Speaker 1: I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I
Speaker 1: feel free. I know every part of me it's beautiful
Speaker 1: and that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 1: But you she'll some love to the vio I get there,
Speaker 1: say go day and did you and die out way?
Speaker 1: Happy Saturday, Outwigh. I'm Leanne Ellington and I'm the author
Speaker 1: and creator of stressles Seating and I'm here for a
Speaker 1: solo episode this week. But before we dive in, Amy
Speaker 1: and I did a series called Two Things Can Be
Speaker 1: True at the same time designed to normalize the in
Speaker 1: betweens and heal from extremism. So if you miss those,
Speaker 1: definitely go back and check those out. All eight episodes
Speaker 1: are out now and we're gonna keep on treking along
Speaker 1: with this week's episode about Way, which is all about
Speaker 1: one of the biggest myths that comes up with my clients.
Speaker 1: So just for context, the number one thing that I've
Speaker 1: noticed women do to try to take control and I'm
Speaker 1: really putting that in air quotes, but take control of
Speaker 1: their health is to try to take control of the
Speaker 1: food that they are eating. And heck, there's a multi
Speaker 1: billion dollar industry geared towards helping you do just that,
Speaker 1: and that's really what the diet industry is. But when
Speaker 1: it comes to any woman that struggles with any type
Speaker 1: of disordered eating or an actual eating disorder, this adds
Speaker 1: even more madness to the equation because the more you
Speaker 1: try to air quotes control what you eat, ironically, the
Speaker 1: more out of control you feel. And the truth is
Speaker 1: is that everyone knows how to control food or control
Speaker 1: what you put in your body, and everyone knows how
Speaker 1: to do the whole eat less, move, more dance, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's countless options out there teaching you how
Speaker 1: to count and measure and and restrict and micromanage or
Speaker 1: control what or how much you eat. But let's be honest,
Speaker 1: is that really the approach that you want to take?
Speaker 1: And is that going to help or harm you and
Speaker 1: your efforts with your relationship with food? And does that
Speaker 1: even solve the right problem? And if you get truly
Speaker 1: honest with yourself, is trying to you know, control yourself?
Speaker 1: If that was going to work, wouldn't it have worked
Speaker 1: by now? Now this might seem like a super obvious
Speaker 1: thought process. But again, I have worked with hundreds of
Speaker 1: women over the years, and the number one thing I
Speaker 1: hear is leanne I wish I had more control over food.
Speaker 1: And if you're anything like I was, or like my
Speaker 1: clients are, trying to control food or track food or
Speaker 1: simply think about food, actually makes disordered eating worse, and
Speaker 1: it ingrains more of the diet mentality that you think
Speaker 1: you're trying to get away from. And I totally get
Speaker 1: it because I learned and the same eat less move
Speaker 1: more equation that I'm assuming you know you probably learn too.
Speaker 1: And even though yeah, it can be effective and feeding
Speaker 1: that short term gratification trap of making you feel like
Speaker 1: you're in control, unless you address your relationship with food,
Speaker 1: nothing will change in the long run. So, for example,
Speaker 1: if within your relationship with food, you feel like you're
Speaker 1: a slave to controlling yourself or a slave to exercise
Speaker 1: to make you feel some sense of control or to
Speaker 1: keep you from feeling like you're going off the date bend,
Speaker 1: or if you're always bouncing from one extreme to the other.
