Ep #87: Waiting Until It Is The Right Time To Lose Weight?

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen episode number 87. 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. I love today’s show because I had to redo this opening. I was going to record something else today, but I got into it and felt so passionate about what I was talking about in this episode. So you are not going to want to miss it. And I want to ask a favor of you. If you are loving the show, if you could leave a review, I would so appreciate it. It helps spread this amazing work to other women. You can leave a review, rate it and review wherever you listen, whatever app you listen to podcasts in, and also make sure that you subscribe to this show. This will make sure that every Wednesday an episode is sitting in your box.

All right my love. So love, it is such an amazing time right now. I’m in the middle of a five day challenge. I love the challenges. I love watching women start to learn this work, support each other, and show up for themselves. For some of these ladies, it’s the first time that they’ve shown up for themselves in a really long time. We have been on the diet rollercoaster for so long that we’re afraid to fail.

And for many women, and I did this for so long, we don’t even start. We tell ourselves it’s too hard. I don’t have time. I will just fail. You know, all the things. We tell ourselves that, you know, it’s too hard and just give me a food plan, give me an exercise plan. But my love we’ve tried that.

I mean, if you’ve been on the diet roller-coaster, you’ve done all the things. This is the crazy part about this work, when you learn it and start doing it, you actually will have more time. You’ll actually have more money. You will learn how to fail and not quit or give up because you start to learn that this is the way to lose weight for good.

You’ll start to feel better. You’ll start to have success. You know, right now Transform just opened as I record this. And you know, I can’t wait to welcome a whole group of ladies. And why I love it so much is I love when a woman decides that they matter and that they’re going to commit to themselves to change their weight loss story forever.

See my loves, to lose weight for good and get off the diet roller coaster, you have to do the mindset work. You can’t lose weight for good without it. And I know, and I know this to be true. I’ve worked with enough women, I mean so many women, and I’ve had my own experience, and the only way to get off the diet roller coaster for good is really to start to change your beliefs.

We have these, you know, beliefs that are just, you know, we have sets of belief systems and we’ve had them for so long that they’re just, you know, playing like record players in the back of our brains. And we try a new diet or a new exercise plan. We feel, you know, so motivated and then something happens and you know, you may lose some weight, but when something happens, like, you know life, you know, right. Things, things are always moving and changing. What happens is you don’t know what to do because you’ve been following some food plan.

So when you’re knee deep off the food plan and you’re eating cupcakes or pizza or all the things, you won’t know how to pull yourself back, because we’re just wired that way. We’re wired for comfort. Lizzie will start to pipe up and she’ll tell you to get back in the cave where it’s easier, where you are comfortable. Even if it’s not a full binge, you’ll slowly start to eat another handful of nuts, because maybe your partner or spouse just stressed you out or your kids. And you want a dopamine hit.

You want to feel better. And I tell you this love, because this work is the work of your life. This work will change you from the inside out. And I want this for every woman. Are you trying to do this by yourself love. Losing weight by yourself is such a lonely journey. You won’t have a community to pull you back in to inspire you, to remind you why you matter, and how you can do this. I watched my clients and my Transform Bosses and how they learned how to get off the diet rollercoaster. They are doing this deep work on themselves. They are getting coached, learning how to lose weight in a way that feels like love instead of punishment and restriction. And they show up imperfectly, which is the only perfect.

My dream is to help millions of women live their best life in a body they love. Hear that my love, your best life in the life that you have dreamed of. Love somewhere along the way w stopped dreaming. Somewhere in our twenties, we got busy with life, and then we forget about us. We put us on the back burner. And then in our thirties, maybe forties, we start delaying. We start really putting ourselves on the back burner because it has been so long since we’ve even thought of what we wanted. And then somewhere in our forties and fifties, we started thinking, I can’t wait until retirement because we have this belief that one day, somewhere in the future, our lives will be better.

And we start equating that to when we’re thinner our life will be better. When our job is different our life will be better. When our spouse or partner is different our life could be better. But I want to offer this to you my love. There is no better. The best day is today. I want to share a couple of stories that really impacted me early on. They changed the way I think about the future and putting myself off.

See, I love looking at my future self. I love thinking about the future, but I know that whatever I want in the future, I have to start taking action today. I learned this a long time ago, and I know that there is no “there.” There is no, when I lost the weight I’d be happier. Or when I got a new job, I’d be happier, because I really truly believe that life is 50/50. It’s amazing and wonderful. And it has pain and boredom and frustration and all the other things. And so every day that is how, you know, most of my days go and sometimes it’s 30/70, and sometimes it’s 70/30, but it all sort of balances out in the end.

