Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:00]:
Hello, fabulous. Dr. Stephanie Fein here with Weight Loss for Fertility. And today I've got a doozy for you. I've been thinking about this one a little bit. It's— we'll start with a story. I started playing American mahjong. Do you guys know what that is? You easily may not.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:17]:
No. It's a game that has tiles and racks. And usually, ideally, you play with 4 people. For total. And it's really fun and social and I really love it. My friends started playing it, so then I played it and then my neighbors started playing it. It's just a fun thing. And it's such a— this is actually a good point.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:38]:
It's such a fun thing to do in the evenings. And this is why I like people to have hobbies because when you're bored, you're more likely to overeat or eat when we're not hungry. You cannot be bored at a mahjong table. It's impossible. So it's a really fun way for me to spend a couple hours in the evening. I really love it. And I encourage you to do things that you love and that can feel like a productive, social, beneficial way to spend time. Okay.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:10]:
So that's one of the reasons I did this is to have something to do in my evenings. I was getting bored. So I started. Now there's actually lots of lessons. Every time I have a new hobby or something, there's tons of lessons. It's, Very similar to starting something new, like weight loss in a different way. And our brain just can go nuts with a new thing. And mine did.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:35]:
So I have lots of lessons that I can talk about, but there's one in particular. And so that's the one I'm going to talk about today. And, and it's the lesson I learned from cheating. And it was me cheating. But let me explain. When you are playing mahjong, the re— truly the only way to get better at it is to play. Again, similar to weight loss and learning the hunger scale and all that sort of thing. The only way to do it is to actually do it.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:09]:
There's good and bad in that. Partly we feel like newbies, you know what I mean? We can feel overwhelmed and— Yeah. Embarrassed, and there's lots of feelings we can have. And the only way to get better is to play. So you can't always get 4 people together. They do have an app that you can use. I don't like to use apps so much, so I actually found a solo mahjong page, and it's like a, like a piece of paper and it has tiles on it. Anyway, that, this is not a lesson in mahjong, but it's like solitaire, except it's with the tiles.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:48]:
Okay. And these tiles are a little like dominoes type of things, and they have different pictures on them. Again, not that important. The only thing that's important is that I have a bag, and in the bag is all the tiles. And when I'm playing the solo mahjong, you're supposed to put your— you pick a tile without looking, and then you decide what to do with that tile. That's the way I was practicing, and it was really helpful, by the way. It really helped me learn the card, and I really was enjoying it. So I was choosing tiles from the bag and I noticed that if I didn't like the tile, or if I picked up 2 and I saw them, I would choose the better one.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:29]:
Or if I discarded one tile and then got one that would've made my hand work, I would pick it from the discarded pile. Now, of course, I'm all by myself. Yeah. So this is only against me, but, and you'd think, oh, it's only against you, who cares? Let me tell you something. I felt terrible. If I won, it felt like I didn't really win because I cheated. Now that's a bigger idea of cheating, but it was very noticeable. And I love this example because there's no consequences.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:09]:
It was me against me. It was a game, but I heard my, I felt my inside. Yeah. That voice that we cultivate, we do that with the hunger scale around here. I heard it really clearly and it wasn't mean and it wasn't even judgmental. It was like, huh, what's that about, kiddo? Why do you think you're doing that? Softly, but enough that it did not feel good to continue to do it. Yeah. So I was compelled to change my behavior to— it was so interesting.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:48]:
I was like, yep, nope, I don't want to do it anymore. But I found myself, if I got a hand that I wasn't happy with, I did still want to take the discarded tile. So I challenged myself not to, even though I had the urge. Now, Now that may sound familiar when I talked about urges with ERD work. I have urge work. I have other podcasts on that. And the way we do that, so we have an urge, like the, it's a habit or the brain's like, ooh, let's definitely change that tile. Oh, remember? Oh, you had that good tile before.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:22]:
