How to Lose Weight When You Are Beyond Busy Workshop
Are you crazy busy but still want to lose weight? If you are one busy lady, then this is the training series for you! Marna will be giving you priorities, checklists, and easy planning tools to help you prioritize the tools here at ThinWithin Life so you can lose weight while managing the beyond busy demands of your schedule.
BONUS: The Busy Women’s Toolkit to Navigating a ThinWithin Life –Every week during this workshop Marna will recommend an additional quick tool/ tip to help busy people focus their energy quickly to be more successful.
Session #1:
How Reactionary Thinking Affects Your Weight
Notes for Session #1
Reactionary Thinking can devastate your goal to release weight. It happens when you feel overwhelmed, especially when you are super busy. You just react.
When you just grab food because you’re in a hurry and it’s there or it looks good that is Reactionary Eating. You may or may not be hungry but you don’t have the bandwidth to care. The importance of the quality of the food and how it will land in your body are irrelevant. You just act. You just eat. No thought to the consequences.
It’s when you just want meals easy, want food now, want “whatever.” These reactive choices over time show up in your weight.
Some triggers for Reactionary Thinking and Reactionary Eating:
- Being overly busy or overcommitted
- Not getting enough sleep
- Going through peri-menopause or menopause
- Having young kids that keep you up at night
- Taking care of your parents in addition to everything else
These stressors can really impact your quality of life, which then leads you to reactionary living.
To combat the reactive lifestyle we must purposely engage the prefrontal cortex and program it into our daily processes.
In order to get in front of reactionary thinking, living, and eating we need to use more proactive planning. Just a few minutes a day will make a difference!
In the mornings the prefrontal cortex which is “responsible for higher-level cognitive functioning” is stronger.
As close as possible to waking up and before you are in “go mode,” connect quickly to YOUR VISION TO RELEASE WEIGHT and create a quick and doable outcome plan for the day.
To prepare, print out a ton of this short Morning Writing Ritual or write out the steps on your phone/computer. Get your cerebral cortex engaged to help you create your day by working through this process as many days as you can so you can go from reactionary thinking to intentional weight loss.
If you don’t have a clear intention mentioned before of how your life will be when you lose weight, this Crafting Your Thin Vision document will help you hone in on it. Your dream for the future is the cornerstone of your ThinWithin Life. However, if you are too busy this month, just focus on the Morning Writing Ritual.
We will come back to Visions in another workshop.
If you’re having a hard time thinking of doable next best steps for your Morning Writing Ritual, here is a list to inspire you:
Habits that will make shedding weight inevitable
- Eating when hungry
- Make a grocery list and/or go grocery shopping for healthy and delicious foods
- Stopping when satisfied
- Doing a Good, Better, Best Item
- Doing something off of your love list
- Working on some reasonable level of movement
- Writing down what you are going to make for dinner – anything to thaw out or pick up at the grocery
- Try out a few food swaps
- Bring more mindfulness and awareness to your meal experience
- Kitchen closed at 8 pm. After, enjoy some water, tea, or lemon water and keep your hands busy if necessary
- Make a healthier version of a recipe or dessert you like to try out
- Drink half your body weight in water
- Include anti-inflammatory spices like cinnamon, turmeric, lemon, celery juice, apple cider vinegar, or garlic in your meals
- Try out a new anti-inflammatory supplement like propolis, turmeric, apple cider vinegar
- Include a protein, fat, and fiber at each meal today
- Plan dinner that I could also easily transform into a different dinner tomorrow (Salad bar into stir fry with many leftover cut veggies)
Action Plan for Session 1:
NOVICE LEVEL – At least 3 days this week complete the Morning Writing Ritual worksheet the closest to you can to to waking up but before you jump into your day if possible or the last thing at night and read it again in the morning. Your prefrontal cortex is stronger in the morning so that’s when you’ll want to activate it.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL- Do the novice level assignment from above 4-5 days a week. If you haven’t worked through your image for losing weight, complete this Crafting Your Thin Vision worksheet
ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignment above 6-7 days this week. Be sure to do the EVENING RECAP on the back of the Morning Writing Ritual worksheet. Also, check into your accountability group or post on our private Inner Circle Facebook what you are doing this week.
Session #2:
Track Your Intuitive Eating Behaviors
Notes for Session #2
Today I want to give you busy people my go-to tool for when I start to feel off with food or gain a few pounds: the Living ThinWithin.com Tracking Form™.
Anytime I get off base with my intuitive eating, I print out one of these trackers and use it for a couple of weeks. At the top of the sheet, you will see habits that will help you to maintain a healthy weight.
