Episode #7: Your Weight-Loss Process (Part 3): The Model

Priyanka: [00:00:00] Hey, I'm Dr. Priyanka Venugopal and you're listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms, episode seven, Your Weight Loss Process: Part 3 - The Model.

This is the last of a three part series designed to help you customize and masterfully implement your weight loss process.

Part one talked about the value of loving and trusting your process.

Part two shared my robust five pillar process to lose weight.

And this part, the last part of the series is going to teach you about the foundation that my five pillar process stands on- the mindset.

If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your. 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. [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.

We did it!

We are here at part three of creating your custom process, where I'm going to be teaching you the foundation my five pillar process is rooted in and why having this unshakeable foundation lets you create more joy as you're reaching your ideal weight.

Before we get into this episode, I want to shout out and respond to a comment one of you, lovely listeners left on apple podcast.

Joy shares just listened to the first three episodes and you have such a calming voice and you are great at storytelling. I loved the science and history in episode three. Episode three was also an eye-opener and a tough pill to swallow, but so necessary.

Yes, thank you, Joy so much for sharing your thoughts with me.

It can be a tough pill to swallow. My work in this podcast isn't to paint, a picture of [00:02:00] rainbows and daisies on your journey to reach your ideal weight. We want to keep it real here. There is work sometimes in making these decisions, and sometimes it is hard because there's this comfort in challenging our old and familiar norms.

But I also think that up until now, this tough pill to swallow was bitter too. It made weight loss feel too hard, too much, too complex. It made it no fun. It's a tough pill, but we're taking the bitterness out of it here. I think reaching your ideal weight as a dream goal, a delicious goal that maybe you've had for a month, a year, maybe decades.

And isn't that dream goal worth the work?

That's what we're doing here. And I want to tell you that hard work can be simple and delicious. Let me just say that again. Hard work can be simple and delicious. It never has to be too hard or too much ever again. That's us taking the bitterness out. [00:03:00] We're learning about creating whole body pleasure, not just the momentary chemical pleasure your brain gets from over consumption.

Learning the skill of eating joyfully while also losing weight creates this permanently. And this what turns your dreams into reality. And trust me, reaching your delicious, ideal weight, whatever that is for you and for your body, creates real lasting.

So onto today's episode, the unshakeable foundation, that grounds the five pillar Unstoppable process.

If you did hear part two of the series, I suggest you listen to it after this episode.

I call this the unshakeable foundation, really, because it is a constant tool that we can utilize at every level, at every pillar and in every stage of our growth. Honestly, I think of this as almost just a law of the universe to put it most simply.

And it's a law of the universe that most humans have no consciousness around. I know that for most of my life, I was [00:04:00] completely unaware and you're going to learn it here today.

It's called The Model.

The Model is a foundational principle developed by Brooke Castillo at the Life Coach School, where I certified. It isn't unique, but The Model brings together many principles that are founded in modern psychology, specifically, based on the think-feel-act cycle we talked about in episode one.

I'm going to start by describing exactly how The Model works and it's five elements, and then I'm going to teach you how to apply it. And finally, I'm going to give you some examples of how you can see it playing out in both weight loss and in your life.

Now there's nuance and a practice to using this as a tool. And as you become familiar with it and practice it, you'll start to more expertly navigate it.

Think of The Model, as I described earlier as just a law of the universe. It's just a truth. It's something that just hasn't been in your consciousness until this moment in time. And when I say that, it's just a [00:05:00] truth it's really just a truth for how our human brains work.

So let me just start by listing out and defining the five components of The Model and then we'll get into each one.

The five components are circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results.

Circumstances most simply are described as facts. They are truth that everybody would agree to. For example, your current weight is a fact. It's your measurable, gravitational pull on the earth. When you step on the scale, you'll read a number.

A few years ago I would step on the scale and it would read 200 pounds. If you looked, you would see 200 pounds. If a hundred people look at the scale, they would also see 200 pounds.

We would all look at this number and agree. It reads 200 pounds. This is how we know that something is a circumstance or a fact that we all agree on the truth.

