Episode 84: Personal Stories- Jennifer Espinosa Goswami

Episode 84: Personal Stories- Jennifer Espinosa Goswami

Most people struggling with obesity have difficulty changing their habits because they have been struggling with weight all their lives. However, there comes a time in someone’s life when you decide it is time to do something about your weight. 

In this episode, I chat with Jennifer Espinosa Goswami, who has suffered morbid obesity while growing up and yet managed to drop 100 pounds in one year. Her story is inspiring and proof that anyone can make healthy changes to their lifestyle at any age. 

Key Highlights: 

Tune in to this episode and learn:

• When did weight really become an issue for Jennifer?
• What caused her to have overweight
• The aha moment that made her decide to lose weight in college
• Her attempts in losing weight and the challenges she had to face 
• What she did to become healthier and lose the unhealthy habits she had accumulated since childhood
• Jenn’s strategy in maintaining her weight loss after losing 100 pounds
• Her 4-step process to losing weight
• Why she joined the National Weight Control Registry 
• The key factors that led to her successful weight loss journey
• Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies
• How she manages food cravings 
• What foods or vegetables does Jenn enjoy?
• Top three recommendations for eating 

Jenn’s Four-Step Process that Helped Her Lose Weight

1. Awareness – What are you currently doing? What is your baseline of habits, and that’s really important, because we’re not aware, we’re not cognizant of our habits, because they’re unconscious mostly.  So once you create that awareness, then you’re good to go. 
2. Goal-setting – Start setting the right goals for yourself. Everyone’s goals are different depending on where you are. Our bodies are very adaptable. So you have to be willing to say, Okay, I’m going to set the right goal for where I am right now. And it might be different from where I was three months ago. And that’s okay, that’s part of it. 
3. Review – This is where most diet programs out there fail, is because they set the goals for you. But they don’t give you the opportunity to review when you plateau. They’re like, Oh, you just keep working the process, you keep doing this, you stop eating this or you stop eating that, but they don’t allow you to choose and review. You can’t do that always, and reach the certain goals that you’re looking for. So that review is so important. 
4. Celebrate – It’s about celebrating your small milestones. Getting into the habit of celebrating your progress is going to be one of the biggest things that will help you when it comes to motivation because other people may or may not notice the changes you’re making outwardly. But you can also recognize and celebrate the changes you’re making inwardly. If you give yourself that bump of motivation, it’ll keep you going when times are not going so good. 

Jenn’s Top Three Recommendations for Eating

1. Don’t try a cold turkey approach.
2. Avoid drinking your calories.
3. Cook at home.

Quotes:

“ You cannot outrun a bad diet.” – Dr. Avishkar Sabharwal

“Life is meant to be savored, and I’m all about just enjoying yourself. And sometimes that means you have a glass of wine, or sometimes that means you eat that dessert, you know, that’s okay. It’s not about guilt.” – Jenn Espinosa-Goswami

“If you don’t get your mind right, your body has a hard time following.” – Jenn Espinosa-Goswami

Links:

• The National Weight Control Registry
• Weightless Chronicles

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