Speaker 1: Pushkin year after year. One of the most common New
Speaker 1: Year's resolutions is losing weight. Many of us start the
Speaker 1: new year hating what we see in the mirror, and
Speaker 1: so we resolved to fix it not by eating just
Speaker 1: a tad healthier, but by completely overhauling our entire food intake.
Speaker 1: January can feel like a time when everyone is on
Speaker 1: some eating regime. Our social media feeds fill up with
Speaker 1: diat ads and articles about paleo and quito and master
Speaker 1: cleanses and cabbage soup. Our friends download calorie counting apps
Speaker 1: and pledge to cut out carbs and sugar. It's hard
Speaker 1: not to get swept up and all the fresh start
Speaker 1: diet culture frenzy, especially if you're not feeling all that
Speaker 1: positive about how you look after the holidays. I know
Speaker 1: all this very well because I too, have had my
Speaker 1: fair share of January diet overhauls. I have started many
Speaker 1: many a new year hating what I saw in the
Speaker 1: mirror and obsessing over my own eating habits and what
Speaker 1: was the result of all district dieting. Weeks later, more
Speaker 1: often than not, I wound up beating myself up for
Speaker 1: not living up to that perfect picture of health i'd
Speaker 1: envisioned on New Year's Eve, a resolution I thought would
Speaker 1: make me happier ended up making me feel more disappointed
Speaker 1: and more depressed than ever. It's been hard for me
Speaker 1: to break this annual cycle. But last year, around this time,
Speaker 1: Andrea Walkeder came to my rescue. Andrea is a psychotherapist
Speaker 1: who specializes in disordered eating and the problem of diet culture.
Speaker 1: She's been studying effective ways to eat for over thirty years.
Speaker 1: I decided to take her meditation course Getting Over Overeating
Speaker 1: on the Insight Time ra app and it was like
Speaker 1: a light bulb went off. Hello and welcome to lesson one.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you decided to join me on this journey.
Speaker 1: If you've been struggling with overeating or binge eating, the
Speaker 1: most important thing to know is that it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: Like all the other experts in this New Year mini
Speaker 1: season of the Happiness Lab, Andrea has discovered that a
Speaker 1: more self compassionate approach is the key to becoming happier
Speaker 1: with our bodies and healthier in what we feed ourselves. So,
Speaker 1: if you are ready to learn more about how you
Speaker 1: can be healthier and kick that destructive diet habit through kindness,
Speaker 1: then join me doctor Laurie Santos for another special New
Speaker 1: Year mini season edition of The Happiness Lab. The topic
Speaker 1: of what I'm supposed to be eating has taken up way,
Speaker 1: way more of my thinking than I care to admit.
Speaker 1: I have spent an embarrassing chunk of my adult life
Speaker 1: plotting and planning new diet regimes. I've spent hours fantasizing
Speaker 1: that this time I really will perfectly adhere to that
Speaker 1: unnecessarily uber strict new eating plan, and I inevitably become
Speaker 1: sad and disappointed when, surprise, I fail again to live
Speaker 1: up to the superhuman diet goals I've set for myself,
Speaker 1: and because I then feel like a loser, I wind
Speaker 1: up comforting myself with whatever off limits food I was
Speaker 1: trying to limit in the first place. And that's why
Speaker 1: I was so taken by Andrea and her work. She
Speaker 1: knows exactly what all this feels like, because she went
Speaker 1: through these very same behaviors and worse for years. I
Speaker 1: think it's really important to be open about the troubling
Speaker 1: relationship that many of us have with food and eating.
Speaker 1: But knowing Andrea's personal history, I was a bit nervous
Speaker 1: about asking her to share all the details. What was
Speaker 1: once the biggest shameful secret of my life is now
Speaker 1: my career, so there's kind of nothing. I don't talk
Speaker 1: about it anymore because there's no shame anymore, because I
Speaker 1: know it wasn't my fault and I know it was
Speaker 1: all passed down innocently, and having found a way to
Speaker 1: climb out, I'm happy to share what I've been through.
Speaker 1: So with that permission, I asked Andrew to explain her
Speaker 1: journey towards eating with greater self compassion, beginning with her
Speaker 1: very earliest memory of when body image and disordered eating
Speaker 1: took over her life. Basically, I started dieting when I
Speaker 1: was about twelve years old, and it was the first
Speaker 1: time I remember having someone comment or say something shameful
Speaker 1: towards my body. Up until that point, I don't really
Speaker 1: remember thinking all that much about my body, even though
Speaker 1: my mom and still is a chronic diet or. But
Speaker 1: when I was about twelve, I got teased about the
Speaker 1: size of my thighs. And I call it a dart
Speaker 1: in the heart moment where something happens and you feel
Speaker 1: terrible about it, usually terrible about yourself, usually make decisions
Speaker 1: as a result that are not generally healthy or helpful,
Speaker 1: and so I felt terrible about my body. Decided that
Speaker 1: I needed to lose weight, and I started my first diet.
