Beginner’s Mind: The Secret to Changing Your Relationship with Food

Hi, I’m Dr. Deb Butler, and you are listening or watching Thinner Peace in Menopause and Beyond. This is episode
number 463.

Welcome to thinner Peace and Menopause and Beyond. This is Dr. Deb Butler, master life and weight coach, and, as
always, your coach. If you’re a woman and you’re smart and you’re successful and you’ve been struggling with
weight your whole life, and now menopause is making it harder than ever, and you are ready to make this the last
time you ever have to go on a diet again, then this.

Podcast is for you.

Stay tuned.

Well, hello, all my dear friends all over the world. You can see me and you can hear me. If you’re always listening to
me and you would like to see what I’m talking about. I’m on YouTube now at Dr. Debb Butler D R D E B Butler B U T L
E R where you can see this.

And I’m actually going to show you.

Some things that might be very helpful to you that I talk about. So, hello and welcome. If you’ve been listening for a
while, this may be excellent for you. If you’ve never listened before, and this is your frst podcast, this will be excellent
for you. Because one of the things that I would like to introduce to you today, number one, is the concept of a
beginner’s mind. And it’s used a lot in Tibetan and Buddhist meditation about having a beginner’s mind. Now, why do
you think that is? A beginner’s mind means that you don’t know very much and you’re open to learning. If you’ve been
listening to my podcast.

For a long time and you know a lot of the tools and concepts.

That I teach, I want you to.

Have a beginner’s mind when I talk today. Because this may be something that you’ve heard, but maybe you’ve never
seen it or maybe you’ve never heard it in the way that I’m going to talk to you about it today, and maybe it’ll go into
your brain like you’ve never heard it before. If you stay open and have a beginner’s mind, and if you’re here for the
frst time and you already have concepts of what this may or may not be, then I want you to have a beginner’s mind,
too. As if you didn’t even know what I was going to talk about and.

You didn’t have any previous thoughts about.

What this could or couldn’t be a beginner’s mind. Can help your brain download things that it may not have been able
to.

Do before because you’ve gotten in the.

Way of your own brain, which is what Thinner Peace and Menopause is all about. It’s not about what you’re eating
half as much as it is about what you’re thinking, what is going on in that brain of yours. And one of the ways that I
can help you with that is, number one, what I will not do and what I’ve told you I will not do is I won’t tell you what to
eat, I’m not going to tell you what time to eat, and I’m not going to tell you what kind of diet I think you should be on.
If you’re in menopause, I know it’s harder to lose weight for you or you wouldn’t be here. Or maybe you’re a woman
and you’ve been struggling with weight your whole life and menopause is making it harder than ever. I know.

That was me, too. But one of the things that I fgured out, and I’ve been talking in a lot in all of my 463 episodes, is
this, is that if you’ve been waiting for an external source to tell you how to listen to your own body, you may be very
frustrated if you’re in menopause. But what I want to do is help you be more connected to your body because you’re
in menopause. I want you to believe that being in menopause is the best thing that ever happened to you, or the best
transition or the best transformation. Because that’s what this podcast is all about, is how to make this into the best
thing that ever happened to you, even if you’re gaining weight. And I think your weight can be a gift if you’re trying to
lose weight.

It actually can be a gift if you’re willing to have a beginner’s mind and look at this in a different way. So that maybe
it’s not so much what you’re eating, but why you’re eating and if you’re eating when you’re not hungry, which is what
I’m going to talk to you about today and what I’ve been talking about. I want you to be able to get my Jumpstart yout
Weight Loss and Menopause Guide. It’s free and it’s going along with the podcast that I’m doing, especially in these
last few episodes. So in order to get this free guide, all you have to do is go to drdebbutler.com Dr. D R Deb D E B
butler.com change and you.

Can receive this guide and it’s going along with what I’m talking about today. And I’m actually going to show you
some slides on what I want to talk about to even make it clearer, since now not only do you have to listen to me, you
can see me. So you can see this also if you don’t want to get the guide. So one of the things that I always talk about,
if you’ve been listening for a long time or this is your frst time, is that if you’re in menopause, your appetite has been
decreasing for quite a while now. The interesting concept about this, because I think a lot of you have heard this. But
if your appetite is increasing and your metabolism is decreasing, really your appetite should be decreasing too.

And yet so many people tell me that they feel like their appetite is getting bigger, they’re hungrier than ever. Maybe
that’s what you think, too. You’re hungrier than you’ve ever been and you’re gaining weight and you don’t even know
why you’re gaining weight or you know why you’re gaining weight because you’re so hungry all the time. And if you’ve
been trying to follow diet your whole life, or if you’ve just been trying to fgure out what that food is or what the right
food is, I want to give you a nice fresh start. And I want you to use your beginner mind to think about this. Number
one, I’m here to tell you that your metabolism is decreasing. And if your metabolism is decreasing, it’s not a bad
thing.

