You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 154. 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 with you. Today we are going to answer the questions. You know, we get a good bit of questions and I wanted to do a couple of episodes based on all of the different questions we get around losing weight, losing it for the last time, challenges, all the things. And I asked coach Jenn from Transform Boss Weight Loss to come on and join me because you know, I just love her. And it’s so fun when she’s on. So we are going to answer all the questions today. So I’m so excited.

So, coach Jenn, how are you doing today? Fabulous. Are you excited? Yeah. I always love recording these with you. I know, they’re so fun. Right? Okay. So Jenn is going to ask the questions. We are just going to dive right in today. That’s how we’re doing it today. All right. First question is, are there foods that we have to have on hand, you know, along with this program, are there certain foods that we need to have on hand? You know, we get this question a lot, especially when ladies are new, especially if they’re doing something free, whether it’s the free challenges or the free course, every time we’ve started something new to lose weight, someone has said, here’s the food plan. Here’s the food plan, right? And it’s just created this expectation that to lose weight, someone needs to tell you what to eat.

And what I teach is so different because I will never give you a food plan. You don’t have to go out and buy any food. You don’t have to, you know, last supper it and eat all the foods and then, you know, throw away whatever you have left. You don’t have to clear out your pantry. None of that. I’m going to teach you how to lose weight enjoying the foods that you enjoy. You know, I always heard this saying  like, you need to change your lifestyle. You need to, you know, revamp everything about you. And I had this belief too. And I think when ladies first come, it’s so hard to believe that they know the answer, it’s within them. It’s inside them. And they know how to, their body knows. We don’t trust our bodies. You know, after so long, we just stopped trusting our bodies.

And this process that I teach women is how to reconnect with their body, how to heal from it, this, you know, diet trauma that we’ve experienced with this food plan and that food plan and cut out the carbs, you know, all the things. So ladies, when you come into Transform Boss Weight Loss, you don’t need to change your lifestyle. You don’t need to throw out any food in your pantry. You don’t need to buy anything special. You just need to come. That’s all.

Jenn, what would you add? Yeah. This was something that when I started my brain really did a little explosion. Like what? No. Tell me what I need to do. Tell me what I need to eat, because I was so used to in the past, having certain foods for myself and then certain foods for my family. Right. And having to essentially white knuckle it to not eat what they’re eating and feeling this restriction. And so I really do think that this is one of the things that in the long run does remind you, that you have all the answers within you and it gives you this freedom. You find that when you can eat whatever you want without restriction, you’ll learn that you really don’t want it as much as you think you do. Yeah. Isn’t that crazy? When you think you can’t have it, then all you want is you want it. Right. It’s kind of like with anything, right?

Even if you watch, I love watching little kids, right? When you tell them they can’t have something, then they obsess, but can I have it? Can I have it? When can I have it? When I know I’m going to have it right. That’s how our brains are. Our brain is literally like a toddler. And so anytime you’re like, no, we can’t have that anymore, your brain, Lizzy, is just going to pipe up and be like, that is what we need. We must have it. And so, healing your relationship with food is really starting to think of food as abundant, and that you can eat anything. You can eat anything that’s out there.

You know, when you learn that and know that, and you don’t have to have different food and you just pay attention to your body, we do. One of the basics that I teach is how to start to find your hunger and fullness. That is the counterbalance to eating all the food, is when you connect with your body. When your body’s like, oh yeah, we’re full, then you stop. It’s, I’m telling you. It’s so good. Oh good. Oh, that was a good question.

Well, Shannan doesn’t know these questions, but that’s a perfect segue into our next question. How do I eat a small amount and stop? Ooh, this is just, I mean, it is a perfect segue. I don’t know the questions actually. It’s so interesting. Jenn gathered them, but it’s all about reconnecting with your own body. Your body has actual hormones, leptin and ghrelin, that tell you when you’re physically hungry, and when you’re getting full. And what’s happened over time is we have disconnected. We don’t trust our bodies. We don’t trust ourselves anymore because we’ve broken commitments. And because we mindlessly eating, we’re not paying attention. We’re not savoring the food.

