You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 107. 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 loves. So happy to be back with you. And today we are still diving into our 2.0 series, and we’re going to dive into your body and hunger.

But first, I want to do a listener shout out, and this is to Melissa Lynch. I’ve been on a diet roller coaster for over 35 years. I’ve been with Transform for about a year. I was very nervous to join. I kept telling myself that I didn’t have the money to join. Then I just decided to take the plunge and try it. This has been the best thing to happen to me. I have lost 38 pounds and have kept it off. This is the only time that I’ve kept it off. I am eight pounds from my goal weight. This has totally changed my life. And I finally have the support I need. I’m so glad that Transform popped up on my Facebook page and gave a five-day challenge for free. Shannan is a very true person and totally loves you all the way through.

Oh my goodness. You know, I love me some Melissa. Melissa is one of our Transform Bosses and you know, Melissa, I hope you’re listening, because I just love you all the way. And she is such a beautiful soul. And she’s just part of this amazing group of women. My Transform Bosses are just amazing. We just had this large group, you know, we closed for the year and we had this large group of women, you know, come and join Transform. And I have to say they are amazing. Women are just the most beautiful souls. So thank you, Melissa. I just love you.

And if you find what you learn here valuable, you can help other women find this show by leaving a review and a rating of the show. It takes about two minutes, and it really does help other women find this work. 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 in your library.

My love, it is officially fall. I know, I love it. I know for some of you, winter is coming. But I live in Arizona, and I love winter and fall. It is my favorite time of the year. We are in October and this is just a season that I love. I love October, November, and December and January.

They are probably my most favorite four months of the year. I love all the things. I love the weather here, and I love all the holidays and birthdays. We have so many fun things. I love the beginning of a year. So, I don’t know. I just, I was thinking, I am turning 50 in November and I’ve been thinking about, you know, all the fun things I’m doing to celebrate my 50th birthday. And I really want, you know, the next four months to really be present and spend a lot of time with my family and my friends and myself and I just cannot wait, my loves. I just cannot wait.

I’m kicking off October, my husband, as I’m recording this actually today is Paul and I’s 13th wedding anniversary, and I have to tell you my loves, 13 years. I feel so very blessed. I feel that emotional talking about it, actually. I feel really blessed to have found this other human who I get to grow with, and I get to love him. And I get to feel the love that he gives to me. And we continue to grow in our relationship and we continue to just, you know, find this amazing love. And it is really such a blessing.

We’re leaving this week, we’re going to California for a couple of days. I haven’t been to California since the whole, well, I went to Lake Tahoe, so that’s not the total truth, but I haven’t been to where we normally go in California, which is the beach. We love San Diego. And I have not been there, you know, since, you know, before the pandemic and you know, we are going there. We’re leaving on Thursday and I can’t wait. We’re going, we have a hotel that’s on the beach. And I just can’t wait to walk on the beach and with Paul and just, you know, have some downtime and some rest and celebrate us. I know, so fun. Right? I can’t wait. I love the anticipation of things, right? It’s, it’s, you know, part of the fun.

So let’s get into today’s show. This is the 2.0 version of becoming the scientist of your own body, which is episode #9, so take a listen to that if you’ve not listened to it. I think about, you know, my journey in the weight loss, right? I think about when I was young and you know, it was all about counting calories and then a little bit of Weight Watchers too. And then I went into kind of the, everything was low-fat era, you know, with Susan Powter and low-fat salad or no-fat, right? Snackwell’s.

And, you know, then we went into Atkins and, you know, just over time and again, Weight Watchers was always there. And then the pre-packaged meals came, and all the different exercise programs. I mean, I think about my life of diet and exercise, and it really has, you know, continually is changing. And I think it’s changing because at the end of the day, dieting doesn’t work because those are outside things. If someone hands you a food plan and says, Hey, eat it. One, do you even like what’s on it? And two, does it even feel good in your body? Is it what your body needs? And that’s why they don’t work.

And most of them are restrictive. And, you know, I tell you, it’s a, I think a bazillion dollar business, right? I mean, if you think of the diets and all the different plans and all the different things, and you know, I did it, I did it for so many years. I would keep going back over and over again to the same thing, hoping this time it would work.

