Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous Dr. Stephanie Fein here with weight Loss for fertility. And today we are doing a follow up of a follow up, a continuation of a real life example of a habit change for weight loss. And I just think this is to the previous discussion of this habit change. And the first one was episode 17. We're at 144, so it's been a little while. It's nice to have this long term experience of this habit change. It's really informative, kind of valuable.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:33]:
I'm including the notes, the links, because remember, we're always doing things long term here. So we're going to be looking at maintenance and what happens years later. And we are talking about years now. So I think it's exciting. In episode 17, we discussed when I changed from eating lunch at the couch to the table. That was over two years ago. I'm super happy to report that it's a completely ingrained habit. I only eat lunch at the table.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:02]:
I can't even imagine eating it at the couch anymore. Fantastic. And then episode 51, which was about six months after episode 17, I talked about building on lunch table habit and having dinner at the table because I was having dinner on the couch also. And in that episode, it was a jumping off point to discuss urges, which is a really important piece of behavior change. And urges is a very particular thing. And so I had an entire podcast episode on that and that was episode 52. So I highly recommend tuning into those after you listen to this one. One and a half years later, I am giving you a follow up to that follow up and it's a great chance to discuss what maintaining a habit can look like.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:52]:
So as I mentioned for the lunch, that habit just stuck. I can't imagine eating on the couch in the middle of the day anymore. Eating at the table makes it so much easier to be more productive. I'm well fueled. I'm not weighed down, I'm not uncomfortable, I'm not distracted. I just fuel my body, enjoy my lunch. I have a whole little system down. It's beautiful, that one.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:16]:
I just keep reinforcing it. So when we do a habit change, it really can go that way. It can just go. You change it, you do the process, it's changed and then it's changed forever. Amazing. But for dinner, I noticed recently that I was slipping back into eating on the couch. And that's why we're talking about this here, because I did notice this. I'm thinking, what do we do when that sort of thing happens where I did change the behavior and Then I had that for a while, and then I'm noticing I'm slipping back.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:50]:
This may be something really familiar. This is so common, right, that we change a habit and then we notice that we're back to the old habit and nothing's gone wrong when that happens. And this is a great example of two different ways that it can happen, right? The lunch one sticks and works really well and, and is self reinforcing. And then the other variation is this dinner one where it worked. And then I'm slipping back, the habit's creeping in. And the problem, of course, the whole reason I want to change the habit from the couch to the table is that when I am on the couch, I'm watching television. And when I'm watching television and eating, I overeat pretty much every time. And that can look like eating a whole serving without checking in at all with my hunger scale.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:45]:
Or it can lead to cravings and urges for sweets. I find that that happens where if I ate my dinner at the table, I'm fine and done and everything's perfectly fine. Like, I don't have an urge for sweets. I don't want it. It's not a problem. I'm not depriving myself. I just don't want it. It's not necessary.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:04]:
But if I eat at the couch with the television on, my brain starts to nag me about sweets and urges. And then, and this is what I was discovering, if I eat in front of the television, then the whole time I'm watching TV is open for eating, right? Like my brain's like, oh, we're gonna eat while we watch tv? Well, if we watch TV for two and a half hours, are we gonna eat for two and a half hours? And by the way, I used to, it would be much more the case that years ago would spend that whole time eating or fighting my brain or negotiating with my brain. It was very challenging. That's much less now. Like, that really doesn't happen now. But I am noticing the voices. And sometimes I'm able to work with him and sometimes not. When I sit at the table, I'm so much more in touch with my hunger scale and I'm not distracted.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:08]:
And it's table is meal. And then when I'm done at the table and done with my meal, it's. I'm done with eating. And that is so powerful and something that I definitely want. I like that feeling. I like that way of being clear to my brain and my body that that was mealtime and I enjoyed it. And Now I get to do something like maybe go watch television. And then the television doesn't become a place to be eating nonstop.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:42]:
So once I noticed that I was back in this habit that, as I've just described, does not work well for me, I did an evaluation. That's what we do around here. We look to see how something is. We look to see how something got the way it is, and if there's anything we can do about it. Now, evaluations are vital because if we're not willing to look at something and be curious about it, then we can't figure out what led to it, how to change it, what we want to do next. The most important part of an evaluation is that we have to do it without judgment. So we're not looking at something we've done that isn't. Like, I'm not looking at the fact that I'm sitting on the couch and I'm saying, oh, my God, I cannot believe how crazy it is that you're back here again.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:39]:
La, la, la. Not at all. I'm like, fascinating. How did that happen? In a genuinely curious way, when we come to it without judgment, our nervous system is calmer. If we come to a judgment, we're ready for a fight. We're tight. And not only are we physically tight, like I feel my muscles attracting, but our brain shuts down too. We're not creative.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:06]:
We're not able to think of things differently when we're defensive, and we become defensive with ourselves appropriately so when we are judging ourselves. So no judgment, just curiosity. It's so important. And when I'm doing this without judgment, I'm just making observations, not beating myself up, just using the curiosity and the evaluation. If you remember, we've had episodes on this is what worked, what didn't, and what we're going to do differently. We start with what worked. So we're getting our brain in a happier, more positive place. Our brain's happy to tell us the things that didn't work, and we want that here, as long as we're not judging.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:55]:
But we start with what worked. And so in this case, I started with what worked when I was eating at the table. And what I discovered is that it was much easier to do when my husband and I ate together at the table. But our schedules have changed, and my exercise timing has changed too. Like a bunch of things have changed. And he was getting home later, and my exercise went. I used to exercise in the evening, and then I was exercising in the morning, and so my hunger was different in the day. So then things sort of shifted earlier.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:29]:
So the. The difference between when I was hungry and when my husband was coming home was too much. I would have been way too hungry. And so when I was eating on my own, I got into the habit of eating on the couch. So now I go a little deeper in terms of my evaluation. Why did I tend to eat at the couch when I wasn't eating with my husband? And things I discovered are that I was lonelier, I didn't want to eat alone, and the television was keeping me company. Also, I was super tired and happy to be done with my day. And often what I'll do at the end of my day is watch something, you know, a great show and lie on the couch and that sort of thing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:18]:
So then I was more quickly going directly to the couch as opposed to eating dinner and then going to the couch. Those two things were making a big difference. Plus, with the tired and hungry, at the end of the day, I was more vulnerable to this idea of comfort eating, of just being on the couch and eating. Also, it's funny, I'm thinking about it. It seems harder to eat at the table. My brain wants to tell me that there's more cleanup involved. There's not. It's so funny, I question my brain.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:53]:
Why do you think there's more cleanup? There's not. I mean, there's a napkin at the table, but I guess there's a napkin at the couch. It's so funny. My brain really wants to tell me that it's actually more work. It is not. So these are the things to examine when we're looking at why something has changed. Why has the old behavior creeped in? There's always a reason. Sometimes when we blame ourselves for being lazy or not being able to do things, those harsh criticisms again shut our brain down.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:26]:
We can't look for what's actually going on. If I look at this, those are reasonable. I was no longer eating with my partner, and I wanted company with the television. And it's more comfortable. Those are reasonable. Our schedules change. That's a real thing. This happened for a good reason, not because there's something inherently wrong with me or I have flaws or it's impossible for me to change.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:58]:
Not true. And when our brain tells us that, we question it. Because it's always wrong. I was gonna say almost always, but the truth is, it's always wrong. The lazy way our brain has to find blame is to just blame us. So much easier because it's. Otherwise, it's more complicated it takes more effort to find the real reason. And our brain likes to be efficient.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:22]:
So it's like, ah, it's your fault. And then we're all too ready to accept that. But when we're not judging, when we question our thoughts, we can look for the real answers. And when we find the real answers, we can address them. So I know I'm going to be tired. So when that argument comes into my brain, I do not have to believe it, or I. Or I can support myself in a different way, right When I know that that's one of the issues. And what didn't work.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:55]:
So that what worked was eating with my husband. And these are the things that are not working. And after dinner, I continue to watch TV much of the time. And so that's something that's very different from lunch, right? At lunch, I did not have time to be watching television, so. And actually that was more likely to happen if I was sitting on the couch. So when I changed to the table, it just made me more productive. There were so many things that worked out really well, but that's how it's different. Lunch is different than dinner, because now lunch I would not be watching more television, but after dinner I could be watching more television.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:33]:
And so it got, you know, like a gray area. It just bled into itself. And what I could see there is that it's even more important to separate eating from watching tv, because again, if I'm eating and watching TV the whole time I'm watching tv, I could be eating. I mean, this is what my brain thinks. It likes to think that. So if I set up eating with watching TV when I'm watching, I'll be thinking I should be eating. And then if I binge watch, a binge for eating comes to. This is the general setup of my brain.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:10]:
So that used to happen, but it stopped happening. But it could be creeping in when I do this. So I'm very motivated to not eat while watching TV for dinner. But distracted eating sets me up to eat more. I think that's sort of generally true. Like for little kids, when we want them to eat more, if we distract them, they eat more. That's because that happens with humans. When we're distracted, we eat more too.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:44]:
And it's because we're not listening, we're not hearing our hunger signals and cues. So eating at the table creates the separation, the physical separation between eating and entertainment. And then the nagging isn't there in the same way. My brain won't nag me because it's really understanding. We eat at the table, we watch TV at the couch. So when I looked at what I wanted to do differently, I'm kind of back to where I was when I first started the habit change. Not exactly, but I'm back to the part where I try things and I fail and I make slow progress of the habit change. It won't be as hard as when I first did it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:28]:
And I have the success of the lunch example. I know it can work. I know it can. So then I just have to keep trying and figuring out how to do it better. So I'll just take my dinner to the table. I'll feel the discomfort in my body as my body wants to go back to the couch. I'll hear my brain come up with all the reasons why tonight is different. Tonight I should just go to the couch.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:54]:
Tomorrow I'll do the table. But I will anticipate that these will come, these thoughts and I will kindly talk to it. I will thank it for sharing and I will go to the table. It's really helpful to expect this because it 100% will happen. And the discomfort, like the physical discomfort is like I always liken it to. If you're a right handed person and you start learning to use your left hand to write with, to write, it's not painful, it's just strange and uncomfortable to use the other hand. But it can be done. You can change which hand you write with and you just keep practicing, Keep practicing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:37]:
It will happen. When I eat at the table, it's so much faster. I'm not saying I inhale it, but I'm saying the entire process of eating my meal, it doesn't take very long and there's less food. That's part of why it takes shorter. Because I eat just what I need, which is not a ton of food. You know, it's portions of food. When I'm at the table, there's less distraction, there's more enjoyment tasting the food. I'm there with the food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:12]:
And because there's less distraction, I'm in tune with my hunger signals. And that is so helpful when I'm eating. There's also more pride right now because I am super proud if I'm sitting at the table and creating the habit again. The wonderful thing about this too, and especially for night, and I can understand why it's a little harder at night because I think that's been a longer habit than the lunch one. But once I'm done with my dinner, there's a more deliberate thought about what I want to do after dinner. And that's really helpful, right? I have lots of different options. I can rest, I can take a bath, I can read a book, I can watch tv. I can have conversations with my husband, with my friends, with my kids.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:03]:
There's so many more options rather than just sort of the tired, hungry, sit on the couch, veg out. By the way, nothing wrong with vegging out in front of the television, but it's great to be able to make that conscious decision to do that. It just feels better. And I love things to feel better. So in today's episode, it's a follow up of a follow up, and we talked about my example of behavior change, my habit change of moving from eating at the couch to eating at the table. And there's the success for lunch. It's just beautiful. Works so well.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:47]:
And a different pattern with dinner. And there's nothing wrong with that kind of pattern for behavior change because when we notice it, we'll go back to changing it. I think the pattern was different and I alluded to it just before because I'm more tired at the end of the day. I'm looking for more comfort. It's a longer standing habit. There's periods of time when it works and periods of time when it doesn't, especially when there's changes in schedules. And that's what I discovered by doing the evaluation. It just creeps in and I can go back and see how that happened.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:27]:
It's really helpful because then sometimes this is just about logistics. Like the next time I have a change in schedule, I'll be aware to look for, oh, am I starting to eat at the couch again? Catching the periods of going back into old habits and consciously moving in the direction of the behavior I want is exactly how habits change permanently. All we're doing is catching the periods faster and then it sticks. So it's not a problem that this happened. We just get to utilize the process of noticing, evaluating, and starting the changing process. I'm going to expect discomfort and brain chatter. Not a problem. I'm going to be super understanding, kind and persistent with myself.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:23]:
And it's helpful because I know it's possible. I've shown myself that it is. And this whole process will get me there sooner and sooner. Remember, we're in it for the long haul, so it doesn't matter that this happened because this is going to be for the rest of my life. And as I fine tune and now I know to notice when there's schedule changes that this might happen. And I'LL be ready even faster. Behavior change is a big part of losing weight forever, and I'm here to help you with it. I'm @StephanieFeinMD on Instagram & LinkedIn.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:03]:
Stephaniefeinmd.com will get us connected. You just hit the lose weight with me button, and I'd love to work with you on this. Any habits you want to change, we can do it! Until next week. I'm sending you so much love.
