It's almost the first of the year, and literally everybody is talking about new year, new you. But how do you know if you're actually ready to make changes? And not just like a week or two of changing what you eat or how you exercise, but like the deep foundational change of losing weight for the last time. Well, today, I've got a checklist to help you know for sure if you're ready, and some of the items might surprise you. Listen. Anybody can help you lose weight after menopause just by restricting yourself and using willpower, but my zone of genius is helping you lose all the weight you want and keep it off forever by changing your mindset. Welcome to the Get Your Goal podcast where ambitious menopausal women come to lose weight for the last time. I'm your host, Pahla B, certified life and weight loss coach, author of mind over menopause, and former yo-yo dieter. When you're ready to change your mind about weight loss, I'm here to help.
Let's get your goal. Hello, hello, GOALfriend. Let's dive in. Now I've actually got 2 checklists for you today. The first one is how to know you are not ready to lose weight for the last time, and the second one is how to know that you are. And here's how this episode is gonna shake down. First, I'm gonna give you a disclaimer about how these lists are gonna work, and then I'm gonna tell you both of the lists, and then we're gonna dissect each one of them individually in-depth.
So first, the disclaimer. Neither one of these lists are carved in stone, and you're very likely to actually see a little bit of yourself in both of them. And even if you only see yourself in the not ready checklist, please don't make that mean that you'll never be ready or that there's something wrong with you or that you're, you know, doomed to fail. Like, simply notice that you're not ready right now. There's probably just a little bit more readiness, and it might even be as little as just listening to this podcast that you need to be able to move yourself forward. Basically, what I'm saying here is don't use these lists against yourself, but use this information to move yourself forward. Okay. So here's list number 1. How to know you're not ready, is you feel utterly disgusted with your weight, your body, and or your whole life. Number 2 is you just wanna get back to a weight that you used to be. Number 3 is that you don't even know where to start. Number 4, you have a hard and fast deadline that requires you to lose weight quickly.
And number five. You're thinking that it's going to take extreme measures to lose weight. And I just realized that I didn't explain to you that these aren't in any kind of an order. Like, I just said 1 through 5, but it's not like number 1 is more heavily weighted than number 5 or even that these would go in some kind of an order. Like, first you have to be number 1, then you get to number 5. These are just 5 different indicators that you are or are not ready right now. And in that same vein, these are not in any kind of an order, but here are 5 ways to know that you are ready. Number 1, is that you actually wanna make permanent changes. Number 2 is that you're not in too much of a hurry.
Number 3 is that you know where real change happens. Number 4 is you're open to being completely honest with yourself. And then number 5, you're open to being kind to yourself. That's the one I think surprises everybody, like the Spanish inquisition, nobody expects that you're gonna have to be kind to yourself in order to lose weight. But here's the thing. Let's go ahead and actually go through each item individually. In fact, starting with the how to know that you're not ready so that I can give you a little bit of insight from my perspective as a weight loss coach about what it really means to be ready to lose weight and how that will help propel you forward in a way that I'm gonna call it faster even though I am in these individual items going to caution you against trying to go too fast or being impatient. But knowing that you are actually ready and being really ready is the thing that will get you where you wanna go.
So let's go ahead and go through these individually. Number one is that you feel utterly disgusted with your weight, your body, and or your whole life. And let me assure you, like I did in the disclaimer, that, honestly, I think most of us start here or have some version of this. There comes this breaking point with your weight where you're like, I literally cannot stand this anymore. I remember mine vividly. I was out to lunch with my friends, and this is actually, interestingly, not the last time I lost weight. This is one of the times that I lost weight when I was in my thirties. I was out to lunch with my friends, and we were sitting there and talking and laughing and eating and having a good time, and all I could think about was how tight my pants were.
Like, I literally had to unbutton my pants in the restaurant because I was into them in a way that felt so disgusting to me. Now here's the thing. Having some element of disgust is not going to stop you from losing weight. The reason I put this on the not ready list is that when that's all you feel, when it's constant, when it's pervasive, when it's really all you can think about, where you can't even really see your way past the disgust to to think about or open your brain for another way to think about your body or your weight or your life. When you are so encompassed with the disgust, that's when you're not really ready to lose weight. Disgust is actually not a feeling that drives a lot of productive action. In order to move forward with weight loss, you're also going to need to feel some kind of motivation, some kind of determination, some version of kindness or love towards yourself in order to make an improvement that you desire for yourself. Pure disgust actually leads to, in so many ways, just ignoring yourself or shoving your feelings down further or continuing to do the things that you've been doing. Disgust in and of itself tends to be the sort of emotion that you just get stuck inside of instead of an emotion that moves you forward. Number 2 on the list is you just wanna get back to a weight you used to be. And, again, I think lots of us start here because we only have experience with the past. We're familiar with, Okay, at one point in time in my life, there was this weight that I really liked.
