Welcome to The Relationships With A Soul Podcast
Every Tuesday, I do a deep dive on a common relationship problem that more than likely, we’ve all experienced at one point or another. And some of us, are actively in these situations right now, which makes these episodes great support systems for you as you push through this problem and arrive on the other side. From observing human behavior over the last 15 years, I’ve seen a lot of the same relationship problems come up again and again. Those will be the ma in ones that we focus on here.
It is my goal that these episodes help you understand yourself better, as well as your relationships. Armed with this new info, you’ll be able to create stronger relationship dynamics with ALL your connections. Trust me, strong connections are worth more than anything money can buy. Once you understand the magic of just one of these connections, you’ll become obsessed. Now let’s get into today’s episode!
EP 30: The REAL Secret to Weight Loss that Literally No One Is Talking About
For those of you who are curious, I’m going to cut right to the chase and tell you that:
This doesn’t have to do with a diet
This doesn’t have to do with exercise
This doesn’t have to do with supplements or drugs
And this definitely doesn’t have to do with surgery
99% of weight loss advice falls into one of these four categories, but what no one is talking about is, how we get there in the first place.
We’re not born overweight, we become overweight.
In this episode I’m going to break down how this happens and the one guaranteed thing you can do to change it which works on ALL people.
Very quickly, what does this have to do with relationships? This episode is about self-care, taking care of yourself. Feeling good in your body is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself. The better you take care of yourself, which includes your body, the better you’ll feel about yourself when it comes to self-love.
We live in a society where we hide flaws, and things we don’t like about ourselves. One of the hardest things to hide is our weight. Sure black clothes and baggier clothes help, but people can always tell—and we also always know the truth about our weight at some level. And there’s something about that which just sucks, but the good news is, we can change it as long as we have the right tools
My weight has fluctuated most of my life. The gift of that, is that it’s allowed me to reflect and learn how I got there, and how I felt when I was thin vs when I was heavy. I’m 5’7 and as an adult my weight has fluctuated from 140-193 lbs and I blame no outside source for that cause. It was all me. I went through various up and down cycles of this, until one day I realized what the hell was actually going on. My weight level at anytime was a reflection of how I felt about myself. If I was heavier, I was going through a difficult time and felt way more stressed, overwhelmed, and hopeless. If I was thin, I was going through an easier time— sometimes on vacation or going through a phase when I was making a lot of money and life was easier. But nonetheless, the thing to realize here is that you can’t always control where your life is going to take you. If you’re going through an easier time right now, difficulty and challenge will come again one day. And the question is, will you be able to weather the storm? Or will you put the weight back on and sink back down. I’m going to help you prepare to weather that storm today.
Now I’m going to hit you with the golden ticket right here at the beginning, here’s the secret right now on how to control your weight for good.
Control of your mind = Control of your weight.
I’m going to spend the rest of this episode breaking this down because this is the thing that changed my relationship with my body.
Essentially this DOES involve doing the deep inner work that most run from, and sometimes I still catch myself running from it today. But there’s a reason why celebrities like Jim Carrey who have it all came to realize that it’s not smart to run from this work your whole life because it really is the only thing that makes you feel whole and satiated in this realm of existence. If you’re excited to hear more about that point, I’ve got a piece planned where I’ll dive into that more in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for that one.
Back to the show.
The key is to be able to regulate your mind with some sort of a mindfulness practice, that you know works. It’s not about doing it perfectly, or even daily, it’s about you finally allowing yourself to stop bringing stress upon yourself.
Think about it for a second.
No one is stressing you out
No situation is stressing you out
You are choosing to stress yourself out in ALL situations where you feel stressed.
How do I know this?
Because I’ve noticed that when situations or people bring me to a stressful state, there are others around me going through the same thing who choose not to stress out, and remain calm and cool, even though the challenge is present.
Let’s go right for the jugular with this example.
Let’s look at COVID.
I know people who were petrified and stressed to the max during COVID.
I also know people who didn’t worry at all and had no fear.
The one’s who chose not to worry and stress over it even got sick at one point.
