Episode 315
Special Edition: Jenn on Wits & Weights
Hey there, health warriors! Ever wondered why that burst of motivation to hit the gym or eat right always seems to fizzle out? In this crossover episode of Salad with a Side of Fries, Jenn Trepeck shares her featured episode on the Wits and Weights podcast to spill the beans on making wellness stick without the hype.
In this special episode, Jenn and Philip Pape get real about swapping motivation for discipline and commitment, showing how small, consistent steps—like turning daily tasks into exercise or using gamification for accountability—build unstoppable momentum. They dive into why consistency is more important than intensity, how to avoid the mental trap of food tracking, and the power of understanding science/biology to transform nutrition choices. It’s a fun, no-nonsense guide to crafting sustainable habits that fit your life!
The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast, hosted by Jenn Trepeck, explores real-life wellness and weight loss, clearing up myths, misinformation, and bad science surrounding our understanding of nutrition and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store.
IN THIS EPISODE:
- (00:00) Intro: A message from Jenn
- (04:14) Phillip introduces Jenn on his podcast called Wits and Weights, topic: motivation
- (06:42) Discussion of motivation, momentum, discipline and commitment
- (11:20) Discussion about accountability and consistency in wellness routines.
- (13:54) Reframing daily activities as exercise, suggesting consistency in small movements
- (23:11) The inverse relationship between consistency, intensity, and low-intensity
- (30:12) Jenn shares a personal example involving ketchup and food swaps
- (36:13) Accountability, gamification or a personal trainer to support habit formation
- (41:07) Jenn discusses obsession over nutritional thoughts and tracking tools
- (46:50) Jenn shares how understanding the "why" behind nutrition transforms emotional decisions into intellectual ones
- (51:58) Listener blip: Phillips’ client shares weight loss story
- (54:53) Emotional eating
- (1:00:32) Jenn’s advice: How daily movement is critical and the 30-30-30 plan
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Motivation is unreliable; discipline and commitment drive sustainable habit formation by prioritizing action over waiting for inspiration.
- Consistency trumps intensity in achieving long-term wellness and weight loss, as small, manageable steps build momentum effectively.
- Accountability, whether through a personal trainer or gamification, supports behavior change by aligning actions with individual goals and capacity.
QUOTES:
(07:05) “I often hear ‘I know what to do, I'm just waiting to want to do it. I'm supposed to want to do this.’ and it’s such BS. We’ve been taught that motivation comes first, so we're all sitting around waiting for lightning to strike.” Jenn Trepeck
(08:14) “We think we're broken. Fundamentally, you are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you. We've been fed a line that motivation is what we need, and it's not. I call it a different M word: Momentum, because in the beginning, motivation actually looks like discipline.” Jenn Trepeck
(10:08) “You've gotta have a catalyst and we wanna distinguish that catalyst from motivation. I think people get overwhelmed with thinking like, ‘oh my God, I have to go to the gym three days a week, how am I gonna keep getting motivated to do that?’ and it's just this thought that festers.” Phillip Pape
(24:11) “So consistency and intensity are inversely correlated. The more intense something is, the harder it is to be consistent with it.” Jenn Trepeck
(30:04) “You're not just limiting yourself here or holding yourself back. You're actually doing the thing that's gonna lead to consistency and massive results over time.” Phillip Pape
(00:43:40) “I see it over and over with clients. When they stop tracking in their head and put it on a piece of paper, they go, Whoa. I have a lot of mental capacity.” - Jenn Trepeck
RESOURCES:
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BIOGRAPHY:
Wits & Weights cuts through the noise and deconstructs health and fitness with an engineering mindset to help you develop a strong, lean physique without wasting time.
Nutrition coach Philip Pape explores EFFICIENT strength training, nutrition, and lifestyle strategies to optimize your body composition. Simple, science-based, and sustainable info from an engineer turned lifter.
KEYWORDS: Wits and Weights, Phillip Pape, Gamification, Streaks, Challenges, Motivation, Consistency, Intensity, Wellness, Weight Loss, Myths, Misinformation, Bad Science, Marketing, Health Coach, Motivation Myth, Sustainable Habits, Momentum, Discipline, Commitment, Systems, Accountability, Behavior Change, Nutrition, Fitness Routine, Personal Trainer, External Motivation, Internal Motivation, Self-Awareness, Habit Formation, Mental Clarity, Perfectionism, Food Tracking, Mental Capacity, Emotional Decision, Intellectual Decision, Nutrition Education, Biochemical Processes, Blood Sugar, Croissant, Personalization, Compounding Habits, Wonder Woman Bengals
Transcript
[00:00:12] Jenn Trepeck: And yeah, I think there's a piece of that to tie together between the consistency and the intensity, right?
