In this episode, I’m serving out some real tough love as I share the 8 things I commonly see women do in an effort to resolve their food issues that simply don’t work. Oftentimes, they end up making things worse. I’ve been through nearly every single one of these, so I hope to save you time and heartache!
I cover:
Feedback? Questions? Comments? Head on over to Instagram and let me know in my DMs!
FREE TRAINING
COURSES
In this episode, I’m serving out some real tough love as I share the 8 things I commonly see women do in an effort to resolve their food issues that simply don’t work. Oftentimes, they end up making things worse. I’ve been through nearly every single one of these, so I hope to save you time and heartache!
I cover:
Feedback? Questions? Comments? Head on over to Instagram and let me know in my DMs!
FREE TRAINING
COURSES
[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Jesse Golden podcast. I have such a good one for you guys today. We are diving into things women do to fix food issues, their relationship with food. That do not work. And I have tried almost every single one of these. I see this. So commonly. With clients who come to me finally saying, okay, I'm ready to do the real fucking work, but they had to go through all these stages.
And some of them honestly are still having trouble letting go of these things, which is very normal. I went to that myself, but I want to save you guys. The time. So let's go ahead and dive in.
Now to start, I do want to preface that these things can absolutely be done with coinciding with. Really focusing on the direct mindset work and the life work, the relationship with self relationship with life relationship, with what actually shifts your relationship with food, which is mostly your relationship with [00:01:00] yourself. On the side, but if you're just doing these things in isolation, Which is basically just focusing on the surface, then don't expect anything to change and I'll be sharing why. And oftentimes things can get even worse. So you might be as I go through this list, he might think, well, I know so-and-so and everything changed really wonderfully for her, her relationship with food improved a lot. I can guarantee that she was doing the appropriate mindset, work on the side. So I just want to make that clear.
None of this is black and white. But as I go through this list, I am speaking in, in black and white terms as if someone is not doing the work on the side. Okay. So just to be clear about that. Now without further ado. Number one. Reverse dieting.
Oftentimes, what I see is the intention of reverse dieting is just to eat more to eventually diet. And it's this energy of, I need to eat more and get my metabolism. [00:02:00] Quote-unquote backup and running ASAP so that I can diet ASAP. I want this all to be done as quickly as possible. There's a lot of desperate energy and this hyper fixation on weight is still present. And I see this with women.
Who've come from a background of under eating, which is often what reverse dieting, which that whole concept in general is overblown and misunderstood. And very big ways. I discussed that in the maintenance master class. If you're interested at all. That will be linked to the show notes below, but. But I often see is this women who have more of that type, a controlling personality, and they have a fixation on their body being perfected.
So they realize, okay, I've been chronically dieting. And now I still am so dedicated and I want this body so badly. They usually are quite lean already. So they reverse diet. They increase their metabolism or they end up eating more. And then as soon as they get to a number that seems somewhat appropriate for an [00:03:00] adore adult, female, their size to be eating then instantly it's okay.
Now I need to diet. There's no room for. Wow. I really want to experience what life feels like to not be focused on my weight. I want to experience what life feels like to not be just tracking and focusing on food so much. Everything is just so hyper-focused on food and their bodies and their physiques.
And it's this feeling of, I will not be okay until I achieve this body. And that is the energy that I often see with this type of person. Where reverse dieting does nothing. But yes, they can eat some more, but they don't feel any differently.
Now tracking macros is similar. And the sense that if you're not doing the appropriate mindset work, then you're just outsourcing your trust to something else. So maybe before it was. For me, for example, I was really focused on carbohydrates. And I never had a tracking macros phase before I healed my relationship with food tracking, [00:04:00] macros blew up after that.
But I can only imagine what would have happened if that were the case. But it's just simply transferring. Okay. It was this list of rules. Oftentimes it's people who were focused on removing foods, so paleo or low carb or keto, whatever it was. And then they realize, oh, I can actually eat a cookie and stay within this calorie range, track my macros and see results. But similarly to the reverse dieting, the focus, the energy is still on.
