February 10, 2024 • 24 mins
OUTWEIGH: When it comes to the diet mentality, body shame, disordered eating, and all the internal stress and chaos that comes alongside all of that, for so many women this is their deepest held secret.
This struggle with food, their body, the war in their head, the fight in their hearts, and the shame. All that shame about their body, feeling so out of control all the time, feeling like a failure….for so many women, no one even knows what's really going on!
★ No one knows how much they are REALLY struggling and suffering.
★ No one knows how much time and energy they are spending thinking about what they should or shouldn’t eat, what they should wear — or what they can wear that fits or doesn’t look tight.
★ No one knows how much time they are thinking about how bad they actually feel.
★ No one knows that they aren’t even fully present in their lives— that even though they are there in the flesh and blood, they aren’t really ‘there’ -- they aren’t fully present.
What’s even worse is: no one is talking about this OR how to get past it.
In today’s episode of Outweigh Leanne takes a look at this overlooked subject, but also shares the “What I know now that I wish I knew then” steps to actually get PAST it.
HOST: @leanneellington
To learn more about how to turn off the part of your brain that’s obsessed with food or obsessed with your weight and rewire your own brain for peace and freedom,....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am, I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know everybod of me. It's beautiful
and that will always out way if you feel it,
(00:24):
But yours are. She'll some love to theod I get
there sage day and did you and die out way?
Happy Saturday, Outwegh. I'm Leanne Ellington, and we are here
to talk about something that typically carries a lot of shame,
and so we're going to talk about it because ay,
(00:45):
that's what we do here on Outweigh. But also I
just want to release the stigma and help you give
yourself permission to relinquish any shame that you might have
so that you can move through it or at least
learn how to do that. So when it comes to
the diet, mentality and body shame and disordered eating and
all the internal stress and chaos that comes alongside all
(01:06):
of that, for so many women, this is their deepest
health secret, this struggle with food their body, the war
in their head, the fight in their hearts, and the
shame all that shame about their body, feeling so out
of control all the time, feeling like a failure. For
so many women, no one even knows what's really going on.
(01:26):
No one knows how much they're really struggling and suffering.
Nobody knows how much time and energy they're spending thinking
about what they should or shouldn't eat, or what they
should wear, or what they can wear that fits or
doesn't look tight or whatever. Right, no one knows how
much time they're thinking about how bad they actually feel,
And so no one knows that they aren't even fully
(01:47):
present in their lives like that, even though yeah, they
might be there in the flesh and blood, they're not
really there, right, They're not fully present, And so I
hear from women all the time. You know, they're thinking
about obsessing over things like how many calories that dressing
added on their salad at lunch, or if they should
have told the waiter no croutons. You know, they're talking
(02:09):
about that work dinner coming up, and fearing that all
their work friends will notice they gained weight, or wondering
if they'll get that promotion at work because they're too
afraid to speak up or show up as a leader
because of their weight. Heck. I had one woman share
that she was afraid people would wonder how she landed
such a catch of a husband when she looked the
way that she did. Like, this is real life, That's
(02:29):
what she was saying. And this is literally the kinds
of things that women share with me. And one time
a woman wrote to me and she said, am I crazy?
Why can't I just stick to a diet, lose the
weight and be happy? I mean, isn't that what normal
people are able to do? And she went on to write,
I'm scared to death that I'll never be able to
feel normal. In fact, I must be crazy, because what
(02:52):
grown woman would go back to the pantry five times
after the kids go to bed and scoop out one
more tablespoon of the Natella that was supposed to last
for two months worth of Sunday brunches, with the kids
swearing that each time that this would be the last scoop.
But the last scoop didn't come until I finished the jar.
I mean, what kind of woman loses the battle against Natella.
(03:15):
I'm strong, I'm successful. I manage a team of twenty
five at my job. I've birthed and raised three children
to be fine humans. I have the most amazing life,
Yet I'm sitting here battling a jar of natella, feeling
crazy and out of control and helpless because this is
my life, That's what she wrote. And these are not anomalies, right.
(03:36):
I hear stuff like this all the time. But that's
not the worst part. Okay, the worst part about it
is that for most women, no one knows. In her emails,
she went on to say, I put on this happy face.
I try to be perfect, the perfect wife, the perfect parent,
the perfect pta mom, and I crush it at work.
So everyone who knows me must think I have it
(03:58):
all together. But I don't have it all together. I
feel like I'm totally unhinged. Would a woman who has
it all together be out of control, hiding in her
pantry polishing off a jar of natella at midnight if
she had it all together? If anyone ever really knew,
they would think I was crazy, They would think I
was weak. They would lose all respect for me. So
(04:22):
I tuck it away, deep down so no one can
see it. I put on a smile, and I make
the kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the cross
cut off, secretly jealous and pissed off at my poor
children because they can eat carbs and stay stick thin.
And this is my life. It has been for a while,
but it's slowly getting more and more out of control.
