The Retirement Success in Maine Podcast Ep 054: Stop Struggling with Food Choices in Retirement

 

 

Transcript 

Ben Smith:

Welcome everyone to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. My name is Ben Smith. Allow me to introduce my co-host, the lobster roll to my blueberry pie Curtis Worcester. How you doing today, Curtis?

Curtis Worcester:

I'm doing well Ben. How are you?

Ben Smith:

I'm doing great. Doing great. We got a nice little roll going on with, pardon the pun on food here. But with our shows, we've had some really great guests. We're really excited about our guests today. And one thing I wanna ask her is, has there ever been a time in your life that you've struggled with eating foods that you knew weren't good for you, or you're eating too much, or you couldn't seem to make positive choices of foods?

Curtis Worcester:

Short answer. Yes. I did not know I was gonna be put on the spot today though. So I dunno, I feel it's all on you all the time, all the time with me and food.

Ben Smith:

Well, and me too. And I know from, obviously food is something, I think all of us struggle with, And we've heard from a lot of our clients that this is really one of their biggest life struggles that they've been in a war with food. And sometimes they just can't seem to find the right balance that leads them to a more healthy relationship with their body. In some cases, when there's food addictions going on, it's really the one addiction that we still need to engage with in order to sustain our lives. So, that's a real tough one. But a lot of people are on that dieting yo-yo and that gets talked to about a lot. And on a previous show, we talked with a local personal trainer, Mike Wilcox, and that show is about getting healthier in retirement.

Ben Smith:

I know we kind of talked from the kind of the physical end, and talk about getting more active, and kind of doing that in how he helps his clients there. But we really, really kind of talk a lot about food. And seeing as that's something that many of us struggle with and really might wanna look at changing in retirement, or maybe even post pandemic, we've been at home and that's really thrown our food choices and disarray, we wanna kind of get to this kind of these questions of why do we struggle with food and how are other areas in our lives driving our food choices?

Ben Smith:

And if we're gonna really start with engineering our retirement, is it's a really great time in our lives to just think about who we are, what our purpose is, who we wanna be, what we wanna do with our time, our own longevity. This idea of, we've heard from several guests about engineering retirement, designing who we wanna be, but it's also this idea of, that's a really great time to thinking about exploring our relationship with food and the thing that stops us from realizing who we wanna be, and our health goals, and kind of our ideal kind of self.

Ben Smith:

So, the question is, how can we stop struggling with our food choices in retirement and start living a healthier and more balanced life? So, with that, that's the premise of the today's show. So, our next guest is a life and weight loss coach works with women in midlife who wanna lose weight, but are done with dieting, by coaching them to better health, through easy to do sustainable habits. Easy to do sustainable is the key here. So, using certain cues, she helps her clients design the right health program for their body and lifestyle, with the idea that we can achieve optimal health, which leads to better relationships, self-esteem, and overall life happiness.

Ben Smith:

Our guest today is a Chicago native, but now conducts her coaching business in Mexico, not Mexico, Maine. This is real Mexico here, and through the advancements in technology, meets with our clients through video, focusing on the areas of health, eating, moving, stress, and sleep management body image and how we think about them. So, at this time, I'd like to welcome Elizabeth Sherman to the Retirement Success in Maine Podcast. Elizabeth, thank you so much for coming on. We're really excited to have you.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Thanks for having me. This is just such a treat.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. Well, obviously there's a lot to talk about with you today. And again, this concept of struggling with food choices and really kind of using this as a reset button. So, lots of things wanna go in foundational and then more advanced here, but we always wanna start with getting to know you a little bit. So, maybe you could just give us a little bit of your background of where you're from and some of your childhood experience.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. So, I grew up in Chicago. I am 53 years old right now, and for all practical purposes, I had a normal childhood. I am the youngest of six kids. And so, my mom did not work, my dad did and had just a middle management type job. And I think that growing up, my mom really looked at food and her body and imparted all of those same beliefs onto her kids, that she was trying to feed us all for as little money as possible. And as a result, there is lots of starches in our diets. Like Chilly had rice in it or noodles and bread was always part of a dinner. And we tend to have those same types of comfort foods as we grow up. And so it wasn't until, so my mom passed away in 2001 from best breast cancer, and that was really the start of my journey towards better health.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And before that, going back to my mom, she really kind of looked at her body as very utilitarian. Like my body is there too. I don't wanna say birth babies, but just, it wasn't something to necessarily be admired. It wasn't anything like that, but just, this is my body and I feed it and I feel full, and then I don't really think about overall health in general. And so, when my mom passed away from breast cancer, I had taken a lot of those beliefs on myself. And when she passed away, it was the first time that I really saw my future happening in front of me. I knew right in that moment that if I kept doing what I was doing, that I was gonna end up in the same exact position that she was.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, that was really the wake up call for me to start making some changes in my life, looking at food from a more health standpoint, looking at my body from not something that just gets me from point A to point B, but then how do I take care of my body, so that I can reduce the risk of having not only breast cancer, but, I started Googling it, and I found out that being overweight was a huge risk factor to so many different diseases. And so, it was again, just really the first step that I took in making that change in my life. Yeah.

Ben Smith:

That's really amazing. Because I think, a few things you touched on there, one of just our attitudes towards health is really a taught behavior a lot of times, and the people that are teaching that are parents. And I know what you did there is, there's not an assignment of blame that's happening here, it is this is just, Hey, this is our family and this is how we work, and this is what we had to do to kind of get through. And especially with six children there, and trying to make sure that everybody is full and they're not going hungry, and we've got to make our budget last as long as possible in this. And by the way, and I heard that growing up. You finish that plate. It's on the plate, you need to finish it.