Okay. I'm just here to control my body. And. They have not learned to trust themselves without having these bumper guardrails outside of their decisions. So trust is still placed outside of you. And you can transfer easily your obsession to numbers. Where you get anxiety. If you go over your numbers and ability to eat without tracking. So you feel like I'm only okay.
If I can look at this clearly in black and white terms and see the numbers in an app on a piece of [00:05:00] paper, that's the only way I'm going to feel at ease and at peace. And it can also make eating feel very utilitarian. And what women typically need after either being shamed for finding tasty foods, pleasurable or being in the state of, I can't enjoy anything.
Or that means it's bad. You hear the good and bad food, right? Oh, anything that's really tasty is bad. And I can't have bad food. So in order to heal that component, which is important, With many of my clients, what they need. Is the opposite of food just being strictly utilitarian. Does some component of it need to just be focused on function.
Of course, because we need to be considerate of our health and respect our bodies. And sometimes people are focused on performance. I am focused on my mental clarity. At the stage of my life. So it's very, very important to me. So I do view food through that context. And I view food through the lens of pleasure. And [00:06:00] experience, and I want it to be. Something that is. More than just purely function and you'll go through different phases of this.
But when macros is you used without the appropriate mindset work on the side, then it can feel very stale. And with that hyper masculine energy of just rigidity. Without considering what would it feel like to have this experience with food, where it's just about the experience and pleasure and the cultural aspect. Maybe you're traveling, maybe you're going on adventures.
Maybe you're being spontaneous. That aspect is often extremely healing for women.
Thirdly, removing foods, trying to. Perfect. Their health. And this is so common, everywhere, right? You look on social media and everyone and their mom. Each guru is going to tell you, you need to be removing this food, that food, the other. In order to perfect your health. I fell into that for so long. [00:07:00] To the point where eventually I was like, I don't know what I can eat because everything is deemed wrong or bad by somebody and it can be incredibly confusing.
So if you find yourself in that state know that it's completely understandable that you feel that way. Given the environment that we live in. But when women are doing this. Again, with a feeling of obsession and control. It's usually under the guise of health, I'm going to remove these oils. I'm going to remove these ingredients.
I'm going to cut out gluten dairy. Simultaneously there's often a secret hope for the magic weight loss bullet. For me. That was, oh, I'm gonna remove gluten. And this is before. I thought I had to remove gluten from my Hashimoto's and all that stuff, which was also not the case, but when gluten intolerance and celiac first came out, Over a decade ago.
I remember thinking, oh, maybe if I cut out gluten. And I can have this quote unquote [00:08:00] intolerance. I can say that then maybe that will actually lead to weight loss. And it wasn't until my dad. We've got, I'd love people who just don't have issues with food. He just said, well, you don't have to have an issue with it if you just want to cut it out because I was making it this whole thing.
It's like, if you don't want to eat, it just don't eat it. And I was like, yeah, but then it looks weird. And it's because it was weird. I didn't need to remove gluten. I just wanted to, because I was hoping. That if I just removed it, then suddenly everything would click in my body. I also didn't understand that it was actually calories, energy balance that regulated weight. So that wouldn't have even made sense.
That doesn't make sense. However, what I often see with women who are removing foods, trying to perfect their health quote, unquote, removing all the stuff, soy, dairy, gluten, dah, dah, dah. Now I've have women saying they're afraid to eat Stevia. Monkfruit everything. It's potentially damaging. Someone told me that. Oatmeal turns your brain into mush.
It's like, okay, well [00:09:00] for moving all those things, but you still have that underlying feeling of I'm hoping this is the thing. Nothing's going to change.
Now trying to perfect your health at all. So not even just foods in general, but just trying to perfect your health. That can also just be a transference of the need to control and a lack of trust in the body. Your body does not need you to have your paws in there. And I learned this the hard way. In the nitty gritty details, trying to tell it what to do. Imagine if you broke your leg. And you were sitting there trying to tell your body how to heal the bones. In your body. Or when you have a stomach flu or when you have the common cold, are you sitting there saying, okay, now you need to be congested here and now your nose needs to run.
