I feel like I’ve always been on a weight loss journey ever since I can remember I remember being in third grade and wanting to be smaller. I remember looking at my grandma’s shape and magazines and just always wanting to change my body to look like theirs. And I remember being at my high school graduation and being uncomfortable with how I looked at not wanting to be in photos the same thing with my college graduation. So I’ve almost always been on a weight loss journey for the past probably five or six years.

Hello, my friends and welcome to the Fit To Lead Podcast. The question is how can badass women leaders lose stubborn fat, feel amazing in their clothes and never say no to Bikinis again? All without giving up their Fast and Furious lifestyle that they work so hard for? That is the question and this podcast is the answer. I’m your host Natalie Hayes online fitness coach, US Army captain, and formally overweight healthy eater. Because I’ve struggled with weight my entire life. I’ve lived through just about every face you can imagine, from running every day and emptying my wallet on organic food to Bikini competitions and having Tupperware all but chained to my wrist to trying to lose weight while traveling around the world on army orders. The difference between me and every other coach is I understand that different phases of life require different fitness approaches. I’m so passionate about helping women feel their best that I’ve spent the past decade learning everything there is to know about permanent weight loss in women leaders. The information on this podcast is going to give you the tools you need to lose the weight you’ve always wanted without feeling hungry, helpless, or alone in this process. This podcast is going to help you feel connected to other remarkable leaders and reassure you that your fitness and life goals are indeed possible for you. It’s time to get after the body and life of your dreams. And put so much on the line that your neck self is forced to come out.

What’s up guys, today I’m going over the five things I wish I knew before starting my weight loss journey. And man, this really takes me back because I feel like I’ve always been on a weight loss journey ever since I can remember I remember being in third grade and wanting to be smaller. I remember looking at my grandma’s shape and magazines and just wanting to always wanting to change my body to look like theirs. And I remember being at my high school graduation and being uncomfortable with how I looked at not wanting to be in photos. Same thing with my college graduation.

So it’s a common thread throughout my entire life that I’ve almost always been on a weight loss journey until the past probably five-six years that I’ve really dedicated I hired my first fitness coach who taught me everything I know about lifting and energy balance and macros and my life changed forever. It wasn’t over then though with that one coach, I went through a lot of ups and downs after that with competing, rebounding from competing so I’ve kind of been through just about every phase you can think of while traveling around the world with the military trying to lose weight as well.

So here I am 30 years old, I’ve now helped over 75 women lose weight for good have helped myself lose weight for good and I feel really confident coming to guys with these tips. I see these limiting beliefs come across often when coaching new clients and they are transitioning from that kind of diet culture world to the fit-to-lead program. So I’m so excited to bring these to you guys. Five things I wish I knew before I started my fitness journey. Let’s get into it. So number one is Don’t you dare, girl Don’t you dare compare yourself to people on Instagram. So it’s interesting. I brought up the magazines earlier. I remember when I was younger just wanting so badly to look like women in magazines. Honestly, I know I’m dating myself a little bit here, but I would just look at those photos all the time and just think oh my gosh, I’m gonna look like them one day, I can’t wait until I look like them.

And as know, get my fitness in order and I’m going to be a fitness coach just like that. Yeah, I was young and I still want I wanted to be like a fitness coach. What I actually wanted to do was open a fitness-like boutique studio. That’s a different story for another day. But now it’s Instagram. It’s not magazines anymore. It’s Instagram. And it’s worse because there are all these photos and videos of people’s highlight reels and people looking perfect. And I’m not knocking any of these people.

