The Midlife Weight Loss Reset - Part 1

Ten pounds in three weeks at 48, with PCOS and perimenopause, no medication. I’m sharing the numbers up front because I know how discouraging midlife weight loss can feel when you’re doing “all the right things” and your body still resists. What changed for me wasn’t a magic food rule. It was building an inside first system that made my choices easier to keep, even on tired days and stressful nights. 

We walk through the mindset and planning foundation that supports sustainable weight loss in your 40s: creating a big personal why and reading it daily, setting up a real accountability partner with time blocked check ins, and breaking a big goal down into daily actions you can control. I also explain why I stopped relying on motivation and started treating my calendar like a wellness tool by scheduling grocery runs, meal prep, movement, and walks like non negotiable appointments. 

You’ll hear how a clear food protocol beats a start stop diet, why planning exceptions ahead of time protects your progress, and how keeping promises to yourself rebuilds self trust. We also get honest about emotional eating and dopamine, daily journaling to change the story in your head, spotting weekly patterns without shame, and why I chose to cut alcohol during this phase because of sleep, cortisol, and hormones. Then I lighten things up with May glow ups and a few small habits I’m loving right now. 

If you want the physical habits next, part two drops next week. Subscribe so you don’t miss it, and if this hit home, share it with a friend and leave a review so more midlife women can find us.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Two Part Plan

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Hey, hey, welcome back to the Midlife Glowgetter Podcast. I'm Jax, and oh my gosh, I have been thinking about this episode for about a week. Like literally waiting to be ready to record it because I wanted to share, make sure I actually had something real to share with you. No theory, no stuff I read somewhere. Real lived, it is actually working experience. And I am finally ready. So today we are starting a very special two-part mini-series. And the topic is my weight loss journey. What I am doing, what is actually working, and everything I wish someone had laid out clearly for me in the beginning when I first got serious with weight loss. Before I say anything else, here is the update. I want to give you real numbers because I think that really matters. In the last three weeks, I have lost 10 pounds. 10 pounds in three weeks. All natural, no medication. And I have PCOS and I am in perimenopause and I am 48. So 10 pounds in three weeks. I am sharing this not to brag and not to make you feel pressure. I am sharing it because I want you to know this is real. I built a whole system and I've been working this system every single day, consistently, intentionally, with a lot of planning and a lot of inner work. And it is working. Now, here is the two-part series gonna go. Today, part one is all about mindset and the foundation, the inner stuff, the planning stuff, the mental and emotional practices that I that I have put in place before anything physical can really stick. This is honestly the part nobody talks about enough. And I think it is the most important part of the whole thing. Part two coming next week is the daily physical habits, the eating strategy, the movement practices, the body level stuff that is making a real difference. And at the end of today's episode, after all the main content, I'm gonna share some make glow ups you can carry this month, plus some fun and interesting things I'm personally doing right now that are making a really good difference. So I am so fired up. Let's get into it. Here is one thing I want you to understand though before we get into this list. Real lasting change, especially with your health and your body, especially in your 40s, starts in your head long before it shows up in your body. I have tried to lose weight before multiple times. And what I did fundamentally different this time is it started in my mind. I built the inside first, and then the outside followed. This is what the whole segment is about. So let's go. So practice one, have big important reasons why, why you want to lose weight, and read them every day. This is a very first thing I did, and I cannot stress enough how foundational this is. I sat down and I wrote out my real, deeply personal reasons for wanting to change. Not surface level stuff, not just wanting to fit in a certain size. I mean the reasons that actually make you feel something when you read them. The ones tied to your health, your energy, your future, your sense of who you are and who you are becoming. I wrote them on physical index cards, and I read that those cards three to five times every day, morning, afternoon, before a meal, whenever I feel a pull towards something off plan. Here's why this works. Your brain needs repetition to believe something. When you only think about your reasons once in a while, they stay weak. They are easy to override when a craving hits at 7 p.m. on a hard day. But when you read them multiple times every single day, they start to feel real, non-negotiable, and they become stronger than the impulses you give into. This is what your anchor is. Build it solid, read it often. This step is not optional. Okay, practice number two, get an accountability partner and actually time block your check-ins. I have an accountability partner, and we do not just casually text here and there and hope for the best. We actually