Beyond the Scale: Dal's Journey of Transformation and Empowerment

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 327. Today, Beverly is talking to Coach Dal about beyond the scale they're going to dive into Dallas journey of transformation and empowerment. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance and movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast.

Welcome back to the PT Profit Podcast. My name is Chris and sometimes I pop in here and do the intros for the podcast. I also work behind the scenes at B Simps and Fit Fitness. And today I am very excited and proud to introduce you to Coach Dal, who I actually know personally because she is also based in Edmonton. She has also been traveling and attending conferences. So she's made a name for herself within the fitness community. What helps her stand out is her approachability and the fact that she has been there and done that. In this episode we dive into her what turns out to be a multi decade journey of getting rid of excess weight. And she talks about what essentially helped her make progress the most. She talks about some of the interventions and strategies that she went through and her journey to actually take the plunge, take the leap and become a coach herself where she now works with clients. And she's just very passionate about the industry, very passionate about improving in her career and personally and professionally. So I think you're really gonna enjoy this one. This is one of my more off the cuff intros. And if you enjoy this episode, be sure to tune in to some of the most recent ones because we've been really revealing a lot of golden nuggets in these episodes. If you enjoy this episode, please share it, review it, leave 5 stars whether you're on Spotify or Apple podcasts. With that said, let's get started.

What's up, Dal? How are you? Thank you for joining me on the show today.

Thank you for having me.

I'm super excited to dive in today. So for those of you who have not been introduced to your work before, can you share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Okay, yeah. My name is Dal and I've been on a personal journey of my own last two years, but probably more so two decades. Over two decades of trying to lose weight and get healthy but really, it's been the last two years that I actually hit my goal and was able to do it successfully. So that's a little bit about me. And I've lost £110, so. Yeah. And I actually started personal training with my coach, and just through my experience on this journey and with him, I just fell in love with nutrition and learning more about it and immersed myself just into everything, like podcasts, books, just learning more about it. And then he actually suggested that it might be a good option for me to look into coaching and coaching other people and sharing my knowledge and my passion for it with others. So here I am. And I just started coaching maybe two, I don't know, four months ago.

Congratulations. That's amazing.

Thank you.

Okay, I have so many questions. Let's dive in. I want to start, if you don't mind.

Right.

If anything I ask you is off limits, you just tell me, like, no, stop.

Okay, I won't.

And we don't have to. You don't have to answer it. But I am curious, like, can you take me back to the beginning, like, of the journey of £110 to lose or even, you know, whatever that amount was for you? Can you just tell me a little bit about what was going through your mind at that time? And you said two decades, but it wasn't until the two years. So can you just tell me a little bit about, like, what was going through your mind? What happened? If you want to share any causes, if you want, like, your opinions on the causes, and I'm just curious, like, what were some of the things that you had tried that you felt like weren't working?

Sure. Yeah. So two years or two decades? Over two decades of just yo, yo dieting. I've tried many, many different programs, counting points, B12 injections. There's a program that offered that, and it was really, really low, low calories. So extreme diets, extreme exercise programs for two years. You know, the quick fix, I actually talked about it in my post today. And the quick fixes that you think that will get you the results, and often they did. I did get the results, but. But automatically it would be reverting right back to old patterns, old behaviors. And so what I thought was quick essentially spanned over two decades. So it really wasn't that quick. And one day, honestly, two years ago or a little over two years ago, I kind of just woke up and said, this is it. Like, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I was having issues. I was at this. I was at like, the highest I had ever been. I couldn't walk up the stairs without being out of breath. I just had a baby, my second one. So I was going through postpartum. A lot of medical issues like plantar fasciitis. I deal with hypothyroid thyroidism. I have for 20 plus years. I couldn't sleep properly. My joints were hurting. I thought it was due to my bed. All, you know, all these things that you or I did. I try to place a cause for, like, that that's what was causing my problems. But really, essentially it was always just the weight itself. And so. And a lot of personal things as well. I also. It wasn't just a weight loss journey. It was a inner healing journey as well. So a lot of active work I did, I sought out help. I took it upon myself to find the information and resources that were going to help me as well. So just coupled with that and as well as working on my inner self and my outer self together, I was able to navigate journey a lot better. Now for the causes. There's a lot of causes. We can. I'll start or preface this by saying that we can blame a lot of things, and there are a lot of things to blame. Diet culture being one. You know, I grew up. I'm in my 40s, so I grew up in the 90s, 2000s, you know, with the magazines, airbrushing. And at that time, we didn't know what airbrushing was. We didn't know they were actually doctoring these images. And I was looking at them as a young female thinking, hey, wow, like, she's perfect. There's no flaw.

