405: “I’m Struggling To Get Started On My Weight Loss Journey”

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 405.

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. 

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and this podcast episode was sparked by a client who put up a post in our community and said that she was struggling to get started. And immediately when I read that, first I had a whole bunch of thoughts that I wanted to share and that I started thinking through. And I also realized that I get some form of this question very, very frequently, which means it's probably something that would be really good in a podcast because this client is not the only one who struggles with this issue, right? This idea of I'm standing at the starting line, I'm struggling to take that first step. How do I get myself to get motivated or to get inspired and to start this journey? So I thought I would record a podcast episode. Obviously, I responded to this client and we had a really good coaching conversation, but I want to expound on it. And if you're someone who is maybe sitting in that stage of indecision or feeling like you're at the starting line and you're really just struggling to get started and to make some progress in your journey, that maybe this episode will be helpful in getting over what feels like a hump.

Redefining “Getting Started” and Overcoming Overwhelm 02:05

So if you were my client and you came to me saying this, the very first question that I would ask you is what do you mean by getting started? You are using that term to mean something in your mind, right? Language communicates our internal world to the external world. And so you're using that word getting started, but it's not very specific. And so I would be really curious about in your brain when you're saying, I'm struggling to get started, what do you mean by getting started? Because usually when I ask someone that question, what I start to realize is that they have made getting started this huge thing, right? Like it is this gigantic thing. And in order to get started, they have to track their food. They have to start working out. They have to walk 10,000 steps a day. They have to drink their body weight in water. They have to increase their protein. They have to go to bed earlier. Like it's this like huge thing. And it makes total sense that you're struggling to get started. If you're sitting there looking up at this gigantic mountain that you have to climb, it feels very, very overwhelming.

And so rather than attack that gigantic mountain, what our brain does is just shuts down. Overwhelm is a way that our brain protects ourselves. So when you get overwhelmed, it is usually because your brain is saying, that's too big. I can't do that. And so I'm going to get this person overwhelmed. And then that's going to give us a really logical out to not have to do this really hard thing. Okay. You can kind of see that this is what self-sabotage is. It's your brain giving you an out. So how do we address that? Well, what would happen if you shrunk the change? What would happen if you redefined what getting started means? Because again, for a lot of people, you're standing there. I have this really awesome visual that I'll show sometimes in classes that I teach, where on the left-hand side, there is a ladder and there's a person standing at the bottom of the ladder. And the first rung that they're trying to reach is like taller than they are. And the rungs are really far spaced out. And so the person can't even reach the first rung. And then you pan over to the right-hand side and there's someone standing on a ladder and the first rung is very, very low. And the rungs are all spaced very close together. And that person's already halfway up the ladder. It's such a good visual because this is what we do inadvertently.

We don't consciously do this, but this is what we do a lot of times when we think about starting a journey is we set the bar so high that we can't even reach it. And then again, we give ourself an out. I can't even reach it. Then I don't have to reach it. I don't have to go through discomfort of trying to reach it. Instead of lowering the bar and recognizing that getting started has no inherent meaning, it can mean whatever you want it to mean. We can redefine what that means. So even though it may mean in your brain right now, I have to track, I have to walk, I have to do cardio and I have to drink my body weight in water and all the things, just because that's what it means right now in your brain does not mean that that is the meaning of getting started. You see what I'm saying? 

So what if we were redefined that to something that felt more reasonable? What if we shrunk the change? What if we, what if getting started was I will go for a five-minute walk today? And I know what your brain says, because I've coached this so many times. Your brain is like, but, but, but, but, but that's not enough. What is that going to do? And what I would offer you is if you didn't go for a five-minute walk today and you go for a five-minute walk tomorrow, that is progress. And your brain wants to argue and your brain wants to say, but that won't make a difference. It's not going to even move the needle. And I would gently remind you that what you are currently doing is not moving the needle at all. And so it's a very classic all or nothing mentality of you're standing at the bottom and you're saying, because I can't reach this really high rung, I'm just going to stand here and stay stuck and struggle to get started versus taking a step that feels easy. And, and it's more than you were doing yesterday, right? I think that's a really important point. I'm not saying that getting started means you do exactly today what you did yesterday. You're doing something different. You're making a change. You're just shrinking the change to something that feels like you can bite it off and chew. So in that moment, when your brain starts to scream at you, but that's not going to make a difference, you have to be in control and the boss of your brain and remind yourself that what really doesn't make the difference is doing nothing. 

