The Livy Method Podcast - M&M Live - Real Talk: Maintenance Mindset with Dr. Beverley David - Winter 2026

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

In this special M&M guest expert episode, Odette is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Beverley David for a thoughtful conversation about the often-overlooked transition from weight loss to maintenance, where the real mindset work begins. Together, they explore why maintaining weight can feel unsettling after so much structure, how fear of regain and old diet patterns can creep back in, and why learning to trust yourself is the key to long-term success. Using relatable examples and real-life analogies, Dr. Beverley reframes maintenance as a shift from following a plan to becoming the plan, helping listeners understand how to loosen their grip, build self-trust, and step confidently into their new identity as someone who knows how to maintain.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/ginalivymaintenanceandmindfulnessTo learn more about The Livy Method and our Maintenance & Mindfulness group, 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. Well, good morning.

Good morning, Odette. So I am already reading through the comments, and everybody is so excited. I mean, I'm super excited to have you here. I feel like this is a conversation, a long time coming. Our members are so excited to have you here, have you here in maintenance and talking to them, and I just, I mean, I'm ready for it. I'm ready, and I'm really sorry it's taking me this long because lovely Odette is been asking and I've been like, yes, yes, and then I forget and then life happens. And then I was like,

oh, I've got to do it. Let's book it in. So this is it. I'm part of the maintenance team now. You are. You are here. And I love how this actually came together because, like you said, life happens. Things are busy. And just we had a quick conversation or quick email last week or 10 days ago. And we're like, what about next Thursday? That works. We're like, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's not. We can't wait for the perfect time or the perfect planning or the perfect anything. We just had to make it happen and it works for you and it worked for our members. And it was, it's, I'm just glad that it's all coming together now. Well, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your perseverance and patience. Thank you. Right. So what we got? What are people asking? Yeah. So, I mean, I think one of the biggest things that we talk about here in maintenance.

I mean, these are our members who have done so much hard work already. they have persevered. That's maybe the word of the day. They have met their weight loss goals. They have done all of the things they need to do. And now here we are in maintenance. And they're having to shift that mindset from being a dieter to being somebody who can maintain their weight. And for many of them, they've been in this cycle of losing and regaining, losing and regaining. And there's this fear of if I just let go of the reins a little bit, or, or if I don't do all of the things all of the time, is this cycle going to come back? And how do they get okay with loosening their grip?

And how do they get okay with not doing all of the things all of the time? And where does that trust come from? You know, how do they break those limiting beliefs? And I know there's a lot in this. How do they break those limiting beliefs or remodel those mental models to know that they can do this? They can be here. they can become somebody who maintains their weight.

How does that mind shift start to happen? Well, it's brilliant that you're already talking about it, because even though that was a question with different parts, it was really validating and really normalizing to see that move from the place of the doing, you know, it's structured, we're putting all the effort into the program that's trying to lose the weight or, or have us reach our goal.

And there's a lot of structure to that. Just like if we were in school, there'd be a lot of structure to the learning. And then out we come and we're graduates. And then we're like, oh, what do I do now? And so it's really lovely that you're putting a name or you're putting words to this feeling of it does feel different once we're in that maintenance phase.

And when we see a lot of structure and then out we go, it's this change in trust, okay, because maintenance is now about self-trust, instead of the trust in the program and in the structure, now instead of following this map, you need to become the map. So instead of that GPS saying, okay, turn left, turn, right, make a you turn. You now, we want you to be starting to feel like, oh, I've got mastery over the journey. I know how to do this. I know how I feel.

I remember the route and not have to be thinking, okay, if I don't take that turning, I'm off course. No, we could take another one. You can do the roundabout or the traffic circle that you call it over here in Canada. And so that number one is really lovely that you're noticing it and that hopefully you're inviting everybody to think, how does it feel? Did it feel daunting? Did it feel a little bit scary? Did it feel like our stabilisers were being taken off our bike, our training wheels? Suddenly we're just going for it.

And that's a bit of learning or a bit of a learning opportunity to be thinking, how was that? How was it when I did it? Did I fall on my face straight away? Did I graze my knee? Did I get back up? Did I try again? What did I notice that I missed about the program? And maybe what did we notice that we enjoyed about not being?

in the program. Maybe there's more freedom, maybe there's more autonomy, maybe we have a little bit of time back. Because ultimately, Gina doesn't want us always to be having to commit to food and planning. We want it to become something that's in the background and way more automatic than very intentional and planned and at the front of our brain. So well done for bringing that into the maintenance group. I'm sure that is what it's about. and then labelling some of the things that psychologically do get in our way. You said limiting beliefs. We have them, don't we?

