I Read My Diary From The Year I Won Miss Georgia: The One Decision That Helped Me Lose 37 Pounds | Part 2

*This transcript was auto-generated*

Kim Gravel: Coming up on The Kim Gravel Show, I brought two journals. One was from 2022 and one was from 1991 and writing it down every day about what I don't have. And Lord, please help me get it. And he's sitting there going, well, honey, I gave you a break, and you just go and click the Flip the Switch. This doesn't just apply to weight loss, Zac.

This can apply to anything that has been weighing you down and causing you to mentally struggle for years. You said, Kim, can it happen that fast? It can.

Opening Introduction: Let's just go on and spill the tea. This is The Kim Gravel Show. This is one of the realest persons I've ever met in my darn life. You gotta watch this. My mission is to encourage every single woman, we're here to lift y'all up. There's no one more effective than moms. You mess with the bull. You going to get the horns. I need coffee. I need Jesus and I need therapy. If you can bring a smile to people's faces, why would you not? We love our kids. We love our husbands. What a blessing. We're gonna dedicate this to you in finding your superpower. Okay girl. True confidence is knowing who you are and why you're here.

Kim Gravel: Hey everybody, it's The Kim Gravel Show. And it is a time in the week, whenever you're listening to this, that we come together and we reach for leveling up our lives. You know what I'm saying by that? We are always looking to better. Level up, get more out of life than, what we have in the past and what we know, there's more going forward.

So today is a really, huh? It's, it's a time to do that. So this is, I want to call this kind of like the selfish episode, Zac. You know what I mean? I mean, I say selfish because it's so funny, the older I get. The more selfless I become in a selfish way, it's the weirdest thing. It's becoming this where I'm putting myself and my wellbeing, you know, we're taught as people and as humans and as women, the more we sacrifice ourselves, the better mom we are, the better parent we are, the more we're giving to our family.

And I don't think that's true. I really believe in that whole thing. Put your oxygen mask on you. If the plane's going down, you put yours on before you put your, everybody else's on.

Zac Miller: Is that where we are? Kim? Are we on a plane that's going down? Into the cliff. All right. Perfect.

Kim Gravel: You know what I'm saying?

Zac Miller: So you put yours on and then you have to put yours on. Then you have to put one on me.

Kim Gravel: Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I, I agree with that philosophy. And I think, I wish I had learned that a lot younger because I think I would have been, I think I would have gotten more and leveled up more in my life earlier on, you know, because this is the thing, the sky's the limit.

There is no limits to your life except for what you put them, put on yourself. Yes, and so when we were talking about the 37 pounds of weight loss that I have that I have accomplished. Yeah I'm so excited. I know.

You know what I mean if y'all want to stand up and clap I'd take that too I mean, I'm at a place where I'm like, thank you God And thank you all my journals and we're going to get into that in a minute and thank you Zac and everyone because I, it has been a game changer. I mean, when you think you can't grow, okay, get ready, buckle up buttercup because I was, you know, I was really in a great place with my life.

I mean, I have two great children who wear me out. Okay. I just was off the phone with one. I'm fighting him. About this topic that we're going to talk about today about this top. Oh yeah. Oh gosh. Yes. Oh wait. I got stories. I, I have a wonderful husband. I've got a great career, but this particular area of my life has been a brick and I have been drowning slowly with this.

And I think we all have them. Zac, do you say everybody got their thing? That is their Achilles heel or their struggle. Would you agree with that?

Zac Miller: I a hundred percent agree with that. And I appreciate the nineties music reference too.

Kim Gravel: She's a freaking, I'm drowning slowly. Ben Folds, Ben Folds 5.

Zac Miller: Love that.

Kim Gravel: Uh huh. It's the truth. I mean, we've all got the struggle. There's no one above the struggle. And what I do is I don't judge everybody else's struggle because struggle is struggle and pain is pain. So if yours is, you know, your health struggle, if yours is financial, if yours is, you know, a dream you haven't been able to accomplish, if yours is a weight loss, whatever you are struggling with, this is part two to the episode that I think can be a game changer for you if you're watching.

You decide it is okay. That's the key word.

Zac Miller: Can I just break in here because it is already actually what we talked about last time on the show is already something that I feel like I'm seeing certain struggles in my life differently and I'm not

Kim Gravel: what do you mean you mean by that?

Zac Miller: Yeah. So what I mean is, so I'll have like 20 things I want to do on my to do list, right.

