233 The diet CAN work but you need to do this first (how to regulate your nervous system for weight loss)
I work with lots of women who want to lose weight - even though I talk about diet culture and the damage I believe it’s done to our relationship with food and our bodies.
And my job is not to talk you out of that goal - but to help you create the right conditions to pursue it without burning out, resorting to emotional eating and ending up at square one yet again.
In this episode, I’m sharing how to regulate your nervous system for weight loss - and why this (and not the meal plan you choose) will be the biggest predictor of whether your weight loss efforts will actually pay off…and be sustainable.
We dive into what really happens when you’re already overwhelmed and then stack a restrictive plan on top of that, how stress affects weight loss, and how to optimise your nervous system to escape the binge restrict cycle.
Key takeaways:
- Why your struggle with weight loss is not about willpower, but nervous system dysregulation.
- How low-grade stress keeps you stuck in the binge restrict, on–off diet cycle.
- The difference between your lower “survival” brain and your higher “reasoning” brain when it comes to food choices.
- How to identify the areas of your life that keep you chronically activated and drain your capacity for change.
- How to widen your window of tolerance to make sustainable weight loss truly possible.
NEXT STEPS:
- Share this episode with a friend
- Listen to next: Episode 232 - Diet free weight loss: When you can’t face your next diet (but still want to lose weight)
RESOURCES:
Work with me: www.lifeeditcoaching.com
Instagram: @lifeeditwithalix
Transcript
Some people assume that because I'm critical of diets and because I talk so openly about how diet culture has damaged our relationship with food, with our bodies, and with our emotional well being, that I must be anti weight loss.
Speaker A:But that is not true.
Speaker A:I work with a lot of women who want to lose weight, and my job is never to talk them out of that goal.
Speaker A:Instead, it is to help them to create the right conditions to reach that goal without burning themselves out, without spiraling into self sabotage, and without ending up back at square one yet again.
Speaker A:And that's exactly what today's episode is all about.
Speaker A:Because if you do have a weight loss goal this year, the biggest predictor of your success is not the plan you choose.
Speaker A:It's whether your body and nervous system are actually in a state that can support that change.
Speaker A:I do not want to watch you ride the same frustrating roller coaster yet again.
Speaker A:So today, I'm going to help you to create the right environment for progress to become not just possible, but also sustainable.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to Wellbeing, the podcast for women who are done with the hustle and are ready to feel at home in their own skin.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Alex Life, therapeutic and fitness coach for busy women who want to do less, live more, and feel good from the inside out.
Speaker A:Every week I'm going to help you to cut through the noise, challenge the shoulds, and find new ways to live and move that actually feel like you.
Speaker A:Hello.
Speaker A:Hello.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker A:This week and we are talking about weight loss still again, expanding on something that I started talking about last week because it's such a big topic of conversation, of consideration of thought at this time of year.
Speaker A:And I really feel like I can't let January go without really delving into this and talking about weight loss and how we can support ourselves in the very best way on that journey.
Speaker A:And like I said in the introduction, I think because I do talk a lot about the harm that I feel that diet culture has done to so many of us and about how I don't like quick fixes and impossible people's standards and all those kind of things, I think people sometimes think that I am anti weight loss, but I'm not.
Speaker A:I'm just anti diet culture.
Speaker A:And by that I don't just mean diets in and of themselves.
Speaker A:I mean all of the stuff that surrounds that around the way that we feel about our bodies and the way that we see healthy bodies as existing in the world.
Speaker A:So what I really want to do Today is talk a little bit about weight loss from a different perspective, a different point of view.
Speaker A:Because I think the thing is, whatever way you choose to lose weight, you know, whether you do choose to go down the diet route or not, you choose to go down more of a habit change route.
Speaker A:At the end of the day, the best way that you can support yourself is by having a nervous system that is going to support you.
Speaker A:And what I really see is that we often go into it without that nervous system support and then piling more pressure on top of.
Speaker A:And of course, so many diets rely on restriction and rules and hunger and all of those kind of things that they are adding an extra layer of pressure on top of everything else that you are probably already dealing with in your life.
Speaker A:And what that can really do is that can push your nervous system into a place where you don't really have much resilience around it.
Speaker A:And what I really mean by that is that really small things can tip you over the edge and they can be the difference between you sticking with the diet or the weight loss plan and going in the complete opposite direction.
Speaker A:And I think we've all been there, right, haven't we?
Speaker A:We've been in places where we've gone on a diet and we've been great for a few weeks.
Speaker A:We felt really on top of it.
Speaker A:We felt like we're really in control of it.
Speaker A:We have felt like we are making great choices, make great decisions, and then something will happen.
