How to Get Back on Track

Hey everyone, It's Dr. Angela. So good to be with you today!

It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and usually I spend this weekend decorating. It has  also been a time that I spent feeling badly about myself because I had overeaten on Thanksgiving. And even then, I kept on eating leftovers!

I just want to find out if this was something that is going on for you as well. It used to be part of my life in the past. And I want to help you through it if that's what's going on for you. If you are watching live (and even if you're not!) Just type in and say 'hi', so that I know you're there!

I wanted to let you know what to do now that Thanksgiving is over and we're moving into the Christmas holiday season.

The first thing that you want to do, let's say that there was pumpkin pie or Apple pie or whatever, and you splurged, and then the next day there was leftovers and you splurged some more. Notice how I'm saying 'splurge', or I'm also using the word 'slip'. I don't use the word 'cheat'. I don't use any of those negative types of words at all when we have these incidences where we eat things that we know aren't necessarily good for us.

So I'm talking about the difference between splurge and slips. A splurge is when you make a decision ahead of time that you're going to have a certain food that you really enjoy. So for example, let's say you made the decision ahead of time that you're going to have a piece of pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Okay. No problem there.

A slip is when you didn't plan to do it and you end up making this last minute decision to do it. That is a slip. So that's the difference. Again, I don't use the word cheat. Let's never use that word because 'cheat' has a connotation of you're doing something bad and I don't ever want you to think about yourself as being bad.

You're not bad, you're human beings!

If you notice that you slipped over the holidays, maybe you intended to have a splurge, but it's turned into more slips, or things feel like they're out of control, the first thing that you want to do is you want to use your skills of self-compassion. I'm going to go through what the skills of self-compassion are so that you know them.

The first thing to do is to get very, very, present with yourself and just label the feeling that you're feeling. What is that feeling? So perhaps it's feeling discouraged. Maybe it's feeling bad about yourself, or shame, something like that.

When you use that part of your brain that names the feeling, you're using a higher level part of your brain. The part of your brain that is actually feeling the feeling is called a medulla. And that's a more primitive part of your brain. So when you name the feeling, you're bringing a more evolved part of your brain into focus, and that allows you to instantly feel better. It's interesting how it works. That's what they discovered in research!

Second, after you name that feeling, you remind yourself that you're not the only person that's ever felt this way. You are a human being, and all human beings suffer. Remind yourself of that! Bring in whats called 'common humanity'. Bring in that awareness that all human beings suffer.

Then the third thing that you want to do is you want to be super kind and gentle with yourself. So you just say, 'it's okay, honey, everything's going to be fine.' Speak to yourself like you would speak to your own best friend.

Those are the steps of self-compassion. You want to reach out because your primitive brain is going to want to, if you're feeling frustrated or ashamed or whatever, your primitive brain is going to want to go into hiding.

So when you reach out, you are overcoming that primitive part of your brain. You're using higher parts of your brain. So we're getting into brain science here as we're talking about this, and it works! So you're reaching out, you're saying 'I'm feeling really discouraged. I slipped' and you're being really super kind and gentle with yourself.

So those are the steps of self-compassion. The next thing that you want to do is you want to get out your handy, dandy guide, "Three Steps to Break Your Sugar Addiction" guide. And if you don't have it, I will put a link to it in the comments.

I'm just going to go over them with you, because if you want to get off sugar and flour products, you have to go through the steps and you have to do each one of them. If they're not all done just so, you risk not being able to get off sugar and flour.

So the first thing that you're going to do is you're going to set a quit date.

So let's say that you decide that your quit date is tomorrow. That's a pretty quick quit date, just FYI. But just make sure that you set a quit date so that as of that date, you're going to be off sugar and flour products. Make sure that you don't have any important presentations coming up or anything where you need to be "on" for, because you might go through a little withdrawal.

That depends on how much time your brain has spent back into that cycle. I'm going to call it an addiction cycle where the craving cycle is going. If it's been a long time that you've been in that cycle, your withdrawal might be more severe. If it's been a shorter time, your withdrawal might be less severe. So keep that in mind as well.

But plan to go through some sort of withdrawal where you're having cravings, where you're feeling icky, where you're feeling irritable, where you're feeling tired, just plan for it. I think it makes it a lot easier if you just expect it. So that's the first step - to set your quit date with all of these other factors in mind.

The second step is to make sure that you get all the crap food out of your environment. So for example, if you've got leftover pie still or left over stuffing or any of that, you want to just throw it out, okay? Just throw it out! I know it's hard, but that's not good for you. So just throw it out.

Third, have a plan. This is what you can be doing this afternoon. Today! Make your plan for the next week. What are you going to have for breakfast every day? What are you going to have for lunch every day? What are you going to have for dinner every day? Go to the grocery store and get everything ready.

That is the absolute key to getting through withdrawal is to get yourself ready and prepped and prepared because if you're not ready and prepped and prepared, you're going to be on day three, let's say that's Wednesday, and you're going to be like, 'Oh man, I didn't plan anything for dinner. And I'm absolutely starving. And I worked through lunch and ... Oh my God.' And the next thing you know, you're whipping through a drive-through.

So that's how that happens. Super easy for that to happen. The planning is everything!

I do also want to let you know that I have a special surprise for you, and I'm super excited about this Friday, December 11th and Saturday, December 12th 2020. I am holding an online summit and it's called "Keeping the Weight Off".

Now, those of you who've been around for a while, really recognize how easy it is to slip back into old habits. And so what I'm doing in the summit is I have gathered eight experts who are going to teach us what I call the 'Ninja skills of weight loss'.

These are skills that it takes in order to keep weight off. They're not the typical, here's how you plan your meals kind of thing. These aren't Ninja skills. So for example:

I have Dr. John Gray, he wrote "Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus", and he's going to talk about why women are four times more stressed than men, what we can do about it, and how we can communicate better.

I have Nancy Levin, she's an expert in boundaries. She's going to be talking about boundaries in weight loss and how important it is that if we want to keep weight off, we set boundaries with other people.

I have Susie Senk. She's going to be talking about the importance of sleep and how to make sure we're getting the rest we need.

I've got a whole bunch of speakers, and I'm super excited about this. I've been working on this for months and I'm going to be sending you out an email. There will be a registration link so that you can sign up for this. So if you're not on my email list, you can get on it by sending an email to [email protected] and just say that you want to be on the email list.

Also, it's totally live! So you can actually ask these people questions if you are on live. So again, it's Friday and Saturday December 11th and December 12th 2020, and I'm super excited.

Okay. So look for an email next week. I'm going to wait until we're all done with the 'Cyber Monday' and 'Giving Tuesday' emails. It will probably be Wednesday or Thursday. Look for that email so that you can click the link and sign up for the for the virtual summit. I'm so excited to be able to interview these experts live and to have my peeps be able to ask them questions live!

So go ahead and sign up for that when you get that email.

I'm going to sign off here. Have fun the rest of your day and enjoy the rest of your Thanksgiving break time. And I will see you next time. Take care everybody. Bye. Bye.

To your health!

Dr. Angela

Three Steps to Break Your Sugar Addiction https://www.journeybeyondweightloss.com/pl/170305