Uninformed Optimism vs. Informed Pessimism 06:42

What really doesn't make the difference is just staying stuck and never taking that first step. I saw a really good TikTok recently. I'll link it in the show notes to give, you know, credit where credit is due with the original creator. But in essence, this TikTok talked about how so many of us like standing at the starting line of something because we can fantasize about how fast we're going to run the race, how awesome this race is going to be, how cool we're going to be rather than take that first step and realize how long the marathon actually is going to be. And Kelly and Connor, if you're familiar with their emotional cycle of change, they put this into a really great framework that I think it helps to conceptualize why taking that first step can be really, really challenging. Because like this TikToker said, when you are standing at the starting line and you have not yet started, you have what is called uninformed optimism. You're excited, you're motivated, you can see yourself as being successful, but it's uninformed optimism because you don't really understand the costs, the efforts, the challenges, the problems. Maybe you can conceptualize some of them, but until you're in it, you really don't understand everything about it, right? So, this is the uninformed optimism. And a lot of us like to stand there because it feels good.

It's like, I'm getting ready to start. And so, we can just stand there in our optimism and then you take the first step. And when you take that first step, now you have entered what's called informed pessimism. This is when reality hits. This is when the honeymoon phase ends. I would say for most people, this is like two to three weeks into a program or into a change that you're making. The motivation has declined, the excitement that you had, the shininess of whatever change that you're making has worn off. And now is where the real work begins because you realize, man, this is harder than I thought. I have to put more effort into this. It's more difficult, than maybe I thought. There's a lot of doubts, right? And now we are confronted with that option to quit, to bail and to say, I don't want to do this anymore. So, this is stage two. This is informed pessimism, right? Now you're informed about the cost. You're informed about the reality. You know what it's actually going to take. And we can't sit in that la-la land of like, oh, this is going to be so easy. 

The Valley of Despair and the Critical Pivot Point 09:21

This leads us into what's known as the valley of despair. And this is like the lowest point. This is where you get stuck. You get frustrated. What you're doing isn't working or it's not happening fast enough. You're second-guessing yourself. And this is where you really feel like giving up. This is the pivot point that matters. And I think what's so awesome about understanding the cycle of change is recognizing that that is going to come. There's nothing wrong with it. You're going to hit that point where you wonder if you should quit. So, plan for it. Have a plan for what you're going to do because it's going to happen. And this pivot point matters because either you decide not to quit and you move through the valley of despair, and we're going to talk about the next stage, or you quit and you go back to the beginning and have to restart and recycle through those stages of change.

If you push through the valley of despair, you now get to stage four, which is informed optimism. So, before we had uninformed optimism at the starting line, but now we have informed optimism because you're starting to see results. You start to understand how to navigate the challenges, how to deal with the problems, how to deal with the issues. And then you start to build confidence in your ability to navigate what's hard. And this is not based off of a theoretical of like, oh, I'm going to do so well navigating that. You actually have the boots on the ground experience of, I had this hard thing and I navigated through it and I got to their side. And that builds your confidence. And then that leads to what is known as stage five, which is success and fulfillment. You have this new habit. Change has been integrated. It's a lot easier because we now are not efforting it so much. It's become more subconscious. It's become more habit-driven. And we really have that lasting sense of accomplishment, of confidence in ourselves to be able to navigate what comes our way. And that is where everybody wants to get to.

Accepting Problems as Inevitable and Choosing Better Ones 11:18

That's what everybody says when they say they want to have confidence. But we have to recognize that if you want to get to that place of confidence, you have to navigate through each of those stages. And I see a lot of people getting stuck in stage one, which is standing at the starting line, looking at it, enjoying the optimism, but never actually taking that first step. And then you have to be willing to navigate through all those stages to build the confidence in yourself, in your ability to handle problems. Speaking of problems, I was reading a book recently and I can't remember exactly what book it was. I wish I could share the book title with you, but I just remember the essence of it. And the essence was that we kind of live in this illusion that if we do things correctly, we won't have problems. Like if we navigate things correctly, or we do things right, or we make the right choice, that we live in this illusion, this fantasy that we will be able to live our life problem-free, or live for a period of time problem-free. And it is just that. It is an illusion. You will always have problems. Every day. Every day you're going to have problems the rest of your life. And that may seem like a little Debbie Downer, but it also allows you to make peace with the fact that you're going to have problems. And so what we get to decide is what kind of problems we want to have, what kind of problems we want to be dealing with.