Speaker A:And it's not always something huge.
Speaker A:That's the thing.
Speaker A:Sometimes it can be a really small thing that will happen.
Speaker A:And it tips us over into having this binge which.
Speaker A:Or having this moment where we just want to throw the towel in.
Speaker A:And we tell ourselves, you know what, sod it this weekend, I'm going to start again on Monday.
Speaker A:And we've all been there.
Speaker A:And the thing is, we.
Speaker A:We think that it's.
Speaker A:It's a fault with us.
Speaker A:We think it's because we don't have discipline or willpower or whatever.
Speaker A:We don't really blame the diet itself because we're going.
Speaker A:But the diet was working until now, so there must be something that I have done wrong at this point that has made this happen.
Speaker A:But that definitely is not the problem.
Speaker A:That is not what is going on.
Speaker A:It's not about a lack of discipline.
Speaker A:It's about dysregulation.
Speaker A:It's about having a nervous system which is not resilient enough to support us as we go through this journey.
Speaker A:And I think it's something that absolutely gets ignored.
Speaker A:And our nervous system is important in everything.
Speaker A:It's important in regulating our emotions in lots and lots and lots of different ways.
Speaker A:But particularly in this.
Speaker A:It's going to be a really important aspect of our journey.
Speaker A:And if we don't pay some attention to this, if we don't pay some attention to regulating ourselves and to having a nervous system that has capacity to support us, then we are going to find this journey really, really difficult.
Speaker A:And so that's really what I want to talk about today.
Speaker A:Because I think a lot of us are trying to lose weight from a place of already feeling a bit overwhelmed, already feeling under pressure, feeling stressed.
Speaker A:And so what that then means is that we don't have the resource to deal with those little blips that do happen.
Speaker A:We're going to have weeks where we're really tired.
Speaker A:We're going to have weeks when the plan doesn't happen and we miss the gym a couple of times.
Speaker A:We're going to have weeks when we don't manage to get out for lunch for a few days at work.
Speaker A:And so we end up just choosing what we've got available.
Speaker A:And it's not the greatest choices.
Speaker A:And then it feels like we've kind of ruined all the progress that we've made to get there.
Speaker A:And what I really want you to maybe think about is think about a time in your life when things were quite stressful.
Speaker A:So maybe work was really intense for a while, maybe you had stuff going on in the family, maybe you just reached a stage where you'd been stretched too thin for a really long time.
Speaker A:And the chances are that in those moments, food and your choices around food were to the back of your mind, you were making choices on a more emotional level, you were making choices on a more reactive level.
Speaker A:Your concern was about coping with what was going on and just getting through the day and the week than it was sticking to a healthy eating plan.
Speaker A:And we tend to think that that stuff only happens in moments of acute stress.
Speaker A:And we'll write it off and we'll say, well, it was just because work was really intense, now I can get back to normal.
Speaker A:But the truth is that for many of us, we do live in constant state of low grade stress.
Speaker A:It's not as acute, it's not as obvious, but it's there, it's sitting below the surface.
Speaker A:It's something that has become so normal to us that we ignore it.
Speaker A:And so what we also do is we ignore the role that that has to play in our weight loss.
Speaker A:And in how successful we are with that.
Speaker A:And I'm not just talking about short term success, because it's super easy to have short term success with the diet.
Speaker A:What is much, much harder is the long term result, is the sustained result is not putting the weight again six months down the line.
Speaker A:And so what we've really got to do is look at how can I get my nervous system to support me?
Speaker A:Because what we're doing when we're dieting particularly is we are piling something on top of a nervous system that may already be under strain.
Speaker A:We're adding restriction, we're adding food rules, we're adding hunger, probably we're adding more pressure.
Speaker A:And what that does is it keeps us on this tightrope, this tightrope where if we can stay on it and it's really hard to stay on it, then that's great and everything goes to plan and everything works.
Speaker A:But it takes the smallest little wobble, the smallest little gust of wind to blow us off that tightrope altogether.
Speaker A:And we get into overeating, we get into binging, and it doesn't seem to take a lot.
Speaker A:And that's really what I want you to consider and think about.
Speaker A:If you look back at times in the past when you've tried to lose weight and you've done it okay for a while and then you have fallen off that tightrope, what was it?
Speaker A:Was it something big or was it actually something quite small?
Speaker A:Did it feel really frustrating because you thought, why did something that small actually just throw me off?
Speaker A:And it's simply because we're living at the edge of our capacity.
Speaker A:And so it really doesn't take very much to throw us over to the other side and for us to get into a place where we throw the towel, in we go, I can't do this.
Speaker A:This is too much.
