Desire
Have you ever felt like there are two competing desires in your brain: One desire for weight loss and another desire to just "eat whatever I want"?
It's enough to make you feel a bit schizophrenic!
Join Marchelle and me as we discuss this conundrum in detail, and help you develop a strategy for managing your thinking, so you can lose weight without feeling like you're losing your mind in the process!
If you want to end the craziness, this podcast is a must-listen.
Episode Highlights:
11:31 I desire to lose weight, but I also desire to, to eat whatever I want. But it's like a Teeter totter. And the board of the Teeter totter is the board of self loathing.
12:30 These two seemingly competing desires, are both brought on by a lack of self love. Does that make sense?
14:09 This is why it's so important to stop dieting and get ourselves out of the "cycle". We have to get rebalanced again. We want to stop the rigid and focus on deprivation and punching ourselves, and instead, come to love ourselves just as we are.
--- Full Raw Transcription Below ---
Dr. Angela Zechmann (00:57):
All right. Well today, everyone, I wanted to talk about something that came up for us in the membership on one of our coaching calls. So I do these coaching calls with our members every Tuesday. And we were talking about these two competing desires that we have going on when we're thinking about trying to lose weight. And it's almost like we're always fighting with ourselves because there's the desire for weight loss. Right. And then there's the desire to just eat whatever we want. And it's like, well, have you ever had that? Have you ever felt that competition in your head?
Marchelle (01:36):
Well, of course, like I was yes. Like I want to be thin and look good in my clothes, but I also want to eat all the tacos. Right.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (01:46):
So, yeah. And I want to eat ice cream and candy bars and chocolate cake and great. I don't ever want to have to worry about my weight. So, you know, it's interesting, there is a genetic defect that will allow you to eat fructose and not gain weight cause all the fr toast just gets sent out. Did we talk about the one time? Have we ever talked about this?
Marchelle (02:05):
No, that sounds interesting.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:06):
I know there are these, this very rare genetic defect. And I, and when, when heard about this, we were like, oh, oh we want this defect, but no way.
New Speaker (02:16):
Me too.
New Speaker (02:17):
Cause then you could eat all the sugar you wanted and never have any of the side effects from it.
Marchelle (02:22):
Who are these people?
Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:23):
I know they're very rare birds. Well at any rate, yes, I have had this desire to lose weight and this desire to just eat whatever I want. And I wanted to talk about this because I want you our podcast listener to listen carefully and hear me out because what I'm going to to teach you today is profoundly important. And it's something you've probably never heard on any diet program that you've ever been on for sure. So, and you know, we're always all about anti dieting, right? Marchelle.
Marchelle (02:58):
Yes we are.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (02:59):
We are not going to be dieting around here. So I want to unpack this. Now. I remember when I was a teenager, I might have mentioned this in a really early podcast. So some of you who have just found us, you, you might not have heard this story. So I'm just going to tell you this story. I was a teen teenager and I was working. I went to a private Catholic school that my parents could not afford and it was high school. And so I was working after school to help pay my tuition. And every day after school, while I was waiting to start my job in the school office, I would go to the school library and I'd do my homework. And when I was done with my homework, I would read whatever I could find. And oftentimes it was 17 magazine. Did you ever read that one? 17 as a teenager?
Marchelle (03:49):
I was to compare myself to all of the girls in 17 magazine. It was horrible.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (03:53):
That's exactly what I did. So so you know, I was, I was waiting to start my job. I would answer phones after school. This was a really good job for me because I was always shy and so having to be there and answer phones and talk to adults was really good experience for me. And I enjoyed it actually, but there I was reading 17 magazine in the school library. And you know, when I think about it I'm surprised that a private Catholic school would allow those kinds of magazines to be in their, in their library. Of course this was the seventies. So I don't know. But I see these beautiful girls in the magazines and I would see how thin they were. And when I looked at my body and comparison, I came up short. I mean, I was short, I've always been short but short in the sense of not measuring up.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (04:47):
Right? My hips were too big. My waist was too big. My bust was too small. I just didn't measure up. And so reading these magazines and seeing these pictures, I was overcome with this desire to change my body. Now I want to say right here and now that there was absolutely nothing wrong with the shape of my body. It was beautiful and perfect just as it was. But looking at those photos caused me to start to feel that something was wrong and I needed to change the shape of my body. So I went on my first diet and I remember eating cucumbers and toast for an entire week. That was it. Just cucumbers on toast. Not very much cucumbers on toast. I was really, really hungry, but I felt I deserved to feel hungry because there was something wrong with me and I needed to atone for it somehow. Have you ever felt like that Marchelle?
