The Jordan Syatt Podcast

How I Lost 100lbs - Nicole's Story

In this episode of The Jordan Syatt Mini Podcast, I speak with Inner Circle Member, Nicole (@nicolelucidi98 on IG), about how she decided to change her whole life and is now over 100 pounds down! Nicole gives extraordinary insight into how she's been able to lose 100lbs sustainably, enjoyably, and how you can make incredible progress, too. I hope you enjoy the episode. And if you do, please leave a review on iTunes (they really do help a lot). Finally, if you've been thinking about joining The Inner Circle but haven't yet...we have hundreds of home and bodyweight workouts for you and you can get them all here: www.sfinnercircle.com.

Duration:: 1h 17m
Broadcast on:: 23 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: aac

Nick. How are you? Great. How are you? Nicole, I am overjoyed to be speaking with you. I'm so excited. I just want to, you know, we are recording. So just, I know it said on the Zoom meeting is recorded, but I want to let you know. I'm so excited. I'm so, so, I've been looking forward to this for however long since you made that Facebook post. I was so glad when, when you emailed, I was emailing my, or texting my assistant cat. I was like, did she email? Did she email? Did she email? And then she was like, she emailed. I'm so excited. Just for everyone listening, you are down 100 pounds. You are the lowest you've been, lowest weight you've been since, since, since 20 years old or something. I'm, I'm so excited to talk to you and, and huge congratulations on all of your incredibly hard work. I just want to hear from, I want this is going to be mostly you talking because I just want to hear your story. I just want to get to know you and hear your story. So do me a favor before we dive into what you did for the minus 100 pounds. How about you just give me some insight into your life? Who are you? What do you do? Where are you from? And then give me insight into your life from childhood until now. I just, I want to get to know you better. Okay. Perfect. Well, first of all, I owe you a huge thank you because as you said, I struggled with this for 20 years, spun my wheels, could never seem to figure it out. Unfortunately, it took a place of hitting rock bottom and being really fearful that I was going to die to implement changes, but you were able to give me the tools and strategies that I needed to do to do. So I did the work, but you gave me the tools to do the work. So I am forever grateful to you, to you for that. So I'm 43. I'm a high school English teacher. The teacher in me has to be a little bit prepared. I'm going to say I love that. I love that. The habits that, you know, I learned from you and a couple of other people and kind of made it not one for what helped me. So my high school English teacher, I've been married for almost 18 years. I have two kids. My son is six and my daughter is 12. And so, you know, oh, thank you. You know, so growing up, I remember being referred to as, as chunky, but looking back at the pictures, I don't really think I was maybe slightly heavier, but not obese by any means when I was a kid. You know, my parents, they had a lot of really good intentions around food. They were very strict with food. We ate a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, salads most night at dinner. We didn't get to go out to eat a lot. There wasn't a lot of junk food. And I know that they had a lot of good intentions with being strict and establishing good habits around food. You know, no sugar, no sodas, anything like that. And the good news is, is that those rules helped me to become a very open eater. I really don't have a lot of foods that I won't eat. I'm pretty much open to eating anything. I think that the one downside to those food rules was that we had to eat everything that was on our plate, whether we liked it or we didn't like it. And what was put in front of you, you had to eat because they were starving children in China, so you better eat it. And you know, that was kind of the rule. And so, and we couldn't leave the table until our plate was cleaned. And so, you know, you eventually just kind of start to, you don't really realize if you're hungry or not, it's just it's a meal time, the food is on your plate, you need to eat it. And so what I learned to do was to start with the most, or the least desirable food item on my plate and eat that first and get it over with and then save the best for last. And so one of the things that I've had to really undo was that it is okay to not finish what's on your plate. It's okay to throw away food. It's okay to go and get some ice cream and have three bites of it, track 100 calories worth and toss the rest in the garbage. You don't have to finish it just because it's in front of you. And that has been a very hard thing to shift, you know, in my mind. And so, you know, and I think a lot of people have this experience where food plays a really important part in your childhood too, positive holiday memories. You know, my, my nana was one of my most favorite people in the world growing up and she made the most incredible food and I learned a lot of, you know, my favorite recipes from her. And, you know, whenever we'd go visit, she'd spoil us and cook us all of our favorite things. And, and so there was a lot of positives associated with, with food as well. And when I went off to college, you know, it was kind of like, wow, you can buy whatever you want. These food rules that you grew up with don't exist. You don't have to eat vegetables every night. You don't have to have salt. You can have whatever you want. And I remember in one of the apartments that we lived in, there was a Taco Bell across the street. And there was a promotion at one time where there was, I don't know which day of the week it was, Tuesdays or something. There'd be 39 cent tacos. And then we would go there and get like 12 tacos and eat them. And like, that was okay. There was nobody there saying, oh, you can't have Taco Bell or, you know, whatever. And so we just kind of went crazy. The good news is, is I was really active. I played soccer growing up in college. I was on the Fresno State Women's Equestrian team, which had just become an NCAA sport. And so we did team workouts in the weight room. And so is there a lot of intense physical activity that went along with it. And so for the first good chunk of college, even though I was eating a lot more, I was able to maintain my weight because of the increased physical activity. And then when I was 21, I met my husband. And you know, when you're dating, you go out to eat a lot. That's part of the whole dating process. And so it was really fun. And we would split a large pizza. We would go to Red Robin and get the nachos and the drinks and the burger and fries and then go for dessert. And like, I mean, doesn't really matter how much you're working out at that point, your weight is going to start going up. And so gosh, I don't know how much weight I gained the first year I was with him, probably like 20 pounds or, you know, something like that. And then my weight just kind of steadily began to climb after that, even though I was working out. So graduated from college, got married. And at that point, it was where I started to have to shop for plus size clothing. And I started to get really kind of embarrassed about that. And I just told myself, well, just stay physically active, right? So I was always a member of one gym or another, whatever the case might be a big box gym. I did CrossFit, I did nine rounds. I mean, I was probably the worst CrossFitr ever, but like, I would show up, right? So I mean, I always was really good about showing up for exercise. But food was the issue. And you can't out exercise your fork as much as you try to, you just stand. And so I remember, you know, I started my first official diet. Well, during that first year where I had met my husband, I kind of realized things were skyrocketing. And I did slim fast and I didn't stick with that for very long because it was miserable. And I started Weight Watchers. I have done Weight Watchers more times than I can count. I can tell you every single rule I could, you tell me a food, I can tell you how many points it is. I've done it so many times in my life. I've done low carb, I've done keto, you name it, I've tried it. And so I've spent the last 20 years on a diet, as a lot of people do, right? Like you lose 20 or 30 pounds, you feel a little bit successful, something throws you off, you get off track. I got really good at being dialed in Monday through Thursday, Friday would roll around, we'd go out to eat Friday, we'd go out to eat Saturday, Sunday you'd be like, well, it's fitted one more thing because we're going to get back on track Monday. And so it didn't really matter now looking back how much of a deficit I had Monday through Thursday because it all went out the window on the weekend, right? And so it was always that promise of, well, we'll just start again on Monday. And so the most successful diet that I think I had was probably right before I got pregnant with my son. I'd lost about 50 pounds and that involved a lot of heavy workouts and limiting carbs. I was only eating quote unquote healthy carbs and I had to stop eating them at lunch. But I was doing a lot of intense exercise. And I was pretty successful then, like I said, but then COVID hit right around