76: Losing Weight and Making Money with Dr. Amruti Choudhry
Today, I have a special guest. And while this is a podcast all about money, my guest in this episode is actually a weight loss coach. You might think that sounds a little strange, but I’ve found that I meet so many weight loss coaches who have gone through the same training that I have, and the same principles and processes apply to self-improvement in both of these areas. Even inside my coaching practice, after I’ve been working with clients for a while, the subject of weight loss often comes up.
And so, I thought it would be fun to have weight loss coach Dr. Amruti Choudhry come on the show this week to discuss the similarities and commonalities between losing weight and making money. She’s a brilliant coach and a charming guest, and I hope you’ll see how you can apply the skills you’ve been learning from this podcast to your weight loss goals if that’s something you’re working towards.
Amruti is a physician turned full-time coach who specializes in coaching South Asian professionals on weight loss. We’re discussing the scarcity-based thoughts and fear of failure that come up for our clients when losing weight and building wealth, and Amruti is sharing how she helps her clients maintain their weight once they’ve lost it, much like I help my clients manage their wealth.
If you're ready to take control of your money and practice medicine on your terms, you need to check out Money for Women Physicians. Click here to learn more!
What You'll Learn from this Episode:
- Why all the skills I’ve been teaching you about building wealth also apply to weight loss.
- Where the fear of failure holds so many physicians back from even trying to lose weight.
- How Amruti teaches her clients to use failure as an opportunity to win in the future.
- Why you don’t necessarily have to sacrifice spontaneity when you make a weight loss plan or a financial plan.
- The arrival fallacy and how this scarcity mindset applies in weight loss and in building wealth.
- Why you can’t rely on external validation if you want to lose weight of maintain wealth in the long term.
- How Amruti encourages people who want to lose weight to seek discomfort in the short term.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Learn more about Money for Women Physicians where you’ll learn the tools to create wealth.
- Follow me on Instagram
- Dr. Amruti Choudhry: Website | Instagram | Facebook
- Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.
Hey everyone, welcome. So I've been kind of messing up the number of the episodes. So I can't remember this is 76 or 77. But obviously, when you listen to this, it'll be labeled correctly. And so today, I have a special guest and so I wanted to talk about why I have a weight loss coach on a podcast about money.
And so this is why, the more I've been doing money coaching, and because I'm in the coaching world I meet a lot of weight loss coaches. Now, I'm talking about coaches that have been trained by the Life Coach School, because you do learn how to coach on weight loss, and general life coaching, and everything really.
And so what I have noticed is that the same principles, the same concepts, the process to make money is actually very similar to what you need to do to lose weight. And so I do have a very small one on one coaching practice and I actually end up coaching some of my clients on weight loss because, well, I know how to do it because I am trained on that. But because the skill set is really the same.
And so I thought it'd be really fun to have her come on, to kind of talk about the similarities and the analogies between losing weight and making money. Because if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, or maybe you're even inside my program, Money For Women Physicians, all the skills I'm teaching you can apply directly to losing weight, if that's something you want to do.
And so I brought on Dr. Amruti Choudhry and she will introduce herself. But one of the reasons why I chose her, besides the fact that she's absolutely lovely, is she has a wonderful British accent because she lives in the UK. And since this is a podcast, I'm like, “It would be so fun to have someone with an awesome accent on the show.”
Plus, she's absolutely brilliant. I'm super excited for her to be here. I hope you will learn a lot and start applying some of the skills that you've been learning on the podcast to how you can lose weight, if that's something that you want to do.
All right, here we go.
Bonnie: Welcome to the show, Dr. Amruti Choudhry.
Dr. Choudhry: Thank you so much, Bonnie. So it's such a pleasure to be here.
Bonnie: Yeah. So for my listeners who don't know you, can you just briefly introduce yourself?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah. So I'm Dr. Amruti Choudhry, I am a certified life and weight loss coach in the UK, and a retired physician because I have become a full time coach. And I coach South Asian women, professionals on weight loss.
Bonnie: Yeah. So for those of you listening, you might be like, “Okay, why is there a weight loss coach on the show?” And so the reason why I wanted Dr. Choudhry on the show is this, if you follow me and you've been listening along, then I have great news for you. Because all the skills that I've been teaching you apply to losing weight. So it's really two for one.
