411: 7 Morning Mistakes Sabotaging Your Weight Loss After 50

We risk spiking our cortisol. And when we spike our cortisol level, which is your stress hormone, we not only increase belly fat, but we also increase appetite, we increase cravings for high calorie foods. We're going to impair our cognitive function, we're going to compare, we're going to impair our decision making abilities. Hi, I want to welcome you to Midlife Conversations. I'm Natalie Jill, your host and I help midlife women redefine and rebrand aging. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated information and conversations around aging that are relevant to us now and breaking it all down simply with actionable steps that you can implement to level up your life. Because your best years are yet to come. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring people living in their best midlife years. On this show, I cover topics about our health, hormones, navigating weight, blood sugars, our mood, focus changes, even our relationships, career changes, beauty and more.

In this episode we're going to talk about seven morning mistakes sabotaging your weight loss efforts after 50. You can listen to this if you're in your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, and beyond any age, but talking specifically about our 50s because me recording this, I'm 53 and I've noticed a lot of things shift in our aging in those years and fat loss, being an expertise of mine, has really shifted and morning routine has gotten more and more important. And you don't have to worry, I'm not going to go into all these crazy biohack habits you got to do in expensive pieces of equipment to do this perfect looking morning routine. I want to talk about small shifts that we can do and things that are actually sabotaging our life right now. These are easy things to change and so let's dive in now before we really dive into this episode. If you are new to my YouTube channel here, make sure you subscribe. Hit that subscribe button if you are watching on YouTube. If you're listening on the podcast, make sure you hit follow so you don't miss an episode. And just so you know, every podcast I do is Also on my YouTube channel, Natalie Jill Fitness. This is important to know because on those videos there's more footage, there's extra stuff and I always put graphics images to talk about what we're, what we're going over, especially if I have a guest. So you want to check out both of those, but let's dive in. So I want to talk about specific things to morning routine and I want to first give you a little backstory on this, I've been teaching and helping women with fat loss for many, many years. And my signature program, Total Body Thrive Midlife Edition, which opens twice a year, we have another one coming up here in January. It's built on three principles that really tie into what we're going to talk about today. So everything I teach when it comes to fat loss is based around three pillars. Decide, vision, and action. I want to explain a little bit more about what that means. Decide means anytime we are changing something in our life, we want to achieve different health results, we want to accomplish fat loss, we want to be in a healthier body, we want to change our lab numbers, whatever, or any goal for that matter. The first step to that is always going to be making a decision. It's stepping into the idea of I've decided that this is going to be a real possibility for me. Now, why is that important to bring up? Because we come with a lot of backstory to why we are not a certain weight and not a certain health, why our labs are a mess. We come with the story of it's my genetics, or it's the way it's always been, or I've tried everything, or these things don't work for me, or it's a lot of stories, or I have this diagnosis, all those things might be real. But without that first starting ground point of I've decided to make a change, or I've decided I'm going to be healthier, I've decided things are going to get better. It's very hard to build on that. So I wanted to point that out first. The next pillar I talk a lot about is vision. And that's operating from what we want, not what is. It's operating from possibility, not problem, problem. It's operating from potential, not current circumstances. And this is important because when I get into especially morning routine today, you might have this whole story of, yeah, but this is the way that it is, or I just can't wake up, or I'm not sleeping well, or it's not the right environment, or I have. I don't want to start my day or whatever it is. And when you're operating from that place, you're operating very much from circumstance, not possibility and vision. So I wanted to point that out also to set the groundwork for this, because I want you to listen to this and take on the stuff that we're going to chat about from a place of possibility and vision, what's possible for you and that's the same thing I would coach women through my total body thrive is to let's get clear on what it is that we want and the possibility behind that and let's take actions from that. The third pillar I teach in thrive is about action and that's those actual things that we do. Some of the things we're going to talk about today. And it's also