Why You Gain Weight After Losing It & What To Do – In Session with Marc David

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.

0:24Welcome everybody. I'm Mark David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. We're back in the Psychology of Eating podcast, and I am with Liz today. Welcome, Liz. Hello. Hi, I'm glad you're here. Glad we're doing this. If anybody out there is new to this podcast, Liz and I have never met before, and we're going to have a session together. See if we could do some good work, see if we could move you forward with food and body.

0:53So Liz, if you could wave your magic wand, have whatever you wanted, what would that be for you? Um, I, I really want to just like have freedom around food. Like I want to feel good about myself and trust myself around food and feel good in my body and not have it take a lot of effort, like almost be easy. Got it. So freedom around food, trust your body, feel good in your body. I understand that one. So does that have anything to do with your weight?

1:25Yeah, it has a lot to do with my weight and, and I've worked on that. I've tried to like my, or love my body and myself, you know, at any weight, because I feel like that's been super helpful. And I have done a much, much better job of that the last two years. Um, I think that's probably part of a big part of all of that with my weight. So how much weight do you want to lose?

1:51Um, so I total want to lose about 30 to 40 pounds and I'm about halfway there. Got it. And how long have you been dieting as in, when was the first time you ever dieted in your life? Um, it was probably in my late thirties, like after kids, after kids, before that, I don't ever, I don't even know what my weight was. I don't remember it ever being an issue. I would just, it's how I want to be. I would just eat when I was hungry and I would eat the foods that I wanted to eat.

2:25And I was active and I liked my body and I liked the way I fit in clothes and I was comfortable and I never weighed myself except maybe at the doctor or something. Like I know how much I weighed before and after I had my babies and stuff, but, and then after that, I feel like I could tell you year by year what I weighed and everything sort of crept up. And I started, that's when I started trying to watch what I was eating or do weight watchers or diet. And since then, it's just been a little bit of a rollercoaster with a little success,

2:56but mostly not. So how many years has it been roughly?

3:01Um, 15 years, probably 16 years. Got it. Have you ever in that 15, 16 years, have you ever gotten to the point where you actually lost the weight that you wanted to lose? I did. I was there in March of 2022 last year. I was sort of at the same weight for about 10 years. And then during COVID, um, and at the end of the summer, I had a conversation with my sister and she was in the same place as I was with weight and wanted to lose like 30, 40 pounds. And, um, I had more time on my hands than I ever had before because I wasn't working as

3:35much. And, um, I started to lose weight very slowly and I did. I lost like over 30 pounds. Um, and that was about 15 months ago, but then I proceeded to get. For the first time, like that was the first time I had been down really close to my goal weight, um, in about the 15 years. Um, but then I gained it really all back by about January. Cause it took a lot of like effort and control. I felt like I had no room for anything else in my life at the time. And then when I sort of lost focus and like motivation and like determination and like all

4:11my energy was going there and I just sort of relaxed and went back. I didn't know how to maintain. Got it. So what did you, what did you do? So took a lot of focus, took a lot of energy, took a lot of control to lose that weight. What did you do different? I cut out really flour and sugar. Um, so I still ate a lot of like protein and fat and dairy and vegetables and fruit. Um, I started doing intermittent fasting. So I stopped eating breakfast. Um, and I started, um, journaling more and I started journaling my food and sort of tracking

4:48my food ahead of time, like trying to plan out the week. And so then I wouldn't really have to track if I, if I kept to my plan that I was going to eat for the week and it was slow. It was like two or three pounds a month. Um, and it felt good. It actually felt pretty effortless in the sense that it wasn't like I was deprived all the time or anything. It was just, um, slow going, but I stuck with it and I would journal and I would talk to my sister. And then eventually I actually joined a program, um, for a different podcast that I'd been looking to, who had had some coaching and talked a lot about emotional eating, which I didn't

5:22really think I had, but I definitely have some of, um, and then kind of got there. So you got there, the weight came back on because you lost. So, so say more about why you think the weight came back on. Oh, well, all of a sudden I felt like, all of a sudden I felt like confused, like about why the weight came back on, because I felt like I was always eating sort of healthy and I was paying attention to what I was eating and losing weight.

