Summary 

Sometimes, the real breakthrough isn’t in doing more of what you’re good at — it’s in finally turning toward the skill you’ve been quietly avoiding. In this episode, I’m sharing a personal story that sparked the idea: you are only as strong as your weakest skill.

For so many high-achieving women, the gap that’s holding us back isn’t obvious. It’s usually the skill we avoid, the one hiding in plain sight. Once you identify it and give it the attention it deserves, your results can change fast.

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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The surprising story from my own fitness journey that inspired this concept
• Why doubling down on your strengths can actually stall your progress
• A real-life example of how one tiny gap limited my big results
• The single overlooked skill that derails many professional women’s weight loss efforts
• How to start identifying your weakest skill so you can target the real problem, not the shiny distractions

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Download the full transcript here.

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  Hey friends. Welcome back to the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast, where we are talking about a concept: you're only as strong as your weakest skill or muscle. I'm gonna be sharing exactly where this concept came from and a story that came up for me personally in my own journey, as we love to do on this podcast, and how we can start to identify what your weakest skill might be, one that deserves your attention. It's usually the one that you are hiding from, the one that you're avoiding, but it's also the one that is. Where your dream results are usually living. So if that's something that sounds interesting to you, I want you to buckle up for this podcast episode and if you're brand new to me, hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Priyanka Vango Paul. I'm an OBGYN turned stress and weight loss coach. And this entire podcast show is all about sharing real life story skills, strategy, and tools on how busy professional women can unlock feeling their best, lose the weight they want, achieve their next dream goals without the gimmicks and the fads. I really love bringing either science informed skills and tools for you, or personal perspectives and experiences that have informed a lot of how I coach and how I teach. And also, I have a signature group coaching program called Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable. It's designed for professional women who have some overachieving tendencies to really look at their stresses in their careers and in their homes, get coached on their stresses as they have science informed decision making to lose the weight they want. Before we get into today's episode, I want you to know that I'm hosting my next free live training block your calendars right now. It's happening on Thursday, October 16th at 12:00 PM Eastern, 10 pounds down, 10 hours back. The way that I thought about this specific training, why I designed it this way, I have just been hearing from so many of you that what you are desiring, if I know you as well as I think I do. The thing you want most is to get back lost time. Time that is getting sucked away In tiny little moments of indecision, confusion, overwhelm and stress. Little moments that get lost in procrastination. Little moments that get lost in what should I be doing right now? Those are moments that we could be living our best life. So if that sounds like you, this training is going to be for you because when you start to unlock those decisions, you start to not only get back hundreds of lost hours per year, but you start to lose weight with so much more ease. So if that sounds like something you want, I would love for you to join me live on this training. If you do come live, I have a special gift for you. I'm going to be giving you my custom blueprint, PDF. It's like a roadmap that's going to help you identify what your weakest skill or weakest muscle is. Because if you don't know what your weakest skill is, if you think it's all of the things, it's really hard to have a really targeted strategy. But the way that I like to work with my clients is we want to create a strategy like a dark to a bullseye. It should not be random. It should not feel like spaghetti on the wall. It should be really specific. It will likely address the area that you have been avoiding the most. So I'm just inviting you to get a little uncomfortable, but just know if you're willing to be uncomfortable and to do the thing that you have been avoiding, you will unlock massive wins. So if that sounds like something you want, I want to make sure you join me live that is only available to live attendees. You can go and grab your seat, get all the details over at burnstressloseweight.com/training, drop your information, and I will meet you in your email inbox with all the details. So let's get into where this concept even came from how we are only as strong as our weakest muscle. So as you know, if you've been following along the podcast for a while, and if you haven't, then I'm just gonna tell you, I've been on quite a fitness journey now for a few years. When I first embarked on my entire journey, it was simply to lose weight. I didn't care about being stronger. I did not care about my mortality or muscle or metabolism. I wasn't even thinking about those things in the beginning, I just wanted to see the three digit number come down. I wanted to feel lighter in my gut. I wanted to feel freedom around food in every and any social situation. And most importantly, I wanted to have confidence when I lost it, I would. Know how to maintain that and keep it off. So back in 2018 when I was at my personal heaviest, I wanted to lose a little over 60 pounds. That was the journey I went on and it worked. I got coached on my mom life. I got coached on my stresses in my very busy career as an OBGYN, and I had a strategy that really did make me a fat burner. It helped me lose a lot of weight, and together with both getting coached on stress and having a nutrition strategy that helped me lose weight. I started to feel better as I lost weight. However, a few years ago, especially after I turned 40, I realized that I didn't just want to lose weight. I didn't just want to be a skinny person that was weak. I realized that if I really wanted to protect myself 10 years from now, 20 years from now, my 80-year-old self, that had to start now, and that meant I couldn't take my muscle and my metabolism for granted anymore. I've shared on the podcast before, after 35, our estrogen levels are going down. Our muscle masses affect. And that is something that we can really do something about with lifestyle changes, with strength training, with eating enough nutrition, eating enough protein, we can support ourselves in that endeavor. So that was the journey that I went on. And after a couple of epic fails, like I totally failed 2023, 2024 was another full on epic failure of a year. This last year I have really been making serious strides. I learned as we do, as I share on the podcast. I learned my fitness success this year was built on the back of failure in 2023. Massive failure in 2024. Like real fails. I've shared them all on the podcast. You can go back and find those episodes, but this year I have really experienced a lot of success, and one piece of it was I became very consistent with strength training. I'm working with a trainer who can really help me identify my gaps. He really pushes me when I'm taking it easy. He's, we're gonna go down two more inches, we're gonna add five more pounds. Like he really pushes me to my growth edge. Having a coach really see my blind spots helps me see exactly where I can push further. So that is one of the things that I think has made a huge difference for me this year. Here's what I noticed. I have spent a lot of, this year, and not just this year, last couple of years, focusing on the large muscle groups like legs and back, because as you work on building those large muscles with squats and lunges and back presses, and chest presses and deadlifts and RDLs, you are building the largest muscles in your body, which is amazing for a few different reasons. Number one, muscle is an active tissue, which means you're not just burning calories while you're at the gym, which cardio is like, you know when you're running on a treadmill, you're burning calories while you're on the treadmill. The beauty of building muscle and prioritizing muscle mass is it will burn fat 24/7 building muscle will burn fat in your sleep. It will support your metabolism, it will support your mood. All the happy endorphins will be on your side if you are lifting and exercising. So this is something that I've really prioritized this past year, however, I realized recently that. I have a little bit of a gap, so I told my trainer that I really would love to be able to do a pull-up sometime soon at some point in this lifetime. And so rather than just focusing on some of the heavier, bigger muscle groups, we started focusing on just doing pull-ups. Now, it started out with. Me doing like a baby pull up where I'm basically sitting on the floor and I use my legs to push up as I pull up with my arms. So for quite a while I didn't realize that I had any weak muscles because I was using my legs, right? My legs, which is what I had been working on, what I had been focusing on and training were strong. So I didn't notice that I had any weak muscles. However, as