Ep #22: Losing that 5 Pounds

Welcome to Empowered Wellness for Leaders, a podcast that teaches CEOs, entrepreneurs and sales leaders how to deal with the unique challenges of balancing a high-stress career, family, AND their own health. Here’s your host, Certified Executive Wellness Coach, Diana Murphy.

I am having quite a week. I am tying up the loose ends and finishing Reset Week, which for you, it’s already over if you’re listening to this podcast, but what’s really cool is we created a beautiful resource page for it. So in the show notes, you will find that opportunity. So dianamurphycoaching.com/22, you’ll have a link to the resource page.

Alright, but it has just lit me up to be talking about some of the basics that I teach in my business and the way that I lead my clients, and it brought me to this point of creating this podcast for you. I have touched on so many areas in my podcast, but what I’m sharing with you today is what I lean into every time that I need to take better care of myself and to take better care of my whole self. It is a beautiful re-centering, eating well, and moving in a really great way that gets me really centered so I can rock it in my business. And I want that for you too.

You know, you might be like I was, frustrated and not know where to start. You know, the weight keeps coming back to you after you work so hard to lose it. That is really my story. I want to encourage you. This method of learning your rhythm of your appetite and tuning – fine tuning a little bit the fuel you eat, not drastic changes, by the way, really works and it is a simple and empowering process.

Now, this is also for those of you that just have discovered that you’ve gained a little weight and there’s just really no emotional eating going on, and you just want a simple way to get refocused. This podcast is for everyone. I really wanted to create a resource where you could always come back to this when you need to regroup, reset. Again, this came out of the theme of Reset Week.

Alright, this is the tricky last five pounds, this is the pounds you put on vacation, the first five pounds that you need to lose on a long journey, or just another five pounds. This podcast is all about shifting from pushing yourself to follow a diet to moving yourself into the driver’s seat, becoming more intuitive about how much to eat and what to put in your mouth.

This, my friends, is a game changer, and we are making this all too hard. What I wanted to create for you today is a simple four-step process that lays a foundation. If you’re new to my food tools, this is a beautiful process to accomplish your goals for not only weight loss but for long-term healthy eating.

Are you like me? A little sick of all the noise and conflicting information out in our media about nutrition? Well, this can really clear it up. I’m not saying that looking into what you’re eating or reading labels or learning more about food is not a good practice. In fact, I highly recommend it. But for today, I want you to sit back and listen what I have.

Don’t keep this a secret. If you’re enjoying my podcast, would you mind sharing it? My goal in the next quarter, in the next 90 days is to begin reaching a much broader audience. With all the confusion in our media about what’s good for us, this is one of the most calming and effective approaches to managing your weight. It’s so different. It’s so counterintuitive to how almost all of us approach weight loss. And don’t keep this subject matter or the podcast to yourself. Please do share. It really would mean a lot, and I want to just thank you so much for being a listener.

Alright, on this podcast we’re not talking about perfect eating. We do not need to eat 100% good for us foods to lose weight. We need to tweak what we are eating a bit and honor our true and natural appetite. This is all about letting the body lead. This is helping your brain to be pointed in the direction by these simple four steps to get back on track or get started with long-term results to lose five pounds.

And they boil down to five questions. Four steps, a question for each one, and a question to get you started. Can you imagine it being that simple? This is really what I have for you. If you continue and you write down every one of these questions, start practicing these concepts, let your brain be pointed in the right direction, it is so possible for you to lose five pounds.

So let’s get started laying a foundation or a mindset, even a belief that you can turn to during your journey of losing five pounds. And it starts all with a question. What is your reason for wanting to lose five pounds? And it has a backup question to kind of catch you on this. Do you love your reason?

Let me share with you what I mean. Do you want to just lose weight because you want to be thinner or because you want to just look better at the reunion or you’re just mortified with how you look right now and you’re just feeling really uncomfortable? How does that feel? Is that a good reason? Do you love your reason?

And so we do want not the altruistic – we want it to be something that you really can believe, and it could be just a simple, “I want to be healthier, that’s why I want to lose five pounds. I want to get started. I want to learn what Diana’s offering as something new. I want to anchor that.”

So write that out. Write it down and refer to it. Let this be your anchor during the process. I want to give you a warning. There shouldn’t be any shoulds or have-tos in your reason because that puts us in kind of the corner, paints a corner, and that’s what so many of us have done is pushed ourselves to lose weight and it just doesn’t work. “You should go on a diet, you should lose five pounds.” No, maybe you don’t need to. Really move to that place of why you want to and anchor this little practice, this little journey of losing five pounds with me here.

Alright, now that you’ve laid a mindset or a foundation, there are four steps. The first one is eat to your appetite. And what do you get out of this by eating to your appetite? Whether you’re an undereater or an overeater during the day because of the way that you work and the way you’re wired, if you eat more to your appetite, you will experience more energy and more control. A lot more self-control.

