The Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast

BEE #133: Discover the 3 Secrets to Sustainable Weight Loss

• Kristin Jones

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If you are like most people on this planet, you have lost weight and felt great, only to regain that same weight and a little bit more. It is beyond maddening and frustrating. So what can you do about it? In this week's podcast, I am going to give you three things to do while losing weight that will help you keep the weight off after you have reached your goal weight.

 Discover why eating the foods you love is crucial for long-term success, and how understanding the internal mechanisms behind your eating habits can set you free from the mental pitfalls of deprivation. I provide insights into maintaining a balanced mental state and share resources available through my social media platforms to support your journey. 

Many believe that shedding pounds will automatically lead to happiness, but I challenge this notion by emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and internal work. Learn how to identify your core motivations and find joy in life beyond just weight loss. I delve into understanding the emotional triggers that influence our relationship with food and why uncovering your "why" is essential for overcoming challenges. 

Lastly, it is essential to discover why you gained weight in the first place and figure out why food is becoming something more in your life than just fuel. This is by far the most important thing to do and this kind of work can often be difficult but it is so worth it. What triggered you  to start using food as anything other than fuel?What was happening in your life at that time that caused you to not want to feel emotions and instead to eat them? I offer strategies and encouragement to examine the roots of emotional eating, encouraging support through therapy, coaching, or community groups where necessary. 

Connect with me online:

1. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakthroughemotionaleating/
2. You Tube channel, Kristin Jones Coaching: https://www.youtube.com/@KristinJonesCoaching44
3 . Website: https://www.kristinjonescoaching.com

If you want to learn more about a non-diet approach to weight loss, get my FREE Stop Dieting Guide. Go to https://go.kristinjonescoaching.com/stop-dieting-guide

Needing more specific and direct support for your emotional eating and overeating? Check out my online course, Stop Dieting Start Feeling, and my personalized coaching program, Breakthrough To You.

If you found this episode helpful, don't forget to leave a review on the platform you used to listen and share it with your friends on your Instagram stories. Also, be sure to follow me on Instagram @breakthroughemotionaleating, and don't hesitate to slide into my DMs to share your thoughts and feedback. Your support means the world!

Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to the Breakthrough Emotional Eating Podcast. My name is Kristen Jones and thank you so much for joining me today. Now it has been a long hot minute since I have recorded live on Facebook. I did most of my first 132 episodes of my podcast live in my Facebook group, breakthrough Emotional Eating, the Breakthrough Emotional Eating group on Facebook, and for some reason today I wasn't able to do it in the group. So we're live on my personal profile, but wanted to get back into the swing and the habit and the routine of a weekly podcast or releasing a weekly podcast, because there are so many things for us to continue to talk about when it comes to emotional eating. My frustration today was a little bit indicative of my relationship with Facebook right now, but I'm going to just power past that and just be, like you know, super happy to be back and definitely have some new things happening, some new things going on, but also some things that I definitely want to share and some tips and some strategies and all the things that I have done for the last oh my gosh four years.

Speaker 1:

I started my podcast in July of 2020. We went into lockdown in March and by July I started my started recording Actually, I was always doing Facebook lives and then started recording them and making them into weekly podcasts. So have loved that, have really enjoyed it, and I feel like it's been a really beneficial tool for people and now I just want to continue to do that as well. On that line of thinking, if you're new to me and you've just found this podcast, um, I have a Facebook group. It's called breakthrough emotional eating uh, stop overeating for good. And it is on Facebook. It's wwwfacebookcom. Forward slash groups forward slash food breakthrough. I am also on Instagram at atthrough Emotional Eating all one word. And I also have a brand new YouTube channel. It's called Kristen Jones Coaching. Kristen is K-R-I-S-T-I-N Jones Coaching and there I have all sorts of other topics, other videos that I have made over the course of the last three months that I will continue to make weekly. Some of those will show up as podcast topics, some of them won't, so it's always something to jump in. There's some new material there, new things that you can look at and definitely some strategies, tips, lots of shorts, all sorts of things that you can check out there in relationship to overeating and emotional eating.

Speaker 1:

So today's topic what we're going to talk about today is so today's topic, what we're going to talk about today, is what do you need to be doing while you are losing weight in order to put yourself in the best possible position to keep the weight off? Because if you're anything like the millions of people on this earth who have lost weight had the best of intentions, were in their head saying I'm never going to gain this weight back again. And then life came, knocked them upside the head, ran them over with a pickup truck and then, all of a sudden, they're 20 pounds back on and they're like what the heck just happened? How did that happen? I don't know what's going on. The things that happen in our lives we cannot control. There are things in our lives we can control, but there are some things that happen that we just are not expecting. We aren't expecting and at times, we are not equipped to deal with them, and we just do the best we can and that's all anyone can do.

