Ep #55: The Hardest Part of Losing Weight

You are listening to the Strong as a Working Mom podcast, Episode #55. Want to know the hardest part about losing weight? It has nothing to do with the food.

Welcome to the Strong as a Working Mom podcast. If you’re balancing career, family, wellness, and some days sanity, you are in the right place. This is where high-achieving, busy, working moms get the tools they need to eat, move, and think. I’m your host, physician, personal trainer, and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland. Let’s do this.

Hey, how are you? What’s new, what’s good? So, what’s good here, we are going to dive in and talk about the hardest part of losing weight. I’m going to give it to you straight and tell you it’s not what you think. But before I get into that, I’m going to pick apart some of the fears or concerns that you’ve shared with me when you’ve considered what it will actually be like to try and lose weight.

We’re going to talk about some of the things that you’ve shared with me that you’re either afraid of, or things that you think might be really hard. Then we’re going to see why those things aren’t actually as scary or as hard as you think. So, I came up with this topic after reflecting on the conversations I’ve had with so many of you about what you think losing weight will be like, and what you think will be hard.

It comes from years of coaching many people through changing their lifestyles and changing their eating habits. What I’ve found time and again, is a repeating pattern that comes up about your thoughts and ideas about what weight loss will look like. So, I’ve noticed some recurring themes about what your concerns are, and I want to help you put them to rest with today’s episode.

I want to share some of the common fears that come up and shed light on what you think is going to be hard about weight loss and then I want to help you see through them. Then once we do that, I’m going to finish by offering you what the hardest part about weight loss is. I want you to know from the get-go the hardest thing you’ll face when you go to lose weight.

I’m going there. We’re going to face it head on, and I’m going to give it to straight, no sugarcoating, so you know what you’re walking into when you start or resume your weight loss journey. Okay? I want you to be prepared and know what you’re getting into. All right?

So, let’s go. The first fear or misconception that I want to pick apart about weight loss is the fear that you won’t be eating enough food. Some of you have told me straight-up that you’re afraid you’re not going to be eating much or that you’re going to be eating next to nothing when you try to lose weight. But that’s not true.

Some of you have been so concerned by this, that you’ve gone so far as to overeat right before getting started. Meaning, you’re afraid that you’re not going to be eating enough food that you load yourself up the day before starting your weight loss plan. This phenomenon is even got a name, it’s called “last supper eating”.

Last supper eating often is born from the belief that when you start your weight loss plan, you’ll be eating less and restricting your food. So, last supper eating is an answer to the anticipation of not eating enough or the anticipation of not eating certain foods. You manage that anticipation by overeating the day before you get started.

I have encountered this a number of times coaching clients, and I find that it most often comes from fear, the fear of not eating enough food. But in reality, often for many of you, when you start a weight loss plan, what happens is that you end up eating more volume. So, let me explain what I mean by this.

This largely depends on what your diet looks like before you decide to lose weight. But I’ve seen this happen so many times, I think it’s important to put this fear to rest. Let’s talk through this. If your diet is currently made up largely of highly processed, hyper palatable foods. Or if you get many of your meals from restaurants, takeout or fast food, those foods are generally calorie dense.

Remember, when we’re looking at calorie density, we’re talking about how many calories you’re getting for a certain quantity of food. So, as an example, a burger and fries will have a higher calorie density than most salads with chicken breast. Or you’ll get more calories from a package of two Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups than you would by eating an apple and Greek yogurt.

Highly processed foods and things like fast food will be more calorically dense than foods like fruit, veggies and lean protein. So, when you go to switch things up in order to lose weight, you might be worried that you’re not going to be eating enough food. But the truth is, you’ll likely end up eating more food than you would if you remained on a highly processed or largely fast-food takeout diet.

The way I want you to see this is to think about high-volume low-calorie foods versus the opposite. So, foods like french fries, Oreos, and peanut butter cups, those are foods that pack in a lot of calories for not a lot of volume. So yes, if you tried to lose weight while maintaining a largely processed food diet, I could see where your fear of not eating enough food would come in.

