Episode #5: Your Weight-Loss Process (Part 1)

 Hey, I'm Dr. Priyanka Venugopal and you're listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms, episode five, Your Weight Loss Process: Part 1. Today's episode is going to be the first in a three part series designed to talk to you about the three components that create your inevitable weight loss process. 

In today's episode, part one, we're going to talk about loving and trusting your process. 

Part two, I'm going to be sharing with you the Unstoppable way for customizing and designing your process.  

And in part three, I'm going to be introducing you to a fundamental tool that will support you in implementing and executing your process, masterfully.  

If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories or [00:01:00] crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching. 

Ready? Let's get to it. 

Hey Unstoppable friends, welcome back! This is a big week in my home. It's Mother's day here in the U S, this week on Sunday, and my birthday is coming up on Friday... and today is the last day of the podcast launch celebration. So many fun things this week! So if you've been listening along, I would love for you to celebrate with me by following, rating and reviewing the show and enter the celebration to win a pair of apple AirPods, I'll be announcing the winners next week. 

And this is going to be for a future episode- but let me just say, if you've ever been in the turmoil of "what should I ask for my husband to get me for my birthday or for mother's day?" Let me help you. Nothing. Get yourself exactly what you want, revel and delight yourself in gifting yourself, something extraordinary, [00:02:00] without permission, and then let your partner love you their way. Trust me, this has been a slow discovery. It's taken me almost 15 years of a slow grind to figure this out, but I promise you it is well worth it. I'll be doing a whole episode on this topic at some point in the future.  

Okay, so onto today, part one, loving and trusting your process.  

I recently had this massive discovery that I had to share with you, and it starts with a little backstory. I've always told myself, I hate shopping. Now this is a years in the making story I've had and I think it's for two reasons. The first is, and this is probably the main reason is that I had that little seed of heavy that I mentioned in episode one, the seed that was planted decades ago. The seed that was, I want it to look and feel a little bit different than. 

Every shop or store that I ever have gone to just never really felt right. Sure, I'd come across the occasional top, dress, pair of jeans that fit well, [00:03:00] but it always felt sparse, like a rare occurrence. Now-- I'm a child of the eighties and nineties and growing up the majority of the stores I would visit happen to be the local department stores. 

My most powerful memories of shopping was me visiting my local JC Penny with my mom just before the school year with. Now I think it's important to mention that I never really felt a hundred percent me or a hundred percent comfortable. And I grew this feeling of discomfort grew too, to the point that I would avoid the experience of shopping at all costs. 

It turned into quite an annoyance. 

Honestly, one of the biggest reliefs in residency, and even attending life, is that it was so permissible to wear scrubs all the time, throw on a little mascara, chapstick and I was good to go. But this started to change as I became an entrepreneur, becoming a CEO in my business has been one of the personal biggest shifts that I've had in my identity. 

And I wasn't abandoning my physician scrubs identity, but I was shifting it, [00:04:00] growing, evolving. And I was learning how to fold the best parts of my OB GYN, physician self. The part of me that's always wanted to level up and serve women, into the energy of my business. And part of this growth and evolution meant instances where I would be in a room with new peers and new coaching colleagues. 

The very first instance of this was for a coaching mastermind with one of my brilliant mentors, Stacy Boehman. Now sure. I could go to this event wearing scrubs, but I didn't want to. And if you looked at my closet at this moment in time, you would see multiple black Zella leggings that I got at the Nordstrom anniversary sale, a sprinkle of color here and there. Some old t-shirts from target things that had been passable on Zoom. A few sweaters I had picked out at some department store years ago. And most of my clothes were from the time that I still weighed 200 pounds. 

Yes. I never went shopping even after I had reached my personal ideal, delicious weight, [00:05:00] which I think is really interesting. 

When I weighed 200 pounds, I had a story for why I didn't want it: 

I didn't want to shop because it felt like a struggle to find clothes that fit right.  

Nothing felt like it looked good.  

It didn't feel like it was worth it to buy anything nice or reasonable.  

It felt like I had things that were kind of passable. 

So why bother? I thought when I reached my ideal weight, then I would magically have the desire to wear clothes that fit my body. But as my lesson goes, no such magic happened. I still had the same thoughts. Different weight, same thoughts. Even at my ideal weight, I thought: 

It was a struggle to find clothes that fit . 

It wasn't really worth it to buy anything nice or reasonable. 

And I did have some kinds of things that were kind of passable, even though they were a bit tattered and now rather loose.  

What can we just take that in for a moment? My story didn't automatically change because my body. So, back to my trip. So I decided before attending my [00:06:00] mastermind, that I was ready to challenge some of my discomforts. 

