From Stuck to Strong: Making Health Changes That Actually Stick

Are you doing "reasonably well" with your health but secretly know you need to make real changes?

If you're in your 40s, 50s, or beyond and struggling with stubborn abdominal weight, low energy, or that nagging feeling that you're not living your healthiest life—this episode is your roadmap forward.

Dr. Orlena reveals why the weight loss strategies that worked in your 20s no longer apply, and shares the truth about abdominal fat that nobody tells you: it can take 6-12 months to respond even when you're doing everything right. But here's the good news: there are two powerful, scientifically-backed approaches to creating lasting change, and you get to choose which fits your life.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Two distinct paths to sustainable health transformation—the gradual "layering method" that builds one habit at a time versus the intentional "disruption method" that resets multiple areas simultaneously (and how to know which approach is right for you)
• Why midlife weight loss follows different rules—including the biological reality of how stress, menopause, and abdominal fat create a challenging cycle, and what actually works to break it
• The missing pillar most people ignore—why mindset and stress management are just as critical as nutrition and exercise, especially for women experiencing hormonal changes

Whether you're ready for small, powerful changes or a complete life reset, Dr. Orlena provides the framework to build what she calls "oak tree habits"—health practices so solid and automatic they become as natural as brushing your teeth.

Your future self—independent, energized, and strong into your 80s and 90s—is waiting. Let's build the path to get you there.

Sign up for the Stop Dieting and Start Thriving Video:

https://www.drorlena.com/stop-dieting

Looking for support? Book a free call with Dr Orlena: http://drorlena.com/book-a-call-dr-o

Transcript

 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. Today I want to talk about making change and how we make sustainable change. To get to healthy, amazing you. And there are a couple of ways that we can do this, and neither is better than the other. We just really need to understand it so that we can decide which works for us.

So let me start by telling you a few stories to illustrate what I'm talking about. So if you are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, struggling, because you can see yourself. You can see yourself wherever you are at life, perhaps in your forties, your fifties, sixties, seventies, wherever you are. And you may be thinking, okay, I'm doing things reasonably well.

And yet when you look and you are really objective and you are [00:01:00] really honest, you think I actually need to make changes. And it might be that you are eating reasonably healthy or you are doing a reasonable amount of exercise, but perhaps you have. Extra weight that you want to lose, particularly around your abdomen, that's the not healthy one.

And whatever you do, it doesn't seem to budge and there's definitely a reason for that. That's not your fault. It's that abdominal fat is not about energy storage. It is a more complicated fat to lose. And I will do some podcasts about that in the future, but today I want to talk about the changes. Here are some people that perhaps resonate with you. So Mary runs her own business, is really busy and is busy doing stuff, but really is stuck at a desk and is working more hours than she really wants to snacking on things like bread and cheese, partly [00:02:00] because she. Doesn't have time or really a system 'cause we all have time.

She doesn't have a system to help her create healthy foods that she likes. And then she gets home in the evening and she's just tired and exhausted and thinks, oh my goodness, I have no idea what to cook and what is easy. Just grabbing whatever she can but that whatever she can is not healthy stuff. So she's now feeling uncomfortable in her clothes, doing a little bit of movement, but really knowing that, yeah, if I'm really honest, I need to do more movement so that I can get to healthy, amazing.

Me. Another person. Let me tell you about Annemarie. 'cause I want to talk about Annemarie. So Annemarie really, and I've released a video for that. Anne-Marie kindly did. She's an actual real person. So recently retired. Previously had loads of problems with weight, had previously had operation for weight and had a [00:03:00] balloon which had come undone and really got into a stage where she felt scared of food because she just felt that food is gonna make her put on weight.

She was busy putting on weight and also movement, doing a little bit of movement, but not very much, but also had a really. Stressful last few years with life events happening, which, and I think life events really have a knock on effect for people. Because remember, if we think about the four pillars, stress is a big piece of the puzzle.

So just a couple of stories to help you illustrate. And your story might be slightly different, but the bottom line is you're standing here going, okay, I know that wherever I am, I'm not leading my. Most healthy life, and this worries me because I know I want to be healthy and fit into my eighties and nineties.

I want to be somebody who is independent. I want to be have independent living. I know we are looking a long way in the future [00:04:00] rather than assisted living. And when we are looking closer to right now, what we're thinking about is my energy levels are low and I don't feel like myself. I want to feel.

