Episode 16. Thirteen Ideas for Trading in Calorie-Tracking for Getting to Know Your Body Better

Tracking certain things, like calories for example, reduces your food and body to numbers and cuts off—literally blocks—your mind's connection to your body. That's why we usually don't recommend tracking things!

Shifting from a diet mentality to an Intuitive Eating approach to health and nutrition is hard, so there are a few things that may actually be helpful to explore and keep track of. 

Let's chat about trading tracking calories (or similar things) for learning more about your body.

Thank you for listening! We love you latte!

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-Ashley & Carrie
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice.

Transcript

[Music]
hey it's Carrie and Ashley we welcome you to the self-care Cafe we are both
health professionals and moms and nature lovers and food lovers and love helping
women get over dieting and just start living we think that talking about
bodies and perfect bodies and dieting is just
boring did we put you to sleep there Carrie yes so if you are ready to ditch
dieting and get to living and talk about more important things then you are in the right place we don't put shame and
guilt on the menu here we don't even have to tip us nope come hang with us the advice is
free we want to have a bunch of girlfriends to just hang out with and get real with and it's time to start
living
ladies hey Ashley hi Carrie how are you I'm great how are you today good good
awesome what's on the menu for today so I think we want to talk
about tracking things it's a good so yeah so I know that a lot
of people like to track things and we mentioned I think it was in episode
12 um we talked about how we don't usually recommend tracking things um but
those are more typical things like calor yeah like calories or your weight or
different macros or things like that I guess yeah yeah and um if you want to
hear more about why we don't um like those you can listen to episode 12 yeah
um I just have a side note there's a thunderstorm happening at my house so if you hear crazy thunder I
apologize I don't hear it so far so perfect just in case don't want to scare anybody but
there are some things that we would that we think are are good to track yeah
sometimes it's hard to switch from um a lifetime of dieting over to doing
intuitive eating or even just trying things out and so we thought that this
might be a way to help transition a little bit and to take one thing that
you're tracking and turn it into another thing so you can still feel that like quote unquote control I guess that
you're actively participating in your health um yeah because because sometimes
like that in that idea of Intuition or intuitive eating sounds so kind of out
there right like it's it's it's abstract um but there really are some concrete
things to help give you some structure and like Ashley said some control over it um and so we we have come up with
several yeah yeah and and not only the tracking piece but the stuff that you
end up tracking will only help you in your um intuitive eting Journey or your
journey with your relationship with food or however you're looking at it um it's not just like random stuff to track
they're all very helpful all the things that we kind of came up with yeah sure and everybody another side no everybody
needs different things so depending on where you are with your journey or with your nutrition or your health um some of
the things that we mentioned might not apply to you and some might be really helpful for you um like when we were
putting this list together um Carrie and I realized that we're very different in
our fluid needs or behaviors I guess y I'm not great at remembering to drink
water um throughout the day I've been working on it for a long time and so I think it's something that I'm always
going to have to like pay attention to and be intentional about um and Carrie
do you want to share it's just it is like part of my like I always have my
water bottle um and my boys do the same thing because that's how they grew up like they always had their water bottles
with them whenever we went anywhere um like I just always have my water with me
and I know right away when I haven't had enough of it um and that's another
reason that we kind of came up too like to so the tracking it can help you see
the big picture so over time right because what happens is sometimes we you
know let's say um let's say you don't drink enough fluid and that's just how your body's
used to it and that's how right and but then let's say you really work on it and you get into that habit of staying well
hydrated and you realize wow I feel really good um and you didn't realize how bad you felt before because that
feeling sort of becomes your normal and right so it's um it it helps
you to kind of see and connect the dots I like to say
like it helps you connect the dots so like if you're not feeling well well this helps you kind of connect the dots
to maybe some reasons why you might not be I love that idea of connecting the dots
because I feel like a lot of times if we're feeling that kind of not great
like you were just saying yeah I feel like we're all so quick to turn into food also like I'm glad that we just
mentioned it in a fluid capacity because the messaging that we get always is like oh there's something wrong with
you then you have to fix your food to fix yourself and that's not how it works most of the time and I mean you can