the weeks progressed and I started to move my feet further and further out, so I had to pull myself up, I started to realize that my grip strength, which is the strength of my hands holding the bar, was my limiting variable. Even though I probably could have done multiple more pull-ups, like assisted pull-ups, by the way, I could have done multiple more pull-ups, like my back and chest strength was strong enough to pull myself up. My hand strength was not strong enough to hold the bar, so I couldn't do more pull-ups because my weakest muscle, my hand strength prevented me from doing it. I just think that this is such a fascinating concept to think about because how often are we overachievers focusing on the largest muscle groups, right? We focus on the thing that's going to give us the most bang for our buck, rather than focusing on what the weakest skill actually is. And I think this is really normal. If this has been you, again, I see you because I am you. We like to do the things we're good at. I know that I'm really good at planning. I'm really good at deciding what meals I'm going to eat. I'm really good at doing some squats. I'm really good at doing deadlifts and RDLs. I'm really good at doing lunges. The thing that I did not know or did not wanna pay attention to were the muscles of my body that are not as strong. It's. Easier to avoid those muscles because we don't want to do the things that we're not good at, or we don't even know to look at them. So how does this apply to weight loss? What does this story have to do with helping you find your weakest skill? Because it is the weakest skill that you have that you are either avoiding, didn't know you have and didn't then know to solve for. We talk about on this podcast all the time that I have developed a five step process to really show you how to feel better as a busy professional as you lose the weight you want, and that means having proper nutrition, guilt-free rest, play movement and mindset. Lemme say that again. Guilt free rest in play are a part of the strategy, and I have just been seeing time and time again. How often, especially overachievers and high achievers push off, guilt free rest in play to the back burner. We think when I get a little bit more done, when I'm a little bit less stressed, when I've finished my to-do list, when I'm done with my work, then I will take a break. Now, you might have other weak skills, like weak muscles, but it is usually that one piece that is. Deeply missing on your calendar that drives your brain, which is overworked, very fatigued, making constant decisions all the time to steal it. In tiny moments with snacking and scrolling, I want you to really imagine that your results, the pounds down on the scale that you want to see this year, I'm talking about before January 1st, is living in those tiny moments. Those tiny bites that you have here and there, the few bites that you eat past satiated, the little snacks, the little nibbles, the little bites that you're taking here and there that you might have selective image around you forget that you're doing that you think are not a big deal, are actually the weakest skillset. It's like my hand grip being so weak that I can't do a pull-up. If that skill is not incredibly strong, where you can catch the desire to randomly snack, eat a couple of bites extra if that one skillset is not honed and strong and confident. No amount of planning, no meal prepping, no amount of exercise is going to get you to your goal weight because it is these tiny bites, licks and nibbles that actually take you completely off track. And because they're so tiny, we think that they're not a big deal. This is the trouble. This is the trouble that we have. Back when you were in your twenties, when you're a teenager and in your twenties, you could have done bites, licks, and nibbles and maybe lost the weight you wanted or maintained your weight with a lot of ease. However, after the age of 35, we cannot take for granted our metabolism anymore bites, licks and nibbles really do matter. They really do add up. Now, this isn't designed for you to come down really hard on yourself and go into a land of total restriction and deprivation, but it does reveal where decisive decisions around nutrition and how you want to handle those very normal moods of the moment. That signal to you ooh, we just wanna have a little break. Ooh, just a couple of bites. Ooh, just a little bit more. I want you to sit with this one question. If you stopped randomly snacking when your body was not hungry. I'm talking about the post dinner snacks and the after lunch nibbles and the in-between lunch and dinner. Wander around to the break room, the few goldfish crackers here, and a couple of extra bites here. If you stopped doing just that, just those few bites here and there. Can you imagine the impact that would have on your weight loss results? Just imagine that you didn't have to overhaul your entire way of eating. Imagine that it was not so complicated that you didn't have to track every calorie in point that you could actually eat. Whole meals that were full of. Real whole foods focused on protein and fiber and vegetables, and you could eat when you were hungry. And if you simply stopped snacking randomly past that satiety point, you would unlock massive results. If you answered yes, this might be the skillset that deserves all of your attention. Now, a lot of times we will distract ourselves with shiny new plans and complicated schedules. And we will completely overlook our weakest skillset. And when we overlook that weakest skillset, when you don't know what your weakest skillset is, you will start trying to find solutions that will be solving the wrong problem. It's like rather me working on my grip strength and doing actual exercises that just focus on my grip strength. I would be doing more squats and lunges, or randomly doing some more chest presses. Sure, that would make some muscles stronger, but it's not going to address my weakest skillset. There are a few key areas that I find, especially for overachievers and high achievers, especially if you have perfectionist tendencies that are some common trigger points where you might be having a weak skillset or like a weak muscle, and they're all going to be on the custom blueprint that you get when you attend the training live. So we talked about the one heaviest titter that I have noticed for overachievers, which is eating just a few bites, passy, tidy, grabbing the little bites, licks and nibbles that you think are not a big deal. Are literally where your results are most likely living is the number one skillset that I think probably deserves your most attention. But there are a few other key areas that you might need to focus on when you attend our training live. You're gonna get this blueprint, it's A PDF. This is going to feel like one of those protocols that you can really simply follow, so you can identify what your weak skill sets are. One of the things that I really love doing with my clients in burn stress Lose weight, which is my group coaching program, is I help them find their actual strategic or mindset gaps. I don't want you just making blind plans every Monday or doubling down on something you said you were going to do, or just having a refresh strategy. Simply repeating results again and again. We have to identify what was the weakest skillset here, and rather than avoiding it or running away from it or thinking that it's so hard to overcome, we fill those. Gaps with actual strategy. I will say that there are equal parts mindset gaps that you might have that is holding you back from losing the weight you want, and there's strategic gaps. I like to think about these as two peas in a pod. Really to achieve your wildest dreams in feeling your best as a busy professional and losing the weight you want, it is equal parts strategy and mindset. I see too many women just focusing on the strategy without doing the mindset work to put their strategy and two consistent real life implementation. Every time that a life French gets thrown your way, or you experience a stress at work or at home or with your kids, your plan goes right out the window. If that sounds like you, we have a mindset gap and that's where coaching is an evidence-based tool to help you move the needle. So if you know you're someone that is really good at strategizing, but it goes right out the window, the moment you experience stress. Your gap is going to be mindset focused. If you're someone that is really aware of your stresses, but you feel confused about what you should be doing, you have a strategic gap. And if you're anything like I was, you probably have a gap in both areas, which is not a problem. They're both solvable. So I hope that this podcast episode really inspires you to find your weakest skill, find your weak muscle, and honestly, it's getting to the point where I am. Kind of enjoying. I've made it a game with myself to find what my weakest skills are, find what my weakest muscles are, because when you find them and you treat yourself well and you don't judge yourself or shame yourself, or blame yourself for having weak skills or weak muscles, then you can do the actual real work of solving the problem. What a lot of us do is we identify, oh, I have a really weak hand grip, my grip strength is really low, and then we get so mad about it or we criticize ourselves, or we blame our partner or our kids, or our time or our work for the fact that we have weak hand grip, that we don't do the work of making it stronger.

