How much weight would you like to lose in six months? The best part of all of this, is that I will 100% guarantee that you will lose that much in six months or I’ll work with you until you do. You see, there’s zero risk here. Is this intriguing? If, so then click the link in the description to chat with me, to see if now is the right time for you. I promise it’s zero pressure.

And by the end of the call, I’ll pinpoint the three things you need to begin your weight loss journey if you choose to go at it on your own.

So briefly pause this. Podcast. Click the link in the description and get on my calendar.

And now back to learning how to lose weight when you aren’t motivated. 

This podcast is helpful for everyone, but in particular I really wanted to talk to you if you’re feeling like everything that you’re trying that the experts are saying is supposed to work just isn’t working for you and you feel like there’s something wrong with you. 

You feel like I just have to starve myself to lose weight. And this episode is for you if you feel defeated in your weight loss efforts, if weight loss feels confusing and complicated to you, and if there’s a big part of you that wants to throw in the towel and just say, oh, forget it.

I’m too old it doesn’t matter, but that just doesn’t feel right either. And so you’re feeling stuck in between, I want to try, but what’s the use? And so that’s why this episode is for you. And you’ll get some concrete things to do to number one, just be okay. Staying where you’re stuck. And then a few steps that you can take when you’re ready that will help you stop feeling stuck. 

So even if right now you’re feeling very motivated, I just want you to listen so that you know what to do when you do feel that your commitment level wanes. Just come back to this episode and then will understand exactly what’s happening inside your brain and What to do about it?

Okay. So the first thing to do is to just have self compassion. And that’s one of those words that makes zero sense If you have never been taught how to do that and so self compassion essentially is you walk up right by you, you put your arm around you, and you look at yourself,  and listen to yourself, and talk to yourself like you would a best friend. 

And you say all the things that you need to say to that best friend who’s listening. And you put your complaining pants on. This is horrible, that’s horrible and then that self compassion part of you is that friend with the arm around you that says, yeah, that’s hard. That really stinks.

That feels horrible. And so you just give yourself that opportunity to feel seen and known and loved and heard and if you’re one of those people that feels like there’s no one in your life who will listen to me. That’s fine. You get to learn through self compassion how to be that for you.  That’s a practice, it doesn’t come easily but that’s the very first thing you do is you just say yeah, that does stink; this is a hard place to be. Okay, and so from that love and that place of safety, knowing that it’s totally fine to have all of these feelings, then you can say to your brain, you’re feeling stuck. 

How is that not even true? And so you take out a piece of paper and you just start looking for evidence of how it’s not true that you’re stuck because your brain wants to be like, I’ve tried everything and it’s failing, and I’m a failure. The truth is that if you continue to try things, you are absolutely anything but a failure.

That sounds like a woman who is very committed to me. Trying new things and being willing to experiment isn’t easy. That takes courage. That can be the very first thing on your list. If you’ve tried 20 things, that’s amazing that you didn’t stop at 10. There’s always 21 and 22. So you do have courage and you do have that fortitude. What are the other areas of your life that you aren’t feeling stuck in? What else is going well in your life? What strengths do you have? So I just want you to see all the other areas of your life, how you aren’t stuck.

And in particular with this weight loss journey, how are you not stuck? You’re listening to a podcast right now on how to lose weight when you aren’t motivated, so you clearly aren’t stuck  because I’m going to give you a couple things here that will move you out of feeling unstuck, or that will move you out of feeling stuck. So just probe around your brain and maybe you can only find two or three things.

And one of those things could be that you’re just not willing to totally give up. That’s how you know you’re not stuck. That could be another thing on your list. Number three, I want you to start seeing what you’re doing well for you already. Is breakfast going well for you? A lot of women I work with say breakfast is not a problem, lunch is not a problem. Do you have a walking routine?  Do you have some sort of exercise routine? Do you do something active regularly?  There are things that you’re doing for your body and your health that are already supporting this journey?

Do you go to the doctor regularly? Do you take your medication that’s been prescribed regularly? Did the doctor say you’re pre diabetic and that perked your ears up and you have an interest in losing weight so that you don’t become fully diabetic? There are so many things right now that you’re doing really well.

Get those out on a piece of paper. See all the amazing things that you’re already doing. Let’s just show your brain that you do know what to do and that you aren’t stuck. And maybe right now you can just celebrate those things and recommit to those. 

The fourth thing that I would suggest that you do is to walk up by you as that self compassionate, best friend who’s got her arm around you and give yourself permission to stay feeling the way that you’re feeling right now as long as you need to. There’s no rush. There’s no hurry. Your brain wants to think that the wedding next month is a big deal and that you have to do something before the wedding or before the end of the summer or before the holidays or before the beginning of the year.

