Episode 185 - Emily Countryman On How She Helps Others Transform Their Bodies And Minds

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. So this is really cool, you guys. There's something really special that happens when you get to do new things and really kind of keep stretching yourself into new areas is you really get to meet amazing people while you're doing that. And as I'm in the middle of starting to plan this Get Fit challenge, I actually am in the middle of the this group that I had joined recently, where I'm working on converting do the Thing into a business, not just a passion project, which it's been in a research project for my book. And I met my next guest through that program because she's elevating her business on another level. And she is an amazing expert for the Get Fit Challenge. And I just had her on the expert panel. I'll be publishing that sometime in May. And I just think the value that she's able to share in terms of helping people lose weight and actually make huge changes in their life is so life changing that I had to have her on and be able to talk to her more about that. And we'll see where we get into on this interview, because who knows where this is going to go. But I thought that would be a great starting point, is for us to just kind of talk about her journey to getting fit herself and really wanting to live her best life and then how she helps others, too. So I am so excited to welcome Emily to the show. Hey, Emily.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. I really loved what you were able to share in the expert panel, and I think that you can really tell when someone is doing the thing and the thing that they love and able to really resonate with your lived experience and how you're able to share your feedback. Because not only is it something you've done yourself, but you're helping other people do it, too.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I started my business through my own need. How many people do start a business because it's something that they can't find a solution to out there or find exactly what they need? And I needed to lose weight and get healthier. So thus became the business.

Yeah, I'd love to start with that. I love that we're going here. So can you just kind of share for the listeners more about you and your story? Maybe even you start with the losing weight part of the story and then kind of go on into what you're doing now?

Yeah. So my name is Emily Countryman and I own a Company called Shift Set Go. And we are here in the Pacific Northwest, and it's weight loss centers. So we offer brick and mortar, a physical location that a client comes in every week, meets with their weight loss coach. They do our program, and they're able to lose a substantial amount of weight. Our typical client, we call her the 50 50, she's about 50 years old with about 50 pounds to lose. That's kind of our sweet spot. Although, of course, we've helped all genders, all ages, lose anywhere from £15 up to. I think one of our biggest is well over 200 pounds. So the program works if you have fat that you want to lose. So how I started it was actually back in 2011, and I had had two children at that time, and I was really just looking to lose the baby weight. I had about 20 pounds of extra weight that my quote baby was. My second one was born in 2008, so it really wasn't baby weight anymore. And I was struggling all summer long. I was doing low calorie diet. I was actually teaching trampoline aerobics back when that was a big fad 12 years ago. So supposedly losing or burning a thousand calories a session or whatever it was. And I was teaching that all summer long because I was always a fit, healthy person. All growing up. I did all kinds of sports. I stayed healthy. My parents are very, very healthy. So we grew up in a healthy home. But I never knew how to lose weight. It wasn't something that I had really set out to do before. So I was just doing the conventional wisdom of eat less, move more, which I now believe is one of the biggest falsehoods out there if you're trying to get healthier. And it just wasn't working. And so when I finally figured it out, that is when I thought, oh, my gosh, this needs to be shared with everybody. And that is really where the business was born and has kind of snowballed to where it is today, now, 12 years later, of being able to help. I think we've helped over 10,000 people lose weight and achieve their health goals.

Wow, that's incredible. That's 10,000 people.

Oh, my gosh. And it's so amazing because I love that you said that you never had that issue before. Right. Until you had your baby. And then you're like, I don't know how to lose weight. I've never had to do it before. So you had to start from scratch, basically, and try to figure it out. Yeah.

And just do what you're told. Right. Eat less, move more. Eat this diet cottage cheese. Eat the. Back then it was low fat was still kind of a trend. Like the, I forget what they're called snack wells or something. Just Lean Cuisines. All the just garbage food that you think, okay, I'm doing this, so I'm gonna lose weight. And I think over the whole summer I'd lost maybe three pounds. And then when I did it the right way, that actually burnt fat. I lost basically the 15 to 20 pounds that I'd been trying to lose in about a two month period. So it doesn't matter how hard you work, if you're not doing the right thing for your body to burn, you're just gonna be spinning your wheels and getting frustrated.

Well, let's talk about that because. So we recorded the expert panel. I think it's been a few weeks now. And one of the things that came up after that panel, I'm like, I have to get them into the why. So one of the dares I already know I'm going to do is how old do you want to live? And then when you're that old, how do you want to live your life? Basically at that level, do you want to be an active 95 year old or do you want to be not active? And I feel like the ultimate do the thing for someone is to be fit because you can't do anything else. Right. When you're not feeling at your best.

