You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women Podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 207. 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 good to be back with you.

I just got off from San Antonio and I had a really great trip. I love Texas. It was great. We had great food. My husband went with me and we had just a really great time there. And you know, time is moving fast. Ladies, I know as this episode is releasing, we are in September of 2023. Woo.

It is just going fast. I can’t believe we’re almost through the year. I know, I’m sure you may feel this way too whenever you’re listening to it. So, have you ever felt like you’re never gonna get the weight off? No ladies weight loss? Ah, you don’t know what to do. You feel like you’ve tried everything. Even when you’ve had success,

you start to gain it back and it’s just feels like there’s, it’s just so heavy. Not just physically, but mentally. You don’t wanna think about food, you don’t want to think about should you exercise? Should you do this, you know, all the new pills and potions and keto and I don’t know, noom, and breathe into the all the things it,

it can really feel overwhelming. And I think what happens too is if you may be someone, and I was like this too, I was always trying to try the new thing. I didn’t really invest my time into, you know, learning about myself. You know, why I carried weight and healing that part of me. I just was like, what’s the quick fix?

I wanna get it off. And what it did was keep me on the diet rollercoaster for almost 38 years. And I really do understand, because this is what I do now. I help ladies lose weight for the very last time. And I do that by helping them end the restriction binge cycle, also known as dieting. You know, I struggled since I was eight years old with weight.

I had a very successful life. I had lots of amazing things in my life, career, family. But this was the one thing I weighed as much as 315 pounds. I did weight loss surgery way back in 2006, and then still gained a good portion of that back. I mean, I gained 55 pounds in nine months after my mom passed.

And I just felt like this was just always gonna be my struggle. And I felt this, I had, I had mentioned this, but I felt like I was just carrying this a hundred to 150 pound sack of mental weight, along with the physical weight. And the mental weight was exhausting. What to do, how to do it. Then, you know,

failing and overeating and beating myself up. It was just this really bad roller coaster ride. And today I wanna teach you, no matter where you are, no matter what you’ve tried, what you’re doing, I wanna teach you how to get started in three easy steps. I worked with so many clients and I’m a master at helping women lose weight and change their life.

And I also in that, you know, as I have clients and ladies, I see ladies too struggle. And I see them as they start to quit on themselves. You know, when they’re just like they’re trying and it’s not working. And they have years and years of diet mentality, diet, culture, diet, trauma. And what happens is over time it can make you feel really broken.

Like nothing is ever gonna work. And I just wanna give you some hope and I wanna teach you these three simple steps so that you can get started today. I believe this, you have to meet yourself where you’re at. You have to decide on purpose that you wanna do something different. I’m not gonna give you a food plan. I’m not gonna tell you what to eat.

I’m not gonna tell you you should do this. I’m going to offer you my experience and what I believe and what I have seen to create long lasting results. And I think too, to help to heal some of the mental weight, start getting rid of those old sacks that we’re carrying around, like bags on our back. And to start to feel lighter,

to start to feel freedom, to start to eat foods that you enjoy and that you like to stop making meals for you because you’re on a diet and meals for your family. That is what I’m offering to you. So the first step, the first step is what I call leave a bite. And this is very simple, and it starts to heal your relationship with your body so that your body is amazing.

You have all of these different signals and hunger hormones and fullness, hormones, ghrelin and leptin. But what happens as we’ve dieted over years, we don’t know when we’re physically full. We don’t know when we’re physically hungry. We’ve lost the ability to know that. And I did this too. I had no idea. I just felt hungry all the time,

and I was eating all the time, snacking and just eating, or I was completely restricting. And then, you know, white knuckling it. And so this first step is all about a very simple process where you just start to leave a bite on your plate. So you have a sandwich, you have some fries. The three steps I’m going to teach you.

I don’t want you to change anything about what you’re eating. I don’t want you to go buy diet food. I don’t want you to do any of that. I’m gonna teach you these three steps so you can do it simply. You can start today. You don’t have to go out and buy anything or change your life. All you have to do today is leave a bite on your plate and then just take a breath.

Notice maybe some things that start to come up like, oh, I know I grew up, my dad was like, you better eat out everything on your plate. He grew up very poor. I understand it, but you know, and my parents are amazing, but I was part of the Clean Plate Suburb Club, and I tell you, it lasted for so long.

What I’ve learned is that you know, when you’re very first starting and you have no idea about, you know, when you’re physically hungry, you have no idea. When you’re starting to approach fullness, leaving a bite starts to get you reconnected with your body. You start to see that, oh, I left a bite or two, and then maybe a week or two from now you’re leaving three or four,

and you start to notice that, oh, well, I feel satisfied, I feel satiated, I feel good. I don’t need as much food as I thought. Leaving a bite too is also so that you can start to talk to yourself about leaving the bite, because this is important. You can have waste in your body, meaning you eat everything on your plate,

you don’t waste it. You can have that waste in your body and it shows up as extra fat on your body. You can have that or waste in the, you know, bathroom, or you can have waste in the trash can. It’s your choice is, you can decide, I know, I’m not saying go out and waste food and make big things.