Now I hated the experience. I have to tell you, I did end up with a few lovely things, a beautiful red dress, you'll see, on my website. A couple pairs of jeans and a few staples summer items. I finally had some clothes that actually fit my. Seriously, this experience though, I hated the shopping of it did create a little bit of personal growth for me. 

I remember meeting my peers and friends wearing clothes that fit me with just a little more gusto than I would have if I was wearing my old scrubs. But let me tell you the shopping experience was terrible. And now that I have these few summer staples, I happily told myself, given how horrible my experience was that I never needed to shop ever again. 

Until a few weeks ago when I had a photo shoot scheduled during the brisk and cold early spring of New York City. Now I needed to add just one or two more things to make this photo shoot weather appropriate. [00:07:00] And let me tell you, I had all the feelings. This was my very first photo shoot since my wedding, 14 years ago. 

So no surprise. I had some patterned stories is playing in my mind. Despite being at my ideal weight, I felt like: 

I don't know if I'm going to find anything 

Nothing ever works 

This is going to be so hard. 

But I wanted something very special to be captured. I wanted to capture my love of this work. I wanted to capture the joy I felt being at my ideal weight. I wanted to capture the inevitable possibility that I know exists for every working mom out there.  

Yes, I know this is a very tall order for any photographer to capture.  

I decided really that I wanted to capture the spirit and energy that I feel for all of you. So I mustered up the courage and I decided I would embark on a trip to the mall again. You better believe I waited until the last possible minute. Just three days before the shoot, I took [00:08:00] my trip to the mall. I felt anxious, unsteady, uncertain, but I went and this time I decided to wander a little bit.  

I decided that the same old places I had visited for years and years just weren't working for me. 

They had never really worked the same department stores again, and again, would likely yield the same results. So instead of crossing my fingers with wishful thinking, which is what I had been doing time and time again, and hoping that this store, we just happened to have the perfect thing-- I stepped out of my familiar territory. 

I decided to let myself relax into a purposeful wandering. 

Until I stumbled into THE store. 

Now I had seen this shop in passing forever, but I just never really walked in, until this time. I walked in and felt at home. Almost every single piece that I saw in this shop felt like me. I found my match. Not to be too dramatic about this, but I felt like I found my shopping partner for life. [00:09:00] For someone who has struggled for decades, feeling like a misfit in every single store, this was huge.  

And here's what I discovered: it's not that I didn't love to shop.  

In fact, I love to shop when I found a place that worked for me. It was just that I had hated the process. And because of that, because of this focus on the old familiar way, I had stayed with an old process that didn't work. 

For years I stayed with this old process and actually I had deprived myself of this delicious, discovery. So now I know the process matters.  

What is this whole dramatic shopping story have to do with weight loss?  

It's actually the exact same thing.  

You don't actually hate weight loss. You might've just been hating the way you've been trying to lose weight. 

The process. You might have been hating the constant, calculating, counting, logging, thinking, and negotiating. And yet, how often do you find yourself back to the same [00:10:00] way again and again and again. This is just like going back to that same department store again and again, and unless you change something, your results will be the same too. 

Here's what's important to know about the process.  

There are hundreds of ways to lose weight. Just like there are hundreds of stores. 

You can count, calculate journal, meditate, visualize plan, pray, and equally you'll find a hundred processes and programs to help get you there. But which one sings to you? 

If you left the comfort zone of your old familiar way and purposefully wandered what calls to you? You know why this matters? Because when you find a process that magnetizes you, that pulls you in that's when you can get to the real work. Instead of spending time and wasting your time at the department stores that aren't working for you or hopping from one old place to the other old place, you start leaning into the places [00:11:00] that work. 

You find a process you love, and then you work on mastering the process.  

You don't ever have to waste time, energy, money, and most importantly, mental bandwidth on the old ways that haven't worked anymore. Imagine harnessing that. I could have saved myself so much frustration. It was never really about the actual clothes or the size clothes that I was wearing. 

It was about the fit.  

All of the shops have a small, medium, large, extra large, but they all fit different. They all have a slightly different style, a different energy to them. 

And here's what I want to tell you in this episode, never tell yourself that you hate weight loss, when what you want to do is to lose. 

This is what I call the ultimate and joyless lose- lose situation.  

Talk about creating an internal struggle.  

Tell yourself that you love reaching your ideal weight. And you're finding the process that you feel at home [00:12:00] in forever. Listen, you might've hated it before, but that was before we discovered this podcast. 

Finding a process that sings to you might take a purposeful wandering. But then you're going to find it and you'll feel pulled in. The one that you feel alignment with.  

Can you imagine the impact on your day-to-day experience if you were reaching your ideal weight and loving it at the same time, releasing the joylessness forever. 

It's like finding that perfect store, you know, that the cardigan will be there in your size and fit like a glove. You have to do the work, but you know that the work actually works.  

I promise you this believing in the process deeply is one of the fundamental principles to creating an inevitable results. 

