Megan Gaul, a weight loss coach from Staten Island, discusses her journey and approach to helping women over 30 with 200 pounds or more achieve their weight loss goals. With a background in education, Megan emphasizes the behavioral aspects of weight loss, drawing from her own 100-pound weight loss in 2018. She highlights common mental barriers like unstructured weekends and the "it shouldn't be hard" mindset.
For the transcript and full story go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/magan-gaul
Highlights from today's episode include:
Megan states weekends with no structure often derail weekday progress.
Megan explains that long-term weight loss is won or lost in the mind, not the diet.
Manon talks about Naturopathic doctors aren't automatically coaches—and patients often expect both.
ABOUT MEGAN GAUL:
Megan is a weight loss coach from Staten Island. Her mission is to support women age 30 and up, 200 lbs and up, achieve their weight-loss goals without shrinking their lives. She came to this mission through her own 100-lb weight loss in 2018, where she discovered food freedom, healthier emotional boundaries, self-trust, and a richer life. She's now in her 5th year of business, and she and her clients focus on small habit-change, self-compassion, and authenticity.
Core purpose/passion: I'm most passionate about helping women live more in-tune with what they want. So many of us live in fear for a huge percentage of our adult lives. We get stuck in people-pleasing, anxiety, and making choices only to get away from what we dislike. I want more women to feel awesome about making choices to go TOWARDS what they desire.
Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Ink.bio |
ABOUT MANON BOLLIGER, RBHT, FCAH:
As a retired Naturopath 1992-2021, I saw an average of 150 patients per week and have helped people ranging from rural farmers in Nova Scotia to stressed out CEOs in Toronto to tri-athletes here in Vancouver.
My resolve to educate, empower and engage people to take charge of their own health is evident in my best-selling books: 'What Patients Don't Say if Doctors Don't Ask: The Mindful Patient-Doctor Relationship' and 'A Healer in Every Household: Simple Solutions for Stress'. and What if Your Body is Smarter than You Think? I am the Founder & CEO of The Bowen College Inc. which teaches BowenFirst™ Therapy and holds transformational workshops to achieve these goals.
So, when I share with you that LISTENing to Your body is a game changer in the healing process, I am speaking from expertise and direct experience".
Mission: A Healer in Every Household!
For more great information to go to her weekly blog: http://bowencollege.com/blog.
For tips on health & healing go to: https://www.drmanonbolliger.com/tips
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* De-Registered, revoked & retired naturopathic physician after 30 years of practice in healthcare. Now resourceful & resolved to share with you all the tools to take care of your health & vitality!
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Introduction: Welcome to the Healers Cafe, the #1 show for
00:00:04
medical practitioners and holistic healers to have heart
00:00:08
to heart conversations about their day to day lives while
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sharing their expertise for improving your health and
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wellness.
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Manon Bolliger: Welcome to the Healers Cafe, and today I have
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with me Megan Gole, and she's a weight loss coach from Staten
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Island, and her mission is to support women age 30 and up with
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about 200 pounds and up to achieve their weight loss goals
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without shrinking their lives. She came to this mission through
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her own 100 pound weight loss in 2018 where she discovered food
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freedom, healthier emotional boundaries, self trust, and a
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richer life. And you've been at this point in business and
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coaching for five years, and yeah, so let's talk about both
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aspects of it, the the business of coaching, what that's like,
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you know, for you, because a lot of our practitioners, you know,
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are looking at coaching as something necessary, because all
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of them are naturopathic doctors, and you know, then when
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patients come, they, they, they expect different things, but
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sometimes they expect that the naturopathic doctor is also
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going to coach them, and you know, and that's not the price
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point or the payment, like that's not what we're trained in
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that sense to spend our time with. It's more to diagnose and
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to to prescribe and to make sure that all the blood tests and
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everything is right and they're optimized, but if they need
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more, you know, constant care and reassurance and guiding and
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all of that, we tend not to be the right people unless we are,
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and we, we wear that hat, so I think, anyway, so maybe let's,
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let's start, because obviously you have your own story, and
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we'll get to that, but why don't we start with how the coaching
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came to you as like something that you wanted to offer, and
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that you could offer, and yeah, tell us a little bit about that
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journey.
