Eliminate the Dead Weight
When people try to take care of their health, they start adding on workout classes and strict diets that just make them hungrier and encourage binge eating. This is a terrible place to start and will lead to more stress in an already-stressful life and body. To speed up your weight loss and amplify your energy, you are going to separate from the beliefs, thoughts, compulsions, and behaviors that are no longer serving you.
You will let go, clear out, clean up, give up, eliminate, and release the clutter and bad habits in your life that are slowing your weight loss journey down. You will identify what is costing you too much energy, learn to have more effective conversations, and build your muscle of pride. You are carrying a backpack with heavy bricks that other people have given to you while you are trying to run a marathon. The first step is identifying what is holding you back and lightening your load. In this step, you will eliminate the dead weight.
What’s Not Working?
“Though it sounds simple, letting go is an advanced practice. It is demanding in the greatest trials of our lives and in our final moments. It is here that the heart learns the secret: that to let go is also to embrace what is true.”
— Jack Kornfield
Take a pause now and assess your current state. Take an honest look at your health and your life and write down what you already know is not working without adding any positive changes to your life.
Empowered Action
Ask yourself what you can clean up, clear out, give up, let go of, or separate from as you make space for what you truly desire. This is not the time to write down, “I’m overweight. I need to work out more.” No! This is the step to take things away, not add things on.
Think about what is costing you the most energy and where you find yourself feeling drained. Maybe there is something that you know you are eating or doing that is slowing your weight loss down or not allowing you to experience optimal health. Think about what you are constantly grappling with or what would free up mental space or time. What can you stop doing and decide now to let go of?
Take a pause now to write this down.
Clear out the Clutter
Clutter is exhausting. It sucks up your energy and distracts you from taking action in the areas of your life that you most desire to change. Time to clean it up. Look through this list and identify what you want to start cleaning up and clearing out in your life so that you can make space for something new.
Empowered Action
Think about what tends to irritate or annoy you throughout the day and where your energy is leaking. To speed up your weight loss and elevate your life force, you must feel lighter and unburdened by clutter, tasks, obligations, and thoughts that make you feel heavy and weighed down. Here is a list of areas that may need some tending to. Add to this list as needed and write down what applies to you.
Physical Space, Digital World, and Finances
- Cleaning up a closet, bedroom, drawers, make-up bag, kitchen cupboards, fridge, desk, purse, wallet, backpack, or car.
- Clearing out emails and apps on your phone or responding to text messages or phone calls.
- Cutting back social media, television, or screen time. Unsubscribing to newsletters you don’t read and subscriptions you don’t use.
- Organizing or getting your taxes done, paying unpaid bills, planning for the future, knowing how much money you have, how much money you have spent, or how much money you need to make.
It is time to clear the clutter. Write down one to three things you are willing to clean up to make space for what you want. Write down when you will do these tasks and when you will have them done.
Build Your Muscle of Pride
Slow and steady wins the race. Please do not try to Marie Kondo your whole life today. This process can be repeated as many times as needed, but if you try to do everything at once, you will fail. Go slow and pick one to three things that you can clean up, separate from, clear out, or organize so that you have the energy required for the next step.
Here is what a few of my clients decided to separate from:
- I know that when I eat dairy and gluten, I don’t feel good. I’m going to stop eating these foods.
- There is a big project at work I’ve been putting off. I need to finish it today.
- I’ve got to stop snacking on food from the vending machine at my desk.
- I have too many unhealthy foods in my house. It’s time to clean out the fridge and my cupboards.
- I’ve been trying to not drink coffee for three months. I’m going to put the coffee maker in a cupboard somewhere far away and take all the coffee out of my house today.
- It’s time to stop waiting for my husband to get healthy. I can do this without him.
- I don’t want to drink alcohol during the week. Instead of drinking wine, I’m going to have tea.
This is how you build the muscle of pride. You start small and add on once it gets easy. If you haven’t worked out in months and you walked into training with me, I would not give you a fifty-pound weight and ask you to squat. On Day 1, you would start without any weights at all. We’d focus on working on mobility, range of motion, and endurance.
Think of your self-esteem like a muscle. Each time you show up for yourself, it’s like adding a little bit more muscle to your pride. Each time you follow your body wisdom in this way, you get stronger. As you build this muscle, it gets a little easier.
Remember, this step is not about adding more. It’s about taking away. What do you need to separate from? If cleaning out your closet feels like more work, then it is not the thing to do right now. Start with the thing that is bothering you the most: what you’re afraid of giving up but know you must, or what you’ve wanted to stop doing for a long time. Decreasing sugar, alcohol, screen time, night snacking, or harmful foods is a great place to start if you can’t decide.
Allow each change you make to be like a new ribbon of success. Let go of the things that are weighing you down and costing you energy. Letting go is always a risk worth taking. You can always go back. My hope is that you continue forward.
My daughter, Abigail, who is now four years old, goes to swim class. Each time she masters a new skill, they ring the bell and give her a new ribbon, celebrating her new accomplishment as she moves to the next level. Each time she braves a new lesson, she is taking a risk as she navigates the waters in a new way. She must be willing to change. She must be willing to let go of the floats and the safety of the wall. She must risk the deep end, mistakes, and new experiences.
What wall are you ready to separate from? What beliefs can you begin to unravel? What bad habits are you holding onto that give you a false sense of control, approval, or safety? It’s your turn to take the risk and blossom.
Empowered Action
Make a declaration now of what you are willing to eliminate starting today. Write down one to three things and commit to your follow-through. Be sure to put an end date to this declaration. For example, one of my clients made the following declaration to me: “Today, I will clean out my car, and I will not watch TV after 9:00 p.m. for the next three months.”
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Here is a link to get a free downloadable copy of my book: www.losetheweightbook.com
Learn more about Oliveyah here: https://www.oliveyahfisch.com/about-oliveyah
