You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 135. 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 excited to be back with you. Today’s episode, ah, it’s a long time coming. Ladies asked me about this all the time. And so if you’ve ever had a food pusher, you want to listen to this episode. When this episode releases it will be the week of Unstoppable Live. This is my once per year amazing in-person, virtual member only Transform Boss event. And ladies, I am so excited about it. I can’t even, I have been thinking, breathing Unstoppable Live for the last couple of months. My team and I, we have been working and planning and, oh my goodness, I just cannot wait. We have worked really hard this year to make the virtual experience like they’re in the room with us.

So I just cannot wait. And then of course, all my in-person ladies, I can’t wait to hug them. I can’t wait to hug and squeeze them. And it is just so exciting. And ladies, if you are not a Boss yet, for sure you want to take my free course so that, you know, again, you can start this work and then I think we’re going to open in June. So you want to be ready. Yeah, June. I can’t remember the date right now, but in June we’re going to open again, I think for five days. So you don’t want to miss out on that. I’m just excited. I’m excited. Actually, one of my team members, Jenn, she’s like, I think you’re glowing. And I swear it’s just from the excitement.

So in today’s episode, I want to talk about food pushers and what to do. Let’s first define what a food pusher is. So we have other humans who offer us food, who try to convince us to eat the thing. You might have a food buddy; maybe it’s your mom, your spouse, your friend, and you know, they want you to eat with them. So they try to convince you or they offer you food. My mom loved food. She loved cooking. She was an amazing, amazing cook. And it was the way that she showed love. She wanted you to enjoy her cooking and loved watching you eat it. She could have been called a food pusher for sure.

And I kind of am one too. When I cook, I love watching others enjoy it. Now this is the important piece. Someone offering you food or wanting you to eat is just a circumstance. It’s not until you have a thought about it that you make it mean something different than what it is, or you make it mean something that doesn’t serve you. So here’s an example. Your spouse knows that you’re trying to lose weight and brings home donuts. You can make that mean he’s sabotaging me. He wants me to be heavy. He doesn’t support me. But those are choices. Those are just thoughts. You could also think he wanted a donut. Great for him. And he knows I love them too.

Just last week, one of my leaders brought in these delicious breakfast burritos. They are green chili beef in homemade tortillas. I love them. He’s brought them in before. So he dropped one of them off to my admin for me. It was so nice. My admin said, Hey, so-and-so dropped this off, but I wasn’t hungry and so I said, oh, just give it to someone else, I’m not hungry and I want someone else to enjoy it. I didn’t make it mean anything. Now my admin, she looked at me like I was a little crazy because she knows one, how delicious they are, and two, how much I love them, but I just moved on, started to talk about something else. I thanked him and was grateful and hoped whoever got the burrito also enjoyed it.

See, I used to have some of those similar thoughts around food pushers. I wanted to make them wrong, but I was just pushing off the accountability to them. I was blaming them, having thoughts that I could not control myself. But it’s just nonsense. If someone offers you food, brings home food, it doesn’t mean anything until you have a thought about it.

No one is responsible for you losing or gaining weight except you. When you start taking ownership of your weight, your choices, you take your power back my love. If you keep blaming, pushing the ownership to others, then you’re the victim and you can’t move forward from that position. I’m a grown woman. No one makes my food choices except me. No one is force-feeding me. Paul just called me as I was writing this episode because he’s going to lunch with one of his friends today. And they’re going to this place called Backyard Taco. And I, you know, ladies, I, as you can tell, I love Mexican food. So he asked if I wanted anything, but it wasn’t on my plan today.

So I said, enjoy, thanks for asking, but I’m good. No drama, just moved on. If someone is pushing it on you just thank them, tell them how much you love them for offering and how appreciative you are of them, but that you’re just not hungry right now. Then change the conversation. Move on. It really is that simple. Even if they look at you crazy, they say something, you don’t need to respond. Just move on. Sometimes they might feel upset. Maybe they even get angry because you don’t want to eat what they’re eating. Love, all you have to do is again, just say thank you, I appreciate you. I love you. When you come from a place of love, it is really hard for the other person to come back with anger.

And so just again, how much you love and appreciate, but you’re just not hungry right now. It’s one of the best ways when someone is, you know, trying to convince you to eat something is to come, instead of going into this whole thing about how they’re sabotaging your weight loss. That does not work. Instead, you just love and appreciate them, and come from a place of love. And really, I’m telling you the easiest way is just to say, oh, you know, I’m just not hungry. But you know what? I’ll take it, and maybe I’ll eat it later. I’ll put it on my plan for tomorrow. Again, my love, you just always have the option. And it’s always about what you think about it. It’s never about the other person.

Now, one thing I want to talk about is let’s say they offer you the donut and you start negotiating about it. You start to have an urge for it. Like I want it, but it’s not on your plan. Just stop, disrupt, count back from 30, and take a breath. Even just stopping and taking a breath will help you like allow yourself to come into awareness and allow yourself to, you know, say oh thank you so much, I’ll take it and put it on my plan for tomorrow, or no thank you, I’m not hungry right now. It’ll just give you a moment before you just kind of take it because you have the urge and eat it.

Now, if you’re a Boss, go into module 2 video number 23. This is where I go deep into handling urges and what to do. If you’re not a Transform Boss, you can listen to episode number 3 of the podcast. And I start to go into how to handle it. Love, you are always in control. You always decide what you’re going to eat. If someone offers you food, decide what you want to think about it. Something that serves you, then take the next best action for you.

The transformational questions and actions are one, who do you believe to be the food pushers in your life? Two, what do you want to believe about it? Three, make a decision ahead of time of what you’re going do the next time they offer or bring home something.

And if you’re not part of Transform Boss, take my free course. Go to freebosscourse.com. This will give you an introduction and a workbook to get you started on losing weight for the very last time. Ooh, so good. You don’t want to miss next week’s episode either. I’m going to do a special question and answer. I’ve received lots of questions all the time, and so I just compiled a few of them and I’m going to go through them so you don’t want to miss it. All right, bye my love.

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.