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• Click here to grab the worksheet designed to accompany this episode that will help you apply what you learned and start getting results! 

• Want to expand your emotional vocabulary?  Remember, labeling your emotions is key in interrupting the pattern of turning to snacks to avoid or dull your emotions.  Click here for the feeling wheel I mentioned in the show.

• Ready to kickstart your transformation journey? Join my 6-week Slim Down course today! Choose from 3 options tailored to fit your needs, including Course Only or One-on-One Coaching with a Customized Weight Loss Plan (available for purchase as a one-time or 3-month payment plan). Rewrite your relationship with food and achieve sustainable weight loss with ease. Worried about finding the time? This course, designed by a busy mom who gets it, includes audio content for on-the-go learning. Enjoy lifetime access and future updates—sign up now, I guarantee you will get results and I got you! Click here and sign up today! 

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Hello and welcome to another episode of The Mom-entum Podcast, the show dedicated to inspiring, uplifting and empowering women on their journey through motherhood.  I’m your host, Tanya Valentine, I thank you so much for taking the time to listen today!

So as I’m recording this episode it is April, and the summer is approaching.  I don’t know about you but summer is my favorite season of the year.  

The best is I think being able to  leave the house without a coat.  It’s like one less thing you have to remember for yourself and your kids, right?  And one less thing you have to carry.  Ugh what I can’t stand about the colder months is all of the layers, the sweatshirts, the coats, hats, mittens.  Then you go somewhere with your kids, like a store, and they have the heat crankin’ and here you are sweating bullets, walking around like a human coat rack, carrying everyone else’s coats and hats but your own cuz you can’t possibly carry one more thing. Ugh its the worst!  Thank goodness those days are almost behind us, at least for the next 3 or 4 months.

Or I love it when you can step outside at night in just a t shirt and your barefeet and you feel that burst of warm air.  Such a good feeling.  So  are you ready for summer?  How are you feeling about wearing a bathingsuit or ditching the layers for some more revealing attire? 

Now I’m not into body shaming at all and this is not what this episode aims to do, rather, this episode is mostly about achieving a healthier, more confident you in your body.  Essentially it’s about you feeling better and in more control of your eating habits.

I want to talk about a concept that I teach in my 6 week slim down course that is all about helping you to understand how managing your mind plays a significant role in your ability to lose weight, and more importantly being able to keep it off and change your lifestyle in a way that it just becomes who you are. 

You go from well I wish I could lose weight or I wish I could weigh ya know whatever it is you want to weigh, or I wish I could get myself to do the things that I know I need to do to feel good  in my body and have more energy like eat healthier and exercise regularly. 

To… this is just who you are and what you do.  And suddenly you are this person who incorporates these things into your life because you have rewired your brain, you’ve gotten to the root cause of the problem (which is what we’re going to talk about today).  

And once you’ve tackled the root cause of the problem, then you are able to become this person, achieve the lasting weight loss that you desire, and you are doing it in a way that is sustainable, it is going to last.  It’s not this diet that you go on temporarily only to gain back the weight as soon as you go off of it.  

This is an identity transformation.  You are changing who you are, how you think, feel and operate in order to create these results that will last a lifetime.

So over the next 3 weeks this is what we are going to focus on.  I’m going to introduce these concepts of what you need to understand in order to achieve this lasting weight loss in a healthy way.  And it’s not about depriving or starving yourself.  Its about understanding your mind and body, how they work, and how to work together with your mind and body to achieve the results that you want.

So I think what is key is getting to a place where you genuinely LOVE your body, even before you are at the weight you want to be.  I think some people are afraid that if they love their body the way it is then they will lose the motivation to change, and this is just not true, in fact the opposite is true.  Because the way to get where you want to be is not by hating or shaming your body.  It’s learning to love your body and living in gratitude for all your body has done and continues to do for you every day.  Like, for example, if you're listening to this podcast, I’m assuming you’re a mom, as this is a podcast for moms.  But if you’re a Mom, you could be living in so much gratitude and love for your body that it was able to create, grow and sustain this life inside of you, and then to birth your babies who you love so much into this world. 

 And for those of you who were able to breastfeed, you can thank and love your body for providing your baby with the nourishment they need to grow and thrive.  And even if you're not a nursing mama, your body still allows you to do the things necessary in order to feed your baby.  

Your able to use your arms and hands to mix and pour the formula, and to bottle feed your baby.  You’re legs and feet help take you where you need and want to go.  You’re body allows you to carry, hold, touch and feel your baby, to give her kisses.  And your lungs breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide, and your heart beats circulating this blood and oxygen to all your vital organs and tissues in order to keep you alive, all without you even having to think about it.  So you have a lot to love about your body.  So go ahead, and take the time right now to thank your body for all that it does for you and say, “I love you body.”