  So I want everyone to really hear me when I say, if you have a weak skillset, which you do, if you have lacking results, it's simply because. There's a skill that needs some strengthening. You could get mad about it, and I know if that's you, I feel you. I get it. And also, you're wasting so much energy being mad. Instead of being mad about it, let's go solve it. I hope that you feel inspired and maybe a little bit riled up in trying to find and identify your weak skills and just know that they're all solvable. I'm telling you, even the tiny micro muscles that are holding you back, they all have exercises that can help improve them, and if you work on it now, you give yourself the longest runway to feel your utmost best. I hope you enjoy today's podcast episode, and I really hope that you join me live on Thursday, October 16th at 12:00 PM Eastern. It is going to be an amazing training. You're going to walk away with so much information, but more than information, I really want you to walk away with a feeling of how possible this is for you. If you ever thought that, oh, results are for other people. I'm just the unique unicorn that can't solve this problem. I really hope that this training busts that bubble. I used to think that way as well, and it's just not true. Don't hold yourself back, my friends. You deserve to feel your best, and if you don't claim it now, no one's going to claim it for you. So I hope that you join me live on the training. It's going to be an amazing hour. You're going to walk away if you come live with the custom blueprint that is going to feel truly like a protocol to identify your gaps and the strategy that you need to learn to overcome it. If you're interested in working with me, I'll be opening doors to the burn stress lose weight group coaching program where you can have my actual eyeballs, my brain on your journey. If that's something that you want, I'll be inviting you to join after the training. I hope you guys have an amazing day. Head over to www.burnstressloseweight.com/training to grab your seat and share it with a friend. I hope you guys have an amazing week. And one more thing before I go, I want to share a clip from a recent podcast that I had with my client, Dr. Kara Gahagan, where she shared how the process that you learned inside the Burn Stress, Lose Weight group coaching program has not only helped her lose the weight that she has been wanting to lose. She has gotten back so many hours of her time. She's a busy OBGYN physician. She has four kids. She has a busy life with a lot happening on her calendar. So I wanted you to just hear a snippet from the recent podcast episode that we had featuring her that highlights some of the results and wins that she's experienced inside the group.

