Donna Reish | Donna Reish

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult!

Think Feel Eat 49 Outline Morning Routine Success

A. Successful Morning Routines Start With Successful PM Routines!

1. A Good Tomorrow Starts Tonight

2. Sleep greatly affects tomorrow

a. TFE 34

b. TFE 36 and 37 Sleep and Cortisol

c. TFE 38 and 39 Fix Sleep Problems

3. Sleep is a discipline

a. Dopamine spikes from alternatives to sleep—watching streaming or YouTube; scrolling socials; playing online games; chatting online; etc.

b. See Dopamine graph below

c. See also WLL 60 and 61 for willpower info

4. Watch/listen to PM Routine FIRST!!! TFE #48

B. Creating AM Routines

1. Understand and believe that habits that stick are incremental (See TFE #20 Tools for Self-Integrity.)

2. Start with…

a. What you will really do! (Email 12/28)

b. What makes the biggest differences for the rest of today?

c. What is “due” next?

d. How much time do I want to devote to morning routine? (BE realistic!)

e. What are the first things I should start with since I am building this routine incrementally? What do you absolutely need to do?

3. More tips

a. Look at what makes you too hurried in the mornings—can you put something from the morning into the afternoon or evening?

b. Look at sleep—exactly how much do you need and reverse engineer

c. What lets you relax the most knowing that you have it done?

d. You can’t do it all—so narrow it down to the time you have available and what are absolutes

e. Say decisions aloud

C. AM Habits for Weight Loss

1. Start with setting yourself up for success today

a. Evaluate your First Four Journal Sheet OR input in My Fitness Pal

b. Plan your food time, type, and amounts (TFE #42 and TFE #22)

c. Plan your movement today

d. Do all of this planning with your pre-frontal cortex rather than letting your primal/toddler brain tell you what to eat and how NOT to move later on in the day!

2. Ready for today with food

a. Hopefully, you have prepped some food for today yesterday! (TFE #48)

b. And hopefully, you have packed food. This is one area that we can change the hurried/harried mornings since packing food at night works just as well for storage as packing that morning.

c.Evaluate what you MUST to in the morning and what you could have done ahead of time

d. Packed/loaded in general so you don’t have such a hurried morning? (Rising cortisol levels from not being ready for the day can cause us to hold on to belly fat, overeat, and give in to cravings.)

e. I like to start blocking my day the day before then I finish it in the morning—be sure to put your appointments and things that are absolutes AND your Delights of the Day/self care/workouts in Other PM Habits for SuccessFinal Thoughts

D. More AM Routine Tricks

1. Make yours incrementally—using the “due next” and “squeakiest wheel” approach

2. Only put in what you absolutely must do for now

3. Put anything you can in another time slot (i.e. my reading breaks, later step sessions, etc.)

4. Reverse engineer from the time you have to have morning routine done to the REAL time you will get up

5. Don’t make it so long that you become “all or nothing” with it

6. Wake up signals—the continuity items that help me get moving

a. Song of the morning

b. Spiritual listen (podcast, etc)

c. Supplements and bottles for the day

d. Alternate hair days—anything I can reduce from my morning

E. Final Thoughts

1. None of my routines (PM or AM) happened all at once

a. Started with hygiene and what was needed for the day today

b. Added things incrementally after I was successful at a couple of continuity items

c. Everything good in my life has come incrementally and over a long period of time!

F. Get More Help!

1. Join my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

2. Emails with teaching around weight management––articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #48: Evening Routines for Success

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I present tips and tools for creating evening routines that lead to success in weight management, fitness, food, sleep, and life!

This episode (and next week’s) is one of my favorite topics of all time. I have literally been working on evening (and morning) routines for thirty-seven years or more. I was working on them before they were a thing! (Three decade homeschoolers tend to do those sorts of things!)

Every year I have gotten better and better at routines. And every year my life gets better and better. (Co-winky-dinky? I don’t think so!)

In this episode, I first sell the listener on the concept that my husband and I have used our whole lives and taught our seven grown children: A good tomorrow starts tonight!

Once I sell you on that (and the importance of sleep—TFE 34, 36, 37, 38, and 39!), I teach what I have learned over the years about how to create evening routines:

1. That the best ones will be created incrementally (as all habits are—TFE #20)

2. That they should start with what you will REALLY do

3. That you want to begin with the things that will make the biggest difference for tomorrow

4. How to leave breadcrumbs for tomorrow that really help

5. Avoiding hurried mornings

6. Sleep—have I mentioned sleep yet?

7. Deciding what lets you relax the most at night

8. How and when to shut off electronics

9. The dopamine pulls that keep us from shutting down and going to sleep (and how incredibly difficult it can be to carry out the self discipline of SLEEP!)

