4 Behaviors Stopping You from Losing Weight

00:00
You're really fixated on the type of diet you're doing, the type of foods you're eating, how much food to be eating, what type of exercise you should do, whether or not you should be fasting, and you don't realize that literally none of that matters if you keep engaging in these four somewhat self-sabotaging behaviors.

00:21
Welcome to the Mindset Diet, the show that will teach you how to stop getting in your own way and start losing weight.

00:27
feeling better and becoming the best version of yourself. My name is Iman, I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach, and I run an online coaching business where my amazing team and I coach women through losing weight without restrictive dieting or excessive exercise. Welcome back to another episode of the Mindset Diet podcast, whether you're a brand new listener or someone who's been listening for a while, I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening to the show. I hope that today's episode resonates with you and helps you move forward

00:57
weight loss journey in some way, shape or form. Man, it has been a long, busy week. So I'm grateful to just be sitting here in my office today with less meetings than the past few days and the opportunity to record an episode of the show. I'm telling you, I love being on podcasts. I love recording this show. I love appearing on other podcasts. I really, really love talking about these topics with you all. So again, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about this with you.

01:27
So the inspiration for today's episode comes from the fact that I think so many women are still focusing on the wrong things on their weight loss journey, right? You're really fixated on the type of diet you're doing, the type of foods you're eating, how much food to be eating, what type of exercise you should do, whether or not you should be fasting, and you don't realize that literally none of that matters if you keep engaging in these four somewhat self-sabotaging behaviors.

01:55
So without further ado, let's dive into those four behaviors, talk about why they keep you stuck, and more importantly, talk about how you can stop engaging in those behaviors and what to do instead. All right, first off is a behavior that I have talked about ad nauseum with my clients and on the show, but we need to bring it up again because I keep seeing it over and over and over, and that is people pleasing.

02:19
So people pleasing is the tendency to prioritize the needs and desires of others above your own. It's often driven by this desire for approval, this desire for acceptance, and also a fear of conflict, right? You don't want to do things to upset other people, so you kind of, you know, just diminish your own needs to make sure no one else is being made uncomfortable.

02:43
And while this feels like the right thing to do a lot, right? Like, nobody really wants to make other people uncomfortable, nobody wants to upset anyone else. What ends up happening is you completely throw your own needs out the window, and that affects you. It affects your physical health, it affects your mental health, it affects your just overall well-being, and then you end up being a less fun person to be around because your own needs are not being met.

03:11
This is top of mind for me because I was having a conversation with one of my one-on-one clients yesterday, and she had an amazing week of nutrition last week until she got to last weekend. And I said, well, what happened? And she said, well, I was watching my grandkids, and I just completely threw my own wants and needs out of the window. Like, I wasn't even sitting down to eat meals, I was just cooking them whatever they wanted, doing whatever they wanted to do, and I didn't have anything planned out for myself.

03:40
And she's like, it feels super selfish for me to take that time for myself when I'm supposed to be watching them and spending time with them. And I was like, I completely understand that. It feels uncomfortable at first, especially when you're used to bending over backwards for everyone else. But it's absolutely necessary because you're in a spot right now where you're not comfortable with where you're at, right? You're working on your physical health, you may be working on your mental health. And what's led you to this spot?

04:08
is that people-pleasing behavior, is never putting yourself first, is never giving yourself the time of day, is never taking care of yourself the way that you take care of other people. So if you want to get out of this spot where you're not, you haven't made the progress you want to, you have to be willing to change something. And for so many of you, working on that people-pleasing behavior is step one. I'm telling you right now, the most successful, selfless, loving people I know

04:37
Make sure that their cup is filled before they try to fill others' cups, okay? You cannot pour from an empty cup. I've used this analogy before, I'll use it again. There's a reason that when you get on those flights, the flight attendant says, put your own damn oxygen mask on before you put it on anyone else's. It's the same exact situation in life in general. You have to make sure that you are okay or you cannot serve and be there for other people.

05:06
Now listen, it's going to be uncomfortable at first because it's not something you're used to doing. You're used to ignoring your own needs. You're used to putting yourself last. And that's okay. Just because something is new and a little bit uncomfortable doesn't mean it's wrong. So just like anything else, people pleasing is a behavior that's going to take time and practice to overcome it, all right?

05:30
The first step to doing so is setting boundaries. You have to practice saying no to requests that don't align with your values or needs, okay? Next, you need to be okay with giving yourself some self-compassion, prioritizing your own wellbeing and needs. And then I think kind of, honestly, if we take a step back and really figure out what's going on here.

