Read This Before You Try To Lose Weight

My interview with Sarah Jenks

Fall is finally here and I just can’t wait to pull out my sweaters and leather boots.  What I love most about Fall is that it feels like the real start of the year, and a great time to make some resolutions.  Resolutions.  Just mentioning the word gives me a little anxiety.  Feelings of pressure to lose weight, guilt over what we’ve eaten or how we’ve let ourselves go over the summer can seriously raise our blood pressure.

But if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that making changes this fall, whether with our bodies, careers, lifestyle or relationships doesn’t have to be so stressful.

The last thing I want for you to is to get caught up in some insane diet that’s going to send you to crazy-town with no lasting results (maybe like last year?).  If it’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that depriving and restricting ourselves to have the “perfect” body is no fun at all, and rarely works.  Even when we want to be thin so badly, and we convince ourselves that suffering for just 4 weeks will be completely worth it, we last 3 days and then find ourselves halfway through a box of cookies, feeling embarrassed and like a total failure.

So instead of letting you make the same mistake you’ve made year after year, I wanted to bring in some back up  to set you on a completely new path.  One that’s fun, sane and actually works.

You may know my girlfriend Sarah Jenks, but if you don’t, she’s a badass when it comes to helping women create a life they love and a body they adore.  Her approach is completely counterintuitive and probably not something you’ve tried before so I wanted to do an interview with her so you can get in on the awesomeness.

Q: Sarah, I’m so excited to jam with you about this tricky topic of “weight loss”.  Diving right in, can you tell us a little about yourself and how your approach to weight loss is different?

A: I’m so excited to share this info with your ladies! Thanks so much for the opportunity.  I work with women who’ve been struggling with their weight for years (and find that traditional diets don’t work for them) finally shed the extra weight by creating a fun, meaningful and romantic life.  I find that most women have been taught that if they can “buckle down” and muster up enough willpower that they can lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time.  And though it’s hard to admit, a lot of us think that losing 20 or 30 pounds is what’s going finally make us feel beautiful, carefree and happy.  We think that weighing less will make our lives better, I call this the “Weigh Less, Live More” mentality.

But so many of us use food to feel entertained, comfortable and loved.  So when we’re waiting for our lives to begin when we’re thin, our lives aren’t super interesting, and we eat to cope with boredom, challenges, anxiety and loneliness.

So I teach my clients how to create a fun, meaningful and romantic life NOW, not 20 pounds from now.  Not only do these women start having a blast and are finally seeing the goals they’ve had for years (like new businesses and meeting their soul mate) come true, but they no longer need food to keep them entertained.  As a result, they naturally shed those extra pounds without counting calories or stepping foot on a treadmill.  I call this the Live More, Weigh Less philosophy 

Q: How did you get started as a coach?

A: When I was about 10 years old, the kids at school made fun of me for being fat, so I went to Weight Watchers to lose weight.  Starting then I had this idea that losing weight would be the magic pill for happiness.  So I was on and off diets almost every other week, but I could never stick to anything because I had no “willpower”.

By the time I was in my early 20’s my life felt like it was falling apart.  I was in a job I hated, I could barely make rent every month, I was picking fights with my boyfriend, was embarrassed to be naked in front of him and spent most days medicating my misery with food and alcohol.  I was starting to lose friends and came really close to being dumped by the man of my dreams.

One day, on the third day of my seven day juice cleanse I ate a whole bag of Dove Chocolate Promises while hiding in the supply closet at work.  That’s when I realized that if the whole diet thing was gonna work, it would’ve happened by now.  So I started looking for a new approach.

Very quickly I realized that I thought my life was terrible because I was fat, but the truth was that my life sucked because I was putting in no effort, and the misery was causing my nightly binges.  So I started consciously having more fun, working on my relationship and shifting things at work.  Pretty quickly my life did a 180.  My man proposed, I got promoted at work, I made tons of new friends and enrolled in nutrition school.  And the thirty extra pounds I was carrying around melted away.  It was awesome.

I was so floored by this new way of doing things that I’ve created a movement around helping women understand and use this new approach to weight loss called Live More Weigh Less

Q: What’s the first step someone should take to start living more and weighing less?

A: First of all, it’s really important to have a plan or a roadmap for how to do this right.  When we’ve spent our whole lives doing things one way, it’s easy to get caught up in the diet cycle and lose our way again.  I’ve actually made a really cool video training that’s totally free that your ladies can check out.  They can get instant access here.  In the first video I lay a very simple but important step-by-step roadmap to creating an amazing life and body you adore.

The next thing you need to do is just have as much fun as possible, I can’t stress the importance of this enough.  Dance wildly in your kitchen, call up a girlfriend and go for a walk, get a back massage, watch a funny movie, take off on an impromptu road trip, paint, sing and skip.  When you’re having a blast, I guarantee you’ll stop overeating.

The third thing I’d recommend is finding a group of women who are on the same path.  We’ve got so many incredible women participating in the video training, it’s a great place to connect with people, get inspiration and support.

Q: What do you say to someone who is dying to lose weight fast to just get it over with?

A: This is a toughy because I know how real that desire to be thin can feel, but the way I see it, you have a choice.  You can spend your life trying to accomplish this goal of being thin by restricting and depriving yourself of food, which almost always results in more anxiety and depression than you’re already feeling, with little to no results at the end.  Or you can put down your obsession, and start focusing your energy on what really matters like having fun, shifting things at work and working on your relationship.  You’ll quickly see that life can be amazing, even if you don’t look like a swimsuit model.  Plus, you’ll naturally move to your ideal weight.  And what’s awesome is that maintaining it is super easy because you’re not on some crazy diet.

I know I’d rather spend the next few months going on adventures and having as much fun as possible, you? I’ve had the opportunity to get a sneak peek into Sarah’s training she mentioned and it’s awesome.  It’s totally free for you, so I would really encourage you to check it out.  You never know, this could be the thing that changes everything for you.