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Valorie Shares Her Keto Success Secrets

Carole chats with her newest Peer Support Coach, Valorie, about her keto success secrets, where she was before she found keto, what results she experienced working with Carole, the challenges she faced when trying to maintain keto on her own, her tips for success, and more.

 

 

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Carole Freeman:

Hey, we’re live, everyone. Welcome to Keto Chat for Women. Keto for Women 40 plus made easy!

Today. I’m really, really, really excited. I mean, I haven’t been here in a while. I actually, I hate what podcasters say that. Sorry I’ve been absent for a while, but you know what? This is actually our first. Podcast episode of 2023.

So Valerie, I’m so excited that you’re here to talk about your keto success secrets. We’re gonna talk all about Valerie’s journey on keto and. Presenting her welcome as one of our new peer, newest peer support coaches. And don’t worry, we’ll talk about what that even means. For those of you watching that don’t know what that means or listening let me just get the medical disclaimer outta the way real quick here.

This show is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not meant to be medical advice. So if you have any medical concerns, please take that to your qualified functional health medical professional, your doctor. Your health provider, whoever it is. And so welcome. This is also an interactive show to, so if you’re watching us live, you can pop a comment in.

Would love to see where you’re joining us from. So I can see that we do have live people, but I don’t know that you’re here until you actually comment something. So go ahead and, and tell us where you’re joining from. Welcome to the show. Valerie, you know what I realized I should read your.

Wonderful bio that you sent me, which I didn’t have. Sure. It’s right here. It’s right here. Okay. Valerie,

Valorie’s Bio

Valorie Moses: this is going to be somewhat like when someone sings Happy Birthday to you, you feel, you know how it feels kinda awkward, but go ahead, you know, read, read my bio and, and then I’ll sit here like you’re singing Happy Birthday.

Carole Freeman: Okay. Okay. Well, it’s, I, I, I love that you share that actually, because, you know, part of the journey for my lot of my ladies is that. They’re not used to having the spotlight shined on themselves. So the ladies I work with wear a thousand hats in their life. They do so many different things and they often end up putting themselves last.

And so they feel a little bit guilty of, of spending some time on themselves and focusing on themselves and their health. And so I love that you shared that cuz that’s pretty. A, a common feeling for my, a lot of my ladies like, oh my gosh, don’t, I don’t, I don’t want, but this whole episode is about you.

So we might as well start with telling a little little bit about you. So Valerie Moses, a 44 year old hardworking woman in the. Quintessential throws up midlife. I’m lucky enough to have the endless support of my husband, three healthy kiddos and one fluffy pup to keep my me on my toes. I hadn’t read this yet.

You’re such a great writer. I, I work full-time managing a team in the IT industry in Northern Virginia. Also coach others and workplace on resilience, personal growth, and increasing their emotional intelligence. My personal life, my interests are DIY projects, craft home decor. She’s an amazing decorator.

And oh, you do have a certificate in interior decoration. Awesome. I do. That happened over the pandemic. Oh, how cool. How cool. I love seeing your pictures of decor around your home. It’s absolutely gorgeous. And adore creative writing and, Hope it’s something I can incorporate more and garden and paint and sing.

And she has the family ham. Yes. And you may have seen her as a guest participant on past episodes and she always had some of the funniest quips for the show too. So The reason I have Valerie here today to chat with you, with you all is to get to know more about her keto journey, share the success for your own motivation, and also as a way of introducing her to my clients.

And she’s one of our newest peer support coaches and peer support coach is somebody that I’ve worked with and has gone through my programs. And for whatever a variety of reasons. They’re a really great example of success and support for other clients. So they step in and as new clients come in to work with me, they partner with them as a peer.

And it’s just one more person that’s there cheering them on. That’s been in their shoes and just to help cheerlead them and somebody else to ask questions of as well too. So Valerie, I’m so excited to have you because thank you for having me, you so much that to our group. So welcome.

Valorie Moses: Thank you.

I’m very, very excited to be here too, to share my keto success secrets and especially because probably one of my favorite things to do is to help support others. I mean, you know, words of affirmations, my love language. Oh. But if there’s, what’s the opposite of. What kind of love I like to give to other people what, whatever that word is.

I, I just really enjoy being there and supporting people and I think most of the people who know me understand that about me. And so I think that that’s kind of the primary strength that I can bring to your peer support coaching team.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, it’s great. And two, just your experience with coaching, mentoring, and, you know, building emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is something we definitely need as we’re working through changing our eating habits and maintaining a different lifestyle too. So Emotional intelligence is something that often when we remove food as a coping mechanism in our life, then a lot of times the light gets really shining onto our emotions and feelings.

And so I love that that’s something that you get to help us support with each other too.

