From Food Guilt to Business Clarity The Hidden Link Between Cravings & Capacity | Laura Banks

If you've ever found yourself saying, I just need to get it together with food, with cravings, with sugar, your energy, or just showing up in your business as consistent as you want to, this episode is for you. We're talking about cravings, capacity, and the quiet shame spiraling that so many of us go through when we're trying to feel better in our bodies and be quote unquote consistent in our businesses. My guest today is Laura Banks, and she is an integrative nutrition coach who went from hiding candy wrappers in her classroom to coaching other women through food healing, mindset shifts, and sustainable wellness without hustle or harsh self-talk. Together, we unpack how your relationship with food can quietly shape your energy, your motivation, and how you show up for the work you care about. So if you've ever felt off and consistent, or you've beat yourself up more times than you count for eating that candy bar, looking at that cookie, not posting that post, not being consistent in your business, this episode will help you answer one of the biggest questions so many women carry silently when dealing with food and body image and growing a business sustainably while managing all of that. Why do I keep falling off track? Even when I truly want to feel better and stay consistent. Because sometimes it's not about willpower, it's about the story you're telling yourself about food, failure, and how you're supposed to show up. So stay tuned. Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain with no answers to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was while managing my chronic illness, to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business. I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace.

Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same.

If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and wellbeing, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living. This is Business with Chronic Illness.

I'm so excited to have the Laura Banks on the show. We are going to talk about food and cravings and health and wealth and business and all the things. But before we hop in, tell us how you would describe yourself.

Okay, well, I mean, in terms of business, I'm a nutrition health coach, integrative nutrition health coach. I think in terms of my personality, I would describe myself as a bit hard-headed. Like, I am somebody who's— I'm not going to give it up, you know what I mean? It's I quit my teaching job to do this, and my parents, my husband's parents, everybody would say, you know, make sure you have your teaching license still up to date. And I— it's not. I'm never going back. This is what I'm going to do. And, you know, some days are really hard, but we're sticking it out. That it's not even an idea in my head to give it up. So I'm just a little bit hardheaded, and I think it works in my favor.

I love that. Oh my gosh, I'm with you on that. I think I've kind of gotten to that point with my real estate. Like, that's something like, you should have kept your license. I used to until I was like, no, this is it. This is what it's going to be. So I love that for you. Yeah. Oh, well, I am excited to chat with you. We met on— how did we meet? Oh, we met at Coffee and Connections.

We sure did.

With Angelica, and it was my first networking event here in Jacksonville since I moved here. And we hit it off. We— I think I connected with you because we were talking some— we were in a group of folks talking. I'm sharing this because I feel like it's pertinent for what I've been noticing on social media about this particular person. And we were talking and we were like, two girls were talking about something and I was like, yeah, me and you were like really quiet. And I was just like, I wonder why she's quiet and I wonder why I'm quiet. And I'm like, and she's, yeah, I don't really like her, this person. And I was like, me neither. It was finally a connection. And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you.

Yes.

Someone else is with me. And it's Mel Robbins. I think Mel Robbins, there obviously are things that she says that are obviously on par with what we hear in, you know, mental health. We know it's important. But there's something about her specifically rubs me away.

No, I'm fully with you. And I came home and I was like, I thought I told my husband, I was like, I finally met somebody who feels the same about Mel Robbins as I do. It's not that I don't like her, like, it's like what she talks about, like you said, great, I agree with everything she says. But I don't know, it's her personal— it's the vibes. The vibes are not vibing for me. I'm not sure, not sure why, but they're not there.

Yeah, yeah, you know, it's the vibes. Totally the vibes. There's a lot of speculation on things with things she said and things in community that she's brought, but I will not take away from the fact that she has made mental health and awareness and things like that very— I feel palatable to the, like, everyday person who's not ready to, quote unquote, let them. But she's made it cool and poppy for that, and for that, I give her props for that. But there is something on a vibe level. So I was excited when we were like getting together and we were like, hey, let's just do coffee. And I was like, oh, I feel you. And when I was doing some research, Laura, on your stuff, I was like, oh, you're a true crime lady.

Oh my gosh, I love my Crime Junkie. I'm a crime junkie at heart. And Big Mad True Crime, I listen to that podcast. And if— whether it's fake or it's real, I like to solve a mystery. That's why I like true crime. I like to figure out who did it.

Yeah, that's kind of Me too. Well, tell me a little bit about your journey as a functional or integrative health coach. I know when we talked, it was like kind of a thing you kind of just decided to do. I'd love to hear what motivated you.

