Latest / SAY GRACE | Weight Loss + Health for Overwhelmed Women- Stress, Busy, Consistency, Realistic, Motivation, Starting Over, No Restrictions / The anonymous post about hopelessness in weight loss

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The anonymous post about hopelessness in weight loss · SAY GRACE | Weight Loss + Health for Overwhelmed Women- Stress, Busy, Consistency, Realistic, Motivation, Starting Over, No Restrictions

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Music.
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Okay, y'all. So today on the podcast, we are going to do it a little differently.
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We are going to talk about an anonymous post that I got in the PFN weight loss
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community several months back.
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Our community is a powerhouse of women.
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I will just, I mean, they are, Stacey and I talk all the time about how we are
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just so blessed to like have built this thing, you know, this community where
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these women are so real with each other, so honest with each other,
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but also so encouraging.
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I'm like, if you're having a bad day, these women are going to come around you and lift you up.
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But if you also need like a great quick dinner idea, they're going to be there for that too.
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And so it is just all around like we're a women hype club in there.
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And so I say that to say that this anonymous poster
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knew like she knew when she posted that she
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would feel the love and she was not disappointed our
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ladies the way they came out I mean like women that's
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been in our program for two years I'm like hadn't heard from in a while and
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I'm like look at her out here offering advice you know like it was it was wonderful
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and so today I just I want to share this post because I felt when I read it
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I felt like golly this one was brave enough to to post it, even if it was anonymously, right?
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And then these other women were brave enough to like reply in solidarity.
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But how many other women are feeling this way and thinking this way and too
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scared to even speak out or say? You know what I mean?
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And so today I'm going to read this post and then I'm going to just kind of
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walk you through my reply.
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Because I think it will help anyone who has been through this experience,
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you know, with their journey.
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Okay, so here we go. We're just going to start on into it.
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Okay, so the post says, Hi, I'm sorry to post anonymously, but to be honest,
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I'm just too ashamed to post this with my name.
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I never had a weight problem until my early 30s.
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I was always athletic, could eat what I wanted. but in my mid-20s,
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I just slowly started to gain about 5 pounds a year for a few years.
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Overall, I was still happy with my body, 5'6", wearing a size 12.
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I was always about 10 to 15 pounds from a happy or good weight for me, if that makes sense.
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Then I got married in my early 30s and proceeded to quickly pack on about 30
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pounds. Then I had my babies.
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Ironically, I got back to pre-pregnancy weight very quickly with no interventions,
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but was still overweight.
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In the past few years, I've added on more weight and am now only 10 pounds away
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from my delivery weight.
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Y'all, I don't know what to do. I'm a nurse practitioner, so I have that educational background.
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I have the knowledge from PFN. I just won't follow through and do the work.
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I know so much of my problem is mindset. I weigh two, I'm just going to leave her weight.
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I weigh 200-ish pounds today and am a size 18.
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I hate this, but I just feel so hopeless.
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Like it's a mountain I can't begin to climb. I don't know if I'm truly depressed
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or if this is perimenopause or what, but I just can't make myself do what I
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know needs to be done to lose weight.
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I'm a very motivated person, a high achiever, etc.
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Except with this. I'm borderline pre-diabetic and could qualify for medications
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to help with weight loss, but my husband doesn't want me to due to potential
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side effects and the issue of regaining the weight when I stop.
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I guess I'm just venting, but also asking for help. How do I get my mind right
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to do this? It just feels impossible.
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Has anyone else been here? I think part of my issue is I think I could literally
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lose up to 100 pounds and not be underweight for my height. That's mind boggling.
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And while I would love to be skinny and athletic again, at this point,
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I just want to get back to less than 200 pounds.
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I see pictures of myself and don't even recognize myself. Okay,
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so I want to tell you guys, there were so many replies like.
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Gosh, so many encouraging replies about just like keep, just bite off a little
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bit at a time and like, you know, stay active in the community.
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That's what really helped me is to keep this accountability.
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Like we had one of our ladies who has lost like over a hundred pounds was like,
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I've been right there, you know, and you have to accept that it's going to take
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more than a week to lose it. And sometimes that can feel really overwhelming.