And so I wanted to bring her on specifically to kind of pick out some of the concepts that we both coach on that end up being very similar in terms of the skill sets needed to either lose weight or make money. And I would say from now on when you listen to my podcast, if you are someone who's trying to lose weight, ask yourself how does this apply to losing weight? Because it's kind of the same. It's great.
Plus, Dr. Choudhry has a lovely accent so it's kind of fun to listen to her voice.
Dr. Choudhry: I love that. Thank you so much, Bonnie.
Bonnie: Yeah, so I thought the first thing we could talk about is processing emotions. Now, it's something that we talk about a lot, meaning you have to allow your emotions to come up, and feel them, and process them. I know in weight loss we talk about allowing urges.
And so do you want to just spend maybe a minute explaining what that means exactly. Because I don't think I specifically talk about allowing urges to my audience.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so this is one of the topics I talk about a lot in my weight loss coaching. So basically, when people want to overeat it's normally because they're trying to buffer against a negative emotion. So what that means is they're trying to kind of push away a negative emotion and they use food to numb that out.
And what often happens is when you're feeling an urge, which is an intense over desire to eat, or do something off your protocol, or anything like that. That's what often takes them away from following the plan that they've made ahead of time.
So we talk quite a lot on feeling our urges and how to kind of be able to process them, even when they feel like you're going to die. They feel like they're so strong. And they feel like you're not able to do so.
So one of the things that I teach them is feeling your emotions and feeling your urges are exactly the same thing. It's about kind of tuning into your body, actually feeling it directly in your body, describing it, kind of thinking where they're feeling it in the body and just tuning into their body. As opposed to looking for something external to make themselves feel better.
Bonnie: Yeah, and that's definitely a skill that many of my clients – You don't coach just women physicians, right?
Dr. Choudhry: No, I coach any South Asian professional.
Bonnie: Yeah. So basically type A professional woman, right? And so, we I think are kind of taught not to feel our feelings. And something I heard from Glennon Doyle, the author of Untamed, it's such a simple sentence but it really struck me. It said, “Feelings are feeling,” it's like, okay, duh, that makes sense, right?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.
Bonnie: And so a lot of my clients will use food as a buffer. You know, they're in a bad mood and then they'll eat something thinking they'll feel better, or they'll go shopping, that's the flip side.
Dr. Choudhry: Yes.
Bonnie: I'm sure some of your clients go shopping, too.
Dr. Choudhry: Exactly. So yeah, the buffer could be food or over shopping. So they're normally hand in hand. And I coach a lot of women physicians, as well and it's exactly the same, basically.
So what I tend to find is that when they do one, or when they start losing weight, they may then go to another buffer. So before they learn how to fully feel their feelings, they kind of may be following their food protocol, but then they go to overspending. I mean, that happened with me and my own journey, so I can kind of feel your pain.
Bonnie: Yeah. No, that makes sense, right? You learn how to process emotions with one specific thing like eating or spending money. But then once you've mastered that it usually ends up moving along. Because I think we're always going to want to avoid feeling or feelings.
For me, it's definitely social media is my biggest vice when I'm buffering personally.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah. And I think it's also because society doesn't teach us about feeling our emotions. it's often frowned upon. It's often kind of like, “Oh, that's quite woo. That's quite soft and mushy.” And especially as women physicians, that may not be scientific enough for us.
But when we actually get into actually tuning into our bodies and feeling it, the actual freedom that you get is phenomenal.
Bonnie: Yeah, no, totally agree. Also, I think there's this sense that if you have enough willpower or mental strength, you won't need to feel your feelings, right?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.
Bonnie: I think that's kind of perpetuated in medicine.
Dr. Choudhry: Agreed, yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah. Okay, yeah, so this just reminded me because I think so many of us are just afraid of feeling our feelings, certain feelings, we go to such great lengths to avoid them. And then the consequences can just be so huge.
