WELCOME, I’M YOUR GUIDE, KATE.
I help career women break bad eating habits and lose weight sustainably.
Ready to feel more healthy, confident and free?
Imagine yourself in just a few months with all that. Start now with a free consultation.
WELCOME, I’M YOUR GUIDE, KATE.
I help career women break bad eating habits and lose weight sustainably.
Ready to feel more healthy, confident and free?
Imagine yourself in just a few months with all that. Start now with a free consultation.
Overcoming Weight Loss Plateaus Like a Boss
Unlock your BEST self: Crush your bad eating habits with simple solutions made for career women. Get the free course + workbook to start now.
Ready to break free from the weight loss plateau blues?
I’m diving deep into the reasons behind plateaus, reassuring you that it’s all part of the journey, while still empowering you with what you CAN control.
Discover the four simple, yet powerful steps that will catapult you past the plateau and reignite your weight loss journey with confidence. That way, you can start overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss.
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Related Episodes:
- Weight Loss Strategies for Busy Weeks
- Weight Loss That Fits Your Lifestyle
- 7 Ways to Measure Weight Loss
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Full Episode Transcript:
Overcoming Weight Loss Plateaus Like a Boss
Hi there, welcome to the podcast. If you’re on a weight loss journey, you will always encounter a weight loss plateau. I know we’re taught to never use the word always and also to never use the word never, however weight loss plateaus are just part of the deal. I will explain why in this episode.
I’m also going to get into strategies for overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss. So if you’re currently in a weight loss plateau, you will feel confident in your ability to overcome it. Or if you’re not yet in a weight loss plateau, you will be prepared in advance.
I do just want to give you the fun news that the new free course with workbook is now available for you. It’s on a crushing bad eating habits simple solutions for career women.
In the free course, I walk you through simple steps to get you to your best self yet. This course helps you to overcome common eating habits and challenges, in a way that’s doable, and even enjoyable.
The workbook helps you create that simple plan and getting it down on paper makes it so much easier to follow and research shows you to be more likely to follow through.
Also, with the course, I include the podcast episodes that are relevant to each class within the course.
So grab the free course and workbook with the link right on my website (below!) for the free course or in the episode description in whichever podcast listening app you’re listening on, or if you’re watching on YouTube right now, the link is included in there as well.
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I think you’ll see something that shows the link for my website and then it says that you can view more links, just click on that. That’s what it looks like on my end at least.
Now I know how frustrating it can be when you’re in a weight loss plateau. You start out making those changes to your eating habits, maybe even adding in some exercise, you start seeing the number on the scale decrease which is so satisfying.
And then all of a sudden, it comes to a halt. It feels like it’s out of your control.
It can feel like it doesn’t make any sense, especially if you feel like you’re still doing the things that helped you lose the initial weight. So along with frustration, it can feel confusing.
It can also be very disappointing of course. You might even feel like a failure. There are actually lots of thoughts that will come up with weight loss plateau. Not all of them are negative, but many of them are.
And negative thoughts, as you know will produce a negative feeling in your body. Or feeling that you don’t really enjoy feeling. Such as frustration, confusion, disappointment.
Part of overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss is to notice those negative thoughts that come up and reason with yourself.
So your brain is going to want to tell you things that aren’t necessarily true, that are going to feel badly. That’s where those negative feelings come in. But when you’re feeling badly, you’re going to be much less motivated to continue doing the things that you are doing to lose the weight.
Those negative feelings will also make you less motivated to look objectively at what you’ve been doing and seeing if there’s something you can do differently.
So that’s why noticing and examining those thoughts, and even reframing them or at least questioning them, so that you don’t feel as badly, is going to be key to overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss.
Also, being aware of some of the reasons why weight loss plateaus occur, and some strategies to overcome those weight loss plateaus will help you going forward and make you feel like you have plenty of tools in your back pocket for when that weight loss plateau comes up.