I'm 42. I'm 42. And I literally just posted this pose from. I can't remember her name.

I think it was Haley.

And she's like, I grew up in the 90s. And we wonder why we have body images. And it's like people interviewing Britney Spears or pointing out Jessica Simpson's body fat at size six, and you're like, what? So I get it. I get it. Anyway.

No, no, totally. I remember being literally, I got down to a size 2 or a 0, and I still thought that I had hips and I was fat. And where does that come from? Like, and it not. Not just the diet culture. It's also the culture that you grow what you grow up observing from your family, from family members, for a lot of people, their moms, because, you know, it's this generational cycle. And I used to, you know, see my mom as well, like, Dieting or trying to lose weight. The comments, you know, my hips and oh, just from family members as well. In my culture, there's no filter. People, People would look, literally look me up and down and be like, oh, you know, it looks like you gained a little bit of weight, or oh, wow, like you've, you know, it's been a while. Wow, you know, you've gained a lot of weight over the years. It was incredible. The amount, the words and the comments that just all the time coming at you. Then you couple that with diet culture and what you see and what we grew up with, like, that just compounded over the years. So that's one. The other thing was getting into these restrictive diets and doing all of these extreme things just led to a whole, like, cascaded into a whole slew of issues just making things worse, like causing that all or nothing mentality, punishing myself, you know, things that weren't present before. But as a result, it just. New things started to take hold. And what I learned though, through the last few years was that, yes, all of these things are a cause and I can blame them. But at some point I had to take some responsibility and accountability for myself because I'm an adult now. I'm on this journey, I'm learning I can do better. I know. And I have to make the choice to change. So, yes, all those things happen to me. It's a narrative that I told myself for a long, long time. And I used it as something that kept me kind of in a safe place, I guess I thought in my head, but really it was the opposite. I was just going in a different, like an extreme, an opposite extreme. So I was gaining weight, you know, becoming really like much more unhealthy than I was to begin with. And yeah, I think the fact that I finally realized that I have control over my actions and I need to do this for myself first and foremost, and was a game changer.

Okay, so can you take me? So now you made this change. Now what were some of the biggest differences that you were, you know, learning in your process?

The biggest differences. One was consistency. I know that's huge, and we hear it all of the time, but it, it actually makes up a whole, like just all of it. If you're consistent with everything that you do, you're gonna see the results. It's just a natural byproduct. So I stopped. I did. Initially, when I began my journey, I was still learning, right? So I was still kind of. I was still kind of counting calories. I Was following a program where I thought that that was still the way to go. But as I progressed and as I hired my coach, I started to learn, well, no, there's a better way that's, you know, evidence based nutrition. And that's when I started to realize and when I started tracking my calories that in learning more about food that wow, I can actually eat and not deprive myself. And so this is, this has been a learning process for me too, the entire time. So the biggest thing, like I said, was consistency but tracking. Some people might not agree, but for me personally, tracking my food allowed me to heal my relationship with food because I finally understood that dichotomous thinking. Like I was able to let go of that, that foods aren't good or bad, you know, can eat things that we love and still lose weight and still be healthy.

How long did you track for?

I'd say, well, two years tracking my food. So the last two years, initially I wasn't tracking on a app like Fitness, my Fitness pa, but say, let's say a year and a half of tracking and cross cross referencing from what I had started with, which was counting points, which is when I realized that I was under eating. So let's say over a year and a half I've been tracking. Yep.

