So You’ve Gained Weight…Now What?
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So, you’ve gained some weight? I know what you’re thinking…NOW WHAT?!
Weight gain can be stressful, trigger anxiety, and heightened insecurities. And more importantly, weight gain can trigger unhealthy habits and unhealthy thought patterns that lead us to punish and deprive our bodies.
So if you’ve gained some weight, I tell you exactly what you should and SHOULDN’T do in this episode of Embrace Your Real.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five 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 Real 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 your real. Let's get it. Let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another bonus episode of the Embrace Your Real Podcast. So I had a DM from a girl and she was telling me that she had gained some weight over quarantine. And now that it's summertime, her schedule has just been completely thrown off and she's just not feeling her best. And she's asking me, "What do I do?" She was really stressed, and I know that this weight gain can trigger a lot of anxiety and insecurities, and it can make you feel less worthy and beautiful, and it can also trigger unhealthy habits and unhealthy thought patterns. So if you're in this place of just not feeling your best, maybe you've gained some way, I want to tell you exactly what you should and shouldn't do in this episode of Embrace Your Real. But before I do, I have to ask you a question.
Are you subscribed to the Embrace Your Real Podcast? Did you know that every single phone has a podcast app? Whether you are an Android or iPhone, if you type in podcast, you'll likely find the app and then you can type in "Embrace Your Real." Be sure to subscribe, and if you are on Apple device, whether that's an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook, if you could click that rate and review on the Apple Podcasts app, it would mean the absolute world to me. I would love to hear and see your review, so be sure to screenshot it, and you can send it to me in a DM and I will personally respond with a voice memo back. Okay. So here are four things that you will not do if you've gained some way or you're not feeling your best physically right now.
Number one, you will not punish your body by overexercising. Number two, you will not punish your body by starving it. Number three, you will not body shame yourself. And number four, you will not go on a fad diet. This is me putting my arm around you as a sister, telling you these are the four things you're not going to do. There is no rush in getting rid of the weight that you've gained. No one is timing you. It's not a race, and honestly, the quicker you typically lose weight likely means that you're going to gain it back faster because you're losing it in unhealthy ways. And by doing all the above, you're just going to trigger a toxic cycle of depriving yourself to lose the weight to the point where you can't do it anymore, so you start eating more again and working out less, and you'll just likely gain that weight back.
You'll also risk messing up your metabolism so much with this tactic and each time that you gain the weight back, it's likely that you'll gain more and more back. Plus when you body shame yourself, you make it so much harder to actually lose the weight or get back to a place where you feel comfortable. Again, no one has ever hated their way into loving their body. Typically, the more that you hate your body, the harder it becomes to change your body. Your thoughts become your reality. So stop telling yourself that you're fat. Stop telling yourself that you're ugly or that you need to lose weight. Nothing good comes from a place of shame and hate. So what do you do if you've gained weight or don't feel your best?
First of all, you have to and you will accept your body. Instead of saying hateful things to yourself about the weight that you've gained, just accept it. For example, instead of looking in the mirror and saying, "Oh, I hate how fat my legs are right now. I can't believe I've gained so much weight," instead, I want to encourage you to look in the mirror and say, "Okay. I acknowledge that my legs are larger right now than they were before," and that's okay. Essentially, I want you to adopt that "It is what it is" mentality. You've gained the weight, or you don't feel your best. It is what happened. No matter what that is, no matter what the scenario is or season of life that you're in, I don't want you to waste your energy by body shaming yourself over it.
What makes us easy to do is that realizing that weight gain is not permanent. For example, I personally did not feel my best come January simply because I got out of a routine, but I didn't stress about it because I knew that the weight that I gained didn't have to be permanent if I didn't want it to be. Just because I did not feel my best come January, I knew it wasn't always going to be like that if I took control of it, but I also understood that there was no reason for me to rush getting rid of it, because I know that that doesn't bring healthy or sustainable results. So for me, I was able to accept that I didn't feel my best without judging it because I knew that it wasn't going to be permanent. So how do I know it won't be permanently there?
Because I personally know that honoring my body with movement and nourishing my body with what it needs, there's no way that my body won't become naturally what it's supposed to be in that season. Instead of rushing to get rid of the weight or just getting back to a place that I feel my best, I simply just focused on nourishing my body and moving my body consistently. I did not focus on how much weight I lost because I actually don't even weigh myself. I go by progress photos. I go by body measurements. And I know for me in November and December of last year, I kind of got out of a routine. I was moving about two to three times per week, and I was not really being intentional about nourishing my body with everything that it needs, especially getting enough protein per day. I was not drinking my water as consistently. And so for me, I knew that if I just got back to working out consistently four to five times per week and being intentional about what and how I'm properly feeling my body, it would naturally take care of itself.
So if you are in this space, I just, first of all, want to encourage you to give yourself some grace. I don't know what season of life you're in. I don't know what you're going through, but I do know that you trying to hate your way into loving your body is not going to work. You have to accept the reality. You have to ask yourself, "Okay. How did I get here?" And then make a plan. And for me, that was being intentional about moving my body more consistently and honoring my body with what it needed by nourishing it with what I know makes me feel my best and gives me the energy that I need to sustain myself throughout the day. And for me, in terms of movement, I also had to follow a plan. I had to be more intentional about scheduling my workouts and following it.
So if you are in kind of the same boat and you need some motivation with honoring your body with movement and you haven't already checked out my Movement with Julie app, I want to encourage you to go check it out. Every single week, I give you five brand new workouts that are carefully programmed to ensure that you are building the body that you want. Plus the best part is every single workout can be done within 30 to 45 minutes, and I give you video demonstrations for every single movement. And I am so excited to finally announce that I have released a seven-day free trial. So if you've been wanting to try out the app, but you're kind of a little bit nervous to commit, but you really want to see what it's like and what the community is like and logging the workouts inside the app and seeing how your body can progress with effective programming, I want to invite you to try out the seven-day free trial. You can go to www.movementwithjulie.com.
I will leave it in the show notes, but I am so excited to come alongside of you and I can attest that just being more consistent with moving your body and sticking to a program and following through with it and being intentional about nourishing your body with what it needs, your body will eventually get to a place where it's supposed to be in that season of life. So give yourself some grace, remember that it's not going to happen overnight, but commit to something and love yourself through the process. I hope that you found this episode helpful. If you have a girlfriend or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can send it to them in a DM. You can screenshot this, post it up on your Instagram, tag me, juliealedbetter, tag embraceyourreal account. I always love seeing your aha moments. I love you guys so much, and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
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're 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 your real because you're worth it.