I don’t know a single other woman who hasn’t at some point put off whatever she wants or needs to do in order to feel her best, because something else seemed more important in the moment. Personally, I didn’t always feel like I deserved to put myself first. I didn’t want to be selfish or vain, so I always felt a little guilty.

What have you put your health on the back burner for? What are you telling yourself is more important or more urgent than your health? Why wait for the scary wake-up call to start prioritizing yourself?

Whether you feel that it’s time to start taking better care of yourself or you have been trying to but need to fine tune, remember that there are factors at play that you can control, and some that you can’t. The key is to just start taking small steps to make necessary changes.

If you’re looking for support in reaching your health goals, schedule a free 30-minute Coffee Talk here to see if we’re a good fit to work together.

Tiny Habits by B.J. Fogg - https://tinyhabits.com/book/

Connect with me on Instagram @joliverwellness! DM me the words “Nutrition Edit” and I’ll add you to my close friends list, where I share exclusive content. You’ll be the first to know about upcoming programs and early access to my waitlist.

Music credit: Funk’d Up by Reaktor Productions

A Podcast Launch Bestie production

Hey there and welcome back to the nutrition edit podcast.

I'm your host, Jeanie Oliver, functional nutrition and lifestyle coach.

And thanks for joining me today.

I'm excited to have you here.

and today I wanna talk about all the reasons why you might be putting

off prioritizing your health.

So I don't really know a single other woman or friend who hasn't

at some point put off whatever it is that she wants or needs to do to

feel her best because something else seemed more important in the moment.

I am definitely guilty of this.

In fact, I did this for nearly two decades of my life for multitude of reasons,

but mainly because deep down, I didn't feel like I deserved it growing up.

I got the message that people who exercised every day or put their

needs first were selfish, or they must be rich and spoiled to have luxury

of taking that time for themselves.

And of course, I didn't wanna be like that.

So I always felt a little guilty about putting my needs before.

so what is it for you?

What have you put your health on the back burner for?

And what are you telling yourself is more important or more urgent than your health?

A lot of women and some men of course, tend to think about self care and making

sure their needs are met as being selfish.

Right.

But if our health and wellbeing are suffering, it eventually is

gonna affect everyone around us.

Whether it's our relationship with our partner, our performance at work,

or in our businesses, or the examples that we're setting for our kids.

That's a big one.

We can only be self sacrificing too, for so long before we start to resent

others and nobody wins in that scenario.

I was raised by a single mom who put everyone else's needs before her own,

and she didn't learn self care until long after I had left the house.

, you know, she was doing the best that she knew how to at the time, for sure.

But I can tell you that my life and my health would've been so much

less of a struggle if self-care and regular exercise and healthy

boundaries had been modeled for me.

I want you to think about it this way.

If you are well rested, you're well, nourished, you feel strong and resilient.

How much better are you gonna be able to show up and be present for

the people and the things in your life that are most important to.

I really believe.

And I know from experience that taking good care of yourself and doing what works

for your body will make you a happier person and happier people are kinder.

They're more patient and more understanding.

And don't, we need a lot more of that in the world right now.

If you're feeling energetic and healthy, it's also so much easier to achieve your

dreams and your goals, and to have the energy to fight for what you believe in.

You know, there's a lot going on that way.

Women need to be fighting for right.

and when we feel better, we're way more effective.

And we enjoy our lives so much more in addition to feeling

like maybe we're being selfish.

Another thing that often can hold us back from taking 10 steps towards our health

goals is not knowing what we actually need to do to achieve those goals.

As a younger person, I had no clue what the right plan of action was as

far as taking control of my health.

And I don't know about you, but when I have no clue what

to do or where to start, I.

Get absolutely paralyzed.

And I get caught in that analysis paralysis state.

And I think this is one of the reasons why it's really easy and tempting to

jump on like fad, diet, bandwagons, big health trend bandwagons, especially

if it's something that worked for someone that you know, or admire.

I mean, it gives us a place to start.

It gives us rules to follow.

There's some structure and direction to stick to.

If we don't know how to do something on our own, and we don't have to

know how to do everything on our own.

