How to Get Organized for Weight Loss

Key things that you should have on had, and things you can do to be prepared for your weight loss journey. Proper preparation and organization will help you meet your weight loss goals.

Some of this weeks episode highlights are:

5:18 Write down your reasons to want to loose weight, and put a date on it so that you can read your reasons when the going gets tough. Your reasons are what's going to keep you motivated.

9:11 Get a food scale,, some measuring cups, and some measuring spoons. Most people don’t know is that your brain has no idea what an inappropriate serving size is.

12:46 Get some containers - if you want to be successful at weight loss, you've got to be planning ahead and doing your meal prep in advance. This allows the ‘executive’ part of your brain to make your food decisions

--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:00):

You are listening to the Keep The Weight Off podcast with Dr. Angela, episode number 32.

Introduction (00:07):

Welcome to The Keep The Weight Off podcast, where we bust all the dieting myths and discover not just how to lose weight, but more importantly, how to keep it off. We go way beyond the food and we use science and psychology to give you strategies that work. And now your host, Dr. Angela Zechmann.

Speaker 3 (00:27):

All right, so welcome back, everyone. Super excited to have you here with us today. Marchelle is back. Yay. Welcome back.

Marchelle (00:38):

You guys. It fells good to be back. Hi.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:38):

Awesome. So, you know, I was thinking about September and going back to school and like, do you remember how much fun it was as a kid when you'd get all your school supplies at the beginning of the school year, you get back into that back to school routine. Do you remember that Marchelle?

Marchelle (01:00):

I love clothes shopping. Like my favorite getting organized backpack. My new backpack was like my favorite thing.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (01:09):

I liked my little pencil case. And I really, what I, I really loved it when I was raising my own kids and buying all their stuff. I just really loved it. So anyway those times are long gone. My kids are all grown now, but I still love September and September is also a really good month to get started with weight loss. And I kind of mentioned it last week.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (01:38):

We always see a big uptick in new patients this time of year. So lots of people are interested in getting back into their weight loss efforts after summer vacations. And now there's a routine with kids back in school. So I wanted to talk today about what it takes to get organized for weight loss, because sort of like, it's kind of like what it takes to get organized, to go back to school, right? You gotta do some prep work and you know, if you don't do the prep work ahead of time, you're less likely to be successful. So last week we talked about mindset prep work. This week we're going to talk about just like stuff. Like stuff you'll want to have on hand. Okay. So by the way, I do want to mention that we are getting started with Journey Beyond Weight Loss again.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:33):

This is the online course that I teach. It's a 12 week course and a membership, and we're going to start enrollment next week on September 13th. So if you are interested in that, just go to JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com and you'll see where you can sign up for that. That is an awesome course.

Marchelle (02:53):

So I just love Journey Beyond Weight Loss. I'm so we're getting ready to start again.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:00):

Yeah. It's, it's so much fun to teach too. And what I love is seeing the light bulbs go off for people as we move through as we move through the different modules of the course and all the different light bulbs that go off, it's just a blast. Yeah. All right. Well, let's get back into, like, let's say that you're just getting started on your weight loss journey and you recognize that there's some things you need in order to get organized.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:26):

So here is what I'm going to recommend in terms of supplies. The first thing that you need is a journal or a notebook that is dedicated to your weight loss journey. So I talked about the importance of a pen and paper in a previous podcast because it just is. It's like your most important weight loss tool. And the first thing that I want you to do when you get your pen and paper, and you start thinking about your weight loss journey is to do some serious thinking about why you want to lose weight. And I would write down at least 20 different reasons. So think about the profound reasons. For example some people will say, I want to be alive to see my grandchildren graduate from high school or, you know, they'll say things like, I want to be able to keep up with my children as we're off hiking, those kinds of things.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (04:28):

Those are really important reasons, but there might be some other types of reasons that would seem a little bit less grandiose, but they're actually important too. And so, for example, I want to look hot for my husband, or I want to be able to wear my size, whatever clothes again, wherever that size might be, you know, or maybe you want to feel comfortable being in photos at Christmas. Maybe you want to be able to climb a flight of stairs without being winded, or maybe you want to be able to get on a plane without needing a seatbelt extender, or maybe you want to be able to get down on the floor and do stuff on the floor, clean the floor, play with kids on the floor and get down and do gardening outside and know that you're going to be able to get up. A lot of people worry about that.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (05:18):

