Episode #6: Your Weight-Loss Process (Part 2): Designing and Customizing Your Process

[00:00:00] Hey, I'm Dr. Priyanka Venugopal and you're listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms, Episode 6: Your Weight Loss Process: Part 2, designing and customizing your process.  

Today is part two of a three part series designed to help you create and implement a process to reach your ideal weight. In this episode, I'm going to introduce you to the pillars of my Unstoppable process. 

I'm going to teach you about why each of these five pillars is necessary and why each one plays an integral role to create inevitable lightness on the scale and for your body.  

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 crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and did my life. [00:01:00]  

There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you. 

Ready? 

Let's get to it. 

Hey, Hey Unstoppable Friend, welcome back!  

Last week, in part one of this series, I made the case for why loving, believing, and trusting in your process is a necessary component to reaching your weight loss goals with more joy and simplicity. Simply put, when you don't love and trust your process, it's so much easier for your brain to make the argument to jump ship. 

It's easier to quit, avoid, and ignore-- and this just keeps your results with.  

But the real reason is it's much harder to effectively evaluate your results. If you didn't listen to part one, make sure to go back and do that after this episode.  

So here we are in part two, designing and customizing your plan. 

I think that this is where most women spend a majority of their time: thinking and customizing plans. But I want you to notice I'm only talking about this in episode six, [00:02:00] which means your specific plan is not as important as the mindset that you have going into. 

Not surprisingly mindset, that's going to be an integral part of the Unstoppable process and we're going to dive into an even more detail in part three of the series. 

This episode is going to be fairly robust. So I recommend that you first listened to it once, all the way through, and then go back with paper and pencil to write down the elements that sing to you, so you can start implementing right. 

Also listen until the end of this episode, I'm going to be inviting you to a free masterclass one week from today. And I'm announcing the podcast launch celebration winners! All of the details will be at the end of this episode and in the show notes page for this podcast.  

Okay, let's dive in. The Unstoppable Process is comprised of five pillars and they're supported on a solid and unshakable foundation. 

I'm going to first list out the five pillars, and then I'm going to describe each one in detail.  

Pillar one: is the lipostat [00:03:00] reversal.  

Pillar two: is brilliant decisions in advance.  

Pillar three: is compounding follow through. 

Pillar four: is allowing and dissipating emotions. 

Pillar five: is the loving scientist. 

So let's get into each of these pillars.  

Indeed. The first pillar is the lipostat reversal setting up this first pillar is going to make steps two through five, so much easier. Because reversing your lipostat getting your body on board with more easily burning its fat. Reversing, your lipostat is getting your body to do work for you. 

When we don't implement this first pillar, it feels harder to lose weight because you're also fighting you're increasing lipostat, which we discussed in episode 3. While you're trying to lose weight we want to create more ease. And so if we don't do the work of reversing our lipostat, it creates a natural struggle, which will create fatigue and eventually burn you out. 

We want to make this process have as much ease, joy and simplicity so you have forever [00:04:00] long term results. Even if there are moments of short-term discomfort.  

The framework that I recommend to reverse your lipostat directly addresses the components that I talked about in episode three. We want to teach your body how to use its own fat for fuel and we do this by healing over hunger and over desire by recalibrating your hunger hormones.  

As a quick recap, your lipostat is your internal fat meter, and we all have one. It's the natural resting place that your body currently lives at. You might gain a little bit or lose a little bit, but somehow you end up back at this current weight. 

The introduction of highly processed foods, like flour and sugar and constant grazing and snacking, has caused your internal lipostat to slowly creep up over time. Unlike the sophisticated regulatory backup mechanisms we have for temperature regulation, heart rate, and blood pressure. This lipostat hasn't evolved a backup system. 

It's why, when you're not paying attention, your lipostat AKA your fat meter can slowly creep up [00:05:00] year after. And this creep up is happening because of the types of foods you're eating. At a chemical level these highly processed foods like flour and sugar are dysregulating your hunger hormones. 

