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AMY PORTERFIELD:
Hey there, welcome back to another episode of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and today’s Episode #239 is all about my weight loss journey.
I call it Part 2 because if you are a loyal listener of this podcast then you know back in October of 2017 I talked about my struggles with weight loss for the first time. I had never really talked about that at all to you.
The reason for that is I was incredibly embarrassed about my weight. So if you haven’t listened to that episode it’s only nine minutes. I encourage you to do so. I’ll link to it in the show notes for this episode.
Basically, I went on my podcast and told the truth about why I did not love doing video. If anyone knew me they knew I would say, “Video’s not my favorite thing to do.” I do not love it. I do it because I need to in my business but if I had a choice I wouldn’t do it at all. I had always said that for years and I didn’t use a lot of video. I didn’t use video in my webinars. I didn’t use video in any of my courses and I would jump on Facebook Live once a week but only in a private Facebook group for my students.
I just wasn’t doing a lot of video. Fast forward to today and it’s November 2018 when I’m recording this. Things look a lot different. It’s been about a year since that episode and it just kind of clicked for me, “Whoa, it’s been about a year since I recorded that.”
It feels like it was yesterday and that’s really weird. But time flies, right?
I am doing this episode because I want to tell you about my progress. I also want to basically give you a glimpse in the day of the life of what my life looks like now that I’ve been on this weight-loss journey, where I’m going with it, why it’s working, and all of that good stuff.
I’ll tell you, I started losing weight. I made a commitment on March 25, 2018. Since then, as of this morning, because you can bet I got on the scale, I have lost a little over 58 pounds.
My goal is to lose 100 pounds. We’ll see when I get closer to that if that’s what I really want to do or not. It may be a little less. But I’m over halfway there and that’s really exciting.
Again, I wanted to talk to you about what that looks like and what I’m doing…not necessarily what I’m eating, although I will talk about that because I know being a girl that has wanted to lose weight for a very, very long time, when someone loses weight the first thing I want to ask is, “What are you eating? What diet are you on? How did you do that?”
That is a very normal question although as I’ve lost weight and in a better place I know that’s the least important question now. I know that what I’m eating is really not the story I want to tell you but I know it is one that I‘m asked about a lot so I’m going to go there.
Give me a second and I’ll get there. I want to talk about the more important things first that have made a huge shift in my life. I’d just like to tell you where we’re going with this conversation.
I’m going to bring it on back to how this has affected my business and what looks very different, and now that we’re moving into 2019, what I have on the horizon because I have finally gotten to a place that I’ve put myself and my health first.
It has rocked my business in the best way possible. So I wanted to share that with you as well.
If you don’t need to lose weight and that’s not your thing I bet there is something that’s holding you back, something you’re struggling with (likely more mentally than physically but maybe not) that is holding you back.
I really pray as you hear about my progress and what I’m doing you decide enough is enough and you are going to figure this out in your own personal way so that this does not hold you back from living the life you want to live or building the business you want to build. My weight was holding me back from both of those dramatically and I’ll talk about that a little bit more as well.
I was lying in bed this morning. It’s very early, 5 a.m. I was lying in bed with Scout and Hobie’s at the fire station so it’s just the two of us. I was thinking what I wanted from this episode.
I want it to just be a conversation. I know you can’t be a part of it in that way but I just want to tell you what’s been going on just like if you came over for coffee and wanted to know what I’ve been doing.
You know I’ve lost all of the weight so, “What’s been going on?”
Let’s just pretend we’re sitting in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and I just tell you about it. Good? I know it’s a little bit different than my regular episodes but I thought it would be kind of cool.
Back in October I did the episode all about hating video and the reason I hate video is because I’m overweight and embarrassed about it and I didn’t know what I was going to do about it but I wanted to publicly put it out there and share it with you because it was something I felt had been secretive.
It wasn’t so secret when you could see it on me so just saying it and putting it out there into the world with my audience who I love dearly caused a shift. I didn’t feel like I was in hiding anymore and I think it opened up a space for me to start thinking about what was possible.