Marchelle (05:49):
Yes. I have.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (05:51):
Like, there's something wrong and I have to fix this and I deserve to suffer because of it. What was your first diet like? Like how old were you when you went on your first diet?
Marchelle (06:00):
Oh man, I don't know if you want to hear the story cause mine's not a good one. Oh, so like ninth grade, ninth grade. In ninth grade is when I started gaining a lot of weight because I don't know if you guys remember, like when you get into high school that you, you don't get just the regular school lunch, you know, served to you, you can choose things. You know, they have vending machines and they have you know, ice cream that, what was it? Frozen milkshakes and yeah. And, you know, whatever. And I immediately, I, every day I would eat Reese's peanut butter cups and frozen milkshakes because I could. Yeah. And and I started gaining weight in ninth grade and by 10th grade I, I was still getting bigger and I remember just feeling really uncomfortable in my body.
Marchelle (06:51):
And that's around the time that you notice boys looking at you. Yeah. When you were interested in boys and there's the competition start with like girls and boobs and who has the, you know, but you, I mean all, all those conversations and everything and, and looks better. And, and and by my senior year I started hanging around with these cheerleaders. I, I was a spirit leader. I wasn't a cheerleader, but I started hanging around with these girls and we all were using pills and starving and bulimia, throwing up. Oh you know, I learned all this, we all learned this stuff together. Yeah. Just doing this to stay thin. And and it was really unhealthy and a really kind of toxic kind of friendships that we had with each other, cause we were all kind of compete in that way.
Marchelle (07:41):
Oh. And it was, yeah, it was just really, really unhealthy. Yeah. And I didn't even, I didn't even know that it was so unhealthy. Cause all I was trying to do was keep up with yeah. Everybody else. Yeah. And I, you know, and I couldn't do the milks shakes and you know, Reese's peanut butter cups and for lunch. And so instead I just, I could, I didn't have any control over food. Like I had a really bad relationship with food one way or the other. So just starving myself was, you know, and then we would take these one of those pills as caffeinated pills, you know, that would, yes. Give you energy and you know, there, if we did eat something we were supposed to, then we would, we would talk about how we could make each, you know, ourselves throw up and yes. All this kinda stuff. So yeah. So my relationship at an early age was very unhealthy.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (08:31):
Right. And you know, you and I are not alone. We are not alone. So yeah, we've had, I've had, you know, like lots of our patients and our students in the membership tell us gut-wrenching stories about their first experiences trying to lose weight. Some had been dieting like one woman said she started dieting in utero because her mother took weight loss pills while she was pregnant with her. Like it's, it can start pregnant. It can start really young. Like maybe there's an older sibling that you're competing against or maybe a teacher. I I've heard stories where a teacher has said something or oh yeah. Or, you know, like your PE coaches or gymnastics or yep. Or, you know, maybe even younger in grade school being told you need to go on a diet. I mean just all of these stories like, and they just, we just end up feeling like there's something wrong with us and we have to fix it and the underlying motivation.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (09:36):
So there's this the desire to be thin, but it comes from this really strong sense of not loving oneself. Right. Exactly. And in my case I would go so far as to say it was actual self-loathing like I, yeah, just, I, I just like there was something absolutely wrong and I deserve to suffer. And so this is the motivation for a lot of us because you know, these habits get started early. And so a lot of us, when we go on these really strict, rigid diets, the underlying motivation is one of not loving oneself of actually hating oneself and needing to change because of that. Right? So that's, that's one side of the coin. Then the other side of the coin is this other desire to just eat whatever we want. And so we want to be able to eat cupcakes in the cookies and to go out, to eat with friends and just order whatever drink margaritas or cosmos on a Friday night when we're out with the girls and just not worry about any of it.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (10:43):
And so this desire to just eat and drink with abandoned, we can sometimes equate this to a desire, to love ourselves, to accept ourselves the way we are to treat ourselves well. And we do this often on the weekends or on vacation. This is kind of like the bucket eating that I've talked about before you take the be off and change it two and F I try not to cus sometimes I do anyway, but bucket eating where we just sort of stuff ourselves so full that we can hardly breathe. And I know this because I've done this and in many ways it's a response to these crazy restrictive diets that we've been on, you know? Yeah. I desire to lose weight, but I also desire to, to eat whatever I want. They're like a Teeter totter. And the board of the Teeter totter is the board of self loathing. So I can be extreme on one end of this board of self-loathing and punish myself with a strict, rigid diet, or I can be extreme on the other end and punish myself by overeating and making myself suffer all the consequences of that. So both of these desires, these two seemingly competing desires, are both brought on by a lack of self love. Does that make sense?