5:53But then I think I started snacking more. I think my sweet tooth, like I indulged my sweet tooth more than I had. Um, I mean, those were kind of the main things. Like overall we eat like a kind of Mediterranean diet and relatively healthy and I'm pretty active. It's like yoga and walking, not anything more hardcore than that. Um, but that stayed the same too. So I don't know. I keep trying to blame it. I think on external sources too. Like, I feel like there's something hormonal or I feel like it's something, um, with my age

6:28almost, you know, perimenopause and all of that. So correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like one of the main nutritional changes you made was in order to lose the weight was less sugar, less flour, carbohydrate kind of products. And then the weight came back on when you started eating more flour and sugar. Does that sound accurate to you? And portions. So like during meals, when I was losing weight, I was very keyed into my hunger cues.

6:59Like, are you hungry? Are you still hungry in the middle of the meal? You know, kind of reassessing throughout the meal and stopping if I was not hungry anymore. Same thing with snacks. You know, it wasn't like an automatic afternoon snack. If I wasn't truly hungry, if I was truly hungry, I would eat a snack. And then I kind of just slipped back into more mindless eating where I would just eat everything on my plate or go for seconds. So it was portions to a healthy food, but portion. Got it. So the kind of food you were eating, carbs, sugar, and portion size, and kind of mindfulness,

7:37really, you know, just noticing like, what's my appetite? How am I doing? Am I hungry? So checking in with yourself. Okay. When you did lose the weight, how did you feel physically? Got to the point, wow, close to my, pretty close to my target weight. How did you feel? I felt awesome. I felt like I like shed a fat suit. Like I felt like I was myself again. Like I felt like my energy was good and like just getting dressed in the morning was easy. You know, like everything just kind of hung the way it should.

8:07And I wasn't wondering which pants were going to, you know, be uncomfortable today or whatever. Um, it felt good, really good. And I got a lot of feedback from people too, because all of a sudden now you're coming out of COVID, like everyone's seeing you and like, whoa, cause it was noticeable.

8:26So it sounds like, you know, what to do to lose weight. I do. I know that's the frustrating part. If I feel like I want to do other things with my like brain energy though, like I feel like I have to be, so I don't know why I have to be so focused on it. The minute I lose my, my attention on it and I start focusing on other things, I, I feel like the weight comes back on. If I'm not really paying, really paying full attention.

8:54Do you, do you tend to be a fast eater, a moderate eater, a slow eater, a very fast eater, very fast eater. Okay. And how old did you say you were? I'm 54. 54. Okay. And.

9:16Okay. It's, it's.

9:20Why this is why you're so interesting to me and your story is so interesting because you came to the experience of weight loss kind of later in life than a majority of people, quite frankly, a lot of people they're dealing with weight, oftentimes from a young age, not everybody, but a, but a majority. So it wasn't until you're more adult years. And at the same time, you found a way for yourself.

9:53And what I'm going to say is there was a level where, and maybe I'm stating the obvious, but the weight loss strategy that you did, there was something about it that was stressful for you because as soon as you hit your target weight, a part of you relaxed, the party you let go. Okay. I'm there. I don't want to do all this work anymore. This is too hard.

10:25This is what I'm imagining. Some party, you said to some part of you, some part. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I was like, I want to learn Italian or I want to like, I want to play pickleball. Like I want to do other things with my time, not just work about losing weight completely. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. So that makes perfect sense to me that that makes perfect sense. Cause a lot of times after we work hard, it's time to play. Uh, it's kind of the flow of life, you know, you work and then you rest, you exert energy

10:56and then you chill a little bit. So, so it makes sense that you would want to take your foot off the gas pedal at some point. So I think for you, there's a middle ground in here. And I think the middle ground is that you can approach weight loss in a more sustainable way, in a more long-term way, but really I want to talk about it in a more

11:31lifelong way and lifelong way means what are the habits you can do that I would suggest are a little bit more natural to you and to the human body. What often happens, and I don't, I'm not a hundred percent sure this is going on for you, but it sounds like what, what often happens when we direct ourselves to weight loss is we go for it and you put all your energy into it. Like you said, so I have to do all these things and all my focus is going here and eventually

12:04you're going to get tired. So part of focusing all our energy in a very intense way, part of that is the stress of, I got to lose this weight.

