138. Weight Loss and Being a Good Student

Were you ever called the teacher’s pet or like you were a really good student and you kind of have some conflicting feelings of like, I’m proud that I was a good student, but I was kind of teased or what? Like, I want to hear it. I want to hear it all. My name is Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin, episode 138, Weight Loss and Being a Good Student. Okay, So tell me what has been your experience of being a good student or what do you think about good students? So I’m gonna talk to you about what happens inside Love Yourself Thin when you join. I see some of the pitfalls when you bring your I’m a good student attitude in there. And then I’m also going to share with you how just in life in general how if you can dissect what being a good student means and editing that for yourself can make a huge change of good in your life and bring you all your power back. Okay? All right. But before we do that, of course I’m going to share the ripple effects of what happens with members of Love Yourself Thin when they do this work. So I wanted to share the example of one of my clients who brought at the beginning of every episode we always share wins. And it’s helping your brain to rewire, like, to believe, like, I am good, I can do these things, I’m, I’m really more powerful than I thought. And it celebrates and it actually creates a dopamine response in their body of them reassuring to themselves that they can do all these different things. So one of my clients, as a lot of them do, they go and they babysit their grandkids. And so one of the benefits, the ripple effects of the weight loss is the grandkids. And this one, I love this member, she has three little granddaughters and she’s able to help them to start regulating their hunger and even though they’re younger, she’s starting to really help them see, you know, why we’re eating, what we’re eating, how much we’re eating, what the importance of food, appreciating food. And one of the things that they do every time she goes to visit is she takes them to an ice cream store and she loves this ice cream store. And even in the winter, they go to the ice cream store and quite often she will just have a little tiny ice cream. And the granddaughters are always asking her and she’s showing them that they don’t need a lot of something, but they can just enjoy what they have. And these girls are learning these really great lessons. There’s nothing about body shaming, there’s nothing about food shaming. It’s just about, I just enjoy these, these little bits. It makes my body feel better when I only have a small amount. And she does it out of so much love. And so they are really learning how to appreciate food and not have to eat all of it, but just to enjoy what they have. So, that’s been really fun to watch those, those granddaughters grow and change as they grow up. And they really do change their relationship with food. Okay, so let’s go into what makes a good student. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I like good students. I was a school teacher for 10 years. But what would you say are the qualities of a good student? So, this is the part where I’m really going to kind of question things. So, one of the problems with being a good student, the typical version of it, is they want to please others, so they want to get their teacher’s approval. So when they’re focusing their energy on getting their teacher’s approval, guess who’s approval they’re not looking for? Their own. And so the repercussion of this is they start feeling very insecure. They feel a lot of I don’t know how to get my own back. I don’t know how to create my own joy. I don’t know how to make a change in my own life. I need others to tell me if I’m being good or not. Right? How many times in my program women will say, I was really good with my food. And I’m like, what do you mean you’re really good with your food? I mean, like you hit your food, you’re bad to it, you spoke rudely to it. Like, what does that even mean, being good with my food, right? You get to decide what’s good and what’s bad. And so if you think that there is this rubrics out there that says if you’re good or bad and it’s out of your control, that’s when insecurity comes, that’s when you lose your power and you’ve given your power to other people. Okay, another quality or another feature of being the stereotypical good student is you think there’s only one way to do something. So just with the classic example of coloring, it’s like, or the teacher who draws the house and the house looks a certain way. Everyone then makes the same house. I was a art teacher for grade one to grade six. I did art for two hour blocks on Friday afternoons from, yes, it was, it was a little bit wild having all those different ages, but it forced me to really look at these are techniques I’m teaching you. These are artistic, like we’re looking at repetition or whatever, whatever the focus was of that. And so it took you out of being cookie cutters and it got you into what was the concept. So it’s just really helpful. But if you think there’s only one way to do something, now you’re focusing your brain juice on trying to find that one special way, and you’re not using your brain juice to create that special way, to create your own amazing way of doing it. So just like if you’ve had children, when you brought your baby home, you’re reading all the books and you’re seeing all these experts and then you think, Oh gosh, do I even, do I have what it takes to be a good mom? And there has to be this moment where you step into your own power