58. I failed to lose weight for 3 years: 8 lessons I learned when I finally lost 30lbs

My name is Hayley Sohn, I am a nutritionist and brain training weight loss coach specializing in helping women lose 30lbs in 90 days without dieting by eliminating emotional and stress eating. Work with me: basicallyitmeals.com I have told this story many times here before, but I am breaking it down into a few lessons here on today’s podcast. Lessons i learned in 5 years of NOT losing weight Diets don’t work As a nutritionist, i was trained in prescribing diets. Knowing the exact macros, calorie counts, food lists that would equal weight loss When i was 30lbs overweight i was doing all the diets but I Felt more out of control than ever before Was eating more than ever before Thought about food all the time I realized it didn’t matter what “diet plan” i said i was going to follow…because my brain and my mindset were setting that diet plan up to fail and i didn’t know how to begin to fix it When i finally dropped all the restrictive diets and began to focus on my mindset in a productive way i saw the weight fall off You can eliminate emotional eating in a pain free way I remember thinking one day as I laid in bed eating cheetos feeling super stressed and out of control (hello, I’m working full time as a nutritionist and running a healthy meal delivery service, like what am I doing) that i didn’t want to give up food as my emotional support system The thought of that scared me One of my clients refers to all of her past dieting as “suffering” and a huge part of that is when food is your emotional support system and you sort of yank that out from under yourself with a restrictive diet you are left with no tools to handle your life, your stress, anxiety, without the food. Its scary, its feels like suffering So i really focussed on learning how to deal with stress without food, learning how to deal with boredom without food, learning how to deal with anxiety and not eat When i focussed there all of the sudden i could eat less without pain, without feeling like i didn’t have a way to deal with my life Emotions are important Almost everyone i speak to who wants to lose weight tells me this: I want to feel something other than what i am feeling daily right now Yet!! They also tell me they aren’t very emotional and they don’t understand where emotions come from I used to not consider myself an emotional person, but really i just didn’t understand emotions, how they work and their role in our lives Plus, one universal law: you have emotions whether you realize it or not, they are created by your thinking Emotions don’t happen to you, you create them. Even if you don’t think you are experiencing or creating emotions for yourself, you are When you can harness thinking, you can take control of your emotions and start to FEEL the way you want to feel everyday! Effortless Peaceful Confident Happy Actions don’t work Yes, ultimately actions will get us the result we want…if we eat less we will lose weight. BUT what we all try to do is decide the actions we will take and then take them even though we are feeling doubtful, overwhelmed, pressure, stress, anxiety… When you do it that way you have to use willpower: the actions don’t feel good when you take them and you can’t keep them up Your mindset is everything Mindset isn’t abstract; There is a clear process for creating a mindset that will help you lose weight When you focus on your mindset, this impossible weight loss game suddenly happens and it feels easy and natural You are not set in your ways, you can change your brain If you practiced your golf swing wrong from childhood to your 50’s would a golf instructor say oh im sorry, that is set in stone you won’t be able to change it? No because our brain is elastic, its always capable of learning something new and undoing something old Years ago scientists thought your brain was set in stone by age 18, then it was late 20s and recently I read that your brain is actually never set in stone What I think personally is that we have thought process we use. The longer we use them the more practiced we are at them, the more challenging they are to undo and begin doing something else. It is never impossible Exercise because you want to not because you have to “have to”, need to, should, trying need to be swapped for want to, have, gratitude When you tell yourself “I should lose weight”, does that make you feel ready to go out and do what what you need to do to lose weight? No? Then why are using that sentence to try and create the actions needed to lose weight? Odds are you are using “have to”, need to, should, trying in with any weight loss and diet attempts. They are not effective. Why? Because they don’t generate positive emotion Swap those for I want to I know how I am capable of I already am Im grateful for I already have This isn’t semantics. This is mindset