How long? How long now? 110 pounds. Tracking is a long time. So I'm just curious from your own personal experience, like, how long were you in a calorie deficit and did you take calorie breaks and did you reverse diet?

Okay. So again, these are things I learned. And one thing that I'll talk about is the whole calorie deficit and how long I was in it for. There were a lot of times that I was in a calorie deficit. I think mindset deficit, mindset, a diet brain. There's a lot of terms that people refer to it as, but it's basically when you are very compliant for like a week or two and then you kind of go, go off course and you end up being in a surplus, which just kind of slows down your progress. That happened a lot. So I did that to myself, not realizing that I was throwing myself out of a calorie deficit a lot by, you know, going into the weekends or not, not tracking accurately. So this last fat loss phase that I did, which was just recently was 10 weeks. And I tracked diligently. I was 100 compliant. And what I learned through that fat loss phase compared to what I did for the last two years was that being in a dedicated Fat loss phase, there's a reason for that. And taking diet breaks, there's a reason for that. And that's something I'm learning as well. Like I said, but I get it now. I didn't reverse diet. When I got out of this fast fat loss phase, I went right into maintenance. So no reverse dieting. I didn't feel like I needed to slowly, you know, get back to my maintenance calories. I just went right into it, knowing that the scale was going to be up. That doesn't bother me. I've healed my relationship with the scale as well. So, yes, over the last two years, I would stay in a deficit sometimes for three, four weeks and then get out of a deficit not knowing that that's what I was doing at the time.

Slowly.

I did, I did take some breaks. So I can't exactly tell you when those breaks were or for how long, but I did do diet breaks or maintenance breaks.

So do you recommend that with, for your clients now?

100%? Yes. More so. It's psychologically as well. I know at the 10 week mark for me, I was done. You know, hey, I'm done. I want to go back to eating at maintenance. I feel. You just feel better at maintenance and for people, for women like me. I know I've talked about maintenance before. I've never known what living at maintenance was. Not like for the last, you know, 25 years. What is maintenance like? A lot of us don't know either we're in one extreme or the other extreme. And maintenance is where we're meant to live. And if we can get to that point, it's, it's just eye opening.

So, yeah, I'd love to hear, like, what is, what does maintenance mean for you? Like what, how do you know when you're in maintenance?

Maintenance for me, like I'm still tracking in maintenance even though I've done it for so long. I still find that we can find ourselves in a situation where we're still eating in a surplus without even knowing it. Because I can't, you know, I, I'm not at a point where I can trust myself to, you know, take a handful of chips and know that it's, I don't know, like 130 calories or 200 calories. So maintenance for me means freedom, you know, being free, not thinking about food all the time, being fulfilled physically, mentally, emotionally. I, I'm able to get stronger. Like I can see how being in maintenance and it affects my lifting. So it's the energy levels just, I'M just happy. Not, you know, and, and maybe this is a bit off track here, but I'm not happy because I lost the weight. Like, losing the weight isn't what's made me happy. It's having gone through the whole process and learning so much and breaking free from these generational cycles of, you know, body image, the way we feel, how we perceive ourselves, self, personal growth, just the introspective, you know, introspective work I've done, what I've learned about myself physically being stronger, how that makes me feel. So when I say I'm happy at maintenance, it kind of encompasses all of that.

Yeah, no, I, I get it. I, I, I was just curious in terms of, like, you know, I agree with you. I'm going to tell you right now, everyone's taught how to diet, but no one's taught, like, we're not taught how to eat eat.

Exactly. Like, it's like just so everyone knows.

