Hello my friends. Welcome to the podcast this week. I am so happy you’re here with me today. Today I want to talk about the steps to weight loss and when it comes to weight loss. In my coaching program in my practice, we are always referring to permanent weight loss. As in when you lose the weight, you have every intention to exist at that weight moving forward.
So we’re not looking to lose weight for a special event, we’re not looking to lose weight in a rushed period of time. It really is about permanent weight loss. So you are losing weight for the last time. And those are the steps to weight loss I want to talk about today. I want us to talk about what it really does take for you to lose the weight you want to lose, where you are leaving, no stone left unturned.
And this is a struggle that you will be able to solve for in your life. And why I’m referring to the steps to weight loss is there are specific steps to doing it long term and the order in which you take those steps matters. The order in which you solve this problem matters. And what’s happening in so much of the diet industry and the health industry is a lot of us are taught to solve this problem, mixing up the order of the steps.
And we’re doing it in a way that brings us short-term results, but it’s not giving us those permanent results that we really, really want. And the order in which you solve this problem, which I’ll get to, is what will determine if you lose weight and make changes temporarily or if it becomes a permanent result that you create. And so this is such an important topic and I’m hoping that this episode gives you an idea of what didn’t work for you up until this point and what will be necessary for you to make these changes long-term in your life.
And that is the goal I have for you for every single client who joins own your eating habits. It’s that when they enter that container, it is the last time they are solving this problem. So let’s talk about the steps to create long-term weight loss. And there are four key steps that clients learn when they join. Own your eating habits. And this is how I want you to see permanent weight loss. It requires you to make four specific shifts and to develop these four specific skills.
The first skill that needs to be developed, and this is the skill that almost everyone is skipping over, is you need to change the way you think about food. Alright, and hear me out because a lot of the time, thought work and belief work can sound a little bit frilly. I think for those who don’t have experience with it.
I remember back in the day before I ever helped other women created a company, became a coach. I had the same opinion and I very much have a type A brain where I was focused intricately on changing how I ate. I got certifications in nutrition, personal training, all of the things, and it didn’t solve my eating habits long term. And so I wanna offer you, if you’re new to belief work, I want this to be your introduction here today to why it matters for your long-term weight loss.
Because how most of you are thinking of yourself as an eater is you’re thinking like someone who struggles with food. So you’re thinking about food like a dieter, you’re thinking about food like someone who has not solved this problem and who believes they don’t have control with food. And so here are some examples of thoughts that will not allow you to create the changes with food that you want.
I should be eating a certain way. I don’t have control with food. I’m addicted to food. I just can’t seem to stop eating. I don’t know how to solve this problem. I don’t know what to do. Something is wrong with me. Here’s the thing, these are all very human thoughts to have. It doesn’t make you wrong if you have thoughts like this, but notice if you identify with these types of thoughts.
So when you have a thought that I’m not in control with food or I’m addicted to certain foods, do you believe those thoughts that you notice in your brain? And do you identify with them and turn that into this persona around food? And that’s where you make eating decisions from. A huge shift that clients have when they join on your eating habits is they learn how to stop identifying as a dieter or just as someone who struggles with food, who struggles with weight loss, who has struggled to solve this problem.
It’s important to distinguish that there are your thoughts that you have similar to the ones I shared and that makes sense. But it’s important to distinguish that between you believing that that’s who you are, and then that’s how you show up to solve this problem. You will be attracted to solutions that imply you don’t have control with food. So this is why if you find you’re really attracted to strict regimens and a lot of solutions that require a ton of accountability and rigidity, that’s because you are likely identifying as someone who really struggles to solve this problem.
You’re having a lower guard for yourself and you’re not seeing yourself as someone who can eat healthy naturally. And I wanna say again, this is where I think everybody starts for sure I had this brain too, but what’s gonna have to happen first is you’re going to have to change how you’re identifying as an eater and begin thinking like a naturally healthy eater.
And what I mean by that is thinking like someone who isn’t personalizing the way they eat, they’re not personalizing the facts that they want to lose weight and that they still have to solve this problem. They’re thinking like the scientist and the expert of their own eating habits rather than as the struggler. And so naturally healthy eaters think differently about their eating decisions. They’re not thinking about themselves and how little control they have with food or their past struggles.
They’re thinking about what they’re going to do next, how they’re going to figure this out, what answers do they have now that can help them move forward? There’s curiosity in the thinking of a naturally healthy eater. And so I want you to consider right now, especially if you’re new to this work, to just consider what are the main thoughts you have about yourself as an eater?
And there’s nothing negative to uncover here, just to be really honest about it and just write them down. See if you can get an idea of where you’re starting from and how you’re identifying when it comes to this area of your life. Look at those thoughts and then notice how they show up in the way you eat and the results you are creating. It will 100% play a massive part. And I just want you to consider what would look different if you led from the energy of a naturally healthy eater or as the scientist of solving this problem where you’re curious, you’re asking questions and you’re figuring it out.
