Ep #33: When You Think You Can’t Lose Weight, You Don’t

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 33.

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 loves, welcome back. Ladies, so excited to be back with you again today. And today, I want to dive in on why when we think we can’t lose weight, we don’t. But before we get into the show, I want to give a listener shout-out to MTFiddler68.

She wrote, “These podcasts are so life-changing. Your podcasts are so inspirational and I love learning everything you are teaching. You have shown me a better way, not only to lose weight, but in just so many areas of life. I have learned so much from you and I’m so grateful to you.”

Thank you so much, MTFiddler68. I love this review. It was so thoughtful and sweet. Thank you to all the ladies who have taken time to leave a review. I just so appreciate it.

So loves, this past weekend was my dad’s 70th birthday. So we wanted to celebrate. I planned on sending him breakfast and having coffee with him. And then later in the afternoon, we were doing the first Brown-Christiansen-Jenkins Zoom party. Everyone would sign in, you know, I thought we would play a game, sing happy birthday, and have so much fun.

Loves, all of that happened, except it was a little weird. We had a little static on the line, it felt a little awkward. I’m so happy that we were able to celebrate with him, but I missed hugging everyone, socializing with everyone, and just interaction that happens when you’re all together.

I mean, for sure, it’s better than not celebrating, but I had to manage my mind around it. I was happy that I spent the morning with him on FaceTime, drinking our coffee together, and grateful I was able to have blueberry pancakes delivered to him. They’re his favorite.

But loves, it was different. I just missed being together. I had to feel the negative feelings Saturday night, and boy, did I feel them. After the Zoom had ended, I just felt a little disappointed and I missed everyone. I wanted to be sad. I missed my grandbabies and my family. Allowing myself to feel sad actually helped me feel better.

I mean, right, loves? When we actually allow the negative emotion, we actually feel better sooner. When you push down negative thoughts and buffer through overeating, then you actually have negative feelings for a longer time period.

We want to feel good and we’re always searching for it, but sometimes we just need to feel sad or okay. To feel that is important. We’re not supposed to be happy all the time. Feeling sad about not being able to celebrate in person was how I felt Saturday night, so I felt it.

And then I started to feel better. I had an amazing day on Sunday and was grateful for all that we had. And that my dad had a great birthday. And when I talked to him on Sunday, he was so excited that we all did get together, even if it was virtually.

So as we continue to manage all of our emotions, especially through this time, don’t forget to feel the hard ones. The ones that just don’t feel that great. You will actually feel better sooner if you just feel the negative emotion. And loves, feel it all the way through.

So let’s move to today’s topic. I was thinking about how we try all the quick fix diets. You know, loves, all the ones. The counting of the points and the macros and some food plan or exercise plan. And they never teach us how to manage our minds and feel our feelings.

This is why they don’t work. This is why so many of us have been on the diet rollercoaster for 10, 20, 30, 40, even 50 years. We believe that if we just cut out a food group, if we just exercise for long enough that it will work and that we will finally lose the weight.

But it doesn’t because something stressful happens, love. We don’t know how to manage our minds or feel feelings because we’ve been using food to do that. We’ve used foods to manage our feelings, to buffer. And so when we’re on a restrictive diet and something stressful happens, we don’t know what to do.

So we end up quitting. We end up binging. And then we’re back on the diet rollercoaster. This cycle of dieting and binging is one I am so familiar with. When we think we can’t lose weight, our brain then looks for all the reasons why we can’t.

It will tell us how we failed, how it’s difficult, how we have bad genetics, health concerns, our families, it’s our spouse’s fault. I mean, loves, our brains will tell us all the reasons why we can’t lose weight. I mean all the things.

Our brains are wired to look for confirmation of our beliefs, and whatever we focus on, our brain will go to work to find evidence that it’s true. This is called confirmation bias. I went in-depth on this concept on episode number 21, so if you want to hear more, go to bflycoaching.com/21.

So we have to understand that we have to stop thinking and saying that we can’t lose weight. I want you to stop what you’re doing. I mean right now, really stop what you’re doing and think about this. How often do you say, “I can’t lose weight,” or, “weight loss is hard. I’ll never lose weight?”

These thoughts keep you stuck. They keep your brain looking for all the reasons why you will not lose weight. When I decided on purpose to stop dieting, to find a different way, I had to change what I was thinking and telling myself.

I remember as I was losing my weight that I would literally stop whatever I was doing when my brain would say something like, “See, I told you, Shannan. You can’t lose weight.” I would stop and just say, “No love, I can lose weight. I have lost weight. I am losing weight.”

I would practice this over and over again. This is how I started to change my mindset. When I would say to myself, “I can lose weight. I have lost weight. I am losing weight,” my mind went to work. It started to look for all the reasons why I could lose weight, why I have lost weight, and why I was losing weight.

It’s strange to me sometimes to think how I always thought that there was some secret food plan, some magical pill where I would finally get it. But love, the magic is in our minds. The secret is in our thoughts. It is learning to talk to yourself more than you listen.

And deciding on purpose what you want to believe and think. Believing that you can lose weight, practicing the thought over and over again, and then love, watch what happens.

Today’s transformational questions are, how often do you have thoughts that you can’t lose weight? Number two, how is thinking you can’t lose weight manifesting in your weight loss journey? And number three, what do you want to think instead of “I can’t lose weight?” So good, loves. So fun spending some time with you. Until next time. Bye for now, love.

If you love this work and want to go deeper, take my free course. You can learn more about it at bflycoaching.com/free-course. Bye for now, loves.

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!