Then I move into specific areas affected by PM routines:

(1) Weight loss

(2) Fitness

(3) Self care

(4) Other areas of success

Tips, tricks, techniques…oh my! This episode has them!

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)

(2) Think-Feel-Eat broadcast

Outline Evening Routine for Success Tomorrow

A. A Good Tomorrow Starts Tonight

1. Housekeeping blitzes before bed as a family

2. Sleep greatly affects tomorrow

a. TFE 34

b. TFE 36 and 37 Sleep and Cortisol

c. TFE 38 and 39 Fix Sleep Problems

3. Sleep is a discipline

a. Dopamine spikes from alternatives to sleep—watching streaming or YouTube; scrolling socials; playing online games; chatting online; etc.

c. See also WLL 60 and 61 for willpower info

B. Creating PM Routines

1. Understand and believe that habits that stick are incremental (See TFE #20 Tools for Self-Integrity.)

2. Start with…

a. What you will really do! (See This!)

b. What makes the biggest differences for tomorrow morning?

3. More tips

a. Leave breadcrumbs for the morning so you can pick up things and do them quickly

b. Look at what makes you too hurried in the mornings

c. Look at sleep—exactly how much do you need and reverse engineer

d. What lets you relax the most knowing that you have it done?

e. What constances/rhythms do you want in your life before bed?

f. Create a shut off electronics time each night (based on your sleep needs/wants)

g. Say decisions aloud

C. PM Habits for Weight Loss

1. Check in with today’s plan/evaluate

a. Did I lose, gain, or stay the same based on my deficit today?

b. Workout goals

a. Steps

b. Strength

c. Challenges for yourself

c. Evaluate your First Four Journal Sheet quickly

2. Ready for tomorrow

a. Packed/loaded in general so you don’t have such a hurried morning? (Rising cortisol levels from not being ready for the day can cause us to hold on to belly fat, overeat, and give in to cravings.)

b. Start My Fitness Pal or First Four Journal Sheet for tomorrow’s intake

c. Tomorrow’s food decided/prepped

1. Decide on meals

2. Lay out food

3. Do any prepping of food needed

4. Pack food if needed

d. Tomorrow’s clothes/jewelry, etc. laid out—workout and work/daytime clothes

e. Start blocking tomorrow’s schedule by putting in your Delights of the Day/self care/workouts in first

3. Evening food—what is your stop eating time tonight? (Should have already been decided in your First Four Journal Sheet for today.)

4. Finishing steps or stretching or self-challenges

a. Rick Bhullar Fitness Youtube videos for my steps if I’m short in the evening

b. Mini tramp

c. Closing out my movement

D. PM Habits for Self-Care

1. What is self-care—not just bubble baths because you “can’t take it anymore” or “massage because life has driven you to this.”

a. Self care is planning how you will care for your body, mind, soul, spirit.

b. Includes all the things we do each day to take care of ourselves

2. Will these be part of your evening routine?

a. Face care

b. Sleep on time/planned ahead

c. Relaxation planned (not sitting down at 7 and not getting up until you move to bed at 11)—this is the time I will relax; here is what I will do; it will start here and end here.

d. Water on night stand

e. Self-development reading/listening

E. Other PM Habits for Success

1. When I go to bed, I want to be in a position to do what I need/want to do first thing in the morning (bread crumbs, squeakiest wheels tended to, no last minute scrambling to print documents or pack)

2. I want the things that bug me the most done

3. I want to be sure I have planned my sleep for the most rest possible (and that I have practiced the self discipline of turning electronics off at a certain time)

4. Using Signals for Sleep

a. Electronics up

b. Melatonin

c. Lying Kegels for my prolapsed bladder

d. Deep breathing

e. Lord’s Prayer

f. Read if can’t sleep (not turn on more blue lights, which will affect my ability to fall asleep too)

F. Final Thoughts

1. I spend about 30 minutes on an evening routine

a. Break it up if needed

b. Do some things earlier in evening if I know I will get home late

c. Before I wrap up my work for each day, I ask myself what will be the next thing that is “due”?

d. And I ask myself, “How can I succeed in weight loss/management tomorrow?”