Speaker A:I don't have the resources for this.
Speaker A:And we then use that food to comfort us, to make us feel better, whatever it is that we do.
Speaker A:And none of this is a moral failing, by the way.
Speaker A:This is actually a biological response.
Speaker A:If this is happening to you, then your body is doing its job.
Speaker A:What we need to do is we need to look at, how can I help my body to do that job in a different way?
Speaker A:How can I support my body to come up with a different answer, a different solution?
Speaker A:Because weight loss can happen and it can be sustainable, but the system has got to be regulated first.
Speaker A:And if you've ever been on more than one diet in your life, if you've ever struggled to Keep the weight off for very long.
Speaker A:Then I would suggest that regulating your system has to be job number one.
Speaker A:Your body has to feel safe enough to let go of survival mode.
Speaker A:Because in survival mode you are never more than one blip away from all of it unraveling again.
Speaker A:And we definitely don't want to go there.
Speaker A:And the thing is, when your nervous system is regulated, you're going to feel safer around food.
Speaker A:You're going to find that your emotional eating or the urge to emotionally eat reduces.
Speaker A:You're also going to find you're more connected with your body.
Speaker A:When we're very stressed, we become very disconnected with our bodies and with the signals that our body is giving us.
Speaker A:And so when we're more regulated, hunger cues, fullness cues, they become clearer as well.
Speaker A:And that also in turn, of course means that you build more trust in your body so that you are in a place where you can make better choices ultimately.
Speaker A:And I think that's the thing, when you trust your body, when you feel safe around food, when you feel like you can listen to the cues that your body is giving you, you make better choices automatically.
Speaker A:It doesn't feel quite so hard to do that.
Speaker A:And one of the reasons for that is because you're able to use your higher brain.
Speaker A:So when you are in a place of stre, even low grade stress, what happens is that your more primitive brain, your lower brain, so to speak, is running the show.
Speaker A:And your lower brain is not using reason.
Speaker A:Your lower brain is not listening to you say, yeah, but I've got this goal and I really want to work towards this.
Speaker A:Your lower brain doesn't care.
Speaker A:All it wants to do is to manage that moment.
Speaker A:It's only thinking about that moment.
Speaker A:It's only thinking about your safety.
Speaker A:That is what it is doing.
Speaker A:And so if we can create a nervous system that is more regulated, we can use our higher brain.
Speaker A:That means that we can use reason more easily.
Speaker A:We can tap into that moment where we make that decision.
Speaker A:It's not made for us.
Speaker A:And that's really important because once we do that, we give ourselves a fighting chance.
Speaker A:Because it's not about suddenly making weight loss super effortless.
Speaker A:There's always going to be work that goes into this.
Speaker A:There's always going to be moments that are more tricky and tougher than.
Speaker A:But what regulation does is it, it creates a bit of space where that habit change can become more sustainable.
Speaker A:It creates a situation where you have other tools at your disposal.
Speaker A:It creates a situation where you're more resilient, actually, you're just more resilient to those little blips that happen.
Speaker A:You walk through it in a way that feels just more.
Speaker A:You feel more in control, I suppose.
Speaker A:And you don't feel like it's going to throw you for a loop.
Speaker A:Every time that little wobble comes in.
Speaker A:You are more able to just deal with that in the moment and then to move on to the next thing that you need to move on to.
Speaker A:So we really need to think about that regulation.
Speaker A:And when I work with my clients, like regulation, always, always, always step number one.
Speaker A:I cannot help somebody effectively if their nervous system is fried.
Speaker A:Because all we're doing is we're swimming against the tide all the time.
Speaker A:And I think a lot of women come to me thinking that they're cool.
Speaker A:They're like, well, I'm doing meditation and I'm doing some exercise and I'm doing this and I'm doing that.
Speaker A:But when I talk to them, it become that they are, they're living on the edge.
Speaker A:They've normalized this low grade state of stress.
Speaker A:They've normalized the fact that this is just the way that they live their lives.
Speaker A:The brain never rests.
Speaker A:And when I talk to somebody who is in that place, I know that the first thing we need to do before we do anything else is to regulate that nervous system more effectively, is to find out why is that nervous system so upregulated and then we can talk about it.
Speaker A:Because there's literally a point in me starting to talk about plans, starting to talk about structure, starting to talk about the weight loss and strategies for that.
Speaker A:If we have not got that sense of calm to start with, it's not going to happen.
Speaker A:So what I'd really like to do is just a bit of reflection actually today.
Speaker A:Because when that nervous system is overloaded, like I say, we're not always recognizing it, we're not always able to see that because it has become our norm.
