Episode 127 | Weight Loss Fundamentals (Part 1)

I have personally struggled with my own weight and diet drama, which started right back when I was around 14 or 15 years old. It took me 20 years to finally see the light.

I’d just had my daughter, and was stepping out the shower butt naked, criticizing myself and my body, and beating myself up. Then all of a sudden I was like WOAH. Wtf is going on here?! Stop it. This stops right now. 

It smacked me right in the face that if I continued to talk to myself this way, it would become my daughter Luna’s internal voice, too. That was literally not an option, so it became my mission to heal the diet drama and quit the body shaming.

But I realized my mission to love myself and my body did not have to be mutually exclusive with losing weight for the last time. We CAN have it all. We CAN love our bodies and not feel ashamed for wanting to lose weight. 

And so after freeing myself, it became my mission to free all the other mamas from the shame we have been conditioned to feel from society and diet culture. That is the underlying mission of the Yummy Mummy Experience. 

But to achieve that, there are three fundamentals that need to be mastered: ravenous reasons, craving commitment, and delicious discipline.

Ravenous reasons

When you’re undertaking any kind of weight loss journey, it is essential to ask yourself why you are doing what you’re doing. Why do you want to lose weight for the last time?

Sit down and come up with 20 reasons that light you up. 

“But Laura…seriously….that’s like a LOT of reasons…I don’t think I have that many…”

Let me stop you right there. 

At the start of a weight loss journey, you’re going to be excited. But a few weeks in, when you meet your friend at a cafe and they order a cupcake, you’re going to want to give in. And so your “why” needs to be bigger than your want to give in.

It could be things like feeling more confident, enjoying being out with your kids, or even looking hot in a bikini! These things are not ‘shallow’ at all, if it compels you, inspires you, and makes you feel more like YOU, then what better reason is there to do this?

If you’re struggling to come up with them, try to find the why behind the why.

E.g. I want to feel good in my clothes → Why? I want to express myself the way I want to without worrying about feeling uncomfortable.

If your brain is resisting this task, that is perfectly normal. Your brain wants to offer ‘I don’t know’ when you’re trying to solve a problem, because your brain doesn’t want to do work. Your lower brain’s job is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and do it with the least amount of effort. 

My advice is to think about doing this task as if someone had offered you a million dollars to do it (or threatened to take your dog if you’re not driven by money!). Once you get over the hump of resistance, you’ll get into a flow and your brain will know you’re not letting it off the hook.

Once you have your 20 reasons, read them again and again. Try to make sure they are written as positive affirmations like feeling confident, enjoying shopping etc.

And then just like with method acting, think about how you can start practicing that in your life now, to give you the tools and power to keep going when things get tough.

Craving Commitment

First, let’s define the word “commitment”.

Commitment is all about keeping promises to yourself, staying steadfast to a goal, not quitting, not giving up, going all the way, sticking with something, keeping yourself accountable…and so on.

That is all true but it’s missing one key component: “no matter what”.

So what is included in the “no matter what”?

Even when it’s hard, even when it’s uncomfortable, you still keep going.

You are going to make your plan, where you map out how to get from point A to point B, losing whatever amount of weight you desire. But you're not going to do it perfectly and you are going to want to quit. 

The diet brain will make you want to stop. But you get back up. You do not quit until you get to the goal, even when you make a mistake. Don't stay down there in mistake land! 

We manage this so much better in other areas of our life like marriages, jobs, and just being a human in the world. 

Think about committing to your health as you would to a relationship.

Would you have one fight with your partner and then file for divorce? No. Because you’re committed.

We forget this when we’re losing weight for the last time. 

I want you to crave commitment more than you crave the cupcake. This health journey that you are embarking on is a lifelong commitment. There is no start or stop date, it’s forever. Treat it just like brushing your teeth. If you didn’t brush your teeth one night, would you stop doing it forever? No, you’d just carry on as normal the next day!

Once you develop the skill of craving that commitment more than the cupcake, you will get you to where you want to be rather than entering a shame spiral.

Delicious Discipline

If I asked you which words you’d associate with “discipline”...what would you say?

I’d bet it would be things like rules, punishment, strict, rigid, control, following a schedule, no fun…

Which is why I want to invite a little deliciousness into the concept of discipline.

And if you look at the real definition of discipline, it comes from the word disciple, meaning to teach. 

Too often, we don't consider weight loss as a skill, when it totally is!

Just like anything else, swimming, skiing, roller skating…it’s a skill you have to learn and teach yourself over time. You will fall and have to get back up, but mistakes are learning opportunities.

Don't put your head in the sand and beat the crap out of yourself when you do make a mistake. Acknowledge it and come up with strategies to change the behavior. Speak to yourself kindly, even when you don't do something perfectly, and simply ask what you could do differently next time.