Maggie
Okay. Hello, everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to a very special episode of the podcast. I know I say that about every episode, but they’re all amazing. For the last few months, I have been working with a Health Coach that I’m going to introduce to you today.
I asked her to come on and share some of the work that we’ve been doing together. I want to share some of my favorite lessons that I have learned from my Coach with all of you. And before I dive in with her intro and all the details about her, I want to talk a little bit about health at any size and the Healthy at Any Size Movement.
I do believe we can be healthy at any size. And I believe there are individual things we can do to help our health. And there are also systemic things that affect all of us in different ways. And that ocean that we swim in matters in terms of the cultural narratives that we are surrounded by when it comes to food, nutrition, health, and so many other topics.
So I really want to call that out and honor that even as I share with you my own individual story and my own individual journey with my own health. So now I want to quote Lindo Bacon, one of the founding leaders of the Healthy at Any Size Movement.
And Lindo says, “It’s important to acknowledge that the ability to make personal behavior changes is a class privilege in and of itself. And then Lindo further says, “Naming inequity and systemically working towards a fairer world is important not just on a systemic level, but on an individual level. Naming and acknowledging the social roots of health inequities can help a person lighten up on self blame, realistically consider their life circumstances, and come up with solutions that best allow them to engage in self care.”
And I think that was just such an important thing to say and to share with all of you in terms of where my heart is around this conversation. So, that being said, I want to share some personal changes that have been very impactful in my life, and how I’ve navigated them within the context of my marriag. Some of the challenges that I’ve had, as I’ve changed some of my eating habits and approach to eating in my relationship.
Because I know that sharing stories is one of the ways we heal, and I definitely, you know, love to share mine whenever I can, whenever I think they will be useful for you. Okay, sometimes when you share only one story, other stories are left out. So I want to honor that and say, this is my personal story with personal choices that I’ve made that make so much sense for me.
And what I invite you to do as we listen is not to necessarily make the same choices that I make, but to notice your ability to make a choice, and to think about what choices feel most nourishing and most loving to you. Okay, all that being said, let’s dive in.
Here’s what happened. I had high blood pressure. I had very high blood pressure. It was so high that it freaked me out. I cried. I cried the ugly cry. I got very nervous. It was a very, you know, I’m sharing this story with a smile in my heart now, but at the time, it was very devastating. And I was very concerned about my health. And it was a very scary moment to me.
And it was, at the same time, such a blessing because it shook me. And sometimes those moments that shake us, that wake us up, help us start a new chapter in our lives or help us make a new beginning or a new choice. And in that moment that I was so completely shook, I really decided to commit to my health, to my physical health, the same way that I’m committed to my emotional and mental health.
So I’m a person who believes that my emotional and mental health are really important. And I spend a lot of time cultivating and working on my emotional mental health. And the truth is, I wasn’t doing the same with my physical health. I wasn’t what I would call in right relationship with my body. It’s kind of like my body was there, but I wasn’t really focused on it. I wasn’t giving it loving care and attention.
So after I finished crying, I knew I wanted to work with a Health Coach. And one of the things about being a Coach is you know that if there’s anything you want to develop in your life, anything that you want to create, there’s a Coach who specializes in that and you can get help. And you can get shortcuts and you could get hacks that they spend 1000s of hours thinking about where you just come in, get the help and keep going.
So I know I do that with my Marriage Coaching clients. And I know that our guest today does that with all her Health Coaching clients. And I call her my Health Coach and not my Weight Loss Coach with so much love and intention because I really love her approach, which I find to be very holistic and we’re about to talk about in a moment.
Very holistic of looking at the whole human — mindset, weight loss when that’s appropriate, physical health, whether it’s exercise movement and that being in right relationship with your body. So You all know I love mixing intuition with science and how our thoughts determine our experience and our how our mindset is so important.
So once I knew what I wanted, I immediately knew that my friend and now my Coach, Jaime Morocco, was the person that I wanted to help me and guide me through creating a new relationship with my body.
So Jaime is an expert at healthy fat loss. She is a trained Nutritionist with Precision Nutrition. She’s a Certified Fitness Trainer, and a Master Mindset Coach. And I have to tell you, those three things put together were one of the reasons I reached out to her.
I really wanted to work with someone who understood the science, understood the mindset, and can help me with challenges in both areas. And she’s a truly fabulous human. I am so excited to have her join us and to share some of our work together today. So welcome, Jaime.
Jaime Morocco
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Maggie
So first of all, I wanted to talk about the nutrition side, because you trained with Precision Nutrition. And this is kind of a funny story. After I hired you, I looked up all your training. I was already all in. And I was like what is this Precision Nutrition thing?
