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Why Do You Want To Lose Weight?

by | Aug 1, 2023 | Uncategorized






How do I lose weight? What’s the best way to lose weight? 





I want to tell you, the information is out there. It’s all out there. Go to Google, type it in. 





    

  • How do I lose weight over 40? 
    • 




  • How do I lose weight over 50? 
    • 




  • How do I lose weight with PCOS? 
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  • How do I lose weight blabbity blah, blah, blah?
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It’s all out there.





I’m not mad about it. I think the information is good. Most of the information probably talks about a slight calorie deficit, eating whole foods, avoiding processed foods, having protein, drinking water, getting your 10,000 steps, sleeping, all of the basics. But here’s what it really comes down to….










Why do you want to lose weight? 





I want to pretend right now, we’re face to face or on a phone. Tell me why you want to lose weight. Say it out loud. Why do you want to lose weight? 





I would go a step further. You know, I’m big on writing things down. I think it takes a lot of the swirling, competing, repetitive thoughts, a lot of bigness, once we take a pen or pencil and put it on paper. If you’ve never done this, or you’re resisting doing it, that’s okay. 





At the top of the piece of paper, write all the reasons why I want to lose weight. Number one, number two, number three, get as many as you can. And the reason why. You know at eight o’clock tonight, when you go to sit down on the couch and you’re tired or bored or lonely or angry or whatever, you’re gonna go get those Cheez-Its. If you don’t have compelling reasons, plural, that you want to lose weight then chances are you’re going to eat the Cheez-Its. 





If the only reason I can come up with for me wanting to lose weight is to be healthy. I’m sorry. I mean, that sounds good. It sounds like the morally responsible answer. The reason I want to lose weight is to be healthy, to be around a long time and bug the shit out of my family. I get that. I think you should be healthy. 










Go deeper than that. 





    

  • What does that even mean? 
    • 




  • What does it look like? 
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  • What are you doing when you’re healthy?
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  • Is it because you want to be more active? 
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  • Be specific, active doing what? 
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I would go as far as you can. 





If you can’t get at least 10 why’s right away, come back to it later. I’m not grading you. Just see what is there. Here’s why. I think for whatever reason, there is some negative perception that we shouldn’t want to lose weight so that we are feeling more attractive to other people. There I said it.





I think as women, there’s messaging out there that you should look attractive, or you should be thin or you should be pretty. You should have a small waist and you should have a round butt and you are bum, as they say in New England. You should have perky boobs. You should look a certain way.





I don’t necessarily agree. I have daughters. I don’t tell them how they should look. We talk mostly about eating protein, being muscular, having big muscles, being fit, being athletic, being strong and all of that messaging. 





I also tell my kids you’re so pretty, you’re so beautiful, you’re so smart. You’re all those things. I think I tell them that so that they don’t feel like they need to seek that out from anywhere else. They hear so often that they probably don’t even hear it anymore. That way they’re not starved for attention, or affection, and try to seek it from the outside world. I think that’s what I operate on. 





There’s a point to all of this, believe it or not, there is a point. 





First thing is: Why do you want to lose weight? Is it because you want to look a certain way, feel a certain way or think about yourself in a certain way? I do believe that if you want to look a certain way that it is for you? How do you want to look? I also want to tell you, I don’t judge you on whatever answers you have. I really don’t. I want you to put it all out there. 





The more clarity you can get on why you want to lose weight or weigh a certain number or wear certain clothes or whatever it is that you actually want and all the reasons why, you’re that much closer to actually getting it. It’s becoming real. 





If we just talk. If we just let our brains go on and on with I need to lose weight or I should lose weight or I should weigh less, I shouldn’t weigh more, then none of it gets done. It really doesn’t. It’s just not that compelling. 










I think what sort of sparked this for me is a message that came into my Facebook inbox. 





I believe it was about six weeks ago. It was probably me welcoming this woman into my free group, Food, Fitness, and Fat Loss for Real Life. It’s a free Facebook group for women. If you’re not already there, please join me there. I think probably how the conversation started was me welcoming her into the group and finding out what she wanted. You know, are you here more for weight loss or nutrition or fitness or time management? How can I serve you the best kind of conversation? 