Maybe I want to change this. What would I do?
One thing I did, again this was starting at the end of March, I hired a weight-loss coach. I’ve talked about this on my podcast a little already but I’ve just got to tell you how this happened.
My sister, doesn’t need to lose a pound, got to love that, right? We’re very, very different but I love her dearly. She’s two years older than me. She started listening to this podcast called Losing 100 Pounds.
I think that’s hilarious because, again, she doesn’t need to lose any weight, but she’s always taking care of herself and staying healthy and she just loved the podcast. She said, “You’ve got to listen to this podcast.”
I thought I would get to it and then never did. My sister, being the older sister and being super bossy, has a lot of recommendations and suggestions for me so that was one I just thought I would get to later.
She called me again when I was on my way up to Orange County where she lives, where I grew up about an hour from Carlsbad, and she said, “While you’re driving up listen to this podcast. You’re going to love it. This woman is super funny and she just gives you a lot of tough love.”
My sister wasn’t encouraging me to listen to it because she thought I needed to lose weight. She knew my struggle. She knew I wanted to change things so she was just being helpful.
In the car on the way up I listened and I was hooked. Who is this crazy woman? I say “crazy” because she just says it as it is. She is so beyond anybody I know in the weight loss world in terms of what she teaches and what she says. She loves to use the Fword so if you do listen to this podcast I warn you it’s part of her charm.
Her name is Corinne Crabtree and her podcast is excellent, Losing 100 Pounds, you can find it on iTunes. Anyway, I started listening to this podcast and I binge listened to the podcast all the way up to my sister’s.
We talked all about it and all the way back. That night I got this energy to clean out my closet. I listened to it the whole time I did that and I thought I loved this woman.
In my mind, this comes from my Tony Robbins days, I thought if this is so good for me then how can I go deeper? That is a Tony Robbins thing he teaches. Go to the source.
So I wanted to hire this woman and I bet she’s not for hire. I thought she had a membership site. I wasn’t sure but I needed her to be my coach.
I wanted to reach out to her and I don’t know what clicked in my head but all of the sudden I thought for some reason this woman’s name sounded familiar. This was two days later after I binge listened.
Why was her name sounding familiar to me? Then it clicked and I realized she was a student of mine.
Guys, I did not know that when I was listening. What I think clicked was on the second or third day when I was binge listening she mentioned she had a webinar. I think this is very egotistical of me but I thought, “She does webinars? I wonder if she knows me?”
What the hell! This is what I was thinking in my head. There aren’t a lot of female entrepreneurs that teach webinars and she had a course so I just wondered if this woman knew me.
She turned out to be a student. Not only that, she is a star student and Angie on my team had just met with her weeks earlier, she’s in Nashville and so is Angie, to get a testimonial. How crazy is that?
For days I had no idea. So I loved her even before I knew she was a star student. How cool, right?
When I reached out to Angie I said, “Wait a second, is this the woman you interviewed a few weeks ago?”
She said, “Yes.”
I said, “I loved her. Can I have her phone number, please?”
I sent her a text and asked if she would coach me. She doesn’t do that kind of thing. It’s not her normal thing but she made an exception. So I have been coaching with her every Friday morning at 7 a.m. since March and we’ve been working on my weight-loss journey.
I got very lucky that she said, “Yes.” Another thing, if you can’t get coached by her and it sounds like you love her as much as I do after I tell you a little bit about how we work together, you’ve got to check out her tribe.
It’s Phit-n-Phat, the PNPTribe. I’m going to link to all of this in my show notes. Check out her tribe. It’s not open right now but it will open up in January and it’s really good.
I’m in there as well so you don’t need to be coached by her one on one in order to get all of the goodness of what she offers. Check out the tribe if you’re curious. I am not an affiliate I just love her.
Let’s talk about this. She coaches me every Friday morning and we rarely talk about the food although I am going to tell you what I eat and my daily schedule. We rarely talk about the food. We rarely talk about a special diet or any of that because she doesn’t have a special diet.
