Episode 11 - Self Correcting, Part I

Transcript

Renee Stephens: Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I’m your host, Renee Stephens, and together we’re accessing the control panel of your mind/body system, bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey, and fullness to the rest of your life. Today on the show, I’ll be introducing a concept that is so important to losing weight and keeping it off. But if just might be the one difference that makes the difference for you. So go ahead and set your intention for this episode. Drop inside for a moment and become present with you.

Renee Stephens: And so she decided that she would work with me one on one. Well we had the first session and she had tremendous results from that session and came back in and she said, “You know, this is fantastic Renee. I’ve been binge free since I came I before. I can’t believe it. But, you know, I tried so many things and I’ve had this problem for so long, how do I know that this is going to last?”

Renee Stephens: I talked to her about it afterwards, she said, “Well, you never do”, and I said, “I do, sure I do overeat.” But I correct very quickly. I may overeat by a couple bites before I’m correcting. In fact, I probably regularly eat, maybe once a day I eat a bite or two too much, so that I’m not so hungry the next time. So that I have a little less space in my stomach the next time. And that’s how I maintain my weight. What you want to do, what we want to do, is narrow the interval of self-correcting.

Renee Stephens: And you starve yourself, or you follow the diet religiously. Well that’s a type of self-correcting, and that lasts and that may last for an hour, a day, several months. That may last for a while. And then the pendulum swings the other way and we’re back into the overeating. Well what we want to do is reduce the intervals of self-correcting.

Renee Stephens: It’s no accident that you’re listening to this show. You’re listening to this show for a reason. There’s something for you here, something important. Realize that this is time for you, and open yourself up to healing and breakthrough. You’ve found this show for a reason. Know that you’re in the right place, that there is something important for you to learn or grow from here. My intent with this show is to enable you to break through what’s been holding you back and move firmly into living your dream, because I know it’s possible. I know you deserve it. I know that you can. So far on Inside Out Weight Loss, we’ve learned about creating a powerful motivation cocktail, and the power of positive intent and better outcomes. We’ve learned how to up our energy levels by resolving internal conflict and creating inner alignment. We even spent an episode going over what foods in your diet will make your journey easier. Notice that there are no good or bad foods on the Inside Out Weight Loss program, just foods that make it easier for you to be naturally slender or harder. We’ve also learned what metabolism mashing is, and why high and low metabolisms don’t really matter very much. We walked through the naturally slender eating strategy and trained our minds to become relentless pleasure seekers, so that we can become naturally slender. Very cool! We also discussed the concept of Kasin, or continuous improvement, to set the frame for change. Change does happen in breakthroughs, yet we can’t have all breakthrough all the time. It’ll be too much for us to process. So instead we focus on making continuous small improvements, incremental improvements that in and of themselves seem like very small and achievable steps, and yet overtime they add up to breakthrough, to a lifetime of being naturally slender. Continuous improvement is all about turning your mind into the learning mind that it was born to be. Allowing yourself to learn from every experience that you have. Today we’ll be discussing a concept so important to lasting change, that this very well could be the single thing that makes the difference, that allows you to begin living your dreams right now. The concept is that of self-correcting.

Renee Stephens: I wanted to share a story with you. A client of mine, I’ll call her Sally although that’s not her real name, came in to me, she had been in a binge patter for 39 years, her entire adult life. She’d gone from binge to binge to binge, always unhappy with her weight, always too big, too fat. And she’d been to every weight loss program that you can think about. She’d even been to Stamford Eating Disorders Clinic, as I recall. And yet nothing had allowed her to escape this binge starve herself pattern that she’d established for so many years, and her pattern was this: she would wake up in the morning, eat a tiny bird breakfast, by 11 am of course she’d be starving, and yet she didn’t keep any binge foods around, she didn’t keep any junk food around, so she’d get in her car and drive to the store and buy food, binge on it, and then of course by the evening she wouldn’t be hungry for dinner, so her husband would eat alone, and she’d starve herself until the next morning when she’d have her bird breakfast, resolved to start afresh, to make everything new and good from now on, she resolved newly every day tirelessly and relentlessly. And then of course by 11 o’clock again she’d be famished. And so it went, year after year after year. She declined many social obligations because of this, hated the thought of traveling. She even had medical complications that had resulted from her poor eating habits and had to take many medications on a daily basis. She came to a program that I ran and we did, the first thing we did was a compulsion blowout on some small candies that she had become addicted to. And she found that she never wanted to eat those candies again. She couldn’t believe it, ‘cause she’d been addicted to these candies for a long, long time, for years really, and so she decided that she would work with me one on one. Well we had the first session and she had tremendous results from that session and came back in and she said, “You know, this is fantastic Renee. I’ve been binge free since I came in before. I can’t believe it. But, you know, I’ve tried so many things and I’ve had this problem for so long, how do I know that this is going to last?” And I said, “Well, that’s a really good question. What possible things could throw you off? What possible things could throw you out of balance?” And she said, “Hmm”, we talked about it for a while, and we ended up coming with, up with about four different categories of things that could really throw her off; big meals with her husband, big banquet meals with her husband, traveling, the goodies at work. I can’t remember what the others were, but I remember that there were four specific types of situation. In fact, if you think about your own triggers, you’ll probably determine that they are similar types of triggers that occur again and again and again. It’s not that you have thousands of triggers, it’s that you have several types of triggers that occur again and again in your life, and this was certainly the case for Sally. So, we addressed each type of trigger until we got to a place where she said, “You know, I can handle that. That’s easy. I can handle that one.” And we did this for all of the types of triggers until we had finished several sessions later, and she never really had a problem again because she had learned how to correct, how to self-correct herself before things got out of hand, so to speak.