Ben Smith:

Those are really kind of subliminal traits that you just get taught. And it's like, if it's in front of me, doesn't matter if that plate continues to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. I'm taught that I got to continue to finish that plate, because we don't want anything to go to waste. Those are money behaviors that are maybe not the best health behaviors as well, trying to make that work. So, I like what you said there.

Ben Smith:

And also I think you also made a point about looking forward here, and kind of saying, "Hey, if I keep going", and we hear that from our clients a lot, Curtis and Mike Wilcox who talked about this is, one of his clients, the big thing that's kind of said to him, he needed to get healthier, was he's looking at his grandkids, he couldn't keep up with them, but he got into the bathtub and he couldn't out of the bathtub.

Ben Smith:

And that was the moment. It was very private, very personal, but he's like, "I'm trapped, I can't get out. Something needs to change. My physical ability right now". And that person was still pretty young and in their sixties, and not able to do things and looking forward and I need to change. So, I think that what you said is really, I think that's something I wanna kind of hone in on a little bit with our conversation today, Elizabeth, is sometimes there's has to be some trigger here to kind of say, "I need to change".

Ben Smith:

There's something here that means I need to do something differently. But the trigger is really important. So, I wanna ask another question about your coaching practice then here. Can you talk a little bit about the development of your practice? Can you talk to about, "Hey I was as a manager and it had a corporate lifestyle", so obviously you had this personal transformation moment on your own health, but can talk about maybe how that's impacted career for you. And again, why you developed this coaching practice, who you help, and why you're so passionate about your approach.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. So, why I'm so passionate about my approach is because of my mom. I really did not want her to die in vain. I mean, it would have been enough probably for me to have gotten my own health in order, but I really saw this as an opportunity to help so many other people. And my purpose on this planet is to prevent as many people as I can, if I can just prevent one person from not having to go through the pain that I saw my mom go through, I will have served my place on this planet. And so, that is really the ultimate purpose. Now, you asked me other questions. I got distracted with my purpose.

Ben Smith:

So, the management part. So you going from being a corporate manager, and I wanna speak to this because this, pardon the use here, but the treadmill, the corporate treadmill that sometimes we get on, we get very addicted, Is, "Hey, I'm making good money, I've worked so hard to elevate in terms of my status. I get personal achievement and fulfillment from my career success sometimes to the detriment of health", but to go, "Hey, I'm gonna actually change this now to then go into your own practice". Can you talk about that moment and why you developed that practice and how you developed it and who you help?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. So, let me walk you through this. So, my mom passed away in March of 2001. And if we can all go back to March of 2001, we know that six months later, the twin towers were hit and then Enron went down. And the company that I worked for at the time was called Nortel Networks, which also owned half of the Canadian Stock Exchange and now does not exist. And so, there was all of this stuff happening at the same time. And I had moved from Chicago down to Austin, Texas, to live with my then boyfriend who's now my husband. And just a little shout out kids. Don't do this at home. My husband and I were in a long distance relationship for five months. I decided to leave Chicago, sell everything, moved to a town that I didn't know anyone at, and buy a house with him, fortunate that it worked out.

Ben Smith:

Yeah, that's fine.

Elizabeth Sherman:

So, during that time, I actually had a number of high tech jobs. And with each high-tech job that I had, it just didn't really seem to make sense how I was helping the world to become a better place. My husband and I don't have kids. We never intended to. And there was something in the back of my mind that was like, "Okay, how are you leaving the world in a better place than how you received it?" And I guess I was kind of having an early midlife crisis. And so, I went to a psychologist, probably more as a life coach than anything, because I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not resonating with my career anymore, I gotten myself into shape. But yeah, there's something off here. And my psychologist suggested that I become a wellness coach.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, I was like, "Huh". And one thing that's like really curious about me, is that when someone suggests something, I'm like, "Yeah, I can totally do that". And so I did. I got my personal training certificate together. I got my nutrition certificate together. And what was really weird about that was that I did that in September of 2005. And in October, I actually got laid off from the high-tech job that I was in. I was planning on doing like both. I was planning on like working during the day and then doing like personal training afterwards. And they kind of made the decision for me. And so, it was kismet. It was like, "Whew, I have a plan". And so, that was still actually really kind of frustrating though for me, because, and I don't mean to downplay what personal trainers do. Personal trainers are great, but I knew that I could help my clients so much more than how they were allowing me to help them.

Elizabeth Sherman:

I knew that I could help them create better habits around their food and their lifestyle, but I didn't really know how to do that. I knew that there was something better because I had already been doing that myself, but I really didn't know how to do that. And remember back in 2005, coaching wasn't a thing. People knew nutritionists, people knew personal trainers, but no one knew what a coach was.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so what I did in the meantime was, I started personal training and it was frustrating for me, because again, I knew I could help people more. So, I bade my time. And about 10 years ago, my husband and I went to Belize for a month. And it was the first time that we were like, "Oh, could we do this like forever?" Like, could we live on a beach and a foreign country and make it successful? At the time, again, technology wasn't good enough. We didn't love Belize, but we really liked Mexico. And so, we started coming to Mexico and I realized that I'm not answering your question, but Yeah.

Ben Smith:

It's a path, I gotcha. I'm with you.

Elizabeth Sherman:

So, we started coming down to Mexico and trying to find where we wanted to move to in Mexico. We loved coming here. And the American lifestyle that we had bought into our house was amazing. We lived in a five-bedroom house in Austin, Texas-

Ben Smith:

With two people.