when my son was two. And that's kind of when I was trying to lose weight again. And COVID was really, really rough for everybody, for so many reasons. But for me, you know, I was 300 plus pounds at that point. And I had some health comorbidities that were adding up. And I was really, really scared of getting COVID and winding up in the hospital. And I just had it in my mind that if I got it, that was going to be the end for me. And that fear became really paralyzing. I stayed home. I didn't leave my house for the whole year. I'm a teacher, but I taught in my school's online program. And it really was was detrimental for so many reasons, for so many people. For me, I became completely sedentary. And I was used to being active, right? And I can look back on my fitness tracker now and I can see that during that year, I was only averaging 1700 steps a day, which is pretty pathetic. And I gained probably that first COVID year alone, I've probably gained about 30 pounds. And remember, I'd been trying to lose weight from having my son right before. And so I kind of was it, you know, a pretty peak weight there. And towards the end of that first year of COVID was kind of the peak to me, I woke up one day with immense stomach pain, had to go to the hospital. I was terrified of going to the hospital because I was like, Oh my God, you're going to get COVID in the hospital. Right. Right. I mean, I wore a mask the whole time I was in the hospital, never took it out. It was crazy. What turned out, they did a CT and all these things. Well, I had diverticulitis with a perforated coin. I was very, very sick. And so the doctor at that time had advised me, you know, this is probably due to standard American diet, lack of fiber, lack of exercise. Why don't you start walking, do a plant-based diet that'll immediately lower your calories, that'll get a lot of fiber in you. I was willing to do anything because I never wanted to be back in the hospital. So I did the plant-based diet thing with fidelity. Three months later, I woke up with the same pain was back in the hospital exact same thing. Again, the plant-based diet had failed. It didn't do what it, you know, that we thought it was going to do. And I was really sick, sicker the second time than the first time. And the surgeon came in to talk to me and basically had a life-changing conversation. You know, he pulled the chair up to me and he said, Can I be really honest with you? And I said, yeah, and he said, You don't need surgery right now. But there's a strong chance that you're going to need surgery at some point in the future, especially if you keep winding up back in the hospital every couple months. We're going to have to take that part of your coin out. And he said, The thing is, unless you lose 100 pounds, we cannot do the surgery laparoscopically. We're going to have to open you up all the way. And he said, If we open you up all the way, that's going to increase your risk of complication, your risk of infection skyrockets. He said, You have two little kids at home and you want to be able to get back to them. He said, You've told me that you're terrified. You're not going to be there for them. And he said, What are you willing to do to live for them? And he said, You have to change. Changing is not what's going to prevent you from having another diverticulitis flare up. But if you do, it's going to help you be healthier overall. And if you do have to have surgery, it's going to really increase your odds of success and not having infection. And so I was terrified with with two kids and my husband. And that was really my rock bottom moment. I knew I needed to change. And the thing is, is that when you're morbidly obese, like you're full of shame. Like, why can't I figure this out? I'm really successful in all other aspects of my life. Why can't I figure this out? And then the surgeon told me, he said, What have you done to try to lose weight? And I listed it all off. And he said, You need to forget all of that. None of that has worked for you. Because I said, Oh, I'll go back to keto. I'll go back to low carb. And he said, How has that worked for you? How many years have you been balancing around with your weight? And he said, Why don't you just take responsibility of yourself and start counting calories? Just be accountable for what goes in your mouth. And he said, Think about calories, like your bank account. You don't just recklessly spend money. You get yourself a certain amount of calories, figured out. So I was like, Okay, so I had some real time while I was laying in the hospital bed. And when I came back home, recovering, and I started, you know, I wanted to educate myself, like learn how how to do this. And what I really discovered is like, I needed to change who I was. I didn't need to just go on a diet, right? I had to change and really establish habits. And so in my searching, I came across two important things. One, your Instagram, which really gave me a lot of, you're very relatable, right? You're very down to earth. You made it seem so uncomplicated. I was like, I can do what this guy is saying. And so I saw that you had a book. So I downloaded your book on Audible, listened to it like in less than two days, just while I was laying there, recovering. And I was like, I can really, I can do this. And so I needed to figure out, you know, how many calories I was going to have. And the other thing that I realized is, it was my habits that had gotten me there and I needed to change my habits. And so James Clear's atomic habits was a huge game changer for me as well. And so I remember getting paper because I'm, you know, I'm a planner. I like to have things out in front of me. And I remember getting a piece of paper and thinking, what is it that we need to change? Like, let's be really real about what hasn't worked. Let's figure out a way to address those things. Let's have a plan. Like, let's make a checklist that we're going to really go through every day. And we're just going to do the things that Jordan says. And we're going to educate ourselves. And I remember like, I just started finding podcasts to listen to Instagram accounts to follow. I think sometimes it drives my family nuts because every time I'm in the kitchen cooking, I have a podcast going. And most of the time it's yours. My husband will walk and he's like, Oh, you're listening to Jordan again. But you know, it's it's because one of the things that I needed to do was become a healthy person and a healthy person is knowledgeable, right? So I needed to fill my brain with knowledge and facts. And so the other thing I had to do was like acknowledge my excuses, right? Like, you're full of excuses. And you kind of have this victim mentality like, well, no matter what I do, I'm going to fail. And so you have to be ready for change. And that's the other thing. You can try and try and try and try and try. But until you're really ready to change, it's not going to happen. And for me, it took really thinking, what if I die? Like, this could be the end for me. What if I do have to go back for surgery? And what if I do get a raging infection or something happens? And I don't make it out. Like, then what? There's no more shoulda coulda woulda's at that point. Like, you need to figure this out, right? So, like I said, a read your book, eat it, started listening to the podcast. Atomic habits was really great. And I just told myself, you have to save yourself. Nothing else can be your priority right now. This has to be your priority. And then I'm not done, right? Like, I still have a good chunk of weight to lose, but I'm so much happier. I'm so much healthier. If God forbid, I did have to go in the hospital and have surgery, I'm now at a point where I could have it laparoscopically, which was, you know, the big thing. And so, I think what people need to know is like, you know, it's what you need to do to lose weight is actually very simple. It's changing small habits. It's not easy to do it. It's actually very difficult. It's time consuming. It takes patience. It takes perseverance. But it's not like what you have to do is actually pretty simple, right? And you stack those simple things together and you get really great results. So, like I said, I made a list. And the first thing is that you have to acknowledge what needs to change. You have to be really real and honest with yourself. You can't be delusional and keep justifying what you're doing. Because here's the thing, you don't accidentally get to be over 300 pounds. You get to be that way because you have a bunch of bad habits. And you've allowed those habits to become your normal. And so you have to acknowledge that I got to change these things, right? And I know you've spoken on your podcast about the body positivity movement and things. And I was disillusioned by that. I thought as long as I'm active, I can be healthy. And I had disregarded my doctor's guidance. Oh, you should lose weight for those 20 years because I thought, well, but I'm active. Like, I do this or I do that. And all my blood work was fine. So I was like, well, I'm healthy. And one of your clips that you did not that long ago was actually about, is it possible to be fat and healthy? And that was so good for me to hear. Because like you said, yeah, in your 20s and 30s, maybe you can be fat and healthy. But eventually that catches up to you. And so when you're in your 30s, you know, 