Speaker 1: And like I said, my mom was already dieting at
Speaker 1: the time, my older sister was already dieting, and I
Speaker 1: just op on what I now called the diet riot
Speaker 1: roller coaster. So talk about what it was like to
Speaker 1: be on that diet roller coaster inside. Well, once I
Speaker 1: started obsessing, it was this constant soundtrack and it colored
Speaker 1: my life. Now. Some people can diet, I call them
Speaker 1: lightweight dieters pun intended. Some people can diet and it
Speaker 1: doesn't take over their lives, and some people it's a
Speaker 1: real huge obsession and leads to problems. And then many
Speaker 1: people it leads to full blown eating disorders. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened with me. I just became obsessed, which is
Speaker 1: the natural response to dieting. I started sneak eating all
Speaker 1: the food that I wasn't supposed to have on the
Speaker 1: diet and had huge weight fluctuations. I did have a life,
Speaker 1: like I went to school and I eventually went to college,
Speaker 1: and I had lots of friends and summer jobs but
Speaker 1: on the inside, no matter what I was doing, there
Speaker 1: was this constant soundtrack of what I was eating, what
Speaker 1: I wasn't eating, what someone else was eating, and not eating,
Speaker 1: what my thighs looked like compared to this. I was
Speaker 1: constantly obsessed and that really colored my life. So this
Speaker 1: sounds like a horrible soundtrack to turn on in your
Speaker 1: own head. But here we are at the start of
Speaker 1: the new year, and so many people are willingly jumping
Speaker 1: on this diet roller coaster. Tell me kind of how
Speaker 1: that makes you feel, as somebody who's studied this for
Speaker 1: so long. Well, it's sad because it's kind of the
Speaker 1: solution that people are given. And even though the diet
Speaker 1: industry is hugely successful and multibillion dollar industry that continues
Speaker 1: to grow, it's got pretty much a ninety five percent
Speaker 1: failure rate. People think that they themselves are failing, that
Speaker 1: they're just failing the diets. But really the solution that
Speaker 1: we're given to body image issues and to binging or
Speaker 1: overeating is to diet, And the solution that we're given
Speaker 1: the diet is part of the problem. So I feel
Speaker 1: sad about it, and I know what it's like to
Speaker 1: spend your life upset on food and going to parties
Speaker 1: and not being able to eat what others are eating
Speaker 1: or what you really want, or eating out of control
Speaker 1: once you quote slip or break or go off the diet.
Speaker 1: So I know that only too well. And I also
Speaker 1: know what the effects of dieting are. And there's it
Speaker 1: is a roller coaster. So what were some of the
Speaker 1: negative behaviors you noticed in yourself? You talked about your
Speaker 1: obsessive thinking, but did you also have behaviors that made
Speaker 1: you worry that something wasn't right, that you were on
Speaker 1: this kind of a strange roller coaster. Oh? Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: snuck ate constantly. I tried to eat what I had
Speaker 1: deemed good foods in front of people, and then naturally
Speaker 1: ate what I deemed bad foods or what I was
Speaker 1: taught were bad foods. I would throw food away in
Speaker 1: an attempt to get rid of it, and then get
Speaker 1: it out of the garbage and eat it again. I
Speaker 1: mean just They call it in Alcoholics Anonymous, in the
Speaker 1: twelfth Step arena, they call it incomprehensible demoralization that I
Speaker 1: never dreamed I would do. There were even times I
Speaker 1: would steal people's food when I was out of control
Speaker 1: with food. What's amazing about your story is that you
Speaker 1: really realized the bad part of this diet riot roller
Speaker 1: coaster firsthand. Right, Yes, But after decades of dieting and
Speaker 1: rioting and severe eating disorder and going on one diet
Speaker 1: after the next and yo yo weight fluctuations, and then
Speaker 1: I finally found help that actually helped, and I started
Speaker 1: working on the deeper issues. And so how were you
Speaker 1: able to get off this diet riot roller coaster? Well,
Speaker 1: I began getting sufficient support that took me deeper than
Speaker 1: just my body size. Support that helped me learn what
Speaker 1: I was eating over not just what I was eating.