So, you know, it's, it's natural that, that we would gravitate

towards something like that.

But the problem with a lot of these fad diets, crash diets, trends, whatever is

that they are usually one size fits all and they don't teach us how to figure out

what works for us as unique individuals.

And they also don't teach us how to change things up as our bodies change

over time, our bodies are super dynamic, especially women's bodies

and, you know, year to year, whatever works for us can change drastically.

Fortunately, many of the people that I work with, and maybe this is you

since you're here listening today, they have all tried the quick fixes

when it comes to health and wellness.

And they're finally at the place of being willing to do whatever it takes to just.

Permanent changes for the better and, you know, be really proactive

when it comes to their health.

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the other day called

feel better, live more with Dr.

Rungen Chatterji and his guest was Lisa BIU.

Um, she's an author.

I'm forgetting the name of her book right now, but she also founded quest nutrition.

Um, I don't love their products, but I think she's really cool.

Anyway, she was explaining what she calls her, no BS trick that

she uses when making big decisions.

And it's so great that I wanna share it with you.

So before embarking on a new endeavor or goal, she'll ask herself no bullshit.

What would it take?

And then once she knows what would really take to reach that goal,

she asks, okay, am I willing to actually do what it takes to get.

And I think this is a really good tool.

I think we all have to do the same thing when it comes to our health and wellness,

because desiring an outcome is not enough.

If it's really important to us, we have to be willing to

do what it takes to get there.

And that may mean doing the hard work around, you know, emotional

eating healing from trauma, any self-destructive behaviors or

addictions that we struggle with such.

You know, it's likely gonna mean dietary changes, uh, moving your body in more or

different ways, maybe investing in proper medical care and lab work, etcetera.

Um, cuz often, you know, mainstream medicine and typical insurance plans

won't necessarily cover what we need when it comes to getting really

holistic, comprehensive treatment.

It.

And, you know, I'll be honest.

It's not always gonna be easy.

It's really easy to, as a nutrition professional, jump in and be like, I can

make everything quick and easy for you.

You'll get fast results, fast weight loss.

It's like everybody wants things to be quick and easy, but really that's,

that's not the reality, you know, hard work brings positive outcomes

if we're doing the right things.

And I think that we shouldn't be afraid of that.

You've probably seen all those memes that say, you know,

choose your hard, basically.

It's like, yes, it's hard to make changes to the way you eat or, you

know, whatever you're doing in your lifestyle on a day to day basis.

But.

It's also hard to feel like shit all the time and to hate your body

and to be constantly disappointed in yourself because deep down, you

know, that you deserve better, but you keep doing the same things day

in and day out because it's familiar, convenient, quick, et cetera.

I think there's a really common misconception too, that we can't

prioritize both our career.

and success and or health at the same time, but they are not mutually exclusive.

If you're like most of my clients, you have very little spare time.

So adding something to your schedule, like food prep or self

care time may seem daunting or impossible, but here's an example.

Like how many times have we heard about the busy, stressed out executive who

eventually has a heart attack and is forced to slow down and focus on their.

suddenly they make time for that exercise or food prep and they start

paying attention to their stress levels.

And, you know, given it's a lot easier to do this.

If a doctor has said to you, Hey, you'd better make these

changes or you're going to die.

but by question for you is like, why wait for the scary wake up call?

Why wait for it?

I think we often tend, especially as women, we tend to wait for permission

either from our bosses or our families, friends, and our doctors.

If you're someone who's been struggling with your health for a while, whatever

it is that you've been doing or doing right now is likely not working anymore.

So it's time to figure out what it's gonna take to change the trajectory

of your life or your healing, and then just commit to doing it.

Some of you have been prioritizing your health for a while and you just need to

fine tune, or maybe you need to readjust to the stage of life or healing that

you're in right now, whatever it is that your situation is and whatever your goals

are, it's important to understand that factors are at play, that you can change.

And that there's some that you can't.

So the key is to just start taking small steps to make necessary

changes that you're able to.

I always say that humans don't make big lifestyle changes unless

we are really uncomfortable.

So many of us have to hit rock bottom, so to speak before we're

willing to let go of whatever it is.

