How to commit to weight loss

In this episode, you will learn the difference between wanting weight loss and being committed to weight loss. You will learn how to stay committed throughout your weight loss journey. Listen on to find out more!

Transcript

Welcome to the Weight Loss for South Asian Women Professionals podcast. I'm your host, certified life and weight loss coach and physician Dr. Amruti Choudhry MBBS. I lost over 92 pounds using the mind management tools I teach. In this podcast you will learn how to lose weight for the last time by taking control of your mind.

Once you deal with the mental weight, the physical weight will be much easier to release. If you're ready for a fresh new perspective on weight loss, you're in the right place.

Hello, lovely ladies, and welcome to the podcast. Firstly, a very happy new year to you all. I hope you had the best new year's celebration and you are ready to make 2022 your year. I am so excited to see your transformation this year. And thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for being a loyal listener to the podcast and supporting me throughout 2021.

So I applaud you and I hope you have found it very useful. And more than finding it useful, I hope you've put some things into practice and have seen the results for yourself. And I would love to hear from you. So please write me a comment on the podcast app that you listened to me on so that I can see how it is affecting you today.

So firstly, before I get started into the episode for today, I wanted to let you know that I had a lot of messages from people saying that over the Christmas period they were struggling and they would like to get some more support. So I've made a decision to extend my group coaching program start date to February the first.

So if you would like to join, I am still doing free consultations all throughout January. So whenever you are free, you are welcome to book, a free consultation to join. This is the time to make 2022 your year, the year where you decide to make a change, the year where you say "This is it. I'm actually going to do this for myself."

So I have full faith in you, and I know that you will be able to do it yourself.

So before we start on the podcast today, I just wanted to let you know about my Christmas and new year's period. So it actually started off with one of my sons being in hospital. So we were in hospital for about three days and it was actually really tough for me.

More than anything it was tough holding space for myself during that time, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to be a really good mum and to be strong and to support everyone. But it took me a few days to actually realise the effect that it had on me. And so we were thankfully back home just before Christmas and then we had a lovely Christmas period.

So it just reminded me about the 50, 50 of life. In the episode when he was in hospital, it was quite scary, it was quite stressful, it was quite draining physically and mentally. It was disruptive. And then we had a period at Christmas where I felt very grateful, very thankful, very happy, and very loving towards myself and my family, which just showed me that there are going to be times where things are hard and there are going to be times where things are better. And this is the 50 50 of reality. And I just wanted to share that with you, because it may come across to some of you that I've got the best life in the world, and I never feel negative emotion and things like that.

And that's just not true. It's just that I accept that negative emotion is going to be there, that this is a part of life, and when I normalise negative emotion, it is so much easier for me to be able to deal with.

So I wanted to be able to help you commit this year. The reason you're listening to this podcast is because you want to lose weight and you want to keep it off for good.

Now, the best way to do that is to sign up for the group coaching program. And if you're still thinking about it, definitely get on a consult and book one. So you can go to www.amruticoaching.com to find out more details about that. When you go to the work with me tab, you'll be able to see some information about the group coaching program and to be able to book a free consult with me all throughout January, we start on February the first, and that is the best way for you to actually not just learn the concepts, but put them into practice.

If you are still on the fence and you're thinking, hmm, I'm not sure if this is for me. This is why I wanted to do this podcast for you so that you can still get results. I often get messages from people who have listened to the podcast and they are changing their lives by putting the things that I talk about in the podcast into practice.

So you can be one of them and I look forward to the message that you're going to be sending me when you put this into practice as well.

So today I'm going to be talking about making a decision to commit to weight loss this year. So I wanted to talk about the difference between wanting and being committed.

So wanting thing is quite passive. It's like, it would be nice if I could do it. So if you're thinking I want to lose weight, it's kind of like, yeah, it'd be nice if I could.

Commitment is I will do everything it takes to get there. I am willing to feel all the negative emotion that comes up. I know that it won't be rainbows and daisies. It won't be very smooth sailing and an easy all the time, but I'm willing to go through that discomfort to get there.

So what I think about my own journey, initially I was wanting weight loss. I was thinking I really want to lose weight. And when I was in that place, it was as if I could feel good because I was tricking my brain into thinking this noble thought.

And when I was thinking that I wanted it, I could just stay in that place of wanting it, but not taking any action to get there. So when I decided to commit to the weight loss, that's when I decided to do everything it took to get there. So how can you commit to a goal? I want you to ask yourself that question.