Renee Stephens: And I’d like to read you an email that Sally sent me about six months ago. And it goes like this: “I just want to tell you that I’m at a two year anniversary. I’ve been binge free for two years now. It’s a miracle for me. I’m doing very well with food in lots of situations, such as home alone, in the car, at parties, traveling to Italy, to China, going to pizza parlors, etcetera. I wouldn’t say that I’m completely normal about food, but I’m enjoying my good food, and I’m no longer compelled to eat candy, cookies, crackers, etcetera. It’s more normal than I have ever been before, and it’s a great relief after all these years. I’ve also been off anti-depressant medication for many months now, and I was on some type for twenty years.” So what does Sally’s story demonstrate to us? It demonstrates the power of self-correcting, of Sally learning how to bring herself back into balance in the types of situations that could throw her off. And so I want you to think about that for yourself. What are the types of situations that could possibly throw me off? What are my trigger situations? And again, I think you’ll find that there are categories that occur again and again and again. The most common ones that I hear from clients are being home alone at night, I hear about socializing with friends, especially after a drink or two, somehow the inhibitions go down and restraint goes out the window. What are the situations for you that always seem to throw you for a loop? Think about those. And in fact I encourage you to write those down in you Inside Out Weight Loss journal. What are the types of situations that trigger me to overeat? What are the types of situations that throw me out of balance? Write them all down, and if categories naturally occur, fantastic. If not, not to worry, that’s not that essential. But go ahead and do that. When you have a moment later today, when you’ve finished listening to this program or even pause the program now and write it down, your homework is to determine, “What are the types of situations that are triggers for me, that tend to really throw me for a loop?” The next step, as it was for Sally, is to go through those types of situations until you feel absolutely confident that you can handle that one, that ones easy, sure I’ve got lots of ways to deal with that one. And not to worry if it takes you a few iterations to master that type of situation, remember kaizen, remember continuous improvement. You’re going to run that mental movie in your mind until you get it just right. And if in reality it doesn’t come out just right, that’s alright. You can make it even better the next time. Because remember, these are situations that recur for you again and again and again. So you’re going to have lots of practice opportunities. You’re in a state of learning mind, where each opportunity that you have, to learn each overeating episode that you have, each screw-up that you have, is simply an opportunity, a pointer to a situation, a trigger that hasn’t yet been resolved for you.

Renee Stephens: We’re going to take a short break now to support our sponsors, who make it possible for me to bring you this show. So listen closely and check out what they have to say and what they have on offer. You’re listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on personallifemedia.com.

Renee Stephens: We’re back now. Before the break we were talking about your trigger situations, about identifying the types of situations that are most likely to throw you out of balance. I’d like to talk for a moment about airplanes. Yes, airplanes. What do airplanes have to do with becoming naturally slender? Well, this is exactly what they have to do with it: an airplane that flies from San Francisco to New York never actually flies in a straight line. Perhaps you didn’t realize that. But an airplane that flies from San Francisco to New York never flies in a straight line. The entire time that it’s in the air it’s going back and forth and back and forth and correcting based on how its been thrown off course by the winds and the weather conditions. So that’s what the automatic pilot system does. That’s what a live pilot does. Their job is to correct the course of the plane on an ongoing basis. And the more frequently that they correct, the smaller each correction is, and the more efficient the flight is in getting to its destination, the faster that it gets to its destination. Well, it’s the same way for weight loss. It’s the same way for becoming naturally slender. Because as we’ve talked about before, you know that you are not going to be perfect. Because if you were perfect you wouldn’t be human, you wouldn’t be alive. Because everything that’s alive changes and grows all the time constantly learning, changing and growing. So forget about perfection; it ain’t going to happen. What is going to happen though is that you will make mistakes. You will have learning experiences. I know that it may be sounding like a politically correct thing to say, the kind of euphemism that I might use in a preschool, and yet it’s true. Every situation is a learning opportunity for you. So I want you to begin to think about the ways that you can bring yourself back into balance. Say you overeat a little bit. How are you going to bring yourself back into balance? A book that I thought was a lot of fun was the French Women Don’t Get Fat book. And one of the things that the author says is that she’s in restaurants, I think she says something like three hundred meals a year, she’s in fancy restaurants, drinking fabulous wine and champagne and eating gourmet food. So how does she do it? How does she maintain her slim figure? And her secret is simply that she self-corrects. Now she doesn’t call it that. What she says is that she, if she is going to an especially wonderful meal where she knows she’s going to want to eat a little extra, she’ll either eat less before hand or eat a little lighter afterwards. In other words, she’ll correct for it. A lot of other times she’ll choose not to have to correct for it and eat moderately in the meals, sampling and savoring each bite.

