Playing Injured
Playing Injured is the podcast for men who want to grow stronger in every area of life. Every man faces challenges, setbacks, and unseen battles, and how we respond defines the kind of men we become.
Hosted by Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy, entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes, Playing Injured ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally with over 140 episodes.
Every man plays injured spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially. Playing Injured is built on these five dimensions, exploring what it means to keep showing up and growing stronger through life’s tough seasons with raw stories, expert guests, and grounded conversations.
Josh and Mason equip men with the mindset, tools, and stories to build resilience, lead with strength, and thrive even when life feels like they’re playing injured.
Playing Injured
Sustainable Weight Loss Starts When You Change How You Think | Dr. Pavi Kundhal (EP 148)
Want weight loss that actually lasts? We sit down with Dr. Pavy Cannall, a surgeon with nearly two decades of experience, to unpack why the breakthrough most people need isn’t a new meal plan—it’s a new mindset. From identity shifts to social pressure, from emotional eating to constant digital distraction, we pull apart the hidden forces that derail progress and share simple, repeatable tools that put you back in control.
Dr. Pavy explains how his most successful patients treated surgery as one tool among many, then rebuilt their habits and self-image to match the life they wanted. We explore the difference between physical and emotional hunger, the circuit-breaker question that stops autopilot snacking, and the power of journaling to reveal patterns you can actually change. We dive into mindful eating—no screens, slower bites, clearer signals—and how short daily meditation builds the presence you need to make better choices under stress.
You’ll hear how to visualize high-risk moments before they happen, design an environment that removes “weight gain enablers,” and use community and accountability when your current circle resists your growth. We also challenge outcome obsession: goals set direction, but systems deliver results. When the scale stalls, your process—sleep, movement, protein, mindfulness—keeps compounding until the body catches up. If you’re ready to shift from willpower sprints to identity-level change, this conversation gives you a practical path forward.
Subscribe for more mindset-first health conversations, share this with someone who needs a nudge, and leave a review to tell us which tool you’ll try this week.
Want to be a guest on Playing Injured? Send Joshua Dillingham a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/playinginjured
This episode is all about the truth behind lasting weight loss and how real change starts with your mindset effects. In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Pavy Cannall, a surgeon who spent nearly two decades helping people lose weight, and who's learned that real transformation happens when your mindset shifts. In this conversation, we get into why mindset is the key to sustainable results, the deeper reasons people struggle with weight gain, and how identity and self-image shift after weight loss. Dr. Pavy also breaks down practical tools, mindfulness, journaling, meditation, and simple daily habits that help you stay consistent and make healthier choices more days than not. Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_02:All right, Dr. Pavy. I always love starting a show with who is Dr. Pavy and how does he spend his time today?
SPEAKER_00:Well, thanks again for having me on your show. That's a good question. So, you know, when I think about myself, I think about you know my personal life and my professional life. And obviously, I think the most important you know thing that defines me is my family. So I have three children, uh, an eight-year-old, six-year-old, three-year-old, so it's busy. I'm married, my wife's a surgeon, also, so it's a busy household, lots of things to balance. I've lived in Canada my entire life. I just live outside, I grew up in Toronto, I was born in Toronto, but I live outside the greater Toronto area right now, and my family's there. So I feel very connected uh to Toronto and uh Canada. I work as a surgeon. I've been practicing independent practice for 17 years. I've had a real focus in weight loss. I performed hundreds of weight loss procedures, but I also focused on mindset and how it can lead to lasting change. So that's a big part of my clinical practice. But I also, you know, do other things like you know, I uh do a lot of abdominal surgery, colon cancer, things like that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. You know, I know before we kind of hit record, we talked about your book, Shift Your Mind to Shift Your Weight. And a lot of folks, I don't know if they think about the mindset focus of weight loss, right? And I'm thinking about you and how you perform weight loss surgeries on people. And I'm pretty sure you found people who they haven't necessarily changed their mindset or their habits around this new kind of body that they have now, right? And so along the way, you were able to find out like, hey, this should be a mindset shift as opposed to just the physical, right? Talk to me about that, how you kind of came along to this journey.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a good question. So, you know, initially when I started out working with people to, you know, get healthier through weight loss, I used to really focus just on the technical aspects, how the surgery's done, the angles. And that's obviously very important. But I started seeing as you know, you start doing things for long periods of time, you start seeing that not everyone succeeds to the same degree. There are some patients who did really well, there's some patients who did you know what you expect, and some who didn't do as well as you had hoped. And what I found was that the patients who did the best were the ones who, for example, use the surgery as a tool to help them lose weight, but not the not the only thing. They use it as a tool to also help them change their mindset, their habits, their lifestyle. And those are the people who I found had the most lasting results. And that's when I started to realize that you know, the surgery is obviously important, but changing how your relationship with food, changing your habits, what you do day-to-day are just as important to have that lasting change. And that's kind of where I realized that you have to, and that starts in your