What to Do When You Worry About “Falling Off Track”

Hi, I’m Dr. Deb Butler, and you are listening or watching to Thinner Peace and Menopause and Beyond. This is
episode number 465.

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 now see me and hear me just by going to YouTube. Or you
can be wherever you are and listen to the podcast, driving, walking, whatever it is that we like to do together. But
today is episode number I can hardly believe it’s 465. Almost eight years that I’ve been doing this, and my message
hasn’t changed. But one thing that has changed is that I’m starting a new community called Jumpstart Wednesdays.

And every Wednesday you can join me by signing up on Zoom. I’m doing it through Zoom because it’s so much
quieter and also, nobody else is there but the ones that I invite. So instead of Facebook, I have a private Zoom link
where I can teach you and we can talk privately together, me, you, and our community.

And we can talk about all the things that I’ve been talking about for all 465 episodes. So if you want to join me on
Jumpstart Wednesdays, all you need to do is go to drdebbutler.com jump and you can sign up and I can see you next
Wednesday. And you can ask me any question. You can be coached. It’s 30 minutes of Dr. Deb and teaching and
menopause and weight loss and mindfulness, just to name a few. And today, what I want to talk about, since we’re
talking more about Jumpstart Wednesdays and you coming and joining, is that I got a really beautiful letter from
someone who wanted to be on Jumpstart Wednesdays but couldn’t. And she’s been listening to my podcast all 464
episodes. Her name is Jane and she’s from Wales.

That’s why I say hello, all my dear friends from all over the world. It is such a pleasure to know that the message that
I have is universal all over the world, and in a way that makes me happy, and in a way it Makes me kind of sad
because the things that I talk about are universal and it is everywhere. And I’m out to change that with this podcast.
I want to help you create thinner.

The inner peace in menopause. I don’t want you just to lose weight and get thin.

You’ve done that already.

But I want you to get peaceful with food in menopause and lose weight if that’s what you want to do. Now listen,
some people don’t even want to lose weight, but they do not have peace with food and they do not have peace with
their bodies. So this podcast is also for you. So today what I want to do is I thought I could read this letter that Jane
sent me and she asked me some three very pertinent questions about therapeutics and menopause and her journey.
So I thought I could read it to you and I could answer at least one or two questions. I think she would appreciate it
and maybe she’ll send me something back and.

Then maybe I can go into it further with you.

What I say, if it resonates with you, let me know. I love your letters. Or come on, Jumpstart and I can either coach you
or you can ask me a question and I can answer it. But you got to show up. Because if you don’t show up, you don’t
get to ask your questions and you don’t get to fnd out all the nitty gritty about some of the things that I talk about
that you may not understand. So let me read the letter that Jane sent me from Wales, so far away.

She said thank you, but she said it in a different language.

She said, thank you, Dr. Deb.

What an opportunity.

Because she couldn’t join me on Wednesdays.

Because she’s got a three year old grandson.

But this is what she goes on to say.

I have listened to every one of.

Your podcasts and have lost over 20.

Pounds and maintained it for three months.

But I am a working progress and have lots of areas I would like to improve. So these Wednesday zooms are so
helpful and encouraging for me.

Thank you, thank you. The areas that I struggle with and.

This is what I want you to.

Listen to and I want you to pay attention to my answers and if.

My answers don’t make sense to you.

Or you don’t understand them, please write me and let me know. Or come on Jumpstart Wednesdays so we can talk
about it further. Because it’s just my opinion right now.

And it depends on who I’m talking to.

So sometimes My answers change depending on who I’m talking to. But without really knowing Jane, all I know is
that she’s been listening for a long time, over a year, and that she’s lost 20 pounds and she’s.

Kept it off for three months.

And she also said in her frst letter that the main thing that she learned by listening to me was how to be kind to
herself.

And if this is your frst podcast, I really urge you to go back and listen to some of the earlier podcasts or to at least
Google self.

Kindness and self compassion, because I talk.

About it so much and I’m not.

Going to talk about it in this episode. But part of having Thinner peace is knowing how to be nice to yourself. And I’ll
tell you what, most of you don’t, and neither did I. And I still have a difcult time. I can be so kind to almost anybody
else, but when it comes to myself, it’s so much harder.

So I love to talk about that.

And teach about that and for you to learn how to become more mindful about what is going on in your.

Mind when you put food in your mouth. So here’s one of the questions that.

Jane asked me, and this is very common. Her frst area that she struggles with is the fear of returning to old ways.
Have you had that? I know you have. I would say 99% of my clients, individually or in groups, have that thought.

Pass through their head from time to time. Especially as they start either getting towards the end of a program or
when they’ve lost their weight and it’s been off for a little bit, their little brain starts tapping them on the shoulder and
going, what if you can’t keep this up? Now, I want you to know that is just a thought. It’s a sentence in your head
that’s running around. And just because it’s up there and it’s running around, it doesn’t mean anything until you get a
feeling from it. Like, for her, she probably thinks that she might return to her old ways and that scares her. So it’s a
very scary thought. And since most people have it, I think what I would like to do is to help create some confdence
around this. Because right now Jane’s thinking a very scary thought.