definitely use food to help with your health and nutrition of course but it's
not the whole picture you usually right yeah no there's so many we
and you'll see when we go through the things that we like to track um that it's it's more holistic for lack of a
better word it it's it's not just about food it covers other areas of your life
too because these other areas definitely affect your health yeah exact along with
the food so want to jump into it yeah I was just gonna say let's get started
with it so the first the first one we came up with has kind of a couple subcategories but the overall idea is
about hunger and I think one thing that is really helpful to start tracking
is how well are you able to notice your hunger right or can you notice your
hunger right um do you feel hunger cues what does it feel like for you um
or are there certain times of day when you typically get hungry and if so maybe those are good times to put in meals or
snacks um also another one is like how hungry are you when you first start
noticing your hunger signals um those are all really helpful
things to kind of get started with as far as nutrition because when we switch
from relying on those external cues like we've talked about before with diet
plans or programs or meal plans and then we're switching over to relying on ourselves we have to figure that out
right right yeah and that's a cool thing about this all of these things will help
you figure this out right and and you realize like oh this is made for me this
is like I am designing my own lifestyle right yeah and patterns and it's not
someone handed me this plan that I have to follow and I'm like well I don't like
half the Foods on this or I'm not hungry at those times or I'm hungry at other times and but I can't eat then right so
this really allows you to tailor your own lifestyle to um to your needs and and desires yeah
and one thing to just build off of what Carrie just said is it's not something telling you what one and how much to eat
but it's also not like just eat whatever you want all the time whenever you want
and again I think that's another big misconception of intuitive eating we've talked about that before also um because
there are some things to help you decide what works best for you and tracking some of these things can help you with
that yeah so number two is you can kind of fill in the blank so when you eat
blank it makes you feel blank so when you track that you know when you start
noticing like o I think when I eat like so so I have to watch my fod maps we've
talked about this a little bit and so those of you with IBS irritable syndrome might um be able to relate to this but
um there's certain foods that really upset the system um and so when I first
learned about it I had already figured out like raw apples tended to bother my
gut um but I can eat them cooked a little bit cooked um but when I started finding out about them I realized that
dates are high fod map and I was eating a certain energy bar every
every day because it was a quick snack quick snack between it gave me a little energy for my class you know before
teaching class but I would get so bloated I looked like I was pregnant it was so painful and when I realized that
dates were on I stopped eating those and it it improved tremendously right so that's what I mean so when you if you
start let again it's connecting those dots right when I eat this I feel like this at some point after eating
it yeah it doesn't always have to the negative feeling either maybe it's a positive feeling like Carrie said she
noticed that those bars gave her energy which was helpful and they also caused
all that bloating which was not helpful so kind ofing
diarrhea so narrowing some of that stuff down and figuring out like even though
like another one I know Carrie doesn't eat much of is broccoli um broccoli is like this super
food right we hear about about it all the time or like any of those green leafies or whatever a lot of people's
buty are really bothered by those things and it's normal to be a little bit
bothered when you start eating them more on a regular basis because your body's kind of adjusting um because it's not
used to them all the time but when you've been including them for quite a while and they're still bothering you
that's like a red flag to say hey just because these are superfoods quote unquote whatever I saw them somewhere
and they're super healthy doesn't mean that they're healthy for your body right they might not work with your body or
sometimes if you dig into it a little bit more um for instance when I eat broccoli now which I actually had some
last night I just eat the tops of them yeah see the trees I leave the stems because more the the stocks of them
contain more of those fod Maps um so you know educating yourself on it too can
help um and sometimes it's the amount that you're eating too so you might like like oh I had like a huge salad for
dinner and my belly doesn't feel good after but when I eat a smaller salad I do okay right so it's just connecting
those dots and figuring out what works for your body yeah and like Carrie said depending on how it's prepared like
maybe raw doesn't work for you but cooked does or maybe it's the opposite or maybe roasted or I don't know
whatever it might be but figuring that out and not to say that you have to become like hyperfocused and obsessive
about this and figure it out and like sometimes when we do that we kind of make up symptoms in our head too like if
we're extra focused oh what was that twinge is that gas like we don't have to
