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Katie: Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and today’s conversation, I wish I had heard 10 years ago. I think it would have shortened the journey for me a little bit. Because today I am here with Lisa Goldberg to go into mindset shifts and releasing self sabotage for sustainable weight loss.
And I loved this conversation. She’s a nutritionist and a mindset and weight loss expert with a master’s degree in clinical nutrition. But she more importantly, has worked with so many people one on one teaching her clients how to break their self sabotaging patterns so that, like I found the slow way, weight loss becomes effortless and easy once you change the underlying mindset related to it versus trying to willpower and effort your way into that, um, from a place of not liking yourself or not liking your body, how to make those shifts internally so that the external changes follow.
She gives a lot of practical key takeaways in this, as well as examples of patterns that might be showing up that might be self sabotaging for you. And we even delve into, as parents, how we can, as much as possible, create healthier patterns with our kids related to food and avoid some of these self sabotaging patterns to begin with.
I loved this conversation. Let’s join Lisa Goldberg and learn.
Lisa, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. I am so excited for this conversation.
Lisa. Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so happy to be here. I love having this conversation because so many people need to hear it.
Katie: Oh, I feel like this is going to help a lot of people. And certainly I wish I had found you 10 years ago or even seven years ago when I was figuring a lot of this out the hard way. And I think you still have so much deeper context that I still hadn’t fully put into place. So I’m really excited to share this conversation for people listening and maybe shorten that path for a lot of others and continue the journey for myself.
And the topic we’re going to really dive into today is mindset shifts. Related to sustainable weight loss. And I would say probably also just wellness in general and how much that comes from the inside out. This was, I was a slow learner in this and to give a vulnerable personal example, when I was told I had thyroid issues years ago, I sort of took on that identity.
And I used to say things like my body is attacking itself, or I would ask myself internally questions like, why can’t I lose weight? And my subconscious in always being on my side would give me all the reasons why I could not, in fact, lose weight or why my thyroid wasn’t working. Um, and like I said, I was a slow learner and it took me a while and I’m still working on some of those mindset pieces, but I would love for you to start broad and explain to us kind of maybe some of the downfalls of the dieters mindset or mindset in general that sort of lead to self sabotage.
And I know we’ll also get to go into some solutions, but I feel like defining the problem is helpful at first.
Lisa: Yeah well the dieter’s mindset is a very black and white way of thinking. You’re either on the diet or off the diet. You’re in or you’re out. And using the dieters words, you’re being good or you’re bad. Right? And so it’s a way of thinking and the way of thinking actually developed early on, usually in childhood, when you were getting the messages that you were getting, you know, from your parents or a caregiver about food. Like, for instance, so many of us were taught to clean our plates. Right, because there’s children starving in places, or you had to clean your plate and finish your dinner if you wanted dessert. So dessert was kind of like the bribe, and that particular food, the sweets became this elevated thing, right? That you got when were being good. Or if you had to finish your dinner, but you were no longer hungry, you were kind of taught to eat past your, You know, satiety.
So there’s all these messages, right, that people get, and women, you know, especially get when they’re, they’re younger. And that’s what forms their relationship with food and really their relationship with themselves. Because so often the unhealthy relationship with food is really based in low self esteem and low self worth. Right? I’ve worked with so many women who have told me growing up, you know, I was overweight and you know, my sibling got to have like the cookie, but I had to eat the apple. Right. Or my parents didn’t know how to help me lose weight. So everything was restricted. And then the pattern starts to develop of sneaking food. So I work with 60 and 70 year old women who, when their husbands are upstairs, will sneak into the kitchen and I’m like, who are you sneaking from? And really they don’t even know who they’re sneaking from only from themselves and their own self judgment. So it’s, it’s so much deeper than it’s never about the food.
It’s not about not knowing what to eat or not finding the right diet. Because Katie, what I found is most people struggle with their weight because they eat when they’re not hungry and they eat too much food when they’re eating. And so that leads to, you know, weight gain, but also it’s the dieters mindset, right?
So let’s, some examples of the way the dieter thinks I’ve been good today, right? I ate well all day long. So now, therefore, I get to treat myself or reward myself with a cookie. And does that even make sense? Your goal is to lose weight. You’ve eaten healthy all day and now you’re rewarding yourself with unhealthy food. So it’s a way of thinking that every person who has been on a million different diets, struggles with.
