DOWNLOAD MY FREE GUIDE!
>>> Jumpstart Your Weight Loss In Menopause Guide
Note: Doors are closing soon on my Holiday Essentials class! You can still get in until Wed, Oct 28 at midnight or when the class fills up, whichever is first!
Losing weight is more than just appearance. Once you decide to improve your eating habits, you also become more mindful of your other actions and more present to the people around you. It’s not just about the numbers on the scale. It’s about breaking free from the struggles you have with food and insecurities. Ultimately, transforming relationship with food helps you live a happy life with yourself and the people around you.
In today’s episode, my former client Michelle joins us to discuss how losing weight made her a much better woman, wife, and friend. She also talks about how she became more self-compassionate and gives advice for those who struggle with their eating habits. Michelle is living proof that the benefits of mindful eating go beyond losing weight.
If you want to stop the destructive cycle of overeating and losing weight, this episode is for you.
“The power of that negative two, plus two, and the emotions tied to that is really powerful because it gives you that mind–body connection that I just had been missing for the last ten years. And once I realized and opened up the emotions about that and the whole, you know, ‘not good enough’ thing, it all really just came into place.”
“A reward shouldn’t make you feel bad. It should make you feel empowered; it should make you feel powerful, and strong, and confident.”
“When you’re not sitting there struggling with food or when food isn’t on the top of your mind, you’re focused on what’s at hand and what’s important in life. It frees that mind space.”
“Putting myself first is like the oxygen mask in the plane. You have to help yourself first before you can help others. And I have been more present and more able to help others now that I love myself.”
“If you love yourself, so much else falls into place.”
Michelle is a former client of mine. Before joining my class, she used to eat to stuff down her emotions and talk negatively about herself. Michelle is now a perfect example of why the mind–body connection is so much bigger than just losing weight. She is more confident and in love with herself, and the relationships she has with other people have drastically improved.
If you do, then like and share this episode and subscribe to the podcast!
Are you now excited to start your journey to thinner peace in menopause? If you are, we’d love it if you give us five stars and write a review! You can also provide suggestions on future topics you would like us to talk about on the podcast.
Do you want to learn how transforming relationship with food and the mind-body connection improve your life? Tune in for more episodes at The Thinner Peace in Menopause. You can also help others by sharing what you’ve learned from this episode on social media.
Mini-sessions for you! If you want to find out if you’d be a good fit for my weight loss program, apply for a mini-session here.
You can contact me through my email at drdeb@drdebbutler.com.
Thanks for listening!
To transforming your life for good,
Dr. Deb
Dr. Deb Butler: Welcome to Thinner Peace In Menopause And Beyond. This is Dr. Deb Butler, master life and weight coach. And as always, your coach. Today is episode number 237. Stay tuned.
Hi all my dear friends. How are you today? Have you heard the news? You got it. My class is open and it’s almost full. But if you haven’t signed up, there’s still time. Yes. All you got to do is go to drdebbutler.com/holidays. If you haven’t heard about it, I’ve created a holiday class just for you and here’s why. The reason I did it just for you is because I know what you really want to do. You want to wait until after the holidays and then you want to start. Just like the idea of celebrations, first, you want to go celebrate your birthday or go on vacation or this or that. And then you’re going to start.
And this is what I’m telling you, that kind of mentality is why you go up and down all of these years. So I’ve created this class to break that pattern. We’re gonna start now, during the holidays and by the time January comes, you will be ready to make this the last time, because you will have gone through the holidays staying totally connected to yourself, maybe losing some weight, and more than anything else, learning self compassion, learning how to eat when you’re hungry, and stop when you’re full, holidays or not. What are you waiting for? Go to drdebbutler.com/holidays.
Now to get you a little bit more in the mood, if you’re not yet, I have one of my special students from my class here to talk to you. She agreed to come on and tell you a little bit about her experience working with me in my last class. Her name is Michelle. She’s lovely. I loved working with her. And I just wanted her to share with you, her experience. So please sit back, take a walk, but enjoy this interview with Michelle. And if you’re not ready to join my group after listening to her, listen there’s nothing else I can say. So enjoy. And I’ll get back at the end of her interview and say a few words.
Dr. Deb: Hi, Michelle. Welcome to my podcast.
