The Feed My Health Podcast

Who Are You Becoming When No One's Looking?

• Rosalind Tapper

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Restriction isn't about punishment—it's about reclaiming your power and honoring the future version of yourself through empowered choices that align with your true standards.

• Shifting from "I can't have this" to "I'm choosing what feels best for me" transforms your relationship with health
• The identity shift from someone who "can't stick to anything" to someone who "keeps promises to herself" happens through consistent small choices
• Every time you say yes when you meant no, you reinforce an identity of someone who always caves
• Having standards differs from following rigid rules—standards come from your values while rules feel externally imposed
• Four practical strategies: pause before deciding, reframe restriction as choice, establish personal standards, and celebrate when you honor your boundaries
• Standing firmly in your choices often earns more respect than conforming to others' expectations
• Your standards may have gotten fuzzy amid life's responsibilities, but you can reclaim them without guilt

Don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in and say it out loud. It's more powerful than keeping it to yourself.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome back everybody to the Feed my Health podcast. My name is Rosalind Tapper, I'm the owner of Feed my Health Online Coaching, and I'm recording this for the second time because me and a very, very good friend decided to record a podcast episode together on Friday and it was absolutely incredible. It was such a good episode. There were so many juicy nuggets, so many takeaways, so many actionable things, and when I went to upload it, I realised that I hadn't captured any of her voice, so it was basically 50 minutes of me basically talking to myself. So I was absolutely gutted. But what are you going to do about it? So today it's a solo episode from me, and me and my good friend are going to re-record it at some stage, because it really was good and I think you will get a lot from that.

Speaker 1:

Today, we are going to be talking about restriction versus reward. I've also done that classic Roz thing and I didn't think this through at all. I've just made myself a nice hot cup of coffee and I realised I'm going to be talking to you for however long this podcast episode takes, which means that my coffee is going to go cold, so I am going to actually do some slurping throughout this episode. So you'll have to forgive me for that. But let's talk a little bit about restriction, okay, because I think that there is a massive misunderstanding about wanting to change your life physically and thinking that it's all about feeling restricted. So I really want to change the narrative. So if you've ever told yourself I deserve this while you're kind of reaching for wine, or you've ever felt guilty about saying no to cake at a friend's birthday or a certain food, if they've made something for you, even when you didn't really want it, then this episode is going to be for you. Because today I want to flip the narrative around restriction and show you how saying no isn't about punishment, it's actually about power, and this took me a long, long time to kind of understand. Once you understand that it's about power, you suddenly feel a lot more empowered.

Speaker 1:

So this one is especially for my midlife ladies. Maybe you've spent the last decade doing everything for everyone else your kids, partner work, looking after your pets, social life you know all of it, remembering all the little fine details, going to bed with your to-do list ingrained on your brain, struggling to sleep. But now you've got to a position where you've had enough. You want to feel good in your body again. But the second that you try, it feels like you're being mean to yourself for saying no to fun or to food. And if this sounds familiar, you're not alone.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to unpack it, because this belief, this that health equals sacrifice, is one of the biggest lies and challenges that's going to hold you back. So you will say to yourself I've been good all week, I deserve this. It's just one glass of wine. What's the point if I can't enjoy myself? That's a classic one. But here's the problem, and I'm saying all of this with love.

Speaker 1:

Every time you tell yourself you've been good, you're reinforcing the idea that being healthy is hard work and that food or wine or whatever your thing is, is a reward. And you're turning nourishment into punishment. And that sets you up for the all or nothing mindset. So when a friend says, come on, it's just one glass, or go on, you know it's the weekend, or oh, it's Friday, or it's Easter or whatever, your brain is going to go yep, this is the fun bit and I've earned it. You know you will justify it in your mind because it's comfortable, it's easy, it's exciting for you. But when Sunday rolls around, you feel guilty, you feel heavy, you feel bloated, you feel a bit disappointed in yourself and you feel like, well, I don't have any willpower, I don't have any discipline, nothing's going to work for me, and that is really pushing your self-confidence lower and lower and lower, and it will be that constant thing of you starting all over again, seeking the next thing. And the more you do that, the more desperate you get, so the more desperate solutions you try to look for. You think that you need more willpower, but what you really need is a shift to your identity from someone who's trying to be good quote unquote to someone who simply has standards.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now, if you don't know really what I'm talking about when I say standards, I want you to think about how you live your life currently, and I don't mean in like your health and wellness sector, I mean just in your life. Maybe you're really proud of your home and you have certain standards that you like to uphold in your house. For example, nobody's allowed to have their shoes on in the house, or everybody has to put their plates in the dishwasher. Wouldn't that be an amazing thing? You know, whatever your standards are, maybe you always clean the house on a Saturday. It's exactly the same, but with your health's no different. Maybe with work you have certain standards like. Your standard is that you are always five minutes early, you're always clocking five minutes early, you always complete everything, like that's okay to have that standard.

