You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women Podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 164. 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 Christensen.

Woo. Hello, love. So happy to be back with you. And we are continuing, this is the third part in our getting rid of the diet beliefs and busting them. Kind of like that old show. I think it was called MythBusters. Cause there’s a lot of myths out there, and for sure in the diet industry, there’s a lot of myths. So today Jenn and I are gonna take you through the last of this series, and I’m excited because today, Ooh, we’ve got some diet beliefs, right, Jenn?

 Yes, Yes. So Jen, tell us our first one. Our first one today is the Clean Plate Club. Oh my gosh. You know, this really is a belief. I don’t know if it’s a diet belief, but it is a belief that for many of us, because many of our parents or grandparents grew up, you know, depression era or just, you know, they grew up just, you don’t waste. You don’t waste. And so we grew up with, you know, we’ve got to clean our plates. And I think so many ladies, this belief is strong.

And again, my dad, he grew up very poor. And because of that, it was just a no go in our house. Like you were gonna sit at that table until you cleaned your plate. I mean, there was just no getting around it. You ladies know, right? They used to say, Oh, you know, there’s third world countries and they don’t have food and you can’t waste food. And I just wanna bust this myth because this is the thing. I’m not saying to go out there and throw away food. So I wanna say that first before I say what I’m gonna say. Cuz ladies are like, I don’t wanna waste food. This isn’t about that. This is about waste. You’re gonna either waste it in the trash can, or you’re gonna waste it on your body and you get to decide.

So if you eat more food, then your body needs for fuel, then your body stores it as fat somewhere on your body. So you’re gonna either throw that in the trash or save it for the next day for leftovers, whatever you wanna do. But I know you’re not packaging that up, shipping it to, you know, a third world country. No, you’re not doing that. Neither am I. If I wanna help out and support someone I like send money or my time. I say this because it is just a old belief that plays in the back of our heads that we’ve gotta finish what’s on our plate. And what happens is we eat more than what we need for fuel, and then it just shows up on our body.

So you can waste it in the trash can, or you can waste it on your body. You decide. This one, I feel, I had this one for so long, like I was just like, and now I have no problem because this is the thing, ladies. We live in this crazy country that, I mean, I love our country, but when it comes to food, the sizes are too big. We have plus sized all our food. I mean, we have little tiny bellies, and we like have these meals that are just ridiculously big. And so I have no problem in eating half my meal and asking myself, Ooh, how am I feeling?

Am I feeling full? Oh, I’m feeling full, and either packaging it up for the next day or throwing it in the trash. And I tell you ladies, Oh, I mean this in all the ways, you can put it on your body, or you can put it in the trash. Like really, really think about this one ladies. I find this too. You know, Paul and I, we don’t have kids at home. You know, before, you know, it takes a while. I think for, especially if you had family at home and now your kids, you know, moved out and then you’re at home, or they’re busy, they’re teenagers and they don’t eat at home as much, and that transition into just two people in the home.

Or maybe you’re a single person and then everything you buy is like for 10 people and you’re like, Oh my gosh. I mean, there’s lots of tips. You can freeze it, you can do different things, but just don’t forget, don’t just eat it because it’s there. Jenn, anything else to add on this topic? When I think about this, I think about also ladies dealing with this in social settings, right? You go to a family barbecue or you go out to dinner with friends and family. Mostly, I think if somebody makes you food, you eat some, and then maybe you’ve heard this before, you know, you don’t finish it and they say, Oh, did you not like it?

And you start to feel this pressure that you not eating this food equates to them not being a good cook, or you don’t love them, or whatever that association might be. But that is again, just our thoughts around it, right? When we can just learn to disconnect from that and just say, Oh no, I’m just full. It was delicious. And stop and make it mean nothing, it changes us creating from our thoughts, those feelings of shame or guilt, and then eating till we’re overly full and being uncomfortable. Or maybe even sometimes for yourself, you’re just like, Oh, it’s so good. I just want that one more best bite. I’m just gonna keep, And you keep searching for it. And then the next thing you know, your plate is empty.

