16: Creating Perimenopause Weight Loss Goals Part 2: Your Solution

How would you like THE solution to losing weight in perimenopause? It's one thing to have the strategy (which we covered in Episode 15, which is Part 1 of this conversation).

In today's episode, you're getting a complete coaching session, to help you develop YOUR solution for losing weight...finally!

And it doesn't have anything to do with getting to the gym, or watching your portions.

No, in today's episode we're looking at how your thoughts and feelings actually determine if you lose weight (or not). I'll teach you how to look at your feelings about nutrition, weight loss, working out, and how those feelings dictate your behaviors.

Then, we'll dive into my 5-step framework for creating weight loss goals that you WILL achieve, using a feelings-centered approach.

If you've tried everything to lose weight, and nothing has worked, this framework is going to change the game!

If you need more help with this, check out The Method, where I give you weekly, hands-on coaching to help you build AND achieve your weight loss goals!

*** Ready to lose 15 lbs in 10 weeks? The Method gives you all the tools to make it happen! We start April 2nd. To learn more about The Method, click here!

Transcript

Ashley Malik (00:05)

Hello there, my friend. Welcome back. I am so glad that you are here. I am super excited to dig into today's topic. So in the previous episode, we talked all about the strategy for losing weight and perimenopause, like the nuts and bolts of actually getting it done. You know, it's so easy to just say, I'm going to eat better and get to the gym.

But if you don't have a fully built plan, that kind of thinking isn't gonna help you reach your goals. so if you haven't listened to the last episode, which is part one of our conversation, I encourage you to go do that first. It's episode 15. Once you know exactly what,

you're doing with your nutrition and fitness, which is in the last episode, it's now time to shift your focus to how you're going to get it done. And this doesn't mean planning in your calendar or actually joining a gym. The how has everything to do with learning how to manage your brain. Believe it or not, your brain, thoughts and feelings are

the primary driver in your weight loss success or your weight loss failure.

So, if things are off, it's unlikely that you'll hit your goals. But the good news is that you can do something about it. And that is what we're talking about today.

As with many of my episodes, I want you to take some notes because you'll get a lot more from this conversation if you do some journaling and brainstorming while you listen. Taking these concepts and applying them to your life is really how you're going to make progress. Unfortunately, just listening doesn't get the job done. Plus today I am giving you the same level of coaching that I give my clients.

my private clients and in the method, which is my perimenopause weight loss program. We are really going to go deep today. So grab a notebook and a pen and let's jump into the how of weight loss.

Now I want you to listen through to the end because I am going to give you a five step framework for setting your weight loss goals. This framework puts your thoughts and feelings at the forefront, which honestly is going to be the magic key that unlocks the weight loss you have been after for so long. But before we get into the framework, we need to talk about your feelings.

Sounds a little bit like you're on a therapist's couch, doesn't it? But you're good hands. I am a former therapist and a certified mindset coach. So I know that looking at your thoughts and feelings is really the best place to start. All right, when you think of losing weight and perimenopause, what thoughts and feelings just come up instantly for you? Frustration, that you've tried losing weight before, but it hasn't happened?

Maybe frustration that it seems easier for others than it does for you. Maybe you feel inadequate. You know that you are smart and capable, but you feel so inadequate when you just can't figure out how to lose the weight. Perhaps you feel hopeless, like it will never happen for you. And you're just destined to be heavier and heavier as you get older.

Another feeling that my clients talk to me about is resentment. Resentment that you have to stick to maybe what you consider to be a strict diet, but that it still doesn't give you weight loss. Or resentment that you cook a special meal for yourself every night, which is supposed to help you with your weight loss, but then you have to cook a separate meal for your family too.

Now is a great time for you to jot down some of the feelings and some of the thoughts that you have when you think about trying to lose weight. But to recap, there's actually a lot of heavy feelings when it comes to thinking about losing weight, resentment, frustration, inadequacy, hopelessness. Now look at those feelings that we just listed off and ask yourself,

When I'm feeling resentful or inadequate, what do I do? Do you feel like clearing your pantry of highly processed foods? Do you get excited about a new workout that might be kind of hard and challenging? No, no you don't. When you feel resentful or inadequate, you shut down, you quit, you give up. Oof, right?

If you're honest with yourself, you can see that feelings like this might lead

If you're honest with yourself, you can see that feelings like this might lead you to give up or not even get started at all on your weight loss journey. I don't want you to feel badly because your brain is wired to do this. Believe it or not, your brain is positive that it is protecting you. Your primal brain is wired to look for predictability and safety.

