The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Body Image and Self-Talk with Dr. Beverley David - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

In this episode, recorded on June 13, 2024, Gina discusses body image and self-talk with Dr. Beverley David. 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.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:Body Image & Self Talk: How do we get to a place where we just LOVE ourselves?Tone of voice matters: are we being compassionate or beating ourselves up?Recharge those batteries by noticing moments of pleasantness more often.Stress on top of stress: the effects of punishment and reinforcement.Rewiring our internal dialogue to be gentler and kinder.Words and the origins of our negative self-talk and body image.How the people around us and the cultures we grew up in influence our thoughts about ourselves.Affirming self-worth: I am worthy, I am lovable.Using the 3 C's (capture, cancel, correct) to change our relationship with the scale.How comparisons can pull us down rather than buoy us up.Noticing and acknowledging as key elements of "letting something go" without just pushing it down.Jumping to conclusions - a defence mechanism that prevents us from seeing reality.Prioritizing ourselves takes work - it's okay to fall along the way. Just get back up!Seeing our truth and reality for what it is - not a sliver of a pie, but the whole pie.Dismantling and making new grooves in our brains: it's worth the hard work and time it takes!Dopamine and reward: why we enjoy doing hard work and challenging ourselves.Cultivating body appreciation.Loving whatever you see reflected at you in the mirror. Push back on the negative.Find Dr. Beverley:https://www.yourpsychologycentre.ca/@drdrbeverleyTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.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 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 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. You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. Today we're talking body image and self-talk. It seems to me like when you are 60, you want to look like you looked when you were 50. When you're 50, you want to look like you looked when you were 50. When you're 50, you want to look how you looked when you were 40. And when you're 40, you wish you looked how you looked when you were 30. It seems like we are never happy. And then you add that internal dialogue to it. Oh my goodness. What do we do about that? How do we get into a place where we are so in love with ourselves

and we are saying nothing but nice, supportive things to ourselves while we are working through our weight loss journey? Here to walk us through that is Dr. Beverly David. Hello. Hi. Hello, Gina. I have missed you. How are you? I'm good. I've missed you too. So Dr. Beverly is a clinical psychologist. So you've dealt with this. Does everybody struggle with this? bothering them, whether it's intrusive thoughts, thoughts that go round and round. They want to be better or different or free from things that they feel hold them up. So this comes into the room a lot of the time. And it's not just weight. It's how we think people perceive us for all sorts of reasons. But yes, when you talk about our inside voice, our internal dialogue, how critical we can be, this is a very big part of psychology.

And trying to, first of all, identify those inside voices to be able to then start addressing them, you know, wondering where they came from, being curious, being compassionate, and starting to see if we can change them. Because, you know, words matter. How we talk to ourselves matters. How we hear our judgments about ourselves will then go on to make a particular mood happen. And it affects how we enter the day and how we interact with people. So yes, it's all that inside stuff that we want to try and bring out gently and start to think, okay, let's unpack this. Well, of course we're talking weight loss here, but on the road to,

you know, reaching their weight loss goals, people are working really hard to work through their issues and associations and coping mechanisms and habits and patterns and beliefs, and even some people trauma. And it's hard enough with everything that life throws at us. But it's like, we do not make it easy for ourselves. And I was thinking, you know, I always say to people, if you're waking up feeling, you know, especially after the body positivity movement, which I love, but I also believe it shouldn't be tied into weight and you should love yourself every single day, no matter what your weight and you can love yourself and still want to make change. internal voice that one that's telling you, Hey, could you maybe like go to bed early tonight, drink some water, move your body? Like, Hey, I'm feeling uncomfortable. That intuition that's telling you something is off. Is that different from that internal voice or are they the same, but in different circumstances show up differently? I think it might be the tone of voice that might be different, you know, because we can have a gentle tone of voice and be very in touch with our body

and think, oh, I feel a little bit sluggish today, or I feel a little bit slower today. But if we start telling ourselves off, you know, with that tone of voice of criticism, what's wrong with me, you know, I haven't done this fast enough, or I haven't got to that, or I failed again, then that is us beating on ourselves. And when we do that, it's just like another person doing it to us, and our body is going to react, it's going to go into that fight, flight, or faint mechanism that we hear a lot about. And that is then increased cortisol. And when we have increased cortisol, everything

starts to tell us we are stressed, we are in threat. And then that clever brain of ours stops looking for the evidence that actually we're okay. We might not have got everything done today, but we've got tomorrow. So the voice, I think it's the tone of voice. And if we can even slow that down to be thinking, okay, in these moments, often we miss something really important. And Mark Williams, somebody that's very prominent

in mindfulness will ask us to think, okay, in a split second, do you feel a pleasant feeling or an unpleasant feeling or a neutral feeling? And often, if we can catch it, something unpleasant has happened. And we just want to pause we want to think okay what did I think then maybe we've walked in and we've glanced at ourselves in the mirror or maybe we come home and we see our water bottle is still full something will have made just a very very tiny change in our emotion that then is the first domino to the thought or to then the behavior, you know, because we might think, oh, there it is again. I haven't done it. I haven't done it. So what's the point? And then we might actually just walk straight past the water and, you know, go and do something that isn't leaning into what our intention was, which we could say, okay,

