WEBVTT
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So here's a thought that I want to put in your head before we even start.
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The next time that you're standing in your kitchen at night arguing with yourself about whether you're allowed to have the chocolate or not, I want you to notice something that you're arguing with yourself.
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That there are two versions of yourself inside your brain: the one who wants it and the one whose whole job is to talk you out of it.
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And you've had that argument so many times that you have stopped noticing how strange it is that it's happening at all.
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Like a woman who trusted her own body would not be standing there negotiating over a cookie.
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So where did that second voice come from?
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The one with all the rules.
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Because you weren't born with it.
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Nobody comes into this world already at war with herself over chocolate.
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Today, I am going to show you exactly where it came from and how old you were when it decided to take up residency.
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I'm going to tell you why knowing everything that you know about food has never once been enough to make you do the quote unquote right thing.
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And I'm going to tell you the truth about what actually has to change because I promise you, I promise, it is not the chocolate.
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If you have ever wondered why you know exactly what to do and still cannot get yourself to do it, this is the one to stay for.
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So let's get into it.
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Welcome to the Done with Dieting Total Health for Women Over 40 podcast, the podcast for women who are done with the startover cycle and ready for a way of taking care of themselves that actually works.
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All right, so picture this.
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It's night, the house is quiet, everybody else has gone to bed, and you are standing looking in your pantry.
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You already told yourself that you were not going to do this tonight.
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You meant it this morning, and you meant it this afternoon after lunch.
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You swore that you would not need it tonight, and yet here you are.
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You're not hungry.
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You know that you're not hungry because you had dinner two hours ago, and you are not the least bit hungry, and yet somewhere in there, you know the ice cream, or the chips, or the wine, or those few squares of chocolate that never stay just like one or two, and you're standing there having the same conversation that you've had a hundred times.
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I shouldn't.
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I know I shouldn't, but I want it, but I've been good all day.
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I deserve it.
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No, put it back, just go to bed.
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And you stand there.
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So welcome to the Dung with Dieting Podcast.
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I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and I am so glad that you are here with me today.
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Thank you for spending a little bit of your day with me wherever you are listening to.
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Wherever you are listening from.
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So I wanted to start you off in that kitchen because I think for many, you know exactly the moment that I'm talking about.
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You've lived it.
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Some of you lived it last night, or you might be living it tonight.
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And here is what I want you to notice.
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I don't want you to notice the chocolate.
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I want you to notice the conversation that is going on in your head, the argument, that back and forth.
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I shouldn't, but I want to.
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That tug.
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The whole debate that you're running in your own head at night when everything is quiet by yourself over a cookie or a granola bar or whatever it is.
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That argument is what I want to talk about today.
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Because that argument is telling you something.
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And none of us ever stop long enough to hear what it's actually saying.
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So here's the part I really want you to sit with.
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A woman who trusted her own body would not be standing there arguing.
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I want you to think about that.
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A woman who really trusted herself would not be arguing.
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If you trusted yourself, if you trusted your own hunger and your own ability to make a call and live with it, you wouldn't need the debate at all.
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You would know whether you wanted the thing and you'd have it or you wouldn't.
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And either way, you would go on with your night.
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There would be no negotiating, no bargaining with yourself in the dark over whatever that thing is.
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The fact that there's an argument at all tells you something got crossed somewhere.
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At some point, you stopped being able to just decide.
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And now there are two of you standing in that kitchen, the one who wants the thing and the one whose entire job is to talk you out of it.
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So I want to talk today about where that second voice came from because you weren't born with it.
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Nobody comes into this world arguing with herself over chips.
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And this matters a whole lot more than one cookie at night.
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This is the same thing that has you knowing exactly what you should be doing for your health and still not doing it.
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You know what to eat.
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You know you should move your body and get to bed earlier.
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You could probably tell me a few things.
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And you still cannot get yourself to actually do the thing.
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You already know what to do.
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I want to be clear about something before we go even a step further, because I know where your mind goes with this.
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You think the reason that you're standing in that kitchen losing the argument is that you don't have enough willpower.
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That if you were just a little bit more disciplined, a little bit tougher, you would win every single time.
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That was never it.
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And by the end of this episode, I want you to understand why.
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So let me back up out of the kitchen for just a minute and look at the bigger picture because that argument over chocolate is only one very small piece of it.
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Think about how much you already know.
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You know what a serving of protein looks like.
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You know that vegetables are good for you and that you should probably eat more of them.
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You know that walking counts as exercise.
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You know that being on your phone until midnight is probably wrecking your sleep.
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You've read the books, you listen to podcasts like this one, you've listened to a lot of them, you've watched the videos, you've read the internet, you've sat through the free webinar at eight o'clock on a Tuesday when you were tired and just wanted to go to bed instead.
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Your friend calls you and tells you that she wants to eat better, and you can tell her exactly what to do.
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You give her great advice, you mean it, and you're probably right.
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And she takes it and she tells you that it helped.
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And then you hang up the phone, and then you go stand in your own kitchen at nine o'clock.
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Ask me how I know that right there is the gap.
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You have the information, you can teach it, you could probably teach it better than some of the people getting paid to teach it.
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And yet, you cannot get yourself to do the thing that you already know how to do.
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Now, I have been coaching women for about 20 years now, and I want to tell you what I have almost never seen.
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I have almost never sat down with a woman who didn't already know what to do.
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It happens occasionally, but it's pretty freaking rare.
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Mostly what's sitting across from me is a smart, capable woman who could recite the whole thing back to me and who is exhausted and confused about why none of it sticks.
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And so today, I am not going to hand you more information.
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I'm not going to give you a list.
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I'm not going to tell you five things to try this week.
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If more information was what you needed, you would have solved this a really long time ago because you've been collecting information about your own health for probably 30 years now.
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You are not missing any information.
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You are missing something else entirely.
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Because when you understand what's actually running the show at night, a lot of things start to make sense.
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The binging, the Monday mornings, the way that you can be so disciplined at work and so completely at war with yourself at night over a bag of chips.
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Now, none of that is a personality trait or a character flaw.
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And there's a reason for it.
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So I want to go back to that second voice for a second.
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The one in the kitchen whose whole job is to talk you out of the chocolate.
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That voice has rules, like a lot of them.
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Carbs are bad.
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Well, some carbs, not fruit, but maybe some fruits.
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Red is definitely bad.
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Fruit is fine, but not too much fruit or tropical fruits because of the sugar.
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Now, fat used to be bad, and now fat is good, but not that kind of fat.
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It's the healthy fat that we're supposed to be eating.
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But don't eat after seven and don't eat before noon.
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Eat six small meals, but no, now we're supposed to eat two big ones.
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Sugar is definitely poison.
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You should probably be getting 100 grams of protein per day.
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You should be counting something.
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And if you're not counting something, you're probably overdoing it or underdoing it.
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If you sat down and wrote out every single rule that you carry about food, you would fill probably those journals that are empty.
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And you would notice that half of them contradict the other half.
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And you would still somehow feel like you're supposed to be following all of them at once.
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Now, here's the question I want you to actually sit with.
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Where did we get all of these rules?
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Not where did you read them, but where did they originally come from?
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Which ones did you choose?
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Because I don't think that you actually chose any of them.
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I think that they were handed to you.
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Somebody in your life said something to you about your body, and you were young enough that you believed her.
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It might have been your mother standing in the mirror talking about her own thighs.
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It might have been your mother talking about yours.
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Maybe you had a grandmother or an older sister who was thinner than you and everyone noticed.