Thousands of years ago, safety and predictability were the only ways to stay alive. So of course, your brain thinks that those are the only things that matter. But when we fast forward to today, we know that only staying where things are safe and predictable often just leaves us stuck exactly where we are. Like in this case, wanting to remain safe and predictable leaves us

overweight and continuing to believe that we will never lose weight and perimenopause. If we stay with safe and predictable, we don't feel super motivated to go to the gym, right? We talked about this in the last episode. When you go to the gym for the first time in a while or ever, nothing about it feels safe or predictable. You're unsure if you'll know

how to use the weights or the machines. And you don't want to risk looking foolish because that doesn't feel very safe.

you're afraid that you'll judge yourself against the other women that are there who clearly have been working out for quite a while. And if you do get into the gym and get a workout done, you have no idea if it will actually help you get the results you're looking for. It's not predictable at all if your hard work will pay off because when you look back, you've put in efforts in the past and you've still never gotten the results you were looking for.

Thousands of years ago safe and predictable was about staying alive and that was okay, but today safe and predictable is about avoiding painful feelings like wasted effort failure embarrassment rejection and When our brain is feeding us thoughts and stories Just so that we can avoid failure and embarrassment well

The end result is that we shut down, we quit, or we don't even get started in the first place. So hopefully you can see why it's important to look at our thoughts and feelings around perimenopause weight loss, because our success is not tied to what we eat or how we work out. Sure, it helps, but our success is precisely tied to how we feel and what our

thoughts are telling us. So if you haven't already, I want you to take some time now to write down your thoughts and feelings about weight loss. And I want you to track through them. See if they eventually lead you to recognize that you are trying to avoid feelings of embarrassment, failure, shame, or rejection. And if this feels

hard like a hard exercise. I want you to know that this is an area where coaching can be extremely valuable. like I said, this is the kind of coaching I provide in the method, which is my weight loss program for women in perimenopause. You see, sometimes our thoughts and feelings feel so true, like they feel like truth, even if they're not.

But coaching can help you see a different perspective that can shift your beliefs and ultimately shift your results. And isn't that what we're after?

I have helped so many women change their perspective around weight loss that they've gone on to lose 15, 20, 30 pounds and more, even when they had tried a million times unsuccessfully to lose weight before.

Okay, now we're going to switch gears. Once you have that awareness around your thoughts and your feelings, you can use that information to create a mindset framework for your weight loss journey. One that will actually help you lose weight and perimenopause. No, really, I mean it. So let's build your framework. And I'm going to give you five steps to do this. But again, you are

Definitely going to want to take some notes here.

All right, step number one, what is your goal and what else could it look like? Let me say that again, because you expect the part of like, what is your goal? But I also want you to consider what else could that look like? If you are wanting to lose weight, your brain just sort of automatically goes to a number on the scale, like, well, I want to lose 25 pounds and you make that your goal. It's really good to have a target, but what if you don't hit it?

despite all of your hard work. Does that mean that you failed? Does that mean that you'll never figure it out?

I mean, maybe you lose 17 pounds instead of 25. I don't know about you, but personally, I don't consider that a failure. But what else could your goal look like that still relates to weight loss? Maybe you give yourself a goal to work out consistently, say four days a week, or you give yourself a goal to not eat refined sugar for 30 days straight.

These two goals are actually going to help you get to your bigger weight loss goal. But unlike a number on the scale, which you don't really have control over, these are goals that you can have direct impact on. And instead of feeling embarrassed or inadequate for not hitting your scale goal, you can actually feel pride for achieving your goals of consistency and commitment. Pretty cool, right?

Alright, step number two. Now you might roll your eyes at this one, because I know I do, so it's okay, but you need to figure out your why. Now, hold on, stay with me. Before you skip this one, let's look at it a little bit differently and you will see why it's so important. Let's say your why for losing weight is so that you can fit into shorts that don't go over your knees.

This example hits close to home for me because every summer, to be honest, I feel like my legs are too squishy and fat to fit into shorts.

But think about this, it's a cold, snowy February morning and your bed is so cozy. It's still dark out and you were up late the night before. So the last thing you want to do is a workout. If you stick with the why of I want to fit into shorts this summer, do you think that that's enough motivation to get you out of bed on that cold, snowy February morning? No.