Speaker 1: So for me, it looked like, you know, dieting and
Speaker 1: restricting or playing food police until I couldn't really take
Speaker 1: it anymore, and then my inner rebel would kick in
Speaker 1: and I would move to the polar opposite, you know,
Speaker 1: care free, abandonment, eating whatever I could get my hands on,
Speaker 1: and then of course feeling guilty or trying to out
Speaker 1: exercise what I ate. So if you live anywhere on
Speaker 1: that spectrum, and we all have our own version of it,
Speaker 1: that means you're mos likely living on that up and down,
Speaker 1: all or nothing control roller coaster, which means you're probably
Speaker 1: the opposite of free. And if I can be bold
Speaker 1: and take a guess, I'm guessing that you're probably the
Speaker 1: opposite of happy, because let's be honest, that's no way
Speaker 1: to live. And as you're gonna hear me talk about
Speaker 1: a lot, unless you, or I should say, until you
Speaker 1: address the self image and body image that's causing you
Speaker 1: to think and act and feel and behave the way
Speaker 1: that you are and to eat the way that you're eating,
Speaker 1: or to eat your feelings, or you know, to feel
Speaker 1: all that shame and blame and guilt and comparisonitis and perfectionism,
Speaker 1: or you know, whatever your version of that is. And
Speaker 1: again we all have our own. There's no shame, and
Speaker 1: I'm really not trying to be doom and gloom or negative,
Speaker 1: but you will bring all of your old habits and
Speaker 1: old thinking and old behaviors with you if you don't
Speaker 1: address it. And that's why today's episode is so important.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, there are so many mixed messages
Speaker 1: out there about this idea trying to you know, control
Speaker 1: what you eat and the fact that you should try
Speaker 1: to get good at controlling yourself and having more willpower.
Speaker 1: But in reality, not only does this mentality keep you
Speaker 1: stuck in the cycle and oftentimes it makes it worse.
Speaker 1: But thinking that controlling what you eat or even that
Speaker 1: weight loss is going to solve a deeper, bigger struggle,
Speaker 1: or that it is the answer, it's actually going to
Speaker 1: keep you from finding what actually works for you to
Speaker 1: heal in all the ways that you need healing. And again,
Speaker 1: this is not a short term conversation, because everything works
Speaker 1: in the short run, and there's a million ways to
Speaker 1: feel in control in the short run, But then it's
Speaker 1: like what happens after a few days or a few weeks,
Speaker 1: and you know, we really need to shift the paradigm
Speaker 1: to start talking about what will work for you in
Speaker 1: the long run. As in forever and heal the cycle,
Speaker 1: close the loop, put the fire out, and prevent the
Speaker 1: fires from popping back up in the future. So what
Speaker 1: I'm proposed us is that we dive into the thinking
Speaker 1: and the mindset and the brain set behind all of this,
Speaker 1: as in, you know, the wiring in your brain that
Speaker 1: is doing the doing without your permission. And in order
Speaker 1: to do that, I want to start by addressing one
Speaker 1: of the biggest myths that you need to be aware
Speaker 1: of if you ever want to heal your relationship with food,
Speaker 1: your relationship with your body, your relationship with yourself, and
Speaker 1: put all of this stressing about food and your body
Speaker 1: to bed for good. So let's dive in. So I
Speaker 1: believe that one of the biggest myths out there in
Speaker 1: the women's health world is just that it's this idea
Speaker 1: that you should go get good at controlling food. And
Speaker 1: like I said, I can't even tell you how many
Speaker 1: women I speak with that wish they could simply you know,
Speaker 1: have more willpower or discipline or perseverance to stick with
Speaker 1: whatever plan they put themselves on, or you know, maybe
Speaker 1: their dietician or nutritionists put them on it. And yes,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes it's even an eating disorder specialist that
Speaker 1: put you on something that essentially caused you to think
Speaker 1: about food even more. And again, there's so many different
Speaker 1: things out there, and I'm not trying to make anything wrong,
Speaker 1: but we also want to be aware of that, even
Speaker 1: when we think we're getting the help that we need,
Speaker 1: if it's not serving us, we want to know what
Speaker 1: that looks like too, right, because the reality is, let's
Speaker 1: face it, all you want to do is not think
Speaker 1: about it and not have it rule your brain. There
Speaker 1: are so many amazing dieticians and nutritionists and eating disorder
Speaker 1: specialists out there, but a lot of my clients come
Speaker 1: to me and they're likely Anne, I went to somebody
Speaker 1: that specialized in eating disorders and disordered eating and it
Speaker 1: made the problem worse. So you also want to be
Speaker 1: aware of when it's creating more of this food focused conversation. Right.