that my water is still there. I'm going to, I'm going to drink it now. So we want to, we want to keep an eye out for that because equally, we want to know the pleasant. We want to know how many times during the day, have you noticed something lovely? You know, I saw that the ducks form, move into formation this morning. I saw a little calf running after a little lamb. Like these moments of pleasantness are really important because we're very hardwired for the negative stuff. When am I under threat? Am I safe? Am I okay? Am I worthy? All of the, you know, am I performing, but we're missing out on the pleasurable things that really are hugely important to powering up our battery to manage the rest. So find those pleasant moments and neutral moments as well. Well, I'm thinking about people in their weight loss journey. And I, you know, people talk about accountability and then they get hard. There's this thing that people feel like they have to be hard on themselves,

berate themselves in order to motivate themselves to the point that they say, well, if I'm kind to myself and allow myself and I'm just going to eat all the donuts, I'm not going to do any of the things that the hard things that I need to do. But aren't we then, if our brain is hardwired to be protective of us, to see the danger all the time, aren't we just adding more stress? Like, aren't we just like stressing ourselves? We're just adding more stress on top of stress. Yes, we often do that, don't we? Once we're in that energy, often then everything is harder. Once we're around stressfully, everything's harder. If I get you hot, and we do this, psychologists will do this, they'll heat up an airport, and then they'll watch what happens when everybody's lining up now in the queue.

Everybody gets irritated, aggravated, they don't become as nice. They're, why did we even come here? So yes, once we've got this stress, we're more likely to be more critical, we're more likely to be all or nothing thinking those cognitive biases are going to get louder once we're in a stressful situation. Okay. But what you just said was interesting. I can't remember what you Oh, yes, you just said that when we say be kind to yourself for for what you're doing, that some people will absolutely assume, well, I'm just going to eat everything then if you're gentle with me, and you're not hard on me, you know, if there's no consequence you know how am I going to do things differently and that's old school of thought you know where punishment you know punishment was thought to be the way

that we shape behavior but we know better now we want to reinforce because there's punishments and there's reinforcement reinforcement is when positive reinforcement is a good thing. When we do something that we want to keep seeing that we do, we want to receive something pleasant, like a well done or a tick or a star or a token or or salary. If we've done well in work, you know, negative reinforcement is also really good. That's the taking away of something. And say, for example, you might be following the Gina plan really well and you're starting to notice, wow, I'm noticing my stress is going down. That's negative reinforcement. Something's being removed. That's the minus sign of the battery.

I'm noticing that my irritability is going down. That's negative reinforcement. I might notice the scale is starting to go down. Negative reinforcement. And when we start seeing that, maybe we walk around the block quicker than we did week one. Negative reinforcement. That then gives us this intrinsic reward of it's working. I'm going to keep doing this, because I see something is happening. Now, if we do the punishment way, if you don't do this, or if you do this, I'm going to smack you, or I'm going to tell you off, or I'm going to berate you, that's called punishment, positive punishment. And we know that is less effective. And when we look at the research when I when I'm working with people to to be gentle to be

forgiving to start again the next day they're reluctant they're like no if I'm left to my own devices I'm gonna go but actually that gentle approach allows them to close that clever brain keep their wise mind intact and be able to proceed. Because there's reaction and there's responding. So once when we're hurt or when we feel bad, we react. We want to just respond and think, OK, what went on today? Could I do something different tomorrow? And that gentle approach increases the odds of us then moving forward in the direction we want.

And essentially rewiring your brain. Completely rewire. And that's it. It's tiny. If I had you wearing a functional MRI throughout the day, every time you do something slightly different and you catch that negative thought or catch that critic, you start wiring a different way, neuroplasticity. Every time you notice that positive feeling or the pleasant feeling, you've wired something wonderful. If you see yourself in the mirror and you just feel, and you think, okay, I'm with that. I'm not going to push it away. I've just noticed it. I feel just something sinking or

I feel flat. I'm going to make my hot water. I'm going to sit with it. And then what happens is instead of acting on it and being reactive, we've rewired a gentler way. And it's just practice. Just like you said, it's not being perfect at this. It's just starting to notice that we can add in a different thought, a different way. Yeah, starting to notice. That is so huge. And that's what the living method is all about. That's what the mind, you know, being mindful. That essentially is what that is, is paying attention.

