The Livy Method Podcast - How Dieting History Shapes Your Journey with Dr. Beverley David - Winter 2026

Episode Date: January 15, 2026

In this episode, Gina is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Beverley David for a raw conversation about what really goes on in our minds during the early weeks of a weight loss journey. Together, they explore why we often feel like failures just days into something we were once excited about, how our thoughts shape our feelings and behaviours, and why it’s so hard to break old patterns even when we know better. From habit loops and safety signals in the brain to emotional resistance and identity shifts, this episode gets real about the messy mental side of change and why it’s not a reason to quit, but a call to get curious.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/livymethodwinter2026To learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams for 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 re-listen 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. We're focusing on sustainable habits, not quick-fixing.

Is it an opportunity to get curious? We're here how people get to their health goals. One piece of time. We build and build and build. It's only week one of the program, and I can't even with the conversations that we have already had on Tuesday. Sandra Alia joined us talking about food addiction.

Dr. Beverly, David, clinical psychologist, just all around. incredible human is joining me today to talk about, well, I don't know, so many things. We start this diet. We're so excited, you know, a week and a half later. We're feeling like failures. Why am I doing this? Why am I not doing that?

All the thoughts, all the feels, although they are part of the program and the process and the journey, they can really trip us up. What is that about? We're going to get into it today. Hi, Dr. B. Good morning, Gina. Good morning, everyone. We've got a snow day here in Uxbridge, so everybody's happy.

Same. Apparently it's like the biggest snowstorm season. We've already had a few. You know, I love it. Why? Because it feels like the first thought was like great, a snow day. I can kind of like, I can get stuff done. I can like just like huddle in.

I don't have to, do you know, I just. You can hibernate. Yes. Yes. It's so funny though, because I was telling Jody just before we were joining in because Jody sets me up and I was like, I wish my little boy would go into school because I was like, Leo, your exams are next week. And as most of your members know, I have dyslexia. So I've had to learn how to learn. And I'm like, go in and ask them. Like, what's on the exam? This is your opportunity.

You know, just be close. But of course, he's like, I'd rather sleep, but he might go in for geography. But it's a bit like we're going to talk about today. No. how to get the best out of your situation, knowing what you need, knowing what you need to do, and knowing that there's different ways around it for everybody. That would have been my way of learning. It might not be his way of learning, but today we're going to be talking about how your members are in this, you know, end of the, sort of nearly the end of the second week. How are they feeling? Do they feel like they're already behind? Do they feel like they're already failing? And I would say if I was going to start,

with what I want to say at the end, I want people to know. I want them to be reassured immediately that, and I want people to write this down somewhere where they get to see it. You are not behind. You are learning. Your body is listening. And that's how I, how I would have probably ended. But we may as well start with that so that people know. You know, I mentioned this the other day where the time goes by so quickly. I was actually just listening to a conversation with James Clare. You know, he's written that book, Atomic Habits. And he talks about how like every choice you make or don't make is a vote for your

yourself, is a vote for who you want to be, where you want to be. And I was thinking, okay, there's habits. I get that habit stacking. We need to work through old habits, create new habits. But those are like, those are systems, right? You need systems for that or a method. And that's why the living method is a method. It's a system. There's a rhyme and a reason. It's systematic. But where does the psychology part coming? Because even our thoughts are habits too, right?

Oh, yes. Absolutely. We have so many thousands of thoughts running through our behind-the-scenes commentary constantly that we don't eat. We're not even aware of them. But often those thousands of thoughts leave us with feelings and emotions, whether it's a feeling of disappointment or discontent or excitement or energy. And then they also then lead us to those behaviours, the do's and the don'ts, the votes for our future self or the votes for comfort. Because ultimately human beings, we don't like the uncomfortable. We often will retreat back to familiar. And that's how particular diagnosis like anxiety keep us hooked because it's so

