279: 100 lbs Down - A Client Story

Chris has been on a diet since she was eleven years old. Keto, Atkins, Weight Watchers, the five-bite diet, and about a dozen things in between. She lost weight on every single one of them. She also gained it back every time. When she found this podcast and eventually started working with Elizabeth, she was not expecting anything different. She'd done the plans. She knew what plans could do, and what they couldn't.

What she didn't expect was that somewhere in the process, the weight would stop being the point.

In this episode of Done with Dieting, Elizabeth talks with Chris, a long-term client and former listener, about what 100 pounds of weight loss actually looks like from the inside. Not the plan. Not the food rules. The real shift: the one that happened when Chris stopped treating her eating as a discipline problem and started understanding what was actually driving it.

If you've ever thought that real, lasting change isn't available to you because you've failed at it enough times to have evidence, this conversation is going to challenge that belief. Chris is a nurse. She is smart, informed, and spent decades doing everything she was supposed to do. And she still couldn't make it stick, until she understood why.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Why women who know exactly what to do still can't make it stick, and what's actually getting in the way
• What changes when weight loss stops being the goal, and why that shift is what finally made the results last for Chris
• How decades of people-pleasing and putting everyone else first shows up in your eating, and what it looks like when that pattern starts to change
• Why Chris, a nurse with full access to medical knowledge, still couldn't see what was happening in her own body until she had outside support

The Listener Takeaway: Why This Episode Matters

Most weight loss content gives you information you already have. Another plan, another set of rules, another promise that this time will be different if you just follow the steps correctly. Chris's story is not that. She'd followed the steps. Many times. What changed was not the plan. What changed was her understanding of why food had been doing a job she didn't know it was doing, and what happened when she found other ways to meet those needs.

If you've been carrying quiet shame about not being able to make your health habits stick, this episode is going to reframe what that struggle actually means. It doesn't mean you lack commitment. It means you've been solving the wrong problem. Chris figured that out. This is her telling you what that looked like, in plain language, with no performance.

RESOURCES

• Take the free quiz to find out which pattern is getting in your way
• Done with Dieting: Beyond Overeating Program — the program Chris started with before moving into 1:1 coaching
• Episode 246: Is It OK to Want to Lose Weight? — If Chris's story stirred something in you about your own desire to lose weight and whether you're "allowed" to want that, this episode addresses that question directly and without shame.
• Episode 161: People Pleasing and Self-Care — Chris talks about how people-pleasing ran her life before this work. This episode goes deeper into exactly how saying yes to everyone else first quietly destroys your health habits.
• Episode 186: Breaking Through Midlife Weight Loss Barriers — If you heard Chris's results and thought "that's not possible for me," this episode unpacks the real reasons midlife weight loss feels impossible, and why it doesn't have to be.
  
  

Free Quiz: Still saying "I know what to do, I just don't do it"?  You don't need more information. You need to know why you're not applying the information you already have. This free quiz identifies the exact reason your healthy habits keep breaking down, and it's not willpower. 15 questions. 3 minutes or less. 4 possible patterns. 1 honest answer. 

Go to https://elizabethsherman.com/quiz

If you’re a woman in midlife who wants better health without obsessing over weight, you’re in the right place. I’m Elizabeth Sherman, a life and health coach and host of the Total Health in Midlife Podcast.

After coaching hundreds of women, I know the real problem usually isn’t “not enough information” – it’s too much of it, and not knowing where to start. With close to 300 episodes, this show can feel that way too.

To make it easy, I created a free Listener’s Roadmap that helps you figure out which episodes are right for you right now. Tell me what you’re struggling with – low energy, emotional eating, stress, sleep, exercise, or all of the above – and I’ll point you to a curated path of episodes and resources to get you moving.