Maybe you're tired of constant heartburn or joint pain, and maybe you want more energy. Maybe you want a brain that's not constantly focused on the next meal or the next sugary treat, or maybe you want to just feel less brain fog. There's lots of reasons people want to lose weight. And it's important to write all of them down and put a date on it so that you can read your reasons when the going gets tough. Your reasons are what's going to keep you motivated. So I would put that on the first page of your journal or two or three pages, just a little essay there, everything, all the reasons why you want to lose weight, that will keep you motivated also in your journal. It's a really good idea to have a page set up for each day so that you can plan your meals and journal about the feelings that are coming up for you.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (06:15):

I always say once you take the food away, you're left with your emotions and you're left with yourself and there's some, some profound learning that's going to happen. So this journal is going to be a record of all of these breakthroughs that you're going to have. And it is really, really fun to look back on it too. Okay. So journal and a pen. Do you have anything to mention, say about that Marchelle?

Marchelle (06:47):

Oh, I was just thinking actually I was going to bust in here for a second. Like for me, that is one element that I have missed. I mean I've written notes in Journey Beyond Weight Loss, you know, for different modules. You know, I've done a lot of reading, you know, all that stuff, but I really have missed like this major important element of doing some journaling and doing this really important 20 reasons why I'm doing it and I'm starting from the very first, so I will be getting a very special journal.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (07:22):

Yeah.

Marchelle (07:22):

ASAP. And I'm going to I'm going to try this because I'm going to be doing the five day detox again, myself. I'm, I'm doing this because I need to do it. You know, I've gotten pretty far off track, which is easy to do everyone super easy!

Dr. Angela Zechmann (07:38):

Oh for sure! No question.

Marchelle (07:40):

I was doing. Yeah. I was doing super well and summer just kind of wiped me out in a lot of different ways. And so I, you know, I'm back, I feel like mentally ready to to do the five day detox again, sugar and flour detox is what I'm talking about. And so I'm just gonna really apply the, you know, what we're talking about today. Do that ready to do that. Yeah. So this, yeah, this journaling, like I said, I mean, just like the light bulb just went off for me, like, wait a minute. Did we talk about this before? Because I had missed something I missed.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:19):

Yeah. Yeah. So, yep. So I would get a journal. That's got enough space on it too in it too, that you can write it. Yeah. I'm going to, not one of those teeny weeny little ones.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:35):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you mentioned the five day sugar detox. We will put a a link to that five day sugar detox menu. So if you're listening to this podcast, you can just go to the show notes on JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com/podcast, go to the show and we'll put the link to the sugar and flour detox menu there for you. So, so you have a starting point.

Marchelle (09:02):

Yeah. It's really helpful. You guys it's really, really helpful for me.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:07):

Yeah. Just to get you going.

Marchelle (09:07):

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:09):

Okay.

Marchelle (09:10):

Alrighty.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:10):

All right. Next up is a food scale. And some measuring cups and some measuring spoons. And the reason is because I recommend at least in the beginning, I think it's a really good idea to weigh and measure everything that you put in your mouth. And, you know, some people think, well, that seems a little bit compulsive, but what I want you to know is that your brain has no idea what an inappropriate serving size is.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:38):

I remember one time I decided to measure two tablespoons of peanut butter because I was just testing myself because I used to make myself this chocolate shake, drink every morning. And I would throw two tablespoons of peanut butter in there, but they were heaping tablespoons. And so I put what I thought was two tablespoons or what I would usually put in. And I put that down on a piece of wax paper, and then I measured it to just see, and it turned out it was five tablespoons of peanut butter. So I was pretty shocked. Two tablespoons of peanut butter is not that much peanut butter.

Marchelle (10:11):

So I remember when you came to my house and do this exercise with us as well, we're talking about measuring food. And I was like, you know, in my head I was thinking, you know, I've seen people do that before.

Marchelle (10:23):

And it just seemed like, so over the top to me,

Dr. Angela Zechmann (10:25):

It does.

Marchelle (10:26):

And the thing is though, is that you don't, you don't need to weigh and measure your food forever. It's not like a thing you're going to be obsessed with. You know, the scale. It, for me, it was just a tool because my eyes are bigger than my stomach. And so when I, I mean, and that's an always, I mean, I don't care if you give me broccoli, you know, I'll eat, you know, five pounds of broccoli. It's I just don't have any boundaries with food at all. And in the amount of food that I'm eating. So, you know, like, even if I'm eat, like I said, even my eating all vegetables, I'm going to eat - overeat them because I, my mind, I don't, I can't visualize, you know, the proper amounts. So it's not like a forever thing.

