Speaker 1: I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning to love who I am. A You'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know every part of me it
Speaker 1: is beautiful and then will always out way if you
Speaker 1: feel it with your hands and be here, She'll some
Speaker 1: love to the food. I get there, say God, day
Speaker 1: Ana did you and die out way? Happy Saturday, out Wigh.
Speaker 1: I'm Leanne Ellington and I'm a friend of Amy's and
Speaker 1: the author and creator of Stressless Eating, and I'm back
Speaker 1: again as the resident guest host for a few episodes
Speaker 1: of Outwagh, which we started doing a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: So if you miss those, definitely go back and check
Speaker 1: those out. And we're gonna just keep this train rolling
Speaker 1: with this week's episode all about how or why weekend
Speaker 1: self sabotage is a thing and what to do about it.
Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and dive on in. So, for
Speaker 1: the first thirty years of my life, my relationship with
Speaker 1: food had two modes. There was on or there was off. Okay,
Speaker 1: there was no middle ground for me. I was either
Speaker 1: walking around day in, day out as what I call
Speaker 1: my inner food police, so you know, micromanaging every morsel
Speaker 1: of food I ate or thought about eating, controlling myself,
Speaker 1: restricting myself, punishing myself and persuading myself not to eat
Speaker 1: certain things because they were air quotes bad or not healthy.
Speaker 1: And of course this was paired with obsession and harsh
Speaker 1: judgments and all of that shame, blame, guilt, the comparison itis,
Speaker 1: the perfectionism. I could go on and on. So there
Speaker 1: was that side of me, my inner food police side,
Speaker 1: and then there was my alter ego, my inner rebel
Speaker 1: or also known as my inner glutton, and when she
Speaker 1: was in charge, it was all out care free abandonment,
Speaker 1: eating whatever I could get my hands on, you know,
Speaker 1: gluttonously over stuffing my face and binging on the weekends,
Speaker 1: and just utter lack of care of my body or
Speaker 1: what I ate, how I moved, and just my health
Speaker 1: in general, but also feeling like I had to kind
Speaker 1: of you know, get it all in over the weekend
Speaker 1: before I went back into my inner police mode on Monday.
Speaker 1: And this was my life for nearly thirty years, so
Speaker 1: bouncing from one extreme to the other. So I would
Speaker 1: diet and restrict until I couldn't possibly take it anymore,
Speaker 1: and then I would totally let myself go, and this
Speaker 1: more or less off the rails behavior would continue until
Speaker 1: I either you know, just felt like crap physically or
Speaker 1: all of that guilt and shame seeped in, and then
Speaker 1: back into police mode I would go. There was no
Speaker 1: middle ground, only two ends of the same switch. I
Speaker 1: was either on or I was off. And this caused
Speaker 1: me to live on that up and down all or
Speaker 1: nothing results roller coaster that I'm always talking about with
Speaker 1: my clients, and the reality is it's a prison, and
Speaker 1: one that I didn't have a clue how to escape from.
Speaker 1: Not to mention that the world was throwing more diets
Speaker 1: at me, you know, more on and off switches and
Speaker 1: more of that definition of insanity. So the day came
Speaker 1: that I did eventually hit my version of that enough
Speaker 1: is enough point, and I realized that if I didn't
Speaker 1: change my strategy and change the stories around food and
Speaker 1: my body that were keeping me stuck, this is how
Speaker 1: it would always be. And honestly, that is the part
Speaker 1: that genuinely scared the crap out of me. Right, It
Speaker 1: wasn't the way it was that it was that mental prison,
Speaker 1: and that is when I knew that I had to
Speaker 1: set out and change it, because for me, I had
Speaker 1: to get sick of all the dieting and restricting and
Speaker 1: constantly playing food police. And I had to get sick
Speaker 1: of all the judging and shaming, an emotion that was
Speaker 1: coming alongside food for me. And I had to get
Speaker 1: sick of hating what I had to do and who
Speaker 1: I had to be and how I had to feel
Speaker 1: to get the body that I always, you know, thought
Speaker 1: I wanted, even though that was an illusion as well, right,
Speaker 1: but it was exhausting and I was the opposite of free.
