Most women miss the point of weight loss. They think it's only about losing 20 pounds or fitting into their clothes. They think of it as optional. Something they'll get to when their schedule clears up.
But the women who think this way are missing the point entirely of what losing weight is all about.
Do you want to be strong as you age? Do you want to be the grandma who's overweight and can't move or do things with your grandkids? Do you want to be an old woman with weak bones who's fraile?
Do you want to be an older woman who can't get out of a car or carry her groceries on her own? Do you want to be a woman who retires and can't go on your dream vacation without being in pain or renting a scooter to get around?
Weight loss is about improving the quality of life not just about losing a certain number of pounds or fitting into your clothes.
Unfortunately, this is how most women look at weight loss. As something that's a nice to have. As something that's an elective. "It would be nice to lose 20 pounds or it would be nice to get stronger."
You're entirely missing the point of weight loss if this is how you currently think.
As a nutritionist who works with women over 35 to lose fat sustainably, I frequently speak to women who think about weight loss this way.
They have never stopped to consider how the quality of their life would improve now and in the future if they spent time learning quality habits that they can sustainably do until they're 85 years old and getting stronger with exercise.
If you've been on a weight loss journey for awhile, it's time for you to reflect on what this journey means to you. How losing weight and improving your health will help the future version of you. How the quality of your life later in life may be better by taking action now.
It's time for you to challenge your mindset and think beyond just losing the weight with this Dish On Ditching Diets podcast episode. Hope you enjoy it!
In this Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episode, You Will Hear:
- What Most Women Over 35 Miss About Losing Weight
- Why Thinking Weight Loss Is An Elective or Nice To Have Is Detrimental
- How To Stop Thinking Like A Dieter
- Why Thinking About Improving Your Quality Of Life Is Key
Never Miss An Episode! Subscribe to the Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast on Apple, Stitcher, Spotifyor Amazon Music
Related Dish On Ditching Diets Podcast Episodes
- The Diet Mentality
- Are You Living In A Diet Prison?
- 10 Mindset Shifts To Escape The Diet Prison
- The Basics Of Weight Loss
- Why You're Hungry On Weight Watchers
- Why You Plateau On Weight Watchers
What Women Miss About Weight Loss Podcast Transcript
Hello Friends! Today we’re talking about your mindset around your goal of losing weight and getting healthier. Do you view your health and weight loss goal as optional, as an elective, as a nice to have?
You see a lot of women I believe only think about losing weight. It would be nice to lose 20 pounds and fit into my old clothes.
It would be nice to wear a bathing suit confidently. It would be nice to feel confident when I’m intimate with my partner. It would be nice to be leaner and stronger.
Like oh, that would be fun to do. Lose 20 pounds and feel better, move better and fit into my clothes. But I don’t have the time right now for that. It would be nice. But I don’t have the time. I don’t have the money.
You look at your goal of losing weight as an elective. You look at your health goal and your habits as a nice to have.
You see many women look at their weight loss and health goal as an elective. An elective bonus. As a nice to have.
It would be nice to lose 20 pounds. It would be great if I felt confident in a bathing suit. It would be great if I were leaner, and I had some muscle definition.
Except you’re missing the point of all this. The point of getting healthier, getting leaner and getting fitter is not to fit into a certain pant size or bathing suit or even drop 20 pounds.
No, no. Those things are nice, but the reason you’re doing all that is so you can improve the quality of your life and be around for a longer timeframe for your family and friends.
You don’t want to be the old grandma who can’t run around with their grandkids or enjoy time with them or can’t get down on the floor to play with them because you’re too overweight and not strong enough.
You don’t want to be the person who can’t carry their groceries or can’t get in and out of a car or can’t get up off a toilet or get their mail without getting out of breath.
You don’t want to be the grandma who has a hip fracture and never rebounds from that. You don’t want to be the youngest woman in a nursing home.
Isn’t the goal of losing weight to improve your health? Improve the quality of your life? If the goal is to improve your health and quality of life, then why would you treat it as an elective?
I’ll get to that when I have time. I’ll get to that when I’m not busy with work. Imagine if you treated brushing your teeth and showering as an elective. I’ll get to showering and brushing my teeth when I have time. No time or money for that right now. Works too busy.
Kids have too many activities going on. I’m too stressed for that showering and teeth brushing.
If you think this is just about weight loss, you’re missing the point. If you think this is a nice to have, you’re missing the point.
If you look at your health and fitness goals as an elective, you’re missing the point.
The point of all this isn’t just about getting leaner. This isn’t just about a scale number. This isn’t just about you being able to wear the bathing suit and your favorite clothes.
Yes, those things are all nice and wonderful.
But THAT is exactly the problem with your mindset.
You don’t look at your health and weight loss goal as something that is critical and necessary for you to improve your quality of life as you age. You think all this weight loss stuff is just a nice to have.
