Weight Loss Failure and Hope Fatigue

Let’s talk about weight loss failure and the concept of Hope Fatigue.

Are you tired of trying to lose weight?

Maybe even exhausted?

A Victim of Weight Loss Hope…

You may be entrenched in Weight Loss Failure and Hope Fatigue.

Hope fatigue is a dark, lonely and energy draining place. Sadly, it’s where most, who try to lose weight, end up.

In this episode I share how our society has set you up for both weight loss failure as well as health decline.

Your doctor, dietician, fitness trainer, among others have given you advice ranging from completely vague to flat out wrong.

Let’s get you back on your feet and out of Hope Fatigue hell… forever.

Watch: Weight Loss False Hope

Too Much Hope & Not Enough Certainty

Hope Fatigue is the place of defeat we can end up in when we have tried, really tried, everything. And every attempt has ended up in failure.

We develop hopelessness because hope has proven to only lead to hurt….and exhaustion.

Fatigue is what happens. That place of repeated defeat can accumulate into an identify. It can become a part of who we are.

We may even, unconsciously, make it a truth statement for ourself. “I am a failure.” “I am defeated.”

In that statement, it’s the ‘am’ that is the word of power. And our psyche registers with our identity thoughts or words and we can end up defining ourselves as ‘defeated’. And we exist in an energy of defeat and hopelessness. I have heard many a client, at one time even my daughter, express this place of defeat and hopelessness with the phrase, “Why bother.” “It never works out for me anyway.” Resignation is paralyzing.

Does Fatigue Stem From Hope or FALSE Hope?

Faith can be our energy choice, right? We want to navigate life in a higher energy but because of repeated failure we find we’re way down in low frequency energy. Faith is shaken when repeated action generates no positive outcome or forward progress.

Hope Fatigue Develops Out Of False Hope

So what is false hope?

False hope is belief that a desired outcome should be certain based on directives, advice or information. But those directives are misleading, vague, or half-truths.

The False Hope Of More Fruits, Vegetables and Whole Grains

For example, when you are told to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to lose weight. And you do exactly that but the weight doesn’t shed. That’s false hope.

False hope is following the directives of our doctors, but those directives don’t have us achieving the anticipated outcome. Following the directives of fitness professionals and celebrity coaches. Following the advice of our exercise specialists and our group fitness instructors, but our body composition isn’t changing.

False Hope From Friends and Family

Then there are the examples of well-wishers who engage in offering you false hope usually, and oftentimes unknowingly, as a deflect or brush-off mechanism.

They have nothing to offer in the way of a solution for you so they may unwittingly buffer their lack of contribution or inability to help with a false hope comment.

Maybe you’ve endured family and friends who seem to care but say things like, “I hope your diabetes doesn’t get any worse.”

Diabetes type two only gets worse unless you take action. Right?

“I sure hope you don’t end up like your mom. You know, with Alzheimer’s.” That’s false hope.

“I sure hope the blood vessel blockage your doctor found doesn’t get bigger. Just watch what you eat!” “Let’s hope that tomorrow your chronic pain is a little better.” “I sure hope the insulin your doctor prescribed makes your diabetes go away.” “I sure hope that new exercise program is going to help you lose the weight you’ve been struggling with.”

With all the hope we invest in and all the hope handed to us by others, we start to develop what can feel like a curse.

A Curse Of Failure

Repeated failure inevitably lands you in that place of defeat.

This is where Shift Formula was conceived. It grew from a place of overwhelm, exhaustion, failure, and frustration which fortunately morphed into a healthy measure of anger.

Healthy anger?

Yea. Anger was exactly the energy that was needed to fuel a 5 year quest of self-experimentation, trial-and-error to unravel all the damn nutritional and healthy eating directives.

All of the ‘healthy eating’ that was actually contributing to hope fatigue and health failure.

Anger, directed into constructive pursuits, is critical to fortifying the necessary determination, tenacity, and endurance to do the hard thing. To apply every directive. To erase personal bias. To walk away from familiar. To work through conflict and to realize that you were wrong.

That you, too, had been a False Hope prophet.

False Hope Prophet

We experienced both sides. The giver of False Hope and the receiver of False Hope.

We know first hand what it feels like to be utterly defeated. Desperate. We felt it through our daughter’s struggle.

Weight gain despite exercise. Health decline despite organic, nutrient-dense eating. Emotional downward spiral despite family and friends cheering her on.

