Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. It's Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility. And today we are talking about discipline. It's a word you hear a lot in the losing weight spheres. And the idea is that you need it, you have to have it, you should have it. Discipline is very important. But I don't know about you, I've always thought about this word.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:28]:
It's like a discipline. There's a tightness there. When I hear the word discipline, my body stiffens. And it reminds me of the other sort of diet mentality. Words like restriction or deprivation. Discipline, it feels the same. It's an idea that sort of depends on willpower, which is finite. And another word that doesn't feel good, that feels sort of tight.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:58]:
There's force involved. When I think of discipline, I think of it as an external force, like following rules. And especially with dieting, it could be artificial rules, rules that don't come from you. We're sort of giving away our thinking or our decision making, and we're just saying, oh, I'm going to follow these artificial rules that someone else made up. And then we set up this really terrible feeling thing of we should be doing it so we're doing it wrong, we're not doing it right. And I never like shoulds because there's always an inherent judgment in that doing it right, wrong. And when there's a should, there's also an implied I don't want to. So then there's an external rule.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:53]:
You don't really want to do it, and you're forcing yourself to do it. That whole setup does not work. So I remember I actually wrote this down years ago because I've always wondered about discipline, because we do want to be able to do things. We want to do that. That's something we do need. And if we're working towards a goal around here, that's weight loss, then there is something we need to help us do what we want to do. And so the definition that I came across was remembering what you want. That the definition of discipline.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:42]:
And I wish I knew who said this. So I wrote it down, but not the person who said this. I apologize, person who said this, but it's brilliant. Discipline equals remembering what you want. That was okay, that I could get behind. And then I recently heard a teacher of mine talk about the fact that she doesn't connect with the word discipline either. She gets things done with something else, and that is desire. And I thought, exactly.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:20]:
Desire is remembering what you want. So there it is. The loop is closed, and that is what we're going to talk about today, because we want to be able to get things done, our big goals, but we want to do them, or I submit that we want to do them through desire, not discipline. Desire pulls you towards the thing and discipline pushes you towards the thing. That image of pulling and pushing I got from Wayne Dyer a long time ago. And it, it's such a powerful image to me because the image for discipline pushing you is like against your will, like someone's pushing you towards something that's. And you're fighting it. But being pulled towards something, attracted, magnetized in an effortless, willing way, that's what we want.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:21]:
It's a big shift. If we're very used to the idea of discipline, forcing must, you know, harsh, punishing. And I get it where that comes from. Our society talks about that all the time. No pain, no gain, all that kind of idea. But there really, really, really, really is another way. And it feels so much better. It's not perfectly comfortable.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:52]:
We're never going to get changed. That feels completely effortless, but it helps if it's coming from desire, from inside you. And the foundation of being motivated by desire rather than discipline is a love for ourselves and therefore our desires, right? Because if we genuinely love something, we want it to get what it wants, we respect its desires and we want to help it. So if we have ideally deep love for ourselves, then our desires are important and that's very motivating. And the way we can grow to depend on ourselves to achieve what we want is to have a trusting relationship with ourselves. So we start with love and we grow with trust. Love and trust allow for desire and fulfillment. And I know, I can feel that it sounds airy fairy, but it's.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:14]:
This is real, this is how it works. And when we shift to that way of thinking, it is a more loving way, but it's a powerful way and it does feel better along the way. So how do we do this? How do we move from the discipline model, which uses external forces, to a desire model, which is more of an internal calling? We have to learn how to create desire. And it's actually already in the definition above is remembering what we want. So we have to start by knowing ourselves and what we want and respecting that, believing that. And I started by saying, knowing yourself and what you want because you have to really know what it is you want, not because externally people told you you should want it, but what you actually want for yourself. This is where the love and trust comes in, because we have to understand the Actual desire, our true desire, Not a fake desire, not something we don't actually want, but we think we should have. It has to be motivated from a true desire.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:51]:
So knowing yourself and then really understanding what you want, and when you do, you have a really good reason for wanting what you want. And when you like your reason and you are motivated by the reason, it's so much easier to do the things necessary to achieve your goals. And one example. I don't know if I've told this story before, but this was so many years ago in medicine. They were teaching motivational interviewing, which has some of this. It's tapping into someone's desire, why they would want something to. Why they would want to change a behavior. And the doctor teacher was talking about a patient she had, who she was talking to about smoking.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:47]:
And she wanted her to stop smoking. That was. That was the goal. But she wasn't going to force it, right? She wanted to understand what might be motivating for this particular woman. And so she had the technique of talking to her and asking her questions. And what came up was the lung cancer, the terrible death, the copd, the like, emphysema, the not being able to breathe, none of that really was motivating at all. What was motivating is that she had this big, beautiful white hair. She was older, had beautiful white hair.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:21]:
And all the smoking was yellowing the ends of it. And the idea that she wouldn't have yellowing hair anymore was very motivating. It's funny, I just heard myself say it and thinking, oh, people may think that that's like a shallow reason. I've never thought that. It's just her reason. Like, that was what was motivating for her to stop smoking. And all I think of is, hallelujah, she found a reason. It's fantastic because it was.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:57]:
It was so motivating. She. She could see that it would change. And if she could see that she could be with the hair that she wanted. I just. I always love that story because it's so clear that we just need to find our reason. And when we do, we can be pulled towards the result rather than pushed. And it does not mean everything feels good all the time.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:28]:
But when you have your reason, when you have. When you're remembering what you want, it's easier to do. And an example I just thought of is injections for an IVF cycle. No one really wants to do injections. We don't want to do them, but we love the reason to do them, and so we do them. That's the same idea. And in fact, what's interesting about that is I bet people don't even think of not doing them. Like, it's not a pleasant thing, but you just do it because it's so natural in your brain that the motivation is so clear, so compelling, that you do things that are less than desirable because you want the outcome.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:19]:
And it feels easy to do it because you want the outcome. That's the thing we want to tap into for any sort of behavior change. And we can use that idea that it should feel that easy or that compelling for behavior changes, for weight loss. Another way of thinking about discipline versus desire is this idea of I have to do this versus I want to or I choose to do this. So, and this is not fake word games. So it's not like I hate broccoli, but if I want to lose weight, I have to eat broccoli. And I just say, I choose to eat broccoli. That's not what we're doing here.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:11]:
Because what goes together with this desire is building the trusting relationship with ourselves. We can't do it without that. And the trusting relationship means that you respect yourself, you are caring about yourself, and you will only do things that you're willing to do. So it may be that you want to include more vegetables, but you hate broccoli. So we're not going to force ourselves to eat broccoli if we hate it. Maybe there's a different vegetable that you like, and so we'll add it. You also get to have the other things you like for dinner. Let's say you've decided that you're going to add vegetables, and maybe you love carrots.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:55]:
So I choose to have carrots. But see, there's the both. There's. I am choosing to do something different that I don't normally do, but I'm choosing it where it's palatable to myself. I'm not forcing myself to do something I don't want to do. There's also the nuance of I have to versus I choose to. With, like, we can go back to injections. You are, in fact, choosing to do them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:28]:
You also have to do them. But when we do use words, because words can be powerful, you are reminding yourself that you're choosing to do it because you have a bigger reason that you like. I've talked about this concept before of using the words I choose to, and it really can make it an impact. The building a trusting relationship with yourself is really an important piece of this. We build the relationship because we want to be able to count on ourselves doing what we say we'll do more and more and more each time. Not going to be perfect at it. We're not going to beat ourselves up. But we also have to give ourselves a reasonable request.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:26]:
We can't ask of ourselves to run a five minute mile if we can't walk for 20 minutes without huffing and puffing. We have to be reasonable in our ask. That's how we set up a trusting relationship. We ask reasonable things, we do the things and we progress. We won't do things that we can't do. And if we ask ourselves to do things we can't do, we're damaging the relationship with ourselves. And that's where that discipline idea comes in. That you're forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do and you can't do do, and that damages the relationship.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:11]:
We always want to build the trusting relationship. And so we have to be fair about what we're asking ourselves to do so that we can in fact follow through with it. And then when we keep doing that, it's like a cycle. We can do more because we've asked ourselves reasonably. And when we learn that we're reasonable with ourselves, then we're willing to do the ask. That's building the trusting relationship. And when it comes to weight loss, we set ourselves up for success by making it possible to do what we say we'll do. So that's choosing foods we love.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:55]:
We do it with the hunger scale. So we're eating when we're hungry, we're stopping when we're satisfied, not full. But we're choosing foods we love. We're not taking away all carbs and we're not, you know, eating dry spinach leaves. That just doesn't work. I know there are a lot of diets out there that will tell you exactly what to eat and how much. You may not like that. That's why that doesn't work.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:19]:
Choosing foods you love works because then you can work on the hunger scale aspect of it and you're enjoying the process, enjoying eating. And when you show yourself that you can lose weight while you're choosing foods you love, you are more willing to try other foods, try other things, because you can always go back. You're allowed, I'm putting that in air quotes, to choose anything that makes a big difference. And when things don't go perfectly, when we're building the trusting relationship with ourselves, but we don't follow through for whatever reason, we want to be understanding and curious instead of punishing. That's how we build the relationship. Because if and when we make a mistake, it's not the end of the universe. We examine what happened. Was the ask too big? Was, was there another circumstance that happened that we didn't anticipate? We're understanding and curious about what went on.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:32]:
And then we can do it differently next time, we can do a different ask next time, we can handle it differently next time. That's how we improve and progress, and that's how we build the relationship that we want. When we do this, building the relationship and then remembering and then knowing ourselves and respecting the desires that we have, we're building a skill that lasts forever. A trusting relationship is the best tool you can have. Not only does it feel good, but then anything you want to do, you can do because you're trusting yourself to be able to get it done. And you figured out a way that works for you. That skill is priceless. And you can learn that skill in this way.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:29]:
With weight loss, you can learn it in many ways, but weight loss this way will get you there. And so discipline is not needed. When you function from desire, when you're remembering what you want, when you're believing the desires that you have and then moving towards them, being pulled towards the fulfillment of them through a trusting relationship with yourself. Punishment, discipline, restriction, deprivation is not needed. And that's such good news. So sort of, in summary, discipline is part of the diet mentality suite of feelings. Restriction, deprivation, external rules force punishment. And they are not useful because they're temporary at best, and they erode the relationship you have with yourself, which means that they're actually damaging long term.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:28]:
Instead, we want to use desire. We learn to cultivate desire by knowing ourselves and what we want for ourselves, and then building a trusting relationship with ourselves to move towards fulfillment of those desires. And we do that by setting ourselves up for success, making it possible to do what we say we want to do by being realistic with the things we ask of ourselves. That is such an important piece. Weight loss feels easier and lasts when we're motivated by internal wants rather than external rules. Let me help you do this. Lose weight with me. I'm effaniefinemd on social and you can go to weightlossforfertility.com and just click the lose weight with me button and we will be in touch.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:30]:
I am sending you so much love. And until next week.
