You are listening to the weight loss for successful women podcast. With Shannon Christiansen episode number 106. 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 Shannon Christiansen. Hello, love so happy to be back with you.

So we are in a two dot O series where I am going a little deeper on some of the concepts that I teach. And today I want to talk about how to lose weight for the last time by breaking up with dieting. Oh yes, you heard me right. Let’s break up with it. But first I want to do a listener, shout out and today’s is from Viva.

Listening to Shannon. Talk about losing weight while discovering all your strengths is a pleasure. She teaches you different techniques on how to feel your feelings so that you can stop buffering them with food. She also teaches you how to lose weight. Well, you shall love grace and compassion for yourself. That is what healthy weight loss is all about. Ooh, love it.

I love the title of a Viva’s review breakthrough in weight loss. Oh ladies. I mean, it is about learning how to have more love and more compassion and more grace as you reconnect with your body, as you break all of those diet beliefs and all of the diet trauma that we’ve had. So Viva, I love it. Thank you so much for the review and my love.

If you find what you learn here, valuable, you can help other women find this show by leaving a review and rating of the show. Also subscribe. You can do that by hitting the follow button or clicking on the plus sign in apple or hitting the subscribe button wherever you’re listening this way every Wednesday morning. I’m right in your library. So love,

I don’t think I’ve talked about my new Peloton on the podcast. So I have been wanting a Peloton for a couple of years now and, you know, decided to buy one and so excited. They went on this really big sale and some other things that happened and decided, you know, that I, we were going to buy a Peloton and I just have to tell you,

I mean, I’m not getting paid or anything, but I really do love the Peloton. I’ve always loved their classes. I ha had their app, even before I had the Peloton where I could do like, you know, Pilates, they have all sorts of classes, stretching, you know, yoga, all the things. And I just have to say we had it delivered and I have been doing it and I love it.

And you know, I really love the instructors. They make it super fun. They’re super inspirational. And I’ve always loved spinning. It feels good to me. Like my body loves it. I get excited about it. I love the music in my ears. It’s easier on my knees. I just, I really do love it. And I say this ladies because our bodies really love to move.

And I talk about this. If you’ve never listened to my podcast on movement, it’s episode number 30. So for sure, go back and listen to that. But you know, I really do love to move my body. And when I was on the diet rollercoaster, it was all about losing weight. And I would do these things. I didn’t like,

like trying to run. I mean, seriously, I don’t like running. I it’s just, I don’t like it and it doesn’t feel good in my body. It feels hard on my body. And I say this ladies, because we have all of these diet beliefs and all of these things that just, it keeps us really stuck. And we do things that don’t feel good and don’t feel good to our body.

So then Lizzie is like, we’re not doing that anymore. So then we associate everything with moving our body to exercise. Quote, unquote, I don’t even like the word to be honest because, but it’s not the truth. There are so many amazing ways to move your body that are fun. That you can love that you don’t have to like spend an hour or 30 minutes.

You can do it for 10. You could do it for five. I love to dance. I love to just walk. I mean, I tell you this ladies, because it goes with today’s episode, but we have all of these, you know, old style beliefs, right? We, if we lift weights, we lift them until we can’t walk for two days or move our arms for two days.

And I just think there’s a different way. And it’s with love and with like patience and fun. I love to move my body because I literally have so much fun doing it. You know, I’ve walked for years and it has nothing to do with my weight. I walked because my body likes it. And because it clears my mind. And so I just challenge all of you ladies to find movement that you love and get rid of all the time,

like how long you have to do it. And how many days a week, it’s all drama. Just when you’re in the mood, when you’re feeling it, go do it there on some music, dance around your house. I mean, there’s so many ways to have fun and movement. And if you have not listened to episode I’m movement, for sure,

go back to episode number 30. So as I am recording this podcast, I’m getting ready today to take my granddaughter to school. I always think it’s such a special treat. Anytime I get to take my grandkids to school or pick them up. And today is pretty cool. Cause I get to take Jess, my granddaughter. So I get a little time with her just one-on-one and I love that.

It’s just so she’s such a sweetheart and she’s so smart. And when it’s one-on-one, she really just, she tells me all the things. And so I am so excited because I get to do that today. So I hope all of you are doing something that you love today. So let’s get into it. One of the fundamentals that I teach, like core fundamentals is the realistic plan.

So if you don’t know what that is, go back to episode number six, and we’re going to link these episodes in the show notes. So you have them, but definitely go back to episode six. The basics of the realistic plan is you’re going to plan, make a decision ahead of time of what you’re going to eat for hours before you eat your first bite.

And now, you know, you just write down what you’re going to eat. You make it realistic, not idealistic. You meet yourself, right where you are and you do this. Not because it has anything to do with the food and you’re not doing this because you’re counting calories or anything. There’s none of that. You’re just writing down. I’m going to have pot roast and mashed potatoes for dinner and you know,

a roll or whatever it is. And you’re going to make it simple, right? It takes me two minutes a day to make my realistic plan. And today I want to go a little deeper on it and give you all the reasons why this tool, the realistic plan is really, it is such a breakthrough process in losing weight for the last time,

because the power of it has nothing to do with the food. I just want you to hear me again. I’m going to say it again because I want you to hear this, the realistic plan, even though you’re writing food, it has nothing to do with the food. It’s all about breaking your diet beliefs and your diet brain. AKA also known as breaking up with dieting love.

