Find a Diet I Like

Her podcast: Self-Care Keto

Carb Manager app – https://www.carbmanager.com/

My guest, Jess Reid, believes in and talks in detail about the keto diet plan. While I was not looking for a diet, and have a fair amount of resistance to them, she made it sound so intriguing that I’ve been following it myself for the month or so since we spoke. 

More about that in a minute. But what I especially liked was Jess’s philosophy– ideas like what works is focusing on how you want to feel rather than a number on a scale, and that change comes from self love not from judgment. That’s an approach I can get behind.

I’ve had other guests who spoke about diet and weight loss. After listening to Jess you might also check out I Always Wanted To Change My Habits with Betsy Burroughs and I Always Wanted to Bike Across the Country with Leslie Kasanoff. Leslie is a nutritionist and committed vegan. She made some great points but I’m not ready to give up meat and dairy.

Jess Reid’s description of keto and how it works is very compelling. My results have not been quite as astonishing but I think I know why and I’m going to stick with it for now. See if you feel as motivated as I did after listening to her story.

TRANSCRIPT

Liz Sumner  

My guest today is Jessica Reid. Jess is an ICF certified coach who is passionate about helping women heal their relationship with food, weight, and body image. Welcome, Jess, 

Jess Reid  

thank you so much Liz, I’m happy to be here. 

Liz Sumner  

So it’s a new year, and many of us have resolved to do something about our weight. How do you recommend that we phrase a goal in a way that will help us be successful? 

Jess Reid  

Yes, this is such a great question. Because language is really everything when it comes to getting our brains to do what we want to do, right? We could, and I have a five year old daughter, and when you’re talking to kids, it can make such a difference in the way that you say something to them. And of course, adults are the same way that we never really grow out of that. But imagine if I said to my daughter, we can’t go to the park until you put your shoes on. Versus as soon as you put your shoes on, we can go to the park. It’s such a small little tweak. But the way that our brains hear it and respond is completely different, right? And so I love how your first question was actually how can we phrase a goal to help ourselves actually do what we want to do?   So Liz do you have a weight loss goal for this new year, 

Liz Sumner  

I definitely have a relationship with my weight that could use some improvement, but calling it numbers and saying I need to lose X number of pounds doesn’t usually work for me.   

Jess Reid  

Okay, sounds good. So I have about five questions that I would walk somebody through. So would you be willing to play guinea pig for us? And answer some questions

Liz Sumner  

Sure

Jess Reid  

You don’t have to tell me how many pounds you want to lose. That’s not involved in this at all. So usually, we think we want a certain result. In other words, we want to see a certain number on the scale, right? And we think once I see that number on the scale, great, I will reach my goal also be well, I’ll move on to my next goal, so on and so forth. But really, we don’t actually want that result. We want how we believe we’re going to feel when we get that result. And so I actually when it comes to phrasing goals, the first thing that I like to start with with people is feelings. Because we need to actually explore how you want to feel in order to figure out what we’re going to do to get you to that feeling right. And so backing it up even another step. Sometimes people have a really difficult time knowing what they want to feel. It’s very ethereal. And so the an easier question to start with is how do I not want to feel? So for our listeners today, let’s start there. How do I not want to feel? And so Liz, for you when you’re thinking about your health goals for the upcoming year? How do you not want to feel? How are you sick and tired of feeling? 

Liz Sumner  

Anxious

Jess Reid  

Okay, anxious. 

Liz Sumner  

Shameful. Failure, you know? 

Jess Reid  

Yeah. So anxious. ashamed. Yeah. And feeling like a failure? Yeah. Okay, awesome. And so that’s how you don’t want to feel great. feeling like a failure is actually not quite an emotion. I wonder if we could get a little bit more specific. So for our listeners, as well, sometimes googling a list of emotions can be really helpful, but anxious is a great one. So you can feel anxious, you can feel ashamed. feeling like a failure. Um, I wonder if we could say you feel afraid. 

Jess Reid  

No, that’s not it. Let me see if I can get it. I just read a great article about disgust. So it’s a little bit of, “You said this before you you keep coming around to this you’re stupid fool. So it’s, it’s not fear, it’s judgment.

Jess Reid  

Judgment. Yeah. Okay. Just so you don’t want to feel judgmental anymore. Yeah. These are great. Really, really great. And thank you so much for being vulnerable. Can you think because I’m sure that your listeners are gonna be like, Yes, I That’s what she said. I feel that Yeah. Okay. So now that you know how you don’t want to feel, how do you want to feel and hints for our listeners? Usually, this is like the opposite of how you just said you don’t want to feel. So how do you want to feel regarding your health in this upcoming year? 

Liz Sumner  

Relaxed. I want it to be sort of matter of fact, it’s just a natural, easy response to the way I’m living my life. 

Jess Reid  

Yeah. Okay. So you want to feel relaxed. You want to feel ease? You want to feel natural. Okay, anything else?

Liz Sumner  

Successful. comfortable in my clothing.