Health is your wealth.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so I'd love to just kind of dive in a little bit more. Because it's funny, when you said that eat less, move more, I resonated with that. And you're like, no, that's a false statement. Can we just kind of start there?

Yeah. So everyone says that eat less, move more, but you cannot outrun a bad diet. So they say, oh, a calorie is a calorie. But if you're going to eat a thousand calories of broccoli and beef in a day, or a thousand calories of jelly beans and cotton candy, your health is not going to be the same. So I, I just don't like any of those sayings because it just does not compute to what your body actually wants and needs. And realizing what I was doing, I was eating less. I was on a calorie deficit during that whole summer and I was moving a lot more. It was summer, so I was more active. And then I was teaching this trampoline aerobics, but my body was just not happy with that. So it was putting Itself in vitaba starvation mode. So kind of preserving what I would eat. And I wasn't changing the quality of my food, just the quantity of that whole eat less notion. And it just doesn't work. I'm sure anyone can tell you in this challenge that has tried to lose weight before, that has cut their calories, they might do a little bit right. The body goes, okay, I see we're doing something different here. And then plateau, because if you're not targeting the body fat, you're going to be losing lean mass at the same time. And then your body's just kind of working backwards. And your body fat percent, though you may have lost, say, 10 pounds, you lost half of that in fat and half of that in lean mass. If you didn't change what you were eating and you just cut your calories and your body fat percent is the same. So, yes, you're a little healthier because you lost ten pounds. But if you gain weight back again, it's going to be fat, not lean mass. Unless you're really, really trying to build muscle and now your body fat's worse. So I was kind of trapped in that yo yo cycle that that's something that we educate our clients on, and they go, oh, my gosh. I thought my metabolism was broken. I thought there was something wrong with me. I thought it was my hormones. Some of those things could be true. But really what it was is doing that terrible yo yo dieting of the eat less, move more burning their lean mass for the last five, 20, 30, 50 years. And so now we're kind of starting over with them. So we're getting their metabolism working again so that they can be burning fat and preserving their lean mass.

So I'd love to go back to when you were still trying to figure it out, and you're like, okay, I've never lost weight before, and now I've gotta figure this out. And so you're trying to eat less, move more component. You're teaching these classes of trampoline aerobics. And how did you end up actually figuring it out?

So I actually came across a program at that time. I was a practice manager for a chiropractic office, and another chiropractic office in another city was doing this weight loss program. And I thought, okay, I want to lose weight. I've been trying. Let's see what this is all about. There must be something to it if it's offered in this office. And the doctors I worked for, they're like, no, we hate everything about this. We're not doing this. And I said, okay, how about I do it myself? I'll pay for it. I'll put it on my credit card. I'll learn everything. I'll be everything. I'm just going to rent the space from you in this office that we have. And they said, fine, do whatever you want. Just kind of brushed me aside. Do what you want. So that's how it got started, and that's what really unlocked my passion for nutrition. And then I went on to become a board certified holistic health coach and just said, there's so much more to this now that I actually understand how the body works, which is a great thing that that all ended up happening. Otherwise, I just would have kept living my life, not really realizing that. Okay, yeah, I know that this food maybe isn't as healthy as this food, but now that I understand all the ins and outs of it, I feel like when I do your challenge, I'm going to say I want to live to 100 and feel amazing at a hundred. And I truly believe that I can and will do that now that I have all the education for it.

Yeah, Amazing. I'd love to hear too, because sometimes when people hear about going into a program or starting a program like this, it's scary, right? Because it's all the unknown. I'd love to just kind of walk through what that's like for somebody. Let's say they Google or they go to the website chef set, go, and then they decide to sign up. What is that process like for them?