How to diet, but they don't know how. The magic of maintenance. But you know, what's interesting is that, like, people have very strong opinions about whether or not you should track and tracking behavior is actually, you know, part of diet culture. But it's like, but at the same time, like, you can't change what you can't see. Would you drive to LA from New York with a blindfold on? No. So why, why won't you do the same thing with your food? Like, and, and you know, we look at our bank account when we're spending money, likely. Why would we do the same thing? You know, I mean, because if you don't and you get in trouble, like, we got problems, you know, so it's, it's similar. So it is interesting to me how people have, like, such strong experiences. But I'll notice. The reason I asked you this maintenance question is because sometimes I'll notice with my clients, like, how they don't trust themselves to not track. And I'm always curious when I look at that kind of behavior and I'm always wondering, like, well, that, that might be an area of opportunity for me and her to work through. Because it's like you, you know, if you, if you were to go travel the world or whatnot, like, would, would you feel comfortable not tracking?

Right, right. No, 100%. And, you know, I was just in Vegas for the Real Coaches Summit there. Again, like I said, it went out of a fat loss phase right into maintenance. And the food was delicious and, But I feel like because I've tracked for so long, I was Able to just gauge portion sizes, you know, my prioritized protein, the things that I've learned, the. All of the other things that you learn while you're going through the process. And so I guess the true test is when you're not tracking and you can do all of this and the confidence that comes out of that when you come back and you realize, wow, didn't make a difference. It was great. I enjoyed myself. I didn't have to track. And then you couple that with going back on maintenance or, you know, if you're trying to lose fat tracking again, that kind of gives your client or yourself. I know for me, it gave me the confidence that I don't have to track. I'm making the choice to track right now. I don't have to, you know, and with maintenance, it's not about hitting a certain number. Same thing with that fat loss. Like, you want to be in a range. Maintenance is a range and you find that range. And you know that range can be, give or take, however many amount of calories. But if you're not tracking, you have that buffer and that's what you want to learn. Like, you want to learn, eventually learn to not track and become dependent on that. Like you're saying it can be a problem for some clients.

So, yeah, so it's interesting, right? You want to navigate. You want to navigate it. So I get that. I'm, I'm curious as well. What did your training program look like when you were in your cycles of fat loss versus maintenance?

Oh, wow. Yeah, it hasn't changed. Actually. I. This last fat loss phase, I actually hit PRs, so. Yeah. So, you know, I think contrary to what we hear all the time or what we read, it's not, not always black and white. And I think that we can, you know, Mike Dola made a post about this. You know, being in a calorie deficit doesn't mean that you're not going to progress with your lifting or, you know, I can't quite remember it, so I don't want to butcher it, but I remember commenting and saying, yeah, like, I'm in a fat loss phase and I just hit two PRs today, so. But I did, I did find that there are days as well that I did feel a little bit weaker, so. Right. But throughout my, like, I've been training for a year and a half with my coach and maybe it was because I was a new, new lifter. I guess you want to say I haven't hadn't worked out for like 20 plus years. Properly. And so I still had the gains. Yeah. So my training program effectively hasn't really changed. So I just feel like I'm progressing. Cool. It's cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. You know, and now I'm also curious, like your transition from, you know, client to coaching.

Right.

I'm curious, what was that? Like, how have you. And I'm going to give you some context for my question because I am a former district fitness manager and I've worked with literally hundreds of coaches and specifically personal trainers. Right. And I can't tell you how many times the number one fear that people have come to me and confessed in their business plans is I'm a trainer and I don't look the part. And I'm afraid no one's going to work with me because I don't look the part and it doesn't matter what their body looks like. I'm going to tell you that I would hear that from people who had like, you know, hundreds of pounds. Like, they would be like, I, I've never, I, I don't, I don't have empathy because I don't know what it's like to be my client. So sometimes I feel like I can't relate or sometimes I feel like I don't look, I'm not enough yet. Like, I'm just curious. Your own personal journey and if you had any feelings of like, what it's like to be a new coach and how you navigated that.

Yeah, you know, I've. Okay, so I've been through it. Yes. Does that qualify me to be a coach?

No.