2. None of my routines (PM or AM—next week!) happened all at once

a. Started with face washing and packing for tomorrow

b. Added things incrementally after I was successful at a couple of continuity items

c. Everything good in my life has come incrementally and over a long period of time!

G. Get More Help!

1. Join my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

2. Emails with teaching around weight management-–articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more!

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #47: Last Qualities for Weight Loss IV of IV

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I present the last in a four-part series on qualities and skills needed in order to lose/maintain weight.

Welcome! The first three episodes in this series were so helpful for me as a preparer/teacher!

1) Thoughtfulness
2) Honesty
3) Patience
4) Perseverance
5) Self-Control
6) Flexibility
7) Confidence

In this last episode of the series, I delve into three more skills/qualities:

1) Accountability
2) Planning
3) Goal Setting

There are many reasons that in-person meeting groups are so successful—one of which is the accountability they provide! Twelve-step types of food programs, Weight Watchers, hospital programs, etc., all have the critical (for many!) element of accountability through weighing in, rewarding, and training.

Our modern day accountability has shifted to FB groups, private coaching, group coaching, etc., but these still maintain that element of others seeing what/how you’re doing.

Accountability is helpful for many people—the key is knowing how much and what type of accountability YOU need and want.

Next, I taught about planning. Again, knowing the TYPE of planner (and dieter) you are is super helpful. It is best to get out of the habit of saying “I’m not a planner” but instead say, “I am this type of planner” to help you realize that you can plan—it just might not look like someone else’s plan. (Get your free First Four Journal sheets here!)

One of the most important questions we can ask ourselves when it comes to planning is the same one we need to ask ourselves when it comes to our protocol creation: What Will I Really Do? (See Perfect Storm at DonnaReish.com)

Lastly, the skill/quality we need is that of goal setting. In this area, I talked about making realistic goals that match up with our food protocol. If we aren’t making a “painful calorie deficit,” we will not have a fast weight loss. This is perfectly fine, but we must acknowledge it and not think we should be losing weight faster than we are.

Also in the areas of goal setting, we can plan for the next ten pounds, then ten more, etc., rather than trying to go down too low all at once.

Lastly, we need to consider non-weight goals all the time! I discussed about a dozen non-weight goals that I have every day—these are habit building that will help lead to my weight goal.

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)

2. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more

Sign up for my free webinar!

Think Feel Eat 47 Outline Last Qualities for Weight Loss (IV of IV)

A. Review

1. Qualities are built incrementally

2. We can learn to apply our qualities in other areas of life to weight loss when we learn to overcome the brain circuits and hormones!

B. First Two—Episode #44

1. Quality #1: Thoughtfulness

2. Quality #2: Honesty

3. First Four Journal Pages—great way to get started with both of these qualities

4. First Four TFE 42 Benefits of First Four

C. Next Qualities—Episode #45

1. Patience and Perseverance

2. Self-Control

i. Immediate gratification and delayed gratification

1. Something between the two?

2. Intermediary gratification/planned gratification

ii. Create your own protocol working around your level of self control at that time—What Will I Really Do? TFE 43

iii. Willpower WLL 60 and 61

D. Next Ones: TFE 46

1. Quality #5: Flexibility

2. Quality #6: Confidence–We gain confidence when we have successs—Incrementality—TFE 19 and TFE 20 Self-Integrity. And when we get control of our Think-Feel-Eat cycle. (Thoughts!)

3. Introducing the Self-Coaching Model…TFE #1

E. Today

1. Accountability

2. Planning

3. Goal Setting

F. Accountability

1. Maintenance of lost weight and long-term management of obesity

i. In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years, and by five years more than 80% of lost weight was regained

ii. Some of the most successful programs are those with built-in accountability

1. Bright line and other OA and Food Anonymous groups

2. Weight Watchers

3. Hospital programs

2. Different people need different levels of Accountability

i. Goal is to move from outward motivation to intrinsic motivation

ii. When we need perfection, we need constant Accountability (i.e. AA, OA, FA, Bright Line, Perfect Virtuous Eating, etc.)

3. FB Groups—join my Free group!

4. Coach accountability!

G. Planning

1. Type of planner you are

2. Type of dieter you are

3. What will you really do?

H. Goal Setting

1. Realistic weight loss goals

a. Final goal

b. Next goal

c. Maintenance time/diet breaks

2. Non weight goals

3. Rewards

4. Keeping track

I. Get More Help!

1. Join my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #46: Qualities Needed for Weight Loss (III of IV)

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I present two more qualities/skills needed for weight loss/management.