30s, maybe, but 40s, 50s, you start to get these health problems and you're healthy until one day you aren't, right? And being obese is doing real internal damage. You might not like what you see in the mirror on the outside, but you don't see the damage that it's doing until you aren't healthy, right? And so you have to really think about why haven't I been successful? And you have to address each of those things and set yourself up, right? And so one of the best things that I heard on one of the podcasts was think about your goals as ceiling goals versus floor goals. And a ceiling goal is like what you could do on your best day. And a floor goal is what you could do even on your worst day. And he said, make floor based goals, you know, make a goal that you can do even on your worst day. Because when we create goals based on our ceiling days, how often are you really going to have a ceiling day? Maybe. But if you create floor based goals, you can always achieve those. And so what I did was I said, what can I commit to doing every single day no matter what I can walk? No matter what's going on, I can walk. How long can I commit to walking? Half an hour. Okay, Nicole, that is your first goal. And I wrote it down on paper. You will walk 30 minutes every day for the rest of your life, period. Haven't skipped a day. Every single day. A lot of days, I ultimately do more than that, right? Because you can have you can go above your floor, you can reach for the ceiling. But the floor is 30 minutes of movement every single day. And when you do something small like that, it's reachable. And the more reachable goals that you achieve, the more you start to feel better about yourself. And you think I can do it, right? Because years of being unsuccessful makes you doubt yourself. So you have to prove that you can do it, right? And so when you when you win, you feel better, you've accomplished something. And I think sometimes we think, Oh, like walking for 30 minutes, like that's that's insignificant. No, that's not insignificant. When you do that every single day, that's where the magic happens. That's where the real change starts. Because that 30 minutes of walking, then motivates you to make better food choices. And maybe you're gonna start incorporating other things. And so one of the quotes that I loved from from James is the seed of every habit is a single tiny decision. And so I've really tried to to embrace that, right? And when you make that plan, you have to be realistic about what you can do. Don't write down things that you can't realistically do over and over and over on repeat. So then sometimes you have to change and make modifications. So for example, when I first started, I was kind of overzealous. And I was like, well, I'm going to do the walking. And then a little bit later, I was like, I'm going to do strength training. And I joined your inner circle. And I was like, I'm going to do the dumbbell only workouts. Well, to be honest, I did it for a couple of weeks. And I was like, this is too much. Like I, I'm struggling. I can't be consistent with it. And I was like, you know what you need to do? You need to back off that you need to go back to what was working for you. Until that is an established habit. Don't try to stack on anything else. So I backed off. I went back to just the walking. And then, you know, I started doing the peloton rides. And at about my one year mark, I felt like cardio is an established habit for me. I'm doing it consistently every single day. I'm ready to add in that strength training now. So at about the one year mark, I did the unicorn strong challenge, loved it, saw that I was getting stronger every single month. And then I moved on to the monthly editions. And that's, that's the point where my husband also knew like, this is real. She's becoming a new person. And so we decided together to invest in a home gym. So we turned our spare bedroom into a whole, you know, room, we have the treadmill, we have the peloton, we have the bench, we have the both flex adjustables, the home gym, the whole thing. And so I think the other thing is, is, you know, don't don't establish something as a habit. If you can't see yourself doing it for 10 or 20 years, I think so often, we think, well, I'm just going to do this to speed things up. But if you can't sustain it, it's not going to work, right? So don't, don't commit to things that you, you can't do for the long term. And then I think this was a really powerful mind shift for me too. I started to think of habits as promises that I made to myself, right? And I like to think of myself as, as a trustworthy, reliable person. And if it, at work, let's say, I made a promise to somebody that I was going to do something, you bet I'm going to do it, right? Because that's who I am. But you need to value yourself too. And so these habits that I committed to, I started to see them as promises. And those promises are going to shape who I want to be. And I'm not going to break a promise to someone else. And I'm not going to break a promise to myself. And so like that 30 minutes of movement, tracking my food every single day, getting seven or eight hours of sleep every night, drinking my gallon of water, those are all promises I've made to myself. And honestly, I haven't broken them. Like I just, and when you keep doing it, it's a habit, right? And so those promises become habits. I think in the past, too, I always had a number goal for what I wanted to weigh. And one of the things that I remember James saying is like, don't have a number goal, create a system for success. Like that is your goal. Because if all you have is a number goal, you can do all kinds of crazy drastic things to hit that number. But then what? You're going to go back to what you were doing before, then you're just going to be right back to square one. But if instead you focus on the system that's going to create the person you want, and you do all these habits, it doesn't matter when you get to the number, because now you're this new person. And those habits are going to last you for the rest of your life, right? And so one of the things that James said was a number goal is for someone who cares about winning one time. A goal of creating system habits is for someone who cares about winning over and over. And I wrote that down. I have all these quotes that I literally look at every single day. And they remind me of what I'm staying focused on. And so that made me really think about who did I want to be? What is a healthy active person do? And so during COVID, for instance, I had gotten really lazy for lack of a better word. I would ask my kids, can you go get mommy this or get mommy that? Or if I needed something from downstairs, I'd ask my husband, can you go get that? I just avoided going up and down the stairs as much as possible. I just was freaking lazy. And so I started not doing that habit. Like I started saying like, Oh, can you never mind? I'll go get it. Like, because a healthy person goes and gets things themselves. They look for ways to move throughout the day instead of asking other people to do it. Lots of people will give you the advice, you know, park farther away at the grocery store. And I used to think that is so ridiculous. Like, you think that that extra little bit is what's going to make a difference? But guess what? I now park farther away, because when you do that throughout the day, all those steps add up, right? And so one of the things that I tried to do this last school year was go down to the office between every single class. That way I was up moving and not just sitting at my desk. I used to have, you know, I would send my TA, can you go run this air in Fermi or whatever? And this year, I just I did it all myself because the movement and whatever was was important, right? And you have to believe that you can, because it's been envisioned and you know, ingrained in your head that you can't, that you're going to be a failure, because that's what you always have. So the other thing I started doing is each night, as I fall asleep, I make myself go through all the good things that I did for the day. What are all the habits that you won? And then when you start seeing, Oh my gosh, like, I actually have a whole bunch of wins for the day, then it makes you feel, you know, better. And then, you know, you need to set up your environment and make sure that you have what you need and not feel guilty about asking for what you need or making what you need happen. Make it easy for yourself, like learn, educate, listen to to podcast, get the supplies you need, don't feel guilty about spending money on the food that you need to meet your goals. You know, I talked about we took money and turned our spare bedroom into a home gym, you know, best decision ever, because while I was active before COVID, it took me 20 minutes to get to the gym and 20 minutes to get back home. Well, that's 40 minutes. It's most of my workout time now, I just wake up at five, I go right downstairs, get it done, and it's over before anyone else wakes up, you know, and it's that time that I would have been driving. Anyway, so that was definitely, you know, a need that I had and we made that happen. Don't feel guilty, like I said, about about buying the food. I mean, yesterday I spent $9 on raspberries. Like, that's insane, but they were delicious when I ate them for breakfast this morning, right? Like, it's