Ep. 77 When You Gain Weight Back

Hey, and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I'm Paula Parker, and I'm a life and weight loss coach. So in general, the goal I have when coming up with content for this podcast is to really validate and also educate based on what I've either experienced or learned, but I have a very specific goal for this one that I'd like to share with you right off the bat.

I really want you to walk away from this feeling lighter than you did at the start. Okay. Unshamed. If you'refamiliar with that expression, unshaming, unshamed about any weight that you've gained. So what do I mean by that? Not to get like too on the nose about it, but most of the weight that we carry when we're not at our natural physical weight is emotional, right? It's all that baggage that we have about ourselves and our bodies, the mental load that we are carrying around. If you've gained weight recently, then you might have a visceral experience of this right now. You might know exactly what I'm talking about because you are in it right now.

And even if you haven't gained any weight recently, but you're worried that you might gain some weight back, maybe some weight that you've already released. Then this episode is really going to be for you. So as always, we're going to talk about why this happens and then what to do about it. So why this happens right now, I have a favorite Dr.Seuss story that I'm reading to my daughter, Rhea, and who's six months. It's called the Sneetches. So if you're not up on your Dr. Seuss, it basically goes like this. There's. Two types of these creatures who are called the Sneetches, they live at the beaches, right? And there are some that are star bellied, which means they just have stars on their belly, and they view themselves as being like very privileged based solely on the fact that they have stars on their bellies, and they believe the plain bellied Sneetches, the ones that don't have stars, they believe that they are less important, less valuable.

So in the story, as you're reading it, it's so obvious that the belly stars are totally irrelevant. But of course, the Sneetches in the story really believe that one is better than the other, that having a star or not really signifies their value or their worth. This thought, or in this case their worldview, is internalized.

So for them, it's the truth and they act accordingly. It can be really hard to wrap our minds around this, but it's the same for our weight. So a big body, small body, the size of your thighs at any given time is actually totally irrelevant in relation to your value or worth. It doesn't seem irrelevant because of our internalization of beauty.

We kind of think it's just true that slim bodies are more beautiful. So, this next bit is inspired by David Bedrick, who's studied body image in depth. He says, whether or not you feel beautiful is no small thing. If a person feels beautiful, they speak out more, their eye hand coordination is different, and they even read faster and are more likely to remember what they read.

How can this be? When you feel not beautiful, meaning when you think you aren't beautiful and are feeling the emotions that that creates like embarrassment, disappointment, disgust, self loathing, there's actually like an injury happening inside that takes away your focus and ability to attend to even simple tasks like reading words.

Think of the implications this has for women. We could give all women everywhere a new internalization of beauty that includes them and their bodies, thereby eradicating, removing all that self loathing, give them back their focus. What might we be capable of creating? What might you be capable of creating if all your focus wasn't on this problem?

It's not vain. It's not just a nice to have to think positively about how you look. It's an essential skill. Not seeing ourselves as beautiful is incredibly harmful. And most of us have internalized something that prevents us from seeing ourselves as beautiful. Even models, right? Even people who we think, oh, they are like the standard of beauty.

You always I mean, you can even see it, right? They're getting so much plastic surgery and fillers and all of this kind of thing. Oftentimes, that is because they are thinking that they are not beautiful enough. We can imagine that's the case. There's some research that says that by the age of 10, 80 percent of girls are dieting.

They want to be smaller, even though 30 percent are actually overweight. So they're dieting out of self loathing. This is how early this is embedded. And I'm sure you can think of examples where you got the message pretty early on that being overweight was not acceptable. It was not beautiful. I know you have these kinds of stories because I hear them all the time.

So parents or grandparents locking cupboards, right, or bribing their kids to lose weight. It's totally insane. All this to say, it is no wonder you feel like crap about gaining weight, merely from a socialization standpoint. But for so many of us, it's not just about the physical, you know, suckiness about gaining weight.

How it looks or feels in our clothing. More often, it's What we are making it mean about ourselves. It's like I'm proud of myself if I can do this, but I won't be proud if I can't. I can be proud if I don't eat the cookies, but I can't be proud of myself if I have one or three cookies. You overeat, you gain weight.

