271: How Can I Stop Feeling Scared That I Am Going To Put The Weight Back On? | Live Coaching Session

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 271. 

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Amber B 00:47 

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio, I'm your host Amber Brueseke. And I'm back with a another live Coaching session for you today, so I make the point all the time that there is a difference between knowledge and application of that knowledge. It is why we need teachers, people who teach us things and then we also need coaches, people who actually help us with the application of that knowledge, and that's a lot of what I'm doing in MACROS101, I'm both teaching. I'm teaching the the concepts and the fundamentals and the science behind macro counting, but then I'm also coaching and I'm helping people to not only learn about the nutritional concepts but then actually have that application into their own unique journey. And that's where a lot of the magic happens is in that application piece in the coach piece. And if you're not in MACROS101, you don't always get to hear the style of coaching that I do. And so every once in a while, I like to bring on some of those coaching call replays and put them on the podcast: One, so that you can get a sense and of my style of coaching. Some of you are sitting here wondering, Hey, MACROS101 is opening in a couple of weeks. Shameless plug for that. That's going to happen on April 3rd, but some of you are wondering, hey, is this going to be the right fit for me? Is this going to be something that's gonna help me to get closer to my goals, and I think being able to be really forthright with you about the style of coaching that I provide and getting to know me will make that a really easy yes or no. Either it's a yes, you jive with me, you resonate. This is something that helps you and you like the way that I coach or it's a heck no, I don't enjoy that. And those are both awesome experiences to be able to have because it helps make your decision a little bit easier of whether or not MACROS101 is the right program for you, so I'd like to put coaching calls on here so that you can really start to see the style of coaching that I that I do so that you can walk into MACROS101 with your eyes wide open as to what that experience is going to be like. Now, if you're listening to this a little bit later and MACROS101 isn't open, you can always get on the wait list by going to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. 

The second reason that I like to put these episodes together where I have live coaching calls is because you are going to learn so much as you listen to me coach Amanda. So Amanda's coming in with a question that I hear all of the time, and it is around this fear that if I reach a certain level of success, then what happens if I if I don't maintain that level of success? And so this question that she asks is one that often people are asking of, you know, I I'm still feeling scared that I'm going to put all the weight back on right. I lost the weight, I was, I hit my goal weight or I I did something I've never done before and I'm scared that I'm going to revert back. And so that's the question that we're addressing in this coaching call and you'll see as we as we get to and as often as the case often what a client brings me, or the question that the client brings me what they think is the problem is is very rare, that rarely the problem and one of the things that I'm really good at and my coaches are really good at is getting to the actual root cause. What is actually going on? What is actually causing the problem? And again, it's not often what the person is bringing us with the initial question. So in this coaching conversation with Amanda, you're going to hear us go down this rabbit hole about this fear of what if I lose it all? What if I hit my goal and I revert back to my old ways. So if you've ever had that worry or fear before, this is going to be a fantastic episode for you to listen. Now, without further ado, let's jump into the coaching conversation with Amanda. 

Amanda 04:27 

Hello. I I did a cut at the beginning of this year, before coming into MACROS101, lost almost 20lbs, found some clothes sizes which I was fitted with and so I guess I'm very happy with where I'm at you know, like how my clothes are fitting my weight right now. I thought I was in maintenance, did not reversed well, so I've actually been working on reversing doing this program and then my I guess my goal right now is lifting and trying to maximize my gains at maintenance. But so I have some, some, some mental work, I think because I've been, I guess in this spot for several months. But I like I keep having these thoughts of all the great like, enjoy it while it lasts, because you'll you know, you've been here, done this. You'll go back. And I mean, it's even to the point where so like I used to have you know like my my totes of my clothes that used to fit. And I, you know, my goals would be like one day, I'll keep these because I'll get there and I did and I'm in them right now. I'm super excited, but now I have totes that I like or like staring at them with my like larger size clothes. And I'm like, well, I can't give them away because I know I'll go back there. And I'm like really struggling with, it's like I hear this little voice. And I'm like no like that's, you know, I'm like, trying to disassociate myself with those thoughts. But they keep coming back. 

