episode 180: how to change the thoughts you have about food and your body image issues
Today, I'm diving into a big topic that's been coming up with many of my clients: recognizing and responding to our automatic, reflexive thoughts about food and body image issues.
These thoughts are deeply ingrained and often feel uncontrollable, and while we can't stop them from happening we can learn to respond to them. Listen in for exactly how to do that:
Understanding the automatic thoughts about food and body image.
Separating our autonomous selves from our brain's reflexes.
How acknowledging these thoughts can lead to more productive responses
Skills and techniques to handle reflexive thoughts.
How these concepts apply beyond food and body image.
Our bodies and brains are capable of adapting and changing to the input we give them—where you are now is not where you will be forever.
Check out episodes 169 and 177 for more simple skills to help improve body image issues and body confidence.
-
180
[00:00:00] Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon. Actually, it's noon when I'm recording this. So whenever you're listening to it, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Um, I appreciate you. Like, I feel like I always say that at the end, but I just want to say it off the top.
Um, and I know I've said this recently, but the podcast market, I think, becomes more saturated by the day. Um, I don't listen to podcasts that often to be honest. Um, I'm listening to one right now that I'm loving. You may or may not know that I'm obsessed with the show Felicity. I watched it in real time when it was on from 1998 to 2002 and I've since re watched it, actually only twice because it wasn't available for a long time.
I re watched it over this past winter and a fun piece of trivia that my son Ben is named for Ben from that show. That is why I I'm obsessed with that name. There was only, I knew if I was having a boy, like, his name was Ben. That was it. There was no conversation. There was one name. It [00:01:00] was Ben, um, because of Ben from Felicity.
So anyway, um, there's a rewatch podcast happening right now, kind of like for the 25th anniversary. And they're bringing back Keri Russell and JJ Abrams and Scott Speedman. Like, everyone who's on the show, it's super cool. And I'm, like, really enjoying it. So I hope that If you listen to the diet diaries regularly that you enjoy listening to this as much as I'm enjoying listening to that I hope it's entertaining.
I hope it's useful My episodes are pretty quick. Those are long. They're over an hour So, you know, my goal with the diet diaries is to give you short quote unquote bite sized things to think about. Sometimes I offer skills, which I'm going to do today. Sometimes I'm kind of venting and it's like a we're in this together sort of thing.
Um, but I think it's really just a way to connect, even if that connection is one sided, right? Because I never know who's actually listening to this and what [00:02:00] your thoughts are unless you reach out to me, which I highly encourage you to do. Um, And just for you to have a resource. I really want this to just be a resource for people to know that I have, this is episode 180, which is like really fucking cool.
Um, and I have repeated topics and I will continue to repeat topics because honestly I kind of forget what I did two years ago fine because we need to hear things more than once and nobody wants to go searching back for episodes from two years ago. Anyway, um, this is meant to be a resource for you to help you learn skills around eating and to feel more at ease in your body and just to know that you are not the only person thinking and feeling and going through the stuff that you are thinking and feeling and going through when it comes to eating and dieting and struggling with how your body looks and your all or nothing relationship with food, like, You are not alone.
You never have been alone. You never will be alone. And that is why I have this [00:03:00] podcast. So anyway, I don't know where that came from. Wasn't planning on saying that, but just came out. So what I want to talk about today is a skill and a conversation that has been coming up with like almost every single client that I'm working with right now.
Um, and that is this idea of talking back to your brain and kind of grasping the idea that our brains and the way they operate and the thoughts that they have are kind of like a separate entity from us as autonomous human beings. Now, here's what I mean by that. When it comes to how we feel about food and our bodies, the thought, the feelings and thoughts, because usually it comes in that order.
We're not conscious of that, but really kind of What the science shows is we feel something first, and then the thought comes after it. Um, and it's just like split second stuff that [00:04:00] happens, um, or even faster than that. Um, is that we, those are like, I am thinking about them as like reflexes, right? When you see a piece of cake, there is a reflexive thought that happens in your brain.
That's bad. I can't eat that. I'm out of control around that. If I eat that, I'm gonna gain weight. And they happen in like, I mean, so fast, it's like lightning. And those thoughts are literally like a reflex, no different than when you get a physical and the doctor takes that rubber mallet and taps your knee and it straightens and then bends.
It's a reflex from your nervous system. It comes from a very primal place. It doesn't actually come from your brain. It comes from, I believe, your brain stem and lower down in your spinal cord, um, specifically so that the, um, that nerve reaction doesn't have to travel as far. It's actually a really cool evolutionary mechanism.
And from a, you know, from a, a brain science, neurological neuroscience standpoint, The, the, [00:05:00] the thoughts and reactions we have around food do not come from that same kind of primal place, but for all intents and purposes, and for the sake of our conversation, it is a reflex. It's instantaneous. And that means we cannot control it.
Such a huge part of this work is understanding that you cannot control the thoughts that your brain puts out, because they are very, very deeply wired. of the women that I, all the women I work with, for myself and for most of you listening, you have been struggling with body image and with food and chronic dieting for most of your life.
Whether you are 20, 30, 40, 75, 85, It's been for most of your life. And I don't think we often don't appreciate and understand how hardwired those thoughts and feelings are into our brain. And that means that the thoughts that happen are going to be a [00:06:00] result of that hardwiring, that very, very deep conditioning, and we can't control them.
But what happens is we don't really recognize that, we don't acknowledge that, and then we start to get, feel guilty and get ashamed and upset and frustrated and this is why we tell ourselves we're out of control and this is why we get frustrated that change takes so long or that we've been doing something for a week and why is this so hard or even a month or whatever.
