THRIVING CLIENT Q+A 24TH MARCH 2025

Questions answered: How to stay motivated & interested? Struggling with weekends and planning, staying in my calorie deficit. Feel like I need a little more encouragement to push on with this because I’m not seeing the results I want. I realize it’s because I’m not really in a calorie deficit and also, I think I need to be better about weighing my food—but that is a little intimidating for me. I’m also still unsure the best way to track eating out / take out. Wondering if there is a way to decrease steps on Sundays to give myself a bit of a break. I get 10k steps on Sundays by walking on my walking pad but sometimes I wish I could take a break just on Sundays of doing 10k steps. How do I get rid of / tone up the lower belly ‘pouch’? Struggling not to slip back into bad/toxic habits, but I’ve been listening back to old podcasts to help me get through it. Is there a point where you try to work towards more intuitive eating rather than tracking, or tracking intermittently? Or is this all goal dependent? Any advice on differentiating between when your body/mind actually needs rest vs. when you’re just feeling down/tired/bored and need to push through? How to avoid falling into self-sabotage mode when you don’t see progress in the maintenance phase? Social eating dilemma: With lunch/tea with friends, I tend to overindulge. In the past, I’ve avoided them but don’t want to keep doing this. Should I eat before with the hope of not eating there? Or just try to stick to “good” options at the restaurant—even though they’re not always great? How can I better understand my cycle to ensure I’m meeting my goals—e.g. cravings, moods, emotions, motivation, and routine? If I don’t have a specific machine in my gym, how should I think when looking for a substitute? What’s the coaches' favorite breakfasts at the moment? What were the coaches' favorite training moments/wins this week? :) How’s regional work going for Rach? How to juggle multiple sports/training demands (e.g. running, GAA training, gym sessions, and recovery) on top of full-time work? How to minimize effort and cooking when you’re a family of four (all boys with fast metabolisms)? How to know if I should enter a maintenance phase for a short period of time? My body is fine with workouts, no DOMS, but my weight drop has halted. Started at 71 kg, now sitting at 67/68 since November. I don’t have time to increase output (doing 12k steps avg, 4 strength days, 1 run, 1 yoga or Pilates). Should I use maintenance to counterbalance, then return to fat loss? If so, how long? When on night shift, I find I eat 4-5 meals/day and it messes up my tracking. For example: breakfast, lunch, dinner, then a snack on shift—but when it goes past midnight, I don’t know whether to track it on Monday or Tuesday.