Vibrant and energized, and I also want this abdominal fat to disappear or all of the fat to disappear so that I can feel more confident in myself and feel not just confident in my body, enjoy my body, but also know that I am doing all of the right things so that I'm going to get to that person who is healthy and strong later into life.

So that's the situation now. Now, if we're just gonna wave a magic wand and think about, okay, what do you need to do to get there? Now, if you want to dive in deep and understand the mechanisms of what's going on with that visceral fact, and particularly looking at menopause, then I suggest you sign up to my video, stop dieting and start thriving, which really explains what is going on there.

But if we. Wave a magic wand. Where do you want to get to? What is, what does healthy and strong [00:05:00] look like? And it looks like having what I call solid oak tree habits in all four of the pillars. And what I mean by an oak tree habit is that you just do it without thinking. It is just part of your life in the same way that you brush your teeth.

I presume two, possibly three times a day. You don't think about that. The vast majority of people do not think about doing brushing their teeth. It just happens naturally. And when you have really solid habits, that's what happens in all four of the pillars. So just to recap the pillars, delicious, healthy food that fuels your body.

It's not about depriving your body. It's about most of the time eating healthy food that is going to. Not spike your glucose, it's going to fuel your biome. It's going to nourish your muscles. So we are looking at fiber and we are looking at protein, but you just eat that and it's easy for you to eat it without really thinking about it.

It's just you're just eating food. I [00:06:00] just eat food. Yes, I eat healthy food like I would say 95% of the time. Exercise as well. What your body needs in terms of exercise. Side note that is different for everybody, partly because we are all different people, but there are a few common threads that we need.

So we need to be looking at resistance training and we also need to be looking at high intensity. But there's so different ways that, so many different ways that you can do high intensity or sprint interval training, so you have an exercise routine that is just normal. I love my exercise routine. I personally do exercise first thing in the morning because it just sets me up for the day.

My husband always goes, what's tomorrow? Is it swimming or weights? And it's yeah, it's one of the two. There's no are you going to exercise sleep? Pillar number three is sleep. Super important and super overlooked by so many people. Yes, people understand that they need to have this sleep. This thing called sleep because it's good for your [00:07:00] health, it's good for weight loss, but yet so many people don't prioritize it.

It's really important for both your long-term health and weight loss and it's so easy. All you have to do is go to sleep. I know some people have problems sleeping, but again, it doesn't have to be all the time. I didn't sleep well last night. I dunno why. Oh, I do know why my kids woke me up. My teenage kids.

I think I'd gone to sleep and then. Just as I was drifting off, they were being noisy outside 'cause they now go to bed later than me and they're not very quiet. And yeah, then that means that I had to go back to sleep again. And that took longer than normal. So that wasn't great. And I do have other things, sometimes my husband wakes me up going to the bathroom or in the summer we have discos.

But I do not, me personally, the town has discos on me. Not that I have discos. There are times when I don't sleep well, but I do what I can to make sure I sleep well. I prioritize my sleep. I make sure I go to bed. I've got my good routine. I [00:08:00] do what is in my control. Now, the last piece of the puzzle is stress and emotions and mindset.

And in my opinion, this is the biggest piece of the puzzle that is overlooked. People don't think, oh, I need to lose weight. I need to get healthy. I need to think about my mindset. They just don't see it as part of the picture. And yes, it is partly because stress is so important for everybody, but specifically for menopausal women because as we lose our estrogen, we become more sensitive to stress.

Which results in abdominal fat and abdominal fat has four times as many cortisol receptors as subcutaneous fat. So it almost creates this negative feedback loop. It's almost like what I call the fat begets fat cycle. It's almost like you go stress equals more abdominal fat. The next time you have stress, it's like even more abdominal fat.

Yes, I know. It is [00:09:00] just hard. Now the other piece of the puzzle is. And I speak about this quite a lot on the podcast, our mindset is really important to help us keep going because our brain says to us what I, the biggest thing that I see most people's brains say is, when I was younger, I used to lose one to two pounds a week, and that's what I am expecting now.