Jess Reid  

Yeah. Successful, comfortable. Proud?

Liz Sumner  

Yes, but that’s a dangerous one for me because it feels like I can I can lose that. You know, I mean, that that’s If I get there, and I feel proud, then somebody could take it away from me. 

Jess Reid  

Yeah, yeah. Confidence, esteem?

Liz Sumner  

Yeah. Confident is better. I like that. 

Jess Reid  

Confident. Okay, awesome. So we’ve gotten a good handle on how you don’t want to feel we’ve gotten a good handle on how you do want to feel. And so now as we’re thinking about approaching how you do want to feel and avoiding how you don’t want to feel, what do you want to release from your life? And we’ll stop here, because you know, we’re probably going to be getting into very personal territory unless you want to chime in, feel free. But for our listeners, the next question that I would encourage you to explore in your journal with a trusted friend, if you have a coach, what do you want to release from your life? People, places, so think about nouns, people, people, places, things or ideas. So relationships, possessions, responsibilities, beliefs, habits, these are things that maybe we need to release from our life, in order to stop feeling the way that we don’t want to feel. And in order to start feeling the way that we do want to feel. Is there anything that you do want to chime in here? 

Liz Sumner  

No, I think that that at this point, I’d love to turn the focus back to you.Because I like the direction that this is going and tell me more. 

Jess Reid  

Yeah, awesome. So people might be thinking, okay, in regards to my my health goals, like, I want to feel at ease, I want to feel relaxed, I want to feel natural, I want to feel authentic, successful, comfortable, confident, these are things that you’ve mentioned. And I bet a lot of people are really resonating with this, right. Because oftentimes, the thing that we believe we need to do in order to find success and reach our weight loss goal can actually feel like the opposite of a lot of these things. 

Yeah, like, it could feel like the opposite of relaxed, it can feel like stressful, it could feel the opposite of ease, it can feel like man, I am pushing myself every single day, I am white knuckling this, this is hard, it’s not easy, it’s actually really hard to do this. It doesn’t really align with the other values in my life. But this is what so and so expert told me that I need to do in order for this to work. And this is why so many people stop doing what it is that they believe that they want to do. Because at a certain point, the strategies that they believe that they need to employ to get to the goal that they believe they want to have are actual opposites, like the whole journey to getting to this place of okay, now I weigh what I want to weigh. And I feel self approval, or I think I will I feel self approval, or I finally feel confident or I finally feel some form of self love for myself. But everything that I had to do to get there was kind of the opposite of that I had to shame myself and I had to punish myself and I had to restrict myself. And every single day, it was hard and it wasn’t natural. 

That’s why we give up, right? Because we actually don’t feel the way that we want to feel. So that’s why we have to start with feelings, because we’re always going to keep pursuing the way that we want to feel. So the beauty of the journey is that we can actually feel how we want to feel on the way to getting to the goal that we have, and continue to feel that we the way that we want to feel even once we’ve gotten there. So that would actually be the goal. So what do I want to release from my life? And then also, what do I want to bring into my life would be the next question. And then what are my next inspired and aligned actions. 

So I like to focus with my clients on approach goals instead of avoid goals. So remember that example that I gave you, with my five year old daughter, you know, like, we can’t do this until you put on your shoes versus as soon as you put on your shoes, then we can go to the park. So that’s a really good example of an approach goal versus an avoidable when we set an avoid goal for ourselves. Like, I’m not going to eat carbs, right?

Jess Reid  

What happens in our brains is like, don’t think about a pink elephant. And all we’re doing is thinking about a pink elephant. So whatever we focus on expands, and we move in the direction of whatever we’re focused on. So sometimes our brain tends to just drop the knot or the don’t. And it just is focusing on carbs, right? Or it’s focusing on, you know, what I can’t have, and we have a strong need for autonomy and freedom at all times. And so if we could, you know, make a really simple shift in our language to, I eat foods that bless my body, instead of I don’t eat whatever this food is. That’s a really good example of setting an approach goal instead of an avoid goal. 

Liz Sumner  

That’s beautiful. I like this philosophy a lot. 

Jess Reid  

Yeah, thank you. 

Liz Sumner  

So so how did you come to specialize in this work?

Jess Reid  

So it was definitely my own personal journey struggling with my weight for my entire life, I actually have a twin sister. And we are fraternal twins are not identical. So we do look–t we look like sisters. But of course, everybody compared us throughout our entire childhood. My mom even dressed us the same way, even though we were fraternal twins and everything, growing up in the 1980s, it was right in the middle of, you know, the low fat craze and everything. 

So, I grew up at a time when for some reason, it was acceptable for people to walk up to you and say, Oh, look, there’s the tall skinny one. And there’s the short fat one, like they don’t look anything alike. And so this was a massive childhood wound for me, I struggled with my weight, and my body image for my entire life. I remember, you know, family members, just commenting on my weight as a child, like pinching my cheeks, look at your cute little chubby cheeks or patting me and saying, oh, nice and fat, nice and fat, which was like supposed to be some type of a compliment. And my Portuguese heritage, or at least that’s what my parents would try to tell me. 

