Hi and welcome to the Mindful Shape podcast, I’m Paula Parker. Lately I’ve been hearing from some of you who listen regularly which is super cool, so if that’s you, welcome back and if you’re new, welcome. This podcast is for those  who want to be at peace with food and their bodies so that they can release any extra weight they have and keep it off. 

One of the reasons why many of us want to lose weight is to feel better about ourselves. We think that if we could just lose 10lbs or 15lbs we would just feel better about ourselves - have more confidence, more self-worth and higher self esteem. But what if it was the other way around? What if to lose those the first 10, 15 lbs and then continue on to our goal weight,  maybe that’s 20, 30 or 60lbs, it was REQUIRED to feel more confident, have more self-esteem and feel more self-worth FIRST. 

Right now you’re probably thinking well A. that’s impossible, especially if you feel at war with food and your body and B. Why would it be required to lose weight?

I’m really excited about this episode because I think it might really give you a fresh perspective, some inspiration and a renewed energy when it comes to your journey.

We’ll explore how self-esteem and weight loss are TRULY connected.

First I want to get clear on what I mean when I say self-esteem so that we’re all on the same page. It’s defined as confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect, self-regard.

The first thing you need to know, is that you are worthy already. You are 100% worthy simply by the virtue that you were born on this planet. There’s nothing you need to do, change or become to increase your worthiness and there’s nothing you’ve done do decrease it. Your worth is a fact. It’s a neutral circumstance that you can’t change. Think of all those little babies out there right - of COURSE they are 100% worthy. And you were once a little baby too - still just as worthy.

So hear that if you needed a reminder. 100% worthy right now. No matter what your body shape is, right? Okay, now maybe you’re on board with that. You’re like, I know I’m worthy as a human, but then why do I have low self-esteem and feel bad about myself?

That’s where I’m going to spend time today, it’s that self-respect, self-regard part of self-esteem that we can increase for ourselves with how we think of ourselves. 

Here’s the thing, we think we have low self-esteem because we’re not in the right sized body. I was convinced that if only I were at my goal weight, then I would automatically have really high self esteem, love myself and my body. Like it would all come swooping down on me when I saw that number on the scale and not a day earlier. Isn’t that funny? That’s literally what I used to think. That a number would determine how much I believed in myself. 

So then if releasing the weight doesn’t automatically make you like yourself more, why not just eat, right? If you still feel horrible? The key is to build your self esteem throughout the journey of releasing the weight, not waiting until some end goal. 

Here’s what’s really going on for most of us. Maybe you’ll see yourself in what I’m about to say.

We feel insecure or we feel badly about ourselves and then we turn to food and then we feel even worse. We try to lose weight and the scale doesn’t go down, or it goes up and we feel even worse about ourselves than when we started. We’re making a number on the scale determine our self worth. 

We make how our clothes fit, or don’t fit determine whether we’re nice to ourselves that day or not. When we try on clothes in a store and feel bad when we look in that mirror (with that terrible lighting that’s not doing anyone any favors). We make that mean we are not worthy of loving ourselves or respecting our bodies. Then we disrespect our bodies by either depriving ourselves food or overeating to numb our feelings. 

Feelings of self-love, self- esteem and self worth CANNOT come from anything external. They only come from the thoughts you have. You think that all of those circumstances are what’s making you feel bad. I know you think it’s inevitable that you’ll feel bad when you don’t like how your body looks or feels at this size. I want to encourage you to question that. You are the master of your thoughts about your body and that’s very, very liberating.

And know that your brain has a self-destruct program for these types of scenarios. What I mean is that you don’t have to feel bad about feeling bad when you look in the mirror. This is simply a program in your brain. But the next time you’re buying clothes or you’re trying on a bathing suit, how can you think differently? What will you say to yourself that’s breaking that old programming? How about, these are just clothes on a body. Or you can acknowledge that you’re not in the right sized body yet but you know you’re on your way there. 

So I think you get it by now, but just to be clear on this point. Your self esteem and self worth don’t come from weight loss. It comes from your thoughts about yourself. And that’s great news, because you can start building up your self esteem and self worth right now - with zero pounds lost by being intentional about how you treat yourself. Intentional about what you think about yourself.

One thing that I used to believe was that it would be way easier for me to have nice thoughts about myself if I took meaningful action. If I worked out I could feel proud of myself or if I ate on my protocol I could feel good about myself. And it seems harmless. It’s seems natural and good. But the problem is when this is the ONLY time you can feel proud or say nice things to yourself,  you make your self esteem conditional on action. Then when you eat off plan, or you don’t meditate, or workout, you really feel bad about yourself and tell yourself that you can’t do it, you have no motivation, you’re never going to succeed and it’s all hopeless. 

But you also have the option to love yourself even when you don’t take action. How can you love yourself even MORE when you fail? When you say you’re going to do something and you don’t. When you let yourself down? How can you love yourself more? Because truly that’s when you need it the most isn’t it? 

