Balanced Vibes Podcast - Healthy Fitness, Food and Mindset

Last week, I learned something interesting… another unhealthy way how some people are trying to lose weight.

Here's the deal…

You don't have to do anything insane to achieve that. And you should certainly avoid THIS thing that I learned recently and share with you in this episode! ‘

In the second part of the episode, I give you a practical tool that helps you to eat in a more moderate way if you are fully recovered from metabolic burnout (you're in BALANCE phase), you don't want any strict rules, but you still want some gentle guidelines to follow for your health and wellbeing.

How I Got Rid Of My Period Cramps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTblljTHEk&t=35s

FREE Burnout Recovery Video Course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

1:1 coaching with me: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Macro Coaching for Reverse Dieting and Healthy Body Composition Change: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book your Solution Session: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

Let's connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerstenkimura/?hl=en

FREE Burnout Recovery Video Course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

1:1 coaching with me: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Macro Coaching for Reverse Dieting and Healthy Body Composition Change: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book your Solution Session: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

Let's connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerstenkimura

If you have ever wondered why your body is not changing although you're exercising regularly and eating well, it can be frustrating. In today's podcast and video, I'm sharing with you 5 things that you may have to tweak when it comes to exercise, and 5 things when it comes to food, to change that.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to change your body. You can do whatever you like, and not feel ashamed about it even if someone tells you that this is the wrong goal to have. Just be sure to do it in a healthy way!

 

FREE Burnout Recovery Video Course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

1:1 coaching with me: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Macro Coaching for Reverse Dieting and Healthy Body Composition Change: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book your Solution Session: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

Obsessed With Exercise AGAIN? Red Flags To Look Out For

Here's a scenario…

You recovered from overtraining and metabolic damage, rested more, ate better… You got back to exercise, but then… It happened AGAIN! You overtrained yourself again… and are feeling like crap again.

The same scenario. Over and over…

Getting back to training can be a slippery slope so if you're not careful, you may find yourself burnt out again.

Today I want to bring you five red flags to look out for. If you notice yourself doing any of these behaviors, take action sooner than later. Remember than taking a week off and letting your body to recover is better than continuing to stress it out with more exercise, because that will cause you to take much more time off eventually.

You can learn about all that in my Burnout Recovery Spectrum video course.

Taking Responsibility For Our Overtraining

Most of my posts are inspired by readers/followers comments, and today's is no different. Here's the comment that inspired this post:

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“It was actually good for me that current virus closed the gyms because after a period of finally having a healthy relationship with exercise and healing my metabolism, I had started to overtrain again. When the gym closed, I had no other choice than rest.”⁣

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It worked out for her in this situation, but the truth is that we don’t have to wait for someone else close the gym so we can’t go there…

We can and should make our health decisions for ourselves.

Here are five red flags to look out for to avoid overtraining and burning out again, and I'm sharing 5 more on todays podcast and video!⁣

Red Flags That Tell You: You Are Pushing Yourself Too Hard

🚩 You start choosing your workouts based on how many calories they burn again

If you want to avoid overtraining, don't decide what to do for today's workout based on how many calories it's burning. Calorie burning is a really poor indicator of how good the workout was. And if you choose your workouts just based on that, you likely end up doing lots of cardio and intense classes which we know aren't the most hormone friendly workouts if you're prone to burning out⁣.

Instead, have most of your workouts be strength based, and always listen to your body.

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🚩 You significantly decrease your food on days you don’t work out⁣

This as well can lead to overtraining again.

Sure, your appetite might be bit lower on non-workout days, but you should't intentionally cut your calories very low and starve yourself on days when you weren't physically as active. Dropping the calories below BMR is quite common, but really, really bad idea. We have to realize that we burn calories also when we don't work out. Working out actually doesn't burn that many calories when we're looking at our daily expenditure.

