15:41:16 Hello, hello. Happy February, the month of love, right?
15:41:22 So what better thing to talk about than love? We're going to talk about self-love today, why loving yourself is the key to weight loss success.
15:41:32 I think it's hilarious when people say that they don't love themselves, but they need to lose weight.
15:41:37 Well, you do love yourself enough to figure it out, so there's a little bit there, right?
15:41:42 The next step is the big part. Are you loving yourself enough to love your body and take care of it or are you so low on that self-love cycle that you're trying to just make your body conform.
15:41:56 That's the difference. Let's start with this. How often do you think I will love myself when I lose the weight instead of I love myself, so I want to take care of my body.
15:42:08 That was a big shift for me. So in the month of February, we talk about love. So often we talk about our external relationships. We talk about all of the romantic love. Today I want to talk to you about self-love and why that self-love matters just as much, if not more, than the external validation
15:42:28 Of other types of relationships. So we're going to talk about how to get that relationship with yourself.
15:42:33 What exactly it's going to do for you. So I said.
15:42:37 I had to have that shift. Sorry, I'm a little froggy today.
15:42:41 I had to have that shift myself because I remember how unacceptable I felt that my body was before I lost weight. And I was going to like myself when I lost weight.
15:42:52 And there were a few things I liked. Like I definitely have distinctive hair. I have bright blue eyes. And so I liked some things about me.
15:42:58 But my body, my skin, I just didn't like any of it.
15:43:02 And I was very critical. So I would do things in weight loss that were very critical and restrictive and depriving because I thought that's what it took to lose weight. I thought that's what my body deserved because I had let it go. It was this harsh criticism.
15:43:19 And so I had to switch. And until I really fully embraced it.
15:43:24 It didn't work. So I have said I lost over 60 pounds.
15:43:30 I got really good at losing weight. And I did. I lost the weight.
15:43:34 But I wasn't really good at self-care. And so the self-care is the self-love, that compassion and love that we have for ourself and our body.
15:43:44 It's the motivation for why we want it to look better, why we want to take care of it, why we want to just be so loving to this body that we have. The one body, right?
15:43:55 And so I was not there. In the beginning, I was really good at doing all the things to lose the weight.
15:44:01 But it came back because I wasn't really good at loving my body. I wasn't really good at being compassionate and caring for myself.
15:44:08 And so I had to learn how to shift, how to shift from my body's not acceptable to I just love my body so much I want to take the best care of it. And I have said that so many times now. I just take the best care of myself.
15:44:22 I have learned how to really take care of my body and listen to what it needs. I give it exactly what it needs, what it's asking for.
15:44:30 And that was the shift for me. I didn't have to love every nook and cranny of my body. I didn't have to love every wrinkle or fat roll or whatever it was. I just had to have this all encompassing love.
15:44:42 And so it made the entire difference, let me tell you.
15:44:46 All right. Loving yourself isn't just fluff. It is the foundation of long-term weight loss success. It's not fluff. It's not some pie in the sky. We should all love our bodies. We shouldn't, you know.
15:44:58 The self-love movement. This is really how we take care of ourselves. If you don't, if you don't take care of yourself.
15:45:06 If you don't love yourself, I should start there. If you don't love yourself, you're not going to take care of yourself. You've seen kids who have toys and they don't take care of them because they don't really appreciate them. They don't have that genuine love for them.
15:45:19 But then they have maybe the blanket from childhood or they have their favorite thing and they take such good care of it.
15:45:26 It was fun to watch some of the kids as they grew up and get their first car. And the ones who didn't care, they didn't take care of their car. They had McDonald's in the backseat and milkshakes on the front seat. And it was grounded and gross.
15:45:38 And the kids who really cared, they were cleaning that car and they were keeping it nice. And even if it was older, they would keep it so nice and so taken care of.
15:45:48 And so that's the difference. We want to appreciate our body so much, even if we don't love every little nook cranny, dent, wrinkle, whatever.
15:45:57 We want to love our body so much that we can take excellent care of it.
15:46:01 All right. So self-criticism is holding you back. Let me tell you why.
15:46:06 When you start harsh self-talk, it leads to shame. And shame leads to avoidance or emotional eating. And so that avoidance keeps you stuck. And so it's just the cycle, negative cycle, harsh self-talk.