Yeah. So in 2020, I decided that I was going to go on my own weight loss journey. I had been trying to lose weight for many years. Like, honestly, since high school, I'd been on and off of diets, doing it in very unhealthy ways at times, just trying to fit in and look a certain way. And nothing ever stuck. And I really thought something was wrong with me, or why can't I just do this? I did not come from a healthy family. The people that I grew up around did not prioritize health in any way or understand it in any way. And so I ended up in 2020, whenever the world kind of shut down for the first time, I was teaching at the time, third grade, and I just magically had a lot more time on my hands. The school that I was going to, or that I was teaching at, they didn't really do a lot of online things. I was teaching in like a low-income area, and so internet was not really a thing for them. And so we, I wasn't really teaching online or anything, I was just kind of willingly, like, going about my life. It was like summer started way early, and it was kind of awesome for me, to be honest with you. So I was staying at home all day, and I was like, I'm just going to start working out. And so I started working out. I would take my phone and put it up on, like, the ledge that I was near and recorded myself working out. Started posting it to my Instagram stories, honestly, for my own fun. Like, I just wanted to see my progress and it kept me motivated. It, it excited me to post about it every day. And so I started with that and then over time I started learning more about nutrition and trying to understand that more. I ended up losing 30 pounds and through that experience I just really found that I enjoyed it. Like I was actually, I actually found it to be something that I cared about versus teaching. It's not like I didn't care about the actual act of teaching. I'm still still a teacher, still truly love to teach, but there were things about being in the school system that I could have— I could live without. And so I decided that I would— in 2022, I got married, and at that point I decided I was going to go to school to be an integrative nutrition health coach. And from there, I ended up leaving my job one year later once I officially had my certification, and now I've been doing this for 2 years officially full-time.

That's amazing.

That is so— I think it's brave.

I don't know, I—

when I think about recording myself doing any type of form of exercise, there is no way in the world that I want to do that. Like, even when I'm doing Pilates, I'm like, no. But I think it's interesting that there was something that you felt like it was fun to do. And also, You know, you brought up a really good point during the pandemic. Not everyone had the resources, and I didn't think about this until you said this, that everyone had the resources to be like doing school online in that way. So then you had even more free time than maybe teachers who were actually still doing school. But that's such an interesting thing.

I—

when you said that, I was like, I had never thought about that.

Yeah.

With your time, what did you enjoy about it? What did you— was it like the results you were seeing? Was it the learning about the exercising? Like, what was it that that led you to be like, I want to teach this to women?

I think that one, I liked to be seen. I think that's very much just my personality, is like, I like— for a little while I wanted to have a teacher— I did have a teacher Instagram where I was like sharing how I managed my class and things like that. Like, it was just kind of always a part of me to want to post on social media and be a person who I guess had influence in a way. And I think The fact that as I was posting, people started reaching out to me and they were like, hey, just so you know, like, this is inspiring me to get up and do workouts, or I can see the progress that you're making. I've been watching you from the beginning because a lot of these people were my friends, um, that were, you know, I was just posting it on my personal Instagram. I didn't even have a business account at that time. And so they were my friends. They're like, hey, I, you know, I've seen you since high school or since college, and now 'You look really great, and I can tell that you're really working on this.' And so that kind of helped me keep going with it because people noticed, and that made me feel really good. And honestly, the way I got started into it was that I— there was a person that I went to school with that did the same thing. She would record herself working out and post it on her stories, and that inspired me. And so I was like, 'Oh, for me to be that person, that's awesome, to inspire somebody else.' to work out. And so that was kind of how it got started and what kept me going.

You know, there's something about this kind of like community incognito in a way. Like, it's— you're not really— you're building your own form of community around a habit or a new habit that you're forming and kind of accountability, right? Because once you start putting out there for people to see it, it's okay, now people know I'm doing this. And if it just abruptly stops You know, it, it can affect maybe someone else that is trying to do this. So I love that you kind of give yourself a, I, I'm gonna frame it as incognito accountability.

Oh, I like that. I had never really thought about it, but yeah, I gave that to myself and to others. You're right. I definitely did in a way. I, it, it did help me build accountability because then if my friends and I were gonna get together or something, they would ask me about it and I didn't wanna be like, oh, well, I actually haven't worked out in a month now. You know what I mean? It made me want to keep going because, like you said, people knew.

I love that. I love hearing that. So now you've decided not to teach for school-age kids. Now you're moving into a business, you get your certification. Where are you with this journey from there?