okay to buy and prioritize what you need. And then the other thing, and I know you've talked about this too, is like automate your habits, like do the same thing at the same time, seven days a week, don't give yourself the weekends is an opportunity to get derailed. I knew that in the past for me, weekends were the problem, right? And so I had to think about what did you do on the weekends? How can we fix that? And so I try to keep everything very consistently during the school year. I'm up at five a.m. every day, weekends or summer. I don't necessarily set my alarm, but I'm still up by six. Like, just naturally, that's when I'm used to waking up. But I had to prioritize going to bed between nine and nine 30 each night. And that's not always easy. But that is my focus, right? Because I need to make sure I'm getting that sleep. I wake up every single morning, and I weigh myself. And I try really hard to not put emotion on the number. Your trend line in the app is so helpful. Because even if you do see a little stagnant, you can still see, okay, well, over 90 days, it's still going down. And so that's been super, super helpful for me. And so I get up and I weigh myself and I have my coffee, I brush my teeth, and then I go down and get my movement in every single day, seven days a week, non-negotiable. That is my priority. And when you start your day by achieving your priority, then you feel good about yourself. And then you come upstairs and you get your healthy breakfast and helps your whole day fall into place. So I think you have to have a plan to like, you can't just haphazardly go about, oh, what do I feel like doing today? Right? So movement is my priority. That's a habit. It's an easy habit for me. I like it. It makes me feel better when I do it. So I do some kind of cardio, whether it's walking or riding the bike or whatever, seven days a week, 30 minutes minimum, right? Because that's what what I've committed to. And then I try to vary it. So some days, it's like steady state, just zone two cardio. Some days it's more like high intensity intervals on the bike or whatever I'm doing. I started doing the inner circle strength programming. That has been amazing. I do the lower body strength on Saturdays and Wednesdays. And then I do the upper body strength Sundays and Thursdays. So I definitely have like, these are the days of the week that I do it. I don't falter. I don't change it. Because consistency matters, right? And then I come upstairs and I try to eat at the same time, kind of every day, same breakfast. People think that eating the same thing is boring. It's not when you find something that you like and you know how many calories it is, then you're not sitting there constantly doing math. You know, this food is this amount. And so you just eat the same thing on repeat, right? So during the school year, I have a breakfast that I eat. And then during the summer, I have a breakfast, but during the school year, I kind of made this own recipe. I wanted something like that was warm and delicious and filling. So I created this oatmeal bake that the base of it is like half oats and half all brand buds. And then I put some like almond milk, Greek yogurt, eggs, little brown sugar, swerve for the sweetener, mixed in some frozen mixed berries and I bake it. So it makes like an oatmeal bake. But that thing is chock full of fiber, filling, delicious. I cut it into five wedges, put it in five Tupperware containers, breakfast is ready during the week, right? I just take it out, pop it in the microwave for a minute, ready to go. And I pair it with some Greek yogurt for protein. So I eat that every day during the square. During the summer, I don't use the oven as much because it's hot. So I do these cheesecake bowls, I blend up cottage cheese, mix it the blended cottage cheese with some Greek yogurt, little vanilla extract, brown sugar, swerve, that's kind of the base, put in eight grams of almond butter, which gives it kind of like a nutty crust flavor. Top it with whatever fruit cherries are my favorite, but berries works too. And then I'll sprinkle some all brand buds on the top or some cashew cereal to kind of give it crunch and fiber. So those are kind of the two breakfast that I stick with. I also eat the same snack most days. One thing that I learned is I try to make my snack kind of my treat, if you will, for the day. So I'll have like a built puff bar. Those taste really delicious to me with a piece of fruit or I'll blend up like a protein shake and then put it through the creamy machine to make it like ice cream, again, paired with fruit. So that's kind of like my protein treat with fruit is my snack. And then for lunches, I always take whatever we had for dinner the night before. Again, I don't have to figure out calories that way. I already figured it out for dinner. So then in my fitness power, I just have to go dinner last night and put it in makes things just so much easier. And decision fatigue is a theme too, right? When you sit and you're like, well, I don't know what to eat. Well, if you just know, this is what you're always having. And so the other thing is, like, I know that in the past, one of the reasons that I failed was because I like to feel full. I hate feeling hungry. And I know that you and Mike say, you know, hunger is not an emergency, but being hunger is hard, right? And so I don't like being hungry. So one trick, I think is one of the best things that I learned from you. You say to eat a big-ass salad every day. And so I really took that to heartjordan. I eat a big-ass salad for lunch and dinner every single day. But that's not my main meal. I eat that as like the appetizer before my meal. So and when I say big, I mean, like the Costco-sized tub of mixed baby greens, that lasts me four salads. I love that. So like when I say big, I mean big, right? And I remember people, different podcasters that I listened to saying, like, you know, don't miss the force through the trees. Let us some broccoli. That's not what's making you fat. You don't have to worry about weighing out. Is it 20 ounces of broccoli or 30? Like who cares? It's like, it's not going to matter, right? Like, that's not what's making you fat. It's what you put on it. It's making you fat, right? So I make my giant salad and I play it around with all different kinds of dressings, your dressings. They weren't my thing. I like 20 grams of real ranch, like restaurant quality, best I can find, but I measure out my 20 grams. It's 93 calories. And then I learned that if you put salt and pepper on your greens, it really brings out the flavor of everything. So that's what I do. I eat that before I eat the main part of my meal. So I'm already feeling bold. So smart. And I know, like, you know, at holidays and stuff, my family, they see me get this serving size bowl. And I feel it in there like, and I'm like, it works. It works. The salad works. It's a real trick of the trade. So, you know, I took my, I give myself about 1,800 calories for the day plus or minus 100 on either side. And so I divided that up kind of equally. And I found that for me, if I stick to the same number of calories for breakfast, lunch, and or snack, again, less decision fatigue, right? It's the same, same number. So I've divided it so that I get about 525 calories for breakfast, lunch, and then about a 225 calorie snack. I can play with it a little, but that's kind of the plan. And I know that the salad dressing is 90 calories, which leaves me about 430 to play with for the rest of my meal. So I prioritize, like you taught me protein and fiber. You said to do, you know, about a gram of protein per pound of goal body weight. So I do 150 grams of protein. So people think eating that much protein is really hard. But it's not your Instagram post. I don't know if it was yesterday or the day before we were talking, you were shoving the chicken in your face. And I was like, it's not, it's not hard to eat that much protein. You know, so it's like 30 or 40 grams at each meal, and then like 20 grams for my snacks, something like that. I do try to get like 40 ish or more grams of fiber a day. Again, people think that that's hard. No, it's not. Eat some all-brand buds at breakfast at 17 grams right out the gate, right? It's not hard. All-brand buds, oatmeal, beans, brown rice, berries like you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, any of it, the low carb tortillas, all those things. And that's, that makes you feel full, right? And so if you, you're eating the same things every day, less decisions that you're having to make. And then for me, I've known that these things become a habit because it feels wrong when I'm not doing it, right? Like if I, if I don't do it, then I'm going to feel, I don't know if guilty is the right word, but it may be a little bit of guilt, but like it's not my routine. It's not what I've become accustomed to, right? That's when you know it's become a real habit. And the other thing I've had to really embrace is like there's not good foods and bad foods, right? And it's important to acknowledge, I think, that food can and does bring comfort and joy. People who say food is, food is just fuel, like no, that's not true. Food can make you happy, right? Certain foods do taste really good. Certain foods do bring back memories and, and things like that. And some foods fill you up more than others, right? I'm a volume eater. I like to