130. Weight Loss and Your Personal Manual

Are you the kind of person that reads the manual before you plug something in or use something or do you just kind of wing it? Well, if you are the person who reads the manual or wings it, this episode is for you. I’m Dara Tomasson and this is episode 130, weight loss and your personal manual. 

Hello everyone. All right, this is confession time. Are you the person that has other people read the manual? Do you even like know where the manual is? Okay, whether you read them or not, there is an operating manual in all of our heads that we aren’t even aware of. They are subconsciously there and until we can slow down and figure out where they came from and what we’re actually doing, if we don’t do that, we’re not going to be able to get traction, we’re not going to be able to change.

So, I wanted to share one of the ripple effects of what happens inside of the members of Love Yourself Thin to other family members. And so, this is an example that came before Christmas, but just as we’re you know, we’re coming out of Christmas. I really loved what happened with this member because she’s so different than she was when she started. And this Christmas that just passed was her turn to have all of her kids and their spouses and the grandkids come home for Christmas. So it’s a really exciting time Now, I’m not quite there yet because none of my kids are married, but I have one daughter who is gone. She’s in Tahiti being a missionary for our church. And then I have a son that will be leaving on a mission. So I’m actually going to have three Christmases where I don’t have all five of my kids at home, which is kind of sad, but I’m really happy for what they’re doing. And I can kind of have that perspective.

Anyways, going back to this client. She was a little bit concerned because she knows that her kids have done, they’ve kind of changed some of the traditions that they would normally have done when they were living at home with her before they were married. So she anticipated that if she didn’t communicate with them or talk to them or make a plan, then they could possibly feel, there could be hard feelings, especially with, you know, you’ve got the spouse involved, you’ve got the kids. And so one of the the ripple effects of the work she’s doing is that she had conversations with all of her kids and in laws. And so now her kids and their spouses are all being heard and they’re being respected. And they were able to work out what would be the best way to have Christmas so that everyone would feel like they’d have a voice and that that communication was open. And so now their Christmas is so much better because they are letting themselves be respected. And so I just thought that was an excellent repercussion or a ripple effect of the work that she’s doing because she even said she would never have even thought about that. And then if things were going differently, she would tend to feel resentment and frustrated and upset and she doesn’t want any of that. So, so fun that we can see what effect this work is having. 

Okay. So today’s episode is talking about manuals. Now I tend to be a person who I like to see the big picture of things. I don’t really love reading step by step little things like building IKEA furniture. I’m like, let me just figure it out. I don’t, I don’t know what it is about me, but that’s kind of how I feel. Or I, I do the thing where I say to my husband, Hey, can you just read this and just tell me what to do? I’m not sure if it’s just like a throwback to like being a teenager, but I wasn’t, I guess I wasn’t really a rebellious teenager. I don’t know. I just like being independent. I think that’s what it boils down to. I like being able to be independent, to be able to think. And sometimes when there’s a manual, it’s like telling me what to do all the time. And maybe I don’t feel as respected. I don’t know. So a manual is there to help you. 

Now I don’t know about you, but how often do you read a manual and you think, why’d they say to do it that way? It’s kind of like reading a quilt pattern. Like, why did the quilt writer say to do it this way? Wouldn’t it make more sense to do it that way? And truthfully it probably would make more sense to do it the other way. It’s just that we’re all different and unique and in their brain and their experiences, that’s how they think. Now I have written patterns in a book and I did have that thought where I thought, I wonder how people are going to react to the way that I suggest that they do it because really there are lots of different ways of doing things. 

