Podcast: How to Rewire Your Brain for Effortless Weight Loss

Are you tired of trying every diet and exercise plan, only to feel like you're fighting an uphill battle?

In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Orlena reveals why your biggest obstacle to lasting weight loss isn't what you think. Through the inspiring story of Sarah—a teacher who broke free from stress eating, work overwhelm, and body shame—you'll discover the one missing piece that makes everything else fall into place.

You'll learn:

• Why most people don't have a knowledge gap, but a "doing gap"—and how to bridge it
• The "watering seeds" analogy that will completely change how you think about weight loss timelines
• How to transform your identity from someone who struggles with health to someone who makes it look effortless

If you've ever started strong on a health journey only to give up when the scale didn't move fast enough, this episode will shift your entire perspective. Dr. Orlena shows you how to rewire your brain for lasting success, so healthy choices become second nature instead of a constant battle.

Stop letting your mindset sabotage your progress. Your breakthrough is waiting on the other side of this conversation.

Transcription of Podcast

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. I hope that you are feeling amazing today. I'm celebrating. I have survived the summer holidays. My children have gone back to school. They are still alive. We're all still alive. We're all thriving. I think it's a big win. Our holidays here are like 12 weeks.

It is. So insane. Okay. Today I want to really build on the podcast that I did a couple of weeks ago. So two weeks ago, we were looking at why, just thinking about calories in versus calories out, why is that really unhelpful? And what are you gonna do instead? And today I really want to. Think more about mindset and why mindset is one of the big keys that is really overlooked by everybody.

So many people say to me, oh, just tell me about the nutrition. Tell me what I need to do about nutrition. [00:01:00] Tell me what I need to do about this. Now, here's the thing. Most people don't have what I call a knowledge gap. They have what I call a doing gap. Now, I'm not saying that everybody knows a hundred percent everything, but talking about big things.

Now it is true that when we get to perimenopause and menopause, we need to be doing things slightly different, and it is important that. We do those things because we have to basically counterbalance what I call the fat begets fat cycle. So if you are somebody who has been going along and suddenly you hit perimenopause or menopause and you put on loads of weight doing what you were doing before, hello hormones, there are some things that are going on underneath that.

Are leading you to put on more fat. And if you want to know more about that, then watch my video called Stop Dieting and Start Thriving. And if you're listening [00:02:00] on Instagram, you just need to comment and it will automatically show you how to. Access that video, but it goes more into those systems and exactly what's going on.

If you're listening in the podcast, then I will put a link underneath the show notes and you can sign up to this. But here's the first big thing about mindset is that so many people come to me with this mindset of I should be losing one to two pounds a week, and if I'm not losing one to two pounds a week, then it's not working.

Is it? And I'm a bit like, wait, let's have a think about this, shall we? If you have got these things that are going on and they are stopping you from putting on weight, it doesn't mean that you start doing the correct things and you get instant results. And this is part of our mindset. For so many years, we have been conditioned like, this is what we need to do.

We lose weight at one to two pounds per week. And if you're not doing that, it's not working. Sometimes you need to reverse these systems and they're invisible systems. [00:03:00] Like you can do tests to see what's going on, but they're often complicated and expensive tests and most people aren't doing them.

And so what that means is it's a bit like watering a seed and or planting a seed and going, oh, the seed hasn't come up. I'm gonna stop watering it. It's your seed is definitely not going to come up. I guess it depends where you live. If you live in a rainy country, it might come up, but if you live in Spain where the basically it hardly rains and you plant a seed and you don't water it because it hasn't already come up, then your seed is very unlikely to come up.

You can see why I'm not a great garden. But that's basically the analogy that is going on. Another really big thing about this is actually what you want to do is lose fat. And fat is not the same as weight. Weight can be all kinds of things. Weight could be water. Quite often it is water. When I talked about that story a couple of weeks ago where I said, somebody [00:04:00] said to me, I've.

I didn't eat supper and I drank two glasses of wine and I lost weight. Yeah, that was water weight that you lost. And we talked about intermittent fasting as well, and a lot, I hear a lot of people saying to me, oh, intermittent fasting has worked for me. And it's yes, intermittent fasting is gonna help you lose weight, but, or it may not, depending, but.

The weight is not necessarily fat. The problem is with intermittent fasting is that you might be losing muscle as well. So the weight is muscle and fat. So yes, you've lost some fat, but you've also lost some muscle, and you don't want to do that. You want to conserve your muscle. So weight does not always equal fat, and I think that's where we get a bit confused.

But today I want to dive in and tell you a. Story, a story about one of the ladies in my program and she has just finished and I want to tell her story because I think it will really resonate and illustrate why mindset is, in my opinion, one of the big things. So [00:05:00] let me say hello to Sarah. I have lots of people in my program called Sarah, so you might find that I use the word Sarah quite often, but there are different Sarahs in my group.

So Sarah, this Sarah is, a teacher and she has a grownup daughter and a supportive husband, but she works a lot. So one of the things that she's really finding difficult is work stress and lack of boundaries. So for example, at the weekend, she might find herself marking and not relaxing and not exercising and finding it difficult to switch off.