We worry. If we've been on a diet for most of our life, you know, we're probably going to have those scripts in our brain that how long is this going to last? If I take this turn, am I going to be back on the loop and back in the circle? And that remodel word that you used is brilliant because that is it. We're rewiring to start noticing. saying, okay, I can be different. I can recognize my old patterns. I can recognize my own self because you're worthy regardless. You were worthy then. You're worthy now, always. But now we want to

add in that pause to think, hmm, I just heard that old script return or I just started playing that old movie that I used to be in. And could I catch it? And that's that catch it, cancel it, correct it, I guess, pause and think, hmm, I'm about to do this. I wonder why. Let's add the curiosity and the compassion. Do I want to? If I want to, and we've waded up, proceed. But it's a really good chance to try it and master it and be okay with going back to the book and going back to the structure of the program if we think, oh, I need to steady up on this. I need to look at my how to book or, you know, whether we're going to an exam, like a little bit of a prompt sheet, just to think, okay, how can I remind myself of those things?

I love what you said there about becoming the map. And we have said this before, like, you're not, you don't want to be on a plan. You want to be the plan. You know, we have this structure that you're learning, that's giving you the capacity to dive into these other associations and issues that might be coming up. so that in the future, you don't have to follow this structured plan. In the future, you are the plan. You're just going about, you've created this life that you're living in now.

So I love that comparison of becoming the map and also becoming the plan. And then, yeah, the rewiring, the reprogramming, the rethinking. And I know you just touched on there, like the three Cs, right, that capture cancel, correct. I know that that's something that hits home with so many of our members. Can we just, can we just go through that a little bit more, the three Cs? and how that can help you. And you're asking these questions, like, why do I feel this way? What is coming up for me?

And how we can like, how do we, how do we get rid of those limiting beliefs? Is it using the three Cs? Is it, what is it there? It always starts with the psychoeducation first around psychology, because we have these tools that can be so useful. But we always want to think, well, why are they useful? and what are they there for? And so we've always got to go back to our very marvellous brain

that was invented a long, long time ago, and it hasn't changed very much. So it still has some flaws in it that are there forever because they're going to keep us safe. But inside, tucked inside of our brain, and then our clever brain is folded over the top of it, inside of our brain is that threat system, that fire alarm system that's always on the lookout for,

threat. Am I safe? Am I going to survive? And if it perceives, and perception is the key thing, because perception is very individual, very personal. If we perceive something as a threat, am I good enough, do I look good enough? Will people notice? You know, somebody's asking me, you know, why am I not eating this or why am I eating this? This threat brain is going to take over, especially if we have in the past got now associations and triggers that are going to threaten that part of our sense of self and safety. And when that happens, unfortunately, the clever brain, the front of the brain flips offline. So it's like flipping the lid. Okay, I've literally flipped my lid. And now it's in charge. And the difficulty is this front brain

is where we hold that clever stuff, the planning, the patience, the impulse control, the forgiveness, the bigger picture, the perspective, our language. So all of the bit that makes us a really kind of clever, cool human is now offline and we're just being pushed by this threat. Now, when we are able to pause and notice these things, whether we notice a feeling, first of all, of guilt or shame or regret or embarrassment and emotions we know have layers to them. You know, we might know the angry, sad, happy, excited. But then there's deeper emotion. So are we embarrassed?

Because that one is a hard one to own up to. Are we feeling shame? Are we feeling overwhelmed? Those feelings we might manage to catch them and notice I feel something. And until this brain starts to settle back down, really hard to talk it through. So the tool would be to try and do something quick. I'm going to catch it. I'm doing something from my pastor. I'm doing something that was just autopilot. What was it? And then we want to be kind to ourselves because again, if we start criticizing ourselves,

the threat brain is going to go off again. You know, you shouldn't have. You're never going to be this. You're never going to be that. Everybody else finds it easy. We have these styles of thoughts. and again we're going to flip the lid. So we want to just catch it. We want to notice. And I kind of sound firm when I say catch it, can't sit, correct it. And it's a lot softer than that. It's to notice to say, I see something.

I'm seeing that I'm doing something. Then we want to see underneath it. I wonder why. And we can't do that once when we're in the state of panic and threat. But later we might be able to. maybe later in the evening or at the weekend to think, I wonder what brought that emotion up or I wonder what led to that behavior happening because ultimately our thoughts and our feelings lead us to do or don't do something.

