Why Transformation Isn’t Enough
Have you ever crushed a diet—felt on top of the world—only to watch it slowly unravel?
The energy returns, the confidence builds, the routine feels doable.
But then—life gets loud. Stress creeps in. Habits slip.
The weight comes back, and you're left wondering: Why can’t I hold onto this?
If that’s been your story, you are so not alone.
In fact, roughly 80-95% of the people who lose weight will gain it back. Some will gain a lot MORE back.
What a crappy stat.
As a wellness coach, I’ve been sitting with that crappy statistic, turning it this way and that. I don’t want my clients to just experience a single, thrilling moment of transformation. I want them to build a life they don’t have to escape from. A rhythm that feels sustainable. A body they feel at home in—not just for a season, but for good.
In my last post, I talked about how much I love transformations—the before-and-after stories, the quick wins, the big reveal.
And I still do. There’s something undeniably inspiring about seeing fast change.
But here’s what I’ve realized: quick doesn’t always mean lasting.
In fact, if we’re only chasing transformation without learning how to sustain it, we’re just setting ourselves up to start over again.
That realization sent me on a deeper mission.
What does it take to become a Five Percenter?
How to become the rare person who doesn’t just transform in the short term… but sustains it for a lifetime?
I know there is a solution to every problem. I just had to begin the search. The problem:
It is difficult to maintain weight loss in our culture.
My mission/solution: learn about the 5%. What do they do differently?
The Conversation That Changed Everything
Several weeks ago I was sitting with my good friend and whole food aficionado, Krista Sanderson, owner of Eat Real America, and I asked her the question that had been sitting heavy in my heart:
“Why do so many women—smart, capable, intentional women—slide back into old habits after doing so well?”
We’re talking about women who’ve raised families. Balanced jobs, schedules, and stress. Women who know how to persevere, how to sacrifice, how to get stuff done.
So why is it that this area feels so darn elusive?
I told her about my own dieting history, my ups, my downs. She listened and then told me, “You need to read The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.”
So I did.
And it was like someone turned on a light in a room I didn’t realize was dark.
If you’ve read Atomic Habits or Tiny Habits, you are familiar with the idea that you can achieve great things if you focus on the small, daily habits.
What Jeff Olson brings to the table is the understanding below the habits, which is more of a philosophy. He spends a lot of time not so much in the “how” of building out habits (like Atomic Habits does), but delivering the “why”.
He calls the quantum leap thinking dangerous because that sort of thinking means people won’t actually take the action, they are just looking for the miracle drug/cure/magic genie in a bottle.
The Element of Change We’ve Forgotten
Our culture is built on instant.
We microwave dinner.
We text instead of talk.
We want two-day shipping, same-day delivery, ten-minute workouts, and one-minute devotionals.
We expect everything to happen fast—and that includes our health.
We buy the shoes, the cute workout clothes, and sign up for the gym—boom! We’ve planted the seed.
We start strong. We sweat. We feel proud. For a while.
But when the results don’t show up fast enough, when the scale doesn’t reward us instantly, or when life gets messy… we wonder: Why isn’t this working?
Because we’ve forgotten the middle-and most powerful- phase of change.
Planting. Cultivating. Harvesting.
Everyone loves the “before” quickly followed by the “after”, which is basically, if you think about it, the planting immediately followed by harvesting.
But cultivating? Who wants to spend time in that arena? Well, Jeff Olson said this is where we need to shift our thinking. We need to understand it is here where real lasting change not only takes place, but continuous over a lifetime:
“Cultivating is the step we’ve lost touch with—the one where the real, invisible power lies. Unlike planting and harvesting, it requires one thing our culture resists most: time.”
—Jeff Olson, paraphrased from The Slight Edge
Cultivation is showing up for your future self even when your current self doesn’t feel like it. It’s the long, often thankless middle part.
For me as a wellness coach AND as a wellness participant,
It’s exercising every day even when I don’t feel like it.
It’s choosing whole foods instead of easier-to-access processed ones.
It’s about setting my fasting timer and allowing my body to have digestive rest instead of snacking all night long.
It’s about making the time to track my macros instead of just winging it.
I can say that as I’ve done these items day in and day out for the last seven months, I’ve seen remarkable results in my body composition, energy level and ability to handle stress. I’m at the lowest adult weight, which is great, but more than anything, I love how strong I feel.
I am happy. And it’s a feeling I’d like other women, especially those in their 50’s and beyond, to feel.
So. Let’s talk about how that happens.
What Five Percenters Actually Do
The women who stay strong, stay well, and stay grounded aren’t relying on motivation.
They’ve anchored themselves to process.
They employ the slight edge mentality, knowing that it’s the little things done every single day that will yield and sustain results.
This is something that I am passionate about and that I now train my clients on.
I want them to fall in love with the rhythm of daily habits:
Drinking all of their water.
Setting their fasting timer each evening.
Prepping food before the week hits
Tracking macros (this is our specialty with The FASTer Way to Fat Loss)
Sticking to their choices
Completing their FASTer Way workout
And here’s the shift: as clients hit their goal, I encourage them to keep doing those things. And The FASTer Way is set up with a VIP program, allowing the clients to keep on keeping on.
The cool thing, in the weeks and months of showing up consistently, the daily habits get tied to who they are—not just what they’re trying to achieve.
The Real Miracle
So how do you become a Five Percenter?
You start small. You show up. You cultivate.
You stop chasing a dream and start building consistency.
You stop wishing for magic and start trusting the math of daily effort.
You stop thinking a temporary fix will create a permanent change.
You stop waiting for exciting... and realize boring habits create beautiful results.
You find joy in the process, not just the before-and-after.
You celebrate the quiet wins no one sees.
And you keep doing them—even when life gets loud and crazy and chaotic.
Because the real miracle?
It’s not in the transformation.
It’s in the maintenance.
P.S. If you’re ready to cultivate real change—slow, steady, strategic change—I want to personally invite you into my next round of The FASTer Way to Fat Loss, starting July 21, 2025.
This isn’t about quick fixes or big dramatic overhauls. It’s about the quiet work of showing up, making intentional choices, and building habits that hold.
The magic is in the cultivation.
Day by day. Meal by meal. Thought by thought.
You bring the willingness. I’ll bring the structure, the encouragement, and the plan.
👉 Click here to join the July 21 round
If this has been on your heart for a while, now’s the perfect time to say yes. We’ve added some amazing new client bonuses this month, and with code SUMMER50, you’ll get $50 off your registration. Join today for early access—and start creating the future you’ve been longing for.