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Like when you have a hundred pounds, you feel like you have a hundred pounds to lose.
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The thought of like even getting started on the hundred pound weight loss is so overwhelming.
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Okay. And so I just, I wanted, like, I'm going to talk through my,
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my reply was ridiculously long.
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And so I, but I hit about six points with my reply and I'm going to just talk
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through those today because I know that so many of you sit here.
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Like there's probably so many of you that listen to this podcast every week,
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but like haven't done a dang thing to like start your weight loss,
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you know, journey or effort or whatever. Right.
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And so part of like, I would, I would, I would bet that part of that is because
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of what I just described from this, from this client where it just feels so overwhelming.
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And also she just can't get herself there, you know?
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And so a lot of the reason, like a lot of the time that we can't get ourselves
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to start something is again, because of that overwhelm, like we talked about
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on the episode a few weeks ago.
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And so unwinding some of that overwhelm can really be a great place to start,
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even though it may feel like you need to be hustling up more.
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Like that's kind of your mindset is like, I just need to get it together.
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When in reality, you may just need to like, let some things go.
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You know what I mean? And so we're gonna talk through some of that here.
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Okay, so my first point of response to her was.
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You could be magnifying weight loss. We can make weight loss such a massive
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thing in our brain that the steps to get there overwhelm us so much that we
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are forever trying or failing or just saying we will start tomorrow.
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Okay, so this is like we have put weight loss on a pedestal and we have put
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all the efforts towards weight loss on that same pedestal.
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And so like we want to imagine ourselves like this, you know,
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running, clean cooking, drinking all my water. I love vegetables kind of a woman.
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And we equate that with weight loss, right?
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But that is so vastly different from the lives that we're living currently that
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it can just feel so overwhelming or miserable, you know, that we never start.
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Because like who wants to start like exercising every day, eating their vegetables
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every day, all the vegetables, only vegetables, right?
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Like who wants to do all these things that we've magnified in our mind or what
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people who lose weight do when that is so, so different from what we're doing
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in our day-to-day right now? Because a lot of us, again, we're overwhelmed.
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We don't really have a whole lot of time to like go out and start a running
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program or, you know, go buy all these fresh vegetables and like meal prep them.
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You know what I mean? Like we don't have a whole lot of time.
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So that in itself can just feel so overwhelming along with it ain't,
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it don't feel like it's enjoyable. You know what I mean?
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And so, okay, this is, I gave her this example and I'm going to give you guys this example as well.
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So for years of my life, I wanted to be a morning person.
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Okay. I don't know if you're in the business world or if you're in like the
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executive type world, then you've heard this as well.
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I mean, a lot of worlds talk about this, but they say morning people are more productive.
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They're more like successful across the board.
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Right. And so that alone is such a motivator to be a morning person.
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But my true desire to be a morning person came when my kids were born,
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when Sarah Mason specifically was born, because I was recognizing that I had
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no time to myself if it wasn't in the morning or in the evening right before bed.
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And in the evening right before bed, my brain was just done.
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I was not being my best self. I was not able to read my Bible or do the things
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that I wanted to do at night because I was just so ready for bed by the time we got her to bed.
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So I had made up my mind, like, I've got to be a morning person,
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right, for this, for me to fit it all in and have like a more peaceful day, if you will.
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Well, so what happened was I started setting my alarm.
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And typical me, I also started setting an agenda for myself when the alarm went off.
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So I'd be like, OK, I'm going to wake up at five o'clock and then I'm going
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to go for a walk and then I'm going to read my Bible.
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I'm going to read, you know, I was going to do the Bible recap and read,
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like, if y'all have done the Bible recap, it's like, sometimes a lot of stuff
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you got to read, you know, and I'm going to, you know, drink my coffee,
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I'm going to get it done before, you know, the sun, and I'm going to, you know,
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I came up with all kinds of things.
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Like, there were some times I would wake up and, like, try to do home chores, you know?
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It was just like, I was constantly putting things on my to-do list for my morning routine.
