#64: Traps and Weight Loss

64. Traps and Weight Loss

 Do you feel like no matter how hard you’ve tried with weight loss, every effort you make just kind of blows back up in your face? Well, today’s episode is going to be so helpful because we’re gonna be talking about why we fall into these weight loss traps and how you can get out of them. Are you ready? My name is Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin episode 64 Traps and Weight Loss.

All right. This episode in fact is the third time I’ve recorded it for various reasons. So it’s gonna be like triple good. I just know it. And before we get started, I want to shout out one of my, Actually I’m gonna shout out two of my clients because it’s been a little bit of a theme this week in our coaching calls. So two of my clients are turning their love and passion for quilting into, a profession. I’m so excited for them. So I’m just gonna shout out the one first and then I’ll do the second one.

But she actually, uh we met at a quilting when I was teaching quilting in Edmonton, and, uh, we connected right away and she was really curious about the weight loss. And so I just had this really small, informal group and I started sharing my weight loss. I had like a, you know, six week course. I guess it wasn’t that informal because I had it kind of structured, but this is before I was really like certified and, and really spending a lot of time on weight loss.

And then we started doing coaching together and she really, really struggled with her job. And she actually hated it. She hated her boss. She hated, um coworkers. She felt like everyone was against her. She’d often come home crying. It was a really, really not a good situation. And so I’ve been working with her off and on for four years and now she’s in my lifetime membership. So I get to see her three times a week and just this week she reminded me of the coaching that I gave her four years ago and we worked on.

I said, I do not want you to quit your job until you have peace with it. And I do remember now saying that, but she has been working on that for four years and she has made a 360 degree change. She laughs with her coworkers, her boss and her get along so well. And when there is conflict or there is struggles, you know, they can work through it. And so she is actually now able to start working on quilting for people and as soon as she replaces her income that she was making at her job, she is gonna be able to stop working. So I’m super thrilled.

Another one of my clients, she really wants to be a quilt pattern writer. And because she’s been able to lose the weight, she feels more comfortable being on Instagram and making reels and she’s just increased her confidence and because she’s been able to do that, she’s reduced her work hours, and now she is pursuing how to do that. So I’m so excited.

So this is the, this is the takeaway from both of these women, is when, because you only have so much mind juice, okay? That’s like brain power, and that’s why people have like capsule wardrobes, those kinds of things. So when you learn the Love Yourself Thin tools, when you learn these tools for your brain, you can, get more brain power. Because you’re not fighting with your brain, you’re not arguing with things. You have so much more peace in your body, so there’s not this constant conflict and fighting. And so you can now have this extra energy to do things that you always wanted to do, but now you can.

So not only does love yourself thin allow you to have a thin body, but it also allows you to have so much more creativity and so much more space in your brain. So I’m really, really happy for them. And these are the kinds of things that happen in Love Yourself thin, and that is why I’m always inviting you to come and join us, because you will have no regrets.

All right, so let’s go into today’s episode. So you can expect today to learn, to figure out why you are falling into traps. And I’m going to show you how you can find the trap. You can find how it’s being caused, and then I’m gonna show you how to bridge that thought and make a change.

And just as a side note, I had a one-on-one call with one of my clients. I have just a few one-on-one spots, and if you are interested, you can totally come and talk to me. But she has been away and on the plane home she caught up to all my podcasts, and so I got some feedback from her. And in fact she’s just hit a huge milestone. She’s just lost 80 pounds in just under two years, and she just turned 69 and she struggled with her weight since she was like mid twenties. And even her who knows so much and has done so much, she said, these podcasts really solidify things for her, they help her, they review things, and she’s just able to keep going.

And uh, so I am really, I always love to hear your feedback from the podcast, so please share it with me. I love getting letters from women that tell me like, how impactful these podcasts are. And I can tell you if you think the podcast is impactful, you will not even believe what Love Yourself Thin is like just saying nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Okay, so let’s go into today’s, episode. All right, so we have what’s called thought errors. And a thought error is simply a thought that we have that actually isn’t true. And the problem is we have beliefs about ourself and about our life and our body and about the universe or whatever it is, and the problem is, a belief, we just, we don’t question a belief. We’re just like, No, this is what I believe. Like I believe that, um, popcorn is really yummy. So you never question it. Like I believe that my favorite food is chicken wings. Okay. So I’ve just, I just made that decision because when I was a kid, everyone said, What was your favorite food? And I was like, Oh, I don’t know. So I just chose chicken wings and I’ve just kept that as my favorite food for, well since I was like 15 years old.