So I look them up. And they work with Olympians. And my thought about that was, if it’s good for Olympic athletes, it’s good for me. I’ll take it. Sold. But also, I’m not an Olympic athlete. So what we’re going to talk about today is nutrition for regular people with jobs and families and trips and all the things that we have going on in life.
So tell us a little bit about just that nutritional background and why you decided, you know, you obviously, have done a lot of continuing education. And I believe in that so much too. Why you decided that was really important to you. Why you decided to pursue that?
Jaime Morocco
I decided to pursue it because I grew up overweight, unhealthy, high cholesterol, eating McDonald’s and takeout. And felt really uncomfortable in my weight for the first — and in my health — for the first part of my life. And eventually, I ended up you know, losing the weight and getting healthier and feeling more aligned in my body. And I saw how big of an impact it had on me.
And as I went through that journey that was like in my late teens and early 20s, I really wanted to understand the science behind how I did it. I also wanted to understand how can I maintain this while traveling? I loved to travel ever since I was young. While traveling and being social and doing all these things and really make it a lifestyle.
So it was, you know, my desire to learn was first for personal reasons. And then when I became a personal trainer and eventually started my online business. As I had clients with different experiences, I wanted to learn how do I adapt my skill set to best serve as many women as I can.
Maggie
I love that so much. So I’m going to give you some behind the scenes of a little bit of the work that we do and some of just my experience in Jaime’s program. And I just have to share this one memory that I have.
It was my first month in the program and somebody raised her hand and asked a question and just gave like a set of facts. You know, this had happened to them. And that had happened to them. And Jaime was just listening, you know, it’s not like she had an encyclopedia out or anything like that. But this person said, like two or three things.
And then Jaime said, “Well, have you ever had this, this and this? Because it sounds like it might be that this is going on.” And it was like this very obscure, you know, allergy to a particular thing. And I remember just thinking, this is why you work with people who believe in continuing education, who know their topic inside out.
Because the moment that person just raised her hand, it was like Jaime knew exactly how to help her navigate. And I think she was also traveling and like this person was like, you know, planning whatever she was trying to figure out what she was trying to do.
And I just remember that moment as, like how much loving care you put into the support that you give your clients. And I think, you know, in the Coaching industry also, overall, I think it’s important to be a stand for that.
It’s like we do this continuing education and the different things that we we talk about, because when someone comes to us, it’s like, hold on, could it be this, this or this? Let’s check. Right? And very often, it isn’t always, but very often, it is those things. I just wanted to like really celebrate that with you.
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, totally. And that’s where also, you know, to answer your question because I’m also certified in Nutritional Therapy which is like functional nutrition. But that also came out of personal experience and that my hormones got all wonky, you know, in my 20s.
So that came as a desire to first be like I need to figure this out for myself so that I can help other people and you know, I was able to do that. And then I had clients with those experiences. And I was able to understand the stress response and what that means for weight loss and water retention and everything. So yeah.
Maggie
So tell us the difference between Nutrition and Functional Nutrition, because I’m sure there are a lot of people like me out there that are like, “Oh, this sounds fascinating. But I have no idea what that is.”
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, absolutely. So I would consider like functional medicine, or Functional Nutrition, looking at the body as a system and not just like — like in the traditional weight loss sense, like a lot of the things I learned in Precision Nutrition, and even before that, just being a personal trainer and studying nutrition on my own, that camp tends to talk a lot about calories and energy, right? Which is really important. It’s a fantastic program.
But there are also other things in the body to consider, like the body is not just a machine. And as we’re learning, and I know you talk about this with your clients too, but stress, whether it be environmental, or mental, emotional, they’re really finding that the body’s response to stress is usually the catalyst for a lot of health, you know, challenges.
So Functional Medicine and Functional Nutrition really looks at that as stress being the catalyst for undesirable, you know, experiences happening in the body. So how do we learn to like mitigate that and support people through it so that their body can can thrive?
Most people spend a lot of their time in a more stressed out state now-a-days. So that means getting a look at like, the foods that you’re eating like 100 calories worth of broccoli, and 100 calories worth of like McDonald’s. They’re not going to operate the same in the body. Not that one is good, and one is bad. It’s just important to understand the awareness and….
Maggie
The nuance of it. My husband and I just did an episode called Relationship Inertia — we’ll link to it in the show notes. Where we were making hibiscus tea as one of the more nutritious things that I’m drinking now.
And that was one of the things that we noticed is like, we — I think he called it like net, like positive versus net neutral versus net negative. And it’s like we talked about soda. And we’re like, oh, hibiscus tea actually proactively does good things in your body once those chemicals are in your body.
And there are other things that you can have, that may not create harm, per se, but they’re not proactively doing, you know, engaging in some kind of physical catalytic response that creates a good reaction in your body. And it’s something that prior to our work together, I never really thought about it twice.
