Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Healthy Eating for Busy Women podcast. I’m so happy that you managed to take time out of your week and your hectic schedule to hang out with me today. I know that your time is precious, but I’m hoping that within this half hour or so, we can help you make healthy eating feel a bit easier and more sustainable in your life. And it’s been a great week over here at Kat Rentas coaching.
Something that has happened recently is we had our 50th coaching call in my “Own Your Eating Habits” membership.
So, for those of you who are new, this is my membership with women all around the world who are learning to eat healthy naturally. So, some of them have weight loss schools. Some of them are just looking to have more control with food. But the collective community are women who are healing their eating habits from hustle and dieting and restriction to those who want control with food. So, if this is a collective you want to be a part of, it is such a fun space. And we just had our 50th coaching call.
So, I really encourage you to join us. What makes it so special in the fact that we had our 50th is that we keep an archive of all past coaching calls. So, I really encourage you to join us, and what makes it so special is in the fact that we had our 50th, is we keep an archive of all past coaching calls.
So, the moment you join for $79 a month, you get to access all those calls and get all the coaching that I have done with the other members. It is such a unique and valuable component of that membership. So, you can go to katrentas.com/membership for all of the information.
And I hope to see you there if you’re really ready to have healthy eating feel easier and to master those skills. Alright, well, let’s get into today’s topic about why you haven’t lost the weight yet. And I want to make something very clear.
This is not going to be a tough love episode. You’re not going to feel harshly called out. And I’m not here to tell you everything you’ve been doing morally wrong. I am here to help you feel relief, to help you feel clear.
And that is my goal of today’s episode is for you to feel like you just took a massive exhale in this area of your life.
Because so many of you are wondering why you’re putting in all of this effort and your body is not changing. And I want you to know that if that is happening, nothing has gone wrong and there’s nothing you are doing wrong morally.
It’s just us not understanding yet what our body needs to succeed. And I’m hoping that today’s episode can fill in all of those gaps, so you understand exactly why you’re not losing the weight you want to lose.
And I think above everything else too, what I want for you is to see that if you’re not losing weight, it’s not because you’re not making the grade or you need to work harder. It’s certainly not because you’re lazy or you’re not doing enough.
There is just a tactical problem that’s going on with your body that we want to solve for.
So I would say the majority of women I work with were a lot like myself, where they actually have tried a lot of things to eat healthy and lose weight. And they have a lot of experience in this area. So maybe they know a lot about nutrition, they know a lot about living a healthy lifestyle, and they’ve taken a lot of action, but their body still isn’t creating the results they want.
If this is you and you feel like you’ve tried all of the things, again, this episode’s gonna bring you a lot of clarity because here’s what I want you to know right off the bat. Weight loss is not just about the actions you’re taking with food. It’s about how your body is interpreting all of those decisions. It’s more behavioral rather than tactical. And if your body is not feeling safe enough to lose weight or your nervous system doesn’t feel acclimated to the changes you’re making, it’s going to resist weight loss.
And I know this might sound a bit fluffy. So, I’m going to make really clear why this happens. Because if your body is not on board with the weight loss you’re trying to create, then no meal plan, no protocol, or no discipline is going to fix that. You’re just going to be wasting a lot of energy.
So this is really going to be for you if you feel like you have tried all the protocols, all the plans, all the workouts, and you’ve done everything right, but your body still isn’t releasing weight in the way you want it to.
It’s for those of you who each more cleanly and have it together more than anyone, but the scale doesn’t move. Believe me, I have been there. Or maybe it did move, but then it didn’t stay at the weight you wanted, and it went back up.
Again, I have been there. The problem so many of us run into is when this happens and the scale doesn’t move or it doesn’t, then it comes back is you will tend to blame yourself, whether you’re aware of this or not.
So, you will blame you not putting in enough work, that you have a knowledge problem, that it must be something you’re doing.
And while this can be true tactically, the majority of the block I see with a lot of high achieving women is that they believe that they need to put in more effort to overcome this weight loss barrier.
And actually, it’s the opposite, really. When it comes to your nervous system and your body, if it’s resisting weight loss, the last thing you want to do is to put in more effort and more brain power. What instead we want to get you to is where you’re spending less effort and lowering your stress, so your body actually has a capacity to release the reins a bit.
So, here’s the big thing I want to offer you today. If you haven’t lost the weight, it’s not because your body’s not on your side or because it’s resisting the changes you want to make in a non-useful way. It’s because it’s trying to protect you, and this is what it is primitively designed to do.
I say this with so much love and understanding; your body does not owe you weight loss. My body, all of our bodies does not owe us the results we prefer. If we are attempting to create results with it in a way the body deems unsustainable or unsafe, it is going to project that change for reasons that actually are more important than the weight loss itself.
So how it works biologically is when we try and force weight loss through willpower or a lot of effort, it can produce a stress response. And it’s no secret that many of us are living in high-grade or low-grade stress all of the time.
And so, in those conditions, what the body will do is it’s going to hold on to weight. Because what is weight really to the body? It’s energy stores.