⁣

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Simple Strength for Women – Bodyweight Strength Training Program for Women After Hypothalamic Amenorrhea https://kersten-kimura.teachable.com/p/simple-strength-for-women

Video: What To Do If Intuitive Eating Doesn't Work For You https://youtu.be/va9TPNzM5Is

FREE Burnout Recovery Video Course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

1:1 coaching with me: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Macro Coaching for Reverse Dieting and Healthy Body Composition Change: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book your Solution Session: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

Let me know if you have any questions regarding the topics that I covered today:

* Mistakes to avoid when starting exercise again after a long time off

* Should you work out fasted

* How to eat before and after a workout.

Thanks so much for watching!

Burnout Recovery Spectrum video course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

Learn more about 1:1 coaching with me: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Macro Coaching for Reverse Dieting and Healthy Body Composition Change: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book your Solution Session: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

Precision Nutrition Plate Method: https://www.precisionnutrition.com/pn-my-plate

“I Don't Know How To Eat Now!” – how to eat after you've recovered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-PBuGM2no

Is Intuitive Eating Right For You After Burnout Recovery?

Firsts off, when I talk about intuitive eating in this post and video, I don't refer to the book Intuitive Eating. I am using these words in more general way, referring to eating to “what our bodies tell us to eat”.

Intuitive eating can work perfectly if we know how to do it right. My mom for example has always been an intuitive eater. As far as I remember, she has never dieted (I'm lucky, I know!) but if we don't know what just eat intuitively means, it can be a hard thing to do. In addition, it may be very hard to achieve more specific goals by just eating intuitively.

So just eat according to your bodies' needs may not be the most helpful thing to hear for everyone. “Eat anything you want whenever you want and however much you want” is confusing for many.

5 Steps To Take If You Feel Like Intuitive Eating Doesn't Help You

Today I want to bring you 5 steps that you can start taking if you're finding that you don't know how to eat intuitively or if eating intuitively doesn't give you the results you want to get.

Before we get to these steps, I want to give you little bit of my backstory.

I ate intuitively for about 3 years after Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery.

What I noticed within the first year after recovery was that I continued to gain weight, and a year after I had gotten my first recovery period, I was bigger than right after recovery. Nothing bad or wrong about it if it doesn't bother you, but it did bother me a bit.

I was gaining weight because I had learned some habits during recovery… Snacking randomly, sometimes eating fro-yos for dinner, some days 2 protein bars a day, frequent chocolate bars, cookies, maybe 2 real full meals and the rest snacking, etc. This was what I intuitively wanted and this is what I listened to.

Look, I'm not saying that eating fro-yo is a bad thing, but looking back, I know it happened too frequently for me.

I didn’t want to continue eating this way. Not because it made me a bad person, but I didn’t want to gain more weight when it wasn’t necessary. Your weight gain doesn’t stop just because your period came back. If you continue eating more than you burn, you keep gaining weight. In some cases, it may be necessary because getting your period back doesn’t always mean that all systems in the body are healed. But in my case, I was really healthy otherwise, so there was really no reason for me to continue to gain weight.

I started to realize that intuitive eating alone wasn’t going to help be feel better and lighter so I started taking some steps to change this. I’m sharing them with you too, in case you want to try them out as well.

Step 1: Becoming More Aware Of Your Eating

The first step was awareness. I was noticing that sometimes I would eat my favorite snacks just because they were there, or bought them out of the habit and scarcity mindset.

What is the HEALING phase of your recovery? It's the second phase in your recovery. If you don't know about the Burnout Recovery Spectrum, learn about it here: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

Learn more about 1:1 coaching with me: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Macro Coaching for Reverse Dieting or Healthy Body Composition Change: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book your Solution Session: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

5 Things You Should Stop Worrying About When You're In The Healing Phase

 

I know that you’re that perfectionist, type A person, who is used to having everything scheduled and planned out… And that’s why it may be so hard for you to RELAX while you’re working towards getting your body back to balance.

Remember, there are no shortcuts — no jumping from BURNOUT to BALANCE. There’s HEALING in between which is a great time for you to chill out a bit and stop WORRYING about every single detail.