Basically your hunger hormones are not beautifully balanced as they are meant to be because our bodies were never designed to consume many of these highly processed foods. Suffice it to say, calorie counting and restriction doesn't reverse your lifestyle, which is why in this first pillar reversing your lipostat we aren't counting points, calories, and we aren't weighing food.  

Here are the two steps that I recommend in this first pillar:  

Step one, take a break from highly processed foods like flour and sugar.  

Step two, stop grazing and snacking all the time.  

Let's dive into a little bit more detail. What qualifies as flour and sugar? 

Most simply anything that's been milled into a powder for you to consume or any sugar substitute. The reason is that these highly processed foods spike your blood [00:06:00] sugar quickly and enormously. It causes a surge of insulin, which is a fat storage hormone and over time you develop insulin and to leptin resistance.  

This is what leads your internal fat meter or your lifestyle to go up over time and store more fat. Calorie counting points and weighing food does not reverse this. 

Now I hear you.  

I hear what you're saying, "Priyanka, but I love flour and sugar."  

I get it. I am personally a pizza and fro-yo with Oreos lover myself. But I'm inviting you in this step to get creative. To be clear, your taste buds can still be delighted with a whole range of cuisines, spices, and textures that your family already loves-- that you can easily modify. 

Enjoy all of the deliciousness that you love, while also reversing your lipostat and giving your body a break. This is infusing joy into your way of eating. Spend a little bit of time here with an open and playful perspective. You'll be [00:07:00] shocked at how much you can let your tastebuds delight while also becoming Fat-Adapted. 

Flour and sugar simply becomes insignificant.  

We've just become extremely accustomed to having it so readily available, easily and all the time. And notice them saying, take a break. We're not eliminating anything forever. I'll be talking about this in more detail about how and when to reintroduce some of these highly processed foods and future episodes, but the goal for right now, and the purpose of pillar number one is to allow your body to become a fat burner. 

I also really want to take a moment to note that we're not talking about taking a break from carbohydrates. I think this is one of the most common misconceptions I've seen in women that are trying to lose weight. Eating whole foods like whole grains, brown rice, potatoes, lentils, and beans do not affect your lipostat.  

Enjoy them! Mix them into your way of eating, to bring in variety of nutrients and vitamins to your body that she needs to thrive and survive.  

We are not doing keto. 

We're not doing low carb.  

We're not [00:08:00] following any specific prescribed "diet plan."  

We're just taking a break from the highly processed foods that affect your internal lipostat. 

You get to decide how you want to customize this framework to best fit your delicious life.  

The second step of this framework that I mentioned is to stop grazing and snacking all the time. And the purpose of this goes hand in hand with taking a break from flour and sugar. Every time you snack and graze again, your body has to process food. Your blood sugar gets spiked and insulin is released. It's the same cycle that I mentioned earlier. So to that end, I recommend eating simply meals.  

Either breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or having a shorter eating window with just two meals. This is also called intermittent fasting. I'm going to leave you some resources in the show notes page if you want to learn more about the science of this. Basically when you stop grazing and snacking all the time, and you implement a shorter eating window, you're giving your body an opportunity to dine in on the resources that are already stored on your body. And this [00:09:00] helps to reverse insulin resistance. So you're not spiking your blood sugar all the time. 

Imagine your body getting a well-deserved break to restore balance back to insulin and leptin. Just these two steps, implementing them will have immediate and fast acting results for you on the scale and for how your body feels.  

There is an initial detox period. So if you might notice irritability or increased hunger, just know that it's normal. This period of detox is normal because your body hasn't been trained to burn its own fat. 

The primitive part of your brain is brilliantly going to try to compel you to give it quick hits of flour and sugar. And that's okay. You just get to anticipate and know that it's a normal part of detoxing your body from these highly processed foods.  

But listen, you're already a ninja and you're perfectly and beautifully capable of allowing the implementation of these two steps to feel a little bit uncomfortable, for a short while. I would say to become fully fat adapted, which is when your [00:10:00] body really learns to utilize its own fat can take up to four to six weeks for some people. It doesn't always take this long, but it can, depending on how much flour, sugar, snacking, and grazing you've been doing up until now.  

