Speaker 1: I won't let my body out me out wait everything
Speaker 1: that I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning love who I am, I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know everybody of me is beautiful
Speaker 1: and that will always out way if you feel it.
Speaker 1: But she'll some love to the food. Get there, say
Speaker 1: go one day, Anita, did you and die out way?
Speaker 2: Happy Saturday out way.
Speaker 3: I'm Leanne Ellington, and we are here to talk about
Speaker 3: one of the questions that I hear all the time
Speaker 3: from women that are stuck inside the food and body prison,
Speaker 3: which is does it get easier? And that really is
Speaker 3: the million dollar question that doesn't have a completely simple answer,
Speaker 3: but we are going to simplify it as much as
Speaker 3: we possibly can today, okay, and then stay next week.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give you kind of like a nitty
Speaker 3: gritty checklist that you can literally use to make sure
Speaker 3: that you are teaching your brain how to practice ease
Speaker 3: versus teaching your brain to practice hard. And it's kind
Speaker 3: of like learning how to speak the language of ease
Speaker 3: that your nervous system is looking to learn, not just
Speaker 3: your mind. So we're going to distinguish between those two things.
Speaker 3: But I'm going to go ahead and just dive on in.
Speaker 3: So I know it's April of twenty twenty four right
Speaker 3: now when I'm recording this, but I want to flash
Speaker 3: back to the holiday season of two thousand and eight
Speaker 3: through twenty thirteen, and so back in what really seems
Speaker 3: like a former lifetime. When I own my own fitness
Speaker 3: studio for women, I used to offer this thing called
Speaker 3: a twenty eight day Holiday Body Challenge, and so every
Speaker 3: single year, what would happen is fifty or so women
Speaker 3: would sign up to work with me during you know
Speaker 3: that tricky time of year between Halloween and New Year's
Speaker 3: while I guided them through the process of you know,
Speaker 3: I'm putting this in air quotes, but dropping pounds fast
Speaker 3: or getting in their skinny genes by New Year's or
Speaker 3: getting rid of that muffin top or whatever words I
Speaker 3: was using in my marketing at the time, right And
Speaker 3: so for the record, I'm no, I'm not proud of that,
Speaker 3: but it's just who I was at the time, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know what I didn't know, and I used
Speaker 3: to punish myself more or less for you know, passing
Speaker 3: on the diet mentality to other women, but I've reconciled
Speaker 3: that shame now and here I am, and I believe
Speaker 3: I'm using it for good. But back to this holiday challenge. Okay,
Speaker 3: So no, it wasn't rocket science. I would just put
Speaker 3: them on a calorie restricted meal plan and have them
Speaker 3: come to my personal training studio or my fitness studio
Speaker 3: at least three times a week to work out, and
Speaker 3: then we would strategically use the holiday so things like
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day as a cheat day. And
Speaker 3: again I'm putting that in air quotes, and I know
Speaker 3: I don't like to use words like cheat anymore, but
Speaker 3: again I didn't know what I didn't know, and those
Speaker 3: were the words that I was using, right, And so,
Speaker 3: of course, as you do when you're in that weight
Speaker 3: loss challenge mode, we took pictures and measurements and body
Speaker 3: fat percentages to measure their progress. And so, as you
Speaker 3: can probably imagine, you know, pounds were dropped and physiques
Speaker 3: were chiseled, and body shaping happened right before our very eyes.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it all worked until it didn't work anymore, right,
Speaker 3: And so things were great for thirty days or six weeks,
Speaker 3: But what happened after that Well, that's the part that
Speaker 3: my own shame and fear of failure really didn't allow
Speaker 3: me to share for a long time.
Speaker 2: Because the truth is is.
