From Gymnast to Coach: an Inspiring Weight Journey with Melanie Cohen

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host Jen Ginty, and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins.

Each episode will explore stories of resilience, moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change, from personal experiences to expert insights. We'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach.

because sometimes the hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (01:11)
Hello and welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. Today I have an extraordinary guest on our show. Her name is Melanie Cohen. And let me tell you a little bit about Melanie. So Melanie is a former competitive gymnast. At the peak of her career, she was training 25 to 30 hours per week. It was in great shape. And despite being in extraordinary shape, she was constantly harassed by coaches and parents that she was fat.

The verbal abuse and toxic scrutiny over the scale led her to quit before actualizing her dreams of the Olympics and college scholarships. There was one commonality in her life after that, gaining weight. When she hit 30 years old, she also hit over 200 pounds on the scale. That was a turning point. She joined a weight loss plan and lost over 60 pounds. Changing her body also changed her life. She left a career in fashion, merchandising and marketing to help people like her.

After 20 years coaching with Weight Watchers, she started her own business, Thoughtfully Coaching, and created the Design Your Healthy Life Strategy program. Her approach to weight loss includes removing the literal and figurative clutter in her clients' lives. Hello, Melanie, welcome. Hi, thank you, thank you. Thanks so much for coming on. I can't wait for our conversation. Cool, cool, cool, cool. So let's jump into it. So you are a former competitive

gymnast. Yes. And that obviously that's something that's going to shape your life from the beginning. 100 % 100 % and I love the idea from the beginning because when I reflect on it, I was two and watching the unit games in 1972 Olympics and we saw the gymnasts and I was like, mommy I do mommy I do mommy I do and when you're older and

I was so connected to that sport, but like consistently when I was three, when I was four, when I was five, like am I old enough? I old enough? And my mom tells a story about a neighbor's daughter was taking gymnastics classes and I asked her mother to write down where and when, how much, like I knew all the questions and I brought it back to my mother and that's when she was like, all right, well, I guess we can't hold her back anymore. So it's something like, I still love passionately.

That's great. mean, it's such an incredible sport to watch as a viewer and tell us what it was like actually being a competitor. Well, I loved it. I have never shied away from the stage, so to speak. like I loved floor exercise. I loved dancing. I loved tumbling. I loved all the flying through the air. wasn't the biggest fan of the balance theme because I felt like I spent more time.

falling off and getting back on, then staying on. And I have, as a coach now, as a life coach, I have so many things to say about what was going on, what the mental clutter in my head was that I kept falling as opposed to staying on. But I went to sleepaway camp, like all of my besties growing up, or my gymnastics buddies, still in touch with some of them after over 40 years.

but at the end of the day, as much as I got out of it, I also was so emotionally hurt by it or not by the gymnastics, but everything that happens in that environment. Yeah. Tell us more about that. And you say that the coaches and your parents were constantly on you. Yeah. So, when I was 14, 15, 16, the gym that I trained at,

the head coach had us weigh in every Monday. All of us, even the little girls, I mean, it was like, it's disgusting. At the end of the day, it's disgusting. And if you, quote unquote, made your weigh in, you just got to train. If you didn't, you got a lecture. Sometimes it was a group lecture. Sometimes it was a one-on-one. Got thrown out in the gym and you had to weigh in every day after that. And,

as the week went on, if you aren't making your way in, didn't get to train with, you know, the head coaches, you had to work with like an assistant coach and who weren't the most terrible people in the world, but it was really setting the message that your weight is paramount. You know, like this is the most important thing, not all of the things that were the reality. And I think the

less I weighed when I was training, the less energy I had because I was not eating properly. We were guided to lose weight, but we were not guided in a healthy way. I wasn't told eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains and drink a lot of water. I was told you're eating too much. And then that'd be the end of it. So leaving the sport, and you mentioned my parents, I don't know that they have ever called me fat the way coaches did.

but they most certainly on a regular basis were like, you can't eat that, that's too much. know, like the message was there and often it was, if you eat that, you're not going to make your weigh in. And so I felt judged by my weight, by all of the grownups in my life. The people that are supposed to set you up for success were the ones that were beating me down. And that's humiliating.

