Welcome! Whether it’s your first time here or you’ve read for years, I’m glad you’re here today. Recently there’s been a lot of discussion around coaching, so I’ve been talking to more people about what I do in weight loss coaching with my clients. There’ve been a lot of questions – how does it work? Do you help me choose a diet that’s right for me? Why is coaching helpful for weight loss?
It’s fun for me to talk about because I love to coach! I also know how crucial managing the mind around any decision is, and weight loss is no exception. We get the concept of a coach in sports: An elite athlete needs a coach to be trained to achieve their potential in their discipline. CEOs hire business coaches to help them make the best high-level decisions for their companies.
A coach helps you reach your goal.
Weight loss is no different. When you set forth a goal to lose 20 pounds, you can’t just decide one day and wake up the next having achieved it. You know that. You’ll need to sustain your efforts over time and be consistent to get the weight to come off of your body. That’s where a coach helps – you’ll want to stop, give up, quit, cheat, self-sabotage, and your coach will help you stay on track to your goal! But weight loss coaching isn’t about having a cheerleader or just someone to help remind you of your goal.
It’s having someone outside of you who can help you see your mind.
This is the key to good coaching and where I begin with each of my clients. In order to make progress toward a goal, we have to be able to see our thoughts about what we are trying to achieve. When a client wants to lose weight, they have lots of thoughts about what they have to do (how should I eat? exercise? starve? be uncomfortable?). The thoughts are what trigger the actions we take, so we have to be able to see what we’re thinking. A good coach shows you your thoughts and helps you see how they are producing your current results.
I love the spiritual truth behind managing your thoughts – this is why it works! 2 Corinthians 10:5 says we are to take every thought captive and make them obedient to Christ. Most of us aren’t even aware of most of our thoughts, much let taking charge of them. So this is where coaching starts: We begin with awareness. The first step is learning to see the thoughts that trigger our actions. In the beginning, we aren’t trying to change the thoughts or take new actions – just be aware of them. Actively changing the thoughts and taking new actions comes later, but you can’t move ahead without awareness. So how do we become aware?
We practice being the observer.
The observer is you watching your mind. It’s recognizing that you are not the thoughts you think and that your mind is not in charge of you. Your brain will offer up many thoughts and you get to decide if you agree or disagree with those thoughts. We think our brain is the boss, but it’s really just an efficient secretary. It keeps the thoughts in very efficient files, so we don’t have to think about most things. Most of what we do is automated: We tie out shoes, walk around, pour a glass of water with ease. When we eat, we do it because of default reasoning in our minds. For example, we eat because it’s lunchtime, or because someone brought doughnuts to the office, or we’re bored or stressed or tired or frustrated, or because we want to make ourselves feel better. None of those reasons are because the body is hungry and needs fuel.
In order to stop eating for reasons other than hunger, your thoughts need reprogramming. If you’ve learned over the years to eat for reasons other than hunger (we all have), then you have to be aware of the thoughts that prompt you to eat. You have to be able to observe your mind. When your brain tells you that a cookie will make you feel better after that hard conversation with your husband, you get to see that your brain is used to offering a cookie as the solution to stress. You can decide that you will agree with your brain and eat the cookie, or you could choose to remind your brain that you will ultimately not feel better from the cookie and that what you really want is to watch the scale go down. You can choose to disagree with your brain! The default thoughts can be changed to serve your goal. The process of change is work, but it can be done.
That’s why you need a coach!
You can lose weight and reach your goal. But if you’re finding it hard to do it on your own and know you need a coach to help you change your brain, I’m here to help! Email me at drandreachristianparks@gmail.com and set up a free consultation. It’ll be the first step on your way to permanent, successful weight loss!
Here’s your video help for the week! It’s a double dose!