Download your free roadmap at https://elizabethsherman.com/roadmap.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

At the beginning, the main reason I came to you was to lose weight. Stop operating and lose weight. But as we got farther and farther into working together, I was still weighing myself because we do want to see the number. And and I and I am and I was happy that I was losing. But it wasn't as important as I thought. Because at the beginning, I was just like, if I can lose weight, my life will be great. Everything will be perfect. I'll write off into the sunset. And as we started working together, it really wasn't about the number on the scale. It really wasn't about my weight. It was more on how I felt about myself and how I treated myself and how I wasn't respecting myself or my body. And as you were teaching me, I started really liking myself. I started really liking how I was showing up for myself. I was liking how I was taking care of myself, that I was thinking about am I going to do this? Is this a good thing to do for my body? Is this not a good thing to do for my body? And I just kept showing up for myself. And I was really liking it. I was liking how I felt. And it was something I never felt before. I never, I don't know if I've ever really liked myself before. I mean, I hate to say that, but I it it was true. And I really started like liking myself and liking what I was doing and liking how I was treating myself, which was most important. I was starting to have respect for myself. And so the numbers started not like I didn't care about the number anymore. I cared about how I felt. That was what was the most important to me is how I felt and how I felt about myself, and that I was actually doing something for myself that I never thought I could do. And that meant everything.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Welcome to the Done with Dieting Total Health for Women Over 40 podcast, the podcast for women who are done with the startover cycle and ready for a way of taking care of themselves that actually works. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and I am really glad that you are here with me today. So I want to ask you something. Have you ever been just so done with yourselves, just so over what it is that you're doing, that you signed up for something in the middle of the night, you didn't plan it, didn't think about it for weeks, just done. Because you hit a wall and you couldn't unsee it. That's where today's guest started. Her name is Chris, and she has been a client of mine for about a year and a half. She's a nurse and she's been on a diet ever since she was 11 years old. And one night, after eating herself sick, she got on my website and signed up for one of my programs. That was the beginning. Since then, she has lost over a hundred pounds. She threw away her scale. She bought not only a bathing suit, but also a pair of shorts, and she wore them in public. But here's what I want you to pay attention to as you listen to today's episode. Sure, the weight loss is real, but that's not the actual story. The story is what happened in between. What she learned about why she was eating the way she was eating, what changed when she stopped trying to fix her food and started paying attention to everything else. How she went from a woman who avoided people because she didn't want to be seen, to someone who shows up for herself every single day without making it a big deal. Now she came to me to lose weight. She stayed because she started liking herself. I think you're going to hear yourself in her. And I think that's exactly the point. So let's get started. Here's Chris. All right. Let's welcome Chris to the show. Chris, I am so excited that you're here. I'm excited about what we're going to be talking about today. So before we get into the questions, I'd like you to introduce yourself to everyone who's here. Tell us your name and anything you want to share with the listeners about work together and how you found me and all of that great stuff.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Okay. My name's Chris. And I've been working with Elizabeth for a little over a year and a half now, I think. And I actually found her through the podcast. I have been commuting a lot, and I was getting tired of just listening to the radio and listening to music. So I actually started listening to some podcasts, and I was just kind of looking through it. And the title of hers is what actually drew me since I was a woman in my mid-years. So I started listening, and everything she was saying made so much sense that I just continued to listen to her and kind of just went from there.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah. That's awesome. I love hearing those stories. So before you found the podcast, how would you have described your relationship with your health?

SPEAKER_01 5:32

It was awful. I my relationship with my health was really bad. I was not taking care of myself at all. I was overeating a lot, kind of numbing myself with suit. I didn't exercise. I just I didn't sleep well, not taking care of myself. I was under a lot of stress. And the last thing I even thought about was taking care of myself. So it I was not healthy at all.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

So yeah. And what were you telling yourself about that? Like why you weren't taking care of yourself, or why you hadn't prioritized your health or the results that you were getting? Like, what were you telling yourself was the reason behind that?