(04:42):
So I hop on the next diet and I go
back to the workouts that I don't even like, and
I do well for a week or two, and then
it's back to my normal. So again, this was just
from one email that I got, but I get emails
like this all the time, and this is what most
women are dealing with all alone. Okay, So if you're
new to this podcast or you're tuning in again, it
(05:04):
bears repeating that, you know, the binging and feeling out
of control and obsessing and not stop thinking about food
and NonStop thinking about your body, it's all an effect
of something else, right, And oftentimes it's really just the
effect of the NonStop chronic dieting and a hyper obsession
with weight or appearance, or really a fired and wired,
(05:24):
restrictive or controlling relationship with food that lives in the brain, right,
and we're just downstream experiencing all the effects and all
of those things. That's what causes women to have such
a dysmorphic relationship with their bodies and an even more
disordered relationship with food. And so I know that might
seem a little bit odd because the mainstream thinking out
(05:45):
there and you know, saying like, hey, if you just
want to lose weight or get air quotes healthy, like
you should go on a diet. It's really a simple
equation of eat less, move more. But not only as
you're learning, is that not the solution, But that's what
actually makes things worse, right, because then you're forced to
live on this in out, up, down, all or nothing
roller coaster and it's not sustainable. And you're either feeling
(06:07):
like you have to go play food police your entire life,
you know, counting and measuring and weighing and restricting and obsessing,
or you feel like you're going to go off the
deep end once you get to that point where you
can't possibly handle it anymore and you go eat everything
inside or over indulge or flat out binge. And so again,
the conventional wisdom is just saying like, hey, that's okay,
(06:28):
you know, be be good to yourself and just get
over back on it on Monday, right, get back on
the Monday wagon, get back on the diet, get back
on the X y Z right. But if you're listening
right now, it's it's probably because you know something doesn't
add up and that that makes it worse and not better.
So you're really back to this subject of nobody really
knowing the struggle or you know, food might feel like
(06:49):
you're dirty little secret. I can't even tell you how
many women I talk to that have you know, husbands
or friends or family or loved ones that are just
you know, preaching to them and from love, from a
loving place of course, but just preaching to them about
going on another diet or saying things like, hey, I
don't understand you probably just need a bit more accountability
or motivation, or they try to get them accountable and
(07:10):
they're like, let's do this, like I'll help you, you know,
but not really understanding that it's not that simple, right,
and if you've never struggled with it yourself, you wouldn't
be able to get it right. God love them, they're
just trying to do their best. But if you've never
struggled yourself, you don't understand what it's like. And so
you know, for example, if I fall off my bike
when I'm a kid and or when I'm an adult. Right,
let's be honest, and I skin my knee, that's a
(07:32):
very specific kind of pain a skin knee, right. But
if I put my hand on a hot stove and
I burn my hand, yes, I understand pain, but I
don't understand that kind of pain that you feel when
you skin your knee. If I'm understanding the kind of
pain when you burn your hand, right, two different types
of pain, two different experiences. And if your nervous system
(07:53):
has never experienced that kind of pain, it wouldn't be
able to understand that kind of pain or feel true
empathy or compassion. Right. It's not that you don't want to,
you just can't or they can't. And so someone can
emphasize about what they think it feels like to feel overweight.
And notice the distinction that I said feel overweight, because
you know, there's a lot of women that are at
(08:14):
a weight that they actually want to be or they
think they should be, but still feel overweight. So we're
talking about the body image side of this, not the
body side of it, right, But that being said, what
makes them think, you know, somebody can empathize with their situation.
But if they've never experienced it day in day out
like they have, you know, they're not going to be
able to understand it, and so chances are they're not
(08:35):
going to be able to support and help you find
a solution to a problem that they don't maybe even
know or understand that you have. Right. But if living
in that good bad, right, wrong, should shouldn't always never,
you know, supposed to need to on off and out
roller coaster, which is really you know, I call it
the diet mentality, but it's it's the disordered mentality, it's
the weight loss mentality, it's the hyper obsession mentality. If
(08:57):
you've never experienced that in your life, then you don't
get it. You don't know that kind of pain. And
this isn't just like, let's look at a day in
the life of this, this is NonStop. Right. Most of
the women I talk to and this is where I was,
it's been their life forever or it's been this way
for decades, and they don't even know or remember what
it looks like if they didn't see food and their
(09:18):
body through this lens, right. And I can't even tell
you how many women I talk to that when I
talk about this idea of really, you know, tuning in
and learning a new language around food so that you
don't have to constantly think about it and obsess and
stress and food can just be food. So you know,
so many women are just like, Okay, yeah, a lea,
(09:38):
and that sounds really great. But I can't even imagine that, right,
I can't even fathom that because this has been so
deeply ingrained in my brain for so long, and because
you know, nowadays diets and short term band aids are
just so readily available, and you know, a lot of
women don't know that healing like this is an actual option.
(09:58):
They hop back on the next diye and the next diye.
I mean, you know that's what I did for thirty years.
And again, remember it's that diet mentality, the hyper obsession
with weight in appearance, like the extremism that causes all
of the binging and feeling out of control or just
saying screw it, what's the point, Like I'm never going
to really heal this anyways, or whatever your version of
the food prism is, right, And so it's a symptom
(10:21):
or an effect of that mentality, and that mentality just
makes it worse, right, and then it causes us to
go even deeper into the cycle of the diet or
weight loss or obsession mentality because we are so scared
of what will happen if we don't. We're so fearful
that we'll go gain a bunch of weight or go
off some metaphorical deep end, like I know that was
my big thing, right, And it's that prison of control.
(10:44):
And even though it makes us miserable, it feels safer
in ways than getting out of it because it feels comfortable.
It's what we know, even if it's really so flipping uncomfortable.