This is an identity shift that needs to happen when you begin solving this problem permanently because it changes the way you think. It changes the way you ask questions, it changes the way you evaluate your progress and it changes the way you show up completely.
So just to review that is an extensive part of coaching work, especially if you join my program, own your eating habits, you’ll become a master at this. But just to introduce this to you here, that is the first step you will need to begin thinking differently as an eater when you solve this problem. The second step to permanent weight loss is emotional regulation. And that sounds very fancy I think for those who are new to this work.
But all that means is that as a human being, you develop the skill of having an awareness of your emotions and knowing what to do with them when they come up. So our human body is very much set up to regulate emotions naturally. Your body knows exactly what to do with your emotions. But the problem is as the humans in today’s culture, we were never taught what to do with our emotional stress.
We were never taught how to regulate it. And so what that means is a lot of us are left with these really high cravings, with constantly wanting to seek comfort in food. And we think that that means something about us, that that means something about us not having control. And that’s actually why a lot of us think like someone who struggles with food because we don’t know how to make sense of our cravings. Why your cravings are happening is because you have not yet developed the skill of being a woman who emotionally regulates.
And so that is the next step to permanent weight loss. It’s what my clients learn emotional regulation and they learn how to be aware of their emotions and how to let their body process them effectively so their stress levels aren’t increasing and their cravings aren’t increasing. So what this means is that you develop the capacity to solve for your urgent emotional eating patterns.
So when you emotionally regulate, you lower your cravings and your urgency around food. If you’re having a lot of urgency to make eating decisions that provide you comfort, it has nothing to do with the foods, it does not mean you’re addicted to any of those foods. It means that your stress is not being regulated. And what’s really amazing is a lot of us will outsource our stress regulation to dopamine hits like food or alcohol or social media or Netflix.
If you’re like me, maybe a little bit of online shopping. We will outsource those things. And what’s really lovely is as humans, we have the capacity to do this within ourselves naturally, and it’s the healthiest thing we can do. So up till this point, you’re thinking differently as an eater in solving this problem and now you’re emotionally regulating so your cravings have gone down and you’re not emotionally eating.
So these are the first two steps to permanent weight loss. The third step, once this has been accomplished is you are going to start listening to your body to make eating decisions rather than outsourcing those decisions to a diet, a protocol, or a meal plan. So in diet culture, what most of us are taught is that to lose weight, we just need to follow a plan nutritionally we just need to eat the healthy foods.
And this isn’t wrong, there’s nothing morally wrong with this, but something I want y’all to see is that we are so readily outsourcing our food decisions to an actual plan. And what we want to be doing first is to see our body as the best expert of our eating decisions. This is eating healthy. The way nature intended is when you actively begin partnering with your body. Now when it comes to listening to your body, what you’re listening for is your natural body cues.
So your body is able to communicate to you beautifully when it comes to the way you eat. So your body has the capacity to tell you when to start eating, when to stop eating, what foods it finds most delicious and pleasurable and satisfying, what foods it doesn’t like and what foods it doesn’t feel like are healthiest for it. If you listen to your body, it will have things to tell you. And the skill you want to develop here is to rely on your body more to make eating decisions rather than readily outsourcing it to things outside of you.
And I’m directly speaking to those of y’all who are obsessed with nutritional research and finding the next best healthy foods to eat because I know you, I was like this and this is gonna be one of the biggest skills that you must develop is to begin seeing your body as the best expert.
Once you have developed this skill and now you’re listening to your body, you’re not outsourcing your eating decisions to anyone else first then is when you get to start making deliberate decisions with food. And what I mean by that is you start making eating choices yourself. You start deciding what foods you want to eat based on all of this wisdom you have. So at this point in the step-by-step process, you are thinking like a naturally healthy eater.
And as the expert of your own body, you are emotionally regulating. So you do not have urgency around food and now you have an awareness of what your body needs to be healthy, you actively listen to it. So now all that’s left is some decisions. Now you just get to begin making choices for what you want to eat at your meals. And really this last step, it’s very simple.
You’re making food decisions, but I invite all of my clients and own your eating habits to have a clean slate when it comes to their eating habits, as in everything they thought they knew about nutrition or anything like that. Just give it a clean slate and give yourself permission to get to know yourself as an eater. As in if you woke up on this earth today and you’re thinking like a naturally healthy eater, you’re emotionally regulating and you listen to your body, how would you get to know yourself as an eater when it comes to your preferences, your tastes, and what decisions you wanna make with food for your body?
This is where it gets to be really fun for the clients in my program because they get to play in that sandbox a bit to see what it’s like to have control with food and listen to their body and then make food choices for themselves without even considering a diet protocol or a weight loss regimen.
What tends to happen is after they’ve developed these skills, it becomes really available to them to know what eating decisions they want to make at any time. So they’re no longer relying on an expert to tell them what to eat in order for them to eat healthy and lose the weight permanently. They feel like they have that capacity now because they do not have urgency around foods they love and they’re able to listen to their body to see how different foods feel when they eat them.