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Magan Gaul: Absolutely, so I'm trained as an educator, so I
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worked a little bit as a teacher and a tutoring center director,
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so I've always been in the space of learning acquisition, right,
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right, and mostly for kids, but also I was a, you know, I
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trained a lot of the tutors that we had, and so my background has
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been in that, that space of, you know, we both agree that you
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want to get from point a to point b. How can we facilitate
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that, and, and just like teaching, coaching is both of us
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working together that way. I don't have the answers, you
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don't have all the answers, so we're doing a group project in a
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way, so in that way coaching felt much more intuitive of a
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choice than you know going for a degree of some kind, getting
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some kind of, you know, large program with knowledge
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acquisition for myself, so I really wanted to focus on on the
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behavioral aspect of folks trying to achieve what they
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wanted to achieve, and the reason weight loss became the
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main thing I want to, I wanted to coach around was because I
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myself had a very significant weight loss journey that
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impacted not just, you know, how I go about my life and my level
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of energy, but also my confidence in tackling any
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decision or any big project. So that's I was really interested
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in the behavioral aspect of it, the getting it done and keeping
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it that way, aspect of it, rather than all the important
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work in diagnosis, and in, you know, providing those, those
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services,
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Manon Bolliger: and so in your own journey, did you get the,
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the pleasure or the opportunity to work with somebody, or not,
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Magan Gaul: so I worked mostly. I needed a lot of help with my
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thinking, so I worked with a cognitive behavioral therapist.
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Manon Bolliger: Okay, interesting.
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Magan Gaul: Yeah, and it wasn't particularly for weight loss, it
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was more for I noticed behaviors. Around, you know,
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compulsive eating, emotional eating, and a really strong
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inability to manage my stress, or to recognize my stress, even
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Manon Bolliger: right.
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Magan Gaul: So, CBT was so helpful, helpful for me to
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understand. Okay, so I do want to work on changing how I'm
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eating, and now that I'm rolling, I would love to reach
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this lower, healthier weight to make my life feel much better,
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to make choices feel more open to me with what I can
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Manon Bolliger: do, right? Okay, yeah. So, I mean, in your case,
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because you created your own program, so, so not everyone
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needs the same type of help, right? So, is part of what
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you're doing, you know? I know you can't diagnose, but you can
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still say, "Hey, have you had your thyroid checked? You know,
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have you like the basic things that you know you would need to
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differentiate, because if you know they're, they're missing
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some major thing, you can do all the weight loss tricks in the
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book, but you're not going to lose it, right? You're
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Magan Gaul: going to definitely,
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Manon Bolliger: other issues, right?
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Magan Gaul: Yes, there's like you're saying, there's so much
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that goes into where your weight ends up, and it's not definitely
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not all emotional, definitely not all behavioral. There's so
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many pieces to it, but I find that a lot of the folks that I
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work with have run the gamut of trying to find everything
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mentally wrong,
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Manon Bolliger: exactly. No, and there's plenty of those, right?
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Like, yes. Then you go, what's wrong with me, right? Like, why
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am I like this, or you know? And how do I change habits, right?
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It's one thing to acknowledge you got habits, but you know
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who's going to keep you, you know, accountable to the change
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of the habits, right?
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Magan Gaul: Yeah, and I like to most of the folks I start
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chatting with, before we work together, they will say these
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are the things that I know are holding me back, you know, they
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already have decided it is this behavior or this thought circle
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that always brings me back to doing these eating behaviors,
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and so that's where, where I want to create the change, so in
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that case, you know they've done, they've done all the
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background research that they need to do, they already know
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what they want to do,
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Manon Bolliger: right. So, can you share like a common mental
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behavior or loop, or whatever, that you know, like obviously
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people find you as they find everyone at the right time for
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what they need, you know, and, and thankfully, a lot of people
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do their research, so they kind of know what they need, so that
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helps. But let's say they find you, and you're they're the
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perfect client for you, and you're the perfect person for
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them. What are the types of things that come up that you
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resolve or help resolve.