It's it's like the devil that you know versus the
devil that you don't. So we just we stay stuck
in it, right. And so again, if we're talking to
a partner or a friend, anyone who thinks that it
really is just a matter of eat less, move more,
(11:05):
or if they've never you know, dealt with it themselves,
or maybe you know, honestly, they're naturally thin or metabolically
active and they can just they've always been able to
eat whatever they want, right, or maybe they never got
indoctrinated into the diet mentality and don't even know what
it's like to always be thinking about food. Maybe they're
just one of those people that food is just food
and they just eat and it's never been this emotional thing, right,
(11:28):
Or maybe they don't understand conceptually that someone could have
an emotional attachment to food, like maybe that does feel
weird or crazy or out of context. And again they're
not trying to be mean, it's just they don't get it, right. So,
of course anybody that falls into those categories, they're not
going to understand what happens to someone that lives in
that cycle day and day out right obsessing over every
(11:51):
morsel of food that touches your lips, you know, constantly
thinking about is this good or bad or right or wrong,
or just figuring out what you're going to eat the
next meal and giving yourself permission to have it during
this meal so that you don't feel guilty, or you know,
literally your whole life revolving around food. Right, And so
to an outsider, to somebody who's never experienced this, yeah,
(12:11):
I can understand how it probably feels a little bit crazy,
but it's not crazy, okay. And millions and millions and
millions of women suffer with this disordered thinking around food
and their bodies, and it's not getting better, it's actually
getting a lot worse. And diets and obsession with weight
and of course social media that's all making it worse.
(12:32):
And then feeling like an addict when it comes to food. Now,
that is another conversation and episode all by itself, one
that I could speak on for days, to be honest.
But again, you can't just fix that with mindset alone, right,
So when it comes to these deeply ingrained, fired and
wired things in your brain, like I said, there's this
ingrained brain wiring that if you don't address it and
(12:55):
actually heal the wiring in your brain, especially if it
got fired and wired alongside food and showg or again
it gets. It doesn't get better, it gets, it gets worse.
Of Course, I wouldn't be who I was if we
didn't mention the self image and all the shame that
comes alongside this, because there's another cost to that diet
(13:15):
mentality that people have never experienced it themselves wouldn't understand, right,
And it's the part that comes alongside that big struggle
that's taking up all our mental real estate. And if
you've never understood it or experienced it, you wouldn't get it.
And for me, this is also why you know trainers,
you know, fitness people that had never really experienced feeling
(13:36):
disconnected from their body, you know, telling me that burpies
were going to change my life over you know, nutritionists
that never struggled with this themselves, but we're you know,
telling me the importance of kale and why it was
a super food. It never fully resonated with me, right,
and again, like thank you for them. They're amazing, but
they could never really understand what I was going through,
and their advice like ended up unfortunately being kind of
(13:59):
meaningless in the scheme of things. Again, though their hearts
were definitely in the right place, but they didn't know
what they didn't know, and they wouldn't ever understand the
main emotions that a woman with this problem experiences that
we're talking here about, like deep toxic shame and anxiety
and fear and dread and embarrassment and then loneliness and
then shame about our shame, like just to name a few, right,
(14:22):
and then of course the trickle down effect of that
is where we lack confidence, like or maybe we just
flat out lose our confidence, right, and then we just
feel even more out of control and go deeper into
the cycle of shame and feeling like a failure. And
it forces us to stay stuck in this food prison
where if we're not playing you know, food police, we
(14:42):
feel totally out of control, you know, binging, emotional eating,
stress eating, comfort eating, whatever. And that's its own prison
of shame and feeling like a failure and wondering things
like you know, why am I so smart but I
can't figure this out? Like that is the shame talking.
But it also leaves women stuck in this body prison
where the inside just doesn't represent the outside, and you know,
(15:03):
where their body doesn't reflect this woman that they are,
and it makes them feel ugly or unbeautiful or unlovable. Gosh,
it made me feel so many things, all of those things.
But some women even tell me like they feel totally
disgusting when they look in the mirror. I know, I
did right afraid to be in pictures not wearing what
I wanted to wear, or only wearing what fit or
(15:23):
you know, covered my body with baggy clothes, and you know,
sitting on the sidelines of life, not participating in activities,
you know, like for me, I wasn't going in the ocean,
I wasn't playing outside and you know, in tank tops
or having fun in my life. Right, And women tell
me this too, like they're not playing with their kids,
they're not showing up, not to mention, just not being
present because they're so in their head about their body
(15:45):
and their way and food that they're not even present
to the conversations that are going on in their life.
So they're just merely existing. And that in itself is
a prison of shame where women's emotional homes, as in,
you know, they wake up every single day feeling this
way or or you know, put themselves there as soon
as they think about their body or food. This becomes
(16:06):
the emotional home. And again it's an emotional home of
shame and embarrassment and loneliness and just a deeper web
of poor self esteem. Right. And that is why we
have to talk about it. That's why we're here talking
about this today. And I so wish someone had talked
to me about this stuff thirty years ago. And it
made me realize I wasn't crazy. And the diet mentality
(16:28):
and the self image and body image struggles that come
alongside it, it is a really big problem, and a
lot of women treat it like it's this thing that
you know, they put it in the category of, oh,
like if I lose some weight, that would be awesome,
Like that would be nice, but it's not really that
big a deal in the scheme of things they put
in that category. We think they think it's like a
weight loss thing, right, or they put it into the
(16:49):
category of like, well, there's much bigger problems that we
should be focusing on, like I should be grateful for
my life, you know. And then a lot of women
they kind of diminish their pain because they feel like
other people have it harder or worse, and you know,
they feel silly that their weight causes them so much grief.
But I'm telling you it is not about the weight, ladies. Okay,
(17:10):
this is taking over your life. If you're listening to this, like,
this is a really big problem for you, and it's
not going away on its own, and it does get worse.
It really is like a cancer, like you've got to
cut it out. It doesn't go away on its own
and doesn't heal itself. But you know, in order to
commit to actually healing it, you first have to acknowledge
(17:31):
that it is a really big problem, but not chalk
it up or diminish it to a weight loss thing.
Like see that you know, this isn't a food problem.