But this is where choosing high-volume low-calorie foods will help you. It’s not that you’re eating less food, instead you’re eating less calories. There’s a big difference here. I want to make sure you understand that. Instead of your meals consisting of burgers, fries, burritos, doughnuts, and Little Debbie snack cakes, all of which are generally pretty calorie dense, now you’re shifting your focus to find foods with lower calories per unit volume.

That’s going to mean things like fruit and veggies, lean protein, whole grains. These are foods you can eat in larger quantities for not a ton of calories. Okay? While we’re talking about this, though, let me make it clear, I’m not telling you to adopt a volumetrics type of diet.

I don’t want you eating nothing but high-volume, low-calorie foods. We’re not talking about berries and cucumbers and watermelon alone. All right? I want you to have fiber. I want you to have healthy fats. I want you to have proteins, many of which will come with some fat. So, things like salmon, lean beef, chicken, peanut butter, nuts, and even tofu.

Those foods will have a combination of protein and fat, and those foods most definitely have a place in your diet. So, Do you see? It’s a combination. The goal when you’re starting your weight loss plan is to be able to eat a sufficient volume of food, while also eating foods that will keep you full. It’s not one or the other, it’s both.

We need to look at both volume and satiety. The point here is that when you start changing the way you eat, if you choose a proper balance of high-volume, low-calorie foods, and pair them with fiber, healthy fats and protein, you will be eating enough. You may even find that you’re eating more food than you were before, not less.

At the same time, if you’re trying to lose weight, and you’re constantly hungry, that’s no good. If that’s the case for you, and you are constantly hungry, that tells me one of two things. Either you’ve taken your calories down too low, or you’re not eating a proper combination of protein, carbs and fats, and it’s leaving you on satiated.

If this is the case for you, we’ve got to fix it. If you are trying to muscle your way through constant hunger that is a setup for badness, and we need to address that. No lifestyle change that leaves you endlessly hungry is going to last. So, that tells me we need to tweak what you’re doing and change either the number of calories you’re taking in, the makeup of those calories, or both in order to get you feeling better.

It makes perfect sense that you would be resistant to changing your diet if you’re operating under the assumption that you’re going to be hangry and eating like a bird, it makes total sense. But if it’s done properly, your weight loss plan should not leave you feeling hungry. You should not be eating barely anything.

You need to eat food; you need to eat real food. And you’ll need to experiment and fine tune to determine the most amount of food you can eat that will keep you in a calorie deficit but still keep you satisfied. It’s a delicate balance. So, remember, in order to lose weight, you need to eat less calories than you burn. You’re going to need to eat less calories, but that doesn’t mean you’re eating less food overall. Okay?

Think of your weight loss plan as a collection of subtle tweaks to your lifestyle. You’re changing what you’re eating, and then you’re changing how much you’re eating so that you eat the right balance of foods that will fill you up, along with a sufficient volume of foods so that you’re not walking away hungry. I don’t want you eating two bites, and then you’re done.

I don’t know about you, but I can eat. A few measly bites of food is not going to cut it for me, and I don’t expect that you would be satisfied after two bites either. So again, the take home here is this, if you are concerned that by trying to lose weight, it means you won’t be eating anything, no. That’s not what we’re going for here.

Instead, in order to lose weight, you’re adjusting the composition of what you eat to ensure a balance of volume and satiety so that you feel satisfied. Losing weight does not mean that you will constantly be hungry, that’s not going to work. I need you to be satisfied. Not stuffed, okay? Not stuffed, but satisfied.

All right, next. So, the next fear you’ve raised when considering weight loss is that you’re afraid you’re not going to be able to eat your favorite foods anymore. This one comes up commonly. You’ll tell me it will be hard and you don’t want to give up pizza, or chocolate or beer or wine or carbs. And you worry that if you start trying to lose weight, it will mean giving up all of those things.

And once again, that’s not it. That’s not true. I’m not telling you to go the rest of your life without pizza, or that you’re never going to eat an Oreo again, or that wine is out of the question. No, any weight loss plan that’s going to work for you is going to need to allow for you to have foods that you enjoy. Okay? So, the hardest thing about losing weight is not giving up foods, because I’m not asking you to give up anything.