You know, ladies always tell me they love food, but Shannan, I love food. I’m like, you do? Because you didn’t even taste what you just ate. I did this too. There’s no judgment. But when you don’t even enjoy your food, you’re just eating it to eat. And you’re, you know, scrolling social media. You’re standing up at the kitchen counter. You’re running through a drive-through and you’re eating it before you get home because you’re secretly eating it and you don’t want anyone to know. My love, that’s just disconnection from your authentic self and your body.

And so I teach this really simple basic of asking yourself two simple questions. Am I hungry physically? And how am I feeling? These two simple questions bring you into your thinking brain. You know, you have to meet yourself where you’re at. When you meet yourself where you’re at, whatever you’re eating currently today, you can’t go from eating all the things to just eating this very small amount or chicken and salad. You have to kind of step into it as you reconnect with your body. This is so important. Ladies will resist this because of diet culture, diet trauma, but I promise you want success. You do it slowly. You meet yourself where you’re at. And then you ask yourself just these two simple questions. And then you start to slowly Uplevel, right? It’s just amazing when you can start to feel fullness, when you can start to feel it, when you can start to tell the difference between emotional hunger and physical hunger, and when you’re craving something emotionally, telling yourself the truth, right? We don’t tell ourselves the truth about that. That’s for sure.

But like, oh, I need this. I deserve it. It’s going to bring me comfort. And you live in a body that doesn’t feel good. You live in a body that you don’t have freedom in, you don’t even like your body. You say horrible things about it. So that food, when you tell yourself it’s comfort, that’s not a comfort. It’s a two-minute dopamine hit. And then the truth is it brings you so much pain. And just getting really honest with yourself about it. I know that’s a long answer. Ask yourself two simple questions and then start the process of reconnecting with your body and paying attention and enjoying and savoring your food and meet yourself where you’re at.

All right Jenn, what else? What did I forget? I know, you know, all the things. No, I just, as you’re speaking, what popped into my head was yes, yes, yes. But I think, yeah, we are just so disconnected from our bodies. We don’t realize that we shouldn’t be feeling this way, right? This constant state of bloat or fullness or a bellyache, we think sometimes that’s just how it’s supposed to be. I think that it begins with, you know, just leaving one bite on your plate and asking yourself those questions. And I think that you’ll be amazed that you really are full. Right. And I was queen of running away from all these emotions that I didn’t want to feel and telling myself those things, like I deserve it after this day or this will make me feel better.

And in the end, it didn’t, right. It just added to me feeling fuller and pushing those emotions down. I love the question too, of would a chicken breast do? If you don’t know if it’s physical hunger or emotional, ask yourself that question, and if you’re not physically hungry your brain will be like, Ooh, no, I don’t know. Not a chicken breast. And so that is a little tip that always, when my mind wants to play tricks on me, I always go ask that. And I know immediately if it’s physical or if it’s emotional. Oh yeah. Such a good question. Right? Because if my brain is like, no, only that donut will do Shannan. Then I’m like, oh shoot. I don’t want to feel a feeling. You know, I want to disconnect. I want a little dopamine. Right? And so, but dopamine is such a quick fix, right? It’s just this really immediate, quick fix. But two minutes, five minutes, two hours, two days later, it’s not there anymore. And then you just need more and you need more of it.

And allowing yourself, we teach a concept in Transform Boss about how to allow an urge. So when you feel this urge, how to allow it without taking action, without overeating, without eating what you’re not hungry for. And we also teach how to allow feelings, how to sit and process emotion. And this is deep work my love. I mean, it is deep work, but it is the best work. Really. When you can allow yourself to feel any emotion without taking negative action, or you can allow yourself to feel an urge and not overeat. And then you start doing that over and over again. Suddenly you’re like, holy moly, I really don’t want to eat it.

And that moment when you’re like, holy moly, I have donuts on my kitchen counter and I don’t want to eat them. You feel so powerful. That is what this work will do for you. It’s so powerful when you’re just like, oh, that’s right. I don’t want that pizza. I don’t want that cupcake. Not, I can’t have it. I can’t have it puts you in a victim mode. Right. Then you’re like, oh, I can’t have up. And then Lizzie is like, okay, well we got to eat all of it then instead of I don’t want it. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. It’s so powerful. It’s so powerful. It is. It’s taking that power back when you realize I don’t want it or I don’t need it. And I’m choosing that for myself. It is just the biggest confidence boost. It’s so empowering.