I’m just saying as you’re starting this process through this whole journey of losing weight for the last time, you’re gonna uplevel what you’re eating. How I eat today is not how I ate when I very first started. When I very first started, I would get three plates of Mexican food and eat it all. Now I can have an enchilada and feel really satiated and really good,

but I don’t want you to go from eating what you’re eating today to restriction. This is what we’re trying to heal. So you do this slowly over time, and you start with leaving a bite, leaving a bite. Ugh. It’s the best thing. Number one, leave a bite. Number two, make a plan and make it realistic. Now,

this is important. I teach a tool called the realistic plan. The realistic plan is unlike any diet plan, I don’t want you to make a diet plan. You’re not tracking your food, none of this. All you’re doing is you’re using a different part of your brain, your prefrontal cortex in the morning, the night before to decide what you’re going to eat the next day.

You’re not gonna make it diety. You’re not going to make it what I like to call idealistic. You’re going to make a plan of what you eat today. Whatever you ate yesterday or three days ago, that’s what you’re gonna put on your plan. If you ate a big Mac and fries and a chocolate shake, and you’re like, that’s what I’m gonna eat tomorrow,

I want you to put that on your plan. All three things that I’m gonna teach you in these three simple steps work together. So again, this is about healing your relationship with food and getting you off this diet trauma roller coaster of restriction, binge overeat. So make a plan. You’re gonna make it realistic. You don’t need to make it complicated when you’re like,

Shannan, I don’t know what we’re eating tomorrow. You can put, we’re gonna have a protein, we’re gonna have a veggie, we’re gonna have a carb, I’m gonna have dessert, but I wanna get real honest with you for a moment, ladies, we mostly eat the same things. We mostly do. And when we start to make this complicated,

it’s because our brain is saying, Hey, I fear this change and giving you all the reasons, all the excuses not to do it. And I just want you to take a breath and just write down what you’re gonna eat. And if throughout the day, you know, let’s say you were gonna have steak and baked potato for dinner, and you got home and your spouse or partner made chicken and rice,

that is just a simple swap. You don’t need to have any brain drama. This really, this planning really isn’t about the food. It’s about you starting to meet yourself where you’re at. This is what I eat today. It’s about you starting to heal this part of you that is going through the restriction and binging and overeating cycle. Because you don’t need to binge and overeat.

You’re gonna eat all the foods. You are not going to lose all your favorite foods. Just hear me on this. You can lose weight. And I know this, I did it. I, I’ve watched so hundreds clients, I have so many clients who have done this. You’re gonna lose weight by enjoying and healing your relationship with food. So make a plan,

make it realistic, not idealistic. Three, hydrate. I know, hydrate, we have a thing about water. And I’ll tell you this, your body, I like to call it the body basics. Your bodies need certain things. Your bodies need certain nutrients, it needs water, needs sleep, it needs to move a little, it needs to stretch,

it needs all sorts of things. And I want you to start with hydration. Because hydration, when we are dehydrated, our bodies send up just 9 1 1 signals. Our body is like, we’re dying. I’ll take food, because food is made up of a lot of water. And so suddenly you’re like, oh, I’m starving. When really you’re just dehydrated.

Also, when we’re dehydrated, we can feel really tired, we can feel mentally exhausted, and then we find that we just go into that automatic part of our brain where we feel like a robot and we feel a little numb. So hydration, I’ll give you a few tips. Water is great, water is so great, but this is the thing,

if you wanna put some drink mix, you wanna do the thing, great. This isn’t about rules my love, this is about getting your body hydrated. There’s just two things to know. When you drink caffeine, it dehydrates your body. When you drink alcohol, it dehydrates your body. So when you, like, I love my morning cup of coffee,

love it. I look forward to it every day. I love it, but I know that I’m gonna be dehydrated, so I drink more before and after. And so if you’re gonna drink alcohol, if you’re gonna drink coffee or something that’s caffeinated, just know that you’re going to need more fluids, hydration. And that can be, again, your choice.

You decide, I love good old water. And if you don’t like water, you know, there’s lots of different drink mixes out there. There’s lots of different things that you can put in it so that it tastes, you can put fruit in it, you can put in a fancy glass, do lots of things. And this is how you know if you’re hydrated,

because your next question is probably like, well, how much Shannan? You’ll know if you’re running to the bathroom a good bit, that’s a good sign that you’re hydrated. And if you look in the bathroom and it’s a pale yellow to clear, you know you’re hydrated. If it’s dark, you are dehydrated. Get some fluids in, you, get some water in you.

And this is important because remember, I want this to feel easy. You leave a bite, you make a plan, you hydrate. I want this to feel easy. And when you hydrate, when you take care of your body, and this is just a simple thing that you can do, then your brain isn’t gonna be sending up all those signals of,

oh, we need to eat. Oh, we need to take a nap. Because when you start to feel tired, your brain’s gonna send up, Ooh, we need comfort. We need food, we need, right? So I wanna make this just really simple and easy so you can lose weight for the very last time. You can heal your relationship with food.

You can be what I like to call diet dropout. Yes. And finally, win the battle with weight. It just takes simple steps that I’m gonna teach you, kindness for yourself, and talking back to yourself more than you listen my love in those three steps. If you find that you make a plan and then you don’t eat on plan, or maybe you don’t feel hydrated,

or maybe you were gonna leave a bite and you ate all of it, just take a breath, have some kindness, kindness and forgiveness, and move on. No beat downs, no talking to yourself that you’re gonna fail. It just takes a little bit of time and a little bit of support. You got this my love. So if you wanna know more,

you can go to ointransformboss.com. Check us out. I think the free course is on there, or if we’re open, you can join us. Again, if you wanna take this work deeper, you want to learn about all the amazing things, go to jointransformboss.com and I’ll see you next week. 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.