Month: November 2020

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 61.

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 happy to be back with you. I, as always, am excited about today’s show. Today I want to help you get ready for tomorrow. I know when this episode launches, Thanksgiving is the next day. And I know so many of you are making your final preparations, going to the store, making sure that you have everything you need.

I know myself; I start cooking on Wednesday. And I want to give you five quick tips on how to get yourself ready so you can have the best Thanksgiving. I don’t want you to leave you off the list.

But first, as always, I want to give a listener shout-out. This is where I read a review of the podcast and this week’s listener shout-out is to RMolnar6. She wrote, “So I may have just binged all 58 released episodes the past two days at work. I just could not stop listening to it. The advice is so practical and realistic. So many weight loss or self-help programs want you to do so many things and are impractical and unrealistic. This is for the everyday person. The content is so applicable and I even doodled a few reminders on sticky notes to keep on my desk. I see myself in the future listening to these over and over again because there is always something that I need to hear.”

Thank you so much, RMolnar6. You know ladies, I love these reviews. I really do read every single one of these reviews. I just love them. And as you ladies might know, or if you’re new to me you might not know, we also have a giveaway going on.

So if you rate and review the show, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a $150 gift card. And I just gave away the first one to Lisa Dolan. She won last episode. And I’m going to give one more away. So to be entered into the giveaway, you have to rate and review on iTunes or Apple, and then just email me at support@bflycoaching.com with the title of your review and you are in.

We are going to do the drawing on a future episode. So my love, the world may feel a little crazy lately with everything that’s happening. I have really limited my outside influences of news and social media. Paul and I just had a no news social media weekend.

Because love, I was feeling so much fear and confusion around everything. There is so much change and it may seem like every day there is something new. I just had a coaching session with one of my Transform Weight Loss program ladies. She’s a teacher and everything is changing. I mean, I am so grateful and thankful for our teachers.

And she’s one of them, and I have a lot of teachers in my Transform program. And I’ve coached a few of them because right now, for them, it does feel like everything is changing on a daily basis. I coached her to feel the emotion of overwhelm.

I think many of us try to change our negative emotion because we want to feel better. We don’t want to feel overwhelmed. But when we do that, we’re just causing this sense of chaos inside of our bodies. We’re trying to push it down and not feel it. We put on our fake smiles to make everyone else happy, but when we’re in pain, when we’re feeling negative emotion, we must feel it.

When you feel an emotion all the way through, and it takes about 90 seconds, it passes. The chaos leaves your body. Emotions are the up and down of every day. The positive, the negative. If I think of just a single day, I have all sorts of emotions, positive, negative. I want to feel all of them.

When we buffer, we are taking negative action against ourselves. We are, in most cases, putting ourselves off. Then we are mentally exhausted, feeling like we’re drowning, and then we wonder why. Buffering is using something external to push down an emotion and it has a negative consequence.

When we overeat cupcakes and fried chicken because we don’t want to feel the emotion, loves, it just continually perpetuates the feeling. And we keep feeling the negative emotion over and over again. Everything we do is because we want to feel a certain way.

We think the cupcake will make us feel better and it does for about 30 seconds. Then there is the aftermath, the stomachache maybe, the beatdown because we should have stuck to our plan. Then we start telling ourselves how we never stick to anything and how this is not working and how we’re failing, how we can’t fit in our clothes and how this is just – we’re never going to lose this weight.

This whole aftermath happens because we don’t want to sit with the negative emotion. Love, the goal of this life is not to be happy. I know we’ve been told that our entire lives. But it is to feel all the emotion. Because when we can feel our emotions all the way through, the good ones, the bad ones, we become unstoppable.

There is a piece that comes with it. Knowing that you can feel sadness or shame or grief or overwhelm and not take negative action against yourself, it is the best. And you do this one day, one hour, one emotion at a time.

Which leads me into Thanksgiving. Oh Thanksgiving, I love it. It is one of my favorite times of the year. My birthday this year is actually on Thanksgiving. And I would say for most of my life, Thanksgiving was all about the food.

I would think about the food, I loved my mom’s stuffing, I loved pie, I loved the cakes, I loved the rolls, I loved the potatoes. And turkey is actually my favorite meat. So I just made it all about the food, and I would go into Thanksgiving and I would eat Thanksgiving dinner – while I was cooking Thanksgiving dinner or helping my mom cook, I would be eating.