SPEAKER_01 6:22

A lot of it was time. I don't have time to do this right now. Later, I'll do this later. Right now, I need to take care of other people. Need to put my husband first, my kids first, my dog first, everything. All my responsibilities came first. I was last on the totem pole. By the time night came around, evening came around, time where I might have some time for me, I was exhausted. So the last thing I was thinking about was okay, how can I take care of myself now? Instead, it was just easier to numb myself, just numb out, and just overeat, and the cycle would restart in the morning. So I just I always kept thinking later, later when I get time. When I get time and when when the kids are grown, when things settle down, when life stops, being so crazy, then I'll focus on myself. But in the meantime, I was hurting my health worse and worse by not doing anything. And nothing changed. The time the timing never changed. It was there was always something, there's always something else that I needed to do besides myself. There was never, even when the kids finally did get out of the house, grow up and go out of the house, still didn't have the time. I still didn't put myself first. I still was always last and never got to that point because I was always too exhausted by time. I got to that point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yeah. I think that what you just said is going to resonate with a lot of people because there are so many people, you know, being a nurse as you are, and also being in that sandwich generation where you were taking care of your aging parents, bringing them to doctor's offices and visits and things like that. And at the same time taking care of your adult children, like it feels very real that I don't have time. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, your capacity to be able to eat well or exercise or go to sleep on time. And then, you know, like all of the things that are going on in your head when you fall asleep. Yeah. Are there at three o'clock in the morning?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yes. My sleep definitely was not good at all. Yeah. Because I was always thinking, what do I gotta do the next day? That's part of my to-do list at 3 a.m., you know. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Okay. So you came to me originally because you wanted to lose weight. What was going on in your life at that point that made you decide, you know what, maybe I want to do something about this?

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Well, I kind of got myself into really bad eating. I overeat a lot. And it was where I was hiding my food and eating. So during the day I was pretty good. Morning, I'm starting out good. Lunch, I would start out pretty decent. And then on the way home from work is when I would always stop at the store and I would buy stuff, buy sweets, cakes and donuts and cookies, whatever. And after dinner, I would either go in my office or go in my bedroom, and I would just I would overeat, like massive overeat, just to numb myself because I think I was under so much stress and so much stuff was going on. I just didn't want to feel my feelings. So it was easier to numb myself. And food was my comfort. And that's what I that's what I used. I didn't do that every night, but it got to the point where I was starting to do it more and more, to where it was becoming almost every night. And then I would go to bed either because I ran out of food or I was sick to my stomach. And then I would sleep for a little bit, and then I'd wake up, and then this the self-hate talk would come in, and it would keep me up all night because I was I'd be so mad at myself for doing it again. And then I would promise myself the next morning, I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna be good, I'm gonna do what I need to do, I'm not gonna stop at the store and buy that stuff. And the next day would start, and it would just be a vicious cycle. It was just over and over and over again, and it would got to the point where I just couldn't do it anymore. I just finally had a really bad day, like a really bad day, and that night I ate so much food that I was thrown up. I ate myself like this literally thrown up, and I was just like up all night because I was sick, and because how much I hated what I was doing. I just I hated myself for what I was doing, and I hated what I was doing, and I didn't know what to do. I mean, I was I kind of was like at the lowest point, and I I didn't know what else to do. And I have been hearing you talk on your podcast that you were starting a program called Beyond Overeating, and I have been thinking about for several weeks because I kept hearing you talk about it, and I was like, that sounds really like something that would be good for me to do, but then I kept saying, No, you can do this yourself, you can do this, you know what to do, you know, but I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. I can't I kept every morning trying and I could not do it. I don't know why, but I could, even though I I knew what to do, and how I'm curious, what what did you think that you needed to do? I needed to stop eating, I need to stop overeating.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I needed like it's easy, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Just stop eating, right? Just stop, and I couldn't do I couldn't stop eating. I know, right? Sounds so easy. So yeah, after that night, that morning, I woke up. I don't even know if I slept because it was such a bad night, and I was like, that's it, I'm done. I cannot do this anymore. I just cannot, I cannot live like this anymore. And I actually went on your website and I signed up for beyond overeating, and that's how it started.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, part of it it's all been downhill since now. Okay, so we're gonna get to that. But okay, so what were some of the other things that you tried? Because this was not the first time that you had tried to lose weight or like control your eating, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:52