But here’s the thing. Here’s the caveat, while you’re not giving up your favorite foods, if you want to lose weight, you’ll need to practice moderating yourself around those foods. There’s a difference between giving up foods versus moderating yourself around foods.

So, it would be really awesome if you could eat whatever you wanted, as much as you wanted, whenever you wanted, and still lose weight, but it just doesn’t work that way. So instead, if you want to lose weight, I would encourage you to practice having the foods you enjoy while you practice managing yourself around those foods.

It may be that you need to decrease the number of times you go out for pizza and you start cooking more meals at home. It may be that you stop having Oreos after dinner every night and save them for a once in a while dessert. Or maybe you decide ahead of time, you’re going to stick to one glass of wine over the weekend, instead of every night like it’s been in the past.

Whatever it is, the idea here is that you’re not giving up anything. A weight loss plan that doesn’t leave room for foods you like is not going to work. So, rest assured, if you want your weight loss plan to work, there should be room for foods you enjoy. At the same time, there has to be some give. Meaning if your current M.O. is Oreos every night because they’re your favorite, that’s probably not going to work for weight loss.

Or if it’s typical for you to eat out for all of your meals over the entire weekend, because you have certain restaurants that you love to go to, that’s probably not going to align with your goal to lose weight. And again, this largely depends on the foods you’re ordering, of course.

But the point I’m making here is that you’re going to have to make some compromises with yourself. You don’t have to give up food you love. But it will likely mean changing how often and how much of your favorite foods you have. But to be clear, it does not mean giving up foods altogether. Okay? You can eat your favorite foods. Please do not give up pizza, if you love it. Don’t stop eating chocolate.

At the same time, think about how you want to incorporate foods you enjoy into your life so that you’re still remaining on track with your weight loss goals.

Next, one of the other common fears that you’ve shared with me about losing weight is that you don’t want to be deprived. So, you may worry that when you start to change your habits and eat differently, you worry you’ll feel deprived.

Whether that’s because you’re eating less food than you were before or you’re eating less of your favorite foods than you were before or some combination of both. Either way, many of you have shared with me that you’re concerned about being deprived, and that will be too hard to sustain.

But I want to point out something related to deprivation. Remember, where does deprivation come from? Deprivation comes from your thoughts. It comes from creating an unnatural over desire for food. The feeling of deprivation is often specific. You don’t feel deprived when you don’t get enough cauliflower, right?

That’s generally because you don’t overly desire cauliflower. Generally, you feel deprived of foods that you desire too much. Things like chocolate, and cookies and chips and cakes and fried stuff. We tend to over desire those foods. And when you don’t have them, you create the feeling of deprivation with your thoughts.

But here’s the thing, if you were listening in on the previous two points I mentioned and you’re with me on those, then you should not feel deprived. That’s why I put these concepts in the order I did. Let me explain. If you’re going to be successful in your weight loss journey, you have to eat enough food. I think I made that pretty clear.

You are not meant to walk around hungry and miserable on 1,000 calories a day, because that’s what you think you need to do in order to lose weight. If you try to go about your weight loss with a calorie deficit that is too severe, you are most definitely going to feel deprived.

Similarly, in addition to eating enough food, you have to find a way to eat foods you enjoy. You have to find a way of incorporating foods you love into your diet without it becoming a free-for-all; that’s practicing moderation. No one’s asking you to give up anything. Instead, I’m asking you to consider or reconsider the place have certain foods in your diet.

I want you to have food you enjoy. But I also want you to consider how much and how often you will have them so you don’t feel deprived. So, if you accept those two ideas, and you go and do it… Meaning, you put those concepts into practice, and prove to yourself that you’re not deprived.

You eat enough of a combination of high-volume, low-calorie foods, plus fiber and protein and fats so that you’re not hungry, but you also maintain a calorie deficit. You practice eating the foods you enjoy in moderation without it becoming a big deal and without it resulting in you falling off your plan.

When you do this, and practice eating this way, and see for yourself that you can eat a sufficient quantity of food and that you’re not hungry. And you practice it enough to see for yourself that you can have pizza without going off the rails. When you do those things, you will prove to yourself that you are not deprived.