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Maybe it was a boyfriend in high school who made a joke.
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Maybe it was a kid on the bus in sixth grade who found the one thing to say that you still hear in your head 40 years later.
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Maybe nobody said anything at all, and you just read the magazines that were sitting on the coffee table.
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10 pounds by summer.
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What he really notices.
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50 ways to be smaller.
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You absorbed all of it before you had any way to evaluate it or filter it out.
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You were nine or 11 or 14.
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You didn't have the ability to say, hey, wait a minute, hold on.
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That's a strange thing to tell a child.
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You just took it in the way kids take everything in.
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And it became true.
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And a lot of you were put on a diet.
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Some of you were put on a diet when you were a little girl.
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Somebody decided that you needed to lose weight before you were old enough to have any say in it.
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There were foods in your house that you were allowed to eat, and foods that you certainly were not allowed to eat.
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And the ones that you weren't allowed to eat were the ones that were tasty, the ones that you wanted.
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So you got sneaky about it.
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You ate cookies in your room.
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You ate standing up in the kitchen with the light off so no one would know.
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You ate fast before anyone could see you eating it.
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And you learned two things that have stayed with you your entire life.
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You learned that wanting that food was shameful.
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And you learned that the only way to have it was to hide.
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That's 50 years ago now for some of you.
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And you're still eating, standing up in the kitchen with the light off, or eating quickly so that no one sees you.
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Here's what I want you to see.
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You have been living inside a set of rules that you did not write.
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You've been following them, breaking them, feeling terrible about breaking them, and then going back to following them again for decades now.
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And in all that time, almost nobody stops to pull one of those rules out and look at it and ask the simple question is this true?
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Was it ever true?
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So I want to show you what all those rules have done to you over the years.
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Not what they did to your weight, what they did to your relationship with yourself and your relationship with food.
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Every single rule you absorbed was built on one idea underneath it.
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The idea is this your body cannot be trusted that something else knows you better than you.
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That's the message.
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Every diet that you've been on told you the same thing, wrapped up a little bit differently.
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Don't listen to yourself.
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Listen to us because we're experts.
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Here's when to eat, here's how much to eat, here's what to eat.
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Follow the plan and don't ask questions because if you were capable of running this on your own, you would not be here, would you?
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Think about what that does to a person over 30 or 40 years.
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You get hungry at three o'clock in the afternoon.
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And instead of thinking, huh, I'm hungry, I should probably eat something.
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You think, I already had lunch, I can't eat right now.
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I shouldn't be hungry.
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I need to wait.
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What is wrong with me?
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You want something sweet after dinner, and instead of thinking, I want something sweet, you think, why can't I control myself?
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You're tired and you don't want to work out.
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And instead of thinking, I'm tired, maybe I need some rest or to do something differently than I planned, you think, I must be just lazy.
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Do you see what happened there?
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Every message your body sent you got translated into evidence against you.
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Hunger becomes a problem.
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Cravings become a weakness.
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Wanting something became proof that there's something wrong with you that isn't wrong with other women.
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You have been taught for your entire life that the signals coming from inside your own body are the actual enemy.
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And when you can't trust the thing inside of you, you have to reach for something outside of you.
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So you reach for a rule because at least the rule doesn't change.
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At least the rule can't be wrong.
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The rule is safe.
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And that's how a hungry woman ends up standing in her kitchen consulting a set of instructions in her head that she has memorized that she got from a magazine in 1987, instead of just asking herself what she wants to eat.
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And this right here is the whole thing.
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This is why knowing has never turned into doing because you are not making a choice.
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You're having a fight in your own head.
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Every time you sit down at the table or open up the cupboard, there's a rule on one side, and then there's your body and what it wants and needs on the other.
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And you have already decided decades ago that your body is an unreliable witness.
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So even when you win, you still lose.
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You put the chocolate back and you go to bed feeling proud of yourself for about a night, and then you feel hollow because what you actually did was override yourself again.
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And then you're going to have to override yourself again tomorrow and the day after that and forever because the wanting doesn't go anywhere.
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And eventually it starts to feel like deprivation.
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And when you lose, you really lose because now you didn't just eat a piece of chocolate, you broke a rule.
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You proved the thing that you already believed about yourself.
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And that is exhausting.
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It's exhausting in a way that's hard to explain to somebody who's never lived inside of it.
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And I want to say this really clearly because I don't think you've heard it enough.
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You have wisdom inside of you.
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Your body has wisdom.
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You do.
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Every human being does.
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Your body has been trying to talk to you your whole entire life.
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It tells you when it's hungry and when it's had enough and when it's tired and when something is wrong.
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Now you didn't lose that.
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It's still in there.
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You were just taught very early and very thoroughly not to listen.
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So let's go back to that kitchen one more time because I want to look at what you were actually doing in there.
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You knew the chocolate had sugar in it.
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You knew you weren't hungry.
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You knew if someone had stopped you and quizzed you, you would have been able to tell everything that there is to know about why someone shouldn't be eating a bunch of chocolate at nine o'clock at night on top of a dinner that she already ate.
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You already knew all of it.
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But you ate it anyway.
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So can we stop pretending information was ever going to fix this?
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That rules would ever fix this.
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You didn't eat the chocolate because you were confused about nutrition.
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You ate it because you wanted it.
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And you wanted it for reasons that have nothing to do with what is on the label.
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Maybe you were tired.
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Maybe you had been managing other people's needs since six o'clock in the morning, and that was the first quiet moment that you had had all day, and you wanted something that was just yours.
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Maybe you were lonely, maybe you were bored, maybe you always eat something at nine o'clock because you have always eaten something at nine o'clock every night for the past three years, and your body knows what time it is and it expects it.
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Maybe it just tasted good and you wanted to taste it, you wanted some pleasure.
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Now, I say this to women all the time, and I usually get a little bit of pushback.
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So let me say it carefully.
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If you're eating for any reason, any reason other than hunger, you're eating for emotional reasons.
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Now, I know a lot of you just like bristled because you decided that you are not an emotional eater.
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We think emotional eaters are women who cry into a pint of Ben and Jerry's after a breakup.
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And that's not you.
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You just like a little something at night.
00:21:51.369 --> 00:21:56.009
But eating because you're tired is still emotional eating.
00:21:56.250 --> 00:22:00.809
Eating because you're bored is still emotional eating.
00:22:01.049 --> 00:22:07.769
Eating because it's the only 10 minutes of the day that belong to you is emotional eating.
00:22:08.089 --> 00:22:14.409
Eating at a birthday party because it's a birthday party and you're celebrating and there's cake and everyone's happy.
00:22:14.730 --> 00:22:16.970
That is also emotional eating.
00:22:17.129 --> 00:22:19.930
And here's the part that I need you to actually hear.
00:22:20.170 --> 00:22:23.450
There is nothing wrong with any of that.
00:22:23.690 --> 00:22:28.809
I want to be really clear that I have no judgment about emotional eating.
00:22:29.049 --> 00:22:30.970
Honestly, there's none.
00:22:31.210 --> 00:22:37.289
Eating for reasons other than hunger is one of the most human things that there is.
00:22:37.529 --> 00:22:40.889
We eat at weddings and funerals and holidays.
00:22:41.049 --> 00:22:44.409
We eat to celebrate and to comfort and to connect.
00:22:44.730 --> 00:22:47.049
Food is pleasurable.
00:22:47.210 --> 00:22:48.889
It's supposed to be.
00:22:49.129 --> 00:22:52.569
And that is not a design flaw in you.