12:19This is my goal. My goal is I got to lose this weight. In order to lose this weight, I got to push through. I got to focus. I got to push. So pushing is not sustainable. Pushing is good for short-term things. You need to push something, need to push something from here to there. Pushing is good, but you couldn't be pushing all day. You're going to get tired. So I'm more interested in creating changes, new habits, new patterns, new behaviors that

12:51are more sustainable. So place I want to start with for you, if you want to make this easy for yourself, I want you to make this easier for you. You want to make this easier for you. Okay. So let's do it the easy way. Now, the easy way doesn't mean easy. The easier way is just easier than the hard way. If you know what I'm saying, like the really hard way, the really hard way means push all the time, force, stress myself into it. And work so hard that I just got to relax and I'm going to just let go and then lose

13:23all the benefit. That's actually the hard way. So the easier way, which can still be work is first and foremost, most important thing, the most underrated nutritional strategy in all of human history is to eat slowly, is to train yourself to be a relaxed, slow eater, because you, like many humans, like me, like I think a majority of people, especially in the United States, we grew up eating fast.

13:57You didn't choose to eat fast. You never thought to do it. Chances are the people in your environment did it. Chances are your friends did it. It's, it's, that's what the world does. That's what so many people do. Fast food is just not made fast. It's eaten fast. So we live in a fast food culture. And what happens is when you're eating fast, your brain does not have enough time to register taste, pleasure, aroma, satisfaction, and the visuals of the meal. That's what's going on. Your brain can't do its easy, natural job.

14:31In the same way, if you're in a conversation with somebody, if you're talking really fast and you're trying to listen really fast, but not really focus and not really concentrate, you're not going to absorb the conversation. You're not going to actually hear what the other person said. You're going to miss everything. If you read a book fast and you don't pay attention and you're distracted, same thing. So when we eat fast, if the brain doesn't register sensation, taste, pleasure, satisfaction, aroma, nourishment, the brain interprets that missed experience as hunger.

15:07Because the brain, the human brain requires an eating experience. That's what separates us from the animals. That's what separates us from the single-celled organisms. We like to dine. We like good food. Like, hey, I miss my Italian food. I miss my dessert. I miss my sugar. Yeah. You know, cows don't walk around saying, you know, I miss my grass or I miss my height. Then I'm missing anything, far as we can tell. So as you train yourself, and it takes practice to become a slow eater.

15:41Slow is not a speed so much as it's a state of being. That's very important. Slow means I am here. I am present to the thing that I'm doing. You could be in a conversation when you eat. You could watch TV when you eat. You could be partying and celebrating and having a good time when you eat. And at the same time, I'm eating. And I'm going to eat and experience my food. I'm going to taste it. I'm going to get pleasure from it. I'm going to notice my appetite.

16:11As we go along.

16:15And that's, if you look at it, not like, oh, I got to push myself to do this. No, you're training yourself to be an eater.

16:26And when you train yourself to be an eater, food tastes better when you slow down. You get actually more pleasure when you're doing something slow.

16:40If somebody says to me, oh, I really love sex. I love it so much. I do it really fast. Well, you can't get as much pleasure from that experience. So you want to have some more time in there. More pleasure equals more satisfaction. More satisfaction equals natural appetite regulation. So you don't have to force yourself to watch your appetite or to control your appetite. Appetite is natural. So it's going to be a different way of life for you.

17:10And it's not going to be either or. Either I'm pushing myself on this diet and I got to focus on my energy or I'm going to cut loose and just, you know, chill and eat what I want. And it's no beginning to notice yourself, notice your body. So that I want to say is crucial step number one. I have said this to every weight loss client I've ever worked with. If I can't help you become a slow, relaxed eater, I can't help you get what you say you want.

17:44Which is freedom with food.

17:48Which is sustainable, natural weight. Because the body doesn't operate naturally and properly when it's eating fast. Your body thinks it's in a stress response. You think you're fighting off a lion. And in that stress response, additionally, if that stress response is happening every time you eat, the brain thinks that fast eating is a stressor. That's how your brain responds to fast eating. So if I told you right now, here's a meal, eat it fast. Even if you're relaxed right now, the act of eating fast will put you in a stress response.

18:22That will increase your cortisol, increase your insulin. And those two hormones over time can signal the body to store weight, store fat, not build muscle. So play a long game and relax into eating. And train yourself in that way. So it's not pushing yourself to lose weight so much as it's training myself to be a natural eater. So, so far, how does that land for you?

18:58I think that's accurate. I mean, I'll go to lunch with a girlfriend and we'll each get like two tacos and I'll be done. She's just still on her first one. Like I see it very clearly. At the dinner table, not so much because everyone's kind of eating fast around me too at home. But it requires mindfulness, I guess, which is what you're asking, which should come naturally and easy because I feel like I'm mindful in a lot of things I do, but I'm not with eating.

