Why Weekend Self Sabotage Is ‘A Thing’ (And What To Do About It) (Outweigh)

I'm Leanne Ellington and I'm a friend of Amy's and the author and creator of Stressless Eating, and I'm back again as the resident guest host for a few episodes of Outwagh, which we started doing a few weeks ago. So if you miss those, definitely go back and check those out. And we're gonna just keep this train rolling with this week's episode all about how or why weekend self sabotage is a thing and what to do about it.

So let's go ahead and dive on in. So, for the first thirty years of my life, my relationship with food had two modes. There was on or there was off. Okay,

there was no middle ground for me. I was either walking around day in, day out as what I call my inner food police, so you know, micromanaging every morsel of food I ate or thought about eating, controlling myself, restricting myself, punishing myself and persuading myself not to eat certain things because they were air quotes bad or not healthy. And of course this was paired with obsession and harsh judgments and all of that shame, blame, guilt, the comparison itis,

the perfectionism. I could go on and on. So there was that side of me, my inner food police side, and then there was my alter ego, my inner rebel or also known as my inner glutton, and when she was in charge, it was all out care free abandonment, eating whatever I could get my hands on, you know, gluttonously over stuffing my face and binging on the weekends, and just utter lack of care of my body or what I ate, how I moved, and just my health in general, but also feeling like I had to kind

of you know, get it all in over the weekend before I went back into my inner police mode on Monday. And this was my life for nearly thirty years, so bouncing from one extreme to the other. So I would diet and restrict until I couldn't possibly take it anymore, and then I would totally let myself go, and this more or less off the rails behavior would continue until I either you know, just felt like crap physically or all of that guilt and shame seeped in, and then

back into police mode I would go. There was no middle ground, only two ends of the same switch. I was either on or I was off. And this caused me to live on that up and down all or nothing results roller coaster that I'm always talking about with my clients, and the reality is it's a prison, and one that I didn't have a clue how to escape from. Not to mention that the world was throwing more diets at me, you know, more on and off switches and

more of that definition of insanity. So the day came that I did eventually hit my version of that enough is enough point, and I realized that if I didn't change my strategy and change the stories around food and my body that were keeping me stuck, this is how it would always be. And honestly, that is the part

that genuinely scared the crap out of me. Right, It wasn't the way it was that it was that mental prison, and that is when I knew that I had to set out and change it, because for me, I had to get sick of all the dieting and restricting and constantly playing food police. And I had to get sick of all the judging and shaming, an emotion that was

coming alongside food for me. And I had to get sick of hating what I had to do and who I had to be and how I had to feel to get the body that I always, you know, thought I wanted, even though that was an illusion as well, right, but it was exhausting and I was the opposite of free. So if you are still stuck on that on again off again roller coaster with food or your body or your emotions, I'm here to, first of all, just give you so much love and so much compassion and so

much grace. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not weak willed or a self sabotager or destined to stay this way forever, even if it feels like it. You simply learned it, just like I learned it, and just like my clients learned it. But I'm also here to tell you and encourage you that there is a better way, and you can unlearn it and you don't have to live like this. But also, and I'm just being, you know, really real with you, because that's how we

roll on out. Weigh you'll never earn back your freedom and never break free from the prison if you're living in a world of control, especially around food, because control is the opposite of freedom. Now, I want to just slow down and say that again, because honestly, it felt a bit counterintuitive to me the first time I heard it that control is the opposite of freedom and dieting, well, it's it's simply a form of control and it's not freedom.

So before we get into all of that, I believe that first it's important to understand why we do what we do and just have a heightened awareness of it so we can, you know, first and foremost, just relinquish any shame about it, because again, there's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just something that you learn, but also to help you go move forward and not stay stuck. So why do we do it? Why do we feel gung ho one minute and then the next minute we

feel totally out of control? And why do we, as one of my clients described it, feel like we have this Jeckyl hide personality where one minute we are this hyperd disciplined version of ourselves and one minute we feel like our own inner rebel is like she's off her leash to be honest, and we're just going along for the ride. Right. So here's the thing, the way I see it, we all have our own individual cause and effect cycle for that cycle, for the overeating, and then

the control or I say control in air quotes. But what I'm going to do is this, I'm simply just going to share the three most common cause and effect cycles that were coming up for me in my life and the most common ones I see with my clients, and honestly, I truly believe they really do just have to be addressed if you ever want to be free of the vicious cycle. So the first cause and effect