But for me, it was just so deeply hurtful, and scarring. And I thought for sure, there’s something wrong with me. You know, my mom was always on a diet as well, when I was growing up. And so my mom would try to talk to me about my late in a well meaning way, I think she didn’t want me to face the same kind of lifelong struggle. But she did. So she tried to intervene very early and put me on a diet at like eight years old. So of course, it was eat low fat, right, because that’s what was going on in the 1980s. 

So I’ll never forget, actually, we had a babysitter come over to the house when I was about eight years old. And my mom had a whiteboard on the front of the refrigerator. And it was snacks that we were allowed to eat when the babysitter was there. And on one side it said Jessica snacks and on the other side, it said Julie snacks. And they were two completely different things like Julie could have ice cream just had to have the low fat frozen yogurt, Julie got potato chips, but just had to have the fat free pretzel. And this was the type of like scarring so but I grew up with. So I share all this to say our childhood wounds can run deep, right. 

And what it does is it affects the lens through which we see ourselves and see the world for the rest of our lives unless we actually take steps to consciously change our beliefs. So these were the subconscious beliefs that I grew up with. And even though I truly did struggle with my weight a little bit as a child, like even a doctor would say, Okay, we should probably keep an eye on this. By the time I hit puberty, I started, you know, engaging in some unhealthy tactics to try to lose weight, I was definitely restricting calories. I was you know, secretly working out in my room after school, things like that. And I did lose the weight. 

By the time I was probably 14 years old. I was I was at a normal weight. But I saw myself as overweight for my entire teenage years and all through my 20s No matter what I did, I felt like it was like total body dysmorphia. I looked around and I thought everybody is smaller than me, everybody is skinny, and I’m not, and so on and so forth. So it was it was a lifelong struggle. When I was in my 20s, my mid 20s, I went through something that was kind of traumatic. And I actually did gain about 40 pounds in the course of a year. So I found myself truly overweight. And that was really painful experience experience for me. I remember looking in the mirror and feeling like an alien in my own body. Like I remember looking in the mirror and being like, that’s not me. Like that can’t be me who is who is that? I was hiding out from my life. Whenever I would get invitations to go somewhere I was changing clothes, like seven or eight times winding up crying like nothing looked right on me. And I was hiding out. I was turning down invitations. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I didn’t want to do anything. I felt so much shame, and so much disgust and so tired. So how I got started on this journey was from that place. I started eating Atkins on November 8 2013, three weeks before Thanksgiving. So you can tell I did not think that it was going to be long term, right? I just wanted to lose 10 pounds as quickly as possible. 

And the reason why I chose Atkins was because when I was in, you know high school, I saw my mom eating Atkins as a way to lose five pounds in a week. And then she would go back to eating pizza on the weekend, she would like reward herself for losing five pounds during the week. Like, let’s go out for pizza. And so Atkins I knew nothing about it except for the fact that you could lose weight quickly. And that’s all I really cared about at the time. I did not care whether it was healthy. And in fact, I kind of believed that it was unhealthy actually, at the time, but I was like whatever it’s short term, I just want to lose 10 pounds before Thanksgiving and move on with my life. Well, and sure enough, did lose those 10 pounds within two weeks. But what I did not expect was how incredible I felt. I definitely went through a little bit of a transition that they now I understand is called the Keto flu commonly, but as your body is transitioning fuel sources, you can feel a little tired, lethargic, a little bit sick and I did feel that but after about the fifth day

Jess Reid  

It was just like the lights turned on, I had so much energy, I had so much mental clarity, my appetite was suppressed, I finally felt freedom in my thoughts from food for the first time in my entire life. And what I mean by that is, prior to this, I would eat like a high carb dinner every night and like a big plate of pasta, hardly any protein or anything. And then, of course, an hour after dinner, we’re watching television, just veggie now. And then I want to have something sweet, and something salty, and something sweet and something salty. And I would repeat this until I was so bloated and distended and full of self disgust. And I would go to bed and bow to be different than next day and then probably starve myself the whole day and repeat this process day after day after day after day. 

And so this was for the first time eating this new way that I would eat dinner. And I would feel fully satisfied, like no longer hungry and no longer craving anything after dinner. And that type of freedom was what actually convinced me within two weeks, I was like, I’m not going back and I kept it a secret to myself, I was like, I’m gonna do this forever. Why don’t people know about this? And I stayed, I stayed low carb and keto on Thanksgiving. Everybody was like, really, like, aren’t you taking this a little bit too far. And I was like, Well, I’m feeling really good. I’m just gonna keep going with this. And I lost those full 40 pounds plus another 10 pounds, probably within the course of about six months. But even once I reached my weight loss goal, I knew that I wanted to continue this way of eating forever, because of the freedom that it gave me and feeling physically so much better in my body, my skin cleared up, my digestion cleared up. I had been struggling with depression and anxiety that really abated things. It didn’t cure me, you know, there was a lot more inner work to do. But it was a huge difference. And it was so much positive change in my life, that I still say to this day, I eat keto as a form of self care. I’m happy with my weight, but I eat keto as a form of self care. 