This is also why I constantly say it's so important to take stock of the things that you are really proud of doing because you are more likely to continue the things that you are proud of doing and show up and keep doing those, which ultimately is going to help you reach your goal sooner rather than later. I want to get into the scale because I think the scale, I love the scale. It's a tool, but it brings up the feels. Like to me, I love a good challenge. It's like feels in your face every day. But before I get into that, I do want to talk about, I think it's important to understand, maybe, maybe not. Is it important to understand where this type of thinking comes from? Like, where does it, where do they come from the way we were raised? Like, what, what, why? Yes. What, when, why? It's, it's, you know, when we're doing our formulation as psychologists,

you, you know, I talk about those five Ps. What is someone presenting with? They may say a really loud internal critic. They may say, I cannot stick to something I want to. Whatever that presenting thing is, that's often the tip of the iceberg and there's stuff underneath. Ultimately, often there is something, whether it's low self-esteem or self-worth or fear or anxiety then very quickly the second p is the predisposing factors what happened to you when you were little so we do think about we want to be thinking okay how what what's your family of origin you know what were the scripts you grew up with how was the pregnancy were you wanted was it that? How was the relationship that you were

born into? You know, what was it? What order were you born? Were you first? Were you second? Were you suddenly a surprise, you know, 10 years later? All of this starts to help us map, okay, where did you come from? And then who were your influences? What do you remember being said around the house? You know, because the firstborn hears different things from perhaps the thirdborn. What if you were a twin? So all of this matters. And then that's where our first exposure to words comes from. Those people that are around us, whether it's our family or the school, our community, our religion, all of those sort of systems around us, plus the media, plus what's going on in the world at the moment. And we are sponges. We're listening. We're learning. That's

why our brain is so beautiful and smooth when we're born. It's tiny. It has to be tiny to get out of the garage without scratching the car. But it's also ready to absorb and wire for the environment for which it's been born. You know, because we can then adjust, we can adjust to whether it's a really busy, noisy, you know, chaotic house, and we can wire if it's a quieter house. And then we start wiring accordingly. Are we safe to explore? Are we told off if we do? We are very quick learners as babies. We need to survive, and we need to know who's in our corner and who is not. So attaching is really important.

But these words come from those people to begin with. You know, are we soothed when we need things? Because, of course, we need things. Or are we left to our own devices? Now, we've seen a big swing in, you know, when we would have been young, there were lots of, you know, theorists saying, hey, don't attend to your child, don't hug them, don't spoil them, they should be independent. You know, you're only going to cause trouble if they need you too much. Well, we need people that that is a human, we weren't, we weren't, we weren't hatched. Okay, we need people to survive. Then we've got to think, okay, so now we're changing back again.

Now we're knowing because of wonderful attachment theorists, John Bowlby, Melanie Klein, to say we need, we need somebody to respond to us. We need to know that we matter, that we are valuable, we're lovable regardless. And if we didn't have that, then we often see it come into our adulthood, where we present with a particular way towards ourselves and towards the world. Am I worth it? Do my needs matter? Am I worth taking care of? That can be to ourselves in the mirror, but it also can be how we think, you know, how we respond to one another as humans. And we do need it. I don't want people to think, oh, I'm so needy or I'm so. We are.

We need to be. And that's completely okay but the interesting thing is we know more about the little attachment phases now when we're babies but we're forgetting we still need them as adults we still need people as adults you know there's lots of people will say you know just love yourself be independent don't be codependent with your partners but actually a healthy relationship ebbs and flows we trust we feel good we can be with them through our ups and downs our fears our worries our goods our bads and we feel safe too so we've got to be able to do that with ourselves ultimately when we're thinking negative thoughts we want to think how can i be there for myself and be kind as I would be to my

partner or my child or the next door neighbor um yeah so it all it comes from that and what we've heard and now you know more and more literature is is studying you know what happened to us when the forward-facing camera came on the phones you know body images everybody it's everything has escalated yes anxiety depression suicide self-harm and it's happening even so much more in our younger children than ever because we're seeing all of this you know yes it's always been there magazines movies film stars um that distorted view of what is an ideal body depending on what culture you're in because the difference is you know because some cultures it's curvy some cultures it's athleticism some cultures it's staying very young and looking very non-divine like every is different, but it's everywhere.

Yeah, because society's idea of ideal beauty has changed. It used to be when you were bigger, it meant like you were, you know, you're doing well in life. And that was like the beauty standard and it's changed so much. I was reading somewhere where they were talking about how back in the day, you had your cohort of family and friends. And this is sort of where you understood where you stood in life. And we've talked to a lot of people who were, maybe they were a little on the bigger side when they were young, but they're like, I was fine with it. I thought it was perfect. I didn't really see an

issue until someone pointed it out. And we had this very small view of the world where that's how we knew our place and kind of figured out our identity. And now we are being bombarded with millions of images, you know, thousands on the daily and seeing. So where do we fit? It makes sense that we don't have a sense of self when we're scrolling through our Instagram or online or TV. There's this underlying thing of worthiness, right? I've been hearing that a lot lately. And worthy doesn't mean that you're not successful or worthy doesn't mean that you're not loved. Worthy doesn't mean that you are isolated and on your own.