00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:56.970
I'm not the one judging you for it, but someone is.
00:22:57.289 --> 00:22:59.289
Diet culture judges you for it.
00:22:59.369 --> 00:23:04.970
And it has been judging you for so long that you took over the job yourself.
00:23:05.129 --> 00:23:07.849
And so now you judge yourself too.
00:23:08.170 --> 00:23:10.809
You do it now without any help.
00:23:11.049 --> 00:23:12.889
And here's the strange thing that judgment.
00:23:13.609 --> 00:23:17.369
Does it make the food more powerful?
00:23:18.009 --> 00:23:19.049
Not less.
00:23:19.529 --> 00:23:24.009
Dia culture took ordinary food and gave it moral character.
00:23:24.329 --> 00:23:26.889
This one's good, this one's bad.
00:23:27.129 --> 00:23:35.690
And the second something is bad, the second it becomes forbidden, it becomes like a beacon.
00:23:36.009 --> 00:23:37.609
You want it even more.
00:23:38.089 --> 00:23:41.930
It has a charge on it that it has never had before.
00:23:42.089 --> 00:23:44.490
Somebody told you that you couldn't have it.
00:23:44.889 --> 00:23:48.889
Some of what you're craving in that kitchen is the chocolate.
00:23:49.210 --> 00:23:57.529
And some of what you're craving is the forbidden, the lack of rules, the you can't tell me what to do.
00:23:58.009 --> 00:24:00.170
So let me ask you something.
00:24:00.490 --> 00:24:06.970
What if a brownie was no more good or no more bad than a piece of broccoli?
00:24:07.210 --> 00:24:09.849
What if they were just food?
00:24:10.170 --> 00:24:13.210
What if you were allowed to want it?
00:24:13.450 --> 00:24:16.250
Like I want you to really think about that for a second.
00:24:16.409 --> 00:24:24.569
Because if you were anything like the women that I work with, some part of you got really super uncomfortable with that statement.
00:24:24.809 --> 00:24:27.049
And we're going to come back to why.
00:24:27.769 --> 00:24:36.889
So I want to say something about exercise here because the same thing happened to your body and movement just a little bit more quietly.
00:24:37.129 --> 00:24:39.849
You beat yourself up about this one constantly.
00:24:40.009 --> 00:24:52.809
You start walking again and you do great for like two weeks, and then a work trip happens, or your mother gets sick and it falls apart, and you decide that the problem is that you can't stick with anything.
00:24:53.129 --> 00:24:56.809
But look at what exercise actually became for you.
00:24:56.970 --> 00:25:01.849
It became the thing that you do to pay for what you ate.
00:25:02.170 --> 00:25:04.809
You have a bigger dinner than you meant to.
00:25:04.970 --> 00:25:12.490
And before you've even put the plate in the sink, you're thinking, okay, I just need to exercise a little bit longer tomorrow.
00:25:12.730 --> 00:25:17.129
I'll do an extra day this week, or I'll go harder.
00:25:17.369 --> 00:25:23.049
You eat the chocolate and you get on the treadmill on Saturday to try to cancel it out.
00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:25.690
That's a debt that you're carrying.
00:25:25.849 --> 00:25:29.529
You're not moving your body because it feels good to move your body.
00:25:29.690 --> 00:25:33.930
You're moving it to settle up the eating debt.
00:25:34.170 --> 00:25:36.569
Nobody sticks with a punishment.
00:25:36.889 --> 00:25:37.769
Nobody.
00:25:38.170 --> 00:25:40.409
You don't have a consistency problem.
00:25:40.569 --> 00:25:48.250
You have a relationship with exercise that was built around paying off a debt that you were never supposed to owe.
00:25:48.490 --> 00:25:53.210
And there's something happening in your body underneath all of that.
00:25:53.529 --> 00:26:02.170
When you overeat, your body is already working hard to deal with that overeating, that indulgence.
00:26:02.409 --> 00:26:11.289
When you go ahead and add a hard workout on top of it as pennants, now your body is dealing with two things at once.
00:26:11.529 --> 00:26:19.210
And what happens is your sleep gets worse, your hunger signals get louder and a little bit stranger.
00:26:19.609 --> 00:26:23.289
Your mood drops, your cravings come back stronger.
00:26:23.529 --> 00:26:27.849
The very thing that you did to fix it made it worse.
00:26:28.170 --> 00:26:32.730
So, yes, exercise is tangled up in all of this as well.
00:26:33.129 --> 00:26:38.730
But for most of the women I work with, food is where the real damage lives.
00:26:38.970 --> 00:26:42.250
So here's what I need you to understand before we finish today.
00:26:42.490 --> 00:26:44.809
This did not start recently, right?
00:26:45.049 --> 00:26:49.129
It didn't start when you turned 40 and things got difficult.
00:26:49.289 --> 00:26:57.369
It didn't start with perimenopause or getting a desk job or the year that you were so busy that you stopped cooking for yourself.
00:26:57.609 --> 00:27:00.809
Those things just made it more obvious.
00:27:01.049 --> 00:27:03.289
They didn't create it.
00:27:03.769 --> 00:27:06.730
This started when you were a lot younger.
00:27:06.970 --> 00:27:14.490
Somebody told you that your body was a problem and you believed her because you were eight and she was your mother.
00:27:14.809 --> 00:27:20.649
Or you were 12 and it was a magazine, or 15 and it was a boy.
00:27:20.889 --> 00:27:24.329
And that belief went in and it stayed.
00:27:24.569 --> 00:27:27.369
And here's the thing about beliefs like that.
00:27:27.849 --> 00:27:30.649
Unfortunately, they do not expire.
00:27:30.889 --> 00:27:33.769
They don't work themselves out over time.
00:27:34.250 --> 00:27:44.329
Nobody wakes up at 52 years old and discovers that the thing that she absorbed at nine quietly dissolved on its own while she was sleeping.
00:27:44.649 --> 00:27:46.170
Look at the evidence.
00:27:46.490 --> 00:27:48.170
You are a grown woman.
00:27:48.329 --> 00:27:54.009
You've raised children or run a department or built something from nothing.
00:27:54.250 --> 00:27:57.690
You have buried people that you loved.
00:27:58.009 --> 00:28:01.529
You have handled things that would flatten most people.
00:28:01.849 --> 00:28:05.609
And you are still standing in your kitchen at night with the light off.
00:28:05.930 --> 00:28:13.129
You are still doing the math on Sunday about what you'll fix in your diet on Monday.
00:28:13.369 --> 00:28:19.609
You are still apologizing to nobody in particular after you eat a piece of chocolate.
00:28:19.849 --> 00:28:25.369
You are still counting up what you ate and what you'll owe and work off.
00:28:25.769 --> 00:28:26.889
40 years.
00:28:27.210 --> 00:28:30.649
40 years of the same argument with yourself.
00:28:31.129 --> 00:28:37.529
So I want to ask you the question that I ask my clients, and I want you to answer it honestly in your head right now.
00:28:37.849 --> 00:28:43.289
If nothing changes, what does this look like when you're 75?
00:28:44.089 --> 00:28:45.690
Are you still standing there?
00:28:45.930 --> 00:28:48.649
Are you still hiding the wrapper?
00:28:48.970 --> 00:28:51.609
Are you still eating in secret?
00:28:51.930 --> 00:28:55.849
Are you still telling yourself that next week you'll be better?
00:28:56.170 --> 00:28:59.769
Because that's what this habit does.
00:29:00.009 --> 00:29:02.170
That's where we are going.