I like to say that my health journey was kind of split into two different phases. One was the weight loss, and then the second was healing my relationship with food. And I wish that I would have done those opposite because I think that my weight loss journey would have been shorter had I healed my relationship with food first. And that's now what I help women with, is healing their relationship with food. I started my weight loss journey in 2020. By 2022, I had pretty much lost the 30 pounds that I was looking to lose. And around that same time is whenever I started to really struggle with cravings and binge eating and Just, I would wake up in the mornings and feel like, Laura, today you're going to be good, you're not going to eat any sugar today. And I would sit here in my mind all day saying those things to myself. If, you know, I worked in a school, there's candy, there's donuts, all this stuff everywhere. I would tell myself all day, you don't need that, you don't need that, say no to it. And then the afternoons would come and I would close the blinds to my classroom, turn off all the lights, lock the door, and eat so much candy. This was probably happening 4 days a week at the minimum. Like, it was happening nearly every single day, and it was to the point where I would eat to the point of getting sick, and then I would come home and work out and, you know, act like it never happened. Nobody on social media saw that part of it, right? They only saw the good stuff, which I think is such an important thing to note here, is like, the people that you follow online who you're looking up to so much, they're only showing you what they want you to see. I only would show the good stuff, right? But there was a huge part of it that I was really struggling, and that's what led me to Healing My Relationship with Food. And through that is whenever the weight loss actually became sustainable. I started to feel really good, really confident, because even though, like, I look back at pictures of myself when I was 2022, had lost my 30 pounds, I was really thin, but I didn't see that. I saw the same person I'd seen the whole time. Like, I found that I couldn't trust my own eyeballs, right? Like, I— right, when I looked in the mirror, I just saw what I think—

what they call it.

Yeah, exactly. I really struggled with that for a while, and it was because of the unhealthy relationship that I had with food that was leading me to eating one thing and then that turning into, well, of course, Laura, you're so fat, you're always going to be fat, and like this huge, like, negative self-talk spiral really started from that relationship with food.

You know, it's so interesting listening to your story when it comes to food. I think all of us have some type of trauma or relationship to food that's either tied to how we look, how we feel. I know for me and a lot of the women that I coach who have like chronic illnesses and who— we have a very complicated relationship with food because of Some foods make— like, the right quote-unquote foods can make you feel just as bad as the quote-unquote bad foods can make you feel bad. And so I know for myself personally, and that's always— I shouldn't say always. That's been more recently, and an understanding I'm seeing with my own relationship with food is the place we're supposed to get nourishment and, like, it's supposed to make us feel good. Sometimes even in the food that we're supposed to eat that's good for you, it's not necessarily good for your body. You have to find what's good for your body. And to your point, we struggle with that. I think we all struggle a bit with what our relationship to food looks like, feels, because of what we see on social media, because of what we think good food relationship is supposed to be like. Eat all your spinach, eat all your, you know, all of these things, and avoid bad things. Avoid the sugars, avoid all this gluten, avoid everything, especially if you're in the States. Just avoid it all. This was like, just avoid it all. So in your own journey and helping your clients, what's some things that are misconceptions when it comes to identifying what is good for your body, what is good when it comes to food, and why is it so important to start working on your relationship to food over maybe even— and I don't know— your physical movement?

Yeah, and that's such a good question, and it goes back to something that I like to talk about a lot called bio-individuality. We are all completely different. You from your mom, she literally birthed you, you're completely different from her. You from your sister who have the same exact two parents, you're completely different than her. Like, it— we are all genetically completely different humans. So that's why it is so harmful to follow somebody on social media and then, you know, like right now around the time we're recording this, there was— there's an influencer. She's been around for 5 years, and she has been around like posting healthy recipes, weight loss recipes. And for the last year, she's been on a GLP-1 medication, and nobody knew about it until the other day. And now people feel super deceived. They're like, I— you know, they had bought her program and essentially been selling the 'if you eat like me, you'll look like me.' And people were like, why am I eating like her and not looking like her? And now it's coming out that she's on a GLP-1, so everybody feels super deceived by it. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether she's on a GLP-1 or not. You are completely different than her. Eating like her is not going to make you look like her at the end of the day, right? And so it's important that we note that bio-individuality. Another thing that stood out to me about what you were saying is you're like, what's good for my body and what's bad for my body? That language is harmful in and of itself. So a lot of times we're like, oh, I ate so good today, because that means you ate a salad and you ate grilled chicken and you ate the good foods. Or, oh, I ate so bad today, you ate a cookie. And what we're doing is moralizing ourselves because of the food we ate. I am bad because I ate a cookie. I am good because I ate a salad. Our moral value has nothing to do with the food that we eat, right? Like, our moral value comes from, are we good humans or not? Do you murder people, right? Are you going to be found on True crime podcast. Yeah, that would make you a bad person. Yeah, but the food you eat— you're never gonna listen to a true crime podcast and somebody's on there because they ate a cookie. We have to stop.

Oh, Laura.

Oh, Laura.

Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. She said you ain't gonna be on a true crime because you ate a cookie. Oh my goodness, that's hilarious, but so true.

It's so true.