time block our check-ins. We schedule them, we put them in our calendars like real appointments. We connect at least once a week, sometimes in person, sometimes a phone call, sometimes a message, but it is consistent and it is planned. Here is why this matters. When you are only accountable to yourself, it is way too easy to let yourself slide because you can negotiate with yourself all day long. But when someone also knows your plan and is expecting to hear from you, suddenly your choices feel more real. The stakes feel different. Your accountability partner should be someone who is genuinely supportive but also honest with you. Someone who celebrates your wins and holds space when things are hard without just telling you what you want to hear. Schedule it, protect it, show up for it every week. Practice number three, set a big goal, then break it all the way down. I have a big goal. I know exactly where I'm going, and I have written it down. But a big goal by itself can feel so far away that it almost stops feeling real. So I broke it down into monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals. The daily goal is actually the most important one because you cannot fully control what the scale says on a given morning, but you can absolutely control whether you followed your plan today, whether you showed up, whether you did the things you said you were going to do. Stacking up good days together and the weekly goal takes care of itself. Stack enough weeks and the monthly goal happens. Stack enough months and the big goal happens. Focus on what you can actually control today. The daily habits are the whole game. Practice number four, schedule and time block everything. Grocery prep, movement, walks. This one changed my entire week. I now have scheduled time block slots for grocery shopping, meal prepping, movement, and walks. These are not things I try to squeeze in when I happen to have a free moment. They are on my calendar like appointments I cannot skip. Because here is what happens when you try to just fit wellness in around everything else. It does not fit. It gets pushed out by whatever feels most urgent. The day gets away from you, and then nothing happened, and you are starting fresh again on Monday. Treat your wellness like a meeting you cannot miss. Because it is. Go open your calendar right now after this episode and block out at least one grocery run, one prep session, and one movement slot for the week. Put it in there and protect it. So practice number five. Plan your food protocol weekly and daily. Every Sunday I plan my food for the entire week. I decide what I am eating. I make sure I have everything I need. I do not leave food choices up to Monday morning Jacks, who is tired and rushed. And then every single evening the night before, I look at the next day and confirm the plan. Do I have a long day? Do I need to pack something? Do I need to prep something tonight so tomorrow is easy? Planning the night before is especially powerful because your morning decision making is affected as how tired you are and how much is already on your mind. When the decision is already made, when you wake up knowing exactly what you are eating, there is no debate. You just execute. Remove the decision from the moment. Make it advanced when your head is clear. So practice number six, piggybacks from practice five. A diet is something you go on and then off again. A food protocol is a set of clear commitments you make to yourself and how you eat. I know what is on my protocol. I know my eating window. I know more my portions, and I keep my promises to myself about all of it. And the last piece, keeping promises to yourself, is where I want to spend an extra minute because this is where so many of us struggle. We are excellent at keeping promises to other people. We show up for our kids, our partners, our bosses, our friends. But we quietly let ourselves out of our own commitments over and over again. And every time you do that, you chip away a little at the trust you have in yourself. Keeping promises to yourself is about integrity with yourself. It is about becoming a woman who does what she says she is going to do, even when no one is watching. Your relationship with yourself matters. Build it like it matters. Practice number seven, plan your exception ahead of time. This one is really practical, and I love it because it is realistic. It is not about being perfect, it is about being intentional. Sometimes there will be a day where you want something outside of your usual food protocol, a treat, a special side, a celebration food. And that is okay. You do not have to be a robot. Life has moments. But here is the rule: you plan it ahead of time. You decide the night before or the morning of. You decide what the exception is, how much of it you are having, and when. And it is one item, a snack or a side, not a whole unplanned meal, and definitely not a whole unplanned day. Because the difference between a planned exception and an impulsive choice is everything. One is a conscious decision you made with a clear head. The other is a craving that caught you off guard, and one. You have to be serious, not perfect, not punishing, not obsessed, but serious. This is a real difference between kind of wanting to change and actually being committed to it. And I have been on both sides of that line. When I was kind of wanting to, I would start and stop, drift, make unplanned exceptions, give up on hard days, and slowly slide back to where I started. This time I made a real commitment. I said, I'm doing this. I am following my protocol. I'm keeping