Hello, my friends, welcome back to the Healthy Eating for Busy Women podcast. I’m so happy that you’re here with me today, and I’m excited about today’s topic because we’re gonna talk all about why trying harder doesn’t equal weight loss. And I know I’m just coming right out with it with the title of today’s episode, but this is something I am very passionate about teaching because the thing I know about so many of you listening is that you are putting in way too much effort to get the results you want.

My mission is to help as many of you as possible conserve energy so you can create this result and then use that precious time, precious energy […0.5s] devoted to the other things that matter to you, like your family, your career, or whatever those things are. Really today I want to bust a lot of myths.

I want to answer a lot of common questions I get, and I really want to change your entire perspective as to how weight loss is created in a way that’s natural and sustainable.

What I teach is naturally healthy eating. So for those of you who are not new to me, you will know this. I talk about it till my face falls off. But what that means is I teach women the foundational skills of naturally healthy eating, like lowering stress, solving for emotional eating cravings, things that are more behavioral rather than just changing what they eat. And in order to stop wasting effort when it comes to […0.5s] weight loss or healthy eating.

You’re gonna really need to understand where naturally healthy eating habits come from.

Because so much of the time, when we outsource the way we eat to a plan or set of actions or set of foods, […0.4s] we’ll logically think, okay, this is what I need to do. And then just try and force ourselves to do it, no matter the day we’re having, no matter how we’re feeling, etc, etc.

What I want you to understand is if this has not worked for you, it’s because you’re missing a huge part of the human equation, which is very easy to do because none of us are taught this. I certainly wasn’t.

What you’re missing is that emotions drive our actions with anything in life. When you are having an emotional experience […0.4s] and high stress that actually has resistance to taking action. 

It’s going to be really compelling emotionally to self sabotage to do things that don’t align with weight loss goals. And what will need to happen when we have high cravings or emotional urges to overeat. We’re gonna have to put in a lot of effort to not do that thing.

Make sense? What I want you to focus on is to stop solving for the symptom of your eating habits, which is what you eat, the foods you eat, how much you eat. And instead, I want us to help you solve for the cause of why you eat the way you do.

Just gonna be stress. It’s gonna be your emotions, how those are handled and what your body is doing in the process of all of that.

It’s funny because I feel like on this podcast or just in general in the public space, I get one of two people. I either get the people who really love my work and they understand my work and you all are probably a lot like me.

And then there’s the people who understandably might not really gel with it, right? It’s the people that are like, I just need you to give me a plan, a protocol, and a syllabus for what to do.

And here’s the thing, y’all. Like if I really thought that that served you, I would give you that, but I am here to help you do this for the very last time.

When we talk about […0.4s] solving this problem and no longer putting in a lot of effort, healing’s gonna have to occur here. And I don’t want this to intimidate you or to exhaust you right from the get go.

I want you to know that just because we’re doing more foundational work to solve this problem doesn’t mean it’s more complicated or less clear.

It actually can feel more clear and stable when you address the root cause […0.4s] of your eating habits. And the root cause of why healthy eating feels so unsustainable is because you think that healthy eating and weight loss is gonna require a lot of effort.

Something else I think I know about you is that you don’t have any extra effort to give towards areas of your life. So in other words, you’re using all of your emotional effort every day to maybe even burn out. You are spending all of your emotional energy and then some to take action in your life.

And especially this will apply to you, to those of you who are moms or have your own business or career, whatever it is, you are not […0.4s] having an ounce of emotional energy to waste.

And so when you hear that weight loss or healthy eating is gonna require your effort, you’re at a loss because as much as you want it and as much as you are committed, you feel like you’re gonna have to wait for an ideal time to get it done. And what if that is?

The big lie here is that your effort […0.5s] is not required at all to take action in a way that’s useful.

So many of us were raised with this concept of doing your best, proving your worth, really earning your results, and a big wall that a lot of my clients come up against in this journey is […0.5s] really feeling like they’re not working hard enough for the results they’re creating.

So in my coaching, what happens is you will start noticing changes pretty much right away when you use the tools. And we change the narrative completely.

