Ep #30: Fall in Love with Movement

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 30.

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 to today’s show. I am just so excited that you’re here today. I’m going to talk about something that I have not discussed before on my podcast, or even my Facebook lives. And then, of course, I’m going to leave you with a couple of transformational questions at the very end.

Today is part four of the series I’m doing on how to get through what is happening without losing yourself. But as always, before we get into the show, I want to give a listener shoutout. Today’s listener shoutout is to BeckyB101.

She wrote, “So grateful for these podcasts. Shannan is such an inspiration. I have learned so much from her. Thank you for your dedication to helping others.” Thank you so much, BeckyB101. I love this review. You ladies inspire me. I love all the reviews and they mean so much to me. If you love this show, please leave a review. I would so appreciate it. And one day, I’ll read your review on here.

As I record this, I am in week four of the coronavirus. So much has happened in the last four weeks. It feels like I’m starting to forget life before. I have been working from home now and pretty much been in my house, except for my daily walks or a few drives with my husband.

Although I am missing seeing people in person, hugging my G-babies, and seeing my family, I have really worked hard on being grateful for what I can learn and do through this time. I’m getting more rest than I have in maybe, I don’t know, 20-30 years. I’m slowing down more, taking my time. I am just grateful for this time and I want to look at it in that way.

I write every day what I’m grateful for in my reflection work and, loves, that list has been growing. I find, the more time I spend reflecting on everything I have, I’m less worried about the change or what I don’t have. I hope for all my loves that you spend some time thinking about all that you have, all the blessings in your life.

You, for sure, make my list every single day. And every day, I’m so grateful for all you ladies. If you’ve listened to me for a while, you know that I do not believe in diets in the traditional sense. You know, removing a food group, following someone else’s food plan, restriction and not listening to your own body.

When I decided, years ago, to stop dieting, it freed my mind up to look for something different, to find a different way. I knew that I had to change my beliefs around what I was fueling my body with. I had to change the way that I thought about food and lose weight with love, not punishment.

I also decided to stop exercising in the traditional sense. I was always looking for someone else to tell me how I should move my body. I read all the things, tried all the ways. I would start some new exercise routine, kill myself, not be able to move, and then quit, give up.

I would put all this emphasis on moving for the 30 or 60 minutes a day. I wasn’t thinking about the other 14 or 15 hours a day I was awake. I remember this time I decided I was going to become a runner. Yes, I had all the fantasies.

I bought the fancy shoes. I made a plan of how I was going to increase my distance each week. Then I wanted to do it in a faster time. I would get on the treadmill and push myself. I would hurt. My knees would hurt, but I was determined.

I did run a 5K. But honestly, it never felt like love for me. I never loved it. Now, I have friends who love it. They run marathons. They do all the things. And it feels like love for them. Ladies, just like food, we have to move our body and find what feels like love for us.

I don’t call it exercise. I call it movement. Our bodies love to move. We were made to move, not just 30 or 60 minutes a day. We were made to move all the time. And it’s important, during this time, this time of stress, change, uncertainty, fear that we move our bodies.

I think of movement as this thing I do all the time. When I’m sitting on conference calls all day, I stand up, I move my legs. I fidget in my seat. I stretch my arms.

Now that I’m home, I walk up and down my hallway and I go to the bathroom on the other side of the house. I have a dance party for one in my office. When I carry my groceries in from the front door, I do curls with my arms like they are weights. I’m trying to be creative in moving my body because I could just sit in this chair in my office on conference calls all day long.

Movement is not just a 30-minute experience in your day. It happens all day while you are awake. I have found things that feel like love to me. I love spinning, Pilates, walking. I love to lift weights. And my most favorite, I love dancing.

These are things, I have found, that I enjoy and feel like love to me. I also love to stretch my body. For many of us, we have had so many negative feelings around exercise. We believe we must exercise to lose weight.

I do not believe that you have to exercise to lose weight. Many people lose weight without exercising in the traditional sense. I no longer think about moving my body and losing weight. I move my body because it feels good. I walk because I love nature. And I love how I feel when I’m outside. I love what it does for my mental health.

I lift weights because I love to feel strong. I stretch because I love to feel flexible. None of this is about losing weight. I move because my body loves to move. And it feels good.

So, one of my besties – I mean, by bestie, I love her to pieces – she loves – I mean loves – yoga. She loves all the kinds and she’s amazing at it. So, I’ve done yoga with her and she is the most lovely human and she is so kind to me while I’m – I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t think it’s yoga, but whatever it is, she’s very kind to me about it.

But I don’t love yoga. I’ve tried it several, several, several times and it’s just not my jam. It’s not something that I love to do. I love the part at the end, you know, the one where you lay down and close your eyes, the reflection, the meditation part. I love that. But I don’t love all the other parts.

I had to figure out what works for me, what feels good? What do I like to do? My bestie, she loves it. And it feels like love to her. Changing your thoughts around movement is key to getting off the diet rollercoaster.

I see so many ladies say, “I hate exercise. I have to get my steps in today.” It feels heavy to them. If they don’t exercise, then they beat themselves up. This is because we’ve tied all of these negative thoughts to exercise.

We have tried exercise programs that we do not like and we end up quitting. But, loves, there is a different way to think about it. What if you could move your body every day throughout the day and feel good about it, feel love about it? What if you tried different ways to move your body until you found what works for you?

Only you know what feels like love to you and your body. Movement happens throughout your day. Your body was made to move. It loves to move. Trust me on this, loves.

So, here are some transformational questions to ask yourself. What types of movement does your body like? How can you move your body more throughout the day, not for losing calories, but to feel better? What have you thought of trying when it comes to moving your body, and can you try it this week?

So good, loves. Join me next week as we go into the fifth episode in this series. I’m going to talk about something that we’re all doing right now that is not serving us. So, bye for now, loves.

If you love this work and you 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!