Are you saying to yourself: “What’s the point right now, there are more important things going on than wanting to lose weight”?
Well if that is the case, you are not alone.
Let me tell you about a coaching session I had with one of my clients yesterday on Zoom. Let’s call her Julie (which is not her real name). Julie has been coaching with me for the past 5 weeks.
The first thing Julie said to me at the start of the session was:
“I didn’t have a great week”. She told me that she is having thoughts like “What’s the point, there is so much uncertainty, why should I worry about my weight now, I am at home all day with 3 children and I find it so hard right now, I feel lonely and disconnected”.
She also said “I was going to cancel our session, I don’t want to waste your time as I wasn’t focused at all this week, maybe I stop coaching with you and wait until we are back to normal”
So I explored with her in more detail how the week really went for her. This is what she told me:
➡️ I only had time to prepare my food on 5 days, and one of the days I worked all day cleaning out the shed and did other jobs – so I was exhausted and ate Spaghetti Carbonara which I had prepared for my family. But I ate it slowly and mindfully as you taught me how to do,and I ate less of it than I usually would.
➡️I am trying to stop eating something sweet after my main meals, but I had a couple of squares of dark chocolate after one or two of my meals.
➡️I didn’t lose any weight this week, I don’t feel motivated.
I then asked Julie, what did she do well this week. And she said:
➡️There was a new packet of chocolate biscuits in the house which I would normally eat lots of, but I didn’t have the desire at all to have any of them.
➡️I figured out that I eat when I feel lonely
During this session, Julie came to understand that:
1) Yes, we are in difficult times right now, but does that mean your health has to take a back seat? ‘No’ is the answer – as what is more important than your health?
2) She also figured out that she is not wasting my time or her time – because what is the point in waiting until you feel better and are 100% motivated to come to me for coaching?
3) And most importantly, Julie saw that she was being very hard on herself. All the things she thought of as “not doing well” were actually very powerful changes she had already made since she started the Mind over Body Programme.
Choosing Spaghetti is not a bad choice, it was the best choice she made at that moment, after physically working cleaning out a shed. She ate slowly and mindfully and stopped when full, and then she made her next meal a healthy one, instead of beating herself up and going off the rails completely.
There are so many positive changes and behaviors, too many to mention here, but all Julie could see was that she didn’t have a great week.
Does any of this sound familiar to you??? Do you beat yourself up and only focus on the things you didn’t do well in a day?
Here is a tip:
Every single day for the next 4 weeks, write down 3 things you did well which will help you improve your health and ultimately lead to weight loss. This will help you to shift your mindset from only looking at the negatives and what you didn’t do, to what you did well in order to achieve a healthy lifestyle. This, in turn, will increase your confidence and lead to success!
Take care and don’t be so hard on yourself!