Speaker 1: Support that helped me stop restricting and start having a
Speaker 1: new relationship with food and learning how to approach food
Speaker 1: according to how it would make me feel rather than
Speaker 1: how it would make me look. And one of my
Speaker 1: biggest doovers was deciding that I was going to let
Speaker 1: go of my obsession to change my body and instead
Speaker 1: learn how to treat my body respectfully and then make
Speaker 1: peace with whatever that body was going to be as
Speaker 1: a result. And so, in some ways, ironically, it was
Speaker 1: this attempt to get over this diet mentality that allowed
Speaker 1: you to kind of come to terms and love your body,
Speaker 1: which is what people who are starting out on diets
Speaker 1: want in some sense in the first place. Exactly. People
Speaker 1: think that if they change their body, then they love
Speaker 1: their body. But the way they love your body is
Speaker 1: to love your body like you cut out the middle
Speaker 1: guy and you work on that, and it's work on
Speaker 1: it's roll up your sleeves, work on it. Because of
Speaker 1: the culture we live in, talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: what happens and what the diet mentality does to our
Speaker 1: brains in our minds. Oh, let me count the ways
Speaker 1: what it does to our brains in our minds well mentally.
Speaker 1: First of all, when we deprive ourselves, we become obsessed.
Speaker 1: If someone is cold and they don't put on a sweater,
Speaker 1: they're going to be thinking about how cold they are,
Speaker 1: and when they put on that sweater, they probably don't
Speaker 1: continue thinking they're cold. Or if someone's tired and they
Speaker 1: continually deprive themselves of sleep, they can't stop thinking about
Speaker 1: how tired they are and feeling tired. But as soon
Speaker 1: as we sleep and get rest, we're not likely to
Speaker 1: obsess on being tired the next day because that need
Speaker 1: was met. So when we diet and chronically restrict ourselves
Speaker 1: of delicious food and enough food. Then our minds obsess
Speaker 1: on food because they're not getting what they're needing, so
Speaker 1: it's a natural response. So that's the first huge effect
Speaker 1: of diets. Secondly, there are hormonal changes that happen in
Speaker 1: our body as a result of dieting and attempting to
Speaker 1: lose weight. Unnaturally, have hormones that are responsible for hunger
Speaker 1: and fullness, and when we die it and we lose
Speaker 1: weight unnaturally, our hormones will adjust to try to get
Speaker 1: us back to natural So our hunger hormone will increase
Speaker 1: because it wants us to eat more, and our satiety
Speaker 1: hormone will decrease because it wants us to get more
Speaker 1: food to get more calories because we need it. So hormonally,
Speaker 1: our bodies are very unhappy when we die it, and
Speaker 1: when we are eating in a loving, respectful way, which
Speaker 1: means we don't starve and we don't stuff ourselves, then
Speaker 1: our hormones regulate, and similarly, metabolically, that's a third area
Speaker 1: that changes and that gets affected by diets. Our metabolism
Speaker 1: will adjust if we deprive ourselves and if we try
Speaker 1: to go lower than our natural weight range. We all
Speaker 1: have a natural weight range, just like we have a
Speaker 1: natural foot size and a natural height. Our natural weight
Speaker 1: range isn't one number, opposed to what we're taught people
Speaker 1: try to get to be one number. Our natural range
Speaker 1: is a range. It fluctuates, and when we diet, our
Speaker 1: range tends to fluctuate enormously and unnaturally, and our metabolism
Speaker 1: will try to adjust to try to get us back
Speaker 1: to our natural range because it's natural. So that's another
Speaker 1: effect to be metabolically happy. We want to stop stuffing
Speaker 1: and starving ourselves. And when we stop starving ourselves, we
Speaker 1: stop stuffing ourselves. And you use this wonderful metaphor of
Speaker 1: all these changes is this kind of diet roller coaster.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about what you mean about this
Speaker 1: roller coaster. Yeah, I call it the diet riot roller coaster.
Speaker 1: So there are certainly many people that just riot. They
Speaker 1: just binge and painfully overeat and they don't die it.
Speaker 1: But I've never met anyone that doesn't diet in mentality.
Speaker 1: So I like to say, whether you're dieting in reality
Speaker 1: or mentality, it's still going to have that rebound effect
Speaker 1: of rebellion. So if somebody deprives themselves of food on
Speaker 1: a diet, whether it's official diet in a book or
Speaker 1: a doctor, or it's your own deprivation and rules of
Speaker 1: food groups and foods that you're just not allowed to
Speaker 1: have because they're bad or they're fattening or whatever. So
Speaker 1: when someone does that, it sets up this natural response
Speaker 1: to just want to eat everything the diet mentality tells
Speaker 1: us not to eat. And again there's people that just
Speaker 1: binge and overeat and they say they don't diet. But
Speaker 1: I've never met someone who didn't have diet mentality thinking
Speaker 1: that they should be dieting, And that still sets us up.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I grew up in diet culture obviously.
Speaker 1: I mean I took your course on Insight Timer, which
Speaker 1: I adored. Everyone who's listening to this should take her course.