Mentally. This also means that she is self-sabotaging with food, so there's a little bit of stress eating in there, grazing in the afternoons even when she's not hungry. Basically using food to cope with stress and emotions and feeling shame around it. Exercise is drifting away as much as she enjoys exercise, she's finding it difficult to fit in [00:06:00] and difficult to create consistency around her exercise.

And historically has been slim younger in life, but now finding that her weight is creeping up, finding herself uncomfortable in her body and feeling can see that there are lots of negative emotions around this. So blame and shame, but really not being able to have the tools to change that. And the other thing really is coffee.

So a lot of coffee basically. Using coffee to get energy, which is really having a knock on effect on her sleep. Now, as a side note, I would say coffee is not bad for you. In fact, coffee has lots of health benefits for you, but you do want to be using coffee in a way that isn't interrupting your sleep and having a little bit of coffee, but you don't want to be using coffee such that I'm so drained I have to use coffee.

And one of the tests I really think is really useful is, can you wake up? Get out of bed and not worry about your coffee. Now there is, [00:07:00] you do have a physiological response to coffee, so your body almost gets used to that coffee or does totally get used to that coffee. So we do crave coffee if we're used to drinking it.

But are you masking sleep deprivation with coffee? So when you wake up and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I need coffee to function, that is probably sleep deprivation as opposed to getting up and going. Yeah, I'm gonna have a glass of a cup of coffee. That's fine. I'm feeling fine. I could almost do without it now.

The almost, because we get we have this physiological response and if you stop, if you take, if you drink coffee every single day and then you suddenly cough stop, you will get a headache. And other symptoms of withdrawal. So going back to Sarah, where she would like to get to, she would like to be exercising regularly and enjoying it, losing the excess weight, AKA fat feeling comfortable and strong and vibrant in her body, having energy and confidence about her body, and really thinking that she has established good boundaries between work and life.

Enjoying [00:08:00] work. And enjoying being able to relax and let go of work, sticking to a healthy rhythm without self-sabotaging and enjoying her social life without feeling guilty or work overshadowing things. So really breaking free from that shame and self sabotaging cycle and having the tools to be able to shift into what we call positive BA brain feeling happy, fulfilled, in control of herself Now.

What happens? What is she scared of? What? What happens if she doesn't make changes? So if she doesn't make changes, she knows that she's gonna enter her sixties feeling drained, ashamed, heavier. The weight around her middle is going to continue to grow. Her clothes will feel tighter, and she'll keep.

Avoiding mirrors, she'll lose confidence. She, her weekends are gonna be swallowed up by work and coffee. Her coffee staying as her crutch, so basically being more exhausted and wired and [00:09:00] not feeling vibrant, feeling like disconnected from her old self and worried about her long-term health. And that's clearly not what she wants.

How does she change all of this? A lot of it is mindset, yes. It is about understanding what you need to do, but you can see that within that, what she said, there's a lot of stuff that it's very clear what she needs to do. She needs to go and exercise. She's saying, I want to go and exercise, but the question then becomes, why aren't I exercising?

Because I'm stuck in this loop of I have to prioritize work. And where you want to get to is understanding that prioritizing your own health and wellness is in your best interests, and actually it's gonna make you more productive. Now I understand that. Different people have different jobs and it depends on your job, but it can feel difficult to fit everything in.

And I used to work for the NHS, the health service in the uk so I do [00:10:00] get long hours and I do get that sometimes there are stages in our life when it just feels impossible to do any exercise. However, you can just do 10 minutes, you can do hit workout in 10 to 12 minutes. It can be a small amount of exercise.

It doesn't have to be hours and hours. But I put it to you that if you find an exercise that you enjoy, actually you are gonna have heaps more benefit than just the physical. Getting healthier. That's an amazing benefit. But also there are more benefits like decreasing your stress and just having that, oh my goodness, I've got some time in the day for myself.

This is a me thing that I do and I really enjoy it. For me, my swimming is a little bit of magic in the day that I totally love. Thinking about this transformation, how do you do it? In a, like looking at the big picture, it is about self-awareness. So the first step is really self-awareness [00:11:00] and seeing where your mindset is stuck and seeing where your mindset is really holding you back.

Then the next step is being able to rewrite that. Now all of that is a framework and I have done other podcasts explaining that framework and how you can apply it. But the journey is applying it and applying it. And here's what happens. You are using your brain. To change your brain and that makes it a little bit complicated 'cause your brain is busy saying to you.

So go back to what I was saying at the beginning. I have to lose one to two pounds to. Lose weight. Okay? That's not happening right now. This is all a failure. That's what your brain is saying and your brain is saying it so strongly that you believe it, and then you are like I might as well stop doing this.

It's okay, have you got another plan? Have you got plan B? What's the thing? Are you gonna be doing the. S not eating supper and drinking wine diet that I definitely don't recommend. So your [00:12:00] brain is busy saying, oh, let's give this all up. It's not working. Here's another example of that. I once had a client who after Christmas, prior to Christmas, she'd been doing really well.