take it to that extreme either but and sometimes it's not even the food sometimes it's because you are sleep
deprived or you're super stressed out that those affect the gut and digestion
too or maybe you're not eating enough that's a huge huge huge one gas and
bloating is a huge piece of skipping meals and not eating enough food yes
definitely I've noticed that too all right number
three how long do different foods or food pairings keep
you full this is a great one and again we could easily turn this into the diet
mindset like oh um I know that eating XYZ together keeps me Fuller longer so
I'm always going to eat those Foods right that's not
necessarily helpful all the time either like you can use this information to help you with your day so if you don't
have the ex food then we don't need to stress out about oh well I'm going to be hungry in two hours like it's just
information to know and that way you can plan ahead oh I didn't have this food this morning that like I normally do so
I might be hungry or earlier so how can I plan for that right good it's so hard because it
can go either way like we can turn anything into this obsessive like
hyperfocused yes and that's what that's not what it's you know this is like if maybe this isn't even maybe these things
to track aren't even for you maybe you feel like you kind of you're good like you you kind of but you feel like it's
something else which we'll be getting to other things in a minute here um but the but the food pairings and stuff like
figuring out do carbohydrates keep me full and if so that's great so let me
make sure I have one at most of my meals to kind of get me through my day right um or is it protein or is it including a
lot of fruits and vegetables or whatever and that doesn't mean you have to be full for a long period of time after
your meals sometimes having like I had really good french toast a couple weeks ago and I can't stop thinking about
it but it's not something I make at home a lot um we were out to breakfast and
did it keep me full very long no but it was very enjoyable and so I will
definitely have it again but no that I probably will have to eat sooner right
right like I can't in the morning if I just have cereal that doesn't sustain me long at all right um so I usually have
I've got to have some form of a good protein um peanut butter or eggs or something like that yeah like a a larger
amount of protein right yeah yeah and and I think some people know these things about themselves but then we
second guess like whether it's quote unquote right and there's no such thing as right except what is happening in
your body so like Carrie said if she was having cereal every day for breakfast
because that's what her meal plan told her but she was starving an hour later we should still angry yeah we should
something yeah y all right so number four is is
tracking like how much fluid are you drinking um like we already talked about fluids a little bit um figuring out are
we getting enough what happens if we try more um you guys know that I'm a big fan
of experience uh experiments by now I think but the mad scientist yeah that's
me and also just a quick note too with fluids there is such a thing as getting
too many so if you're experimenting just be mindful about that too yes yeah it
it's more rare right then but it is definitely
possible because what happens Ashley it it um dilutes the electrolytes right
exactly yeah so um if you know about like Gatorade for example Gatorade has
extra electrolytes in it and honestly most of us don't really need Gatorade on a regular basis it's more for people
people that are like sweating profusely which makes you lose electrolytes um but
our body is very particular about the balance of electrolytes and electrolytes are mostly like minerals in our body so
calcium um potassium sodium all of those things so when we drink a lot of water
our body naturally wants to like neutralize everything and make everything even and the water dilutes
those things down and it can affect like our muscle contraction and our heart is a muscle so that part
can be a little dangerous but right um but like we said it as long as you're
eating right and because you'll get electrolytes from food um and you're not
just like drowning your body with do it slowly yeah right right so like when
when I help clients who want to increase their fluid intake I'm like well do you think you could drink like literally a
measuring cup amount of water one or start with half an hour right
right like it's it's not um it's not we're not going to like flood the body
but and you know like think about you know if you suffer from frequent
headaches that could be because you're slightly dehydrated um so yeah or dry eyes um dry
mouth uh dry skin like there's a lot of clues that say Hey you might need some
more fluid and it'll it plumps your skin up yeah and like Carrie was saying if you're not used to drinking this much
water and this is just how you feel on a regular basis you might not even notice that oh
my goodness my body really needed some extra fluid to feel a little better um
so yeah like we said it's kind of all an experiment and and also know that when you start to
drink more more fluid your body May hold on to it some so you may feel puffy um
and like fluid retention for a few days um and then it'll release it out and
then you'll be peeing all the time yes which brings us to our next one yeah so
another measure that we can track um our our bowel movements and our urination