I always – I mean, I would eat the stuffing before she even baked it. I’m not kidding. I was her taste tester. So she would give it like, is there enough seasoning in this? And I for sure would. So I would start eating as we were preparing, and I wouldn’t stop until like, Sunday.

And then Sunday I was like, wow, the leftovers start getting a little sad. And so I just did this over and over again. And what has really changed for me is that I’ve really had to get back to what this meant to me. What did Thanksgiving mean to me?

And for me, it’s a time to stop and really experience all the gratitude of this life I have. Everything from the clean drinking water I have to my family, to all my ladies, to my day gig, to my peers there, my people, to Transform ladies, to my friends, to just all the humans that I have just been blessed with knowing.

I mean, it is a time for me to experience this day of giving thanks. And I know it sounds a little cliché, but I tell you, it changes everything. When we get into this place of true gratitude, I think about gratitude when I think about my husband and how grateful I am for him.

And when I think about that, it just – the feeling that I have is just so much joy. And so on Monday, November 30th, I know exactly what I want to think about the past weekend. I want to think that it was the best Thanksgiving, that I spent the day with those I love, including myself.

That I ate good food but had a plan, stopped when I was satiated, that I spent the day in gratitude, and I took care of me. That even though this year will be different, I still was able to show those I love that I love and appreciate them.

So here are my five tips to have the best Thanksgiving and not throw everything to the wind, especially you. Number one, have a plan. And make your realistic plan. And also, have a plan for how you want to feel. What do you want to do?

Really think and plan what you want Thanksgiving, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the whole event. Really think about what you want to eat, how you want to take care of yourself, how you want to show up, and make a plan. Take two minutes and make your realistic plan. Know what you’re going to eat. Make one at a minimum Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And if you don’t know what a realistic plan is, go to bflycoaching.com/6. And it’s episode number six in the podcast.

Number two, drink your water. Water is so important. It keeps you hydrated. Sometimes you think you’re hungry, but honestly love, you just need some water. And I think sometimes when it gets cold or especially when we’re super busy, our daily water can get pushed to the side. So as part of your plan, know exactly how much you want to drink.

Number three, reflection work. Do a brain dump today or tomorrow. Get all your thoughts on paper. Just start writing. This is just so you’re aware of everything that’s happening in your brain. Maybe you’re nervous about family. Maybe you’re upset because you can’t be with your family. Maybe you’re afraid you’re going to eat all the things, scared that everything won’t turn out.

Whatever those thoughts are, I just want you to write them down. And really, this exercise is just so that you’re aware of everything that’s floating around in your head. And you just get them out. It’s not to judge the thoughts or to do anything with them.

Sometimes after I do a thought download, I’m just like, okay, I just feel better. And then I can look at some of the thoughts and say, Lizzy, I don’t really believe that, and then I can challenge some of the thoughts that I’m thinking.

Number four, and this one’s for all my ladies who are cooking. Have a sample plate. This is just a plate that you put to the side so that every time you want to take a little sample, you just put it on a plate. Do it every time. And then when you’re finished cooking, you can decide if you want to eat what’s on that plate.

And if you do find yourself sampling throughout the cooking, just place the same size of what you sampled on the plate. Again, this is awareness. Awareness of everything you ate. I mean ladies, I’m not going to lie to you ladies, but there have been many Thanksgivings that I was full going into dinner. And I don’t want that for you. So have a sample plate.

Number five, write a quick line or two on how you want to feel Monday morning. How Thanksgiving weekend went, what you did, how you felt, and how you showed up for yourself.

So the transformational questions today are, number one, what do you want to feel and think about Thanksgiving? Number two, what are all the things you are grateful for? So good my love.

I wish you all the best Thanksgiving and I have so much love for you. I am so grateful for each and every one of you and I just wish you the very best. And I’ll see you next week where we are going to start a three-part series on love and how it affects our weight loss. It’s going to be good, my love. Bye for now.

Love, you can text me. Yes, I have a personal cell number that you can text me at now. And I am so excited about this. I just rolled this out in Transform so all my Transform ladies could text me, and now I’m rolling it out across the board.

