Ep #10: Why Losing Weight Is Critical to Your Business Success

Welcome to Weight Loss for CEOs. A podcast that teaches executives and leaders how to deal with the unique challenges of achieving sustainable weight loss while balancing the responsibility of a growing company, family, and their own health. Here’s your host, executive coach, Diana Murphy.

Hello, my friends. We’re in the heart of the holiday season and I don’t know about you, but my calendar looks like Skittles. I do different colors for every type of appointment and for networking events and coaching calls and all the things, and it is really full.

So I hope you’re taking this time to dig in, to maybe that one time of the week, I hope that the podcast is that treat for you, that one time of the week that you take care of yourselves. Alright, no matter the amount of weight you have to lose or how the journey of weight loss has played out for you in your life, I want to dig into the topic of weight loss in a very brave way today for your sake.

It really is important. This is something that I believe for your business’s sake, for your sake to lose the extra weight that you’re carrying for good. I’m talking about the journey and the effort, commitment to permanent calm weight loss. You know, I’m not talking about the health side of this issue. Those are pretty obvious.

But I’m talking about the emotional and confidence side of your life for your sake, for the sake of the amazing things that you can do in your business, and the way that you’ll grow in your life. The journey of lasting weight loss will bring you results that you might not have dreamt were possible.

The reason I know this and can say it with such certainty is from certainly observing and claiming my own journey. But also, from watching it with my clients, that it bravely forged ahead, learned how to stop overeating for good.

They’ve learned to seek joy in their lives not through food and they’ve learned to stop beating themselves up around their diet “failures” and they’ve started to live in ways that have opened their eyes to so many possibilities of what they could accomplish. Yes, the journey of permanent weight loss and doing it intuitively and the way that I teach is really can accomplish these things and create these outcomes.

And this is for anyone that struggles around weight, whether it’s the yo-yo of 10 to 15 pounds or new weight that you’ve put on this year and been surprised by it. Or for the man or woman that carries quite a bit of extra weight and some diets have worked but never in the long-term. And my friends, this is not a podcast telling you and convincing you that you should lose weight or have to lose weight now. Not at all.

This is your business, but if you’ve made that decision and that’s why you’re listening to this podcast, you have had enough shaming conversations in your head or from family members that you should lose weight. But if this is something important to you right now, if you’ve made a decision to turn things around as it relates to weight and eating and exercising, and it is an area that’s created frustration and discouragement for you, I want to start attaching your reason to lose weight to something that really resonates for you, and that, my friends, this is your podcast.

I want to show you what just might be on the other side of this journey for you, the other side of learning to take care of yourself in a brilliant, beautiful way, and seeing some of the natural and powerful outcomes that come from doing just that. I want to share with you what I wish I knew were the beautiful possibilities for me if I committed to this journey sooner and had the tools on hand that I’ve learned.

I love that this podcast comes after laying down eight beautiful, effective steps you can take to create this in your own life, but buckle up your seatbelts, my friend, I’ve got something very special for you today that pulls this all together. There are at least four outcomes that you can experience if you learn and commit to losing weight for good. They are beautiful side effects, if you will, that clients and I have had during and as a result of being brave enough to commit to losing weight for good.

That is the why. Why you would dig into those eight steps in the podcast. These outcomes are why you would dig in and actually do the worksheets. They would be why you would go all in for yourself on the journey of losing weight for good.

You know, I’m going to sound a lot more like a cheerleader today than a coach, and I think that’s a good thing every once in a while. I’m not going to dig very deep but give you an overview that I think is really powerful and really important. This podcast gives you an opportunity for you to create hope and encouragement that will give you the energy that you’re going to need to take a step forward for yourself.

There is a bottom line and it’s this; when we take brilliant care of our physical and mental health around food, exercise, and the mindset around it, it is easy to take brilliant and inspired care of your business. All of my clients use their own adjectives. I love brilliant. Some use supreme self-care, inspired self-care. Really figure out what your word is.

But it always boils down to self-care in a new and refreshed way that is powerful but sustainable and so simple that you can apply it to your life right now. There are four outcomes that I’ve seen consistently across the board with my clients and I’ll explain them for you today.

Grounded confidence, more joy in your life, clarity for better decision-making, and growth. Becoming that next version of yourself. So I’ll unpack it here, but every one of those outcomes is possible and very common in everyone that embarks on that journey of lasting weight loss.

Alright, first, grounded confidence. Because business owners are one of the most high-achieving groups known to man, nothing like having an area of your life that you have failed like weight loss, like not being able to lose weight in a way that you’d like, there’s nothing like it. It really knocks out your self-esteem.

