Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous! Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility. And today we're discussing the inverse relationship of discomforts and why it guarantees weight loss, which it totally does guarantees it. And that's because it impacts overeating and overeating, remember, is any eating when our body is not hungry. That's the definition of overeating— eating anytime we are not hungry. And so if we banish overeating, we will be our natural weight forever. And so that is the way we do it around here at Weight Loss for Fertility. So this inverse relationship of discomforts is the idea that as we lose weight, the weight loss for way, we develop less tolerance for the physical discomfort of overeating and more tolerance of the emotional discomforts that may lead to overeating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:13]:
I'm going to say that again. When we lose weight the weight loss for fertility way, we develop less tolerance for the physical discomfort of overeating and more tolerance for the emotional discomforts that lead to overeating. That was worth hearing twice. That's it. That's all there is. If we can stop overeating in its tracks, physically getting the message and hearing it if we've eaten too much, so we start to not eat too much. And then if we're able to tolerate the emotions, which are physical sensations in our body, the emotions that feel so uncomfortable that we want to dull them with eating. But if we can start to feel confident, or not as scared really, of feeling emotions, then we won't need to overeat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:19]:
What we're doing is we build emotional resilience as we weaken our ability to deny the physical pain we feel when we overeat. These two things need to take place in order to have permanent weight loss, no matter how you do it. We have our way of doing it around here, but no matter how you lose weight, for permanent weight loss, you have to learn how to do these two things: build emotional resilience and weaken our ability to deny the physical pain we feel when we overeat. The simplest way into this whole arena is the hunger scale. I'm sure that doesn't surprise you. The hunger scale is magic, I'm telling you. And what happens with the hunger scale, and this whole thing came from, I was reminded when I was talking to a client today and she was saying how she's so surprised at how much less tolerant she is of feeling full. Like now she's so sensitive to feeling full and she so dislikes the feeling of full that she will very rarely get to that point.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:32]:
And remember in our hunger scale, positive 3 is full. We want to be eating to positive 2, which is satisfied, not full. So often when we start this, when we're not aware of our fullness and hunger, we can very easily eat to 3, 4, and 5. 5 is defined as Thanksgiving full where we're undoing our pants. Sometimes we get in the habit of doing that every single meal. And that's sort of normalized in our culture too. So it's not like such a wackadoodle thing, like, oh my God, I can't believe people do that. No, we do that all the time.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:11]:
We have to learn how to not do that. And that's what we do here. Because what we do is we start listening to our bodies, knowing that physical discomfort is an indication of too much food. It seems really basic when I say it like that, but that's not sort of how we're taught. That's not what is the norm. If we're told to finish our plates, often our plates will have too much food for us to feel satisfied, not full. So she was commenting, my client was commenting what a huge difference it is that now it's hard to imagine to be that full. It's just too uncomfortable for her now.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:56]:
Her tolerance has gone so low that she cannot tolerate even the feeling of full of positive 3. And what was so interesting about that is that that's exactly what happens. It's amazing. It happens. I'm going to say naturally. What I mean is we keep practicing the hunger scale and we just no longer want to feel that uncomfortable, physical, uncomfortable feeling of full. It's a beautiful thing. And there's so many benefits.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:32]:
As we use the hunger scale, we show ourselves that we can get enough food when we feel satisfied. We don't need to feel full to have enough food to fuel us for the time in between meals. And we start to have less and less tolerance for the feeling in our bodies of overeating, just like my client. That's what happens to everyone. That's not only her. We start to not like how it feels to be full We like feeling like we could go for a walk after dinner. It's actually, it's very freeing. We feel like we have the option of sitting or lying down to watch television instead of that feeling that we may have gotten used to when we're so full, we have to lie down, we have to undo our pants, we can't do anything.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:19]:
We're just sort of groan and, you know, use the remote control, but that's about it. But feeling like you can go for a walk or you can decide, you have options after dinner. And it's not only around dinner. We like being able to go back to work after lunch and be focused and not distracted by the physical discomfort in our bellies. I'm sure you've had that too. What that pattern usually looks like, we get overhungry. We work like past lunch. We're so hungry, we overeat at lunch and then we're like, you know, a blob.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:55]:
We can barely do anything. It really feels so much better in our bodies to eat to satisfied and then we have the focus and the ability, the energy to go on with our day. It's a really nice feeling. And we can get in the habit of that if we start using the hunger scale. So as we get less tolerant of feeling physically uncomfortable and full, This of course is a great thing. It just means we're eating less food. And the great part about it is we're not restricting ourselves or demanding ourselves or depriving ourselves. We're eating the food we want.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:30]:
We're just stopping when we're satisfied, not full. And the more we pay attention to our hunger levels, the more we can be kind to our body, meaning give it what it needs and not make it feel uncomfortable. Because when we are overeating, we're sort of stuffing it in because our mouth still works, you know, it can still chew, but our stomach's like, oh, please no more. So when we listen to our body and we don't sort of force it to hold more food than it wants, it's happy to perform for us. It's happy to do what you need her to do. She's like, yes, I feel great, let's do it. As we get less and less tolerant of the physical discomfort of overeating, we get more tolerant of emotional discomfort. Comfort.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:21]:
And here, let me tell you what I mean by that. We are more willing to leave some food on the plate because we are hungry, we eat what we need, we're satisfied, not full, and there might be food on the plate still. When we're learning this, there can be an anxiety there, some feeling. For some people, it may not be anxiety, maybe sadness, it may be resentful, it may be anger. There's lots of different feelings that we can have, but We can have feelings about leaving the food on the plate. And we are more tolerant of experiencing that feeling, knowing that we're not going to sacrifice our physical comfort for that emotional vibration that's temporary. So we're increasing our tolerance of the emotional discomfort while we're decreasing the tolerance of the physical discomfort. Do you see that? I have a few more examples.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:23]:
When we're willing to throw away food we don't want, that's another time when we may feel an anxiety or a sadness or an anger, a feeling there that we were taught or we believe that we should never throw away food. But if we're not going to eat it, this is that idea of we are the garbage can or the garbage can is the garbage can. So it's going to waste. I'm putting that in quotes because our body doesn't need it for fuel. We're just either going to overeat it or it's going to go in the garbage. We have, a lot of us have a lot of feelings about that. But as we're listening and starting to honor our body's signals, we're more willing to tolerate the emotional discomfort that we may have when we throw food into the garbage and not into our mouths. We may be more willing to be bored at night or at a party.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:23]:
A party is a good example where we'll, you know, be bored or anxious about, you know, we don't— maybe we don't know a lot of people or, you know, no one's talking to us right that minute. And so we'll stand near the table and eating. It's something to do and it's a little distracting, right? But really what we're feeling is awkward or bored or vulnerable. And those can be hard feelings, but if we're willing to tolerate them, if we're able to tolerate them, then we are not eating them. And eating does not solve vulnerable. Eating does not solve awkward. Eating solves hunger. And as we're exploring all this stuff, we're noticing more and more, right? Because we're tuning in to feel hunger, to find out when we're hungry, when we're satisfied.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:17]:
We are going to be feeling and noticing other things that are happening in our body too. But some other examples of tolerating more emotional discomfort We're willing to let mom make her comments and not react, not burst out of anger. Mom will be mom. She'll make whatever comments she makes. And we're able to tolerate the feeling of annoyance or anger or frustration or resentment or whatever it is. We're willing to bring our lunch to work. And the feelings there may be wishing we could have something out, but it's expensive and takes too long and it's more than your body needs. So we bring our lunch to work, we're willing to tolerate those feelings that are fleeting that may come.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:14]:
The outcome is so much better. We're willing to skip the stale donut in the break room and have a Krispy Kreme tonight after dinner. So tolerating the not, you know, not having the break room donut, not because we're denying ourselves a donut, but because we deserve good quality stuff. If we're going to have a donut, we're having the good stuff, not the crappy leftovers. So there may be some feelings about having the stale donut. And we get better and better at that. We also may be more willing to disappoint Aunt Tilda and her fruitcake. So the food pushers in our life, we can handle that differently.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:01]:
We can tolerate the feelings. And even things like willing to go to bed at a reasonable hour and miss, you know, an extra hour of scrolling or an extra hour of television. Because we know how much better our body feels, how much more energy we have when we sleep that extra hour rather than scrolling or screening or in whatever way. The better we get at noticing our feelings and not fixing them with food, the better we get at weight loss. But more importantly, honestly, more importantly, the better we get at our life. The more we witness the reality of our life. Because what will happen is we realize, oh, we don't like that type of party. Why do I keep going to that party? I really don't like it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:50]:
We find out we need new hobbies. Like, oh, I have a couple hours in the nighttime and I've got nothing to do. I used to just eat and eat and eat and eat, but if I'm noticing that I'm not hungry and I'm eating, I'm not willing to do that anymore. So I guess I need some hobbies. We could adjust how much food we buy at the grocery store or order takeout or at a restaurant. We see how much we sacrifice to please others, and that's a big one. We get to make conscious decisions about that. We don't want to make unconscious decisions about that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:27]:
It doesn't mean that we won't decide to please others. It's not a that's not a problem. It's when we don't want to and it's costing us, like if it's costing us extra food and to be overweight when we don't want to be. We start to understand why we're so tired the next day when we're checking in with our feelings, when we're not fixing these things with food. And we become aware of the costs of our behaviors when food no longer covers up the problem. When we do something about the uncomfortable emotions that we have, something real that addresses the true issue rather than distract ourselves with food when we're not hungry, when we do that, when we figure out what it is and address it, our life gets better for us. You may find out you love tango dancing and then you go tango dancing twice a week. I mean, amazing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:30]:
Maybe that wouldn't be the same thing that Sally does and Sally's life gets better because she starts to play mahjong. But we become more of ourselves, of who we really are when we don't cover up our body's way of telling us something's off. Feelings are the way our body, our soul, however you wanna say it, communicates with us. This is not right. This doesn't feel okay. And instead of stuffing it down with food, we can find out, oh, okay, what information do you have? What can I try? What will make this feel better and not with food, right? So the combo of less tolerant of physical discomfort and more tolerant of emotional discomfort means permanent weight gain. Weight loss. I think you— hopefully you see that it means less eating, less overeating, less willingness to feel physical discomfort of eating more than our body needs, and more willing to experience the emotional feelings we have in the moment.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:40]:
It's this inverse relationship. One goes up while the other one goes down. These are skills you learn by losing weight the Weight Loss for Fertility way. First, we learn and practice the hunger scale. This gives us access to our body's hunger cues and the way the body feels in response to food, needing fuel or having registered enough, and even which foods feel how. You know, if we're starting to tune in, we will get all this information. And as we do that more and more, we notice other sensations in the body too. Because we're just checking in.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:17]:
And as we're checking in, we're sort of doing a scan. What's going on in there? How hungry am I? But we'll also notice other sensations, which an emotion is a sensation. Emotions are vibrations in the body. They're vibrations in response to thoughts. But when we get in the habit of checking in to determine our hunger level, we'll also notice some feelings, and anxious is usually a good one that I use as an example because it can be like, oh, I noticed my heartbeat's a little faster and I have some tightness in my chest or my abdomen, or I have fluttery feeling in my head or my torso. We can start to notice like, oh, what's going on? And we can connect it to a feeling. We naturally then want to find out why we're feeling this way, to connect it to something. And that's when we start noticing which situations trigger certain emotions and making connections and coming up with ideas to handle the situation that needs handling.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:16]:
Now, this is where coaching can make a really big difference. Coaching is like a shortcut, like an accelerator for this process, because it helps in the feelings department— finding them, learning to process them, connecting them to eating behaviors. The combination of hunger scale and coaching is magic for weight loss, and That's why it's the Weight Loss for Fertility Way. This is why it works so well and why the weight loss is permanent, because once you develop these skills, you can't unlearn them. So that's the explanation of the inverse relationship of discomforts. It's the idea that we lose weight, and if we do that the Weight Loss for Fertility Way, we develop less tolerance for the physical discomfort of overeating. And more tolerance for the emotional discomforts that may lead to overeating. We build emotional resilience as we weaken our ability to deny the physical pain that we feel when we overeat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:19:19]:
And it guarantees weight loss because that combo will permanent— it guarantees weight loss because that combo will permanently reduce overeating. Which is the main cause of weight gain and suffering. You know, that like guilt-blame cycle? That's the suffering part. So as always, I'm here and happy to help you with this. Lose weight with me. Just go to my website, stephaniefein.md.com, click the Lose Weight with Me button. We will be connected. And if you ever have any questions about this or anything else, weight loss for fertility, direct message me @stephaniefeinMD on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:20:06]:
Until next week, I am sending you so much love. Mm.