Katie: Yeah, so many good things. I feel like to delve into in what you just said and to touch on one point for sure. It’s like truly if information where the answer we would all have all the solutions because we have access to endless information now in the internet age. It’s not, I think we’ve thoroughly debunked that information is the thing that’s keeping us from whatever the goal may be reaching that outcome.
And as you were talking about, like the sneaking food or like the, I think of it as a parent often like forbidden, not just with food, but anytime something becomes forbidden, it almost gets an appeal strictly by being forbidden or like setting up kind of morality in relation to it or judgments of good and bad.
I think of a mobility coach I have who, when, if you ask him like, Oh, is this good or bad? He’s like, there’s no morality in mobility. It’s, you know, like, let’s stop trying to create morality around whether our spine’s moving the way we want it to or not. And actually just work toward helping it move better.
But I think of that in relation to parenting and before we delve into even how to kind of unravel these, this mindset within ourselves, I wonder if you could speak to maybe the parenting side, because many people listening are probably raising kids of various ages. And I’m guessing we all sort of inadvertently create or reinforce these early childhood patterns you mentioned without meaning to.
And I would guess most of us would love to not sort of create these same problems in our kids. So what can we just learn to be aware of when in our, kind of relationship and speaking with our children.
Lisa: Well, first of all, you never want to force your kid to finish their plate. Because we are born with a mechanism of knowing when we’re hungry and stopping when we’re full. So, for all the parents out there, your kids, when you were feeding, now feeding them, like, from the jar, even when they were on the, you know, the bottle or the breast, when they were hungry, they cried, that was their way, and then when they were done, they either turned their face away, right, that was their signal, I’m done, or if it’s, you’re giving them, you know, food from the jar, they would push your hand away. Right?Push that spoon away, because that’s their way of saying I’m done.
And so when you tell the child to take one more bite, one more spoonful, you’re teaching them to override their own internal hunger and satiety signals. And especially, when you bribe your kid with sugary stuff. So one of the things I do just, you know, as an aside, you know, saying something, you know, about the morality with like good and bad. I actually help my clients change the words that they use because ultimately, all of this is about changing your brain. Now, if you teach your children, that this unhealthy food, right, the sugary stuff, the cookies, the cupcakes, the candy, the popcorn, whatever it is, is special. Like, this is what you’re rewarding them with. Now we elevate that food, and we believe, we learn to believe it makes me feel better, or this is how I treat myself, or this is how I’m rewarded when I’ve done something great, or I’m feeling good.
And that’s not the right message to give, because that’s the actual food that makes people fat and unhealthy. But it’s universal. It’s universal that we think of those, that food as treats. So I get my clients to refer to those, that kind of food as indulgences. And to stop using the word, I bought myself a treat, or I treated myself with dessert. Or I rewarded myself for eating healthy, which makes no sense to reward yourself with unhealthy food. So there’s the mindset. And if you could prevent your child from thinking of this food as special, or withholding it, For whatever reason, or using it as a reward, right? I remember having a friend who is potty training your kid and she was like, well, if you go on the potty, you’ll get M& Ms. And I’m like, oh, my goodness, no. Don’t, you know, don’t use that as an example. Right? So maybe stickers or a coloring book or crayons or something like that. Right? Um, but that’s what I believe because I know that’s how, how you see food or how you view food begins and it all begins in the messages that we get as kids growing up.
Katie: I like that shift of indulgences versus treats. And I’m thinking of all the ways that we do that, not just with birthday parties and celebrations, but even like desserts with meals or times that we experience more like connection and human togetherness. We often tie with less than ideal food options and how that probably reinforces those patterns.
And also with children, how we can like learn to override our hunger cues. How, what are some of the ways we can as adults learn to start to kind of re engage with our hunger cues and get those back and or like help our children do that if they’ve already like sort of learned to shut down or override their hunger cues?
Lisa: Yeah well first it’s a matter of kind of getting back in touch with your body, right? Oftentimes, especially the dieter, thinks to themselves. I think I feel like. Right? So if you listen to the words, I think I feel like, or I’m in the mood for isn’t I’m hungry. Because I’m hungry is more of a declaration.
Like, we know it. We feel it in our bodies, but sometimes we’re a little bored or sometimes, you know, we’re procrastinating on something. Um, and we think we just feel like we want to eat. You know, sometimes a lot of times eating is to pass the time. So think about, obviously parents get to know their children, what time did you last feed them? What did they eat? Right? Was it not something with sugar that might have spiked their insulin to make them hungry sooner than later? You know, oftentimes, like in working with a client who had, you know, a young child, I think she was somewhere between six and eight. She would say, well, you know, her kid asked for like cookies cause she was hungry.