00:29:02.889 --> 00:29:04.569
It doesn't burn itself out.
00:29:04.730 --> 00:29:08.089
It's been running for 40 years and it has not gotten quieter.
00:29:08.250 --> 00:29:12.170
It's just gotten so familiar that you've stopped hearing it.
00:29:12.409 --> 00:29:19.129
And I want to be really precise with you about what actually has to change here because it's not what you think.
00:29:19.289 --> 00:29:23.450
It's not the chocolate, because it was never about the chocolate.
00:29:23.609 --> 00:29:31.930
You could throw out everything in your cupboard tonight, and the voice would still be there in the morning, telling you that you messed up.
00:29:32.569 --> 00:29:37.129
What has to change is the one thing that you've never stopped to examine.
00:29:37.609 --> 00:29:51.289
The rules that you didn't write, the belief that your body is wrong, the certainty planted in you before you could read that wanting something means that there's something wrong with you.
00:29:51.609 --> 00:29:54.170
That's what's running in your health right now.
00:29:54.329 --> 00:30:04.089
Not your discipline, not your character, but something someone else handed to you a very long time ago that you never agreed to carry.
00:30:04.889 --> 00:30:11.289
Now, I've been talking about diet history today because it's where this shows up the most obviously.
00:30:11.450 --> 00:30:17.450
But it isn't the only place where we fail to apply what it is that we know.
00:30:17.769 --> 00:30:21.930
For some of you, it isn't really the old rules at all.
00:30:22.089 --> 00:30:25.129
It's that you stopped hearing your body entirely.
00:30:25.450 --> 00:30:33.129
Or you've got nothing left in the tank by the time that you get home because you spent the whole day on everyone else.
00:30:33.369 --> 00:30:46.009
Or you're living inside a schedule and a house, and you have a group of people that make taking care of yourself nearly impossible, and you've been blaming yourself for doing something the room is doing.
00:30:46.329 --> 00:30:48.730
You can't see this from inside.
00:30:48.889 --> 00:30:50.809
That's not a knock on you.
00:30:51.369 --> 00:30:53.769
Nobody can see it from inside.
00:30:54.009 --> 00:31:00.809
You've been standing inside your own pattern for so long that it looks like the air you breathe.
00:31:01.129 --> 00:31:02.730
So I made a quiz.
00:31:02.809 --> 00:31:06.329
It's called, Why do your healthy habits keep falling apart?
00:31:06.490 --> 00:31:08.569
And it does one thing.
00:31:08.809 --> 00:31:12.889
It shows you where your follow-through is actually breaking down.
00:31:13.049 --> 00:31:15.210
Now, it's not a generic answer.
00:31:15.450 --> 00:31:17.529
It's yours, uniquely yours.
00:31:17.769 --> 00:31:23.049
The specific place where the wheels come off for you and what to look at first.
00:31:23.210 --> 00:31:28.329
It takes about three minutes to take this quiz and the results go straight to your inbox.
00:31:28.569 --> 00:31:32.250
To take the quiz, go to elisabethsherman.com slash quiz.
00:31:32.409 --> 00:31:35.690
That's elizabethsherman.com slash quiz.
00:31:35.849 --> 00:31:40.490
And I will make sure to put the link in the show notes too, so that you don't have to remember it.
00:31:40.730 --> 00:31:43.369
Take it tonight while this is still sitting with you.
00:31:43.609 --> 00:31:48.569
And look, I'm not going to tell you that understanding this fixes it.
00:31:48.730 --> 00:31:49.690
It doesn't.
00:31:50.009 --> 00:31:56.649
You can see the whole thing clearly and still find yourself in the kitchen with the cupboard open.
00:31:57.049 --> 00:32:00.970
But it's different when you know what you're looking at.
00:32:01.289 --> 00:32:07.210
Because now, when the argument starts, you know whose voice that is.
00:32:07.609 --> 00:32:09.129
And it isn't yours.
00:32:09.369 --> 00:32:10.889
That's all I have for you today.
00:32:11.049 --> 00:32:13.769
Have an amazing day, and I will talk to you next time.
00:32:13.930 --> 00:32:14.730
Bye-bye.
00:32:15.049 --> 00:32:22.409
Hey, before you go, if you are someone who says, I know exactly what I should be doing, I just don't do it.
00:32:22.809 --> 00:32:25.849
Hey, if that's you, I made something for you.
00:32:26.009 --> 00:32:30.649
It's a free, three-minute quiz that gets underneath that exact problem.
00:32:31.210 --> 00:32:39.210
Not to give you more information, but to show you the specific reasons your follow-through keeps breaking down just because it's not the same for everyone.
00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:04.480
So here's a thought that I want to put in your head before we even start.
00:00:04.719 --> 00:00:16.320
The next time that you're standing in your kitchen at night arguing with yourself about whether you're allowed to have the chocolate or not, I want you to notice something that you're arguing with yourself.
00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:26.239
That there are two versions of yourself inside your brain: the one who wants it and the one whose whole job is to talk you out of it.
00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:38.240
And you've had that argument so many times that you have stopped noticing how strange it is that it's happening at all.
00:00:38.479 --> 00:00:46.560
Like a woman who trusted her own body would not be standing there negotiating over a cookie.
00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:50.320
So where did that second voice come from?
00:00:50.799 --> 00:00:53.200
The one with all the rules.
00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.320
Because you weren't born with it.
00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:02.719
Nobody comes into this world already at war with herself over chocolate.
00:01:03.359 --> 00:01:11.920
Today, I am going to show you exactly where it came from and how old you were when it decided to take up residency.
00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:24.000
I'm going to tell you why knowing everything that you know about food has never once been enough to make you do the quote unquote right thing.
00:01:24.239 --> 00:01:34.719
And I'm going to tell you the truth about what actually has to change because I promise you, I promise, it is not the chocolate.
00:01:34.959 --> 00:01:43.840
If you have ever wondered why you know exactly what to do and still cannot get yourself to do it, this is the one to stay for.
00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:45.439
So let's get into it.
00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:56.959
Welcome to the Done with Dieting Total Health for Women Over 40 podcast, the podcast for women who are done with the startover cycle and ready for a way of taking care of themselves that actually works.
00:01:57.439 --> 00:01:59.200
All right, so picture this.
00:01:59.359 --> 00:02:08.240
It's night, the house is quiet, everybody else has gone to bed, and you are standing looking in your pantry.
00:02:08.479 --> 00:02:12.479
You already told yourself that you were not going to do this tonight.
00:02:12.719 --> 00:02:18.560
You meant it this morning, and you meant it this afternoon after lunch.
00:02:18.879 --> 00:02:23.520
You swore that you would not need it tonight, and yet here you are.
00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:24.879
You're not hungry.
00:02:25.120 --> 00:02:52.639
You know that you're not hungry because you had dinner two hours ago, and you are not the least bit hungry, and yet somewhere in there, you know the ice cream, or the chips, or the wine, or those few squares of chocolate that never stay just like one or two, and you're standing there having the same conversation that you've had a hundred times.
00:02:52.879 --> 00:02:53.919
I shouldn't.
00:02:54.159 --> 00:02:59.039
I know I shouldn't, but I want it, but I've been good all day.
00:02:59.199 --> 00:03:00.479
I deserve it.
00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:03.759
No, put it back, just go to bed.
00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:05.680
And you stand there.
00:03:06.159 --> 00:03:08.319
So welcome to the Dung with Dieting Podcast.
00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:13.360
I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and I am so glad that you are here with me today.
