In episode 237 of The Pulling Curls Podcast, Hilary Erickson shares her personal weight loss journey. She discusses the various strategies she employed, including working with a health coach, incorporating somatic exercises, maintaining a balanced diet, and using Semaglutide. Hilary also highlights the importance of strength training to prevent osteoporosis and improve overall health. Tune in to hear her candid experiences and practical tips for sustainable weight loss.
Find it here on Apple or Spotify Podcasts
Links for you:
The Workout Witch: https://theworkoutwitch.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 Surprise parenting led to seeking somatic exercise.
04:45 Key takeaways: Calories matter, add fiber, beans.
07:14 Preventing osteoporosis through strength and mobility exercises.
10:22 Kelly Clarkson shares honest weight loss journey.
Keypoints:
Sure! Here’s the summary without the numbers:
- Introduction to the Episode:
- Hilary Erickson announces the focus on her personal weight loss journey and the episode aim to help keep things simple.
- Initial Struggles:
- Hilary describes experiencing pain, fatigue, and discomfort, prompting her to consider a focus on her health as her youngest child started high school.
- The Workout Witch:
- She discovered ‘The Workout Witch’ on social media who claimed to heal various pains through somatic exercises. Remarkably, Hilary’s hip pain was alleviated after following the exercises and addressing her jaw tension.
- Health Coach Involvement:
- Hilary engaged a health coach for focused guidance. This coach had a background in dietetics and helped Hilary with diet and nutrition strategies.
- Key Dietary Insights:
- Emphasis on three dietary pillars from the health coach: Protein intake, fiber consumption, and calorie regulation.
- Introduction to Semaglutide:
- Hilary began using semaglutide around Christmas, noting some side effects and the importance of gradual dose increases.
- Exercise Routine:
- Hilary implemented weight-bearing exercises to prevent osteoporosis, aiming for short, consistent sessions throughout the week.
- Weight Loss and Plateaus:
- Over the months, Hilary lost approximately 12 pounds but experienced plateau phases. Emphasis on protein, fiber, and calorie counting continued despite slow progress.
- Food Habits Changes:
- She noted that semaglutide reduced food chatter in her mind and made her cautious about overeating, particularly at restaurants.
- Overall Takeaway:
- Hilary is happy to have reduced pain and improved functionality, prioritizes sustainable small steps in her weight loss journey, and aims to eventually stop using semaglutide while maintaining her progress.
Producer: Drew Erickson
Transcript
[00:00:00.630] – Hilary Erickson
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls podcast. Today on episode 237, we are talking about my weight loss journey. Let’s untangle it.
[00:00:10.690] – Hilary Erickson
Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial overcomplicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the pregnancy nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop overcomplicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with Pregnancy and Parenting Untangled, the Pulling Curls Podcast.
[00:00:38.750] – Hilary Erickson
Okay, last fall, I found myself just in pain, tired, fatigued. No matter what I did, I just was miserable. And my youngest was starting high school. That’s an era where they have a little bit more autonomy. I knew that I wasn’t going to be as important in her life as friends and extracurriculars.
[00:00:56.290] – Hilary Erickson
And I just knew I would probably have some extra time in my life, right? I will say there are times in season in parenting, and I’m getting to that season where parenting doesn’t take as much of my time. Parenting takes you by surprise because all of a sudden a kid will need you a lot in time that you thought you would have otherwise.
[00:01:15.710] – Hilary Erickson
But I knew that I would have some extra time in my life, and I really wanted to start making a difference in my own health. So the first thing I did, I had seen her on social media. Her name is the Workout Witch, and she just said that she would be to heal your back, your pelvis, jaw, all these different types of pain through somatic exercises. And at the time, my pelvis was just really hurting, the right side of my pelvis, right in front of my hipbone.
[00:01:42.200] – Hilary Erickson
I was trying every stretch. I tried mobility, And I honestly felt like mobility had taken my plantar fasciitis away, but had just moved it on my pelvis to that hipbone, and I could not figure out how to heal it. So I was like, you know what? Let’s try this workout, which I really enjoyed her. And during the jaw session, I realized that I was chewing my tongue really frequently.
[00:02:07.920] – Hilary Erickson
And I know you’re going to be like, Hilary, you’re insane. Just go with me. And I was like, okay, I’m going to stop doing that because she was talking a lot about jaw tension. And I actually set up this thing in my phone where every 20 minutes it would remind me, don’t chew on your tongue. And I had that on my phone for a month. We were going on vacation, and my husband was like, is that still going to be on your phone when we go on vacation? And it wasn’t. It only took a little while, and I stopped chewing on my tongue. And just in general, a jaw tightness was what I was feeling. And after I stopped doing it, that hip pain went away entirely, which she does seem like a witch.
