SPEAKER_01 0:15

Okay, so how many times have you said, I know what I need to do? I just can't seem to actually do it? Maybe you even know exactly how you want to eat, how often you want to exercise, when you should go to bed, but somehow real life keeps getting in your way. So maybe the problem isn't that you need more information. Maybe the more useful question is what helps you actually use what you already know, especially when things don't go according to plan. So welcome back to Empower Your Menopause, a podcast all about health, happiness, and hormones for women over 40. I'm Coach Julie Medacy.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

And I'm Coach James Ellis.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

So today we're talking about something we hear from women all the time. I know what to do. I just need somebody to hold me accountable. But what does that actually mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Well, it's interesting, isn't it, Julie? Because most people assume that good accountability is someone policing you, making you feel guilty, checking whether you've been good or not, scoring whether you've been good or not. But it's really about having the structure, support, and somewhere to turn when things don't really go according to plan.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, for sure. And that's what we really want to dig in today because the most valuable time to have support isn't always when everything's working. Most of the time you need it when it isn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, so I mean, let's start this conversation off then with an obvious question. You know, if we already know so much about what we're supposed to do, why is it that we often find it all so difficult? So, you know, I look around me now and you know, just to scan through my social media and things like that tells me that people have actually got more health information than they they ever had before. You know, there's a ton of apps out there, there are podcasts, there are books, there's obviously social media, you've got wearables, you've got programs. Um most of the women that we speak to don't need us to tell them that eating more vegetables is a good idea for their gut health, or that uh you know they've got a wider range of nutrients by eating more vegetables and that movement's good for them. But they kind of really know all that. So I mean the truth is what we see increasingly is that it's not information that reliably produces behavior changes, not knowing what to do that helps make you actually do it, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, for sure. And when women, the women we work with often tell us, and where we see the gap most often is between knowing what to do and being able to consistently do it within the confines of the reality of your actual day-to-day life. And last week in our um episode, we talked about all the things that can happen upstream of when we make a choice, right? That things that interfere with those healthier choices. Maybe we're stressed, we have our environment not ideally set up to help us support those healthy habits, there's social influences, you know, all of this, all of the ads we see in our scroll. Sometimes I think social media is more about social advertising than connecting with people, but there are there's a whole chain of events that lead to the behaviors that we want to change. So we talked about that last week, and this week we just wanted to ask, you know, once you can actually see what's happening, what's going to help you actually change what happens next? And this is where, you know, that beautifully organized plan that we created, that super schedule, that ideal program or whatever, this is where it encounters its natural, we'll call it predator, which is real life, because we have to live in the real world, right? And plans like those will work brilliantly when all the conditions are ideal, right? All the stars are aligned, as we say. So we can talk um, you know, about all kinds of the things that might get in your way. Maybe you haven't sleeped, uh sleeped, maybe you haven't slept very well. Um, maybe you skip lunch and you're getting a little hangry by mid-afternoon. Your workout gets bumped because something happened that that uh needed the space where that normally happens. You get an unexpected invitation, you got a stressful day, you know, all of the things like that that happen that get into work in their way into our day-to-day life. So it isn't that the plan that you had is failing, it just means that nobody's helped you plan for what happens when that plan stops working or when that plan gets bumped aside, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, and you know, I say this all the time in in real life, despite the fact that you know I compete at a semi-good level at ultra-marathon running, and you know, this is my my business and uh and my life, things still get in the way. You can't legislate, for instance, you know, they've started digging up the road outside our our house, and so the road is entirely blocked in one direction. Unfortunately, it's a direction that we most want to want to go in. So any errands that we need to do, like running the kids into town to see their friends, um, taking them to one of their sports meetings, going to the supermarket, or all that is actually taking about half an hour longer per trip just by having this massive diversion. And of course, when what's meant to be a ten-minute journey suddenly takes almost an hour, that can throw all kinds of sort of like problems into real life, whether that be the time that you've got in the day, the time you've got to work, or the time you've put aside for your exercise for your plan. So we can't always legislate for what's going on, right? So the problem isn't always the plan that failed. You know, in fact, most plans are probably pretty robust if you take them at face value. It's the fact that you know so the so whether the plan's perfect or imperfect doesn't really matter. What really matters is that most plans don't have a built-in mechanism or some kind of fail-safe for what happens when real life gets in the way and a plan can go away. So you know, consistency is not about never going off plan, it's kind of working out what to do next when you do, and I suppose that's where real uh accountability starts to become useful. But I think we really need to clarify what this uh word accountability means. Yeah, it's not achieved sort of like toxic levels, but it does get banded around a lot at the moment, and it does tend to involve you know people almost doing something because they don't want to be chastised rather than it being a support mechanism. And I'd argue that's not real accountability, accountability is a bit more nuanced than that. So you know, why don't we look a little bit, Julie, and I'll pass it back to you. What should people be getting when they're looking for accountability? What is that gap that they might not be seeing, even when suddenly it said to them, Oh, yeah, I'll hold you accountable. What should people be actually looking for?