Really, how I lost weight for the last time, how I help my clients lose weight for the last time, it is reconnecting to your own body. It’s becoming aware, paying attention, deciding on purpose, what you want to fuel your body with, and what you like, what you enjoy. And, you know, we’ve been told what to eat, when to eat. But your body knows. Your body really does know.

You know, I think about this when, you know, sometimes I’ll have, you know, lower iron. And so it’s so funny to me, my body always knows. I’ll find that I start craving, you know, like hamburgers and I’m not a huge meat eater. I like meat, but you know, it’s, you know, I could go a couple of days and not eat meat and be fine. But boy, if my body starts craving hamburgers or a steak, I know I’m low on iron. And then I can go, you know, get my blood work done, and boom, I know I need more iron. And I say this because our bodies are amazing. They are so amazing.

Somewhere, we lost this because we’ve just been traumatized by diet culture. But our bodies know. We have hormones that tell us when we’re hungry, tell us when we’re full. And our bodies are all different. Just like our fingerprints. If you think about it, every human on the planet has a different fingerprint. We all have different things that make up our bodies, and certain foods feel good in my body and certain foods don’t. And your body is different than mine.

There are certain foods that would feel good in your body that don’t in mine and vice versa. I think about this with all of my ladies who are in Transform Boss, I think about how different, and the things that feel good in their bodies, and then the things that don’t. And you know, the first part of this process is really just deciding that you want to take your own control back, and you want to stop dieting.

And the second part is just starting to come into awareness, starting to pay attention to how food feels in your body. So go back to episode #9, that episode is all about how to become the scientist of your own body and how to figure out what fuels your body and what foods are non-fuel, and then how to make the decision on how you want to make your realistic plan.

But today I want to dive into hunger. And hunger is part of our survival. We have these hormones in our body that tell us when we’re hungry and it’s a natural part of our body. I know, I just really want you to like, think about that for a second. It is okay to be hungry. It is part of how our bodies run.

We are supposed to eat and enjoy food, and it is part of our makeup. We also have hormones in our body that tell us when we’re getting full, when we’re getting satiated. But my love, because of diet culture, we don’t even know what hunger feels like. And we have a fear of hunger. Again, this is how we’re programmed, right? We have Lizzie, right? It’s this primal urge in us that if we start to feel hunger, we’ll have a fear. I remember all the times that I used to travel, I would have this fear that there wouldn’t be food on the plane or when I’d get to my hotel room. Oh my goodness. What if I didn’t have a snack?

And again, food is pretty much for most of us, if you’re listening to this podcast, probably 99% of you, you have a lot of food around. And so it’s just really starting to pay attention that, oh, okay. That’s just this primal fear, everything’s okay. Lizzie lay. Now we have plenty of food around us.

And so just starting to understand some of this, you know, programming that you know is just to keep you alive. It’s your survival mechanisms, but it doesn’t mean that, you know, we at that moment that we’re really hungry. Sometimes we’re just dehydrated. And my love because we’re so disconnected from our bodies, we don’t know, we can’t tell the difference.

And we have a very difficult time because of diet culture, you know, really understanding what is physical hunger and what is emotional hunger. We have lost our ability to be connected to our own bodies, to feel, you know, what real physical hunger feels like. So I want to teach you in this episode today and give you some tips on how to reconnect with your body and start to feel hunger again. And what true physical hunger feels like.

And then also how to start to feel when you’re feeling full, when you’re starting to feel satiated or satisfied so that you can stop eating before you get to the, oh, I’m stuffed, right? Or I’m bloated because I ate too much, or I don’t feel good because you know, I’ve eaten all this food and now I just feel horrible.

So to start noticing when you’re hungry, you’re going to come into awareness. And you’re just going to start asking yourself a question. Remember, how to bring yourself into awareness, the easiest way is by asking yourself questions. And so you’re going to pick just one meal a day. Don’t make this complicated by being, or trying to be perfect and do all the things. Don’t do that. Just pick one meal. And about 30 minutes before you would normally eat that meal, I just want you to check in with yourself and just ask yourself, well, how am I feeling right now? How is my body feeling? And then ask yourself, am I hungry?