feel full. So, for example, brown rice, white rice, they have roughly the same amount of calories. Some people were for white rice because of the taste. And like, I remember you did a post about it. And I was like, Oh my God, I can eat white rice because I was not white rice is bad, right? And so I had started cooking white rice. But to be honest, white rice doesn't fill me up, brown rice does. And so I choose the brown rice, not because it's nutritionally superior, but because I feel full. So smart, so smart. You know, but other people might like the taste better. And so I'd done so many different variations of low carb and keto and whatever. And I really thought the carbs were bad and that that was responsible for my weight gain. And I remember one of the other podcasters that I listened to for mental mind shift stuff is Jared Hamilton. And I remember he said, you know, you need to make yourself eat the foods that you go crazy with. You need to make yourself eat those on a regular basis so that you can teach yourself that those are not demonized bad foods. You need to make yourself learn that you can eat those things in moderation. You know, so he's like, go go buy yourself a single serving of it. Eat the single serving. Show yourself stack that as a win. I ate that. I was in control of it. It didn't make me go off the ledge. I didn't say effort and just eat whatever for the rest of the day. You know, and when you start doing that, you start to teach your mind. Oh, it's not that food. The series of decisions, right? And so I plan them in. So like, you know, a cup of pasta, a single doughnut, people demonize those things. But in isolation, it's like 200 or 300 calories. Exactly. If you, if you want it, eat it, log it, like take those calories from somewhere else. But what happens is you eat that and then you feel guilty. And then you're like, well, screw it. And then the whole rest of the day, you now have over eaten by 1000 or 2000 or whatever calories. Well, no, no, no. And then exit. Okay, I'll start on Monday. Not your 3000 calories in the tank. You could have just had the 300 calorie donut and called it good. But we can't do that because oh my God, donuts are bad, right? So you got to shift your mindset. There's not good foods. There's there's not bad foods. You know, when you do Weight Watchers, they would tell you, Oh, you want to don't well, it's going to cost you three quarters of your daily points, right? He does like, Oh, can't have those at all. You got to just white knuckle your way through life. Can't have any of those foods, right? And so really just embracing the fact that no single food or food group is responsible for what's happening to you, eating in a calorie surplus, right? That's with you. You know, eating in a calorie surplus is what's responsible. You did that great series on you ate stuff to spike your blood sugar every day. Yes. Improved that you could still lose weight, right? That was so powerful for for so many people. And I think too, I hear from some people, well, I can't eat that because if I do, I will spin out of control. I can't have just one cookie. And I think you have to really ask yourself, why? Why can't you have one cookie? Maybe we need to address why you can't have one cookie because I guarantee you there's something that's making you not stop at one cookie. Correct. You know, so you have to kind of think, think about why. And I tell myself all the time, you can have anything, but you can't have everything. And it's all about choices. I get 1,800 calories. I can spend it however I want, as long as I hit my 150 protein, and I hit my 40 grams of fiber after that, whatever I want, right? But there's choices. As you've pointed out, the only way to lose weight is being in a calorie deficit. That's it. So as long as you have or in a deficit, you're going to lose weight. But to be in a deficit, you have to plan and you have to prepare. You can't just lie haphazardly through your day. And then at the end of the day, go back and try to track it and be like, well, I was hoping it was going to hit 1,800. Like, you got to know. So planning and preparing, super big. I make a menu for my family on the weekend. And then I grocery shop. We have like 10 or 12 dinners that we know everybody in the family will eat. We kind of cycle through those. Every once in a while, we'll add something new in. So you have to make a plan. You have to know that you're in a calorie deficit. So I used your goal body weight times 12 formula for me. And then I try to get within 100 on either side of that. That's worked fairly well for me, especially at the beginning. I was really dropping a lot. It slowed down quite a bit over the last couple of months, where now I don't know if maybe I need to adjust it a little bit more. We can talk about that. We can talk about that later, if you'd like. Yeah, please. So I love all my food the night before. And I kind of look at it as like calorie Tetris, like moving stuff around. Am I going to have an ounce or an ounce and a half, but move things around until I get the number. And like I said, choices, right? So like an ounce of cheese, two ounces of avocado, same amount of calories. Well, I probably can't have both. So I have to choose. Do I want the cheese or do I want the avocado? And there's so many cool products on the market right now. I'm not doing keto, never going back to keto or low carb, but those car balanced tortillas. So good. So good. And 70 calories, right? So good. And then the Oreo wheat keto buns. Oh my gosh, Jordan, amazing. They're 80 calories. There's actually another brand. I think it's nature's own 60 calories for a bun. And they taste exactly like, they taste exactly like normal. I serve them to my kid the other night, because we were out of buns. She didn't even know. She just ate her turkey burger on it and didn't even know. So they taste great. And it's half the calories of a normal bun. Can I have the regular bun? Absolutely. Of course. But if I choose the other bun, I could put the cheese on it. I could have avocado on it. I could have a little french fries on the side. So it's all about choices, right? And people say, Oh, and I used to do this to oh my gosh, it would be so time consuming to track all your food. No, it's like five minutes. And when you eat the same things all the time, that makes it a lot easier, right? And then the other thing, you like, you need to be able to advocate for yourself. Like don't rely on other people to provide what you need. So like, if you're going somewhere, if it's like a really special occasion, okay, fine eat it. But if it's just like a you're going to this meeting or this event or whatever, it just bring your own food. I've brought my own food places for the last two years. Nobody cares. Nobody comments. I mean, some people do comment on the size of my salad. I will say that, yeah, because they think that's my meal. They're like, Oh my God. And then I finished that. And then I take out my Tupper with the main part of my meal and they're like, Whoa, the appetizer. But you know, it works. And I think too, you have to really hold yourself accountable. There were so many times when I was doing Weight Watchers, where I would overeat something and then I would just say, Well, I'm just not going to write it down. Like we'll just start over on the day. Well, like news flash, whether you write it down or not, you ate it. Yep. You got to learn to be real and like write it down. And and if you don't acknowledge that there's a problem, how are you going to fix the problem? Correct. Right. And so if you over ate, you need to hold yourself accountable. So for example, guacamole is a food that I struggle with. And I still struggle with it to this day, eating the right amount. And so I will pre log the night before my two ounces. And I do, I try, I try to put guacamole in our menu every single week, because I try if I'm going to eat it, and I'm not deprived, it's a part of my regular routine. But I'll be honest, every time we have guacamole, I have to really think about here's my two ounces. You don't need the rest of it. You have your two ounces for lunch tomorrow. The rest, if there's any more left in the bowl, it's going to go in the garbage. You don't need to sit there and finish the bowl. And the times when I do, I'm like, you need to go change that to four ounces of guacamole. You need to be honest with yourself. And if you're over by 200 calories for the day, then you ate it. You need to acknowledge it. And one of the promises that I made for myself was that I was going to stick to my calorie goal. So if you don't, you need to acknowledge that you've just broken a promise to yourself. And that's making you lack integrity. You have integrity, hold yourself accountable, address the problems. That's how you're going to become better. And if there's certain foods that you notice you're doing that on, like guacamole for me, think about why, right? And try to make that a part of your week, I guess. I think letting people know to what you're doing, let them help you, let them be your cheerleaders. And then I guess the other thing that I wrote down is like, you got to be willing to do the work and control the controllables. And there's certain things that we have absolute control over, how much we're eating, what we're eating, how much we're moving, how much we sleep to some extent, right? Unless we have little