That's making us feel like crap or that's holding us back will often

beat our head against a wall until eventually we wake up one day or we

have some sort of wake up call or epiphany and we decide enough is enough.

Something's gotta change.

I think the good news though, is that you don't have to hit rock bottom.

You can decide that you wanna feel better and enjoy life more.

Right now.

You just need the support and the tools to do it.

If you haven't heard of it or read it already, I highly recommend

the book, tiny habits by BJ fog.

He is, if I'm remembering this correctly, he is in charge of the head of the.

Behavioral research lab at Stanford university and his whole philosophy on how

we form habits is that, you know, it's not dependent on just repetition over time.

I mean, you've probably heard that like, oh, if you can do something

for 21 days, it becomes a habit.

Yeah.

Not necessarily true.

what he's found in his research is that it's actually the emotions and

the feeling of success that we have.

When we complete a task or reach a goal that will actually solidify that as a

habit and that we need to have a prompt or something that will remind us to do

it every day and whatever that little goal is, it needs to be stupid, easy.

So one of the examples he gave is this woman that he knew.

Client.

I can't remember if it was a client friend, she wanted to start a meditation

practice, but she really struggled with meditating for any length of time.

So he said, okay, just start with 32nd meditation, 30 seconds.

That's your goal for the day.

That's all you have to do.

And.

Thinking that's ridiculous.

Like, is there even any point to doing something for 30 seconds, but

the whole point again is to make this really low hanging fruit, like

something that you can do regardless of where your willpower is at that day.

So whether your willpower is really high or it's absolutely

in the tank and nonexistent that day, it's something achievable.

So her goal was the 32nd meditation and he said, you need a prompt.

What do you do every day in your daily routine?

And she said, well, I.

When I'm getting ready in the morning, I boil hot water for

my tea in my electric kettle.

He says, great.

Okay.

Turn on your electric kettle while the water's boiling, do your 32nd meditation.

And so she did it.

And the key here is that, you know, while she was able to who create this little

habit by doing something really small and stupid, easy every day, she felt

successful every time that she did it.

And.

Was able to build on that and eventually meditate for longer and longer.

But the kicker here is you're not allowed to raise the bar on yourself.

so she's not allowed to say, well, now I can do a minute meditation.

So now that's my goal.

Every day is one minute.

Nope, it's gotta stay at that 30 seconds.

So that regardless of your willpower level, you can achieve it.

You can feel successful.

You can give yourself kudos, pat in the back.

Whatever it is, do a little, you know, touchdown, dance, whatever

works for you, that kind of solidifies the success in your brain, right.

It creates that positive feedback loop.

So that's the key.

Um, and I encourage you to just start really, really small with

certain things that you wanna start creating habits around.

He also talks about untangling bad habits, and that is really fascinating too.

So kind.

One of the easiest ways to do this, that he talks about is removing the prompt.

So, you know, for example, someone's driving home every night and they drive

by a McDonald's, they smell the McDonald's fries and then they're tempted to stop.

Okay.

Take a different route home.

That was one example.

Anyway, I won't go into that anymore.

You can check out the book, but really, really great.

you know, my point is that success in creating a healthy lifestyle is found in

consistency over time and in imperfection.

And if you take on too much, too fast, that's a recipe for failure.

The key is to start small and build gradually.

And an all or nothing.

Mindset is not gonna serve you well, in this at all, I have had so many

type, a high performing female clients tell me that they are very much all or

nothing personalities, and that they'll go balls out with a diet or a protocol

until they totally burn out and crash.

And then they'll be off the wagon completely until the next thing

comes along and they just end up in this vicious cycle over and over.

Right.

And the all or nothing approach often can work.

For them in the context of work projects, because there's a beginning and an end of

those projects, but your life hopefully will be nice and long, and we need to

have a much more sustainable approach.

If good habits are gonna stick for us long term, another super common and

maybe the most common pitfall that I see.

Which holds people back is the idea that healthy lifestyle is gonna

be boring and that you have to eat land food and never have a drink and

never indulge in anything decadent.

We've got this idea that eating well and exercising consistently is punishment.

And it's.

Punishing, and we all use this sort of moralizing or

demoralizing language around it.