It's a food prison, and it's not a body problem.
It's the body prison. And it's not even a willpower
or motivation problem. It's the shame prison and the emotional
home that you're living in day in day out that
has just become your identity and you don't know where
(17:52):
the goggles that you're seeing yourself through end and where
you begin, and you know, robbing you of your confidence,
like not showing up is a beautiful, confident, powerful version
of yourself that you know you are inside, but instead
you're kind of witnessing yourself showing up as the shrunken
version of yourself that feels uncomfortable in her skin and
doesn't know how to get her confidence back. And Ladies, again, like,
(18:15):
I totally get it. I lived it most of my life.
And this is where my clients are before they come
to work with me and before we talk about what
it takes to actually heal it. And so I just
want to tell you this, Like, first of all, you're
so none alone, right, and there is nothing dirty about
this secret. And if you are resonating with anything I'm sharing,
it doesn't even need to be a secret, right, You've
(18:36):
done nothing wrong, and that's what I really want you
to get. And I know, I know, I know it
is so much easier said than done, right, And I
know that for most of you listening right now, like
nobody probably knows that you're suffering, nobody knows that you
have a really big problem, and that in itself causes
you to feel shame about the shame and it makes
(18:57):
it worse. But I do want you to know like, first
of all, you're not alone, but also like you are
not crazy, you are not a weak willed individual. You
are not unhelpable for sure, and that's really the purpose
of this episode. And yes, I'm going to give you
some steps to really get into the process of actually
healing this and how to go from having it be
your dirty little secret to something that no longer carries
(19:20):
all this shame and it's just something that was part
of your journey and you just dealt with it, right,
But I also just want to acknowledge the elephant in
the room for you that you know, if this is
your deepest held secret, and nobody knows or the people
that do know that you're struggling don't understand that you're
really struggling with like the emotional gravity of it. And
it's not about the food. I really want to reiterate,
(19:40):
and you'll hear me say it again and again, you're
not crazy. You're not alone. But also you don't have
to stay stuck, you know. And I know it might
feel that way. I know it did for me, and
it's a big thing that comes up from my clients,
but I promise you you're so not. You just learned
what I learn, like that whole eat less, move more
diet mentality that does keep you a slave to obsession.
(20:01):
And you know, it's a language that if you practice
it your whole life, you think that that's just who
you are, how it's always going to be, or you
think like that's just what it is to talk about
food that way or talk about your body that way, right,
But there is another way, and there is a way
where you can live with freedom and feel permission to
enjoy your life without feeling like you're going to go
(20:21):
off some deep end, and a life where you live
by choice rather than feel like choices are being made
for you or choices are being taken away from you,
and you don't have to obsess over food in your
body one day longer. But something has to shift in
your mindset. And so a lot of women ask me like, Okay, LeAnn,
how do you actually heal this? Right? If this is
what you're saying is true, like what's it look like?
(20:42):
And I'm not going to ever give you the frilly
version of that answer. I'm going to give you the
truth because I wish somebody had told me this a
long time ago. So we are going to actually unpack
that in depth over the next couple of weeks, because
it's one of those things that if you've been living
life like this your whole life, or for a very
long time trying not to control what you eat or
(21:03):
not be on some sort of diet or you know,
structured mechanism, that can be really flip and scary. Right,
So we're going to talk about that specifically, like this
idea of hey, I want to stop dieting, I want
to cut this toxic cycle out of my life, but
I have no idea what that even looks like. And honestly,
the alternative of not like the idea of not being
on something like the alternative to that it sounds really scary, right,
(21:26):
So we're going to talk about that over the next
two weeks. But this is what I want you to
know first. Okay, if food feels like you're a dirty
little secret. You don't have to share this or declare
this with anyone, okay, but it does have to start
with you. You can't keep it a secret from yourself
any longer. Like, you've got to acknowledge that it's a
really big problem and get to that point where you're
(21:48):
not willing to live like this anymore. And then and
only then can you radically commit to healing it, like
not just put band aids on it, right, and then
go actually rewire your brain. But again, you can't keep
this a secret from yourself any longer. You've got to
at least acknowledge to yourself that it's a problem, Okay.
And when you do that, right, when you no longer
(22:09):
hold this as a deep dark secret to yourself, it
will no longer feel like a deep dark secret to
others either. Right. Still doesn't mean you have to tell anybody,
but you'll notice that that shame just kind of dissipates, right,
and it'll simply start becoming a part of your story.
And eventually I'll even go as far as saying a
proud part, okay, a story of overcoming an accomplishment and
(22:31):
triumph and not a shame story. But first you've got
to shift that for yourself, because that's something that no
one can or no one will do for you. So
come back next week where we're going to talk about
this idea of I want to stop dieting, but I
have no idea what that looks like, and not being
on something terrifies me. We're going to talk about it
(22:51):
over the next two weeks. In the meantime, I'm hoping
that today's episode was really just a loving reminder that
you're not alone, and again just over emphasizing you are
not crazy, and also you don't have to live like this.
But also maybe this was a loving wake up call
for you that this is something that's really important to
you and very valid, and desiring to heal from this
(23:14):
is not only very valid, but very possible. Okay, So
that is it for today, outweigh. I truly hope you
got whatever you needed to hear and that this opened
your eyes to something that you weren't seeing. And if
you want to learn more about how to turn off
the part of your brain that is totally obsessed with
food or obsessed with your weight and go rewire your
(23:34):
brain for peace and freedom, then head on over to
Stresslessseeding dot com and you can sign up to watch
the Stressless Eating sneak preview. And I've literally just peeled
back the curtain and walked you through the exact strategy.