And so it’s just a thought that we have and we just think it so much that it just becomes a belief. So I use the analogy of a seed. So you’ve got this seed, and again, remember I have these wonderful handouts for you and you can go and, and review that. So we have a seed and then we sew that seed and we water it and we give it sunshine. So the belief is just the plant from the seed. So it’s something that you just believe and don’t even question anymore.

However, there are a lot of beliefs that are not helpful to you. And today, actually one of my, um, today was one on one coaching day, and when she was six years old, her mom took her to the doctor and, and said like, This girl is is overweight. And so the doctor said, Okay, we’re gonna take her to a specialist. And they, they said, Okay, you’ve gotta eat like rice and cous cous .You basically have to eat all this white stuff.

So she never cheated. She didn’t ever go off what she was told to eat, but she kept on gaining weight. And so she, was really confused because these adults and experts are telling her that she should eat a certain way, but that didn’t work for her body, and so she really become disconnected and at 70 and she’s got this extra weight, and if she doesn’t take it off, her doctor’s like, you’re going to die. She reached out to me and said, I wanna change. So she’s got to change her beliefs around her body, about the way that her parents spoke to her and doctors and all of that, because if she doesn’t, then she’s going to not be able to live as long as she wants because, physically carrying extra 50 pounds will pay a toll on your body and your organs. And so this was a thought error that we were able to find for her and that we were able to really look at what, what we wanna do to change it.

So I want you to kind of just brainstorm in your own mind of what are the beliefs that you have about yourself? What are things that you just believe that are just true? And I’ve talked about I have two sisters and they were always thinner than me and I just believed that I was bigger girl and that I could never be thin. I could never be that thin again. I mean, when I was a kid, I was thin and when I was a teenager I was thin. But I just thought there was a change in my life and I just couldn’t be that person. And so I just believed it and, and it’s absolutely not true. And so we’ve gotta learn how to look at where those are.

So I have three examples of beliefs that we might have about ourselves, and I’m gonna walk you through this process called bridging the thought. So, for example, my first example was, I can’t make Christmas dinner. So if you believe it’s like, I can’t make Christmas dinner. I’ve never made Christmas dinner. I don’t know how to make Christmas dinner. I’m just not a person that makes Christmas dinner. If that’s just a belief that you have and if you don’t question it and you just keep it, then you will never become a person that that makes Christmas dinner.

This would be really hard if you want to make Christmas dinner. And so bridging that gap is a process of saying, Well, I’ve never made Christmas dinner, but I can possibly, I can make mashed potatoes. So I actually can make one thing that’s for Christmas dinner. And then you could say, Well, I could look up recipes for sweet potatoes. Or I could, I could break it down and maybe this, you know, this week I’m gonna practice making this thing. Maybe I’ll practice once a week, if there’s eight things I wanna make for Christmas dinner, I’ll practice making those eight things and then maybe I will practice to make three of those things in the same time period.

Or I can look up different ways of preparing foods and freezing them beforehand or whatever that is. Like, we just break down all the tasks of making, like, what does it take to make a Christmas dinner? And then work your way towards the idea of I can actually make all the things that are required in a Thanksgiving dinner. I can make three of the things at one time. And then you just work your way to being someone who could make all eight items for Christmas dinner in a 24 hour period. And there you go. You’ve made Christmas dinner. Or you could even just say, I can make Christmas dinner happen by paying somebody. See, you don’t even have to like do the conventional way all.