We have so much trauma around dieting. If you are a woman, especially if you’re in the United States and many other countries. I know I have listeners all over the world and I tell you, ladies, we have been told what to eat. When to eat, how much to eat with, by people who know nothing about our bodies by people who know nothing about what we like,

what feels good in our body. We have been told that our bodies are not good enough, that they should look different, be different. And we have all of these diet rules. So many, so many rules eat this much. You know, you can’t eat after 6:00 PM. You need eat six times a day. Then I was like, oh,

I need to eat only two times a day. And then it was things around I needed to, you know, only eat this sorts of foods. I need to cut out carbs. I need to, you know, not eat sugar, don’t eat any sugar, cut it all out. No flour, no sugar. I just, there were so many things that I have been told throughout my life.

I mean, early on it was, I needed to count calories. I needed to eat low fat and then it was, I needed to eat high fat. And I say this because what has happened is this has created trauma trauma in our bodies because it is such a negative experience. And we have experienced it over and over and over again. We have associated food with our worth.

I know I want you to really hear that we have associated food with our worth. We think of food that good food or bad food, healthy food, or not healthy food. And if we’re eating healthy food, then we’re good. And if we’re eating non healthy food, then we’re bad. Ladies. I just, I want you to, like,

this episode is so powerful because it’s all nonsense. Food is just food. It’s not good or bad. Are there foods that have more nutrients? Sure. But all food, most food has something in it. Honestly. It’s like some sort of nutrients. And so I say this because food is just food and it has nothing to do with your worth.

You are not good. If you eat certain foods and you are not bad, if you eat certain foods and you know, I tell you ladies, it’s so important because for so long, you know, before I started, you know, the process I teach now, I really, I mean, I was either all in, you know, restricting,

you know, eating quote unquote healthy, which, you know, it changed so many times during my life. And I wasn’t paying attention to my body. I was so disconnected or I was completely out bingeing. And then I felt bad. I, I labeled myself as bad. I, I, that I was broken that I wasn’t worthy. And it was all around food.

And I just want to tell you, and I want you to, I’m going to say this to you as your coach. I, I tell you food and your worth have nothing to do with each other. When we can disconnect food from our worth. My love, you begin to release the way. See when we tie food to our worth. And we are eating things that we have labeled as not healthy.

We feel bad and we feel disappointed. We feel discouraged. We have thoughts. Like I am never going to figure this out. Why can’t you control yourself, Shannon? I mean, all of those thoughts. And then when we feel that way, when we feel frustrated, disappointed, discouraged, we then perpetuate the cycle. We start to overeat. We beat ourselves up.

We start to disconnect even more from our body. The realistic plan is about allowance, not restriction. See diet trauma, all the diet things have taught us that we need to restrict to lose weight. You must restrict and you must exercise overexercise and do a million things. You have to burn the calories. And what I’ve learned through the process that I teach is all of that has created this fear around food,

this fear around what you’re eating and what you’re not eating when you’re eating, when you’re not eating. And when you start to make the realistic plan, when you start to make it realistic again, you’re going to meet yourself, right where you’re at. It starts to become about allowance, not restriction. See, when I started to lose my weight, when I first started making my realistic plan,

I had all the things on my plan. I remember I love Mexican food. It’s my favorite type of food. And I would go to this Mexican restaurant and I would order. And literally they would bring me three plates because I had my enchiladas on a plate and I had my tostada on a plate and I had my tacos on a plate. And then I would eat all the chips and salsa.

When I very first started my plan. I put the three plates of Mexican food on my plan, because that is where I was. See, this is not about restriction. I tell you, ladies, this is so important. We have done this so many times. We have gone from eating all the things to chicken and salad. We can white knuckle it for a couple of weeks,

and then we can’t do it any longer. So we might lose some weight. But then eventually we go back to the way we used to eat, because we never learned how to lose weight in a way that was allowance and love and freedom because restriction, you cannot do that for the rest of your life. I just it’s the truth. It’s why diets have like,

I don’t know, 1% success rate. I mean, it’s crazy. And then we keep going back to them. I tell you, ladies, we keep going back. We keep thinking it’s in a food plan and it’s not this I tell you. So when I started to lose my weight, I want to go back to that for a moment. I really made my realistic plan,

realistic. I put all the things that I was eating, the cookies, the Mexican food, whatever it was, because then I could one start to become aware of what I was eating. And next week I’m going to teach you about how to like really connect with your body and see how food feels in it. But when you’re first making your realistic plan,

the key, and I will say this over and over again is making it realistic. And I tell you my love. You just have to trust me. You do, because your brain Lizzie, she’s going to serve you up all the reasons why this is crazy. Don’t make it realistic. She’s going to want you to put chicken and salad. She’s going to want you to put,

you know, the good food quote unquote. And I’m telling you when you’re very first starting, you’re going to put all the things. And then over time, what happened when I was losing my way, I slowly, up-leveled slowly. I started to pay attention to, you know, how my body was feeling. I started to become aware of all of my diet beliefs and my love.

