The Soul's Call to Release Our Health Anxieties – In Session with Marc David

Introduction to Podcast

0:01Welcome to the Psychology of Eating podcast, where food and body challenges are the doorway into a happier, healthier life. Now, here's your host, eating psychology expert and founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, Mark David.

0:25Welcome everybody. I'm Mark David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. We're in the Psychology of Eating podcast. I'm with Daniela today. Hey, Daniela, welcome. Hello. Glad you're here. Glad we're doing this.

Daniela's Weight Struggles

0:41And for anybody out there who's not familiar with the podcast, Daniela and I are meeting for the first time and we're going to have a session together and see if we can do some good things. So if you could wave your magic wand and if you could have whatever you wanted with food and body, what would that be for you? I would like to be able to take all the things that like I've learned, the good things, and follow the diet that I like. I have an idea of how I'd like to be eating and feeling healthy.

1:13And, but I, but I want to be in a different body. I want to be able to fit into my clothes. I want to be, um, I want to be thinner and, and I, and I don't want to feel all the time because of all the podcasts I've listened to my whole life that I'm going to like die because my stomach's big. So that's visceral fat and, and my blood sugar must be horrible. Like, I feel like no matter what I eat, I can't get it right because there's some podcasts that's told me the horrible health. I know we're not going to live forever, but I'd like a little more time.

1:46I've got a whole wardrobe and I, and I feel like I'm on the crux of something, but I'm being, I'm borrowing myself from it because of my bold thoughts.

Triggering Comment

1:57So, so you'd like to lose some weight. You'd like to be in a different body and I'm, I'm trying to understand how, what, what, what's, what do you, what's in the way here for you? Is it that there's just too many, too much conflicting information and you're not sure what to eat? What's happening? I, I feel, I mean, I, I spent a lifetime being obsessed from the day I was 15 and my father told me you're putting on an awful lot.

2:28I used to, I remember I used to think, I know this sounds horrible, but I used to think I was gorgeous. I used to like, up until I was like 15, I was like, look in the mirror. I think, wow, you know, I'm so lucky. I've got Italian blood. I'm gorgeous. And then one day I remember my father said, you put on an awful lot of weight. And he was like, I come in from like outside and his friend was there. And I just remember that minute it clicked in my head. And from that minute on every single night, I'd stay up all night telling my sister how he's going to lose weight in the next diet. And I spent the rest of my life losing and gaining and losing and gaining.

3:00But, um, but I always had a sense that I could get back to like me thinking I'm gorgeous. Like I want to look in the mirror and think I'm gorgeous. I don't care about, I mean, I'm not 20 years old anymore. I'm not going to be a hot chick. I, but I want to feel gorgeous. And, um, a few years ago, I've always lost, I lost and gained and lost and gained. Whenever I had to see my father again, I would lose a ton of weight and, um, and then I would

3:32gain it back because I couldn't sustain it.

Health Issues

3:33So finally, like in 2011, I lost 85 pounds by counting every single point that went into my mouth. I did with Weight Watchers at the time and I upped the exercise. But by the time I'd gotten 85 pounds, I was having to walk three hours a day, personal trainer, two days a week, Kung Fu three nights a week, kickboxing on weekends. And I remember one day I was waiting for Kung Fu and I thought I was outside a restaurant

4:05and they had French fries and I told myself, this is starving. This is leptin and ghrelin. Your body is starving. You have to learn to live with this starving. You have to forever. If you want to stay this happy person that, you know, who you want to be, but then things kept happening.

Pituitary Tumor

4:25I had health stuff that kept happening and I just finally, I had like 17 major fractures because I kept falling. I had stress at work. I had a brain tumor. I had all these operations and my mother was very health anxious, but it feels like now I've carried their voices in my head and I've never separated. And now my mother passed away a few weeks ago. My father's gone. I should be like claiming my life now and being me, but I've got all these voices. You're going to die.

4:56You're fat. And, in just, and I would love to have like, I don't even need to be skinny like that. Like starving skinny. I'd be happy to be like 150 pounds and walk again every day and, and fast like 16 hours and eat two Mediterranean meals a day. That would be like the perfect life for me. But my stupid body, I feel like without starving myself, I don't get to like have a body like other people because I've like committed the sin of yo-yo dieting my whole life.

5:28Now I've screwed everything up in a nutshell. Okay.