[:[00:00:46] Are you ready? I'm having salad with a side of fries. Hey there. Welcome back to Salad with a side of fries. I'm your host and health coach, Jenn Trepeck here with you every week for wellness without the weirdness. [00:01:00] Now, many of you listen to other podcasts. I certainly do, and I'm interviewed on many other podcasts.
[:[00:01:33] This conversation covered a lot, and I am absolutely thrilled to share it with our salad with the side of Fries community today. So you're going to hear Philip Pap, the host of Wits and Waits. Interview me and get excited because next week's episode is me interviewing Philip. So as always, before we jump into it, I wanna tell you what our members are getting this week.
[:[00:02:25] You can upvote other people's questions, see past questions and answers, and so much more. All of this, the Happy, healthy Hub is yours for just $12 per month. Or if you pay the whole year at once, you get it all for 120 bucks. So not bad. That's $10 a month instead of $12 a month when you prepay pay the whole year upfront.
[:[00:03:07] So if you want this recipe, if you want expert interview episodes in full video plus access to our community chat and the 24 7, ask me anything, go to a salad with a side of fries.com/membership, or click the link in the episode notes below. 'cause that's easier. From there, you're gonna click subscribe now and then follow the prompts to enter your payment info, create your login to Access the Hub, and you're all set.
[:[00:03:50] Alright, the Happy Healthy Hub is yours for $12 a month or $120 a year on top of the 24 7. Ask me anything, the community chat, the discounts, and the curated [00:04:00] content. You'll get this week's recipe for the sourdough grilled chicken sandwich. Alright, turning it over to Phillippa of Wits and Weights podcast and then I'll be back at the end to wrap it up and tell you about this week's nutrition nugget.
[:[00:04:41] Today, my guest reveals why motivation is not just unreliable, it's actually working against you. You'll discover the reason most people fail their goals. The powerful alternative to motivation that actually drives long-term success, and how to build systems that work with your life instead of against it.
[:[00:05:05] welcome to wits and weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency. I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're gonna challenge one of the most deeply held the beliefs in the health and fitness world that you just need to get motivated to succeed.
[:[00:05:42] Today you're gonna learn why motivation is a myth, what really drives sustainable behavior change, and how to build momentum without relying on willpower or waiting for just the right time. If you're. Feeling like something's wrong with you when you're not motivated. Stick around, get a fresh jolt of energy.
[:[00:06:03] Jenn Trepeck: Thank you so much. First of all, I hope I live up to everything you just shared, but I love it. I, I love the irony of like, yes', are gonna leave this motivated, but we're gonna tell you why that's not the thing,
[:[00:06:17] Because we're gonna define what motivation is and why people fail so frequently. And look, you and I have been through it. I'm sure both of our stories are just full of times when we said this and we hear it from listeners and clients. But let's just start at the beginning and examine what happens when someone is saying as an excuse or as their reason.
[:[00:06:42] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. I, you know, I hear it all the time and sometimes what it sounds like is I know what to do, I'm just not doing it. Mm-hmm. Right. Or sometimes it's. You know, I'm waiting to want to do it. I'm supposed to want to do this before I, you know, [00:07:00] whatever it is, get off the couch to go walk or lift or whatever.
[:[00:07:32] 'cause we've been told that this is what we're supposed to feel, right? That this is what we need to get going and we don't feel that way and we think we're broken. So fundamentally, you are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you. It's that we've been fed a line. That motivation is what we need, and it's not, I call it a different M word.
[:[00:08:04] Jenn Trepeck: Should we do it now? Should we wait? No, we can do it because you know,
[:[00:08:14] Jenn Trepeck: So the other M word is actually momentum because in the beginning, motivation actually looks like discipline.
[:[00:08:54] And so over time, the discipline of doing something consistently [00:09:00] allows us to develop momentum where it becomes part of what we do. And by doing it consistently, we experience the benefit. And once we experience the benefit and we can connect the benefit to the action, that's when we get the motivation, not before.
[:[00:09:33] Phillip Pap: Beautiful. Mic drop. Uh, the, this is great. This is great. So
[:[00:09:39] Phillip Pap: I know we, we could, we wanna dive into each, because I know there's probably questions about what we mean by commitment, by discipline.