and we can talk about lots of different things with this so we can talk about frequency we can talk about what they
look like um there's a lot of different clues in our excrements I guess that can
show us like our fluid status like we were just talking about um or like with
bowel movements if we're really straining to go or have a hard time going or they're really hard um that can
give us yeah that can give us a clue that we aren't getting enough fluids and maybe not enough fiber in our food too
um what else car he should be light yes it
should not be a brown or a golden color it should be more like a light straw
colored or you know vergin on clear but not completely clear right blue that you
you've overdone it um yeah and then you know also if you um have loose bowels
all the time that can glue you into other things um so it's like and that
fiber piece can go either way right like too much of it can give you diarrhea but too little of it um can do the opposite
even even the opposite like too too much can cause that constipation too if we're not moving it through appropriately like
there's no one answer for every person like the amount of fiber I need in my
day is definitely different than what Carrie needs because we're
different yeah different but the same
yeah um and then another thing that you can track is the variety of fruits and vegetables that you're eating right so
you heard like eat the rainbow um and the reason for that Ashley is so
different colors have different nutrients which is really interesting um and there's all the like technical terms
for them which I won't say because I can't pronounce half of them but so like red fruits and vegetables tend to have
certain nutrients and actually that one is like aine one of them um another one is like orange
things have a lot of like beta carotene and vitamin A in there um and green ones
have different ones then purple and yellow and so they all have a little bit of a different nutrient profile and I've
probably said this in a lot of our episodes but one of the keys to nutrition is a variety of foods because
we need so many different vitamins and minerals and all of those things for our body to work as well as it can um
getting a good variety of foods especially fruits and vegetables too um can be really helpful and side note if
you only like a couple fruits and vegetables that's okay but trying to
just maybe try new ones or experiment with different ones or cooking them
differently um the different types can really make a difference in our health
yeah because how many people grew up on like canned peas right like I hate peas but if
you've never had frozen peas or fresh peas yeah had them in or cook them
different in different ways or put them in a casserole or like there's so many different ways to experiment with them
so you like have fun with it and it's a great way to get the kids involved too um you have and you could be like oh
this week we want to try two new ones that we've never had before or try cooking our normal ones a different way
or whatever just like car said kind of make it fun and exciting um and it
doesn't really matter if people love them or not it's the whole point of like experimenting and trying new things and
come back to it if it's not a hit like I think it it's fun to take kids to like
the produce section and have them choose like one of those weird like like the dragon fruit or the weird looking ones
and look up online exotic ones the Exotic yes exotic fruits and vegetables
um and then look up online some ways like how do you peel it how do you know um and some different ways and just try
it like that that's right there is no shame in Googling how to do something because I feel I had to do it when I was
cutting up mangoes once I never really had fresh mangoes ever and I was like I
really like the flavor of mango things but I've never had fresh one but what I don't
know yeah or like even like pomegranate you know how you get those all those little seeds out you know you do it like
in a bowl of water and yeah there's different definitely different ways yeah
awesome all right um number eight the next thing we we missed one oh number oh
we did sorry number seven back up the bus back up because it kind of is related to the other ones I
didn't want to skip over it so this one is like how many fruits vegetables do
you feel like you need on a daily is basis to feel pretty good and again this
is one that's very personalized um and again we could
really go down the rabbit hole of like hyperfocusing and obsessing over this but just experimenting with different
things like trying to have a vegetable or fruit at every meal for example to
start or if you're not having any just try to include one um like like we just
said there there's no shame in how many you're doing now and there's no shame in not getting the quote unquote amount
you're supposed to as long as you're feeling okay like that's that's kind of
everyone's goal right like if you're feeling kind of crappy what are some ways we can work on this instead of
trying to be like okay well I'm feeling crappy so I want to immediately try to lose weight how can I turn that into a
more positive um thought process for my health right right and like ash just
said you start where you're at so if you're really if you're lucky to get one serving a fruits and vegetables in a day
probably not going to nor is it probably a good idea to jump up to five a day
like in one Fell Swoop right like ease into it um like she's that experiment
