Podcast: Do You Feel Guilty You Can't Stop Overeating?
Feeling guilt, shame, overwhelm and frustration that you can't stop eating (and make those changes by yourself) is normal. And very unhelpful! It leads to thinking you can't make changes that stick. And that's not true!
Today I'm chatting about:
- How unhelpful it is to think you have to make changes all by yourself
- How a few mindset shifts will empower you to make changes that stick
- How accountability and motivation will put a rocket under your changes!
Transcription of "Do You Feel Guilty You Can’t Stop Overeating?"
Please note this transcription is generated by software. There may be some errors. I hope you find it useful.
Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello, wonderful people. I am Dr. Orlena Kerek. Welcome to another combo. “Facebook live and podcast”. I'm experimented with this. We'll see how it's going at the moment. It's going super, super well.
Do You Feel Guilt, Shame, Overwhelm, Frustration that You Can’t Make Healthy Changes?
Okay. Today, I want to talk to you about how to stop feeling guilt, shame, overwhelm, frustration, about not being able to make change by yourself that stick.
So hands up, if this is you.
I see so many people who get the idea they should be able to make changes.
“What's wrong with me? Why can't I make these changes? That stick? Why can't I do this by myself? It's just eating. I'm broken. I've tried. And it didn't work. There has to be something wrong with me.”
If any of this is resonating with you, first of all, I want to say you are not. Number two, this podcast is for you.
Ways I Can Support You
- Book a free “Back to School” chat: https://bookme.name/drorlena/back-to-school-special
- Grab the End Emotional Eating program while it’s still $27: https://www.drorlena.com/end-emotional-eating
- Grab the Dr Orlena’s Reboot while it’s still $99 (use code “BTS” valid until August 31st 2022) https://www.drorlena.com/dr-orlena-s-healthy-eating-reboot
Hey, listen. Before we get into the podcast, I just want to tell you a few things. So it is August right now, the end of August, and I have a back to school special on which means number one, come and book a back to school, chat with me.
If you want to make changes, if you want support, you want accountability, you want motivation, then come and find out about my amazing. Amazing coaching program that will transform your life. Like it has transformed the lives of the amazing women who are in. now, if you think coaching is not for me or not right now, then I have two products that are amazingly stupidly, ridiculously cheap at the moment.
And I'm going to put the price up at the end of August, but to be perfectly Frank with you, I just haven't got around to doing it. So the first one is the end emotional eating program, and that is just $27. And the other one is my reboot, my two week reboot, which. Normally $300. And at the moment it is $99 using the code BTS back to school.
So go and grab one of those bargains because at the end of August, they are going to go up to normal prices. Okay.
The Dangers of Thinking You Can Make Changes By Yourself
Now that I've said that, thinking about being able to do things by yourself now, number one, I want to think, I want to. Address why this is important. Now, what happens when you think I ought to be able to do everything by yourself?
Is you start making changes. You do really well. You're normally using discipline at that moment because you might be saying, right, I'm going to not eat emotionally. I'm going to find something else to do. I'm not gonna binge eat. I'm not gonna overeat. I'm not gonna eat cookies. I'm gonna do something. And I am gonna rely on my discipline.
The Key to Making Changes isn’t Will Power
I'm gonna rely on my willpower and I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna keep growing. Now at some stage, you are going to be tested beyond your willpower, and it's not a question. if it's a question of when this is just how willpower works, you need to take willpower out of the equation, but at some stage you are going to be tested and you are gonna make a decision that you don't want to make.
So for example, it's maybe that you have done really well, not overeating four, five weeks, and then you have a bad day and then you think, oh my goodness. That tempting, whatever it is, chocolate, and you eat chocolate, and then you beat yourself up about eating chocolate. And as a side note, I would say, Hey, you totally forget about the five weeks of amazing work that you have done.
You Feel Like a Failure and Give Up
And you just focus on that negative. And at that point you feel deflated. You feel frustrated, you feel all of those things. And that's when you want to give up. And that's when you Jack it all in and go, I can't do this. It doesn't work. And I say, no, no, no, no, no. My friends you're doing really, really well.
You just need to keep going. And I think this concept of, I need to be able to do it by myself, leads people to feel unempowered. It leads people to think, Hey, you know what? I can't do it by myself. So why bother? I'm stuck with this way. Now let's take a step back and have a think about this idea of having to be able to do things by yourself.
Why Do We Think We Don’t Need Help Making Changes to Stop Overeating and Lead a Healthy Life?
And I ask you, why, why do we have this idea? Why do we have this idea that when it comes to our health and wellness, the way we eat, the way we move, we should be able to make changes by ourselves. Now it's a really interesting concept because obviously everybody can eat and everybody can move. , but it's learning something new.
