Ep. 119 Why You're Exhausted

This transcript was auto-generated, please forgive any weirdness.

  Hi, and welcome to the Mindful Shade Podcast. I'm Paula Parker. Happy New Year, if you are listening to this in real time. So culturally, this is a time when we, you know, set intentions, set new goals, are very forward thinking, we make the plans, we're looking forward in general. And if you have created some new goals, because it's kind of the time to do it, but you are feeling less than motivated if you are tired, if you are not feeling energetic about it, it's dark outside, maybe it's cold where you live, you want the goals, you want the results, you want the weight loss,  but.

You're just dragging your feet on like what it takes. So maybe, maybe you're even doing the things like maybe you are doing the meal prep. Maybe you are doing the workouts, but it feels like it's taking a lot of effort.  Or maybe you're somebody who's like a little bit cynical about New Year's resolutions and all the goal setting that happens at this time of year.

I totally get it. So let's talk about why that might be. Be why you might be feeling some resistance, why you might be dragging your feet a little bit when it comes to doing the things that you know you need to do so that you can understand it and then shift it either mentally or really practically so that really you just feel better.

That's what this is all about. Okay, so the new year, we tend to think it starts January 1st, but actually it starts with the new moon, which is on January 29th. So if you research, you know, if you do the research on this, what is a year? The year is the earth making a full revolution around the sun. And that takes approximately.

Not precisely 12 months. So after the earth has gone around the sun, the first new moon after that is the new year. It's the lunar new year. So it usually happens in the first few weeks of February. And this year it's on January 29th. This is also known as the Chinese new year. And January 1st, just as a side note, January 1st is based on the Gregorian calendar, which was decided, just decided arbitrarily to be a specific date rather than it being associated with the lunar calendar.

Which is like a different date every year, kind of like Easter. If you've been trying to force yourself into the January 1, New Year, New You vibe, and you've been failing at that, if you've been feeling bad, because really, all you want to do is stay cocooned,  just to hibernate. In your house a little longer.

If you are feeling like you need a break from all the social stuff that you've maybe had during the holidays, you're just needing a little bit more yin and less yang energy right now, then just stay there. Stay in that like warm, cozy energy until January 29th, when it might feel more natural to be doing all the things you might Be more interested in getting out into the swing of things again.

So that's going to be the theme of today is getting into your own rhythms, thinking of things in terms of cycles and seasons and your own bodily rhythms to part  of setting goals, thinking about what we want requires us to acknowledge that where we are currently is based on, you know, how we've been doing things up until this point.

If you are feeling exhausted without blaming you. I want to talk about some of those reasons so that by the end of this year, you are hopefully farther along the path you want to be and feeling really energized. To give you an overview, there are three main points that I'm going to be exploring in this episode.

One contempt. Yeah, we're kicking it off right with contempt. Two is I have to release weight versus I can. And number three is working against your own rhythms versus with them. You'll see how all of this connects by the end. I promise. Okay.  All right. Contempt. I'll start here because this can be oftentimes what kicks off a weight loss goal in the first place.

I know, sad, but true. Either you're feeling contempt for how your body looks, its limitations in terms of what it can do, or maybe the aches and pains that you're experiencing, or you're feeling some contempt for yourself, for how you've, you know, in quotation marks, let things go, let things go with your health, let things go with your body.

AKA self  loathing. Okay. I've talked about this before in terms of self loathing. So a forceful motivator to get into action, to be sure, but not powerful.  Okay. So let's talk about this. You may have heard of the Gottman's before they are leading psychologists when it comes to marriage and relationships.

And I want to share with you their definition. But instead of applying this to a relationship with another person, let's think of it in terms of the relationship that we have with our own bodies and our weight in particular. So contempt is an overt form of disrespect. And the Gottman's definition of contempt is this. 

It comes from a place of superiority and makes the other feel inferior.  So this is your brain. making your body  inferior, right? So your brain is feeling superior, when in fact, it is your brain that decided that overeating was okay and created all this extra weight on your body. So your body was in fact saving you by storing all this excess food as energy in your fat cells, so that it won't go into your organs and literally kill you. 