with things with different fruits and vegetables different forms of them whether it's fresh Frozen and canned um
dried freeze dried yep yep dried yep um so like there's just like experiment and
have fun with it and figure out what you do like um and I was just gonna say something I
forgot that's
okay I warned actually this was gonna happen or it might it's been a week yeah and I guess
I'll just jump been in say like so as far as fruits and veggies you know again
they're like quoted labeled as the superfoods we don't have to feel bad
about how many we're eating and another thing that's kind of interesting is like
car said a serving of fruits and vegetables I think sometimes you'd be surprised at what is considered a
serving oh my gosh that's what I was gonna say poop out you got it I sent it
over to you perfect that's what I was goingon to say that they're um off they're a lot smaller than what you
actually think they might be right so like you know in the grocery store the little like plastic cups or I guess
they're technically canned fruit but they come in like a four pack or more and they're just like a little half cup
serving that's a serving of fruit right there like that's not very much um or
like I think it's a cup of like leafy greens and if you actually measured a
cup of leafy greens with the extra air space in there that's not that much um
so I think yeah I think the takeaway is a serving is not as much as you think
like it doesn't have to be a whole pineapple right right so you might actually be getting more servings than
you think you are too EXA so that's something you could Google also is look up and see what servings of that some
might have labels depending on if they're canned Frozen or whatever y yep
all right I'll turn number eight we to number eight exercise progression
so what what we mean by that because of course there's we're not tracking
calories burned right so we're we're not going to track that instead try try
let's say you want to do learn to do push-ups okay well you're not GNA get down and do military
push-ups no you are not I will tell you from experence there is a progression to any
exercise so for instance if you're really um haven't been exercising and
your muscles are weak start doing push-ups on the wall do it against the wall and then do it against your kitchen
counter right you work your way down and when you get to the floor you're still not fully extended do it on your knees y
if there's or what what the boys call girl push-ups oh yeah I'm like whatever
dude they still work that's right and you gradually progress that and then when you feel like you're ready to do
full push-ups do some and if you can only do one or two do that and then drop your knees and and that's amazing you
did it right like give yourself a pat on the back because I feel like and we talk about this a lot we don't give ourselves
credit for the wins like if you've spent weeks working on different push-ups to be able to do the type that you want to
do and you get to do one or two you nailed it yes and think about and this
is the beauty of tracking because you can look back to a few weeks previous
and see like wow I started on the wall I was doing wall push-ups and now however
many weeks later I'm doing I just did one I just did a full one on the right
and then in a few more weeks maybe you can do five right right and and it's so
it's it's all of that and because one eror that people make with exercise is they want to start at the end does that
make sense like and you need again it's just it's the same with all of this you
start where you're at there's no shame in that like you're doing it you start where you're at and then you progress up
from there you know like people like the plank is a is a huge one that people think they have to do a full plank right
and if you're the purpose of of doing a plank is to strengthen your core muscles so the and there's upwards of 30 muscles
in the core because it's that that box right around your whole middle it's not just your abs it's a whole bunch of
muscles and people will start with the plank and do the full plank I'll have
I've you know heard coaches make their players hold it for five minutes it's not doing any good because
if your core is not engaged you know after 10 seconds of it
it right you're not getting the benefits out of it exactly and you know the form goes technique goes um so the plank you
know you start it on your knees yeah and one thing I was just thinking about to car like exercise if
we really think about it is muscle training and so we can't expect to go
from zero training to playing the best game of Our Lives as far as like a
sports analogy goes so it's the same for our muscles like we can't expect our muscles to go from nothing to being able
to do this specific it's actually it's actually neurological
training right because it's the nerves that inate the muscles and it takes time
for them there that learning curve that's what you know I started teaching yoga again last week um and I reminded
everyone espe you know the ones that had never done it before there is a learning curve so TR don't get discouraged like
it's like learning a new language know you you've got to learn it's like what would we tell a baby
that's learning to walk oh oh you fell forget it you'll never
walk right but we do it to ourselves is so silly like show yourself some
compassion and kindness give yourself time and as we get older it gets does get a little harder to learn new skills
just not impossible just takes longer you just have to keep at it consistent practice consistent practice Yeah and