Speaker 1: So if you are still stuck on that on again
Speaker 1: off again roller coaster with food or your body or
Speaker 1: your emotions, I'm here to, first of all, just give
Speaker 1: you so much love and so much compassion and so
Speaker 1: much grace. There is nothing wrong with you. You are
Speaker 1: not weak willed or a self sabotager or destined to
Speaker 1: stay this way forever, even if it feels like it.
Speaker 1: You simply learned it, just like I learned it, and
Speaker 1: just like my clients learned it. But I'm also here
Speaker 1: to tell you and encourage you that there is a
Speaker 1: better way, and you can unlearn it and you don't
Speaker 1: have to live like this. But also, and I'm just being,
Speaker 1: you know, really real with you, because that's how we
Speaker 1: roll on out. Weigh you'll never earn back your freedom
Speaker 1: and never break free from the prison if you're living
Speaker 1: in a world of control, especially around food, because control
Speaker 1: is the opposite of freedom. Now, I want to just
Speaker 1: slow down and say that again, because honestly, it felt
Speaker 1: a bit counterintuitive to me the first time I heard
Speaker 1: it that control is the opposite of freedom and dieting, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's simply a form of control and it's not freedom.
Speaker 1: So before we get into all of that, I believe
Speaker 1: that first it's important to understand why we do what
Speaker 1: we do and just have a heightened awareness of it
Speaker 1: so we can, you know, first and foremost, just relinquish
Speaker 1: any shame about it, because again, there's nothing to be
Speaker 1: ashamed of. It's just something that you learn, but also
Speaker 1: to help you go move forward and not stay stuck.
Speaker 1: So why do we do it? Why do we feel
Speaker 1: gung ho one minute and then the next minute we
Speaker 1: feel totally out of control? And why do we, as
Speaker 1: one of my clients described it, feel like we have
Speaker 1: this Jeckyl hide personality where one minute we are this
Speaker 1: hyperd disciplined version of ourselves and one minute we feel
Speaker 1: like our own inner rebel is like she's off her
Speaker 1: leash to be honest, and we're just going along for
Speaker 1: the ride. Right. So here's the thing, the way I
Speaker 1: see it, we all have our own individual cause and
Speaker 1: effect cycle for that cycle, for the overeating, and then
Speaker 1: the control or I say control in air quotes. But
Speaker 1: what I'm going to do is this, I'm simply just
Speaker 1: going to share the three most common cause and effect
Speaker 1: cycles that were coming up for me in my life
Speaker 1: and the most common ones I see with my clients,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I truly believe they really do just have
Speaker 1: to be addressed if you ever want to be free
Speaker 1: of the vicious cycle. So the first cause and effect
Speaker 1: is the diet mentality. So whenever we're playing the game
Speaker 1: of eat less, move more, or the game of control restriction, deprivation, obsession,
Speaker 1: or the game of you know, air quotes, can can't
Speaker 1: have that, or should shouldn't eat that? Or good bad,
Speaker 1: right wrong foods, it's only a matter of time before
Speaker 1: we can't take it any longer and stray from the
Speaker 1: plan and overeat, but again, it's not your fault. Even
Speaker 1: the most disciplined and strong willed woman can't win that
Speaker 1: when you're playing a losing game. And this is where
Speaker 1: I want to remind you of the weight of the weight.
Speaker 1: And I've talked about it on almost every episode of
Speaker 1: Outweigh and Full Disclosure. Most likely we'll talk about it
Speaker 1: on future episodes because it's so important. So when I
Speaker 1: say the weight of the weight, what I mean is
Speaker 1: that the weight on your body isn't the real weight.
Speaker 1: The real weight is all this other stuff that you've
Speaker 1: been carrying around with you, and that's the real weight
Speaker 1: that needs to be ditched. That is the weight that's
Speaker 1: truly weighing you down and keeping you on that up
Speaker 1: and down roller coaster or keeping you either all in
Speaker 1: or all out and leaving you to deal with that
Speaker 1: dreaded bounce back effect that comes alongside the diet mentality.