The Gottmans say that deep down, it stems from a feeling,  a sense of feeling of unappreciated and unacknowledged in the relationship. So we can interpret this as there is a part of you, it might be the part that is sad, grieving, Bored, tired, restless, filled with dread about the work that you need to do, anxious. 

All of that part of you that is not being listened to because instead you are turning to food to distract, to soothe, to cope and temporarily avoid appreciating your feelings as messages from your body. Right? Messages to listen, do that. There's information there and acknowledging them and processing them.

They say it can take contempt, can take the form of verbal or nonverbal language, which can include sarcasm, mockery, and facial gestures. Okay. So who among us have made fun of our bodies? made cracks about our eating, about overindulging, who among us have winced at a picture, you know, cringed at seeing a picture of yourself.

Or when you look in the mirror, they say often partners are even unaware of what they say and do, especially gestures like eye rolling, chuckling that elicit their partner's wrath,  whether in words or behavior, contempt, 

So there's an important point because we might be unaware of even the subtle ways that we have contempt for our bodies and our weight.  Do you avoid looking in the mirror before you get into the shower? Do you avoid getting on the scale? Do you avoid even, you know, touching your body, putting lotion on your body? 

Sometimes we think our bodies are undeserving of comfortable clothes. Now this is not maybe conscious, but we put off buying clothes that are going to feel good and comfortable in our bodies until we lose weight. It's like a gift that we're going to reward ourselves with new clothes only once we've lost the weight.

Like it's a very conditional thing. And if you, if this is you and you're saying, well, this is like, you know, I don't want to be spending money, good money on clothes that I'm only going to wear temporarily because my My goal, my intention is to release the weight just by second hand. Like there are ways around this.

Okay. Get creative, but you deserve to be in clothes that feel comfortable to you.  I remember once, this is kind of a side note, but I remember once  listening to someone who was talking about an injury that they had, it was something to do with their elbow or something, and the way that they talked about how they.

They nurtured themselves like cared for their body. There was zero contempt. So just like notice if when you get an injury, how you are thinking about that injury, are you annoyed? Are you kind of mad, almost like mad at your body that that's happening? Cause it's preventing you from doing the things you want to do.

This person, when they had their arm injured, was like, You know, like caressing their arm. It was like talking so sweetly to their arm. Like, Oh, like you're hurting. Like I want to take good care of you. Like, it's just for me, when I witnessed that, it was just like so novel. I never seen anything like that before.

I never thought that that was something that you could do. You could really love on your body like that. So it can show us a little bit where we are withholding love from our bodies. And even, you know, continuing to eat when you are physically full, when you are, you know, it's a law of diminishing returns when it comes to pleasure, you're really not getting the same amount of pleasure out of the food, but you continue eating, that could be considered an act of contempt, of disrespect to yourself, to your body.

And notice that they say contempt escalates the conflict situation. So hating on your body or yourself or your previous overeating makes things worse. It increases your experience of negative emotion. It makes doing things like working out, moving your body, eating healthy food, turning off your show to get into bed on time harder.

Makes things harder, right? It's exhausting. And their last point is it's not about The issue that started the argument, but an attack on the worthiness of a person, almost like saying you are insignificant.  So contempt distracts us from asking a more compassionate question. How might it make sense as a rational person?

That I would eat all of that food when I know about nutrition. Why would I do that? That I would want more food than my body needs. That it would be difficult to say no for me when the food is very delicious and answering these questions. So in short, why do I have all of this overdesire for food in the first place? 

That part  is made insignificant,  but your overeating is valid. It comes from a physiological overdesire. Your body craves more food than it actually needs based on how you've been previously eating and an emotional overdesire.  You eat to soothe emotional discomfort or intense emotion and also how you're currently thinking about food and yourself is also contributing to your desire for food. 

