You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 101. Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, fortune 100 executive, and certified life coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello love. So happy to be back with you. I mean really, like we’re at 101 episodes. If you missed our last two episodes, you for sure want to listen to them. Episode number 99 and 100 were really special episodes. So you don’t want to miss those. So go back for sure and listen to those. But today’s show is a special episode too, because I really want to talk about the last quarter of the year. Ooh, it’s going to be a good one.

But before we get into the show, I want to read a podcast review. And this podcast review was from Fun Son 23, the title of it was Ruby Slippers, which I love. And she wrote, I look forward to your new podcast every Wednesday for inspiration and insight. I’ve been on the diet rollercoaster for as long as I can remember. I’ve tried all the things: counting points, keto, even weight loss surgery, and lost weight, but couldn’t keep it off. I’ve lost 30 pounds with Transform doing work on my thoughts and learning to keep commitments to myself. The impact Shannan has had in my life goes far beyond the scale. I’m learning to dream, fill my life 50 50 with joy and grace and create stronger relationships with my loved ones. Thank you Shannan, for the passion you have for helping women. You have certainly made a difference in my life.

Thank you Fun Son 23. Oh, I love that review. I love it because you know, I love the work that she’s doing on herself, and this is so much more. I help women lose weight for the last time. That’s what I do, but there’s so many other benefits that show up and I just, oh, I love this work my love. So I want to thank you for listening. I would love to hear from you. It would mean the world to me if you left this podcast a quick review, wherever you’re listening from. And if you get some nuggets from the message today, don’t forget to share it with your friends, your team, anyone, your family, and your Instagram stories so anyone else that needs to find it can find it. Be sure to tag me at Shannan Christiansen so that I can shout you and share your page with my friends and subscribe so I’m in your podcast library every Wednesday morning.

Love, we have had so much exciting stuff going on in Transform. This podcast, as I’m recording this, I am doing the fun 100 drawing tonight. I cannot wait to see who wins. And I have two beautiful baskets of my favorite things, and I cannot wait for the winner to receive them. We are also getting ready for our first Bootcamp. I know it’s a bootcamp unlike any other. It’s a mindset bootcamp and all about coaching and learning the tools that I teach. By the time that this airs it will almost be over.

And this is how quick time flies. I mean, it is September. We are in the last quarter of the year. August was a really full month for me. We had Unstoppable Live, our members only event in Transform. We sold our house, moved into another house, had all sorts of fun in Transform. I mean, my love, it has been a full month. But I am so grateful for all of it. That I have the energy, that I know when I need to rest, that I don’t need to eat my way through all of the emotions. It is so different for me now. I can show up for myself, even when there’s a lot going on, I can say no.

I have rearranged my schedule over the last month to make sure that I have time to rest and recharge. There were many times in my life where that was not the case. I would not even put myself on the list. So this takes me into our show today. Here we are in September. And what I see is we start powering down, especially through the holidays. We start telling ourselves, I’ll just start over in January. And for many of my listeners, it’s a subconscious whisper that all the goodies are coming. Pumpkin season’s coming. All our holiday favorites. Holidays are coming and it starts in October. And some of the thoughts around, oh, I can now cover up with all of my winter clothes.

This is my love, my favorite time of the year from September on. I love it. Paul’s birthday is in September. Our anniversary is in October, all the holidays I love. Birthdays. And Arizona, it is gorgeous. Like hiking. I mean, we get to do all of the things. It is a beautiful time of year. I remember one of the last holiday seasons before I lost my weight for good, and I want to tell you a little story about it.

It was the first Christmas without my mom. The first of all of it without my mom, I was commuting from Utah to Phoenix. One of our children were really struggling at the time, we were selling our Utah house, looking for another house in Phoenix to purchase, and love, all I wanted to do was get in bed and eat cookies. Paul was spending most of his time in Phoenix, handling all of our stuff here. And loves, I felt like I was drowning. I was putting on the smile for everyone, but I literally just wanted to put the covers over my head. So many things were happening. So many things were going on, and honestly, I didn’t want to feel any of it.

And I was sitting at, oh, I don’t know, 250 pounds. The last time I got on the scale I was 247. By Christmas, I was ill, bronchitis, like six weeks of bronchitis. I was so ill. I was pushing it all down with food, but my body was telling me something. It was telling me that it was hurting, that I needed to feel the pain, the grief, all of the emotions that were going down. See, I was pushing it down with food. But all of that emotion was still there in my body. In September and October, I started to do what I did every holiday season. I started to power down, started to put myself off. I started to disconnect.

I kept showing up for everyone else, of course. I kept doing all the things, but what I needed was time for me. I needed more than anything, coaching. I needed to have some grace and love for myself. Instead, I ate all the things. I kept running at a thousand percent. And then finally, my body said enough. That was the last holiday season that I didn’t show up for myself. The next couple of years I researched, found my process, found coaching, and I have never looked back. It has not been a straight line. I have succeeded. I have failed. But I always keep moving forward. I want to challenge you right now, if you’re starting to disconnect, starting to not show up for yourself, starting to have the whispers of powering down, the whispers of, but I want to eat all the things. Maybe it’s been recently or maybe love, it has been years, just start to recognize those whispers, those thoughts, and then decide on purpose what you want this last quarter of the year to be. You get to decide.

January 1st will come, and you can walk into it feeling great. Like this was the best holiday season. Or you could have gained weight, feel exhausted from the holidays, disappointed that you let another three to four months pass by. You get to decide. You can decide right now that it will be different, that you will show up differently. What I teach is different. Because my bosses, they go through the holidays enjoying their favorite foods. They choose if they want to maintain or lose weight through the holidays. They are in control.

Our virtual event in October is all about how to decide how you’re going to show up through the holidays and what actions you’re going to take that are going to serve your journey. This is a member only event in Transform. We do these virtual events twice a year. This is where we dig in deep. And we really start to plan. Now what to do if you’re not in Transform. If you are in Transform, no worries my love. We are going to go deep on this and we are going to do this together.

So the transformational actions or questions, if you’re not in Transform are one, recognize where you are and what you’re thinking about the upcoming months. Ask yourself, where am I right now? And where do I want to be on January 1st, 2022? Number two, set a goal, whether it is to maintain or lose weight. And number three, make a simple plan, simple steps. Maybe it’s starting to make a realistic plan or eat more food that fuels you. Starting to notice what hunger feels like in your body. You want to start one thing and take one step.

And if you want to kick off the last four months of the year, join me in our last challenge of the year. Yes, the very last five-day challenge is happening in September. We are also opening enrollment into Transform on September 21st, mark this date down in your calendar. This is our last opening of the year. And it is the last time that we will not have the enrollment fee. In January we are adding back the enrollment fee. I like to focus on my Transform Bosses during the last quarter of the year. They get me. We are going to finish the year like a boss, a Transform Boss that is.

So if you’ve been thinking about Transform, you want to get into our September opening. It is $49 to join. So be ready. September 21^st. To register for the five-day challenge go to bflycoaching.com/me. Oh yes, my love, me. So good my love. Bye for now.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more, come on over to bflycoaching.com. See you next week.