In Episode #44, I introduced this series and began with two integral qualities—Thoughtfulness (the ability to Think about the Think-Feel—Eat cycle) and Honesty (with ourselves about ALL THE STUFF!).

In Episode #45, I continued with more qualities essential for weight loss (and, of course, how to develop them, expand the ones we have, apply them to weight loss, create tricks around them and more!). These qualities are Patience, Perseverance, and Self-Control (including my new Immediate Gratification vs. Delayed Gratification and what we can use in between the two—Intermediary/Planned Gratification).

We are on the third episode of the series (out of four) today with the crucial qualities of Flexibility and Confidence!

Here is what we focused on with Flexibility:

Why flexible eating plans are so popular now (including Macros, Inc; If It Fits Your Macros; Key Nutrition; and even Weight Watchers)
How many of us over 50 are done with the all or nothing approaches that we have tried over and over again throughout our lives and are ready to use flexibility to meet our goals
The importance of pivoting when something isn’t working
The opposite of flexibility
And when we take flexibility too far and it hinders our progress

Here is what we focused on with Confidence:

How Confidence can be an endless circle of “confidence leads to success, but we need success to feel confident” that we need to try to break into in order to achieve the confidence level we need for our goals
How we can use other markers of success to break into the confidence circle—making incremental changes that we succeed at will give us the self-integrity and confidence to do more and more and more
Confidence is a Feeling—and I plugged it into the Think -Feel-Eat cycle for us
So much Confidence goodness! Yay!

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)

2. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more

Think Feel Eat Outline 46 Qualities Needed for Weight Loss Part III of IV

A. Review

1. Qualities are built incrementally

2. We can learn to apply our qualities in other areas of life to weight loss when we learn to overcome the brain circuits and hormones!

B. First Two—Episode #44

1. Quality #1: Thoughtfulness

2. Quality #2: Honesty

3. First Four Journal Pages—great way to get started with both of these qualities

4. First Four TFE 42 Benefits of First Four

C. Next Qualities—Episode #45

1. Patience and Perseverance

2. Self-Control

i. Immediate gratification and delayed gratification

1. Something between the two?

2. Intermediary gratification/planned gratification

ii. Create your own protocol working around your level of self control at that time—What Will I Really Do? TFE 43

iii. Willpower WLL 60 and 61

D. Quality #5: Flexibility

1. A flexible eating plan

2. Flexibility in pivoting when something isn’t working

3. How much Flexibility is too much flexibility?

4. Flexible Dieting Sources

a. Macros, Inc (my favorite)

b. IIFYM—If It Fits Your Macros

c. Key Nutrition (excellent podcast)

d. Weight Watchers (a form of flexible dieting)

E. Quality #6: Confidence

1. We gain confidence when we have successs—Incrementality—TFE 19 and TFE 20 Self-Integrity

2. Confidence is a FEELING

i. Think-Feel-Act/Eat

ii. Knowing that our Feelings come from our Thoughts, we can go backwards—what Thoughts usually lead to our Feeling of Lack of Confidence/Unsurety?

1. I never stick with anything

2. I always give in

3. I cheat on my protocol

iii. Our brain is firing with the neuroconnections, brain chemicals, peptides, hormones, etc. based on our current Thoughts

iv. We can make the current neuro-connectors stop firing with NEW thoughts

3. Changing a behavior without changing Thoughts is not sustainable

4. New model—Also see TFE# 23 and TFE #24 for Goal Weight Identity broadcasts and TFE Downloadable Packet

i. Think: I am learning how to stay on my protocol

ii. Feeling: Excitement/Anticipation/Hope

iii. Action: Staying on more and more

F. Get More Help!

1. Join my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #45: Qualities Needed for Weight Loss (Part II of III)

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!). In this episode, I present more qualities/skills needed for weight loss.

In Episode #44, I presented two important qualities for weights loss: Thoughtfulness (thinking!) and Honesty (my personal goal right now). These were even eye-opening for me as I outlined and presented them!

In today’s episode, I begin with a study “Maintenance of Lost Weight and Long-Term Management of Obesity”. In this study, it reveals that people are more likely to keep weight off when they lose one pound per week (as opposed to faster weight loss). This is a meta-study, so it brought together 29 long-term weight loss studies. (Of course, there are other individual studies saying that fast weight loss is better because of the immediate rewards, but this episode is focusing on Patience, Perseverance, and Self-Control—all of which are more likely with slower weight loss.)