What was Valorie’s Life Like Before She Started Keto?

Valorie Moses: So, yeah, and I’m excited to do that and I think it’s one of the most important kind of pillars of achieving any measure of success. Should I talk a little bit about the success that I did achieve following your program?

Carole Freeman: Yeah, you read in my mind. That’s the next question I was gonna ask you is, you know, take, take us back to before you ever worked with me, what were the things that were going on in your life that were, you know, frustrating that you wanted to change? You know, like right before you discovered me.

Valorie Moses: Absolutely. So I ended up, Really seeking you out for a couple of primary reasons. Reason number one is that I found that I needed someone to show me a direction to go in that would be right for me. I needed someone who was willing to actually listen and just show me the right direction so that I can even start, get, getting moving in the right way because I was in a spot in my life.

It’s sort of that grind. Where you still have small kids in the house you’re working a full-time job. You wanna make time for your interests, and you try, you try your best to fit those little moments of joy in. But sometimes it feels like you’re burning the candle at both ends. And I was in that space and making sure to take care of everyone else besides myself.

“I was clear at the bottom of my priority list.”

I was clear at the bottom of my priority list. And so that’s what was going on and I found that the thing that I was turning to instead of turning to good habits a supportive community or some of these really successful ways to sort of bolster your success and, and really, you know, get your health going on the right track.

I was instead leaning on food quite a lot and the wrong types of food, and so, What was happening was I was noticing a lot of my symptoms that I had just thought were normal, became worse and worse and worse. And then I, you know, started feeling like, well, maybe this isn’t normal and I need to do something about it.

“I am a chronic migraine sufferer…”

I am a chronic migraine sufferer and for as long as I can remember, I’ve gotten migraines, but I also get joint pain, you know, in my wrists and my hands ankles quite a lot. And then I just. In that pocket of time, I had become more and more and more overweight as well. So there were a bunch of feelings going on in my head.

I felt a little bit stressed and overworked, and I felt like I wasn’t taking care of myself and was leaning on the wrong things to try to temporarily make myself feel better. So I started doing some research and I always knew I was a little bit. Sensitive to carbohydrates. That’s just something that I was self-aware about early on, but didn’t have any education on what to do about it and needed to find someone.

Who did and who could teach me. And that’s where I found you and your fast track program and learned your keto success secrets. So a little, you know, I, I was in a little bit of a, a negative space and I really do try to be that half glass half full type of person. But I was having difficulty doing it during that time, especially because there were a couple of just personal tragedies that I experienced in my life.

That just stacked onto the crap sandwich, you know, it was not a good time. Mm.

Relief from Migraines, Joint Pain, and Fatigue with a Keto Diet

Carole Freeman: So I found you the symptoms you describe like you said, you thought they were normal and so many of us women are told. Well, honey, that’s just part of getting older, you know? Oh, that’s just like pre menopause. That’s your hormones, you know, all this stuff that we’re told, you know, the migraines, the joint pain and the fatigue.

And there’s a very long list of common symptoms that women have as they’re aging that they’re just told is a normal part. Yeah. And, and It’s amazing now, and, and this is my eighth year of experiencing this lifestyle myself and implementing my keto success secrets.

And the list of things I know what to expect for people. So when I talk to people before I work with them, we, very lengthy interview process, an hour or more I spend with each person before, I’ll ha let them come on and work with us. And So I’ve got a really good idea at this point. You know, talking to thousands of women one-on-one for that length of a time.

I know all of the things that, you know, that they’re, that they’re suffering from. And a lot of, you know, almost everybody I’m working with, their primary goal is they want weight loss. That’s the big motivator. They also have this long list of discomforts in their body and symptoms, and a lot of ’em don’t realize all those things aren’t a normal part of aging and that they can totally go away.

So I get really excited because I know I. The long list of things that get better for people. I’m trying to remember. There was one the other day I. Because I love it when, you know, there’s a long list of like the standard ones that go away for people. But I love it when there’s like a new one that crops up that somebody shares and I’m like, oh, I haven’t heard that one.

I think the one that was most unique was when somebody, their bowling score, they were like, hobby, hobby bowler. And their score jumped up like 50% or something. And I was like, that’s really amazing. So I love that.

Valorie Moses: But it makes sense, doesn’t it? When you’re supporting your body and giving it what? It needs, it kind of increases your dexterity, so why wouldn’t that translate to a higher bowling score?

Carole Freeman: Yeah, that’s a cool one though. Keto ketosis, especially the way that works in the brain, and then the brain controlling all the nerves in the body as well. You know, muscle function and all that kind of stuff. So it’s interesting, all the different things that can get better in the body.

