Podcast: Breaking Free from Deprivation: The Secret to Sustainable Health Goals

Introduction

Are you tired of feeling like you're constantly depriving yourself in pursuit of your health goals? 

Get ready to transform your approach to wellness.

In this game-changing discussion, Dr. Orlena tackles the age-old dilemma of how to stick to your health and wellness goals without feeling like you're missing out on life's pleasures. Say goodbye to the restrictive mindset and hello to a more positive, sustainable approach to healthy living.

This episode dives deep into three core themes that will revolutionize your wellness journey:

• Reframing Deprivation: Discover how a simple shift in perspective can turn feelings of restriction into empowering choices. Learn to focus on the long-term benefits and find joy in your healthy decisions.
• The Power of Internal Limits: Uncover the secret to creating lasting habits through personal boundaries. Dr. Orlena reveals how setting and adjusting your own internal limits can lead to effortless healthy living.
• Mastering Social Eating: Conquer one of the biggest hurdles in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Gain practical strategies for navigating social situations without compromising your goals or enjoyment.

Whether you're just starting your wellness journey or looking to break through a plateau, this episode is packed with insights that will change the way you think about health and happiness. 

Dr. Orlena's approachable style and practical advice make complex concepts easy to understand and implement in your daily life.

Don't miss this opportunity to transform your relationship with food, exercise, and self-care. Tune in now and take the first step towards a healthier, happier you – without the guilt or deprivation. Your journey to effortless healthy living starts here!

Mentioned in Podcast

Book a FREE "Diagnostic Chat". For women over 40 who're feeling stuck, as if "weight loss isn't for you". Book this FREE call (normally $299) to get clarity on what's going on and how to move forwards: https://www.drorlena.com/offers/P82Gx3qj/checkout?coupon_code=AUGUST24

FREE Review copy of Building Simple Habits to a Healthy Me:  https://www.drorlena.com/book-dr-orlena

Transcription of Podcast

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena. Super excited to chat to you today. Today, I want to talk to you about depriving yourself and how not to deprive yourself but still stick to your health and wellness goals. On a side note, I'm super excited I have to just tell you today, totally not related to this, but in my swim today I saw two stingrays and a moray eel.

Hooray! Hooray! It was so exciting and I tell you what, a few weeks ago there were so many stingrays around. I have never seen so many stingrays. And now they all seem to have disappeared. I think they probably came for mating season. But I've been swimming in these waters for over five years and I have never seen so many stingrays around.

And then they disappeared. Today was extra special because not only did I see a moray, which I haven't seen for a while, but I saw two stingrays. It was really exciting. Okay. My little side note over. Let's get back to not depriving yourself. Have you ever had this experience where seen You set your goals and you think, okay, I want to be healthy, I want to lose weight, whatever my goal is.

And then you find yourself in a situation where your favorite food is on offer. It might be at a party. It might be at work. It might be, for example, you might be a teacher and it might be in the teacher's lounge. There might be lots of exciting food that you want to eat and you find it really difficult because you want to eat this food.

You don't want to deprive yourself. And yet you want to reach your goals, and you end up with this struggle of, oh my goodness, the only way I can reach my goals is to deprive myself. And that just feels too hard for me. , if that is you, this is what we're chatting about today. , I want to start by thinking about, what is depriving yourself?

What does it mean to feel that you're depriving yourself? And the way I think about it is, you have a desire that you can fulfill. Why do I say that you can fulfill? Because, hey, I live on the Costa Brava. There are billions of amazing yachts here. And I would love an amazing yacht. Who wouldn't love an amazing yacht?

I would love to spend my days sailing on a beautiful yacht around the Costa Brava. Do I feel like I'm depriving myself by not doing that? No, because right now I feel like having a beautiful yacht is totally out of my means. It's not something that is in my power to have. So it's not like I'm depriving myself, it's just not something that is available to me right now.

Or at least that's the way my brain thinks. If you're a money manifester, or a mindset coach on money, then feel free to contact me and change that thought. But that's where I am right now. I don't feel like I'm depriving myself because it doesn't feel like it's something that is available to me. Now hold that thought because we're going to come back to this later on.

, You have a desire, you want something that you feel is in your power to get, and you feel like You can't take it that there's this big Oh my goodness, if I take it that means that I failed that means that I'm not going to reach my goals So you're making a choice between one or the other so depriving yourself is when you feel the desire for something That is attainable And you prevent yourself from doing it.