Um, and so understanding that your brain is going to do what it's going to do. And that's not like a throw up our hands and say, well, then there's nothing I can do. That's not true at all. It actually is quite the opposite. Acknowledging that, I think, empowers us more because it gives us a way to actually see what's happening and figure out what to do that's actually productive, which is not trying to change what you're thinking.
It is responding to what you think. Let that feeling, let that thought happen. Notice it. [00:07:00] Oh! There it is. There's that thought that cake is bad, and if I eat that, I'm gonna gain weight. And then respond to it. I'm not gonna talk about the responding to it part, because I have in many other episodes, and I will.
That's a, those are, it's like another set of skills. I'm talking about the very first skill, kind of in like the chain reaction of this, is noticing the thoughts and instead of spiraling and responding to them in the way that we do with like, Oh yeah, I see a piece of cake and immediately think, Oh my God, I want that so bad.
It looks amazing. I can't have that. If I have that, I'm going to eat the whole thing. I'm going to gain weight. And if I have that, then I'm going to want more. I'm never going to be able to stop. And I'm going to be off the wagon. And that's it. Forget it. I'm screwed. And then instead of following through on that, And either restricting yourself and like white knuckling, I'm like ripping my desk as I'm saying this, white knuckling through it.
Or the other side is saying, fuck it, I'll have the cake and then eating three more pieces of cake after that because you have the story in your head that you're out of control and you don't have the skills [00:08:00] to do that. to eat cake in a way that feels good. There are, there's a lot of options in between those two extremes.
Neither of those are an answer. Both of those, those options suck. They both suck. There is a life between not eating any cake and eating so much cake that you feel like shit. And if it's cake isn't your food, insert your food of choice in there, chips, pizza, whatever it is. And the way that we get to that in between place is not by reacting to those thoughts, those reflexive thoughts.
It's by pausing and responding to them and acknowledging that my brain doing that is just going to do that, but I get to have a choice. My autonomous self doesn't have to, just is not at the beck and call. of those thoughts. I am a person, I have a choice. And it's like I'm talking back to my brain. My brain feels and thinks and reflects a thought, and then I get to talk back to my brain.
It's almost like [00:09:00] this like third person experience, um, where you kind of create a little bit of separation between your brain and you. And I know that's like a little maybe woo woo and meta and weird and all these things, but like, It's legit. It's real. This is like a real technique and a real skill. You are not, a lot of people will say like, you are not your thoughts.
You are not your brain. And I think when we can give words to this, which is kind of the goal of this, this episode, and recognize it, it's so helpful. Because then the thoughts come and you don't feel like trapped by them. You don't feel controlled by them. You can be like, oh there's my brain doing its thing.
I knew that was going to happen. I kind of expected this. That can happen and I can respond and do xyz at the same time. Two things can always be true. My brain can be reflexively pumping out these thoughts about cake and I can [00:10:00] choose to use my skills in that moment. I can take a portion of that cake. I can put it on a plate.
I can sit down. I can eat it with a fork. I can put my fork down between bites. All these skills that we can use. I can make sure I've eaten that cake after I've had a filling meal with protein, so I don't have to rely on the cake to feel full. All these skills, right? I just listed off like five that you could go work on if you want to.
And I lost my train of thought in doing so. Um, but all this to say that you are not your brain. You can talk back to your brain as if it is a separate person the way you would talk back to you. I don't mean talk back to you in like a, like an attitude kind of way. I mean have a conversation kind of thing.
Not like a fuck you brain, not like a talk back like your teenager does to you. I mean have a conversation like, okay, I see you, I hear you doing your thing there. I'm gonna do what I want to do anyway, because this is I know what's good for me. What my, what your brain is telling you is very often not good for you.
[00:11:00] Because it's very conditioned and hardwired to all those old thoughts and feelings and beliefs and experiences. And it hasn't caught up with the work that you're doing. It hasn't caught up with the changes that you want to make or are making. It takes a very long time to change that conditioning and that wiring.
It takes a near constant conscious effort. Whereas those old thoughts and feelings and behaviors come unconsciously. They come on autopilot. We are trying to create a new autopilot. takes a lot of hard work. I will never sit here and tell you that this is not hard work, it is. But this skill that I'm talking about of recognizing your brain as like a separate entity and learning how to talk back to it is huge.
Game changer. And this is about food, this is about body image, this is about exercise, and [00:12:00] stuff beyond this, right? That's what's so cool about the skills that we work on, that I share with you here, that we work on in coaching. They start off being about food and body image and exercise, but then they are always applicable and relevant to all the other stuff happening in your life.
Your relationships, your work, um, all that stuff. So, go and practice this. Start noticing what are your reflexive thoughts that happen, that they are just firing out of your brain like, Holy shit, I'm like, this is just happening. That's not you. That's not your fault. That's not consciously happening. You are not a bad person.
You are not lazy. You are not out of control. Because those thoughts are happening, that is the hardwiring conditioning of decades of outside influence and behaviors and pressure and expectations and a lack of choices and a lack of information and a lack of skills that we were just never taught. [00:13:00] Notice that.
See it there. Acknowledge it. And then say, I'm going to respond in this way because this is what feels good. I don't have to eat all the cake and I don't have to eat none of the cake, despite what my brain is telling me. That is not the truth. Talking back to your brain, right? That's what this is about.
You are not your brain. You are not your thoughts. You get to respond. You have choices. Those choices, those are the skills. Those are really the very skills that we talk about. So I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you try it. Let me know what's going on with you. Bye bye. Always here to chat. Email me.
DM me. Um, and that's it. I'll be back next week.