Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous Dr. Stephanie Fein here with weight loss for fertility. And today we are talking about something so fundamental to weight loss. Have fertility. But I haven't really said it this way and I had to tell you. Okay, overeating is telling you something. I love this concept. It's so important.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:21]:
I don't think I've worded it like this. And because it's so fundamental, we're talking about it this way. Overeating is the only reason we ever gain weight or have trouble losing weight. Overeating. And the definition of overeating is eating more than your body needs or wants. When I was thinking about this, it's also more than you need or want. And what I mean by that is if you've ever been in a situation where your hand keeps going into the chip bag and it doesn't stop, even though you want to stop, then you know what I mean by that? There's a you that wants to stop, but there's also a you that's keeping going. Okay? So that's classic overeating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:06]:
Our default reaction to overeating and overeat is usually along the lines of guilt, shame, regret, anger, disappointment, disgust, those sorts of things. And it seems like the right, I'm putting that in air quotes or appropriate response to an out of control moment. But I'm here to tell you it's not, it's not the most helpful one, not by a long shot. And that's what we're going to change today. Being only angry or ashamed of overeating will keep us stuck. And you may have noticed this. Having an overeat and then being upset about it doesn't do anything. We don't change, we just feel terrible because those feelings, the default, anger, regret, guilt, that all that sort of stuff, it feels like penance or a punishment because we did something wrong.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:09]:
So it needs consequences. I'm using tons of air quotes here that the beat down we give ourselves, we, we deserve. And that is just not true. Not only is it not true, it doesn't help us. So it closes the loop in our brain. So we've have an overeat, we punish ourselves. Done right, that's the cycle. Overeat, punish, overeat, punish.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:36]:
But nothing changes. And nothing can change because the loop is closed. It's a dead end loop. But if we took a different tact, if instead we think of an overeat as a message, as a symptom, then that shift brings us from judgment to curiosity and from there the entire world opens up to us. It's such a big huge deal. I'm wondering if you can feel it that going from judging that. To me it feels so heavy when we're beating ourselves up. We just feel so awful because we've promised ourselves we won't do it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:19]:
We try. We don't have it in the house, but then it's in the house. There are so many things we do. We try really hard and then we fail. I'm going to say that it that way. And if we think of it as failing, then we beat ourselves up for it and then it's just this terrible heavy feeling and it gets us nowhere. We're not motivated to do anything. We feel like crud, both physically from the overeat itself and then emotionally from the beating up.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:50]:
This cycle seems very normal and it is in terms of. It's a lot of what we do, but it's not at all all helpful. If it was, I'd help you do it. I don't know about that actually. I'd have to see. But anyway, the point is it doesn't work and it puts us in a negative place. What I mean by that is both physically and emotionally puts us in a lower spot because now we feel terrible and we have to dig ourselves out of the hole just to feel normal. And then if we want to change, we have to keep going.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:29]:
So the shift has to be that after an overeat we don't judge ourselves, but we become curious. And that that alone will lead to so much freedom, ease, change, weight loss. And it will feel effortless even though it won't be. There will be some effort, but it won't be trudging through the muck of guilt, which is almost impossible, feels terrible and it does not work. So we have to start. In order for us to get from judgment to curiosity after an overeat, we have to start with a different assumption. Because the assumption that we're making is that there's something terribly wrong with us. We're awful, we can't do anything, we fail all the time, we can't trust ourselves, all that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:20]:
But if we start with a different assumption, which I highly recommend, that assumption being you're amazing, you're a really good person. So why would a fabulous person overeat to discomfort? That's the question. Why would an amazing, smart, talented, capable, fabulous human overeat to the point that it's painful either emotionally, physically or both? That is a good question and there must be a really good reason. That's the assumption we're making. There Must be a really good reason for that overeat. And there is, there is a really good reason for it. We don't know what it is yet, it's our job to find it. But that's what curiosity gives us.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:18]:
If we think of an overeat as a symptom, if we think of it as a message, then we can find out what's going on. We can be curious, we can ask the question and we can find it. And so that's what we're talking about today. Isn't that exciting? I'm hoping you can feel that the difference, it's here huge. And with practice we really can get here. And if we can really make strides both in weight loss and how we feel, which is huge. Okay, so there are three major buckets that we want to be able to put our investigating answers into. Okay, so three major buckets.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:05]:
The answer can be categorized in. So we're going to look for the answer, we're going to ask the question, there must be a good reason why this happened. We're going to look for the answer and then we're going to categorize the answer. Because in general there are only three major reasons why we overeat. Number one, hunger. We talk about that a lot around here. And this is the reason, because it's one of the major reasons why we overeat is because we're over hungry. Remember the hunger scale goes from negative 5 to positive 5 with negative 5 being totally empty.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:42]:
Positive 5 being have to lie down, we're so stuffed. We want to eat at negative two, which is just hungry, not the first whiff of hunger, that's minus one and not really hungry, which is negative three. We want just hungry, that's negative two. If we do that, if we eat when we're hungry, we will be able to stop at positive two, which is satisfied, not full. If we get over hungry, we will be more likely to be compelled to overeat. That's just physiology, that's hunger hormones. So if we notice that we're getting over hungry, that will be a major reason for overeating. And that's really good to know.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:31]:
This is why I talk about it non stop because that we have control over when we eat. So we can eat at minus two. That will make overeating a thing of the past. Okay, so bucket number one, hunger. Bucket number two, emotions. This is where emotional eating comes in. And if we use food to cope with feelings and most of the time they're uncomfortable feelings, but we can even use food to cope with happy feelings, celebrations too, if that's the only reason we're eating. So our coping mechanism of food may be playing a factor here too.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:17]:
That's really important to know and to investigate and to find out which emotions in particular. Is there a way I can handle them differently? Is there a way I can avoid it? What emotion is it? All that is really important, Bucket number one, hunger. Bucket number two, emotions. And bucket number three. And this is like a. Almost like a sub bucket, but it's food itself. And what I mean by that is processed food. So processed food with, like, particularly food with sugar and flour itself can cause us to overeat or give us a tendency to overeat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:02]:
And they're designed to do that. Okay. With that is the way our brain is set up, that it lights up with a sharp increase glucose, which you get both from straight sugar and also processed flour. Now, this does not mean that we don't eat sugar and flour. Absolutely not. You can have whatever food you want. Always. I will always say that there are ways sometimes to eat the sugar and flour in a way that makes it harder to overeat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:35]:
And what I mean by that is when we have, let's say, dessert after dinner, that works better because the sugar will mix with the protein and the fiber that you've already eaten, and it will more slowly release into your bloodstream. That release, being slow, is very beneficial to us. What we don't want, what our body doesn't respond very well to, is big spikes in the glucose released into the blood stream. So this is not in any way saying not to have sugar, flour, or like potato chip, things that are like crackers, potato chips, things that are designed to light up the dopamine receptors. But it's just something good to take into account. Because what we're doing here is we're looking for, why did the overeat happen? And the food itself might be part of the issue. And that's just good to know. And we can make decisions about that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:30]:
Oh, yeah, I did have that as a snack, and I wasn't able to stop when I wanted to. Okay, then maybe we can eat it at a different time. It's really good to see if the food itself, the processed food, that's designed to keep you eating, and especially if it's in combination with one of these things. Right. So this is why I say it might have been a sub bucket, because the food itself might be more likely to lead to overeating if you're over hungry or if you're using it to cope with emotions. But it's also such an important piece that I wanted to have it as one of the buckets. Okay, so the three major buckets as causes for overeating are over, hunger, emotions and the food itself, particularly processed foods. Now when we have those buckets in mind, our next step is to find a specific example of an overeat.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:28]:
And it just works best when it's really specific because we have a tendency we can overgeneralize and then beat ourselves up. So I always this, I never that. That's not useful to us. We need a very specific example because we have to see, was I hungry? Where was I? Who was I with? What happened right before? What was I thinking, what was I feeling, how much sleep had I had, who was around? All that is going to give you information to be able to understand the overeat. And now why do we want to understand the overeat? So that we can do something about it the next time. And we're doing this all with curiosity, compassion, understanding. Oh, that's interesting. Oh yes.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:16]:
I forgot that I had that thing due and I was really stressed out. Oh my gosh. I forgot that I didn't bring my lunch that day and I meant to and then so when you're finding all these things out, you can be like, oh, I see. It's just really important that I bring my lunch. I did not have a good container and that's what tripped me up that day. So I'm going to go get a good container. We can then just make adjustments that will help us in the future without blame, without beating ourselves up, without calling ourselves out on stuff that just isn't our fault and isn't related. Getting a container for lunch has nothing to do with a personality flaw.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:56]:
It's just a I need to get a lunchbox. Doesn't that feel so much better than I'm the worst person in the world and this will never work for me. One is true and one isn't. One feels terrible and one doesn't. And that's what we always want to go for. We're always looking for where the ease is not only because it feels better, although that's a really big reason. Reason because it leads to change, but also because it's just not true the other. The beating up is short sighted.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:29]:
It's the brain's trick to get out of doing any of this work. This work will lead to change. Brains don't like change. They like you to just stay exactly where you are because you're alive. And if you're alive, it's done its job. But we want more than that, don't we? We want to hit our goals. We want things in life and we will be able to do them easier, more reliably, further and further, get ourselves further and further. If we do it with this curiosity, investigation, and discovery of what was going on.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:10]:
So look for a specific example. Investigate all that was going around, look at all the details around it, Put the right pieces in the right bucket, and then decide what you're going to change for next time. That's it. You do this over and over and you watch your overeats diminish. You will have fewer and fewer of them. Your agency, your view of your relationship with food, your understanding of where your control actually lies, all that will increase. And agency, understanding, control feels so much better than devastation, guilt, beating up, despair. You'll feel proud, you'll feel compassion, you'll feel curious more often, and that feels compassionate and powerful.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:59]:
Being able to be curious feels so much better. And the more we feel that way with ourselves, the more we feel curious and compassionate and proud, the more we strengthen a trust relationship with ourselves, then the less we need to punish and the more we work with instead of against ourselves. And this is what we need in this way. See, we not only lose weight, which of course is why we're here, but we lose weight with ease. And we build a lasting, trusting, kind relationship with ourselves. And that relationship is the foundation we need to do anything hard in life. Building a family and raising that family, being two of them, so you can do this and in the process lose weight. It's amazing.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:54]:
It's so good. And we build a better relationship with ourselves. It's a win. Okay, here's the recap. Overeating is a symptom, not a character flaw. It's a message. It's a symptom. It.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:06]:
It is not who you are. Okay. Changing from judgment to curiosity creates possibility for change rather than a closed loop of punishment. Starting with the assumption you're fabulous and doing your best at all times allows you to access the curiosity that is key to this. Investigate a specific situation and notice all the details leading up to it. Determine which bucket or buckets had the most influence on the overeat, hunger, emotion, food. Come up with a plan for next time. If you do this again and again, and you will see the overeats get fewer and farther between, and the scale will trend down with ease and a growing sense of compassion and pride for yourself.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:55]:
I mean, what could be better than that. I am always here to help you with this. I love working with you on this stuff. So lose weight with me. Go to my website stephaniefeinmd.com There's a lose weight with me button. You press that, we will be connected. I'm also on Instagram @Stephaniefinemd. Love to see you there too.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:17]:
I am sending you so much love. Until next week.
