Simple minimums I used to lose 20 pounds

Tiffany Sauder [00:00]: I am having the best week. I'm telling you, I'm having the best week. And I've asked myself, why am I having the best week? Because sometimes I don't have the best week. It's not always the best week. And I think because this week, we hit some major milestones with some of the projects that we're working on and some of the new stuff that we're doing. And it's just like, it's coming together. And that is very exciting to see work come together. But I think the other thing is I got to meet new people. And...

That's just not, I don't know. I think you have to like stay in the habit of that as a grownup because you can be surrounded by people you're familiar with a lot. And it has just been the best gift to my energy and to, I just loving it. Um, and one lunch in particular was with two other, like just, I would say senior female, like senior executives and like business, one is a business owner and one is a high level senior executive. And I didn't know one of them. We had a mutual friend and she brought us together.

And there were two things that happened. One is I was just reminded by about like just the generosity of like sharing your relationships with other people is like such a gift. I'm just like so grateful to her for like, and just like introducing me to this other woman. And the other is, um, this new woman that I met, she said, you know what? I am like in a season of, I need fewer colleagues and I need more friends. I need friends. And I think there's so much courage and just naming your stage and saying like, you know what? This is one of my priorities right now is friendships and I am going to create the room, move some things aside so that I can have some time for friends. I need close friends and connection in a way that maybe different seasons didn't require it. So anyway, I just was just given some life by those new relationships and reminded that I just like love to meet new people. It makes my brain, brain like grow and just love it. So.

Um, okay. So what are we actually talking about today? Not that, but it's top of mind for me and I have to get the thing that is in my brain first out of my face or I'm just mentally distracted the whole time. Um, okay. So this episode is a little bit hilarious. I'm a little self-conscious about it. Um, because I want to talk about, I just, some things in my own journey of losing like 20 pounds over the last three years. Um,

Tiffany Sauder [02:24]People do not stop me on the sidewalk and ask me how I look so great. Literally nobody's asked me that ever. And so I'm super self -conscious that you may be like, you know what Tiffany, we've actually never wondered. We don't need to listen to this podcast episode right now. But I'm gonna share it with you anyway. And the reason I'm gonna share it with you anyway is not because I think that I have it all figured out or that I am the end game. It is because I have learned so much.

in my own health journey and figuring out what works for me and my stage of life and my body and my own makeup, like naturally, I've learned so much from other people, generously sharing what's worked for them. So that is really what this is. This is not me propping myself up as, you know, the picture of perfection, cause I'm certainly not, but I have learned some things that work for me. And I am obsessed over this idea of sustainable and I'm obsessed over

having like just things being able to be the same actually takes a lot of energy. There's this thing called entropy. This is like a little bit nerdy, but I learned this from actually an economist. I think it's actually a thing in like physics, entropy is that everything is in a state of naturally in a state of decay. Everything is naturally in a state of decay. So think about that. Like you're the wood siding on your house without protection is in a natural state of decay. Uh,

The soil is in a natural state of decay if you don't put nutrients back into it. Our bodies are in a natural state of decay if we don't have forces that are overcoming that. Our relationships are in a natural state of decay if we don't put energy into maintaining them. And even things like words are naturally random. Like you can't just take...

Eight words out of the dictionary and have them accidentally form a sentence. It takes energy actually to put them into a sentence and to communicate and to be clear. And so I think that's so interesting. If you think about everything naturally is in a state of decay. It takes a positive force equal to, or greater than that state of decay to like make it whole. And I think that's really interesting. Um, okay. So I went down a rabbit hole there entropy. This is your like.

Tiffany Sauder [04:45.129]Share those with your family tonight at dinner time, but that's entropy is and I don't even remember where I was going with that But oh maybe just our bodies are in a natural state of decay our habits are in a natural state of decay and so if we are not Thoughtful about overcoming that with something positive then we are gonna you know, we're gonna Just continue to devolve into the lowest common denominator, but that's not what we want. So over the last 23 years I Have quite gradually lost 20 pounds

There was never a season inside of that where I was in a like 12 week period of like major calorie restriction or 12 weeks of working out five times a week. And I think that we live in this like instant Instagram world, which that's not bad. There's a lot of good stuff that comes from that, but where it's like this, these before and after pictures of like, Hey, eight weeks later, six weeks later, 12 weeks later. And I just don't live in a life.

