#92: Weight Loss and How to Solve Any Problem

92. Weight Loss and How to Solve Any Problem

Do you feel totally overwhelmed with all of the different problems that happen day by day? Well, don’t worry. I have audacious, crazy out to lunch, kind of promise that you won’t even believe me, but I’m telling you it’s true. I have a solution to solve any problem, and I’m gonna be talking to you about it in this episode. Are you ready? I’m Dara Tomasson, and this is Episode 92, Weight Loss and How to Solve Any Problem. 

All right. I know I’ve talked about this in the past, but I have some very specific examples and strategies that I wanna share with you on this podcast, and I am really excited about how it’s going to help blow your mind. All right. Now, so you can expect in this podcast, you’re going to learn one of the number one tools that I use every day in my coaching practice, it’s called the Model, and I can tell you that you can solve any problem by using this model, and then I’m going to give you some real life examples. I’m going to give you some strategies to help you to be more effective. And then at the end of the episode, I’m going to be using my U f O Challenge that’s found in the Perfection Recovery Program for all of our unfinished projects. And I’m going to use it in a way that’s going to really surprise you about how you can use your brain better. So it’s gonna be a really fun episode. 

Now, of course, before I begin, get into the meat of the podcast, I am going to share a win from one of my clients because winning and celebrating is a big part of Love Yourself Thin. And it is a definitely a huge game changer for women learning how to be with their emotions and how to like celebrate themselves in a way that I think a lot of women struggle with feeling like they are allowed to celebrate themselves. It feels actually dangerous to celebrate themselves. And we don’t make fun of a little kid who’s celebrating themselves. In fact, we cheer them on. And so we need to continue doing that. We need to continue to celebrate and to love on ourselves is super important. 

And this celebration is actually so exciting as I think about the progress that my clients are making. And this one is from a client who is a long armed quilter and just a really talented quilter. And she quilts for people. And in the past was someone would bring a quilt that was not quite square, she had strategies to overcome it. You starch it, you iron it, you use cans, like you do all sorts of things. I’ve gone through the gymnastics of it all, but this quilt in particular was, kind of beyond any of those strategies, and it basically meant that you either took the quilt apart and redid it or you could tie the quilt. And in the past, this client she would not have a heart to tell her client about the problems the quilt had. So she would do all sorts of unpicking and reconfiguring so that it would, would not be embarrassing to the client. But she’s learned tools and she’s learned how to use her voice and to feel all the feelings and to be an observer of herself and be objective and really learn how to be that higher version of herself and she was able to talk to the client and was able to offer some suggestions on tying a quilt and using a higher loft batting so that that quilt can still shine. And she kept the integrity of the, especially I appreciate that as an, when I was a new quilter, I know the first quilt I submitted to a long armer was the backing wasn’t proper, it wasn’t big enough, and I’m glad that they were respectful to me. But she was able to do that and that was such a huge win. Because she keeps showing up for herself. She keeps coming to all the calls, as many calls as she can. She does lots of thought downloads and she does a lot of just staying committed to herself and in her own growth. So that’s a huge win. 

All right, so let me explain to you the model, and I do touch on this in another podcast, but I wanna specifically talk about how the model is a way for us to solve any problem. Because one of the things that I notice in my clients in our community is the tendency that we have to be victims. And being a victim means that you automatically assume that everything’s against you, that you can’t get a break. That life is really hard and no matter what you do, no matter what you try, no matter how hard you work, you’re always going to fall short. And these are different ways of thinking of being a victim.

Now I want you to think about our thoughts and there’s a lot of different ideas out there on how many thoughts we have a day. But one of the more commonly decided on is we have 60,000 thoughts a day. That is a lot of thoughts every day. And I want you to imagine those little speech bubbles, you know, when we’re reading a cartoon and they have the little thoughts above the head that look like a cloud, the words are in a cloud, and I want you to think about 60,000 thoughts, and they’re all on a conveyor belt. Okay, so we walk into the grocery store. We have all different thoughts. We’re driving, we’re getting dressed, we’re brushing our teeth. There’s just all these thoughts and they just imagine them all like 60,000 of these little thought bubbles. And we’re on a conveyor belt in a factory and we’re able to see all the different thoughts. And the reason I like to isolate each thought and be able to put it on a conveyor belt is because we are able to actually look at our thoughts and then we can decide what thought is going to be one that we’re gonna keep, or what thought is going to be optional. And so just like when you’re at the airport and you go through the security, they are able to see an x-ray of everything that’s in your bag, and they are able to say what is acceptable and what’s not. And I want to encourage all of you to think more about your thoughts in a way of deciding what is acceptable and what is not. 