Are you wanting weight loss or are you committed to weight loss? Are you willing to experience the short-term discomfort that comes with being committed to weight loss for the long-term comfort of feeling better, being able to feel your urges, being able to eat to enough every single day, without having to ever worry about your food or your weight ever again. If that's the long-term comfort, are you willing to experience the short-term discomfort now of going through the process of learning the tools, of putting it into practice, of changing the way your brain functions.

I asked myself this question all the time about how I committed to my goal and I now choose long-term comfort over the short-term discomfort. I always ask myself, am I willing to experience the discomfort now to sort my future self up for actual success?

And this is what I try to do every. So when I'm thinking, how can I set my future self up for success - this may show up as putting my clothes out for the next day or clearing the kitchen before I go to bed, even if I don't want to, or putting my kids uniforms out so that it isn't as much of a scramble in the morning.

And I may not want to do all of these things, but I remind myself that my future self will thank me when I do it. And then when I wake up the next day and I see the clean kitchen, or I see my clothes laid out, or I see my kids' uniforms put out, I actually make a conscious effort to thank my past self.

I want you to think of the goal that you want to achieve this year. If your goal is permanent weight loss, are you committed to it or you wanting it? It's okay. If you're not committed, I just want you to own that. I want you to admit it to yourself.

So often I see people kidding themselves and they say, I want it, and then they go in half-heartedly and it's only so that you don't have to then deal with the fear of how you'll treat yourself if you fail. And then they end up failing because they didn't go in wholeheartedly anyway, and then they end up saying, oh, well it didn't work anyway so let me look for the next new thing.

I see so many of my clients getting trapped in this cycle, which is why I wanted to talk about it today and I wanted to ensure that you don't get trapped in this cycle for yourself. I want you to look for the reason that you're not taking action. And usually it's due to your brain wanting to either seek pleasure, avoid pain, or stay how you are.

This is what your primitive brain is. primed to do. It wants to ensure your survival, which is why it wants to do one of those three things, seek pleasure, avoid pain, stay how you are. So I'll give you an example. One of my clients, she said, I'd rather drink alcohol with my husband to relax in the evenings, as that provided her with pleasure, got rid of her negative emotions and kept her doing what she already did.

So, when she was thinking about whether she was actually committed to losing weight and, you know, drinking in a sensible way for her, in that moment, she wasn't able to think of the pleasure of getting to goal weight.

She wasn't able to think about the pain she'd feel tomorrow when she had the hangover or when her clothes were not fitting. She wouldn't think about feeling annoyed at herself at not sticking to the plan that she had. When she was in that moment, all she thought about was the pleasure that the alcohol gave her, it getting rid of her negative emotions and it keeping her the same.

So what we had to do was think about how she could feel committed to her goal. Even when her primitive brain wanted her to do the exact opposite. This enabled her to open up to the reality that it may not be all rainbows and daisies. It may not be all happy days, but was she willing to go through that initial discomfort to get the long-term comfort of her clothes fitting, of being able to stick to her protocol of being able to drink in a way that didn't need her to escape her emotions and learning how to feel those emotions so she didn't need that alcohol. This is what she actually ultimately wanted. So we got her there by dealing with the underlying reasons why she didn't want to, by allowing that, of course her primitive brain's going to want her to seek pleasure, avoid pain and stay how she is.

But that is only one side of the story. It doesn't think about the long-term discomfort that she's feeling every single day when her clothes don't fit her. It doesn't think about the health benefits that she's missing out on when she constantly gives into her primitive brain. So when we were developing commitment for her, we had to give the other side of the story as well.

Not just the story that her primitive brain was telling her, and this allowed her to see that there was so much that she wasn't even thinking about in the moment, because she was just going with what her primitive brain thought. Do you see any resemblance of that with you? If that is the case with you, then I would also tell your brain the other side of the story, because your primitive brain wants you to stay alive and it thinks that it's going to stay alive by getting you to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and staying how you are, even if the action that you're taking is not an action that you want to be taking.

Okay. Another example. So one of my clients says it's much easier for her to focus on everyone else than focus on herself as she thought that she was being a good mum. So in that instance, she got the immediate gratification from her children, she avoided the pain of rejection and she stayed the same doing what she always did.

And in that moment of people pleasing, she didn't think that when she was pleasing her kids at her own expense, that she didn't get the pleasure of finding something that allows her to put herself first and be even more present with her children. She didn't think about when she learned how to put herself first and to ensure self care was essential for her, that she empowered her kids to look after themselves as well.