Speaker 3: That come January first, that dreaded bounce back effect was
Speaker 3: already in full force. Okay, they had grown tired of
Speaker 3: eking out the energy to monitor and count and measure
Speaker 3: and track every morsel of food that touched their lips,
Speaker 3: and their bodies were exhausted. They were sore and overtrained
Speaker 3: and in need of some major recovery after the literal
Speaker 3: and metaphorical sprint that they just participated in. But also
Speaker 3: their mojo was shot, like they just spent all of
Speaker 3: that time and energy using their limited stores of willpower
Speaker 3: and motivation to keep things going for that few weeks
Speaker 3: that they were there, that by the time the new
Speaker 3: year struck, they had officially nothing left to give, right,
Speaker 3: and their mindsets were starting to bounce back to whatever
Speaker 3: their default was, and oftentimes it was that good, bad, black,
Speaker 3: white in out all or nothing thought process that was
Speaker 3: perpetuating their problems in the first place. And so yes,
Speaker 3: I'm sharing examples from the holiday season, but the problem
Speaker 3: that I'm talking about here is this year round thing right,
Speaker 3: and looking back, I know exactly why it happened to Okay,
Speaker 3: we only made over part of them. We didn't do
Speaker 3: what needed to be done on the inside, like the headwork,
Speaker 3: addressing the actual problem, addressing the right problem, I should say,
Speaker 3: and creating actual brain change. We never address the cause
Speaker 3: of their struggles, their relationship with food, their relationship with
Speaker 3: their body. We just essentially threw another diet, another plan,
Speaker 3: and another short term band aid at the bigger problem.
Speaker 3: And so here's what inevitably happened as a result. Okay,
Speaker 3: the change was temporary and to be on, they always
Speaker 3: had to be on, like they were playing a game
Speaker 3: of all or nothing, and they were either in or
Speaker 3: they were out, and we were addressing the symptoms and
Speaker 3: never addressed the causes going on upstream in their brain.
Speaker 3: So think about it once all of that, you know,
Speaker 3: go hard or go home kind of motivational.
Speaker 2: Raw raw wears off.
Speaker 3: We all go back to our own default thinking, in
Speaker 3: our own default way of living in habits, because we
Speaker 3: are creatures of habit and like that part really is
Speaker 3: just science, right, And boy oh boy, the truth that
Speaker 3: I'm sharing today costs me a lot of shame and heartache.
Speaker 2: And again the truth was, I didn't know what I
Speaker 2: didn't know.
Speaker 3: But in reality, this was some of the most valuable
Speaker 3: experimentation that I ever conducted, because here's what I discovered
Speaker 3: as a result. Some of my clients really only did
Speaker 3: need to change their diet or start exercising more, or
Speaker 3: just be mindful of what they were eating. And so
Speaker 3: for some of those women work out in nutrition programs,
Speaker 3: that was enough to completely change their life forever, right,
Speaker 3: But most of them needed more. Most of them were
Speaker 3: being held back by something bigger, and most of them
Speaker 3: were caught up in the same up down, short term
Speaker 3: you know roller coaster that I had been stuck on
Speaker 3: for decades, And it's that same roller coaster that kept
Speaker 3: me feeling like a slave to dieting and a slave
Speaker 3: to working out harder, faster more. And just like me,
Speaker 3: none of them really had a food problem per se,
Speaker 3: or a motivation problem. It was a thinking problem. It
Speaker 3: was the kind of thinking that they downloaded, they developed.
Speaker 3: It was a language that they learned to speak, and
Speaker 3: more specifically, it was the diet mentality language that was
Speaker 3: causing and perpetuating the problem. And so that all or nothing,
Speaker 3: black white up down roller coaster was the problem. But again,
Speaker 3: if you think that that's normal, or you think that
Speaker 3: that's something that you want to keep getting good at,
Speaker 3: you keep getting back on it, back on it, back
Speaker 3: on it until you realize that that's the real problem.
Speaker 3: But when you're in it, when you're on it, it
Speaker 3: feels like you can't ever get off of it, or
Speaker 3: if you do, you just become terrified that you're going
Speaker 3: to go, you know, gain a bunch of weight or
Speaker 3: go off this metaphorical deep end. And either way, what
Speaker 3: happens is you end up just feeling like a slave
Speaker 3: to it, like you are a hostage. It controls you,
Speaker 3: It controls your life more than you do. And so
Speaker 3: we've talked about this a lot on this podcast, and
Speaker 3: the fact that you're never going to be able to
Speaker 3: outdiet or out willpower or outsmart your relationship with food,
Speaker 3: like never, it's not going to be able to happen,
Speaker 3: and trying to address your internal struggles or the current
Speaker 3: wiring in your brain that's causing you to think and
Speaker 3: act and feel and behave the way that you currently
Speaker 3: are around food or just feel about your body, and
Speaker 3: trying to combat that with another diet or another exercise program.
