WELLTHY Generation Podcast!

29. 12 Ways to Create Space For Weight Loss by Balancing Your Hormones

• Naihomy Jerez • Episode 29

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Ever felt like your wellness goals are lost in the daily grind? My own journey, along with my clients', proves that with a little self-advocacy and clear communication, you can create an impressive life transformation. This episode is your gateway to discovering 12 dynamic strategies for making health and wellness a non-negotiable part of your life.

The stories I share in this episode are rich with the steps of individuals who elegantly wove wellness into their routines—whether it's the office worker who made gym classes a sacred ritual or the stay-at-home mom who carved out time for herself while learning to quiet the guilt. These narratives are more than success stories; they're blueprints for crafting a life where taking a lunchtime stroll or scheduling a day off for mental health becomes a part of your regular beat.

Join me as we celebrate those small yet mighty victories that lead to significant leaps in health and happiness. I'll even let you peek into my personal playbook—how I made a workout class essential amidst a demanding schedule and the ways I enlisted my partner's support to manage our kids' activities. It's about building an identity around healthy habits and understanding that sometimes, it's okay to drop the less crucial balls we're juggling to keep the one labeled 'self-care' soaring high. 

Thank you so much for listening!


Speaker 1:

Hey friends, welcome back to the Wealthy Generation Podcast, and that is W-E-L-L-T-H-Y. Today I'm going to talk about the number one thing that needs to happen for you to get health and wellness results, whether that's losing weight without dieting, taking care of autoimmune conditions where you want to make sure that they go into remission, getting rid of PCOS symptoms, things like that. Whatever you want the results to be for your health and wellness, and it can just be as simple. Also, as I want to take really good care of myself, I want to make myself a priority. I want to feed myself well. I want to make sure I'm incorporating movement. I want to feed myself well. I want to make sure I'm incorporating movement.

Speaker 1:

With any of those things, the number one thing that needs to happen is creating space for it, and sometimes we have created space for some of these things in our lives, but it's not with intention. We're probably frustrated with it or resentful about it. Frustrated with it or resentful about it and oftentimes it's just making us a lot more stressed out than helping us right. So creating space for the habits that I needed for my life, for what I wanted, took effort and took looking into of what it was exactly that I wanted and the time that I needed, and for my clients too. Some of them they come with. Sometimes they come with certain habits, like they have a certain time that they work out, or they are already making meals at home or something like that. But again, it's not with intention, they're not really sure if it's effective or it's getting the results. They're just trying their very, very best to do something for themselves. And this is so important because life is always super busy. At least the stage that I started my health and wellness journey on and where I am right now is just busy. I started about seven years. Seven, seven and a half years ago I had a brand new baby and a two-year-old, and I currently have a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old.

Speaker 1:

Now, if you have kids school-age kids you probably know that your life is ruled by the school schedule At least that's how it feels like to me. When they're younger there's like a little bit more flexibility. But there are just so many roles, like you're a parent or you're a caretaker to your parents or other family members, you are either an entrepreneur or an employee somewhere, you're a sister, a cousin, a friend, and there's just so many things to be paying attention to that. It really is overwhelming and frustrating sometimes, and to think about where you're going to fit yourself in can seem like a very daunting task on top of that, because it's like, well, how am I going to create space if all of the hours of day are taken with other responsibilities, including the weekend where you're doing things for family members, or it just becomes very overwhelming to think about.

Speaker 1:

So what I want to offer you today is kind of what are the prerequisites to creating space in your life for yourself, and 12 different ways that my actual clients and myself have created space in our lives. All of the examples I'm going to share with you are from an actual client who has done this, and the ones that are my own I'm going to share that it's my own, but my clients will remain anonymous. I just want to give you an example from various different walks of lives, various levels of responsibilities and circumstances, how they created space in their life to get results, and each and every one of the clients that I'm sharing about they have gotten results as well. I want you, as I explain these to you and a little bit of what they look like, I want you to think about and be curious how would it be possible for you to do some of these things for yourself, to start creating space? And you don't need to do these all at once or think that if they worked for somebody else, they're going to work for you. They're merely examples to get the juices flowing in your brain. I love me personally I love to hear how other people do things other people's examples because all of a sudden, even though I might not do exactly what they do, it really helps open up my mind to think differently about other ways and other possibilities of how things can get done.

