172. Weight loss and What to do with plateaus

Are you stressed out about your weight and that you get on these plateaus and you don’t know how to work them out?

Do you feel like you have weight loss, plateaus, and you don’t know how to overcome them? Wow. I’m glad you’re here. My name is Derek Thomason and I am the quilters coach. And this is episode 172. When your weight plateaus. Okay. I have been. Uh, coach since. Informally for a while. Um, but I accidentally became a weight loss coach.

I think you’ve heard the story. But I will recap it because I haven’t shared this story in a bit. And, um, I think it’s really important to have this top of mind, especially as you’re listening to this podcast. ’cause I know. Just like stinky. Shoes, you don’t want to be around them. And I think a lot of times weight loss has kind of a stink to it.

It could be a business plateau. With money or whatever. And I’m just using weight loss as an example, but it really does apply to all areas. But before I go into that, I want to share a win from one of the members in my membership. And this year I’m really focusing on how everyone else wins when, um, the members. Start to really use these tools. So, this is from one of my clients. It was her birthday and she actually was at my retreat for a birthday. And they had celebrated before, but, um,

She had, uh, the.

So she, um, lost her husband last year and it was a really difficult loss. It was very unexpected. And she wanted to have some time with her daughter, really just connecting and just like commemorating the loss of there, of. The dad of their husband. And they did something really crazy. They went to their favorite spot, spent the whole day there and it involved both of them flying. Um, so I just flew in for the day. Went all day to the spas in a night and then flew out and she would never have done that before.

Oh, You can be this age. This is an embarrassing story for me to share, but when I was a young mom, And, you know, I was educated. I went to university, I’ve taught school for years and years. But there was something in my mind. That said when you’re older, you have it all figured out. I don’t know.

I don’t know why I thought that. I mean, I guess a lot of people think that, and I remember sitting in a church class and this woman was sharing. I think she was about. Well, she was probably in her late sixties and she shared an experience. Um, When she was in her fifties and she was like, I had never been so sad.

I’d never had so many problems. I never felt overwhelmed. And I remember thinking. I thought you had it all figured out when you got to a certain age. Yeah. It’s such a misunderstanding. And so, um, I’m so glad for that awareness because. That’s not how it goes, but we are. Humans have a human experience, which means we all have. Lots of good and lots of bad. And so this podcast episode is going to be really helpful for you as you look at how to navigate. Those struggles that you’re having. Okay. So let’s just, and I’m, if you’re watching on YouTube, hello, it’s nice to connect with you.

Um, I have some clients that I, in my membership where they’ve lost 80 pounds. They’ve lost 50 pounds, 30 pounds, and then they don’t lose weight. But they still feel like they have 20, 30 pounds to go. Now they would consider that a plateau. It means that they have been on that same level for a long time. And they haven’t really gone up or down. Now a lot of us have a negative connotation to plateaus and that’s okay. Um, because, you know, we’re used to listening to marketing saying that we need to buy a need to do things differently so that we can be better.

Like that’s okay. It’s out there.

So I want you to, just to in your own mind decide what, how do I define a plateau? Now, if we were to look up the definition of plateau. Just one random definition. Let me.

Okay. So it’s an area of relatively level high ground. Or a state of little or no change following a period of activity or process.

Those are nouns. And then the verb for plateau is to reach a state of little or no change after a time of activity or process. So the industry’s problems have plateaued. So there’s actually a lot of, um, Uh, really good that we can take from this. And I like that this came from a French word. Imagine that sounds very fringy.

Doesn’t it? But plot means level. So it’s just very level or, or, um, Stable. I like to think of stable. So when you think about plateau being a bad thing, what does that mean for you? It means that you’re not enough, you’re not doing enough, that you haven’t reached a certain level. But when I think about a plateau, I’m always thinking about growth.

Um, I like the idea of stability. And knowing that, okay, this is stable. Now I have, I struggled with. This thing, and now it’s more stable. So when I have clients who have lost 70 pounds, And have maintained that weight for over a year.

Yeah, sure. They could lose another 30 or 40 pounds. But the fact that they have stabilized that, and that’s their new normal. That’s creating so much safety, it’s creating so much muscle memory and creating so much, um, calmness, like I think about our nervous system. Okay. So they’ve created a new level of amazingness.