where that is a very accessible thing for me. I have to do very, very tiny increments of change over a long period of time and do it in a way that is really sustainable. And so this is like kind of just some of my hacks and some of my minimums and some of the things that I've done to just do it really slowly, gradually over time. I think, you know, I'm like, if you've told me it took three years to lose 20 pounds, I think in a timeline like that, sometimes it can be, be like, well, I mean,

Like, why would you even start? It's gonna take three years. But losing 20 pounds over three years is much cooler than gaining 20 pounds over three years. So there's that, I don't know. I don't know. Anyways. So I guess what I want to say is like progress does not have to be fast. It's still progress. These like tiny increments of choices and behaviors and disciplines over long periods of time make a really big difference. The other thing I'm really thoughtful about in my environment,

is I feel like I got such the lottery when it comes to this. My mom has such a healthy relationship with food. I never saw her diet. I never saw her like weigh her food. I never saw her like restrict herself in any way. She was just always sensible. It was just like always this like very natural relationship with food. And I had no idea how like somewhat uncommon that is.

Tiffany Sauder [07:06]And so I really want to extend that into my own growth. I'm very aware that I have teenagers watching me, you know, they're thinking about and aware of themselves. And I just want to create a household where we have a really healthy relationship with food, that lots of things can be in the house, that we can just have one, we can have half of one. Like it just, it does not have power over us. And so I'm really thoughtful about my own vocabulary, my own habits, the things I do or don't do.

because I know all of that is being radioed into my girls and they're watching me and the way I talk about it, the way I engage with food, all of that is going to rub off on them. So I'm just like really thoughtful about that. Um, and I think that's part of the reason I, I don't put myself into seasons of like significant calorie deficit or like really track my food. I kind of hate it.

But also I think I have this internal fear that I'm gonna radio to them that that's what life has to look like with food. And it isn't. I want them to understand a portion size. I want them to understand the difference between protein and fat and carbohydrates and how your body metabolizes whole foods versus processed foods. All that is just good education. But I don't want them to, I don't know, I guess see me go through this struggle with food. I wanna have a really good relationship with it. So that's part of the reason.

Why I would say Slow and Steady has won the race for me as well is not just my own capacity and time, but also the things that I'm telegraphing into our household and particularly into our girls. So a little preamble. So here's some things that I've done. If you've listened to the podcast at all, you know my obsessive minimum over my exercise is weightlifting two days a week for one hour.

Like each one of those sessions is one hour. That is my minimum. That is like the minimum that happens. That happens every single week. Um, I chose weightlifting because of my age over 40, like bone density and just like posture and structure. And when I look at women who have been weight training, I'm like, I want to look like that. Um, and it has just been a really, it's like, feels really good to my body. I don't hurt at all. I feel like it's given me like a musculoskeletal like strength that.

Tiffany Sauder [09:27]allows me to functionally move through my life really well. So that's why I chose weight training. It took me a little while to adjust to the reality of like not sweating like a crazy person like you do with like HIIT kind of workouts and trusting that my body as it got stronger was actually going to like burn calories because I just so equated that with like running and HIIT and burpees and it took a little while to kind of trust the process that I wasn't going to

gain a bunch of weight by not doing a bunch of cardio. So my own journey with that, I had never really spent a lot of time in a weight room. I was not a student athlete. My husband and I did a little CrossFit in the past, but generally no. So that's kind of what my workout minimum looks like. That was very simple. I do pay for a trainer. Zach was in my last episode. And I do that now really for accountability. It's just so easy to skip it. And...

There are seasons where I'm like, oh my word, like this is easy, this is what I do, I don't need to pay a trainer and then they'll be like two or three weeks in a row where it is everything I can do to get to the gym. And I know me getting there is the difference in paying him or not. So that's my own trap that I set. I also share quite often that discipline and consistency is not natural to me. Like my brain will go into like, how do I resolve for this? How do I?

make something that's working a little bit harder and how do I be extra about it? How do I do more? And I just like, I break things that are working and that is a really crappy habit that I have. And so I look at things like this choice to work out with Zach twice a week. And I'm like, this is working. Don't break it. Just keep going. You don't have to reinvent this. Um, so anyway, that is my workout minimum. That has been very clear for me to solve. And that's what I do.

Um, when it comes to food, I would say I am like a, um, nine confident on my workout minimum. I would say I'm probably more like a six or a seven confident in my food minimum, but I'll share a few things that helped me when things are kind of crazy. When we're eating out a little more than I would like when JR's traveling, what can happen is I'm like eating breakfast in my car on the way to work. I'm eating lunch.