Making the Decision to Hire a Keto Coach

Alright, so, so you, you’ve, you found me, you decided you were gonna and will you talk just a little bit about like, you know, what was that process like for you?

Cuz some of my ladies really struggle with like, oh gosh, I should, I do everything else? I’m so amazing and, and tenacious and strong and smart. They beat themselves up like, well, I should be able to figure this out too. Did you have any of that, or what was the mental process of like trying to decide whether you wanted to actually work with somebody else to learn keto success secrets or keep trying to figure it out on your own?

Valorie Moses: So I tend to be a little bit of a control freak too, and feel like I can do everything on my own. I actually had my doctor just, I was doing my regular checkup and we were talking about a few things and she actually used the word perfectionist. She said, you sound like a perfectionist that can put undue pressure on yourself.

Are you a little bit of a control freak? And I couldn’t believe those words got used. You know, at a doctor’s office. And I just felt so seen because, okay, it’s very true. Okay. So I do feel like I want to have control over everything and had tried a bunch of things and felt disappointed that I wasn’t able to figure it out on my own.

But I sort of reached a point where I let that go. And just said, all right, I’m clearly at my wit’s end here. I can’t figure out a path forward, and I know for sure I need more education. Where am I gonna get this? So I found you, I reached out to you and I was able to talk to a real human being. So we had our first conversation, and you really asked some very, I guess I can call it, thought provoking questions that made me feel encouraged that.

I could make the changes necessary. You didn’t You know, make it seem like this is going to be the absolute easiest thing you’ve ever done in your life. There were no, you know, kind of unreasonable claims or anything like that, and I remember leaving that conversation with you, so excited to join the program and feeling like, you know, this is gonna give me the toolbox that I need.

Because there, it, there wasn’t just one part to it. The toolbox has a lot of things in it, and you, you package it up and then, you know, we get to be part of this wonderful community that supports us through using all the tools to get to that, you know, goal or multiple goals that we wanna reach in life and just create a new, whole new lifestyle around it.

Carole Freeman: Yay. Excellent. Well, thank you for, thank you for that.

So you know, the, the initial portion of time that I have people get started with me is just, you know you know, initially it’s just a couple of months and mm-hmm. Do you remember back then, like what were the. Changes and, and progress and improvements that you noticed over that first initial program?

Results After 2 Months on Keto, the Carole Freeman Way

Valorie Moses: So I would say the first initial program that I went through, I believe it was, that one was eight weeks long. And the changes were, I mean the keto success secrets, they all made sense to me. And I think that. The reason I was able to institute all the changes quickly is because they were simple. So these weren’t, you know, kind of huge monumental undertakings. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t challenging. Ill say that much.

So I think everything was very clearly laid out and everything. These weren’t things that were difficult to figure out. There were simple changes, easy to institute in theory, but big changes.

Valorie’s 3 Keto Success Secrets

If you compared it to what I was really, you know, actually doing in my day to day life. So, you know, challenging in that way, and I think the. I would say the three things that really helped me through.

Keto Success Secret 1: Make a Plan

were thing number one was to make a plan, meaning simplify it even further for myself, if there were certain things that I needed to have in the house, those things needed to be there and things that didn’t support me there needed to. Be a clear out of those items.

Keto Success Secret 2: Habit Stacking for Building New Keto Habits

Thing number two was to stack my habits. And so some of the things that you laid out in the program, I thought, okay, how can I pair this with something I already religiously do? If I already take my vitamins, what can I sit next to that bottle that is part of the program that’ll help me just grab it, have it stacking, I guess is what they call it.

Keto Success Secret 3: Being Part of a Keto Community

And then being part of the community, I showed up to the coaching calls. Without fail, I always. Felt like I took something from the calls and deposited something that was valuable to someone else. So it felt really good to be able to encourage other people or tell them, Hey, you know, I went through that too.

Here’s a couple of things I did. Maybe it would help you or to ask someone what did you all do, you know, when you felt this way? And to hear, you know, several different ideas from different perspectives and to be able to. Constantly, I guess, edit the way I was doing things day over day. It, it didn’t hurt that in my first week I already had reduced the amount of migraines that I suffered from.

I was getting them four days a week and in inside of the first week they, it reduced in half By the time a month came around I hadn’t had. I think maybe there was one. I remember telling you this, Carole, I think there was one headache the whole rest of the month, and so I knew that some of the Yeah.

Oh yeah. Because it’s debilitating, you know, to have to have chronic pain like that. And so it is nice to have a couple of smaller wins right up front like that. And it is encouraging. But I think it was the community that sort of kept me chugging along because there were moments where I. Maybe felt some work stress or the kids were going through something, whatever it was that made me, it made the old habits want to bubble back up, and I think that’s a normal human.