Now, the next question I have is why do you want to lose weight? What does that mean? To lose weight. Now, these Ys are actually really important. Because if your motivation to lose weight is to be better.

That’s a lot of stress. If your motivation to lose weight is because it’d be more fun. That’s way different energy. And your approach you’re going to take is going to be a very different approach. Okay. Um, So I would just be honest with yourself. Now, if you want to lose weight, just because you want to look sexy in a baby, a bikini. That’s totally fine. But if you are wanting to lose weight to prove yourself or to make yourself better. You’re going to run into some troubles. Because you have a lot of pressure. That you’re putting on yourself. Constantly. And it’s so subconscious, you don’t even realize it. And it’s causing you a lot of, um, it’s like bottling up so much pressure and stress, um, that it’s going to be really difficult to achieve that goal. Now. Let’s go, I was just in Utah last week.
With the, you know, the air pressure, their lungs. They’re. Like, it just doesn’t work. Like they have to give themselves time to acclimatize to that next level of elevation. And I heard this explained to me once and it made so much sense and it gave me so much clarity. But when we’re on that new plateau. We go and we can see a whole different perspective. And so we have to get used to that new level. And. When you are on a different plateau with different vegetation. It’s different.

Like I talked about with our lungs, our lungs have to adjust to this new level of oxygen and availability of that. And so when you can be at that next level, There’s all these things that you can, uh, climatize to. That you need to acclimate to cause that’s like the new you. And then the other part is you can actually have a totally different perspective. When you’re looking down at things. And now you can see it in such a different way. You know, and, um, people are raising their kids.

A lot of times people will say, oh, the time goes so fast. And when you have little kids. The days sometimes go so slowly cause.

It seems like it’s going pretty fast. And now that I’m on this other side where I have a 12 year old, a 15 year old and 18 year old. That’s it. Um, actually at the time of this recording, he’s leaving next week for two years and I have a daughter who’s gone. My son is in college. My daughter’s in Tahiti. Like I have more adults than I have kids. Like, why did we miss feeling so sad about that?

But also I’m excited for them and I’m I’m, I am excited for that new adventure, but again, it’s that plateau it’s like, okay, this is my new reality. I’m not the mom that has five kids at home anymore. I’m the mom that has a kid in college, two kids on missions. And then I have these, you know, A preteen and a teenager. But I will miss out on my life if I don’t just allow myself to enjoy this new level. So it’s the same thing with the weight loss plateau.

It’s like this client, I’ve just keep bringing her for an example. She has lost 70 pounds and she has kept it off for a year. And if she can just be. So grateful that she’s a person that has lost 70 pounds with her. Feelings and her thinking. And now her body is getting accustomed to that. She is no longer going to put pressure on herself to lose weight. She’s signalling to her body.

I’m so happy for us. This is so awesome. If you want to lose some more weight. Great. If not, I’ve actually caught and got used to this. If we want to lose another 30, no problem. We don’t have to. It makes such a difference. So the question here is how does it make sense that you are uncomfortable at that new level physically, mentally, and emotionally? I think one of the biggest problems is we don’t allow ourselves to be climatized.

So if I always got my joy out of being a mom with five kids at home, And now I have three adult kids. I’m not allowing myself to enjoy the fact that I have raised five kids. And three. Flown the nest. And I’m so happy for them. And I just have to get to work. What kind of mom do I want to be to these adult kids? And when you think about the motivational triad, stay safe, seek pleasure and conserve energy. That’s hard for me because my brain is like, well, you are really good at having five kids.

You were really good at juggling. But I wasn’t always good at that. I learned how to be. And so I can give myself permission. To acclimatize to like, okay, I FaceTime my adult son, who’s playing basketball. I FaceTime him three times a week or, and then whatever, whatever that I want to do, but I have to go to work to do that.

And it’s the exact same thing with my clients. So now they’re at this new level of, okay, so I’ve lost 30 pounds or 70 pounds. All right, this is who I am now. And they have to, when they look in the mirror, It’s like, oh, That’s what I look like now. Same thing with wrinkles. People are like, oh yeah. I actually just turned 51. I’m like, okay, this is what happens when you’re 51. You have more wrinkles.

Awesome.

