The Livy Method Podcast - How Dieting History Shapes Your Journey with Dr. Beverley David - Spring 2025

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

In this powerful and eye-opening episode, Gina sits down with clinical psychologist Dr. Beverley David to unpack the emotional side of weight loss—and why it matters just as much as the food on your plate. From the mental swirl of Week One to the deep-rooted patterns driving your choices, they explore how your past dieting experiences shape your present, and how understanding your thoughts, emotions, and reactions is key to long-term success. Dr. Beverley introduces the "Five Ps" framework to help you make sense of your story, shares how to shift thought patterns with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and offers practical tools like “Capture–Cancel–Correct” to help you respond, rather than react. Whether you’re spiralling on the scale, triggered by old habits, or just trying to keep your cool mid-Hulk moment, this episode will remind you: the feels don’t mean you’re doing it wrong—they mean you’re doing it right.Dr. Beverley is a Clinical Psychologist registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She also holds a Ph.D. in Sleep Research (Insomnia) and a Master's in Health Psychology.Find Dr. Beverley:https://www.yourpsychologycentre.ca/@drdrbeverleyYou can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspring2025To learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi Method Podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 Day Weight Loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the Morning Live? Want to relisten to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place.

This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon music. This is an opportunity to become curious. To learn some things. How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. How does your past and your history of dieting factor into your current journey?

Just one of the things we're going to talk about today with my guest, Dr. Beverly David, clinical psychologist is here. Hello. Good morning, Gina. What a beautiful morning it is. Right. It's a good morning. It's a good morning. It's a great week. As you know, we are in week one of the program. You've been with us for a while. If you missed it, anyone who's watching or listening, we introduced a few of our guest experts during a prep week, last week, talking about what they thought you needed to know. And so if you haven't caught up with that yet, that segment's in the guides also stored in the app in the expert guide segment. And if you can't watch any of our lives, you can't stick around today, you can always rewatch it later on. Week one of the program, people are focused on,

you know, trying to eat the things they need to eat and pull all the things together and try to keep showing up. But this is the time where the feels start creeping in, especially when they get on the scale, the scale isn't moving, they signed up for this 91 day program, but they're already having doubts. And rightfully so. And there was a rhyme and a reason to why people have the feels

and the thoughts that they're having. But how do we not let that get in our way? Or should we start with where did, where do those thoughts come from in the first place? I know that's a lot. That's a lot. from in the first place? I know that's a lot. That's a lot. Great start. Okay. Because you're suggesting and you're totally right that they come from somewhere, don't they? And by the time we're old enough to sign up for a group like this, it means we've lived enough years and probably been presented with enough meal times or, you know, where we have started to develop thoughts, feelings, behaviors and a physiological response, positive or negative, to food, to health, to what we look like, what we feel like. And whenever as a psychologist

that you're inviting me to talk about this, I always try and remember why somebody is coming and then give them that first formulation. And often I talk about the five P's and their five words beginning with P. The first P is the presenting thing. What are you presenting with? Is it that you, and this might be that bit that's the feels, you might say, I am presenting with doubt, I am presenting with uncertainty, I'm presenting with anxiety about this program. And then I would be thinking, okay, what do you want to do about that?

How would working with Gina, how would listening into the psychology part, how would that help? And you might say, I want to have more doubt, I want more certainty, I want more certainty, I want more calmness, I want more sense of management instead of that swirly feeling. Then we would go, let's go to predisposing factors. And that's what you're talking about a little bit now. Where did this all come from? And that's that nature nurture debate

that psychologists like to talk about. We think we, we're not a blank slate, we have histories. And the history of even before we're born in our mummies tummy will have informed our makeup. Are we a worrying type of person? Are we a perfectionist type of person? Do we are we hyper vigilant is the minute we're born because if our mummies were very stressful, it's going to be passed to the baby sensibly, because then we're prepared for the world we're born into.