And now you need to do all these things. Now you need to get a headache and have some inflammation here to heal that. That would be absolutely absurd. Right. The body knows how to heal [00:10:00] itself. We just need to give it the right environment to do so. So when I see women that are really focused, they turn their weight-loss obsession into I'm going to perfect.
My health and really grip control there. Because it is still that tightly controlled grip for control. It makes them feel. Like, everything's going to be okay if I can just make my health. Perfect. And oftentimes what happens is the exact opposite. Their health actually gets worse.
Next is if I just obtain the perfect body. Quote unquote. Right. And everyone has a different image of what that looks like in their head. But what happens is you get quote unquote, there you arrive. And then you realize. Oh my gosh, but now I want to change this and now I have to do this. And the next thing. And I'm sure you've even said to yourself at some point, I just want to lose 10 pounds, then I'm going to be fine.
And then I'm just going to relax, but then you lose 10 pounds and you're like, well, now I want to do more. And I want more. [00:11:00] And this happens with human beings for everything. You reach a certain milestone with your career with certain jobs you say, I just want this one trip and it's never enough. It's never, ever enough. Never will be satisfied unless you root your sense of satisfaction and something that is not outside of you. That is not constantly going to keep you on this hamster wheel.
And if you are, let's say you get to a place where like, I'm totally satisfied because I controlled and I gripped my way there and I was desperate and I got it.
And you didn't do any of the appropriate mindset work along the way. Because if you're familiar with my work, you know, I don't care at all. If you want to change your body, I think that's wonderful. But when you do it with this sense of I'm not okay. Unless I look like X, Y, Z. And my issues with food will be resolved once I get the perfect body. If you do happen to land at a place where you actually are satisfied, you will be anxious about gaining the weight back. You [00:12:00] will.
And I hear from women all the time where they say. My issues with food disappear. When I look the way I want, but the minute I start gaining weight, I freak out and I spiral. And this is exactly what I'm talking about. It's because your foundation is weak as fuck. You should not have that feeling of if I gained some weight. Then all hell breaks loose, and I completely lose myself and I get really weird and controlling with food. That means that you have an unstable foundation and that also just leaves you feeling incredibly insecure. Can you imagine if you were existing with a friendship, with a relationship or with a partner? And they said, if you do this one thing that I'm done with you. You'd be like, holy fuck.
I'm so anxious. Okay. I need to make sure that I'm super perfect. That's the same thing. Part of you in your brain. Nose. Oh shit. If we go over what she deems is appropriate. Then we are going to have hell to pay and that feels deeply. [00:13:00] Uncomfortable and unsafe. So do that work of. I am secure in myself, even if I gained some weight, that doesn't mean I have to love it.
And it doesn't mean I can't change it, but I'm not in this state of survival. Desperation means her in a state of survival.
Next is losing weight. If you don't have a peaceful relationship with yourself with your body. And have at best, or excuse me, at worst neutral mindset with food. Then just losing weight, if you think, oh, this is just going to solve all my issues that can kick everything up a notch for the aforementioned reasons. And also you are going to associate your sense of wellbeing with losing weight. It's only, it's always going to be an I'm.
Okay.
F.
And if you start to see if you lose weight and you gain a lot of external validation, People start giving you comments and that facilitates and perpetuates the spiral of, oh gosh, I'm only [00:14:00] safe. If I look a certain way and that's just not what I want for any woman. Is the sense of I'm only okay. In the world. I'm only okay. In myself. And I only feel like I'm a lovable, if I look a certain way. Oh, that just pains me and I spent so much time there. And it feels like how. And the honest to God's truth is you will only feel truly secure. It's not about other people.
It's if you know, you have your own back. That you accept yourself. Regardless of the way you look, everyone thinks it's about what everyone else thinks. And of course we are social creatures. I will never deny that. But. I will take any day. Everyone rejecting me. As long as I have not rejected myself versus the opposite. If I have a ton of people around me and I've rejected myself. Sure.
