You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 150. 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 my love. I am so excited to be here, and I have a very special episode today. 150, can you even believe it? I can’t believe it. 150 weeks, I have been in your ears, for many of you. So I just one, first want to say, I appreciate you. I appreciate all the ladies from all over the world who listen to this podcast. I just love you and want all your success. And today what I wanted to do is first, Jenn Taylor, coach Jenn from Transform Boss Weight Loss, she’s going to join us. And then second, you know I love a good giveaway. So that’s what we’re going to do.

So if you’re listening to this podcast, we are going to give away some prizes for leaving a review. So if you like the podcast, leave a review. Here’s the process. We’ll also put this in the show notes, but basically leave a review, rate it and review it on iTunes. Or you can go to bflycoaching.com/podcast. You can also leave a review there. When you leave a review, then email support@bflycoaching.com. And then what will happen is we’ll enter you into a drawing. Now I’m going to ask that you leave the reviews by August 31st, 2022.

And when you leave the review and email support@bflycoaching.com, just telling us which review you left, because, you know, especially in iTunes, the names are a little different, then you’ll be entered in. And I am going to give away some fabulous things. So you don’t want to miss out. You know, ratings and reviews just help spread this show. It helps so that they can hear how to get off the diet roller-coaster, and how to have a little more love for themselves.

So today, Jenn and I are really going to get into the basics. In Transform Boss Weight Loss we have four basic components. These are the basics. Now we go in depth, there’s so much more, but I love having these fundamentals, these basics, because this is how you really start to heal the relationship that you have with yourself and with food. And so the four basics, the first one, we’ll kind of get into each one. And then we’re just going to tell you our tips, how we’ve either seen ladies really be successful with these or how we use them ourselves. Jenn and I both do these every day. They’re important to us. They’ve helped us along our journey. And so we just want to share some goodies with you.

So the very first fundamental in Transform Boss is the realistic plan. If you don’t know what it is, you can go back to episode six, and episode six will give you all the details. You can also take my free course, right? Lots of ways to learn about it. But the gist of it is, it’s a coaching tool where you learn how to start to become aware of your thoughts about food. It kind of masquerades as a plan, but it’s not really, you write down what you’re going to eat. But the true importance of it is you starting to keep a commitment to yourself.

You’re starting to allow yourself to meet yourself where you’re at right now, not some dietary food plan. And it’s a way that you can see like, are you making it too diety? Are you resisting? You’re not making it. It’s just a really good tool so that you can see the commitment that you have to yourself. And you can start to self-coach and ask yourself questions.

So the gist of it, every night, you just write down what you’re going to eat the next day. You make it, you meet yourself where you’re at. If you’re, if you’ve been eating two Chick-fil-A sandwiches and Chick-fil-A fries every day for lunch, then that’s what you eat, that’s what you’re going to put on it. Ladies will ask Well, how am I going to lose weight? The first part of losing weight for the last time is healing your relationship with food, and doing it slowly and meeting yourself where you’re at. So you’re just going to put the food that you’re going to eat. You’re not going to make it as one of my members, Jerica, she said this phrase and I loved it, you’re going to make it realistic, not idealistic.

For me, I write my plan every day. I don’t have a lot of confusion or drama about it. And if I ever eat off plan, my tip for all of you ladies is just to ask yourself why? Like what’s happening? I just say this simple phrase to myself, like what’s happening love? And I just inquire into like why? Was it, you know, because I was stressed, which most cases, right? Or was it because I was feeling other emotions I didn’t want to feel. And so just getting honest about like, why did I eat off plan. No judgment, no beat downs. Just asking myself why?

Everything that we’re going to teach you, it all comes back down to learning how to self-coach, because the bigger part of this process is the healing that comes from that. So Jenn, Jenn Taylor, she’s a coach in Transform Boss Weight Loss, coach Jenn, I mean, she’s a regular on the show, she’s beautiful and amazing. Jenn, I’m going to have you introduce yourself, because all the ladies know you and if you don’t know her, listen to a previous episode she’s on here. She is amazing. So you’ve been doing the realistic plan for a good bit. You’ve coached ladies who are doing the realistic plan. What would you tell ladies about this first basic? How to start to do it? How to be successful? Any tips you have for them?