But then there's the nurture, what happened when we arrived? How did our caregivers talk to us, respond to us? How did they see us? Did they see our value and worth regardless of external things, or were we praised or celebrated if we were this shape or got this grade or got onto that team? Okay, so we're filled with messages not only from our parents, but then our village and our coaches and our culture and the magazines and the TV shows that we will have watched and it goes into that very clever brain that then informs our thought processes. So we want to think about that, I think, right, where did we come from? Then there's the precipitating factor. Why is it, why are you

full of doubt now? Why is anxiety coming now? Well, maybe it's because something's happened or you you want it to work Why are you in the program now? Have you met somebody that you thought? Wow, I want what they've got because look how healthy they are living. Look how they turned up to our last, you know Outing they have something going on right for them But also the precipitating fact of why are you feeling maybe nervous and that you don't aren't going to do well in this because it's something about to happen. And then we want to think what keeps it there. Okay, so once we've got our scripts and our thoughts, our feelings, our behavior, the perpetuating cycle is where that CBT model that you've

introduced and that we often talk about that framework of CBD, that's often what keeps it. We might have had old scripts taught to us when we were young. We might have been on poor diets when we were in our early 20s or whatever age people have started this sort of thing. But why is it staying? Why haven't we been able to correct those defeating, bulliest brain thoughts that we're not good enough? Why are we still doing the behaviors we wish we weren't? Because we wish we weren't, but we still do them. And why are we still physiologically stressed around the thought of food or in the presence of food?

So why does it keep going? And that's what we want to start breaking. We're interfering. And then the final P is what's your protective factor already? What have you got on your side? Are you resourceful? Are you resilient? Do you want change? Do you have people around you that can support that change? Are you starting to think maybe the way I was talked to when I was younger or the way I talk to myself now is in my way. So that awareness, that clarity might be starting to become a very protective factor for you. So that's where it all comes from. And then we're here. Now we're in the here and now what do we do about it?

Yeah, I had a conversation last night on the live and we were talking about the things that were said to us about our weight. Some people remember as young as five years old or, oh, you have such a cute face if you just lost weight or someone's parent was like, I'll give you $500 if you just lose weight or, you know, like those comments where we remember them to this day. And it's not because we haven't tried hard

or spent a lot of money or put a lot of time into losing weight. And there's a lot of guilt and shame. And I mean, I could go on about all the different feelings that people have about their weight. Obviously they've signed up for this program. This program, it's a great program. It's a way to lose your weight in a healthy way.

Physically, yes, but more so mentally. But what do people do with all the feels? First of all, name them. We know about naming to tame. Like when we name a feeling that we might have catched in the net, it helps the brain start to think about it. Because you've just said, you've listed a few

lovely feelings that we want to unpack doubt, shame, guilt. And then I wrote down anger, some people are very angry at the diet industry and what they were told. And that can even add to sabotage like, why should I do this? I've been trying to do this for years. I'm out. Gina's now telling me to do this. I remember being told to do something when I was young. I'm gonna resist that, but it's different. If we can helicopter out a little bit, we can think,

okay, this time, can I be the driver of my choices instead of, unless you do this, you're a failure. So we want to catch these feelings and get to know them a little bit because our brain wants to talk to us, hiding shame or hiding the guilt or hiding the anger. We want to say, hey, let's talk about that.

Where does that come from? And that's something called a compassionate focus therapy to get to know your feelings. Because once you can label a feeling, and we're not very good at that with the alphabet game, but if you even set yourself up homework for today to think, okay, go through the alphabet game with an, generate as many emotional feelings as you can.