And so what I see in my clients is they're so afraid – And this is kind of a segue into the next topic. They're so afraid of making a mistake and the consequence being losing money, they don't even try because risk is so scary to them. The fear of failing, I think, is just so high in our clients because we're type A, we got straight A's and failure wasn't an option. And especially as a doctor, failure means you could hurt a patient unintentionally.
And so do you see this in your clients? I guess the analogy would be gaining weight if they make a mistake.
Dr. Choudhry: Yes, this happens all the time. So when I'm actually coaching them, from the beginning we talk about how we're going to fail our way to success. And when they hear that initially they're horrified, like, “What does that mean? I don't want to fail.”
But actually we talk about failing forward. So like, how are we going to fail and either look at that as a win or as a learning opportunity? So what can we learn from that fail that's actually going to drive us closer to our goal, as opposed to further away from it?
Bonnie: Yeah, our society's relationship with failure is not a great model to learn from. Because basically if you think about even just our school system, I don't know how the grades are in the UK, but here an A is the highest grade and then F literally stands for – I think it stands for failure, I
don't know, I just assume that's what it means. But it's like getting an F is horrible, right? But you don't learn anything when you're always getting A's.
Dr. Choudhry: Exactly that. And so what we teach is kind of like how can we learn our way there? Because with weight loss, and I'm sure it's the same with making money, it's kind of like a lot of trial and error.
So it's not like there's a perfect route for every client. It's different for every client and so you have to fail in order to know what doesn't work for you so it can drive you to actually find what does work and what will continue to work for you.
Bonnie: Yeah, I love what you just said there. It is a lot of trial and error finding the way that works for the individual. Obviously, you and I have steps and processes that we take our clients through, but each individual journey can look so different.
Okay, so here's a good one. So another analogy is weighing yourself on the scale, you see a number. And then for money it would be either the balance in your accounts or your net worth. I guess net worth is probably a better measure. So how do you talk about that with your clients?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so it normally starts off with a lot of my clients fear the scale. And we talk about how the scale is completely neutral. So it's the same kind of analogy as a bank account, say if it's negative or whatever the bank account is. And a lot of my clients think that the scale is causing them to feel a certain way, especially if the scale has gone up or anything like that.
But what we look at is how what we're thinking about the scale is actually creating our feelings. So what I take them through is, how do they actually want to think even before they get on the scales? Like what do they want to kind of believe about themselves without even looking at it?
So this kind of takes me to the belief aspect of what do they believe about themselves, even when the scale is going up or going down? With you it's probably their bank account kind of going up or down, right?
Bonnie: Yeah, I love what you just said because basically it's like we're allowed to believe whatever we want about ourselves, no matter what the external measure might be. And I think a lot of women think we're only allowed to believe certain things about ourselves if certain external measurements also line up.
And I think with weight loss especially, or just weight and body size, society just values thin women so much that I think a lot of women just feel like, “Well, I'm not allowed to feel beautiful, or think I'm beautiful, or think I'm amazing if the scale doesn't match up with that,” right?
Dr. Choudhry: Exactly. And what we actually work on is kind of body image and actually self-love first. And when you start loving your body, if you do want to lose weight, that's when the weight starts coming off.
Because when you're kind of beating yourself up into weight loss, or the same thing with you beating yourself up into making a certain amount of money, then it's never going to be sustainable. Because how you get there is how you stay there.
So if you're kind of beating yourself up for weight loss, when you get to your goal weight, you're going to keep continuing to beat yourself up. And that's just going to lead you to burnout or self-sabotage, and then put the weight back on.
Bonnie: Oh totally. And this is basically the arrival fallacy concept, right? Like I'm sure some of your clients are like, “Oh, I'll be happy, I'll feel so great about myself when I'm this weight.” And the same thing with money, a lot of people feel like, “Oh, all of my money stress and fears – Or I'll feel secure once I have this much in the bank.”
And then I just gently remind them, yeah, but you used to be a medical student where you made no money for the most part. And then you became a resident where in the US we get paid around 40 to $50,000 a year. And then you became an attending where your income like quadrupled for the most part. And they're like, “Oh.”
So I think each time there's a step up, we think we're going to feel better. But it just like, magnifies. And in fact, I will tell them if we don't clean this up right now, because the common thought for my clients is like, “I don't have enough” or “I feel insecure about money,” it actually gets worse the more money you have.
