Why Weight Loss Feels Hard

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Full Episode Transcript:

Why Weight Loss Feels Hard

Hi there, welcome to the podcast. I wanted to do this podcast episode on why weight loss feels hard because I want to really help you see that it only feels hard and isn’t actually hard. If it were truly hard and the statement, “weight loss is hard” was a universal truth that could not be argued in a court of law, then why do some people lose weight easily?

When I lost weight once I started to change my eating habits in a healthy way, I found it to be very easy. The only time I didn’t find it to be easy, was when I thought it was hard and that I had to run 10 miles every day just to maintain my weight, let alone lose weight. To lose weight, I thought I had to eat like only 1,000 calories a day and my thought was, “I can’t do that.”

So, I think I just made my point sooner than I wanted to make it, but it’s your thoughts that make weight loss feel hard. I wanted to give a little bit of foreplay before I got right to the point but hey that’s okay. Sometimes a quickie is all you have time for, right?

Before I dive completely into this topic that I really love, I want to invite you to my free virtual workshop I’m hosting on February 28th at 7:00 PM Eastern Time. Super easy to remember, last day of the month. I’m pretty sure this is not a leap year this year. This workshop is on the weight loss mindset, more specifically the crucial weight loss mindset to get results that actually last.

Now, the reason why I say that this is the crucial weight loss mindset is because there are lots of different mindsets that can help you to lose weight including things like positive affirmations and whatnot. However, this mindset I have found to be the mindset that will be the most helpful to you.

I have used this mindset for lots of things besides weight loss, so you will not only greatly benefit in the area of weight loss, but can apply this to any other area of your life where you have goals. Which is so fun.

And why I am the best person to be teaching you anything about weight loss, is because it is coming from a person who knows all about the behavioral science behind eating habits and other habits that are required for true weight loss.

I also mix in the life coaching component of it which is all just essentially awareness of how your thoughts generate your feelings which drive your actions and create your results. and really mastering the thoughts, feelings, and actions to create the results you really desire from life.

Also, my 15 year history in the healthcare industry as a physician assistant means I have a lot of knowledge and expertise about the body as well as nutrition, plus I changed my eating habits, established other healthy lifestyle habits, lost weight easily and kept it off.

So, I know that was a little bit of a shameless plug but my point is that if you’re going to learn from anyone, I’m a safe bet. So, come to the workshop on February 28th at 7:00 PM Eastern Time and learn the crucial weight loss mindset.

This one hour long workshop will change everything for you with weight loss, and like I mentioned even other goals that you have for yourself in your life. There are 75 spots available, well actually less than that because a lot of them are filled already come up but grab yours at https://katemjohnston.com/workshop.

You can also sign up but via the episode page if you are listening to this podcast episode from the episode page on my website.

Alright, back to the topic of why weight loss feels hard. So, as I mentioned, it’s your thoughts. Our thoughts are wonderful and make us unique from one another, however, sometimes they can make things more difficult for ourselves. So, our thoughts are just judgments or opinions. Because they’re unique to each individual, thoughts are not universal truth.

Even if you are 100% sure that everyone in the world would agree with your thought, your opinion, it’s still not an absolute truth or universal truth. That’s because it’s a thought from your unique brain.

Before I move on, I should probably clarify what a thought is. A thought is just a sentence in your brain. That’s it.

So, I personally think that one of the easiest ways to pick up on a thought is when there’s an adjective involved. So going way back to English class, an adjective is used to describe or modify a noun.  

The word “skinny” is an adjective, therefore that means that it is just a thought, an opinion. The word “beautiful” is an adjective, so that is also just a thought or an opinion.

Adverbs are also thoughts, because adverbs describe or modify a verb. Granted, I am a science person and not an English person, so if there are any English teachers listening in, you can certainly correct me if I’m wrong.

So for example, “I walk slowly” would be a thought, because “slowly” is an adverb.

Now that you know what a thought is and what a thought isn’t, meaning that it is not a universal truth, but rather an opinion or judgment, I’m going to get a little bit more into why weight loss feels hard.

So, when you have thoughts about weight loss being hard or difficult, it’s going to feel or seem hard. Sometimes you can feel that in your body. Almost like a weight holding you down or a rope pulling you back.

