36: Working Out For Weight Loss (Summer Success #1)

Are you dreaming of a confident and energized summer? Well, dream no more! This week, we're kicking off an exciting "Summer Success Series" designed to help you make your summer dreams a reality.

It's time to stop wishing and start planning for the summer you deserve!

This episode gets you started with a 3-part approach to get you on track with your fitness and weight loss goals now, so you can enjoy every moment of summer feeling fantastic.

In this episode we cover:

Realistic Expectations for Real Moms: Learn how to set achievable weight loss goals with the timeframe you have, ditching unrealistic expectations and focusing on sustainable progress.
Your Summer Fitness Toolkit: Discover effective and convenient workout resources, including Ashley's go-to online platform, and how to gather portable equipment for consistency wherever you are.
Fueling Your Success with Nutrition: Get a powerful reminder of the impact of anti-inflammatory nutrition and how the free Perimenopause Weight Loss Guide can kickstart your journey with delicious, family-friendly meals (plus a private podcast for extra support!)

It's time to take action and make this summer your best one yet! Let's plan ahead, gather our resources, and step into summer feeling strong, healthy, and confident!

More support just for YOU:

🚀 Download the free Perimenopause Weight Loss Guide for Moms, to get started with your weight loss journey today
💪 No more excuses! The BODi workout platform has the perfect program, that you can start right away!
🙋‍♀️ Have other questions, or need a different way to get started? I'm just an email away!

Transcript

Hello, hello, my friend. Welcome back to the Family Fork. I, as always, am so excited that you're here. But this week, we are kicking off something so fantastic, and I cannot wait to tell you about it. But before we get into it, I want to share just a really funny story. So last night, I was getting some things ready in the kitchen, and my daughter, Suraya, was upstairs in her room, and she was just kind of playing and getting ready for bed.

And as I walked upstairs, I could hear her talking to herself. What she was doing is she was recording a video on like she has a Vtech watch and she was recording a video on her watch. And what I heard her saying is, hi guys, welcome to the fluff podcast. What she was doing is she was creating her very own podcast episode with our dog, Raja. And it was called the fluff podcast. And she was interviewing our dog.

When I came into the room, she wanted to interview me and ask me how I felt about the fluff podcast. By the end of her podcast episode, she had actually changed the name to the puppy podcast because she was interviewing the rest of her stuffed animals.

my gosh, it was so incredibly adorable. But it was also this really strong reminder that our kids, no matter what age they are, they're watching us. They're watching what we do and how we handle situations. know, Suraya is actually really involved in my business and my company, and she knows when podcast episodes come out, and she actually celebrates those milestones with me.

So was this really good reminder that it is our job as moms, as parents, to be showing our kids how we can do life. I really like to think that I'm inspiring my daughter and my son to do what brings them joy because this right here talking to you every single week, working with moms to help them feel better and live happier, healthier lives through perimenopause and beyond.

That is what brings me incredible joy. And I want my kids to know that they can do the same thing in their lives. So maybe a few years from now, you'll actually be able to find the fluff podcast or the puppy podcast on your local podcast player.

All right, so let's kick off this week and I cannot wait to tell you what we're going to do. So for the next five episodes, this is officially kicking off the summer success series. So the idea behind this series of podcasts is that if you don't make a plan, it is really just a wish. I wish I could have a great summer. I wish I could feel more comfortable or confident at the pool. I wish

that I was a particular weight or I could fit into a particular outfit for vacation. All of these things are possible, but you need to make a plan. Now, right now is the time to make that plan and to plan ahead. Now, if you're listening when this episode drops, it's the beginning of May. So you still have four or five weeks to build a plan and get things rolling so that you can plan for the summer.

of your dreams to have your summer be exactly the way you want it to be.

And I know, I get it. This time of year is so busy, especially if you have kids in school. There are end of school year programs. There's maybe graduation. Whether or not you have kids at home, you're probably planning vacations and different things you're gonna do over the summer. Maybe you even have a summer wedding to plan for your older son or daughter.

There is a lot that goes into making sure that your summer turns out the way that you want it to. But the only way you can make that happen is with a plan.

Now, what's really cool is with the strategies and tactics that we're talking about today and in the next five episodes, it's going to work for summer, but it also works for other busy times in your life, like leading up to vacation or winter break, leading up to the holiday season, which you know, that's always chaotic. So let's get into it today. Each of the episodes in this series has a different focus. And today we're talking about

fitness, working out, and weight loss.