Thing, you, you want to make the easy decision but you also sometimes want to make the bad decision and you’re self-aware mm-hmm. That it’s not right for you. And again, just simplifying and having the right things prepared and at finger fingertip reach was really what made me successful through the program.

By the time I reached the, to the end of it, I had lost weight. It was just a smidge under 20 pounds, and I could not believe it because. I had always thought that I had a very, I don’t know, I blamed my body. Mm. I said, my body’s just weight loss resistant, and I’m not gonna get through this, and I can’t live life with the level of enjoyment that other people do and just wallowed for, for a while before I found your program.

So anyway, I, I experienced. Wild success through that. Even though it was a little, you know up and down, up and down in, in terms of my level of confidence, you know, executing all the, the right habits. Some days I felt like I was on top of the world, and other days I thought, oh, you know, it’s a little of a tougher day today.

So, You know, I need to give myself some grace or do some deep breathing or something. I remember telling you, Carole, that I had to go create a new space even to read, because I would read right there by the kitchen. You know, that is, is where there’s a little, they call it the mom chair. The rest of the family does.

And I would sit in the mom chair right there in clear view of the kitchen. And it would, if one little stressful thought popped in while I was reading, I would want to. Walk right there, 10 feet away and go ahead and, and grab something like falling back on an old habit. And so I remember telling you I had just moved the reading nook.

I moved it to a whole different part of the house and just, you know, creating a new pattern there really helped me keep the right. Habits too. You can get creative, you can get as creative as you want.

Dopamine Reward for Highly-Palatable, High Carb Foods

Carole Freeman: Wow, that’s great. Well, and I just wanna go back a little bit to something you said too, cuz that’s another thing that’s really normal for people is that you talked about, there were several moments along your journey where you know, the quick, easy choice, the thing that would make you feel a bit better immediately really called to you. And it’s a normal thing, and it’s a, a thing that kind of trips people up is that so, you know, highly addictive carbie foods, you know, sugary carbie, whatever they give an immediate reward in our brain dopamine, which is a, a chemical in our brain that makes us go do that again.

And so it’s, this is where the challenge with. Healthy habit change comes in is because we, the things that get immediately reinforced or get that dopamine hit, those are the things that get repeated in our life and the things that have a delayed reward, you know? So like, okay, if you don’t eat this now, Valorie, next week you wanna have a migraine.

But if you eat it right now, you’re gonna feel, feel better right now. And that’s, you know, one of the things that makes healthy habits so difficult. So I love how you said that the things that helped you get through that was having the group support the community, knowing these, these other people were relying on you to come on and share your success and results and knowing that you were not the only person trying to do these, these changes and things like that.

So thank you for pointing out that that was one of the things that really helped you. So again, not that it’s. Easy, but having the right tools and support made, made all the difference for you too. And also the, the thing you’re describing where you moved your chair, that’s something that we talk about sometimes when people have a specific habit loop in their life of using food in a certain way.

Changing Autopilot Unhealthy Habits

And our brain, Remembers that entire process and everything that you do. So this is, you know, an evolutionarily thing. Evolutionarily it’s a new word. Yeah. Evolutionary process that designed to help us. Our brain, remember where we found the high reward foods, right? So when the berries in the fall or the end of summer are ripe, you know, without g p s or anything like that, we could actually, like remember where it was, what time of year it was, what it smelled like which trail they were on or the honey pot that maybe once a year as well, and you can remember where to go find that.

So the same thing happens in our day-to-day life is that if we’ve consumed a certain. You know, any carby food? No. The movie theater is a really challenging one for a lot of people too, is that every time they go to the movie, they get, you know, whatever snacks and soda, and they do that every time. And so that can be a challenge for people when they’re trying to no longer indulge in those foods.

When they go to the movie, as soon as they walk in the movie theater, the brain goes, oh, this is where we get all those highly rewarding foods. And the drive when you. You’ve gotten a dopamine reward for doing something. A lot of times when you walk back into that same environment, dopamine actually starts to raise and that’s the signal that.

That’s what starts the craving, the urge to do something. And when you’ve done it enough times, your, again, your brain memorizes the entire environment and everything that happens there, it can be feel overwhelming to resist that urge because your, your chemicals in your brain are working against you. So one of the tricks you can do, like you described, is that it sounds like after dinner, your relaxation pattern in the evening was to sit down and read and have some snacks probably, or some drinks or both.

And. So your brain, when you sat in that chair and we, we, I remember that we kind of worked, you know troubleshooted and worked through this. How can we change this habit loop? How do you not cue that whole autopilot thing? And so literally moving the chair to a different place is, is enough of a trick for your brain for it to go, oh wait, this is not the thing we’ve done a thousand times.

