Lose Weight Permanently
You’ve spent excessive amounts of time, energy, and resources attempting to eat healthy and lose weight.
Needless to say, you’re spent. You’re ready to move on from that approach. I’m here to teach you how.
In this hour masterclass, you’ll learn what’s preventing you from creating the weight loss you want, along with what’s necessary to solve for healthy eating and weight loss for the very last time.
FREE MASTERCLASS
without tracking and planning
Jun 6
Honest Truths: You Can’t Force Weight Loss
Are you being your own worst enemy on your weight loss journey?
Forcing yourself into weight loss can feel like an act of self-betrayal.
In this episode, we’ll explore why pushing yourself too hard on your weight loss journey is more about being harsh than being helpful. You’ll discover why being mean to yourself is a choice, and there’s an alternative approach available for you now.
We’ll discuss:
→ The pressure of “I should have figured this out by now” and how to address these judgments
→ The crucial difference between having pressured thoughts and actively indulging them
→ Strategies to stop treating yourself like a drill sergeant and start nurturing yourself as the caregiver you deserve
→ Acknowledging the changes and efforts you’ll make before any weight loss shows on the scale
Imagine a version of you that’s on your own side: compassionate, supportive, and holding your own hand through the journey of naturally healthy eating and permanent weight loss.
That’s the standard we want to set when solving this problem for the last time.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | RSS
Here are some extra resources to go along with this episode:
- Weight Loss Without Tracking (podcast)
- People Pleasing Eating (podcast)
- Stop Overeating (free course)
- Own Your Eating Habits (coaching)
Episode Transcript
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the podcast. So today I wanted to have a special type of episode where we just talk about an honest truth. And I share honest truths with you all, all the time on this podcast. But in these types of episodes, I really want to focus on having A transparent dialogue around what it’s really going to take for you to eat healthy naturally and lose weight permanently.
These are going to be things that are non negotiable,
sometimes tough to swallow, but also I want you to have a conversation. Really clear expectations on what’s going to be necessary because any one of you listening can create this result of naturally healthy eating and permanent weight loss in your life does not matter where you’re starting from, but there will be very specific things that are necessary.
And this comes from coaching hundreds of women to the result. And so I make it my mission to help you all as [00:01:00] much as possible. Now, the honest truth I want to touch on today is that you. Cannot force your way to weight loss. All right. So I coach a lot of what I would call high achieving women, ambitious women, busy women, women who are so accustomed to performing in some area of their life.
So they hold themselves to a very high standards. They set the bar. bar high for themselves and what can happen when they come into a weight loss journey is they do the same thing. So they hold themselves to really high expectations. And then when they don’t quote unquote perform in the way they want to, they try and force and push themselves harder.
And these are the women I love coaching because this is the type of woman I have been as well. And if this relates to you at all, I’m so happy you’re here and I’m really excited to offer you this perspective because the concept of forcing your way to weight loss [00:02:00] and that not being sustainable is a common point of focus in my programs.
So let’s talk about it. First off, I want you to just think about where this might apply to you. It doesn’t just have to be with weight loss, but it might. Best relate to consider, where do you find that you force a result with yourself when you notice that you’re not performing in the way you want? How do you treat yourself in those moments?
So with healthy eating and weight loss, what this looks like is that women who join the program master a set of skills. We teach them how to do that. And again, these women tend to be ambitious, high achieving women. So it does not matter who you are. You are not exempt from being a beginner at any skill you learn.
And so you’re going to have setbacks. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to have to be a beginner. And in these moments, it’s when sometimes these women don’t have a lot of understanding and patience with [00:03:00] themselves. So they feel compelled to force their way through. And where this comes from is them not being very kind to themselves in the process of building skills and losing weight.
Now, that is what I want to highlight here, is that forcing your way to weight loss when you notice human error happening, where you want to bulldoze over what’s coming up for you is just being mean to yourself. And I think so much of the time as high achievers, we really struggle with. Being mean to ourselves and it won’t be obvious at first one thought.
I really like to share with you guys that I Constantly had as a high achiever is oh, I could have done that better, right? That was always a thought I had That the wording sounded kind of neutral, but it wasn’t. It just was a lot of shame day to day of thinking, well, I could have done that better.
And the truth is I could never have done any of the things I did better [00:04:00] because Mistakes were where the skill building happened, right? I needed to make those mistakes to become a master at any craft I set out to do. Weight loss and healthy eating is no different. The mistakes are what allow you to become a master at those skills.
But how do you treat yourself and react to yourself when you make those mistakes? So I could have done that better, was shaming myself. The biggest thought I see women have in my programs is the thought, I should have this figured out by now, where they just add pressure, they add concern, they add frustration, shame, inadequacy, because what they’re saying when they state, I should have figured this out by now, is that they’re using These high standards they have of themselves against themselves.
They’re saying, hey, but I’m a person who shouldn’t be having these mistakes. I’m a person who shouldn’t be struggling in this area. I’m a person who [00:05:00] shouldn’t have to start from square one And have the three steps forward, two steps back experience. Now, something I always like to be honest about with those of you who relate is we can have some ego as the high performers.
We did not get here on our own. A lot of us know what we are capable of. And there are thoughts that really serve us in our areas of work. But what that can come with is this lie we tell ourselves. Which is that we do not
make as many human mistakes and errors as other people. And that’s just false. We are imperfect humans. We will always be messy humans. And. The more you try and resist that being a part of who you are, the more you will shame yourself and pressure yourself in a weight loss journey and try and force yourself to the weight loss results you want.