[:[00:10:03] And we talk about systems and closed feedback loops here as well. So I'd love what you're saying, that you've gotta have a catalyst and we wanna distinguish that catalyst from motivation. I think because motivation, I think people get overwhelmed with thinking like, oh my God, I have to go to the gym three days a week.
[:[00:10:36] I think it gets misused. Yeah. Um, start there. Maybe define that.
[:[00:11:07] We are more likely to avoid that when it is a commitment that we make to other people. It's why having the appointment with a trainer gets us there. So
[:[00:11:20] Jenn Trepeck: right? Not just the money piece, but somebody else is involved in that dynamic and we don't wanna let them down or whatever. It's right. Like we are more likely to keep the commitments that we make to other people.
[:[00:12:06] Right? It looks like a lot of little things that are seemingly so small that are actually the big things.
[:[00:12:25] All right. And, and, and I'm, I'm proud of it. I own it. But anyway, uh, a few things stuck out at me there, because the simple things, as a coach, I almost feel inadequate, right? When I'm trying to give somebody such a simple piece of advice and I'm like. Why hasn't this come across your mind, up till now? The idea of putting a reminder in your phone app that says, do this.
[:[00:13:08] And she said, you know, I'm a mom. I have young toddlers. I get up at seven and I'm go, go, go till like 4:00 PM you know, I don't even think I can get to the gym. And one of my questions to her was, well, if this was your number one priority, how would you do it? Just to get her thinking outta the box. And then you can see the wheels turning of, okay, it's a schedule issue, but then it's like still overwhelming because she's probably looking for motivation.
[:[00:13:37] Jenn Trepeck: Exactly. You gotta take
[:[00:13:40] Jenn Trepeck: Exactly. So what it looks like is maybe three minutes. Mm-hmm. Right? What it looks like is 10 minutes here or there, you know, maybe what it looks like is actually not going to the gym.
[:[00:14:18] I think part of it is like we have this idea of what it looks like in order for it to count in air quotes to count. You know, have you heard, I'm sure you ha you know the phrase like sitting is the new smoking? Of
[:[00:14:34] Jenn Trepeck: Right. And they say that because it's like the thing we're doing that we don't realize is slowly killing us.
[:[00:14:47] Phillip Pap: Mm-hmm.
[:[00:15:14] We just have to reframe how we're looking at some of these activities, right? Maybe as you're putting away the groceries, you're doing bicep curls with, you know, the laundry detergent. We get it in. You know, I have a thing that I teach people called DWDS. I don't know if you saw this Nutrition nugget in my podcast.
[:[00:16:01] So drink more water, do squats. Over the course of the day, you're gonna get probably a few squats in, right? Like it doesn't have to be going to the gym, committing all out, having this insane hour where you leave exhausted, unable to do other things until you sort of replenish that energy.
[:[00:16:36] Is motivation a matter of degrees? Is it a ma matter of the thing you want to do versus something someone else wants to do? I guess where I'm going with that is if the person really truly wants to, let's say, start lifting weights full on, should we shortcut that process with what you're talking about in some way?
[:[00:16:56] Jenn Trepeck: You can, or you can say, what I really [00:17:00] want is this. Am I willing to do what it takes to get that? Am I willing to do that? Like, can I find, as you said in that, you know, Facebook group, what if this was your number one priority? The challenge that I have with people is that they think that something has to be their number one priority in order for it to happen at.
[:[00:17:24] Jenn Trepeck: And so the piece is to me, is there a alignment between our capacity and what we say we want? Neither one is wrong, we just have to make sure that those things align. So we might want to compete in the bodybuilding competition, and we to do that requires a level of commitment. It requires, you know, food choices and exercise [00:18:00] choices and time that we may or may not be able to commit to, to the degree that we would need to at this moment.
[:[00:18:30] Right. We have to then set up the scenario around us to allow for that, but it comes down to that alignment between sort of what we say we want and what we're willing to do. Does that make sense?
[:[00:18:59] [00:19:00] Maybe they're realistic, maybe they're not. That's not for us to judge. We, you kinda have to go through that process. But that raises the question related to habit formation and behavior. You already alluded to building momentum as the main thing we're trying to do here. So when somebody is at the beginning of their journey.