19:28I know I'm not. I know what you're saying is absolutely correct that I kind of like rushed through and don't even taste a lot of it sometimes or the taste decreases. I did an exercise where you have a food that you, you know, a normal meal and you sort of stop after each bite and you kind of think about how each bite tasted. Like, is it still as flavorful? Is it still as satisfying? And really after even a few bites, it's less, if you're not so hungry anymore and you notice it's very remarkable when you do it.

19:58And that was like very slow and I would write down everything after each bite. I did it by myself. Like that would be harder for me to do it at a table with somebody else. And so obviously I usually, but I don't, you know, I usually get it with my family at dinner, especially. Yeah. So that takes practice to, to do in a social environment. It's, I think it's true. It's easier to do when I'm by myself, which is fine to, to practice it then too. But if you look at it as a practice, as a lifelong practice, practice doesn't mean a perfect.

20:29It means a practice. I'm practicing this. And over time, the more you do it, the better you get at it and the easier it becomes. And it starts to become beneficial. You notice, oh, I'm eating less when I'm eating slower, eating slower, IE I'm taking in sensation. I'm registering pleasure. The human brain wants pleasure from food. We are designed at the most primitive level to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

20:59That's how the brain is programmed. When you eat, you're seeking the pleasure of food. You're avoiding the pain of hunger. If we don't get the pleasure we seek, the brain says hungry because the brain wants pleasure. The brain sees you eating. Brain, I'm eating. I want pleasure. But pleasure requires awareness.

21:24If somebody's giving you a nice massage, you love massage, let's say. You love it, you love it. Somebody's giving you the best massage, but you're on your cell phone and you're having a stressful conversation with somebody and you're not paying attention, you're not going to get the pleasure from the massage. You will finish the massage and you will feel like you didn't get a massage.

21:42Pleasure requires our awareness. Pleasure is something that we, as we mature in our years, you learn how to cultivate it. You know, when we're young, pleasures kind of can come naturally to us. When you're young, you could eat fast and your metabolism was strong enough. And now here's life and life is telling you, okay, here's what happens if you don't live in more natural accord with how your body works. Yeah, it's going to do something you don't want it to do.

22:15It's going to gain a little bit of weight. So how do I adapt? How do I adjust? So this is the way to adjust as your body gets older and as you get wiser.

22:27If we get wiser as our body gets older, it's far easier to have a healthier body and a happier body and a more pleasured body and a body that's expressing more of its genetic potential, i.e. its natural weight and its natural health, if we start to live in accord with those natural principles. So it's a practice.

22:52That makes sense. Yeah, that's a good analogy and massage. Like you have to and not do other things or you have to just go into it, you know, wanting to experience it and not other things at the same time. Exactly. Exactly. So in life and in food, we need to be present to get the experience that we want. And when you don't get the experience you want, you're going to want more. And then when you want more food, because you didn't get the pleasure when you were actually eating it, the brain says, I don't remember eating.

23:25I don't remember getting pleasure. Yeah, maybe I just had that ice cream, but I didn't hungry. And then we're driven to eat more and we think, oh, what's my issue? I've got a willpower problem. No, there's nothing wrong with you. You just ate too quickly and you didn't pay attention. So you're not doing anything wrong. You have certain old habits. We all have habits that don't work for us, that we learned somewhere along the line. No blame. It's hard to be a slow, pleasant, present, relaxed eater in this world because the world

23:58is doing something else. If you're eating with your family and your family's fast eaters, it's going to be hard. But that's the practice you need to do to get what you want in a sustainable way. So here's another interesting piece. So you discovered that when I cut out the flour and cut out the sugar, I can lose weight. When I mix in intermittent fasting, I can lose weight.

24:29So when I hear that, I file that in my brain as good, useful, interesting nutritional information about a person's body, about your body. So that's information. Now, you have a choice as to what you do with that information. What often happens is if you're built for this, you can say, okay, no more sugar, no more flour,

25:04intermittent fasting, and then boom, you get where you want to go. And you keep that up. But if you know in your heart that, oof, you know, I'm going to want some sugar. I'm going to want some pasta. It's going to happen.

25:22Ah, so then you have a choice. You can start to experiment. So if I was in your shoes, personally, I would experiment. And I would say, is there a middle ground where I don't have to completely eliminate these foods because I would guess, I would bet money that if you went back on the intermittent fasting, no sugar, no carbs, you lose the weight, and then you gain it back. That's what I would bet.

25:53Because that's been your experience so far and nothing wrong. Like, literally, I don't see anything wrong with that. I just see a person who is trying to balance a personal preference.