Speaker 1:

But there are also things that you can be doing while you lose weight to put yourself in the best possible position to understand yourself and the mechanisms that are going on within you that are creating the things that are going on that are causing you to go back to your old habits, to go back to the things that you swore you were never going to do, and you always have the best of intentions, but that darn brain of yours is going to take you back and it's going to go back to the things that it's familiar with. And so how do we put ourselves in a position to be able, when we get to our goal weight, to be able to say okay, I got this dialed in, I know what I'm going to do and I'm going to start living my life in this way and really try to do this on a daily basis. So there are three things that we're going to talk about today. So the first one and this is my, this is my favorite, because this is this is the one that I think is so important for anyone just trying to lose weight.

Speaker 1:

I think this is so important, and it is so important and relevant when you get to your goal weight and it's the aspect of you need to not be dramatically changing every single thing that you eat in order to lose weight and I know that sounds crazy, because most diets, most programs that are helping you to lose weight, are going to have you dramatically change what you eat and when you do that, you set up in your mind that that's the only way that I can lose weight is by eating brown rice, chicken and broccoli, and that's the only thing that I can eat. And if I don't eat those things, if I don't eat those types of foods, I'm not going to lose weight and I'm certainly not going to keep it off. We need to be losing weight eating the foods that we are planning on eating for the rest of our lives, because otherwise, what you do is you set your brain off into the land of restriction and deprivation and it is going to push back and it's going to fight you every step of the way and twice on Sunday, because it doesn't want to be told that it can't eat something for the rest of your life. It doesn't want to be told that you don't get to ever have a cookie, or you never get to have dessert, or you never. And and what happens is is then you start to have these, these, you know these times where, when you get to your goal weight, you've denied yourself all of these foods while you were losing weight, and suddenly it's like oh my gosh, okay, I don't have to lose weight anymore. Now I can go back to the way I used to eat. Well, not if you were completely starving yourself to get to that goal weight. You're never going to be able to keep it off and so it's important that we eat foods that we enjoy, that we plan on eating and that are not things that we dislike eating or that we don't want to regularly have in our lives, because, again, eating or that we don't want to regularly have in our lives, because again, you get to that end result, you get to that end goal, and then, all of a sudden, you don't want to eat those foods anymore and your body and your brain are not don't want to eat those things anymore either, and so they're going to go right back to the way you were eating before.

Speaker 1:

If there doesn't have to be a dramatic change and it just has to be looking at and I'm not saying that we eat Twinkies all day, please don't get me wrong but I'm saying is that we need to be able to learn how to eat in a way that we eat the foods we love and we eat them so we can lose weight, and it's one of the things that I've always talked about and it has been a major tenant in any of my programs to help people lose weight, and that is learning to eat to satisfied and learning that you don't have to be on that diet rollercoaster, where it's, I eat as much food as I can because it's in front of me and I'll be good tomorrow. We have to start moving away from that and telling ourselves no, I just eat until I'm satisfied, and when you do that, you can eat foods that you love. But learning how to eat to satisfied, it's challenging. And the other thing is it's eating a lot less food than you're used to eating. But if you're eating what you really like, you don't really need that much food, and that's a whole different. That's a whole different podcast. So just want to make sure that we remember that we incorporate foods that we love while we're losing weight, so we don't have that dramatic bounce back of when we reach our goal weight, that all of a sudden things the rail, the wheels come off and you go off the rails and you start eating everything in sight that you denied yourself the entire time that you were trying to lose weight. All right, number two I'm going to say of the three things that we're going to talk about today. That's the only one that talks about food, fyi, and you guys know I don't talk about food very much.

Speaker 1:

So number two don't lose weight to improve your life. Now, I know that sounds really strange. Well, why? Why wouldn't I lose weight to improve my life? Why wouldn't I lose weight to improve my health? I should. I should add a disclaimer or a caveat to that Don't lose weight to make yourself happy. Lose weight to make yourself happy.

Speaker 1:

If your life is not what you want it to be, losing weight is not going to change that. Now, that may be really hard for a lot of people to hear, but if you are thinking that losing weight is going to all of a sudden make your kids less sassy, make your job more enjoyable and make your husband not be a jerk, I hate to tell you it's actually going to make those things worse. So we have to start looking at if our, if your life is unhappy. If you are unhappy and your life isn't what you want it to be, it's all well and good to lose weight. I think. If somebody wants to lose weight, that's great. But don't lose weight to make your life better, to make your life happy.