We act like we're like committing a crime when we eat something that's quote unquote bad for us. And so a huge piece of what I like to start with clients is pay attention to the language. The language plays a really big role in, in our relationship with food. And once you start to heal that relationship with food, everything gets easier. Weight loss gets easier, consistency gets easier, finding the motivation gets easier because Oh, that is like the root of it all, right? If you have an unhealthy relationship with food, you might lose the weight, but then guess what? I've started gaining it back because I had that unhealthy relationship with food. Sure, I lost the weight, but inside my head it was like a war zone constantly. That's not healthy. Yeah, I might on the outside look healthy, I might be doing all the healthy things, but I'm not actually healthy because my head is like all kinds of spinning all the time, you know? So Yeah, I think that healing the relationship with food is like the root of everything.

Ooh.

I mean, there's so many— I mean, there's so many good things in that alone. And sometimes I have found, and you tell me if you agree with this, that in the fitness wellness space, there is this messaging around like it's an either or. But if you have to choose one, start with exercise because that's the easiest thing to get into. I have seen that they're like, like, yeah, but if you're having a hard time with food, just start the working out. Which I don't think that's a bad thing, but I do think, to your point, that there is— it sounds like you, you actually give yourself even more leverage when you start working on your thoughts and your mindset around food. And why is that so hard?

Oh my gosh, why is it so hard? Because it's been ingrained in us since before we were born. When your mom was pregnant, she was having thoughts of, oh my gosh, I'm getting so fat. Oh my gosh, this baby's gonna change the way my body looks forever. And then you came out and she's, she's, oh my gosh, I have to lose this baby weight. Before you were even born, the thoughts that your mom was having were impacting you and your relationship with food and your mindset, right? And so now that we've spent our whole lives listening to other people talk about food in that way, then eventually thinking that way ourselves. Those are the pathways. I like to think of our brain as having a million pathways, right? Those are the pathways in our brain that are the most cleared out. They're the easiest ones to travel. If you think about a forest, think about there are some pathways that are— there's no snakes, there's no limbs, there's no roots, everything looks great. There's others that are like completely covered by spider webs. The ones that are like completely cleared out, those are the ones that a lot of times are the ones that don't always support the health goals that we want to have.

Yeah.

And that's evidenced by the fact that, you know, we're here as adults still trying to figure it out. You know, if you grew up in a family where your parents were— did have great relationships with food and did exercise because it made them feel strong and was great for them from a health standpoint, not from a weight loss standpoint, they didn't have to earn their food with the, you know, with exercise. If you grew up in a great family that didn't do those things, then you probably have some very well-cleared-out pathways in your brain that support you having a healthy relationship with food. But if you're listening to this, you probably are not one of those people, so you have to be really intentional, right, about thinking, okay, how do I start clearing these out? And I can give some ideas. That's ultimately how I end up helping people, is with the mindset shift so that they can start clearing those pathways out. So that they can get to where they want to be and actually stay there.

Yeah.

Such a powerful statement there of, you know, some things, the way we think and what's ingrained in us is conditioning. You talk about this a lot, even within our community of chronic illness. We're conditioned to believe that a label means that's a finite situation. I literally was just getting off of a recording earlier today of a woman who is 62. Who was diagnosed with sickle cell when she was 6 that she obviously had since she was born. And the life expectancy rate is like between 40— like 45 maybe. And that alone is massive to think that, "Oh, my life expectancy is greater than what I was raised to believe is possible." And I think with the same conversation about food, it might feel like really impossible to change your thoughts. Or change how you view yourself with food. How does someone start to change how they're viewing their experience with food? Like, what are two categories do you think when it comes to eating that they need to at least start to kind of get a picture of shifting?

I think that the first thing that we have to do is become aware of, do I have an unhealthy relationship with food? So asking yourself, becoming really aware of the language that you're using around food, how food is making you feel. If you— I just noticed earlier, so this is me outing myself as not having a perfect relationship with food, and I just noticed earlier that I ate some Easter candy and then I took the wrapper and put it in the trash can and then put other trash on top of it so that my husband wouldn't come home and see that I had eaten that piece of candy. That's an unhealthy relationship with food. If you feel guilty after eating, if you feel like you have to earn your food, if you feel like, you know, you eat one thing and that just derails everything, you've ruined it, all the progress that you've made was for nothing, you might as well go all out, eat all the candy, and just try to start over again later— those are signs of an unhealthy relationship with food. So it's getting really aware of, do I have an unhealthy relationship with food? And like paying attention in the moment and choosing, okay, that's my unhealthy relationship with food talking. I choose not to let that happen anymore. Putting the candy wrapper on top of the trash. But what if he sees it? It's okay. It's fine that I ate candy. I'm not worried about it. Next time you say, oh, I don't— I'm being good, I can't eat that, notice, oh, that's my unhealthy relationship with food talking. No, I can eat whatever I want to eat. Or simply say, That food is not in alignment with my goals right now. I love that. That doesn't mean that it's bad for me. It just means that I'm on a weight loss journey or I'm trying to, you know, whatever your weight loss, whatever your health goals are, that's not in alignment with them right now. It doesn't mean it's bad, just means it's not in alignment. And so get really intentional about the language that you're using. And just number one thing is become aware. Pay attention when you're using that language or when you're doing your daily actions.