It’s like, oh, you know, that’s so interesting, because we see that on my side of the world, on the emotional side of things and the mindset side of things. How, what our mindset is where I can proactively do good things in our life.
And if we’re proactively, you know, setting positive intentions and going after our goals, and, you know, living into the person we want to become and who we want to be as a wife and as a leader in our lives, that creates all this positive momentum in our life.
And if we’re just at neutral, there comes a moment where a neutral can become actually harmful, because we’re not moving forward, because we’re not creating healthy dynamics, whether it’s now you know, mental or physical. And I think that’s such an important thing to think about in our bodies and to think about in the rest of my life. So I love that you take that approach.
Jaime Morocco
Yeah. And I also think, hey, look, like the occasional like, soda wouldn’t have to necessarily be something that is negative. It’s just in the context, right? If everything else is soda, McDonald’s and chips and cookies, then we’re probably not creating the healthiest condition for our body.
But if most of the time we’re eating foods that are incredibly supportive of how we want to feel in our life, and then you know, you got to trust that your body can handle the soda or the fries or the pizza. I mean, that’s how I live my life and I would be, you know, out of alignment if I told anybody any different.
Maggie
One of the things when I first met Jaime, she was like, “I love cupcakes.” And I was like, wait, you’re a Health Coach, and you love cupcakes? And that was such a fascinating thing to see that it’s, and one of the things that Jaime just talks about all the time, is that our nutrition and the way that we treat our bodies needs to flow with our life.
And someday you’re at a birthday party. You want to celebrate. You want to enjoy the cupcake. Enjoy the cupcake. And also stay focused on your bigger goals or stay focused on whatever your health goals are at that moment and things like that.
Which, let’s talk about a little bit, just sort of broad strokes. You have this process that you take your clients through, that you’re taking me through now. That has these three, really, I find them really fascinating steps. So would you just tell us a little bit about what those steps are and why they’re so important?
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, absolutely. So over the years, out of personal experience, research, education and Coaching over 1000 people at this point, I’ve collected a lot of data. Both qualitative and quantitative about, you know, clients that, you know, they are going through the process, I’m going through the process.
Like, what does it look like for somebody to not just lose weight, but keep it off, because that’s my thing. I’m not in the business of pumping people in and out of a program as quickly as I can, and getting them, you know, to lose 20 pounds in 20 days, like that’s not maintainable.
So what we know about the research is that 97% of people who lose weight are going to gain it back. And I do not believe that it’s the quote unquote, fault of the person. I think that it’s a systemic problem. We’ve been fed a lot of misinformation about food. There’s a lot of fear around food. And we also don’t know how to trust ourselves around it, right?
Like, I know, a lot of the work that you do with your clients is about like — one of the things you told me when I got married. I was like, “Maggie, like, what do you think about this?” And you were like, “Well, how would the best wife show up?”
And I was like, wow, yeah, like, that’s an identity thing. Like, so much of this is about stepping into a new identity, as much as it is about weight loss. So I have developed a framework that I call the 3% framework, and that is really meant to help empower clients to become part of the 3% of people.
Don’t just lose the weight, but keep it off and don’t go back and forth for the rest of their life. Because what fun is that? So in terms of the process itself, there’s three phases. And the first phase is where we’re intentionally working towards that weight loss goal. It’s something that is so important for me is that I do teach clients how to ebb and flow with their life.
So of course, like, in order to lose weight, we need to eat less than we burn, that doesn’t mean we starve ourselves. So I really calorie intake as high as I can keep it for clients, you know, while we’re still getting results.
So we work on that phase. And that tends to be, you know, the longest for people because weight loss time doesn’t take a ton of time. But like I said, 20 pounds and 20 days. No.
Maggie
That’s not what Jaimie’s about. Exactly. I think that’s so important to notice. And just to talk about one of my most fascinating experiences is under eating, right? Like I thought I’d struggle with something else. I didn’t think I would struggle with that.
But what I’ve noticed is I just had no relationship to what I was putting in my body. It was very unintentional, and it was very habitual. And it was very, whatever’s familiar and whatever is easy. And I was mentioning this on one of our calls once that I would eat quick things quickly, right?
And that was, it wasn’t even an intentional thing. But that, upon reflection, what I noticed was I wasn’t making time for food in my life. And now I’m in the stage where — and Jaime will talk about in a moment — where the goal is to eat intuitively and really be able to listen to the signals in my body and to be able to honor those signals.
But how do you feed your intuition? In the beginning, you have to do a lot of observation. You have to do a lot of like, noting — literally collecting evidence, collecting data. And what’s really fascinating is on the marriage side, when I talk to a couple who’s struggling, they often don’t spend a lot of time together. It’s the same dynamic in a different context.
So it’s like, oh, well, first, let’s see what it’s like when you actually spend time together. You actually do like each other. Oh, what a surprise. How delightful. And let’s build on that, right? And so that idea of a slowing down to speed up? I think it’s such an important thing, just to see.
