Losing Weight With a Busy Schedule

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• Weight Loss That Fits Your Lifestyle
• Losing Weight and Saving Time
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Full Episode Transcript:

Losing Weight With a Busy Schedule

 

Hi there, my lovely career woman, welcome to the Eating Habits for Life Podcast.

So today I want to talk about losing weight with a busy schedule. Because let’s face it, if you’re a career woman, you most likely have a busy schedule. In fact, if you’re a human being, you most likely have a busy schedule. And if you don’t really have a busy schedule, you may feel that you have a busy schedule, because of some stress or overwhelm or another emotion making it feel that way.

I used to sometimes find myself feeling like I was so rushed and in reality, I was just creating that for myself. So, I’m going to touch on that as well during this episode. So regardless of where exactly you fall into there, this episode is for you.

Now I want to start out with how you look at weight loss or how you look at losing weight.

You can look at it in many different ways. You can look at losing weight as a chore. Especially if you have the thought, “I need to lose weight.” With a thought like that or a similar thought, it can really seem like it’s something on your To Do List. Just like a chore. Which means, there can be some reluctance there. Some dragging of the feet.

You’re certainly not going into it feeling like it’s something you are looking forward to doing. This can make it feel like it’s something that you are now having to squeeze into your already busy schedule. Think of it like having a list of things to do and this extra chore of losing weight has to be squeezed onto that list somehow. That can leave you feeling overwhelmed and not looking forward to it. It can make it seem like your schedule has been made even busier, because of this extra chore.

Another way to look at weight loss or losing weight is that you can look at it as something fun. So, this would be like the complete opposite end of the spectrum. You can look at it as a fun challenge or project in a sense.

For many people, i think especially for career women, challenges or projects or goals are fun. For me they definitely are. I get completely lit up when I have a goal or if there’s a challenge or project that I’m looking forward to doing. And dopamine, the reward hormone, definitely plays a part in that.

So that’s why you can look at weight loss or losing weight as a goal, challenge, or project that will be fun to work towards. Because when I help my clients lose weight, we make sure that there are actual rewards in there besides even just the satisfaction of losing weight.

We also celebrate the wins as we go along, and what I mean by that is not just celebrating if some weight was lost during the week, but also celebrating all of the things you did well that week, no matter how insignificant it may seem.

Also, many people really love trying out some new, healthy, simple recipes when they’re losing weight. That can be a lot of fun. In fact, when I was trying to change my eating habits and lose a little bit of weight in the process, my friend Kacie got me very excited about trying new healthier foods because she would always be trying out new recipes herself and invite me over for dinner.

So, I started to do the same to reciprocate. And that became really fun for us, and then I just carried that over into when I cooked for myself and then when I cooked for myself and my husband.

Okay so now we have two very different ways of looking at weight loss, as a chore and as something fun. Those are kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum right. There’s also lots of ways to look at weight loss that is somewhere in between. So it doesn’t necessarily have to feel fun for you, but it can be enjoyable and satisfying. Really, weight loss can be looked at in any way you choose to look at it.

What this has to do with losing weight with a busy schedule, is that the way you look at weight loss or losing weight will affect how you feel, and how you feel about weight loss or losing weight even with a busy schedule will determine the actions you take to lose weight and then of course your weight loss results. No matter how busy your schedule is. What you think and feel about weight loss will affect your actions and your results regardless of your schedule.

So, you might as well set yourself up for success and make sure that your thoughts are cleaned up a little bit about weight loss. What I mean by that is that you decide how you want to look at weight loss. Even with a busy schedule. So do you want to think of it as something that will be enjoyable, and specifically for you and your health and happiness. Or do you want to look at it as a chore that you have to try to squeeze in?

You can just decide now how you’d rather see it. And if you decide that you want to look at it in a more positive light, then you may have to keep reminding yourself of this multiple times along the way. And if you feel like this is a really difficult thing for you, that is of course one of the things that, as a coach, I can help you with.

Alright, so now I’m going to get into how you look at your schedule. Because just as you can look at weight loss in different ways, and then feel differently about it, you can also look at your schedule in different ways, which will then influence how you feel about it.

For example, if you have the thought “I’m so busy” or “I’m too busy,” of course you’re going to feel busy. You might even start feeling a little bit overwhelmed or like you’re constantly rushing around, or even have an underlying tension in your body. This was me for the majority of my career as a physician assistant.

Now sometimes my schedule was very full, but there were times when I felt terribly about my full schedule, because I was making it worse for myself. I was having thoughts of “I’m so busy” or “I have no time.”

Whereas now, I can honestly say that I have more things going on in my life than I did when I was in my 20s and working lots of very long days and also lots of weekend in orthopedic trauma surgery, but I don’t feel that busy-ness feeling and I don’t feel overwhelmed, because my thoughts have changed.

We can also say what has helped is that I’ve learned along the way to really manage my time well. I’ve also learned that rushing doesn’t necessarily save a whole bunch of time but will cause you to feel overwhelmed and tense. So, I’ve learned to slow things down a little bit, so that I’m still getting things done efficiently, without feeling terrible in the process.

