Be kind to yourself when trying to shed a few pounds....

I was asked by someone this week what I felt was the main reason women sometimes struggle to lose weight. She said, “Janie I know that overeating is the main reason so don’t tell me that” and they all started laughing. Yes, it is a fact that when we consume more than we need, our incredible bodies store it as fat so we can use it in the future. The problem with this is that we never get to that point. But that is not what I deep down believe is the cause. They all listened up. I have three rules in my program that I like to instill from the beginning. Today, let’s talk about the number one reason I believe we most often fail when trying to eat better and or lose weight. It is because of self-loathing, body shaming, or self-bad talking. We say things to ourselves that we would not even say to someone we didn’t care for. Why is this? I am not sure, but we all tend to do it. Why is this a problem? It is because talking negatively to our self creates negative feelings. Negative feelings create frustration and drive our actions. Our actions are probably going to want make us feel better. That is another part of our incredible body, our brain. It wants to protect us from harm. I wants us to feel safe. Doing something that makes us feel bad (negative talk) will have our brain looking for something to make us feel better. So, we do what we are custom to do and that most likely is to eat. Yes, eating something like a bag of chips gives us a quick dopamine hit and immediately makes us feel better. That is a fact. It will make us feel better for a very short time. However, the extra weight stays on for a very long time lol. So, we need to always be kind to ourselves when we are trying something that makes us feel uncomfortable. I ask my clients to become their new best friend. Be curious when we do not have the results we want. Ask your self-questions as if you would if you were helping a friend.

It sounds almost ridiculous that we need to be reminded to be kind to ourselves. If you want to lose weight speak to yourself as if you are speaking to your best friend. For example, you ate well all week, and you stepped on the scale, and you stayed the exact same. We have the immediate tendency to start berating ourselves. Saying things such as “You might as well give up” or “You are doomed to be overweight”. However, if a best friend said to you all these things, it would shock you. If your best friend was trying to shed pounds and this happened to her and she said these things to us we most likely would say No, that is not true. “Your body is trying to adapt” or “Are you sure there is something you are eating that is not good”? You would be more curious! Yes, we should be curious instead of judging ourselves. Stay positive and curious.

Let me say this simple: We diet, we lose, we feel great for the week. We step on the scale, we gain a pound. We panic. We start saying "this is ridiculous" or "I did not even eat anything bad" and our brain starts to panic because we are upset. It starts thinking of ways to make us feel better. I teach my clients to be prepared in this moment. When we start heading down this path...breath, use a precious moment and say "it is okay, what could have made this happen? Get curious and gentle with your self as if you are helping your best friend figure out why. Now, there are many reasons why the scale does not go down all the time. Our bodies do what they do and it is perfectly normal. Just stay the course! It will work out, promise. A precious moment is a quick pause to gather your thoughts and put your adult brain (prefrontal cortex) in charge and not let your toddler brain (primal brain) control your actions.....a bag of oreos to smooth our emotions over.

In closing, just remember that the thoughts in our head do create how we feel (our emotions) and these emotions will drive our actions. And, if you are not careful, the actions will be a bowl of ice cream! Remember our primal part of our brain always looks for comfort and wants us to feel safe. We need to use our prefrontal cortex (what makes us human) and override this primal brain and say no, I am okay with being uncomfortable and sticking to my plan. Hope this helps!

Have a fun day! Do something fun today.