[:[00:19:30] I'm like, well, what's one thing at least that's most important to you? Do you subscribe to that? Like build it up approach? Like start from one thing. It sounds like, it sounds like you do, but like walk us through a thousand percent. Yeah, yeah. Go. Go ahead. A thousand percent. Yeah. How might that look? Yeah.
[:[00:19:42] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. So there's a lot of different ways to take this. And so my brain is going in 12 directions at once. So yes. And again, it comes down to aligning our expectations with what we are willing and [00:20:00] able to do. So start where you can expect what you are able to do rather than expecting. Perfection or expecting what we think is required to get the result right?
[:[00:20:35] Phillip Pap: Mm-hmm.
[:[00:20:41] But we expect that of ourselves as adults. Like we expect to go from zero to a thousand by standing up and it's like, well, hold on a minute. Right? It's just, I think for a lot of us, it's been a long time since we've been [00:21:00] a beginner at something or since we've learned something in that way. You know what I mean?
[:[00:21:19] Phillip Pap: Mm-hmm.
[:[00:21:28] And it's part of what sets us up and has us feeling really frustrated and therefore doing nothing because we feel like we have to do everything.
[:[00:21:55] I started sprinting recently and I talk about it a lot. I had some guests on the [00:22:00] show. We talked about, you know, the anabolic benefits of sprinting for lifters, blah, blah, blah. But it's not something I did regularly. You know, I used to do a lot of cardio back in the day that I, I gave up eventually and moved more toward, uh, you know, higher recovery, uh, type Yeah.
[:[00:22:32] Right? So there's this idea of, it's not just all or nothing, it's also the feedback loop and expanding your comfort zone and the things you talked about, connecting to the action. If you take an action that gives you this really painful outcome, that's ev also recipe for giving up. That, that's kind of my point, right?
[:[00:23:02] Jenn Trepeck: A thousand percent. Well, so it like, to me, what, as you're saying that like, what comes up to me is something I talk about is C versus I of consistency versus intensity.
[:[00:23:11] Phillip Pap: Mm-hmm.
[:[00:23:26] Phillip Pap: the diets. Yeah.
[:[00:23:28] Phillip Pap: Yeah.
[:[00:23:42] Like that requires this insane level of intensity, right? Whether it's that super intense workout, right? Like to your point, even on that workout, could you do that same workout the next day? No. [00:24:00] Because you hurt, right? Mm-hmm. But our expectation is that that's what's required and that's what we're supposed to do, but it's not.
[:[00:24:16] Phillip Pap: Mm-hmm.
[:[00:24:55] But the way we're taught, the way we're sold. [00:25:00] Fitness and nutrition in particular is that intensity is what's required. So it's a hundred percent intensity, a hundred percent of the time is the only thing that's going to get you the results. And I argue that that is patently wrong.
[:[00:25:24] Because what comes to mind, at least two things that co have come up recently, one on the diet or I'll say on the nutrition or eating side, whatever you wanna call it. 'cause I'm not just talking about diets, is fat loss. Right? Yeah. We just did a, a rapid fat loss challenge in my community and and it's a very, a very controlled protocol for people who are ready for it and not most of are not ready for it.
[:[00:25:45] Phillip Pap: For two weeks. For two weeks, right? Exactly. Exactly, exactly right. And and it's always this inverse relationship of, okay, yeah, I know you have that target of weight loss, but let's reverse engineer like what makes this sustainable so you can stick with it and. What does that get you at the end [00:26:00] of the day?
[:[00:26:17] 'cause he, he loves to just like curse at all the other people in the industry. Um, I, I, I love, I love him. But anyway, so many do. Yeah. He was talking about training a failure and he is like, look, if the general premise of training a failure is that you had to do that to grow muscle. Um, nobody would have muscle.
[:[00:26:51] So good concept. Yeah.
[:[00:27:18] You know, like I have clients who simply not so simply want to be able to get on the floor with their grandkids and play a game and stand up on their own right. To be 90 years old and not need help getting off the toilet. Right? Guess what? You don't have to train for a fitness competition to achieve that, but if you listen to everybody coming at us, it'll make us think we do.
[:[00:27:52] Jenn Trepeck: You know, like, so sometimes, you know, it's, it's blocking out all the noise [00:28:00] and saying, you know, I sort of tell people, it's like, you gotta have your Wonder Woman Bengal on. You have to be able to hear what's coming at us or read the headline and say, based on everything I know, is that true? Is that true for me?