She’s like, well, let’s have an apple or let’s have a yogurt. And if the kid was like, no, I don’t want that. It would give her a clue, like, well, maybe you’re not really hungry. And adults and maybe even with kids, sometimes we think we’re hungry, but we’re actually thirsty. But our bodies speak to us, if you pay attention, and sometimes people eat so often like they’re grazers. Or they eat because they’re afraid to get hungry, that they don’t even know what it feels like, the physical hunger in their bodies any longer because they’re just so out of touch with it. Or they don’t allow themselves to become hungry because so many people are afraid to get hungry. And so they, what they do, what I call preemptively eat. Just in case. So part of the mindset work I do is like, well, just in case, well, what happens, what’s the worst case scenario if you get hungry and for most of us, food is in abundance, right? It’s not like we can’t go to the fridge or the cabinet or get in the car and drive down or walk down if you live in a city to some kind of a store and access food. So people have this actual fear of what if I get hungry, so they overeat, just in case they don’t sustain themselves to the next meal. But there’s a lot of people have this fear of feeling hungry.
Katie: That makes sense. And I can imagine that might tie into even like, Pre-verbal memories of times when we were a baby and we were truly hungry or things that get anchored very early on. And I’m certainly not recommending this. I do this for spiritual reasons, not physical reasons, but I start every year with a water fast.
This year it was seven days and I don’t think that that’s physically necessarily ideal for a lot of women, but the reason I actually do it is spiritual. And I reread certain books that are really profound for me, including Man’s Search for Meaning from someone who was in the concentration camps and truly had no food for an extended period of time.
And even though it’s an uncomfortable experience, I find that like getting actually really in touch with my hunger, like actually what does true physical hunger feel like? And all the emotions that are tied into that is actually a really helpful reset for me to realize like, A: I’m not dying if I go a couple of days without food and B: I can survive that discomfort. And often I find like deeper emotional and spiritual kind of lessons in that. Not to say that everyone should or can fast. I just, to touch on what you said about hunger, I feel like many of us don’t even get to have a minor version of that experience because we constantly are exposed to food everywhere.
Lisa: Right, exactly. And while feeling hungry is uncomfortable, it’s nothing’s going to happen to you. Right. For a few hours, if you don’t access food. And so a lot of the work, a lot of the mindset, a lot of the clients eat because they want to avoid discomfort, right? They emotionally eat. So they eat to distract from uncomfortable feelings or step down from uncomfortable feelings. And so, you know, it’s kind of like, you eat to avoid the discomfort of feeling hungry, but you also eat emotions to avoid the feelings because while you’re eating, you’re not thinking about the feelings, right? And that’s where the real mindset shifts come into play because I’m always asking if somebody says I’m afraid to get hungry, or they’re afraid to feel uncomfortable, it’s like, I try to get them connected to what’s the truth and what’s the facts. Because we tell ourselves stories around food. Right. So oftentimes, those stories aren’t true. And so a lot of times people say things like, I have to have something sweet after dinner, right? Or, you know, I can’t relax until I have something sweet.
But that’s a story that you’ve told yourself. And for most people, that’s not actually rooted in fact. And so a lot of the work, a lot of the mindset work is to listen to what you say to yourself around food and eating, because your actions will always follow your thoughts. So, when it comes to emotional eating, if you say something like, I have to eat it, but I want it, I just have to have it, I’ll worry about it tomorrow, or I’ll be better tomorrow, or I’ll start again on Monday, you’re going to do exactly what you tell yourself to do. But, and this is where, women, the guilt, remorse, and shame, because the intention is to eat healthy, the intention, and logically, most people know what healthy eating looks like, especially if you’ve been on a million diets, you know what healthy eating looks like, you know what you should be doing to lose weight, but your mind is programmed to use food as a coping mechanism.
And sometimes the eating’s not just emotional, but oftentimes it’s habitual. Right, doesn’t always need to be like emotionally triggered, but it could be habitually triggered. And you just eat and there’s a part of you that says, this is your logical mind saying, you know you probably shouldn’t do that, but then what I call the rabbit hole voice, right?
