Ep. 108 Mastering Weight Loss Skills

Hi, and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I'm Paula Parker. I coach people who want to release excess weight and stop that incessant food noise of thinking about food all the time. So when it comes to weight loss, I think we can really easily get into what I think of as a fixed mindset, meaning after years or decades, or even months of trying to lose weight.

And after so many failed attempts, what we think of as failed attempts at releasing the weight, Or releasing it and then gaining it back. So we're not keeping it off. We start to internalize this failure and it becomes part of how we think about ourselves. So we will say, this is just who I am. Like I've always struggled.

Or if that's not the case, maybe you've, you've thought, well, I've never had to deal with this weight issue before when I was younger, but something has changed and now I can't figure it out no matter what I try. In any case. We make it mean something about us that there's something wrong with us, or otherwise, you know, surely we'd be able to release the weight by now, but that's not very helpful because it makes us feel some shame and we really get discouraged.

So instead, I think it can be useful to think of weight loss as a set of skills that you can learn skills that with practice, you can get better and better. No matter Your history with food and weight. So we move into a growth mindset. And over the years, after working with so many clients, I've really honed in on exactly what those skills are specifically.

And I'm going to share them with you in this episode. So as you listen, you may want to identify which of the skills you are already pretty good at, which you are maybe just okay at, there's room for improvement, and which really need a lot of work. So either you need more tools, you need more information about this, and or a lot more focus and really practice for this specific skill.

Okay. The idea being that when you know where you are and where you want to go, then you will have a roadmap that makes sense. So, here we go. The first one is really navigating obstacles. And that's pretty broad, so I'm going to be really specific on what I mean when I'm talking about obstacles in terms of weight loss.

The number one is social pressure. So that is the ability or the skill to be able to say no to others. That's both when we feel like it would be, we think it would be impolite or we feel compelled, we feel obligated. That's a better word. We feel obligated to say yes, even when that food is not going to be in service of either how we're going to feel in our bodies or what we want in terms of our weight loss goals.

The other is the other obstacle is really vacations, holidays, and weekends. These are times when we can have a lot of. Desire for food and permissiveness. We can feel a lot of permissiveness when it comes to food and we can tend to overeat. Want to learn how to navigate those specific obstacles. Another one is when, what happens, what do we do when we don't have food?

We go to a restaurant and there's no food on the menu that fits in alignment with What our plan is or the way that we want to be eating. How do we handle that obstacle? Or maybe there's not food in the house. So we've all experienced this where we go down, we're going to make dinner, we're going to make lunch and we're out of that thing that we thought we had.

And there's nothing that we had planned for nothing that feels good to us. What, how do we handle that? Another obstacle for some of you might be alcohol. Alcohol can definitely derail our progress, either because we will drink and then be more permissive with food, or it's simply just the alcohol by, in and of itself, that's getting in the way of our weight loss.

The other one is tiredness. So this is an interesting obstacle, right? We don't necessarily maybe tie them together, but oftentimes we can eat more when we are feeling tired, either because we are telling ourselves we don't have the energy to make the thing that we planned. It's much easier to order a pizza than it is to put together you know, a more balanced meal.

Or we will actually feel hungrier. So they've actually shown that you will eat about 30 percent more calories just from being tired, just from having a poor night's sleep. And that makes sense because your body is like, okay, I need more energy. And we think, okay, well more food equals more energy. So then we tend to eat more food when you're tired.

So that's an obstacle that you want to learn how to navigate. Another one is, I'm sure you know cravings, right? Being able to say no to yourself. That's a skill. Being able to know what to do when you have intense desire for a specific food. That's what I think about cravings. And then the last obstacle I'll mention is a plateau.

So, you know, Plateaus are very common and there's many different ways of defining a plateau. I've heard anywhere from, you know, three weeks to 12 weeks. So a plateau was essentially when you stop releasing weight and your weight just stays the same. Or you can think of it within your normal weight range for a significant period of time.

So however you define significant period of time. When I work with clients, I'm typically, I mean, we are on a more accelerated pace oftentimes, but I would say three weeks. If you've gone three weeks and you haven't seen any changes, then you might want to take a look at what your strategy is. Okay. But plateaus, Even if you were on point, sometimes they're going to happen.

So that's just something that you want to consider is going to come and you want to be able to navigate it both with, as I say, strategy, switching something up. And then secondly, with your mindset, which I would say is even more important because if we are feeling impatient, if we hit a plateau and we are not managing our brain, we will tend to spiral and we will tend to quit.