And I would add, from a space of negative brain. Now if you don't know what I mean by negative brain, have a little think about it. You probably do know, but you may not have heard me talk about it more. Negative brain is that place of, it's hard, it's difficult, it's I have to do depriving myself and beating myself up as opposed to positive brain which is more ease and flow and oh my goodness I'm excited about this and I'm excited about something else.

If you're interested in negative and positive brain, there are loads of podcasts that I have done talking more about this, and lots of videos as well, actually. And you may think of it as negative brain, positive brain, there's lots of different ways that people think about it, red brain and green brain, it's all basically the same stuff.

deprivation is definitely in a space of negative brain, depriving yourself. How can we change this? Well, there are so many things. That we can do to change this. But really and truly it is about how you think about things so you can do this in a different way the way I teach my clients is I walk them through what I call a reboot Which is two weeks of healthy eating and actually when they do that They start to think about all the healthy things and all the goals and all the stuff that they want to achieve.

It's not so much that I sit them down and say, Right, you have to think about it this way and this way. But that's actually what's going on. They don't really realise it, but that's the reason why people find it so easy and so Surprisingly easy as they say. And as a side note, if you are interested in doing a reboot, I currently have a program called Guided Reboot, which is a six week program.

Well, it's a four week program, but at the moment I've got a special offer on which is six weeks. I will tell you more about that later on. Or what I will say is in the month of August, what I'm offering people is a free diagnostic chat, which is really you come and chat to me And, I help you figure out what is going on and what are the areas that you really need to work on to get to your goals.

, if you would like one of those, they are totally free, there's ten spaces, they're normally 300, there's ten spaces. , it's really worth investing your time to come and talk about yourself. And take this free opportunity. I really encourage you to take this free opportunity. Now that's totally free. Now obviously, if you want to know about my program, I can tell you about my program in that time.

If we have time. Or we can book another call. But the first step really is to take that free, that free chat. That free diagnostic call where we're going to really dive into what's going on for you. That's the side note. The side note done. When you do a reboot, you are basically changing the way that you think about things without really thinking about it.

But you can do it in a more intentional way, in that you can just think about, how do I think about things? There are lots of different ways of focusing on this problem of depriving. The first one is just turn off your negative brain and step into positive brain. What does that look like? Okay. Instead of thinking I need to lose weight and I have to do it hard, hard, hard, I have to beat myself up.

It has to be difficult. It has to be depriving myself. I'm going to be talking about how to change track and you think about all the benefits. You think about the positive. You think about how amazing it's going to be when you get there. You're going to feel strong. You're going to have a body that you're proud of.

You're going to really enjoy life. You're going to have energy. You can do all the stuff that you do. You really need to bring it alive so that You can focus on those positive things. Now, I'm not saying there aren't going to be obstacles, of course there are going to be obstacles along the way, but if you can keep your positive hat on, then you can overcome those obstacles and deprivation is one of those obstacles.

Or thinking about deprivation is one of those obstacles. First step is really turn on that positive brain and start focusing on the exciting things so that when you are there in that situation. You're being offered a cake by somebody When you are thinking about it and you're thinking okay I'm just gonna take a pause and think about this and think what do I really want in my life?

I'll explain this to you in terms of drinking beer because that's the thing that I Work on. I don't drink heaps of beer, but sometimes I do drink beer. And the problem with beer is I am getting old and even one glass of beer means that I wake up at five o'clock in the morning. I don't sleep as well.

It's difficult to sleep here in Spain in the summer it gets hot and oh my goodness, so noisy. There are so many discos around, even though we live in a quiet, quiet town in the summer. Oh my goodness. We're open to tourists apparently, so it's difficult to sleep in the summer now. When I'm deciding if I want a glass of beer, the choice goes like this.

I have instant gratification of enjoying this beer. Of course beer is pleasurable, otherwise why would we drink it? Or, I can choose to enjoy something else instead. Side note, my thing of choice is a watermelon slushie, which is amazing, so refreshing, so easy, so delicious. I freeze the watermelon and I just whiz it up with a bit of water and it's a cool, refreshing drink.

So I've still got something that I can enjoy, but the big thing is, tomorrow morning, I'm gonna have maximized my possibility of sleeping well. Now I can't guarantee with all the discos around that I am gonna sleep well, so sometimes my brain goes, oh, you're not gonna sleep well anyhow, you might as well drink the beer.