mindset. Because ultimately, the only thing we can control in life is how we think and what we choose to do. And yeah, so teaching the skills to actually first understand why you're doing what you're doing. First understanding why you actually do what you do is the first step to then making lasting change. Because a lot of times we do things we don't even know why we do it. We just do it because maybe our parents told us to do it or our friends, doors of learned behavior. But we've never really slowed things down and tried to understand why we're actually doing what we do. And I think that goes to often why are we eating? A lot of times, patients after work, it's instinctive. Okay, I'm done work, I'm tired at a busy day, you know, maybe my coworkers are bothering me. And then you just routinely go to the drive-thru and go to Starbucks or whatever, and you grab a snack. And you may not even be hungry, but it's just something you do to give you some comfort and manage your emotions. And over time, those habits really do compound into like sometimes detrimental effects in your health.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You know, so doing kind of research on you and kind of your story, the work you do. Have you heard the book psychocybernetics? I have I have, I have not read it though. So obviously it's a it's a very popular book, but the author, Maxwell Maltz, he also was a plastic, he was a plastic surgeon, right? And he realized that patients changed their appearance, but it didn't change their self-image or their identity, right? And therefore it didn't necessarily change their lives. And so hearing your work, it's a very similar story of how you found it, right? And one thing I'm thinking about is identity or or self-image and and how they think, right? How have you found that into the picture of the identity shift in the way somebody thinks those two kind of factors?
SPEAKER_00:That that is something that we try to prepare our patients for because sometimes, you know, after surgery, you can have dramatic weight loss. Right. And it can happen, you know, sometimes you know, quite quickly. And sometimes how you've perceived yourself is different than how how other people are perceiving you. And sometimes the world changes quickly because unfortunately, you know, a lot of times people are judged for you know exterior reasons, yeah. And now all of a sudden that's changed, and now the world's relating with you differently. And sometimes it can stress relationships you've had. You've had friendships where people expected you to be a certain way, and now you're not that person anymore in those people's eyes. And sometimes people lose friendships where people don't relate to them the same way, or they feel like they're being judged because they took something, they took a positive step to change their life, and people are judgmental of that. And and it can put strains on personal relationships. You see it sometimes in people's, you know, marriages or relationships with co-workers. So it it really these are, you know, how it really hits to who you are and how people perceive it. It changes that.
SPEAKER_02:You know, um you mentioned it, I'm thinking about people when people want to change, period, right? They want to change the way they live their life as a whole. They have some identity change or identity shift, uh, where they want to do something better for them for their life. The people around them actually start to judge them, right? And I I that wasn't even something I thought about with this. But the people around you want to keep you in this box. They don't want you to leave this box. And so it can cause some type of strife and friction in the relationships that you have. And so when you go through change, you have to not only change your own identity, but a lot of times you your environment and the people around your environment when you have change. And so it sounds like you you have to prepare your patients for that. I don't know. What do you tell them? How do you help them through that process? Like, what does that look like?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's a really good point you bring up. You know, I I would say that let's just step back from even weight loss and just think about life in general. Yeah. A lot of times if you try to improve yourself or you want to have a better life, you want to be more successful, whatever it may be, have a better job, you know, be more athletic, uh lose weight, whatever it may be, that can be triggering to the people around you because if you actually do those things that you're supposed to do and start having the life that you want to have, it then highlights to the people who are not doing those things that it is actually possible. And and it can then affect them because now they have to face look themselves in the mirror and say, well, I didn't, I didn't do those things and she did, and look at her. So that that sometimes is a lot of the reasons why people don't react positively when someone's trying to change or improve their lives. And I try to tell patients that like you need to know things are gonna change for you, and in many ways positive, but in some ways they're they're they're sometimes negatives because how people relate to you, those friendships, they may not be as supportive as you want. So you have to have that emotional resilience to sort of manage those emotions because sometimes those emotions can trigger you to make bad food choices. Yeah. Because a lot of eating is emotionally triggered. You know, when we grow up, if you're having a bad day, your parents say, Oh, grab an ice cream or you know, have a candy bar. That's kind of a way to make you feel better, or you know, see you've you've achieved a big success. Let's go to the restaurant, have a party. So we a lot of a lot of emotions in for humans are tied to actually eating. So it's not surprising then that emotions can drive you to make bad food choices.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, it's uh and you don't even realize it unless you're conscious, right? About your decisions and your emotions and how you process your emotions and how you try to regulate yourself and soothe your emotions. And a lot of times it is through eating. And I mean, you see it all the time. I can even think about myself when I'm super hungry and I'm cooking something and I'm dancing, right? You're in a good mood, you're about to regulate your emotions, right? But being conscious though, right? The the the mindfulness piece of it, to be aware of, okay, how am I feeling? I need to take a second to pause, take a deep breath. Am I actually hungry or or am I trying to sue certain emotions? And it's not even just, you know, eating is is is how people sue their emotions, but a lot of times it could be alcohol, it could be drugs, it's sex, it's a lot of different things that people do to sue these emotions with certain vices and food and sugar a lot of times are probably one of the main ones because it's so accessible, right? How can folks start to handle that when these emotions come up?