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Magan Gaul: So, one thing that I see often is this is a very kind
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of very common one, is that kind of the weekends are not a part
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of my plan. The weekends I just do my best, and that's all that
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I can hope for. So, I often see that folks who have a really
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strong weekday habit, they've got, you know, their work
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responsibilities, their home responsibilities, they can line
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in any diet or any food change that they want to make, they can
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put it slot it right into those weekdays, but once a really
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unstructured day hits, like a Saturday, or like a day where
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they're not working, they feel very adrift, and so that's when
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a lot of the kind of boredom eating or grazing kind of
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behaviors happen that often derail what they were trying to
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do in the weekdays.
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Manon Bolliger: I see. Okay,
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Magan Gaul: so and some of that thought cycle is I deserve to
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rest without over planning every moment of my life, which it's a
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very enticing thought circle to me too, yeah. So that's one
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where it's really interesting to find out how they define rest
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and whether any of the activities that go into having a
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more structured weekend, whether that can feel aligned to what
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they want to do, so there's all sorts of ways we can put a kind
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structure or a relaxed structure into a weekend to make it work
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better for their goal and stop undoing what they did during the
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week.
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Manon Bolliger: Okay, so in a sense you're working with the
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meaning they have. Behind things, in a sense, right? Like,
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if we're using the word structured, so the weakest
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structured, and by nature, because it's unstructured, it
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means that there's no parameters, they don't know what
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to do, but then there's those who believe that that's what
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they deserve, right? I actually like to go down the road of
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that's what they deserve. What do you do with those people?
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Magan Gaul: So then it becomes a one I love to validate, like you
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deserve everything, like I agree. Wait, we all have lives
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that are full of suffering, right? So, of course, there's we
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deserve relief from that suffering, and then the question
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becomes, How do you want to get that for yourself? So, there's a
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short-term relief of having that unstructured Saturday, you know,
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where you can stay in bed as long as you want, or where you
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don't have to put the meal prep together, you know, that's one
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kind of relief from suffering, but there's other suffering
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that's happening too. There's the, the, you know, the pain
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that you feel getting up in the morning, or there's the pain of
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having to, you know, get the seat belt extender on the
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airplane. You kind of get to choose where you want that
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relief to come in, and you've always chosen this way. So, is
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there a different way you want to choose? So I like to, I like
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to understand, you know, once I pose that, usually the client
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will have some kind of reaction of where that's like kind of
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bumping against a value that they have, and so that's a great
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place to unravel there too,
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Manon Bolliger: right? So, so the value they would have is I'm
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assuming one would be freedom, like they don't want to be told
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what to do, or or it shouldn't be this hard, right, like that
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kind of thing, right?
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Magan Gaul: Yeah,
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Manon Bolliger: like, why do all these other people don't have to
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worry about that kind of thing, right? Like, so, so, how do you
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deal with that?
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Magan Gaul: So, and that's a common one too, like,
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Manon Bolliger: yeah, it
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Magan Gaul: shouldn't be this hard is a fascinating thought
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circle that that often leads to giving up the actions that were
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working, so it means I back away from doing my meal planning, or
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I back away from, you know, eating the meal that I know
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would have worked for me today. So, what I like to do when
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someone feels that, what was the.. how did you phrase
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Manon Bolliger: it? What did I say, like something about why
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me? Why does this have to happen to me, or why? Why it's like
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you're the victim of it, you know, kind of.
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Magan Gaul: Yes, yes,
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Manon Bolliger: yeah.