Elizabeth Sherman:

With two people, no kids. And what started happening is, our lifestyle started requiring more and more money that we were then working to support our lifestyle. And so, it really made it attractive to move to Mexico where life is a little bit simpler. No one cares what, if you have a Fendi bag or not, no one cares what jeans you have or what car you drive. And so, things are much simpler down here. And so, in 2015, we finally found the town that we are currently living in. And we were like, "Oh my God, that's, that's it, it's checks all the boxes". It's close to the beach. It's in an area that we really love. It's small, it's close to an airport.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, we decided in 2015 that in 2017 we would move. So, it gave us a year and a half then to close down our five bedroom house, get rid of all of this stuff that was in it, and finally moved here. And so that's really when I went 100% online with my business. And so, that's when I really started doing more of the lifestyle coaching and I got my life coach certification. And I can talk a little bit about how that plays into the whole thing, but that's how that all came together. Yeah.

Ben Smith:

Awesome. I know you took us through that, Elizabeth. I think that was a really great story. And a few things I think it's gonna resonate with, hopefully you out there that is listening to this. Because I think a lot of what we're talking about is retirement, is that there's a moment where your saying I need to live more simply. There's things I just need to change about my life, and I need to kind of re-examine what's important and what is an important to me. Because again, a lot of us, our career successes is maybe the number one and kind of you're so focused on certain things in our lives. That you require a lot of things like money, your lifestyle requires lots of things. And I think you kind of already going through that. I know you're kind of not at retirement, but at least it's being kind of talked about, these are pivots, that they're pivot moments, and you've kind of gone through your pivot.

Ben Smith:

And some people retirement is the only pivot that they go through in kind of the lives. So, I think there's a lot of parallels that you've drawn to what you've gone through, Elizabeth, to I think what we hear from our clients, but also I think what our show is doing to us. I think that was a really great story. Thank you for sharing that, because I think it really aligns well with a lot of things we've talked about on our show. But I wanna go deeper with you here, go into this topic of struggling with food choices. And again, really, what I'm really excited about from your expertise, Elizabeth, is your point is it's not personal training. It's a nice, this Venn diagram of life and food.

Ben Smith:

And I think that's the more important thing, is because I wanna examine with you today, and Curtis and I do with this, like life is impacting our food choices and food choice sometimes is impacting our life choices, and kind of going through it. So, I wanna ask you about, especially many of us, especially as we're approaching our retirement, we've all tried to be healthier. And I don't wanna kind of use the word losing weight, because I guess I think that's maybe somewhere where we go is that maybe we're over, if we're using food too much, that we're maybe overusing food.

Ben Smith:

So, I don't wanna say that losing weight is the way to be healthier, for some people it might be. But maybe we've given up this kind of getting balanced, and maybe we've conceded a loss in a fight over being healthier. So, in your experience, what's the number one reason that many of us haven't gained traction in our efforts to be healthier and maintain a balanced relationship with food.

Elizabeth Sherman:

That's a really good question. And I think that so often we are focused on weight loss. That weight loss is the metric that so many of us use. And what I do with my clients is, we actually pivot that a little bit. And how we do that is, I teach people how to listen to their bodies, which sounds very basic. And it sounds weird, because I remember the very first time that at least it's settled in. I was at a party with some friends and I was in the, I remember being in the kitchen and eating brownies, and talking to a friend about how I just can't start eating one brownie, because if I eat one brownie, then I just have to keep eating them. And there was another friend in the room and she kind of was like, "Oh, well, I just listened to my body". And she walked out and I remember looking at my friend being like "What?"

Ben Smith:

Come on man. Please.

Elizabeth Sherman:

What does that even mean, "Listen to your body?" But what happened is, I actually started listening to my body and our body actually gives us cues that ultimately tell us what we need to be doing. And if we listen to our body, if we know how to understand those cues, then we can actually do what our body needs and our body will right-size. And so, when we're talking about those cues, I'll tell you right now, there are things like energy levels, and focus, and being able to sleep at night undisturbed, having a stable mood, giving into cravings or not giving into cravings, and then our appetite.

Elizabeth Sherman:

So, there are five different what I call biomarkers, that tell me if my set of lifestyle habits, lifestyle habits being, eating, physical activity, sleep stress management, are correct for my body. Because one of the things that so many of us do is, we look outside of ourselves for someone else to tell us what we should be doing. We look at diet gurus to tell us what we should be eating, we look at personal trainers and health gurus to tell us how we should be exercising. And we are really the only person who knows how we should be teaching our body. We're the only ones that really know what we should be doing.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so with my clients, I tell them that we're in a co-relationship. I know all about health. I know about physical activity, I know about eating, I know about sleep, but everyone is completely different. The number of hours of sleep that you need are different, and they're gonna change over your lifetime. The amount of starch or carbohydrate or vegetables or protein that you need over the course of your lifetime is gonna change. The amount of physical activity that you need over the course of your lifetime is gonna change. And so, we need to really be paying attention to what's happening. What are the cues that my body is giving me in order to do what's right for my body.

Elizabeth Sherman:

So like, for example, if you're finding that you're getting injured a lot, then that may tell you that you're overdoing it in the physical activity area, or that you're not eating properly, or that you're not getting enough sleep, or you're just moving, I don't wanna say moving too much, but you have too much going on. The body will break down in those instances. And so, it's really kind of being a detective of your own body and figuring out what's right for you.

Ben Smith:

So, I guess when, I ask it another way then Elizabeth, so you kind of referenced this in your own journey, and just even with kind of that brownie kind of comment, so I guess my question is why do we struggle with food? Is it because we're struggling with food because we are ignoring those five biomarkers, or there's social pressure and because of social pressure caused us to ignore the other pieces. So, what are you thinking is kind of causing this underlying issue where we struggle with our food choices?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. Okay. So, we think that the reason that we overeat is because of the food. We think that the reason that we are overweight is because we eat too much. It makes sense, that if I eat too much food, that the way that I fix that is through a diet that tells me what food I should and should not be eating. However, the reason that we do anything or don't do anything is because of how we feel. And the reason that we feel anything is because of the thoughts that we have about it. And so, let me break this down. When I see a brownie, I have desire for the brownie. We think that everyone has desire for the brownie, but you know what? There are people out there who don't like brownies.

