How to Rewire Your Brain for Exercise in Menopause

In this episode, I’m clearing up a big misconception: motivation isn’t your problem—something else is.

We’re diving into the four bodies—energetic, mental, emotional, and physical—and how they all work together (or against you) when it’s time to take action. 

I’ll show you how to hack your motivation using self-talk, habit stacking, and a bit of brain science. 

Plus, you’ll get a sneak peek into why we often avoid things we actually want to do.

Ready to make movement a no-brainer? Let’s get started! 

We'll cover:

1. Understanding Motivation and Sabotage: Cam takes a deep dive into what triggers your motivation strategies and why we sometimes end up sabotaging ourselves. Spoiler alert: it's all in your subconscious!
2. The 4 Bodies Connection: Learn how your energetic, mental, emotional, and physical bodies play a crucial role in your motivation to exercise. They're more connected than you think!
3. Creating Lasting Habits: Discover how to bring your subconscious motivations into awareness so you can intentionally design habits that stick.

It's time to transform your workouts! Get the Menopause Minis here: 

https://www.camoyler.com/meno-minis

Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the difference between motivation and avoidance is crucial.
• Our brain has strategies for everything we do, often subconsciously.
• 90% of our decisions are influenced by our subconscious mind.
• The four bodies—energetic, mental, emotional, and physical—are interconnected.
• Identifying what triggers your motivation can enhance your exercise routine.
• Self-talk plays a significant role in our motivation strategies.
• Emotions can impact our physical health and decision-making.
• Awareness of our strategies can lead to better outcomes.
• Reflecting on past motivations can help replicate success.
• Holistic health includes relationships, purpose, and physical well-being.

Timestamps:
00:00 The Role of the Brain in Goal Achievement 
05:26 Exploring the Four Bodies: A Holistic Approach 
09:40 Peeling Back the Layers of Motivation Strategy

