My Top 3 Emotions for Weight Loss [Ep. 98]

0:00 This is the. Well live well podcast. I'm Lisa Salsbury, and this is episode 98, my top three emotions for weight loss. Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Welcome to summertime. I don't know about you, but my daughter finished school this past week.

0:40 So first week of June or officially in summertime and wow. Some of our brain really just started off strong because I recorded half this podcast with my microphone on mute. Which means I recorded nothing. So here we go again, take two. Um, the weather here in California is really cooperating on the summer thing. It's going to be over a hundred degrees for a few days. So just coming in hot, the summer weather. I've already heard of us, did a couple of zucchini and I ate one singular cherry tomato this morning when I was out doing some fertilizing and tending my garden boxes. So that was exciting. Summertime often elicits a desire to drop some weight. Since we uncover our bodies from the layers of winter clothing.

1:21 Maybe you're transitioning your wardrobe and noticing things are not fitting the way they may be used to. So for whatever reason, you might be looking to drop some weight. As you know, I don't provide meal plans because I help you create a meal plan that works best for you. And your lifestyle. And family by tweaking your own food journal. But what I do provide is emotional plans. I always want to help you pick from the very best emotions that can fuel weight loss. So today I want to talk to you about my three favorite emotions for weight loss. If I was creating an emotion plan for you. These are the ones I would want you to pick from the most often. And they are curiosity, confidence, and commitment.

2:03 I call them the big three CS. I know that's super creative, right? Like what a name, but you know how handy that they all start with C let's go through each one and talk about how to cultivate it, how to create more of it in your life and see why it helps you lose weight. So, number one is curiosity. Curiosity is really just so useful in widening our understanding, not only of ourselves, but of others. I think curiosity is the best way to stay out of judgment. Once we start judging others for their choices, we naturally allow ourselves to judge our own choices. It's rare that judgment in the thought and feeling line when we're thinking judgmental thoughts about others.

2:46 Doesn't end with judging ourselves in the result line. Uh, curiosity can be the antidote to this. We create curiosity by using phrases. Like I wonder,. And rhetorical questions. Like what if. Wonder about anything and everything. Not to get an answer, but just to get curious. I wonder why she chose to dye her hair blue instead of, oh my goodness. Look at her hair, like genuinely wonder and stay out of judgment. I wonder when my cucumbers will be ready to pick. I wonder what that plant is called. I wonder when my next client will find me, I wonder what will resonate with my listeners. I wonder what will happen if I didn't eat that cookie?

3:28 I wonder what I would feel like if I left three bites behind it dinner. What if I took a walk after dinner, how would that feel? I wonder how my body would feel if I ate just to enough instead of to full. Getting good at wondering about mundane things like blue hair and plants, and then translate it into wondering about work or other things you do. And then start wondering. About your habits and the activities, the promote weight loss. I wonder how I would feel if I went for a walk instead of stayed here and scrolled social media. These are the kinds of things we want to start asking yourself, truly get curious, and then do the experiment to see, take that walk.

4:08 Try leaving the three bites behind check in with your body and see how it feels when you ate just two enough. What is going on for you? Be genuinely curious. In that state of wonder that has no judgment. This can be beneficial for weight loss, because it can lead you to trying new things. If you've always had a habit of eating snacks with your kids after school, you can wonder what it would be like to skip that snack. Or what it would be like to have a different snack than they are having. If you always eat popcorn at the movie, wonder what it would be like just to be entertained by the movie. Rather than needing something to do with your mouth to what would it be like to just watch a movie? How would that even go?

4:49 The more you can get curious about what you are doing and how it's affecting your body and your results, the less judgmental you will become. And if we are less judgmental, we are less likely to shame and criticize ourselves. Because this curiosity also works great for after the fact. After we overeat get curious about why that happened. Instead of jumping to blame and shame, just ask yourself, what were you really needing? Right then? I wonder what else could have felt good to sooth that emotion? What else could work? That is a great curiosity question. Get curious instead of judgy. Okay. Number two is confidence.

5:30 Confidence. Is the, I can do this stick to it-ness of weight loss. It's more than willpower. Confidence says I can do this no matter how many times I fail. It says failure only teaches me what doesn't work. It doesn't tell me anything about my worthiness. Confidence is about trusting yourself. This is where you gain the ability to have foods in the house that used to make you want to eat your face off. When you are confident that you can trust yourself, you can be in a house where treats exist without having to eat them all. Confidence has also the ability to feel any emotion. When, you know, you can feel negative emotions and not go directly to food that is confidence feeling bad and not overeating over.

6:17 It will actually increase your confidence in your ability to feel negative emotions. Confidence is very far from arrogance. Arrogant says I'm better than you. And here's why. Arrogance puts people on a hierarchy. She's better than me, but I'm better than her, et cetera. Arrogance actually comes from a place of creating false confidence. By trying to put others down. It works by trying to raise your opinion of yourself by comparing yourself to others. Which ironically often does the exact opposite. True confidence helps you understand all humans are capable and worthy and you don't need to do any comparison to feel confident about yourself.

