Have you gained weight this summer, and now you regret what you did that led to those extra pounds?
More often than not, when such cases happen, we tend to enclose ourselves in a space of remorse, overseeing the fact that our summer activities have brought us joy. We were happy. It gave us a strong push to keep going.
So today, I encourage you to stay in that bliss as you manage weight gain with a positive mindset.
In this episode, Dr. Adrienne enumerates the most common issues people contend with when dealing with summer weight gain. Here, she shares actionable tips on how to manage that gain with mindset.
What you will learn from this episode:
- Discover issues people contend with when dealing with summer weight gain, and how to effectively deal with each;
- Be reminded that you hold the power towards creating your success -- that you have a choice on what your next steps would be; and
- Understand why a positive mindset is key to managing summer weight gain
“If you enjoyed it, then let's stay there. Let's stay reminded of the joy that we experienced this summer and not overshadow that joy with regret or remorse.”
– Dr. Adrienne Youdim
Key Takeaways:
“Your fear of being unable to get back on track is warranted, it's understandable, but it's unfounded, because you can and will get back on track, but only if you allow yourself; only if you get out of your own way.” – Dr. Adrienne Youdim
“If you don't get out of your own way, you will sabotage yourself.” – Dr. Adrienne Youdim
“When we are acting from a place of fear, we cannot act from a place of intention.” – Dr. Adrienne Youdim
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Managing Summer Weight Gain with Mindset, Not Macros
Welcome back, Health Bite fam. Welcome back to you and welcome back to me. As some of you may have noticed, I have been on a mini sabbatical for the last two months -- away from my day job, away from the office, and away from the podcast -- and I come back to you refreshed and re-energized and really happy to be here. I have missed you.
A BIG ACT OF SELF-CARE: DR. ADRIENNE TALKS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A SABBATICAL AS SHE SHARES HER OWN EXPERIENCE FROM THE PAST TWO MONTHS
I just wanted to comment briefly on this sabbatical that I took. It was a big act of self-care to take this time, something that I'm not used to doing. I have mentioned previously that I do have three lovely kids and barely took a maternity leave with any of them. So having taken this time off for pause and for respite was really a big undertaking.
And prior to taking this time, somebody told me that time off is a business decision. I think if we're talking about the business of our lives, that really is true. It really is a business decision in how we execute ourselves and execute our lives when we take time for pause. So much comes up when we have the time and space to think and be intentional.
And so, if any of you are curious about taking some time off, if any of you feel burnt out or overwhelmed, chasing your tail, having difficulty making priorities, I really recommend that you consider some time off. It may seem like a crazy decision if you are overwhelmed with tasks, but I'll say that it is precisely the time when you do need to step back -- that moment when you are feeling overwhelmed, because part of what that overwhelm is telling you is that you haven't made time to be clear about your priorities.
A little plug there for pause and for space and for time and for your next mini sabbatical.
THE TRUTH THAT GAINING WEIGHT IN SUMMER SUCKS: WHY YOU SHOULD STAY REMINDED OF THE JOY BROUGHT BY WHAT YOU DID IN SUMMER INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON REGRETS AND REMORSE
So, I thought coming back now, myself after some time off, some time for, again, respite and also for pleasure, I took some time off, as many of you have during the summer, out celebrating and enjoying traveling, and whenever we go away on vacation, we are faced with the issue of weight gain. And so, I wanted to start back this week with the topic of summer weight gain. How do we manage what is also common during the summer vacation?
And so first, let's state the problem or the issue at hand, which is you went on vacation and you gained weight. And I'm here to tell you that the real problem here is mindset, and that your fear of being unable to get back on track is warranted, it's understandable, but it's unfounded, because you can and will get back on track, but only if you allow yourself; only if you get out of your own way. And I know this from patient experience, working with patients, thousands of you over the last almost two decades, and I know this from personal experience. I also know that if you don't get out of your own way, you will sabotage yourself. And again, I know this from personal experience as well.
But first, we have to get real. Can we just say that it sucks to experience weight gain? Whether it's 5 lbs, 10 lbs, 15 lbs, 20 lbs, the amount really doesn't matter. It is that feeling of backtracking or backpedaling or remorse or coveting your prior self, your old self, when maybe you were thinner or fit into those jeans. That feeling sucks, but even that feeling is a matter of mindset, because we can reframe our time away. We can reframe it from this place of worry and regret to a place of joy by thinking about what we really did. Hopefully, you went out there, you spent time with friends or family. Maybe you spent time traveling the country or traveling the world. Maybe you spent time enjoying and indulging in decadence that you wouldn't otherwise have indulged in, either great food or maybe great leisure, sleeping in. And if you enjoyed it, then let's stay there. Let's stay reminded of the joy that we experienced this summer and not overshadow that joy with regret or remorse.
So the first tip here is really to get away from that regret to a place of joy. Capture that joy that you felt while you were traveling, while you were vacationing or relaxing, and stay there. Stay with that joy and let that happiness, let that experience, let that reminder really fulfill you and catapult you into the next step.
DEALING WITH THE FEAR OF WHAT IF: PUTTING YOUR FEAR ASIDE AND NOT LETTING IT GET IN YOUR WAY
The next issue we face is fear. Fear of what if? What if I can't get back on track? What if I can't regroup? And that also is a matter of mindset – a mindset that will sabotage your forward momentum and motion. Because when we are acting from a place of fear, we cannot act from a place of intention.