00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:18.240
Thank you for spending a little bit of your day with me wherever you are listening to.
00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:21.280
Wherever you are listening from.
00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:29.120
So I wanted to start you off in that kitchen because I think for many, you know exactly the moment that I'm talking about.
00:03:29.360 --> 00:03:30.479
You've lived it.
00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:35.120
Some of you lived it last night, or you might be living it tonight.
00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:37.759
And here is what I want you to notice.
00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:40.560
I don't want you to notice the chocolate.
00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:48.400
I want you to notice the conversation that is going on in your head, the argument, that back and forth.
00:03:48.719 --> 00:03:50.719
I shouldn't, but I want to.
00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:51.919
That tug.
00:03:52.319 --> 00:04:05.759
The whole debate that you're running in your own head at night when everything is quiet by yourself over a cookie or a granola bar or whatever it is.
00:04:06.240 --> 00:04:09.039
That argument is what I want to talk about today.
00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.159
Because that argument is telling you something.
00:04:12.319 --> 00:04:17.519
And none of us ever stop long enough to hear what it's actually saying.
00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:20.959
So here's the part I really want you to sit with.
00:04:21.199 --> 00:04:26.079
A woman who trusted her own body would not be standing there arguing.
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:28.079
I want you to think about that.
00:04:28.319 --> 00:04:33.040
A woman who really trusted herself would not be arguing.
00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:42.480
If you trusted yourself, if you trusted your own hunger and your own ability to make a call and live with it, you wouldn't need the debate at all.
00:04:42.800 --> 00:04:48.800
You would know whether you wanted the thing and you'd have it or you wouldn't.
00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:52.800
And either way, you would go on with your night.
00:04:52.959 --> 00:05:00.160
There would be no negotiating, no bargaining with yourself in the dark over whatever that thing is.
00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:06.399
The fact that there's an argument at all tells you something got crossed somewhere.
00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:11.040
At some point, you stopped being able to just decide.
00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:22.160
And now there are two of you standing in that kitchen, the one who wants the thing and the one whose entire job is to talk you out of it.
00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:28.319
So I want to talk today about where that second voice came from because you weren't born with it.
00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:33.600
Nobody comes into this world arguing with herself over chips.
00:05:33.839 --> 00:05:39.199
And this matters a whole lot more than one cookie at night.
00:05:39.519 --> 00:05:47.360
This is the same thing that has you knowing exactly what you should be doing for your health and still not doing it.
00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:48.879
You know what to eat.
00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:52.560
You know you should move your body and get to bed earlier.
00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:56.240
You could probably tell me a few things.
00:05:56.560 --> 00:06:00.560
And you still cannot get yourself to actually do the thing.
00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:03.120
You already know what to do.
00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:10.319
I want to be clear about something before we go even a step further, because I know where your mind goes with this.
00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:17.439
You think the reason that you're standing in that kitchen losing the argument is that you don't have enough willpower.
00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:24.560
That if you were just a little bit more disciplined, a little bit tougher, you would win every single time.
00:06:24.879 --> 00:06:26.160
That was never it.
00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:30.800
And by the end of this episode, I want you to understand why.
00:06:31.279 --> 00:06:41.279
So let me back up out of the kitchen for just a minute and look at the bigger picture because that argument over chocolate is only one very small piece of it.
00:06:41.519 --> 00:06:44.079
Think about how much you already know.
00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:47.199
You know what a serving of protein looks like.
00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:52.079
You know that vegetables are good for you and that you should probably eat more of them.
00:06:52.319 --> 00:06:55.600
You know that walking counts as exercise.
00:06:55.920 --> 00:07:01.279
You know that being on your phone until midnight is probably wrecking your sleep.
00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:17.680
You've read the books, you listen to podcasts like this one, you've listened to a lot of them, you've watched the videos, you've read the internet, you've sat through the free webinar at eight o'clock on a Tuesday when you were tired and just wanted to go to bed instead.
00:07:17.920 --> 00:07:24.079
Your friend calls you and tells you that she wants to eat better, and you can tell her exactly what to do.
00:07:24.319 --> 00:07:29.040
You give her great advice, you mean it, and you're probably right.
00:07:29.279 --> 00:07:32.720
And she takes it and she tells you that it helped.
00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:38.959
And then you hang up the phone, and then you go stand in your own kitchen at nine o'clock.
00:07:39.360 --> 00:07:44.639
Ask me how I know that right there is the gap.
00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:53.839
You have the information, you can teach it, you could probably teach it better than some of the people getting paid to teach it.
00:07:54.079 --> 00:08:00.079
And yet, you cannot get yourself to do the thing that you already know how to do.
00:08:00.319 --> 00:08:07.439
Now, I have been coaching women for about 20 years now, and I want to tell you what I have almost never seen.
00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:14.079
I have almost never sat down with a woman who didn't already know what to do.
00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:18.639
It happens occasionally, but it's pretty freaking rare.
00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:31.279
Mostly what's sitting across from me is a smart, capable woman who could recite the whole thing back to me and who is exhausted and confused about why none of it sticks.
00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:35.600
And so today, I am not going to hand you more information.
00:08:35.919 --> 00:08:38.240
I'm not going to give you a list.
00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:42.000
I'm not going to tell you five things to try this week.
00:08:42.240 --> 00:08:54.399
If more information was what you needed, you would have solved this a really long time ago because you've been collecting information about your own health for probably 30 years now.
00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:58.240
You are not missing any information.
00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:01.120
You are missing something else entirely.
00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:08.960
Because when you understand what's actually running the show at night, a lot of things start to make sense.
00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:20.799
The binging, the Monday mornings, the way that you can be so disciplined at work and so completely at war with yourself at night over a bag of chips.
00:09:21.519 --> 00:09:26.639
Now, none of that is a personality trait or a character flaw.
00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:28.559
And there's a reason for it.
00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:32.320
So I want to go back to that second voice for a second.
00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:36.639
The one in the kitchen whose whole job is to talk you out of the chocolate.
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:41.759
That voice has rules, like a lot of them.
00:09:42.159 --> 00:09:43.279
Carbs are bad.
00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:48.720
Well, some carbs, not fruit, but maybe some fruits.
00:09:49.039 --> 00:09:50.639
Red is definitely bad.
00:09:50.799 --> 00:09:56.399
Fruit is fine, but not too much fruit or tropical fruits because of the sugar.
00:09:56.639 --> 00:10:01.679
Now, fat used to be bad, and now fat is good, but not that kind of fat.
00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:04.480
It's the healthy fat that we're supposed to be eating.
00:10:04.639 --> 00:10:07.919
But don't eat after seven and don't eat before noon.
00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:13.360
Eat six small meals, but no, now we're supposed to eat two big ones.
00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:15.600
Sugar is definitely poison.
00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:19.840
You should probably be getting 100 grams of protein per day.
00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:21.440
You should be counting something.
00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:27.120
And if you're not counting something, you're probably overdoing it or underdoing it.
00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:37.840
If you sat down and wrote out every single rule that you carry about food, you would fill probably those journals that are empty.
00:10:38.080 --> 00:10:42.960
And you would notice that half of them contradict the other half.
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:48.559
And you would still somehow feel like you're supposed to be following all of them at once.
00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:51.919
Now, here's the question I want you to actually sit with.
00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:55.279
Where did we get all of these rules?
00:10:55.600 --> 00:11:00.480
Not where did you read them, but where did they originally come from?
00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:02.879
Which ones did you choose?
