How would you describe your relationship with food? Do you find yourself seeking comfort in food frequently, or do you wrestle with establishing a balanced and positive relationship with food? Well did you know that gaining a healthy relationship with food starts with a healthy relationship with ourselves? And that is what this episode is all about.
When you can genuinely love, value, and have confidence in yourself, the influence food typically holds over you diminishes. In this episode, we delve into the process of developing a genuine self-connection so that you can reach a point where you can gaze at yourself with pride and contentment.
Corner on Character: Five Finger Friendship Challenge
If you are ready to lose weight and change the way you think about hunger, sign up for the lifetime access membership for Love Yourself Thin! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- How to start building a friendship with yourself
- You can get to a point where you look at yourself and your body and be proud
- Questions to ask yourself to figure out how your relationship is with yourself and food
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- If you are ready to lose weight and change the way you think, sign up for the lifetime access membership for Love Yourself Thin! Doors are open and you can find all the information by clicking here.
- Leave me a review in Apple
Full Episode Transcript:
120. Weight Loss and Your Relationship with Food
How would you describe your relationship with yourself? How would you describe your relationship with food? Well, these two questions have been going through my mind a lot lately And so I am going to be sharing with you how your relationship with yourself and your food will impact how you move forward in life and how permanent weight loss can either be a no go or a sure win. I’m Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin episode 120, weight loss and your relationship with food.
Okay. This has been coming up over and over again with my clients on how would you define your relationship with food? And the thing that’s been so Interesting for the members in Love Yourself Thin is they’ve actually never slowed down long enough to articulate what their relationship with food is. And in fact, I was coaching them today on this and one of the things that came up for me was a very strong memory of, so we didn’t watch tv very often and in fact my mom would often take the plug out of the tv so we would have a tv But we wouldn’t be able to plug it in. And so it was very limited and one day we were just watching tv which was pretty unusual at our house and there was an advertisement on TV for a big Mac and I’ve, I had to have been at least nine because we lived in that house when I was nine and I remember looking at the screen and thinking, Oh my goodness, this is so juicy and delicious. And they did this closeup of it. And I remember saying to my siblings, like, How are we going to get to McDonald’s? Like we have to go there. Like this is just so delicious. Like we’ve got to figure out like how much money do we have between us? And how would we be able to convince our mom to take us? Like, what could we do to get this? Because it just looked so overwhelmingly delicious. And that is one of my first memories of just feeling like I had to have this thing. And so that started to change my relationship with food.
Now as I was researching this podcast, I found this quote by Frank Outlaw and he said, “watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become actions. Watch your actions. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Watch your character. it becomes your destiny”. And as I saw this It really has rung true with me as I do this work all about our thoughts, slowing down and looking at what is actually happening in our heads. And when we talk about life coaching tools, the tools are there to help us see all these subconscious thoughts that are running through our minds that we don’t even realize they’re having such a huge impact for us. And as we slow down our thinking, then we can see why we’re doing the things we’re doing, our actions, why we have the kinds of habits, right? Because habits are those subconscious behaviors. And then those habits then dictate this is just who I am and then who you become is Like what you consider yourself being that’s what you create in your life. That’s what determines your life.
Okay. So this, this quote really is so much of what I do, and I, and this is why when I tell people, I am a life coach who helps you to go into your brain to figure out how to lose weight. It’s because you’re learning how to see what you’re really thinking. And then you can start thinking on purpose of what you really want to create. So it was very interesting today in our coaching call with the membership, because when I asked them, what is your relationship with food, they really had to slow down and think. Now, I often talk about my clients being brave hearts because what happens when you slow down to think about something, you start seeing why you struggle, why you have these problems and you can no longer go on automatic pilot, you can no longer keep blaming people for things, or you can no longer keep shaming yourself. You actually take responsibility for yourself. Now, I came across this quote today, by Oscar Wilde, and he said, “to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” And when you start. build a relationship with yourself, you start understanding how amazing you are and how resilient you are and how flawed you are. And then you have so much compassion and love for yourself. So that’s what I would recommend for all of you is to start building that love relationship you have.
Now, in the month of July of 2023, there is I call it a unit or a focus and it’s a bonus course in the membership. But it was all about learning how to become your own best friend. And we did a summer bucket list and it was really cool to see how different women in the program stepped up. One of them, she decided that she, she really loves museums, but the idea of going to museum by herself or to spend that time just seemed really frivolous. And, and so she decided that she was going to take herself out and just enjoy it and just take in that art. And so she lives close to Washington DC, so there’s a whole wealth of history and beauty there and so that was something she decided to do. Another member in Love Yourself Thin, she decided that she was going to make a certain number, I think she made 10, I think 10 quilts for charity and took, took them to the Ronald McDonald House. And so as she was working on those quilts, she knew that they were going to such a good cause and she just enjoyed all the different steps of that. And so the more that you can learn to love yourself and to change that relationship, just like Oscar Wilde said, is it’s the beginning of a lifelong romance, and when you start loving yourself and appreciating yourself, then food doesn’t have the same draw.
