You want to lose weight, and you’re willing to do whatever it takes. You’re pretty sure that you’re going to have to give up a few things, and you’re absolutely right about that. But it might not be the things you expect. On today’s episode of the Get Your GOAL podcast, I’m sharing five surprising things I gave up when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s.
Hello, hello, my wildly ambitious and beautifully overthinking GOALfriend. Welcome to the podcast. I’m going to do something a teeny bit different today…
Isn’t it funny how we always think that giving something up is a bad thing? Like, when you saw the title of this podcast, you probably thought something like, “Oh, Pahla’s gonna tell me that she had to give up her favorite food, or that she gave up drinking wine.”
Or we associate giving up with quitting or backing down from a standard we think is unachievable. Again, in a bad way. Like maybe you think I’m going to tell you that I gave up on trying to get back down to the weight I was in high school, or I gave up trying to fit into my wedding dress again.
When it comes to weight loss, we really think that giving something up always means choosing what’s right instead of what’s fun, or doing what we have to do instead of what we want to do.
If we want to lose weight we have to buckle down, put the lid on, get serious, stay focused, restrict ourselves, stay away from temptation, eat perfectly, drink perfectly, sleep perfectly, exercise perfectly, and don’t forget to manage your mind perfectly, too!
Right?
My friend, the answer is no on all accounts.
Permanent weight loss isn’t about giving up in the way you’ve been taught to believe.
I don’t do anything perfectly, and I have lots of fun. And I do fit into my wedding dress, I weigh almost exactly what I weighed in high school, and I will never, ever give up eating pizza. Or cookies.
But as far as the wine thing goes… I mean, I never really drank a lot of wine, so even though I don’t drink it, I also didn’t really give it up the way I’m talking about here.
I didn’t give up my goals or my standards, and I definitely didn’t give up anything I enjoyed doing.
What I did instead was I gave up three thoughts that weren’t serving me, and two feelings that weren’t taking me where I wanted to go.
I told you I had five surprising things that I gave up!
Wanna hear about ‘em? Good, because here we go. And, by the way, this list isn’t in some sort of order – this is just how they came up for me when I was putting the podcast together.
Five things I gave up for good when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s:
Thing Number One that I gave up when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s was feeling sorry for myself.
When I tell you that I had spent a lifetime feeling sorry for myself, I’m not exaggerating. Some of my earliest memories are of feeling sorry for myself and believing, for one reason or another, that I couldn’t have what I wanted.
The way this showed up for me when I wanted to lose weight was that I would get really close to my goal weight, but not quite there. I was so sad! And I felt so sorry for myself!
And it really didn’t serve me. Because of course I can have what I want, and so can you. Biologically, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t weigh what you want to weigh.
Inside the Get Your GOAL membership, I teach the exact process that I used to give up – in the very best way – feeling sorry for myself. And rather than feeling sad (oh, the irony) that I was giving something up, it was a huge relief to stop feeling sorry for myself and finally get to the goal weight I wanted.
Thing Number Two that I gave up when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s was blaming other people
I don’t want to get too into the weeds of who I was blaming and what I was blaming them for, but let’s just say that it was everyone, all the time, for everything. And I blame my parents for this – hahaha! I’m joking.
Kind of.
The way this showed up for me when I wanted to lose weight was that I was making choices – food choices specifically, but also exercise choices and bedtime choices and general lifestyle choices – that I didn’t want to be making, and blaming other people as though I had no say in the matter.
But of course I did. I’m a grown-ass woman with a fully functioning brain and body. I can choose to do anything I want to, and so can you.
And let me be clear that this didn’t mean that all of a sudden, I started doing everything my way or the highway. Not at all. Because, honestly, that wouldn’t feel better to start imposing my will on the other members of the household.
No, the funny thing about giving up blaming other people was that outwardly, my choices didn’t actually change very much. It really was just the way I was thinking about the choices, and acknowledging that they were, indeed, choices.
Using language like, “I’m going to eat this for dinner” or “I want to eat this for dinner” instead of “I have to eat this for dinner” made all the difference in the world. It was so lovely to stop blaming other people and lose weight by making my own choices.
