Why Becoming a “Natural” Eater is Key to Weight Loss – In Session with Marc David

Why Becoming a “Natural” Eater is Key to Weight Loss – In Session with Marc David

Marc David
Welcome, everybody. I’m Marc David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. We’re in the Psychology of Eating Podcast. I’m with Cherie today. Welcome, Cherie!

Cherie
Good morning, hello!

Marc David
Glad we’re here, glad we’re doing this. Just a word to people tuning in, if you’re new to the podcast, Cherie and I are meeting for the first time and we’re going to do a client session and see if we can make some good things happen. So Cherie, if you could wave your magic wand, and if you get to have whatever you wanted with food and body, what would that be for you?

Cherie
I would lose 20 pounds and keep it off for the rest of my life instead of going up and down.

Marc David
Okay, that’s simple and straightforward. So you would lose 20 pounds and you keep it off instead of going up and down and that was for the rest of your life. When was the last time you were at your target weight?

Cherie
I think it was just under three years ago, and I kept it there for six or eight months or so, I did real well.

Marc David
And what happens?

Cherie
I think I’ve always had trouble with binge eating and I do really well controlling it for a long time and then as stress levels elevate and more chaos comes into life, I start falling back into the pattern of using food to basically balance my feelings as my outlet, I think. And once I start gaining rate weight, it’s hard to not keep gaining.

Marc David
Okay, so how long has this rhythm been happening for you?

Cherie
Oh my gosh! I’m one of those people that started dieting at 12 or 13. I was a gymnast and you know, we were leotards in those days all the time and as soon as I’d gained five pounds, you could see it and I’d get really embarrassed and so I’d start dieting. And so I’ve been up and down the scale. I’m 56 right now. So since I was 12 or 13, many times!

Marc David
Wow. So has there been a time in your life when the weight didn’t matter? You settled into a good place either internally or externally? Or has it just been like a constant up and down battle.

Cherie
I gained a lot of weight first in late high school, and then I got it off after my freshman year in college and so the last three years of college or so I kept within about a five pound range and I was always very conscious of it but it didn’t obsess me for the most part. I mean, periodically, I’d have a panic where like, oh, I want to fit into a dress or whatever and I try and lose five or six pounds or something like that. And I would say, I’ve been a disordered eater pretty much my whole life, but I wasn’t freaking out so much about it in those days and that went on for much of my 20s I was pretty stable. It never left my brain though I’ve always been relatively obsessed, I would say about whether or not I was thin enough, so to speak.

Marc David
Right. So where are you at these days in the relationship universe?

Cherie
I am married but it’s very difficult right now and that has caused a lot of the stress and my kids are growing up and starting to leave the house soon and so there’s that as well so I’m almost an empty nester sort of…

Marc David
Yes. And remind me how old you are now?

Cherie
56.

Marc David
So in your ideal universe putting weight aside for a second, let’s say we can snap our fingers 20 pounds is off for life and that’s all handled. What are your goals and dreams for the rest of your life? If you could wave your magic wand and have what you wanted in that department.

Cherie
Awesome. I’m also in career transition. So I’m starting a whole new thing with a friend we’re getting into the entertainment industry in various ways so I have that going on. And I am also a coach so I’m going to be doing two things, basically. And I’ve been stuck in a day job for seven, eight years and I don’t want to do it anymore so I’m ready to move forward. And I really want those two career paths to work together and I want to do both. And I think I want to not be married anymore so I’m going to be doing some big steps toward freedom and a real big shift in life!

Marc David
Wow, that’s a lot!

Cherie
It is a lot….

Marc David
Yes. And good for you for having a big picture for yourself.

Cherie
It’s pretty big, haha!

Marc David
Yeah, but I think that’s important! Especially as we get older, and by that, I mean, once we hit our 30s, it’s good to just start to see the road ahead and get to know ourselves a little bit better and by the time we’re 50, to have an idea of how do I want to spend my time? Because by the time you hit 50 you’re at the midway point of life.