Speaker 1: And I can't even tell you how many women come
Speaker 1: to me and tell me that, like, if they could
Speaker 1: just figure out how to make, you know, willpower and
Speaker 1: discipline and control show up for them, then all would
Speaker 1: be well and the problem would be solved. And they
Speaker 1: kind of feel bad that they're not able to muster
Speaker 1: up those skills, and I used to think this same
Speaker 1: thing about my own struggles and my own up and
Speaker 1: down weight loss, weight gain, yo yo cycle, and my
Speaker 1: own inability to stick with whatever the you know, diet
Speaker 1: of the month or plan of the month I promised
Speaker 1: myself I would follow through on, And I came to
Speaker 1: learn that it was only because I was focusing on
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. In fact, I was actually making things
Speaker 1: worse because willpower and motivation and the ability to you know,
Speaker 1: grit my way through yet another unsustainable plan or program
Speaker 1: or structure were not my problems. The real problem was
Speaker 1: this idea in my head that I actually wanted to
Speaker 1: go get good at control in the first place, or
Speaker 1: to be a better dieter or whatever words I was using.
Speaker 1: That was the problem. It was that hyper control mentality
Speaker 1: that was keeping me stuck and the fact that I
Speaker 1: was trying to become more skillful in a way of
Speaker 1: thinking that was setting me up to lose and setting
Speaker 1: me up to fail. Well, that was just the icing
Speaker 1: on the cake. Because when trying to control myself or
Speaker 1: grit my way through cravings or you willpower, when that
Speaker 1: kind of thinking was the epicenter of my strategy, this
Speaker 1: was basically my life. So, first off, I was playing
Speaker 1: a game that I would never love and I would
Speaker 1: never win. Yet I was investing crazy amounts of time
Speaker 1: and energy and money and you know, heart and soul,
Speaker 1: really trying and wishing and praying that somehow this time
Speaker 1: would be different. I was playing a game that I
Speaker 1: would never love and never win, and trying to force myself,
Speaker 1: persuade myself, convince myself to keep playing, even though I
Speaker 1: knew in my heart that it would never work and
Speaker 1: that there had to be a better way, even if
Speaker 1: I didn't know what the heck that looked like. Right,
Speaker 1: I was playing a game that I would never love
Speaker 1: and never win, and then beating myself up or shaming myself,
Speaker 1: blaming myself, feeling guilty all the time because I honestly
Speaker 1: thought there was something wrong with me, that I was
Speaker 1: the problem. Till all of a sudden, you know, I
Speaker 1: got to that point where I hate to admit it,
Speaker 1: but I kind of almost lost hope or faith or
Speaker 1: trust that anything would work for me, because by that point,
Speaker 1: I genuinely thought there was something wrong with me. I
Speaker 1: genuinely thought I was messed up or a food addict
Speaker 1: or whatever other cruel and untrue things I was saying
Speaker 1: to myself. Thankfully though a moment literally down on my
Speaker 1: knees on a paddle board with tears streaming down my face,
Speaker 1: and I now endearingly call it my first quarter life crisis,
Speaker 1: which is a whole other story all in itself, but
Speaker 1: it forced me to stop putting band aids on the problem,
Speaker 1: get the help that I needed, and finally solve the
Speaker 1: problem that had been following me around my entire life.