Amber B 06:22 

Yeah, super normal. That's really, really normal. So The funny thing about fear is that it doesn't ever go away. It just morphs so this is a great example. That I I so glad we're sharing it because so often times when people are in a cut, the fear is, Oh my gosh, I'm never going to be successful. Oh my gosh, I'm never going to lose the weight. Oh my gosh, I'm never going to be able to get there. OK, that's very common here that comes up for a lot of women. And then something happens when, like you, you reach the goal and you, you tame the goal, the fear doesn't go away. The fear just morphs and now it is instead of what if I don't get what I want? The fear becomes what happens if I lose it? Right. And so that's where you're at and I think it's really important to talk about these things because people often think, oh, when I get to my goal I won't have anymore fears, it'll, it's just like magic. It's just like be so great and everything will be wonderful and everything will be marvelous. And like I'll have reached my goal and I think it's really important to talk about like here doesn't ever go away like that. Doesn't go away. It just changes and it now we have to manage the like what happens if I lose it. And that's that's a very normal place for you to be at this point of the experience, especially because, well, I should ask you first, what has your experience been before? Have you ever lost weight and regained it? 

Amanda 07:53 

Yes. But never this way I should say like intentionally. 

Amber B 08:00 

Sure, right. So so we can have some compassion for where this fear is coming from. Is it's coming from experience and what our brain is really good at doing is taking past experiences and making predictions about the future. So your brains are in a very normal thing, it's saying, hey, this happened in the past, so we need to be ready for this to happen in the future and that's, you know, that's all the things that you're experiencing. But what I want to do is I want to normalize it. And like we're going to work through it, I'm going to give you some things that we can help you to move past it. So we can help like walk through that fear, but there's nothing wrong with the fact that you're feeling this fear. It's very, very normal part of the stage that you're in and it's great again to talk about it with in like this context because some of you guys are in the middle of a cut and like you're gonna have this experience and you're like Oh my gosh, what's wrong with me? And nothing. Amanda is showing you like this is a very normal stage that you're going to likely hit is like what happens if I lose it. OK. And so let's work through some of these, some of these like thoughts that you're currently having because one of the ways that we can start to work through is we, we can challenge our thinking right, in module 3 I talk a lot about automatic thoughts that come up and those automatic thoughts are from your brain and but it doesn't mean we have to, like, entertain them. That doesn't mean we have to continue to repeat them to ourselves. So one of your jobs as the controller of your brain is to notice when it says enjoy while last Amanda. You're going to go back. You probably shouldn't get rid of those clothes. Right, to notice those thoughts. And to shift them into a more powerful sphere, a more powerful thing that you want to believe and overtime what will happen is you will rewrite those pathways in your brains until that becomes your new normal that becomes your new way of thinking and processing. And so the more specific we can get the more work shifts us. Do you have a question first? 

Amanda 09:48 

No. 

Amber B 09:49 

OK, so I would love to go through some specifics with you, the two that I wrote down and I don't know who cares if you have any more that you're aware of or enjoy it while it lasts and you'll go back. Are there any other ones that come up very often for you? 

Amanda 10:09 

No, I think those are the, the ones that keep replaying. 

Amber B 10:17 

How do you handle it now? 

Amanda 10:20 

Uhm, I often just kind of bring myself deep breath to the present be like is that that a reality or is that no something I'm making up kind of like I really resonated with, like the discussion, the module that talked about like truths and beliefs trying to sort through those and then oftentimes I just kind of push it away and then go on with my day. And then it creep out. 

Amber B 10:52 

Yeah. Yeah. OK. I also want to impress upon you that the goal and this is, this is really important for everybody to hear. The goal isn't for those thoughts who never happen. OK, so the goal isn't to, isn't  to snuff out those thoughts. It's for you to be able to be quicker in seeing and shifting. Seeing and shifting. So sometimes we set up an unreal like expectation. I'm not saying that you're doing this, that sometimes we do this in our brain where it's like, I just want to never think this again. I just want to never have this fear I never want to think like you're going to go back like I never want that to happen and that sets you up for an unrealistic expectation of where you're going to go. The reality is our brain thinks all sorts of things all day long. And we have control over whether we keep thinking about them, but we don't always have control over whether we initially think about them.  And So what happens the goal for you is not to never think these things again but to get better and you're already practicing it. So I'm like so proud of you, but the goal is to see them when they happen and shift out of them. So I it's not that I never have negative thoughts about my body I think sometimes people are like oh, Amber you never thinking anything negative about your body. No, like that's that's called being human. Like I think negative thoughts about my body, but what I've gotten really good at is seeing it and shifting. Seeing it and shifting like I'm really good at that now of like moving away from it and that's the goal. The goal isn't to resist and never think those things. So I think the first the reason I'm making such a big stink about this is because when we have realistic expectations of what the goal is, we can set ourselves up for success. And I see a lot of women continuing to beat themselves up. Because they keep having these thoughts. And I don't want you to do that because that's not the goal. The goal is to never think these things. The goal is to be able to catch it, shift it, catch it, shift it, catch it, shift it, and you're already practicing that. So I want to give you huge props for being able to do that but we're going to, we're going to work through this a little  bit together so let's, let's stick with, let's let's go with you'll go back. I like this one. You'll go back. So one of the things as we're starting to work through the weeks and as we're starting to work through thoughts is realizing that what we usually say is the thought is usually only part of the thought. So there's usually something else so this is like not the full sentence is what I'm saying so let's finish the sentence together because usually this can illuminate a lot on it so you'll go back for some moments back to be, back to what? 