I want you to not only be able to reach your health and weight loss goals for the summer, but I also want you to understand what it will take to maintain those results or keep that momentum going over the summer and not just drop it because the summer months are here. So today I have a three part approach that is going to help you not only get to your desired weight or close to it by summertime,

but also to be able to continue that momentum or maintain your results all the way through the summer. Okay, you ready for this? ⁓ and as always, I want you to take some notes because it is a straightforward one, two, three approach that is going to help you really set a plan to achieve your results.

All right, the first thing you need to do when you're thinking about health and fitness and weight loss for the summer is to examine your expectations. Honestly, this is the only place you can start because I know in my work with women, our expectations, and I even do this a lot of times, our expectations are usually much bigger than what's actually achievable. Can you relate to that?

Now, this is not to say that if you don't work hard, you can't achieve your goals, but the reality is that we have to be realistic. We have to know that things are going to get in the way of having a perfectly planned schedule. So if we plan ahead now, it will allow us to be more on top of things and we'll know how to pivot when things don't go our way.

So when we're thinking about being realistic with weight loss specifically, I want you to ask yourself, if I could lose weight, how much weight would I like to lose before the beginning of summer?

Now, if you are anything like me, your brain for some reason is still thinking like, oh, I don't know, summer is still like two, two and a half months away, right? No, it's not. June. If you're listening to this live, June is usually the kickoff for summer and that is four weeks from now. So you have to be realistic. In four weeks, what kind of weight loss is possible for you?

Typically, I encourage that women aim to lose one pound a week and believe it or not, that can actually be a little bit aggressive. A half pound a week is really standard. Again, because there are so many things that can get in the way of our perfect plan. But if you want to aim for one pound a week, that will be like four pounds before summer starts. So think back. If you had said, you know,

when I asked you how much weight do you want to lose before summer and you thought, oh, like 10 to 15 pounds, realistically, you only have four weeks left. That's probably not possible. So in order to set the correct expectations, I want you to recognize that you can still lose that 10 to 15 pounds. It doesn't mean that you should like abandon that goal or stop driving.

It doesn't mean that you should abandon that goal or stop striving to achieve that result. Instead, you need to say, okay, I'm going to lose the first five pounds by summertime, by the beginning of June. And then after that, I will continue my momentum through the summer. And then I'll just continue to lose weight through the summer. This way, you don't have to abandon your goal.

Now, there are some things that you can do to increase the likelihood of hitting your weight loss goal. One of my favorite approaches is to use the nutrition plan that I give you in the Perimenopause Weight Loss Guide for Moms. If you don't have it yet, you need it. So this is a free seven-day guide that gives you everything, like literally everything you need for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack.

The dinners have recipes that are anti-inflammatory, which is going to help you lose weight faster. But also the recipes include a family-friendly variation, so you can also feed your family as well.

Now, the one thing I want to mention about this guide is that most women who approach this guide and go all in for seven days for an entire week, they lose up to four pounds in a week. So if your weight loss goal is to lose 10 pounds before summer, remember, we're backtracking to see if that's realistic. But what if you could lose four pounds in a week?

The reason this happens is that when you switch over to anti-inflammatory nutrition, and I mean like every meal of the day, including your snacks, that reduction in inflammation is going to show up on the scale in a positive way. It's going to help you feel less bloated, less puffy, and as a result, you are going to see some substantial weight loss.

Now, I do want to caution you that does not mean that if you follow the guide and the meal plan in there that you're going to lose four pounds every week that you do it. No, that's not realistic. But for the first week and maybe even into the second week, you can lose up to four pounds if you follow that plan.

So set your expectations correctly, knowing how much time really there is between June and now, which June to me marks the beginning of summer. And then set your plan and say, okay, I'm going to lose five or six pounds because I'm going to start with Ashley's plan. So I'll kick off with a couple of pounds right away and then a few more pounds in the weeks leading up to June. And then

Continue that momentum through the summer so you can actually hit your weight loss goal. Yeah, it might be in a different timeframe than you had originally thought, but what's great is that you are still hitting your goal and that's what you're after, right?

All right, we will talk a little bit more about nutrition in just a few minutes, but up next, and this is your number two, I want you to gather fitness and workout resources that are going to support you now and throughout the entire summer. Now, I know there are hundreds and thousands of options for you in terms of fitness and workouts. There's places to go, there's online research, so many options.

You know, my husband, one of the things that he really loves and he's actually traveling internationally right now. So he has this guy on YouTube that he found many, many years ago, like 10 years ago. And this guy does no equipment, body weight workouts. They're pretty intense and strenuous, but especially when my husband is traveling, he follows this guy on YouTube. And so he'll go back to those videos of like 10 years ago.