Speaker A:So what I really want you to do is just take a moment to think about what are the areas in your life that seem to keep you in that state of activation?
Speaker A:You know, what are the things that are going on?
Speaker A:Is it there's a lot of overthinking.
Speaker A:Is it you feel like you've got a never ending to do list?
Speaker A:Is it that you feel guilty when you take time out for yourself?
Speaker A:Is it that you feel like you've got to look after everybody else?
Speaker A:Is it that you're always on the go because other people are always demanding things of you?
Speaker A:Is it a lack of Boundaries, like, what are the areas in your life, the kind of couple of key areas that keep you in that state of activation.
Speaker A:Doesn't have to be a long list, just a couple of them that you really recognize as being these things that are recurring themes in your life, the things that do make you feel a little bit overwhelmed or that you find that you resent or whatever it is.
Speaker A:And then starting to look at those things and figure out how to can I manage this better?
Speaker A:How can I start to regulate this particular situation so that my entire system becomes more regulated?
Speaker A:Because we often, when it comes to things like food and weight loss, we see it as a food problem.
Speaker A:But the truth is that it's often a reflection of something else that's going on in your life.
Speaker A:It's a symptom of something else that is going on in your life.
Speaker A:And what I'm seeing with a lot of women is that this inability, this difficulty have with weight loss is because there is stuff that is activating them all the time that they've become used to, but it's activating them all the time.
Speaker A:So get really honest about what it is that's going on in your life that is keeping you activated.
Speaker A:Now, this was something that I did for myself back in the day and something that I've worked on over time, because I definitely used to have lots of things that would activate me, lots of reasons that I would be in this low level of, well, not even low level of stress, quite honestly, medium level of stress quite a lot of the time.
Speaker A:And there are things that I have personally worked on myself that have helped me to get out of this state of activation, that have helped me to build more resilience, that have helped me to create a greater window of tolerance, I suppose, because when we are activated all the time, our window of tolerance becomes very, very small.
Speaker A:We want to widen that window of tolerance so that we can operate within it in a more effective way.
Speaker A:And so we don't get thrown for a loop every time something comes in and happens that is just a little bit above and beyond what we're already having deal with.
Speaker A:So, like I say, there are some things that I've worked on.
Speaker A:So for me, for example, I started working on how I spoke to myself.
Speaker A:So something that kept me in a state of activation all the time was that I wasn't always very nice to myself.
Speaker A:I'd say horrible things about my body, or I'd say horrible things about my ability in my job, or I'd think to myself that I was Rubbish at doing certain things.
Speaker A:So changing the way that I spoke to myself for me has helped me to widen that window of tolerance, understanding my own stress patterns and where they were coming from.
Speaker A:For me, there was a lot of trying to prove myself.
Speaker A:There was a lot of trying to prove that I was successful, that my business was successful, that my life was successful.
Speaker A:And so I spent an awful lot of energy and time thinking about how, how can I prove myself to the outside world?
Speaker A:How can I prove that I'm worthy?
Speaker A:How can I prove that I am successful in what I am doing?
Speaker A:You know, that was really, really big for me.
Speaker A:And again, that was keeping me activated all the time.
Speaker A:It was keeping me in this state of hyper awareness around how I was perceived by the outside world, even though I had no control.
Speaker A:None of us have any control about how we are perceived by the outside world and yet we spend an awful lot of time trying to, trying to control that narrative.
Speaker A:And it's just, it's a losing battle.
Speaker A:It really is.
Speaker A:So that was definitely something else that I had to do, delegating more.
Speaker A:You know, I was carrying a lot of the load at home because I was the person that was at home most.
Speaker A:I was the person that was doing all the things I was planning everything I was doing all the stuff with the kids, school, I was.
Speaker A:And it wasn't that my husband didn't, didn't want to do those things.
Speaker A:It's that he literally, he didn't know that they were even happening.
Speaker A:He didn't even consider that they were things that were going on.
Speaker A:And so I had to really show him and tell him, look, these are all the things that I'm carrying.
Speaker A:I can't keep doing all of this by myself.
Speaker A:And it was, it wasn't that I was doing all of it by myself, he was doing stuff, but I was still doing more than, more than I was maybe resourced to do.
Speaker A:And so delegating things like that.
Speaker A:So those were a few examples for me that I looked at my life and I really understood.
Speaker A:Gosh, I'm putting myself under an awful lot of pressure here and here and here.
Speaker A:And not all of it is necessary.
Speaker A:Yeah, sure, there are things that we have to do all the time and there are certain jobs that we can't avoid.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But there was a lot of pressure behind it.
Speaker A:It wasn't always the things that I was doing, it was the way that I was doing them, for example.
