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Christine: You are listening to the Your Empty Nest Coach podcast with Coach Christine, episode number 16: How I Lost Almost 50 Pounds and I’m Still Losing. This podcast is for you, a mother who years ago walked away from a career to raise your child. Sure, you’ve been busy volunteering, car pools, maybe part-time work and taking care of everyone. But your main gig, that has been your child. Now, that they are in their later years of high school, the empty nest looms ahead for you and it is freaking you out. I’ve been there and I get it. Together, we’ll turn our freaking out energy into freaking awesome energy.
00:00:36
Hello, my empty nest friend! I’m in the booth earlier today than normal. Hubby is prepping for his work day, and I usually don’t get in my booth, which, yes, is my comforter over my head and the laptop. It’s so much fun. I want to see if I get too much background noise this way, or if I can record this early. I have a quick thought I want to run by you. I would love to share your wins in life here on the show. For example, when your child says I want to move out of state, and you manage to catch your thoughts and respond with love, rather than just freaking out. Things like that. What do you think of that idea? Also, it needs a fun name. Maybe Flock Wins?
00:01:23
For today’s topic, I will be honest. I wasn’t planning on doing this episode, but I’ve had so many friends ask me how I’ve lost my weight, that I thought it would be worth sharing with all of you. At the start of June 2018, I weighed 218 pounds. Currently, I weigh 171 pounds. I’m down 47 pounds. I have a little over 20 pounds to go to reach my goal weight. I lost 18 pounds of it really quick, like, insanely quick. I’ve been plateaued for a bit, but I made it through the holidays with no weight gain, and I can’t remember the last time that happened.
00:02:00
I spent this past weekend, I’m recording in mid-February, buying new clothes because I had to, and the shock of fitting into mediums was completely overwhelming to me. I’ll share pictures in my show notes. Friends were so kind when I posted on Instagram. It is odd, though, most days I don’t really see how much thinner I am. It isn’t until I see a picture, or capture my reflection somewhere unexpected, or just feel my arm and realize it’s thinner than it used to be. Then, there is the fact that I’m fitting into jeans that I haven’t fit into for years. It’s super interesting.
00:02:31
How have I lost the weight? I know this is the annoying answer, but the honest answer is that I changed my thoughts about food. Yes. I changed my diet, and I’ll share with you what worked for me, shortly. But the big change, yes, my empty nest friend, it was changing my thoughts. I decided that I would use food only for fuel. I guess I’m saying that like I came up with it. I didn’t. For me, it was all from my favorite life coach, Master Life Coach Brooke Castillo. I gave myself a birthday present. I joined her self-coaching scholars. I’d been wanting to join it for years. It has been way out of our budget, so I used my birthday money to allow me to join. Figuring I’d do a couple months and see if it’s all that I expected it to be. It was everything I expected it to be. It was phenomenal. I even stayed a couple more months than I had planned. It was that good. I can’t wait to join again, and stay in it this time around.
00:03:31
Brooke recommends that you pick one thing to focus on to start. I had so many things, but I chose my weight, initially. When I began trying thoughts to only use food as fuel, it was odd, to say the least. You stop using food for social reasons, for taste, for emotional eating, only for fuel. She recommends that you plan everything that you eat. If you didn’t plan for it ahead of time, you don’t eat it. Those urges are tough at first. Let me tell you, now being seven or eight months in, I have never felt better.
00:04:06
Here’s a personal story. I decided to eat some cake and soft pretzels four weeks in on this new eating plan. It was my daughter’s birthday, after all. I planned for it, and I was ready to indulge. In the end, neither one of the items tasted as amazing as I could remember them tasting. The next day, I was so sick, like, hungover sick. I have not been that sick in a long time, and it was all from the food that I ate. It was shocking to me to see that with only four weeks away from flour and sugar that my body had that reaction. Even scarier, is how my body had adapted to the flour and sugar over the years, before I changed my eating.
00:04:47
With my new thoughts about food, I dove in fast. For me, I removed all added sugars and flour, and started intermittent fasting. I almost eat a paleo-esque diet, but it is of my own creation. It’s what works for me. This is going to sound a little strange, but I haven’t done any major exercise either. Only by changing my eating habits have I lost this weight.
