282. The ONE Thing You Need for Success in Weight Loss and Life

Have you ever struggled with making excuses, especially when it comes to your health, finances, or relationships? Or maybe you've been trying to build better habits but just can't seem to stay disciplined?

If so, you're not alone. But here's the good news: discipline is a skill you can develop. 

In this week's episode of the Reshape Your Health Podcast, we're diving into the powerful quote that inspired me to focus on discipline for the year:

"Excuses make today easier, but tomorrow harder. Discipline makes today harder, but tomorrow easier."

In this episode, I’m breaking down why discipline is your secret weapon for long-term success and how simple actions, when compounded, can make a massive difference in your health, finances, relationships, and overall well-being.

🔑 Here’s a sneak peek of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How giving up a $5 coffee habit three times a week could save you $780 per year (and over $7,000 in 10 years).
• The surprising health benefits of swapping out one donut a week (spoiler: you could save 1.38 pounds of sugar a year!)
• How 90 minutes of walking a week (even while working!) adds up to 234 hours of walking in a year—9.75 full days of walking.
• Practical tips for building more discipline in your daily life, whether it’s in your health, finances, or relationships.
• How developing a discipline mindset can change how you tackle long-term goals and set your future self up for success.

Listen to the full episode now and get motivated to take small steps today that will lead to big changes tomorrow.

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Resources From This Episode

>> Insulin Resistance Diet Blueprint - https://www.zivli.com/blueprint?el=podcast

>> Free Low Insulin Food Guide - https://www.zivli.com/ultimatefoodguide?el=podcast

>> Join the Zivli Program Waitlist - https://www.zivli.com/join?el=podcast

>> Test Your Insulin at Home - https://www.zivli.com/testing?el=podcast

Have a question? Email us at: support@zivli.com

Transcript

Morgan (00:00)
because what I found was we've tried a house cleaner in the past and that's great for like 24 hours after the house cleaner cleans and it's all sparkly. But if we didn't have a system to maintain that level of cleanliness, we still weren't very satisfied. That's really what we want is a level of cleanliness, a standard of our environment being clean and organized all the time, not just like once a month when she would come. Hi, I'm Dr. Morgan Nolte, founder of Zivli.

As a geriatric physical therapist, I saw the heartbreaking effects of insulin resistance. At Zivli, our mission is to help you prevent and reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention through a low insulin and inflammation lifestyle. Each week on this podcast, you'll learn simple, actionable tips to lose weight, keep it off and get healthy. If you're ready to create a body and life you love, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Well, hey there and welcome back to another episode of the Reshape Your Health podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Morgan Nolte. I hope that you're having a wonderful week so far. I am coming to you on Fat Tuesday. So the day of this recording is Tuesday, March 4th. Ash Wednesday is tomorrow for those of you who practice the season of Lent. This is a season of kind of self-reflection and preparation. And a lot of people choose to give something up.

during this season. And that can be a practice of discipline. So I wanted to make an episode today just to encourage people who are either giving something up during this season of Lent or maybe adding something, either way it takes discipline. And that is my word for 2025 is discipline. So it's a daily focus for me and I'm excited to share some insights about discipline with you.

And the idea for this episode actually came from my husband who found a quote on Facebook and texted it to me and said, Zivli motivation. And it was so perfect. The quote I think may come from James Clear. I don't really know who said it first. James Clear is the author of Atomic Habits, which is one of my favorite books on habit change. And it said, excuses make today easier, but tomorrow harder.

discipline makes today harder, but tomorrow easier. And I just love that. It's so simple. It's so to the point and it's so true. And I think that it really challenges our kind of cultural attitude of instant gratification and taking the easy way out and not really recognizing the long-term consequences of doing that. So this is a fun topic to dive into today.

when I'm talking about excuses, that's not always my favorite word, because there's a negative connotation to it, that you could use reasons, justifications, I think are a really interesting word to use in place of excuses, because we don't want to admit that we're giving an excuse for something, right? But we can justify our choice pretty well. And think about things like, what are you doing

related to your health, related to your finances, related to your relationships that may be considered an excuse, right? So something that's providing instant gratification or maybe some comfort or relief from a difficult situation or maybe it's conflict avoidance. I think one of my, you know, just personal examples is my husband and I try to be frugal.

