Ep 172: Disappointment Is Not a Food Group

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 172. And you know what I want to talk to you about today? I want to talk to you about disappointment. It’s not a food group. Stay tuned.

Hi, everybody. It’s a beautiful day in paradise today. I’m in St. Louis, Missouri, and it’s a hot summer day. And as soon as I’m through talking to you, I am going to go out in the woods and do a nice, hot, sweaty walk with the birds, and the squirrels, and the deer. I just can’t wait to get out.

I love getting sweaty now, and you know what? I didn’t like to do it before I moved to Belize. I hated the hot weather, but once I was in Belize, and I started looking at things differently, I started thinking about things differently, I started enjoying the sweating. I enjoy the way that my body felt when it was really hot and especially how it felt when I was done. It just felt like I was all clean inside, so I cannot wait to do that. And you know, since you listened to my last episode when I was talking about exercise, I’m getting ready to go out and play once I’m through playing with you.

So anyway, what I want to talk to you about today is I always encourage you to write letters to me and I’ve gotten a few letters lately that I would like to read to you. Because number one, I’d like to share with you how other people think because it helps you realize we’re all the same.

And two, I think that it also helps you to realize sometimes about the way that you think about how you eat isn’t that different from how other people think. Many times, a lot of us think we’re all alone and that we’re very, very different from other people. And I think—at least I hope—from listening to this podcast, you’re starting to learn how similar we all really are. And that the only thing that changes or that’s different from me to you is the way I look at things and the way I think about things.

And that is what I love to share with you every single week is that you can see the same thing that you’ve always looked at, experienced the same circumstance that you’ve always experienced, and you can feel totally different about it, because you change your perspective. You change the way you think. And when you change the way you think, it changes the way you feel, and it absolutely changes what you do.

And what we’re talking about today is I want to talk to you about that feeling of disappointment. And you know, when I was on the podcast with Jody Moore like about six months ago, that’s one of the questions that she asked me. She says, “What do you do?” She says, “When I’m out to dinner, and I’m eating a meal, and I’m loving every bite of it, how do you handle the disappointment when you know that your body is telling you to stop and your mind is going, ‘Oh my gosh! It’s so sad. I want it because I want to keep eating!’”

And for many of us, it’s that kind of thinking and feeling. It’s almost like a feeling of deprived and disappointment that makes you continue to eat when you’re really done. So I want to read this letter from you, from one of my listeners. And I know that you’re going to just go, “That’s exactly what I think!” But I’ll answer her the way she asked me the question, and then we’ll just go from there.

So here’s the letter and this is from Julie and I emailed Julie and I told her that I would be doing a podcast on her letter. So hopefully, Julie, you’re listening! Hello and thank you so much for listening to my podcast and loving it. Thank you so much. And to all of you who are out there listening right now, thank you. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you responding. I appreciate you setting up mini-sessions. I appreciate you hiring me—all of that.

But anyway, this is Julie’s letter to me and then I’m going to answer it in the best way that I know how, and I think it will help all of you. So this is how she begins:

Hi, Dr. Deb.

I just found your podcast and I’m up to episode nine and I love it. I’m a 47-year-old peri-menopausal woman who has been in numerous diets since I was a teen. In the last year, I’ve gained 10 pounds and have felt so hopeless and discouraged. Your podcast is changing the way that I think and feel and it’s only been a few days! Thank you!

You mentioned that we could ask you questions and I do have a question. As I’m paying attention to my eating and my hunger scale, I noticed that I tend to go slide into fog eating during a meal, just going over a +2 because whatever I’m eating tastes good and I want to keep eating it even though I’ve gotten to a +2. I do end up stopping because I’m committed to doing what you suggest. But I have the feeling of disappointment for a moment because I have to stop. Is there something else going on behind the thought that I want to keep eating because it tastes so good? Thank you again for sharing your wisdom on a podcast and I can’t wait to listen to more.

Peace, Julie.

Okay, Julie. Let me get into this. Okay, disappointment. So here’s the thing, that right now your brain is absolutely wired that if you don’t keep eating, something terrible is going to happen, and your brain really wants to protect you. So that’s part of the reason the disappointment comes in.

But also, you have trained your brain to believe that this is the most wonderful event of your life. It’s like so there is a lot of disappointment to a wonderful event ending. And I kind of equate it to a great movie, as they’re starting to run the end and they start running who’s in it and the producers and the directors. It’s kind of sad when a great movie is over, and it is kind of disappointing. So I’m really okay with thinking that and feeling that a little bit.

But I want to give you some other ideas to think about, because maybe disappointment doesn’t even have to be part of it. The first thing and most important thing is that you’re aware what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling when you want to stop. And for all of my listeners, all of you that are listening, that is the first step. So, Julie, congratulations on being aware of what is causing your feeling!

And the reason that you want to continue, to go beyond a +2 is because your mind is overriding your body. We call that a mind-body disconnection. And that comes from being on diets for a long, long, long, long time and ignoring your body when it tells you to eat or when it tells you to stop.

So let me give you an example. Can you imagine a five-year-old or a four-year-old if you give them—like you work really hard and you produce this gorgeous, beautiful, tasteful meal, and you put it in front of them, and they eat it, and you can see that they’re really enjoying it? But do they, like, look at you when it’s time to stop, like, you know when they’re full and they look at you and go, “Mommy! I’m so disappointed because I want to keep eating and I can’t!” No, that doesn’t happen at all.

The only thing that happens to a child is their body says “Stop!” and it doesn’t even matter what they’re eating. They just stop. There is no drama. The reason there’s no drama is because the mind and body are totally connected. The body says “Stop!” and the mind says “Of course, we stop.” There is no drama.