I better pay attention. And so you don’t get that dopamine rise. You maybe get a little bit of it because if you’re used to using. Food to cope with stressors, but it’s so much lower than the one that you’ve done a thousand times or maybe even more than that if it was your, your evening ritual too. So thank you for sharing that.

You know that trick that you can do that if you find that a certain time of the day, and that’s a common one for our ladies too, is that the evening, you know, that’s usually for our women that work full-time, that’s. The time they finally get to treat themselves. And they’re used to treating themselves with, you know, a glass of wine or two, some snacks.

And so that can be a hard time for people. Maybe they do really well for breakfast and lunch and then after dinner for some reason. They just feel like they can’t, they can’t not in indulge in those things too. So the good news is, like you shared, there’s a lot of tricks that we can add to your toolbox that, that help you succeed in those situations too.

So. Yeah, thank you for allowing me teachable moments as we go along here too.

Valorie Moses: So I love it. I love it. I’m happy to be part of it.

Carole Freeman: Totally here for it. And I’m just, I, I’ll just say right here too, thank you so much for. Coming on here and I’m just excited to be back and, and talking with people, interviewing and back, back on the air.

Weight Loss, Reduced Pain, Migraine Free on Keto

So great results, weight loss, and and just reduction in pain, migraine pain. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you were with us for a while and then like a lot of ladies, you decided you were, it was time to kind of just branch off on your own and, and part several ways.

And so Can you take us, take, take us through that part of the journey of like when the paths separated and yeah. You know, so I reached, perhaps things were really good in the beginning and then, you know, what, how were you feeling at that time?

What Happened When She Tried to Go It Alone on Keto?

Valorie Moses: So I reached the, the, the old fork in the river and I decided okay, well maybe I can try to kind of branch off and keep this going on my own.

And for a short amount of time it did. Because, you know, I, I think I talked about those three little keys to my success being, you know, having a plan, you know, stacking your habits and then seeking your community. I still had two of the three, but I didn’t the one thing that spontaneously disappeared when I decided to branch out on my own was the community.

So that part of it got, It’s almost like, you know, think of a, a little round tought that Ms. Muffet sits on. It’s a little round three-legged stool. Yeah. If you take one of the legs off of a three-legged stool, guess how long it stays a usable piece of furniture. It’s really not a long time. Whatever amount of time it takes to to fall over is really what you, what you get.

So, You know, for a little while it, it worked just fine. I started to realize after a couple of months that the part that had been most valuable to me is the part that I branched off from. Mm. So and, and it was the most important pillar for me, and I didn’t necessarily realize that at the time.

So after some time passed and I felt a little bit. Isolated and sort of closed off from just, you know, like-minded women who were going through very similar things, had very similar goals and were certainly going about it such a similar way. When that was kind of peeled away and I was left simply to my own discipline as one individual person the knowledge.

Was there. So I acquired that and got to keep it and knowing which habits were healthy Yeah. That that was there, but the community to lean on when things got hard was gone. And so I began to make more and more choices that didn’t support my health. And so I kind of felt like I needed a life preserver a little bit floating out in the ocean.

I. By myself knowing what to do, but not having the right support to be able to continue to do it. It’s almost like I took the floaties off way too soon. It, it’s sort of the feeling that was behind it.

Lapsing and Falling Back Into Old Habits

Yeah. But in any case, you know, I found myself lapsing a little in back into the other habits again. And so, you know, knowing that I needed that community piece I kind of just thought.

All right, well then that’s what I need to seek again. And that was what brought me back to you again. I’ve learned so much in my journey and the, probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned is that probably we all need to let go of that, this idea that success is linear and that if it isn’t constantly going up and up and up, that we’re some kind of failure for it.

In fact, sometimes our failures teach us. The most. And it certainly if, you know, if you’re trying to find a silver lining in, in anything, you can say if you failed, at least you’ve crossed one thing off of the list that didn’t work for you. Mm-hmm. So now you know that thing and you can recover from it.

Anything is figureoutable is what I like to tell my kids. Anything’s figureoutable. Let’s talk about it. So,

Carole Freeman: Marie Forlio, right? I think that’s the name of her book actually.

Valorie Moses: So, Oh, I’ll have to look into that one because it’s clearly speaking my language. Yeah. But you know, so success isn’t linear.

You know, it can look somewhat like a kid in a bouncy house if you’re drawing that kind of line. The, the idea is to continuously seek improvement and do the things that you’re supposed to do most of the time to support that to support that, you know, kind of continual improvement. And then, you know, lean on.

People don’t feel like embarrassed to need to lean on someone and certainly, you know, be part of the community so that you can help others too, because there is such. A great feeling that comes along with giving others, you know, the information that you’ve acquired too. Hey, here’s a few tips and tricks that worked for me.