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's that that's a really good question. And I I think it it goes to the concept of being present and mindful. And we really try to stress that in our clinic that this is one of the tools you can use to increase your control of your behavior. Now, it's a you it it's really interesting you brought up all those things, how people everyone has their vices they use to manage their feelings, so gambling or drugs or whatever it may be. Unfortunately, food's one of those things you can't go cold turkey on. You can't say I'm not, you know, just like you can say I'm never gonna touch alcohol again, I'm never gonna go into a bar again. You can't do that with food because you need food to survive. And that's what makes it particularly challenging because imagine trying to tell someone who's struggling with you know substance abuse, you can only have a little bit, but you can't have a lot. And it it can be a very, you know, it's almost it seems like an almost impossible thing then for someone to do because you know you have those tendencies. So that's why I think you know, one of the tools we talk about is mindful eating instead of mindless eating or unconscious eating. And you all did to some of the things that are really important. So whenever I, you know, I when I talk to patients about strategies to be present when you're eating, the first thing is this just slow things down. You know, we're in a fast-faced society, we're getting dopamine surges from our devices, TV, lots of things are going on all the time. So a lot of times we're just doing things, we're not actually thinking about why we're doing them. So I think the first step, you know, when you sit down is or you're about to grab a snack or whatever it may be, ask yourself, am I actually hungry? Just that question itself can be a circuit breaker because now you've stopped that unconscious behavior of just grabbing whatever's on the counter, and you're actually asking yourself, and if you just ask yourself that question, I'd say 50, 60% of the time, you probably won't even eat something just by putting that circuit breaker in there. And so we so once you've asked that question, now if you say, Yeah, I'm hungry, that's fine. And we also try to teach people the difference between physical hunger and emotional hunger, and they're two very different things. Physical hunger is when your body needs energy. You know, you've been exercising or you've been at work for four to six hours, now you're hungry. You need you need calories to fuel your body functions, to walk around, all those things. And you those are very distinct feelings. You start feeling lightheaded, you feel tired, you feel, you feel lackadaisical, you have a pit in your stomach. Those are feelings that your body's telling you, no, you need to eat, we need energy. Whereas emotional hunger is different, it calls it comes on all of a sudden. You had a stressful interaction with your boss work or your coworker, or you had a bad conversation with your wife or husband or whoever, and then you get this sudden desire for comfort food, it comes on suddenly, then you eat it, and often you have that feeling of guilt afterwards. Like, why did I eat that? I didn't really need that. Now, you know, it doesn't give you that statue that you're looking for. So I always ask patients, you know, that's where journaling is very important. It's okay if you do that. We all do it, we're human beings, but it's important to actually write down why you did it. See, because if you pay attention, if you truly pay attention to what you're doing, I don't care what aspect of it is in your life, if you truly pay attention, you will find your patterns to your behavior that that occur in a consistent way. You've never spent the time to slow things down and understand yourself. But if you do then realize after work I'm stressed out, you know, it's been it's you know, I'm an in let's say I'm an introvert person, it's taking everything out of me to get through this job where I got to interact with all these people. I'm emotionally exhausted, I haven't had any control. I feel like people are telling me to go to the meeting, do this, do that. Now you're in control, you're in the car, I'm just gonna, you know, I need something to feel good. I need an upper. So you go to Starbucks and get, you know, banana loaf or whatever. And then you start realizing I'm doing that every day, right? So then maybe you start realizing, okay, well, why don't I change that? The cue is the stress from the day. Instead of going to Starbucks, maybe I'll just keep a you know a two-liter bottle of water in my car and just drink that. You know, that'll become your new habit. So that I think that's that's that's the one of the most fundamental things is being present, slowing down, trying to understand what you're doing. And also eat and not eating distracted. That's another thing where patients or people fall into trouble, is that they'll combine eating with another activity. We used to not do that in the 50s and 60s. Nobody had TV sets. You sat with your family, you ate, or you sat by yourself. But now we, you know, we're flipping through Netflix or wherever it may be, and we're eating unconsciously. And sometimes when you you probably noticed that yourself when you're watching a movie, you eat a lot more than you would have if you just sat at the table and eated. Just because you're not you're not paying attention to the body cues, my stomach's full. You just keep eating, and then at the end, you're like, oh man, I ate a lot more than I expected to. So I think that that's that's another key thing, is you have to be present when you're eating. You shouldn't eat distracted.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. You know, I do that, you know, you try to do that all the time. Like we see a lot of folks, they'll make a meal and then they'll try to find a something to watch on Netflix, and they just they, you know, you it takes a long time to find a show to watch on Netflix, and then your food is getting cold. So, like, people want to entertain themselves while eat, as opposed to being more present while eating, more mindful, right?