reinforced by not doing that thing, we feel a little bit better. By not go into that thing, we get this sense of relief because I didn't have to talk to those strangers or turn up and not know anybody. So it's this false moment of, it's like a false promise because then, of course, we've reinforced there. I felt better. I just stayed home. But in the long run, was that depositing our votes for our future self? If our future self knows that we're we want to be connected, we want to be out there, we want to meet people, then accidentally we voted against that. So we just want to slow it down to understand it because with psychology, since the moment we are born, we need to feel safe. That's the ultimate part of our brain

needs to feel safe. That reptilian, very, very old part of the brain, number one is safe. Yeah. If we don't feel safe, our body goes into particular mechanisms to try and keep us safe. Our thinking goes awry. Our language just fails us. Our solutions are no longer available because we're flooded with that fight, flight or faint response. Okay. And so in order for us to feel safe during this, this new, perhaps new, perhaps it's somebody's second, third, 10th, 15th. program, safety also comes from how we talk to ourselves. If we're saying to ourselves, I'm behind, I failed and I'm never going to be able to do it. Look, everybody else is succeeding. That, those internal voices, that critical, that criticism, that bully in the brain is not going to make us feel safe. And so now that we are of this sort of age, it's our job to reattach to

ourselves. When we were younger, that would have been our caregivers, our parents, our schooling, our coaches. Part of their job is to help that child feel safe. Now it's our, our job to be noticing our voices, noticing our narratives and say, I'm safe and sound. And Daniel Segal, he's a wonderful doctor and writes a lot on the neuroplasticity and positivity and attachment. He'll talk about the foursies of secure attachment. And the first one is safety. So you are safe.

I've got you. Even if it does mean raising my voice to say, don't touch the other and don't touch you run across the road. Safety. Then to be seen. Being seen is the psychology part. Just because you reached for that chocolate bar, don't just see that behavior as you just have no willpower.

You are a failure. you just look beyond the tip of the iceberg, see what happened. I wonder why it did. I wonder what I need. I wonder how I feel. Am I hungry? Am I emotional? Am I missing something?

Because I don't want you to beat yourself up in that moment. I want you to be curious because that's what we would be if we were being good appearance. We would see a behaviour. And we don't want to just jump down that child's throat. we want to say, what's going on? Okay, so we want to see ourselves better. Then we want to soothe, that's the third S, soothe ourselves, be kind to ourselves. This is hard.

You are learning. You are unraveling patterns. You are understanding the ways and the whys and the hows. And those three Ss, the safety, allowing yourself to see yourself, and to then allow yourself to suit yourself, lead to feeling secure. And when we're in a secure position, we are more able to then vote for our future self because we have the wise mind coming together instead of the emotional reactive mind. We're able to think, how do I want to turn up in this moment? Because the moment behind me is past.

I do anything about the moment that's behind me. I want to concentrate on my next vote. Okay, and then it just starts to accumulate. But we really need to be kind because so many of us would have already started out thinking, I don't think I'm going to be able to do it or what will people say about me when I do this? What will people think? And we go into that sort of mindset. Well, there's so much going on here. One, whenever I'm feeling down, it's like I'm really hard on myself.

I feel hopeless. I'm like whatever. It's always when I'm not drinking my water. I'm binging Netflix. I'm not working out. I'm not doing even the most minimal things to help myself. So it kind of like always falls in line with just there's so much I could do, but I'm not doing. And when I recognize that's a lot easier said than done to do the things.

My go to is it's okay. You know, right. This is how you're feeling right now. You might not understand it. But what do you need right now? Do you need some time, some quiet time? Do you like, what is it that you need? So because everyone's always like, what's wrong with me?

And I'm like, there's what's wrong with you. It's what is going on with you. What weight are you carrying emotionally, mentally, all of that. So there's that. And then I'm thinking about, I always think about the diets that people have done before. and how many times they were successful, only to have it taken away. Because the minute they just start eating normally, they gain that weight back. And that is partly because those calories and versus calories out diets work for weight loss,

but no one was ever going to be able to maintain and sustain their weight because your body was wired to gain that weight back, especially when you starve and deprive that fat off. So I think it must be very difficult for people to try again. To try again because in the back of their mind, it's like one more time. Or it's even if they are successful, they're just going to gain it back again. And then this comes to learning. This is my third part, my takeaway. People will say, well, the scale is up and this isn't working for me.

