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

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

Marc David
Welcome, everybody. I’m Marc 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!

Liz
Hello!

Marc David
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 and see if we could do some good work. See if we could move you forward with food and body.. So Liz, if you could wave your magic wand, have whatever you wanted, what would that be for you?

Liz
I really want to 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!

Marc David
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?

Liz
Yeah, it has a lot to do with my weight. And, I’ve worked on that I’ve tried to 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. I think that’s probably a big part of all of that – with my weight.

Marc David
So, how much weight do you want to lose?

Liz
So in total I want to lose about 30 to 40 pounds and I’m about halfway there…

Marc David
Got it? And how long have you been dieting as in, when was the first time you ever dieted in your life?

Liz
It was probably in my late 30s after kids. Before that, I don’t even know what my weight was. I don’t remember it ever being an issue. I would just, how I want to be! I would just eat when I was hungry and I would eat the foods that I wanted to eat, and I was active and I liked my body. I liked the way I fit in clothes. I was comfortable. And I never weighed myself except maybe at the doctor. Like I know how much I weighed before and after I have my babies but then after that, I feel like I can tell you year by year what I weighed and everything sort of crept up. And 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 roller coaster with a little success, but mostly not.

Marc David
So how many years has it been, roughly?

Liz
15 years, probably 16 years?

Marc David
Got it! Have you ever in these 15 to 16 years gotten to the point where you actually lost the weight that you wanted to lose?

Liz
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….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 or 40 pounds. And I had more time on my hands than I ever had before because I wasn’t working as much and I started to lose weight very slowly. And I did! I lost over 30 pounds and that was about 15 months ago. For the first time I had been down really close to my goal weight in about the 15 years. But then I gained it all back really by about January because 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 motivation and like determination and all my energy was going there. I just sort of relaxed and went back. I didn’t know how to maintain.

Marc David
Got it. So what did you do? So it took a lot of focus, it took a lot of energy, it took a lot of control to lose that weight. What did you do different?

Liz
I cut out flour and sugar. So I still ate a lot of protein and fat and dairy and vegetables and fruit. I started doing intermittent fasting. So I stopped eating breakfast and I started journaling more. And I started journaling my food and sort of tracking my food ahead of time, like trying to plan out the week. So that I wouldn’t really have to track if I kept to my plan that I was going to eat for the week. And it was slow. It’s like two or three pounds a month. 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 still 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 for a different podcast that I’ve been looking who had had some coaching and talked a lot about emotional eating, which I didn’t really think I had, but I definitely had some of….Then kind of got there.

Marc David
So you got there. Then the weight came back on because… So, say more about why you think the weight came back on.

Liz
Well, all of a sudden I felt confused 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. But then I think I started snacking more, I think I indulged my sweet tooth tooth more than I had. 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 hard core than that. 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 with my age, you know who perimenopause and all that.

Marc David
So correct me if I’m wrong. It sounds like one of the main nutritional changes you made in order to lose the weight was less sugar, less flour, less 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?

Liz
And portions. So like during meals when I was losing weight, I was very keyed into my hunger cues. Like 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 too of healthy food but bigger portions.

Marc David
Got it! So, it’s the kind of food you are eating – carbs, sugar and portion size, and kind of mindfulness really. You know, just noticing like, what’s my appetite? How am I doing? Am I hungry? So checking in with yourself. Okay, so when you did lose the weight, how did you feel physically? You got to the point “wow, I am pretty close to my target weight!” How did you feel?

Liz
I felt awesome! I felt like I had shed a fat suit. I felt like I was myself again. My energy was good and just getting dressed in the morning was easy, you know. Everything just kind of hung the way it should and I wasn’t wondering which pants were going to be uncomfortable today. 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 and like everyone’s seeing you and like whoa, because it was noticeable…

Marc David
So, it sounds like you know what to do to lose weight?

Liz
I do! That’s the frustrating part. If I feel like I want to do other things with my brain energy, though, like I feel like I don’t know why I have to be so focused on it. The minute I lose my attention on it and I started focusing on other things I feel like the weight comes back on if I’m not really paying full attention.

Marc David
Do you tend to be a fast eater, a moderate eater, a slow eater?

Liz
A very fast eater!

Marc David
Very fast eater, okay. And how old did you say you were?

Liz
I’m 54.

Marc David
Okay. 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 majority. So it wasn’t until your more adult years. And at the same time you found a way for yourself. And 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.

Liz
Yes!

Marc David
Because as soon as you hit your target weight, a part of you relaxed. A part of you let go. Okay, I’m there. I don’t want to do all this work. anymore. This is too hard. This is what I’m imagining some part of you said to some part of you.

Liz
Yeah totally! Like I would like to learn Italian, I want to play pickleball. I want to do other things with my time not just worrying about losing weight – completely!