Especially doing that in front of all the other kids. Wearing a leotard where so much of your body is exposed that, like if I could have worn sweats to work out, I would have, and it looked great, but I didn't think I did because I had all these people telling me that I did it. So there's a large amount of shame that comes in with this, huh? 100%, 100%. And it led to eating disorders and

and what I would call probably situational depression. Yeah, nest me up. And I'm wondering, how was it between your fellow competitors? Was there this feeling of, was there empathy, sympathy to each other, or was it more competitive? That's a really good question. I think when it came to the weight, there was a lot of empathy.

and especially in like the four or five of us who like constantly, like imagine it this way, like back in the day, gymnasts were expected to look like Nadia Comanej, lean and long, like a dancer's body, but expected to tumble and do hard things. And then you have people built like Simone Biles who, I hope she's not listening.

She's not the greatest dancer in the world. She may have won Dancing with the Stars, but she's not the most graceful athlete. She's a power athlete and people love to watch that. And I, along with several of my teammates, were built like that. We were, you know, I would say strong thighs, they were called thunder thighs, you know, all of the negative things. And so,

to be constantly be told that your body doesn't look the way it needs to while your body's still working for you, that was tough. The thing about a sport like gymnastics is it's an individual sport and I feel like there were times where you were slow clapping for your teammates like, you did really great. Crap, how am gonna beat that? But I think when it came to the weight thing, there was a lot of camaraderie because we all were feeling the same.

know, verbal abuse. And the toxic shame that comes with that. Yeah. I talk a lot about shame being a valid emotion. But when it becomes toxic and is used against you, it can absolutely change your world because you start to believe you're not good as a person that you're lacking. that's it.

that your weight somehow determines your worth in all areas of your life, whether it's how you parent or how you work in a work environment, how you get educated. It just takes over everything. Yeah, it really does. And it just must have been so stressful for you. Yeah. So when you decided to leave, how did that go?

I don't think my coach was crying over it for sure. He probably was like one less problem to deal with. My parents, my father in particular, very disappointed because, well, there was talk of college scholarships and all of a sudden they were gonna have to find a way to pay for college. And I also, was not a brilliant student growing up. I would like to say, well, sure, I was in the gym as many hours as I was at school.

but I think that there were problems with ADD that went on undiagnosed. I was having a problem with attention and being able to, to follow through. And, I will never forget there was an Ivy league, recruiter at my gym when I was a kid, I was like in ninth grade and they were there to see one of the juniors and asked about me they were like, you know, she's only 14. we'll come back.

My father found out later, my father's a scientist. My mother has like a gazillion master's degree in areas of science. And I was the failure. Not only was I fat, but I also wasn't the student. And he wrapped his brain into, my gosh, she can go to an Ivy league school. But once I wasn't doing the gymnastics, was no chance on God's green earth that I was going to be able to do that. So there was a lot of disappointment.

on my parent's side and I was bummed. I mean like super bummed because I wasn't going to be able to actualize the goals that I had set so long ago and seeing like the winning result being the only option as opposed to I paid my dues, I did my time, I did it for 12 years competing 10 of them.

And I didn't see it as I'm moving on to the next chapter. It was definitely I failed and it's all over now. You know, I've been thinking about this a lot as I talk with people of our generation about college. Did you really want to go to college? Well, there's a whole lot of things. But it's just, you know, it's interesting because our generation was like, you're going to college, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so there's a lot of things to unpack there. One, yes, but part of that was I thought I was going to continue doing gymnastics and that was going to be a pathway to be able to keep doing it. I also knew it meant that I got to go away and leave the house, a house that was very uncomfortable and very dysfunctional and unhealthy in so many different ways.