And I found this true for myself and so I really had to get to work to clean up myself. Because I said, “Because if you don't clean it up and you end up having a million dollars, if that's your goal, you're going to be afraid to lose the money once you get there. It'll just like flip the fear that you have.” Do you see this in your clients?
Dr. Choudhry: Oh, exactly the same. So it reminds me of kind of scarcity, right? So scarcity thinking with regards to money or with food. So
what shows up for my clients is that – So firstly, when they first start off it's like the scarcity of, “Oh, I’m not going to have enough or it won't be enough to sustain me. I won't be able to stick to this. I'll miss out.” Things like that.
And then when they actually start getting to goal weight it's kind of like, “Will I be able to stay here? I won't be able to stay here. I won't be able to sustain this.”
Bonnie: Maintaining.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, those kinds of scarcity thoughts that pop up
that we have to really work through.
Bonnie: That's so interesting, just thinking about my journey with weight. I'm pretty good at losing weight, that's not like a big deal. Although lately it's been harder. I'm sort of blaming my age, but I'm sure that's not really true. I mean, maybe it's partially true, but not the entire story.
But when I get to my goal weight, I think it's such unfamiliar territory to me and so I always end up gaining it back slowly over time. Or kind of like, “Well, I can do whatever I want now because I'm here,” but that's not really true. I found that out many times.
Dr. Choudhry: Me too. Yeah, same here.
Bonnie: Yeah, that's a different – I don't know, do you think it's a different skill set to kind of maintain where you are?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, I think it's kind of like what happens is you don't get the external validation that you get when you're losing weight. So when you're losing weight, everyone's saying to you, “Oh, wow, you've lost weight. You're doing so well.” You can actually see the numbers moving on the scale, which you can choose to think it's working or whatever you choose to think about that.
And when you maintaining your weight, you don't get that external validation anymore. And so you have to learn how to self-validate so that you can still maintain it as opposed to relying on the external validation.
Bonnie: Oh, that's such a good point. I don't think I've thought of it like that. So I think for money it would be a lot of us aren't used to just having money, right? Like just having it. Because I think so many of us think of money as we get it and we just, “Okay, what do we do with it?” Meaning like how do we spend the money versus just really being, I don't want to say happy, but just feeling really sufficient with having the money and not needing to do something with it.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, and a lot of my clients, they're just not used to being at goal weight. They just don't know what to do with themselves because the decades of their life they've been either gaining weight or losing weight, gaining weight or losing weight.
So now they have that freeness in their mind, they're like, “Wait, what do I do with all of this mind space and energy?” And all of that that they now have. So they often go and build businesses or take up hobbies or do something completely new, because they've got so much free space in their mind now?
Bonnie: Yeah, no, totally. Okay, so let's talk about the analogy – So one of the things I talk about a lot is spending plans, which is my preferred term, versus budget. And I will actually say a budget sounds like a money diet, and nobody likes diets.
So I think this is such a great analogy between money and eating plans. So, we both trained at the Life Coach School and so I'm familiar with the basic weight loss tools that they use. Although I'm sure yours are a little different.
And so one of the concepts I teach is to create a spending plan, and all that means is that we're making decisions about how we're going to use our money in advance. Where we use our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex if you will, to make logical decisions about spending. Because in the moment, if you haven't made a decision, your toddler brain will often take over.
Kind of like they say that's why you should never go grocery shopping when you're hungry. It's so funny, because I'll make a list. I don't go shopping these days, I just get everything delivered. But when I used to go grocery shopping, even when I was hungry, I’d be like, “Well if I make a list, I'll stick to the list.” But yeah, there's something about when you're hungry you just start buying stuff that you don't need.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, totally. I now just order because I know I would probably do the same.
Bonnie: Yeah, so like how do you teach your clients about – You call it an eating protocol, right?
Dr. Choudhry: Mm-hmm.
Bonnie: So tell us about that.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so it's basically the same kind of concepts as the spending plan. So it's basically using your prefrontal cortex, or the thinking part of your brain, to make decisions ahead of time for you so that you don't then rely on your primitive brain, the more animal part of the brain.