Speaker 1:

If you're not happy, you need to work on the inside. You need to work on how you feel about yourself while you're losing weight and figure out what is it that I need to be doing, what is it that I need to be doing for myself? How do I need to be changing? And really that needs to be happening before we really dive into losing weight. But they can happen simultaneously, it's fine. But if you're not, when you're trying to lose weight, if you're not doing the inner work on how do I think about myself, how do I talk to myself, how do I feel about who I am and my life, and am I even living the life that I want to live?

Speaker 1:

If you don't address those things, what will happen is you will lose weight, you'll get to your goal weight. You'll be so happy, so sassy, and you'll be like I feel so good, and that'll last about a week. And then, all of a sudden, you'll realize, oh, everything still sucks, my life still blows, I'm not happy at all. And then, all of a sudden, your happiness then is back with food. Your happiness is in the food that you're eating and it's not in your life. So you have to figure out. What is it that's going to make me happy right now, even if I'm 20 pounds heavier, even if I'm 50 pounds heavier, how can I be happy right now? That is what you have. That's what we have to figure out, and I talk a lot about when I work with clients. I talk a lot about where do you find joy in your life? Where is joy in your life that doesn't have anything to do with food, that doesn't have anything to do with going out? Do you have a hobby? Do you have things that bring happiness to you? If you don't have those things, losing weight is not going to be the thing that brings those things cascading into your life. You have to figure out that stuff while you're losing weight or even before you're losing weight. You've got to be in a good mental state as you're losing weight in order to make it so much easier to keep that weight off. Have to.

Speaker 1:

Otherwise, again, the rebound effect and the, the, the, uh desire. It suddenly becomes like well, why would I? I lost weight, I thought everything was going to be great and now it's not. Well, I might as well eat. I might as well eat and be happy with that. And that's where the weight comes back on. So that is number two.

Speaker 1:

Number three and I think this oh sorry, let me back up to number two again you also have to. And how do we figure out what that is? We have to figure out, first off, why you're losing weight. And again, you have to be honest If you're losing weight to make your life better and to make you happy, that's not enough of a reason. It ha. There has to be a stronger why than just. I want to be happy because, again, the weight loss is not going to do it. It's not going to do it on its own. So you have to.

Speaker 1:

What is your why? What is the why? What is the motivation? What is the thing that's going to be driving you to make sure that when things get tough because, yes, it's going to get really, really tough and it's going to get even tougher when you get into maintenance and you get to your goal weight, that's when it starts to get even harder. So what is that why? What is the motivation? What's the thing behind it? That's what you have to dig into and really figure out and then remind yourself every day. This is what I'm working towards, this is why I'm doing this and oh, by the way, I'm going to start talking nicer to myself and I'm going to start journaling and I'm going to start telling myself that I am a really good person, I'm super proud of myself.

Speaker 1:

Those things all have to go together as well. They are a whole package and they have to be there and, sorry to tell you all, it also has to be there when you reach your goal weight too. You can't stop all of a sudden not doing self-care and not telling yourself that you're a good person, and not telling yourself that you think you're amazing and not telling yourself the things that you love about yourself. I know no one likes to do that, but you need to be doing that Because if you're not, again your self-esteem, your self-image, how you feel about yourself, all of that is going to go down the toilet and it's going to be so hard not to find comfort and not find peace back with food. All right, now I can move on to number three. Number three and this one is this is a tough one. This is a tough one. It's absolutely doable, but it definitely takes work.

Speaker 1:

And this is you have to figure out why you gained weight in the first place, and that sometimes, for many of us, that is a deep, dark, hard thing to come to face, to come to terms with. It's possibly something from your childhood, possibly something from any aspect, some part of your life, some trigger, something that caused you at some point to feel like food was needed to be used as anything other than fuel, and that it became your best friend, it became your comfort and became the thing that you turned to. And figuring out where that trigger is, what that trigger is and how to change that belief that you have, that food has that place in your life. And a lot of that starts with what are you telling yourself? Are you telling yourself that food is the only thing that makes you happy? Are you telling yourself that, oh my gosh, I can't wait for this family event because of all the food we're going to eat, and instead of saying, gosh, I can't wait to be hanging out with these people? You might not feel that way, but sometimes we don't feel that way. But you have to be careful about what you're telling yourself, because those beliefs are going to continue to be reinforced.

Speaker 1:

And so, figuring out what was the trigger, when did I start needing to diet? When did I start gaining weight. When did I start not feeling good about myself and what were the circumstances? And how can I go about making those changes? Where do we start to make those changes? Well, a lot of times we start by maybe we need to talk to somebody. Maybe we need to find a therapist, maybe we need to find a coach. Maybe we need to find someone a Facebook group, whatever it is but somebody who can help you navigate.