when we try to be fiscally responsible. And I know getting a $5 coffee is not in line with that goal, right? But sometimes you're driving by scooters or you're driving by Starbucks and that just sounds so yummy, like a hot latte on a cold day. And so you go against that value of frugality to spend $5 on a coffee drink that you don't need. And you justify it to yourself because, I haven't spent that much money this week or it's not that much, but.

the little things really add up over time. So for example, let's say somebody, maybe you, you have a habit of going to Starbucks or scooters or some coffee shop and getting like a $5 drink three times a week. Okay, that's pretty reasonable, I think, for people who have this type of habit. You're gonna be saving $780 a year by not getting that drink, okay? And then we're not even, you know,

accruing interest or anything like that from saving the money. They're just straight up savings for five years. Even if the price of the drink doesn't go up, you're saving $3,900. And over 10 years, just by giving up that single habit, by being more disciplined about how you're spending your money, you're saving $7,800 over 10 years. Let's use another really simple example. I know that many people listening are

churchgoers and I don't know about your church, but our church always serves donuts. And I always think to myself as I pass by and skip over those donuts, how much sugar would somebody save if they stop this one habit for a whole year? So I looked it up and this is just for a regular size glazed donut. On average, it's going to have 12 grams of added sugar that does not include the other refined carbohydrates from the flour in the donut.

All right, if you gave up one donut a year, okay, if you stop that habit, what you're doing is you're essentially saving around 3.12 cups of sugar from going into your body every year, okay? That's also 1.38 pounds of sugar, added sugar. This next example is pretty cool, especially if you work from home or you have the opportunity to invest.

in a walking pad under a standing desk, okay, because I'm pretty obsessed with mine. I'm being pretty moderate here. So I did the math. And if you were to walk just at a slow pace, two miles an hour at your standing desk for three miles a day, so that would be about an hour and a half of walking. So maybe like three 30 minute walks throughout the day. And you did that just three days a week, not even all five days, okay.

How long do you think that you have walked over the course of a year and how many miles do you think that would be? It's pretty impressive. So if you were to do that simple habit of about 90 minutes a day at two miles an hour for three days a week over the course of a year, you have walked a total of 9.75 days, okay?

234 hours of walking, which is 9.75 days. You've also walked about 468 miles. One simple habit change, you probably won't even notice that you're doing it. And it's so great for your blood sugar, it's great for your energy levels. So if you've been considering getting a walking pad, this is your sign. That little habit will add up to major differences.

in your blood sugar, your insulin regulation, your energy and your overall health and weight management if you keep it up for a whole year. And they may not even be on our radar because your subconscious mind has gotten so used to your own excuses or justifications. But if you really take the time to reflect upon your everyday, every week habits and actions, you're going to gain massive insight and clarity into simple little tweaks that you can make to your lifestyle.

that will add up over time. I wanted to give one more example from a relational standpoint. Like what if you developed the habit of looking your spouse in the eye and saying that you love them and saying something that you appreciated about what they did for you or for the home or for your children or whatever that day. Like what transformation would that single tiny little habit have on your relationship

if those positive affirmations, those loving thoughts and gestures added up over time, probably a pretty big impact, right? The point of sharing all of those examples with you is so that you really recognize and can grasp in your mind visually that small actions do compound over time to create big results and that achieving long-term results in any area of your life, whether it's health,

relationships or finances requires effort today to set your future self up for success. I talk about the future self a lot with our sibling members, and I want you to make choices today that make your life easier tomorrow, okay? Another way to say that is to set your future self up for success. So right now, as you're listening, I just gave you some pretty concrete examples of ways that you can improve your discipline.

and see those compounding results over time. And I want you to consider what is kind of floating to the top of your mind. What's on your heart? What area of your life do you feel like if you could get just a little bit more disciplined in, that would have a really positive effect on your life or your relationships. So think about that right now. Give yourself just a few seconds to reflect on that and kind of put a pin in this conversation.

