The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 108 - Functional Imagery Training with Helen Pearce

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Helen is a Functional Imagery Training (FIT) practitioner and weight loss coach who discovered FIT a couple of years ago and has been helping women to achieve lifestyle changes using this effective technique. FIT is a technique that supports behaviour change using mental imagery.   Coming from two decades of research showing that mental imagery is more strongly emotionally charged than other types of thought, FIT gives people a powerful tool to strengthen and sustain motivation to reach goals they value: weight loss, increased physical activity, or better sleep for example, which in turn leads to confidence and increased self-esteem. Women often experience weight gain, lethargy, or low mood around the perimenopause and the menopause which can lead to a negative cycle of poor choices, comfort eating and misery!   Living through the pandemic and associated lockdowns with all the extra stresses it has brought has also made healthy living harder for some. FIT uses mental imagery blended with motivational interviewing (a type of empathetic counselling/coaching) to help clients identify the health and fitness challenges they face now and how they would like to feel in the future. FIT is about mindset change, not a diet technique. It teaches people to imagine in a detailed way what it feels like and looks like to achieve their ideal selves and how that will benefit their health, and also benefit the people closest to them. FIT enables people to imagine in detail the steps they have chosen to reach their ideal selves.    Helen's 3 take-home tips:    Don’t see change in a negative way. We tend to focus on the things we have to give up when thinking about changes we need to make to lose weight, get fitter, have a more balanced sleep, work, or play routine. But if we can look more at the positive benefits to come out of changes to our lifestyle and plan manageable steps that don’t feel like we are denying ourselves everything we enjoy, the changes will be positive and enjoyable.  Weight gain, along with symptoms of the perimenopause and menopause such as poor sleep, brain fog, or lethargy often leave women feeling depressed and self-critical. We can sometimes feel we have little control over the changes and beat ourselves up over what we may perceive as 'letting ourselves go'. Don’t beat yourself up, acknowledge that it can be a difficult time and it is not a weakness of character or an inevitable slippery slope. Talk to someone, a friend, an expert, a FIT practitioner or coach. You are not alone! Prioritise yourself. In the words of RuPaul, ‘if you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love someone else!’ We are used to putting family and others first and sometimes forget (or just don’t consider) our own needs. Try to put some time into your day when you just focus on yourself, take a walk, read a book, listen to music, but above all take a moment to ask yourself, ‘am I looking after myself? What do I need? How do I feel and how do I want to feel?’ After all, no one else can look after you as well as you can look after you.

Welcome to the Newsome Health Menopause podcast. I'm Dr Louise Newsome, a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity. In addition, I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Well-Being Clinic here in Stratford-upon-Avon. So today I have with me, Helen Pearce, who is a function imagery training practitioner and coach. So it's quite a mouthful. And I'm really, I was very intrigued when she first emailed me to tell me about her work, which I've obviously exploited and looked at and thought very interesting. So this is something we've not talked about before, but hopefully you'll enjoy listening to and learn from. So welcome Helen to the podcast today. Thank you very much, Louise. It's a pleasure to chat to you today, and I know how busy you are, so it's great. Yeah, so it's a bit of a mouthful, function imagery training. So that's about something about imagination, but for most of us who've never heard it from before, can you

explain what it is and how you got into doing this as well? Okay, yes, I'll do my best. So it's functional imagery training and I'm a functional imagery training practitioner to sort of save time, we call it fit, FIT. Oh, easy. Yeah, much easier, yeah. So it's a technique that was devised from research, actually, from the universities of Plymouth and Brisbane over actually two-decade-long research into the theory of desire and cravings. And out of that research was a study, which was published a couple of years ago by Professor Andrad and Dr. Solberg of Plymouth University from the Psychology Department. Essentially, they devised a tool which gives people sustained and strengthened motivation

when they need to or want to change lifestyle to make positive lifestyle changes. And it's a very, very simple tool, which I might perhaps in a while take you through some of the stages of it. It's a very simple tool that essentially helps people to change their mindset when they need to make lifestyle changes. And often those are around weight, exercise, etc. people might have come across multisensory imagery in sports. So it's been used a lot now in sports psychology to help athletes to sort of focus,

enhance their grit, their determination, etc., really focus on the game. So Fit is this tool to really help people to focus on what it is they want to change about their lives, to find the best way for them to make. those changes. And it's blended with motivational interviewing. I'm not sure you're probably familiar with motivational interviewing, Louise. Yeah. I mean, it's very interesting. I mean, when I was at medical school, we were taught the whole cycle of change and about, you know, whereabouts people are on the cycle and we used it a lot initially for smoking cessation. Right. But then obviously there's behaviours. And I think, especially with smoking is almost,

