Episode 4 Transcript
Is Your Weight Loss Journey Stuck? How to Overcome Frustration and Failure
March 15, 2023
Lucy: Trying to lose weight can be frustrating, right? One moment you’re celebrating taking a step forward, and the next moment you feel like you’ve taken 2 steps backwards. When you are stuck in this up and down loop that sometimes feels like it leads nowhere, how do you stay motivated to keep pushing? An unexpected circumstance in my life taught me the secret of how to overcome frustration and shift to success. You want to achieve your goals, right?
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Lucy: Welcome to the Weight Loss Made Possible! I’m your host Lucy Laramie! When a semi-truck crashed into my car and flat-lined my life as I knew it, the recovery heaped an additional 60 pounds onto my lifelong battle with my weight. Do you know how kids get a little too heavy to be carried? The extra weight I lugged around was equal to constantly carrying 3 small children. My weight loss journey empowered me to lose 100 pounds and keep it off over 5 years! Yet, it wasn’t all that long ago that I lacked confidence about who I was and what I could do. Fast forward past many failed attempts and the lessons learned, and you will see the version of me today that looks better, feels better, is healthier, and has more freedom. I created the Weight Loss Made Possible podcast to share stories and the lessons learned from my journey and to give you simple strategies to help you forge your own path to success. If you want to become the champion in your weight loss story, you’re in the right place! Let’s get to it!
Lucy: Have you ever had one of those mornings where you just didn’t feel ready to wake up? There are only two types of people in this world: morning people and the people who want to punch morning people. Regardless of which side of the sleep spectrum you fall on, most of us can agree that a little extra rest on the weekend is welcome, yes? That’s why on a Saturday morning in late October, my body protested as I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up to start my day. Why was I up early on a Saturday morning? The evening prior an 18 wheel tractor trailer had crashed into the rear end of my car on one of the busiest interstates in the United States. If you’re not from Atlanta, imagine two major interstates combining into a total 12 lanes of traffic flowing straight through the center of the city with just under half a million vehicles passing through per day. Now imagine a semi-truck not paying full attention to traffic full sends you into a tailspin amidst the conglomerate of cars and city chaos. Hobbling down the hallway to the bathroom, I felt the aches and pains throughout my body. As the bathroom light flipped on and my eyes blinked to adjust to the light, visible bruising was noted on my body. But, WOW! Did I feel lucky! Considering the circumstances, I felt grateful to be discharged late from the hospital with a reasonable report from the doctor and even able to sleep a few hours in my own bed! Despite the pain and unexpected chaos, there was a sense of relief that things were not worse. At the site of the wreck, the paramedics had removed me from my vehicle and strapped me to a trauma board to protect my spinal cord. There was no ability to see my totaled vehicle at the scene of the accident and I felt eager to locate my towed car, get a glimpse of its damage and retrieve my belongings. When the truck unexpectedly smashed into the back of my car, there were confidential documents in the trunk, and the fear was that those documents had ended up all over the interstate and that my valuables such as my laptop and other personal items could be missing or damaged. Luckily, at the time of the wreck, there was extra support at home: my grandma was visiting from Michigan. My feet shuffled my sore body into the kitchen to utter good morning to her and pour a cup of coffee. What happened next no one expected: As I opened my mouth to speak to her, the words stammered out of my mouth something like porky pig. Remember him? He sounded like this! Something was wrong. Really wrong. We exchanged dumbfounded looks, and concern spread across both of our faces. What do you do when you suddenly can’t speak normally? What do you do when someone else suddenly can’t communicate? This moment and everything that ensued next was about to teach me a valuable lesson that would help me find permanent success in my weight loss journey. As fear sunk in, we both sprung to action, and I felt like I was watching my life unfold like a movie as confusion and panic sunk in. With no available car, limited ability to communicate, and a technology challenged grandmother in an unfamiliar city, somehow we hailed an Uber for help. A short time later, there I was sitting nervously on a doctor’s examination table at an urgent care clinic. The doctor that happened to be on shift and entered my room was a doctor that remembered me from a couple of months prior when I had brought a friend in for help with a health issue. The doctor looked at me and she said: “Lucy, I remember you and you didn’t speak like this before.” There was a bewildered look in my eyes as I shook my head. Words wouldn’t come out of my mouth, but I felt each word she uttered next: “I am sorry to tell you that I am pretty sure the hospital overlooked screening you for a head injury, and I am pretty sure you have a traumatic brain injury.” I didn’t know what to say. Even if I could have found something to say, I couldn’t even really say it. There I sat staring at her blankly for what must have been forever. Of all the feelings that bombarded me, the first one I could process was utter terror. This news from the doctor completely flatlined life as I knew it, and I would soon discover how far and wide that impact would travel. That moment in time spiraled into nearly 200 total visits with about 10 types of doctors and nearly 20 varying diagnoses. Was there a