00:05:10
When I say to you, try only eating food as fuel, what thought comes to your mind? I’ve heard people say, I love food so much, I could not do that. That is interesting. It is an interesting choice and one that impacts that person’s health. When you think of it, they’re indirectly saying, I choose the taste of food over what makes my body function well. I made that choice for years. I understand it. Be clear, it is a choice. When we choose to eat a brownie, we are choosing to eat garbage that will negatively impact our body for a short term sugar-hit, but it is a choice. What if you saw the brownie, or the five rolls of bread you’re about to eat, and you actually looked at it as a poison? Your body doesn’t need any of it. Why contaminate your body with it?
00:06:06
I’m going to use a brownie in this next example, but replace it with whatever you feel you have to eat. When you continually choose to eat a brownie, your body becomes used to it, and will be upset when you no longer feed it that brownie. Without a long term vision of where you will be, you might give in to the brownie every single time. If you clearly envision yourself healthier in two, five, ten years, that brownie today, becomes an insignificant piece of garbage on the journey to getting to where you want to be. You start saying no to enough brownies, and you’ll create a new habit for yourself. Guess what? You won’t die. It’s a brownie, for goodness sake. Not eating it is not going to kill you.
00:06:50
Do you want food to control your life? Or, do you want to use food as fuel? This was eye-opening to me. It really was what did the trick. I don’t like to know that others control me, and when I realized I was letting food items control my life, well that did it. Something clicked. Say you work in an office, you go into work, and there are a box of donuts. People around you will be like, why aren’t you eating a donut? It’s so backwards. The real question should be why is anyone eating a donut? There’s no health benefit to it. We should be the boss of these darn donuts. Try this internal dialogue on. It will, at least, be entertaining.
I see you, donut. I have an urge to eat you, but I know I can work through the feelings that will come up, when I don’t. I’m not scared to walk away from you. You aren’t the boss of me, donut. I’m the boss of you, and then, walk away with power. Here’s the tough part, feel whatever feeling you’ve been running from by eating that donut, or brownie, or milkshake, or juicy thing, whatever you’re eating. That is then where we need to do all of the work that you’ll find in my Empty Nest Prep Series. That starts with episode 3. You do that work over and over, and over again, until your normal eating is not eating the brownie, the bagel, the donut, the bread, the pasta, or whatever it is for you. If you want an action item, here it is: plan out your meals for the entire week. You choose what you’ll eat. It doesn’t even necessarily matter what it will be, but plan no snacks. Write them all down. If it isn’t on your sheet, don’t eat it. See how you do. See what emotions and thoughts come up for you. That is where it starts.
00:08:37
You’ll find links to all of the resources I mentioned in this episode in my show notes. I was just inspired to create a printable worksheet that has the internal dialogue for you, when faced with an urge to eat food. Hop on over to my website, this is episode number 16, to pick up that worksheet.
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The questions I have for you in this episode are:
1) Are you the boss of food, or does it boss you around?
2)Do you have any weight loss goals?
Fly on over to our Empty Nest Flock at youremptynestcoach.com/community to share your answers with the entire flock. Why should you join our flock? The adjustment to not having your kiddos at home full-time isn’t always easy. It sure can be a ton more fun with a flock of friends. We look forward to seeing you there. As always, I provide content to make you think, my empty nest friend. My hope is that I am able to provide you with thoughts that impact your life in a positive way.
00:09:35
My next episode’s title is Green Popsicle Stick – this is a fun one! Be sure to subscribe this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to receive a notification when the next episode is live. Leave a rating and review while you are there. Don’t forget to sign up for my free Thursday Thoughts About email. Sign up and every Thursday you will receive a thought from me, and I also share Your Empty Nest Coach updates.
00:09:59
If you have a question you would like me to answer on the podcast, you may submit it in my Empty Nest Flock or email me at podcast AT youremptynestcoach.com. Thank you so much for listening, my friend. Remember, you are amazing!