I teach my clients to heal themselves from the all
or nothing diet mentality for good, but without restricting themselves
or punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever having to
(23:57):
use words like Macro's low carb or calorie burn. So
it is there for you to access over on stresslessseeding
dot com and if you like out Weigh, I actually
have another podcast here on iHeart where I talk about
all of this self image and body image stuff but
from the perspective of where brain science intersects faith. So
it's called What's God Got to Do with It? And
(24:20):
you can access it here on iHeart or wherever you
get podcasts. So that is it for today. I'm Leanne
Ellington and I will talk to you soon Bye,
I won't let my body out be outwait everything that
I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I am, I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know everybod of me. It's beautiful
and that will always out way if you feel it,
(00:24):
But yours are. She'll some love to theod I get
there sage day and did you and die out way?
Happy Saturday, Outwegh. I'm Leanne Ellington, and we are here
to talk about something that typically carries a lot of shame,
and so we're going to talk about it because ay,
(00:45):
that's what we do here on Outweigh. But also I
just want to release the stigma and help you give
yourself permission to relinquish any shame that you might have
so that you can move through it or at least
learn how to do that. So when it comes to
the diet, mentality and body shame and disordered eating and
all the internal stress and chaos that comes alongside all
(01:06):
of that, for so many women, this is their deepest
health secret, this struggle with food their body, the war
in their head, the fight in their hearts, and the
shame all that shame about their body, feeling so out
of control all the time, feeling like a failure. For
so many women, no one even knows what's really going on.
(01:26):
No one knows how much they're really struggling and suffering.
Nobody knows how much time and energy they're spending thinking
about what they should or shouldn't eat, or what they
should wear, or what they can wear that fits or
doesn't look tight or whatever. Right, no one knows how
much time they're thinking about how bad they actually feel,
And so no one knows that they aren't even fully
(01:47):
present in their lives like that, even though yeah, they
might be there in the flesh and blood, they're not
really there, right, They're not fully present, And so I
hear from women all the time. You know, they're thinking
about obsessing over things like how many calories that dressing
added on their salad at lunch, or if they should
have told the waiter no croutons. You know, they're talking
(02:09):
about that work dinner coming up, and fearing that all
their work friends will notice they gained weight, or wondering
if they'll get that promotion at work because they're too
afraid to speak up or show up as a leader
because of their weight. Heck. I had one woman share
that she was afraid people would wonder how she landed
such a catch of a husband when she looked the
way that she did. Like, this is real life, That's
(02:29):
what she was saying. And this is literally the kinds
of things that women share with me. And one time
a woman wrote to me and she said, am I crazy?
Why can't I just stick to a diet, lose the
weight and be happy? I mean, isn't that what normal
people are able to do? And she went on to write,
I'm scared to death that I'll never be able to
feel normal. In fact, I must be crazy, because what
(02:52):
grown woman would go back to the pantry five times
after the kids go to bed and scoop out one
more tablespoon of the Natella that was supposed to last
for two months worth of Sunday brunches, with the kids
swearing that each time that this would be the last scoop.
But the last scoop didn't come until I finished the jar.
I mean, what kind of woman loses the battle against Natella.
(03:15):
I'm strong, I'm successful. I manage a team of twenty
five at my job. I've birthed and raised three children
to be fine humans. I have the most amazing life,
Yet I'm sitting here battling a jar of natella, feeling
crazy and out of control and helpless because this is
my life, That's what she wrote. And these are not anomalies, right.
(03:36):
I hear stuff like this all the time. But that's
not the worst part. Okay, the worst part about it
is that for most women, no one knows. In her emails,
she went on to say, I put on this happy face.
I try to be perfect, the perfect wife, the perfect parent,
the perfect pta mom, and I crush it at work.
So everyone who knows me must think I have it
(03:58):
all together. But I don't have it all together. I
feel like I'm totally unhinged. Would a woman who has
it all together be out of control, hiding in her
pantry polishing off a jar of natella at midnight if
she had it all together? If anyone ever really knew,
they would think I was crazy, They would think I
was weak. They would lose all respect for me. So
(04:22):
I tuck it away, deep down so no one can
see it. I put on a smile, and I make
the kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the cross
cut off, secretly jealous and pissed off at my poor
children because they can eat carbs and stay stick thin.
And this is my life. It has been for a while,
but it's slowly getting more and more out of control.
(04:42):
So I hop on the next diet and I go
back to the workouts that I don't even like, and
I do well for a week or two, and then
it's back to my normal. So again, this was just
from one email that I got, but I get emails
like this all the time, and this is what most
women are dealing with all alone. Okay, So if you're
new to this podcast or you're tuning in again, it
(05:04):
bears repeating that, you know, the binging and feeling out
of control and obsessing and not stop thinking about food
and NonStop thinking about your body, it's all an effect
of something else, right, And oftentimes it's really just the
effect of the NonStop chronic dieting and a hyper obsession
with weight or appearance, or really a fired and wired,
(05:24):
restrictive or controlling relationship with food that lives in the brain, right,
and we're just downstream experiencing all the effects and all
of those things. That's what causes women to have such
a dysmorphic relationship with their bodies and an even more
disordered relationship with food. And so I know that might
seem a little bit odd because the mainstream thinking out
(05:45):
there and you know, saying like, hey, if you just
want to lose weight or get air quotes healthy, like
you should go on a diet. It's really a simple
equation of eat less, move more. But not only as
you're learning, is that not the solution, But that's what
actually makes things worse, right, because then you're forced to
live on this in out, up, down, all or nothing
roller coaster and it's not sustainable. And you're either feeling
(06:07):
like you have to go play food police your entire life,
you know, counting and measuring and weighing and restricting and obsessing,
or you feel like you're going to go off the
deep end once you get to that point where you
can't possibly handle it anymore and you go eat everything
inside or over indulge or flat out binge. And so again,
the conventional wisdom is just saying like, hey, that's okay,
(06:28):
you know, be be good to yourself and just get
over back on it on Monday, right, get back on
the Monday wagon, get back on the diet, get back
on the X y Z right. But if you're listening
right now, it's it's probably because you know something doesn't
add up and that that makes it worse and not better.