Speaker A:So those are some of the things that have really helped me.
Speaker A:They've really helped me to Grow my window of tolerance and be better resourced to deal with things that go on so that I am not thrown off or into a spiral because something goes a little bit wrong.
Speaker A:I'm able to deal with that and I'm able to work my way through it.
Speaker A:And so once we start to do that, we can then we create more of a blank canvas, I suppose, for making all of the other changes that we need to so that then when we do go into this weight loss, our nervous system is calmer, is more under control, is in a better place to support us and we can start to make those upgrades.
Speaker A:We can start to make those upgrades from a different place as well.
Speaker A:Because they're not coming from hating on ourselves, they're not coming from dissatisfaction, they're not coming from everything shit.
Speaker A:And I need to change it all.
Speaker A:They're coming from.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I want to make some really positive changes here.
Speaker A:I'd love to lose some weight because I want to feel amazing in that bikini in the summer.
Speaker A:And so we start making choices from there.
Speaker A:But also as we go along the way, we are better resourced to deal with the ups and downs of that journey that are inevitable.
Speaker A:And I think that's the thing that I need you to know, because I will often hear people say, well, I'll get started in three weeks time because I know that I'll have a period where everything's going to be calm for a bit and I'll be able to focus on it.
Speaker A:But there's always something going on, there's always something that needs dealing with.
Speaker A:So you've got to expect that, you've got to prepare yourself for that.
Speaker A:And if you've got a nervous system that is prepared for that, you are going to navigate that so much more easily.
Speaker A:So I really want you to have a think about that this week.
Speaker A:If you are in a place where you're thinking, I really want to lose some weight, I really want to go on a diet, I really want to drop a dress size this year.
Speaker A:I'd like to make those changes.
Speaker A:I really want you to think about how you can build that from the foundations up.
Speaker A:How can you best support yourself?
Speaker A:And like I say, the biggest issue that I see with so, so, so many women is they are beginning in a place where they are under resourced.
Speaker A:They don't necessarily have the necessary resilience to weather the storm of things that will happen that will inevitably happen.
Speaker A:As we go along the way, let's not, not pretend we're going to have this, you know, perfect Period of calm that's going to help us.
Speaker A:Let's be prepared.
Speaker A:You might do, but let's be prepared for that actually not being the reality of the situation.
Speaker A:And then we've got a really solid foundation to make the changes that we need to.
Speaker A:We can manage our responses along the way.
Speaker A:We can get out of being reactive to things and we can use that, that higher brain, that reasoning brain, to make the decisions that are best for us.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean that you're not going to slip sometimes, but even when you do slip, you're going to be in a better place to not catastrophize that.
Speaker A:And again, if your nervous system is not there to support you with that, you are going to catastrophize and you're going to make it 10 times worse.
Speaker A:So let's put ourselves in a position where we can slip up and we can go, do you know what?
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:This is part of the journey.
Speaker A:It's not a problem.
Speaker A:I'm going to move on.
Speaker A:That's where we want to get ourselves to.
Speaker A:So if you have had issues in this department before, if you have tried to lose weight and maybe done it successfully and then put the weight back on again and found that you haven't been able to maintain those results, then really think about how can I get my nervous system to support me better here?
Speaker A:What are the things that are creating that sense of overwhelm?
Speaker A:What are the things that are keeping me activated right now?
Speaker A:How can I deal with those as part of this journey?
Speaker A:And how can I then create the resources and widen that window of tolerance so that I'm able to go on this journey from a much better starting point?
Speaker A:So I'm going to leave that with you.
Speaker A:If you would like some support with this, then this is what I help women to do.
Speaker A:So I really identify what's blocking you where your nervous system needs support.
Speaker A:Like I said before, nervous system is always like top of the list.
Speaker A:It's one of those things that we absolutely will get sorted first because that's going to support everything else.
Speaker A:So, yeah, nervous system support and really how to stop fighting yourself, that's what I will do with you inside the body you'll love living in.
Speaker A:So if you would like to create those karma waters so the goals stop feeling like a battle and you start feeling like you can do it for the longer term.
Speaker A:You can find out details on the website, just head over to Life.
Speaker A:I'll pop the link in the show notes as well, but I'll leave you to think about where you can start to work on that resourcing, where you can start to work on that nervous system.
Speaker A:But for now, I'm going to love you and leave you.
Speaker A:And I'll see you back here again next time.
Speaker A:Thank you as always, for joining me.
Speaker A:If this episode has hit home, share it with another woman who needs to hear it.
Speaker A:And come connect with me on Instagram at Life Edit with Alex for more real talk, mindset shifts and daily inspiration.