But that's a learned behavior and if so how do we how do we unlearn all this how do we because we can change this right we can change this yes that that's the hopeful bit because of neuroplasticity and because of longitude and all that, long studies following people from, you know, for years and years, we know that the data will reveal that slow and steady, we can start adjusting, we can start I'm not happy with this and I'm doing well at this. Like we can we can be realistic. It's OK. But that worthiness, you know, it's going to be harder to work on because it's often if you think of the foundation of the house or the blueprint, it's deep you know it's deep where if we weren't led to believe we were worthy if our caregivers didn't attend to us or or or worse actually tell us you know um you're not my priority you know i'm not coming to you sort yourself out then we, let's work on that. Let's think, well, can we find, like you said, things that we're proud of? Can we find whether we are pleased with character? You know, am I a kind person? Am I a generous person? Would I help a little person across the road what are those intrinsic values that maybe we're forgetting to look for um and then every day remember them to think i am valuable i am lovable regardless regardless we we don't want to have our house built on sand where if other people say we're

not the house falls down and it's a week to start thinking, right, I am worthy. I am lovable. Even if we didn't have it, we have ourselves. We have this really interesting, resilient, surviving part of us that hopefully knows, but we often don't look at it. So it's building another habit. It is about catching the thought, thinking, what would I say to a person that I love? So I'd probably correct it because I'm not going to be saying something like that to that little

person. And then what could I replace it with? Could I say, I haven't done as well as I'd like to today, but I'm still a good person. Okay. Your three C's, which I love. And I think it's worth going over and over and over again. So let's attach it to the scale. I am working really hard. I'm doing amazing things. I'm seeing non-scale victories. Maybe the scale isn't doing what I want it to do, but I'm doing all these amazing things. I wake up in the morning, I get on the scale and my skill is the same or it is up. This isn't working for me. Oh my God, I'm fat. I'm disgusting. I'm never going to be able to lose this weight. I am not good enough. I'm not working hard enough. Okay. Today I need to not eat. I need to go back to my punishing ways. I'm going to try to not eat all day. And then maybe that's going to get me ahead. Right. And then I get off that scale and adjust. I go to breakfast. I'm like, fuck it.

I don't care. I'm going to eat this or that. I sabotage my whole day. And then I go to bed at night thinking I'm the worst person. I'm never going to be able to, you know, do this. And then you say to your friend and they're like, let it go. Just let it go. Tomorrow's a new day. And then you just repeat the process over and over to the point that you give up and you quit. So how do we capture, cancel, correct that? Now I get up, I get on that scale. It's the same.

It's up. Can you walk me through that? Okay. Well, you did a fine and beautiful job of what I would probably want someone to journal or write on the cognitive behavioral therapy loop to be thinking, okay, now you started with the thought, this is not working for me. So likely, remember we said, see if we can slow down and catch something before that. There was probably disappointment. There probably that an unpleasant feeling of

before the thought happened even though it will appear simultaneously okay but we want to know oh i've identified i had a sinking feeling i had i had i feel in my body just like defeat well probably before i even got on the scale probably before I even got on the scale, probably before I even got on the scale. Yeah, not like that. They've already anticipated, let's see, let's see. You know, we go with this sort of, well, let's see how bad it is today instead of let's just see, okay?

So we're gonna, you would map that on. This isn't working for me. Maybe you are able to catch the emotion. Then you're able to start mapping onto the behaviors that's where I put so for everybody that hasn't heard me before so when I'm doing the cognitive behavioral therapy loop it's like it's like a sort of a clock 12 o'clock I always put my thoughts three o'clock I always put my emotions my feelings six o', I put my behaviors. What then do I go and do? I walk off. I don't even brush my teeth. I go downstairs. What would I see if I had binoculars looking at you?

Behavior is often we can see it happening. And then the nine o'clock is the physical feelings that you're aware of, that you're like, I feel sick, I feel edgy, I feel sweaty, I've gone hot, my eyes have dilated, I feel, and all of that. So once we start noticing this loop, we're already doing the work. So know that, know that you're already doing it, if you're able to catch this to think, right, even if it's not in the moment, maybe it's in the evening and you think, okay, I'm going to go back and I'm going to be detective. I'm going to be, and I'm going to start thinking what happened here. Because people are getting to that point. I watch them, right? Like they're coming up and they're coming into the comments. Oh, I ate this

last night, but today's a new day. Like I'm feeling this, I'm feeling like I want to quit, but I'm like, they're able to get to that point. They're able to capture it. They're able to catch it. But what's the follow through on that? Because this thing, this is where people, they, this is where people are having a harder time because that's where they stop. They recognize it, but that's where they stop.