Speaker 1: And it was only through those series of events that
Speaker 1: I was able to realize the following. So trying to
Speaker 1: use willpower and control was simply a band aid or
Speaker 1: a way of me papering over the fact that I
Speaker 1: had a really complicated and stressful and emotional relationship with
Speaker 1: food and a complicated, stressful and emotional relationship with myself. Ironically, though,
Speaker 1: you know when you're trying to control yourself all the time,
Speaker 1: you know what that brings more of? Well, yeah, you
Speaker 1: probably guessed complication, stress, and emotion. So it's taking the complication,
Speaker 1: the stress, and the emotion and just adding to it,
Speaker 1: but trying to control myself thinking that it was going
Speaker 1: to help, but it was making it worse. And it
Speaker 1: was just one big catch twenty two. And this is
Speaker 1: where I want to talk about something that I talk
Speaker 1: about all the time, and I call it the weight
Speaker 1: of the weight. And this is where I want to
Speaker 1: talk about something that I talk about all the time,
Speaker 1: and I call it the weight of the weight, because
Speaker 1: the weight on your body isn't the real weight. The
Speaker 1: real weight is all this other stuff that you've been
Speaker 1: carrying around with you. And we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: what that is in just a second, but for right now,
Speaker 1: just know this, like, once you make the shift, once
Speaker 1: you ditch that weight what I call the weight of
Speaker 1: the weight, that's when you'll finally be able to be
Speaker 1: done with all the food and body and diet stuff
Speaker 1: once and for all, and you know, no more dieting
Speaker 1: and worrying and stressing or obsessing or second guessing or whatever,
Speaker 1: right and you can just finally stop all of that
Speaker 1: controlled diet madness, okay, and you'll be able to get
Speaker 1: off the up and down all or nothing roller coaster
Speaker 1: and you'll know how to give yourself what you really
Speaker 1: need to transform your health for good, not just get
Speaker 1: those short term. Can't keep them because I can't sustain
Speaker 1: this kind of results. Right. And when I talk about
Speaker 1: the weight of the weight, there's a few different weight
Speaker 1: of the weights that you'll hear me talk about throughout
Speaker 1: these episodes on that way. But the weight of the
Speaker 1: weight that I want to talk about today is the
Speaker 1: first weight that needs to be ditched, and it's the
Speaker 1: weight of the fight, Okay, the fight against food, the
Speaker 1: fight against your body, the fight against yourself. And I
Speaker 1: want to give you permission to ditch the weight of
Speaker 1: the fight, which is really this quest to control, as in,
Speaker 1: ditch the weight of the restriction and the deprivation and
Speaker 1: the punishment and the persuasion and the stress that typically
Speaker 1: comes alongside food in your body. And it does not
Speaker 1: have to because here's the thing. Food is not the problem.
Speaker 1: Food is not some enemy, right. The hyper trying to
Speaker 1: control yourself mentality is the problem here. It's your thoughts
Speaker 1: about food that are the problem. Right. The all or nothing,
Speaker 1: black white up down on off roller coaster is the
Speaker 1: problem because you can't ever get off, or if you do,
Speaker 1: you become terrified that you're going to go. You know,
Speaker 1: for me, it was like, oh my gosh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go gain a bunch of weight I'm going to
Speaker 1: go off the deep end. I'm gonna feel so out
Speaker 1: of control. So either way, you end up feeling like
Speaker 1: you're a slave to it, and you become like kind
Speaker 1: of like a hostage to it. It controls your life
Speaker 1: more than you do. Right, And so here's the truth.
Speaker 1: This is the real weight. This is what perpetuates your
Speaker 1: struggle with food and your body and actually makes it
Speaker 1: worse because first of all, it's stressful, but I would
Speaker 1: even go as far as say it's fattening. And here's
Speaker 1: what I mean. So I want to share with you
Speaker 1: what I call the tail of two cookies. And I've
Speaker 1: shared this before, but it definitely bears repeating. So picture this.
Speaker 1: If I eat a cookie and I allow myself to
Speaker 1: really experience it, you know, the positive emotions of the
Speaker 1: cookie like joy, pleasure, indulgence, just permission to eat it,
Speaker 1: no drama. Right. This is going to put me in
Speaker 1: the relaxed branch of my nervous system. It's called the
Speaker 1: parasympathetic branch. And so as a result, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have all of those feel good, happy hormones floating through me,
Speaker 1: things like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin and most women don't
Speaker 1: know this, but you've got to be in that parasympathetic
Speaker 1: branch if you want to digest your food optimally and
Speaker 1: extract nutrients and really just get your metabolism firing optimally.
