So I come from this as a person who is not only I’ve personally  been an exerciser, but professionally, I’ve been in the fitness industry for over 25 years and I’ve had my own personal training business for over 25 years,  um, and I’ve had my own personal training business since 2005. So I am looking at this through a lens of personally being an exercise person and also professionally believing that exercise is so important for the human body.

 

So I want to talk to you about what I’ve seen in reality, not in what I’ve read in scientific journals or what I’ve learned in certifications. What actually is the truth and what I see working. So first let’s talk about if you are overweight, what is really standing in your way?

 

And I believe that if you want to lose 20 to 50 to 100 pounds, the best way to get there is to identify what’s standing in your way. And often lack of physical movement is not what’s really keeping you stuck from losing weight.  What often is, is overeating. Eating for stress, eating for comfort, eating for reasons other than Just to fill our bellies and to enjoy food. 

 

And there’s definitely a place for enjoying food. And some people might say, Oh, I just love food.  Yeah, that’s great, but I bet you don’t love feeling overstuffed. If you loved it, you wouldn’t feel regret. If you loved it, you wouldn’t feel like you wanted to hide. If you loved it, you wouldn’t be overweight. 

 

And so I believe what’s really standing in your way is learning a key skill of learning to separate your So, food choices from your emotions, so that you’re eating food that you love, that you feel really good about, that you’re enjoying, but it’s based on those reasons, I love it, I feel good about it, not because I’m feeling controlled by my emotions, or I’m seeking food for comfort, or I’m seeking food so I don’t feel stress,

 

and so, putting your attention on learning that skill is more important for your weight loss. It won’t get you farther than that. putting your attention in developing an amazing exercise program.  Hire a personal trainer and just stay the same weight forever and ever and ever, and feel like they’re working really hard in the gym.

 

But if we’re not really addressing what’s standing in your way, it will feel like you’re working really hard in the gym and getting no results. I do believe that the role of exercise in life is so important. There’s so many physical benefits. There’s so many mental benefits. There’s so many emotional benefits.

 

I will tell you, I just realized that one of the joys that I get from life is a super sweaty workout where I have just worked so hard. I take a shower and I feel so clean and I just love that feeling.  That doesn’t make me make every workout feel that exhausting. I can probably push myself to do that once a week, but I just realized, ah, it feels so good. Benefits to it, but it’s not the primary way to lose weight. I want you to spend your time and energy focusing on what will help you. What is keeping you overweight?  Let’s talk about that a little bit. I often tell women that you do not need to diet to lose weight.  You do not need to eat diet foods.

 

Normal foods that you love  are not keeping you overweight.  What is keeping,  and I will probably never get tired of saying this, normal foods will not keep you overweight. You wake up, you eat a meal, you finish the meal, you move on. You have a snack. You finish the snack, you move on. You have the next meal, you finish the meal, you move on with life.

 

So eating normal foods during those meal times, those snack times, is not what keeps you overweight. 

 

But, eating those same foods for stress, for comfort, for feeling lonely, for fun, because everyone else is still eating, because someone brought me the food, because it’s free, because it’s in the break room, all of those reasons  are why you are stuck being overweight. This is not about restricting calories.

 

It’s not about counting calories. It is simply eating normal food  and then moving on with life.  And again. Learning that one skill of separating your emotions from your food choices will help you lose weight. Learning to identify what’s keeping you  from stopping. Learning to identify what’s driving you to eat. 

 

It is the why, and you’ve heard that over and over, and I want you to know that that is not an overwhelming thing. It feels overwhelming because no one’s taught it to you, but it’s very simple. It’s very simple process and you can learn it. 

 

So, knowing that if you do want to lose weight and you do want to learn this skill, this very new skill of separating your emotions from your food choices, let’s just recognize that learning anything new takes extra energy. And that is, again, why I, I suggest putting exercise to the side, putting it on the back burner.

 

It is not the first line of defense. I think it’s great. It’s fun. You can do it if it’s fun for you and it’s adding to your life, but if it’s causing stress and causing you to expend extra energy that you could allocate for learning this new skill of separating your emotions from your food choices,

 

I would say prioritize that because when we focus on changing too many things at once, many women start to feel overwhelmed.  They’re trying to exercise, drink more water, plan their meals, find out what the best food is, sleep more. It’s just too much. And what I find happens all too often is that feeling of overwhelm, that very overwhelmed brain does nothing.

 

It feels stuck. It feels paralyzed and gives up. What I want you to show your brain is that we’re just going to learn one skill. We’re going to practice one skill.  We’re not going to feel good at it.  We’re going to have to deal with that discomfort of it not being familiar,  but we’re just trying to do one thing. 

 

That doesn’t mean exercise isn’t important, water isn’t important, sleep isn’t important. All of those things are important, but we don’t have to put. A focused effort on it. It can just naturally happen or after we learn this one skill, we can start working on that other skill. Once the skill of separating your emotions from your food choices feels familiar, feels like that’s your new autopilot, that’s your new go to decisions, you’ve retrained your brain.