Speaker 1: So there's four weight of the weights that I teach
Speaker 1: my clients specifically, But the first weight of the weight
Speaker 1: is the one I want to talk about today because
Speaker 1: it addresses this specifically. It's the weight of the restriction, deprivation, punishment, persuasion,
Speaker 1: and stress that typically comes alongside food, and it does
Speaker 1: not have to. It's optional because food is not the problem,
Speaker 1: and food is not some enemy that needs to be
Speaker 1: fought against, even if it feels like it. The diet
Speaker 1: mentality is the enemy. If there is one right, and
Speaker 1: the diet mentality is the problem, it's that all or nothing,
Speaker 1: black and white up down on off roller coaster that
Speaker 1: is causing and perpetuating the problem because you can't ever
Speaker 1: get off it, or if you do get off of it,
Speaker 1: you become terrified that you'll go gain weight or go
Speaker 1: off your version of the deep end. Either way, you
Speaker 1: feel or you end up in this feeling that you're
Speaker 1: kind of like a slave to it, like you're its hostage,
Speaker 1: and it controls your life more than you do. So
Speaker 1: the truth is this is the real weight, and this
Speaker 1: just perpetuates your struggle with food and your body. And
Speaker 1: for honest, it actually makes things worse because as it's
Speaker 1: really stressful. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist
Speaker 1: to figure out that living like this it puts this
Speaker 1: new type of stress on our already stressful lives. But
Speaker 1: I would even go as far as say it's fattening.
Speaker 1: And here's what I mean. So I call this the
Speaker 1: tail of two cookies, and I want to show you
Speaker 1: what happens when you take the same cookie, but you
Speaker 1: have two very different sets of thoughts about the same cookie.
Speaker 1: Hence the tail of two cookies. So let's look at
Speaker 1: the first example. So if I eat a cookie and
Speaker 1: I'm in that binge restrict cycle or I'm in you know,
Speaker 1: the drama of eating a cookie because I'm feeling guilty
Speaker 1: because I think it's air quotes bad, or because i
Speaker 1: feel like I'm doing something wrong, or I'm simply eliciting
Speaker 1: any other air quotes negative emotions. And I say air
Speaker 1: quotes because obviously we're not. You can't see me putting
Speaker 1: them up. But there's no real negative emotions. They just
Speaker 1: are emotions, but they don't always feel good. So that's
Speaker 1: what I mean. But when you're in this place, when
Speaker 1: you're in that stressful you know downward spiral. Not only
Speaker 1: does this stimulate the fight or flight sympathetic branch of
Speaker 1: your nervous system, but it creates this ripple effect and
Speaker 1: a downward spiral on every system of systems in your body.
Speaker 1: So hormones, respiratory, digestive, even down to all the metabolic processes,
Speaker 1: and of course it's more complex than this. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: oversimplifying it, but you get the gist. Not surprisingly, though,
Speaker 1: this is going to create what's called negative neuro associations
Speaker 1: around not just food but eating in general, all because
Speaker 1: of what was going through my mind when I ate it. Okay,
Speaker 1: but on the flip side, let's take a look at
Speaker 1: the other cookie. If I eat a cookie and I
Speaker 1: give myself permission to just experience the positive emotions right,
Speaker 1: things like joy and play and just plain peace, like
Speaker 1: there's no worry or drama around that cookie, this unlocks
Speaker 1: the relaxation of my parasympathetic nervous system, and it's like
Speaker 1: giving every system in my body an upgrade, and it
Speaker 1: creates this ongoing positive ripple effect metabolically, so every system
Speaker 1: of systems in the body will affect positively or be
Speaker 1: affected positively because of that ripple effect. Plus we talked
Speaker 1: about those neuro associations that come alongside food. This is
Speaker 1: going to create positive neuro associations around not just the
Speaker 1: cookie and not just food, but eating in general, all
Speaker 1: because of what was going through my mind when I
Speaker 1: ate it. So, in other words, it's not the cookie.
Speaker 1: It's your thoughts about the cookie. Right, I'll say that again.