We have a very one on one approach. We don't do any group meetings. It's not your mom's diet. So a client would come to us and have a free consult. We always do that first so that we can get to know them, what kind of their history is of weight loss, where they're at. And then once they decide that the program is right for them, which most do, then they meet one on one with their coach weekly. So we either do that virtually if they're out of Washington or if they're local to one of our locations here. Then they come in and meet with their coach every week and they're getting educated the whole time. So it's not just a, okay, let me record your weight next. It's actually sitting down, talking to the person, figuring out what did they do this week, what do they have coming up next week? Reviewing their food journal with them. But then we use a lot of tools with cognitive behavioral therapy, so we do have a very hard line we're coaches, not counselors. However, there are a lot of tools in the CBT world that help dramatically with weight loss and the mindset of weight loss. So we do a lot of that with clients and figuring out their. What are their sabotaging thoughts. How can we help them with new healthy responses? We do a tool called Advantage list. So figuring out what are the advantages of losing weight. Just all kinds of tools like that that the coaches use with client. Depending on their client. Right. Because it's very individualized. Because they could white knuckle it, lose their £50. But we're all about maintenance. Yeah. So if they just have a few month period where they say this is it, then I can go back to eating my pizza or I can do this later or I can eat that later, the whole thing's gonna come undone. And we're not saying you can't ever have pizza or ice cream again, but we're saying figure out your body and what and how it can have those things and then you absolutely can have them again. We do a lot of what we call forever meals with our clients. So figuring out what's going to work for them now to lose weight that they can keep in their rotation, say for a dinner meal that's a forever meal. Because we don't want that mindset. As cliche as it is that this is a lifestyle change. Right. So they need to know six months from now you're still going to be eating similar to this way it won't be as drastic because we're not in the decline of weight and trying to burn the fat. But to maintain it. If they eat the standard American diet, which is sad. Appropriately for standard American diet. So funny to have the life of a standard American. Which is 75% of Americans are overweight, probably more percent are sick and don't feel well. So they do have to do things a little bit differently in maintenance. But that's our big push with clients is maintenance. And we actually don't charge at all for our maintenance program. And we've had clients, here we are 12 years later that still come in for their monthly maintenance check ins.

Amazing. Because it helps them with the accountability part of it.

Accountability. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. You're just now making me think I'd like to kind of. Do you mind if we go through the do the thing formula and your program and we'll kind of see how it matches up.

Okay.

Because that just. That just opened up the door.

So the formula is called I'm game minute. Pretty minute. I dissected it after 80 interviews. I found all the common patterns of people that did the thing. And I'm game, which is an acronym, is what came out. And then since then, I've been able to dissect it or I've been able to see other programs that have it. Like this program that I sold books door to door with when I was in college. They have it integrated. 12 step programs have it integrated. And actually, I've just started dissecting it from movies, too, and showing how a character in a movie, my daughter did it with the movie up how they follow the formula. And so the I in I'm game is identify the why. And we sort of talked about this earlier, but I'd love to hear how you do that with your program and what the coach does with the person to help them really get into what their why is.

Yeah, we actually have a worksheet, we call it the why worksheet. And it asks a series of questions. Not because you can't just say to somebody, why do you want to lose weight? And they say, oh, I want to lose weight because my doctor said I'm pre diabetic and I don't want to be on diabetes medication in six months. Okay, that's level one of your why. But that's going to fade real quickly. Once they've lost maybe 20 pounds, they're a little more out of the danger zone. We need to know what's level 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So, okay, why don't you want to be a diabetic? And then they go, oh, okay, well, I guess I don't want to be on medication forever. Okay, why don't you want to be on medication forever? You know, so you keep going through the list and keep asking yourself why? So we have a couple starter questions to. To help them out, to start figuring that out and then figure out that deep why. So that's something that the coach uses quite a bit in coaching. Not just the first day that the client starts, but more importantly, we need that y at week seven, week 20, week 30, when the momentum or the motivation starts to slip a little bit. It's. We call it the fires out. They don't have a hundred pounds to lose anymore. They have 50 or 20, and it's not that much of a fire anymore. So we got to bring that why back, and maybe we need to refine it now to figure out, okay, why do you want to go the distance and get the last 20 on for the last 50 off, whatever it may be. For the client. So the why is huge for sure. Yeah.

I love that you have a worksheet and it sounds like they could even probably print it at home and then put it up somewhere so that when it is getting hard, they have something to kind of look back on.

Absolutely.

So we touched on the M a little and I'd love to kind of explore that a little bit. So the M and I'm game is mindset. And we talked about the sabotaging thoughts and being able to reframe those, which is just huge. Right. Because it's so easy to go into self sabotage as a normal kind of pattern that people could go into. And I'd love to just kind of hear how you work people through that.

