Listen to Yourself with Martha Van Camp
On this episode of the Plan Simple Meals Podcast, I’m really excited to talk with Martha Van Camp about weight loss. If you know my story at all, you know that my journey into health and wellness and time management started with losing 85 pounds. Today we’ll talk with Martha about her story and methods!
Martha struggled with being the “big girl” most of her life and tried diet after diet. Finding herself raising 7 kids with a deployed husband, she gave up on herself for a while. She hit 40 and decided she wanted a change. She started researching foods and micro- and macronutrients and lost 50 lbs in 10 months. She calls herself her first client. From there she went on to enter bodybuilding competitions and started her own company. (Even if those aren’t your goals, she’s got a lot to share with us!)
There is never a perfect time, but there are moments when we can’t go on anymore. We wake up and we’re just done fighting the scale, walking into our closet, and finding nothing that fits. We look at all the piled up coffee cups and feel exhausted and know something has to change. If you’ve been saying “When the kids are older,” “When they go to school,” “When they go to college…” this is for you. Because the longer you wait, the longer the programming that says you aren’t important kicks in. What if today is the day, you say enough?
We talk about:
- Thinking about our own relationship with food, what we’re carrying from childhood and how that and anything else is showing up now
- What else you fix when you fix your food (spoiler alert—you can literally change your whole life)
- Different ways to look at food—Martha recommends focusing on the macronutrients: protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats
- Getting to a caloric deficit, but that may not be what you think
- The need to make changes in what you eat—and when—as your hormones change with age (we talk intermittent fasting here)
- The importance of listening to yourself and what you know about yourself
Doable Changes
PAY ATTENTION TO MACRONUTRIENTS. There are a lot of ways to think about food, but what if you start with three big components: protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats. Start by looking at labels. Notice how you are eating each of these (or what’s missing) at each meal.
PUT YOURSELF ON YOUR TO DO LIST. It’s easy to put everyone else first. Put something for you on your list. Even put it first. It could be a walk or workout or making the healthy meal you need vs. what your kids are clamoring for. Start each day with you.
LISTEN TO YOURSELF. Many of us hear a voice inside telling when something is wrong or not working or needing to change. Listen to that voice. Even if you don’t know what’s next. Start writing down what you hear. Use that to fuel your next step.
BIO
Martha VanCamp is the Founder and Head Coach for #beMarthaFit, an online wellness and weight loss coaching program. She is also a NESTA Certified Master Wellness and Weight Loss Coach. Martha coaches approximately 500 monthly clients all over the United States and overseas military bases, via an established online platform. She provides clients a customized meal plan, high accountability and wellness/life coaching to achieve their goals.
Martha’s company also offers a subscription recipe website for anyone looking to lose weight. The website offers low cal/macro-based recipes for all meals and snacks.
Martha, who struggled with her weight from childhood until the age of 40, and was a self-proclaimed ‘diet junky’, finally conquered her own weight battle by doing extensive research on how the body processes food for energy. Over a period of 4 years, Martha lost 100 pounds. In addition, she has owned a CrossFit gym and competed in numerous bodybuilding competitions on the East Coast.
Martha believes clients must focus on “fixing their food” first in order to not only achieve their weight loss goal but also to attain other life-goals.
Martha and her program have been featured numerous times on national television networks like CBN and TBN. Martha is a mom to seven children and resides in Tampa, Florida.
