105.Weight Loss and Eight Pounds in One Month

Have you quit making goals for yourself and just hope for the best every morning when you step on the scale or try on those favorite pair of jeans, hoping that the button will close. Well, this episode is all about how to lose two pounds on average, and then not worrying about putting that weight back on. I’m Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin episode 1 0 5, Weight Loss and Eight Pounds in One Month.

Okay, so back in 2020, in August, I did an eight pounds in one month challenge, and it was really interesting to host that. It was really interesting to create the content. It actually was inspired by Brooke Castillo, who is the president of the Life Coach School, and she did something similar and it actually blew my mind thinking that I could lose two pounds a week, and I’d be able to create the kind of routine and patterns that would then allow me to continue to lose that kind of weight and never have to worry about what’s happening. So that program is in the portal, you can watch that when you join my program. So it’s three years later and I’ve seen a lot of different things. I have different ways of looking at things and different approaches. I do a lot of evaluations on what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what can I do better next time. And so I am going to be presenting how to lose eight pounds in August 2.0. And it’s very interesting for me as I have been working on, if I was to do this again, if I was to help women lose two pounds in one month, again, what would I do? What would be the tools? What is the different way that I’m going to look at it.

Now I remember in grade six when I. I was sitting in a math class and I was really trying to understand what the teacher was telling me. Now, I’m a good student, I do fairly well and she was teaching, and the funny thing is, I can’t really remember what she was teaching. It might have been like three digits by three digits or I don’t even remember, but it was something that I actually didn’t know what she was saying. And one of the problems, and I don’t know about you, but when you went to school and you were learning something, you pretty much just memorized it and then you just knew the formula and then you just rinsed and repeat. And that actually feels really safe to do that because you know that you just plug it in and then you’re always gonna get the right answer. And then you don’t have to worry about rejection. You don’t have to feel bad about yourself. And I remember the teacher saying, this is how you do it, but I didn’t understand why. And for some reason that day I decided I wanted to understand it better. I wanted to figure it out. I wanted to have a better understanding and so I decided I was just gonna go and ask her for help like she always offered. So the rest of the class, I still remember this so clearly, the rest of the class is working and I’m standing at the back of the room and saying to her, I’d like to understand what you said. So she gets out her paper and pen and she starts saying, okay, so this is one way to look at it. And I didn’t get it. And I thought, I’m not gonna leave until I understand this. So I said, again, I don’t get it. And she’s like, that’s okay. That’s okay. Let’s try this way. And so she tried a different way and I, sheepishly said, I actually still don’t get it. And I don’t know how many times that she redid it, but I remember when I left thinking, I’m so glad I finally asked really, what was going on? And then I understood it so much clearer, and it just made such a difference for me. But the biggest takeaway was that I was willing to say, I don’t get this. And then my mind was open enough to be vulnerable to say, I don’t get it. And then when I did get it, it just felt so much more exciting because I actually understand what was happening. But I was so proud of myself for hanging in and giving myself that time to figure it out.

Now, the reason I shared this story is that a lot of you haven’t figured out a lot of things, and I’m not saying this in a bad way. There are a lot of things that we don’t really understand, but we kind of get it, but we wouldn’t be able to explain it in our own words, and that’s okay. We don’t have to know all the things. We don’t have to have it all figured out. But the problem with weight loss is that when you don’t have it figured out and you are struggling with it, you’re always going to live in fear. You’re always gonna live in frustration, disappointment, all of those kinds of feelings because you don’t really have a foundation. So when I first learned to sew, I learned the basics of an elastic waistband. And because I knew how to measure a waistband, how to mark it in four different spots and then put it in the four different seams, I was able to know how to make an elastic waistband, so it didn’t matter what size, it didn’t matter who it was for, what kind of fabric, none of that. It didn’t matter because I had the basics. I had the foundation. Same thing with a skirt, same thing with doing a zipper. Once you understand the foundation of it and the basics of it, then you’re able to move forward in a really powerful way, and you don’t have to rely on memorized formulas. So when you learn weight loss science, it changes weight loss for you because you understand what actually starts happening when you eat that food. And so, for example, snacking, if you realize that you’re snacking a lot, then you realize that you’re spiking your insulin. And your insulin and your digestive system never really truly rests. And your other hormones aren’t super regulated. And so even though you’re eating healthy foods your body is processing in a different way and you’re not getting the results that you want. And then you feel frustrated because you feel like you’re doing a good thing, but it’s not working.

Now, the reason I share this is because when I’m making a promise of you can lose two pounds every week, it can really be frustrating because you don’t want to be disappointed. In fact, today I was talking to a client and she said, I hate failure. But the problem is she’s failing herself when she doesn’t make goals. Because when you don’t make goals and you don’t evaluate them and you don’t see what happens, then you never collect data. You never collect information to see how you’re doing. And so then you just stay stuck. You stay confused and you continue to fail. So, I’m inviting you to think about what are the things in your life that you are failing at right now? And why are you? So, first of all, what are you failing at? Are you failing at, would you say relationships with people? Are you failing with your self care? Are you failing with planning the food and eating the food you planned? Are you failing at bedtime? Are you failing at snacking? Drinking your water? Like, what are the things that you’re failing at? And then the most important question is, why? Why are you failing at that? Why are you not showing up for yourself?