And so college was going to be an escape. Yeah. I thought there was, there's no way you're going to succeed in life. And forget it in my life. wasn't, you're not going to succeed. If you don't have a college degree, I wasn't going to succeed. If I didn't have a post-graduate degree, because my father had a PhD and my mother had multiple master's degrees. yeah, the pressure, the pressure. Imagine they're surprised when I only finished three years of college.

wait, was because of them. So there you go. Yeah. It's amazing how we put ourselves into this one space where it's all or nothing, right? And that we're disappointing everyone with the choices that we make when we're probably making those choices for a very valid reason, whether it's emotionally, physically, you know, it's these

ideas that we have to be what others want us to be. Yeah. Yeah. Meaning we're showing up for them. We're not showing up for ourselves. Exactly. So you left and did you have time in between before you went off to college and was able to be on your own? Yeah. So it changed my path entirely. Not just I wasn't doing gymnastics, but I went from

I'm going to go to a large university and compete to my college guidance counselor, sending me down and saying, you need to go to a small college. think you would, I think you would. And this is a woman and I still have contact with this woman. This is a woman who knew me, supported me. Did it, did it cut? I should cut through the BS, but also was like that adult in my life that actually

like meant something to me because apparently like I could, it's not that I couldn't do wrong by her, but rather she was able to see through all of the challenges I had been experiencing. So I went off to a small private college instead of, know, that had less than 2000 students versus going to a school with 20, 30, 40,000 students. I mean, like, so a lot changed in that pathway. I also met my husband in college and

the story actually is that he was my RA my freshman year. So like I met him the first day. And so I believe wholeheartedly in fate that there are things that are predestined. And so had I continued with gymnastics, I wouldn't have him. I wouldn't have my two daughters. But the thing was, is when I went off to college, I was depressed or I thought I was depressed, I think that it went much deeper than that.

but gained weight while I was in college, which was certainly easier to do. Cause I met the man in my dreams and he didn't care what I looked like. Yada, yada, yada. and then, I was that gal who picked out her wedding dress and then proceeded to gain weight as opposed to losing weight for the dress. I gained a lot of weight working in retail management and being at malls 12 hours a day and eating from the food court and stuff like that.

And then gains weight after my daughter. So I mean, like the one consistent thing in my life was that I kept gaining weight. And I think with every pound I gained, I separated myself further from who I had been when I was a gymnast, which wouldn't be a terrible thing. I should identify myself as all the other things that I'm doing. But it just meant that for me, like my weight preceded me. You know, it preceded my job title. It preceded my life titles. You know, I wasn't a mom. I was a fat mom.

I wasn't a wife, I was a fat, ugly wife. I wasn't a regional merchandise manager, I was a fat regional merchandise manager. And I know how ridiculous it sounds as I say it, but I identified myself first by my weight and second by everything else in my life. Yeah, I understand that. I grew up heavy and was constantly tortured by family, students.

people around me to the point where that was who I was. was the fat kid. My abuser would tell me on a regular basis, I was fat and ugly and no one would love me, that kind of thing. So yes, it becomes an identity. Yeah. So let's fast forward. You said that you got married to your love who you've met in college and you had, many children did you have? I have two adult daughters.

Okay. And so after having them, know, what, what was the, what, where were you at in your life with your identity? So the impetus to lose weight was like one of those, the straw that broke the camel's back. wait, wait, wait. another straw broke this camel's back. Wait, wait, wait. They were like three things in a row that sent a message. But I will say that like the kicker,

was taking my older daughter, who was four at the time, to her very first gymnastics class, as every former gymnast does, or every mom, I don't know. And it was an Olympic year, so I'm sure that was in my head also. And I took her to a class, and the gym had clear glass windows from the waiting area to the gym, so you could watch the whole class. my older child was very independent, and we used to joke like,

If we left her in the woods, the wolves wouldn't have raised her. She would have raised them. And so this was not a child that cried before her first dance class. This was a child who was like, see ya, and ran off into the gym and I'm watching her, but all I see is my reflection in the window. And I kid you not, I tell the story all the time. I just started crying. And...

