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You're listening to episode number nine of the Fat Fuelled Female podcast.
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Welcome to the Fat Fuelled Female podcast. I'm your host Marja Chow, a holistic nutritionist, personal trainer and proud dog mama of two. I am obsessed with helping women achieve their goals, feel confident in their skin, and become empowered health advocates. This podcast is designed to help ambitious women thrive on a low carb, high fat lifestyle. So tune in each week as we talk all aspects of nutrition, improving your fitness, enhancing your mindset, so that you can take inspired action, and live your best life all starting from the inside out. I'm so happy to have you here. Now let's get started.
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Hello, and welcome back to the Fat Fuelled Female Podcast. I'm so happy to have you here with me today. And in this episode, we're going to talk about your morning routine.
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And I will give you a five of my top tips that I use, and that I recommend to my clients and students to start their day off on a positive note.
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So first off, what you have to ask yourself is what does your morning routine look like? How do you wake up? Do you wake up to a beeping alarm clock? Or do you wake up to calm music or instrumental music?
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Because the first sound you want to hear when you wake up is not a loud, obnoxious alarm clock, right?
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So tip number one would be wake up to something calm so that you don't spike your nervous system. As soon as you get up from sleeping. Your body has been repairing itself all night long, that the last thing you want to do is wake up abruptly to an annoying noise that really no one likes to hear.
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What I would recommend is choose a song like meditative music are something that you meditate to. Or if you enjoy having baths put on something that you listen to in the bathtub, or just something that is calm and relaxing, not like not like heavy metal, or like rave music, something that is just going to be very peaceful for you to get up to.
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Now after you wake up, what is the first thing you do after you get up. So most of us generally wake up to the alarms on our phone, that is how you can you know pick the music you want to choose.
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For a lot of people because we you know are like connected to our phones all the time. The first thing many people do, and you know, I was guilty of doing this too. You wake up, you turn your alarm clock off.
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And then you check your email, you know, maybe your eyes are like half open, you go on social media, you go on Facebook and Instagram, maybe you check the latest news or any sort of update.
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The problem is when you do this, you're giving your energy away to technology. As soon as you get up to basically a bunch of crap, that isn't really important to you. You know, unless you're waiting for a super important email from work. Most people are not required to go onto their phones and check social media and emails and apps and all these things right away.
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A lot of people who a lot of people do these actions, subconsciously, you know, we do them unconsciously, they've been doing these steps and routines for so many years, that they don't even realize they are doing it.
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So the first step is having the awareness and seeing what you are actually doing when you get up. You know, I'm a business owner, I have an online business, but I'm not going to let my business run my life and social media run my life. I need to have boundaries. So I'm not online 24/7.
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And you really should set boundaries for your screen time because you will realize how much it can just take up so much of your time.
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So tip number two is see how soon you get sucked into technology. I have a rule and you know there are specific circumstances if I have a meeting or or a consult scheduled or a client call or whatever, but I do my very best to not get on any form of social media or email until 12pm
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And when I go on social media, I'll spend maybe 10 to 15 minutes depending on what I'm doing. I'll go into my Facebook group, I'll go into Instagram I'm new on Tik Tok.
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And if you're not following me on TikTok, you can follow me @Fatfuelled female, I just started tick tock at the beginning of January. So brand new onto that app. And then you know, I'll go on again at 6pm. And I have an online business.
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So I go on social media two times a day, and really try to manage my time of how much energy I put into going on social media.
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Like, nowadays, you can learn so much on social media with short form videos, and reels, really taking over.
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But ask yourself this question. Do you have a purpose of going onto these apps? Maybe you want to find more on you know, makeup tutorials or you're wanting to learn more about nutrition or hormones or how to start a business. Like if you have a purpose and intention of going on there.
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Or are you just Mindlessly scrolling? You know, I like social media. It's fun, it's entertaining, especially Tiktok. It's so entertaining. But I truly believe use social media, how you see fit, don't let social media use you.
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Get off the apps, if it's becoming soul sucking, causing comparisonitis because people can spend anywhere from one to three hours a day on social media.
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Think what could you do with that extra one to three hours a day? You know, a lot of people say I just don't have enough time to do this, this or this. And it's like, hey, let's look at your screen time.
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You know, what could you do if you got an extra two hours a day back, you know, read a book, listen to an audio book, meditate, go to a yoga class, work out, go for a walk, connect with friends in real life, you know, go for a coffee date, go pet dogs, you know, be in nature, there are so many things you could do. If you cut your screen time, just you know, in half, or like, just had the awareness of how much you're actually on social media.