Michelle: Thank you. Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Dr. Deb: Yes. So the reason that I have you on is because you’re an inspiration to me and because you’re an inspiration to me, I thought you might be an inspiration to everybody else that’s listening today because you just ended my group that I just ended. And I think that what you shared in the group and your experience of where you were when you started and where you are now is worth sharing with other people.
So if you wouldn’t mind, would you mind just saying a little bit about where you were before you started working with me? Did you listen to the podcasts first?
Michelle: Yes, I did. I did. I listened to your podcast for probably six to eight months or so.
Dr. Deb: Yes. Wow. So tell me where you were—like so you were listening for six to eight months, what made you decide to do a group with me, to work with me? What made you decide to do that?
Michelle: You know, I really needed help, quite frankly, to learn how to free up my mind space. The struggles that I had around food and self-confidence and all that was pretty high, I would say. And I just needed help to get that under control and to have more power over my mind than I had. And the self talk wasn’t great. Yes, I just needed help. I mean, I knew I could do it, but I needed some guidance. What I was doing was not working.
Dr. Deb: So you were listening to the podcast for six to eight months. So I’m assuming that, like what I said resonated with you. Like you liked what I had to say.
Michelle: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Deb: But did you find that it was just hard to apply what I was teaching on the podcast to doing it in your life? Is that what it was?
Michelle: I think I needed a little bit more accountability.
Dr. Deb: I see.
Michelle: You know, some one-on-one time. Even though it was a group, it definitely felt like some one-on-one time at times, because it was just you and I talking several times.
Dr. Deb: Yes.
Michelle: But yes. I needed a little bit more accountability. And meeting weekly, I think helped. And really understanding the tools, learning the tools, hearing your ideas, hearing the ideas of other women and what they were going through, and the similarities was huge. Yes, I just needed some assistance. I knew I could do it, but I needed someone to get through my mind.
Dr. Deb: Somebody to get in your mind.
Michelle: Yes. Yes. I just kept tripping up on the same things, as you know the whole reward, what I thought was a reward. Yes, I mean, I needed help to sift through some stuff.
Dr. Deb: Yes. And so, like, when you’re talking about the reward thing, you and I both know what we’re talking about. But why don’t you share with everybody else what you’re talking about, about the reward thing?
Michelle: Okay, all right. My husband’s birthday was last August, and he asked me, he said, “All I want for my birthday is for you to make me a cake.” You know a yellow cake with chocolate frosting is his big thing. Well, that also happens to be my big thing. And so I made him the cake and I—and he even told me, at that time in the program, we were doing No flour, No sugar. And he was doing it with me. And he said, “You know, if you’re not going to have the cake, I don’t need the cake.” So I said, “Well, it’s your birthday. You have to have the cake.” And obviously, Dr. Deb, he would have been fine without the cake.
Dr. Deb: Right.
Michelle: But I was the one that wanted cake and basically telling him he wanted the cake. And so I made him the cake. And for 5.5 days up until his birthday, I was good. And you know it can’t just be five days that I was good, it had to be 5.5 days.
Dr. Deb: That’s right. I remember the coaching around that.
Michelle: Yes. Yes. And so I felt, since I was good for that long that I deserved to have some cake and, you know, basically reward myself. And you and I came to the realization that that’s what I was doing with food in general. And that’s why I wasn’t making any headway or any ground on the weight loss is because, in part, I mean, there’s other moving parts and pieces, right?
Dr. Deb: Right.
Michelle: But that I was really thinking that I deserved a reward, that I was entitled to that, that I deserved it because I had got 5.5 days. So I would lose, I would just not lose and, you know, a reward shouldn’t make you feel bad. It should make you feel empowered. It should make you feel powerful and strong and confident. And that cake did not make me feel those things, you know? It didn’t. And that was a huge breakthrough for me. And then, you know we worked on the decision, the power of a decision.
Dr. Deb: Right. So let me stop you for one minute before we get to that, because this is really important for people to hear, because that coaching that I did with you was a pretty long coaching session in our group. And, you know, it started out as a little thing, right? And part of the thing was, is that 5.5 days got me going, you know, like how many days you had been good? And the whole idea of what is good and what is bad and how you deem yourself according to what you’re putting in your mouth. And the whole idea of the other thing was, is the punishment that went after you ate that piece of cake.
Michelle: Yes.
Dr. Deb: Right? And so the coaching session was around what reward really is, but also around, what do you do with yourself when you see yourself doing something that you don’t like to do? Like you put yourself in the doghouse until that class! Like that’s all you could focus on was to tell me what you did wrong. Do you remember that?