Here are some reasons why weight loss plateaus occur, in no particular order. A common reason is that your body just adapts to your new caloric intake and it adjusts your metabolism.
Your body does this to try to conserve energy, which is part of the motivational triad to help keep our species alive.
So although great for keeping humans alive, that can be a little bit of a bummer when you’re trying to lose weight, just because of those weight loss plateaus.
But it just is how our bodies work. And although you don’t have complete control as far as what your body does at a cellular and body processes level, you do control of your thoughts, feelings and actions. That’s such great news.
So just know, that your body adapting is a normal cause of weight loss plateaus, and no you can’t necessarily control all of this, but focusing on what you can control is incredibly valuable.
Other reasons for weight loss plateaus include hormones, water retention due to sodium intake, stress, also hormonal changes. Changes in your sleep patterns and changes in physical activity.
Also, loss of muscle. When you’re losing weight, you’re not just losing fat, you’re also losing muscle along with the fat. Muscles contribute to your overall metabolic rate.
So as you lose some muscle, your metabolism also decreases. Again, just a normal part of the process.
There are things to do to try to optimize muscle retention, but also just recognizing that we can’t control everything that our bodies do, but we can control our thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Another reason why you might be in a weight loss plateau is that because you were on a roll, you may have loosened up a little bit. Without even realizing it.
So, there may be some things that you were doing initially to help you lose weight that you’re not doing quite as much of, so that can be contributing to a weight loss plateau.
There might just be some things that you forgot to do continuously, and you’ve only been doing them sort of intermittently or rarely. But you won’t be able to see that if you’re stuck in a very negative mindset.
If you’re thinking negatively and letting yourself continue to think negatively, so then you continue feeling badly, which is not going to be helpful to get you out of a weight loss plateau.
So let’s get into the thoughts, or the mindset side of things.
Thoughts always precede feelings and feelings or emotions always proceed our actions. You’ll have a much easier time with the actions if you are thinking and feeling better or at least thinking and feeling in a way that supports the actions that you want to be taking.
And when I work with my clients one-on-one, we always address their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Because just doing the actions without the thoughts and the feelings to back them up, is going to be so much harder.
When the thoughts and the feelings support the actions that need to be taken to get the results you want, such as weight loss results, or more specific results, like for example eating a small piece of dessert rather than overeating dessert to the point of stomach discomfort.
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OK, so let’s start with those thoughts. Here are some common thoughts that can occur during a weight loss plateau.
“I’m doing something wrong.”
How do you think this thought makes you feel? If you’ve had this thought during a weight loss plateau, how did you feel?
Maybe disheartened, frustrated, or maybe you can’t pinpoint the emotion but it makes you feel like you wanna just throw in the towel.
These feelings are not going to help you too continue doing the actions to help you lose weight or to look objectively at what you are doing to see what you can change.
But here’s the truth about weight loss plateaus and about this thought. Weight loss plateaus are normal, therefore you’re not doing anything wrong.
Weight loss plateaus are just a part of the process and do not indicate that you are doing something wrong or that there’s something wrong with you.
So this thought, I’m doing something wrong it’s just simply not true. So you can take that thought, put it on a leaf and watch it just drift down the stream. Because it’s not useful to you.
Or, you can write this thought down on a piece of paper and put it in a shredder or crumble it up and play basketball with your garbage can in your office.
Another common thought is “I need to restrict more.”
OK, so if you were to think this thought, how would it make you feel? I actually just asked my client this the other day, because she had not the same thought, but a somewhat similar thought, because she wasn’t going to be as physically active in the coming weeks.
And it wasn’t with the word restriction, but I think it was something regarding like eating less.
So, her answer, which may be a similar emotion that would come up for you was sad. She felt like she had found a good balance as it was, and she was thinking that she didn’t want to disrupt that and that was making her feel sad.
I helped to re-frame how she looked at it and we came up with a simple strategy that she immediately felt was way better than she was thinking she was going to have to do. She felt relief after that.
