EP #90: How to Lose Weight by Eating Foods You Enjoy

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 90. 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. Oh my goodness. Can you believe episode 90. Only 10 more to episode 100. And we are going to do something super fun for episode 100. So probably around episode 95, 96 I will release all of the fun information. You will not want to miss it. For sure there’s going to be a prize giveaway, for sure.

So today, we’re going to talk about losing weight and eating foods you enjoy. I have to tell you, ladies who join Transform, one of the things I think ladies really struggle with at first is this idea that you can lose weight and eat foods you enjoy. I know, we have just been so brainwashed from all the diets, we just don’t believe it. I know something different. Everything that I teach is around learning how to eat foods you enjoy and lose weight.

So if you are loving the show, please rate and review it. Also make sure you subscribe so I’m in your list every Wednesday morning. So, oh my goodness, ladies, I am so excited for all of the fun things coming up in Transform. We have our member only event in August. It’s called Unstoppable Live.

We’ve been planning for it and we are going to just blow our ladies’ minds. We have been planning all the fun bonuses and we are going to have ladies come in person. So it’s a virtual event, many ladies are attending virtually, but we also are going to have some in-person availability. So we have some ladies who are coming in person and, oh my goodness.

I mean, there might be a glam photo shoot bringing in some hair, makeup. We’re going to have a blast. And of course, for all my ladies virtually, we have some fun bonuses too. And I just can’t wait. I love watching ladies in these immersive events. You know, I remember going to immersive events with my teacher and she hasn’t had one in a while, but oh, I just, you know, my mind is always just so blown and it’s where I have some of my biggest ahas and some of my biggest learning. So I cannot wait. It’s in August and I cannot wait to watch how my ladies will grow and how they will even take their weight loss journey to the next level.

So this past weekend, ladies, I don’t know about you, but Father’s Day is coming up, and we decided to celebrate early. And we also had my nephew’s graduation. He just graduated high school and he has this sweet girlfriend named Rose and she graduated too. And so we celebrated, it was fun. We went actually over to my brothers and, you know, had a kind of a barbecue and went in the pool, and my grandbabies, I’m not going to lie, they love the pool. I mean, kids just love the pool. They love water. So we had a blast this past weekend, but I like to put fun into every day. I think this is part of the process of losing weight for the last time.

It’s learning how to have fun and joy in your life because before food was, I would say, the most, one of the most important things in my life, meaning I was so, I would think about it, obsess about it. I would be thinking about when I was going to eat my next fix. And what I’ve learned through this process is how to, you know, make food really honestly, the least interesting thing in my life. So do you ever feel like if you just ate clean, then you could lose weight. Like if you did whole 30 or plant-based or some sort of other diet that if you just ate chicken and salad, that you could lose weight for good. My last attempt with a nutritionist was very much this way.

I thought if I could just follow her plan, I could lose weight and then I’d figure everything else out later. I mean, you know, this is what I thought, and her protocol was very clean. No sugar, flour, gluten, no processed foods. It basically was meats and veggies. And of course her supplements and some protein shakes too. And I did do it and I lost some weight, but there was this pivotal moment, and I’ll never forget it because my husband and I talked about it for years after, I had been eating clean for months. Months, my loves. I had lost weight and my husband and I went out to dinner and we had pizza and it was kind of like my mind just shifted into another mode, and that was the downfall.

And I just from that point on slowly started to go off plan. I slowly started to, you know, eat all the things. And I really went from this very strict to what I always did, which was overeat, binge, just eat all the things that I couldn’t eat when I was on the clean diet. See, this is why diets just don’t work because you go from following some plan and then if you eat off plan or you, you know, go out or something stressful happens in your life, or you’re go on vacation or, I mean, there’s so many scenarios in this life, then you don’t know what to do, and so you go back to this just off plan. And when you’re off plan, you’re off. Like if you’re anything like me, this is how it goes for you.

And I did this for so long, and because I lost weight and really quickly too, my body had not adjusted. And so it didn’t have time to adjust. It didn’t have time to get to it set point. And so putting back weight, I mean, it was very easy. I swear I could gain 10 pounds in a week and I tell you loves it’s because I lost weight so fast that my body did not have time to adjust.

And you know, when stress came, when my life, my life was changing at that time too, we were moving to Utah. You know, I didn’t know what to do. I had not learned how to change my mindset. So I did what I always did. I slowly went into a full binge and I ate all the things I could not have on my “clean” plan.

And I gained all the weight back and a lot more. And I want to talk about this feeling when you gain the weight back. Have you ever lost weight, you were feeling pretty good, and then something happened and you gained it back? And I tell you love, there is just no worse feeling. I mean, maybe there’s worse feelings, but it feels pretty bad.

There’s so much shame because people can see it. This is the one thing about weight. Everyone can see it. And you were feeling so great. And I remember when I was on the nutritionist plan, I was telling everyone about it and I was so excited. And then when I gained the weight back, I felt so embarrassed. I felt so ashamed.

And because basically I had lost weight and I didn’t enjoy most of the food I was eating and I didn’t learn how to lose weight in a way that I could always do. And because I didn’t lose weight in a way that I could always do, I just went back to my old pattern of just eating all the things, again in automatic brain, not in this conscious awareness and then add on all the shame, all the embarrassment, the feeling of not being able to wear the clothes, the new clothes that I had bought, going back into my older sizes.

This is one of the things I see my Transform ladies struggle with sometimes, when they start to lose weight, getting rid of the old clothes because they’re so, they get some fear. I mean, have you ever had that where you want to keep all, you know, you want to keep all the old clothes because you know, so scared that this isn’t the last time, and you know my loves, this is what I teach. I teach women how to lose weight for the last time. And part of that is eating foods that you enjoy, and it is such an important part of the process and learning how to when you eat the foods that you enjoy really coming into awareness and really paying attention.