So a lot of us don't have very many, happy, sad, angry, guilty. Maybe that's like the top four. But I want you to really dig in. Is there jealousy? Is there resentment? Is there FOMO? All of these feelings create thoughts, and our thoughts create our feelings,

but they also then inform our behavior. What do we do? Do we back off? Do we go quiet? Or do we stay in the game and lean forward and think, right, I'm learning about how I feel when that thing happens? Feelings are very powerful, because you can think about things in the here and now, but we can think about things in the past and our brain thinks it's happening right now. And we can rehearse something in the future and our body will feel it right now in our body as well as our emotional self. Well, and that can be what's happening on the scale. Obviously, getting on the scale every day is a great tool to use while you are losing weight.

It helps you understand what weight loss looks like and feels like to you, meaning like, is it normal for your weight to go up before it drops? How is your body reacting to some of the changes that you're making and how you're feeling if you're not feeling well and kind of sick, your weight can be up after a workout, your weight can be up. And what does it feel like when it's on its way down? It helps to get you in tune to your body's needs, but it can be maddening and frustrating and disappointing

when people get on the scale each day. I love having my shit thrown in my face because I like working through my stuff. I'm like, okay, universe, bring it on. I I'll work through whatever you got because I know it's going to get me forward. It's going to help me get to where I want to go. Not an easy thing to do. And a lot of people have a lot to unpack. We talked to Dina on Tuesday, right? Weight loss is unlearning and relearning and learning new things and recognizing where you're at

right now and what you need today. And the scale is really great at doing that for us but also can overwhelm our feelings. Like someone can be doing all of the things and feel really fantastic about where they at. Then they get on the scale and they see a number they don't wanna see. Even if it's up because it's about to drop, it can ruin their whole day.

What do we do with that? Well, a moment ago you used the word feedback and you said you like having it slammed in your face. And so that is also a type of person who so look into ourselves and think how how do I receive feedback? Do I look defensive? Do I feel like that's criticism? Do I feel that that's an opportunity for learning? Because we want to think how do I receive this and how did I receive it when I was little? Where did this come from? You know, that I'm taking it as a negative or, or some sort of measure of myself. So that's number one, dig deeper, because that's what the number is, it's just feedback. And it actually needs to, we need to start working on separating from your worth. That does nothing to do with your worth. It's just feedback. Now

you want to think, right, what does this feedback tell me? And then we want to unpack those other bits instead of going in our thoughts straight to, I'm doomed, you know, I knew it wouldn't work. I knew this was going to blah, blah, blah, whatever our script is saying that leads to overwhelm, maddening, disappointment, all of those feelings. Now I want you to think, okay, let's think. I was hot yesterday, I was quite dehydrated yesterday, I'm getting my period tomorrow, I didn't sleep very well, what beat the detective? Look at that number, it's just information, and then with consistency, you're going to start unlearning that that number is a measure of your worth, but it's a piece of information. It's like, ah, it

went up two today, it went down one yesterday. Like, and by tracking it, you'll start going, wow, I didn't know my weight fluctuated so much. And that's interesting. And isn't that a different feeling than, yeah, I just want you to be like, oh, interesting. And that like breath is on purpose because when we go, my brain likes that. It's a curious breath, you know. Well, I like that it's just information because we've talked about before you're collecting data, right? Like how is your body responding to the choices that you are making? It's why I love the app. I know that we're collecting your data. You, choices that you are making? It's why I love the app. Not that we're collecting your data.

You, the user, are collecting your data. How consistently are you drinking the water and moving your body and all the things that you're doing? And that's where you should see that progression of all the things that you're doing kind of come together. Collecting that data. I love information. The scale is just another piece of information for you. I love framing that. I have people asking what CBT is,

cognitive behavioral therapy. I mean, this is how we change our brain. This is how we change our behaviors. Can you explain a little bit more about that? Okay, so if we think about our very clever brain, I have my lovely little clever brain right here to size. First of all, I also want to point out that our emotional brain is very attached to our memory brain.