Marchelle (11:05):

It's just to get, you know, an idea of like what it looks like to have, like a fourth of a cup of something, what it looks like to have, you know, like that serving of protein. And then once you get that down, then it becomes, you know, then it's just easier because you just know where it looks like. But but yeah, the food scale, like I, I have one and so I'm going to use that one again. And and I just, yeah, I just think it's such a cool, awesome thing to do. Like I said, at first I was like really standoffish. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've seen people do that. It's like so weird. Yeah. So obsessive, you know, I'm not doing that. And then I thought, wait a minute, once I started trying to do like the five day shirt in there and I'm like, wait a fourth of a cup.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (11:49):

What does that look like? I don't even know what that means. So so just super, super handy tool. So yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (11:57):

I will… And sometimes it's very interesting. Just how much, like, if you've got vegetables, for example, I always tell people try to get 10 ounces of vegetables at lunch and 10 ounces of vegetables at dinner and when like 10 ounces of spinach. Like you're never going to eat 10 ounces of spinach. You might eat two ounces of spinach. It's a lot of times I have my big salad that I'm bringing to lunch and you're looking at like, how are you going to eat all that? I'm like, well, I'm going to try, you know, just it's a lot of food. So, so I guess, you know, my point is that you really don't know whether the appropriate amounts of food is, and you really need to weigh and measure it at least in the beginning.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (12:36):

And I every now and then I just check myself once in a while too, you know, it's not like it's a, it's not like, it's this obsessive thing that I have, right.

Marchelle (12:45):

Yeah. Right.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (12:46):

Okay. next thing is to get some of those great little glass or plastic containers that you can use for meal prep. And I would recommend getting at least a week's worth of these little containers, because if you want to be successful at weight loss, you've always got to be planning ahead and doing your meal prep in advance. Now, why is this so important? Here's what I always tell my patients. There are two parts of your brain that are going to be making food decisions. The first part is your primitive brain. And this is like the reptile brain. It is motivated. There's a, there's a triad of motivations that this brain has.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (13:31):

It's seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and doing whatever's easy and convenient. So that's that part of your brain. The other part of your brain is your prefrontal cortex, which is the front part of your brain. The most evolved part of your brain, the human brain. And it's also called the executive brain. And this part of your brain can think long-term and has your weight loss goals in mind? So which part of your brain do you want making your food decisions?

Marchelle (14:02):

Well, of course the executive part!

Dr. Angela Zechmann (14:04):

Of course you do, right? If you want to be successful, that's what has to happen that part of your brain has to make the decisions, which means planning and prepping your food ahead of time is key. So you don't want to have your reptile brain making any food decisions at all. So whenever a patient tells me that they're trying to grab food at the last minute and they're having a hard time making the right choices.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (14:34):

I know that they're making this mistake there and it's super, super common. So I want all of our podcast listeners to know that if you really want to be successful at this developing a habit of planning ahead, it's not just important. It's essential. So get prepared with the right containers and get an on the go cooler and some ice packs. So you're going to need that as well. If you're somebody who is taking your lunch with you all day long and your snacks and all of that. So make sure you're, you need to carry food with you that you've got a way of doing that. Okay. So those are the supplies that you need, the little glass or plastic containers that you can do food prep in, and some sort of cooler if you are on the go a lot.

Marchelle (15:27):

And you can get them at the dollar store. I mean, they're, they don't have to be expensive or fancy. You know, you can get them at the dollar store. And I just remember, like you always saying, because I would get in these positions, you know, where I, you know, I was prepping and things are going really well for me, it was super easy. And then like I had a weekend I think, or had a lot going on, right. So I kind of missed the boat on pre., Like I don't prep breakfast. I know that is something, that's a red flag for me, that something is going wrong because breakfast is the easiest meal for me to skip. And I was prepping, you know, with these really awesome egg frittatas that we do have the recipe for if anybody wants it. And and like, it got away from me and that whole next week, no matter what - I was just like, I just felt like I was behind and I couldn't catch up.

Marchelle (16:20):

I just had, you know, I had like this weight on my shoulders and it was just making the wrong decisions with food. And it was like a lesson learned, you know, that if your tired, if you don't prep your meals and you're tired and you don't have the right food in front of you, you're going to get the wrong food is what it is. That's prepping is such a huge part of this.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:40):

It's huge. And it's not just because you're on a diet is because that's what you go to do when you live in this country, when you live in the food environments where, you know, there's just crap everywhere. So, right. All right. So that's that next is to get a really good set of knives. So Marchelle, do you have a good set of knives?