15:46:20 To shame. Shame, to avoidance that emotional eating and then the avoidance keeps you stuck.
15:46:29 We can just talk to ourselves like accepting. Let's just figure out how to accept our bodies And take care of it. And it doesn't mean you're going to have to stay the size you are forever if you love your body. It just means you love it enough
15:46:43 To take care of it instead of trying to be harsh. It is harsh. You've heard people have so many like self-critical type of talk and it is very harsh. It's hard to hear other people talk about themselves so much.
15:46:59 That way. I have a few friends that I have like gotten kind of mean and I'm like, stop. And they're like, what? And I said, I'm not going to let you talk about my friend that way. And they're talking about themselves. So it's kind of a lighthearted joke that When they start really putting themselves down, I'll be like, stop. You can't say that. And they said, why? And I said, because I won't let you talk about my friend.
15:47:20 And then they kind of get it. They understand a little bit. I had to do some of that with myself.
15:47:25 Because it was easy to fall into that criticism. So many people tie their worth to the scale and That happens in our culture, our society, because we have all of the advertisements everywhere, TV, in print.
15:47:43 On the socials, you pull up your email and there's some kind of ad And everything is telling us what is appropriate, what is supposed to be acceptable and what looks good.
15:47:54 And if you're not fitting that exact model, it's easy to feel like.
15:47:58 I'm not adding up. I'm not enough. I'm not worthy i am completely not fitting into that mold.
15:48:06 And so then we start thinking like none of us, like no part of us is acceptable. And that's not true either.
15:48:13 We all have strengths. We also have strengths are areas that we're working on or that are just not as strong. I don't want to call it a weakness.
15:48:22 I mean, it's not a strength sometimes, so it could be a weakness, but if it triggers you, like it's not a weakness. It's just not your strong suit. And so we of course want to lead with what's strong for us.
15:48:35 And so when you're thinking about that scale and it's the first thing that tells you whether or not you're good enough for the day. That right there should tell you how the scale cannot determine that for you.
15:48:48 And you letting it is you just putting all of your emotions, your entire well-being in someone who doesn't even like you's hands, some big jerk.
15:48:58 Who you know is not going to protect you and you just put all of your livelihood, all of your emotional feeling of how I like to think about myself in somebody else's hands.
15:49:10 And that's the scale. And the scale doesn't have any compassion. It just spits out a number and it says what I heard someone say it tells you what gravity is today.
15:49:20 What the weight on the number on the scale is, is just what gravity is. It doesn't take into account anything and so many other things.
15:49:29 Affect our scale number, our weight for the day. It adjusts throughout the day. It adjusts day by day.
15:49:36 For so many reasons outside of just so many reasons outside of fat and food and things like that.
15:49:41 So some of that negative reinforcement, I said, it keeps you stuck, right?
15:49:46 And so it would sound something like I messed up, so I might as well quit.
15:49:50 And when all you're thinking about is how unacceptable you are and your body is and your efforts are.
15:49:56 It's very demotivating. And so it reinforces that negativity. And so I messed up. I might as well quit. Most of the people that I work with have said that many times to themselves.
15:50:10 If beating yourself up worked. When you have reached your goal already?
15:50:15 It doesn't work and so it doesn't work telling yourself, I'm just going to buckle down. I'm going to get to it this time. It doesn't work.
15:50:23 And so stop beating yourself up. What if instead you encouraged yourself the way you would a child or a best friend like i said If your best friend came to you or a small child that's just so innocent and sweet, you would be compassionate.
15:50:38 And you'd be like, it's okay, try again. This was just one time. Or, you know, it was one thing you ate. You can jump right back on and you'd be so… committed to helping them feel better about themselves.
15:50:51 Do that for you, just a little bit. It's not going to mean that you'll never hit your goal if you're giving yourself just a little compassion.
15:50:58 All right, let's talk about the science behind self-compassion and how that fits into weight loss.
15:51:04 So the neuroscience of self-talk. Positive reinforcement activates motivation centers in the brain, while negative reinforcement increases stress and emotional eating.
15:51:16 And so I want all of that motivation. I want the reinforcement of positive. I know when I was a child, I definitely loved positive reinforcement. I loved the getting the gold stars or the attic girls.
15:51:29 And so I have learned how to give myself some attagirls from time to time, but the negativity of it all, it is absolutely going to increase the stress. And when we feel stressed, our go-to behavior has always been emotional overeating.
