Hello my friends. Welcome back to the podcast this week. I’m quite excited to offer you today’s episode because weight loss is something that so many of us have struggled with, and I see time and time again us thinking we have the solution for weight loss and then we fall off track or we think we have another solution and then we find ourselves sabotaging. And I really want to offer you a resource in this episode for you to understand completely what will be required of you to permanently lose weight.
This is something I feel very strongly about. It is a big backbone in my coaching practice is that anyone can have the long term healthy eating and weight loss results they want, but what’s happening in the health industry is there’s a whole lot of chatter and unrealistic expectations of what that actually will require. And so I really want you to have the reality of what will be necessary for you to have this result in your life because it is available to you right now, but it’s going to be so important that you know the ins and outs as to what won’t make that available for you and what will.
So in, in this episode, I really want to discuss the timeline of weight loss and what you can expect in terms of how long weight loss will take for it to be sustainable and permanent for you. And I really do get this question all of the time, whether it’s from women in my audience who listen to this podcast or it’s from women applying to my coaching program. I think the top thing everyone wants to know is that how long will this take for me?
And we kind of have this attachment and a little bit of an obsession with the timeline that weight loss will take as if it’s just this annoyance that we have occurring in our lives and we just want it done with. And I think that’s valid. Of course, this is something you’ve struggled with. You’ve worked so hard to get these results for so many years and you, you don’t have the results you want.
So of course you’re probably a bit burnt out and tired. But we really have this almost desperate and even a little bit dismissive relationship to weight loss. And it’s very important that we see this when it occurs because what we need to know about the timeline for weight loss, this is the honest, real answer to that question of how long it will take, is it will take the time it needs to take to be solved permanently.
And I want you to think about if you go to a doctor or even for some of us a therapist with something that’s coming up for us in our body health wise. And I want you to imagine going to the doctor or another health specialist and asking, All right, but how long do you think this will take? And it’s not that, it’s not a fair question, but just notice how we ask this question.
When it comes to weight loss, what a doctor would tell you is that it’ll take the time it needs to take to heal, of course, right? So I want you to think about weight loss is in a very real sense, a healing process. And in order for you to be healed permanently and lose the weight where you never struggle again, you can’t skip steps, and you have to make sure you take all of the necessary steps to become permanently healed.
So we’re not just putting a bandaid on the problem, but I want to walk you through this a bit more intimately here in this episode because most of the problems that I see occurring are that you want to lose weight permanently. So you try and follow all of these specific methods or protocols, but what happens is you find yourself not following through long term with the weight loss.
You end up gaining the weight back and nothing seems sustainable. This is why so many women who show up to my coaching practice or sign up to work with me are in a place of burnout just because they’ve tried so many things that didn’t create the result they wanted. And I want you to know why this problem is actually occurring where you try and lose the weight and then you gain it back and it seems like nothing is working for you. This is something that you have power over.
So the first reason why weight loss is not sustainable for you is because you are attached to quick weight loss because of the belief that when you lose the weight, you will feel better emotionally. So most of us think we wanna lose the weight to be healthier. You know, feel lighter, and this is true for a lot of us, but if you find you are attached to having weight loss quicker, it’s because you believe it will take emotional discomfort away.
So you believe you will no longer feel shame, you will no longer feel inadequacy or a lack of confidence, and you probably believe that it’s going to remove further emotional discomfort from your life. The grass is always greener in our minds when it comes to weight loss. We really do believe sometimes that people who weigh less or the version of ourselves who weigh less experiences, less emotional discomfort, and life is always 50 50 of positive emotions and negative emotions.
So when we have this idea that losing weight will put us into a fairy unicorn land, as I like to call it, the stakes are so high because of course we feel a rush to get over there if we think over there means we get to stop being a human and partaking in the human experience. So because the stakes are so high in your mind, this is why you are attached to quick weight loss, and you are very attracted to quick fix diets and methods.
It’s confirmation bias. This is what your brain is looking for as the solution. And so this is where it feels comfortable. This is why just for all of your perspective, women who apply to my program, they’re so committed, they’re ready to join. And then there’s this flicker of resistance that happens because they want to do this long term. They want to commit to a long term approach, but their brain is not familiar with doing that.
