5 Dieting Truths You Need to Know
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Are you on diet? Do you think you need to go on a diet? Or, do you see results and quickly gain the weight back? Or, do you get an a diet and can never seem to stick with it? Do you think you need “more willpower” to see results? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this episode is for you. I’m about to bust 5 weight loss myths and bring you so real talk on what’s actually the TRUTH.
What I discussed:
Truth #1: If dieting worked, you wouldn’t be on your 100th diet right now
Truth #2: If your habits are unsustainable, your results will be, too
Truth #3: Your body is pushing you off your diet for a reason
Truth #4: You don’t need to eat less, you need to eat RIGHT
Truth #5: Obsessing about losing weight doesn’t help you lose more weight
Link mentioned in this episode:
You can start your macro counting journey by heading over to macrocoutningmadesimple.com
If you want more from me, be sure to check out:
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Free ebook: www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook
Amazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-6bda1ca8?ref=cm_sw_em_r_inf_pub_influencer-6bda1ca8_dp_DgsIam9salgfi
Transcript:
Hey. Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal 5 minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Role With Me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace a real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Hello. Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode. Are you on a diet? Or maybe you think you need to go on a diet or maybe you see results, but then you quickly fall off the bandwagon and then you're gaining all the way back, plus more. Or maybe you get on a diet, but then you never are able to stick with it, or you feel like you just need more willpower to see results. If you answered yes to any of these questions, this bonus episode is for you. I'm about to bust five weight loss myths and bring you some real talk on what's actually the truth. But before I do, I wanted to share this review of the day. It comes from Nikki May. She gave a five star review and said, Let's get it, let's go. Julie's God lead advice for nourishing and honoring your body is a great reminder for every woman that she is worthy of being confident in herself and stewarding her body. The way that God has called us to each episode is chock full of insight and real talk that we all desire. If you need a kick in the pants from a loving sister friend, embrace your will. Is the podcast for you. I love this so much, Nikki, thank you so much for your view. If you haven't already read it, interview the podcasts. You know, I'm going to ask you, all you have to do is scootch over to Apple Podcasts, click that reading interview once you are on the embrace your page. If first if you're not already subscribed to the page, all you got to do is click that plus sign in the top right corner. That's going to make sure that you are subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. But the podcast reviews really do mean the world to me and the team. It really just does help us out. Kind of gives us a pulse as to how these episodes are helping you, what kind of topics are encouraging you or inspiring you or motivating you. So we love to hear from you. I appreciate that so much. That's my one. Ask of you is if you could go to any Apple device and Labor review, that would really mean the world to me.
Okay, so let's dove into five dieting truths that you need to know. Truth number one is that if dieting works, you wouldn't be on your hundredth diet right now. Truly, the problem isn't your lack of willpower. The problem is that you continue to try to make something work that just doesn't work. If going on a diet actually work, then you wouldn't be on the millionth different diet that you have chosen from to do right. You wouldn't still have an unhealthy relationship with your body. You wouldn't continue to start over and over and over again and again and again. You wouldn't be in weight loss mode. For however many years you've been in weight loss mode, you wouldn't feel like you needed to work out more and eat less. You would actually feel healthy, you would feel confident, you would feel happy in your body. And that's truly why I'm a firm believer in honoring your body with the proper nourishment. And I do so through macro counting. And I personally do not believe that macro counting is a diet. I personally have stuck with it for almost a decade. Do I count every single macro and every single gram in my body? Absolutely not. There's a time and place for learning to eat mindfully, but I truly, genuinely will stand behind the fact that I believe that learning the tool of macro counting and learning how to properly fuel your body through that tool is going to serve you for a lifetime. And I feel amazing. I feel like I know how to properly feel my body and I am able to stay consistent. I have a healthy relationship with food. It's thriving. I feel like I don't restrict myself. I've learned moderation and I can't even remember the last time that I was living in weight loss mode. The moral of this story is that diets do not work. If they did, you wouldn't still be trying to lose the weight, so remember that.