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Well, it yeah, and as you said, I mean, uh the the term does tend to come out meaning that, you know, like certain diet programs, you got to be weighed in, right? And then that judges your success, and I say that in air quotes, um, by how your weight bounces around on the scale, which we already know is a reality of day-to-day life. Maybe somebody makes you feel like you have to confess that you ate something off plan or whatever. But that those kinds of things are more like policing. And most mainstream plans have that mechanism built in. But the kind of accountability we're talking about is a kind that we love to give to our clients and what they actually ask for. So proper accountability, good accountability, supportive accountability is more about having a good structure in place, understanding what the goal is, what is it that we're working towards, bringing clarity, because sometimes when life takes off, like you said, James, construction or this week, you know, emergency room visits, that kind of thing, you know, what's the next useful step when that kind of thing comes up and gets in your way? And if things happen that maybe nobody could foresee, we can look back and say, okay, so what happened and what might have gotten in your way? And is there a way to work around that? Is this genuinely a disaster or is it just something that happened? And now we can look at what will happen if that comes to pass again in the future. And then instead of saying, oh, you know, ruminating about the past, which we can't change anything about, proper support is going to ask, okay, what do you need right now? What's going to help you feel more settled? What's going to help you feel more focused? What's going to help you understand what to do next? So we're talking about the difference between accountability to someone, which is the judgment and policing, versus accountability with someone who's going to support you instead of pretending they have to make you behave or something. Because that's important. If we feel like there's somebody else telling us what we have to do, or we feel judged because we do that pretty well for ourselves most of the time. Um, you know, we need to understand what real accountability looks like. Because if we have people telling us from all sides all the time what we have to do, something else happens. And this is one of my favorite situations because we've both lived it, haven't we?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the truth is that you know, I I think the the the problem is not so much with accountability having that policing element, because I think it's still useful to get people to check in and record what they're doing and things like that. It provides useful information to actually feed back on if you if you've got the time to analyse it. Where the challenge comes with the policing element of it is if there is not that sort of like softer support around it that can help people understand why something like happened, the tendency is, and we've all done it, we've all been there, is to stomp our feet like a two-year-old and chuck it all in the bin, right? Which is why so many people say to us, Oh, we'll start on Monday because the previous plans have gone out the window a few weeks later, or start on New Year's Eve, or whenever it may be, these artificial like restart procedures that we put in place to to actually sort of like start that whole cycle again. And the truth is that we've all been there once again. If it is only about policing, it's not helping you figure out what your next step is when things do go wrong, then the only thing that does happen is you find yourself back in the same place. You're stuck in that cycle of just doing that repeat. I'll start again on Monday, I'll start again on Monday, I'll start again on Monday, I'll start again when the kids go back to school. Because there's always another start again again date that we can choose rather than thinking that this is a continuity problem. So I mean structure can definitely help us in this, so that policing is um can can have an element of a plan. But you know, let's talk a little bit about how does it come about, Julie? You know, how can we stay true in this? How can we ask for help when we need to? Um, let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, sure. And and that structure, yeah, structure is important. So, but when it's forced on you and it isn't necessarily designed for your actual life, and that's the thing I think we forget that whole start again over. We we look at it as if when things get back to normal, but this is normal. This is normal now, certainly at this time of life. So learning how to live when life is like this, um, having some structure in place can really help. Because how long have you, how many years have we heard, you know, don't eat that, stay on plan, be good, again in air quotes. Oh, I just have to try harder, I need more need more discipline. Instead, what about that supportive side of accountability that says, what is it that you want? Instead of what you think should happen or what it should look like, you know, what do you actually want? What feels realistic knowing that chaos is going to come and go on a fairly regular basis? Maybe again, reflecting back to say what happened and how did how can we learn from that so that we can decide what to try next? And when you're in the middle of it, it's hard sometimes to be objective about the about whether or not this is catastrophic or if there is a next step or what that next step might be. So that's where the accountability and the coaching can really can really help. Um, especially when we look at all of the social pressures that we face from day to day. James, you want to talk a little bit about FOMO?