Ben Smith:

That's not true. That's not true?

Elizabeth Sherman:

I've heard, I haven't met anyone, but-

Ben Smith:

You're talking about like big foot out there, aren't you?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Exactly, exactly. And so, we know that if we can change the way that we feel about food and the thoughts that are in our heads about the food, then we can change our ability, I don't wanna say our ability, we can change how we respond to the food. So, the reason that we overeat isn't because it feels good. Because overeating does not feel good. Over eating in fact feels bad, but why do we do it over and over and over again? And it's because, well, there are lots of different reasons, but ultimately it becomes overeating is fulfilling a need that it's not getting met from something else. So, does that answer your question?

Curtis Worcester:

It does. Yeah. I wanna keep going here a little bit. So, from a kind of nutrition and health perspective here, I think we hear a lot the general "Eat less move more". That's the key. So, can you just talk about why that may not work in general and then specifically kind of as we age, why that's not a good approach?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. So, first of all, most of the information that we have about weight loss has been done on college-age men.

Ben Smith:

Okay.

Elizabeth Sherman:

College-age men have a totally different metabolism than men that are older, than women, and than women that are older. And so, I love this example because when I was in the height of my dieting days. Okay. So, first of all, maybe you don't know this, that one pound of fat is roughly equal to 3,500 calories. So, we think that the body is a math equation. And I love that we're talking about this on a retirement, it is because that totally makes sense. Right?

Ben Smith:

Yes.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And I say, roughly, because we don't know that that's true for everybody. We know that it's about truth. And so, when we think about losing one pound of fat within a week, if we take 3,500 and divide that by seven, seven days in a week, we get 500 calories. And so, if I create a deficit of eating less moving more of 500 calories, then theoretically in a week, I will have lost a pound of fat. Everyone out there has done this.

Ben Smith:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Elizabeth Sherman:

And in a week, they do not lose that one pound of fat. So, there must be something else that's going on. In fact, in the height of my dieting days, I started talking about this, but I created a spreadsheet. And in my spreadsheet, I figured out that if I weighed X amount right now, and I had a 500 calorie deficit every day for the next X number of weeks, that I would get at my goal weight in, let's say six weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks, whatever.

Ben Smith:

Sure.

Elizabeth Sherman:

But then, I auto-filled that formula and kept going. And at some point I got to a negative number, which is impossible.

Ben Smith:

Well, it means you're probably not living at that point. Right?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Exactly, exactly. And so, it just, the body is self preserving. The body doesn't care about what we look like in our jeans, the body doesn't care about what a socially acceptable weight is. The body only cares about living. And so, it's gonna do everything in its power to keep us alive. And so, that's when other things come into play like hormonal responses and yeah, just other, yeah hormones.

Ben Smith:

Well, and I think I've listened to another one of your shows on your podcast, we'll talk about that a little bit. But someone was mentioning this whole concept of Weight Watchers. And not to call it Weight Watchers, there's a lot of people that probably have done very successful maintaining their health on that. So, the example was, because it's just like a point system, and I can eat like one king size Snickers bar, and I ate all my points for the day. So, I'm done. It becomes the Snickers diet, as I can just eat one Snickers, I consumed all the calories I needed, and I'm done for the day and now I'm have to live for the next 23.75 hours on one king sized Snickers until I can do this again.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Exactly.

Ben Smith:

Obviously that's not a very sustainable, healthy kind of, but with the math of it, you can kind of go, "Hey, the math is the math and I can just make that work". So it's just, I can see where there's lots of ways that people can try to gain it. And I love you more Elizabeth, you mentioned spreadsheets to us. So, it's like, Hey, if this is something where I can just kind of, it's calorie in calorie out, and take care of it, then there we go. But I know even with me personally, my relationship with food is sometimes depending on what else is happening in my life. All of a sudden, we were getting this business going and we're on the road, we got to sign up five clients today, and we start at 7:00 AM, we don't get done till 10:00 PM, and we have to pound in as many calories as we can within 10 minutes and three different meals.

Ben Smith:

All that stuff. And that's not unique to me. A lot of people deal with that is they just don't have time for food and other things take priority. So, many times, especially life events, can dictate stress. And how we process stress of food; it could be relationship turmoil, life changes, career stress, personal disaster, a pandemic, by the way, all these things are life stages are situations that can disrupt our attention.

Ben Smith:

So, even if we're on a good place and things are going really well, all of a sudden life tragedy happens or something just throws us off track, and now we don't pay attention at all. So, I guess my question to you is, maybe even in your coaching practice or for yourself, have you found that we can build a strong foundation so that life stresses really aren't dictating how healthy we are or can be. So, how are we kind of build that foundation, so we don't get as, maybe we get a little disruptive, but maybe we don't get fully disrupted by something externally that's happening to us?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah, that's actually a really good question. And that's actually the reason, the 100% reason why I started adding life coaching into my practice. Because as a personal trainer and nutritionist, my clients would be getting really good results. They would be consistent in their workout routines, they get really good results by being consistent in their eating habits, and then something in their life that would pull the rug right out from under them. And that thing was always stress-related.