But they got better faster. They weathered the storm faster. they essentially did better during that time overall. A lot better.
And COVID won’t be the last challenge to happen to humanity. So we can learn a lot from it if we really want to.
Even if you were one of those people who freaked out and drove yourself nuts over it, definitely don’t beat yourself up over it. The choice is yours to learn from this experience and when the next great challenge on humanity comes around (and it will), you’ll be ready for it.
I hope these last few examples helped you see more on the power you actually have to control how you perceive the world around you, regardless of what’s happening. My hope is that you’re now curious on how you can strengthen this muscle within you.
Let’s get back to why we get heavy and become overweight.
Putting weight on acts as a protective mechanism for ourselves when things happen to us in life that we just cannot deal with or don’t want to deal with. Traumatic events are one example of this. Deep down we know that we need to heal in some way, but we avoid it and the avoidance of it is what causes the feeling to worsen. We then use food to numb that pain. Some of us use stronger numbing agents than food but this episode is about the people who have chosen food as their numbing agent.
So why don’t diet’s work?
They’re a temporary bandaid that you can force yourself to do for a limited time. You can sustain it with willpower and motivation. But if a life situation overpowers your willpower, such as the death of a loved one, bankruptcy, or getting fired from a job, you go right back into the pit of despair. And the weight comes right back. I know because I’ve done it so many times over.
It’s the same reason why surgery doesn’t work because that’s also a temporary bandaid. So are supplements, drugs, medications. None of it is getting to the actual root of what is causing us to eat.
“But I like the taste of comfort food, you might say.” “I just enjoy eating burgers and fries, it’s what I like to eat”. And to that I would say that I also do too, but I don’t need to have it all the time and can choose a healthier option at anytime while feeling totally fine about it. And you can gain control of that as well without fear of overdoing it.
What if I told you that the stress hormones within you were what was making you crave those fatty, sugar rich foods? Your mind knows those are the most dense foods which can numb emotions the fastest. Ice cream is the king of them all. Your subconscious mind is so smart at protecting you that it’s hard to always see what’s going on under the hood.
So how do we fix this cycle for good?
First, realizing that our stress levels, overstimulation levels, and current way of living is what is driving us to consume these types of foods.
When you can settle your mind and are willing to take better care of yourself you will notice a few things:
You’ll feel better mentally. This will cause you to want to eat less actually and choose different foods that fuel this newfound comfort within your mind.
Grabbing a fried chicken sandwich will make you feel sluggish and dull your mind and you’ll begin to notice that more. Trust me, I love a good friend chicken sandwich, but it’s no longer worth feeling sluggish mentally or physically for me. On days where I now want that dense comfort food experience, I limit myself to half a sandwich max, and usually pair it with a healthier side like some greens or another vegetable.
You may think something similar to what my mind thew at me once which was:
“If I stop eating comfort food, it will completely take away the joy of living”
I smile as a write this one because my mind told me this so many times. What actually will happen is that you will enjoy life in a different way. Healthier food will take on a whole new meaning for you and you’ll enjoy it even more actually. But the real kicker is that you’ll never have to give up the comfort food and can always have it, you’ll just consume it differently.
By this point you’re either going to be raging at me or inspired by this message. If you’re raging, I’d close this at this point because nothing further in this episode will be useful for you.
You can leave a hateful comment but I’ll only respond with kindness which will probably piss you off even more. Alas the choice is yours.
But if you’re inspired, let’s talk about some things you can do to begin to change your mindset and lower your stress levels.
Thinking differently about situations is the key. I’ve had the privilege and joy of being able to listen to mantras about “acceptance” for years now and it’s helped change the way I look at the world. I’m happy to let you know that I’m writing and recording this piece from a high place of mental clarity, which is exactly the state that I believe is required for this topic.
What does acceptance mean?