just action in your life, like how are you moving your body, what are you eating, who are you talking to, what things are you doing? All the doing things. Those are all the actions. Those work work much better when we layer them on top of decision and vision. Okay, so why do I bring that up first? I bring that up first because I'm going to go over some things and I want you to operate from a place of decision and vision as we dive into these. Now, operating from decision and vision is not woo woo. It's not a woo woo thing because we have to take actions with it. Woo woo to me would be we're just thinking about it and I'm going to live in possibility and I'm not going to take any actions. And that's not how this works. So when you can get clear on your decision and clear on what you want for your life, we can start taking actions that will help align with that. Okay, so let's backtrack a little bit to actual morning routine. And what we're doing wrong right now, that's sabotaging ourselves and ultimately sabotaging our weight loss. So when we do these wrong things, the problem is we are not only creating staggering and shifting cortisol levels, but we are really disrupting a lot more to that. So for example, if we start our day scrolling our phone or reacting to emails or fighting with our spouse or taking a phone call before we've really grounded ourselves, we risk spiking our cortisol. And when we spike our cortisol level, which is your stress hormone, we not only increase belly fat, but we also increase appetite, we increase cravings for high calorie foods, we're going to impair our cognitive function, we're going to compare, we're going to impair our decision making abilities, we're going to weaken our immune system. A whole host of things happening with spiked cortisol. We're also raising our blood pressure and raising our blood sugar. Believe it or not, you raise your blood sugar with spiked stress and cortisol levels. So this is a big reason we do not want to start our day in that state of a state of stress. Another problem with starting our day in some of these habits I'm going to share the wrong way is we're going to slow our metabolism. So when we start our day sedentary, also coupled with inadequate hydration and poor nutritional choices, and I'm going to get into a lot of this, we also significantly slow down our metabolism, which leads to reduced calorie burning throughout the day, which means increased calories being stored as fat, increased fat storage, especially around that midsection, which is the place it loves to go in midlife, that midlife thickening. And then we're decreasing our energy levels and our physical performance. So another problem with starting our morning routine not in a very streamlined, productive, math manner. Another thing is when we don't start our morning routine on point in power from a place of decision and vision, we are affecting our and reducing our overall well being. So not only are we going to have lower self esteem and body images, we're going to decrease our motivation, our productivity, we're going to strain relationships due to these mood fluctuations and we're going to reduce our energy. So lots of reasons to really look at this. Okay, so let's dive in. I want to talk about those common mistakes because listen, I do these too. I'm, I'm certainly not preaching this from a perfect box at all. These are things that I am guilty of falling into doing and I have to interrupt myself continually with why do I not want to do these things and what's the better choice? So I know you're doing these too. I know you are. Because these are things that I naturally do. These are things that my friends do. This is what we default to in midlife. We default to this. So I'm going to call attention to them first and then we're going to talk about what we can do instead of them. Okay, so there's seven things that I'm outlining here that I wrote down as like the most important things that we've got to disrupt. Okay? Number one. Number one, hitting that snooze button. Stop hitting the snooze button. Why are we hitting that snooze button? We're hitting it because we think we're getting this. My, my husband loves to hit the snooze button and he says he likes to do it because he feels like he gets like seven night sleeps. And like if the alarm goes off and he shuts it off and he gets to do it again and do it again and do it again, that gets us to a lazy start. It does not start our day productive and envision and fired up. And it is not helping anything. Just to share my point with you on this and have you have an example of where this is not the case. Imagine days when or think back to days when you've been really excited, you've got a friend coming to visit, or it's a big wedding you're going to, or it's just a really, it's your birthday, you, there's something exciting happening in the day. You do not hit the snooze button. You jump out with power, excitement. You are ready to start the day. It sets your whole tone for the day better. But when we hit that snooze button over and over and over again, we are setting ourselves up for laziness, for not being productive, for not starting our day powerfully. So one of the first simple things you could do is not hit your snooze button. Now, how do you