Elizabeth Sherman:

So, either their job got busy or they had to take care of a parent or their child got in trouble, or something that really challenged them from being able to take care of themselves. And what you're talking about right there as being on the road and not taking care of yourself through eating fast food and things like that. And I don't wanna say that you can't take care of yourself when you're having those life situations, but it just depends on how important your health is to you during those times. Because there are lots of different options, especially today, maybe not when we were in the seventies or the eighties, but today, there are so many more options for vegetables and eating good things when you're on the road. It's just a matter of deciding to choose to eat those things or not.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, how we manage our problems has everything to do with how we take care of ourselves. And so, we know that two people can experience the same exact event, the same exact life stress, and have two different responses to it. And so, as a life coach, what I help my clients do, is proactively manage their stress. So, what that looks like is, looking at the stressful situation differently. And so, previously, when we talk about stress, we talk about doing things for ourselves like getting manicures or massages, or those very feminine things that are expensive, and they take a lot of time. But I think that you can also take care of yourself, the future version of yourself, without having to do that stuff, without having to take a vacation from your life.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, how we take care of ourselves is through managing our problems in our brain. So, oftentimes we'll get so overwhelmed, and I'm like, I don't have time to even think about eating something healthy. Well, that's maybe true, but where can you eat that has some vegetables? Can you get a side salad there instead of ordering the fries? Can you get extra lettuce and tomato on your burger and throw away half of the bun and eat it that way so that you're getting more vegetables into your diet? And I think that one of the things that I talk about a lot with my clients is having that become your new normal.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, when we think about our habits as being, this is just the way that I am, then when life gets in the way, there may be a few days when I eat subpar and I don't eat a lot of vegetables, but for the most part, that's gonna be more important to me. And especially going back to what we talked about earlier, which was listening to your body, when you start to feel that lethargy of eating fast food over and over and over again, you're like, "Oh my God, I need something that's good for me, I haven't really been paying attention to my body and I need to really do something that's good for me in response to that stress".

Curtis Worcester:

Yep. Absolutely.

Curtis Worcester:

I like that. I wanna keep going on the idea of kind of overcoming challenges here. So, in this sense, though, I wanna kind of look at it and kind of a medical challenges that you may not have control over. So, as we age and certainly aging in retirement, it's a bit different than aging in other stages of our lives. So, what has been your advice for people who encounter sort of a physical challenge that you can't always just build an exercise plan for to try to work through, or a health issue comes up and you have to cut out certain foods, maybe it's an allergy or digestive issue? So, how can you kind of overcome those challenges?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. So, I mean, there are, for sure, people who have things like IBS, where they can't eat raw foods, or they have diverticulitis where they can't eat things with seeds. And so, it's really figuring out what can I do? Because oftentimes, and this actually goes back to diet mentality. That when we go on a diet, we think about all the things that we can't have. And so, when we think about I have an injury, or I can't do these things, we tend to focus on that. And so, what I wanna suggest is that we start focusing on what we can do and work within those boundaries. And so, when we can do that, we don't identify ourselves through the limiting factor. We actually identify ourselves with our abilities.

Curtis Worcester:

I liked that.

Ben Smith:

And especially, I think what you've also said, Elizabeth is this whole, again, this eat less move more, where maybe that was the thing that always was the solve if things got out of balance, is well, just exercise more, and to kind of go well, now that I can't do it well, that's my excuse, just give up. I can't do this anymore, I can't can't run on this treadmill anymore. Can't walk. I just got to give up because I can't do it. So, I like what you're saying here is, well, let's focus on what you can do, and there's lots of ways that you can kind of make that work, and whether it be food choices. Or again, there's probably exercises that you still could do. Even if maybe you have a hip issue, you could do maybe like lightweight lifting with your upper body or something.

Ben Smith:

So, all that I think is really, really pretty good. I wanna ask about another question though. And this goes to more relationship. This is maybe kind of where life and kind of food kind of intersect here. On a recent episode of your podcast done with dieting, you kind of discussed this idea of affirmations are BS. So, especially with couples, and people that are close relationships. It kinda went through this whole like scenario on this, like, "Oh my God, I've gained so much weight. I feel so disgusting", but it's probably, all of us have kind of said that at one moment in our lives.

Ben Smith:

And then of course, what happens with the friend, partner, family member, spouse, they go, "Oh you shouldn't say that you're not disgusting. You're beautiful". And it's like, okay, well, that response is like, sometimes it's authentic. Maybe it isn't. But at the same point, it's tough to be. You don't wanna be fully honest, because if you're fully honest, maybe it is true, and then that's very insulting and obviously very callous and not very sensitive to your friend or partner's feelings. So, can you talk a little bit about affirmations, how we're currently using them to discuss our body images and maybe how we can do that better.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. And so, first I wanna go back to that comment that people say, "Oh, you shouldn't say that your body is beautiful". I think that when do that, we're not actually hearing our friend or our partner. And so, I think that when we say that, what it does is it invalidates what that person has just said, and it makes them feel misunderstood. And what we really wanna do is, somehow validate them without saying, "Yeah, you're right". We wanna say, "Oh, I'm really sorry that you're feeling that way". Or, "That really sucks to feel that way about your body, I totally get that, I've been there too". That's all you have to say. And it's not saying, "Yeah, you're right".

Elizabeth Sherman:

Now, that being said, affirmations are BS is because, when we feel so negative about our bodies or anything for that matter, like if you even say, "God, I hate my job, my job sucks". And someone says, "Oh, you should really love your job", that is again, is very invalidating. And so, there's this process that I walk my clients through, which is called Thought Letters. So, all of our thoughts that we have about our body, our job, our car, whatever. So, there was probably a time, going back to the job, because I don't know that this is true for our bodies, but actually, there's probably a time when we were like six that we loved our bodies, and there was probably a time when we started our jobs that we loved our jobs.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, we know that how we feel about something, whether it's our body, whether it's our car, whether it's our job, those thoughts are 100% optional. Now, and how we know that is, we've changed. It's the same job, but now we feel different. Where before we are like, "I love my job". Maybe now we're like, "I hate my job", or even going from, "My job's okay". To, "I hate my job".

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, we know that we have the power to change our thoughts about anything, all of our circumstances. And so, when we're going from though a negative to a positive, we go directly from, "I hate my body", to, "I love my body", because the brain just shuts down.