Because whenever we're relying on the animal part of the brain, it always wants us to do one of three things, seek pleasure, avoid pain, or stay how we are. And whenever we're doing that, because the primitive brain likes to kind of have routine and it likes to take the path of least resistance, it will always choose the cupcake over the avocado salad that you've got planned on your protocol.
And so if you're not planning, then you're always going to be using that primitive part of your brain. Which is why I encourage my clients to create a protocol so that they're using the higher part of their brain, so that that part of their brain is looking at their greater goals. And so they're more likely to sustain that and actually follow through when they're planning with their prefrontal cortex.
Bonnie: Yeah. And so for those of you listening you might be thinking, “Okay, that sounds great. But then what happens when you're like, in the moment?” And this is where that first thing we talked about in the beginning of podcast, allowing emotions, allowing urges, that's the skill that you have to develop to basically follow through on the plan, right?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.
Bonnie: And it's a whole process. Do you say process?
Dr. Choudhry: I say, process, yeah.
Bonnie: I lived in the UK for like three months and I remember loving just like all the different ways people pronounce things.
So yeah, there's a process and what we said earlier about you're going to have to fail and make mistakes because that's just part of how you get to the other side. And I think what came to me is, you're not going to know how to do it correctly, because if you did, we would have already lost the weight or already made the money.
And so I think society just makes us fear failure so much a lot of us don't want to do it. And so we “fail” ahead of time. It's like, why bother? Because we don't want to fail and so we just stay failed, so to speak, right?
Dr. Choudhry: Exactly that. I like to think of it as a skill that you learn. So it's basically like driving a car. So when you're driving a car, initially it's like, “Ah, oh my gosh, I don't know how to drive. I don't know what goes where and it feels really clunky.” And then you go in the second time and then it's a little bit easier. Then you do it like five or six times and it's getting easier. And then a few months later you're just driving the car and it's kind of second nature.
So it's the same thing with feeling urges and feeling emotions. It does feel clunky and scary at first. But then when you do it more and more, your primitive brain doesn't then offer you as many urges when it realizes that you're not giving into them as much. And so your desire actually decreases drastically when you are going towards the urge rather than running away from it.
Bonnie: So it sounds like what you're saying is you need to put in the work.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, it feels hard initially but remember if there's discomfort either way. There's either the discomfort of staying the same and kind of not growing, or there's the discomfort of growth and actually feeling the short term discomfort to get the long term comfort.
So most of my clients say, “Yeah, I'd rather feel the short term discomfort to get the long term comfort.” So, yeah, all about the delayed gratification, right?
Bonnie: Yeah. So for our spending plans usually we’re talking about one month increments. Or I actually have them think about what they spend annually because certain things are like monthly, but then certain things aren’t.
Just for example, for a lot of my insurance premiums I actually pay once a year because it's usually a little cheaper versus paying every month, they add extra fees. But you still want to put it in your spending plan what it is monthly to make sure it adds up annually.
So I'm assuming for eating protocols you don't plan a month ahead of time, because that's kind of crazy, right? So what do you recommend?
Dr. Choudhry: So I recommend planning 24 hours in advance because that involves using that higher part of our brain to do so. I also do event plans, and plans for special occasions, plans for holidays, plans for kind of eating out because these are the situations where a lot of my clients worry.
They think, “Well I can eat on protocol when I'm actually at home or at work. But actually, when it comes to socializing and meeting with other people, that's when things may change.” So that's when we create specific protocols for these occasions so that they're kind of still able to feel in control. And kind of having gone there anticipated the obstacles that may come up, come up with solutions for themselves, and then follow through with that in actual time.
Bonnie: Yeah, that's such a great point because I think the same applies for spending. Because if they're just having a regular month where they're just doing their normal daily routine, but then when they're traveling and so a lot of my clients will be like, “But I want to be able to buy things.”
And I think it's really easy to think that these protocols, these plans are meant to be restrictive. Because that's just kind of like the societal messaging we get, that it's restrictive. Dieting is restrictive and if you're working on your money, then you have to spend less. It's like very based on restriction.