[:[00:28:47] Phillip Pap: You
[:[00:29:02] And then we can't maintain that intensity. We think something's wrong with us. We give up, we're like, Ugh, I'm broken. I don't have the motivation, you know, taking us full circle.
[:[00:29:19] Personalization, but also you talked about being a beginner. You talked about the compounding of your habits over time. Effectively, when you put it all together, it, it, what comes to me is, okay, where you're at right now, you've got this certain scope, this certain box that you can limit for yourself. And this is in a positive sense, a box in that you don't have to worry about all these stuff outside of it for now.
[:[00:30:01] That's what comes to mind, which, that's the empowering piece of it. It's like you're not, you're not just limiting yourself here or holding yourself back. You're actually doing the thing that's gonna lead to consistency and massive results over time.
[:[00:30:23] So because of, this is a great example, so it reminds me before my sister's wedding in 2011, I've been doing this for a very long time. I started coaching in 2007, like before this was a thing, you know, and 2011 before my sister's wedding, I coached my family and. In the beginning, I don't know how it came up.
[:[00:30:53] Phillip Pap: I know the type
[:[00:31:22] My sister said to me, if you're gonna tell me that I can't have my ketchup, I'm gonna punch you in the face. Right? Not really, but kind of. Right. She was like, I have no interest. And I was like, cool. Keep your ketchup right.
[:[00:31:42] Jenn Trepeck: right? Fine, whatever. Keep your ketchup. Couple months later she goes, what's that ketchup that you use?
[:[00:32:18] What's outside of that box is going to look different after we've made some progress. So like I see it all the time with people's food choices, right? Not just with ketchup or even the things that they're willing to try. 'cause also your taste buds adjust, right? Your strength changes the moves that you're willing to try.
[:[00:32:53] Phillip Pap: Yep. Yeah, a hundred percent. When you're ready, you're, you're finally ready for it.
[:[00:33:09] Jenn Trepeck: Hey friends, jumping in here super quick. It's Jenni again. I just wanna say big thanks to Snap cleaning products for supporting salad with a side of fries.
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[:[00:34:15] So you can do your whole house in one fell swoop with the snap pack for just 89.95. And these prices are before your discount because you're a salad with a side of fries, listener, you get 10% off and free shipping. Simply text the word clean. C-L-E-A-N to 8 3 3 8 0 1 0 5 0 0. You'll receive the link in coupon code right to your phone.
[:[00:35:00] Phillip Pap: I wanna pull a thread of something you mentioned earlier related to this whole motivation or momentum chain when you mentioned a trainer and accountability to someone else.
[:[00:35:29] Having the knowledge. Having the efficacy and having the relatedness. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you're, that's right. You know what I'm talking about. So there's so many. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. I know. So in which case, we're the nerds in the space we got, oh. Oh. We haven't even gotten to that level of nerdiness yet.
[:[00:35:49] Jenn Trepeck: marketing. Yeah. But, okay.
[:[00:36:06] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. To me, that's the hack of discipline.
[:[00:36:13] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah, yeah. Right. How do we create discipline? Right? Accountability is a tool for that. There's a piece of accountability, right? With that personal trainer. There's a piece of accountability that also happens with the gamification of, you know, ticking off how many days in a row.
[:[00:37:01] And more often than not, I'm not the food police, I'm the cheerleader pointing out everything you did do because your mind goes to everything you didn't do. That's right. Right. So is the accountability, checking off the days in your calendar is the accountability saying, did I do something? To move my body today and that counts whether it's the 10 squats when I went to pee or a super intense training session, right?
[:[00:38:02] Is it better that it's the friend you're meeting at the gym or the one that you're making social plans with and part of those social plans is, you know, a walk or a fitness class or something? Or is it that I actually need the accountability where if I don't report into you, I need a consequence? You know, like there's a self-awareness piece in that.
[:[00:38:37] Phillip Pap: can change.
[:[00:38:44] It means that we just need a bunch of different frameworks or frames or types of accountability.
[:[00:39:08] And also. I think people's understanding of the method, uh, and how it changes, what comes to mind, for example, is people who hate quote unquote hate tracking food. And it's 'cause they've used my FitnessPal and then they try this other app that's way easier and more efficient. And they're like, well now I like tracking food.
[:[00:39:41] That's the thing that works for you.
