0:00Did you know that you can lose weight with ease and fun? My name is Leandra McMullen. I'm a Christian, certified, life and weight coach. If you want to apply God's promises to your life, live victoriously in your health, and stop overeating for good, you are in the right place. Let's go. Hey, hey, hey, my friends. Happy Monday. I hope you're doing amazing. I'm super excited to talk to you today about getting out of a funk. Have you ever had a day where you just feel off? Maybe you feel frumpy, sluggish, stuck, frustrated with yourself? I know I've had many days like this.

1:01And it feels like you've been consuming a lot or you're not really doing the things you want to do. So in your actions, it might look something like you've been eating too much sugar, you've been snacking too much, maybe you've been scrolling your phone a lot, maybe you've been watching too much TV. Maybe you've been overthinking and ruminating in your head about what you quote unquote should be doing. And it's just this feeling of, I need to get back. Now I used to think whenever I would feel like this, that I would have to punish myself. But what I want to share with you today is something different, something that has really helped me over time. Get out of these funks and feeling kind of frumpy and gets me moving, gets me into momentum

2:09a little faster without being mad at myself or without punishing myself. And it's really made a big difference in my life. So I want to talk to you about that today. Because sometimes when we feel in a funk, it's because we've been consuming too much and creating too little. And that imbalance can show up in our energy, in our mindset, and even in how we eat. Think about what happens when you eat too much sugar. We start to feel sick. We start to feel sluggish. We start to feel foggy. We start to feel uncomfortable. And we naturally want to rebalance. And this can happen in all areas of our life, right? Not just with eating too much sugar. It can happen even on vacation when we've been consuming a lot and not creating.

3:14We can feel like, oh, I'm so ready to get back to my schedule. I'm so ready to get back to my routine. And the opposite also happens when we haven't had a break, when we haven't gone on vacation, when we've been working and creating a lot, we feel ready for a break. We feel ready to go just consume and rest and relax. And life can feel this way a lot in all areas of our life. Now when we've been consuming a lot, whether that's food, social media, TV shows, information, maybe we're learning a lot, right? We're consuming. We can start to feel off. And that I need to get back feeling is often our brain telling us it's time to create something again. Now the reason why I wanted to talk about this today is because for most of my life, whenever

4:17I felt like this, I didn't realize it was a balance between consuming and creating. I just thought it was off again, on again, right? Oh, I'm off the wagon again. Oh, I'm off my meal planning again. I need to get back on, right? I literally thought it was either I'm off or I'm on and when I'm off, I'm bad and when I'm on, I'm good. And it was like a constant fight in my head until I realized this concept that we are made to create and were made to consume. But the trick is having a balance. Both are necessary, right? But when they get out of balance, we start to feel it, right? So consuming looks like scrolling social media, watching TV shows, reading books, listening

5:21to podcasts, snacking, eating for comfort, learning information, and we need to do all of these things. One is not bad, one is not good, one is not worse, one is not better. We need to consume. It helps us learn, it helps us rest, it helps us receive. But here's the thing about consuming. It's easy. It's immediate. It's pleasurable. It's low effort. It's high dopamine. And creating is different. So creating takes intention, it takes effort, it takes energy, and often when we're creating something, the reward is usually delayed, right? So creating might look something like planning your meals is creating.

6:24Creating dinner is creating, going for a walk, creating, lifting weights is creating, journaling, doing a thought download like we talk about on this podcast, creating prayer, worship, creating, cleaning your kitchen, any type of organizing, emptying the dishwasher, cleaning out a closet. What is creating, gardening is creating, serving someone is also creating, and I've had conversations with my mom and with fellow family members, and we'll often say things like, I feel like I need to serve in the church somewhere, and that's the first place we go look, right? What opportunities does the church have for me to serve, or what opportunities in my city? Do I have to serve because we have a longing and a desire, we have that created in us to

7:28serve people, praying intentionally is also creating. So even something simple like planning your breakfast is creating because you're creating structure. And I believe this balance shows up in Scripture because we were made to create. If we look at Genesis 2 verse 15, it says, the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it, to take care of it. So from the beginning, God designed humans to cultivate and tend. We are created to participate, to build, to care for what God has given us. So when we feel like we're in a funk, when we feel like we need to get, quote unquote, back at it, which often for most of us is some kind of punishment, right?

8:35If we've been off balance, if we've been laying around too much, if we've been watching too much, Stevie, if we've been eating too much sugar, we want to punish ourselves. But what I want to offer here is that you ask yourself, is there something I can create right now wherever you're feeling the funk or like you need to get back at it? Is there something you desire to create? So if you're feeling like, okay, I've eaten too much sugar, I've been consuming too much food, then maybe we want to create a meal plan for the next seven days that we're going to commit to follow. Or maybe if we've been watching too much TV and we haven't been maintaining the house like we want to, then is there something we can create? It could be even something small, like I'm going to go empty the dishwasher and then get

9:39back to watching TV or I'm going to go organize that junk drawer and get back to watching TV. It doesn't have to be punishment, but think of it as creating something like I'm going to create a clean drawer in my kitchen, I'm going to create an organized closet. It can be something that small. It could just be creating a clean toilet in your bathroom during the commercial. It doesn't have to be extreme punishment. The same thing with food, if you've been consuming too much food and you're feeling the need to get on balance, then just create the next snack that you're going to eat. You're going to stop eating that sugar right now and in three hours, you're going to eat some protein and maybe a healthy fat, which for me is like a Greek yogurt and some string cheese. Even that is going to make you feel better because you're getting back into a balance of creating something again.