Oh, mindset is everything. Our program, it's the basics of it. It's three stages and the first stage is literally just on a two page piece of paper. It's we're going to eat this and this and this and this. And we're not going to eat these things. I mean, in a perfect world, anyone could pick up that paper on the sidewalk and go, okay, I'll follow this. But will they? We know that they will not. Yeah, you know, so that's where the mindset comes in of. Okay, you said you would. Now it's Monday. It's the first. Here we go. We're beginning this program. But then what's gonna happen come 3pm or 8pm or day three, there's gonna be those sabotaging thoughts. We call em the triggers. Right. It could be a trigger place, a trigger person, a trigger time of day, a trigger food, a trigger restaurant. There's all kinds of triggers. So helping the client to identify that ideally before it happens, but typically it's after something happened. And that's why we meet once a week to see what's gone on. And they say, oh, well, the boss brought in donuts for donut Friday. Then we can start to identify. Oh, what was the actual sabotaging thought. Because in the CBT world they talk about you don't accidentally eat a piece of cardboard. Right. You don't accidentally do that, but you accidentally ate. So the donut. Well, no, you didn't. There was actually the, the trigger that happened. The boss brought in donuts. The sabotaging thought of insert a thousand of them. One could be, I've done so good this week. One donut won't hurt. Then the action is, okay, so I ate the donut. So we try and help in that middle part there of the sabotaging thought to say, okay, next time, let's work on this new sabotaging thought, and we'll help them formulate that thought. We have little note cards that we put it on. Say, you know, put this in your bathroom, put it in your phone. It'll pop up to you at a certain time. If your boss brings donuts every Friday, that's a trigger for you. We're going to make sure you read that Friday morning, Coach is going to text it to you. Friday morning, you're going to have it pop up on your phone. I mean, we got to get in there and fix whatever that sabotaging thought is to a new, healthy response. So that now when donuts come in Friday, they have their new response that they say and they don't eat the donut.

Yeah.

It's so amazing to me. I started doing. I think I started this, the third challenge where I have this dare and it says, tell us all of the excuses you have on why you don't think you'll be able to do this thing. And I feel like that idea of the sabotaging thoughts is so similar in that way of getting them to already tell you ahead of time. So then you can figure out what is that trigger that's going to get you to not do it and then coming up with something that will help you do it.

Yeah, absolutely. It's sabotaging thought really is just an excuse.

You mentioned also the advantage list, does that go under mindset as well or is that something else?

Yeah, I would consider that mindset as well. And that's something we do. It's kind of the flip side of the why worksheet. So they know their why. We can count on that for a while. But at some point, like I mentioned, the fire's out. And the idea of becoming type 2 diabetic because their doctor said they were pre diabetes is so far away. That was £80 ago. Right. And so they do still want to lose 20 pounds, but they're really not in the danger zone of becoming a diabetic. So now we need to discuss with them, okay, what are the advantages of you losing that next 20 pounds or getting to a body fat percent or. We look a lot at visceral fat. It's not just about pounds at our office. It's more the. The health goals. But what are the advantages of you becoming your healthiest self? Then they can start to look at it from the end view of, okay, here I am at my goal weight, my goal health, and the advantage is I never have to worry about diabetes again. The advantage is I can go take my kids, my grandkids on a flight to a trip to an amusement park, that my body will keep functioning the way that I want it to function. I can keep up with that, whatever those advantages are for them. So kind of looking at it from more futuristic and they go, I see all the possibilities like that, oh, that could happen for me. And. And it will happen for me. And I'm excited to get there now.

I love that because you're really helping them expand their mind to what's possible once they're able to do it.

Exactly.

The other thing I loved that you mentioned in the expert panel, and I think this goes under mindset too, is the non scale victories. Actually, no, now that I'm thinking maybe those go under goals.

Yeah, they could be both. But we do a lot of mindset, as you can tell. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah.

Let's stay on mindset for a minute before we go because we could talk about those just. And we'll see where they go. It doesn't have to fit in a box because I think a lot of times the pieces of the formula sort of blend together. So why don't we talk about the non scale victories? Because I think the thing that I mentioned, because I noticed this with my own fitness, is for me, when I pick up my dog food bag and it's like £50, I can tell if I'm working out or not because it's. Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's not as easy. And you had some really cool non scale victories that you mentioned. And the reason why this is so important and why there's part of it that's under mindset is because you can't see results for a while when you're getting fit. And so there's gotta be something that motivates you other than the way you look and sometimes even the way you feel in a way.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's not just yay. We do have these boards in our office, we call them the milestone boards. And a client will sign it when they've hit £20, £30, £40. And that's more for motivation and to celebrate that coin. But the non scale victories are so much more personal. And again, because I say we don't really focus so much on weight and pounds at our office, it's more the whole person and getting healthy. And a lot of those have to do with medications because again, most of our clients have 50 or more pounds to lose. And Typically with that comes all the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, pre diabetic or type 2 diabetes, sleep apnea. They're on a slew of medications when they start with us. And when you're able to lose 50, 80, 100 pounds of fat, typically those clients are able to go off of those medications or at least have them titrated down. So now they might not be doing insulin injections, but they're just on maybe some metformin. Their health is drastically improving. So that has always been a lot of them. When the client comes in and says, hey, I'm off my insulin, or I've cut my blood pressure in half or whatever that they worked out with their doctor. So those are always exciting. But some of the other ones are just activities of daily living. So multiple times I've had clients say, I can tie my shoes now, A, by myself, but B, not getting out of breath, bending over to be able to do it. Or I can fly on an airplane now and I don't have to book first class for the size of the seat and or I don't have to use a seatbelt extender anymore. That's a huge one. I've had so many clients tell us that other ones are just that they can be playing on the floor with their kids or grandkids because they don't have that pain and inflammation in their joints as much anymore. Our program is very anti inflammatory, but also so is losing 50 pounds. Your hips feel better, your knees feel better. So they can do those things that they wanted to do. They can get back to some of their hobbies. I had a client tell me that she picked up a new hobby after losing 80 pounds. And we're up here near the mountains. Her and her husband go snowshoeing now and she said she never ever would have done that 80 pounds ago. So just kind of having this new lease on life. And those are so many non scale victories that are, yes, losing the weight is great, but this life you've created now is what it was all about.