I have been on a diet since I was 11 years old. Started on a diet when I was 11 years old. So I've been on so many diets, so many. And I've lost weight. I have lost weight on the diets. But then as soon as life hit or stress hit or they're unsustainable. I mean, some of these diets you can't stay on forever because they're just too restrictive. I went on a five-bite diet. How long is that gonna last, right? I did the great food diet, I did Weight Watchers, I've done keto, I've done Atkins, you name it, I've done them. I've lost weight, but I always gained it back, or more so, because none of them were sustainable, and none of them taught me anything except for being restrictive, right? Just don't eat this, eat that, or only eat this many calories a day, or you have to track everything and don't go over this amount, or don't eat any carbs, and all that stuff. You could do it for a little while. I could do it for a few months. The five-bite diet I couldn't do for a few months. That was too hard. But but I think it only lasted a couple weeks. But then when your real life happens and you're invited to parties and dinners and all this other stuff, you know, all that stuff goes out the window because it just it just wasn't sustainable. So but yeah, I've been on so many diets, it's trying to write a book on it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So I'm curious, like, what was interesting about Beyond Overeating that you wanted to try that?

SPEAKER_01 15:30

That's your podcast for a few months before I actually signed up for that. And you never talked about you can only eat this, or I'm gonna give you a meal plan, and you can only have this many calories. You never said, okay, you have to track your micro, your macros, you have to write everything down. All your stuff that you talked about in your podcast was like small changes. Pick one change for the week to do, one little thing to do that you can be successful at. One of your podcasts was like about B minus four. You don't have to be perfect, you can just you can make small changes and they add up, and it makes a difference. And so you weren't coming at us, or people listening audience, you weren't coming at us with like, do my meal plan and you'll be great, you'll be perfect, you'll do you weren't coming at us like that. You were talking about real life, like one thing to change, not change your whole life, change one thing, and it just was like, this makes so much sense. I mean, I can do one thing, right? I can change one thing. I can't change my whole life because there's just too much going on, but I can change one thing, or I can add one thing, and so it made me think that maybe this would be something I can do. It was something different, it was different than what I have been sold so many times before, different than what you keep seeing on social media. And I was like, all that stuff I've done before, and none of it worked. So why would I go back to that? You were talking about something different, something I never heard of before. And I was like, I need to give it a chance, and I did, and thank goodness.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Well, and you've had a lot of success in the beyond reating program.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yes, yes, I did.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

I did. I can't remember, was it 18 pounds or 20 pounds?

SPEAKER_01 17:36

20 pounds in nine weeks, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Okay, great. Yeah, and your partner had a lot of success, even though he wasn't in the program at all, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Right, because he cooks, he does all the cooking for me, thank goodness. I'm lucky that way, and so he was very supportive and totally on board, and so he started changing how he cooks because that's just me and him that he cooks for, and so because he changed the cooking for both of us, he started eating it also, and he lost, yeah, he lost some too. He had to go buy new clothes and some new belts and and everything because he had lost weight also, yeah, yeah. So it was a good thing all all around.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