So we're going to remember stuff, OK, that then provokes those thoughts, those emotions and those behavioral reactions. Now, we now know that this clever brain of ours has neuroplasticity. It can change just because we have these very firm, whatever we want to call them, roots through to the brain to I am this, I am that, black and white thinking, negativities, scrutinizing internal critical thoughts. We want to start using

this neuroplasticity to wire ourselves differently. Now the CB model sits within that. It's knowing that human beings, and this is what psychologists work with, we all have thoughts. We all have thoughts and I can't mind read you. I can guess what you might be thinking because I'm quite good at that now, but I don't actually know. Okay, and we wish people could mind read us sometimes,

don't we? Like I wish somebody would have known I would like the dishwasher emptied, but we're all full of thoughts. We also are all full of feelings. We're emotional beings. OK, then so that's it. So thoughts, I always say it to 12 o'clock at the clock.

Then we've got our feelings at the three o'clock part. Then we've got our behaviors, what we do as well as what we don't do. OK, so we know that we do stuff, we know that we don't do stuff. Some things we're really glad that we do, some things we wish we didn't do. Okay, and then we've got our body and our brain over on that nine o'clock part of the block. And each one of those has a two-way arrow. Okay, so we know that we bounce off each other, our thoughts can make us feel something, our feelings can make us do something. When we've done something, we might think badly about it and our body is going into either fight, flight or fate. Beautiful.

Thoughts, feelings, body. Wonderful. Got it. Okay. And we'll post an example of that in the group later today. Good. So now anytime CBT is being used in psychology, what we're trying to do is to interrupt the pattern, to notice first of all that patterns are happening, okay, when I'm feeling maybe shame, this is what I generally do. So we take a look at what does our behavior do? What do I think about that? Why am I thinking that this way that leads me to shame

or disappointment or overwhelm? And the job of a psychologist and a job of you if you're unpacking CBT is start interfering with each bit. Can we address, first of all, I often start with behavioral activation. Can we think about what behaviors we do and that we can catch? Because it's easy, because we can see behaviors more.

We can also help manage our body to be calmer, to try and help it not go into fight flight because it's a sensing threat. Okay, so if somebody has always had a very difficult relationship with food, food is probably now become quite threatening to the brain. So the very thought of, okay, Easter dinner just happened, or we're having a family dinner next weekend.

Your body might start responding already with that anxiety feeling or the dread feeling. Your heart might start palpating, your tummy might start swirling, you might lose your appetite, you might lose your appetite, you might gain your appetite. It's all sorts of things happening in your body. So we want to learn to calm that.

We want to actually bring in something called the parasympathetic nervous system, the parachute, the ah, and start to bring our body into calm. This isn't a fire alarm. We don't need to run from this. We want to notice that that event is bringing up something for me.

And you call them the fields. Brilliant, it's bringing up something for me. I wonder what's going on. And then we want to address those thoughts because if we might think, well, I know I'm going to overeat or I know I'm going to want to finish my plate or I know that my auntie's going to force feed me, whatever those thoughts are, we want to think, okay, let's now make a plan. Let's make a plan to think, how can I manage that

that might be coming up? How can I rethink it? How can I manage that? I'm going to say, oh, I've had enough. I'll take it up a way home home or how can we put what we want onto our plate and not be worried about what other people are looking, you know, we want to we want to start noticing what we do. And CBT is that it's catching our thoughts, noticing if we have particular ones all of the time, and then we can maybe label them, you can say, Oh, I'm playing the Titanic in my brain. I know what's gonna happen here. And I want us to change the tape.

