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.
Taking longer breaks from eating (16-36 hours) allowed my body to become more insulin sensitive, and increased my metabolic flexibility.
Metabolic flexibility is the ability to burn either carbohydrates or fat for energy. As my body became more able to burn fat for energy, the excess weight started coming off more easily than I ever thought possible .
You can learn more about intermittent fasting with the Not-Your-Typical Intermittent Fasting Challenge in the classroom.
2.5). Emotional processing tools learned from Dr. Laurel Mellin were tremendously helpful for me as I experimented with taking longer pauses from food. Lots of emotions came up as I shifted my food patterns! This wasn’t something new I added, but a tool I had from the past.
We use these tools at our Premium Group Coaching meetings and are studying her book, What’s My Number? In Books to Thrive.
Do you feel stuck at a certain weight, or have you felt that way before?
What helped you to shift that!
Do either of the strategies outlined above sound like something you might want to try?
Vote in the poll below!
Daily relaxation?
Fasting Exploration?
Both?
In other news, did you know that your deodorant can make you fat?!
Learn more about that here,
Have a fabulous week, amazing Thriver!
P.S. I’m sharing some before and after pics below, cuz people are all about “proof” these days. And I don’t blame them! They’re not perfectly positioned pics, in the exact same place in the gym, with the exact same outfit. But I think they show the transformation pretty clearly.
The Thrive Community is here for YOUR transformation! Whatever transformation you choose to embark on :)
Daily relaxation is something I would try
Intermittent fasting could be neat to explore
I would be down to try both strategies
I have a strategy that works well for me, I’ll share it in the comments
8 votes
8
25 comments
Vasi Smith
8
Eating healthy and moving daily are great! But sometimes, they’re not enough.
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