I think the cool thing about these non scale victories is that it's so easy, like I was saying before, to kind of not see the results and then to get frustrated and then especially if you quote unquote, mess up right from what you want to do and then you do something that isn't what you want, it's easy to shame yourself. And I feel like this kind of leads into that celebration mindset where you're celebrating these little things that you Might not have noticed otherwise.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we. We go into it knowing that not every day or meal or week will be, quote, perfect for the client. I mean, that would be very mechanical, very robotic if. If that was the case. And honestly, if that was the case and they didn't have. We call them slip ups. Very. I don't want to call them messing up or a mistake or anything. Yeah. But if they do have these slip ups, it's like, great, now that's a learning opportunity. So now the coach can talk to them about it, figure out what happened prior to that, help them with their sabotaging thoughts. So now they're getting more tools in their toolbox for maintenance, because if that didn't happen again, that would be the client that's kind of white knuckling it through. And now they get to maintenance. They wouldn't have enough tools to now maintain their weight, because this is now for life. The weight loss might have been three months, six months, a year. That's such a minuscule timeline compared to the rest of their life needing these tools to continue on.

I'd love to. Also, before we move on to the next letter, I'd love to talk about all or nothing thinking, because I think that's a huge part of mindset, and it probably goes under the sabotaging thoughts, too. But just kind of how you approach that, because I feel like that's such a common thing, where actually I did a whole comedy routine on it because I'm working on losing this extra 15 pounds I gained when I went to Europe. And I talked about how the night before you want to eat healthy. It's like once you do one thing wrong, you might as well just throw it all to the wind.

Yep. And we have so many analogies for that. So we always talk to the clients about that. All or nothing. Thinking of, okay, if you missed your exit, do you just keep driving to Mexico? If you had a popped tire, do you slash the other three? If you dropped your phone, do you smash it to bits? And there's always one that'll resonate with somebody, but I think I have a dozen of them that they go, oh, my gosh, that's insane. Why would I do that? It's like, exactly. Why would you do that with your eating either? Just because you had the donut that the boss brought in on Friday doesn't mean that you're now going to go to happy hour and eat the nachos and have the margaritas. You're going to go, and you're going to eat something healthy on plan, you're going to have a drink that's on plan, whatever it is for their, their certain scenario. But one meal does not mean one bad day. One meal is one meal. So yeah, all or nothing thinking is huge for people. For sure.

You're giving them a gift too because by helping them with all or nothing thinking, with getting fit, you're helping them flex the muscle of even just learning these analogies. So maybe when they want to approach a new thing, not guarding weight, they're going to be able to remember the time that they did it with the weight loss and then it's going to apply to the new thing because they flex that muscle.

Yeah, that resistance muscle and strengthening it. That's huge because it's going to stack on top of each other and the more they can say, okay, yep, I had that donut. That's not what I intended. So I'm going to make sure the rest of my day is as great as it can be. They're going to be so happy with themselves if they go out to happy hour, make all the choices that align with their health goals rather than the nachos, the margarita, the piece of cake, whatever. And then they now have strengthened that resistance muscle and now they're on to the next day and it just gets a little bit stronger every day. And yeah, that, that'll help in all aspects of life for sure.

And I'm sure we could talk for a whole day about mindset and that's what if they sign up for your program? Then they can get into all of it. But this was amazing for this part of it. I'd love to move on. And let's talk about the G in game, which is goals. And we talked about that a little because I think there could be some non scale victories that you have as a goal and actually set it as a specific goal versus just noticing it. So the noticing part is the mindset. But if you have something where you're like, oh, I really want to do X, then that could be a specific goal that you set. And you mentioned the milestone boards that you have as well. So those are certain goals. And I'm just curious what other goals you have that you've helped the clients with.