I want to change the channel and think, hang on, this is a new chance to experience this. So we adjust, we catch our thoughts, we look at them. We work on our body and calming it and understanding why it's doing it because it's so related to that emotional part of our brain and calming it and understanding why it's doing it because it's so related to that emotional part of our brain and our behaviors. We start looking and unpacking them because our behaviors as humans often we want to soothe ourselves. We want to get ourselves out of

discomfort and that doesn't mean we do the right thing sometimes. We think, you know, I'm not gonna go to that thing because it's too anxiety provoking. But now we've missed the chance to try something different or we have started to be soothed by food so that when we're feeling angry or doubt or disappointed or maddening or shame or overwhelm, now we eat because maybe in our past, we've also learned that that was either a reward

or a feel better, let's have this food. Like there's all sorts of reasons why this would have started happening. Yeah, I mean, the thing about these conversations, if you're watching listening, is that you really, you wanna be in the moment with them and then you wanna rewatch them again. And what you just said there was so profound because you've signed up to do a weight loss program. In the past,

weight loss was just counting, weighing, measuring, eat less, exercise more. And where you're going to start to realize is like, it's so much more. you add in your relationship with food and maybe how you use food to cope, right? And then it's almost like two separate things and people don't see that part of it as weight loss because weight loss was always just count, weigh, measure, eat less, exercise more. And it was very external.

And what we're trying to do is internal. I just wanna go through the cognitive behavioral therapy model because, so your brain, your body and your brain, your brain is sending signals, your body's reacting, you have a treat, you have a stressful day, you have a treat, immediately you have thoughts that you've ruined everything.

You're the worst person in the world. You're never gonna be able to lose your weight. You starve yourself the next day or you sabotage by're never gonna be able to lose your weight. You starve yourself the next day or you sabotage by eating even more. And that's your pattern. That's your pattern. A lot of people have created this pattern with dieting. And we wanna break that.

A lot of that's easier said than done. I have a lot of people who panic unless they are perfect. It's not worth doing or they mess up, have a few bites of bits here or there, or have an off day, off weekend, off week, and think, well, they need to start again, or they're never gonna be successful. How do we, is it the capture cancel correct?

Is that a good technique for that? Do you wanna go over that? I get on the scale and my weight is up, even though I've been doing all the things, yet I feel like it's not working for me. I feel like it's a failure. And then I follow through by eating donuts and just eat all the crap all day long,

which makes me feel worse. The next day I'm punishing myself and it's just a vicious cycle. How do we not get to that point? How do we get on the scale and not let it escalate? You used very, very clever words because there is the word punishment, there is the word reinforce, and things like that.

Now, what we've got to remember is this clever brain, if I use my fist now, this is our smart brain. So our thumb is tucked inside. That's the emotional reactive brain, the amygdala that's going to keep us very safe. It's very old fashioned. It's millions and millions of years old. Sometimes we call it the reptilian brain, sometimes we call it the chimp in our brain. And then our smart brain covers that. And this is where we think clever. we can plan, we're logical, we're kinder to ourselves,

we have perspective, we can think tomorrow is a new day, the scale is information, it's all that nice bit, okay? That bit, it's a bit of a boring bit as well though, okay? So this is sort of the Sherlock-sensible person. This is more like the Incredible Hulk, okay? And then if we could bring them together, it would be Yoda, it would be this wise mind. Now, when something happens that triggers, okay,

the Incredible Hulk, our brain flips, okay? We now have less access to the clever brain that has the, Gina says, trust the process. Everybody says, progress over perfection. Gina says, trust the process. Everybody says progress over perfection. Gina says, it's just data. You know, we can't remember that now because this brain is way slower than this brain. This brain is fast.

So I wake up, I feel pretty good. I didn't eat after dinner last night. I've been doing all the things. I've been maybe starting to move my body. I'm feeling good. My body feels good. My didn't eat after dinner last night. I you know, I've been doing all the things I've been, you know, maybe starting to my body, I'm feeling good. My body feels good. My clothes feel better. I'm pretty proud of myself. I get on that scale. And the scale is up or it's the same. And I'm just like, yeah, I'm a failure. It's never gonna work. All these fields, whatever that

is, come up. And so what's happening is my brain rational brain, that's like knows better. It's just like, so I don't know, it's gone and had a coffee where my like Hulk brain is like, you know, you're never gonna lose its weight, you're fat, you're horrible, you're awful, or whatever thoughts that we associated with that. Brilliant.

