Why Weight Loss Feels Impossible

Proverbs 1:7, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Chronic dieting teaches your body: Food is scarce. Energy must be conserved.

It responds by:

• Lowering metabolism
• Increasing cravings
• Holding fat

Add emotional stress:

• Carrying everyone else’s needs
• Watching the news
• Feeling responsible for everything
• Never truly resting

Jeremiah 29:13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Lord, Thank You for new mercies each day. Thank You for this beautiful body that has protected me even when I misunderstood and mistreated her. I want to live and heal for you Lord, I ache to give You this journey. Help me Father, reveal to me the strongholds in my life. Replace my frustration with wisdom and shame with compassion and grace. I am tired Lord, I know You know best, show me what I need today. Teach me how to heal with You instead of fight. I love You Jesus, thank You for Your sacrifice. Amen.

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and NOT losing weight?

Hey there friend, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late twenties and struggled for years to get it off. Seven years ago, I found a basic system that worked and has helped me lose 90 of those pounds. I’ve been working with women in online fitness and nutrition ever since to break chains of diet culture, embrace their bodies and fueling instead of dieting.

In this podcast, I'll teach you how to:

• • Lose Weight in a Way that honors God without obsessing about the scale
  • Meal Plan and Prep for Your Family
  • Follow a MACRO based plan that allows you to eat the foods you love.
  • Recognize and pray through triggers keeping you stuck.
  • I’ll help you Plan your week and schedule your self-care time.
  • Cultivate a spirit of self-discipline in your workouts you actually enjoy.
  
  It's time to give God your health journey and watch Him make you new, from the inside, OUT.

Join The Biblical Weight Loss Framework: https://www.herweightlossmindset.com/framework

Join my FREE Community: https://bit.ly/JoinTheChristianWeightLossCommunity

Join my Insiders List with weekly tips for weight loss for Christian women: http://herweightlossmindset.com/herweightlossmindsetinsiders

Transcript

Weight Loss Reality

Hey, fam, thanks for showing up today. So I'm in the middle of this right now, and I thought if I am struggling with this, someone else probably feels it too.

So if weight loss has ever felt harder for you than it should, I want you to know something right now. You're not imagining it, you're not failing.

There are reasons, like real, tangible, biological, emotional, and spiritual reasons for this, and you're not alone. So let's talk about why and let's talk about how to change it. Hold tight.

Are you sick of trying diet after diet and not losing weight? Are you tired of doubting your ability to actually lose weight in a healthy way? Do you wish you could find a laid out for you plan that will help you stay accountable to your goals?

Hey, friends, I'm Lindy Schlabach, Christian Fitness & Nutrition Coach. I gained 100 pounds in my late 20s and struggled for years to get it off. So grab your pre-workout and let's chat.

I want to invite you to the Biblical Weight Loss Framework and take a Holy Spirit led approach to weight loss God's way.

This is not going to be easy, but this is a 90 day deep dive into triggers, traumas, restoring your faith in yourself, giving you an applicable plan that you can take every day and apply it to your life. This is not a diet plan.

This is not a weight loss plan. This is a heal your mind so you can heal your body and walk in your God given purpose plan. This is so much more about weight loss.

This is about stewarding our choice as well. This is about letting God lead. This is about discernment.

This is about healing. So if you are sick and tired of yo-yo diets, if you're sick and tired of not seeing results, go to the show notes or herweightlossmindset.com/framework. That's herweightlossmindset.com/framework.

Godʼs Wisdom

So Proverbs chapter 1 verse 7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

So when we sit, like really sit in the revelation that God is the supreme creator of the universe, the beginning and the end and everything between, we begin to see that fearing Him is the beginning of knowledge.

And when we accept Jesus as our Savior, we listen to Him as our Lord. And He wants to lead and guide us in this hard season of weight gain and weight loss, failed resolutions, and a world that is just really hard to be in sometimes.

When we start to fear the Lord and realize that He's the beginning of knowledge, we can lean into Him. And He gives us the wisdom and instruction that we need to persevere. So when we think about Proverbs, we think of Solomon.

Like we read in the Word that he was the wisest man who had ever or would ever live. Solomon wrote three books in the Bible, and no one ever in the world, God says, has ever had more wealth or riches than he did.

God chose Solomon to be king, the greatest, wisest, richest king ever. And Solomon still in the end chose his drove of wives and their pagan gods, which is what eventually led to his demise. But God still includes his story in scripture.

And I pray that this brings you great comfort today, because this is a reminder that God isn't interested in our perfection. He is only interested in us leaning into his. And this verse is an invitation.

It's an invitation to his promise, to his goodness and his provision. Knowledge, applied knowledge, knowledge isn't power, remember. Applied knowledge is power.