For this week’s qualities/skills, I begin with the combination of Patience and Perseverance. These two qualities are closely related in that when we are dealing with long-term goals requiring Patience, we must also have the Perseverance to keep going even when we are awaiting a long-term goal.

We persevere (don’t give up) when we see success. But we also persevere when what we are asking of ourselves isn’t too difficult to do. As soon as we take on a protocol or eating plan that is too hard to sustain, perseverance goes out the window.

The last quality I discuss today is Self-Control. I present some recent self-discoveries around the concept of immediate gratification. That is, that maybe always seeking for delayed gratification isn’t the answer. When we only have two choices—eating cupcakes now or eating them in three months at Disney World, the latter seems too far out there (time wise and craving-wise). So I offered my new thoughts on three types of gratification:

1) Immediate gratification
2) Intermediary gratification
3) Delayed/long-term gratification

I posit that this could be the reason that Intermittent Fasting is so popular (we don’t have to wait too long to eat); that Flexible Dieting (macro counting, Weight Watchers, If It Fits Your Macros, etc.) is so popular, and more.

(Of course, in the Self-Control section, I also discuss dopamine/brain circuitry’s effect and hormone’s effect as discussed in previous episodes.)

There is hope for developing qualities and skills that are needed for weight loss—or for expanding current skills in other life areas to weight management!

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)

1. Join my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

Think Feel Eat Outline 45 Qualities Needed for Weight Loss Part II of III

A. Review

1. We can develop qualities and skills AND we can increase the ones we already have AND we can apply the ones we have in other areas of life to weight loss/weight management

2. We can overcome the brain chemicals and circuitry and hormones so that the qualities we want can come forth

B. Study of Long Term Weight Maintenance: Maintenance of lost weight and long-term management of obesity

1. In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years, and by five years more than 80% of lost weight was regained.

2. Research shows that people are more likely to keep weight off if they lose one pound a week (confirming that incrementality helps us build long term skills)

3. Fast weight loss can definitely work if a person can stay with such extreme, rigid approach for the time it takes to lose the weight—if the person has a maintenance plan in place.

C. First Two Qualities—Episode #44

1. Thoughtfulness

1. Thinking about our thoughts

2. Thinking about our weight loss/weight management

2. Honesty

1. Honesty with ourselves about counting

2. Honesty with ourselves about what we eat, how much we move, our start/stop time, our planning, our execution of our plan, etc.

3. Incrementality—TFE 19 and TFE 20 Self-Integrity

D. Patience and Perseverance

1. Intertwined

2. As we are patient without expectations of super fast loss, we will be able to persevere more

3. As we are patient without expectations of super fast loss, we will be choosing things we can actually do—and this affects our perseverance

4. We persevere when we have success, have a protocol we don’t have to run away from for relief all the time, can see non-scale victories, and like the food we are eating.

5. We persevere when we have already proven to ourselves that we can do things that are somewhat challenging—then we can move to the harder things: First Four Journal Sheets and TFE 42 Benefits of First Four

E. Self-Control–

1. Three kinds of gratification

a. Immediate gratification

b. Delayed/long term gratification

c. New thought—intermediary gratification

2. Create your own protocol working around your level of self control at that time—What Will I Really Do? TFE 43

3. Willpower WLL 60 and 61

F. Get More Help!

2. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more: donnareish.com

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #44: Qualities Needed for Weight Management Part I of III

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I present two of the many qualities that we need to develop in order to achieve weight loss/weight management.

There are many qualities and skills needed for weight loss—and for weight management once the weight is lost. Some of these skills are ones we already have in other areas of our lives, but we need to learn how to apply them to weight management. Some are ones we have a little bit, but we need to learn how to increase them. And some are ones that we wish we had, but we often do not feel that we presently do.

The good news is that qualities and skills related to weight loss can all be learned! They can be practiced over and over again until we have increased them to our benefit.

In today’s episode, I delve into two qualities—thoughtfulness and honesty. These sound like qualities needed for a harmonious marriage!

But they are actually pertinent to weight loss.

1) Thoughtfulness—the ability to THINK about our own Thoughts and Feelings and change them as needed in order to Act in a certain way. (As in, the Think-Feel-Act cycle and the Think-Feel-Eat cycle!)