Cherie
Yes, I feel it!

Marc David
So let’s make it all count. So, you tend to turn to food when the stress comes up? How do you find that the weight comes off, like what happens in your universe? Such that, okay, now I’m in the part of my rhythm where the weight comes off. What do you do? What’s different in the weight coming off part of the show?

Cherie
I usually have, and I think this is part of the issue, I usually have an external motivation. I have an event, or usually, it’s that kind of thing, or I get really serious about wanting to be able to wear these clothes that I haven’t been able to wear for a long time and I just want to feel better. But it’s always externally driven. And then I generally need food structure when I start to lose weight, I have a plan and I teach myself to stick to that plan. And usually, for me, that includes, at least in the last 10 years it’s been very good and I’m happiest this way doing the intermittent fasting kind of thing, which I didn’t even know that’s what it was called when I started. But I can’t eat in the evening, I just cannot so I usually am done by the latest four o’clock and then I don’t eat again until six o’clock or so the next morning. And I start to lose weight that way and generally it includes not having sugar. As soon as I have sugary things in my world, boom, I just I fall off the wagon. It really is like crack cocaine to me it is a bad drug for me ever since I’ve been a child.

So when I substitute with just fruit or dates or something like that for my sweets, and let that be it, I do quite well and I lose weight. And once I bring any sugar back in it’s like the addiction kicks in and I really jones for it especially if I have any early in the day, then that’s all I think about the rest of the day, it really hijacks my system. I exercise regularly I’m quite good at that. Periodically I haven’t and that has made it harder but it’s really that – intermittent fasting and trying to stay away from sugar as much as possible. And really keep my eye on the on the goal but I do get derailed. Lately, I found myself just completely derailed – it’s just throw in the towel kind of thing. Oh, I don’t who cares? You know, tomorrow I can start over and I just want to have doughnuts or whatever that kind of thing. And I find myself in it’s really like a spasm – it’s too much today. I can’t handle it today, tomorrow I’ll get back on the wagon again kind of thing. And I’m stuck where I do fine for a couple of days and then I do that spasm.

Marc David
So a couple more questions and then I have some thoughts for you. You said to me, I can’t eat in the evening time. When you say that what do you mean by that? That doesn’t feel good?

Cherie
It doesn’t feel good, it interrupts my sleep and I tend to wake up feeling kind of puffy and sluggish and I don’t get my energy going till later in the day. Whereas if I don’t eat in the evening, I sleep better, and I wake up, and I’m good.

Marc David
So when you’re in your stressful times, when you start to go off your plan, do you eat in the evenings?

Cherie
I tend to. I’m usually done by six or seven, I don’t go late in the evening. I go past that early evening phase and it’s kind of like a switch. Once I do, if I eat much later than four or five, then I just keep wanting to eat more whereas if I just cut it off then I can cruise through the evening without really thinking about food.

Marc David
Okay, you know, I have known so many women over the years who were gymnasts when they were young and when they, you know, just doing this kind of work, and also just being a person that knows people but especially in this work that I do, I met a lot of women who were who were gymnasts when they were young and as soon as they stop, weight comes on. And what’s fascinating, and it’s just a pattern that I’ve noticed. There’s no scientific research behind what’s happening, what’s going on but I particularly noticed that for that demographic, it’s very difficult because from a young age, you’re training the body to do some serious physical activity and on top of that, some very intensive muscle building. Because as a young gymnast you put on, I almost want to say, an unnatural amount of muscle at a young age. Your muscle to fat ratio tends to be so high, and percent body fat very small, which is not so natural for the human body number one, for the female body number two. Because in order for the female body to be a body, it needs a certain amount of fat. So in order for a young woman to have her period, she needs a certain amount of body fat, if the body goes below a certain percentage of body fat, you’ll stop having your period. Meaning nature tells you, you can’t be a reproductive human being because you must be starving, there’s not enough fat on your body.

