Hello, my friends, welcome back to the Healthy Eating for Busy Women podcast. As usual, I’m so happy that you can take time out of your maybe hectic week to sit down with me today and learn how to make your eating habits a bit easier. Today is a very important topic, especially if you are a woman who identifies as being a little bit more type a, you’re ambitious, you consider yourself high-achieving, this episode’s gonna be a really big eye opener, I think for you because this topic we’re gonna talk about is a huge struggle. I come across more type-A women who have tried all the things, put in a lot of effort to eat healthy and still don’t have the results they want.

To be honest, it’s really important to me to target this type of demographic because this is the type of woman I am and it’s the struggles I’ve had.

I always considered myself intelligent. I was always very ambitious and I put in a lot of effort to be healthy with food and to create the results with my body I wanted, and it just was never happening over so many years.

And so I really want to discuss this topic in a way that hopefully resonates with you. So what we’re gonna talk about is your relationship to human error. In other words, this is your relationship and your thoughts about doing it wrong. Alright.

So a lot of our focus as maybe more type a people is to focus on what we need to do right, the actions we need to take to lose weight, to eat healthy and have the result.

And one of the biggest struggles women like us run into is we will genuinely believe that if we know what to do, we should just be able to do it.

And this is actually one of the biggest lies we can tell ourselves as intelligent women because it’s actually having a total gap in understanding of what it means to create behaviors as a human being.

And what I want you to know right off the bat today. And I say this with so much love. You are going to have to tolerate being an imperfect human to create the results you want with healthy eating.

Alright, so you’re going to have to actively start building a perception of human error that it’s not going to prevent you from getting results, that it’s not entirely non useful and it doesn’t mean anything about you.

And where this shakes so many of us up is we will be following a meal plan really, really well or a diet or just maybe having a good intention to eat healthy and lose weight.

And then something happens where a day doesn’t go as planned, maybe a week or a month, and then you find you’re not putting in any effort towards it at all, no thought, you’re just in the passenger seat of this area of your life.

And so many of us struggle with this because we are so attached to eating healthy correctly, we are so attached to taking the right actions that when we do anything we deem as imperfect, we just let go of the wheel completely and we’re like, what’s the point?

And what I want you to understand is this isn’t because you are incapable of eating healthy, having the results you want.

It’s because 1, you are having the stakes be too high in terms of what you think is necessary, you think perfection is necessary, and 2, you think less of yourself when you don’t do it, quote unquote, right?

So I wanna unpack all of that in today’s episode. And like every episode, I invite you to just show yourself a lot of compassion.

Don’t judge yourself for what may come up and be willing to be super, super honest because what I can tell you is this result and this journey will get a heck of a lot easier if you’re willing to be very transparent with yourself as to what’s keeping you stuck. This episode is really going to help those of you who feel like you know what to do with healthy eating, but you’re not following through long term because what a lot of you will think is that you need more discipline, or you need to know more things, or you need to push harder. And really it’s going to reflect when you don’t follow through your relationship to human error. Because so many of you listening are going to want to hear how to fix the errors you’re making with healthy eating. And I do teach that to an extent, but what I want you to know is that the actual work is, is it’s healing this part of you that feels like you need to fix all of your human errors.

So much of the energy you’re spending trying to fix all the doing it wrongs, so much of the energy you’re spending trying to fix all the doing it wrongs with healthy eating could be better spent resourcefully figuring out how to make it work. And I want you to really hear me when I say this.

So many women I coach when they have a stall in their progress is because they’re trying to fix natural human error that is a natural part of progress, rather than resourcefully evaluating how they can do things better in an accessible way. And it’s interesting cause it’ll feel like we’re solving the same problem, but we’re not. So I’ll give you a really practical example.So honoring fullness is an example I like to use a lot cause it’s just very easy to understand. So that is an element of my membership we talk about is learning how to honor your body cues.