And for whoever’s listening to us right now, think about the areas in your life in which you want to create something different. Where are you going a little too fast, and where can slowing down serve you? I just invite you to think about that. Right? So the first phase is the fat loss phase. And in that phase, that’s what you focus on. And then tell us about the other two phases.
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, yeah. And what I will say to that too is, you know, what’s important in fat loss is that we do teach you how to ebb and flow with your life, right? So if there’s a birthday I’m gonna teach you how to go out to dinner, how to have cake, or how to go to Italy, but I’m gonna have you do it in a way that’s in alignment with a goal, right?
So that’s the fat loss phase. It’s ebbing and flowing. It’s being okay with it’s not going to be perfect and can still get amazing results. And I think you’ve even shared that before.
Maggie
Yeah, yeah.
Jaime Morocco
So that’s the first piece of it. The second piece is something called a reverse diet. Now the reason why this piece is really important is because when we are in a fat loss phase, we’re eating less calories than our body is burning, that’s what causes the body to access the fat stores and start to burn them off.
And the body is also incredibly adaptable. So if you’re eating in a calorie deficit, the body is going to adapt to those low of calories. And you can’t just eat that low of calories, you know, forever. You can’t eat, you know, 1,516 1,700 calories forever, you have to retrain the body to eat more again.
So once the fat loss cycle is completed, we do something that’s really amazing, called a reverse diet. That’s where we slowly add calories back over the course of several weeks, until we get our clients somewhere around the 2,000 mark and some go beyond that, but most tap out around that number.
And that allows kind of the body’s systems to come back up to speed. The first thing that happens when you’re losing weight hormones get a little wonky, hunger and satiety get a little wonky, so that process allows all of those things to come back to a more optimal state.
And then finally, we transition clients to the third and final phase, which is intuitive eating. Because, you know, you’ve taken the time to learn about your food and fat loss and build the metabolism backup and reverse dieting.
As crazy as it sounds, the intuitive eating piece tends to be the easiest for people because they’ve spent all of this time and experience and gaining all of this knowledge in the process. So those are the three phases because, yes, we have our clients track their food, but it’s only to educate them, connect them more and so that they understand how does this affect my goal.
But once you’re at the phase of you finish your reverse diet, now you get to live off of intuition. You’ve taken all the time. You have all the evidence. You’ve learned what is in your food and how it affects your body. So that’s really the goal is live your life, maintain your weight and eat the foods.
Maggie
Right, exactly. What I love about that is that I don’t think we’ve ever stopped to consider — or at least I haven’t, until I really delve into this work — that intuition is something that we nurture. An intuition is like a muscle that gets stronger the more that we nurture it.
My husband who’s like this very sort of linear engineer, you know, mindset, he’s very analytical about things. He says, “Oh, yes, of course, we’re just feeding our intuition.” And so we’ll go — maybe we’ll go make a purchase. We bought like a laptop recently and we read all these different reviews on different laptops and it’s like how do we arrive at the decision that feels intuitively like the best one?
First, we collect some data, and then our highest inner wisdom can then come back with, “Oh, based on your values, based on what’s important to you, based on your goals, based on whatever we want to use as our sort of Northstar. Based on that, intuitively, this feels like the right choice.” Right?
And I think it’s when we look at intuition a little bit differently, I think it adds so much richness to our life, because it’s so similar. Also, when we’re doing marriage work, it’s like, let’s collect some data. I have had many clients tell me their partners don’t care. And then we collect some data. Let’s see. Let’s collect data points.
Oh, they did this for me this week. They did that for me this week. They did this other thing. Oh, they’ve done 14 things. And sometimes they’ll send me a whole list, right, when they start collecting the data. So my hypothesis that my partner doesn’t care was not accurate.
My partner doesn’t necessarily show me that they care the same way that I do, or in the same tasks that I do as tasks. But actually, there’s caring present here. And until we pause and collect that data, then we can make a really powerful intuitive decision because we’re making it off bad data, so to speak.
Jaime Morocco
And emotion, right? And that’s why, you know, can — people are like, well, you, Jaime, I know you’re very into the energetic and spiritual. You just lose weight eating intuitively? And I’m like, you can but for most of us, there is just so much baggage we carry with food and our body.
And it’s very hard when you start a weight loss journey, if you have had, you know, this experience of identification with certain foods is bad or good. It’s going to be very hard to discern intuition from the heady thoughts.
That’s why I’m like, obviously, intuitive eating is the goal for every single person, in my opinion, right? But it’s like, it’s not in my experience, it’s not the best way to start that process, because there’s just too much internal negotiation. Was that my intuition? Or was that a habit?
Maggie
Yes. Yes.