Why this is so important in weight loss is that when you love your body, you will treat it like you love it. When you love someone, you take care of them, even when it feels hard.

 Think of it like your kids.  You love them, ya?  And you wouldn’t let them sit around and eat junk food all day, no.  When they scream and have a temper tantrum because they can’t eat candy for breakfast, you don’t give in because you know that it’s not good for them.  The same will be true of you when you learn and do the work to love your body.  

When you hate on your body, you end up treating it poorly.  You either go on these crazy, starvation diets, the results of which do not last, or you end up perpetually choosing foods that you know are not good for your body or you over eat meaning you eat more than your body requires for fuel.  And then you feel sick, you feel sluggish, and you’ve added even more shame and guilt that you ate all that crap, and although yes it tasted good in the moment, now you are left with these thoughts and feelings of “I shouldn’t have ate all that”, or maybe “I hate myself”, or “I’ll never lose weight.”  And then these feelings can often drive us to eat in order to numb these negative feelings.  And it ends up being this perpetual cycle of feel bad, eat food, feel better temporarily, feel bad and eat again.

So if you have been living this cycle, then you have picked the right day to listen, my friend. Because I’m going to share what you need to know in order to rewire your brain and overcome this.

So to start, understand that being overweight is a symptom.  Take a minute to just let that sink in for a minute.  Weighing more than you would like is a symptom.  

So you might be wondering, ok well what is it a symptom of?  This is something that I can help you figure out either in my 6 week slim down course, which is only $97 and you will have it for a lifetime and it even includes any future updates I will make in the course.  Or you can even take it a step further and sign up for the 1 on 1 coaching I offer to make it more customized specifically for you and to get that accountability that guarantees results!

But generally, being overweight is a symptom of overhunger which is typically a biological, hormonal issue which can be corrected, and the other thing is over desire, which is rooted in your brain and many times is driven by your thoughts and emotions.  And I will be delving into both of these things; overhunger and overdesire in the next couple of weeks.

So the way I do weight loss is by treating the cause of the symptom (which remember is being overweight).

Think of it like having a broken leg. And everytime you go to the doctor, he gives you pain meds, and it treats the pain temporarily. But the problem with that is you have to keep going back for pain meds. But if he treats the root of the problem and mends the broken leg either by casting it or with surgery, it might be slower, but once it’s solved then the pain goes away permanently.  And that’s exactly what we are doing here.

So first.  Let’s think about what are the actions you are taking in order to cause this result of being overweight?  Well, most likely you are overeating.  And again, overeating just means that you are eating more than what YOUR body requires for fuel, and then your body is taking that excess food and storing it as fat.

So if overeating is the action that we are taking, then think about what is it that causes action?  Our emotions.  Our emotions fuel our actions.  So what emotions cause this action to overeat?  And then take it a step further and think about what causes emotions.  Our thoughts.  Our thoughts create our emotions.  So what are the thoughts creating the emotions that are fueling this action to overeat?

Maybe you are feeling overwhelmed.  Maybe you come home from picking the kids up from daycare or school, and you get everybody out of the car, you unload all of the crap from the car, get everyone’s hands washed and you just feel this urge to have a snack.  But do you check in with yourself to figure out if you are actually physically hungry?  Or is this a pattern for you that you grab a bite to eat because maybe your getting the kids a snack and you think you need one too.  Maybe you think I deserve it, or maybe you think that car ride home was so stressful, the baby was crying the whole ride home and the kids were fighting, I just need chocolate.  Or maybe your like, I need a glass of wine.  Do you take a moment to stop and think about what you are feeling?  Are you truly physically hungry?  If not, then why are you turning to food?  It is because you are trying to avoid or numb an emotion.  Can you stop and think about what you are feeling?  Can you name the emotion?  If you are not practiced with this, that’s ok.  You can start by just asking yourself am I sad, mad, or glad?  Some examples of Emotions that  often lead to eating when we are not truly hungry are stress, worry, confusion, overwhelm, or frustration, and it might even just be a feeling of having an “urge” that’s a feeling I’m gonna talk about in a moment.  But if you want to expand your emotional vocabulary and really get to know yourself and understand your emotions I recommend using the feeling wheel which I will include in the show notes.  The feeling wheel is a visual that you can look at to better identify and name your emotions.  When you can label your emotions it helps you gain some authority over them so they are not running your life and driving you to do things that ultimately you don’t really want to do, like eat cookies for example.

