Ep. 80 The Follow Through Factor

Hi, and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I'm Paula Parker, and I'm a life and weight loss coach. So I have some ideas on how to eat to release weight. What I'm talking about is the mechanics of weight loss, right? Based on what I've learned and what works for me and my lifestyle. But I also really think that there is no one size fits all when it comes to diet.

And so today I want to focus on how to follow through on your plan. Plan. So whether that's a fasting schedule, if you're doing Keto, Noom, Whole30, whatever it is that you feel is the way that you want to be eating and that will be serving you and your goals. So no judgment on what you are choosing, whatever seems logical and works for your lifestyle, how you want to feel and the results that you want, both on the scale and in your relationship with food.

No judgment about whatever that is or what that looks like for you right now. Okay. So. I am constantly asked this question. How do I follow through on my plan? I know how to eat healthy, but what do I do when my brain is against me? When in that moment, I really do want the ice cream, right? And it's such an important question because most diets, all the ones that I've mentioned, will work so long as you can follow through and stick with them.

Right? So let's talk about what to do when you have these competing or conflicting desires. So on the one hand, you really have the desire to follow through on your plan or your protocol. I use the word protocol. It's kind of like a decision making framework about making choices around food that I use with my clients, but you can think of it in terms of a protocol or a plan, right?

Of course, we want to follow through on that so that we get the weight loss. But on the other hand, we also have the desire to eat that thing or to overeat. And that's not part of our plan or our protocol. So here are specific examples of when we are not following through. I want to be really, really specific here.

So that

And area that you might want to really hone in in terms of following through and kind of get the most bang for your buck. One is eating in between meals. Okay? So this is when we aren't physically hungry at all, but are eating in between meals because were maybe emotionally hungry. The second time we eat in between meals is when we just are not allowing enough physical hunger for our body to release weight.

So when I work with clients, we use a hunger scale. So if you're familiar with that, then that oftentimes looks like eating when you haven't reached, say, upwards of 6 to 10 on the hunger scale. Okay, so you're eating below a 6 on the hunger scale. That's eating in between meals. Then sometimes we're not following through when we are overeating as we are eating.

Okay, so there's eating in between meals, there's eating as we are eating, meaning we keep eating without honoring how our body is feeling. So instead we continue to eat more because maybe the food tastes delicious or we don't want to waste, that kind of thing. Okay. And then number three is immediately after we finished eating and we eat more despite feeling physically satiated.

Okay. So this can be dessert. This can be second helpings or third helpings, anything like that, or having a snack, piece of fruit, handful of this or that after we've already reached physical satiety in our bodies. Right. So we kind of ignore that and we tend to overeat. That would not be following through on any kind of weight loss plan because you're eating past the point at which your body needs fuel for needs energy from food.

Okay. So I'll use an example of ice cream because it's such a common one for people. But just sub in whatever food is challenging for you to say no to, or to stop at what I call like satiation or like when you're satisfied physically, when your brain is saying, I really want ice cream. And it's also saying, but you know, that's not going to get me closer to my weight loss goal.

You want it and you don't want it, but your brain will not stay in that indecision because of how uncomfortable that is. So it will listen to one side and then it will take action. So to eat the ice cream or to do something else, what I'm about to say now is going to sound very obvious, but I'm going to say it because I think it's something that actually gets ignored.

When things are going really well, and you're feeling pretty good about life in general, your brain might still offer the thought you know, I really want some ice cream. But the other thought, that won't get me closer to my goal, is more compelling than the ice cream. It's easy for you to brush it off when life is good, when things are going well for you.

But, when you are tired, stressed, have a head cold, the kids are sick, your boss sent you a snippy email, your shoulder hurts, an unexpected bill came, you haven't seen the scale move in two weeks. That is when the suggestion of eating the ice cream is very compelling. That is when you need the tools of following through.