Now one of the main problems that we have is that a lot of us don’t believe that a thought is optional. We think that thoughts are facts. So going back to my story of I’m 45, 46, something along those lines. And I’m just gaining weight and I’m experiencing perimenopause. I’m experiencing my son, my last baby going off. It’s actually, I when I’m recording this, it’s his 11th birthday today. I can’t believe it. But my last child was going off to school and I had the house to myself during the day. I didn’t even really know who I was, I felt. It was just so many changes, and so I had a lot of thoughts that I believed were facts. I believed that I couldn’t lose weight. I thought that was a fact. I thought you could prove that in a court of law. I thought that no matter what I did, I couldn’t lose weight. And when I believed that to be true, I became a victim. I slipped into victim mentality because I started believing that no matter what I did, I was never going to be successful. And I remember sitting at the kitchen table and my life coach, I had, she was becoming a life coach, so she was a life coach in training and she didn’t even do it on video, she just did it over the phone. And I’m talking to her on the phone, I’m sitting at my kitchen table, I’m taking notes, and she says to me, I want you to write down, what are all the thoughts that are really hard for you? And I said to her, it’s not a thought, it’s true, I can’t lose weight. It’s a fact. And she said, well, could we prove that in a court of law? I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then she said she asked some more questions and then we realized, oh, wait a minute, I kind of do lose weight in the morning, and then at night I weigh more and I can’t prove that I can’t lose weight. That’s impossible. And so I realized that it actually was a thought. 

And so the beautiful thing about a thought is that thoughts are optional and I can decide, so just like in the X-ray at the airport, they decide what things are acceptable and what aren’t. Like what is allowed to go in an airplane and what’s not. And as an adult, as a human being, I also have the option to decide what thoughts I’m going to keep and what thoughts are not helpful for me that are not good for me. And so we started to dive into what was going on, and so of course I was struggling with losing this weight and I had all sorts of things, but this is what’s behind a lot of it.

So, I was confused about how weight loss worked. I was overwhelmed by all the different methods that I had tried and that I’d had success and that I had failed. I was embarrassed for all of my failures. I was disappointed that I couldn’t keep myself together. I felt ashamed at how I had such little self-control. I felt judged by others because I kept struggling with my weight and the list goes on. So there was so much more that I had attached to my weight that wasn’t helping me, that made me feel like a victim, and I didn’t even give myself the option to think about my weight, to think about my story, to think about what was going on in a different way. And I didn’t have anything positive about it. I didn’t appreciate my body. I didn’t thank my body for all the work that it did and how it made five babies and how I was able to drive and I was able to take care of my babies and play with them and teach them how to swim and how to walk. And I kept feeding them all and clothing them and all the quilting I did. I didn’t appreciate my body at all. And so when you think a thought is a circumstance, then you feel trapped. And that’s where you go into the victim mentality. 

So I’m gonna give you an example of how the model works. And so a circumstance is a fact and it’s something that we can prove in the court of law. So right now, my circumstance for this example is rain. So everyone, when you say rain, everyone knows what it is. It is precipitation coming from the sky. We can prove that. So that’s our circumstance. Now, there’s lots of different thoughts about rain. So if you’re a farmer, you’re going to want rain to come at certain times and you’re gonna not want rain at other times. If you are a mom who’s preparing for a birthday party and you want an outdoor birthday party, you’re going to be stressed out about rain. If it rains, then you’re gonna have to have the birthday party inside or you’re gonna have to have a backup plan. So for my case, I have one thought is I feel so limited when it rains. So if you have that thought, then you often, the feeling you have is depressed. And then when you feel depressed, you lounge around, you scroll on social media, you go from one task to another, but you don’t really finish anything. And so when you’re spending your time doing those things, the result will be you limit yourself. So rain feels limited because you are feeling depressed. You don’t do all the things you wanna do, you lounge around, right? So what you spend your time doing is what creates the result. Now, some people, they are the same person, even could say, with rain. Oh, it’s a great excuse to stay in and read. So if you have that thought, it’s a great excuse to stay in and read, then you’re going to feel joy. And when you feel joy, you’re going to get a blanket, you’re going to read your book, you’re going to enjoy the time that you have. And so the result is you fill your bucket or you feel better because you’re using the time that you have in a way that feels loving and kind and awesome to you.

So in those two examples, you can see why this model, so you have a thought that comes from the circumstance. So in my case was rain. And then from that thought, that’s where we create our emotions. And then our emotions are our fuel. They are the driver for getting us to what we want to do. And then how we spend our time gives us our results. So this is why when we can isolate our thought, we can start dissecting what’s going on. Now, a lot of us and 92%, 95%, depending on the research that you cite. Most of our thoughts. So 92 to 95% of our thoughts are subconscious. So for example, when you first learn to drive a car, it is very challenging because there’s a lot of different steps that you have to learn. Following a recipe, same thing. When you’re learning something new, every single little step is broken down and it’s a new skill that you have to learn. So you have a lot more concentration that has to happen to master that skill. But once you’ve done it enough times, it becomes automatic. You don’t have to think about it. Remember when you first got an iphone, or a a smartphone having to take a picture and then downloading it. There was so many steps and you had to take one step after another. You might have had to write a list and you had to follow it, and now it’s just automatic. You don’t even have to think about it. 

Now, a lot of our thoughts are the same way. So if we have a thought like, I can’t lose weight or menopause has been terrible, or it’s just in my dna, no matter what I try, I’m never gonna lose weight. It’s all my mom’s fault. If these are thoughts that you just let go on autopilot, then you will just continue to live a life that feels really scary. It feels like you’re a victim, and it feels like you’re very powerless. Now, when you learn this tool, you will change everything. You will start to question, is that even true? And if it’s a thought, do I want to keep it or do I want to change it? Now, one of the problems we fall into is that a thought, thought enough time becomes a belief. So there are a lot of beliefs that we have to work through to get to change. 