Marchelle (12:40):
That definitely makes sense.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (12:42):
Yeah. Now here's something else that I want all of us to recognize desire is energy that fuels action. So let's say that each one of us has, for example, 10 units of desire. So can you see how much of our desire gets taken up by these two competing desires? It's like out of our 10 units of desire, four units are being taken up with the desire for food. And then the other four are being taken up with the desire to lose weight. And so that's 80% of the energy that fuels action that's being driven by these two contrasting desires of wanting to eat and wanting to lose weight. And both of those desires come from a sense of self-loathing and wanting to fix it. And so we end up in this crazy cycle and we're unable to create much more in our lives because so much of our energy is take, being taken up by these two competing desires.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (13:50):
So much of our brain space is being consumed with thoughts of self-loathing because we don't like the way we look and we don't have the confidence or the vitality to we want, or we're feeling guilty for overeating. And then a huge amount of our brain space is being taken up by the desire to find the next treat. And this is why it's so important to stop dieting and get ourselves out of the cycle. It, we have to get rebalanced again. We want to stop the rigid and focus on deprivation and punching ourselves. And instead, come to love ourselves just as we are. Now, sometimes when people say, oh, I'm going to love myself just as I am. That means, oh, I'm just going to accept that I'm overweight and I'm not going to worry about it. But that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying, love yourself and take care of yourself, right?
Dr. Angela Zechmann (14:47):
When you love yourself, you want to treat yourself well. Like you want to feel your body nourishing food. So you'll feel good. Sometimes doing the things that you need to do to love yourself. Doesn't exactly feel good in the moment. It's like being a loving parent to yourself, a loving parent will tell the toddler that he or she can't have a cookie all the time. A loving parent does not let their child eat treats all the time. A loving parent gives their child nourishing food. A loving parent guides their child, and doesn't let them run the show. And it's the same thing with loving ourselves. I think one of the most loving things you can do for yourself is to prepare yourself, nourishing food and say no to your inner toddler who wants that sweet treat every afternoon and every evening. Not because you're on some sort of crazy restrictive diet, but because you love yourself and you want, what's ultimately best for yourself. Does that make sense?
Marchelle (15:44):
Yeah. This is just really, this is really deep, cause right now I'm going through some, doing some counseling, you know, I started some counseling like about a month ago and yeah. And like just talking about the subject, it's like, wow, this, this goes way, way, way back to, you know, maybe when I was six, seven or eight years old. Yeah. And not feeling like anybody liked me. Yeah. Wanting, you know, or not being very popular at school or then, you know, going into eighth grade or ninth grade. And like I said, and, and being overweight and man, it's just like, it goes so deep that it does.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:25):
It can.
Marchelle (16:26):
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, it's a whole different way of thinking if you're thinking about it that way and not just good food choices.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:34):
Yeah, exactly. Oh, one of, one of our students said the other night, she said boy, food really has nothing to do with this. Does it? And I'm and we're like, yeah, no, it doesn't.
Marchelle (16:48):
That's What I was just thinking. I'm like, wow, this doesn't really even have anything to do with food.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:52):
It really doesn't.
Marchelle (16:53):
Wow.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (16:54):
Yeah. Yeah.
Marchelle (16:56):
I mean, this has to do with [unclear], this would go with like so many other things, just the way we treat people, teach people how to treat us, what we'll put up with, boundaries, just, you know, just food, food is part of it, but yeah, this, you know, this whole like self-loathing and so self loving. Yeah. This is, this is some deep stuff.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (17:17):
Yeah. Well this is really the important shift and you know what I always say, the weight loss journey done well is a journey of, of evolution, of personal evolution. And basically it's a desire. It's a journey of self from self-loathing to self love, really like, yeah, you want to love yourself back to your optimal, perfect body, whatever that is for you. Right. You know, if you know that you are eating when you're feeling hungry and you're not using food to buffer emotions, food, or alcohol to buffer emotions, your body is going to be the body that it was always meant to be. Then you just eat what's good and delicious for you, you know, like healthy for you. Nourishing.