Most of us do the opposite. Most of us take all of those circumstances that I just mentioned, and we use them as justifications to overeat or to go off our plan. Instead of doubling down and following through. So I maybe have talked about this example before, but there was a while when I would leave work and my goal is always to go for a run.

And I took the bus home, the public transit, and. So many times I would be on that bus thinking about the run that I had planned and just did not want to do it. I was just thinking, I don't have the energy, you know, it's like five o'clock and it's dark already. Maybe it's raining. I lived in Vancouver at the time.

So. Oftentimes I may be on the bus and I would be maybe stressed or I'd be tired. I'd be like stressed about money or whatever it was. And then I would remind my brain that that is actually when I needed the run the most. Also, I was going through a breakup at that time and I was just kind of feeling like I didn't want to do anything right.

Kind of heartbroken. And again, I would just remind myself, actually, that is the thing that I need the most to like change my state, make myself feel better. When I felt like doing it the least, that's when I actually needed it the most. And that really helped me do it when I didn't feel like doing it.

That's where you have the most leverage. If you can follow through when life feels like it's against you. If you can eat on plan, then in those moments, you will see results when you can do it. When you don't feel like doing it, that's gold. So this is what I'm calling the follow through factor. When you.

Leverage following through, even when it feels the hardest to do it, when you have that skill, it will be the biggest factor in releasing weight the fastest, whether that's five pounds or 100 pounds. So the next time you are feeling a little sorry for yourself or down about things in general, that's not a problem because that's going to happen because you're a human, you're just going to have bad days.

Remember that this. Is an opportunity to double down on yourself. It won't feel great, but starting to build that skill of doing it when you don't feel like it and it's harder is going to be amazing in terms of sustainability and long term results. So let's talk in terms of what is going to make you eat and what's going to make you follow through and not eat the thing.

Let's start high level and then I'll break it down into smaller concepts. Ending with some really practical tools that you can start doing today to follow through first high level, whether you eat the ice cream or do something else instead is determined by three things. One, your level of impulse control to your awareness of what you're thinking.

And three, your capacity to deal with your emotions without food. What makes it harder? is your current habits, your history of food choices. If you're feeling a sense of failure right now, and lastly, the inclination to conform due to the people around you. So your family, peer pressure, you eat whatever they eat.

So I'm going to talk to you about what you can do to increase your likelihood of following through. I really want to share with you what not to do. This is the biggest mistake I see when it comes to following through. And just as I'm talking about this, just see if you do this, just check in with yourself.

So in that moment, when you want the ice cream, you try and remind yourself of your goal. 20 pounds bikini in the summer, whatever. And you try and wrestle up, you try to summon up that sense of motivation or being inspired to avoid eating the ice cream. That's normal. If that's happening to you, don't feel bad.

It's totally normal because outside of those moments, it probably does have that effect. It probably does inspire you or motivate you and make you excited to change. But if you are trying to access that. In that moment, that is what I call white knuckling. And it works some of the time, but never long term.

So don't do that. Don't try and remember your goal in the moment of temptation. I remember when I was doing the macros, I'd be like, I'd like reached my macro limit and I'd be like really hungry and like really wanting something. And I'd be scrolling Fitspo to kind of like, you know, what am I doing this for again?

How do I want to look? All that kind of stuff. It can work temporarily, but it's really white knuckling and it doesn't last long term. It's not effective. Okay. So it won't help. And if you've tried doing that, you know, for yourself, it's not effective longer term. So what is effective long term here's what you can do in order to follow through when your brain says, okay, I really want the ice cream.

And in that moment it feels true to you. You, you think you really do want it, right? You don't care so much about your goal. You really do want the ice cream in the moment. Set your phone timer for five to ten minutes. Five minutes, maybe 10 minutes. If you got it in you and do all of these things that I'm about to talk about, or even just one of them, because what we're doing is we're just trying to change that brain behavior.