Another one I thought of was, I can’t free motion quilt. So I like to think about bridging my thought of, of saying, um, and I’m, I’m gonna do a little, and it was funny cuz my client today who like watched or listened to all my podcasts on the airplane, she said that my podcasts were really easy to listen to. And I’m glad about that because you know, I know you’re on walks and you’re doing these things. But today I’m gonna get a little bit heavy and maybe a little bit complicated. I don’t know, um, wherever you are at. But I’m gonna talk about, kind of a scale when it comes to emotions, because I really wanna help all of you know how to create the emotion that you want. And too many of you are waiting to lose weight in order to feel good about yourself.

You think you have to use a lot of willpower and work really hard at losing this weight and have a lot of deprivation in order to feel good about yourself. But I promise you, you can feel good about yourself at any weight that you are.

Okay. So if we were to do that same example with bridging the gap of I can’t free motion quilt, then you could say, Well I can do a continuous line. I could make a star without lifting my pen. I could doodle daisies. I could make a whole daisy without lifting and maybe I could connect those daisies, right?

Like you can just break down the task and kind of dissect it and decide, well, I can do the alphabet without lifting a pen, because you know, free motion quilting is just doodling. It’s this one continuous line. And maybe I can build my muscle memory with a pen and then I can just change that way.

And then the last one I thought of, I hear a lot of times people will say things they, they just believe is I’m just not a computer person. They, and they think that they’re just telling me the news, but really I can’t do computer stuff. Well, you’re like but I can turn on a computer and I can actually get on my emails, which that’s a computer thing I’m doing. And I can listen to a podcast. And that’s kind of a computer thing, right? So now you’re breaking it down and saying, Well I’m not really a computer person, but I’m starting to be a person that uses the computer. So I guess. I am becoming a computer person. I’m in the process of becoming one. And not everyone has to be a computer programmer, right?

So this is what I’m talking about. Now I’m going to talk a little bit more about emotions, because everything we do in life is because we want to feel a certain way. And one of the things that we all want to feel is relief, and we want to have that feeling of relief.

Now this is taken from, it’s a Jerry Hicks book, Esther and Jerry Hicks and, and it’s talking about our emotional state. And they call it the scale of your emotions. And depending on if you believe, In God or the universe or whatever that is, uh, doesn’t really matter because basically what this is talking about is there, It’s like an emotional guidance scale, and it’s the very top, the most elite, the most amazing feeling is joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love, appreciation. Those all kind of go at the very top .And then the very, very last one though, the worst one is fear, grief, depression, despair, or powerlessness.

Now they kind of sum up, you know, we have, there’s so many different emotions. But really, and if we were to just be like really blunt about it is there’s emotions are just, either you feel good in an emotion or you feel bad in emotion. And we want to feel good, but we also know, and you’re learning in, in these tools, I’m teaching on the podcast about in order to have a healthy, balanced life, we need to embrace the 50 50. So 50% of life is challenging and difficult, and 50% is super awesome and amazing. And so in order to feel like, to truly feel any emotion, we have to be willing to feel the good and the bad and let it be there.

 And so this is something that we do in the program, and this is even in my own coaching, which is difficult because I know the answer. I know that I’m supposed to feel it. So if I have a, a thought or a situation and I feel embarrassed, I know that the only way for me to get resolution on that is by just letting myself feel embarrassed. But feeling embarrassed brings me back to being like eight or nine years old. And that feels really scary to me. But I have to remind myself, okay, if I resist, avoid, or react to that, it’s just gonna make it worse. So I just gotta sit with embarrassment.

So I’m gonna put this in the handout just because I do find that it’s really helpful and and I don’t wanna go through all of it, but, one of the things that it talks about is let’s say for example, you’re feeling worry, uh, this is another, another thing that I’ve been coaching in love yourself thin this week about women worrying. And so a step up from worry is doubt, because when you can get out of worry, which I teach as an indulgent emotion, it doesn’t serve us, it’s not helpful, if we can go from worry of like, Oh, I’m not sure. And, and, you know, ringing our hands and feeling really stressed and, and always so nervous about what’s gonna happen. If we can go from, I’m always so worried to doubt, like, Oh, I’m just having some doubt right now. Hmm. I feel like doubt is coming.

If you going from worry to doubt, there is a little bit of relief, and then the next step up from doubt would be disappointment, right? Of like, hmm, I’m just feeling really disappointed in that. So now we’re getting a little bit more relief because we’re realizing, okay, I’m not doubting so much as I am just feeling disappointed that that thing didn’t work.