is the diet mentality. So whenever we're playing the game of eat less, move more, or the game of control restriction, deprivation, obsession, or the game of you know, air quotes, can can't have that, or should shouldn't eat that? Or good bad, right wrong foods, it's only a matter of time before we can't take it any longer and stray from the plan and overeat, but again, it's not your fault. Even the most disciplined and strong willed woman can't win that

when you're playing a losing game. And this is where I want to remind you of the weight of the weight. And I've talked about it on almost every episode of Outweigh and Full Disclosure. Most likely we'll talk about it on future episodes because it's so important. So when I say the weight of the weight, what I mean is that the weight on your body isn't the real weight. The real weight is all this other stuff that you've been carrying around with you, and that's the real weight

that needs to be ditched. That is the weight that's truly weighing you down and keeping you on that up and down roller coaster or keeping you either all in or all out and leaving you to deal with that dreaded bounce back effect that comes alongside the diet mentality. So there's four weight of the weights that I teach my clients specifically, But the first weight of the weight is the one I want to talk about today because

it addresses this specifically. It's the weight of the restriction, deprivation, punishment, persuasion, and stress that typically comes alongside food, and it does not have to. It's optional because food is not the problem, and food is not some enemy that needs to be fought against, even if it feels like it. The diet

mentality is the enemy. If there is one right, and the diet mentality is the problem, it's that all or nothing, black and white up down on off roller coaster that is causing and perpetuating the problem because you can't ever get off it, or if you do get off of it, you become terrified that you'll go gain weight or go off your version of the deep end. Either way, you feel or you end up in this feeling that you're kind of like a slave to it, like you're its hostage,

and it controls your life more than you do. So the truth is this is the real weight, and this just perpetuates your struggle with food and your body. And for honest, it actually makes things worse because as it's really stressful. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that living like this it puts this new type of stress on our already stressful lives. But I would even go as far as say it's fattening.

And here's what I mean. So I call this the tail of two cookies, and I want to show you what happens when you take the same cookie, but you have two very different sets of thoughts about the same cookie. Hence the tail of two cookies. So let's look at

the first example. So if I eat a cookie and I'm in that binge restrict cycle or I'm in you know, the drama of eating a cookie because I'm feeling guilty because I think it's air quotes bad, or because i feel like I'm doing something wrong, or I'm simply eliciting any other air quotes negative emotions. And I say air quotes because obviously we're not. You can't see me putting them up. But there's no real negative emotions. They just are emotions, but they don't always feel good. So that's

what I mean. But when you're in this place, when you're in that stressful you know downward spiral. Not only does this stimulate the fight or flight sympathetic branch of your nervous system, but it creates this ripple effect and a downward spiral on every system of systems in your body. So hormones, respiratory, digestive, even down to all the metabolic processes, and of course it's more complex than this. I'm definitely

oversimplifying it, but you get the gist. Not surprisingly, though, this is going to create what's called negative neuro associations around not just food but eating in general, all because of what was going through my mind when I ate it. Okay, but on the flip side, let's take a look at

the other cookie. If I eat a cookie and I give myself permission to just experience the positive emotions right, things like joy and play and just plain peace, like there's no worry or drama around that cookie, this unlocks the relaxation of my parasympathetic nervous system, and it's like giving every system in my body an upgrade, and it creates this ongoing positive ripple effect metabolically, so every system of systems in the body will affect positively or be

affected positively because of that ripple effect. Plus we talked about those neuro associations that come alongside food. This is going to create positive neuro associations around not just the cookie and not just food, but eating in general, all because of what was going through my mind when I ate it. So, in other words, it's not the cookie. It's your thoughts about the cookie. Right, I'll say that again. It's not the cookie, it's not the food. It's not

your body. It's your thoughts about the cookie, the food, the body. And this isn't just the case when it comes to food. Who you're being and how you're feeling before, during, after anything is what's going to make the biggest difference, because how you feel matters. And this is a topic we could get geeky about, and we won't today. But bottom line, you know, stress and guilt and overwhelm and just when you generally feel like crap, and we all have our own recipe for that, it elicits this threat

or stress response in our nervous system. But your body also has a relaxation response that cascades when you feel good or when you just don't feel bad, to be honest, during any experience. So again, it's not food that's the problem. It's your thoughts about the food that are causing so much of the effects that you're dealing with, including either gaining weight or not being able to lose it. So it's a brain and nervous system problem, not a food problem.