We'll say things like, oh, I was good today.

Or, you know, if we make certain choices or I blew it, if we get

off track and we even refer to certain foods as sinful or evil and

we'll say, oh, I can't have that.

Or I shouldn't eat.

And the problem with this language is that a, it can trigger any Rebell that we have.

And B if something is off limits or forbidden, it's that

much more alluring, right?

It's like telling like teenage kids, like you can't drink, what are they gonna do?

They're gonna seek out alcohol.

They're gonna party.

It's just one of those things.

I have a naturopathic doctor, friend of mine who said to me the other day,

that health is freedom from limitation.

And I think that's such a profound statement because culturally, we tend to

think that in order to be healthy, we have to limit ourselves to deprive ourselves

that we're gonna miss out on things.

But honestly, what is more limiting than losing our mobility, having

no energy, having no motivation to live our lives to the fullest.

Like those are real limitations.

If you lose your health, man, what is more limiting than that?

Right?

So what if, instead of thinking about healthy choices as being

boring and punishing, what if we completely reframed it?

My challenge to you is to start thinking about food and movement

in terms of rewarding nourishing and nurturing your body with what

it needs to function at its best.

That includes your mind too.

It's all together.

It's all connected, right?

They're not separate.

So people, you know, always say, I just wanna be happy.

They're striving for happiness, but they're treating their bodies like shit.

And if you're treating your body like garbage, you're not gonna produce

healthy neurotransmitters, your brain, chemistry's gonna be off.

You're not gonna be happy.

You're not gonna get those endorphins.

And those, you know, feel good neurotransmitters going all the time.

You know, your overall happiness relies on this too.

It's not just about looking a certain way or, meeting a certain standard

or weighing a certain number.

and you may not love how your body looks, but it really does

so many wonderful things for you.

I mean, like allowing you to hug your loved ones or pick up your

kiddos or breathe, fresh air experience, new places and new people.

you know, if you're blessed with a totally able body, you can, you know,

hike and swim and run and bike and do, you know, recreational things.

It's amazing.

I know that sometimes it can feel like our bodies are working

against us or fighting us, but really that is not the case at all.

Your body is always working to take care of you and keep you alive.

And this is another reason why I really hate that we get so focused

on our weight or a number on the.

Your value cannot be measured by a number on a scale or body fat percentage.

You're so much more than your weight.

And the real work here is in discovering how amazingly unique and wonderful

and perfectly imperfect that you are.

I know this sounds really cheesy, but it is so true.

I mean, think of the women that you most love in your life, do you adore

and appreciate them because they are thin enough or have just the right body.

Or body fat percentage.

I doubt it.

And I guarantee that the people who love you care far more about you being happy

and healthy than about what you weigh, or if you have, you know, the ideal body fat.

So please, please stop allowing your weight to dictate your

value and your happiness.

And if necessary, just stop bloody weighing yourself.

I stopped weighing myself and stepping the scale about 10 years ago.

And honestly, it was one of the best things I have ever done for myself,

how my body feels, how my clothes fit, how strong I feel are all better.

Gauges of health and body composition than the scale.

And I'm no longer on the emotional rollercoaster of watching that

number go up and down every day.

I think I mentioned this briefly in the last episode, but often when we

start focusing on honoring our bodies by giving them what they really need

and really prioritizing our health, the fat loss is a side benefit.

And unfortunately it doesn't usually go the other way around where, when we're

focused completely on weight loss, you know, We have all these health benefits.

In addition, typically when people are doing, you know, the standard

calorie, restrictive diets, their metabolic health actually suffers.

So again, I just encourage you to shift your way of thinking on this

and start thinking about the foods that you choose and, you know, the

movement that you do as really.

Rewarding and nurturing for your body instead of thinking them of them

as like this additional obligation.

And, nuisance or punishment because it's really quite the opposite.

And you will always be glad when you'd end up doing those

things and making those choices.

It always feels good.

So, anyway, this was a pretty quick one today.

That's it for now.

I hope you enjoyed this episode and are feeling inspired to start prioritizing

your health and putting your needs first.

You are worth it.

You are amazing.