Yeah, you know, there’s going to be certain times in the month or throughout the year that, you know, you might want some extra food. It might be that time of the month. You might be doing more movement and you’re just needing more fuel for your body. But just starting to pay attention. You mentioned meeting yourself where you’re at, and so starting there of course, but as you’re doing that, just pay attention to these times that you maybe are like, you know, I need a little bit more food than what’s on my plan. And see if there’s a pattern. You’ll start to really get in tune with your body and just be able to tell certain times of the month or certain activities that you’re doing. Maybe it’s even a celebration that you’re like, you know, I want to go and enjoy some of the extra food at the barbecue,

whatever it is. So plan for those times for extra food.

And you’ll learn to just lose that shame along with it. Because I think a lot of us carry this shame or have carried in the past, the shame of wanting a piece of cake, right? Like I shouldn’t have that, and you can have that and you can still lose weight. That’s the best part of this all.

And the second tip that I would say is just begin to make it a habit, right? When we start doing something. When I know when I started the realistic plan, I resisted for a long time. I wanted it to be perfect because I didn’t want to eat off plan or mess up. That made me a failure. But what I would offer to you is that it’s not going to be perfect. But the more that you can consistently do it and keep showing up, and learning from it and changing it, tweaking it to what you need, and just making that a habit, that is where you’re going to see all the benefits from this.

I love all of that because this is so important ladies. This is why another reason I could give you a hundred reasons, but another reason is why diets don’t work is because your bodies, they need different fuel amounts on different days, and diets don’t account for that. They’re just like, okay, every day you’re going to eat 1200 calories. You’re going to have cut your carbs out. You know, all these things. And sometimes your body really needs a lot of carbs. You know, I think about women who are still menstruating, your body needs carbs. So like, there’s just certain things, hormonal times, there’s just different things where your body needs different things.

And that leads us right into our next fundamental, which is the food part. And this is all about fuel food and hunger and fullness. And this second fundamental is really about reconnecting to your body. And I love that Jenn gave you such an amazing tip, because, you know ladies, we’ve been so disconnected from our bodies. We don’t know when we’re hungry. We don’t know when we’re full. Our body is like, I’m physically hungry and we’ve just ignored it for so long that we don’t know. And we don’t know what food feels like in our body.

You know, I would say this was one of the ones that when I very first started this process was more difficult for me. And what I mean by that is like getting and seeing how food actually felt in my body. Now, what I mean by that. So I don’t call food healthy or not healthy, good or bad. Food is either fuel food for me, meaning that it energizes me. It keeps me full for a long period of time, a few hours. Or it’s non-fuel, which is a food that doesn’t keep me satiated. It doesn’t keep me full for long. I might feel like I need to take a nap after I eat it. That’s non-fuel.

And in between that is neutral. And neutral food is just food that I eat it, I feel fine, I don’t necessarily feel energized. I just feel kind of neutral. And it keeps me satisfied or feeling kind of full for a bit. If you eat something, no matter what it is, and 30 minutes later, you’re starving, it’s probably a non-fuel for you. See, I have foods that people would consider “healthy.” They’d say, oh, that’s so healthy, but it doesn’t agree with my body. It’s a non-fuel for me, because it doesn’t keep me satiated. Fruit is one of those things. When I eat fruit, I like it. I include it. But if I eat a lot of fruit, it’s just non-fuel for me.

Now I have ladies who love fruit, even my husband, oh my gosh, when he eats berries, it’s a fuel for him. It gives him energy. It keeps him full. And so all of our bodies are different. And so this really comes down to you becoming the scientist of your own body. Now, when it comes to hunger, when it comes to fullness, you have these hormones, ghrelin and leptin. But my love, we’ve just ignored them because we’ve just been eating and not paying attention, eating a lot of non-fuel food. And once you start to pay attention, what happens over time as you heal your relationship with food, you’ll notice that you want more fuel food. You want to feel better. You start to enjoy.

