You’re so close to your goal weight, you can practically taste it. But here you are, bouncing around between three and seven pounds to the finish line. What’s up with that? Why is it taking so long, and what do you need to do to be done with dieting? Well, on today’s episode of the Get Your GOAL podcast, I’m sharing exactly how to finally lose the last five pounds.
Hello, hello, my ambitious, overthinking GOALfriend, and welcome to the podcast. No matter how close or far away you are from your goal weight, I know this topic is of deep interest to you. Everybody wants to be done losing weight, right?
Exactly, and it’s my job as your personal weight loss life coach to dispel the internet myths and dispense the mindset wisdom that’ll get you there.
First, let’s get the practical part out of the way. Everybody and their middle-aged sister wants to tell you that losing the last five pounds is the hardest part of your weight loss journey, and that’s simply not true.
The mechanics of losing your last five pounds is exactly the same as the first five pounds, and all the five poundses in between: First, you believe you can. Then, you eat in a slight caloric deficit over time. And finally, you lovingly support your menopausal metabolism while you’re doing the first two things.
The five things you’ve been doing every day with The 5-0 Method (which is my free weight loss guide for women over 50, and you can grab it with the link in the show notes) are still the five things you’ll do every day while you’re losing the last five pounds.
So, why does it FEEL so hard? And why does it seem like it’s taking forever? And what’s up with bouncing around right above your goal weight?
Here’s what’s going on: cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological discomfort you feel when you’re trying to hold two opposing beliefs at the same time. You’re most familiar with this concept when it shows up as guilt after you’ve done something you didn’t intend to do, like eating something after you’d already met your target for the day.
Here in the last five pounds, though, it’s not that there’s an uncomfortable disconnect between something you meant to do and what you actually did, it’s that your brain is anticipating the huge disconnect between the way you currently think about your habits, your body, your weight, and yourself, and the way you will be thinking about those things when you’ve finished losing weight.
And to your brain, those stakes are really high.
Every time you think a brand new thought, it takes more energy than thinking an old, repetitive thought. And your brain doesn’t like to use more energy than is strictly necessary. It’s very frugal that way.
The conscious part of you is like, “Yay, I can’t wait to be done counting calories! I’m so excited to buy clothes from any store and feel comfortable wearing them! I’m going to be so relaxed and happy and confident. It’s gonna be great!”
But the frugal and efficient bean-counter inside your skull is counting up all those brand new thoughts and feelings and tallying up the energy it’s going to take to fuel them and doing a full-on horror movie scream.
So the fix here – the real work of finally losing the last five pounds – has virtually nothing to do with the physical habits of weight loss, and everything to do with how you’re thinking about those habits.
My friend, here in the home stretch of your weight loss journey, you’re not just going to release the last of the weight you want to, you’re going to intentionally release the last of your mindset blocks.
Let’s dive into the three final mindset blocks you need to release in order to finally lose the last five pounds.
Final Mindset Block Number One: It’s time to release your mindset blocks about food
I’ve been telling you since the get-go that you can lose weight while eating any food you want in portion sizes that make sense for your daily calorie target. And I know you started out skeptical, but then gradually loosened the reins and made room for most of your favorites.
But there’s still something you’ve been reluctant to let go of, something that part of your brain has been like, “Oh man, when I’m done losing weight, I can finally enjoy ice cream again.” Or whatever your thing is. Drink beer. Go to a buffet. Eat at your favorite restaurant.
Or maybe it’s not one specific food, but more about enjoying your food and drinks in general. Like, you’ve been eating ice cream, but you only get the carton of vanilla instead of pralines and cream. And yes, I just pronounced pralines like a Californian, because I am one.
My very first job ever was at Baskin-Robbins, and every day I would have a customer debate me on the pronunciation of that flavor. But no matter how you say it, it’s delicious, and maybe you haven’t been letting yourself enjoy it.
Or, maybe you still have a nagging belief that there’s a certain type of food or place you eat that just automatically equates to gaining weight or not being in control of what you eat or what you weigh. I’m talking about late night snacks, vacation food, carbs, restaurant food, sweets – anything that you would describe as junk food, or tell yourself the next day, “Oh, the scale’s up today because I ate that delicious potato salad at the potluck yesterday.”
Your weight doesn’t fluctuate because of what you ate yesterday, it fluctuates because of the billions of biological processes your body is performing every minute of every day.
And, far more importantly, you don’t ever gain weight or lose weight because of WHAT you’re eating. You gain and lose weight because of what you BELIEVE about what you’re eating, and how MUCH of it you eat.
So, if you want to finally lose these last five pounds, keep them off forever, and enjoy your food and drinks for the rest of your life, it’s time to break through these mindset blocks about food once and for all.