Your brain wants to give you all of these deadlines. That means zero. It means nothing. It means Absolutely, nothing. You can stay here as long as you need to because later on we’re gonna be talking about that you are exactly where you need to be preparing for what the Lord has for you next. But while you’re staying here and you have that full permission to stay right here and feel everything that you’re currently feeling, you can also ask yourself a question. 

What can I do? What can I do? Full permission to stay right where you are. And what can I do feeling this way? You guys are already doing something. You’re listening to this podcast. So yeah, you can listen to podcasts. What else could you do? Would you be willing  to write down one meal a day? Yeah maybe I’d be willing to write down one of my meals a day.

And that just means writing it down while you’re eating it. I know it seems what in the world would that do? But we’re starting, we’re meeting you where you are and doing what feels natural, what fits into your lifestyle. We’re certainly not taking steps backward, are we? No, we’re taking baby steps forward. 

Would you be willing to eat one more vegetable a day? On the Weight Loss of the Holy Spirit website, we even have a five day free challenge and it requires nothing other than you having a pen and a piece of paper. Would you be willing to start that? You can have full permission to stay where you are. You don’t have to lose weight, but what can you do right now that feels easy and doable? That’s a baby step forward towards you and your health. 

So just ask yourself, what am I willing to do right now? Here’s the next thing. Number five, I say this with so much love and compassion. You’ve got to ditch that mean girl voice in your head.  That critical, mean girl voice who just notices all the things that you’re doing wrong. And for some of you, it’s decades that you’ve been doing this. I had one client who didn’t realize how many times in one day she would call herself, stupid as ass. 

What was amazing is that she was shocked by how much she said that to herself, and then she started to catch herself, and slowly by slowly, she no longer speaks to herself that way. But my friends, we believe that the harder we are on ourselves, the more critical we are. 

There’s this belief that it will make us more motivated, but I’m going to tell you this. Imagine this, I want you to put on I’ve got to be hard on me glasses. And when you’ve got those, I’ve got to be hard on myself to stay motivated glasses. How does it feel? When I say that, I just feel attacked  because I don’t talk to myself that way anymore. 

And when I feel attacked  or however you’re feeling, what do you do and not do? You’re probably stress eating. When I feel attacked, I rebel. I avoid whoever’s attacking me and if it’s myself, then I avoid myself. I feel like I can’t trust myself. I feel like it’s just unsafe to be with me in that voice.

It’s absolutely not supported. And I don’t feel motivated. And if I think that I have to be hard on myself to stay motivated, I’ve got that belief that I actually don’t find what motivates me because that doesn’t motivate me. You cannot punish and hate your way  to being at a healthy weight.

It just doesn’t work that way. And I’ll tell you different glasses you can have instead. So start to become aware of that mean girl voice in your head. It will not help you. It will only keep you feeling more stuck  and slowly by slowly you can catch it. 

Now coming up beside you again as that self compassionate best friend, let you be okay where you are. You have your complaining pants. Be that self compassionate best friend. That says, you know what? If you knew better or had a different way, you would do better. And I’m telling you guys this because the only reason you are stuck is because you are believing lies.

And right now, I want to shed some light on the lies that are making you feel stuck. And I say that they’re lies because when we live in the Lord’s truth, we don’t feel stuck. The Lord doesn’t want us to feel stuck or in despair or defeated. That does not come from Him. And commonly in the weight loss world, all we’ve been fed are lies. 

That’s why it feels complicated. That’s why it feels confusing because we’re trying to follow things that we were never meant to follow. And what I mean by that is we try to follow these food plans that just don’t feel natural and don’t fit into our lives. Which tells me, that food plan is not meant for you, but no one’s ever given you the concept that some things work for you, and some things don’t, and that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you, it’s just that meal plan is never meant for you.

So some of the lies that we’re gripping tightly to if we’re feeling stuck in weight loss is that there’s the best way to do this. There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way and you’ve only been doing it the wrong way.

And I’m going to tell you that believing there’s a right way and a wrong way is usually the lie that you’re believing is that other people’s food rules are better and no one has ever taught you how to find the food rules that work for you. So when you are stuck believing that all these other people have the answer and you don’t, of course you feel defeated. 

But who lives inside you? The Holy Spirit lives inside you and he has all the answers that you need. And so when we can quiet the noise of the outside world and tune inside to let the Holy Spirit guide us you do know what to eat. You do know what fits into your lifestyle. You do know what feels natural.

And you probably know the foods that feel like they control you and that are causing chaos in your life. And so let’s just don’t believe that other people know better than you. That’s one of those lies that’s going to keep you feeling stuck. And another sister lie to that is that there’s something wrong with me. 