Your teeth start changing a little bit, the color. Okay. That’s how it goes. This is like skin here. And the neck changes a little bit. Okay. That’s what 51 looks like. Here we go.

All right. So, this is what I want to give to you for this episode. And I’ve actually been using this tool quite a bit recently on the coaching calls. And it’s called math versus drama. And one of the clients said, can you explain that more? I said, I have a podcast about it, but that was like way back. And so I thought I would just give you this tool. So let’s do the math of weight loss. So this client of mine who has lost 70 pounds and kept it off for a year. When you look at the math of it. When you realize that you are now walking around. 70 pounds lighter.

So she has 70 pounds, less on her hips. Her knees, her feet. Her joints, her like arteries, all of that. So that is the math. And she could possibly have 30 more pounds to go. So, but she’s, she’s thinking, okay. I have for one whole year, I have maintained a 70 pound weight loss. And so now if I want to continue to change, what does that require of me?

So she could break down.

How did she lose that? 70 pounds over that year? Sorry. How did he lose the pounds before? And then how has she maintained it? So she could do some math of, you know, what are the typical things that I eat? How am I doing with my calories? Am I having too much fat in my day? Am I eating like, so if I’m eating this many calories, And I’m, and I’m not a big advocate.

Like I don’t track, I don’t do that kind of thing, but every once in a while I will. Every once in a while, I’ll say, okay, so what have I actually been eating for the last two weeks? Let me get curious. Let me figure out what it is. Because we do need to go to our storage. So, but so, but if we’re eating. Even if we’re eating like the exact amount of calories that we’re always going to need every day. We’re never going to be able to dive into the stored fat. Okay. Um, Now the drama could be, oh, what’s wrong with me?

I’ve yeah, sure. I’ve lost 70 pounds, but I haven’t done anything in a year. What kind of energy is that? What kind of, what kind of, um, Uh, message. Are you sending it to yourself? Right. That’s where we’re going to get to. So if we are indulging in drama, We are creating a lot of emotions that are not going to help us. Now, one of the last things I’m going to say, I am a weight loss coach. Who will help you? Lose weight. When you learn how to feel your feelings. We don’t have a knowledge problem.

We know what to eat and what not to eat for the most part. What we struggle with is that under the feeling problem, we don’t know how to feel our feelings. We don’t know how to work through it. She said this and they did this and they looked at me this way. And then they said this to me. We don’t know how to deal with those kinds of things. And that’s why I’m this nontraditional non conforming weight loss coach. Because I help you get to the root of the problem and I help you feel all the feels. So I am inviting you. To start now. On this journey.

It is the beginning of November. If you’re listening to this the day it comes out, we have however many weeks till Christmas. This is the beginning of the holiday season, I guess. Technically it started last week with Thanksgiving. I was sorry for, um, Halloween.

Yeah.

When you joined the membership. You actually it’s like, I give you a mirror. That you can see finally for the first time, your thoughts and your. Your subconscious thoughts. It can see how many times you sabotage yourself. Do you have the most awareness? But you also get this very safe place. Where you have a coach and you have a community to help you. I cannot emphasize it enough.

You are your best investment. And if you are not investing in yourself, you are just going to stay spinning and spinning in the same place. So my invitation is to come to a breakout call with me. And then we can make a decision. Yes or no. You’re a good fit or not. But just give yourself that gift of the BRCA breakout session breakout call with me. Break through call with me. This is urgent. Yes, the doors are open to my membership all the time, but taking care of you is urgent. Because if you don’t do something different, you’re always. The definition of insanity, you’re always going to get the same results and the results you’re having in your life right now.

You’re not having the quality of life that you want. And I want to be there to help you with that. And I am excellent at it. So why wouldn’t you. All right. I cannot wait to meet with you on the break. Up breakthrough call. And help you to really enjoy the life that you have. All right. I can’t wait to talk to you then.

Bye.

Also for the month of November and December. I have some amazing training. I want you to check out the link below and see how incredible training there is. I am just going to be coming to you every week and sharing with you how to really. I live a life that you really want to live. And then at the beginning of December, we’re going to have an amazing masterclass.

That’s going to set you up for so much December success. All right, I’ll see you then.

Sign up for the trainings: https://hello.daratomasson.com/2024-q4-trainings