Speaker 1:

It's not about perfection, though. Okay, because when we start to try and be perfect with everything, which is an unattainable standard, you will always feel shortchanged, you will always feel a little bit low, because you, you know you can't achieve perfection, and you can't achieve perfection in all areas. So it's not perfection, it's not restriction. We're talking about having standards now. So what I want to ask you is this when did we start believing that saying no was rude or that having boundaries makes us that woman, you know, makes us, you know, who do we think we are holier than thou? Like when did that start happening?

Speaker 1:

Because saying no doesn't make you rigid or boring. It actually makes you really clear, it makes you really respected, it makes you powerful. Powerful, and who doesn't want that? So imagine this right your child says they don't want another chocolate. You're not going to say to them oh, come on, live a little. You say, like you're probably thinking in your head okay, good for you, you're not forcing it upon them, but when you say no to you know the cheese board, you suddenly feel like the weirdo at the table. When you say no to the extra glass of wine, suddenly all eyes are on you. Oh, why doesn't she want another glass of wine? What if, instead of seeing it as denying yourself and feeling bad about it, you saw it as actually backing yourself? You're not saying I can't have it. What you're actually saying is I could, but I choose not to, because I want to feel amazing tomorrow. And that's not restriction, that's self-respect, that's long-term thinking, that's leadership.

Speaker 1:

Here's where the psychology kicks in. Every time you say yes when you meant no, you are reinforcing an identity, the identity of someone who always caves. You're kind of reinforcing. I'm the one who can't stick to anything. I'm the one who always puts herself last. But every time you say no when it matters, you're stacking the proof, and that's so powerful. So I'm becoming the kind of woman who does what she says she'll do. I'm becoming the kind of woman who keeps her word to herself. I'm becoming the kind of woman who chooses the future version of me over five minutes of dopamine. You don't need to be perfect to shift your identity. You just need to choose her more often than you choose your past.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and it takes practice. It's not easy. I'm going to have a sip of my coffee before it goes cold One second. So how do we actually do this in real life? Because it's easy to listen to this and then go about your day and just crack on and you fall back into your old habits. It's really important to be able to actually implement this in real life. So here's what I give my clients when they feel torn between what they want now and what they really want long term.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing that I want you to do is to pause, okay, just for 10 seconds, before reacting. I want you to breathe and I want you to ask what would future me want right now? And it might be hard to kind of figure out what future me is. So I want you to think about the ideal outcome that you want to have. How do you visually want to look? How do you want to feel? And then what would that person do in that situation? That's a really good way to frame it. So what would the person who feels how I want to feel looks, how I want to look? What decision would they make right now?

Speaker 1:

The second thing is to reframe restriction Instead of thinking I can't have, I want you to try. I'm allowed anything. I'm just choosing what feels best for me. This morning when I woke up, it's a Sunday morning this morning when I woke up, I could have had any food that I wanted. We had quite a decent amount of food in the fridge because it was my son's birthday yesterday and we did that classic thing of like overbuying. So we've got things in the fridge that I could have eaten, that were relatively indulgent. I would say I could have had any of those things, but I chose to have the thing that sets me up for success, that my future would want to. The future me would have wanted to have chosen. So I'm allowed to have whatever I want. There's no rules. If you're following rules, you're following what is probably not going to work. If I'm honest with you and that's always a really great way of determining if something is going to last Are there rules? Slimming world, I don't know, weight loss jabs, whatever you want to call it If there are rules, it's not going to last. But if you go with the premise of I'm allowed anything, I'm actually choosing what feels best for me. That's so much more freeing and empowering.

Speaker 1:

The third one is to have a soft rule. Okay, this does help, but this isn't a rule in terms of you saying I'm not allowed it. It's setting a standard for yourself. So maybe you decide that if you, for example, if you like to have a drink in an evening, maybe you go from drinking half the bottle of wine to maybe you have one glass. Maybe you're the one that's in control of it, as opposed to it controlling you. Maybe you decide that if you go out to eat more than once in a week, that you, you know you have one dessert one time, and the second time that you go out to eat you don't have a dessert. That's not having a rule. That's not you saying I can't have. That's you choosing what your standards are. And then number four is owning and celebrating your boundaries. Every time you honour your standards, say it out loud, even in your head. You can say like I'm so proud of myself for that proud of yourself.

Speaker 1:

You think of a time because there will be one think of a time when you've said no to something or somebody, whether it's health related or not, and how you felt as a result of that? If it was the first couple of times you've ever done it, you might have felt a little pang of you know, a bit of anxiety. Your heart might have been racing, but that's because you're stepping out of your comfort zone. The more you do it, the more you practice it, the more normal it becomes and then it's just second nature and it's just who you are like. Typically.

