EP 192. Get Off The Weight Loss Struggle Bus For Good

If you find yourself always making things harder than they need to be, causing that unnecessary drama for yourself, you are probably stuck in a struggle bus story. And today I'm going to tell you exactly how to get off of the weight loss struggle bus. It's a lot easier than you think. You're listening to the Stop Dieting Forever podcast, episode 192. What if it were possible to achieve your goal weight and stay there permanently without dieting? Welcome to the Stop Dieting Forever podcast, where you will discover the key components that most diets won't tell you because they want you to keep coming back. Not here. This is your last stop on the weight loss struggle bus. I am your host, Jennifer Dent-Brown, life and weight loss coach, and I am going to show you how How to stop dieting forever. Let's jump into today's episode. Hey, LuxeLifer, welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I am Jennifer Dent-Brown, your host, and today I'm going to tell you exactly how to get off of the weight loss struggle bus. It's a lot easier than you think. Now, if you're not familiar with the term struggle bus, I talk about it in my intro. That I am here to help you get off of the weight loss struggle bus. Today we're going to break down what the struggle bus is and how you can get off of it. All right, here is the textbook definition. The term struggle bus is a colloquial expression used to describe a situation where someone is experiencing difficulty or challenges in various aspects of their life. So of course we're talking about weight loss. It's often used humorously to acknowledge when someone is having a tough time dealing with particular circumstances, tasks, or emotions. Okay, that's the textbook definition of struggle bus, and it is fun to use the term struggle bus. We kind of smile like, you know what I mean when I say, okay y'all, time to get off the weight loss struggle bus. But let's be real, riding that freaking weight loss struggle bus It sucks. It feels awful. And I know this because I was a passenger on that struggle bus for decades. When I was a passenger on my own weight loss struggle bus, I constantly felt frustrated. I was overwhelmed with all of the different diets and different strategies and different things I could do, and nothing was working. And I felt like the bus I was on was literally moving at like 2 miles per hour. Towards my goal weight. It just was not happening. And as soon as I looked up, as soon as I thought, oh, we're speeding up, we're losing some weight, we're going a little bit faster, bam, I would hit a big-ass pothole. And then I remained sidelined, and I was still on the bus. And because at that time when I was working to lose my weight and trying to figure out all the things, and I was stuck in the yo-yo dieting cycle, For over 2 decades, I was clueless as to why I could not lose weight, and I developed a story in my head that just kept me on the struggle bus. You may have a story about your ability to lose weight. It may sound something like, Jennifer, I know what to do, I'm just not disciplined enough. Or maybe you're thinking, I know I need to do something, but I just can't find the time. Or you're putting it off, like, I know I need to do something, but I need to wait until this month or this date to get started. Or it may sound like, Jennifer, listen, I always am excited I can lose some weight, but I always end up losing focus. And then as soon as I lose focus, I become discouraged very easily. Or this may be you. This may be your story. I'm a compulsive eater. I just like food, and I don't know when to stop. I don't know how to stop eating. If you have not been able to lose weight and keep it off, and I'm assuming that's why you're listening to this podcast, chances are that you have a never-ending struggle bus story that you are holding on to. So guess what, y'all? Today we're gonna let that shit go. We're gonna let it go. Because the problem is with these struggle bus stories is that we believe them. We think they're true. And this never-ending story that we've been repeating to ourselves over and over and over and over again— for some of us, if you're like me, for decades— it will always keep us struggling. There is no victory. There is no freedom in a struggle bus story. Your story is probably very self-critical. It's very full of self-judgment. And I bet you it's full of unnecessary drama that you are causing yourself. And it's a never-ending story with the same goddarn plot, right? The plot is— no matter what story you have, the plot is always going to be the same. You cannot lose weight to save your life, and you certainly can't keep it off. You may have more than one story, and I bet you all of those stories have that same plot. You can't lose weight and you can't keep it off. The struggle bus story has to end. Now, you all know, like I just mentioned, I used to ride the weight loss struggle bus, and I was on it for decades, just like, you know, rolling along. And as I was rolling along on this weight loss struggle bus, guess what happened? I got used to struggling. I got used to the struggle. My nervous system literally aligned with struggle because I did it so well. I did it so frequently. I did it all the time. You know that saying, how you do one thing is how you do everything? Well, today— and this is the reason why I decided to do this podcast— is because I noticed a struggle bus story popping up for me. Now, it wasn't about my weight. It was with another goal related