Okay. So then we would say, we would write the that we would write the thing down even that we thought because now we've got to start thinking can I be gentle on that thought you know because so say say we've got to a core belief I am a failure or I am I suck okay I just like what would that be horrible you know you know you know, I, but sometimes, and most of the time when you're working with a psychologist, we get you to go very deep and it often gets to something like it goes from hot thought to core belief where it might be, I am not good enough. Yeah. Like it's not just your weight loss journey it's cool so then we want to we might

want to put it on like a sort of this this sort of picture a continuum and on one side you might say I am 100% 100% of the time not good enough and then I'm going to say what's the complete opposite to that the absolute complete opposite i am 100 brilliant 100 of the time okay and then i'm gonna say what's in the middle because neither are accurate neither can be you're not this and you're not that so where would a nice bit and you might not even believe it to start with but we want to start noticing our all or nothings. And then our brain is doing it, I promise, even though people are going to think, I'm not, I'm not moving past the catch it. Okay. And maybe we correct it, we say, I shouldn't do that. But that's not correcting

it. That's telling ourselves off, we want to think, okay, catch it, correct it. What would that mean? Why is Beverly saying correct it? Think about what we would be saying to a person that we love. Then we're going to try and start thinking, okay, what would I like to replace it with? Would I want to say, I'm here, I'm turning up. I'm not going to have all good days. I'm not going to have all bad days. This is going to take some work. And I'm here. And that might be a nice in between. And slow and steady, our brain is going to start believing us. Okay, but it's really interesting to notice what does our thoughts, what do our thoughts and what do the voices say? I saw a comment a couple of days ago that somebody was feeling really good. They like i am on track i'm

having my ups and downs like like stocks and shares would be with the weight on you know but then this this lovely person noticed that somebody else somebody else's weight was you know their their goal weight was what i can't remember how to say it basically she then compared herself to somebody's weight that was her I can't even remember what it was so oh I can't even think how to say it she suddenly diminished all of her work because she compared herself to somebody else's numbers so her goal went out the window because she was like oh so then that thought I'm not good enough that person you know is better than me I got so much more to do than that person just sucked the person under so we want to say to ourselves what would we say to our friend we're

all on this journey we're all together we're all doing it our own pace it's our own race stay in our lane you know because even when I work with athletes I'm trying to help them don't don't compare because that energy that you're giving away to the wrong things is sapping you from the energy we want for feeling good and proceeding. Yeah. Isn't that the message though? Because I love that. Like, I think the scale is a big messenger in our face.

It's like you have to work through these things to really get to a place where you are calm around food, to get to a place where you are reconnecting with food in a different way, where you are reconnecting with yourself. Some people just have a lot that they have to work through. And this is why I feel like if you go through the process and reach your weight loss goals through the living method, you can replace weight loss with any other goal in your life. To me, it's the same process that you're going through. Absolutely. It's transferable, isn't it? When we start thinking how to be in touch with what we want, how to push through the hard bits, because there's going to always be good days, bad days, good weather, bad weather. Well, this is why I love the messenger.

Like if you see that person in the group and they reach their goal and then you're like, Oh my God, I'm like a hundred pounds away from my goal. And it immediately puts you in that place. I think that's a message for you. Why does that bother you? What's, why are you not anything but happy for them? And why doesn't that make you feel, well, if they did it, I can do it too, because you probably know nothing about this person. That person could have done 16 programs and you're on your first, right? Like, you know, nothing. So, so isn't that, isn't that better than the whole, let it go? What do you think of the let it go thing? I think the let it, let you let it go. It's just going to come back and fly in your fucking face. Like off, it depends how we're doing it, because if we push it down and think that we've let it go and we haven't really, it's going to veer its head.

It's going to come up stronger. So we've got to think it through. We've got to be. I like your example of thinking, what did that do? Why am I thinking now the race is harder for me? Because often we then we often become mean, mean you know because we are judgmental human beings we might think oh well they had it easier than me or they didn't have as much to do than i did and then we then we externalize um that's very human you're still a good person you're still wonderful you're still lovable you're human um then we want to think okay then so i've i've noticed that i've noticed i'm aggravated i notice i'm angry um i'm jealous i'm resentful like own it name it write it down and

think okay so what does that tell me i still want this i still want to proceed um their journey's their journey this is mine and on i go because we're all doing it ultimately do it for yourself and nobody else it's your journey um but be aware of it catch it and don't don't just go okay okay i'm gonna let that go but notice that actually you are angry and jealous and resent for and mean say you know they've they've got They've got the husband or they've got the wife or they don't have as many children or they haven't got this. We often do that.

We're often jumping to conclusions, but then that makes us feel bad. The guilt of that thing swings around and then we do it to ourselves. Then we do it to ourselves. Talk about jumping to conclusions, right? My weight is dropping like the other day of this morning on my check-in people, people were, I told people in the beginning, those of you are going to start losing in the beginning. Then eventually you're going to

hit a plateau. Your body has to adjust to your weight. Those of you who weren't losing, you're going to start losing. And then you're just going to keep switching off. There's just, you know, but people will be like, well, my weight isn't moving. So this isn't working. I'm so devastated. I'm disappointed to me. I'm like that devastation and disappointment. Isn't just stemming from this journey that you are on because the program works. You have all the support in the world. Look at all of the resources, look at all the people. Or the other day, someone was like, this isn't working. Are we just a whole bunch of people hoping this works and we're only being shown a few people who've been successful? And I was like, what the actual F?

