What Happens When You Stop Obsessing About Weight Loss (Part 1)
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Weight loss can be very challenging for many people, and sometimes it becomes an obsession. Counting calories, trying fad diets, and hours in the gym. This is all in the pursuit of perfect bodies.
But, it's time to take a step back and talk about something equally important - what happens when we stop obsessing about these things? What happens when we stop thinking about weight loss and stop feeling like we constantly need to change our body?
In this two-part series of Embrace Your Real podcast, Iām going to share 6 things that changed in my life once I stopped obsessing about weight loss.
What I discuss:
I have more time.
I experience life.
I'm healthier.
Links mentioned in this episode:
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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 and welcome back to you and their boss episode. I have spent years helping others achieve their fitness goals. I've talked about workouts, healthy eating habits to help people build the body that they want. But it's time to take a step back and talk about something as equally important. What happens when we stop obsessing about these things? Like what happens when we stop obsessing about the weight loss or trying to be so consistent in our health and fitness journey that we never miss a day and we can't miss a day. What happens when we stop feeling like we constantly need to change our body?
If you're new to the podcast, I'm going to get very honest, very real with you. Right now. I may seem confident now in my body, but for a decade of my life, I was one of those people that obsessed about every my new thing in my journey. I was constantly counting calories. I tried all the fad diets. I spent hours, seven days a week in the gym, all in pursuit of this perfect, unattainable body. But despite all of my efforts, I was never actually happy with my life the way that it looked. And truly, the more weight that I lost, the more weight I still thought that I needed to lose. It was like this endless cycle that I just couldn't get out of. I was five, nine and Ā£120 a size zero, trying to get down to a00. Like I always felt like I could do better, be better, look better. And it wasn't until I started to let go of my obsession with this, trying to be perfect in all of these areas and trying to attain X, Y, and Z so strictly that I wasn't enjoying my life, that my life actually truly changed. Wasn't until I let go of that, that I truly started to change.
So if you are someone who is completely obsessed with weight loss or, you know, living in this weight loss mode for years or even longer than you can remember, this episode is for you. I want to paint a picture in your mind of what your life can look like beyond this weight loss, beyond this obsession. So this is a two part series that I'm going to be sharing seven things that completely change my life. Once I stopped obsessing about weight loss. And I know some of them will actually completely surprise you.
But before we dive in, I want to share this reveal comes from Aviva with multiple A's. Gabrielle She gave a five star review and said, I was pleasantly surprised that Julie is a Christian. I love this podcast. So encouraging. Okay, well, Aviva, with so many A's, I want you to know that I'm so grateful for you and I'm so thankful that you took time out of your day to send this in. I'm thankful that this podcast is helping you and it's encouraging you. That is my hope and that is my prayer every single time I get on here to record this an episode for you, I just want you to know that I'm here for you. I'm a sister for you. I want to just sit down and chat with you. And I wish that I could talk with every single one of you guys and have, you know, an hour or two hour long discussion over coffee. But because I can't do that, this podcast, in my opinion, is the second best way.
So let's dive into the first. The three ways that my life completely changed once I stopped obsessing about my weight loss.
Number one, I have so much more time, like truly so much more time. When I was obsessing over my weight loss, I spent so much time obsessing over every single detail like I was meal, prepping every single meal, like I'm not even joking. On Sundays, I would meal prep every single meal down to the snacks, and I would put the time that I was going to eat it on like it was so, so down to the very particular, you know, like honestly, like 7 a.m. going to do this like 9:30 a.m., I'm going to do this. 1130 And it was like so obsessive. It was I would literally spend hours in the kitchen on Sundays planning out my entire week that I would leave no room for excitement, no room for random ice cream dates or random popping coffee dates or whatever it is. And I would also spend hours. I'm talking twice a day in the gym. So I was working. I'm just thinking back to my college time. I was working in Fort Collins, Colorado, as working at a salon. So what I would do is I would wake up in the morning, I would wake up around 430, I'd go to the gym, I'd get my cardio session in, which was typically an hour to an hour and a half long. There I come home, then I would shower, I'd get. I'd leave my house by around 830. Get there by nine. I'd work from 9 to 6 ish. Right after work, I'd go straight to the gym. I would either do more cardio or I started, like, lifting. But I was not really lifting. I was like, just watching people lift, if that makes sense. I was so scared to get bulky. Honestly, I. I knew nothing about the gym, and so I would likely, you know, I'd wander around the weight room, but then I'd go find my way back to the cardio section. I'd do more cardio, and then I would come home and then I would have everything planned out, like to a T in terms of like what I would eat. It was in little baggies, it was in Tupperware, and that was it. Like, that was my