Speaker 1: It's not the cookie, it's not the food. It's not
Speaker 1: your body. It's your thoughts about the cookie, the food,
Speaker 1: the body. And this isn't just the case when it
Speaker 1: comes to food. Who you're being and how you're feeling before, during,
Speaker 1: after anything is what's going to make the biggest difference,
Speaker 1: because how you feel matters. And this is a topic
Speaker 1: we could get geeky about, and we won't today. But
Speaker 1: bottom line, you know, stress and guilt and overwhelm and
Speaker 1: just when you generally feel like crap, and we all
Speaker 1: have our own recipe for that, it elicits this threat
Speaker 1: or stress response in our nervous system. But your body
Speaker 1: also has a relaxation response that cascades when you feel
Speaker 1: good or when you just don't feel bad, to be honest,
Speaker 1: during any experience. So again, it's not food that's the problem.
Speaker 1: It's your thoughts about the food that are causing so
Speaker 1: much of the effects that you're dealing with, including either
Speaker 1: gaining weight or not being able to lose it. So
Speaker 1: it's a brain and nervous system problem, not a food problem.
Speaker 1: But here's another reason that trying to restrict and control
Speaker 1: food and the diet mentality in general is the cause
Speaker 1: and effect problem here, because if I told you not
Speaker 1: to think about the color blue, okay, just roll with
Speaker 1: me for a second. Don't think about blue, don't think
Speaker 1: about blue paint, or a blue sky or a blue basketball.
Speaker 1: Just don't think about the color blue period. Now, how
Speaker 1: did that work for you? Right? We as humans, especially women,
Speaker 1: if we're told that we can't have, do, or consume something,
Speaker 1: it is all we think about it. We want it
Speaker 1: even more, we think about it even more. And every
Speaker 1: woman I've ever met that struggles with overeating or emotional eating,
Speaker 1: she's so sick of thinking about food, and I have
Speaker 1: a feeling you are too. But when you're part of
Speaker 1: that all or nothing, black white on off mindset, it
Speaker 1: forces you to think about and assess over food and
Speaker 1: that's no way to live. And that's why weekends feel
Speaker 1: like such a trigger because there's only so much willpower
Speaker 1: at your disposal after a week of trying to air quotes,
Speaker 1: be good or abstain from your favorite foods, or just
Speaker 1: feeling hungry all the time, So it's only natural that
Speaker 1: you might feel out of control on the weekends. But
Speaker 1: if you're not already sold on this idea, here's one
Speaker 1: more reason that trying to restrict and control food and
Speaker 1: just the diet mentality in general is the problem. And honestly,
Speaker 1: it's the only reason that really matters in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and that's that it doesn't work. It's not even solving
Speaker 1: the problem. In fact, it's perpetuating it and making it worse.
Speaker 1: And here's why. You know your brain it is this
Speaker 1: beautiful pattern making machine that really it's designed to just
Speaker 1: get good at whatever it practices. So, you know, skills,
Speaker 1: the more we practice them, they're supposed to get easier
Speaker 1: the more we practice them. So if I'm learning Spanish, technically,
Speaker 1: the more I speak it, the better I get. Or
Speaker 1: if I'm trying to learn the ukulele, right, the more
Speaker 1: I play, the better I should get. But then why
Speaker 1: with weight loss and dieting do we get worse at
Speaker 1: it the more we practice it? While dieting and weight
Speaker 1: loss get harder because they are working against the brain,
Speaker 1: they're causing all of those negative neuro associations. And here's
Speaker 1: what you need to know about your brain. It's super simple.
Speaker 1: Your brain will never get good at something that causes
Speaker 1: its stress or something that it outright hates. And that's
Speaker 1: why restricting yourself and depriving yourself and trying to eliminate
Speaker 1: entire food groups, your brain will never adopt that long term,
Speaker 1: and it's bound to just rebound the other way, particularly
Speaker 1: on the weekends if you're experiencing that, if that's what
Speaker 1: you're trying to get it to do the other four
Speaker 1: or five days of the week. And so yeah, even
Speaker 1: though technically control and restriction and punishment and persuasion can
Speaker 1: be used as tools when they're used strategically, but for
Speaker 1: most women they've become, you know, massive weapons of resistance.
