176 The 3 Beliefs You Need to Follow Through on Your Fat Loss Strategy

You have literally every workout and meal plan for free at your fingertips right now so information isn’t the problem. If you’re not motivated to eat right and workout, it’s your mindset that needs help. 

In this episode I get specific on the 3 beliefs you need to have in order to take action on your plan. Because you can have the best strategy in the world but if you can’t get yourself to do it, it’s useless. 

You’ll learn:

• The mindset shift you need to feel motivated and take action
• 3 questions you must ask yourself daily
• How to handle confusion and overwhelm 

• Shape Shift Program LEARN MORE
• Instagram: @mindful_shape
• Free Self Coaching Resources
• Interested in getting coached by me? Go to my website mindfulshape.com

Transcript

his transcript was auto-generated, please forgive any weirdness.

Hi, and welcome to The Mindful Shape Podcast. I'm Paula Parker, and my work is here to offer you specialized mind and body practices to shift into the next version of you. One in which you feel in charge around food and great in your body. I am all about going for the body that you want and also wanting the body that you have. Today I wanna talk about the three beliefs you need to take action. So. You know that there's things that you need to do if you want to maybe release some fat, get more toned, put on some muscle, just be healthier in general. If you wanna change the relationship you have with food, and you just kind of wanna feel like you are in charge. The chocolate, the chips, the popcorn is not in charge of you. So there's lots of things that we know we need to be doing. And maybe you're feeling like maybe you're in a little bit of a rut or summer's coming and there's some pressure around that. Like it's April and the weather's starting to change. And you might just be feeling a little bit like, oh God, I'm not where I thought I would be at this point. And that puts on some pressure and it puts on some dread. That is not the, typically the emotional fuel. That really drives a lot of motivation to do all the things we know we need to do, to stay on track, to eat healthy, to cut out the snacking, all of the things that are conducive for releasing weight and getting stronger, getting more. So you might find yourself, even though you have the best intentions, you're still doing some sneaky eating like your partner leaves, or you're all by yourself and you're just going for the snacks or indulgences. You might be just grabbing like a few extra handfuls of nuts or grabbing a piece of fruit, things that you're thinking, oh, they don't really. Add up, like they don't really count. They're so small. Or there's bigger things that you've tried to change in the past that just don't seem to be changing. Like snacking, snacking after dinner, having a second glass of wine, having dessert, and it's likely that you have. Done some research. You used Claude or chat GPT, and you put together a plan. So that might have been a fasting protocol or maybe you have a calorie or a macro budget that you are trying to eat within. You have learned about resistance training and yoga and all of the things, and you have an exercise plan, and so you have a list of actions. But it could be likely that you are feeling a little overwhelmed by all the things you have to do, or a little confused, am I supposed to fast or I heard that fasting isn't good when you're in perimenopause. Like there's a lot of conflicting information as well. So what we typically do with this is that we, we come up with some sort of plan, but then we go into it halfheartedly. So we are very skeptical because we don't really. We're not a hundred percent sure on the plan, and if we are a hundred percent sure, we really don't believe in ourselves. We don't think that we are going to keep it up, that we're gonna follow through. So I get this, like I totally understand this. It makes perfect sense to me. You want to feel very clear. You want to know, okay, this strategy is going to work. I am capable. Of doing this strategy like this is something that is doable for me. I'm feeling motivated and inspired. This strategy is gonna work for my lifestyle, and I'm gonna see the results that I want. Whether it's your strength or releasing fat off your body, but so often we experience resistance rather than inspiration and motivation when we need it the most. Another thing that can be really challenging for a lot of clients is that they don't believe that the plan will make that much difference in the end. So even if they do release the 15 pounds, 25 pounds, they won't be able to keep it off. So that can really take the wind out of your sails if you're thinking, there's no way that I could stick to this plan. There's no way that I can spend my entire life without sugar, without bread, without alcohol. Then it goes into what's the point? And so you give up before you even get started. This might look like procrastination, like I'll start after the weekend, or I am going on a trip soon, so I will just wait until I get back. And we get into a little bit of diet starts Monday mentality. So sometimes this will look like. Giving yourself permission to overeat or overindulge now, because in the back of your mind you're thinking, well, I just gotta get all of this outta my system because then you know, I'm really gonna get on the straight and narrow. I'm going to reign it in and the pendulum goes in the opposite way. But then we're left with this guilt and shame hangover, and we just feel gross in our bodies, like bloated and puffy. So movement doesn't feel good, so it's very hard to follow through on that workout