my promises to myself. Even when it is hard, even when I am tired, even when nobody would know if I quietly let it slide. Commitment comes before motivation. Motivation is not reliable. It comes and goes with your mood and your energy. Commitment stays. Decide you are doing this. Then act like someone who has already decided. Practice number nine. Food is fuel. Build a new mindset around food. This is a mindset shift, and it might be the hardest one of the whole list, but it is also one of the most important. I had to change my relationship with food. I had to stop treating food as entertainment, as comfort, as a reward, as something that makes me feel better when I'm stressed or bored or celebrating. And I started thinking of food differently. What does my body actually need right now? What is going to give me energy, support my health, and move me toward my goal? Now I want to be clear. This does not mean food has to be joyless or boring. I still enjoy my meals, but food is no longer my primary source of feeling good or getting a dopamine hit. Because when food is your main go-to for feeling better, you will always eat more than you need. You will always eat for reasons that have nothing to do with the actual physical hunger. So I made a list of healthy dopamine practices, things that genuinely feel good and are not food. Moving my body, a walk, a great podcast, music I love, a long bath, reading, journaling, a phone call with someone who fills me up, creating something, being outside. When I want to reach for food and I'm not actually hungry, I reach for something on that list instead. And it works. Not perfectly every time, but it really does work. So practice number 10, journal every day. Pay attention to your thoughts and your feelings. Every day I do a thought download. I get everything out of my head and onto a page. And specifically around my wellness journey, I pay close attention to my thoughts and feelings that come up around food, my body, and my progress. Because your thoughts about yourself and your body are often the biggest obstacle between you and your goal. Not the food, not the exercise, the story running in your head. Things like, this is too hard for me. I always fail at this. My body just does not respond. I have no willpower. Those things feel completely true, but they are just old stories that have been running in the background for a long time without being questioned. When you journal, you bring those stories into the light. You see them, you question them, you slowly and start writing new ones. Your thoughts create your feelings. Your feelings drive your actions. Your actions create your results. So if you want different results, start here. Start with your thoughts. Practice 11. Pay attention to your patterns, then fix them. Every week I look back at my patterns. What worked? What did not? Where do I tend to slip? What triggers my off-plan choices? What time of day am I most vulnerable? And then this is the part that actually matters. I make a plan to address those patterns. I do not just notice them and feel bad about them. I think about what I can do differently next time. If I tend to struggle on Friday evenings, I make a plan specifically for Friday evenings. I pre-decide what I'm eating. I schedule something fun that does not involve food. I make it easier to stay on track. Your patterns are not your personality. They are habits that formed over time. And habits can be changed when you become aware of them and intentionally put something better in their place. Be a curious scientist about your own life. Observe without judgment. Adjust. Keep going. Practice 12. No alcohol. Simple and clear. I cut out alcohol completely. No special occasions. No just one glass. No, it was a hard day. Here is why this was important to me. Alcohol affects sleep quality, it raises cortisol, it lowers your inhibitions around food, which means you are more likely to eat off plan after a drink or two. It disrupts hormones. And for women in midlife, all of that is already shifting. Alcohol amplifies every one of those effects. Beyond the physical piece, alcohol was also an emotional habit for me, a way to wind down, a way to cope, a way to smooth over a hard day. And when I removed it, I had to actually sit with those moments instead of nubbing them out. That was uncomfortable at first, and also exactly where real growth was waiting. I am not saying everyone needs to cut alcohol completely. I am sharing what I chose for myself and why. Just be honest with yourself about what role it is playing in your life. Okay, practice 13. Use a daily wellness checklist. I have a daily checklist. It lives in my notes app on my phone, and I go through it every single day. It has all my key practices on it. Did I read my Y card? Did I follow my food protocol? Did I move my body? Did I drink my water? Did I journal? Did I plan tomorrow? Every day I check things off. Or I honestly notice what I missed and I ask myself why. Not to beat myself up, but to learn. This checklist keeps me from drifting. It keeps me honest. It gives me a clear picture at the end of the week of how I am actually doing, not how I think I am doing. Okay, last but not least, practice 14. Be mindful and conscious every single day. And this last one is the thread that runs through every single other practice on this list. Be mindful, be conscious every day. Stay awake to your choices. Do not go through the day on autopilot, eating whatever is around, moving however you happen to move, without ever checking in with yourself. Notice your thoughts, notice your feelings, notice