Sometimes my brain goes, no, enjoy the watermelon slushie, let your husband drink the beer and he can feel whatever he feels in the morning. But I can make that decision of, it's either this, I choose this, or I choose that. I'm not depriving myself because I am making a choice. I'm not saying, oh my goodness, you mustn't have the beer because you have forbidden yourself to have the beer, and I'm going to beat myself up if I don't have the beer.

A lot of this is how we talk to ourselves. That's one option, is really to understand that choice that you make. Here's another option, and this is about internal limits. Now, limits are a great thing. The thing about limits is people always like to push up against them, particularly children, until they're really, really established limits.

I'll give you an example of my 10 year old son. Actually, he's 11 now. And, my children, like all children, like to have screen time. They have iPads, they like to play games. And I have a rule that they need to put their clothes away before they have their screen time. This is actually quite an established rule in my brain, albeit not in his brain.

, he came to me the other day and he said, Can I have my screen time? And I said, Well, have you put your clothes away? He's got like three bits of clothes to put away and he said, Well, I don't want to put them away because I'm just going to have to get them out on Monday to wear them.

So, I'm not going to have my screen time. What is that? That's him pushing against that limit of, no, that's your choice. You can choose to put your clothes away. And have your screen time. Or you can choose to not put your clothes away, it's going to take you about two seconds to do. No, he didn't want to do it.

That day, he didn't put his clothes away, and he didn't have his screen time either. But that's his choice. And that's the limit. The next day, he did put his clothes away, because, like, how long is this going to go on? And, but we can set limits for ourselves. It's the same thing internally. So an example of this is.

Years ago, I used to have my dinner at about 6 or 7 in the evening and then I'd put the children to bed and this is back in the days when I was attempting to write a blog. Oh my goodness, that was not a disaster, but I really wasn't cut out for writing blog posts. I would sit down thinking, oh, I hate writing blog posts.

And I would Basically reward myself with a bit of chocolate until I really realized what I was doing was Just spiking my glucose levels for no particular reason and that if I'm going to eat chocolate I might as well eat chocolate with dinner and have it all at the same time. Side note, I hardly ever eat chocolate these days.

Now to begin with I'm setting this internal limit of I eat chocolate I'm not going to eat after dinner because I think it's more healthy for me. I'm looking at my intermittent fasting level and I think it's more healthy for me to not eat after dinner. I've set this internal limit. Now to begin with, obviously there's a little bit of pushing up against that limit.

Now, years later on, I don't even think about it. In fact, I dislike eating after my dinner time. As a side note, that makes it more difficult for me to go and eat out in restaurants, which I personally don't really like doing very much for various reasons. But, I prefer to eat my dinner at my dinnertime and not eat anything afterwards.

Why? That's just a habit that I've had for years and years and years. And that habit stems from that internal limit. Now, other examples of internal limits are someone who is vegetarian. Someone who is vegetarian has made an internal choice that they no longer want to eat meat and if they're vegan, they don't want to eat dairy products.

What about a smoker? A smoker who gives up has decided that they have this internal limit that they no longer want to smoke. They no longer see themselves as a smoker. So these are just some limits that we set for ourselves and having internal limits isn't a bad thing. So for me, I have an internal limit, which I don't think I'm even aware of, but if I went to a party and had some cake, I would have a slice of cake.

I wouldn't have 10 slices of cake. My children, on the other hand, if they were allowed to, they would happily eat cake, cake, cake, and cake. And so it is something that over the course of our childhood, we do develop these internal limits. So one question to ask yourself is what are your internal limits?

Now, there's no right or wrong answer to internal limits, but if you're aware of them, like where, where does your brain say enough is enough? I can't do this anymore. Now, if you are finding that your internal limits are meaning that you're feeling deprived when you're eating too much When you're trying not to eat food so that you can lose weight and get healthy, then one thing you can do is bring those limits in a little bit.

Now, that is going to cost you a little bit to begin with, but after a period of time you're just going to be like, Oh my goodness, this is so easy. And those limits can be anywhere you like. They could, for example, be geographical limits. You could say, if I'm thinking about my example of beer, Okay, I don't drink beer at home.

If I want to drink beer, I have to go to a bar, and I have to drink beer there. And I'm not going to do that as frequently as, you know, But I don't drink beer every day anyhow, but it's just an example. So thinking about internal limits. And you can have an internal limit of, I allow myself to eat treats once a week, or once every three days, or once a month.