Speaker 1:

So let me just start off with what the prerequisites I think are for creating space in your life, and I think that it's also one of the most vulnerable and like the most vulnerable step that you need to take, because, if you were anything like me, I was extremely hyper independent. I was just taught that you handled everything that you needed to get done yourself. You didn't bother anybody for help or support. You kept your business to yourself. You just remained private. You handled your business and you didn't tell anybody.

Speaker 1:

And the first thing that I think is a prerequisite to then create space in your life is asking for support and communicating with others and communicating with yourself those three things asking for support, communicating with others in your life and communicating with yourself. And the reason why I say this is because you might be doing so many things in your current life and in your current circumstance that you probably can hand off to somebody else, you can delegate, you can stop doing, you can deprioritize it, and for that it usually involves someone else, even if it's yourself. So you might need to ask for support from a family member or a partner to take on a task that you normally would do, or to deprioritize something that would normally happen because you would take care of it. Then that also, like it, also requires you to communicate, and it was really hard for me to communicate. I'm still learning how to communicate.

Speaker 1:

I'm still trying to understand that it's not a sign of weakness to communicate and ask for support, especially from those who are just around you in your everyday life, and with that is also communicating with myself, because I need to be very honest with myself of what kind of support I need, of who I can reach out to, and really letting go of maybe guilt and shame that comes up or even embarrassment that comes up for you, communicating and asking for things that you need, for things that you would like other people to do. And here's the kicker for you to have time for yourself. And that, I think, is the main burn, because if you're asking for a favor for your kids or communicating something for your kids or for a family member or for something outside of yourself, I think the pressure becomes a little lighter and we don't feel as much guilt and shame because it's for somebody else and most likely this person also loves that other person or is willing to do it for that situation. But when it's just for us, it becomes like this, looming like heavy cloud blanket or whatever you want to call it, and it can feel very heavy to do that. So that's how we want. This is why it's the hardest part, I think, of a health and wellness journey and something that we start speaking about right away. Because if we don't learn how to ask for support, communicate with others and with ourselves, then your health and wellness journey, or the habits that you're trying to build, is going to be very short lived, because sooner or later, there's going to be more things that come up in your life where people need your support, or you want to support, or you become more busy and the first thing that we tend to let go of is our own wellness, our own health habits, and then we go back into this spiral of frustration and not feeling well and getting sick and all that looks like.

Speaker 1:

I'm now going to go through the 12 examples that my clients and myself have had to do to create space in our lives to take care of ourselves. The very first example I'm going to highlight is of a client who I coached during the middle and the most intense part of the pandemic middle and the most intense part of the pandemic. This client had two little kids and, of course, she was at home with them all day and her partner was still working from home. So she, all of a sudden, from being an executive she had recently also left her job because she was trying to become an entrepreneur and, because of the circumstances, she ended up becoming a stay-at-home mom. For that time, her partner was working and it became very, very overwhelming because if you have children or you don't, one of the things that happen, especially when they're very young, is that you don't have any time to yourself at all. Everything revolves around them and you also being at home during a pandemic, there are other responsibilities that fall on you, like taking care of the home and making meals, and it becomes a lot. And I can totally relate because I was in a similar situation and it was exhausting, exhausting to be in that kind of situation.

Speaker 1:

So what we worked on together was getting some space for herself, which was extremely hard to do because it was the middle of a pandemic and her children used to be in childcare or daycare, but obviously they weren't there anymore. They were always at home. So what I asked her was who in your life that you trust, like during this time, I think, anytime with your kids, you, you need to feel safe and you need to trust, because if not, it becomes very counterproductive. Where you don't, if you're not feeling safe and trusting with who your kids are with, then it becomes an extremely stressful situation. And that was not the goal, right, it was not the goal at all. So I asked her who, if anybody in her life was nearby, she can ask for support from, obviously with safety measures in place, and it just so happened that she had two sisters and she was able to ask them for support. She was able to ask them and it was a hard conversation for her to have, but she had it and her sisters were 100% willing to help her out.