For work. Right. There'll be like a ton of stuff. And I know that like, really, I'm only going to get like two of them done in a day. Right. And I always tell myself, and I always stress myself out. I got, I'm going to get five of these things done. And you know, then I feel bad at the end of the day. And so now, and this is such a small thing, but I'm like, What do I know?

I know that, like, these things are gonna get done, and I know that, like, I'm gonna, like, these other things just aren't, and I'm gonna have to be okay with that. Like, cause you know, deep, deep down, deep in my mind, I'm like, I know what this is. I do this every day. I, I kill myself every day with this same struggle.

Why?

Kim Gravel: I think because we worship and adore and promote and love and it's our comfy blanket, the struggle, we get so comfortable with that struggle that that becomes the thing that we expect and that we feed. And it grows y'all. I'm telling you, I, you've heard about these people who have these amazing breakthroughs or like I had, I had a friend who was, was in high school and she got in a drunk driver hit her and she was paralyzed from the waist down and she was an amazing athlete.

She was just amazing athlete, like all around, like basketball, soccer. I mean, On the trajectory to becoming this, you know, college athlete and just really an overachiever, fantastically gifted by God, worked hard the whole nine yards, but she was paralyzed from the waist down. And it took her. Now, look, I'm not discounting that because that's huge.

It took her many years to work through that struggle, but there was a point. I remember talking to her about this, that she just shifted. And decided not to make the struggle this thing she put on a pedestal, Zac. And, and even with you doing your little to do worksheet, you know, to do thing and saying, and just making the, it's not the, it's not your list that holds you captive.

It is this, am I doing enough that holds you captive?

Zac Miller: Oh my gosh, Kim.

Kim Gravel: Right? Am I right?

Zac Miller: Yeah, that is exactly it. It's like I'm not doing enough and I don't feel like I'm doing enough for anything and this isn't supposed to be a therapy session for me, but it's like I'm here today and, you know, my, we just moved, right?

And my wife Camille is just starting her new job. You know, our daughter's homesick today. It was supposed to be her first full time day of daycare, finally. Correct. After this move and you know, it's like it's like, I don't feel like I'm doing enough for any of it. I don't feel like I'm doing enough for work.

And I feel like I'm not doing enough to help, you know, with, with Hailey and with my family. And it's just like, you can't have it always. Well, I got so tickled. Can I know it's so much more than that.

Kim Gravel: It is. And it's so funny that you said this. Cause I can, I, can I do a, you know, in my book, I talk about.

Words of wisdom for mom and dad. You know, okay. Yeah. Can I give you a little Brooks Hardy one on one wisdom to me? Cause I used to, you said, I don't think I'm ever doing enough and I don't know if I'm doing enough and my dad, now this is deep. So let's, let's go with it. Cause I would say that I would say, dad, am I doing?

He said, I said, dad, I just, I just hope I'm humble. I just want to stay humble. And I just want, he said, Kim, the fact that you. Asking yourself, are you humble? Tells me you're humble. The fact that you're saying, am I doing enough? Zac tells me you're doing enough because people who don't do enough, definitely don't talk about not doing enough.

And he had a point, right? Like he has a point. And I think we beat ourselves up because we live in the indecisive. Comfort zone of struggle. It's not that we're really comfortable in the struggle. It's just the habit of staying in that has made us comfortable. It's not the actual circumstance. Remember when my dad says you're not a fat girl, you're just living like one.

That was another thing. He wasn't on we're not. Our struggle. We are so much more than that. But we have told ourselves and we perpetually repeat the cycle. Why is it so much harder to be negative to ourselves than it is to believe the positive? And even cocky, confident, gregarious, balls out people, ballsy people, they're like, I'm the best.

Deep down inside, it's so much easier to believe the insecurity. It is. Okay. So, so that's part of what we're going to finish up this little weight loss moment that I've had these little, this little growth moment, the Kim's growth moment that I've had in my personal life. And it's, it's so amazing because I'm just having this conversation with my son, my oldest son.

I'm going to just tell y'all right now, Lord have mercy. I wouldn't even say this because he ain't never listening to this. So until he's older, you know, he don't, they think I'm such an idiot. Yeah, he's not going to listen. My oldest son. Who is brilliant, who is, his superpower, I mean his calling in life is strength, is to be strong.

So that's it, to be strong. If I had to say what his calling is. But Zac, to be strong, what do you have to do?

Zac Miller: This is like

Kim Gravel: to be a strong person physically, mentally...

Zac Miller: You have to have strength, you have to work out...

Kim Gravel: How do you get strength? How do you get strength?