We've all been in that situation. That is true loneliness when you're in a room with people and you know that you've betrayed yourself. That is the ultimate. Sense [00:15:00] of abandonment because you've abandoned yourself. So that is why I bring this up so often. Except yourself. Without conditions. Of course have standards for yourself, how values you want to live by, but when you respect yourself and you care about yourself and you love yourself, you're naturally going to want to do those things anyway. So you don't even have to worry about that.
Next is tracking every part of their health.
So blood sugar, their steps, then their sleep, but then they're this they're that every single aspect of their body. Is tracked. And the reason again, if you're not doing the appropriate mindset, work on the side, is this still makes so much of their life about body and food. And I didn't realize how much of my life looking back. Was focused and spent thinking about food and my body and exercise and health and controlling all of this until I was on the other side. And looking back on my God, my life was so small and I'm so glad that [00:16:00] I improved that. Because I would not. I have achieved half of what I've achieved. In other ways it would not have been able to build a business. To make all the beautiful friendships I have to show up in the way I have in so many relationships, just grown as a human being. Explore new hobbies. Honestly discovered who I really am. Because it keeps you so small. That's just such a small way to live.
You get to the end of your life. You're like, wow. I. I tracked every. Every aspect and function of my body. And that was my life. So I know a lot about health and probably don't have much to show for it. No. Thank you. Okay. So that's still makes so much of life about body and food. And it also can be a scapegoat for women. And a reason not to engage with life. Rather than focusing on the things that would actually contribute to your life.
Like. Being brave and going out and making relationships and doing the scary thing, [00:17:00] maybe. Uh, focusing on a career that is completely new to you and putting yourself out there. It's really easy for us to our brains to come up with these things, to protect us. Yeah, it feels like, okay, well, I'm just going to busy myself with thinking about food and my body and exercise.
And then I don't have to actually put myself on the line. And go out and create a life that I want. And I do this. I find myself, I just recently discovered that I was doing this in another way. Where I was really noticing my brain, trying to focus on fearful things. Well, what if this happens? What if this happens?
And I finally realized this is just a distraction. My brain is just afraid of me growing outside of my comfort zone. And so it's trying to hyper fixate on these things that don't matter. So that I can stay comfort, comfortable. And in my comfort zone. And thanks sprain. That's a great tactic and a very fucking sneaky one at that. But I need to recognize that as you do, if you're in that situation, With.
Okay. My brain is [00:18:00] defaulting to what's comfortable, which is obsessively focusing on health, controlling food, tracking, all these things. But really what would make me fulfilled and happy is expanding my comfort zone and going to chase these things.
And it can also, if you're tracking all of these things, I absolutely fell into. During the initial, I mean, I say initial for my lifetime. Resurgence or not resurgence surgeons have Quito, which was back in high school for me. So mid two thousands. I was doing the whole keto strip. So I feel like I was an OGE Quito fanatic. And. I was not doing these things on the outside.
You could have said, oh, she was tracking all these things for health. And I cannot imagine if I had access during that time to all the technology that's out there today, the or ring the blood sugar monitors, continuous glucose monitors. All those things, I would have had a heyday. [00:19:00] Deep in the weeds. And the reason I would have done all those things is I would have said, oh yeah, I'm so interested in all these things.
No, it would have been because I was hoping for a magic bullet for weight loss. If I just perfect all these things and I micromanage and control, then I'm going to find the one thing. That is going to finally allow me to lose weight. It's not how the shit works. Little did I know? And the last common one that I see is quote, unquote, healing, their metabolism. And I see this a lot in the, if you're familiar with the pro metabolic space, if you're not familiar, you don't need to go look it up. But by healing their metabolism and eating more. And I think they have some really beautiful principles in pro the pro metabolic. Space, but I often see is women who are in that negative relationship with food, that desperate mindset. They cling to it. Is similarly to reverse dieting of. Oh, I'm just going to eat all these really [00:20:00] nourishing, beautiful foods, which is awesome.
