Archives January 2019

Could This Two-Letter Word Help You Stop Overeating?

This week’s tip is super short but super important.

It’s a major stumbling block for many many women on the weight loss journey.

What am I talking about?

It’s the inability to say “no” …….without feeling very, very guilty.

For many women, saying “no” triggers our deepest fears.

“Uh-oh, I’m unkind / a meanie  / selfish and other people will see unkind/ a meanie / selfish.”

Many of the beautiful women I work overeat because they can’t say “no.”

And I’m NOT talking about saying no to food.

I’m talking about all those times during the day when you’re asked to do something, maybe outside your job spec, you slap a smile on your face and you nod “sure sure I’ll do that” but inside you’re pissed!!!’

It happens a lot.

Many of us women are conditioned from birth to believe it’s feminine, and somehow attractive, to put other people’s needs first.

And, if we don’t, then = selfish.

Of course, rationally, we know that’s utter utter utter rubbish.

But on an emotional level we feel very triggered.

So many women are living a life of saying “yes” when their soul is screaming “no” and they’re exhausting.

That resentment and frustration is a recipe for overeating.

So what’s a busy kind-hearted woman to do?

The quickest way to eliminate this type of overeating is a clean, clear and very firm “no, that doesn’t work for me.”

If you’re sitting there freaking out, the good news is that learning to say “no” is a learned skill.

Meaning, even if you’re taught everyone that you’re a “yes” person or a people-pleaser up until now, you can start owning your ”no”, from today.

It just takes a little bit of practice.

Like all skills, start small. Say no to something inconsequential.

And every day practice working your no muscle.

A client recently shared how she’d said no to a sibling. She felt like she was going to burst into flames! guess what she didn’t.

No guilt, no justifying. She just said no. thank you but no. And how liberating, how freeing it was for her.

The more you own your no, the more you’re able to make space for the yeses in your life.

Goodbye resentment eating. Hello being your happy shape and size.

Did you know …. the first hypnotherapist was an Austrian chap called Mesmer? Dr Mesmer.

Hence, the saying to be ‘mesmerised’.

Most of the women I work with realise that on some level they been mesmerised by the noise and distractions around them.

A big part of this is that in this day and age we’re busy busy busy these days, it’s ‘normal’ for us to be super busy. This increasing busyness is leading us to be more and more mesmerised.

We’re focusing on what is going on up there around us outside of ourselves rather than what’s going on within us.

Which is a major issue on the weight loss journey because when we’re mesmerised by the noise around us, it’s nearly impossible to hear what’s going on within.

You see your body has such wisdom, so much instinctual, innate wisdom.

Wisdom we’re ALL born with.

Wisdom like knowing when to eat, knowing when to stop eating and knowing what to eat.

But when we’re focusing outside ourselves by being busy busy busy it’s super difficult to tune in, to hear what our inner wisdom has to say.

So I encourage you to slow down, reconnect with yourself via your breathing, via being mindful.

Gather your attention and bring it inwards more and more often.

Your body so much innate wisdom, so yourself the gift of being still enough to hear what she has to say.

I’m often asked:

“How is it that I can be very successful in my corporate career, in control of every area of my life, and achieve goals but I really struggle when it comes to my weight?”

It’s a very, very common frustration.

Today we’re exploring 3 common and unhelpful mistakes that high achieving women make when it comes to them being their happy shape and size.

1. Law of ‘Faster, Harder, More Focused = Better

With many goals, when we work harder, faster, and are more focused – we typically reap quicker rewards.

But in the journey to becoming your happy shape and size, the opposite can be true.

Permanent weight loss is like a box of tangled Christmas lights.

The harder you pull at the knotted mess, the faster you try to untangle it, the tighter the knot gets.

Grrrrrr!!!

Harder and faster paradoxically does NOT equal faster weight loss.

2. The Law of Deprivation

Often with weight loss, our logic is “if cutting back a little helps me lose a little bit of weight, then cutting back a lot will speed things up, right?”

Logical in theory – yes.

But does it work in practice? Nope.

The very practice of deprivation sends our incredibly wise body into the  starvation response.

And the third most common mistake of high achieving women is to have a…

3. Super Scary Deadline

For example, “I have four weeks to fit my bikini for the cruise.”

We think that the urgency will spur us into action.

But does it?

Again, nope.

So, what’s the answer?

Let’s go back and have a look at the tangled Christmas lights. Forget rushing, yanking, stressing, take the opposite approach.

Go gently.

Permanent weight loss is about creating a lifestyle that supports you  in the long term.

Slow down.

Gradually …unravel the wires.

With patience and persistence.

Start making small changes to your eating that you know you can and want to live with for the rest of your life (not just until the cruise!)

Be patient. It might take longer than you thought, but it will be worth it.

Keeping on keeping on.

I hope you found that helpful.

If Ms High Achiever, if you’re watching this thinking, “I knooooooooooow what to do I’m just not doing it!” why not join the hundreds of smart, successful women who’ve become their happy shape and size with the virtual gastric band hypnosis.