And when we are learning something new, we normally get a teacher. If you, if you've got kids and you want your kids to learn maths, you send them to class with a teacher in it, and you expect them to learn maths, but you don't expect them to learn maths by themselves. If you want to learn the piano, you go and get a piano teacher or musician or something like that.
Getting Help Makes it Easier to Make Changes. It Keeps you Going
And you get some help. Now, when it comes to healthy eating, we read a book, oh my goodness. There's so many books and they all say slightly different things. And then you think you can do it by yourself. It is just eating, but here's a big thing. Number one, you do need to know what you're doing. You do need to have a plan of action.
Most People Have a “Doing Gap” not a “Knowledge Gap” When It Comes to Making Life Style Changes
So you do need to decide what way you are going to lose weight. But number two, this is not about a knowledge. It's not a knowledge gap, it's a doing gap. So this is why people do things like go to the gym and go, you know, and get a personal trainer. It's not that they don't know how to use the gym, but the trainer gives them accountability and motivation.
This is why I used to go to swimming training. I knew how to swim. Yes. I improved my technique, but really I wasn't paying so much for improving my technique. I was paying for somebody to make sure that. Do that exercise at that particular time, the same with other classes, yoga, I can watch yoga video or I can pay to go to a yoga class.
Which am I more likely to do? Well, it kind of depends, but you can see the point that I am making. So, number one, the question is why, why should you be able to do these things by yourself? And I will tell you a lot of my clients are. Highly qualified people like dentists and vets. And you know, they've been through medical school, they know the things that are good for them.
You Know What to Do. You Don’t Know How to Do It
They know what they need to do. They don't know how to do it. And the other big thing about this is you are busy doing all the things that you need to do. Yes, of course you could work it out if you didn't have all of these things to do, but you are busy doing other stuff. So, yes, you could do it, but why, why do that?
Why not get the quickest route to “healthy, amazing you”?
Let Going of Thinking You Need to Do It All By Yourself
So I think that we really need to question this idea of, I feel shame and guilt and overwhelm by not doing it. Be not being able to do it by myself and. my next point is this, you make it mean something about yourself, so, okay. Let's take the example of, I haven't over eaten for five weeks and then I'm gonna overeat.
Instead of Beating Yourself Up, Look for the Learning Opportunity
You can just look at that on one level and go, yeah, I just overate no big deal. But actually what happens is you make it mean something like by yourself, you make it mean something like, oh my goodness, I'm a failure. I can't do this. Now. This is a really interesting concept that. it's really interesting to become aware of.
Stop Making It Mean Something About Yourself. It Doesn’t Mean You’re a Failure
And it's not just in health and wellness, it's in our entire life. So for example, a few nights ago it was bedtime. My children have now got to the stage where they pretty much go to bed at the same age as me. And I said to my middle son, Hey, Dante, it's time to go to bed. Now, like out of my room, I'm getting ready to go to bed.
You need to go to bed. Now, what he heard was rejection and my parents don't love. he made it mean when I'm saying, Hey, it's time to go to bed. I'm being rejected by my parents. My parents don't love me. What I'm saying is NNO I totally love you. I just, I'm tired now and I want to get into bed, but can you see how we make things mean things about ourselves?
Becoming Aware of the Stories We Tell Ourselves, Helps Us Change Those Stories into Empowering Stories
And it's a story that we tell ourselves. And once you can become aware of that, you can start questioning. Is it that I didn't eat for five weeks, didn't overeat for five weeks. And then I did overeat. Does that mean that I'm a failure? No, it means I overate a little bit. It doesn't mean anything. It means I've done five amazing weeks of really solid work.
We All Have Golden Learning Opportunities. What Can You Learn From Them?
And now I've had a little blip, what I call an obstacle and actually I call those moments, golden learning opportunities, and I have golden learning opportunities from time to time. Yesterday, my two youngest kids went to a birthday party. And so as not to be out done and make sure he got his sugar hit, my eldest son made some cookies, some biscuits, and he did show me the recipe I have to confess.
I didn't look at it entirely. I didn't realize exactly how much sugar was going into it. But I also want to get that balance right. Of inspiring him to eat healthfully and not controlling him the whole time. So I let him make these. and I had my lovely, healthy dinner irony being, I did a Facebook live in the Facebook group going, Hey, look at this amazing healthy dinner.