Plus, as you mentioned, the milieu of being a young girl, and a gymnast, means your body is on display and when you’re in tip top form, you’re on top of the world and if you gain weight you learn from the environment, from the culture of gymnasts that you got to be petite. That’s sort of the message that you’re given. So what I see happening is that you adopted certain messages from a very young age and those messages were: I have to be a very specific weight, I’ve got to have a very specific amount of body fat, even though you might not think amount of body fat, but you know visually what it’s like when you’re lean. And your mind gets trained, your mind gets entrained, your mind gets conditioned, your mind gets a little brainwashed. This is what I’ve got to look like. Now once you stop doing gymnasts training, the body almost rebounds in the opposite direction. It almost wants to put on weight sometimes. So I’ve seen young gymnasts stopped doing the gymnast activities and all of a sudden, an unnatural amount of weight comes on. Like, how did that happen? So anyway, that’s not quite you but still, you adopted a pattern of belief about here’s how your body’s supposed to look and on top of that, how does one make one’s body look a certain way and weigh a certain amount? Well, we all know you manipulate the food on your plate, and you exercise more.

So we’ve been taught, here’s how you change your weight. You essentially eat less food, you figure out the less food system for you and then you figure out the amount of exercise for you and you watch what happens. The challenge is that in all of that, I’m going to make an assertion here, I don’t think you’ve ever learned how to become a natural eater.

Cherie
Correct!

Marc David
Meaning I’m hungry, I eat. I enjoy my food, I’m satisfied, I’m done. I’m not thinking about it, I’m not worried about it, I’m not worried about gaining weight, I’m not looking at the food and thinking is that too much? Thinking if I’m gonna gain weight? So food for you is a conversation about my weight, which is my worthiness. My okayness. Because you have to satisfy the invisible committee in your head. So you sit at the head of the table in the invisible committee, and the committee is looking at the food, it’s looking at your body and is saying, no, yes, good, bad. And if your goal is to, and I understand this, you just want to lose 20 pounds, and know it’s off forever so then I can be out of this whole cycle. If I could just lose the weight, and it’s permanent, that I’m out of the cycle. But here’s the thing. You’re a smart lady and you’ve been doing everything that you’ve been taught for over for over 40 years. You’re smart. You know fitness, you know nutrition, you know your body. You’ve been doing what the world has taught you to do, and it hasn’t brought you sustainable success.

So to me, specially at this time in your life, when I asked you the question like, okay, let’s say the weight was off the table, that was all handled, you know, what do you want for the rest of your life, you have some wonderful and big dreams and some big changes coming down the pipe line. In order to do those changes, in order to be you, the real you. Because that’s what I hear you saying you want to be the real you now it’s like, oh, wait, maybe I don’t need to be in this relationship. Maybe I need to be single, free. I need to be out of this day job, I need a different career expression, I need a different personal expression. You’re very clear about where you want to put your energy. What I want to say is, in order to do that, you have to be able to marshal all of you. All of Cherie needs to be present to do you. To do the woman that you are today. But what’s happening is that there’s a girl who’s about 13 and she runs the show. There’s a 13 year old girl in you that’s making all the decisions and all the distinctions, because when she looks in the mirror, what she sees is not acceptable. Got to lose this weight. So then what happens is you’re controlling the food and yeah, you can do that when the circumstances are right. Okay, there’s less stress, and I have this outside motivation. Okay, so now I can make it happen and the stars align for a short amount of time. Whatever that short amount of time is, because then the stress comes back. And you’re like most human beings, maybe even all human beings, in that when you feel some stress, anxiety, tension you reach for food. We all do that.