What we typically do when we are in contempt is now we think I have to lose weight. I can't stand living like this. This can't go on both for my emotional health and for my physical health, my longevity. So let's move to point number two.  I won't spend a ton of time here because I do have more to say on the rhythms, but I will say this.

When you are believing you have to lose weight, it's like an obligation. It will feel like a chore. You'll find yourself saying things like I should, or I shouldn't, which is very disempowering. I should eat better. I shouldn't have another one. And it just feels like Ugh. Right? Feels like I have to. But really, truly, you don't need to do anything differently. 

You have autonomy and choice as an adult. If you want to gain another 20, 30 pounds, that's your right. If you want to have popcorn for dinner, you want to have cookies for dinner, cereal, enjoy. No one is stopping you. I think we oftentimes need to remember that we have options, that we have agency. Whenever you are feeling resistance, Do this little exercise.

This was like a game changer for a client of mine.  Write out all of your options. I did this one time when I was in resistance. I don't have a lot of resistance, actually any, almost never, when it comes to moving my body  except when I've had a period of time when I'm just out of the habit. Now this can be like a few days after being sick or say after the holidays.

It can be really hard to get back in momentum when it comes to exercise because it's so easy to say, well, I don't really feel like it. I haven't been doing it in the last few days. Not feeling really fit, not feeling very agile, feeling a little heavy in my body. I don't feel compelled to do exercise, right?

It's not like feeling good in my body. It's harder to get myself to do it during those times. So one of these times I came up with this exercise that I invite you to do anytime you feel resistance is just write out your options like a, b, c, and d and literally write them out. So the first one can be like, okay, what does not my like inner bratty, lazy teenager self want to do?

So it might be, you know what? I don't want to do any work today. I don't want to do any fitness. I just want to eat cereal, make popcorn and watch TV all day. Okay. That is an option,  right? And then write out maybe the next best option that might be, you know, okay, I work out for 10 minutes and then I watch a show instead of a coaching call, like for me, for instance, right?

Or maybe it's okay. I'm I make breakfast, but I have toast with my eggs when I usually wouldn't do that or something like that. So what is like plan B? And then you get the idea.  Is you get a little bit more of like towards what is the option that would be like the gold standard. If you were just at the top of your game and you were feeling amazing and it just felt effortless, what would you do?

Maybe you would do a workout for 40 minutes. Maybe you would, you know, have a shower, listen to something really inspirational and then get to work on a project or whatever it was you were working on. All right. So maybe that is like. Option D. So you just write out all of those options, really give yourself choice.

And then you sit back and take a look. You're like, okay, how would I feel after I do option A? How would I feel after I do option D?  What kind of results is that going to create for me? So again, this is very neutral. You're not doing this as like, Oh, I secretly know option a is terrible. No, it's no judgment.

You're just, you're writing it out so that you can do it consciously because then no matter what you choose, at least you can own it. You will feel more empowered. Of course. Are you more likely to choose, you know, a healthier. Version or a more high level version, probably because you're not doing it by default, you're not doing it out of resistance.

You're doing it from agency. Okay. But that's not the goal. The goal is to do it from an empowered conscious place. All right, that was a side tangent, but a really helpful exercise that you can start doing today to start, you know, getting out of exhaustion and doing it from a more empowered place. You do not have to eat healthy.

Allow hunger. You do not have to feel hungry if you don't want to. You don't have to stop eating at enough. You could eat as much as you want in the moment. You could eat more than what you want. You don't even have to move your body. You don't have to do anything really.  But you get to, and when you do, when you choose option C, option D, your body will respond accordingly.

You'll feel more energized, you'll sleep better, you'll be in a better mood. Eventually your body will also release excess fat. You'll feel better in your clothes. You might be gaining some muscle, feel more strong, feel more agile. You get to give yourself all of that.  All right. Number three, if we stay in this, I have to lose weight.