Now, I, I found this was really interesting when I, when we talked about what is your relationship with food, a lot of us use food as a comfort. So My mom had a big block of baking chocolate. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten baking chocolate, but it’s not very good. But as a little kid, I saw this big brick of baking chocolate and if I was feeling upset or down, you know, sometimes I would go and get peanut butter but that would be a little bit hard because my mom would be in the kitchen and so I wasn’t allowed to really sneak food. Sometimes I could grab some coconut. We didn’t have chocolate chips around very often so I couldn’t really sneak those but we had this big brick of baking chocolate in our freezer and our freezer was either in the garage or in our basement. And so I was kind of, I could kind of sneak and have that when I was maybe feeling a little bit down, which is so interesting as a kid to have already learned that tool of going to that sugar. And I remember just kind of gnawing away at this and it was, it was funny how my mom would come down and she would see these little teeth marks in the chocolate. And so I didn’t really know how to comfort myself. I didn’t really know those skills.
And so today’s episode, my goal is to give you, and this is, I found this on Pinterest. It is so adorable. And it was from a lady, her podcast is called corner on character, connecting to make a world of difference. And she’s a school teacher and she just posted this and I just thought this was just so awesome and she was doing a unit on friendship. And as a former school teacher, I just loved this concept. And what she, she shared was this, what makes a good friend? And she said, take the five finger friendship challenge. This is just so easy that all of us could do this in some way. And one of the reasons I love this, even though it seems so like, you know, for a grade three or four or five classroom, a lot of us didn’t learn these tools. A lot of us didn’t really learn how to be a good friend and we didn’t have this as a help. And so I think it’s really a great benefit to look at this and to to take this challenge. And so these are her recommendations, so be kind. Show gratitude, keep promises, take turns and share, and tell the truth. And then she asked, what could you do to get better? Now I’m going to link this just because I always want to give credit to where credit is due. As you look at this five finger rule, I want you to ask yourself, how kind are you to yourself? How much gratitude do you show to yourself?
So when I talk about kindness, how often do you, do you say things like, Oh, I really love the way you, you did that today, Dara, I really love the way you stepped up with your kids and showed them how to do something instead of, you know, kind of pushing them aside. How often do you speak to yourself with kindness? How often do you have that same level of compassion that you would from somebody else. And then showing gratitude. So how often do you do something and just expect that you should do that? Or how often do you say, you know, that was really nice of you to do that thing. So I’m just curious. What’s your relationship with that? How often do you keep promises to yourself? A lot of us will say, okay, okay tomorrow you’re gonna do better. Tomorrow we’re gonna get up. We’re gonna exercise and we’re just going to be so much better. How many times do you keep the promises you make to yourself? Are you being honest? Do you tell the truth? Do you say you know, I want to be thin but are you telling the truth of of what you’re eating and how you’re eating? And then, are you taking turns in sharing? Do you take turns even sharing yourself? How many of you struggle with being people pleasers? How many of you keep putting yourself on the back burner?
So, those are just the five finger rule of friendship. And, I want to encourage you to build a friendship with yourself. Now let’s go back to, what is your relationship with food? So, why do you turn to the food? What is it? Is it like me as a little kid not knowing how to communicate, how to say, Hey, mom, I would just love for you to sit with me for a minute and just listen to me instead of like working all the time. Or is it saying to a friend, Hey, when you talk to those other kids like that, it makes me feel like I’m not as important. Like what is that for you? And how does that feel? So when you can really look at what is your relationship with food and you can see that, then you can start understanding why you keep turning to the food when you do.
So I want to I want to invite you, if you struggle with understanding your relationship with food and your relationship with yourself, when you learn these tools for your brain to slow down, just like this quote by Frank Outlaw, “watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become actions. Watch your actions. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Watch your character. It becomes your destiny.” When I meet with women as they talk to me about joining Love Yourself Thin or looking at the relationship with food, one of the biggest struggles that we have is that we are not aware of how the habits even came or how the character even came. Because we haven’t gone to the essence of where did that start in the first place. So a belief is just a thought that we have over and over. So even today in the coaching, one of the ladies said, I just always turn to food whenever I’m upset. And I said, well, how about we change the way we say that? I’ve just been a person that turns to food in the past for comfort. And now I’m learning that I don’t have to. And so the more you can be articulate about what’s actually happening, the more you can change.