It just means that your appetite has to be decreasing too, which means you should be eating less because you’re
less hungry. So if you’re hungrier than you’ve ever been, or you’re eating more, or you want to eat more and you’re
trying to restrict yourself, which is making you want to eat even more. Then I want to talk to you about how I work
this. Jumpstart your weight loss and menopause and how simple it can be that you’re.

Going to actually be able to start with me today.

How to jumpstart your weight loss and menopause. And I’m not going to tell you what to eat, and I’m not going to tell
you what time to eat. I’m going to tell you how to think and how to connect back to this beautiful body of yours that
has.

Always been with you only either.

Maybe you’ve Ignored it, or maybe you haven’t liked it. So now’s a good time to not only make friends with your body,
but to be connected to your body, because.

It’S got some wisdom.

And the frst piece of wisdom is this. You’re not as hungry as you’re used to be.

You actually don’t want to eat as much food as you used to eat.

And from all the charts that I’ve.

Seen with my research is that if.

You’Re eating the same amount of food.

That you ate when you were 20 years old and you’re 50 years old.

Now, you would have gained £30 by now.

If you’re eating the same, and that’s because things in your body are changing.

Which is not a bad thing. But you’ve got to be aware that your appetite is going down.

So how can you do that if.

You’Ve never done it before? To connect to that, this mind body connection.

So I want to share with you my Jumpstart guide, and then I’m going to show you my frst concept. Now, I’ve talked
about it many times in my podcast about eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. I know, but I want
to show it to you. And I want to show you the guide that I use. And then I want you to be able to picture it in your own
head when you go to eat your next meal. So, frst of all, I’m going to share with you my guide.

This is Jumpstart, your weight loss in menopause. And this is what the guide looks like. And now I want to show you
what’s inside of it. One of the frst things that you’re going to see is a physical hunger scale. And this physical hunger
scale, which I’ve described in many different ways on my podcast, I really want you to be able to look at it. If you’re
still listening, use the beginner’s mind when I talk to you and I explain this to you, because there’s a very big
difference between thinking you’re hungrier than ever in menopause and actually your appetite is decreasing. How
can the two be so different? And the reason is because you actually had two different scales going on in your brain.

You have the physical hunger scale, the mind body connection of your body giving signals to your brain to tell you
when it’s time to eat. And this is called the physical hunger scale. And the biggest question that anybody ever asked
me when I was going through my own journey to try to fgure out how to lose this Weight in menopause and how to
stop dieting and how to start listening to my body. It all started with somebody asking me, do you know when you’re
hungry and do you know when you’re full? Do you eat when you’re hungry and do you eat when you’re full? Now,
hunger, if you’re looking at my hunger scale, goes from a 0 to a negative 10, which means you can be neutral.

Your stomach can be empty at a zero or your stomach can be so empty at a negative 10 that you’re starving. And in
between are a bunch of numbers. So hunger can go anywhere between from a 0 to a negative 10. Now, what I am
asking you to do is to start fguring out what a negative 2 in your body feels like, which is the signal to eat. Now,
listen, when you were born and when you were a kid, you didn’t need the scale to tell you when to eat and when to
stop, because you were wired to do this. We’re all wired to do this. And the reason that we’re not connected to this
decrease in appetite is because we have somehow lost the connection with our body. We’ve stopped listening to it.

We’ve stopped listening to hunger scales and fullness because we started paying attention to external things. Maybe
it’s a diet. Maybe it’s somebody telling you something. Maybe it’s somebody telling you should never eat something
again and you want to eat it. I remember thinking that hunger meant I was losing weight. So it’s like, how hungry
could I get? It was almost like it felt like.

It was a good thing.

So I learned to ignore my physical hunger. If I was following something and it said I can only eat at certain times and
I was hungry, I learned to ignore that hunger because I had to wait because there was something wrong with me,
because I had to lose weight, because I didn’t have the control that other people had, when in reality, I just lost the
connection to my body. And maybe that’s where you are, too. You’ve just lost the connection. And maybe
menopause is a great time to get that connection back. So we’re just going to start with, are you hungry and are you
full? And you’re looking at my chart and.

You see the scale from 0 to.

A negative 10, and then we look.

At the negative 2, and the feeling.

Of that is going to be the tiniest whisper or a rumble of hunger, but it’s not growling.

That’s going to be your signal to start eating. Now, a negative one might feel more.

Like what I was Saying before more of a whisper. It’s time to start thinking about what you’re going to be eating or
preparing your meal. It’s really difcult. If you go out to eat and.

You’Re below a negative 2.

Let’s say you’re a negative 3, negative 4, negative 5. If you get too hungry, there’s a.

Good chance that your brain’s going to.

Say something that has no nutritious value.

Looks so good because it’s going to.

Increase your cravings, right? Because you’re extra hungry. When you’re extra hungry, your brain goes out the
window.