The reason I have this on the not ready list is it's kinda like item number 1 where you're so enmeshed in that, like, I just wanna get back to where I used to be, that you kind of don't even notice that that's literally impossible. Here's the thing. Time only moves one direction. And even though you want to get back, you also simultaneously do understand that time only moves one way, so you're kind of telling yourself that you want something that's impossible. It's really weird how I mean, it's not really weird how often I coach on this. I do coach on this a lot because your brain very naturally will always go to the past for some kind of information about what's possible for you. So on the one hand, I get it, and on the other, again, don't use this against yourself if all you've been thinking about is how you'd like to get back to something, but really recognize that wanting to get back to something could be the thing that's actually keeping you stuck. Your brain understands that time only moves one way. So it's not that you'll never be ready. It's that being stuck in wanting to go backwards could be stopping you from being ready right now.
Item number 3, you don't even know where to start. Now here's the thing. I actually don’t think this one applies to you at all. But sometimes we tell ourselves this. This is why I included it on the list because sometimes your brain will tell you, I don't even know where to start, as a way to just kinda keep you researching or keep you moving a little slowly or keep you from making too many changes and keeping you not ready. Here's the thing. You do actually know where to start. First of all, you pushed play on this podcast, and second of all, the thing that I talk to you about literally all the time is The 5-0 Method. This is my free weight loss program for women over 50. And, just in case this is actually the very 1st podcast you've ever listened to a podcast of mine, you wouldn't know that I talk about this all the time.
But spoiler alert, this is something I'm gonna talk about in probably every single episode of the podcast. It's my free program. It is my free signature program, honestly. It is simple, sustainable, backed by science, and it starts with your mindset. When you understand what's going on in your brain, you can make things happen inside your body. The 5-0 Method lays it out for you super clearly and even gets you started on the mindset piece. You can get it from getyourgoal.com
Telling yourself that you don’t know where to start could be the thing that's making you not ready, but recognizing that you're just telling yourself that and you actually do indeed know where to start is the thing that's gonna move you forward. We're gonna be quick with item number 3 then. So item number 4 is that you have a hard and fast deadline that requires you to lose weight quickly. Again, let me assure you that lots of us start with this.
So many times in my life, I have wanted to lose weight for a specific milestone, a date, a birthday, an event, a something. Lots of us feel this way, and there's nothing wrong with it in and of itself, except if it leads to item number 5. These 2 really are very intertwined. When you feel like you need to lose weight quickly for a specific event, it very often takes you to this place where you are really ready to go to extreme measures. Impatience is the sort of feeling that really drives actions that aren't sustainable over any kind of long term, meaning something extreme. The truth of it is it doesn't take anything extreme in order to lose weight. I know that at this age and with the changes that menopause has brought, that it kind of does feel like, oh my gosh, I really have to do something completely different. Like, I'm already eating less and moving more. I must have to eat even less than I have been and move even more than I have been.
Like, we push ourselves to these deep extremes or think we need to, but the truth of it is here in menopause, what you actually need to do is kinder and gentler. The extremes are what don't work anymore. Yes, you have had physiological changes with menopause, and those physiological changes require you to be nicer to yourself. Require you to be on not even necessarily like a longer timeline, but a gentler timeline. Allowing your body to be menopausal, allowing it to take as long as it takes. I mean, it is what we're gonna talk about here when we're talking about the list of being ready. Thinking that you have to lose weight by a certain date and that it's going to take extreme measures. Those are 2, in my opinion, red flags for being actually ready to lose weight. And I wanna offer something else here. When I'm offering you this list of knowing that you're not ready or knowing that you are ready. It might actually sound very much like somebody else's, like some other coach or some other a fitness trainer or some other guru out there on the Internet.
It might actually my list of not readies might actually sound like their list of readies. I know that the way that I offer you to lose weight permanently, gently, kindly. It's not popular. It's not what a lot of people are doing. And here's the thing that you need to know about me. I have helped people lose weight quickly. I have helped people lose weight by really pushing themselves. This was many many years ago when I very first got into fitness and health and wellness and weight loss. I definitely was capable of those extreme measures and helping people really push themselves with willpower and those extreme measures. And while it is temporarily interesting, fun, exciting, and feels like, oh my gosh, we're really getting there, we're really getting your goals, and we're really doing what you wanna do.