So you can send me a quick hello text at 480-605-3506. And then add me to your contact list and I’ll add you to my address book. And then I’ll send you at least a weekly inspirational text. I mean, so fun. So get your phone out right now and text me at 480-605-3506. So good, my love.

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!

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 60.

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 happy to be back with you. I am excited about today’s show, as always, and you’ll want to listen today. This is the one thing that has to happen to lose weight and keep it off.

But as always, I first want to give a listener shout-out. This is just where I read a review of the podcast every single week. This week’s listener shout-out is to 0914Carly. She wrote, “I have been listening to the podcast for a few days now. Listening from the beginning and when there’s a new one. Shannan has so much great information and keeps me wanting to learn more. I’m at the beginning of this new journey and excited to learn more.”

Love it, 0914Carly. I love it so much. I love when ladies just learn about the podcast and then they just binge-listen to all of them. I appreciate all of you ladies who are listening, and I love you ladies.

So we drew for the first gift card in our drawing. So we have been running a contest for ladies who are leaving, rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple or iTunes. And we drew. Actually, Jen, our project manager drew for us and the winner is Lisa Dolan.

Lisa won a $150 Amazon gift card. I’m so excited. I love you Lisa. And I can’t be happier. So you still have time to leave a review. We will draw for another $150 gift card in a future episode. So if you left a review already and sent me an email, no worries. You’re also going to be in that drawing too.

But remember, if you’ve not done it yet, just rate and review the show on iTunes or Apple and then just email me at support@bflycoaching.com with the title of your review and you are in. So congratulations again to Lisa. So excited for you.

Ladies, oh my goodness, it is cold in Arizona. We went from 90s to 60s and 50s and 40s and 30s, I swear overnight. And it has been super cold here. We have the heat on. I am just – I mean, if you ladies have been listening, I do not like the cold. Not even a little tiny bit.

I’m an 80s and 90s girl. I was thinking about it’s getting really cold in Arizona for the winter, we’re going to have to go somewhere else for the winter. I know, we’d have to go to another country. But that’s how much I really do not like the cold.

So I have to say too, I know you ladies, we talk a lot about movement, and I walk every day. And one of the things I notice is that during the winter, I’m starting to see this in my brain. Lizzy is like, oh, it’s so cold outside, you don’t want to go walk.

So I know so many of you are listening are in much colder places than Arizona, and this is just the time too to really decide what are your goals for this winter and how do you want to show up for yourself. For me, I just bought a new pair of gloves on Amazon because my hands get really cold outside.

So I have a hat and I have gloves and I have a really nice walking jacket that’s pretty thick and you know, when Lizzy tells me that it’s too cold, I’m going to be like, it is, but we’re still going. So I think this is the time of the year in the winter when I used to gain weight every winter because it’s colder and it’s holidays. And this is a really great time to actually decide on purpose how you want to show up for yourself during the holidays.

So today loves, we had a team meeting and I have to say, I’ve been excited about this meeting because we are planning out 2021. And my whole team, we were on Zoom, and I am just so excited. We really looked at every single one of our processes in our business from bringing ladies into Transform to onboarding ladies in Transform to their membership experience with Transform.

And thought, how can we improve it and what can we do to help ladies lose weight and get the results and the dreams and goals that they want? And so good. I am so excited about next year and all of the fun things that we have for Transform. I really can’t hardly stand it.

I mean, one, I love my team. They’re amazing. They’re super smart and they love the ladies. And we have these beautiful ladies in Transform and I’m just – I just can’t wait. I feel so blessed to even be a part of it.

So I want to share this story that, actually speaking of the business, has happened to be recently. So I have been in the financial services industry for 27 years. And I’ve always worked for a company. And I’ve done this for a very long time and that’s been my career.

And a few years ago I decided I was going to start coaching and I was going to start this company and we did it a little over two years ago now. And being an entrepreneur has really pushed my growth. And I have to say, starting this business, it’s been all new to me.

And I’ve had some pretty big failures and mess ups. I mean ladies, some pretty big ones. And I just decided that I was just going to continue to push myself, and I’ve been getting coached. I have a coach and I’ve gone to weekly coaching sessions because I believe in coaching and the power of it.

And I believe that our results come from our thoughts. And I had this realization lately that I had not stepped into the CEO role. I’ve been doing all the things, all the actions, but I had not really begun to believe that I was the CEO. I had not stepped into that identity.

