I Am Totally Out of Control. Can You Remind Me How to Take Those Initial Steps Back?

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I am totally out of control. Please remind me of how to take those initial steps back.

This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert.

And fitness hall of famer.

I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the health expert. Kelly Scott from Facebook wrote, I am so far off of eating correctly, I.

Am totally out of control.

I know your eating plans and I.

Know it all works.

I feel like the hill is huge to get back. Trying to think where to begin again. I feel horrible and heavy, sluggish, depressed, and pretty sure my thyroid levels are off. But my doctor isn't seeing patients for.

Non critical issues right now.

Please remind me of how to take.

Those initial steps back.

And yes, I still have your books. All right. Like my, my heart just kind of sank when I read this. And, and I was like, we've all been there. We've all been there. I've been there. I'm betting you've been there. And you know, that's the ability to figure out how to get back is the most important thing.

Life is just not this straight line of progress. So.

So I'm going to share some tactics when we get back.

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All right, so I so understand where you're at and through personal experiences, through coaching so many people through the same thing. And I guess our biggest goal here is to help you have the strategies in place so that it doesn't get to this point again, so that we've got some learning here that we can use over and over and over again. And it reminds me back when we did a survey of our community a couple years ago, and the question was, if you're not where you want to be in your health and in your weight, why not now? I really thought that it would be because, you know, you couldn't get rid of your gluten or you couldn't stop the sugar or, gosh, I just refused to give up the cheese. I really thought it'd be something like that. But the answer wasn't that the overwhelming response by so many people who wrote in paragraphs, letters about this was, I don't feel good enough. I don't feel worthy. I don't love myself. And what I read when I read this, and I feel it, you know, in my gut, is this desperation loathing. And so we've got to get off of that. And first of all, go to forgiveness. You know what? We all get off track. You're not going to be at your peak and your best all the time. We've just gone through something really rough. This is being recorded at the time of quarantine and the pandemic. And so we're here now. And now let's move Forward. And so the first thing that you've got to realize is that it's like fully take into yourself is that you are here, you're worth it, and come from a place of self love rather than self loathing. And I look at what we need to do to change and you know, when you pick one thing, own that thing, and then go to the next thing and own that thing, you make small changes that all add up to a massive change over time. But we always want to go, okay, I've been, I've totally fallen off. So right now I want it all back to where it was. And it just doesn't work that way. Especially, you know, if you're not 20. Especially it doesn't work that way. So the first thing that I want to look at is I want to sit back down. I want you to start to dream. And this is all in a journal. And from here on out, keep a journal. I'm going to give you a couple tips so that it doesn't get to this point again. Number one, keep a journal and weigh in every single day. Weigh in every single day, because then you can catch yourself if things start to go crazy. I will tell you that I have been stable in my weight's just never an issue. It goes like up or down £2, that's it. And as the pandemic went on, it went up, like jumped up three pounds. Immediately I went, well, that's interesting. And that's probably stress. And then all of a sudden, it went up a pound a day, a pound a day, a pound a day, over a week. Well, cause for alarm, freak out. Turned out that my hormones had completely done a 180, which I'm digging into right now. But the reason I could tell that was because I was stepping on the scale every single day and then going, what the heck is going on? So we got to step on the scale every day and take the emotional charge out of it and realize it's just information to find out what is going on with your body. Along with that, you're going to be writing down what you're eating every day because it makes a big difference when you put it on paper. And again, not judging, looking at it so that you can connect the dots and go, gosh, when I get upset, I do this. And then you're going to pick where you want to start. Now, I really like to take people through a process where first you envision your big goal, your big why, why are you doing this? Where do you want to be? And you really get a clear picture of where you want to be. You know, what, what body you want to have, how it's going to feel to be in that body, what kind of confidence when you have that, what's that going to do for you in your life? What's it gonna mean that you're going to go after that? You're gonna feel more confident going after. So you get a really clear picture, really clear vision. Because remember, everything's created first once in your mind and then in your actions. So the first thing we have to do is get that clear picture of where you wanna believe and know where you wanna be and know and believe that you can be there.

Cause you can.

It's gonna take time, right? So you get that clear and you put it in your journal. And you're so clear on your why and. And you're so clear on where you want to go. And then you look at where am I going to start? Where's my starting point? How do I raise my floor from where I am now to the next step up? And it could be something so basic as right now. What I'm going to make sure of is that I'm going to start adding vegetables into my diet. So I've been eating like two vegetables a day. I want to go to five servings of vegetables a day. That will be this week's progress. That's it. Next week I will pull out artificially sweetened stuff and I'll put in green tea and water. So again, pick one thing. That's why if you look at all of my programs, Virgin diet, Sugar impact diet, it's not do all these things. It's not pull out the hidden food intolerances, start exercise de stress. No, it's one thing. So you're going to take one thing and work it till it becomes your new normal. Your new. People always talk about raising the ceiling, raising where they want to be. I want to raise the floor so you'll never go back to where you were before. So that the new you gets up in the morning and writes down what they're grateful for and gets on the scale every single day. The new you makes sure that you are getting your water in throughout the day, that you're getting enough vegetables because you picked one thing at a time and put that in place. And then, and this is so important, hire a coach. Find a coach. Find a coach online. There's so many great health coaches and nutritionists out there. Find a coach, someone you can relate to, who's going to help you stay accountable and help you troubleshoot if you go sideways so that it's a learning experience that won't be repeated. And again, let's keep that focus of where you want to be, that clear vision and that vision of self love in getting there. And then Kelly, report back. I want to hear your progress. All right.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a.

Show by going to subscribetojay.com foreign.

Hello listeners. This is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week I take all things books and Reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and visit our website what Should I read next podcast.com to find out more.