So, when you join a program or when you make a decision and you say, I want the results, what you’re doing is you’re putting yourself in a position to learn and to change. But if you don’t show up for yourself, if you don’t do the work, if you don’t come to the calls, if you don’t read the information, if you don’t do the worksheets, if you don’t open yourself up, then you’re not ever gonna give yourself the opportunity to grow. In eight pounds in the month of August 2.0 edition, we’re gonna, of course, cover the weight loss science basics. We’re gonna review about balancing hormones. I’m introducing our thyroid which is connected to our metabolism, which is nothing I’ve really taught about, but we’re gonna dive a little bit deeper into that. So people who have P C O S and things like that, you’re gonna see the relevance there. And then we’re gonna do some really good mind work because one of the biggest missing pieces for weight loss and diets is our mindset. And our brain is our best asset. Our brain really is the very most important part of our body because it’s our central processing unit. It’s our command center. And if it’s always cluttered and if it’s always busy or if it’s always tired, it never really works properly. So we’re gonna go more into some healthy, clean mindset work to how do you deju nk your brain and how do you clean it all up? Because on the one hand, you know there’s a problem, but if you don’t know how to fix it, then it feels like you’re out of luck. It feels like you’re not able to move forward in a powerful way.

One of the things that I’ve been doing for the last five months in my business is when people join Love Yourself Thin, they get an intake form and then they have an intake meeting with me, and I have learned a lot from this. It has been incredible to meet with these really brilliant, smart women who have been beating themselves up, essentially being a really mean bully to themselves when it comes to weight loss. And yesterday I was listening to a talk and this man said that bullying comes from fear and jealousy. And when you think about the way you talk to yourself, how do you talk about your body? How would you describe your body? How do you refer to your body? Would you ever use those words in front of, let’s say, young girls? I have a client who goes swimming and she has all these grand babies and all these friends of young kids, and she never, ever says anything mean out loud to her body because she doesn’t wanna perpetuate it.

But meanwhile, she says a lot of those negative things to herself all the time. And in fact, she says things like, you better not mess up this time. You’ve been down this road before. Why do you keep failing? And I wonder if you are speaking to yourself that way, how has that impacted you? And I can tell you it creates a lot of fear and it creates a lot of jealousy for the other people that you see. I know that a lot of my mind juice and mind juice is, that’s the time you spend in your brain, was really focusing on jealousy, how I wanted to be like other people. And how I was so jealous that they could just eat things and be able to just eat it and not beat themselves up and not really gain a lot of weight.

And then we’re gonna talk about the two reasons why we’re overweight; over hunger, which is when we eat more often than our body needs. And over desire, which is treating ourselves or thinking we deserve it, or we have this entitlement. And so we’re gonna really go into that and see what’s going on for you there. We’re also gonna learn how to become honest with ourselves without beating ourselves up. So my dad used to say, and he still does, honesty without compassion is aggression. And I do feel that there are so many women out there who are being so aggressive to themselves. They’re being so harsh and so rough that it makes it actually not safe to even be in your own brain. So we’re gonna create a lot of safety for being you and really embracing who you are and why you are that way. So Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “Your personality is your personal reality.” So, Talking about our identity, we can change our identity. We can change the way we think about ourselves, and then that can become who we are. Because you weren’t born with your identity now you created your identity. And for a lot of you, you’ve reinvented yourself many, many times. I mean, even getting married was a reinvention of yourself. Having a child was a reinvention of yourself. Different jobs are a reinvention of yourself, becoming a driver of a car, that’s a reinventing yourself. Getting a sewing machine. You’re like, now a sewer, like that’s a reinvention, that’s a new version of yourself. Becoming retired or a grandma. All of those things are the things that they define you. But you can be powerful in making that decision for yourself.

I’m just gonna share an experience that really, really hit me and I’m interested to hear what you think about it. So when I go to church, there is a lady who plays the organ every Sunday. She is amazing. She plays prelude music, and then she plays all the hymns and then she goes to the primary and plays the music for the primary. So she plays all the time. So we’re sitting there and all of a sudden she makes a mistake and she doesn’t fix her mistake right away. There’s about, I don’t know probably 10 seconds. So when you’re singing, that seems like a long time. And she couldn’t get herself back very quickly. And so there was about yeah, maybe 10 to 15 seconds where the whole congregation just kept singing without the music. And then she got back on and I’m sure she was, you know, flustered and all of that. But what really struck me was this woman is a master at the organ. She is a master at the piano. She knows the notes and she knows those songs. She’s been playing them for years and years and years, but she got distracted or something happened and she messed up. And it just brought me a lot of encouragement because in my own journey with weight loss, there are times where I overeat, there are times where I have over desire, there are times where I struggle and it gave me a lot of love and self-compassion yesterday when I witnessed this super talented woman and she just picked it up and she just kept going and it was a lot of self-love because that is what I do over and over, and that is what I see with the women in my program who are the most successful. Regardless of distracting or jealousy or fear or whatever happens, they just pick themselves up. They don’t say, forget it, just eat the chips. Just eat that. Just, you know, quit on yourself. They don’t do that. They feel the discouragement, they feel the frustration, they feel the whatever that emotion is, and then they just keep going.

And so, I want to encourage you to come and join us in August. Now, if you’re listening to this podcast after August 2023 and you think, oh, I’ve missed it. No, you haven’t, because all the replays are there, all the worksheets, everything is there for you, and I am here for you. And not only am I here for you to help you learn the tools, but there is a beautiful community of women that have all experienced so many of the same struggles and issues and difficulties that you have. You are not alone.

I really love to sharing this episode with you and I wanna hear what thoughts are coming to you as you hear me share these experiences. I can’t wait to meet you. It seems like just recently there’s been so many women that have reached out and joined the program, and when I meet with them I said, oh, how did you find out about me? What made you decide? And they said, oh, I just love your podcast. And I just love what happens when I listen and I just want more. And I do have to tell you, there is a huge difference from listening to my podcast and then joining my program and actually getting support in learning. What the tools are exactly and how to apply them, and then having someone help you to get back on track. All right. It’s been so amazing to have this podcast with you and I will talk to you later. Bye.