There are fuel foods like potatoes for me, like lots of rice. Oh my gosh. So good. Love it. But before I would tell myself, I can’t have it. I can’t have the carbs. Right? I’m on Atkins. I mean, it’s so crazy, but I lost weight, eating potatoes and rice, and it is a fuel food for me. So you get to decide what fuels your body and what doesn’t. And then you ask yourself two simple questions. Am I physically hungry? And how does it feel in my body? That’s how you start to see how food feels in your body. And if you’re even physically hungry. There are times where I think I “should eat,” but I’m not physically hungry.

Guess what my love, I just don’t. I wait. And then I check in with myself again in an hour. And if I’m physically hungry, then I eat. We have been told when to eat, what to eat, all these things. And my loves, 71% of the population is overweight or obese. It’s not working. It’s not working because no one, your body, just like your fingerprint, is unique and it needs different things, different times of the month, different amounts of fuel, non-fuel. And I want to say this, because this is really important. I include all of it. That’s my tip for you. My tip for you is I include fuel food, non-fuel food, neutral food. It’s all on my plan.

I just noticed that over the years, my ratio to non-fuel to fuel has increased. Even though there could be times of the month or different times of the year where I start to have a little more non-fuel. I get to adjust it to how my body is feeling and what I need, and also what I want to enjoy. Yes. And that’s how I lost weight for the last time. I lost weight eating the foods that I was always going to eat for the rest of my life. If you lose weight on cutting out all the carbs like keto or whatever, and you think, oh, once I lose the weight, I’m going to add those back in, you will regain your weight. I know because I’ve done it.

So have you. You have to lose weight in a way that you can always do. So Jenn, this one, I think for ladies can be difficult because we’ve been so disconnected. They’re like Shannan, I don’t know what fuel is, I don’t know what non-fuel is. When you very first start this work, I see ladies in Transform Boss, they really work like to do it right, to ask themselves two questions. But what tips would you have for the ladies?

Yeah, I think, you know, this one has really been drilled into our brains that there’s good foods and bad foods and that we need to cut things out. So one of the tips that I would give, and Shannan touched on it a bit, is just try as many different foods as you can. Right. Really become that scientist. Because I know specifically there’s multiple ladies in Transform, like Shannan mentioned, that potatoes on most diets would be considered a carb and to starch and they’d cause you to gain weight. But for a lot of ladies, they are fuel food and myself included. And so just starting to lose and pay attention to when those diet thoughts come in, I can’t have this, I shouldn’t have this. Right.

And just really become that scientist and test out the different foods. Just slow down, see how they feel in your body. Test it, you know, check in 10 minutes after, 30 minutes after, and just see how you’re feeling. And naturally, as you start to pay attention, you’ll start to be able to identify, oh, I’m feeling a little lethargic, or I feel like I have so much energy, and you’ll just start to get that process. Another thing I would like to add is portion size is a big deal. I have certain foods that if I eat, pizza is one of them, it can be a neutral food, but if I eat more than two slices, it becomes a non-fuel food. Just paying attention and playing with your portion sizes as you’re figuring this out, you know, you’re trying to pay attention to fuel food and along with how much you need. And so just give yourself grace as you’re figuring this out, and really think of it as kind of this experiment. You’re just testing different things.

Two signs that are I would leave as the last tip with this is we hear that ladies struggled to know when they’re hungry, but we also, I think struggled to know when we’re full. We just have this clean plate club, right? All of these things that we have to finish, we don’t want to waste our food. And so two signs that really have helped me figuring this out is when I’m looking for the perfect bite, right? So I’m waiting for that same hit that I had that first bite. Or one of my signs of fullness is when I sigh. My body naturally will just sigh when I’m full and you know, sometimes even until this day, I want to ignore it and be like, no, I still want more of it. And I just have to have that conversation with myself and make a choice.

