Session transcript

Stop Collecting Protocols: Run a System

with Marli Palarino · Day 1 · The Invisible Load

Hello, beautiful ladies. If you're here on Day 1, welcome. Thank you so much for coming and joining every one of us who's speaking at the summit. It's such a pleasure and an honor to be part of this community. My name is Marli Palarino, and I'm also known as the Mom Bod Sculptor. I have an online coaching business for women, particularly in that perimenopause and menopause season: busy moms over 35 who have struggled with seeing their bodies change. And I help them change that.

I'm imagining that you're probably the woman who holds everything together for everyone you know: your family, your team, the never-ending calendar in your head that never closes. Nobody thanks you for most of it, but you do it anyway, because that's who you are. And in the thick of all of this, where you are right now, your body has probably changed. You're not in the same physique you were in during your 20s and 30s, and you might want to learn a little more so you can start making changes.

Chances are, you're pretty disciplined if you're here listening to speakers at the summit. You're intentional. You're interested in getting answers. I love that you're seeking knowledge, because you're probably running on an old system. If you've seen your body change, you're probably still trying to do the things that worked in your 20s and 30s, and that's just not the way anymore.

To give you some context, I did not come from fitness. I'm not a fitness person who decided to do mommy fitness for everyone. That's not me. I came from the executive world. I came from high fashion in New York, then I did luxury jewelry in LA, and after that, my husband and I scaled two seven-figure headhunting firms in high tech. I say that so you know I've lived very fast-paced careers and roles. And the undercurrent was that fitness was always part of my life. I was always really consistent there.

But as I kept aging, my body started changing. When it did, I realized I couldn't just go for a run, not really pay attention to my nutrition, and wing it like I had in previous years. Now, I had done bodybuilding competitions, and I used to coach at Orangetheory for fun. So I've always had a passion for fitness. It wasn't my career when I was younger, but it was always there. Still, I was operating on an old system for a very long time: train more, eat less, all that stuff. Then I had our two boys, and the rules changed. My body changed, and I needed to start learning. It was like, you'd better fix this and lock it in, or it's only going to get progressively worse.

I imagine you're like I was. I saved so many protocols. I saved so many meal plans, so many supplements. There was just so much information. And the protocol world, the fitness world, is so chaotic when you're trying to piece it all together, because none of them talk to each other. The Pilates leg sculpt workout, and then the running. That was me. I was like, "Oh, I like that. Oh, I like that. What about this? What about this meal plan?" Paleo, fasting, I've done them all. And in all that noise, it just wasn't working, because none of the protocols talked to each other. It wasn't systematized. There wasn't any flow to it.

If that's you, and I imagine it is because there's so much information out there and everything looks exciting, you're probably running pieces of six different systems in your head, on top of the calendar you're already running and the dinner you're trying to plan. You feel frazzled and fragmented. Not because you lack discipline, but because you're having to make all these tiny decisions. What's my workout going to be? What am I going to eat? Does this have enough protein? Reading every label. It's just too much. That's where I was, and I got tired of having to make so many decisions. So I needed to systematize and automate my life, because I wanted to see changes in my body.

So it was never a you problem. It's an information problem. You just have too much information. And in perimenopause, your operating system updates overnight, and nobody sends you the manual. The old rule was really simple: eat less, do more, and push through. You could look at a weight and get ripped. I love those influencer videos where they're like, "I'm so svelte, I've been on my diet for one day." I say that in good humor, but that doesn't work the way it used to. So all those protocols you've picked up are pretty much the old rules in a new outfit. You don't have an effort problem. You have a rules problem. You're collecting answers to a test you're not even taking anymore.

Once you see that, it does get simpler. You don't need another protocol. You don't need another this or another that. You just need one system that's built for the body you're in now. The biggest thing I tell my ladies is: forget motivation, just follow the system.

I want you to sit with that for a second, because I'm not changing the subject here. It's the same subject. Every protocol you ever collected ran on motivation. That's the design flaw nobody really talks about. These 30-day challenges, willpower, all of it assumes you feel like doing it every day. But motivation is a feeling, and feelings do not survive the invisible load you carry. You can't feel your way into consistency when you're running on fumes by three in the afternoon. A system doesn't care how you feel. A system is one set of decisions, made once, for you, so you don't have to make them again and again when you're exhausted. "I haven't trained yet, what am I going to eat?" All that noise. Not six sets of rules competing in your head. Just one. That's the whole secret. The solution for my ladies isn't more discipline. It's fewer decisions.