And so, you know, I was just thinking about when I, you know, so many diets, especially, you know, the one that you count points on, I would eat all of these Franken foods. Right. I remember making like sugar-free Jell-O and like strawberries. And it was like zero points. And so I would have this Jell-O with strawberries in it, and I would just like eat tons of it because it was zero points, but I wasn’t satisfied. I didn’t, like it tasted fine. I mean a little chemically, you know, chemical, but it, you know, I didn’t, I wasn’t satisfied. And I, because I wasn’t eating the food that I really wanted. Have you ever just overate foods that “you think are healthy?” It kind of goes like this. This is how it would go for me. I would tell myself that, you know, I wanted something. And so instead of the cookie, I’m like, okay, I’m going to eat some nuts.

So then I would eat the nuts. I’d still be thinking about the cookie. So then I’d be like, okay, let me eat the fruit. And then I would eat some fruit. Then I’d go back to and eat some nuts. Then I would add in some popcorn, I would add in all of these foods that I thought were “healthy,” but I really just wanted a cookie. And if I would have, just at the very beginning, just eaten the cookies down, really enjoyed it, then moved on instead of this two or three hour nibble fest, where I was like nibbling on all these different things to satisfy this one craving that I had. I see this so often with my ladies. Just put a cookie on your plan my love, it will be okay.

I think when ladies first come to me, one of the things, and I talked about this, they’re just so surprised about no, I want you to put all the things on your realistic plan. Because what happens over time is when you start to come into awareness, when you have allowance and you start to enjoy food, I enjoy all the food. I enjoy fuel food. I enjoy non-fuel food. And because I really slow down and enjoy the food, I don’t have this bad or good. It’s just food in my world. And I, you know, know now because I pay attention to my body, I know when I’m starting to feel satiated, when I’m starting to feel like little whispers of fullness and I can stop.

I can stop because I feel satisfied because I’m eating foods that I enjoy. Again, whether it’s fuel, like I was just the other day eating this really amazing salad. And I remember way back when just like thinking either salad was diet. And so if I was eating salads, it was diet food. And so I had kind of a negative thoughts around like good food that fueled my body.

But going through this process that I teach, I’ve learned how to eat food that feels good in my body and love it. This salad was so good. I was like eating it up. And it was like so delicious. So I just have learned how to love all the food. And I have, you know, a variety of it on my realistic plan.

Now, if you don’t know what the realistic plan is, go back to episode six and I’ll explain everything in that episode about the realistic plan. Now, I want to say this other really important part about learning how to lose weight by eating foods that you enjoy is because when you do this and you start with a realistic plan and you meet yourself right where you’re at, you will find that you will lose weight at a slower pace than if you just cut it to chicken and salad. But this is so important because what happens is your body adjusts. And because it adjusts, you won’t gain it, right? You won’t, even if you ate off plan for a day or so, you’ll find that your body is not like, okay, I’m going to put five pounds on overnight.

So there is some science here too, my love, about learning how to lose weight. And I just did the previous episode, episode number 89. You want to go back and listen to that about time, but it’s really important to lose weight at a pace that your body can adjust to. And when you do it by eating foods that you love and really enjoy, and you start to learn how to feel hunger, and you come into awareness, love, it is just this amazing process. And I tell you, it is just, it is the way my love. One of my Transform ladies, I was just in the group and I was reading all the posts. We have this private community and she loves to bake and she had baked chocolate chip cookies.

She posted a picture of it and she’s like, yeah, I’m going to put two on my plan. And she’s going to enjoy them. She’s lost 40 pounds with Transform. She’s almost at her natural weight. And you know, she’s, she’s lost this weight, eating what she enjoys, and now she can bake cookies. She can put a couple of cookies on her plan, slow down and really enjoy them. And that is the key to success. It’s learning how to lose weight by eating foods that you enjoy.

So one, start with making your realistic plan. If you don’t know what that is, go to episode six. Then pay attention when you’re eating, enjoy your nonfuel food, it is so important. I categorize food as fuel or nonfuel, not good or bad. So go to episode nine if you’ve not listened to that, and I’ll explain how to really rethink what you think about food. And then make a list of all the foods that you want to eat. Yes, fuel and nonfuel. Then make your realistic plan, meet yourself, right where you’re at and just enjoy it.

Slow down, come into awareness. When you’re eating your meals or you’re eating food, you know, I remember my parents always saying slow down and you know as kids, I didn’t want to, but I tell you love, when you slow down and you come into awareness and you really pay attention to your food and what you’re eating, and I love to think about when I’m, especially when I’m eating fuel food, like how it’s going to nourish my body and how my body is going to feel. It’s just a completely different experience than sitting in your car, eating, you know, whatever it is, whether it’s fuel or nonfuel, not paying attention, not enjoying it, and then not feeling satisfied.

See loves when we just eat it all, and we don’t slow down, we never pay attention and we never actually get that feeling of like, oh, this is really fueling my body or, Ooh, that really tasted good. Right? We were, we don’t even pay attention. It’s such an important part. It’s the first part of the cheat code in Transform, it’s awareness. It’s just slowing down. See, we over-complicate weight loss because of all the diets and all the food plans and all the things. But weight loss can really be easy. And it starts by eating foods that you enjoy and not cutting out any of it.

So the transformational questions are one, what are the foods that you enjoy that you want to include in your plan? And two, why is it important to lose weight in a way that you can always do? And if you want to learn more about my tools, take my free course. You can go to bflycoaching.com/ready, R E A D Y, to take it and learn the fundamentals of what I teach, tools that can help you lose weight for the last time. Bye for now 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 on over to bflycoaching.com. See you next week.