not hit a snooze button? Well, the ideal way was to get your would be to get your circadian rhythm and your blue light and all the other stuff correct so that you wake up naturally. That's the ideal. And I realize that is not easy for a lot of us. So if that's you and you do not wake up naturally, my advice is to put your alarm, put your phone in another room, make it so you have to literally get out of bed, get out of your comfy blankies, go over and shut it off. That will get you up. So what I do is I keep my phone in a totally different room. So I do tend to wake up more naturally most nights, most days now. But if I am oversleeping and I'm not waking up naturally, I hear the alarm go off, I am up, I am out, I shut it off, it's going to be a lot less likely to get back in bed. So that's number one interrupting this episode for just a moment because I want to share this for you. If you struggle at all with bloating, cramps or stomach aches, this is a common issue I hear from midlife women especially, and I've got a 30 second hack that will improve your gut health. You ready? Get more minerals. 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Okay, number two, what we need to stop doing what we've been doing is we are. I'm guilty of this too. I'm definitely guilty of this. I'm working on it is scrolling and I don't just mean social media, I mean all the things. Emails, WhatsApp, text, all the things. So what goes wrong when we scroll? So many things go wrong but let me just start with some basic things. How we want to start our day is powerfully in decision and vision, clear on our intentions, in gratitude, feeling really starting the day right. When we jump to scrolling, we change our mood really quick. Not only are we spiking our cortisol and getting into fight or flight, we might be triggered. We might have jealousy, we might be annoyed, we might feel bad about ourselves. We are leaving our day up to chance. When we start scrolling first, no matter where you go, if you go to social media, we go down comparison mode. We start feeling not good enough. Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? It feels good while you're doing it, but it's not helping. It's not feeling productive. You go to email, emails. All of a sudden now you are on somebody else's schedule. You feel like you're late for something, you start reacting. You go to same thing with WhatsApp or text or whatever. We waste time and we are not in control of what's coming in. I realize it's fine, it's a dopamine hit. I like doing it to look, there is nothing better than you wake up and you grab your phone and you're scrolling and you're shopping and you're do la la la la. You're doing all the things right. But you know it is not helping anything. It is one of the worst things that you can do. So what do you do instead of scrolling? Well, if you can force yourself not to scroll, amazing. For me that's not really an option. So I have to give myself a tiny bit of a fix and then I'll put it away. So what I do is I have timers on my phone. So I have a timer of how much time I can actually look at something and I'm very aware of that. So it forces me to only be able to look at it for a few amount of minutes and then I'm done and I move on to the next. Maybe that's an option for you. If that's not an option for you, then it's having it in airplane mode, it's having it shut off, it's not even having it on your phone. One thing I've done is I've removed email from my phone. You can always add it back as you need it, but I remove it. That forces me to go look at my computer for an email versus just reacting on it there. You could also turn notifications off. It's another way. But when we're scrolling, it might feel good in the moment. It is certainly not helping us. I know this is not new news to you, I just wanted to point it out. Because what you might not be connecting is that scrolling is not only messing up our productivity for the day, it's affecting our cortisol, it's affecting our whole mood. It's all things. So it's one of the worst habits and it's one of those things we've got to stop doing. Okay? The next thing we're doing wrong and I'm going to show you how to fix it, is we're not starting our day with gratitude. This can set your whole tone. This can set your whole tone. One of the things I do first thing in the morning, most mornings, not every morning. Again, I'm not perfect. It's all about progress, not perfection. Is keeping a list of gratitude what I'm grateful for? And you can do this on a journal that you write. You could do this just thinking about it. You could do it writing on your phone. You can do it writing somewhere on a tablet, whatever. It's just, it's getting in that mindset of gratitude. And gratitude can be anything. It could be big things in your life, it could be little things. It could be I woke up today, I'm breathing. I've got my husband sleeping next to me. It's sunny outside. It's going to be a nice day. I'm grateful for a job. I'm grateful for my business, grateful for my daughter. I'm grateful for my dog. I'm grateful for the food in my refrigerator. I'm grateful for another day, anything. But when you start really getting in this practice of gratitude, it shifts your whole mood. I once read, I don't. Gosh, I