And cookies sound really good. So you don’t want to wait too long to eat.

So we’re going to start paying attention.

To what a negative two feels like. And in your body, as I did in my body, and the way I wrote it here is that you
probably going to maybe feel a little grumble, but it’s not growling and you probably could go longer. That’s a good
sign that it’s time to eat. You don’t want to wait. You might be used to making yourself wait. So you’re going to start
using your beginner’s mind to understand.

One, it’s time to eat.

What this negative two feels like, it’s.

A rumble, but not a growling.

And maybe even you start feeling like.

Just a drop tired.

Or you start feeling like your brain’s just not working as well. Or maybe that means that you’re too hungry. If your
brain gets like that, you need to fnd out for yourself what it feels like in your body. This negative two. Or maybe you
let yourself go too long. Be curious about what that feels like in your body. That’s the whole thing right now, is you
want to start being curious so that you can get connected to your body and your body signals of hunger. Because
signals from your body aren’t always just about hunger, right? It’s about tired, it’s about pain, it’s about all the things.
It’s about your intuition, your emotions live in your body too. So listening to your body is the best connection that
you’re ever going to make.

If you haven’t had it up until menopause, this is a great time to do it. Because, boy, if you can really realize that you’re
not hungry and you’re eating a lot more, it’s a good time to reevaluate what you want to do. But frst you have to feel
it and know it. Okay, so we talked about what your hunger feels like. Now let’s talk about what your Fullness feels
like. So fullness can go from a 0 to a plus 10, too. Plus 10 is stuffed and 0 is neutral. Plus 10 to me is like
Thanksgiving in the old days for me, where I felt like I had to take my clothes off in order to be comfortable or go to
sleep. That might be a plus 10, but what I’m looking for is a plus two. Now. That’s the connection.

When your body is saying, stop, I’m satisfed. I’m not too full. There’s a lot more room, right? From a plus two to a ten,
there’s a lot more room to eat. And maybe that’s what you felt, but you thought you should fll it up even more. That’s
why when people say they’re full, what do they really mean if it goes from 0 to a plus 10? And I’m making up
numbers, but I believe that there are periods in our body are levels in our stomach where we could stop eating, but it
stretches so we could put more in. And what is the number when it’s time to stop, when you’re satisfed, when you
feel light, when you feel energetic, like you could go for a walk? That’s your plus two.

And what I would love for you to be doing this week is to be connecting to these numbers. I talk about these
numbers a lot in all of my podcasts, but it is the beginning and it is a reminder. And I want you to use that beginner’s
mind to really connect with these numbers this week. And if you’re watching this video, you can look at the numbers
on the scale here, and you can see you want to be in that purple zone, my favorite color. Eating between the twos is
what I call it, but it’s also following your appetite. And one of the things that a lot of my clients will say to me is, oh,
my gosh, I’ve been eating all this food and I really realize I’m not hungry.

What I’m going to talk to you about in my next episode with my Jumpstart guide is the emotional hunger scale,
which is why you’re eating so much more, even though your appetite is decreasing. If you pay attention just to your
appetite, you will automatically just start eating less. And of course, eating mostly fuel food, which is nutritious food
for your body. And we’ll talk about that a little bit more, too. But for this week, you’re looking at the physical hunger
scale and you’re learning how to eat between the twos. You can visualize this in your brain. You can see this if you’re
with me on YouTube. You can look at the scale, but the goal is to eat between the twos.

And if you notice that you want to wait and go below a two or you want to eat more than a plus two, then you
become curious and say to yourself, fascinating. And that’s all. That’s all I want you to do this week. And when we
touch again next week, I’m going to talk about the emotional hunger scale again and we’re going to go over it visually
so you can see it. And then we’re going to put the two together. But just for this week. It’s just the physical hunger
scale and realizing that you don’t need that much food anymore, that you are getting older, your body or metabolism
is decreasing, and it’s perfectly normal and it’s okay. But if you want to keep eating once you know these numbers,
then you’re going to love the next episode.

There’s so much that I can help you without ever telling you what to eat. So listen, everybody. I’m giving you some of
the basics. If you’ve heard it before from me, I want you to use your beginner’s mind and use this week to understand
what your twos are. If you’ve never heard or seen me before, I want you to ask yourself, are you hungry? Are you full?
And start seeing if you can fnd your own numbers and get my jumpstart guide, because it goes with what I’m talking
about right now, regardless if you’re looking at me or listening to me. Now, listen.

I would never, ever end this podcast.

Without saying to you that I want you to start this week and I want you to fnd your twos, but also that I want you to
be very, very kind to yourself. And I will see you next week.

Bye.

Bye. If you’re loving my podcast and you would like some more information to be able to follow along with, then
please go to drdebbutler.com change and you can get a free copy of my companion book that goes with this
podcast that I refer to in many different episodes. That is drdebbutler.com change C H A N G E.