that you can come back to maybe this evening or tomorrow morning during like a mindset routine so you can journal through some of these thoughts. And I think about this a lot for my children, a lot. Justin and I are very intentional parents and we want our children to have every, know, we want them to be healthy, we want them to be happy, we want them to be responsible. And we also recognize

they will follow in our footsteps. Number one, we have to lead by example. We can only lead others as far as we're willing to go. Okay. And number two, it's our job as parents, not just to model the behavior, but to help shape that behavior in them. And one thing about running a business that I have really valued and a skill that I've been able to transfer from my business to my personal life is

discipline, creating systems, creating processes, and then following those, even if I don't want to, even on the days, you know, if I don't feel like recording a podcast episode, I'm recording a podcast episode because I committed to it. And I have a system around it. Even on the days where I don't feel like shooting YouTube videos, I'm doing it because it's part of my business systems and processes. And so that's part of this discipline of

you do things even if you don't feel like doing it because you know your future self is going to say thanks for doing that even though you didn't feel like it because I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. You probably like 90 to 95 % of the time will not feel like being disciplined. And this is where controlling like developing the discipline of thought I think is the best discipline that you can develop because when you're disciplined in your thoughts, you can speak

back to those feelings and your feelings don't run your life anymore. You can say, yeah, I understand that you don't feel like doing that today, but you've committed to that. And you're a person of integrity. And so you're going to follow through on that commitment, even if you don't feel like it. So it's almost like this discipline of self parenting. And I wanted to give just a really quick example from our own life and some tips on

how you can build more discipline and whatever habit you're committed to, whether that's related to Lent or whether that's just kind of where you're at in your health journey, or if you're focusing on your finances or your relationships, all of these are going to be helpful. So the first tip is to set clear goals and then break down those goals into achievable steps, okay? The second one is to start small. So make the first step very, very manageable.

so that you don't feel overwhelmed. That's one of the reasons the first step in our Zivli habit hierarchy that we teach our Zivli members is a daily mindset routine. It's free, takes no physical effort, takes like 10 to 15 minutes in the morning, and it sets you up for success, hello, for the rest of the day. Now, the third one is to create a routine. So having a consistent schedule can make discipline feel a little bit more automatic. You are gonna be more likely to

For example, exercise if it's at a similar time of day every day. There's a reason that church is at the same time every week because they know if we keep changing the church times, people aren't gonna be coming to church. There's a reason your favorite show is on at the same time every night. So consistency is very important in developing automatic behaviors. Another one is accountability. So that's kind of the fourth little tip. Tell someone about your goals.

and about whatever systems or processes that you're trying to develop so that they can check in with you and hold you accountable. And then the last tip is just be gracious to yourself. Again, there's no such thing as perfection. Just release that, release that attachment to perfectionism. I think that honestly, that's a mask for fear of like not being good enough. And when we can kind of shed those masks of our ego,

It's just so much more freeing to show up, do your best every day, like be thankful that you were even able to do your best, reflect on your wins and not necessarily justify your excuses. It's not like they're gonna go away. Your brain is gonna still come up with like excuses, but you can face them head on and call them out for what they are and take responsibility for your excuses, for your justifications,

so that you can start to move past them and create systems that will reduce the amount of excuses and justifications that you give for not living into the best version of yourself. I'm gonna give you an example from what's going on in our life right now and some systems that we're trying to develop as a family. And the primary one I would say that I'm focusing on is the cleanliness of our home.

Justin and I really like a clean home. We have a six-year-old, a four-year-old, and a newborn on the way. So I recognize that the system that we're working on may get put on the back burner to meet the needs of our infant. And that is not an excuse. That's not a justification. We will still be mindful of the cleanliness of our environment, but the needs of our infant and our rest and our relationship will take precedent for sure.