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Yeah, you know our choices happen in the social world, right? So you might be going out for dinner, you might be having a glass of wine with friends, you've got holidays, vacations, whatever you want to call them. You've got birthdays, you've got that impromptu Sunday lunch when somebody invites you around, or you decide to go out with some some friends for a nice afternoon, and you know, nobody really wants either losing weight or body fat or whatever you want to call it, or improving your health, whatever your goals may be maybe. You don't want to require that to mean withdrawing from from real life, right? Because you know, all work and no play makes you a very dull girl, right? So, yeah, the useful question really becomes how can I participate in real life at the same time and be able to support what I want to do as well, rather than thinking to yourself, I've got to sacrifice one or the other of these. So it's either I'm gonna be really, really good and I'm never gonna do anything, or I'm gonna be really, really good in a fun way and enjoy myself, but never do anything on the on the health side of things. So, yeah, we want to take it away from that sort of like black and white choice of all or nothing, perfection, one choice or another or not. Um and you know, sometimes that clear choice of saying, right, I'm gonna go on this pathway rather than this pathway, can can be helpful for some people. That is okay as long as the things are going well, but once again, the real test comes when when they don't go well. And the challenge here is you know my most hated phrase in in probably the English language comes up again and again and again. I fell off the wagon, you know, and people catastrophise things about you know the occasional unplanned meal, they had to miss a workout, they went away and let themselves that's the other one, I let myself go on holiday. Oh well, good for you for actually enjoying a holiday rather than going on holiday and chastising yourself all the time for for not being the perfect person, or you've had a stressful week, or you're like the scale goes up. And but the problem is that when all that kind of stuff happens, those old habits creep back in, it's really easy to to do that I've blown it mentality, which is always the actual spark for the start again on Monday thing that we were talking about before, right? And you know, we've all been there, we set off on a program Sunday night, absolutely brilliant, we're full on, we're ready to go. By day nine, something somewhere has gone along the way and it's gone out of the window. And so, yeah, we've been tempted by the cookie jar in the office, or we've missed a meal because we've been really busy and get home and we've snacked inappropriately according to the plan that we want to do. When those things happen, that is where the challenge comes in. So, why don't you tell us a little bit about what accountability can actually look like in those situations rather than it just being that policing, oh you've been good, or you've been bad. Well, if you've been bad, you know, let's chuck it all out the window and start again.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, and it's so it's so easy to get caught up in that all or nothing mentality. And by the way, even though we're coaches, we study this, we work with people on this, it's easy for that those thoughts to creep back in for us as well. So we totally understand how this happens, right? It's like, oh, I had I had all this stuff. And you know, we we this week is a perfect example. I had a great plan, uh, and things kind of fell by the wayside, as I said, with you know, trip to the emergency room today, a massive hail storm and rainstorm this morning that rained in my studio window and got all of my equipment wet, that fortunately is still working, right? But we we can't look at oh, the whole day is shot now. Um, we have to think about what is the next small step. And and I think, as I said before, it's easy to get caught up in what's happening and and get like anxious and and that all or nothing thinking about, oh my gosh, I can't, there's nothing I can do to fix this. Let's look at what we can control. And I think that's the beauty of accountability again, because we can look at things from an objective point of view, right? As coaches, we're not in the midst of everything that's going on. So we can say, okay, let's talk about this, take a deep breath. You know, we we need to understand where you can go when the plan doesn't happen the way you wanted it to. And are these expectations reasonable? You know, we have a lot of clients who judge their success each week by what the scale is doing, and that's not necessarily the most helpful metric to track. So we can take a step back and look at okay, how do you feel? How's your energy? How is your sleep? You know, looking at the things that will prevent you from abandoning everything altogether when you can learn to recognize your successes. That's harder than it may seem to be. And taking one tiny step forward, maybe setting what I like to call BAMs, bareass minimums, right? What are the BAMs you can set for your day-to-day life so that you know, even if all of the other stuff goes off the rails, we know we did the our basic