The illogical, the old programming, the voice from the past says, You know what? But I want it, but I’ll be better tomorrow. It’s just a little bit. What difference does it make? And so you go ahead and you eat because you’re just creating excuses why it’s okay to eat versus creating reasons why you shouldn’t eat. All the while forgetting your greater goal is to lose weight and feel better in your body. That’s how the dieter’s mindset kind of fools you and you continue to kid yourself, so to speak. Um, and the work that I do is to actually get people connected to the logical voice that’s in there. And to what’s true, real, and factual about what you tell yourself. So it’s a process of change.
Katie: Yeah, I love that. And it seems like the dieters mindset as you’re talking about that would tie into things like sort of that deprivation or that all or nothing. Or even I think of the words in the psychology when we talk about losing weight, and I’ve said this before, but like nobody, we’re not wired to want to lose anything.
Like our brain resists the idea of loss. Whereas when you talk about moving toward like a healthier body or thrive, like that’s much more positive thing that it would seem like our brain would be open to versus resisting even the words. And I love that you brought up that guilt, remorse and shame can occur, especially for women.
I find like in a lot of having done a lot of therapy over the years, like those emotions are largely completely not beneficial at all. Like we can look back and like learn from something and wish we had done something differently, perhaps, but in general, there’s like almost no benefit I can see to kind of being in a perpetual state of guilt or shame, especially those seem like very difficult on our emotions, but also on our physiology.
You also use that language of, you know, I shouldn’t do that. I’ve noticed like anytime I use the word should or shouldn’t, that’s actually a great cue to pay attention somewhere I’ve got programming around some things. I love that you brought all of those up. I’m curious, what are some of the ways you help people kind of disengage from those mindsets and move toward one maybe of like the positive side of it.
So as an example, for me, over time, it took a long time, but I started instead of thinking about deprivation and restriction of food. I started looking at like, if my goal is health, how do I most nourish my body? How can I most give my body the nutrients it needs? Not thinking about calories, but like maximizing nutrients, or how can I find the most nourishment and pleasure in these healthy foods and like feed my body in a positive way. But how do you help people kind of make that shift?
Cause it was a long, slow process for me.
Lisa: Well, I mean, I do, my philosophy is there’s nothing you can’t eat. There’s nothing that’s off limits. So I teach the shades of gray because the black and the dieter is black and white. You’re either you’re eating healthy or you’re not. And notice the words. I didn’t say you’re being good or you’re bad.
You’re eating healthy or you’re not, you know, eating healthy. And so the words you use again in changing your brain are really important. And so, you know, in teaching the shades of gray and getting people reconnected, I emphasize you want to feel better in your body. Right. And that’s different for everybody. I’ve worked with women who want to lose 50 pounds and they lose 30. They don’t care about the last 20 because they’re feeling better. Right. So, and it’s really important that you like what you eat. If you’re eating plain tuna with some lettuce. Right. Just for the sake of weight loss. That’s not sustainable, right?
You have to find a way to nourish your body if you want to lose weight. So it’s a longer game, right? But you have to like what you eat. Your food has to be enjoyable. And I believe in being present when you’re eating. So, you know, I coach my clients if you’re standing at the kitchen counter or sitting in front of the TV, I encourage you to get to a table. Right. Where you’re sitting, where you’re more focused and or engaged with your person in conversation, but you’re present when you’re eating. Because so often when we’re not present, when we’re eating, it’s how we overfeed our bodies, right? Or you’ll be able to notice, if you’re thinking to yourself something like, but it tastes good, so I’m going to finish it, or but I paid for it, so I’m going to finish it, or I don’t want to waste the food, so I’m going to finish it, right?
So I teach all of those things. And I definitely want to make sure, Katie, that we get back, you know, to the point, remind me, with the guilt, remorse and shame, because there’s a lot there for a lot of people who emotionally or habitually, but in regard to nourishing your body, we all know what healthy food looks like, right?
We could all walk around in a grocery store for the most part be like healthy, healthy, not healthy, not healthy, healthy, healthy. So, you know, I’m a big believer in the 80, 20, 90, 10 rule. Right. If you eat well, most of the time you could eat a little crappy some of the time and it won’t prevent you from losing weight and it won’t cause you to gain weight back. Which is why you want the ice cream sundae, have the ice cream sundae, figure out how to work that into your week because I coach on just focus on seven days at a time. It’s easier than the bigger lifelong picture. Just seven days at a time. If you choose, of course what we put in here is a choice, if it’s not emotionally driven. If you choose to have something like an ice cream sundae and you’re present, maybe you’ll recognize that halfway through, you don’t need to eat the whole thing because you’re content and half was enough. Versus the dieter’s mindset that might say, but, if I’m going to treat myself, I’m eating the whole thing because it’s here. That’s the thinking you want to shift, right?