Zac Miller: You need to work at it. Work out.

Kim Gravel: Also, you have to go through a lot of crap and things that make you strong.

Zac Miller: You have to be sore. Yeah, exactly. You gotta get sore in order to get strong.

Kim Gravel: He's so mentally strong. He doesn't know it's his superpower. See, I can see it in him. He can't see it in himself. He's 16. I keep trying to tell him, baby, that's your superpower.

But how do you get strong? You don't get strong by things being easy. It is that tension. It is that resistance. It is all of that because he's in a resistor. He is not going to follow nobody. He ain't going to do what you say. He's not going to do it the way you can. Oh God. Oh my God.

Zac Miller: Got one of those too.

Kim Gravel: And that's fantastic. What a great attribute. But what we forget is the very thing that frustrates us and that aggravates us is the thing. You can trace that back to what you're calling is. So whatever struggle you're going through, Zac, or anybody listening to me, Is because that's connected to part of your greatness.

The fact that you're so organized Zac in such a producer's mind, and you can't click off all of those buttons and make it perfect. That that's, that's exactly why you're that way. That's exactly why you struggle so much in that area is because that's your superpower.

Zac Miller: Right. Okay. Okay. I should. So, so do I just embrace it?

I mean, that's, that's the answer, right?

Kim Gravel: Yes. You just, you just, and I look, I'm not a counselor and I said this whole time, I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm just telling you what has worked for me in my personal life. And in this particular thing, we're talking about today, Zac, I have just been through it in the last two months, two and a half months.

Okay. It started in May for me. So you don't ignore it. What I do is I lean into it and I ask the question, why, why am I lying to myself? Why am I torturing myself mentally with this? Why am I always saying, I can do it. I need to do it. I know I got to do it, but I don't do it. Why do I do that to myself?

And it's because I haven't decided to put it in its proper place. And put my calling in its proper place. And I'm going to tell you why I'm going to tell you why, because mental shifts are hard and they're very hard. And, or they are for me. Some of you people might be mental strength geniuses. I am, I am in the remedial class when it comes to mental shifts.

Zac Miller: Okay. All right. Yeah, 20 years.

Kim Gravel: I ain't even college prepped. Okay. I'm not even college prepped. I'm talking about remedial, just a regular old, below average, honey, bless her heart. Just get her on through. That is my grade level when it comes to mental shifts. And I'm thick, so it takes me a hot minute, but I'm going to tell you what happened to me in May.

I had brought two journals, Zac, and you asked me to bring my journals and I'm a journaler and I've been journaling since. When I was a teenager. Okay, I just brought two. One is from 1991.

Zac Miller: Wow. The year you won Miss, Miss Georgia.

Kim Gravel: And one is from, hold on, let me pull it, pull it, pull it, pull it. Hold on people, hold on.

One is from, Lord, I didn't date this one. Hold on, I'll show you. Because I always try to date it and I put the time on. Okay. But this is new, so I said, okay. This one is from 2022. Okay. Okay. After the break, I'm going to read my journal from January 13th of 1991 and tell you how long it took me to make the decision to change.

I'll read that when we get right back. Don't go away. You don't want to miss this. We're back. We're talking about the power of a decision. How can your life shift? How can you have a mental shift, Zac? With just a decision that it's just recently happened to me, I honestly can say in my 52 years. It's the only time it's happened for me.

I have done a lot of.

Zac Miller: Is that true? Wait, you've had so much success. So all of that, like, yes, you've been struggling and fighting this despite all of the success you've already had.

Kim Gravel: Decades. 1991 due to math. How many years ago was that when this started really started before, but this is just, I just do the math, do the math 30, 32 years, 32 years.

I've been struggling with this for 32 years and I'm going to read it to prove it. But let me, let me share this with you. You say. Because you say, Kim, really, you've done so many things, and I have, y'all look, I'm accomplished, I'm, I'm not, I'm tooting my own horn here, I'm successful, I, I am blessed beyond measure, I certainly don't deserve it, I've worked hard for it, but, and I've manifest things, but I have never Flipped a switch of decision and something fall into place in my 52 years as this did this past May.

Okay. So tell us about it. So I don't even know if we can cover it in two episodes, but we're gonna try. So, I'm gonna start by reading a journal entry. I have, I brought two journals. One was from 2022 and one was from 1991. And I'm gonna read a couple of pages and give you the dates and time. So I want you to kind of get, because you're like, I'm saying 30 something years.