I still had thoughts like this is my side hustle, or this is a tiny business. I had all of these different sabotaging thoughts honestly, but BFLY Coaching, it’s a business. We have customers who want our services and who depend on us. And love, I am the CEO.

We have these identities, these are thoughts and beliefs about who we are, and when we want to change to the next version of ourselves, we have to believe new things about who we are. We have to shed the old beliefs and thoughts that keep us in the old versions of ourselves.

This is everything I teach my ladies in Transform. It’s all about the mindset change. Why this is so important is that if you do not step into the identity of who you want to be, you will sabotage your success. You will have thoughts that sabotage your results.

This is why when ladies lose weight, they try some diet, they get all excited, maybe they’ve been on it for six months or a year and they hit their goal weight and they feel amazing, but they never worked on their mindset. They followed a diet plan, they restricted their calories, they cut out a food group, and then when they reach their goal weight, all the old stuff is still there.

They still have thoughts like they are a heavy person. And because they didn’t change their mindset along the way, they slowly start sabotaging. They slowly start gaining the weight back. I know love, I did this many, many, many times.

I think about this in my weight loss journey. I really had to change the identity of becoming a person who was thin. A person who orders a salad, a person who can allow an urge without overeating, a person who loves food that fuels her body. I had to fall in love with movement.

One of my mentors, her name is Dawn and she’s amazing. She practices the thought, “I am the skinny one,” because she is shifting her identity as she loses weight. We all have these identities, these roles, as a heavy person, as an employee, as a mother, as a shy person, as a vibrant person, as too much.

I mean, we have so many of these old thoughts and beliefs that have really shaped who we are. But when we want new results, we have to also shed some pieces of our old identity. The ones that are not serving us any longer. We have to start now practicing who we’re becoming. We have to know who our future self is and learn from her and then start doing those things today.

We have to become our future self now. So that when you lose the weight, you’ve had this mindset change, so you don’t sabotage and gain it back. To lose weight and to lose it for good so that you’re not on this diet roller coaster, you have to start to shift the identity and the pieces of your identity that no longer serve you.

Love, I am a CEO. I am a person who maintains her weight and loves food that fuels her, who loves movement, and who shows up for herself. These are the pieces of my identity that I have to shift to take myself to the next level of who I am becoming.

So the transformational questions today, number one, when you reach your goal weight, what does that version of yourself think and believe? And number two, what identity shift do you need to make to become the next best version of yourself? My love, so good. So good. Alright, bye for now love.

If you loved listening to this podcast, I would love to have you come check out Transform weight loss program. It is my monthly coaching program where we take this work to a whole new level. And ladies learn how to lose weight for good in a way that they can always do. Join me over at bflycoaching.com/join. I’d love to have you join me in Transform weight loss program.

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!

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 59.

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 always so happy to be back with you, my love. I’m excited about today’s show. We are going to really dive into why I know you’re not broken, and that you can lose weight. So, stay with me until the end and I’m going to give you three tips that can help you.

But first, as always, I want to give a listener shoutout. This is where I read a review of the podcast every week. And this week’s listener shoutout is to Dana.

She wrote, “Words cannot express how grateful I am that I found Shannan and her Transform Society. I’ve listened to all of her podcasts, and number 50 did not disappoint. I’ve learned so much about myself in these past couple of months since I started listening. I’m a stronger, more confident person. I am learning to control my thoughts about everything; how I spend my time and finding joy in my every day. Thank you, Shannan, I’m looking forward to the next 50.”

Thank you so much, Dana. I love this review. And you know, Dana, I love you. She’s a transform boss. She’s amazing. And I appreciate the review. So, you know, ladies, we are drawing for the first $150 gift card on episode number 60, which is next week. So, you know, loves, go onto iTunes, Apple Podcasts and rate and review this show. And then just email me at support@bflycoaching.com with the title of your review and we will get you in the drawing.

And also, subscribe, wherever you listen to podcasts and the show will be waiting for you, you know, every Wednesday. And then, on Fridays, we do Facebook lives or some bonus episodes. So, super fun.

So, my loves, this week has been election week. And I am sure, like all of you, I’ve had all the feelings, from excitement at the beginning of the week, to uncertainty, frustration, and fear. And I just want to tell you ladies, and what I told my Transform ladies in our Facebook live, you know, how I’m coping with this week is really feeling all of my feelings.