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Magan Gaul: So I like to, I like to kind of poke at how true it
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is in all circumstances. So I like to kind of ask, is that
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true all the time, you know? And what is the evidence for it?
00:13:06
Where, where do you see the evidence pop up for you? Is it
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true for, you know, people you know? Do they never have to
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worry about this kind of thing, or are there ways that they're
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doing hard things with their health, and they're making hard
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choices with their health, maybe in a slightly different way than
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you, maybe some people are struggling with, you know,
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addictions to alcohol and things like that that you're not
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struggling with. So I kind of like to get a sense of where,
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where that idea came from from them, and also see where they're
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seeing holes in it, and I like to help them kind of widen those
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holes a little bit, to you know, lessen the power of that belief
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in the moment.
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Manon Bolliger: And what have you found to be the, like, the
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most stuck pattern, the one that you know, in general, if people
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have that, it's.. it takes a lot to break it, not that it can't
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be broken, but just that it takes quite a lot to work
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through.
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Magan Gaul: So this is an interesting one, and it's one
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that kind of bothers me because I want to be better at helping
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folks through it, but it's the one where, and it's really a
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good problem to have. It's the one where you've already kind of
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gotten rid of the on and off idea of health, and you know,
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sometimes I'm on and I treat my health well, sometimes it
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doesn't count, right? So now this person is probably
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maintaining their weight helpfully. They're, they're
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eating well. They might have overeating moments or times
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where they eat something that doesn't serve them, but it
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doesn't really hold them back from doing their everyday life
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and having joy in their life, but they want to now, and that's
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a really healthy place to. Be right, because you've kind of
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undone a lot of the harm that the diet industry has done to
00:15:05
us. Yeah, your carbs, you can't have your wine, you can't have
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your sweets, but at that point sometimes the stuck place
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becomes well, now I accept, and it's a wonderful thing, I accept
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where I am, and so that goal that I had before of losing
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weight, coming to a healthier weight, it doesn't seem as
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pressing, because now I know that this is a lifetime journey.
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Magan Gaul: Hey. now I know I'm not on or off, and I don't have
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to do this in six weeks, so I can take as much time as I want.
00:16:50
So, do I have to really work on this at all? And then there's a
00:16:53
stuck point of always putting off the work of achieving a
00:16:58
deficit and taking off five pounds or taking off 10 pounds
00:17:01
that maybe improves your blood work or something like that, so
00:17:06
but it's a good stuck place to be, because I would rather have
00:17:10
someone be there for their whole life than be stuck in, you know,
00:17:14
maybe be skinny for 10 years, but always be stuck in that
00:17:18
harmful diet-minded food noise place,
00:17:22
Manon Bolliger: yeah, yeah. Well, plus their body then knows
00:17:26
what works for them, you know,
00:17:27
Magan Gaul: yeah,
00:17:28
Manon Bolliger: right. So it does make sense, you know, yeah.
00:17:32
So, what do you think's harder to for weight loss, the
00:17:36
physiology and the biology of the body, or what goes up in the
00:17:41
mind,
00:17:42
Magan Gaul: I think it's the mind every time, because you
00:17:48
know you can put anyone, almost anyone, in, in a vacuum,
00:17:53
hyperbaric chamber, some kind of, you can shut them off from
00:17:56
society, and probably, depending on what you give them to eat and
00:18:01
what you give them, you can have them drop some body weight,
00:18:05
right? So, the mechanics are the same for most humans, but it's
00:18:10
the mind that prevents people from being able to keep it off,
00:18:14
or to prevent that five pounds down, five pounds up pattern, or
00:18:18
even 20 pounds down, 20 pounds up pattern, so it's the mind
00:18:23
every time for me.
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Manon Bolliger: All right, okay. And so, for I mean, do you want
00:18:30
to share a little bit, your like your story, because it's
00:18:35
probably the easiest one to know inside and out. Yeah, what?
00:18:41
Yeah, what got you first of all decided that you were going to
00:18:46
become healthy, and yeah, when, when we go with that?