It is so utterly unsatisfying in the long run when you almost inevitably gain the weight back, lose fitness, lose all the traction and motivation that you had when you started. It was so awful for me as a coach and, I mean, obviously, for my clients too. Like like, not to not to, like, negate what they were going through, but my experience is what I have access to. Like, I hated watching people lose steam. I hated watching people, like, give up after they had gotten what they wanted or even before they got there because they were pushing themselves so hard, because they were doing such extreme things, because they were doing things so temporarily. That experience of helping people lose weight quickly and fast for a specific reason is actually what drove me to becoming a mindset coach. It is so much more satisfying for me as your coach to watch you make truly permanent changes, to never ever ever let yourself down again. Don't mind me just, like, totally quoting a Depeche Mode song there. But so here's the thing. Here's how you know that you are ready is when you really wanna make permanent changes. This is how you know you're ready for me.
This is how you know you're ready for The 5-0 Method and the Get Your Goal group and the Get Your Goal podcast. This is how you know that you are here for the message that I am putting out in the world – when you really truly wanna make permanent changes. When you are looking at the things that you are doing and you're like, am I gonna still be able to do this in 10 years? Not in 10 days or even 10 weeks or possibly 10 months, but in 10 years, is this something I still wanna be doing? That's how you know that you are really ready, when you can have that kind of clarity about what sorts of changes you are going to make. And that leads to and is tied in much the same way that the not ready things did with not being in too much of a hurry. Again, oh my gosh. Trust me. I'm not telling you that you have to be, like, so calm and patient and zen about the weight loss process. No. Of course, you can feel impatient. We all do. Absolutely.
Don't get stuck in impatience is where I'm going with this one. When you're not in too much of a hurry, when you understand that your menopausal body is not operating the way that it used to. When you understand that there is going to be a learning curve here, that you are going to need to be on your body's timeline in a way that you definitely weren't when you were younger. Or maybe you were. You know what? Your body's timeline was different when we were younger, and your brain and your body worked together to be, like, quick and fast and make changes right now. Now your brain still kinda wants to make changes that fast, but your body's like, hey. You know what? I'm slightly less efficient than I used to be. We're menopausal now, so let's take this at a different speed. Being in that kind of hurry. Being in a hurry to learn more about your body and then let your body be on its own timeline, that's how you know that you are totally ready to lose weight. And then step number 3, not step number 3, but item number 3, you know where real change happens. And here's the thing, you might not.
But now that you're listening to this podcast, I'm about to tell you in this very next sentence, real change happens in your brain. We think, all of us, because we've been socialized our whole lives to think that real change happens, like, in the real world with what you're doing, like cleaning out your pantry or exercising differently or eating differently or doing the things. Real change actually happens in your brain first. Everything we do starts with a thought. That thought creates a feeling, that feeling is what drives your actions. Really understanding that chain of events and manipulating it to work for you instead of, not always against you, but unintentionally in ways that you've been operating in the world. That's how you know you are really ready, when you're ready to tackle your brain first versus just doing doing doing. My friend, this is how we get permanent weight loss. Okay. Number 4 and number 5, I'm gonna talk about these together because one of these probably sounds really easy to you and one of these probably sounds really hard, and I never know which one it's gonna be, but being open to being completely honest with yourself and being open to being completely kind to yourself really do go hand in hand. There are lots of us who are like, okay.
I am definitely ready to give myself grace. I am definitely ready to cut myself some slack and give myself a break. And, also, what I mean by that is that I'm going to really firmly hold myself accountable by kinda being mean to myself or by thinking that I'm being completely honest but being kind of mean to myself. Being honest and being kind go hand in hand, and neither one of those might be the way that you've been talking to yourself in the past. You know you are ready when you're ready to even consider this as an option. Not that you've already gained these skills, but that you're ready to understand that they are skills. You have probably been shoving some things aside that you didn't wanna look at. When you are ready to gain the skill of being honest with yourself, you're ready to lose weight for the last time. You have probably spent most of your life with some negative chatter in your head. We all have. This is completely normal, by the way.
Like, completely normal. We all all have negative self talk. But when you're open to, like, hearing that negative self talk unintentionally asking yourself to say something kind instead, that's how you know you're ready for permanent weight loss. These are skills that we learn with The 5-0 Method. Like, it's literally one of the first things that you'll start doing with The 5-0 Method is getting honest with yourself in your journal and being kind to yourself by really gently looking at what you're thinking. These are the skills that are gonna take you all the way to your goal weight, my friend. I really hope that this was helpful for you to kind of conceptualize what you may have been thinking that could be keeping you not quite ready to lose weight versus what it's gonna look like when you are really ready to lose weight. And honestly, either way, your first step is to go download The 5-0 Method from getyourgoal.com because taking in that information, taking in this information from the podcast could be the thing that tips the scales and really gets you ready to lose weight for the last time. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you again soon.