Tiffany Sauder [11:50]while I'm on a call, I'm eating dinner while I'm driving a kid to work or to practice, it can be kind of hard to register. Did I eat everything or did I eat nothing? And was it good for me or was it out of my console in my car, which I have sometimes some extra candy treats for myself? Or did I just eat candy orange slices all day? It can be hard to register because I'm just like...

doing my life instead of paying attention to what I'm eating. So my food minimums, I would say are continuing to evolve, but there's a few things that I've done that have been helpful that I'm gonna offer up that might be helpful to you. The one is just like, it doesn't even have to be intermittent fasting, but picking a time that you're not gonna eat after that. So after seven or 7 .30 or eight o 'clock, whatever the time is, this is a very easy thing to control, because it's the absence of behavior, you actually don't need to do anything. That can help just take those,

junk calories out of your life that you know are just like, I'm eating because I'm tired. I'm eating because I don't want to put the kids to bed. I'm eating because who doesn't love chips after 9 p .m. or a bowl of cinnamon toast crunch. Yo, yes. But you never feel good after that. And I find, especially as you get older, you feel worse. So picking a time, that's a very easy thing to do. I'm just not going to eat after 7 or 8 p .m., whatever it is. So that's one easy minimum that is literally more about the absence of behavior than adding.

anything. There's no food prep with that. There's nothing to do. Set a reminder on your phone, have it recur every single day and just be like, Hey, you made a choice to stop eating after today. After this time, like love yourself by doing the thing. So that's one easy tip. Um, the second is a three bite rule. It's not a rule, just three bites. So when I'm in seasons of like wanting to kind of watch what I'm eating, I do bad whenever I just can't have something. I do bad if I tell myself I can't have sugar. I do bad if I tell myself I've not eaten french fries. I do bad if I tell myself I'm not, like if I say I can't have something in my head, it's like I become obsessed over it. It's so stupid. And so I kind of have this like internal three bite rule, like three bites of a cookie, three bites of dessert, three licks of an ice cream cone, three french fries, three bites of a cheese, whatever the thing, like three bites. That is usually the maximum amount, like those three bites,

Tiffany Sauder [14:12]cold in my mind, like the greatest amount of satiation. Like that first lick of an ice cream cone, you're like, Oh, that was like a 40 on a 10 scale. Like that was so delicious. It was cold, it was sweet. But by the time you're at like, you know, a spoonful, 18, 19, 20, 22, you're not really tasting it anymore. You're just like eating the rest of it. And so I'll internally just be like, I had three bites. I had three French fries. I had a third of a cheeseburger, whatever the thing is.

That is a way for me to tell myself, yes, you can have this totally, but I kind of have a, like a marker where it kind of like tells me like reminds me, you don't have to finish it. Like you've probably had most of the sad, like the satiation and the satisfaction and the experience of having dessert or the experience of having an ice cream cone. You don't need to go all the way to the end. So sometimes I eat the whole thing, but when I'm trying to be thoughtful or I'm in the season of wanting to kind of like, I don't know, like.

just be more thoughtful about my calories. That will be something that I do so that I can still share the experience with my kids. I can still eat everything we're having for dinner. I can still participate in an event, but I'm being thoughtful about like where my finish line is instead of the portion that somebody else picks for me. So that's something that has helped me just kind of like just have three bites. And that's like most of the enjoyment I have found in those three bites.

Um, and then this is like very obvious, but I'll say it just as a reminder, like just eat real food, um, instead of the process version. So it's like, if I'm going for something salty, I will, instead of crackers, I'll pick nuts instead of Cheez -Its, pick a cheese stick instead of, um, french fries, have a baked potato. Like just reminding myself, just eat real food. My body will naturally crave less of that than when I go for.

You know, just fast, easy stuff. And so I just trust the process that I'm going to get to satiation. I'm going to get to fullness faster when I eat real food than when I eat processed things. So those are like very easy. If I need to, you know, eat on the run or go into a convenience store and get something, how do I eat pistachios instead of, um, crackers? How do you know, again, I want to get to the place where I'm literally can eat everything in moderation. That is my objective is, um,

Tiffany Sauder [16:34]not to have a world where I feel like I can't have something. But that kind of helps me. So don't eat after a certain time. That's one. The second is the three bite rule or however many bites you want to be. But I found three is like, you know, the first, the middle and the last one. I don't know. It's kind of works for me. And then the last one is just to be conscious of eating real food. So, you know, the