And so it just goes back to checking in with yourself, listening to your body, slowing down. We have ladies in the program that when they go out to eat, the first thing they do is they box up half their meal and get it to go so that they then aren’t overeating their foods. They know that they don’t eat all of that. I just love that little tip. Yeah, me too. Yeah, that’s a good one. You know ladies, it’s just, again, realizing that we do live in abundance. We have, for many of us, there’s enough food around. And just realizing that, again, at the end of the day, if you’re eating more fuel than you need, you’re just storing it as fat somewhere in your body.

I like Jenn brought up because I think, you know, my mom was a food pusher. I am. I can be too, right? I love watching people eat what I cook, so I understand it. But again, it’s very easy to just say, Oh my gosh, that was so delicious. I loved every bite, but I’m full. Like I’m so full right now. You know? And just telling them how great it was and loving them up. Everybody loves to hear that. I’m telling you, when people tell me how much they love my food, I’m like, Yes, I know. It’s so good, wasn’t it? So again, just love ’em up and tell ’em about it, right? So you don’t have to feel guilty and eat all of it. Just tell ’em how stuffed you are, right? Just be honest, right? So many times people pleasing. People pleasing is the biggest lie we do. We think we’re pleasing people, but basically we’re just lying to them.

We’re not telling them the truth, and we’re not being our authentic selves. I mean, that’s a whole other potty episode, but ooh, ladies, instead of just being honest, right? Ugh, it’s good. I love that one.

Okay, so what’s our next one, Jenn? Our next topic is thinking that we need to restrict to lose weight. Oh yeah. You know, ladies, I talked a little bit about this in the episode prior about abundance versus restriction. And I have to say, I always thought I had to restrict because scientifically, logically, I understand, right? This whole, if you eat less right, you will lose weight. I understand scientifically, but this is your thinking, your mind. When you think a resource is scarce like food, you think you can’t have it, then all you want is it. If you think that you don’t have enough food or you’re never gonna eat that cupcake again, then all that you want is to hurry up and last supper and eat it all. And you start to have these thoughts that you can’t have it.

And then Lizzie, your inner rebel is like, Oh my God, we gotta eat all of it all the time because we’re never gonna have this again. But you do have it again. And so when you change your thinking to abundant thinking, this is crazy, are you ready? When you go from restrictive thinking to abundant thinking, you actually end up eating less.

Let me say this again. When you go from restrictive thinking to abundant thinking, you actually eat less. See, we think that we need to tell ourselves we can’t have it, but when you say you can’t have it, then all you want is it. And then you overeat it and you binge on it. Rather than, I can eat whatever I want. I’m just choosing right now not to eat it cuz I don’t want it. I’m full. I don’t want it. So when you start to change your mindset around that, you know, when you look at all the things you eat in a week and you’re like, I eat all the things. I just stop when I’m starting to feel full. I don’t clean my plate anymore.

I don’t have to eat all of it. I eat it until I’m satisfied, until I’m feeling good. That is the key to all of this. And I tell you ladies, it takes a lot of support. This is why I’m so passionate about ladies coming in into Transform Boss. Because as you’re breaking your diet brain, as you’re learning new things, you have to think differently. You have to think differently than everything you’ve been taught. And it takes time, patience and a community of women who are doing and learning the same thing. I could talk about this one all day. I actually do in Healing You. It’s a whole workshop because it’s just, again, when we think we need to restrict, Lizzie goes crazy. Like, we’re not gonna eat that. We’re never gonna have food. And then goes back to your primitive cave days. Well then I’ve gotta hoard it, right?