I love that. So first step of something is— and this is everything, y'all— is becoming aware of what you're saying to yourself, what you're feeling in that moment. And it might— to me, it sounds like also like slowing down to acknowledge what's happening, right? Because if you aren't— and being curious. I don't like to say questioning, but almost like being curious, like, why did I just do that? What was that about? You know, for example, for you with the, the candy, did you just automatically go, huh, why did I do that? Or was it what formulated your awareness to pay attention to that?

Yeah, I think when it happened today, I put the candy in the trash can and then put something else on top of it, walked away, started eating the piece of candy, and then I was like, wow, I guess my relationship with food isn't perfect. You know what I mean? It was like one of those things where I think because that's what I do now, it's literally my whole job is to help people not do that, that I was like— I, it was like more natural for me to notice it, I think, because that's what I used to do so much. Told you, I would turn off the lights, lock the door, eat all the candy, and then I would take all the wrappers and put them at the bottom of the trash can, hide them under a bunch of papers from the students that day so that even the janitor wouldn't know what I was doing. I like— I, I will be so straight up honest with you, I don't even know the janitor's name at the school that I was at, but I cared so much about hiding the wrappers from them because nobody could know what I was doing. And so I I think knowing those experiences in my past helped me now understand this. And it took a long time for me to understand that is an unhealthy relationship with food. It took a lot of education, a lot of listening to podcasts and reading books and joining programs to understand what that looked like, to find out what it looked like for me. Because what it looks like for me might not be what it looks like for you or anybody else listening. And then it took me pausing and paying attention in the moment, right? It's now that I know that this is what it could look like, let me pause and see if that actually is how it looks for me. The pause is the hardest part. And a lot of what I help women with is like sugar cravings and things like that, because that— when you have an unhealthy relationship with food, those are typically much stronger because you're trying to be so restrictive that it's causing these intense cravings. And one thing I say is you have to pause and you have to pay attention to like you said, what am I feeling in this moment? Where is this craving coming from? And how should I best move forward? Because it's in that pause that you get so many answers to so many questions. The pause is the hardest part, though.

I mean, to your point, like, there's a couple of questions I have for you just within what you just shared. The fact of being aware, right? The fact of being aware of your own hidings, kisiwilli, like your own— it's not— to me, when I hear that, and just from the research that I've done in general about the mind, that's like shame response. That is, I am wrong, I am bad, bad, right? And so you mentioned some of the things that helped you be aware for your own particular situation, which was like education, learning, hearing, okay, this is what this would be, but what led to that step? Like, I'm curious because I feel like I think as coaches, because we're in it and we also do it for other clients, like we are like, we talk kind of high without realizing it. I want to know for you from your experience, like before you became more aware, what was the moment that said, I need to figure out what the heck is happening? Like, why am I doing this? Why am I still experiencing whatever. Where was that moment for you?

Yeah, there was never a point where I was like, oh, I need to heal my relationship with food. I didn't know what that meant, right? You know, like, that's a phrase that I use now, but like, at the time, it's not like I was like, oh, I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I didn't— I'd never even heard that phrase, you know what I mean? And so for me, it was— I still remember, it was one day after a whole week of this the story I was mentioning— locking the doors, closing the blinds, eating all the candy, hiding the wrappers, going home sick on my stomach. My husband came home one day and I was laid on the couch in tears because I was like, I— why did— like, I keep doing this. Like, it's causing me to gain back the weight that I was losing. I don't have the energy to work out. I feel terrible all day. Like I said, I'm like in a mental battle all the time. And my husband looked at me and he was like, you've got to figure something out. Like, you cannot keep doing this to yourself. And I was like, you're right, something does need to change. Like, obviously this is not healthy, this is not normal. And so I started with understanding cravings better because that was my true issue, was I felt like my cravings started the second that I woke up and they didn't go away all day. Even after— even in the afternoons, I would have that binge eat. I would eat all that candy 4 hours later after dinner. I'd want dessert again. Like, my cravings were so intense all the time. And so it started with me saying, where are these cravings coming from? Why do I have these cravings? Let me figure this out. And through that is ultimately what led me to putting all these building blocks together to understand, okay, cravings are a small piece of this, but also it's the way that I speak about food and my actions, my thoughts, the fact that I wake up and my first thought is sugar and how I shouldn't eat it. It's all that restriction. The all-or-nothing mindset. So through understanding cravings better, I started to fix my mindset as well.