Speaker 1: If you're struggling with this stuff, thank you. But even
Speaker 1: though I know this stuff, it's sometimes hard for me
Speaker 1: to believe that it's possible to kind of take care
Speaker 1: of your body and lovingly feed it in a way
Speaker 1: that doesn't feel so obsessed. But you've argued that we
Speaker 1: can all do this if we kind of listen to
Speaker 1: that voice deep down inside of us if we put
Speaker 1: some work in to kind of listen to it. We
Speaker 1: do have this voice, but it's a deep voice. It's
Speaker 1: kind of in our hearts. It's a natural knowing of
Speaker 1: how to treat your body, just like you know, if
Speaker 1: you're cold, you grab a blanket. You know, if you're tired, hopefully,
Speaker 1: if you're caring for your body, you go to sleep
Speaker 1: or rest. And we've been so robbed of this innate
Speaker 1: knowledge of how to feed our bodies because of the
Speaker 1: diet industry. So this process is about getting it back.
Speaker 1: So I think people at the start of the new
Speaker 1: year really want to do something positive for themselves, right
Speaker 1: like they want to in some sense be healthier or
Speaker 1: be fitter, but they unwittingly end up jumping on this
Speaker 1: diet riot roller coaster that leaves them in some ways,
Speaker 1: like mentally and maybe even physically, worse off than before. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And it's like looking at one piece of a puzzle
Speaker 1: and missing that there are so many components. I like
Speaker 1: to talk about a four legged table, and that in
Speaker 1: order to be healthy and in order to heal from
Speaker 1: if somebody doesn't feel comfortable in their body or their
Speaker 1: treatment of their body in order to feel more healthy
Speaker 1: and more balanced. We have to deal with all four
Speaker 1: legs of this table in order for the table to
Speaker 1: be stable. I love a good rhyme. So the four
Speaker 1: legs or areas to work on if someone wants to
Speaker 1: start the new year and work on being healthier. The
Speaker 1: four areas are physical, which is letting go of that
Speaker 1: extreme diet riot and learning how to feed yourself lovingly
Speaker 1: and respectfully. And then it's emotional, which is learning how
Speaker 1: to cope with and tend to your emotions rather than
Speaker 1: think certain ones are good and certain ones are bad.
Speaker 1: And then there's mental, which is looking at your thinking.
Speaker 1: And I think disordered eating is really disordered thinking, so
Speaker 1: looking at the quality of your thoughts, how you're speaking
Speaker 1: to yourself all day long. And then the fourth is
Speaker 1: spiritual and how you're feeding yourself spiritually, how you're connecting
Speaker 1: with yourself or deeper areas of life. And so when
Speaker 1: we deal with all four of those areas physical, emotional, mental,
Speaker 1: and spiritual, not dealing with them perfectly or overnight, but
Speaker 1: we really work on all those parts of ourselves and
Speaker 1: our lives. That's how we get healthier in the new
Speaker 1: year or any time of the year. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a short break now, but when we return, I'll
Speaker 1: have Andrea explain exactly how we can make sure all
Speaker 1: four legs of that table are sturdy, and how kindness
Speaker 1: and self compassion, yet again are key. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: will be right back. Psychotherapist Andrea Walter describes her experience
Speaker 1: of disordered eating as like being on a diet riot
Speaker 1: roller coaster. It's an analogy I can relate to because
Speaker 1: it's not just that the ups and downs of strict
Speaker 1: denial and drastic over indulgence are like a fairground ride.
Speaker 1: There's also a disorienting and deafening inner monologue that comes
Speaker 1: with this mental ride. It can even sound like a
Speaker 1: creaky old roller coaster. When you're dieting and rioting, you
Speaker 1: often can't hear that quiet, kind, calming voice inside you,
Speaker 1: the one that knows what a body really needs to
Speaker 1: feel healthy and happy. After years of riding the roller coaster,
Speaker 1: Andrea had to make a special effort to hear her
Speaker 1: own calm, inner voice over all that diet noise. I
Speaker 1: would ask myself over and over if I was feeding
Speaker 1: someone else who I love, how would I feed them
Speaker 1: right now? And I always had to add the someone
Speaker 1: who doesn't diet or riot part. If I'm feeding someone
Speaker 1: else I love who doesn't diet or riot, how would
Speaker 1: I feed them? Because if you love someone, some people
Speaker 1: put loved ones on diets, and some people stuff their
Speaker 1: loved ones and say here, take more. I love you
Speaker 1: so much, eat more. So if you're feeding someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't diet or riot and you love them, how would
Speaker 1: you feed them? Because I didn't have that intuition for
Speaker 1: a long time, that intuitive eating in the early years
Speaker 1: didn't work for me. I was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to eat intuitively. I know how to restrict, and
Speaker 1: I know how to binge. But when I started asking
Speaker 1: myself that question and asking what feels loving, what feels respectful,
Speaker 1: then I would get little inklings until it became the
Speaker 1: new normal. And so I mean, I've tried to be
Speaker 1: on this path myself of sort of hearing that inner voice,
Speaker 1: and it's hard, in part because of all these kind
Speaker 1: of cultural norms, but it's also hard because I think
Speaker 1: if you have it listened to the voice, in a while,
Speaker 1: it becomes hard to genuinely hear it. You know, Sometimes
Speaker 1: when I hear you know, how would you feed yourself lovingly.