And when you feel scared, anybody, when they feel scared, what they end up doing are not the best actions in the
world that are going to help you keep anything that’s new or that you like, right? Because when you get scared, you
do scary things. So just knowing that you’re creating your own Fear, Jane. And that you can change that thought or
tweak that thought into this. There’s no way I can go back to my old ways. And here’s the truth. How could you? Once
you know what you know it. You can’t unknow what you already know.

So I would say this is my guess for you, Jane, is that in listening to me for a year and losing this weight by using the
tools that I teach you, like how to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full, or how to know what’s going on
emotionally with you when you’re eating when you’re not hungry, or to understand an urge and how to deal with an
urge and how to manage an urge and how to be kind to yourself. If those are the things that got you to this 20 pound
weight loss, they don’t go away. Now, you may have what we call a fog eat where you may eat when you’re not
hungry. That’ll happen again. I’m pretty sure it will. But what if it does? Let’s just say we know it will.

Wouldn’t you know what to do even if you had a fog eat? Wouldn’t you know what to do? Because you probably have
had fog eats already during this time. How you get here is how you’re going to stay here. You’ve got the tools. That’s
what got you here. So if you have a fog eat, if you fnd yourself eating when you’re not hungry and you want to call
that your old ways, I don’t think I would do that anymore. I think you can eat when you’re not hungry, even in the
middle of it, and you can stop yourself and you can even just go, why am I eating when I’m not hungry? And your
brain may have answer for that. Or you may fnd that the only thing your brain says, be quiet, I just want to eat, that
be okay too.

Because that’s probably happened before. And sometimes you have to wait till the next day to try to fgure out why
you ate when you’re not hungry. But if you’ve gotten this far, you probably have already fgured those things out over
time. So if it happens again, or better yet to say when it happens again, you’ll know what to do, because you’ve
already done it. And that creates a feeling of confdence, is how I got here, is how I’m going to stay here. You don’t
have to do anything different. You just have to know that if you overeat, you’ll know what to do, and it’s okay, no big
deal. Overeating doesn’t cause you to end up with £20 back on your body. It doesn’t cause you to have a weight
problem just because you had an overeat.

The only way you can end up with a bunch of weight back on your body is to keep overeating. And you know what? I
don’t think you’re going to do that, because you have way too many tools to stop it and too much of an
understanding. Don’t you think that now? I think many of you have that thought only because your brain takes you
back. Of all the times you did that’s what it has to offer you. When you think I might go back to my old ways, your
brain’s going to tell you, well, you know what? Remember this and remember that. So it’s like I would think something
like, I can never go back to my old ways because I always know what to do. They’re my new ways. They’re not my old
ways.

I can’t go back because I’ll know what to do. I’ll fgure it out. I’ve always fgured it out, and I will fgure it out. And even
if you’ve had times in your past, which most of us have, I mean, for me, for 30 years, I gained and lost almost 250
pounds. I was always gaining and losing weight. That was my old way. I don’t do that anymore. Doesn’t mean I can’t
gain a pound or two. But that’s it. I don’t do that anymore. Maybe that’s a great thought for you, Jane, is I just don’t do
that anymore. Right. If I overeat, I know what to do. It’s not a big deal. Don’t scare yourself.

Don’t fnd scary thoughts and make you feel so scared, because the more scared you get, it’s like you lose your brain
and you forget all the things that you’ve learned because you confuse your brain. So just know that’s just a thought
and it’s a scary thought. And I don’t have to think it because I can fgure it out. I’ve already done it. I already know
what to do. I will always be able to fgure it out. I hope that helps. And I want all of you to.

Know that thoughts are just sentences in your head.

But thoughts also create feelings.

And scary feelings feel fear never leads to good actions. So whenever you notice that you’re feeling.

Afraid, see if you can fgure out.

What it is that you’re thinking.

That’s scaring you.

It’s not coming from anything else other than that sweet, cute little brain of yours. And guess who’s in charge of their
brain?

You.

You are. Jane is. I am. And maybe up until now, you never even knew that.

There’s a lot of people in this.

World that think every thought they think is true. And every thought that goes through their head, no matter how
scary it is, means the truth. But it doesn’t, because you can keep thinking something different. You don’t have to keep
believing the same thought. To me, a belief is thinking the same thing over and over again and not even realizing that
you’re just thinking a thought. You’re just grabbing a sentence from your head that’s creating fear, and you don’t even
know you’re doing it. When you become more mindful, which is part of the centerpiece process, you can start seeing
what you’re thinking. Now, sometimes that thought’s just going to stay there anyway, but at least you know it’s a
thought. And thoughts can change.

