Ep. 121 Tapping Into Determination

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  Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I'm Paula Parker. I'm a life coach, and I specialize in weight loss. Alright, so I will warn you in advance that I am a little bit sleepy today. My daughter was up at 4am. For some reason, she decided that that would be a really good time to wake up today. So I don't know why.

But anyways, it's been a long day already, so You know, I'm just feeling a little bit relaxed. Let's say that. Not tired. Just relaxed. So if you are also feeling like that, great. We can ease into it. Oftentimes when it comes to coming up with ideas for this episode, it's pretty easy. I get a lot of ideas from clients, what they're struggling with, what they are doing to succeed.

And it's often so inspiring I always get ideas and of course I use all that I have learned personally along the way and I've shared some of what I've been up to having released my baby weight and having dipped down below my pre pregnancy weight, which was fun.  And although I do consider myself a pretty private person, I know, you know, we're all friends here.

You're along for the ride. So I don't mind sharing with you that I have been what I call in a drift. For about three weeks or so. So, I thought, well, I will talk about this because if I'm going through it, you might be too. Or you might at some point in the future. So, I want to talk about what a drift is, what am I talking about, and share with you how I'm going about things, how I'm handling it.

Hopefully it will help you.  I think it's fair to say that one of the main obstacles is weight loss. And likely, really with any goal, is what I call the drift.  It's a forgetting. It's losing interest in the goal. It's really just prioritizing other things instead. And it can start really gradually. Like we stopped doing the little things that we know serve us.

And before we know it, we're not doing any of them or we're doing less of them.  We revert a little to the old ways of doing things. Maybe not completely. This is not a. off the rails situation. Often the drift is not a rebellion. It's very quiet. It's not like an active screw this mentality. It's much more subtle.

So you might not even notice it happening. We have decided at some point that we want, you know, to change our shape, we want to release weight, whatever that is, we want to change our eating habits. We want to maybe not emotionally eat anymore. So let's think of a weight loss goal. We have a plan for that, but then we get busy.

Maybe we catch a cold, we just get a little off track and we drift farther away from that goal and really doing the things that we need to do in order to achieve that goal, whether it's weight loss or otherwise. And the drift can be very sneaky. It can show up as permissiveness, where we are really permissive when it comes to food and eating, especially after we've had some success.

So we get a little more lax, we relax around what we were doing, we start allowing more food, we maybe stop eating in the way that helped us release the weight initially. This could be eating a little extra than we need at meals, it could be eating while cooking, or just grabbing an extra handful of nuts, or that spoon of peanut butter after your meal, or instead of allowing hunger, you allow yourself to start having snacks and you're telling yourself, well, these are healthy.

These are, this is food that serves me. These are healthy snacks. Now, sometimes this will all be fine in terms of weight loss and there's no rash, right? But. It might be impeding your weight loss. So if you're noticing that your weight loss has stalled or the scales going back up or beyond the top of your weight range, which is for most people, three to four pounds, this might be why you're in a drift.

You've just sort of drifted away a little bit. Okay. And I don't think it works to, you know, try to avoid. Adrift at all costs. It's like kind of like a bad mood. We don't want one, but it's inevitable. It's just part of being human. It doesn't last and we come out of it. Sometimes that's hours, sometimes that stays weeks or even years.

Okay. But I think it's more useful to know that it will most likely happen at some point, likely many points along the way. And to simply let that be okay. Let that be part of it. Expect that you will lose a little momentum. At times, you will not feel super motivated all the time. You won't feel intensely inspired for a time and maybe even apathetic about your health and weight loss goals.

Again, this doesn't mean you're overindulging per se. But you're just not eating in a way that's really going to optimize fat loss. That's conducive for weight loss.  So it's not about never drifting so much as noticing it when it's happening and then reigniting that determination within you, that commitment.

And for me, there's something just reassuring to know that this is part of it, that a drift is normal, that I'm not doing anything wrong when it feels like this, but also that it's possible to get out of the drift and feel that sense of determination again.  And maybe for you, you've never coined it as this, but you've experienced this when you haven't consciously quit on your weight loss goal  or your goals around eating better or your workouts or moving your body.