Yeah, yeah. And usually they'll use a pound goal just to be able to quantify it. Right. They might say, I want to lose £50. Now, do they get to £47 and they're a failure? Absolutely not. That's fantastic. And that. So we always say when we get closer to it, our program, you can start to transition to maintenance at any time. So they can come in that week, meet with their coach and say, this is it. I feel amazing where I'm at here. And a lot of people, because diets in the past, they've lost lean mass and fat. So the body fat percent didn't change to what it really should have. And on our program, they're just burning fat. So they might be a little bit heavier on the scale, but be the smallest physically that they've ever been. And so maybe that goal was to fit back into this pair of jeans from before kids or from their 30s or something like that. Another thing we look at a lot for goals and this is easier to quantify is because we do a body composition every single week. When they come in, we have a big heavy duty scale that tells us all the numbers that you don't want to know, but they are good to know. So for some people, it's that visceral fat. It tells us they're rating for that, which is that internal abdominal fat that is the very dangerous. Going to have a heart attack, going to have a stroke. Fat that men usually are higher on. So when we point that out to people, it's. Then it kind of becomes more of a health goal going, wow, I need to get that visceral fat into a healthy range. It could be the body fat percent, it could be a hydration. So there's lots of numbers on there that they look at, and that might be more of their North Star for their goal, other than just kind of a arbitrary, I want to lose 50 pounds. Or it could be the medications like we talked about. A lot of people, it's that they're starting the program on these medications that they thought was a life sentence, when in reality, a lot of times if they lose enough fat, they're able to go off of those or at least have them minimized to a smaller dosage or whatever it may be. So, yeah, we have clients with all kinds of different goals.

Yeah, and I love that you said that too. And I think you mentioned this in the expert panel. Just even adding more water to your day is a good goal. And being able to put a number on the amount of water that you're going to drink. So then you're not putting so much pressure on yourself with having the specific number that you're looking at.

Yeah, yeah. And most people are dehydrated, so that is if they're looking for somewhere to start for their goals. Definitely Starting it at drinking more water. That's a huge one.

And now we're going on to the next letter, which is the A in game, which is accountability. And it sounds like you guys do this really well. And I'd love to talk to you about accountability because I think so many people have things they want to do and then it's so hard to sometimes follow through with them. Time the sabotaging thoughts, money, whatever it is that comes up for people. But by holding yourself accountable, whether it's internal accountability or external accountability, that's really what's going to help you do the thing. So I'd love to just kind of talk through that as well.

Oh yeah, we're all about accountability. And like I said before, you could find our program if someone dropped it on the sidewalk. But are you going to stick with it? I mean, A, your mindset has to be there, but B, you're probably going to need someone to hold you accountable. So when we kind of look at the most successful people in the world, whether it's business or athletes or someone who did drastically try and change their life, I couldn't probably point to any of them and say that they did not have a coach. They all had a coach. They need someone there to hold them accountable. Whether it's the top business executives have business coaches or speaking coaches. Olympians probably have a dozen different coaches, coaches for all the different aspects of what they do. So even these super high performers and high achievers need somebody there holding them accountable. It is huge. So even when our own coaches do our program, because sometimes our coaches become coaches because they've already done the program, some might be partway through the program and will become a coach. And we always say, or maybe they're doing a tune up, they had a summer vacation, went on a cruise, whatever, they want to lose 5 or 10 pounds, they have to have a coach to do that. They know the program better than anybody. They know it inside and out and backwards. But they need to have a coach, they need to be checking in with another coach at our office, whether it's virtual or in person for those few weeks of doing that tune up because they need that accountability and just someone to help kind of bounce the ideas off one another. But I've never seen anyone do our program successfully that has kind of ghosted their coach. So if they start the program, they're rocking it, they're keeping up with their coaching appointments and maybe they had a bit of a slip up one week and they think, well, I'm going To fix this before I go see my coach again. And oftentimes they don't because there was nothing accountable. They didn't have that weigh in with their coach on Monday morning and then it kind of snowballs. And whether they're gaining more weight or just not able to lose those few pounds that they gained, usually we see them come back to us six months, a year later, kind of with their tail between their legs like, I'm sorry I messed up. Or like the only thing that was messed up here was ghosting your coach. You have to keep up with the accountability because we expect that it's going to be the success path is a little bit up and down. We were expecting that to happen. That's exactly what your coach is here for. So just kind of telling clients that ahead of time too. That helps a lot. So we don't get ghosted as much in anymore.

I think it's smart because you're telling them ahead of time what's going to help them be successful. Don't sign up if you're not going to commit to this because you're not going to be successful otherwise.

