We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Brown Carter a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sarah, thank you for joining us today and sharing your experiences and acquired wisdom with us. Burnout is a huge topic these days and so we’d love to kick things off by discussing your thoughts on overcoming or avoiding burnout
First off, thank you so much for having me again. It’s always great to hear from your team.
How I avoid burnout; by simplifying.
As a new mom with very limited time and energy, I wanted to find a way to lose the 55 lbs I had gained during pregnancy in a way that didn’t leave me burnt out.
When I became pregnant with my first in early 2022, I was working more than full time at a very sedentary job, experienced major morning sickness for 22 weeks and had extreme pelvic pain the second half of third trimester. However it was vital to me to move my body almost every day, even if it was only for 15 minutes some days. Although it felt like I was gaining more weight than anyone I knew (55 lbs total), I kept moving – just trusting the process that walking and lifting weights was making a difference, even though I couldn’t see it at the time. I kept track of all these workouts on Instagram as motivation for myself on days where I really didn’t want to move. These videos reminded me that after I did move my body in some way, I felt better every single time.
After my son was born I wasn’t sure how in the world I would lose the weight with the very limited time and energy that I now had. I felt there was no way I could dedicate myself to an hour of intense exercise every single day, which is mostly what I was seeing online.
So I didn’t.
I made my own plan – going back to the basic, strength focused movements that I had done while pregnant, starting with body weight and slowly adding in weight over the weeks, slowly lifting heavier and heavier.
I did these workouts 3 days/week, they took 20-30 minutes each, and surprisingly, they did not leave me feeling exhausted or burnt out. A few months postpartum I started incorporating light cardio 2-3 days a week – not fast and not far, starting at only 20-30 minutes, just enough to get my heart rate up. I also put together a basic nutrition plan to follow that kept me full, versus starving. And the craziest thing happened.
I felt energized, started feeling confident, felt like I wasn’t taking time away from my son, and started to lose the weight. Without starving myself and without experiencing burn out.
The workouts themselves weren’t necessarily difficult, what was difficult was making the choice almost every single day to stick with my plan. And having a schedule of simple, basic movements, and knowing that after I finished a workout I would feel better, not worse, made it so much easier to follow. Which ultimately helped me avoid the burnout that is so common with losing weight. I would also ask myself, “are the consistent choices I’m making every single day, when no one else is around, conducive to my goals?” I think there’s a balance between listening to our bodies while also not routinely making excuses for ourselves. We really need to be honest with our own selves about what our daily habits are.
I’m a big believer that simplicity and consistency work. Exercising doesn’t always need to be this wildly complicated, stressful, high intensity experience. Lift heavy weights a few times a week, get your heart rate up through cardio a few times a week (but in a manageable, non overkill way) and eat well 85% of the time and the results will come.
I truly believe that small daily habits have the power to help anyone attain a body and level of health that they are proud of in a realistic and sustainable way.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
What I’m doing now is helping other women find a simpler, sustainable way to form healthy habits resulting in weight loss, muscle gain and overall confidence.
After I lost 55+ lbs, women started asking me what in the world I was doing, so I wrote it all down and started sharing privately. Some were moms and some weren’t, but all of them had busy schedules and were looking for a sustainable workout and nutrition plan.
They started to do the same program I was doing and started seeing amazing results that they had never seen before. More importantly, we all started to create healthier, sustainable habits resulting in confidence, energy, more time with our families and weight loss.
And that’s when I knew – I needed to share this program with as many busy women as possible.
So for almost a year now, I’ve been putting together my workout plan and nutrition guide in a more aesthetic way than an iNotes screenshot and filming tutorial videos and I’m so ecstatic to share that the program is now officially launched!
It’s a 12-week realistic, sustainable and affordable daily workout plan and nutrition guide that is meant to help form long term healthy habits. (It can be found on my website www.sarahbrowncarter.com)
I’m also currently 9 months pregnant with my second baby, so I’m looking forward to jumping back into this program postpartum and sharing my results in real time.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills, qualities or areas of knowledge that folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills, qualities or areas of knowledge would you focus on?
The biggest area of knowledge during both pregnancies has been that every woman’s body responds to pregnancy differently, and it’s not necessarily always an indication of doing something “wrong.” As a woman who was in very good physical shape prior to getting pregnant, I was not expecting my pregnancy experience to be one where I would gain so much weight. However, I’ve learned that some women just retain more water than others. Obviously trusting the process is easier said than done, but it’s truly incredible how our bodies know what to do in order to create and sustain our babies.
Pregnancy, and what our bodies go through, can be really challenging, but it’s temporary. And I really want to encourage other pregnant women experiencing the same thing to continue to take care of themselves (moving every day and eating well), even though it may not look like it’s doing anything productive (because the weight keeps going up).
This (second) pregnancy I have been pretty vocal about this on Instagram and it’s really resonated with thousands of women around the world. There are aspects of pregnancy and postpartum that can feel isolating and embarrassing, but by sharing my experience, my hope is that more women realize they’re not alone and hopefully this can relieve some of the anxiety that often comes with pregnancy weight gain.
My advice for other women experiencing the same thing is to take it one day at a time. Every single woman and pregnancy is different and responds to pregnancy differently. It’s so easy to compare ourselves to other women, especially women online. But trust that this is what your body needs to do in order to create and take care of your baby.
Please continue to move how you can, eat well and take care of yourself. I promise it will be worth it, you’ve got this and you’re not alone.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed I just try to remember people have dealt with similar situations, and worse, for many, many years with far less resources. If other people can do it, so can I.
Not that my feelings aren’t valid, but it’s helpful to know that I’m not the only person ever to experience this situation and that if other people have overcome it, then so can I.
Especially when it comes to pregnancy, society and everything online will tell you that you need 5,000 products in order to have a smooth pregnancy and postpartum. But you really don’t. It’s very easy to feel overwhelmed with information, especially when so much of it is conflicting. But in those moments that’s when I try to remind myself that women have been having babies for thousands of years with far less. Sometimes we over complicate things, and it’s refreshing to pause and take a step back and remember that there can be beauty and peace in simplifying.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sarahbrowncarter.com
- Instagram: sarahbrowncarter
Image Credits
Stefanie M Photo