It means that you realize that you cannot control exactly how life unfolds and it most certainly won’t unfold in the exact way you choose. this used to piss me off so much. A bus that was 10 min late caused me to be late for work, which resulted in my manager getting mad at me and then ruined my day, but only because I allowed it do. “If only that damn bus had arrived when it was supposed to”. So in this example, I chose to stress myself out and destroy my day over something that was completely out of my control. It doesn’t matter if I thought it should have worked out perfectly, it didn’t. Instead, If you choose to live your life from a place of intending certain things, but accepting what happens no matter what, your stress levels and suffering will decrease dramatically. This is what people mean when they say surrender. Just be ok with life flowing in the way it wants to flow. Agree with it instead of disagreeing.
Is this something that is mastered overnight? Hell no it is not. But this is what I mean by a mindfulness practice. Be mindful of what happens in your mind and do your best to correct it when you get to a state that you don’t like. That’s all mindfulness is. It’s not complicated. You are in the driver’s seat. You can work on how you feel about things. You don’t need a meditation practice or some gigantic routine to practice mindfulness. You just need to be willing to be aware of your thoughts and humble enough to be willing to change them.
If someone in your network always pisses you off, what makes you think they won’t try to piss you off again tomorrow? Of course they will. Are you going to choose to get irritated by that every single day until one of you collapses? Or will you make a choice to change something inside yourself so that you can end that cycle of pain?
When life becomes less of a “it should be this way” type of lifestyle and more like “I will flow with what comes my way and am willing to learn from the challenges”—that’s when transformation truly happens.
Can you still enjoy your comfort food? Absolutely, but when you’re in a good mental state, you’ll almost never overdo it. You’ll only eat half the burger, or choose to fast in-between, or choose a healthier side option. And it won’t seem like you’re giving something up, instead it will seem like you’re doing something wonderful for yourself.
Relaxing your mind with the practice of acceptance and asking yourself “what can I learn from this situation” instead of resisting it and saying “this shouldn’t have happened to me”, is your real ticket out of hell. Resistance leads to more suffering, and avoidance always makes us pay the price in a different way, so if you think about it, we’re never truly avoiding, we’re just trading one bad feeling off for another.
I know this may not have been the easiest episode to get through for some people but you have no reason to feel bad. If you want to change, you can and I’m very confident that this works because like I said, I have struggled with my weight for most of my life and tried almost all the diets, workouts, you name it.
A note for the 1% of people who are in the category where they take certain medications that promote weight gain. I feel for you here as some of my best friends are in this boat right now and it is REALLY hard, nearly impossible to lose weight. I’m not going to tell you what to do here for legal reasons but what I will say is this. There’s a reason that you are on that medication and if you dig deep enough, you will probably find healthier alternatives to manage your situation, that will make it easier for you to drop the weight. It’s all about being willing and non-resistant. Research and openness goes a long way here.
This is not an easy road, but it does work and it doesn’t just fix your weight, it will essentially fix your life. This type of inner work is what changes your life experience. It’s not something you can buy or take a shortcut to. It’s reserved for the people who understand that this work rewards you with one of the greatest gifts. Peace through your life. It does work, and it will for you if you make time for it. If you want more in depth ways to change your thinking around including:
Examples of things to do in life that support this change
&
New habits that you may enjoy exploring to help change your thinking, I’d be happy to write about some that have worked for me. Let me know in the comments or send me a message.
If you’d rather have a coach work with you to help you make these changes, feel free to send me a message and we’ll talk about the best path for you. I have a variety of different ways I work with people to foster change and I won’t recommend anything to you until I feel I understand your situation so we’ll need to talk a little bit first.
Thanks for tuning in today and have a beautiful rest of your day.
As always, if you need clarification on anything or have additional questions, my door and DMS are always open. You can also visit my website by clicking the photo below. Substack subscribers get 20% off all my services for a limited time. DM me to get that discount.
THANK YOU for tuning in, supporting my work, and taking this journey with me to becoming a better you. Self-Growth is one of the best things we can gift ourselves with in this lifetime and I am honored that you recognize this podcast can and will help you do just that. Please feel free to leave a comment on what you thought of this episode. You’re welcome to share any struggles that you’re going through of clarification needed to better understand the episode. I respond to all comments and care about your opinions and experiences.
I’ll see you all next Tuesday where we will explore another common relationship problem and how to best approach it!
A happy week to you all!
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