Ep. 128 No More Food Rules

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

  Hi, and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I am Paula Parker, a life and weight loss coach. So you'll notice if you've been listening for a while, that I've changed up the music to this podcast, and I really loved the music when I chose it. a few years ago and I just felt like it was time for a change.

So it was very intentional choice back then and it is a very intentional choice again this time around to choose something that I just feel like is a little bit more congruent with the information and a little bit more in alignment with where I am now. And where the podcast is now. So I find it very pleasing to the ear and I hope you do too.

Okay, let's get into the episode.  Okay. So to reach our desired body shape. Our weight is predicated entirely on decisions, how you eat, and you might say, but hey, what about different body types, genetics, hormonal changes, all of those kinds of challenges that get in the way. And I would still argue that even given these kinds of challenges mean that your decisions matter even more.

And this is the case whether you've got supermodel body dreams or you simply want to release enough weight to feel more agile and have less aches and pains. So today I want to really clarify a concept that I've never laid out quite like this before. I want to talk about how to make the best decisions for you so that you can feel and look how you want to feel and look.

Typically when it comes to a weight loss strategy, How do we know what to do? We might start with the best intentions and start following some rules,  rules that we heard work to help release weight. Maybe we track calories or we try to stay under a certain budget of calories, or we cut out alcohol or we eliminate snacking.

Maybe we fast for a very specific time and we're following a fasting protocol Or, you know, something like we don't eat past seven o'clock. We create these rules for ourselves based on something external. Why do we put these rules in place? Why do we have rules in our world? It's really to help us determine how we make decisions and act.

We think, well, if I don't eat past seven, that's the rule. I will feel best in my body. Get a good night's sleep and optimize fat burning. What could be wrong with that, right? It sounds very good. It sounds very reasonable. But notice how these kinds of rules are imposed on you from the outside. Like you heard it once and maybe you never questioned it.

You should do it in quotation marks because somebody said it. Some expert, so called expert said it, right? And what happens if we don't obey rules, then we put ourselves at risk of penalty. So in this case, we could gain weight. We might not see progress or worse. We go into, you know, the shaming and blaming.

And we tell ourselves we aren't the kind of person who follows through. We withhold respect and reverence for ourselves and for our bodies. We withhold acceptance and love from ourselves. Which are core needs, by the way, right? Our core needs, dignity, belonging, and safety. All that to say, when you don't follow them, you feel terrible.

Okay? There are so many rules when it comes to releasing weight that we can easily feel overwhelmed and it feels oppressive. This is why releasing weight feels like a struggle for so many of us. So, I want to offer an alternative. What if, instead of following these rules, you decided that you will take All of these rules are health tips or strategies into consideration and look for the underlying principle to see if it matches what you really want.

I'm going to say that again because it's essentially the main concept of today's episode and I really want you to hear it. Instead of following rules, You consider them by looking for the underlying principle to see if it matches what you really care about, what you really want. So we need to explore two things here.

What do I mean by principles? And what do you really want?  So whereas rules are external, principles are the ideas. That govern our thoughts and behavior. You might have heard me refer to this as your North star in previous episodes. They are an internal measure of conduct informed by a set of values, your values, what you care about.

So what do you care about? Why are you wanting to release the weight? Typically my clients want to release weight for these reasons. So just check in with yourself as I read the list and just see which one matters to you, which is like a high priority for you, which would be nice to have, but not as, not as essential for you.

They want more energy. They want more ease of movement to feel more confident. to feel good in their body, to look and feel great in their clothes, wearing what they want,  getting rid of food noise and having food choices just feel easy and natural, like it's just part of who you are, what you do, your lifestyle,  and you get more pleasure out of life rather than so much focus and pleasure being on food.

This is what they care about.  Okay. This is the reasons why they want to release weight.  If the rules don't align or they conflict in any way to what you care about, just leave them. I'll give you an example. Let's imagine you care about and value your principle is you want to get rid of food noise. Okay.

That that's what you care about. And the rule is don't eat past 7 PM. And of course it sounds like a good rule, right? There's lots of science to back this up in terms of health. But then, life happens, and you're out for dinner, or you get home late, and dinner is going to go past seven.  Now you're battling it out in your mind, thinking, you're not doing what you said you would do, and you're feeling stressed, notice how much food noise.

There is here the very thing you are trying to avoid. So instead, it may make sense to look at the underlying principle of not eating past seven and then say, well, I like my reasons for eating. I'm really hungry. I'm not going to spend any time or energy debating this. I'm not going to care about that rule, right?

What you've achieved here is your goal of no food noise. The principle behind the rule is better sleep, better health. Okay. So how might you still align your behavior with the principle? You might eat past seven. So you're, you know, so called breaking the rule, but then how can you adhere to the principle, which is you want to optimize sleep. 

This might mean you eat a little lighter than usual so that you aren't digesting into the wee hours of the night. It might mean you skip a glass of wine or you skip dessert. Notice how it's not healthy. The goal of not eating past 7 is health benefits, but it's not healthy to be obsessing about breaking a rule.

That's counter to the principle.  Following principles rather than rules is actually harder because it requires more from you. It requires more thinking and it's a case by case basis. So you'll really want to spend some time thinking about what matters to you, what your principles are.  What I want to do here is not give you a bunch of food rules to follow, but help guide you towards your own principles and helping you make decisions based on your principles rather than rules.

This feels much more liberating and ultimately you learn how to trust yourself. One of the other things I didn't mention is freedom, right? A main reason that we want to release weight and heal our relationship with food is that sense of freedom. And then To get to the freedom, we put all these, impose all these rules on ourselves.

Well, that is the antithesis of freedom, right? So following rules in a rigid fashion is kind of like accountability. So let's talk about accountability for a second, because that might be a reason why you think you need a weight loss program or you need coaching is you are someone who likes to have accountability.

And here's what I'll say about that. Some structure is helpful. Like I tell my clients, you are never accountable to me, only to yourself. However, having a coaching call in your calendar encourages you to remember what you care about. Left to our own devices, our brains can drift, so it helps to have structure, accountability within structure to pay attention to your goal, what you need to be doing to achieve that goal, and who you need to be to achieve it, how you might need to change. 

But what I'm about and what I center mindful shape around is internal growth as much as external change, releasing excess weight on your body. So this is about sustainable. Meaningful change, so that might mean  given the choice between giving you a set of rules or a food plan or focusing on how many grams of protein you had in that meal and trying to keep you accountable to that as a temporary measure that might have some short term benefit  contrasted to doing the deeper work.

of building that internal drive, that curiosity about why you're doing what you're doing, why you have all of this desire for food and can't say no or feel like you can't say no, that self reliance and building that and that clarity of purpose, right? Why this matters to you at all. I will always choose the latter because until this is sorted out.

You will forever be tethered to systems, and rules, and accountability partners,  to calorie counting, or to the latest diet trend, whatever that is. You will always be dependent on something outside of you, and I am telling you, after years of struggling with this particular issue, and years of focus, and working on it, and building a company around it, there is nothing better than knowing you have a brain inside of you that can move yourself forward, no matter what.

All right. When it comes to food and your body, you have that self reliance and that confidence that is what is sustainable. And that's profound change. All right. I'll talk to you again soon.