Whatever works for you. There's no set line of these things. To recap, when we're thinking about depriving yourself, most of it is about depriving how you think about things. And what we've looked at is really thinking about the positive in a situation and where you want to get to and thinking about internal limits.

Now one of the biggest challenges that I think people face is eating in a social situation. So you manage to control everything that you're eating at home, you're in control of that and you've decided okay I'm just going to have healthy foods at home that's super easy. And what scuppers a lot of people is either they've got somebody within the house who is very keen on foods that they don't want to eat.

Or you're going to perhaps work or a social situation frequently so that You know, it's difficult. You're being faced with these things. It's almost like you're being poked in the head. Someone's saying, have a cake, have a cake, have a cake. It's almost like if you're trying to give up smoking and somebody says, want a cigarette, want a cigarette, want a cigarette.

Clearly that is more difficult for you at that beginning phase. Once you get over that hump, that rickety bridge, once you get over there and you get to, no, I'm good, thanks. I don't want this. I genuinely don't want it. It's easy for you to say no. I know this from personal experience. I remember going to a parent's teacher association meeting, and they had all these amazing pastries.

And I looked at these pastries and thought, I could eat one of those pastries. It's like, it's not going to do anything to me. It's not going to help me. It's not going to make me put on weight. I've just been swimming at the pool. I'm just about to have my dinner. And I made that decision. No, I don't want these.

I wouldn't normally eat at that time. And it is, it's going to be nice. But, actually, I've come to be aware that those foods aren't as appetizing as my expectation of them. What I really enjoy eating is healthy fruits and vegetables. And that's another thing, is really just building up your awareness of these foods and mindful eating, really paying attention when you eat and how that food impacts your body, your energy levels, how you feel about things.

Just coming back to social eating. In my opinion, it is one of the hardest skills to learn. And here's why, because you constantly have to practice and practice and practice and you often don't have control of when you're practicing. You might find yourself in a situation when you're feeling drained, you're feeling tired, you're feeling like, oh my goodness, I'll just eat the cake.

As opposed to having 100 percent control over it and being able to say, do you know what, I'm building up this habit of, walking around the block. But I get to put that in my schedule and I get to decide when it's going to fit into my life. Now, how do you come, how do you overcome that social eating? Well, again, it's about mindset.

It's about mindset and practicing. It's like a muscle. And every time you go through that experience, you Focus on awareness, what's going on for you. And you enjoy that situation, whether you're eating it or not eating it, there's no right or wrong answer to these things. And the more you don't eat it, the more you focus on the good things that aren't eating it and you need to keep going and keep going and keep going.

And that does not look like, hooray I didn't eat the cake, hooray I didn't eat the cake, hooray I didn't eat the cake. It looks like I'm making a choice. Today, I choose not to eat the cake. Next day, I choose to eat the cake. Next day, I choose not to eat the cake. Until you get less and less and less, until you get to that stage where you think, actually, I'm perfectly fine.

I don't want to eat the cake. And as a side note, I would say, you need to do that mental exercise along with healthy eating. Enjoying healthy eating. If you do two of them together, side by side, you're much more likely to succeed. Okay, my friends, just capping up, just rounding up. If you think you are depriving yourself, there are a lot of things that you can do to change how you think about things and to really focus on the enjoyment of healthy eating, exercise, moving yourself to that place of healthy, amazing you, where you feel amazing, where you feel like you're enjoying your vibrant life and really confident that you're leading your most healthy life into the future.

Getting old age. Somebody once said to me, you know, if we're going to have long lives, at some stage, we need to think about getting older. And that stage, my friend, is right now. Okay, now, exciting things that are coming up in September. I'm super excited, just giving you a little sneak peek of what's going on.

I am going to be doing a boost. Previously I've called it a challenge, a healthy living challenge, a healthy eating challenge, but I'm going to call it a boost this year because I want you to think about it boosting you and helping you get to where you want to get to. It's going to be five amazing days of really focusing on this mindset work as well as obviously being some more practical things about, you know, what we're actually going to eat and what we're going to do.

I will give you more details of that over the next month or so, but that's what I'm working on in the background. Reminder that there are those amazing diagnostic chats. There are 10 of them in August. They will be live. First come, first serve. They are normally 300 euros. They are an hour's chat, 50 minutes an hour, to really focus on you, your health, your wellness, for you to ask me questions, for you to get clarity on what is going on.

I really urge you to take advantage of one of these free sessions. Okay, my friends. Have a lovely day, and I look forward to chatting to you next week.