Do you see that? In order for your weight loss to work, you can’t feel deprived. So, we have to solve for that. How do we make it so that you don’t feel deprived? Okay, so let’s review.

You eat enough food so you aren’t constantly hungry. You eat the proper combination of foods with fiber, protein and fat so you feel satiated. You work on decreasing your over desire for foods, things like processed foods and sugar. You practice eating the foods you enjoy in moderation and prove to yourself that you can have the foods you love without it resulting in a food bender.

I find that when you do those things and you practice them repeatedly, you build up a level of trust with yourself around food. You will see that you are very much in control and you don’t have to be in fear around food. You don’t have to be in fear about changing your eating habits because you’re not going to go hungry and you’re not giving up chocolate for life.

Instead, you’re finding peace around food. You’re learning how to manage yourself and your thoughts around food. And then you will see the things you thought were going to be the hardest about losing weight, really aren’t as hard as you thought. All right?

To summarize, what you think is going to be really hard about losing weight. Things like not eating enough food. Not being able to eat your favorite foods, and being deprived. Those generally are not the real problem. Those things are not the hardest part about losing weight.

All right, so now that we’ve talked about what you think might be really hard about losing weight, and now that we’ve poked holes in it, let’s talk about what will actually be hard. I want you to have a very clear understanding of what the hardest thing you’ll need to do in order to lose weight. Okay?

If you want to be successful at losing weight, the hardest thing you’ll have to do is practice honoring the decisions you make for yourself, and feeling all of the feelings that come up when you do that. It’s following through on your decisions, and then managing the feelings that come up for you when you do that.

It’s not about the food. It’s not about the food. So, here it is, again, it always goes back to your thoughts and feelings, right? Always. You knew I was going there, so let’s dissect this a little more. When you decide you want to lose weight, you’re going to need to make some decisions. I say it all the time. I’ll say it again here. But in order to lose weight, you need to plan.

But that plan does you absolutely no good unless you follow it. And that’s where the feelings come up. So, as an example, when you make a decision ahead of time that you are not having dessert more than once a week, and you’ve already had ice cream with your kids on Tuesday, and now it’s Saturday and your friends want to have cheesecake while you’re out at dinner, you’ve got a decision to make.

So, you can honor your decision that you’re only having dessert once this week and not have the cheesecake. Or you can go for the instant gratification and have the cake. So ,let’s say in this example, you decide to honor your decision and skip the cheesecake. The first few times you do this, or maybe even the first 100 times you do this, you are going to have some thoughts. You are going to have some feelings about it.

And that’s where it’s going to get challenging. You may still be wrestling with the feeling of over desire. And you may notice thoughts like, “I can’t not have the cheesecake. I really love the cheesecake here, and I’m hardly ever at this restaurant so I’ll just have it. All my friends are eating it, so why wouldn’t I just have some?”

Those thoughts are going to fuel your feeling of over desire. And you’re going to have to learn to manage your brain when those thoughts come up. You’re going to have to practice walking through the feeling of over desire. And you’re going to practice what it feels like to manage your urge to eat the cheesecake without eating cheesecake, if you want to be successful.

And again, this is not about willpower, okay? I am not asking you to grin and bear it through dessert while you watch all of your friends eat forkfuls cheesecake. Instead, I’m asking you to acknowledge the desire and call it what it is. You can even say to yourself, “This is what an urge feels like.” And you feel what it feels like to honor your decision.

That right there, that’s the hardest part. But recognize that you are choosing not to have the cheesecake, because it really is a choice. Again, go back to what we talked about before. You can have the cheesecake. I want you to have your favorite foods. You’re not depriving yourself here, you can have the cake if you want to, right?

You have free will. You can certainly choose to have the cheesecake. That would be answering your brain’s desire for instant gratification. And if your habit has been to always have dessert, your brain will be happy when you give in, forget your plan, and grab your fork. And if you do that, you won’t have to feel any discomfort, at least not right away.

The discomfort comes later, after you have the cheesecake. When you realize that you didn’t follow through on the decision you made for yourself. It’s delayed discomfort, do you see that? Either way, there’s going to be discomfort. Either way.