Speaker 1:

I'm not a dessert person, that's. I've created that identity for myself because I've reinforced it so many times and I'm okay with that, because I actually don't want to be a dessert person. It doesn't serve me to be a dessert person and I don't really enjoy desserts all that much. It's not, it doesn't phase me at all. And if somebody makes a dessert, especially for me, there would have been a time when I would have gone. Oh, I feel really guilty for saying no because they've gone to all this trouble. That's a me problem, that's not a them problem, that's a me problem.

Speaker 1:

And the more you learn how to stick to your guns and to stick to your standards and stick to your boundaries, the more empowered, the stronger you get and the easier it becomes and it just becomes who you are, and that's an identity shift and that's great. So I'm going to make this relatively short today, but I want you to go away with those four things to think about today. So number one is the pause. Number two is to reframe restriction, and number three is to have your own sort of soft rule. And then number four is to celebrate your boundaries.

Speaker 1:

Okay, your standards just got a little bit fuzzy, that's all it is. Your identity has got buried amongst becoming a mother, potentially, or becoming a partner, or, you know, work or pets or everything Like. Your identity gets buried, and the more noise there is around you, the harder it can become, and so you have to really stand in your power and you're actually now allowed to reclaim it, allowed to reclaim it. This is your opportunity, not with guilt, not with punishment, but with boundaries, with standards and that belief that you deserve to feel strong, you deserve to feel attractive and you deserve to feel in control again, and you don't have to ask for permission. Okay, so the next time somebody says to you, oh, go on, live a little, just smile and say I am just not in the way you think. Actually, I want to leave you with one more thing, because this is really powerful. It's owning your choices, really owning them. And I want to tell you a little story before I finish. And this story isn't something I'm necessarily proud of, but it certainly helped me to understand the difference between going along with the crowd and standing in my own power.

Speaker 1:

So I was back at school. I have told this story before, but I think it's really relevant for this moment. I wouldn't. When I was back at school, I was in a little clan of kids who they all were kind of like I don't know if this is a term that's still used now but sort of like grabby, really into skateboarding, really into very specific kinds of like roaring music, you imagine the kind and I just wasn't into that at all. I really wasn't into that. But I really liked the people but I didn't feel like I fit in because they were listening to things like Slipknot and I don't know. I can't think of one off the top of my head Nirvana, all of those which. There's nothing wrong with any of those things. It just wasn't my cup of tea, wasn't my favourite thing.

Speaker 1:

I was really into pop music, you know Britney Spears and all of those people, and it was very uncomfortable for me to bring that up or to show that side of me, because it just was so abnormal from what they were all talking about and I would have looked like I felt I would have looked like this little weak girl, a girly girl, amongst this crew of like, yeah, skateboarders, yeah, you know. And I remember we were all in our little group and it was a break time. We were all in our little group and it was a break time and I said something like I don't know why I said it or I can't even remember, but I mentioned the fact that I liked Britney Spears and this one particular lad who in hindsight now I realise was very insecure laughed really, really loud and started mocking me. And this is the bit I'm not particularly proud of. I was not angry, but I was like sort of showing off because I didn't want to feel like he's looking down on me and therefore encouraging others to look down on me. So I walked over to him and I just gave him a bit of a smack around the face now, again, preface, I'm not proud of it and it's not something that I did before and it's's not something I've ever done after, but I just gave him a bit of a smack around the face and from that moment those people in that group started to respect me.

Speaker 1:

Now, I'm not saying they respected me because I slapped somebody. I think they respected me because I stood up for myself and into what I believed in and from that moment that kind of taught me that if I have a decision to make and I want to make it and it doesn't align with the norm, there's actually more power in saying it out loud and owning and stepping into that power amongst your peers. Because I would say that often when you do that, the people around you look at you and go, oh, I wish I could do that. They're not looking at you and judging you. There might be somebody that sort of sniggers or kind of eggs you on. You know one more glass of wine? Oh, let's order a bottle.

Speaker 1:

Well, and probably deep down, they wish that they could have the standards and the boundaries that you have. So when you really own it and say it out loud like I am very open about the fact that I'm not a dessert person and so, because it's not a surprise to anybody, they're not surprised when I don't order one. They're not surprised when I don't, you know, have a piece of the cake that they've spent five hours making, and it's. It's empowering for me and it's, you know, it means that everybody knows where everybody's at. So don't be afraid to stand up for what you believe in and say it out loud, because actually it's more powerful than keeping it to yourself. So, anyway, I want you to have a lovely, lovely week. I know we've got two weeks for Easter, so whatever you're up to, I hope you're enjoying it, getting a little bit of downtime, if that's possible, and I hope you have enjoyed this episode and you've taken some nuggets from it. And until next time, please keep feeding your health.