15:51:45 So self-compassion reduces that stress though. So the less stress that we have.
15:51:53 With that self-compassion piece the fewer cortisol spikes we'll have and fewer cravings and binges, which That is amazing. I help a lot of women who are on the weight loss drugs. And that's one of the things they love. They love having fewer cravings and fewer binges.
15:52:09 I get to help you whether you're on weight loss drugs or not. Even if you're on the drugs, I want you to know how to naturally do this for yourself.
15:52:19 Self-compassion. Who would have thought? Self-compassion is going to reduce that stress and it's going to reduce the cortisol that creates the cravings and the binges too.
15:52:29 Alrighty, the studies are showing that those who practice the self-compassion are more likely to make healthy choices and sustain them over time.
15:52:38 So when we have compassion. It's going to be so much easier to keep doing it than when we don't.
15:52:45 And I want to talk to you about this one little word. It's one of my favorite words when I'm working with somebody. It's called yet.
15:52:52 The power of yet. Instead of I can't lose weight. Say, I haven't lost weight yet.
15:52:58 And so anything that you think that feels critical, like you're lacking, you're not enough yet.
15:53:06 It's yet I'm doing this yet. I haven't figured out yet. It wasn't the thing yet.
15:53:11 And so yet just makes it a little bit more hopeful and our brain doesn't close down with all of that criticism. It says, oh, yet, that means there's hope, right? There's a possibility that I'm figuring it out or that that it's just around the corner. It's the next thing I'll try.
15:53:26 So let me tell you a story. Let's imagine two people eating a cookie.
15:53:31 One beats themselves up for eating the cookie. They're trying to lose weight and they're beating themselves up for eating that cookie. And the other says, no big deal. I'll get back to it.
15:53:39 Which one of them do you think is going to be consistent with losing weight. The one who gets right back to it.
15:53:45 And it's not the one who is more perfect because that's the other thing. People are aiming for perfection.
15:53:51 They're so uncomfortable, they want to get out of that discomfort as fast as possible and so they're trying to do it perfect so that they can get out of the discomfort. What if we just get out of the discomfort and still do the thing?
15:54:03 That's what I want to help you with. So as soon as they decide, it wasn't a big deal. I had a cookie. It's not what I want to do all the time. It's not how I'm going to lose weight every day.
15:54:13 But I'll just get back to things. You're going to be so much more consistent. You've allowed your humanness to be there.
15:54:20 So how do we practice this? Self-love and in our weight loss journey.
15:54:27 We're going to shift that inner dialogue. So you've heard me mention this a few times. Replace things like, I'm so lazy with I'm learning to be more active. Doesn't that just feel so much easier? Like I don't have to be lazy or
15:54:41 Active all the time, I'm learning to be more active. I'm practicing, I'm starting, I'm trying.
15:54:48 Those words are so much more compassionate for us. Replace things like, I will always fail. I always fail with I'm figuring out what works for me. I'm still figuring it out.
15:55:01 It feels acceptable to be human when we say things that way.
15:55:06 I want you to celebrate the small wins. I have said this so many times and people still ignore me.
15:55:11 People pay me lots of money and they still ignore me on this.
15:55:15 Celebrate the small wins. Our brain is so preconditioned that small wins are not good enough.
15:55:20 I'm telling you, they add up. Every single small win adds up to that big goal that you want.
15:55:28 And when you get those little dopamine hits from every little small win that you're celebrating.
15:55:33 They collect and then you feel good. The same thing. If you keep criticizing yourself, that all adds up and it does not feel good and you don't want to keep going.
15:55:41 So stop waiting for the goal weight at the end to feel proud.
15:55:46 Little bit of that now. Instead of only celebrating the pounds lost, celebrate, I drank my water today.
15:55:52 Guess what? I didn't even not emotionally eat. Like I totally ate that bag of cookies.
15:55:59 But guess what? I paused. I took a moment and I considered if I was hungry and I decided I was going to eat it anyway, even though I'm not hungry.
15:56:08 But I can celebrate the pause. There's always something. I moved my body. It doesn't have to be an hour on the treadmill or outside or something.
15:56:17 It can be, I just moved my body today. I did some stretching in the chair and that's great.
15:56:22 Every time you do something, it's going to feel more motivating to try another thing, to do another thing.