What am I doing wrong? And I'm like, well, it's normal. If you are truly doing the things, it is normal for your weight to go up before it goes down. For so many reasons, your weight will fluctuate. It's not real weight gain. But it's almost like people are resistant to believing it. Is there, I know that's a lot. I don't know, I don't know you're in on that.

But that's sort of like what's brought up in my mind. It's a lot. This is, this is a lot for people. I think with anything, everybody starts at a different spot. And when we are thinking that somebody might be ready for change, we sometimes map it on to the readiness for change or the stages of change. So there's pre-contemplative. There's people that are not even thinking about it yet.

They don't know that they want to. They don't know that they can. It's not even in their sort of near or. or medium distance away from them. Then we move into the contemplative. I think I'd like to. And that's going to bring up certain feelings for certain people.

Like you said, if they've done it before, you know, they might feel a bit of dread. They might think I can't do it. I've done it before. Do I want to put myself in that position again? And that's going to be flooded with the experiences that were there before. It was hard or it was punishing

or it was restricting, didn't work anyway. I felt, you know, maybe 100, 100 bucks went in that moment and flat as a pancake in the neck. So it's two rollercoastery. So no wonder we back off, okay, because we anticipate it to be hard. So we want to think, can we immediately at that point, if we're working with psychology, give the information that might help that person move into the action. And often that's the education bit. to allow them immediately to let go of some of those feelings of shame or failure by normalizing it,

by remembering to educate the why. This is why it didn't work. It wasn't a you problem. It wasn't a you floor. It was the system wasn't right. It wasn't for your body. It wasn't for sustainable and a program that would be a, able to be maintained. It was a moment in time that didn't serve longevity and the river of life.

We're going to go on holiday. We're going to have celebrations. We're going to have grief. We're going to have babies. We're going to have all sorts of life happen to us. That that sort of restrictive program wasn't ever going to work. And by giving ourselves permission to think, okay, that wasn't me and that wasn't for me. Therefore, I want to see if I can shed some of that, the stories that are coming with me in my suitcase. I want to leave that at the airport. So then maybe we start with a little bit more. I'm going to start again. A little bit like Lovely Paul talked about in week when we reintroduced ourselves. Try and leave behind our preconceptions of what it's going to be. It's really hard, isn't it?

If we think, no, this is this is going to be this and this and this and I know better already. It's hard to do that. So that's that addressing the fear of trying it again maybe to think, let's start again. Let's press the reset. Then it's about, so we're educating people about their bodies, their set point, how it works, why our body does what it does, why now this is such a job. different program. Like that's why it's so empowering because you're teaching people now the way that it should be and can be. And then that's going to challenge the confirmation bias. Confirmation

bias is when humans look to prove what they think. Okay. It's when we are looking for evidence that, oh, I knew I was going to fail. I knew this wasn't going to work. Yeah. Okay. Um, So again, that's why you foreloading there, it's going to go up and down. It's going to change. It's going to oscillate. Trust the longer process. Hopefully that gives people permission to go, oh, this is what she told me. You know, a little bit like giving birth.

I remember being told just before it's time that transition is going to be the worst moment. And I knew it, but I forgot it. And I was like, I can't do it, I can't do it. And then sure enough, you're 10 centimetres, you're ready, you know? So by knowing, sometimes we're able to then go, aha, I'm going to let myself have grace and let myself have patience and avoid going down the rabbit hole of, I knew it wasn't going to work. I am that number on the scale. I'm giving up. I'll start again maybe in the summer.

Yeah, I can see this coming a mile away with people, planting the seeds of doubt. They're just like, it's, I see it because there's so much support and there's so much here and they're just like, well, I can't watch all the lives. So, and that's it. And, well, I'm this and that. And I'm this and that or this and that and this and that or this and that and this and that. And nowhere have they asked a question. Yeah.