Speaker 1: And that's because you know, controlling yourself and micromanaging your
Speaker 1: food and take and obsessing or restricting yourself, depriving yourself,
Speaker 1: trying to eliminate entire food groups, or punishing yourself, whether
Speaker 1: that's you know, starving yourself because you ate something that
Speaker 1: you deemed naughty or feeling the incessant desire to go
Speaker 1: burn off what you ate with exercise, or you know,
Speaker 1: persuading yourself, whether that's to eat or not eat something,
Speaker 1: or trying to force or convince yourself to stick with
Speaker 1: something that's making you miserable. These are all things that
Speaker 1: are the opposite of freedom, and this is what perpetuates
Speaker 1: that weekend self sabotage and the emotional eating and the
Speaker 1: all or nothing diet mentality. Especially during the weekends and
Speaker 1: holidays and evening on the couch or whenever, you're more
Speaker 1: susceptible to overeating or feeling like a self sabotager. So
Speaker 1: that's reason number one and really the main reason that
Speaker 1: I wanted to get across. But there's a couple other
Speaker 1: factors that also come into place, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: take a look at those two. So the next reason
Speaker 1: this happens, and unfortunately it's one of the things that
Speaker 1: most health experts aren't talking about. A lot of women
Speaker 1: have a very emotional or stressful relationship with food. So
Speaker 1: for me, I started using sugar as my numbing device
Speaker 1: and boredom killer and security blanket from a very young age.
Speaker 1: It was always there for me and when I needed it,
Speaker 1: I could depend on it. So as an at all,
Speaker 1: I brought that relationship with me. Only food then became
Speaker 1: my boyfriend when I was lonely, or my source of
Speaker 1: relaxation when I had a hard day or felt stressed,
Speaker 1: or my comfort when I didn't feel like doing something
Speaker 1: or feeling what I was feeling, or let's be honest,
Speaker 1: when I didn't even know what I was feeling or
Speaker 1: not feeling because I was so numbed out. But when
Speaker 1: you have an emotional relationship with food, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what logical plan you have about what you're going to eat,
Speaker 1: because your emotions will eventually win. And I mean, sure,
Speaker 1: you can motivate or persuade yourself not to eat certain things,
Speaker 1: but until you unwire that emotional relationship with food that's
Speaker 1: occurring in your brain. Notice I didn't say just the mind.
Speaker 1: It's in your brain, and you go fire and wire
Speaker 1: a new relationship with food, emotions will always win out
Speaker 1: in the long run. And again it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with you if you do have an
Speaker 1: emotional relationship with food. It's a brain thing and a
Speaker 1: connection that got created somewhere along the lines that can
Speaker 1: be rewired anytime. You know, you are never too old,
Speaker 1: too young, too lost, too far gone to fill in
Speaker 1: the blank to go create that brain change. But again,
Speaker 1: this is the real way. And so if food does
Speaker 1: stress you out, or maybe it bums you out or
Speaker 1: just kind of weighs you down. Food is not the
Speaker 1: problem if it's you know, your source of comfort when
Speaker 1: you're sad or lonely or strussed or bored and you're
Speaker 1: using it to fill a void. Again, there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: shame in that whatsoever. But that's the problem that needs
Speaker 1: to be addressed, not the food itself. It's your relationship
Speaker 1: with food and who you're being around food that's the problem. Right,
Speaker 1: And here's one thing that we can count on. Food.
Speaker 1: It's not going away, right, It's not like we can
Speaker 1: just abstain from it. And temptation is not going away.
Speaker 1: And family gatherings and holidays and nights out on the
Speaker 1: town and tired nights at home on the couch, the
Speaker 1: times when statistically most people te to mindlessly eat or
Speaker 1: stress eat or binge eat or emotionally eat, they aren't
Speaker 1: going away either. In fact, you know, we can count
Speaker 1: on the fact that food will always be a part
Speaker 1: of our lives. So the way I see it, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can ignore that and just you know, hope that
Speaker 1: willpower and discipline magically appear to counter all the restriction
Speaker 1: and control or you know, a you can prepare yourself
Speaker 1: to better handle those situations when they do come, and
Speaker 1: be little by little prevent them from happening in the future.