But I want you to understand where my mind was, okay? And how much this tormented me. Like your little list torments you. How this tormented me for 30 something years.

Zac Miller: Can we, can we orient to, so you won Miss Georgia in 1991. Right. What month was that? Like, when was that in the year? That was June. That was June.

Okay, so you're reading from January. So you're okay. Six months before you won Miss Georgia, you're on your way.

Kim Gravel: And I was gorgeous. I was thin. I was gorgeous. I would kill to be that size right now. But I'm you know, I just say like, if I was half that size, I'd be running around naked. I'd be doing this particular podcast with a thong on.

Zac Miller: This would be naked podcast. There'd be, you know, big, can we just be a blur? There would be a lot of blurring.

Kim Gravel: Yes. Be a lot of blurring. I'm just saying, I'm giving you perspective here. All right. First day of a new journal. So clearly I hadn't started until January 13th. Okay. First day of a new journal in the new year.

Not so sure what 1991 has to offer, but I'm excited about my future. I'm excited about possibly becoming Miss Georgia or at least trying to be. You don't know what you've got till it's gone. And I guess I'm, I'm either spoiled or ignorant, but I have been feeling like, Lord, you are done with me.

Zac Miller: You're 18.

You're 18 when you wrote this?

Kim Gravel: 19. 19. I know you and your word does not fail and when trials hit and things seem out of my control and like I can't accomplish all my dreams, I know you're in control. Guide my steps. And what I'm talking about in steps, God. Like he don't know.

Zac Miller: Like, yeah, you have to define steps.

That's good. No, like explaining, you know, to God is a good, right?

Kim Gravel: It's always good. So it's good for me. At least always good. I'm asking for divine intervention with Miss Georgia. Please just write and bless through me. I don't know what that means. Allow me to be used. What should it be about? What should I say?

I guess I was talking about the interview part. I love you and I trust you. I'm asking you. Listen to this. For supernatural control with my eating and my health. So, oh, is it the best shape of my life? It was six months. I might not have been in the best shape because I've always loved the ding dong a ho ho or hostess, you know, honey bun.

Zac Miller: Yeah, but if you want evidence of that, read Kim's book, Collecting Confidence.

Kim Gravel: So I'll have the little journal up and then it's so sweet and God, you're Katron, tut tut tuba. Here we go. Here, here is, here is the hang up. Here's the, here's where the dysfunction starts and the lack of making a decision. Okay.

I'm asking you for supernatural control with my eating and my health. I'm trying to do my best with it. Ugh. No food is not the way to go. And I'm trying to eat as little as I can and pull it together before the pageant. But I need supernatural healing and your touch to do this. Please, Lord, help me in this.

Ugh. Creating me a pure heart and a spirit towards others. Okay, boo, boo, boo. That's just a little, la, la, la. That section that I just read to you. Do you see the struggle in that?

Zac Miller: Yeah. I, it's, it's amazing that, I mean, would you consider that, that idea, like what you were even writing in that? Like, would you even consider that like healthy at all?

Like, would you?

Kim Gravel: No. No. No. Yeah. Look, I say Pride of God, but here's, here's the, here's January 14th, the next day. I'm not going to read it all to you. I'm going to get to the good stuff. Cause I just, I fluff and stuff until I get to the good stuff. You know what I'm saying? To

Zac Miller: the real stuff. Well, it takes you a minute to get there.

That's the process of writing a journal, right? Of

Kim Gravel: course. That's the point. Today, God, I ask you for supernatural willpower with my health and my eating. That's January 14th of 91. That's the next day. Here's January 19th. Today I need you and I need a breakthrough with my health. That's the first line.

Mental and physical. I need a mental reboot and I need to lose weight. Please take my obsession with food away. Allow my mind peace and focus. Okay, that's January 19th. I'm not gonna go on because it's every day in this book. It's every single day. Pick a random,

Zac Miller: like seriously, pick a random page. Let's see if you, what's on it.

I'm gonna

Kim Gravel: pick a random page from 2022. Okay. Okay. We're jumping to 2020. I have to remind myself that you are my source. My obsession with food and eating is not only a social aspect, but it's an aspect of comfort for me. Lord, you are my ultimate source of strength, hope, love, and joy today. Please give me full joy and not just in food.

Okay. I'm just going to tell y'all this. So these journals are full, full with this. And that was a 22, I could go on and on. And I don't want to bore you with my journals.

Zac Miller: This feels to me like almost a breakthrough, like hearing, hearing Kim at 19 in the best shape of your life have this struggle and, and it's a different type of struggle, right?