And so because you got such great results through the nine-week program, you decided that you wanted to continue working on a one-on-one basis, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Oh, I was very successful, and I feel like I was very successful, and uh what you were teaching me uh was great. It was really making a difference in my life, and you were giving me hope in myself that I could do this and that I could change, and you were giving me hope for my future, which meant everything. So I wanted more. I just I I didn't even hesitate. I didn't even have to think about it. I was like, no, I have to keep going because what you were teaching me was something I never learned before, and it was so valuable. It was it was changing my life little by little. So it was I've I mean, I hadn't had hope in a long time. So the fact that I was starting to actually have hope and actually stop a lot of the negative talking and started like actually liking what was be what I was becoming, who I was becoming, I was like, yeah, I have to, I have to keep going. Most definitely. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Can you give some concrete examples of the things that you were learning that were that made that change? Just to give the the listeners an idea of like what that would look like for them or what the concepts were that you learned and how you applied them.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Okay. Well, I learned a lot that it wasn't about the food. Not about the stuff. It was not about the food. I just thought that I just love food and I just couldn't stop eating it, and that I just needed high volumes of food to satisfy myself. And a lot of the stuff that you were teaching me was that it's really not about the food, that I kind of needed to learn to not numb out that you kind of have to, you have to start feeling your feelings, and that's a good thing and a bad thing. Because you've got good feelings and you have bad feelings. And when you're numbing out, I was numbing out the good stuff too. And I didn't realize that at the time. But then once I was like, okay, some of the exercises and things that you had me working on, I had to feel my feelings good and bad. And so it was good to feel the good feelings, not so much the bad feelings, but it all goes hand in hand. And so I think that was a huge thing for me was to start to feel my feelings. I started doing a lot of journaling, started doing a lot of thought downloads instead of instead of eating my feelings and numbing, I would put them down on paper. And that helped a lot to to work out things. It's really not about the food. It really wasn't. The food was just kind of there, but yeah. I don't know if I'm explaining that well enough, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just I didn't know how to do that at the time. And a lot of the tools you gave me taught me, instead of going to sooth, it taught me to sit with and do other things to cope with that, yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Yeah. And so I remember that as we were working, and as because I never asked you your weight in all of our time together. I think that's true, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

That is true. You never did. No, you never did. At the beginning, the main reason I came to you was to lose weight. Stop operating on lose weight. But as we got farther and farther into working together, I was still weighing myself because we do want to see the number. And and I and I am, and I was happy that I was losing, but it wasn't as important as I thought because at Beginning, I was just like, if I can lose weight, my life will be great, everything will be perfect. I'll write off into the sunset. And as we started working together, it really wasn't about the number on the scale, it really wasn't about my weight, it was more on how I felt about myself and how I treated myself and how I wasn't respecting myself or my body. And as you were teaching me, I started really liking myself. I started really liking how I was showing up for myself. I was liking how I was taking care of myself that I was thinking about am I gonna do this? Is this a good thing to do for my body? Is this not a good thing to do for my body? And I just kept showing up for myself, and I was really liking it. I was liking how I felt. And it was something I never felt before. I never, I don't know if I've ever really liked myself before. I mean, I hate to say that, but it I it it was true, and I really started like liking myself and liking what I was doing and liking how I was treating myself, which was most important. I was starting to have respect for myself, and so the numbers started not like I didn't care about the number anymore. I cared about how I felt. That was what was the most important to me is how I felt and how I felt about myself, and that I was actually doing something for myself that I never thought I could do, and that meant everything. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Okay, so what is something that you know about yourself now that you didn't know about two years ago?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

That I could actually do something, that I could actually do whatever I want to do. Like now I feel like if it's something I want to do, I can do it, I can achieve it no matter what it is. I don't feel like I can't do it. And back then I I had so much doubt about everything, if I could do anything. Even when I started working with you at the beginning, I still had doubts, even though I really wanted to do it, but I was still had the doubts like, can I actually abuse this? Now I know I can do whatever I want to do. I can achieve whatever I want to achieve in anything, whether it comes to my health, my personal life, my professional life, anything I want to do, I can do it. I still might be a little bit afraid at times, but I can do it even being afraid. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Amazing. I love that. Okay, so in the midst of everything that we did, you actually hit the 100 pounds down mark. Yes, and then you threw away your scale. Yes, yes, let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Well, I had been thinking about it for a while. You know that we had talked about that. Is one of my goals was to get to a point where I wasn't always weighing myself, where I wasn't always living by that number. And as we were working together more and more, the number really wasn't mattering. But at the same time, I did want to hit that hundred mark, right? Because I mean that's a huge mark.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

So I mean 98 feels so unsatisfying.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