Every human being does animal a single human being doesn’t do that. I don’t know a single animal that doesn’t do that. You got a pet, you got a cat, you got a dog. You know, they’ll eat anytime you give them food just about makes them happy. Food makes us happy. Food gives us pleasure. Food gives us stress relief. So the challenge is you’re trying to limit food, so you can lose weight but the reality is you need to eat so you can reduce your stress because that’s your favorite stress reliever, which is understandable. But food is forbidden, but it relieves your stress, but it’s forbidden. So you’re in this constant battle, and it doesn’t get you anywhere. So, when that’s happening, when we’re going 10, 20, 30, 40 years in that same cycle, to my mind, we have to interrupt that cycle and do something different. And what I would love for you at this time in your life, is to learn how to become an eater. Because what you’ve been trying to train your body to do is how to not eat. In a strange way.

Cherie
Yeah. That’s one way to look at it. Sure!

Marc David
How do I not eat? How do I limit myself? How do I control this food? How do I stop my impulses, and we can’t stop the natural impulse called feel bad, eat food feel better? I feel like I have a decent relationship with food. But I probably emotionally eat every single day. Meaning I can’t wait for breakfast. It makes me feel good.When I eat the things that I like that, that make my body feel good, I love it. I’m a happier person. When I eat lunch, or a snack that I like, that nourishes me. I feel really good. If I had an especially bad day, and I have a nice little dessert at night, I feel better. But I’m training myself how to be an eater, meaning, okay, I’ve got to have a dessert at night, but I only have x amount. So because I’m willing to let food give me pleasure. I can then take in that pleasure I can receive it, I can get the benefit of it, which is called Ah, that feels good. Satisfied. I don’t need to eat anymore. What happens for you is once that little part of you that’s inside, the food controller. Once the food controller loses her mojo it’s “Man, let me just do this tomorrow. I’ll do the diet tomorrow. I’m so sick of this.” So there’s a part of you that’s sick of this. Part of you is really sick of it. So that’s the part that says okay, let’s just have the sugar. Let’s just eat this and in fact, I can’t even stop. And the reason why you can’t stop is because there’s this part of you that’s been unsatisfied. So it’s learning, oddly enough, it’s doing the opposite of what you’ve been training yourself to do, which is learning to receive satisfaction from food, learning to make food your best friend, because without it, you’d be dead. Right now food is kind of your enemy. Food makes you fat. Sugar is the enemy. If I eat sugar, I’m gonna want to eat more. Again, part of that is a rebound effect. Yes, sugar triggers certain people but for you, I think what’s really happening is once your body gets a sense of pleasure from food that you can’t deny, your body’s like more! Give me more baby! Because there’s a part of us that needs to be satisfied. We are creatures of pleasure. We need pleasure. Through touch, through sensuality, through food, through beauty, through all the things that make you feel good about being a human being, There’s things that give you pleasure. And it’s just pure. Meaning, we just need that. It’s food for us. If we remove all pleasure from life, life would suck. It would not be interesting. Nobody would want to do life.

So there’s a part of you that believes that food cannot be pleasurable, because if it was, not gonna stop eating it! Because that’s your experience. Your experience is once I take a pleasurable food once I get that sugar in my system, once I eat that forbidden food, like I can’t stop! So what I’m saying is the reason you can stop is because you don’t give yourself that experience. So my suggestion to you is that you make being your best self your number one priority. What I think has been happening is since a very young age, you’re you’ve been conditioned to believe that your weight is the number one priority. So we’ve been know you’ve been a partner, you’ve been a wife, you’re a mother, like, obviously, your kids are a priority. But always in the back of your mind, weight is the real life and death priority.

Cherie
That’s true! Yeah.

Marc David
Weight is occupying your air time.

Cherie
It is!

Marc David
And that does not allow you to be your best self.

Cherie
Right! It’s diluting me!