your choices. Ask yourself, is this aligned with where I am going? Is this the woman I am deciding to become? Weight loss is not just a physical process. It is a practice of becoming more intentional and more present in your own life. And that practice makes everything else better. Not just your health, everything. Okay, we did a lot of heavy lifting in that main segment, and I'm so proud of us. Let's shift the energy a little because May is beautiful and I want to actually enjoy it. Here are some May glow-ups I'm loving right now that I think you should try this month. These are feel-good, seasonal, totally doable upgrades that pair really nicely with everything we just talked about. So start your summer fitness plan. May is the perfect month to sit down and actually write out your summer fitness plan. Not just have a vague idea that you want to move more. A real written plan. What are you going to do? How many days a week? What does it look like? Walking, strength training, biking, a class, a combination? Summer is actually one of the easiest seasons to stay is to consistent with movement because the weather cooperates. There is more daylight, and being outside just feels good. But if you do not have a plan, you will coast on vibes, and the summer will slip by without the consistency you actually wanted. Sit down this week, write it out, make it realistic and make it something you could actually look forward to. Then put it on your calendar. Okay, May Glow Up Number 2. Closet Aesthetic Upgrade. Okay, this one is fun. Take one afternoon this month and do a closet edit. Not a full dramatic overhaul, just an intentional refresh. Pull out all the things that do not fit anymore, whether that is your body or your style or your season of life. Things that do not make you feel good when you put them on, things that belong to an older version of you. And then look at what is left with fresh eyes. This is your aesthetic right now. What do you actually want to wear? What makes you feel like yourself? Your clothes send a message to your brain about who you are. When you open your closet and everything in it, intentionally and if it feels good, that is energy, that is confidence, that is a quiet. A daily reminder of who you are becoming. You do not have to spend a lot of money on this. Just have and be intentional about it. Okay, make glow up number three. Find a new patio coffee shop. This one sounds so small, but I actually love it so much. Find a coffee shop in your area that has a cute outdoor patio and make it a spot for May. Go alone, bring your journal or book, order a drink, sit outside in the sunshine and just be there for a little while without rushing to somewhere else. Women who are 40 need beauty in their routines. Little rituals that signal this life is worth savoring. Not just surviving, but actually savoring. A patio coffee date with yourself is not indulgent. It is maintenance. Go find your spot, put it on a calendar, protect it. Okay, May glow up number four, May Social Connection Challenge. Here is the challenge I love. Reach out to one woman this week in the month of May. A real actual connection, not a quick like on Instagram, a text, a phone call, an invitation to walk or grab coffee or just sit and talk. One week, one real connection. That is the whole challenge. Research consistently shows that special connection is one of the strongest predictors of well-being of women, especially in midlife. And in the busyness of our lives, these real friendships are often the first thing that quietly fall away. We do not need more followers. We need more people, real people who actually know us. Go first, reach out. You might be exactly who someone needed to hear from today. Okay, make love number five. Daily 25-minute reading ritual. Put the phone down, pick up a book. 25 minutes every single day. Reading is a nervous system reset. It pulls you out of the scroll and the noise and takes you somewhere quieter and more intentional. And the benefits compound. Every book builds on the last one. Your thinking gets sharper. Your vocabulary gets richer, your focus gets stronger, and your stress goes down. Start anywhere. Fiction, nonfiction, self-development, a memoir. Whatever you're generally curious about right now, just read every day for 25 minutes. Your brain will thank you so much for this one. May glow up number six. Garage and storage declutter. Pick one space this month that has been quietly bothering you every time you see it. Your garage, a storage area, the coat closet, that corner that became a pile that became a whole situation, and clear it out. Clutter in your physical space creates clutter in your mental space. You might not even fully notice it consciously, but walking past a messy, overwhelming space every day slowly drains your energy in ways that are hard to measure but are very real. A clear space creates calm, and calm is always the goal. Open the windows, put on a great playlist, set a timer and get it done. You will feel like a completely different woman on the other side. I promise. May glow up number seven. Plan a beginning of summer barbecue or party. Happy Memorial Day. Okay, this is just pure joy. Plan something, a barbecue, a backyard gathering, a casual memorial day get together with people you just love. Women over 40 sometimes stop creating celebrations and just let the seasons go by. And I think we need a pushback on that. You do not need a big reason or a big budget. You need some good food, some outdoor space, some people who make you laugh, and the intention to actually make it happen. Plan it. Send