Ep 187 Mental Health Matters and Weight Loss

Michelle Bourque 0:01 You are listening to the it’s your time podcast and I’m your host certified life coach Michelle Arnold Bourque, and today’s episode, I’m discussing Mental Health Matters and weight loss. Welcome to the richer time Podcast, the podcast, we’re busy professionals, like you get the practical solutions and support you need to gain control of your schedule. So you can strive to be the best in your career, but without the stress and overwhelm. If you’re looking to increase your energy and decrease your stress, you are in the right place.

Michelle Bourque 0:35 Hello, hello, hello, welcome back to the podcast friends. Okay, here we are heading into Memorial Day weekend. And I would be remiss if I did not say that we honor those who have died, so that we can do things like this something that we should appreciate and be grateful for every day. I think a lot of times we talk about barbecues and summer starting. But it’s really important to just take a moment to think about all of the folks who have allowed us to do this thing we call life. Michelle Bourque

1:11 And with that, I thought that I would talk about some of the freedoms that we have specifically around weight loss today. I know I know, you might be thinking, freedom, weight loss, weight loss does not feel very freeing, I get it. But I just figured since the pools are opening and bathing suit season is right around the corner. Let’s talk about some different ways that maybe you can feel more free living in your body. So let me start by saying the best way to lose weight is to first accept where you are. So many times we think beating ourselves up is the way to get us to our goal. And if we actually love ourselves and accept our body, we won’t want to lose the weight. And maybe that’s true. Maybe you start loving and accepting yourself. And that’s that. But more frequently, what happens is you start loving yourself, and you start taking better care of yourself. You’re more intentional with what you’re putting in your body. You’re more intentional with paying attention to how you feel when you eat certain things.

And I will tell you, one of the most important things when losing weight is to know what you are thinking about. I know I know the diet industry will tell you it’s counting macros. It’s counting carbs, it’s counting points, it’s counting calories, it’s to be a vegan, it’s to eat a plant based diet. It’s to be a carnivore. Are you kidding me? If it was just that simple? Pick a box and go for it, we wouldn’t have the obesity epidemic that we currently do, right? It’s not just one simple trick. But I have a caveat with that. If you think that what it is you are doing is going to be the trick for you. Whatever the latest fad is, and you truly believe that as the answer it might be until you no longer believe it.

And I say that because there’s been some super interesting research done by Alia Crum. Alia, who actually goes by Ali most often is an American psychologist who is the principal investigator of the Stanford mind and body lab. Crum researches how mindsets affect human behavior as well as physical and mental health outcomes. She is a graduate of Harvard University and her PhD is from Yale. So I think it’s fair to say she knows a thing or two. Now, listen to one of her studies, which is to my point that maybe one of the diets will work when you believe it will. In the past, I’ve talked about the importance of insulin and hormones and weight loss, specifically leptin and ghrelin. Now, leptin helps to regulate energy balance by inhibiting hunger and ghrelin stimulates the secretion of growth hormone from the pituitary gland and increases appetite. I have a whole other podcast on this, if you want to just go back and search. I think it’s just simply called weight loss.

And as a side note, are really good book. It’s kind of sciency. Some may say, if that’s a word, but it is called the obesity code by Dr. Jason Fung. And he really goes into details around the idea of the importance of insulin.

But let’s get back to the research of Ali Crum. The objective was to test whether physiological satiation as measured by the gut peptide, ghrelin may vary depending on the mindset in which one approaches consumption of food. Now, the methods consisted of on two separate occasions, participants consumed a 380 Calorie milkshake under the pretense that it was either a 620 Calorie indulgent shake or a 140 calorie, sensible shake. Ghrelin was then measured via intravenous blood samples at three time points. So baseline was 20 minutes. Anticipatory was 60 minutes and post consumption was 90 minutes. So between 20 and 60 minutes, participants were asked to view and rate the misleading label of the shake during the second interval. So that would be between 60 and 90 minutes, participants were asked to drink and rate the milkshake. And the results. The mindset of the indulgence produced a dramatically steeper decline in ghrelin after consuming the shake, where as the mindset of sensibility produced a relatively flat ghrelin response.

So basically, participants satiety was consistent with what they believed they were consuming, rather than the actual nutritional value of what they consumed. So the conclusion was that the effect of food consumption on ghrelin may psychologically be mediated and mindset meaningfully affects physiological responses to food. It’s crazy, right? So mindset, my friends, is important. And honestly, we don’t need a physiological study on this.

Think about how you talk about food. Most of our society has the mindset that, for example, dessert is good, and vegetables. Not so much. What if we did think that vegetables, food and general that are of high nutritional value, were also tasty. Think about what we do to kids. We forced them to eat their dinner before they get dessert, right? As if the dessert is the prize, and the dinner is the torture.

So if you’re looking to lose those last couple of pounds first, what do you want to think I will fill you in here thinking things like I’ve never been able to do it before, or it’s always such a struggle, they will not likely be very useful for you. Something that is useful is to start paying attention to how you feel. Maybe the thought is I am going to figure this out in a different way, this time. I am going to figure this out for the last time. How about that though. And here’s a novel idea. Just simply, like I said, pay attention to how you feel. Are you even hungry? Sometimes we don’t even pay attention to how we’re feeling. Many times we’re just eating because we’re either bored, or stressed or anxious, or it’s noon time. So pay attention.