Okay. And then the next step up is frustration or irritation and impatience. So that at least you know, it’s like, okay, I’m feeling this, this feeling of these things. So with each step up or down, it’s increasing or decreasing your level of relief. And so when you’re aware of this and when you can see that you are just a human having an emotional response to your thoughts, and you can be, um, you can be looking at this emotional scale, what starts happening is you can be in charge of your own life.

And when you think, All right, irritation gives me a feeling of relief from being overwhelmed. All right pessimism gives me a feeling, a relief from irritation. Hopelessness gives me a feeling of relief from pessimism. So you know that you are actually like going up a ladder.

You’re going to the destination or bridging the gap, however you wanna look at it. You’re getting to where you want to be and where we really want to be is feeling joy. We really wanna feel like this true happiness, but it is a process.

And I’m just gonna read this quote from the book. It says, “The key to regaining your wonderful feeling of personal empowerment and control is to decide right now, no matter how good or how bad you are, feeling that you are going to do your best to make the best of it. Reach for the best feeling thought that you have access to right now and as you do that again and again in a short period of time, you’ll find yourself in a very good feeling place.”

This is how it works. Now, as I conclude this podcast, I want to just emphasize to you all, that our feelings always come from our thoughts. So you can be 60 pounds, 80 pounds, 150 pounds overweight, and still feel good in your body. You can lose, like my client today, she just reached 80 pounds and she started working with me in december of 2020, you can lose 80 pounds and still feel discouraged, upset, anxiety, all of those things because the number on the scale or however much weight you’re putting on your body does not guarantee happiness.

And so that is a huge thought error. And so when you can see that your emotions come from your thoughts, that gives you power. And then you can look at the life that you’re having and you can see, okay, what results am I getting in my life and what results aren’t I getting in my life?

And you can start taking ownership for your feelings and your thoughts, and you’re not delegating them to the number on the scale. You’re not delegating them to what people say about you. You’re actually taking full ownership, and that is what I’m offering you.

So please know that when you feel trapped, You are the one who put yourself in that trap in the first place. Isn’t that amazing? It’s amazing because if you are the one that put yourself in the trap through a thought error or through something that you did, then you are empowered to get yourself out of it.

And, you know, it was interesting, so in my church I volunteer and I was responsible for the young women’s camp this summer. And so in order to do all the things for young women’s camp, I had to buy a bunch of things and I submitted my receipts and so I submitted their receipts and I got the money and then I got a call from and we’re all volunteers, and so he’s a volunteer, he’s a retired, um, person and he’s very responsible and just always very good at everything he does.

And, um, I’m sitting outside with my son who’s selling pop and juice boxes at our local lake and I’m supervising, and he calls me and he says, Dara I’m really embarrassed, we sent you that payment twice and there’s no way I can withdraw that money. So now you have to write me a check and you have to give me that, that money back.

And I loved that he did that because he was so embarrassed and he’s you know, 70 year old man. But I loved that he said, I’m just feeling really embarrassed right now. I’m having a, I’m just having a hard time calling you. And I thought, That’s amazing. That’s amazing that he realized I have this feeling inside me and I don’t wanna do this thing, but I know I need to because, you know, it’s with our church and money and being responsible. His emotion was higher in being able to clarify and resolve the issue, and he was willing to be embarrassed.

And so I want you to be able to do the same thing. I want you to be able to step back in your life and look at what traps am I falling into with weight loss? Where do I find myself getting roped into every time? It’s like I’ve lost this weight, I feel so good, and then I start sabotaging myself, or I start giving food power again, and it’s my driver and I’m using food as my highlight in my life.

So this is where you get your power back and I’m so happy you’re here listening to this podcast. It shows me that you are ready for change. You recognize that to make true weight loss change, you need to go into your brain and look at what the root of the struggle is. Learning these tools on this podcast are just gonna be so helpful for you, and it just brings me so much joy to post them every single week, and I want you to remember that special offer I have for you, and I cannot wait to meet you.

All right. Take care everyone. Bye bye .