You know, Hey, I’m, you know, I’m here for you. I hear, I hear you. I understand what you’re saying. Your feelings are valid. You get so many things from the community beyond simple tips and tricks. And here’s how it went for me this week. It goes many layers deep. And it really kind of it, it, it really kind of appeals to that part of us that need togetherness and community.

I mean, it’s sort of, you know, the, one of the basic human needs almost is just to have some sort of companionship and there’s no kind of comradery like you’re gonna build when you’re tackling, you know, the, the bad habit monster and really trying to improve your health.

Why is Group Support Essential to Long-Term Keto Success?

Carole Freeman: Yeah, and, and you know, when I was in school for my psychology degree, they talked about, you know, all the reasons why group support can be so effective and helpful for people.

But over the years of doing this, I’ve researched it more to find out. You know, what is really going on, especially with dietary change with people. And so so like you shared that that was one of the things that you were missing and you found was essential to your success, and it turns out that there’s, there’s reasons why it’s success.

You mentioned some of them too, you know, having that that support not feeling alone. Right. Because when you’re going low carb, we live in a world where there’s high carb foods at every corner and most people are eating a lot of them. And if you know, Most people are not healthy. But so you, you wanna have a group of, of your peers that are doing the same weird, crazy, unsustainable thing that we’re trying to do.

Sarcasm, by the way. You know, so you’re not alone. You wanna be around other people that do that. And making it part of your identity is also really important as well. And. And being around others that are similar to you. For example, you know, CrossFitters, one of our other peer coaches is a avid CrossFitter, and that’s part of her identity, and she, one of the reasons that CrossFit works so well as a fitness you know, people feel like they belong.

There’s that community. They matter. People notice if they don’t show up and they, they care about them and and want them there. And so, you know, that’s one of the reasons why the community is so important. It’s positive peer pressure as well too, right? So if. Everybody else in the group is, is conforming and following this lifestyle that’s getting them good results.

You want to be part of that as well too. This also goes back to, you know, times when we lived in, in caves or, or tribal. It was like, if you’re like everybody else in the group that lives together, you’re gonna survive. If you’re the one who’s going off all by yourself and trying some, something that’s different than what everybody else is doing, you’re probably not gonna survive.

You’re gonna die for one reason or another. And so as humans, like you mentioned, we have this drive to be part of a community that we fit into and that we’re similar to. And the accountability of it too. So that positive peer pressure and the accountability it’s very motivating. You get excited, hearing everyone else’s success as well too.

And so it’s motivating to be part of that as well instead of try to do this on your own. You know, most the people I’m working with live in a family of people that aren’t following the same eating habits, and that is really, really challenging. Because our, again, our, we’re wired as human beings to want to be like the ones that we hang out with too.

And so if you don’t have a group or community of people, they’re doing the same thing as you. It at a core level of just human nature and behavior, it’s extremely hard to do something completely different than the rest of your, your. Your group, your family, your community that you hang out with the most.

So and then the other one that’s really cool that I’ve learned over the years is something called mirror neurons. And this, this kind of fits with this whole, like we’re we’re wired to copy the behavior of the people around as well, but it turns out there’s actually a part of the human brain that is from birth as soon as we can see other.

Human beings, we start to copy their behavior. And if anybody listening to this has the, has the I don’t know if it’s the luxury or not, or has the ability to, a newborn baby, a very young baby. Several, a couple months old cuz I can’t remember like when they’re first born, their eyesight is really close.

But basically if they can, if they can see you, if you just start sticking your tongue out at that newborn baby. Repeatedly, they will start to copy you. And it’s, it’s just fascinating to see because we think like they haven’t learned how to do that yet. How are they doing that? So there’s neurons in our brain that whatever we see somebody else doing.

We that it’s connected to the muscles, directly to the muscles. So it’s not like, Hey, we don’t even think about it. It’s not like, Hey, I wanna do what they’re doing. I wonder if I can do that. Let me try. Nope. It’s just neurons in the brain from the eye to the muscles and it makes you just do it. But this is also it.

It works. In all animals, and this is why you’ll see you know, whatever, you know, the duck that was raised by the dog or something like that. And then they will start to develop the, the, the same characteristics of dogs because that’s what they were raised around and they saw them doing that. So this is, is a pro and a con in.

Trying to change eating habits too. So the hard part is that if you’re hanging around mostly people that are eating foods that you are trying to avoid or, you know, they don’t make you feel, well, if you’re trying to avoid high carb foods, you know, this, this is something that people experience usually in the beginning of ketos.

