You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women Podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 199. 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. I’m so happy to be back with you and today’s a very special episode.

We actually have a few special episodes planned for you because we are coming up on our 200th episode. Can you even believe it? I mean, when I think about 200 weeks, you and me, I mean, maybe you haven’t been here the whole time, but maybe you’ve listened to them all. So here we are, 200 episodes together. This episode’s 1 99,

next week’s 200, I mean 200. I still kind of can’t put my mind. 200 weeks I’ve shown up. How cool is that? It’s the best, I think. So what I wanted to do is bring on my coaches and we’re gonna do a few episodes like this in the next few. And then really just talk about their journey so that it can help you on yours.

You know, ladies, this podcast is weight Loss for Successful Women. And you know, when I decided the name for the podcast, when I started thinking about what I wanted for this podcast, really was to help women who were similar in the journey that I had been on, where I had been on the diet rollercoaster for so long. I had,

you know, struggled with my weight for so long and it affected me in so many areas of my life. I was successful. I had a husband that I adored family love, you know, a career that many people dreamed of the career I was having. And yet in my brain, because I carried so much weight, I felt like an imposter.

And so, as you listen to the next few episodes, I want to introduce you to these beautiful women. They’ve all been on the podcast before, but today’s podcast is gonna be with Coach Kelly and Coach Andrea. They are weight loss coaches and so much more. They’re gonna do a brief introduction and they’re gonna tell you a little bit about themselves, and then we’re gonna talk about how they have helped clients succeed.

What is the difference that they have seen in helping ladies to get off the diet rollercoaster? So Coach Kelly, I would love if you just reacquainted yourself with all our listeners. They’re listening in all sorts of countries all over the world. And just tell a little snippet about you and your journey here in Transform Boss. Yes, I am Kelly Pridgen, coach Pridgen.

Been with Transform about three years. Came to Shannan on a challenge through Facebook. My message was to her, you know, do you help women with anxiety? Mm. I had been on the rollercoaster for 43 years up and down the scale, and I had been in a job for 17 years. I felt burned out. I felt like I’d lost myself.

I had been on, you know, some crazy diet, all the diets, any of the diets. I’ve tried all of them. I had been on a diet for like a year when I got up into my late fifties. Been on it for a year, lost 10 pounds. And so when I contacted Shannan and I said, do you help people with anxiety?

Cuz that was my main problem that I was having along with my weight. And I think she said, Kelly, I help women feel their feelings. And I just wanted something different. I had been on so many diets and so many times just failed. And I wanted something different that I could do for the rest of my life. I didn’t want a new diet,

I didn’t want a new exercise program. Right? Yes. I think the exercise world is the side hustle to the diet industry, and I just wanted something that I could sustain. I didn’t want to find a new diet. I didn’t want to find something outside of myself. So yeah, I’ve been here three years and I lost 40 pounds. But the really best part about it is that I’ve maintained that 40 pound weight loss.

Mm. For probably two years. Yeah. I just love this program, the community. I got to be promoted to a coach, which I am enjoying immensely because it keeps me engaged as well, working with women, trying to empower them to really, one of Shannan’s great questions is just because you have a thought doesn’t make it true. And so challenging women,

is that really true? Yeah. Because we make up these kind of drama stories about what life is really about it. Is it really true? Yeah. I think Kelly, that it’s the foundation of the work. You know, ladies, I, it’s so funny, I was just coaching someone yesterday and I was like, I can give you all the actions to take,

but we can’t action our way to losing weight. So you can’t just do the things, because if that were true, then I could just hand you a diet plan and then you could just do it. But that’s not how it works. You actually have to start to think differently. You have to practice different thoughts. You have to start to just become aware.

I think we live like robots. I mean, I don’t know about you, Kelly, Andrea Yeah. I live like a robot most of my life. Yeah. And so just coming into constant awareness over and over. But Kelly, you’re a coach in Transform, you also work, you are wife, mother, grandmother, and you know, you turned 60 this year.

Woo. I did. Right? I mean, yeah. Would you ever have thought that here you are at 60, like, I mean, I’m sure you had a different vision of what you thought 60 looks like. What’s different about you than what you thought you would be at 60? Yeah. You know, came from a very hard working family.

You know, you find a job, you work hard and work harder than anybody else, right? And then you retire. And so, you know, I was in this job of 17 years. I loved my job. I was great at it, but I’d kind of lost my confidence. And because I stopped dreaming, it was like, this is the end of the road.

I’m at this job, I’m going to retire at this job. And I was just so unfulfilled because like you said, we live as robots. We put ourselves down at the bottom of the list, we do everything for everybody else. And then you have nothing left for yourself. No dreams, no aspirations. When I came into this program, I just love the coaching piece of it because it really gets under like,

what is that underlying thought, that underlying feeling of what’s really going on? And the best thing that I like to share with my coaching clients is that the feelings that we have, I was in the mental health world for many years, and people ask you, how do you feel? I feel fine. We really are not connected to how I, how we feel and how those feelings manifest in our bodies.