life. It was super obsessive. And now that I've let go of that obsession, I have so much more time for other things in my life. Like I can spend so much more time with my husband, build my business, my friends, my family. I'm able to chase my goals like I'm able to have time in the morning first thing before I do anything, to spend time in prayer and journaling and reading God's word. Like I just have so much more time in my life. I mean, let's be real. Like there's no possible way that I would have time to build my business to what it is today. If I still use the majority of my time trying to lose a few more pounds or trying to get a few more minutes in on cardio, like we think that our weight loss goals aren't standing in the way of things, but really stop for a second and think like, what else could you be accomplishing with your time if you were not obsessed about every my new thing, where would you be spiritually? Where would you be emotionally, financially, professionally, relationally, or mentally if you didn't use up so much of your time and energy on weight loss? Would you have closer friendships with your friends if you didn't miss out on so much stuff because you had to go to the gym or say no to a coffee date or to a random dinner with drinks and appetizers. Like, Would you have started that side hustle business and which, you know, sets you up for greater financial independence in the future. Where would you be mentally if you actually had time to put in the work to overcome your insecurities or your trauma or work on just bettering yourself? There is so much more that you can do with your time rather than just obsessing about the weight loss. It's amazing, honestly, how much time opens up when you're no longer consumed by the one thing that like eight you alive. It's amazing how much your life can change when you actually have the mental capacity to pursue other things in your life instead of obsessing so much on weight loss.
Number two, I have experience life. And this might sound dramatic, but unless you've been there, I really don't know that you'll fully understand it. When I was obsessed with weight loss and counting every single calorie that went into my body and I was depriving myself and I was punishing myself. Do you think that I had any energy? Like, do you think I had the energy to go and do anything outside of the workouts that I force myself to complete two times a day, seven times a week? I didn't. I had no energy. I had no energy. I had no time to meet up with friends after work. I had no energy to go and do fun things with my body outside of the standard gym workouts, like Go for a hike, which is truly one of my favorite things to do now. I had no energy to build a life outside of the gym in my house, eating these bagged Tupperware meals. My life was the gym. My life was this meal prep that was completely prepped every single meal and snack down to the time. That was it. That was all the energy that I had. I had time to go to the gym in the morning. I had time and I had the energy to go to the gym in the morning. I had the energy to complete my, you know, 8 to 10 hour day at work. And then I had the energy to go to the gym. And honestly, when I say energy, I'm I'm going through the motions. Like, I really, really, really was just a physical shell walking through the motions. I want to encourage you to start living your life because there is so much to be lived outside of this. Like I when I actually was able to let go of constantly living in this weight loss mode, I actually started to have the energy to be present and engaged in my daily life. I was actually starting to live my life being vibrant and full of life. Right. And I know that this only came from me letting go of this obsession of weight loss. So I want you to ask yourself this. Like, are you truly being present and engaged in your life right now? And if not, I want you to imagine what that would look like, how that would feel. I can tell you, speaking from experience, it is one of the most beautiful things that I've been able to experience post living in this obsession with weight loss.
And number three, I'm healthier. Now, this is pretty ironic, but once I stopped focusing on weight loss solely, I actually became healthier. Now, you would think focusing on weight loss would mean you're healthier, you're making healthier choices. But in most cases, we often take it too far. We take healthy so far that it becomes unhealthy, like so super unhealthy that you lose your menstrual cycle, that you start losing your hair, that you have terrible acne, your metabolism and digestion is stopped short, you're bloated 24 seven, your hormones are all out of whack. And then all these mysterious health problems start arising that are unexplainable. We keep going in our weight loss mode regardless of these very clear signs that it is unhealthy. But we'll do anything just to lose those five more pounds. The weight loss becomes priority over our health and we're okay compromising our health for the sake of weight loss. I'm sorry, but this is no way to live. At the end of the day, our health is truly all we have because when our health is gone, we have nothing.
We need to treasure it and preserve it with everything that we've got. So instead of focusing on the number and the scale, I became more concerned with how I feel. Yes, you heard that right. I cared more about how I felt over the number on the scale. I made healthier food choices because they made me feel good, not because they'll help me lose weight. I worked out because I enjoyed it, not because I was trying to burn as many calories as possible or burn off that chocolate cake that I had after dinner last night. This has not only led me to a more sustainable lifestyle, but one that I can maintain long term because it's led to a healthier life and a healthier body, a body that's energized, a body that's happy and a body that is taken care of and loved.