It really is so attracted to the quick fix methods that at this point, you likely know don’t work for you. So you have attachment to weight loss and you are in a rush. What then happens is you’ll find you get very easily discouraged and frustrated when weight loss isn’t happening in the manner that you want or the timeline that you want. And this can show up in a number of ways.
Maybe you don’t lose weight by the time an event comes up in your life like you wanted to, or maybe you end up fluctuating weight in the process and you lost five pounds one week and then you gained three pounds another week. Weight loss doesn’t look like a perfectly downward slope. We perceived it as being accessible in a quicker, more clean way. So what will happen is you convince yourself it’s not working and you create a lot of discouragement and frustration in the process when it doesn’t happen in that timeline you want.
And so what happens if you really believe it’s not working, we will end up self sabotaging. You will quit. You will quote unquote fall off track and you’ll stop following through with the weight loss that you are creating. You’ll also quit because along the journey, because you want this quicker, you will restrict and micromanage your eating decisions in this highly perfectionistic way to force your body into the results you want quicker.
So when we are in this place, I want us to be really real with ourselves, and it’s okay to do that here When we are micromanaging our eating decisions to get weight loss quicker, we are not considering what our body wants or needs at all. We’re just focused on the foods going into our body and then expecting that our body loses the weight in the timeframe we have for the rest of our lives. And I really want to get really real with this because I think a lot of us go into weight loss thinking that we’re doing it because we wanna be healthier and because we wanna treat our body well.
And I do think this is true that we want this, but our predominant reasons for rushing through the process are because we wanna feel better and we wanna look the way we wanna look based on society’s standards.
And these reasons aren’t wrong either. It’s all valid. But when we’re micromanaging food and restricting food to get there quicker, it’s very transactional. We are not considering what our body needs at all to lose the weight permanently. And what happens is we end up having a very expectant entitled and transactional relationship to healthy eating and to weight loss.
So just to review why weight loss feels like a struggle, you have an emotional attachment to quick weight loss. So you set expectations on a timeline that you want the weight loss in, which means you restrict or micromanage your eating decisions. You then get easily discouraged and frustrated because you have an intolerance to your body losing weight in its timeline. So then what happens is you quit.
You then blame the process, you blame your body. Or what a lot of us do is we blame ourselves without realizing that nothing may have been going wrong at all.
We just had such an intolerance to creating long term change with a long term approach. So I want this to sit for a minute and I want you to consider how this may apply to you, why you may have had trouble in the past losing weight permanently because of this urgency you are having with it. And this is completely solvable. I do get the question of someone wanting to go through a long term process, but they feel frustrated and they feel urgency in their body to do it quicker.
This is natural. This just means that you are human and it is totally available for you to lose weight long term and be someone who is emotionally attached with the quick fixes. But in order to solve for this, you do want to begin detaching yourself from the quick fix weight loss in terms of how you are showing up.
So in other words, don’t set timeline expectations on your body or yourself for solving this problem permanently. What I see is that many of you will believe that if you remove a timeline from weight loss, then you won’t be motivated to follow through with the long term changes. And I want you to know that this is actually the point. Of course it does, right? Because motivation always runs out. But you’re not going to create lifelong results with motivation because motivation won’t be accessible for life.
So you want to learn how to create lifelong weight loss without motivation. You want to be able to harness emotional fuel that is available to you long term. You must learn how to create weight loss without motivation and without feeling good all of the time. If you decide to remove a timeline from your permanent weight loss, you give yourself the ability to give this the time it needs to be healed permanently.
Remember, I want you to think about this like going to the doctor for some type of illness. You’re not going to ask the doctor or maybe you will, no judgment . But let’s say you don’t ask the doctor, How much time will this take? No, of course you’re going to give yourself the time it needs. Doing this for yourself with weight loss and giving yourself permission to take the necessary time is a gift. It is total freedom to move through the process at your necessary pace.