things to help keep us healthy and feeling good. You know, maybe that's getting enough water, maybe that's getting in enough movement, maybe that's just understanding that you can take a step back and take five minutes to breathe when things go a little bit off what you expected the plan to be. Because understanding how to recover from that kind of disruption matters more in the long run than becoming a champion at avoiding disruption altogether. It's just not a realistic thing. So, the other good thing, I think, and one of the best compliments certainly we get from our clients, is just knowing that there's somebody alongside of you. You're not facing this alone because they can see patterns and different practices that you might not be able to spot when you're standing right into the middle of all of that. And uh, you know, we were just having this conversation this morning. We're not the best and most reliable observers of ourselves and our own lives, right? We're human, we have perceptions, we see things through different lenses. Reality is what it is, it's not good or bad, it's what happens, but it's our interpretation of what's happened that determines how we react to it. And so, especially when it comes to ourselves, that self-judgment can turn into some really difficult things like feeling overwhelmed or catastrophizing every single single thing that happens, like you know, oh, nothing is working because one bad thing happened this week, or we had a really good week, and it's like, yes, I've cracked the code, I'm forever gonna be perfect on this, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Just yeah, it's interesting. I think it's worth saying as well, though, that yeah, good accountability also doesn't mean a let off for everything either, right? It also means being able to know when to step in and ask questions about what might have happened, but also to actually um you know investigate what the re what the reasons were for something something happening, and like you said before, help people not have it happen. Again, rather than just give them a count blanche, count blanche, oh it's okay, I'm on the shoulder, it doesn't matter, we'll just pick up and and and go again. That's almost sort of like toxic accountability, not actually holding anybody to account at all. But I think it's how it's done and the way it's done. So you know the goal of good accountability is not somebody watching over you forever, it's not somebody who is policing you, it's someone who's gonna walk hand in hand with you and help you figure out where the challenges are so you can make the choices that you want to make to help you move forward. So you know it's it's actually having somebody, I guess, that helps you notice the different patterns that are taking taking place. So learning what to notice, recognizing the patterns earlier, developing strategies that work for yourself, becoming more confident about navigating them on your own when you need to. And that is kind of like the role of a good accountability partner or a coach, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Yeah, absolutely. Um, because ultimately accountability should help you build autonomy, not dependency on that um accountability partner or um the feel like you need coaching for the rest of your life, every day, all day, forever. Amen, right? And by the way, accountability doesn't only come from coaches, um, it can come from your community or friends. As a matter of fact, I have an accountability buddy that I've had now for seven years, going on eight years, and we check in with each other regularly to say, hey, you know, this is what's going on, and I feel stuck here, whatever. Um, accountability, some people are really good at keeping themselves in check by using journaling or tracking uh apps or tracking sheets, that kind of thing, scheduling check-ins with somebody, a person or a group, making sure you're booked into classes because after you go to classes for a while and then you don't show up, people say, hey, what's going on? Or just establishing those routines and an environment that supports them so you can do those things. So when you when you're thinking about coaching or accountability and whatever whatever tools you want to use, just ask yourself, does this make me feel like I'm supported? Does it make me feel like I'm capable? Or does it make me feel like I'm being watched or judged by the things that I'm doing? Does it help you solve the problems, or does it only measure whether or not you complied with whatever it is you're supposed to do? And especially in midlife, this is important because you know we're not all we're not all wandering around with this massive amount of spare time and this huge uh mental bandwidth. I like to say these are things that come riding in on the backs of unicorns because the reality of midlife is we just don't have that excess capacity like we used to in our in our younger years. Um so when we look at midlife, things are changing, right? We've got career demands, we've got family, got aging parents, grown kids, empty nest, you've got community things going on, maybe your sleep isn't as good as it used to be, um, our bodies are changing, social commitments, you know, and decades of diet baggage. That's that's uh well, and my favorite, you know, our