when it's different because you can choose to smoke or not smoke, obviously. You can choose to drink alcohol or not drink alcohol, but when it comes to diet and eating, it's completely different. You can't choose to stop eating. It's not so easy then, is it, to change? Because you're adapting rather than completely changing or cutting something out. And there's so much behaviour that changes during the perimenopause and menopause, obviously the most important thing that changes is our hormones, which we have no control over. There's all sorts of things that you can read to say that if you drink this, do this,

you'll boost your estrogen or boost your testosterone. and usually it's rubbish or the amount that you can increase is very small. So we can't change our hormones, but the way that we fear and the way that sometimes we feel about ourselves, just entering a different phase of our lives, you know, it's a time when we can't reproduce, for example, it's a time that some people think we're getting older or we might feel that we're getting stronger and better because we're more experienced in various things. But it's still a change, isn't it?

Yes. So that's really interesting, actually. But just before we go into it, just tell me how you got into it. How did you develop this interest in it? I had about three or four years ago completed a diploma in coaching because I've always been interested in the sort of therapies that are solutions-based therapies.

And so I got into coaching and I just happened one day to be listening to the world at one on Radio 4. And I heard an interview with Professor Andrade about functional imagery training because they just published their findings in the journal of obesity, I think. I don't know, it switched on a light in my head. And I thought, well, sounds like so much sense.

This just sounds fantastic. So I contacted Jackie Andrew, Professor Andred, and she and her colleague were just putting together a series of workshops and training for health professionals and psychologists and counsellors, etc, people who work for Sport England and associated national health sort of well-being services. So I said, yes, please, can I come down to Plymouth and get involved? So we were the first cohort, in fact, to go through the training. It was a sort of series of sort of weekend workshops.

And then we were monitored in our practice. had a lot of very willing guinea pigs to practice on. And I've found that the results have been absolutely fabulous for about 90% of people that I've worked with. What FIT does is it's not about dieting, nothing about dieting at all because I'm sure you'd agree diets per se don't work. But it's about looking at changing behaviour, changing mindset and the long term and also not not about helping people to lose weight for a wedding, for example, that kind of thing. It's about really changing a whole way of life and thinking about food and exercise in a very, very different way. And some clients have said to me that actually they've sort of found it

very liberating. So, yes, it's a fantastic tool that allows people to take it away and use it for themselves. And the thing about fit is that it's not a long-term intervention. So once you've taken someone through the steps and taught them about how to use imagery and work with them on a plan to suit themselves to change their lifestyles, whether it's losing weight, getting more active, it's something they can take away and they've got it forever. So how long does it take? If I wanted to, for example, get more motivated and do yoga twice a day instead of once a day, how would I do that then?

Right. I remember you talking about your yoga practice. So essentially it works, I work face to face, or obviously at the moment remotely. And I support people over a period of up to six months. But it starts off with two or three face-to-face or longer sessions. and after that over a period of sort of six weeks, so we meet every fortnight, every two to three weeks. And then after that, it's a series of booster calls.

So phone calls just to sort of check in, see how people are going, whether or not they need to tweak their imagery or, you know, whether they're experiencing any problems if things are not working for them. So that's sort of over a period of six months. and generally, if we go back to the actual study that the professors conducted, Klymouth, what they found was that after six months and then after another six months, the participants in the trials lost five times more weight than purely sort of motivational interviewing or any other kind of programs like Weight Watchers.

and six months later we're continuing to either lose weight or maintain their desired weight that they'd set out. So it's very effective and very, very sort of efficient and promote self-efficacy. That's really important, isn't it? Because there's so many people who'll yo-yo diet or, you know, like you say, lose weight to get into their bikini for the summer or to go to a wedding and then it all falls. And they actually put them all weight afterwards and then feel like failures. but we're all quite hard on yourself. I'm very hard on myself and always think I haven't done enough

and I'm not doing enough, but I'm also quite sort of reactive and change quite a lot. So if I met you a year ago and I told you what my plans were, they're very different to what I've done, but I don't feel I haven't achieved. It's just gone on a different path.

And I know what my overall game is and I'm sort of looking at that mountain, but I don't know how I'm going to get there and sometimes I get a bit lost or I choose another path, but I still keep going. So that must be very hard, maybe, I don't know, you tell me how you would sort of manage and control someone like me who

sort of wants to change, but I don't want to be too rigid in the way that I change. Is that something that you hear? Yes, no, definitely. And I think that's one of the strengths of it is that you can adapt it for any situation and every situation. So, I mean, one of the things we do is to encourage people to, when they're making a plan, you know, it's a collaboration. So We work on a plan together, but a plan that suits each individual, essentially following those sort of smart goals. So the plan ideally needs to be sustainable, achievable. We have to also take into account those obstacles, those challenges that can come up. So, for example, with you, Louise, you know, you might, I know that you're incredibly busy.