Speaker 1: I think it's got to be the healthy stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: avoid the cookies, Right, Like that kind of idea of
Speaker 1: good and bad sort of gets in there. And so
Speaker 1: in your course you talk about three things to pay
Speaker 1: attention to when you're picking food that should feel loving, nutritious, delicious,
Speaker 1: and moderate. So talk about why that's kind of a
Speaker 1: good cue for those of us in the baby steps
Speaker 1: towards mindful eating. Yeah, I use nutritious, delicious, and moderate
Speaker 1: as a little checklist because we need to nourish our bodies.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times when people say I'm not
Speaker 1: dieting anymore, no more diets for me, than they're perhaps
Speaker 1: not getting enough nourishing foods. So we do need to
Speaker 1: nourish our bodies. Whatever that looks like or feels like
Speaker 1: for anybody is it might be different, right, but there
Speaker 1: are food groups and there is a way to nourish
Speaker 1: our bodies. And again we begin to tune into that
Speaker 1: inner knowing or ask ourselves how we feed someone we
Speaker 1: love who doesn't diet or riot we can get a sense,
Speaker 1: so how do you nourish someone? You're not likely to
Speaker 1: give a child a banana for breakfast and send them
Speaker 1: off to school for the day. When we think of
Speaker 1: how would you feed your child, you're more likely to
Speaker 1: give them a nourishing meal, so nutritious delicious when we
Speaker 1: die it, we often eat kind of tasteless food, and
Speaker 1: so we need to make sure that it's delicious food. Now,
Speaker 1: if I'm just focusing on the deliciousness, then we might
Speaker 1: not be getting nutritious. So when I first started trying
Speaker 1: this all on many many years ago, and I was, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not dieting anymore. I'm just going to eat what's delicious. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not loving to just eat cookies, and it's not
Speaker 1: loving to just eat donuts, and it's not loving to
Speaker 1: just eat salad. So we've got some nutritious and some delicious,
Speaker 1: and they can over lap. Too. Many nutritious foods are
Speaker 1: delicious to us, and hopefully we do just eat what
Speaker 1: we like and love and then moderate is what's a
Speaker 1: loving amount, a respectful amount for your body. Our bodies
Speaker 1: know when they're satisfied, so it's learning how to listen
Speaker 1: to that. And this is all easier said than done,
Speaker 1: especially if we haven't worked on the other legs. So
Speaker 1: I can't stress that enough. This is a four pronged
Speaker 1: process here, and so let's talk about one of the
Speaker 1: other legs. I think kind of the mental part, right,
Speaker 1: you know, so talk about how you would sort of
Speaker 1: work on that leg of the table as you put it. Well,
Speaker 1: we need to look at what's the nature of our thoughts.
Speaker 1: I talk about three different mind moods. We have an
Speaker 1: unkind mind, a kind mind, and a quiet mind. And
Speaker 1: oftentimes when someone is living on the diet Riot roller coaster,
Speaker 1: they're really hanging out on the unkind mind channel. So
Speaker 1: we need to have an upgrade in our thinking the
Speaker 1: quality of our thoughts. And again, just like how would
Speaker 1: you feed someone you love, how would you speak to
Speaker 1: someone you love? And looking at the way we're speaking
Speaker 1: to ourselves and we need to be speaking to ourselves kindly.
Speaker 1: And then there's also which internal voice are you listening to?
Speaker 1: Are you listening to the dieter voice that's telling you
Speaker 1: that's bad, you shouldn't eat, that, you shouldn't look like that.
Speaker 1: Are we listening to the rioter voice that says, give
Speaker 1: me everything that I never am allowed to have? Or
Speaker 1: are we tuning into love? What is respectful, loving, compassionate,
Speaker 1: treatment and self talk. I think the unkind mind is
Speaker 1: so important to talk about right now at the New Year,
Speaker 1: because I think so many of us, in an attempt
Speaker 1: to better ourselves on January one, end up talking to
Speaker 1: ourselves in a really unkind way. Yes, So it's bringing
Speaker 1: consciousness to the way we're talking to ourselves. So often
Speaker 1: we just have this monologue going and we don't even
Speaker 1: stop to question it because it just feels so real,
Speaker 1: sounds so real. But that's often where safe support can
Speaker 1: come in, getting help from someone who can say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, that's really not a kind way to speak
Speaker 1: to yourself, or would you ever speak to someone else
Speaker 1: like that? And really beginning to take a look at
Speaker 1: how am I speaking to myself? And would I speak
Speaker 1: to someone else who I love in this manner? And
Speaker 1: so another part of the table is to really pay
Speaker 1: attention to the physical cues that we have around eating
Speaker 1: and kind of what's causing us to eat. You know,
Speaker 1: we often assume we just eat because we're hungry, But
Speaker 1: then when we really pay attention to what's causing us
Speaker 1: to pick up that sandwich or that cookie, sometimes it's
Speaker 1: not hunger at all. Right, Yes, and if you've got
Speaker 1: a history of dieting and rioting, you're likely to be
Speaker 1: pretty cut off from your natural hunger and fullness signals.