What I want you to take away from part one from this episode is that loving, believing, and trusting in the process you choose matters. There's no right process or wrong process or better or worse process. [00:13:00] There's just a process you choose. 

The one that you feel drawn to. The one you feel lit up by the one that you can imagine incorporating and folding into your life forever. 

I want you to think about my shopping story. The whole time that I felt uncomfortable and didn't feel at home in the process, at home, in all of the stores that I ever tried to find clothes that fit my body, I took the action of avoiding shopping.  

I avoided the work. 

I avoided going.  

I avoided seeking out clothes that fit my body. 

And so I was willing to sit with old, tattered, loose clothing that didn't actually serve me. This is what we do when we don't love the process that we're using to lose weight. When you don't love the process you're using to lose weight, it's so much easier to not do the work. To ignore it, to put it down, to think about starting tomorrow. 

It makes so much [00:14:00] sense because you don't love the process to begin with. I want you to imagine the difference you would feel if you loved the process.  

If you trusted it and if you believed in it. 

For me, here's one thing that I have learned. The moment that I discovered a process that I could love believe, and trust would work-- I was able to lean into the work. I knew that me going to that store, me going to that shop was going to yield results. It's what compelled me to get in my car and go to the store and look for the clothes. 

It's the same with weight loss.  

When you find a process that you love, you believe, and trust will work I promise you, you start to feel so much more compelled to do the work. So the intention of today's episode is really allowing yourself to see the value of loving, believing and trusting in your process. 

Here's the other reason that this matters. Because for human and your [00:15:00] body's not a robot, you're going to be losing weight non-linearly. This means that when you implement and execute a process, when you have weeks or months, that things feel slow or things feel like they're not working, you don't waste any bandwidth, questioning the process.  

When you love, believe and trust your process to work, and you know that it will create inevitable results, you can spend your bandwidth really becoming curious on what parts of the way you're implementing your process aren't working.  

The other reason that it's so important to love believe in trust your process is because weight loss is not. So when you imagine losing weight some weeks being faster and some weeks being slower, I want you to think about the value of always trusting, believing, and loving your process. 

You won't ever spend any time questioning the process or jumping from process to process, plan, to plan, shop, to shop. Instead, you get to redirect your thinking to [00:16:00] troubleshooting your implementation. I think that this is one of the biggest areas that creates an obstacle for most women. When they feel like their weight loss results have stalled or things have slowed they question, the process. 

And then usually they'll either quit, give up or jump to something different. What I want to encourage you to consider is when you love, believe, and trust in your process, redirect your brain to troubleshooting your implementation. This is what we're going to be talking about in the next two weeks. 

In step two, I'm going to be sharing with you how to create and design your custom process, the Unstoppable way. 

And in step three, I'm going to be teaching you a core tool. That's going to help you execute on a day-to-day basis.  

When it comes to creating big results, reaching your ideal weight, the plan, the process does matter. To me deciding and choosing a process that you love is part of our strategic [00:17:00] decision-making. And it's one of the things that I highly recommend taking and investing time in.  

Because when you don't invest time at the front end of deciding and loving your process to start, you end up spending a lot more time troubleshooting. So here's what I'm taking away from my shopping experience and what I want you to take away from this applying to weight loss. 

We can spend years shopping at the wrong department store. 

And it makes a lot of sense because it was familiar. It's okay that we've done that. 

But we can take a little bit of discomfort step out of that familiar pathway to meander and purposely explore something new. And when you find that place, that process that's drawing you in --decide to love it, believe it and trust it. 

It doesn't ever have to be 100% perfect.  

And one of the biggest things that I have learned is that I don't hate shopping. I just hated my process.  

And this is one thing I want [00:18:00] you to take away too. You don't hate weight loss.  

What you might've hated was just the process you were using up until now. So, now moving forward, if you know, you want to reach your ideal, delicious weight, you want to lose weight, never tell yourself ever again that you hate weight loss. 

Tell yourself, you love it and you're just discovering the process you love.  

I'll see you next week.  

I want to celebrate the launch of this podcast with you. The amazing ninja moms who are ready to create some extra ooey, gooey magic. To celebrate us now being in each other's world, I'm going to be giving away a pair of Apple AirPods to three lovely listeners who subscribe, rate, and review the show. 

I know that working moms are on the go and I want to help you listen on the magic of your favorite music, audio books, and of course, podcasts with joy. I would love your honest feedback so I can create an awesome show that honors your time [00:19:00] and provides you golden nuggets of value. Visit theunstoppablemombrain.com/podcast to learn more about the celebration and how to be a part of the magic. 

I'll be announcing the ninja rock stars on the show in an upcoming episode, see you there. Thanks for listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms. It's been honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more information or resources from the show, visit theunstoppablemombrain.com.