plan. And if we've been eating more sugar or flour, we are gonna have increased cravings and be hungrier than we normally would. So there's going to be physiological desire that gets activated from just eating that way. So we're generally feeling bad emotionally and physically, and so it can feel very difficult to access that motivation. Instead, what we experience is a lot of resistance. So we either do it, we can white knuckle our way through, but we feel terrible while doing it because we are thinking, Ugh, I always do this. I have so far to go. Even if I get there, I won't be able to keep it off. I'll probably never get there. Or I have to do this, like that line of thinking. And it might not be conscious, it might just be in the background, but if you're feeling a lot of resistance, this could be some of the thinking that's going on behind the scenes. Or there could be a lot of regret, like I shouldn't have eaten like that, beating yourself up. I shouldn't have let myself go, or I should be further along. All of that is like subtle regret, guilt, beating yourself up. This is why a list of actions from a YouTube video or from chat, GPT or Claude can be helpful in guiding you, but it will not get you there. It will not help you stay the course because really what you need to do is clean up this thinking. It's the mindset that needs to shift. So we need three beliefs to take action. And continued action. So in my program, shapeshift, we talk about aligned action. This is like the boring, tedious work that you need to do on a day-to-day basis that typically doesn't have a lot of immediate gratification. There isn't external rewards that you can see in terms of tangible results, reflective of your goal. Now, there is some, like you could be feeling better in your body. You might have. More energy throughout the day. But if you look at the scale or your clothes fitting, it's not like you eat the salad and then right away you see the result. Okay? So this is like aligned action, small action that you're taking on a day-to-day basis that ultimately will lead to being in the body that you want, being the type of person that you wanna be. The three beliefs to take this aligned action are, I know what to do. I'm capable of doing it, and if I do it, it will make a difference. So if you were not taking action, if you were in a rut or you can't seem to get motivated, then one or all of these need some work. So how about you just check in with yourself? How solid do you feel about knowing what to do? Do you have a strategy? What is your strategy for following the strategy? It might need to be more specific. Maybe you need more support or planning, not just for your best days when you're gonna be highly motivated and have had like a great night's sleep before. But what about the tough days? What's the strategy there? I advise you to come up with a minimum standard day. This is like the minimum in terms of action that you'll require of yourself even on your worst day, maybe when you're traveling, or on Mondays, which tend to be a hard day for a lot of people, or maybe the weekends. That's a minimum standard day for you. It's essentially a day that feels harder to follow through on. But what is the minimum that you could take in terms of movement, your eating, hydration, all of those healthy habits that it might not be optimal, but if you were to do it, you would make progress it might be slow progress, but you would still make progress. That's a minimum standard day. What are your thoughts about your ability to implement this strategy, even a minimum standard strategy? This is where most of the belief work needs to be because we have so much evidence of the past of contrast, of seeing ourselves not do it, so that tends to be very salient. Front of mind for people, and we just don't believe in ourselves because we have no evidence. So you'll need to figure out ways to shore up belief in yourself. And honestly, this requires way more effort than we think. For most of us, we will need to be attending to this on a somewhat daily basis. Think of this as mental emotional hygiene. We take care of our bodies on a day-to-day basis. We brush our teeth every day, but are we taking a look at our thinking, how we're showing up in terms of our mindset? So we want to be identifying those doubting thoughts and pushing back on them, for example. You might be thinking, it's not possible. My goal is not possible because I've never done it before. You wanna push back on that? Is there anything else in your life that you did that you accomplished for the first time? Of course. Right, so this line of logic, it leads nowhere, but for some reason I feel like, particularly when it comes to weight loss, fat loss, food and body stuff. We tend to think that because we've never done it before, it's just not possible for us. Okay. So really wanna push back on that thinking because of course, just because you haven't done something doesn't mean you can't learn how to do it. There might be a skill gap, there might be a mindset gap, but these are things that can change, change over time. Identity gap, right? That's a huge thing, is how you are thinking about yourself, your personal standards. And who you believe yourself to be when it comes to movement, when it comes to eating, when it comes to how you relax, how you show up at a party, all of those things. And that comes from your MINDBODY connection, which you can work on, you can address. So it makes no difference whether you have reached your goal yet and maintained it. Or not. It has zero relevance on your future. You're so much further ahead now. Even after doing all the attempts that you've had, the