Right. But just starting to pay attention to how your body tells you when you’re full, because you have natural built-in signs that your body will give you as well. I love all of those. I love the sigh. Yeah, me too. And for me, one of my biggest triggers is when I start panicking, just like you said, and I started looking for that perfect bite. Like I’ve got to, Ooh, let me rewarm this up. Cause I need it hot again. Then I’m like, oh wait, I’m full. Right. What’s happening is your lizard brain, your amygdala, is like, oh my gosh, she’s going to stop eating, but it tastes so good. I want more of it.

And then, but you’re getting hunger. You’re no fullness cues saying, Hey, we’re full. We don’t need any more. It’s just this little internal battle that’s going on. So anytime you start kind of panicking, trying to get that last few bites and you want it to taste good. Remember that’s actually a trigger that you’re full. And so just paying attention to that. And you know, ladies, I want to say this now, I’m going to say it again at the end, we’re going to give you four basics, but I want you to start with one. If you’re not in Transform Boss Weight Loss, you might not have all of the support and all of the tools and the videos and all the things to support you. And so I want to make sure that you don’t overwhelm yourself. You’re not going to start with all four. You’re going to pick one of the basics. You’re going to start with it. You’re going to do it. And then you’re going to keep upleveling until you know, you have it. Just one at a time. My love, don’t try to do all of them at one time. It’s too overwhelming. And I don’t want, I don’t want you to do that.

That leads me into our third fundamental, our third basic. And that is reflection work. Now for me, I mean, they’re all so important. It’s so tough. But this one for me has changed my life. Just in so many different areas of my life. Reflection work is different than journaling. Again, we’re going to put the original podcast in the show notes for you, but it’s just really about taking all of those kind of puddle thoughts, those limiting beliefs, those negative thoughts, and just throwing them down on a sheet of paper, getting them out of your head on a sheet of paper. It’s so simple. Every morning I take a sheet of paper and I just kind of dump out my brain. We call it a thought dump.

I just dump out the negative, the worry, the doubt, all of those things on a piece of paper. And then I just pick one thought. One thought to dive into it, to decide, okay, here’s what I’m thinking. So I’m thinking today, I’ll give you an example. I ate off plan yesterday. Let’s just say that happened to you. And then you’re thinking I’m a failure. I’m going to fail. So that thought is limiting, right? And then it makes you feel frustrated and then you want to overeat. So just writing that thought cycle down. Here’s my thought, here’s my feeling. This is what I do. And then you’re going to either allow yourself to just feel frustrated, which you can.

It’s good to feel all the feelings. Or you can decide that you want to think a one better thought. That’s what I like to call it. It’s just one better than that negative thought. So if the negative thought is I’m a failure, one better than that could be well, I’m learning how to have grace for myself. I’m learning how to lose weight in a way that is different. I’m learning how to have love and forgiveness for myself. Just something better. It doesn’t have to be, I love myself, everything is great, everything is wonderful. No, you know, rainbows and fairies. It’s just one better than that negative thought. And then throughout the day, when that negative thought comes in, you’re just going to quickly replace it with that one better thought.

This simple process, it takes me not even five minutes. I dump out my brain. I pick a thought, I do a thought feeling action, and then I just quickly think of a one better thought. I love to borrow them, right, from others too. I love for me, some of my favorite thoughts are everything is for me and I can figure anything out. And so whenever my brain is like in doubt, worry, my brain is like, oh my gosh, the sky is falling. I’m just like, I can figure this out. Everything is for me. And so I practice that thought throughout the day and it just brings calm to me.

So Jenn, reflection work, I know it’s been life-changing for you too. What would you tell the ladies about it? Reflection work is everything. Cause this thought model is what we base our coaching off of. And so it really has changed everything for me, not just, you know, my thoughts about weight, but in all aspects of my life. Reflection work is really where I start to ask myself questions. And when I can start to ask myself questions, that is when you get to shine a light on it. You get to most of the time see how silly your thoughts are. Because you know, like Shannan said, we think the sky is falling, and really, if we take a step back, it’s not.