So you're really back to this subject of nobody really
knowing the struggle or you know, food might feel like
(06:49):
you're dirty little secret. I can't even tell you how
many women I talk to that have you know, husbands
or friends or family or loved ones that are just
you know, preaching to them and from love, from a
loving place of course, but just preaching to them about
going on another diet or saying things like, hey, I
don't understand you probably just need a bit more accountability
or motivation, or they try to get them accountable and
(07:10):
they're like, let's do this, like I'll help you, you know,
but not really understanding that it's not that simple, right,
and if you've never struggled with it yourself, you wouldn't
be able to get it right. God love them, they're
just trying to do their best. But if you've never
struggled yourself, you don't understand what it's like. And so
you know, for example, if I fall off my bike
when I'm a kid and or when I'm an adult. Right,
let's be honest, and I skin my knee, that's a
(07:32):
very specific kind of pain a skin knee, right. But
if I put my hand on a hot stove and
I burn my hand, yes, I understand pain, but I
don't understand that kind of pain that you feel when
you skin your knee. If I'm understanding the kind of
pain when you burn your hand, right, two different types
of pain, two different experiences. And if your nervous system
(07:53):
has never experienced that kind of pain, it wouldn't be
able to understand that kind of pain or feel true
empathy or compassion. Right. It's not that you don't want to,
you just can't or they can't. And so someone can
emphasize about what they think it feels like to feel overweight.
And notice the distinction that I said feel overweight, because
you know, there's a lot of women that are at
(08:14):
a weight that they actually want to be or they
think they should be, but still feel overweight. So we're
talking about the body image side of this, not the
body side of it, right, But that being said, what
makes them think, you know, somebody can empathize with their situation.
But if they've never experienced it day in day out
like they have, you know, they're not going to be
able to understand it, and so chances are they're not
(08:35):
going to be able to support and help you find
a solution to a problem that they don't maybe even
know or understand that you have. Right. But if living
in that good bad, right, wrong, should shouldn't always never,
you know, supposed to need to on off and out
roller coaster, which is really you know, I call it
the diet mentality, but it's it's the disordered mentality, it's
the weight loss mentality, it's the hyper obsession mentality. If
(08:57):
you've never experienced that in your life, then you don't
get it. You don't know that kind of pain. And
this isn't just like, let's look at a day in
the life of this, this is NonStop. Right. Most of
the women I talk to and this is where I was,
it's been their life forever or it's been this way
for decades, and they don't even know or remember what
it looks like if they didn't see food and their
(09:18):
body through this lens, right. And I can't even tell
you how many women I talk to that when I
talk about this idea of really, you know, tuning in
and learning a new language around food so that you
don't have to constantly think about it and obsess and
stress and food can just be food. So you know,
so many women are just like, Okay, yeah, a lea,
(09:38):
and that sounds really great. But I can't even imagine that, right,
I can't even fathom that because this has been so
deeply ingrained in my brain for so long, and because
you know, nowadays diets and short term band aids are
just so readily available, and you know, a lot of
women don't know that healing like this is an actual option.
(09:58):
They hop back on the next diye and the next diye.
I mean, you know that's what I did for thirty years.
And again, remember it's that diet mentality, the hyper obsession
with weight in appearance, like the extremism that causes all
of the binging and feeling out of control or just
saying screw it, what's the point, Like I'm never going
to really heal this anyways, or whatever your version of
the food prism is, right, And so it's a symptom
(10:21):
or an effect of that mentality, and that mentality just
makes it worse, right, and then it causes us to
go even deeper into the cycle of the diet or
weight loss or obsession mentality because we are so scared
of what will happen if we don't. We're so fearful
that we'll go gain a bunch of weight or go
off some metaphorical deep end, like I know that was
my big thing, right, And it's that prison of control.
(10:44):
And even though it makes us miserable, it feels safer
in ways than getting out of it because it feels comfortable.
It's what we know, even if it's really so flipping uncomfortable.
It's it's like the devil that you know versus the
devil that you don't. So we just we stay stuck
in it, right. And so again, if we're talking to
a partner or a friend, anyone who thinks that it
really is just a matter of eat less, move more,
(11:05):
or if they've never you know, dealt with it themselves,
or maybe you know, honestly, they're naturally thin or metabolically
active and they can just they've always been able to
eat whatever they want, right, or maybe they never got
indoctrinated into the diet mentality and don't even know what
it's like to always be thinking about food. Maybe they're
just one of those people that food is just food
and they just eat and it's never been this emotional thing, right,
(11:28):
Or maybe they don't understand conceptually that someone could have
an emotional attachment to food, like maybe that does feel
weird or crazy or out of context. And again they're
not trying to be mean, it's just they don't get it, right. So,
of course anybody that falls into those categories, they're not
going to understand what happens to someone that lives in
that cycle day and day out right obsessing over every
(11:51):
morsel of food that touches your lips, you know, constantly
thinking about is this good or bad or right or wrong,
or just figuring out what you're going to eat the
next meal and giving yourself permission to have it during
this meal so that you don't feel guilty, or you know,
literally your whole life revolving around food. Right, And so
to an outsider, to somebody who's never experienced this, yeah,
(12:11):
I can understand how it probably feels a little bit crazy,
but it's not crazy, okay. And millions and millions and
millions of women suffer with this disordered thinking around food
and their bodies, and it's not getting better, it's actually
getting a lot worse. And diets and obsession with weight
and of course social media that's all making it worse.