BREAK

Liz Sumner  

So first explain to me, how do you define keto?

Jess Reid  

Well, the thing that I love about keto is that actually, it’s objective, like you truly can measure it and define it. So ketosis is a metabolic state, when your body no longer has glucose or sugar or starch as a prevalent fuel source, your body can actually switch into a different metabolic state or like a backup fuel source of burning fat for fuel. And so when your body has depleted all of the stored sugar in your liver and your muscle, then your body switches to starting to burn your stored body fat for fuel. Or you can be burning dietary fat, meaning you’re eating fat and burning that as well. And so the byproduct of breaking down fat for fuel our ketone bodies. And so this is called a state of ketosis. And you can actually measure the presence of ketone bodies in your blood, your breath and your urine. So for anybody who’s a perfectionist out there who loves data, or measuring things, like it’s really kind of fun, you can actually see that you are, quote, unquote, truly doing it, right. 

Liz Sumner  

So what kind of tools do you need, if you want to measure things like that? 

Jess Reid  

Yeah, actually, the most accessible are ketone urinalysis strips, so you just pee on a on a urine strip, and it’ll show you a color, and it’s proof that you’re in ketosis, you can get a bottle of about 100 strokes for about $7. So it’s very affordable and accessible within the diabetic section of any pharmacy, you can buy them on Amazon, you can buy them anywhere now. So that’s probably the easiest. You can also test your blood that’s a little bit more expensive, almost $1 a strip, so but it actually is more accurate over time, because your body becomes really efficient at burning ketones for fuel, and therefore it’s putting less into your waste. 

And so for people who are not aware of that, after several weeks, you can see, you might not even see any ketone bodies in your urine, and you might get discouraged. But that’s actually very normal, it’s a good thing. So testing, your blood becomes more accurate over time. And then you can also test your breath. So they have breath meters, they’re more of an investment upfront or around $100. But the beautiful thing is that you never need to buy any extra supplies. It’ll just last you forever. You don’t need to replenish the strips, you’re not poking yourself, you’re not bringing it into the bathroom, you can just blow into it for 10 seconds, and it is the most accurate over time while being the most cost effective overtime. Is there a way to do modified keto, or just sort of like a slower version that isn’t quite as disruptive to the way that you eat? Yes, absolutely. So keto falls underneath the overall umbrella of a low carb diet. So for most people, well actually probably like all nutritionists, and the American Diabetes Association and all of these places, they would say a low carb diet is anything under 130 grams of carbs per day. The standard American diet is between like 300 and 400 carbs per day, just to give you a little bit of a context. So if you’re eating under 130 Some people would say probably around 100 is a good low carb diet.

Jess Reid  

I actually probably eat between 80 and 100. Now, but I’m still burning ketones because my body has become so used to running on ketones for fuel. But when you first start trying to start a keto diet, if you actually want to get into a state of ketosis, most people probably need to restrict to around 50 carbs per day. And then you’re going to actually see your your body switch over into ketosis, you can lose weight either way. But the real benefit of ketosis is that suppressed appetite that you might not find with a low carb diet? 

Liz Sumner  

What about because a lot of vegetables and things that you’d think are good for you have carbs? 

Jess Reid  

Yes. 

Liz Sumner  

What do I need to know about that in order to be successful on this? 

Jess Reid

Yeah, definitely. So again, everybody’s body is different. And everybody’s carb threshold is a little bit different. So it depends on how insulin resistant you are. And to break down what that term means. When you’re, when you consume carbohydrates, it increases your blood sugar. So there’s glucose running through your bloodstream. And if that becomes too high, it can be dangerous. And so your body has a balancing mechanism, which is the hormone insulin. And so your body releases the hormone insulin whenever your blood sugar gets elevated. And insulin actually is a fat storage hormone. So it says, Oh, we have too much sugar in the blood. Let’s share some of that into our fat cells for storage later on. We don’t need all of this right now we’re gonna store it. And that’s the beautiful thing is you can actually have an unlimited supply of fat storage on your body. Beautiful from an evolutionary perspective, we might not like the way that it looks. But think about people who are eating 300 to 400 grams of carbohydrates per day as the standard. And that’s why we have such a problem with overweight and obesity. So basically, that’s, that’s your body’s way to serve you, right? And so we think like, oh, no, why does it have to do that my body is fighting me know your body is actually serving you. 

And we don’t want to avoid all carbohydrates, like you said, they’re they show up in fruits and vegetables and things that have actual nutritional value to us. But the way that your body breaks down carbs from leafy greens is completely different than the way that your body breaks down processed white pasta or bread. So your body is able to digest carbs from fruits and vegetables a lot better, because it’s a whole food source, it hasn’t been processed and refined to remove all of the fiber. And also it has really good vitamins and minerals in it as well. So some people might call these slow carbs, like it doesn’t spike your blood sugar as much as quickly. Meanwhile, if it’s very refined, like white pasta, or white bread, there’s absolutely nothing to slow down the huge glucose spike and then all of a sudden, here comes insulin processing really quickly to try to serve you and you’re storing fat. 