And I love that you acted it out because we really want to know that that's happening. This isn't willpower. This isn't that you're failing. This is this bit of the brain has a job to do. And it's doing it very well. It's interpreting this as a threat. And it's going to shout way louder and way faster. And it's going to say, don't bother listening. This is all of those things that you just said, it's going to say it louder. So you've got to get to know the hulk. You've got to get to know that bully in the brain.

It isn't really a bully at all. It's coming to your defense, but we don't need it to. Okay, it's armored up from all of the history, all of the suitcase, the history that you've been carrying with you, it is trying to help. So we want to, when we're outside of stress, spend time thinking about that and talking to that bit of the brain, like, what will you feel like if this

happens and what would be a strategy? How can I take a breath? How can I go downstairs and make some water? And how can I go for a walk and let that moment pass without making a decision as the help? Because we've all done it, haven't we, where we've sent the email that we wish we hadn't, we've eaten the whole fridge and we wish we hadn't, because that's impulsive, it's reactive,

and it's the help saying, feel better quick, okay? Okay. So we want to pause, we want to try and make a pause before we react because that pause counting to 10, doing something like whether it's one of my sensory exercises, see five things, hear four things, touch three, it brings that brain back online where then we have a better chance

of having the wise mind talk. And that is telling a truth. It's not ignoring it. It's like, yeah, you felt pretty crummy because you saw that number and you didn't want to see it. That must be hard. Gina told us that can happen. Gina also told me that I might now make a choice that won't help me later. So I wonder what

I'm going to do. What shall I do next? Okay. And even if we find ourselves like, Oh, I did it. I did do the thing I didn't mean to do. Then we still want to be kind and say, okay, I've done it. I'm not going to shame myself. I'm not going to punish myself. I'm going to notice it. And I'm going to say, right. She also told me this would happen because I'm a human. Okay. And what would I say to my best friend? What would I say to my child? I'd say it's okay. patterns are hard to break one day at a time. Okay, you know, it's being kind to that part of our brain so

that we don't just say, I'm not gonna listen to you because it will just shout louder. Yeah, and it's about, it's about, it's going to take time, right? Like that's why I love that capture cancel, correct? I want you to go over that one more time, but when you're feeling fantastic, you get on the scale,

you see the number and you're just like, oh, your heart sinks or you start whatever, and then you just carry on your day and it's ruined your whole day. What you're saying is take a minute, take a deep breath and be like, okay, what's the reality of this situation? I woke up, I felt really great today. I've actually been doing really well. It's going to take me longer than, you know, a week to do the things I need to do. Like keep going. I'm doing great. What can I do that type of thing. That takes, that's a skill and that takes time. I do want you to go just real quickly through the capture cancel correct,

but when you talk about your history and your suitcase full of the things your parents said, the way they raised you, the things that your friends said, the horrible people said, the all the all the stuff you piled on from the diet industry and trying to lose weight and all of that. Like there's a lot. Some people got their suitcases are just like overflowing and don't even know where to start with that. Do you need to unpack your suitcase? Or you can start where you are. You can definitely start here and now, we don't always have to go way back, we can do behavioral activation and begin and think let's start. They're already here, you're already doing something very, very novel. This is just turning up. I don't want, I don't

know whether I want to use the word, but just turning up is an intervention. Okay. It is interrupting the cycles that we're in doing Doing small things, it makes a huge difference. Okay. I have an example here. Sorry, I think this was a good example for you to use Capture Cancel Correct. So Holly says, I just woke up on the West Coast, logged in to see this and immediately had a panic attack and have started sweating thinking of changing my fear around losing weight, fear of being seen, fear of positive judgment, fear of who I will be when I'm not the fat funny one. So whether it's getting on your scale and these feels come up or you've eaten something and the feels come up or you've just woken up like hauling those feels come