(12:32):
And then feeling like an addict when it comes to food. Now,
that is another conversation and episode all by itself, one
that I could speak on for days, to be honest.
But again, you can't just fix that with mindset alone, right,
So when it comes to these deeply ingrained, fired and
wired things in your brain, like I said, there's this
ingrained brain wiring that if you don't address it and
(12:55):
actually heal the wiring in your brain, especially if it
got fired and wired alongside food and showg or again
it gets. It doesn't get better, it gets, it gets worse.
Of Course, I wouldn't be who I was if we
didn't mention the self image and all the shame that
comes alongside this, because there's another cost to that diet
(13:15):
mentality that people have never experienced it themselves wouldn't understand, right,
And it's the part that comes alongside that big struggle
that's taking up all our mental real estate. And if
you've never understood it or experienced it, you wouldn't get it.
And for me, this is also why you know trainers,
you know, fitness people that had never really experienced feeling
(13:36):
disconnected from their body, you know, telling me that burpies
were going to change my life over you know, nutritionists
that never struggled with this themselves, but we're you know,
telling me the importance of kale and why it was
a super food. It never fully resonated with me, right,
and again, like thank you for them. They're amazing, but
they could never really understand what I was going through,
and their advice like ended up unfortunately being kind of
(13:59):
meaningless in the scheme of things. Again, though their hearts
were definitely in the right place, but they didn't know
what they didn't know, and they wouldn't ever understand the
main emotions that a woman with this problem experiences that
we're talking here about, like deep toxic shame and anxiety
and fear and dread and embarrassment and then loneliness and
then shame about our shame, like just to name a few, right,
(14:22):
and then of course the trickle down effect of that
is where we lack confidence, like or maybe we just
flat out lose our confidence, right, and then we just
feel even more out of control and go deeper into
the cycle of shame and feeling like a failure. And
it forces us to stay stuck in this food prison
where if we're not playing you know, food police, we
(14:42):
feel totally out of control, you know, binging, emotional eating,
stress eating, comfort eating, whatever. And that's its own prison
of shame and feeling like a failure and wondering things
like you know, why am I so smart but I
can't figure this out? Like that is the shame talking.
But it also leaves women stuck in this body prison
where the inside just doesn't represent the outside, and you know,
(15:03):
where their body doesn't reflect this woman that they are,
and it makes them feel ugly or unbeautiful or unlovable. Gosh,
it made me feel so many things, all of those things.
But some women even tell me like they feel totally
disgusting when they look in the mirror. I know, I
did right afraid to be in pictures not wearing what
I wanted to wear, or only wearing what fit or
(15:23):
you know, covered my body with baggy clothes, and you know,
sitting on the sidelines of life, not participating in activities,
you know, like for me, I wasn't going in the ocean,
I wasn't playing outside and you know, in tank tops
or having fun in my life. Right, And women tell
me this too, like they're not playing with their kids,
they're not showing up, not to mention, just not being
present because they're so in their head about their body
(15:45):
and their way and food that they're not even present
to the conversations that are going on in their life.
So they're just merely existing. And that in itself is
a prison of shame where women's emotional homes, as in,
you know, they wake up every single day feeling this
way or or you know, put themselves there as soon
as they think about their body or food. This becomes
(16:06):
the emotional home. And again it's an emotional home of
shame and embarrassment and loneliness and just a deeper web
of poor self esteem. Right. And that is why we
have to talk about it. That's why we're here talking
about this today. And I so wish someone had talked
to me about this stuff thirty years ago. And it
made me realize I wasn't crazy. And the diet mentality
(16:28):
and the self image and body image struggles that come
alongside it, it is a really big problem, and a
lot of women treat it like it's this thing that
you know, they put it in the category of, oh,
like if I lose some weight, that would be awesome,
Like that would be nice, but it's not really that
big a deal in the scheme of things they put
in that category. We think they think it's like a
weight loss thing, right, or they put it into the
(16:49):
category of like, well, there's much bigger problems that we
should be focusing on, like I should be grateful for
my life, you know. And then a lot of women
they kind of diminish their pain because they feel like
other people have it harder or worse, and you know,
they feel silly that their weight causes them so much grief.
But I'm telling you it is not about the weight, ladies. Okay,
(17:10):
this is taking over your life. If you're listening to this, like,
this is a really big problem for you, and it's
not going away on its own, and it does get worse.
It really is like a cancer, like you've got to
cut it out. It doesn't go away on its own
and doesn't heal itself. But you know, in order to
commit to actually healing it, you first have to acknowledge
(17:31):
that it is a really big problem, but not chalk
it up or diminish it to a weight loss thing.
Like see that you know, this isn't a food problem.
It's a food prison, and it's not a body problem.
It's the body prison. And it's not even a willpower
or motivation problem. It's the shame prison and the emotional
home that you're living in day in day out that
has just become your identity and you don't know where
(17:52):
the goggles that you're seeing yourself through end and where
you begin, and you know, robbing you of your confidence,
like not showing up is a beautiful, confident, powerful version
of yourself that you know you are inside, but instead
you're kind of witnessing yourself showing up as the shrunken
version of yourself that feels uncomfortable in her skin and
doesn't know how to get her confidence back. And Ladies, again, like,
(18:15):
I totally get it. I lived it most of my life.