00:18:51
Magan Gaul: Yeah, so I think it was, it was around, it was the
00:18:54
age of 28 and I had, I had, I had started to become conscious
00:19:01
of a behavior that I had been doing for probably months, and
00:19:04
the behavior was I would go to, in the middle of my work day, I
00:19:10
had two hours between shifts, and I would go to a McDonald's
00:19:15
or a Subway or a Dunkin' Donuts, and I would order enough food to
00:19:19
last me for that two hours, and afterwards, you know, I didn't
00:19:24
recognize it for what it was, which was I was trying to numb
00:19:27
whatever stress had come up during the day, I was fearing
00:19:31
for later in the work day, but what I did notice was that I, I
00:19:37
just felt guilty about eating, I just felt like I wasn't doing it
00:19:42
like a normal human, like I didn't have control over what I
00:19:46
chose to eat, and so it was that guilt that kind of drove me to
00:19:52
get some help. It drove me to say there must be people who can
00:19:57
tell me what's going on here. Um, and thankfully, once I
00:20:02
started having a little bit of insight into what was behind,
00:20:07
you know, the desire to numb what was behind that behavior,
00:20:12
it started to become more possible in my mind, like maybe
00:20:16
I can do something about that, maybe I can change, I can change
00:20:20
what I'm doing here, and it really, it was nice, because I
00:20:23
had a question from my therapist, which was, well, why
00:20:26
don't you drink another, an extra glass of water each day
00:20:29
this week, and I was like, of course, I can do that easy, and
00:20:33
I did, and then the next week, I think she said, well, what if
00:20:37
you wasn't a walk, what was it, so what if you downloaded this
00:20:41
app and kind of did a food journal each day, and I said,
00:20:46
"Of course, I can do that's easy. I don't have to change
00:20:47
anything else. Sure, I'll do that. But what those two
00:20:53
questions showed me, and what I was able to do with them, was I
00:20:57
can make a very small change in my daily behavior and do it for
00:21:01
seven days in a row, and see that I feel different two weeks
00:21:05
later. It was so.. it seems so small and obvious, but
00:21:10
Manon Bolliger: it
00:21:11
Magan Gaul: didn't feel obvious to me that I could control
00:21:13
anything on my day, so that helped me decide I can do
00:21:18
something about what I want to be, I can become healthier,
00:21:23
Manon Bolliger: so giving getting the control back, like
00:21:27
seeing it, that you, you actually have some control.
00:21:30
Magan Gaul: Yeah, like therapist could have told me I have
00:21:33
control, but that wouldn't have done anything. No,
00:21:35
Manon Bolliger: no, exactly. Yeah,
00:21:36
Magan Gaul: it was great to do it, to prove it to myself, to
00:21:39
see that evidence.
00:21:40
Manon Bolliger: Yeah, and I think I would be stuck with,
00:21:42
well, you've got a morning job if I understood you've got an
00:21:46
afternoon shift, but you know, my brain goes, well, you should
00:21:50
be eating in between, right, because you got to nourish your
00:21:52
body, so.. so I would have thought, okay, that's what I
00:21:59
should be doing eating,
00:22:01
Magan Gaul: yeah, and I did. That's kind of how I got to that
00:22:05
point, because I was like, of course, this is the time for
00:22:08
eating, but I think the severity of how much I was ordering was
00:22:14
the thing. It was, I ordered maybe four different McDonald's
00:22:18
sandwiches and 20 piece McNuggets, it wasn't just a
00:22:24
meal, it was during that whole two hours I was able to put
00:22:28
something in my mouth every few, every 30
00:22:31
Manon Bolliger: seconds. Okay, okay. Well, also, if it's not
00:22:34
nourishing, your body doesn't feel fed, right? So it's kind of
00:22:39
how it goes with junk food,
00:22:41
Magan Gaul: absolutely. Yeah, one of the first things that I,
00:22:44
I guess it wasn't one of the first things, but maybe one of
00:22:47
the first ways I, I could make a difference with lunches was my,
00:22:55
my partner at the time, who's now my husband, he was making
00:22:58
slow cooker lunches, right, you know, for his job, and I was
00:23:02
like, I guess I hadn't cooked at all, but I said, I guess we
00:23:05
could do, I could do that, and so I remember my very first
00:23:09
Sunday lunch prep, and that whole way, you know, I
00:23:14
overcooked the chicken, it wasn't perfect, but it really
00:23:19
made a huge difference in that two hour time, you know, I had a
00:23:23
few minutes, and I ate,
00:23:25
Manon Bolliger: and
00:23:26
Magan Gaul: then I was forced the rest of the time to confront
00:23:30
how nervous I felt to calm myself in other ways.