If you look at your pantry and you got food for a month, I just want you to ask yourself why? Because you have this scarcity thinking around food, Jenn. Mm, It’s a good one. What do you think? Yeah, I think this is such perfect timing too, right? As the holidays start rolling around, right? We’ve got our favorite foods that everybody makes around the holidays, and that’s it. I would have favorite cookies my mom would make, or different things. My mom’s an excellent cook, and I would have this thought of like, Oh my gosh, I gotta eat all of these because I’m not gonna have ’em until next Christmas again. And the truth is, I can get the recipe or my mom would be more than happy, I’m sure to make these anytime I want throughout the whole year, right? But for me, when I thought about this restriction also creates this fear around food.

I had missed events because I was restricting, and I was afraid if I went to certain events, social settings, that I would overeat or I wouldn’t be able to control myself. Or I would have times that I truly was physically hungry, but I would deny myself that food because I was at my points, I was at my servings. I just look back and it’s like, oh, it makes me sad to think that I treated my body that way. Our bodies are these amazing things that just function high level for us every day without thinking. And when we can reconnect and fuel it with the foods that we want, and some that, you know, might not feel the best, but really show up and when we’re hungry, eat and when we’re not stop. This whole restriction is just fear based in my mind.

And so getting past that and knowing, like you said, that coming from an abundance mindset that all of this is always available and shoot, my inner Lizzie rubble is strong. And so it is that way when I tell her we can’t have something, she will make sure, I mean, this is just me in life too. I’m like, Oh, you tell me that I can’t do this. Watch me. And so when I say absolutely we can have anything, it’s like, oh, well, I kind of don’t want it. And so just pay attention when that pops up for you because it it is so true.

Yeah. That inner rebel is strong ladies. It almost feels like you’re eating behind your own back. You know, you told yourself you’re not going to eat it and then you eat it. You know, one of the tips that I love from our ladies is we had a lady who was really struggling with night eating and she decided, you know, I’m just gonna put it on my plan. I’m just gonna allow myself to have it. And that’s the crazy part, when you allow it, it takes out the naughtiness of it, the like, I can’t have it. I mean, ladies, when we think we can’t have it, all we want, is it? So it’s good.

All right, Jen, I think we have one more. Yes. Our last Myth Buster diet belief is around counting. So counting calories, counting points, counting all the things. Let me give it up for all my ladies. How many of you ladies, raise your hand right now if you have looked at a label, Oh my goodness, ladies, right? How many calories, how many fat grams, how many carbs? All the things. And I know that some of you ladies have health conditions and you’re like, but Shannan, I need to, But this is what, even my ladies who have health conditions, when you start to pay attention to how food feels in your body, when you become the scientist of your own body, you start noticing like, Oh, okay, when I eat this much of this, I don’t feel good, right?

Or I test my sugar and it goes up too high. You start to pay attention and notice, and then you can make decisions from that point. And I just say this because I think of my life today, and I pay more attention to what my body’s telling me. And I don’t count anything.

I don’t have a calorie limit or you know, all that stuff, or carbs or anything. And it’s not too ladies. I have tell you that day belief is strong. I mean, still, I’ll pick up something and, and I’m like, Oh my gosh, why are you reading the label? Like, because we’ve just done it for so long. When you, you know, start to tune into your own body and you start to pay attention to what, how it feels, your body will tell you when things don’t feel good, when you’ve eaten a little too much, or if you know certain things don’t agree with you, that is becoming the scientist of your body.

I don’t count anything. I don’t count carbs, calories, I don’t know. And neither do any of my ladies. We, we just, that’s nonsense. We just don’t do any of that. We just pay attention. We reconnect with our bodies, which I think to me is the most powerful part of this work, is letting your beautiful, miraculous body be your guide. We have relied on all these folks who have no idea, our body makeup, what our body needs, our health, whatever it is, and we have just let them guide us. And it’s just steered us to this place where, you know, we’re struggling, where we feel hopeless, where we feel like we don’t know what to do. Should I eat carbs? Should I not?

Should I mean, oh my gosh, there’s so much conflicting information out there, ladies, if I looked at one study, I could show you another study that tells you the exact opposite. And so I just say, lose the confusion. Ask your body. It’s the best thing. And, and you know, you know, we like to be confused. Lizzie likes to tell us that we don’t know. We don’t know, but we know. We know if we pay attention.

