Ditch the Diet and Think About This Stuff Instead!

Music. And welcome to Change Your Relationship with Food, the podcast hosted by me, Kyla Holley.

With many years experience as an eating disorder and bariatric therapist, I know exactly what it takes to help you break free from your diet history and develop a more healthy relationship with food. Please follow this podcast to make sure you don't miss a thing. If you are exhausted from jumping from one diet to the next and you are actually ready for real sustainable change, then this episode is your permission to begin again in your way.

I'm going to give you seven categories today that I want you to consider rather than going on a diet because most people come to me and say, I want to lose weight. And we quickly establish that, yeah, they've been on loads of diets before. They lose a bit of weight and then they regain it and some. And they've done this multiple times and then they reach a stage once again on a Monday morning, because that's the law, where they say, okay, I want to change something in my life.

It must be my weight. That's the obvious thing. We look in the mirror and we go, if I could change my weight, then everything else would change. What we need to do instead is look at the everything else. look at all the areas of your life where you can affect change, that may also have an effect on your weight. But for the meantime, ignore the weight side of things. The weight side of things will happen. It will fall into line if you review the other things.

So we're going to go through seven things today. Seven titles, which I want you to consider going into this and consider which of these areas of your life are keeping you stuck. What is stopping you actually having some traction and being able to move forward? This is the first category, motivation. So how motivated are you to do this? Are you actually prepared to make big changes? Or is this something you kind of want, but you're really not willing to do much towards changing your life?

And if you are motivated, where is that motivation coming from? Is it coming from yourself? Is it coming from other people? Is it coming from a sense of obligation to your children, if you have children. What is the main motivation for you? And funnily enough, it doesn't actually matter. There's been a lot of research over the years about this.

Where does motivation come from? And I know a lot of people that have to come and see me before bariatric surgery often feel this real compulsion to try and convince me that it's their idea. They're doing this for them. and actually they really don't need to waste their time doing that because it doesn't matter whether they're doing it for them, doing it for their health, doing it for their children. Even doing it for a partner isn't necessarily a reflection of what the outcome is going to be.

So motivation, when you think about it, anything could motivate you as long as it's sustainable, as long as it's going to keep motivating you. As soon as it stops motivating you, well, it's lost its purpose. So think about this, motivation. That's the first heading I want you to think about. Are you motivated? And what is motivating you?

Because the truth of it is, if you are not actually motivated, if you do not actually really feel that you want to make changes, well then, obviously, it's not going to happen. And in your head, you can say, I would like to make changes in my life. I would like to lose some weight. I would like to be fitter. But that's just words, isn't it? Unless you're actually motivated to do something and put those words into action, well, what's the point? It's not going to happen.

And much as you can wish for these things, unless something actually changes, you're not going to achieve that goal. So the first step is to assess your motivation. Super important. If it's not there, this sounds defeatist, but if it's not there, if you're not motivated, why are you pretending to be otherwise? Why are you pretending to have a go at something? Because you're setting yourself up to fail. If the motivation isn't there, you're setting yourself up to fail.

And then how are you going to feel about you? you're going to feel a whole lot worse, I think. So if truly you really speak to yourself and say, hey, is the motivation there? Is now the time? Am I coming up with excuses easily? Because if you are, then clearly the motivation isn't there. So if I decide I'm going to do something, let me put myself in the position of the person wanting change. I decide I want change. And if somebody says to me, okay, when are you going to start?

The answer should be for a motivated person, right now. Not all I'll start. Now, next Wednesday will probably be convenient because I've got a big dinner on Tuesday and I've got friends coming around at the weekend. And that's a signal that the motivation actually isn't there. If there's excuses built in straight away of reasons why you can't start, then you have to say, perhaps I'm not actually committed to doing this because all the excuses came very, very easily.

And also, if you start doing it, if you decide in that circumstance, okay, Wednesday's the day.

