Why you need to STOP saying, “I need to lose a few pounds”

Do you often tell yourself you need to lose a few pounds?

I hear it all the time… “well, I could stand to lose a few pounds….”   I hear it from clients, I hear it from friends. I used to say it all the time myself.

When you get into the menopausal years, you might find yourself saying these words – or something like them more and more often.

It sounds so innocuous. 

We say this like it’s just a fact. But is it? 

Have you ever thought to ask yourself, WHY exactly is that true? Have you even questioned if it really IS true? 

You might be thinking, well yes, it IS a fact. My doctor recommended that I lose some weight. But in that case, it’s not a fact you ‘need’ to lose a few pounds. The actual fact is whatever words your doctor said.

Beyond that you are left with your thoughts. 

And your own choice about whether you want to come up with a plan or a strategy to lose however many pounds of body weight that your doctor has recommended (or that you think you need to lose). And, your own choice about what you want to think about yourself.

Whether you have any ‘facts’ to back up the ‘need to lose some weight’ though, or whether it’s simply something your mind keeps telling you is true… most people don’t take the time to consider whether it’s helpful to keep telling themselves that.

Phrases like these can become a painful refrain in your head, one that you wake up to every day, and that gets stuck on repeat in your brain, causing more and more misery. 

For some reason we believe that if we keep telling ourself what we’re doing wrong or what we haven’t done yet, that it will somehow motivate us to take action. 

But, in reality the opposite is true. It’s rare that anyone takes useful and positive action from a feeling of misery or shame.

What’s Really Causing the Problem?

Have you ever stopped to consider that the miserable litany in your brain might be causing you MORE stress and health problems than the extra weight itself? 

The way you think about yourself, the words you say to. yourself, and the words you say out loud…. all of these affect your weight just as much, or even more, than what you’re actually eating, what sort of movement or exercise you do, or what diet or food plan you follow.

When you are believing that you’re not doing something you ‘should’ be doing, it subtly raises your stress level. Which means your cortisol levels are going up. That’s the stress hormone that’s been associated with extra belly fat. So…yikes!!

But what the heck do you do if those thoughts just keep popping up in your brain? 

You probably have lots and lots of unhelpful thoughts and beliefs about your body, your weight, your eating habits. And it can seem pretty daunting to try to imagine how you could just stop thinking them!

Some people get discouraged when they hear about thoughts affecting their weight. They think they have to get rid of deep heavy beliefs before they can make any progress. 

They think they need to shed all the thoughts that were planted in their brains way back in childhood. Thoughts about food and love. Thoughts about how bodies should look.

And sure, those are thoughts or beliefs that with time and persistence can be slowly untangled and rewired. 

But, I’ve found that it’s those seemingly innocuous ‘true’ thoughts that can actually be even more of a problem!  

Like, “I know I need to lose some weight.” Or, “Yeah, I could stand to lose a few pounds.”

It’s like putting a rock in your path that you’ll constantly trip over. You instantly feel bad when you think it, and that makes you even less motivated to make choices that would move you toward the goal.

Turn it Upside Down

What if it’s possible that you don’t need to lose a few pounds of body weight.

Say whaaat??!!

What if you could change that story? 

Maybe you actually need to GAIN a few ‘pounds’ of love for yourself and the body you’re in right now. There’s an irony here, because when you make that ‘gain’, it weirdly becomes more likely that you can also easily release excess weight.

The idea here is to gain some ownership over that little thought… the one that actually causes so much low grade stress and pain. Maybe you can switch it up just a tiny bit. This is the start of getting proactive with your thoughts about weight loss.

It starts with those little ones!

When you just allow that refrain to bounce around in your head, when you let it have it’s way with you whenever you glance in mirror—you run a good chance of going  through life vaguely unhappy because of the perceived ‘few pounds’ you need to lose.

What if you could make peace with those few pounds instead?

Dig Into the Why

The question is, do you REALLY want to lose those pounds? What’s your ‘why’? What do you think will change in your life? What will you be feeling?

If your ‘why’ is not compelling enough you’ll just continue to lose and gain back the same few pounds. Or, you’ll just stay frozen and never even take the first step.

It’s so important to really get clear on WHY you want to lose weight before you even attempt to do it. This is one of the first things my clients and I do together in my program, the Menopausal weight Release Solution. 

Even though I show them a way to take the misery out of a weight loss journey, there’s still some brain and habit changing that usually needs to happen. 

And, since we are not wired to find any sort of change easy, most people will slip back into the way they’ve always done things…. Unless they have a powerful WHY, and a way to remember it.

Get clear about what you WANT and go for it! I bet there’s something much more compelling than ‘losing a few pounds’

So, really give this one some thought:  WHY do I need to lose a few pounds? 

Take a little time with this question and write down everything that comes to mind. First you’ll have to get past all the surface reasons that aren’t really the compelling Why. Keep going until some of your deeper reasons start coming up.

Then… ask yourself, do I like these reasons? Do they make it worth having this sentence in my head that doesn’t feel that good when I think it and say it? 

Do I really want to keep saying this to myself?

This exercise could help you decide that you are fine with NOT losing a few pounds or any weight at the moment. And you’ll find a lot of freedom in not having to tell yourself that ‘lie’ anymore!

But, if you do come up with an answer that points you to YES, I really want to lose some weight and it’s for reasons I truly like—then get in touch so we can talk about whether The Menopausal Weight Release Solution is right for you.

This program takes you step by step through a proven system so you can finally lose those pounds – and never have to think about them again. 

Sign up for your free Body Breakthrough Session here to find out more. In that one hour you’ll learn so much more about your own Why, and you’ll know how you want to move forward.