Dieting From The Inside Out

Nov 28, 2022

Small Steps, BIG RESULTS: Overcome Anything by Building MOMENTUM ft. Beth Feraco | DFIO Ep.244

About Today’s Episode:

In today’s episode, I interview a new friend—Beth Feraco.

Beth and I have a lot of mutual friends in the industry but we hadn’t actually met until now. Beth is just an amazing, bright, beaming person. I wanted to connect with her and get her on the show to just pick her brain.

We talk about deeper reasons behind struggle and self-sabotage, we get into headspace and mindset, and we talk about Beth’s life—she is a former alcoholic, and she completely transformed her life.

Beth has now built a successful online coaching business, a massive social media following, and has a top-rated podcast to go along with it all.

I know you’re going to LOVE this episode.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Intro 00:31 Sponsors

04:19 About Today’s Episode

06:49 About Beth

16:59 Overcoming Struggles

31:25 Beth and Sobriety

36:18 Releasing Outcomes

43:32 Advice For Those Struggling

50:29 Jared's outro and how to sign up for coaching

Transcript (click to expand)

Episode Synopsis:

About Beth:

Beth has an online nutrition and strength coaching business. She got her start in fitness around 7 years ago when she quit drinking. She started working out with a friend of hers early in the morning, before her AA meetings. She eventually started working at a gym—at the front desk—and later transitioned into coaching and got a nutrition certification and personal trainer certification.

Right before covid, she had been thinking about starting an online coaching business, which she threw herself 100% into once covid hit.

Beth decided to participate in an online fitness business mentorship program and part of that included a challenge to post every day on TikTok—where she quickly ended up going viral—and she hasn’t stopped since.

Beth also has a top trending podcast called Cut The Crap with Beth and Matt. Actually having met through TikTok due to her consistent posting and the community she had been building, the two of them started collaborating on content, eventually creating a podcast together.

Overcoming Struggles:

Beth believes that the majority of people simply don’t believe in themselves. They have tried, failed, and have a history of doing things in an unsustainable way. To help clients overcome this self-doubt, Beth likes to start them with something they know they can achieve and build from there.

She gives them one thing to focus on so they can build momentum—even something very small and simple—so they can just start to accumulate wins.

Small steps, big results.

Beth finds that many people struggle hard with the scale and fear foods. She likes to have people do things like eat that food every day, track it, fit it in with their calories, and see firsthand that it’s not something to be afraid of.

When it comes to the scale, sometimes the tactic will be to weigh yourself every day or not weigh at all. There is no single “weigh-in day.”

Jared similarly tells people that it needs to be “every day, or not at all” when it comes to weighing yourself.

When people ask him why, he points out that once a week, once a month, or “whenever you feel fat,” is not giving you context and relative data.

Beth believes that people don’t understand the science behind the scale and why weight fluctuates.

She has found that people struggle with past identities and prior tactics where they may have been doing something unhealthy, but they have convinced themselves that they were happy.

Beth also believes that thoughts dictate actions—so to change the things you're doing, you have to change your thinking.

Beth and Sobriety:

When Beth quit drinking she threw herself into running—sort of as a replacement for drinking. She felt like running was as hard as quitting drinking, so she pushed herself to run a lot.

She does think that running played a huge role in getting her through that first year of quitting drinking. She would run all the time, but not in a healthy way—she had shin splints and plantar fasciitis—but she learned from that and now only runs occasionally.

For Beth, helping others is what keeps her sober and what helped her stop using running as a coping mechanism for not drinking.

When she was drinking, she would talk, but not follow through, and she didn’t like herself. She was miserable.

She had tried to quit drinking—and failed—typically using things like a 14-day fast as a replacement for drinking.

She got to the point where she was fed up with the way she was, knew she was meant for more, and needed to make the decision. She didn’t know who she wanted to be, but she knew she needed to do something.

When people tell Beth they don’t know where to get started, she emphasizes that you just have to take that first step—if you’re scared of the gym, you just have to go in there. It’s okay if you don’t know what you’re doing because you’ll learn in time.

Releasing Outcomes:

Beth and Jared both agree that trusting the process and just doing the work is essential, but many are resistant to letting go of outcomes because there will be roadblocks and frustrations along the way—leading many to quit.

When Beth first started interning at the gym, there were two women she worked with who were very critical of her and did not want to see her succeed. Instead of helping Beth succeed, these two made life harder for her. Instead of throwing in the towel and quitting, however, Beth persevered.

Advice for those struggling:

Beth suggests doing 30-day challenges, finding online support groups, and talking to those close to you. Whether it's alcohol or something else, find support, do challenges, and talk about it—take small steps.

The concept of today being “just one more day” of sobriety and then telling herself the same thing the next day and the next day kept her going through the first year of recovery.

Beth did not know what her life would look like before she got started, but she believed she was meant for more and has built a new, still evolving life for herself.