So what does the system actually look like? How do I set that up for clients? What does a systematized, automated life that allows your body to change look like? It's much smaller than you think. It's training, it's food, and it's strategic cardio. But it's set up in a way that works with your life, not crammed into it and competing with it.

First, strength training. Thirty minutes of strategic strength training, three to four times a week, on your calendar just like a meeting. Not whatever workout you saved at midnight from some 25-year-old in Bali. I love those too. I'm like, "Dang, girl." But we have things we've got to do, and we have a body that needs to change. So it needs to be systematized to be effective. Progressive work, getting a little stronger over time, because muscle is currency now. Strength is what holds it all together. It's your energy. It's your posture when you walk into a room. It's, "Dang, I carried those groceries in one trip." I carried my ten-year-old son, and a ten-year-old is big, he isn't a little baby anymore, all the way up the stairs. And I thought, that's because I did my squats. That's because I did my strength training. That's the training part.

Second, the food. It's decided before the week starts. Your plan, your meals, everything is systematized so you know what you're eating, on repeat. Simple enough to repeat without thinking. Then dinner stops being a negotiation at 5:30 when you're ready to cry. I also teach my clients a system for how they're going to eat and how their family is going to eat, all from the same base. Their plates might have a little more of the exciting stuff, like cheese, that you don't need because your body doesn't respond to it the same way anymore. Yours is going to be so flavorful and so delicious, and you're still going to get lean, toned, and confident. So that's another decision already made, a simple system you can sustain, not a chaotic new recipe every night.

The last piece is strategic cardio. Not endless cardio that doesn't work for you anymore, where you're fried and trying to out-cardio bad eating decisions. It's all cohesive. It all works together, and it doesn't leave you so fatigued.

The week itself is planned before it begins. My clients know exactly what they're doing, exactly how much of it they're doing, exactly what they're eating, and exactly how much of it they're eating. Back to systems again: my entire career before I got into online fitness coaching was built on systems. So it's, "Tell me what to do. Tell me how much of it to do. Tell me what to eat. Tell me how much of it to eat. And I'll do it." That's what my clients want, that's what I've created for them, and that's why they see success. Just one system. It doesn't care if the week is calm or chaotic, because it's built for both.

That's exactly how I coach, and I'll be very direct. When a woman starts with me, I do not hand her another protocol. The first thing we do is stop adding and start systematizing. We look at everything she's trying to run, and we cut it down to what actually matters. Then we build her system around her real calendar. Not the calendar she wishes she had, but the actual one, with the meetings and the travel and the soccer and the after-school activities. Because a system that only works in a quiet week, or when she's in a bubble at home, isn't a system. It's a vacation plan.

Then I coach her through it week by week. When she travels, she sends me a message and we prep for it. It's a lot to receive all the information in one download, like, "When all of this happens in your life, here's what you're going to do." I've read all those PDFs. I could be sick from all the fitness PDFs I've read. Instead, it's, "Hey girl, when you're going through this, I've got you. When your kid gets sick, this is how we adjust." That's how the system flexes with you without breaking, and she doesn't have to start over. Your kid is sick and you can't train? This is how you're going to eat. It's teaching her a system that runs inside her life.

And that's the difference between a protocol and a coach. A protocol just hands you the rules, then leaves and hopes it works. It might not work for your perimenopause body, which is not your 20-year-old body. So what I say is, run a system that actually fits inside your real life. That is what will change you. It's not more effort, and it's not more chaos. It's one system that can hold the line with you on the worst week, not just the best.

So here's the missing piece, and I'm going to say it in one sentence. Stop collecting old protocols built for old rules, stop piecing together all of this chaos, and run one system that works with every other part of your life and is built for you: one training rhythm, food that's decided in advance, and a week that's planned before it starts. Then you just repeat it on autopilot, your body keeps burning fat, and it finally feels calm, because you've systematized it.

I know this works because I've lived every version of the busy life: the career, building companies, motherhood, all of it. The system I run now is the system I teach. It's the only thing that has survived my real life, and it's what I continue to coach my ladies through.

So if this clicked for you, you're probably sitting with that one question: what changed in my body, and why did the old advice stop working? That's why I made The 5-Minute Perimenopause Primer. It's a PDF in plain language, zero jargon, about what's actually happening in your body, why the standard advice stopped working for you, and where to start. It's free, and the link is right below this video.

So, ladies, you don't need another protocol to collect. You just need one system to run, one system that fits into your life in the season you're in now. Forget motivation. Follow the system. I'm Marli Palarino, and thank you so much for spending these minutes with me.