Truth number two if your habits were unsustainable, then your results will be as well. Now, if you want to see long term results, then you are going to need to learn how to develop habits and routines that you can stick to long term. If they're a struggle to maintain them, their results will be even more of a struggle to maintain. A.K.A quick fixes lead to gaining weight back just as quickly. The second that you get off of a quick fix diet, I'm telling you, will be the second that you start gaining the weight back, if not more. If you want to truly lose the weight and keep off the weight, you have to do it through a healthy and sustainable way. Yes, it might take a little bit longer, but I'm telling you that the results will last. You have to look at this as a long term game. You have to be in it for the long term, toss the quick fixes aside, and learn to adopt habits that will give you real long lasting results that will serve you for a lifetime.
Truth Number three Your body is pushing you off your diet for a reason. If you're struggling to stay keto or you're struggling to intermittent fast or struggling to eat vegan, or you're struggling to eat as little as possible or struggling to eat zero carbs, there is a reason why you are struggling and you need to listen to why that reason is. If you can't stick to your diet more times than. Now. It's because it's a diet that you shouldn't be sticking to in the first place. For example, the reason why you can't stick to eating 1100 calories a day is because you are not meant to only be eating 1100 calories a day. It's not because you don't have enough willpower or it's not because you're not disciplined enough or whatever toxic story you're telling yourself. It's because your body is screaming for the food that it needs to thrive. So if you are struggling to stick with something, you need to ask yourself, Is this something that I should be actually trying to stick to? If you are creating lifelong habits, then they should be habits that are simple for you to maintain long term.
Truth number four You do not need to eat less. You need to eat right. In fact, your body needs you to eat food in order to burn fat. So eating less food, especially way less food than your body actually needs, is going to cause you to cling on to more body fat. Plus, let's not forget that you're damaging your metabolism, and in the long term, you're making weight loss so much harder for yourself because it takes a long time to heal your metabolism. Right. The beautiful thing is that your metabolism is adaptable. So I don't ever want to hear this excuse. My metabolism is short. I am doomed. I can never heal my own metabolism. I'm telling you, that's just not the truth. Your metabolism is adaptable. You can train your metabolism properly, but that just takes time. It takes time, it takes patience, and it takes doing the same thing consistently and following through. So instead of focusing on eating less, focus on eating right, focus on nourishing your body with exactly what it needs. Give it the carbs that it needs. Give it the fact that it needs the protein that it needs. And you will realize that weight loss actually isn't as hard as you thought and you will actually feel nourished while you're able to reach your body fat loss goals. So focus on eating right, not less. Those are two very, very different things that I need you to remember.
And lastly, truth number five. Obsessing about the weight loss does not help you lose more weight. Here's a little story for you. I actually personally, for a decade of my life, I struggled with this. I used to starve myself. I would work out hours on, hours on end. I would do cardio. I would never get in the weight room. I would skip out on any memorable experience that you can imagine. Or if I was in that experience, I was not fully experiencing it because I was constantly stressed about the food or I was stressed about how fat I thought I was or whatever it was at all costs. I tried to make myself skinnier. I hated my body. My hatred for my body actually dictated my worth. It ruled my emotions, it consumed my mind, it stole my joy. I personally thought if I were skinnier, if I would lose the body fat up, I would get to X, Y and z size. I would finally love myself. I would finally feel more confident. I would finally feel more worthy. I would finally be happier. I lived in this weight loss mindset for a decade plus of my life. Everything I did and everything I thought was related to my weight, it was related to how skinny I could be. It was related to what size I could fit into. My life simply revolved around it, and I was miserable. Finally, though, when I was out of college, just a few months out of college, I met my boyfriend at the time, now husband. He helped show me a different way. He showed me that living in this mindset, this toxic mindset, was not going to help me build the body that I wanted. In fact, I remember being on our first date. I ordered a salad. We were at Chili's since our very first date when we first met. I ordered a salad. I asked for the chicken on the side and I asked for the dressing on the side. In fact, I don't even think I asked for dressing. I think I said no dressing. And I pushed everything to the side. I pushed the chicken, which is already to the side. I pushed the carrots, I pushed the cucumbers and I pushed the cherry tomatoes that were in it. And I remember my husband looking at me. Now, for those of you guys who don't know my story with my husband, he's actually 100% deaf. He was born 100% deaf. I had never previously met a deaf person in my entire life. So that was already kind of a different layer. And this is a different story for a different time in terms of like how we met. It's incredible. God is so amazing. But regardless, he had just graduated from college a few years before with a health and exercise science and sports nutrition degree. So he had the knowledge and expertise when it comes to properly fueling my body. I had just graduated from college with a business degree in marketing, so I got a business admin in marketing. At that time I was really struggling with my weight. I was pushing aside even the straw, like the carrots, the cucumbers, the tomatoes. And he looked at me and he asked me, Do you have an eating disorder? Now this at the first time in my life, I mean, I'm telling you in my life, someone that I cared about at the time, I didn't really know him that well. But we had been talking. I you know, I have a whole crazy story and how I knew that I was going to marry a man named Josh. And it just so happened to be him. And it was. Insane. But again, that's a different story for a different time. And I looked at him and I just had tears in my eyes and I told them, I'm really struggling. And he said, I know I can tell by what you're doing. I can tell by your habits, by the way, that you look at food. And he said, I want to help you. I really want to help you build a healthier relationship with food. And you guys, I'm telling you, it was the absolute biggest blessing in my life. Like the biggest blessing that I didn't even know that I needed. And so he taught me. He he taught me he took the time to say, this is how you properly fuel your body. This is how you properly train your body. And without him, I would not be where I am today.