Current Life

5:33How old are you now, Daniela? 53. 53. Kids? Oh, no, no. No? Are you in a relationship? Oh, yeah, yeah. Married forever. We're fine. It's like when you've been married for so long, it's like family. Nobody cares what anyone looks like. Mm-hmm. I think either way. So your partner is okay with your body? Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, I think when you live with somebody that struggles with weight so much, you're

6:06aware of it, but if you don't have struggles yourself, you don't know what to say with you. Mm-hmm. So it sounds like you're a little worried about your health. Very worried, terrified all the time. Can't get rid of it. Okay. And when you worry about your health, tell me what you're saying to yourself. Like, if I could hear the conversation inside your head, when you're worrying about your health, you say to yourself. Well, I mean, it's physical symptoms. I had headaches for like five years, and the doctors were like, it was just headaches.

6:40Turned out it was a brain tumor, a pituitary tumor. Bless you. You know, every time I get these weird symptoms, I think something's wrong. It turns out it is something. So the part of my brain that says, oh, you're imagining it. Nobody gets sick this often. Nobody is this unlucky. But every time, like, it turns out it was something. In the last few years, the struggles were reflex. They didn't know it was reflex. So you go to the doctor, and they're like, test you for this cancer, test you for that cancer. So you're on this, like, and it's always because you're fat.

7:13If you just lose weight, then, you know, because we know you're a middle-aged woman that's overweight. Oh, my God. You know, and literally, it's like they're measuring you for your casket. Now, I know a lot of that's in my brain, but so I'm already overweight. I've got the silent reflex I didn't know. So I'm feeling like I'm sick all the time. I don't know why. They're sending me for tests. Then COVID hits. I had been walking still. I've walked my whole life, like an hour a day or something. COVID hits. And in the news, they're like, oh, overweight people, COVID, you know, and in my head, I

7:50got it like, I'm at more risks than everyone else. Now, already I'm sick. Now, I'm overweight. If I go near anyone, so then I stopped walking and just worked 24 hours a day at home. And I finally think I have a solution to the reflex, which is like not the PPIs. And I've been doing it for a month now. It takes like six months. And it's got like 95% success rate. And the symptoms are getting better. So I think I finally have control.

8:20Finally, finally. Because when you have reflex, I don't know if you know people with reflexes. It's like existential. You always feel hungry, but when you eat, you feel like you're hurting yourself.

8:35So just briefly for the pituitary tumor, there's probably not much you can do for that. How? Got rid of it because it was so big. I was almost blind. And I just kept going to work. I kept doing the things I had to do. I didn't complain about the headaches. I went to work up until I went to work a week after the surgery. I've been doing everything right. And I guess I'm kind of pissed off that like you do what they say to do. And you end up in worse shape than you were before.

9:07And then it's like you feel guilty. So yeah, the tumor's gone. Then I had thyroid removed. Like six months later, I had to have half the thyroid removed. Then I had thyroid eye disease. Then I had knee surgery and I fell like 14, 15 times with major fractures. But all that was when I was in a very stressful job. I have the job of my dreams and I haven't fallen in like seven years.

Reflecting on Story

9:32So, Daniella, here's what I want to do in this moment anyway. I want to make a few comments about your story so far based on what you've told me. And I'm just kind of collecting what you've told me. And I want to sort of put it into a little bit of story form. So, you know, once upon a time, we have young Daniella who looks in the mirror and says,

10:03damn, you're gorgeous.

10:06And at age 15-ish, you come inside the house and your dad, like one of the two most important humans in your life, makes a comment and says, whoa, you've gained too much weight. And instantly, just instantly, your mind goes to, I'm not good enough. I'm not gorgeous anymore. In fact, not only am I not gorgeous, I'm not good at all. And I'm not lovable until I lose weight. And in a lot of ways, that's a fall from grace.

10:40And, you know, it's interesting because parents do the best that they can. Parents are conditioned by the world. They're conditioned, brainwashed like we are. And like, oh, my God, you're fat. That's bad. Or, oh, my God, I think you have too much weight. Then that's bad. And in his mind, he's loving you and saying something. What's interesting, one of the reasons that a comment like that can take hold so strong

11:10is because there's already an atmosphere that you and I are living in, particularly for women. It's already an atmosphere that we live in called, as soon as you're judged around your weight, everything collapses. The world falls apart. So we're already teetering at the edge, not through any fault of our own, not through any fault of our parents. It's sort of the soup we're in. But it's the world we live in. So he was kind of like the trigger.

11:43Because so many people, I've heard so many stories of what triggered somebody to go from I'm OK to all of a sudden I'm not good enough. So then you spent a lot of your life dieting and losing weight and gaining it back and losing it and gaining it back. And then at some point, you hit a really difficult streak with your health.