We talk about the emotions. Yeah. The emotions. Specifically, she has taught me to stop eating my emotions. I told you back in October I eat when I’m sad, I eat when I’m stressed, or I should say I ate when I was sad or stressed or overwhelmed or frustrated or even happy or bored (which rarely happens in my life).
I eat. I eat to numb the emotions I don’t want to feel. With that Corinne started working with me about feeling the emotions and not being afraid of them and what that would look like if I felt them and what I would do with that.
It was rough in the beginning, for sure, but I can honestly tell you I am not an emotional eater anymore. I have been since I was a very little girl so that has been life changing for me. I just feel like I can go through the world in a way that I am stronger.
I make better decisions. I have a clear head and stress is still a part of my life with my business and everything like that but I don’t eat the stress, which is a huge difference.
I’m getting ahead of myself but we’re working on managing my stress and making sure it’s not my go-to emotion. Right now it is. I just go to stress. I’m stressed. I’m overwhelmed. This is too much work.
Right now I’m creating a course so that feels very stressful to me. She’s actually trying to take that word out of my vocabulary and we’re working on more elevated problems now because I’ve been able to move past the challenge of emotional eating and that’s really cool.
Let’s not get crazy. I still sometimes want to eat when I’m stressed or overwhelmed. I just choose not to now and I have the tools to do so.
Speaking of tools, one thing that’s helped me immensely is something called the selfcoaching model. You all know I love me a little Brooke Castillo. She’s been on the show and it was one of the most popular episodes. I’ll link to it in the show notes because it was so good.
The conversation was why you don’t take action. But it just so happens that Corinne is a star student of Brooke’s coaching program as well. Corinne is a life coach. I’ve kind of gotten on this crusade, I never thought I would say this before, I think everybody needs a life coach, every single person.
Someone on my team, I won’t name a name because I never asked her if I could, but I encouraged someone on my team to get a life coach and she is over the moon in love with her life coach. It is just someone you can check in with once a week and they kind of help you get your head on straight.
Corinne is a life coach. She got her life coach certification through Brooke Castillo’s program. Corinne teaches using something called the “self-coaching model”.
Basically, the model examines your current thoughts and feelings about a circumstance and addresses your actions and results from those thoughts and feelings.
There are intentional models, the models you want. You talk about running a model. There is a model you want to run and then there are models that are unintentional that you don’t want to be running.
The goal is to create intentional models. There are multiple models because there is a model for how I deal with a fight with Hobie. There’s a model for how I deal with emotional eating. There’s a model for how I deal with somebody saying something to me where I make a story about what it means. That’s an unintentional model that I need to move into an intentional model.
Intentional and unintentional kind of get mumbled up in my head. If someone says something about me that I feel is very negative and it hurts my feelings and I make it mean something that’s an unintentional model. Corinne helps me see that and works with me on our calls to move it into an intentional model that serves me.
Basically, it allows me to look at things differently and examine my thoughts and feelings and it helps me choose better thoughts and feelings. That’s been a huge shift for me.
If anybody has spent time with me in the last six months they have seen the shift where I choose more intentional models and I wouldn’t say I have eliminated them (by all means I’m not there) but I have decreased the negative stories that I make up about things that have happened in my life.
That’s been big. Basically, the model has taught me how I can move away from a completely negative thought to a place where my thoughts totally serve me in the best possible way.
You can’t have a bad day when that is happening, right? It’s incredible and I’m not an expert in these models. I’m still learning so they are a little bit more difficult for me to explain. Brooke and Corinne might be cringing right now.
With that, I think you should listen to an episode that Brooke did about models on her podcast and I will link to it in the show notes. Guys, it has changed my life, this idea of a self-coaching model. I use it every single day.
Now that one of my team members has a life coach and she’s learning the models we literally communicate with models and that’s life changing. It’s really cool and I highly recommend if you are struggling in your life about anything to at least think about working with a life coach.