Like, how can that be your takeaway? But their takeaway, because that's their reality, is that they are only seeing what they want to see. And it's a defense, isn't it? It's our defense mechanism trying to think. I don't, I like. Because it's really tough. It's really tough to to feel and we don't like feeling disappointed and devastated is a very big word and a very big feeling. Yes. And then we. Yeah, we and we want to try and be truthful to ourselves. We want to think. Let's remember how we felt before we and we want to try and be truthful to ourselves we want to think

let's remember how we felt before we started and actually do we feel better like even if nothing has changed on the scale do we feel and you and I love how you always bring us back to the non-scale victories what else is happening because you know you're connecting you're reading you're learning you're knowing a bit more you're drinking more water so are you as as you were on day zero or you know minus 10 you know t-tick like really think about it because we don't like hard stuff you know we might sign up for a degree or a course and then we hit hard stuff and they were like oh I wish I hadn't done it because it's hard but actually why are we why did we take the course why are we on

this we know it's going to be hard we know we're going to be learning when you first get on a bike it's going to be hard I was working working with a dancer who was reminding me the first time she had to do a pirouette she's like I would just fall over and I'd fall over and I'd fall over and I suddenly thought wow I didn't even think of that to be able to do it you have to fall first loads of times and I've never been able to do a pirouette because I didn't fall. I didn't know it was that intense, you know, and so it does take work. That, so it's okay to fall. When you're doing the program, it's okay to fall, which our version of that would be not doing the things or eating this thing or sabotaging or going back into old habits or

whatever is okay to fall. And it's okay to have those feelings of devastation or disappointment. And I always say, if like, if you don't think about quitting at least once on the program, are you actually even showing up? You know, because for a lot of people, especially if you've been trying to reach this goal for so long, you got to go there. You have to, it's, it's, you got some deep shit going on. This is not, you know, I've been doing these, um, as you must know, people come to you about a thing and it's never about the thing. I have been doing these really beautiful. I just, I'm loving it. Getting back to one-on-ones with people who, I mean, they entered a contest and

they won time with me and it's my favorite thing. And every person that I've spoken to, it's not a big come to me and they're like, how do I stay on track? It's never about the food. And then also it's like, they can't see themselves, right? Like I've talked to a couple of people like, wow, now I know what you mean about prioritizing. Wow. Now I know what you mean, but I'm actually really, I got a lot of stress going on, but they don't see themselves like that. Is there a way that we can see the truth? Is there, is there a way we can see, be truthful and, and, and see our reality for what it is.

Because it's not the food. Everyone's like, I'm eating the food, I'm drinking the water. It's not. Chances are it's not that at all. Sometimes I get people to draw a pie chart. You know, like, because when they make a big statement, you know, like, I am, you know know whether I'm working I'm working with swimmer I am not a good swimmer because they didn't meet the time they needed

to qualify and it was like milliseconds does that mean they're not a good swimmer so then I would have them draw their their pie chart and I'd say what goes into being a good swimmer so we could do this in for anything what goes into being a good a human you know we might be parenting we might be working we might be partnering we might be looking after our parents we might be like there is a lot in what we are as humans and I want I'm drawing a circle yes Yes. Right. And so what do I draw? Like a big chunk? I mean, this is like parenting. So this is like, this is parenting. Yes. And maybe this is like me, because it's not really balanced. This is probably work. And there's, there's Tony, poor Tony. So yes, we would do that. And then we can always do mini ones we can think okay now I'm going to do my

relationship pie chart you know if I say I suck as a partner and then I'm going to say what does it mean to be a partner like do you talk to them do you actually touch do you listen are you big because but that's when we start thinking okay this okay so it's I'm making a pie chart just for my weight loss journey yeah and I'm gonna put in my exercise my food prep and my my journaling and my thinging and my okay okay and burning up and telling people whatever it is because the whole is greater than the sum of parts always and then it helps us think okay I am doing the things it takes a lot to do it and then like you teach us when it's are you doing all of the things we want to think okay I'm not doing that but not be telling ourselves off just

think well I could maybe I could try maybe I should could add that in because actually that might help balance it out. Yeah. Because as much as I want to do one-on-ones with everybody, I don't have time. And I'm sure just as much as you would like to help every single person in the group, it's not possible. And that's what I'm trying, people, this is what I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to take everything that I have learned about helping people over the last 30 years, and I'm trying to do here. I'm trying to take everything that I have learned about helping people over the last 30 years. And I'm trying to just give it all to you. And I'm bringing in amazing people like Dr. Beverly, who are sharing what they have learned and given that to you. And we're just this is where we're hitting. Yeah, this is where we're giving it all to you. It is all here for you. Okay. Where do we go? Pardon? It's worth it because we've got to remember the length

