The perfect time to start is not coming. The kids will always be off school. Work will always get busy. There will always be a trip, a holiday, a reason to wait. This episode is about what to do instead.
In this episode I am breaking down the three things I would stop doing immediately if I wanted to feel confident and comfortable in a bikini this summer. Because summer is closer than you want to believe and the perfect time is never coming.
This episode is coming from personal experience as much as it is from coaching thousands of women. I have been the person who avoided booking the trip. I have been on the Amalfi Coast with almost no photos to look back on. I am telling you what I wish someone had told me.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why waiting for the perfect time is a cycle that repeats itself every single month
- What actually happens when you crash diet before a vacation
- Why doing more is almost never the answer especially when you are already stretched thin
- What is actually broken when your body stops responding - and it is not your body
- Why minimizing your goal and saying it is not that bad is a delay tactic not perspective
- The real cost of waiting - summers spent hiding, photos deleted, trips not booked
- What two Powerhouse Academy members said when they finally stopped minimizing
- Why you are allowed to want to feel good in your body and enjoy your life fully
Summer is coming whether you are ready or not. The question is which version of you is going to show up for it this time.
Ever wish you had a fit and straightforward BFF with over 15 years of experience to help you filter through all the information regarding fitness, nutrition, and life? That's exactly what you'll get when you listen to the Unfiltered Fit Life Podcast.
Join Former Bikini Olympia Champion, mom of 2, and fitness coach Nathalia Melo each week as she shares fitness, nutrition, and life tips to help busy working moms simplify their fitness journey so they can learn easy and simple strategies on how to lose weight and feel sexy AF.
After helping over 5000 busy working moms, Nathalia has found the blueprint to fitness, nutrition, and life success, which she will be sharing in this podcast: actionable tips that will help busy working moms be more present at work and at home.
This show is for you if you realize that nothing good comes from your comfort zone and are ready to challenge yourself to achieve great things. Follow Unfiltered Fit Life wherever you are listening to join us each week for a splash of sass, humor, and a whole lotta truth.
Podcast Transcript
3 Things to Stop Doing Immediately If You Want to Feel Confident in a Bikini This Summer
INTRODUCTION AND LISTENER REVIEW
I open by reading a review from Apple Podcasts from HW 1015 who describes the podcast as a breath of fresh air in the fitness space that focuses on building confidence, staying consistent, and creating sustainable habits that fit real life. I note that it connects perfectly to today's topic and encourage anyone who has not left a review yet to do so.
THE WOMAN WHO WAS WAITING FOR HER ROUTINE
I share a conversation from Instagram with a woman who said fitness would be a priority when her routine came back. When I asked what was getting in the way she said her business was always crazy at this time of year. When I asked how long she had owned her business she said 15 years. Every year at this time it was always crazy - and yet she was still treating it as something unexpected that would pass. This is the pattern behind the whole episode.
THING ONE: STOP WAITING FOR THE PERFECT TIME
I walk through every single month of the year and show how each one becomes a reason to delay. January recovering from holidays. February dark and unmotivated. March spring break coming. April on the trip. May school ending. June summer chaos. July middle of it all. August back to school prep. September busy again. October Halloween looming. November holidays. December starting fresh next year. There is always something. The women who feel confident in the summer are the ones who started in the middle of messy seasons - not the ones waiting for everything to be calm.
THE REAL COST OF WAITING
I describe what the waiting actually looks like - women avoiding booking vacations altogether, women with boats and pools who do not want people over, women wearing leggings in Texas heat because they will not put on shorts, women deleting photos from their kids' birthdays and graduations, women telling their husbands not to touch them. I share the personal story of being invited to New Zealand and saying no because I did not want people to see me. This is not just a few pounds. This is a life being quietly put on hold.
THING TWO: STOP DEFAULTING TO MORE
When things are not working the instinct is to add more cardio, more classes, more gym days, more restriction, more willpower. But more is almost never the answer. I share my own experience training six hours a day during my competing years and how that strategy was only possible because I had no other responsibilities. That approach does not work for the life most women are living now. The problem is never the quantity. It is the strategy. Doing more of the wrong thing just gets you more exhausted and more convinced that your body is broken - and your body is not broken, the plan is.
THE CRASH DIET TRAP
The extreme approach before a vacation might feel like it is working for a few days but then the moment you arrive your hunger hormones are completely deregulated, your body responds to the first carbs with bloating, and you spend the rest of the trip feeling worse than when you started. I share my own Amalfi Coast experience where almost every photo is cropped from the shoulders up because I went in on a crash approach and could not hold it. Confidence in a bikini is built in the months before the trip, not the weeks before it.
THING THREE: STOP MINIMIZING YOUR GOAL
About 85% of the conversations I have involve women apologizing for wanting to feel better because other people have worse problems or because from the outside they look fine. But these are the same women who have not booked their summer vacation, who are wearing the same three outfits to work because nothing else fits, who are deleting themselves from photos, who are going to different gyms because they do not want to run into people who knew them at their fittest. I share two Powerhouse Academy members who each said a version of the same thing - that they did not realize how much they had been opting out of life until they stopped hiding. Minimizing is not humility. It is a delay tactic. And the longer you use it the more expensive it gets.
CLOSING
I close by connecting all three points - the perfect time is not coming, doing more is not the solution, and minimizing the problem is not perspective. Summer is coming whether you are ready or not. You are allowed to want to feel good in your body. You are allowed to have the choice to wear whatever you want rather than wearing what covers the most. The question is which version of you is going to show up for summer this time.