Marc David
Yes. So that makes perfect sense to me. Because a lot of times, after we work hard, it’s time to play. It’s kind of the flow of life, you know, you work and then you rest. You exert energy, and then you chill a little bit. So, 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 lifelong 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’m not 100% sure this is going on for you. But it sounds like – 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. All my focus is going here, and eventually you’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! This 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. You need to push something from here to there, pushing is good. But you couldn’t be pushing all day, you’re gonna get tired. So I’m more interested in creating changes, new habits, new patterns, new behaviors that are 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 all 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. You 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. 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 a meal. That’s what’s going on. Your brain can’t do its easy, natural job. In 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 focused and not really concentrated, 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, 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. Because 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 desert. I miss my sugar. Cows don’t walk around saying, you know, I miss my grass, they’re not missing anything – as far as we can tell. So, as you train yourself and it takes practice, to become a slow eat. Slow 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 can 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 as we go along. And that’s if you look at it, not like “oh, I’ve got to push myself to do this.” No, you’re training yourself to be an eater. And 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. If 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, 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. And it’s not going to be either/or. Either I’m pushing myself on this diet, and I gotta focus all my energy or I’m going to cut loose and just chill and eat what I want. 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 help you become a slow, relaxed eater, I can help you get what you say you want. Which is freedom with food. Which is sustainable, natural way. 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, here’s a meal, eat it fast. Even if you’re relaxed right now, the act of eating fast, we’ll put you in a stress response that will increase your cortisol or increase your insulin. And those two hormones over time can signal the body to store weight, store fat and 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?

Liz
I think that’s accurate. I’ll go to lunch with a girlfriend. And we’ll each get like two tacos, and I’ll be done. And she’s 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 am not with eating. I know I’m not I know what you’re saying is absolutely correct. That I kind of like rush 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 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, you’re not so hungry anymore. And you notice it’s very remarkable when you do it. And 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. So obviously, but I don’t usually get it with my family at dinner especially.

Marc David
Yeah, so that takes practice 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. Mine took to practice it then too. But if you look at it as a practice, as a lifelong practice, practice doesn’t mean a perfect, it’s a practice. 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. i.e. 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. That’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. Pleasure requires awareness. If 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. Pleasure requires our awareness.

Pleasure is something that as we mature in our years, you learn how to cultivate it. You know, when we’re young pleasure can kind of 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, it’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, if 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, ie its natural weight, and its natural health, if we start to live in accord with those natural principles, so it’s a practice.

Liz
That makes sense. Yeah, it’s a good analogy and massage like you have to 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.

Marc David
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 I 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, present relaxed eater in this world because the world is doing something else. If you’re eating with your family and your family’s fast eaters, it’s gonna 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’m mix in intermittent fasting, I can lose weight. So when I hear that I filed 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, intermittent 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 gonna want some sugar. I’m gonna want some. It’s gonna happen! 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. Because 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. I want to lose 30/40 pounds, that’s a personal 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? Now if you know you’re gonna 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, let’s try something different. See if you can find a middle ground. See if you can have dessert? How many desserts 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, I’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 those, 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.

So I’m saying that you’re a smart woman, and you have to play, you have to experiment if 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, how can I tweak this, because as soon as you go on the all or nothing train, that’s the train you’re on. Either 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 gonna gain it back. And then you get up enough willpower and 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?

Liz
Yeah, it does! Because I kept feeling like, I need to find a way to eat for this 40 + body. Now 50+. 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. At 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 dieter, where all of a sudden, it’s all or nothing. 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 and I’m down about half of it again. 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, 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.

Marc David
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. That’s wisdom. That that’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, I finally lose this, I’m screwed, and everything’s going down the drain. And therefore, when we’re approaching our diet and our life and our weight loss as if it’s a life or death situation, and we’re in a constant, anxiety state, ie 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. And if this is what I want, which is completely fair to want that, what evidence do I have? What information have I gathered about myself that’s useful? 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. And that’s something I think you can find for yourself.

Liz
Yeah, 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 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 gonna 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. But it was that one time that the last time I went to the doctor, 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 downward stress spiral, I think is what it really was. Yeah, I told my husband and he worries about me and yeah…

Marc David
Yeah, you know, you bring up to me a really important point. And 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 if I heard from my practitioner, you’re pre-diabetic, and your cholesterol is really high, I’m gonna go, 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 is in 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. So 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. We’re going to die of something at some point. You could eat the healthiest food in the universe, and you’re gonna die. 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 is bad? You’re pre-diabetic, it’s in a way that’s good news, much better than you’re diabetic. Yes, much better than you have cancer, you know, way better. So of all the information you could hear, it’s relatively good news for a 50+ human being. And pre-prediabetes, the beauty of that is you can change that. You can change our lifestyle. You can change that with diet, you can change that with stress. Two of the key contributors to diabetes are nutrition and stress. Go figure! And those are two things that we have 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 just trying to speak the places I would like to see you go, so you can feel healthy. You know, 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. And they’re constantly cycling in and out. Because they’re stressing into it stressing into anything isn’t sustainable long term doesn’t ultimately give us what we want.

