You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 111. 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. Ooh, I love today’s show. For most of my life I was overweight. For 38 years I was on the diet rollercoaster. I developed an overweight identity. And as I was losing my weight, I had to step into this new version of myself and develop a new identity. I had to start creating the mindset of a person who was not battling her weight, who loved her body, who did not obsess about food – Developing what I like to call my BFLY identity helped me when old sabotaging behaviors would show up. If you want to lose weight and lose it for good, you don’t want to miss this episode.

But first, I want to do a listener shout out. And this is to Kelly J0510. I’m so glad that I found Shannan and Transform. I have learned so much from this podcast. Shannan’s methods work and make losing weight something I know I can do for good while loving myself through the journey. Her compassion and heart for helping women is awesome and led me to join Transform, where I’m going even deeper. Shannan has changed my life. Oh, Kelly. That is so sweet Kelly, so much love for you. And honestly, Kelly, you’re changing your life. You know, I tell you ladies, learning this work and deciding that you want to change old thoughts and old beliefs and things that are keeping you stuck, Oh, it is just everything. I’m so proud of you Kelly, for all the work that you’re doing.

And oh, I just have so much love for you. If you find this podcast valuable, what you’re learning here, 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, and then every Wednesday I’m in your library.

So I have been doing a lot of research lately. I love to read papers, books, literature, I’m always wanting to learn so I can help my Transform Bosses. I am in the process currently of updating the weight-loss course inside our membership, and I have to tell you love, it is so good. We unveil it to all of our bosses at the beginning of January and I cannot wait. I’m writing it now. And I get so excited because ultimately I just want them to reach all of their goals and all of their dreams in the most simple and easy way.

Now, for those of you who are not #transformbosses yet we’ll open Transform again in February. So in the meantime, you can always take my free course and continue to listen to the podcasts so you can prepare for the opening in February. We open on February 9th. So mark that down on your calendar. So good. I can’t wait. I love welcoming in new ladies. I mean, I love this time right now. I love spending all of this time with all of my Transform Bosses. We are doing some amazing work inside the membership and you know, February 9th, mark it on your calendar if you’re not in.

So today’s show, I want to talk about our overweight identity. You know, I was helping one of my members with a plateau and I was coaching her on how she was starting to sabotage her weight loss, and she was feeling some emotion about stepping into this next version of herself and also eating less food. She has lost some weight and her body doesn’t need as much fuel as it did before. And it got me thinking about our overweight identities and how we have to almost mourn the loss of them because we’ve had this identity for however long.

I had mine for almost 38 years and I needed to allow myself to one, understand what my overweight identity was, and feel the sadness, the emotion about changing that part of ourselves. You know, I really do think of it as mourning the loss of our overweight identity. When I was losing my weight, I noticed I had a lot of beliefs and thoughts that were helping me to stay overweight. Things like if I’m overweight, I won’t be attractive. I’ll be safe. I can eat anything I want. You know, people will like me more. I’ll be more relatable. You know, I won’t, people won’t, you know, don’t be too bright. Don’t be too shiny. Don’t be too beautiful.

I had all of these thoughts roaming around, just sentences in my brain. Part of my overweight identity with food was this idea that I loved “bad food” and I could eat anything. I did not want to be one of those salad girls. I didn’t want to always have to be in the gym or eat only salad. I thought to be at my natural weight this is what I had to do. I tied all of these thoughts and beliefs to who I was. I had created an identity around it. The pretty face who was smart and really nice.

See, we have these identities. We’ve created them around our roles in our families, how we fit in, in society, even with our friends. Who we’ve been told who we are. Also trauma that we’ve endured as a protection mechanism. Then we buffer with food and we end up placing this wall of weight around ourselves.

And for many of us it’s protection. This is why you can lose weight on a diet, but then you sabotage your success and gain it back. You hit some ceiling or piece of your identity that you want to hold on to and you slowly start gaining it back. Maybe you’ve lost some weight. And one of your friends or a member of your family says something like, oh, you’re getting too skinny. Ooh. Why, why aren’t you eating? Why are, you know, why are you, what are you only eating salads now? Right? And these little comments they go and they, right, your old identity, your overweight identity is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We’ve got to sabotage our success. Right? We start.

And I tell you my love. It just, it’s almost like, I don’t know you going against your own back. I did this so many times, right? A comment or, you know, I would get below 200 pounds and I would start to sabotage my success. And honestly, to lose weight for the last time, I had to create my “BFLY” identity.

This version of me who loves food that fuels her, who loves her body, who knows that she’s safe. That freedom is in taking care of myself and my mind, and who’s not afraid of other people’s opinions or thoughts or comments or that she’s shining too brightly. That I am strong. And I love to move my body. I had to change the beliefs about who I was.

I was not the overweight “weight was always going to be my struggle” girl. I was this amazing woman who loved her body and loved taking care of it. To start the work of stepping into your new identity, your BFLY identity, and letting go of your overweight identity, you one, have to acknowledge your overweight identity. And what parts do you have to let go of to become the next version of yourself?

Good questions to start asking yourself is what do you get out of being overweight? What are the good parts? Love, I know when I say that you’re like Shannan, there is no good parts. I just want to lose the weight. No, my love, we carry weight for a reason. We’ve carried extra weight on our bodies and there are lots of reasons why we’ve done it.

It’s not because we’re broken. It’s not because something’s wrong with us. It’s just old thoughts and beliefs and things that we were taught when we were younger. So ask yourself, what do you get out of it? And what are the parts that you think are good? Why have you carried extra weight on your body? How has it become a part of your identity?

And then ask yourself this, what scares you about being at your goal weight? What comes up for you? This is so powerful because you will start to see even conflicting thoughts. I would have thoughts like, well, if I lose weight and I suddenly become, you know, thin and attractive, then I wouldn’t be safe. And then I would have thoughts, Oh, but if I lose the weight, I’m going to have loose skin and look old. I mean, they didn’t even make sense, but this is how our brains work. So really understanding what scares you about being at your goal, or what I like to call your natural weight. Then too, you have to create a new identity and start to practice new thoughts and beliefs around this.

Now, if you’re a Transform Boss, we’re really going to dive into this in January as we do some deep identity work. But if you’re not a boss yet here are some transformational questions and actions for you to begin this work.

One, what is tied to your overweight identity? Is it safety? Is it so you fit in? Is it so you can stay small, not shine so bright? Is it around false beliefs that you can eat whatever, that you have freedom. Number two, what do you get out of being overweight? What are you avoiding by being overweight? Number three, when you think of yourself at your goal weight, what scares you about it? And number four, what do you want your new BFLY identity to be? What does she do? And what do you need to believe to step into this version of yourself?

So good. If you love this work and you want to take it deeper then take my free course. Go to bflycoaching.com/ready. 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 bfly.coaching.com. See you next week.