Speaker 1:

And my client was getting at least I think it was, two hours a week to herself, or maybe it was four hours a week, two hours on two separate days, it was something like that, I don't remember exactly. But the point was that those two hours in one day that she got to herself really, really changed the game for her. It really allowed her to get some quiet time, some time for herself, whatever it was that she needed, she wanted to do and she needed for herself. She created space to do that by asking other family members for support during an extremely challenging time to ask for that extremely challenging time to ask for that. So that's example number one. She was extremely lucky that she had that kind of support around.

Speaker 1:

But the truth is too, if she never had asked for it, she would have never received it or at least there would have been a possibility of that and had gotten sometimes herself. And I remember her saying like well, my sisters, they're available until this date, because then they're unavailable, because they're doing something else. And I go and I said to her and I said that's fair. I said but you still have like a month and a half or two months. It was a significant amount of time for you to receive support. So let's take advantage of this. Let's use it up, take advantage, be grateful for this time and then when your sisters go away, then we'll figure it out again and maybe by then there'll be another solution. And that's exactly what happened when her sisters went away and they were unavailable to help her with the children. There was another solution that came about. So I know sometimes it's hard when we don't see the long term effect of something and we know that something's going to end. But trusting that we will again have the opportunity to figure out that things are going to work out for us and in our favor is a good thought to hold on to. I know it's not the easiest I try and hold on to it myself often but it can really help your nervous system calm down and build that trust in yourself that you always figure things out and things work out in your favor or for you all the time.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's move on to my other client. She is a principal at a school and she had very late nights and she would also do drop off and pick up for her daughter, and it was exhausting for her to come home and make dinner. But what used to happen is that her husband was around and he would normally start dinner, and what started to happen is that the more we worked together, the more she was like oh no, I don't want to eat these things. So again, she communicated with her husband and we spoke about a few suggestions and recommendations and what she can do versus what he can do, and the truth was that once she spoke to him about how she wanted meals to look like, what she wanted to incorporate, what she was working towards, he had no problem starting that. Finishing it, it was just not a problem at all. So it took so much pressure off of her because once she got home from the school and picking up her daughter and it was literally dinner time and there was no time for her to start making anything her husband had already taken care of it, and in a way that was more aligned with her health and wellness goals, which was also beautiful, because it gave her husband the opportunity to participate and it also helped him too. So I know a lot of times it's frustrating to communicate with your partner and letting them know what your needs are, but it's super important, especially when you have children. You're trying to create space for yourself and there's so many things to be done. It really helped her in this situation.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's move on to example number three. This is a totally different client. This client works from home and and she didn't have children she wanted to make time to exercise in the morning. That was her thing, and she didn't want to get up too too early. But she wanted to get some workout in. But she had to be logged on by a specific time. So we spoke about her schedule often and a lot, and what we discovered was that she actually didn't have to be logged on for 30 minutes. That she thought right. So she spoke to whoever she had to speak to at work. She let them know that she was going to log on 30 minutes later than normal because she was already working 30 to an hour extra of overtime, and those extra 30 minutes allowed her to get her workout in. Whether it was a walk outside, exercising at home, going to a gym, those extra 30 minutes made a huge difference. They were a game changer for her to do this, and she had a lot of thoughts about what is it called Requesting this at work. She had so many thoughts about requesting this because, as always, there's this mentality what are they going to say? Oh my gosh, what if they fire me? All of these thoughts that really hold us back from setting boundaries at work and requesting what we want. And it ended up not being a problem. It was totally fine. She was already working extra anyway and we had discovered that in the morning was the best time for her to work, because after work she was just really tired and she was also the one who would start making dinner. So creating that space of 30 minutes in the morning really was a game changer for her to get her movements in and create that exercise habit. All right, let's move on to number four. So here's yeah, I'm just reading my paper because I wrote all of them down. I cannot possibly remember all 12 of them in my head, so I took time to think about a lot of my clients and how they created space.