Here's the best news. Once you go through this process, your body and you are going to have so much more energy. You're going to feel clearer in your mind. You're going to feel lighter in your body. You're going to feel less bloated. Your hunger and desire will be at an appropriate level. And the results on the scale will speak for themselves. 

So how do you know when you're fat adapted  

Simply when you stop feeling hungry all the time. When you stopped feeling irritable or hangry, when you haven't had a snack. You'll feel more balanced mentally and physically. When you allow your body to detox from these foods, seriously, your body starts doing the work for you. It starts to learn to burn its own fat for fuel, rather than amp up its cravings for sugar.  

Make sure you support yourself here. Stay [00:11:00] hydrated by drinking plenty of water and get a little bit of extra rest at the start of this process.  

Okay, moving on to the second pillar, brilliant decisions in advance. 

At the most fundamental level, all humans have two parts of their brain, the brilliant prefrontal cortex and your most primitive brain. 

I like to think of your primitive brain as the survival part of you and your prefrontal cortex as the thriving part of you. When you lead with in the moment decisions we've become fairly patterned at operating from the primitive part of our brain. She wants immediate pleasure, she wants to avoid discomfort and she wants the most effective and efficient ways to get it done. 

No wonder we eat the highly processed stuff.  

Food, specifically flour and sugar are the fastest way to create a chemical experience of pleasure in your brain. It creates a crazy high spike of endorphins in your brain and so it makes so much sense that we get addicted to the sensation.  

Notice that I'm calling this chemical pleasure.[00:12:00]  

It's not actually whole body pleasure. Chemical pleasure, in your head, is different than feeling happy, content, proud, satisfied, relaxed, or accomplished in your body. The primitive part of your brain doesn't know the difference between chemical pleasure in your head and the numbing sensation that you feel in your body with true whole body pleasure. 

So naturally the primitive part of your brain favors the fast, most effective way: highly processed foods. It's so important to know that your primitive brain has been acting normally.  

You're not weak or lazy. Nope.  

You've just been making decisions with the primitive part of your brain. And now, you know, this forever. 

Here's the other thing, your primitive brain isn't designed to make high level decisions to create big results, like reaching your ideal weight.  

Or taking an exam... or submitting a research project... or problem solving at the office. 

Remember your primitive brain has been designed to survive, not thrive. Creating big results on the [00:13:00] scale and in your life requires your most brilliant high level thinking Brain. It requires evolved prefrontal cortex.  

It's why the second pillar focuses on decisions in advance.  

Making decisions in advance allows you to access this highest, most evolved part of your thinking. When she's effectively utilized, she is a creator and solutions master. 

We're doing a high level overview of this right now, but this is the exact work that I deeply dive into with my coaching clients week after week. To see your old patterns and primitive thinking and learn how to pivot, to access brilliant thinking. 

But for the purposes of this episode, I want you to sit with three decisions in advance that I recommend that you make on a daily or weekly basis.  

Decision one: decide the types of foods you are going to eat based on the first pillar. Love these foods and have a variety of flavors and textures you love.  

Decision two: decide in advance, how satiated you want to feel in [00:14:00] your body after you eat and 

Decision three: decide in advance, what measurable results you want to create and how often you want to evaluate your results. Choose a timeframe for this.  

Before you make these decisions take into account that your body experiences more fullness, 15 to 20 minutes after eating. So for anything like me, and you're a fast eater, this is going to ask you to slow down. And also just notice that there's a fairly wide spectrum of satiated. 

We'll talk about this more in a future episode, but for now, just start to pay attention to the sensation of hunger in your belly. While you're eating notice the point that you stop feeling hunger, and then notice when you start feeling comfortable and satiated. 

If you've been gaining weight, it's likely because you've been eating to full, over full or stuffed. 

Now we don't count calories points or away food inside Unstoppable. But what we are going to do is start reconnecting with your gut, start paying attention. She will always tell you in real time, when [00:15:00] she's not hungry, when she's feeling comfortable and satiated.  