Have you noticed yourself being very quick to criticize yourself when you fall off the wagon or don?t workout as you planned? Well, it’s time to stop that right now. That critical voice is robbing you of the traction in taking care of yourself with healthy, great food and consistent workouts.

This is a journey of a little grace and curiosity. Not in a soft way, but in a badass way. How do you do this? Notice critical conversations in your mind and even with others and remember that they aren’t serving you. Decide right now that beating yourself up is not working and get curious. Turn around those moments.

And there’s nothing like a weight loss journey if you’ve been struggling with your weight, to learn how to manage this. What if you learned how to stop being so mean to yourself while you lost weight and applied that to the way you’re mean to yourself when you evaluate results in your business? Are you getting my point here?

The next facet of grounded confidence comes from putting yourself first. One of the trickiest parts of being a business owner or an entrepreneur or a leader of any kind is that we are so determined to succeed in growing and managing our businesses that we put aside any consistent form of self-care for the sake of our businesses. Our businesses seem to get ahead of our priorities around our family, around everything, and what’s fascinating is most times we come last.

Now, there are seasons where working longer hours or taking time to work on weekends is necessary, especially as a solo-preneur. But when we think that it always works to forgo those needs, our own personal needs of sleeping well, eating well, leaving work early enough to get in some exercise, that will become a pattern. A pattern that drains us and we’ll find that we have nothing left and we find ourselves exhausted and definitely not very confident.

It will feel counterintuitive and truly takes some bravery to start choosing to take care of yourself first again, or maybe for the first time of putting yourself first. Start asking better questions as you plan your days and weeks, and do this in a way that you take care of yourself first so then you can handle the demands of your business.

Believe me, as you move through the obstacles, learn what works for you during a weight loss journey or a journey of intuitive eating, you will start feeling stronger physically because you’re going to be eating foods that give you better energy and you’re going to be taking care of yourself. When you honor your need for rest, your confidence will not be so shaky. In fact, it will grow.

And this confidence that you’re building, it will bleed into all the other important areas in your life. You cannot serve out of an empty vessel. But putting yourself first is how you will strengthen and fill up that vessel so you can work in the way that you need to for your business. Begin now by dropping that negative self-talk and put yourself first as you plan.

Alright, that outcome, self-confidence is really – and grounded confidence is so critical. It’s everything. And you will build this as you get more confident around food.

Another beautiful outcome is more joy. One of the reasons that many of us overeat is because food is the simplest and quickest way to feel joy. I think as I look back that this was my main go-to. I wasn’t a negative emotional eater, per se, but I ate in boredom and loneliness and I used food to create a lot of excitement, joy, and fulfillment.

Doesn?t that sound awful? I was using entire frozen pizzas to fulfill me, but in the moment, it feels absolutely fabulous. That’s biology, friends. But we don’t realize what’s happening. If you’re creating joy by overeating at night after a day of hard work, learning to get lasting joy by choosing activities in your life that light you up will automatically replace a need or desire to use food for that purpose.

Many of my clients are working such long hours. Does this sound like you? Or me, for that matter, that at the end of the day, wine and that big delicious dinner is your reward. Oh, you do deserve that reward, my friend. But food is going to leave you wanting and it’s creating a result that might be stealing your joy instead of creating it.

What would light you up? What activities would light you up in your life? What would create more joy? So often when you’re craving food, it’s really something deeper. Ask what you’re really craving, and it might just be a good nap, some time with a friend, a phone call with a friend, hanging out with your kids.

Remember, you’ve done nothing wrong. Don’t use any of the insight that you might be getting here to beat yourself up for using food in this way. Our entire culture supports this and oh my goodness, if you’re listening to this podcast on time, we are in the middle of the holidays where all love and joy comes from every sweet treat and our focus is on overeating is pure entertainment right now.

The struggle is real, but the opportunity to learn to eat intuitively and make time for activities that light you up outside of food can totally replace that desire to overeat. This is one of the most powerful ways to feel more balanced in your life. You know that work-life balance that everybody talks about? That’s what I’m getting at here.

When we are truly doing what we most want to be doing, having some fun when we’re off work, spending time with people we miss, sinking in and being present with our families over a slow, amazing meal, healthy one or any other activity, that is what creates work-life balance. It can happen in those small mini moments where we get joy not from overeating something that feels really good at the time, but by just being present and really playing when we’re playing and working when we’re working.

Another amazing outcome that comes from really digging into intuitive eating is getting more intuitive and more clear in your decision-making. It’s really true. When you lose weight in this way, the natural outcome is that you will get more intuitive and grounded in other decisions. This was a huge surprise for me.

