123 Believing You’ll Reach Your Desired Weight

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 Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shade Podcast. I'm Paula Parker. I'm a life coach focusing on weight loss. All right. So In my city, there is about, right now I'd say, five inches of snow, which here on Vancouver Island means it's a snow day. Where I grew up in the Rockies, this is like nothing. But here on the island, they close the schools.

So, you may hear my kids. They are in the background with my husband. After I get finished with this podcast it's gonna be my turn. So I will Be taking care of them while he works for the day. So that is where we were at. If you hear them in the background, that's what's going on. But today we are talking about believing that you're going to reach your desired weight because it's normal to be on what I think of as like a spectrum of belief.

So your levels of belief wane, right? Sometimes it feels like it's just, you're in the, it's done energy and then some days less so. So you're kind of sliding back and forth on this spectrum. When you don't believe you're going to be feeling really discouraged, hopeless. The idea is then to really surrender, right?

Accept where you are. I heard recently, and I think this is very powerful, which is when you accept first and then act, that's where your power lies. So we can't act from a disempowered place. We first have to feel that resonance of accepting, okay, this is where I'm at. I may not love it. But this is where I'm at.

And then we can act, we can come up with a strategy and it's more powerful. The main theme of this episode is going to be on how do we focus on the process of change rather than the end result. So if you are indulging in a lot of self doubt, Right. If you're feeling all that discouraged and you've fallen out of belief, it's not a problem.

It's bound to happen, but it is a tell that you have become overly focused on the end goal of weight loss, maybe in the number on the scale or whatever it is. But what if you decided that, you know, This endeavor doesn't have to be all about that. Yes, of course, you know, you want the weight loss, but what would make the effort, the time, the emotional and even financial investment worth it either way, even if you didn't reach your desired weight?

And your knee jerk reaction might be, well, if I'm not going to reach my goal, then what's the point? I'm not going to try. Right? We kind of like dig our heels in a little bit. Why would I want to feel all that discomfort, be inconvenienced, do things differently? Or the main one, why would I deprive myself of things that I want?

Deprive myself of pleasure. Okay. So that. Is the question you want to answer for yourself and only, you know what the answer to that is, but I want to help guide you. So I think the key often lies in qualities, qualities that you can build. So what do I mean by having this goal, by having this weight loss as a goal and making the changes that are going to be required to reach the goal, how will you be better off as a person?

How will you be better off? What qualities will you have to grow? For example, just having set this goal and pursuing it, you will likely become healthier, even if you never reach your goal, you will likely become healthier than you would have if you've never set this goal. If you really stick with it. And you have a really good strategy or you're working with a great coach, right?

You will become more determined, a more determined, a more focused person. You will learn that skill. You could become more committed. That's the capacity to keep taking action, whether that's planning how you're going to be eating, following through, weighing yourself daily, whatever it is, those like small micro actions.

Despite. Little to zero immediate reward or payoff. So you're committed. You're still doing the things even though maybe you don't feel like it or you're not getting a huge reward from it. Okay. You're still doing that because why? Because you've built that skill. Some people think of it as discipline. I think of it as being committed and learning how to tap into that commitment.

Curiosity. How can you use this process to cultivate more curiosity? Even if it's, okay, I'm really wanting to make brownies right now. I'm really wanting chips right now. What is that craving really about? Even if it's just a split second where you're pausing and you're turning in and you're becoming curious, what is this actually about here?

Compassion. So we know that we can cultivate compassion in this process if we are deciding to do so. Okay. So that's, I like to think of it as almost unconditional positive regard. This process requires so much compassion. It requires you looking at yourself in a new way and understanding, Oh, there's really valid reasons why I overate, why I ate all of the things or why I said I was going to do this.

And I. didn't, or I said, I was going to like eat right on target today. And then by 9am I'd already overeaten. So how can we cultivate compassion with ourselves? Oftentimes it requires some understanding and then we can, you know, be curious, require some understanding and then be more compassionate with ourselves.

So again, unconditional positive regard, not, Oh, I ate healthy today. I ate on track, so then I will feel good about myself. How can I have positive thoughts about myself or at least neutral even when, you know, I, I didn't act the way that I wanted or I didn't show up how I wanted or I didn't eat the thing or I overate or whatever.

Okay. It's an opportunity. Build that connection with yourself. Adaptability is another quality. You need to develop the ability to make decisions when there are changes in your environment. Or there's unexpected obstacles or demands on you. So like today, I had a plan. I was going to do some fasting today.