So I want to share these stories with you because they really impacted me. And, you know, as I have done this work, I really see how they have kept me pushing myself to grow and to enjoy my days. So when I was a young leader, I worked for this leader and he was a great guy and he was getting ready for retirement.

And this was, you know, a couple of years before his retirement. And I mean, he talked about it. He could not wait, you know, I mean everything about it. He’s like, I’m going to do this when I retire, me and my wife are going to do that. And I just remember it so vividly. I mean, at the time I was, you know, in my, probably late twenties and I just remember he was just so excited. He was just going to live the life of his dreams when he retired and shortly after, so he retired and he was so excited and shortly after, less than a year after he retired, he passed away. And I tell you, it really impacted me because I remember thinking like, oh man, he was going to do all of these things. And then it hit me like, oh shoot, we’re not promised one more minute. Not one more day. Yet we keep putting our happiness and our joy and our dreams, we just keep putting them off until it’s the right time.

So I have this other story. I tell you, this story is, you know, a personal one with my grandparents, you know, my grandparents had this dream, you know, my granddad worked his whole life. And when he retired, they were going to buy an RV and they were going to travel the country. And you know, my grandmother always worked at home. She was a homemaker and you know, she was excited about it too. She couldn’t wait because he worked long hours, and they just couldn’t wait until, you know, he, you know, retired. And so my grandfather retired, they bought an RV and they started traveling the country. And then my love, my grandmother, she had a stroke in the RV, not six months after they started their journey.

She passed away shortly after. She was in her mid sixties. I know both of these stories. I mean, they break my heart, honestly. You know, losing my grandmother, watching my mother lose her mother. My mother was, you know, in her mid forties when she lost her mom and it was devastating to her. And you know, my grandfather, he was devastated. My grandfather lived for almost another over 30 years. And after my grandmother had passed and you know, it was just heartbreaking, my loves. And so I wanted to share these stories because they impacted in the way that I think about there, you know, the future.

I love the future. I love thinking I love dreaming, but I know that I’m not promised another minute and that I have to really live my best life today, because there is never a right time. And I tell you, we tell ourselves so often this is not the right time. I will start when life is easier, when it’s better, when things calm down, after our vacation, after the wedding, after my kids, you know, get out of school, after this, during the summer, during the winter. Oh, wait in the new year. I mean, you know my loves, we’re just constantly putting ourselves on the back burners. No matter where you are in your life, if you’re 30 or 65, I just want to challenge you to stop putting you off.

Stop believing it will be better when you retire, lose weight, have more money, have a different job, have a different life. There is no better moment than right now. I just want you to sit in this moment, see the joy and see the love. And then I want you to dream. And then my love, I want you to take some action on that dream.

Don’t put yourself off for one more moment. I know it’s not easy, but love, you are not scared of hard work. Look at how many times you’ve been on the floor, on your knees, and you’ve gotten back up because you are a boss, a warrior my love. I believe so strongly in this work because love, I struggled with my weight, shoot my own brain, my entire life. And now weight is the least important thing in my life. I’ve maintained my weight. I’ve learned how to feel my feelings, how to use my thinking brain instead of Lizzy. I have big dreams. I show up for myself. I serve others. I love hard. I fail. I make mistakes.

I doubt myself, Lizzie pipes up. But now I know how to live in this moment. How to love me. How to show up for me, because when I’m a better version of myself, it affects everyone around me, including my family, my clients, my loves, my team, and me.

I was actually going to record the five stages of weight loss today. but as I’m doing this, I just feel so passionately about this, showing up in this moment for yourself. Love, when are you going to stop putting you off? I’ll record the five stages next week, for sure my love. So this is what I know for sure. Living in a body that feels like a prison, doubting yourself, feeling like a failure of obsessing about food, what you should or should not be eating, putting off your dreams. Well love, that is not your purpose here. Your purpose, our purpose is to keep growing, pushing ourselves, loving ourselves, serving and loving the other humans and living an amazing life today. The only thing between you and your dreams and goals is your own brain.

I challenge you today with the transformational questions. Take five minutes, pick one and just start writing. Number one, where are you not showing up like you want to. Number two, What actions can you take right now to show up for you? Number three, What do you need to do to get off the diet roller coaster for good and live your best life in a body that you love? Number four, What are your dreams and how do you start working on them right now?

And if you need help implementing the tools I teach and you want support, coaching, and tools that can help you get off the diet roller coaster for good, then go to bflycoaching.com/join. So much love for you. 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.