You don't need a calculator or an app ever again, because you have your body. You may end up eating less food than you're used to when you start differentiating between comfortable, satiated and full, and that's perfectly normal and ok. 

Before I moved to pillar number three, I want you to sit with these three decisions for a few moments and fall in love. Love your decisions and spend a few moments writing down why you love these decisions and the results that they're going to help you create. 

Pillar three: compounding following. 

The reason follow-through might have been hard for you up until today is because you haven't loved your weight loss process and the decisions that you've made up until now. If you've been feeling deprived in your plan to start, it's no wonder you felt hard following through. It's why I asked you in the last pillar to fall in love. 

Make sure you love the brilliant decisions that you've already made and why you love them. 

And here's the best news. [00:16:00] You can love your brilliant decisions and feel momentary in- the- moment, discomfort to follow through at the same time.  

Don't confuse the experience of momentary discomfort with you not loving something. 

Let me say that again.  

Don't confuse in the moment is comfort with not loving your brilliant decisions. 

I did a whole follow-through masterclass a few months ago, which is available to my clients inside the Unstoppable Library. But to put it most simply following through is doing what you say you're going to do. 

Remember episode four? Imperfect harmony. In the moment, you may not be 100% on board and that's okay.  

Let your primitive brain in the moment say NAY but hit play anyway.  

Here's specifically what that might look like.  

You made some brilliant decisions in advance. You fell in love with them and you know, why you made them. And then the day comes in. The moment someone brings pizza and cupcakes to the office. Your primitive brain will think, Ooh, I want [00:17:00] it. And your brilliant brain is going to remember the decisions you've chosen and love.  

Follow through in that moment is noticing the naysayer, lovingly. Giving her a moment's attention saying "I see you and I love you and we're hitting play on the plan." Then you get to just move on. I want you to think of this essential follow through step as the muscle of your future self.  

Your past self is used to operating from your primitive brain in the moment decisions. So listen, she can deadlift a lot. Her muscle is practice. 

The muscle of your future self is just not practiced yet.  

She's going to take some effort and attention, but when you practice this moment after moment, day after day, she's going to become so strong. Following through will become effortless.  

Yes-- effortless! Can you imagine that? Talk about an infusion of joy into your life. 

Here's one thing I'll say on this topic of follow-through through, because I think working moms find this to be a challenging step. [00:18:00] I want you to remember you do hard things all the time.  

You show up to work on time. 

You pick your kids up when you say you will. 

You pay your bills and your taxes when they're due.  

You submit assignments, show for exams, meet your friend for lunch. 

Because you said you would. This is no different. 

You already do what you say or what you do in so many areas of your life. In fact, this is easier because these decisions were chosen by you and your brilliant Brain. 

So good. Right?  

This brings me to pillar number four, allowing and dissipating emotions. 

I'm going to be doing a whole podcast episode on allowing emotions soon, but suffice it to say there's a difference between allowing emotions and resisting and willpower-ing through them. 

The old traditional way of weight loss has come from a perpetual cycle of thinking: "I want to eat that and I can't." Talk about struggle! It's constantly saying no to yourself, which feels terrible. You physically try to power through it day after day, week after [00:19:00] week using willpower, which eventually fatigues. No wonder you give in. 

Does that sound familiar?  

There's a better way. And it's with a skill you haven't been taught yet, until now.  

Any emotion, stress, annoyance, boredom, pressure, even urges, and over desire is simply a sensation in your body. All emotions are just a vibration that your body experiences for a finite amount of time. And when we learn the skill of allowing them, they will always dissipate.  

We've just never gotten to the dissipation part.  

We haven't experienced it.  

Normally, our old patterns driven by our primitive brain has experienced a negative emotion, experienced discomfort, and immediately makes that a problem. 

We've developed a lot of old coping mechanisms to deal with these discomforts. Remember your primitive brain just wants immediate pleasure and she wants to avoid discomfort. She sees your work- stress, mom- guilt and weight loss frustration the same that she sees a lion outside a cave. [00:20:00] For her, discomfort is discomfort. 