up, can we capture, cancel, correct this? Okay. So the catch it, cancel, correct it is a clever fast way. First of all, catch it is pause. Okay. It's catch that something's happening. Aha, I'm in a loop, gonna catch it. I might even catch the style of thinking. Hmm, I'm fortune telling. I'm in the future. That is often very anxiety provoking. So we want to catch it and think, how long can I move back to the now? So we're cancelling that for a moment. We're going, okay, cancel it. I'm here. The sky's blue. I'm at my desk. I've got my water, I'm going to grind myself. Okay, so now we're cancelling the trip. Instead of tripping down to negativity or the forest of no return, we're cancelling the trip. We're pausing the train and we're getting off. And then we want

to think, can we correct it some way? Can we now bring wise mind on? And it might not be in that very moment that you're doing all these three things. Okay. You might have caught it in the morning and thought, right, I noticed, I noticed I panicked, I noticed I was hot. I might have also noticed these were the thoughts. I thought, what if I am not the funny one anymore? What if I lose weight and I'm different? What does that mean to me? Okay. So now we're doing it. Cancel it might be pause for a minute. Pause, take a break, take some space, maybe journal it, join the live, maybe don't like leave the live and listen to it later. And then the correct is later on thinking now what would I say to that thing that happened. I've

noticed the trigger, I've noticed where my thoughts went and now that I'm a little bit further away from it, what have I learnt? Can I learn to correct something so that if and when it happens again, if I get back on that train next time, can I get off the train quicker? Do I know how to do that now? Do I know how to say, hold up? I'm going to not listen to that absolute thinking and I'm going to consider it from different perspectives. I'm going to think, okay, what would a very kind person say about that? What would a very supportive person say about that? What would I say to a child? All of that is then the correcting it. So it's a big pause.

I saw someone said, well, should we just not use the scale then? And I'm like, the scale is a trigger. At some point, you're going to have to work through these thoughts and these feelings because they are affecting your behaviors. And when you lose your weight, in which you will, and sometimes A-type people just follow the guidelines, they reach their goal weight, but then what? Then those thoughts and those feels are going to come up at some

point and then they're going to affect your behaviors. Maybe not now, but after you've lost your weight, it will pull you back into old habits. And so just like the scale can be a trigger, just like Holly this morning, waking up and turning on the live was a trigger. What your friend said could be a trigger. Something happening at work can be a trigger. You know, if you don't want to use the scale,

that's okay, right? Just don't use it once a week. You either use it every day to gather the information or don't use it at all. I think because you miss a very big bit. You will start making decisions on not enough data, because if you happen to hit the high point of your week, you've missed that there was such an influx and change within the week. So it is very fascinating to look at that.

But when we are thinking of psychology, and Dina talked about learning and unlearning, we do have to remember that when we're learning psychology, basic psychology, we know have to remember that when we're learning psychology, basic psychology, we know that learning happens, okay, and it can happen in different styles. It can happen when we classically condition, that would be if you have a pet and you go to get the lead or the harness, they know that they're going for a walk, okay? They're anticipating it, their tail is wagging. That happens to human beings as well.

Once you've linked, once you've paired something so often with something else, the lead equals a walk, the harness equals a walk, mommy getting her trainers on equals a walk. So once we pair and pair and pair, our body anticipates it. It's like seeing the service station and needing a wee. And it doesn't just mean things. So just because we've got home, yes, we might immediately be hungry because we've started to condition and peer

walking through the door with opening the fridge, walking through the door, opening the fridge. Or when everybody goes up to bed, we get out the yoghurt. Or whatever it is, because we've started to peer it, so our body anticipates. That's one type of learning. What we need to do is to extinguish that. This is about Pavlov's dogs. If anybody wants to look it up it talks about that you know when we ring the bell eventually with the food they're going to salivate to just the bell okay because they've peered it