I know, it sounds so simplistic. Like what? Just ask myself how I’m feeling? Am I hungry? But you will be amazed at practicing this over and over again, how this coming into awareness, you start to feel these different hunger cues in your body. And you know, here are some signs that you are physically hungry. So, your stomach may feel a little empty. You start thinking I’m hungry, you start feeling, it’s almost like little wisps or whispers in your belly, and would a fuel food work.

Meaning like, if you ask yourself, I’m so hungry right now I could eat a chicken breast, right? If it’s emotional hunger, and you ask yourself that question, you know, if your Lizzie’s like, oh no, no, we need the salted chocolate caramel. That is the only thing. Then you are onto yourself that maybe that is emotional hunger.

So again, you just start paying attention. And it’s important too not to let yourself get too hangry, as they call it, right? Where you’re just, you haven’t eaten and you are starving. You want to start to eat when you’re just, again, you start to feel that little, your stomach feels a little empty and you start noticing this thought like, Ooh, I’m getting hungry, I’m starting to feel hungry. And also, always try some water. You know, there are many times where we think we’re hungry when really we’re just a little dehydrated. Now calming yourself and coming into awareness before a meal, this is what I really work through with my clients in Transform Boss. You don’t have to save up for a meal or feel out of control.

This, my love, is about losing the fear of food, because you can eat anything you want. And when you start paying attention, you will notice that it’s easier to feel your hunger and fullness cues. Now here’s some signs that you’re starting to approach full. You’re starting to feel a little satisfied. You’ll start to notice things like your mind starting to wander. You know, this happens to me a lot when I’m starting to eat, and then the next thing I know, you know, anytime, you know, I’m like, oh, pick up my phone, then I know, okay, I’m done. Right. You’ll start to notice maybe too, like maybe your belly kind of extends a little bit. Or if you take a sigh, whew. Like anything like that, a deep breath, you’re kind of starting to run out of room down there. And so, right. And so those are just signs that you’re approaching satiated or satisfied.

Now, another trigger that you are full is when you start thinking, I need the perfect bite. It’s such a tricky thought. When you start trying to put together on your plate the perfect bite, because you want it to taste as good as the first bite, that is a sign that you are full. And I tell you love, it is such a tricky thought, because you’re, you know, looking for that perfect bite. But my love, you already had the perfect bite. It was the first bite and every bite thereafter, just continually because you start approaching full, and then your body starts sending signals like, Hey, we’re done. That is how you know, okay, I’m satisfied.

Now I want to talk about puddle foods. Yes. P U D D L E. So I teach a concept called puddle thoughts. These are indulgent and dramatic thoughts that we like to play in the puddle. They really keep us from achieving our goals, but we also have puddle foods. These are foods that we’ve told ourselves that we cannot eat them and be in control. We have these thoughts, like they just take over, right? I can’t, you know, if I have a piece of chocolate cake, I’m just going to like eat the whole cake.

And you’ve told yourself that you love this food so much, that you can’t control yourself around it. But my love, you’re always in control. You do have an automatic brain, but you’re in charge of it. And I just want you to be aware of those foods so that when you’re eating them, you can stop and do this practice of asking yourself questions of, am I hungry? And really paying attention to some of those cues of when you’re starting to get full. Love, you’re always in control. Always.

I know, like sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, but you are. And you know, ladies tell me all the time, but Shannan, I just love the food. Like love it. So do I, my love, but I really love food now. I love it so much that I pay attention to it. See, when you’re in your car and you’re eating it and you’re eating it so fast that you don’t even taste it, or you’re standing up at the kitchen counter and you’re just eating it while you’re scrolling on your phone, you’re not even enjoying it. You are not even paying any attention to it.

And so I want to offer you that when you start this process of awareness of really starting to pay attention, you will find foods that you thought you liked, that you don’t even really like. And you’ll also start to find foods that you really enjoy that fuel your body too. And so I just want to challenge you on this thought that I just love the food. Okay my love. When you love things, you pay attention, you, right? That’s what we do.

So, pay attention, come into awareness. And I want to just offer too, we have thoughts around food, but my love, food is just food. It is just an object. And food will never love you back. When you start to slow down, come into awareness, you start paying attention, start savoring, really loving your food and your body you’ll want to fuel it with foods that you enjoy and that feel good in your body. I don’t want a stomachache any longer. I just don’t. I don’t like feeling lethargic. I like having energy. And I still enjoy my favorite foods because I know that point, that bite that I’m satisfied. Satiated. I don’t need to eat all of it because I’ll have it again. Food is not going away. It will be there. I don’t have to eat all of it.