She's gotten to work for you. 

She's developed coping mechanisms like overeating, over drinking, over scrolling, and over consuming to momentarily numb those feelings and to replace them with chemical pleasure. Now you can keep these old coping mechanisms, but these mechanisms are what create your current results. 

It creates heaviness on the scale and in your life.  

So, instead what we're going to be doing is learn new skills and creating new coping mechanisms that create lightness on the scale and your body. Pillar four is practicing interrupting these old patterns. So instead of over consuming, when you feel an uncomfortable feeling, you're going to start attuning to your body. 

Notice the sensation in your body as a vibration. 

Pay her a few moments of attention and remind yourself nothing is actually going wrong.  

Remember that your human body was designed to feel a whole range of emotions. [00:21:00] It's just a vibration that will always pass.  

When you feel a discomfort like stress, pressure, guilt, overwhelmed, desire: notice where in your body you feel this emotion. In your gut, in your chest, in your head, in your shoulders. Describe it to yourself.  

It's normal and okay.  

Even emotions like stress, guilt, and frustration, they're all normal.  

Gently take a few breaths, even with the discomfort being there and remind yourself there's no urgency because in fact, there's no lion outside your cave. 

When you sit here for a few moments, noticing the discomfort, taking a few breaths you can watch your body calmly dissipate these vibrations. 

It might seem a little woo woo, crazy talk, and I totally get it because I was just like you. I used to think a lot with my head and felt very disconnected from my body. 

It's normal if this feels a little awkward or even a little bit weird. Just start with a few moments and a little attention.  

[00:22:00] Here's the amazing thing about this. When you stop over-consuming every time you feel a negative emotion and instead allow your body to calmly dissipate the vibration, your body and brain learns: " Oh! This feels so much better. Wow. My body is totally capable of experiencing these vibrations and the always dissipate without eating, drinking, scrolling?. Amazing." 

And let your body feel lighter on the scale too. This positive reinforcement, when you practice this day after day, week after week, we'll start to create new patterns and new habits. 

Yes, it's a muscle of your future self, but she's going to get stronger and stronger.  

This leads me to pillar five, my favorite step. The loving scientist. 

Now, to be clear, the loving scientist is you-- an open, honest and curious person, ready to assess your results on a regular basis. I recommend some form of evaluation, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.[00:23:00]  

And here's what's up because this is one of the most skipped steps. When you don't evaluate your results on a regular basis, you can't actually diagnose the actual problem. Of course, you can't create an actual solution. So for example, if I don't see the scale move for a week and I don't have a process to evaluate and glean wisdom, I can't possibly design a real solution to solve for it. 

It's so much easier to quit and give up or jump ship.  

It's why pillar number five is my favorite pillar. 

I want you to imagine that your real problem up until now was having menstrual cramps and you've been trying to treat it with an antifungal cream.  

Antifungal cream is great, but it's not going to solve the problem of your menstrual cramps. 

But up until now, you've been trying and trying and trying to use this antifungal cream and wondering: "I can't believe my menstrual cramps aren't getting better." No wonder you feel frustrated and fatigued. This fifth pillar helps you solve for this-- because we, as loving scientists, [00:24:00] get to evaluate the actual problem and then design a solution that fits. 

This is a process I teach my clients with a lot of depth and finesse, but for the purpose of this episode, I want you to take away one piece. When you spend your time, money and bandwidth buying antifungal cream, to treat menstrual cramps, just know that you're going to have a harder time solving the problem. 

Now this evaluation process doesn't need to take hours and hours of your time, but it does take purposeful attention. And probably at the start, it takes some additional bandwidth. Imagine making this a recurring meeting on your calendar every week. 

Choose to be honest and curious. Judgment, criticism, defensiveness will not get you many answers. It's like saying, "oh, I can't believe the menstrual cramps haven't gotten better. I've been using so much antifungal cream. I can't believe it."  

Instead decide in advance to be a playful scientist when you're evaluating your measurable results. Even if you don't like your results.  