Wednesday's the day I'm going to start this big change in my life and you start on Wednesday and. How long is that going to be sustainable for until another one of these excuses come up? Like, oh, I've been invited to a wedding, so I'm going to need to not do whatever it is I've decided to do that weekend, or I'm going on holiday, so obviously I'm going to give it a rest then. All these excuses that are built in to throw you off target.

And remember, we're not talking about dieting here. We're talking about the changes that you want to make in your life, which we're just about to come into. But if they're going to throw you off, if you're going to lose your focus very easily, if some shiny event or person comes along, then you've got to really question your initial motivation. So motivation is the first thing. Check in on that. Ask yourself the hard questions. When am I prepared to start? What's the answer?

Is it now? There's no reason to delay. And if that's the case, then yeah, let's go. You're probably ready. Now, the next thing we're going to look at is nutrition. Now, I don't want you to confuse this again with going on a diet.

What this is, is a real assessment and overhaul of what you're currently doing. Where does your nutrition sit, are you getting at the moment a really good nutritional variety? Don't worry about calories. Don't worry about food groups. Are you getting variety in your food? Are you getting something from every food group? Is it something that at the end of the day, you say to yourself, yeah, I fed my body well today, as in I put good nutrition inside of me?

Or, well, I mean, how do you answer that question at the end of the day, I suppose, would be relevant? Or are you someone that sits back and go, okay, I didn't do so well today. So as I say, as a reminder, forget calories, look at nutrition. Your body needs really good fuel on board. Are you giving it that really good fuel? Have you got protein in there? Have you got carbs in there? Have you got healthy fats in there? Have you got things that are actually feeding your body.

Forget about denying your body. That's what we do on a diet. This isn't about denial. This isn't about how can I not give my body what it needs in order to push it into weight loss. This is about how can I get my body to function really, really well so that it performs really, really well and keeps me healthy, keeps my energy on board, keeps me at my best. And if you don't think you're doing very well in this area, if you feel you need advice, then visit a dietitian.

Get your GP to write a referral. If you're in Australia, you will get a certain amount of sessions as well under an EPC referral. So go see a dietitian, get some good advice about what your body needs and what you should be putting into you. So that is category two. We've considered motivation, we've considered nutrition, what your baseline is. Now let's look at your lifestyle and. Is it about your lifestyle that might be keeping you stuck in the patterns that you currently are?

There's some common ones that really do genuinely get in the way of change, things like shift work. It's really difficult to manage your food intake, for instance, if you're working all different shifts all over the place. That's a genuine thing that gets in the way. But have a look at your overall lifestyle and say, what patterns am I in that I actually don't like? Am I someone that ends up drinking every single night? Am I someone that takes absolutely no exercise?

Am I someone that's easily led? So if my partner says, let's order takeaway, I agree even if I don't feel like it. What is my lifestyle? What is it about my lifestyle that is in the way? Where am I stuck?

Where am I in a rut in my lifestyle? So, so far, we've had motivation, nutrition, lifestyle. The next one, relationships. So again, your relationships that you have, are they keeping you stuck? Are they stopping you moving forward? Is it about the people around you? Reviews the situation with your partner? How would your partner feel if you said, look, I feel we need a real change in our life. I really feel that I'm stagnant. I need to move forward with my life and make some changes.

How would your partner respond to that? Would they support you and say, well, tell me more. This sounds interesting. This sounds really good. I want the best for you. or will your partner roll their eyes and go, what this time? You know, if you're not getting that support, you're not getting that motivation from your partner, is that something that's holding you back? Is your partner one of these people that's doom and gloom and says to you, well, this isn't going to work.

You'll never keep this up. You always fail at this. You say you're going to do these things and then you don't do these things. That's really demotivating if you've got someone like that supposedly on your side. And other relationships as well, parents, children, colleagues, friends, how do they influence you? Are you someone that's led by what they're doing or do you make your own rules? Do you set your own rules? So it's time to review relationships.