I think it’s wonderful that they’re posting online living their best lives, but I want you to control what you see in your Instagram feed. And also I want you to understand this was something I didn’t understand. Before I was in bodybuilding. I didn’t really understand that People take weeks and weeks and months to get ready for these photo shoots that we see either on the cover of magazines or in an Instagram campaign like women are prepping and dieting and tanning and putting, like the lighting is perfect. Like everything has come together just perfectly for them to look perfect. And this one picture and this one moment with this professional camera or whatever it may be. And you are not going to look like that rolling out of bed, like in the middle of the night to go get a drink of water. I used to honestly look at myself at the end of the day, maybe like a little bit bloated, and just be so upset that I had this tummy and that I wanted to get rid of it because the fitness models that I was looking at didn’t have that. And now I have so much relief around that even when I see you know these fitness models on Instagram but I’ll never look like God bless them. Just because I understand the kind of the science behind a fitness photoshoot because of doing one, right as I said, there’s just so much prep, there’s dieting, like serious dieting, that’s unsustainable. Serious dieting, serious tanning, there’s a whole lighting crew.

So I don’t ever want you to compare yourself to Instagram or to whatever you’re looking at. Maybe it’s like your best friend who just is more genetically like I don’t know, she looks more commercial compared to you. So just don’t compare yourself to anybody else by yourself. Because that’s really you know, the only person who you should be wanting to be better than or be wanting to kind of improve from as who you were yesterday to me it truly helped to understand the science behind like all of that all those like beautiful pictures are like you know, super staged, which is fine, but just understand what you’re looking at. Understand you’re not looking at just a raw photo of someone and nobody walks around looking like that all the time. And if they do, that’s great, but there is a genetic outlier. And that doesn’t make you any less beautiful. Her beauty doesn’t make you any less beautiful or fit or capable. So that’s the number one thing just to run your own race and to be in your own lane. Number two is Natalie, I wish I could tell my college self this I would save so much money that healthy food is making you fat and poor. So, guys, I went through a phase when I was in college where I thought organic was best Whole Foods was the best vegan was best. And I didn’t really know about cutting calories or I didn’t know about macros or energy balance. I just thought healthy like whole grain and organic vegan food was good and junk food and fast food were bad but little did I know I was spent shelling out so much money because I’m in college I’m bartending for a living. And I’m shelling out girls like huge grocery carts of organic food Meanwhile, overeating carbs overeating fat, and not getting enough protein, and still is very unhealthy with how I looked. So I wish I would have not taken things at face value. I wish I would have not believed all the marketing around healthy food versus unhealthy food and fallen for all of that stuff. I feel so strongly about kind of spreading this education and spreading this awareness about like macros and just eating food to feel your body in a way that makes you feel good because I was trying to for some my whole life, I was trying to like make the healthy decision. And I just didn’t know what I didn’t know it wasn’t the right food for me and what I was trying to do, or I was just eating it in the incorrect quantities. So it made it just really hard to make any progress. In fact, I didn’t make any progress in college at all my progress declined. And I just felt worse and worse in my body each year even though I was reading all these books about like raw food diet and all this craziness so it was making me put on body fat and it was also making the poor and I’m wondering if anyone has ever been there put in the comments or I don’t know if you put it in the comments on a podcast but let me know to shoot me a message on Instagram if you’ve ever been there with shelling out all your money for organic food that didn’t get you any result. Okay, so that’s number two is really like healthy, there is no healthy or unhealthy food. And that really the key is in your energy balance. So are you eating the right amount of food for your goals that is really the key thing? So if you need help finding the correct energy balance you are finding the right calorie goals for you and your goal. The last thing I want you to do is just to guess because you’re probably going to guess too low. The last thing I want you to do is just put your information into a calculator, that calculator could steer you up or down. So I’d love to just help you out. So just shoot me a DM on Instagram that just says calories I’ll get you your starting calories completely for free because I just want you to do it right and I want to save you the pain that