00:23:35
Manon Bolliger: Yeah, because you weren't actually hungry
00:23:38
anymore, right? Like, I think that's something, you know, we
00:23:40
say we do, what's the psychological term, but when
00:23:45
you're, yeah, you're eating like nervous eating, but you can't
00:23:50
over eat, I mean, a little bit, yes, healthy foods, in the sense
00:23:57
that you're, you know, your body has the signal I'm full, right?
00:24:02
Magan Gaul: Yeah, you don't really crave endless sweet
00:24:05
potatoes, do you not the same way,
00:24:09
Manon Bolliger: not the same way, exactly. So it's working
00:24:13
closer in tune with your body, basically.
00:24:16
Magan Gaul: Yeah, and it was a great experience for me to, to
00:24:20
start doing that for myself, not that I had never had a healthy
00:24:23
meal, it was just that at that point I was, you know, a young
00:24:27
adult on my own, not cooking for myself, and I had fallen into a
00:24:33
really easy place to be, which is you're super overstressed,
00:24:37
you're gonna find some easy things to soothe that, and thank
00:24:42
God it wasn't gambling, or thank God they didn't have sports
00:24:46
betting at the time, that would have been horrible.
00:24:48
Manon Bolliger: Yeah, yeah, interesting. So, okay, let's.. I
00:24:56
want you to think about another example, because I think that
00:24:59
that's. Really good, it shows very clearly, sort of how
00:25:03
there's both the mental component, but then also the
00:25:07
biology, and then you're, you're so-called stuck with your
00:25:13
anxiety, and so what did you do for that to help yourself?
00:25:18
Magan Gaul: So I, I guess what I, I'm trying to think of the
00:25:23
sequence of it, because I know where I am now with it, but at
00:25:26
the beginning I saw it as a thing that I needed to get rid
00:25:31
of, right, and I saw it as a state that I was kind of stuck
00:25:34
in, like you said, my thinking on anxiety has changed a lot
00:25:38
since then, I was really influenced by the three
00:25:42
principles and Dr. Amy Johnson, her just thought book. Oh, I
00:25:49
love it, but what I, what I started with was getting more
00:25:57
kind of calm in the day, so one place was during work, you know,
00:26:04
even after I had changed jobs, I was still super nervous going to
00:26:07
work, so I started to do a five minute guided meditation, having
00:26:11
having never done any meditation in my life, I just picked, you
00:26:16
know, an app and chose some five minute mindfulness prompts for
00:26:21
myself, and I did that every day before I went into work, because
00:26:24
I said I have to be able to do something about this constant
00:26:29
pit in my stomach, and so that was nice, because I started
00:26:35
using it as I think it's more intended to be, which is kind of
00:26:39
practice in focusing my attention and my awareness, and
00:26:45
there's a lot of, there's a lot of healing that can come from
00:26:50
changing your awareness from those things and those beliefs
00:26:54
that are worrying to you and beliefs that are much more
00:26:59
buoying and much more helpful and positive, so it's not like I
00:27:02
got rid of the anxiety, but I was able to be aware of other
00:27:07
positive things happening at the same time that kind of righted
00:27:10
my reaction, my anxious reaction to everything. So that was
00:27:14
really helpful.