So there you have it. Those are the three ways that my life has changed. Once I let go of obsessing about losing weight and really started to live. Now I want you to imagine these three things having more time in your day. How many times have you said, I wish there were more hours in a day? Here's your chance to get more hours when you released yourself mentally from the prison that you've been in, and also these toxic habits that you have been practicing for years and decades, here's your chance to finally build that business or develop deeper relationships or do the things that you said you wanted to do but never had the time for. Experiencing life to the fullest. Imagine you have.
Imagine having the energy to be present and engaged in your day to day life. Imagine the daily tasks not being quite so hard. Imagine having the energy to do something fun. Go out with your girlfriends, go out for a hike, start a new hobby, go to do whatever it is that you want to do, whatever it is. What if you actually had the energy to experience your life and not just go through the motions? Imagine being healthy and not dealing with hormone imbalances, not being bloated or constipated. 24 seven Imagine feeling your best and not constantly combating something that's holding you back from thriving in your life. Your health is the number one thing that you've got. You've got to respect it and you've got to protect it. So there you have it. Those are the three things that I really started to experience once I stopped obsessing about weight loss. Next week, I will share four more things that have changed once I stopped focusing on my weight loss. I hope that this episode encouraged you. I hope that it inspired you to rethink what you're doing and why you're doing it. If you're spending hours at the gym or meal prepping down to the to the last gram and it's consuming you. I hope that this helps you to rethink it. If you're punishing your body and depriving it from entire food groups or calories, I hope that this encourages you to rethink that. I know that breaking free from these habits is so hard, so freaking hard to do. But if you are curious what has helped me the most, it has been learning to properly fuel my body through the tool of macro accounting. That has been one of the biggest game changers. And you might be sitting here saying. Will. Isn't that going to be obsessive? In my personal experience, learning how to properly feel my body? Yes. It took some time to learn, just like it takes you time to learn how to ride a bike or start a new hobby, whatever it is. But it actually gave me so much more knowledge. It empowered me with education because it allowed me to gain structure without obsession. It was allowing me to ensure that I ate enough without depriving myself. It allowed me to ensure that I was nourished and energized while still feeling like I was able to work towards my goals. So if you're stuck in this cycle of deprivation and punishment and don't know how to get out, I'm telling you, speaking from experience, the empowerment that comes from educating yourself instead of just it being a guessing game gives you so much freedom. When I actually took the time to educate myself on how to properly feel my body, it gave me so and so much encouragement. It empowered me. It gave me confidence around the food that I was eating and the meals that I was eating and and learning. Oh my gosh, I can eat whatever I want in moderation. Like, no longer am I, you know, bound to these bagged meals and these Tupperware is filled with tilapia. That's just disgusting. Like, I'm able to eat whatever I want when I want it. It gave me so much freedom and I want that for you. So if you want to learn more about it, you can go to Mac or county made simple dot. I have an online academy there. You can learn everything that you'll need to know in terms of how to properly feel your body. But I just want to say this. I want you to know that freedom is available. I want you to know, to know, just speaking from experience, that it is possible for you to live free from this obsession of weight loss. And I want you to know that when you're spending hours and hours and hours a day on cardio, you're actually working against yourself. You truly don't need longer than 20 to 30 minutes minimum. Like if you can get a 20 to 30 minute workout in 3 to 4 times a week, girl, you've got it. Like, you can do this. You can reach all the goals that you have. It is possible for you. You just really have to focus on being effective and focusing on effective workouts versus just going through the motions and thinking like, the longer I do it, you know, if I go to the gym and I'm there for two or 3 hours a day, I'm going to see results. You oftentimes when you're in those positions, you're actually working against yourself. And so I want you to jump off the treadmill and I want you to start using your time more effectively with dumbbells.
Check out my Movement with Julie app. I've got an app that gives you five Bernie workouts every single week, two workout options depending on your time constraints each day, a 30 minute, a 60 minute. If you don't even have 30 minutes, you can do one or two rounds of the giant circuit, which will take you anywhere from 15 to 22 minutes to complete. They are time effective. They're efficient. Ensuring that you're working each muscle group effectively, you can head over to sale. That's Sally movement. Julie AECOM. I will include both of those things. The Macroeconomy Simple Online Academy, as well as the Julie app in the show notes that you can easily go check those out after this episode, but I will be back for part two of what happens when you stop obsessing about weight loss. So be sure to tune in to that.
I hope that you found this episode helpful. I love you so dang much. I mean it and I'll talk to you in the next one. Oh four 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. Julie A lot better. Yes, It's within 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.