After Christmas, she came and she said, oh my goodness, I'm in such a plump, my hba one C, that's my sugar level has gone up. So I am thinking it's not working and I'm gonna eat cake. I'm like, okay, you don't need to be a doctor to know that eating cake is not the solution to a high HB A1C. It's the opposite of what you need to do, and that is the power of your mindset.

Your mindset just goes, this isn't working. I'm not gonna do anything. Actually, when we looked at that situation, she hadn't had her hba one C done for about four years, so she didn't really know whether it was going up or going down. It very well was probably coming down, but she just didn't actually have that data.

But what she saw was, it's a little bit high. This is all a disaster. Whereas probably if she'd done it six months before, it would've been much higher. She would've seen it coming down and she would've gone. Oh, this is working. [00:13:00] It's not perfect. I'm not quite there yet, but I have made so much progress. I can see that this is great.

I want to go on, and that is mindset. That is like the difference between keeping going and not keeping going, and that is how our brain works. This is one of the reasons why I think the power of mindset really is the biggest piece of the puzzle, because it doesn't, on one level, it doesn't matter what you do.

Now, I'm not saying go and invent something. Obviously, I have a framework of what I teach my clients to do. If you have, if you don't know what that framework is, then go and watch the video, stop dieting and start thriving, because I explain it in detail. Specifically exactly what you need to do. And you need to apply it to your life.

Applying it to your life looks different for everybody because different people like different exercises. They like to eat different food. So for every individual person, applying it to [00:14:00] themselves is different, but the framework remains the same. So you've got the framework. You just need to keep doing it.

And part of my framework is the mindset piece, because your brain is so often going to say to you, this isn't working. Let's stop, and that is never the answer. Yes, you may need to make tweaks and understanding the difference between, okay, am I not seeing results because I just haven't given it enough time and I am doing the right things, or I'm not seeing results because I'm not doing the right things.

And therefore I'm never gonna see results. So understanding the difference between those two and having the tools to really be objective and have a look at that and think, okay, am I doing the right things? I just need to give it more time. Am I not doing the right things? Do I need to make some tweaks?

And it's tweaks, it's not. Out with it and try something [00:15:00] totally different. So that again, is mindset as opposed to, oh, it's not working. It's all a total failure. So I hope you can see what I'm saying about mindset and why I, in my opinion, the mindset piece is the biggest transformation that I see in people.

When people do my program, they go from I am. It's all difficult and I can't do it, and I'm struggling and nothing works and my body has totally changed to, oh my goodness, this is easy, it's enjoyable. I can do this. The whole point is it's enjoyable, and yes, I can see myself making progress towards healthy and strong me.

There was another lady who finished the program last week and when we were talking about what's changed in the program and at first she was a bit like I can't really think of things. And I think what she meant was, I can't see a big difference in how I am eating. [00:16:00] Although I know that she was being much more consistent in how she was eating, but when she really stopped and thought about it, she was like, yeah, I really.

Embraced this identity of I am somebody who prioritizes my health and wellness, and it makes it so easy to make choices about what I want to do. I don't feel deprived. I feel like I'm making healthy, good choices all the time, and I'm like, that is an amazing win. If you can carry on doing that for the rest of your life, that's it.

That's all you need to do. And that is all just mindset. Now, obviously she knows what her body needs and she's empowered to understand what exercise her body needs, what nutrition her body needs within that framework. She had other issues that were making it more complicated for her, but she knows how to listen to her body and she has that amazing tool of.

I am somebody who prioritizes my health and wellness and this [00:17:00] is easy and it's fun, and all I need to do is keep going. So can you see how if you are standing here going, it's really difficult. It's really hard. How am I ever gonna get there? Two, yeah, I'm totally confident. Like I just know what I need to do.

This is what I do. I enjoy my exercise. I enjoy how I eat. I fuel my body. It's easy. I have the tools to think about my mindset when things get a little bit derailed, adjust. Get myself back on track and I've got the tools to do that. Isn't that amazing? Okay, my friends, I hope this has been useful.

Next week we have an amazing pro free event called Healthy and Strong Intensive, where we are really gonna dive into the things every single day. So first day we are looking at the overview. We are gonna be looking at the fat begets fat cycle a little bit more. On Tuesday, we are diving into nutrition and exercise and sleep.

If we have time trying to squash lots into a small amount of time on Wednesday, we are really gonna be [00:18:00] diving into mindset and really understanding what does negative brain look like? What does positive brain look like? What does my brain look like Thursday, we'll really be creating like a road plan for you, like how do you get from A to B?

And then on Friday I'm gonna just have an open q and a. So it's gonna be an amazing week. I will leave the link in the show notes for the podcast. If you are on Instagram, if you sign up to my email list, then it will send you out an invitation. I think that's the easiest thing. Okay, my friends have a lovely day and I will see you in two weeks time.

Goodbye.