00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:07.360
Because I don't think that you actually chose any of them.
00:11:07.600 --> 00:11:10.320
I think that they were handed to you.
00:11:10.639 --> 00:11:17.840
Somebody in your life said something to you about your body, and you were young enough that you believed her.
00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:23.360
It might have been your mother standing in the mirror talking about her own thighs.
00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:26.799
It might have been your mother talking about yours.
00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:34.159
Maybe you had a grandmother or an older sister who was thinner than you and everyone noticed.
00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:37.840
Maybe it was a boyfriend in high school who made a joke.
00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:46.639
Maybe it was a kid on the bus in sixth grade who found the one thing to say that you still hear in your head 40 years later.
00:11:46.960 --> 00:11:54.559
Maybe nobody said anything at all, and you just read the magazines that were sitting on the coffee table.
00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.720
10 pounds by summer.
00:11:57.039 --> 00:11:58.720
What he really notices.
00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:01.600
50 ways to be smaller.
00:12:01.919 --> 00:12:08.480
You absorbed all of it before you had any way to evaluate it or filter it out.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:11.759
You were nine or 11 or 14.
00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:16.480
You didn't have the ability to say, hey, wait a minute, hold on.
00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:19.600
That's a strange thing to tell a child.
00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:23.440
You just took it in the way kids take everything in.
00:12:23.759 --> 00:12:26.080
And it became true.
00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:29.679
And a lot of you were put on a diet.
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:34.159
Some of you were put on a diet when you were a little girl.
00:12:34.399 --> 00:12:40.000
Somebody decided that you needed to lose weight before you were old enough to have any say in it.
00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:47.200
There were foods in your house that you were allowed to eat, and foods that you certainly were not allowed to eat.
00:12:47.360 --> 00:12:54.159
And the ones that you weren't allowed to eat were the ones that were tasty, the ones that you wanted.
00:12:54.399 --> 00:12:56.399
So you got sneaky about it.
00:12:56.559 --> 00:12:58.720
You ate cookies in your room.
00:12:58.960 --> 00:13:03.919
You ate standing up in the kitchen with the light off so no one would know.
00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:08.720
You ate fast before anyone could see you eating it.
00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:13.519
And you learned two things that have stayed with you your entire life.
00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:17.360
You learned that wanting that food was shameful.
00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:22.159
And you learned that the only way to have it was to hide.
00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:25.519
That's 50 years ago now for some of you.
00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:33.120
And you're still eating, standing up in the kitchen with the light off, or eating quickly so that no one sees you.
00:13:33.360 --> 00:13:35.440
Here's what I want you to see.
00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:39.679
You have been living inside a set of rules that you did not write.
00:13:39.840 --> 00:13:49.840
You've been following them, breaking them, feeling terrible about breaking them, and then going back to following them again for decades now.
00:13:50.240 --> 00:14:00.559
And in all that time, almost nobody stops to pull one of those rules out and look at it and ask the simple question is this true?
00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:02.720
Was it ever true?
00:14:03.200 --> 00:14:07.519
So I want to show you what all those rules have done to you over the years.
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:14.799
Not what they did to your weight, what they did to your relationship with yourself and your relationship with food.
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:20.000
Every single rule you absorbed was built on one idea underneath it.
00:14:20.240 --> 00:14:29.679
The idea is this your body cannot be trusted that something else knows you better than you.
00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:31.440
That's the message.
00:14:31.600 --> 00:14:37.440
Every diet that you've been on told you the same thing, wrapped up a little bit differently.
00:14:37.679 --> 00:14:39.279
Don't listen to yourself.
00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:42.080
Listen to us because we're experts.
00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:47.519
Here's when to eat, here's how much to eat, here's what to eat.
00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:55.360
Follow the plan and don't ask questions because if you were capable of running this on your own, you would not be here, would you?
00:14:55.679 --> 00:15:00.159
Think about what that does to a person over 30 or 40 years.
00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:03.120
You get hungry at three o'clock in the afternoon.
00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.519
And instead of thinking, huh, I'm hungry, I should probably eat something.
00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:10.960
You think, I already had lunch, I can't eat right now.
00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:12.559
I shouldn't be hungry.
00:15:12.799 --> 00:15:14.240
I need to wait.
00:15:14.559 --> 00:15:16.399
What is wrong with me?
00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:26.159
You want something sweet after dinner, and instead of thinking, I want something sweet, you think, why can't I control myself?
00:16:40.089 --> 00:16:42.649
You're tired and you don't want to work out.
00:16:42.730 --> 00:16:52.409
And instead of thinking, I'm tired, maybe I need some rest or to do something differently than I planned, you think, I must be just lazy.
00:16:52.730 --> 00:16:54.409
Do you see what happened there?
00:16:54.649 --> 00:16:59.689
Every message your body sent you got translated into evidence against you.
00:16:59.929 --> 00:17:01.929
Hunger becomes a problem.
00:17:02.329 --> 00:17:04.730
Cravings become a weakness.
00:17:04.970 --> 00:17:11.769
Wanting something became proof that there's something wrong with you that isn't wrong with other women.
00:17:12.009 --> 00:17:19.849
You have been taught for your entire life that the signals coming from inside your own body are the actual enemy.
00:17:20.009 --> 00:17:26.490
And when you can't trust the thing inside of you, you have to reach for something outside of you.
00:17:26.730 --> 00:17:32.009
So you reach for a rule because at least the rule doesn't change.
00:17:32.250 --> 00:17:35.210
At least the rule can't be wrong.
00:17:35.529 --> 00:17:37.450
The rule is safe.
00:17:37.930 --> 00:17:54.250
And that's how a hungry woman ends up standing in her kitchen consulting a set of instructions in her head that she has memorized that she got from a magazine in 1987, instead of just asking herself what she wants to eat.
00:17:54.650 --> 00:17:58.329
And this right here is the whole thing.
00:17:58.809 --> 00:18:05.690
This is why knowing has never turned into doing because you are not making a choice.
00:18:05.849 --> 00:18:08.250
You're having a fight in your own head.
00:18:08.410 --> 00:18:18.490
Every time you sit down at the table or open up the cupboard, there's a rule on one side, and then there's your body and what it wants and needs on the other.
00:18:18.730 --> 00:18:24.809
And you have already decided decades ago that your body is an unreliable witness.
00:18:25.049 --> 00:18:28.809
So even when you win, you still lose.
00:18:28.970 --> 00:18:41.210
You put the chocolate back and you go to bed feeling proud of yourself for about a night, and then you feel hollow because what you actually did was override yourself again.
00:18:41.529 --> 00:18:50.649
And then you're going to have to override yourself again tomorrow and the day after that and forever because the wanting doesn't go anywhere.
00:18:50.730 --> 00:18:54.250
And eventually it starts to feel like deprivation.
00:18:54.490 --> 00:19:02.329
And when you lose, you really lose because now you didn't just eat a piece of chocolate, you broke a rule.
00:19:02.649 --> 00:19:06.569
You proved the thing that you already believed about yourself.
00:19:06.809 --> 00:19:08.809
And that is exhausting.
00:19:08.970 --> 00:19:14.250
It's exhausting in a way that's hard to explain to somebody who's never lived inside of it.
00:19:14.409 --> 00:19:19.930
And I want to say this really clearly because I don't think you've heard it enough.
00:19:20.250 --> 00:19:22.889
You have wisdom inside of you.
00:19:23.210 --> 00:19:25.210
Your body has wisdom.
00:19:25.529 --> 00:19:26.170
You do.