Jaime Morocco
So yeah. So I’m totally with you. Data collection first and intuition then becomes, you know…
Maggie
So much more powerful. And it’s kind of like this, like, I always talk about cleaning up our side of the table, when it comes to relationships. And it’s like, oh, where is it that I have a limiting belief? Where is it that I am misinterpreting something? Where is it that I don’t actually have enough data to even make a decision?
Like, in my case with food, if I look back on how I was eating before, I was eating like a massive amount of fats and carbs and a very low amount of proteins. And I had no idea that there was any relationship between any of these things whatsoever.
And it’s like, oh, if all I do is just eat more protein, it solves half the problem already. Just by knowing that it’s like, oh, that would be something important to include in every meal all the time and a higher degree than I’m used to doing that I’m accustomed to. Right? So it’s just an interesting thing to say.
So one of the things I wanted to mention, before we go into my favorite concepts, is one of the hardest things in the beginning when I started eating differently, was navigating it with my husband. So we used to obviously, as many couples do, eat together and eat the same thing and eat at the same times and eat in the same ways.
And there was literally a day where we were doing something in the kitchen, and I had this realization, like, we may not always eat the same things, we may not always eat at the same times, we may not always do the things the way we used to do them before. And it’s almost like we had to renegotiate our whole approach to meals, just meals in general.
And it takes me a while to plan my meals or to — sometimes when I have a salad, it’s kind of funny, we laugh about it here, you know, we were masters at laughing about things that other couples argue about. That’s one of the things that I think, you know, helps relationships work is when you can laugh about things that you’d have argued about before. Like, look out for those things you can laugh about.
So when I’m going to eat a salad, I measure everything. And I do it because I want to right? Like, you know, Jaime guides me and I take it through my own discernment. And I decide this is a good idea. So I’m doing it and I wanted to share that with everyone because I’m a Coach, and I lead my students and I teach them things, and I give them suggestions.
But I always say to everyone, take everything through your own discernment. And when I’m telling you to do, do it, make it your own, do what works for you. But I have found that it’s really helpful for me to measure things because I want to develop my intuition. And so I measure things, but it takes an extraordinary amount of time to have a salad that has, imagine, seven things in it, you’re measuring every item.
So I have to start a little earlier, right, if I want to eat with my husband at the same time. And if I don’t start a little earlier, then he’ll eat, and then I’ll eat later, right? And in the beginning, we didn’t really know how to navigate that, like we sort of had changed something but not really realized the extent of the change.
And now we flow with it. That’s one of the things that Jaime teaches, which we’ll talk about next is just walk with it. Right? The thing has happened. It might feel stressful, it might feel heavy today, and you know, it might feel like a lot, you know, in different moments.
And we don’t have to completely recover from the thing. We can just walk with that feeling. So anyway, that segue to say, one of my favorite things that you talk about is walk with it. So can you tell us a little bit what you mean by that?
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that when we experience something that might trigger us in life — something that’s hard or challenging — our fight or flight response kicks in. And sometimes we want to clench up and freeze.
And we’re like, once this is resolved, then I can do that, right? And I get that sometimes in very traumatic circumstances, that might be the case. We might literally need to like pause and just feel and feel and move on.
So extreme circumstances aside, though, we’re very resilient. Especially women, right? We’re very strong, and we’re very resilient. But a lot of times our tendency is to tell ourselves that I can’t possibly move forward with weight loss, or my business, or work on my marriage until this happens.
And what I found is the real work comes from when you can pick it up, walk with it and keep moving. I just had a client tell me today — she’s like, “I’m really, you know, just deep diving into some mindset stuff right now. And I don’t — I think might need to put the weight loss on hold.”
And I’m like, I totally hear you. And that’s certainly an option that we can take. But I want us to think about something: what if the actual work is for you to keep going while you’re also doing it?
Maggie
Yes.
Jaime Morocco
And, you know, I think that that’s an important question to ask, right? Because it shows us, hey, I can be going through this thing. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to stop things that I know that I want to work on. Right?
We can dial it back. When we talk about, you know, your program is a dial — not an on or off switch. We can dial back a little bit and that’s okay, but how can we continue to move forward? Because most women’s experience with weight loss is either I’m on or I’m off.
Have the birthday, so I’m off. I’m gonna eat chicken and broccoli, so I’m on. And I’m like, how do we walk with not being perfect, and still just keep moving forward?
Maggie
I love that so much. And I think it’s so important. And in marriage, it’s I — very much Jaime and I will talk behind the scenes. And I’ll say it’s the same, it’s the same all the time. And, one of the things is we don’t have to have every issue resolved in the relationship, to start making progress in the relationship.
Like, there are some things we’re going to have to come back to later. There’s some conversations that might be difficult that we still need to have. But that doesn’t mean that today in this moment, we can’t have a positive interaction.