The one exception I would say is Thanksgiving. I hate hosting Thanksgiving at our house. I feel like no matter how much food I prep in advance, and how early I get up and get started, I am always feeling like there is way too much to do before my husband’s family gets here. Therefore, if I could just skip Thanksgiving altogether every single year, that would be lovely.

I should probably coach myself on that. Probably need to work on a little bit of a shift in mindset for Thanksgiving.

So, if you’re finding that you have thoughts like “I’m so busy” and that is causing you to feel busy or feel rushed or overwhelmed or some other emotion that is similar, here are just a couple of shifts in thinking that can make you feel differently. And you’ll notice that if you say one of these things to yourself, you will feel differently in your body.

I do want to mention that you may not necessarily be aware that you’re having thoughts like I’m so busy, but if you’re feeling rushed or overwhelmed by your schedule, that means that there is a thought in there or multiple thoughts that are causing those feelings. So the feeling in your body can really clue you in on what you’re thinking about your schedule, or about your day.

Okay, so instead of thinking “I’m too busy” or “I’m so busy”, you can think something like “I have several things on my schedule, but I’m able to handle that.” Do you see how this thought starts out a little bit more neutral kind of like just stating what the weather is, and then the second part of the thought says something positive about you that makes you feel pretty good. Rather than having a thought like “I’m too busy” making you feel not so great.

Another thought you can have instead is “I’m so busy and that’s okay.” Just adding “and that’s okay” to the end of something makes it feel a little bit or even a lot better. It’s sort of like it gives you a little bit of relief. Because it is okay. It’s okay to be busy sometimes. When it doesn’t feel good is when your brain thinks that there’s something wrong. But if you tell it that it’s okay, you don’t get quite as heightened of an emotion.

Here’s another thought that I actually really like to remind myself of and that is “I have a lot of things to do, and I don’t have to do any of it.”

Okay, so I know you’re thinking what? But in reality, when you do take a close look at the things that you have to do for the day, a lot of it, maybe even if not all of it you don’t have to do. You don’t have to go to work, now you might get in trouble if you don’t go to work, but you still have a choice, right? No one is tying you up and dragging you to work.

There may be negative consequences if you don’t go to work, but you still have a choice in the matter. Now there are certain things that you really should do of course, like take care of your children, but there are lots of other things that you may have on your schedule that you don’t really have to do. You don’t have to meet your friend for lunch, but you want to meet your friend for lunch. You don’t have to stop at the grocery store, but you want to have groceries at home, so you stop at the grocery store.

Just recognizing though that these are all choices that you have and that you don’t have to do any of it or all of it, makes it feel better. It’s a little bit more freeing and you don’t feel like such a prisoner to your schedule.

Heck I could even use this mindset shift for Thanksgiving. I don’t have to do any of it; however, I want to have lots of different delicious side dishes, I want the tables and the place settings to look really pretty, I want the house to be super clean, all the things, right? But I really don’t have to do all of that.

This is probably good timing, because with the holidays coming up, hopefully you can keep that in mind for yourself. You don’t have to do any of it. I will practice that one as well, along with you.

Alright now I gave you a lot of mindset stuff, but there are also lots of different ways to lose weight with a busy schedule.

There are different things that I do with my clients that have a busy schedule to make weight loss easier. But just know that the success to losing weight with a busy schedule is partly how you look at weight loss and partly how you look at your schedule.

Also, part of success to losing weight with a busy schedule is certainly time management tactics, which again is something that I would help you with with coaching, but also even just problem solving for each individual’s schedule and circumstances as far as time constraints and maybe odd scheduling. So there are many ways around that busy schedule, that will enable you to successfully lose weight and not feel like weight loss is something that takes a large chunk of time out of your day or week.

And I’m a good problem solver for busy schedules, because I was a very busy career woman, and felt completely overwhelmed by my schedule, and I still do and accomplish a ton of things each day, but no longer feel overwhelmed. I have managed this very well. I manage my time very well, so I can help you with this if this is something that you feel like gets in the way of you changing your eating habits and losing weight.

Because a big part of changing eating habits and losing weight is finding all the challenges that are making it more difficult and addressing those. A lot of times it’s our own thoughts and feelings, and that’s part of how coaching with me will help you with that.

And then other times, the challenges are more tangible things, like schedule, people offering you food, having tempting foods in the workplace, things like that. And I help you with those as well with coaching.

So, it’s a comprehensive approach to changing your eating habits and losing weight. Because if you don’t address the thoughts and the feelings, along with the actions or behaviors, you’ll keep getting the same results. Or you’ll get the result, but then you’ll lose it, because all of those things weren’t addressed. But don’t worry, because I will help you with all of that.

Find out more about how I can help you specifically, especially if you’re curious about working together towards your goals and set up a free 60 minute consultation. I’ll find out what exactly you need help with as far as breaking bad eating habits, forming healthier eating habits, and losing weight, and then tell you how exactly I’d help you.

That way you know what will get you the results you want. So, choose a date and time for us to talk via a free consult. You can do that right on the episode page if you’re listening directly from my website, you can also find a link for that in the episode description if you’re listening directly on a podcast listening app such as apple, spotify, amazon, etcetera.

Alright, thanks for listening, take care and I’ll talk with you next week.