Now what has happened to you, Julie, over years and years of dieting, there is a huge disconnection and there is huge drama around food. And of course, you know, I’ve done a lot, a lot of podcasts about get over it, and stop the drama around food, and it’s just food. Because that’s all a four- or five-year-old is going to think about food. It’s just food! I need to eat. It tastes good. I’ll eat. I’ll have a smile on my face. And when I’m through, I’m gonna stop.

That is what I want for you, Julie, to start training your brain to do. So in the beginning, yeah, it is disappointing. It’s very disappointing because of this wonderful event that’s in front of you. That’s how your brain is looking at. It’s like, “Oh, goody, we get to eat and look how good it looks, and look how much it is, and how much there is and ‘Oh, god, this is like the best thing in my whole entire life.’” Right? So of course, there’s going to be disappointment.

But when you can get to the point that “Hey, it’s just food. It’s delicious. And it’s over. The end.” I want to tell you something, Julie—this is possible. But I also want to tell you that if you feel disappointment and you don’t eat, you are also learning how to feel negative emotion without eating it. That, too, is very, very important.

The other thing I want to say about this, about disappointment is, at least for most of the women that I work with, and most of the women that I talk to, most people that call me are already so disappointed in themselves because they feel like, they think that they can’t control themselves around food.

So, Julie, I’m imagining for you if you’ve been on diets since you’ve been nine years old, that you are so disappointed that you can’t stop this, right? And so, I think there’s more disappointment in ourselves because we feel like we can’t trust ourselves and that we don’t feel confident in ourselves. So I think that when you start to recognize these thoughts and feelings around eating, that instead of feeling disappointed, you could feel proud of yourself for recognizing it. Because that is the first step to changing is recognizing the thought and the feeling that is causing the overeating, right?

And to eat to a +2 when your brain thinks that if something is delicious, it should eat to a +8. There are going to be a lot of urges that are going to be going on in your brain and body around this food to begin with. So you have to just expect it to come. Just say, “I’m just waiting!”

You know, when you’re sitting here and you’re eating this beautiful meal, and it tastes so good, just wait for your brain to go, “Aw, shoot! It’s over. Darn!” And that is when you can talk back to yourself in the most loving way and say, “Julie, my darling. I am so proud that you recognize that it’s just a thought that your brain is thinking and you don’t even have to think it anymore.”

And when that comes up, what you might end up feeling instead is pride, that you are starting to have a mind-body connection like you did when you were four or five years old. And that really is the best news of all.

So I hope that helps you, Julie. And for all of my listeners out there who are listening to this letter, I hope it helps you too. That disappointment is a negative emotion, right? And depending on how disappointed you feel, it’s going to be a specific type of feeling that you’re also going to feel in your body.

So that’s another recommendation that I’m going to tell you, Julie, and to you, all of you who are listening, is that I want you to get familiar with what these emotions feel like in your body, especially when you’re eating, because that is the emotional hunger scale that we’re talking about.

And disappointment is an emotion, and it’s usually a negative emotion, and it feels a specific way in your body that’s uncomfortable. And that discomfort your brain equates as danger. And anything that your brain equates as danger, it wants to protect you. The way your brain has learned to protect you is by eating more, so you stop feeling the disappointment.

Now, here’s the really interesting thing. When you eat way beyond your body’s need, and you know it, and you feel very uncomfortable in your body, tell me that you don’t feel disappointed still? That is the clincher, is that in reality, if you eat too much, you’re going to be disappointed that you did. If you don’t eat too much, you’re going to be disappointed that it’s over.

So if you have a choice of when you want to feel disappointed, wouldn’t you rather feel the disappointment in the beginning, and then honor your own body, and then end up feeling proud of yourself? And also realizing that the more that you do this, the more that you’re rewiring your brain to think something different on purpose, right? And the new thought could be something like, “I’m so glad that I’m aware that I think this.” Period.

Because once you realize, “Oh my gosh, it’s just a thought!” And the thought doesn’t mean anything other than it’s a sentence that’s running around in my head that I’ve chosen for so long that it’s become like this little belief system that I just want to hold close to me. So in the end—you know, I eat a lot of good meals, but you know what? I think my brain has gotten to the point where I don’t feel that disappointment anymore.

However, I’m not going to say I never do. That would not be true. I can totally relate to this sometimes. But I will also tell you—it doesn’t happen all the time. And that is what I want you to see. It’s like it’s still going to happen. But once you’re aware of that it’s just a thought, the more that you decide not to follow it, the less power it has on you.

So my dear people, I want you to really think about this. And, Julie, thank you so much for writing me that letter, and I hope it helps a lot of you.

If you’re really interested in taking this work that I’m teaching you to the next level, the difference between learning it and actually applying it to your life, is to find out how you can actually work with me because I have this unbelievable individual program that I use with clients. I don’t have very many openings. But if you’re somebody that really wants to take it to the next level and to really learn how to honor your commitments, to learn how to have trust in yourself, to learn how to have confidence in yourself, and to learn how to believe without a doubt that this is going to be your last time that you ever have to lose weight again, that’s a really good reason to talk to me.

So why don’t you just think about all of that? And before I end today, I want to leave you with something a little different—a different way of thinking. And this is what I want to offer you. As you go through your week and you’re listening to my podcasts, I want you to say to yourself and to start believing it with all your heart that this is going to be the very last time I ever have to lose weight again. Think about that. And I’ll see you next week. Bye-bye.

Dr. Michael Butler: I would like to invite you to correspond with Dr. Deborah. Go to iTunes, drdebbutler.com/itunes. And you can review the show and you can even give some helpful suggestions on what you would like to talk about in the future to accomplish your mindfulness and your journey into mindfulness. Thank you.