to my business. But in the morning, I was doing my self-coaching, and this is what I teach my clients to do. And I did a brain dump where you just pull out a piece of paper and you just dump out all your thoughts. I was like, OK, Jennifer, what are we worried about today? What's on our mind? What's coming up? And I just wrote a whole bunch of stuff. And I decided to go back and just circle all of the emotions that I wrote down in my brain dump. And I kid you not, I circled the word struggle multiple times on that piece of paper. I was like, dang. And it really, really struck me because I recently— like, very recently— coached one of my private clients on the struggle story. And she was stuck in the struggle, and she was trying to avoid being stuck in the struggle. And we had to talk about how easy it is to hold on to these struggle bus stories about ourselves and where they come from. And why they come up. And that's what we're going to talk about here. But I was just really shocked. I was like, oh, look at there, Jennifer. The struggle bus story is popping up again for you. So no matter what your struggle bus story is, one common theme with being on the struggle bus is that you make everything difficult. And I should say we, because I'm also in that crew too. We make everything difficult when we keep repeating the struggle bus story. Like, everything has to be hard. What we need to do to lose the weight, to achieve the goal, it just can't be easy. We got to make it difficult, right? That's all the unnecessary drama that comes along with the struggle bus story. And there has to be a struggle, right? We don't do this intentionally, but we do it because our nervous system believes that level of vibration is normal. And so of course, our brains are going to concoct something And so we can match that level of vibration. When we hear like, oh, this is easy, losing weight can be easy, achieving your goal can be easy, it's like a foreign feeling because we're so used— our brains and our bodies are so wired to struggle, we don't know what ease actually feels like. And so if you find yourself always making things harder than they need to be, causing that unnecessary drama for yourself, you are probably stuck in a struggle bus story. In fact, I remember being coached on this a couple of years ago. I was telling— I don't even remember what the situation was, but I was telling my coach, I was like, yes, I just had the propensity to make things more difficult. And I just thought that's just what I did because I'm so intellectual and I'm so smart that my brain just comes up with all these different options and ways to do things. And she looked at me and she was like, listen, I don't even know what that P word is that you just said. But she was like, if you think you make things difficult, you can also decide that you make things easier. And I was like, hmm, what? You know, sometimes with coaching, you get coached. You hear the words coming out of someone's mouth and it takes a little while for it to click. I get it now. I totally get it. So here's the good news. Here's what I want to share with you. You recognize you got a struggle bus story. Keep listening. I want you to listen to this very, very closely. I want you to know that none of your struggle bus story is actually true. Nothing that you're telling yourself, it's not true. None of it. Not a single word, piece, second of it. None of it is true. Your body is actually capable of losing weight, even if your struggle bus story is telling you nope. I can't do it. This is impossible. I cannot lose the weight. Listen, the voice that you are hearing that is repeating your struggle bus story is just a small, scared, conditioned part of you that got stuck in a lie. That's it. It wants to protect you, so it needs you to perceive yourself as a victim. You see, our brains are always wired to see the negative first. Psychologists refer to this as the negativity bias. And if you feel like you're always negative, everything you do or everything you think is just like negative, just know that you're 100% normal. And I actually did a podcast on this, episode 120, called How to Stop Negative Self-Talk. That was something that I struggled with for years. I thought that I just was incapable of thinking positively, and I was incapable of really being a quote unquote positive person because everything I thought, like, just even I was excited in the beginning, it just somehow ended up being a hot mess in my head. And so I really, really worked on that. And I talk about what the negativity bias is and how to overcome it in episode 120. But I want you to know when this negative self-talk comes up, when this little scared, fearful voice in your head that keeps repeating the struggle bus story, just know that your brain is wired for safety and comfort and not success. We have to literally reprogram our brains to become successful, and weight loss is no exception. You've got to program your brain to be successful with weight loss. And I have to say, if you think that going out to train to run a marathon, or, you know, going into a bodybuilding competition, or doing a boot camp, like a physical boot camp, if you think those are the ways to reprogram your brain for success, you got it backwards. We want to start with our thoughts first, and none of that takes any physical action besides writing things down and thinking. That's it. So that's where we start inside Stop Dieting Forever. But in order for you to get off of the weight loss struggle bus, we got to address the