You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women Podcast with Shannan Christensen, episode number 175. 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.

Hello love. So happy to be back with you. Are you loving the T-BOSS takes? I love them. Over 2023, I’m gonna share my best tips and learnings from myself and my clients. You know, I was on the diet rollercoaster for most of my life, and I know how frustrating it can be. Whether you have a hundred pounds or 10 pounds, I know what it’s like to be successful in every or most areas of your life, but this is the one thing that you think is holding you back.

It overshadows everything. This year is about transformation. It’s about becoming the next version of yourself. This is why my membership program is called Transform Boss. Because I love transformation and I believe to transform you have to become the boss of your own life. No one is coming to save you. You are the one who will transform your life, your weight, because you are the boss.

In today’s take, I wanna talk all about the exercise. I wanna give you my take on it. If you’ve been on the diet rollercoaster, you have been told at some point that you must exercise to lose weight, and it’s not true. You can lose weight and never do any cardio or lift weights. You can lose weight by eating more fuel food, and stopping when you’re approaching satiated. You can’t exercise your way to losing weight. I know that some folks will sell you on it, but eating more food than your body needs for fuel is why you carry extra weight.

Now, your brain may be going through all your old diet beliefs, but Shannan, I get more muscle and burn more and increase my metabolism. I know my love. For most of us, we cannot put on enough muscle or do enough exercise to really make that much of a difference. For most of us, we don’t have time or the desire to spend 6 to 8 to 10 hours in the gym. Yeah, it’s really what it would take to make that big of a difference.

I’m telling you this because to lose weight for the long term, you have to disconnect exercise and weight loss. If you do a bunch of cardio, it actually can make you hungrier and then you eat more. So that hour you spent on the treadmill, you just ate two to five times the amount that you burned off. It’s also important to disconnect the two because it can lead you to thinking, well, I walked today and I’ve not lost any weight. This is not working. And then at dinner you think, it’s not working, I might as well eat dessert or eat more than what I’m hungry, physically hungry for. When ladies come and work with me in Transform Boss, I tell them not to start an exercise program if they’re not already doing one, because it will just mind bleep them.

I can’t think of another word. I’m sorry. I apologize, but I can’t. Do you remember Biggest Loser? I mean, they exercised for like 8 to 10 hours a day. They lost weight, but as soon as they got back to their regular lives, they gained it all back. We’ve been sold a bill of goods and we still wanna believe it.

Exercising can actually sabotage your weight loss, because you think you can eat more because you’re building muscle and burning it off. It’s so mind twisty. This is my take on it. I believe in movement. Our bodies love to move. We generally like when we feel strong, and as we age, we have to stretch to keep our flexibility. I like to walk because I like nature. I like how it clears my mind. I do not move my body to lose weight or maintain my weight. I do it because my body loves it.

I like to lift the weight or a 24 pack of water because I like to feel strong. I stretch, Ooh, because my body loves it. I do not do any of this with time requirements or with punishment. I do it because I like it and my body likes it. I do not think if I go out for a 30-minute walk, ooh, I just burned a whopping 50 calories. I mean ladies, for real, you must move in whatever capacity your body can because it feels good. I’ve been sitting today because I’m writing and recording. I stop about every 45 minutes. I get up, I walk around, I stretch because I start to get stiff, and my body wants me to do it.

Ladies will tell me I hate exercise. Well, I do too. And what I mean by that is exercise, the word, is some diet punishment to lose weight, and it doesn’t work. But I love movement. I love putting on a song and dancing or singing. I love going to the park with my grandkids. I love disc golf, Frisbee golf, because I love being outside. I love throwing things and it has a little competition, which I love too. I love standing for a bit at my desk while I work. I love walking and watching the sky or listening to a podcast. I love cleaning and making my home look beautiful.   And I love stretching my body. It feels so good.

So my take, number one, move your body, because it likes it, not to lose weight. Number two, again, never do it to lose weight. It will really mess with your mind. Number three, lose all the time requirements. Just go have fun, move that body. And most importantly number four, have fun. Have fun, my love.

Next week, let’s dive into what I like to call goodbye eating and how it really hinders your weight loss efforts. And as always, if you wanna take this word deeper, then check out Transform Boss. It’s my monthly membership program where you will learn how to lose weight for the last time and get off that diet rollercoaster. It’s based on coaching, community, and coursework. You can learn more about it at jointransformbos.com. Bye for now.

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.