[:[00:40:01] Sure. But like, we just wanna make sure that the streak that we're looking for matches the intensity. So if it's more intense, we're we want to plan on a shorter streak to the win, right? Mm-hmm. And then we can do another less intense for a longer period of time. Right. Those pieces are also working together and fitting in
[:[00:40:26] And, and the streaks can be evolving into new streaks as you go, right? Exactly. Right. You become harder or higher intense and streaks or whatever is there, I think you already answered this, que you got ahead of this question already. I was gonna ask if the tracking or the, the method of self-accountability can become obsessive and, but, but I think you got ahead of that by saying like, you have to have the self-awareness of whether it's working for you and then evaluate it.
[:[00:41:05] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah.
[:[00:41:07] Jenn Trepeck: I think there's a piece of this where my recommendation is actually work with someone.
[:[00:41:14] Jenn Trepeck: Because, so especially in my space and especially with my clients, like I work with a lot of people who have a history of disordered behavior or eating disorders or, you know, like a lot of, especially as we think about food tracking, like a very tumultuous relationship with food and food tracking and all of these things.
[:[00:42:06] Not on paper or not with a tool. When we start to feel obsessive, it's because we're trying to keep it all in our heads, and so it becomes this constant running, you know, hamster wheel of expectation, disappointment, but it's running through every single time. Yeah, what did I eat this morning? How much did I have?
[:[00:42:53] When it gets out of your head and onto paper, right? I see it over and over with clients. When they [00:43:00] stop tracking in their head and they put it on a piece of paper, they go. Whoa. I have a lot of mental capacity. Like imagine all of the things that you could do in this world with all of that mental capacity freed up, where when you are thinking about dinner, you could look at your phone or a piece of paper and go, great, this is what I'm having in seven seconds.
[:[00:43:39] Phillip Pap: Mm-hmm.
[:[00:43:55] What is it that we actually don't want? What are we trying to avoid? [00:44:00] And how do we actually get to a place where we're avoiding that? I think sometimes we associate it with something that may be, you know, kind of misaligned.
[:[00:44:18] Yeah. Where, yeah, we talked about procrastination to it. Like it's all linked, you know, when you're trying to get to sleep and you can't get to sleep 'cause those thoughts are running through your head and you just get up and write it down and boom, you get the mental capacity. That's a great example for my podcast, and you probably do the same.
[:[00:44:38] Jenn Trepeck: thousand percent.
[:[00:44:50] Tracking can relieve you of stress and give you clarity and give you awareness and help you build momentum and help you close the loop. It's what I say too, Jen, I just need people to come on [00:45:00] here. I know, right? And reinforce that message for the audience.
[:[00:45:06] Exactly. I also think it's at seven different times because what we're willing to hear, what we actually hear, right? Like and especially I say it to people all the time, like I have people who will do my course multiple times because when everything is new, what you hear is maybe 50% of what's there the next time when it's not totally new, you hear something that you didn't even hear it all the first time, you know?
[:[00:45:40] Phillip Pap: So do that guys. You'll hear things,
[:[00:45:42] Phillip Pap: back. Listen to all 300 something episodes again,
[:[00:45:50] Oh yeah. Help the
[:[00:46:09] Um, it's funny, I just, I just took a communication style assessment, you know those personality assessments? Yeah. Which one, and I'll do those, I'll do this one was through Toastmasters. So it was actually part of a project because I was developing a speech related to it. What's interesting is how that evolves over time and, uh, the two strengths of mine today, as of right now, are analytical and supportive, which supportive is interesting.
[:[00:46:34] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah,
[:[00:46:43] Jenn Trepeck: And the reason why is because that's what changed everything for me.
[:[00:46:49] Jenn Trepeck: Right? I believe the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it is understanding why. Right. It's not living by the shoulds. Right? [00:47:00] Yes. Everybody stops shoulding the bed, right? Like, 'cause I did every diet under the sun, right? I lived in that world on that rollercoaster of gaining and losing and I would feel at times, like I would just breathe and gain weight and I was like, I do not understand.
[:[00:47:44] Like all of the things. And I could go into the kitchen on a Monday morning and get water once and ignore the plate of pastries. Second time it was a [00:48:00] struggle. And the third time I'm walking in and going, what is wrong with me? That this croissant has a voice and it is screaming my name and I can't deal?
[:[00:48:36] But at least from then I'm eating it after having something that has nutrition and stabilizes my blood sugar. Lo and behold, I go back and eat the breakfast that I brought and the croissant no longer has a voice and I can walk in and out of the kitchen 20 times and it doesn't matter, right? So for me, learning [00:49:00] this nutrition stuff, how our body processes food, what food does to our body, what, you know, biochemically, all the things that are happening made every food decision go from being emotional of why do I suck?