Just because you [00:25:00] don't like or loved your results at the end of the week, doesn't mean you can't be a playful scientist. 

What, let me say that again.  

You can be kind to yourself and you can be a playful scientist, totally independent of whether or not you like your results.  

Just let that sink.  

There are three questions that I encourage you to answer every time you evaluate from playful scientists' energy: open, honest and curious. 

Question one: what measurable results did I create this week?  

Question two: I wonder how I created this result.  

Question three: which pillar of the process worked, which didn't and why?  

After you answered these three questions you can purposefully pivot for next week. And then simply you could to repeat the five pillar process again and again, and again. You hone this as a skill and you strengthen the muscle of your implementation by sticking with the process. 

So those were my [00:26:00] five pillars.  

Pillar one reversing your lipostat, by taking a break from flour and sugar and eating at meal times. 

Pillar two, making brilliant decisions in advance with your prefrontal cortex, allowing for the naysayer to be there. Lovingly noticing her and hitting play.  

Pillar three, following through on the decisions you. 

Pillar four, allowing emotions instead of resisting them and... 

Pillar five, the playful scientist, where you get to glean golden nuggets of wisdom week after week.  

This episode was intended to be dense and robust, but I thought it was valuable to give you this overview in one place. Start with the simplest elements, make it fun and playful and let it be a practice. 

Just know that these skills are new and the muscle of your future self is going to start practicing. Be kind as you practice them. And also know that as you practice these five pillars and fold them into your routine, they will start [00:27:00] to become effortless and to your new normal habit.  

This work will save you hours, weeks, and even years of your life. 

I want to leave you with a visual that brings together these five pillars and reaching your ideal weight. Your weight loss results are resting on top of these five pillars, like a glass top on top of a five legged table. When these five pillars are solid, you will solidly be serving yourself, inevitable weight loss results. 

When a pillar is forgotten or unpracticed, it's okay. Your results may wobble a little bit and that's normal. I say that wobble is normal and okay, because you're human and I think women need to be reminded of this.  

Wobble is not a problem and rather it's expected.  

That's why there are five pillars. A couple of pillars may occasionally wobble as you practice. The glass top will never fall.  

Our work together is really loving this practice for forever. And knowing in strengthening these pillars [00:28:00] week after week, month after month, to allow it to get simpler, stronger and easier with time.  

Talk about joyous. 

Next week, the last part of his three-part series, I'll be talking to you about the foundation these pillars stand on. This is the foundation that's going to anchor the five pillars to the ground. Maybe you've guessed it. It's the mindset component. 

I'll be back next week.  

I have something incredibly exciting for you coming next week.  

If you're listening to this in real time, mark your calendars: Tuesday, May 17th at 1:00 PM Eastern time, I will be hosting a free masterclass called The 3 Simple Steps to Unstoppable Weight Loss. We're going to be diving three most common mistakes that is holding back progress and then the three steps you can implement right away to turn it around. I highly suggest you block this time off and come live. I'll be answering all of your questions and sharing with you how you can work with me if that's interesting to you. 

You can reserve [00:29:00] your spot for this free masterclass at www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/simple.  

And if you're registered for this class, don't worry, you'll be sent the replay.  

And of course the podcast celebration! 

Thank you all so much for listening, following, and rating the show. It's been incredible for me to read your comments. If you've been loving the show, following, rating and reviewing has allowed other women and more working moms, like you, to discover this podcast. So even though the celebration is over, I want to thank you for taking that extra moment to share your rating and review. 

The three lucky listeners who are going to be winning a pair of Apple AirPods are Tara Kumaraswami , Shira Schneidman and Kendra Saylor. You lovely ladies are going to have an email for me this morning in your inbox. You can reply to that email so I have all of the information to send you this lovely package. Make sure you check your promotions folder. It will be from [email protected].  

That's a wrap everybody! I told you that today's episode [00:30:00] is going to be hefty, but it was a good one. 

I'll see you next week on the podcast and in the free masterclass. Bye!  

Thanks for listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms. 

It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more information or resources from the show, visit www.theunstoppablemombrain.com .