Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility and Happy Happy New Year. It's almost a week into the New Year, but still Happy New Year. First time we're speaking in 2026. I hope your 2026 brings you everything you want and more, and that may be, including weight loss, which is why you're here. So let's get to it. Let's talk about that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:26]:
The thing I'm talking about today is motivation, because it's the new Year and traditionally New Year, new you, there's lots of that sort of thing out there. And I want to talk about parts that I do not like about that and acknowledge the reality that sometimes we have more motivation at the beginning of the year to capitalize on. So the thing I want to make sure, the place I want you to check if you're coming from is this idea of New Year, new you, meaning there's something wrong with the you that you are now. There's not. You're amazing. And when we come from a place of hating ourselves or punishing ourselves or the traditional diet mentality, which is restriction, deprivation, punishing, harsh, all or nothing thinking, when we come from there, we set ourselves up not only to fail because we can only keep up harsh, restrictive things for so long, and then we will stop doing them, and then we will go back to what we were doing before. And if we did in fact, lose any weight, we will gain it back. That cycle is not innocuous.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:01]:
What I mean by that is it damages us. That cycle actually damages the belief in ourselves, the. The trust we have with ourselves because we think it should work. And when it doesn't, we lose faith, we lose belief in ourselves and our capability. And what's tragic about that is that it's not about you. It's a setup. It can't work. And what's difficult about that is that it looks like it does.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:43]:
Especially if, you know, on social media, on all the before and after pictures, and people did it and they did. But what you don't see, what they don't post, is a year later, six months later, the difficulty. They're not going out with friends, they're not living their life while they're losing weight. That does not work. And again, the bigger problem with it is that it jeopardizes. It damages the relationship you have with yourself. We cannot go down that road. So I'm hoping you're here to get a different perspective because we don't do restriction deprivation around here.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:21]:
So maybe that's why you're Tuning in. And this is just underscoring how diet mentality, restriction, deprivation does not work. It damages the relationship, the belief you have in yourself. And we do it differently around here. And our goal is to strengthen the relationship you have with yourself, because if you do, there's nothing you can't do. When you believe yourself, when you genuinely care about yourself, I'll say love yourself. And what I mean by that is hold yourself in high. Regardless when you do that, whatever decisions you make, you follow through.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:00]:
Now, I'm not saying. See, it's so interesting. I can hear that the word follow through can feel harsh if we're thinking about it in those terms of. I'm just thinking of, like, you know, harsh. Men, like, do it, you could do it, do it. That kind of talk that we can internalize and it has, and it's in our head and it is not sustainable for most of us. And again, damaging. So we're going to do it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:34]:
We're going to do it differently around here. When we lose weight, we're doing it in a way that's sustainable because anything that's temporary is useless to us because if we lose weight but gain it back, it's not useful, particularly around here, because we're losing weight to better our chances with trying to conceive in whatever way we're doing that. And so we definitely don't want to gain it back. Now when we get pregnant, we will gain some back. But remember, around here, the way we do this, you can actually continue to lose in pregnancy if your BMI is such that that makes sense. Because everything we do honors your hunger, your body, and the relationship you have with yourself. So we don't want you yo, yo. Weight gaining, it's painful and demoralizing, and it's not sustained weight loss.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:35]:
So we do it differently. And the way we do it will make sure that you're not getting in the cycle of guilt and punishment and pain and failure. I'm putting air quotes around that. Again, it's only a failure because it was a setup from the start if there's restriction and deprivation involved. So that's my soapbox about diet mentality. And often when we're feeling motivated with the new year, we fall into that trap of, I'm going to clean out the entire refrigerator and the pantry. I am going to exercise every single solitary day for hours. I am going to like, I'm never eating a carb again the rest of my whole entire life.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:24]:
It can feel like that. And growing up in this culture that is Encouraged often. But that won't work. And not only you could just believe what I'm saying, but likely you've tried it multiple times. And if it hasn't worked again, I'm putting air quotes. It's not because there's something wrong with you, that you're a failure, that you can't do it and everyone else can. That's not it. That system does not work.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:57]:
This system does. And so we're going to talk about it because feeling motivated feels amazing. And if you're feeling motivated for the new year to lose weight, then fantastic, let's go with that because that energy feels great and can certainly get us started. So the wonderful thing about feeling motivated is that we can capitalize on it. And it's that high energy feeling, feeling unstoppable. And the way that we have that feeling is our thoughts. So in general, we talk about cognitive behavioral theory around here and that's thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions. Actions get us the results.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:52]:
So thoughts come first. If you're feeling energized, you're thinking thoughts that are energizing. Maybe it's, I can do it. I'm ready. It's the new year, let's get started. I have goals I'm interested in. These are the kinds of thoughts that have us feeling good, feeling motivated, having energy. Now bonus if you notice what the thoughts are and that you could think them deliberately if you're having waning motivation.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:24]:
And in fact, speaking of which, I want to point you to past episodes that talk about sustaining motivation, and that's episode 24 and episode 136. I'm actually going to hook a whole bunch of podcast topics up in the show Notes. This will be like a little primer for you. If you're new here. These would be great things to look over. And it's basically like a step by step workbook about how to go about losing weight, the weight loss for fertility way, the sustainable way that builds the relationship with yourself and by the way, changes your relationship with food. That's the main thing it does is change the relationship so that weight loss, eating, hunger feel very easy and intuitive. Okay, back to capitalizing on the motivation now that you're feeling it, knowing it's coming from your thoughts and knowing that you can sustain it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:23]:
Because you're going to look at the other podcast episodes too, if you're interested. We're going to talk about what to do with the energy you have now. What are you going to do with it? And here is the idea. You are going to use the hunger scale, you're going to learn about realistic planning. Those are the concrete, two concrete things. Hunger scale, food date, which is the realistic planning. I'm going to go into that a little more detail additionally, because I want to support you, we're going to talk about the scale, how to use your bathroom scale appropriately, and then the last piece, and this is the. A little more about your thinking is noticing when you're doing all or nothing thinking.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:17]:
And the antidote to that, the salve, the thing that helps if we notice ourselves doing all or nothing thinking, is being loving to ourself. So let's elaborate a little bit, okay? So you're feeling motivated, you're ready to lose weight, and the first thing I want you to do is learn to use the hunger scale. Because as I mentioned, around here we change our relationship with food and hunger and our body in the process. We feel more comfortable in our body. We have a deeper relationship with it and it becomes loving. So that we are loving it, it is loving us. It ends up being a two way street. This can be particularly difficult when we're dealing with fertility because we often have hard feelings towards our body if it's not working the way we want it to.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:13]:
And if we have more weight than we want, we also can carry a grudge about our body. But the answer is to have a relationship, a loving relationship with our body. And that may seem far fetched right now, but that's where we're headed. You don't have to feel that way right now, but that's where we're headed. And the way we get there is through the hunger scale. So the hunger scale is a scale that goes from negative 5, which is empty, to positive 5, which is like Thanksgiving full, so stuffed you have to lie down. And that's just the scale from negative 5, negative 4, negative 3, negative 2, negative 1 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's the scale.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:02]:
And the first thing to do is to adjust that scale to your own body. Meaning you figure out which numbers apply to you and what the symptoms are. When you're feeling so full that you have to lie down, you may be feeling pressure, you might be feeling nauseous, so there's feelings. And you, you connect them to the numbers. I wish I could tell you exactly, but every body is different. So this is the place you start with the hunger scale. We eat at just hungry, which is negative 2. And we stop at positive 2, which is satisfied, not full.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:42]:
When we do that consistently, we lose weight. This is why? You can see there's no restriction here. I'm not telling you. There's these foods don't eat, and those foods don't eat. What we want is weight loss, fat loss, and we get that when we are giving our body what it needs and not overeating. If we're giving it what it needs, it releases anything that's extra. So the hunger scale is the place to start. Now, in terms of getting even more detail, I recently did a hunger scale handbook series and that starts at episode 148.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:24]:
So 148 through 156, that will give you a primer. You will be well covered and know everything there is to know about the hunger scale in those podcast episodes. So I highly recommend going there and I recommend that for starting with the hunger scale. Okay, so that's the first, the next thing that's important. So these go hand in hand is the food date, which is something we do once a week. And that's episode 74 I want you to listen to so that you can understand what to do during a food date. And it's about planning your week. Now, I call it a date because I want it to be something fun.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:07]:
Now, it doesn't have to be like, whoopee fun. Like, I can't wait to do my food date, although that would be amazing. But it's a time with you for you, time for yourself. And what you're doing is you're looking realistically at your week and seeing, oh, I have to eat lunch out here, and we're going to dinner on Friday, and you're planning your week. You're knowing where you're eating out, when you're eating in. It's the time that you can then say, oh, I'm going to have 10 meals at home. I'm going to need these things from the market. If we don't plan out where our food is coming from, we are always going to be caught and we'll be scrambling.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:52]:
And a hungry brain makes terrible decisions. So we want to plan before we're starving. And when we do that, it's so much easier to eat the things we want to eat. Again, a hungry brain, terrible decision maker. And then the crazy part about that is, we think it's us, but it's not. It's the hungry brain. So we think, ugh, I'm terrible. I don't have any willpower.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:19]:
I can't make good decisions no matter what. Yeah, it's because you're over hungry and no one can make A good decision when they're over hungry. So the hunger scale, the food date, and the important thing I want to highlight about the food date is realistic planning. So I don't want you planning things like, I'm going to have a dried chicken breast with two stalks of broccoli. When we plan our food, we plan what we want to eat. And we can eat anything we want as long as we're eating it when we're hungry and stopping when we're satisfied. Not full. Now, you'll notice if you say, oh, I can't.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:59]:
I really want to eat Doritos. Technically you can do that, but you won't feel. Your body won't feel well if that's what you eat when you're hungry and stop when you're satisfied. And you will be hungry very soon after. So having protein in your meals so that it lasts you the longest so that you don't get to negative 2 too quickly again after you've eaten to positive 2, that's something you'll work out with your body. Also, so we don't say no Doritos, you can figure out what feels best to you. And one more piece of this is getting on the scale. So if you get on the scale, I recommend once a week, not every day.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:47]:
And episode eight will hook you in, talk to you in more detail about getting on the scale. So I like once a week, same morning each week, so that you can compare apples to apples. And then the last part is noticing when your brain goes into all or nothing, thinking, it'll be better if I know that Sally lost a lot of weight because she stopped eating. I don't know all pasta. If you love pasta, there's no reason to do that. If you don't like pasta, then fine, don't have pasta, that's not a problem. But we're not restricting, so watch your brain. It also might do this with exercise.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:27]:
Oh, I'm going to exercise every day for a long period of time. We don't want to tax your brain with lots of new things. So if you're noticing the all or nothing thinking, I want you to give that part of you a lot of love. It's there for a reason. Meaning we have been indoctrinated for years, often decades, about diet mentality. So of course it's going to offer that to you. When it thinks that you need help, it's going to offer you, oh, definitely cut out all food. Don't eat after this particular time.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:04]:
Do this tangerine juice diet. It will offer you that. But remember, we're doing this because we're thinking about sustainability, safety for pregnancy for your body and strengthening the relationship you have with yourself. So when you notice if your brain's doing that, we just thank it for sharing. Understand that you're changing the way you're thinking about it and give yourself some love around that. Oh, I understand why you would be thinking that. We're doing it differently. So we don't meet harshness with harshness, we meet it with love.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:45]:
I have a whole bunch of other podcasts that talk about the self love piece, so feel free to listen to any of the Basically, the rest of the three years of this podcast are about all or nothing thinking, noticing our thoughts and how to love ourselves to permanent weight loss, different relationship with food, different relationship with ourself. A loving one. Because that is the most powerful skill you can build a loving relationship with yourself. So capitalize on that motivation if you have it. There's nothing wrong with that. We just don't want to use it to clean out every ounce of anything you enjoy eating out of your pantry. There's a different way for us to use that motivation. We're going to use the hunger scale.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:37]:
We're gonna plan realistically, we're gonna notice all or nothing thinking and we're going to be loving to ourself as we do this major change and release unwanted weight. I am sending you so much love. If you want help with this, I am here and I would love to help you with it. Go to StephanieFeinMD.com There's a lose weight with me button right there. Press it. We will be connected. It's Fein. I'm also on Instagram and LinkedIn @StephanieFeinMD and I'm happy to connect with you there.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:15]:
I am sending you so much love for the best 2026. I will talk to you next week. Bye for now.