You know, we'll take that something from the cupboard or we won't or we'll go out for that meal or we won't or we'll take the walk or we won't. So our behaviours are what we do and what we don't do. So when we're able to close that brain, then we're able to think, okay, I've caught it, I've caught the thing, caught the feeling or I've caught the behavior. Now can I just cancel it for a moment or even pause it and think, is that true? Is it an old script? Is it somebody else's voice in my head? If somebody else looked at this, would they say the same thing? If I was talking to somebody I really love, would I say it to them? Like, yes, you're going to make out for nothing. You're a nobody. Would we say it? Probably not, probably never. So that's where we just pause and sort of cancel it for a moment. And then the correction is a gentle way of, then what would I say?

Or how could I reframe it? Or how could I soften it? And how can I now make this choice about doing something else? Instead of thinking, I've blown it. You know, that's it. I'm a failure. Just to be able to say, hang on, I've caught that pattern of mine. and I'm going to cancel it and I'm going to correct it by saying, no, no, the next minute is another choice.

You know, the next meal is another opportunity. Tomorrow is a new start. We can't do anything about the minutes that have passed, but we can think reset, recalibrate, recenter and remember how do I feel when I'm doing the things I want to do? and how do I feel when accidentally that the past or those scripts have moved to the front of the bus and they're driving me? You know, if they're like, no, let's go, we're going to go to the forest of no return or doom and gloom. Don't let it. Just say, no, back on the, back on the bus. I want to be the driver. I want to direct my journey. And that's a lot, you're allowed to enjoy food. You're allowed to enjoy parties and celebrations.

and you're allowed all the bits. It's the guilt and the shame and the loops that you probably have identified already that we want to start thinking, that's a bully in your brain and it's come from somewhere and it's going to still be there a lot of the time. It's about acknowledging that bully and say,

I get it. I also thank you for trying to protect me because ultimately these thoughts and behaviours have tried to protect this in the past, but I've got it. You can stand down. I am learning. I am on a new journey.

So that's what I'm described. No, it's perfect. And do you think that this is like these, this thought pattern, you know, using these three Cs that capture cancel correct as a tool, is this something that becomes easier with practice, becomes easier with repetition? Like we say even with the four steps of mindful eating, right? You need to practice them, repeat them.

that eventually they just become part of who you are. Totally. Yeah. So this is like the same thing where it's all about awareness. We say that all the time. You know, it's about awareness here. It's about asking those questions, getting curious. And I think that when we're, we think of the three Cs, it's not just something that

we do once in a while. It's like realizing, oh, I'm making a choice that doesn't align with me now. Instead of just stopping there, saying, why is that? What's going on? What's driving that? How do I change that now? And where do I go from here? I think this is where that repetition comes in, doing it over and over again. And all of a sudden, some of those actions are going to become, you know, just part of who you are, part of something like you do. Automatic. Yes. And we know with that neuroplasticity part that you said the word repetition,

and it totally is that the amount of time we have had to practice being a bully to ourselves and actually not like a food. We've practiced that a lot. So we've got to try and unlearn that. You know, that that language is quite strong. And now we've got to be thinking, okay, thankfully, we know that the brain is very plasticine-like and palpable. Like, we can move it. We can rewire it. And Daniel Segar says beautifully where our attention goes, neural firing flows. So we want to have our attention in the right area so that that neural pathway can start flowing and growing. And so we want to pay attention to the good. We want to pay attention to the choices that we want to make.

And we want to try not to dwell on the things that we thought, well, that didn't go well, that didn't go well. Because we're very pessimistic as humans. We're always on that lookout for threat. but we want to think neurons that fire together, wire together, and that repetition will start making, just like you said, that moment of, oh, I've caught it, and I've steered myself away from that old pattern. Keep on doing it, keep on doing it,

and then it becomes so automatic and easier. You know, much of you think about driving, you know, we all learned how to drive a car and it was so clumsy, or maybe putting our mascara on for the first time with eyeliner on. It takes ages and we get it wrong. And then eventually we're at, you know, the age we are now and we can do it in our sleep. And we can drive and we can get, you know, I got Leo to school on time,

even though all the roads were closed because the shoveling of the snow, like you can find your way around things much, much easier. And then what a blessing, if that becomes easier, you have more room for more fun and more wonderful sparkle and glimmers through the day instead of always, being constantly bombarded by food noise. It would be lovely to think, oh, that's just, it's in the background now. And notice that, because that's mindfulness as well to think, huh, I am noticing that that noise is not there as much.