And then the second step. Eat your fuel. Again, this is maintaining sustainable energy for what your brain and your body needs to do all day. If you’re a very physically active person in your job during the day, really pay attention. Make sure you’re eating really good fuel. This might be the place to start for you.

For those of you that have big lunches because of the way your meetings work and the way you do business, watch that you might be tired after a meal because you overeat a little bit at lunch. So by eating your fuel and then this step of eating what’s really clean energy for you, you’re going to find yourself having better energy.

Also, when you eat your fuel, you have less cravings. So let me repeat. It’s about eating to your appetite – I’m going to get there, I’m going to explain this. Eating to your appetite, eating your fuel.

Next, people always ask me about exercise, and so I’m going to hit it today. And it’s all about moving in a way that you love. This is so that you create a cadence, a rhythm that is sustainable.

Last but not least, getting over the excuses. We all have them. Believe me, that’s what gets in our way after we’ve started something new. And I’m going to teach you how to get over those excuses. This is all about getting back in your rhythm, and this is what I mean.

Have you ever watched a young teenager, and especially any teenager girl or boy that just doesn’t have drama around food or anything? And they’ve been outside all day with their friends, and they come in the house and they’re ravenous. They go to the refrigerator, they get something out to eat, and before you know it, they’ve dropped that food on their plate, half a bite, “Oh, I don’t need that,” and they walk off.

That, my friends, is what we broke when we started telling our body to eat at certain times, when we started dieting and being told what to eat and when, we disrupted a very natural, natural rhythm. This process is all about helping you get back to that rhythm. So it’s eating to your appetite, eating your fuel, move in a way that you absolutely love, and getting over your excuses.

Now, here are your questions, and I’m going to review them at the end, and of course, on the resources you will literally have a sheet for each step and a one page that just has those questions. You could use these to just tape on your mirror and use these all week.

Alright, so the first step is around your appetite, and I teach the hunger scale. And all it is is asking, am I hungry and am I full? All throughout the day as you get up and kind of check in with yourself during the day, ask, am I hungry? And then as you eat a meal – and I do suggest eating slowly with a little more mindfulness – am I full?

There will be a deeper explanation in the show notes. This is the hunger scale. I’ve taught it on several of the podcasts, also physical hunger versus emotional hunger, and in my video opt-in series. So if you want more, it is there. And please, if you’re having any trouble, send me an email, Diana@dianamurphycoaching.com if you are not finding it, I’ll just send it to you.

Now, what’s really interesting is it really is easier to tune into our appetite when we’re moving more, when we’re more active. And I’ll get to that later but it really is true. And, it is also easier to eat to your appetite, eat to the hunger scale when you’re eating your fuel. That’s why these three steps are so important to layer together.

Now, you might want to just start with one, and even end the podcast right here, practice am I hungry, am I full, and then come back and try the next tool. But these questions are so simple that if you put your brain in action during the week, I promise you it will simplify the process.

Alright, so the next step after really getting engaged with our own appetite is fuel testing. This is really asking the question, what foods feel really good in your body? This isn’t about like, sugar feels really good on my tongue. This is really watching how your body responds after you eat. It’s so simple. You have three questions to ask here.

Now, the one question is what food really feels good in your body? You can use that one alone and these are the descriptors that really help you to know whether this food is a fuel for you. And so this is the deeper dive a little bit to help you establish a fuel list. And again, this will be in the show notes so just listen.

Does it satisfy you when you eat this particular food for two to three hours? Is it really easy for you to stop at fullness, or what I call plus two? Do you have great energy when you eat this food? That’s what qualifies a food to be your fuel.

And I know you’ll be surprised at the results. It’s very interesting to me that there are particular foods that like, I’ve been told aren’t good for me like grits. Now, I don’t love grits, except for a bite or two at brunch, they’re like, amazing. But I was having trouble after brunch meals feeling really, really tired.

And what I discovered later is that it was the egg yolks that were bothering my system. And the minute I went to egg yolks and had the similar meals, my body loved it. In fact, egg whites are absolutely fuel for me. It sustains me for four hours when I eat an egg white meal.

So now we’ve laid down our appetite and now we’re paying a little more attention about how foods feel in our body. This is where we just really tune in and let our body lead the conversation. Now, sometimes this is when we’re like, but it’s noon and we should eat. That’s why we should never be eating by the clock and we should never be eating what others say we should. This is where we start building a trusting relationship with the feedback our body gives.

Now, movement does have activity. Exercise really has a lot to do with this, and I find that in my life and with my clients that consistent movement – and it does not need to be heavy. Even like, three times a week for 20 minutes, or keeping on your feet during the day really does help – for me, it really helps me to really have a more in-tuned appetite.

So the question here is really adding this facet to it in a different way. How do you love to move your body? That’s your question here. Because this is not about chasing calories. It’s about setting up a plan that is really sustainable in your life. And if you’re on the journey to lose weight for good, adding a little movement, consistent movement that you know no matter what three times a week you don’t mind doing, this will help you.