You think I am out of control. I can control myself around food. Just look at what I'm doing here. Right? So much contempt. There's a reason it's easier to love yourself when you've reached your natural weight, when you've lost weight, and it's harder to love yourself when you're not or when you've gained weight.

So that's the work that we need to do. This is where we start. So right now you can be listening to a podcast on how to cut more calories, how to figure out the right macro numbers or how many hours you need to be fasting, but you're here. And if you are listening to this, if you are still with me at this point, then I am going to bet that you are very ready and entirely capable of dropping the shame around gaining any weight back.

You are ready and capable of moving out of all that self loathing and into the work of self acceptance, self compassion, and self worth at any weight. doesn't mean you don't want to release weight, but it means that you can cultivate those. You can cultivate that skill of moving out of that self loathing and into self acceptance.

You can cultivate that skill even when you've gained some weight. So this does not mean you abandon your weight loss goal. It means you decide you will release the weight Minus the self loathing. What are we dealing with here? Internalization of beauty that tells us weight gain is bad. Plus we tie in not following through on our protocol to a lack of self worth that equals feeling terrible about weight gain.

Okay. So no mystery why this is happening now. What can we do about this? Three things. One, normalize it to disentangle our self worth from our looks. No small thing. And number three, acknowledge your work. So let's dive into this in a little bit more detail so that you have some takeaways, some really practical advice or ways of thinking about things that hopefully will start to shift this paradigm for you so that when you do, or if you do gain some weight back, you know how to handle it.

So, normalize. Do you know that it's totally normal and fine to gain weight at some points of your life? Right? There are certain times when it's quite fine and totally normal to gain some weight. That just happens. Okay? So, normalize. Maybe you are going through something particularly stressful, like a divorce, or you are working in a toxic work environment, whatever it is, there are times when our cortisol is going to be high, we're stressed out, our sleep is bad.

And we're simply predisposed to holding on or even gaining weight. That's just where our body is at. So cut yourself some slack. If you are in a week, a month, a year, that's particularly challenging. Trust yourself that you're going to release the weight in perfect timing. When you are emotionally ready, have the capacity and your body is ready to.

If this is you, it's totally okay to press pause. Maybe you've heard that expression. If you find yourself in a ditch, just stop digging. You don't have to fix your entire life. It's okay to coast go through the motions for a little while without, you know, Going off the rails with food without giving yourself permission or license to just eat all the things, not care.

That's, that's an entirely different thing. What else? Disentangle your self worth from your weight. So here's your step by step guide and you are enlightened. No, of course not, right? This is an ongoing process. This is a process of building awareness, you know, what we are thinking, why we might be thinking this.

Do I want to continue thinking this? And of course, self compassion. So your worth or your value as a person is in no way.

It's just not. It often feels like it is because of that internalization of beauty I mentioned. So that's okay if it shows up for you. It's totally normal. It's how we are socialized oftentimes in like Western culture. So, Then, your job, if that's happening for you, your job is simply to be kind to yourself.

That person who is in pain because of how she's thinking about her looks and her eating. I often hear from clients that it feels like a battle within themselves. Like there's this part of them that really wants to release the weight, who wants to see that number on the scale, wear all the clothes, reach that goal and feel amazing in their bodies.

And then there's that other part that comes up with all of those really convincing justifications to overeat in the moment. This is that whole devil and angel on the shoulders kind of thing. And what do we do? How do we handle this? We say that, you know, devil part, that justification part should not be there.

I just want to eradicate it. She is out to sabotage me. I want to ignore her. I want to control her, ignore her, and we try. What this looks like is what I think of as white knuckling it. So this looks like telling, you know, our spouse that they can't offer us highly palatable foods or even have them in the house.

This looks like avoiding social situations in which we might be tempted to overeat. Any kind of situation in which, you know, that devil has a lot to say, lots of justifications to make, but unfortunately it just doesn't work, right? We try to silence that part of ourselves. She just refuses to be controlled.