And so, because I was in so much anxiety, I pushed everything down with food. I didn’t wanna feel those feelings because I thought I would get stuck there, right? I’m don’t want to feel anxiety, right? What I mean, that’s no fun. And so when I started to realize that I’m feeling it in my body, where in my body,

like am I getting a stomach ache? Is my heart racing? And to let that process through my body, I didn’t need to reach for food. I didn’t need to over-exercise. I didn’t need to give the beat downs because I dealt with that emotion. And so that has been the best thing that I, besides the community here, the best thing that has helped me move ahead.

I mean, I can be sitting in the car and feel anxiety or some type of frustration. I can just go through my body and just feel it. And then I don’t have to take a negative action. I don’t have to say, where’s the chocolate? Or where’s the, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So good. Coach, Andrea, tell the ladies,

introduce yourself and tell ’em a little bit about you. Hi, my name is Andrea Abeln. I am now a coach for Transform. But I started back at the height of the pandemic in March of 2020 when I had been on the diet rollercoaster like Coach Kelly, 40 plus years. And I’ve can’t even tell you how many times I’ve actually gotten down to my goal weight only to gain it back again.

And I had just gotten so frustrated. And then one day I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw an ad and it said, you can teach us how to lose weight by eating the foods that we love. And I found that rather intriguing. I was like giving up the things that I love. How can I lose weight and add the things that I love?

But really, I mean, it is a weight loss program and we focus on weight loss. But I have learned to love myself along that weight loss journey because I always thought that when I get there, I will be happy. I will just love myself and take good care of myself when I get there. Well, you know, I’ve learned that there really is no there,

through the work I’ve learned the eating basics and how to change my thoughts around food, I’ve learned to improve my relationships, not only with myself, which you know, is the most important relationship that we have, but also my relationship with my family and my friends. And then I also got a new job after 19 years because I just didn’t think that I was worthy.

And this work has shown me that I am worthy. And so now I have a job that pays more money and I have greater appreciation from the people that I work with. And through all that, I have even lost 30 pounds and have kept it off. So, ooh, Ooh. So good, right? I love when you said there is no there.

That’s so mic drop. Ladies, if you miss that, let’s go back there. There is no there. There is no place like happy place that when I lose all the weight, everything is gonna be better When this happens, it’s gonna be better. When that happens. There isn’t.Life is this just up and down, ebb and flow, forwards backwards.

Good things happen, bad things happen, and it’s full of emotion. And I want all of you ladies, just right now, wherever you’re listening to this, I want you to think back to the past 24 hours. How many different emotions have you felt? Happiness, joy, frustration, boredom, fear, tired, heavy, right? Where you’re just like,

oh, dread. Right? And so we have these emotions and we just ebb and flow. You know, Kelly said this, Andrea said this. I think the important thing, ladies, as you start to begin to do this work, is knowing that losing weight is not about a food plan. Changing your life is not about doing more. More does not equal better.

It’s about starting to think differently so that you can feel differently and feel all the emotions, whatever they are, without taking that negative action. So Andrea, when you think about, you know, clients that you’ve met with, coaching clients that you’ve helped, and you think about feeling feelings, what has helped you in that? You know, I think when ladies start doing feelings work,

they’re like, eh, I don’t know. Or even doing this work, what has helped you or your clients when it comes to this emotional part of ourselves? What has helped you? Just knowing that emotions are there, and if we push them down and push them down, they’re just gonna fester and get bigger and bigger. And you’re not always gonna be able to feel that emotion the first time,

but you just keep working at it and you’ll be able to feel those emotions. And once you feel an emotion and let it go through your body, an emotion will only be with you for like 90 seconds. And then you can move on. Keep feeling those feelings. And don’t be afraid to feel those feelings because you have done hard things and you have felt emotions,

and you’re still here and you will still continue to be here. Yes, I love it, Andrea. That’s what we think. If I feel this emotion, this is it. I’m, you know, I, I won’t get out of this emotion. And what I find through my own work and watching our clients do their own work and, and all of you ladies,

is that when you start to feel emotion, you feel the release of it too. And it feels so good. Like if you’re feeling it meant sadness, immense fear, anxiety, to allow yourself to feel it and process it through your body and then feel the release of it, I find is just so like, oh, I almost feel like a peacefulness,

a calmness when I like release an emotion. Mm. That’s good. So Kelly, ladies, you know, we say we’re gonna work on your thinking, right? We’re gonna change your thoughts, Woohoo. Change your mindset. And I think for ladies, when we first hear this, it sounds exciting. Like, yes, I wanna think differently, right?