Speaker 1: Because this is the real weight in your mind, body,
Speaker 1: and brain. And that brings us perfectly into the third
Speaker 1: and final reason of why we sabotage or just kind
Speaker 1: of rebound on the weekends. That brings us perfectly into
Speaker 1: the third and final reason of why we sabotage or
Speaker 1: just kind of rebound on the weekends. And again, this
Speaker 1: one might sound counterintuitive, but it's that we haven't ever
Speaker 1: fully committed to transforming our relationship with food. So just
Speaker 1: hear me out. This is the conversation that I had
Speaker 1: to eventually have with myself, and this is the conversation
Speaker 1: I have to have with every single one of my
Speaker 1: clients before we start working together, because it's make or break,
Speaker 1: And so I always ask them, you know, are you
Speaker 1: at that point where you're ready to heal this and
Speaker 1: you're committed to actually solving this no more band aids,
Speaker 1: as in, are you radically committed to not just losing
Speaker 1: weight and putting that at the forefront, but to healing
Speaker 1: this struggle for good, addressing it from the root, and
Speaker 1: ending the struggle that's causing the problem, or is this
Speaker 1: just something you're interested in, Because there is a huge difference,
Speaker 1: a massive difference between being interested in something versus being
Speaker 1: one thousand percent committed to something right not to mention
Speaker 1: the other distinction in there, there's a very big difference
Speaker 1: between committing to lose weight versus committing to healing what
Speaker 1: is slowly killing you. So for me, my enough is
Speaker 1: enough point came when I realized I just I couldn't
Speaker 1: and I wasn't willing to live another day living with
Speaker 1: all the stress and obsession and emotion that was coming
Speaker 1: alongside food for me. Because it might sound dramatic to
Speaker 1: somebody that's never struggled with the demons of living in
Speaker 1: a food and body prison, but you know, for all
Speaker 1: of you listening to this podcast, I know you get it.
Speaker 1: But all this stuff that we're talking about today, it
Speaker 1: was genuinely ruining my life. And I felt awful about myself.
Speaker 1: I was outright, you know, self hateful, and all of
Speaker 1: the shame and judgment and self criticism I felt from
Speaker 1: it just spilled out into every other area of my life.
Speaker 1: And that's when I realized that I couldn't just dabble
Speaker 1: in fixing the problem. I had to get committed, as
Speaker 1: in my internal dialogue had to shift from I want
Speaker 1: to or i'd like to to I'm doing this like
Speaker 1: I'm flippin gonna address my struggles with food once and
Speaker 1: for all, address my struggles with myself emotionally, you know,
Speaker 1: because it was so much more than food. But learn
Speaker 1: a way of thinking and being that I can actually
Speaker 1: live with easily and happily, and just release myself from
Speaker 1: this prison that I've been living in for decades. And
Speaker 1: for me, it's when the conversation shifted from it's not
Speaker 1: a matter of if, it's a matter of when, because
Speaker 1: this is happening, and so again, this looks so different
Speaker 1: for all of us and for my clients, some of
Speaker 1: their enough as enough moments came in the form of
Speaker 1: realizing they were creating a massive barrier between their husbands
Speaker 1: or their partners, that there was only so many times
Speaker 1: that they could their husband their partner could try to
Speaker 1: be intimate and get rejected, or tell her she was
Speaker 1: beautiful and get rejected before the rift got too big
Speaker 1: to repair. That they were actually afraid that the hold
Speaker 1: that food or their body image had over their life
Speaker 1: would ruin their relationship. For one of my clients, it
Speaker 1: was realizing that she was passing on her food struggles
Speaker 1: to her children, and she was deathly afraid that if
Speaker 1: she didn't do something about it, she would have to
Speaker 1: witness her daughters or sons go through the same pain
Speaker 1: and suffering that she was experiencing. For some of my clients,
