Weight Loss Tips: How Do You Talk to Yourself?

Hey everyone. It's Dr. Angela. It is so good to be here with you today. Thank you for joining me. If you're joining me live post me a note, and if you're joining me later, push me a note. Let me know that you're here and you're watching either on YouTube or on Facebook. So super excited to be here today.

Today I wanted to talk to you about something that's very, very important in your weight loss journey. And this is something that you might not really think about. We think so much about what we're eating and what we're drinking and how that's affecting our insulin levels and all of that sort of thing. But I wanted to talk to you today about how you think, and specifically how you think about yourself. This is a huge, huge key, because losing weight is not just about what you eat, but KEEPING weight off is about HOW you think about yourself and how you think in general.

So let's talk about this because it is so important. Here's what I want you to know. I want you to think about the last diet that you went on. Let's say that you you had looked in the mirror and you had put some clothes on and they didn't fit you. You were just looking in the mirror and you just felt totally disgusted with yourself. And you're like, I gotta do something about this. This does not feel good. And there's an element of self-loathing there and self criticism.

Let's say that you join Jenny Craig and you get a month's worth of Jenny Craig meals, (which are very expensive by the way). So that you've put a lot of investment into this. And so you're eating the Jenny Craig meals and you're weighing yourself every day or maybe every other day, something like that. You're really focused on how's this working out. Every time you look in the mirror, you just have this sense of, 'Oh, I can't believe this happened.' How could I have let myself go like this? Just lots and lots of negative thoughts. And let's say several months, go by. You're at a point where you've plateaued or you're at your goal weight. Now the question becomes, how are you going to maintain that? Because what you've done is you've basically whipped yourself into shape on a special diet, and you've criticized yourself the whole way through. And this is where fear can really set in, Oh my God. Like I have to keep doing this. What if I fall off the deep end - how am I gonna manage all of this?

And so then there's all of this fear, these thoughts, these negative thought patterns are going to continue with you. Even when you are at a normal weight. And so it doesn't work long term because who wants to think like that forever and ever - after while you're just like, screw it. I give up, right? I have done this before personally, I have been on these crazy diets and I have self criticized myself and self-loathing myself all the way down. And when I get to the end, yeah, my body looks better, but I don't feel any better about myself. I am still very self critical and self-loathing. And so I realized after my last one, I had been in enough counseling by that point in time that I realized I don't want to continue to hate myself like this. I've got to figure out a different way!

So that's what I want to talk to you about today. I'm wondering if anybody - type a yes in the comments - if you have ever lost weight that way before, if you have ever like bullied yourself into weight loss - type a yes in the comments. I want you to think about this a little bit differently this time. So what if you were to actually love yourself thin instead of hating yourself, then can you imagine the difference that that might make? What if you were to treat yourself with kindness and grace, the whole way that you were in the weight loss process? So let's think about it losing weight and keeping it off is actually about a lot more than what you eat. It's about learning how to love yourself. It's a process in which you become really attuned to yourself, to your needs, to your relationships.

It is such a much, much deeper process than just burning fat! There is so much more to the whole weight loss process. So it's a way of learning how to think kindly about yourself and standing as a force in the world really that says, I care about my health and what I want matters.

So that's how you want to think about this! I have some tips for you today. Just to kind of get you started on this. The first thing I want you to do is I want you to get a pen and paper. As you think about the weight loss programs that you've been on in the past, get that pen and paper and write down what was it like for you. Was there a lot of self criticism and self-loathing as you were going through that process? Were you kind to yourself? My guess is that if you regained the weight, that probably your thinking processes were self-critical, self-loathing, maybe even disgusted. I see that a lot, unfortunately. Might've been a lot of deprivation, a lot of whipping yourself into shape, kind of thinking.

Step number two is to just go through a 24 hour period. You can actually start right now and think about the kinds of things that you say to yourself on a regular basis. Put your observer hat on. So so you're just sort of watching yourself as you go through your day. How do I talk to myself? What kinds of things do I say, am I critical of myself? Am I giving myself a break? Am I telling myself things about how wonderful I am and how talented I am and what kinds of things that I do that are awesome? Or am I telling myself, I should have done this? I should have done that.

And here's what I want you to know. I don't have the right statistic on this, but I was listening to a podcast the other day, and this woman mentioned that she had read a study where they had had toddlers with microphones around their necks and they recorded everything that was said to these toddlers. And they discovered that 80% of what toddlers hear from adults are critical things. Things like don't do this. That's bad, stay out of that. And very few things, relatively speaking, that toddlers hear are things that are loving, and gentle, and kind. So we're sort of trained this way from a very young age to be critical of ourselves. You don't want to beat yourself up about that, but you do want to recognize that as a powerful force in your psyche.

And lastly, I have a program - an online program called Journey Beyond Weight Loss. It's a 12 week course with a membership. And in Journey Beyond Weight Loss, I teach everything that you need to know to lose weight and keep it off. And we actually spend about four out of the 12 weeks plus lots of other support, helping you turn around the way that you think about yourself as you're going through this process. And that part of it, people who have been through Journey Beyond Weight Loss, that part of it, they say, is the most foundational piece, the most transformative piece!

I want you to know that there are certain tools and techniques and processes that you can go through in order to learn how to talk to yourself differently so that your weight loss effort will be consistent. And so that you won't end up gaining your weight back!

I hope you'll consider signing up for that. It's opening up again in September. So there will be emails flying when it's ready, when we're ready to get going again. I only open it up for a few days because as people are going through the process, I want to be able to devote my time and energy to helping them and supporting them through the 12 week course and beyond.

So that's all I have for you today. Remember - how you think matters!

I do want to mention if you are wanting to get started on your weight loss journey right now, now is the best time to do it. I want you to know guys COVID is everywhere. And one of the best things that you can do to prevent a bad outcome from COVID is to make sure that your body is healthy. I just read a study the other day, if your blood fats are high, or if your blood sugar is high, or if you have obesity, those are huge, huge, and hypertension as well. Those are huge, huge risk factors for a bad outcome from COVID. And so you can correct this and you can correct it pretty quickly, but you gotta start eating real food and you've got to get off processed foods. The Five Day Sugar Detox Menu is your first step in doing that. So feel free to download it. I put a link in the description, so go for it. And if you have any questions, type them in the comments, and I will talk to you again next week.

Take care. To your health! Bye bye.

Dr. Angela