Another example, you can check your bank account right now and see the exact dollar amount that you have in your [00:06:00] checkings and in your savings. Maybe you checked and it reads $1,000. If somebody else looked, they might see the same thing, $1,000. You would look and they would look, and you would agree that this bank account has $1,000.

Another example. My husband said to me this morning, "you're so messy.". If somebody else had been in the room, or if I happen to be recording the conversation they would hear him say those exact words, "your so messy."

You get the drift, right?

The circumstance is something that we all agree to.

This leads to the next line of The Model. Your thoughts are your interpretation, your opinion, your story of the circumstances.

So in my very first example where my circumstance was being 200 pounds, there are hundreds, even thousands of thoughts that I could have about this fact.

I might think, "Ugh, I can't believe myself."

My best friend might look at this number and think "Pri, it's really not that bad."

[00:07:00] Someone else might think, "Hey, that's pretty good. I've been trying to lose weight forever and I weighed 300 pounds."

10 people could look at this number and have 10 different thoughts.

It's too much.

It's no big deal.

It's disgusting.

It's beautiful.

I can't believe myself.

It's not that bad.

This line of the model, our thoughts is our perspective, it's our narrative. And it's your filter for everything. The specifics of your weight, your job, your kids, your time, your money, your relationships, are circumstances.

Let me say that again.

How much you weigh the hours, you work the number of items on your task list, the amount of money you have our circumstances.

And then we have hundreds or thousands of thoughts every single day about these circumstances, and this creates your narrative, your flavor, for how you experienced your life.

These thoughts are well-practiced, especially before you [00:08:00] became conscious of this model that you're learning in this episode. Likely up until now, if this model is new to you, you haven't been separating your circumstances from the thoughts you've been having about them.

So your gravitational pull on this earth, 200 pounds might be a fact.

It being good, bad, right, wrong, easy or hard --is a thought.

You having a thousand dollars in the bank, is a fact.

It being too much too little or not enough is a thought.

My husband's saying the words "you're so messy" is a circumstance. Me thinking "he's so mean." "He shouldn't say that to me" or, "Wow, he really likes a clean kitchen" are my thoughts about it.

I'm spending a little bit of extra time here through example to clear the distinction between circumstances and thoughts we have in our life. And why does this distinction matter? Because the thoughts that you have about these circumstances are what create your experience, your whole life's experience. [00:09:00] And these thoughts are optional and change.

Like I shared in episode one, when you have a thought-- two neurons in your brain fire, and when you think the same things again and again, and again, these neurons start to fire with more ease. It's why old familiar thoughts can sometimes feel like truth. It's why sometimes they take longer to change.

So what's the big deal with thoughts anyway. So they shape your experience. But, so what, like, why does that really matter?

Because when these two neurons fire from a thought, you have a chemical cascade starts in your body, flooding your body with a feeling which leads me to the next line of The Model. The feeling a feeling is a vibration or a sensation that your body experiences.

Sadness, worry, happiness, determination, frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, stress, shame --these are all [00:10:00] emotions.

And when we experience an emotion, neurotransmitters and hormones, flood your body, giving your body the experience of a feeling.

Now, sometimes in our jargon, we mix up thoughts and feelings and circumstances, which is why this episode is going to clear all of this. And after today, you'll start to pick up on the difference.

Some sensations are uncomfortable: like stress, embarrassment, disappointment, frustration.

And other sensations are more welcome: pride, happiness, and satisfaction.

And every feeling we have, whether they're uncomfortable or welcome drives our actions and our inactions. This is what leads us to the fourth line of The Model.

Feelings or how we fuel, how we show up for the world and how we show up for ourselves. When we feel motivated, lit up excited, we show up with an eagerness we're willing to wake up early and lean into the [00:11:00] work. When we feel overwhelmed or discouraged or defeated, we might give up more easily, we ruminate on the fails, we scroll Facebook and Instagram. Maybe we get snippy with our kids, pour the extra glass of wine, crawl back into bed and snooze on our dreams for another day.

How do you show up when you feel it up?

How do you show up when you feel stressed or worried?

Just take a moment and reflect on that. It's so good to know, because what happens when you compound all of your actions and inactions, you create the current result that you have in your life right now.

It's brilliant.