7:02 You can cultivate more confidence by rejecting thoughts. Like, I don't know how or confident people don't feel fear like me. Or I'm different than super successful people. Those thoughts do not lead to confidence. You can create more confidence by considering the possibility of what you can create in the future. Interestingly, if you are also working on your curiosity. This can help you imagine futures that are full of possibilities. Thoughts that you can switch to include things like I am capable. The worst that can happen is a feeling. And I have my own back. Each time you remind yourself that fear is no big deal.

7:45 And that you actually can totally feel a negative emotion, even an emotion like urge or craving without reacting to it or obeying it. That will increase your confidence. The interesting thing about confidence is that often. Ends up in the result line as much as I want it to be in the feeling line. And we can put it there, especially when we're thinking things like I'm capable. It goes in the feeling line, but often some of our actions lead to confidence and it becomes this great repeating circle. The last C is commitment. You have to know why you are doing this. Why do you want to lose weight?

8:26 Maybe your health goals involve something other than scale weight, which I hope you have other things on your health list than just your scale weight. So that's great. Sometimes we want something. But we aren't really committed to it. There's a difference between wanting and committed. Think of things you're truly committed to. You're probably committed to being faithful to your spouse. You might be committed to showing up at your job. You have commitments to your children or maybe to your friends to show up at a certain time. A lot of times it's easier to be committed to other people. And not ourselves. Imagine, if you were as committed to the things you promised yourself, as you were to the things you promised to your loved ones.

9:07 You are always the first person you're willing to cancel on and that's what needs to change to develop stronger commitment. When you're thinking you want to lose weight. I want you to ask yourself why. Why do I want this? And if you say so I can be healthy. That's not enough. You got to continue asking yourself why. Because no one puts their fork down when they're eating a delicious spaghetti dinner, because they just want to be healthy. That's the dinner. I tend to overeat if I'm not paying attention. And I don't just put my fork down because I'm like, well, I want to be healthy. Like, no, it's not enough. It's not enough of a commitment. We need more and better reasons we function better and can be more committed.

9:50 If we have a very good reason for wanting to achieve our goals. So you see how commitment is much more than wanting. so I want you to continue asking why. Why do I want to lose weight? Why do I want to be healthy? And here's the thing. It doesn't have to be noble or special. You may get down to something physical or the way something looks in the mirror and maybe a certain item of clothing that you want to wear. That's fine. It may also be a functional reason. You have a vacation, you want to be able to walk, to see all the sites and it's 10 miles a day, and you want to be able to do that without pain. Maybe there's a hike you want to do this summer that you couldn't last summer. Maybe you want to go up the stairs in your home without trouble, or you just want to get your first pull-up.

10:33 Continue asking yourself why and get as many reasons why you want this goal. As possible. These are the things that will help you develop your commitment. One thing to note, these reasons should be true. Regardless of what time it is or what day of the week. If they don't matter to you at 9:00 PM, when your spouse gets out the ice cream or your daughter starts popping popcorn. Then they don't actually matter. So many times late nights or weekends, we get into"so what?" Eating. So what it's just one, or I'll start again tomorrow, or it doesn't matter. If that isn't true in the morning.

11:16 Or on Monday. Then it isn't actually true at 9:00 PM either. If you care a lot in the morning, or if it matters a lot. On Monday. Then it's a lie on Saturday night that it doesn't matter. Or man, I just don't care. You do care. Stop lying to yourself. When we develop our commitment, then our reasons for wanting to achieve our health and weight loss goals become easier to remember. 24 hours a day. One way to start working on your commitment is to create a 24 hour practical plan. You know, I've talked about this a hundred times on the podcast, but decide in the morning what you will eat for the day.

11:58 And then eat exactly that. When you first start just plan things. You're already going to eat. Because I guarantee if you plan a sandwich for lunch, your brain will be like, oh, well let's just have leftovers instead. It's not that the leftovers would be bad in some way. It's just that you want to practice eating exactly what you planned. This helps develop your commitment and believing yourself, you plan something and then you eat that thing. And then your brain goes, huh? I guess we can be trusted. Because remember if we're constantly canceling on ourselves, it's hard to believe we will ever be committed enough to actually lose our weight.

12:40 Even with commitment. The two other emotions still play a part. Because you're human. You're not a robot and you will overeat. You will eat when you didn't plan to. And that's where you fall back on your confidence to handle the emotion of disappointment without going to more food. And you'll get curious about why that happened instead of judgmental. See how these three emotions are totally intertwined and yet essential for weight loss. They're my favorites. When you are thinking about how to create these emotions more often in your life. Start with thoughts that are outside the realm of weight loss, like how I said to get curious about plants.

13:21 And other people and your job, et cetera. Think about ways you felt these emotions in the past or other things in your life you are confident about or committed to. And notice what thought led to that feeling? Then see how you can adopt that thought to your health and weight loss goals. If you need help, figuring out what thoughts help you to cultivate these emotions. Bring that to me in your free coaching call with me. You can get that schedule today and let me know, Hey, I want to work on some thoughts with you and ways to get started with my goals, and I will help you out link to get that scheduled is in the show notes as always. Thanks for listening and sharing the eat well think.

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