We're trying to interrupt the pattern, right? So we want to interrupt the pattern and give your brain something to do. You can do deep breathing. If that works for you, you can drink a glass of water, you can wash your hands, anything that's going to be moving your body or allowing you to in which it's interrupting that pattern.

Next thing is skip ahead mentally. I've talked about this before where you're sort of like fast forwarding the tape. That's a little bit outdated. No one's listening to tapes anymore. So imagine you're just skipping the ads on a podcast, right? You just skip ahead 10 seconds. So you want to be skipping ahead mentally.

Remember that the actual eating of the food is only minutes, right? Maybe seconds, but maybe minutes. Then how will you feel after you eat the food, both emotionally and physically? Because that effect will last hours, maybe the rest of the day, even into the next day, depending on how much you're eating.

Okay. So skip ahead mentally. Next is what is the worst? That's going to happen if you sit and do nothing rather than reach for the food or prepare something else to eat. Seriously. Just ask yourself that. Just check in. What, what does my brain think is going to happen if I don't eat that thing? And just see what comes up.

How can you open to the experience of that? How can you lean into that for the time that's on your timer, the remaining time, I promise you that if you do this, the next time your brain wants you to go off your plan, the next time you have an urge to eat, you'll be able to allow that to happen without white knuckling it.

Okay. So one is set your timer five to 10 minutes, interrupt the pattern. Like during that five to 10 minutes, you want to interrupt that pattern. Do something with your body, deep breathing, glass of water, anything like that. Next is skip ahead mentally. How am I going to feel after I eat the food? Then ask yourself, what's the worst that's going to happen if you don't eat the food?

What is your brain telling you is going to happen? How are you going to feel and how can you open to feeling like that? Okay, so this is really a skill to allow an urge and the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Why? Because you're changing what's happening in your brain. Being able to follow through like this where that self sabotage stops happening.

This is going to happen when one, you form new habits, you lay down basically new tracks in your brain, a new pattern of better choices. You gain more momentum in terms of your not. You don't have that sense of failure. You have a sense of success. And lastly, if somebody is eating food around you, or you feel pressured by family or, you know, your peers or whatever, that doesn't affect you.

You're not influenced to overeat just to go along. So you need a really well managed brain so that you don't believe everything your brain suggests to you in the moment, right? Like I want the ice cream. There are valid reasons you're not following through. And if you have this info. Even the info that I've talked about today, but you find that you are still not doing it or seeing weight loss, then I really recommend coaching.

The reasons you're not doing it is due to how you're currently thinking about food, how you're currently thinking about weight loss and yourself. In addition to your capacity to manage feeling negative emotions without food, dealing with our emotions without food. Most of the time, our thinking and feelings are on autopilot.

Based on the tracks in our brain, right? Neural pathways. And we're not even aware that they're driving what we do. So coaching is about making you aware of what's going on in your brain. What's actually going on, because that's what's creating your current weight. That's creating the actions that you're taking around food, how you're eating all your habits.

And then it equips you with exactly what your brain needs to think in ways that are different. Then they are now and deal with your emotions so that you don't need food to escape them. So this is what I help clients do. Most weight loss programs will not do this. Most will tell you what to eat or more specifically what not to eat.

And then they say, if it doesn't work, you're not working hard enough. But if your brain is still thinking in the same way, it was when you put on the weight, any weight loss will be temporary. Because you've only dealt with the effect, like the body fat and not the reasons that the weight came on in the first place, which was your brain, how you were thinking and feeling.

So if you are kind of sick of never ending attempts at weight loss and getting nowhere, and you really want something that's going to deal with more of the root of the problem, but you Please go ahead and book a call with me so that we can talk about your specific situation and just see if coaching is the right next step for you.

And if it's not, that's no problem. We will come up with some action steps for you to do on your own to get you closer to what you want. Okay. That's what I have for you on following through. Build up your skill in this area. I promise it will pay off. Okay. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.