So I want you to determine your reason for being willing to give this the time it needs to solve this problem permanently. It’s okay if it doesn’t feel good to declare this reason. It’s okay if declaring this reason, feels like you are parenting yourself a little bit here, but find your reason for committing to this long term and then commit to making that decision for yourself.
Once you’ve done that, I want you to still expect the discouragement and frustration to come up along your journey. Because here’s the the thing, you have an automatic primitive brain that will involuntarily offer thoughts and emotions to you throughout the weight loss journey. And the most common ones that I see as a coach when you have had a quick fix mindset in the past will be, this isn’t working, something is going wrong.
I should be further along by now. All right? So I’m gonna put it very boldly here. , these are all lies from your brain, from the brain that wants a quick fix. And at once, instant gratification, I just call this my toddler tantrum brain. If that sounds a little too judgey for you, you don’t have to refer to it as that. I like to poke fun at myself. It’s just my toddler tantrum brain wanting the candy now.
And parenting our brain means we are telling that toddler no for it’s long-term benefit. And the toddler is of course not going to know why we tell it. No in the moment it’s just gonna think we’re being really mean and unfair. But we say no to toddler tantrum brain because we are aware of that long term reason for doing this work. We just have a brain that is attached to instant gratification, and it’s going to tell you along your weight loss journey that it’s not working, something is going wrong and you should be further along.
This is okay, but we have to know that we can’t opt into these reasons as if they’re the truth of the universe and we can’t swim in them and take action from them because it’s so important to remind ourselves that this thinking that it should be quicker is so entitled.
And this is a little bit of tough love for all of us because I think it can sound a little accusatory to acknowledge when we’re being entitled with weight loss. But I really do believe it is so true here. We really do expect that we deserve weight loss in our timeline. And this is just not true. We are not entitled to long term results with weight loss without taking the long term action to create it. And if you do find you’re a little entitled, that is okay.
It means you are human. Just know that taking action from that place will not produce the long term results you want. I have entitlement available to me as well. So do you. We just don’t want to take action from it. We want to parent that tantrum toddler who wants the candy quicker for its long term benefit.
All right? The next thing to solve for this is you want to begin changing your eating decisions in a way that you know you can be on board with for the rest of your life. So for the love of all things good, my friends, do not cut out a food group if you don’t want to. Don’t restrict a certain food item if you don’t want to. What you want to look for is a manner of eating healthy that you’re totally on board with.
And this means you want to get to know yourself as an eater, and you want to take time to see what answers you already have. Because as your coach, and if you are my client, you know this, I do not tell you what to eat ever. That would be to your detriment. You want to think about how do you want to eat in this lifetime?
What version of healthy eating matches what fulfills you? Because here’s what so many of you will miss, because right now this might sound like a fantasy where I’m telling you that you don’t have to cut out foods and lose the weight permanently. It’s so important that you know that there are a million different versions of healthy eating that can create the permanent weight loss result you want. You can decide to cut out the sugar or leave the sugar. You can decide to cut out the chocolate or eat the chocolate.
You can decide to go vegan or not go vegan, right? It’s totally up to you. And you are the leader of your food decisions and body. So you get to decide if there was no wrong way to get the results you want with your body, how would you do it? And I’m gonna walk through an example that applies to me so you can kind of see how this works a little bit.
Cause I know this level of freedom can sound airy fairy if you’re new to this. So for me, I love cheese. All right? , people in my life know this. I love cheese, all cheese, but specifically goat cheese, it is my favorite. And if I have goat cheese on anything, it’s a great day, . But there were many diets I went on in the past where of course I convinced myself that it was quote unquote healthier to not eat the cheese. And here’s the thing.
If I liked my reasons for this, it would be fine. I would have no problem giving up the cheese in my life. There’s things that I don’t eat, and I have no problem doing it cuz it’s not something I want, but I like cheese. I want cheese. And so I have no interest in giving it up for the rest of my life.