Transcript

0:00

You ever wondered why sometimes you feel really motivated to reach your goals? You set out and you say, I'm gonna work out today and you do the thing, or I'm gonna eat a certain way and you do the thing. What makes that different from a day when you don't follow through, when you avoid the thing that you're trying to reach, or you procrastinate and you never do the thing? What's the difference there? Those are the questions we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna peel back some layers and try to understand what's happening behind the scenes with your good old brain that either helps you reach your goals or helps you avoid them. Hey there. I'm Cam. Welcome back to the menopause method. I took a little break. I needed a little winter break. While I was gone, I went to an amazing conference in Virginia Beach to learn more about how the brain works. This information can change your life. It can literally help you with everything, whether you're a parent, a spouse, with your exercise, your nutrition habits. This literally will open the door to all things. I'm very excited to bring this to you. I am not an expert. I will be going back in April for more training, and I cannot wait. See, as a health coach, I see people reach their goals and they sustain their goals. And then sometimes people just they'll make some progress, but then something will happen. It's almost like they sell they sabotage themselves and they slip back. So as a coach, I want my people to get results that stick forever. And it really has to do with developing habits. But here's the problem. Most of our decisions are made by our subconscious mind. Like, literally 90% of the things that we decide come from the unconscious side or the subconscious side of our brain. That means only 10% is making the decision and the follow through. So part of the training was learning how our brain works so that we can break through and actually bring the subconscious to the consciousness, and we can actually make better decisions and get better results. It's amazing. I learned that we have a strategy for everything that we do. Our brain needs to, like, compartmentalize things and generalize things because we receive so much information every single second. One of the things we do is we chunk things together into strategies, and I learned that we have a strategy for absolutely everything we do from motivation to avoidance to procrastination, when you're gonna brush your teeth, when are you gonna exercise, all of those things. There's something that triggers your strategy. I'm using air quotes if you're not watching on YouTube, and then you run your strategy. Today, the purpose is to kinda look behind the scenes to see where is the strategy getting hung up. If you're running your avoidance or procrastination strategy, like, why are you doing that to yourself? You have this goal. Maybe it's you want us fit in a certain size pants, or when you look in the mirror, you feel good about yourself, or maybe it's, some kind of physical thing. You wanna go backpacking with your friends. Whatever the goal is, we have this goal. We know how to eat. We know how to exercise. But what is stopping us from actually receiving receiving those results? I think it has to do with our brain. So today, we're gonna appeal it back and, like, hopefully, this will help you understand. In fact, if you have any ahas from this episode, first of all, please leave a comment on the podcast platform or on YouTube. That would be amazing. But second, send me a message on Instagram. I'm hey mama_cam, and mama is m o m m a, don't ask me why, underscore cam. So send me a message on Instagram. I love hearing from you. Okay. I've known this for a long time, but it was explained in a new way at my conference. We have 4 bodies. We have our energetic body, which is like our soul. We have our mental body, which is like the thoughts that we say to ourselves, or in some cases, maybe you repeat a voice of something that was said to you as a kid. Like my mom said, don't wear black cam. Every time I put black on, I hear that voice in my head, and I still wear black, by the way. Maybe it's your 3rd body would be your emotional body, like your feelings. I know for me as a kid, like, feelings were taboo. Maybe you grew up in a household like that as well. And then finally, we have our physical body, and we really can't separate those. And I've known that for a long time. Like, for example, I know that we store emotions in our physical body. Maybe you have thyroid. I do. Maybe it was after I was actually diagnosed after a time where I wasn't using my voice. So I wasn't speaking out for myself, which would be the mental part of your body, and it related into a physical thing, thyroid. Now I was also exercising like a crazy lady, and I wasn't nourishing myself as I should. I was going through a divorce. I was just trying to survive, and so all of those things. You can't separate them, though. Your emotional body, your physical body, your mental body, and your spiritual body, they're all connected. All of these things are connected. In hindsight, I know why I was drawn to the integrative nutrition and the functional nutrition because we are human beings, and we have many different parts. Like, I truly believe that health also includes your relationships, your spiritual connections, your purpose in life. Those things also add to your health in addition to your physical exercise and what you eat. For today's episode, let's break down your motivation strategy. Let's see if we can see some different parts of it. I want you to think of a time where you were really motivated to exercise. Okay? Think about that time. And I wanna ask you what started your strategy? What started your motivation strategy? Did you see something like your workout shoes? Maybe you put on your sports bra. Maybe you put it on a post it note. Maybe you saw the app on your phone. Did you see something? Maybe you heard something. Maybe you heard your favorite workout song. You're like, yes. Get pumped up and ready to go. Or maybe you felt something in your physical body. In my forties, I was a competitive CrossFit coach. And before competitions, I would get that feeling inside, like, let's go. So maybe it's that. Something starts your motivation strategy. So take a moment to really think about what starts your motivation strategy. Because once we know what starts it, we can, on purpose, intentionally start our motivation strategy when we see, hey. When I see my shoes out or, hey. When I put my leggings on or, hey. When I put that sports bra on, that means I'm gonna work out. That's gonna kick off your strategy. Next up, I wanna talk about what do you say to yourself? This could be self talk, like the little voice that you hear in your head, or maybe if I'm your coach, maybe it's me saying, hey. You can do this. Whatever it is. What voice do you hear in your head? What did you say to yourself? Maybe it's like, I'm gonna feel so awesome afterward. Maybe you said that. Or I am a person who takes care of their physical body where I by working out. Maybe it's something about feeling proud and accomplished. I'm in beta testing right now for some new workouts, and that has come up several times. The women are proud of themselves for showing up, and they're proud. They feel accomplished for actually working out. Whatever you say to yourself or whatever voice you were hearing your head, that is for your mental body. Now if you're working if you're in the middle of the day and you realize you're talking mean to yourself, that actually happened to me earlier today for taking a little hiatus on this podcast, and I realized I was talking mean to myself. And what purpose does that serve? No purpose at all. I needed a break, and I allowed my body to rest so I could show up fully and do this episode today. For example, when you hear yourself saying not nice things to yourself, you have an opportunity to stop and ask yourself some questions like, what's really going on here? That's your mental body. Next up, it's your emotional body. How are you gonna feel? Excited, accomplished, capable, strong, proud, whatever that thing is when you actually follow through with your workout. Now if you've ever skipped a workout and you felt guilty or shame or you felt lazy, you just by becoming aware of that's what's going on, you have a chance to change the strategy next time it comes up. And then finally, for our physical body, it's actually following through and actually doing the workout. You may be wondering, like, what about my energetic body? Just making the decision workout takes care of the energetic body. Now I want you to think about how this works in real life. Have you ever had a thought and blushed? You had a mental thought and your physical body blushed or were in menopause. Have you ever had something happen? Maybe it was embarrassing or you got emotional, like emotions were rising and you had a hot flash. Yeah. Those are very connected. Or have you ever walked into a room and you knew the people were fighting, but you didn't hear the fight? That's the energetic. You know it. You can feel the thickness in the air. So it's just a chance to, like, peel back your motivation strategy. Did you see something? Did you put on your sports bra? Did you put on your shoes? What was it? What did you say to yourself? What positive things did you say? Like, I'm gonna be this is amazing. I'm strong. I'm capable. I'm a woman who takes care of herself. How did you feel about those words? Did you feel excited, proud, accomplished? And then finally, how did the workout go? By peeling back the layers of our 4 body, you can see the pieces of your motivation strategy. Next week, we'll come back and we'll talk about your avoidance strategy because we've all been there. You're like, have the best intentions to work out, but something happens and you don't follow through. And I bet when you run your avoidance strategy or your procrastination strategy, the words you say to yourself are probably not that kind. Okay. Thanks for joining me today. I hope you had a chance to, like, look at your motivation strategy so you can replicate that in other parts of your life. Maybe it's cleaning out that closet or maybe it's going to the grocery and meal prepping or whatever that is. By looking at all of you, you'll get to your results faster. If you found this podcast helpful, do me a favor. Hit subscribe, leave a review. It's the easiest way to get the word out. And, again, I love hearing from you. So send me a message over on Instagram, and I'll see you next week.