Speaker 1:

Okay, when did this start? When did I start feeling this way, and why did I believe that food was the answer, that food was the thing that was going to make me feel better, or that I needed to put on weight to keep people away from me, or I needed to isolate myself? What was it? Where was it? And then, how do we go about changing that? Maybe you need to start journaling. Maybe you need to start doing affirmations. Maybe you need to start having a morning routine. All of those things are all possibilities. I don't have the answer for you, but I do have an idea of the direction in which you can go in, and that is figuring out okay, where, when did this start?

Speaker 1:

And sometimes it's like it's looking back and realizing gosh, you know, I have to look back at some things that really aren't very comfortable and they might not feel very good and they might actually bring up a lot of emotions that I don't want to deal with. But if you've been doing that for most of your life, it's those emotions that are causing you to turn to food and to think that that's where the answer is and that's where the comfort is. Because we don't want to deal with these uncomfortable feelings, we just allowed ourselves to feel our feelings, things that could be very, very different. And how do we go about doing that? A whole nother podcast for a whole nother day, actually. I think I actually have a podcast on that.

Speaker 1:

So it's important to recognize, okay, where are the triggers? Where have those triggers come from? When did I start gaining weight? Why have I gained weight in the past? Why have I turned to food? What is that? How has it happened? And then, what are some steps that I can take? And if I don't know what to do, then I say, okay, who can I call? Who can I talk to? Who can? Maybe I can start by just journaling how I'm feeling every day. All of those things are possibilities, they're all things, all steps that you can take, but those three things the three things not changing dramatically what you eat while you're losing weight, looking at your uh, looking at your not not losing weight in order to be happy, and then figuring out where the triggers why did I gain weight in the first place? These three things have to be examined, they have to be looked at and they should be looked at while you're losing weight.

Speaker 1:

So many people say, well, when I lose weight, then I'll address those things. You got to do it during. You got to do it while it's happening. Because, while you're losing weight, because that's where you get your emotions under control, that's where you're and it's going to make losing weight so much easier because you're going to get your emotions under control, you're going to understand why you emotionally react in certain ways and why you turn to food and you can start making those changes and and the weight loss will be so much easier to manage instead of just let me just, let me just grind through, let me just start myself to get to that place and then, all of a sudden, I'll start doing the work. Probably won't, you probably won't, and you probably won't until about 10 pounds come back on and then you start to panic. So we've got to do the work in the trenches while it's happening in order to be able to set yourself up, to be able to make sure that you are doing. You have the most tools and the most strategies and all the things that you need in order to keep that off and maintain your weight loss once you reach your goal weight.

Speaker 1:

I hope this podcast has been helpful. I hope that what I've shared with you has been helpful and it has made you think of a couple of things of like. Hmm, I think I could probably look at some of these things. I think this is probably something that maybe I need to start journaling on, and if it is, that's great, that's wonderful. Start doing and again, and I'm going to do a whole I'm going to do a podcast. Actually, I'm going to do a YouTube video on how do you start journaling. What is that supposed to look like? It's not that hard. But just start getting your feelings out. Just start processing your emotions, start allowing yourself to feel your feelings, but do it without a bag of cookies and some chips sitting next to you. Just make it about you and about your feelings.

Speaker 1:

But we've got to start digging deeper, because if we really want to keep weight off, we really want to get a handle on our own mental health, we have to start doing that deeper work and it can't just be the surface stuff.

Speaker 1:

And that's what we do here.

Speaker 1:

That's what we do here in this podcast and we do this in the Facebook group as well. How do we dig deeper? How do we go deeper into what is really happening? It's also what I do with my private coaching as well. What do we do to get deeper into what's really going on, what's behind why we gain weight in the first place and have that accompany as we lose weight, because then we're going to be in the best position to keep it off.

Speaker 1:

So just a reminder again Facebook group Breakthrough Emotional Eating wwwfacebookcom. Forward slash groups. Forward slash food. Breakthrough Instagram at Breakthrough Emotional Eating, at Breakthrough Emotional Eating on Instagram and YouTube channel new YouTube channel. Jump on, check out some videos, hit the subscribe button, like some things, throw some comments in. I'd love to hear from you. It is Kristen Jones Coaching. Kristen K-R-I-S-T-I-N Jones Coaching. All right, I will see you all next week. Thank you so much for joining me and take care and reach out anytime you need anything, but please make sure you are focusing on you as you are trying to lose weight, because it will make it so much easier when you get to your goal weight. All right, we'll see you next week.