But does it? Yes, because I'm actually putting in the work, I'm learning about it, I'm doing, you know, I'm getting my certifications. So in that sense, yes, it does. Trust me. I suffer from imposter syndrome as well. So coming into this industry and my background is criminology, sociology. I've worked in the law enforcement field for the last 20 years. So, yeah, like, I wasn't just working in the office and working with, with just the entire system. So that's my background. So this is, this contrasts quite a lot. Right.

I mean, the reason I said what really is my husband is in law enforcement. He's a detective.

Okay. Yeah. So I worked with a lot of, we say members here with the rcmp. So I worked in the office, but we, you know, did a lot of the, we do a lot of the back end work. Right. So, yeah, seen it, seen it all. Wow. It's crazy. Yeah. But anyways, Going back to the coaching. So for me, I, I look at that and I'm like, oh, can I do this? You know I'm going to be cut out for it. Yes, I've lost all that weight. But, you know, at the end of the day, everybody's situation is going to be different. Just because I've lost the weight my way and whatever way I did it doesn't mean that it's going to work for the next person. And so I always kind of keep that in mind that, yes, I've been through it, but just know that everyone's going to have their own set of issues, own set of problems. They're coming from different backgrounds, I come from a different culture. So I understand that even being able to fit my eating preferences, things that I grew up with within this journey. Huge, right?

Yeah. I mean, that's another thing I'm also curious about. Like, I feel like a lot of diet culture is, is very, you know, it is really catered to Western. Western eating.

It is, yeah, let's talk about that. Because I'm quite passionate about that actually. Yeah. It's not all about broccoli, chicken and rice. Right.

Yeah, I know.

But they do make components for great meals in all different cultures. Right, Right. So I, you know, I come from an Indian background, so we have rich foods like butter, chicken, samosas, curries. Right. So I ate all of those. I. The caveat is that you can have all of these foods. You just have to learn to prepare them in a healthier way using, you know, less of what you would had you like, maybe you used a ton of oil to fry up your rice or whatever, saute your rice. Well, you don't have to. So I found ways to make all the foods I love, curry chicken, butter chicken, different rotis or naans, if you want to call them, and swaps. So instead of sour cream and buttermilk mixed together, you, you know, have Greek yogurt, you get your protein and less fat. And so I think a big thing that many people struggle with. And I was just talking dming another coach and she was saying, because I posted one of my meals, it was, was roti, goat curry and Greek yogurt. And she commented like, wow, this is awesome. Because I have clients that come from South Asian backgrounds and they say they can't eat the foods that, you know, they want to eat. I'm like, no, you can, of course you can. You just have to modify them and you have to learn them to prepare them, prepare them in a different way. And that's not just for, you know, our cuisine. That's for any type of cuisine. Right. So fried rice, chicken fried rice, if you like that. Yeah, I make all sorts of stuff.

So, yeah, I think that's really important.

Right.

And I, because, you know, I've worked with clients that have, you know, they have a Latin background and they're like, well, I, this is, these are the foods that I'm eating. I'm not eating, I'm not going to eat out of the Tupperware container and eat your halibut. Okay. Not that I would ever say that, but that's like, what, what, you know, you see or you watch these swaps that are not very, that, that just are not diverse.

Right, right.

And so it's, and it, so it's been very, I love watching a lot of content now that shows up different types of swaps that we can incorporate into our meals. Because it just comes down to education. Like, people just don't know what they don't know and they don't know what to ask.

Right, exactly, exactly. And that's kind of something that I'm working on as far as addressing, I know, in my culture is like, how do you get people, you know, in your community to adapt, like, change their ways and think about this differently? And I'm struggling with that because I, I don't know how to go about that because I know just for my parents or people in my social circle, like, it's hard to make that, that change. Right. Like, going from being used to eating this, you can eat like, you can eat lentils. Just don't make, just don't pour like so much olive oil in the lentils. You can make them without it at all and get all the nutrients and the benefits from that food without the extra calories coming from fat. Right. Which adds up big time. Right. What is it? Two tablespoons of oil is 240 calories. That's half. That can make up half your meal.