Thing Number Three that I gave up when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s was criticizing my body
When I was younger, I would spend literal hours looking at myself in the mirror and picking my body apart. I thought my thighs were gross, my butt was too big, my boobs were too small, and my arms were flabby and weak.
It didn’t really matter how thin or heavy I was, I found fault with everything. And when I woke up and realized that, that’s when I knew it was time to change. The criticism wasn’t about my body at all, it was just habitual self-talk, running on autopilot.
In reality, because there’s no Thought Police (and thank goodness for that), I can think anything about my body, and so can you.
This is one of my favorite things that I teach inside the Get Your GOAL membership. There are no rules about what I can and can’t think to myself in the privacy of my own head about my thighs, my butt, my boobs, or my arms. And it takes just as much time to think a kind thought as it takes to think a mean thought, but one of them feels a whole lot better.
So I gave up the critical thoughts that felt terrible, and now every day I love what I see in the mirror.
Thing Number Four that I gave up when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s was thinking I couldn’t figure it out
I’m the first to admit that I was completely flummoxed when perimenopause started really changing my body. And there were times when I almost gave up, in the bad way. Like, I almost gave up caring about myself and my goals and what I wanted for myself.
Because I thought I couldn’t figure it out!
I don’t know if you know how little research there is in the scientific community about menopause, but I’m sure you’ve noticed how all the so-called experts all tell you different things.
The way this showed up for me when I wanted to lose weight was that I was always confused and constantly watching videos and reading articles with conflicting information, and I kept chasing after the next shiny object. Maybe Intermittent Fasting will work. Maybe I should cut carbs. Maybe that blood type diet is the answer.
And when none of them felt good and everything seemed like just another fad diet like all the hundreds of other fad diets I’d been on in my lifetime, it finally struck me that I didn’t have to do any of this nonsense.
This was MY body, and yeah, she was behaving differently than she used to, but I could just pay attention to the signals she was sending me, and you can, too.
I remember learning the Scientific Method when I was a kid, and I’ll be honest, at the time I kind of thought it was like learning algebra. Like, when am I ever going to need this as an adult?
Well it never ceases to amaze me how often I use both algebra and the Scientific Method in my daily life.
Observe a situation, make a hypothesis, guess what will happen, gather data, and then analyze the results so you can pivot if necessary.
If you want to know the honest truth, this is everything I teach inside the Get Your GOAL group – it’s high school science class all over again, but with menopause.
What an absolute delight it was to give up thinking I couldn’t figure it out, because I definitely figured it out. And when you join us in the Get Your GOAL membership group, you can, too.
Thing Number five that I gave up when I lost weight for the last time in my 50s was losing weight ever again
Can I tell you something? This one was harder than you might think. I mean, we all want to be done losing weight, right? It’s the thing we dream of the whole time. It’s literally the goal.
But also? It’s kind of a social crutch, and a way of life, and pretty much all I’d ever known. Wanting to lose weight was as much a part of me as having green eyes.
I went on my first diet when I was nine. I gained and lost weight half a dozen times between my teenage years and menopause. And even all the years I was thin, there was a part of me that was ready and willing to complain about my weight and want to lose a little more. Because it was familiar.
Losing weight for the last time was, in a word, scary.
And this is, without a doubt, the most important thing I teach inside the Get Your GOAL group. I think anybody can teach you how to lose weight, honestly. Gathering enough belief in yourself to get to your goal weight isn’t easy, but it’s also not hard.
But creating a new identity for yourself as a person who will never want to lose weight again?
Yeah, diet programs aren’t teaching you that. And it’s why most of them fail, and why so many women gain their weight back.
Giving up losing weight ever again was one of the toughest parts of losing weight, but I’m so glad I did.
And I’d love to help you do the same. My friend, as a weight loss mindset coach, I’m never going to ask you to give up your deepest desire for yourself. I’m never going to ask you to give up your favorite foods, or your favorite evening drinky-poo.
But I will absolutely hold your virtual hand through the hard parts of giving up feeling sorry for yourself, giving up blaming other people, giving up criticizing your body, giving up thinking you can’t figure it out, and giving up losing weight ever again.
When you’re ready to give it up, you’re invited to join the Get Your GOAL membership.
Thank you so much for listening today – I’ll talk to you again soon!