And this is where my clients are before they come
to work with me and before we talk about what
it takes to actually heal it. And so I just
want to tell you this, Like, first of all, you're
so none alone, right, and there is nothing dirty about
this secret. And if you are resonating with anything I'm sharing,
it doesn't even need to be a secret, right, You've
(18:36):
done nothing wrong, and that's what I really want you
to get. And I know, I know, I know it
is so much easier said than done, right, And I
know that for most of you listening right now, like
nobody probably knows that you're suffering, nobody knows that you
have a really big problem, and that in itself causes
you to feel shame about the shame and it makes
(18:57):
it worse. But I do want you to know like, first
of all, you're not alone, but also like you are
not crazy, you are not a weak willed individual. You
are not unhelpable for sure, and that's really the purpose
of this episode. And yes, I'm going to give you
some steps to really get into the process of actually
healing this and how to go from having it be
your dirty little secret to something that no longer carries
(19:20):
all this shame and it's just something that was part
of your journey and you just dealt with it, right,
But I also just want to acknowledge the elephant in
the room for you that you know, if this is
your deepest held secret, and nobody knows or the people
that do know that you're struggling don't understand that you're
really struggling with like the emotional gravity of it. And
it's not about the food. I really want to reiterate,
(19:40):
and you'll hear me say it again and again, you're
not crazy. You're not alone. But also you don't have
to stay stuck, you know. And I know it might
feel that way. I know it did for me, and
it's a big thing that comes up from my clients,
but I promise you you're so not. You just learned
what I learn, like that whole eat less, move more
diet mentality that does keep you a slave to obsession.
(20:01):
And you know, it's a language that if you practice
it your whole life, you think that that's just who
you are, how it's always going to be, or you
think like that's just what it is to talk about
food that way or talk about your body that way, right,
But there is another way, and there is a way
where you can live with freedom and feel permission to
enjoy your life without feeling like you're going to go
(20:21):
off some deep end, and a life where you live
by choice rather than feel like choices are being made
for you or choices are being taken away from you,
and you don't have to obsess over food in your
body one day longer. But something has to shift in
your mindset. And so a lot of women ask me like, Okay, LeAnn,
how do you actually heal this? Right? If this is
what you're saying is true, like what's it look like?
(20:42):
And I'm not going to ever give you the frilly
version of that answer. I'm going to give you the
truth because I wish somebody had told me this a
long time ago. So we are going to actually unpack
that in depth over the next couple of weeks, because
it's one of those things that if you've been living
life like this your whole life, or for a very
long time trying not to control what you eat or
(21:03):
not be on some sort of diet or you know,
structured mechanism, that can be really flip and scary. Right,
So we're going to talk about that specifically, like this
idea of hey, I want to stop dieting, I want
to cut this toxic cycle out of my life, but
I have no idea what that even looks like. And honestly,
the alternative of not like the idea of not being
on something like the alternative to that it sounds really scary, right,
(21:26):
So we're going to talk about that over the next
two weeks. But this is what I want you to
know first. Okay, if food feels like you're a dirty
little secret. You don't have to share this or declare
this with anyone, okay, but it does have to start
with you. You can't keep it a secret from yourself
any longer. Like, you've got to acknowledge that it's a
really big problem and get to that point where you're
(21:48):
not willing to live like this anymore. And then and
only then can you radically commit to healing it, like
not just put band aids on it, right, and then
go actually rewire your brain. But again, you can't keep
this a secret from yourself any longer. You've got to
at least acknowledge to yourself that it's a problem, Okay.
And when you do that, right, when you no longer
(22:09):
hold this as a deep dark secret to yourself, it
will no longer feel like a deep dark secret to
others either. Right. Still doesn't mean you have to tell anybody,
but you'll notice that that shame just kind of dissipates, right,
and it'll simply start becoming a part of your story.
And eventually I'll even go as far as saying a
proud part, okay, a story of overcoming an accomplishment and
(22:31):
triumph and not a shame story. But first you've got
to shift that for yourself, because that's something that no
one can or no one will do for you. So
come back next week where we're going to talk about
this idea of I want to stop dieting, but I
have no idea what that looks like, and not being
on something terrifies me. We're going to talk about it
(22:51):
over the next two weeks. In the meantime, I'm hoping
that today's episode was really just a loving reminder that
you're not alone, and again just over emphasizing you are
not crazy, and also you don't have to live like this.
But also maybe this was a loving wake up call
for you that this is something that's really important to
you and very valid, and desiring to heal from this
(23:14):
is not only very valid, but very possible. Okay, So
that is it for today, outweigh. I truly hope you
got whatever you needed to hear and that this opened
your eyes to something that you weren't seeing. And if
you want to learn more about how to turn off
the part of your brain that is totally obsessed with
food or obsessed with your weight and go rewire your
(23:34):
brain for peace and freedom, then head on over to
Stresslessseeding dot com and you can sign up to watch
the Stressless Eating sneak preview. And I've literally just peeled
back the curtain and walked you through the exact strategy.
I teach my clients to heal themselves from the all
or nothing diet mentality for good, but without restricting themselves
or punishing their bodies, and definitely without ever having to
(23:57):
use words like Macro's low carb or calorie burn. So
it is there for you to access over on stresslessseeding
dot com and if you like out Weigh, I actually
have another podcast here on iHeart where I talk about
all of this self image and body image stuff but
from the perspective of where brain science intersects faith. So
it's called What's God Got to Do with It? And
(24:20):
you can access it here on iHeart or wherever you
get podcasts. So that is it for today. I'm Leanne
Ellington and I will talk to you soon Bye,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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