So you definitely are still eating carbs when you’re eating a low carb or a keto diet, but you’re going to choose foods that have a lower glycemic value, meaning it doesn’t spike your blood sugar as quickly. And also, there’s just fewer carbohydrates in them. So you’re going to be focusing primarily on protein, animal protein, basically, zero carbs. For the most part, you’re going to be focusing on healthy fats like butter, so full fat dairy, avocado, olives, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut, coconut oil, nuts, nut butters, these are things found in nature, they’re not, you know, manmade process, like these hydrogenated vegetable oils that are all existing nowadays. Basically, if it was found in nature hundreds of years ago, you want to focus on those things. And your body is adept at breaking those things down and using them for fuel, as opposed to basically anything that’s on the inside aisles of grocery stores nowadays, rice, bread, pasta, cereal, all of those things are really not good for your body.

Liz Sumner  

I’ve certainly seen many books and and videos and things like that about how to do the diet. Do you have a recommended set of instructions for for somebody who wants to learn more and or begin to eat keto?

Jess Reid  

Yeah, definitely. I mean, generally, a really good resource that people can use right away is a free app called Carb Manager. And that’s a really good way to track your carbs. You can also set goals for your protein and your fat. And usually what I tell people is just set your, when you’re opening up that app, just set the calories to maintenance, you’re not actually going to maintain your weight, you’re going to be burning so many extra calories just by being in a state of ketosis. And by focusing primarily on protein, you actually burn more calories. 

So people get freaked out at first, and they’re like, no, no, I need to set it to the lowest calories possible because I want to lose as much weight as quickly as possible. Just trust if you can set it set, set it to maintenance. And so let’s just say that for you maintaining your weight, it’s going to look about like 1800 calories per day. I’m just throwing out a number, right? And so then you’re going to focus first on protein minimum, your body needs protein from dietary sources, you need to get essential amino acids from dietary protein. Protein also is the most satiating type of macronutrient, it’s going to help you feel fuller longer, because it takes more effort for your body to break down that protein. If you eat like orange juice and cereal first thing in the morning that instantly turns to sugar and you’re done processing it, within two hours, you’re hungry again. Meanwhile, if you eat bacon and eggs in the morning, that’s going to take your body longer to break that down, and you’re going to be full for like three, four, sometimes five, six hours. 

And so that’s really helping you weight loss is all about appetite suppression, that’s like the biggest thing that’s going to help you so focusing on protein is going to help your appetite to be suppressed, you actually burn calories breaking down protein because of the energy that it requires. And so you’re losing weight while you’re eating protein. Like that’s pretty, pretty incredible. So I tell people start with a protein minimum, at least 100 grams, most women that I start working with, I mean, they’re they’re eating like 40 to 60 grams of protein per day, like, somehow we’ve got it in our heads that we don’t want to eat animal protein that is bad for us or whatever, it’s actually so good for you. 

So focus on protein, as you’re approachable when you’re hungry, eat as much animal protein as you want. And then focus on eating above ground leafy green vegetables, so like green beans, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, any kind of salad vegetables, these are all great things. Vegetables that grow below the ground that are a little bit starchier, they tend to have more carbohydrates, they’re not necessarily things that you can never have, but more in moderation. So like squashes, sweet potatoes, carrots, any kind of root vegetables, any kind of legumes, like peas, beans, things like that, again, they’re not like I don’t want to demonize those foods, but they tend to have higher carbohydrate. 

So you’re just gonna be focusing on protein, low carb vegetables, and then some type of a healthy fat. So you can count all of those things. If you like counting things, you could just follow a meal formula, if you like to do that some people like to do the fist method. So you’re going to start with a palm of protein, two fists of low carb vegetables, and one to two thumbs of healthy fat. That could be a really good formula to follow as well. 

Liz Sumner  

I love that. I haven’t heard that one. I’ve heard the palm before, but not the others. So what gets in the way of somebody starting or being successful after, say, two weeks or a month on this? 

Jess Reid  

The simple answer is that there will always be obstacles in our way. And so that’s what a great coach will help you do is to help to move you from where you are to where you want to be. We’re going to come up with a plan, but we’re also going to identify your obstacles. And so whether you’re working with somebody else to help you reach this goal, or whether you’re just practicing with yourself, like sit down with your journal and ask yourself, what are my obstacles? What were my obstacles, last time that I tried, this one threw me off what got in my way, whatever it might be. And so when we think about obstacles, probably the thing that’s going to come up first for us are going to be what we would call external obstacles. So I don’t have enough time, I can’t afford this type of food, I don’t have anybody to help me, my husband doesn’t want to eat the way that I eat. And I don’t want to cook two separate meals, my same thing with my kid, or my partner who whatever fill in the blank, whoever you live with, whatever it might be like we’re going to come up with these AI, external obstacles that are set before us. And so we can come up with a way to navigate all of those external obstacles, but we have to believe that we are capable of overcoming them. 