story. Your job first is to love that lost piece of you, that piece of you that just keeps telling you this lie over and over and over again that weight loss is hard, you're not disciplined, you're addicted to sugar, you are a binger, you love food too much, all of those struggle bus thoughts. That part of you, that part of your brain, it's all it knows. Fear is all it knows because losing weight and being a different size is like, that could be stressful. We don't know what that means. We don't know what that is. That's dangerous. That is outside of the norm. And so we must concoct these stories in order for us to keep us safe. That narrator, that the bratty brain is what we call it inside the program, is simply the voice of your fearful part of yourself, which is small. But the good news is it's easily soothed. You just have to acknowledge it and notice that it's there and say, I see you. I hear you. And it's OK. When you understand this and you understand what's happening and you understand this process, you can stop being a victim of your own struggle bus story. When I noticed all of my struggle thoughts today when I was doing my self-coaching, I was like, oh, that is fascinating. I didn't judge myself for having them, like, oh my God, Jennifer, you're such a loser. Look at you. Uh, you can't do anything. It did not go there. I was actually grateful that I noticed them in such a very clear way so I didn't have to carry those thoughts with me into my day or into my next month. I'm like, oh, we dropping these stories right now. So I am glad that they came out of my brain onto the paper, and I was very clearly able to see what was happening. So I'm going to tell you what I did to myself. I acknowledged them. I told myself, okay, nothing is going wrong. And just in the acknowledgment, I felt emotionally lighter in like in just seconds. So when you see your struggle bus story, when you actually acknowledge and admit to what it is, you can tell yourself, okay, self, nothing has gone wrong. I'm going to learn how to love myself through these sneaky self-sabotaging moments. I want you to remember, this is the really good news in all of this, that you are 100% in control of creating a brand new story about your ability to lose weight. I don't care how old you are. I don't care how many kids you have. I don't care what your hormones are doing. You are capable of creating a brand new story about your ability to lose weight. And if you haven't done that yet and you're like, ah, Jennifer, it's not working for me, because you haven't created a new story yet. Don't come to me and say you can't lose weight until you've done this process. You first got to forgive yourself for telling yourself the old struggle bus story and have compassion for that part of you that believed your struggle bus story to be true. I had to forgive myself for decades of believing something was wrong with me. I told myself something was wrong with me for years because I could not lose weight and keep it off. And there was nothing wrong with me except that I didn't know where this negativity bias was coming from. I didn't know that I could change my struggle bus story. I didn't even know that it was a story. I believed it to be true, and I didn't know that I could choose again. So you gotta have compassion for yourself. What I learned and what I'm telling you now, that whatever your struggle bus story is, none of it is true. And you can decide right now in this moment to release it. Yes, you get to make up a brand new story about yourself, and it may sound something like this: I've lost weight before in the past, and you know, with the right guidance and the right support, I'm pretty sure I can do it again, god darn it. Or it may sound like losing weight can actually be easy if I stop making it so complicated. Or it may sound like, you know, I've done a lot in my life and I am capable of doing anything I put my mind to, including losing weight. Or it could just be as simple as, this is what I want right now. That's it, this is what I want. Here's a thought that I love and that it serves me well, and I use it in lots of different areas of my life. I can handle anything that comes my way. The program we just finished going over, Overcoming Eating Obstacles. And so my people are well equipped to handle anything that comes their way. Or here's a thought, here's a new story you can borrow. It is possible for me to lose weight. This month. It's possible for me to lose weight this week. It is possible. It is possible. If you hold on to the possibility of your body releasing weight, guess what just may happen? You actually may release weight. Now do this and you will shorten your ride on the weight loss struggle bus, and eventually you will be able to get off. I will be waiting with you with open arms when you walk off the bus. And you walk down the little steps, open the door, and you get off of the bus. The faster you can replace your struggle bus story with a new one, the faster you will lose the weight that you want. But if you're like, Jennifer, it's not that easy. Mm-hmm. It's OK. Right? It's OK. We can work through this. You've never done this before. Your brain is like, I don't— like, I've been holding on to this story. It feels so true. My nervous system thinks it's true. Like, you're holding on to it. It's not that easy to just decide and believe something else. It actually is, but I understand if it's hard. So this is where coaching comes in. I'd love to coach you on why you feel so attached to your struggle bus