But here's another reason that trying to restrict and control food and the diet mentality in general is the cause and effect problem here, because if I told you not to think about the color blue, okay, just roll with me for a second. Don't think about blue, don't think about blue paint, or a blue sky or a blue basketball. Just don't think about the color blue period. Now, how did that work for you? Right? We as humans, especially women, if we're told that we can't have, do, or consume something,

it is all we think about it. We want it even more, we think about it even more. And every woman I've ever met that struggles with overeating or emotional eating, she's so sick of thinking about food, and I have a feeling you are too. But when you're part of that all or nothing, black white on off mindset, it forces you to think about and assess over food and

that's no way to live. And that's why weekends feel like such a trigger because there's only so much willpower at your disposal after a week of trying to air quotes, be good or abstain from your favorite foods, or just feeling hungry all the time, So it's only natural that you might feel out of control on the weekends. But if you're not already sold on this idea, here's one more reason that trying to restrict and control food and

just the diet mentality in general is the problem. And honestly, it's the only reason that really matters in my opinion, and that's that it doesn't work. It's not even solving the problem. In fact, it's perpetuating it and making it worse. And here's why. You know your brain it is this beautiful pattern making machine that really it's designed to just get good at whatever it practices. So, you know, skills, the more we practice them, they're supposed to get easier

the more we practice them. So if I'm learning Spanish, technically, the more I speak it, the better I get. Or if I'm trying to learn the ukulele, right, the more I play, the better I should get. But then why with weight loss and dieting do we get worse at it the more we practice it? While dieting and weight loss get harder because they are working against the brain, they're causing all of those negative neuro associations. And here's what you need to know about your brain. It's super simple.

Your brain will never get good at something that causes its stress or something that it outright hates. And that's why restricting yourself and depriving yourself and trying to eliminate entire food groups, your brain will never adopt that long term, and it's bound to just rebound the other way, particularly on the weekends if you're experiencing that, if that's what you're trying to get it to do the other four

or five days of the week. And so yeah, even though technically control and restriction and punishment and persuasion can be used as tools when they're used strategically, but for most women they've become, you know, massive weapons of resistance.

And that's because you know, controlling yourself and micromanaging your food and take and obsessing or restricting yourself, depriving yourself, trying to eliminate entire food groups, or punishing yourself, whether that's you know, starving yourself because you ate something that you deemed naughty or feeling the incessant desire to go burn off what you ate with exercise, or you know, persuading yourself, whether that's to eat or not eat something,

or trying to force or convince yourself to stick with something that's making you miserable. These are all things that are the opposite of freedom, and this is what perpetuates that weekend self sabotage and the emotional eating and the all or nothing diet mentality. Especially during the weekends and holidays and evening on the couch or whenever, you're more susceptible to overeating or feeling like a self sabotager. So that's reason number one and really the main reason that

I wanted to get across. But there's a couple other factors that also come into place, so I wanted to take a look at those two. So the next reason this happens, and unfortunately it's one of the things that most health experts aren't talking about. A lot of women have a very emotional or stressful relationship with food. So for me, I started using sugar as my numbing device and boredom killer and security blanket from a very young age. It was always there for me and when I needed it,

I could depend on it. So as an at all, I brought that relationship with me. Only food then became my boyfriend when I was lonely, or my source of relaxation when I had a hard day or felt stressed, or my comfort when I didn't feel like doing something or feeling what I was feeling, or let's be honest, when I didn't even know what I was feeling or

not feeling because I was so numbed out. But when you have an emotional relationship with food, it doesn't matter what logical plan you have about what you're going to eat, because your emotions will eventually win. And I mean, sure, you can motivate or persuade yourself not to eat certain things, but until you unwire that emotional relationship with food that's occurring in your brain. Notice I didn't say just the mind.