Of course you can get a therapist or whatever you want to find in your life but a life coach was really the thing that clicked for me. I never thought I would say that so it’s really cool.
Overall, the weight loss has happened because I have not been emotionally eating and I have become so mindful of the thoughts and feelings and the actions that result from them.
I am often changing my thought or changing my feeling because I have learned we have total control of that. There’s a lot we can’t control in this world but I have total control of my thoughts and feelings and I choose better thoughts and feelings every day.
Guys, I swear to God, that has affected my business dramatically, definitely in the revenue. We have been making more money in the last few months than we have in a long time. But even more important with that, the connection with my audience is dramatically different.
I appreciate you all more. I get to celebrate you all more. My head just feels in the right place because I’m not bogged down with negative thoughts or insecurities about my weight or feeling like a failure.
If I do feel like a failure I can change that thought into something at least neutral. Sometimes I just have to go to neutral. I tell Corinne, “I can’t go from ‘I feel like a failure today because I messed something up,’ to ‘I am a super star,’ because that feels so fake to me.”
She said, “Then don’t go there,” let’s get you neutral. Now I might not feel like a super star today but I sure as heck don’t feel like a failure. These are the baby steps I have to take with this model. Again, this has changed my life. Truly.
I wanted to share all of that with you and give you a little bit of those pieces but I also want to transition into another thing that has helped me. For the first time in my entire life I have put myself and this weight-loss journey and my health over all in front of work.
For all of my workaholics out there I’m raising my hand with you right now. That is a big deal and has been a huge struggle. Even yesterday I had to choose walking Scout over figuring out a fricking challenge I was having in my business yesterday with something not working right.
I wanted to sit at the computer and figure it out and my team was waiting for me to figure it out. But my commitment is that I work out three times a week with weights and I do it with Jeff McMahon, my virtual trainer. I’ll link to him in my show notes. I’ve talked about him before.
I do it three times a week in my garage. I do not like it. It’s not my favorite thing. Sorry Jeff, although I do like the results. As I’m losing weight I don’t want to be flabby so I need to work out with weights three times a week.
Every day my goal is a walk with Scout for at least 30 minutes. If it’s a good day I do one in the morning and one in the evening so things have been very busy with me creating this brand new course so the walks have been minimal, either not at all of the last week when I was filming, but that’s an exception.
Yesterday I got two walks in but I’ve been so busy I really had to make it happen. But that’s the point of what I’m telling you here. I have to put my food, what I eat, my meal prep, my rest, and my workouts in front of work.
I want to step into this leadership role more so in 2019 than I’ve ever done for my team. I’m actually working on that. We’re reengineering the team a bit using a Rocket Fuel and Traction expert. He’s an EOS (entrepreneurial operating system) expert (total side note) but I’m going to tell you guys about that in a coming episode. It’s been amazing as well.
I want to be a better leader and to be a better leader I need to put my health before work and I need my team to do the same. I saw Chloe modeling me (not intentionally) but I saw her not going to her chiropractor or not taking the time to have a spa day or not even getting breakfast.
I saw her getting into those habits and we work very closely together. You guys know Chloe is my integrator. I thought if this is what I’m doing and she works so closely with me, of course she’s going to say, “I’ll do whatever it takes,” because that’s her attitude.
I don’t want her health to suffer either so I feel like I just have to be a better example on the team. That’s one thing I think of my team as well as myself when I put the workouts and the food and all of that first.
Two walks a day with Scout, it’s a good day when that is happening. Working out in my garage three days a week, good thing. I stick to that pretty religiously unless I’m traveling. I also say “meal prep.” I don’t do meal prep. I’ll talk about that in a second.
I do meal prepping. I’ve got food ahead of time before it’s time to eat so that part is important. I completely cheat and have people help me there. First of all, I’m the worst cook in the world. My poor, poor husband.
I don’t enjoy cooking. I wish I did but I don’t so I’ve got to get help in that area.