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And so what what do you think happened I just
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never woke up you know like I would hit snooze because
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not only is it hard to wake up in the morning it's extra hard to wake up and
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think I gotta get up so I can do that workout and it's like 20 degrees outside
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like no way I'm not doing that you know what I mean like I will much rather
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close my eyes and and pretend like I fell back of sleep and, you know,
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not go do all the things I set out on my to-do list to do, right?
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So it was like this endless cycle of me setting all these to-dos and me setting
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my alarm and then me not getting up, okay?
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And so I just kept on doing this until I finally decided, you know what,
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I don't have to wake up at five.
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Like, what if I just woke up at like six or 6.15 or whatever?
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Like, I gave myself like 15 or 20 minutes before Sarah Mason was supposed to
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be awake, and that's when I woke up.
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Okay, so I, instead of an hour and a half or whatever I was trying to carve
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out from the beginning, I now had like 15 minutes, but at least it was 15 minutes
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and no minutes because prior to that.
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We were waking or I was waking up in the morning to the sound of Sarah Mason on the monitor.
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Like, and so she was waking me up. So I immediately felt like the day was controlling
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me because, I mean, I had a toddler, you know, and she needed me and needed
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her diaper change and all the things.
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And so, like, that's how I was waking up prior. So I was telling myself,
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like, OK, if I would just get 15 minutes to myself to get my bearings,
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to just get a breath before I had to go into mom mode, that's better than nothing.
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So that's where I started.
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I would wake up like 15 minutes, 20 minutes before her. And I had absolutely
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nothing on my to-do list.
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My only to-do was to get my tail out of bed and go sit on the couch.
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That was it. That was it. So I would grab a cup of coffee if I felt like it.
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Or sometimes I would just sit there and stare. Like literally.
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I think I did this. I started it in the winter because I have these vivid memories
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of just staring at my Christmas tree early in the morning. I would just sit
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there and stare at my Christmas tree.
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And sometimes I'd be like, hey, God, what's up? Like, can we have a good day today?
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But it was nothing like regimented, nothing structured, just like I was up and
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I had achieved my to-do list, you know?
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And so from that, I created the habit.
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Like I set the bar low for myself. So I created that habit.
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So then as time went on, I thought, okay, let me see if I can get up 30 minutes
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earlier and just like maybe, you know, read a passage or two in my Bible.
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You know, or even like turn on a positive podcast that makes me feel good or
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turn on some Christian music that makes me feel good, you know?
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And so this has been happening year over year. I have been layering on top with
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the exception of when I had glory.
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I kind of took a pause, obviously, because when you have a baby,
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you just surviving, right?
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But year over year, like I just have added and added and added to this regimen.
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And now I get up about 10.
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An hour and 30 minutes before my family. Spend a lot of time with the Lord.
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I mean, right now in this season of my life, I spend a lot of time with the
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Lord. Sometimes I'll go take my walk.
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I do make the girls lunches in the morning now because again,
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my brain just don't wanna work at night.
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I get their breakfast ready. I just feel so awakened and peaceful in the morning,
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but it took me time to get there, right?
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And so a lot of times it can be that way with weight loss where you're trying
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to wake up an hour and a half early right off the bat when you're used to sleeping
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in and not doing anything in the morning, right?
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And you wake up and now you're saying, I'm gonna wake up an hour and a half
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early with a laundry list of to-dos, right?
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And so that's a very stark contrast. It's very abrupt.
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It's very disruptive to our system. And we will reject that like the plague.
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Like we will reject the mess out of that, y'all, trying to change something so drastically,
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so quickly, right so instead of
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saying like i'm gonna get my act together i'm gonna track i'm gonna drink water
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i'm gonna go to work out i'm gonna go go go do do do do because
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i need to lose weight right instead of that mentality for
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the 50th time could you say things like just just this week the only focus i've
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got is i'm gonna drink my my water every day you know it can be all your ounces
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if you feel like that's doable if you don't feel like that's too noble of you
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or it could be half your ounces or it could literally just be,
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I'm going to carry my water bottle to work with me.
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You know, I'm going to keep my water bottle in my car.
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Or could it be, I'm going to walk. I'm just going to walk 10 minutes a day.
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That's it. Like, I'm not trying to do anything else. I'm not trying to be a weight loss superhero.