Speaker 1: As in, your metabolism and nervous system can't do its
Speaker 1: job if it's not in that parasympathetic branch. But on
Speaker 1: top of that, now that cookie has become one more
Speaker 1: repetition of me practicing relaxation and ease around food, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn the nervous system it just it literally
Speaker 1: just gets good at whatever you teach it, whatever it practices,
Speaker 1: and then this is going to create positive neuro associations
Speaker 1: alongside that cookie. But on the flip side, if I
Speaker 1: eat a cookie, same cookie, but this time I'm feeling
Speaker 1: guilty because I think it's bad, or because I'm doing
Speaker 1: something air quotes wrong, or simply eliciting any other negative emotions,
Speaker 1: this puts me in the stressed branch of my nervous system,
Speaker 1: the sympathetic branch. And so now this experience of the cookie,
Speaker 1: the same cookie but with different thoughts means that I
Speaker 1: have these stress hormones floating through me. Things like cortisol, adrenaline, epinephyrine.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, when you're in this branch of
Speaker 1: your nervous system, it's not able to optimally do its job,
Speaker 1: so optimal digestion, optimal extraction of nutrients, and really like
Speaker 1: firing up metabolic path ways. Your brain thinks it's running
Speaker 1: from a saber toothed tiger, so it's not able to
Speaker 1: optimally do all of that right. But on top of that,
Speaker 1: now this cookie, with those thoughts, it's me practicing like
Speaker 1: another repetition right of stress and unease and disease right
Speaker 1: disorder around food. And again, the nervous system gets good
Speaker 1: at whatever it practices. So now we're laying down these
Speaker 1: negative neuro associations alongside food. Okay, but this isn't just
Speaker 1: the case when it comes to food, Okay, who you're
Speaker 1: being and how you're feeling before, during, and after any
Speaker 1: action is what makes the biggest difference. So it's not
Speaker 1: about what you're doing that's the most important thing. It's
Speaker 1: about who you're being and how you're feeling. And that's why, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm saying it's better to eat a cookie with permission
Speaker 1: than a kale salad under duress or distress, because how
Speaker 1: you feel matters. Okay, when you are stressed or feeling
Speaker 1: guilty or overwhelmed, or you just feel it crap you
Speaker 1: are in you're creating and eliciting that threat or stress response. Okay.
Speaker 1: But the cool thing is your body also has this
Speaker 1: relaxation response that cascades when you feel good or at
Speaker 1: peace during any experience. So again, it's not the cookie,
Speaker 1: it's who you're being and how you're feeling before, during,
Speaker 1: and after, and the same is true for your body.
Speaker 1: So let's just run through that. So for example, and
Speaker 1: I want you to just kind of picture this in
Speaker 1: your own body. If I'm feeling pain free, right and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking happy thoughts and my nervous system is happy
Speaker 1: and healthy, bam, it's going to trigger that relaxation response.
Speaker 1: But if I'm in pain, so physical pain, maybe it's
Speaker 1: emotional pain because I'm thinking self critical thoughts about my body,
Speaker 1: that's gonna make my nervous system I call it nervous,
Speaker 1: like a nervous nervous system, and bam, I'm triggering that
Speaker 1: fight or flight response. And yes, that's simply based on
Speaker 1: the thoughts that I'm thinking about my body so again,
Speaker 1: it's not your body, it's who you're being and how
Speaker 1: you're feeling about your body and the thoughts that you're thinking.
Speaker 1: And I could go on and on and on. I
Speaker 1: used you know, cookie in your body as an example,
Speaker 1: but I think you're starting to get a pattern here. Okay,
Speaker 1: but there's another really big reason that trying to restrict
Speaker 1: or control and like again the control mentality in general,
Speaker 1: why it's the problem. Because if I told you not
Speaker 1: to think about the color blue, okay, just roll with
Speaker 1: me for a second, Like, do not think about the
Speaker 1: color blue, Okay, don't think about blue paint or a
Speaker 1: blue sky, just don't think about the color blue. Period.