 

So I just want to give you permission to set exercise aside. 

 

Now, I want to tell you that one of the best uses of exercise when you are learning to lose weight is that by exercising, you flex the I follow through muscle.  I see my body. I see that this is good for me. I want to do this.  that you can practice showing up for you, that you can show your brain.

 

I’m a woman who follows through. I’m a woman I can count on, 

 

but that skill can be learned in five minutes. You schedule five minutes of exercise. So exercise does help you lose weight with regard to flexing that follow through muscle.

 

 Let’s say you do want to exercise to lose weight and that is where you want to put your effort. Is there, is there anything wrong with that?  Um, you just get to decide what works for you. So I want to talk to you about a woman in our community who asked me, how much exercise do I need to lose weight? 

 

And so she was in our community because she  was learning to develop the skill  of learning to get through the ups and downs of life without food.  And so we did calculate, in general, how much. exercise do I need to do to lose weight?  And in general, you guys,  if you weigh 200 pounds, each mile you walk, you’ll burn about 100 to 200 calories.

 

If you’re about 160 pounds, you’ll burn 85 to 100 calories. So I like to just say in general, each mile,  you will burn about 100 calories.  Okay, so if you want to lose one pound a week only from exercise, so to lose one pound of fat a week, you would need to burn an additional 3, 500 calories. 

 

And if you are only doing that  with exercise, that means you would need to walk 35 miles. Divide that by 7, that’s 5 miles every day.

 

and for me to walk 5 miles every day would take me definitely way over an hour. I could probably do it in under an hour and a half. So that would be a huge commitment. And I can tell you, there’s a lot. more effective ways to spend an hour and a half  to help you lose weight faster. 

 

And what was interesting about this question is this woman’s brain felt that  exercise was familiar and felt safe to her. I thought this is a really cool way to show to illustrate to you a little bit more about how our brains work.

 

When she asked, well, how much would I have to walk? Now, remember our brains like three things. They like to do things that are easy, that save energy, which essentially is things that are familiar. They like to do things that are pleasurable. And And they like to stay safe.  And so by this woman asking, How much will I have to walk?

 

Her brain was doing what was easy, what was familiar. . She was also  seeking things that were pleasurable. See, if she just focused on walking, she didn’t have to worry about changing her food in her brain. She could still eat a lot. for comfort, for stress. She wouldn’t have to give up any of that stuff.

 

And then also her brain was trying to keep her safe because I’ll tell you guys, I’ll tell you what friends, our brains really think learning new skills and not feeling good at them is very dangerous. So she felt very confident that she could do walking.  I just think that’s really interesting. 

 

Again, I’ll just say exercise is not the main path to weight loss. Your relationship with food is.  And so focus on what’s really holding you up. 

 

Of exercise in your life and how it is helpful for your weight loss.  Exercise is a way to care for you.  It’s a way to show your body that it deserves attention. It’s a way to tune into your body and get to know your body more.  It also builds trust with you. It’s a way to flex that.

 

I’ll take care of you muscle. You can count on me. I will follow through. So if you plan to exercise five minutes and you put your shoes on and you do it, it’s flexing that follow through muscle. 

 

The other thing is that we have to understand that we do have a physical body. And the way that the Lord views this physical body is that it does need care. It helps you feel so good. It really builds your confidence. And the Lord wants you tended to. He wants you cared for. He wants you strong enough to meet the demands of life. 

 

He doesn’t want your everyday life to feel exhausting to you because it’s unbearable.  beyond your physical capabilities. He doesn’t want you to be held back from what you want and desire from your life because of your physical body.  And exercise is a way to get stronger,  but the first step might be feeling,  but the first step might first be being free of excess weight, and then you can add exercise. 

 

So it is important  and if you do want to add exercise what really counts? I like to think of exercise , with a really broad definition and I like to think of exercise as anything that gives attention to your body  that helps it function better  and that’s a huge spectrum. It can be on the spectrum from the wrist rolls.

 

To neck rolls to some vigorous strength training or cardio and in our 63 surrendered challenge  one of the daily disciplines is 30 minutes of exercise But that 30 minutes of exercise is divine is defined by you and what works best for you  In general, anything that addresses the muscular system, that moves to the joints or your cardiovascular system that has you increasing your breathing.

 

So anything that moves your joints and increases your breathing, and they don’t have to be the same. You could do stretches, you could do strength training.  That’s what I like to consider exercise. It’s set aside time to improve your function of your physical body. 

 

And I think it’s really important to note, since we’re talking about exercise, the concept of the overload principle.  Our bodies are so beautifully created that as we exercise and they get stronger.  There will be a plateau effect. And so to continue to always get stronger so that we can meet the demands of our life with greater ease and can get better results, whatever that is, whether it’s  increased strength of our muscles or heart or lungs, we just gradually continue to put increased demands on our body. 

