Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 40: THIS is the right mindset to have with the scale weight
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversation podcast. So today, I wanted to talk about an analogy I sometimes use with clients of how we should think about weight loss and how excited or indeed not excited we should be when our weight goes up or down. So, one of the things that I like people to imagine is either a roller coaster or if you like a seesaw effect when it comes to ⁓ weight loss. If you are very much on an absolute mega high, it's like you won the lottery when your weight drops and your emotions are up here and you're feeling absolutely on top of the world, then you can expect reasonably to also feel pretty crap when weight doesn't go down, right? If you have a weight spike, you're probably going to feel pretty flat, pretty crappy, pretty negative, because for most people it is this kind of seesaw effect, or if you like on a roller coaster effect, is the higher the high, the lower the low with it. And one of the things that I heavily emphasise to my one-to-one clients is this shift away from being, yes, it's okay to be a little bit excited, of course it is, that you see a nice drop, that's cool, you're absolutely fine, but that should feel like a, ⁓ that's great, that's really good. That level of emotion, if you're like, I'm so happy, thank God for that, but then you create all that emotion and that internal dialogue that you've, as I say, won the lottery, that's a problem because you will then feel like you've also lost the winning lottery ticket when you do see that kind of typical spike in weight that will happen, right? And I always emphasize this. The idea that weight spikes and weight fluctuations are not normal is just complete BS, it's complete nonsense. If you walk into a weight loss phase thinking that for the next 60 days you're gonna see a drop on the scale every single day, that is just completely the wrong expectation. It's a bit like living in Scotland and expecting the next 60 days to be sunny. You'd have to be absolutely daft or hitting a serious amount of whiskey to believe that, right? That's not going to happen, ever, both on the weather front and on the weightless front. So the point is this, is that you want to go in with this mentality of I am looking for an overall downward trend and I'm gonna be pleased when the scales drop because that is my goal and it's reasonable to be pleased. but I'm also going to imagine it's like me picking up a two pound coin or maybe even a five pound note if there's a big drop, but I'm not gonna treat it like I found a 50 pound note on the ground. That would be obviously pretty good, right? You'd be having a good day. If you walk around and you find a 50 pound note, you'd be like, bloody hell, I'm having a good day here. That's brilliant, right? You'd probably be quite excited about it. Whereas what we want is I want you to kind of like, if you see a small drop, see it as a two pound coin, and if you see a bigger one, maybe hit a new low. then yeah, sure, that's five pounds on the ground, that's pretty good. That's not a bad start to the day, we'll take that. But we are not gonna be losing sleep over it. In the same way that if you lost a two pound coin, hopefully you wouldn't be absolutely distraught. It wouldn't ruin your week, right? And you certainly wouldn't go out and inhale loads and loads of food because you're so sad about it and so upset and you've worked so hard and it's, you know. That's not what we want. We do not want that level of emotion. We want some calmness with this. So there's a little bit of tough lovin' here in that if you are right now celebrating it like you have won the lottery and you're super hyped and you're like, I'm gonna have a great day today, remember what the reverse of that is. Because really, you should be having a good day regardless, right? Whether my scale weight goes up or down at this stage after years and years of weighing myself, myself even. I can't say it's something that really excites me massively, right? If my weight sees a good drop, I'm like, ⁓ that's good, and I move on. And in two minutes, I'm busy thinking about client messages and work and all the rest of it. I am not sitting there dreaming of how fast my progress is right now. Like, it's not that important. I think this is the bit that people get wrong when it comes to weigh-ins, is it's just data. And actually, can fluctuate for so many reasons, and I'm afraid it can fluctuate up for the same reasons it fluctuates down. I sometimes see this too where people get really, really excited when it drops and I can kind of see, I'm like, that's cool because that's where we're going, but I also can see that when I'm looking at it, I know why you had a lower weigh in there because you had a super active day the day before or maybe you had such a busy day you ended up having to skip dinner or you just had an early dinner or whatever it was, right? You had a big lunch so you didn't feel you needed it at dinner, you just had some fruit and some yogurt or something for dinner, so a small one, and then you kind of see a drop in the morning, think, oh, amazing. It's like, actually is that just food in your digestive tract? Is that something we should be, like, I'm