You think all this weight loss stuff is just about you wearing the bathing suit and your favorite clothes. It’s not. That’s not what weight loss is REALLY about.
You see the problem is most women’s mindset around weight loss is this thinking. They only think about the clothes and bathing suit so when it comes down to making the time or making an investment to hire a coach, most women do not place value on that because they’re getting by right now.
I’m getting by feeling uncomfortable in my clothes. I’m getting by not feeling confident in my bathing suit, in shorts or in the pictures. I’m getting by having terrible energy. I can get by a little longer.
This get by mentality is detrimental because you’re not thinking deeper about what this really means and how it can improve the quality of your life.
You’re missing the point of weight loss and building healthy, sustainable habits if this is how you currently think about this. You’re missing the point if you think this is only about losing weight and nothing else.
It’s so you can be around for your loved ones longer and be independent as you age. Until these things are taken away from you, you will not realize how important this is and recognize that your health goals aren’t optional.
Do you view teeth brushing as optional? Why would you view your nutrition and fitness as optional if you don’t view teeth brushing as optional?
You see you must look at this differently than you ever have before because if you don’t work on your health goals now, you will be forced to face your health when your health deteriorates.
This is not just about losing weight. I believe way too many women are missing the point of weight loss and do not realize how important it is to build good habits with fitness and nutrition now.
Let’s take strength training as an example. The point of strength training isn’t just to build muscle, get leaner and look fantastic in your clothes – although that is a bonus.
The point of strength training is to prevent bone loss as you age. The point is for you to be strong as you age to prevent a fall and even if you do have a fracture or fall so you can heal quickly from that.
How many of you can get out of chair and stand up without using your arms? How many of you get standup off the ground without using your hands and arms?
How many of you can get out of a car just using your legs? How many of you can walk 1 mile and not get winded?
These are ways to test your strength and stamina. If you already cannot do these things effortlessly, think about 10, 20, 30 years from now what that’s going to be like.
These basic everyday things we take for granted will become harder and harder and the crazy thing is you can practice building just a few basic habits right now to begin getting stronger and building stamina.
Most individuals ignore these health basics because they’re too busy or they view their health as an elective. I want you to envision your life as your 70-year-old self. What do you envision for her? How do you want her life to be?
Because you’re missing the point if you think it’s just about losing 20 pounds or whatever the number is.
My grandmother fractured her hip when she was 70 and she was never the same. Sat in a recliner the last 15 years of her life. She barely moved. She had trouble getting around and I always saw the frustration in her face anytime we had to do something.
Even getting out of her recliner was a struggle. She had one of those recliners that automatically went up and down. She had to use that because she wasn’t strong enough to get out on her own. She was also very overweight and had poor eating habits.
And the saddest part is that she was amazing and none of my cousins got to experience that. I’m the oldest of my cousins and I used to do so many things with my grandmother.
Go shopping, go down to the senior center, dance, sled. We did so many things and were very close. None of my cousins got to experience the grandmother I experienced and when she passed away many of them couldn’t understand why I was so upset.
To them, she was just someone who sat in her recliner all day. They didn’t have the memories I had of dancing and singing with her while making chocolate chip cookies.
Is that what you want for your grandkids? Is that how you want them to remember you? Is that the quality of life you want when you’re older?
Being active, moving our bodies with daily walking, being strong by practicing strength training a few times a week, getting adequate protein and fiber, eating higher quality meals is so much more than losing just 20 pounds or whatever the number is.
I truly think we lose sight of this perspective when we have a goal of losing weight. We think we can put it off. We think it’s not a priority. We think we don’t have the money.
We think we can go back to Weight Watchers for the 80th time and suddenly, all the good habits we need to maintain good health until we’re 85 years old are going to appear. Yeah, that doesn’t happen just counting points or just counting calories.
We think we can be obsessed about the scale and getting as small as possible except do you want to be a frail grandma or a strong grandma.
There’s a difference and I would much rather be a grandma with a higher scale weight and more muscle than a frail one with brittle bones.
At the end of my grandmother’s life, she was in a nursing home, and she had no money saved for the nursing home so the nursing home ended up taking her social security and they were going to go after the home her as well, but then my step grandfather would not have had a home.
So, all the kids ended up helping with the nursing home costs. But losing a home is a very real thing that can happen.
Someone gets sick ends up in a nursing home and their husband or partner is kicked out of the home or left homeless because if you don’t have a way to pay the nursing home, they will come after your assets. Is that what you want for your partner?
To be homeless? Because you always viewed weight loss as a nice to have?
I’ve spoken a lot about my father. You know he passed away last year from early onset Alzheimer’s. My father was skinny his entire life. Yet, he had a heart attack at 36, a blood clot in his leg when I was a little girl.
