Hey there. For years I thought weight loss was about doing the actions. Following a plan. Checking the boxes. Sticking to the routine. But even when I was doing all of that, something still felt off. I wasn’t as happy as I expected to be. And I started to realize that it had nothing to do with my body. It had everything to do with my emotions.
So much of what we do in fitness is driven by emotion. Our motivation. Our frustration. Our doubt. It’s all connected. And the problem is, most of us are never taught how to work through what we feel. We’re told to power through. To ignore. To hustle harder. But eventually, the emotions we ignore catch up to us.
That’s why learning how to observe and identify what I was feeling changed everything. At first, I didn’t even know what I was feeling. I just knew something felt off. And when I started saying things like, I don’t know what this feeling is but I know it’s there, it opened the door to actually understanding myself better.
This is what the inside/out process is all about. Getting to a place where you’re not just reacting to every emotion. You’re sitting with it. You’re naming it. You’re learning not to judge yourself for having it. That step alone can take so much weight off your shoulders.
Therapy played a huge role in this for me. It gave me a safe space to say things out loud, get perspective, and work through the stuff I had been carrying for years. But even if you’re not in therapy right now, you can still start this process. You can pause and ask yourself, what am I really feeling right now? What triggered this?
When you do that, your emotional response starts to lose its grip. You’re no longer at the mercy of your mood. You’re making space between feeling something and acting on it. And that space is where all your power lives.
This work doesn’t mean you’ll never be upset or anxious again. It just means you’ll be more equipped to handle it. You’ll stop seeing emotions as roadblocks and start seeing them as signals. And you’ll stop thinking your body needs to change in order to feel better about yourself.
If this message hits home for you and you want to go deeper with this work, join The YLF Experience. This is where we build the tools to approach fitness, nutrition, and mindset from the inside/out. No guilt. No pressure. Just progress.