Amanda 13:45 

Back to my clothes that are now too big. 

Amber B 13:50

We'll go back to those old clothes, OK.

Amanda 13:54 

Not feeling good, not me, back to I'll say like almost like body shame type thing. Like even part of my Big Why is like my 2 girls and like my like I don't want to be have them you know always seeing me being like, Oh my gosh, I'm so disgusting or Oh my gosh so fat, these clothes don't fit like and I feel like I'm fighting like I'm at a spot now where I have a lot more confidence and you know, and I'm not saying those things. And so I don't want the fear is, yeah, going back to that. 

Amber B 14:42 

OK, OK, so this is super good. One of the connections we often make especially when it comes to confidence is that our external reality impacts our confidence and it's easy to make that connection because your experience maybe in a larger body or when you were heavier was that you were less confident and your experience now when you're in a smaller body is that you are more confident. So it's easy to think, oh, I was less confident then I'm more confident now. What changed? My body changed. Hence my body creates my confidence. But the problem is is there's something in the middle between those two things that is actually impacting the confidence and what that is, is your thoughts about your experience, so confidence isn't created by the size of your body and the reason that we know this is because you and I both know people who are in much larger bodies who exuded confidence. I think of like Lizzo, like, like Lizzo is it lives in a larger body but like she exudes confidence, right? And we, I also know plenty of women. So I've worked with so many of them who are in bodies where you would go to the gym and you'd be like, Oh my gosh, I would die to have her body, like girlfriend just like looks so good and then you talk to them and they are the most insecure people that you've ever met. OK, so because we have these examples, we know that we cannot collapse down the body and confidence they aren't the same thing. So the link that occurs that you're experiencing isn't actually body size and confidence. The link you are experiencing is the thoughts that you have about that experience. And so when you were in a larger body the thoughts that you had and that were generated during that time and created you to feel insecure, created that lack of confidence and now your thoughts have changed about your body. And you have developed that confidence because not because your body changed, but because your thoughts about your body have changed. And the cool thing about understanding that is when we recognize that we are in more in control of our thoughts than we think that we can actually experience confidence in both of those places. That makes sense? 

Amanda 16:57 

Yeah.  

Amber B 16:58

So why, why am I spending so much time on this? Because when you understand that, Amanda, it makes you fear that reality less. OK. Because if you wouldn't recognize that you are powerful enough to feel confident in any body that you have at any stage of your life. When you recognize your power to be able to control that the fear there's less fear around what if I go back. OK, What's coming after you?

Amanda 17:32 

I just I I like it. I feel like I haven't really thought of that throughout this program. I feel like I've been able to have a lot of different mind shifts and different look at things so different, many different things now, not just you know, fitness and nutrition, but I feel like I've never even considered that. Yeah, sounds like one of those like ohh mind blown things, yeah. 

Amber B 18:07 

Well, mind blown emoji going on right now. Yeah. So so I think giving yourself more power and recognizing that you are more in control of those things than you think, can help you to make peace with, one of the things that I like to do when I fear something is I like to go there. I like to do the what if, what if my husband did die like it's terrible like I don't want that to happen. I'm so scared of that happening, but one of the ways that I can assuage that here is like well, what if it did happen? What would I do? What would my plan be like? Like would I be OK, like going to that extreme of like what you are afraid of? Turns on the light and shows you all this, you know, it would be terrible. It would be awful, but like I would be OK. I would figure this out like it's like turns the light on and like the Boogeyman goes away because we like, look it in the eye, we're like, OK, Amanda, what if you did what if you gained 20 pounds? What if you did? like OK, now what? and working through that he's like go ahead.  

Amanda 19:16 

As you’d say, well, now I see like. Well, OK. Yeah. Hey, so be it because I think mainly because I know that I have the control and the tools to know how to how to go back. 

