Episode 128 | Weight Loss Fundamentals (Part 2)
Last time, I spoke to you about the three weight loss fundamentals that we need if we’re going to lose weight for the last time.
But what about when life gets in the way of your goals? It has a nasty habit of doing that, right?!
So how can you make sure you continue to show up for yourself when life throws you those curveballs it always does?
I had the pleasure of speaking to my friend Tina-Su’s membership: The Tribe to answer some of their FAQs when it comes to weight loss. I think most of these will resonate with you as common stumbling blocks that we often come across on a weight loss journey.
It’s time to get a sneaky insight into the Yum Mum coaching experience to see how we can best overcome these obstacles…
Weight Loss FAQs
What do you do when you have a stressful day?
If you have a stressful day and don't want to eat a cupcake, it’s so important to know your strategies like the back of your hand, which you get through practice. For me, talking, venting, ranting, whatever you want to call it…that is my best outlet for stress without food.
BUT that doesn’t mean it will be the same for everyone. It’s about finding what works for you and it will help to look back at what’s worked in the past to help you deal with stress that did not involve food.
We also need to make sure we have a back up plan in place. If my husband is not there to vent to, I know I can call my mom or a friend. Ideally, the cupcake should NEVER be the back up plan! So what if I have a stressful day and there’s no one there to talk to? The kids aren’t gonna be in bed for another effin’ two hours and I’m pulling my hair out big time. Well in this case, I’m just gonna have to feel stressed.
So much of the time, we are taught that stress or a feeling of anxiety, or shame, or guilt, or any “negative emotion” needs to be fixed. It doesn’t! You are allowed to just be stressed without even solving it for the remainder of the night. Does it suck a bit? Yes. But it will suck a lot less when you realize it's not a problem you need to fix. Stress is just a vibration in your body you’ve been told to hate. The solution to stress is not in the pantry. Food is never the solution unless you're physically hungry.
A crucial part of your plan in this is also the way you talk to yourself. When you can't fix the stress, you need to pre-program the way you talk to yourself in these moments. Stress is allowed, it will pass, and it is OK to feel this emotion without solving it.
How do I take control of my primitive brain when it comes to food?
The main motivations of the primitive brain are:
1) Seek anything that brings pleasure
2) Avoid anything that brings pain
3) Conserve energy at all costs.
So your brain is literally designed to resist doing the things that it thinks are important.
When it comes to weight loss, our primitive brain will want to seek pleasure from sugary, processed foods. It will want to avoid saying ‘no’ to the cupcake, because it’s hard. It will want to do everything with minimal effort.
But our brains did evolve beyond this! We have a human brain that has evolved past our primitive brain. This is called our “prefrontal cortex”. In order to lose weight and keep it off, what we need to do is to put the prefrontal cortex - the human brain - in charge of the primitive brain.
Planning food in advance is one example of how we can avoid giving our primitive brain any chance of making a food decision.
One of the most common limiting beliefs we hear from our primitive brain is ‘this is too hard’. I want to challenge the belief that “this is too hard”. Yes, living a healthy lifestyle is hard, but you can do hard things. What if when your brain told you “it’s too hard”, you had an automatic reply that said - “ok brain, but I can do hard things.” And what about if you could change your thinking so that you actually enjoyed doing hard things? Think how much more powerful you would feel! And how much more likely would you be to stick to your goals.
About 50% of life is pretty hard…think about all the things you’ve done before like going to college, getting a job, becoming a parent, and so on…they’re all hard, but you can do hard things and you have already done many hard things!
It’s not useful to think of losing weight as hard and it doesn’t serve you. When you think a thought, it causes a feeling ,which incites an action. So if you think losing weight is hard, it makes you feel unmotivated, which causes you to throw in the towel. Is that sequence really serving you?
Remember that YOU get to decide if you believe a thought or if it serves you. Losing weight is an amazing challenge but you will feel like ass some days. That's normal and that's ok. You don’t go and make out with loads of guys at a bar when you fight with your husband (at least I hope not!), so why would you apply that mentality to weight loss?
I have a revolving thought that I can’t do it hanging over me like a giant cloud. What should I do?
Ok, let’s play out this conversation in your brain. We need to get to the bottom of the rabbit hole until your brain has nothing left and we have the last word.
Brain: “You can’t lose weight”
You: “What if I can?”
Brain: “You’ve never successfully done it before.”
You: “What if I just try? I know what will happen if I don’t try.”
Brain: “You’ve tried hundreds of times before, what makes this any different?”
You: “But now I love myself more than I ever have before.”
Brain: “Ok but it’s Friday, so you deserve a pizza.”
You: “Thanks brain, but I love myself more than the pizza. The pizza is not as important as my health and happiness.”
Brain: “Ok, let’s get a salad.”
You see what happens when you see the conversation to the bottom of the rabbit hole?
But it’s important to make sure this conversation is playful, it’s not a fight.
Willpower is not a renewable resource. When you fight and when you use willpower, you are creating over restriction. It’s not physiological restriction, but you’re still creating overestriction, which creates overdesire, and when you can't handle the overdesire, you overeat.