And so I teach the same concept because, for example, I have certain clients where they understand the idea of creating a spending plan, but then they’re like, “But I like to just spend spontaneously.” They don't want to have to plan every purchase. I'm like, “Well, great. You can plan for the spontaneity.”
It sounds kind of ironic but I'm like, “You could put like whatever that is for you, maybe a few thousand dollars where you’re just like if you want to buy something on a whim you can do that, it's just included into the plan.”
And the same thing, when I travel is definitely where I tend to get in trouble with eating. But one thing I've just given myself grace about is just because I'm someone who wants to be healthy or just maintain my weight doesn't mean that I can't eat certain things or that I can't let loose for certain times. I just can't do that every day.
So when I was in Cabo a few weeks ago I don't think I really had an eating plan. I think my eating plan was to only eat when I was hungry and to stop when I was full. I just left it very bare bones. And then I had to think about alcohol, because definitely alcohol can be, you know. Not a problem for me, but it's like, yeah, after you have one or two drinks your thinking abilities kind of go down the drain, so to speak.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Bonnie: Yeah, so I've had to just be really conscious about that. Like, maybe say I will have two drinks. I actually don't even remember if I followed that or not. But I didn't really make it like a big deal if I drank a little bit more than I wanted to or et cetera.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so it's similar to kind of having that plan. So what I do with my clients is actually anticipate it ahead of time and be like, “Okay, they're allowed to have whatever they want.” So it's never that I'm telling them, “You have to have this.” They get to choose their plan. And it's basically then holding themselves accountable, which is what we kind of teach in the coaching.
So they can have two drinks, or they can have 10. They can put whatever on their plan, but then knowing that they're willing to stick to that plan and when they do follow that plan, they're willing to kind of accept the consequences that may come with it as well.
So when they're going to have 10 drinks, some of them, right, “Yeah, I'm going to have 10 drinks, I'm going to really go all out.” And then they write, “Okay, will I be willing to accept the consequences of being hung over the next day, or feeling sluggish, or kind of like eating everything off protocol and things like that.
So it's, yeah, accepting those consequences and kind of owning that, which is what I teach my clients.
Bonnie: Okay. So I think there's this concept that I see a lot in eating, but also with money, is that there's good and bad food. Because I think when people lose weight they're thinking, oh, I need to only eat “healthy food,” or I should go vegetarian, or whatever the diet of the day or the year is, right?
And I think for money there's just so much morality tied to what you spend your money on. I have some clients who before they joined my program, they were really afraid that I was going to tell them that they can't buy nice handbags or that they can't fly first class.
And so I think this is such an important thing for everyone to hear, is that that is not what this is about. And that is not what eating is about. So I want to hear sort of your take and I'll tell you mine.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so my take is initially they come in thinking but they can't eat that. But what we teach them is kind of like there's no good foods or bad foods. It's just foods that are going to actually serve their bodies or foods that aren't really going to serve their bodies, and it's going to be different for everyone.
And so when they kind of are able to look at that and see that they're making that choice to eat that, then it's not like, “Oh, I can't have it anymore.” It's just, “I'm choosing not to have that.” And then that takes that deprivation out of it so it's not like, “Oh, I had a bad food.” It's just that it's taking that emotion out of it and just seeing it as the facts.
So, I ate a doughnut. And so if you think of it like, “Oh, I've eaten a doughnut,” and then go into the kind of all or nothing thinking like, “That means I'm going to eat off protocol all day,” then that's obviously going to make it harder to lose weight.
But when you look at it as, “Yeah, I had a doughnut. I enjoyed the doughnut. I'm just going to go back on protocol,” then it kind of just takes all of that emotion out of it. And it makes it easier for them to look at it for what it is rather than the kind of story that we create in our brains.
Bonnie: Yeah, and all the self-judgment and shame we pile on top of that, right?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah.
Bonnie: Yeah. And so I remember one client specifically, she was someone who loved to give. That was just one of the things that gave her so much joy, to donate to charity. And she thought I was going to tell her to stop doing that so she could save more money. And I said, “What if you learned how to make so much more money, you could give even more?”
Because I think so many of us, when we think of money, we think of cutting expenses. And I think that’s the same for losing weight, is like they have to eat less food and they're going to just have to deal with it and be unhappy. And so that is one way to create more money to do other things.
