Ep #11: 2 Simple Tools for Weight Loss that We Overlook

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 11.

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 am just so excited to be with you again. I absolutely love these podcasts. It’s becoming one of my favorite things. I hope yours too. In today’s show, we are going to dive into two simple tools that are key to helping you lose weight. Sleep and water.

Now, this is my fourth bonus fundamental in my free mini course. Now, I know ladies, we have been told about these before. But today, I am going to dive in deep and give you some simple steps so that you can incorporate this into your plan. And as always, I’ll leave you with a couple of transformational questions so that you can start taking action today.

But of course, you know I love my ladies, so I want to give a listener shout-out. This is where every week, I will read a review of the podcast. This week’s listener shout-out is to BBJ1128.

She wrote, “I’m so grateful for finding you and these podcasts. I have been a part of the roller coaster for more years than I like to think about. Just as I was ready to throw in the towel, I found BFLY and these podcasts. I have been listening during my morning routine, my drive to and from work, and in the evening. You are the cheerleader I’ve needed. Thank you for sharing your stories and your teachings. I no longer feel alone in my thoughts. You rock.”

Thank you so much, BBJ1128. And ladies, if you love this show, please rate and review it. I would be so grateful. So as I’m recording this, my birthday was yesterday. I love my birthday and that it’s always around Thanksgiving. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year.

I just love this time of year. I like all of the celebrations. Spending time with my family, and all of the different traditions we have. I remember when I was on the diet roller coaster, it would be all about the food for me. I was either on a restrictive diet or completely off. But to be honest love, usually during the holidays, I would be totally off. You know what I’m saying.

I would be eating anything I could get my hands on. And it’s so different for me now. I make my realistic plan and I eat mostly foods that fuel me. I like feeling good. I like eating foods that fuel me while still enjoying some of the things that don’t fuel me, like a birthday cake.

I, for sure, had birthday cake last Saturday night and I ate cheesecake yesterday. I had a couple bites, I slowed down, enjoyed them, and when I was satiated, I stopped. I mean love, that is the magic. There’s no more deprivation. There’s no more full-out binge. It’s just making my realistic plan and making it realistic.

Now, my daughter-in-law’s birthday is one day before mine and we always celebrate together. We had a party last Saturday night. We had so much fun and it was so great spending time together, loving up on those grandbabies. I mean, oh my goodness, they are just so cute.

My little Wyatt, he has a full man bun because his hair is so curly. My daughter-in-law completely wants to keep it growing and my son is like, let’s cut it. I’m kind of with my daughter-in-law. PS, don’t tell my son.

So this is the thing. It wasn’t about the food. That night, I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to eat. I thought about my family and being present with them. I thought about the conversation I was in and enjoying everyone.

Ladies, I am serious. It is such a mind change for me and it is possible to feel better and be more present in your life. This work is the greatest gift I’ve given myself. I mean, it is the greatest gift. I’m watching my jumpstarters going through this right now.

They’re seeing that losing the weight is a side benefit, but the mind shift is showing up in all areas of their lives. That is the magic of this work. So today’s topic, sleep and water, it is a magical fat burner that is free.

I know when I say sleep and water, your lizard brains automatically go to, “We’ve heard this before, this is really tough, does it really help?” But loves, it really does. And you know, it’s not sexy, like try my magical pill or a shake, but it’s way more effective.

Sleep and water, loves, they’re the key to losing weight. We’ve all heard it before. I’ve talked about it before. But loves, it’s the key to your life and wellbeing. If you’re dehydrated and sleep deprived, you will have more food cravings. Like, a lot more.

This is another thing that keeps you stuck on the diet roller coaster. If you do not have enough water, your body will send signals that you need it and most of the time, it comes in food cravings. You know those food cravings that you feel that you can’t control? Or sugar cravings?

Because if you’re dehydrated, you have no energy. We can actually live without food for a long time. I mean, like a really long time. There are people who go three weeks or months. Now, I don’t recommend that, but you can. We’re made actually to live without food.

But loves, we cannot even go three days without water. And water is necessary to losing weight. It helps our body release fat. It keeps us hydrated and gives us energy. Sometimes I think I’m hungry. I mean, I’ll have this thought or sensation in my body that I’m hungry, but if I drink a bottle of water, I realize I was just thirsty.

We have critical functions like our organs and brain that need water. And if we’re dehydrated, our body works on those. And it does not get to the lower level functions like burning fat. And you know ladies, we want our bodies to burn our fat.

Now, I know some of you don’t like it. When I say water, you’re like, “Shannan, I don’t want to drink it.” But honestly love, you just have to power through it. I remember not wanting to drink water and now, I crave water. I drink water like it’s going out of style.