SPEAKER_00:And I think that's just unfortunately what's happened in the world. We're just all we're just constantly being distracted by our devices. It's actually really difficult to just sit down, you know, for two, just try to sit down for five minutes, not talk to anyone, not look at anything. People can't do it anymore. It's kind of a lost, it's a lost skill. Like people used to go on five, six hour flights with nothing. They just sit on the plane and right. If you think about it, right? People used to do that. Now if you're if your TV screen's not working on the plane, it's like it's an emergency, right? Yeah. So like it's gone to that point.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'm thinking about that. I can't even imagine getting on a plane, no electronics, nothing, just no heads, right? You just sit on the plane and just sit there. Uh well, you have to talk to people, right? And one of the things we talk about with friends and community, right? Is like, you know, trying to stay accountable in a world where you are changing, right? And so, like we mentioned, maybe the people around you probably are you're holding up this mirror to them like, hey, I'm making a change, and you know, you know you should be making a change too. And me making my change is is kind of making it more apparent to you, right? And so that could be a tough community to be a part of if you want to stay consistent, right? They might actually pull you down. And then you're also in the process of making this change, and so you might not have that community quite yet that is going to encourage you, right? And I'm sitting here thinking about distractions and how, you know, the example of you being on a plane, well, they actually talk to each other, right? They probably had more conversations, right, and develop more relationships. And I think that happens when you're a little bit more mindful, right? One of the things I'm thinking about now is actually building new community with the identity that you want to become, right? And I don't know if a lot of folks think about that of hey, trying to find people who are on the the same journey or on a similar journey as you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's really true. You know, community is, you know, it's something that's getting harder and harder to find as we're getting more isolated from each other. Like we, you know, you saw, you know, we're we're now we don't talk on the phone to each other, we just text each other, or yeah, you know, we do we're working remotely, we're not going to the office. So people are getting more and more isolated in some ways. And having, you know, I always say like having an accountability partner can play a huge role in you achieving your goals, whatever that may be, but particularly in weight loss, I think it's really important. And I always tell, you know, people who work with us, you know, when you are going to embark on a major change, you should involve, you know, your loved ones, key friends, like have them be part of the process so they can actually be a source of support for you, because there are going to be people who are not going to be, but the people who are most important to you, if you if you really let them know you're doing something that this is important, they often are ready to support you. And you and getting buy-in from your family is really critical because sometimes one of the strategies we talk about is you have to do you have to do a survey of your environment, work and at home. And if you really want to make lasting change or lasting weight loss, you need to remove the weight gain enablers in your environment. So, you know, the the calorie-dense snacks on the counters, deleting the delivery apps on your phone. You know, that's another example of technology which has made weight gain a lot easier. Is because before in Canada, for example, if it's a snowstorm or it's you eat a minus 20 degrees outside, you're not going to go, you'll just eat whatever you have in the house. Now you just use, we get Uber Eats. I think you just read the same thing. Uh, you can just order anything 24-7, they can bring it to your house. So that instead even then, so now you can get food anytime, and you've now even lost the calories you burn, going to the car, walking, or whatever it may be to the restaurant. That's all been taken away now. So we're, you know, so there are lots of these, you know, technology has had a lot of benefits, but it's also had a lot of negatives too, because people are less, there's less movement now in our lives, and we don't even realize that it's happening.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, so e even with the distractions, right? To make things more convenient to eat the Uber Eats and you know, even deliver, deliver groceries, deliver everything, right? Everything. Everything. You you can use your phone to do everything where you don't get out and do different things. And you probably do these in a in a emotional state, right? When you have your phone out and you're ordering food. I I don't know too many people ordering a salad on Uber Eats. I don't know too many people ordering a it's just gotten too easy.