and you’re willing to make mistakes and you’re willing to evaluate and you’re willing to kind of look at what works best for you. And when you start doing that, that’s when you step into your own power. Another problem with being the stereotypical good student is that you’re always seeking external validation. And the only way you can feel good about yourself is by other people saying, good job. I, you know, I approve of you. And it’s kind of like you get that little rush of someone saying, good job, but you need more and more of it to feel better. Kind of like sugar. You just need more and more sugar to get that same hit from the cookie. Before it used to just be one cookie and then you needed two cookies and then you needed five cookies to feel good. And it’s the same thing with people sharing their you know, their validation with you. And the hard part too with that, going along with it, is that if you don’t believe their words, then those kind words or the accolades, they just fall on deaf ears because you have to believe their praise in order to, for it to actually ring true. All right. The other problem is we feel a lot of fear because you depend on others, not on yourself. Again, it’s very insecure. You have the thought, I don’t know how to take care of me and so I need other people to take care of me. And if I don’t perform in a certain way, if I don’t do things in a certain way, then I’m not going to get validated. And then that’s scary. And that’s hard. Like life feels out of control. So now you you try to become this control enthusiast and that’s exhausting. It doesn’t, it doesn’t work. So you can see how this just sets you up for so much discouragement. Now, the problem that I have is that when women have been living their lives from the good student, from thinking there’s only one way to do something or you want to please others and not yourself, or they’re always needing external validation, or they feel a lot of fear and a lot of insecurity, they come into, they resonate with what I say. They’re really excited. They think, yes, get to the root of the problem, focus on my brain. This is amazing. I’m so glad. But then they go into the program. And they start watching the modules and then they start doing the worksheets and they have such a hard time doing this because they keep thinking, well, what if I get it wrong? What if I’m doing it wrong? How do I know that I’m doing this right? Now, first of all, there’s ask a coach, there’s three coaching calls a week, there’s the community where you can ask questions. There’s lots of ways that you can check in and say, Hey, this is what I’m doing, am I on the right track? Is this, you know, am I, picking up what you’re laying down? Like there’s lots of ways to check in and to see but if your subconscious brain is constantly saying I have to do it a certain way then we have some problems because you’re not coming to the modules, you’re not coming to the program from the mindset of, I am a CEO. I can take care of this. I’m smart. I can learn these new tools. I can implement these tools. I can change myself for good. Okay. So I recently had an experience with a client who has really struggled with her weight most of her life. She had a gastric bypass surgery that didn’t go well, didn’t lose any weight from that. She’s really had like a really difficult relationship with her body, felt a lot of disappointment and discouragement, and done a lot of diets, and read a lot of rule books about you have to do it this way or that way and if you don’t. And so the problem is when she came into Love Yourself Thin and started watching the modules, she would watch them from a perspective of, I have to do this the right way. What does Dara say? How do I need to do it? And she just brought in a lot of fear. And one of the things that we realized that she was doing was she was reading everything with skepticism and even the things that really resonated with her, like the part about transitions and snacking and the mindset tools, she didn’t have a lot of space in her brain for those because most of her brain juice was focusing on having to do it a certain way. And so she wasn’t getting the benefit of the program and I was coaching her and we were, I was really seeing what was going on in her brain. I was able to ask her some questions that really started to kind of let her see what kind of attitude she was bringing and why it was so difficult. So I asked her, what are the things that you’ve done in the past that have worked for weight loss? And she said, well, I really like, she really likes making treats with like whipping cream and jello and things like that. And then she also really likes having a skinny bagel with an egg and Canadian bacon. And she likes to eat several times a day. And she loves cookie dough. Just loves cookie dough so much. And As I was, as she was telling, talking to me, she’s like, I just feel so deprived. I just feel hungry all the time and I just, I’m just not enjoying it. And I said, well, why don’t we enjoy it? Why don’t we stop with the deprivation? And I said, well, why don’t we just have coffee dates with food why don’t we just say, Hey, at two o’clock on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I’m going to go and meet up with my cookie dough friend. And I’m going to have one ball of cookie dough at two o’clock, just like I would with my friend on a coffee date, I would connect with that cookie dough, I would eat that cookie dough, I would enjoy that cookie dough, I’d only have one of that cookie dough, and I wouldn’t feel any guilty about eating that cookie dough, and it’d be awesome! And even if you wanted, you could have one, you could have a cookie dough date every day at two o’clock, right? And you don’t have to feel guilty about it. And she, she kind of looked at me and said, Really? What, I could do that? And I said, Of course you can! You can make your own plan. Now, today, actually, in our group coaching call, one of the ladies, she’s a brand new member, and she’s not quite ready to do six weeks of no sugar and flour. And I said, well, what would it be like if you just decided from like six o’clock at night until 10 in the morning you just don’t have sugar or flour? I said, could you do that? She said, yeah. Yeah, I could do that. I said, well, then why don’t we do that? Right? Like this is where you get to become your own best student of you. Because this is the truth, my friends. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself. Actually it’s kind of sad to me because there’s a lot of women that know other people much better than they know themselves because they don’t spend a lot of time with themselves. So when you join Love Yourself Thin what you’re actually doing is you’re learning who you are. And so had another client that I coached yesterday and she is, I’m actually recording this the beginning of December and so she’s been working on her eating plan for December and her joy eats and I said well, and of course, you know Christmas is coming and the holiday parties and all of that. It was her dad’s birthday last week. And I said well, who do you want to have dates with? Who do you actually want to connect with? And it was so fascinating because she was like, well, I don’t know, pretzels? Like she had to actually think about what specific foods that she wanted to connect with instead of just eating at the party so that she doesn’t feel left out. It’s such a difference. And you’re listening to this, later after Christmas, but you can, you can start practicing this now. It doesn’t have to be just Christmas. Think about birthdays, think about celebrations, think about going out for dinner, different restaurants, like this is all, whatever’s in the grocery store and your pantry. So for me, for Christmas, I really love connecting with the bouche de Noel that my mom makes every Christmas. And I make a , it’s called the score bar dessert. So it’s like pudding. It’s kind of like a trifle with chocolate pudding, whipping cream and chocolate cake. And this year I actually bought keto jello, jello pudding and whipping cream. I never put sugar in it anyway. And I thought, there’s some other cakes out there that don’t make me feel gross afterwards. Like maybe I could plan on, there’s like cakes that you make with sweet potatoes or pumpkin and egg. I’m like, maybe I could try that. And then I bought some really good quality chocolate. Because I think maybe that would make me feel better. Because afterwards, I usually always feel gross. Well, I always feel gross afterwards. So who do I really want to connect with? And what do I really want to connect with? And what works best for me? And the more that I can be my own best student of Dara, the better off I can be. And so as the women in Love Yourself Thin start to really look at being the good student for others versus being the good student for yourself, that’s when they get their power. That’s when they walk in. And so this is one last thing I want to mention in this. Now, when we go out on, you know, on Pinterest or a Google search, there are just so many ways of losing weight. There’s so many, you know, do you go vegan? Do you go carnivore? Do you go keto? Do you South Beach Weight Watchers? Like all the things. There are so many ways to lose weight. I just discovered Glucose Goddess. She’s fascinating. She has all sorts of amazing studies. Like there’s so much out there. But guess what? You get to decide what works best for you. You get to experiment what works best for you. You get to evaluate what works best for you. And the more that you do that for you, the better, the more you find what works best for you. It’s so empowering. I have lost, taken off, used up 50 pounds and kept that off over years because I decided that I’m going to be my own best student. And guess what’s been so interesting? I’ve been going through paramenopause. I think I have menopause and I was like officially a year into menopause and then I got my period and I was like, Oh, what’s going on here? Interesting. This is so fascinating. So this is what I’m doing. I’m in this lifelong adventure, this life love experience with myself. I’m making sure that I’m doing the best for me because I am my own unique person. I am super incredible. And so why not spend all that time working out what works best for me? I really hope that you’re resonating with what I’m saying. And I hope that we can say goodbye to the good student that needs other people’s approval and step into the good student that needs your own approval. It is so powerful. And if that means you need to have coffee dates with the cookie dough every day at two o’clock, then you do that. And I can promise that if you really start doing this work, you can lose weight and eat cookie dough every day at two o’clock. You really can. It’s one little piece of cookie dough. All the rest of the food you’re eating is wonderful and amazing. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of becoming your own best CEO. All right. This has been a really fun episode to prepare for you. And I can’t wait to keep sharing with you more insights in this podcast. And of course, if you want more, come and join us. You’re going to love it. Bye bye.