So once you’ve identified the emotion, let’s say it’s overwhelm.  You can just pause. Take 3 deep breaths.  And I like to inhale for a count of 5, hold it for a count of 20 and then exhale for 10 seconds.  And this just helps calm you down and regulate. Now you are just going to allow this emotion of whatever you are feeling.  You are just going to allow it to be there because it already is.  Get into your body and really get to know what this emotion feels like in your body.  Do a quick body scan from head to toe.  What does it feel like in your head?  Do you feel the muscles tensing up in your forehead or around your eyes?  Does your throat feel tight?  Does the emotion have a color? Does it have a shape?  Is it moving?  If so, is it fast or slow?  Does it have a texture? Get yourself to describe the sensation of the vibrations in your body caused by this emotion so you can get to know it.  And this doesn’t have to take long, either.  And if you take the time to do this you will realize that the emotion doesn’t have any power of you.  You will notice it is just overwhelm, and it can’t hurt you.  You can feel it rather than respond to it by eating something to try and make this feeling go away.

So what you just did right there, is what we call allowing an urge.  And an urge is an impulse we get from our primitive brain that says this thing is important for our survival, even in times when it’s actually not like for example eating a brownie.  

Sometimes this primitive part of our brains will trick us into thinking that the brownie is necessary for our survival when of course in actuality it is not.  And when we give into and respond to urges, we just make them stronger.  So everytime you respond to the urge to eat a brownie, you are just strengthening that urge.  Because everytime you have an urge and you give into it you are rewarding the urge with that brownie.  So you’re saying to your brain yes this is important, here is the reward for this behavior that I want to repeat.  When instead, if you allow it through the process we just went through, then you are actually taking away the power of the urge, and you are gaining some authority over it.  And the more practice you have with this, the better you are going to get and you will be gradually reducing the strength and intensity of the urge, thereby becoming this person who can feel the urge, but not give into it. 

 And then you can be around a plate of cookies and not have one if it was not planned ahead of time.  And planning your food ahead of time is key.  I recommend planning what you will eat 24 hours ahead of time, and this gets you into the habit of using and strengthening your prefrontal cortex, which is your higher brain that is responsible for executive functioning like planning and decision making.  And you can use your prefrontal cortex to override your primitive brain that wants instant gratification and has you reaching for the cookie or the donut or the glass of wine.  

And I’m not necessarily saying that any of these things are “bad” but I think we can all agree that when we are overindulging in these things thats when we can get into trouble.  So by planning on having these things ahead of time using our prefrontal cortex, we can plan ahead of time exactly how much we are going to have and more importantly we follow through with the plan we have set for ourselves and we obey the plan we have decided on ahead of time, then we are strengthening our prefrontal cortex which has the power to override the primitive brain that has us binging and doing things that have a net negative effect on our lives.

So that’s it for today. So we talked about how important it is to work on loving our bodies in order to create the results that we want as far as our weight goes.  If the thought “I love my body” doesn’t feel right to you, like you just don’t fully believe it yet.  Can you start with the thought, “my body is a work in progress”.  And remember to try to come to a place of gratitude with your body by thinking of the fact that your body has housed you through this life, and think of all of the amazing things it has done for you and continues to do for you every day.  

I talked about how being overweight is a symptom of over desire and overhunger, and I’m going to talk more about both of these things in the episodes coming these next couple of weeks.

I talked about how overeating is the action we take that creates the result of being overweight.  And remember action is fueled by our emotions.  So if we can stop ourselves before we get to the action of overeating to stop and think about what we are feeling and thinking, and really get to know and experience our emotions, then we don’t over eat.  

And I also talked about urges which are these impulses we get to do something that we think is important to our survival.  And I talked about how these urges are just feelings, and if we can get practiced at allowing the urge through the process of getting into our body, then we can get authority over them and lessen their power over us.  

And weaker and less frequent urges means you stop doing the things and habits that your higher self doesn’t want to do (like procrastinate, eat unhealthy foods, drink, or bite your nails even) and replace them with activities that are really going to move the needle and get you to where you want to be.  To help implement this into your life so that you can start getting some real results, I have created a worksheet designed to go hand and hand with this episode.  I will have it available for you in the show notes.  There are questions on there for you to answer which are designed to help you get conscious about your habits around food and rewire your brain to gain awareness, and interrupt the patterns that keep you stuck doing the same things over and over again, so that you can replace the unhealthy behaviors with more intentional, healthy rituals that will result in you achieving your weight loss goals and feeling better.  

So I encourage you to print that out, and take the time to thoughtfully answer those questions.  I’d love to hear your thoughts about today’s episode! You can always reach out to me on either FB or IG @tanyavalentinecoaching.  Or if you are one of my email subscribers feel free to shoot me an email, I love hearing from you!  And if you found value in todays episode, could I ask you a favor? Could you take a minute to subscribe, rate and review this podcast?  I would be so grateful if you did as this helps more Mamas like you discover this podcast and helps me make the positive impact that I’m striving for.  Thank you all for taking the time to listen today!  I so appreciate you!  Until next time, I hope you have an amazing week! Bye!