What's good about relationships and what's holding you back? Is it time maybe to align yourself a little bit more with those people that are doing what you actually want to do, the life that you actually want to live, rather than the people who are those ones that sort of are doom and gloom and have that negative attitude?

So, so far, motivation, nutrition, lifestyle, relationships. What about activity? What are you up to? I'm not talking about exercise necessarily. Activity, what's in your life? What are you up to currently and what can you add in? Think of things that you actually enjoy, not what you feel you should be doing.

So if somebody's told you you should be exercising for an hour every day or you should be doing push-ups or you should be lifting weights to build muscle, whatever you feel you should be doing, ignore that. Have a look at what you would actually enjoy doing. Because with all these lifestyle changes, you want to look at sustainability. Is this something I can do, not just for a month or a week or a year or, forever. And we keep coming back to those things that we enjoy.

Those are the things that, yes, we can do forever. We will be doing when we're 60 or 70. The things that we feel that we should do are the things that we'll make excuses not to. The excuses come real easy with that stuff. So with activities, think, what are your interests? Are you creative? Are you artistic? Are you someone that likes to perform? Are you musical?

These are all activities, things that will make your life more interesting and more stimulating. So yes, exercise could be in there, but make it enjoyable. Is it something that you think you might like to join a team? You could join a netball team or a basketball team, or you could start to play golf if that interests you. It doesn't have to be something that costs money necessarily. There's lots of things you can do that are really low cost or even free.

Join a walking group. It's free. You get together with other people. You go for a walk. You have a chat. You get the social side of things in that as well as the activity.

So really review your activity levels, not your exercise levels your activity levels how often do you leave the house and get out and do something so so far we've had motivation we've had nutrition we've had lifestyle we've had relationships we've had activity what about body image what do you think of your body do you think your body is worthy of change. Because fundamentally, when you think about it, a lot of people say to me, I hate my body.

Now, how motivated are you going to be to do something good for someone or something that you hate? I would suggest completely unmotivated. so really review how you feel about your body going into this if you feel very negatively again you're setting yourself up for failure you're trying to change a life and improve and develop something that fundamentally you really dislike if that's you that's the place you need to do work.

All of these things I'm bringing up, you won't be perfect in all of them. Absolutely not. Nobody is. But this is a chance to review all these different areas of your life and say, okay, how would my life be if I made improvements in all these different areas? How would I feel about me? How would that change my relationship with food? Rather than concentrating on the food at all, Concentrate on all the other things in life.

This is the real foundation of what we call the anti-diet approach, which is what I follow. This is how I feel because I know in my heart, dieting does not work. And quite often we go into a diet thinking, if I could just change my body, then lots of other things in my life will change. And if we're doing that, we're kind of getting it the wrong way around.

Why don't we look at changing all the other things in our life that we want to change and then our body will kind of go with them rather than concentrating on changing that body in order to affect change in other areas. So body image is really something to check in to. How do you feel about your body? Do you feel perhaps that your body's not great at the moment? you're allowed to feel that. But if you do feel that, view it through a different lens and say, okay, does my body have potential?

It's not at its peak at the moment. It's not at its peak fitness. It might not be something that you enjoy looking at in the mirror, but has it got potential? Is this a body that actually can take me somewhere? Is this package that I come in something that I can use and utilize to affect change. So it doesn't have to be great now. Can it be? Is it something that can be improved upon? Has it got potential? So view your body a bit more favorably by thinking about it in that way.

Now, the last section that I've got to mention, this is section seven, is emotions. And this is probably a big one, which is why I've left it till last. A lot of people come to me and they say, I'm an emotional eater. And my first question is always, tell me what you mean by that, or tell me what that looks like, because it's a real blanket statement that can have lots of different meanings for lots of different people. So if this applies to you, ask yourself the same question.