Yeah. And if you do commit and you have a little slip up, who cares? Yeah. That is what we're here for. We expected that to happen. That's what you need the accountability for because we can get them right back on track right away, back to losing weight again rather than all this wasted time. Not only the time, but that their mindset is getting weaker and weaker doing that because they're beating themselves up. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it. Just another diet that I was going to fail. I mean, that self talk can be atrocious. So having that coach in there to say, hey, that's okay. We knew this was going to happen. Let's assess the situation, get you some more tools to continue on. And off we go.

When they're sort of phasing out of the coaching program and they switch to the monthly, how do you help them kind of do that Accountability. Then what's the. Is it more internal accountability or what does that look like?

Yeah, so the transition kind of takes some time. So they're coming in weekly and then once they're in maintenance, they're still coming in weekly until they're really ready. Because we kind of have to fine tune what their meal plan is going to look like for them now in maintenance because it's different for everyone. So once they're ready that first year, we usually see them about twice a month and that way, they're still staying pretty accountable. And then when they're ready after the first year, going to once a month, we kind of picked that number because they've sustained it for a year and that's huge. We call it our balance year. That first year of maintenance. To have maintained this new weight for a year, it's going to be a little more locked in than had. They only maintained it for like six weeks and we cut them loose. So after that balance year, they're coming in about once a month and there's a little bit of ups and downs, of course, because maybe they came in the beginning of December, they're doing great. And now their appointment is beginning of January and they said, you know, the holidays got to me a little bit. We say, no problem, we're just going to do a tune up a week or two of the program, kind of deal with that again, reassess the situation. Now they have more tools for next Christmas when they go through all of the baking and the eating and everything. But yeah, they're able to really stay accountable on monthly in maintenance now because they have that once a month kind of clockwork appointment and they've done it for so long now that they have so many more tools than they did day one when they were on weekly.

Yeah. And then they've also for the listeners too, it's like they flex the muscle enough by doing this program for so long. This kind of comes second nature to them to be able to continue to do it.

Yeah.

What about, is there anything with internal accountability that you help them do any kind of thing they have to check off or is there anything that they do to kind of prove to themselves that they're able to do it?

Yeah, they do have a food journal. We do have an app they can do it on, but we also have a paper food journal. And on that there's all the different accountability things on there that they have to check off for the day, but it also has something that they're grateful for like from their body that day. I'm grateful today and that I have two feet that walked me to my job or, you know, whatever it is, it could be the most, most simple thing just to kind of help them again with that mindset. And then of course we have all those different worksheets and things that they're going to be doing. So it would really just depend on the client. So what the coach is kind of feeling that they need at that time for their mindset and then using those sabotaging thought healthy Response cards that we have. Usually by the time they get to maintenance, they're gonna have a whole stack of those guys.

I love all of that, and I also really love that. What are you grateful for your body today? Because I feel like a lot of times we hear, what are you grateful for? What do you want to celebrate? But it's actually specific to your body that gets you to think of these things that are working that you don't even think about.

Yeah, it's not. Not as bad as we put it out to be.

Yeah. And you're getting them to focus on the good of their body and not just, like you said, beating themselves up.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So the M in game is my people, and that's where you get to surround yourself with people that want the same thing as you and that are doing the same thing as you. Kind of like the group that we're in and together, and it's like, those are my people. And so do you have a version of my people for helping people get fit?

Yeah, we have a Facebook support group. So it's just for clients, so they feel really safe in there. And that's where they can ask about a recipe or a tip. Hey. I mean, just the other day, someone said, I'm going to a Mexican restaurant. What should I order? And then a dozen other clients say, oh, try this or this or this. So they're just surrounded by all the people doing the same program with them. That's also where we post the photos if the client consented to it, that they signed the boards. And they just get so much shout out and love on that. Everyone, good job. Great job. Way to go. And that. That just kind of fuels the fire to keep going to the next board that they want to sign or to keep going to their goals. But, yeah, they have a lot of my people around.

I love that you do that, because then you don't feel so alone and you feel connected to a community of people that really are going through the same thing. There's so much power in that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you did the last piece of the formula E and educate. You talked a little bit about this. I'd love to just kind of explore it more just to make sure we've got it all. But pretty much you said when they meet with the coach weekly, that's what the coach is doing, is they're really educating them on how to eat, what to eat, and then also helping them learn about themselves, which is really important. Just kind of wondering if you want to speak anymore to Educate?

