You want to be successful with weight loss. Sure, you’ve lost weight before but it comes back, and when that happens it makes you feel like a failure or that somehow you just don’t have what it takes.
(Not true, by the way. We’ll get to that.)
All those nasty voices seep in and it keeps you in the endless cycle of dieting and restriction only to beat yourself up again and again when it doesn’t work out.
(Not your fault, by the way. We’ll also get to that.)
The problem is most of the language around weight loss is centered on “do this” or “eat this, not this”, “run for this many minutes, this many times a week, etc.”
But what it doesn’t talk enough about is actually the thing you need to start paying more attention to if you want to achieve healthy, permanent weight loss.
Give Before You Get
Successful weight loss is about giving before you get. You have to give something of yourself before you get the results.
This is true for just about anything you want in your life.
For a successful business, you give time, energy, form a team, work longer hours some weeks, make the necessary connections, etc. In marriage, you give your heart, loyalty, love, communication. You give your commitment and promise to love someone at their worst and best.
As a good parent, giving up being impatient or giving up thinking your house is going to look like a Real Simple magazine cover, right?
With weight loss, you have to give up some things before the weight comes off.
So, you might have to give up your ice cream habit, or eating fries when you get takeout or nighttime drinking.
Because what’s really going on here is that you’re trying to soothe yourself with food and alcohol.
This means you also might have to face the feelings you’ve been soothing or distracting yourself from. You might have to give up the limiting beliefs you have or crappy thoughts thinking this will take too long, won’t work, or that your body is broken.
None of this is serving you. Promise.
In The Weight Loss Code Academy, the current group of women is the best of the best. These are powerhouse mothers, wives, grandmothers, business women – you name it, and I have been so impressed with how they show up every single day.
Right now, they are on Week 4. And this is right around the time when women have had profound, intense feelings of doubt and resistance.
This is why it’s so important to not go at weight loss alone. Because what I am able to remind these powerhouse women is you are battling years and sometimes decades of shitty thinking.
I am right with them, every step of the way because I’ve been there, too and I know what’s on the other side. There is also this element of helping them let go of the idea that it’s always going to be easy.
Hard is Normal
Who came up with this idea that weight loss was easy? It can be downright hard sometimes honestly.
If you really want it, you have to be ready for the most transformative journey. You can’t escape your thoughts. You are with yourself 24/7 and for so many of the women I work with (my hand is raised, too!) there is stuff going on in your life that is just plain hard.
Maybe that’s dealing with divorce, financial hardship, a sick parent, kids, etc. There is an element of hard that creeps in over the age of 40.
But for so many women, it’s socially acceptable to numb out from it…
It’s wine o’clock somewhere seems to be the running mantra for so many women because what you crave is the relief from your life.
So, it’s not your fault that the diets that keep you in restriction go out the door the minute you have a bad day at work or fight with your spouse, or one of your kids gets sick, or you go on vacation.
In fact, these big feelings and moments in your life that most diets don’t prepare you for. Recently, I offered some of my best tips for handling this.
These fads, trends, and diets are based around the idea of just surviving and they aren’t helping you really and truly thrive in your life.
If you want to be successful and tackle the physical weight, you have to stop saying you’re just surviving.
Energy To Thrive
This is why I help my clients create this energy to thrive while reminding them that they have to give something up first. You don’t get first.
Especially in North America, there are all these marketing and belief systems around the idea that if you do something for a short period of time, instant results should happen.
What you are lacking are the qualities of perseverance, patience, and tenacity.
Weight loss isn’t a sprint. If you have 30, 40, 50 or 100 lbs to lose – you’ll burn out and fail if you buy into the idea that it’s quick.
But it’s not you or that you aren’t capable, it’s the method and a bit of the mindset you’re holding onto.
You need the commitment to a marathon. Being prepared to battle your limiting beliefs, battling your feelings, battling that wanting to numb, and battling the tension of change.
If you can stick with it and find your pace you will come through it.
You cannot wish for life to get easier. Instead, you need to figure out how to get stronger so you can handle what life throws at you.
Then, you make the commitment to stick it out.
Then you get the support to make it happen. If someone has been where you are and has come out the other side, get their help. The people who’ve gone before you are your best assets.
You shortchange yourself when you don’t get this kind of guidance.
So, let’s start right now. You up for it? In the comments, tell me the *one* challenge you’re facing right now with your weight loss or declare a goal you want to stick to. Let’s see if I can help you troubleshoot for a few moments.
You can also email me here. I personally respond to these emails and will get back to you.
What you want is on the other side of what you think you cannot do. There is no shortcut to healthy, permanent weight loss, but there is a solution.
And you have what it takes to make it happen.