Speaker 1: When I first started that piece of the process, I
Speaker 1: couldn't really distinguish so much between was that a feeling?
Speaker 1: Was that a hunger? Paying was that anxiety? Was At first,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on in there, because so
Speaker 1: much happens in our guts. So for me in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I just kept going with what feels the most loving?
Speaker 1: How would I feed someone I love who doesn't diet
Speaker 1: or riet? Well, I probably would give them some food
Speaker 1: upon awakening within a reasonable time an hour or half
Speaker 1: an hour or something. And it probably it wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a box of donuts, and it wouldn't be a yogurt.
Speaker 1: It would be what's a loving meal? And I just
Speaker 1: kept asking myself that it was. I call it the
Speaker 1: biggest doover of my life when I decided, as I
Speaker 1: approach the kitchen or open a menu, I am going
Speaker 1: to ask myself what feels loving, what feels respectful to
Speaker 1: this body? And I'm going to move aside, step aside
Speaker 1: that voice that thinks I need to change my body
Speaker 1: in order to be lovable and acceptable, and I just
Speaker 1: kept doing that over and over, and it was hard
Speaker 1: at first, because just like meeting someone new, you don't
Speaker 1: know them. It takes time. It takes time to get
Speaker 1: to know that voice inside of us. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things I observed when I to do this
Speaker 1: is that when I was craving food in the beginning
Speaker 1: of this journey, oftentimes it had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: my hunger cues whatsoever. The food was trying to fill
Speaker 1: something else. And this gets to I think your spiritual
Speaker 1: leg of the table. We need to kind of figure
Speaker 1: out what else is missing, because it seems like sometimes
Speaker 1: we kind of go to food when there's some other
Speaker 1: thing we're looking for. Absolutely, we were somebody I read
Speaker 1: once that binging or dieting our attempts to find spirituality
Speaker 1: but going to the wrong address. You know, it's like
Speaker 1: a good valid try to get filled up, or to
Speaker 1: get some more sweetness in your life, or to get
Speaker 1: some comfort. I say, good try. We're just doing the
Speaker 1: best we can, trying to fill ourselves up. But when
Speaker 1: we really fill our spirits, we feel better afterwards. We
Speaker 1: feel fulfilled, afterwards, we don't feel regretful or stuffed. Or
Speaker 1: like we hurt ourselves or deprived ourselves. I always encourage
Speaker 1: people to make a spirit filler list and to gather
Speaker 1: ideas as you go and to find ways to fill
Speaker 1: your spirit in a way that you feel better afterwards.
Speaker 1: And so, what are some examples on your spirit filler list,
Speaker 1: because I think this will be really important for our
Speaker 1: listeners to hear some of good examples. Oh, my spirit
Speaker 1: filler list, rest and getting in nature and yoga and
Speaker 1: taking a bath and meditating and connecting with loved ones,
Speaker 1: watching a comedy or reading. I paint rocks. I decided
Speaker 1: a few years ago I needed something off the screens,
Speaker 1: so I started just doodling and painting on rocks. So
Speaker 1: there's lots of ways that people fill their spirits, mostly
Speaker 1: to me, going into nature, going to the beach or
Speaker 1: the woods or swimming, and everybody has to find what
Speaker 1: fills them and ways that even if it's just resting
Speaker 1: in a way that's guilt free and you're filling back up,
Speaker 1: that's what we're looking for getting comfort. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: mentioned the resting thing because one of the early experiences
Speaker 1: I had after taking your course on insight Timer when
Speaker 1: I was trying to pay attention to why I was
Speaker 1: eating things. Was you know, I was actually working on
Speaker 1: podcast episodes in fact, and started writing, writing, writing, and
Speaker 1: I had this craving to like head downstairs and get
Speaker 1: like a cookie or get some chips or eat something.