It doesn’t mean that today in this moment, we can’t practice kindness or gratitude or set a boundary or say no to something or say yes to something, even as we’re figuring the rest out. So for everyone listening, whatever you have going on right now walk with it. You don’t have to have it figured out to do the thing. I love that so much. So simple.
Jaime Morocco
Yeah. So simple. And I think it really came from ultimately clients being afraid, you know, in the beginning of their journey, which is understandable. They’re like, sign up, and they’ve just committed, and they’re like, “what is she going to have me do?” And there’s a lot of fear. It’s like, you can be scared. It’s okay. I never told you not to be afraid. Walk with the fear, right?
Maggie
Yeah exactly. Walk the fear. Just let it be with you. It doesn’t get to drive, but it can be right there right next to you. So the next thing I want to share is something that was inspired by Jaimie, and I said it one day, just offhand. And now it’s become one of my favorite things.
So this is what I say: I say we follow the plan, not the scale. So when I first started working with her, you know, I ate meticulously, you know, the plan that we made together. I followed it to a tee. And then there was a day that I lost weight. And then there was a day that I didn’t lose weight.
And I literally remember I was like, no, the scale must be wrong. Like this isn’t this — it’ll correct itself later in the week. It must be wrong right now. And I just had this thought of, I follow my plan. I don’t follow the scale. The scale will fluctuate. It will go up and down. It will do whatever it does.
But my plan is that I’m following that no matter what and whether you may not be in a weight loss journey, like I am right now. But whatever journey you’re on, think about following the plan and not the external confirmation or affirmation or the thing, right, that you think is what’s going to tell you whether the plan is working or not. When it looks like the plan isn’t working, whatever that is, it’s like no, we follow the plan not the scale.
Jaime Morocco
100%, right? Because especially with weight loss, and I do have clients weigh every day only for the purpose of understanding how to look at data collection and data trends. It’s such a beautiful lesson in itself to like work on the emotion that comes up when you feel like you’ve put in work and then the scale is acting a certain way.
And I’m able to talk someone through that and be like, wait a second, this is just a fluctuation and here are all the reasons why it could be fluctuating. And more than that, that’s usually a previous contention point for a lot of women to say, “Well, I guess it’s not working. I might as well just give up.” And I’m like, no, no, no, it’s working. Just how can we actually keep leaning in right now?
Like, I’ve been, like, you know, like you said, you just continue to lean in and not let the scale — what it’s saying dictate, how do you show up and then eventually it happens, right? It’s the same in business, too. I mean, and I know that you work with a lot of women who are entrepreneurs.
It’s like, we can’t expect that in our, you know, immediately we do something tomorrow and then immediately the next day we see the benefit of that action. Sometimes we might, but it’s not always but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to give up on our mission just because we don’t instantaneously see the fruits of our labor?
Maggie
Yeah, I love that you said that. And I’m gonna take it even one step further. In The Marriage Mindset Makeover — we’ll link to that in the show notes — one of the workshops that I teach, I teach this concept called Compound Emotional Interest. And so think about what Jaime just said about the fruits of our labor.
We don’t necessarily see them tomorrow, immediately, you know, one for one, tit for tat, but what will happen is, we will get a return on whatever investment we’re making. So and that return will multiply. So let’s say that we’re just — we follow the plan not to scale and we eat super healthy. And even if the scale never changed my body, which was what I wanted, my body is healthy.
And my, all the different signs that we check whether it’s cholesterol, or blood pressure, all the different things, right? They’re in check. So that’s what I care about. But when we think about relationships, it’s like we pour love, right? We pour power, we pour presence, we pour whatever we’re going to pour in, and that you may not get tit for tat for tomorrow.
But you’re going to get compound interest. So which it also works in reverse. When we pour resentment and anger and all the other things, we get compound interest on that. So it’s like whatever it is — the goal that’s in front of you, the thing that matters to you the most right now in your life, what deposits are you making?
Just notice what they are. And what if you trusted you were going to get so much compound interest on those deposits, that whatever it says from day to day doesn’t really matter. Because that compound interest is yours already.
Jaime Morocco
Totally, totally. And that’s like what we say in the program that you’re like, no, there is no plan B like, the thing is the thing. And that we’re just not going to stop until we mine diamonds. And like we will not stop until their mined.
And that so no matter what happens, right? You keep your eyes focused on that — what it is that you want. And you just continue to take action. Like there is no other option that of course, you’ll get what you want, because you’re not stopping and you’re not deterring you know, from the plan, you’re just focused, right?
Maggie
Yeah, that’s so good. And on that note, as we talked about having that level of focus, let’s also talk about letting it be messy, which is something that’s really important on the podcast. And I’m going to share my own Coaching from my Coach here, where when we do our reports, it’s just as a matter to help us really notice what we’re doing.