And it allows him to get those workouts in, even if he's traveling, even if his schedule feels a little bit chaotic.

I know for me, whether I'm at home or traveling, I need something that is way more structured. I do not do a good job with workouts when I have to search and fumble around YouTube. And I don't know, even if I'm following a particular trainer or a channel, it just feels really clunky to me to have to search through and think, okay, am I doing upper body or lower body today? Am I doing cardio? I don't know, what if I want to do yoga?

Like it's just super difficult for me to find that easily. So for me, the resource that has worked the best is an online streaming service. And the one that I use is called body B O D I. And I have used this platform for the last five years.

Their programs are the only programs that I have done in the last five years. And it's exactly what allowed me to lose 65 pounds in my late 40s. And it's even what I'm using like right now, now that I'm working on changing my physique and lifting really heavy weights, this platform still has resources and programs for me to use.

So the reason I love the BODi platform so much is that you don't have to think about what you're gonna do. You can pick a program with a certain focus. So maybe it's resistance training and weightlifting, or maybe it's Pilates or yoga. Whatever it is, there is already a curated set of workouts just for you. So all you have to do when it's time to work out is press play. And then the next day you press play on the next workout.

genius. So these programs are built by experienced and professional trainers. So they actually already understand, you know, what muscles did you work yesterday? What should you work today? What kind of things in what kind of order do you need to do in order to get those results?

So for me, the BODi platform and the programs have allowed me to see results much faster because I'm not wasting my time. I get in, I do my workout, I get out. I don't have to think about it. And I don't have to spend time looking around, gosh, what do I do tomorrow? Or worse yet, what am I going to do right now when it's five o'clock in the morning and I'm trying to figure out a workout? I don't have to do any of that.

The other thing is that the BODi platform has tons of variety. So, you know, I mentioned I have done heavy lifting programs. I've done cardio, Pilates, yoga. They even have some meditation programs and they have an awesome stretching program that I do every single night. It's like eight minutes. It's so good. I love it. So no matter what you're interested in or how much time you have, you will find a program that works for you.

There's even a program that I did. I actually was a test participant for this program before they launched it to the public and the workouts, they say they're 20 minutes a day, but I always tell people, no, actually they're like 17 and 18 minutes a day. And I got crazy good results from doing that program. And granted, I had my nutrition dialed in as well, but

If you think you don't have the time to work out to hit your weight loss goals, I want you to just stop wasting time looking for something on YouTube or the internet, you know, like trying to find out what workout should I do today? Honestly, Body has it all. Honestly, the BODi platform and suite of programs, it has it all laid out for you. And right now, if you're listening live,

I think it's $129 for the entire year. So you get all of these workouts, all of the programs, everything ready for you for $129. Honestly, it's such a good deal. So I'll put a link in the show notes. And when you sign up for the BODi Platform, reach out to me and I will help you get started with a program that is just right for you. So I don't want you getting confused with

the different options, because there's a lot of variety. Just reach out to me once you've signed up and I will help you get started. And what's cool is I will continue to help. And what's cool is I will continue to support you as you're ready for additional workouts or other programs.

So if you really want to see results quickly, stop wasting your time, okay? Start being more effective and efficient. Get on the BODi Platform, the link is in the show notes, and get started with a workout this week or even today. Like you can actually get signed up today and this will allow you to get going on that weight loss goal of four, five, six pounds before June gets here.

The other thing I want to mention around fitness is that it is really important to gather some equipment that will support you throughout the summer. You know, if you have travel planned, if you're going on vacation or you're not going to have access to your regular fitness. So if you have travel planned or you're going on vacation or you're not going to have access to your regular fitness equipment, I want you to make sure that you are collecting some portable fitness equipment.

So for me, I always travel with resistance bands and sliders, like those floor sliders. Both of these things are incredibly light. They're flat. They pack into the front pocket of a suitcase. You don't even know that they're there. Oh, the other thing would be like a hand jump rope. So either a regular jump rope or like those half ones that have a ball on the end that you just spin in your hands.

All of those items will help you to be really consistent with some kind of workouts throughout the summer while you're traveling or you're just away from your regular fitness equipment. It's also really helpful to mention that on the BODi platform, there are a number of programs that don't require any equipment at all. So even if you have some bands or some sliders or the jump ropes,

you are still going to be able to hop on and get in a workout no matter where you are. But the reality is that you have to start somewhere. You just, have to get started on a fitness program. And again, this is where it's my job to guide you because you might not know what the right thing is for you right now. So just reach out to me. I'll get you on the right path so that you start with a workout program that is realistic for you.

