So why is weight loss? Not a straight line. I’ll talk to you about the things that it’s dependent on. There’s hydration considerations. The level of water that you are holding is dependent on the amount of salt that you ate, but also the amount of carbohydrates that you eat. For every gram of carbohydrates you eat, you hold 2.2 grams of water. So now let’s talk about sweeteners. So of course, if you’re eating sugar, which is a carbohydrate, you will be holding more water, but did you know that some non caloric sweeteners like Stevia or Sucralose or Allulose may react to your body in a way that you hold more water and you won’t know that until you just start to become a detective for your own body.  

Another consideration is the amount of sleep that you have when you’re getting under eight hours of sleep. I find personally, if I get less than eight hours of sleep, I just feel puffier. I feel like I’m holding more water. I really recommend  people get a scale that will tell you how much of your weight is lean weight and how much is fat weight. I put a link in the description of a scale that I use, but know that that scale is also measuring your hydration level so that it can be thrown off by hydration level. But I find that this scale that detects fat weight versus lean weight is even more accurate than just a bathroom scale. For example, I had one client who lost 11 pounds of fat and gained nine pounds of muscle. And so what did the scale say? The skill say that she only lost two pounds. But she’d lost 11 pounds of fat. You guys go get 11 pounds of butter. I’m going to ask myself what I would like to lose this? Yes. And so that’s why I really recommend having a more high tech scale. They’re usually under 30.

Now, you can help your brain make sense of your weight  if you want to take the time to figure it out. It is not necessary to do this. But a couple of things that you can do to help your brain make sense of your weight gain is to work on acceptance. You have these  thoughts of this shouldn’t be happening; I should have lost weight, which is causing frustration. And when you cause frustration, you don’t stay focused or committed instead, just  say this is happening and take the time to say  this is maybe why it is happening. Work on making sense of why you gained weight or why you didn’t lose as much as you thought you would?  

I had one client who traveled two different time zones, got way less sleep than she normally does. Had eaten at restaurants more frequently than she normally does. And so that combination of lack of sleep, different food, restaurants, different schedules, different time zones contributed to her body not losing weight. It just wasn’t the time that week, so you can take the time to make sense in your brain, why is it exactly what needed to happen for you to be the weight that you are right now? That’s the question you want to ask yourself? How is this exactly what you would expect to happen? How does this completely make sense? And this podcast episode is coming out in the same week that I’ve been in a season of weight loss, and I finally lost 10 pounds. And then this past week, I lost zero pounds; I didn’t have to make it mean anything. I know that weight loss is not a straight line and I am still committed to what I’m doing,  but here’s what I want you guys to know is that I find that weight loss comes in phases. And so when people are new to my concept of weight loss I want them to know that there are priorities, and where to spend your time because so many people say I want to lose weight, and then they  focus on the food. Will, you can do that. But I find that your results will be very short term. Instead, I have three phases that I like to lead people through and where I want them to be spending their attention. And I’m saying this because these things will not be able to be measured on a scale. 

You might not lose weight initially, or as much as you would if you went straight to a diet, but I promise you by spending your time on these things, you will have lasting weight loss. The first priority I have to weight loss is to help people remove what their real obstacle is to what’s keeping them overweight. And what I find what’s really holding many women’s weight loss back is that they  learned how to get to the ups and downs of life without stress eating. So many people’s weight loss is being held up because their emotions are tied to their food choices and so by working to separate your emotions from your food choices you will have lasting weight loss. 

And so putting your effort into learning how to separate your emotions from your food choices is a great place to start. Now, simply by teaching you how to separate your emotions from your food choices and teaching you how to get through the ups and downs of life without stress eating, that’s usually enough for women to have significant weight loss. And usually that’s enough for women to have a significant amount of weight loss. Now the second phase, now that you no longer have your emotions tied with your food choices, I want to teach you how to create what I call an easy to stick to meal plan, which is a meal plan that has the foods that you love eating in the amounts that you feel good about. So I teach you how to lose weight, by eating the foods that you love. The foods that you are comfortable with, that fit into your life. So it’s not a food plan that you have to white knuckle your way through or create deprivation. Okay, so that’s the second skill that  you will learn. 

And then the third skill, if you want even more weight loss is to identify foods or behaviors that are creating chaos in your life, and foods that are creating chaos in your life are foods that you crave a lot that you put on your easy to stick to meal plan. Maybe to have like three cookies, but you can’t eat just three and end up eating the whole sleeve. So that would be a food that’s creating chaos in your life, you’re craving it, you’re unable to stick to the amount that you plan.  And so then we talk about removing those foods from your life if you want again, it’s all your choice. And then some other chaotic food behaviors are things like standing and eating, eating out of boxes or packages. Standing in front of your refrigerator and eating. And so we just work on creating more calm, eating behaviors, like putting foods in bulls or on plates or making sure that you’re seated. Now you can see those three skills, those three priorities which are: separating your food choices from your emotions, learning how to get through the ups and downs of life without food, creating a meal plan that’s easy to stick to, and removing chaotic foods and  behaviors from your life. You can see all of that, all of that work and that progress that creates this amazing foundation for you to live at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. 