Next one is Hunger. So the skill here is allowing and befriending hunger. I like to think of this as a skill because a lot of us, I think who have been in this kind of on and off dieting thing, we can have a bit of a warped relationship with hunger, but hunger is really natural. It's just a just like our body tells us that we have to use the washroom.

Our body tells us that we could use more glucose, right? And so when you. start to see it as just a natural, like indicator that you could use more energy than, and it's not an emergency, then you have some options in terms of how you respond. So if we think of hunger and that feeling that even that physical sensation, if we think it's an emergency, like we're going to pass out or something, if we experience even the smallest amount of hunger and that we need to eat right away.

You're not giving your body enough time to use the energy from the stored food from the overeating that you've had in the past. So that's what your body's going to do. If you don't respond with food, your body is just going to use the fat stores that you have on your body. So it's intelligent. It will use that.

You don't have to worry about it. You want to be experiencing hunger. That's not a problem. That's a very healthy indication that your body is working appropriately. The next one is planning and forecasting. So The degree to which you plan and think about things ahead of time and how specific you are in terms of what you're eating, when you're eating, all of that is really going to be determined based on what your goal is and your personality and what's going to work for your lifestyle.

So I don't think there's like an all or nothing here. I think you really need to figure out what is going to work for you. But a couple of things I will say about this is you need to ensure that you have a good system for Ensuring that you have healthy options at home, whether that is a food delivery system, whether you talk to your partner about, you know, what your plan is for who gets the groceries or who is responsible for prepping the meals on certain days.

That's what my husband and I do. We get his company, like a food delivery service. called Fresh Prep, and I would recommend it. It's great. And we do that twice a week, and then we have divided the week up in terms of he's responsible for dinner these days, I'm responsible for dinner these days. It just helps calm your nervous system and prevent that decision fatigue, so that you're not having to make all your food decisions in the moment.

Some of your bases are covered. So you need to decide what is an appropriate decision. Meal planning system for you. How much meal prep do you want to do? I don't do a ton of meal prep I used to do a lot of it and if you do a lot of it and it serves you and it's great That's amazing because then you know, you have that food there if you are really busy you can either buy, like I do the fresh prep, you can buy stuff or you can decide, okay, this is the minimal that I am, you know, prepared to do that is going to work for me.

So for instance, that might be making sure that you, like in the summertime, I was doing a lot of salads. And so I would cook a bunch of quinoa that I would have on hand that I would mix into my salads. I would do the dressing because I, I really don't like store bought dressing. So a bit fussy that way.

So I make my own dressing and have a big batch of it. And then oftentimes I would. So I'm not talking about chopping a million things, but there are things that you can do ahead of time to set yourself up for success and then ensuring that you have alternatives. So when you plan a doesn't work out or you don't have the energy to do it, do you have a healthy alternative?

Plan B, like, is there something you can grab from the freezer? Is there something that you can run to the store and grab so that again, we're going against that decision fatigue so that you don't have to simply rely on ordering pizza or something that's going to be not conducive for your weight loss.

In terms of planning, you also want to be thinking about what your day looks like and plan accordingly for that. And that goes the same for if you're going to an event, if you are going out for dinner, just spend a minute to decide ahead of time, how you want to show up around food, how, how are you going to make these food decisions, what you will do.

It, it goes a long way to just prep your brain ahead of time and kind of set yourself up. The next skill is paying attention to satiation, paying attention to when your body has had enough food while you're eating. Now, again, oftentimes we're just eating the foods today or the quantities of food, either because somebody else told us that is an appropriate serving suggestion, or this is what it says on the box, or more likely.

We just eat without even really thinking about it because we're distracted and without even really feeling what the food feels like in our body. Maybe this is just the amount that we always serve up ourselves, right? We're not even paying attention. So that's a skill to be able to pay attention to that.

And then another skill in addition to that is then stopping at enough. So even if we get really good at identifying, you know what? I think I'm, I'm full. Like this is how I want to feel in my body when it comes to food. It's yet another skill to be able to stop at enough when either the food tastes really delicious or you just want to continue eating for whatever reason.

Another skill is managing your thoughts. So that's a really umbrella skill. So I'm going to again go into some specifics on what I mean when I say managing your thoughts. The first one is really cultivating awareness. So knowing what you are thinking, knowing what is going on for you rather than being, you know, just doing things, going through the motions.

