Hi and welcome to the Mindful Shape Podcast. I am currently in my house all by myself - well not completely. My dog Huxley is here with me. But this is a very unusual event for me. My husband took our 7 month old to see his dad on Salt Spring for the day so I have the whole house to myself to get caught up on some work. If you listened to my last episode you’ll know I went on vacation to see my family in the Rockies and so I’m back and getting back into the swing of things. Today’s episode really relates to my experience going back home. I don’t know if you have a similar experience but when I got back, there’s usually a lot of going down memory lane. Particularly this trip because my mom is wanting to clear out her basement of all of our old childhood things and now that my sister and I are both homeowners, she’s eager to offload as much as possible. So we spent a lot of time rummaging through our childhood things and going through old photos. I wonder how that is for you. I’m not a very nostalgic person and for me it’s always a mix of emotion looking back on photos of me at all different weights and remembering what I was going through then. It can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster right? 

And I also came across my old journals and read those on the plane ride back. I started journaling when I was in third grade if you can believe it and I’ve kept a journal ever since. A few years ago I decided to get rid them all - there were boxes and boxes full. But I held on to a couple of the early ones. Reading them was so interesting because there was so much written that I had completely forgotten about and now reading it as an adult it provide some context for what I’ve experienced as an adult. 

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you all this is because if you’ve been struggling with your weight for awhile, perhaps years, then you likely carry a lot of regret. You feel the regret of so many failed attempts. I know when I looked at some of those photos and read those journal entries, I felt some regret for how I was thinking about myself and my weight at the time. I also felt regret for not figuring this weight thing out sooner. And clients have also shared that they look back at the years they spent so focused on food and their weight and they regret the time and energy they spent on that one part of their life, that at the time felt like the most important aspect of their life. And I often wondered the same thing, like what could I have been accomplishing if I hadn’t been so focused on food? 

So today I want to urge you to let go of any regret you have from your past and move forward. Today’s episode is going to focus on how we can use our history, our weight loss struggle from the past to help us gain momentum rather than keep us stuck.

One thing I really noticed after I looked through those photos and read those journals is how low my energy was. I think that’s because when we’re focused on the past, when we’re spending our time looking back, we are energetically pulled backward too. It’s like if you’ve ever ran in a race in track, the main thing they tell you is to never look behind you at the person coming up right? Why? Because you lose forward momentum. So I’m not saying never look at your past, not at all. It’s really helpful to understand it so that we have context, especially when it comes to our family of origin, but what I am saying is that if we spend too much time past-focused, say on our mistakes, on our previous overeating and we ruminate in regret on what could have been, we’re simply going to have a harder time creating something different for our future.

Let’s touch on the reasons WHY your past attempts have failed. 

First, cut yourself some slack. I think if you look back at your childhood, and you don’t even need a recorded document like I had, you’ll appreciate why you needed to turn to food to cope with your life. You simply didn’t have the emotional maturity to handle what was coming at you. And listen, my parents really loved me and I know that and I know they did the very best they could. I’m much more fortunate than a lot of people. I know that there are those of you listening now who have endured a lot. So really, it’s not a question of why did I turn to food and put on all this weight, but why not? I sometimes think it’s a miracle that I didn’t turn to alcohol and drugs too, right. I want you to consider that it makes PERFECT sense that you needed something to modulate your emotional world. 

But if you’re like me, you never learned that your weight issue was an emotional issue. That emotions and habits had anything to do with it at all. If you’re like me, you thought you simply didn’t have the willpower needed to reduce calories, eat less fat and exercise more right? That’s what we’re told we need to do to lose weight. So of COURSE you’ve been failing because that’s a huge lie. Diets set you up to fail. 