12:11And it's one thing after the next. And these things are not insignificant. And you've been through a lot. You've been through a lot of just having a brain tumor. That's tough. It's not like having a splinter that you could just take out. It's not something you can handle on your own. Um, so you've been through a lot. And at the same time, the medical world tells you, tells us that, yeah, if you lose weight,

12:42everything's going to be better.

12:44So not only will you be more lovable, 15-year-old you, if you lose weight, but now for 53-year-old you, yeah, you'll be more, you'll love yourself, but you'll be healthier and you won't get disease and all, all this bad, all the badness is going to go away. So that's the fairy tale that we're living in right now, that, that weight loss is going to solve all these things. And the reason why I say that's a fairy tale, first, I want to go to the health angle of

13:17things.

13:19Unfortunately, we live in a time when the scientific and the medical conversation around weight and health is massively biased. It's terribly skewed.

13:37Wonderful book. You've probably, maybe you've heard me mention it before, Health at Every Size, Dr. Susan Bacon, worth a read, because you start to see the research that showed a number of years ago, scientists were calling it the obesity paradox. It was a big deal because we think, well, if you're quote unquote overweight, then you should be more unhealthy. And it turns out on average, people that were quote unquote overweight were living longer and being healthier.

14:06So high cholesterol. And they say that when I go to the doctor, they say you have high cholesterol, you have visceral fat. Yes. I feel like it doesn't count for me. Right. It doesn't count for you. And there's yet another challenge with cholesterol levels. Cholesterol levels are the number one selling cholesterol drugs. Cholesterol lowering drugs are the number one selling drug category on the planet. The drug companies make more money off of those drugs than any other kind of drug.

14:39Personally don't like the research on it, but that's for another day. The challenge is you have the medical world in your head, scaring the daylights out of you. You have the voice of father and whoever else in your head saying you got to lose weight.

15:03And these voices haunt you. I had a stroke when we were young and my mother, anytime he got mad, don't make your father mad. He's going to die. You're going to kill your father of a stroke. So I've spent my life expecting someone to die. So sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but no, no, this isn't, this is important. This is your story. This is, this is, this is the life you've been living where, oh my God, somebody could die at any moment because you did the wrong thing.

15:36Not only could you kill yourself, you can kill somebody else. And these are the voices that we have to start to massage a bit, relax them a bit, and begin to notice that those voices no longer serve us. They no longer serve you. And this, I think is where the work is, because here's the thing.

16:10We outsource when it comes to health, when it comes to whatever the doctors are telling you, we tend to outsource our health. You go to the doctor, you go to the medical professional, and they say, here's what you got to do. Now, there's certain instances where, you know something, I have to listen to their advice. I got a brain tumor. I'm not going to figure that out on my own.

16:33And here you are, you're 53. Let's say you're past right at the halfway point of how long you could potentially live. And it's now time for you to decide how you wish to live your life, who you wish to be. Part of it is dancing with your beliefs around death. To put it quite bluntly, is starting to be in more conversation with yourself or with

17:11anybody that will sit down and go there with you. How do you feel about death?

Confronting Death

17:16What do you believe about it? Where do you think you're going? What's going to happen? What's going to, does it all come to an end? And can I at least intellectually wrap my arms around the fact, intellectually, that every human dies.

17:33Not only does every human die, I don't know about your family. I have members of my family, I promise you, they drank, they smoked, they ate the worst garbage, and they were some of the longest lived members of my tribe.

17:47My mother ate like such good food. She was really into health and died young of cancer before she hit 59. Um, so all I'm saying is, we don't know when we're going to go, we don't know what's going to cause us to go. No matter what you eat, no matter what your medical test says, you will die. At some point. You know, the food thing, the, the, that's why you go to a functional medical person or whatever.

18:17I guarantee they're going to tell me I'm allergic to gluten, sugar. I mean, I understand that that stuff's healthy, but I also, I'm not a person that wants to go down the puritanical route. I want to jump in. I feel like I don't have that much time left and I want to eat good food. I want, I want to, I want to recline, I want to feel good again. I want to enjoy. I want to look in the mirror and be happy. I want to take a walk and feel the wind.

18:48I want to eat food that tastes good. I don't want to restrict more because it doesn't feel good. Life's short. That's so clear. That is so beautifully clear. And you can do that. You can do that anytime. So yeah, somebody might say gluten is not good for you. Sugar is not good for you, et cetera, et cetera. And everything we do is a choice. We give, and you're talking to a nutrition fanatic, by the way.

19:20And as a nutrition fanatic, I feel qualified to say that we give nutrition far too much power over our emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.

19:35We think if I screw up and I eat this or I don't eat that, that somehow that has the power to take away my life and to take away my happiness. And the reality is, we don't know.