So awareness has different stages. So what you might notice is that initially when you start out you are aware of all of your overeating after the fact. So you overeat, you don't feel good in your body, you feel bloated, you're feeling discouraged, or you're a little bit mad at yourself and you notice after you're like, Oh wow, I really overdid it there.

Then what you'll notice if you are paying more attention is that you'll, or you decide, okay, I'm going to do this weight loss thing. I'm going to try to release five pounds. Then you will notice that you have awareness while you're eating because you've, you've planted the seed in your head that you're going to.

Maybe be more responsible with your food. You're not going to overeat. You're going to stay away from certain foods. And so when you're eating, you are able to access that awareness easier. So while you're eating, you're thinking, Oh, this isn't really what I had planned on doing, or this is some over, some overeating is happening here.

What we want to get to is where you have awareness before. So you have that awareness of, okay, I really want to eat outside my plan. I really want to eat, but you have the awareness of, you know, am I physically hungry or not? You have that level of awareness before you eat the food. And then, then like extra, extra step is when you have the awareness before, but then you know what to do next.

It's not just, you know, having the awareness. It's okay. I know how to support myself when I'm wanting to eat, when I'm not hungry, when I'm wanting to eat more food than my body needs and you know what to do. The next in terms of managing your thoughts is really noticing what happens for you when you weigh yourself.

So this is a big one, right? When you get on the scale and either it hasn't moved from or it's moved a tiny bit or Or it's gone up. What happens for you? What is the sequence of events in terms of your thoughts and then how you feel when you get on the scale and it's gone up? Or it stayed the same? Or it hasn't gone down as much as you want?

Are you thinking, ugh, it's not working? And are you feeling very discouraged? And then do you make food decisions from that place? You really want to be managing the thoughts when it comes to the scale so that you're not overdoing it. Letting a piece of plastic and some metal derail you, right? Cause that's, what's really happening.

Okay. The other one is stay out of thinking traps. The most common thinking traps I see are all or nothing thinking and justification thoughts. So, all or nothing thinking is being like, Oh, if I have a, if I have a few chips, I might as well eat the whole bag. If I have a little bit of ice cream, well, I might as well spiral for the whole weekend.

That's all or nothing thinking. Justification thoughts are where your brain offers up a justification to overeat. Things like I deserve a treat. I've had a really hard day. It won't make a difference, or I need something sweet. I need something sweet. That's a justification thought to eat something sweet.

And the last one that I'll speak about here in terms of managing your thoughts is what I think of as like a mental skip ahead. So it's when your brain offers a suggestion to overeat or eat something off your plan, and you can just do a little skip ahead. And ask yourself, what is this going to feel like in my body after I'm finished eating?

What will it be like for me after I eat this in like five minutes? What will that experience be like? I can't tell you how much this skill will Shed the weight off your body. If you can just hone in on this one skill, it will make all the difference if you get really good at it. Okay, the next one is, and this is the last one that I'll speak about in terms of skills, is really working with your emotion.

And when I say working with your emotion, I'm talking about three things. Processing emotion, Generating emotion and relating to emotion. So what am I talking about here? When I say processing emotion, this is emotional regulation. So this is what I've spoke about before. When I talk about catch, hold, and release, you're catching.

Meaning, you're paying attention, you're noticing, oh, there's an emotional experience happening. I am having a feeling, right? There is something going on. Whether that is desire, whether that is some sadness or entitlement, there's something going on for you. Holding it is just being aware that it's in your body and not trying to change it, not trying to resist it, not telling yourself you shouldn't have that desire.

You're holding it. In coaching, we call it holding space. Right? You're not trying to change. You're not trying to change anything. You're just holding space. You're allowing it to be there. And if you do that for long enough, it will release. So that's the catch, hold, and release. Okay? So that's helpful in terms of it's a tool to process your emotion.

And remember processing, I love the word process because a process has a start, a middle, and an end. Okay? So catch, hold, and release. The second thing with processing emotion is awareness. So you need to be able to identify that an emotion is happening. Now bonus points if you can even discern which emotion it is.

Now for many of us, this is an, like an, an old extra skill set that we need to learn, right? Which is what am I feeling? Like if I were to label this feeling, would it be desire? Would it be permissiveness? Would it be sadness? Would it be entitlement? Would it be self pity? Identify what is happening here.

