Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. It's Dr. Stephanie Fein here with weight loss for fertility and still the beginning of the new year. Are you still feeling the freshness, the newness? It's kind of a fun feeling. So no discouragement there. And sometimes weight loss is part of it. So that's why you're here, or you've been with me a while, or you started in the holidays. My favorite time to start weight loss.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:25]:
But you're here now, and today we're going to talk about something that a client sparked, and it was amazing. We were having a session, we talk on the phone, and we uncovered the thought because we were talking about the hunger scale and using it. You know, we go from we eat at negative 2, we stop at positive 2. Negative 2 is just hungry. We don't let ourselves get over hungry. And positive two is satisfied, not full. And a lot of people have. The part where they're tweaking or working with the most is positive, too.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:59]:
You know, I say that and, like, half. Also the people that I work with have a hard time with eating at just hungry. A lot of times we're very used to waiting until we're way too hungry. The problem with that is that it leads to overeating if we wait too long for it. Negative three, negative four. We eat to positive three, positive four. It's. It's just a compulsion at that point.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:21]:
It's very hard to stop. This is why we eat at negative two and stop at positive two. So we were talking, and we found the thought that my client had was, there's still room, which made it hard to stop at positive two, because positive two is satisfied, not full. So full, where we're uncomfortable, we're starting to be slightly uncomfortable. Means there won't be any more room left, right? That's the image that there's a stomach and there's more room in the stomach, so we have to shove stuff in there until it's full. But we're changing that when we start using the hunger scale. And that's how we stop overeating and still have what we want and what we enjoy. And there's no restriction.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:11]:
There's no deprivation. We're just stopping at satisfied, not full. And of course, the positive about that is there's no discomfort. We're never too full. We can do anything we want after we eat. It's not a problem. We can walk around, we can jump around. We can have sex.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:28]:
We can do, you know, sit. We can go for a stroll. We can do anything because it's Very easy. Since we're not uncomfortable, no need to lie down after a meal because we're stopping at satisfied an apple. So when we've discovered this, there's still room. I hadn't thought of that in so long. It was such a good thought to uncover. And so that's what prompted this podcast.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:54]:
Today, we're gonna be talking about thoughts that sabotage weight loss, and that is one of them. So if it's a habitual thought, then of course it's gonna compel us to eat, right. If we believe that thought, there's still room. Oh, we better put more. And that's something interesting about these thoughts is it's only a partial thought, right? There's still room. The dot, dot, dot after that is so I better eat more. And you'll see that in the other thoughts that I have as examples, because we could still have that thought. There's still room.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:30]:
And then we could say, there sure is. That's great. But that's not what's going on in our brain. And our brain is, there's still room. I must put more in. And the point of this episode is to show you that there are. We're always having thoughts in our mind, and it's okay to have thoughts that, you know, these thoughts that sabotage our weight loss. But if we notice them, then we can adjust them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:59]:
We can tweak them. We can see them for what they are and choose differently. So we can turn this one. There's still room. And instead of so I better fill it up, we can be like, there's still room. Good job. That's positive, too. You did it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:16]:
High five. You're amazing. I love you. Let's go do the rest of our day. But the only way we can start to do that is if we notice the problematic thoughts that sabotage our weight loss that lead to overeating. And these thoughts, these ones that sabotage. And I'm going to go into some examples, make changing how we eat really difficult, but undetectably so. We're sort of like, if we aren't aware of the thoughts, then we just get stuck or stopped or have difficulty in making certain decisions and we don't know why.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:56]:
And then our default is that we blame ourselves. We think we're terrible, lazy, whatever adjective you want to put in there, and that gets us nowhere and feels awful. So we want to bring these to light and know that they're just habit thoughts. We picked them up somewhere along the way. Childhood, school, college even. I mean, lots of different places. And they've just become habits. But we can change them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:27]:
They became habits. We can unhabit them. We can change them so that they don't drive our behavior in a way that sabotages something that we want. And the way this works, and I've talked about this before, and I will talk about it over and over and over again because it's so important, is the cognitive behavioral theory, which is thoughts create feelings, which create actions. Another way that I talk about it is the model. My teacher, Brooke Castillo, talks about the model, and she says that circumstances lead to thoughts, which leads to feelings, which leads to actions, which leads to results. So you can see that the thoughts end up being really important. And the good news there is that's a place that we can have some agency.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:22]:
We can change that. We can't really change anything that happens between the thought and the feeling. So if we have a thought, it creates a feeling, but the thought itself we can change. And that's really powerful. And so that's what we're talking about today. Here are nine examples of thoughts that lead to overeating and then how we can think of them differently. And this alone, if we just notice these thoughts and think about them differently, you will lose weight. Just like this.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:00]:
If we work together, there's more there, and there's lots of positive podcast episodes for you to listen in on the ways we do that. But these thoughts alone, if we're aware of them, and then we can choose differently, you will lose weight. Add in the hunger scale, and you're on. Go for it. Okay, so here they are. There's still room. That was the first one. And when you say that to yourself, if you notice it, you can ask yourself, but how are you feeling? So are you still hungry? Maybe you're not hungry anymore.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:37]:
There's still room doesn't necessarily mean you're still hungry. And that's what we want to discover. So we're going to use this thought there's still room as a trigger for a question. Am I hungry? And what's interesting about there's still room is there's a feeling in there, right? Like, I mean, we can't visually know that there's still room, but there's a feeling in there. And so what we're going to start to do is put numbers to it. If we're using the hunger scale, is that a plus two? Is that a plus one? Is that a plus three? When we're saying there's still room, does that mean the room until it's uncomfortable, or does it Mean we're hungry. All we need to do is define this for ourselves, give it a number. Look at that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:28]:
And this is how we. I'm ratcheting, like turning the dial. This is how we adjust. We fine tune our hunger scale. And so that's what I recommend with there's still room. Besides the thing I talked about before, which is turning it into a positive, there's still room. So it's a perfect time to stop rather than there's still room, I better keep eating. That's the shift that we're looking for, but we need to be aware of there's still room first.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:00]:
And then we can go forward. Another one that sabotages weight loss. This thought is, it's so good, it's so good. Has your brain ever said that? And this is another one where it's so good, I better keep eating or I want to keep eating or I should keep eating or I'm going to keep eating. Because to handle this, to think about it differently, there's no need to argue with that. It is so good. But just because it's good doesn't mean we have to keep eating. I know that can be like a, like a mind blown situation, like, but if it is good, that means I have to keep eating it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:48]:
It doesn't. And one of the ideas here is that we only taste the first three bites of a food. After that, the taste buds are sort of overwhelmed and it, it loses its intensity of taste. So the truth is you're getting the good parts in the first couple of bites. So after that it's not as good actually. So these are just some ideas to have roll around in there when your brain offers up the it's so good thought. The other way of thinking about it is if it's so good, great, save some for tomorrow or later or when you're hungry again. And when we're saying it's so good and we use that as a reason to overeat, what we're deciding is that our taste buds are more important than our stomach or the rest of our body for that matter.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:50]:
But even in this moment, if we're overeating, our stomach will be uncomfortable. So we let our taste buds enjoy, but the rest of our body has to suffer for it. And that's just another question to have in our mind. We want comfort for our whole body because not only is there physical discomfort when we overeat, there's also the psychological discomfort. We work on that here to not beat ourselves up. But often there will be guilt, remorse, that sort of thing. We don't have to have that at all. We can enjoy the food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:26]:
It is good. Great. That's another thing. We can say it's so good and put a period at the end of that sentence instead of, so I have to eat more. It's so good. Aren't I lucky? I get delicious food. It's so good. I'm going to have this again tomorrow.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:44]:
It's so good. I'm going to come back here again. There's other ways of thinking about these, and we can, when we're aware of this thought, it's so good. We can use it as a trigger to enjoy the moment and either prolong it by having it again another time or thinking about how we want our body to feel afterwards, which is always what we're doing with the hunger scale. Thoughts that are similar are, one more bite. That thought may come in just one more bite because of the it's so good. So it's related to that. And I would handle it the same way.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:29]:
I just talked about it's so good. Another thought is, I just love food. Or I love food. That would be a similar thing of we. It's wonderful to love food. But it doesn't mean that. The second part of that sentence that's sort of silent is, so I have to eat a lot of it. We don't have to eat a lot of it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:52]:
We can eat the right. The amount that's right for our body. And that's where we're going with this. Another thought is, I can't waste food again, so I better eat all of this. I think I've touched on this one before because it's so pervasive. It's such a. We really do have this in our brain. But we can expand our thinking of wasting food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:22]:
So first of all, to me now, it's not a waste if I've enjoyed the food. And especially like at a restaurant, let's say if I buy the food, I'm paying for that amount of food. That does not mean I have to chew and swallow all that food because it's uncomfortable in my body and it won't make me feel good. I'm paying for the opportunity to have some of this food. Now. What's really nice is that we start eating the amount that works for our body. We often have, like, I don't know, let's say half left and we can have it again. It works so well.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:55]:
It's like the opposite of wasting. We get two meals out of it as opposed to one. So I love thinking about food that way, that it's in fact not a waste and we can have it again for another meal. The other thing, and I alluded to this, is I'm paying for the opportunity to be in this moment with family or friends or eat this food at this particular time. And it's not for the each ounce of whatever the food it is that were there. It's paying for the experience. So wasting is not. Is not even applicable at that point.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:33]:
We're just having this experience, and it includes that they give you this much and you eat what you need for your body. Again, that's the hunger scale. And that idea of if we chew and swallow stuff that our body doesn't need, then we're the garbage can rather than putting it in the garbage can. It's wasted either way because it's either stored as fat on our body or it goes into the garbage. So that's wasting food. Another thought that can sabotage us and have us overeating is I deserve a treat. I deserve a treat. Now, this one in particular I think of as, you're not a trained animal.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:20]:
What you deserve is praise or validation or rest or celebration or fun or joy. You've done something that was hard. That's usually how we use this. And you deserve a treat. And we definitely want to uncouple deserving or an accomplishment for something difficult. We want to uncouple that from food. Because I hope in your life you're doing lots of things that you're interested in doing that feel challenging in a good way and that you accomplish them and you get to feel proud of yourself. Feeling proud is amazing in and of itself.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:03]:
And we certainly can attach something telling a friend, you know, giving ourselves a high five, having I always look at the confetti on my desk because that's such a fun way of acknowledging something. But also you can take a break outside. Like, there's so many things that we deserve that is not food for food. We eat it when we're hungry, we stop when we're satisfied. And uncoupling that from using it to sort of motivate yourself is really valuable. That really helps us stop overeating because it's not connected to effort or pride. It's only connected to am I hungry and have I had enough? Another thought that can sabotage our weight loss is I want something sweet. It's similar to I deserve a treat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:04]:
And with this one, I always like to check in with the hunger scale because often I want something sweet. Like it's, it's, it really feels like a thought. It's not. It's not usually prompted by the hunger scale. It's usually like a sensation, a sense, and it's a thought, I want something sweet. And at that point, it's time to check in with the hunger scale. Are you hungry? If not, you may need something else, a break. You may need a walk, you may need to just get up.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:38]:
You may need to look at something far away rather than something close, like a computer. But. And it also could be a habit of having sugar at that time of day, but it might be hunger. And if it is amazing, have your snack. Ideally, you're having the snack you planned and it has some protein in it and there could be sweetness involved there too. But this is if it's a thought that's really habitual and sabotaging your weight loss. That idea of I want something sweet versus I'm hungry and potential I'm hungry. And we don't always want to only give ourselves sugar.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:19]:
Combining anything with protein will always make it last longer. And that's our goal when we're eating, when we're hungry, stopping when we're satisfied. We want something in our stomach to fuel us and to last as long as it can. And something with protein does that. But that's I'm hungry and want something sweet is different than I want something sweet. That to me goes back to the I deserve a treat or I want a treat or something like that. Another thought that can sabotage weight loss is just this once or it's not a big deal. And these can sabotage only if they're habitual.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:56]:
If you're having them very often, if you're saying it's not a big deal or just this once all the time. If you're saying just this once, you know, once a year, that's clearly not an issue. But if you're saying this all the time, multiple times a day, every day, then that's something to catch as a thought that leads to actions that don't give us the results that we want. Because if it's a habit thought, it adds up, right? Just this once, just this once, just this once, it adds up. Daily menu is a fix for this. That's something that we do here at Weight Loss for Fertility. And we want the decision making part of your brain deciding what you'll eat, not the impulsive toddler part of your brain. So you can always have anything you want to eat always.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:46]:
And when we eat with kind, conscious decision making, we lose Weight giving the decision making to a toddler will get us that toddler diet, which I mean just even characteristically, even cartoon wise, we know it's lollipops and candies and cookies, right? The grownup is the one who feeds the toddler well, and that's the part we want our, we need the grown up part of our brain making the decisions. Another thought is I'll start tomorrow. And again, if that's habitual, I'll start tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow, I'll restart tomorrow. That's perfectionistic thinking, right? All or nothing. Like I'm either doing it perf or I'm not doing it at all and we're just kicking the can down the road. And if it's habitual, you can see that it's problematic when it comes to getting results. With weight loss, it comes from the idea that weight loss will be painful, but losing weight, the weight loss for fertility weight, is not painful.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:47]:
So we don't have to, you know, gear ourselves up. We don't have to, you know, tighten our muscles and worry about what it's going to feel like. It's not painful. So we don't have to start tomorrow, we can start right now, again here, no problem. And that gets into a whole bunch of other stuff. We talk kindly to ourselves, we are understanding of situations and we evaluate and find out what we can tweak next time. So I'll start tomorrow. If it's habitual is part of all or nothing thinking.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:21:17]:
And that's really important to be aware of. And then the last one we're going to talk about today is I'll never have this again. I'll never have this again. So my first thought is, is that true? Usually in this day and age, we can almost have anything at any time, anywhere delivered to our door. Even so, is it true that I'll never have this again? And when we start using the hunger scale, even if you never have it again, is it worth the discomfort, the physical and emotional discomfort? It's a good question to ask. So it has us savoring and enjoying the moment and being present in the moment and either being okay with not having it again or deciding when you will have it again. Oh, I'm going to have this next Christmas. Oh, I can't wait until summer when I can have it again or I'm going to make a special trip to come out here.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:22:25]:
Because it's not that you can never have it again because you're going on a diet and you'll never be able to have this particular food again. We don't do that around here, so that doesn't hold water. I'll never have this again is very rare. If you're talking about, I don't know, you travel to a far off land, that may be the case, and still just enjoying the moment, that moment is so valuable. Being present there and not having to feel physically uncomfortable because you've put so much of that into your belly, you may never go back to that country again. And that in and of itself is also something you may never do again. But it's funny, when it's about food, we feel like we have to consume, consume, consume. And that's one of the those sneaky thoughts that can lead to overeating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:23:25]:
So that was just nine examples. You may have identified with one or more of those thoughts, which is so great because noticing them is half the battle. Then consider some of the counter thoughts or actions that I gave you here to wiggle the belief not loose. We have these thoughts and when we think them over and over again, they're beliefs. But we can, we can loosen the knot of that belief. But I bet you can come up with some of your own ideas. Like once you're aware of the thoughts that you're thinking that drive overeating, that make it difficult to change your behaviors in the moment when you notice that you can look for the thoughts and then you're well on your way to extinguishing the urges that have you eating past enough or satisfied. This is really powerful stuff.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:24:17]:
I am always here to help with this. Coaching is a great way to become aware of your hidden thoughts. And that's what a good coach does, is show you your thoughts, your brain, so that you can choose new ones, different ones that help instead of hinder. If you're ready to get started, just go to stephaniefinemd.com and click on the Lose weight with me button and that'll have us connected. Or you can DM me on Instagram or @ LinkedIn. I adore you. I'm sending you so much love. Have the best week and I'll see you here next time.