And when you know that all I’m doing is thinking a thought, and even if I can’t think of a different thought right now,
it’s still just a thought. And thoughts can change. I think it’s really empowering. And, Jane, what I want for you is I
want you to feel empowered, not scared. You’ve lost 20 pounds, and you’ve kept it off by the tools that I use. And all
you need to do is.

You know what happens.

All of these tools, like eating when you’re hungry, stopping when you’re full, managing your urges. In other words. I
was just coaching somebody today in my group who has a tendency. If she’s going to overeat, it’s going to be at
dinner. That’s what she said. And I said, what do you think you’re thinking that makes you. That creates this urge to
keep eating when you’re not hungry. She thought about it for a minute, and then she says, you know, I just want
something to crunch. And I looked at her and I said, you realize it’s just the thought that you’ve been using for a long
time. You don’t really need something to crunch. But when you hear a thought like that, for her, she thought it was
factual, that she needed something to crunch.

Just like I have people at dinner who think I need something sweet, as if that’s a fact. Like, I just need something
sweet after dinner. Doesn’t everybody? Not a fact. It’s just a thought. It’s a sentence running around in her head or
your head, that’s creating an urge that makes you think. You have to have something sweet. And when you have a
thought like I need, feels like it’s the truth. So even like with my client today in my group, instead of thinking, I need
something to crunch, really the truth is that she just wants to keep eating. You know, maybe it’s just good. I don’t
know. It’s been a hard day. Maybe she doesn’t want to get up from the table because it’s so relaxing. A lot of people
have thoughts about food relaxing them. Food can’t relax you. Your brain can.

Taking a walk can. Resting can. But food itself doesn’t relax you. I lived 30 years at dinner thinking, oh, I just need to
relax and eat. And I don’t mean just eat between the twos and eat, feel food. I mean overeat and have more joy. Eat
so I can relax. As if that was a reward and I deserved it. Which was very similar to my client today. Starting with I
need something crunchy or I need something salty or I need something sweet. I don’t know what it is for you. I
digress a little bit from Jane, but it’s amazing, the sentences and the thoughts in your head that you can become so
much more aware of that create urges that don’t help you to stop. Stop eating.

So there’s another question that she asked, and I think it’s also very pertinent to talk on here.

She said, food fuel meal time, overeating, very similar to what I’m talking about now. Especially healthy. No sugar,
four puddings because it’s healthier, I eat more of it. Why can’t I control this? Like the control I’ve shown with
unhealthy foods? I think that’s a really good question. I’ve done quite a few podcasts on if you are not hungry, it’s not
healthy. And I think that’s the best place to start. It’s a great thought because I too used to believe and my mind still
goes there. Sometime. I’m really not hungry. I just need something to do and it’s healthy and also it tastes good. So I
can just keep eating. But you’re not hungry. This is all the thing where you really have to talk to yourself, sweetheart,
you are not hungry. You don’t need anymore.

So when it’s healthy, which is wonderful, congratulations that you’re eating something healthy. But if you’re not
hungry, it is just not healthy. Now, some of these foods fuel food or not a joy Eat. You can eat a joy Eat and not be
hungry. A joy eat is a different category from a fuel food, and I talked about this in many podcasts. But I don’t want to
confuse you, only to say that a joy eat is usually a non nutritious food and it’s something that you like a lot and it’s
also something that you think you can’t have usually. And what I like to teach with Joy Eats is how to eat something
that has no nutritious value, that you think is delicious, how to eat it mindfully and stop the minute that you’re
through enjoying it. It’s an art.

Now, you could do that with some of these foods. Even if it’s a quote unquote healthy food and you’re not hungry,
you could treat it like a joy eat, which means it’s very mindful and you don’t eat very much because you’re not hungry,
but it tastes good and that’s something that you could play with just a little bit. But overall, what I would say is that if
you’re not hungry, it’s not healthy. Even if the food is fuel. When your body says no thank you stop knowing that a joy
eat is very different and done very different. And if you want a joy eat, you’re not going to have very many of them,
but when you do, you’re going to enjoy it bite by bite, every minute of it.

And you’ll know that you can also eat whatever you want, Joy Eat or Fuel Eat. So that’s what I have for all of you
today. Thank you, Jane, for these questions. Please come and meet me on Jumpstart Wednesdays. Be part of the
community. I’d love for you to be there so that you can ask me questions or you can even write me a letter like Jane
did, and I can.

Answer it on Jumpstart Wednesdays.

But I want it to be communication. I don’t want to just be the only one talking.

So in order for me to continue to want to do this, you need to come. So it’s Dr.debbbutler.com jump and you can join
me. And it’ll Start next Wednesday, 1:00 Central, every Wednesday. Come see me.

If you’ve never seen me before, come see me. You might be curious, but no matter.

What, you know what I’m going to say to you. I never end a podcast without saying this. No matter where you go or
who you’re with or what you’re doing, please, please be very kind to yourself.

And I will see you next week.

I’ll see you and you’ll hear me again 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, I.e. Dr. Debbbutler.com change C H A N G E SA.