I broke up with dieting. I started feeling better. I was reconnecting with my body. And then once you start this process, this really amazing thing happens. You start to gain some momentum. You start to want to fuel it. You start loving foods that feel good in your body. You want to take care of your body more. When you’re at war with your body,

you want to disconnect from it. You don’t want to take care of it, my love. But when you reconnect, when you start paying attention, when you start becoming aware, you start losing the fear of food. You start losing the fear of failure. You start believing that you can eat a cupcake and that you can’t, that you’re not out of control.

That’s all the BS that we’ve been sold. You’re in control. You’re always the one in the driver’s seat. You always are the one who are making the decisions. Every day. You make a decision. Every day, you make a decision of what you’re going to eat. And this thought that you’re out of control. This thought that you’re, you know that you can’t do it.

It’s just all BS. It’s nonsense. It’s just the trauma. My love that has lived in our bodies because of the diet culture. Now I want to give you some tips when you’re getting started with this one, put all the things, meet yourself, right where you are, and then just start to pay attention to Lizzy hand confusion. Right? She loves to say like,

this is difficult. I don’t know what to put on my realistic clan love. That’s just Lizzie. She loves to pipe up. You don’t need to make it mean anything like, okay. Okay. Let’s see. I got ya. But right. You’re just gonna keep it simple. Remember, this is not about the food. You can also swap out food.

So if you put, oh, for dinner, you were going to have chicken, cheesy rice and a roll and some veggies. And then when it came to dinner time, you know, you forgot to lay out the chicken. So you end up going out to dinner and you end up getting a steak instead of chicken, a steak and chicken, very right.

That’s an even swap. And then instead of the cheesy rice, you’re going to have a baked potato, same thing. And so you can swap out food. Again, this is not about the food. So when you start to get confused, you don’t need to, it’s not about the food. Now. One of the questions I get asked a lot too is,

Hey, Shannon, I’m a snacker or quote unquote, a Grazer. And I know I really do understand that we don’t have children at home anymore. So Paul and I, a lot of times at night, instead of unquote for meals, we just kind of like put some stuff together and throughout the night, eat it. So if you are, you just put that on the plan too,

right? So I think about that, like I might like for dinner, quote unquote, right? He, even though I might be eating it over a few hours, it might be like, you know, an English muffin. It might be some chips at mozzarella cheese stick, right? You’re just going to put it on your plan. And I have another tip for you.

If you are a snacker. What I like to do is just pull a plate out and put all of the things that I’m going to snack on, on the plate. So I just put it on the plate and then I put it on my counter. I put it in my refrigerator, depending on what it is. And then I’ve made a decision ahead of time.

Remember the realistic plan. You can go back to episode six, but it’s about making decisions ahead of time with your thinking brain instead of Lizzie. And so I just put it on a plate, all the things that I’m going to snack on throughout the day or throughout the night. And then I just then eat what’s on that plate. I don’t go keep going back to,

you know, to the chip bag or to the cracker bag or, you know, all the things it’s just right there on one plate. And when I look at that, I’m like, oh, that’s a full meal. Because a lot of times when you’re snacking your brain, because of diet brain, we think, oh, that’s not a full meal,

so I’m still hungry. And, but if you put it all a plate and you look at all the things you’re going to quote unquote, snack, tell you my love. You’re like, oh yeah, that’s a full meal. And then it just changes something in your brain. And I want another tip that I want to give you, ladies, you make your realistic plan.

And if you eat off plan, so, you know, you made a plan and then you eat off plan. I just simply want you to ask yourself, why was it too idealistic? Was it too quote, unquote diety and or were there other emotions or triggers? Was it nighttime? Was it the weekends? You know, did you have some stress?

You know, what was it? Because this is very important as you’re really learning how to break your diet brain is just coming into awareness. Now, the second part of that is just what came up for you when you were making your realistic clan and you were making it realistic. When you put a cookie or pizza was some fear around it, understanding what’s happening in your brain and your fear around food.

All your diet rules. Love you have to break them. This is the time I love where you break up with dieting for good. And you learn to lose weight in a way that you can always do when you lose weight by eating in a way that feels good and feels like freedom. When you eat in a way that is allowance versus restriction, you can always do that so that when you lose your weight,

you don’t gain it back. There’s no gaining it back. There’s no yo-yoing and roller coaster. You got this. My love. It all starts with making this one simple, realistic plan, doing it one day at a time, one simple small step. Now the transformational questions aren’t actions are one, make a realistic plan. Meet yourself where you’re at no restriction to watch your brain and see what comes up.

What beliefs or fears do you have around food and three, give yourself some kindness and grace, my love no beating up. No beating yourself up. No, you know, when Lizzie starts piping up, you just give yourself some love and grace. And if you want to take this work deeper than take my free course, go to B-flat coaching.com forward slash ready 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 be fly. coaching.com. That’s B F L Y. coaching.com. See you next week.