Easier said than done, buuuutttt…

Here are the 5 things you can stop worrying about while in the HEALING phase:

1. Perfect Workouts

Perfectly structured workouts is the first thing you have to let go of. You can still move your body, in fact I see people continuing exercise and recovering, but put your body’s feedback first and rest when it’s needed. And, don’t cardio 🙂

2. Your Future Workouts

What your workouts are going to look like in the future doesn't really matter right now. Some women are worried if they even want to work out in the future. There’s a good chance that you will continue to want to do it, even if you’re super exhausted right now. You don’t have to decide today what your future workouts are going to look like!

I do hope that you choose strength training for all the physical and mental health benefits, but it's up to you.

3. What To Call Your Diet

You can stop worrying about what your diet should be called. Relax and let go of the “keto” or “OMAD” identity. That’s not your identity! You don’t have to have a specific label on your diet.

4. Perfectionism

Aiming to be perfect makes everything harder. YOU become harder on yourself which is the last thing that should be happening.

5. When You Achieve Your Goal

You probably want to know the exact date when you achieve your goal.

When do I get my period? When do I start getting 8 hours of sleep? When does my hair stop falling out?

There’s no way to know the date when all this happens. Just put one foot in front of the other and do the right things daily and it’ll come.

Watch the full video on YouTube and leave me your comments below!

Check out my 5 day FREE video course on how to recover from physical BURNOUT (including symptoms of adrenal fatigue and hypothalamic amenorrhea): https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

Work with me:

Burnout Recovery Coaching: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Mindful Macro Coaching to Heal Metabolism or Change Body Composition: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book a single 60-minute call: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

Strength Training Can Change Your Life

I'm not exaggerating when I say that strength training has changed my life.

It helped me to get rid of my eating issues, because it wasn't until I started strength training that I realized that I have to eat to get stronger. Until then, I had lived on oats and plain spaghetti…

Strength training has made me much stronger physically and mentally, and it can have the same benefits for you.

If you're exhausted from doing all that cardio, pushing yourself to the limits when doing HIT, making yourself extremely exhausted in every session because you think this is what it's supposed to look like… This can be one reason why you may not be experiencing your optimal health.

If you are still doing tons of cardio every day to just burn more calories, and you feel like there's no point in even going out if you can't run for at leat 45 minutes (“anything less than that is pointless!”) then please check out today's podcast or watch the YouTube video!

 

 

Work with me:

Burnout Recovery Coaching: https://urbanjane.co/work-with-me/

Mindful Macro Coaching to Heal Metabolism or Change Body Composition: https://urbanjane.co/macro-coaching-with-kersten/

Book a single 60-minute call: https://urbanjane.co/the-solution-session/

How To Have A Healthy Attitude Towards Weight Loss and Fat Loss

Weight loss and fat loss get a lot of bad rap in the anti diet and body positivity movement. And it's not hard to see why — extreme weight loss, extreme dieting and overtraining in order to achieve a smaller body have caused many women eating disorders or disordered eating behaviors, amenorrhea, and more.

But is it right to say that all weight loss is always bad?

In my opinion, to say that all weight loss is always bad is not right either. There are many cases when weight loss or fat loss are totally fine goals, and it's fine to work towards them if it's done in a healthy and responsible way.

Had you asked me 2.5 years ago what I think about weight loss, I would have probably told you that it's not necessary in most cases and that we shouldn't want it…

Today, I would give a little bit different answer because I've learned to see the other side of weight loss. This is the side where you can have health attitude towards weight loss and fat loss, because you understand that sometimes it's needed, wanted and that not everyone who does it is obsessed or creates an eating disorder out of it.

Please watch today's video to learn how to have a healthy attitude towards weight loss.

If you have any questions, I'm always happy to answer them. Please send me a DM on Instagram, comment here, or send me an email at [email protected].

Get My FREE Burnout Recovery video course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

Are confused about how to eat after Burnout recovery? You are not alone…

Here are some examples of what I've recently heard from women who have overcome their burnout, but are now struggling to know how to eat:

“I feel like I traded a bunch of poor eating behaviors for another set. I used to seriously under eat, but now I keep eating mindlessly and often until I'm feeling very uncomfortable.”

“Sometimes I miss some structure with my eating because I tend to snack all day long and I'm not hungry for real meals.”

“I feel physically uncomfortable because I ate too much, and I ate too much because I thought if I don't over eat, I under eat.”