I went through. Okay, so number three is mana stop trying to make everything optimal and everything perfect, and that 50% is better than nothing. So I am to fast forward a few years, and this is kind of where we get into like I finally learned about energy balance, I finally learned about macros and protein I finally learned about lifting it was I’m an Enneagram one. I don’t know if there are any other Enneagram ones out there. But we are like perfectionist types are very like type a very just kind of like if something is good or it’s bad something is right or it’s wrong. And we always want to be right we’re driven by the desire to do good to do right and just be kind of like on the right side of history to do like the right thing. So anyway, once I figured out about calories, macros, and lifting, I just wanted to make sure everything was perfect. I wanted my calories, and protein to be perfect every single day I wanted. This is the big one is I wanted my lifting schedule to be so perfect. I can’t tell you how many times I get stuck in the cycle when writing my own Gosh, dang workout sweat as I’m like, I have to hit every muscle group twice a week I have to they have to be properly spaced out at least 72 hours apart. How can I it’s like trying to play Tetris with my schedule and with my muscle groups? And I just have to remind myself that it’s not that serious, Natalie, just go get a lift in go move your body. And you’ll progress. If you’re tracking your progressive overload, it doesn’t need to be so perfect, so properly spaced out and so intricate that you’re hitting every single muscle group twice a week can be okay to hit some once a week. So anyway, I always tried to make everything optimal. I tried to make everything perfect, I thought it was either like no the perfect meal prep food or nothing like just kind of like, go out the window, forget about for the day and just get back on track the next day. So what I would say is that just remember that this is not a diet, it’s not you know what we teach my clients in fit to lead with the metabolic reboot method. It’s not a diet, it’s not something you go on and off. It’s part of your lifestyle now. So there will be days when you’re not tracking, and there will be days when you’re not working out. Like none of my clients track during vacations are of course not tracked during trips. We use that as a time to practice our conscious eating, which is something I teach in fatigue as well. But basically, it’s to stop kind of with the all-or-nothing mindset and stop thinking that this is a diet you come on or off. And speaking of that, stop with the cheat days or something I see a lot that also lean to this type of thinking, you’re kind of like you’re on or you’re off what I want you to remember, with a cheat day. Or if you maybe you might identify better with the kind of like binge eating episode, I used to have these days, I would call them eating days. This was before I knew about macros, but I just thought, well, I ate something bad. And I don’t really feel like working out today. So I’m just going to eat whatever I want. And I’ll just get back on it tomorrow. But it doesn’t work like that. You don’t just black out and then you get to like start over tomorrow. So think of binging or cheating or whatever it may be. Think of it as like running away from your home base. Your Home Base is kind of where you want to live with your nutrition. It’s just like, you know, things are properly balanced, and you’re making progress toward your goals. So if you run away towards your home base, you always, no matter how far away you get, you’re always going to have to turn around and walk back. So just think like, no matter how far you go out on this cheat day, you’re going to have to walk it back the next day. And it’s probably not going to feel great the next day, when you’re you’re like kind of doing the walk back. So think of it like that. And just think 50% is better than nothing. So if you had a bad morning, you can always turn that around by the afternoon or by dinner time. 50% Beat 0% Any freaking day of the week. So that is number three is that this is a lifestyle. Stop trying to make everything perfect. Number four, this one might ruffle some feathers. It’s with the workouts. So guys before I understood how to work out I thought the sign of a good workout was that I was being sweaty that I was like jumping around a lot that I had burned a lot of calories and that I needed to do new workouts every week. Why don’t I think that probably because the magazines I grew up reading when I was a kid had me doing stuff like that, like just app circuits, ab workouts a lot of that stuff, a lot of just kind of like stuff you would do like in a little corner room at a gym, but nothing with a barbell and nothing with a machine? I didn’t feel comfortable doing any of that stuff. I actually didn’t feel comfortable doing any of that stuff until I had a personal trainer teach me how to do it and teach me how to do it right and that forever changed my life. But I will say number one, you don’t need new workouts Every week in fact, you don’t need new workouts every week, you’re gonna see the most progress actually if you keep the same workout