Health Club False Hope

Here’s an example of false hope that’s running deep in just about every health club and gym today.

Imagine you’re in the middle of an exercise class where everyone joins in a collective energy cry, “Yes!”

Victory, endorphin- pumped enthusiasm of community and triumph!

Personally, I love being in that place. The community, the camaraderie, the energy of team work is powerful great stuff.

But every participant walks out of the fitness room still carrying the damn spare tire they believe should be whittling down from their kick-butt workout. But it’s not budging.

The instructor announces to cheers that, “The class burned 2200 calories!” But each exerciser may be thinking, “Why am I not losing the weight?”

“If I’m putting in the time and putting in the effort and putting in the money and burning all those calories, why am I still overweight?”

False Hope. We are led to believe that exercise will do it. Exercise will do the ‘losing weight’ thing.

WHAT TO DO WHEN DIET AND EXERCISE AREN’T WORKING

Check Your False Hope At The Door

I tell my participants who come to my group fitness classes, “Check your false hope at the door.” Don’t be thinking that you’re gonna come into my workout and you’re gonna burn your belly fat unless you know a thing or two about……insulin.

You, me, she, he, they, us, we cannot lose belly fat if insulin is overly present.

When you were a young buck, 22 yrs. old, exercise and some dieting worked for you because you had less insulin circulating when you were younger.

Insulin Know How Is Your Defense Against Weight Loss Failure

Yes, for those of us 45 and older, for whom middle age spread is going on, insulin know-how is key.

Only if your insulin is in check, will your workout be fueled on your body fat. If your insulin is elevated, your workout will be all sugar and protein burning. I think we all want to be fat burning…am I right?

It All Comes Down To The Hormone Your Body Releases Naturally, All Day Long… Insulin.

When insulin is released in elevated amounts and is overly present you cannot utilize body fat. Only when insulin is minimized is your body fat mobilized.

Insulin is also a key player in cancer and Alzheimer’s, in neuropathy and heart disease. And of course, diabetes.

Diabetes is related to all of those conditions because health decline is all about blood sugar (which is glucose), and your fat storage-growth hormone, insulin.

Insulin Is The Key To Unlocking Your Ability To Step Out Of False Hope Forever

Because once you understand how this all works, you may say, “Shi#t”. Yeah. But don’t forget the F. ShiFt.

That’s what I hope for you. That you get so angry at the false hope and the decision fatigue and the rule-following and the repeated weight loss failure that you’ve been enduring for all these years, that you are compelled to take action.

It’s Time To Get Your SHIFT Together

SHIFT is RIGHT action.

Right action means your efforts align with principles that control predictable outcome. No one SHIFTS and doesn’t get predictable outcome. It’s just science.

All that’s required is that you roll up your sleeves, learn a thing or two, and then follow the clear, step-by-step formula.

I guarantee you that within hours cravings disappear. Within days, pain quiets and waistline starts to shrink.

And you’ll experience one of my favorite aspects of SHIFTing: forgetting. Forgetting to eat.

You’ll have that moment when you think to yourself, “I forgot to eat lunch.” Doesn’t that sound like a pleasant way to spend your day instead of being irritated and annoyed by those incessant thoughts of food, deciding on food, planning food, being controlled and entertained by food?

While knowing deep down that it’s the food that’s deteriorating your health and diminishing your emotional well-being?

Decision Fatigue. Weight Loss Failure. False Hope. No more.

I always say, “Diabetes is the messenger of the 21st century.” That’s how I see it.

Whether we have diabetes or not, we are all controlled by the same mechanisms of blood sugar and insulin.

I don’t have diabetes but my life has been drastically improved because I know diabetes. If we’re just willing to pause long enough and take a look at the science and understand this glucose-insulin-health connection, we realize that we can be on top of it. On top of our fate. On top of our weight. On top of our cravings. On top of how we want our life to go.

We can go the slow, steady vitality-decline course. Shuffling our neuropathy-riddled feet, burdened by our waistline, brain function decline, worried about heart disease and cancer, as our mind chatter dukes it out in an attempt to silence the voices of doubt, the ever present shadow of “Am I missing something?”

Waiting for the other shoe to drop is no way to live.

Check False Hope at the door.

And if someone offers you their ‘false hope’ you can tell them with certainty and confidence, “No thanks. I’ve got my SHIFT together.”

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