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So that is tip number two, try to stay off your phone and technology in the morning, however long you can. So let's start with something realistic. Say you get up at 8am. And at 8:03 three, you are on the apps or you're on email, it's gonna be unrealistic if you're like, Okay, well, I'm not going to go on till 1pm.
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That's probably going to be such a big stretch for you. So how I would recommend start with something small this tangible? Can I get up at eight and not go on my phone till 815?
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Your brain can be like, yeah, 15 minutes, I can do that. Okay, do that for a week. And then the next week, can I do 830? Okay, great. And then the next week, maybe I can do nine. And then the next week, do 10. Right?
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Create, set this up in a way that doesn't feel hard for you. If like I said, if you're getting on your phone at 8am, you have to wait till one o'clock, you're going to be like, you're going to be like Feeny to get on your phone. So create something that is realistic for you, if you're like 15 minutes just seems like a joke.
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You only can make these you know, rules and decisions on your own. So I feel like maybe an hour I can do an hour, right? But create something that doesn't feel hard for you.
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If an hour feels hard for you scale it back to 30 minutes or 15 minutes. You know, in society we have this like all or nothing mentality. And it's like usually when you have that all or nothing, it's all or nothing exactly what it is.
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So why don't you just make these small steps that as you progress week by week, it will just become easier. And say it was 8am. Maybe by week three, it'll be like 12pm or 1pm. And then as the longer you go, you'll be like, Oh, I just desensitized myself from being so addicted to my phone.
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If you work from home like me, what I do is I leave my phone in my bedroom, so I'm not tempted to go on it until 12pm. Because if I'm working at my computer on my phones over there, and I have writer's block, or I'm just not in flow, it's so easy for me to grab my phone and big Hey, what's going on on Instagram, right?
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So what I would recommend is remove the temptation from your environment, right when I put my phone in my bedroom, it's like I have to physically leave my office go to my bedroom and I know what I'm doing is not what I want to be doing. It's not in alignment with the rules and the goals I set out for myself, right?
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If you work in an office, you know, store your phone in your purse that's like not right in front of you or put it in like a filing cabinet that is like you know not right in front of you.
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So you're not tempted to go on it right. So this is a long one, number two, but it's such an important one. Because you know how you start your morning routine is kind of how you will continue with the rest of your day.
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If you wake up and you're on social media right off the go, you're going to be on social media multiple times throughout the day, wasting an hour to three hours of your life. Looking at crap, that really isn't important. Okay.
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Okay, so moving on to tip number three. What is the first thing you put into your body when you wake up? Is it coffee? Or is it water? Or is it tea or what is it so our bodies are made up of more than 50% water. So right upon waking, it's great to hydrate yourself with a big glass of H20, you know you've been sleeping all night.
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You haven't been hydrating for however long you're sleeping, whether it's five to nine hours, whatever it is. So opposed to dehydrating yourself with coffee right away. Let's have a big glass of water.
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Other options are having lemon water, so Lemon helps support your liver. Since it is a sour flavor. It also gives a surplus of digestive juices so your stomach is very acidic, it has to be acidic to break down your food. Hydrochloric acid is stomach acid, and it has a pH of two. If you don't know what pH is, it stands for potential hydrogen. Anything closer to zero is more acidic. Anything closer to 14 is more alkaline. So stomach acid is approximately two.
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Adding lemon gives a surplus of stomach acid. So it also will help with your digestion as well. Another hack you can do is adding some Himalayan rock salt to your water.
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So Himalayan rock salt, it is an electrolyte it's sodium. And it's also good for your adrenal glands. When you eat lower amounts of carbohydrates, you know being a fat fuelled female or just starting your high fat ketogenic lifestyle, your body doesn't produce as much insulin.
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If you don't know what insulin is, it's a hormone that regulates your blood sugar. When you eat carbohydrates, the pancreas secretes insulin to bring your blood sugar back to a normal level.
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So when you regulate your insulin levels, you really regulate your energy because your blood sugar isn't going up and down, up and down, up and down like a roller coaster every day.
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Because if you're eating carbs, breakfast, lunch, dinner snack, your blood sugar is going to be going up and down, up and down, up and down. So when you stabilize your insulin, okay, it also tells your kidneys to start excreting more sodium along with extra water from the carb reduction you are not ingesting because carbohydrates actually hold on to a lot of water, one gram of carbohydrates hold onto three stores of water.
