Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:01]:
Hello, fabulous. It's Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility. And I want to talk about and name a skill we develop here when we lose weight, the weight Loss for Fertility way. It's an integral part of losing weight and keeping it off forever. And the keeping it off forever is the hallmark of the way we lose weight around here. It's only useful if we learn a way to lose weight and keep it off forever. It's a waste of time if we just cut out carbs, and that's not what we're going to do for the rest of our life.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:38]:
So we have to figure out a way to make it sustainable. And one aspect of that is dealing with emotional eating. So we learn to eat when we're hungry, stop when we're satisfied, meaning that food is only used to solve one thing and that's physical hunger. It can be enjoyable. It's a lovely and delicious way to do it. But the only reason we eat is when our body needs fuel and our body tells us by giving us signals, hunger signals. And so we learn to do that because there are so many factors that have us unlearn that, that depend on external cues instead of our internal c. So we relearn that and then we see that when we're eating for any other reason than physical hunger, that's overeating, that's eating more than our body needs, and that's a place for us to change, to be able to stop overeating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:43]:
And that is one of the areas that we're going to talk about today. So the skill is the ability to identify and feel a difficult emotion. Notice the old habit coping mechanism, and we identify it by noticing the voice, the habitual command it has for us. And then we actively choose a new way, a different way. And I call this ability discomfort tolerance. So that's the skill that dissolves emotional eating, discomfort tolerance. And I call it that because it feels uncomfortable to change a habit and it feels uncomfortable to feel a particularly difficult feeling. The better we get at discomfort tolerance, the faster and easier we lose weight and keep it off forever.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:48]:
Now, this is actually sort of an advanced concept because there's nuances here. And the first thing I want to do is make a distinction. I'm talking about discomfort, not pain. And the discomfort is what I alluded to. Discomfort is feeling an uncomfortable feeling. So that's like an emotional discomfort. It actually can have some physical aspects to it and it can be painful, but it's not debilitating pain. It's not very, very painful.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:22]:
Discomfort is feeling a difficult feeling, but it's also holding the old coping mechanism and the new one at the same time. That can be a little uncomfortable again. Emotional discomfort, that's what we're talking about When I say discomfort tolerance. This is not a secret way of me saying suck it up. There's not a lot of suck it up around here because it doesn't work. That is not a consensual way for yourself to do something when you tell yourself to just suck it up. And this is also not a secret way of forcing yourself to restrict your food or take out whole food categories or punish yourself with brutal workouts. That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about discomfort tolerance.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:15]:
It's an emotional discomfort. It's not a forcing, a punishment, a pain that way. I did a podcast. It's episode 84, and that would be a good companion to listen to. It's sort of the 1.0 version of this. It's titled Get Good at this one thing and weight loss is easy and it goes into more pain versus discomfort. So I definitely recommend that this episode here is version 2.0 of that. Another way I describe it, and I describe it in episode 84, that discomfort is like learning to write with your non dominant hand.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:58]:
It's uncomfortable, it's unfamiliar, but it's not actually painful. Discomfort tolerance is a skill we need to be able to resolve or transform emotional eating. And emotional eating is a form of overeating. Because we're eating for reasons other than physical hunger. Discomfort tolerance develops as we get better, better and more practiced at feeling our feelings. That's one of the foundations of discomfort tolerance. We have to learn how to feel our feelings, notice them, and then process them. Feel them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:40]:
I'm going to give you a refresher here, but episode 7 and 96, go into more detail about how to process feelings. So when we're processing feelings, we first have to notice them and we get into our body and locate the physical sensations. When I say get into our body, I'm saying focus on our body. I'm closing my eyes right now. When I'm doing that, that usually helps me focus internally. And then we locate the physical sensations of the feeling and we describe them either out loud or to yourself, but describe them in detail. So there's a warm, prickly sensation right in the middle of my chest and it's radiating out to my arm. Like that kind of thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:28]:
You narrate it. And when you're being with the sensations and describing them, you stay with them until they dissipate. And it's surprising how fast that happens when we're giving the feeling the attention it's requiring or wanting. And as you've done that, as you've been with it and and narrated how it's changed and moved and then dissipated, you have officially felt the feeling. You've allowed the feeling. That's amazing. It really is a skill. And when we are okay with feeling our feelings, then we don't need to stuff them down with food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:10]:
Most of us were not taught how to feel our feelings or even that they were okay to have or feel, which of course feels terrible because we have them all the time. And if we weren't allowed to have them, if we were shamed for having them or shushed for having them, which most of us were, then it made it doubly difficult. Most of our caregivers weren't taught, and they may have been just as scared of feelings as we were. So they're scared of their own feelings. They're scared of your feelings. It's just a big mess when we don't know how to do. And when we're scared, we avoid, we run away, we hide. And food is one of the ways that we do that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:49]:
So we come by it really honestly. But it stops serving us when we've bumped up against something where we've decided we don't want to eat more than our body needs and keep that layer on us when we want to lose weight. It's one of the gateways into emotional growth. Because if we learn to feel our feelings, which would be emotional growth, we're doing so in service of weight loss. Doesn't matter to me how we get there, as long as we get here. It's amazing. And this will absolutely help us stop emotionally eat, which is overeating, which then by definition we're losing weight, or we're at our natural weight is really what happens. And then we get to stay there.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:39]:
You see how that works? Because once, now we're not overeating, we're not emotionally eating, we can lose the weight. So we're at a natural weight for our body, and then we stay there. I mean, in my opinion, it's the way to go. When we learn that feeling feelings is not only okay but necessary, we begin feeling them. And eventually what we learn is that there's nothing there. There's no scary abyss. There's really nothing to be afraid of. We were sort of taught, or maybe it occurs naturally because it really can be scary to Feel feelings that we're afraid to even go near them.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:20]:
And I really do think that what we're afraid of is, like, death. Like, that's how primal it is that we're so afraid to feel. Hard, scary feelings that we avoid them at all costs. But if we're willing to feel them, if we're willing to process them, and it's just as I described, nothing's actually happening except for sensation inside us. It turns out there's nothing to be afraid of. I think of it as like, Oz, you know, nothing behind the curtain. We're so afraid. But turns out it's nothing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:53]:
It's smoke and mirrors. And the feelings can't kill you. I think they feel like they might, but they can't. And when we learn that it's magical, I do think it comes from our sweet preverbal state. And that's why it feels so dangerous. It's big feelings like scared or disconnected or sad. And we're really confused because it really is painful. We don't know the difference between emotional pain and physical pain as it baby.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:24]:
And we are really vulnerable, and we feel vulnerable. And as soon as we can manage the fear on our own, many of us did that with food, and we got some relief. So then that's how we created that connection in our brain. So we continue to use that method until it created a result we no longer wanted and we're no longer willing to tolerate it. So if we want to lose weight permanently, we need to learn to deal with our feelings so we can use food for fuel and different coping mechanisms to help us with the uncomfortable emotions. The first way, of course, is feeling the feeling. But there are also other ways that are helpful. And I have two examples here for you.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:13]:
Two recent client examples. They came close together, and that's where this episode was born. Okay. The first client was going through a very emotional, difficult time, as you can imagine, many of my clients are. And she woke up one morning. Actually, it wasn't even one morning. It was multiple mornings. But she woke up in the morning and her voice came to her.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:37]:
It's no use. Give it all up. Don't work on anything. Don't do anything. Just stop. And just with opening her eyes in the morning. But then she heard pretty quickly right after a wise voice that said, well, before we make any decisions, why don't we reach out to our friend, Give her a call. That's worked in the past.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:01]:
Let's see what we can do. And she did, and it helped tremendously, as she knew it would, because she's done that in the past. It's helped in the past. She knows her wise self knows that that's helpful, but that didn't mean that she didn't have the old coping mechanism voice that was like, oh, that's it, give it up, no use, not happening. And that's a really familiar voice, but she's getting really good at noticing, at feeling the feelings as choosing something else. So I'm going to get back to that one in a moment, but I'm going to go on to the second one. The second one, in the face of great sadness, had the desire to eat. So it was just her old coping mechanism coming.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:54]:
And she knew she didn't want to, so she knew she was feeling sad. She heard loud and clear the voice that was telling her to eat. So she had cravings about this, but she also didn't want to because she is in the process of losing weight and she's interested in continuing to do that. So she remembered things that has helped her in the past when she's sad. And one of those things was going on a hike. So she was able to do that. Now she wasn't sure she could do the whole hike. She was really feeling sad, but.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:30]:
But she let herself try it and see. She's like, okay, if you really don't want to continue, we won't have to. We'll just go a little bit and see what happens. And she ended up doing the whole hike. Not because she had boundless energy and she felt so amazing. It was because there was kindness there, there was allowing there. She kept checking in with herself and it kept being the best decision to continue on the hike. And it did, in fact, have her feeling better.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:04]:
And it makes sense, the endorphins, nature, all the rest of that stuff. But here's a very important point. In neither of these examples did it feel great. Neither person was like, okay, great idea, let's do it. You know, Both heard the wise part of them and they knew it was worth a try and they agreed to try, but it was uncomfortable. If they wanted to feel comfortable, the familiar feeling, they would have had to eat, like mindlessly in front of the television. That would have been the. Traditionally, for them, comfort was mindless eating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:39]:
But they knew they had the part inside them. They've already developed it. It's been developing over time. They knew that wouldn't actually solve the problem. And so they were with the discomfort. They chose the uncomfortable way to start teaching themselves, showing themselves that another way actually helps. And the eating doesn't. It causes a whole bunch of other problems.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:09]:
They both knew they wanted to respond differently. And because they both have the goal of weight loss and also because they knew, really, really knew, that the old coping mechanism wouldn't actually help eating, wouldn't make the sad go away, and in fact it would make it worse. Right, by delaying the inevitable. Because they still had the sadness there. They still had the circumstance that had them feeling sad and creating the problem of physical discomfort and prolonging the weight loss process. So it just, it would make things worse. They were able to tolerate the discomfort. They have discomfort tolerance.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:50]:
They were able to tolerate the discomfort of choosing the wise voice. Something else they have in common is they did this with great kindness and it's not a mistake. That's how it works. When we're kind, we're not resistant to the old habit voice. We understand why it's there. Of course, it's been there for decades. Of course it's going to come up. We're not mad at it, we're not ashamed of it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:15]:
We don't punish it, we just notice it and we say, you know what? I'm going to try something different. Thanks so much. I completely appreciate your trying to help me. And I think this other way is something we're going to try. It's like that. That's the feeling around it. It's not intense, it's not resistant, it's not white knuckling. It's not willpower.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:42]:
It's a kindness. It's a, let's give it a try. The idea is that there was a more mature voice that had a better idea and it really was clear to them that it was a better idea. Maybe it wouldn't have worked, but it probably would. And so it was worth a try. And it doesn't mean that the habit voice will go away. It just means you have a stronger connection to the wise part. And that's what we're doing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:12]:
That wise part is the part where we build the self trust, the self love. That wise part is the one we want to start listening to. We can recognize it by its kindness. The habit voice is usually sort of trying to power through. And also you recognize it because it's usually been there a long time. Your discomfort tolerance grows and you can do more and more things much more easily and faster. You can handle bigger emotions quicker and without food. As we practice this skill, recovery from difficult emotions is faster.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:51]:
Expectations are more realistic and reasonable, and you feel better more of the time. Because if you move through difficult emotions, then you get to the other side and you're feeling better already. We're not going to erase the feelings, but when we move through them and we don't resist them, and we don't shame them or judge them, then it's like a clean way of going through the emotion and then we get to feel better. We don't have to feel the feelings that come with judgment and shame and resistance. We just feel the feeling that's going to be there anyway and we're able to move through. When you do it this way, when you have discomfort tolerance, you don't need to eat to cope with the feelings. And when you're not overeating, you're not physically uncomfortable, there's no shame or guilt. That whole cycle of eating when you're not hungry, overeating, physically uncomfortable, then comes shame and guilt.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:48]:
That whole cycle is gone and you just get to go on with your day. You just get to do the things you want to do. And that is such a freedom. It doesn't feel great all the time, but it does feel human discomfort tolerance grows with practice. And the irony is you feel less and less discomfort the more you practice this skill. Both because you increase your capacity to feel discomfort, but also because the feelings don't scare you and you're willing to feel them. It's no longer a problem. It's a beautiful place to be and you can get there through the process of losing weight.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:33]:
The weight loss for fertility way. It can be your gateway. So then, not only do you get to lose weight and feel comfortable in your body, but you get to have this skill that gives you other things you want, other abilities in terms of emotions. You can do more things that may feel scary because you can handle any emotion. That is freedom. And it's what I want for you. I'm so happy to be your guide through all of this. And if you want personal help, just lose weight with me.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:10]:
Find me @StephanieFeinMD on Instagram and LinkedIn or go to my website stephaniefeinmd.com and click the lose weight with me button and we'll be connected. Discomfort tolerance, it's a huge skill that works to dissolve emotional eating. And you can have this. It is possible. And let me know if you have any questions. I'm sending you so much love until next week.