SPEAKER_00:It's everything has just been made so easy. And you know, if you really think about it, you could not even ever step out of your house for days now, yeah, if you other than just opening the front door to get whatever was delivered. You know, you can work from home, you can get everything delivered, grocery. And I I don't know if that's a good thing. I actually don't know if that's a good thing. I think uh it isolates you from other people, but I also think it makes us it makes us more sedentary. We're not moving, you know, all of those simple movements that we do, like walking to the office or taking the stairs at work or walking to put the letter in the mailbox or grab a bag of milk. That actually played it, that that was an important thing. That was like, you know, you compound that over a year, those are you know hundreds of thousands of steps you're no longer taking. And that's all kind of been removed. So those are all challenges we're facing because you know, to to fight what you know, that environment, that that weight-gaining environment, it, you know, movement is part of our is part of the process, trying to find ways to increase movement in your day-to-day life.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you know, one of the things I I even think about in myself, right? I try to get out of the house as as much as I can. You know, I think about a lot of these habits. One of the main emotions or things I feel is boredom, right? Just being bored at home. So just naturally, I just go to the refrigerator and open it up, and I'm not hungry at all. I'm just bored and I need something, some type of dopamine to get me excited, right? Something to get me in in a more excited state. And so even getting out of the house more could, you know, help with that. You know, you you mentioned mindfulness and you're thinking you mentioned journaling, right? Journaling to be more aware of your patterns, your habits. Anything else when it comes to mindfulness that maybe you practice or you encourage your clients to practice?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I think obviously journaling's great because it actually slows down your thoughts. The process of you know, articulating what you're thinking, putting pen to paper, it really makes you get deep into what's going on in your head and trying to understand it. So there's a lot of value in that to sort of to kind of develop those sorts of habits. But I also think, you know, a thing that I found very important and helpful in my life is meditation. I've kind of grown up doing it my entire life. And when people think meditation, oh, they think, oh, you're sitting on a mountain and you know, you're you're contemplating you know high ideas, but it's not really that. To me, meditation is almost the epitome of mindfulness. It's that process of like we talked about, just sitting by yourself, undistracted, even for three to five minutes, and really trying to pay attention to, you know, just just being present in the moment, paying attention to how your body's uh functioning, paying attention to whatever's going through your mind, and just just being comfortable with no distraction. That really slows things down. And I think that really helps you, that teaches you the skills to be present and also to become more aware of your body as you feel, you know, you take your breath and you feel the inhalation, and then you feel and meditation could be a great way to de-stress. You know, with each exhalation, you can let out any of the stress from the day. And I think that practice of meditation done, and it doesn't have to be, you know, I would say even if you do it for five minutes a day, even if you do it, but even if you do it before you eat dinner, five minutes a day, that will really change how you approach your day-to-day life, but also how you approach the eat because it'll calm you down. You'll kind of have a chance to digest or process whatever was going on in your day, and then you can be more aware, present, and actually more in control of what you do after that. So I really do think that that's and I think that's even in anything you do in your life, maybe you have a stressful meeting coming up, or athletes do it before big games to try to calm their emotions, right? And you know, and and I think to to to also speak to that too is one of the things I tell patients also is one of the things that can derail patients when they're trying to make big changes in their lives, you know, that they've worked really hard to be on a you know a routine where they're eating less, they're more active, is the special events. So sometimes the wedding, you know, the big dinner, the reunion, whatever it may be, those can sometimes derail people who are making a lot of progress. And one of the things I tell people to do is like slow things down, actually almost get into a meditation state and visualize how you're gonna handle the event. Visualize what you're what compromises you're willing to make, what and and what you're not willing to negotiate. Because if you actually think ahead of time how you're gonna handle the appetizer table or the wine or the drinks or the shots or whatever it may be, if you think ahead and you come up with a strategy, you're gonna be a lot more likely to follow through on that. And you're also gonna have the guardrails up that prevent you from you know getting carried away. And I think that's what we see that in athletics. Athletes visualize, they'll visualize, you sometimes see them closing down, pretending they're taking a shot, but they're actually visualizing it in their head because if you think about it, if you've thought about it ahead of time, you're more likely to make the correct decision. And sometimes that's the thing with like a negotiation. If you think about it, if they're gonna say A, this is how I'm gonna respond, and they say A, or this is how I'm gonna respond, is they'd be, it's a lot easier to do the right thing than if you have to make it up on the spot. So I think that that's where meditation and visualization can really play an important role.