So, and people eyeball that. Right. Or we take for granted. Or they're like, oh, let me just eyeball this. Or they get stuck into, like, diets with a name and they're like, oh, well, this is off limit. Or I can just eat this because this is keto. When in reality, like, I mean, the other day, I, I, I love macadamia nuts. It's like one of my favorite things. But you can't eat that. You, you can't eat that many of them because if you eat the whole bag, that's Your whole days of calories.

Exactly. And, and then let's like go back to why tracking is important. You don't have to do it forever, but it's something that you should do for a little while. Okay, fine. If, you know, it's ed related, I, I get all that, but that's not the majority of us, right? We, we, we don't have an issue with tracking our food or that. And, and if we do, I find, I know from personal experience, I used a lot of things as excuses not to do the thing. So my, for example, my sister would encourage me just, you know, go for a walk. Like, you know, take your son, go for a walk, do this. Do I know. I just can't, you know, I don't, I don't have time or whatever. I would find a reason not to do it. Well, why? Because I didn't want to and why didn't I want to? And this is huge for me. I had to really, you know, dive in deep into the reasons for my inaction. Like why, why. It's not. And I talk about this a lot. It's. I know we're going off a little track here, but about our, about our whys, right? We, we say, you know, why do you, you know, you figure out your why? Is it for your kids? Do you want to do it for your kids? Do you want to do it because you want to be healthier when you're older? Like, what is your why? Well, before we even get to the why, why aren't you doing it? Like, what are the reasons or the causes, the reasons for your inaction? Let's address that. Because for me, the whys are just going to be a natural byproduct of kind of getting to the root of the problem. Right? And so for me, it was actually getting to the root of the problem of. As to why I wasn't doing it, why I didn't want to do it, why I was making the excuses. And once I finally decided that I needed to face those things, like head on and tackle them and, you know.

Pardon me, what was it for you?

So there's a part of it that I don't want to get into, but I will talk about the part that some of the things, they, for me, a lot of the things go back to when I was a child. I again, going back to growing up in a culture that values boys over girls was huge. And agree or disagree, like, this is how it is in my culture. And it still persists today. Maybe not so much with the first, first generation or people like for, for example, myself born and raised in Canada. I don't see that. But I did see it. I experienced it a lot while growing up and I was a second daughter to boot. So you know, that influenced a lot of how I grew up and the things that I kind of witnessed and the things that were said to me. The words, a lot of, a lot of things like even, you know, let's talk about like beauty standards and body image issues. Even that, that there's a, a color hierarchy that exists in a lot of cultures. I'm sure you're familiar with that. It does exist in ours. And you know, the, the darker you are, the less beautiful you are. Right. So, so that was a thing growing up like, oh, we are dark. So I, I, I, I, that caused me to fear the sun and getting darker. And so, you know, parents don't realize, a lot of parents don't realize the, the effect that words have on their children. And might not be your words, but it could be the words of your family members, people that, you know, surround you, surround yourself with. And that takes a toll right from the get go. And it just compounds over time. And so that's where it kind of started for me. And then just growing up, a ton of other issues and bullying in a lot of it. And then that, you know, again turned into how I saw myself, perceived myself, looked at myself in the mirror again. Like I was saying when I was 20 and I was a size, you know, 2 or 0, I thought I was fat. Why?

So what I'm hearing you say is that like you needed to get down to the root cause of the pain of, of being in your body at whatever size before you could actually really, you know, elicit change. That stuck.

Exactly. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. You, yeah, you put that very well. Like I it that that's why the introspective work was so important and doing the internal healing and I did it in conjunction with my journey. Like it for some people, you know, it needs to proceed it for me, it, I've just been working on it throughout, still working on it. I don't think it's something that we ever stop. I mean again, this is a journey, right? So yeah, it's ongoing.