And that’s where I would say these things can actually be both external obstacles, but really internal obstacles. So internal obstacles are the way that we think about things, the story that we’re telling ourselves, and also the beliefs that we’re holding about ourselves. And so when most people are setting a goal for themselves, let’s say a weight loss goal or any other kind of a goal, we tend to focus on, I want a different result. Therefore, I’m going to change my behavior to get a different result. And that works. But we’re not going deep enough yet. If there’s imagine that we are like an onion. And so there’s multiple layers, and the outermost layer is our results. And right below that layer is behavior. 

So our behavior influences our results. Yes, absolutely true. But what influences our behavior, our thoughts and our feelings. And then at the very core of the onion, the core of who we are, is our beliefs. And so most of our beliefs have been formed between the ages of zero and seven. Our brains are being hardwired with this worldview, all of these things that we’re being explicitly and implicitly taught by the world around us. And then they just become an unconscious part of who we are about 95% of all of our thoughts every day are completely based on our unconscious or subconscious beliefs. And so, unless we actually go beyond the layer of just behavior,

Jess Reid  

And we get down into, well, what thought precipitated this behavior? And how does that make me feel? And then what do I actually believe about this? Maybe there’s a deep feeling of unworthiness or some of the some of the beliefs that I had to overcome. Remember, what I grew up with as a child was, this is my DNA, look around the women in my family, I’m never going to look any different than all the other women in my family. Or I was always told that I had a slow metabolism, I didn’t know what the heck that meant when I was eight years old. And so my belief was my body is broken, my body is fighting me, no matter what I’ll do, I’ll never be able to look the way that I want to look. 

And so some of these were like deep seated beliefs that I actually had to get down to that and overcome those things in order to reach my goals. They were internal obstacles. And this is why people self sabotage, we hear that word a lot, right? But it’s like, I know what to do. I don’t know why I’m not doing it. Well, it’s because if you break out of the belief that you have that can feel very unsafe, that can feel it really just throws off everything. But if we go there consciously, and from a place of love, then we can actually not only have self awareness, a lot of us have self awareness. They’re like, Oh, yeah, I know exactly where this comes from. I also recall that childhood painful memory, I’m very aware of all of my crap and where it came from, it came from my dad’s voice, it came from my mom’s voice, it came from my big sister, whatever it might be. So we have self awareness that we lack self compassion. And so in order to really rewire our brains, we have to go there from a place of self kindness, because it’s love that truly transforms us. It’s not judgment. But if we don’t actually go down to the layer of beliefs, and we just stay at the behavior and the results. 

This is why we keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over and over again, right. And it’s like a hamster wheel, we drive ourselves crazy. Because it’s just behavior modification, that’s temporary. But when you change your beliefs, then that self care behavior will flow naturally, naturally, like we’re getting back to some of these words that you were using earlier, you want it to feel natural, you want it to feel easy, you want it to feel aligned, that’s the way that we actually get those feelings that we’re looking for is by getting to the core and changing those beliefs. 

Liz Sumner  

I really appreciate the explanation that you’re giving. It makes it sound doable and reasonable. And I understand how to approach it, and very well might even try. Tell me, tell me about how you work with clients. So you have given us lots of good advice about how one might do it on their own. But if they wanted extra support, how do you work with clients? 

Jess Reid  

Yeah, thank you for that question. So there’s two ways to work with me right now. I take clients one on one, and I do have availability open. So if you’re interested in that you can learn more on my website, theketofit.com. And basically, we meet about once a week over Zoom video chat. And we use the time in sessions to definitely set goals. So we’re gonna focus on concrete strategies. But more so than that we use that time as a safe container to start to go deeper and explore some of these beliefs explore some of these internal obstacles. And so I have a variety of mindset tools and journal exercises, and just fun assessments to do with my clients that really help us to do the inner work of shifting your mindset out of self sabotage and into self care. Because we could know and in fact, we do know many of us the right strategies to employ. 

But in order for it to work, you have to do it long term. And in order for you to do it long term, and has to be enjoyable, because nobody’s going to do something that they feel miserable with in the long run. And so in order for it to be enjoyable, like you said before, it has to feel ease, flow, natural, authentic, fun, light, you know, all of these things that we want to feel on a regular basis. So the strategies that we’re employing and the mindset that we’re doing it from it has to feel the way that we want it to feel. And the good news is that it can we’re the ones telling ourselves this story in the first place, right? Or the we’re the ones believing the story that somebody else told us in the first place. And so that’s the inner work that I like to do with my clients in order to help them find success. In the long run. I’m in addition to those weekly coaching sessions that I do with my one on one clients, I also built in daily text messaging for the duration of our time working together because I really like to be a very high contact resource for my clients that we’re checking in daily. I’m cheering you on answering questions. I’m holding you accountable to the goals that you’ve set for yourself. You know, if you’re having a hard day and you want to burn it all down, you’re texting me about to open a bag of potato chips, you know, I’m there for you. You know, if you want to go out to eat and you don’t know what to order, like I’m looking at the menu with you. So definitely like your biggest cheerleader and you know, just a just a constant mirror for you holding holding up. The best of yourself when you feel like you don’t believe in yourself. You know, I’m somebody that is holding you in that high esteem kind of mirroring that for you until you take it on as yourself, right?