What do you think, Jenn? Mm, I love that. Lose the confusion. That’s good. Yeah, I just, you know, when I think of counting, it physically creates like a heaviness in my body. Automatically I’m like, I don’t wanna do it. No, keep me away from it. For me, it just became all consuming when I was doing it, right? All day long. Because this is the thing, ladies, before I started this work and got to know it all day long, I was thinking about food. So then if I have to think about calories, I have to think about points. Whatever it is that I’m doing, these were thoughts that were constantly going through my mind all day trying to keep a running tally of what was going into my body.

You know, it made me do a couple things. It made me just stick to the same foods because over time you better bet I had those things memorized. I knew exactly what calories foods had or what points foods had and how much to have. And then the other thing is when I would be in a space of just being tired from the day, the week, whatever it was, it felt like such work just to eat food. I should say eat the right foods at the time what I thought, right? Stay on my plan, that I just threw it out the window for that day. You know, I’m too tired today to count, so I’ll just start tomorrow. I’ll be good again tomorrow.

I just didn’t feel like doing it and I didn’t need to do that was the thing. But from what I knew at the time, it led me to all or nothing. I was either obsessing over making sure I was getting to the exact serving size, the exact calories, or I was on the other side binging. And so neither way was helping me. It’s just heavy when I think about counting, Oh, I know we did it for so long. I counted calories in my head for so long points in my head. Oh my gosh. I used to know all the points to all the things, and then it’d be like, Ooh, free food. And then I’d be like eating. I remember I used to make this concoction.

I mean, it was literally chemicals. I mean, I had some strawberries in there too, but it was like this whole sugar-free jello with, I can’t even remember with like strawberries and whatever. And it was like this thing, and I’d be like, Oh, it’s free. I can eat all of it, you know? And it’s just like, until I was sick and had red dye, I mean just, yeah. Oh, when I think about it and oh, I don’t know ladies, it’s just, this is the thing. Jenn and I have gone through lots of different myths and you know, I think what we lose when we just focus on dieting and losing weight, we just miss out on the beauty of our lives.

We miss out on the joy and the fun and our dreams and our goals. We just put ’em all in a closet and then we just focus. And so because we have all our dreams and our goals sitting in the closet, and we’re living these robotic lives for everyone else, we just forget. We just forget. You know, I just wrote this email while I was at the cabin because you know, my daughter-in-law is pretty spectacular. And you know, she’s a mother of five. She runs the back end of our business. She is just amazing. She’s young. I mean, she’s just amazing. And she’s also learning the drums. And she has this dream of playing on the stage at her church and being in the band because she has dreams.

And this is the thing, and it’s funny because, you know, I love watching young people because I think as we age, we just forget to dream. We forget ourselves. We get into all these other things, and then our best dream is, Oh, this Saturday I’m gonna pick up a bundt cake. And it’s like, what? Like that’s your best dream. That a food, I mean, ugh, ladies, our lives are bigger than that. We were here for a purpose. We are talented and capable, and we have all these different hobbies and talents and all these things, and we just put ’em in a closet. And then we’re sad and we’re depressed. We have anxiety, we have all these things.

And we’re like, Well, no wonder we forgot how to dance. We forgot how to listen to the music. The music of our lives, ladies. And we have literally relied on a cupcake or a slice of pizza. And I just wanna tell you, you’re worth more than that. I know that for sure. So go grab your hobbies and your dreams and your goals, Pull ’em up out of that closet. Because then food will become the least important thing in your life. I’m gonna drop the mic and leave that. Go pull those dreams and those goals out of that closet and start living the life that you were meant to live. I love you ladies. And if you wanna take this work deeper than take my free course at freebosscourse.com. I’ll see you next week. All right, Bye for now love.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and wanna learn more, come on over to bflycoaching.com. See you next week.

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