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I'm just going to walk and I'm going to do it for my mental health, right?
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Or I'm going to focus on my mindset before I reach for food.
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We have some tools inside the program that help with this. But so I'm going
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to utilize these tools to help me think about food before I actually consume
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it, right? Or I'm just going to try to eat breakfast.
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Like, I'm just, I'm just going to try to eat. It doesn't matter what the breakfast
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is. Don't care if it's high in protein. Don't care if it's homemade.
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Don't care, you know, whatever. I'm just going to try to have breakfast.
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Even if that's like a Pop-Tart, at least it's breakfast, right?
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To help me with my energy for the day, right?
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So these little things, you can just pick one thing to start that is very,
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very small in the grand scheme of things, but it's better than doing nothing, right?
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Like doing one thing consistently, no matter how small it is,
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is better than doing nothing.
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Consistently or doing 50 things inconsistently, right?
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Because by doing it consistently, first of all, you're creating a habit for yourself.
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But second of all, you're proving to yourself that you can commit to something
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and actually stick to it.
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Because a lot of the issue with weight loss is, right, you have proven to yourself
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over and over again that you're inconsistent with weight loss.
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So that's half the battle. It's just proving yourself like, I can stick to this
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for more than two or three weeks.
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I can do this for the long haul because it doesn't feel like torture, right?
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And so just by doing that, you're building your confidence. And something we
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say in PFM Plus is you're flexing that muscle.
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You're working that muscle over and over and over again so that it becomes to
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feel natural for you. Drinking your water feels natural for you.
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You feel weird without your 10-minute walk for the day.
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It's just an automatic thought process to think about the food before you actually eat it.
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Like you, but that takes, the only way you can get there y'all is to put in the reps.
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The only way you can get bigger muscles is to put in the reps, right?
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And so the reps are you showing up and doing the small thing,
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no matter how small it is, day in and day out.
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So my next reply to her was to change your focus.
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Okay, because she mentioned, right, that my gosh, it just feels like 100 pounds is so far away, right?
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And so yes, it does. if like right now you're starting thinking,
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I'm setting out to lose 100 pounds, right?
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So your focus cannot be on the weight loss.
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Y'all, I know that's how we get you in the program and that is how everybody
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wants the weight loss, right? And the weight loss comes.
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But if your only goal is the weight loss, you will regain the weight,
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okay? This is why we are seeing all the studies.
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Again, I did my GLP-1 series and y'all can hear my opinion on it.
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And, you know, I think it is beneficial for some people, but the studies don't lie, okay?
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And the studies are showing that the amount of weight regain after coming off of a GLP-1 is massive.
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Like majority of people are regaining the weight. And why is that?
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Well, because for those people, most likely, they took a shot as a intervention Yeah.
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But they did not take the other steps that they needed to actually change the
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habits and change the mindset.
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So they just took this shot every two weeks or whatever it is to lessen their hunger.
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But still would be choosing like the high fat foods or not really drinking their
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water or not really moving their body or not working on their mindset, right?
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So when they come off the shot and their hunger's back, they have no tools in their toolbox.
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They don't know how to face food. They don't know how to face their negative
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thinking about weight loss and about food. And so what do they do?
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They go back into their old mindset, their old ways, okay?
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Because their ultimate goal was just to get skinny with getting on the shot.
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And again, I'm not talking about all y'all. I'm talking about the ones that
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I'm talking about, right?
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And so if you use it as a tool to help you in this like life change process,
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it can be very helpful and very beneficial for a lot of people.
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But if your only focus is to lose weight and get skinny, well,
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first of all, the goal is going to feel really far away.
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And second of all, even if you white knuckle your way through,
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the weight loss is probably going to come back.
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So what do you do? What do you do? You change your focus. Sure.
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Seeing a lower number on the scale is going to be awesome. Your clothes fitting
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again is going to be super great, right? But what's going to be even better?
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We did this exercise on our PFM Plus Zoom call a couple weeks ago,
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and it's like envisioning who you want to become.
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Like, sure, you want to be someone in smaller pants, but like,
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is that really what you want to be?