Now, the thing about that is, yes. It does happen to some people, but not to everybody. It's not a guaranteed thing like it used to be. And so then people start making changes. They don't get the results that they want, and then they get demoralized. Okay, so let's go back to that visceral fact. That visceral fact can take six months to a year to start changing the mechanisms that are.

Degrading you that are causing that visceral fat. So that means that you can be doing everything right for 3, [00:10:00] 4, 5 months and not be seeing any movement on that visceral fat. That does not mean that you aren't doing the things right, but the danger is your brain goes, this isn't working. It's not working.

It's not working, okay. So that's where we want to get to when you have those pillars. Nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress, stroke mindset. And that stress stroke mindset includes everything, your relationships, how you think about yourself, basically work, everything. Everything is like it's us. That's our mindset, how we think about things.

So important. So that's where we want to get to. How do you get there? How do you get from one to do? So it's, we are talking about habits and there's basically different ways of changing habits. Now. One way that people know about is to. Layer habits. So you create one habit. When that is firmly entrenched, you create another habit.

When [00:11:00] that is firmly entrenched, you create another habit. And that if you're doing that's a really powerful way to do. And I think when I look back, that's exactly what I did. So when I started becoming interested many years ago in. Health and wellness? Obviously as a doctor, I've been interested in health and wellness for a long period of time, but when I started thinking about my own health and wellness and my children's health and wellness, I started with the mindset piece actually, and then.

That I think you can do a couple of the times. So at that time I was doing health and wellness. I had four young children, so I had four kids under the age of four and a half. And at that stage, you can imagine my life was looking after kids and I started adding a little bit. Me movement, obviously I was moving, I was pushing a buggy.

Sometimes I was pushing four of them around, so that's not an insignificant amount of exercise. But I started being more intentional in my movement. I started going to yoga, which was really about relaxation, and I also started doing swimming. Now, [00:12:00] this is obviously over a period of time, but when I look at it, I think, yes, I did layer these things in.

I also started getting interested in nutrition. Now, I think my nutrition started off from a reasonably healthy place, but I started thinking, oh I can make more changes. Yes, I'm eating reasonably healthy. I was eating fruits and vegetables every single day. I grew up eating fruits and vegetables, so it wasn't like I wasn't eating any, but I realized I was eating quite a lot of flour and sugar.

I could reduce that. I could increase my fruits and vegetables. I could make another change. And so over a period of. Years I increased, I changed. I made what I call small but powerful changes. If you are gonna change something, it needs to have an impact. Otherwise there's no point in making that change.

So I made these changes little bit by little bit, and. Obviously this is something I enjoy. So I constantly am [00:13:00] thinking, okay, are there more changes I can make? Or am I good? Do I just keep going for a bit? So that is like the layering effect. Now, if you are interested in the layering effect, I exciting news, have got a new workshop that is coming up called Micro ma, excuse me, micro magic healthy habits.

And in that workshop, I will help you identify the next easiest. Change to make that is going to have a powerful effect. So it's around 90 minutes. We'll go through a framework. We'll, you will do an audit and brainstorm some changes, and then you will pick one change that you are going to work on that is going to have a powerful impact.

As I say, there's no point in making changes if it's not gonna have an impact. So you will get clarity on what you're gonna do. And the most amazing thing about this system is once you've done it once. You get lifetime access to that workshop, [00:14:00] you can go back and do it again when you are ready to do another one.

So it's an amazing workshop which is happening on the 20th of November. So I'm super excited about that and I will leave details in the show notes now. It is a paid workshop. It is gonna be 55 euros. For the first a hundred people there is a 10% discount, so your incentive to sign up. Now, as I say, you will get lifetime access to it.

So that is the layering effect. Now, there is another way of changing habits, and this is called disrupting habits. So think about, for example. If you move job, when you move job, your entire life changes. I guess it depends on the job, but say you are moving from a job which is close to you, to a job which is further away, suddenly your routine needs to change.

Or perhaps you change house. You move house again, your routine is gonna change depending on your circumstances, [00:15:00] other things that will disrupt your habits. COVID disrupted everybody's habits. So if we think back to COVID, everybody was getting on with their lives. Suddenly COVID hit and everybody's life changed.

And at that time, people changed their habits. Now the thing about habits is they. May be healthy, they may not be healthy. We've got a random chance as to whether they are healthy or not. So I see a lot of people started baking because they were bored and they started drinking more because they were stressed and they didn't have to travel to work and back.