Elizabeth Sherman:

It's not believable. And so what we need to do is we need to move up what's called the Thought Letter. And it's really interesting. I just got off a coaching call with, I have a group of women and we were talking about this exact topic. And so, where we have go from that is, going from negative to neutral. Like this is my body on a Tuesday afternoon, or this is what a 53 year old woman's body looks like.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, when we get to acceptance of that, then we can start to move up the ladder. And so, affirmations are BS is really just an idea that we can't just think better thoughts and expect to have different results. We have to actively try to focus on those and make them believable, so that we can then embody them. And so, there's another technique that we can use in addition to the Letter thoughts, which is called bridging phrases.

Elizabeth Sherman:

So, if you're still in disbelief that this is what a 53 year old woman body can look like, you can pre-pend those phrases with what are called bridging phrases. Bridging phrases are things like, "I'm considering that", or, "I'm maybe", or, "I'm looking for evidence that". So, what that would look like is, "I'm currently believing that this is what a 53 year old woman's body looks like". So, notice how that just softens it a little bit. And then once I believe that, then I can take off that bridging phrase, go into the direct phrase, and then start to move upwards in the ladder.

Ben Smith:

I like that. And I wanna kind of pivot that to another way to use that is, again, really the Genesis of this show is, a lot of people are retiring and they're really not believing that this is a kind of a reset button. So, this whole of, "Well, I've lived in the same house for the last 40 years, we do the same thing. We're just gonna do more of just kind of staying at home". And that might be the retirement they want. But when you ask them the ideal of the retirement that they like to have, they say it, but they maybe don't believe that they can achieve it. So, I know what you just kind of did around this whole, the affirmation around our body and how we feel about our health.

Ben Smith:

You can essentially use that in this context too, about, Hey, the life that you want, you just need to kind of start believing here's the facts, here's what are the good things, here's what we believe we can change and how we can go change them to kind of get... Maybe does not the idea, but maybe closer up that ladder towards maybe that vision statement is. So, I wanna make that point real quick, Elizabeth, because I think that was, that was really great.

Elizabeth Sherman:

No, and I think that that's actually very true. And in fact, in the call this morning, I actually talked about money, that we can use that in terms of our bank balance, that we always have to get to acceptance before we can move forward. And so, really going to a place of this is what is, and I can not like it, and that's totally 100% okay. But getting to a place of acceptance and going with body. And then also I love the parallels that happen with money here too, is that, we think that getting to a place of acceptance means that we're not going to want to improve. But we can actually be an acceptance in our marriage or in our job and still wanna do better. It's just about, this is where things are today, and I'm totally okay with moving forward and doing better. And I know that it's my responsibility to make those steps in becoming healthier.

Ben Smith:

Gotcha. And I know we're kind of talking parallel tracks in terms of money and health and food, but this happens almost ad nauseum with our clients. Is they walk in, they've been trained so long to be savers, and all of a sudden is now that day, one of retirement hits that it's this whole, I feel accomplished because I've accumulated a lot of money over a certain time period, but I don't wanna see that go away, because I've felt this level of self-esteem, that it is really tough for them to go, this is something that's now to be used to be spent. And it is okay to spend from this to then translate money to then happiness in our lives, and use it for not only just sustainability and survivability, but in increasing happiness and using it in functional ways that gives our lives meaning over time.

Ben Smith:

So, but again, going to this whole kind of this latter idea, is that they really don't even accept that it should be spent. Is that we have to even start with this idea that it is okay to spend your money. They come to us thinking that you, the financial advisors, are gonna tell us no don't ever spend your money, just invest it and just grows and grows and grows. And when they want something, that thing that they've... Curtis and I I've used this example in our podcast, the guy that wanted to fly planes, and he's waited 40 years to fly a plane, he gets here and he goes, "But that's gonna cost money and I don't wanna do it, because I can't spend money".

Ben Smith:

So, I know I'm reacting to kind a lot of the life part here, Elizabeth, what you're doing, but I think that's where our role is turning more and more into as well is we have to lean into what are the barriers that are preventing you from kind of achieving this. And a lot of times, the money itself is the barrier, and we're having to address it. It's okay to spend, and again, maybe it's just the stereotype of what financial advisors are and who we think we are and all that. But again, I know we're kind of going a little 30 degrees off, but everything you just said kinda struck me here a little bit.

Elizabeth Sherman:

No, that is 100% exactly what I do too. Like my clients will come to me and they'll say, "Oh, I was bad, I had pizza this weekend", or I had ice cream. And when we go on a diet, when we are wanting to lose weight, we think that we need to be perfect until we get to that goal weight. The reason that people aren't successful in maintaining their goal weight is because they haven't learned how to have treats during their weight loss. And so, what happens then is, they lose all of this weight. And then they're like, okay, well now I can have treats and they go crazy with it. It's the same exact thing that we scrimp and save and get all of this money, and now we're in retirement. And now we're like, well, now I don't know what to do. We're white knuckling it.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Whether we're about food or where they're talking about money, we need to learn how manage our mind around food and money, so that when we get to goal, we can be effective and we can live the life that we want to live. Because I'm sure that all of your listeners right now, when they think about their retirement, they're not thinking about living in their house with this shades drawn, and not doing anything. They have vibrant retirement lives. And so, how do you get yourself there? And how you get yourself there is by slowly leaning into the future version of yourself, who is vibrant, who is doing those things, who is financially sound, but who also has interests and loves life.