So let’s say a client starts practicing how to honor her fullness. And when she does her evaluation, she sees that about half the time she’s stopping when she’s naturally full. And about half the time maybe she’s overeating and she’s not paying attention to her fullness cues.

So what tends to happen without managing your mind is without realizing it, you’re gonna have an emotional relationship to this data. So you’ll think, nothing’s working, I’m doing it wrong. You’re gonna have a lot of inadequacy and doubt, which is valid.

We’re humans with human experiences. But what sneaky is this client in this position, which is a lot of us will then start focusing on what she’s doing wrong.

She won’t be engaging in her evaluations as much or the process, and she’ll just end up doing the same things over and over without actually tweaking her approach.

Because she’s being fueled from the shameful relationship to human error where in the back of her mind, her brains telling her what’s the point, right? She becomes disengaged with the process because she’s focusing on the 50% where she didn’t follow through with honoring her fullness.

Now I want you to consider how it actually is a totally different approach to focus on the 50% that is working for her where she is honoring her fullness. Because previously to joining this membership, maybe she wasn’t doing that at all.

So I want you to think about how differently she would move forward if this client in this hypothetical example, that’s very common, looked at what was working. Okay, where am I honoring my fullness? Why am I, is it, why is it accessible during those times?

What is it about those times of the day, those meals and gathering that data so she can do it better the next week or the next month? And that’s where her progress will fuel her from certainty, from confidence, from deliberateness and resourcefulness rather than shame.

And so what’s really, really interesting, a lot of you already know this in my membership, we do monthly reviews where we do progress equations together and we all hop on a call without judgment and we write out the equation of how the skills look.

So there’s four main skills in Own your eating habits that you will learn and then we measure those each month. And so no client is gonna have 100% of following through with the skills. That is something you will quickly learn.

We are humans with human error. So then a client will start writing out the percentages of how much of the time she followed through with those skills.

It’s never 100%. And this is where you will learn how to begin tolerating and processing the fact that you are going to create weight loss results or whatever result that is, with human error, it is a necessary and natural part of your success equation.

And what can happen and where the coaching comes in is I will notice when a client is way more concerned about where she didn’t make the grade and where she didn’t get 100%, then the areas where her percentages are going up, what she did do correctly, what is working.

And another big reason why having a negative relationship to human error is problematic and it will hold you back is you don’t need to get 100% in healthy eating skills to see the results you want.

That is also a fallacy we have as very type a women, we think we need to do it right and that we need to do two plus 2 to equal four. But really most of the time it’s gonna be 3+ 1= 4, 1+ 3, whatever it is.

And all of my clients, every woman I’ve coached, which is hundreds of women, have never had the same equation with the skills in terms of how their body responds to it.

What’s, what equation is necessary to lose the weight. They want to feel the way they want you to have those results. So we’ve really got to get you out of this mindset where you’re focusing on getting 100% in healthy eating.

Instead, you need to be willing to see human error as a natural part of your equation, which means you can stop solving for it with that focus. And instead it’s all for where you are doing the things, where you could do them more, how to make them more accessible.

This will shift you out of inadequacy and shame, and help you step into resourcefulness where you feel propelled to excel in healthy eating rather than, like, you’re constantly doing it wrong. Because here’s the hard truth.

You are gonna be constantly doing it wrong if your motive is to always do it right, if your motive is to get a good grade with healthy eating. And this is really tough.

This is something that I often call mourning the loss in my coaching. Because a lot of people that I coach, the type of woman I coach, she will not anticipate this. And I wanna offer that to you.

You may not be anticipating what is actually necessary to be a naturally healthy eater with ease, maintain long term weight loss results. What will be necessary is for you to be willing to lower the stakes with yourself, and maybe not always perform highly with healthy eating in this perfectionistic way. I had a client one time, many clients like this, but one specifically, she really touched me because she was a very high performer with healthy eating. So she actually was an ex, professional athlete and she was really struggling with maintaining consistent healthy eating habits. And that’s what she came to me for and we worked together for a period of time and she really was so great at performing well with healthy eating. So by that, I mean planning, tracking, really having a deep understanding of nutrition and macros.