So it's not a willpower situation. It wasn't like, hey, I'm just gonna— I'm just— I think when I hear that, it's like, I'm just not disciplined enough and that's why this isn't— it was like, no, there's something else, right? Like, it sounded like you gave yourself some self-compassion in that of being like, there's something else other than I'm just not able to do avoid this. That's what I feel like I heard yourself say in that moment. It was kind of reflected in your husband being like, you can't keep doing this. You're like, you know what, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I mean, it had been— I had been— I'd already been trying that. That's what got me into this hole in the first place, was me trying to rely on willpower and restriction. Is it was like every day that I woke up, I just dug the hole a little bit deeper of me trying to be restrictive and have more willpower. And I was like— one of my clients described it as white-knuckling. Like, she's just like holding on so tight to try to make it work, and she couldn't make it work. And that's kind of how I felt too, is like I just kept thinking, if I could just be stronger, if I could just say no to the food, then everything would be fine. And I think back to growing up, my unhealthy relationship with food didn't come from me, right? It came from family history, like I talked about before. And so I always think about my dad. He always said talking about me and my mom and himself, always said, well, you just have to say no to it. You just have to stay away. You just— we just have to stop eating the bread. We're just not buying bread anymore. We just have to stop buying the soda. And then we would, of course, buy the bread again. We would make one-time trips to the store to get a soda. And, you know, understanding that it didn't come from me also helps me have a little bit of compassion eventually I was like, "Okay, I'm starting to connect dots between the way that my parents spoke about food and the way that I now speak about it," and seeing that it wasn't my fault. Nothing is wrong with me. This is not me being— it's not me that's the problem. It's the culture, it's the language, and that stuff I can change, right? Like, I can change how I think about food. For when you focus just on it being willpower, You either have willpower or you don't. You can't change that. And so I thought something was wrong with me because I didn't have enough willpower. And then I was finally like, it's not me, nothing's wrong with me. I don't need to change who I am. I just need to like make some shifts to my habits and the way that I think and talk about food. I can do that easy. And you know, that, that's kind of my personality too, right? Hard-headed. I'm not going to give up on myself that easy.

Well, Yeah. Yeah. You started off with that. Yeah. I'm not gonna give up on myself. I think that's a huge piece, but I also think that's the reason why it was challenging, why it's challenging for others. Like we're, like you said, that digging that hole, cuz in your willpower state of mind, only thinking that way, it's, well, I just need to just keep doing it this way. And then that moment of, no, I am doing some things right. This is just not working. Right. So what is needed then? Then what is needed if it's not willpower?

The way that I always like to describe it to my clients is you don't need willpower, you need dedication, or you need devotion. And I always like to use dedication and devotion because those are words that come from love. Like, I'm not saying you need to be more disciplined. When we talk about disciplining a child, we're saying that they did something wrong and we need to make them pay for it. We're going to give them— that's how we receive it, right?

Right.

We're going to give them a whooping, or we're we're going to make them write, or we're going to get— make them go for a walk, or whatever it is. But when we say, oh, I'm devoted, that word sounds like I'm doing this because I love myself. And so motivation, willpower, those things are emotions and they are fleeting. You're not going to feel that for very long. You're going to feel that for a very short stint of time. But dedication, devotion, that's not going away, right? I have a relationship with God and on the days whenever things are, you know, there's been crazy things that have happened in my life, and even at those times, I'm still dedicated to loving God. It's hard, and sometimes it sucks, and I, you know, question him, but I'm still dedicated to it. I'm still devoted, and I'm still going to do that, still going to show him love even whenever I don't understand it. So even on those days whenever I don't have the motivation or I don't have the willpower, I'm still going to show up and love myself because I deserve to be loved. That's the least I can do for myself is show myself love.

Oh, I love that so much. It's so true. The words—

words—

we—

you and I think we both have said this, but words matter. Like the words we say and especially the meaning behind the words, the conditioning we've been meaning, the condition we've been made to believe a word means, usually by the state of the world that we're in, comes from a very negative connotation. And so it's like you can't— one of my coaches, I love this, she says you can't fix something you hate. And it's, it's such a powerful statement.

It's true.

You have to find self-compassion. It's kind of like how I feel with consistency. Like, I'm like, everybody's beating themselves up about being consistent. I'm like, you don't need consistency, you need persistence. And that's different 'cause that's a choice, right? Like, it's in that dedication, the devotion, the devotion. Like, those are choices we're making versus being like, I don't have enough willpower. Like you said, like it's something I can or cannot have. So it's such a powerful shifts and just thinking, how has that helped you into getting to where you are with your own health journey? Just those shifts.