It's a snow day. The kids are home. Ideally, I can just hear something just broke, right? So, ideally, that is not a good day for me to fast. I'm not going to be fasting on days when my kids are home. It just doesn't work for me. Some people can do it, and that's great. I like to be really busy, and I like to be mentally engaged with my work.

When I'm fasting and I have more energy for that when I'm with the kids, it's more physically demanding. I have different emotions when I'm with the kids and there's different demands on me. And so that's not going to be a fasting day, right? So we need to, we need to adapt. We need to have that ability to adapt.

Willingness is another. This is kind of connected to commitment or being committed. And I like to think of willingness as the ability to, you know, summon or generate or tap into activation energy, getting yourself to do something when you don't feel like doing it. So after this, I'm going to do my workout with the kids.

It requires activation energy because I know it's not going to go swimmingly. I know I'm not going to be highly focused. It's going to be a different type of workout because likely they're going to be crawling all over me. So that requires some activation energy on my part because it'd be much easier for me to say, Oh, you know what?

The kids are home. I'm not going to do it. Now. I like my reasons when it comes to fasting. I don't love my reasons for skipping my workout when they are here. So I'm still going to do it. Okay. I have, I'm cultivating that willingness. And then the last one I'll talk about here in terms of qualities is resilience.

That's the ability to get back on track after you have setbacks, after you've overindulged, after you've, you know, overeaten, what is your resilience to getting back on track and shortening that time window? Once I did a workshop in which someone asked a really interesting question, they said, how do you motivate yourself?

to lose weight when you know that you're not going to look the way you did when you were 25, even when you've released the weight and you've reached your desired goal. It's not going to be the same. You're not going to look the same. If it's only about that, if the goal is to release the weight so that you can think You're beautiful.

So that you can believe that about yourself, that you're attractive. You will have the exact same way of thinking that judgment of yourself, even if you release the weight. So the work is starting to shift some of that programming we have about our bodies and what. Beautiful means that's the work you want to be doing while you're making changes to how you eat and some of changes to your relationship with food and your eating habits.

And I use the word programming really intentionally because that's how I think of it. There's simply a program in your brain. about beauty and body size, and you don't have to run that program anymore. What would it be like to recognize that as a program that's not innate, that's not even part of you, that's something that you took on probably by default just from being in our society, right?

What would it be like for you to just push back on that program? And again, it doesn't mean you give up on making changes to your habits, to your relationship with food. It just means that there's no waiting period. That you can accept where you are in your body that you have now, and you can decide that you're beautiful now.

You can decide that you're attractive now. In what ways is that true? You want to get skilled at finding that so that even when you're at your natural weight or you know, your desired weight, whatever you, however you think of it, that You don't have to look 25, you still feel like you're beautiful, no matter what your age is, if that's what you want to think about yourself or how you want to feel.

If you don't believe that, that's fine. You can look for parts where you do parts of yourself that you do find beautiful. Maybe it's your hair, your eyebrows, the color of your eyes. Also, you can define what beauty means. Things working efficiently in your body is beautiful. Even if it's your heart beating, right?

The rhythmic nature of that is beautiful. So, just as your eating habits have to change, your thinking habits also need to change. Alright, what might you have to learn? Just for taking on this weight loss, you know, journey or this weight loss goal, what will you have to learn that you don't know now?

Ironically, you might have to learn body acceptance, okay? You might have to learn a deeper reverence. for your body. You might have to learn really practical things like that will support longevity and health, like managing your blood sugar or eating more protein or what are healthy fats? What are fats that you don't want to be ingesting?

My favorite question with any goal is how having achieved this goal will change my inner world. Okay. I'll say that again with any goal. How will having achieved this goal change my inner world? Will it be my sense of well being? And if you're still not sold, here's what I have noticed. It's a deeper connection with yourself, a deeper experience of life, a deeper experience of the world.

You do more stuff, you're more willing to see people, try things, go places. It's a deeper knowing of yourself and others. So you know why you are doing the things that you're doing. It's not a mystery to you anymore. You understand your own psyche. Okay. You also have compassion for others. When you understand the true reasons you are turning to food and overeating, you also see why others are doing that too.

And you can have less judgment for them, right? You can be more compassionate for yourself, of course, and for other people. And this is why it really matters. It's that depth. It's not necessarily the number on the scale, although that is nice. So when you get clear on your reasons, you might notice you're a little less tied to whether the scale went up or down today.