Speaker 2: I mean it with so much love, but it really
Speaker 2: is just a recipe for failure.
Speaker 3: Like I can flat out guarantee that that will not
Speaker 3: solve the bigger problem because again, you'll never be able
Speaker 3: to outwill power or outsmart your current relationship with food,
Speaker 3: your current relationship with your body, and really until you
Speaker 3: swim upstream. And I'm putting that in air quotes because
Speaker 3: what I really mean is I'm pointing to the brain,
Speaker 3: the nervous system, the source of the problem, and really
Speaker 3: go address your relationship with food and the wiring in
Speaker 3: your brain and go heal that. Diets will end and
Speaker 3: they will fail you, and not because you're a failure,
Speaker 3: but they set you up to fail because your brain
Speaker 3: will never get good at them, and you're going to
Speaker 3: stay stuck on that all or nothing diet roller coaster
Speaker 3: because the solution does not live in another diet or
Speaker 3: program or plan.
Speaker 2: And trust me, like I wish it did.
Speaker 3: At one point in time, I try to outdiet and
Speaker 3: outwill my food struggles and the sugar addictions that I
Speaker 3: realized were not really sugar addiction. It was just I
Speaker 3: practiced a thought process and a pattern of it was
Speaker 3: more like a recipe of thoughts and beliefs and behaviors
Speaker 3: that made me feel like I was addicted to sugar,
Speaker 3: and that's what I was practicing for decades. But bottom line,
Speaker 3: you can't outdiet that it will never get healed from
Speaker 3: a diet or a losing weight or a workout program,
Speaker 3: because you'll just bring the old thinking with you, which
Speaker 3: is really that definition of insanity, you know, doing the
Speaker 3: same thing over and over and again and expecting a
Speaker 3: different result. But when you change what you are seeing,
Speaker 3: and when I say seeing, I mean seeing in you,
Speaker 3: when you're what you're seeing when it comes to what
Speaker 3: you think food will like, the void that it will
Speaker 3: or will not fill, right, and what you're saying to
Speaker 3: yourself and about yourself. So when you see what when
Speaker 3: you change what you're seeing and saying to yourself and
Speaker 3: about yourself, which is really the self image and the identity.
Speaker 3: But then also, yeah, you do need a better strategy
Speaker 3: and system of thinking around food because the whole eat
Speaker 3: less move more calories in, calories out thing. That's a
Speaker 3: logic and reason solution to a deeper emotional struggle. Right,
Speaker 3: But when you change all of that and yes, get
Speaker 3: a better strategy. That is when the diet madness, or
Speaker 3: the body dysmorphia, or the toxic disordered relationship with food
Speaker 3: can finally come to an end and the real healing
Speaker 3: can begin.
Speaker 2: But when you change all of that and yes.
Speaker 3: Get a better strategy, that is when the diet madness,
Speaker 3: or the body dysmorphia, or the toxic disordered relationship with
Speaker 3: food can finally come to an end and the real
Speaker 3: healing can begin. And so that's the part where it's like, okay, Leanne, simple,
Speaker 3: not easy, especially if I've been practicing this my whole life.
Speaker 3: And that's where you know, it's like, okay, is there
Speaker 3: a catch? It's the number one thing I hear when
Speaker 3: people are like, Leanne, I don't even know if that's possible.
Speaker 2: Is there a catch? And there is a catch.
Speaker 3: And it's really like a catch twenty two more and
Speaker 3: more so, I should say, and I call it the
Speaker 3: catch twenty two of dieting because I've never met a
Speaker 3: woman that struggles with food or struggles with her body
Speaker 3: that isn't absolutely one thousand percent sick and tired of
Speaker 3: dieting right, or sick and tired of constantly weighing and
Speaker 3: measuring and calculating because that's what she thinks will keep
Speaker 3: her in control, or sick of, you know, stressing and
Speaker 3: guessing and obsessing over every morsel of food that touches
Speaker 3: her lips or her weight, right, and then of course,
Speaker 3: like you can't help but be sick of all of
Speaker 3: the judgment and the self criticism and the self loathing,
Speaker 3: and don't even get me started on the shame, like
Speaker 3: the shame prison that that keeps you in, and then
Speaker 3: of course getting sick of valuing yourself based on how
Speaker 3: much you weigh or how much you ate that day,
Speaker 3: and sick of absolutely living in a prison, right, a
Speaker 3: prison that is, it's a body prison, it's a food prison,
Speaker 3: it's an emotional prison that when you're in it, you
Speaker 3: don't even know how to get out of it because
Speaker 3: it seems like it just seems normal. And so when
Speaker 3: I talk to women about what they're currently doing to
Speaker 3: address all of those struggles that I just mentioned, ironically,
Speaker 3: dieting is the number one thing I hear, or controlling
Speaker 3: themselves more is the number one thing I hear. And
Speaker 3: so what's happening is, you know, when you're in that cycle,
Speaker 3: like I said, it feels impossible to get out of it.