When we eat less our metabolism matches the calorie reduction. So then our weight loss plateaus and we have to eat even less to lose weight until our metabolism catches up yet again. So of course we’re trying to not feel crappy all the time and still enjoy food so we try eating those fat free or sugar free, highly processed foods that aren’t satiating at all. No one can stick to that for long, so we quit and continue to overeat. Instead we need to be eating in a way that doesn’t spike our insulin, the true cause of weight gain. I talk about this in more depth in the episode 19 Weight Set Point

Imagine going off your plan over the weekend and then waking up Monday morning, going through your closet for something to wear. 

What do we do? We tell ourselves This is ridiculous, we just need to get our act together and stick to our plan this week. 

Except we don’t.

And then it happens again, and we start feeling the shame of so many failed attempts. We’re in the shame cycle. We think there’s something wrong with us. We can’t do it. We’re confused. 

This is a loop in our brains that we can change.

ONE

The first way we use failure to get us closer to our dream weight is to: THINK differently about your failure. Know that it makes perfect sense for why you got out of alignment with food and your weight in the first place. And NOW as an adult, you can take 100% responsibility for your results. You can decide that going forward, there is no such thing as failing in your weight loss journey. It just doesn’t exist as a concept for you anymore. Instead, you are either WINNING or LEARNING. 

When we’re in the shame cycle we’re NOT learning anything new. There is NO new information available. I’ll talk more about this in a moment.

TWO

The second way we can use failure to move us forward is to start FEELING differently. How do we feel something on purpose? We get curious, we act compassionately, we think determined thoughts so that we FEEL more determined. 

THREE

We ACT differently. The next time you find yourself in a shame cycle, notice it. Remember that you’ve been here a million times and you never get a different result. If you have ever wondered WHY you keep struggling with your weight, this is exactly how you solve the mystery. I suggest you do a thought work exercise. Write out your experience and debrief with yourself so that you can LEARN from it. This moves you from a victim mentality to being in charge and taking responsibility. 

I’ll give you a work example from my own life. I worked for a skin care company and part of my job was to pitch our line to large department stores, like Nordstrom’s and Holt Renfrew. So our team went down to Seattle to the Nordstrom head office and we were in a boardroom pitching to five of the Nordstrom people. And part of the pitch was to provide each person with the complete line of products as a gift. So of course, as we’re presenting, they’re each going through the products checking them out. Well one of the products was glycolic pads (side note on skin care here - glycolic acid is really great for sun spots and is important in your routine). Anyway, the container had a seal that was impossible to remove without a knife or something. But of course these women didn’t know that so they’re trying with all their might to get it off, meanwhile my colleagues and I are just sitting there across the table, watching this, cringing because we know there’s no hope. 

Despite that hiccup, the presentation went great and they signed the brand. And after our pitch, we sat down and did a debrief - what went well, what worked, what didn’t work, what will we do differently the next time? Obviously, we will remove the seal of those glycolic pads. 

If we don’t spend the time to debrief our experiences, ask these questions and do the work - ACT differently than simply recoiling at our overeating and vowing to do better tomorrow, and inevitably getting stuck in the shame cycle, we won’t learn anything new and we won’t get a new result. 

So I have a Debriefing Exercise for you. It’s a list of Questions to ask yourself when you overeat. These are available in a PDF handout on my website too. The link will be in the shownotes under FREEBIES or you can go to mindfulshape.com/resources

1. What did you overeat? Write it ALL out. Our brains will want to gloss over this because it’s as if, if we don’t admit it, it won’t count. This is another form of buffering negative emotions. Remember that food is totally neutral. It’s simply food in your mouth. It doesn’t matter if it’s a carrot or a whole carrot cake. 

2. Why did you overeat? Be VERY specific (what made you think it was a good idea or okay in that moment) What thoughts were you having? Ex. It’s the weekend or I’ll just eat less tomorrow or skip breakfast. Or, I just need a break.

3. What did you notice? (circumstances ex. Bad day at work, feeling lonely)

4. What would have worked better? What could you have done instead of overeating? Had a shower, gone for a quick walk, called a friend, had a glass of water, done some thought work, or simply noticed without reacting whatsoever.