Yeah, I mean, I think that ultimately that's what has allowed me to sustain my weight loss for now 5 years, you know. It's what allowed me— it's what has allowed me to be consistent through life's changes. When I first started my weight loss journey, I lived in South Carolina. Since then, we moved to Florida. We then— and I was teaching, and then I— we bought a house that was an hour away from where I was teaching, so I was driving an hour one way. It took an hour and a half to get back because I had to drive through Jacksonville after that. So, you know, it's what allowed me to be consistent through that and then consistent through quitting my job and becoming my own boss, where sometimes it feels like there's not enough time to do all of the things that I need to do for my business and also take care of myself on top of that. Like, I was— there was a point where I was coming last best in my own life, right? And so I had to realize, okay, I'm gonna be a better coach, I'm gonna be a better business owner, I'm gonna be a better wife, I'm gonna be a better sister and daughter if I take care of myself first and then do all of these other things. And so having that, that really solid mindset and the way that I speak to myself, that's just what— that is what has allowed me to consistent through all of these life's changes.

Wow, that's a powerful thought. I think for all of us, I think transitions in life are often things that like knock us off of our path, knock us off like that. I think that's the hardest thing to deal with. And I speak from the perspective of living with multiple chronic illnesses and just that alone, the transition often that switch that's often on often can affect your ability to stay persistent with something or stay quote unquote consistent with something because you're just changing often because that's life, right? Life changes. So I love that when you're sharing like the mindset around like giving yourself that permission and changing the way you view yourself and how much time you give yourself and what's important and realizing that putting yourself self-first isn't putting everything or everyone else last. It's actually just making those things work better, right? It's a powerful way to think about how we view our bodies and how we eat and all of that. If you had to tell someone who's like listening to the show— so I know there's quite a few women who are busy. All of them are busy. I know this for a fact. All of them are busy. All of them are dealing with health situations. Many of them are going through perimenopause, the thing that nobody knew about until, I don't know, the last year feels like. And they're wanting to have a— I hear this— a better well-being. They're not even saying weight loss. They're not saying, I want to lose a certain amount of pounds. They're just like, I just want to be more well. What is your advice for them when it comes to starting this journey?

First of all, I love the language that they're using. I mean, that's beautiful language and that ultimately really does help keep them centered and help keep them focused. Using that language just helps, you know, okay, it doesn't matter if the scale's not moving. If I'm doing one thing today that moves the needle forward and makes me feel great about myself, 10 minutes of walk outside, you know, getting some sunshine, getting some fresh air, moving your body for 10 minutes. That might make you feel more well. And so find what makes, what works for you. What makes you feel really great is one thing, but keep your goals really small. I think that's the biggest thing that we struggle with is that we want to do everything all at once, right? You wanna wake up tomorrow and have a different life. Mm-hmm. And that's just not realistic. And so we have to, I always encourage my clients, set one goal for nutrition, one goal for exercise, and one goal for water. Every week, just one. So I'm not— don't say you're going to eat less sugar and eat more vegetables and worry about your protein all in one week. Pick one of those things and stick with that one thing until it becomes so ingrained in you, a part of your life, so much that if you don't make it your goal, you'd still keep doing it. And that's when you can add something else. Just focus on one thing. And you mentioned it earlier, but when I started my health journey, I was just exercising. I didn't worry about nutrition. I didn't really worry about water all that much. I was drinking more water cuz I was exercising, but I wasn't like, that wasn't a focus. My first focus was just exercise. And I think that really benefited me because it, I wasn't overwhelmed. I didn't feel like I had to do everything perfect. If I got my workout in that day, it was a win.

Mm-hmm.

So think about what are the things that make you feel like it's a win and what is a really small, simple goal that you can set for yourself and then reflect on it. It. And you said it earlier beautifully, don't reflect on it from a place of judgment, but from a place of curiosity. Did it work? Did you do it last week, yes or no? If you did, if yes, then what made it work and how can you do that again next week? If it didn't work for you, how can you tweak something to make it work this week, you know? And so it's just about, it's about continuing to show up for yourself and not letting one, you know, derailed day or one time that you didn't do something completely just derail you and let you get down on yourself and completely give up on it altogether.

Yeah, such good advice. I mean, that advice applies to, I think, everything, not just like food, not just fitness. I think, I mean, it's similar advice I give my clients who are starting a business, who are like trying to build these businesses that are amazing, and the vision that they have is amazing. Like, I'm sure the vision you have for your wellness is amazing. But it's not going to happen overnight. And the more we try to force ourselves to make it happen overnight, the less likely it's actually going to happen.