Speaker 1: it was a bit more quantifiable, you know, realizing how
Speaker 1: much money they were spending trying to fix the external
Speaker 1: problem with diets and gym memberships, or simply how much
Speaker 1: they were spending on food. And by the way, it's
Speaker 1: really expensive. Did you know that the average diet throws
Speaker 1: away four thousand dollars a year in groceries and that's
Speaker 1: every single year, you know, foods that they bought for
Speaker 1: diets but didn't end up using. And the average binge
Speaker 1: eater spends about five thousand dollars a year on binge
Speaker 1: foods and comfort foods and drive throughs and Starbucks. So again,
Speaker 1: some of my clients enough is enough point game in
Speaker 1: the form of that, But for many it was simply
Speaker 1: realizing that they were sick and tired of food keeping
Speaker 1: them in a prison, a prison of loneliness and shame
Speaker 1: and feeling like a failure and that they were sick
Speaker 1: of this one thing just spilling over into their lives
Speaker 1: and stealing their joy and robbing them of their freedom
Speaker 1: and causing them to feel like they were trapped in
Speaker 1: a body that didn't represent who they really were, like
Speaker 1: the inside didn't match the outsides right, And so it
Speaker 1: shows up so differently for each of us. But I
Speaker 1: do believe we all need to hit that enough is
Speaker 1: enough point that causes us to shift from being interested
Speaker 1: in addressing the struggle to absolutely committed to solving it
Speaker 1: for good, no more band aids. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the most common things I get asked, the most
Speaker 1: common frustration I hear about with the women I talk to,
Speaker 1: and one of the topics that the health and weight
Speaker 1: loss industry are still throwing diets at to solve. And
Speaker 1: it might sound a bit counterintuitive, but over eating or
Speaker 1: feeling out of control on the weekends, it isn't really
Speaker 1: a food problem. It's a relationship with food problem. It's
Speaker 1: a relationship with self problem. And when you make the
Speaker 1: internal shifts in your thinking and fire and wire a
Speaker 1: new relationship with food, that sets you up for freedom.
Speaker 1: That is when food can just be food again and
Speaker 1: you can truly set yourself free. And I get it.
Speaker 1: This is the stuff that's not super sexy. You know,
Speaker 1: most women take a look at this last. But I'm
Speaker 1: telling you it's one of the main things that's causing
Speaker 1: and perpetuating your struggles. And I can promise you this.
Speaker 1: You know, let's say you do go reach your ideal
Speaker 1: weight or your ideal size. You know, if you've been
Speaker 1: being your hyperjudgmental self critical, shaming, blaming and comparing self
Speaker 1: your whole life, that doesn't just magically go away. And
Speaker 1: if you are handcuffed to a diet or reliant on
Speaker 1: out exercising your eating struggles to stay there, that doesn't
Speaker 1: magically go away either. If you don't address the habits
Speaker 1: and the thinking and the behaviors that got you there,
Speaker 1: law of cause and effect says you'll go create more
Speaker 1: of the same. Because knowing what to do is one thing,
Speaker 1: but getting yourself to do it is another. And that's
Speaker 1: why I'm here to remind you of something that we've
Speaker 1: talked about on the past few episodes, is that you
Speaker 1: can't outdiet and outperform and outsmart your self image and
Speaker 1: your brain. And so if your inner self talk is
Speaker 1: taking you in the direction of failure or disbelief or
Speaker 1: straight up on happiness, it's leading you in the wrong direction,
Speaker 1: and you deserve a better direction. And if your brain
Speaker 1: is reliant on food or sugar to handle stress and
Speaker 1: deal with your emotions, that's something that needs to be
Speaker 1: addressed too, because that's what's keeping you stuck in the
Speaker 1: struggle and on that up and down roller coaster. And again,
Speaker 1: there is no shame in that I was there for
Speaker 1: so long, and I'll be the first to admit it too.