Thank goodness for the mom standing next to me because she tapped me on my shoulder and she said, your daughter's first time. And I like threw the tears. She said, I cried my daughter's first day too. And I was so grateful for being given the opportunity for someone to assume that that's why I was crying as opposed to I was crying because like, who the hell are you? What happened to you? How did you turn into this person you don't recognize? And

Yeah, that was the day where I was like, I don't know who this is that I see in this reflection, but I can't be her anymore. And I think in the moment, wanted to, I want to be who I used to be. It took the weight loss journey to recognize, no, you don't want to be that person. You want to be you. You want to be you with all the strength and the power and the smarts and all the things that you get as you age.

but to be able to have a body that was similar to that. And I don't mean that looked similar to that, but had the strength that that person had, the flexibility that that person had, the determination and all those things that that person had once had. Yeah. So you decided to make that change. I made the change. And how did you feel was the best way to go about that for yourself?

leaders really interesting. I went to therapy and as you know most of us should do for less, you know the difficult things in life. I went to the therapist and not with her anymore. I want to get too deep into it, but I feel like at one point she became less professional. I'm just gonna leave it at that. It wasn't drastic. It was just like I don't think we're good for each other anymore, but she nailed it in the beginning and what she said to me was.

I think that all of the problems you're discussing, because I wasn't talking about my weight necessarily, everything that you're talking about is associated with your weight and your former career in gymnastics and how you feel in your body, et cetera, et cetera. And she said, I think we will work best together if you are also on a weight loss journey. And I was like, whoa. And she said, I don't care how you do it. I don't care if you go to OA.

Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, you you go to the gym and get a personal training. I don't care how you do it, but this is something that you need to do so that we can really get it because when you start doing that, all that old crap is gonna start, you know, coming up. She was right. She really was right. And yeah, so I chose Weight Watchers. My experience with 12 Step is my father getting clean.

And I kind of feel like that works really well for him. For me, it wasn't a fit at all. so, and the reason I tried that was that I knew I needed group support. Like I knew I couldn't do it by myself, which is why Weight Watchers at the time was the perfect fit for me. Yeah. I actually did the same thing with when after my second son, was in my sister-in-law's wedding and I saw the pictures and I just,

balled my eyes out. I was so sad and I went to Weight Watchers and that camaraderie is really special. Yes. And I found with therapy now as I'm older group therapy for trauma. Again, same thing as there's that camaraderie, the peers. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So Weight Watchers did it for you. It did it for me and it did it for me on so many levels. I mean, one,

I lost over 60 pounds too. I left a career in fashion merchandising to work for Weight Watchers. Here's my joke. I had worked for lingerie manufacturer for most of my twenties. And they said I was changing the world's underwear and...

then I started helping people on their weight loss journeys. And I like to say I changed the size of their underwear. And so, I mean, it was a huge change. I liked what I did when I worked with laundry and manufacture. I loved merchandising and I loved marketing and I loved working with consumers. But there was something really special when I was given the opportunity or really the honor to

be on other people's journeys to health and happiness, weight loss, you know, and all the things. Yeah, at that point in time, I had no idea how much my life was gonna change. Yeah. And I think the other piece of this puzzle is, know, so, you know, I worked for Weight Watchers for almost 20 years, and then I knew that I was meant for bigger and better and needed to do or have a different approach to weight loss.

And one of the things that came out of that for me was that it was given me the opportunity to continue to give back to these people and be a part of their journey. But I knew that I was going to build something that was going to still have that group support we were talking about before. Like, you know, I'm a great one-on-one coach. I'm going be honest, I'm a great one-on-one coach, but I think people are at their best.

if they have that kind of support to also have group support or to have that group support because I can tell people all the time, and I lost this much weight and these were the things that worked for me and these are the things that work for me now, but I'm the expert in the room on behavior change. I am the expert on behavior change, but my clients are the experts on themselves. So being in a room of other people who are experts on themselves,

That's where all the power in interview really comes from. Yeah, that makes sense. Again, like group therapy for me was a game changer. When I was a kid, I hated it. I was forced into it. didn't want to be in Why would I want to be in group therapy? I want to be doing my own thing. But as an adult and wanting to change and to heal and thrive, being with those peers really makes a difference.