And so primitively, when we are in a state of high stress or we’re trying to put our foot on the gas energetically, the body’s like, oh my God, who’s gonna be spending all this energy? Something must be going wrong. And so, I need to bar down the hatches and make sure to conserve this energy.
It is going to feel like an uphill battle if you attempt to lose weight while in a state of stress or you’re depending on energy exertion to lose weight. And I want to be clear how we exert a lot of energy. It’s not physical, it’s emotional.
If any of you are experiencing burnout or you just feel really tired all of the time or you feel sluggish, your body’s not responding how you want it to, I want you to really consider that it’s not because of what you’re doing at work, the kids, the actions you’re taking, anything. It’s because there’s emotional exhaustion happening which leads to burnout. And that is the point when your body is going to resist any weight loss.
So, really, what I’m saying is that there is some internal healing that needs to happen, which, if you have a brain like mine, might feel a little counterproductive or frustrating.
I’m not speaking for all of you, but I want to be really real for those of you who relate to me and that you’d much rather just do the things and get the results.
I hear you, but you cannot bypass emotional healing and emotional work because chances are right now, if you’re not creating the weight loss you want, the relationship you have to weight loss is what I call a drill sergeant relationship where you just want to be able to perform correctly. You have expectations and you want to discipline yourself to the results you want. And there’s nothing morally wrong with this.
I want to make sure to say you don’t have to not have this energy, but having this energy towards your eating habits and body takes a lot of your energy.
Think about it, how much more energy does it take to fuel our healthy eating actions from discipline versus ease. And if ease doesn’t feel available to you now, that’s okay. But that’s where the healing can begin occurring.
In my “Own Your Eating Habits” membership, the very first thing my clients learn is how to regulate their stress. They do not touch changing their food decisions. They do not touch working on their body cues.
The very first thing they learn is how to lower their stress, which then lowers their cravings. That in itself, of course, will bring down a lot of the overeating and emotional eating. But most importantly, this is priming their body to feel safe enough to lose weight.
If you decide I am your coach and you join my program, one thing I can promise you is we will leave no stone left unturned to solving this problem for the last time.
And acclimating your body to weight loss is a massive part of that. And if your body is resisting weight loss and you’re taking the actions you need to take, then chances are you’ve skipped a step. And we need to help you lower your stress, practice some emotional awareness and regulation, so we’re not emotionally exhausting you in the process of trying to change.
I understand if any of you are like me, that you might have some resentment and frustration from taking a lot of action and doing a lot of things to try and lose weight and not seeing those results.
But I want to offer that validating yourself for the fact that it felt hard can go a long way, along with some humility that your body is on your side. And if it is not creating the results you want, it’s because of the conditions we have put it in. And for many of you, it’s not the actions that are the wrong conditions. It’s the emotional state conditions that your body has been in that are preventing it from losing weight.
So, here’s what I want to offer you do instead, and I want you guys to just think about this in a way that applies to you and start here.
The first thing I want you to do is to just stop fighting yourself and your body. So, what I mean by that is if you notice that your body is not creating the results you want, do not blame yourself or your body for why that is happening.
This is where sometimes the drill sergeant can really come in and be hard on us and assume that morally something is going wrong or that something’s not working.
But instead, I really want you to put on a scientist hat and get curious and ask yourself, what do I think could be preventing my body to lose weight?
Are there any harsh conditions that I’m placing my body in emotionally that are causing it to resist the changes I want to make? Because when we feel stuck with weight loss, our instinct for those of us who are a bit type-A is to push harder, eat cleaner, put in more brain power and effort.
But this actually further tells your body that it is not safe and that something has gone wrong, which is gonna make weight loss harder and it’s gonna cause your body to retain more weight.
So, your first step is to stop forcing change and leaning forward emotionally when you notice you’re not creating the results you want. Instead, I want you to even physically lean back and observe objectively and think where are my stress levels at? Where emotionally am I trying to force this? And how might my body be protecting me by holding onto this weight?
Something I work with, with my clients a lot is if their body is resisting weight loss, I always check in and see if they have done the emotional work yet.
And I know emotional work can sound really fluffy and ambiguous, but we have tools for that in my program that make it really, really simple and effective right away.
And so sometimes what can happen is we’ll feel compelled to skip the emotional work and just get to the body work or the food work. But you guys, if your body is resisting weight loss every single time, it’s just because that part is being skipped. And this is fair because this concept is so foreign to so many of us. I want you guys who are really serious about solving this area of your life and having healthy eating feel natural to get comfortable doing inward emotional work. And chances are if you’re here with me, you are comfortable doing that. Next, I want you to try regulating before you restrict.
And what I mean by this is I want you to practice checking in again on how you’re feeling emotionally versus tactically changing up the way you eat.
Again, we’re not taught this, but it’s everything. If your stress is high and you feel emotional urgency in this area of your life, it’s going to be so tough for your body to release weight the way you want it to. This is your body operating in survival mode and for you to create the results you want long-term; we need to help you get out of survival mode and lean back in this process, so it all starts to feel easier.
So instead of trying to set different food rules or protocols when you notice you’re not creating the result, start with emotional awareness.
