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

Sign up for my free webinar!

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!

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)  Think-Feel-Eat broadcast 

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!

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

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult! 

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:

1. Why flexible eating plans are so popular now (including Macros, Inc; If It Fits Your Macros; Key Nutrition; and even Weight Watchers)
2. 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
3. The importance of pivoting when something isn’t working
4. The opposite of flexibility
5. And when we take flexibility too far and it hinders our progress

Here is what we focused on with Confidence:

1. 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
2. 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
3. Confidence is a Feeling—and I plugged it into the Think -Feel-Eat cycle for us
4. 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)  Think-Feel-Eat broadcast

Sign up for my free webinar! 

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!

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

3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course

4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult!

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)

(2)  Think-Feel-Eat broadcast 

Sign up for my free webinar!

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!