[00:02:44.080] – Hilary Erickson
And she said that’s how she got the name her friends. She would show her friends exercises to help with their problems, and they would be like, You are a witch. And it totally took it away. So I’m a big believer in the somatic exercises. I like that lady. It was a one-time purchase, which I’m a big fan of.
[00:02:58.240] – Hilary Erickson
So after I I was done with the Workout Witch, which I still wasn’t losing weight. One of her claims is that you’ll drop weight. Did not happen for me. And I decided to get a health coach. So I had seen a gal online. She had actually reached out to me first asking to partner with me.
[00:03:15.540] – Hilary Erickson
She wasn’t a great fit for that type of thing because I already have a nutritionist that I love for pregnancy. But later I was following her and I just liked the vibe that she had. And so I signed up with her to be my health coach. So she’s a gal who has her bachelor’s in dietetics. She is now on her way to getting her master’s. You have to have a master’s degree before you’re a dietitian, but she knew about diet quite a bit.
[00:03:38.260] – Hilary Erickson
That’s why she was a health coach, not like a dietitian. Side note, I had worked with a dietitian with my health share a few years prior to that and didn’t see much luck. So I wasn’t sure that a dietitian was going to help me anymore. And honestly, I’m not a huge fan of the coaching business model at all. And I was wondering what on earth she could provide me that I couldn’t just provide myself. Now, I will say that I’m an extremely motivated person. Once I say I’m going to do X, Y, Z, that ends up happening.
[00:04:06.190] – Hilary Erickson
But I tend to get caught up in which path am I even supposed to follow. And so sometimes I’ll change direction or too early to tell if something’s working or something like that. And so I found that this health coach ultimately helped me to just stay focused. And I boiled it down to three pillars. So that I needed to focus on protein, and then I also needed to remember about fiber, and then I also needed to remember that calories matter, right? Because you see so many people that are like, eat a high protein diet, and then they’re just like having steak every day.
[00:04:42.630] – Hilary Erickson
And for me, that is not a way to lose weight. You have to remember that the calories matter and you have to add the fiber in, right? Which a lot of things that are high in protein, except for beans and lentils, who doesn’t love a bean and a lentil now and then, are not high in fiber. So adding beans into the diet seemed to fit both of those bills.
[00:05:02.000] – Hilary Erickson
Those are just the three things that ultimately I took out of my health coach journey with her. So I was working with her for, I think, three to four months and had a great experience. She still touches base with me online, and I really appreciate that. But it just helped get my head on straight instead of just always trying the newfangled thing in weight loss. Because you and I know that weight loss is one of those things that we’ll listen to because a lot of people want to lose weight.
[00:05:29.500] – Hilary Erickson
In fact, there is a blogging lady that I followed at the beginning of my blogging journey who had a lot of good things to say about blogging at a reasonable price point. And then she made a coaching thing that was incredibly expensive and just continued to make it more and more and more expensive.
[00:05:46.260] – Hilary Erickson
And then that dried up. There weren’t bloggers who wanted to follow her there. And so what does she switch to? Dieting. She’s not a dietitian. She has no experience. She’s just telling people to follow the keto diet. And I’m like, Isn’t that the way? We just know that people want to do this thing, and so we will charge huge amounts of money to tell you silly things. And so that’s what a health coach did for me. It was a short period of time, and the principles have remained the same for me.
[00:06:14.410] – Hilary Erickson
I did start Semaglutide right before Christmas. I am using a compound pharmacy to get my Semaglutide. It ends up being about 125 a month, I think-ish. It really hasn’t been bad most of the time, but I did try and increase my dose a while ago, and I was like, exercise in the restroom. So I backed it off a little bit, and I’m just slowly increasing it by a unit every week. My doctor is really cool about things. He doesn’t feel like I have to follow the… Because usually it goes like a 5, 10, 15 jump. Right now, I’m at 12.
[00:06:47.310] – Hilary Erickson
This Thursday, I’ll give myself 13 just to see if it can help me lose weight. Ultimately, I am… Well, we’ll get to that. Don’t worry. I don’t want to spoil it, how I’m just a skeleton now. Just kidding. And the other thing that really ultimately became important in this journey was weight-bearing exercises.
[00:07:06.810] – Hilary Erickson
So my mom has had an issue with broken bones, and her bones are just real thin and fragile. And I have made a goal to not let that be me because I’ve ultimately seen that it can be really problematic as you age. So I wanted to prevent osteoporosis, especially before I go into menopause. I’m 48 right now when I’m recording this, and bone growth was something that I really wanted to work on. And studies show that the best thing you can do for bone growth is weight exercises, so strength training.