00:19:26.730 --> 00:19:28.409
Every human being does.
00:19:28.649 --> 00:19:32.649
Your body has been trying to talk to you your whole entire life.
00:19:32.889 --> 00:19:38.889
It tells you when it's hungry and when it's had enough and when it's tired and when something is wrong.
00:19:39.129 --> 00:19:40.809
Now you didn't lose that.
00:19:40.970 --> 00:19:42.490
It's still in there.
00:19:42.730 --> 00:19:47.049
You were just taught very early and very thoroughly not to listen.
00:19:47.289 --> 00:19:53.129
So let's go back to that kitchen one more time because I want to look at what you were actually doing in there.
00:19:53.369 --> 00:19:55.369
You knew the chocolate had sugar in it.
00:19:55.529 --> 00:19:56.649
You knew you weren't hungry.
00:19:56.730 --> 00:20:11.369
You knew if someone had stopped you and quizzed you, you would have been able to tell everything that there is to know about why someone shouldn't be eating a bunch of chocolate at nine o'clock at night on top of a dinner that she already ate.
00:20:11.690 --> 00:20:14.170
You already knew all of it.
00:20:14.490 --> 00:20:16.569
But you ate it anyway.
00:20:16.889 --> 00:20:22.569
So can we stop pretending information was ever going to fix this?
00:20:22.809 --> 00:20:25.450
That rules would ever fix this.
00:20:25.690 --> 00:20:29.690
You didn't eat the chocolate because you were confused about nutrition.
00:20:29.930 --> 00:20:32.809
You ate it because you wanted it.
00:20:33.049 --> 00:20:38.490
And you wanted it for reasons that have nothing to do with what is on the label.
00:20:38.730 --> 00:20:40.089
Maybe you were tired.
00:20:40.409 --> 00:20:52.170
Maybe you had been managing other people's needs since six o'clock in the morning, and that was the first quiet moment that you had had all day, and you wanted something that was just yours.
00:20:52.649 --> 00:21:09.450
Maybe you were lonely, maybe you were bored, maybe you always eat something at nine o'clock because you have always eaten something at nine o'clock every night for the past three years, and your body knows what time it is and it expects it.
00:21:09.769 --> 00:21:15.289
Maybe it just tasted good and you wanted to taste it, you wanted some pleasure.
00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:21.690
Now, I say this to women all the time, and I usually get a little bit of pushback.
00:21:21.849 --> 00:21:23.450
So let me say it carefully.
00:21:23.769 --> 00:21:32.809
If you're eating for any reason, any reason other than hunger, you're eating for emotional reasons.
00:21:32.970 --> 00:21:39.289
Now, I know a lot of you just like bristled because you decided that you are not an emotional eater.
00:21:39.690 --> 00:21:46.409
We think emotional eaters are women who cry into a pint of Ben and Jerry's after a breakup.
00:21:46.490 --> 00:21:47.690
And that's not you.
00:21:48.009 --> 00:21:51.129
You just like a little something at night.
00:21:51.369 --> 00:21:56.009
But eating because you're tired is still emotional eating.
00:21:56.250 --> 00:22:00.809
Eating because you're bored is still emotional eating.
00:22:01.049 --> 00:22:07.769
Eating because it's the only 10 minutes of the day that belong to you is emotional eating.
00:22:08.089 --> 00:22:14.409
Eating at a birthday party because it's a birthday party and you're celebrating and there's cake and everyone's happy.
00:22:14.730 --> 00:22:16.970
That is also emotional eating.
00:22:17.129 --> 00:22:19.930
And here's the part that I need you to actually hear.
00:22:20.170 --> 00:22:23.450
There is nothing wrong with any of that.
00:22:23.690 --> 00:22:28.809
I want to be really clear that I have no judgment about emotional eating.
00:22:29.049 --> 00:22:30.970
Honestly, there's none.
00:22:31.210 --> 00:22:37.289
Eating for reasons other than hunger is one of the most human things that there is.
00:22:37.529 --> 00:22:40.889
We eat at weddings and funerals and holidays.
00:22:41.049 --> 00:22:44.409
We eat to celebrate and to comfort and to connect.
00:22:44.730 --> 00:22:47.049
Food is pleasurable.
00:22:47.210 --> 00:22:48.889
It's supposed to be.
00:22:49.129 --> 00:22:52.569
And that is not a design flaw in you.
00:22:52.970 --> 00:22:56.970
I'm not the one judging you for it, but someone is.
00:22:57.289 --> 00:22:59.289
Diet culture judges you for it.
00:22:59.369 --> 00:23:04.970
And it has been judging you for so long that you took over the job yourself.
00:23:05.129 --> 00:23:07.849
And so now you judge yourself too.
00:23:08.170 --> 00:23:10.809
You do it now without any help.
00:23:11.049 --> 00:23:12.889
And here's the strange thing that judgment.
00:23:13.609 --> 00:23:17.369
Does it make the food more powerful?
00:23:18.009 --> 00:23:19.049
Not less.
00:23:19.529 --> 00:23:24.009
Dia culture took ordinary food and gave it moral character.
00:23:24.329 --> 00:23:26.889
This one's good, this one's bad.
00:23:27.129 --> 00:23:35.690
And the second something is bad, the second it becomes forbidden, it becomes like a beacon.
00:23:36.009 --> 00:23:37.609
You want it even more.
00:23:38.089 --> 00:23:41.930
It has a charge on it that it has never had before.
00:23:42.089 --> 00:23:44.490
Somebody told you that you couldn't have it.
00:23:44.889 --> 00:23:48.889
Some of what you're craving in that kitchen is the chocolate.
00:23:49.210 --> 00:23:57.529
And some of what you're craving is the forbidden, the lack of rules, the you can't tell me what to do.
00:23:58.009 --> 00:24:00.170
So let me ask you something.
00:24:00.490 --> 00:24:06.970
What if a brownie was no more good or no more bad than a piece of broccoli?
00:24:07.210 --> 00:24:09.849
What if they were just food?
00:24:10.170 --> 00:24:13.210
What if you were allowed to want it?
00:24:13.450 --> 00:24:16.250
Like I want you to really think about that for a second.
00:24:16.409 --> 00:24:24.569
Because if you were anything like the women that I work with, some part of you got really super uncomfortable with that statement.
00:24:24.809 --> 00:24:27.049
And we're going to come back to why.
00:24:27.769 --> 00:24:36.889
So I want to say something about exercise here because the same thing happened to your body and movement just a little bit more quietly.
00:24:37.129 --> 00:24:39.849
You beat yourself up about this one constantly.
00:24:40.009 --> 00:24:52.809
You start walking again and you do great for like two weeks, and then a work trip happens, or your mother gets sick and it falls apart, and you decide that the problem is that you can't stick with anything.
00:24:53.129 --> 00:24:56.809
But look at what exercise actually became for you.
00:24:56.970 --> 00:25:01.849
It became the thing that you do to pay for what you ate.
00:25:02.170 --> 00:25:04.809
You have a bigger dinner than you meant to.
00:25:04.970 --> 00:25:12.490
And before you've even put the plate in the sink, you're thinking, okay, I just need to exercise a little bit longer tomorrow.
00:25:12.730 --> 00:25:17.129
I'll do an extra day this week, or I'll go harder.
00:25:17.369 --> 00:25:23.049
You eat the chocolate and you get on the treadmill on Saturday to try to cancel it out.
00:25:23.289 --> 00:25:25.690
That's a debt that you're carrying.
