How The Scale Prevents Weight Loss

But in scenario number one, you step on the scale and the weight is less than you expected, you run the risk. of only having short term weight loss. You attribute your weight loss to whatever you’re currently doing, whatever you’re currently eating, your current exercise program, and believe that you have found the magic combination.

And that’s fine. And that will work for you. for a short bit of time, but it will not last forever because you haven’t developed the skills that will lead to lasting weight loss, which we’ll get to in just a little bit. Now, the second scenario is that the scale is heavier than you expected. And in that case, especially if you’re a person who wants weight loss, is you will start to have some negative feelings.

Negative feelings aren’t dangerous, but they do require some processing. And when you have to take the time and energy to process negative feelings so that they don’t throw your goals off, because you guys know when we are… stuck in negative feelings and have a mindset that’s, Oh, what’s the use? I’m not making progress.

Well, since we know that our thoughts drive our results, then having the thought, I’m not making process progress, what’s the use will simply lead to you not making progress because you’ll give up. So you run the risk of having. Negative feelings, which aren’t the problem if you’re willing to process them and address them.

 

But they do take time and energy to process so that you don’t just give up. And you could be using that time and energy. to actually be living in the solution and working on the things that will lead you to lasting weight loss. And so I think just in that scenario, you step on the scale and it just distracts you and creates more work for you to do to undo the negative feelings

and the truth is, is that if it worked, I would say step on the scale all day long. But we know that getting to a healthy weight and changing your body is not about Anything other than changing your mind and learning skills and retraining your brain. I’m going to say that again. Getting to a healthy weight and changing your body starts by changing your mindset and learning new skills.

The real work is on learning tools to support you to get through the ups and downs of life without stress eating. The real work is learning how to know when you’ve had enough food. to happily stop, so you’re not overstuffed. The real work is being able to say, no thank you. When someone offers you food that isn’t on your planner or that you don’t really want to eat, the real work is to stop expecting super human things from yourself that require stress eating to just get through it.

So often I work with women and they have these expectations of themselves that. , they need to be super human, super mom, super, super wife. I mean, these expectations that the Lord does not have for them. And because they’re creating so much stress in their life, and believing that they have to do all of these things, it’s impossible to not stress you to get through it.

So the real work is starting to have realistic expectations for oneself by checking in with the Lord to say, hey is this what you want from me right now? Because I know that the Lord does not want us to run at a pace of life that requires so much stress that we need to self destruct and we need to medicate with food to get through it.

I just know that he wouldn’t want that for us. Being able to discern his will for us in that area is the real work. The real work is not sweeping our feelings under the spiritual rug. I mean, how many times do I run into women who would rather say a novena or just say another prayer because it’s a lot more comfortable than actually sitting in her feelings and checking in with herself.

What do I really need? I was talking with one of our newest members yesterday and she’s doing the five day challenge where you ask yourself, what do I feel and what do I need? And she said, Denise, I never check in with my feelings. She said, all I could say was, I feel like I’m working.?

So we often just live on autopilot, but being able to tune into ourselves. is the way that you have lasting weight loss. The real work and where to put your time and energy so that you have lasting weight loss is being tender to your own needs. Or at least believing that you’re worth asking, Hey, how was your day?

Even when no one else around your table is asking you, How was your day? How are you?.

The real work is feeling worthy and allowing yourself to feel good in your clothes and not waiting until you reach a certain size or the scales is a , certain weight for you to feel good about the clothes that you wear. There was a point where I realized I was wearing clothes that I didn’t feel good in.

So I started to make a rule for myself that I didn’t wear any clothes that were stained or ripped or ill fitting. If you put a shirt on and it doesn’t feel good, there’s nothing wrong with your body. Maybe that shirt just wasn’t made for you. You can donate it. I’m going to tell you, if I put a shirt on in the morning and I don’t feel good in it, I either decide, hey this shirt isn’t for me, like if that’s happened several times, or maybe it’s just not the day for me to wear that shirt.

The real work is on learning how to enjoy weddings, parties, coffee out with your friends, drinks out with your friends, anniversaries, and still be working towards your healthy weight and feeling great about it. I had a client who was worried about celebrating her anniversary dinner with her husband. And once we dove in to what that was about, She didn’t realize that you can order anything on the menu, totally enjoy it, but you don’t have to gorge yourself.

Up until that point, she only thought celebrating with food meant that you had to feel like you needed to roll yourself out of a restaurant. I’m going to tell you, she left that restaurant feeling fantastic, thoroughly enjoying new foods, and having a wonderful evening with her husband. I had another client who went to a wedding and the wedding served her favorite ice cream, which was cinnamon ice cream

that’s pretty unique. She just felt like it was a big wink from the Lord saying, Hey, I’ve got something special for you. We’ll see in the past. She would have not only finished her ice cream, but also her husband’s and her son’s. But this evening, even though her husband had given her his ice cream because he wasn’t really into the cinnamon ice cream, she ate her dish, thanked the Lord that it was so yummy yumsters and realized that she’d had enough.

She didn’t want her husband’s. See developing the skills to be able to check in with yourself and happily not have a second. Serving of your favorite ice cream, and that’s your choice? Whew! That’s where to put your time and energy. I’m developing those skills.