26:08I want to lose 30, 40 pounds. That's a personal preference. It's a preference. This is what I want to weigh. You're trying to balance a personal preference with, what the heck do I have to do to get that personal preference? Am I going to give up sugar and carbs for the rest of my life?

26:26Now, if you know you're going to go out to Italian food with your family, and then what's going to happen is that's going to be registered as a failure. And once you register a failure, okay, whatever. And you just throw it all out the window. So, and then you've ended your good nutritional experiment, and it sort of had an end result that was kind of predictable. So, all I'm saying is let's shuffle the deck a little bit.

26:56Let's try something different. See if you can find a middle ground. See if you can have dessert. How many desserts do you have? How much sugar do you need during the week such that you can satiate that desire and still cut it back from what you normally do? Is there a middle ground? Is there a middle ground in terms of how much carbs, some pasta here and there can I do such that I'm not doing it every day.

27:26I'm doing it less than I used to do it, but I'm still having enough. So, I'm satisfying that urge. And when I'm actually eating that sugar, eating that dessert, eating that pasta, I'm enjoying it. And I'm getting what I want from it because I'm indulging in it. I'm eating it slow. I'm savoring it. So, then you actually get what you want, which makes it easier to then not have it for a bunch of days or a few days.

27:55So, I'm saying that you're a smart woman and you have to play. You have to experiment.

28:02If you want to have sustainable weight loss based on what you've learned about your body, you've learned some interesting things about your body. So, based on that, huh, can I tweak this? Because as soon as you go on the all or nothing train, that's the train you're on. You either got to be all in or chances are you're going to be all out and then everything else is predictable from there. You're going to lose the weight. You feel good. Then you're going to gain it back. And then you get up enough willpower

28:33and you do the all in again. Then you lose it again and then you're out and then you gain it back. So, it requires trying something different. How does that sound to you? Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it does. Because I kept feeling like I need to find a way to eat for this 40 plus body. Now 50 plus. You know, like I feel like something shifted in me where I couldn't just do what I have been doing. And I need to find what works for me now at this age.

29:08At with, you know, this stage of my life, basically. What I did before was working just fine. And then all of a sudden it wasn't. And I gained weight and was stuck there for many years. And I'm getting back there again too. But I don't now want to be a yo-yo diet where all of a sudden it's all or nothing. Like I, you know, a year and a half ago, it took me two years to lose all this weight. And then it took me nine months to gain it back. And now I'm on another three to four months.

29:38And I'm down about half of it again. And, but I don't want to yo-yo. I don't want to, I just want to be, I just want to figure out what works for me and do it and have an ease about it where I'm not stressed about it or putting a lot of my energy into it so I can do other things. Exactly. Exactly. So that requires what I hear you bringing forth, which is wisdom. You're saying, hey, what used to work for my 30-year-old body doesn't work for my 50-year-old body.

30:10That's wisdom.

30:12That's literally learning from my experience and going, huh, I have to change things up if I want my preference or close to it. So, you know, part of what happens, I think, Liz, is that a lot of people, when it comes to weight, their weight loss number becomes a religion. It becomes life and death. Like if I don't lose this, I'm screwed. And everything's going down the drain. And therefore, we're approaching our diet

30:46and our life and our weight loss as if it's a life or death situation. And we're in a constant anxiety state, i.e. stress response. And your body has to resolve that stress response at some point. It is not natural to be in an unnatural, self-chosen state of anxiety. I've got to lose this weight, otherwise I'm screwed. No, you're not screwed if you don't lose the weight. You just don't have your preference. And forgive me for saying it so simplistically, but it's not life or death.

31:16And if this is what I want, which is completely fair to want that, huh, what evidence do I have? What information have I gathered about myself that's useful? Huh, these are some of the strategies that work. But if I'm trying to follow that 100%, I'm going to rebound. I'm going to jump the other way. So I look for a middle ground.

31:43And that's something I think you can find for yourself.

31:49Yeah, the last time I recently went in for a checkup, the doctor kind of sent me into a tailspin because my blood sugar was high. And she said, oh, you're pre-diabetic. And my cholesterol and all my lipids were very high too. And so she said, oh, maybe you should talk to a diabetes education, you know, nutrition counselor and stuff too. And you need to kind of work on this. And it kind of made me panicky, like, oh no, like I'm going to go down this route. And it totally got into my head. It was one time. It wasn't like I've always been trending that way,

32:22but it was that one time that the last time I went to the doctor and it's kind of set me off. And I've been losing weight since then, which is nice, but it kind of put me into another, I was feeling more relaxed and it put me into another like stress moment of, or it's downward stress spiral, I think is what it really was. And I told my husband and he worries about me and yeah. Yeah. You know, that's, you bring up to me a really important point.