And how important that is to right now, the last four years, when, you know, even if you're in a household of people, we still felt, you know, severely alone at times. And so to have a group of people, whether you do it virtually or in person, I mean, obviously for a lot of that pandemic, weren't doing it in person, but to have that connection, even if we can't touch and feel that person, I can still like hold my hand up for a high five or something like that.

But to have that connection when we all really needed it the most. I feel so terrible for my parents who are single, being on their own during that period of time, or all the singles out there, being on their own. My dad is in a 12 step, so he was doing meetings.

daily and sometimes multiple times a day he leads meetings also. So I know in so many areas of life how a group can help even the most introverted. Yeah, even just listening, not even having to say anything, but listening to others and understanding I'm not the only one dealing with this. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

So when did you make the decision to leave Weight Watchers to start your own journey? So the truth is I left in the spring of 2022 for another job. really like I had almost 19 years and 10 months with Weight Watchers and I was like, I think it's time for something new. And I went to a place that looked great on paper. And in my first five weeks there was like having a great time learning new things, doing new things and also

utilizing my skills as a weight loss coach. And then five weeks in, they laid off almost 25 % of the company. And so I knew it wasn't me. Had they just, if they had just laid off my cohort, then, you know, maybe I would have felt worse about it. I had moments like, my God, you left, you know, something you'd been doing for so long. But I kind of just let it be.

you know, the universe communicating to me, you know, you've been thinking about how you want to do this differently for a very long time. And I had people encouraging me for a long time, you should go do this for yourself, you know, especially friends of mine who own their own businesses. you should do this for yourself. And I was like, I don't have the time. I don't have the finances. I don't have the energy. I am not an entrepreneur. Like I went through all the reasons why I couldn't. And a lot of those things were taken away when I was at work.

have the time. So that was a really good time for me to invest into it. And I actually had contemplated for a little bit not doing weight loss anymore, because I really felt like, maybe I had stagnated. And then you sit down, you think about it for a little while, and you're like, well, wait a minute, that really is my niche, it is what I do. And I do really well. And, and, and I shouldn't need any kind of certification, 20 years of weight loss coaching is certification enough, that I went out and got myself

a life coaching certification, just like for me to validate that I did have the skills and the tools that I needed, which I did. and it was during that period of time that I said, I think I'm going to do one-on-one coaching, which I had done for a short period of time at Weight Watchers. And, I, was still feeling like lagging in the entrepreneurial.

mindset and I asked a friend of mine who owned an organizing business if I could apprentice with her. I wasn't looking at organizing as something I wanted to do. I was just looking at working with her as a way to see a woman in business in action or an entrepreneur in action. And I was on a project with her where we were moving a client from a very large home to a moderate sized apartment. And

really meant she needed to get rid of half of what she had more probably would have been better. And I was sitting in the kitchen and I was I was assigned the spices. And this woman had five of every spice. It was very clear that every time she went shopping for a recipe, she would just get a new jar of whatever spice that was, because she couldn't find it at home. Like, whoa, needs five jars of sesame seeds or five jars of marjoram.

Marjoram like we never use that why because she found a recipe she couldn't find the marjoram from the last time she cooked it three years ago so she went and got a new one so anyway the point of this is i'm sitting in the kitchen and i had remembered reading an article and maybe even talking about it in a workshop in the past about the connection between weight and clutter so i used that as a way to kind of like dive into something different and i did

four to five months of research. read scientific journals and books and magazines and articles and listened to podcasts and watched documentaries. And what I found in the end is that while not a lot of people are talking about it, there is a very strong connection between clutter and weight. And that I wanted to shift my approach to helping people, not by counting calories or counting points or counting macros, not by being hyper-focused to what I'm eating and what I'm not eating, but rather

removing the physical and mental clutter in their lives because once that happens, the other stuff I just said happens better or happens at all. What an interesting connection. Isn't it? I think it's so cool. I just want more people to know about it because you know, there's a million weight loss coaches out there and there's a ton of clutter coaches out there and there are a ton of people who are looking to lose weight and a ton of people who are looking to, to, you know, remove the clutter.