You are not going to work hard, put in a lot of effort, or do a lot of busy work. It’s really impactful small actions that you’re gonna do in order to create the result.

And then what happens is we feel at a loss cause it’s like, well, I feel like I didn’t even really do much. I didn’t put in a lot of […0.5s] effort emotionally. And then that’s when your brain’s gonna have all these hangups, feel like your progress isn’t stable.

But what I want you to know is that the concept of you thinking you have to put in a lot of effort is why you’re not losing weight. Cause here’s the thing, you guys spending emotional effort that mindset will lead you to a state of stress.

It will likely be high functioning stress, but it’s still gonna be a stress state on the body. So it’s no question that a lot of us in our society are just highly functioning stressed anxious individuals.

How our bodies treat our weight in that state is it’s gonna bar down the hatches to protect you. Your body doesn’t see your weight as really a problem to be solved.

When it’s trying to survive, it sees it as stored energy. So the more you push, the more effort you give, and the more you try and force […0.4s] the weight loss, your body is gonna resist it further. Because it’s thinking it needs to be in a survival state, a famine is occurring, and it’s gotta conserve as much energy as possible.

This is the really big thing I want you to know to make your weight loss as easy as possible.

Your body has to feel […0.4s] regulated and at ease enough to release the weight. Your body has to feel regulated and at ease and safe enough to begin releasing weight […0.5s] excessively. And how we do that is by letting this all be simpler, by not putting in as much effort, by leaning back and focusing on quality action rather than hustly action.

I wanna give you guys an example of that because it can sound a little ambiguous in terms of quality action and hustly action with healthy eating.

Here’s an example of hustly action that may have come up for you. Again, it did for me is if you’re having trouble with overeating or emotionally eating, you plan out your week completely. You write down everything you’re going to eat, you have a plan, […0.5s] you track everything, and really there’s nothing wrong with this, but a lot of thought […0.4s] and emotional effort goes into it before the week starts, right? And you’re like, all right, my week’s easy, all I have to do is follow through.

When actually what’s going on is the fact that you’re having high urges […0.5s] to overeat, you feel emotionally drained when you come home, and all you wanna do is order Doordash.

And then when it comes time to follow that plan, that is not something you’re gonna do. So then what happens when you still overeat, you think I just need to try harder, I need to push, I need to be more committed. So now you’re draining energy and putting your body in a stress state.

This is hustly action, hustly action with healthy eating is when you are having an energy leak, and the amount of effort you’re putting towards it is being wasted. It’s not solving the problem versus quality action with healthy eating might look like this. If you’re learning the skills of naturally healthy eating rather than planning everything trying to avoid the mess UPS that you have had in the past.

You’re actually instead going to uncover the root cause of why mess UPS are occurring at all. So in other words, you’re going to uncover the root cause […0.4s] of why you emotionally eat when you come home from work.

In my process, we give you tools to do this, and one of those things is emotional awareness. I did not invent emotional awareness.This is nothing new, but it is a pillar. Imagine what you do instead is when you get home from work, rather than having everything planned out, you just see how you’re feeling. I want you to hear this. You just see how you’re feeling.

You might notice that you feel overwhelmed cause you think you’re running out of time. Maybe you feel inadequacy because you didn’t present that thing the way you wanted to at work. Maybe you feel shame because you did something that you deem as wrong that day.

Whatever it is, now we have eyes on what your body actually has wanted you to digest, rather than building it up, not knowing what that is and giving you high craving.

So this is just an example of how the skills of naturally healthy eating work. How much less hard do you have to work when you’re focused on the root problem rather than the symptom and avoiding the mistakes that are actually just the symptom of that deeper root cause.

Make sense. You will spend a lot less effort when you focus on solving for the root cause of your eating habits versus the surface level problems. A really big concern I get from a lot of women is what if I don’t do enough to lose weight?

We have such resistance to only focusing on basics and not working harder. I get a lot of fair concerns like, oh, what if I gain all the weight back the moment I stop planning? And the moment I stop doing all these things to keep it all together, what may happen is there may be a transition period from becoming a dieter to a naturally healthy eater. What I want you to have an opportunity to do is build trust and reliance on yourself to make healthy eating decisions and those skills […0.5s] rather than a plan or a protocol because those things are fragile. The moment circumstances become un ideal, the moment you travel, the moment anything happens, that is not going to be sustainable. And if it is great, keep doing what’s working.