It's in your brain, and you go fire and wire a new relationship with food, emotions will always win out in the long run. And again it's not your fault. There's nothing wrong with you if you do have an emotional relationship with food. It's a brain thing and a connection that got created somewhere along the lines that can be rewired anytime. You know, you are never too old, too young, too lost, too far gone to fill in the blank to go create that brain change. But again,

this is the real way. And so if food does stress you out, or maybe it bums you out or just kind of weighs you down. Food is not the problem if it's you know, your source of comfort when you're sad or lonely or strussed or bored and you're using it to fill a void. Again, there's absolutely no shame in that whatsoever. But that's the problem that needs to be addressed, not the food itself. It's your relationship with food and who you're being around food that's the problem. Right,

And here's one thing that we can count on. Food. It's not going away, right, It's not like we can just abstain from it. And temptation is not going away. And family gatherings and holidays and nights out on the town and tired nights at home on the couch, the times when statistically most people te to mindlessly eat or stress eat or binge eat or emotionally eat, they aren't going away either. In fact, you know, we can count on the fact that food will always be a part

of our lives. So the way I see it, yeah, we can ignore that and just you know, hope that willpower and discipline magically appear to counter all the restriction and control or you know, a you can prepare yourself to better handle those situations when they do come, and be little by little prevent them from happening in the future. Because this is the real weight in your mind, body, and brain. And that brings us perfectly into the third and final reason of why we sabotage or just kind

of rebound on the weekends. That brings us perfectly into the third and final reason of why we sabotage or just kind of rebound on the weekends. And again, this one might sound counterintuitive, but it's that we haven't ever fully committed to transforming our relationship with food. So just

hear me out. This is the conversation that I had to eventually have with myself, and this is the conversation I have to have with every single one of my clients before we start working together, because it's make or break, And so I always ask them, you know, are you at that point where you're ready to heal this and you're committed to actually solving this no more band aids, as in, are you radically committed to not just losing weight and putting that at the forefront, but to healing

this struggle for good, addressing it from the root, and ending the struggle that's causing the problem, or is this just something you're interested in, Because there is a huge difference, a massive difference between being interested in something versus being one thousand percent committed to something right not to mention the other distinction in there, there's a very big difference between committing to lose weight versus committing to healing what

is slowly killing you. So for me, my enough is enough point came when I realized I just I couldn't and I wasn't willing to live another day living with all the stress and obsession and emotion that was coming alongside food for me. Because it might sound dramatic to somebody that's never struggled with the demons of living in a food and body prison, but you know, for all of you listening to this podcast, I know you get it. But all this stuff that we're talking about today, it

was genuinely ruining my life. And I felt awful about myself. I was outright, you know, self hateful, and all of the shame and judgment and self criticism I felt from it just spilled out into every other area of my life. And that's when I realized that I couldn't just dabble

in fixing the problem. I had to get committed, as in my internal dialogue had to shift from I want to or i'd like to to I'm doing this like I'm flippin gonna address my struggles with food once and for all, address my struggles with myself emotionally, you know, because it was so much more than food. But learn a way of thinking and being that I can actually live with easily and happily, and just release myself from

this prison that I've been living in for decades. And for me, it's when the conversation shifted from it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when, because this is happening, and so again, this looks so different for all of us and for my clients, some of their enough as enough moments came in the form of realizing they were creating a massive barrier between their husbands or their partners, that there was only so many times that they could their husband their partner could try to

be intimate and get rejected, or tell her she was beautiful and get rejected before the rift got too big to repair. That they were actually afraid that the hold that food or their body image had over their life would ruin their relationship. For one of my clients, it was realizing that she was passing on her food struggles to her children, and she was deathly afraid that if she didn't do something about it, she would have to witness her daughters or sons go through the same pain

and suffering that she was experiencing. For some of my clients, it was a bit more quantifiable, you know, realizing how much money they were spending trying to fix the external problem with diets and gym memberships, or simply how much they were spending on food. And by the way, it's really expensive. Did you know that the average diet throws away four thousand dollars a year in groceries and that's every single year, you know, foods that they bought for

diets but didn't end up using. And the average binge eater spends about five thousand dollars a year on binge

foods and comfort foods and drive throughs and Starbucks. So again, some of my clients enough is enough point game in the form of that, But for many it was simply realizing that they were sick and tired of food keeping them in a prison, a prison of loneliness and shame and feeling like a failure and that they were sick of this one thing just spilling over into their lives and stealing their joy and robbing them of their freedom and causing them to feel like they were trapped in

a body that didn't represent who they really were, like the inside didn't match the outsides right, And so it shows up so differently for each of us. But I do believe we all need to hit that enough is enough point that causes us to shift from being interested in addressing the struggle to absolutely committed to solving it

for good, no more band aids. And this is one of the most common things I get asked, the most common frustration I hear about with the women I talk to, and one of the topics that the health and weight loss industry are still throwing diets at to solve. And it might sound a bit counterintuitive, but over eating or feeling out of control on the weekends, it isn't really a food problem. It's a relationship with food problem. It's

a relationship with self problem. And when you make the internal shifts in your thinking and fire and wire a new relationship with food, that sets you up for freedom. That is when food can just be food again and you can truly set yourself free. And I get it. This is the stuff that's not super sexy. You know, most women take a look at this last. But I'm telling you it's one of the main things that's causing and perpetuating your struggles. And I can promise you this.