but don't realize that they potentially have both. Because I think when people hear clutter, they think borders, they think of that awful TV show. And the reality is that it's somewhere around 2 to 5 % of people who struggle with clutter that are at that level. But that 60 % of people complain that there are challenges around clutter in their homes and in their lives. And it doesn't mean

It's the person whose house you walk into and they're like, my gosh, I'm so sorry for the mess. Like I've never said that before. And it's not a mess. Or it's, my God, hurry up. Someone's gonna be here in 10 minutes when you're shoving things in closets and drawers so that, so they're not showing. But at the end of the day, I think when we talk about clutter, whether it's paper or gifts or clothing or accessories or jewelry or kitchen gadgets or whatever it is, the reality is that the biggest part

The biggest piece of clutter in all of our lives is the mental clutter. Do you think it has anything to do with like a dysregulation? You know, it could be. mean, if you're talking about the extreme, you know, that two to five percent, you know, that are hoarders out there, most hoarding is trauma produced. OK. Or there is a trauma, you know, connection there. And in most cases,

also associated with OCD. Okay. Which sounds very counterintuitive. People like OCD, everything has its place and it's clean and it's organized. But in reality, you know, OCD is another form of perfectionism. And if you can't do it all, you know, if you can't do it perfectly, you know, that I'm going to wait until I have enough time or the right setting.

or the right help, whatever the things are that we're waiting to make it the perfect time. And then we become paralyzed. And I say we because it doesn't have to be just the extremes of according. think it's what prevents a lot of people from actually starting the weight loss journey. I am waiting until, you know, and, and so I see it in the people in my own life. My mother has an issue with stuff and

There are two things there, one trauma produced. My father went to rehab and they lost their home, his business, his car. She lost him, she lost me. was estranged from my parents for a couple of years. And for sure that hanging on to things comes from a Skater City mindset. Either I don't have the money, so you never know.

if there will be money again or food in the kitchen, what if there's no money, there's no food or just the other stuff that hanging onto my father was selling family things for drug money. so that, like these items may not be there tomorrow. So I always wanna be very careful to say that for anybody who's in an extreme situation that this is a big trauma.

But for those of us who suffer from it on a daily basis, I think you said earlier, like all or nothing, it is my all or nothing attitude that can create clutter in my life, whether it's physical, mental, digital, or calendar clutter. Well, that's fascinating. But it also makes sense. Yes. Yes. And, you know, how did I gain so much weight when I quit gymnastics? Well, a lot of it was that I was an emotional eater.

I said, you know, there were some eating disorders. So, you know, certainly more serious than, you know, emotional eating, but binge eating comes from, you know, an emotional place. But I think that, you know, the more stress I experience, the more stress that anybody experiences, we're looking for a way to manage that stress. We're looking for something to manage that very unhealthy.

or uncomfortable feeling. And often that means we go to uncomfortable things, whether it's in the case of my father going to drugs, know, smoking, drinking, eating too much, shopping too much. And so if my response to the stuff around me is stressful and I go and eat, I have now gotten myself in a really awful cycle. Yeah. Yeah.

That totally makes sense. So we can't all do it on our own, as you've said. What would you say to someone who's just had that realization like we did of this has to change? Well, one, just get help. Could someone do this by themselves? Absolutely. Absolutely, we could all do it by ourselves. But why would we if we know that we can have a support system behind us?