So I am curious, you know, when you are dealing with. I'm curious this for you because I know that I faced it. So I'm, I'm. Because I too like when I was pregnant with my second, I was £200 and I remember walking up the stairs and feeling like I. I can't breathe. Like, I can't chase my toddler right now. Like, I literally, like, need to take a break because I walked up the stairs, and I was like, that's not a light. And it would take me, like, 10 times longer to, like, move around. Now I know I was pregnant, and it was a different circumstance, but still, I remember being in that body and being like, this isn't a body that I want to live in. And so I'm curious, like, navigating the difference of, like, I know I want to make a change, and I want to honor the body that I'm in, because I feel like there's this huge dichotomy of, like, you're either body positive and, you know, losing fat is bad, or you are accused of perpetuating, you know, diet culture that is harmful. So I'm curious how you navigated that difference for yourself.

Okay. So I can try to give you an example to kind of demonstrate that, for example, I was. I remember being a certain weight and feeling again, feeling like, oh, my God, like, I'm so big. I'm so fat. Like, I don't want to go anywhere. And I didn't. Like, I didn't do anything. I. And then when I went through this process, this time and I reached that weight, I was like, wow. Like, I can. I would never go to a swimming pool. I would never go swimming with my kids or take them to, you know, your community pool. And I thought we had a birthday party, and I thought, you know what? I don't care. Like, I'm feeling good. Yeah. I'm not where I want to be for myself, but I don't care. So I went and got a swimsuit, and I went with my son into the pool, and it was the most amazing experience I've ever had and very surreal in the sense that I had gotten to a point where I actually felt comfortable with myself. Like. Yeah. I'm not sure how. How else to explain it. I just felt very comfortable. I felt good. I felt strong. And I think it's. It's. It's not. I think. I know it's because of all of all the work that I put in, the mindset shifts and the way I perceived myself now in comparison to how I felt before. And it comes down to, you know, the narratives that we tell ourselves. Right. And going back to how I felt when I was heavier to how I feel now as well, just knowing that I can do the things with my kids, like, you mentioned, like, you can even go up the stairs. How am I going to chase my child world? I thought about those things, and I thought about those things when I was heavy as well. I just. Or heavier. I just couldn't put the two and two together, though. Like, I never got to a point. I think that you correct me if I'm wrong, but you thought about that and you're like, okay, I'm gonna make the change or I'm not gonna do this. Like, I know I can't live in a bigger body. Right. I was at that point, I. That never. That was never. That was a motivation. Like, I thought it should have been a motivation, but it just never propelled me into taking the action that I needed to take.

So what were some of the things that helped you move through the all or nothing mentality so that you could stay consistent?

The all or nothing mentality? Yeah. That's huge. What were the things that helped me? I. I think just being consistent and just doing the things on a daily basis and then over time, it was evidence I don't have to be perfect. And learning that progress comes in many different forms. And, you know, combine, like, all of those things showed me that I could do it. Like, that I didn't need to have that all or nothing mentality, that I needed to let go of it. And that is huge. I talk about that with my clients as well. The all or nothing. And so just setting yourself up for success in whichever way, you know, whatever that means to you, whether it's your environment. And for me, it was just sticking with it. Even, just, even just for a short period of time, you know, like six weeks, just doing it for six weeks, just being 80% consistent. I was able to show myself, prove to myself that, hey, listen, like that all or nothing mentality you were holding on to for years. Yeah. You know, that that wasn't working. There's a reason that wasn't working. And having gone through all those extreme programs and dieting programs and two. Two decades of the, the yo yo dieting, if that wasn't enough, just doing this in the way that I did it this time, like just sticking to the basics and being consistent, which are like two major factors. I say the formula to success, consistency and basics. Right. Yeah. That. That helped me shed that all or nothing mentality. For sure.

Yeah.

And.

And you've seen how it's helped your clients.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's. Again, we'll bring this back to tracking because I feel like for me, like I said, tracking is huge. And it healed my relationship with food But a part of that was also healing or realizing that, you know, it's not about all or nothing. You know, you can have these foods and when you track them, you realize, oh, wow, like, okay, I can have a donut, I just, just won't have this. Like, it's the same thing. You choose. You can have a banana and, I don't know, a handful of nuts, or you can have that donut. They're just, you know, two different things are not good or bad different. Obviously the donuts aren't going to keep me as full for long, but if in that moment that's what I feel like having, then that's what I'm going to have. So, yeah, that also contributed to that as well.