One of my favorite things with doing a thought dump is writing out all my thoughts and then circling, what are facts and what are thoughts? Because what you’ll find will happen most of the time is you’ll circle probably two facts out of the 80 thoughts that you have. And these are just thoughts. And if you know anything about this work, if you’ve listened to any other podcasts, you know that just because we have a thought, it doesn’t make it true. We get to choose our thoughts. We get to choose what we want to believe. A tip that I would give, something that’s I mean, I love, love, love. Everything is for me. That is something I also use all the time.

But a tip, if you’re struggling to come up with a new thought, something that’s been very helpful for me and the ladies that I coach. So if your thought is I am a failure, taking that thought and your new thought could be something like I am learning that believing I’m a failure is not serving me or is not leading me to show up in the way I want, you just kind of flip your thought onto I’m learning that believing this old thought is not serving me. And I just find that so helpful if you’re struggling to come up with a new thought.

But I also want to touch on that I think that as Shannan mentioned, it’s so important that we allow ourselves time to sit in those feelings. Because for so long, I ran away from feelings of sadness and anger and frustration. And when you can just say, you can allow yourself and just say, you know, I’m just going to be angry for five minutes. I’m going to sit here or maybe the day you want to choose to stay angry, but then you’re being intentional about it. You’re not making any off comments, right? You’re not acting from this place. You’re just allowing yourself to feel it. And then when you’re ready, you can go move on to that next better thought.

I love that Jenn, feeling your feelings. We go deep into this in Transform Boss. Because ladies, we have been pushing down those feelings. We’ve been pushing them down with cupcakes and all the things. I mean, for me, cupcakes, it could be something else for you, but for sure, because we don’t want to feel it. And I love when Jenn just said, just sit with it, allow yourself to feel it without going and acting on it. Buffering because most of the time, this is what happens, ladies. When we don’t feel our feelings, we act. But the person who is usually the person we’re acting out against is ourselves. We’re overeating over-spending, over social media, over Netflixing, we’re doing things at our own expense.  And so just allowing yourself to feel the feelings, Ooh, that’s good. Ooh, I like it Jenn.

Okay. So our fourth and last basic or fundamental is what I like to call body basics. I mean, you know ladies, we got these beautiful bodies and they’re miracles. I don’t even know, they’re so miraculous. Like when you really research the body and the brain and how it all works together and all the things that your body is consistently readapting to and regenerating. And I mean, it’s honestly amazing. I would say 90%, you don’t even know, it’s just doing what it’s supposed to do, but your body needs some things. It needs sleep. It needs water, hydration. And it also needs breath, deep, relaxing breath.

Understanding that these are really important things. Sleep. You know my loves that’s when you really regenerate. It’s when your body repairs throughout the night. Hydration. Now I want to talk about hydration for a moment because you get water from food, of course your liquids and so on and so forth. And you being hydrated is important because when you are dehydrated, your body goes into survival mode. Your body goes into hold on to everything. We’re dying. Because if you don’t drink for three or four days, you will pass. Your body. You have to have hydration. And so the way that, you know, if you’re hydrated is just simply looking at your urine. Is it dark or medium dark? You probably need to get some water in.

Now you can get that water in from different sources. You can, you can get it from food, but you can get it from water. You can put in the little Crystal Light, I don’t know, the different little packets. But it’s a signal that your body needs hydration. You know, you just can’t live without it. And it’s so important in a weight loss journey, because what happens when you’re dehydrated, when you are sleep deprived, your body’s just going to send all sorts of fake signals. You’re hungry. You need to eat more. You’re going to go into that automatic part of your brain. And then it just feels more difficult. Sleep and hydration. So important. And breath. There are many times where I just take a deep breath. My brain is going quick. I feel super like, especially when I have a lot going on and I just take that breath.