split for, I mean, honestly, like 12 weeks, I don’t have my clients keep them that long, because I know it just gets boring, but we keep ours for five to six weeks. And what you do is you do the same workouts, you know, like five different workouts a week, but you repeat that week of workouts every week, and you try to lift more weight per exercise per week. And that’s how you know you’re progressively overloading the muscle, your muscles aren’t growing, which means your metabolism is increasing. It is very difficult to track progressive overload. If you’re doing different workouts from week to week, if you’re doing them in a different order, your muscles will be at different levels of fatigue if you do different workouts in a different order, every single week. So, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on what type of person you are, the stuff that works is often repetitive, it’s often boring. But it doesn’t have to be boring if you kind of look at it as a challenge to lift more weight than you did last time or than you did last week in the same workout. Again, you don’t need fat burning, quote, fat burning hit workouts. Any workout that claims to be fat burning is a lie. That’s not what workouts do for God. So where you build the muscle to increase your metabolism, and then your nutrition is where you make sure that you are eating the right amount of calories and the right amount of protein to sustain that muscle and decrease fat you need both significantly. But it’s important to understand which role each one plays. So you don’t need fat burning hit workouts. You honestly don’t even need to be sweaty. When I worked out in Germany, like in the winter, I wouldn’t like to sweat as much as I do in Texas. I’m freaking sweating every friggin workout because I work at an old-school bodybuilding gym now, and it’s 100 degrees. But you don’t even need to be sweaty. The stuff that works is boring. It’s repetitive and you don’t need new workouts every week. In fact, you should not have new workouts every week. I know a really successful bodybuilder that keeps the same workout sweat for six months, six months. And he’s like a pro bodybuilder. He says that like the shortest amount of time you should have one workout split is 12 weeks. I mean, that’s intense. That’s serious. So number four is you don’t need new workouts every week, do the stuff that works and do it consistently. And do it with intensity. And then number five, oh my gosh, this brings me back to my like high school and college days is that running is not a sustainable weight loss program. The Stairmaster is not a sustainable weight loss program. doing cardio is not sustainable for weight loss running, especially running. I don’t know about you guys, but especially the military people out there, we tend to think that running is a great weight loss program, we’re just going to run off our fat, and that’s going to be that here’s the problem with that, guys. There are a couple of things. Number one, sure you’ll burn a certain amount of calories on a run. There are so many issues I could go into this for days, it seems like okay, if you run in the morning, your body is naturally going to decrease. It’s neat throughout the day. The non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis so if you normally like stand up at work are like twitchy at work kind of like heavier expressions with your hands while you’re talking. If you run in the morning, your body is going to compensate for the energy expenditure that you expended in the morning. It just is because it doesn’t your body doesn’t want you to lose weight. So it’s going to decrease it’s going to preserve your energy in the afternoon. So it will likely even out a little bit from that. Okay, number two is your body gets more efficient at doing cardio, whatever cardio you’re doing, running, let’s say it’s running, your body will get more efficient at doing that exercise. So maybe when you start running, you burn 400 calories per run. But a couple of weeks in you go on that same run, and you’re gonna be burning less than you started because your body is just ready to preserve its fuel while you’re doing that same exercise because remember, your body wants to keep you alive your body doesn’t want to give up the fat that’s protecting it. So again, it will get more efficient at doing the same cardio number three is the reason why like running isn’t a sustainable weight loss program. So think about your money think of let’s think about this like in money terms or in budgeting terms. Lifting weights is like investing you put your money in money and let’s say is your time you put your money into something that’s going to make money for you. That’s weightlifting. So no, a weightlifting session doesn’t burn as many calories as going for a run. But it’s building muscle, which is going to burn more calories at rest over time. So it’s going to increase your metabolism give you more energy and allow you to eat more overall running will have you burn a certain amount of calories per day. But again, that has depreciating effects as I spoke about earlier, but that is something you have to pay like rent is due on that every day you’d like if you are a runner. Alright, let’s