So a lot of people actually became more sedentary and started eating more. Now that's obviously not the case with everybody. I was exactly the opposite of that. I was so itching to go out and do some movement that actually COVID helped me do more movement. So I started, we live quite close to the beach and prior to that, with [00:16:00] my four youngest children who were obviously five years younger than they are now, we had been driving to the beach and my, in my brain, it was like, I need to drive to the beach.

So when I went swimming, I would drive. In my car, it's about 10 minute drive. And when it was COVID, there was like a day when they changed the rules so often, but there was about a day when we were allowed out on our bikes, but not in our car. So I jumped on my bike and I cycled to the beach and I was like, oh wow.

It only took me 10, 15 minutes depending on which beach I got to. And since then. I have been cycling to the beach. Now in the summer, I cycle to the beach every single day to go swimming, and now I cycle. It's my main mode of transport, unless obviously I have my kids with me or I have to go to the supermarket and pick up heavy things.

So it helped me create healthier habits, but that was partly because I was intentional about creating habits. And here's the thing about habits. Yes, they are a double-edged sword. They are very efficient at getting [00:17:00] something done. Once you have a habit, your brain just goes, I'm doing this habit, I'm doing this habit, I'm doing this habit.

But your brain doesn't care if it is healthy for you. Exercising, eating healthily or not healthy for you? Sitting on the couch and watching television. I'm not saying you should never do that, I'm just giving it as an example. So if you are intentional. In creating habits, it becomes easy for you to create healthy habits.

And this example where you disrupt things, you disrupt your life is called disruption. Now you don't have to move house, you don't have to move job, you don't have to have COVID to disrupt your life. You can do it entirely intentionally. And when you do that. You can create more habits than one. And this is exactly what I do in my coaching program.

So [00:18:00] when I work with people in my coaching program, which is called Positively Healthy You, because we are working on all four of those pillars, then it's not like layering, people are making more changes at once. They're thinking about all four of the pillars. The secret really is to have somebody who is supporting you and helping you stretch yourself, but not overwhelm yourself.

So part of it is understanding like where you are and what is realistic for you and what is too much of a push for you. So that I do use a system to help people to do that. And obviously. There's a feedback mechanism. So I know when people feel overwhelmed because they tell me, I feel overwhelmed. This is too much, but this isn't too much.

And then when they've got that bit, they can do a little bit more. So you can totally disrupt your life. And create changes that are totally different. So going back to Anne-Marie, this is exactly what Anne-Marie did. She changed how [00:19:00] she eat, ate. She started adding more movement into her day and also working on her sleep and her mindset pretty much all at once.

And if you want to listen to Annemarie's, what she actually says in her words, I will leave a link to. About video so that you can listen to it, so you can get an idea of the experience of it. So in a nutshell, there are two different ways. Oh, and by the way, if you are interested in my program. Then book a call and chat.

I recommend people watch my video, stop dieting and start thriving first, just so that you know what I'm talking about and what I'm expecting of people. You get some idea of what I'm doing now. You might have been listening to the podcast for years and you're like, yeah, I get it, Dr. Alina, I'm interested.

Then just book a call and we will chat and you can find that link in the show notes. So in order to make sustainable changes. That you [00:20:00] can stick to for lifetime. You want to be able to stick them, stick to them for lifetime. You want to make changes that are going to have an impact. There is no point in making changes that don't have an impact.

Those changes don't have to be huge. Now, you can do the layering method where you just. Create one habit and then you come back and you create another habit and you create another habit. And that is really powerful. As long as you are focusing on creating those habits and making one change is better than making no changes.

And if you want to come to the workshop, micro magic, healthy habits then have then sign up. The other way of doing it is to disrupt your life where you go through a few weeks of, okay, this all feels different, but you come out the other end with a system that works for you. So coming back to my program, the system is.

Yep, I've got all of these things and you don't have to have them perfectly, but I've got all of them and now I'm confident [00:21:00] knowing that I am doing everything that is gonna help me lose weight, lose the visceral fat, and get, be healthy and strong into the rest of my life. So my friends, I hope you come and join me in my new workshop.

I'm super excited about my new workshop and I will be back in a couple of weeks. Bye bye.