But the spreadsheet that I made that has been really helpful for me to create the vision kind of cast the vision of the clean house and then break it down into small actionable steps is on just the same spreadsheet. I have daily things that need to get done, weekly cleaning tasks, monthly, twice a year and annually. And then I have on just line items on, know, make the bed, do the dishes, taking the trash out.

cleaning the bathrooms, clean the kitchen, clean the floors, do the dusting, cleaning and vacuuming the car, kind of decided how often do I want something done and then what day of the week am I committed to getting that done if it's a weekly thing. And also just describing the subtasks, like the standard of what done means, which is something that's really important in business that I took to.

our household life because especially as we teach the kids how to clean things, it's important to teach them, okay, what does done look like? What is the standard? Does cleaning the bathroom just involve taking a Clorox wipe to the sink and the toilet? Or does it also include cleaning behind the toilet and scrubbing the floors and doing the dusting and you know, those little things. So getting on the same page with our cleaning standards and schedule has been really helpful in

maintaining a clean environment. Because what I found was we've tried a house cleaner in the past, and that's great for like 24 hours after the house cleaner, you know, cleans and it's all sparkly. But if we didn't have a system to maintain that level of cleanliness, we still weren't very satisfied. That's really what we want is a level of cleanliness, a standard of our environment being clean and organized all the time, not just like once a month when she would come.

And so that's up to us. We don't have it daily made. We're never gonna have that. We don't want that. That's not the lifestyle that we want. And I think just developing those clear expectations and standards on what is my goal for Monday? What is my goal for Tuesday? And then so on and so forth throughout the week to break it up into smaller steps. So for example, Monday is my car day.

So that's the day that I want to wipe out my car and vacuum my car. It's so much easier to keep something clean and like clean it for 10 minutes a week instead of let something get super, super dirty. And then it takes you 30 to 60 minutes to clean it. Cause mentally your brain knows that and it's going to procrastinate more and more and more. So that's why having these like bite sized pieces throughout the week is so much more manageable for us so that we don't

get to the point where our house is a disaster and it looks like a tornado came through and no cleaning crew came after the tornado, which we've had seasons like that in the past, especially after the newborn phase. But I think the point here that I wanted to highlight is we've put in the time to reflect upon what is our goal? What are those little action steps that we can take? Who's responsible for what? So who's responsible for cleaning what? When is...

When is it gonna get done? What is the standard of done? Like not to be too picky, but are we cleaning behind the toilets or not? know, those are things that I think are helpful to talk through, okay? And that's just one lifestyle system. I want you to consider the fact that you could take a similar approach and apply it to your meal planning. So you could say, all right, honey, we're gonna sit down on

Saturday or on Sunday, we're gonna map out our dinners for the week. I'm gonna map out breakfasts and lunches. And then you're creating those little micro steps. Okay, now I'm gonna make my grocery lists on this day. I'm gonna go shopping on this day. I'm gonna actually prepare some of the food on this day. So you can do that with your meal prepping and planning. You can do this with your exercise routine. I love a good like lifting spreadsheet for exercises.

you can sit down and say, how do I want to structure my workouts? This is like the most important part. mean, honestly, the most most important part is actually doing the work. But aside from doing the work, I would say sitting down and reflecting upon your desired outcome and then breaking that down into realistic, manageable bite sized pieces that you can focus on on a daily basis is probably the next most important piece to actually achieving whatever the desired

habit or behavior is. So don't skip this reflection and planning part and process. It is a discipline and it is so worth it. You guys being a person of discipline honestly sets you up for not just a clean environment, but good physical health, good mental health, good emotional health, good spiritual health, good financial health and good relational health.

It all takes discipline and I really want you to be healthy in all areas of your life. So I would encourage you if you have historically had kind of a negative connotation or like a cringy reaction to that word discipline, start to love it, start to embrace it because it is what will help you reach your goals. I really hope that you enjoyed today's episode and that you share it with a friend if you found it inspiring.

and I'll talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to the Reshape Your Health podcast today. To learn more about Zivli, our online course and coaching program to reverse insulin resistance for long-term weight loss and disease prevention, check out our website at www.zivli.com. That's z-i-v-l-i.com.

And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a rating and review on your listening platform and share it with a friend. I'll talk with you at the same time, same place next week. Bye for now.