And it's why I teach my clients their thoughts directly create their results.

Not your current number on the scale, not the money you have in the bank, not the number of hours you work, not the words your partner said, and not the amount of items on your task list. These are simply circumstances.

[00:12:00] But what are your thoughts about them? What's your narrative, your story.

This is where the juice is. It creates your feelings, which drives every little and big action compounding into your current day results.

Why is it that this is where the juice is?

Because if you want to change your results powerfully, you have to learn the skill of understanding and changing your thoughts powerfully as well.

This is what I do with my clients, week after week inside The Unstoppable Coaching Group. As I shared earlier, there's a practice and nuance to this. It might start simply as an exercise of the mind, but what we're doing here is with practice, letting this become foundational and a cornerstone for how you generate results.

Let's say your circumstance was 200 pounds, like mine was a few years ago.

And your thought was, "I've totally got this."

What emotion would that create for you? For me, that feeling was determined. [00:13:00] I started making quicker decisions. I stopped lingering on the execution. I started implementing the decisions. I asked myself questions, I got coaching. I became extremely resourceful. I fumbled many, many times in the process, but because they kept thinking "I've got this," I also became resourceful in figuring out the solution.

The result that I created was that I got it.

I got it done. And it created the goals that I wanted. I got to prove to myself that I do have this.

Now imagine that your circumstance was 200 pounds and your thought was, "this is so much weight to lose."

Listen, this is a very familiar model for me because I was here for quite a while. I felt overwhelmed and uncertainty when I had that thought. I didn't know where to start.

And my action line was full of starting and stopping, staying in indecision on make a little bit of progress. And then the minute the scale didn't move I would [00:14:00] quit again. I would poll the audience. I asked my husband, my mom, my friends, what they thought. I would scan the internet again, researching more topics, looking up more things, checking Facebook and Instagram, all the while overeating overdrinking and over consuming.

And that compounded into my result of staying at 200 lbs. Staying and believing that I still had so much to lose.

In both of these personal examples I'm sharing with you I'm sharing how my thought directly created my results. While I kept thinking it's so much weight to lose I proved myself right. It wasn't the 200 pounds that created my overwhelm or my uncertainty. It was the thought I have so much to lose.

Similarly, it wasn't the 200 pounds that created my determination. It was my thought, "I've totally got this. I'm figuring this out."

This is the ultimate universal truth of The Model. Your brain wants to prove you [00:15:00] right. And while you were unconscious about this relationship between your thoughts and your results, you might have thought that the 200 pounds is what creates your overwhelm.

Or your lengthy task list, or your husband or your kids, or your work life.

You might've thought that your work hours and the money in the bank and all of these circumstance, is what was creating your stress, your pressure and your overwhelm.

But now, you know, it's not.

It's what you choose to think about your weight, your money, your time, your relationships, your work life that creates every single feeling and drives every action culminating in your current day results.

I'm going to share a few models here, both for weight loss and your life, so you can start to distinguish the differences between the different lines of The Model and how they show up in your life. And then you can start practicing.

After you listened to these examples and this episode, plug your weight into the circumstance line and write out all of your thoughts about this number. [00:16:00] What's the story you have right now. And how does it feel and how is it driving? How you show up, what results is this creating? I'm inviting you here in this episode to become intimate with your thoughts.

It's why in episode one, I talked about the narrator tool. I talked about the self-inflicted labels that we've goo'd onto ourselves. Those labels, now that you've learned The Model, are the thoughts you have.

Can you imagine how powerful these labels are?

 many of us, we've had certain thoughts, stories, labels for decades.

It's okay. We have plenty of time to sort them out, but just start practicing in awareness structure, write out your models about yourself and your goal.

Remember, we have thousands of thoughts per day. So you don't have to do this exercise for all of them. Just the ones that feel powerful. Start to notice the difference between your circumstances and your thoughts.

Okay. Let's dive into some examples.

Circumstance: Gained one pound in one week.[00:17:00]

Thought: "Ugh, this is so hard, it's too hard."

Feeling: Defeated

Actions: self-critical thoughts, screw it, this time, doesn't matter, overconsume.