Think about you already accomplishing the goal, whatever that number is for you. Or if it’s an outfit that you want to fit into. Think about what she does differently. The person who has accomplished the goal, does she pay more attention to how she is feeling. And when you go to the pantry at night for the Oreos, remind yourself, you no longer do that. And normalize, that your brain has made this a habit of doing this. It’s totally normal, and it can be changed. And give yourself grace to know that it doesn’t have to be you flip the switch and voila, all of a sudden you no longer want the Oreos. It can be a gradual process. And you will notice as you do more of that over and over, reminding yourself that you’re no longer having Oreos at night, you will become that next version of yourself. And you will find that one day, you just no longer even think that you need to have that snack at night. So for example, if you know that you’d like to grab a glass of wine when you start cooking dinner, think about or visualize coming home.

What might you do instead? Can you grab a glass of sparkling water or club soda with maybe a lemon? And a wineglass for example. Michelle Bourque 9:18 Here’s a great tool for both drinking and eating plan in advance. So 24 hours in advance plan, how many glasses of wine do you want? What do you want to eat? And the reason you do it 24 hours in advance is because then you’re using your pre frontal cortex, that executive part of your brain that makes decisions and you’re not just acting on an urge at the end of the day.

The thing is, we often think we can just use willpower, but willpower is limited. So you need a plan. You need to prime your brain. You rewire it in advance And that is what changes the habit. And when you change your daily activities or your habits, that is what leads up to changing your life. And speaking of habits, let’s also talk about exercise today. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you tell yourself, you don’t have time for it, let me share an idea here with you, we all have time for it. We all may not prioritize it. But we all have time for it. And that is important to know. Because you hold so much more power in your life, knowing that you do have the time. And knowing that you can prioritize it, you are just choosing something else. And if you are choosing that something else, simply own it. Sometimes I hear moms saying I don’t have time to work out because I have to take care of the kids lie and lie. And I see that because I have so much love for you first, I don’t have time to work out. Technically, we all have 24 hours in every single day. So you have the time. Next, I have to take care of the kids, listen, own that you want to take care of the kids, and that you are prioritizing that in your life. Because there are moms and I know this for sure that don’t take care of their kids at all. So tell yourself the truth. I’m choosing to take care of the kids over working out. And that’s okay.

And I will even go a step further and suggest that maybe you are working out just not in the way you’re thinking about working out right. So maybe you’re not going to the gym, or getting in a set amount of time away from the kids. But all that you are doing with the kids, I’m guessing has some components of working out in there. Or maybe if you start thinking about it differently, you can even find more ways to incorporate movement with the kids. And what a great example to show them. movement can be medicine, and self care can be fun. In fact, another study that Ally Crum was part of she tested whether the relationship between exercise and health is moderated by one’s mindset. And for this, they had 84 Female room attendants cleaning hotels working in seven different hotels, and they measured physiological health variables affected by exercise, those in the informed group were told that the work they do so cleaning the hotel rooms is good exercise, and satisfies the Surgeon General’s recommendations for an active lifestyle. Examples of how their work was exercise were also provided, and subjects in the control group were not given this information at all. And although actual behavior did not change, for weeks after the intervention, the informed group perceived themselves to be getting significantly more exercise than before.

As a result, compared with the control group, they showed a decrease in weight, blood pressure, body fat waist to hip ratio and body mass index. Now these results supported the hypothesis that exercise affects health in part or in whole via the placebo effect. Again, mind set matters. So as we wrap it up today, I want to suggest that you take a quick cleaning of your brain first, what are your thoughts about your current weight? How can you neutralize them and accept where you are today? So you are not beating yourself up about a number on a scale? Seriously hear me here? We give a piece of metal on the floor. So much power to determine how our day goes. The number is neutral. What do you want to think about that number?

What thought or thoughts are helpful for you and getting to your goal? Wait? No that thought anytime you look at that number, or do you just take a break from the scale entirely and start paying attention to how you feel? start trusting everything that you need is actually within yourself. Next? What are you telling yourself about foods? Are there ways to think healthy foods might be a little indulgent? Are there ways to have the other foods in moderation and not beat yourself up about it? What are your thoughts about time and your ability to get workouts in? What are your thoughts about time and planning Your food in advance? Are they helpful? Listen, there is no right or wrong thought here.

The question is, are the thoughts you are thinking helpful for you in obtaining your goal? And how can exercise be fun with the family? How are you already doing the exercise and maybe not giving yourself credit for it, start getting curious. This is such a big topic because society has so much to say about it, the diet industry wants to bombard us with all of the external ways that we have to lose weight. And it’s really not so much about the weight at all. It’s much more about how you are thinking, what your mindset is, and how you choose to live your life. And when you can learn the skills around this. You can take that to any goal, cutting back on drinking, for example, managing your time setting boundaries, getting into a mindset that works for you, not what others tell you you need to do. That is where the magic lies.

Okay, friends, if you want help with this, I do have a 12 week program where we dive deeper into what it all looks like for you one on one so please feel free to hop on my calendar, www.michellebourquecoaching.com/connect and it’s a great opportunity for us to get on a call and talk about what this looks like for you specifically. As always, please share this podcast with anyone that you think would benefit

Okay friends, that’s what I have for you today. Enjoy the weekend and make it a great day take care,

Did you know you can take this work to a deeper level with me one on one. Go to Michellebourquecoaching.com and click on get started to begin

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