  Kara: You name it, I've done it, and I can be very disciplined and restrictive, lose the 50 pounds, but then I gained the 50 pounds back. I just got to the point where I was missing something. Something wasn't right. How much time do you think you saved per week? Oh, hours. I, I don't even, I can't, 10 hours, 20 hours, because I don't have to think about it. It's all done. But I think we just make up excuses. We all have enough time. It's what you choose to do at the time that you have. I feel like I got that from you. If you don't love what it is, you're not gonna stick with it. I had a really, really shitty, probably the worst month of my whole 15 years of being out of practice in March. I really wanted to come up here and eat all the crumble cookies before I would just eat the cookies. I mean, I didn't give fly and flip. I wanted to feel better, but now I realize that cookie doesn't make me feel better. I was 193 when I started. I'm now 176.6, 17 pounds in three months, four months, and I have been to Disney. I have been to Dominica. I had a birthday. I had the worst OB month of my 15 year career, and here I'm, I'm loving the process. And I don't think I expected that. If somebody's just listening to this, they're like, oh, this is just too good to be true. How is this impossible? I know I I'm that person. I'd be like, whatcha talking? I can only tell you that I feel great. I feel great. I'm losing like pounds are coming off every week, but I feel so good. Like I feel good like within my soul, I feel good, and that's why I don't care what the scale says because I know what the scale says because I feel so good, right? I gotta wait so crazy. I wish that you could pull my office in here. I think they've all left, but I wish you could even interview them because they would say that I'm different and that they can see the changes. It's been the best investment. I'm not gonna tell you every week. I'm loving the process.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Thanks for spending this time with me on the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast today. I hope that you are leaving today's podcast episode feeling a little lighter and more inspired than when we started. It turns out. That you don't need to have a stress-free life to hit your goals on and off the scale, but when you feel more empowered to respond to your real life stresses with true strategy, we will game change how we show up, and how we hit our goals. If you wanna take what you are learning here on the podcast and put it into real life implementation, it might be time for us to work together in the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable group coaching program. Head over to burnstressloseweight.com, and you can learn all of the details, the nuts, the bolts, when the next group is starting and exactly how you can join. Okay, friend, I'll see you next time.