Recently, I discovered that I have gained more weight than I thought lately. It has happened gradually throughout the past years and looking back, I think the biggest changes started happening slowly after I stopped my work as a fitness coach.

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Throughout the years and after graduating university, I’ve started sitting down more, move less, and with the additional stress of building two businesses and running a household with 2 kids, my body hasn’t been thriving.

Of course, I knew I had gained this extra weight, but not exactly how much and I was ultimately confronted with the situation during a shopping trip a few weeks ago. I was going to get new clothes for podcast recordings, including pants.

The first pair of pants I tried didn't go over my thighs. The same happened to the second pair, the third, and the fourth pair I tried. After 10 rounds, I was done. None of them fitted me.

Luckily I was there with my best friend, who was cheering me on and I found a few great dresses that DID fit me.

At that moment, the whole these-pants-don't-fit-me situation didn't really get to me. But that night, when I got home, it hit me.

I turned to my Instagram and put up a story about my shopping experience… I couldn't possibly be the only one going to stores and feeling attacked by the clothing industry. Clothes should be made to fit you. You shouldn't be made to fit clothes!

It turned out I wasn't alone. I got SO MANY responses.

On the one hand, it made me relieved not to be the only one feeling attacked, but on the other hand, it made me so sad to see all of these messages coming in from people who had been in far worse situations than me, leaving the store crying, and being confronted by an angry store assistant.

Where energy flows, results go

I'm not rejecting any of the body positivity messages out there, but I just don't recognize myself in any of them.

Online, it has started to feel like you’re not allowed to lose weight anymore. I don't feel uncomfortable having to lose weight. I want to lose weight for myself, for my health, and shred some of the heaviness that I have been carrying around. I don't want to have to lose weight because the pants in the stores don't fit me.

After feeling sad for an evening, I woke up the next day with a clear goal in mind: I want to feel healthier and go back to feeling like the strongest woman in the room.

To get back to that feeling, I'm going to start lifting heavy, eating well, prioritizing self-care, and managing stress better.

During the past 4-5 years, I have obsessed about my businesses, and while taking care of so many other people, I forgot to direct some of that energy towards myself and my health.

There's this saying I like to use: where energy flows, results go. It applies to anything in your personal life or your business.

Now, how do you put this into practice? How do you manage your energy and the process to see results? How am I going to apply this to lose weight and get back to feeling healthy and strong?

3 ways to manage your energy in life or business

Naturally, I will be applying the principles I know best: business and mindset principles will help me lose those extra centimeters on autopilot. And though that's not YOUR goal, you can still use these principles to win at whatever you want to accomplish, be that in life or business.

1. Create a 100 days of data protocol

It's not that I haven't paid attention to my body at all during the past years. I did, but not super mindfully. I didn't paint a picture of where I wanted to go. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see people make in business, too.

You need to understand your as-is and to-be situation because looking at where you want to go without knowing where you are right now will make it difficult to devise a plan.

To get the as-is of my current body, I wrote down my measurements (yes, I'm going to tackle this project like any other figurative business… my body being the figurative business, lol).

Now I have created a 100 days protocol, meaning that I will test something for 100 days. It could be 100 items, too. For instance, if you want to grow on Instagram, your 100 days protocol could be posting 100 Reels.

Over the next 100 days, I will track my results every week, and importantly, track what I'm doing, too, in terms of habits, but not calories. I’m never going back to that or obsessing about food.

At the end of these 100 days, I will have enough data to evaluate the next steps and potentially go to an expert to help me out.

You can use this 100 days of data protocol for your Instagram, too. For instance, if you want to get X followers, reach, or sales, look at where you are right now, track your average likes or reach per week, and track what you're doing. Look at what changes and your actions will no longer be based on gut-feeling but actual data that you can use to improve even more.

When you start using the 100 days protocol, remember this: your results and process are different.

You can control your process, but not the results per se. You can assume that the things you do will result in X, but you don't know that it will work.

To sum up: collect 100 days of data and evaluate. Is it working or not? Keep going or make adjustments where needed. For me, that means if I keep gaining weight despite honoring my body the best I can, then it’s time to call in help.

2. Identify bottlenecks

My second tip to you is: identify bottlenecks. I'm applying this same business principle to my body.

In my team, we do a debrief at the end of the week to reflect on what went well, what didn't, and what can be done better in the future. This has been a great exercise to identify bottlenecks for any processes in my business.

Now, what is a bottleneck when it comes to my health? I often work too late, and it negatively impacts my stress and, consequently, my health.

To remove this bottleneck and get into a better rhythm of the day, I put in my workout sessions at 5:00 PM, which is the perfect way to wind down from work before entering my spare time.

Recap: look at what's distracting you from reaching your goals and make a plan to remove the bottlenecks.

Maybe you're also interested in this: How to Supercharge your Productivity: 7 Daily Routines

3. Play to win

I'm all for body neutrality and want to be allowed to lose weight for myself and my health. But in a world where body positivity messages dominate, there isn't much space left online to talk about changing something about yourself while being positive about yourself.

We should all be allowed to change, to fight for what we want, even when that might not be a popular opinion.

I remember talking to a friend about the insights I have discovered about my body, and as I presented them and my plan, she expressed concern, “Won't that be too skinny for you?”

The truth is, I don't want to be the skinniest. I'm not going after the weight to look skinny. I'm going after feeling good and hit a weight that's healthy for me.

The same goes for you and whatever you want to achieve. It's OK to want something for yourself.

If you want to make 1 million dollars, have 5 babies, spend 3 hours cooking every day or lose weight, that's OK.

You don't have to apologize for going all-in on yourself.

I'm going all-in on this. I'm a high-performing type of person, result-driven, and I want to set some big ass targets that I'm excited about going after.

Play to win, even if what you want to achieve isn't something other people care about. Remember, where energy flows, results go. You do you.

Let's get going!

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Watch this episode on YouTube or listen via iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and search for episode 75 of The FastForwardAmy Show.

To help you keep track of your progress in life or business, I'm sharing the tracking sheet with you that I'm using; the 100 Days of Data Protocol. With this tracking sheet, you will be able to monitor business numbers, sales stats, or whatever you want to monitor alongside the actions you're doing to succeed.

Download the 100 Days of Data Protocol here.

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We do not take any responsibility for the financial decisions (or any other business-related decisions) made by listeners/businesses based on our podcast content. Every business has its own specifics, which we cannot take into account in this podcast.