Get Out of the Rut - Episode # 11
Lessons Learned from Gaining Weight
Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited to be recording this one. Last time we talked all about the lessons I've learned from losing 40 pounds. And if you heard that episode, if you listen, If you listen to the episode, you know how much fun I had losing all the weight. Right?
It was exciting and it was fun and I dare to say it was easy, even when it was hard, it was flavored with the easy and fun part of that journey. And I shared all about that on that other podcast. But then what happened is that I gained some of the weight back. You know, fast forward about three years and I gained about 30 pounds out of that 40 that I lost.
And I was very surprised when I noticed the first fall because it's not like I was weighting myself every single day, right? I, I just, one day I look at my body. I was like, Oh wow, I think I gained some weight. And when I weighed myself and I saw that was a lot more than I was even expecting, I was very surprised.
Now, one of the things that I learned just right there was that I wasn't obsessing over my weight. It was something that I lost the weight, but because I wasn't obsessing over losing the weight, I wasn't also obsessing over when I was gaining weight. Looking back, I find it very helpful for myself even to have that experience because it wasn't something that I was suffering for a very long time.
Another thing that surprised me was when I noticed that I gained the weight, I wasn't beating myself up. I can, I can. I wouldn't say that I didn't care at all, of course I cared, but because I care for my body, but when I looked at the numbers, like, oh, wow, what happened?
lot of times I see, especially as I'm coaching clients, when they gain weight back, the main thing is that I don't know what happened.
It's almost like you woke up one day and you were 10, 40 pounds higher than you were before you went to bed or even like three or four pounds above more than what you had when you went to bed, like you woke up and was like, Oh my goodness, what happened? And that was something that didn't happen to me.
I was really clear as what had happened and What I noticed is that the year prior, I was going through a lot of stress. I had a brand new job that I was not happy there. And I dare say it was even a very toxic work environment and I was very depressed, but it was against, because I was working as a coach and because I know how to manage my mind, I was managing the mind so well that I wasn't almost suppressing that feeling of depression.
It was that whenever I felt the depression, it's like. No, it's not really a problem, like, yeah, this is a problem at work. Like the people that I work with are not sometimes the most how do I say without saying toxic, but they were some people were very toxic to me but I was managing my mind about the situation, not letting the depression take over, but it was still there, like I was still feeling really bad about things that were happening to me.
So from this point, I don't even feel like I was eating a lot or that I was coping with food and that's why I gained weight. I actually don't even think that. I think it was really the stress that I had going on through the whole year that I did eat more, like not even eat more, but I eat unhealthy choices. I made very unhealthy choices and I stopped running because I was working so much. I was working about 75 hours a week and the running, the exercising just wouldn't fit in my schedule at that time. And because my eyes got away from the goal, it wasn't a big deal. I wasn't even really considering that was something that I would need to do on a daily basis.
So, I would love to share with you today, some lessons that I've learned from gaining this weight back. Some things that I was able to look and see how my body was and how I was dealing with myself and understand why I gained the weight in the first place and what to do from here.
The first thing that I've noticed is that. And I teach my clients this a lot, but it was great for me to see it in my own life. Whenever you grow to know a new identity, we call it in my coaching. I call it the future self, right? There is something that I talk to all of my clients, basically, that we need to form the vision of your future self.
And then we have a process where we bring the future self vision to your reality today, as you are walking towards that future self vision. Okay. So one of the things that I had as I was losing weight was that I had that very well formed vision of my future self. And I developed this love and compassion and excitement towards the vision.
And when I achieved the vision, I almost just dropped it. It was like, Oh, I arrived. This is where I am right now. And this is great. And I loved every minute of it, but I wasn't able to really deliberately solidify that new self image or the new identity that I had created. That was a woman who didn't really eat a lot of sugar and flour was a woman who exercised on a daily basis, sometimes many times during the day right didn't really solidify the new identity of I am a woman who can work really hard and have a very healthy lifestyle and the healthy lifestyle in my mind was going to the gym on a few days a week, taking some classes or running every single day, because I really, really love running.
Another one for me, for my identity of a really healthy lifestyle was eating really well. I love eating salads. I love it.
I love having a salad for lunch with some protein. Either steak or chicken or whatever it is. I love that meal. But because I didn't solidify the identity, it was very easy to just get away from me. When the stress, the life, the everything else came up to me, it was very easy to let that go because your brain will always go back to that stronger identity that you have.
In this case, specifically, my stronger identity on the healthy level was a woman who didn't really exercise, but it was a woman who liked running, but it wouldn't run all the time. That was that new identity then. The stress of life without the mind management and the deliberate creation, you would just go back to the normal, that regular normal baseline.