Frame of mind. What we typically do is we force diets, meal plans, workout plans onto ourself.  We take a rigid plan or a structure and we try and mold ourselves into it because it worked for whoever created that plan.  We have all done this at some point. So do not beat yourself up if you have done this or you are doing it currently.

Okay. That's not the point of this. We all do it because we want some frame of reference. We're like, okay, what's the map? Like I want to get from A to B, like, tell me how to do it. Okay. This is kind of an old way of doing it. This might be more of I think of it with again, no judgment, but an immature way of doing it.

I, when you're a teenager, when you're, you know, Early in life, you really need a lot of guidance. Why? You have no life experience. You have no reference point. So what do we do? We learn from others. We take what has worked for others and we just adopt it for ourselves. As we get older, as we get wiser, as we learn about ourselves, we get a little bit more mature.

We're more discerning, okay? We're less likely to  default to somebody else's plan.  It's kind of more of a take what serves you and leave the rest. Of course, again, I know I don't have to say that to you with all my work, but of course that's a philosophy. Take what serves you, leave the rest. This is more about power versus force.

Okay? So I encourage you to move away from force and toward power. To do that, we need to work with our own rhythms. So let's get specific. What am I talking about here? Working with the rhythms of your body means making food choices. and movement exercise choices based on what makes sense for your body and your goals given its current point in a rhythm.

or cycle. So if you are still having your period, if you are menstruating, it will make sense to attune your weight loss strategy, what you're eating and how you're moving your body to that. Now I'll be going over some guidelines, but ultimately when you are Attuning to your body, listening to your body, noticing and honoring your energy levels,  noticing what's compelling to you.

You will find this quite intuitive. Okay. And I think that is much more important  and needs to be your guide more than anything else.  If you are in perimenopause and your cycle is all over the place, or you are in menopause and you no longer have a period, you can then align your strategy with the moon.

Yes, I said the moon. And as much as I personally love mysticism, that's not what I'm talking about here. Our cycle is actually tied to the lunar cycle. Every phase is connected to the moon. So let's make this super practical. Think of the month in terms of four parts or four phases. Phase one, you can think of this as like day one to four.

If you're menstruating, it's when you have your period. This is called the early follicular phase. This is for those of you who don't have your period. New moon energy. Okay. So the first couple of days, you'll want to be softer with your movement, get outside more, lots of walking, being in nature, lots of stretching.

Okay. Those kinds of movements, light yoga, that kind of thing.  In terms of eating, you'll want to be eating lots of richly colored vegetables and fruits, lots of iron rich foods, beets, meat, eggs, or if you're a plant based, you want to load up on kidney beans, lentils, you get the picture. Phase two, this is going to be, you know, considered late follicular phase, also known as waxing moon or days approximately.

Again, every woman is different. Three to 14. So this is going to be after your period and you're going to start to notice an increase in your energy and you can increase the intensity of your movement and your workouts. So this is a great time for cardio, for running, for Peloton, those stronger classes start moving towards heavier weights over the next couple of weeks.

Big range of motion type of movement. So kickboxing is great. This is a time when you want to challenge yourself physically because of your hormones, you can actually have an increase in your pain tolerance. And also you are less likely to injure yourself and your recovery is faster. So this is the time when you want to optimize it in terms of physicality.

You can really go hard. Just make sure that when you're eating, you are eating, of course, Obviously, I don't have to mention this, but I will anyways, that throughout the entire month, you'll want to be eating healthy fats, fibrous carbohydrates, and protein. Okay. You know that already. So during this late or this late follicular phase or waxing moon phase, you might notice that you don't need as much whole grains or fruit during this time for energy.

So you want to be turning to that. You know, meats, cheeses, vegetables, that's going to make you feel the best. So it's a great time also for longer fasting, fasting over 13 hours. You also want to be increasing your protein, especially if you're doing a lot of you know, weight bearing activity, increasing your activity.