If maybe they go to a Mexican restaurant, we all know what they put on the table as soon as you sit down. And I experienced this in the beginning where it was like, Like, I would just notice that my arm kept going towards the bowl of chips and I’m like, wait, what am I doing? Like it was not conscious. I didn’t notice it, but it was like, wait, my cuz it was like everybody else was doing it.

My brain was telling my muscles to do the same thing as well too. And so this is where it can be really challenging when you don’t have that support group. But the good news is they work for the positive as well. And so if you hang around. Again, that community like that you noticed is so important. Then your brain will go, oh, I’m like these people.

I do the, the behaviors that they do. And so I don’t know if you realize all the reasons why it’s so important to have that community is of other, you know, peers that are doing this same thing, but there’s lots and lots of well-researched reasons why it’s so important and so effective.

Valorie Moses: Absolutely. No one wants to be a barking duck anyway.

Inviting Valorie to be My Keto Peer Support Coach

Carole Freeman: So I reached out. And invited you to come back. It was do you wanna talk a little bit about h how we kind of, we each manifested each other the right time for you to come onto the peer coach and

Valorie Moses: Sure.

Well, I feel like at the same time that I was seeking my community you were seeking, you know, in addition to the. Peer support coaching team. And since you were my person, you know, who kind of saw me through the, the last time I was feeling this way, it was really natural that I gravitated back towards you.

So we had been friends on our, our social media, and I think you saw some of the things that I was saying to encourage some of my personal friends and family to be able to, you know, improve their lifestyle choices and improve their health. And I think, you know, that really kind of spurred us connecting and talking and getting really It.

I think we had a two hour conversation, didn’t we? Where Right. Where we, yeah. We really just talked everything out and, and did this really wonderful idea share session where you made me feel quite empowered to be able to influence others to seek that sense of community and really be part of a greater movement to support ourselves and, you know, to seek optimum health whatever that means for each individual person since we we’re all going through, you know, we have different symptoms and we’re going through different things, but I think that you made me feel valued and encouraged to be part of the community and to help others sort of grab the life preserver, get back on the boat and, and keep rowing forward.

I think those were your exact words.

The Keto Lifestyle Crew Meaning

Carole Freeman: You might have added the life preserver, but I love it. Yes, cuz our, our after people finish the, the Fast Track program that you mentioned, then they have the option to stay on for that community and support for long term when we call it the Keto Lifestyle Crew to keep sticking with the keto success secrets. I selected that name very carefully when I.

Started that about three years ago was when I selected the name. And it, it means, it, the name itself is very, very important because when you’re part of a, a crew on a ship, everybody’s important and you know, people are there for their own. Their own goals, but also everyone else there is relying on you to do your job as well, for their success as well too.

So everybody’s valued and important and for, for the whole ship to keep moving in in a positive direction too. So Valerie’s got some really great I ideas of how. We can help everyone continue to stay connected. Cuz I think that’s one of the, the challenge, the biggest challenges I shared with you in doing this work is that we’ve been sold alive for too long.

That when you want to you know, when you wanna lose weight, you just go on a temporary diet. Lose the weight. And then how many of you listening to this have told that lie to yourself? That like, well, once I lose the weight, I’ll, that’ll just motivate me to keep it off. But everything we talked about with that community and how that’s important and essential, there’s no amount of willpower or tenacity that you have that can overcome the, the world that we live in with all the, the the things that just light up your brain and want you to.

Go back to your old habits. And so so that’s one of the things that I need the most help with and the biggest goal I have. And the kitty hairs are all over my face now. She just sheds constantly. And, and the, one of the biggest challenges is that people wanna believe that myth, that like, oh, we just do this for a short time.

And then, We could just go jump off the ship and go swim out in the ocean by ourselves, you know? And it’s like no. Unfortunately. You know, and, and I’m so glad that you came back cuz this is an all too familiar story, is that people. I, I got this figured out. I got a plan doing my habit stacking. I got this, I can figure this out on my own.

I’m a strong, independent woman. I’m smart and tenacious, and I can figure this out. And unfortunately all too often the story is, is that people. Start to lapse and, and they’re like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And a lot of them the good news is lot of ’em will come back for the support later, which is great.

Long-Term Commitment to Keto Success Secrets is Required for Long-Term Success

And, but also I’d much rather have people just have continuous support and get what they need and not have to you know, Be waving out in the ocean going, Hey, can you send me one of those life preservers, please? I’m getting tired of swimming out here by myself. So we’ll continue with the, the analogies of the, the nautical theme too, to help everybody.

So, yeah, so, and you know, so the short, short summary of that is that however long you’d like to keep the weight off, however long you’d like to change your eating habits, that’s how long you have to do the changes. There’s no, there’s nothing that’s a temporary. Solution for a long term problem.