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Or do you want to be someone who like makes a conscious decision when she's
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out to eat so that she doesn't feel terrible about herself when she gets home?
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Do you want to be someone who sees a cookie or sees a donut and can walk away
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from it because she knows she can have another one anytime she wants to,
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and right now she wasn't really feeling it?
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You know, do you want to be the person that gets out and moves her body?
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And yes, it helps her with her calorie burn and, you know, her muscles and,
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you know, how her body composition is. Sure.
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But she does it because it makes her feel good. And it's her outlet for the
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day. And it's something that makes her feel healthy and proud.
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Right. And so we've got that has to be the focus now.
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Like you don't just lose weight.
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And then once you've lost the weight then you feel like oh you
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know now I'm going to focus on becoming a healthy person like
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no that you are in the becoming while you
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are losing weight and so that's why that's why
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I always harp on why your action steps matter so much like if drinking water
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sounds like the biggest like torture chamber you've ever been in is having to
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drink water all day every day then that shouldn't be the first place you start
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in your weight loss right because you're going to come up against a lot of resistance for yourself.
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So you need to find these health practices that feel somewhat comfortable,
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somewhat manageable for yourself so that then you are able to master those and
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then become that person who exercises five times a week or, you know.
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Make sure she has protein at each meal or whatever it is that you already find
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easy enough, you know, and then you layer on top of that.
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And so, like, for this particular person, my challenge was, do you want to, like, just be skinny?
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Or do you want the lifestyle of someone who has lost weight and is keeping it
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off? Because those are very different things.
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And if you don't want the
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lifestyle of someone who is who has lost weight and is keeping it all that's
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where you start like why you dig into that right because I don't know many people
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out here who don't want to be healthy and so that may be you know something
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to seek a therapist about to to work on you know to plug in on.
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You know, and so then it's become it's it's addressing like what what are those
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what does health being healthy look like for you?
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And maybe is it like have you again magnified what that looks like in your brain
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that it feels like it's too far away?
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Right, because being healthy. Sure, it can be that person who only eats,
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you know, fresh fruits and vegetables and protein and runs three miles a day
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and, you know, never has sugar.
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Like sure that can be healthy but I'm
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healthy and I sure don't run three miles a day
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and Stacey's always in our group calling me
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out for not having any vegetables today and you
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know protein is like least favorite food and
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you know what I'm saying so it's like how are you even defining a healthy lifestyle
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and you know can we dial in there right so in changing your focus to I just
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I want to be someone who wakes up and drinks eight ounces of water before she drinks her coffee.
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Like, that's not very hard, right? Can we just do that and start there?
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So another thing that, you know, with that is once you kind of make up your
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mind about who this is, who you want to be, and like a lot of this, y'all,
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requires a lot of prayer, a lot of self-reflection, like a lot of quiet time.
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You know, who is it that you're aspiring to be?
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Because if you're aspiring to just be like a skinny supermodel walking around
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here than like, you know.
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I'll pray for you. You know what
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I mean? But like, so what kind of person are you hoping to show up as?
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Like a happier mom, a mom that can get out and run around with her kids,
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a mom that models good eating habits, like whatever it is that you really feel in your core.
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You don't even have to say it out loud to me that you want to be, right?
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Then you have to make that conscious decision to show up as if you already are
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her every single day. Okay.
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Reminding yourself, writing it down on sticky notes, like setting the timers
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on your phone, like committing to like embodying that person,
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even if you aren't there yet.
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Okay. And that person has to look somewhat like something you're comfortable with.
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Like if you're not comfortable in your gut, like, like for instance,
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like if I wrote down on a sticky note,
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embody being a supermodel who never eats desserts with her kids and goes to
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the gym at 4am and runs five miles, and then also does HIIT training in the
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afternoon and then also, you know,
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never has a glass of wine or never eats any cheese.
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You know, like if that's the person I'm putting on my sticky note,
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I've already lied to myself.
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I've already failed, right? So you have to, it has to be somebody that you know
24:36
you can become and then remind yourself and act as if you already are her, you know?
24:43
Okay, and then the next little point I have is to get therapy, okay?