5. What did you learn? What information do you have about yourself now? Is there anything different or new for you in this experience?

6. How do you want to feel about this moving forward? (I’m a human who makes mistakes and I’m learning and growing)

7. What will you do differently next time? When you notice an urge to overeat coming on, when you’re in similar circumstances, what will you decide to think in that moment? What will you do next time? Plan ahead.

Now, what’s going to stop you from actually asking yourself these questions the next time you overeat?

1. Your brain doesn’t want to experience the discomfort of owning up to it

2. Your brain doesn’t want to go to the effort - what’s the point?

3. Your brain will tell you, you don’t have the time

4. Your brain will tell you, you don’t have a pen and paper

5. Your brain will tell you, I can’t remember the questions

6. I can’t remember what I ate

All of those thoughts can surface, and that’s totally okay. That just means you have a human brain. You can set those aside gently and do the exercise anyways. You won’t want to in the moment, I know that. So either get the PDF or jot them down when I review them at the end of this episode so you have them handy. Remind your brain how important it is that you break free of this shame cycle, not just for your pant size but for your peace of mind. Yeah, it takes a little effort. It takes some work, and it’s totally worth it. When you really think about how doing something as small as answering some questions is in comparison to the impact of reaching your goal weight, it’s a no brainer. 

Now if you’re really geared up and want to take it to the next level, do the same for your successes. Again, you’re going to accelerate your learning here. For example, say you went on vacation and you didn’t overeat. That’s a success. If you spend the time to debrief and write down what worked? Why? What did you learn? You’ll be MUCH more likely to repeat the success on your next vacation. 

As I mentioned I just came back from my hometown visiting my family and there were celebrations and lots of sugar flour foods. Years previous, I would have gone bananas and gained weight after a trip like that. But now it’s a different story for me. My plan was very simple. I knew I wouldn't have complete control over the food there so I decided to very simply listen to my body. Now caveat here, I’ve been doing this a long time and I no longer have sugar cravings, so I’m much farther ahead than I was in my former visits. But now, I don’t have food scarcity - feeling like I have to get as much of the good stuff as I can, or that I’m going to miss out. I was able to eat what I wanted - take it or leave it and focus on not only the food, but on my family and having a nice change of scenery. 

So, as promised, I’m going to review the questions you can have them for when you have a so-called FAILURE and for when you have a SUCCESS. Feel free to jot them down or get the PDF from my website mindfulshape.com/resources

1. What did you overeat? 

2. Why did you overeat? 

3. What did you notice? (circumstances ex. Bad day at work, feeling lonely)

4. What would have worked better? 

5. What did you learn?

6.  How do you want to feel about this moving forward?

7. What will you do differently next time?

Sometimes it’s helpful for someone to give us permission and so in case you want or need that today, I’m giving you total permission to drop any regrets you have about your past. Your past body sizes, your past body shaming, your past failed diet attempts - all of it. Whether it’s years ago or yesterday, your past shame cycles can be over starting now. Instead of going through the same loop of overeating and beating yourself up, vowing to do better next time through force of will, focus on LEARNING from both the so-called failures, and the successes. 

It’s all simply data to work with to get to know yourself better, and finally UNDERSTAND why this keeps happening for you. Just try it once even. Do the debrief with yourself. You can always go back to your old way of doing things if you want. But I’m telling you, once you start doing this type of thought work, you’ll know too much to go back.

FREE COACHING OFFER

Curious about weight loss coaching but don’t want to commit quite yet? Here’s your chance! Get 30 minutes of FREE coaching with me and be featured on the podcast. There will be 2 spots available each month for the next three months (from Sept through November 2021). Get coached on whatever you’re struggling with right now when it comes to losing weight. We’ll record it and share it with other podcast listeners so they can benefit too. And of course, your name and identity won’t be shared. Interested? Grab a free spot directly on my calendar by going to https://calendly.com/paulamindfulshape/freesession or by emailing me directly at paula@mindfulshape.com