Ep #78: Why Change Can Feel Hard in Weight Loss

You are listening to Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 78. 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. I am so happy to be back with you.

Oh ladies, I am so happy to be back with you. I am excited about today’s show. On today’s show we are going to talk about change and why it can feel hard to start or continue your weight loss journey. But first I want to give a listener shout out. This is where I read a review of the podcast every week. This week’s listeners shout out is to Marcy Richie.

Hello Shannan. I am so excited to finally be able to get off the diet coaster. I am very excited to listen to your podcast and apply the lessons to myself. Thank you so much. Well, thank you so much Marcy. She’s a new Transform lady and I’m just so excited for her and her journey, and all of my Transform ladies. And just a reminder, if you love the show, please rate and review it. It really does help other ladies find us.

So my love, we just finished a five day challenge. I love challenges. I really do. I love introducing ladies to this work. I know that we’ve been told that diets are the way and that to lose weight we have to cut a food group, go from eating all the things to chicken and salad. But it’s just not the way. Diets do not work long term. They are just quick fixes with lots of false promises. I love watching women and their minds explode because they start to feel some hope. That they can lose weight. But more importantly, they start to feel better and they start to see that maybe they can even start to have some love, some grace for themselves.

Now ladies, I have to tell you, so if you’re listening to this today, as the episode opens, we are closing the doors to Transform on March 26, and I don’t want you to miss out. So make sure if you’re listening before March 26th that you get in. We have so many amazing things like our virtual event in April and you know my love, I don’t want you to miss out. So you can always go to bflycoaching.com/join. And whenever you’re listening to this and it’ll give you all the scoop.

So spring is here. Spring is here. I see it everywhere. I see all the ladies posting about spring. But I have to say, here in Arizona, we have had the best winter. It has been nice and mostly warm, and we have been enjoying it for a good bit. I mean, this weather this year is so beautiful. So wherever you’re listening to this, I just wish you a whole bunch of sunshine.

So today, Oh, love, we are going to talk about the brain. You know I love talking about the brain. I am a little bit of a nerd for sure, but I do love talking about it and how we’re wired. So, our primitive brain, also known as Lizzie, was wired to keep us safe, wired, to keep us from danger. So let’s for a moment just go back to the cave days. There was a lot of danger. Danger of the elements, danger that there was a lack of shelter, a lack of food, water. Our ancestors were focused on survival, getting their basic needs met. Now our primitive brain, Lizzie, is responsible for our flight or fight. So if someone broke into my house right now, Lizzie would give and go and direct all the hormones that I would need to take action. And there’s a really important reason for our primitive brain and really responsible for important things.

But Lizzie gets bored because for most of us, there’s not real danger present. most of the time. Most of us have our basic needs met, so she gets a little bored and change has become danger. Most humans who have not done this work do not like change. I mean, we want to love it, but mostly we don’t. I’ll give you an example.

Let’s just say your boss comes in and tells you about a new change. Suddenly you will find Lizzie will take over. Suddenly you feel a little resistant. You start to have thoughts about, worried about this change. You don’t like it. What will happen? You start going to worst case scenario. You start talking about, well, back in the good old days. I mean, I have been there. And it’s not that you don’t get there or that you won’t accept the change, but mostly your first thoughts are all about resisting the change. When I was losing my weight for good. One of things that I resisted at first was feeling my feelings. And I have to say it was really difficult in my brain. It was just thoughts that I had about really stopping and coming into awareness and feeling my feelings.

I was pretty good at making my realistic plan at first and mostly eating on it. But I had been so disconnected with my feelings that it felt hard. It was a change. Lizzie served up all kinds of thoughts, like you can lose weight without feeling your feelings. What is feeling your feelings? You don’t need to breathe. You don’t need to go into your body.

Then I started to think that I was confused and it was hard. And love, I was just playing in the puddle. I wanted to play in the puddle because I didn’t want to do the work. And it was change. And my brain, Lizzie, was kind of freaking out. I always think of it kind of like a toddler, you know, when you want them to do something and they don’t want to, and they just kind of have a little meltdown. That’s what was happening in my brain because I knew that doing this work, really going all in was change. And I was growing. I was learning and Lizzie at first was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, no way. Let’s be comfortable. You don’t want to do this work. But love, I did want to do this work.

I really wanted to learn how to feel my feelings. And I really wanted to change, even though Lizzie was kind of throwing a little bit of a tantrum. Think about all the diets you’ve started and how it can start to feel hard. You have all of these thoughts about why you can’t do it. You go into your past, you go into all the stories you have about why you can’t or don’t want to.

But mostly, Lizzie is just putting up a fight because change equals danger. But change is just part of the process evolving past where you currently are. And love, it’s possible. To live your best life in a body that you love you must become aware of how you’re wired. That just because you have a thought does not make it true. And you have to allow the thoughts that your primitive brain, also known as Lizzie to me, serves up without taking action on them.

So what do you do? Number one, know that you’re wired to resist change. But that does not mean that you can’t change. And I want to give you an example. You have changed. You have grown. You have evolved lots of times in your life. Think about how much you’ve changed and evolved in the last 5, 10, 20 years, and just know that you’re capable of it. And number two, allow yourself to think about your successes. Have evidence on hand of how you’ve changed, how you’ve grown. Because when you want to quit on yourself, you want to play that story instead of the one of where you’ve quit on yourself before. Take a few minutes and just think about how you’ve evolved over even the last 5 to 10 years. Number three, this is an important one my love. This is the one. Talk to yourself more than you listen to yourself. You have a fully stocked library, fully stocked, I have one too, of records playing in the back of your head. And it’s just old stories that don’t serve you any longer. Most of them are not even true.

We still have stories that we’re the same person as we were when we were 15, 20, 30, but it’s just not true anymore. We get stuck in the past and it keeps us in old thinking. When an old record or story starts playing, just allow the thought, allow the record, and then just remind yourself that it’s okay. You got this now, you’re learning.

You’re growing, you’re changing, you’re capable. And I always love to tell Lizzie, we got this. Sometimes I just say, not today Lizzie. We’re good. And just remember, you have evidence. You’ve already changed lots in your life and although you’re wired to resist it, it’s just a thought. It’s just words, a sentence in your brain. You get to decide today to believe it or to just let it go.

So the transformational questions are number one, What change are you resisting right now? Number two, What successes have you had? Number three, How have you already changed in the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years?

And if you need help implementing the tools that I teach and go deeper on this work, I invite you to join Transform Weight Loss Program. This program is based on three elements: coaching, community, and a weight loss course. This program will help you implement the tools so you can live your best life in a body you love. Go to bflycoaching.com/join. So much love. 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 on over to bflycoaching.com. See you next week.