Carrie what other types of like exercise progression should we look at um you could also look at besides strength you
can look at endurance so maybe um let's say you have a goal to walk a 5k um and
right now you can only walk half a mile right so you start at your half a mile and you gradually work your way up to
that 5K um however what is that 2 point or I always get that mixed up I don't
know either anyway um or flexibility okay let's say
like I remember someone in class when she's like I have a goal I want to be able to touch my toes so when she's sitting on the on the floor legs
extended in front of her she want to be able to touch her toes someday so you know she could tell where how far she
could reach and little by little she got closer and closer um to her goal of
touching her toes um and then there's also balance so simple one balance on one
foot how long can you do that and you know over time and practice it um it you
can track how long you can balance on one foot probably can do better on one
side than the other that's just normal same thing with strength flexibility all of it um oftentimes are better on one
side than than the other yeah and one thing about the endurance or like cardio
kind of things it doesn't necessarily have to be a race either it's like I don't want to be short of breath when I'm bringing my laundry up and down the
stairs anymore um we just have to do more of it right to help right so like I
one way to do that thank you for bringing that up Ashley um is instead of
carrying all the laundry in one basket okay um up upstairs take smaller
loads up and down so you get more practice up and down the stairs yeah on
one of our group calls somebody was saying they were um working on getting more steps in or whatever it was and
they were like I put every single piece of laundry away separately and it blew my mind I never in a thousand years
would have thought of that because I'm so focused on like efficiency and like I'm getting this task done the best
fastest way possible yeah which if you're working on speed or that's but um if you are want
if you want to work on that endurance same thing like like bringing groceries in from the car just take one bag at a time in and out and you could do it
quickly right right um and so it it's like it's in a way becoming less
efficient instead taking the stairs like those those things too but um yeah like
um putting um instead of keeping a large water bottle use a smaller water bottle
so you have to get up and get more water right oh you just brought up such a great point because like my own like
thinking is I always Park far away from a store door because I can walk that far so I don't mind and
I'm leaving other spaces for people that might need to park closer and it's just a good idea and then when I get home I'm
like okay what's the least amount of trips I have to take groceries that's so silly to think about oh opposite world
it is it's so funny like it's the same thing but different yeah and that's a great I like
that you said that too that not only doesn't give you more activity more
physical activity to park further but it allows the people that need to park closer right there was actually a study
that was done that showed that the people who drive around the parking lot
looking for the closest spot don't save any time than the people who Park further and just walk yeah so if if
you're trying to do it for a timesaver you're not saving time oh and also I don't like my doors dinged up and so
I'll park far away too yeah I know we park the last car in the parking lot is
probably ours exactly oh so number nine is sleep
quantity and quality the heck does that mean Carrie and then Ashley has in our notes
did you wake up like I mean like how many did you
wake up when you didn't want to wake up I'm like am I acting sleepy and out of
it today wake up it's my note har wake up um so what we mean by that a couple
things one how much sleep are you getting so like how many hours of sleep right um and what is the quality of this
sleep because we could say that we slept eight hours but if we didn't sleep well
or maybe don't even realize you have sleep apnea like
me and you feel like you're sleeping and you're getting enough of it but you're
always tired um so you can track that to kind of see like hey like and you can do
a scale right like my I felt like I slept you know on a scale of one to five
how well did I feel like I slept um and if you always feel like you slept okay but you're still tired well
that you know then it's an investigation into why um but and also so her no on
did you wake up did you wake up during the night yeah you're like yeah it's
interesting because sleep can affect so many different things and it's so
interesting to me how many people I meet with and we talk about food obviously we
talk about Movement we talk about lots of things and then they're like oh and I'm not a very good sleeper and I'm like
oh that changes everything y yeah and there can be a connection to you're
eating or drinking 100% And your sleep too right so if you're having caffeine
even like midafternoon that can carry over into bedtime yeah and also having
that poor sleep feeling affects what your food choices are because if your
body's feeling like oh we're tired it's going to reach for the caffeine it's going to have you reach for the quick
energy foods um and just becomes the cycle yes and I always I I love it when
um when I teach on this and it's kind of like that light bulb moment you know