You might be so busy that you can't do your yoga or you can't go for your runs or whatever it that you do. Or you're perhaps not now, but generally in life, you're travelling a lot for work. And in fact, I have a client who she was travelling a lot, she will travel a lot. So she's always on planes and she's always in hotel rooms. And as we know, you know, when you're not at home in your own kitchen where you can perhaps sort of plan your meals or plan your activities, everything can go, hey, why. So we came up with ways that she could adapt. So, So if she couldn't go for her five-kilometer walk every day or do whatever it is she does, or she was forced to eat out in restaurants and things,

she could make very mindful choices and have sort of backups in terms of things like always having small bag of nuts, for example, or something like that, some alternatives to counteract the times where she might find it more difficult to stick to her plan. And the beauty of sort of working with people over six months is that they do have that chance to come back and say, this just isn't working for me. How can I get around this obstacle? Or I've got, you know, my 60th birthday party coming up and I'm really, you know, concerned that once I hit the cake table, once I'm going to find it really hard not to go back to that, you know, not to get into bad habits again. And what this is about is also not supposed to be a punishment. It's not about refusing yourself things.

It's about training yourself to look at your activity and look at your food in a sort of much more positive, joyful way. So it's a positive journey as opposed to, oh my God, I can never eat chocolate again, or because chocolate's my thing actually, or I can't, you know, have a glass of wine. So it's not about that. And I think that's very interesting, isn't, because we're very easy. I think, I'm talking as a woman, but I think a lot of women are the same. We criticize ourselves a lot. And actually, you know, talking about yoga, because I do enjoy yoga.

As some people who are listening now, I do a Stanga yoga, and I try and do the primary series twice a week. But it takes an hour, an hour and a half, which is quite a long time to not be on my computer or not doing emails. So I've been getting into different types of yoga, actually, and I've been doing some Peloton yoga, which I really enjoy. But I've just been doing half hours. But actually, I sort of set myself, I would need to do yoga at least twice a week, and I ideally do the primary series twice a week.

So at the moment, I'm doing it four or five times a week because we're still in lockdown. I've got a bit more time. I'm at home, a bit more. So actually, then I really feel great because I'm doing more. Whereas if I was saying to myself, you've got to do it five times a week, and I only do it four times a week,

I'll see myself as a failure. And I won't think that's really good. I've still done exercise. So I don't know whether that's something that would fit in with the way that you coach people or whether that's just me being a bit silly. I don't know. No, no, totally, totally. And again, I have another client who is an absolute perfectionist.

And she's very hard on herself. Like you were saying, you know, setting yourself sort of five sessions of yoga a week. If you can't do that, you may see that with some people, like my client, might see that as a failure. Therefore, she does nothing. And she feels absolutely rotten about herself. I think many of us are quite good at self-sabotaging what we do. And if we don't achieve the goals that we set out to do, it either sets us right back,

or we just feel miserable and reach for the nearest bottle of wine, possibly as compensation. So the thing about using imagery is that it's very, very flexible. So don't we how? How does that work then, the imagery side of the same? Sure. I just wanted to say that one thing about the research, search into imagery and how powerful it is, is that our mental imagery is more strongly,

emotionally charged than other types of thought. So if you think about, I don't know, if you have any sort of weaknesses yourself, like some people, it's crisps. So if you think about a food that we know is not good for us, certainly on a regular basis, if you think about that food for a minute, I don't know, can you think of anything yourself, something that you particularly like? I've trained myself to not like the things that I... I actually need you down that path. So, yeah, I mean, I guess I have got a sweet tooth.

So I guess I used to eat more sort of sweet things, but say, you know, my husband just bought a Danish pastry and I thought, oh, that would be really nice. So say something like that, maybe. Right. Okay. So if you were to just sort of fix your mind for a few seconds on that Danish pastry, can you sort of visualize it? Yeah.

can you perhaps experience it with your other senses? Yes, because I can smell it, I can taste it, I can feel the consistency quite readily, yeah. Does that feel like quite a strong emotion or strong thought? Yeah, it's interesting because I think I've probably done a lot of this myself, to be honest, because I would have done, if I spoke to a couple of years ago, I would have gone, oh, yeah, do you know what? And it does. It reminds me of being in France, on holiday, having time with my family.

