Get to Your Natural Weight Set Point: IME Reverse Your Insulin Resistance Challenge Week 6

I can’t believe we are almost half-way through the amazingness of the 12 week Reverse Your Insulin Resistance Challenge! I’m having a lot of fun showing up on YouTube, IME Community podcast and every day on TikTok doing videos and coaching on TikTok Live.

If you have been participating, let me know how it’s going. You can email me at drkarlaactivistmd@imecommunity.com.

Are you a teen or parent of a teen who wants to LevelUp and Join IME member Community to have access to my coaching on zoom?

By the way, I’m thinking about all of you as you are headed back to school. This morning was my son’s first day of High School and also his 15th birthday. He’s so hilarious. I have three very funny kids. It’s weird to call them kids since they are 20, 17 and 15. I hope your school year gets off to a great start. I’m sending lots of positive vibes out into the world to you.

Also, I’m thinking about everyone and COVID as we are in another very serious wave of the pandemic. Health systems are completely stressed, ICU’s are full across the country, and it’s very serious. I want to encourage you to get the vaccine if you are able to. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone. This is so very tough.

Last week was Week 5, “I Gotta Feeling” where I taught you to give yourself permission to feel your emotions instead of buffering with food. What an important skill. I love “More than a feeling” by Boston. Each week builds on the next, but you can start this week and get going on slaying your goals and learning the truth about your body’s natural weight set point.

Drown Out Diet Culture – You Are Not Stuck!

I wasn’t planning on addressing this, but there’s so much confusion, especially on TikTok, where creators are saying you are stuck at your current weight. Nope. Nope. Nope. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with staying at your current weight. Let’s drown out our society’s ridiculous noise that perpetuates diet culture and isn’t healthy mentally or physically for any of us. So, if you don’t want to make changes. No problem. You get to decide. If you do want to create a healthier life, you can start wherever you want. Fueling our bodies with healthful balanced food that serves us is possible and there’s some great data about that.

I recently saw an article in the NYT about a recent study out that looked at metabolism and is disrupting what we thought about metabolism as we age. So cool! There are four stages of metabolism in our lifetimes. This study is definitely disrupting the status quo thinking about metabolism.

Physicians Breaking the Mold to Help You Find Your Natural Weight Set Point

There’s only a handful of us doctors across the country and actually, globally, who are disrupting what doesn’t work. We don’t take sponsorships or ad money. There’s some amazing data. There’s so much frickin’ confusion out there, it makes me want to pull my hair out. Listen to experts, especially those of us physicians who are willing to speak out, say where healthcare has gone wrong, and are helping as many as people as possible to create a healthier path. What’s also powerful, is that there are some of us physicians who have also gone through our own weight loss journey. The importance is the focus on metabolic health and reversing insulin resistance. You can check out the Society of Metabolic Health Practitioners website at smhp.org. I’m a founding member and proud of it.

Our bodies are status quo homeostasis machines. Our bodies adapt to what we are fed. Sure, it’s more complex than that. Making the change to cut back on processed carbs and then being consistent over time is going to show some major improvements in your metabolic health and help you to reverse insulin resistance. Let’s get to goal slaying.

The Secret to Slaying Your Healthy Weight Goals

So, I’m a major goal slayer. My top strength is Activator and I can grind out a goal with diligence and persistence like nobody’s business. I can also make it pretty grueling on myself. I’ve learned the tools of self compassion and I created Make it fun to get it done and learned that goal slaying can be fun and also it’s not being hard on ourselves that works. It’s self-love superpower. When you learn to be kind to yourself no matter what and have your own back, it’s so powerful. You can do anything. All of this is practice.

I’ll tell you the secret to any goal I’ve slayed. The key to any goal slaying is staying with your vision. It’s an elevated approach. It’s not about the how. It’s like looking up and taking a 40,000 foot view. You are the butterfly and not the caterpillar.

Expect to feel self-doubt, confusion and overwhelm, fear of failure, victim and lots of discomfort along the way. There’s nothing going wrong. Discomfort is the currency of our dreams.

Let’s get going with the week!

Monday Goal Slaying Motivation: Choose the goal that commands your attention! What’s your biggest pain point? What’s the biggest obstacle in your way? What’s the trade off? Experience temporary discomfort now while achieving your goals and dreams or the long-term discomfort of not achieving your dream?

Choose Your Goal Tuesday : Pick a 30-day goal. Choose one goal at a time. I’m sure you’re really excited, but choosing one goal at a time is very important. Otherwise, you will most likely indulge in overwhelm and that will keep you from taking action on any of your goals. Choose a goal that motivates you, so how important is achieving this goal and is there value in achieving this goal? How does this goal fit into the bigger picture of my life? Am I interested in the outcome? Drink more water? Cut back on processed carbs? Crush your sugar cravings? Work on self-trust eating? Get more organized? Increase your fitness? Get better sleep? What’s your goal and why do you want to achieve it? Why will I do it no matter what and who has your back as you are reaching your goal?

SMART Goals Wednesday: What’s a measurable goal? You get to decide how you measure your success. What’s SMART stand for when it comes to setting goals? SMART is an acronym used for any type of goal setting. SMART goals help set you up for major goal slaying success! SMART stands for Specific (make your goal clear and figure out exactly where you will end up when you have achieved your goal) /Measurable (It’s important to figure out how you will measure your success so that you know when and can celebrate when you’ve achieved your goal. By this time, I will have completed and created (insert goal). I will know I’m done because of _______ You can also create your own measures of success. Did I show up as my authentic self? Did I coach with compassion? Did I learn something new? Did I hold space? Did I have fun? How? . /Attainable (make sure your goal is possible, If you set a goal that is outside of your realm of possibility, your brain will use that as evidence to criticize and that will cut down on your confidence. /Relevant means that the goal matters in the bigger picture of your life /Time Bound means you can achieve your outcome or goal in a certain period of time.

Take Massive Action Thursday: Now that you have your goal and your SMART goals, it’s time to get going. Self-trust is created by taking action. You are learning to show up for a goal you set for yourself. That’s super powerful. Write down everything you need to do to in the next 30 days to get to your goal. Break it down into steps.

Make it Fun to Get it Done Friday: Since this is IME Community, I’m going to teach you my entire philosophy which is to Make it Fun to Get it Done. Start by owning your goal, then get yourself all amped up to take action like Dwight from The Office before a sales call when he was jamming out on air guitar in the backseat while Jim waited patiently outside the car for Dwight to do his thing.

Superhero Saturday: Self-love is your superpower to achieve your goals and dreams. Some of you may not have even heard of Superman. You should watch the movie, “Superman” with Christopher Reeves, best Superman ever. Some of the special effects in that movie are hilarious. Clark Kent was Superman’s version of a nerdy base level human. When the world needed saving Clark Kent would go into a phone booth and come out as hottie Superman. Well, you are your own superhero. You are able to go into a phone booth and put on your self-love superpower cape and go save the world. No pressure!

Sunday Strategizing: What are the obstacles in your way? What’s in between you and your goal? What’s hard about your goal? What do you need help with? Now, turn your list of obstacles into strategies. You can turn your obstacles into strategies which clears your path to achieve your goals. A strategy could be a skill you need to develop. Here’s an example: If your goal is to eat sugar in moderation, one obstacle may be “I have lots of urges and cravings to eat sugar.” Strategy examples are: “Even though my sugar cravings are conditioned, my brain can be conditioned to create a healthier pathway.” “ I will create a pause when I have an urge or craving to eat sugar.” “ I will keep an urge jar and only count my wins.”

Now, get it all on the calendar and mark off your wins! You’ve got this!