Speaker 1: We as humans, especially women, if we are told that
Speaker 1: we can't or have or do or you know, can't
Speaker 1: consume something, it's all we think about. We want it
Speaker 1: even more right, if you tell me I can't have it,
Speaker 1: I think about it. Right. And so every woman that
Speaker 1: I've ever met that struggles with overeating or emotional eating
Speaker 1: or disordered eating or an eating disorder, you're so sick
Speaker 1: of thinking about food, right, And that's why telling yourself
Speaker 1: not to have something, not to do something, it's going
Speaker 1: to make you think about it even more. And again,
Speaker 1: you're sick of thinking about food, right that you just
Speaker 1: want to think about it less. But when you're in
Speaker 1: that all or nothing, black white on off roller coaster
Speaker 1: and you're trying to play the control control control game,
Speaker 1: which we already learn it just doesn't work and it's
Speaker 1: never going to work, you're stuck in that paradigm. Okay.
Speaker 1: So again, in other words, I mean, he's just trying
Speaker 1: to say this a different way, and I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people that likes to hear things multiple different ways.
Speaker 1: But I'll just kind of spell it out. Food is
Speaker 1: not the problem, Okay. I know we listen to podcasts
Speaker 1: and we read books and we think like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I have a food problem. But it's really not the food.
Speaker 1: It's your thoughts about food that are the problem, okay.
Speaker 1: And your weight in your body are not this air
Speaker 1: quotes problem. It's your thoughts about your body that are
Speaker 1: causing and perpetuating the problem. And I hate to say
Speaker 1: it like this, but like you are not the problem,
Speaker 1: but you are also the problem in the way that like,
Speaker 1: it's your thoughts about yourself that are the problems. So
Speaker 1: your thoughts are the solution. Therefore you are the solution.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that I had to own
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm the problem. What's
Speaker 1: that Taylor Swift song? She's like, Hey, I'm the problem.
Speaker 1: It's me right, I'm the problem. But by golly, I
Speaker 1: am the solution. Which is so empowering because I know
Speaker 1: for me, I was thinking the solution lived you know
Speaker 1: air quotes out there, and now I know, no, it
Speaker 1: lives in here. It's in my mind. It's in my brain.
Speaker 1: But I had to acknowledge not with shame, like with
Speaker 1: love and compassion that like I am creating the problem
Speaker 1: in my head with the way that I'm thinking, and
Speaker 1: more of the control side of it is just perpetuating
Speaker 1: that thinking, more of the problem. Right. So if food,
Speaker 1: you know, stresses you out or bums you out or
Speaker 1: weighs you down, food is not the problem. It's it's
Speaker 1: your relationship with food and who you're being and how
Speaker 1: you're feeling around the food that's the problem. Right. And
Speaker 1: I can promise you this, right, food is not going away, Okay, temptation,
Speaker 1: it's not going away either. And you know, family gatherings
Speaker 1: and holidays and nights out on the town and you know,
Speaker 1: tired night, it's at home on the couch. You know
Speaker 1: the times when statistically most people tend to mindlessly eat
Speaker 1: or stress eat or emotionally eat. They aren't going away either, Okay.
Speaker 1: In fact, we can count on the fact that food
Speaker 1: will always be a part of our lives. So the
Speaker 1: way I see it, you can keep kind of ignoring
Speaker 1: that and just hope that willpower and discipline magically appear
Speaker 1: to counter all the restrictions in control. Or you can
Speaker 1: a prepare yourself to better handle those situations when they
Speaker 1: do come and be little by little prevent them from
Speaker 1: happening as much in the future, because this is the
Speaker 1: real weight in your mind, body and brain. So here's
Speaker 1: how it played out for me. You know, first off,
Speaker 1: I had to get really real with myself and what
Speaker 1: the problem really was, because until I identified the real problem,
Speaker 1: I would never be able to find a real solution.
Speaker 1: So first I realized that I needed to stop the
Speaker 1: dieting and hyper control, which again left me feeling so
Speaker 1: out of control, and realized like that that was making
Speaker 1: it worse, and on top of it, it didn't even
Speaker 1: work right, and I realized that I was never actually
Speaker 1: addressing the psychology of food and my relationship with food.
Speaker 1: That all I ever knew, because it's all I ever learned,
Speaker 1: was how to control food or this you know, the
Speaker 1: control mentality, and that if I ever truly wanted to
Speaker 1: be free, I needed to be unbrainwashed of the mindset
Speaker 1: of thinking about food so much through you know, control
Speaker 1: or restriction or deprivation or punishment or whatever. I learned
Speaker 1: and really learn a whole new way of thinking around food.