That if their food rules don’t fit for me, then there’s something wrong with me. That the Lord just met me to be at a healthy weight by feeling like I have to starve myself. You guys know God would never do that to you. There is a way to eat for you to be at a healthy weight that feels natural and possible and fits into your life. 

I promise you that. But if you feel like to lose weight, you have to starve and feel, you have to starve and feel restriction no wonder you’re feeling stuck. 

And another lie that you’re believing is that weight loss is all about what I’m eating. It’s all about the meal plan. Here’s the thing is that you guys look out and you see someone who’s following a meal plan or whoever is the expert talking about keto or carnivore or intermittent fasting or whatever they’re talking about.

And you see the expert and the people who are having all the success stories and you see the before and after pictures and that just isn’t your story. What you’re not seeing is all the other skills that they’ve developed underneath, that’s made it possible to follow that meal plan. And so  you try to fit that meal plan into your life and it just doesn’t fit. And part of that is it’s not meant for you, could be, or you haven’t just learned the other skills that come and that are necessary to be able to follow that meal plan. For example, if you find that You’re a stress eater, then one of the skills that you need to learn is how to get through the ups and downs of life without stress eating. 

So you’ll never be able to follow any meal plan until you learn that skill first. All the skills that are needed before someone can actually follow a meal plan are very easy to practice them and get very good at the skills. But there are things like observing your thoughts, knowing how to calm yourself, knowing how to cope with life without food, which sounds like, Oh my gosh, that’s just like impossible, but there’s a step by step way to do it.

I want you to know that anything that you’ve ever learned in your life, you didn’t know how to do and learning how to get through the ups and downs of life without stress eating is just one of those things. No one’s ever taught you how to do it. It’s a skill. You can learn, you just need to be taught that. So one of the lies that we can believe that will keep you feeling stuck is always focusing on the meal plan. And I believe food is important, but it’s not the first place to start.

There’s other skills that need to be developed before food even matters. And all of those skills pretty much help you separate your emotions from your food choices. Separate your emotions from your food choices and you have so much freedom in your food choices. Wouldn’t you agree that the only thing that throws you off from following any plan is your emotions and turning to food? Another lie that you can commonly believe is that you have stress eating or I just can’t lose weight gene. And that’s just not true. So believing that you have a gene, that is, I cannot be at a healthy weight is like saying  only the people who have blue eyes can lose weight and I have brown eyes,  so I’ll never be able to lose weight. Yeah, that’s gonna make you feel stuck. 

Another lie, you guys, is believing my life is too hard. I have too much going on. And I want to tell you that might be true. We could list out all the things that are happening in your life and all the emotions and everything that you’re going through, and that might be very true. And I’ll tell you, it is very true to your brain, but here are the two things that aren’t helping you.

What’s not helping you is being mean to yourself and being that mean girl. What  will help you  being that compassionate best friend with an arm around you. Life only feels harder when we feel even more alone because we can’t even feel safe with ourselves. The other thing that will make your life feel harder than it is in the circumstances that you are in is continually believing it shouldn’t be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. You guys, believing it shouldn’t be this way is making your life feel so hard because you’re resisting the truth. The truth is, it is. 

The truth is, husband just said those words to me. The truth is, I’m unemployed. The truth is,  someone I love dearly just died. All of that is true. We can say we don’t understand it. We can say, I have no idea why the Lord let this happen. That’s true but by holding onto that belief and gripping so tightly that we know better than the Lord, that it shouldn’t be this way will only make whatever you’re going through feel even harder. 

And so we’re letting go of that. We know better than God. The truth is that it’s really painful. The truth is you don’t understand it. And the truth can also be that you’re really upset with the Lord. He can handle all of those things, but let’s don’t believe lies that it shouldn’t be this way because it clearly is. 

A couple of the things I do know about the Lord. Is that no matter how painful and hard your life is now, no matter how far down in a hole you feel right now, the Lord gave you the marriage you have, your life circumstances, the profession, your parents, your history, he gave you everything, your children, he gave you everything he knew all of the puzzle pieces. And he gave you that, and he would have not given you that if it required you to self destruct to live that way.  I just know he wouldn’t do that. That’s just not his way. These are all of the crosses and this isn’t the way that he wants us to carry our cross.

I used to hide in a corner of my pantry dumping chocolate chips in a jar of peanut butter. I would be looking over my shoulder to make sure that my husband was still on the couch and couldn’t see me. I used to drink wine from plastic kids cups so that people didn’t know I was drinking wine. I used to drink wine from a box because it couldn’t be measured by me or anybody else. 