2) Honesty—the ability to be honest with ourselves completely. This means that we don’t stay off the scale for days; we don’t eyeball foods if we are on a measuring protocol; we don’t “forget” to record a food if we are on a record-keeping protocol; we don’t “average” our carbs or fat grams if counting those is part of our program; we don’t cheat on our timed eating app. One hundred percent transparency and honesty is needed for weight loss.

Then…I teach how Thoughtfulness (writing down what we will eat each day for 3 minutes then learning to self-coach with the Think-Feel-Eat model) will help us gain more honesty skills. (TFE #1)

And, practicing the skills of Thoughtfulness and Honesty over and over again will make us better and better at them.

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)

Outline for Qualities Needed for Weight Management Part I of III

A. Basis of Character Qualities

1. Parenting seminar

2. First Four Qualities for Toddlers

3. Always qualities that were in kids’ control

4. Always qualities that can be learned through practice, teaching, encouragement, and repetition

5. Incrementality is why I teach the First Four for Weight Loss! (TFE 42; free First Four Journal Sheet)

6. Build on your qualities

a. Start with what you are already good at and apply it to weight loss and management more and more

b. Build incrementally on the ones you are not as strong in

c. Use the principles of Self-Integrity (TFE #19 and TFE #20)

d. Understand that willpower can only take you so far (Weight Loss Lifestyle 60 and WLL 61)

B. Quality #1: Thoughtfulness

1. Not thinking of others

2. Instead thinking of your thoughts

3. End goal: be able to use the Think Feel Eat model to think Thoughts that general Feelings that lead to Actions you want

Thought: I can reduce calories by 100 for the rest of the week easily since I’ve done it before.

Feeling: Confidence

Action: Carrying out the deficit you planned for

4. Thinking can start with something as simple as writing in your First Four Journal for five minutes every day

a. Prompts are given for you

b. Write down your food, drink, water, sleep, and eating times for the day

c. Once you are consistent at a journal type that gives you the exact things to write, you can branch out to TFE better (I will teach you in 2021!)

d. See more about TFE in Episode #1

5. With incremental changes (1% Jump Ups!), we can start with five minutes of the First Four Journal pages then move to doing our own TFE or CTFAR or TFA (Think Feel Act) in order to see our Thoughts on paper.

a. Can take ten minutes a day

b. You will get better and better at it

c. I will teach you!

C. Quality #2: Honesty

1. Building on a quality I already have in other areas of my life

2. Dishonesty with ourselves often keeps us from our deficit

a. Dishonesty about weight—not weighing frequently, not keeping track part of the time, not inputting it into app if it’s too high

b. Dishonesty about measuring—using cups and spoons rather than grams; eyeballing my measurements; adding a little extra

c. Dishonesty about what I eat—“forgetting” to add something; not recording BLT’s—bites, licks, tastes

d. Dishonesty about calories or protein—choosing the lower calorie entry in My Fitness Pal

e. General dishonesty—not counting for a while and not keeping track of how long it has been since I counted; taking an extra day during a planned weekend away of not counting; etc.

D. Two Qualities Together—Thoughtfulness and Honesty

1. Thoughtfulness can be the beginning of improved honesty

2. Starting with the First Four journal sheet, we are committing on paper to things—this has an impact on how we carry things out

3. The more honest we are in planning our day, the more honesty we get

4. The more honest we are at the end of each day in evaluating our day, the more honest we will get with ourselves

5. We develop the skills of honesty and thoughtfulness just like every other skill—as we practice them

E. Get More Help!

1. Join my FREE Facebook group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

2. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more at DonnaReish.com

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult! —coaching packages are on sale now through January 15th, 2021!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #43: What Will I Really DO to Lose Weight in the New Year?

2. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I teaching about new year’s resolutions and goals—and what you will really DO for weight loss/management in the coming year.

We have all heard of SMART goals. We all know that we need specific goals. We need attainable ones, etc.

There are three areas that we are often lacking when it comes to setting goals for a new year. The first one is specificity. Our goals have to be specific right down to the exact actions, times, days, and methods for carrying those out.

Then we need to be sure our goals don’t fall into one of these two pitfalls:

1) Too long of a list that we can’t attain

2) Repeating things that didn’t work for us before

I give many tips and research info about goal setting around those two issues—how we can only attain two to four new goals at once; how we stretch our attention too thin when we have too many; how willpower runs out when we have too many; and much more.