It was, yes, yes, so I made a pack with myself that when I hit the 100 mark, that was it. I was going to throw away my scale and and not live by that number. And I actually that morning got on a scale and I was 100 pounds exact, exactly. And I took a picture of it and I texted it to you to show you, and then I I got dressed and I took that scale and put in the trash right then and there. I didn't even think, didn't even second think it. I was like, I'm not gonna live by the number on that scale anymore. I'm not gonna let it dictate to me if I'm gonna have a good day or a bad day in January and threw it away. So I have not weighed myself in what are we going on five, six months now? Yeah, how's that going? Yeah, and I feel great. I love not having to get up and think about weighing myself and wondering where I'm at. Because you know what? I wear the clothes I wear, I could tell, I could tell how they fit. I have really gotten really in tune with my body through this process with you, because you also taught me to listen to your body, what what your body needs, and so I can tell if I've gained weight or if I have not gained weight. That's I really can, I really am so much more in tune with my body and how it feels and how my flows feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

And let's talk about that for just a second, because I think that there might be a listener right now, there might be a lot of listeners who think to themselves, oh, I could never throw my scale away. I need my scale to keep me in line, to keep me accountable. What would you say to that?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

I would say that no, you don't. Because that number in the scheme of things, that number doesn't mean anything. It's how you feel, it's how your body feels. And everybody, everybody's body at a different point. Because I never, and I know I told you this before, I got to the point where I didn't have a number that was my goal. I was telling you, I'm just gonna eat the way I eat in whatever my body goes to, wherever my body feels satisfied. So if my body felt satisfied with still having a little bit of extra weight on it, or if my body felt satisfied with having a little under, it wouldn't matter what the number was. It's it's what my body feels good at. So I I think the number just I think the number doesn't make you stay more accountable. I think the number actually is a hindrance to you and it actually cripples you because you can have a day that was going to be a great day, but you get on that scale, and that number's up by one pound. And it could be because of hormones or because you didn't sleep good that night before. It could be it doesn't mean that you ate too much or that you gained fat. It could be so many other reasons, and then you that just throws you into a crap day, and maybe you'll overeat that day because of it. Oh well, I don't care. I gained weight, I was perfect, I gained weight, I might as well eat, and then you eat. Where if you never saw that number, you never saw got on the scale, and you just went by how you felt, and that hey, I had I've had a really good week. I feel really good, I've been eating good, let's keep going. For me, that's more motivational than me getting on that scale, because every time, no matter what, even through this whole process, because I didn't go down every week, there's no way, right? That's not seasonal. There were moments when I went up and down, up and down. That's just life. And every time I went up, no matter how good I was that week, or no matter how great I thought I ate, it it still was a negative effect every time I got a scale in a number, even if it was only half a half a pound, it was a negative impact on me. And it it would ruin my day. And I just got tired of living by that number. I this last five, six months, I have not missed the scale whatsoever. I have not worried like I need to weigh myself because maybe I messed up, maybe I weighed anyway. It's it's freeing. It's it's just it's freeing. It's one less thing that my brain has to lie to me about, worry about, stress about, tell me stories about. It's one less thing that that I have to deal with. And I love it. I love it. I I'm so glad I got rid of it. Yeah, just say I agree, right? And it doesn't matter, right? That number doesn't matter, it doesn't define you as a person, it means absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Okay, so tell us a little bit about your relationship with food. How does that look today? Today? Will you eat like a quote unquote normal person? Yes. Yes, that's and I asked that question because that was one of the things that Chris wanted when she first started working with me. I just want to eat like a normal person.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

That's right. I just want to eat like a normal person. I eat, I love how I eat. I absolutely love how I eat. I love what I eat. I praise what I eat. It's crazy. I never thought that I would eat how I eat now. And not feel deprived?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Huh? And not feel deprived?

SPEAKER_01 32:04

No, I don't feel deprived whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

But like if the version of you that existed two years ago saw you today and saw what you ate and how you lived, what do you think she would think about it?