Speaker 1:

So another way to create space, especially for your workout classes, is leaving work on time. Leaving work on time, okay. So one of my clients she wanted also to get started in movement and she worked in the office. She worked in the office there was really no remote work and there was a gym in her building, but by the time she got home she would also was exhausted. She started making dinner and exercising would go out the window, with reason, right, she was, just it was a long day. So what we worked on was her leaving work on time and going to a workout class within walking distance from her job, directly after work, directly after work. So she would take her workout clothes with her, she would go to work and it would encourage her to leave work on time, get to her workout class, spend that time there and by the time she got home, she made dinner, she relaxed, she took a shower, whatever it was, and obviously this wasn't every single day, it was maybe once a week or maybe twice a week, so it wasn't like she wouldn't get home earlier on other days to to slow things down, right to get that extra hour in. So that is something that I used to also do. I did that for a year where I would leave work on time and I would actually run out of work, on time to go to a gym class directly after work. But I'm going to talk about that later. It's actually one of the tips because it involved a lot more people, because it was not walking distance from my job, it was somewhere else, so I'll get to that later. Okay, let's see Number five. Number five, number five.

Speaker 1:

This is another one of my clients who's a stay-at-home mom. Her kid one of her kids is homeschooled and she also has a toddler, so she has zero and her husband is out working right. She has zero time for herself with the children five days a week, and it can be extremely overwhelming when you're taking care of everything and everyone. So we started again to brainstorm who do you trust? Who is safe? What do you feel safe with? Who do you feel like your children will be safe with? And we started to brainstorm a bunch of people, because the truth is that she didn't have a bunch of people to lean on right. She didn't have family members or anything like that. But in our conversations what we did discover was that she actually had a neighbor who was a good friend of hers and she spoke to the neighbor and the neighbor was more than happy to watch her kids for a few hours a week. She created space by asking her neighbor that she knew who she felt safe with, who she knew her kids would be safe with, and she trusted for her to do whatever she needed to do and decompress. One time she took a nap, another time she ran errands, another time she got groceries. So it just allowed her the space.

Speaker 1:

And if you don't have kids, let me tell you something they are extremely overstimulating. Children are very overstimulating, not just with when they're upset, with the whining and crying, but also when they're happy, because they're loud and they move around a lot. So, as a parent, just having time in silence becomes a treat. Just eating a meal where you don't have to tell your kids a gazillion times to sit down and to eat and to pay attention and to this and to that and listen to requests those are treats. Okay, to drink a warm cup of coffee, that's a treat. To drink a warm cup of coffee, that's a treat. So to have two hours for herself where she's not needing to pay attention to her children they're safe, they are taken care of that is a treat, that is a game changer. So if we had not sat down and really dug deep and this wasn't something that happened in a day. Honestly, I would give her homework. I would be like I just want you to think about it. Like, who's around, how would you make this possible? And after like a week or two, she realized that her neighbor was a really good option. All right, let's keep it moving with tip number six. So this goes back to setting boundaries with work and with yourself.

Speaker 1:

I think that whether you're an entrepreneur or you're working at an office, but mostly if you're working at an office, you also need to kind of fight or advocate and create and create boundaries around the time. That it should be. What's it called like? It's your time, like, for example, your lunch time. That is your time you are legally, I believe. If you work like eight hours a day or something, you legally are entitled to one hour of lunch. Okay, and I remember when I worked at the gap, depending on how long your shift was, you got like two 15 minute breaks and like a 30 minute lunch or a one hour lunch, something like that, depending on the hours that you worked.

Speaker 1:

But if you're, like, in a full-time position, you are entitled to one hour of lunchtime, and some people are so disrespectful at work and they don't believe in taking lunch. A lot of people do not take lunch and they use it as a flex. They do the working lunches and they do all these kinds of things. And then my poor clients feel self-conscious and they're like oh my gosh, my boss is not taking lunch, my coworkers are not taking lunch, so I'm going to be weak, I'm going to I'm. You know, they feel a certain type of way if they take lunch.