Marc David
It drains your energy. So we have to change priorities, you have to change your priority and say from now on, and it’s a it’s a decision that the adult in you makes, the woman in you makes this decision, the queen in you makes this decision that my number one priority is being my best self. So everything is measured against that. Everything that you do. Okay, being my best self means I’m not in this job that doesn’t feed me. I’m not in relationships, friendships that don’t feed me. I’m not in living environments that don’t feed me. Great. And I’m not in a relationship with food and body that doesn’t feed me. And I’m not saying any of this is easy because you’ve been in a lifelong pattern but it’s very doable to start to change. And the way you change it is you take for a period of time and for you, I’m going to say it’s a good six months, where you take weight loss off the table. Just take it off the table. You could always come back to it. You know, the universe knows, the Lord knows you want to lose 20 pounds forever. So life knows what you want and your strategies haven’t gotten you there. Therefore, let’s do something different. Let’s call a timeout. And say, Okay, here’s my body. This body right now, this is the body that I have. Not so bad. Not so bad at all. 20 years from now, you’re going to wish you had this body chances are. You’re going to wish you look as good 20 years from now as you do today. So in a certain way, we can say you’re in your prime.

Cherie
Okay!!

Marc David
Because we’re not getting younger, right? And you got to start enjoying what you got. And part of that means stop trying to change what you’ve got. You wouldn’t say to your children, you know, something, kids, I’ve decided that until you all lose 20 pounds each, I’m not really satisfied with you. Not happy with you. I don’t approve of you. You’d never say that to them. You wouldn’t do that it wouldn’t be fair. It would be very unloving, very unkind. So let’s not say that to yourself. And treat yourself the same way you would treat your most precious loved ones. Which is time to accept what you got. Just as a practice. Like I said, you can pick up weight loss again at some point, but to give yourself it’s an experience, which for the first time the experience called “Hello, everybody. This is me. And this is good. This is me. This is hot. This is me. I like it. And you know something? If anybody else doesn’t like it. That’s your business, who cares?” Because I promise you the reality is, and especially me knowing men, the majority of men I know they’re not walking around, going, Oh God, if she can only lose 10 pounds or 20. Men don’t think like women do in that regard. They really don’t.

Cherie
And I wouldn’t be with one of them if they did so.

Marc David
Yeah, exactly. So you wouldn’t want to be with somebody, you wouldn’t want to sleep with somebody who’s judging you in that way. So don’t you be that person.

Cherie
That’s a good point!

Marc David
Don’t be that person. Because in a way, it’s kinda like you’re being the weight bully.

Cherie
Yeah, for sure!

Marc David
You’re being a bully. You’re looking at yourself and you’re going, sorry, lady. this ain’t good. We don’t like you.

Cherie
Yeah, you’re not enough.

Marc David
And you know what happens when I say that to myself, you’re not enough, you’re not good enough. That hurts. That is stressful. And what am I going to do when I’m feeling hurt and down and stressful, because I hate myself, I turned to food. So, once we take away the self chosen stressor, the self chosen attack, we have less of a need to medicate with food. Because we don’t feel so terrible about ourselves and you have less need to rebound. So you’re taking six months to go, okay, you know, something I’m going to eat. And you ask yourself, and here’s from a practical standpoint, look at breakfast, look at lunch, look at your later meal, however many meals you’re eating, look at snacks and go, what are the foods that I know are good for me, and healthy for me that I enjoy? And what are some of the foods to me that I enjoy, they’re a little bit more in the Forbidden Zone but I want to see if I can include them in my diet in a modest amount, and experiment with getting pleasure from them without overindulging. So it’s training oneself to do that. It’s literally just like developing a new habit. But in order to do that, you have to give your body the experience called, I’m going to eat this meal, I’m gonna be present. I’m going to enjoy it because I love this food. I love this salad. I love this fruit. I love this sandwich. Whatever you’re eating, tell your body. I love this. This is good. Food is my friend. Because what happens is if you’re in a stress response, every time you eat, that’s what’s happening. Every time you eat, you’re in a stress response.

Cherie
Yeah, that’s true!

Marc David
And when you’re not eating, and you’re thinking about food, or you’re trying to resist food.

Cherie
It’s still stress response!

Marc David
Increased cortisol, increased insulin, those hormones, stress hormones will invariably signal most human bodies to store weight and store fat and not build muscle.