Renee Stephens: So does this begin to remind you of the naturally slender eating strategy? Here’s a quick quiz. You love quizzes, I know. We’ll keep on going back to these school metaphors. Anyway, here’s a quick quiz: how does a naturally slender eating strategy build in self-correcting? How does it build it into the process? Think about that for a moment. And when you’re ready for the answer, keep listening. The naturally slender eating strategy builds in self-correcting because you are constantly checking in with your body, with the wisdom system, with the navigation system of your body. So if you eat something that’s a little too much, what’s going to happen the next time that you think about eating and you place your hands on your stomach and you check in? Will you be starving? Maybe not. You’ll probably be less hungry, because you’ve eaten something substantial recently. Perhaps it was a holiday party or a holiday meal. And the next day you’re not that hungry. So you eat a little bit less. This is the concept of self-correcting. And I want you to really begin to think about, because we’re almost out of time today. But before we go I’d like to share with you some of the further concepts behind self-correcting. The idea is you will overeat from time to time. Sometimes you’ll under-eat. You ever done that, starved yourself? I know I have. I get way too hungry. It doesn’t matter. Because it’s all about developing the skill of bringing yourself back to center. What I tell my clients is, “I don’t care if you overeat. I know you’re going to overeat, and the way I know you’re going to overeat is that naturally slender people overeat.” I have to share this kind of amusing story; at Thanksgiving my friend, Hollis Polk, asked me to write a guest column for her newsletter. And so I did, you may have seen it, I posted it on my blog, it was called Surviving and Thriving Through Thanksgiving and the Holidays. And as she sent this out she added her own commentary, and she said, “The most amazing thing about Renee is that she never overeats.” She said, “Not only does Renee never overeat, but her family never overeats”, and I felt so embarrassed when I read that. Because really, I talked to her about it afterwards, she said, “Well you never do”, and I said, “I do. Sure I do overeat. But I correct very quickly.” I may overeat by a couple bites before I’m correcting. In fact I probably regularly eat, maybe once a day I eat a bite or two too much, so that I’m not so hungry the next time, so that I have a little less space in my stomach the next time. And that’s how I maintain my weight. What you want to do, what we want to do is narrow the interval of self-correcting. In other words, maybe you go on overeating episodes or weight gain episodes that last months or even years. And then you get disgusted with yourself, you get motivated, the pants don’t button. Ever been there? Know that feeling? That’s right. The latest diet book comes out and now you’re going to do it, and you’re going to correct for all that overeating, and you’re going to do it in a blitz. And you starve yourself or you follow the diet religiously. Well that’s a type of self-correcting, and that lasts and that may last for an hour a day, several months, it may last for a while. And then the pendulum swings the other way and we’re back into the overeating. Well what we want to do is reduce the intervals of self-correcting, so that instead of it taking you months or years to get back in balance, it takes you days, even weeks would be an improvement. A week on, a week off. And then eventually it takes you a day. And when you know that you can self-correct within 24 hours or less, you’re there. You are naturally slender. And eventually you can get to the point where you self-correct bite to bite, meal to meal. That’s what we’re talking about.

Renee Stephens: Next time on the show I’m going to share with you specific ways that you can build your self-correcting skills. That brings us to the end of our show today. Thank you for being present. There’s now an Inside Out Weight Loss Yahoo group moderated by a listener. This is a great place to support and be supported, to connect with others. Remember you’ll get double or more what you put into this journey out. But you must put in to get out. To join the Yahoo group go to the blog at www.personallifemedia.com/renee, r-e-n-e-e, and click the link on the right hand side of the bar under blog roll. You’ll also find a link to other sites and resources that I recommend. Also you can leave a message for me at 206-350-5333. I’d love to play your question or comment on the air and share it with others. For the shows on the Personal Life Media network, please visit our website at personallifemedia.com. There’s loads of intriguing content to feed your mind, body and spirit. I especially like the sensuality shows because of their psycho spiritual focus. This is your host Renee Stephens, and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves one step at a time. World peace begins with inner peace. Take good care. One final note, if you’d like to help me end the weight struggle and free as many people as possible to live their best lives and you have a corporate gathering, event or conference that you’d be interested in having me speak at, please send an email to [email protected]. That’s Renee, r-e-n-e-e, @personallifemedia.com. I look forward to connecting.