She refuses to be ignored. What I want you to see is that there is a part of you who is really just trying to get your attention. So let me give you an example. Let's say there's a part of you who's constantly making justifications and overeating. We say, I'm out of control. I loathe That part of me.

Instead, why don't we say, Hmm, what does she have to say? If we stopped condemning her and we just listened, we stopped ignoring her and we just really in judging her and like shaming her. And we just tried to listen. What is she like? This part of you might be fierce. It might be like a wild horse out in nature, just unruly, beautiful, spirited.

She might be pleasure seeking. Sensual, be sultry. She might be so strong willed that it's kind of scary, right? She's very rebellious. Maybe she's playful. Maybe she's kind of relaxed and easygoing. She is someone who just refuses to be put in a box. Imagine what it feels like for her when you say 1500 calories, that's it.

Not one calorie over. And we're going to be tracking the whole day. Imagine how that feels to someone like that, to that part of you. Okay, but there's something important about that part of you that wants freedom, who wants pleasure. Often, she has really valuable things to say, but when we are so like constrained and what we think is the right way to eat and we have to reach our goal and we're only going to be proud of ourselves if we eat this way and then we reach this certain number on the scale, we just dismiss that entirely.

We just focus on the food. We make it all about the food and the desire for. This food or that food, I have this craving or that craving, which is really just a distraction. So instead, what we want to do is just start to create a friendly dialogue between that part of you who yes, wants to release the weight.

There's a value in that. And the part of you who wants freedom and pleasure also value from her. So it's really an exercise in connecting both of those parts of you. When you overeat, it's a disconnection. Why? Because there's a part of you that really wants to release the weight and overeating is going to get in the way of that.

So we're connecting from ourselves. We're not feeling whatever's going on for us in that moment. Instead of feeling, we want to tap that down and instead turn to food. When you punish yourself for overeating, it's also a disconnection from self. That's why I think that weight loss is like a weight loss goal is just such a pursuit of personal growth because when you have those justifications and you can see through them in the moment, you have the presence of mind to do that.

And instead you act from a place of self love. You won't overeat when you do overeat and gain some weight. You have yet another opportunity to reconnect with yourself. Practice self compassion and have your own back, even when it feels hard, even when you're kind of scared to get on the scale because that number is going to be up, right?

Even then you have your own back. That is the work. Lastly, acknowledge yourself in this process, no matter where you are. Oftentimes when we gain weight, we are simply not seeing the incredible work that we are doing. We see the weight gain and literally nothing else. So value what you've done so far, even if you've gained some weight back, you've learned some things, you've tried some things, you have bet on yourself, you've made an attempt.

Also value yourself for doing hard things. It's not easy to make all that, all those little choices that we make about food. Moving our bodies, drinking water, ordering on a menu when we do not see immediate results. We don't feel how we want to feel in our bodies right away. We don't see that number that we want to see on the scale the next day.

And our brains are just not wired for that long term reward. They're really wired for instant reward. So that's why it can feel hard at times. Okay, value where you've been, who you are now and who you are becoming. You have gotten yourself here despite all your challenges, despite feeling uncomfortable in your body, despite going to your closet and trying to put on your clothes and nothing fits or nothing looks the way you want it to look.

You have got through all of that. I know you have gone through it because we all have challenges. And you are still fighting, you are still working on this, even maybe you only have a few pounds to go. You are still at it, or maybe you have a long ways to go and it seems like there's a big hill to climb.

Okay. Give yourself some credit for even attempting. This goal. And you know, the story is not over for you. If you've gained some weight and you're like, Oh, I'm not at my natural weight anymore, or I'm a ways away from my natural weight when it comes to releasing weight. If you're up a few pounds, it only means, well, you know, we're not exactly where we want to be, or maybe we thought we would be somewhere different at this point, but here we are now.

So now what? Where do we go from here? Hope this was helpful. I hope that part of this.

It's totally normal. It's totally fine. This is a long term game and I know you totally got this. Okay. I will talk to you again next time