00:25:25.849 --> 00:25:29.529
You're not moving your body because it feels good to move your body.
00:25:29.690 --> 00:25:33.930
You're moving it to settle up the eating debt.
00:25:34.170 --> 00:25:36.569
Nobody sticks with a punishment.
00:25:36.889 --> 00:25:37.769
Nobody.
00:25:38.170 --> 00:25:40.409
You don't have a consistency problem.
00:25:40.569 --> 00:25:48.250
You have a relationship with exercise that was built around paying off a debt that you were never supposed to owe.
00:25:48.490 --> 00:25:53.210
And there's something happening in your body underneath all of that.
00:25:53.529 --> 00:26:02.170
When you overeat, your body is already working hard to deal with that overeating, that indulgence.
00:26:02.409 --> 00:26:11.289
When you go ahead and add a hard workout on top of it as pennants, now your body is dealing with two things at once.
00:26:11.529 --> 00:26:19.210
And what happens is your sleep gets worse, your hunger signals get louder and a little bit stranger.
00:26:19.609 --> 00:26:23.289
Your mood drops, your cravings come back stronger.
00:26:23.529 --> 00:26:27.849
The very thing that you did to fix it made it worse.
00:26:28.170 --> 00:26:32.730
So, yes, exercise is tangled up in all of this as well.
00:26:33.129 --> 00:26:38.730
But for most of the women I work with, food is where the real damage lives.
00:26:38.970 --> 00:26:42.250
So here's what I need you to understand before we finish today.
00:26:42.490 --> 00:26:44.809
This did not start recently, right?
00:26:45.049 --> 00:26:49.129
It didn't start when you turned 40 and things got difficult.
00:26:49.289 --> 00:26:57.369
It didn't start with perimenopause or getting a desk job or the year that you were so busy that you stopped cooking for yourself.
00:26:57.609 --> 00:27:00.809
Those things just made it more obvious.
00:27:01.049 --> 00:27:03.289
They didn't create it.
00:27:03.769 --> 00:27:06.730
This started when you were a lot younger.
00:27:06.970 --> 00:27:14.490
Somebody told you that your body was a problem and you believed her because you were eight and she was your mother.
00:27:14.809 --> 00:27:20.649
Or you were 12 and it was a magazine, or 15 and it was a boy.
00:27:20.889 --> 00:27:24.329
And that belief went in and it stayed.
00:27:24.569 --> 00:27:27.369
And here's the thing about beliefs like that.
00:27:27.849 --> 00:27:30.649
Unfortunately, they do not expire.
00:27:30.889 --> 00:27:33.769
They don't work themselves out over time.
00:27:34.250 --> 00:27:44.329
Nobody wakes up at 52 years old and discovers that the thing that she absorbed at nine quietly dissolved on its own while she was sleeping.
00:27:44.649 --> 00:27:46.170
Look at the evidence.
00:27:46.490 --> 00:27:48.170
You are a grown woman.
00:27:48.329 --> 00:27:54.009
You've raised children or run a department or built something from nothing.
00:27:54.250 --> 00:27:57.690
You have buried people that you loved.
00:27:58.009 --> 00:28:01.529
You have handled things that would flatten most people.
00:28:01.849 --> 00:28:05.609
And you are still standing in your kitchen at night with the light off.
00:28:05.930 --> 00:28:13.129
You are still doing the math on Sunday about what you'll fix in your diet on Monday.
00:28:13.369 --> 00:28:19.609
You are still apologizing to nobody in particular after you eat a piece of chocolate.
00:28:19.849 --> 00:28:25.369
You are still counting up what you ate and what you'll owe and work off.
00:28:25.769 --> 00:28:26.889
40 years.
00:28:27.210 --> 00:28:30.649
40 years of the same argument with yourself.
00:28:31.129 --> 00:28:37.529
So I want to ask you the question that I ask my clients, and I want you to answer it honestly in your head right now.
00:28:37.849 --> 00:28:43.289
If nothing changes, what does this look like when you're 75?
00:28:44.089 --> 00:28:45.690
Are you still standing there?
00:28:45.930 --> 00:28:48.649
Are you still hiding the wrapper?
00:28:48.970 --> 00:28:51.609
Are you still eating in secret?
00:28:51.930 --> 00:28:55.849
Are you still telling yourself that next week you'll be better?
00:28:56.170 --> 00:28:59.769
Because that's what this habit does.
00:29:00.009 --> 00:29:02.170
That's where we are going.
00:29:02.889 --> 00:29:04.569
It doesn't burn itself out.
00:29:04.730 --> 00:29:08.089
It's been running for 40 years and it has not gotten quieter.
00:29:08.250 --> 00:29:12.170
It's just gotten so familiar that you've stopped hearing it.
00:29:12.409 --> 00:29:19.129
And I want to be really precise with you about what actually has to change here because it's not what you think.
00:29:19.289 --> 00:29:23.450
It's not the chocolate, because it was never about the chocolate.
00:29:23.609 --> 00:29:31.930
You could throw out everything in your cupboard tonight, and the voice would still be there in the morning, telling you that you messed up.
00:29:32.569 --> 00:29:37.129
What has to change is the one thing that you've never stopped to examine.
00:29:37.609 --> 00:29:51.289
The rules that you didn't write, the belief that your body is wrong, the certainty planted in you before you could read that wanting something means that there's something wrong with you.
00:29:51.609 --> 00:29:54.170
That's what's running in your health right now.
00:29:54.329 --> 00:30:04.089
Not your discipline, not your character, but something someone else handed to you a very long time ago that you never agreed to carry.
00:30:04.889 --> 00:30:11.289
Now, I've been talking about diet history today because it's where this shows up the most obviously.
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But it isn't the only place where we fail to apply what it is that we know.
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For some of you, it isn't really the old rules at all.
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It's that you stopped hearing your body entirely.
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Or you've got nothing left in the tank by the time that you get home because you spent the whole day on everyone else.
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Or you're living inside a schedule and a house, and you have a group of people that make taking care of yourself nearly impossible, and you've been blaming yourself for doing something the room is doing.
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You can't see this from inside.
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That's not a knock on you.
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Nobody can see it from inside.
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You've been standing inside your own pattern for so long that it looks like the air you breathe.
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So I made a quiz.
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It's called, Why do your healthy habits keep falling apart?
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And it does one thing.
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It shows you where your follow-through is actually breaking down.
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Now, it's not a generic answer.
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It's yours, uniquely yours.
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The specific place where the wheels come off for you and what to look at first.
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It takes about three minutes to take this quiz and the results go straight to your inbox.
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To take the quiz, go to elisabethsherman.com slash quiz.
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That's elizabethsherman.com slash quiz.
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And I will make sure to put the link in the show notes too, so that you don't have to remember it.
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Take it tonight while this is still sitting with you.
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And look, I'm not going to tell you that understanding this fixes it.
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It doesn't.
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You can see the whole thing clearly and still find yourself in the kitchen with the cupboard open.
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But it's different when you know what you're looking at.
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Because now, when the argument starts, you know whose voice that is.
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And it isn't yours.
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That's all I have for you today.
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Have an amazing day, and I will talk to you next time.
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Bye-bye.
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Hey, before you go, if you are someone who says, I know exactly what I should be doing, I just don't do it.
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Hey, if that's you, I made something for you.
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It's a free, three-minute quiz that gets underneath that exact problem.
00:32:31.210 --> 00:32:39.210
Not to give you more information, but to show you the specific reasons your follow-through keeps breaking down just because it's not the same for everyone.