SPEAKER_01 32:16

I think she would be jealous of how I I think she'd be like, I wish I could do that. I know I can't, but I wish I could. Because I think she would think definitely not a necessary. Definitely not a necessary. And really, I do eat a lot of food, but not in quantity because I over ate so bad so much. And the past me would just think, I there's no way I can do that. It's just I wish I could, but I can't, type thing. Yeah, I I I don't I'm not really sure, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Well, and one thing that we've been working on recently that I want to share with the listeners, I think, is adding treats back into your diet. Yes. Yes. Let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

I have been doing it for several weeks now, and I think I've been doing really well with it, but I I I don't feel deprived whatsoever. I look forward to my food. I look forward to what I'm eating. I enjoy what I'm eating. It's not a diet, it's my life. This is who I am. I'm a person that eats healthy for my body to take care of her, and I'm a person that works out to take care of my body. That's just who I am now. That's just me. And I love, I love how I do it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Okay, so a couple more questions. So, what do you have now that you didn't have before that has nothing to do with your weight? I definitely have more confidence.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

I'm, you know, back when I would always people would invite me to things, and I would always make excuses of not to go because I was so lack of confidence, embarrassed how I look. I didn't have clothes that I would be able to wear. So I would do nothing. I would stay at home, I wouldn't go anywhere, I wouldn't participate in things. Now I have the confidence to go out and do things and to enjoy activities with my friends and not to be where, well, one day I'm gonna do that when I lose weight. One day I'm gonna do that. Now I do it, I do whatever I want to do. I also love the fact that I can go to my closet and anything that's hanging in there will fit. I did a huge closet clean out, several of them through the last year or so. And every single thing that's in my closet, I can wear. And it's just amazing to be able to go in there and not have this huge ritual of trying on 20 million things and taking them off because they're too tight, where I could just pick whatever I want and I just put it on and I go, and that's just a huge piece of mind, huge.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Yeah, not to mention that last year you bought your first bathing suit and pair of shorts.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Yes, yes, I did, and I wore them in public. Oh, yes, yeah, yes, the bathing suit was a tough one. I went to Colorado and the hot springs, and it took me two different times. We pulled up one time and I couldn't do it. We had to leave, and then I went back the next day and I did it, and it was a great feeling, and it was such a great experience to actually enjoy the hot springs where I would not have done that if I didn't get a little bit of bravery in me and do it, and the old me would not never have done it. The old me would have totally missed that great moment, that great memory. And it was, it was it was just such a great moment and a great memory that I'm so glad I did it. I'm so glad I did it.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

You are a completely different person than the one I met on our very first call. Like just you smile more, you look people in the eye. You didn't do that before.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Yeah, yeah. I agree, I agree 100%. I I feel so much better, and you know what it is, is I didn't like myself back then. So it was very hard to open up to people back then and to engage with people, and now I really, really like where I'm at. I really like myself, and it makes me happy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

So one last question. If there's someone listening who has been thinking about getting support, who really identifies with the person that you were at the beginning of your story or even somewhere along the way, what would you say to her? What would I say to the version of you who existed two years ago?