What is happening for me? The ability to process emotion requires you to identify you are having an emotional experience or something going on, and then to know what to do with it. Generating emotion. So this is pretty cool. Generating emotion is either done through thought work or body work. Thought work is, okay, there's a way that I want to feel.

So how do I need to be thinking? to feel that way. So for instance, if I want to feel calm, I'm going to need to change my thoughts from there's so many things I need to do. I can't do it all. And that creates overwhelm to I'm doing enough. It's good enough. Everything is working out in perfect timing. Some of that can get a little bit.

Borderline mantra, right? Just not a problem. I don't think that's a problem, but usually what will create a calm feeling or what will create any feeling is a thought that you can think that where you actually believe it. So if you can get yourself to believe that actually. everything is happening in divine timing or it is enough.

Like I decided it's enough. It can be a decision that it's enough that I've done enough for today. Then you will create calm in your body. And the other way is bodywork and bodywork for generating emotion is anything that moves your body or anything you do for your body that might be a restorative practice like yoga or anything like that.

Where you are changing your physical state, you're working with your nervous system. And so we all know how amazing it feels after a good workout. That's body work. You generate emotion because when you move your body or you do these restorative practices, you're changing your neurological state as well.

And then it releases serotonin. You just feel good, right? So you are able to access that positive emotion and you are generating it intentionally. And then the last one is relating to emotion. So relating to emotion is just what is the story I'm telling myself about how I'm feeling right now. So this is the whole thing where you feel bad about feeling bad, right?

I've had to work through this a lot. So it's, it's changing your concept. of what emotion is. So this might require you to investigate, to learn more about this, about emotions in general, and to start thinking of it as energy emotion, to start thinking of it as this is here to tell me something. If that's true, then what is this here to tell me?

Your emotions are valuable. Your emotions are information. Your emotions are not something you want to work against. They're information that is useful to you. And the second piece that I'll offer in terms of relating to your emotion is that you can handle them. If you believe you can handle any emotion because it's a sensory experience that you're having in your body, and you believe you can handle them, there will be less sense of urgency in terms of escaping them.

A lot of our overeating comes from trying to escape boredom, dread, sadness, or loneliness. We're trying to escape those emotions. Just even mild overwhelm or anxiety. Just a feeling of discontent. Even mild feelings like that. If we Can really get a grip on, oh, I can handle them. I can handle this emotion.

We won't feel so compelled by the food. Alright, so those are the skills. You might have noticed that as much as you might need to learn these skills when it comes to weight loss. There's just as much unlearning that needs to happen. And there is this children's book that I really love reading when my son is up for it, which is called the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse.

And I can't remember it's by Charlie something name starts with Mac something, but the book is great. The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse it's called. And there's a line in it that says, I wonder if there's a school of unlearning. And I just think that's so great because Of course, there's lots of unlearning that also needs to take place.

For example, you may have to unlearn to clean your plate or not waste food in order to honor how much food your body actually needs. Because when you're trying to release weight, you don't want to be taking in more food than your body needs. You may need to unlearn your idea of what being polite means.

So it's politeness is not saying yes. When you actually want to say no, when you mean no, and you say yes, out of obligation, because you were trying to be polite, you might want to reframe. What you think polite means. You may also need to unlearn some of these unquestioned food rules that you have going on in the back of your mind.

Like you need to get popcorn at the movie theater, that you need to have toast with your eggs, that you need to have fruit in your yogurt. These seem innocuous, but, and I'm not saying we never have that, but I'm just saying that we want to take a look at what are some of the things that might be keeping us restricted, that might be keeping us Eating in a way that is not optimal for our body.

So we might need to unlearn that we need something sweet after a meal. Okay? That breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We might need to unlearn some of these things. And that's not a problem when you know how to manage your mind. So if you are interested in doing work like this where we, this is what we are focused on, we are focused on a higher level of learning.

We are focused on developing the skillset so that you can. Really manage your mind, work with your emotions, navigate all of these obstacles and hone in on all the skills that are required to really eat when you're very hungry, stop when you've had enough and choose foods that serve you so that you can reach and maintain your natural weight.

Because what's the point in releasing the weight if you don't keep it off and you aren't removing all of that food noise that's going on. If you were up for that and you are ready, To learn these skills and you understand that this is going to be something that is for you and you can only be better because of it, not because you need to release weight, but because you want to, because you want to have this in your life, then please feel free to reach out to me.

We'll set up a call and we can talk about what coaching together looks like. You can find my information on my website at mindful shape. com and I look forward to meeting you. Okay.