We’re going to dive into this episode into what is your personal manual for dealing with challenges? With food? Well, how we deal with challenges, oftentimes we are turning to food, right? We are looking at the food to try to make us feel better. So if you were to break down your experience, like, and if you go to the worksheet I have the first question that’s really helpful. What is your typical day like and does it reflect the type of day you really want to have? So if you’ve ever attended any of my master classes I’ve done, and if you’re in Love Yourself Thin I have the, in the perfectionist recovery program, I have a time capture and basically it’s a way for you to go through your day and articulate what actually did you do during the day. And so that way you can kind of take a step back and say, Oh, this is how I spent my day. Oh, I, I spent that many hours on Instagram. I spent that much time on my phone. I spent that much time, whatever it was. Okay, and so The key is you get so much insight about yourself when you do that. So if your day does not reflect the kind of life that you have, why doesn’t it? So if you are like a super creative person and you love quilting and it’s just so much fun for you and you love a really clean house and you really value that, but you’re spending a lot of time scrolling or eating or doing things for other people. Like every time your daughter in law calls and says, can you come and watch the kids? You say, yes. And you leave your quilting and the things that you wanted to do behind. So just kind of reflect on that. 

And then the next question I have is where did the rules of your life come from? So let’s go back to the daughter in law example. So was there a rule someone asked you to do something, especially in your family? Is there like an unspoken rule that you just say yes, that you are not ever to say no and that you can’t let them figure it out or you can’t let them be disappointed? Like, what is that rule? And where did that come from? So did you observe your mother or your grandmother who did everything for you and never took time for herself? And was that glorified? Was that the expectation? Like, just get curious. Do you have certain rules in your life that come from your country, your job, your spouse, being an adult, being a homeowner? Like are there certain rules that you feel like you have to follow now because of that?

 I went to a parade in America, in Utah, and it was very interesting to me because every time people with a flag in their hands walked by, everyone stood up and put their hands on their heart. We don’t do that in Canada. So it was like, oh, so there’s a manual there. You know, even being like when I was a lifeguard, there’s a certain manual that goes along with being a lifeguard. So when I was in France, when I was 19 and I was driving and there was a car accident in front of me, there’s a manual that says if you are a certified first aid person, you are to stop at accident scenes, right? Like there, there are expectations. There are rules of living that you follow. There are some that are very beneficial, but there are some that aren’t, and the purpose of today’s episode is to have you slow down enough and reflect on is the way you’re living your life like day to day, reflecting the kind of life that you want. Or are you living your life on a treadmill where you say, well, when this is done, then I can do this. When this is done, then I can do it. How many of you do that? How many of you say, Oh, but okay, after that, then I can take care of myself. After I finish that thing, then I’ll have some time to do this. I was just talking to a member in Love Yourself Thin today and she was saying that she didn’t want to wait, so I’m recording this on December 1st and she said, I don’t want to wait until January to make a change. I said, okay, but what are you actually going to do today to make a change? Like are you going to go and do some journaling right now? Are you going to schedule instead of saying, yes, I’ll drive the grandkids home from school, you say, no, sorry, I can’t. I’m actually doing this. I’m doing module three, on a worksheet, because I’ve made a commitment to do that. Okay, so, this is why we have to slow it all down and see what’s really going on. 

Okay, so what are the top three things that you have to change to change for your life to look the way you want it to? So, this is where I want you to do a little exercise where you write down like, 7 to 8, what did I do? 9, what did I do? Like, 9 to 10. Like, what are you actually doing during the day? And when you can do this, which I call a time capture, what that does is it gives you an ability to see what you’re actually doing. And it helps you to accept it and see what you’re doing. Because remember, 95 percent of our thoughts are subconscious, so we’re not even aware of what we’re doing. Now I, sometimes we’ll be coaching somebody in my, like a member of Love Yourself Thin and they’ll say, Oh no, but I don’t do that anymore. I just decided, I just changed my mind. I don’t do that anymore. And this just happened recently. And I said, but you just told me that you had the ice cream cone because your sister in law pressured you. And then you also just told me on Thursday after Thanksgiving, she sent home a bunch of food and treats and you ended up eating it at 10 o’clock. And now today is Monday, and so just last week, twice, you ate food that you said you hadn’t. So this is, this is a problem. We want to say, but oh no, no, I’ve changed now. But we’re not a light switch. We can’t just turn things on and off. We’re a human having a human experience. We have wired thinking and we have subconscious thinking. And so it takes a lot more effort to make a change because we have to see, first of all, what are we doing? How can we change that? And we have to actively go in and change that. Okay? So just like with Pavlov’s dogs, they were conditioned to, every time they heard a bell, they started to salivate because they were conditioned to know that, Oh, when we hear the bell, we will be able to eat. It’s just like the cows, when they heard a tractor, they all start walking towards the tractor, right? Because they’re like, Oh, that means we’re going to eat. So we need to decondition ourselves. And that takes the mental work that I teach within Love Yourself Thin. 