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's huge. I, you know, obviously, you know, it's especially in athletics and when I was playing basketball, like visualization was something that was huge. Even even in a big event, maybe a big interview, big presentation, or something like that, something that's high stakes you think about visualization, right? But it's so many examples, even that I can think about, uh, and and anybody that's going through some type of change and they're consistent in doing something, where they're going to an event and they know that this event or maybe this environment is going to be a tough environment to be in, right? And if you can visualize yourself being successful and walking away from that environment, feeling good about yourself, you'll be more successful in that environment. Because it's not like it's the first time you're there, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's that that's and I get yeah, like I can like as a surgeon, I visualize my operations often. I will think them through in my head before I go to bed. Okay, I have to do this case tomorrow. I start imagining the steps. What will I do if this happens? What will I do if I encounter something that wasn't picked up on the scans? Or, you know, you you so you kind of go through, and then over time you have these kind of algorithms, but you also it's interesting, it's just spending a few minutes thinking through or even writing out the steps. If it's something that you know that's not that common, it makes a big difference when you're actually doing it then because you've slowed things down, you've thought it through. And you're right, when the stakes are high, you have to have you don't want to just be guessing and you want to have had a strategy going in. And I think that's where visualization really plays an important role.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So journaling, meditation, visualization. And I'm now now that you mention it, even you as a surgeon, right? Like every almost everything you do in a way is kind of high stakes, right? And so keeping your emotions in check, right? And and keeping your mind calm, right? This is something that you probably practice on a regular basis yourself, all these three things.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. You know, I would say that a, you know, sometimes you develop those strategies and you haven't, you they just happen. You've never really thought about, you know, but when you step back and think about and really, you know, when I started thinking more about how your mindset's important, I started thinking about some of the things that I had developed in myself, and I didn't even realize I was doing it. But you kind of had just developed those skills because you have to out of necessity. Like you said, like if if a case is not going well or you encounter something that you didn't expect, or often when emergency surgery you have no choice, something's happened to someone unfortunately, and you have to deal deal with a serious problem and not optimize circumstances. You have to stay calm and be present and kind of you know process whatever data's in front of you and make the right decision. And you know, if you let your emotions take over, then you won't be a you won't be helpful to the patient or anyone else. So I think those skills, you know, I think I've probably developed them over years of training and practice. And and I and I but I think they're you know, and one thing I'd say is their skills. So to me, skills mean they're learnable, right? So they're teachable. So I think all of us are capable of developing these skills. We just have to one have the opportunity to do it. And sometimes we need people to show us how to do it, and I think that and I think that's That's great. That's empowering because it means that we all can develop these skills over time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. That's why they call you meditation a practice, right? It's a it's a you can practice it. It's something that you develop a skill set, a proficiency over time.
SPEAKER_00:That's that's right. And and I and I kind of think, you know what I try to also impress upon like pay patients who are trying to lose weight, but anyone who's trying to do something significant in their lives, is sometimes we get too fixated on the goal. And sometimes, like let's say you're trying to do something really, you know, big in your life, it may seem like it's so far away, or you know, it's it's not doable. You have to, in those situations, like if you let's say you have to lose 150 pounds and it seems really daunting, and you're like, how am I ever gonna do this? You know, I've never been able to lose 10 or 20 pounds. This is it, it's impossible. And you people just give up and they don't even bother. And I and that's sad because you know, obviously you want to make a change, but it seems really intimidating and not doable. So, what I try to tell patients or people who are who ask for advice is you have to focus on the process. If you focus on the process, if you do what you're supposed to do day in and day out, it doesn't really matter what happens because you're doing what you're supposed to do. And if you keep doing those correct things, putting one step in front of the other, the results are actually gonna come. It may not, it may not come as quickly as you want, but if you're actually doing the right things and you do them day in and day out, if you just focus on what you're supposed to do, it doesn't really matter what the outcome is because you're doing the right things, you're gonna get there. And it sometimes it's faster than you think. And you know, a lot of examples I give are from athletics, but you know, they always say for athletes, just do your job. Just do your job you do what you're supposed to do. Don't worry about the score. If you do what you're supposed to do, it doesn't really matter, right? The results will follow. So that's kind of the same thing with anything in life. There's a lot we can learn from you know the arts, from sports, it applies to life in general. If you, you know, like let's say you're trying to start a business and it seems really daunting, and because being a you know, any type of business person is not easy, you're kind of working for yourself, it's not a guaranteed paycheck, whatever. It can seem really stressful. But if you just know I have to do these things every single day, and if I do those things day in, day out, you are gonna see the results. Whereas if you just focus, I need to generate this amount in this period of time, then it just seems it becomes too overwhelming. So, you know, so I think for anything you're trying to do in life that's significant, you just have to focus on the process. Yeah, you have to understand what those things are that you need to do and just do them.
