Liz Roman (@thepoopqueen) and Becca Chilczenkowski (@thehormonequeen) break down the 10 traits behind people who actually follow through — on their business, their bodies, and their health — and why "I'm just not motivated" is the exact wrong diagnosis for why you keep starting over.

The reframe: it's not a motivation problem

21:02Liz: When somebody says to me, "I can't stay consistent with my diet, I'm not motivated enough to stay disciplined with the gym" — a lot of that comes down to willpower, because you're not planning or making decisions ahead of time. If you fly by the seat of your pants and hit Thursday afternoon with no plan for your food, it's a lot easier to say "forget it, I'll grab Chipotle" than to go home to the food you already bought. You think it's a motivation issue. It's a planning issue. And motivation? It's basically never there.

Trait 1 — Routine and non-negotiables

1:00Liz: People ask how we run a large functional medicine practice, a growing team, and two small kids and still show up. A lot of it is routine and structure. It doesn't have to be a rigid military schedule — it can be fluid — but we time-block. When am I going to the gym this week? It's on the calendar. Even mid-move, I'm asking what days I can get my lifts in. Thirty to forty-five minutes beats nothing. And I protect our nighttime routine hard — I'm in bed by 9 most nights, because if I don't sleep, I can't think.

3:20Becca: Same. I know how miserable and unwell I am when I'm tired — it bleeds into everything. So I'm up at 5:15 every day, I work for an hour, then get the kids up. Controlling those morning hours makes me feel level-headed instead of like I'm running around with my hair on fire. That kind of consistency is true of almost every successful person.

Trait 2 — Make decisions fast, take messy action

5:54Becca: Successful people decide fast and take action. Leila Hormozi talked about building a whole course, then scrapping it — and not spiraling, because she'd rather learn fast than overthink for six months. There's an analogy I love: people wait for the perfect pitch, while others are out practicing their swing, their speed, their agility — so they're ready when it comes. You take the action regardless of whether it's guaranteed to work, because that's how you get farther, faster.

7:10Liz: A lot of what we'd now call mistakes were still big lessons — we know what doesn't work. If you delay a decision, you're just delaying the result, whether that result is a win or a lesson.

Trait 3 — Get around people who are already where you want to be

8:14Liz: Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and doing the big things you want to do. You'll outgrow some relationships — I have. When I'm around certain people now, the complaining drains me. One of my clients, a nurse moving into functional medicine, said her whole workplace is unhappy and never solution-seeking. Those people stay stuck because they're not actively trying to get out. You have two choices: become a solution-seeker and an action-taker, or stop complaining about the thing you're choosing to sit in.

Trait 4 — Stop making excuses; nothing is handed to you

10:48Becca: Nothing is given. Whether it's a business, a health journey, a new skill — you have to work for it, and when it doesn't go how you wanted, ask what you can change instead of "woe is me." I don't love a victim mentality. And even if you're a person of faith, believing in God doesn't mean everything works out exactly how you planned.

12:10Liz: Becca and I have both had seasons where things didn't go to plan — including with fertility; she lost a baby at 22 weeks. You still have to keep showing up. If it's fertility, you look for what might be blocking you that your doctors aren't checking. If it's a promotion, you look in the mirror and ask what skills you need to build.

Trait 5 — Create your own opportunities

13:39Liz: You have to create the opportunity — put yourself in the room. Don't blame "I don't know enough people." I told a practitioner this week: 185,000 Instagram followers doesn't mean much unless I'm actually engaging with people. If you have 10,000 followers, engage, engage, engage — that's also how you grow. And stop waiting for the perfect script. Just start. "I wasn't given the opportunity" is, frankly, an excuse. Some of the most successful people came from nothing and are successful because of what they went through.

Trait 6 — Protect your energy: distraction is expensive, burnout kills

15:47Liz: Be intentional about protecting your energy and focus — distraction is expensive. Guard your non-negotiables: workouts, sleep, the things that support your health. In a tight season, it's better to delay than to take on more and do a shitty job. Right before our lab sale and our move, I told people that if they want to do their review with me instead of my team, they'll wait three weeks — because that's me protecting my time so I don't do slop work. Burnout kills. If you have to say no more to get some of that back, do it.

17:30Becca: The hard part is most successful people genuinely want to help, so they spread themselves too thin, then feel like a jerk drawing a line. But even if you're just a mom juggling a million things: pick what matters most and what gives the biggest return, and say no to the rest. You can be a good friend and not spend an hour on the phone every time someone's having a bad day.

Trait 7 — Stay consistent when the motivation is gone

19:46Becca: They stay consistent when motivation's gone. Every day I go to the gym I'm not motivated — every single time. I used to love it; now I stand there thinking I should be working. The motivation just isn't there, and rarely is it there for anything.

21:02Liz: You have a certain amount of willpower, and making decisions all day drains it. So when someone can't stay consistent, usually it's not motivation — it's that they haven't planned. Decide before the restaurant what you're ordering. I took the boys to Topgolf and got a Cobb salad while they had pizza, because that wasn't a moment I needed a burger and fries. You think it's motivation. It's a strategy-and-planning gap.

Trait 8 — Tolerate discomfort and uncertainty

23:00Liz: Entrepreneurship is like eating glass every day, as Alex Hormozi says. Growth and expansion feel uncomfortable. We're moving to Texas — I've been so excited, and now at the finish line it's the most uncomfortable and almost sad I've felt in ages. But I won't grow or make the big decisions if I'm not willing to get uncomfortable. Here's the part that stings: a lot of you want to heal while keeping every habit — the wine, the chocolate, skipping the heavy lifting you say you want the body for. You aren't doing the things that are required, and those things are uncomfortable. The only way through is through.