Not eating it just because, but we eat that food just for pleasure. There is no health benefit to an ice cream sundae or cookies or chocolate cake or anything like that. We eat the food specifically for pleasure. So my feeling is get the pleasure that you’re eating it for. And when you’re fully present, it’s a mindful choice. You do just that. But getting to the shame and the guilt and the regret, if you finish the whole thing, and now you’re so uncomfortably full and there was a little part of your brain that knew you could probably stop a little sooner. Now you’re going to beat yourself up. Now you’ve just diminished any pleasure that you might have gotten because now you’re feeling those feelings of guilt when you could have gotten the pleasure. And the thing about shame, I had this conversation with another expert a while ago. Are people addicted to shame? Because if you think about it, a lot of people who struggle with their weight repeat the behaviors that produce the feelings of shame or reproduce the feelings of shame.
So is there a part of you, and it feels, I had this conversation with a client of mine that I worked with for a while and the thought of it was so unpleasant to her that she caused her own shame, but as we got deeper into the conversation, she actually considered it because she voluntarily kept repeating behaviors that produced her to feel shame around that behavior, and it had to do with food. So, for those of you who are listening to this, think about it. Do you repeat some behaviors that make you feel badly or make you feel ashamed after? And it’s a pattern that’s gone on for a period of time. And here’s where you get connected to the truth and the facts. And you ask yourself, why? Why would I continue to repeat a pattern of behavior that I know the evidence shows that I always feel badly about, right?
So a lot of this work is for me to guide my clients to start asking themselves different questions. So their brains start thinking differently about what exactly it is that they’re doing and why they’re doing it. And what feelings and emotions did those behaviors actually produce? Does that make sense?
Katie: That makes so much sense. And I love that. I actually have a small question mark tattooed on my hand to remind me to like always ask better questions. Um, but as you were saying that I thought of the Carl Jung quote of, until we make the unconscious conscious, it will rule our life and we will call it fate and how you were saying like we tend to repeat these patterns.
But to me, that’s also a reminder I had to learn sort of to befriend my body and to realize our bodies are always on our side. I think that was a big lesson for me as someone healing from autoimmune disease was learning to, like you say, have better language internally, ask better questions, not say my body’s attacking itself, but realize if I’m having this symptom, my body is working toward my best, highest and best good.
So then why is it doing that? And what is it asking of me? How can I better support my body and better love my body? And I love that you kind of walk people through the mental aspect of that. Cause it seems like for many people who know from an information perspective, physically what to do. If there’s those underlying mental things, it can be really hard to willpower through that and seemingly only works for so long.
Again, I also love that you don’t morally categorize foods. Um, but I have also noticed I kind of had this nutrient theory, I call it, which is that if our body isn’t getting the baseline nourishment it needs in its wisdom, it’s going to keep craving to get you to eat more things to try to hit its minimum baselines.
So that’s where they’re like, at least hitting the nourishing foods and like, focusing on nourishing ourselves comes into play because if our body feels safe and nourished, it doesn’t have a need to have us crave more food to try to hit those nutrients. Um, and I think that paired with the inner work that you do, it’s like learning to listen to the language of our body, which seemingly many of us have lost touch with.
Lisa: Yeah, and, you know, Katie, a lot of women disconnect from the neck down. And a lot of women have, you know, they load their bodies. And when you think about your body like that, that’s how you’re thinking about yourself. So there’s such a direct connection to the self. So a lot of what I teach to is self love, self care, self worth and self esteem because it’s all tied together. If you don’t love yourself, because I say to my clients when I’m working with them, if you emotionally eat and you’re putting all this unhealthy food in your body, you’re not being kind to yourself and your body. Right. Think about it. You’re putting all of this unhealthy stuff and then you feel bad about it. It’s unkind. You’re not being nice to yourself. And the question is why? Right? Because oftentimes when, you know, it’s one thing to have a cookie or two, but it’s another thing to have the whole bag.