You know, let's say you do go reach your ideal weight or your ideal size. You know, if you've been being your hyperjudgmental self critical, shaming, blaming and comparing self your whole life, that doesn't just magically go away. And if you are handcuffed to a diet or reliant on out exercising your eating struggles to stay there, that doesn't

magically go away either. If you don't address the habits and the thinking and the behaviors that got you there, law of cause and effect says you'll go create more of the same. Because knowing what to do is one thing, but getting yourself to do it is another. And that's why I'm here to remind you of something that we've talked about on the past few episodes, is that you can't outdiet and outperform and outsmart your self image and

your brain. And so if your inner self talk is taking you in the direction of failure or disbelief or straight up on happiness, it's leading you in the wrong direction, and you deserve a better direction. And if your brain is reliant on food or sugar to handle stress and deal with your emotions, that's something that needs to be addressed too, because that's what's keeping you stuck in the

struggle and on that up and down roller coaster. And again, there is no shame in that I was there for so long, and I'll be the first to admit it too. You know, I did not have the guts to quit dieting for a very long time, you know. Controlling what or how much I ate it felt like the one way I could have some sense of control over my body or over my weight. And deep down though I knew if I wasn't handcuffed to a diet, I was desperately afraid I would fall off the deep end or

go gain a bunch of weight. That's how out of control dieting left me. But I knew that if I wasn't playing food police, ninety nine percent of the time, my inner glutton would take over because I never addressed my relationship with food, so it left me feeling crazy and so out of control. But it's all I knew.

It's kind of like the devil you know is better than the one that you don't know, right, So yeah, I totally get it, and I get what might be coming up for you just simply thinking about the idea of giving up dieting. If you're like most women, it's you know, most likely the only strategy you've ever known. But this is where I just want to impress upon you, do not let it fool you. Like the sense of control that you might be thinking dieting gives you, it's

an illusion. And I mean, if it did work, you'd be at your ideal weight and know how to keep it off and feel healthy. Right, And that's why I'm inviting you into the possibility of what if you had a relationship with food that actually set you free, one that you didn't need to control because you were the one in control of you, not a food that you felt powerful in the face of food, so that you

made the choices that you truly wanted to make. Now, that is is a totally different conversation, right, because it's a conversation of simplicity and freedom and peace of mind and health and happiness, rather than feeling like you are sacrificing your health for your happiness or vice versa. It's also very different than diet and controlling, you know, confusion, stress, always feeling like you have to choose between that health or that happiness. So I don't believe you have to choose.

I believe you can have both. But it first means actually choosing freedom, not leading with you know, weight loss or dropping a few pounds, like choosing freedom. And that's a choice that any woman can make. So that is it for today, out weigh And I know maybe that's not what your thought was gonna come up when we talked about this idea of why you feel especially out

of control on the weekends. But I wouldn't be who I was if I didn't share the real truth, because I know it's tempting to just want to, you know, put some quick put in some quick tips or how too's, but that will just put a short term band aid on the problem. And at the end of the day, you don't need more band aids. You know, you're listening to this podcast because you really want to heal this and I hope you got exactly what you needed today.

You know, one distinctions, one teeny little thing that sparked something new in your brain and sends it in a new direction. And if you liked what you heard today and want to hear more about my perspective of rewiring your own brain and your self image when it comes to food and your body, then head on over to stresslesseeding dot com and sign up to watch the Stressless Eating webinar where I walk you through the exact five step game plan that my clients use themselves to heal

from that all or nothing diet mentality for good. But you know, we're without the restriction and the deprivation and definitely without ever having to use words like macros or low carb or calorie burns. So I've laid it all out for you in five easy steps over at Stressless Eating dot com and if you like today's episode, we will be back next week for more outweigh where we're going to talk about how to know if you're using food and exercise as a tool or using it as

a weapon. So I'm leahe Ellington and I will talk to you then