Cherie
Yep. I know that. That’s true!

Marc David
And those are optional stressors that you know, there are certain stressors that are real, like, hey, life challenge, financial challenge relationships, career trends. So that’s a real stressor. So that’s understandable. So let’s look to get rid of the self chosen stressors that I don’t really need those. I don’t really need to be looking at mirror and judging myself. I don’t need to look at food as the enemy because every time the brain senses enemy, it goes into stress response. Because that’s how we’re designed. So to me, this conversation is about you claiming your womanhood which I hear you doing in the rest of your life. This in a strange way with food and body, that’s the most important place to do it. Because this is your domain. This is your income. It all starts here. It all starts in your mind, in your heart in your body. If this is not acceptable, and this is not okay to me. Then how am I going to be my best self in the world? When I’m basically advertising, this is not okay. This is not acceptable. So you will feel empowered. You’ll learn to feel empowered, as you take weight loss off the table and you start to trust how we’re created, how we’re invented. Because there’s plenty of human beings that eat, enjoy, finish their meal, and they have their natural weight. We don’t know. Nobody really knows what your natural weight is. I know what you want to weigh, you want to weigh 20 pounds less, but I don’t know, you don’t know what the real number that your body would be at, if you were in a natural relationship with food and body. if you weren’t attacking yourself, you weren’t attacking your body back, and you were in a rightful relationship with food, where you’re like “Okay, this is great, I’m enjoying this, thank you for putting food on my table. And now I’m on to the next thing.” So we need to give your body a chance to figure out who it is. And that’s where you have to trust. Because, of course, the fear is always oh my god, if I do what this guy’s telling me to do, I’m going to gain 20 more pounds.

Cherie
That can’t occur!

Marc David
So that’s the little girl in you. The reality is, you’re a woman and you’re learning to trust yourself, trust your body, and trust your life. So I hear you, being willing to trust, some big choices that you’re making, you’re willing to trust your career choices. I hear real willingness here, your willingness to trust some big decisions around relationship and marriage. That’s great. I wish for you to put that same trust into my body, my weight and my relationship with food, I am willing to take a risk and trust that if I do what I know seems right. That things are going to be okay, that things are going to work out. So how’s all this landing for you?

Oops, you froze Cherie, can you hear me? I just lost you. Are you still with me? Well, I’m gonna give this another moment and hopefully we’ll dial right back in. But what I’m seeing with Cherie is what I’ve seen with so many people that I’ve worked with over the years, is that we have a magic number of what we’re supposed to weigh and that magic number often starts from a very young age, when we believe my self worth is tied into my weight, my identity is tied into my weight. And that’s something we learn from the world. It’s something we learn from society, you pick it up from the media, you pick it up from friends, you pick it up from your parents, it’s in the atmosphere. If you say to yourself, I can’t avoid it. You’re right, you can’t because it’s everywhere. However, instead of trying to avoid it, what we do is we learn how to work with it, we learn how to claim our dignity.

We learn how to reclaim our body, we learn how to reclaim our soul. So that’s why I said to Cherie, give yourself the experience of taking weight loss off the table for a handful of months so you can for the first time in your life know what it’s like to live a life where you’re not bullying yourself. It’s almost as if you might as well hire two or three bullies. Who the moment you wake up in the morning, your weight loss bullies, they start to yell at you and attack you and berate you, and insult you about your weight and tell you to weigh yourself and tell you not to eat. You wouldn’t hire those people. So don’t make yourself that person. So anyway, when we do that, it starts to happen. You start to rediscover yourself. You start to accept your body as it is right now. Which is if you’re going to shape shift your body, if you’re going to lose weight, if your body has legitimately weight to lose, then you can actually start to lose it. Because you’ve accepted what is. You’ve taken that deep breath of relaxation and your body can finally experience a relaxation response.

So my friends, I’m glad you all have tuned in. Thanks for being here. Thanks for your time. Thanks for your attention and I’ll see you real soon again. Take care.