19:52We literally don't know. Because you could eat what somebody says is the perfect diet for the rest of your life, and you could be miserable doing it. So then when you die, what's going to happen? People are going to say, oh, she's such a, Daniella was such a good girl. She followed such a good diet. Nobody's going to talk about what you ate when you died. Nobody cares. You care, and this is the time for you to start to claim your power.

20:22This is your body. It's your body. This is your body. This is your life. Every doctor works for you. Every professional works for you. They're your consultant.

20:34Your parents, they're no longer here. They're still technically, they were your parents. Bless them for that. And they no longer are here to tell you what to do or what to think.

20:49And I think part of what's happening for you right now is you're ready to claim your throne. You're ready to step into your queenhood.

21:03You're ready to... Don't worry about health, though. How do you not... How do you not... Because to eat like normally, how do you not... Like if you're not starving yourself, if you're not counting calories and restricting, then it's going to take a long time to be in a body that's healthier. How do you not worry about everything you do, making it worse? That's a great question. How do you not worry about your health?

Not Worrying About Health

21:35I think step number one is to notice, I worry about my health. That's step number one. Just like, okay, this is me. I do that. And honestly, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense that one will worry about their health because you know how important it is. And you especially know how important it is when you don't have it, when you haven't had it for a while, or when you watch people die young or die of a disease. You figure out, damn, this is important.

22:05Health is important. So, part of it is beginning to reframe your relationship with your health. So, what I practice, what I try to practice, rather than worry about my health, is to, I say to myself, I'm going to do the best I can to nourish myself. And to put myself in what I think is the best position to be healthy, given my lifestyle, given my choices, given my preferences, and given what I know is going to make me happy on a moment-to-moment or day-to-day basis.

22:50So, yeah, you know, if I feel like having some ice cream at night, I will.

22:57Somebody else might say, you have ice cream at night? That's terrible. I think to myself, no, it's good.

23:07Is that going to kill me? Hasn't yet. Am I going to die? Am I going to find out when I die and go to heaven? And the good Lord's going to tell me, see, you shouldn't have eaten ice cream? Okay, well, maybe then it'll be clear that that's what killed me. But I don't think so. In my observation of life, the best we can do for our health is the best that we can do. It's an attitude. It's about having a healthy attitude towards health.

23:39An unhealthy attitude towards health is, oh, my God, I'm going to die. I'm going to get sick. Well, yeah, I will die. That's a fact. Will I get sick? Good chance. Do some people go quicker than others? Absolutely. So it's beginning to make peace with what your journey is here as a human being. As a human being, our journey is we're born.

24:09And at some point, we become more vulnerable. We become more fragile. We become older.

24:16And you've said it several times in this conversation. You realize that life is precious. So that is healthy.

24:29That's a healthy attitude that my life is precious. So how do you spend your life energy so that you're affirming the preciousness of your life?

24:42Upholding your health as best you can, nourishing yourself, doing good things for yourself that you can enjoy doing. Paying attention to my life. Say again? Paying attention to my life. Paying attention to your life. Paying attention to your body right now. You want to feel the wind on your body? You could do that anytime.

25:04It's making if no matter what you want your body to do. I want my body to have lower cholesterol. I want my body to have less weight. I want my body to be healthier. Okay. It's fair game. In order for my body to do anything that I want it to do, I need to best be in it. I need to occupy it. And by occupying it, I mean, this is it.

25:42So the sweet spot here is to, I'm going to give you a homework assignment. And see if this works for you. I would love for you to write a letter to your dad.

26:02Dear dad.

26:05And I want you to share with him what happened when you were 15. And how it impacted you.

26:17And how it was like the trigger that set you on a certain course. And then I want you to tell him kind of like who you want to be moving forward.

26:30Maybe you're mad at him. Maybe you've forgiven him. I don't know. But tell him in the letter. And then once you're finished with that letter, consider writing a letter from your dad to you. So your dad says, dear Daniela. And he's talking from his wise, spiritual place. I'm going to assume he's someplace where he's learned a few things. And what would your dad tell you now from that higher place? How would he respond to you?

27:01What would he say to you? What would he want for you, the daughter that he loves?

27:11How does that land for you when I suggest that?

27:15Yeah.

27:17It'll be hard, but I can do it. I suggest it because there's a part of you that's still that 15-year-old girl trying to catch up, trying to please him and trying to, therefore, please the world because he represents what the world thinks. And sometimes a part of us gets locked into that place where the boo-boo happened, the time when the boo-boo happened.