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Well, first I would say I would tell her thank you. Thank you for doing it, thank you for being courageous and taking that's that step, because her taking that first step changed my life. And it was probably the scariest step she's ever had to do. Sometimes it's hard to admit that you need help and to actually reach out to somebody, but it was the best thing I have ever done in my life, ever. I am so, so thankful that I hit rock bottom to finally say enough's enough and to do something. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner, that I didn't step up and do something sooner. That's my only regret. And I would tell people that it was worth every single penny to put into yourself. I probably spent more money on food before than, you know what I mean? Because you're like, I don't want to put any money into myself. I can do this myself. I don't want to put any money into myself. Well, when you think about how much money I spent on food, how much money I spent on having to keep buying buying bigger clothes, I probably am saving money now, to be honest, because and the money is so much more well worth putting into myself of what I'm doing. I would tell people, please, please stop and and do something because there's so much more to life than just sitting at home and eating, or just sitting at home and the negative talk to yourself about how you're not worthy and you're not worthy enough to put into the work into yourself. You are, and my life is so much more now. It's just, I don't even know how to explain, but it is just so so much more enriched. I am so much more happy. I have joy in my life, I have purpose, I have goals and goals that I've achieved, and go more goals than I'm working towards. And I just love every morning when I get up how I feel. I mean, it hands down the best thing I've ever done. Best thing ever, ever, ever that I have done. And and you you are not judgmental at all. You are very compassionate. Because I worried about that when I first started with you because I hated myself so much that okay, am I gonna go talk to somebody that's just gonna judge me or just going to, and you are not like that whatsoever. You're very open, you're very understanding, and you had, and you still do, have my best interests at heart. You have been there through thick and thin, through my worst moments, through some of my best moments, your support never stopped. It never stopped, and you believed in me when I didn't even believe in myself, and that means a lot because that helped me to keep going. Because somebody finally in my life actually believed in me and that I could do something, because I didn't believe I could do it at first. I had a lot of doubt, but yet you believed in me, and it just made the world a difference. And if anybody's on the fence, I I can't stress enough how just trust me on this one thing that your life will be so much better if you take the chance and invest in yourself. It really, it really makes a huge difference. I mean, you changed for my life 100%.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Thank you. So it never ceases to make me incredibly grateful that people find me on the internet and they have enough trust in me to be able to trust me with their journey. And so I am incredibly grateful to you for trusting me in this entire process. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

All right, is there anything else you want to say to the woman who's listening right now?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Probably just to tell her that she's worth it. She's worth it. And I I hope she stops and really thinks about it and puts enough thinks enough about herself that to know that she's totally worth it. She's worth every single, every single thing that she can do and and to do it. Just go for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. And thank you to Chris for being so open about her story. I know that it's not easy to go on a podcast and talk about hiding food in your bedroom and hating yourself at 3 a.m. That takes a lot of courage, and I don't take that lightly. Here's what I want you to take with you. Chris came to me wanting to lose weight. That is completely normal. That's how most of my clients find me. There is nothing wrong with wanting that. But what Chris will tell you, and what you just heard her say in her own words, is that somewhere along the way, the weight stopped being the point. What actually changed was how she felt about herself, how she talked to herself, how she showed up for herself when nobody else was watching. The weight came off because the other stuff got worked on. And that's not a coincidence. If you heard yourself in Chris's story, that is worth paying attention to. Not because there's something wrong with you, but because there's something very right about the fact that you were able to recognize it. Now, if you know someone who is in the place where Chris was, someone who keeps starting over and can't figure out why nothing sticks, share this episode with her. Not as a hint, just as a, hey, I was thinking about you. And if you want to know where you specifically are getting stuck, I have a quiz that you can take to figure it out. Go to elisabethsherman.com slash quiz. It's free. It takes a few minutes and it will show you what's actually in the way, not what you think is in the way. Now, on the next episode, you're gonna hear the rest of Chris's story because there's a big part that we didn't get to today. In the middle of everything she just described, in the middle of losing weight and doing the inner work and learning to show up for herself, her body threw her a curveball. And what she has to say about that as a warning, especially to women who have no idea this same thing could be happening to them right now, is something that I did not want to leave out. So tune in for that one. Chris has something to say that your doctor may never have brought up. And I think that you'll be glad that you heard it. That's all I have for you today. Have an amazing day. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye. Hey, before you go, if you are someone who says, I know exactly what I should be doing, I just don't do it. Hey, if that's you, I made something for you. It's a free, three-minute quiz that gets underneath that exact problem. Not to give you more information, but to show you the specific reasons your follow through keeps breaking down. Because it's not the same for everyone. And once you can see your pattern clearly, everything else seems to change. Head to elisabethsherman.comslash quiz. It's free, it's fast, and it's honest.