I had a client who would find herself snacking in the evening after she’d vowed eating time was over. She would be watching tv and think, I’ll have tea and then she’d be in the kitchen and want a little snack with her tea. She liked those Pepperridge farm cookies. And then she’d have one or two and feel just terrible and go into a spiral of shame and regret and think, why do I keep doing this? 

I mean for one thing, for store bought cookies, I do think those are pretty good - the food just tastes good right? It’s not like it’s 8 o’clock and we're in the kitchen thinking, hmm I could really go for some raw broccoli right now. 

And secondly she was in a shame spiral. We needed to work on getting her out of that FIRST. Then she could have that craving and feel in charge. And make the decision from a place of feeling like it was her conscious choice, not like it was happening to her. 

Often we think we need to feel badly about ourselves when we screw up because we know better. Because we know what we should be doing, so if we don’t do it then we’ve screwed up - we’re less than. Or we think we have to earn our own love and respect. 

Eating a cookie or an entire bag of cookies is a circumstance - there’s nothing morally wrong about it at all. It doesn’t mean we need to lose respect for ourselves. I know it feels like it does, or that we don’t want to respect ourselves when we do that, but question whether withholding love and respect from yourself is moving you TOWARD what you want and who you want to be, or AWAY. My guess is it’s moving you away every time. 

The most amazing thing about the human brain is that you can decide what you make something mean. You ascribe meaning to EVERYTHING you do. You get to decide if it’s something to feel terrible about (Which you can but there’s very little pay off) or if it’s a call for love. So you watched Netflix all day and ate buckets of popcorn. So what. You get to be a human sometimes. And if you’re like, yeah but I don’t want to waste my life doing stuff like that, or I have some really negative, destructive habits. Then I urge you to get curious about why that’s happening  from love, not judgement and condemnation. 

Watching hours of netflix, eating on your protocol, or not or working out or not is totally neutral. You did or you didn’t. You don’t have to feel badly about it. You get to decide and then also decide what to do the next day.

What you’ll notice is that when you give yourself a break - you’ll naturally start taking action that will move you toward your goal. Even if it’s small actions like not going through the bakery section at the grocery store. You’ll start showing up for yourself more. For example, doing things like going for a walk after dinner instead of having Pepperridge farm cookies, or doing what you said you would do - listening to this podcast!  I have a few self-development podcasts that I like and I’ve noticed that there have been periods where I found myself really resisting listening to them. I wonder if that ever happens to you too. It was almost like I thought - I SHOULD be listening to that and I felt resistance coming up. So interesting. Good time to get curious and be gentle with yourself if that ever happens to you. That ‘should’ thing is a good indication that your thoughts need to be looked at. 

Showing up for yourself can also look like sticking to your workouts and your protocol. Or, and this is a big one, being there for yourself in a loving and supportive way when you DO go off your protocol. Seeing that as a call to love yourself more, not less.

When you are taking actions like these, your brain will notice and you’ll have new thoughts like, you are someone who does what they say they’re going to do. You are someone who works out. You are someone who eats healthy. It doesn’t happen with one occurrence, but overtime you’ll start to see yourself in a whole new light.

POINT TWO

The only reason we set any goal is because of how we think it will make us feel emotionally when we get there. 

So think about your goal weight. What are you hoping to feel when you reach it? I want you to imagine tomorrow morning, you get up, maybe you feel groggy - I never feel great when I get up -  you go to the washroom, then you get on the scale and there it is. The number that’s been in your head for years. You can see it. You’ve actually done it. You’ve reached your goal weight. Now, how do you feel?

Thrilled? In awe of yourself, more confident, in charge, proud? You don’t have to wait to feel like that. You don’t have to put off feeling in awe of yourself, or more confident or in charge or proud. All of that is accessible to you now without losing a single pound.

I know it seems kinda far fetched doesn’t it? But remember - how you feel can always be linked back to your thoughts. You think that that arbitrary number on the scale (your goal weight) is causing the feelings, but it’s all of the thoughts you’re having about yourself and your life in that moment. 

So what do you need to think NOW, to start generating some of those feelings. Now I totally understand if you can’t get the same intensity all the time. I don’t - I’m still working at this too. So I’ll give you some tips on how you can get started. 

One way is to pay close attention to what IS working. Our brains have a negativity bias and will highlight for us what ISN’T working, so you need to spend extra effort on finding what IS working. That will definitely generate more positive feelings and help you stay motivated. 

When I was a manager of a clothing store, I had to give yearly reviews and I decided that instead of giving feedback on what each person could improve on, I would only focus on all the great stuff about them and their contributions. After I told them that, I asked THEM if there was anything they wanted to work on. Why? Because I knew that pointing out the negative, like you often show up late, or you don’t know enough about the fabrics, wasn’t going to motivate them. And most people are self aware - they already knew these things about themselves, and they offered it up which meant they were much more likely to change it. It was their idea. Again, back to the control thing - no one wants to feel controlled. And also - I mean this was retail not exactly high stakes here if they don’t change their ways. I’m not suggesting this is like a management tool everyone on the planet should use, but it worked well in this case. 

This is why coaching is more valuable than simply acquiring the information. As coaches, we don’t tell you what to do, we ask you the right questions so that you come to the conclusion yourself and you feel empowered to make the changes you need to to get your result. 