You know, if people wanna be a runner and physically fit they know that they have to keep working out. You have to keep running to be a runner and you can’t just run marathons for six weeks and then lay on the couch the rest of your life and think that you’re gonna stay physically fit. We know that’s ridiculous.

So same thing with dietary change to the keto success secrets is that it also has a long-term, long-term commitment.

Valorie Moses: So, And I think one pitfall that people sort of run into is that they tell themselves that if they stick to a, you know, this new lifestyle, long term that they won’t be able to enjoy themselves. I hear that quite a lot and it’s, it’s really simply not true.

I feel like just a little bit of planning and, and new techniques added in there, plus your keto success secrets. You’ll find that you really do have a full, quite enjoyable life and that you don’t have to skip the summer backyard games of corn hole just because you’re not going to be, you know, having the same indulgences that the other people around you are having.

You know, play the corn hole and, and preplan and have the, the right indulgences there for you that support your health rather than help destroy it, if that makes sense. Yeah. The enjoyment still there. You’re still with your people. You’re still playing the game.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. One of the cool things that I looked up research wise in the last couple weeks is that, Being in ketosis actually reduces your hunger hormones.

And what happens? Unfortunately when people lose weight, our bodies don’t like that and it compensates. So on most you know, weight loss programs, you will lose weight, but your body to get you to regain the weight will increase your hunger hormone. Hormones probably. And also it slow down your metabolism.

So that’s a recipe for regaining the weight no matter what you’re doing because you’re hungrier and your body’s just burning less calories overall. And it turns out that ketosis or ketogenic diet is gonna mitigate that increase in hunger. And so when people stick with it long term, it makes it so that you’re just not.

Hungry, and that’s part of what makes it easier to resist and not feel like you’re missing out on those things that before people felt like were essential part of their happiness and their life. So the good news is that if you are able to stick with it, keep following the keto success secrets, it ends up being easier to not feel like you’re missing out.

And also, there’s so many recipes now and, and other things that you can do, that you can have the, you know, keto versions of all those things but you may find that you just don’t miss them actually, after a while of doing it.

Valorie Moses: Absolutely. There are so many resources out there for alternatives and keto success secrets out there.

Again, just like you said, sometimes you don’t even want it after, you know, after you’ve been following, you know, the plan and the keto success secrets for a little while. And also, you know, you start tuning in, I think a lot of people say this, you start tuning in to how your body really is actually feeling. Mm. And when you’re noticing the pain going away and you’re thinking, okay, goodness, that item over there on that table looks like something in my, you know, Previous experience that I would’ve gone face first into I really know that that’ll give me a migraine.

Mm-hmm. Or I really know that, you know, my joint pain’s gonna come back. If I have that, it’ll take a few days, but that’s what happens to me. And you sort of start seeing it in a little bit of a different light. If that makes sense. Mm-hmm. And, and you’re, you’re almost a little bit averse to, to even indulging.

So you know, When you’re satisfied with these kind of nutrient dense sources that you’re, that you’re getting your energy from it’s easier to look at the New York cheesecake and think, mm, I’m not gonna have that. Or if you really want it to look up an alternative and mm-hmm. You know, have a little something that does, doesn’t destroy your health.

There’s, you know, there’s a million ways around any excuse that you can sort of make for not taking care of yourself. And sometimes a little bit of a hard pill to swallow, so to speak.

Carole Freeman: You gotta do it.

Well, any, anything else in closing that you wanna share or you were hoping I would ask you about?

Valorie Moses: I, you know, I can’t think of anything that I wished that you asked me, but I do sort of have a closing, you know, thought that I would love to leave people with, and that is when, you know, seek a community.

Mm-hmm. For any reason. It doesn’t necessarily have to be because you, you need help following a ketogenic diet. That’s what we’re talking about here. But any, in any aspect of your life, finding a community of like-minded people who will support your goals and your lifestyle is going to be the key to keeping you moving forward.

It, it certainly propels you forward. There’s no shame in leaning on folks, on telling people your trials, not just your triumphs. And, and just, you know, allowing a community to support you and I say allowing a community to support you. Because some folks just really are afraid to open up that way.

And allow themselves to have that extra helping hand. And we need to give that gift to ourselves. So if I can leave anyone with a thought, it, it would be, you know, give yourself the gift of community and know that you’re worth the time spent with that community.

Carole Freeman: Oh, I love it. That’s so great. Yes. Give yourself permission.

A hundred percent. Well, thank you Valerie, for being here and sharing your keto success secrets. I’m so excited. Thank you for the introduction to you and also all the teachable moments that are part of this as well too. So, and thank you for everyone for watching and listening, and I hope to see you all again soon. Thank you.

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