The cognitive dissonance between what you’re currently thinking about food and what you want to be thinking about food when you’re finished losing weight is what’s making these last three, to five, to ten, to seven, to four and a half pounds feel so slow and difficult.
Final Mindset Block Number Two: It’s time to release your mindset blocks about your body and your weight
I’ve said it hundreds of times before and I’ll say it a million times again: your menopausal body is a walking, talking, thinking and blinking MIRACLE. She’s amazing, she’s strong, she’s beautiful, she’s been through the wringer and has the scars to prove what a badass she is.
She emerged, ready to breathe oxygen, after living in a sac of goo for nine months. She’s grown, she’s changed shape, she’s been broken and healed, and she’s housed every emotion you’ve ever felt.
She’s walked thousands of miles. She’s fought off illnesses. She’s held the hand of somebody you love and let go of garbage you didn’t need anymore.
She is living proof that you can, and have, and will continue to change.
She is also subject to gravity, and has an awe-inspiring and complex system for storing energy that you might need in the future, that you can measure with a simple household instrument.
And you have mindset blocks about pretty much everything I just said, that are keeping you stuck here in the last five pounds.
Every day, or every week, or every month, or every however often you weigh yourself, you step on the scale and you lament the number. Sometimes loudly, sometimes angrily, and sometimes you try to pretend that you just didn’t see the number at all.
If you acknowledge the thoughts you’re having about your weight at all, it’s to squash them down. You tell yourself not to let the scale ruin your day. It’s just a number. This is just a minor setback and of course you’re getting to your goal, you just have to be patient.
Every day you either look in the mirror and call yourself names, or you avoid looking at yourself at all. You pick your body apart and find nothing but flaws in your arms, your belly, your butt, your face, your chest, your thighs.
You hear the bullying words of the kids on the playground from your youth, or your father’s well-meaning but not very nice advice about how you shouldn’t “let yourself go like your mother did,” but now those words are in your head. In your voice.
And here, my friend, is the cold, hard truth: those thoughts aren’t going to be magically evicted from your head the day you see your goal weight on the scale. You will not suddenly be filled with a deep and abiding love for your body, nor will you be imbued with the calm confidence that you can maintain your weight forever, unless you intentionally release the mindset blocks you have about your weight and your body.
The cognitive dissonance between what you’re currently thinking about your weight and your body, and what you want to be thinking about your weight and your body is keeping you stuck. Hovering endlessly at a weight that’s just outside the reach of where you want to be.
Final Mindset Block Number Three: It’s time to release your mindset blocks about who you are as a human being
That sounds so dramatic, doesn’t it? But come with me for a moment here, while I point these mindset blocks out to you.
Right now, you think of yourself as a person who wants to lose weight. A person who is losing weight. A person with a weight problem. A person who is overweight. A person who struggles with her weight. A person who has trouble losing weight. A person who has been stuck at this weight for weeks or months or maybe even years at this point.
A person who has wanted to lose weight for as long as she can remember. A person who has tried and failed at losing weight so many times. A person who has lost weight, only to gain it all back plus a little. A person who’s not really sure she can keep the weight off. A person who doesn’t weigh what she wants to weigh, doesn’t look the way she wants to look, can’t do what she wants to do, and can’t have what she wants to have.
When you weigh what you want to weigh, and you’ve done what you set out to do, and you never – literally NEVER – have to worry about your weight again, who will you even be?
You feel the cognitive dissonance right now while I’m talking, don’t you? That extreme discomfort you’re feeling right now that’s making you want to get up and walk away from this podcast? THIS is the reason you haven’t lost the last five pounds yet.
Your brain is freaking out about the amount of energy it’s going to take to think all new thoughts about who you even are.
But you can. You CAN think new thoughts, and it’s not nearly as difficult or life-threatening as your dramatic brain would have you believe.
It’s also not as simple as chanting affirmations to yourself or telling yourself to “just think positive thoughts,” or – the thing I think most of us try to do – ignoring the discomfort completely and either doubling down on trying to get your calories right or just quitting altogether.
No, there’s an actual process to release your mindset blocks, and it's exactly what I teach inside the Get Your GOAL membership group. Taking a look at your current thoughts, really seeing them for what they are and how they’re holding you back, and then purposefully feeling the emotions they create will set you free to finally lose the last five pounds.
Inside the membership, you get access to the asynchronous learning modules that explain the mindset concepts and journaling processes, plus weekly group coaching where we do the work together in real time to move you forward.
My friend, let’s resolve this cognitive dissonance once and for all, bust through your mindset blocks about food, your weight, your body, and yourself, and let’s finally lose the last five pounds and get your goal.
Thank you so much for listening today – I’ll talk to you again soon!