27:57A little bit of a boo-boo. That was an ouch. That was a hurt. And again, I'm not saying he's a bad guy. I'm not assigning blame. He said something. It wasn't the most sensitive thing. Yeah. People are still saying that. Doctors are still saying that. People, there's a ton of weight hate and a ton of weight prejudice that exists all over the planet. And we make assumptions about extra body weight that just isn't true.

28:27You could be healthy at most sizes. When we get to extremes, extreme obesity or extreme thinness, we're in a difficult zone. We're in a very vulnerable zone for getting ill.

28:43But there's people with perfect weight who get sick. There's people who wish they could lose 50 pounds and they get sick. So disease and death doesn't distinguish, doesn't care that much.

28:59But the shame and the guilt and the bad feelings aren't healthy. No, they're not. They don't allow you to live your life. You're here to live your life. You're not here to follow a diet. Diet is here to support your life. Food is here to support your life. Your body is here to support your experience and to help you learn through being in a body.

29:31Because we're here to learn and grow, as far as I can tell. That's all we do. We learn and we grow. My job, I don't have to leave the house. So like since the whole COVID thing hit, I've just locked myself in the studio, narrated audiobooks. I'm in my own world. I don't have to see another human being. So my body and I haven't even talked in three minutes. So this is about you engaging with your body, being in your body. And this is how you be gorgeous again.

30:02How you be gorgeous again is you do loving acts towards your body. You do nourishing acts towards your body. You do kind things for your body. That's actually what you were unconsciously doing when you were younger. You were kind to your body. You were not cursing it. You were not attacking it. You were not belligerent towards it.

30:34So if you want to see your body as gorgeous again, then you have to start to feel its goodness. That's where you begin. You feel its goodness. And despite, even though you've had all these injuries, even though you've had all these health challenges, here you are. You're walking, you're talking, and you can live your life.

31:05Hallelujah. Like, let's celebrate that. Let's say, wow, okay. How do I start to see the goodness that's happening? Like, wow, my body's been resilient.

31:26It's learning. It's slowly forgiving your body. I think what's happening is your body is guilty in your mind. It's been guilty from a young age. Guilty as charged. Too fat. Got to do something.

31:47And we then get in a jail of dieting and bad thoughts. And now all the injuries and the disease confirms for you, bad body.

32:04And you have to overcompensate because, like, you're never good enough if you're not thin. So you have to spend your whole life overcompensating. And only, like, this week I realized that I've got a lot of stuff because of the personality I've developed. Because I thought I had a wasted life because I kept waiting until I was thin to live my life. But I've got a lot of stuff because I'm like a different person because I've had to overcompensate because I didn't think I was as good because I was not thin.

32:36Yes. So now, at 53, you're reclaiming your life.

32:46Never too late. So you're reclaiming your life now. And nobody tells you when you're worthy.

32:59Nobody has that power.

33:03You say when you're worthy. And you're worthy just because you're you. It's okay. You don't have to be anybody else. You don't have to do anything else. You don't have to weigh any different. Hard to believe. Hard to believe you're in a loving relationship and you're being you. That's proof that you can be loved and accepted. Even though I don't have the perfect body that I want.

33:34You don't have to compensate anymore. Be you.

33:37It's me that wasn't. It's funny you say that because I've never had a problem getting other people to like me. But it was me that didn't like me. Yeah. And honestly, it's not any character fault of your own. Because the world is just a breeding ground for that nonsense. The world is just supporting us in feeling bad about our body.

34:08From a young age. All you need to do is have somebody say to you, you're too fat. And then boom, you realize that every character you see in the comics or in the movies or in the cartoons or in the Disney shows or in the music videos. They all look a certain way. They're all stylized. They're all Hollywood hot. And they're all fabulous. And they're all having a great time. And I'm supposed to be that. And then you get out in the world and those people get more because you can see people being impressed by this skinny Hollywood person.

34:46Like, you know, I mean, I was on an acting job and they were sending me out the door and then they called me back. I mean, I took the job, but they called me back because they had to let a girl go because they said she was too pretty. They gave me her part. You always remind it that there's like a commodity. You know, I mean, I don't want to be a commodity, but it kind of hurts to never get to be the commodity. Yes. So then you have to make peace with the fact that I'm opting out of the commodity system because otherwise you are you are like you said, you're making yourself.

35:21You are deciding I need to be that commodity because if I'm that commodity, if they say to you, Daniela, we're hiring you because you're so pretty or we're firing you because you're so pretty. Either way, you kind of come out of winter because your problem is you're too pretty. So we tell ourselves that, oh, I need to be that commodity.