If you believe you're an emotional eater, if that's something that you've said about yourself in the past, ask yourself that question. What form does that take? How do you come to that conclusion? Is it something that always happens? So in other words, let's say you are feeling down or something bad has happened during the day. Do you always turn to food or do you sometimes do something else? In which case, are you actually an emotional eater or are you someone that gets

emotional sometimes? and you've just seen in the past that sometimes it's linked to food, but maybe not all the time. And ask yourself, does food actually solve problems? Because it may feel in the short term, perhaps, that it does solve problems. Is it legitimate or is it something that you get, absolutely no joy from? Is it some way to evoke shame and disappointment in yourself? Is it a foregone conclusion? I'm feeling unhappy about myself at the moment.

I'll eat something that I never intended to eat to just confirm to myself how rubbish I am and how bad I feel. Is it something that actually you're using as a vehicle to affirm what you actually believe about yourself in the first place. So these are the questions to ask. I'm not necessarily in this episode going to give you answers. I'm just going to tell you the questions to ask yourself. So if you're listening to this because you say, hey, I'm in a rut.

I'm not moving anywhere. I feel as if my body is stagnating. I feel my life is stagnating. And in the back of your mind, you're going, if I lost weight, something would change. I urge you to ignore that little voice. Weight loss may make you feel a little better for a little time, but fundamentally, it won't change many aspects of your life. Have a look at the aspects of your life that would benefit from change. Let me run through them again. Motivation, question that first.

Nutrition, lifestyle, relationships. Objectivity, body image, and emotions. Ask yourselves the hard questions in all those areas and say, hey, if I made changes in one of those areas, two of those areas, perhaps all of those areas in my life, what effect would it have on me? What effect would it have on my entire life? That inertia that we want in life, that moving forward, that sense of us developing and not stagnating in our lives, can it be achieved through any of those areas?

Or are you looking at weight loss as some sort of solution that if you could achieve weight loss, these other things will change. If I can lose weight, I'll feel better about my body. If I lose weight, I will eat better. If I lose weight, I will have better relationships. If I lose weight, I'll go swimming or I'll go for a walk. If I lose weight, I won't be cranky or overwhelmed or stressed or emotional. Weight loss will not affect those things long-term.

It's really about identifying which areas of your life actually need the attention and which areas of your life you actually want to see change and combating that directly, going directly to that area.

And if your life was moving forward in all these areas, imagine you're motivated, you've got good nutrition on board, you've got a good lifestyle, you're active, you're socializing, you're exercising, you have good, strong relationships, great connections with people who support you in your life and want to move forward. Imagine you feel great about this body. Everything's going brilliantly. Tell me then, how much will that number on the scales matter?

Does it really matter whether it's a 78 or an 87 or a 94 or a 65? They're just numbers, aren't they? If everything in your life is really firing on all cylinders and you are having a really productive, great, connected, vibrant life, tell me then how much the number of the scale matters. The number on the scale seems to matter more to people that don't have all that going on in their life.

Then it becomes all about that number. That number becomes the most important thing in your life, more important than anything else. So, for the last time, I'm going to run through the seven... Pillars, if you like, of a vital and interesting and important life. Motivation, nutrition, lifestyle, relationships, activity, body image, emotions. Every single one of those areas, you can get help in.

If you don't feel you're capable of really affecting change, there's plenty of people out there just like me working in this area who will happily take you on and coach you through all these different areas. You can contact me directly. I see different clients from all over Australia and all over the world. In fact, we've got the miracle of telehealth now where you just press a button and you connect to someone.

It's easy to find motivation and help and support if you want to affect change. So get out there, do it. Find someone to help you. Find someone you click with. And let's get this happening in your life. Throw away the scales, forget about those numbers, and actually concentrate on, okay, which areas of my life do I want to change? And attack those areas and really get a more vibrant life that has nothing to do with weight. That's it for today. I feel I've nagged you enough. Have I nagged you?

I don't know. Have I motivated you? I hope so. Next week, I will have a guest, so I really hope you can join me then. I look forward to your company. Goodbye. Don't forget to check the links in the episode notes to our six-week Change Your Relationship with Food course and to the Change Your Relationship with Food workbook and journal, which is available on Amazon. Music.