She had all the knowledge there, but it wasn’t able to be consistent for her because she’s not gonna be able to perform at 100% every day and put in that much brain space and effort.

And so I really asked her during one session where we were processing some things, I said, are you willing to give up this identity where you are a high performer in this area of your life to have the result you want? And that is something that she had to process.

We went through some coaching, she was able to release this pressuring part of her that was associated with eating healthy and having good results with her body, the result she wanted.

And this was mourning the loss for her because a lot of you will have this perfectionistic picture of yourself that you put on a pedestal that you think is necessary to have the results you want.

But what I want you to know is that is not gonna be necessary. And well, that’s a great thing and you may want that because it’s gonna be easier than you expected. That actually can be a hard pill to swallow because at some point we’re gonna have to come face to face with the relationship we’re having with ourselves as human beings. For myself, I think for myself in the past, I always was chasing this healthy version of myself. I always pictured this perfectionistic version of myself that always had her meals look pretty. I always scheduled things perfectly. I never had messes in the house.

There was a lot of things associated to this pedestal version of me. And really a lot of my processing came in when I realized to have the results I wanted with my body, with my life, I couldn’t create them from this high performing expectation that I had. I couldn’t always depend on planning everything perfectly.

I couldn’t always depend on a pretty meal. I had to be willing to be a messy human and still create the result. And this required me to come face to face with a lot of not enoughness I had with myself, with a lot of inadequacy, a lot of shame, a lot of doubt. Because for me, and I know a lot of you, I coach, were using this ambition to be healthy women as a way, as a reaction to our intolerance for our humanness. Does that make sense?

So a lot of us are ambitious in this area because of this not enoughness we’re having with ourselves. And I want you to know that the healing that is so worth it is to realize you’re still gonna be you and have the results you want.

You’re still gonna be an imperfect human. So you’re going to be able to fit in, you’re going to be able to fit in the pant size you want, you’re going to be able to feel healthy when you eat. You’re not gonna have high cravings, you’re going to feel in control and you’re gonna be human, you’re gonna be you.

You’re never going to do it perfectly, and this is something that you can begin actively thinking about now.

So if you do decide to solve this problem, which I highly recommend, which I highly recommend my membership for that, which I highly recommend my membership space for that, because it gives you everything you need. You’re gonna be able to do it knowing what’s in store.

And this doesn’t mean though deep, and this doesn’t mean the deeper work is hard. It just is what you can actually expect when solving this problem for the last time. And here’s something I want you to think about for yourself, where most of you are getting tripped up and your healthy eating journey. It’s not that you’re even doing anything wrong, or you’re not making progress.

You actually halt your progress because the moment a mistake occurs, or you do it wrong for a period of time, you think I failed. And I want you guys to know that the thought about yourself, I failed can never be a factual truth. That means you’re not progressing.

It means you’re judging and shaming yourself, or your brain is judging and shaming you, which is perfectly normal. But don’t make the mistake of making a thought problem, a tactical problem, because really nine times out of 10, you’re just having natural human error that you can move forward from. That is totally gonna be a part of your journey.

But if you’re having a personal relationship to that, where your brain’s judging you and saying I failed, and you’re not aware of that thinking, then you’re gonna self sabotage because you’re gonna stop doing what’s already working again nine times out of 10. It’s not even human error.

That’s the problem because when you’re actually setting an intention to grow in this area of your life, you’re actually gonna be progressing. You’re gonna be doing a lot of things, right? But when you think I failed, you stop doing what’s working and you stop progressing at all. One other client example here and again, this is just a rite of passage, is clients will enter my space and then they will learn the skills to emotionally regulate, lower their stress and lower their cravings with food. And then what happens?