- What time of day and how many times am I eating each day? Are there at least 3 hours in between? If not I need to look at what I am eating so it lasts longer in my stomach.
- Did I sit down to enjoy my food?
- Did I remove distractions so I could concentrate on my meal?
- Did I put my fork/ spoon down in between bites to be more present?
- Did I remain non-judgmental about myself and what I was eating?
- What was my beginning hunger level?
- 1 – might have waited too long
- 2 – really hungry
- 3 – hungry
- 4 – small snack hungry
- 5 – neutral/ not hungry
- 6 – a tiny bit full
- 7 – full and feel uncomfortable
- 8 – very uncomfortable
- 9 – stuffed
- 10 – super painful stuffed
- What was my ending hunger level?
- Did I eat about my fist-size of food? If the food is watery like a green salad the size is generally your two hands cupped together.
- If I ate outside of hunger, what was the emotion or the need I didn’t fullfull with food?
Monitoring my behaviors, not my calories or carbs, helps me get back on track to eating like a naturally thin person does.
Be curious, not critical about your choices!
Many people are triggered by the idea of tracking because diets can use it as a way to control. At ThinWithin Life, tracking is only a way to get intel on habits so you can make decisions based on the truth, on what is really happening when you approach food. It is a short-term tool used to see where you are at. Then you can decide what areas to work on in more depth and celebrate the wins you have already made toward creating that smaller body you desire.
Action Plan for Session 2:
NOVICE LEVEL – Continue with Week 1’s Morning Writing Ritual worksheet if it worked well for you to engage with the prefrontal cortex each morning. If you want to try something new or add to the morning writing, complete the Living ThinWithin.com Tracking Form™ for at least 1- 3 days this week. Choose which column you would like to focus on and black the other ones out if they trigger you. This is just for gathering data about your intuitive, ThinWithin behaviors.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL- Do the novice level assignment from above 4-5 days a week.
ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the assignment above 6-7 days this week. Check into your accountability group or post on our private Inner Circle Facebook what you are working on this week.
Session #3:
Making Grocery Options, Planning and Cooking Easy When You Are Busy
Notes for Session #3
You have to believe you can lose weight and it can be easy. It can be doable.
Stop fighting with yourself and start creating easy, doable ways to make your weight loss a reality.
If you still find yourself not taking action, it’s time to check in with yourself. When I am not following through with my word, even when I am busy, I prioritize situation by having a heart-to-heart with myself and asking what is going on.
SOME HEART-TO-HEART QUESTIONS:
- Where are you at girl? You said you are going to do this.
- Why am I unwilling to do this?
- What is it that I really want?
- What am I open and willing to do this week to make it happen that is VERY easy and doable?
Make it easy to cut back the resistance by finding tools that make your day-to-day eating support your health goals…especially when you are super busy
Action Plan for Session 3:
NOVICE LEVEL – Continue any work that has helped you during this workshop:
- Week 1 – Morning Writing Ritual worksheet if it worked well for you to engage with the prefrontal cortex each morning.
- Week 2 – Use the Living ThinWithin.com Tracking Form™ to observe and gather data about your intuitive, ThinWithin behaviors.
INTERMEDIATE LEVEL- If you are ready to add on or do something completely new, make an emergency grocery list for when you’re super busy. Create it and leave it in a spot you’ll easily find even when overwhelmed. Consider ordering the groceries online and picking them up curbside or getting them delivered. Look at this worksheet to give you some ideas: Grocery List For When You are Busy.
ADVANCED LEVEL – Do the novice level assignment from above. Figure out at least one more go-to-action or new habit you could develop and practice to help you when your life becomes too hectic. Remember to check into your accountability group or post on our private Inner Circle Facebook what you are working on this week.
Session #4:
Resistance That Rears Its Head When You Are Busy
Notes for Session #4
Resistance is a normal process that occurs inside of all of us. It’s a human experience and most of know it well in one capacity or another.
As much as researchers can tell, resistance or avoiding something we want to do, lights up on the right side of the prefrontal region of the brain behind the forehead.
One Belief You Can Take On…
One belief that can be helpful to assist your brain in moving through not “FEELING” like you want to do something is –
“I believe that I can honor my body no matter how I feel.”
OR
“Do I believe that I can honor my body no matter how I feel?”
Other Ways of Addressing Your Resistance to Take Action Includes…
- Allow your feelings of resistance to come in your body and leave.
- Pretend you are engaging in eating and then just DO what you would do after you would eat.
- Focus on the outcome vs. the process.
- Use the WITHIN Formula™ to support you.