So that means I probably want to create a version of healthy eating that partners with that. So I’m not working against myself. So questions I get at this point are, Oh my gosh, but if I love cheese so much, then I can’t stop eating it, then I’m addicted to it, then yada, yada yada. No , okay? No, you can love something my friends. You can love delicious food, love pleasurable food and not overeat it. And so this is the big piece that is missing for so many of you when it comes to long term healthy eating and weight loss.
The reason why you don’t have to give up foods and lose weight permanently is because you can become a woman who has control with any food. Even the foods you find the most desirable when you build that skill. Foods you love are just foods you love, but you can live without them.
But you may not want to live without them, which means you do incorporate them into your life, but you’re not over consuming them at the detriment of your weight loss results. Does this make sense? But this level of the work is something that my clients go through after they become someone who has full control with food. They don’t overeat at this point. They’re probably already losing the weight. And so they have evidence that they don’t need to cut out foods, they love to eat healthy.
They can just manage how they’re eating those foods more so than what they’re eating. So we went on a little side tangent there, , But I really want you to see how you can come up with your own version of healthy eating, and this is how you want to create weight loss long term. So you’re not fighting against yourself in the process.
And similar to that, another way you will solve this problem is you must commit to working with your human body rather than against it. All right? So if your body is not losing weight, it means it doesn’t have the conditions created by you to do so. The conditions are not right. I talk about it like it’s a plant. If the plant isn’t growing , then it doesn’t have the right conditions. So in terms of weight loss, maybe your body needs more time to release the weight.
Maybe it needs lower stress levels from you to lose the weight. Maybe it needs more emotional regulation from you to lose the weight. Just throwing some examples of things I help my clients solve for. But know this, this is so important. You cannot work against your body and to lose weight permanently. You must learn your body’s needs physically and emotionally for the long term.
And then you must begin meeting those needs in a way that is accessible and sustainable for both you and your body. Because here is the the really big thing that not many people are talking about in the health industry. Your body is the one who decides when it will release the weight permanently. Sure, you technically have the ability to shorten that timeline and make the weight come off quicker if you manipulate those conditions enough, but it won’t be permanent, right?
Losing weight permanently needs to be a collaborative consensual relationship between you and your body because your body holds onto weight for a reason. It doesn’t do this because it’s working against you. Weight is a survival mechanism from your body. So if it’s not releasing it, we want to tap into what your body is actually needing from you in that moment. This means you have to have an actual relationship with your body, which part of me says jokingly because we’re not taught to do that.
So let’s validate ourselves. We’re not taught in school that we should monitor our body cues, our hunger, our fullness. We’re not taught to manage our stress levels. I was taught how to dissect a frog. Okay? So we want to validate ourselves that these are not skills that we were taught to prioritize, but they are necessary. This is how you learn to eat healthy naturally and lose weight permanently without hustle and without willpower.
It’s tapping into healthy eating in the way nature intended you to have it, where you’re not micromanaging your way to that goal. So what I’m really saying here, my friends in these mini ran I’m offering you, is to give yourself the necessary time to create permanent weight loss. So this means you keep taking action without hustle towards long-term healthy eating and weight loss. And when you do, you create it inevitably for life.
And the only thing that can keep you from doing this are your mismanaged expectations of what long term weight loss should look like when it’s working. Permanent weight loss is available to you, my friend. Nothing is holding you back. Detach from the quick fix timeline and your results are guaranteed in your future. Also, let me just lovingly call all of us out here. All right? Because I was guilty of this in the past.
All of the time that we spent wishing weight loss would go faster, wishing we had it already. We could already have the permanent results by now if we just decided in the beginning to treat the changes as long term changes, and we weren’t in a rush to get there quicker. See what I’m saying here? Know that this is all available to you. All right? So I very much hope this was helpful if losing weight permanently is something you are struggling with.
What I do as a coach is help women move through these types of personal hurdles so they can change their eating habits in their way and lose weight. So I help you recognize your own patterns so you can become the best expert of your own eating habits and weight. So if you are ready to step into that level of leadership with food and your body, let’s get started. I’m ready to support you. You can learn more about working with me at KatRentas.com/coaching.
All right, my loves. I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week, and I’ll talk to you next week.