She wrote, I need to lose 50 pounds because my husband is not attracted to me. 





Yesterday, out of nowhere, this came back into my mind. It got to me in the way that women sort of help each other and band together. It got me like, I want to drive to this person’s house and I want to punch the husband in the face. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be like, Yo, that’s so messed up. What the fuck is wrong with your husband? I don’t know if it was a husband, a wife, a spouse, a partner, Beyonce sidepiece lover. I don’t know what she said. I think she said husband. We can fill in the blank whoever this person is to us. But that was my first reaction.





I remember the message coming in and I remember I felt triggered by it. I pushed that trigger away. I was really talking to her more about the 50 pounds. You know, I put the other piece away because at the end of the day, how do we know that? How does she know that? Right? Did he say that? Is she guessing that she was thinner, lighter, or smaller before? Is the relationship not doing well? She’s looking for some way that she can engage her husband. 





I have a notebook full of topics for the podcast, thoughts and ideas. Many times I want to come back to strategy because I think the tips, the tactics, all of that stuff is what we’re always seeking.





    

  • Tell me how to lose weight, 
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  • The top 10 ways to make meal prep easier,
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  • The top 10 things I always buy at the grocery store, 
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  • The top 10 mistakes you might be making 
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  • The top 10 things I would do if I wanted to lose 20 pounds in the next 30 days. 
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It’s always, tell me how much sleep, what kind of supplements, all of that stuff. 





At the end of the day, there’s bigger fish to fry. Number one is getting really clear on your why.





I brought up the conversation about the woman who wanted to lose weight so that someone would be attracted to her, I’m not against that. 





I understand that’s a very basic desire, to want to feel;





    

  • Attractive. 
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  • Admired.
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  • Loved. 
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  • Cared for. 
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  • That we’re good enough.
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  • Worthy enough.
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  • Pretty enough. 
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But here’s the deal, us looking to other people to get that feeling of worthiness doesn’t last long. 










The idea of the revenge body.





One of the topics I had on my list, which sort of matches, is the idea of the revenge body. You’ve been done wrong, someone broke up with you, you want them back, or they left you. 





It’s sort of like;





    

  • I’ll show them. 
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  • I’ll get so pretty they can’t ignore me. 
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  • They’ll be sorry that they ended the relationship. 
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  • They’ll start begging to come back. 
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  • They’ll regret it.
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All of this, I’ll do better than them. 





I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using that level of energy, I kind of call that f*ck you energy. When we’re like, I’ll show them. If you know that somebody is talking badly about you, they’re talking sh*t about you, they’re trying to put you down and you’re like, well, I’ll show them. That energy only lasts for a little while because it is somewhat negative. It has you pushing really hard to do something.





In the end, they don’t really care. 





    

  • They’ve moved on, 
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  • They don’t care about you, 
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  • They’re not even noticing you. 
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  • They don’t see what you’re saying 
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  • Or doing 
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  • Or posting 
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  • Or your selfies 
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  • Or your before and after. 
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Along the way you want to find that greater source of energy, that power grid, if you will. 





    

  • That new identity, 
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  • The new place of habit, 
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  • The new motivation, 
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  • The new ways of being consistent, 
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and the ways that you can do that is to really get clear on why you want to lose weight. 





Because I don’t think it’s going to be a long-lasting process, if we’re not honest with ourselves. If we don’t really know all of the reasons why, what it is exactly we want and why we want it, we’re going to end up eating the Cheez-It’s at eight o’clock at night. Drinking that wine when we said we weren’t going to have it. Overeating at lunch while we’re mindlessly scrolling Instagram. 










We want to get really connected to our why.





That is where all of the energy and all of the power is within us. I understand, especially in the world of social media, photos, selfies, before and afters, transformations, filters and trying to look attractive. Believe you me, I know. I put off many years of doing photos. Of being in photos with my family, with my kids, taking pictures, doing videos. I’m still doing my podcast, audio only. I get it. I have my own hang ups too. But I want to put it out there to you that if you want to lose weight, do it for yourself. Figure out all reasons why. Feed yourself that energy that you’re worth it. 





You’re beautiful, you’re sexy. You have everything and anything that someone would want to be around and that starts right now. You’re not going to be prettier, more useful, more worthy, or more attractive 10-20 pounds from now. 