Speaker 1: And I know, to a lot of women I talk to,
Speaker 1: they're likely and I don't even understand what that looks
Speaker 1: like because this is all I've ever known. So if
Speaker 1: that's you, like, I totally hear you. But also I
Speaker 1: realized that food was just one of the ways that
Speaker 1: I was disconnected from myself and disconnected from my body,
Speaker 1: and that if I ever truly wanted to find peace
Speaker 1: of mind and happiness and freedom, I needed to end
Speaker 1: that war that I entered into a long time ago,
Speaker 1: where I was fighting myself and shaming myself and blaming
Speaker 1: myself and really just trying to control myself. And I
Speaker 1: needed to find a way to move towards peace and
Speaker 1: love and freedom. Like Wave the White flag like end
Speaker 1: the war with my body, and so moral of the story.
Speaker 1: You know, this myth that controlling yourself is the solution, right,
Speaker 1: or that it's something that you even want to get
Speaker 1: good at. That is the myth and the lie and
Speaker 1: the brainwashing that I believe keeps women stuck, and it
Speaker 1: keeps them in a prison. And it's a prison of
Speaker 1: control and judgment and micromanaging every ounce of food that
Speaker 1: touches your lips. And it's a prison of restriction and
Speaker 1: deprivation that inevitably just leads to guilt or shame. And
Speaker 1: it's a prison that we actually become afraid to leave.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I know for me, it's all
Speaker 1: I had ever known, and if it's all you've ever known, like,
Speaker 1: it's very understandable that you're kind of terrified to leave it.
Speaker 1: And you know, again, if you're anything like me, it
Speaker 1: was a conversation that went something like, well, what will
Speaker 1: happen if I stop trying to control or if I
Speaker 1: stop restricting like again, I'll go off the deep end
Speaker 1: or gain a bunch of weight or you know, insert
Speaker 1: dramatic story. And we all have our own. And the
Speaker 1: ironic part is that, yes, it's a prison, but it's
Speaker 1: a prison that in some way actually feels safe and
Speaker 1: it feels comforting because it's what we know, right, and
Speaker 1: the brain loves what it knows, even if it's not
Speaker 1: really that great, even if it's an absolutely causing suffering,
Speaker 1: and until we realize that it's not actually keeping us
Speaker 1: safe and that it's not actually comforting us, until we
Speaker 1: realize that, we stay stuck in it. But the cool
Speaker 1: thing is, if we choose it, we can break down
Speaker 1: those walls and escape any time we choose and start
Speaker 1: moving in the direction of freedom and happiness and peace
Speaker 1: of mind and love, like true, genuine self acceptance and
Speaker 1: self love, not that just like fake positivity that I
Speaker 1: know the world threw at me for a lot of years,
Speaker 1: for real, like really feeling it in your bones. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what does that look like for you? And you know,
Speaker 1: to be honest, it's different for every woman, and you know,
Speaker 1: but here's what I can tell you. It isn't all right.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to let you in on a little
Speaker 1: distinction that I teach my clients and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a filter or a process so that we can
Speaker 1: create their own unique recipes for freedom and peace of
Speaker 1: mind and self love because I really believe we all
Speaker 1: need our own recipe. But here it's super simple. So
Speaker 1: the first question is this, and you can use this
Speaker 1: like in the moment, but you can also use it
Speaker 1: big picture like are you walking towards freedom so you know,
Speaker 1: food freedom, body freedom? Or are you walking away from it? Right?
Speaker 1: And just look look at your life, look at your
Speaker 1: kind of strategy. Are you walking towards freedom or walking
Speaker 1: away from it? And are you walking towards happiness or
Speaker 1: you know day to day like are you feeling happy
Speaker 1: or is the strategy that you're using making you happy?