24:47
Y'all, therapy, I know I talk about it here, a lot, but it is,
24:51
I just could wreck, everybody needs it. Every single person.
24:53
Yeah. If you're listening and you think you don't, you do, you know,
24:56
you probably need it the most.
24:57
Everybody needs therapy, right?
25:00
Especially like us moms who are juggling it all, or we've had a lot of life
25:05
or, you know, just things that have us feel weighed down, you know,
25:09
like this, this specific person who wrote in with us.
25:13
There are things, there are things that happen in our lives that can truly cause
25:17
just like mind blocks or disconnects.
25:22
And like you, you won't be able to draw the line, right? You know,
25:26
like, like we can draw the line with, okay.
25:29
And by draw the line, I mean like connect the dots. Like we can connect the
25:32
dots with someone who maybe was sexually abused as a child, having issues with,
25:39
you know, being intimate in the bedroom.
25:41
Like we can draw, we can connect that dot pretty easily, right?
25:43
But there are so many dots that you may not be able to connect because we aren't therapists.
25:50
You know what I mean? Or even the science isn't even there yet, right?
25:55
But I have noticed in this line of work that a lot of my ladies who struggle
26:02
a lot with heavily binge eating or severe eating disorders, not just like,
26:07
I need to lose 20 pounds kind of thing, but it's like, you know,
26:10
eating in the closet and, you know, a lot of shame and a lot of guilt and,
26:15
you know, severely overweight, like a lot of those.
26:18
And I think I talked about this on the GLP One podcast, but a lot of those women
26:21
also had experienced some kind of like abuse,
26:26
like whether it's sexual or physical or whatever, like and so science also shows
26:30
us that women who have traumatic history like that.
26:35
Are more likely to have disordered eating. Okay.
26:39
So like, whether it's anorexia, binge eating disorder, whatever,
26:44
like a lot, a lot of women, those are, those two are connected.
26:48
And so you would never know that, right.
26:50
About someone, you would never look at someone who had anorexia and think like, oh, she was abused.
26:56
And I'm not saying everybody that does, it's not, it's not
26:59
a hundred percent obviously right but it
27:03
seems in my line of work when I do notice the
27:07
disordered eating there is some kind of like serious
27:09
trauma around it you know or that that
27:12
may or may not be connected with it right or that may
27:15
or may not make sense that it
27:18
would be connected to it right and so
27:21
I mean we can we can help you all day
27:24
long with certain weight loss things y'all but we can't help
27:27
you like face a trauma that you never you
27:30
never faced from childhood or whatever like we can't
27:32
help you work work through that you know that is not
27:35
expertise nor is it like where you need to come for that so you need to see
27:40
a therapist right if you feel like this is you even if it's not like sexual
27:43
abuse or physical abuse if it's just like some serious trauma like I have seen
27:47
a therapist for traumas that like may not be a trauma to somebody else but were a trauma to me.
27:54
You know, like you may not classify it as a trauma, but for me,
27:57
for whatever reason, for that age or how it was experienced was a trauma, you know?
28:01
And so if you feel like looking back on your life, there are some things that
28:05
you haven't dealt with, some things that felt traumatic, some things that still
28:09
burn in your chest when it was like, you know, 25 years ago,
28:13
then yeah, therapy might be a place.
28:15
And so I did mention this to this client. Okay, so my next question I asked her was,
28:19
has motherhood changed you okay and so this is a big one for me when I'm and
28:25
it sounds like our anonymous lady she like got married in her 30s and then it
28:29
sounds like they had kids pretty quickly,
28:32
and so that's a lot of tremendous life change
28:35
at once you know like you go from being single and on your
28:37
own and be able to kind of be not selfish but selfish you know like everything's
28:41
about you and that's all you got to worry about to now you got a husband you
28:45
know who you got to worry about his needs and you know do life with and then
28:49
you have these babies and so for me and then you know when you become a mother it's like oh my gosh.
28:56
The world revolves around these children, you know what I mean?
28:59
And so for me, that's exactly, I struggled big time with this after I had Sarah Mason.
29:03
Like I felt like, okay, I'm a mom now. And so this is how it goes.