These are all the words of the women I work with. And I totally get it. It's hard when we no longer have lists of “forbidden foods” and “allowed foods” like we did when we were burnt out, and it's also hard when to stop eating after a period of some over indulging.

I talk about all these things in today's YouTube video.

Here are some action steps you can take right now:

1. Eat regular meals.

Start having regular meals, 3x/a day, with some snacks in between. This will keep your blood sugar regular and hunger levels normal. You can always adjust later, but this is a good starting point.

2. Eat mostly whole foods, with some fun foods.

Eat mostly whole, nutritious foods. Fun foods are a fun addition but we need mostly whole foods to feel our best. If you feel like this is a diet culture talk then please read again… Fun foods are okay but our meals should be based on real foods to feel great.

3. Eat all three macros.

Have all 3 macronutrients with most of your meals, to keep everything balanced. You don't have to track or measure if you don't want to, just have all three of them.

4. You can wait a bit! Trust yourself.

Start TRUSTING yourself a bit more! Believe me, nothing bad will happen if you get hungry and can't get food right this second. You don't want to wait forever but also don't worry if you have to wait for whatever reason — this is life!

5. You can choose what you want to eat.

You don't have to eat the things you don't want. If there's a cake you actually don't want, it's okay to skip it. It's your choice!

There are more tips on the video above, so please check it out!

If you're in the BALANCE phase, have you ever struggled with this?

Burnout Recovery 5-day Video Course: https://kerstenkimura.lpages.co/burnout-recovery-spectrum-later/

Schedule Your Power Call: https://calendly.com/kerstenkimura/discovery-calls?month=2020-07

Simple Strength For Women Bodyweight Training Program: https://kersten-kimura.teachable.com/p/simple-strength-for-women

I was a little hesitant to write this post today but I had to… 

I was hesitant because I'm talking about fat loss.

For years, I've been talking about, and helping women, with Hypothalamic Amenorrhea recovery so starting to talk about fat loss made me scared.

What will my people think? Is it going to be triggering for them? How do they respond? Will they unfollow? These were all the questions racing through my head.

I talked about my fears with my best friend. She asked me:

“Do you feel like you're fully recovered from your past disordered eating, overtraining and body image issues? Because if you are, there is no reason for you to hesitate. Most healthy people want to lose some weight at some point in their lives, for one reason or another, and if that's you too, there's nothing wrong about it. You can want to lose fat after recovering from burnout.” 

It's interesting that I needed this permission, but sometimes that's just how we are. I'm telling my clients who are working to get their metabolisms back up and running, to stop caring so much about what other people think, and do what's best for them. Now, I had to take this advice myself.

I Wanted To Change My Body

And here we were: In March 2020, I decided that I really want to change my body a bit. I wanted to look leaner, more “toned” if you like that word, I wanted to look like I work out! I love seeing muscle on my body.

I also wanted to get a bit better handle on my sometimes mindless snacking. I wanted more structure too.

“Just Eat Intuitively”

Just eat intuitively is a great piece of advice, but unfortunately, if you're already eating intuitively but not seeing any change, it's not all that helpful. I was very intuitive, but looked the same month after month. Nothing wrong with that, and I am 100% honest when I say that I loved and liked myself the way I was, but for my own self, I wanted to feel lighter and better.

I reached out to my friend who is a macro coach, and asked more about macro tracking.

Macro Tracking after Full Recovery from Burnout

For me, macro tracking was a new thing. I had never done this before. For a long time after my burnout recovery, I had no desire to track anything, but now, because I wanted to see a change, I started getting curious: What would it look like? Could I do it without becoming obsessive? 

My friend put together a plan for me. We took a really gradual and careful approach. My deficit was only about 5-10% from my back then calories, not more. That's because I wanted to avoid rapid weight loss and keep my hormones healthy. And, because I like to eat and was not going to go on a 1700 calorie diet! No way 🙂

There was a learning curve at first, but after a few weeks, things got much easier. After 6 months, I have reduced some body fat. The difference is relatively small, but that was the goal. I didn't want to lose too much too quickly. I've lost a lot of weight too fast in the past,