And I think that that’s the power of this work. It’s deciding that I’m going to feel all of it, the positive emotion and the negative emotion, without buffering, without taking negative action against myself.

I can feel fear and uncertainty without eating a bag of chips or, you know, for me half of a Texas sheet cake. And I think that that’s the power. I teach and what I know to be true is that when we can learn to feel any feeling and not take negative action against ourselves, everything gets better. And a negative emotion or a negative feeling lasts 90 seconds.

And when we feel it all the way through, we can decide if we want to believe something different. And there are many of you, myself, with everything that’s happened, we don’t want to feel good about it. And I think it’s okay, I know it’s okay to just feel all the feelings.

So, this week, and as you’re listening to it, go inward and make sure that you’re getting rest and you’re getting water and that you’re doing self-care and that you’re feeling all the feelings. Don’t try to push them down.

I know I did this for so many years ladies. I just pushed down feelings. I pushed them down with food and shopping social media, all the things. And I think, as you start to learn this work and as you start to move forward in it, you just realize that it’s actually less painful to just feel the feelings. So, that is my love for you this week. That is what I want for you this week, is just to feel everything that you’re feeling.

So, I do have some very exciting news. So, we are having our fifth grandchild and we are super-excited. And as I record this, the Friday before, we actually found out what he or she was going to be. And our fifth grandchild is going to be a baby girl. And her name is going to be Emma Leigh, which I just love so much.

We are so excited and I have to tell you a little funny story because, pretty much, I have two grandsons and I have two granddaughters. So, this was really the tiebreaker. And I would say most everyone wanted a boy, including my grandchildren. They all wanted a boy too.

And in my head, I was like, “It’s totally going to be a girl,” because everybody wants a boy. And when my son and daughter-in-law went to find out what they were having, my husband and I watched my grandbabies.

So, it was last Friday morning and we had all the grandbabies and my son said, “Hey, mom, we’re on our way from finding out.” Of course, he wouldn’t tell me over the phone. And he’s like, “I’m going to call you when I’m inside your gate and I’m five minutes away and then come out with the grandbabies and pa.” And I was like, “Okay…”

So, my son text me and said, “Hey, I’m almost there.” So, I said, “Okay.” We grabbed the grandbabies. We go outside. And my son had told me, “Hey, mom, record whatever is going to happen.” So, I’m like, “Okay.” I got my phone and I’m standing outside. I’ve got grandbabies, pa, we’re all standing out there.

And then, I see my son, who is on the trunk of his car coming down our street and he’s got these – I don’t know what they were but they popped out confetti. And he basically comes and shoots the confetti out. And basically, it all came out pink and then right away, we knew that there was a girl and my grandbabies were like, oh, and everyone was excited.

And then, my son comes over and I look down. Yeah, I didn’t hit record. I had my phone and I forgot to hit the record. So, yeah, it didn’t get recorded. I mean, it’s all good. We still experience the moment. But we totally forgot to record. I mean, I totally forgot to record.

So, just a funny story. But we are having a beautiful baby girl and her name’s going to be Emma and she is coming March of 2021 and she is perfectly healthy and all the pictures look great. So, we’re super-excited about that.

So, one of the things that we’re doing right now in Transform is a book club. And we’re doing the book Atomic Habits. And I love this book. I mean, I love it. I’ve read it several, several times and I love doing book clubs.

And when I used to think of my habits, when I think of myself 10, 15 years ago, I really had no idea actually how many habits I had, from brushing my teeth or kissing my husband before I go to sleep.

We all have just hundreds of habits every single day and we’re just so programmed. And we have formed these habits over years. And this really leads me into why I know that you’re not broken. We have this – I’ve talked about our primitive brain, our primal brain. And I like to call her Lizzy. And then, we also have this other piece of our brain which is the automatic brain.

And this is where all of our habits are stored. And we have habits that we have created over a lifetime. And our brains are wired this way. And we create new habits all the time. And so, I’m thinking about a habit that I got into for a while. So, this was before I lost my weight. And I started drinking coffee and I like a cold brew.

So, I started going to Dunkin’ Donuts and this, again, I started to, every time I would go and get my coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts, I would also get a donut. And so then, every time, it just became this habit that when my brain would see Dunkin’ Donuts, immediately I would want the reward of the donut.