And we see this a lot with winners of lottery. Lottery winners they will All of a sudden get this $500,000 or 2 million dollars and after a few years, it's all gone because they haven't changed the identity as to someone who can absolutely have that amount of moneY.
NBA players are another big ones where they make all those millions of dollars during their seasons. And then right after the season is over, when they retire, they lose all their money. Because they haven't really created the identity of a person who can absolutely hold that amount of money at all times.
So those are some of the things that I have learned. And what I noticed is that as I teach my clients is that you need a little break between goals.
When you achieve that new identity that you want, instead of just going out for a bigger goal or something else, you want to spend some time with the new identity. You want to spend some time just making that new identity your baseline, where it's just normal for you to have that amount of money or to have this amount of weight or to have this new lifestyle that you didn't even know you wanted to have in the first place.
That was one of the first things that I noticed that I learned from gaining all this weight. It is extremely important for you to between goals to have some time to let it settle. Have some time to let the new identity become Your real new identity to let this future self be your present self before you even create a future self vision.
In my case, I went from having that goal of losing weight to having another goal of making X amount of money in my business and going all in to create that amount of money. And because of the stress of making the new goal, the money goal, really, I was, I dropped the lifestyle, the health goals that I had before.
And it's just good to know. It's really good to know that when you have your focus on something that you really want, you can absolutely create that. And I fully believe that. I really do believe if there is something that you really want and you're willing to go through, you're willing to do the work that is necessary, you can absolutely achieve the goals that you want.
And for me, whenever I stopped seeing that this way, seeing the goal as what I really wanted to create, I stopped making progress.
What is helpful to see because when I noticed that weight up, that 30 pounds higher, I didn't get desperate. I didn't say, Oh my gosh, I'll never be able to lose this weight again. I didn't even question that that would be a problem because for me, of course, I can lose this weight.
I've lost it before. I know how, it's not difficult. It's actually quite fun. As soon as I want, as soon as I'm ready to put my focus back on that side. Okay. And that is another thing that I've learned. You don't have to want to lose weight. Isn't it incredible to know that you can be happy with the body that you have right now, even if it's the weight number, it's higher than what you desire.
Right now in my life, the way I have said right now, I can't say that I'm very happy. I'm not excited about my weight, but I'm also not depressed. And I'm also not willing to start right now losing this weight. I'm okay. It's okay for me to have this body. That just blew my mind when I really noticed to see that you don't have to lose weight all the time, even if your weight is higher than what you would like to be.
I know that as soon as I want to, I can lose this weight, independent of my hormones, independent of my age, independent of what is happening around me. If I want to, I can do it. If I want to put my focus on, and it's okay for me to not want it.
This mindset right here, this way of thinking, Really helped me to, again, understand one more time and solidify my belief that losing weight has so much more to do with your mindset than what you eat or don't eat.
Okay, because I know this because I haven't gained any more weight. As soon as I noticed that that weight and I'm okay being where I am, and I'm okay not wanting to lose weight right now, I maintained my weight. I didn't gain the next 10 pounds that I thought I was going to, like that whole 40 pounds up.
I'm maintaining for the last, maybe six months now. It's the same weight because it's not about what I eat or don't eat or how much I eat. It's about the mindset of I am okay where I am right now. And now I am focused on my work and the work that I'm doing with my clients in the world that I love so much.
And I know as soon as I shift my focus to my body and to losing some more weight without dropping the work that I'm doing and everything else, I know I can lose weight just fine. That trust with myself game. From gaining weight and from knowing that I can lose it anyways. Okay. That is the level of trust that I can have with myself that I can achieve the goals that I set up to do without any drama, without any problems.
That was a beautiful thing that I've learned. When I saw the weight gain and I saw what happened and I was able to look in the mirror and say, and I still love myself the same way. It didn't change. I didn't love myself more when I was skinnier and I didn't love myself more or less now that I have 30 pounds over than what I had before.
That was a beautiful thing to know. That the self love does not equal the amount of pounds you have on a scale. You can love yourself independent of what you look like, right? It's the idea of you can love yourself the same way when you wake up in the morning and your hair is all messed up and your makeup is all messed up and you love yourself that same way, with the same intensity, with the same unconditional love, when you're all put together, going to a beautiful party in the evening with your family.
Like you don't need to change the amount of love and how you love yourself from different ways of life. And that was a beautiful thing for me to understand, just to know, not just intellectually, but in my heart that I can love myself at any size. And I get to decide if I want to change the size or not.