And then again, notice if it is. Think, oh, it was louder. I wonder why. Is it because, you know, Thanksgiving is come in? Is it because, you know, there's a buffet at, you know, work? And then notice if it starts to change. you start thinking, wow, it hasn't got its grip on me anymore. You know, the handcuffs are off. And then hopefully you fill that time with enriching wonderful things.

I love this too for, I know a lot of our members were talking, knowing you were coming on about this idea of self-sabotage. You know, they've been doing so well up until this point. They feel like they're in the groove of their routine. They are in the groove of making all of these choices that align and then all of a sudden they find themselves reverting back to an old habit or they find themselves they've made one indulgent mindful choice but then it snowballs and it's this feeling of or these thoughts like well you know I've done one thing wrong that they perceive as wrong I'm going to keep going I've already dropped the ball I've already ruined this because they have that cycle you know they've been trained with that cycle of losing gain if you do one thing wrong you're going to

keep going. And then, and then on the other side of that, they don't understand where this comes from. Like, is it, am I reverting back to old habits because I'm lazy? Is I my reverting back to old habits because I'm fearful? Am I reverting back to old habits because I don't know what life beyond weight loss can look like or can feel like? And that's uncomfortable. That's a scary place to be. So I think this, you know, this whole thing of self-sabotage, you know, being able to shift that mindset to being a maintainer using all the tools they have. It's going to help them recognize when they are self-sabotage and when they are starting to revert back to those habits. I think what they, what is why? Why do we go back to those old habits? Why do we feel a comfort

in in self-sabotaging or allowing ourselves to slip back a little bit? It's a tough term, isn't it, to sabotage? It sounds like we're so in control of it. And most of the us are not sitting there thinking, I know what, I'm going to ruin it. I'm about, so it's not, it's not as premeditated as I'm going to now mess this up. I'm going to sabotage this, whatever. It's so sneaky and so subtle. And it can be all of those things that you just described, you know, is it because I'm lazy? Is it because I'm fearful? It could be all of them and it could be some of them. and it could be some of them more than others, again, that wiring will have been so strong over the years

and sometimes even decades that it's there. And when we think of classical conditioning, so classical conditioning, whenever I'm talking about that, it's the Pavlov dog experiments. And that is how we come to associate. And what Pavlov noticed was he was experimenting on dogs. It's not really a nice backstory. But as he would come into the lab and he would enter and go towards the food,

he noticed that the dogs would salivate. And salivation is a physical reaction. You can't tell yourself, please create saliva. Okay, it's physically happening when the dogs noticed this. And he found this really interesting that they had linked. They'd come to associate him walking towards that particular bag of food with the anticipation of food. I'm going to get food so I better start preparing saliva. And he decided, okay, what if I could pair it with something? What if I could see if I could mark

something with the delivery of the food? So he would ring a bell just before presenting food. And he repeated it, repeated it, repeated it, just like you said, repetition. And of course, we can all, we all know the end of the story. The dogs now would say, salivate just if they heard the bell ringing because they knew that the bell ringing was so tightly attached to food delivery that they created saliva. Now that's great. When you extinguish, you have to start taking that away. And the way we extinguish an association is we start ringing the bell with no food delivery. Ringing the bell, no food delivery. Repetitent, like repetition, repetition, repetition, so that eventually the dogs are like, hmm,

I'm on to you, you're not bringing the food, and they no longer produce saliva. Now, that isn't up the end of the story of the experiment. Once something has been so classically conditioned, so strongly, if a few years down the line, the bell rang and the food was delivered, quite quickly, the dog will remember that rule again, because it was already there. It's already in the bank. already been deposited. It's that first language. And so it's very, very normal for us to go into old patterns because they've been laid. They're not totally white, you know, they're not tipx. We have tipx, what do you call it, white out over here. They're not completely erased. And so we

just want to notice that. And we want to be kind to the human that we are, because not only will we have certain things happen like dopamine, it's a bit risky to have it. And then, oh, it feels good. and then we might have that high and then we might have that low that we also may be very used to to have these sort of roller coaster moments that can weirdly be really addictive. Okay, when we think, why does somebody keep doing the thing that they know is bad for them and they don't want to do it, but they still do it? It's complicated. You know, a lot of us don't want to bite our nails, but we do.