And we create all of these habits and each one of our habits are tied with a reward. And so, we do this all the time. I think about this even when I was pregnant with my son. I mean, this was a bazillion years ago. But I would get up every single night and I would eat a Little Debbie cake.

Every single night, I would get up in the middle of the night, I would wake up and I would eat a Little Debbie cake and it became a habit. And we have tons of these habits. You know, Friday night used to be pizza night. Every Friday night, we would have pizza.

When I was growing up, every Friday night, we would go out to eat. And so, we have formed all of these habits over years. And what has happened is we’ve taken the habit and we get the reward of whatever it is, even brushing my teeth. I love how my mouth feels after. There’s a reward there.

And so, all of these habits that we’ve formed over time are in our brain. And so, loves, you have this automatic brain. This is how we are wired. And our brain likes to be efficient. And it wants to use the least amount of energy.

And so, what happens over time is we just have these very unconscious habits. When I think about me going to Dunkin’ Donuts and getting a donut, I didn’t really have to put much thought. It was just pretty automatic. I’d get in my car to go to work and I would be at Dunkin’ Donuts before I even knew it. and I was ordering the donut before I even had a thought about it.

When I used to feel stress, immediately I would find myself in the pantry and looking for something, something sweet because I wanted – I had this habit of when I had a negative emotion, I wanted to comfort myself with food.

And so, you have all of these habits and, I would say, instead of really looking at our brain and really looking at our habits and really learning about all of the different thoughts that we have, I would say we kind of start a war with ourselves were we think we can’t lose weight, we think we’re going to fail. We think it’s too hard. We start to dislike our bodies. We just create this war within ourselves.

And I just want to say, love, you’re just not broken. You’re actually perfect and you can lose weight. You can live in a body that feels like freedom. You just have to start noticing what’s happening in that beautiful brain of yours and really understanding all of the habits that you have created around eating, and the conversation that you have with yourself.

If you continually tell yourself that you can’t lose weight, that you’re not capable of it, that you were meant to be this way, that it’s your genetics, that it’s this, that your mother was heavy or your family is heavy. If you keep telling yourself that weight loss is hard and that you can’t do it, then that is what will happen.

And I’m just here to challenge that. I know that there is a different way. So, I want to give you some simple tips to just start yourself out with. And the first one is just to notice the thoughts that are happening right before and during your overeat.

I think this is really important when you’re eating over what you wanted to eat or you’re eating foods that weren’t on your plan, just noticing what was happening in your brain before that. And the second piece of that is knowing all of your habits.

If every time you drive down a certain street or you go into town, you have to stop to get that donut and coffee, is that a habit that you want to keep? And really know all of them. We have so many habits tied around food and they could be habits around weekends, nights, being in the office, working. Certain habits we have with friends or family members. And just understanding all of the different habits that you have around food.

And then, write it all down. The third tip, write down the thoughts that are happening right before and during your overeat. And then, number two, write down all the habits that you have around food and those three tips, and really writing them all down is really the first step in starting to change your beliefs and your thoughts around losing weight. And it all starts with the simple thought that we can’t lose weight, that we’re broken. And really understanding that this thought is there.

Because so many of these thoughts are in our subconscious. And until we start to shine a light on them, until we start to recognize and notice them, they drive our behaviors because we have these habits and we’re just wired this way.

And love, I want to say it again because I don’t know that you can hear this enough. You can lose weight. You can live in a body that feels like freedom, that feels good. You can reach your goals and your dreams. And it’s just one simple step at a time. And at all starts with noticing what’s happening in that beautiful brain.

So, I want to ask my transformational questions as always. So, what do you want to believe about your ability to lose weight? And number two, how can it be fun and easy? And number three, the three tips, so noticing your thoughts that are happening right before and during your overeat, and also noticing all of your habits around food, and then writing them down. How can you do this for just one day? One day, noticing your thoughts and then writing your habits.

That’s so good, my loves. I really do believe that you’re not broken, my love. you’re just not broken. And, ladies, Transform is closed right now. But if you go to bflycoaching.com/join, you can get on the waitlist. Alright, bye for now, love.