Sometimes drinking a few glasses before my husband came home seemed like the right thing to do and I would justify it in my head over and over. I couldn’t wait for my kids and my husband to go to bed so I could just stay up and eat. 

I was just running from my life circumstances. And if you find yourself in that cycle, just know. The Lord is waiting for you whenever you’re ready. You might not know how to get out, and I’m going to talk to you a little bit about that, but just know that what you’re doing now is totally fine.  It’s eventually going to get you to the other side  and the Lord is waiting for you.

He’s waiting to say, let’s do this my way. Let me help you through this. See, this cycle that we get into of overeating, swearing we’ll never do it again, and then seeing ourselves overeating again, or starting a new diet on Monday, getting to Thursday night, then Friday, oh, I did so great all week, Friday night comes, the weekend comes.

I screwed up Friday. I might as well start again on Monday. So this cycle, no matter what your cycle is, your cycle might look different than the cycle that I had, but it’s that cycle of vacillating between  feeling motivated and committed, and then feeling  guilt and regret, and really feeling motivated and committed and then that guilt and shame. And the thing is that when you have those moments of clarity and commitment and motivation, the next step  that you take tends to be one of those lies that’s making you feel stuck, which is following someone else’s meal plan. Because what do we do when we feel committed? We decide we’re going to eat clean, or do this cleanse, or follow this meal plan, or do intermittent fasting. 

The point is that none of those are bad. They just might not be what’s best for you. They might not be what fits for you. And it doesn’t fit if you ever fall off of it, because what fits for you will feel natural and possible and fit into your lifestyle. And so my point is that believing during those moments of clarity and commitment and motivation, that your next step is a meal plan. It’s just, again, setting you up in that cycle to feel like a failure, to feel stuck, to feel defeated because we’re believing that someone else’s meal plan is the answer.

And the point is that you were never meant to stick to that meal plan because it wasn’t meant for you, or it might be meant for you, but that’s step 10 and you have so many other skills to learn first before you’re able to stick to that meal plan. And I want you to know that not feeling motivated or ready is not a problem, but I want you to hear this truth.

The only reason you’re feeling despair or defeated or stuck is because you’re believing a lie.  These thoughts don’t come from the Lord. Remember that mean girl who wants to say I’ve got to be hard on myself. I want you to consider a different way of thinking, putting on different glasses to view this weight loss journey.

What if instead of, I’ve got to be hard on myself to stay committed, what if instead you said something like, I’m learning to be committed to finding what works for me. I’m willing to find what works for me. I’m willing to learn how to trust myself in my weight loss journey. That helps me feel so committed. And when we feel committed, or at least open or willing; I’m willing to find something new. I’m willing to learn a new way. When you feel that way. Now, your brain starts looking for the answers. It starts experimenting. It gets curious. You start looking for the answers inside you.

You start asking questions and finding the answers. You might even make a plan for yourself that day or write your food down because you’re just learning. We’re just trying to investigate and see what works for me. And the result from that is that you do find what works for you. You guys, don’t you feel so much lighter and open when you have that thought? 

I’m learning  to see what works for me. What works for me? Doesn’t that feel a lot more like the Lord talking to you? And this is what losing weight with the Lord and guided by the Holy Spirit feels like it feels peaceful and clear and focused and possible and natural. And it feels just like it fits into your life. I find that we surrender every other area of our life to Him and the Lord leads us in so many other areas of our life, in our marriage, in our parenting, in our profession, but we just haven’t let him into our food and weight struggles. This might be hard to believe, but just to know that where you are now is exactly where you need to be. You’ve been being prepared for this moment. And I know that’s true because the Lord’s hand has been on you all along. 

One of my favorite scriptures is Jeremiah 29:11 for I know wealth plans I have in mind for you. Plans for your welfare and not for pho, so as to give you a future of hope. And I’ve created a beautiful PDF that you guys can print out and frame it if you want, put it on your fridge so that you can remember the Lord is with you and he wants to walk with you. And help you overcome this cross. This podcast episode is for you when you’re ready. When you’re ready to take the next step I’ll be here for you. The Weight Loss With the Holy Spirit program will be here for you. The Lord will be here for you. Until then keep listening to this podcast and allowing the holy spirit to hold your heart and love you. You are exactly where you’re meant to be. 

And he will move your heart and make you ready in his time. And until then, you’re going to be that compassionate best friend with your arm around you. Pretender and gentle with yourself. 

And if you hear my voice and feel it, the holy spirit is saying now is the time to take one step forward. I encourage you to click the link in the description and chat with me about what it can look like for you in six months to learn a way of losing weight that feels natural and possible, and the results are hundred percent guaranteed. You deserve to finally be at your goal weight, click the link in the description and we’ll chat. 

All right, everybody have a blessed day.