10:43Now as I'm reading the Bible, we're in numbers and I found it interesting because God in numbers also created rhythms for us to create, right, to offer sacrifices to him, but he also created very distinct rhythms to have us return to him. In numbers 28, specifically, God commanded daily offerings from the Israelites. He wanted one every morning and he wanted one every evening. In other words, this created book ends for the day. And so God's people would start the day with him and in the day, returning to him because God knew that we drift and he wanted to create pathways for us to return. So this returning to balance doesn't mean punishing yourself into extreme behaviors.

11:46It means returning to the Lord and returning to balance. So if you've been consuming, think of something you can create. This has helped me so much in all areas of my life. Like even in business, right, we can over consume like I could buy business classes, business masterminds. I can buy business courses and it's so easy for me to sit and watch a module of business and then not implement it. It's the same thing we do. In fact, I just did this. It's so funny. I was scrolling and there was an ad for a walking plan. And I fell for it and I paid $15 to see how many steps I'm supposed to walk every day. And now I have this 28 day plan and I don't even plan to implement it.

12:47It's kind of funny how we fall into that because we want to consume. We want to learn, right? It's like, oh, I want to learn about this walking challenge and what it takes. But to actually implement it is the balance of creating, right? We need both rhythms, creating and resting. Some people over create, they work constantly and burn out and that's what can happen even in our eating, right? If we get too strict with ourself, we get burnt out and then we just go consume. But what if we could balance it, right? So some people over create, some people over consume, right? But the goal is balance. Like I said, it's not that one is better than the other. It's just we need balance of both. So if you're feeling in a funk, sometimes the answer is to create something.

13:52Sometimes the answer is to rest or consume something. I'm not saying one is better than the other. But if you tend to over create and get too extreme with yourself, I want to offer you to consume a little more, to return back to God and rest. And if you tend to consume too much, I want to offer that you come up with something to create. That sounds fun for you and doable. So the question I like to ask myself when I'm feeling kind of funky is, do I need to create something right now or do I need to return and rest with God right now? And you'll know what the answer is and I just want to encourage you to listen. So if you're feeling stuck this week, try asking yourself, what could I create today? Not something huge, but something small.

14:54Like maybe going for a 10 minute walk, planning tomorrow's meals, prepping some protein, cleaning one room, journaling, doing a thought download, praying, worshiping, small acts of creation remind your brain that you can move forward. Now if we talk specifically about weight loss, which is what this whole podcast is about, right? It goes up in weight loss all the time. When we overeat or we snack too much or we drift from our plan, we can start to feel sluggish and frustrated and disappointed and our brain tells us, I've messed up. I need to start over Monday. I need to punish myself, but punishment is not the answer. Usually what we need is to create something small. So that might look like planning our next meal, cooking dinner, going for a walk, drinking

15:59some water, writing down what you're feeling, returning to your protocol. And this is what I want you to know. You don't need punishment. You just need a return point. So if you're feeling stuck right now, sometimes the best thing you can do is to get support. And this Thursday, I'm going to be doing something a little different than our typical call we've been doing. Instead of teaching a master class of stop overeating, I want to do an open coaching call with an app preview Q&A. So if you've been listening to the podcast, our app is launching this week. It's going to be open on March 13 to sign up for a full year of live coaching. And on March 19, which is Thursday, we're going to have our first live coaching kickoff

17:01call. I'm so excited about it. But for this Thursday coming up, I believe that's March 12. You can come to Zoom at 11.30 AM Pacific Standard Time. And if you've been attending or listening to the replays of the stop overeating class, I'd love to hear your questions. How is it going for you? What are you experiencing? Where do you feel stuck? Where what are the hardest parts for you? And bring those questions to me and get coached on them. And then see if the Christian weight loss app and a full year of coaching with me is going to help you get the break through you need. You can bring questions. You can get coached on what's going on for you. I'm going to give a preview of the Christian weight loss app that's launching. So if you're curious about the app or you want some coaching or you just want to listen

18:02and learn, you can join us. I'm going to put the link in the show notes of this episode. And if you can't come live, sign up anyway, and I'll send you the replay. So like I said, speaking of the app, I'm so excited because the Christian weight loss app officially opens on March 13th. And if you're on the wait list, you will get the sign up first. So you can download the app, explore everything inside, get familiar with it before our first kick off coaching call, which will be Thursday, March 19th. And inside the app, I'm so excited that you'll find the stop over eating program. You're going to find strength training workouts, nutrition guidance, weekly coaching calls, and a private community like Facebook inside our app of just us doing this together. So if you want to be part of the founding group, make sure you're on the wait list.

19:05I will also put that link in the show notes. So lastly, my friends, if you're feeling in a funk this week, remember this, sometimes the answer is rest, sometimes the answer is creating something small. So ask yourself, do I need to create something or do I need to return to God and rest and then take that small step. Now let's go live our life in grace, unlimited self love, and victorious in Jesus.