Speaker 3: You're actively voting on the thing that you hate and
Speaker 3: actively choosing the thing that's keeping you stuck in the prison,
Speaker 3: and actively choosing something that you've probably identified hasn't worked
Speaker 3: and isn't working, and if you get really honest with yourself,
Speaker 3: you know will never work. And that's why I call
Speaker 3: it a catch twenty two because first of all, there's
Speaker 3: absolutely no shame and no judgment around this whatsoever, Like
Speaker 3: this is the cycle that I was stuck in for decades,
Speaker 3: And of course there's nothing but love and compassion for
Speaker 3: those of you if you're listening to this and you're
Speaker 3: stuck on that same up and down roller coaster.
Speaker 2: But it absolutely stinks, right and it is a prison.
Speaker 3: And that's why I'm simply here to just point it
Speaker 3: out and shed some awareness and hopefully just shine a
Speaker 3: light on this catch twenty two that a lot of
Speaker 3: women don't even realize they have become entangled in. Importantly,
Speaker 3: it's really an invitation, because that's what this podcast is
Speaker 3: all about. We're here for just weekly doses of inspiration
Speaker 3: and motivation, but also an invitation, like what if instead
Speaker 3: of committing to another diet or another quick fix. You
Speaker 3: first identified and got really clear on what's not working right,
Speaker 3: and you created an awareness of what not to do
Speaker 3: more of and the road to not keep going down.
Speaker 3: Like what if that was the first step, right, instead
Speaker 3: of committing to another thing or to do or you know,
Speaker 3: do this, eat this.
Speaker 2: Don't eat that. It's like, no, I am going to
Speaker 2: just draw that line on the stand.
Speaker 3: And stop committing to all the things that I know
Speaker 3: don't work and not witness myself trying to commit to
Speaker 3: something that I know will never work. And that's when
Speaker 3: you can get really curious about your struggles instead of
Speaker 3: keeping you in them, and you can identify what's not
Speaker 3: working instead of going down the roads that aren't working.
Speaker 3: Like that's a big difference too, Like, and what if
Speaker 3: that was the game plan?
Speaker 2: And again, I know that might not sound as sexy
Speaker 2: as you know.
Speaker 3: Oh, I've got to get into action action action, because
Speaker 3: it's not a game plan.
Speaker 2: There's no action steps.
Speaker 3: It's not like a go get them tiger, let's raw
Speaker 3: rah and hustle, right, It's really just an awareness and
Speaker 3: thought and mindfulness and insight and a decision to stop
Speaker 3: going down the roads that you.
Speaker 2: Know won't ever work.
Speaker 3: And so when you commit to just stopping the insanity,
Speaker 3: what thoughts does that spark in your beautiful brain?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: And that's really what we're here to do today is
Speaker 3: help you shift the thinking that's causing your current results
Speaker 3: and outcomes. And if you're listening to this podcast, it's
Speaker 3: probably because you know the subject of health or what
Speaker 3: to eat or what not to eat, or food or
Speaker 3: your body, they are eluding you, right, And if you're
Speaker 3: stuck in the prison or feeling like a prisoner to
Speaker 3: you know, gaining and losing and gaining and losing, or
Speaker 3: feeling obsessed over that loss or that gain, or simply
Speaker 3: stuck in the black white, all or nothing binge restrict
Speaker 3: roller coaster, or if you're like me and you are
Speaker 3: just falling through the cracks because maybe you don't fit
Speaker 3: neat and tidy into a category of a typical eating disorder.