These actions would compound to create the result of me making it harder for myself. I would likely gain another pound and another and another, and it would stay too hard.

Circumstance: Gained one pound in one week.

Thought: "Hmm... I wonder what happened here. I wonder what pillar worked in which didn't and why."

Feeling: Investigative, curious.

The actions I would take: I'd ask questions, I would get to work and figure out what happened.

The result that I would create is I would have an opportunity to implement new skills and I would figure out exactly what happened and take it into the next week.

Let me share a non weight loss example.

Circumstance: 10 items on a task [00:18:00] list.

Thought: "I have too much to do. I never have enough time."

Feeling: pressure or overwhelmed.

The actions I would take when I feel pressured or overwhelmed would be to ruminate, spin in indecision, search for a perfect strategy, half start, something jump to something else, check my phone, go on Facebook and Instagram and scroll and think about past decision-making.

The result that I would create is I would lose more time. I wouldn't get things done. I would have so much to do and I'll keep believing. I just never have enough time.

As opposed to the next model.

Circumstance: 10 items on the task list.

And my thought, "I always get it done."

The feeling I would feel is determined or resolved.

The actions that I would take as I would look at the math without the drama, and I would just start. I would constrain my focus, I would put do- not- disturb on my devices and I might say no to things.

[00:19:00] And the result that I would create is I would get it.

So I wanted to go through multiple models so that you can get a flavor and a sense for the differences between circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. I think that before we've become really conscious of this as a tool, we've jumbled all of these things up in our mind.

And so it's hard to really take apart and tease apart which area you have control over. We might think " it's so hard, I'm 200 pounds and I can't lose the weight." And I think because we haven't been conscious of this-- the 200 pounds is what's making it hard.

The intention of this foundational tool is for you to know that it's always your thinking.

So if something feels too hard or too much, just take a moment to become aware of what you're thinking about your circumstances. And just practicing this awareness is going to start opening so much for you.

So to recap your new process, it's important to love and trust, [00:20:00] whatever process you choose, mostly because reaching your dream goal weight isn't linear. When you don't like your results, you want to trust your process. So instead of jumping ship, you can learn how to lean into the work. This is the grit, my friends, and to get to work, even when you don't like the results, but consistency and honing your skills in one process will pay you back in dividends.

The second piece of the process was to learn the five pillars from part two. I walked you through the specifics of how to become a fat burner, making your body do the work for you towards your dream, ideal weight. We talked about how to access your most brilliant thinking, even while your old primitive thoughts and patterns surface.

And today you learned about the unshakeable foundation and how your thoughts about each pillar of this process will drastically affect how you show up.

I've given you a lot of information in this three part series, and it's a lot to take in and process.

Never think that [00:21:00] you have to do it all to do this well.

Let's just honor this episode by putting even that thought into a model. If you ever think that you "have to do it all to see results," you might feel overwhelmed. And less remember what overwhelmed creates. It creates more spinning, more indecision, and it keeps results waiting.

Let's not do this ever again.

You can start with just a few pieces, start with the little bits and start implementing them today. Just the thought that you can start with a little bit and have massive progress is going to help you feel motivated and excited and even focused. And then think about how that shows up on your action line.

We are going to keep talking about the partnership between your brain and your body. And this is the core of The Unstoppable Mom Brain. For you to take agency back or your body and your life by learning how to create unstoppable thoughts with your brilliant mom brain.

If you're [00:22:00] interested in taking these tools from your ears into active practice and are interested in working with me, I have a six month intimate group coaching experience for working moms and we're opening enrollment today.

I'm kicking off enrollment for this intimate group with a free masterclass today at 1:00 PM EST.

It's called The Three Simple Steps to Unstoppable Weight Loss, where I'll be teaching you the three biggest obstacles that are keeping you stuck right now and the three simple steps you can implement to turn it around.

I'll also be sharing with you in more detail, how exactly you can work with me. You can reserve your spot for this free masterclass at theunstoppablemombrain.com/simple. Even if you can't make it live, when you're signed up, I can send you the replay through the magic of the internet, right to your inbox.

I can't wait to see you there.

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 [00:23:00] theunstoppablemombrain.com.