Are you coping too well?

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A lot of us use food as a coping mechanism. 

We’re eating to cope with stress, fatigue, boredom, anxiety, anger, grief…did I mention stress?

This might be OK — after all, coping is good, right? Except that all that “coping” is leading to unwanted  consequences. We gain weight or we can’t lose weight…and that is creating stress, fatigue, anxiety, anger, grief. 

Maybe we actually need to do less coping. 

If you stopped using food to “cope,” maybe you’d be compelled to make changes that made your life less stressful, boring, or exhausting. 

And maybe that’s the difference between coping and self-care.

So, here’s a question to consider: Is self-medicating with food allowing you to tolerate things that maybe you shouldn’t be tolerating?

What about your life might you be moved to change if you stopped “coping”?

What to focus on first

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Now that our newest members are well underway on their year-long journey to weighing less, Brock and I have been thinking hard about how we can help EVERYONE in our community create a healthier body and life.

And I’m excited to tell you about a new tool that we’ve created: something we think you’ll find super useful

It’s designed to give you clarity and laser-focus on your next action steps. The steps that will move most quickly toward your goal. Because overwhelm generally leads to inaction.

Check it out here.

What’s your weakest link?

Like any complex task, maintaining a healthy body weight requires an assortment of skills. But here’s the thing: You’re probably a lot better at some than others.

We’ve put together a quiz (actually, a scientifically-validated assessment) that evaluates your current abilities in 6 different skill sets associated with maintaining a healthy body weight.

You can use this information to zero in on strategies that will strengthen your weakest links. (We’ve also provided some of those strategies.)

Take the quiz and get your personalized action plan here.

For added accountability and support, click the link at the end of your results to let us know what you’ll be working on!

What our members lost this year

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In a few weeks, we’ll be saying farewell to another group of Weighless graduates. These are the folks, remember, who began their year-long Weighless journey just as the world entered a global pandemic shutdown. 

Some of them were front-line workers: health care professionals, teachers, essential service providers..  Some lost their jobs. Some had their adult children move back home. Some got — and recovered from — Covid. 

Suffice it to say, the year was not without its challenges.  And yet they persisted. Many, in fact, expressed how grateful they were to have a structure and support that helped them rise to those challenges without sacrificing their goals or self-care.

And speaking of goals, 64% of those who finished the program lost more than 5% of their starting body weight. (25% lost more than 10% of their starting body weight!)

And that wasn’t all that was lost. They also lost bad habits, negative self-talk, and a host of other unhelpful thoughts and behaviors.

If you’ve ever wondered if you have what it takes to become someone who weighs less, I hope you’ll take their triumph as inspiration. None of them were any stronger, or smarter, or less stressed or busy than you. They just showed up and did the work. And look what they have to show for it!  (What might you have to show for it a year from now if you made the same leap?)

What you can do right now

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I’ll let you in on a secret: The trick to talking me into a big project (like writing a book or hosting a conference or chairing a committee) is to ask me a year ahead of time.  Because although I always feel waaayyy too busy in the present, I somehow always believe that I’ll be less busy in the future.  

Do you share this delusional thinking?

I think that’s why so many people put off taking action on their health or weight. We tell ourselves that once this work project/tax season/kitchen renovation/pandemic is out of the way, we’ll have the bandwidth to focus on building a healthier lifestyle. 

But of course, our lives never really get less busy. A new project or challenge will come along as soon as this one is in the books. Meanwhile, the costs of not taking care of ourselves accumulate and compound.

And the truth is that we don’t really need to spend more time on the problem in order to solve it. We just need to spend the time we’re ALREADY SPENDING on it more productively.

Instead of complaining about all the things standing in our way, we can move just one of them out of the way.

Instead of endlessly researching our next step, we can take imperfect action right now.  

Instead of talking about how discouraged we are about our lack of progress, we can identify one small action that will move us in the right direction. (You’d be amazed at how quickly THOSE things start to accumulate and compound.)

Think of a goal or objective that you’ve been putting off, waiting for a “better time.”  There really is no better time than today. What small step can you take before this day is over?

When the people who should have your back don’t

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One of the key strategies in the Weighless approach is to engineer an environment that supports the changes we are trying to make.  Trying to eat less junk food? Stop bringing it into the house! Want to be more consistent about movement?  Bring a yoga mat and some hand weights into the TV room and turn streaming time into strengthening time. Trying to avoid going back for seconds?  Put the excess food away before sitting down to eat.

(In the year-long Weighless program, we devote whole weeks to hacking our habitats!)

But what if the person you live with isn’t on board with the changes you’re trying to make? What then?

This is a very challenging — and very common — situation.

Keep in mind that when people close to you are unsupportive of your efforts, it’s probably more about them than you. The new habits you’re trying to build may make it harder for them to justify their own unhealthy choices. 

Sometimes, you can negotiate some compromises.  Sometimes, you just have to use the challenge as an opportunity to strengthen your own resolve and skills. And having a supportive community can definitely help. 

I have some additional ideas in this video. If this is a situation you’re struggling with, I encourage you to watch it. (It’s about 7 minutes long.) 