With this idea of putting myself first and my health first, I let go of the mentality that it’s all or nothing. I am an all-or-nothing girl. That’s when Brooke Castillo said to do Bwork I was like, “Shut your mouth. That is not all or nothing. It’s A+ or don’t do it at all.”
I don’t necessarily subscribe to A+ or don’t do it at all, just for the record. But in the back of my mind it’s like do it the best you can. I don’t choose don’t do it at all. But, do it the best you can is going to drive me into the ground early…An early grave.
I have moved away from this all-or-nothing mentality. So with a messy day, a big mess up, maybe the food just wasn’t good that day and I just went off my plan what I’ve learned through working with my coach is that I get right back on.
I usually do some journaling. I don’t love journaling but I will. I’ll work out on paper why something happened, why it’s a bad day, why I’m gravitating toward stress, why I’m doing this or that. I write it out and typically we use Slack to go back and forth (my coach and I) so I have to let her know on Slack what the heck happened there.
I used to let a bad day mean a bad month. If I ate something that was off plan I might as well eat the whole house now. I don’t do that anymore and I don’t let bad days at work mess up my whole week at work either.
I’ve worked on the all or nothing mentality go.
Let’s talk about the food. If you’re curious about what my food looks like and how I lost 58 pounds since the end of March I do believe there are a few core things…I know there are a few core things I have done that have helped me immensely and these are all from Corinne’s tribe that she’s created, the PNPTribe.
She’s got four basics that you follow. I’m going to tell you what those basics are. One of them is that you plan your food 24 hours in advance. Basically, what that really means for me (it might not be 24 hours) but the night before I decide what I will eat the next day.
The reason for this is that it definitely cuts out a lot of the emotional eating. If it wasn’t on the plan I’m not eating it the next day. If an emotion comes up that I want to eat through I don’t really have any options to eat.
Basically, I plan my breakfast, lunch, and dinner the night before so that I know exactly what the day’s going to look like the next day. I do not eat off of my plan. That has been huge for me.
Guys, I really love simplicity. I like not having to think about what I’m going to eat. I like the idea of not having to sit in front of the fridge and ask what I’m going to do here. That has not happened for me. I just know what I’m eating and I write it down the night before. It takes me minutes.
The second thing is that you have to drink water. I drink half my weight in ounces of water every single day. It’s just a non-negotiable. That’s what I do. The other thing is that you have to get seven hours of sleep each night.
I’m an eight-hour-sleep-a-night kind of girl so that’s pretty easy. That was kind of a nobrainer for me. Lately, in creating this course and filming it and all of the crazy stuff that’s gone on the last few weeks six or seven hours have been happening so I try to take a nap in the afternoon but sleep is part of her basic plan.
The fourth one is that you eat only when you’re hungry and you stop when you’re satisfied. Notice I didn’t say “full”. I eat a lot, lot, lot less than I used to. My body is totally fine for it.
I feel good. I have tons of energy. I have a clear head but it’s amazing how little I eat compared to what I did eat.
She’s got this scale. I won’t get into the details but basically it’s called eating 2-to-2. When my body is at a -2 and my stomach is grumbling just a little I know I’m physically hungry and I eat. I only eat to a +2 which is where I feel comfortable, satisfied, not even close to full. That’s what I do.
I eat 2-to-2 with every single meal. It doesn’t always happen that way but that’s my goal. That’s probably the one I’ve struggled with the most. I like food. When it’s delicious I do not want to stop.
It took me a long time to know what 2-to-2 looks like. I got very freaked out in the beginning. What if I get hungry? What am I going to do? She was like, “What are you going to do? Is it going to kill you?”
I think she has a funny saying, “If it’s not going to kill you or get you pregnant you’re good to go.”
I said, “Okay, let’s just try this.”
Another thing I don’t do, and this is not part of her basics so this does not have to be part of your plan if you wanted to sign up with her, I do not snack. I should say rarely. If I am very, very hungry and am working extra hard or got up extra early there are more hours in the day where I’m active and my stomach’s growling I will have something.
