Jennifer Dent Brown explains why diets fail: they ignore the subconscious thoughts that make you feel like someone who struggles with weight. When life gets messy, those hidden beliefs resurface and sabotage you. Real change means shifting your identity, not just following rules.
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You have a lot of thoughts that subconsciously are running in your, in your mind. And so when you're a dieter, you are no longer paying attention to the subconscious thoughts. You're now 100% focused on following this diet, following this plan. And this includes a weight loss drug too, because there is, you know, a protocol when you're doing a weight loss drug and you're so focused on that, you're not dealing with the struggle bus thoughts. And you can do that very, very consistently. When you're losing weight, you're doing that very, very consistently. You're following the plan consistently. You're doing exactly what your doctor is telling you to do. You're taking your shots. You're eating a little bit of food. And you're losing weight. What's not happening is— actually, there's two things that aren't happening. You're not addressing the struggle bus thoughts because you don't know that they're there, right? They're subconsciously playing in the back of your head, in the back of your mind. And when you're so busy following the plan, you're good until you can't follow the plan anymore, right? Until life gets lifey, something pops up, you go on vacation or you get sick or you get injured or you can't get access to whatever foods that you were eating, right? So I don't know, maybe there's a supply issue and you can't get what you need sent to you in the mail. You can't follow your plan or you're super stressed at work or you have to travel for work. Your kid is sick. Like, there's so many opportunities where life gets lifey, and all of a sudden, you cannot follow your plan anymore. So what happens? What happens is those old struggle bus thoughts, they're still there. So they just— they bubble back up to the surface, and you end up eating even though you don't want to. You end up eating a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more until you notice that you're gaining the weight back. Because when your identity is— as someone who struggles with their weight, guess what's going to happen? You can lose the weight, but you're always going to find some more weight to, to lose so you can keep this identity of someone who struggles with their weight. Do you see how this happens? And this will keep happening to you until you learn how to change your identity, until you learn how to change those struggle bus thoughts.