Let’s say the first couple of weeks. If they have a goal to lose weight, they’ll step on the scale and some clients will lose weight right away and some it’ll take a bit more time for their body to acclimate.

But it’s so crazy because very quickly clients, of course, will have quick results emotionally and the lower stress, they’re not having cravings, which so many clients say they’ve never felt like that before.

This is totally uncharted territory, which is amazing. And then if they step on the scale and their body isn’t ready to release weight, their brain will think, I failed, and I’m doing it wrong.

And when they’re in on your eating habits, luckily, they can get coached, and you can get coached through this. But their brain will urge them to self sabotage and convince them nothing’s working. They need to try something new, or they need to stop doing what they’re doing completely.

And notice this part of you, you guys, it was never about you doing things wrong in this area of your life. It’s the fact that you opted out of decision making completely, because you thought you were failing, and you made that judgement call. Also, you guys, we’ve got to talk about how having a low tolerance to human error is gonna burn you out completely. Because when you really believe that human error is what should be avoided, rather than building the skills as your focus.

It’s so much pressure, the stakes are too high, and it’s actually something that you’ll never be able to accomplish. You’re never going to be able to create the results you want with that thinking, cause human error is a part of it.

Y’all, we cannot escape human error, and like I said myself included. This is one of the biggest lies. I see the most intelligent type, a ambitious woman in the world believe is that we can possibly escape human error. And we’ll even trick ourselves into thinking that, because there’s a lot of things we know how to do right in our lives.

But when it comes to something like healthy eating or weight loss, that’s very human, very in line with your emotions and your body. You’re gonna have human error. And I want you to know this, not because it’s gonna feel good. Or maybe it’s not even what you wanna hear, but because it’s real.

And I want you to know that as an ambitious woman who like, who thinks in term, and I want you to know that as an ambitious woman who thinks in terms of the how a lot and love strategy, when you can learn to balance that part of you with the part of you that accepts human error and knows how to process emotionally, you will be unstoppable.

You will be able to create any results that you want, especially when it comes to healthy eating and weight loss. What I also want you to know is that it’s gonna be tough, maybe to accept that human error is part of your equation. You might even be a little intolerant to it. And this isn’t because you don’t want to, or because you’re being entitled or anything like that.

Sometimes it can show up as frustration and entitlement, but what’s really going on is your nervous system just might not be acclimated yet to human error to seeing 60% out of 100 with a certain skill, and watching weight come off, and watching weight come off or watching yourself feel better with ease.

This is something that comes up a lot in coaching and in fact I think it’s where the majority of coaching comes in, in on your eating habits.

We do talk about the skills, we strategize quite a bit, but most of the coaching comes in when your Type a brain will want to sabotage because you think you’re doing it wrong when actually everything’s working exactly at the pace it needs to. When you notice yourself doing it wrong, you might think I’m being lazy, I’m being unproductive, I’m not trying hard enough. None of this is true. And the work you probably have to do, rather than stepping up and trying harder is leaning back and resting and letting things work for you.

Even when human error comes up, there are individuals that I think we will all notice who need to pay more attention to human error maybe. And maybe this is when no action is being taken at all. Right?

That can happen. But the majority of you, I coach pretty much all of you. You are on the other end of the spectrum where you actually feel more comfortable the more you’re doing, the more effort you’re putting in when you’re solving for the 100% versus letting it not be perfect.

If you know that is your work, and you will know if it is, then that is what we need to heal. So here’s the shift I want to offer you make because it will be necessary. What if the goal isn’t to avoid human error, but to use it to your advantage? And, okay, I’ll say that again.

What if your goal with healthy eating isn’t to eliminate human error? It’s just to use it resourcefully to your advantage? Because if human error is unavoidable, then we’ve gotta accept that the power we have is how we react to it.

So if human error is gonna happen, the only thing that can take you from two steps back to 10 steps back is what you make it mean about you.