Byyye!

This week we’re talking about the   CONVERSATION.

You know the one.

It’s that conversation that countless women have in their head every Sunday night, any given Sunday.

It goes something like this:

“That’s it. Enough’s enough. Tomorrow I’m going on a diet. I’m going to lose this weight, once and for all because I’m sick of feeling like this.”

Often the conversation is triggered by a comment from an unsuspecting family member. Sometimes it’s from seeing an unforgiving photo on Facebook. Or, maybe, even our elasticised jeans have started to feel tight.

So, it’s Sunday night….

And post-conversation, we’re positivity bursting with motivation… commitment…. and will power. “Forget about all those other diets”, we confidently tell ourselves, “they were just practice sessions for this Monday.”

And, because we’ve all been here before, we know how that scenario ends, right?!

By Wednesday we’re struggling with cravings, our willpower has gone AWOL, and we find ourselves elbow-deep in the family-sized packet of chips, wondering where all that positivity and motivation went.

Life is too short for diets.

Life is too short for that conversation.

The real problem with the  “I’ll start the diet on Monday” (or the NY or any other arbitrary starting point)  is that those dates are completely meaningless.

What we’re really saying is “not now” or “right now I can’t commit to myself.”

And therein lies the problem.

Sure we can imagine committing to a healthier way of being sometime in the future, but not now.

And here’s the kicker…

…that future date n.e.v.e.r. e.v.e.r arrives.

Because when Monday or New Year’s Day actually does arrive, we then let some other future date delay our start date again and again and again

We become helpless.  We lose our confidence. We get stuck in that yoyo cycle

And our jeans get even tighter.

So what can you do instead, gorgeous?

Always start now.

In this breath.
In this moment.

START NOW

No matter the day, the date, the season.

Anytime you notice that you’re delaying being nourishing to your body, delaying it to sometime in the future – come back home to yourself.

In the now.

No flash start date required.

No fanfare.
No drama.

All you need do is …start nourishing your body now.

Start today.

And before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to becoming your happy shape and size step by step.

This week’s tip is something I’m commonly asked.

What is it?

“How often should I weigh myself?”

Daily, weekly, monthly, never?

We get a lot of conflicting advice about the scales.

For example, if you’ve come from a corporate background where progress is measured through KPIs. Or if you’ve come from a Weight Watchers background then you’re used to frequent weigh-ins.

Which is based on the idea:

“what gets measured, gets done.”

But, I’ve found – specifically with us women – that daily weighing leads to perfectionist thinking. Daily weigh-ins are a really quick way for us to self-sabotage.

Blokes are different!

Now, if I was talking to blokes, I’d suggest daily weigh-ins because they are biologically programmed to shift the weight more quickly and easily than we are.

It’s a sad fact of life. For men, daily weigh-ins can be very motivating.

But for us women, what I encourage you to do is put the scales away.

Here’s why.

When we women stand on the scale, only one of three things can happen.

1. The scale goes up

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh CRAP!!!”

Adrenaline, stress hormones, cortisol, and that deflation of “nothing EVER works for me!”

Very often our response to that is to self-soothe and commiserate with chocolate. Not very helpful!

2. The scale remains the same

Boooooooo, the dreaded plateau. Once again, we go into that place of self-doubt,

adrenalin-fuelled anxiety. Hello, self-soothing chocolate!

3.The number goes down

Even when the number moves in our desired direction, we still self-sabotage!

Either with:

a. “Yahooooooo,” I’m stoked!” and—you guessed it—I’m going to celebrate with some chocolate.

Or, b. “Ohhhhhh man, is that all I lost, I expected more than that,” where’s that chocolate?

So, having worked with hundreds of women, you can see the theme developing here.

Regular weigh-ins cause self-sabotage.

No matter what the number reads, we use that number, as a way of beating ourselves up— and that makes progress virtually impossible.

For us women, the scale has an eye-watering ability to make us feel bad, to trap us in that shaming space of feeling yuuuuck.

Give yourself space to change

When you’re first pregnant, can the outside world see the miraculous shifts happening inside you?

Course it can’t.

The mirror only reflects the changes in the second trimester.

Becoming your happy shape and size is a similar journey. The scales simply aren’t sophisticated enough to show all the changes happening inside.

The real goal is learning to measure your progress by more encouraging means.

For example, notice how loose your shirts are becoming, how easily your jeans button up, or becoming aware of how energised you feel. Or, noticing how confident and in control you feel.

Because that’s what becoming our happy shape and size is really about. It’s about how good you feel inside. NOT the number on a scale.

Sooner or later, you realise you don’t need a scale to tell prove that you’re making

progress—you know you are. You can see it in your changing silhouette in the mirror.

I invite you to put down your beating-up-stick, take back your power and allow the scales to gather dust in the cupboard.

Give yourself the gift of space. Space to change.

Remember, the scales can’t tell you how beautiful YOU are, or how valuable YOU are.