[:[00:49:36] Now the only thing I want is the stupid croissant.
[:[00:49:58] It also helps dispel [00:50:00] tons of myth mythology in the industry when you realize that doing something that everyone else says you shouldn't and it doesn't cause the sky to fall is very powerful. Right? Yeah. It's very, very powerful and I know we fight that all the time because unfortunately there's so much misinformation that people are just afraid to try the thing 'cause they feel like they're killing themselves.
[:[00:50:42] Take action. Where does that problem come in, into this?
[:[00:50:51] .: Okay.
[:[00:51:14] You know? So I think if you're in a place of, I'm doing nothing till I learn everything. Then are you actually learning what's being presented?
[:[00:51:26] Jenn Trepeck: Right. Like maybe we're just sort of blocking out, because if we're fully understanding what's being shared,
[:[00:51:55] Listener Blip: For sure, for
[:[00:51:58] Listener Blip: Hi, my name is Lisa and I'd like to give a big shout [00:52:00] out to my nutrition coach, Philip P.
[:[00:52:17] Along with that is the movement part of nutrition. There's a plan to it, and he really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is, and the easier it is to lose weight when it's presented to you like he presents it, it makes even more sense.
[:[00:52:41] Phillip Pap: Yeah, that that's, that's kind of what I was getting at because yeah, it's hard to explain the avatar that I'm, I'm thinking of, but it's more of the person who just will not take the action until they understand the why out of fear.
[:[00:53:15] So, and then they blame themselves 'cause then they lack willpower. They can't stick to it. So even if they've done the things you've done, there are people that will still struggle because of life. Yeah. Et cetera. What, how does someone deal with that?
[:[00:53:38] So are you following a plan that for you is better to be something we do for a finite period of time? Not the plan to be followed at infinitum, right? So the plan for life [00:54:00] has to allow for life. So if your plan doesn't allow for birthdays or vacation or enjoying these things, then we gotta take a step back and reassess that plan, right?
[:[00:54:24] Phillip Pap: Somebody really smart recently in the last 40 minutes talked about something called consistency versus intensity. And again, it rears its, I'll say ugly, but beautiful head. Um, that Yeah, exactly what you're saying.
[:[00:54:45] Jenn Trepeck: recognize that that's the choice that we're making. That's the trade off. And we're cool with that. We've made that choice intentionally.
[:[00:55:20] It's not that I'm broken, it's that, you know, whatever it was. Right? The design is flawed, not you. Yes. But it also brings up for me a bit of emotional eating and situations or things that come up that derail us, that naturally, right? Like things happen. And especially in my world with food, you know, like I don't think contrary to many.
[:[00:56:23] Right? Recognize where we're at and you know, aligning those expectations to so it's not falling off if what we do is what we told ourselves we were going to do. So different from sort of the emotional eating thing. I had a client who was going on vacation and she was like, we're going to my brother's.
[:[00:57:20] I just, I wanna feel like I made some healthy choices. I was like, awesome. Okay. What needs to exist for you to be on the way home, feeling proud of yourself and that you made some healthy choices?
[:[00:58:02] You know, so it's our expectations of ourselves and the commitment that we make to ourselves. If we align the fact that what we're looking to do is X and we meet that, it is infinitely more powerful than expecting ourselves to do something and then not doing that. Yes,
[:[00:58:24] Jenn Trepeck: You know, that's what creates that.
[:[00:58:37] Phillip Pap: you go.
[:[00:58:39] Phillip Pap: Yeah, the expectations are huge. Um, as you were saying that, I was just like, I, I made a little list of like three examples of my own clients.
[:[00:59:03] So we're gonna be intentional. We're gonna come up with a plan and the expectations are gonna be a little different than at home, but it's three months, so we gotta come up with something. So that's, that's one that comes to mind. Another is a client who, he wanted to enjoy that barbecue and he's like, I planned ahead of time to gorge myself and enjoy the barbecue.
[:[00:59:25] Phillip Pap: Yeah. And his normal, his normal calorie intake is like 2,500, 3000. And he, he ate like 7,000 calories. And I said, how'd that feel? And, and what happened afterward? He is like, yeah, I looked back and I did what I said I was gonna do and then the next day I got back to it.