Speaker 3: That was for me, I was just like, Okay, if
Speaker 3: I don't have an eating disorder, what is this? It
Speaker 3: felt like a gray area, right, And that gray area
Speaker 3: can make you feel.
Speaker 2: Very stuck and alone.
Speaker 3: But that's why it's so important to just have these
Speaker 3: conversations like to get really real and yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: you can play the diet game and you can play
Speaker 3: it over and over again and never break the cycle.
Speaker 3: Or you can do what we're doing right here, which
Speaker 3: is to change your thinking and get really real about
Speaker 3: the problem that's causing the struggles so that you can
Speaker 3: break out of the definition of insanity. But that being said,
Speaker 3: and I mean this with so much love, and I
Speaker 3: hope you're taking it with the love that I mean it.
Speaker 3: If you want to do differently, you do have to
Speaker 3: think differently, and you have to break the cycle of
Speaker 3: insanity and not fool yourself into thinking like, oh maybe
Speaker 3: one day control, restrict, deprive, you know, obsess over my food,
Speaker 3: over food and my weight will actually work, because I'm
Speaker 3: telling you, it will just create more of the obsession.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing.
Speaker 3: Most women, unfortunately, I mean, they won't stop and do this,
Speaker 3: or they don't think that this work is sexy. It's
Speaker 3: not as sexy as lose twenty pounds and twenty minutes,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: What I mean.
Speaker 3: And a lot of women will just go look for
Speaker 3: the next game of control or the next action item.
Speaker 3: But those of you that do that, stop the definition
Speaker 3: of insanity you're going to find that your journey to
Speaker 3: healing and to finally ending the suffering and struggling can
Speaker 3: actually begin. And so, coming back to the question at
Speaker 3: the top of this episode of like, does it ever
Speaker 3: get easier?
Speaker 2: And so the short.
Speaker 3: Answer is yes if you practice ease, and the short
Speaker 3: answer is no if you practice hard. And so we're
Speaker 3: going to get into the nitty gritty of what I
Speaker 3: mean by that and what that looks like specifically next week,
Speaker 3: and I'm literally going to give you a checklist of
Speaker 3: what your brain and your nervous system dictates as hard
Speaker 3: and easy so that you can, like, you know, use
Speaker 3: it as kind of a check in with yourself to
Speaker 3: make sure that you're teaching your brain ease as opposed
Speaker 3: to taking it down the dead end road of practicing hard. Okay,
Speaker 3: So I hope today's conversation simply opened your eyes, or
Speaker 3: maybe just played some seeds, or sometimes we just need
Speaker 3: a mirror to be held up to us to realize, Okay,
Speaker 3: what I'm doing is not working and it's not going
Speaker 3: to create happiness, and it's actually out voting health and
Speaker 3: out voting happiness. And that's the conversation I needed to
Speaker 3: have and so if that's all you needed today, then
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you got that. But we are going
Speaker 3: to be back next week with more of the nitty
Speaker 3: gritty and some actionable steps that you can take in
Speaker 3: the meantime, If you do want to learn more about
Speaker 3: how to turn off the part of your brain that's
Speaker 3: obsessed with food or obsessed with your weight and really
Speaker 3: rewire your own brain for peace and freedom, then head
Speaker 3: on over to stressless eeating dot com and just sign
Speaker 3: up to watch the Stressless Eating sneak preview where I've
Speaker 3: literally peeled back. It's really the system that I teach
Speaker 3: my clients to heal themselves of the all or nothing
Speaker 3: diet mentality for good, but without restriction and punishing your body,
Speaker 3: and definitely without having to use words like Macro's or
Speaker 3: low carb or calorie count.
Speaker 2: Right. So it's all there for.
Speaker 3: You, easy to access over at stress life eating dot
Speaker 3: com and if you like outweigh, I actually have another
Speaker 3: podcast here on iheartwhere I talk about all of this
Speaker 3: self image and body image stuff but from the perspective
Speaker 3: of where brain science intersex faith okay, and so it's
Speaker 3: called What's God Got to Do with It? And You
Speaker 3: can access it here on iHeart or wherever you get
Speaker 3: your podcast. So that is it for today. I am
Speaker 3: Leanne Ellington and I will talk to you soon. Bye.