They haven't asked a question. They haven't asked for support. they just make these statements so that when they quit, because they're going to quit, they have a whole trail of excuses and reasons why this yet again did not work for them. And it's so obvious. That's why, you know, these conversations are not going to solve your problems. They are awareness. Yes. I'm hoping at some point you're getting the, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

You know, someone said to me the other day, I thought it was really interesting where they're like, oh, well, you know, it's my third program. I've kind of heard it all, whatever. And I was like, oh, every time I have conversations with my guest experts, there's an aha moment for me. I think that's, is there a way to leave ourselves open to more learning? I noticed one of our members Lynette this morning talked about how I got my journal out this morning. I'm asking myself some questions.

Is there a way to be more open to the method, the process, the system? The learning. I guess using that thing that can often bite us in the bum, using confirmation bias and intention to plant the seed of learning. So instead of planting the seed of I'm going to look for evidence, I'm failing, we want to, just like your member did, set yourself up to absorb something this day. And we know that really works. If we wake up and we're lying in bed and we want to think, what will I come?

what will I learn a positive thing today? What positive thing do I want to learn? By priming ourselves, we're on the lookout. We're on the lookout for something that we're going to at the end of the day, replay and go, I learned this about myself, or I notice this positive feeling when, because we go through the day on autopilot that we miss them. So if all members were able to think,

I'm going to come out and have learned something, okay, because data is in, you know, it's information. We want to collect all information. If you notice a pattern between coming through the front door and, oh, suddenly I'm in the fridge, mm-hmm, that's data, okay? But those are important moments where you can then pause and go, this is interesting, okay, and then allow it to land positively, to think, I am learning. So if people are listening to the lives, maybe they set themselves up to think, I'm going to listen out for one take-home message or one thing that resonated or made me think about something else, like which one bit might have, you know, stood out differently for you. And that might then help you sit in the chair differently or on your walk when you listen to the podcast.

you have an open ear. Like you have a, you're ready to absorb. You're like a sponge. But the priming has to happen. You need to want to learn. Sometimes we can be stubborn, can't we? We can be like, I'm here and I know it all. And that's devastating because we want growth mindset.

We want, we're forever learning. We don't want to be done. We're not fixed mindset. You have to be intentional about wanting to learn. and also intentional about wanting to make changes. So that awareness piece is great. I love that. And then now what?

You know, this is where you talk about neuroplasticity. Like you're meant to change. A lot of our thoughts are out of habit. We get on the scale every day. And if it doesn't say exactly what we want, we perceive that this is not working for us. There is something wrong with me and it ruins our whole fucking day. How do we not let, how do we, how both can be two at the same.

same time. You can be frustrated with the scale and still be doing really well. How do we deal with those, how do we deal with those thoughts and those feelings first? And then how do we actually change them into a more positive mindset? Or is that bullshit a more positive mindset? It takes practice. It does take practice. It is a learned thing. You know, some of us will definitely have had a head start with our personality. So our nature when we're born, we might just have been born with a little bit extra optimism or eyes wide open for possibility. And then there's the nurture. What did we grow up with? What did we see in our early childhood that said, you know, growth mindset versus fixed mindset? We can do

this. And so we know that there are people that already have a little bit more of a step up, but we can learn it because everybody's brain is primed for threat and how to survive. So it's going to concentrate on negatives first so that we don't do that again. Now we need to hardwire happiness. We need to intentionally start looking for that fork in the road to think, do you know what? Today I am learning. I am doing something different today.

I am investing in myself today. I am putting myself first today, even when we might think, okay, I made some wrong turns today. That doesn't matter. I am still learning. I'm still doing something different. Because like we've said many times, if we want to change, we need to change. We can't expect change to happen if we are the same and doing the same thing. We're going to be just, you know, running our attires into the sand.

So every day I want you to think, I am too. turning up. I am voting for my future self. I want to be different. Therefore, I'm going to start noticing differences, you know, and then just start observing because the CBT cycle that we talk about, that's one of the starting points. We can start thinking, okay, let me write it down quickly. Let's show people that. We have a visual that went up in the group today. I anticipated. Sandra Lee talked about, someone else talked about it.