05:54
You need to first identify your own values and needs. What matters to you? What's a priority in your life right now? Once you identify those, then you'll have a much easier time setting boundaries, practicing self-compassion, and then communicating those needs. So many people have needs, they understand what they are, they know what their values are, and they don't express their needs and preferences and set boundaries clearly with other people. So again,

06:20
It's going to feel uncomfortable. I recommend starting by practicing with like close friends and family because they are going to be more accepting and more understanding. And so you'll build a little bit of confidence and be like, oh wait, if I tell someone that I want to choose the restaurant because I'm on, you know, I don't wanna say I'm on a healthy eating journey. That makes it sound silly. But like, because I'm trying to choose healthier foods to eat, it probably won't completely destroy their life like I think it will, right? So you start to build up confidence.

06:50
when you set boundaries successfully over and over again. Look, I'm gonna be super transparent with you. People-pleasing behavior is tied to a lack of self-worth. At your core, you believe that you are not worthy of having your needs met, and that's completely false. That is complete and total bullshit. You are worthy of having your needs met, whether you feel that way or not. You matter. Your needs matter, your wants matter, your desires matter, and other people...

07:19
respect those needs, wants, and desires if you give them the chance to. So let's start. Alright, the next set of behaviors that are holding you back on your weight loss journey, that are stopping you from seeing the results, the lasting success that you want so badly, are any type of behaviors related to perfectionism. Perfectionism is this unrealistic expectation of achieving like flawless results in all areas of life, right? This includes

07:48
eating and exercise and sleeping and stress management and all the other stuff we work on. Perfectionism is a trap because you can't be perfect. You just can't. Nobody can. And so basically what you do when you try to be perfect is you set yourself up for never feeling good enough. You set yourself up for feelings of shame, feelings of guilt, feelings of inadequacy.

08:14
And these hinder progress and create a vicious cycle of self-sabotage. Because you start to believe that you can never do enough, and you can never accomplish your goals. And so you just think to yourself, why should I even try? Right? So it's so backwards. It's like, when you try to be perfect, you end up just not even trying at all. If you label yourself as a perfectionist, I want you to throw that shit out right now. That label, identifying with that...

08:42
does not serve you in the slightest. Stop trying to be perfect in anything you do. Accept that setbacks and mistakes are a part of any journey. And they're actually really valuable, because you learn. You learn from so-called failures, okay? That's how you understand what works, what doesn't work, what needs to be changed. So in order to overcome this

09:12
And we can do that by focusing on progress rather than perfection. Celebrate your small victories. Acknowledge your efforts. I had a really, really long day yesterday. I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted to, but I went on another podcast and I thought I spoke very eloquently. And even though that wasn't even a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish yesterday, I felt so good about myself. Right? And I've trained myself to do that.

09:40
because I've trained myself to set realistic and achievable goals rather than making it so black and white. Like I'm either perfect or I'm a failure. That's just not how life works. Life is that gray area. It's not so black and white. So if you are a self-identified perfectionist, number one, nobody thinks that's cute. Number two, that's not helpful. So I would encourage you to try and just let go.

10:08
of that mindset, of that mentality and those behaviors. And what I think is helpful to replace it with is calling yourself a learner. You love to learn. That's what I have personally chosen for myself because I used to be a perfectionist. I killed myself in college to get straight A's. I lost friends, I had horrible relationships with my family, I was in really bad health because I wanted to be perfect. That did not serve me at all.

10:35
So now I identify as someone who's always learning and trying to grow. Let me give you an example of where I see this pop up a lot for a lot of women to kind of drive this point home. I see this often when women go out to eat and they feel like they failed because they're eating out. And so they just order some super high calorie meal that they know is not going to fit within.

10:59
their nutritional needs for the day. And it's basically like that all or nothing mentality. Well, I couldn't be perfect, so I might as well just go crazy. Another place I see this quite often is when it comes to workouts. Rather than accepting that you may be really busy and can only fit in like a 15 minute at home workout, you know, you think that you either go to the gym and completely go crazy or you don't do a workout at all, right? So perfectionism and all or nothing thinking are very...

11:28
They go hand in hand, they're very closely related. So again, remind yourself that so much progress can be made in that gray area in taking imperfect action. All right, shifting gears here a little bit to the third behavior that I see holding so many women back, that is staying disorganized. So just simply a lack of planning, a lack of structure, no daily routines.