It's true. Yeah, because you're going to, you're going to try so hard that you're going to end up restricting or feeling like you're not perfect. It's that all-or-nothing mindset. I'm all in or I'm all out. You have to let that go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the only way we make progress. I think it's really important. To normalize is part of the reason why I love having the show and talking about this. And I think we hear often, like, folks that are— I should say the more popular people, I guess, if you will, if you're going to use popularity as a contest. But the ones that are, I should say, have the louder spaces to be seen, share their wins, they share, like, how they've built these empires. But I always think about things like, you know, Beyoncé or Kelly Clarkson. I'm like, they didn't start that way. Like, specifically, I think about Kelly Clarkson because I kind of like her a lot. Like, I want to meet her one day. I'm like, she started on American Idol. Like, she started on this baby stage. Nobody knew who she was from Adam.

Like, nobody.

And now we see her and she's got all these things. But it was like these small things that led to even her being on that show. And then we see her now, we're like, oh, I want to be just like her. But do you know the mountains and the paths she had to go to get to that space that she's at? Right? And I think we— social media has done us a disservice with this, right? It just really has. It's just made us see, oh, yesterday you had 300 followers and today you went viral and had 50,000. You're like, what? That's not real life. And even when people go quote unquote viral, in whatever goal or thing that they're doing, you will see the next couple days of videos will go back to normal because life is ebbs and flows. We have ebbs and flows. And I think to your point about just taking those small percentages, focusing on one thing at a time, and then building in capacity for another thing to try, another thing to do is what helps us to actually create create these bigger things that we see that just take time.

Yeah, it creates momentum, right? Like, it helps— it's like a snowball going down a hill. It's what helps it build up over time and become this huge thing. It's through those little things that add up over time.

Yeah, yeah. So I like to ask this question: what is something that you believed, but like in this journey or just in general that you thought was true that now years have passed? Maybe it's not years have passed, but now you're like, that's totally not true. The thing you believe with your core, and then you're like, no, that's, that's totally not true.

Yeah, I think it kind of goes back to the conversation that we're having right now, is for so long I believed that I had to be perfect. And I think it goes back to my dad. I talked about him before. God bless his soul, he's a very sweet man, but but he's a lot like me, unfortunately. And he always said, if you're not doing it— anything worth doing is worth doing right. And what little Laura believed that to be was, if I'm not doing it perfect, there's no point in doing it at all. And so for years, I believed that in order for me to start a health journey and see the results I wanted to see, I had to be full out perfect, or it wasn't worth doing at all, and I was never going to make any progress, and nothing was ever going to change. And that kept me stuck for years. And so I think it's releasing that perfection, knowing that it's not just that I don't have to be perfect, it's that I don't want to be perfect. I don't even want that anymore. I always think of it as two magnets that are the north ends facing each other. One is perfection, one is consistency. They repel each other. They're never going to go together because perfection and consistency cannot and will not ever exist. And so I want consistency. So it's like I, I'm trying to stay away from perfection. I want that away from me. I just want, I just want to keep going day after day. And if that means that today I got to work out in and then tomorrow I don't, then so be it. The next day I can get back into it and it doesn't have to derail me the way that I once thought that it did. And you see progress a lot faster when you don't let it derail you.

I love that. That's a new question I've been asking and every answer just feels, oh, that's so good. That's so good. Well, if if someone wants to come into your world, by the way, Laura has a podcast. You definitely got to check it out. But tell us how they can connect with you and what's coming up for you this year.

Yeah, absolutely. So I host a podcast. It's called Isn't She Powerful? Isn't She Powerful is where I do a lot of the education and the mindset shifts, and we go really deep there together. You can also follow me on social media. I'm Laura B. Healthy on social media. That's where you'll get a lot of recipes and quick little snippets of mindset. You hear a lot more about my story on social media. I hang out mostly on Instagram, but I'm also on TikTok as well.

Yes. And I'll, of course, we'll have everything in the show notes, but thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and sharing some eye-opening ways for us to shift the way we're viewing our wellness journey.

I'm so glad that I was able to come and give some little nuggets. Thank you so much for having me.

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness.

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You can also check out our website at www.craftedtothrive.com for this episode's show notes and join our email to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive. So let me tell you about one of the tools that has quietly become the heartbeat of my business over the years. It's HoneyBook. I use it for everything. No, seriously, everything. It's how I book my podcast guests, bring on new one-on-one clients, even manage group coaching calls when my other platforms decide that they want to have a meltdown. From contracts and payments to contact forms to task reminders, HoneyBook keeps all of the moving parts in one place. And it is all automated. And here's the real kicker. It works with my capacity. Whether I'm having a low energy week or need to automate a bunch of stuff in one go, or just create a system that makes it easy for me to run a flexible business, HoneyBook gives me that freedom to still move my business forward. If you are looking for a central hub to help you work smarter, not harder, I highly recommend you checking it out. So if you head on over to the show notes, you'll get 50% off your first year. And yes, that's my affiliate link, but I only share what I actually use and love. HoneyBook is my jam, and I hope you check it out.