Speaker 1:

So what some of my clients have done, and I have encouraged them to do, is block off their calendar with lunchtime, and I used to do this as well. That way, at least, if somebody tries to book a meeting during that time, they might reach out to you and be like either they won't do it or they will reach out to you and be like either they won't do it or they will reach out to you to see if you're actually busy and you don't owe anybody an explanation as to what you're doing in your lunchtime. They don't know if you have a doctor's appointment or whatever it is. So you get to have that dedicated time to one, eat and two, probably to go outside and move your body a little bit. What I used to love to do during my lunch hour when I worked in corporate was I would eat my lunch first in the office and then for the rest of the time I would go outside for a walk. I would walk just to nowhere, I would walk just to walk. So setting that boundary is super important. I would walk just to walk. So setting that boundary is super important.

Speaker 1:

I was just working with one of my current clients on this, because she has a bit of an unpredictable job where her schedule is a little bit unpredictable, like things can change same day. And I was like girl, block off time on a weekly basis because she doesn't really know until very late. You know very short notice what's going to happen. And I said, okay, well, every Monday, every Wednesday, you can go ahead and block time off so that your calendar is occupied and you get to go eat your lunch and go for your walk. So this is a reminder to you that it's still your responsibility to do that. Don't expect corporate or like a job to be watching your back. And this also goes for entrepreneurship, because we can get so engulfed and just in the weeds with our own business, engulfed and just in the weeds with our own business. That, and a lot of times we feel like we don't have enough time. Trust me, I have felt like this a lot and we really have to be intentional about stopping and getting something to eat. Okay, all right, let's move on to number seven.

Speaker 1:

Number seven is my client building off of lunchtime. My client, this particular client. She would take her lunch break and she would have lunch with her colleagues in the cafeteria, but that's all she would do. She would just stay there, and something that I was working with on this particular client is building in more movement throughout the day. It was very, very, very important for her goals, so I challenged her to go outside for a walk around the block. The area and the location where she used to work had a lot of stairs around there because she was near a subway station. It was a very. It was one of the more touristy areas in the city that she was in. So I told her and this was a big deal because you know, you, like I said before, you fall into the culture with your other coworkers. You kind of go along with the flow of whatever they're doing. So her and her coworkers would just sit around in the cafeteria, chit chat, have lunch and then that's it. But I challenged her to go move her body so she would tell her coworkers hey, I need to go out for a walk because literally that was her homework. And guess what? Her coworkers started going with her. Isn't that beautiful? Like win, win, win all around. Not only does she go out for her walk, but now her colleagues were keeping her company and they were all getting some exercise blood sugar regulation going.

Speaker 1:

So this is a way to create space as well. Sometimes you have the space, you don't know what to do with it. Sometimes you have the space and you don't know how to fill it in. You don't know what would be beneficial to put in there. So in this case she had the space because she was already taking her lunch hour. She could just fill it up more efficiently for the goals that she wanted. That she wanted, right. Okay, keeping on the corporate theme, right, how do you create space to rest? All right, I have encouraged my clients to do this, and this is something I used to do as well towards the end of my career, because I was just done with the BS, all right. So I encourage them to take a day off of work to rest and reset, and I honestly, I try and do this in entrepreneurship as well and be a lot more intentional with it.

Speaker 1:

So when I was in corporate, I would take one Friday, I would mark one Friday a month off. And I worked for one of those companies that vacation time was unlimited. We all know why they do that because then they don't need to pay you out your vacation time that you've earned when you leave or if they lay you off or something like that. Um, they don't need to pay you out. So I was like, oh, unlimited, um days off, you bet Okay. So every every few months I would block off like a whole quarter, like three Fridays off. I would block them off to do I don't know what I had. I had no plans. One time I got a haircut, one time I got a tattoo on my day off. Other times I just walked around the city and you know what I used to love to take Mondays off instead of Fridays. So I would request Mondays off and it was just so nice because Mondays are like less suspicious. I guess you would say they were less suspicious and it would just give you a slower start to the week so sometimes it was a Friday, sometimes it was a Monday to allow myself a three-day weekend, and it was just fabulous because it gave me some time to decompress.