All right, so accept where you are right now. And in order to accept where you are, you have to collect data. You have to see, okay, what am I doing? What is my story? And then when you have that information, then you can learn from it. Isn’t that amazing? So for the example of the member in my program, she did a whole bunch of work with her brother on his car and she did a bunch of things. And so she was kind of more physically active and then she was at someone else’s house. So there’s a whole other like expectation. You think, well, it’s, it’s rude for me to say no. Right? If that’s the way, that’s your personal manual. And so she had said no, no, thank you. No, thank you several times before that. And then at the end, the sister in law said, okay, no, you at least have to have it. And it’s just small. So just have a little one. And then she decided, she had a thought like I don’t want to hurt her feelings or I don’t want to be rude or whatever that is and then she went and she ate the thing, which then broke trust with herself because she had made a commitment not to eat sugar. And so when you can accept that, if you say things like, okay, so I can see that I have a hard time saying no when people offer me things. And the other thing that she realized was she has a lot of fear of missing out. It makes her feel really disconnected when other people are eating something and she’s not a part of it. So when she understands that she now can recognize her patterns and she can decide what she wants to do. And so you can learn from how you are and what’s happening there. 

So this episode is really, really helpful, especially when you think about making change because a lot of us will tell a story. I can’t change. I’m just that way. I hear a lot of women will say things like, but it’s just my personality. It’s just who I am. I’ve always been this way. Now, the problem with that is when we had COVID, all of a sudden we all wore masks. We never wore masks before, hardly, like, unless we were like a doctor or a nurse or something. Like it was not common at all to see people walking around with masks. And it was definitely not common to see people lining up six feet apart. It was definitely not common to have arrows on the aisleways. We all shifted. We all changed. It was not common to have immunization records and to show them to people to get in and out of places. That was not common, but we all changed. We all saw the reasoning behind it, and we all shifted and changed. Isn’t that amazing? So when we have those excuses, like, well, I’m just not that person. I’ve never been that way. I would question it and say, yeah, no. I mean, I love this analogy that I heard from Brooke Castillo. She was like, well, as soon as you put a ring on that finger, you don’t go and flirt with boys anymore. Well, I mean, some people do, I guess just depends on their ideas of marriage, but it’s like, you could just change within, you know, when you said I do, you just made a decision. That means I no longer going to be you know, flirting with other guys.

So, I want you to look at your personal manual. I want you to take some time for yourself. And, this worksheet will just be a good prompt. And, I do want you to take the time to slow your brain down. Put a pen in your hand, or if you want to do it digitally, you can. But, there is something that happens that’s very powerful when you slow down in your brain, you ask yourself some questions and you work through answering them. That is how you’re going to get traction. That is how you’re going to make a change. And I want to remind you when you take care of your mental health, your physical health is a side effect. So if you struggle with depression or with apathy or with whatever that is. When you start taking care of that, you start taking care of your physical health because you no longer are relying on substances to try to make yourself feel better. Honestly, it’s like so exciting to watch the members of Love Yourself Thin change their lives so dramatically because they’re finally showing up and seeing what’s really going on. 

All right, this has been so much fun sharing this episode with you. I also want to remind you if you’re listening to this before January 25th and 26th, I have an incredible reboot 2024 program that’s happening all year long. You have the opportunity to come live in Springville, Utah on January 25th and 26th. And then we, we have monthly calls. Plus, you can have an accountability partner that will help you so much, myself included. And then we’ll be meeting every month for the entire year within our own private Facebook group. So if you are interested in that, the link is included below. Take care, everyone. Bye bye.