On a normal day I only eat three meals a day. Here’s why that works for me. Because I was such a huge emotional eater it was a huge part of my life. I had a hard time identifying whether I was eating because of stress or if I was hungry.
To get clear about what hunger felt like and looked like for me I had to take out all of the snacks. Snacks really made it murky for me. It’s been amazing. The no snacking has been awesome because it allows me to be very honest with myself about when I’m hungry and when I’m full…or satisfied.
I do not snack on most days. Usually when I’m traveling is when the longer days happen and I might grab a protein bar or something. I am also very mindful of the snacks. If I’m grabbing a donut it’s likely emotional eating.
Speaking of donuts…Let’s talk about the foods I eat because I don’t eat a lot of donuts although if you told me I could eat five donuts a day and it wouldn’t affect my body I would so that is a food I do love but it’s not really part of this plan.
Corinne does not have eating plans. She does not say “keto” or “paleo” or “WeightWatchers” or anything like that. She is actually not a fan of any of that. She’s a fan of eating what is right for your body and you figuring that out.
If you want to do keto while you are in her tribe that’s fine but she’s not going to talk about that diet and tell you what’s good about it and what’s not. That’s what’s so unusual and different and refreshing about working with my weight-loss coach. We don’t make it about a certain diet.
Her thing is that whatever you choose to do you’ve got to do for the rest of your life. I think about being 80 years old and sitting on a porch bench with Hobie…Sitting in a rocking chair with Hobie, being 80 years old and still eating the same way. Would that work?
In most cases, yes. There is one thing that probably won’t happen when I’m 80 and I’ll talk about that. But all of the other stuff, yeah, I could do this and that’s her whole thing. Whatever you choose to do this is a lifetime commitment and that feels very secure to me. It feels good.
Let’s talk about what I eat. I have to tell you guys if you read the book, Year Of Yes, by my favorite Shonda Rhimes she talks about people asking, “Shonda, what did you eat? What did you eat?” She lost over 100 pounds and telling you guys this reminds me of that book.
All of you who love the book as much as I do you know what I’m talking about.
I drink Bulletproof coffee every single morning. I made a video about it and actually put it as a highlight on Instagram. It tells exactly what goes into my Bulletproof coffee, how I make it, and the products I use because I do throw some collagen in there and little Bulletproof MCT oil. I make it good.
If you go to Instagram, I’m just AmyPorterfield on Instagram, you know those highlights across my profile, one of the highlights says, “Coffee” and it shows you exactly how I make it in my kitchen.
I do that every morning for breakfast then I do not eat until lunch. I’m hungry by noon. At 8 a.m. I have the Bulletproof coffee. I am ready to eat at noon. I might even, if I wake up early like this morning at 5 a.m., I’m having just a regular cup of coffee right now.
I’ll have my Bulletproof after I work out and then I’ll wait until lunch to eat. Let’s talk about lunch. Every day at lunch I have the same thing. This just works for me. I call it Mom’s Salad Bar.
My sweet mom, Bev, comes over once a week and cuts up all of the veggies and prepares everything in Tupperware for my salads and I have a salad bar every day. She might put chicken in it or salmon but then tons of veggies and it’s so easy for me.
When my team comes over, like Jill my content manager, she stayed with me while I created the brand new course last week. Every day she had a Mom’s Salad. She was such a trooper.
It just works for me. My mom lives five minutes away and she’s retired. She is just a great mom so she just helps me out. So that’s what I have every day at lunch.
Then for dinner I eat Model Meals. I’m going to link to Model Meals. It’s not in every area. It’s fresh food delivered as meals. It’s meal prep. I get it every Sunday night and every Wednesday night to fill in the week.
Model Meals just happens to be Whole30 approved. That’s not why I do it. I just love it. It’s clean. It works for my body. I do think I have some gluten sensitivities. Not a lot but a little. It’s gluten free and it works for me.