And when we eat the whole bag, we feel that’s where the shame and the guilt and the remorse and the self loathing comes in. But I get the mind to start asking, well, why am I not being kind to myself and show myself love? Cause that’s not loving, right? If it doesn’t make me feel good, it’s not loving and it’s kind of just coming at this with a whole different way of thinking because weight loss for most people is never about the food, right? For so many people that yo yo diet, right? You lose 20, you gain 20, you lose 30, you gain 30. It’s like you’re forever on a diet. You’re forever losing weight and gaining back the same weight. There’s a reason why the weight comes back because you have the same way of thinking and your thinking didn’t change and the patterns didn’t change.
So, you know, I often say like people who have bariatric surgery, they may have a smaller stomach, but they have the same brain. And there’s a reason why they were a hundred pounds overweight, that they needed the surgery, right? Same with, you know, the new weight loss drugs. There’s a reason, there’s a pattern that, and a way of being that got you to be overweight, that you need to go on these drugs.
But if you don’t change the stuff that got you to be overweight in the first place, Right? The drugs might help you lose weight, but the minute you’re off those drugs, you’re going to have the same mind that thinks the same way. So you’ve got to change your thinking. You’ve got to change your mindset. You have to recognize how you think about yourself, how you think about food, and that’s what really you, have to change.
It’s just, I call it the missing piece to lasting weight loss. So, so many people will try so many things and they’ll think like, if I could just have the right diet and they try all these quick fixes and they’ll do all these things, but they don’t actually know how to change their way of thinking about what they’re doing, and they don’t recognize what I call the faulty thinking of it’s just a little bit, what difference does it make?
Or I’ll be better tomorrow. Or, you know, I had a client that once said the calories on the weekends don’t count. So it’s just the things that we tell ourselves that’s not the truth.
Katie: Yeah, when I think, I think you’re so right. It’s like we can try to willpower from the outside in, and that requires so much effort. And I’m, I guess many people listening have had that experience. Whereas when you can flip that and change from the thinking side, the emotion side, in or out. Um, my experience of that was once I actually made that shift, once it integrated the weight loss part became effortless and also kind of a by product. It wasn’t the thing that took up my mental resources all day. I wasn’t in that like self loathing place all the time. It became a natural by product of loving my body that I wanted to give my body what was best and most nourishing for it.
And I also found so much joy in that. I found those things tasted better. I found I wasn’t stressed or scared about actually eating enough calories to nourish myself. I kind of broke that cycle, but it took a while. But I’m glad you brought up the self loathing part. I think that’s kind of a tough part to talk about and an elephant in the room for a lot of women.
And what really for me made that painful enough to be willing to change it and even acknowledge it was when my daughter, I think my oldest daughter was about 11, I was in my bathroom getting ready and I saw her, she was watching me get ready and I saw it register in her eyes, how I was looking at myself in the mirror.
And it seems like maybe for the first time in her life, she had never considered looking at oneself with like loathing or kind of like disliking someone, the way you look so strongly, and she saw me do that. And I realized I don’t want to pass that on to my daughters, that’s not the legacy I want for them, that’s not how I would want them to relate to their bodies. And the only person I have control of in this world is me, so the only way I can address that is to start with myself. And I feel like for me that was the moment that the pain of staying the same became greater than the pain of changing, and I sort of resolved to actually start looking at the hard emotions and undoing it.
And I know having done that, how difficult that work can be, but also how profoundly life changing it can be.
Lisa: Yeah, I mean, there’s so much in what you just said. Starting with when you were nourishing yourself and you were loving yourself and you were being kinder to yourself and choosing more nutritious foods. The weight loss was just a result of doing that, right? And that is the truth.
That is what happens. When you’re paying attention to eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re content and indulging just a little bit because you choose to and it’s not emotionally driven. The result of changing those behaviors without really having to try is weight loss. Right. And it seems easy.
It’s not such a struggle. And, you know, the fact that you noticed in your daughter, you saw her brain going like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, right. It’s just that’s like a perfect example of the messaging we get, the messages we get when we’re younger. And some of them could be the words out of our parents mouth or just an observation. Because as children, we’re always observing and we’re all products of our environment, So we take in what we hear and we take in what we see. And we believe it all to be true, right? Everything our parents say, we believe it all to be true until we get older. And we start having our own experiences. And then maybe we might think it’s not true, but oftentimes like limiting beliefs come from believing something based on an experience that you had, right? So a belief that so many women have, and it’s what they whisper to themselves, I’ll never really be able to lose the weight. And so they sabotage themselves because they have this subconscious belief. And your brain believes what you tell it the most. And if there’s any little part of you that believes you either can’t lose weight and keep it off, or you just can’t lose the weight to begin with, you will find a way to sabotage yourself. Because your brain will look for evidence in what you believe.