15:56:27 If you're always being told it's not good enough, it's not enough.
15:56:31 Then why would you want to try anymore when every little thing is going to add up? And I promise it will.
15:56:37 You're going to want to do more and more things. So we're going to make weight loss about care self-care, not punishment.
15:56:46 So we're going to exercise because it feels good. Not because it's a punishment for eating. I was talking to a client the other day and she was really wanting to make sure that she had time. She's talking about some new work and things like that. And she wants to make sure she has time to get in the gym. I was like, what does the gym provide you? And I thought she was going to
15:57:06 Stick with wanting to lose weight with it. Nope. It helps her stress. It helps her mental health.
15:57:12 And so that's the kind of stuff that we care for ourselves, our body, our health.
15:57:17 Our mind. And so we're doing things that give us outlets and protect it. And so that way we feel safe and secure in that. And so she likes to move. She likes to exercise because it gives her a stress relief.
15:57:32 And so she's not doing it for punishment as for eating, but so many women are. They eat too much and then they say, oh, I'm going to have to work that off tomorrow.
15:57:42 Just cut it. Just say, you know, I'm just going to eat next time I'm hungry. I'm not going to keep overeating.
15:57:48 Choose foods that help you feel energized, not restricted. So, so many of the ladies that I first listened to tell me that they eat salads every day. And I eat salads a fair amount of time. So I need to clarify because It's not a problem that you're eating salads.
15:58:02 I like the salads because they help me go to the bathroom regularly. It's a quick way to get a lot of vegetables in.
15:58:08 And I just like them. I like the crispy coolness that it all provides, that crunch.
15:58:15 And so people will tell me they have to have salad because that's the only thing they can trust themselves around.
15:58:22 Oh, gosh, girl, you can absolutely have other foods. And I would love to help you learn how to trust yourself around so many of your favorite foods.
15:58:33 If not, you're just going to gain weight back later when you start eating them again. So let's learn how to eat them. And it doesn't have to look like a salad all the time.
15:58:39 Salads for me are easy. I even bought a lot of the pre-made salads anymore so that I can just fit them into my busy days.
15:58:47 But it's not a have to. I'm not eating it because that's the restricted. I have to have that to be able to lose weight. It's just easy for me and it feels good in my body.
15:58:57 All right, I want you to rewrite a couple of your stories so Not I have to lose weight because I hate how I look. How about instead, I'm losing weight because I actually love myself and I want to feel my best.
15:59:11 You're going to have your new body and end up hating it if you don't do it this way.
15:59:18 So many women lose weight and if they don't get their mind wrapped around it, they're still nitpicking their body apart.
15:59:24 Where if you learn how to love yourself, you're going to be like, yeah.
15:59:27 I've got some loose skin. I used to weigh whatever pounds. I've lost quite a bit of weight. I'm pretty proud of myself.
15:59:34 I'd still rather have loose skin than, you know, be in pain from all the excess weight on my joints.
15:59:38 Whatever it is. We're learning how to love ourself, how to accept ourself. And that doesn't mean loving all the nooks and crannies, like I said.
15:59:46 It's just we're stopping that. I have to lose weight because I hate how I look.
15:59:50 It's just how I take care of myself. I take excellent care of my body.
15:59:55 I am the best at listening to what my body's trying to tell me now. I feel like I am like the gatekeeper of my entire health and wellness and I have gotten really good at listening to what it needs and what it's asking for.
16:00:08 All right, let's wrap up. Loving yourself leads to better choices. Simple.
16:00:13 It reduces your stress and it helps you stay consistent. So I want you to notice your self-talk for one day. Reframe any negative thought that comes in.
16:00:24 So when you start hearing it, I want you to be aware and you're not going to hear it unless you actually Just challenge it every time.
16:00:33 And so like, I hear you. I don't agree. I hear you. I don't agree. Or say something different. And I've given you quite a few examples already.
16:00:42 So that you'll be able to reframe how you're saying that.
16:00:46 Just one day. Try it one day. It's a challenge, okay?
16:00:50 So if you're struggling with this, let's talk. Book a free personalized solutions call.
16:00:54 And I would love to talk to you about how exactly we can get this self-care, self-love on board so that you can have such an easier time losing weight. If it's easy and simple and doable, guess what? It'll be sustainable.