Jess Reid  

Yeah, that’s what I love to do one on one, coaching is definitely my favorite. But I realized that not everybody has the ability to work one on one with a coach. So I actually do have another way of working together with me. And that’s my new online course. It’s called the self care keto mindset masterclass. And so what I’m doing is I’m actually sharing 10 of my most effective mindset tools and exercises that I do with my one on one clients. But it’s through a self paced online course that you can do. 

So it includes a principle guided journal that you can, you know, print out, and you can reprint these exercises to them as many times as you want to, every time you have an emotional eating episode, you go ahead and print a fresh copy of that, you know, reflection and do that every time you come up with a new belief that you’re like, oh, man, this is definitely holding me back. Like there’s an exercise on how to rewire that belief. And so that’s what’s included in the course, there’s also six video trainings that you can do that’s more in depth with me and also other women sharing their experience of how they were able to work through these types of issues. So you’ll be able to watch all of that. If you want to learn more about that. That’s at the Keto fit.com/mindset. And you can check that out as well. 

Liz Sumner  

I will put links to your website and to that, and to the Carb Manager app in the show notes. Is there a difference that you’ve noticed between women in their 20s and women in their 60s in the way that they are successful or not? 

Jess Reid  

Hmm, that’s such a good question. Because I actually have had clients on there, I have a client right now who’s in her 20s. I have a client right now who’s in her 60s and everywhere in between. And it’s so interesting, because, yes, you’re going to face different obstacles, depending upon the age that you are in life. And you’re probably going to have amassed different, I’ll use the word trauma, just because that I mean, there’s capital T trauma, there’s lowercase trauma, trauma is your experience of the circumstances. It’s not, you know, we can’t objectively say that was traumatic or not, it’s whether or not you perceived it as traumatic. But you know, when I say it was traumatic, like, it impacted your nervous system, it changed the lens through which you view the world, right. And that could be something like, you know, being in the fitting room with my mother when I was 12 years old. That could be something like violence, right? 

So there, there’s so many different things that that could do. But the point is that it changed the way that you saw yourself and the way that you experience the world. And so the the older that you are, there’s the possibility that you may have experienced more of those things that we then need to unpack. But I find the general themes to be pretty much the same. We tend to just be believing lies about ourselves like I am, I am what I have, I am what I do, I am what you think of me, like, I’m not enough. I’m not lovable. I’m not worthy.

Jess Reid  

You know, basically, people are afraid to make the investment in themselves of what this would require. They’re afraid to fail, every single woman I talked to no matter how old she is, so she’s afraid to fail, because she’s failed too many times before. You could be 26 years old, you fail too many times before compared to somebody who’s 65 years old. You fail too many times before. Guaranteed. That’s a massive difference in the number of failures. But it’s the way that you look at it. Right? And so yeah, I find the same themes to be no matter how old you are. 

Liz Sumner  

And what kind of timeframe should a person expect? If they’re not like really gung ho got to lose this in an X number of weeks? What’s a reasonable amount of time to see dramatic results?

Jess Reid  

I would say that the majority of my clients find what they find to be a dramatic difference within the first week of eating keto. 

Liz Sumner  

Wow

Jess Reid  

Yeah. And that’s the that’s another thing that I love, so much about this particular strategy for weight loss, is that when your body does switch over from burning primarily sugar, or carbs for fuel to burning fat for fuel, there is a marked difference, hormonally, biologically, physiologically. And from an evolutionary perspective, there’s a really good reason for that. And that’s because think about our ancestors, right? When there was a deprivation of food availability, or a famine, right? How would you want to feel to be able to survive? Do you want to feel lethargic and slow and like you have no energy? Or do you want to feel alert and clear and energized to be able to then find the next hill or find the next you know, food that you can gather? 

And so it makes sense that your body actually feel a higher performance level. When you are burning on keto, you’re burning ketones for fuel, but I think not a lot of people expect that even though I tell them like you’re not gonna believe how good you feel. Just hang in there for those first couple of days. And then without a doubt, everybody is like, Oh my goodness. Like, I feel like I slept so much better. I feel like my digestion is so much better, I feel more alert, I feel more clear, I feel a little bit happier. Like I feel less stressed, I feel just more, more stable energy throughout the day, I’m not hitting that 3pm slump, I’m not hungry after dinner, my partner says they see a difference in me like my skin is clearing up all of these things like, really, truly within the first one to two weeks, people are experiencing dramatic results, in addition to probably losing a good amount of water weight in the first week.