Now, I also have a couple of other coaches along the way that have really helped me. But I'm telling you that without Josh was first and foremost courage to ask me like, do you have an eating disorder? And me saying back like screaming everything in me wanted to say no, but everything in me also wanted to just be like yes, because I wanted help. I wanted help. I had an eating and body image disorder and man, I'm so, so grateful that I finally learned how to properly feel my body and switching my mindset from really learning, okay, what in this situation is the healthiest for my body? How can I actually naturally become what my body's supposed to be become instead of forcing it to become something that it's not meant to be? And I'm telling you that switching that mindset has served me for this decade, like the last decade that I have been doing this and committing to it and honoring my body through nutrition and movement and growing and deeper in my relationship with God, like all of these things have literally been the best thing that I've ever done for myself. But I'm telling you that it's so important that you actually focus on how you feel and stop focusing on just results. Stop focusing so much on the end goal and instead start focusing on the journey. Start asking yourself, What is it that it's going to take or what is it going to look like for me to be able to see the results while still enjoying my life? While you're nourishing your body, while you're honoring your body, do this out of celebration, not out of punishment, not out of obligation, not out of guilt. You have to learn to come at this journey with eyes of I want to honor my body. I want to steward the body that God has given me. And I'm telling you, when you look at that, at through that lens, it will change everything. So I'm not saying that macro accounting is for everybody, but I am saying that it personally really did help me. It helped me learn how to properly feel my body. It helped me learn how to look at food in a way that was actually nourishing my body. And instead of looking at food as the enemy, I was looking at food as fuel. I was educating myself. And I truly believe that when you educate yourself, you feel empowered. And so if this is something that you want to learn, I have a free book for you. Again, I'm not saying that it's for everybody, but if there's something if macro accounting is something that interests you, you want to learn more about it. I have a free e-book. You can go to Julie Ledbetter dot com forward slash free dash e-book. I teach you everything that I wish I would have learned. It's a 50 plus page free e-book. I also give you emails over the course of a few days that will really just educate you. Like I said, my goal is to educate you and give you as much resources that I wish I would have had because it has truly changed my relationship with my food. And so I hope that this podcast gave you some insight. I hope that maybe some of these things kind of woke you up and you're like, Man, maybe what I'm doing is not sustainable. Maybe what I'm doing is not something that's going to serve me long term. Or maybe it actually just reinforces the fact that you do have a healthy relationship with food, that you are in a good place in your lifestyle. And if that's the case, I am celebrating you. I am rallying with you. I am coming alongside of you and just saying yes, keep going. Keep going. I believe that this journey is meant to be something that we are on for a lifetime and it's not something that is this toxic pattern that we fall in and out of constantly in weight loss mode, constantly, and trying to feel or trying to be our smallest right. That is not the goal of life. That is not what we are here on this earth to do. And and I want you to feel your best. I want you to feel your most energized. And I truly believe that that starts when it comes to just educating yourself as to how much your body needs. So I hope, again, this podcast served you in some way, shape or form.
Again, if you want to download that free e-book, you can go to WW dot Julie Ledbetter dot com forward slash free e-book free dash e-book. I will link it in the show notes below so that you can easily go check it out. And that is all that I have for today's bonus episode. I love you so much and I'll talk to you. I'm all right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But. I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with an a in the middle for that Daily Post workout. Real talk. Healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember, that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace the real because you're worth it.