Speaker 1: You know, I did not have the guts to quit
Speaker 1: dieting for a very long time, you know. Controlling what
Speaker 1: or how much I ate it felt like the one
Speaker 1: way I could have some sense of control over my
Speaker 1: body or over my weight. And deep down though I
Speaker 1: knew if I wasn't handcuffed to a diet, I was
Speaker 1: desperately afraid I would fall off the deep end or
Speaker 1: go gain a bunch of weight. That's how out of
Speaker 1: control dieting left me. But I knew that if I
Speaker 1: wasn't playing food police, ninety nine percent of the time,
Speaker 1: my inner glutton would take over because I never addressed
Speaker 1: my relationship with food, so it left me feeling crazy
Speaker 1: and so out of control. But it's all I knew.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the devil you know is better
Speaker 1: than the one that you don't know, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally get it, and I get what might be
Speaker 1: coming up for you just simply thinking about the idea
Speaker 1: of giving up dieting. If you're like most women, it's
Speaker 1: you know, most likely the only strategy you've ever known.
Speaker 1: But this is where I just want to impress upon you,
Speaker 1: do not let it fool you. Like the sense of
Speaker 1: control that you might be thinking dieting gives you, it's
Speaker 1: an illusion. And I mean, if it did work, you'd
Speaker 1: be at your ideal weight and know how to keep
Speaker 1: it off and feel healthy. Right, And that's why I'm
Speaker 1: inviting you into the possibility of what if you had
Speaker 1: a relationship with food that actually set you free, one
Speaker 1: that you didn't need to control because you were the
Speaker 1: one in control of you, not a food that you
Speaker 1: felt powerful in the face of food, so that you
Speaker 1: made the choices that you truly wanted to make. Now,
Speaker 1: that is is a totally different conversation, right, because it's
Speaker 1: a conversation of simplicity and freedom and peace of mind
Speaker 1: and health and happiness, rather than feeling like you are
Speaker 1: sacrificing your health for your happiness or vice versa. It's
Speaker 1: also very different than diet and controlling, you know, confusion, stress,
Speaker 1: always feeling like you have to choose between that health
Speaker 1: or that happiness. So I don't believe you have to choose.
Speaker 1: I believe you can have both. But it first means
Speaker 1: actually choosing freedom, not leading with you know, weight loss
Speaker 1: or dropping a few pounds, like choosing freedom. And that's
Speaker 1: a choice that any woman can make. So that is
Speaker 1: it for today, out weigh And I know maybe that's
Speaker 1: not what your thought was gonna come up when we
Speaker 1: talked about this idea of why you feel especially out
Speaker 1: of control on the weekends. But I wouldn't be who
Speaker 1: I was if I didn't share the real truth, because
Speaker 1: I know it's tempting to just want to, you know,
Speaker 1: put some quick put in some quick tips or how too's,
Speaker 1: but that will just put a short term band aid
Speaker 1: on the problem. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you don't need more band aids. You know, you're listening
Speaker 1: to this podcast because you really want to heal this
Speaker 1: and I hope you got exactly what you needed today.
Speaker 1: You know, one distinctions, one teeny little thing that sparked
Speaker 1: something new in your brain and sends it in a
Speaker 1: new direction. And if you liked what you heard today
Speaker 1: and want to hear more about my perspective of rewiring
Speaker 1: your own brain and your self image when it comes
Speaker 1: to food and your body, then head on over to
Speaker 1: stresslesseeding dot com and sign up to watch the Stressless
Speaker 1: Eating webinar where I walk you through the exact five
Speaker 1: step game plan that my clients use themselves to heal
Speaker 1: from that all or nothing diet mentality for good. But
Speaker 1: you know, we're without the restriction and the deprivation and
Speaker 1: definitely without ever having to use words like macros or
Speaker 1: low carb or calorie burns. So I've laid it all
Speaker 1: out for you in five easy steps over at Stressless
Speaker 1: Eating dot com and if you like today's episode, we
Speaker 1: will be back next week for more outweigh where we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about how to know if you're using
Speaker 1: food and exercise as a tool or using it as
Speaker 1: a weapon. So I'm leahe Ellington and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you then