32:53And it's one of the challenges, I think of our relationship with our medical experts. So one of the challenges of our relationship with our medical experts is oftentimes we're delivered information that unless we know how to metabolize that information can do exactly what you said it does, which is it stresses me the heck out. So yeah, if I heard from my practitioner, oh, you're pre-diabetic and your cholesterol is really high.

33:26And I'm going to think, wow, that's not good. Freak out. And here's where once again, you have to call upon your wisdom. You have to find your center. This isn't an ideal world. You find your center and you go, oh, this is good information. Here's the good news. I am a relatively healthy person. I got my thing together. I've got love in my life. I have a stable universe.

33:58So things are basically okay. And even though I'm pre-diabetic, I am not diabetic. And even though I might have high blood lipid levels, here I am. And I'm not in a heart attack zone. So, okay. So now I can begin to make tweaks. And now I can begin to make shifts.

34:20We're going to die of something at some point. You could eat the healthiest food in the universe and you're going to die. Um, so one way or another, we're all going to end up in the same destination. I think so much of it is who we are along the journey and how we're being in relationship with our body and being in relationship with our health. And can I take information that sounds like it's bad? You're pre-diabetic. It's, it's in a way that's good news, much better than you're diabetic.

34:52Yes, you're, you're, you're, much better, much better than you have cancer, you know, way better. So of all the, of all the information you could hear, yeah, it's relatively good news for a 50 plus human being and you, and, and pre-diabetes, the beauty of that is you can change that. You can change that with lifestyle. Yeah.

35:22You can change that with diet. You can change that with stress to two of the key contributors to diabetes are nutrition and stress go figure, you know, and those are two things that we have a, a certain amount of say in easier said than done, but I'm just outlining for you, the target that I'm interested in you hitting. And I'm, I'm just, I'm just trying to, to, to speak.

35:55The places I would like to see you go so you can feel healthy. You know, part of, part of, part of health is like feeling healthy and having a healthy approach to life. So am I stressing into weight loss or am I relaxing into my weight loss journey? People who stress into their weight loss journey, I promise you, I see it all the time. They don't get what they don't get what they want for very long.

36:25And they're constantly cycling in and out because they're stressing into it. Stressing into anything isn't sustainable long-term, doesn't, doesn't ultimately give us what we want.

36:40Yeah. I think that's where I have felt in the last three years or so, where my weight has yo-yoed now and it's been stressful, like since 2020, like my, my one child left home for college. My other one's leaving work was stressful. Just lots of COVID stuff, you know, everything. Yeah. And I, to lose weight and I was very happy about it. But then now I just feel like I want to like live with ease and I want to feel good about myself at any weight, really. I mean, I should, that I did work on the last couple of years is just feeling good about

37:13myself. No matter what weight I am, everyone around me is fine with it. I'm the only one who's not. Bingo. There it is. That's, that's also, that's also part of the work. It's a, it's a really big part of the work. And I find that people who are able to relax into the weight that they are now actually have better success in reaching their preference, reaching their preferred weight.

37:44We have better success because it's not a stress rollercoaster. It's not an anxiety rollercoaster. Uh, how often do you weigh yourself on a scale? Every day. Okay. I'm going to ask you to consider, you probably know what I'm going to say. I'm going to ask you to consider what would it be like for me if I just weighed myself once every two weeks? What would it be like for me if I weighed myself once every month?

38:15Um, here's what I mean. Here's what I mean.

38:22Weighing yourself.

38:25Is for most people, for most people, not all it's an activity called. If the scale goes down, I like myself. If the number goes up, I don't like myself. And that's putting it nicely. If the number goes up, I hate myself. I'm disappointed. Life sucks. What am I doing wrong?

38:46Dark tunnel. Bad neighborhood. So we are allowing, first of all, we're allowing a little machine to tell us how we should feel about ourselves. We're empowering it to say, you can tell me to feel good about myself or feel God awful about myself. That's what we're telling that machine. And you're telling yourself that, yeah, my happiness is going to depend on a number.