Marchelle (17:00):

We do! Yay.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:02):

Awesome. Yeah. A lot of people hate food prep because they, it feels time-consuming and it feels really difficult. And the one of the reasons is that they're trying to chop their veggies with low quality dull knives. I mean, it's painful to do that, and it's dangerous to do that.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:20):

So you need a really good set of knives of different sizes and you needed good cutting boards and you just need to have good supplies. So make that investment in your health and you will thank me for it. All right.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:35):

The next thing to get to do to get organized. And this is not a thing to buy, but it's a thing to do is to clean out your pantry and your refrigerator and your freezer.

Marchelle (17:49):

I remember this. Yeah.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:52):

So basically what you're doing is you're getting rid of all the unhealthy junk food. That's going to be lurking around tempting you as you're going through your detox. I don't recommend giving it away. I don't recommend taking it to the office. I don't recommend handing it off to your neighbors. Just throw it out. You may have things like cookies and chips and brownie mixes and crackers and containers of cookie dough and sugar yogurts and soda and chocolate milk and all kinds of stuff in your fridge, and you might have frozen pizza and ice cream in your freezer. All of this stuff has the potential of tempting you away from your goals. And especially in the beginning, when you're going through sugar and flour withdrawal, you really don't want to have that stuff around.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (18:44):

So we've talked about this before on the podcast, how these foods are actually very powerful drugs that light up the dopamine in our brains. And so you're going to do best if you keep them out of your house, if that's not possible because you're living with other people and they want that stuff around, perhaps you could ask them to just keep these foods in some sort of special cabinet or even in the trunk of their car, so that it's out of sight for you and out of mind for you. Okay.

Marchelle (19:17):

This is something that is so important because I've seen this time and time and time again, even in my own life. And with patients that come in that really struggle because there's two or three or more. I mean, some people live with roommates and people, you know their husbands or their children, you know, differently. And it is this right here is like, when you got to really put your boundaries in place and put your foot down and say, this is, I'm doing this for my health. I need the support. I need your help and your understanding. And, you know, in our, in our living situation, I cannot have stuff around me. And of course you don't want to make decisions for other people because you know, that's not okay. But but it's, you got to really like be vocal and be really bold and really put your boundaries down. Because if you don't, then this can just become, it will be, it will, it will become a struggle later on. And then, you know, relationships start to get stressed. And, and we, and also then we also, I've seen patients like, they give in like, okay, fine. Then I'll do pizza on Friday then with you guys. Cause you know, that's, cause I still want to do the family tradition Friday pizza whatever. And you just, you gotta be all in on this. Yeah. So it is, it is definitely something that will come up if you, if you don't… Throw that shit away!

Dr. Angela Zechmann (20:55):

All right. Okay. So the next thing you're going to want to do to prepare is to develop a menu plan. And if you want to do our sugar and flour detox, you can use that one. But what I recommend that you do once you're done with the sugar and sugar and flour detox menu, you want to do your own menus and you want to do it a week in advance. So you want to plan what you're going to have for breakfast, what you're going to have for lunch, what you're going to have for dinner each day. Now I like to do the way I like to do is to make enough dinner that I can just have leftovers for lunch the next day. That makes life really easy. You know? Some people don't like leftovers though, but I happen to love them. I think they actually tastes better the next day, but you figure out what you're going to eat for the week.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (21:44):

And then you make your shopping list and do your grocery shopping, like have a day of the week that you do that. And again, these are habits that you're going to want to develop for lifelong, not just habits that you're doing because you're wanting to lose weight. Like this is what it takes to be a healthy person is to plan these meals ahead of time. You go grocery shopping. You take the time, okay. Either that, or you get one of those meal delivery services. And if you're going to do a meal delivery services, you got service. You got to plan on doing that for the rest of your life too, because you don't want to just do that for a short period of time. Whatever you're going to do is what you're going to be doing for the rest of your life to keep this disease under control.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (22:26):

Okay. So I recommend that you just have a plan, plan a time every week where you just get it done, you get your meal planning, done, you get your grocery list written and you go to the grocery store and you get all this stuff. So that it's all ready to go.

Marchelle (22:40):

And I know it seems hard at first because that's how it was for me. It was a little overwhelming because when you change, like, because it was so weird, I had these blinders on before and I didn't even know that I had them when I went to the grocery store before I know before I changed, you know, the way that I was eating. And I only see these certain things and I didn't know that like other things existed. And once, once I changed, you know, I would remember I would call you in Costco and say, I'm super overwhelmed. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to get. I can't find anything and you would talk me off the ledge and then bring me down and say, okay, just take a breath…it will be ok.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (23:19):

Go to the produce section.