And so your body is flushing out a lot of stored water, because for every gram of carbohydrate that you eat, your body stores four grams of water. That’s why they’re called carbon hydrates. And so people will kind of dismiss like, Oh, it’s just water weight in the beginning, hey, water, weight is weight on your body. Like when you lose 10 pounds, even though it’s water weight, like your jeans are fitting looser, your your body feels different. And when you look different, you look in the mirror, you look different. 

So that’s a huge difference. And a huge pro of that initial first couple of weeks in ketosis is you will feel a dramatic difference within the first one to two weeks. And also the physical cravings really dissipate within the first one to two weeks, the psychological cravings take a little bit longer. What I mean by that is, um, you know, you see a commercial for, you know, whatever fast food thing comes up or like cookies or something and you’re like, Ooh, that looks good. And so it takes a little bit of time for that to wear off. I’d say, for most people, between like four and six weeks, the psychological cravings dissipate, you’re able to like, watch your partner, eat a bag of tortilla chips, and you’re like not fazed by it. And you’re like, what kind of strange magic is this? Because in the beginning, you’re like, What can I eat? Instead of tortilla chips, I need something crunchy or whatever, like you’re giving yourself those little substitutes of this little practice. 

But yeah, the psychological cravings dissipate within probably four to six weeks, that feels incredible. And then the mindset shifts is an interesting thing to try to quantify, right? Like it’s difficult to do, because some people have an epiphany in a moment. Some people wrestle with things for a couple of months. And neither one is better or worse. It just is what it is. But I will say that my initial coaching commitment is five weeks for new clients. And everybody feels a big difference in their mindset. Even within those first five weeks, it feels incredible. Most of them extend coaching with me because of that, and we continue to work and more of a long term container to keep working through those mindset shifts and holding you accountable to the concrete strategies that are actually working for you.

Liz Sumner  

Well, that is good news that that you can get a big win so quickly, that is very motivating. 

Jess Reid  

Momentum is powerful. 

Liz Sumner  

Yeah, yeah, it really is. This has been wonderful. What would you like to say in conclusion, 

Jess Reid  

I think it’s just so important to remember that you’re never too old. It’s never too late. No matter how many times you think you have failed in the past? What if none of it was failure? What if it was just learning what didn’t work? You know, what if it was just a good gap fade, but you know, on to the next thing, as long as you believe that you have the power to actually change your life, that’s all that’s required. To truly do it. There’s a million different strategies out there that you could try and experiment with until you get to your goal. But the real obstacle is just believing that you truly do have the power to influence your own life, you have the ability to act, you have the ability to influence things. 

And if you you know, don’t like something, change it, if you can’t change it, you can change the way you think about it. So we always have control over something, keeping in the front of your mind. How do I want to feel versus how do I feel right now? And how can I give myself what I need? And and then actually do that, that’s just over and over and over again for the rest of your life. And it’s actually pretty fun. You know, like, some people might might look at it like, oh, man, you know, when will I ever just arrived like, now you don’t ever just arrive, but you keep feeling better and better and better. And you don’t know how good you can feel until you feel it. And then you feel that and then you’re curious. And you wonder, well, I wonder if I could feel even better than this. And then you just do that forever. 

And it’s just such a fun, you know, life journey of actually creating the life that you want for yourself. And you do get a win, like when I just had a client who reversed her diabetes within two months, like when you look at those blood marker numbers, and you think, Whoa, I did that. I did that. Like when you get a win like that, even if it’s 10 pounds on the scale, even if it’s just your your wedding ring is fitting loose, or whatever it is like you get that win and you look back and you say I did that I wanted to change my life. And I did something and I actually have the ability to do it. What can I do now? And you just keep doing that over and over again. That’s all I would say is this just remember that you actually have the ability to change your life. So just believe it and just start small and then just keep adding from there and let’s do it. 

Liz Sumner  

That’s wonderful and exactly the philosophy that I feel for this podcast. So I thank you very much. This has been a real pleasure and encouraging

Jess Reid  

Thanks so much for having me.

Liz Sumner  

My thanks to Jess Reid. You can find out more about her and her programs in the show notes. I invite everyone to write and tell me what you’ve always wanted to try. I’m Liz Sumner reminding you to be bold and thanks for listening

********************

Theme song written by Michael Cohen https://michaelcohenmusic.com and performed by Complicated People https://complicatedpeople.com

Additional music by Michael Cohen

*********************

Please fill out a 5-question survey at lizsumner.com/survey. Let me know when you’re done and I’ll send you a coupon code for my online course, 8 Steps to Launch Your Dream Life. (launchyourdreamlife.com)

*********************

Listen on your favorite app – http://pod.link/alwayswanted

Support I Always Wanted To on Patreon – http://patreon.com/alwayswanted

Leave a review on Podchaser – https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/i-always-wanted-to-670674

Thanks for listening.