And we have this fantasy that I’m gonna think differently and then magic’s gonna happen. And magically I’m gonna just feel good all the time. And I’m gonna think positive thoughts all the time. But what’s the real deal about thinking differently? We have a life that is not always happy, that it’s not always positive. And so when we think about a thought that we,

you know it, what happens is we just keep thought looping about this thought, right? And it creates a feeling which creates what we do. And so if we can change this thought, and it doesn’t have to be to sunshine and rainbows, it can be just a one step better thought that can get you to some new feelings that help you act in a different way.

Because if I’m on this, I don’t matter. I’m gonna feel depressed and I’m gonna withdraw. If I can just go one step up, I’m learning something different. For me, it gives me this feeling of hope and it helps me to show up for myself. Just, you know, one thing today that I can show up for, your brain resists it because in the prefrontal cortex of our brain,

you have to use that part of your brain where your brain would rather be on automatic mode, Lizzie kind of mode, kind of safety mode. But if we practice those new thoughts, if we put ’em on our walls, if we put ’em on our phone, your brain gets that confirmation of, oh yeah, I am doing something different. It’s a progression.

It does not happen. Just like, woo, you know, it’s up and down and sideways. It just really challenges those limiting beliefs that you’ve been told as a kid, from trainers, from parents, from teachers, from our family, of how we should behave and act in this world. And like I said, is it the truth for you?

Is it your truth? Yeah, I love all of this because this is the real deal because we think weight loss is about the food. And if I just exercised more, obviously that’s not true Work. I mean, if it was true, then it wouldn’t be a bazillion trillion dollar industry, right? It’s not true. Because everything starts with we have a thought,

it causes us to feel something and then we do or don’t do something. And so really just starting to think differently. And you know, ladies, I always like to say this, so I’ll give my little thing, is it work? Yes. But you’re already doing work. You’re already struggling, you’re already living in a body that you don’t love.

Living in a mind that is my mind. Untamed is not a place anyone wants to be, right? Living in doubt and fear and shame and guilt all the time. Feeling like you’re an imposter, feeling like you can’t do it. Well, my love that is work. And so is it work? What we’re teaching, what we’re showing? Yeah,

it’s work. Ladies welcome. And this is the best work of your life. So Coach Andrea, I would love for you to leave the ladies with your favorite quick tip that they can take away and do today. For me, it’s the thoughts and just trying to come up with something that you can believe that’s just that one step better because it’s your thoughts that determine your actions and your outcomes.

And without being able to change my thoughts, I would still be where I was three and a half years ago. Yeah. But through learning to change my thoughts and the supportive community that we have has also helped because if I am struggling with the thought that I’m having, the coaches and the other members of our sisterhood are there to lift me up and to help me to come up with a one better thought that I can believe if I seem to be struggling in that area.

Area. Oh, love it. Kelly, you talked about thoughts. Any tip on how to start to create a one better thought? Because I think we wanna go from, I hate my body, or I can’t lose weight to, I can lose weight, I’m doing it, but it doesn’t work. Cuz when you’re beginning this work, you don’t quite believe that.

Yeah. Well, I think there’s a lot of things in Transform that get you into awareness, right? That we have these thoughts. Like I think I was coached on that. I talk, you know, very negative to myself and I was like, no, I don’t. But then when you really examine it, when you’re really aware and coming out of that automatic thought zombie land,

then you can come up with that next best thought on the ladder. And we talk about a ladder. And when you start doing this thought work, it’s that awareness. You catch yourself. Like if you’re in a situation or you know, something comes up and it’s kind of an awareness of, oh, I do have this thought cycle, I do have a tool to help me,

you know, get to that next thought. And so, because I think we are in just so much automatic brain, and our brain prefers to be there because it uses less energy. So it wants to always go back to that automatic of what we’ve learned, what we know. And so there’s many tools in Transform that help you get to that awareness,

which then prompts you to do some of the thought work. I love it. And Kelly mentioned the latter. And I think ladies, you know, as you start to do this work, one of the easiest ways is to just test the thought with yourself. Like, can I believe this? So for example, if you’re like, I can’t lose weight,

that feels bad. But if I said, you know, I’m learning something different, it feels a little better to me. Right? And then I just test it and, and can I somewhat believe that? So it’s just another quick tip, ladies that we wanna leave you with in today’s show. And I wanna thank Coach Andrea and Coach Kelly, they’re beautiful.

Come into Transform and join us. If you wanna learn how to take this work deeper, go to jointransformboss.com and you can learn all about coming and joining us and really doing this work deeper. 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 wanna learn more,

come on over to bflycoaching.com. That’s bflycoaching.com. See you next week.