Speaker 1:

And I remember I had a client who was a top executive at a really popular company and she would just be tired A girl be tired and she used to travel a lot for work too, and I would encourage her. I'm like look, just you know, request a day off. And she started to do that and it started to work out really, really, really well for her because the work was always going to be there. She was an executive and she was managing a lot of people and we all know that sometimes Saturday and Sunday is just not enough time to rest, like you're still running errands and doing chores and hanging out with other people and hanging out with other people. But when she would take the day off, when the rest of the world was doing what it was doing, she got time for herself and to do whatever she wanted. All right, so let's move on to tip nine.

Speaker 1:

Tip nine is this is common I, I, I have struggled with this, but a lot of people they're able to do this and is waking up earlier than everybody else to build in self-care time before starting their day. I have a client, or I had a client, that this is her jam. She wakes up earlier than her entire family and she gets a lot of things done for herself. She would get in her movement, she would do her mindset work and her journaling. She would go to a workout class like she would do her protein shake, like there would just be so many things that she would do before her family would wake up, because once her day got started, it was nonstop, but she took advantage of those hours in the morning that felt really good for her to do. And then she also learned how to build in time in her day to eat, because that's something she wouldn't do before.

Speaker 1:

But I think that the intentionality that she gave herself in the morning set her up so that she can take the time in the middle of the day to feed herself, and she realized how important that was. Because when she started creating the space in the morning and and, mind you, she had always been a morning person she would but the space in the morning and, mind you, she had always been a morning person she would. But the thing is that she will wake up and go straight to work, right, and it was tough and a learning curve for her to learn how to wake up and not go directly to work, how to wake up and take time for herself. That was very, very, very uncomfortable. So this is even going back to the prerequisites, where I was saying that we need to learn how to communicate with ourselves, because our mind can really give us a guilt trip or it can really feel like we're being unsafe when in reality we're trying to create even more safety. And for her that was the case. The problem wasn't waking up earlier, the problem was switching the activities that she was doing when she woke up that early. All right, so many, many, many different factors here. All right, tip number 10,. We're almost done. Tip number 10.

Speaker 1:

Oh, this was one of my personal tips that I said in the beginning or towards the beginning of the episode that I was going to come back to. So this tip required me to communicate with myself, with various individuals, and like to ask for support and communicating with myself that it was okay to do so. So I'll tell you what happened. In my notes I wrote like leaving work at a specific time, which I already spoke about earlier, and asking people for support, right so um early when I started my health and wellness journey and exercising, my trainer had a class. I think it was on Wednesday evenings or after yeah, it was the evening and and it started at like 6 pm.

Speaker 1:

Now I worked in Times Square, new York City, and this class was in New Rochelle, in Westchester. So if you're not familiar with New York City, it's in a whole different county. You can't get there in regular public transportation like the MTA. You had to take the Metro North and generally you would need a car, things like that. Now, the issue was that, not the issue. The original routine was that I would leave work. I would go to the daycare center where both my kids were because they were still little, and I would meet my husband there, who was also at work, and we would pick up the kids, pick up the car and drive home together. That's what we would do.

Speaker 1:

But I really wanted to work out a second day during the week and I really wanted to do this particular class in New Rochelle because it was all strength and it looks so cool. I had the only FOMO when they would post about it on Instagram. So I thought to myself how can I make this work? How can I make this work? I really want to take this class. How can I make this work? All right, so the first thing I checked was how can I take the Metro North from my job to New Rochelle? Because there is a train, a Metro North train, if you go to Grand Central Station, the very popular station that you see in all the movies, if I go there, I can take the train straight up.

Speaker 1:

Now I worked in Times Square, so that meant that I can take the shuttle train that took me from the West side to the East side, where Grand Central Station is, and then literally run like a chicken to whatever terminal. They said the train was that I needed and purchase my ticket on the phone as I sat in the train, so that I can make it to the class on time. Okay, and I was like, oh, there are these trains that if I leave work at this time, I can make it by that time. And I was always just a few minutes late, because then, from the train station to the workout gym, it was like half a mile, so I would literally walk as fast as I could to the gym and then I had to change in the bathroom because I was like in office clothes and I needed to change into workout clothes, and then there was usually a line to the bathroom. There was one bathroom it was a very small gym to get dressed, so normally by the time I finished doing all of that I was super late, but the trainer was fine with it because he knew he knew what I like the struggle, but I was on to make it to this class and I would work out.