All So. I was just going to share one last, last bit that was just so interesting. So when I was a kid I was about, how old was I? I was probably 11 and I remember sitting in church and this lady was she was talking, she was just sharing some thoughts. And she said, the more that you think about something, the more you’re apt to doing it. So she basically was, the more you think about it, the more that becomes who you are. So that that has always struck me. The more you think about something, the more you’re going to do it and the more you’re going to become that person.
And I just going to share this last story before we say goodbye for this podcast. And this is kind of like a vulnerable story and It’s it leaves me a little bit I’m like kind of questioning if I should share it or not But I am gonna share it because one of the things that I love about what I do is I love being an example of what’s possible. So approximately four years ago over Christmas, we decided to go to Tofino and Tofino is a place kind of northwest on the island. It’s, it’s very magical. It’s beautiful. It’s kind of tricky to get to, and it’s on the most west coast of our island. And so, when you look out, it’s just open and beautiful. Where I live on the east coast of the island, when you look out, it is also beautiful. You see the ocean, and then you see the mainland, and you see Whistler and all the mountains. So, it’s also beautiful. But Tofino has really good surfing. And so our family became surfers and you have to wear wet suits all year round. And then in the winter, you can still go surfing, but you have to wear like booties and gloves and I got a hat. I had a scuba hat because it’s really cold, but you can still go surfing and it’s quite awesome. So I decided after Christmas, we would go and spend two nights and three days surfing. And when we went, one of my sons didn’t feel very well. And so we cut our trip short and the surfing wasn’t that great. And on our way out my mom has these really good friends and they were staying at this really great resort in Tofino and they invited us to come and visit them and so we went to this very fancy resort and they rented a cottage and it was beautiful and I remember walking into that cottage and I remember thinking I could never stay in a place like this. I could never afford to stay. We’ve lived in some really beautiful homes and we’ve had, you know, beautiful homes, but the idea of spending a certain amount of money on a night just seemed really frivolous to me and just the way I grew up, it just seemed like that was not a very good way of spending your money. There was just that judgment there. And so I remember thinking, but I would love to be able to give this to my kids. And it had a private hot tub and it was right there on this beautiful beach and it was just so cozy and it was so beautiful. And so that seed was planted and, but I just thought, Oh, I could never do this. And then the following summer we went camping at a campground that’s just right, pretty close to this resort. And my husband and I drove around and thought, I said, Oh, I would just love to go on a vacation there. But we could never, we could never spend that much money. We’d never do that. And then the following year I decided that I was going to do it. And I coached myself and we spent two nights and it was glorious. It was so beautiful. It was, it was so much fun. And I was able to pay cash for it. and we had such a fun time as a family and I was really proud of myself.
And then I decided one day I’m going to rent two of these cottages and I’m going to have women from my program or my clients and I’m going to bring them here because it really is so beautiful. And so in the end of September, I had nine women come from all over Canada and the U. S. And we spent four nights, five days in two of the cottages. And at one point during the retreat, which was some pretty intense coaching, and in fact, the best coaching I’ve ever done. It really, I felt like I was an Olympic athlete, like just so on, on top of it all. And just such great coaching. And it was such a wonderful group of women and they were just so invested. And I was able to kind of take a little trip down memory lane and able to look at myself and say, wow, you changed your life. You changed the way that you saw things and you were able to give these women an incredible retreat and this is the part that’s a little bit challenging for me, especially growing up with thinking you’re not supposed to celebrate yourself or you’re supposed to be humble but this is a humility and a pride that has nothing to do with me being better than anybody else. But it was me being who I am so happy that I am. It’s like I look in the mirror and I see my body and I think, I am so proud of this body.
I am so proud of what I created because I learned these tools. And I, I never walk around and say, Well, look at me, I’m skinnier than you or look at me, I’m better than you. It’s a look at me, I have tools, I have confidence in myself because I created this joy for me. And I did not need anybody else to do this for me. I am independent. I can create this. And so when you think about your relationship with food, your relationship with who you’re becoming and who you want to be and understand that you can create whatever that is, I am really excited to be your coach and to help you to create whatever that is. So as I share this story, I want you to think, what is it that you would say, just like I did when I was sitting there saying, I could never be a person that could rent this. And then years later, I rented two for four days each, paid cash. What is that? And then how can I help you to create that? What would it be that I would help you with? And I promise that the more that you spend this time in your brain and the more that you can like truly embrace that, that you can change no matter how old you are, no matter how many times you failed any of that. Yeah. Your life changes totally. I’m so happy for you. All right, ladies. It has been such a joy to spend this time with you. Take care.