Then I move into learning from our past—what will we really do? What did we not like before? What did we not do before? Why do we think we will do it now?

And finally, I discuss some of my upcoming goals—how I know I will attain them. How they build self-integrity within me because of my constraint in choosing ones I can really do; how I am continuing previously established ones to improve them; and much more!

Think Feel Eat #43 Outline: What Will We Really DO to Lose Weight in the Coming Year?

A. About Resolutions

1. 92% gone by January 23

2. Resolutions are similar to long term weight loss statistics

3. Resolutions aren’t kept first of all because of vagueness—never make a resolution with the word MORE in it.

B. Problems With Resolutions

1. Problem #1: List is too long to do it all

a. We can’t do six or eight or ten new things at once for a long period of time

b. Brain can usually only process two to four new things at once

c. Don’t have the willpower to add so many things at once (Willpower shortage: WLL 60 and 61)

d. Put small emphasis on a many things rather than large emphasis (and willpower, grit, time, energy, motivation, etc.) into just a couple

e. Not congruent with research on habits—habits aren’t formed in mass and with big sweeping movements.

2. Problem #2: We are choosing things that we couldn’t do before, don’t like to do, will probably never do.

a. We need to learn from our past

b. We need to learn about ourselves—what will we really do?

c. We need to create protocols we can stick to—if it didn’t work before, it likely won’t work now.

C. Some Things I Know I CAN and WILL Do

1. Decide Food Ahead of Time (TFE 42)

2. Count my calories using My Fitness Pal

3. Timed eating

4. Water

5. Sleep (Get your First Four Journal Sheets here!)

6. Strength train 60 minutes four times a week

a. This was built incrementally by a 2019 goal of five days a week 20 minutes at low weights

b. Added to in 2020

c. Incrementality!

7. Low impact cardio three times a week for 30 minutes minimum (I want to do more, but this is what I have been doing and I know I can stick with it!)

8. Continue to work on my Sugar Plan (started it eight weeks ago; still creating it and seeing what works for me—not all or nothing, perfect sugar person or nothing!)

D. Get More Help!

1. Join my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult! Coaching packages are on sale now through January 15th, 2021!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #42: The Many Benefits of the First Four

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I present the many benefits of the First Four—my first steps for weight loss and lasting life changes!

There are many, many steps and stages to weight loss and weight management. To some, there are too many. To others, there are simply a couple—and anyone who says otherwise is making it too complicated.

The truth is that there ARE many steps and stages—but success comes from not doing them all at once. Success comes from incremental changes that last forever. (This is the reason that people who strive for weight loss for a really long time {not stopping and starting and gaining and losing but really keep working at it consistently} eventually reach their goal. Research bears this out.)

So in today’s episode, I want to sell you on the idea of truly implementing the First Four!

1) Drinking water
2) Sleeping 7-9 hours a night
3) Implementing some form of timed eating (a definite start and stop time for food)
4) Deciding ahead of time what you will eat each day

First, I describe what those are (and give you my free First Four Daily Journaling Pages!). Then I go through the many benefits of implementing these as lifestyle changes that will lead to weight loss and eventual weight management.

There are many benefits to the First Four for life in general. Any time we make positive health changes, they have ripple effects. The First Four will impact our self-integrity, our ability to create more success in other areas, and or health and wellness in general.

They also have added benefits of being something we can do easily; something that is before us every morning in a three minute planning time; and something that can ground us when we feel scattered.

For our weight loss efforts, these four go far—water fills us up and flushes out fat and toxins. Sleep…oh, glorious sleep….helps us withstand cravings better, helps us feel rested and energized, helps us to eat fewer calories overall, and diminishes hunger.

Timed eating gives us a definite start and stop time that results in eating less. It is somewhere between an instant gratification and a delayed gratification, which helps people stick to it.

Planning our food types, amounts, and times ahead of time is an amazing help to losing weight. We can plan foods we enjoy. We know what is coming next or soon. We can balance our food for the day to stay within our deficit. And we can plan something for tomorrow that we thought we wanted today but didn’t plan for.

The First Four is the first of many incremental steps that have led to my husband and I losing 220 pounds together and keeping that weight off!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #41: Benefits of Being Sugar-Free Part of the Time (or Always)

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).

In this episode, I present benefits of being sugar-free or part-time sugar-free!