[00:07:37.970] – Hilary Erickson
And they say you really don’t have to do a ton of it a week. Ten minutes, three times a week is what I focus on. I do some strength training, and then I really work on mobility and functional exercises so that I retain those things. One of my least favorite, but probably best ones, is where you’re kneeling on the ground and then you stand up, and then you get back down, and you kneel, and you stand back up.
[00:07:57.070] – Hilary Erickson
I hate that exercise, but they say that that is one of your best ones to keep your function around. So ultimately, I have lost, since Christmas, maybe 12 pounds. So we’re about six months out when I’m recording this from Christmas. I’ve lost about 12 pounds.
[00:08:16.420] – Hilary Erickson
I mean, I just don’t think that’s anything to write home about. That’s like two pounds a month. I am currently and have been stuck at the last month at a one to two pound variance. Part of me is like, Is it something mental? I did track calories for a week. It seemed to help, but I still have not gotten below. I want that second number to change, and I haven’t had that change yet.
[00:08:38.140] – Hilary Erickson
But I’m going to really just keep trying to focus on protein is important, so is fiber and calories matter, because I think when I do those things, the weight should come off, especially with the semaglutide. In case you were wondering, what have I seen otherwise besides negative side effects, I do feel like my food chatter in my brain is very minimal. I am extra cautious about eating extra because that’s when you get sick.
[00:09:03.220] – Hilary Erickson
So I really listen to that alarm in my head that is like, Okay, you’re full, so that I stop eating, especially at restaurants, because I don’t know what types of fats and things they’re cooking with. So fries, I try not to order any. I just have a couple off of my husband or kids plate, which I’m sure they’re a huge fan of. But you’re also aiming to just not get sick, because if you eat too much on the semi-glutide, you immediately get sick, and it’s not fun for anyone.
[00:09:27.210] – Hilary Erickson
Those are the things I’m going to keep doing moving forward. Focusing on protein, fiber matters too, so do calories, right? I’m going to keep doing the semi-glutide. My goal was to do it for the year and just see how I’m doing. It is a fair amount of money each month, so I don’t want to keep doing it if I’m not losing weight, but I’m not gaining weight, so that seems to be a win. And then keep doing the strength training exercises.
[00:09:51.190] – Hilary Erickson
I’m hesitant to increase my exercise too much because I feel like when I exercise more, I gain weight. Which it could be that I’m gaining muscle, they always say, but I don’t feel like my pants or anything is fitting looser or anything like that. So I’m just trying to keep it those 10 minutes of strength. And then I add cardio walking, pickleball. We love pickleball at my house. Of course, right now it’s summer in Arizona, so I try not to go outside in any form, but I’m just trying to keep moving a little bit more than I used to.
[00:10:22.400] – Hilary Erickson
So that is my weight loss journey. There’s nothing magical. I’m not the Kelly Clarkson who comes back for the next season and is stick thin. That has not been my experience. Would I like it to be? I mean, yes, in my head, I would like it to be, but I also know that small steps are ones that are easier to not roll back on, right? Because I don’t want to keep taking the semi-glutide for the rest of my life. I would like to go off of it at some point and hopefully maintain the weight loss that I found.
[00:10:49.330] – Hilary Erickson
But ultimately, I’m most happy that my body just isn’t hurting anymore. I was having so much pain with my hip and things like that, that it was just difficult to be my person. And so I’m really I’m glad that those are feeling better.
[00:11:01.210] – Hilary Erickson
I’m able to move better, move more. We go to Disneyland and stuff like that, and I’m not just dying. I mean, I’m sort of dying. It’s Disneyland. But in normal physical activities, I’m not dying. I feel fine. So that is my weight loss journey. If you guys have any questions, come find us over on Instagram. We’ll have a post for this episode.
[00:11:19.650] – Hilary Erickson
Stay tuned. We are talking about Aspirin During Pregnancy on our next episode. And the week after that, I am talking about having more fun at home. So stay tuned.
[00:11:28.950] – Hilary Erickson
Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls Podcast today. If you liked today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.
Keywords:
weight loss journey, Pulling Curls podcast, Hilary Erickson, overcomplicating things, serial overcomplicator, pregnancy and parenting, weight loss, fatigue, health coach, somatic exercises, workout witch, pelvis pain, fiber intake, protein intake, calories matter, dietetics, dietitian, semaglutide, strength training, osteoporosis prevention, bone growth, mobility exercises, functional exercises, weight bearing exercises, food chatter, nutritionist, resting, dieting myths, keto diet, weight management, health improvement
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