So you might over eat something. And then in your brain think, you see there, I told you so, I told you, you couldn’t do it. So. You really want to listen. Your self talk is so important, what you say to yourself and you want to acknowledge it and like you were saying, Katie, you want to have those, those moments where you have these realizations where I want to be kind to myself. Right? Because I wouldn’t treat somebody else or speak to my, speak to somebody else the way I speak to myself. And so many women wouldn’t allow other people to speak to them the way they speak to themselves. So a lot of this process starts with being kind and loving to yourself and treating yourself and your body in a way where you’re showing it love, kindness and respect. Because I do believe that putting healthy food in your body is a sign of self respect. So, it’s a journey.
Katie: It is a journey. And I feel like it ties into a bigger theme that it seems like you also talk about, but I think it was a David Hawkins who said it. That we’re only subject to that which we hold in mind and how you talk about that the quality of your life is essentially the quality of your daily thoughts.
And I feel like that’s not something we are often taught or hear about, but it’s so powerful when we can make that shift and realize that. And I’m, like I said, very much still learning and still on that journey, but I’ve seen already how absolutely transformative it is and can be. And I like my hope is for all women and all people to get to experience that.
I know that we’re all kind of walking that journey together and also know that you have a lot of resources around this. I’m guessing a lot of people listening are resonating with a lot of what you’ve said and maybe want to continue learning from you and continue on this journey. Can you speak to some of the resources you’ve created and where people can find them if they want to keep going?
Lisa: Yes, absolutely. I have a website that’s LisaGoldbergNutrition. com. On that website, I have a link to a free mini course. It’s a ten part mini course. And also, you know, there’s a link to free resources where I have a quick like a 20 minute training on called the weight loss solution. I have healthy breakfast ideas on there. I have, for mindset shifts it’s an audio. And you can find me on Facebook. I have a Facebook group called right mind, right weight. Because I believe that when you change your mindset, if weight loss and weight maintenance is your goal, it all starts with your mind. And throughout the year, I do workshops where I actually teach you over 5 days everything I teach from how to nourish your body to how to change your mindset.
Katie: I love that. I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes for anybody listening on the go. And I hope that we get to have a follow up future conversation because I would guess that this one has sparked many, many questions and I will be excited to see those questions come in and then get to do a follow up episode with you.
But any parting words you want to leave the listeners with today, especially if maybe they’re stuck in some of those loops that we’ve mentioned or those kind of like negative patterns as like maybe a baby step or starting point.
Lisa: Yeah. The best, best thing you could do is when you think about food and eating, or if you feel like eating is to really start to get connected to your body and just ask the simple question, am I hungry? Am I thinking about food because I’m hungry? And if you’re not sure, drink some water, take a pause, get a little busy. And sometimes, you know, you may be thinking about food because you’re bored or procrastinating on something, but your body will speak to you. So get in touch with your physical hunger. And before you just go right to the cabinet or right to the refrigerator, just ask yourself, Am I hungry? Will I be okay if I don’t eat right now and kind of ease into it that way. And it’s the simplest question. And, you know, again, it’s usually a yes or no, because like I said earlier, when we’re hungry, it’s more of a declaration. I’m hungry. Right? We’re usually not, not sure, but if you’re not sure, it tells me a little bit that you’re probably not. So a little bit of water, um, maybe busy yourself with something else and then decide if you actually really need to eat some food.
Katie: Amazing. Well, this has been such a, such a fun conversation. I’m so glad we got to give this as a resource. Like I said, at the beginning, this is, this was a massive puzzle piece for me. In fact the one that let everything else that I had been trying physically finally sort of fall into place and actually feel joyful and good.
And so I’m, I love that I found you and that you help other people to make that hopefully a much um, more pleasant and less winding path than I figured out, but I’m so grateful for all that you have shared today and to you for being here. Thank you so much for your time.
Lisa: Well thank you so much for having me. And I would love to come back and, you know, have a further conversation because my goal is to show women, and men, cause I do work with men that you don’t need to be trapped in this cycle with food, that you can have food freedom, that you can feel good about yourself and you can lose weight without having to continuously diet and there is a way to change.
So thank you so much for having me and having this conversation.
Katie: Amazing. Well, thank you so much. And thank you as always for listening and sharing your most valuable resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama Podcast.
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