You are naturally, without even trying, you're just more focused on what's happening in your inner world, your wellbeing, right? Because you've even listened to this episode, you've thought about this in advance. What is this really about for me? You'll be more interested in what you're trying to escape with food.

Like dread or boredom or overwhelm or the chaos of the kitchen, right? You'll be fascinated that. What you need, what you're trying to seek is more fun, relaxation, pleasure, connection, maybe even distraction or relief. And your brain thinks that popcorn and chips are going to do the trick, right? That's fascinating.

Of course, I'm not saying you can't enjoy these foods and have that experience to get relaxation, to get pleasure. Only that you just want to be aware of it. So that if you want to reduce that desire for the food, you'll give yourself an edge. You'll have the information you will understand. Oh, what I really want is more relaxation.

What I really want is relief. How can I create that for myself? This knowledge helps you because you can create it without the food. Let's switch gears a little bit here. I want to talk about how to move yourself up that spectrum into belief, okay? That vision that you have of yourself at your desired weight, it needs attention.

It's like a little plant that you need to tend to. You water it, you help it grow, you help it be robust and thriving. So I'm on the You know, high end of being a millennial, but I'm still a millennial, which means I have plants all around me. Okay. If you're a millennial, you know this, you have plants everywhere.

This is not a set it and forget it situation. This is not a succulent. You need to tend to it. Okay. Typically left to our own devices. We let that plant wilt. We neglect it. We let that vision, that goal, just kind of move to the background of our lives. We prioritize other things. It makes sense. We're busy.

There's laundry. But then we say, we look at the plant and we say, God, you look so sad and pathetic. Even though Most often, when we look at it, we turn away. So imagine every time you looked at your plant, you just turned away. You're like, no, I'm just going to not water you. I'm not going to open the blinds and give you sunshine.

Okay. We turn away from our goal, from our vision for ourselves at our desired weight because we think we can't do it. It's not going to happen. That's painful. It's for other people. It's not for us or worse. It's going to require some suffering. Yeah, we can do it, but it's going to be filled with restriction, deprivation.

I'm not going to like my life. I'm going to be living in a way that I'm just not prepared to live right now. Okay. We need to find other ways to nourish. Just like we nourish the plant. We need to nourish our brain, whatever that is for you. You know, I'm a coach, so for me, in my world, it's working with a coach, it's self doing self coaching on paper, it's meditation, it's finding inspiration, like listening to podcasts like this, it's doing rituals, having your own health rituals, it's ways to let go of that discouraging thinking that happens and move up the spectrum of belief.

You can do it and you will do it. You just need to get skilled at turning toward that vision of you at your desired weight, feeling healthy and feeling energized and doing all the things that you want to do and wearing all the clothes that you want to wear and find ways to nurture it. All right. I hope that was helpful.

If you find this podcast episode helpful or any of the other podcast episodes I've done helpful, please share it with somebody that really helps me spread the word. Oftentimes, if you are any think of any kind of communities that you're in, if you are an podcast any kind of health forums or Facebook groups or that kind of thing.

That is how this podcast has grown the most. And so I really appreciate those of you who are just mentioning it to other people, people that you know, or even people that you don't know, like on a forum, that kind of thing, or on social media really helps get the message out here. My mission is just to help, you know, specifically women reach their desired weight, but also feel in charge around food and do it in a way that's Powerful that in a way that's compassionate and kind and really importantly helps us reconnect to ourselves and our body in a loving and supportive way.

The more women who are out there living their best lives without thinking about weight loss and food all the time, we know you guys, we know the world is going to be a better place. So think of it as a civil duty, right? As a way to give back is to just, if something is helping you, whether that's this or something else for sure, to share it with somebody else, because we all are going to benefit from it.

We all rise up together. We're all in this together, right? It's a community here. I love thinking that, you know, when I'm doing this podcast, I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking about people. I'm not just speaking to the void. And so I want, I think it might be kind of cool even in this moment to, as you're listening to this, No, that there's probably somebody else out there, another woman, just like you, maybe at the same age, maybe even at the same weight, who's listening to this and they are rooting for you just like you are probably rooting for them right now.

Okay. So same idea. You believe that they can reach their desired weight. So believe it for yourself. Okay, we can all believe it for each other. We can just take this moment a little moment and Believe for the other person if they are not believing we believe for them. Just like I believe in you right now All right.

I will talk to you again soon. Bye