So cognitive behavioral therapy model. Okay, so what's at the top there? So this would be our thoughts, and I wish we could read thoughts, and we can't. Okay, so our thoughts would be, oh, my weight is up. This sucks. I can't be at all the lives, therefore I can't do it, all or nothing. thinking. We have styles of thoughts. Okay. We have our fortune telling thoughts. We have our black and white thinking. We have our minimizing thoughts where we minimize successes, maximize failures. So our thoughts are

happening all of the time. Our thoughts, each line is a bidirectional line. Our thoughts bounce back and forth with our feelings. Feelings are those good and bad and in between feelings. Anxiety, depression, excitement, shame, guilt, all of those. So we want to be able to catch, what do these feelings do? When we're feeling down in the dumps, we're more likely to think down in the dumps. So we want to watch for that.

Yes. And our feelings and, of course, our thoughts, then influence our behaviours. And behaviors, remember, are what we do as well as what we don't do, the extremes and that, you know, so that we overdo it, we underdo it. And that's what we want to keep an eye on.

we're feeling down and we're thinking that we're failing, what do we do? Are we suddenly in the cupboard or are we now going to restrict and say, right, I'm just going to throw every bit of food out and I'm going to force myself to do this because that's not going to work. Okay. And we want to notice, is this an old pattern that we already know failed? Because we don't want to do the same thing again. We want to think, hmm, there's something different about this program. And then, of course, our body. Our body is also our brain. So that's where the fight, flight or faint is going to happen. But it's also going to be you getting to know your body. Do you feel the butterflies in your tummy when somebody says, hey, we've got a all you can eat buffet tomorrow at work. What does that

do to your body? Do you notice any dread happen? Do you notice that you feel swirly or stressed? What goes on? So we would start unpacking this because we're you interfere, it breaks the cycle. So by slowing down, this is what you'd start noticing. You'd start noticing, how did I, what did I think? And could I be kinder to my thoughts? This is an activity where we would often say, what would you say to a friend if they said it to you? You know, I suck. I'm, I'm, I'm this, I'm that. What would you say to them? You'd say it's week one. Don't put that much pressure on yourself. It's, we're learning together. it's a system.

What, you know, how do we manage our feelings? We want to name them. Name them to tame them. Okay, even by putting language to our feeling, I feel guilt today or I feel disappointment today. Soon as we've named it, we've had to make it into language with the left side of our brain, and that motion often moves a little bit into the more manageable.

Even when we're sad, I am sad by saying it or writing it, we've done something and our brain goes, thank you for seeing me. Okay, that's those safety, seen and soothed again because only then when our brain is feeling safe can it proceed and think, I know why I was in that leap today. I know why I did that thing. I don't want to beat myself up now for that decision. That was a decision that sad me made or upset me made. I want to be there for that that version of me and say, I'm here. I see you and let's just reset. So that's often what I'm talking about when I'll accidentally speed through what are we thinking, what are we feeling, what are we doing, what's our body doing? But it's simple and it's so complicated.

This comes down to feeling safe because so many people have things going on in their life, they just want to be like, well, this is what it is. It's my job and I'm busy. I'm taking care of this person. This is happening. This is happening. They just really want to be like, this is what's happening in my life. This is the real problem. And that they're not feeling safe.

I think they're probably not being kind enough. Yeah. To allow themselves to feel safe to really get to the root of what it is. Yeah. Because I write it all down. Write it down because people will have different things going on. They, some people will be. furious and then they'll just be mad.

They'll be like, I am not doing this again. I am sick of the diets. I am sick of it. And they'll just blow it up because they'll just be mad at you. But they're not mad at you. They're mad at the promises that they were promised. They're mad at society for telling us what we should and shouldn't look like for so long. You know, the shame it.