39:16And the reality is, for much of your life, your happiness didn't depend on that number. If you do wish to lose weight, that's great. That's fine. Like, it's good to own that. It's good to feel that. And if you want to be free, that was one of the first things you said at the beginning of this conversation. I just want to feel more free. With food, this is how you feel free. You free yourself. The only reason we don't feel free when it comes to food and body is because we're the ones putting

39:50on the chains. We're the ones putting on the handcuffs. I am not free if I am waiting for the moment that I weigh myself today, by the way, depending on the atmospheric pressure, depending on the temperature, depending on if you move the scale to a different room, depending on the relative range of error that any scale has, depending on if you took a poop or not, that's going to determine if your weight goes up and down a pound, depending

40:22on what clothes you're wearing, if you have clothes on or shoes on, all that's going to influence that scale. So most of the time, it's not going to be 100% accurate within a pound or two.

40:35And we're giving it all this power. So if you want to free yourself, then you'd be free. Then you do things that assert your freedom.

40:46I'm not going to let the scale tell me how I should feel. That's freedom. I'm going to feel how I feel. How do you feel today? Scale doesn't tell you how you feel. You tell me how you feel. Tell your husband how you feel. Tell your friends. This is how I feel today. Feel great. I don't feel great. That's where feelings come from. It comes from you.

41:09Then you're free.

41:12That's good advice. I know, I do know it's a number because like I was 153 and when I was 170, 153 was awesome. But when I was 138, now 153 is the total bummer. Like it's the same number though. It's the same number. It's the same weight. Like I've lost 17, but I want to lose another, you know, like, so it's just a number. And yes, probably weighing myself every day is not ideal, but I could do it every like week or two. Just I'm nervous about going in the wrong direction up again too.

41:46Like I, if I'm experimenting and trying things, I also want to make sure, okay, this isn't working. I want to keep tabs. Like it might be a control thing or an anxiety thing. You know, like I don't want to step on it in two months and I'm up another 10 pounds again. Cause then what I've been experiment, cause I did try that. I tried the intuitive eating, like, Oh, like a French woman. And that was a huge failure. I just gained a ton of weight on it. It was fun. But, um, and so I feel like I need some checkpoints.

42:19So I have like guardrails so I can, if I'm going to change something or experiment, I can see, okay, yes, this is working. Okay. This is not working for my weight. I understand that, that, that makes sense to me. The, the, one of the challenges there though, is that the scale doesn't give you all of the relevant information. So you can start to create a new kind of balanced diet for yourself, where you're not eating as much carbs and as much sugar.

42:55You could do intermittent fasting, but maybe not as much. Like a fine, a comfortable level. And if you do that and you don't weigh yourself, you might find, God, I feel so great. I have energy. My mind feels clear. My mind feels sharp. I feel lighter.

43:14I can't tell you how many times I've worked with people who I asked them not to weigh themselves. Just, just notice like journal, how you feel every day. And people after a month, after two months of, of practicing certain practices, like, Oh, I feel so great. And then they weigh themselves and they didn't lose any weight. And then they're all depressed, but you felt great. Now, and some of them will say, I look better. They're looking in the mirror and say, I look better. But then they weigh themselves and it's the same amount.

43:46So here's what happens there. Generally speaking, two things happen when that happens. Number one is a lot of times, if you're tweaking your diet in a positive direction, particularly if you're letting go of more carbohydrates and sugar, you're adding more healthy fat and protein, and you're doing exercise. What often happens is the body can exchange fat and muscle tissue, you will gain muscle, your calorie burning tissue, you will lose fat, the stuff that is fat.

44:18And you can actually, you can change the shape of your body and not lose any weight. Just by changing the ratio of fat to muscle, you can look more slender. If you have more muscle on your body without losing any weight, and you're going to feel better.

44:34But then we weigh ourselves, and even though we felt great, we then get depressed, because the number hasn't shifted. But everything told you, your eyes told you, and your sensations told you, I feel better.

44:49So just want to say that. That's why I don't like people weighing themselves, because that's how insane the mind is. And that's how uneducated it is around the nuances of what's actually going on in the body. Here's the other thing. A lot of times when you're switching up your diet in a positive way, you can really feel good. Gosh, I'm getting the right amount of dessert. I'm getting the right amount of fun foods. But I'm also cutting back on them, and I feel better. I look better, because you know what happens?

45:23When you feel better, you actually do look better, right? There's some days you wake up on the right side of the bed, and you look in the mirror, and you go, I feel good. There are days that I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Nothing has changed. I weigh the same amount. I look like the same guy to everybody else. But when I'm not feeling good, and I look in the mirror, I don't look good. Because what's looking in the mirror is, I don't look good. I don't feel good.