Why don't you go get it? I noticed the urge. I let it be there. So I didn't judge it. I just noticed it. And then I tried Not to respond to the urge and to see what I thought, what would happen, what were the repercussions if I didn't swap out the tile. And what I found was I did have an uncomfortable feeling. I knew I would have a better hand if I had gotten that discarded one, but I'm like, nope, we're not going to do that. And let's see what happens.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:58]:
And I was uncomfortable for the— for a lot of the— Yeah. Rest of the game until I figured out what the discomfort was. And it was my thoughts. That should not be a surprise. That's how it works around here, right? That's how it works everywhere. But we talk about it here. Thoughts create feelings, lead to actions. So my thoughts were, I'm going to lose.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:26]:
I know that would've been better. Now I can't win. Those were the thoughts that were happening in my head, making me feel uncomfortable. And it was so good to see them. So I was worried that I was going to lose and that would be terrible. But what happened— so I watched those thoughts and I was there and I was feeling a little uncomfortable. But what happened was when I didn't do it, I was impressed with myself. Yeah.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:55]:
I was like, look at you. You're just going with the flow, letting the universe be how it is, letting reality happen in front of you. I was impressed with my ability to be able to not do that urge and then, and see what happened. And then every time after that, if a tile, and this is all luck, but if a tile came up and it was good, I took it as like a reward. Good job. It's like a high five. Woo-hoo. Nice job following through with yourself and what you wanted.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:29]:
And it started to feel really fun. And I'd look for those good luck moments and training my brain to look for the fun and the luck. You may remember that from the food date. We— that's the evaluation we do. We're training our brain to first find what works. Yeah. The good stuff. Our brain is bent towards negative.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:51]:
So when we train it for positive, it's very helpful, especially in this kind of scenario where we get to feel impressed or proud. We get to find the good things and attach them. It makes our thoughts easier to continue to be good, positive. Yeah. And that helps our feeling and therefore our actions. And when I won a hand that I did not cheat on, I was particularly proud and it felt more real, right? Like I really won. Now mahjong is 70% luck, but still, me with me and me with the universe, it just felt better and I could be proud of myself. It was a clean game.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:39]:
Like whatever the outcome, there it was. Now, when I took a moment to investigate what was the thought that had me cheating, it was the idea that I couldn't handle the loss. Now, not the sadness from the loss, but the idea that I would beat myself up if I lost, beat myself up for the decisions that I made that were wrong. I'm putting that in air quotes. That somehow if I were a better player, I'd make perfect decisions and win every time. And of course, that premise is just not even true. It's a luck-based game. So the problem, the, the thing that I was afraid of that had me cheating isn't even the sadness that I would lose, but the beatdown I would give myself for making wrong decisions.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:35]:
And I think you could see the connections here, both with weight loss and also fertility, because we can so often beat ourselves up for something that has nothing— we had no control over. And the sadness is one thing, and that's real and clean, and we'll feel that. But the beating ourselves up. Yeah. For something, for, we're thinking that we could have made a better decision or done something different or any of that. It's a flawed premise. And being able to see that, to make that connection, to see that these are the things I was thinking and they're just inaccurate. And so when they're not true, I can release them more.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:24]:
And there's so much relief. There's relief in the judgment. Yeah. That's the biggest problem. It's not the sadness of losing a game. And I know this is frivolous and I'm taking it to something obviously much more, with much more weight and importance, like fertility. But the idea really is the same. And that's why it's easy to see in a little silly game, but it's the same when we're talking about weight loss.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:54]:
Yeah. And even fertility. It's the judgment that's the problem, not what actually happens in life. We can handle sadness. It's much harder to handle judgment. And when we can remove the judgment layer, we are so much better off. And this is how we do it with tools that we teach here in Weight Loss for Fertility, the hunger scale. Yes.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:20]:
We cultivate our inner voice, our, the voice inside, the wise one. Our body can tell us when we've had enough food. It can warn us when we're cheating and we, it knows we don't want to. It has a lot of wisdom in there. When we can cultivate it, when we can hear it louder and louder, we're so much better off. We look for things that worked before we look for the things that don't work. And that's from the food date, the evaluation process that we do here. What worked, what didn't, what we'll do differently.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:55]:
That's helpful in shoring up this discovery process. We can feel better right away because we're choosing to look at the things that are working, and there's always things that are working. And then we use our urges to find the areas, the thoughts that are keeping us stuck. Noticing that we have urges and challenging ourselves to question them, to see what happens if we don't follow through. Our brain will give us thoughts and those thoughts are gold. Now, one direct example I can think of in terms of food is if we find ourselves sneaking food. Sometimes we get in the habit of doing that, especially if we've had to be on diets, especially since we were little. There's all this kinds of reasons that we might Sneak food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:49]:
And this is a perfect thing to investigate in this way because with weight loss for fertility, you can have any food you want. So there literally is no reason to sneak food ever. And so if you find yourself doing it, it's an opportunity to be gentle and try being curious. So if you find yourself sneaking, Even a little, right? This can be subtle. It doesn't have to be like hoarding and going in the closet. It really can be just turning your back or really this is sneaking one, sneaking a bite. You'll know it only has to do with you sneaking for you, not necessarily from anyone else. It feels like this cheating.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:35]:
It's just a little, no one will notice, or I can get away with it, or some, there'll be some thought you'll find. And challenge yourself to not sneak it, to own the decision to eat it, and then find out what thoughts appear when you do that. There will be thoughts. And you follow them to their flawed premise. And it always will be. And it'll be something about judging, doing it wrong, wasting. There'll be something there. Yeah.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:09]:
And it will no longer be true. It may have been true when you were younger, but it's no longer true now. And that's an important thing to see. The awareness itself starts to change the whole interaction with yourself. It really might be something that's similar to mine, that you'd beat yourself up for choosing this particular food to eat. The good food, bad food, that whole idea. It's really powerful in those of us who've Yeah. Had to lose weight in our lives.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:38]:
There's so many messages about good food, bad food. So it really could be a judgment around that and that we are good or bad if we choose them or like them or that sort of thing. That all will be really good to know about ourselves because that will keep us stuck. If we start to unravel the good food, bad food, and know that food is just food and we can make any decisions, if we're eating when we're hungry, stopping when we're satisfied, we can have what we want. It really changes things. And then if you're doing this with the example of sneaking food, you celebrate your wins. Oh, I caught myself doing it and I stopped, or I caught myself doing it soon after, or there's so many ways we can— there's so many little things that we can choose to see as positives, as this is working, as something that I can feel proud of. So that's my mahjong lesson.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:36]:
I have other ones, but we'll start with this one today. So mahjong as a metaphor for life and weight loss, a very real example of transformation from an action, my urge to cheat, to change the outcome, and the feeling that came from it. We can change Our habitual thoughts. We can be curious and question them. We can see where we're judging ourselves, and we can change that when we're aware of them. The awareness is always the first step. First, the willingness. Actually, we have to be willing to try this.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:18]:
And if you're here, you get gold stars all day long. So the willingness is first and then the awareness is next. The tools we use around here beautifully support this process. The hunger scale cultivates the inner voice, urge work rewires the brain, and we're building a trusting relationship with ourselves by having our own back, not being critical or judgmental, but curious. Yeah. And understanding. And when we do that, we lose weight. But not only do we lose weight, we enjoy our food.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:01]:
It feels effortless, and it's such a beautiful thing. And it really does work this way. If you ever have questions, you just send me a DM @stephaniefeinmd on Instagram, or you can go to my website, stephaniefeinmd.com. There's a contact me there. Ask any questions or let's lose weight together. I'd love to help you any way I can. Until next week, I'm sending so much love. Mwah.