Are you making it mean that you failed and we’re having a personal relationship to it, which may happen? Or are we resourcefully using it as data to fuel and inform our next decisions? We need your human errors and this is something that I know can take some time to really process.

It took me years to process, which is why I now teach it that human error is the most useful part of your healthy eating journey. Because when you really commit to becoming a healthy eater, solving this area of your life for the last time, we’ve gotta figure out what makes you tick.

And I want you guys to know, as a coach and coaching a ton of women throughout the course of my career, what will keep a woman progressing most efficiently in this work is when she’s willing to fail the most she is willing to put herself out there, really try at the skills, really take action each week knowing she’s gonna fail because here’s the thing.

What happens is she just fails more quickly. So then we can evaluate her failure, see what makes her tick, use her failures as data to inform her next step.

What is often keeping so many of you from getting the result as efficiently as you want is you’re not willing to fail enough because you’re not taking enough action to actually fail.

You’re not setting the best intentions to eat healthy and then not following through because that actually is what’s gonna happen, right?

It’s not failure in this personal way, it’s just data. What’s gonna happen is you’re gonna have all the knowledge, you’re going to make plans to follow through and it’s not gonna happen because you’re gonna be skill building. You’re gonna have to be willing to do it wrong.

So many of you are seeing healthy eating like a math equation when really it is a skill that you are gonna have to develop.

I often compare this to a sport where when we learn, when we learn a new sport or a skill, we don’t approach it like a math equation because we know there’s some trial and error that has to be involved. Basketball is like the first thing that comes to mind for me.

I am not a basketball player. But I want you to imagine if you approach basketball with the Type a brain and think, okay, I just need to know what to do and then I can do it. And then you try and shoot the basket multiple times and you don’t get it in.

You sitting with me here and listening probably would see basketball like a skill where, you know, you just need to keep trying and showing up.

But that’s not how a lot of you are seeing healthy eating. You’re seeing it, like an equation with the plans, with the protocols when really to build the foundational skills where you lower stress, you stop emotionally eating, you honor your body cues, and you heal this area of your life.

It is like learning a sport. You need to understand that trial and error is involved, and that human error is a natural part of the equation of what it takes to learn how to play a sport, play basketball, learn how to eat healthy. Cause this is the truth I want you guys to know.

When it comes to human error, and what it’s gonna take, naturally healthy eaters don’t follow through the most, and they actually aren’t the most perfect at the skills.

They are the most adaptable when it comes to this area of their life. So they do not let their missteps or where they don’t follow through shake them. They just keep showing up with the best intentions, and they continue being resourceful.

And I want you to think, what if that actually was the only skill that you needed to focus on that flowed into everything else like a champagne fountain?

What if the only thing tripping you up really at the tippy top of that fountain was the fact that you think to eat healthy and show up in this way in your life, you have to focus on doing it right? You have to focus on doing it right? That is not the case.You just need to focus on being the most adaptable and resourceful no matter what human error occurs, no matter what human error occurs. So my friend, if this episode landed, I want you to take a breath and know this is a natural part of this journey. This is actually where everyone I have ever coached, this is actually where everyone I have ever coached started.

It’s where I have started. And I want you to know nothing has gone wrong. You’re not broken. You’re just human. And you will need to learn how to eat healthy with you being a human.

As simple as that sounds, it’s an easy thing to miss. So this week even I just want you to, so this week even I just want you to observe what happens after you make a mistake?

What happens after you set an intention to eat a certain way and you don’t react emotionally to what comes up? How do you feel compelled to react and how is that actually the problem that’s been occurring? It’s not human error at all. And if you want a process and a structure and coaching to go with this journey to stabilize you, I would love to invite you into the Own your eating habits membership.

This is my community where you will get the process, you will get the coaching and the support you need to see this all the way through to the results you want.

And if you decide to join, I can’t wait to be your coach and support you then. Alright, my friend, have a fantastic rest of your week, and I’ll talk to you soon.