Because you are competing, but it's the same. It's exactly the same. Right. Struggle is struggle. In so many ways. Struggle is struggle and hearing it and then seeing it and well,

Kim Gravel: let me ask you a question, Zac. How long have you been struggling with what you just said at the beginning of this episode?

How many years?

Zac Miller: I mean, my whole career.

Kim Gravel: Okay. What does that mean? How many? Give it to me in numbers.

Zac Miller: You know, it's like, you know, so I started, I mean, I started working on movies when I was 18. I've, I worked, I worked on movies all through. Yeah. So it's been, you know, almost 20 years. Okay. And I.

Kim Gravel: It's a long time.

Zac Miller: Yeah, you know, and, and you're right, like, this is how I do it, you know, this, that's, that's what we say, right? There's like, it's like this really twisted, like, there's the right way, there's the wrong way, and there's my way, right? And it's like, well, your way is terrible. Yeah, so.

Kim Gravel: Well, the reason I'm triggered with this, or was triggered with this, and the reason I wanted to do this is because, just to remind everybody, in May of this year, To mid July, I've lost 37 pounds, with minimal effort.

And I know that's going to tick a lot of people off, but it's, it's the truth. And what I mean by minimal effort, I'm not saying I didn't cut back. I'm not saying I didn't take brisk walks and, you know, enjoying with Travis and having these deep conversations with my kids as we were doing it, but minimal effort mean it was not a mental strain.

in a journal worthy problem for me. And it was, it was around Mother's Day, and I was writing in my journal the same old thing that you heard me read out of three or four entries. And I just said, What's, what, what's going on? Why am I still doing this? And keep in mind, y'all, I have been praying and asking God to just release me from it.

I mean, you've read my journal entries. And you say, Won't he do it? Yes, he'll do it. You can continue to pray and all that, but you've got to decide. He's already given me the power to conquer this through him, but I had to make the decision. So that day in May, I said, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not dancing around this mountain.

I'm not running around it. I'm not walking up it. I'm not walking through it. I'm done. And y'all, I decided that day, and then two and a half months later, I was 37 pounds down. It was like the weight of the struggle was gone, and my body caught up. The weight fell off. And it was, it was, Zac, and I said this in the last episode, I, after that happened, my son experienced that.

With a basketball story, which I'm telling you, I'm so sick of basketball, I could die, but I'm telling you, thank God for basketball because it's been so many life lessons through that stupid sport. I swear, and then

Zac Miller: this is a women's lifestyle and basketball podcast

Kim Gravel: and basketball moms, you know, reach out because, you know, our grandmas, you know, I'm talking about, but then another friend of mine, Kelly, my facialist.

She went through it too, and she, she started losing, I think, in April, she, she decided she made an AI picture of herself, what she would look like, lost 50 pounds, and she did it in like four, like two, three and a half, almost four months with ease, and it had been a struggle for her for decades. Now, look, this doesn't just apply to weight loss, Zac, this can apply to anything that has been weighing you down and causing you to mentally struggle for years.

You say, Kim, can it happen that fast? It can. It can.

Zac Miller: Well, the shift is already happening for me. Like I'm already like, okay, what do I know? What do I know? I'm going to do today. What do I know? I'm not going to do. And I know it. I know it in the morning. I don't have to feel like I'm rushing to get to somewhere and then feel disappointed in myself.

That's just a really that's just a terrible pattern, right? It is. And that that pattern, though, felt it normal. Like, if I didn't have that pattern, it felt off.

Kim Gravel: Well, if you didn't have that pattern of thinking, what would you fill it with? I mean, we get so, we get, that's it. We get such a creature of, we don't even understand the power of a decision.

I mean, I read that quote. I mean, decision is directly related to destiny and action doesn't begin until you make a decision. But we are, we are action oriented people. Tell me what I need to do. Tell me what I need to do, but don't do anything until you've decided what you want to do. I mean, I can't, people get married because of that.

They get married. They decide to get married and they really haven't made a decision of what kind of partner they want and what they just, it all just, you know, it all just, I'm in love and I'm this, no baby, that is the biggest decision you'll ever make. And it needs to be.

Zac Miller: I know what you mean. Can I ask you a question, Kim, on that?

So, and this, I don't, I don't have any other context other than reading the book and we can cut this if you don't want to go here. We'll go here. But your first marriage, yeah, I bet if you go back and interrogate, like sort of what you were thinking in the back of your head, did you know somewhere deep down, really deep down, like where you sort of were afraid to even look that that first marriage wasn't going to work before you even started?