Amber B 19:33 

Yes. That is a huge thing is when you, you know when you understand the process and you have the tools and you've done it before, there is that sense of like, Well, I can do it again. I I have that in my business, honestly like I have some of the same fears. It's like for a long time. I'm like, what if I can't grow my business? What if I can't get clients? What if I can't get it? And now it seems like I have all these clients and build  this, what if I lose it? What if, like, everybody goes away? What if everybody hates me like, you know, so I like I had to like work through some of that. But I realized even if my business came crumbling to the ground and like everything fell apart, I know how to build a business. I could just do it again. And yeah, the hard I want to do that but like I have the skills and knowledge I've done it before, I can do it again and I think that brings a lot of peace of like, whatever happens in the future, you're going to be OK. Your confidence doesn't have to be tied to it. You can maintain the confidence that you have because you control your confidence by what you think and feel, and that's in your control and you have the tools that if you decided you wanted to lose the 20 pounds again, you could do it. And so when we can stare at that possibility in the eye, and be like I'll be OK. I don't want it, I'm not asking for it, but I would be OK if it happened. It lessens that fear. It lessens that anxiety about What if it did happen? 

Amanda 21:02 

I already see it. 

Amber B  21:05

You already feel what? 

Amanda 21:07 

Lighter. 

Amber B 21:08 

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you know we always joke and laugh at like little kids who are like, there's a monster under my bed. You know it's like, oh, that's so silly. So cute that they think this monster in your bed, but then you like go underneath and you like, show them that there's, like, literally no monster, like we do that a lot where it's like, Oh my gosh, I'm so scared of this thing. It's like we actually lift it up and like, look at it, the fear kind of dissipates like, oh, OK like I see you. I see you monster, I know you like and we can kind of, you know. Just there's that fear again, you know. There's that, there's that fear that I'll go back. But I'll be OK. Because I'm OK. I can, I can do it again. 

Amanda 21:52 

Thank you.  

Amber B 21:53 

Yeah, good. One point that I want to make. Just for everybody who's listening. Because I always like to, like, teach principles. So one of the principles that I'm teaching here in this example is the difference between resisting and accepting. So all of you probably heard the idea of like what you resist persist. And that's what a lot of times we're doing is like there's this fear and I want to push it away and I don't like, don't think that, don't think that, don't think that I don't want to think about that. I don't want to like push it away, push away was this push this was this, but what you resist , persist exactly what you've experienced it like, keeps coming back. It keeps coming up and so the key is not to resist it. The key is like to look at it, the key is accept it. It's like, oh, there's that fear I I thought about that maybe what if that did happen like I went through the process, I like looked at it and now I'm not resisting it, I'm just accepting it like there's that fear again. Keep having that silly fear and then I'll go back, but if I do, I'll be OK and now it doesn't have control over me. Just an experience. 

Amanda 22:59 

Yes, thank you. 

Amber B 23:00 

And awesome question. Fantastic.  

Amber B 23:15 

I hope that was really valuable for you, I hope that you enjoyed and learned something from that coaching conversation and are taking something away from it. If that's the case, will you please shoot a screenshot of it, put what you learned or what your biggest take away, or maybe what your mind blown emoji was from this episode and go ahead and post it on social media and tag me. I love seeing your experience as you're listening to the podcast, the things that are resonating with you and the type of content that you want to see more of. So if you here's a little hint if you have a content creator that is creating content. If you want that content creator to create more of that style of content, one of the best things that you can do is let them know that you like it, share it, put it on your social media, put it out there. The more that content creators like we want to create content that makes you happy, we want to create content that gets shared. We want to create content that you want to listen to and so I'm not, it's just not me as a content creator, all content creators are that way, so if there's it's. It's like positive reinforcement with your children. You know how you like supposed to positively when your kid does something, right? You're like, oh, great job. And that's like positive reinforcement for them to do more of that behavior. It works with content creators as well. So if you like this style or this format or you got something out of this episode and you want more like this, one of the best things that you can do is let me know and put it on social media. Share it and that tells me, hey, maybe I should create more of this style of content. If you want to have access to more of this type of coaching that I do inside of MACROS101, we will be opening doors on April 3rd, you can get on the wait list at bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. If you're listening to this, you know months later the wait list is always available so that you will know the next time that we open up doors to MACROS101 and that is where I do all my coaching. So if you want to get coached by me, that is the place to be able to do it. bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist to get on the wait list for the next round of MACROS101. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio, I'm Amber, now go out and be strong because remember, my friend, you can do anything. 

Outro

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