But it’s color coded. So it’ll turn green, and it’ll turn red when we’ve done different things that week. And when week I was like, oh, I was obsessed with getting everything green. And Jaimie very wisely said, you know, I know your Type A personality, Maggie. And what you need to do is let it be red every now and then on purpose.
And oh my gosh, you guys, that was my Coaching homework. And you all know I take Coaching homework really seriously. So then I was like shaking, I was like, I’m going to on purpose, eat this thing, right? But I was like logging it in. And I could just feel the shakes in my body that I was going to on purpose like not being the greens.
And that was such a growth moment for me to really see myself and even see my own, you know, stress response in my body to observe how like, it’s literally something that’s meaningless. Like in the big scheme of life, I was putting a number on a piece of paper, right?
I was, I was not eating like, I don’t know, a mountain of something I was having like, an extra portion of something. It was so minimally not important on the big scheme of anything. But for me, going a little bit outside the lines, letting myself have permission to be a little bit messy, was exactly my growth.
And so if anyone listening is a little bit like me, look at your life right now. If there’s anything where you’re trying to, like be perfectly inside the lines, that if you let yourself draw outside of them just a little messier than you’re letting yourself be. It will help you so much. I know they helped me so much. And you want to talk about that a little bit. Cause I know a lot of — I know, I’m not the only person who’s come to you with that problem.
Jaime Morocco
Totally. I mean, again, like I always — I’m of the belief that I don’t teach what I haven’t walked. I don’t mentor and I think that, that’s what makes me a mentor and a Coach is that yeah, I can Coach people on stuff because I have the knowledge, but I’ve actually walked all of this and overcome it.
And that whole idea of having my clients who I notice strive to be all green. I’m like, okay, this week, you got to mess it up a little. You gotta like, eat a cupcake, like you gotta go do something. That came from me, envisioning my clients once they’re ready to fly the nest and I picture you guys out to eat or in Italy or in France.
You want to have a macaroon and you might over eat a little bit and being okay with that. Not thinking that that means now I got to run a million miles tomorrow. Now I have to starve myself tomorrow. So if I can start to insert some of those behaviors in your fat loss program, I know that one day when you’re ready to fly the nest, and you are in Italy, and you eat a couple extra slices of bread, and an extra glass of wine and a little more dessert than you want, you understand that, that doesn’t mean anything negative.
That you’re just a human being, and it doesn’t mean that you’re going to gain weight, or you have to punish yourself. That you can learn to like ebb and flow with that. So that’s where, you know, it came from, because there are a lot of clients in my program, who are very high performing.
And I know the tendency can be like, I just want to be the perfect student. And I’m like, I love you for that. And that’s amazing you have that work ethic, but what’s gonna serve you best is knowing that you can have red on your sheet, knowing that the red can sit there and that you’re gonna be okay.
Maggie
Yeah, that’s, that’s like everything. Like, and I really think — like I talked about that a lot here too, because I think perfectionism is, first of all, it’s part of white supremacy culture. We will link to my episode on self trust, where I go really deep dive into this, but it’s this idea that there’s one way, that it’s the right way, that that’s the only way.
As opposed to there’s more than one way, there’s an infinite amount of ways, and all of those things. And I think for me, I live it in so many ways. And this was like getting to the next level of it. It was like really seeing myself in my even unconscious, like internalized perfectionism tendency and really be like, okay, we’re gonna break it on purpose. Right?
Yeah. So I think that was so, so, so immensely powerful. And then the other thing I wanted to talk about that I thought was really so beautiful, was you say something that is: when you feel like running away, turn towards us instead. And you said this right at the beginning, when we were sort of doing the orientation into the program and all that.
And it really struck me in a deep way, that we will all have moments, especially when we’re in any kind of personal growth journey, where our instinct, right, our stress response will be that flight response. Will be, I want to run away, or I don’t want to engage with this thing that I’m committed to, for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes it’s because we’re scared sometimes it’s because we’re tired. Sometimes it’s because we don’t know how to engage. If it’s not perfect, then we’re like, oh, it can’t be at all — there’s all these different reasons it could be. And I love that you gave so much permission to say, A) you will feel like running away. And that’s normal. There’s nothing wrong with you, if that comes up. And I love normalizing all of those things.
And B) when you feel that way, come run towards us. We’re here to help you and I feel the same in the program that I lead. It’s like, when it feels like a lot, turn towards us. Let us support you. That’s what we’re here for.
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, I mean, absolutely, I think. And the way that I Coach people is we hold the space and all the spaces. So like, there are calls, there is a Facebook group, there is messenger, there are so many ways, but all we ask is that you step into that container. That’s it. All you have to do is step in, right?
And in the beginning, we say that because I think that there can be a lot of shame associated with being in a program and even feeling like you’re not doing well or whatever. And I understand that the weight loss is like 1% of it. The nutrition is like one other 1%. And the workouts are like another 1%.