But I want to offer that actually having weight loss occur without putting in a lot of effort, is knowing how to create it based on any circumstances within decisions you make yourself, not outsourcing those decisions to a plan or a protocol.Something I wanna mention is letting weight loss be simpler, is something we all want. It’s something we all strive to have.

But I want to offer that when you really have an opportunity to let weight loss occur more easily that it’s gonna feel vulnerable. Because what happens is when you […0.5s] have taught yourself that to have a result, you need to push to create it.

It’s gonna feel unsafe or less stable to have it when you’re not putting in all that effort. And so I want you to imagine if you just woke up tomorrow, and you had the results you want.

Okay, I know at first, you would be very happy to have the weight loss or the health or whatever […0.4s] else it is that you want with your body.

But then I want you to notice how unstable that might feel because you’ll believe that you didn’t create it, that you don’t know how, and you feel like you didn’t depend on anything to create that result, right?

When you decide to not create weight loss from pushing or a lot of effort, your brain might trick you and think, well, then how did I create it? You create weight loss from your actions, that is how it occurs.

Your weight loss does not happen from effort, from trying hard, or from exerting yourself emotionally.

I wanna offer that so many of you listening will have that belief, and that is okay. I still have that belief sometimes come up that it is my effort and how much I think about something, how much I problem solve, how much I push that creates results. That is not what creates results, it’s just my actions.

And what if taking action with healthy eating that produces weight loss didn’t require harsh emotional energy that you need to push through?

It’s really interesting because a lot of women when they join my membership, come in wanting the result of naturally healthy eating and easeful weight loss because that is what I teach. But then they’ll come in ready to just commit and put in a lot of energy and discipline.

And it’s always these women which I would have been that person who really need to learn to lean back first before they actually build these skills.

Because what’s gonna happen in the beginning with that mentality, which is so okay, is you’re gonna want to bulldoze through the skill building in order to get the result. And here’s the thing, a lot of women who join my coaching are willing to give the result the time it needs.

Think if you are truly sold on losing weight for the last time, are you willing to give your body the time it needs to do so?

Probably yeah, if it’s for the last time, right? But then what happens is maybe you feel a rush to get to that end result, because you think something’s gone wrong if you don’t have it already. Because this probably feels very triggering to you, your brains, like, something has gone wrong.

That’s when you’re gonna feel the urge to push and force the weight loss even harder. A lot of the reason why we put more effort towards weight loss, and we hustle a little bit is because we have not practiced sitting with the emotions of a weight loss journey.

When you participate in a weight loss journey where it’s really foundational, and you’re focused on becoming someone new, your brain’s gonna offer you all of the emotions.

It’s likely gonna offer you doubt, inadequacy, shame, all the really fun stuff. What you will feel an urge to do, maybe is to get the result quicker, hustle, or it will go to the other end and eventually self sabotage.

The reason for this is because we are not practiced at experiencing the thoughts that our brain gives us and the resulting emotion from those thoughts. Like this isn’t gonna happen, I’m gonna fail, I’m not capable. Whatever it is, […0.4s] that will compel you to put in more effort.

And a big piece of letting weight loss be easier is, yes, understanding all of these things in terms of effort, but also being willing to experience the natural human emotions that will occur in a weight loss […0.4s] journey. I want you to think about driving a car.

I know I use this example a lot. I don’t want you to lean forward and press on the gas more thinking that’s gonna get you to your weight loss quicker when you feel that pressuring voice saying you’re doing it wrong and nothing’s working.

And I don’t want you to release your hand from the wheel when you hear those voices either. The only thing you need to do is to just keep going.

You just need to relax in the seat, keep your hand on the wheel and keep going towards your destination as best as you can, knowing that if you make a wrong turn or human air happens, you’re gonna be fine and you’re gonna figure it out.

Effort does not happen with weight loss because of the actions necessary to create the weight loss. It occurs because you’re having a human experience that you have not Learned to sit with yet.