But if you don’t like it, put it in a nice glass with ice. Put a lemon wedge or some fruit in it. Just drink it. Every morning when I wake up, I just down two bottles of water. That kind of gets me moving. Then I’ll have my coffee, and then I drink two more bottles of water.

It gets everything moving in my system and honestly, it gives me so much energy. Water is so important to weight loss. Doctors recommend – so I’ve heard many, many different things, but I like to think of drinking half of my weight in ounces per day of pure water.

Now, I love my coffee, and I love a Coke Zero every once in a while. But I know if I drink those, I have to up my water intake. Caffeine and alcohol, they actually dehydrate you. So if you drink caffeinated drinks or alcohol, you just need to up your water intake.

And ladies, this is the thing. You will know if you’re hydrated by the color of your urine. A pale yellow or clear. If it’s darker, you need more water. Isn’t it crazy how cool our bodies are and how we have these natural sensors and detection systems? I mean, it still amazes me.

This is part of becoming a scientist of your own body. And you can listen to more of that in episode nine around food for fuel. So loves, water. Drink it. I can’t tell you enough how important it is to losing weight.

So let’s move into sleep. Love, I know as ladies how sleep deprived we can become. We have families and children and some of you are new mothers. And I know that sleep feels like a distant dream. We wish we were dreaming.

But loves, you have to get it. They have done so many studies and if you’re sleep deprived, your body will not be able to lose weight. It will not function properly and your brain will not work right. Your body at night is repairing and rejuvenating itself, and it’s flushing out all the fat.

It’s also rebalancing all your hormones. A study done by the Center for Preventative Medicine at St. Luke’s International Hospital examine the relationship between sleep and weight in over 21,000 adults. And they were all over the age of 20.

The people who slept less than five hours each night over the course of the three-year study were more likely to gain weight and eventually become obese. There’s so many bad side effects to not getting enough sleep like gaining weight. You can’t think, you get sick, you forget stuff, and your skin suffers.

I’m going to put a link to a quick article I read on Healthline in the show notes. I love this article because it’s just quick and easy read and I want to put it there so you ladies can see it. But I have read so much research and articles on sleep. It is just critical for our body.

We have to make it a priority. I work on this all the time. I work on making my environment good for sleep. I even wear a sleep mask. I don’t drink caffeine at night and the phone, let’s talk about this, ladies. You have to put your phones away.

And if you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t pick it up. I have made that mistake a few times and it keeps me up. I also place a do not disturb on my phone. It’s automatic. Every night, it goes on. I also have a setting where at night, the blue light in my phone dims.

Ladies, I want to sleep. I make a commitment to get eight hours a night. It is crucial. Ask anyone in my life how I am about my sleep. When it is time for bed, I go. I mean, I am crazy about it. I’m an early riser, so I start getting ready for bed every night around 8pm. There are so many things you can do to get a better sleep.

Look at the environment. Do you have a great mattress? Do you have nice sheets? Is your room cool enough? Are you drinking caffeine too late? Are you turning off all the electronics? Loves, this is so important for weight loss.

When I was losing weight, I had hit a plateau in my weight loss. And I looked at what I was eating and felt good about it. I was making my realistic plan, I was eating on plan, I was eating mostly foods that fueled me. So the next thing I looked at was my sleep. I was not getting enough. And this is the crazy part. I decided okay, I’m going to get sleep, and I started to get sleep for a couple days in a row and magically, I dropped weight the next day.

Whenever I see my clients hit a plateau, we look at the data. And more often than not, sleep or water is the culprit. If you lack sleep or water, you will have increased food cravings. Loves, this will happen. If you’re tired, most of us will overeat. So ladies, check your sleep and water.

Sleep and water are my fourth bonus fundamental in my free mini course. You can go to bflycoaching.com to get the free course. And so the transformational questions today are, number one, how much actual water are you getting a day and do you need to increase it? Number two, how is your sleep environment? Are you doing everything to ensure you’re getting a restful night of sleep?

Sleep and water, loves, they are natural fat burners. They are key to losing weight and getting off the diet roller coaster for good. It has been so fun, loves, spending this time with you.

If you love this work and you want to take it deeper to lose weight for good and get off the diet roller coaster, my signature program, Jumpstart will be opening on January 1st 2020 for six days. To get early access to the information on it, register for the waitlist. You can register at bflycoaching.com/waitlist.

Alright loves, 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 over to bflycoaching.com. That’s B – F – L – Y coaching dot com. See you next week!