 

And again, this isn’t where you start, but I feel like this is important to note.  Small Conti consistent increases or changes  will help you continue to gain the benefits of exercise. And what you need to know is that it doesn’t always have to be harder, fa, or faster.   One of the ways that you can. 

 

Overload your body is by simply doing something different.  Adding variety. If you’re used to walking, you can add strength training. If you’re used to strength training, you can just  change the exercise that you’re doing for that muscle group. If you really like bicep curls and you want to keep doing bicep curls, you can change the tempo.

 

You can do half reps. You can do one and a half reps. You can do pulses. If you like walking, you can walk on a hill. If you like walking, you can do the stair.  Once a week instead you can do the stair machine for five minutes once a week instead and do walking the rest of the time  You can change the order if you like to do Walking and then strength training just do strength training first before you walk  add more stretches on the end You guys  the variety is endless  And it can all be done  Be enjoyable. 

 

The best exercise to do is the one that you enjoy. The best exercise to do is the one that you will do  and there’s no better exercise for you. It’s the one that you enjoy.

 

One thing that I’ll hear often is I can’t exercise because I have an injury, I have an autoimmune disorder, I have a bad back, my elbow hurts, my neck hurts, and what I want to encourage you is to realize that whatever part of your body is injured  is only a portion of your body, especially when we look at exercise in terms of mobility exercises.

 

mobility movements. I want you to start asking, what can I do? I had one client who told me, Denise, I’m not going to be able to do the exercise class anymore because my elbow’s injured. And I said, your elbow’s like 15 percent of your body.  We can change things. We can adapt. We can not use that arm while it’s recovering. 

 

If you have any injury or an autoimmune condition or limited mobility in any area, all you have to do is go to this thing called the internet and you can Google or YouTube your specific condition.  You could say beginner chair exercises for people with bad backs

 

exercise for rheumatoid arthritis,  exercise for fibromyalgia,  gentle stretches for a bad knee, how to exercise with bad knees, how to exercise with a knee injury.  Exercises to strengthen weak knees. Exercises to strengthen a weak back. Beginner chair exercises for a bad foot.  How to exercise with an injured hip.

 

 Be as specific as you can and you are going to get better.  And guess what? Not all of those exercises that are recommended for you may work for you. And you get my full permission to not do the ones that cause pain.  Because all exercise should be pain free. And if you’re an exerciser, you know the pain that comes from a joint injury or the pain that’s just a natural part of our bodies getting stronger. 

 

And there’s a way to exercise to even avoid that pain of our bodies getting stronger.  I promise you the Lord wouldn’t give you a body that he doesn’t want to meet the demands of your life unless he made you bedridden. 

 

Finally, I really would be remiss in not saying how crucial exercise is at some point in your life, especially as we age, in particular strength training. I believe that strength training is the key to maintaining your independence. It’s the key to being able to get up and down off the toilet, to get in and out of the shower, to get yourself out of bed.

 

Maintaining your independence.  I teach a strength training class to women three days a week And we always say we want to get up and down off the floor with our grandkids We want to be able to get our  we want to get up and down off the floor with our grandkids We want to get up and down off the toilet  Strength training is so key to literally anti aging  the ends of the chromosomes.

 

There’s these little pieces called telomeres. They’re like the ends of your shoelaces and as we get older, they get brittle and they break off and they get shorter.  It has been proven that exercise increases the length of the telomeres, which is on each chromosome. So you are  Literally, making your body younger by exercising. 

 

Exercise especially strength training increases your muscle mass. Muscle mass is so important for you to be able to move your body, to carry your own groceries and to increase your metabolism.  Exercise is crucial to slowing the progress of dementia.  And for our brain health  and to create new neural pathways, especially as we add variety and use new movements in our exercise program. 

 

And I will say it is crucial for weight maintenance, absolutely crucial for weight maintenance. I will see that the women that expand their boundaries around the holidays  don’t gain weight.  They just don’t because they’ve got that muscle mass. And so it might not be the first place to start. And I know it’s not the first place.

 

It will not get you nearly the results that learning how to separate your emotions from your food choices will get in your weight loss. 

 

So that is where you should focus first, but a year or two down the road, start exercising,  start exercising. It pleases the Lord so much. You will get so many benefits for it.  So, in conclusion, it’s really not about finding the perfect exercise, but learning the skill to manage your emotions and your food choices, and to separate your emotions from your food choices.

 

And that’s a skill that I can teach you.  It’s a skill that you can learn and you’re not going to feel really good at it, but I promise you, it’s a skill that will lead to lasting weight loss.  So just ask yourself, what’s really keeping me stuck from losing weight?  And if it’s not exercise  Which for 99% of the people it isn’t. 

 

Then I encourage you to put your effort into learning how to separate your emotions from your food choices and pop over to weight loss with the Holy spirit.com and see how you can learn that very simple skill starting today. Alright, everybody, have a blessed day.