I’ve been thinking a lot lately about weight loss and why it’s such a struggle for so many of us. For most of us, it’s not as if we have a lack of information or even a lack of resources to do what we know we need to do. So why is it so hard to lose weight?

When I lost my weight 15 years ago, it was a surreal experience. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get the weight off! So when I did it, I had to keep looking at the scale and my body to convince myself that I’d actually succeeded. I’d been overweight since puberty, and nothing worked despite every effort I made to lose weight.  I tried Weight Watchers, metabolic diets, supplements, plastic pants, exercise – but none of it made a difference. Even if I did lose a few pounds, it came right back with more when I quit the diet.

 

You’ve been there, right? You find a new diet and think that this one will be it. You get excited and committed and throw yourself into following every little detail of the plan. And some weight comes off, so you get even more excited and keep going. It’s working, so you keep going. But at some point, you get asked to a party or out to dinner, and the diet just won’t fit into the event. So you decide to drop the diet just this one time so that you can enjoy this occasion. You promise yourself to get right back on track tomorrow. Maybe you do, but it’s just not the same because you don’t really want to stay on the diet anymore because it’s no fun to have to avoid your life for the diet. Or maybe you just stop the diet because more invitations and events and occasions keep coming up and the diet doesn’t fit with any of them. So you let the diet go and the weight just comes right back and you feel so discouraged. Maybe weight loss just isn’t possible for me…

 

 

That’s how I felt. It’s why I was so amazed when I kept losing weight week after week. And to stay on plan for so long was so unlike me! So what was different?

I’ve spent the past 15 years answering that question.

It’s why I started writing my blog 7 years ago.

It’s why I started my YouTube channel.

It’s why I got all the certifications and became a coach.

 

I lost the weight because I changed my mind. I started thinking very differently about what I wanted and what was important to me. I had an entirely different level of commitment to changing my weight than I’d ever had before.

How did I do it?

Let me tell you a story.

 

 

About a year after my first baby was born, I was in a huge funk about my weight. I was so upset that I was carrying around all this extra weight (it wasn’t extra from the pregnancy, just my routine extra weight) and I was Sick. Of. It. I was so unhappy in my body and wanted to feel different in my body – I didn’t want to feel heavy and uncomfortable and unattractive no matter what I was wearing anymore. I was praying and crying and pouring out my misery to God.

While I was crying and feeling so awful, I realized that I believed that being overweight was a problem that I couldn’t solve, that was an impossible situation. Then I started remembering all the truly hard things that I’d done in my life – a list started running in my head. And I knew I hadn’t done them all on my own – I’d done them with lots of effort AND by the grace and help of God.

So with all I’d already been through, was weight going to be the thing that would defeat me? Was this the one issue God couldn’t help me through?

No. God was bigger than my weight.

That was the first shift in my thinking. Weight was a solvable problem – it just wasn’t one I’d solved yet. And I didn’t believe anymore that it was impossible, because I’d done harder things than lose weight. And other impossible things happened for me when I committed my plan to God. What I needed was to commit my weight loss to God and get my plan in place. He’d help me through it!

 

 

This one thought alone was one I went back to again and again during my weight loss process. Every time I wanted to quit, I remembered that I’d committed to God, and that wasn’t something I’d take lightly. Every time I thought it was impossible to stop eating when I was full or to wait until I was hungry, I’d remember that God designed my body and knew my needs better than I did. So I’d stop, or wait. And if I messed up my eating plan, I’d recommit and start again. Not Monday or tomorrow, but immediately. And the weight kept coming off.

 

This is why I coach. Your mentality about your weight, food, and diet is why you succeed or fail at weight loss. It wasn’t magic – but the thinking I changed made the difference. This one thought alone was powerful for me (there were many more thoughts that helped too!). When you change your thinking, you change what you do. This is what gets you a new outcome instead of the one you don’t want that you keep getting over and over.

You can change your mind – but it takes work! It’s easier to think the way you always have. Making real changes in thinking takes awareness, intention, and consistency – and you can do that with or without a coach.

But a coach helps you do it better. An athlete, dancer, writer, or executive all overcome their obstacles with a coach – and so can you!

 

 

I’ve been where you are. I can help you get where you want to go. It’s not impossible – let me help you! If you want to get one of my last two private coaching slots, email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com, and let’s set you up to finish the year without the holiday weight gain and New Year weight gain hangover. You can start 2023 already losing weight instead of trying to figure out how you’re going to start over with a new weight loss plan!

And if you’re not ready for private coaching, make sure you’re on my list for when my group coaching course is launched in 2023 – you’re not going to want to miss your chance to get in! Go to www.drandreachristianparks.com and get on the wait list…

 

Here’s a video I did with more on my weight loss story…