So it has lovely, it's not just about the feeling when it goes in my mouth. and how it feels eating it. It's more about associations with other things as well, is it what I mean. Yes, I get that. Yes, yes, totally. It's so much more than just the sort of instant thought. How we can use those very, very strong emotions and strong associations

is to turn those into sort of more positive, to use that strength into more positive things. So how I work with a client is to use that imagery, to get clients to come up with what change, what positive change might look like for them, not just look like because it's multi-sensory, not just what it looks like, but what it feels like, what it smells like, you know, tastes like, etc. So using all of the senses that we've got to focus on what change in the future might look like and what benefits those changes might bring to them or will bring to them in the longer term.

and then using imagery to think about, to focus on what those steps will look like to reach those goals. So if I'd just take you through a sort of typical first session with a client, we actually practice something in the beginning called the, you might have heard of this, the lemon exercise. No. The lemon exercise is because some people say, well, I haven't got me imagination or I'm not very good at imagining things.

So the lemon exercise is a short imagery. that we go through to actually help people to realize actually everybody has an imagination, although some people's imaginations might be, you know, they might use their sense of smell more, or they might use their sight, or they might use their sense of sort of feeling or touch more. So just to show people that, you know, everybody does have an imagination. And then we talk about where are you now, you know, what's happening in your life now and where do you want to be? and why do you want to make changes in fit? The why is everything?

Why do you want to be fitter? Why do you want to be healthy? And often it's the more work I do with people and it's often sort of people who are in their 40s, 50s, 60s, it's not about the bikini anymore. It's about, well, actually, my mother had heart problems. I don't want to have heart problems when I'm older or I want to be able to run around with my grandchildren and not feel out of breath.

So it's really helping the client to focus on what they want to change, why they want to change, and what benefits those changes will bring them in a very sort of positive way. And then we look at, you know, what challenges they're facing now. It's actually surprising. I've had a number of clients who, whilst they might be willing to make changes, There's a lot of resistance sometimes from family and friends around you. You know, it might be the husband or the partner or the children saying, oh, you know, you don't need to go on a diet or, you know, you're perfect as you are.

And there's that sort of, do you know what I mean? It's not in any way malicious, but I think most of us feel a bit uncomfortable. If other people around us, people close to us are changing, perhaps reminds us that we need to make those changes as well and we're not ready to do that. I think that's so true because I think as women, we often put a lot of pressure on ourselves, but it's also other people expect us to be certain shape, for example. And I don't eat a certain way or do yoga because I want to be a certain size.

I want to feel a certain way in my mind, and I want to feel emotionally strong and physically strong. I want to sleep well. I want to just feel well. And I know that if I sat down and ate a packet of crisps, I'd probably have a headache later and I'd feel really tired. I don't even think about what the food is going to be like. It's like, how would I feel after? And it's the same with yoga. I don't do it because I want to have really strong muscles.

I do it because I feel so much better when I do it. And my mind just wobbles when I haven't done a regular process. So it's thinking beyond actually, like you say, why do you want to do it? And actually, there's a lot of people, I've got, you know, friends who are overweight, but they're very happy being overweight, you know, and they wouldn't want to be my shape or size. or they wouldn't want to have my lifestyle. And I think it's also knowing that it's quite all right to make choices.

If you're happy with them as an individual, it doesn't matter, does it, what other people think? No, exactly. Because you're never going to please everyone. There's always going to be something about the way your makeup is or the way you dress or the way you walk or your posture or whatever. That you can't please everyone in life. And I think as women, we try and please people. And then I think when our hormones change and we feel we have less. self-esteem, less feelings of self-confidence, then you're always trying anything, well, actually,

if I'm size eight and I get into that amazing dress, then my life will be better. Oh, gosh, yes, yes, yes, you're so right. You're so right. You're just taking me right back to school days and writing in the diary about, you know, by the end of term, I'm going to be eight stone or something like that. You're absolutely right. That question, how do you want to feel is uppermost in conversations that I have with people. So exactly that. Who cares about getting into that dress you had when you were 19. It's not about that.