of time that we've been doing something that these habits, it plays a role. So your brain has followed this very ingrained circuit and we need time to dismantle it. We need to dismantle the neurological grooves. We want to start making new little pathways that then turn into highways and then turn into toll roads. That's it. You're doing it. And it takes time. That's the thing that caught me the first time that, first of all, someone had told me about you. Then I looked into you and I was like, this is brilliant because it doesn't say one week one week you know and everything will be fixed it or it's teach tells you this takes time this takes time 90s at 91 days I was at 91 of take and that's the beginning it's the beginning well this ties into the conversation

that we had with Dr. Dina on Tuesday. There is like that. This is the beginning. You know, some people will need to do one program, right? This is the beginning. They'll have their middle, their work through their own version of this. And then that is their end. And then there are people who are done 16 programs and they're in the middle of their

journey. Yeah. Right. And this is, this is the work you have to, would you say on, on, what are we doing? Unraveling? Dismantling the neurological grooves. And learning forever, we should embrace it. Anybody that wants to be done is missing out. They're missing out on thinking anything. I'm never going to finish learning about psychology. I'm never going to think I know it all. That would be so dangerous for me to think that's it. I know everything now. I want to train and train and learn and learn and adjust and absorb and evolve and level up. And we should with our health. deserve to to do this for ourselves we know better we don't want to do it's just don't be finished don't be finished don't be finished well we know

this from Ruth uh Kane and our team at the University of Ottawa who's starting the program that one person may go through the program and reach their goals but they have a harder time when it comes to maintenance because they haven't done as much work working through the issues and associations and beliefs and all of that. Whereas you take someone else who's done more programs, they've lost their weight. They've worked through so much already. And then they actually spend less time in maintenance before they're ready to go live their lives. And this is why I'm working on that third group of the living method because there's like lose your weight. great. Maintain your weight, great. But then you've got

to move on. And this is where you can take all of this and, you know, attribute it to the rest of your life and every other thing that you are doing in your life. It's just, oh, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's a brilliant piece of information to bring our focus to that everybody is different. And, you know, the struggle helps us learn things. That's what that's what we're busy teaching our children, that it's not just easy, you know, because if we think if they think it's easy, they're not going to be set up for real life. You know, we do get the job. We don't get the job. We do get promoted. We don't get promoted.

We get picked for the team. We don't get picked for the team. And it's the same when we're grownups. Well, I heard that we need to do hard things. Yeah. Actually, we need to do the hard things. It's like it helps our brain. It helps us.

We want reward. You see, our body, we all know it, loves reward, loves dopamine. So when we do something and achieve something, that feeds that bit of our brain as well, even the anticipation of succeeding. You know, we think, yes, even by turning up and we haven't done the race yet or we've turned up and we haven't done the workout yet, we already are receiving the benefits of the dopamine that's why i we like you know that if you don't feel like it just go out for seven minutes you know because already you feel rewarded the minute you think okay i'm gonna put my trainers

on and i'm just gonna start well we're doing this challenge um at work here, our movement challenge. And I feel like a fucking rock star. I am honestly, because what I was doing before, and I've, I've heard there are reasons like I hurt my back, like I've had a lot going on. So every day on the way to my office, I walk by my gym and I see the mat there and actually the cup that I used last time. I don't know, a month ago, probably longer. And so I'm like, oh, there I go. I suck today. How it worked out. Yeah. Oh, every day I'm reminded of that. And now I am making, because it's a challenge. I don't know. A challenge is like, sign me up. I can do a challenge. So I am obsessive about finding the time to move my body and I'm doing it. And in turn, I feel like a fucking rock star. I feel so amazing.

I am like, I, it's just, it's like, it's a game changer. Why are we talking about this again? I forgot. The getting there is dopamine. And the dopamine hit. Yes. And it's different, aren't we? When we think about what drives us, some us I'm like you if I am given

a challenge if I'm entered into a triathlon I do it if I have nothing to aim for I get listless I'm a little bit like this some people would rather do it privately you know quite and that's totally fine too know what you, know how you work, try out others in case, because you might not know, you might like do a park run. There's so many park runs around now, you know, it's a 5k, you can walk it, you can take the dog, you can run it, you can do a bit of both every Saturday at nine o'clock around the world and try it. You know, there's no pressure and see how it feels. Because there's something about that energy.

Yeah, because we've been getting, a lot of us have been getting our dopamine hit from food, from Netflix, from food, from snacking, from indulging, from, you know, doing those things. Yeah. Okay. I'm cognizant of time, although I want to sit here all day and, uh, chat with you. What is, so we're, we're in week seven of the program. My goodness. We're past the halfway point. People are getting nervous about that. This is about, they're looking for, they're looking for reasons why they're going to fail because they, maybe they

always do, or they're looking for reasons that it's not going to fail because they maybe they always do or they're looking for reasons that it's not going to work for them because they feel like that's always always what happens even the people who are doing really well sabotaging themselves because maybe they're fearful of what what happens if they reach their goal so some just that words of words of wisdom final takeaways for our our members and um those listening i'd just keep going you're in the race you know and start to cultivate body appreciation know that our body is incredible know that know what it does know how it looks after you you know i always ask you to concentrate on those bits of us our our senses our smell our vision our vision, our hearing, our digestion, our heart.