So I used to believe that I was big boned that I could never wear a certain size. I could never get that low on this, that number on the scale or wear that size of clothes. That was a belief that I had, and I spent a lot of time reinforcing that belief. In fact, I would do things like I would measure my sister’s wrists and compare them to mine, or I would, I would, I was the police officer looking for evidence, building my case that I was big boned and that I could never wear that size of clothes. And so now that I’m wearing a size six, which I thought was actually impossible. It actually does surprise me. And every once in a while I’ll still be folding laundry or I’ll go shopping and I’ll look at pants and I’ll say, will those really fit me? And then of course I put them on and they do. It’s always so, it’s so interesting that my brain still sometimes has to remind it that yes, this is who you are, and this has been over four years that I’ve been this size.

So it does take work to change our brain. Now I’m gonna share a little exercise with you. So I’m the president of the Perfectionist Recovery Program, so I wrote a 12 step program. It’s loosely based on the AA program and there’s a lot of like food anonymous, all sorts of recovery programs that are similar and at the end of this perfectionist recovery program. And by the way, if you want a copy of this you can go become a member of my liberate group and it’s there for free. It’s kind of, I thank you for spending your time and coming over to my Facebook group, and so it’s a way for me to thank you for being a part of that community. It’s also available if you wanted to order it, you can order it and it will be sent to you. But at the end of the 12 step perfectionist program, I wrote a U F O challenge, and it’s a way for people to look at their projects because a lot of us have started projects and we don’t finish them, and then we beat ourselves up and all this perfectionism comes back, all or nothing thinking there’s only one way to do things. You never are satisfied with what you’ve done. And so I thought, let’s put some things into action. 

Now we’re gonna do this. So I have these series of questions. Access each U F O using the following questions. Now I want you to think about what I said about our thoughts. So we have 60,000 thoughts a day, and I’m not asking you to write down all your thoughts. But what I am going to ask you to do, is I want you to write down a thought inventory. Now, I’ve talked about thought downloads and a thought download is literally just all the thoughts you have in your brain, so a thought dump. So if you’re having a hard time sleeping or if you’re feeling like irritable or you’re just kind of on edge, I would highly recommend you just get a piece of paper or your journal and just write everything down. You can also do this verbally. You can just say, I’m feeling this and this, and this, and this, and you can just let yourself let it all out. So I want you to do a thought download of all the things that you’re thinking about yourself, about your life, and then I want you to do a thought inventory on that.

And so just like with, and this is what I’m doing for the U F O project. So these are the questions. I’ve had them write down the previous sheet was the U F O inventory. So they had the name of the project, keep or give, so they go and they write down all their UFOs. So this is what they’re gonna do with each one of them. Do you still like this project? And I’m asking you to put in, do you like this thought? Do I honestly think I will ever benefit from this thought? I’m kind of changing what the question is in the u f O is, do I honestly think I will ever finish it? But do I honestly think I will benefit from keeping this thought? What was the intent of the project? So what is the intent of my life? What is the intent of what I want to do? And kind of have that in the forefront. Do I still have this intent? Who else would benefit from this unfinished project? So, does anyone else benefit from this thought? So if you have the thought, I’m not good enough, or what’s wrong with me? Would anyone agree with you or not? And have I already had as much fun with this thought as I can? Is this thought now complete? Is it time to say goodbye? 

Now I want to remind you that life is here to be enjoyed. Your worth as a human has nothing to do with the size of your pants or your skirt or the number on the scale. Your worth has already been decided. And so when you know that you don’t need to make weight loss a moral issue. It’s just you get to decide, is this something being less weight, will it make my life more? Will it be more enjoyable? And if you can say yes, then I would love to help you to lose weight from a place of love, from a place of care, a place of unconditional love. These are all the principles that I help you to learn in order to lose weight and never worry about it coming back on. So whatever you care about. Let’s say you have a really nice sewing machine and you have to take it in to get repaired, you’re not gonna chuck it down the stairs, you’re not gonna throw it in the back of the van and then put a bunch of stuff or your car? No, you’re going to carefully carry it downstairs. You’re going to probably buckle it into your car like I do. You’re gonna maybe have some blankets that you might wrap around it, or you have a carrying case. You’re going to take a lot of care and consideration for it because you care about it. And that is what I help women learn to do in order to take care of themselves. They start valuing themselves, and so now they’re not abusing food in the way that they have in the past. 

All right. This has been a really fun episode to share with you. I do wanna encourage you, if you’re listening to this today, at the end of April, the month of May, we are going to really focus on the model in Love Yourself Thin. And so if that is something that you really want to work on, I invite you to join me in Love Yourself Thin in our lifetime membership. And if you wanna take this deeper, you can talk to me about coaching with me or one of my amazing, talented coaches in my program. I’d love to serve you and I’m so excited to help you with all of this. Have a wonderful day.