Marchelle (23:25):

Overwhelmed, just run to the produce section. You can't go wrong. But I remember, you know, like at first it was, I would get like anxiety because I, I, because I would go into the grocery store and I couldn't find the things that I wanted because I didn't see them before, but I promise you guys, it gets easier and easier and easier. The more you do it, it becomes, you know, I can't even say that I got to this point where it just became super easy. I mean, there was, it was always been kind of a struggle for me cause I haven't ever really, I've tried different stores and kind of bounced around. And I think that's why is I haven't really found my jam yet. So then I have heard lots of other patients just tell me, like, you know, it gets easier and then pretty soon that's - you go into like, like trader Joe's for instance, you go in there, I'm not allowed to say Trader Joe's?

Dr. Angela Zechmann (24:18):

Yes you can!

Marchelle (24:18):

Right. So you go into like trader Joe's and once you get it down, like, you know exactly what you're looking for. And so yeah, so it just gets easier and easier just seems overwhelming at first by promise. It's not, it doesn't stay that way. It gets, it gets easier.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (24:31):

For sure. No question. So yeah. Yeah. It's actually, you know, the meal planning, the meal prep the chopping the vegetables can actually be really quite enjoyable. I used to always tell my patients, like, have you ever looked in some of those home magazines and there'll be these, you know, this, these pictures of the idyllic partnership and it's always the man and the woman are chopping vegetables together in the kitchen.

Marchelle (25:02):

I can picture like, even like fifties, like fifties ads in my head, you know, that I've seen, you know, in magazines and that's that's exactly.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (25:11):

Yeah. It's just like, once you get used to doing it, it's really, it's really enjoyable activity.

Marchelle (25:18):

So it is, it is.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (25:21):

All right. Well, I think that's enough for now. So I'm just going to do a quick review. So the first thing you want to do is to get a journal or a notebook that's totally dedicated to your weight loss journey and start with writing at least 20 of your reasons for wanting to lose weight and put a date on it. And this journal is also going to hold your daily plans as well as your writings about what's coming up for you from an emotional standpoint. If you join us in Journey Beyond Weight Loss, we're really going to help you through - helping you understand your thoughts and emotions and how that's triggering behaviors for you.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (25:59):

We're really working with you at some of these deeper levels. So make sure you join us there. The second thing you want to get is a food scale and measuring cups and spoons. If you don't already have that and plan to weigh and measure everything in the beginning, just because it's such powerful awareness. The third thing to get is a glass or plastic containers for meal prep and a cooler and ice packs for meals out of the home. Now I forgot to mention, I recommend you do meal prep, even if you're not going to be working out of the home because you want it planned. You don't want to have to be worried about your reptile brain, trying to find stuff at the last minute. So you still need, even if you don't need the cooler, you still need the plastic and glass containers.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (26:49):

Yeah. Okay. The next thing is an excellent set of knives. Do not forget to have good knives that you're a vegetable chopping is a breeze. Fifth thing to do is to clean out your pantry, your refrigerator, and your freezer, and get rid of the junk food. And by the way, it can be bags and bags and boxes and boxes of stuff. Do not feel badly. That's normal. Okay. the sixth thing is to develop a weekly menu, make a grocery list and plan time to go grocery shopping every week. The more you plan ahead, the better you're going to do and plan to make this a lifelong habit. If you want to get started with the five day sugar detox menu, follow the link in the show notes, and you can get that. All right. So that is it.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (27:42):

So there's a lot more skills that you need to learn if you want to lose weight and keep it off. This is just the beginner beginner stuff. And I teach it all to you in Journey Beyond Weight Loss. Remember we are going to be starting on September 21st. So head on over to JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com. If you're interested in joining us and I will see you on the inside there. Any last minute, thoughts or comments Marchelle?

Marchelle (28:10):

No. This is exciting stuff. I'm ready to get started myself. I can't wait to get going.

Dr. Angela Zechmann (28:14):

Yeah. Awesome. All right. Take care everyone. And we will see you next week. Bye.

Closing (28:21):

Hey, if you really want to lose weight and keep it off for good, your next step is to sign up for Dr. Angela's free weight loss course, where you're going to learn everything you need to get started on your weight loss journey, the right way. Just head over to JourneyBeyondWeightLoss.com/freecourse to sign up. Also, it would be awesome if you could take a few moments and write a review on iTunes. Thanks!

Dr. Angela

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