Speaker 1:

But then how was I going to get home? Because my husband going to New Rochelle to pick me up was just a very long drive, because my husband going to New Rochelle to pick me up was just a very long drive. So I spoke. So here's what happened now. I had to communicate with everybody and I'm like, hmm, how am I not going to make this harder already for my husband? That's picking up the kids by himself and driving up with them to come get me? So first I spoke to my husband and I was like hey, are you able to pick up the kids on Wednesdays? I really want to go to this class. And he was like sure, but how was I going to get home? So I asked my trainer.

Speaker 1:

My trainer, right after that class in Norichelle he had another class in the neighboring town called Mount Vernon, which was south and closer to my house. So I asked him. I said, hey, can I get a ride with you from New Rochelle to Mount Vernon, to the other gym, so that my husband can pick me up? And he was like, yeah, no problem. So I would get in his gym van full of gym equipment with like a few other people and he would drive to New Rochelle, to Mount Vernon, and then I would stay at that gym until my husband made it with my two little babies to come get me, and then we would all go home and I would make dinner and shower and all that. And I did this for a whole year and the only reason why I stopped was because I sprained my ankle so freaking bad at a work trip that I had to stay off of my ankle for a while. It was really, really bad. And then by the time my ankle got better, I think the schedule had changed or something had changed where I couldn't make it anymore. Something happened either between the class or myself, and then I couldn't make it anymore.

Speaker 1:

But do you see, and determination to see how I was going to fit this into my life, I was willing to. I would, freaking, run out of work and sometimes I would finish working on the train, but I was like, whatever's not going to get done is not going to get done, I'm going to leave. And you know what? I would see the white people doing it all the time. They would just bounce and leave. And I just knew Wednesdays I had to get all my stuff done as fast as possible. If people didn't get me things on time or whatever it was, I was out. I'm like nope, sorry, I have to go catch my train or whatever it was, I was out. I'm like nope, sorry, I have to go catch my train.

Speaker 1:

And, speaking and asking for support from my husband and the trainer and everybody and their mama, because my goal was to make it to this class, all the shame was out the window, all the guilt was out the window. I really wanted this for myself and that's exactly what I did. Okay, and as with everything, I just want to mention seasons change, seasons change. It wasn't forever, um, and then I kept figuring it out, right? Okay, number 11 is another one of my like what I've had to do to create space, and that is working with my partner around my kids schedule. So my kids were babies before now they're in school and our commute to school is very far away. Their school is very far away and my partner also has a job, um, so what we've done is we've basically had to have had to build our schedules around our kids school schedule, right? So that is when, you know, I plan out my coaching meetings, I plan out when I'm going to do certain things.

Speaker 1:

And with that, you know, I wanted to start personal training and I wanted to start getting to the gym at least three days a week. One day guaranteed is the weekend, but I wanted to add two days a week. So I I spoke to my partner. I was like, hey, this is really important to me and also he also wanted to work out. So it's like all right to me, and also he also wanted to work out. So it's like all right, how are we going to divide up the schedule for our children so that they're taken care of, but we're taken care of as well? So what we decided that worked best for us. I can't work out in the afternoon anymore, like I'm just so freaking tired, like it has to be in the morning, and for him as well. So freaking tired, like it has to be in the morning, and for him as well. So what we decided was that we will alternate the days that we take them to school. So he takes them to school two days, two days a week, and I take them to school two days a week, and on the days that we uh, either one of us don't take them to school, then we go to the gym. So one day I have personal training and another day I have a gym class, and then I also go to the gym one day during the weekend. So there we go. There are the three days.

Speaker 1:

But I think that what tends to happen and what was starting to happen to me in the beginning too is like not considering myself and what I needed. It was just like about the kids and the house and all those kinds of things. But then I learned I was like, okay, well, if I sit down and I talk to my partner about it and we kind of figure out what the schedule is and when they have after school, when they don't? Who's going to do drop off, who's going to do pickup, so on and so forth. Then there and also like when are the gym classes? And you know why it's so beautiful? Because things always tend to like work out. They actually change the classes at the gym to better fit my schedule and I never asked gym to better fit my schedule and I never asked, obviously, like I don't think that they're just going to make a huge change like that, just for like one person. But it has ended up working out like super well. So my thing is with working out or whatever it is, is I can always figure it out. Like things are always changing. There's always something I can do. Even during the pandemic, I would work out at home and there were a ton of trainers doing virtual classes. So I've just always built.