When your thoughts about weight loss are that it’s hard, it’s going to produce a feeling in your body whether that is something like what I just described, or it might even cause a different type of feeling or emotion like discouragement. It might cause a feeling of self-doubt. It might cause a feeling of disbelief.

Because feelings or emotions always drive our actions, reactions, or inactions, meaning they make us not want to do something, When you have feelings or emotions like discouragement, self-doubt, or disbelief, you’re not going to do the actions that you need to do to create the results that you want.

You’re probably going to do a lot of inaction, which will create results, but not the results that you want. It might create results of weight loss that is very slow, or even plateaus often, or may cause no weight loss at all, maybe even weight gain.

So almost always, a huge reason why people have a hard time losing weight, is not because it’s actually hard, but because they have thoughts that it’ll be hard or that it is hard, which create feelings that either cause inaction, not enough of the right actions, or even the wrong actions or reactions.

Those thoughts can be anything, not necessarily “weight loss is hard.” The thoughts can be something like “I’ve done this before and failed,” “I’m going to have to starve myself and exercise all the time.” Which, I just want to note is not true. Again, that’s exactly my point about thoughts… they’re not the truth.

It can be a thought like “I’ll probably only lose 5 pounds again just like last time,” or “Why do I bother? I always gain most of it back anyway.” Do you see how each of these thoughts makes weight loss seem difficult or at least difficult to maintain? Do you also see how these cause feelings like self-doubt and discouragement?

Here’s a helpful way to think about it a little bit differently. I want you to think about telling a friend you want to lose 30 pounds.

And she says to you “You’ll probably only lose 5 pounds again just like you did last time.” Or she says “Why do you bother? You always gain most of it back anyway.” So, I’m just taking each of these exact same thoughts that I mentioned just a bit ago and changing them from “I” to “you.”

If you had a friend telling you these things, how would that make you feel? It’s so much easier to see this when you look at it this way. And you envision yourself being told these things by your friend. Or a colleague or a family member.

Of course, it’s going to be the same if you’re telling yourself these same things in your head. Having these thoughts. And you are the person that should be your biggest supporter, your biggest cheerleader.

So why are you making it so difficult for yourself? Why are you making weight loss hard for yourself? Is it because you’re really fearful that you might fail and what that might mean about you?

That oftentimes is the case. Humans have that fear of failure. They fear that they’re not as strong as they thought they were or that other people will see that they’ve failed and have new thoughts about them that are not favorable.

This is just a human brain thing that goes way back to the primitive days. so these thoughts about weight loss being hard are kind of your brain just trying to protect you from failure. But really all it’s doing is making it harder for you and making it more likely you’ll fail in the process or fail ahead of time, because you haven’t even proceeded with giving it another try.

This is so unbelievably common and it’s why I wanted to do a podcast episode on it today. Because a lot of you are not losing the weight that you want to because of fear of failure. And that’s just because your brain thinks that it’s protecting you in some way by feeding you thoughts that weight loss is going to be hard or that you’re not going to be able to do it.

It’s feeding you thoughts that you’ve already done it and failed, so of course that’s what’s going to happen again. That’s not what’s going to happen again though if you don’t want it to.

I know that might seem a little bit hard to believe right now, but that’s what I help you work through with 1:1 coaching. That’s part of a coach’s job, not just with the actions for the eating habits and the weight loss, but also with the thoughts, the self-doubt, the disbelief, the lack of feeling of worthiness, the lack of self-love.

The many things that come up that you didn’t even realize were the true causes of why you hadn’t been able to change your eating habits before, or lose the weight that you want to. Working on these things not only helps you to be successful with changing your eating habits and losing weight each and every week, but it also just helps you to just feel better.

This is one of the most rewarding things that I see in my clients. They just feel better about themselves. More confidence, more positive self-talk, more self-awareness, and it starts happening quickly. Which is so rewarding for them and me. I love seeing this and celebrating this.

So, start feeling more confident and having less self-doubt about weight loss, as well as more success with losing the weight you want to, just by coming to the free workshop on Tuesday February 28th at 7:00 PM Eastern Time and learning the Crucial Weight Loss Mindset.

Take care and I’ll talk with you soon.