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So when you reduce the carbohydrates, you reduce the water as well, right. So when you go into ketosis, you lose a lot of water weight at the beginning, just because you're not eating as much carbohydrates. In that water, you're also losing that critical electrolytes sodium, which is also a mineral. So it's important if you're not, you know, replenishing all the sodium your kidneys pump out, you can end up with, you know, headaches, fatigue, dehydration.
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So it's very important, especially if you're going through this adaptation process of becoming a fat fuelled female, or going into ketosis, that you absolutely get enough sodium in your nutrition.
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Alright, moving on to tip number four, do you have an affirmation, you recite to yourself. So this can be one of the most powerful exercises, but so many people don't use it.
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So a great way to actually create an affirmation that you can recite out loud to yourself or say it in your head is it's called like stacking your habit on top of something you already do. Because if you're trying to start a new habit and it's something you've never really done before, so you never have created an affirmation for yourself, you're most likely gonna not be able to remember it as well as if you pair it on top of something you already do.
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So for example, this is when I how I do my affirmation every morning before I take my first sip of my bulletproof coffee, I go over my affirmation in my head, or I say it out loud.
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And this is my affirmation that I created back in 2016. It's always stuck with me and I say it multiple times a day. I am strong. I am beautiful, and I am powerful.
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And I am are the two most powerful words in the dictionary. Because it's taking on that identity of who you are declaring and choosing to be and show up in the world today.
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I am strong, I am beautiful, and I am powerful. And that affirmation to me means so many things. I am strong physically, mentally, I am beautiful. I don't feel beautiful every day. You know, some days, I'm like, Well, you didn't get enough sleep there. Or, you know, I'm just I'm a little bit bloated today right. But I am beautiful. You know, some days, I'm like, Whoa, girl, I'm feel it myself. But some days I'm not.
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But I have a beautiful heart, I have a beautiful soul. You know, and I am powerful. I am powerful in all aspects of my life, whatever it may be. So this affirmation, it really is so powerful for me. And it's something if I can't sleep at night, it's just an affirmation I will recite in my head.
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I'm like, I'm strong. I'm beautiful. I'm powerful. I'm strong, I'm beautiful. I'm powerful. It calms me down. So create an affirmation that speaks to you. And pick to recite it, stack it on top of something you already do. Maybe it's right before you leave the house in the morning, you say it out loud, or you say it in your head or right before you start your car, or right before you walk into your office. Create an affirmation that speaks to you, that you feel you feel that just gives you this type of like power and excitement and makes you know that you are worthy. You are enough and something that
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something that just speaks to you, right? Like, I don't remember how I made this up. But it's always just stuck with me, you can pick something, as you know, not basic, but something as simple as I am enough. That's actually not basic at all that is so powerful. Or I am worthy. You know, anything, anything that comes to your mind, create that affirmation, say it to yourself every damn day and stack it on top of something whether it's right before you're brushing your teeth right after you're brushing your teeth right before you get in the shower. So associate it with something that you do every day. Like I said, I do mine right before I have my first sip of coffee, I am strong, I am beautiful. I am powerful.
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Okay, create that affirmation, because it is changing you on an identity level, declaring who you are today.
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Okay, coming up to tip number five, do you have a gratitude practice. So our brains can become so laser focused on all the things that are not going right, or all the things we are lacking.
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And if you operate in the world like that, you're giving your power away to circumstances you can't control. Once I have this, then I'll be happy. Once I have this title. Once I make this money, once I have this job, once I have a baby, once I have all these things, then I will know I've made it then I am happy. And all of these external circumstances and things we aspire or we want.
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A lot of them are out of our control. We can't make a baby in one day, we can't get that promotion tomorrow, right? It's beautiful to have goals and things you want to work towards. But if you're living your life conditionally for the future, you're not focusing on today.
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So Tomorrow is not promised. And you know, do your best and just have appreciation for waking up another day. A lot of the times when people think they have to journal they can have resistance. Like, I don't want a journal. That seems like way too much work. And I've been there I've done that. But if you have a journal, and you have to write one sentence, one sentence a day. I am grateful for having legs and being able to walk. I am grateful for having a roof over my head. I am grateful for my dogs. I am grateful for having five good friends or one good friend. You know, there can be a lot of resistance around journaling. But what I do is I have a journal and I write one thing I am grateful for at the end of the day.
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You can do it in the morning when you wake up. You can do it at lunch, but for me it's like at the end of the day. I do my affirmation in the morning that gets me going and then I do what I'm grateful for at the end of the day you could switch around whatever works for you, if you feel like oh, if I do gratitude more in the morning, maybe my day will be more positive, right, whatever works for you.