kids that are making it hard. You can control how much water you're drinking. You can't control what the scale does, right? And a good example of that is like, when I got to 99 pounds, I was so excited. It took three weeks to get from 99 to 100. And I'm weighing myself every day. So that's 21 times I skipped on the skill going, oh, today, and then you just have to keep doing it, right? You can't control the scale. So control what you can control. You just have to put your head down and do the work, right? And one of the Peloton instructors says frequently, you can't be upset about the results you didn't get as a result of the work you didn't do. So if you're not putting in the work, then don't complain, right? So you got to just put your head down and push yourself and remind yourself that not all of your work is a reflection of the scale, right? And so I shared with you that about the one year mark is when I started doing strength training. And man, my strength has just taken off. I'm lifting double, if not triple, a lot of what I was doing when I started, right? That's my excitement every week is knowing like, oh, I went up five pounds or whatever, I can do two more reps than I did last week. So I try to never stay stagnant with that. But the scale has really slowed down since I started doing the weight training. The calories have stayed the same, but the scale has slowed way down. But the exciting thing is, is the last few months is when I've really noticed my body shape changing, like things are chiseling. And you know, somebody said to me the other day, oh my gosh, you have a waist, like, you know, like, because I always just had a giant stomach, but it's like, you know, getting whittled away. So I think knowing that the scale isn't your only sign of progress, getting stronger is a sign. Your clothes fitting differently is a sign. People commenting that, wow, you're really looking different. Like that's a sign. It's not only the scale, but man, we want to see that number. Um, and so, you know, seeing results requires that you challenge yourself, right? So you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in your workouts. If you do the same thing all the time and you're never pushing yourself, that you're not going to really see the progress. And I think just acknowledging, like, you're going to mess up. It's inevitable. Like no one is perfect. Do you have to acknowledge the mess up? Don't brush it under the rug or ignore it or pretend that it didn't happen. I think you have to look at it and really analyze it. Like, why did that happen? What were you feeling and really get in your head? What triggered that? How could we avoid it next time and maybe get to a point where like you can stop mid mess up and go, wait, why am I doing this? And then stop. And there's been some times where I've been able to do that, where I've been able to stop and say, wait, you don't have to let this keep going on. You can make what's in your mouth right now be your last bite of this. You don't have to keep doing the damage. You know, but it's hard to do that because for so long you taught yourself, wow, I already screwed up. Like, you know, we'll just start over. So I think letting go of that, you know, all or nothing mindset, like, oh, I already screwed up. So we'll just start over Monday. Um, you know, another thing that, that I've heard Jared say is like brushing your teeth as a habit. Like, if you forgot to brush your teeth on Monday or on, you know, whatever day, would you just be like, Oh, we forgot that. I guess we'll start brushing our teeth again on Monday. Like, no, you go brush your teeth. Like, you just get right back on track. And one of the things that, that James said in his book is like, don't let two mess ups happen in a row. So if you mess up on something, get right back on track, because if you have two mess ups, you're now establishing a new bad habit. So course correct after the first bad habit. Um, I think social media is, I mean, it can be good and bad, but it can be a really powerful tool for, for learning. I learned so much from you and your social media, your podcasts, there are so many good inspirational stories out there. I love the series that you did with with Alyssa. It was funny when, when I made the 100 pound post on Inner Circle, you know, first Alyssa commented, I was like, Oh my gosh, Alyssa commented. And then the next day, I was like, Oh my gosh, Jordan commented. I couldn't believe it was crazy. So, you know, like I said, to be like, I've learned so much from you, the amount of content that you put out for people to help is just, it's, it's crazy. There's so much out there for people, they just have to be willing to pick it up and absorb it and learn from it. And when I shared those 100 pound celebration photos, you know, I'm, I know I'm not at the end of my journey. I know I'm not an expert by, by any means, but I did have several people reach out and you're like, what are you doing? What is your secret? What is, what is the magic? And, and so, you know, it, it inspired me to like, I'm not an expert, but I have walked in these shoes and I have failed over and over and over again for 20 years. And I finally found what works. And it's you and your advice and in establishing these healthy habits and just changing your mindset. And so, I have started posting some of these tips and tricks that I've talked about on Instagram so that hopefully, you know, kind of help, help inspire other people and, and what's your Instagram? Do you want to share it? Oh, um, it's all lowercase. It's my name. So Nicole and I see OLE. Last name is Lucy, L-U-C-I-D-I 98. Okay, perfect. Yeah. To try to help inspire other people because I think when you're in the trenches and you're just really overweight and obese, you see other people, but you're like, okay, but I can't do that. Like you can do it. It's a matter of one small thing at a time and stacking those things on top of each other. So what I've been trying to do is post one healthy habit that I've done a day so that people can just implement that one healthy thing. And I think you have to be okay with making yourself a priority in your life. I think too often, we prioritize everyone and everything else and we come last. But that's not the way it has to be. It's okay to say no to things. Someone else can do them. It's okay to say no to things that add unneeded stress to your life or that's not going to serve you. And I think the other thing is we're always looking for the easiest thing. We're always looking for the quick fix. How am I going to get it the fastest? But the next 12 months are going to pass one way or the other. And if you told someone you can lose a pound a week, they'd be like, yeah, it's not fast enough. But that's 52 pounds a year. That's 100 pounds in two years. And those months are going to pass anyway. So you can do what I've done in the past and yo-yo your way through 20 or 30 pound losses. Oh my gosh, I lost five pounds in a week. It's so great. Well, it's not because it doesn't last, right? Or you can be happy with a pound a week. And that pound a week stacks and compounds and now you're down 100 pounds. And not only are you down 100 pounds, but you've now become a new person who has healthy habits. And you're not fearful of what's going to happen when I stop doing this diet because it's not a diet. You've created a lifestyle, right? And so I think people need to be okay with slowing down and looking at the wins, right? Like I used to have to shop in plus size stores. And to be honest, it was getting embarrassing because I was at like the top of the plus size sizes. Like I was in like a women's 26, 28. And I was like, well, now what am I going to do? And now this summer, I've been able to just walk into any store that I want and just get a women's extra large. And it's like mind blowing that I can shop anywhere now, you know? My resting heart rate used to be in the 80s. And now it's in the 50s, right? And that's from doing that cardio every day. I used to, you've probably seen them on Instagram. People post about doing like 30 minute incline walk at 15% incline and 8.0 speed or whatever. I tried doing that at the beginning of all my like, I couldn't even last like two minutes. It was so hard. I couldn't even do it. So I have challenged myself to do incline walking. And I've raised gradually from 3% incline to 5% incline, you know, and gone up in the amount of time. And the other day, I did 45 minutes at a 12% incline. And I was like, blown away. I'm not quite at that 15% incline, but I will get there. That is amazing. Yeah, thank you. So little things like that, like, I couldn't do this a year ago or two years ago. And now I can and constantly striving to be just a little bit better, right? And learning to be patient, right? Like, I think we live in this Amazon Prime Society, where we want everything delivered the same day or two days later. If we have to wait two weeks for something to be delivered, oh my gosh, I'll order it from somewhere else. Like, we need it fast. We're always looking for the quick fix. I need it right now. But like, weight loss, unfortunately, doesn't work that way. So I think, you know, if you if you establish a calorie deficit, and you track your calories, and you move your body, and you're just ruthlessly consistent with those things, and you learn to move your body for heart health reasons, but you really