don't even know where I read this from, but I read that when you're really doing gratitude right, you keep doing it until you evoke an emotion or a tear. And that works if I. How I know I'm done. My gratitude for the morning is when I actually feel it in my heart. When I've actually dropped into wow. I feel very blessed. I feel very grateful. So you want to get to that feeling before you move on. When you start that day, your whole mood will change your home. So even if you're going to scroll and you're like, I am going to scroll, Natalie, I can't drop away from that. At least start that process with the gratitude first. So you at least start in that. That mode. Okay? The next thing we're doing wrong, the next thing we're doing wrong is we are not having our first meal be rich in protein. Let me explain. Okay, Some of you are fasting in the morning. That's great. I'm all for it. But your first meal, whenever that is, whatever time that is, needs to be rich in protein. When we start our day with a high carbohydrate meal, like cereal, like bagels, like, you know, all the carbs, anything, anything high carb, just banana and oatmeal, Cheerios and milk, whatever. When you start with a high carb meal, you are spiking your glucose, you're spiking your insulin, you're spiking your blood sugar, which then gets countered by insulin. You then have a crash. You are spiking your blood sugar too high, which is going to create a crash. It's going to make you hungrier. It's going to affect your mood all day long. It's going to also affect your metabolism. It starts an entire chain of reactions by having that high carbohydrate meal that is not going to be good for you. When you start with high carbs and you are hungry or a couple hours later, the reason why is your body starts secreting insulin to counter it. Now you are Hungrier, you're looking for more sugar. Your body gets used to burning sugar to keep your energy up so you constantly feel hungry. So when you're starting with what you think is healthy, oatmeal, banana, your coffee with sugar, whatever it is, all you're doing is giving your body a sugar bomb, spiking your blood sugar, creating a bigger problem throughout the day. You're setting things off the wrong way. I'm a huge fan of getting in close to your ideal body weight in grams of protein a day. So for example, if you are 180 pounds and your goal is to be 160 pounds, 160 grams of protein would be your goal. Your goal number weight should be your goal amount of protein. Your ideal body weight should be the amount of protein you're getting in for a day. When you lead with protein, there's so many good things that happen. One, you're going to hit your protein goals a lot more likely. We need protein for muscle mass preservation and to also help grow muscle because you're going to be working out too. So we need that protein to help with that. The more muscle we have, the more calories we burn at rest, the better our metabolism works, the more structure we're going to better equip for our body. It's like that big girdle on our body. We're not going to have the sagging and all of the problems that go along with lowered muscle mass. But the other thing is we are, when we lead with a high protein diet is we are not spiking our blood sugar. We're going to balance that. You're not going to have that crazy insulin secretion. You're not going to be more hungry, you'll stay full longer. You are going to be more focused, more energetic. It's sets you up to win all day long. So you address cravings, you address your mood, you address your focus, all these things by adding protein in. So what you want to stop doing is not starting your day with a high protein meal. We want to start adding a high protein meal. So drop the high carb breakfasts. If you're fasting in the morning, start break that fast with a high protein meal. Really important. Okay, number five, what else are we doing wrong? Well, we're not hydrating, we're not, we don't have adequate hydration in the morning. When you wake up from your slumber, you are likely dehydrated. And the first thing you do when you wake up, I know you do it, you go run and pee you probably like me go pee in the middle of the night too, right? So we are, we wake up in the morning, we are dehydrated. What you want to make sure you're doing is keeping water by your bedside. Keep water by your bedside. First thing you should be doing in the morning is drinking your water. Now if you want to go a step bigger, I would add minerals, minerals to your morning to make sure you're adequately hydrated. Sometimes we're drinking water but we're not actually retaining it, holding onto it in a good way. Way we need that. And when we are chronically dehydrated from not having enough water, we think we're tired, we're hungry, we're foggy headed, when actuality we are just dehydrated. Also, we get bloated when we don't drink enough water. Sounds counterintuitive, but it's true. When you would not drink enough water, you are holding on to excess water weight. When you're drinking adequate water, your body will release that excess water weight. So adding water and minerals first thing in the morning is key. On my nightstand, on my nightstand, I keep my water bottle and I keep my minerals and I it's the first thing I do. As