As a woman, I understand that if I saw a picture of a guy with a six pack and a picture of a guy with a beer belly. Then was asked, who are you more attracted to? Well, on the surface we’re all going to pick the six pack. But at the end of the day maybe the guy with the six pack kicks. Puppies. Maybe the guy with the beer belly is super fun, ambitious, successful and treats me right. That’s the difference of getting to know someone, having a relationship with someone, and having a good relationship with yourself. 





If I only chase the six pack, I’m probably going to be let down most times. 





If you are a woman who wants to lose weight or you feel like you have to lose weight in order to keep some attracted to or interested in you, I want to tell you that I understand. Also, you’re not wrong for wanting that. But I would definitely get in touch with wanting to lose weight for your own reasons.





If that person or that relationship was not a factor, would you still want to lose weight? What are all the reasons you want to lose weight? 





Is it because you want to feel more;





    

  • accomplished, 
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  • confident, 
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  • certain, 
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  • secure, 
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Whatever it is. 





I completely understand that you go through your life wanting to look a certain way. Then sometimes with relationships, it doesn’t really matter. The best relationship is the one that you can have with yourself. Where you can look at yourself in the mirror, be proud of yourself, and you have good things to say about yourself. Because that’s going to be the only constant in your life. 





As a mom, as a woman who has daughters, I’m constantly telling my kids how much I love them, how smart they are, how strong they are, how pretty they are, how kind they are and all of those things, because I just don’t want them to grow up trying to seek that approval from anyone else. I think that’s something that I was looking for, I needed attention. I needed to be told I was good enough or I was pretty or attractive. I think it really factored into decades of dieting and trying to look a certain way so that I could be or would be attractive enough, and yet here I am. 





For the woman or women out there who needed this message today, this is for you. For everybody else, write down all the reasons why. See what comes up. I want to just tell you, there’s no wrong reason at all, and go as specific as you can. Don’t let your brain be general. If you’re resisting doing this and want to work further on it. We have the Society Membership we have Self Made, obviously the Real Weight Loss Challenge, check the show notes and have a great week.










The Real Weight Loss Challenge





I want to make sure you know you’re invited to the upcoming 14 Day Real Weight Loss Challenge. We start August 14. We will be working together through the rest of August. Our private Facebook page will have a lot of incredible coaching topics that you’ll have access to, for a full 30 days after the 14 days.





If you’re like, Oh, Gosh, darn Bonnie, I would love to do this, but I’m on vacation. Hey, I got you. No worries. You can still be part of this. We have lots of added bonuses. So if you’re somebody who’s done the Real Weight Loss Challenge in the past, do come on back. 





When I say it’s the Real Weight Loss Challenge, what does that mean? I’m pulling back the curtain giving all the real strategies. All the things that I use personally, and I helped my clients with inside of Self Made and the Society on how to lose weight and keep it off. This is not manifest your weight loss, attracting weight loss. Just talk philosophically about weight loss. This is the how do I lose weight? Let’s make it just to the point. Get all of the goods. Come join me there. 










ABOUT THE HOST





Bonnie Lefrak is a Life & Body Transformation Expert and Founder of Self Made, a program designed to help you tackle the physical aspects of health and weight loss as well as the beliefs and thoughts that drive our habits and behaviors. It is her goal to help women create certainty in their own lives, their own results, and their own abilities.





Weight loss is not about the one “right” diet – it is about MUCH more than that. Weight loss is not about the one “right” workout. Weight loss is not about being positive and putting a big smile on.





Weight loss is about FEELINGS. All of them. Not trying to bury them or hide from them but knowing and allowing the full human experience. Weight loss is not about grinding hustling and will powering your way to some end line. Transformation (when done well) is done from the inside out.





By addressing both the physical and mental aspects of dieting and weight loss, she has coached thousands of women ages 30-55+ from all over and helped them ditch the mindsets that are holding them back, achieve permanent weight loss, and get the bangin’ body of their dreams.





Bonnie is an expert at Demystifying weight loss. She helps you u****k your diet brain. She is on a mission to help women love themselves, to find PEACE in the process of losing weight, taking care of themselves, and leveraging the power they do have to become who and want they want right now.





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