But then you start to notice that somehow you've gone back to your old habits. Maybe you realize that you didn't do your physical therapy once this week. You've forgotten to weigh yourself. You haven't really been paying that much attention to what or how much you're eating while you're eating. Here's how I like to handle these situations.

One is don't be in a rush to get out of it.  If you've ever walked a dog who found something that they really wanted to eat, that they definitely weren't supposed to be eating and you tried to pull them away on a leash, you know, this, the more you try to pull, it doesn't matter that they're only 10 pounds soaking wet.

They dig in and somehow they've developed some sort of mutant super strength. They're super strong and the only way you can get them up is by going over and lifting up their whole body and prying their paws off the ground to move them away. Okay. Trying to force inspiration is like that. You can pull and pull and pull, but it's just not going to budge your brain.

Might not be ready to move into determination, which is why you might feel worse and not better when you try to Summon up some determination or motivation or inspiration when thinking about your goal. Okay, so here's a self coaching question for you What's the rush? What's the rush? There's no rush. You will reach the goal.

Okay, there's no rush Don't need to make any big changes if you are not feeling compelled to do so  number two is When I tell myself this, when I tell myself there is no rush, that immediately calms my nervous system down to where I can then think more clearly. Now I can pay attention. Now I can take a look.

I can be more objective. Without judgment, I can be more neutral. What's going on with me?  How does this make sense right now? You might find some clues. Maybe it's health related. Maybe it's life stress, et cetera. So get curious when and why did you start drifting? Was it the number on the scale one day that made you feel discouraged and you kind of subtly started to do these like little mini quits, stop planning, stop tracking, stop paying attention.

Was it that you got sick and then you're not quite back on track yet? Was it that you simply stopped doing what you know? You forgot the tools that you have. Half of it is just remembering the tools. Like, skipping ahead mentally, right? The mental skip ahead. I've talked about catch, hold, and release. I've talked about the acronym CAFN, right?

So, all of those tools that we have. Okay, now, I have a little context now that I've done this work, right? This is step three. I have a little bit more understanding. Can I then move into some compassion  for some of us? This is honestly the biggest challenge in weight loss. It's not cravings or how delicious brownies are.

It's literally can I be compassionate with myself so that I train myself not to turn to food? To overcompensate for negative emotion because I'm feeling so bad and I need some extra soothing. And when I do, when I do indulge, can, or overindulge, can I quickly re engage with the process? How quickly is that turnaround time? 

Compassion is key. So both curiosity and compassion are requirements. Now we can tap into determination. So here's what I have to say about determination.  You can cultivate it only when you're ready. And I just talked about how to get into that readiness state of mind. Number two, it can be gradual or it can be like lightning striking.

So for example, this happens a lot when I'm working with clients, something just clicks. You see something in a different way, you get challenged in a different way. You have an aha, you see it differently. You are able to access that spark and really tap into your own determination. You just have access to it in a different way.

It's that well of conviction inside of you. And I think if we're doing it on our own, it's great, but it just usually means it's more of a gradual process. Again, totally fine. It just means that usually you'll be taking smaller steps. It'll take you a little bit longer to get back into momentum. Okay.

Maybe you're easing back into your program. Also great. There is no rush. Go at a pace that feels good to you. Trust that that's right.  And then the last thing I want to say about determination is your level of showing up in terms of, you know, how you're moving your body, the choices you're making around food, is going to be directly tied To your level of determination, so it might be quiet determination, or it might be fierce and loud.

It might be like, it might feel really still and soft, or it might feel like you're just going to take on this goal with everything you've got. Okay. You're guns blazing, so it might be that you don't mention it to anyone. You don't mention that you're doing anything differently, or you might boldly tell people about what you're up to. 

Maybe you journal, you're doing it softly, you journal, you meditate on your plan, or it might look like you put on your favorite song and you dance around the room, you've ripped through your closet, you've torn out all those bigger sized clothing that you vow, you know, I'm never going to wear this again, this is done, I'm done with this.

So it takes all forms, there's no right or wrong way, just do what feels like in rhythm with you,  above and beyond all of that. Here's what I am personally doing in practical terms. I'm really just going back to the structures and tools that I know serve me. For example,  something that really serves me is keeping track of  my supplements.