when because women are like oh I just I just I'm so weak I don't have any willpower I'm always going for the you
know the simple carbs um and it's like when they realize there's
actually a physiological reason why they're doing it because they're exhausted and it's just your brain needs
the energy right and because what is the only form of energy the brain uses
carbohydrates carbohydrates they are not evil by the way our bodies need carbs they're my
best friend it's just when you're always reaching for the simple so what are
examples of simple carbohydrates yeah so high sugary stuff um like maybe chips or
candy or baked goods um sodas juices stuff like that yeah so when you're
always reaching for that stuff over more nutritious things right um that's where
the problem comes in right and notice that Carrie said always not
occasionally not once in a while not once a day but always reaching for those
things or craving those things and trying to avoid them maybe um that's
maybe your little tip off of what the heck maybe my sleep's not so great yes
sleep is so important I hate it when people say oh I'll sleep I'll sleep when I'm dead it's like oh yeah well you're
GNA be there sooner than later you know because there really there's so many um your
body it recovers so many so many processes are going on it's not like
your body just goes to sleep and everything in your body all your cells go to sleep when you're sleeping you know a little there's a lot of things
going on in that body right while you're sleeping and it so it needs that rest um
so yeah if you find that you're sleep sleepy during the day and you could even track that that's a great idea like when
do I feel tired like it's not I think it's normal for a lot of people like mid at like
3ish right in the afternoon is just sort of get a little slump
um but if you just like like I know sometimes like late morning I'm just
like really use a nap you know like that's not really normal
so that's when you know that there's something going on with probably going on with your sleep yeah or like your um
food too so 3 o'clock is a interesting example because you're half or maybe
halfway I don't know you're in between probably lunch and dinner um and a lot of times if you're working during the
day you do have a big gap between lunch and dinner so that 3:00 slump could be your sleep it could be you need some
more fuel it could be a bunch of different things yeah yeah but again it's connecting the dots right right you
have to become like an investigator yes yes not feeling any which way about it
like we talked about earlier like just because this is true for you doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or right or
whatever it just is exactly exactly all right number 10 stress
stress yeah we can track our stress yes so you could do this different ways but
what I what I one one simple way is just at the end of the day on a scale of either one to five one
to 10 whatever scale you choose um how what would be the overall stress level
that you would give yourself right for the day like how stressed out did you feel overall like
on average and you could kind of if you wanted to track it where like okay like
so if stress is really something you want to focus on so let's say mid to late morning or you know or you wake up
feeling you know what's your stress level noon what's your stress level midafternoon evening and then you kind
of take the average and that's another way to do it too yeah and then notice the patterns right so if it's like oh
I've been tracking it all these different times during the day and this one particular time is the highest what
is happening right and what can I do again
connecting the dots right yes and then yes and then what can you do about it that's a whole other topic exactly
exactly we'll get into that today but speaking of scales and levels and things like that another one I really like to
have people do is think about their energy level scale yes and I really like
this one in place of like um like using a scale to measure your weight I really
like the energy level ones because and like kri said you could think about it morning midday afternoon evening or
just once during the day or whatever and be like okay what's my energy level right now again on a scale of like 1 to
five or 1 to 10 or whatever you choose um and then you can notice the patterns and you can decide what to do with that
information right right yeah no I love that one because it it yeah it goes hand
in hand with all of this right it does exactly because is it is it sleep or is it am I eating enough or am I drinking
enough or whatever and I or the flip side could be too like oh this day I was
a really high energy level at this time what was I doing what was better like and we can include that more and again
it doesn't have to become this obsessive hyperfocus thing where we have to do those activities every single day we
just know that doing this blank activity will help us you know get more energy
maybe right right and Hannah hand with the energy is also emotions so number 12
are your emotions and coping tools so um if you have a lot of energy and you feel
happy um joyful you know whatever whatever
um positive emotions go along with more energy levels but then you notice at
other times of the day or maybe certain days of the week because maybe another activity going on on certain days um
that you're maybe have lower energy levels and your emotions match the energy right um so again you can see