Speaker 1: But I knew I wasn't really hungry, And as I
Speaker 1: was kind of walking down, I realized, actually what I
Speaker 1: really needed was just to like stand up, right. I
Speaker 1: was sitting in that chair writing for hours, and I
Speaker 1: think my body just wanted to like get up, move around,
Speaker 1: get a change of scenery. But the only thing that
Speaker 1: I would allow myself to do if I was like
Speaker 1: taking a break, was to go eat something. And that
Speaker 1: was a really important moment because it made me realize, like, oh,
Speaker 1: my body doesn't want food right now. It just wants
Speaker 1: a break. And sometimes the only way you think you
Speaker 1: can give yourself a break is with like eating something exactly,
Speaker 1: especially if that's a habit. It's kind of like if
Speaker 1: the baby starts crying, you want to rule out all
Speaker 1: the reasons, right, So maybe it's hungry, maybe it's tired,
Speaker 1: maybe it needs a diaper change, maybe it's something's poking it.
Speaker 1: We have to rule things out. So if we want food,
Speaker 1: we have to rule out am I hungry or unsatisfied
Speaker 1: from my last eating experience? And if you've eaten and
Speaker 1: then it was a delicious, nutritious, yummy meal or smack, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm probably not hungry. So now am I having feelings?
Speaker 1: Do I need to tend to some emotions that I'm having?
Speaker 1: Or what am I thinking? Are my thoughts kind of
Speaker 1: sending myself in an unkind direction an unhelpful direction, or
Speaker 1: am I needing something? Or is there a deeper need
Speaker 1: here and needing something more spiritual or to connect with
Speaker 1: or even just to rest or to stand up or
Speaker 1: sit down or whatever. And all of the strategies you're
Speaker 1: giving us fits with something we talk a lot about
Speaker 1: on the Happiness Lab, which is the simple act of
Speaker 1: mindfully paying attention right. You know, for me to notice
Speaker 1: what was going on with my craving, I had to
Speaker 1: kind of be there and pay attention right to my emotions.
Speaker 1: But I think also to notice that you're eating nutritious,
Speaker 1: delicious stuff, you also have to be there when you eat.
Speaker 1: And this is something I struggle with, is like simply
Speaker 1: being present and not checking my email or ignoring it
Speaker 1: during the simple act of eating. So talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about some strategies people can use if they want
Speaker 1: to kind of pay more attention during eating and be
Speaker 1: more mindful. Well, I think this process is about paying
Speaker 1: more attention in general. Right, It's really about waking up
Speaker 1: and being more conscious. And that's the only way that
Speaker 1: I have found to make sustained change is to be
Speaker 1: more aware and kind of parent ourselves. And loving parent
Speaker 1: doesn't just send a kid off and just let them
Speaker 1: roam the house all day without care. And so it's
Speaker 1: really caring for our body, caring for our mind, caring
Speaker 1: for our needs, and tending to ourselves and being awake
Speaker 1: at the wheel, so to speak. So being awake and
Speaker 1: aware when you're eating, being more awake and aware when
Speaker 1: you're not eating, what you're needing, what you're feeling. And
Speaker 1: so often people with whether it's a full blown eating
Speaker 1: disorder like I had, or just disordered eating, people have
Speaker 1: had kind of a hypnotic spell cast upon us, and
Speaker 1: it leads us to be pretty checked out. With these
Speaker 1: screens is constant scream use, and with just obligations and
Speaker 1: now all the anxiety in the world, it can leave
Speaker 1: us pretty numb. So what's being asked here is a lot,
Speaker 1: but you get a lot as a result, you get
Speaker 1: a lot back. So it's a worthy cause. But it
Speaker 1: is about being more aware of how you're treating yourself
Speaker 1: and how you're speaking to yourself. So as we put
Speaker 1: all these legs of the table back, I think a
Speaker 1: final thing we need to pay attention to is kind
Speaker 1: of trying to avoid these cultural forces that led us
Speaker 1: onto this diet riot roller coaster in the first place.
Speaker 1: And I feel like there's nothing harder than to do
Speaker 1: that during the new year, where it feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: there are forces screaming get us to restrict our foods
Speaker 1: or to eat keto or eat healthy. You know, any
Speaker 1: hints for how to fight these forces, especially at this
Speaker 1: time of the year, Well, the first hint is you
Speaker 1: have to believe in what I'm saying here, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. You have to buy in to the idea
Speaker 1: that the diet is not the solution to a body
Speaker 1: image issue or feeling unhealthy in your body. The diet
Speaker 1: is part of the problem. So you'd have to believe that.