Many people equate sugar with weight gain. They automatically assume that you can’t lose weight eating sugar or that you will gain weight if you do eat sugar. Truth it, we lose or gain weight by undereating or overeating.

And this leads us to the first benefit of being sugar-free all or part of the time: when we have less sugar, we crave less and often eat less. And then guess what? Yep! We lose weight!

Several things happen to us regarding weight when we reduce sugar:

We possibly eat more filling foods
We reduce our over-hunger and our over-desire (TFE #29 and TFE #30)
We eat more of the 3 F’s (foods that are fiber, fluffy, and fluidy)
We eat fewer foods that cause intense cravings (Weight Loss Lifestyle #49)

Additionally, we prove to ourselves that we can do something extremely hard, lose belly fat, increase our heart health, have healthier brain function, experience less depression, and much more.

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)

Sign up for my free webinar

Think Feel Eat 41 Benefits of Being Sugar-Free at Least Part of the Time

1. Losing weight because of eating less/fewer cravings (Over-Hunger vs. Over-Desire TFE 29 and 30)

a. Over hunger will be reduced as we will eat more filling foods

i. 3 F’s =–fiber, fluffy, fluidy

ii. Sugar takes up very little space—or if we are strict with our calories, doesn’t give us a sense of fullness

b. Over desire will be reduced as we are eating fewer foods that cause extreme cravings (i.e. fewer foods with three or more of the 6 Seductive Craving Combinations) WLL 49

i. Fewer cravings/eating less sugary foods

ii. Eat less sugary foods/crave less (circle)

2. Proving to yourself that you can do something extremely hard

a. Feeling happier and less anxious

b. Waking up with a feeling of accomplishment and pride

3. Losing belly fat

a. Sugar usually means more calories

b. Eating less sugar causes the body to burn belly fat instead of the circulating sugar

4. Heart health

a. Too much sugar can cause an increase in LDL cholesterol

b. AHA recommends reducing added sugars

c. Study in JAMA: Internal Medicine, “Those who got 17-21 percent of calories from added sugar had a 38 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who consumed 8 percent of their calories from added sugar.

5. Brain function/focus

a. Refined sugars can impair brain function

b. Can exacerbate symptoms of depression

c. “Brainberries”!

6. Others?

a. Cance

b. Obesity

c. Better sleep

d. Skin improvement

7. Saving money —

a. Debate on whether eating healthy is less expensive or more expensive

i. Overall research is mixed

ii. Does show that eating things from scratch is healthier/less expensive if you don’t buy special ingredients (i.e. flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, apples, etc.)

iii. Losing weight is the best way to save money on food

1.) We have lost 220 pounds together

2.) 220 pounds is 2200 calories per day

8. Get More Help!

1. Join our holiday weight loss challenge

2. oin my FREE FB group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!

3. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more

4. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

5. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult!

Think-Feel-Eat Episode #40: Ten Factors for Protocol Choosing

Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!). In this episode, I present ten things that we will want to consider in choosing/developing our own food protocol for weight loss/management.

I have uncovered ten important factors that we should consider in creating our food protocol if we want to lose weight/maintain that weight loss.

These factors do NOT include—what worked for my best friend, what made me lose fast before (if it was sooooo good, you would still be on it!), what we see advertised, or what people in a FB group tell us.

The ten factors, which I unpack one factor at a time in today’s broadcast, include:

1. Deficit: You must believe a deficit is needed

2. Sustainability: The protocol must be sustainable (these are top two for sure!!) TFE 16, 17, and 18

3. Food enjoyment: Must contain foods you like

4. 3 F’s: Must contain foods that are 3 F’s at least in part: fluidy, fluffy, fibrous. TFE 29 and 30

5. Volume: Must contain foods that meet your personal volume desire (i.e. liking to be full vs. fullness doesn’t matter to you as much—this is a thing…my husband and I are opposite!)

6. Cravings: Protocol must not induce cravings/preferably will reduce cravings TFE 7, 8, and 9 and TFE 35

7. Complexity: Protocol needs to be at your level of complexity (i.e. brainpower in its approach—some like to think a lot about protocol; others don’t want to think about all the details of foods’ macros, micros, weight, etc.)

8. Cost: Protocol needs to fit your budget (lots of specialty foods vs. not as many specialty foods)

9. Execution: Protocol needs to be at your execution level—how much cooking, dishwashing, food prepping, shopping, etc., on a daily basis do you enjoy?

10. Availability: Protocol should contain foods easily available to you.

Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:

(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)