Kim Gravel: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Zac Miller: But you did it anyway.

Kim Gravel: I did it anyway.

Zac Miller: And we all do that.

Kim Gravel: We all do it. And just like we know, we know we have the power to make a decision, to make a change. And when I say flip a switch. I mean, in May, I flipped a switch. And how come I did it then, and couldn't do it for 30 plus years? See, that, that's what we're talking about.

Zac Miller: So what was the inciting thing? What was it?

Kim Gravel: Reading these journals, I'm like, good God, Kim, how many times you gonna write the same thing? I mean, it was just, I had had enough. I had had enough, but what I want to say to everybody else is, I don't care where you are with your life. You can, you can have enough right now.

It, it, could people say, well the timing wasn't right and all that. The timing is right when you say it's right. The timing could have been right a long time ago. I enjoyed sitting there writing that every single day. I got some, I don't know if I enjoyed it. Let me say, I got something out of it. I can tell you that, or I wouldn't have done it.

Yeah. And, and what I'm saying is to everyone listening and what I'm trying to say to my 16 year old son today, I don't want you to be 52 and realize that your decisions In your decisions lies a great power for you. See, we're not making decisions like they're important. We're making decisions like they're part of a to do list.

Zac Miller: I live my life as a to do list. I think so many of us do.

Kim Gravel: Because we are action oriented. Remember the quote, but action doesn't start or doesn't equal success until you decide. So many people are taking action and have never made the decision of what they really want. See, I decided, you know what? I do want to look better.

I do want to feel healthier. I do want to have more energy. And writing it down every day about what I don't have, and Lord, please help me get it, and he's sitting there going, well, honey, I gave you a break, and you're just going to flip the switch.

Zac Miller: Well, it suddenly became who you were, right? Because now, you know, some people are like, Oh, I'm, I'm a runner and I run every day.

And you know that you weren't born that way, or I'm a, you know, whatever insert thing. That's healthy, right? I eat healthy. I cook my own meals and I, whatever. Well, I,

Kim Gravel: I, those factor meals we've gotten, they're so good.

Zac Miller: I know they're great. I'm going to have one right after that. I literally have like half an hour between my next when this ends and my next thing and I have an appointment and I'm going to eat a factor meal and it's going to

be excellent.

I'm just so excited.

Kim Gravel: But but but it's not even a struggle like it's now it's just like. The struggle was making the decision. It wasn't the actual work to get there. Honestly, that's what we struggle with. That's the mental shift we're talking about today is that power of decision. And like, like for me in my time, I, I'm just like, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not going to do that ever.

And so that's what I'm not going to do. And, and, and Amy and I were talking about this cause she was like, well, my hard work and I'm like, girl, your hard work did not get you to lose weight. That's not what happened. You just woke up one day and decided you were going to do it and you put in the hard work and the results were there.

But we also,

Zac Miller: she became a gym person.

Kim Gravel: She became what she decided to become. And I want to tell you this. When you make the decision, it's hard work, but it doesn't feel like that. So what we're doing is we're putting our to do list, our action, before our decision. So it's always resistant.

If we make a decision and the action follows that, it takes the mental load off of us.

Zac Miller: I totally, totally get it. I don't know if I get it, but it makes sense. It's starting to click for me. And I'm hoping that it's starting to click for the folks that are watching this and listening to this.

Kim Gravel: Well, if it's not, call us.

Call us and leave us a message. We'll talk about it.

Zac Miller: Yeah, call us. Let us know. Yeah, we'll get into it. Can I ask you a question, though, Kim? Especially because, like, you know, we sort of talked about I don't know what you want to call it, like unhealthy habits around food.

Kim Gravel: Yeah. Hey, I'm, I'm an expert there.

I'm an expert. Yeah.

Zac Miller: Well, right. I mean, and it's so much of it is so unhealthy about dieting and about weight loss and about body image and all of that. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. There's so much to unpack there, but I, I wonder what you're like, how can I put this? I wonder how you would react if I said like.

The whole way that we're talking about this, the whole way that this is positioned in our society, which is like, this is your target weight, you know, get to your target weight. And then suddenly it's like this golden, Oh, you're there. Like, but it's not how it works. Right. And then that's why I think we get so many comments.

We've had over 220 comments on the episode that we did with David Venable talking about weight loss. And so many of those comments were about People's weight loss journeys themselves. And I did this diet and I lost 30 pounds and then I gained it back. And then I lost it

Kim Gravel: because the decision, they didn't make a decision.