So try and really spend some time with yourself. because that matters. It does matter. But also, if you notice that staying there too long is upsetting you, because our past does matter. But there are some theories that say we don't want to spend too long there, but we do want to notice when our past is whispering to us. We want to think, what's it saying? Why is it here? What's going on? Because it does inform us. But then again, me want to think, okay, my next point is coming up. My next vote is up ahead. How am I going to proceed? How would I like to proceed? Yeah. There's a trend on Instagram right now, people going back to 2016 and posting photos of them. Yeah. And I was like, first of all, why

2016? I was like, oh, that's 10 years ago. Oh, that's why? Yeah, that's why. I know. I was like, Why, 2016? When is that? 10 years ago. And, you know, one, looking back, I really didn't take a lot of photos, which is really interesting compared to now. But at that time in my life, I was just really climbing out of this hole where, you know, my life, I'd lost my business and, you know, got my car repossessed and my marriage

fell apart and all these things happened. I was just making my way again. And when I look at 10 years ago versus now, wow, the time went by so, so. so insanely quickly. And I don't really know how I got here because it wasn't any one thing. And to me, it wasn't about weight loss, but it was about being financially independent. It was about being happy. It was about, you know, all these things that I've created for myself. It's the small things you do each day. And in that conversation, I was listening to with James clear today, he said, 10 years and one hour, those are the two timeframes that are really important.

10 years is really, and not that's going to take people 10 years to lose their weight, but it's the things that you do in your hours that really impact how you are living and who you are 10 years from now. I think people really underestimate the small work that they are doing. And often it really is very small. Am I going to do that thing? Because that's the pain point often. Am I going to go to the gym today? You know, am I going to go for the walk? Am I going to Fubber. And if we can just say yes, then we're there. Once we're there, it's, it's way easier. But that, that is, yeah, that is useful to think back, to think where you were, where you've been. And I love your question that you always offer people when they say,

you know, I've had this going on, I've gained weight, blah, blah, blah, this. I shouldn't say blah, blah, blah, nobody says blah. But you always ask them. what else was going on. Yeah. Because what that really matters, you know, 10 years ago, I was crying every day because my little boy and I relocated to Canada, just he and I, new start. And I just prayed, please don't snow again because I cannot do it.

Please. And I know how to do the snow. And Leo is now taller than me. And I'm like, we've done it, Leo. It's been a decade. We've done it. We're okay. But it's just building that house one brick at a time, which is those hour moments, ready for the home that you are in 10 years from now to think.

You know, just deposit something each day for you and remember to do it with kindness. If it's not with kindness, don't put it out there. Don't be mean to yourself. Catch it. counsel it and correct it. I've been sharing that with our members. I've been sharing that with them. I think that's one of the most profound things that you've ever said,

that a lot of times we're just ragging on ourselves, lying to ourselves, you know, looking for reasons why this isn't going to work, capture the thoughts, recognize. You get on that scale and you're just like, ah, this is never going to work, and I'm this and I'm that, you know, cancel it. This is not true.

This is not true, you know? the scale isn't a measure of my success. You know, I'm seeing all these non-scale victories. Correct that thought. You are safe. Yeah. You are loved. You go goosebumps.

Yes. You are loved and you can do this. You can do, you are doing it. If you're listening right now today, you are doing it. You are doing it. Dr. B, that's our time. You're going to be back, though. You're going to be back in the next couple weeks with our Sleep Week series, which I

absolutely is like one of my favorite weeks. Dr. Beverly David is a sleep researcher as well. We're going to talk about how when you don't get sleep, how that affects your brain and the choices that you are making. But you usually run like a sleep series that you do. You have calming your anxious brain. There's lots that people can go to your website, your psychology center.com. And check out for any of our upcoming offerings. You're also doing your stuff with the Bod Squad. Right now, you're nourished. flourish. Oh, I love that. What? It's Nick good.

Dina has the best catchphrases. Like, she's like, boom, this is correct. I would attend that. The BOD squad, obviously, a Dr. Beverly, Dr. Alinka, and Dr. Dina, Kara. Oh, I love this. You get 111. That's a good number. $111.111.

111.1. January 21st, 28th, and February 4th. you can go to, where can you go to sign up for that? Sort of there, hardly. Yeah. I'll add the link in the post. I'm very bad at this bit. Thanks everyone for joining me.

Again, these conversations are about awareness. Dr. Beverly's going to be back through with the program. She's going to know where you're at, what's going on, what you're thinking, the kind of conversations that we need to have. Thank you so much, as always, Dr. Bia, I adore you. Thank you. Bye.