You will either feel the discomfort immediately when you practice something new and different by saying no to the cake and managing your urge. Or you’ll feel the discomfort later when that one bite of cake turns into two or three or four bites. Or there was forkfuls of cheesecake and leads you to have a glass of dessert wine, which then leads you to beers after dinner. And the next day you feel like you’ve blown it, so you just eat whatever you want and tell yourself you’ll try again next week.

Do you see that? Either way, you will feel discomfort. So, if you want a different outcome for yourself, you choose not to have the cheesecake. Because you’ve made the decision ahead of time that you’re only having dessert once this week.

You’re having foods you enjoy, like the ice cream you had on Tuesday, but you’re moderating yourself by deciding that the ice cream is enough. And you honor that decision at dinner with your friends and say no to the cheesecake, and feel whatever feelings come up when you do that.

The hardest thing about losing weight will be feeling your feelings. The hardest part about this whole process is that you will feel something. It’s knowingly choosing the immediate discomfort of sticking to your plan and honoring your decisions.

Time and again, after years of doing this, this is what reveals itself to be the biggest challenge for those of you trying to lose weight. It’s accepting the immediate discomfort of honoring your plan. Of honoring the decision you made ahead of time.

Think about it. Making the plan itself, for most of you, is not that difficult. Sure, there are decisions like whether or not to have carbs, or how much alcohol or how many desserts to have, you have to make some choices. And while that takes work, that is not the end of it. What gets hard is when it’s time to put those decisions into action, follow your plan, and then feel whatever feelings come up when you do this.

That’s when the discomfort comes. When you’re getting started, and you’re presented with opportunities to follow through in your decisions, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. But here’s what I want to offer you. When you do this, when you say no to the cheesecake and allow all of those feelings come up. And you let those feelings be there with you.

You’re still going about dinner, by the way, you’re still talking with your friends, still having fun, you’re still enjoying the vibe of whatever place you’re at. But when you allow the negative feelings to come up and be with you…

Remember, they’re sitting with you like you’re carrying a heavy bag. And you realize that you can do that and still get through dinner and get to the end of dinner just fine without the cheesecake, there it is.

That’s when you’ve walked through it. You stared that discomfort in the face, you allowed it to be there with you, and you didn’t let it stop you. You allowed it to be uncomfortable. But you also carried a feeling of strength and empowerment along with you, enough to get you through dinner having held to your decision. That is where change happens, right there.

It’s both; feeling the discomfort of honoring your decision, and feeling the strength that happens when you see it all the way through. The hardest thing you will have to do in order to lose weight has nothing to do with cookies, or Cheetos or cheesecake or a good glass of red. The hardest thing you will need to do is honor the decisions you made ahead of time and feel any and all feelings that come up when you do this.

Really, it is as simple and as complicated as that. And if that sounds icky to you, hang on for just a second, because there’s something I want you to see here. The more you do this, the more you practice accepting and even walking right into the immediate discomfort of honoring your decision, the easier it gets.

Because every time you decide not to have the cheesecake, and every time you skip the second glass of wine, and every time you say no to the chips after dinner, every time you do this and prove to yourself that you are just fine on the other side, the less uncomfortable it gets. Really.

The more you do the hard thing the stronger you get. And the easier it will be to uphold your decision; it gets easier because you get stronger. So, contrast that to when you don’t follow through on your decision, and you choose to have the cheesecake.

I said it earlier, but what you’re doing is simply delaying the discomfort. Because remember that discomfort is going to be there either way, at least at the beginning. When you practice following through and honoring your decisions, it’s going to feel uncomfortable right away when you first start doing this.

When you don’t follow through on your decisions, it’s going to feel uncomfortable later. But the difference here is that when you practice accepting and walking through that immediate discomfort of honoring your decisions, it eventually gets better. You start to feel better.

The delayed discomfort that comes from giving in and not honoring your decision, that does not get any better. That discomfort of giving in and having the cheesecake or having the second or third glass of wine, that discomfort will still feel heavy and icky two months from now, a year from now, five years from now.

That delayed discomfort will always be there waiting for you for as long as you choose immediate gratification. And if you’ve been there, you know what it feels like. Heavy is the best word I could come up with to describe it. When you repeatedly don’t follow through on your decisions that you make for yourself, it feels heavy and it feels overwhelming. You feel trapped. You feel like you’re on a hamster wheel and it just doesn’t feel good.