Being mean to yourself in a moment when you have a setback is a decision. And I want you all to think about how you are parenting [00:06:00] yourselves to the weight loss you want. It is a decision When you notice that you make a mistake or have an area of struggle to say, I should have figured this out by now.
That language is you backing yourself into a corner and that is how you’re parenting yourself. In my coaching practices, I like to use the analogy of a parent and a child. Because in case y’all didn’t know, we are the parent to our child brain, our inner child, and when that inner child makes a mistake or something happens where we don’t create the result we expected or wanted, how we react to that child making that mistake matters, and how so many of us are parenting ourselves as we’re saying, well, you could have done that better, or you should have figured this out by now.
I want you to really consider how you think a child would feel. hearing that from a parent. It’s not a parent in that moment. It’s a drill sergeant trying to force that child to perform [00:07:00] without even really parenting it and holding space for that child. And This is really the bones of this honest truth for today, where you can’t force your way to weight loss because you cannot force this inner child to perform the way you want it to and treat it poorly and back it into a corner.
It’s going to produce stronger emotions that burn you out and hold you back from the results you want. You must learn to be the parent you always needed to succeed in this area of your life. You must be willing to stop backing yourself into a corner as this drill sergeant and having judgmental thoughts.
Like, you should have this figured out by now. Now here’s the thing, you’re going to have these thoughts, okay? So I know some of you might be thinking, how do I just turn them off? You’re going to have the thoughts that compel you to back yourself into a corner. You’re going to have the initial judgment.
There is a difference between noticing a thought in your head and indulging them. Noticing a thought in your head is [00:08:00] noticing. The sentence, I should have done that better, or I should have this figured out by now noticing the judgment versus
opting into the experience of that judgment and continuing to problem solve from that place, reacting from that place where you’re rushing the weight loss or rushing the process. That’s indulging these judgments versus noticing them. And that’s the difference I want you to see. You get an opportunity with healthy eating and weight loss to be the caregiver you’ve always wanted in your life and where this can be healing for you as a high achieving woman is giving yourself permission to be softer with yourself.
That to be softer with yourself doesn’t mean you’re pitying yourself. It doesn’t mean you’re going to destabilize your progress. Kindness can be firm and it can be stable and it can be safe. And so what would it look like to not force your way to weight loss, but for it to feel stable, [00:09:00] achievable, and productive?
What it looks like for my clients is it’s the difference between them thinking they need to do it right and skill building. So that is the big secret about naturally healthy eating and permanent weight loss. Diet culture taught you that it’s just doing it right versus doing it wrong and it’s a light switch.
Creating the permanent end result is skill building. You master a set of skills, you build expertise and you work that muscle. If it was just doing it right or wrong,
the drill sergeant persona and thought process would make more sense. Right? It’s not that it’d be useful, but it would make more sense because it would create a result that could just be done right. When you’re skill building, you have to do it wrong. It’s like learning a sport. You have to do it wrong so you can figure out what you can do better and then move forward from that place.
A drill sergeant doesn’t mix with something that requires skill building because you need to be able to calmly evaluate, be curious, and move forward.
[00:10:00] So when clients enter my programs, there’s some healing work that happens because they learn how to shift from this demanding drill sergeant mindset to that of what I like to call a scientist or a caregiver. They slow down to speed up the permanent results they want. And what this allows them to do is it allows them to see their areas of work more clearly.
When you are so focused on doing it right so you can get to weight loss quicker from this urgent place, you’re going to miss areas of work that will solve the problem you have. So for example, I have had some clients who they’re in the drill sergeant mindset, which we support them with. And when they’re focused on doing it right, they’re missing the areas of work that they genuinely have to work on.
Maybe it means they’re overeating after work or they’re not listening to their fullness cues. It’s normally something pretty simple that we can help them see, but But where they get in their own way is this [00:11:00] pressure and this demanding energy of them wanting to make themselves perform. And if your focus is on good performance and forcing that good performance, you’re going to miss the skill building and the end result.
So I hope that difference makes sense. It’s slight, but it is impactful. So I want you to just consider what would it look like to be on your own side? With healthy eating and weight loss, where you’re holding your own hand along the way, not where you’re standing opposite of yourself barking orders saying you could have done better, you should have figured this out by now, and you’re trying to back yourself
I’m going to go ahead and put that into a corner to perform. Instead, would it look like to be on the same side of the table, at eye level, with yourself along the way, where you have your own back? To some of you, this might seem like a foreign way to treat yourself. And I say that from my own experience and coaching all of y’all.
But truly, what if that was tactically the most [00:12:00] valuable way to create permanent results with healthy eating and weight loss? What I want you to know is it is actually the only way. And so that is what I want to help you teach. But I hope this honest truth today gave you some perspective of what’s, really going to be necessary for you to create naturally healthy eating habits and permanent weight loss in your life.
And it is a result anyone is capable of creating, but it is reserved for those of you who are willing to have a softer hand with yourselves and to stop forcing yourself to results. Okay. So that’s what I have for you today. Again, I hope this was helpful to you and I will see you in the next one.
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Kat Rentas, Healthy Eating Coach
Hey there! I'm Kat Rentas. I’m a certified life and health coach for women who believes that eating healthy should feel simple and sustainable. I teach hundreds of high-performing women to change their eating habits without the overwhelm. Want to change your eating habits in a way that is aligned with your needs, preferences, and goals? You’re in the right place. You can read my full story here.