[:[01:00:00] And it's like, that's almost the key, the magic key to unlock success for the first time in a long time. 'cause every other time you've wanted to get that quick result or what everyone else is doing. And for you, like you said, it may take six months of just very slow, I don't wanna say slow and steady. I mean that's fine, slow and steady, but you know, very modest, reasonable consistency.
[:[01:00:44] That's cool. What do they need to do next?
[:[01:01:31] Right. There's the one side that says, do it every single day no matter what the other school of thought says. Figure out the pattern that you can be consistent with and do that well. Really interesting research. When it comes to movement, specifically, what we see is that we actually need to do it every single day in order to then eventually [01:02:00] be able to maintain a pattern that is not daily.
[:[01:02:34] When that happens, maybe you add a second meal a day, you know, maybe you decide to do that with a couple of wrist weights one day. Don't go crazy, right? Maybe you got time to make it 15 minutes, maybe one day you actually have time to do it twice a day. But the plan is the 10 minutes. So some days we can exceed it, [01:03:00] right?
[:[01:03:13] Phillip Pap: I love it. So have a template, the worst day, because it's not gonna get any worse than that. And then I like how you talked about every day, it makes me think this is a lifestyle. This is a you, you know, you're trying to be, you're trying to establish a new identity as an athlete, as a mobile person.
[:[01:03:41] All right,
[:[01:03:43] Phillip Pap: Okay.
[:[01:04:03] You're gonna choose them based on your level of mobility. So I have some clients who do this in a chair with like 30 arm circles, 30 side bends, 30 leg lifts. I have other clients where we're doing 30 squats, 30 pushups, 30 crunches. I created a whole bunch of different variations of this and tested, then they all took less than two minutes.
[:[01:04:44] Right. And we're looking around Exactly. This is what you're gonna do. A 30, 30, 30. It takes less than two minutes. Just do it and see what happens. Like the blood flow alone is going to make you feel instantly more energized. And then you never know. [01:05:00] But like if 10 minutes feels like a lot, start with a 30, 30, 30.
[:[01:05:06] Jenn Trepeck: Exactly.
[:[01:05:19] Well, now, now I'm
[:[01:05:29] Phillip Pap: It's okay. It's okay. There's so, there's so much. It's funny with humans. I always think there's like, it's the tip of the guy iceberg, what people hear and see from us and the icebergs in our brain that they'll just never get, get access to.
[:[01:06:00] Take the commitment, the discipline, and turn into momentum. I want people to be able to find you, Jen. Obviously we've got the podcast salad with a side of fries. We'll link that in the show notes. Anywhere else.
[:[01:06:18] I will tell you, hearing from you is my absolute most favorite thing. So please send a message. Um, oh, I know what I wanted to say. Now let's do it because on my website there is, I have a download for you called, it's Not What to Eat, it's How to Eat that You can download there. But there's another one that I sometimes offer.
[:[01:06:56] We're trying, and the, the piece of this that is so [01:07:00] critical is that, you know, if you're, like you were saying like we wanna become this athlete, right? If saying to yourself, I am an athlete. Creates that other voice that's like, no, you are not. Right. We need a different affirmation, the trick to making sure that this works, right?
[:[01:07:44] Might be more helpful in the moment till you start to feel like an athlete and then it becomes, I'm an athlete, right? It might be I make healthy choices. Well, that might feel like a lot, [01:08:00] right? Maybe today, maybe The affirmation is I make healthier choices. I eat a vegetable every time I eat. Right, like find the thing that actually rings true and use that and that can evolve also.
[:[01:08:22] Phillip Pap: You gotta believe yourself and believe in yourself and give yourself the right affirmation. So great advice. Thank you Jen. Yeah. Sorry we get those. No, not, don't apologize.
[:[01:08:35] Jenn Trepeck: fire at the end for everybody. Some fire. That's right.
[:[01:08:45] Jenn Trepeck: Likewise. Thank you so much.
[:[01:09:21] I'll tell you more about why on Friday and this week's bite-size bonus episode. Be sure wherever you're listening, click the plus sign or the follow button, and then your Apple alert you on Friday when it goes live at 3:00 AM. Well, as always, everybody, I'm your host, gen Trebeck. Connect with me on Instagram or all social media.
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[:[01:10:43] Congratulations for making yourself and your health a priority. Thanks so much for joining us. Be sure to click subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform. Share us with a friend and we'll be back next week. Always remember you deserve it and you are worth it. Happy, [01:11:00] healthy.