Speaker 1: Or are you walking away from happiness? Right? And are
Speaker 1: you walking towards peace of mind or are you walking
Speaker 1: away from peace of mind? Like are you living in
Speaker 1: a stress or worry or anxiety or feeling like you're
Speaker 1: constantly burnt out or just hemorrhaging energy? Following the plan,
Speaker 1: the program, the structure, the system of thinking that you
Speaker 1: are following. Because here's the reality, and I mean this
Speaker 1: with so much love, But if whatever it is that
Speaker 1: you're committed to makes you feel restricted or confined or deprived,
Speaker 1: or if you have to force yourself to do it,
Speaker 1: or stick with it. You are actively out voting your freedom.
Speaker 1: And if whatever it is that you're committed to is
Speaker 1: making you feel unhappy, or it's robbing you of your joy,
Speaker 1: or outright does it make you feel very good, you
Speaker 1: are actively outvoting your happiness. And if whatever you are
Speaker 1: committing to it just blatantly you know, stresses you out
Speaker 1: or overwhelms you or bogs you down or weighs you
Speaker 1: down right, or maybe it's just that your heart and
Speaker 1: soul knows that you're not going to be able to
Speaker 1: stick with it, you are actively out voting peace of mind.
Speaker 1: And if whatever you're doing is causing you to constantly
Speaker 1: feel shame or blame or guilt or comparison itis or perfectionism,
Speaker 1: you are actively out voting self love and self acceptance.
Speaker 1: So I really just invite you to think about your
Speaker 1: connection and commitment to trying to air quotes control yourself
Speaker 1: and also thinking that you might actually want to get
Speaker 1: better at it. And I want you to think about
Speaker 1: this idea that you need to simply gather more willpower
Speaker 1: or discipline, or that it's just a matter of finding
Speaker 1: the perfect plan, right, Just think about all those ways
Speaker 1: that you're still kind of in the control mentality and
Speaker 1: it might be disguised as air quotes healthy, right, And
Speaker 1: instead I just want you to ask yourself, like, is
Speaker 1: this really what I want? And is this really what
Speaker 1: I need? Like is this solving the right problem? Or
Speaker 1: is it just perpetuating the old problem? And there is
Speaker 1: no shame and no judgment, just love. But again, if
Speaker 1: control and practicing willpower hasn't worked up until now, what's
Speaker 1: going to magically cause it to start working for you now? Right?
Speaker 1: And if you've been, you know, practicing the control mentality
Speaker 1: for what seems like forever, you know, if it was
Speaker 1: ever truly going to work, don't you think it would
Speaker 1: have worked right now? And I wish that somebody would
Speaker 1: have warned me that the thing I was thinking would
Speaker 1: save me and would be my solution was actually making
Speaker 1: things worse. Okay, this conversation, it really could have saved
Speaker 1: me years of struggling and suffering and pain. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be who I am if I didn't least share
Speaker 1: it with you right here, right now. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to turn it over to you, and I genuinely just
Speaker 1: invite you to explore kind of the conversation the lines
Speaker 1: of thinking, the lines of questioning that I shared on
Speaker 1: today's episode, and really like, what do you have to lose?
Speaker 1: Right because if you're here right now and you're stuck
Speaker 1: in some sort of pain or suffering or a prison
Speaker 1: of the food and body prison, what do you have
Speaker 1: to lose? Really? Okay, So that is all for this
Speaker 1: week's episode of Outweigh. And if you want to hear
Speaker 1: more about the process that I teach my clients when
Speaker 1: it comes to rewiring your own brain and self image
Speaker 1: when it comes to food in your body, then head
Speaker 1: on over to Stressless Eating dot com and sign up
Speaker 1: to watch the Stressless Eating webinar where I walk you
Speaker 1: through the exact five step game plan that my own
Speaker 1: clients use to heal themselves from that all or nothing
Speaker 1: diet mentality for good, but without restricting themselves, punishing their bodies,
Speaker 1: and definitely without ever having to use words like macros,
Speaker 1: low carb or calorie burn. And so I've laid it
Speaker 1: all out for you over there in five easy steps.
Speaker 1: So head on over to stressless Eeating dot com and
Speaker 1: check it out. And I'm Leanne Ellington signing out for
Speaker 1: this episode of Outweigh, and we will be back next week.
Speaker 1: Bye