Does Weight Loss = Happiness? Nope.

therapist specializes in eating disorders. Lisa will be back soon. By the way, I hope y'all are following along on her Instagram with her sweet baby. I loved seeing her as a mom. You can check her out. She's at Lisa hame h a y I am and Cat is here, and so I thought, I make this opportunity to run something by her, which is a mental state or like a world that I lived in for a long time.

My brain was constantly stuck in this cycle of my life will be better when I lose five pounds, or if I could just lose ten pounds and everything would be fine, And so I was constantly chasing that weight loss.

And I recently got back from a big work event where we have this huge festival in Vegas and I've been doing that every year for ten years or so, and I thought, wow, I went on this event and I didn't have any of that pregame mentality where it's like, Okay, i gotta lose five pounds so that i can show up and be my best self, where I've got to do this cleanse before I go do work, because that's just the world I lived in, and I didn't do

any of that. I didn't have the I was in recovery, but I didn't have the opportunity to go do anything because well there wasn't much going on. But now that we're getting back to quote unquote normal in a sense and events are going to start picking up, I'm like, this is the way to do it, because I'm no long or thinking Okay, I can show up to that if I lose five pounds or because if I lose five pounds, I'm gonna be yes like everything you're giving

me these eyeballs, like I'm crazy person. But I can't be the only person that was living in that constant state of I'll be happier if for I'll perform better at work if I and it was all weight related or if my stomach was flat or this or that, like everything had to do with how I looked, and somehow restricting for a whole week before I had a

work event helped me think I looked better. Well, I'm giving you those eyes because I'm like, I'm wondering in that time, what was going to be different if you lost five pounds. We said everything will be better, things will be better. I don't know. It was a but it was on heavy rotation and I thought I everything would be different. It was very toxic, But I also wonder with that, so what would be different everything? Okay,

what messaging? Everything? What messaging do you have around you that's helping you believe that everything is going to be better if I have a stomach because everywhere you turn you see messaging that if you diet and lose weight, everything will be better. Yeah. I gave this to an assignment to a client one time because I just was like, this is fascinating. If you go look at ads for products, any product, it could be orange juice, it could be mascara.

Literally any product. You open a magazine and we look at ads. What are you seeing in those ads? Typically? Well, then white person? Yeah? Happy? How happy? Do this look happy? Yes? So, but I don't even notice that. I'm like, oh look how yeah. So there's two things that they are yea

and I. We've gotten more diverse than are. And I will give credit to advertise for seeing more inclusive, but for a lot of times and I can't even and I I am a on the thinner side white person, So what a privilege for me to in up and see someone that actually kind of looks like me. I can't imagine for all the years people have had to open up and see somebody or someone that looks absolutely nothing like them. So I just want to take a side note to recognize that. And we are making huge

shifts to that. But I think that speaks to like everything around me that I'm seeing is this image and they look happy or they look successful, they have the life I want, so to have that I must look like that. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the happiness because now I did answer you with everything, But I think the narrative and thankfully it's been a long time since I've had that in my head and I don't want to go back to that. But yes, I will

be happier, so therefore everything will be better. My relationships will be better. I'll be nicer and more fun because I'm happier. My husband will like me more, my job will do better because phil pressure to look a certain way, and it goes on and on and on. And I would also wonder, like what is that level of happiness? Like, well, no, I tell you what. I was love very happy because

I hadn't eaten in three days. It's just like almost as dangling carrot in front of you that you are like keep chasing, but you never get closer to it. So I want that carrot. That's the happiness, So I'm gonna chase it. And how I'm gonna chase it is through juicing and diet and exercise in this and all

of that. But it's almost like it's getting a little bit further away because let's say, I mean, this is a story that I don't know if you've talked about this on here, but I talked about it all the time. Is if I lose five pounds, I'll be fine, I'll be happy. That'll be whatever. Okay, you lose those five pounds, then what Oh, then you're chasing five more. Now I need a tone, or okay, now I need to get botox, or okay, I think I'd be happier if I was blonde,

or maybe a should get the colored contacts. If we're looking for what we look like to give us happiness, we can always change what we look like. And there's if there's always going to be something that you are lacking. Because we're comparing ourselves to all these other people and we see all the things we like about them. We don't see as much of their perfections as we see in us. So there's always going to be something. And we often talk about brain space and what and needing

disorder can do to your brain space. It consumes it, it takes it over, it sets up shop, and that is basically all you think about, and then relationships suffer and that doesn't lead to happiness. You know, you may think that you're making progress because say you are tracking your weight, you have lost the weight, but then what But for me, that's all I was thinking about. When can I work out? How long can I work out? Sometimes working out twice, like I wasn't cultivating relationships. I

wasn't enjoying meals with families. I would be out to dinner if I was in Let's use l A for an example. I can speak of a very specific time where I was in l A for a work event and I knew i'd be on a red carpet, and