I think about this with a pumpkin muffin. So it’s fall. Pumpkin season is in full swing, and I love pumpkin. And every year, you know, I love to have a pumpkin muffin from Starbucks and you know, I’ve had one this year and when I ordered it, I brought it home and I, you know, heated it up and I sat with it and I really enjoyed it. I savored it and I paid attention, and I didn’t have to eat the whole thing because I knew at that point of when I felt satiated, and then I threw the rest of it away. And then I just moved on. I don’t have to worry that I’ll never eat it again. Or that suddenly I’m going to become this different person who doesn’t eat pumpkin muffins. No, I eat pumpkin muffins, and I don’t have to have this scarcity thinking around food.

This is the diet trauma, my love that lives in our body. We have this fear that we’re never going to eat it again, that we’re going to go on some diet and we’re going to be so “good” that we never have the food again, but it is a lie. Because my love you’re going to eat it again, and it’s going to be there. And so, when you can just practice that thought over and over again, that food is available, I’m in control. And I’m just going to come into awareness and pay attention because I love feeling good. I love when I feel energy, I love feeling satiated.

So here are some tips. So again, emotional eaters love, we have tied so many emotions to food, negative and positive. And you know, the question that I love to ask myself is just would a plain chicken breast do right now? And if the answer is no, then it’s just a chance for me to see what’s really happening. Are there feelings that I don’t want to feel? Am I stressed right now? Am I tired? Do I just need, you know, a glass of water?

The second tip I want to offer you is if you’re a snacker, so, and what I mean by this is you’re maybe like a grazer. So as we don’t have children in our house anymore, I’m a grazer. A lot of times, Paul and I like, we don’t have full like sit down meals, like, we’ll just have like, you know, an English muffin and then maybe we’ll have some yogurt or a cheese stick. And so what I do is I decide what I’m going to eat. I make my realistic plan. And then towards the evening, I’ll put all of the things on a plate. So, I’ll put my English muffin, my cheese stick, my little thing of yogurt, and then I’ll put it in the fridge. And then I just keep going back to that plate throughout the night and eating off of it.

And what it does is I get to look at that plate and think, oh, that’s a full meal. See, we like, to us grazers, we like to trick ourselves that, oh, I’m not really eating a full meal. And so then, you know, I’ve done this, you know, in my life, plenty of times. I’ve eaten all the things, right. You can do this too, right? Like if you’re eating chips or lots of different little things like even fruit, right. Just put a little fruit, just put it on a plate and then you can keep going back to that plate. And you’ll find that you won’t have that kind of thought that it’s not a full meal.

Now, as you do this process, you will start to find foods that you like, and you’ll start to find foods that you don’t. Now, if you’re a Transform Boss and you’re listening, we have a worksheet it’s called, Do I Really Like It? And do that with one of your puddle foods. Right? And because what you’ll notice is sometimes we think we love food, but after you really slow down and taste it, you’ll find that maybe you don’t really love it. For me, it was Hershey chocolate bars and M&Ms, I used to think I loved it. And when I really slowed down and paid attention, I really found that I didn’t like it. It just tasted to me like cheap chocolate.

Now another tip is just again, asking yourself these two questions: Am I hungry? And how am I feeling right now? No perfection. Right? Choose one meal. And just decide on purpose for that one meal that you are going to ask yourself questions, and you are going to come into awareness. See my love, losing weight is an inside job, coming back and reconnecting to your body over and over again.

So to recap, take one meal, slow it down, pay attention, savor it, notice how it feels in your body. And ask yourself, how am I feeling? Am I hungry? Just bringing yourself into awareness and thinking, oh, it’s everything , my love. Don’t make any of this complicated.

And the transformational questions and actions are one, pick a meal. Two, slow down, pay attention. And three, just ask yourself, how am I feeling? I tell you my loves, those questions are so powerful. And just asking yourself a question brings you into awareness.

And if you love this work and you want to take it deeper than take my free course. Go to bflycoaching.com/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 bfly.coaching.com. See you next week.