35:44And we've adopted the bad religious beliefs that the world has given us. You know, thou shalt look a certain way and weigh a certain amount and then you will be loved and valued. Like, no, because the truth is, here's the bigger truth.

36:05Ninety nine percent of human beings don't look like the people in the movies and the music videos. And if you go shopping, if you go walking down the street, there's people of all ages, all shapes and all sizes loving on each other, being partners, holding hands, having a good time.

36:23In great relationships. So that's the reality.

36:32There's no magic.

36:36Little pot of gold that you get because you lose a bunch of weight and then all of a sudden, like, what's going to happen? So it's a dream that you're waking up from and realizing, no, this is my life. This is my body. And for the first time since age 15, what I'm suggesting to you is learn how to be with your body and not against your body.

37:08You are with your friends. You are for your friends. You are for the people who love you. You're not against them. You're not friends with somebody because you can't stand them and you want them to change. And you wake up every day and you call your friend and say, you're not acceptable. You're not lovable. You need to lose weight. You need to eat different. Then I'll love you. You don't say that to people.

37:38Why would you say that to yourself? So it's learning how to be for your body, learning how to be with your body. And being for your body and with your body means you must begin with where your body is right now. So what I'm suggesting is to take a period of time, and this is gold. I find myself saying this to a lot of people because there's so many people who have spent their life against their body, and we don't know what it's like to be for my body.

38:14But in order to be for my body, I have to agree, I'm not going to try to change you. So let's call, let's call, hang in there with me for a second. Let's call your desire to have a certain body weight. Let's call it a preference. Call it a preference. I prefer to have a body that weighs X number of kilos or pounds less. It feels like I'm killing myself at this weight, and I'm going to die any day if I don't get control of it.

38:44Exactly. It's a preference. It's a preference. I prefer to live in London. I prefer to wear certain clothes. I prefer to listen to certain kind of music. I prefer to be around certain kind of people, and I try when I can to have my preferences. But when I can't have my preferences, it doesn't mean I go on an all-out attack. I prefer to be 6'4", but I'm not. So should I attack myself? Should I walk on stilts? Should I hate myself for the rest of my life?

39:18So your desire to weigh a certain amount, it's your preference, and you have every right to have your preference, every right. However, it causes suffering the moment you say to yourself, if I can't have this preference, life sucks, I suck, everything's going to be bad, and I'm going on the attack. So then you're literally living with the enemy, and the enemy is you, the enemy is your body.

39:48So being with your body means you learn to be with your body and not try to change it. You've been trying to change it. It's not working. It's not working. So let's do something else.

New Relationship with Body

40:12Okay. Now, that's something else. You don't know what it's like because you haven't done it. The mind thinks, well, if I do that, I'll never lose weight. Yeah, that's where your mind's going to go. Where my mind goes. What are the rules? How do I do it right? I don't know. How am I doing something else? What do I do exactly? Thank you for being so honest. We don't know what to do. We don't know what the rules are for that way of being because you haven't been like that since you were 15.

40:46So here's let me give you some suggestions for what the guidelines are not rules guidelines. Okay. Guidelines are you've learned a lot about health. You've learned a lot about how to take care of yourself. You learned about how to nourish yourself. You begin to choose as the queen of your life and the queen of your body based on everything I've learned. I'm going to push aside all the voices, and now I'm going to choose what I eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks.

41:23I'm going to be an independent human being. I've gathered up all the information. No matter what diet you follow, you will die at some point. So diet's not going to make you live forever. So you have to notice what foods, A, do I believe are healthy? And of those foods that I believe are healthy, what do I enjoy eating? What inspires me to want to eat it? What inspires me to want to cook it and prepare it?

41:53Those are the foods to reach for. That's a nice guideline. Here's another guideline. If something you believe this is really bad for me, don't eat a lot of it. Eat it occasionally. Okay. If there's things that you think, God, this is really good for me, and I don't mind eating it. Great. Eat that more. So get rid of the black and white, and the good and bad, and the this and that, and the criminal or saint when it comes to eating.

42:28And it's just food, and it's just you, and it's just your life, and you get to choose. Like, take the power out of it. Yeah, that feels a bit less life-threatened. Exactly. Yeah. Because, like I say, and I'm not trying to be morbid here, I'm just being practical. Every diet has the same result. It results in death. Do I believe there are certain ways of eating that put you in a better part of the probability curve to be healthy?

43:04Absolutely, I believe that. Do I believe that works 100%? Absolutely not. Do I believe it works 100% for all people all the time? Definitely not. And I mean, I eat relatively healthy food, because I was raised with an Italian that didn't allow, I mean, I don't eat like a lot of junk. But with me, it just feels like I just screwed my body up with all the yo-yo dieting that like, if I even look at food, I gain weight, whereas. Yes. So, yeah. So, here's the difficult part.