So what I want to ask you to do is to put aside your fear and really let's recruit all of that intention. Let's recruit all of your bandwidth towards forward momentum and forward movement. When we're wasting time in fear and regret and remorse, then we don't have the bandwidth. We really essentially whittle away our energy towards anything actionable.
So if you are now in that place of worry, that you can't or what if, I really want you to acknowledge that fear, give it the love and attention that it deserves, and then kindly set it aside, because that fear is going to get in your way. But again, only if you let it. I want to reiterate your agency here, because you are in the driver's seat. These thoughts and emotions that you have are natural, but they are also in your control. So let's acknowledge them for what they are – as human and normal experiences, normal thoughts and emotions, but let's also acknowledge them as saboteurs and put them aside.
WHAT’S TRUE AND WHAT’S NOT: “SHUT YOUR EYES AND EARS TO ALL THE NOISE AROUND YOU AND BE GUIDED BY WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE TRUE”
Third issue that I see people contend with when they're dealing with summer weight gain is the noise, and that's the noise all around us – all of the nonsense, the fads, the bogus claims, the weight loss myths, all the gimmicks and commercial garbage that is being thrown at us, that we are bombarded with on the regular. But when we are experiencing a moment of insecurity, self-doubt, or imperfection, we're more susceptible to that noise.
I'm going to ask you to really shut your eyes and your ears to all the noise around you and really be guided by your own intuition, by what you know to be true. We know that fads, commercial weight loss programs, bogus pills and shots and supplements don't work. So don't get caught up in that hype and don't allow that noise to derail you from what’s tried and true. Get back to your rituals. Get back to your routines. Get back to those behaviors that are tried and true. It may be slow, but when done sustainably, when done regularly, they are tried and true methods that are durable and that will give you results. They will help you execute. So be mindful of that noise. Be mindful of your susceptibility to that noise right now, in this moment of uncertainty, and shut it out. Don't let yourself get caught up in what you know not to be true.
“IT IS NOT AS HARD AS YOU'RE MAKING IT”: LEARN TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE DIFFICULTY WITHOUT MAKING IT HARDER THAN IT ALREADY IS
The next point is that I want to confirm your suspicions. While I don't want to fuel your fear and the noise around us, I do want to be honest and clear that it's hard. It's hard to get back on track. It's hard to reckon with our own imperfections, and to just acknowledge and validate the fact that yes, it is hard. But it is not as hard as you think. In fact, it's better to say that it's not as hard as you're making it. So acknowledge the difficulty, let's validate the hardness, but also, let's not make it harder than it is.
THE MOMENT AFTER: ARE YOU GOING TO CHOOSE THE FORK OF SELF-DEPRECATION OR ARE YOU GOING TO CHOOSE THE ROUTE OF SELF-ACCEPTANCE?
And the last point I want to make is the moment after. So after all has been said and done, we are now at this point. It's kind of like a fork in the road, and we have a choice. We have a choice to either accept things and ourselves for who we are and where we are right now, or we can give attention towards self-deprecating and being frustrated and angry and all those negative things towards ourselves.
What are you going to do the moment after? What are you going to do in this moment? Are you going to choose the fork of self-deprecation, or are you going to choose the route of self-acceptance? And I'm here to tell you that the latter will invariably and undoubtedly lead you down the road of sabotage. You want to badger yourself and bang yourself in the head over what has been said and done. You will never get yourself or allow yourself to get back on track. But if you can accept yourself for where you are in this moment and not with a negative tone – again, hopefully this was joyful – but in a positive way, with a positive mindset, accept yourself where you are right now in this moment and utilize all of that energy towards forward movement, I promise you that you will achieve success however you define that for yourself.
So really think about not what's happened in the past, but what happens the moment after. What do you do now when you're at that fork? And this really is such a bigger question, which is why I love these conversations about food and weight in our bodies, because really, this is such a microcosm of bigger questions in our lives. How we treat ourselves in terms of our food in our bodies, how we see ourselves in terms of our relationship with food and our relationship with our weight in our bodies is really a microcosm for how we see ourselves in the bigger picture.
So if you can meet yourself with self-acceptance and choose the road towards forward motion and positive thinking, then you will be able to achieve that goal that you've set for yourself, whether we are talking about food, weight, or really anything else in our lives, any other relationships that we are reckoning with.
So at the end of the day, we have a choice. Here we are right now, where we are in this moment, we have a choice of what we're going to do the moment after. And I want to encourage you to take that fork, that road, towards self-acceptance, as opposed to that road towards self-deprecation. It's the kind thing to do for yourself, but it's also the effective thing to do for yourself.
I hope that if you have experienced summer weight gain and were feeling kind of in a funk over it, this episode helps reframe your thoughts and emotions around it. I hope that you can take this process forward with a light-hearted and kind-hearted fashion. Recognize that this is something that is universal; one step forward, two steps back is something that we all experience. But again, we don't have to see it as a limitation. We can stay and revel in that joy in which we experienced it and utilize that joy to catapult ourselves forward towards reestablishing our goals.
Stay tuned with us next week. I have a whole line of wonderful interviews that I've recorded that I can't wait to share. If you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend. And as always, you can find us at www.dradrienneyoudim.com for newsletters, blogs, and more helpful tips and resources.
Have a great week and I'll see you next time.