not saying it should be negative, because it shouldn't be, but we should probably still feel fairly calm about it. So this is something I also wanted to touch on is we want to shift that mentality because we're understanding that we're on a roller coaster. And if we reduce the height of the highs, you'll also start to reduce the, how low the lows go as well. And you will start to feel it increasingly calm as time goes on. And that is something you should seek to do, Because actually what I see a lot as a coach, and I'm pretty sure any coach would say this about weight loss, right? I know when I speak to Harry and Louie and Laney about this as well, it's the same thing. It's like, it's amazing how often people could be doing absolutely brilliantly and they will stress themselves out massively because they don't get the level of weight loss they see in one particular week or they see one particular weight spike. and they let that derail and impact them. And as coaches, we're always there to nudge and reassure and kind of re-evaluate people's expectations and kind of be like, okay, well, did we expect that we would lose 30 days in a row without a weight spike? That's not realistic. That's not how weight works. You could have not gone to the toilet that morning and your weight's up. You could be better hydrated, your weight's up. You could have eaten dinner later, your weight's up. You could have had a salty meal, your weight's up. You could be stressed, your weight's up. Like there's 101 things. So I think it can be really, really important to try and shift away. So I always like this analogy of the 50 pound note and the five pound note and the two pound coin is like, like I say, look, if you see a tiny little drop, you might even be like, ⁓ it's 50 pence on the ground, cool. If you see a little bit of a kind of more moderate drop, kind of what you might be expecting, you might think, ⁓ that's cool, I'll find two pounds, that's cool. And maybe a five or if you have to see a big drop, that's fine. But anything above that, I would challenge you on. And I would also say to you, that what you should be proud of is the consistency you're putting in. So when I look, and I see this a lot to clients, like I'm looking and I'm like, okay, we've seen a good weight drop, cool, that's great, but look at how consistent you've been with your calories, your tracking's been excellent, you said that you felt really organized with food, your steps have been great, you hit your gym sessions, you've even moved a bit more than you planned to because you did an extra bit of whatever it was and went out for an extra walk or played badminton with a friend. Like you're doing all these amazing things. that's what's driven that weight loss, that's what we should be celebrating rather than just the weight loss in and of itself. Now it's not to say we're not going to say, ⁓ well done, you've dropped 10 kilos, you've done great and made all this progress, of course we are and you'll see me do that on Instagram and stuff talking about these results, but it's really important on a week to week basis we are process driven rather than outcome driven because regardless of what I saw in the scales this morning, I was still going to stick to my calories, regardless of whether it was up or down, I was going to hit my protein target today, regardless of anything else, I was still gonna go for a walk in the sunshine to make myself feel good, and I was also gonna go to the gym, like in the evening. Like none of those things were gonna be influenced with what I saw in the scales. And if you're the type of person still who's saying, I'm not going to gym, I'm pissed off at the scales today, that's a problem, unfortunately. And it's a problem you need to tackle because you will struggle to be, and this is a bit blunt, you will struggle to be successful at weight loss in the long term if you don't start to tackle that. I don't mean you need to fix it all in one go. but you need to challenge that and be like, actually, if you are parent and have a kid, is that the relationship you'd want them to have with maybe like if they were weighing themselves, you wouldn't want them to have that or just even with a friend, is that the relationship you'd want a friend to have with the scales? Like, ⁓ you're not gonna exercise because the scales didn't say what you wanted them to. You're gonna emotionally overeat because the scales went up a bit because you've not been to the toilet this morning. I don't know about that. I'm not sure that's a good place to be, is it? So that can be really, really useful too. So hopefully that was helpful, just a short and snappy episode on getting into a better mindset around the scales in general and just feeling like you are more in control, more in the driving seat and not letting the scales drive you. If that was helpful. and you want to leave a review, please do so. That would be very much appreciated. And otherwise, if you are interested in one-to-one coaching, as always, the link is in the show notes as well. So you can book a little call and we can chat through what your goals are and how one-to-one coaching can help you and if it would be a good fit for you. And if not, I will signpost you as to where to go next. Hope you enjoyed this episode and I'll speak soon.