And see, so what happened with David Venable was the doctor motivated him to make the decision, but the decision was made and he ain't going back. That's why he won't yo yo. Mark my words, David ain't going back. He's not going to go back. I'm not going to go back. You're going to come and see me, you know, and I don't want, I only want, I, if I, it, if it's meant for me to lose another 12 pounds, continuing the, the healthy.

path I'm on right now. Great. If not, I look great. I've lost 37 pounds. I'm down to dress sizes. My, a one C is down. My, energy is there. My health is, is stronger. I'm, I have more energy to just last the day. There's so many benefits from that, but, but for me, the motivation wasn't getting healthy.

The motivation for me was I'm tired. I'm a person. I'm like, look, if it ain't working, I ain't doing it. If it ain't, if it's not going to be successful, I ain't playing with it. I mean, that's just me. I'm, I'm that kind of a realist person. And I thought, well, Kim, this ain't working for you. Just murmuring and complaining about it.

Just make, you guys just make a decision and do it. But when I tell you after I did, it wasn't hard work. That, that is what, that is where I'm telling you it, I had to do some work, but it wasn't like, Oh God, I can't get a Big Mac meal at McDonald's. It wasn't torture.

Zac Miller: Is the way you start to just... Start looking at your life and thinking, like, what do I, what do I really know?

What do I really, really know? Where's the place that I'm scared to look that I know the answer?

Kim Gravel: I want you to go through the journals of your past. So, so, so listen to me. I'm give you some actionable items here and you said we came out in journal, but you got it up here. You know what I'm talking about.

Zac Miller: Or social media posts.

I mean, people journal their lives on social media now.

Kim Gravel: But a lot of people don't share their innermost thoughts. So what I want to say to you is, because we've all got them. What I want to say to you is go back through the journal of your mind of something and don't do, I mean, you said, Kim, I got seven things.

We're not going to tackle seven. We're going to do one at a time. Sweet Jesus. We're going to do one. I want you to go through whatever your struggle is. Mine, mine wasn't my struggle of weight. Keep in mind, mine was my struggle of mindset about my weight. Okay. So whatever yours is. Okay, so I want you to look at your life and determine what the struggle is that you are celebrating, worshiping, and putting on a pedestal.

Zac said earlier, his was his to do list. Mine happened to be my journaling about my weight every single day of my life for 30 plus years. I want you to determine what that thing is. What is your struggle that you need to make a decision on? Let's start there, okay? And Zac, I like what you said. Sit with it.

Think it through. Why is it a struggle? Why has it been a struggle for so long? Because I promise you, it's not like it's been a struggle for a week. What I'm talking about is that brick that's been tied around your waist and that you have been swimming trying to get to the top of that lake or that ocean and it drags you down and you get up and it drags you.

That's the struggle I'm talking about and you got one. We've all got them and, and define what that is and sit with it for a hot minute. Email us what it is. Get it off your chest. We, we, we won't share unless you want us to tell, define what that is first. Because you said, well, Kim, that hasn't stopped your life.

It has, it has, it has stopped me in so many ways and not the weight. It has been my thoughts about the weight.

Zac Miller: Right, because your weight, it hasn't stopped you from,

Kim Gravel: it's been the thoughts about the struggle. No, it's been right. It's been the thoughts about, let me read, let me say that it's been the thoughts about the struggle.

Because as soon as I changed and made a decision about, about sitting here and loving on, nurturing, paying attention to and worshiping the struggle, when I stopped, made a decision to stop doing that, the weight came off.

Zac Miller: Yeah. Same with, I mean, same with David. Same with so many. I think there are so many of our guests, like we talked to so many successful, confident people on the show. And I think so many of our guests have these moments like these, these switches that flip and it's all of a sudden everything's different.

Nothing's changed, but everything's different. It's all. And then it slowly starts to change. Yeah.

Kim Gravel: Well, everything catches up. So everything, when you make a decision. It's done. The deed is done. The goal is met. Everything is in its present time. It just takes the physical world time to catch up with mentally what you've decided.

Zac Miller: Let me ask you a question about, time. Because I, so this is the other thing I really wanted to understand. And I was thinking about a lot since we recorded our last episode. Which is, If you could send this message back to yourself in 1991 or in, you know, 2000 or in 2010 or whatever, you know, pick a year, would you have been ready to receive it?