And also that if my size is going up, it can also be my responsibility. I don't need to throw the responsibility of that. Oh, it was a very stressful year. Oh, those people that I worked with were not very nice. And that's why I gained weight. I don't need to blame. I can still take responsibility for what I am doing with my own body.
Because that gives me the possibility of doing whatever I want with my own body. If it's somebody else's fault that I'm gaining weight, that means I don't have a lot of control. I just, I have to gain weight. And if that was the case, I would keep on gaining weight, but because I took responsibility for how I treat my body, I'm able to stabilize the weight gain.
And I'm able to, decide when it's time for me to lose some weight.
I've learned that I get to feel beautiful, no matter what. It's not the weight I can feel. I can see my face skinnier or my body changed my stomach being a little more flat and think that is beautiful and it doesn't mean that anything different than that it's ugly. And I thought before there would be the canes.
As I was losing the weight, I thought that I would be ugly if I was chubbier. And today I can still look at myself as like, I'm beautiful. I feel like I have this brightness in my smiles. And that comes from my thoughts. It doesn't come from what I have on my face. That was a beautiful realization that I had that I wouldn't have if I didn't gain some weight back.
Lesson that I've learned is that my weight gain and weight loss is absolutely under control. I decide when I want to lose some weight again, and that is okay by me. It's okay to not wanting to lose weight too. Okay. Then to me has been such a freedom that such an acceptance that I can be the way I am and it's not a problem.
No one tells me when it's time to gain weight or lose weight. I get to decide. I am in control of my own body. But the main thing that I would love to convey in this episode today is the level of acceptance that you can have with yourself. That acceptance of whatever is happening to your life.
I really do believe some of the seasons that we have can be different in life. Some seasons are very easy. Some seasons are very exciting and fun. And some seasons of life, very hard and difficult. And sometimes your body will respond in different ways.
So in 2020, when I lost all of the weight, I know there was a pandemic and I always feel terrible saying this.
It was the best year of my life. I didn't have a lot of stress. I just had my kids in the house and it was fun and it was so exciting. And my husband was working from home and we just had such a beautiful relationship and I'm running and I'm exercising. My husband is too, and we have bonded over these and the kids are bonding with us.
And it was truly an easy and fun and exciting time of our lives. And I know people were freaking out over COVID and we were like, we don't even have our elderly parents around us. So of course you're using the FaceTime and we're using the zoom calls with them all the time. And you're doing all of those calls, but we couldn't transmit COVID to them.
So it was so much easier for us to just be with our little family here together and just enjoying life. So, yes, it makes a lot of sense that that was the perfect time for me to lose some weight or it was really fun.
When we fast forward a little bit, the other season of my life where I had a full time job and I have my business that's, thank goodness, was blooming.
It was so good having all of those clients, but it was really hard. It was hard having to work 75 hours a week, it was not easy. And yes, it makes a lot of sense that from the pressure, from the stress and everything else, I was gaining some weight. So that acceptance that yes, my perfect human body would respond this way to that perfect situation, even though the situation wasn't so pleasant at every time it was still in my mind was a very perfect situation.
I have grown so much from that year that 2022, 2023, I can look back and be very grateful for everything that was happening to me there, even if I'm gaining some weight. Okay. Just looking at this way, I know it gives me the sense of, I can do anything I want. I can absolutely lose some weight if I decide to do so.
And I'm happy to say that I am not there yet. Because I don't need to. There's no one forcing me to get to lose weight right now. I am not forcing myself to do it. I'm just happy where I am. That is another realization that I've had that really blew my mind. I am giving myself permission to be where I am and be okay with my body, with my growth, with myself, no matter what.
And this is truly what I think freedom is. Freedom is you allowing yourself to be you, even if the version that you have today is not the perfect version that you're envisioning to yourself. It's okay for you to feel happy with the version that you have today. I hope this podcast really helped you see it this way.
And when you start to making that about you in your life, like where is it that you think should be different and how could you see it as the perfect situation? Even if it's not happy, even if it's not the most exciting way for you to be right now, can you see it as the perfect situation for you? That is freedom.
The acceptance that whatever you are today. Your physical looks or your business or your family, your relationships, the freedom to know that that is okay. Gives you the limitless possibilities. From this place you can choose to stay where you are, or you can choose to change. You don't have to change. You have the choice.
Okay. My friends, I absolutely love you so much. Thank you so much for being here with me in this podcast. I can't wait to see you next week. I love you all. I'll see you later. Bye bye.