The rest is: what are the stories that you’re telling yourself to be true? About how you’re carrying the weight, what’s holding you back, everything. And if this were just about nutrition and workouts, everybody under the sun would be walking around with all the knowledge and feeling most aligned in their body and all the things.
It’s not about that. It’s about: how do I lean in when it feels hard and I want to isolate, right? How do I still do my check in when I haven’t checked in for like two weeks and I’m feeling nervous. Right? I have had clients say to me — because we always, you know, if we don’t receive a check in from a client, like we’re just the next day we’re like, “Hey, like let us know what’s going on.”
And I’ve had clients before who have gone over a month — in some cases two months — without checking in and we continue to hold the space and we’re like, we’re here, we’ve got you. It doesn’t matter how long. It doesn’t matter how much you think you’ve screwed up. And I think that, that helps remove a lot of the shame associated with like, I needed to be the perfect student, right?
Like, I have a whole video that I did for clients on like: are you the bad client? And it’s all about how nobody could ever be the bad client. That’s the stories we tell ourselves, right? And I think that it’s in part, again, going back to the word systemic, like we’re used to seeing the biggest loser thinking that they have to be perfect, or they don’t want it.
And I just throw all that stuff out because that’s not that’s not the truth. We’re human beings, we’re not going to be perfect. And the Coach — as Coaches, we understand that we’re going to get, you know, the stuff and we want that stuff to come up so we can help you work through that.
So creating that environment of safety is like at the crux of what we do. We have to hold a space with that energy because this, like I said, it’s not about the weight and the workouts and the nutrition. That’s just the action that’s required. It’s what’s going on up here that will help you do the action or repeat the action that matters.
Maggie
I think it’s the vehicle we use for our transformation. So some people come to me and they want help with their relationship, and then they become a new person at the end of it. And their relationship does evolve, and it does change. But the vehicle that they’re using is their relationship to do that.
And then for me, as a client, we’re going through this process right now with you. It’s like, O=oh, I have become a person committed to their word. I’ve become a person who has to say no, and set boundaries at a different level than I’ve ever had before.
I’ve become a person who will call my friend and say, what are you serving for a meal right? Before I even leave the house. I’ve become a person who takes such exquisite self care of myself and the vehicle that I have used in order to have that emotional journey is my health and my body. Right?
And I think it’s so interesting for everyone listening to us, it’s like, whatever door you need to walk through, to have that experience for yourself as a human, think about what that door is and just walk through it knowing that there’s Coaches on the other side, like Jaimie, like me, that really believe that the support is there to help you grow.
Messing up is expected and part of the process. And it’s not like you’re bad or wrong when that happens. It’s like, oh, it’s part of your growth. If you’re not really messing up ever, like, are you growing?
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, that’s a whole other thing, right? Because if it’s not — if we’re not messing up, that’s a fear based action. Because if you mess up, right?
Maggie
Yeah, exactly. I love that so much. Okay. So one of the things I love to do is ask a question from The Questions for Couples Journal. And this is the question we’re gonna ask Jaimie. What is one thing you’d regret never doing with your partner?
Jaime Morocco
Well, I will definitely use our most recent example. And Varun, my husband, we were living in Boston, that’s where I’m from and Boston’s great. I love it. But we both wanted warm weather. Well, we decided in January that we would move to Miami, and now we get to be neighbors.
And, you know, we actually did not even know before we started our drive down here, we didn’t even have — we weren’t even approved by the building that we’re now living in. So we took a big risk and we put all our stuff on a truck and we said we’ll figure it out.
Because I was — I knew that though — I’ve always been somebody who’s more of a risk taker than risk averse. But I will regret staying in Boston another year more than I will regret getting down to Florida and not having a place to live right away.
Maggie
Yes, yes, yes.
Jaime Morocco
So yeah, so our move and it’s beautiful. And I’m staring out at the ocean and it’s the most amazing thing ever.
Maggie
I love it and I love how you share a lot on your social media of your views of the ocean. And it’s just amazing. I live here and I still enjoy them. I live in a suburb. So I love seeing all of those beautiful things. So tell me: what is the best way for people to find you and follow you?
Jaime Morocco
Yeah, Instagram is just my name Jaimie Morocco or add me as a friend and shoot me a message on Facebook. I have — I check those quite regularly. So feel free to just get in touch that way.
Maggie
Awesome. So we will link in the show notes to Jaime’s Instagram and we’ll link to your Facebook as well. I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the work that you do for all the continuing education that you do.
For the love that you pour into changing the cultural narrative around nutrition for all of us. From my heart, just thank you.
Jaime Morocco
Oh, I receive that so much. Thank you for sharing.
Maggie
Bye, everyone. We’ll be back next week.