Do you think you would have been able to make the switch or did you have to be here with your experience now as Kim in 2023 in order to have? Whatever it was, right? Experience, wisdom, whatever you want to call it, to make that switch. Do you think you could have done it earlier?

Kim Gravel: I do. I do. I do think I could have done it earlier.

I think we all can. I think it's up to us to Grow and, and become more self aware and, and, and fortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, you know, we really don't get to that self reflection and that self awareness until we've lived a lot of life for most of us, you know, because, you know, either we have it easy or we're comfortable or whatever.

And, and that's where I'm trying to teach my son at 16, how to put in place these, these tools, these revelations that I've had in my own personal life, because And what I'm seeing is you can do it at 16 because he just did it. He just did it, didn't even know he's doing it. Now, what I want to say to you, Zac, and myself and everybody else listening is we do at times do these sort of things.

We manifest, we, we do make decisions, we do all that. But what happens is we're not We're not cognizant of it. We don't recognize it. So what I'm trying with Beau, when he was sitting on that bench, and he, he said he, he said he saw himself sitting on the bench. This is so deep for a 16 year old kid. I was so, I was like, Oh my God, this is so great.

I didn't want to freak him out because he'll never tell me anything if I do. So I was just like, Oh, that's cool. That's cool. You know, I try to keep it low key. And, and he was like, I saw myself sitting there on the bench. Getting upset and angry and mad and he said, and then I was getting, you know, sad. He said, I was like, I'm, I'm so he's, I started talking to myself and then he said, I saw myself doing that mom.

And I said, you know what? I'm not doing that. I decided I'm not doing that. I will never forget it. He said, I decided I'm not going to do that. And he said, so I just switched it just like that. And in two minutes later, he said, the coach put me in, I played the whole entire, like the rest of the games. And he, and I was like, okay, Kim.

We got to stop and teach him that that power of decision that he made will change the whole entire trajectory of every decision he ever makes a whole entire life. But see, I could have let that pass and he was just like, yeah, that was something I did. What happens is that if we're not aware of what that kind of power is.

And so, yes, to answer your question, I think I could have handled that back then if I would have known what I was looking at. You know what I'm saying?

Zac Miller: That's right. Yeah, I do know what you're saying. Well, the human mind is like this. It's amazing.

Kim Gravel: It's amazing, but it's quite simple. It's quite simple.

Everything leads back to faith. Whether you have, I'm not talking about religious faith and all that, everything leads back to knowing and believing that you were made uniquely. And wonderfully made one of a kind, everything leads back to that. And when you know that, then ever, and you live from that place on a regular basis.

See, I knew that in my, in my journals. I mean, you could read over the Lord. You're so good. And I believed in myself. I went on to win Miss Georgia. I mean, but I didn't know the power that I had in making decisions for my life. I was letting God just, he's always in control, but I was just. I was not participating with him in my developing life.

Zac Miller: Ooh, so deep, Kim. All right. Maybe we'll do a part three. I don't know. We'll see if you want to see a part three, send your questions.

Kim Gravel: Send your questions, and also send us, I mean, look, even if we don't ever put them on air, send us the things you're struggling with and, and let, and, and get it out. Let, let's start this decision movement.

Let's start just doing what David Venable did, and Amy Goins, and myself, and, and my, my faceless Kelly, and Bo, and let's all be aware of these decisions that we're making in our lives. And I'm telling you, you want to talk about leveling up? Oh, you're going to level up and your whole life is going to catch up with it.

All right. Till next time, I'm Kim. Remember, power of decision. And, and you are fearfully and wonderfully made as is. We love you.

Zac Miller: Love y'all.

Kim Gravel: Bye.

Lord, help me. Help. What's this? I can't even read this. Zac, you need to start journaling. Wait till you read all these.

Zac Miller: I think that's your next book, Kim. Just publish the journal.

Kim Gravel: Oh my god.

Zac Miller: That's it. You're done. Could you imagine. I met this boy. His name's Travis. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. I think,

Kim Gravel: I think. So Beau says, I'm just a boy.

I said, but you're gonna be a man. So you better man up. I'm the perfect boy mom.

Kim Gravel: The Kim Gravel Show is produced and edited by Zac Miller at Uncommon Audio. Our associate producer is Kathleen Grant, the Brunette Exec. Production help from Emily Bredin and Sara Noto.

Our cover art is designed by Sanaz Huber at Memarian Creative and Mike Kligerman Edits the show and a special thanks to the team at QVC. Head over to kimgravelshow.com and sign up for our mailing list. Again, we can't do this without you, so thank you for listening, and we love you.