Michelle: Yes, I do. I do. I screwed up.
Dr. Deb: You screwed up. I mean, you had done so many things right and yet, that was a focus. And so I think the two things between what is really a reward and to stop using food as a reward to yourself, but also developing self compassion, you know, how to be nicer to yourself. Would you say that through that coaching session, that helped you with that?
Michelle: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the self talk was not good.
Dr. Deb: That’s what you said at the beginning. The self talk was not good. So how is the self talk now?
Michelle: So much—I mean, so much better. It’s night and day. It’s night and day.
Dr. Deb: Same person.
Michelle: That voice is, yes. That voice is just—I mean it’s weird. And you know, the other thing too was…
Dr. Deb: What’s that?
Michelle: …how I—well, you beat yourself up and all, but as you’re going through the class, the uncomfortableness that you feel also was a huge thing for me, because as you feel uncomfortable, you know you’re changing. And while you may be uncomfortable, at least you’re noticing because before—you know what I’m saying, it’s like you don’t notice, because you’re not being the observer. You’re being the critic or you’re being hard on yourself. So you switch that to being the observer, it changes the whole dynamic of your relationship with yourself, you know, when you’re curious.
Dr. Deb: Wow. So, you know, this is another big thing and it’s a big thing about the class. And exactly what you’re saying is, would you say that you have a good relationship with yourself now?
Michelle: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Deb: Would you say you had a good relationship with yourself before you started?
Michelle: No.
Dr. Deb: Do you think that…
Michelle: I would say my outside relationships are better now because of it as well.
Dr. Deb: Oh, say something about that, because that’s fascinating too.
Michelle: Well, you know, when you’re not sitting there, you know, struggling with food or when food isn’t top of mind, you’re focused on what’s at hand and what’s important in life. It frees that mind space, so you’re present. You’re present with your husband or other family members or your friends, girlfriends, whatever. It’s, you know, a switch just flips.
Dr. Deb: So would you say you’re enjoying your life more?
Michelle: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dr. Deb: Which is a really fascinating thing because, you know, most people come into this class because they want to lose weight and they want to deal with food, right? You too, right?
Michelle: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Deb: Right. Would you say you got more than that out of it?
Michelle: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Way more.
Dr. Deb: Yes. So if I would say to you, Michelle, what’s the best thing that happened to you from taking this class, what would you say?
Michelle: Putting myself first. You know it’s like the oxygen mask in the plane, right? You have to help yourself first before you can help others. And I have been more present and more able to help others now that I love myself. You know, it’s just, it’s hard to explain yet it’s not. You know, it all comes down to love and if you love yourself, so much else falls into place. And also, when you have a little bit—when you have that mindspace open, it just has to open into other places in your life. Like, remember, my whole thing with good enough?
Dr. Deb: Yes. Talk about that.
Michelle: Well, it wasn’t. It’s like I wasn’t doing good enough, you know? And so, now that I am doing good stuff and better, I look for areas in my life where is life not good enough and what can I do to make it better? You know?
Dr. Deb: Yes, and you feel like you have more control over that? Like, you know…
Michelle: Yes, and observing it more kindly and I’m observing it more patiently.
Dr. Deb: Makes a lot of sense. Yes, so you know, the other thing that I’m thinking about too, is that good enough sometimes can be, it can be a good thing too. When—sometimes you don’t have to have your expectations so high on yourself. And you know, sometimes good enough is good enough.
Michelle: Yes, that’s true, too. That’s true, too. Yes.
Dr. Deb: Yes, so I’m thinking about that with you. So the only other thing that I really have to talk about with other people listening for you is we have to talk a little bit about chocolate. We can’t get out of here without talking about chocolate, because in the beginning that was your—I mean, if I talk about Michelle, it’s Michelle and the chocolate.
Michelle: Yes.
Dr. Deb: And everybody in the group knows exactly what I’m talking about, right? Like, that’s just…
Michelle: Yes. Yes.
Dr. Deb: So you want to say a little bit about that and your aha moment about that.
Michelle: Well, every night, I mean seriously, every night around 6:00 or 7:00, depending on when we had finished dinner, I would have a chocolate turtle and sometimes it would be one, sometimes it would be three, sometimes it would be six, depending on the day I had. And it was really—a lot of emotions around that, right? Like obviously, I was self soothing. I wasn’t, I was pushing my emotions down. Like, it wasn’t self soothing, really, I was just pushing my emotions down.