So would you rather be dealing with the problem of not working out, and the health risks that come from that, and the lack of confidence that comes from that, and the not following through, and the not proving to yourself that you could do it? Do you want to deal with those kind of problems? Or do you want to deal with the problems of like doing something that maybe you're not excited about doing in the moment? Right? Doing something hard. Putting yourself out there. Putting yourself outside of your comfort zone. So it's like, when you can make peace with the fact that you're always going to have problems. That is an illusion that we can get rid of problems. Okay? So we just lay that out there.

Choosing Your Problems and Addressing Past Negative Experiences 13:16

Okay, now what kind of problems do you want to have? Because you can choose, to some extent, obviously not all of them, but to some extent, you can choose what kind of problems we're dealing with. Right? Do I want to have, I think about this a lot when I like started a business, it's like, do I want to have the problem of, you know, having less money, having to budget more, you know, not knowing what to do with my time, whatever, at the beginning? Or would I rather deal with the problems that come from growing a business? Because there are lots of problems that come with growing a business. Right? You're going to have problems. Which ones do you want? 

So that was kind of a long rounded way to say that one of the very first things, if you're sitting at the starting line and you're struggling to get started, first, identifying why that is, because there is a benefit that you get from being optimistic about the future without actually having to do any of the hard work. Right? So there's a benefit in it. Two, because you likely, if you're like a lot of people, have defined getting started very, very big. And if we shrunk the change, it would feel less overwhelming and less hard to get started. The last thing that I want to talk about that I see a lot is I want you to think back to previous experiences, especially if you are on a weight loss journey and you've had previous weight loss journey experiences. Because what I see a lot is if you've had other previous experiences that were miserable, right? It's like, I hear people like, I went on this diet and I ate 800 calories and I lost like 20 pounds, but it all came back. And you think back to that time when you were like eating 800 calories and losing the fat. And you remember that you were miserable and you hated life and you were hungry all the time and you were cold and you couldn't sleep. And it was just like a miserable time of life for you. You can already start to see how your nervous system would not want to go back there. Right? It makes sense if something is terrible that we don't want to go and do it again. 

So what I think is really important is one, to understand that this is your brain and your nervous system protecting you from what was a terrible previous experience, what you didn't like, what wasn't fun. And how can we approach it this time from a way that is more in line with something that's sustainable? That's something that we can keep going, something that we don't hate, something that we aren't miserable with, something that we aren't starving and hungry and cold and miserable all the time. How can we create this in a way that feels easy and that our nervous system doesn't actively reject? And that goes back to the point I was making about making this small changes. Again, I know the brain is like, but that's not going to make a difference.

But again, if we have an experience in the past, our nervous system remembers that. And jumping back into that, our body and our brain are going to fight that tooth and nail because nobody wants to go back and be super miserable. So if we shrink the change and we make it more sustainable, we make it something that fits better with our lifestyle and what we're willing to do with the process, then that is going to be something that our body and our brain is going to be able to get more on board with because you're not forcing yourself to go back to a miserable, awful place, if that makes sense.

Call to Action 16:32

So what's your call to action? If you're listening to this episode and you're in the space of struggling to get started, your call to action would be, what are you defining as getting started? And how can we redefine that in a way that you can literally get started today? Like it should be something that is different than you did yesterday, right? Because it needs to be progress, but that you 100% know that you could achieve today. Maybe it is drinking an extra glass of water. Maybe it's going for a five minute walk. Maybe it's turning on a yoga video and doing a 10 minute yoga flow. Maybe it's going to bed 15 minutes earlier. Maybe it's adding a protein source to one of your meals, right? These are all very, very doable. It should seem very doable. The key is it's doable, it feels easy, and it is more than you did yesterday. And that, my friend, is the key to sustainable progress and the key to sustainable change.

If you found this episode helpful, I would be most grateful if you share it. Share with a friend, with a sister, with a mother-in-law, with someone that you think would resonate with this and that it would be helpful for them in their journey. 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

Hold up sister friend. Do you love Biceps After Babies Radio? If so, the best way to say thank you is to subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on iTunes. I know every podcaster wants you to leave a review, but it's because those reviews help the podcast to reach more people. And I do truly want to know what you think. If this particular episode resonated with you, will you also please share it? Either send the link to someone who would find it valuable or take a screenshot and post it to your social media and tell your friends and family why they should listen. Make sure you tag me at biceps.after.babies so I can hear your feedback and give you a little love. And you know, if you aren't already following me on Instagram or Facebook, that's the perfect time to hit that follow button. Thank you for being here and listening to Biceps After Babies Radio.