26:30Becca: My coach Dane posted it well: short-term satisfaction is the thing that gets you to break your values, and every time you give in you reinforce the belief that you can't become the person you want to be. Then comes the guilt, the shame, the next dopamine hit. Every genuinely successful person I know has pushed through real discomfort and stuck with hard things for a long time.

Trait 9 — Invest in learning, constantly

27:49Becca: They invest in their learning and never stop growing. If I can pay someone to save me two or three years of figuring something out, I'll do it every time. Better thinking creates better outcomes.

29:30Liz: We require our team to keep learning and to teach each other — drop clinical pearls, share what changed their approach. And here's why it matters for you: it takes about 15 years for updated research to hit the medical curriculum. So the doctors learning today are already 15 years behind. If your provider isn't actively reading new research, your care is built on old science. That's wild to me.

Trait 10 — Think long-term; sacrifice short-term comfort

31:06Liz: We think long-term and big-vision — short-term sacrifices, real risk, the grind. It's why, in our practice, we don't just sell you a test to buy and get a result with no review. We could; plenty of practices upcharge for exactly that. But the last thing I want is you wasting money, then uploading your labs to an AI tool and running a protocol that doesn't actually fit your history or symptoms. I'd rather understand your health history and the symptoms you have, and interpret your labs in a way that actually lowers inflammation, improves metabolic health, and addresses the underlying infections or insufficiencies we find. You're trading short-term comfort for long-term freedom.

Frequently asked questions

Why can't I stay consistent with my health, even when I'm motivated?

You can't stay consistent because you're relying on motivation, and motivation is almost never there. FitMom's practitioners frame it as a willpower problem, not a motivation one: consistency comes from planning and non-negotiables — deciding your food and workouts in advance so a hard Thursday can't derail you — not from waiting to "feel ready." People who actually heal engineer their week so they don't need motivation.

Is it normal to never feel motivated to work out or eat healthy?

Yes, and it's more common than the wellness industry admits. FitMom's practitioners are open that they rarely feel motivated to train or eat well either — one host goes to the gym daily and dislikes it every time. Motivation is an unreliable feeling, not a strategy. The people who stay consistent don't wait to feel it; they build routines and non-negotiables that run whether the motivation shows up or not.

What's the difference between motivation and willpower?

Motivation is the fleeting feeling that makes you want to act; it comes and goes and can't be relied on. Willpower, in FitMom's framing, is what you build with planning: deciding your food and workouts ahead of time, setting non-negotiables, and removing in-the-moment decisions. Motivation asks you to feel ready first. Willpower engineers your week so you follow through even when you don't feel ready at all.

Why does my doctor say my labs are "normal" when I still feel awful?

When a doctor says your labs are "normal" but you still feel awful, part of the gap is timing. FitMom's practitioners point out it can take roughly 15 years for updated research to reach standard medical curriculum, so conventionally-trained doctors are often working from science that's over a decade old. Functional, root-cause testing looks at markers and patterns a standard panel isn't built to catch.

Should I interpret a lab test with AI instead of seeing a practitioner?

FitMom deliberately won't sell you a lab test to run without a review. A raw result — a GI-MAP, a DUTCH, bloodwork — uploaded to an AI tool can produce a protocol that doesn't fit your actual health history or symptoms, wasting money and sometimes making things worse. The value isn't the test; it's a trained practitioner interpreting it against your history to find what's actually driving your symptoms.

Why can't I heal while keeping my wine, sugar, and old habits?

Many women want to heal while keeping every comfortable habit — the wine, the sugar, skipping the heavy lifting — and then feel stuck. FitMom's practitioners are blunt about it: the changes required to lower inflammation, rebuild muscle, and fix metabolic health are uncomfortable by design. There's no version where you get the result without doing the hard part. The only way through is through.

How do I stay consistent when the motivation just isn't there?

You don't need motivation to be consistent — you need a plan that removes the decision. FitMom's approach: set non-negotiables (sleep, workouts, prepped food), decide in advance, and protect your energy so distraction and burnout can't win. Nearly every consistent, healthy person operates this way — not because they feel like it every day, but because they built a week that doesn't depend on feeling like it.

Key terms

Motivation vs. willpower

Motivation is a fleeting feeling; willpower here means the planning and non-negotiables that make you act regardless of how you feel.

Non-negotiables

Pre-committed actions (sleep, workouts, prepped food) protected on the calendar so they don't depend on daily motivation.

Hyperpalatable food

Food engineered with fat, salt, and sugar to override fullness cues, making willpower harder in the moment.

Root-cause testing

Functional lab work (e.g. GI-MAP, DUTCH, comprehensive bloodwork) interpreted against your history to find drivers a standard panel misses.

GI-MAP

A stool test that maps the gut microbiome, pathogens, and markers of gut function.

DUTCH test

A dried-urine hormone panel showing sex and stress hormones plus how your body metabolizes them.

Metabolic health

How well your body regulates blood sugar, inflammation, and energy — a core target of root-cause work.

Sources & referenced

• Alex & Leila Hormozi — referenced on making fast decisions and tolerating discomfort ("eating glass").
• Research-to-practice lag (~15 years from evidence to routine clinical use) — a widely cited figure in health-services research; link a credible secondary source (e.g. Balas & Boren; IOM) on publish.
• The Health Revival Show — full episode archive and how to work with FitMom: fitmom.co/podcast-cta.