If you're not doing it for again, that magic. That hope for that. I'm gonna have a six pack then the fat's just going to melt off my body. Whereas the people do with Quito, they do with all these things is, oh, I'm just going to eat so much butter. And then all of a sudden. I'm going to turn into a fat burning machine, which is what these strange. Gurus promise. And that's not the case. If you want to focus on eating those foods or follow something like the pro metabolic way of eating. And you do it because you really want to see if that will nourish you in a different way.
That is so amazing. And I love that for you. But if you're doing it with that desperate hope of this is going to solve everything. And I'm finally going to feel at peace and feel loved and everything in the world is going to be okay. That is not going to work for you. So in summary, none of these things will help you.
If you're not also doing the required mindset, identity, subconscious work alongside. It. [00:21:00] And ironically what happens when you do. The foundational mindset work your relationship with food, your body, yourself with life. Your desire to engage in any, if not all of these things just disappears. Or at the very least severely diminishes. You might find like I did. Oh, I actually don't have any interest in nutrition. I like to know some high level stuff, just so I know what I need to do to get some results that I want.
But beyond that, I don't give a shit. That was me, might be use. Do some of in gen genuinely have an interest and nerd out on this stuff. Totally. Not talking about that person.
And your fear of letting go of your deep. Deep hope and desperation for the magic ticket. Is often what gets in the way. Of women really surrendering to, I'm going to focus. On letting this stuff go. If you feel a. Uh, not in your [00:22:00] chest or in your stomach and your solar plexus and you feel the sense of, I just can't let it go because there's so much fear.
What I want you to do is once this podcast episode is over, just close your eyes and create 20 minutes for yourself. To just sit and feel that sensation, that fear, let it come to the surface. You're going to be safe. You're fine. And don't try and make that feeling go away. Let it be there. And track it throughout your body.
You might notice what often happens for me is I feel a lump in my chest or in my stomach. And then as I just give it space, let it do its thing. Let it process, then it will move and it's often felt as tingles. Done my arms. And then I come to a place of balance where I realize, oh, not afraid anymore.
And then I can think more clearly. Because that fear will keep you stuck in this cycle and we need to process that fear of I'm going to be okay.
You need to, to really accept and almost mourn that [00:23:00] idea that there's a magic bullet out there waiting for you for all of your issues to disappear. If you just find that ingredient that think you need to track. If you just track your macros, if you just reverse diet and then eat more. And then finally you're going to have the perfect body and everything's going to be okay. That's not how it works. That is never coming. That is that one thing that you're hoping for just doesn't exist.
And I don't say that to speak to the hopeless part of you. I say that to speak to the other part of you that says, okay, let's accept this. So I can actually truly save myself. Otherwise, what's the alternative. You stay on this hamster wheel for fucking ever. And chances are you've been on this hamster wheel. And if you haven't been through. All of these that I just went through.
You've been through several of them. So what I often see with clients. And nothing changes, right. So, I don't want that for you to be in the same position. In 1, 3, 5, 10 [00:24:00] years. Were you still just held out for that magic bullet? Rather than saying I'm done with the shit and I'm going to rewrite the story for myself.
So I hope this was helpful.
And I know this might've seemed like a bit of a downer, but I did, I do want to be honest with you and open your eyes. And this is the reality check that I wish someone would have given me is just saying. Hey, none of this shit is actually going to give you what you want. And the feeling that you're craving of that deep sense of confidence and peace. Is actually going to come from you, just learning to respect and trust and connect with yourself and life and your body and food. And learn to enjoy all these things. Well turns out that that's a way more fun way to live anyway, and it just resolves all this shit on the side. So, if that is something that you would like to dive into more deeply, you can check out my food.
Freedom evolution, course, LinkedIn, the show notes [00:25:00] below. And if you don't want to jump right into the course, totally get that. Then there is the free training that you can start with the four step framework to stop obsessing about food that is linked in the show notes as well. I hope this is helpful.
And I believe this is going to be airing right before Christmas. And I know everyone celebrates different holidays, but Merry Christmas and happy holidays to those who celebrate. I'll see you guys in the next one.