those patterns and um and figure out what coping methods you can use with
those emotions and you can also find out like your triggers so if you're tracking
patterns of them and you're like again like with the energy level oh this is happening at every day around the same
time or I'm doing the same activity every time this happens well what is happening with that right but again a
whole another topic for a whole another day about like what to do right and
number 13 kind of going along with the emotions and coping tools we can also
track like bad body day triggers I really like this one too
because the more we know about our triggers that make us feel any which way that we don't like feeling we can decide
how we can maybe deal with that maybe we can avoid certain situations maybe we
can avoid certain social media pages I think we talked about that in one of our last episodes um don't avoid ours though
yeah can we can help help you help yourself right like if you know that
seeing this one social media page makes you feel like crap every time you see it
that's not motivation that is shameful and there's feel like go ahead
yeah there's no way that making you feel like that is going to motivate you to
quote unquote do better that's just not how motivation Works usually right or if
it triggers you wanting to diet triggers you wanting to hit the gym
to burn calories if it triggers you um you know if you have an eating disorder if it
triggers you to to binge or Purge or any of those things or not
eat um it's important to know those triggers and it's important to
intentionally and purposefully choose to avoid them right
exactly um so and and again so all you don't have to do all of these no don't
do them all especially that's a lot you be tracking it' be your your life
but choose like you know maybe you're low on energy so start there or maybe
you're relying on meal plans right now and so maybe looking into your hunger cues um can be helpful right right or
you know you don't sleep well so just start with one two or three um but
definitely don't do all 13 of these at once um because again it's that progression and what's gonna happen too
though is because some of them are connected right so maybe your energy you
realize oh I'm not eating enough so I need to also work on my Hunger connect
the dots right Carrie connect the dots um right or maybe maybe it's
something you know stress and sleep also can um can uh drain energy levels so
it's choose one to start with and those dots will start connecting in and and it
kind of Builds on that it'll progress um but and it's it's I I love this meth
because it just like I said connecting the dots because it helps you feel better overall yeah it it tailors it to
you like we were talking about at the beginning like not everybody's going to feel the same way on any of these like
metrics that we've been talking about um so we have to figure out what works for you and again it doesn't have to be on
or off all the time it just gives you the information to help you make your choices exactly remember you're like a
sleuth not a sloth a sleuth oh sloths are pretty cute uh
you're you're an investigator you're investigating um and you're designing like you're doing both right you're and
the one that I really like to say that Carrie says a lot is like you're in the driver's seat you get to choose what to do with the information right right and
it's it's not it's not doing well this my this friend of mine is doing this well okay
that might work for her but is it gonna work for you right and maybe like Ashley said like experiment right maybe it'll
work for you but maybe it won't and don't don't give in and do it when you really know it's just really isn't
working for me right or another thing to think about too is I think Carrie says this all the time it's like is changing
this Behavior something I'm going to do for the rest of my life because if not if you're not
willing to do it every whatever time period it involves day week whatever um
then it's not going to be worth it in the long run right yeah it takes um an honest assessment also with your right
because um this is we're trying for a long term and and here's the thing the
body's always changing too yes so what worked back here down the road might not
work as well um so it's just constantly it's always but what once you tap into
your body wisdom that inner wisdom that you have um it gets easier right like it it does it does get
easier because that you're in that it's becomes a habit for you to be paying attention to what's going on in your
body without being obsessed with it right yeah awesome anything else I don't
think so just if you have questions or comments or whatever um feel free to um
put them in the Q&A section if you're listening on Spotify or if you want to
send us messages we're on Instagram um we're on Facebook we're on
a bunch of places and all the links are in the show notes or down at the bottom and we're on Apple yep Apple podcast now
also so if you're listening on there that's exciting we had some technical
glitches with that that I had to contact Apple support for but they fixed it for us eventually so thank you very
much yeah awesome this was a great conversation and we will um at some
point have something for you to um even if it's just a handout at first but if
you you know want to relisten to this again take a notebook and you know get
all these points down and just choose where you want to start awesome well we'll chat next time
Carrie I see you next time love you latte [Music]