I eat Model Meals almost every night unless I’m going out to eat or unless I’m traveling. Or unless I have a date night with Hobie, which I’ll talk about what date nights look like.
I know Model Meals are in Austin, San Francisco, Orange County, and San Diego. I don’t know where else they are but I will link to it and you can get a coupon code, I think, so I’ll try that. I highly recommend them.
Shout out to Danica, my sweet friend who is the founder of Model Meals. I’m going to be on her show coming up so that will be a lot of fun.
Let’s look at my list here. Oh, I wanted to make a note that my meal plan is super boring. Oh, and I wanted to make a note that when I’m 80 I’m likely not eating Model Meals but basically I’m just eating clean. I do eat clean.
I don’t eat any sugar except on what is called an exception meal. Other people might call it a cheat day. I do have a cheat meal that we do not call “cheat”. But I do have one every single week and it’s mandatory.
My weight-loss coach asks, “When are you having your exception meal (what they are called in my world)?”
In the beginning I didn’t want to have them because you are still supposed to eat a 2-to-2, meaning you’re not gorging on whatever the exception meal was. What’s hard for me is that Hobie and I will go on date night.
My favorite exception meal is a glass of red wine and a really good cheese platter…with bread, of course. That’s hard for me to stop eating when I’m just satisfied.
The thing is Corinne said that’s why we do it. You’ve got to learn these habits so that they can become your normal everyday lifetime habits of eating. What’s really cool, Hobie and I used to not do date nights. Now we do because this is part of my plan and he loves that.
He doesn’t have wine and cheese. He has a burger and fries, which is really fun watching him eat in front of me. But Hobie has not changed his eating. He supports me and he loves me through it.
The other day I had a baby shower for Rick Mulready. Rick, love you. By the time this comes out I think your baby will be here. But we had cupcakes. I had one because I planned it but then I told Hobie when we were washing the dishes, we had a bunch left over and I said, “I want all of those.”
He looked at me and said, “You’ve worked too hard.” Just having that support and him saying that was everything because it snapped me out of it and I thought that I have and I know where I want to go and it’s not worth any cupcakes.
I didn’t have them but I had to give them away quickly and I did.
I go on these date nights. I have my exception meal. I struggle with stopping when I’m satisfied and sometimes I overeat and the scale shows it. I just get back right on track.
I do something else that’s a little controversial. Please, I pray that you guys don’t text me or email me or DM me and tell me this is bad or wrong. Let’s just let each of us do our own thing because what I’m doing is working for me but it might not work for you.
I weight myself every single day. Every single day. I have since March 25. The reason for that is I wanted to take out the challenge I had with the scale. I wanted to see the scale go down but I also needed to learn to see the scale go up and just be okay that it is a number.
It doesn’t define me or say who I am or how good I am or how bad I am. That is still a struggle sometimes. I’ll get on the scale after an exception meal and it will easily go up a pound right away.
Corinne says this is normal. This is what happens. This is life. But I want to cry sometimes. Maybe when I’m really stressed the scale does not move. My body is holding onto that weight for dear life to protect me.
That’s another thing. The scale, if I watch it for days and days and days and it doesn’t move but I know my food is super clean and I’m eating exactly on my plan then I know, “Amy, you’ve got to manage this stress.”
I’ll take measures. I go to acupuncture once a week and make a priority for that. I’ve got to walk away from the work. I’m more stressed now than ever because I’m creating the best course I’ve ever created in my life and it has added more work and pressure.
I put the pressure on myself. I’m well aware that is not necessary. It is kind of my vice and the thing I need to work on more than anything.
Anyway, I weigh myself every single day and I write it down. It’s really cool to look back at all of the months and the slow weight loss and seeing where it spiked and where it went down. It’s been a really big education for me. That is what I do.
I want to wrap this up but I kind of want to bring it back to the conversation I started in October 2017. I got on that podcast and said, “I don’t like video and the truth is I don’t like video because I’m embarrassed and ashamed about my weight and I want to make that known because I feel like it’s a dirty secret and I don’t want it to feel that way anymore.”