embrace the fact that nutrition is what's driving the fat loss car, right? Like you and Susan say that all the time, you're not going to outrun your fork. And learn to prioritize yourself. It's okay to ask for what you need. It's okay to get what you need to make your goals happen. It's going to pay off. And so, you know, Jordan, I can't, I can't thank you enough because, I mean, I did the work, but I wouldn't have been able to do the work without the tools. And so you seriously have, have changed my life. And I know you're going to change so many other people's lives too. So thank you. Well, Nicole, I'll tell you what, I think this is probably the best podcast I'll ever publish. And I, this will be the one I speak the least in. Like, literally, like, I'm blown away. I feel so blessed to have you to speak to right now. And you, I'm speechless, which is very rare. Everything you just said, I, I don't think you understand how much this is going to help people. I, I don't, I hopefully they follow you. I'll put your Instagram in the show notes, and hopefully they'll follow you from that and they'll message you. I literally have nothing to add the first time in the history of my podcast. There's nothing that I can add. You said everything perfectly. I do have some questions if that's okay with you. But really, like, throughout, when you were talking, you're like, oh, no, you answered that question. No, you answered that question. Like, you covered everything. Like, you are very prepared and you're so articulate and well-spoken and you're passionate and, and you're correct in it. Like, just, you covered everything. Like, it was what you just said was one of the most amazing things I've ever heard in my entire career. And I don't say that lightly. So. Thank you. Well, you taught me all of it. Please bear with me while I'm like overcoming just this shock of just hearing one of the most incredible stories I've ever heard. The one thing, and I do want to talk about your calories because I know you said it slowed down a lot and I want to discuss that with you. One thing that you did mention and you did briefly speak about was how when you were at 99 pounds, there was a three-week period, a 21-day period where you didn't go, you didn't get to that 100 pounds, which when you say it, when you say 21 days, when you say three weeks, it just rolls off the tongue. It happens, it comes out very fast and da-da-da. But when you're weighing yourself every day, one or two days feels like a long time. Never mind three weeks. And I'm assuming, correct me if I'm wrong, you didn't change your calories those three weeks. You didn't add more exercise those three weeks. You kept the plan, the plan, and you kept going for those three weeks. And this is, by the way, for the 100 pound mark, number one, am I correct in saying all that? And number two is, did this ever happen before then? Were there other periods of time where there were plateaus and you just kept going? Can you talk about that? Yeah, you're correct with what you said. It was excruciating those three weeks. For the first week, you kind of play it off like, okay, well, whatever. And then the second week, you're like, oh my god, are you kidding me? And I would get so close, I would get within 0.2 of it. And I was like, but it's not at 100. And it was, it was really, really frustrating. But what I kept telling myself is like, if you deviate from the plan, that's not what's going to get you to your goal. You know you're doing everything right, you need to just be patient. And if you were just patient, eventually, the scale will move. And it did, but it took a long time. And yeah, you know, before, because I didn't join the inner circle right at the beginning of my journey. So I actually have another sheet where I have all my weights from every week, you know, I put it in every week for the whole time. And there were other periods of time where every three, you know, three or four weeks, it would stay the same, and then a big jump, and then three or four weeks, and then a big jump. But that's not regular, you know, like maybe that's happened four or five times throughout like the two years, most of the time, you know, at the beginning, I was losing, you know, two to three pounds a week, pretty, pretty consistently. You know, I lost, I'd have to go back and look, but I think I lost about 70 pounds in the first year. And then in the, in the second, it's been 19 months when the first year was about 70 pounds, and then you know, about 30 pounds in that second chunk of time. And in that second years, when I started the strength training. And so like I said, that's when like the inches started to shrink a lot more, but the scale, you know, slowed to more like a half a pound to pound on a good week. So yeah, I don't know if I've played around with some weeks, I don't even know like how to describe it, but I lowering my calories slightly. But I'm afraid of actually changing the goal number in my fitness pile to a lower number, because 1800 is what I've had the whole time. And I'm scared, I know that I can hit 1800. And I'm scared that if I change it mentally, it'll mess with me. And I won't be able to hit that number. And so what I've done instead is left it at 1800, but then challenged myself to leave like a hundred to 150 calories in the bank on days when I can. And that way I'm not changing a number that I'm going to be like, Oh, now you have 1600, that's going to be so hard to hit. Leave it at 1800, but can you leave some extra in the bank? And so I've played around with, you know, taking 75 off breakfast and 75 off lunch and 75 off dinner. Okay, well, now you're 150, but you didn't really have to give up that much. But I also, because I still have a ways, you know, to go before I get to where I want to be. And so I don't want to get to a point where I'm eating an amount that feels like I'm restricted or insisting. Well, I feel like 1800 has been a very positive number for me. And I, it's manageable, I guess. So I don't know if you have any advice about what, what to do next. So I'll start by saying, I think the most important thing is that any period of time where there was a plateau, you didn't change anything. From the perspective of others listening, that's, and I know you know this, because people will, in their eyes, not make progress for a day, two days, five days a week, and then they say it's not working, and they just throw in the towel, which is the dumbest fucking thing ever. So for people to hear that from your mouth and say, no, like, for two weeks, three weeks, like it didn't lose anything. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And congratulations, because it's very difficult. It's not easy, but you did it and you're reaping the rewards. Now, you also said it's about 70 pounds in that first year or so, which is like about a pound and a half a week on average, right? So it's like, when you go week by week or even month by month, you might have weeks or months where it's several pounds in that, in that week, but average wise, like it's a little over a pound a week, which is phenomenal. I love that. And then a little bit slower in the, what's the total timeframe now that it's been for the 19 months? 19 months. Okay, perfect. So almost a few years, which is also an amazing note for people that it's not going to happen in 30 fucking days, 19 months. It's just extraordinary, extraordinary work. So I you're so smart for so many different reasons. I love that you're so aware objectively of I think it might mess with me mentally if I lower the calories, so I'm going to keep them at the same calories. But if I have a day where I like, you know, if I can save a few calories here, like, it's such an intelligent and objectively aware strategy. I think that it's so smart to stay at 1800. For whatever it's worth, 1800 seems to be that line of like 1800s a really good amount of calories to be having any lower than that. And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, feel like I'm restricting a little bit. So I think it's a really good place to stay. And I think, and I don't think I know this, you stay at 1800, you keep everything else you're doing. The progress will still come. It's just going to be much slower, especially with the added strength training. You are building muscle, which you weren't doing before. You will weight loss will be slower. Your body composition will be changing for the better, as you've noticed with people making comments and all of that. So the weight loss will be slower. Not only going by the scale is going to be unbelievably important. And as you know, but if you understand that weight loss will be slower, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, because you are building muscle, not only muscle, you're actually, and this is one of the craziest things to me is you're adding bone on your body. Like your bones are building more bone. They're getting, it's crazy. It's, it's, I think it's one of the most overlooked aspects of strength training, where we've all heard, yes, you get older bone density declines and especially women, their bone density goes down. If you do some research into what bone density looks like in a 70 or 80 year old woman, some woman who's strength trains versus woman who doesn't, it's going to blow your fucking mind. Like bone density in a 70, 80 year old woman, she doesn't strength train, it looks