I was hanging out with a lot of friends. I think even like Mary was there and our other friend Kara, and I think my husband was even in town, and Bobby was there, and we all went out to eat and I took my green juice and everyone ate and I drank my juice, and so that wasn't happiness, but my brain was consumed with it. So I literally saw no problem with it. I thought, yeah, I'm showing up to this restaurant and I pulled my juice out of my purse, and I didn't get to enjoy everything with

everybody else. That was my routine before an event. That's what I did. I juiced, And on my four Things podcast, I would recommend that other people do that too, And I'm so thankful to be in a different place. But I would tell people, hey, you know I mean, and this is a saying from Dion Sanders, and I think it is funny and take from it what you will. But he was an athlete, but he's like, hey, if you look good, you feel good, feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good. So that was

sort of my mentality with juicing. And I don't think he meant any harm by that saying, but in my mind I was like, well, in order to look good and feel good, I need a juice. So and then I'm going to show up and perform my best because I'm feeling confident, and then I'm gonna do are at my job. Yes, I don't think that's that bad of a saying. I think that's not. Well, what does look good mean? And that goes back to like what are

you seeing out in the world. That's that's in quotes good. Now, in this place of recovery, we get to decide what's good. So if I look good, I feel good. Okay, Well, looking good for you back then was having a body of a neating disorder, right, So that might be shifting for you now, so you can still think you look good, so you feel good, but it's not maybe based on

your pants size. Right. I also would just like to take a second, because there are people who are probably relating to this or that are like pushing it away. And you're talking about when you were in that space and you really really thought you you really did think you were happy. There is a space in our disease where we really do think that what we're doing is working for us. And I think that we can get really down on ourselves when we're outside of that space.

And I can't believe I did that, or I can't believe I thought that, or I can't believe I sent that message or told that thing to that person or whatever it is. And I think it's worth mentioning and worth taking a second to even just sit in with yourself if you're feeling that like it's okay, totally you didn't know and now you do, like you can't know what you don't know, and that disease is really strong.

And so if you did something like that and you're feeling guilt and shame over it, okay, but did you know that that was bad and wrong in that time? No, you didn't. I honestly didn't know any better than love

that way for so long that it felt normal. I didn't surround myself with people that all acted that way by any means, but because I had a platform to put out a message that way, and I felt like others were doing it in a sense like I felt, and I followed people on Instagram that had behaviors like that, so to me, it was very it was normal norm. And now I have this recent example of being in Vegas a couple of weeks ago where I got to enjoy food and not work out and still show up

and do my job. And did you feel good on when you were giving I felt great, Yes, I felt great.

Parts of me were happier, I know than I was back then, because you know what, I would restrict for those however, many days before the event, and then the minute the event was over, I'd be like, let's go get pancakes, and then I would completely over indulge because my body was like feed me, feed me, and I thought, well, it doesn't matter now I don't have an event, so I'll just continue this fisious cycle of restrict binge, restrict binge. And that's so hard for people to understand who are

in it. So I'm glad you're giving a real life example and talking about it. But when I have conversations with people about like, listen, I promise you're going to enjoy your life more outside of this way of living, in this belief system that you've created, it is possible for you to enjoy your life and what you look like in your pants size not to be the most

important thing. And people cannot get that through their brain until they've experienced it, and they're like, wow, So now you're having this moment and you're like, I've experienced it, and me not juicing and being in my life and accepting who I am, how I am, how I come allowed me to enjoy my life better. I have now have that experience, but I didn't know before. Yeah, well, and we desperately want that shift for you, but it's going to happen in your own time. And I would

hear certain things, but it wasn't registering with me. Like I knew I needed to make a change, but it took me a long time to get there. It was a journey. So I don't want you to be discouraged in any way if this is something that you too desire, but it's not happening overnight because you literally have to rewire your brain and that takes time, but the good

news is is that it's possible. And when we share our stories or you hear about other people, than that is the hope that you have and the encouragement to to continue down that path of putting in the work, to to know that that it can happen and that we want that you And that's why we have that way, and that's why I love our tagline, A Life without

Disordered Eating outweighs everything. It truly does. And I want you to have that brain space back, and so does Lisa, and so does Cat and any of our guests that come on. Just know that you are not alone. And I'm so thankful for our little community. And I will add this last thing because I just think it's helpful to hear and to be reminded of this. That we see with our eyes how we're feeling inside of our bodies, and we see through the messages that we are telling

ourselves inside of our bodies. So if we're sending that message over and over and over and over again that I will be happier. If I lose five pounds, I will be happier. If I can fit into this, I will be happier with this color hair. We're going to see that, and we're gonna be dissatisfied when we look at ourselves until we get that thing, and then we're gonna want something else. But if we send a different message about can be any message that you want, you

get to create it. I can be happy in this body, I can love this body. I can show up fully in this body. You're gonna see a body that you believe is worthy of being seen and shown off the way it is. And that is literal science. It's connecting your body and your thoughts and your belief system altogether. Thank you, Cat, and I hope people will check you out on Instagram your account of such an encouragement to me as I'm in my recovery. She's at cat dot de fata d e f A T t A and

that's Cat with a K like a Kardashian um. So cat dot de fata is where you can find her. I'm radio Amy on all my socials, and then I gave Lisa's Instagram out at the beginning. But if you would love to email us, we want to hear from you. Hello at Outweigh podcast dot com. See you next Saturday,