I know in an ideal world, we would all have the, all the time we want to like plan our meals and to make sure it has perfect macros and to like measure it out and to do all the things. But when you can't do that, what do you do instead? Well, what you do instead, hopefully is not just go get fast food and eat like goldfish off of the floor of your SUV. What do you do instead of what you, what your goal is? And that is really what minimums are about. It's establishing what is the floor of behavior.

that I will allow for myself and how do you make those choices in a season of things are going well so that you can reference and lean on those when things are not? Because when you're stressed and you're tired and everything is going poorly, which I had one of those weeks not too long ago, literally everything went wrong. I was, Jera was gone and I saw the trash guy came at like somehow 6 .30 in the morning and we had so much trash. I think I'd missed it the week before.

So I go like running out of the house in my slippers trying to catch the trash man. Like, what was I gonna do? Jump on the back? I have no idea what I was gonna do, even if I caught it. But I was like, this compulsory thing came out over me and I started running out of the house in my slippers and I tripped on our back steps. Like, it was like I was a, I had been shot out of a cannon on the side of our house and I was like, rawr, like falling forward.

And I slammed somehow into the side of our house and I like get this huge bruise on the side of my arm. I was so mad. I was mad at the trash guy for not for being there so early. I was mad at myself for not remembering to put it out the night before. I was so mad at my slipper for like catching on the little like, you know, metal thing. Like, I don't know what it's called, but as you're going outside, I was just like so mad. And then I was late for everything. And then I was on my way home.

Tiffany Sauder [18:51]from an event late at night and it was foggy and I hit a really big pothole and somehow a thing came loose and my brakes went out. Like it was like everything was going wrong. Everything was wrong and I was so behind and I felt like life was burying me alive. On those weeks, how do you eat? Because those weeks still count towards your diet, towards your health, towards your life. And so what do you do on weeks like that? When it's like literally everything is like hilariously falling apart.

That is what this concept of minimums and like deciding what you're gonna do. So when I am in crazy seasons like that, this is what I do. I say, okay, I'm not gonna eat after eight. I'm gonna have a three-bite rule. If there's a DiGiorno pizza, God bless DiGiorno pizza, I might have a couple bites. That doesn't mean I have to eat three slices. So it gives me something to say yes to and I've already decided the container that I'm gonna say yes to. And then when I can choose healthy food instead of eating something processed. So again, easy apples, grapes, whatever it is. So.

Okay, you probably already knew all these things and thank you for getting to the end of this if you have. I'm gonna say one more thing about that crazy week where everything went wrong. Sometimes when everything is going wrong, it is a sign that something needs to change. There's a system or a process that needs to be updated so that your operating system can operate really smoothly. Sometimes you just have a bad week because you just have a bad week.

When I was going through that week, I asked myself several times through it, are things breaking because something's wrong or are things breaking just because sometimes things break? And decidedly, I came back to like, well, one, I added to our house managers list of things to put our trash out on Thursday so that when Jara's traveling, I don't have to remember it's Friday. So I did update a process.

which I know is a luxury, but I did update something. But other than that, I was like, you know what? It was just a bad week. Just things broke. Generally speaking, the way that we're running things are working is just a bad week. So sometimes you just hit a snag and, you know, things come together in a way that are just like not so lovely. And you just have to laugh it off and be like, whoo, you know, it's like you're outrunning a tidal wave, but, you know.

Tiffany Sauder [21:05]Sometimes it happens and even if you decide not to live a life of and you're gonna have a bad week So you might as well have a bad week inside the life of and right this is what we're doing Okay, that's what we're talking about this week is how to make sure that you are Doing your best for yourself as it relates to your nutrition and the time that you're making for yourself for movement Guys, this is not an optional part of life. It is like built-in this

has to happen. If you are serious about your energy, if you are serious about your family, if you're serious about being available for your life, you've got to do this stuff and figure out what works for you. Um, that's the secret. And, um, I know you're probably well on your way and like way ahead of me and all this, but I thought I would just share what I've learned, what I'm doing. And, uh, you know, this thing called life. My mom called me yesterday and I said, mom, this is not a dress rehearsal. This is your actual life. You know, this is not, this is our actual life. How amazing.

And I hope that you're loving yours. So, okay. Thank you for listening this week. Thank you for going on this journey of living a life of and bringing our best selves to our life for our people, for ourselves, for the people, and the things that we're committed to. I mean, what a great, what a great gift this life is. So thanks for listening. I hope you're crushing your week.

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