So easy. And then my son gave us these cookies. Now I ate the cookies really because I wanted to encourage him and say, yeah, well done. But he gave me this huge portion. And as I'm eating it, I'm thinking, why, why am I eating all of this? I was just about to go for a walk and stupidly, I didn't just say, Hey, I'm gonna eat a little bit of this and be done with it.
Now, after I ate this giant bowl of cookies, it sort of, wasn't a cookie. It turned into sort of like a crumbly mess. I felt so sick. So like, oh my goodness. I just feel yuck inside myself. And for me, I reflected on that and thought, why did I do that now? Number one. Yes, there is frustration in doing it, but Hey, life happens.
Number two, it's an opportunity. Look and go, okay. Do you know what I ate it because I am trained to clean my. and when somebody puts something in front of me, I tend to eat it now. Normally it's me putting something in front of me. And so it's not a big deal because I choose my portion size, but I realized that actually what I don't do is take a little bit and leave a little bit and that would've been one good solution.
When You’re Trying to Change Repeated Behaviour, You Get Lots of Golden Learning Opportunities!
And the other thing I think I really became aware of was because I ate it to encourage my son. I could have done that by just eating a little bit of it. So, you know, it was a really good awareness piece for me to think. Oh, have you realized this about yourself? And I tell you one thing, if you have repeated behavior, oh my goodness.
You get so many golden learning opportunities. But if you can make that mind shift to, Hey, I failure failed to, oh, this is a golden learning opportunity. Oh my goodness. Life becomes so much fun because you stop feeling guilty. You stop feeling frustrated. You start looking at things with curiosity and think, ah, yes, I can change this.
Or this is just how my brain. So when you are feeling frustrated, guilty, stressed, and overwhelmed about not being able to do things by yourself. I say, why should you, you are human. You have a human body and you have a human brain. And this is the way that the human brain works. Essentially, the reason you are finding it, difficult to make changes is because you have really, really difficult, you know, big grown up Oak tree habits.
Old Habits Will Constantly Come Back
And those habits are constantly coming back and you're doing things. Without thinking about them because their habit and what you need to do is just change that habit and changing habits. And one level is really easy, but on another level, it isn't because those old habits are coming back. And so actually the quickest and easiest way is to get accountability and motivation in your life.
Accountability and Motivation Will Help You Create New Habits
And once you have accountability and motivation in your life, Oh, my goodness. Things just happen. So, so quickly you notice changes. So here's what I'm proposing to you. A mindset shift of, instead of feeling frustrated, a mindset shift is, Hey, I can do this. I can make changes. And if I need to get help, I'm gonna get help.
Now. Not everybody needs. Personally. I think a lot of people do help need help. And I do think that actually, if you have the help, it's so much easier, it's so much more fun. And it just takes a big sort of brain drain away from your brain is constantly thinking, how do I fix this? How do I fix this? How do I fix this?
But once you've got that help and accountability, you don't have to think like that. You can think I've got this, I'm doing this. I'm gonna sort it out together. We are going to sort it. but I think the mind shift is in, Hey, I'm putting myself first and I am going to look after my health. I'm gonna look after my wellness and I'm going to make big, amazing changes so that I've got increased energy.
Please Stop Feeling Frustrated and Remember You’re Human
The weight falls off I'm leading along and fulfilling life and I'm totally loving it. So there you go. My friend, if you are feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, And guilty that you can't make changes by yourself. Please stop. Please stop. Because you are just a human and feeling like that isn't going to help you now, as I said, right at the beginning of the video stroke podcast, if you are ready and you want to make big changes and I'm talking life time changes, I'm talking really creating a life that you.
If You’d Like Accountability and Motivation in Your Weight Loss and Wellness Journey, Book a Call
So that you can avoid all those ho horrible illnesses so that you can be active and enjoy moving your body and feel proud of your body into later life and obviously lose weight, get high energy levels, confidence, all of those things. If you want support and you want accountability, then please book a back to school.
Book a free “Back to School” chat: https://bookme.name/drorlena/back-to-school-special
Chat with me. I'll leave the link in the show notes or in the comment because you can do it and it can be amazing. I promise you can do. With accountability and motivation. And it's not me doing it for you. It is still you making those changes, but you're getting the help and support that you need. So come and book one of those chats and I look forward to seeing you.
Okay. Goodbye.
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Written By Dr Orlena
Dr Orlena Kerek (MBChB from the University of Bristol, UK) trained as a pediatric doctor. She is now a family health coach. She helps busy mums who want to feel amazing by eating healthy food, enjoy a healthy life, get back into their honeymoon shorts and teach their kids healthy habits all without thinking about it.
Want support and help in your weight loss journey?
Book a chat with Dr Orlena: https://bookme.name/drorlena/emotional-eating