Another is to find areas in your life where you easily feel the emotions you’re after. Maybe for you that’s at work and you give amazing presentations. How can you do more of them? Or maybe you’re really good with your money and have a lot saved. Acknowledge yourself for that. This can be a powerful self coaching exercise for your daily 15 - write out major areas of your life, relationships, money, career, personal growth, spirituality, home environment, friends and family and think of what you’re proud of or what makes you feel confident or in charge in these areas. 

I used to have a corporate job and we attended a ladies’ gala because we were sponsoring it or something. So I was sitting at a table with very accomplished women, C-suite professionals, very intelligent and powerful women of various ages. And guess what they were talking about? Something they all had in common? Their struggle with food and losing and gaining weight over and over again. I just thought wow - you know we can be a 10/10 in one category or more and yet still be really struggling. If this is you, look at what thoughts you have about yourself in the area that’s always come easy to you and see how you can use them in your weight loss journey.

For example, an area that’s always been easy for me is in romantic relationships. Now, I have many other areas I’m working on to be sure, but there’s always been very little drama here for me in dating. My thoughts were that it’s easy to meet guys, there’s tons of great guys out there and I’ll have no problem getting a boyfriend or husband when I want one. So much abundant thinking here. No scarcity.

I had friends who panicked when they hit thirty about not meeting the right guy and it just made me laugh. I thought they had loads of time. In my mind, of course it was going to happen, so why be stressed about it? This is a very useful way of thinking when it comes to any goal. Of course it’s going to happen, so why stress right? Just take meaningful action and it will come. Go out, meet people, go on dates, choose a guy you like. Same with weight loss, choose a protocol, manage your thoughts, lose the weight. That is the really great thing about a weight loss goal - it’s completely within your control. It only relies on you and your thoughts - not other people, not opportunities, not the stars aligning, only you, managing your brain and following your plan. 

If you’re still not convinced and you think, no I just need to pursue my goal and I’ll feel great when I get there. Here’s why it’s important to be able to create the feelings you think your goal will provide.

If you aren’t able to generate these feelings on your own, with your own thoughts NOW and are waiting for an external circumstance to give that to you, it won’t stick. 

What I mean is you will feel those feelings when you see that goal number because of the thoughts you’ll have in that moment but then those feelings will wear off eventually. You’ll be used to being at your goal weight and it won’t give you those feelings anymore. Then what happens? If you can’t find ways of feeling those feelings, you may turn to food or other ways of coping. OR you may create other goals, which you might think - well that sounds okay, but you’re still striving to feel differently than you currently do. You’ll ALWAYS be striving, discontent, looking for an external circumstance. This is a skill that you need to learn. 

What I’m suggesting is that you go for your goals WHILE feeling proud, WHILE feeling confident and in charge. You think in a deliberate way on a daily basis to create these feelings and then reaching your goal becomes a fun by-product. 

POINT THREE:

Don’t make going off your protocol or making a mistake a problem. Where can you find reasons to feel good about yourself when you’re learning and not make it a big deal. Like not losing weight. Maybe you’re still figuring out how to make time for daily thought work or maybe you’re not even sure what you should be doing during your 15 min of thoughtwork. Maybe you’re still figuring out what your protocol should be - what it looks like for you to feel satiated and lose weight at the same time.

Or maybe you’re trying to get into a new fitness routine that’s just not taking. Whatever it is, it’s not a problem. I’ll repeat. It’s not a problem. Our brains love to make things like this a big deal but they’re not. They’re just part of the journey to get where you want to go. 

And if you know you’re going to get there (because you’ve been building up your belief in yourself and what you’re capable of) AND you’ve been generating feelings of accomplishment, being in charge and feeling good about yourself, then you know it doesn’t really matter how long it takes or if you take a few side roads - the scenic route - to get to your destination. Why? Because you’re releasing the weight for the very last time. 

So it makes sense to invest the time, effort, money - it makes sense to try things knowing this is a different approach. This is changing the way your brain works. And you can feel REALLY good about that. 

Okay let’s recap shall we?

In case you were feeling low today, know that no matter what, you are 100% worthy and nothing can take away from that. 

We think that we lack self-esteem because we’re not in our right sized body, but it’s actually the opposite. It has been because of feeling badly about ourselves that we’ve turned to food and gained extra weight. It’s never the circumstance, it’s never your pant size that determines how you feel, it’s always your thoughts about what your pant size means to you. What you make it mean.

The reason you want to release the weight is because of how you think you’ll feel when you get there, so figure out what those feelings are and then start learning how to generate them intentionally so that you have that skill throughout your ENTIRE journey, even after you’ve released the weight.

Finally, don’t make your slip ups a problem. Nothing is going wrong, it’s all part of the process. It takes time to figure out the right protocol and to get in the habit of doing thought work. Don’t think that you have to be perfect right from day one. There is no perfect day of eating ok? It just doesn’t exist. You are right on track, exactly where you are. And in case nobody has told you today - you are doing amazing. Just keep going.