If you loved listening to this podcast, I would love to have you come check out Transform weight loss program. It is my monthly coaching program where we take this work to a whole new level and ladies learn how to lose weight for good in a way that they can always do. Join me over at bflycoaching.com/join. I’d love to have you join me in Transform weight loss program.

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!

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 58.

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 so excited to be back with you. Can you believe, here we are at episode 58. I swear we were just at episode 50. So I’m excited about today’s topic because it’s all about simplicity and how important it is in weight loss.

But before we get into the show, I always love to give a listener shout-out. This is where I read a review of the podcast every single week, and this week’s listener shout-out is to BrownTabatha85. “I knew from the first time I listened to Shannan’s podcast that I wanted to join her membership. I was thankful for an opportunity to recently join the Transform Society. Shannan has been welcoming, supportive, and knowledgeable. I love that I get to create my own pathway and it doesn’t include being on a diet. Can’t wait to see my life change as my mindset is already shifting.”

I love it. Tabatha is one of my Transform bosses, and Tabatha, I love you to pieces. And I just really appreciate the review. And ladies, in episode number 60, I am going to draw for our very first $150 gift card. So if you leave a review on iTunes or Apple Podcast, just send me a note with the title of your review to support@bflycoaching.com and we’ll get you in the drawing.

I mean, so exciting. You know, I really appreciate all of you taking the time to leave a review. It means the world to me. I really do read every one of them and I always look to see if there are new ones. So I just want to tell you ladies thank you and I really appreciate all the support and all the time that it takes to leave a review.

So ladies, it has felt, I would say – I don’t like the word busy, but pretty full. I think we’re getting to a time; we’re wrapping up the year and my work is busy and Transform weight loss program has been so busy. And it really has been a time where I’ve had to pay attention to how I’m planning my time and pay attention to the amount of rest I’m getting.

And this is really important. I want to remind all of you ladies as we go into the holiday season, as we go into the end of the year, how important it is to reflect, how important it is to rest, how important it is to have self-care. And I think when it gets busy and we feel like we’re in a whirlwind, we forget us.

And you know loves, I don’t want you to do that. So we just wrapped up our free holiday training and closed Transform weight loss program for the remainder of the year. The next two months I really want to spend time with my Transform bosses. I want to help them have the best holiday season and so many of them are losing weight and I want to help them continue.

And I’m really working with them on they never have to start over, and they can lose weight. And I’m watching so many of them, I don’t know loves, just start to believe in themselves. And it is absolutely the best thing to watch, to watch a woman believe in herself, to watch a woman start to think that she matters.

My goodness my love, it is so good. So one of the other things that I’ve been doing over the last week is really thinking about how do I want to spend the holidays and what am I going to do over the next two months.

And I’ve made decisions ahead of time. I’ve thought about how I want my holidays, where I want to spend my time, and what things I want to do, and what things I don’t want to do. And this is a really important piece of the holidays. I think we always think we have to do all the things because we’ve always done them, and I learned this a few years ago where I decide what I’m going to do on the holidays.

And of course I talk to my husband and my family, but I really think about the things that bring me joy and the things I want to do. And I’m so excited about this holiday season. I’ve also thought about the business, about Transform weight loss program and what I want to do in the business with my ladies over the next two months.

And my team and I are getting ready to have a half day even to plan for 2021. And so I’ve just been thinking about my ladies and thinking about how to help them and how to help them have success quicker and reach their goals and dreams. And I am just – I have to say, I am loving all of the planning and all of the time that I’m spending thinking and putting all the possibilities out there.

I love that. And even though there’s so much noise in the world right now, thinking about what’s possible and the things that I can have influence over and where I want to spend my time, where I want to serve, it does help bring some peace and some calm to me.

So ladies, as you go into the next couple of months, I just want you to take some time and make some decisions ahead of time, which leads me right into the topic for today, which is how to keep it simple. I think we make weight loss really complicated and it’s from years and years of dieting and wanting to be perfect.

And I want to share a quick story of when I actually went to a nutritionist. And I went to this nutritionist and I had a friend who had had success with her, and I thought okay, let me try it. So I went to her and I did blood tests and all kinds of things.

And then she created this food plan for me, and it was very detailed. I think it was like, 20 pages report, which I got a little excited about and I was like, okay, and I read it. And then I read here’s your shopping list for your food, and then she also recommended I want you to journal and I want you to keep a food diary and I want you to exercise and throw in meditation and here’s some supplemental books you should read, and here’s some supplements you should take.