And I want you to think about that when do you feel an urge to put in a lot of effort with healthy eating and weight loss, really? This can come from motivation or determination or things that are not negative. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to put in an effort.

But I want you to consider the potential discomfort you would feel if someone said you’re not gonna put effort towards this anymore, you’re gonna let this be simple. Maybe you would feel unsatisfied or there would be some type of void or you feel unfulfilled.

This is something I coach on a lot too. It’s like, well, if I’m not putting an effort towards this, then what am I even doing? What I tell clients a lot is you’re gonna let this be done now, because that’s what you want.Yeah, you want to become a naturally healthy eater. You wanna be at your ideal weight so you can live the rest of your life. In order to not put effort towards weight loss and waste […0.6s] emotional energy and to let that be done in your life.

You’re gonna have to maybe […0.4s] feel less satisfied in terms of the effort you wanna put in. You’re not gonna feel like you got the gold star. You’re not gonna feel like you climbed a mountain to do it. And potentially […0.4s] what grieving might you have to do knowing that that’s how it’s gonna happen.

This is really valid with my high achievers because I kind of have that high achieving brain as well. It takes a mourning period sometimes to realize to have the thing that I want to do.

I wanna not put an effort. Of course, that’s what everyone wants, but also I’m gonna miss the journey of working hard to create something. I love achieving. I love proving to myself that I can accomplish something, but in areas of your life that are for life, that are long term, […0.4s] that is not a sustainable relationship to it.

We cannot have you feel like that your weight loss is gonna be climbing a mountain that you achieve. Instead, it needs to be a natural inherent part of your life that you can show up sustainably to every day, which means we need to create a version of weight loss that’s not climbing the mountain. It’s actually just taking a stroll, whatever other analogy we wanna use here.

So all of this is to say, my friends, the realization you need to help you lose weight with ease is very simple, but it’s important. It’s that effort doesn’t create results decisions create results. And what decisions will you need to make with food and your body in order to create your weight loss goals? Ask yourself this question.Actually sit with this question because notice what you might come up with that implies you’re still thinking that effort […0.6s] is necessary, right? Maybe you’ll jot down that you need to eat healthy perfectly, even if you’re not actually saying it. Maybe you’re thinking it like, okay, I’m gonna have to give up this food, I’m gonna have to always eat this thing, I’m gonna have to make sure of this, that, and that.

Notice the things you might come up with that imply more effort versus what would it look like for you to sustainably […0.6s] eat healthy in a way that works for you and have the weight loss you wanted. What if that was available? What may that look like?

If just simple decisions that you actually want to be taking are enough to create the result, not you having to work hard or force yourself to do it in a certain way.

Sometimes the bigger question is, are you willing to keep showing up with healthy eating in your life if doing so doesn’t feel super motivating or exciting or like you’re conquering something or proving something to yourself, this is a big transition period.

A lot of my clients go through is they have spent so much of their life in this area running on the treadmill, hoping to get somewhere.

And then what we do in my membership kind of is like we take them off the treadmill and we have them sit still for a second and ask, okay, how do you really wanna do this? What’s this gonna look like? And sometimes they’re like, wait, I actually think I wanna get back on the treadmill, which not really, but kind of right, I want you to notice what actually will you need to experience when you’re no longer going to go in the ring and fight for this result in your life that can be vulnerable.

And I think that’s what I want you all to expect from today’s episode, is that weight loss happening without effort and with ease is gonna feel vulnerable?

Your mind will say yes, but your nervous system will say, meh, I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m on board with that. And maybe even listening to today’s episode, you can see that happening.

This was an open ended episode here. It really was just a dialogue on how you can start seeing this differently. And if you want a process for all of this, I know we talk about deep concepts here on the podcast and it’s really conversational. But if you want a step by step process coaching and a program to do this, I highly recommend you join the Own Your Eating Habits membership with me and with women all around the world. It’s $79 a month and you can join and […0.5s] cancel any time. It’s there for you to do at your pace. And so you can go to cat rent us com forward slash membership to join us today. I highly recommend it if any of this resonates with you.

Alright, my friend, I love you. I hope you have a great rest of your week and I’ll talk to you soon. […4.8s]