So Jenn, body basics, so important. Any tips that you have for the ladies on how to incorporate this into just kind of their daily life? What comes to mind for me when I think back to when I started these basics and really focusing on them, when it comes to water, don’t think that you have to hit your 100 ounces of water or whatever, when you’re starting, right? If you’re just right now only drinking eight ounces, then maybe start with doubling that. Again, meeting yourself where you’re at is the quickest way to success. I think when we even with sleep, right, if you’re only getting four hours, don’t shoot for seven.

When we try to skip ahead and be where we want to be, we just stay stuck. And then we’re frustrated that we’re not meeting these expectations. And so the best thing is meeting yourself where you’re at now, and then slowly upleveling. One of the tips for water for me is just starting in the morning, first thing. I noticed a complete difference when I started drinking water the minute I wake up, even digestive wise, versus if I don’t. Some days it will be four o’clock and I will be like, no wonder I’m so thinking I’m hungry all day. I’m getting these hunger signals, but really it’s just thirst. It’s just that I’m dehydrated. And the same with sleep. I notice such a difference for me. I am and have always been a solid sleeper. I get seven to eight hours, but if I don’t get that, I notice that I just show up a completely different way the next day. And so some tips for that is just creating a routine at nighttime, whatever that looks like for you. Of course, I’m not fabulous at this always, but they say put electronics away, right? No TV. I still watch TV before bed, but I really do try to stay off social media, things like that, because I do notice a difference for me, you know, when my nose is stuck in my phone right before bed.

And breathing, I’m a big fan of breathing. I’ve noticed that when I can take the time, you know, when I’m feeling frustrated or overwhelmed and I take a step back, take some deep breaths, and then again, practice the thought that it really just does calm everything for me and lets me go back into what I’m doing and refocus, Ah, ladies, this is the thing about the basics, the fundamentals of what I teach. I know if you are a woman and you’ve been on the diet roller coaster for 5, 10, 20, 50, 60 years, you want to get off.

And the way for long-term weight loss is this slow process of reconnecting to your body, believing new things through reflection work, and throwing in some things that make it easier, like getting your sleep and getting your water. That is the process. I want to re-emphasize to just start with one. Pick, okay, I’m going to start with realistic plan or I’m going to start with becoming a scientist and just kind of see, you know, how food starts to feel in my body. Again, I don’t want you to do this every day either when you’re beginning, right? You know, we have this term that we call in Transform Boss, it’s called minimum baselines, and basically what that is, is, you know, instead of setting yourself up for failure, I’m going to do it every day.

You say, okay, I’m going to do it two out of the seven days or three out of the seven days. Ladies, I want you to have success, and to have success, you have to do this process slowly. And I know your brain is so used to like, no, I want it off. I want the weight off. How has that worked? I just want you to ask yourself that question, because I tell ladies you’re going to lose weight the fastest you’ve ever lost it because you’re going to lose it and keep it off for good. See, I was on the diet roller coaster for 38 years and this process took me about two, two and a half, and so it was the fastest compared to the 38 years of dieting, of losing and gaining and losing and yo-yo dieting.

And so I just want something different for you. Jenn, what tip would you have for a lady who is new to us? Who’s just starting to learn this work, what would you tell her? I would say to give yourself grace. And remind yourself that you’re learning something new. And with that comes failure, comes figuring new things out. Right? Trying different ways. And it’s not going to be perfect. I mean, it will never be perfect. You know, there’s going to be times that you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, but that’s okay, because you don’t, you’re just learning. Just reminding yourself and giving yourself the credit that you are trying something different and new, even though you might be scared anyway. Keep showing up day by day, step-by-step and you’ll get there. And lean into the community that we provide, the support that we provide. Even if you’re not in Transform there’s other avenues to still get support, but just keep showing up.

Yeah, you got this my love. Jenn, Thank you for coming on. I love when Jenn comes and joins us. If you want to take this work deeper, start with my free course. It’s a great way. I talk about the three basics, three of the four. Just so again, you can go deeper into this work. So you can go to freebosscourse.com. And I will talk to you next week. All right, 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.