The next question is how do you listen to your body to know when you’re hungry or when you’re satisfied? Oh yeah. Yeah. So every body is different. And I mean, like for real right? We all have different fingerprints. We all have different bodies. We have different genetics, different makeups, different body types, all the things. Right. And so I think a couple things, if you are wanting to know what hunger feels like in your body, one of the things to do is just in the morning, usually for most folks, if you have a normal schedule, you don’t eat at night, you sleep for most folks.

So when you wake up, you might just like, normally go and get breakfast. So instead of doing that, just allowing yourself to kind of extend that a couple hours so that you can start to see what hunger feels like. For me, I feel a little emptiness in my tummy. I might feel too, like if I let it go too far, I’ll feel a little lightheaded. I start to feel a little low energy when I start to get physically hungry. And also my brain now will start to say like, Hey, we’re hungry. Like, I’ll start to have thoughts like, oh, I need to eat. Hunger really feels to me just like this little emptiness in my belly.

And then again, I, my brain really does tell me like, Hey, I’m getting hungry. And then I ask myself, is this physical hunger? When you ask yourself questions, your body will respond. I know it sounds crazy. But once you do this over and over, it will. Then your body will be like, no, we’re not hungry. And then you’re like, oh, okay. Right. Like it just happens over time. Now feeling full for me, for sure. I know I’m full with two things. When I start not paying attention, meaning I’m grabbing my phone or I want to get up from the table. That is my first. My second is when my brain is like, you need the perfect bite. When I’m like looking for the perfect bite on my plate. When I’m trying to have that first bite experience. The first bite is always the best bite. Every bite after that just is diminishing returns. So the first bites the best, then every bite after just gets worse and worse. When you’re looking, and when I’m searching for that perfect bite, I know immediately. I know immediately I’m full. So those are my two.

Jenn, what about you? My hunger is very similar to yours. Just a slight lightheadedness, right. And low energy is how I can usually tell. Even mood shifts. Right? Like sometimes I’ll be a little more snappy and then I’m like, oh, okay. I may need some food, getting that hangry going on. And then for satisfaction, for me when I’m full, it is a sigh. Like I have noticed over time that my body naturally lets out a sigh when I’m beginning to get full, you know, and I just have to pay attention. Cause my brain sometimes will notice that I sigh, but be like just a couple more bites. But I have to remind myself it’s, you’re fine. Like, it just goes back to that abundance and scarcity.

Right. And just knowing it’s going to be there. And so just paying attention to those signals. But I think those would be mine for hunger and fullness. Yeah. That sigh. Or even like your belly extends a little, right. Ladies, it’s just asking yourself like, how am I feeling? When you say to yourself, how am I feeling? And you go into your body and you’re like, how’s my tummy feeling. How’s my chest feeling. How’s my breathing. Right. Like if I’m stuffed like a turkey, I can’t breathe. Like I feel like I’m pregnant again. Like I’m like, oh, okay. I’m way past full. Right. That’s how, you know, like you have like gone past full, right.

Suddenly you’re like, oh shoot. My breathing is restricted. I mean, if you think about your poor little stomach, it’s not very big. I mean, no matter who you are. Right. Even though I stretch my stomach out, for sure. Like the internal stomach, even then still, it’s not that big. I love to visualize my stomach. Like really like inside my internal stomach and think like, okay, like Shannan, you have three plates of enchiladas. Maybe that’s not gonna fit. Right. So just again, just paying attention and just having some grace with yourself, asking yourself just some simple questions.

Ooh. I love this episode. You know, ladies, you’re going to want to join us for next week. We have more questions. I mean, we only got through three questions, but you know, ladies, I don’t like to make the episodes too long because I want you to have quick hits. So join us next week. We’re going to continue, we’re going to go through a few more questions. And if you want to take this work deeper, make sure you go to freebosscourse.com, and take my free course. 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.