So what, when you track, what specifically do. Do you track?

Right now, I, or I have been. I pretty much track everything, especially when I was in this fat loss phase, like the bite slicks, tastes, the condiments, you know, all those things that add up. You have calories.

Calories, proteins. Oh, calories.

Okay. You're talking about nutrient, macro. Yeah, I track calories and protein. That's what I do. And that's what I've always done. Just calories and proteins. So, yeah, I've never done the macro counting or Mac. Yeah, yeah. So, and that, yeah, go ahead.

You're not doing a split. You're just trying calories. Protein.

Yep, calories and protein. Yeah, keeping that protein up and just staying within a certain range. So.

So I'm also curious, did you have any plateaus during your 110 journey? And what, you know, what did you notice and what were some of the things that you worked through when you felt like you were at a plateau?

So, yeah, I had a lot of plateaus. So I realized initially I didn't understand plateaus as well as I do now.

So, yes, dive in.

I was like, everyone thinking, like, what Can I swear?

Yeah, sure. Like, what the fuck?

Like, why isn't the scale moving? Like, I'm doing everything right. And I would kind of look at that and be like, and I was only, I was only weighing in once a week. And so, you know, obviously now I do it once a day or was doing it once a day. And I got better data and understood the whole scale variation concept a lot better. And, you know, I have a better relationship with the scale now during those plateaus, as I was going through my process again, like I said, I was learning about nutrition and learning about plateaus and all of, of this stuff. And so I was able to navigate through them after a certain point, pretty, pretty effortlessly. Just knew I had to stick with it and just keep. And I had a large amount of weight to lose, so the plateaus weren't. There weren't a lot of plateaus, to tell you the truth, Initially. Right. But I've seen them more. So now that I'm getting closer to my goal weight, I. I see them more and I'm. I'm still not at my goal weight, but I don't need to get to my goal weight anymore. Like, I realize now that it's more about. For me, it's more about getting stronger, building muscle and what whatnot. But, yeah, navigating those plateaus was just like, hey, it's a part of the journey. It's gonna happen, you know, and if it's been. If it's been a. A long, like it's been more than three, four weeks and I've been totally compliant with everything, then yeah, okay, maybe I'll look at changing my calories or maybe changing my movement up a bit, but other than that, really, I've. I've been able to lose consistently. So I think when you have a large. For me, for sure, I had a large amount of weight to lose. Those plateaus were not as common as, say, for someone who has like £20 to lose, maybe. Interesting.

Yeah, Yeah, I love it. I love it. So what's your current goal now? What are you working on now?

Right now, like I said, I just got out of that fat loss phase. It's just to build muscle, really. Just get stronger lift and that's it. I mean, are you.

When you say build muscle, does this mean that you're going to do a surplus?

I'm gonna stay in maintenance, I think, yeah, I'm gonna stay in maintenance because I, I still feel like I can still just work on it slowly and still build a muscle that I need to over time. Maybe one day I still have extra storage.

I get it. Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll. I'll be in maintenance for a while and find my true maintenance. Right. Like, it's going to be a. It's going to take a little bit for me to find where my true maintenance is. So cool.

I love that. Okay. I want to be mindful of your time. So for those of you who are tuning in and want to work and work and connect with you and go deeper with you, what are some of the best places that I can send them?

I'm right now mainly on Instagram, so. Nutrition coaching by Dal. You can dm me, email me and that would be the best place to find me. I'm on Facebook as well, but Instagram is my main platform.

I love it. I will definitely link that up for for those of you listening. So thank you so much for being so vulnerable, sharing your journey and giving us some of your best tips, trick and insights into the things that you're working on. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate that. Hope I helped. You did.

Yes. Yes, for sure.

For sure.

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