11:54
No meal planning, no grocery shopping, no scheduling exercise, nothing. Just complete and total, I hope I get everything done this week. So, I mean, I feel like it's obvious, but why does this affect you? Well, it leads to impulsivity in your food choices, in your scheduling choices. It can increase your stress levels and make it really difficult to actually maintain healthy habits because you haven't thought about it. You're just flying by the seat of your pants all the time.

12:22
And then it really contributes to what I think a lot of people already struggle with, which are feelings of overwhelm and just lack of control. One of my favorite quotes of all time is, if you fail to plan, plan to fail. Once again, if you fail to plan, plan to fail. Overcoming this is very simple. The more you plan, the better you will succeed. Okay? So plan out your meals.

12:49
Create a weekly meal plan to make sure you have healthy and nutritious options always available. Grocery shop, strategically. Make a list, stick to it, right? Based off of that meal plan. Schedule in your exercise and your meal times. Consistent routines are easier to stick to. And then utilize different tools and resources, right? Different apps like Chronometer or MyFitnessPal to figure out if you're going to hit your macros for the day.

13:16
There are a million high protein healthy recipe blogs that you can use to find recipes. If you're in our private Facebook community, I send out a recipe every single week. If you're a one-on-one client or a group coaching client, I send an additional recipe to you every single week, right? So there are plenty of healthy recipes you can follow. There are so many ways to simplify this process. Don't, again, don't fall victim to that all or nothing thinking and think that everything has to be planned or nothing can be planned at all.

13:45
You can start small by just scheduling in two days that you're going to the gym that week and then having a rough idea of what you're going to eat that week. I did an episode, I can't remember the exact title, but it was something along the lines of four things to plan every single week to be successful or something like that. You can scroll back and look. And I talked to you about what needs to be planned out for your week to go very well.

14:08
Alright, last but not least, the fourth behavior that is not serving you that you need to stop if you want to be successful is fearing failure. So this goes along the lines of the perfectionist tendencies that we talked about a little bit earlier. But if you fear not having perfect results or a specific body image or losing weight by a specific time,

14:33
You're going to avoid what you need to do to actually get yourself to succeed. Once again, you know, if you've been listening for a while, that I like to be very transparent. You're going to fail on this journey multiple times. You're gonna have weeks where you don't lose weight. You're gonna have weeks where you gain weight. You're gonna have weeks where your nutrition is a mess. You're gonna have weeks where you miss your workouts. That's okay. All of those little failures are simply data points.

15:00
There are things we can learn from, there are things we can grow from. If you missed your workouts one week, you look back and say, well, what got in the way of me getting those in and how can I make sure that doesn't happen again in the future? If you had a horrible day of eating because something stressful happened at work, you learn from that, you say, oh my goodness, I'm struggling with emotional eating behaviors. This is something I need to address. How can I make this better moving forward? So many of you are not at your goal weight.

15:30
or not living your best life because you encountered a failure in the past and you let that be the reason that you quit. Don't do that anymore. If there is a bump in the road, first of all, expect that there will be. Second, use it as an opportunity to learn or grow. Get rid of the perfectionist tendencies, take that little blip in the road and turn it into information and data to help you move forward. So there you have it.

15:59
four behaviors that are keeping you stuck that we want to start to move away from. People-pleasing, perfectionist behaviors, letting yourself stay disorganized, and fearing failure. Now, if you listen to this episode and you're like, Oh my gosh, Iman, I literally do all of those things. Like, what do I even do? Where do I even begin? I got you. Start with one to two behaviors to focus on over the next four to six weeks.

16:27
So start by literally just noticing when you're engaging in these behaviors. So many of us just do these things kind of on autopilot and don't even realize it. So step one is self-awareness. Figure out when you're engaging in these behaviors, when you are people pleasing, when you are letting your perfectionist mindset take over. And just take a note of it, right? Because once you understand the types of situations that you're more likely to engage in those behaviors in, you're able to avoid them in the future.

16:56
I'm telling you right now, if you don't address these things, you will stay stuck. This is the reason that we really work on these behaviors in our coaching programs. Our first phase of our program is called our build phase. This is where we really, really dive into some of these limiting beliefs and behaviors that a lot of clients have. So if you're interested in getting some help and getting some expert guidance to help you work through these behaviors, the link to apply for coaching is down below in the description.

17:25
If not, that's totally fine. I'd still love to hear from you though, and let me know if this episode resonated with you, if you feel like you fall victim to some of these behaviors, and then also what you're going to do to make sure that you don't continue engaging in them because you know it's keeping you stuck. Thanks so much for listening all the way through this episode. I hope it brought a lot of value to you, or at least made you aware of some things that you can work on. I'm wishing you wellness, and I will see you in the next episode.