It's an incredibly advanced, beautiful machine. OK, I want you to also think that. Remember, you know, I've said this before, you know, stay and ride out the storm. And I've said it. A smooth sea never makes a skilled sailor so we want to just know that we're riding these waves and we're still we've still got that destination in our in our right in the horizon okay um and then tips we know when i was thinking okay prepare for body image prepare for how we talk to ourselves we want to be also think well what can we do we know that social media is just taking a lot from us and we're comparing ourselves and not even seeing what normal bodies look like anymore so try and limit that try try and even do that as an intervention you know i went through my instagram account because i'm feeling the

pressure of not doing enough i'm feeling the pressure of whatever I went through and unfollowed a whole bunch of people. Even I did that because I'm just like, I am, it's taking pieces of me, seeing our members and them being joyful and moving. Like all of that is giving me life. Any account that didn't give me life and made me feel less than, and you know, I'm all for like the message and work, but this was, this is different. This is not a, this is an issue. Maybe it is an issue that I have, but my issue is you know I'm all for like the message and work but this was this is different this is not a this is an issue maybe it is an issue that I have but my issue is feeling like I'm not good enough and not doing enough and these accounts are making me feel like that I thought they were inspiring me but they're not there's like that initial time you took time to feel that tone that tone of emotion does it bring me a pleasant feeling or does it not? And that, you've got to catch that.

That's very subtle, very quiet. So we've got to notice it. So yes, do what Gina's doing. Review, review who you're with, what you're absorbing yourself to, you know, what's going in. Okay. Input, input, input. Be honest.

Start doing a CBbt cycle to be thinking what are my emotions where do they come from have i ever felt like this before where i felt devastated or less than um then start creating some nice things that do fill you up that take you away from just looking in the mirror and just focusing on those bits that we don't like okay because we do that and then we we keep wiring so we want to think can I start doing stuff where then I'm building confidence in my body instead that I my legs walked me from here to there my arms swam me from there to. My arm read this book for me. You know, start to build confidence there. Focus on what we like doing and move our body instead of just berate our body.

You know what it can't do, what it isn't doing. We want to think, oh, what does it do? And yes, at the very beginning, you said, is there ever a time, you know, when we just liked our body, you know, or we spoke nicely to ourselves? Well, it was when we were about 15 to 36 months old, okay, when we would look in the mirror and we'd be so happy seeing what we saw reflecting back on us. And then of course, society comes, we start comparing ourselves, we start becoming aware of if we're tall, if we're short, if we're fast, if we're slow. And we want to just get back there. We want to think, hang on, whatever's in the mirror, I am lovable, I am worthy, I matter regardless. And I was watching Downton yesterday, not Downton, Bridgerton. and I wrote this quote down because it was from Colin and Penelope's conversation I'm only on episode two because I couldn't watch it with mum it's too racy um and she she was saying you know well he Colin says to

Penelope you know I remember when you had this confidence you, and you didn't have this sort of block. And he said, I realized it's when we were children. He said, before the self-consciousness of adulthood set in, before we started caring what others think. And then Colin said, it is impossible. Colin, Colin, Colin. Penelope says to Colin, it is impossible to be in society and not care what others think. Society is entirely composed of judgment of others. And then he says it, and it's true.

Living for the estimation of others is a trap. OK, he said, so let's free ourselves, you know, know free of this break free um because when we break free the world opens up and then we can become ourselves so hooray for Bridgerton but it's it's what we've been talking about let's push back let's think hang on yeah let's push back going for us you know it's not all about what we might think we see in the mirror no because that's not how we want to spend our lives that's not i'm also so jealous you're only on episode two because i've already gone straight through already are you even british come on now i'm totally british because I couldn't watch it with mum as soon as,

soon as clothes come off. I'm like, uh, I'm tired. I can't do it. I get all like tense. I don't even know how mum and dad made me. Stalk.

Stalk arrived. That's exactly what happened. Oh my goodness. Thank you. Our time is up. of course it is it flew by so quickly thank you so much um again i i know that you actually care and i love that you're taking the time to share because we do we want to we want to help people help themselves and we want everybody to be successful not just you know, reaching their weight loss goals, but truly living their

best life. Um, I appreciate you so much, Dr. Dr. Beverly, you can find her over on Instagram, which she is definitely worth the follow because you're always giving such great, cool tidbits and takeaways. Um, and then they can find you at yourpsychologycenter.ca as well if they are interested in reaching out, working with you and whatnot. Man, I don't want it to end. I know. That was fast. That was fast. But we'll be back.

We'll be back. To be continued. To be continued. To everyone joining us live, thank you so much to everyone listening. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. Have an amazing rest of your day. Thank you.