How do you want to feel? So that's sort of essentially what bringing people back to that, why question, why are you doing this and how do you want to feel? And so what imagery does is that we practice together clients using all their senses. imagine how they can be at their best in the future, whether it's weight loss or being more energetic, even sleeping better, doing more physical exercise. We go through an imagery about, you know, imagine a time in the future when you are able to walk briskly for five kilometres or you are able to eat healthy food instead of reaching for the crisp. You are five pounds lighter or

whatever it is, whatever your goal is. So we practice that and discuss, you know, how it feels, what it looks like, how does it smell, you know, tell me how wonderful that feels and how you can reach this goal of the future you that feels the way you want to feel. And then we do one kind of negative imagery where we look at the discrepancy between how they can be if they make changes. But what will life be like if they don't make changes? You know, what will happen to you in two years time? And it's a very positive type of therapy. And that's the only time when we kind of twist it on its head and say, well, great, you want to be fitter, you want to be healthier. Okay, well, imagine you don't make the changes. And we do a whole sort of series of imagery around that. And then we do the same thing with the steps.

Okay, so what would you like to do? Let's talk about a plan. What's your plan? how can this work for you? And we do an imagery about, okay, so say, for example, it's you and you wanted to make sure you've got your two sessions of yoga a week. And I would ask you to imagine you're doing that. What does it feel like? And then we talk about that. So it's about imagining future change,

and it's about imagining daily change, the steps that we're going to take to get there. and then we talk about how clients can actually practice that imagery every day because imagery is the key. For example, for some people, so for me, I practice my imagery when I'm in the shower every morning. This is my plan for the day. This is what I'm going to do. And it becomes almost second nature. And so when it becomes second nature, it kind of flips a switch.

And instead of sort of going through your day thinking, oh, look, there's that power shop. I'm going to, oh, lovely, I'm going to eat that. I don't have that same desire because I'm thinking about it. And I'm thinking about, as you said before, the how do I want to feel? It kind of stops me. But in a positive way, not in a you can't have that sort of way. Which is so important. And I think it is about trying to get the best out of ourselves as individual

and the best out of other people as well. So we can be happy and confident and make the most of what we've got, which is. Yes, yes, absolutely. It should be a positive, happy, confident journey towards feeling good and giving ourselves the best chance to, you know, particularly the menopause and all the other changes that are happening to our bodies, things like, you know, bone density and those types of problems, you know, we need to be looking after ourselves. Absolutely, and I totally think that the menopause should be a really positive experience

for as many people as possible, we should be as healthy as we can. And there's lots of different ways of doing it. And there's not just one way, but the more help we can get. And our mind is so powerful, the more we can do from within this key. So I'm really grateful, Helen, for your time today. And I know we've not really gone into it in detail. And we'll put some notes after the podcast with links. So you can find out more if you want to about Helen's work and how all this technique works.

Because I think there's bits of it for everyone, really. We can all make changes. But we need to be wanting to make the changes. too. So before we finish, Helen, do you mind just giving three take-home tips for people who have been listening and think, this is interesting? Maybe I'm going to explore it as a way of losing weight. What are the three things that you would suggest they do? Well, I would say that whether we need to or whether we want to, making lifestyle changes shouldn't be seen in a negative way. Fit teaches us that changing our mindset can be a positive, even a joyful journey to better health.

So that's my first takeaway. Change is not a negative thing. The other thing I'd say is that going through the menopause can be for many people such a challenging and difficult time, not only to people often experience things like, you know, hausly, low energy, etc., feelings of low mood. and that sometimes with it brings self-loathing, don't beat yourself up about it. Don't beat yourself up about maybe putting on a few pounds

or not being the person that perhaps you feel you were that you used to be. And acknowledge it's a difficult time and realise that the changes that are happening to us, it's not about sort of weakness of character or lack of willpower. And get help, talk to people, You know, if you're feeling low, if you're feeling that, say, your weight is getting out of control, talk to someone, get help. It's really important. There's always someone out there to listen to you. And actually, a conversation with someone can be, well, life-changing, actually, I believe. And self-love is my third message. It's sort of related, but self-love prioritize yourself. I'm constantly amazed at how often women in particular put themselves last. You know, it's a lot. It's, you know, it's a lot of. It's, but self-love, prioritize yourself. You know, children first, it's partners versus husbands, it's their elderly relatives. And it's often really hard to squeeze in that time because often we don't feel we're worth it, but we are worth

it. Because if you don't give yourself the oxygen first, if you don't look after yourself first, how are you going to look after everybody else? It's so important to prioritise yourself. Absolutely. I think that's a really, really positive note to end on. And I totally agree. I couldn't agree more, actually. So thanks ever so much, Helen, for your time today. It's been great. It's been a real pleasure and I think that the work you do is fantastic. I'm always dipping into your website and I've actually referred a few people to you. So you do brilliant work and thank God because we need people like you. Oh, thanks ever so much.

Take care then. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Bye. For more information about the perimenopause and menopause, you can go to my website, menopausedoctor.com. or you can download our free app called Balance available through the App Store and Google Play.