Ben Smith:

Mm-Hmm (Affirmative). And to your point about purpose and where we are is that, what you just described is searching our purpose, right? Is like, Hey, if we can help people translate the money into a better life, and again, sustainability of the money along the way. But if we can say, "Hey, we were able to show you ways that you could sustainably use this money to create a better life for yourself, whether it's you're 20 years old, or you're a hundred years old, that's a worthwhile practice and venture". So, a lot of good stuff there. I know we kind of went around the life coaching tree, but I think that was great. Thank you.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Mm-Hmm (affirmative)

Curtis Worcester:

So, I wanna point out, so you have a saying that Ben and I both love, and it's discomfort now, or discomfort later. So, can you take a little time here and just kind of explain this phrase in the context of your coaching practice, but then on another level, just from an aging perspective as well?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. Well, so for every decision that we make, there is a level of discomfort and there's a level of pleasure. So let's say that right now. I say, "Hey, Curtis, here's some ice cream. Would you like some ice cream?" And the pleasure there is accepting the ice cream and eating it.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure.

Elizabeth Sherman:

The discomfort is saying no to the ice cream. Okay?

Curtis Worcester:

Got it. Yep.

Elizabeth Sherman:

When you accept the ice cream and eat it, you could have discomfort later on. The discomfort later on could be that you don't fit into your pants anymore.

Curtis Worcester:

Sure, yeah.

Elizabeth Sherman:

When we have discomfort from saying no to the ice cream, the pleasure is potentially later on being more active and feeling better in our body. Now, both of those situations, fitting into our pants, those are kind of far away. And so, when we say no to the ice cream, that's actually really uncomfortable, because we want it. We have the immediate gratification of wanting to eat the ice cream. However, let's take that discomfort a little bit closer. Let's put that you are lactose intolerant. Now, if you eat the ice cream in an hour or two, you're going to feel uncomfortable from eating it.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, when we decide to do anything, we need to think about the positive and negative aspects to that. And so, that's really the basis of that phrase of discomfort now, or discomfort later. And so, when we want to be successful in our goal, whatever that goal is; being healthier, sleeping better, whatever, we will do those things. We will be willing to risk the discomfort closer to where we are right now, if the pleasure is gonna be immediate as well.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so, for my clients who have trouble exercising, what I recommend for them is that they do, so when we're exercising, the immediate discomfort is going out and doing the thing.. Because is hard, it's uncomfortable, we don't like to do it. But the very first time, what I suggest my clients do is do what's called a body scan on the other side of it. And when we can reflect back then on doing the body scan, feeling good after we've done the exercise, going for the walk, not only feeling good physically, but also kind of being proud of ourselves.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Then the next time that we're resisting going for our walk, we can actually call on that pleasure and really say to ourselves, "Okay, I know that it's discomfort going for our Walker going to exercise". And quite honestly, everyone out there probably thinks that I love exercising, and I love what exercise does for me, but every single morning, I have the same struggle. I have two cups of coffee, and then I drag myself upstairs to my rooftop because that's where I exercise.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And it is a slog for me. I procrastinate every single day. But I know that once I get it done, that I'm gonna feel so much better. And so, I end up talking to myself more than I listen to the negative voice, the inner critic in my head that's like, "You don't wanna do that. It's so much more comfortable sitting on the couch, drinking coffee, and we don't have to do all these things". So, if we can talk to ourselves more than we can listen to ourselves, we can get ourselves to do the uncomfortable thing for the long term pleasure thing.

Ben Smith:

Gotcha. Nice. Okay. I wanna ask a, just a like again, a timing question, right. And I think all of us, you hear the slogan, like today's the best day to start, whatever the thing you wanna do. It's not it's not January 1st, it's not new year's, but I wanna ask about because again, a lot of our listeners are kind of leading up to retirement, maybe early retirement, in retirement, but I wanna ask the question is why do you think retirement is the perfect time to hit the reset button on our health and nutrition habits?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Actually, that's a really good question. So, there's something called clean slate habits. And what clean slate habits are, or clean slate moments. There are points in time that changing our habits actually becomes easier. I'm gonna say it's easier, but it's easier. [crosstalk 00:53:54]

Elizabeth Sherman:

And those times, so there's actually a really good backstory to this. That in, I forget what year it was, but I wanna say in the late nineties, Target got in trouble because they started noticing through their customer card loyalty cards, that they started noticing that when women purchased certain items, that that indicated that they were pregnant. And target knew that if they could intercept that women and get them buying at Target, that they would get a lifetime customer. And so, pregnancy is one of these clean slate moments. That when we have a baby, our habits naturally change. Another one is when we move. So, if we move from one house to another, if we get married, if we get divorced, if we start a new job or start at a new location in our job. So, these are all different times in our life when our schedules are naturally disrupted.

Elizabeth Sherman:

And so again, Target knew that if they could intercept that and get someone to start shopping at their location, then they could then have a customer for life. And so, the same thing happens for our health. So, for example, when we moved from the United States to Mexico, I decided consciously what foods I was gonna allow into the house, and which foods I didn't wanna have in the house. And so, I didn't wanna have bags of chips in the house. It's okay to eat chips, it's okay to have cookies in the house, but I didn't want to be like having lots of cookies. So, when you are retiring, your schedule is gonna be naturally disrupted. And so, this is an opportunity for you to design what you want your future to look like. And you can start thinking about it ahead of time.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Like, just start daydreaming about it. Do I wanna be active? Like, who am I gonna be active with? What time am I gonna wake up in the morning? And really just start to dream about what your schedule might look like. Because I think that so often, this happens with marriage and it also happens with retirement, that we're like, we're thinking about that marriage, that wedding, and we don't think about the marriage. We think about quitting our job, but we don't think about what happens after that. And the same thing is true with losing weight. That we get to that number on the scale, and we don't think about what's gonna happen after. And so, the more you can start imagining what life is gonna look like on the other side of that goal, of that milestone, the better off you're gonna be on the other side of that milestone.