more attempts the better. Why? Because you have so much more information about where the gaps are in your mindset and in your identity, and what works for your body and what doesn't, and you're more clear now on how you might want to do it. Differently. So all of that is good. I always think all those cleanses, I did, all those diets, I did all of the different programs that I did, it's all for my benefit. It has all helped me. So find evidence for how that is true. And then lastly, if I do it, it will make a difference. This is what you want to believe. So just decide. What I do makes a difference, and you can reflect on yesterday. So think about your day yesterday. Think about your movement, your eating, whether you were tracking or planning your sleep, your hydration, your. And your mental and emotional self-care practices. Did you journal? Did you meditate? Did you do any kind of contemplative practice or something that just was good for your body? Like a massage or a facial or something like that. Just something that feels restorative for you. And if you were to repeat that day, every day for a year, then where would you be? Would you be at your goal? Would you be very far off track? What you are doing in these small, subtle ways is adding up, so going for seconds, for thirds, having dessert, handfuls of nuts, going for the chips when your brain offers the thought. You know what? This won't make a difference when you're like making food for your kids or your loved one and you're snacking the whole time, right? Know, that that creates the results that no difference is made. So that thought, this won't make a difference. It results in no difference. Not internally, not externally. So what if everything you do. Everything you do, it makes a difference. Every thought you think, every time you say no to the food, and yes to this next version of yourself in this different body with a different relationship with food in the smallest of ways, it makes a difference. All those tiny acts of care, so every workout, every walk. Every time you refuse to say something negative about your body, every time you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and your brain wants to go down a negative track, or you get on the scale and it hasn't fudged or it's gone up a little bit, every time you catch that and you redirect, all of that is cumulative. It all makes the difference. So likely you know what to do. And if you don't, if you don't know what to do, you're just a few clicks away from essentially the entire collection of the greatest experts in humanity on fitness and nutrition. All of their ideas, all of their strategies for fat loss. It is only a few clicks away, so information is not the problem. Your mindset is. So yes, design your action plan. We need to take action, but what I wanna guide you towards here is to work on a belief plan. So daily, on a daily basis, just check in with yourself. Where am I on believing I know what to do today? Where am I on believing I can do it? And do I think if I do this plan, it will make a difference. And then if there are gaps, at least you'll be solving the right problem. And if those are solid, those three, then your job is simply to take aligned action from that belief, from those three beliefs. Like if you truly believed 100% on all of those, what would you do then? What would be easier when it comes to working out, when it comes to planning, when it comes to your choices, whether you're gonna have a burger, whether you're gonna have a salad, whether you're gonna have a beer or not have a beer, what would be the impact? What level of resistance would you experience? And if you did, if you did have a bit of a battle going on in your head, how might you respond to it differently if you 100% believed in all of those things that you knew what to do, you knew you could do it, and you knew it would make a difference, I suspect it would be a world of difference. And that's why it's so important, again, not just to focus on the action, but focus on the beliefs. So if you are struggling to do this kind of thought work, this belief work, it's hard for you to believe those things on a daily basis. If you're struggling to do that on your own and you want support, this is exactly what I do with my clients. So I work with clients both privately and in group settings, and we identify exactly what's getting in your way of having what you want, specifically when it comes to your body. And your relationship with food. So if you know what to do but you can't seem to do it, then you are my ideal client. You can go to mindful shape.com to book a next steps call, and I know it can be a little intimidating to book a call like that, but just know that there is. No pressure whatsoever to move forward. We are just taking a look to see if it's a fit. It's really a conversation in service of your goals, your goals around your relationship with food, your goals around your body, whatever that looks like for you. And our goal in the conversation is just to see if my work corresponds with what you want. If the programs I have. Are a fit for you, and we just decide together either way, so that you can really feel clear whether this is the right next step for you or you wanna continue on your own. You'll just feel more clear on what will make the biggest difference for you. Is it a shift in your mindset? Is it a shift in strategy? Usually it's a bit of both. Either way, you'll walk away with more insight, more wisdom, and hopefully some more inspiration to continue on. Because again, you wanna have the body that you want, and you also wanna want the body that you have. Alright, I'll talk to you again soon. Bye.