You want to be restoring. So that can be anywhere from 1 to 1. 25 grams of protein for your body weight goal. Approximately a hundred grams of protein per day. Okay. So ensure you are eating until satiation. You're not under eating so that you are getting enough protein. Food to fuel all these workouts and repair that muscle tissue so that you can build muscle. 

Okay. Phase three, this is the mid luteal phase, also known as full moon. All right. So this is harder to define in terms of days, but it's essentially after ovulation and could be those days, 16 to 19 of the month. Okay. So you might be more emotional for a few days. That's an indication that you were there.

This is a good time to, again, Get outside when you can do movement, you enjoy, don't focus too much on results on intensity. Use it kind of as a recovery period. That would be my suggestion and really just eat foods that feel good to you. So just tune in. Do you need a little bit more carbohydrate? Do you need a little less carbohydrate?

Do what feels good for you and your body. Phase four. This is the luteal phase, late luteal phase coming into your period if you are menstruating. And if you are not, think of it as the waning moon, alright? This is your waning moon period. So this is when you can have PMS, this is when your mood isn't very stable, you might not feel as much Happiness.

You might feel more frustration about your weight, about life in general. Your husband chewing an apple drives you crazy. Okay. You have less energy. You might be more prone to getting injured during your workouts or getting sick. Overall, a lot less motivated. And this to, to notice too, is this is your longest phase.

You might need more coaching. You might need to listen to this podcast a little bit more. You just might need more support. Also might need more sleep in terms of movement. You probably can guess, really see how you feel. You can be feeling more energetic or stronger in that first part, but as it gets closer to the end, you want to start lessening the weight.

You want to be doing things more like less intensity. Maybe some bar classes, Pilates stuff like that. Okay. So just again, it's more like tap into yourself. See what your energy is at.  Ideally, you're not doing any fasting during this time. And in fact, you want to be eating a little bit more food.

That's not a whole lot. Okay. So just a bit more. So this is not licensed now to overeat. That's not what I'm talking about, but think of it in terms of maybe 10 up to 15 percent more, so a slight increase in satiation.  This will decrease intense cravings or feelings like you can't stop eating. Okay. So again, just, it's interesting how it actually works with your hormones.

If you're eating to satiation and it's just a little bit more to get to that satiation, a little bit more food. So allowing yourself a little bit more satiation, you are actually regulating your hormones a little bit more, balancing out your hormones, working with your hormones, and then you won't have all of these intense cravings and you won't feel like you.

You know, can't get enough food at those times. It's kind of like ravenous times.  So with all of that said, just imagine if you are instead trying to stick, adhere to a meal plan or a workout plan that doesn't take any of this into account, where you are hormonally and where you are energetically. If you are trying to do an intense, you know, even 60 minute hit classes, I don't know, do those still exist?

I don't do them. But when you are in a phase in which that's actually very, you know, Out of alignment with your body rhythms. It's going to be exhausting. It's going to deplete you. It's going to go against what's going on in your body. All right. So I hope this was helpful. If you are someone who wants to work with a specialist like me on this kind of thing, to come up with a weight loss strategy that is personalized for you and your body so that you can feel really confident about what you're doing so that you can get support and guidance when it feels hard.

It feels hard to follow through on when you have the best plan and then craving strike, or, you know, you go off the rails, you make some mistakes with food and you get super discouraged and feel like you're totally on your own. I'm here. I'm currently taking on new coaching clients. My job is to help you come up with a weight loss strategy that will work with you, with your lifestyle, with your bodily rhythms.

You eat only when you're physically hungry, stop it enough and you choose foods that really serve you. We come up with a super simple eating protocol that's based on that. And then I coach your brain on how to follow through when it feels hard. Or life gets in the way, which of course we know it does. We reflect and we strategize along the entire way so that whether you have 15, 30 or over 60 pounds you want to release, you now have a lifelong approach to eating in a healthy and sustainable way and feeling in charge with food.

So you can go ahead and book a call with me directly to get all the details on the coaching program. Go to mindfulshape. com and I look forward to meeting you. Okay. I'll talk to you again soon. Bye.