Eating healthy and moving daily are great! But sometimes, they’re not enough.
I was eating lots of fruits and vegetables and limited processed foods. I did this literally for YEARS, yet my body was not willing to let go of ANY excess weight. Daily movement on the ranch, taking care of all of our animals, that didn’t move the scale much either. My body seemed forever stuck at right around 220 pounds. It went down ten pounds here and there, only to bounce right back up. Looking back on all that, there were two things keeping me stuck… 1.) Insulin resistance. Because I was eating multiple times a day (4-5 times or more!), my body was never able to clear all the sugar out of my bloodstream. This state makes it very difficult to let go of excess weight. If you’re curious about insulin and how it might be affecting your weight loss goals, check out Get Smart About Insulin, a mini course in the Classroom. 2.) Stress Eating/Food Addiction. Every few days, I would overeat so much that I made myself sick. This pattern was not at all helpful to letting go of excess weight!! There were two strategies that helped me to shift these patterns and to ultimately let go of 85 pounds of excess weight. They are now woven into the fabric of the Thrive Community. Here they are, in the order which I did them. 1.) I started showing up daily for deep relaxation. I found meditations and guided relaxations that I loved, including Hypno Health. I did deep relaxation sessions 2-3 times a day, or more. Prayer is a practice I do daily as well, and I leaned into that, doing it more frequently. These practices helped to nourish my nervous system and decrease cortisol. Being more relaxed throughout the day loosened the grip of stress eating and made it easier to make healthy choices more consistently. In Thrive, we do guided relaxation weekly at the Move, Relax, &Connect Calls, and at all of our Premium and VIP calls. 2.) I delved deep into Intermittent Fasting books and Research, and started experimenting with fasting.