You can see how none of that can be measured on a scale. All of that effort, all of those new habits that you’ve created, all of those new pathways you’ve created in your brain. These new habit loops. This new relationship with food, this new way of helping yourself through uncomfortable emotions that isn’t food. None of that my friends can be measured on a scale. But all of that will lead to lasting weight loss. So let’s get back to weight, so for the people that I’m working with, I really don’t recommend that you weigh more than monthly because you get distracted from your real work and your real work is what I just described to you. And I see it’s your real work, because that’s where you should be putting your effort. Not wasting your brain energy on stepping on the scale. I do not recommend women in my program weighing more than monthly, unless you have a one-on-one coach but you get to decide.  

Everybody gets to decide; so recently I had a member in our community ask, I’ve been here for two months. I want to get on the scale. How do you get on the scale without feeling defeated? That was her question and so I want to answer that question in this episode. So there’s two ways that you can get on a scale and not feel defeated no matter what the scale says. The first one is you get to decide what you make that number mean. When you step on the scale you get to decide, is that scale going to measure? All of the work you did creating new habits and retraining your brain you get to decide what I am going to make this number mean? You get to decide what you make it mean and the second part of that is to ask yourself, why do I want to get on the scale?  

Affirmation? Confirmation that you are doing the right thing? So ask yourself why do I want to get on the scale? But let’s say you want to know if it’s confirmation or affirmation that you’re doing the right thing. You can give yourself that right now. You can sit with the Lord and say, Lord, am I doing the right thing? Am I taking care of my needs? My learning how to separate my emotions from my food choices? Am I learning how to create an easy to stick to meal plan? Am I eating foods that I enjoy, but not overeating them? Lord, am I doing the right thing? Because once you put on that, I am doing the right thing, glasses. You’ll start to look for all of the evidence. 

Say you are changing that you have made so much progress no matter what the scale says. So a common thing people say is they want to step on the scale to see if it is working. All right, so let me poke a little bit of this, what does working mean? Ask yourself, brain, what does working mean? And for the women that I work with, they’ve been doing this weight loss struggle for decades and they’re not looking for short term gains, although it’s always fun to see the scale go down. What they are looking for is an end to a lifetime, if not years. I’m struggling with their weight. I feel bad about the way that they look, about the way they talk to themselves, about feeling controlled and confused by food. And so what working means to them? Is that they’re laying the foundation and learning skills so that they will stay committed and learn to be at a healthy weight for the rest of their human life.  

That’s worth the effort. That’s what working is. So ask yourself, what does working mean?  And also know when you get on the scale. It will not detect unless you have a fancy scale. The difference between weight loss is that fat weight or lean weight, it’s just really important. That’s really important to be able to have something real, true numbers, But the end of the story is this, the end of the story is nobody starts to lose weight to give up. So how do you stay committed? No matter what that skill says if you choose to get on the scale and like I said, this last week.  

I got on the scale and I am in an intentional season of losing weight. 

And I lost 0.4 pounds but I don’t have to make it mean anything. I know I’m doing exactly the right thing and I know that weight loss is not a straight line. And so what I say to myself to help me stay committed, is no matter what the scale says, I said this is really important to me, to lose this weight is really important to me. I’m committed to not giving up on me and you guys can borrow any of these: I’m committed to not giving up on me. I’m committed to learning how to stay focused. I’m learning how to care for my body as it heals. I’m learning to stay committed. Even when I’m disappointed, right? If we get on the scale and we don’t lose as much weight as we think we should, or you didn’t lose any, or it goes up, of course, we’re going to be disappointed game. But that doesn’t mean we give up. I love this thought I’m learning to stay committed, even when I’m disappointed; I won’t give up on me, I’m not going to give up on me.  

So my point with this whole episode is that weight loss is not a straight line and if it helps your brain to make sense of your weight, then make sense of it because all you’re doing is resisting reality. You’re saying it shouldn’t be this way and I am asking you to do some PhD level coaching and to ask yourself, oh, brain, how is this exactly? What needed to happen this week? What have I learned this week that I couldn’t have learned any other way? What have I learned by not losing this weight that I couldn’t have learned any other way? Maybe it brought you to listening to this podcast episode where you became even more committed, especially in the face of disappointment. My friends, you get to decide what you make that scale mean and you get to decide where you put your effort.  

You see a diet? Only get you short-term results; you want to put your effort into what will get you lasting weight loss? And you will get lasting weight loss by separating your emotions from your food choices by learning how to eat foods that you love without guilt and still lose weight. And being willing to remove chaos foods and chaos behaviors from your life for lasting weight loss. You want to spend the majority of your time developing those skills because you will be able to always go back to those and you’ll be at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. And so whether or not you get on a scale, it’s totally up to you but you get to decide what you make it mean and you get to decide what other skills you’re teaching yourself other than how to count calories or macros.  

Ask yourself, what’s really standing in the way of your weight loss and address that? Find resources for that and if you’d like to be surrounded by a community of other Catholic women who are losing weight? Learning these skills; I want you to join us @weightlosswiththeholyspirit.com. All right, everybody, have a blessed day.