Marchelle (18:05):
That makes sense. But for me, I always thought that like that I was loving myself by feeding myself sugar because it made me feel better. So I confused that for, yeah. I won't feel good and I love myself. So I want to, you know, I want to feel better. So I need that dopamine hit. You see what I mean? It's like food is lied to me for so long. It's…
Dr. Angela Zechmann (18:26):
Confusing.
Marchelle (18:27):
Yeah. It's confusing. So to turn that around and, and you know, if you love yourself and then you're going to be eating stuff that you're not craving, which is, which is, which is different. Because like I said, I eat foods that I crave because I feel like I want to make myself feel better. Cause I love myself and I'm trying to comfort myself. So yeah. That's, that's a huge shift.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (18:48):
It is a huge, yeah. Yeah. So when you love yourself, you want the best for yourself. Right?
Marchelle (18:56):
Right.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (18:56):
And you treat yourself well and you listen to yourself and you listen to your feelings and you take your feelings seriously. You don't try to drown them in a bowl, ice cream, you listen and you learn. And that's what we support you with in the Empowered Weight Loss Membership, we help you learn how to love yourself back into the body you're meant to be living in and to love yourself back into lasting health. And you know, what's interesting is the other thing that happens for you is that when you get off this crazy food and weight loss merry go round and stop thinking about this stuff all the time like you have more energy for new desires. So imagine that the eight units of desire, that's no longer being taken up with thoughts of wanting food or wanting to lose weight. cause those things are now handled.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (19:45):
What else do you want in life? Sometimes people have spent right so much time sort of obsessed with these desire that they have no idea what else they might want. But trust me, there are plenty of other creative desires available to you. And that's the joy of lasting weight loss. We've had people quit their jobs and do something else totally different. We've had people take up all kinds of awesome hobbies. We've had people do all kinds of other things. Once this, once these units of desire are freed up. It's amazing what happens in your life. Cool. Huh?
Marchelle (20:27):
Yes. I'm I'm still working on this.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (20:29):
Yeah, it's a process. It's not something that happens overnight either. And that's the other thing I want everybody to know is if you've ever heard anybody say that you can lose 10 pounds in a week or you can lose 30 pounds in 30 days and you can, you know, like it's just a really quick, quick weight loss schemes. No, that's not going to work. So we have a 30 day Done With Dieting Bootcamp, but this isn't like 30 days and you're going to lose all your weight. This is 30 days and you're going to learn from me with a video every day what takes to lose weight and keep it off. So that's a, that's a really cool thing. Now be if anybody who is interested in getting started working with us, that's the place to start is the 30 day Done With Dieting Bootcamp. So I agree. And you, you automatically get get everything that we have in the Empowered Weight Loss when you're, while you're in that bootcamp too. So you can come to these support calls and learn about some of this deeper stuff too. It's very cool. It's a lot of fun. So……
Marchelle (21:38):
It's not, it's not all always fun. Sometimes it's hard, you know, it's sometimes you gotta dig deep sometimes, you know, cry a little bit. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, we discover some things about herself, but this is it's really worth it. And like I said, I I'm working on it myself. I mean, I I've discovered that I have dig a little deeper than I was at first cause I was sort of brushing through it, just thinking, okay, I got this. I, you know, I'm I, you know, I'm cured.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (22:05):
Yeah.
Marchelle (22:06):
And then, and I kept wondering like, well, why does it seem like everybody else has got this under control, but me which I know that not everybody else does, but right. I felt like when I compare that's the first thing is quit comparing yourself to other people. Exactly. But yeah, but this is, you know, this is a thing that I'm, it's going to take a while for me to really start, you know, really, I don't know, just get those pathways going in the, in a better direction because it's very easy for me to slip back into the, the dopamine hit and the feel good foods and and that's so it's yeah, it's, it's definitely a journey and it's worth it.
Dr. Angela Zechmann (22:43):
Yeah. So worth it. All right. Awesome. So thank you for listening. All, all of you are listening and if you wouldn't mind putting up a review on on iTunes then that would be great. If you want to rate and review the podcast, that would be very awesome. And we will see you all next week. Take care everybody. Bye.
Marchelle (23:05):
All right, goodbye everybody.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Hey, if you really want to lose weight and keep it off for good, your next step is to sign up for Dr. Angela's free weight loss course, where you're going to learn everything you need to get started on your weight loss journey, the right way, just head over to journeybeyondweightloss.com/free course to sign up also, it would be awesome. If you could take a few moments and write a review on iTunes. Thanks. And we'll see you in and Journey Beyond Weight Loss.
--- End of Transcription ---
Dr. Angela
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