the invite. Get excited about it. Life is meant to be celebrated. Happy Memorial Day, friends. Okay, one of my favorite parts of this episode, of every episode, sharing the little things I'm personally doing in my life right now that are making me feel good. Because I really believe a glow-up is built in the tiny everyday moments, not the dramatic ones, the little ones. Here are four things I've been doing lately that I'm kind of obsessed with. Okay, the first one is using smaller plates for the week. Okay, this one is so simple, and the results genuinely surprised me. I started eating off smaller kids' plates from Target for a week, just an experiment, and it is fascinating how much your plate size affects how much you serve yourself and how satisfied you feel when you finish. When you eat off a big plate, a normal sized serving looks small, so you tend to add more. But when you eat off smaller plates, that serving looks full and abundant. And when you finish that plate, your brain gets a signal that you finished a full meal because visually you did. It sounds almost too simple to be real, but there is actually a lot of research behind this. Plate size generally influence how much we eat without us even realizing it. Try it for a week and see what you notice. Target has the cutest little plates, and you probably already own some. Okay, the second thing I'm doing is walk with coffee. I have to tell you about this one because it has generally become one of my favorite parts of my day. There is a park a few minutes from where I work, and a few mornings a week before work starts, I drive over there with my cup of coffee and I walk. Just me, the morning air, and my coffee. And then I find a bench and I sit for about 10 minutes. I just watch the morning happen, the light, the birds, the quiet. I breathe. I do not scroll my phone, I just sit. It sounds almost too gentle to make a difference, but I cannot tell you how much it sets the tone for my whole day. I feel calmer, more grounded, more like myself before the day really starts. Movement in the morning is powerful on its own, but movement in the morning in nature with something you love, that is a nervous system reset that most of us are not giving ourselves nearly enough. If you have even 10 minutes in the morning in a park nearby, try this. Even just the sitting part. Just sit outside with your coffee and let the morning be morning. Okay, the third thing I'm doing is weekly progress photos. I take progress photos, photos every week. Same day, same time, same lighting, same outfit. And I want to talk to you about why this is so important. Because at first I really didn't want to do it. It felt uncomfortable, it felt vulnerable. I did not want to look at myself closely at this stage of the journey. But here's what changed my mind. This scale does not tell the whole story. Your body can be changing, your posture, your muscle tone, the way clothes are fitting, the way you are carrying yourself, and the scale might barely move on a given week. Progress photos capture things a scale cannot. And over time, looking back at these weekly photos is incredibly motivating. You start to see progression, a real visual, undeniable story of change. And that evidence is powerful. It fights back against the voice that tells you nothing is working. Take the photos, even if you never show them to anyone, take them for yourself. Okay, the fourth thing I'm doing is trying heatless curls. Okay, this last one is a fun beauty one. I have been trying heatless curls a few times a week. Basically, I let my hair dry into the natural wave and curl pattern instead of using a straightener or a curling iron. And I have been loving the results. There are so many ways to do it. Heatless curl rods, braiding damp hair overnight, twisting sections as it dries. And YouTube has incredible tutorials for every hair type. For women over 40, our hair goes through changes. It gets drier, more fragile, more prone to breakage. Giving it a break from heat a few days a week makes a real difference in how healthy it looks and feels over time. And honestly, my natural texture is doing things I never really let it do because I was always reaching for the straightener or the curling iron. Try it. See where your hair actually does when you let it. Okay, that's it. That was part one of the Midlife Glowgetter Weight Loss mini-series. And I hope your brain is full in the best possible way right now. We covered 14 foundational practices today. Your big Y, accountability, broken down goals, scheduling everything, weekly and nightly planning, your food protocol and keeping promises to yourself, planning exceptions, real commitment, food as fuel, daily journaling, pattern awareness, no alcohol, your daily checklists, and staying mindful every day. You do not have to start all 14 tomorrow. Pick two or three that feel most suitable for you right now and start there. Build from there. Layer in more as you become more part of who you are. Progress over perfection, always. Part two is coming next week, and that is where we get into the daily physical practices: the fasting, the meal prep, the movement, the mindful eating, all of the body level stuff. You do not want to miss it. It'll be next Monday. Thank you so much for being here with me today. If this episode meant something for you, share it with a woman in your life who is on her own wellness journey. Please leave a review if this show has helped you and it generally helps more women find us. Until next time, keep glowing. Keep growing. Keep becoming the woman you were always meant to be. Love Jax.