A lot of us don't want to pull our hair, but we do. and it's serving some sort of purpose. Either it's releasing an endorphine or releasing a painkiller. It might be releasing the feeling of connection because we have all sorts of reasons why we have connected to food, whether it's comfort, whether it's soothing ourselves, whether it's a pattern of feeling like we, you know, we used to eat that particular thing with our granny.

and so we feel close when we're having that thing, whether it's Walker's Biscuit, that's when I think about my granny. So there's so many reasons, but it's about thinking what happens next in those moments of a blip and a human experience, how do we try our best to avoid the, oh, well, I'm done, I failed, here we go again.

And if you do think that, be curious about it. Think why? Why am I going on that ride? Is it because I like that feeling? Is it because I am, like you said, so familiar with that, that it's comforting. Because we often go back to things that are comforting. We see that in relationships. You know, we might have grown up in a particular household and we think I'm never going to marry into a household like that.

30 years later, you're like, I literally did. I did. I, you know, I married my dad, right? Married my whatever. You know, it's like, how did we do this? And humans are really tricky. So it's about trying to be kind to that part of you instead of berating you to say, okay, I see this pattern now. I wonder if it's serving a purpose. I wonder if I can serve that purpose another way. If I like a challenge or if I like that adrenaline, could I do something else to get that? Could I join a sport or a team or do I sign up for skydiving? How can I feed that part of me?

And I pardon the pun because it's feeding. But it is we're receiving and we're feeling something. So we want to think, is this some way of replacing that? But remember Pavlov's dogs, remember that conditioning is strong. we can extinguish it, but that's why any addiction is difficult because our brain wants it. I think that's so huge what you just said that, you know, we're trying to rewire, we're trying to reprogram, we're trying to extinguish, but that pull and that drive may never fully go away. It might always be there. And I think that's going to, I think just accepting that

and realizing that is going to help people feel safer. That knowing that that is already embedded or could potentially always be in your brain or could always be something that slowly comes up again, that's normal. That's not you spiraling or going back into this old pattern or are moving back into who you were before. That's, it's there. But it doesn't mean it has to take over again. It doesn't mean you haven't fully let it go or you haven't fully extinguished it.

You haven't fully put that fire out. And that's totally normal. And you don't have to be fearful of that. Fearful of that feeling coming back. I've never heard that explain like that before, that you don't have to fully... We are collecting along the way, aren't we? Every story we have been part of is not going to go away.

Even if we're not aware of all of our stories, if they're stored in implicit memory, at where we can't, they're still in us. They're still in us. So we're one massive book and each chapter we are becoming. And so it is, I think what you said is a beautiful way of reminding us. It's part of us, but it doesn't have to then stay part of the main story. It was part of the story in chapter three or four.

But now you might be in chapter 15 where you are on a new path. You know, we want to have growth. mindset. We are not done. We're not, we're not fixed. It's, it's part of your identity, but it's not your identity. It doesn't have to be, it's part of who you are, something you learned, something you picked up along the way, something that's in you, but it doesn't have to define who you are or what you do. I mean, I think that's, that's brilliant. Beautiful. I think we're done. Like, I can hear the music. Jody's like giving us like soft music to wind me up. Like, else you're like, rock me up. That's what it should be. Well, I mean, good thing for the music,

because I think we could, I could stay here and talk to you for hours. And I'm sure our members could sit and listen to you for hours. But just a few things that you said today, I think is going to just help us all feel a little bit safer, a little less fearful, really feel free to move into that maintenance mindset. And know that we don't have to extinguish our whole past, but we don't have to believe that that's how it has to be forever. I think that's so amazing. So Dr. Beverly, I just want to thank you for coming on. You're very welcome.

And I will definitely come again. Yes, you will come again. You will. I will persevere again. So most of our members know you, but maybe not everyone does. So they can find you on Instagram at Dr. Dr. Beverly. So you can follow you there. And then also we can find you at your psychology center.com.

And I have a. I haven't filled my sleep group yet. So my next insomnia group, so my cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia, that starts February the 14th. So anybody that is struggling with their sleep or feels like they meet that criteria, it's a six-week program. It'll be broken up a little bit with March break, but that's even better because you have more time to practice the curriculum.

But reach out if you want to spot there. Yes, and I will post a link to with this video so everyone can link right to it. I mean, good sleep is like magic. And when you can't get it, it's, I mean, everything is going. Yes. We'll make sure that we get that linked for everyone. So Dr. Beverly, thank you again. I can't wait to have you back.

You know that we adore you. Our members adore you. I mean, they were so excited to have you. So I can't wait for the next one. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Have a good rest of your day. Bye.

Take care. Bye.