SPEAKER_02:That's I mean, that that right there is so huge. Not focus and have the goal in place for direction. But don't make that the I guess the main focus is to focus on the habits from the direction that you've chosen, right? What are the habits? The small things I need to do on a daily basis and create that as a system and focus on that to then build that momentum. And honestly, you end up further than just 150 pounds, right? Probably you you end up in a totally different place, place that you couldn't even imagine, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes you end up, yeah, you you're like when you look back, you're like, how did I even get here? And and part of the thing that I think that people don't realize is everyone thinks that when I'm when I'm here and I want it's gonna be a straight line. Every day I'm gonna see the success or progress doesn't work that way. It's gonna be up and down circles, and you will get where you need to be, but there's there are periods of time when things may you may be doing all the right things and you're not seeing the results. But that and then that's when most people give up because you're not getting that immediate feedback. So you're going to the gym, you're you know, you're having a high protein diet, you're not drinking liquid calories, you're doing your mindfulness exercises. Yeah, I've been doing that for four weeks, I've only lost two pounds. Oh, this is gonna be like every other time. What's the point? You just give up, right? Whereas if you know, if you if you just instead take the mindset that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, I have faith that if I keep doing those things, the results will follow. For most people, that they will follow. Obviously, there are exceptions or anything in life, but for the vast majority of people, if you just do the things that you're supposed to do, the results will follow. And they're gonna be dips and they're gonna sometimes you're gonna have faster results than you expected, but that's not normal. That may not, that may not be every week, but that's fine. Celebrate those things when they happen. But the the real thing is really just control the things that you can control. So do the things that you're supposed to do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And like we talked about, that will help with the emotions too, right? That'll help with the emotional side of things, of not getting low and not getting too high, right? When things aren't going the way you want it to go. And then, you know, a lot of times what you'll realize is that, yeah, it's been two months and you only lost two pounds, and then six months down the line, it can be 20 pounds, right? But those two months no movement were a big piece to it, right?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, a huge piece. That's where you were forming the habits, where you're having the discipline, where you're uh changing your your relationship with eating and and understanding why you're doing what you're doing. And you can understate that. You may say, oh, those two months, nothing. A lot is happening behind the scenes, you just don't realize it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then that the habit forming piece, right? Is that's when you start to build that new identity. It's uh so many, like you said, so many things behind the scenes that you don't see, as opposed to you're you're just thinking about 150 pounds being lower on a scale when it has to be a lot of different things that need to change in your habits, your mindset, your life, your identity to get to that 150 pounds. So people are just focused on the goal. And this is more than just weight loss, people are just focused on the goal of certain of certain things and wondering why it's taking so long, as opposed to looking at how that goal has to be the person you'll you need to become to get to that goal, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's right. That that's the most important piece, and really what you should be celebrating is that you did the right things. Yeah. Or you you did you did the things that were the most the things that you could control, you acted on them. Yeah. And you can't, you know, lots of things of everyone's different, everyone's metabolism's different. It's some things, some things are easier for you than me, and some things are easier for me than you, and we're all different. That's what makes us unique. But what you can focus on are the things you can control. And ultimately, what you the only thing you can truly control in life are your choices. Yeah, you can't control what people do to you. You you can obviously control how you react to them, but you can't control there's lots of things you can't control, but really control what you think, and you can control what you choose to do. And and I think that that's really ultimately, like a lot of the skills that we teach, I think they're applicable to every aspect of your life. It's not just like being healthier, but I think it also will help you in your job, in your relationships with your friends and family, or in achieving whatever your goals are, like just having and being present, really understanding. Like when you have a a lot of times we have conversations with people, we're not actually listening to them. We're thinking about what the next thing we're gonna say is, but we're actually not being present and really understanding what they're saying. And when you, and I'm guilty of it just like everyone else, but if you actually start making it a point of being present in every interaction, you'll be shocked how much more you learn. You'll you'll be shocked at things that you were not picking up on before, and you'll actually make better decisions. And so it's actually really important. And you're it's just like when I when my kids, I've had my kids call me out saying, Hey, you know, you're not really I'm sitting there, but I'm not really participating or paying attention. And they'll kind of say, like, you know, they'll call you out in their way they do as a kid. And then you kind of realize, like, yeah, I'm just sitting here, but I know I'm tired, I had a long day at work, but it it you realize it's really important. People can tell when you're not really paying attention or not present.