Hi! I’m Donna Reish, IF teacher, weight loss coach, blogger, and half of “The Minus 220 Pound Pair” as my husband and I have lost over 220 pounds together (160 of that in the past couple of years through the Weight Loss Lifestyle habits and strategies I teach!).
In this episode, I present two of the many qualities that we need to develop in order to achieve weight loss/weight management.
There are many qualities and skills needed for weight loss—and for weight management once the weight is lost. Some of these skills are ones we already have in other areas of our lives, but we need to learn how to apply them to weight management. Some are ones we have a little bit, but we need to learn how to increase them. And some are ones that we wish we had, but we often do not feel that we presently do.
The good news is that qualities and skills related to weight loss can all be learned! They can be practiced over and over again until we have increased them to our benefit.
In today’s episode, I delve into two qualities—thoughtfulness and honesty. These sound like qualities needed for a harmonious marriage!
But they are actually pertinent to weight loss.
1) Thoughtfulness—the ability to THINK about our own Thoughts and Feelings and change them as needed in order to Act in a certain way. (As in, the Think-Feel-Act cycle and the Think-Feel-Eat cycle!)
2) Honesty—the ability to be honest with ourselves completely. This means that we don’t stay off the scale for days; we don’t eyeball foods if we are on a measuring protocol; we don’t “forget” to record a food if we are on a record-keeping protocol; we don’t “average” our carbs or fat grams if counting those is part of our program; we don’t cheat on our timed eating app. One hundred percent transparency and honesty is needed for weight loss.
Then…I teach how Thoughtfulness (writing down what we will eat each day for 3 minutes then learning to self-coach with the Think-Feel-Eat model) will help us gain more honesty skills. (TFE #1)
And, practicing the skills of Thoughtfulness and Honesty over and over again will make us better and better at them.
Find all of my episodes, outlines, and articles for my two weekly broadcasts:
(1) Weight Loss Lifestyle broadcast (formerly Donna’s Intermittent Fasting Broadcast)
Outline for Qualities Needed for Weight Management Part I of III
A. Basis of Character Qualities
1. Parenting seminar
2. First Four Qualities for Toddlers
3. Always qualities that were in kids’ control
4. Always qualities that can be learned through practice, teaching, encouragement, and repetition
5. Incrementality is why I teach the First Four for Weight Loss! (TFE 42; free First Four Journal Sheet)
6. Build on your qualities
a. Start with what you are already good at and apply it to weight loss and management more and more
b. Build incrementally on the ones you are not as strong in
c. Use the principles of Self-Integrity (TFE #19 and TFE #20)
d. Understand that willpower can only take you so far (Weight Loss Lifestyle 60 and WLL 61)
B. Quality #1: Thoughtfulness
1. Not thinking of others
2. Instead thinking of your thoughts
3. End goal: be able to use the Think Feel Eat model to think Thoughts that general Feelings that lead to Actions you want
Thought: I can reduce calories by 100 for the rest of the week easily since I’ve done it before.
Feeling: Confidence
Action: Carrying out the deficit you planned for
4. Thinking can start with something as simple as writing in your First Four Journal for five minutes every day
a. Prompts are given for you
b. Write down your food, drink, water, sleep, and eating times for the day
c. Once you are consistent at a journal type that gives you the exact things to write, you can branch out to TFE better (I will teach you in 2021!)
d. See more about TFE in Episode #1
5. With incremental changes (1% Jump Ups!), we can start with five minutes of the First Four Journal pages then move to doing our own TFE or CTFAR or TFA (Think Feel Act) in order to see our Thoughts on paper.
a. Can take ten minutes a day
b. You will get better and better at it
c. I will teach you!
C. Quality #2: Honesty
1. Building on a quality I already have in other areas of my life
2. Dishonesty with ourselves often keeps us from our deficit
a. Dishonesty about weight—not weighing frequently, not keeping track part of the time, not inputting it into app if it’s too high
b. Dishonesty about measuring—using cups and spoons rather than grams; eyeballing my measurements; adding a little extra
c. Dishonesty about what I eat—“forgetting” to add something; not recording BLT’s—bites, licks, tastes
d. Dishonesty about calories or protein—choosing the lower calorie entry in My Fitness Pal
e. General dishonesty—not counting for a while and not keeping track of how long it has been since I counted; taking an extra day during a planned weekend away of not counting; etc.
D. Two Qualities Together—Thoughtfulness and Honesty
1. Thoughtfulness can be the beginning of improved honesty
2. Starting with the First Four journal sheet, we are committing on paper to things—this has an impact on how we carry things out
3. The more honest we are in planning our day, the more honesty we get
4. The more honest we are at the end of each day in evaluating our day, the more honest we will get with ourselves
5. We develop the skills of honesty and thoughtfulness just like every other skill—as we practice them
E. Get More Help!
1. Join my FREE Facebook group where I record videocast/podcast episodes!
2. Emails with teaching around weight management—articles, videos, free charts and booklets, and more at DonnaReish.com
3. Take my month-long Intermittent Fasting course
4. Schedule a free 30 minute coaching consult! —coaching packages are on sale now through January 15th, 2021!