So I have a little tracker that I created just with a tiny little whiteboard and it helps me feel like I know what's going on because I'm finding that there's more and more days when I'm like, Did I take my vitamins? Did I take my probiotics? Like what is going on? Did I do my vitamin D? So I just have a little checklist.

So whatever that is for you, where you just want to feel like  I don't want to have to be spending any extra time thinking about did I do this or did I do that and just checking things off. We always know that checking things off is a dope mean head, right? Like we get some neuro chemical reward from that little check.

So anything that you want to track and check. Amazing.  Kind of along the same lines. I'm going to go back to using the planner tracker that I created the mindful shape planner So this is a three month physical planner that you can use you can actually buy it. I don't talk about it a lot I don't promote it a lot.

I think it's a great resource. I really love it. It talks about a strategy in there You can find it. I guess the best way to find it is go to my Instagram. And if you click the link on bio, you can go to, and you can actually look through the whole planner and we can see what it looks like. If you want to kind of recreate your own using my system, you're welcome to do that, but it's not expensive.

I think it's 29 American. So you can go ahead and buy that is a tool that you might find helpful. Or something similar, something along those lines. I am going to go back to that. It's like that served me in the past. It's useful. It helps me make decisions ahead of time. It helps me be clear. Now, will I incorporate flexibility?

Of course, I'm not somebody who maps out every single bite of food that they're going to eat in advance,  but I do like keeping track of, you know, what's my hunger level. What's my satiation? Like what foods serve me? How many exceptions am I doing? That kind of thing. What's my key focus for the day? All of that just helps me stay clear and stay committed, stay accountable to myself.

The other part of that is self coaching on paper. So doing the thought work exercises. Of course, I have my own personal, some of which I've shared with you on this podcast. You can find them at my website at mindfulshape. com in the free resources section. There's a bunch of self coaching PDFs in there.

You can take a look at them. A lot of them, I think, make more sense when you are listening to the podcast associated with them. Which, now that I'm thinking about that, I should actually have the podcast number on the PDF. So, I will do that going forward, but for now, you can go in there and check them out.

I also have a couple videos and resources in there too. And the last thing I'll mention is, I'm going to go back to using my it's called a Keto Mojo. It's basically a little device that measures your glucose and your ketones. So again, I just want more information about my body, where my body's at right now.

As we know, that changes. And given my age, I'm This is so funny. I always forget my age. I think I'm like 43. I don't know.  Oh yeah, I think I just turned 43. Anyways, I am starting to notice like there's some changes, right? And like perimenopause is like coming up. So if I think I'm in it right now, I'm exploring all of that.

So I want to be tracking this data. I want to get to know my body really well, right? Without any judgment, I just want to have the information so that I can make decisions. We need to find ways that will work for us to help remind our brains what we care about, what's important to us, and what we are up to.

Some people like to put little post it notes up with little mantras or reminders, that kind of thing. I have heard, and I don't know the research on this, but I have just heard that your brain will ignore it after three days. It just won't register it anymore. This is habituation, right? We just get used to things, so something to keep in mind.

Might want to sub those out every three days. The last thing I'm going to do is prioritize it. So, I'm going to look at where am I not putting my health and how I want to feel in my body, which is as good as possible. Where am I not doing that? Okay, where am I not making it easy for myself to do that? And I will recommit to making it a top priority.

So prioritizing yourself sounds obvious, but how many times do we really take the time to map out all the things that we really need to do? So we love the idea of being down 15 pounds. But not the tedious stuff of going to the grocery store or Doing the grocery order to ensure that we have the veggies and protein that we need like weighing ourselves every day or tracking that tracking what we're eating or planning what we're eating or Allowing when we want to snack or when we want to overeat now Listen, there's all of that stuff that I just said mentioned.

Is it all required for you to hit your goals? No, of course not. But I will say the more precise you can be, especially if you are looking at the last, you know, 10 pounds or so, the more success you will see on the scale.  And when it comes to prioritizing, we will often prioritize other people before ourselves.

It might mean that we miss our workout because we are doing something for someone else. Or we don't make the food that would really serve us and our bodies because it's just easier to make what everyone else will eat. We know they will eat pasta, right? But I will suggest that if pasta is a big thing in your house and you don't want to be having it as often, you can use barley as a substitute.