And so here’s what I want you to see. This is the general order that you can think about when it comes to solving this problem permanently. And let’s review real quick. So first, you need to stop identifying as someone who struggles with food, and you need to begin identifying as a naturally healthy eater as your own best expert with food and the scientist of solving this problem.
Second, you need to begin emotionally regulating to lower your cravings so you can stop emotionally eating for comfort. Third, you need to begin listening to your body cues rather than outsourcing those decisions to an external solution. And then fourth, you need to begin getting to know yourself as an eater so you can find your food preferences and so you can be the best expert of your food decisions. This is the order I want to offer you here today and in own your eating habits.
My clients get a process that moves them through this step-by-step, but consider this now and how this is different from everything else you’ve tried. And it’s important, as I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, that it has to happen in this order because what’s happening for most of us who have struggled to solve this problem is we’ve attempted these things but we’ve done them in the wrong order.
So there’s elements of this step-by-step process that are likely not new to you. A big one is making decisions on what to eat. This is where most of us start. Notice how this is the last step in this process because what will happen if you skip to the fourth step where you’re making decisions with food for what you want to eat is you’re not emotionally regulating when you do that. So your cravings are still high, you’re making those decisions as a dieter and you’re thinking what you should eat because you’re someone who struggles and you’re not listening to your body when it comes to making those decisions.
You’re relying on a food plan or a diet protocol. So notice that’s what happens for so many of you when you skip to what to eat and you skip over all of this other work that your body has provided for you, you do not change yourself as an eater and solve this problem permanently if you skip all the way to the end.
Sometimes what will happen as well, I was very guilty of this, is we’ll attempt to eat healthy more intuitively and listen to our body. So we’ll attempt to listen to our hunger cues or our fullness cues when we eat to make eating decisions, which is a great start because that means we have the goal of giving our body what it means. But this is where we also find that we fail because we’re not solving for emotional regulation here.
So we still have high cravings, we still have the urges to seek comfort in food, and we’re trying to listen to our body to tell us what to eat, and we’re trying to make healthy eating decisions. What you must tactically understand is that emotional urgency with food will always be stronger than your body cues. You cannot solve this in the wrong order because if you’re attempting to listen to your body when emotional urgency for food is high because of your stress, it’s going to be very, very difficult and you’re going to feel like you’re working against your body, your nervous system.
It’s not going to feel like clean progress. And that’s really the purpose of the steps I’m referring to here is it makes your progress clean, it creates more permanent results because you’re changing the way you are as an eater and it’s the path of least resistance. So some of you listening might feel like that this process is a bit too deep, or maybe it’s more intricate than you’re used to, but for my clients it is the path of least resistance because they never have to go back and repeat this process once they follow it.
They never have to find themselves back at the weight they started at because they did these steps in the wrong order. So it is the path of least resistance when you’re willing to go through the foundational steps to become a naturally healthy eater. And it’s natural, I think for us to want to rush ahead to solve this problem where we want to just change what we eat right away.
We want to just try and listen to our body despite having emotional urgency. But what I want you to gather evidence for is how likely you’ve tried to do that in the past and skipped these steps and it led you right back to where you are now. It led you at the very least to not having the results you want permanently. And if that’s true for you, I want you to really take this episode to heart and think about what I’m saying here. You want to make progress in this area of your life in the right order so you leave no stone left unturned and you can solve this problem for the last time.
What a lot of women who join own your eating habits have in common is, first off, of course, they’re looking to solve this problem for the last time they’re done picking up healthy eating and putting it back down.
They’re done with the all or nothing with food. They want this to feel natural. But the other element that most of these women have in common is they want to give themselves luxurious amounts of time and space to solve this problem permanently in their lives. And that’s what I want you to consider is these steps for weight loss are about so much more than the weight loss. It’s about so much more than food. You can become someone who sees yourself in a higher regard in this area of your life.
You become someone who lowers your stress levels and regulates it. You become someone who can meet your body’s needs, right? It’s about so much more than the food, and it provides you so much more fulfillment in your life in developing these skills. And so that’s what I want to offer. If this approach is something that feels fulfilling to you and it feels like the approach you wanna take with yourself, then you get to give yourself luxurious amounts of time and space to solve this problem.
There is no rush and the best time to start is today. You can start this work now and be in a completely different place a year from now. So I hope walking through this was helpful for you today to get an idea of what is required for permanent weight loss. And if you want high level tailored support to move you through this process, then own your Eating Habits is the place for you. It is the program for high achieving women to develop these skills so they can learn to eat naturally healthy and lose the weight permanently.
So go to KatRentas.com/coaching to learn more and apply. Alright, my friends, I’m so glad you were able to spend some time with me today. Have a fantastic rest of your week and I’ll talk to you next week.