitment that you made to yourself, even a tiny, embarrassingly small commitment, your brain starts to receive a different message. Instead of I never followed through, it starts to hear, actually, you know what I do. And that shift, that tiny, quiet shift in how you see yourself is worth so much more than any workout you could have ever done at the gym five days a week for two weeks before burning out. The small habit isn't the destination. It's the proof. Proof that you are someone who can be trusted. Proof that when you say you are going to do something for yourself, that you mean it and you actually do it. Proof that your future self, the one who's going to be living in this body in five years and 10 years, is someone that you actually care about enough to show up for today. And once you have that proof, once you have a week of it and then a month of it, you can actually build on it gradually and in a way that actually folds up when life starts to get messy and hard, which it will because it always does. So let's talk about what self-trust actually looks like in practice. Because I think that self-trust sounds like one of those therapy adjacent buzzwords that means something a little bit different to everyone and practically nothing to most people. So I want to make it concrete. There are three parts to building the skill of self-trust. That's it, just three. The first one is setting yourself up for success. And I don't mean that in a motivational poster kind of way. I mean it literally. Before you make a plan, I want you to ask yourself given my actual life, my actual schedule, my actual energy levels, what is the thing that I have a 90% chance of actually doing? Not what should you be doing, not what did you do when you were 35 and had more time and fewer responsibilities. What can you genuinely, realistically do right now, this week, in the life that you are actually living? Because most of us make health plans for an imaginary version of ourselves who has unlimited time, perfect energy, and no one is ever asking anything of her. And then we are shocked when we cannot execute it. So the first act of self-trust is making a plan that is honest, one that respects your real life instead of punishing you for actually having a life. The second part to building the skill of self-trust is follow the plan. Now, here's the thing: when you've done the first part right, this part is actually really easy. I mean, it's not easy necessarily, but it's simple because you're not white knuckling your way through something that feels difficult. You're actually doing something that you set yourself up to do successfully. And when you follow through, even on the small thing, even on the walk to the end of the driveway, something really interesting starts to happen. You start to feel grateful. There's just this quiet, low-key appreciation for yourself. I feel it all the time now. I will open my refrigerator and there's food in there that I actually want to eat. Vegetables, something that I prepped earlier in the week. And I feel genuinely grateful to the version of me who went to the grocery store, who made the list, who bought the things and put them away and prepped them. She did that for me so that I didn't have to struggle. She knew that I was going to be standing here tired and hungry, and she took care of it. And that is not a small thing. That is what self-love actually looks like. It's not bubble baths and affirmations and running through fields of daisies saying, I love myself. It's the woman who stocks the fridge so that her future self doesn't have to scramble. It's the woman who goes to bed so her future self wakes up feeling like she's refreshed. It's the woman who plans ahead so that her future self doesn't have to make hard decisions when she's already depleted. Your future self is a real person. She is going to be living in this body, in this life, dealing with the consequences of what you decide today. And when you make decisions from that place, from genuine For who you are going to be, but following the plan stops feeling like discipline and starts feeling like self-care. It starts feeling like self-love. Which brings me to the third part. And honestly, for a lot of women, this might be the hardest one. But don't be a jerk to yourself when the plan doesn't go perfectly, because it won't. Life is gonna happen. You will miss the workout. You might have a bad night's sleep. You'll eat the thing. You'll go to bed two hours later than you planned because something came up. And you know what? That's just how it is. But when that happens, the move is not to spiral and to judge yourself. The move is not to decide that the whole thing is ruined and that you might as well start over next Monday. The move is to look at what happened, honestly, without self-blame, and ask, what got in the way? And what would I do differently next time if all things were equal? That's it. That's the whole third step. Just looking at our past behavior through the lens of curiosity and evaluation, not judgment and condemnation. Because here's what I know after years of doing this work. The women who make lasting change are not the ones who never slip up. They're the ones who know how to recover quickly, who can have a hard week and get back on track without needing to burn the whole thing down and start from scratch. That is a skill. And like every other skill that I've talked about in this episode, you build it by practicing it over and over again in small moments until it becomes the way that you operate. You set yourself up for success, you follow the plan and be kind to yourself when life gets messy. That's the loop. And every time you go through it, you trust yourself a little bit more and more. So here's what I want you to take away from the episode today. Your health is not the goal, it's the vehicle. The goal is a woman who knows what she needs and is willing to ask for it. A woman who can disappoint someone else without making it mean something about herself. A woman who makes a commitment to herself and keeps it, not perfectly, not without struggle, but consistently enough that she trusts herself. A woman who, when she looks at her own life, can see evidence that she matters to herself. That's what we are building here. And health, the food, the sleep, the movement, the going to bed at nine o'clock when everyone else wants to stay out. That's just where we practice it. Because here's the thing about low stakes moments. They're actually not low stakes. Every single time you advocate for what you need at the dinner table, you are practicing for the conversation that you need to have at work with your boss. Every time you keep the commitment that you made to yourself about exercise, you're building the muscle that you need to keep the harder commitments. Every time you choose your sleep over someone else's preference, you're reminding yourself in the most concrete physical way possible that your needs are real and they count. None of this is about how you look. I want to be super clear about that. I'm not standing here telling you that if you lose weight, that you will love yourself more because I've seen that movie and it does not end that way. This is not about your appearance. It's about your agency. It's about the quiet internal experience of being a woman who shows up for herself. And if you are sitting with this episode right now and thinking, okay, I get it, but I still don't know why I can't make myself do it, I have something for you. I made a quiz. It takes about three minutes. And what it does is help you to figure out the specific pattern that's getting in your way because it's not the same for everyone. Now, some women struggle with all or nothing thinking. Some women are great at starting and terrible about continuing. Some women do great when life is calm and fall apart the second life gets stressful. Some women honestly just haven't learned to believe that they're worth the follow-through yet. The quiz helps you to figure out which one is your identity. And once you know that, you're not just guessing anymore. You know what to work on first. So you can find the quiz at elisabethsherman.com/slash quiz. I will put the link in the show notes. It's free, it's fast, and your results go straight to your inbox. Now, if you've ever thought I know what I need to do and I still cannot make myself do it, that quiz was built for you. So thank you for spending time with me today. That's all I have. Have an amazing day, and I will talk to you next time. Bye-bye. Hey, before you go, if you are someone who says, I know exactly what I should be doing, I just don't do it. Hey, if that's you, I made something for you. It's a free three-minute quiz that gets underneath that exact problem. Not to give you more information, but to show you the specific reasons why you your but to show you the specific reasons your follow through keeps breaking down. Because it's not the same for everyone. And once you can see your pattern clearly, everything else seems to change. Head to elisabethsherman.comslash quiz. It's free, it's fast, and it's honest.