45:51So we tend to look as good as we feel.

45:58And then that process gets interfered with when you weigh yourself, and you're feeling good, but then the number didn't change. Oh, my God, I feel bad. No, you don't. I can see that. Yeah.

46:13I can see that. That's fair. I don't have to weigh myself every day. It doesn't usually help my day. No, it doesn't. So this is how you find freedom. This is how you free yourself of worry. You are asserting. You are affirming to yourself. You're affirming to the universe. You're affirming to your body. I am not holding you hostage.

46:38Think about it. How many kids do you have? I have two boys and two stepboys. Two boys and two stepboys. Imagine what would happen if every time, every day, you weigh your boys.

46:52Ever since they were young, you weigh your boys and go, oh, you've gained a pound. Bad. You lost a pound. Good boy. That would be horrible.

47:02Imagine how those kids would grow up. They would hate their mommy. They would hate their life. They would hate their body. They would not have a good experience if whether you love them or not and whether you feel good about them or not was determined by if they gained a pound or lost a pound. That's what you're doing to you. That's what you're doing to you. That's very true. That's what you're doing to you. And I have tried to work on that. That is. That's a good way to put it, because, yeah, my kids obviously fluctuate in their weight and it doesn't matter to me.

47:32But to me, I just get very down on myself and get very harsh on myself. Yeah. Easier to love our loved ones sometimes than love our own self. So you're not the first person to have this challenge. And it's one of the practices that life, I think, asks of us. You know, life is just often calling us to a higher place. And sometimes we just have to answer that call and, you know, your preference, you know, you want to lose weight.

48:10And how can you go about your weight loss journey such that you're not bullying yourself? You're not bullying your body.

48:20You're not putting yourself on the scale and saying your value, your lovability is going to be determined by what the number does today. That's self-torture. Just saying.

48:34Yeah, that's hard to do, though. I do think that's a key part of it. I've worked. I mean, I feel like I want the people around me to love me unconditionally. And I've gotten very frustrated that they haven't, that there's a lot of conditions on those on me. That's so for my boys as they've gotten older. They're really lovely. But I feel like I can't really, I need to do it for myself. And that's a huge part of it. Like, I've been upset with my mom because she is very conditional.

49:04And then my husband has lots of conditions, too. And everyone else does, too. You know, everyone does. So I think I need to be the only one that can do that for me. Unfortunately, I said that to my sister. She said that's sad. She said I should have people in my life that I feel love me very, very unconditionally.

49:22But there's nothing I can do about that. I can only do it for myself or try. Exactly. Exactly, exactly. And, you know, unconditional love is a great kind of love to aspire to. And it takes work to let go of conditions around love for a loved one. And it takes work to let go of our conditions when it comes to loving ourselves.

49:53Because if you think of it, we've been conditioned to say to ourselves, I won't love you unless. I'm not going to love you unless you make more money, unless you have more kids, have a better this, have more that, and lose more weight. Then you will be lovable. So you're learning how to let go of those conditions for you. And that's a beautiful practice.

50:17Very worthy practice.

50:20Yeah, I'd like to be there already, but that's okay. I understand. I understand. Be great if we could just push the fast forward button on all that and get where we want to go.

50:32And we're on life's timing.

50:36I feel like I'm getting there. I feel like life has like decades and eras, you know, and I'm kind of moving into this next era where my kids are becoming more independent and need a lot less for me. And I can try to focus on me and see. Good for you, Liz. What I need. And, you know, I don't know what else. That's the next phase of life, which is a nice feeling to have that I have more time to do what I would like to do instead of having to drive people or do whatever it is that they need.

51:07That's a great place to be. I think you're in a good place. I think you're poised for some great growth. And I think you deserve to give yourself some kudos. Give yourself a little bit of celebration that you've learned a few things and that you have some good information to work on in terms of what works for your body. You have some good information to work on in terms of medically and nutritionally what would be helpful for you, given some tendencies of your body.

51:43And you have opportunities to turn those things around and you have opportunities to turn those things around and they can be turned around. So good things are happening for you. I hope so. Thanks for a great conversation, Liz. I really appreciate it. Okay. Thank you very much. It was nice talking to you. Okay. Take care, Liz. Take care, everybody. Thank you. Okay. Hey, friends. We're so happy that you've joined us for another episode of the Psychology of Eating podcast with Mark David.

52:17Are 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, psychologyofeating.com.

52:51Until next time, take care and remember, having the body you want starts with loving the body you have.