story. And this is the beauty of coaching, because it helps you see the blind spots in your brain that you cannot access on your own. You want to lose the weight. You want to drop the struggle bus story. But you're like, oh, it feels really hard because you're just so attached to the story that you've been telling yourself. It's your wubby. It's your thing, right? It's your thing. And coming up with a new story and telling yourself something different seems very, very scary because it's not the norm anymore. And it's OK. We can coach through that process until you're able to let go of your struggle bus story, until you're able to forgive yourself for repeating that struggle bus story, and then we can keep it moving. So if you're new to me and the Stop Dieting Forever weight loss process and you want to learn more about what I do, who I work with, how I work with them, read client testimonials, see their videos, you can go to JenniferDent.com. To see how I can help you lose weight for the last time as a private client or as a member of Stop Dieting Forever, which is my group program. And if you feel called to become a private client and you want to be bothered with groups and you're like, I need to start right now, I don't know when the group is opening, like, I need some help, I want to get rid of my struggle bus story, like, when can we start coaching? You'll want to listen to this announcement, but you can go to jenniferdent.com/consult and schedule a call, and we'll hop on the Zoom and we'll talk all about it. Hey, LuxeLifer, let me interrupt this episode real quick and ask you a very important question. Are you tired of losing and gaining back the same weight year after year after year? Guess what? It's not the diet that you're following that's the problem. It's your inability to understand the real reasons why you always end up eating your way back up the scale. The food you're consuming probably isn't the problem, but your inability to understand all the ways emotional hunger is keeping you overweight is the problem. So instead of swapping out foods for quote-unquote healthier options just to lose weight, because let's be real, you can stay overweight by snacking on kale chips instead of potato chips. It's not the food, it's the quantity in which you're eating it. So let's get to the real reason why you can't stop with the BLTs. I'm not talking about the sandwiches, I'm talking about the bites, the licks, and the taste. Now this is where I come in as your private health, life, and weight loss coach. Private coaching isn't just about you shedding pounds, it's about transforming your entire well-being and shedding the mindset the habits and the behaviors that are keeping you overweight so you can eventually go on and live your luxe life. Private coaching is not a one-size-fits-all solution. It is all about you. I want you to think about private coaching like this: going to see Beyoncé at her Renaissance tour performing live is an amazing— it is life-changing. It is a truly transformational That's like participating in the Stop Dieting Forever group program. Now, having Beyoncé show up at your birthday party with your friends and your besties to serenade you with a happy birthday ballad, singing your name, is like the private coaching experience. It is also an amazing, life-changing, and truly transformational experience as well. But it is just for you. Now listen, are you ready for that experience? Are you ready for the personalized Beyoncé serenading you experience? Are you ready to lose more than just weight? Then I want you to head on over to jenniferdent.com/privatecoaching to learn more, to view testimonials, and to schedule a complimentary 60-minute consultation to see if private coaching is the next best step for you when you think about your weight loss journey. You have spent so much of your life paying attention to everyone else's needs. I think it might be time for you to get the support that your body is craving. Have someone else pay undivided attention to you every single week. With the main goal of helping you to lose weight for the last time and shedding everything that is keeping you overweight. All right, private coaching with me. Go to jenniferdant.com/privatecoaching for all of the details and to schedule your 60-minute consultation. All right, y'all, back to the episode. Thank you for tuning in this week. I know you have a plethora of podcasts that you can listen to. So I appreciate that you hit play today. Be sure to check out the show notes for any direct links that I mentioned or any resources that I mentioned in today's podcast. And you can also find the direct links on how to figure out how to work with me and how you can lose weight for the last time. Live luxe. Oh, and before you live luxe, I want you to share this episode with your friends and get that conversation going because I bet you they're over there freaking out about being on a weight loss struggle bus too. So why not share the episode with them and be like, girl, what did you think about that? Do you think we can get off of the bus? Yeah, let's do it together. Okay. All right. Live luxe. And I will see you in the next episode. If you like today's episode of the Stop Dieting Forever podcast and you want to learn more about creating a lifestyle instead of following a diet, lose weight permanently, be sure to visit JenniferDent.com. There you'll learn more about my unique weight loss process and how it can work for you. Go to JenniferDent.com to discover what you can do to stop dieting forever.