Now, I kind of got ahead of myself talking about how it affects your appetite, but when we’re really sedentary, first of all, we just don’t need a lot of fuel, especially if we’re trying to lose weight. It’s kind of disappointing that we don’t need a lot of food if we’re really following the hunger scale. But what’s really fascinating is when we start moving more, it puts our body in a more natural rhythm and it is much easier to tell if we’re hungry or not.

When I’m questioning it, I know I’m not really hungry. It’s like when I want to eat a certain meal and everybody’s eating, and I’ll be so disappointed that I’m not hungry. Yep, I’m not hungry. But moving more does really raise the sensitivity level, so trust these three ways. Am I hungry? Am I full? What food feels really good in my body afterwards? How do I feel afterwards? Am I energetic? Am I satisfied for a long time? Do I feel really good?

And I know those are more questions so I will get the basic four for you at the end. But is how do you love to move your body, just do a little bit more of that and you will find you’re feeling a lot better. And your body, it’s fascinating. To drop weight, we don’t really need to be in high intensity exercise. Sometimes, that really creates a sugar drop that actually confuses our appetite. So gentle movement can really be the key.

Now, if you’ve been working really hard to lose weight and it’s just not been a peaceful journey, I know that stuff comes up. The excuses, the challenges. You get off track because of vacations and business trips and it is really hard to be motivated. And I want to address that. I do address this in a lot of my podcasts, a lot of my major work in Reset Week, in my video series is all about how to stay motivated. And I’m going to make it really, really simple.

What can you do when it gets challenging? What do you do? When you hear those excuses – this is your plan. When you hear those excuses in your mind, “Oh, I don’t have time,” “Oh, but I love that food, I just want to have more,” “I’m not making any progress, this is too hard,” “Ugh, I can’t do this,” I want you to hear those excuses, those thoughts that slow you down when you’re starting to feel stuck in this process. Do you love those reasons for not doing what you’d planned to do?

If your goal is really to be healthy and to really be a cleaner eater – not perfect, you know, you really are in this goal of really taking care of yourself well. Do you love that reason, I don’t have time? Is that a good enough reason or you to stop? Can you think of some other ways to take those steps to get healthy food?

So it’s noticing the excuses. When you start hearing yourself give excuses, write them down. That alone takes the – take them out of your head and your subconscious and then you can see them for what you are and you love those reasons for not doing what you planned to do. Watch them. Those thoughts do not have as much impact when we watch them and observe them versus living from them.

And again, this is when you would reengage with that intention. It really is this simple. I want to encourage you. I gained some weight after taking care of my mom. I wasn’t as active. I was drinking a little more alcohol. It’s the culture of alcohol when you’re with a lot of retired people. And I came back not feeling that comfortable in my body and some of my clothes weren’t fitting well.

And I reengaged at a very simple level with just paying a little bit better attention. And you know, for people that are really new to this work, you know, it does take a little practice. Give yourself like, four to five weeks and give yourself some space to learn these things.

Alright, I’m going to review but before I do, I want to thank you for everyone that engaged in Reset Week. We are turning Reset Week into a resource page and if you’re on my email subscription list or even in the show notes, you’re going to have access to this.

This goes a lot deeper into what I’m teaching you here today and teach on my podcast. You could follow this on your own timing because it includes video trainings, video prompts for the morning, or email prompts, whichever works better for you. And it really can reenergize you going forward. I can’t think of a better gift to give yourself or your business.

Alright, let me review for you today. Keep it simple. Do not complicate this. Do not let your past failure convince you that it should be harder. It’s not true. Keep it really simple and trust me. Do these four steps and start with setting an intention.

So there’s five questions. Why would it feel good to lose five pounds? What is my goal? Why am I doing this? Why do I want to lose five pounds? Just get centered on the one reason that resonates for you and feels really good. And the four steps are, am I hungry? Am I full? Next, what foods feel really good in your body? Next, how do I love to move my body? What feels really good?

And when the excuses come up – they will. I had them. I know that drinking a little more alcohol more consistently just messes me up. I’m not in tune with my appetite, I eat more because I don’t like the feeling of being drunk, and they pour very strong drinks in Florida, I want to tell you.

So I didn’t love my reasons for drinking every day. I decided to really get clean on that and honor what really works for my body. I love a drink here and there. But I know that it doesn?t work for me in a consistent habit.

So do you love your reasons for not taking action today? Can you be curious and not hard on yourself? I love simplifying this because it is this simple if we put our brain, point it in a direction with really better questions and go. Trust it. Write these questions down and find everything you need in terms of resources in my show notes, dianamurphycoaching.com/22.

Thanks so much for listening. I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email if you have questions. Engage wherever you see me posting. Facebook live videos, which I do weekly around the topic of the podcast, and I have great events coming up so you’ll be invited if you’d like to be on that list. Thanks so much for listening, it just means so much, and have an empowered day. Thank you.

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