Curtis Worcester:

Hmm. I like that. So, I'm gonna keep going here and I'm gonna press you on the other side of a milestone here. So, obviously we're here on the Retirement Success and Maine podcast. Kind of the whole purpose of this show for us is to help people envision their successful retirement. So, I wanna ask you Elizabeth, how are you gonna go find your personal retirement success when you get there?

Elizabeth Sherman:

Yeah. It's really interesting question, because I feel like my business is really starting to pick up. And at the same time, my husband has been working for the same company for 20 some years, and he's actually looking at, not necessarily retirement, because we've talked about this whole idea. We've actually been thinking about what does life look like in a few years? Can I retire my husband? Can we start traveling more? And what does life look like? And so, it's something that I'm in process of trying to dream about. And right now I'm just imagining the next five or 10 years. Again, I'm 53.

Ben Smith:

Still young.

Elizabeth Sherman:

I still have some time. Oh yeah, and we're gonna figure it out. Yeah.

Ben Smith:

Okay. Very, very cool. Well, Elizabeth, I wanna thank you so much for coming on our show. Again, I think food obviously is just a very foundational thing that all of us have a relationship with, and just be able to kind of talk about it in the context of retirement with somebody like yourself, that you can kind of intersect the life expertise with the food side together really, really a treat for us that we're able to have this conversation. So, thank you for coming on the Retirement Success and Maine Podcast, and we'll catch you next time.

Elizabeth Sherman:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Ben Smith:

Take care. We really gonna talk about struggling with food choices in retirement. So, being able to go to somebody like Elizabeth Sherman, having a kind of this food coach, health coach, life coach type combination, really kind of how they all kind of play you together. As you know, Curtis, we always like to do the highlighter to things that we learned in each episode. So, maybe just lead us off with something that you liked from our conversation with Elizabeth today.

Curtis Worcester:

Yeah. A piece that really stuck out to me was a kind of a, just a little phrase she threw in there, and I don't think it was a key point of her response. So, what it really stuck out to me was the focus on what you can do, not what you can't do. And it came up, I think in our conversation about how can you work through injuries as you age? And if you have dietary needs or health concerns, that kind of limit. what you can eat or how healthy you can be. But I think it's just so important how really look at it that way.

Curtis Worcester:

And even in our conversations about lifestyle affecting your health, if you're on the road, well, you can ask for extra lettuce, or you can ask for a side salad instead of fries, instead of saying, "Oh, I'm on the road, I'm in a rush. I don't have time. I can't do this. I can't do that. All I can do". Like you know what, order a salad at McDonald's if that's all you can eat. There are ways to, and I think it's just so important, the mindset flip there. And I think she talked about that a lot of overall our mindset towards food and being healthy and just kind of making it a natural reaction to look at what you can do to be healthy instead of saying, "Oh, I can only do that unhealthy thing for lunch".

Ben Smith:

Well, I think she made that point. And again, I really like the whole kind of talking about her history there and her mom. And it's like, Hey, we are having chili for dinner and we gotta feed six kids and two adults. And so we got eight people and, but we don't have a ton of money, so we gotta make this stretch a little more. So, let's put some rice in there to fill everybody up and it's cheap, it's kind of what good way to get calories in them. And then as I kind of added to it, it's like, by the way, "finish your plate, finish your plate, finish your plate".

Curtis Worcester:

Exactly.

Ben Smith:

Finish your plate.

Curtis Worcester:

Don't waste it. You can't waste.

Ben Smith:

Yeah. I think how many of all of us have had that experience, because you talk about the generation that's retired now, either was kind of during the great depression and or maybe the echo of the generation after the people that were in the great depression. So, it was this we needed to do more or less, we need to make everything stretch as much as we can. And I think a lot of us have learned how to eat that way. And again, it's not a black mark on anybody, or that's not saying that was an intentional thing. But as a kind of a reverb of what can happen with it, is all sudden now, maybe do have a little bit more money and you go to certain places and you go out to eat or you make things at home.

Ben Smith:

And it's like, well, geez, I have a really large plate of whatever that is pasta, whatever. And it's like, Nope, push through being full, because it tastes so good. And that's where I think her discomfort now, or discomfort later conversation was really great. But I even see that with my own son in kind of going, Hey, he's telling me he's full, and what was trained to me is like, "Well, you better finish that". Like I catch myself mid sentence, like, Nope, nope, he needs to listen to his body. If he's saying he's full, I need to not push anymore and say you need to do anymore. If he's fully, he is full. We enforce, then if you said you're full, then you're full. Right?

Curtis Worcester:

Sure. Yeah, sure.

Ben Smith:

Like let's not be full of the main course to get to the three slices of cake.

Curtis Worcester:

Right. Right.

Ben Smith:

But I think that that's something from a relationship side of, that's something, it's really tough to change. I really liked how she then talked about these clean slate moments and how retirement is a really great opportunity to do that. So, yeah, I think it touched on lots of really great themes today. And I think she did a really great job kind of talking about the challenge of it, but also the opportunity too. So, I wanna just kind of point everybody to, of course you can go to our blog and you can kind of see some more resources there. We're actually going to send you, it'll be a link. Elizabeth has a PDF, which I think will help everybody. It's called the eight basic habits that healthy people do.

Curtis Worcester:

Yep.

Ben Smith:

And so, we'll have a link to that. So, you can go to, it'll send you to our web website to download that. And I think it also might include and opportunity to maybe join in our newsletter or something along those lines. Yeah. But all this is, I think really kind of great to if you wanna learn more, you can kind of go there. Our website is blog.guidancepointllc.com, and it's slash, five four, for episode 54. So, you can go to that website, check it out. We really appreciate you tuning in. Again kind of another piece of life that I think some people kind of maybe looking for some improvement. So, hopefully this helped you out today. Appreciate you tuning in. We'll catch you next time.