00:27:18
Manon Bolliger: Yeah, it's a holistic thing. It makes sense,
00:27:22
yeah. No, interesting. And what was your the hardest thing for
00:27:27
you to to shift?
00:27:32
Magan Gaul: Let's see. Well, I think I think the in my own
00:27:38
journey I was I'm a numbers person, I call myself identify
00:27:42
as a numbers person, so I feel it's fun and it's interesting
00:27:47
and flowy for me to dive into the calorie counts and the
00:27:52
amount of protein I'm having, and so to my brain loves to work
00:27:57
like that, it loves to kind of clunk things into place and plan
00:28:00
my day, so I have just the right amount of protein for the day,
00:28:05
and so it was really helpful for me, about four or five years in.
00:28:13
So, after losing the 100 pounds, and then now maintaining, I
00:28:17
started to see some emotional eating come back, come back
00:28:20
after years of not being there, and so at that point it was so
00:28:27
it was so difficult for me to let go of the control of
00:28:33
planning my day, so it was just right, and acknowledge that I
00:28:39
need to, that's not, that's not a focus that's helpful for me
00:28:43
right now. I, what I need is the ability to eat in a free way,
00:28:48
right, to eat in a way that balances my health and what I
00:28:53
desire in the moment, and I don't need to be judging myself
00:28:58
on what I'm eating, and so I went through a period of time
00:29:01
where I switched goals, I wasn't aiming to maintain my weight
00:29:04
anymore. My goal was very specifically, I would love to be
00:29:07
able to eat without, I think it was I would love to have agency
00:29:13
over what I'm eating. I think there's something like that, and
00:29:18
involved in that was, you know, giving myself full permission to
00:29:22
have this really delightful, sweet thing that I've been
00:29:25
craving for a week. It was, it was really helpful for me to
00:29:32
pause the numbers focus and look more inward and get more
00:29:38
comfortable with, because obviously I was again soothing
00:29:42
something with food,
00:29:45
Manon Bolliger: right?
00:29:45
Magan Gaul: So, because I allowed myself full freedom with
00:29:48
what I was eating, then I could focus on, well, what is it that
00:29:52
I'm not bringing myself? What is it that I'm looking for, and
00:29:55
trying to change by going for this food, and that helped. Me,
00:30:00
because I was able to plan in more joy in my life. I was like,
00:30:02
I think I want more joy, and so I got myself a Six Flags season
00:30:07
pass with my sister, and we went every few weeks. I got more
00:30:12
massages, I, you know, I chose to get more things that were
00:30:15
fulfilling and relaxing to me, and that was such a help too.
00:30:22
Manon Bolliger: Yeah, I know this has been.. it's very
00:30:24
inspiring, you know, being able.. no, but it's.. it's good
00:30:27
because they're real stories, and you know, and people can
00:30:31
kind of relate to that. And so our time was actually up, but
00:30:35
how.. if.. if somebody wanted to work with you, how do they reach
00:30:39
you?
00:30:39
Magan Gaul: Sure, so I have a website, which is Partake Meal
00:30:44
planning.com and all my information, how to work with
00:30:48
me, is there. But you can also, I update daily on my Instagram
00:30:53
with strategies, tips, and stories, so that's Partake
00:30:57
underscore foodie, and you can, you can chat with me there, and
00:31:03
you can find the link in bio has all my little free resources.
00:31:07
Manon Bolliger: Okay. Great. Well, thank you so much for your
00:31:10
time.
00:31:10
Magan Gaul: Yes, this was wonderful. Thanks for having me.
00:31:12
Ending: Thank you for joining us at the Healers Cafe. If you
00:31:16
haven't already done so, please like, comment, and subscribe
00:31:20
with notifications on, as I post a new podcast every Wednesday
00:31:26
with tons of useful information and tips for natural healing
00:31:30
that you won't want to miss,