But on the flip side, and I don't think there's an analogy for weight loss. But on the flip side I'm like, “So many people never consider what if they just learned how to make more money? So they could actually spend on the things they want to spend on.”
Dr. Choudhry: The analogy that I can think of is over exercising. So everyone thinks that they need to over exercise to lose weight. But actually, sometimes over exercising is detrimental to losing weight. And so the less you exercise, in terms of strenuous exercise, it can actually be better for you. So that's the analogy that I can think of not. I’m sure if it fully relates, but I think it kind of does.
Bonnie: Yeah, when I was younger, I definitely was of the mindset that in order to lose weight you have to not just eat differently, but also exercise a lot. And I remember even I still have the app on my phone, although I just use it to track my weight. But My Fitness Pal, for example, I remember I would enter the food and calculate the calories. Who wants to count calories? I'm just so glad I don't do that anymore, but I used to.
And then I remember entering the exercise and then making sure everything added up. Meaning if I ate a little bit more, then I had to make sure I exercised to negate the calories. And that's what so many people do. Do they still do that?
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, so a lot of people do that. So we have to get out of that kind of diet mentality, the calories in calories out mentality, because it just doesn't work like that with our bodies. And so it's kind of like a lot of just reprogramming of the brain because for so many decades of our lives we've been thinking that way, right?
Bonnie: Yeah. All right, well, this was such an interesting conversation. And so why don't you tell us sort of like your top tip, and you can give more than one if you want, for those women who do want to lose weight.
Dr. Choudhry: Okay. So I’d say the top tip is probably not what you're going to want to hear. It is learning how to feel your emotions and feel your urges.
And I know we've talked about this previously, but if you can learn how to eat only when you're hungry, and only when you're physically hungry rather than when you're emotionally hungry and kind of trying to push away a negative emotion or a positive emotion, that's when you will get down to your goal weight. Because you'll be actually fueling your body with what it actually needs, rather than what it actually wants. Because you tend to lose weight when you eat what you eat, not when you eat what you kind of always want to eat, right?
Bonnie: Yeah, it sounds so simple.
Dr. Choudhry: It sounds simple and it is simple. But it's the following through that is where it takes practice. And it's like a muscle. And when you exercise that muscle, it aches initially. But then when you keep exercising, it grows and it does the exercise easily. So the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And I know that it sounds cliche, but it's true. Really, the more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Bonnie: Yeah, and I think that's why it's so helpful to have a coach to coach you during that process so that you're not doing it alone. Just having like a guide and mentor to kind of help you and understand how to evaluate things so that you're not beating yourself up. Because that's like the worst, right? Because all of us are going to come up to obstacles and then how we treat ourselves is going to make all the difference.
Dr. Choudhry: Exactly, and normally what happens in weight loss and probably in money as well, it's we feel a lot of shame when we've eaten off protocol. And shame is one of those emotions that kind of wants to hide, right? So you want to kind of not tell anyone about it, hide, kind of cover it up, things like that.
And so when you actually go towards the shame and actually kind of like see that actually the shame is not as bad as I think it is in my brain, then a coach can help you see that. Because if you aren't kind of getting coached, sometimes you would want to follow that shame and kind of hide. But a coach will actually be able to guide you towards it and feel it.
Bonnie: Yeah, so good. All right everyone. So basically, we just told you all the secrets to making money and losing weight.
Dr. Choudhry: Yeah, and it's the same, guys, as you can hear.
Bonnie: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here. I think my listeners learned a lot. And how can we learn more about you?
Dr. Choudhry: Thank you so much for having me. So you can learn more about me by going to my website, www.amruticoaching.com. And I'm currently enrolling for a group coaching program. So if you're interested, you can either message me on Instagram, which is @amruti.coaching or message me on Facebook. I am Amruti Choudhry on Facebook. Or you can email me and you can find the details on my website.
Bonnie: Yeah, we'll be sure to link all that information in the show notes so people can just kind of click and find you easily. All right, thanks so much for being here.
Dr. Choudhry: Thank you so much, Bonnie. Bye.
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