 

That’s the real work. So I’m going to ask you, What’s standing in the way of you being at your healthy weight? What’s standing in the way of you not feeling controlled and confused by food? What’s standing in the way of you feeling freedom and confidence around food? Seriously, you can stop this podcast, take out a piece of paper, and write down the one to three things that are on your brain, that are standing in your way right now.

I’m going to tell you what was standing in the way for me. In the beginning, standing in the way of me being at my healthy weight and not feeling controlled and confused by food, was learning how to get through the ups and downs of life without stress eating, was learning how to recognize that I was procrastinating without needing to go get a snack, was being able to do a task that I didn’t really feel like doing or working late without shoving food in my mouth.

That was standing in the way. you of being able to actually feel my feelings and realize I’m not going to crumble, by being able to state my own needs and have my own opinion without shoving that down with food. Those are just a few of the things that were standing in the way of me not being at a healthy weight or not feeling controlled and confused by food.

And right now, what’s standing in the way of me feeling total freedom around food is being able to honor my hunger cues. That’s one of the things that I’m working on, especially during this 8 week challenge, the Celebrate Not Sabotage challenge. My focus is really, personally for me, is being able to honor my hunger cues and learn how to do that, and to also speak more kindly to myself about my body and dive into the opinions I have about what my body looks like.

So, what is it for you that’s standing in the way for you? I’m guessing what’s not standing in the way is that you don’t know what you weigh on the scale. See, that stepping on the scale teaches you nothing that you need for a lasting weight loss, and it just distracts you and causes more work away from the real solution.

Knowing your scale won’t, scale weight won’t help you identify that Thought that throws you off. Have you ever had that thought where you say, well, I had one piece of pie So I might as well just eat all the things Stepping on the scale won’t show you that that’s a thought that throws you off that that’s a pattern for you and Stepping on the scale also won’t tell you what to do about that How to retrain your mind how to retrain that mindset See, you’ve been conditioned to believe that stepping on the scale will motivate you and show you what to do next, but it won’t.

Stepping on the scale for the majority of women, including me, just leads to mind drama and distraction or a frantic feeling. And listen, if it works for you, it works for you. I’m not talking to you right now, but I only recommend weighing monthly and in between that focusing on the real work that will get you lasting results.

I only suggest weighing more than monthly, like weekly, never daily. If you fall into one of these two categories, number one, you have your own one on one coach that will help you process the mind drama quickly. And we’ll also refocus you onto where to put your attention.

The second is for all of the women who are. Participating in our Money Back Guarantee, where I guarantee you’ll lose 10 pounds in 8 weeks. And so for those women, I am working so closely with you that I can keep you focused on getting lasting results. See, you have always believed that to have lasting weight loss, you need to have a scale and a diet. Well, I’ve already just shown you that the scale won’t teach you what to do and won’t show you when you’re making progress. And although changing the food that you eat is important, that’s not the first place to start.

Remember that if weight loss has felt hard and confusing for you, it’s not that you’re doing it wrong, you’re just starting in the wrong place. And we don’t even look at the food that you’re eating. That’s like step number five and I don’t want you to be focused on step number five I want you to be focused on step number one when you’re in number one Because just like the scale if I’m focused on step number five when I’m in step number one, I’m going to be distracted When you are doing a weight loss program, no matter what program it is You need to stay focused in the work that you are currently on Don’t look ahead And the Lord really supports this.

I’m not sure if you guys have heard of the Surrender Novena, but I love the Surrender Novena. And he says in day eight, turn your thoughts away from the future just as you would from temptation. And what he’s encouraging us to do is to rest in him, to stay in him. You see, the Holy Spirit only lives here in this moment.

Not only does he say in this novena, turn your thoughts away from the future just as you would temptation. But he says, I promise to liberate you and guide you and take care of it. We need to stay in the moment, in what your focus is now. When we turn, and worry about the future, right? Usually we’re only looking at the future because we’re worrying about it.

We’re not surrendering to the Lord. So I’m gonna give a little plug here for the surrender, Novena. If you’d like to hear more on how effective I think the surrender novena is for weight loss. You can go to episode number 11, where I talk all about it. But I just want to show you that he’s asking for us to rest in him, to stay focused in this moment, to stay focused on the real solution. Let’s not get distracted. In closing, if what’s really keeping you from being at a healthy weight of not feeling controlled and confused by food is knowing the scale weight, then go ahead and step on it.

But if it’s something else, if there’s something else that’s keeping you from feeling freedom and confidence around food and living at your healthy weight, then put your time and attention there. And if you don’t know where to start… Then join me at the weight loss of the holy spirit program. We have a free five day challenge where you can just dip your finger in and start working towards the solution.

And right now we’re in the Fourth week of our celebrate the holidays without the sabotage eight week challenge. So we’re as a community working on this entire program that’s getting us to have lasting weight loss, lasting confidence and freedom around food because we’re learning the skills.

We even have a money back guarantee where you can lose 10 pounds in 8 weeks. And it’s not short term weight loss, it’s learning the skills to have lasting weight loss. So I invite you to join me at WeightLossWithTheHolySpirit. com All right, everybody. Here’s to living in the real solution.

Have a blessed day.