I still remember seeing him in the hospital the night before his surgery in his bathrobe and I was sobbing and scared I would never see my father again.
In his 60’s he had another blood clot in his aorta in his stomach that had to be surgically repaired and a few years before that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He had terrible habits.
His nutrition was terrible. He was a smoker. He didn’t exercise. But he was skinny! Skinny, skinny, skinny!
I remember the day I started my 80-pound weight loss journey. I was at my rock bottom, and I remembered being scared because it was before my 36th birthday.
The reason I was scared was because my father had a heart attack at 36 and I was worried that would be my fate if I didn’t do something to change.
When I was in my 20’s I had a very crazy scare with my blood pressure. My doctor said you need to go on blood pressure medication. I was only 25 or 26. I was drinking alcohol every night. Eating junk. Drinking tons of coffee. Never exercised.
So, luckily, I cut back on the coffee and was able to avoid blood pressure medication.
But then as I approached 36 something in me just told me I had to get this together. I had struggled with food my entire life and I didn’t want that to be my fate. I wanted better for myself.
I think it’s so important to not to lose sight of what losing weight is all about. Your health and you aging well.
The boring habits I preach all the time like daily walking, strength training and a little cardio, sleep, stress management, eating protein and fiber balanced meals… aren't about getting skinny.
It's about being healthy as you age and independent as you age. Having strong bones as you age so if you fall you don't break a bone.
Having muscle as you age so you can get up off a couch, get off a toilet, get in and out of a car, lift your grandkids, lift a bag of groceries... run with your grandkids, go on rides with them.
The basic boring habits are to help you stay healthy and independent as you age.
I don't know about you, but after seeing what my father went through and how hard it was on my mother caring for him, I never want to be a burden like that to someone I love.
I want to be able to get in and out of a car as I get older. I want to be able to get on and off a toilet as I get older. I want to be able to do my own grocery shopping and carry my own groceries as I get older.
I want to be able to catch myself with my strong upper body muscles if I slip so I can prevent a fall or fracture as I get older.
I want to be mobile as I get older so I can enjoy life vs. sitting in a wheelchair waiting out my last years and days.
I am grateful of the experiences I’ve had seeing family members struggle with their health because it’s giving me the much-needed perspective of why this is important. Why moving my body is a must have daily.
Why getting protein and fiber is non-negotiable and having a healthy body weight and healthy relationship with food matters. Why strength training a few times a week needs to happen regardless of my motivation.
If you've been on a journey of trying to lose weight, I just want to remind you this is so much more than weight loss. It's about having healthy habits so your life can be as enjoyable and easy as possible as you age.
Please don't lose sight of that as you're working towards your weight loss goal.
I see so many women over 35 struggling and obsessed with the scale and doing whacky things with food like eating sticks of butter, thinking carbs are evil, thinking fruit is killing them, doing diet resets to manipulate water weight on the scale or only eating one meal a day and thinking this is healthy.
Thinking this is just about weight loss. They are incarcerated in a diet prison and don’t even realize it. That's not about health at all.
Likewise, I see so many women who don’t see the value of getting a coach, getting their habits and food figured out. They’re not looking beyond the losing the 20 pounds.
They’re not looking at the long-term picture of getting their health and habits in order NOW before something happens so they can put themselves in the best position possible as they age and improve their quality of life as they age.
I have clients who are in their 70’s who are dealing with pre-diabetes and high cholesterol, they’re on dozens of medications and their joints hurt. They come to me in their 70’s to work on these things, and don’t get me wrong, you can change and learn new habits at any age.
It’s never too late. But I will say the sooner you get these things figured out the easier it will be and the better your quality of life will be as you age.
Do you want to retire and not have the endurance to walk around Europe on your dream vacation? Do you want to go on a cruise and not be able to walk around the large cruise ship and have to take a scooter because you’re not strong enough to walk?
What’s the point of life if you are putting off your health now because of your job, your kids’ activities or because you’re just too stressed if you can’t go on your dream vacation or on a cruise without your health getting in the way of you fully enjoying those experiences? And what about your mental health?
The weight of being overweight takes a toll on you mentally. Do you really want to carry around that mental weight the rest of your life?
The truth is you have to think more about health promoting habits than weight loss in this journey. The obsession around just losing weight and doing weird things with food needs to stop or you will find yourself forever in a diet prison and no one, not even you, deserves that.
It's been a year since my father passed away and there isn't a day that my heart doesn't ache to have him here and for the pain and suffering, he went through, for what my mother went through and for his three grandchildren who will never know him.
He was SKINNY... but was never healthy.
Don't do this to your family. Be more. Be better than most people. Stop missing the point. It’s not just about losing 20 pounds. Your health is not an elective. It’s so much more and this is your life!
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