Right. And so, you know, you know, I mentioned it before, I do one-on-one coaching, I do group coaching, and there's nothing better than having a support system that gives you both the tools. These are strategies for doing it. And I am a firm believer in, I don't care how cluttered the space is. There should be no expectations on how long it's going to take.

take your time, set ridiculously simple goals. Goals that, I like to say that if you've set a goal and you're afraid to say it out loud because it sounds so stupid and so simple, then that is the perfect goal because you'll do it, you'll do it quickly, it will feel good, you can pat yourself on the back, you're both more motivated and more confident.

and being able to take the next step. So those ridiculously simple goals really just become stepping stones to more complex goals. And I think we're afraid, you this goes back to that whole perfectionistic thing. We're afraid when we look at a messy closet, I have to clean the whole closet. Well, I'll do it this Saturday. And then Saturday rolls around and there's an invitation for this and something else comes up and all of a sudden all you have is an hour.

Well, I can't complete it in an hour. Why bother? Well, maybe that's the problem is that I think I have to clean the whole closet when all I have to do is one shelf or one drawer or maybe like, you know, the equivalent of half of the hanging, you know, wrap, depending on the size of the closet. If I'm setting goals to just do a piece of it, most of the time we'll keep going. And if we don't keep going, we'd at least.

made a dent in it as opposed to assuming it has to happen. The clutter didn't happen overnight, so getting rid of it isn't going to happen overnight. We didn't gain the weight overnight, we're not going to lose it overnight. But for so many of us, it's black and white thinking that gets us to that point. Yeah, that's so true. Black and white thinking also comes with the trauma. Yeah. Yeah. So how can we reach you?

lots of different ways. My website, melaniecohen.kodia.com. I'm assuming you're going to have this and shown up. Is there something like that? I'm on all the socials as Melanie Cohen or Thoughtfully Coaching or variations of Melanie Cohen and Thoughtfully Coaching. And your listeners should know if they go to my website, they can get a free copy of my Kickstart book, which

talks about the relationship between weight and clutter, and talks about ways to both remove clutter in your space and clutter in your mind. what a great way to start so that they can get into it and then be able to speak with you more about how to forward. Absolutely. Absolutely. This was an incredible conversation. There's so much to unpack here. gave...

so much amazing information I'd never thought about when it comes to weight loss. And I've done the weight loss journey three to four times now. I'm still in a new weight loss journey because your body changes and you know, it's never going to be the same. know, I mean, mean, mean. In the perimenopause? Yes, I am. Yep, I am. That's my Can I say something about that? I started my weight loss journey at 30.

I reached my goal at 32. I started working for Weight Watchers. worked for them until, you know, past my 50th birthday. And in my 30s and early 40s, when women would complain about the weight gain during menopause, I'd be like, that's ridiculous. Research shows that you slow down, not your metabolism. If you keep moving, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was just regurgitating all the information that was available to us at that time.

I hit 50, man, and I feel like I need to go back. There are probably thousands of women I need to apologize for assuming that all it was going to take was moving more. Those of us in our 50s or for those who start menopause a little earlier in their 40s, like we know, I really, it is incredible how, I don't want to call it hard or difficult because then it will be, but it certainly produces new challenges. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I even, went to an endocrinologist to check everything, you know, and I'm like, I've been doing the things that I used to do before when I lost weight and I've lost two pounds in a month. Yeah, that kind of thing. Instead of it used to be like five pounds in a month. And I think some of us would be super happy with two pounds in a month. Right, but I'm so used to my body being different. just wanted to be that part again. 100%. And you know, it's almost for me to compare

losing weight, because I gained weight during the pandemic. I struggling to lose? You know what? I'm still down over 50 pounds. I'm not complaining. But what I know is that my husband could say, well, instead of a beer at dinner, I'll only have it on the weekend and all of sudden lose five pounds. Where I have to do a lot more than that to lose five pounds. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. for having me. was such a great conversation.

Thank you, thank you, I really appreciate it.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (41:17)
So I find this connection between clutter and weight fascinating. And I need to learn more about this. Melanie is a wealth of information and a fabulous coach. And if you also find this fascinating, I highly recommend going onto her site and downloading her free book that can get you started in understanding this connection and maybe get in touch.

with Melanie and talk further about a journey that you may want to go on.