give a damn meter gets turned off as we go through menopause, which is probably one of the biggest benefits of the whole transition. But all of that to say we don't we don't really need an another perfect plan. But if we can build in more of a flexible structure and then bring in the right kind of support, that can help that structure, whether it's tight or loose, it can help it work in the context of your real life, right? It's the the best thing that you can keep returning to because it gives you that home base, it gives you that foundation and that sense of security. Um so maybe ask yourself, okay, so I know what to do, right? Where do I get stuck doing it? You know, sometimes just getting started can feel like the biggest challenge of all. Um, maybe it's making uh a good plan or weekends. I know we have a few clients who struggle on the weekends because they have a lot of social activities. So it's kind of that bouncing back and forth from weekends, um weekends and social activities uh is stress a big factor because we know that affects a lot of things when it um in regards to our health. Motivation, because we know that's pretty pretty fickle.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Um and then just recovering from setbacks. So the the answer to that question for you, and maybe it's a number of those things, that might help you decide what kind of accountability you actually need.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah. And it's one of the things that we've we've built into um our new four-week program that's going to start in in the middle of September. So this is the first time that we've offered a pure um as Fabulous Pyon 40 fat loss programme, partly because we've been asked for it by so many different people. So we've designed a program that lets busy women over 40 lose their first six pounds in four weeks without turning food into a math problem. So that whole idea of sort of like calorie counting and all that kind of stuff goes out of the window window. So it uses what we call our real life food method. It starts on September the 18th. So what's the big difference here then? Well, you know, you're working with two closers, uh two coaches rather, who are gonna notice when you might be flipping to help you step in to help you figure out the next steps. The programme's not magic, although admittedly it's pretty bloody good because Julie and I put it together, but it's the accountability element that is really gonna help you. And aside from that guarantee of losing your first six pounds in four weeks, how are we gonna actually help you with that? Well, we certainly aren't gonna turn off after the first four weeks. So if after four weeks you've not lost your first six pounds, we'll continue coaching you on an individual level until you do. So you will absolutely lose six pounds if you join this programme. So to celebrate it, because we're really quite excited about it, we're actually offering a free seat via a scholarship. So this is not a prize draw, we're not just gonna throw loads of people's names in and draw somebody out. We want it to go to somebody who joins our wait list, the head of the official launch on September the 8th, who actually convinces us that they want it the most. So there's a small application you've got to fill in, it's just a few questions. But all you've got to do is visit lighter.fabulousbeom40.com, fill in that short questionnaire, you'll find out a little bit more about the programme as well, and then we'll we'll choose the person who we think will benefit the most from joining the program for absolutely free. Um and we'll put that link in the show notes as well. So Julie, handing back to you to wrap up before we before we leave then, after that small part uh portion of advertising.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, and I I'm really excited about the program, and we know it works because we do. Um and and the important thing in all of this, if you take nothing else away from today, just remembering that it is important that you know what to do, but it isn't it isn't just knowing what to do. We all have access to the information. Knowing what to do when you don't do what you intended is what probably matters the most. Because we, as we've said many times on this podcast in our coaching, you know, healthy change isn't about perfectly executing your plan or doing anything or even striving for perfect anything. It's learning how to navigate those imperfect days, which are most days of our lives, without turning them into imperfect or difficult weeks or months or years and ending up back in the same place over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Yeah, so just as a reminder to sign off then accountability is not about someone making you behave, it's about having structure, support, and perspective to keep finding your way back so you can eventually become confident enough to do it on your own. So that's all we've got for this week. We look forward to seeing you next week on the podcast and in September to join us for four weeks lighter. As I said, lighter.fabulousbeyond40.com. In the meantime, we've been coaches James and Julie from Fabulous Beyond 40, and we're always here to remind you to stay strong, stay fabulous, and we will see you next time. Take care.