29:09
I neglect myself and everything I do revolves around this child or my husband or my job.
29:15
But like I'm the very, very last, you know?
29:19
And so that kind of mentality only works so long. And we can only neglect ourselves
29:23
for so long before we do like drop the balls in some areas or all of the areas. Right.
29:31
And so like for me, this is what I told her, like my mindset was everybody comes
29:36
first and like, that's my job.
29:38
That's why God put me on this earth. That's why he blessed me with motherhood
29:42
so that I could serve everyone else.
29:44
Right. And sometimes we can even find like these Instagram accounts or whoever,
29:48
like twisting this, you know, they will twist Bible verses.
29:52
To like confirm that belief for you that like, oh, the Proverbs 31 woman, you know what I mean?
29:58
Like, and so like, but, but, but what we aren't seeing is like Proverbs 31 woman,
30:03
like wasn't out here, you know, pouring from an empty cup.
30:08
Like she had to take time for herself to then be able to pour out the way she did. Right.
30:14
And so we miss that part. We just think we should run ourselves ragged because
30:18
that's what we're here to do. Yes, as a Christian woman, we serve others. We love others.
30:24
We are a mother, and people need us, right?
30:29
But that doesn't mean that we don't need ourselves. We don't need to show up
30:33
for ourselves. We don't need to take time for ourselves so that we can then
30:36
in turn do our best work for the other people with a joyful heart.
30:41
If we aren't coming at it from with a joyful heart, then we've missed the mark
30:45
entirely. You know what I mean? And so that was just one thing. I don't know.
30:49
To me, that just felt like maybe we haven't gotten to the point where we realize
30:54
we still have to take some time to focus on us. It may not be weight loss right now, right?
30:59
But even just like rest in our days, you know, to then be able to feel like
31:03
we can take on whatever else is put on our plate, because a lot of things are
31:08
put on our plate as mamas, you know, and working women.
31:12
The next thing I asked her is, what tabs can you close?
31:16
Okay, and so I talked about this one a few weeks ago, and so I'm not just going
31:19
to go super crazy into it.
31:21
But like paralysis from stress and overwhelm is huge.
31:26
It's huge. So like it may not be only weight loss related.
31:31
It may be that like this person has 500 things on her plate,
31:35
and so she can't even fathom putting actual effort into weight loss also.
31:41
Right our brains are spiraling all
31:44
the time we've always got like 100 tabs open on our
31:47
computer on our phone we're you know any any free moment we're like pulling
31:52
up social media to like see what we missed you know and so this is something
31:56
because she mentioned being highly motivated and like i'm i'm obviously highly
32:00
motivated as well and so sometimes yes we got a lot on our plate but.
32:06
But as a highly motivated individual, we can also add things to our plate that
32:10
nobody asked us to, you know, like we can also like, oh, I've got to do this and I should do that.
32:15
And I need to do this when in reality, like, do we or is that is that your yourself,
32:21
like your inner critic talking, you know, or your fear talking?
32:24
Because a lot of that stuff is fear based as well, you know,
32:27
your fear of rejection or whatever.
32:29
And so it's really kind of focusing in on that and saying, OK,
32:33
here are the things that are important to me.
32:36
Here are all the things that I've got on my plate. So what,
32:40
what of these things that are on my plate can I remove so that then I can give
32:46
my attention to the things that are important to me, right?
32:51
Isn't it funny how we all like just avoid the things that would make the most
32:56
impact or like make, make our lives the better version.
33:00
Like those are the last things we allow ourselves to do.
33:03
Like that is not a coincidence.
33:06
It's fear, right? It's fear of rejection. It's fear of the unknown.
33:10
And so can you face that, right?
33:13
And then do something about it. And so I told her like one of the biggest things
33:17
that I did, which I think I mentioned on the Overwhelmed podcast,
33:22
is I just stopped taking my phone to bed.
33:25
You know, like I plugged my phone in, in my closet. it, I no longer like get
33:30
in bed and let scrolling be my downtime, right?
33:33
And that has helped me so much to not only like come up with random tasks that
33:38
I didn't even know I needed to do until I got on Facebook, right?