Dr. Deb: Good catch, Michelle. Good catch.
Michelle: Yes, right? I wasn’t self soothing, yes. I was just stuffing my emotions down and I’ll be darned if I have not had, you know, one of those turtles in a good while. But it was something that we really had to work through. And I’m telling you, the power of that negative two plus two and then the emotions tied to that is really, really powerful because it gives you that mind-body connection that I just had been missing for the last ten years.
And once I realized and opened up the emotions about that and the whole good enough thing, it all really just came into place. And then, you know once we did the No flour, No sugar, that definitely helps with your mindset, right? Because it makes it a little bit easier. But, and realizing that I didn’t need that when I thought I was so…
Dr. Deb: Well, that’s probably the biggest…
Michelle: …dependent on it. Yes.
Dr. Deb: And so like, what do you think about the chocolate now? I mean, do you think like—because I want people to realize that this is not a restriction, deprivation thing with your chocolate.
Michelle: Oh, yes. No, it’s not. If I wanted a piece, I would feel fine with having one. I just—I really don’t have the desire for it, you know?
Dr. Deb: Right. So that’s what I want people to hear. It’s really—you just don’t want it, right?
Michelle: Right. The urge isn’t there anymore. It’s really been dimmed if at all. And if I wanted a piece, I really do not think I would feel bad about it at all.
Dr. Deb: Well, I would hope not. That’s the whole thing. I mean, it’s just a damn piece of chocolate, for Pete’s sake.
Michelle: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Dr. Deb: And so that’s what I want. You know, the takeaway from this is that, in the end, what I wish for everybody that’s in a class or a group with me is if, you know, I just don’t want it. It’s not like I can’t have it. It’s not that I’m bad. It’s not that I’m good. It’s not that it’s a reward. It’s just in the end Michelle, this is how you’re talking about, is I just don’t want it. And I think you did the work to get to that place. And that’s what I want people to see.
Michelle: Yes. No, I did, because I’ll be on the couch reading a book or watching TV with my husband and that time will come up and I’ll just think, “How weird. How weird was that time?” You know, it’s almost like I’m looking back at a different person. And how weird was that time when I felt I needed that? That’s so odd. You know, but it’s that observer. It’s that compassionate observer. And then I kind of give myself a high five.
Dr. Deb: Oh my gosh. So, you know, with the last couple of minutes I have left, I hope people are appreciating this because, you know, to watch you in the beginning and to watch you now, which is why I have you on here, is that to hear you laughing so freely and knowing that chocolate’s just chocolate and that it’s no big deal and that you talk about how you love yourself, that this was not how you came in. You know, I just want people to be very clear. This is not how you walked into this class.
Michelle: That’s exactly right. I did not.
Dr. Deb: You did not. So what would you say to somebody right now who’s listening and who’s on the fence or whatever. And what would you say to them if they’re in a place like where you were at?
Michelle: If you’re on the fence, you got to jump over. You’ve got to jump over, because it’s so nice, it’s so free, you know and that was my compelling statement, was to feel free around food and it changes everything. It changes everything. It just seeps into other areas of your life. You have to try it. You deserve it. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to your health. You owe it to your family. It’s just something you have to do.
Dr. Deb: Michelle, thank you so much for being in my group so that I can meet you and coach you. And thank you so much for being on this podcast today.
Michelle: You bet.
Dr. Deb: All right, sweetheart. Bye bye.
Michelle: Thanks, Dr. Deb. Bye.
Dr. Deb: Well, what did I tell you? Michelle is amazing. But you know what? It’s common. A lot of people, after they’re through working with me, feel like their life has changed. Yes, they lost weight, but you can see it’s so much bigger than just weight loss. Michelle is a perfect example of it’s not just about the weight, right? It’s so much bigger. If this is you and you’ve been on the fence, what are you waiting for?
The class is open, hopefully. I can’t say right now because I know when this comes out, the class might be full, but the only way to find out is to go to drdebbutler.com/holidays. And if it’s open, do yourself a favor. Sign up.
And listen, no matter what else you do this week, you know what I’m going to say, but I’m going to say it again. Please, please, please be very, very kind to yourself, and I’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.