Another feeling or emotion that the thought “I need to restrict more” can cause is a feeling of deprivation. This doesn’t feel good. It’s going to make the weight loss journey feel like a really big chore.
It’s also going to suggest to your brain that you are going to be starving or at least very hungry. When your brain gets that suggestion from you, it can actually really work against you. Because your brain wants to keep you alive, so it’s going to signal to you to eat more by giving you those hunger signals.
So if you’re thinking I need to restrict more and then feeling deprivation, your brain may actually get the wrong message from you. And make things worse for you.
Sneaky thoughts like this one can be sabotaging your weight loss journey. Which is why it’s so much more effective to lose weight by addressing those thoughts and feelings along with the actions or behaviors.
And that’s what coaching helps with. I think a lot of people think that coaches just help with telling you what to do. But it’s so much more than that.
It’s finding those thoughts that are not helping. It’s finding believable thoughts that will help you. It’s about creating intentional feelings in your body that will also help you.
And it’s about managing the emotions that aren’t helping you. So you can have the best chance of weight loss success.
Alright, another common thought is ”I’ll never reach my goal weight.”
I know this thought can pop up quite easily, but it’s very important to notice when it does and question it. You may feel that it is true, but of course if you’re thinking that thought, what do you think ends up happening? You don’t end up reaching your goal weight.
That’s because, when you think this thought, “I’ll never reach my goal weight,” how do you think it makes you feel? May be disappointed, pessimistic, disheartened, disempowered. There’s lots of different emotions that this thought can cause.
None of them feel good, so none of them are going to be very motivating. So if you have the belief that you’ll never reach your goal weight, what do you think you’ll end up doing or not doing.
You probably will not do the things that will help you to actually reach your goal weight. So you’ll end up with the result of never reaching your goal weight.
So here are some steps to help you with overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss.
The goal with overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss is to look objectively at why the weight loss plateau may be occurring. Is there something that we can control on our end and do differently.
Because when you’re approaching it like a scientist or a researcher, you’re going to have a lot more success with actually overcoming the weight loss plateau. If you just sit there in your negative thoughts, that’s not going to be productive.
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Step #1 is notice the thought that comes up when you’re in a weight loss plateau. There may be several, but you just need to notice the one that pops up the most for you first.
Step #2 is to ask yourself how that thought makes you feel. So really important, name the actual emotion.
Sometimes when I ask my clients how a thought makes them feel, they initially give me a long sentence, so then I have to have them clarify and tell me the one specific emotion. So that’s what I want you to do, what one specific emotion does that thought create in your body?
Step #3 is ask yourself if that feeling is helpful to overcoming the weight loss plateau. If it’s not helpful, what would be a helpful feeling and a helpful thought.
Step #4 is to look at what you’ve been doing or not doing. Is there anything that you can do differently? Is there anything that you were doing consistently that may have been helping you lose weight, that you stopped doing consistently.
As you can see, these four steps help to control the things that you can control, which include your thoughts, feelings, and actions or inactions.
Before I wrap up the episode today, I just want to remind you that overcoming weight loss plateaus is a unique journey for each and every one of us. That’s because we all have our unique thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
If this podcast episode resonated with you today as far as overcoming weight loss plateaus like a boss, and you are curious about how coaching can benefit you, we can talk together. You can book a free consultation with me right on my website katemjohnston.com/consult.
Creating a more vibrant life, one that you really love, is what it’s all about. That includes not just physical health, but also emotional and mental health and well-being. I am here to support you.
Thanks for listening, take care and I’ll talk with you soon.
Let’s get you feeling healthy, confident and free, by transforming your eating habits, and achieving lasting weight loss.
To start your transformation, book your free consultation below.
KATE JOHNSTON
Eating Habits & Weight Loss Coach, PA-C
Helping career women, including women in healthcare lose weight sustainably, by breaking bad eating habits.
Start your transformation with clarity, insight, and direction by booking a free consultation with me below.