33:42
But also like it helped remove some of that noise that's unnecessary in my brain
33:47
right before I go to bed so that I can go to bed not feeling so overwhelmed, you know?
33:53
And so then the last thing that you know told her is to pray about it right like.
34:00
We can offer all the tips. I can sit here and talk for hours,
34:03
right, on tips and tricks and science and proven things.
34:10
But the reality is, is I will never know her exact life. I will never know her
34:16
exact struggles, just like she'll never know mine, just like y'all will never
34:19
know mine, even though I sit here and talk about it often, you know.
34:23
And so the only person that does is also the person that can meet you there,
34:27
right? And so that's the Lord.
34:30
And so even though it may feel like weight loss, well, you know,
34:35
we got people out here with dying of cancer and, you know, like losing their
34:40
jobs and stuff like that.
34:42
And you're telling me to pray and take this to God, you know, and it's weight loss.
34:47
Like, yeah, because clearly it is burdening you enough to post it anonymously
34:52
on social media, you know?
34:54
And so that's something that he wants.
34:55
He wants things that are a lot less burdening than even that, right?
34:59
And so if you, I mean, I don't know if you guys heard it.
35:03
Well, I guess when I play it back, I'll hear, but like my alarm literally just
35:06
went off to, because it's a time that I have set to pray about a certain thing
35:11
that in the grand scheme of things is like, I feel like other people would be like Constance, what?
35:17
You know, that's not, y'all are gonna be fine or whatever.
35:20
But for me, it's a weight on me.
35:24
It's a burden on me right now. And so like I'm setting a timer literally to
35:29
pray about that specific thing, you know, and that's the least I could offer.
35:33
You know, God, you know, is my timer and my one minute of time to pray.
35:40
Right. But like, I believe that he meets us there, you know,
35:44
and I know that he meets me there, you know, and so don't be afraid to take that to the Lord.
35:50
And I will say this is exactly like what prompted me to write the fruitful journal.
35:56
The Fruitful Goal Journal that we have available because...
36:00
It felt like so many women were like disconnecting their faith journey from their weight journey.
36:07
And like they're very much interwoven and they're very much involved with each other.
36:11
Right. And like we could be, y'all know, we've all done this at this point in
36:15
our lives where we could be running a race and doing all the things and all
36:20
the actions and all the everything we need to be doing.
36:22
But it's in the wrong direction because it's never the direction God intended for us.
36:28
Right. We can have all the tips and the hacks and everything,
36:30
but it was never what God intended us to do, right?
36:34
And so that's why I wrote Fruitful, so that first things first,
36:38
we can try to get into alignment, you know what I mean?
36:41
So that then our efforts aren't wasted and we aren't finding ourselves frustrated.
36:45
And so obviously that comes with the prayer and with the quiet time with the
36:50
Lord and just like calming your mind and casting your focus on Him when you are.
36:58
Like stewing over or stressed over these issues, whatever they are,
37:03
but specific to the weight loss, right?
37:06
And so, you know, I just, I did, I told this woman, you know,
37:11
too, like, this is a lot of the work that we do with our PFN Plus ladies.
37:16
I wish we could do it with our regular PFN ladies, but it is just too many of them, you know?
37:23
And so with our PFM Plus, we like dive in with this kind of stuff and we do
37:27
all the deep work, not just like the superficial,
37:31
like, here's your meal plan, you know, here's what snacks you should be eating
37:35
this week because we know there's more to it than that, right?
37:38
And so sometimes you just need to dive in on that deeper work to snap yourself
37:44
out of whatever you've been walking through.
37:47
So anyways, I hope y'all enjoyed that.
37:50
I felt like it would just be a good one to share, you know, somebody else's
37:54
personal journey who I'm thankful she did not put her name so that then I would
37:58
feel comfortable to be able to share it with you guys because we do keep most
38:01
of our stuff confidential and, you know, that kind of thing inside the group.
38:04
And so with it being anonymous, we don't know who it is. Y'all don't know who it is.
38:08
And so that makes it, you know, something that we all can see and relate to,
38:14
you know, and talk about.
38:15
And so, as always, I hope you guys remember to subscribe.
38:20
Music.