And you guys, I know this is gonna feel really simple encounter productive, but so much can change when you simply get out of your head and into your body emotionally in those moments. And think what am I feeling and what’s coming up for me?
What this does when you practice simple emotional awareness is it allows your body to begin exhaling emotions as they come up for you, rather than inhaling them, resisting them, and then bringing stress on the body.
I know it is so simple, but it works. And the best thing you can do now is to just start practicing that.
Lastly, I know this is easier said than done, believe me, but I want you to practice letting go of a timeline. So often, we’ll get frustrated and think, well, it’s been a few weeks, I should have seen results, my body should have lost weight in this timeline.
When really what we’re doing is we have placed expectations on the body based on what we think is best and what it should do versus actually trying to understand our body to figure out what it needs. I use plant analogies a lot in my coaching.
I just think there’s no better analogy. And I want us to imagine that we’re gardeners trying to figure out how to make a plant grow. And if the plant’s not growing, we get frustrated because we’re like, this plant should have grown this amount in the last couple of weeks and the plant’s leaves are Browning. It’s kind of keeling over a bit. It’s not getting what it needs.
Versus the logical question would be to think, oh, the plant’s doing this for a reason, and it’s my job to figure out what that is. Because obviously, the plant wants to grow. It is a wild thing to notice when we will inherently think that our body is working against us. I’ve done it.
I know y’all do it. It’s a really relatable thing to do. But of course, your body wants to feel healthier and create the results you want; it’s just not willing to do so at the expense of your health. Because I want you all to really understand that there is a huge payoff to be willing to do this work.
What happens when you allow yourself to heal emotionally, lower stress the right way, and leave no stone left unturned is weight loss becomes easier. You stop overeating, you stop having high cravings, you feel less stress, your body cues become more obvious, and really your body works as it was always meant to with health and weight loss; it really is true healing at the deepest level and healthy eating decisions become so much easier when you acclimate your body to the changes you’re making.
This is when you will see your body releasing weight without you having to force it, which is where a lot of my clients find themselves after they’ve done this work. And the other thing I want to make very clear is this doesn’t even need to take a lot of time.
Clients who do this process in the foundational way can start seeing results right away when they really commit to focusing on that internal work and really taking this approach and focusing on forming a relationship with your body changes the relationship to yourself.
When you assume the best of your body and assume it’s on your side, you will notice that you will also begin assuming that of yourself.
So much of the time, when we don’t lose weight in the way we want to, or we struggle, we assume the worst of ourselves and think, I must not want it that enough, I must be not willing to put in the work, I must need to try harder.
And when you begin working in partnership with your body, you’re gonna realize that you were both on the same side, and you were also always on your side.
You’re gonna be able to get out of that all-or-nothing of pushing really hard and then falling completely off track. You’re gonna find a balanced middle where you’re able to create the results you want with your body without having to expend much effort at all.
And weight loss really will become a product of the trust and the healing that you’ve participated in. It’s not going to be a result of the effort that you have expended.
The one thing that will pull you out of this healing, and there’s only one thing that can pull you out of this healing in this process, and it’s believing that this isn’t working so much of the time myself, clients, all of us as humans will have the thought “this isn’t working.”
I want you guys to just remove that sentence from your thoughts and your vocabulary as much as you can.
Because, you guys, there’s never a moment with weight loss or healthy eating or any of it where it’s just not working. All that does is it takes you out of responsibility, and it keeps you from participating in the changes you want to make.
It is a thought that just wants to opt-out, and I want you to notice that thought and never take action from it, or really never let it stop you from taking action. Things are always working as they’re meant to, based on the conditions your body is in.
Rather than allowing yourself to be confused and think, “Why am I not losing weight? It’s just not working?” I want you to actually answer that question and come up with a hypothesis, especially based on what we talked about today.
What I find which is really interesting is this is the thought that often comes before the breakthrough because in the membership, we get to coach through it, so clients will come. Be honest about those thoughts which are so normal.
And then that’s the part of our human brain that wants to stop participating in our growth because if we don’t know them, we’re helpless. Right? So, when you have that thought, rather than having your brain feel helpless, decide what you’re going to do next.
Decide what you do know and what you do think is going on and why you have the results you do. Because there is never a reason to think that you cannot figure this out. But if you want more support with this, I have a membership for that, and we would love to have you.
So why haven’t you lost the weight yet? I want to offer, it’s because your body is waiting for the right conditions to do so safely, effectively, and long-term, in a way where it trusts you to do it safely.
When you stop rushing and start building these foundations, the weight will come off naturally without you needing to rely on discipline, willpower, and effort. And it’s going to stay off because now you’ve actually solved the deeper problem, which isn’t the weight. It’s how you were managing yourself, your emotions, and your stress.
And again, if you are ready to do that work in a really clear, no-frills, supported way, my “Own Your Eating Habits” membership is here for you. Community is here for you, and you’re gonna love it. It’s really gonna bring you so much ease and structure to solving this for the last time. Alright?
Thank you for being here today, friend. I know how much courage it takes to keep showing up to this work, so I do not take that for granted. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week, and I’ll see you next time.