Liz
Yeah, I think that’s where I have felt in the last three years or so where my weight has yo-yo’ed now and it’s been stressful. Like since 2020. My one child left home for college my other ones leaving, work was stressful. Just lots of COVID stuff, you know everything. And I did 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, that I did work out in the last couple of years is just feeling good about myself. No matter what weight it I am. Everyone around me is fine with it. I’m the only one who’s not.

Marc David
Bingo. There it is. That’s that’s also that’s also part of the work. 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. We have better success because it’s not a stress roller coaster. It’s not an anxiety roller coaster. How often do you weigh yourself on a scale?

Liz
Every day…

Marc David
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? Here’s what I mean. Here’s what I mean. weighing yourself is 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? dark 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. And the reality is, for much of your life, your happiness didn’t depend on that number.

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 on 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 on 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. And we’re giving it all this power.

So if you want to free yourself, then you be free, then you do things that assert your freedom. I’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 you, you tell me how you feel. Tell your husband how you feel. Tell your friends, this is how I feel today. Go great. I don’t feel great. That’s where feelings come from it comes from you. Then you’re free.

Liz
That’s good advice. I know, I do know it’s a number because like I was 153. And when I was 171, 153 it was awesome. But when I was 138. Now 153 is the total bummer. Like it’s a number. It’s the same numbers, same weight, like I’ve lost 17. But I want to lose it. 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. I’m nervous about going in the wrong direction up again to like 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, you gotta want to step on it in two months, and I’m up another 10 pounds again, cuz then what I’ve been experiment, because I did try that I tried that intuitive eating like, oh, like a French woman. That was a huge failure. On it, it was fun. But, um, and so I feel like I need some checkpoints. So 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.

Marc David
I understand that. That makes sense to me. 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. You could do intermittent fasting, but maybe not as much like you’d find a comfortable level. And if you do that, and you don’t weigh yourself, you might find that I feel so great. I have energy, my mind feels clear, my mind feels sharp, I feel lighter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with people who I asked them not to weigh themselves, just notice, journal how you feel every day. And people after a month, after two months 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, say I look better. But then they weigh themselves and it’s the same amount. So here’s what happens. They’re 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, you’re calorie burning tissue, you will lose fat, the stuff that is fat. And 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 could look more slender. If you have more muscle on your body without losing any weight, and you’re going to feel better.

But 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. So 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 I feel better. I look better because you know what happens when 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. So we tend to look as good as we feel. And then the 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.

Liz
I can see that. Yeah. I can see that. That’s fair. I don’t have to weigh myself every day. doesn’t usually help my day.

Marc David
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. Because I mean, think about it. How many kids do you have?

Liz
I have two boys and two step boys.

Marc David
Imagine what would happen if every day you weigh your boys. Ever since they were young, you weighed your boys. Oh, you’ve gained a pound! Bad. You lost a pound. Good boy! That’d be horrible. 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.

Liz
And I have tried to work on that. That’s a good way to put it. Because yeah, my kids obviously fluctuate in their weight and it doesn’t matter to me. But what to me, I just get very down on myself and yet very harsh on myself.

Marc David
Yeah, easier to love our loved ones sometimes then 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? And how can you go about your weight loss journey, such that you’re not bullying yourself, you’re not bullying your body. You’re not putting yourself on the scale and saying your value, your love ability is going to be determined by what the number does today. That’s self torture – I’m just saying!

Liz
Yeah, 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. Less of my boys as they’ve gotten older. They’re they’re really lovely. But I feel like I, 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. And 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. But there’s nothing I can do about that. I can only do it for myself or try.

Marc David
Exactly. And you know, unconditional love is a great kind of love to aspire to. And it takes it 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. Because if you think of it, we’ve been conditioned to say to ourselves, I won’t love you unless I’m not gonna 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. very worthy practice. Yeah, 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. And we’re on life’s timing.

Liz
I 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 meet a lot less for me and I can try to focus on me and see, good for you what I need, 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 drag people or do whatever it is that they need.

Marc David
That’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 know give yourself some kudos give yourself a little bit of celebration that 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 and you have opportunities to turn those things around and they can be turned around. So good things are happening for you. Thanks for great conversation, Liz. I really appreciate it.

Liz
Okay, thank you very much. It was nice talking to you.

Marc David
Okay, take care Liz, take care everybody!