Episode 278: Your Dream Body IS Possible with Laura Conley
If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution. If you're hating your body, starving it, or overfeeding it, chances are you're hindering your impact on this planet. Because when we don't feel good, we don't want to show up.
Your health is your number one business asset. How you view your body, walk around inside your body, and use your body daily furthers your mission. Today’s guest, Laura Conley, is the founder of the Yummy Mummy Method, which has successfully helped hundreds of women lose weight for the last time. Her clients have lovingly labeled her the fun weight loss coach.
She does this through her unique and proven method, which helps her clients balance their hunger hormones, rewire their brains, feel their emotions, provide loving accountability, and become their own best friends. Yes, your dream health and body are possible.
This episode will make you feel good about your life and probably help you on your journey to becoming the most successful entrepreneur you can be.
Road to your dream body
Laura was stuck in corporate as a drug rep. She admits it was a cushy job: she had the company car, a fun lifestyle, and made a lot of money, but it wasn't fulfilling.
"There might not be such a thing as your passion just dropping in your lap," says Laura. "But when I started to feel the lack of fulfillment, I started to follow just my curiosity."
That curiosity led her to teach yoga. She and her husband developed an exit strategy, and a week later, her corporate boss sat her down. The company was going to be laying off 50% of its workforce. She would be spared, but she didn't want to be. She took a voluntary severance package.
Laura eventually became a life coach and niched down to become a weight-loss coach, body-love coach, and food freedom coach because she didn't want to pass down her diet drama to her daughter.
"When I was six weeks postpartum, and I got out of the shower," says Laura. "She's like cooing up at me, smiling, being so cute, and fat, and chubby and perfect. And I'm beating myself up for not bouncing back into my pre-baby jeans' fast enough,'"
Laura knew it had to stop there.
"I kind of still can't believe that I've actually healed it because I really thought it was my thing. I had accepted defeat prior to that."
Healing hunger hormones
When Laura decided she was going to heal, she started to study. Prior to this, she had studied every diet and workout. Then, she started using the coaching tools and psychology principles she was using to help change her clients' lives to help them lose weight.
Hormones were a major piece of the puzzle. Laura always thought she needed to be on a calorie deficit to lose weight – she didn't like it, and it was unsustainable.
"I wanted to heal my relationship with my body. I really wanted to love my body and love the way that my body looked," says Laura. "And I also wanted to weigh what I wanted to weigh from a healthy place. I wanted it all. And my hunger hormones were a huge missing piece."
Your hunger hormones are insulin, leptin, and ghrelin. About 94% of Americans have an imbalance in hunger hormones. Once you balance those hormones, your cravings go away. It's like a natural Ozempic.
"Nobody is teaching us this because the big pharma can't make money off of teaching us how to heal our hunger hormones," says Laura.
The other piece was to stop using food for what it's not for. Laura says she was using food for boredom relief, stress relief, pleasure, and comfort. She points to grabbing a handful of nuts when she is bored or some dark chocolate at 9 p.m. It was the little things here and there.
Read more: How to Love Your Body
Let go of diet brain
We have to really rewire your brain through neuroplasticity, says Laura. She likens it to wanting to be a person who makes their bed in the morning. For a couple of weeks, she had to be really intentional and conscious until it became automated. The same is true for food and food choices when you're on the journey to your dream body. It takes self-trust and learning you can follow through on your word and stop with the all-or-nothing thinking.
"I really just enjoy being with myself all day, every day. And that byproduct, that result is because of my weight-loss journey, my healing my relationship with my body journey, and my healing my relationship with my food journey," says Laura.
She has some clients who use Ozempic or similar, but doing the root work to heal has many unexpected benefits. If people are using food for comfort, that habit might transfer to something else if they don't do the internal work.
It comes down to why you want to weigh what you want to weigh.
Laura says many people think that if they want to lose weight or change their relationship with themselves, their body, or food, they're bad or wrong for wanting that. You can approach that change from abundance.
"Just because you want to change your body doesn't mean you don't love it," says Laura. "The ironic thing is, the extra weight that was on my body was coming from me not loving myself, coming from me not knowing how to take care of myself at 9 p.m. when I did feel empty and I wanted to replenish, or I did feel stressed."
The question becomes how to give yourself a true pleasure versus a false pleasure. Laura likens it to a check engine light. Ask yourself, what is going on? Do you need to be replenished? For many people, food is a false pleasure because it's a net negative that leaves us hung over.
So you do get a giant dopamine hit when you have the chips or when you have the sugar, but it comes with a huge fall. It comes with a massive crash for a lot of us.
"Going to bed early, taking a freaking bubble bath … or going for a walk in the sunshine, is not going to give you that super high, but it doesn't leave you with that low," says Laura. "It gives you the sustained fulfillment that you need. And it also gives you the feeling of pride."
The journey to loving your body really does start with two thoughts that feel neutral or in the ballpark of acceptance. What are one or two thoughts about your body that don't make you feel hate or shame?
Our bodies are desperate for our love, and we can give it to them.
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