It's really good. It's like really wholesome and fills you up. And it's great with  I think it is also helpful to recognize that when you are making some changes in terms of prioritizing yourself, there might be some friction.  It can be hard. We can have some guilt. It can feel selfish. We might even have some FOMO.

So my husband and I are on a new little routine where he's going to the gym. He's doing the opposite. He's putting on weight. So he's going to the gym and he's a pretty slim guy. So this is like a whole new territory for him. He goes to the gym twice a week. In the evenings. And so now on the other two nights of the week, it's some me time.

Now, it sounds so great in theory, but it's actually much harder to do than you would think. And even for somebody who, myself, who really enjoys their own time, in my mind, I feel like I prioritize that and self care. Even then I have a little fear. Almost sometimes I feel a little guilt. It does feel a little selfish sometimes.

So that's okay. Right. We, when I know that if I take that time for myself, I show up better when it's time to do bedtime, right? I'm not exhausted. I've replenished, maybe I did something for myself. Maybe I did some writing or just something that was just felt just for me. Right. So we will have to make trade offs.

I also do my. Workouts in the morning. I have the luxury of creating my own schedule. So I'm able to do that during You know the hours that most people would be working but the trade off is I'm not able to show up in my business at that time, right? That is a trade off  or maybe it's saying no to your partner when they say, you know, let's get pizza Let's order pizza or let's have a glass of wine.

And so only you can evaluate Is this decision serving me is this? Showing up for me. Do I love my reasons for saying yes to this and no to myself right now and you might sometimes If I have to take the kids to school because my husband is away I'm going to be okay with missing my workout that day.

Like it's just not that big of a deal I'll get right back to it the next day. But if he comes back from his trip and he says, okay I'm ordering pizza or I'm making pasta, which That I'm not into on that day, then I'll say, okay, great. You guys have that. I'm going to do my own thing. And that might mean something super boring when it comes to my dinner.

Okay. So there's a trade off right downside, no pizza upside, sleep better, feel more energized and good in my body the next morning. And of course, a little bit closer to my weight loss goal.  Alright, so I think it's important to note the thinking that's going to support all of this, all of these actions.

Thinking that creates determination is, it's normal to drift sometimes. And it's okay to drift. I can get back anytime I want. There's no rush. I know exactly what to do to succeed here.  I'm looking forward to feeling more in charge, more determined, and energized when it comes to food and my weight. It's kind of like, I know there's trade offs, but I'm looking forward to the upsides. 

I set the pace. I'm in charge. I can tap into determination at any time. I have a wellspring of it inside my body. I can embody it anytime I want.  Conversely, thinking that does not create determination is look, I've done it again. I always get off track. I've lost all my progress.  I'm going backwards.  I'll never get there.

It's not possible for me. Maybe I just don't want it bad enough. Or I don't know what to do.  This is where your brain might go if you are not intentionally supporting it. And listen, we need support as humans. Okay. Whether you are supporting yourself through resources like this, like this podcast,  or you can confide in your best friend, your partner, or you know, someone else who gets it.

We just need support as human beings. Our nervous system co regulates with others and it helps us. It helps us think the thoughts we need to think, feel the way we need to feel and take the action that we need to take. And it truly makes a difference. So I encourage you to make it a practice to support yourself so that you can re engage and tap into determination.

Find a number of ways, right? Find one way or a number of ways to do this when the drifts happen, because you will go into the drift. Okay. And that's okay. It's totally fine when that happens. And I want to support you. If you are someone. Who says, yes, I think I want somebody to be along my side as I go for my health and my weight loss goal.

Then I am here. Have the courage to ask for help. With something that really matters to you, we can have a call. I'll let you know how it all works, the coaching, the weight loss process I use specifically the pricing, everything. And you can decide having all the information, what the next step is toward your specific goal.

My goal is to help you in whatever way that is okay. To get you that much closer. And we will figure it out in most cases. It's a fit in most cases, but if for whatever reason, it's not a fit, then I'm still going to help you get clear on what to focus on, on your own, so that at least you feel that clarity and that confidence to move forward so that that gets you that much closer.

All right. So there really is no downside. And I also love meeting who, you know, people who listen to the podcast is also great.  All right. So if you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me. You can contact me over email at Paula at mindful shape. com and I will talk to you again soon. Bye.