It's not going to motivate you to get up. You will convince yourself that one day of not working out, nah, it's not going to hurt that much. And then one day turns into two and that turns into four and then a whole month goes by and you haven't worked out. But if you go deeper on your why, you'll have a more compelling reason to get out of bed, even when it's cold and snowy. So using our original idea of being able to fit into shorts for the summer,

ask yourself, okay, but why is that important? Maybe it's important because wearing shorts in the summer would actually help you feel more comfortable when you have to do things outside like a barbecue at a friend's house or going to an amusement park. And if we go another layer, why is it important to wear shorts when you're at a barbecue or an amusement park? Because you don't want to feel left out of the fun and you

definitely don't want to feel embarrassed that you are wearing pants or a long skirt when it's 95 degrees outside. I mean, please, the hot flashes are going to make that hard enough. And then let's go one more. Why is it important that you aren't embarrassed or wearing pants when it's 95 degrees outside? Because you want to feel confident and self-assured.

so that you can actually just enjoy the activity and not spend time thinking about your body. Boom, right there. That is the why that we needed to get to. If you are tucked in on a cozy and snowy day, considering not getting up for your workout, remembering how important it is to feel confident and self-assured and proud, seriously, that is gonna be enough to get you out of bed.

for your workout. To figure out your why, you have to keep asking yourself why four to seven times until you land on one that is really, really going to drive you to make good choices even when you really, really don't want to.

All right, step three, how will you feel when you achieve your goal? So to answer this, we wanna think back to the first part of this episode. If wearing shorts at your current weight makes you feel embarrassed and ashamed, remember, we know what those feelings will drive you to do. They actually drive you to do nothing. They drive you to hide and give up and not even get started.

But if you could choose, how would you actually like to feel? Think about this. Think about walking around Disney World in shorts that fit and that are really comfortable, that don't write up your tushy or up your thighs. Wouldn't that make you feel confident in your skin? Proud of the work that you had put in to fit into those shorts and joyful that you were enjoying time with your family and not really thinking about your legs?

Landing on how you want to feel when you reach your goal can really help you visualize what that will look like. And when you can see an image or a movie of you reaching your goal and knowing how you feel in that moment, that can be incredibly motivating when you have to push through a hard morning or when you feel like you've hit a weight loss plateau. So spend some time thinking about this one and decide.

how you want to feel when you achieve your goal. And remember, this may not be just the scale weight. You can feel this way when you realize that you have become consistent and committed. All of this leads us to step four. How do you need to change to become the person that achieves this goal? What do you do differently when you weigh 25 pounds less?

Do you spend every night on the couch watching Netflix or do you go on a quick walk after dinner? Do you eat out three nights a week or do you prioritize cooking nutrient dense but delicious foods at home? Do you struggle with motivation or do you reach out to your coach when you need support and realignment? By knowing what you do once you've hit your goal,

You can actually identify areas to work on while you're on the journey. And typically, this helps you create kind of a tangible list that's easy to look at and say, yeah, I'm doing this thing, or no, I'm not. And if you're not doing those things, it can actually show you why you possibly may not be reaching your goal.

All right, step number five, I want you to write this down. I know that sounds silly, but our brains like to plan and strategize and think about how great it will be once we hit our goal. But when it comes to actually doing the things, brain conveniently forgets all of the plans that we just made. So I want you to write down your five steps and then post them everywhere.

your bathroom mirror, the wallpaper on your phone, in your kitchen, in your car, everywhere. The more places where you can have reminders of your goal framework, the easier it will be for you to stay on track. If you're constantly reminding yourself how you want to feel and what you need to change to become that person that achieves your goal, you have a much higher likelihood of getting back on track

if you start sliding or struggling.

Okay, take a deep breath. Like I said, this is a super deep dive into goal setting. This truly is the level of coaching I give my clients, but I wanted you to have this information now so that you can start reaching your goals. And hopefully now you can understand why it has been so hard to hit your goals in the past. Planning for achieving your goals takes time.

effort and strategy. It takes you prioritizing your feelings to better understand what will motivate you to stay on track. It is not just as easy as joining a gym or grabbing some free recipes. Sure, that helps. But if you put in the work now to build your strategy, which was the previous episode, and then manage your thoughts and feelings, which is everything we've covered here today, you will

achieve your goals. And your life will change in other amazing ways that you just can't even see yet. So I promise you all of this work is worth it. So now that you have all the tools for hitting your perimenopause weight loss goals, I really would love to know what you thought of these two episodes. Were they helpful? Have you ever gone this deep into goal setting before?

I would really love for you to send me a message on Instagram and tell me what you think. And definitely share with me your goals because I would love to give you my support as you go full force after achieving your goals.