New Year’s Intentions

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It’s a new year–and a time when many of us like to set intentions for things we’d like to do or achieve in the coming year

But for members and alumni of the year-long Weighless program, this process feels a lot different than it used to. The reflections they’ve been posting this week in the member’s forum have been so inspiring to me–I  have to share some of them with you, too: 

“I have not had a New Year’s resolution related to weight since I joined. I’m still working on the healthiest me I can be, but there’s no big change to dread. Just keep on moving forward.”

“What a mindset change this program is! While I still have health related “goals”, they’re more like things I want to explore and additional habits I’d like to experiment with. So the goals end up being more like mindset shifts and habit changes rather than simply hitting a number on the scale by any means possible.”

“I realize looking back just how much I have changed! My outlook on health, eating, and activity is VERY different it was 2 years ago. and for the better.”

“I liked starting the new year with things already going for me and knowing that I will keep adding as time goes on. I also know that small changes that build upon things that are already in place have the chance to be permanent.”

“I was able to take on a 30-day yoga challenge and aspire to reading one book a month in 2021–because I don’t really need any new tools for weighing less.  I already know them and know I can lean in a bit more when I feel like I’m not making progress. It’s more of a habit than a resolution.”

I particularly love that last one, because it underscores how much energy we can free up for other things when we stop focusing on losing weight and start learning how to weigh less.

If your goal for 2021 is to lose weight, it’s not too late to convert that into a goal of becoming someone who weighs less. We’re here to help.

Does your week always start strong and then fall apart?

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“I start out strong every Monday, sticking to my plan, making healthy choices, checking off my daily wins…but then the week just wears me down. By Thursday, I’m completely off plan and making poor choices. I’m tired and stressed and can’t find my motivation.”

Sound familiar? 

What if we redesigned your week? Instead of  a 5-day slog  followed by a 2-day collapse,  what if your week were a 2-day sprint, 2 days of rest and recovery, followed by a final 3 day effort?  Would that make it easier to sustain your focus and motivation?

This doesn’t even require talking your boss into an alternate work schedule. All it takes is mental reframing.

Even those of use who work non-traditional schedules have been culturally conditioned to think in terms of 5-day weeks and 2-day weekends. We’ve also been trained to think of Monday as the day we “start fresh.”  with a renewed intention to make healthy choices,  But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Whatever your work schedule, trying thinking of your “personal work week” starting on Thursday.  If you set weekly intentions or keep a habit- or goal-tracking chart, have it run from Thursday to Wednesday.  

On Wednesday night, set aside an hour to prepare yourself mentally and logistically for what you want to accomplish personally in the week to come.  Write down your goals, intentions, and objectives. This would be a great time to listen to a podcast or read a book that inspires you to live your best life.  (Members of our year-long Weighless program sometimes use their Wednesday nights to listen to their weekly materials or to spend time problem-solving with us and their fellow members in the forum  )

 You head into Thursday calm, motivated, and prepared.for two days of solid effort. After two days, you get the weekend to restore and reset your intentions.  When you start again on Monday, your “week” is already half over. FInish strong!  And on Wednesday evening, assess your week and get ready for the next one. 

If you are tired of starting every Monday feeling strong and finishing every Friday wondering what happened to your health goals, this simple shift could make a big difference.  Even if you doubt that something so simple could help, what do you have to lose?  Let’s try it together this week and see how it goes.

How to be more consistent

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Monday Morning Motivation: Finish What You Start - The Young Mommy LifeConsistent action is the key to lasting change.

And the key to being consistent is not biting off more than you can chew. A small action that you do every day will ultimately get you further than a big action that you do once.

But here’s the trap:  It’s easy to underestimate the impact of a small action. Which means we underestimate the impact of not doing it.

I learned this lesson (again) recently. A few months ago, I signed up for a program that teaches you how to use bodywork and alignment to improve your mobility and reduce stiffness and soreness.  (Ah, the joys of middle age.)

What attracted me to the program (other than the promise of relief) was the bite-size commitment required. Just ten minutes a day, five days a week. But a couple of months in, I realized that I was only doing the exercises once or twice a week.

Obviously, it wasn’t that I didn’t have enough time for a ten minute session. I think, sub-consciously, I didn’t quite believe that ten minutes a day could really make a difference. So I just wasn’t making it a priority.

Once I recognized what was going on in my brain, I got serious about my daily ten minutes. And after several weeks of consistent practice, I can’t believe the difference it’s made.

It was humbling to have to learn this lesson (again) because it’s something that we are constantly coaching our Weighless members on.

When you join the year-long Weighless program, we don’t require you to change everything about your life on Day 1. Instead, we start from wherever you are and begin making small shifts that move you steadily–and sustainably–toward your goal.

Sometimes, our members struggle with consistency. Not because anything we’ve suggested is too difficult. But because at first, it’s hard for them to believe that small actions can ever add up to big results.  Until they do.

This week, see if you can identify one small action that you could take every day that would move you a bit closer to your goal.  Make it small and commit to being consistent. Let’s see what kind of compound interest we can earn by January 1st.

What will your small action be?