43:38I feel like I've screwed my body up from all of the oomph. And let's try to reframe that. Let's reframe it as my body's been through a lot. Let's reframe it as I did the things that I knew best to do, given the information that I had. Given what I've learned from the world.

44:09I did the things that I thought were right. I thought it was right for me to diet and lose weight. I thought that that was the right thing to do. So, you did the best that you could. And yeah, your body's been through a lot, not just with dieting, with a lot of things. And now, you get to have a new beginning. This is kind of, it's kind of like the spiritual side of being in a body.

44:46We got to bump it up to a higher perspective. We have to bump it up to a higher level and look at yourself as a being who you're born, you eat, and then you die. You're born, you eat, you die. So, who am I going to be as an eater? How do I choose to express myself in that way? It's a craft. Like acting or narrating, it's a craft. I can work on my craft of eating and expressing myself through my relationship with food,

45:23rather than it being like a moratorium on who I am. Exactly. Exactly. It says nothing about who you are. Who you are is who you are. What you choose to eat or don't eat, that's this other thing that has no bearing on your value. Your weight does not determine your value as a human being. What you ate or didn't eat doesn't determine your value as a human being. Not at all.

45:56That's what you've been led to believe. That's what you've been believing. And now we're unraveling that toxic belief, that false belief. And this is what unraveling looks like. And this is what it feels like. It's a little disconcerting. Because all of a sudden you're in a new world. Oh my God, what do I do? What's the rules? What's the guidelines? Exactly. That's why a lot of people would rather stay in that dieting consciousness because we don't want to just be in the unknown.

46:27It feels like something's wrong mentally. I tried Weight Watchers again last week and I lasted two and a half hours. It feels like it's not healthy for my brain. No. Put myself back into that mindset. No. Think of the term Weight Watchers. You're constantly watching your weight. Every second. Watch your weight. Watch your weight. And what a horrible message. That's a terrible message.

47:00No. Here's a good idea. Watch your mind. What's my mind thinking? Does that thought work for me? Is that a healthy thought? Oh, it's not so healthy. Oh, let me let that thought go and see if I can replace it with something a little more juicy and a little more fresh and a little more nutritional. So you are learning to let go of the fight with your body. Look at your body. Look at your body like a person. Look at your body like your best friend.

47:33How would you treat your best friend? How would you love on it? How would you care for it? How would you talk to it? I did. I did. It did occur to me if like I had a child. Would I like yell at it the minute it woke up every morning? And then what I think it's a good idea to make it sit up at night with the lights off watching Netflix ruminating about how awful their life was. It's like if you have a child, you would just like feed it kind of decent food and sometimes treats.

48:08Yes. You can get back to the place where you feel like your body is like you're gorgeous. Because the truth is, when you felt you were gorgeous, it wasn't just your looks. It was you. It was the whole package. You were gorgeous. Yeah, it was. I used to like smile at the first seven people I met. I couldn't believe like it was like an energy. I could feel the energy and I would like I'd wake up in the morning before I leave the house. I think like what you're on and I would like just smile.

48:39I felt it and I loved it. It was like I'm alive and I love it. And then I just lost it. Yes. So that's the real you. That's the real you in there. And yeah, you know, we do lose parts of us sometimes we do. They do escape us. And when that happens and we realize it, we call those parts back. So you're calling that part back. It's okay. This is the human journey.

49:09This is what souls go through. We lose ourselves sometimes. We get lost in job. We get lost in a relationship. We get lost in the weight loss universe. We get lost in addiction. We get lost in and just doing silly things and nonsense and making bad choices all the while thinking we're making good choices. And so now you are reclaiming that part of you. And again, what I'm what I'm what I in this conversation, everything I've been suggesting to you is the baby steps you take to get back to.

49:47I'm gorgeous. I'm gorgeous. Because it's a package deal. It's my energy is my life like this life is gorgeous. And it's it's easier when we're young sometimes because we have that innocence and we haven't gotten smacked around a lot by life yet for many of us. And so you have suffered some wounds and some booboos and part of the soul maturing is we learn how to move forward with those with those scars with those booboos.

50:25We learn how to move forward and recapture our aliveness, recapture our our sense of this is me and this is good. Because I have a whole half of life. Like I'm feeling like I'm like my parents like on their deathbed, but I'm not my parents. I still have like a lot of time if I do it now. Exactly.