Knowledge brings compassion, while ignorance breeds shame. It breeds diet cycles. And when you really think about your feelings, like our feelings rarely align with the truth of God's word.

So when weight loss feels impossible, that doesn't mean that it is. It really only means that we need to stop trying to control it and understand it and strive for it.

It means we need to surrender to the only one who can actually truly lead us to a life of healing that's beyond the scale. Weight loss feels impossible for a reason because you're focusing on weight loss instead of listening to the Holy Spirit.

Stress and Resistance

So one major theme that I see, I've worked with women in online fitness and nutrition for nine years. And the one reoccurring theme that I see is that your body literally resists weight loss when you're stressed.

Like your body adapts to stress by going into protection mode. Like she shuts down and chronic dieting teaches your body that food is scarce. The energy must be conserved and so she holds on to fat.

She responds by lowering metabolism. She responds by increased cravings. She wants you to crave things so that you'll actually feed yourself.

It just honestly like when we crave, when cortisol is increased, we crave garbage. And then you add emotional stress to that, hearing everyone else's needs, watching the news, feeling responsible for everything. You're not truly resting.

Like our bodies are so under fueled, under nourished, under rested, under fed and overwhelmed with stress. Like she's doing her job. She's protecting you.

And that can look like resistance and weight loss, but it isn't rebellion. And it isn't the way God wants us to live. Our body is protecting us from ourselves.

We have to find a way to release that cortisol, that stress hormone that is keeping our bodies stuck.

If you think about when we read in Genesis that God created the world in six days and then he rested, he designed us, he designed our bodies perfectly. He designed us to survive, not to suffer.

When your body is resisting, releasing the weight, that's feedback. So instead of asking, like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I lose this weight?

Ask yourself, what is my body dealing with? What is my body responding to? And then wisdom, godly biblical wisdom is gonna listen to her before we demand change.

Wisdom seeks the Holy Spirit and asks God to search our hearts and test those anxious thoughts, to see what offensive ways are innocent to lead us in His way, the everlasting way. Remember that Psalm 139, 23 and 24 verse. Does this sound familiar?

Like I preach it to you constantly. It should. We carry shame for things that are the results of unresolved trauma or hardship.

And many of us deal with things that we've pushed so far down we don't even remember them. It was years, a decade and a half after my sexual assault that until I really started to sit with the Holy Spirit that He reminded me of that.

I was 19 when I was raped. It wasn't until I was in my mid-30s that those sights and senses started to come back. I held on to almost two decades of trauma and my body took the hit.

I gained 100 pounds, riddled with anxiety and depression. Riddled. That's why the verse I mentioned is key to healing us from the inside out.

That's why I created the Biblical Weight Loss Framework.

Surrender to Heal

Survival strategies is not sin, but God's way is better. And healing doesn't begin with forcing our body to lose weight or over-exercise or under-eat. It begins with understanding.

Understanding which comes through prayer, discernment, and spending time in the Bible every morning. You wake up and pray and read God's Word before you ever touch your phone, get on social media, or check your email. It has to come first.

Start journaling. Journaling has helped me to focus on gratitude. I hope you're still writing in your journal every day.

Three things every day that you're grateful for, and three things that you want to do that day to work towards your goal. If you keep trying diet after diet, you're going to continue to fail.

If you keep striving instead of surrendering to the Holy Spirit, you're going to continue to stay stuck.

If you keep speaking harshly or thinking harshly about yourself or your body, you're going to listen to that, your body is going to feel that, and you are going to continue to struggle. Sometimes we need to seek counseling from a professional.

Maybe you need the Biblical Weight Loss Framework. Maybe you need to put your phone down and stop worrying about the world and watching the news. Maybe you need to stop saving recipes that you're never going to make and workouts that you never do.

Stop listening to what's working for your friends and listen to the Lord. He will guide you, but you have to let go of old habits and thoughts and take responsibility for making new choices.

Jeremiah 29 13 says, You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Holy Father, thank you for new mercies each day. Thank you for this beautiful body that has protected me even when I misunderstood her and mistreated her.

I want to live and heal for you, Lord. I ache to give you this part of my journey. Help me, Father.

Reveal to me the strongholds in my life. Replace my frustration with wisdom and shame and compassion and grace. I'm tired, Lord.

I know you know best. Please show me what it is that I actually need today. Teach me how to heal with you instead of fight or flight.

I love you, Jesus. Thank you for your sacrifice on the cross with me. That's in your holy name, I pray.

Amen. Hey sis, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If so, would you take 30 seconds and share it with a friend?

Also, please leave a quick review for the show on Apple Podcasts. It lights me up to know this podcast is helping you. Okay, it's time to go make a protein shake and get my sweat on.

No more standing in the kitchen waiting for motivation to appear. I will meet you back here for another episode. God bless.