Love, did you hear everything I just said? Yes, I mean, it was overwhelming. At first, I was excited about it, but then it felt hard. And when it came down to it, the food plan she had recommended, it was so clean and restrictive. And there was no sugar, no flour, some vegetables were cut out, fruit was cut out. It was just so restrictive.

But I did my best and I tried to do all the things, and I did lose some weight with that nutritionist, but when life happened and when I wasn’t following it that strictly, I just started to gain the weight back. And when things had changed for me and we had actually moved to Utah and I just started to gain the weight back.

I say this to you ladies because someone can give you a food plan, you can follow it, but if you don’t learn to change your mindset and you don’t learn to lose weight in a way that you can always do, when I was reading this food plan that she had given me, I was thinking, “Well, at least I’ll be thin when I’m done with this so I can eat normally.”

But that’s not what happens because most of us never make it to goal weight and halfway through or 75% or 25% of the way through, we start to gain weight back. And we haven’t learned how to deal with our emotions, and we haven’t learned to deal with all of the stuff.

And so we just gain it back. And so what I want to offer to all of you ladies and what I teach my ladies in Transform is to start simply. And keep it simple. Weight loss can be very easy, and it can be very simple. So I want to offer you three things to start.

And if you’re already on your journey, this will be a continuation for you. And if you’re just starting, you can start right here. So number one is I want you to make a commitment for only one change. One thing. Maybe it’s making your realistic plan. Maybe it’s drinking more water. Maybe it’s getting more rest. Maybe it is movement more, getting a little more movement in. Maybe it’s writing down your limiting thoughts and beliefs.

Whatever it is, only choose one thing. Because your brain is going to want to be perfect and do all the things. I mean, I could have added in 10 more things, like I was going to meal prep, I was going to do all of this. I was going to change everything about myself.

But that doesn’t work. It doesn’t happen that way. And so what happens is you end up feeling overwhelmed and then you just quit. So number one, make a commitment for just one change.

Number two, plan what to do when you make a mistake, when you fail. So if your one thing is, I’m going to make a realistic plan, then have a plan for when you don’t make it. And how you do that is you just write when I don’t make my realistic plan, I’m going to take the next best action.

And so the next best action could be in the middle of the day to write it on a napkin. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be anything that you have to do, or you don’t need 10 journals. You don’t need any of it.

And if you don’t know what the realistic plan is, go to bflycoaching.com/6. The Power of Planning. It’s a great tool to begin and to start with. So number one, make a commitment for one thing. Number two, plan what you’re going to do when you make a mistake.

Because when we don’t plan for it and we make a mistake, then we binge, we overeat, and one mistake turns into a month of mistakes. And number three, allow yourself time with the one thing. The one change that you’re going to do.

Don’t every week add in something new. Give yourself a good amount of time to really sit with the one thing. The one change. And to really start to create a new habit.

You know loves, my advice to you is don’t compare yourself to others and don’t believe that you need to lose all your weight in this very short amount of time. Because if you take your time and you do it in a way that you can always do, it will be the fastest that you ever lost it.

And you want to know why? Because you won’t gain it back. If you’ve been on the diet roller coaster for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, then yes, weight loss has been slow and difficult. But if you take the next bit of time, however that is, a year, two years, three years, whatever it is, and you lose all your weight in a way that you won’t gain it back, it will actually be the fastest that you’ve ever lost weight.

I’m just going to leave you with that because I want you to really sit with that because that’s so important, my love. So the transformational questions are number one, what is your commitment for one change, one thing you want to do for yourself? And number two, what are you going to do when you fail or make a mistake? And number three, how much time are you going to give yourself with this change before adding anything else in?

So good my love. I mean, ladies, I love sharing this time with you. So next week, we are going to talk about something very important that I believe you ladies think about yourself. And I’m just going to – we’re going to bust through that myth. Alright ladies, my love, I will see you next week. Bye for now.

If you loved listening to this podcast, I would love to have you come check out Transform weight loss program. It is my monthly coaching program where we take this work to a whole new level. And ladies learn how to lose weight for good in a way that they can always do. Join me over at bflycoaching.com/join. I’d love to have you join me in Transform weight loss program.

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!