So, you choose. What is it you really want? If you’re considering losing weight or if you’re ready to take a different approach than you have in the past, are you ready and willing to do the hard thing and face the immediate discomfort head on?

Are you ready to prove to yourself that the hardest thing isn’t the chocolate or the pizza or having less food or being deprived? Are you ready to practice honoring your decisions, and feeling all of the feelings that come up when you do that? What is it going to take for you? Are you willing to feel immediate discomfort, at least at first anyway?

I’ve said it a number of times on the podcast and I think it applies here. I don’t sugarcoat. I am not painting a picture of sunshine and unicorns as you practice this. But here’s the thing, if you’ve tried various diets in the past and have focused on the food without focusing on your thoughts and feelings, you know that’s all only half the story.

And you know that doesn’t work. It’s not about the food, it really isn’t. It’s a very small part of the picture here. If you want to be successful at losing weight and keeping it off for the long term, get really good at following through on your decisions and feeling your feelings.

I know, probably not something that’s going to sell a diet book. But that’s the truth. The hardest thing you will need to do to be successful is managing your brain. If you’re looking for the latest trendy food, or another detox or another round of Whole 30, or if you’re restarting Keto, for the fourth time, no, that’s not it. That’s missing the point.

How many times will you try that before you realize that a diet is not the answer? Real, sustainable, legitimate change happens when you change your relationship with yourself first, and then change your relationship with food. There are no shortcuts here.

Think of how awesome it feels when you make a plan for yourself and follow through, even when it gets hard. How awesome does that feel? So, I don’t know about you, but I feel proud when I do what I said I was going to do, especially when it’s hard.

And that’s what I want for you. I want you to take a deep breath, put it out into the world, make some decisions for yourself, and then follow through. Feel all of the junk, feel all of the ick, feel all of the discomfort that comes up when you do it, and keep going. Choose immediate discomfort in the short term, and you’ll be creating long-term peace for yourself.

This is not easy stuff. But if you know me at all, by now, I’m not about taking shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to success. And this success, when you’ve got this nailed, will feel unlike any other weight loss you’ve ever experienced. It will be different.

When you are willing to do the deeper level work, get into your brain, and feel whatever emotions come up for you when you put your decisions into action, that is when real change happens. All right. So, there it is.

This episode came in part from a conversation I had with a client. She actually wasn’t even a client at that point. It was our consultation call. She asked me what she needed in order to be successful as a coaching client. And her question stopped me because it was such a great one, and I’d never been asked it before.

And it made me start thinking about what someone needs in order to succeed at weight loss, establishing regular exercise, or really any big change. And this is where I landed. It’s not the eating. It’s not the moving. It’s the thinking. It’s being willing to sit with your thoughts and feelings. That’s how you succeed. Always.

And if you want help with this, let’s talk. If you want to stop looking for your next diet and get to the real work that will help you lose weight and change your lifestyle, let’s go. When you coach with me, you’ll make decisions, then I’ll help you manage all of the feelings that come up when you follow through on those decisions. You’ll have support every step of the way. And with time and practice, following through in your decisions becomes easy, and you’ve got peace around food.

So, check out my website, go to www, CarrieHollandMD.com/contact and let’s get started. All right? Thank you again for hanging out with me. And I’ll catch you again next week.

If you like what you’ve been hearing, please review the show. I would love to get your feedback and ideas. Your suggestions have inspired episodes and will help me make the show better for you. Share this podcast with a friend, text a show link, share a screenshot, or post a link to the show on your social media. Be sure to tag me @CarrieHollandMD on either Instagram or Facebook, so I can follow along and engage with you.

This is how we get the word out to other working moms who want to feel strong, inside and out. If you know someone who wants to feel better or eat and move differently but she is too tired or too busy, it is time to change things up. And you know, making that change starts with how you think. And that is what we do here on the Strong as a Working Mom podcast. I’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to Strong as a Working Mom. If you want more information on how to eat, move, and think, so you can live in the body you want, with the mind to match, visit me at CarrieHollandMD.com.