extinguishing it means we've got to stop peering it we've got to now come home and not go to the fridge we've got to go upstairs take our makeup off or take our day clothes off and put our coats on we've just got to change the pattern. Okay, we've got to take a different route. Okay, instead of driving past Tim Hortons on your way to work, because you're now classically conditioning that thing with on your way to work,

you go a different way. And the more and more you do that, you're going to extinguish that old pattern. Okay, and it takes time. Some people have been on diets for 50 years. That is 54,000 meal opportunities if you have three a day. If you've paired that with anxiety and worry and deprivation, that's a lot of pairing. So we need to know, be patient, that's a lot of peering. So we need to know, be patient, be consistent, know that this is a real thing. It's going to take time for you to change, but it's absolutely possible. Now there's the

physical things, but there's also the emotional pairings as well. So not just, okay, I've come home and now I feel hungry, but also I feel sad. I feel hungry. That can also be paired. I feel worried. I feel hungry. Okay. Or I'm disappointed. So that the feelings can make something happen also. And again, we need to extinguish and it can range extinguishing a pattern. People will ask, you know, how long is it going to take? Is it this many days? Is it that many days? Very different. And an article in the European Journal of Social Psychology said it can range 66 days to 254 days, depending on how long and complex that pairing was. Yeah, it's going to take a while for you to change your brain

because you live so many years one way and now you're looking to rewire your body. That takes time, rewire your brain. You will get there. The brain is meant to change. That's the really exciting part, but you have to start with that starting to be aware. So this is why when you're following the food plan

and paying attention to how your body's responding, this is a big part where I say your thoughts and your feels is part of the program. It's part of the process. It's part of the journey and it's paying attention. And it's not just not having the brownie. It's sometimes having the brownie and then being aware of your thoughts and the feels that come after. What's the habit associated, right? And so this, for some people it's easy peasy. They just, you know, what they eat and when, and they lose their weight and fine. But for most people,

they're coming with a whole suitcase backpack full of stuff. They need to unpack. Yeah, and sometimes we don't know it until halfway through or at the end or when we have a break. But let that be a, ah, instead of a, ugh. Be like, I've got some more information about myself. Yeah, I like that. Let this conversation be a, ah, instead of a, ugh.

Right, these conversations you will find with our guest experts are about awareness. It's a great idea to go seek out your own healthcare expert in this field. With the Living Method, we do cover quite a bit and Dr. B is great because she knows where you're at and the kind of conversations that we need to have. But especially I want to mention that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And this is a great opportunity to highlight your thoughts and your feels every day, not just, you know, when it comes to trying to lose weight.

You deserve to get the help that you need, especially if some people are really struggling beyond the conversations that we're having here. Our time is up. I know people will wanna know where to find you at Dr. Beverly on, at Dr. Dr. Beverly on Instagram. Follow her, she gives some great tips. You can also reach out through her website as well,

yourpsychologycenter.ca. I know Dr. Beverly has a couple of things. She has her Working Your Way Through the Fog workshop tonight with Dr. Dina and Dr. Alinka. I believe there is still time to sign up for that. And then this Saturday, Dr. Dina and Dr. Olinka, I believe there is still time to sign up for that. And then this Saturday, Dr. Beverly offers this calming your anxious brain series, right? It's a common series.

Yes, it's six weeks and it covers everything we've talked about today. And you can get your receipts submitted for insurance if you have psychological services attached to that. So that's all. That's nice for you to know. Wonderful. And she's going to be back, y'all. She's going to be back. We have a lot more to talk about and work through. Thanks everyone who joined us. Thanks everyone who shared, who asked your questions. Have a fantastic rest of your day. Just a reminder, I will not be going

live tomorrow. I'll be out of town, but I'll catch up with you on Monday. The weekend's great time to get caught up or re-watch any of our incredible guest segments. Have a fantastic day, everyone. I'll see you then. Bye. Thank you. Thank you so much. I adore you. Thank you. Thank you.