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And this is like episode, like one of the very first episodes on this podcast, where it's about who do you want to be? Building your identity, and I have just built my identity around. I work out two to three days a week minimum and I figure out how that gets done, right, but my identity is I work out two to three days a week and then it is what it is. Maybe I'll go to a class, maybe I'll do personal training, maybe I'll work out at home, maybe I go for a walk, so on and so forth. So building your identity is important.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's get to the last tip, number 12, on ways to create space to fit yourself in. So this number 12, it might trigger you or it might not, but it is deprioritizing other activities or other items on your to-do list. Deprioritizing other items on your to-do list where you get to prioritize yourself. And it can look many ways, like there's times I've prioritized my you know health or whatever activities over being on time to places, cleaning, cleaning something up, folding laundry, washing the dishes Um, there's just been so many things where it's like either it's going to get done later, it's going to get done good enough, right, not perfect, it's just going to be good enough. I'll do it when I come back.

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But really taking a look at your to-do list and being like, okay, if I really want to meal prep, if I really want to eat, if I really want to move my body, if I really want to journal, whatever it is, usually by creating space, you're going to have to probably move things around. So what are you willing to move around? What are you willing to let go? What are you willing to delegate? What are you willing to do half-ass? Those are all questions where you need to make a decision. What are you willing to do this week versus not next week, because it can change from week to week as well. Right, it's really not set in stone, it really is not.

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So how can you manipulate your to-dos so that you can fit yourself in? And I don't mean manipulate in a malicious way, I really mean, like, take a hard look at what you have on your plate. And how can you move this around? Because you know, and you, how important it is for you to take care of yourself, and it's something you want to do, okay, something you have to do, and you need to be willing to do it, and you need to be willing to probably be in your feelings about it. But the more you practice it, the more you build up evidence, the more you'll see it's okay and the more you'll see that it's actually to the benefit of not just you but everybody else.

Speaker 1:

All right, I hope these tips have inspired you to look for areas in your life where you actually do have the space, and it just takes a little bit of prerequisite action, whether that's asking for support, communicating with yourself, communicating with others, changing around your to-do list, because here's the thing, if you are thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, I want to lose weight, I want to at least lose these 10 pounds that are really, really bugging me. I want to do it and I want to teach you how to do that by balancing your hormones, right, like you get to balance your hormones to lose 10 pounds, you get to do all of that by respecting your food and respecting your body. How wonderful would it be if you learned how to respect your food, respecting your body, and you got to balance your hormones and lose 10 pounds all at once, right? So one of the first ways that you can start setting yourself up for that is by creating space and practicing that in your life. All right, and, as you know, I am here to support you. I want you to. Actually learning how to balance your hormones is one of the best things you can do, and obviously it will lead to weight loss, you know, especially if that's something that you desire. So I cannot wait to support you and teach you how to respect your food, respect your body and get amazing results from that. So if this is something that you're like man I've never tried this approach before. I really like that vibe because I do want to have respect for my food and respect for my body and get these amazing results Then I invite you to go ahead and book a consultation.

Speaker 1:

Get these amazing results. Then I invite you to go ahead and book a consultation. And I also invite you to go ahead and share this podcast on Instagram. Go ahead and tag me, share a screenshot. I will go ahead and reshare it if you find any of this super helpful and if not, then go ahead, share it with a friend. Leave a review. I would greatly, greatly appreciate it and I cannot wait to see how you're creating space. If you're doing this and you've lasted this long hearing me yap about all 12 of these ways to create space, please DM me. That would be so nice. Dm me and share with me what have you been doing and how has it been working for you. Okay, and if you want personalized support, again I invite you go ahead, book a consultation. The links are in the show notes. I hope you have a great week. See you next time. Bye.