3 Simple Steps to Lose Weight For Good
Welcome to my blog!
If you’re new here, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Dana Walker Inskeep, a Certified Weight Loss Coach who helps women with depression lose weight and feel better.
I do this with an approach that differs from just about all of the previous methods to which you’re accustomed.
Which are what? What are you used to doing?
Buying meal plans and workout regimens, overhauling your entire kitchen to make way for the “new way” you’re going to live your life, joining a gym that you end up going to for a month and then abandoning for sleeping in before work.
I used to have a friend whose favorite expression was, “My new life starts tomorrow.” Tomorrow would come, she would start eating small amounts of healthy foods, she would exercise daily, and she would burn out in about three weeks…then the new life would start all over again after three months of gradually spiraling back to old, well-worn habits.
Does that feel familiar to anyone else?
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why don’t we actually stick to the plan and lose the weight and get that new life that we want so badly?
One word: Conditioning.
We do what we’re used to until we figure out that it’s really not working.
Now, I tell people that I’m a weight loss coach, but I consider myself more of a guide to your emotional healing.
I begin my sessions with my clients teaching basic things regarding their consumption and self-care: Staying hydrated, getting enough quality sleep, creating food and mood protocols, and eating food that you enjoy while really paying attention to why you’re eating - meaning are you actually hungry? and when you’ve eaten enough to satisfy your hunger.
But the main thing that I teach them is how to be kind to yourself. I’m not talking about bubble baths and massages here…I mean how to speak to yourself with compassion and empathy, how to re-record that tune in their heads of “You’ll never get it right, you’re not good enough” to “I’m doing my best and I’m figuring it out.”
It sounds kinda silly, right? Being kind to myself is going to help me lose weight?
Yeah. It will.
Those diet plans, though…they have so much promise that doesn’t deliver.
Tales as old as time: The 3 day diet, the grapefruit diet, Atkins, Keto…they’re all over our social media feeds today as much as they were in every women’s magazine that we read growing up. Right?
Those diets don’t work long term because they’re not sustainable. Those 180 degree extreme changes in food consumption confuse our brains so much because 1) we change too much too fast, and 2) they’re often unrealistic, therefore impossible to stick with for the rest of our lives.
And we need to learn how to eat in order to lose weight and keep it off for the rest of our lives. A “diet plan” doesn’t teach you how to do that.
But I do.
Are you thinking, “Dana! Give me the three steps already”?
Alright. Here they are:
Be Kind To Yourself
Drop Perfectionism
Stop People-Pleasing
I’ll take those in order.
Being kind to yourself is NUMBER ONE. It’s VITAL. Without it, the likelihood of keeping weight off without completely exhausting yourself is almost zero.
According to my future bestie Mel Robbins, it’s the #1 habit that brings us more happiness and fulfillment. And yet it’s the thing we’re least likely to do.
Why? People pleasing. But we’ll get there in a bit.
When you learn how to be kind to yourself, everything - and I mean everything - shifts.
It’s the first thing in my free guide, 5 Simple Ways to Revolutionize Your Weight Loss, which you can get today: dana@revolution-within.com
Kindness to yourself consists of dropping the shame, the self-judgment, and the comparison to others, including your past, younger self.
It’s comprised of learning how to speak to yourself the way you speak to those you love the most as well as receiving communication from a place of compassion.
That voice in our heads that tells us our efforts aren’t good enough is the biggest reason we’ve kept the weight on or gained it back after we’ve lost it. It’s also what’s keeping us in a holding pattern of depression and mood swings.
But I can teach you how to change that broken record to one that makes you feel better, happier…one that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.
Okay, on to perfectionism. Perfectionism sucks. It’s the worst.
What is it? “A disposition to regard anything short of perfection as unacceptable.”
But guess what? Perfect isn’t actually a thing. Everything, everyone has flaws. And expecting yourself to follow some perfect ideal diet and exercise program is setting yourself up for failure every time.
That’s pretty convenient, isn’t it? If you set yourself up with that all-or-nothing mindset, then when you mess up - AND YOU WILL, FELLOW HUMAN - you can say, “I knew that wouldn’t work” and go right back to that ol’ familiar shame spiral.
Having unrealistic expectations of ourselves is the best way to keep yourself stuck. That’s why I teach my clients to have realistic food protocols. Guidelines that are doable and easy to follow, while making small steady tweaks over time to lose weight gradually.
So JUST SAY NO to perfectionism. My course teaches you how to practice that.
And the third thing is dialing down the people pleasing.
What’s people-pleasing? Basically it’s bending yourself into every corner possible in order to make other people like you or think highly of you. Saying yes to things when you really want to say no. Agreeing with opinions that you don’t actually agree with. Creating an entirely different persona because you want to fit in.
And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to fit in…that’s basic survival instinct. But where we go wrong is when we lose ourselves in the process.
You might be thinking, “But Dana, I’m not a people-pleaser…I’m kind! I’m a giver! I’m just super nice!”
Okay, sure. Me too. But have you stopped to consider what always giving giving giving and not stopping to replenish your own cup is doing to your physical and mental health?
Or that pretending to like things that you don’t like or do things that you don’t actually want to do is lying?
People-pleasing isn’t nice…it’s deceptive. To you and to everyone else.
So I can teach you how to recognize the signs in yourself and gradually practice ways of curbing that tendency.
Everything I teach requires PRACTICE, PATIENCE, and PERSISTENCE. That’s what it takes to get the weight off, to ditch the drama that’s exhausting you, to start feeling like yourself again.
And if you’d like more information on my course and/or how to work with me one-on-one, email me at dana@revolution-within.com and we’ll schedule a consultation. The first one’s on me.
Love and hugs,
Dana