clear, succinct set of advice that never contradicted each other? NO WAY! There was a fight for my health every step of the way. You know what though? Frustration is a sign that you haven’t given up. When life completely capsizes on you, you have the opportunity to learn who you are and what you are capable of. The problem is that a lot of us wait to deal with our problems by force rather than choice. That wreck forced me to confront many things in my life and myself. Yet, why do so many of us wait to deal with problems by force? Because we fear the unknown and what might happen. Losing my ability to speak taught me that there is a fear that is even greater than the unknown: the fear of not making progress. And, this is actually a healthy fear. I promise you that you will never fully conquer fear in your life despite what many self-help articles and gurus suggest. Fear can actually be beneficial as it provides the opportunity to change your habits and perspective. You know what’s easy about fear? There’s only one choice: are you willing to fight or are you choosing to run? Regardless of your decision, you will learn something. Few people understand that fear is actually a powerful tool for figuring out weight loss strategies that can help you succeed. How you choose to manage fear makes a big difference in the amount of progress you can make towards your goals. Fear can help you learn and reinforce what you want. However, most people screw up by taking a 2 step approach to fear instead of a 3 step approach. Let me explain what I mean by that. Often times, fear is dealt with like this: First, something triggers you. In the second step, you respond to the trigger by choosing to fight or run. Fight or flight, right? This is reasonably effective if you happen to encounter a bear in the woods, but a terrible strategy when it comes to weight loss. To create an effective pattern, you have to add a step: First, something triggers you. Second, you respond to the trigger by choosing to fight or run. Third, you reflect on the trigger and your decision to fight or run. This added third step is the only way that learning occurs. Leaving off step 3 will keep you stuck and frustrated. Fear is an emotion, and when you allow that emotion to run rampant without adding a healthy dose of logic, you risk allowing your emotions to define your reality. What you feel can quickly shift into what you believe. Just because something feels bad does not mean that it is bad. Just because something feels scary does not mean that it is scary. Just because you feel like you are screwing up, doesn’t mean that you are screwing up. Are you familiar with Toyota cars? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of them? Many people would say solid, efficient, and reliable. And, do you know what helped Toyota build a reputable brand? The power of the 5 whys. The 5 whys is a technique adopted by Toyota almost 100 years ago that helps Toyota employees explore the cause-and-effect relationship underlying a particular problem. The formula is really simple: you just ask “Why?!” 5 times! The premise is that asking why this many times allows the root of the problem to surface and encourages the person trouble shooting to avoid assumptions and logic traps. No one wants to simply stick a band-aid on a problem, right? When you are using fear as a learning tool, it’s not only critical to add the third step, but also to repeat it 5 times. Yes, 5 times! There is an example I can share from my own journey, and I’m going to get vulnerable here. You know what one of my biggest fears on my weight loss journey was, and it's something I even can still struggle with? That I wouldn’t be like everyone else. That I wouldn’t fit in. See, many of the people closest to me have had their own weight challenges, and I just felt like if I lost the weight that it would change my relationships. So, let’s ask why 5 times: Why was I afraid of my relationships changing? Well, most of our bonding activities revolved around food: eating out, cooking a meal at home, holiday parties, you name it! And asking why again, why was that such a big deal? Well, it crossed my mind that I might make them feel awkward or guilty about their choices or they might make me feel that way about mine. Asking why again: Why was that such a big deal? Well, if we couldn’t bond the way we used to and even argued over the changes, I was afraid that would form a rift. And, why was I afraid there would be a rift? I didn’t want to feel left out, and there we had the root of it. And, it lead me to a lot of further internal questions that I had to sort out in order to move forward. Were those really my tribe of people? If not, how would I deal with that and if they were, how would we manage the change? Usually at the root there is a value that needs to be sorted out in order to move forward. You must figure out what you value and when you figure out what you value, you know what to fight for. The simple approach is to use the 5 whys to get to the bottom of things so that you can move forward with clarity. You know how certain corporate environments always have those motivational posters? There was one that hung in a past office I worked at, and it summed up what we have addressed in this episode really eloquently. Across the top of the poster it said: “The reality of fear” and below that it laid out the following: “You’re not scared of the dark. You’re scared of what’s in it. You’re not scared of heights. You’re afraid of falling. You’re not afraid of the people around you. You’re afraid of rejection. And, the poster went on, and you get the point. The truth is that we cannot confront our fears in order to create change if we do not authentically know what they are. As we end this episode today, my hope is that you will take that one nagging little fear that has you feeling stuck and ask why 5 times in order to confront it and empower yourself to move forward in a way that is meaningful to you. Bye friend!