Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. It's Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility and Happy Earth Day. If you are listening, when this comes out, it is Earth Day 2025. I just love Earth Day. I don't necessarily do much on Earth Day, and if you do, I'd love to hear what you do. But I love that there's a day that we get to think about the Earth. I just, I think that that makes a difference.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:27]:
It's like, I love that there's a day for giving thanks and I love that there's a day to celebrate each of us our birthday. And I love that there's a anniversary. And I like that there are days that call our attention to things. It's nice to think about our friends and, you know, our loved ones all the time. But it's also nice that there's a day that we can devote and that's how I feel about Earth Day. So hug a tree. I think I'll do that. Actually.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:54]:
My friend recently gave me a camellia plant. I love camellias. And we planted it in the backyard. It is the cutest little thing. I may show it maybe on Instagram. I'm on Instagram. Are you? I'm effaniefinemd. I'm posting there all the time, giving you encouragement, showing you some beautiful things and that my camellia little tree will be one of them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:20]:
Okay, so Happy Earth Day. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today we are talking about when the cookies are calling from inside the pantry, what to do, what to do when an urge strikes. So I think of the cookies calling from inside the pantry as an urge. It also can be thought of as like food noise or food chatter. It's a craving or an urge. It's a sort of this thought that compels us. And when we have those urges and cravings can derail our weight loss efforts.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:02]:
They really can. Like everything can go be going really well and then we have one of these and it feels out of our control. And then when we eat because of them, we feel hopeless. It just feels like there's nothing we can do about it. But the good news is there is something we can do about it. For sustained weight loss, we have to learn to deal with these urges. The food noise. And that is part of the weight loss for fertility process urge work episode 52 goes into it pretty much in detail and 87 is a real life example.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:38]:
That's without food because urges happen all the time. Of course, lots of urges happen with food and we talk about those mostly here. Today I want to teach you a concept that can help with urges, and it actually comes right before traditional urge work. So remember, check out episode 52 to get the traditional urge work process. But today we're going to talk about something that comes just before it. And in combo, they really help with the food noise and the urges. It's a technique that will have you understanding your brain a bit better and understanding the connections it has made. And when you do, you can become your own brain translator.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:29]:
The sentences it gives you, you translate that into what you really need. The brain itself, of course, is a very useful tool. It's an understatement, but it's the middle. I wrote Middleman, actually, and I'm just thinking it's the middle person. Of course, it's not a person. It's the go between the outside world and our actions. So it's sort of central control, right? It gathers data, it spits out ideas. And then this is the important part, we decide which ideas we want to carry out, and then we carry them out or not.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:09]:
We may decide they're not good ideas and that we don't want to carry them out. It's a little like ChatGPT in this regard, that it takes in the information and then it spits out ideas. But we don't just use what ChatGPT gives us. We have to look at it and decide. We make decisions. Do we like that? Do we not? It's the same with our brain. Our brain's going to throw out ideas and we can pick and choose the ones that we want to do. Sometimes it processes things that we don't want to have to decide about, like our heart beating or our lungs breathing, that sort of thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:45]:
So that's a different part of the brain. We're not talking about that part. We're talking about the part where we can make decisions about our actions. So we want to be able to decide how we respond to a comment, or what we put in our mouths, or which direction we're going to go. You know, there's lots of times that we want to make a decision about the information our brain is presenting to us. That's a really important piece. So let's start at the beginning. What is an urge? I'm talking about when the ideas floats through your head, that a cookie sounds like a good idea right about now, but you're not hungry.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:32]:
So a typical time that this happens is like after dinner. You've had dinner, it was delicious, nutritious, fantastic. You Ate when you're hungry, you stop when you're satisfied. Maybe you cleaned up a little bit and maybe you're sitting on the couch and all of a sudden your brain's like, hmm, how about a cookie? If you are hungry and sometimes thinking of food, especially certain kinds of food, can be an indicator of hunger, often over hunger. So if your brain starts to think about food sort of constantly, that can be another reason for food noise. It could easily mean that you actually are hungry. That can be like a negative three. And then that's not an urge, that's hunger.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:15]:
And we feed it. So I'm not talking about after dinner, unless if you are hungry after dinner, maybe it's been hours after dinner, or your dinner wasn't particularly satisfying in terms of, you know, that there was protein and fiber in there. Maybe we're talking about hunger after dinner, but usually after dinner it's not hunger. But if in other times in the day you are thinking about food, there's more food noise that could. And it's like it's actually hunger. It's time for food. That is different than an urge. So food noise is sort of the all encompassing category.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:53]:
And then we're talking about urges and there can be hunger there with food noise. So it's important to know the difference. And we can only do that by checking in, noticing am I hungry? That sort of thing. What's wonderful about the food scale, you know, I love the food scale, is because it trains us to become conscious of how we're feeling, to check in with ourselves, to notice what's going on inside. And that gives us so much good information. So if it turns out that the food noise is because you actually are hungry, then hopefully you've planned a nutritious meal and with some protein in it. And you eat that. Because if you're actually hungry and you just go for the cookie in the pantry that's calling your name, it a meal of cookies really doesn't work out that well, I'm sure you know that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:42]:
But as grown ups, like we could eat a meal of cookies, but eating unopposed sugar. And what I mean by that is sugar without anything anchoring it like protein or fiber, it just usually feels terrible. And again, we can check this out because we're checking our hunger scale. We're used to checking in and so we know how foods make us feel. And for me, it's like a slightly jittery sort of emptiness that happens after. So at first I feel satisfied, but then soon if I'm just having unopposed Sugar, like, just like ice cream or something. At first I feel satisfied, but soon after, I'm left feeling out of energy. And so then it's like, ugh.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:24]:
Then I have to eat something with protein in it. Cause I'm hungry again. It just ends up not being worth it. I recently had this experience and it reminded me I really don't like to have unopposed sugar. I do suggest, in general, this is a total aside, that if we're planning to have something with sugar, it's great to have it after a meal. So we save a little room. We don't eat all the way till positive 2 of the meal, and then we have the sugary treat. It will land so much better in our bodies and we won't have that empty, jittery feeling.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:59]:
Okay, now back to the Oreo calling from inside the pantry. If we notice, we're thinking we want a cookie and we're not hungry. We want to get to the point where we can see that thought as a call for help. When I say call for help, it makes me think of Marianne Williamson. You know, her idea, it actually came from the book A Course in Miracles, but a call for love. So she says every act is either loving or a call for love. And our brain has learned to ask for help in a different way by suggesting that we eat an Oreo. But at its base, it's a call for help.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:44]:
I always think calls for help are also calls for love, but that's separate. I just like to slip love in there wherever I can. So what we're talking about here is our brain has learned to ask for help by suggesting we eat an Oreo. But the actual base of that is our brain asking for help. We want to uncouple the help from the Oreo. So Another episode, episode 41, goes into more detail about this part, but I'm going to give you the short version. The brain learned long ago that feeling certain feelings was not okay. So an answer was required.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:30]:
We needed to take care of that. It's not okay to have big feelings or certain feelings in our family wasn't okay. So we had to fix that. And a distraction, perhaps, was the answer. And food filled that bill for many of us, especially if we established this connection as children. Food was available to us and socially acceptable like. And so when the brain notices an uncomfortable feeling, it offers the solution of food. Because that was something that we did as kids.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:04]:
And so for decades, our brain's been doing this. And so that's why an urge for food emerges sometimes, especially if it's connected to emotional eating, which usually it is. So the concept here I want to introduce is when we notice the urge, we can train our brain to translate that feeling, that thought, that feeling, the one that's compelling us to go to the pantry, into a call for help. So when we notice the urge, we can train our brain to translate that feeling, the one that's compelling us to go to the pantry, we translate it into a call for help. And when someone calls for help, like they ask us for help, what do we say? How can I help? What's wrong? And that's exactly what I want us to get in the habit of doing to ourselves. What's going on? What do you need, sweetie? How can I help you? Those sweet questions are the ones we need to ask when we notice an urge happening. So we're starting to make the connection that any eating when we're not hungry is a call for help, because those would be urges. And we ask ourselves what we ate actually need, because we don't need the cookie because we're not hungry.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:42]:
But we do have another need, and we need to find out what it is. That bit of information is key to understanding ourselves, right? Because it could be, I'm bored, I'm nervous, I'm frustrated, I'm on autopilot, or another word for tired. I need pleasure, I'm depressed, I need comfort. All of these things are really, really important to know. And the urge can actually be a window into finding out more about ourselves. I mean, it's actually a beautiful. I mean, it's frustrating because urges are challenging, but really, this is why I love this work. It can turn into the window.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:33]:
We need to learn more about ourselves. Because if it turns out the cookies are calling from the pantry every night, what we can find out is, oh, I'm completely bored with my nighttime routine. I don't like to watch tv or I don't like to, whatever it is you're doing. And so then, aha, we have insight. Maybe I need to try something new in the evening. Maybe I can actually go get another hour of sleep because I've been very tired. And so maybe that would be helpful. And maybe if it's you're frustrated at work, we can have some insight into what is frustrating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:17]:
And maybe things can change when we ask ourselves how we can help, we learn about ourselves, and we can take action from there, which is what we really need. Not jelly beans. And jelly beans can prevent us from basically progressing in life because we just dull that call for help. It Just had the image of like a kid needs something but we distract it, you know, and it could have been, honestly it could have been. That's how we got here, right, that we were given food. I mean it so often happens, right? A baby cries, we shove the bottle in its mouth. Now babies do need a lot of nutrition so it's, it's confusing but our caretakers could have been very well meaning. But it just does get a little confused about our needs and food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:24]:
And so we want to un confuse, we want to pick apart now that we're grown ups, that we are responsible for our thinking. We understand the concepts that we can control, the way that we respond to our thoughts, not every single solitary thought. We don't have to be robots, but ones especially that end up in something we're not happy with, which here we're talking about weight gain. So if we're gaining weight, one of the reasons may be that we're using food in a way that's not helpful to us. But we do still have a need. That's what's important about this concept. We have to ask ourselves, what do you need? Because we have a need at that moment. If we're having an urge for something, there's a need there.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:20]:
It just has been shortcut by going for food. But there's an actual need and we want to find out what that is. That's how also we strengthen the relationship with ourselves. We're curious about ourselves and then we actually give ourselves help that is strengthening. If someone is willing to help me, I have a closer relationship with them. That's what we want to do for ourselves. The combo of this concept, using urge as a call for help and translating it to what you really need and urge work itself. Remember that's episode 52 will set us free when it comes to food noise.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:05]:
It will just simply vanish. Now that's not entirely true. It's not that it vanishes, but it becomes something so subtle and easily understood and ignored really. It's kind of like it goes from something very big and distracting to like a little fly that you just swat away. And that's the problem with food noises if it's just very loud and constant, but if it's soft and easily ignored, then it's just not a problem. So as a recap, food noise makes weight loss harder. Freeing ourselves from it makes sustained weight loss possible. And it feels so much better not to have very loud food noise all the time.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:01]:
We do that with Urge work and becoming aware of emotional eating. This micro emotional eating that we're talking about. We do that by translating the urge into a call for help. And when we hear that call, we ask ourselves, what do you need, sweetie? What's going on? How can I help? This work transforms our weight by transforming our relationship to food and ourselves. That's the answer here. That has always been the thing I'm going for. Because when we transform our relationship with food and ourselves, weight just comes off and it stays off. And that's what's valuable here, is the weight staying off.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:57]:
Losing it and gaining it back isn't a waste of time. We need to figure out how to think about food and ourselves in a way that makes weight loss unneeded. We don't need it anymore because we've sustained the weight we're happy with. I'm always here to help you with that. If you want to lose weight with me, you can find me on my website, Stephanie finemd.com or on Instagram or LinkedIn. Effaniefynmd. You can always reach out to me. I am sending you so much love on this Earth Day and finding out what you need from yourself and giving it to yourself.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:37]:
It's all about love, right for the earth and for ourselves. Until next week, I'm sending you love.