Yeah. Like I said, we're all about education because they could just follow the plan, but if they don't know why we're telling them to eat this versus that, they're not going to stick with that in maintenance. They need to understand why one thing does A to their body and another thing does B to their body so that they can be their own advocate when they get to maintenance. Of course, they're still gonna have their coach there to help, but they can go to the Mexican restaurant and say, okay, I know that if I order the nachos, this might be how I feel, but if I order the carne asada fajita and I don't eat that and that with it, this might be how I feel. So they can understand those little things and just all the nuances with food out there, all the trickery with the labeling out there, when they go, they call, quote, green washing. So when you go to the grocery store and you see all those labels makes it look so healthy, when in fact it's not. We do a whole sugar workshop for our clients to show them. You know, this bottle says it's water, but it actually has 40 grams of sugar in it. So even just food label education, things like that is big because we have to eat every day for the rest of our life. So we need to understand how to do it.

So I'd love to also hear there's a second part to educate that I realized recently when I was evaluating the 12 step programs to see if they followed I'm game. It helped me actually add another piece to educate, which is educating others, because that's part of why 12 step programs are so successful, because they have that sponsor program where they're able to teach other people. Actually, you mentioned it. It sounds like they do have that through the being able to become a coach. And I'm just kind of curious if you can talk through that a little bit more, because that second piece of now you've done the thing and now you get to educate others. And actually even doing the thing you mentioned, sometimes they're doing it before they've even lost all the weight and they're educating others, which then helps them continue on. So let's just kind of go there for a minute.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Like I said, most of our coaches were clients. Right. And it changed their life so profoundly. And they already were those educators. And in fact, quite a few of them have been teachers or counselors in the past. Make fantastic coaches because they want to educate and help the clients. But Kind of the other way of educating others is most of our new business comes to us from referrals. So our clients actually doing. Doing the thing, and then other people asking them about it or them sharing about it, because they're going to be at work together or at a barbecue together or at a party together, at the restaurant together, and seeing how this person's making their food choices going, oh, why did you pick that over that? You always order the nacho and margaritas. Why are you ordering that? And then saying, oh, well, I have these health goals that I'm achieving now, so I'm ordering these things differently. And so usually if that friend or colleague or family member, they have weight that they want to lose, too, again, because 75% of the United States is overweight, so most people have a few pounds they're looking to lose. Go, oh, tell me more about this. So then they can send them in, and then they. They go down our path of our program and getting educated as well.

And then I'm also curious, in the Facebook group, do you see people in there trying to contribute in a way of education as well?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's another great source because they might say, hey, I did this new recipe, and they'll share it with everyone else. Or I took this shift set go meal, and I changed it to this because we have a lot we can do just with our own meals and recipes there. Or I went to this restaurant and look at this great meal you can order that fits the program. And, yeah, absolutely. That's a good source of education.

I'm so glad we did this, Emily. I mean, your program is perfect for the do the thing formula. I feel like every piece you really spoke so well on.

I know. I was wondering, okay, what's endgame going to be? And it's that we check every box.

Every box.

Yeah. No, that was amazing.

What would be your biggest piece of advice for the listeners on doing the thing?

Just take the first step. That's usually the hardest step. So just booking the call, like, for us, booking a free consult, talking to a coach, or if you're wanting to go to the gym, literally go to the gym today and join. You don't have to wait until Monday. You don't have to wait until the new promo that they're gonna have, or picking up the phone and calling your accountability buddy and saying, hey, Jane, we're gonna be accountability buddies. We're meeting today if they can. Don't stop putting things off till tomorrow, and we're gonna walk around the lake or something like that. But just taking one little tiny step forward, it doesn't mean you've now committed to doing that every day for the rest of your life. But building that resistance muscle, one little step at a time.

Please share with everyone where they can book their call. And then if there you have a personal page or anything else you'd like to share, I'd love to have this be a chance for you to share.

Yeah. Thank you. They can visit our website. It's shiftsetgo.com that's S H, I F T, S E, T, G O, all one word. And on there they can learn a little bit more about the program. We have an excellent blog if they want to just get a little more educated. We have tons of recipes on there. Right on the homepage is where they can learn, if they're not local, about our virtual coaching or there's a button to find a location and then they can book a free consult from there.

I love that you have the blog too, because that could even be a first step for people.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you so much for doing this with me. I just feel honored to have this time with you. And I learned so much just from being able to have this conversation. It sounds like just all the work and the way that you structure things is so based on lived experience. Right. Where you're like, okay, they're going to need this, and now they're going to need this. And it sounds like you probably evolved things along the way as you were able to grow your business.

Absolutely. Yeah. We're always iterating things going, oh, this would work a little bit better. Adding that because we want the best outcomes and the best experience for our.

Clients and for the listeners. Do the thing. Don't wait for opportunity, create it.