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And you have to make that you I'm I'm thinking about every time I hop on a podcast with somebody, it's it's that's been one of the main lessons I've learned in conversation is being present. Because you'll, like you said, you'll miss out on some some things where it's like, wait, I missed that when I was listening. You go back and listen to a certain podcast, you're like, I missed that. How did I miss that? That's so it was so obvious while listening and and being able to be present in it all. I know you have a book, right? Shift Your Mind to Shift Your Weight, the missing link, right? You know, talk about this and and you know, where is it available at and and how folks can continue to kind of find your journey.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, thank thanks for that. So shift your mind, uh the shift your weight was really, I I tried to, you know, I was trying to come up with some resources for my patients who I found were struggling with maintaining their weight loss or kind of you know rebounding back. And I started to try to think of the tools that I found useful in my life, but also the things I've learned from patients I worked for them. And I was gonna make uh sort of, you know, handouts and have lectures for them and so on and so forth. And then I started thinking, why don't I actually try to put this together in more of a structured approach? So I wanted to make something that was easy to use, easy to understand, did not require a lot of time, because I know people's time and attention is very precious nowadays. So I tried to make something that people could take quick lessons away from and actually adapt to their or introduce into their day-to-day life. So the first part of the book is an instructive piece that talks about the different tools like mindfulness, journaling, affirmations, you know, all of those strategies. And then the second part is, you know, one thing is to have the knowledge, the second part is to actually make it into a habit. So I created like 90 days of just simple journaling activities with motivational quotes in each day just to kind of keep you motivated and empower you, but also to really drill home some of these habits into your life. Because I do think if you can do something consistently for three months, there's a high probability it'll become part of your daily routine, or at least part of it will. And I think that that's where the real change happens is when you do something small consistently, not something drastic for you know one or two days, but if you can do a small thing day in, day out, that's where the real growth occurs. So that was sort of my motivation to create it. And it's available on Amazon. They have it on the Kindle, or you could just order it.
SPEAKER_02:I love it, I love it. And then I know I'm looking, I mean, this is this is amazing in my mind, just the mindset piece of weight loss. Because this is not just for weight loss. This can be some, this can be for all kind of journeys of change, essentially. Yeah, yeah. And so when I'm thinking about mindset, having your mindset being a shift in weight loss, thinking it's like that with everything.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you you really truly do become what you think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If you're an optimistic person, you have positive thoughts, you'll you'll conduct yourself in that way. And if you have the opposite sort of mindset, you know, your if your thoughts are so and ultimately so if you really really if you if you think about the life you want, you have to align your thoughts with that life. And if your thoughts, your if your thoughts, your actions will then align to your thoughts. So if if you really truly want to do something, you have to kind of create the mindset to to to align with that goal. Because if you say I want to be a leader of people, but you're a toxic, negative person, you're not, right? And if you're having that internal dialogue, you can't be that person. It's not gonna be authentic. People are gonna know it, right? So ultimately, like you're you have to really, and you can change, you can change your mindset. That's the piece I really try to impress upon people. People think, well, this is just how I am. I don't believe that at all. I do think we can change how we think and how we approach life. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, it's gonna take time, it's gonna take work, and it's gotta be deliberate steps. But if you do those things, you can change how you think about the world and how you how you how you respond to things that come your way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. Where else how how else can people find kind of some more information about the work you do and find more about you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so on our website, it's uh peelweight lossclinic.com. We have lots of information on, you know, we have a blog with weight loss strategies. But if you also go to our our Instagram at Peel Weight Loss Clinic, that's P-E-E-L, Weight Loss Clinic. I have lots of short videos I put on the you know on social media just on uh some of it's motivational, some of it's on specific, you know, weight loss things like GLP1 medication surgery. But a lot of it I talk about mindset, those sorts of things. So it's sort of a passion project of mine. I do it more just out of interest in something. I find that the the more I do when I do this, I actually teach myself things. Yeah, and and I think that's probably the higher, the the larger reason why I do it is because I learn just as much as I teach. Um, and I think that's what they say. That's how you become a master is by teaching. So that's kind of that's kind of how I'm approaching this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at the the Instagram page right now. I'm looking at the website, and I'm I'm looking, it's a it's a lot of knowledge here. And so I definitely make sure I put all this in the footnotes for folks to find you and and continue to follow your journey, man. This is this podcast is a lot of value. For even folks who aren't looking to necessarily lose weight, it's still some universal principles there for them to grow and develop, right? And then folks who do want to lit lose weight. This is also we we've given some some real tips and and tricks here, honestly, for everybody. So we appreciate you. We appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00:I I thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation. I love it.