I actually learned it after I lost the weight because I lost my weight before I became and trained to be a coach in this space, and I learned that the more I leaned in and honored my intuitive gut to eat well, I was learning to tap into my own inner wisdom and clarity about other decisions I needed to make in my business.

Being a CEO is full of pressure, a lot of decisions, and when we move our food choices from a heady decision, what should I do, what do I have to do, how can I follow the diet, and we move that decision to an intuitive and personal decision that works for us, it gives us a lot more practice at honoring our wisdom in other areas. This is where we can say the body knows before the brain does.

Now, I don’t make all of my decisions or gut decisions as gut decisions at all. I look at my numbers, I look at what works. I’m very rational at parts of my business. But I am much quicker at tapping into my own thoughts and feelings on an issue and not avoiding them and just doing what I should because I’ve practiced this around something as natural as what to eat and what workouts would serve me and all these other ways I take care of myself.

It is knowing that there is information there. There is intuition, and the more we get into our body and decide when we’re hungry, when we’re full, it’s fascinating. But it is so true. It helps us to be in our body when we make decisions for our business.

This is really, truly the most surprising outcome I’ve had with it. You might be avoiding working on weight loss because you don’t have the capacity or brain space to do one more thing. Well my friends, that’s where this work of intuitive eating, when practiced and followed becomes second nature and no longer is a distraction.

Diets are distracting. They create a lot of shame when we don’t follow them perfectly, but honoring your body’s physical, intuitive needs for food put you into a very grounded, clear space. Clarity. Who does not want clarity, right?

Alright, growth. Yes. If you’re a human and you have done things that you in fact – you always are doing things that you have never done before, that’s just human nature. Every day brings a new set of challenges for us and for most of us, we do things that are new to use.

But I don’t know what it is about the battle of losing weight that we think it’s a final sentence. Our brain loves to protect us from harm. Remember that. If you’ve listened to me at all, you know that that’s just our natural go-to. Our brain is like, protecting us from negative emotion and it just puts us on autopilot of things that are just getting in our way.

But I want to remind you that many of us, maybe you are that person, have given up because you’re believing that you can’t lose weight. That is a lie that your brain is offering you. One of the most incredibly gratifying accomplishments that we have done, my friends, is to build that business. And if you’re a salesperson, build a practice. You have a business. It might be a subset of another person’s company, but you own a business, a piece of work.

That, my friends, that?s a lot of believing in yourself. I don’t care what you do in your real life, but most of you are business owners, if you’ve done that, you have had to practice a lot of belief. What if you turn that belief and practice of believing in yourself into believing that your struggle is over? Believing that you can lose weight for good. While you stay committed to losing weight or even maintaining weight, you will have to work on believing that it’s going to happen. That is why coaching is so effective.

It’s one of the most beautiful gifts that you can give yourself. I love laying these concepts out for you. I hope they have you thinking. I hope you can see the value of giving yourself the gift, the commitment, and the belief and working on that belief that losing weight could just be one of the most important things that you do for your business and for your life right now.

Most of us have avoided it because we just don’t think it’s possible, and it’s taking us out. We are not growing in our businesses in ways that we could. We’re distracted. We are not practicing believing something incredibly new and scary, believing that you could lose weight for good if you carried an extra 80 pounds most of your life is going to take some courage, my friend.

I love laying these concepts out for you. I hope they have you thinking. I hope you can see the value of giving yourself the gift, the commitment, the commitment, working on believing that losing weight could just be one of the most important things that you do for your business and for your life.

Let me leave you with some beautiful questions that can help lay down these concepts right away. Grab one for your week. How can I show up as my best self by taking excellent care of myself today? What would give me joy right now? Can I slow down and pay attention? Not only to food but to you. What do I want to believe about my future and how can I practice that today?

I hope you grabbed on one of those questions. How can I show up as my best self? What would give me joy? How can I slow down? What do I want to believe? Grab one. But it really all boils down to this; what does brilliant self-care look like right now?

Oh, I love that you’ve listened in today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this podcast. If this podcast has been supporting you, I’d love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on my website, dianamurphycoaching.com/CEO10. Remember to leave a comment there. I’ll see those and get back to you.

You’re always welcome, and I encourage you to leave feedback on an iTunes review. If you leave a review, it assures that others will find this podcast that need it too. Have a great day.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for CEOs. If you enjoyed this episode and want more, visit dianamurphycoaching.com for Diana’s latest free coaching tools to get started losing weight without having to start a diet now.