If you fast forward one year ahead, last week for five days in a row I was on camera filming my eighth program called Digital Course Academy®️. I get to teach my students how to create a digital course from scratch and how to launch it with webinars.
There are over 60 videos. They are short, by the way. There are 60 videos where I am direct to camera. I don’t even know who I am. Who is this girl that a year ago said, “I am so embarrassed to get on camera.”
I do want to point out that I wish back in October I just loved myself for who I was. That was really the point of that episode. I wanted to love myself where I was in that moment.
I started to and that led me on the weight-loss journey. I started to accept myself and find good in myself no matter what weight I was. That opened up some doors for me. Just know I’m not saying you have to lose weight to get on camera.
My journey has looked like that but, holy cow, no matter what weight you are I will pray that you do what you want to do in your business and your life. For me it just looked a little bit different.
I needed to go on this journey but the fact that I embraced video in this eighth online course of mine and I feel it is the best thing I’ve ever created, it’s the best thing I’ve ever created because I showed up in a way that I was my best self.
I felt confident and I was very confident in the content I was teaching. I worked very hard with my team to make sure we taught you exactly what you needed to be taught, in the order you needed to be taught it in, in order for you to be a huge success to create digital courses in your business.
I just wanted to put it out there that if something is holding you back and you’re not doing something in your business or in your life because of how you look, how you feel, or how you think you have the power to change that in whatever way you want to change it.
You don’t need to change a thing about how you look but you could change how you think about yourself and the stories you’re making up in your head that are not serving you.
I just wanted to put that out there. I feel like I have come a long way and I really can’t wait to put this new program out into the world for all of you because I think it’s the best work I’ve ever done.
I believe it will change lives and transform businesses and help people make a huge impact in this world and make a lot of money in your business as well, which we are not ashamed to talk about over here on this podcast, right?
I just wanted to put that out there. I have finally stopped playing a smaller game in my head and in my life and in my business. I want to do big things. I have big goals.
Next year is going to be the most epic year that I’ve ever had in my business. I know this to be true. It’s going to start with launching Digital Course Academy®️ in January.
Of course I’m going to be promoting B-School in February and then we’re going to open a membership site in 2019. It’s for a more elevated audience, those that are ready to up level in their business and make a bigger impact and make more money with digital courses in a really significant way.
I’ll be talking about that as well. But we’re going to keep it simple next year. We’re not going to have a bunch of programs. By the time this goes live, within a day or two, I’m actually retiring Courses That Convert®️ and Webinars That Convert®️.
I’m no longer selling them so that’s a huge, huge shift in my business but that’s because Digital Course Academy®️ is taking the place and is a million times better.
If you’re listening to this in November of 2018 and if you are a student of Courses That Convert®️ or Webinars That Convert®️ pay close attention to the emails you receive in January because you will be offered a significant discount into the new program but that discount is only lasting during my promo in January and then it will go away. Pay close attention so you don’t miss it.
If you’re interested in joining Digital Course Academy®️, in next week’s episode I will be talking about it a little bit more to tell you where you can get on the wait list. That’s coming up.
More than anything, I wanted to enjoy a cup of coffee with you. I hope you enjoyed this conversation and I hope you were sipping coffee while we were chatting about my weight loss.
This episode is so different than the rest of the episodes I typically do and definitely more off the cuff, less of an outline, more of a conversation. But I just wanted to tell you what the journey looks like Part 2. I’ll keep you on this journey.
I will be honest about the hard days and when it’s not working and when it is working. But, overall, it’s always going to be working because I’m just going to treat it as “this is my life now. This is what I do. This is how I do it.”
I hope this episode inspired you in one way or another to make sure you do not play small and do not let anything hold you back. You are definitely destined for big things in your life and I hope I get to go on that journey with you.
Alright guys, I love you dearly. Thank you for listening. I will see you next week same time, same place. Bye for now.