Remember, we have to go back to setting those realistic expectations. So the same thing applies here to fitness. If you haven't been working out for a while, you're not going to want to start with a 12 week program that's lifting really heavy weights. We have to start you into a fitness routine. And that is absolutely something I can help you with.

So commit to getting your resources pulled together, get signed up for the BODi platform or something else, whatever works for you and gather your portable fitness equipment like your bands and your sliders and maybe the hand jump ropes. That is gonna like set you up for losing the weight. That is going to set you up for losing the weight that you want to lose before summer starts. And it's gonna help you to maintain or

keep that momentum going throughout the entire summer.

So you see, we're planning ahead now, even if things feel a little choppy or chaotic in May, it's better to do this now than trying to pull all of this together the week before Memorial Day, or even like the day before Memorial Day and you're headed out on vacation or a boating trip, and you don't have anything with you and you haven't hit any of your weight loss goals. So plan now, make a commitment, get signed up, and then get started.

All right, I know that the focus of this particular episode is really around fitness and workouts and your weight loss, but you're not gonna get that far unless you pair all of that with nutrition. And by doing that, you are going to see bigger results faster.

I mentioned this earlier in the episode, the Perimenopause Weight Loss Guide for Moms. It is hands down the best place for you to start. Like I said, when you follow that meal plan exactly as it is written, you can lose up to four pounds in a week. And the cool thing about this guide is that it comes with a private podcast. So you get to hear me talking you through the entire guide.

giving you additional inspiration. And I even have a whole episode around mindset that is definitely going to set you up for summer success. So go grab that guide. I've put the link in the show notes and don't forget to listen to the private podcast. You'll get, you know, a series of emails that have the links for that podcast, but listen to what I'm sharing with you as you go through that guide.

It is going to help you stay on track with that plan for an entire week.

Now this particular guide, the meal plan, it is anti-inflammatory forward. I've talked about this in previous episodes, but the benefit of anti-inflammatory nutrition, especially as we go into perimenopause, is that you are losing estrogen. But estrogen is responsible for managing the inflammation in our body. So when you have less estrogen,

you are more susceptible to higher amounts of inflammation. So what you can do is eat food that will not increase inflammation and can actually help to reduce some of that inflammation. This is what you're after and it's exactly why it can help you to lose up to four pounds in that first week.

And not to mention anti-inflammatory nutrition is going to give you more energy because when you're not as inflamed, your body is going to feel better. You'll feel more energetic. It's also going to help you have less brain fog. Brain fog is actually inflammation in your brain. So if we're reducing the amount of inflammation, you're going to think more clearly and be more focused. You're also going to see faster fat loss.

When your body is not working so hard to work against that inflammation, it's actually gonna do what it's supposed to do. So if you are working out in a way that supports your body and you're eating anti-inflammatory, you are going to see faster fat loss.

My absolute favorite part of the perimenopause weight loss guide is that it has you cooking just three nights a week. I mean, can you imagine the summertime, the weather's nice, and you only have to cook three nights a week? Seriously, that is like absolute gold. You'll be able to spend more time at the pool or take a bike ride. It won't feel so stressful. Like you won't have to constantly be in the kitchen every single night.

and you'll have some freedom to hang out with your family or your friends and not worry about all of the cooking. So the guide, it's not only going to get you started now, but it will start training you on anti-inflammatory nutrition so that come the summertime, you can just continue eating that way knowing that you are getting exactly what you want and it's giving you the results that you deserve.

All right, so the time is now. I don't want you to put off your weight loss or your health goals for the summer any longer. Today, today is that day to get started. I want you to check the show notes for the perimenopause weight loss guide for moms. Make sure you get that, download it, and then listen to the private podcast. And then I want you to get signed up with the BODi platform or other platform of your choice.

But if you do sign up with BODi reach out and let me know, then I'll get you started in a program that is perfect for you so that you can actually hit some of your weight loss goals before the end of this month. And then if you don't already follow the Family Fork, please press follow because the next four episodes are the rest of our Summer Success Series. You, I promise, don't want to miss out on some of the things that are coming down the pipeline.

They are gonna help you get in shape before the summer gets here and know exactly how to continue that momentum all the way through summer. So be sure to follow the show if you aren't already and do me a favor if you would. I want you to think about two midlife moms who really could benefit from this series of podcasts, who would actually find this information really helpful.

Share this podcast with them right away and get them to follow so that they don't miss any of the episodes that are coming up in our summer success series.

All right, my friend, thank you for taking the time to listen in today. I really hope that you are feeling motivated and excited and ready to get going on your health and weight loss goals before the summer gets here. As always, I can't wait to see you back here next week for the second episode in our summer success series.