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But if you have to write one thing in your journal, one, one thing that's tangible, you can do that, right? If I said, Hey, can you write 20 things a day you're grateful for? You might be like, yeah, sure, for the first day, then it becomes too much work, right?
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Small changes, that don't feel hard, is what I am all about. So that is Hack number five, get a journal write one thing a day you are grateful for. And when you you know, practice more gratitude, and you have more of an abundant mindset, you already feel like you have enough.
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You know, I understand we as humans, not every day is going to be rainbows and unicorns. But if you can shift your perspective and be like, hey, you know what, my life is pretty spectacular it is pretty good. I have at least one person I can call, or I have a really great partner, or I have, you know, a great I have beautiful dogs, that's a lot of the things I say I'm like, I love my dogs, I am the luckiest person in the world to have these dogs.
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They are like my world, or I have like a really great job, or whatever it is, or I have legs, like I already said, I can walk or I can walk on the treadmill, whatever it is, you can take anything and find gratitude in any aspect of your life, if you change your perspective, and how you look at things.
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So those are my top five tips. And you can start implementing, you know, as I said, small changes that don't feel hard. So you can try all five of these at once. Or you can just start with one, maybe start with the alarm clock for the first week.
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The next week, maybe reduce the social media, I would say the social media is a big thing. So maybe start with that one. And then you know, create that affirmation for yourself. Don't overthink it, just something that feels lights you up and that you feel in alignment with get a journal, write one thing had tea you're grateful for.
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And then look at what you're putting in your body. The first thing in the morning, whether it's coffee, you know, I love coffee, drink it every day. I'm a bulletproof coffee, but let's try to hydrate first.
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Also, you could do some lemon water or you can throw some electrolytes, Himalayan pink sea salt or high quality sea or high Himalayan rock salt, sorry, or high quality sea salt.
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You know, last thing I want to touch on our is, you know, women, we are superstars. First off, we birth humans, we birth humans, we create babies in our bodies. And that's pretty spectacular in itself.
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But with that being said, what I have found is many women often tend to put their needs at the bottom of the totem pole.
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Like if you have children, your top priority is taking care of your kids, making meals, feeding them washing them all the things parents mothers do, if you're a wife, or a girlfriend or a partner, whatever it is, you know, taking care of your partner's needs, whether it's cooking, cleaning, household chores, all of it.
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Or if you're a business owner or in your career, you're putting so much energy into work and growth and success. Being this career driven woman.
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You know us as women, we wear so many hats. But we often forget to take care of ourselves and our needs. And whatever your life looks like whether you're a mom or a dog, mom, or a wife, or a girlfriend, or a partner, or career woman or whatever it is.
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If you put more energy and give yourself more TLC and nourishment for your soul, and your needs, you will show up better in all areas of your life. Because when you are a better version of yourself, it causes the ripple effect, right?
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The more positive and happy you are, that energy is contagious. You know, like, you know, there's those type of people when you're around them. They are so positive and they just like they're like an outlet. You just feel like lit up. After you hang out with them. You're like you have a higher frequency after you leave them you're like wow, that was such an amazing time. That was such an amazing hangout. That was a such an amazing dinner was such an amazing workout.
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You feel lit up from those people, right? And then you know, there's those other people when you hang out with them. They kind of like drain your magnetic field. They're like always complaining about the same thing and like they're always complaining but they're never making changes in their life and they always, you know, kind of take on that victim mentality.
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Now those people I don't know about you, but I can't be around them for too long, because I get super drained. So what I'm trying to say here is if you incorporate small changes each day into your morning routine, and start your day off with having more of an abundant mindset, focusing on yourself and what you're grateful for, opposed to jumping on technology, comparing yourself to all this external crap, that's not going to support you, you know use making these small changes, you will become a higher frequency, you will become that magnetic electric charge that people are are more drawn to be around.
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Okay, so that is everything for this episode. I hope these five tips really gave you some clarity and I definitely want you to at least put one into action and then get up to the five at your own pace. Okay, so thank you so much for hanging out with me today. And I will catch you all next week.
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Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed what you heard, make sure to subscribe to the podcast. And if you feel you got some extra value from this episode, it would mean the world to me. If you could head over to Apple podcasts or whatever service you're listening to this podcast on. Drop a five star review. Let me know your thoughts in the show. Doing this really helps more people like yourself by the podcast. And if you're not already following me on social media right now is the time you can find me on Instagram at Marja Chow for all your nutrition tips, tricks and inspiration or visit my website at Fat Fuelled female.com where you can download my free seven day keto meal plan with recipes. Thanks so much for tuning in and I will catch you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