She didn't think about how, when she learned how to feel her emotions, that she was teaching them how to sit with their emotions as well, instead of reacting to them, avoiding them and resisting them. There was so much benefit that she didn't even think of as her brain wanted to keep her in her current reality.

And that is very normal because your brain wants you to stay the same. It won't even offer you the reasons why it is better to change the way you are doing things, because the way you're doing things right now is ensuring that our survival, you're alive right now. So your brain thinks the way I've done things is the way that I have to carry on doing things.

So if the reason you're not committing is stronger than the reason to commit, then you will never carry on committing. You'll carry on doing the same things that you have always done. So what you need to do is find a way that works for you, and that would be to delay gratification and be able to think about the delayed pleasure that you're going to get, to delay the pleasure in the moment, which is what your primitive brain wants, and to get it when you're able to fit into your clothes, when you're able to pull out something from your closet and be like, oh my gosh, I look amazing in this.

When you are able to say no at a family gathering, because you're actually full. When you're able to say to your children, actually children, this is the time for me to do my thought download, so just wait five minutes until I've done it.

Nothing will work until you make it work. And everything has the ability to work if you are committed to make it work. I'll give you an example. So intermittent fasting, some people don't like it and some people do, but the truth is intermittent fasting is neutral.

Some people make it work and some people don't make it work. This is the same thing with any diet - keto, no sugar, no flour, low carb. You get to choose which one you like. And the truth is the diet doesn't cause the weight loss, the way you manage your brain does, the thoughts that you choose to think do, because at the end of the day, any of the diets will work.

But the thing that doesn't work is you're giving up on it. So in our group coaching program, we learn how to stick to things and make them permanent. Even when. So you'll learn how to stick to it, even when you're going out to eat, even when you're going to a friend's house for dinner, even when you're going on holiday, even if it's your birthday or Christmas or Diwali or Eid, or any of those festivals, and when you're able to stick to it, even when, that's when it becomes permanent.

Now that doesn't mean you can't choose to eat off protocol during these events. Of course you can. But when you choose to eat off protocol, you don't do it in a way like "I never get to eat a protocol so I'm going to eat all the things". You eat in a mindful way. And then you choose to get back on plan and believe that you're going to get there.

So in all of this, how do you stay committed? How do you think about that later success? How do you feel that discomfort in the moment to think of that long-term success? What you do is you make it realistic and you make small changes per day. So that may mean if you are drinking, say one and a half litres per day of water, you may up that to two litres.

Now that may not be a big change for a lot of people, they may think "Yeah, I could do that. It was just an extra one glass of water a day." I would start with that. And stay committed to that, make that habit and then move on to the next thing. How can you set yourself up for success? It may be some of those small things that I was saying, planning your food the night before and making sure that all I have to do today is plann my food.

Most people fail at these things, especially in January, because they go from eating 10 times a day and not doing any exercise or meditation and no thought downloads to going to eating once a day and doing an hour of exercise a day, meditating, doing thought downloads, feeling all their urges and feeling all their emotions.

It's just not realistic and you're not going to do it. So expect it to be messy, expect yourself to fail. Expect yourself to be imperfect at it because doing it imperfectly is much better than not doing it at all. When you're doing it imperfectly, you're actually taking action towards getting it done.

Then you get to look at it and see, okay, how can I tweak this? I'm already doing this really well. Maybe this didn't work so well. This is how I'm going to change it for next time. So how can you recommit daily? Each day or maybe multiple times a day, your brain is going to want you to go off protocol. How can you recommit? One way is to remind yourself of your compelling reasons, your whys, and if you wanted more help with that, go back and listen to the podcast episode on this, right about them daily.

Remind yourself of all the evidence that you already have, that is already true for you. How can you remind yourself of the times where you had lost weight and where it was easy for you? How can you get back to thinking those thoughts that you were thinking then, how can you get back to feeding those emotions that you were feeling then, how can you get back to taking those actions you were taking then and creating the result that you created when you did lose the weight?

So many of us look for answers outside of us. In the group coaching program, what I will teach you is to look for the answers within yourself and to trust yourself and be committed and go out and achieve it. So, if you are interested in joining, we start on February the first and I am doing free consultations all throughout January.

So again, wishing you a very happy new year and I will see you next week. Okay, ladies, take care buh-bye

For more free resources and for information on how to work with me, visit www.amruticoaching.com.