soon as I crack open my eyes, I'm going to hydrate, I'm going to take my minerals first thing in the morning so I make sure I'm properly hydrated. Next thing we're not doing right in the morning is we're not moving our body first thing we've got to move pretty early on in the morning. Got to move. My favorite thing to do first thing in the morning is go for a walk. And just this is not about getting a hardcore workout in. It's not about doing anything crazy. I just want you moving your body and getting in the right mode. Now what I do with my walk is I love to listen to either a podcast or an audible or just something empowering and uplifting to get me in the right place. So if you can get in the habit of moving your body and listening to something that's going to be empowering and get you in the right tone for the day, that's the best way to start your morning. Getting blood flow going. You're going to prevent injuries by warming up. You're coming, you're starting your day right, you're getting some exercise in. Bonus points if you do it outside. You're getting some vitamin D, getting some nature, some sunshine, all great things to do first thing in the morning. Even if it's quick, even if it's short. Even if you've got 5 minutes, 10 minutes. My walk is typically about 30 minutes first thing in the morning. But moving your body first thing is key. When you are sedentary first thing in the morning, you are not helping anything. Next thing we're doing wrong is we're relying on excessive caffeine consumption to get us going. I know you're scared. You don't want me to take away your coffee. I'm not gonna take away your coffee. I just don't want you depending on it. Why? Well, when we are balanced and healthy, we shouldn't need the caffeine. We shouldn't need it. And if you do need it, it's because our body is not creating what we need to be focused, energetic and healthy. So we're using that caffeine as a substitute. I'm not against caffeine, but here's what I want you to realize. When you have caffeine, if you don't believe me, you can test this yourself. If you wear a continual glucose monitor or you do a finger prick test, when you add caffeine, even if there's no sugar, you are spiking your cortisol and spiking your blood sugar. Spiked blood sugar is not good for us. We're creating other health issues by spiking our blood sugar. You're spiking your cortisol, which affects your appetite, which affects belly fat. You are affecting your adrenals, which is a whole other problem. So what do we do to instead? Well, if you must have that caffeine in the morning, I'm going to encourage you to wait a couple hours. Yeah, I said it. Why? I'm saying it because when you give yourself a few hours, you're allowing your body to do its normal cortisol production. Normal cortisol production. Like at night we have melatonin, in morning we have cortisol. We're letting our body do that naturally and then you can use that caffeine as a boost later. But when we're doing it first, there's first thing. We are suppressing our body's own ability to do that. So relying on it is not ideal. That's where we get that crash and we start feeling we need more and more and more. Okay, so that's a lot of things. I gave you a lot of don'ts with with some to do. So what do we actually do? What do we just sort of recap this first thing in the morning, no snooze, no Snooze. Put your phone in the other room. No snooze. Gratitude. Can I have gratitude? What do I need to think about it, write about it? What do I need to do to have serious gratitude? Next? I'm not going to scroll. You're not going to scroll. What do you do instead? You're going to get up, start with gratitude, maybe have your protein rich meal or go start moving your body with your walk. Go do your walk. Go to your walk. If you are in habit of scrolling, doing that, reacting, replace it with something like a journal. Grab a journal and just write. You know your intentions, your vision. I talked earlier about deciding in your vision. Remind yourself what that vision is. Get clear on that. Don't rely on caffeine first thing in the morning and make sure you're hydrating and having minerals so you don't have to do any kind of crazy, picture perfect morning routine. It's about these minor tweaks to get things going for you. You've got this. All right. I hope this was helpful today. If for those of you that want more on this, you want to go deeper on this topic, just stay tuned and watch. Because Total Body Thrive gets launched again in January, we'll have an opening for that. I'll be sharing all about that and this is where I go way deeper into more than just the habits but a lot of the why we're gaining weight as we age and these shifts that we can do like morning routine to start adjusting this and really mastering this for good. All right. I also have a free guide for you below if you want to check out the link below. If you're watching this on YouTube, it's in the link below. If you're listening on the podcast, you'll see it in the show notes. But you, I want you to go ahead and download my free Age Optimizer guide because in there I talk a lot more about this and some tools that I use to help with all of this. Thank you. Talk to you soon.

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