50:55Exactly. So you start living your life now. And you nourish your body. And you're going to worry about your health, you're going to worry about this and but notice when the worry comes up and say, Oh, okay, that's the old me. That's an understandable part of me. And some amount of worry is just natural. We're human and we're going to worry about our health. So the worry itself isn't bad. It just becomes problematic when we're living there day in and day out.

51:29When we spend all our time there. So my assumption is that if you start nourishing your body and stop trying to change it. And start to do things that feel good to you. Little things walking breathing. Whatever you do in your body that feels good and just feel how good it feels. Could be the simplest thing. The wind on your face. Simple feel how good it feels.

52:01Remember what it was like to be 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and just feel so good. How hard could it be? It's a practice, Daniela. I think what it is, you know, it's not like we're going to finish this conversation and everything's going to change. But what changes is the direction that you choose for yourself. What changes is, Oh, there's a different way.

52:34I can be in relationship with my body. Here's the thing. Here's a belief that I operate by as a person and as a professional. It's a formula. And it's personal power equals metabolic power. Personal power equals metabolic power, meaning personal power. As I become more me, as I become the person I'm meant to be, as I fulfill just my potential as a human being, metabolic power, my body has the best chance to reach its highest expression.

53:17As I become the person I'm meant to be, my body has the best chance to become the body that it's meant to be. I like that. And vice versa, as I treat my body well and my body is becoming the best version of itself, then that makes it easier for me to become the best version of me. But what happens is we believe, well, I can only become the best version of me if I lose a bunch of weight. So then we spend our time trying to change our body now.

53:48So it's time for you to focus on you becoming the best version of you. And the things I miss are like the walks and the way I felt while I was accomplishing things, not the actually being skinny part. Yes. So that's what you focus on and you feel those feelings. You literally bring in those feelings and you feel them in the moment. And that's what makes life so sweet. That's the beauty. And you feel it in this body because this is the body that you have.

54:20You're not going to wait one day. So you have a skinny body. Then I'll feel again. That was the plan. I know. That's the plan for most people who are trying to lose weight. I will be the real me. I will feel the good feelings when my body is skinny. So that's basically saying in the life. I'm not going to be happy now. I'm not going to be the real me now. I'm not going to express my fullest potential now because the number on the scale says I can't.

54:53So this is you going from your 15 year old self driving the car, driving your relationship with your body, driving your relationship with food. Now you're going to have the 53 year old in you sitting at the head of the table. And the 53 year old you is a woman. She's a queen and a queen sits on her throne.

55:27And a queen doesn't does not sit on her. A good queen doesn't sit on her throne and go like, do you all accept me? Am I good enough? Do I need to lose weight? Would you would you like me more from in my skinny clothes? No, nobody would follow that queen. A good queen knows who she is. She knows her value. She's not trying to compete with her younger self or any other younger women. This is me. This is my body. I own it. I promise you, you could you could take a walk right now and walk past women who have the same body as you have or bigger and they're in their body.

56:07They're feeling good. They're empowered. Very possible. Very possible. Right. I can't thank you enough. I really can't. Thank you so much. I'm going to re listen to this like over and over and over again. So I remember. I'm so glad that's very kind of you. And I appreciate how real and honest you've been and just down to earth about what's happening, because this your story is it's it's your unique story.

56:43And amazingly enough, it's a common story, there's certain common threads that to me are just threads that we need to change as a world, as a planet, as women, as men, as people who support each other. Because the idea is is is for you to be the best version of yourself and the best version of yourself is for your body, not against it.

57:13The best version of yourself works with your body. This is the body you have. OK, well, let's let's let's love it into its next phase of existence. And there's so many 50 year old friends I have. We've all been through like that. And I mean, we're on fire. Like, it's not old. Like, you know what I mean? We can like. Yeah, I think we could be a force to be reckoned with, get a bunch of pissed off women that you've made diet for like 40, 30 years.

57:44You know. We could do stuff. Well, you're doing it. You're doing it right now by reclaiming your life. And choosing to be in a new relationship with you, with your body, with the world. You're on your way, Daniela. Thank you, Mark. I can't thank you enough, honestly, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much. You're very kind. I really appreciate it.

58:14And thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Take care, my friends. Hey, friends. We're so happy that you've joined us for another episode of the Psychology of Eating podcast with Mark David. Are you loving these episodes? Then simply subscribe and you'll never miss an episode again. We'd also love it if you'd leave us a review so we can hear more about your own journey with food and body. And if you're curious about what we offer at the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, including our internationally acclaimed coach certification training that's rooted in dynamic eating psychology and mind body nutrition, please head on over to our website, psychology of eating dot com.

59:03Until next time, take care, and remember, having the body you want starts with loving the body you have.