say you run regularly, maybe you run two days a week or three days, a week, whatever. If you stop doing that for a week, you have to change your nutrition, immediately, you have to decrease those calories that you would normally be burning from running, otherwise, your body will put that weight back on right away. So running is like working a job, you have to go to it every day, show up and get your paycheck. But again, weightlifting is like investing because you could take 234 weeks off from the gym. And research shows that it really doesn’t have that much effect on your basal metabolic rate. So it takes nine times less effort to preserve your muscle than to build it. So once you’ve built it, you can just coast on those gains. Maybe your metabolism is high like it’s good, it’s not going back down. So that’s why I’ve heard the advice like just get big early when you’re young and then coast on the gains for the rest of your life. And that is friggin great advice. I guess. Maybe for a bro, but I’m telling you running is just, it’s a quick reward for calorie burn. But it’s not sustainable. It’s just such a shallow way to look at weight loss. It’s a one-day vision of weight loss. But if you think about gaining muscle, and increasing your metabolism over time that is playing the long game that is playing the sustainable game. And that’s honestly probably if you only have an hour to work out, would you rather spend it investing in your long-term health or doing something that’s going to be a quick reward? And you’re going to have to do it again tomorrow for longer to even keep up the same benefits. I hope that made sense. Guys, those were my five tips, five things I wish I knew before I started my weight loss journey. I’ve made all of these mistakes for years and years over time. So I hope that I can save you some of that heartache. I also want to point out that it doesn’t matter how what age you are, when you may be starting a weight loss journey, I referenced times when I was in high school or college making these mistakes. But you could be significant in a different season than that. And it doesn’t make it any less frustrating if you are maybe in an older season of your life and going through these as well. So I just wanted to point out that this is age independent, I’ve seen women come to me with unfit to lead in all stages of life doing these things. And overall, it was never my fault. It’s not your fault, we’re fed the myths because fitness is a business. But as you can see over at my Instagram fit to lead dot inc. I am in the business of being the last coach anyone would ever need and helping women lose weight forever to make sure that they never gain it back. Again, I don’t know about you. But I used to be in this cycle of losing weight, gaining it back losing weight, and getting it back. And I just knew there had to be a better way. Turns out there is I’ve been practicing it and coaching it for the past six years. And I’d love to talk to you more about it. So if that’s you give me a follow on Instagram or just shoot me a message that says podcast. So I know you came from the podcast and I’d love to talk to you more about your fitness journey. Thank you guys, we’ll talk to you soon. Hey, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I understand time is your most valuable resource. So I’m so grateful you spent some time with me today. If you are a woman who’s looking to lose some fat, and get in better shape, there are three ways that I can help you absolutely for free today. Number one is I’d love to gift you my free ebook. This ebook is called the guide to losing your first 10 pounds and it gives you everything you need to know to just take the first couple steps towards your weight loss journey. And you can get the whole thing at FIT, delete inc.com The second way I’d love to help you for free is to gift you three fat-blasting recipes per week. These are going to be easy simple recipes you can make for the whole family that is going to taste great and allow you to reach your fat loss goals. So you can find those in our fit-to-lead community. The link will be in the show notes. And not only that, but you’ll find like-minded women in this group who you can share your wins and struggles with along this journey. Additionally, I go live in this group often to help answer any questions you may have. So it’s a completely free group. Again, join us at the link below for three free recipes a week. And the third way is simply to leave a rating and review on this podcast. The more five-star ratings and positive reviews we get on this podcast, the more helpful guests I can get on which will help you guys increase your knowledge and be able to lose weight that much faster. Additionally, I’m doing a giveaway at the end of every month. So at the end of every month, I’m picking two winners who have left reviews and ratings on the podcast and gifting them a $25 Starbucks gift card honestly, not many people are leaving reviews and ratings right now so we can be the easiest cup of coffee you ever get so please go ahead leave me a five-star rating and review and I appreciate you so much and we’ll talk to you soon.

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