Speaker 1: And once you believe it, it's about really standing by
Speaker 1: that belief and acting according to that belief. And so
Speaker 1: once I believed that dieting is not of interest to
Speaker 1: me anymore and that it only sets up obsession and binging,
Speaker 1: then no matter what other people were doing, it didn't
Speaker 1: matter it maybe it wasn't as enjoyable. I remember in
Speaker 1: the early years when I was first trying to make
Speaker 1: the shift, and I would go be with people that
Speaker 1: were still dieting, and I remember there would be times
Speaker 1: where let's say I was visiting family and we were
Speaker 1: going to go out to dinner, let's say, and it
Speaker 1: was lunch time, it was mid afternoon, and I'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna eat lunch, and they'd say, oh, we're going
Speaker 1: to have a big dinner, an early dinner. I'm going
Speaker 1: to skip lunch. And I'd say, okay, well I'm going
Speaker 1: to go have a lunch. And I would just it
Speaker 1: took it was brave to go against the culture. Or
Speaker 1: I want to maybe dessert with my breakfast and nobody
Speaker 1: on they thought it was weird. Or I don't want
Speaker 1: dessert with my dinner because I'm full of sort of
Speaker 1: going against the cultural norms is brave. But once you
Speaker 1: know this is what I need to do to get
Speaker 1: my own relationship with my body back and to get
Speaker 1: off that diet riot roller coaster, and you're committed to it.
Speaker 1: And once you know wholeheartedly that dieting is part of
Speaker 1: the problem, not the solution, then it's about being brave
Speaker 1: and taking a stand and doing it differently. Sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: say to my clients, if someone in your family has
Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom, do you think you should
Speaker 1: automatically go to You know, it's like we get to
Speaker 1: have different bodily needs and it's brave on this one.
Speaker 1: And so how has this approach changed your life? I mean,
Speaker 1: you've talked about this being a moment that has changed everything,
Speaker 1: So talk about how it's changed your relationship with your
Speaker 1: body but also your happiness only completely, only every day.
Speaker 1: Just I used to be completely obsessed with food and
Speaker 1: my body, and I was either restricting and obsessing or
Speaker 1: overeating and binging and obsessing and white knuckling or out
Speaker 1: of control. And again, you don't have to be as
Speaker 1: extreme as I was to still deserve and warrant help.
Speaker 1: And now I eat food when my body tells me
Speaker 1: it needs food, and I choose just exactly what I
Speaker 1: like and what I want and there's no longer. In
Speaker 1: the beginning, when I was learning this, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of inner committee dialogue of is that loving to
Speaker 1: have that? Is it restricting if I don't have that?
Speaker 1: As it felt like every meal was a big committee meeting.
Speaker 1: And now I just know exactly what I want and
Speaker 1: I just go get it. Fortunately, I'm fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: be able to have resources and have what I want
Speaker 1: in my home. So now that frees me up. That
Speaker 1: frees me up so much time. I think about all
Speaker 1: the time I spent thinking about food and my body
Speaker 1: size and just missed out on life. And I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody gets to their deathbed and wishes they were
Speaker 1: a different size. I've had so many clients in their
Speaker 1: eighties and late eighties who have said that they don't
Speaker 1: even have a memory of eating naturally and feeling comfortable
Speaker 1: and peaceful in their bodies. So so many people just
Speaker 1: lose years out of their lives thinking about food and
Speaker 1: body obsession. So for me, I've gotten that back. I
Speaker 1: have a lot more free time, and that frees me up,
Speaker 1: and I get to read if I want to read,
Speaker 1: and go walk in nature or sit down or do
Speaker 1: a podcast with a lovely person. So it just frees
Speaker 1: me up to be able to see what else there
Speaker 1: is in life. It doesn't mean I'm happy all the time.
Speaker 1: That's not natural either. It just means that I'm not
Speaker 1: obsessed with food all the time or at all. Since
Speaker 1: learning of Andrew's work, I've tried really hard to reduce
Speaker 1: the amount of mental time and emotional energy I spend
Speaker 1: thinking food and eating. I'm still more influenced than i'd
Speaker 1: like to be by all the cultural pressures to look
Speaker 1: a certain way or eat a particular thing, or to
Speaker 1: think of food as good or bad. But this year,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find that kinder, more compassionate voice in
Speaker 1: my head, and so my eating resolution for twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: unlike the diet riot urges of years past, is to
Speaker 1: ask myself the question Andrea suggested. If I was feeding
Speaker 1: someone else who I loved, how would I feed them?
Speaker 1: Right now, it sounds like a tiny step, but for me,
Speaker 1: it's been a game changer. In our next and final
Speaker 1: episode of this New Year mini season, we'll tackle another
Speaker 1: super common resolution that also causes us to be unkind
Speaker 1: to ourselves and to our happiness. Exercise. So if you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about how you can engage with
Speaker 1: fitness more self compassionately. I hope you'll come back for
Speaker 1: the next episode of The Happiness Lab with me, Doctor
Speaker 1: Laurie Santos. That Penis Lab was co written and produced
Speaker 1: by Ryan Dilley. The show was mixed and mastered by
Speaker 1: Evan Viola, and our original music was by Zachary Silver.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the entire Pushkin team, including Mela Belle,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Carl mcgliori, Heather Fame, Sophie Crane, mckibbon, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, and my agent Ben Davis. That Penis Lab
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me,
Speaker 1: Doctor Laurie Santos,