like Swiss cheese. And it's, it's not a surprise that like, it shatters from something like, never mind falling, like sneezing. And then for a woman who does strength train, it's, it looks completely different. So you have to remember, it's not only the muscle, it's literally building bone. And then not to mention your tendons and your ligaments are reinforcing, they're getting stronger, they're adding mass to it at a much slower rate, but it's still happening. So I don't think you should change it. I think your mentality is completely right. I think it's incredibly intelligent. It's, I love your long term view of this. So I think you should stay at 1800 for a very, very long time, potentially, for the rest of your life. Like, yeah, 1800, 1900 range could potentially be where you are forever. And it would be a very slow and sustainable body recomposition, more muscle, less fat, that would happen over time. And you know, what you see now, if you stay at 1800 to within three to five years, it's going to be fucking wild. It's the it's going to be absolutely wild. And you don't even need to change your calories. Keep your protein, keep your fiber, keep strength training, keep your movement. Like, it's going to be a wild transformation. That could just wind up being my maintenance calories. Yes, it's exactly right. That's exactly right. Because eventually you'll reach a point where you're not losing weight anymore, but you've got a while, like that it will be a while before that happens. So I think you stick with this for a long time and understand that maybe over the next year, maybe it's 25 to 30 pounds over the next year. Okay. Cool. 25 to 30 pounds. And that obviously is not taking an account that you've built muscle. You've built bone, you've built tendon and ligament. So it's like, yeah, 25 to 30 pounds of pure fat while getting stronger, building muscle is pretty freaking amazing, especially if you don't have to reduce your calories further. If you can keep it at 1800 and have that happen over a year. And then the year after that, maybe it's 10 to 15 pounds. And then the year after that, maybe it's five to eight pounds. And all of a sudden your maintenance, and it's very enjoyable. You can stick with it. And your body looks completely different. I think that's a really, really good perspective and a realistic view of progress. Okay. No, that's really reassuring to hear. Because like I said, I really tried to think about and analyze why I failed in the past. And I don't want to ever feel like I'm deprived, you know, or I can't have something. I feel like that's when I go off. And so like you said, 1800, very doable number. You can eat a decent amount of food for 1800 calories. And honestly, I feel like I could do 1800 for the rest of my life and be fine. So that's actually really good to hear. Good. That was really my main question, Nicole. Like, is there anything else? I want everyone to follow you. So please, I'm going to put your your handle in the show notes. But the truth is, Nicole, you said everything I could ever say. Is there anything that you want to leave people with? Is there anything else that you would like to say? Because I think this is literally going to be my best podcast ever. And I barely spoke, which just makes me incredibly happy. So is there anything that you would like to leave people with? I just, I spent so many years spinning my wheels and never really thinking it was going to be possible. And I remember sitting in the hospital and the doctor told me, you know, you're going to need to lose, you know, 100 for it to be safe to do it lap or shopping. And I remember thinking in my head, yeah, you're going to try your best and you're probably going to get to 250. But at least that'll be closer than where you are. So like, let's just go for that. You know, and I never, ever thought I would actually get to where I'm at. I never thought I would. This is like, amazing for me. And I think sometimes it's discouraging because I look at other people who they're just starting at the weight where I am. And they're talking about how horrible they look in photos. And oh my gosh, I'm so miserable. I'm so fat. And I'm like, well, that's where I am at. And I'm just like, I feel really good about that. Because like, you don't know what it was like to be, you know, where it was hard to walk up a flight of chairs or stairs, or you had to worry about, am I going to fit in that chair or not? And oh, I can't shop at that store. Like, there's all these things that go through your mind all the time. And you're constantly thinking and worried about thing. And so I just, I want people to know that like, I'm a real person who really struggled. And it wasn't easy. I don't want people to think that that it was easy. It wasn't easy. This took being motivated by fear. And I know you've said that a lot of the people that you've talked to have had significant weight loss, it's it's been by fear. Yes. And I, now that I've lived it, I 100% agree with it, because I tried so many times and was never motivated until fear. Right. So I think sometimes we, we look at people and we think, well, but they're unrelatable, or I'm not like them, like, no, I am a normal person. And I did struggle for so many times. And I whatever diet you've tried, I've tried it to trust me, like, and you can change. But it literally takes a commitment and you're not going to change until you're ready to change. Something has to motivate you. Something has to scare you. You have to be okay with really changing who you are. This can't be a temporary fix. And really embracing playing it for a long period of time. And even if that progress is slow and it's funny because you just told me, okay, so over the next year, like maybe you're going to lose 25 or 30 pounds, and like, that's okay. You tell the average person that, and they're going to say, that's not fast enough. And like the old me would have said, that's not fast enough. But the thing is, I know now that is fast enough because it's sustainable. Because like you said, I'm now, especially now that you've confirmed it, I'm going to be able to eat the 1800 calories for the rest of my life. I don't ever have to go off of this. And so people need to know you can do it. Believe that you can do it. Make a list of things that you can commit to changing. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Things that you know, like, I think that that ceiling and fore analogy is a really good one. That was genius. That was real. I'm going to use that one. That was genius. What can you commit to on your worst day and do it all the time? And just believe that you can't surround yourself with the community that inspires you. Your inner circle community that you have created is amazing. You know, I lurk in there a lot. I see what other people are posting. You have people that are just starting their journey. And then you have people that have been in there for a really long time. And you learn a lot by seeing what other people are posting and what they're doing. And I think I'm a walking advertisement for your inner circle workouts. That's the best thing. And you know, kind of the icing on the cake with all of this is I've gotten my husband to start doing the workouts with me. Yes, I love that. Yeah. And so he never used to be a morning person or anything like that. But he, for the last couple of months, he has consistently gotten up at five o'clock and we go down and we do all workout together. Yeah. That's impressive. Waking up at five to get a workout in, especially as a parent and you're working it. Like when you're in college, like, okay, yes, it's impressive, but it's different when you're when you're getting older, you've got kids, you have other stuff going on, it's different. And so obviously huge props to you. Please extend my congratulations to him as well, because that's that's a hard habit to break or to add, I would say, is getting up at five. That's a fucking hard habit. And then being like, I'm not only am I up, I'm working out like, ooh, that is really tough. So huge props to him for that as well. And great for you for being the inspiration for him to do that. And what's another thing is you've been at this for 19 months. It's only in the last few months that he started to do that. It's yeah, some people want to change their spouse. It's like, how do I change my spouse? It's like, well, you should live it for a while. And oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes just modeling the behavior that you want them to have just without even saying anything, just modeling it is enough for them to eventually dive in. So I mean, just what an incredible, incredible, incredible person you are. Your kids are blessed to have you, your husband is blessed to have you. I hope that you are incredibly proud of yourself. And thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I hope that you get flooded with messages and DM's after this. What I'm going to do is I'm going to hit stopper cord just so I can say an actual goodbye to you. But Nicole, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Jordan. You seriously, like I said before, I mean, you, you changed my life. And then of this would have been possible without you. So I know that you have passion for what you do. It exudes in everything that you do and that you post, but honest heartfelt. Thank you. Thank you, Nicole. [BLANK_AUDIO]