#146: Weight Loss and How You Spend Your Time

Do you feel like at the end of the day, you really didn’t get all the things done that you wanted to, and then you feel super frustrated. And next thing you know, you’re reaching for ice cream.  Well, if that sounds like you, every once in awhile, welcome to this podcast. My name is Dara Tomasson, and this is love yourself. 

In podcast episode 1 46. How weight loss and how to spend your time I’m really enjoying being able to share the podcast, not only by your favorite podcast provider, but on my YouTube channel. If you want to see me and my. Beautiful pink lipstick or my fun earrings or necklace. You can come and watch me on YouTube and the link is there. All right. 

So before we start into the meat of the podcast About time management and how you spend your time and learning how to have more trust with yourself. I always love to share the ripple effects of what happens in the lives of the. Love yourself, thin members. Like their husbands, their children, their neighbors, their. Whoever they are.  This one is, we just had a solar eclipse recently and my client and the members, her husband really wanted to go and see it. 

 They had to drive. Three hours and sit in this one spot so that they could get a really good view of it.  She did it. And she was normally she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t go and do those kinds of things. But she decided that she wanted to be that kind of wife.  I think about her husband who is very adventurous. He loves to do these kinds of things. The fact that his wife came with him, he’s just loving it. 

There are a lot of husbands who endorse love yourself in. All right.  We’re going to go into the, the meat. If you don’t know, there’s always a handout. And so if you’re watching YouTube video, I have the handout right here. If you were watching, if you’re listening. You can just go to the show notes and you can see the handout. 

In fact, I have handouts for every single one of my episodes. I am as a former school teacher and know about how people learn. I know for me, when you slow it all down and you have a way to look at something in a new way, kind of direct your mind and slow down and put that pen to paper or typing it out, however you want to do it. 

It really does help solidify your understanding. So I do recommend you listen to my podcast all the way through. Maybe you’re on a walk, maybe you’re doing dishes or your chain piecing. And then you can come back and listen to it the second time with the worksheet. So that’s what I would recommend. I want it to just ask you how was time management modeled to you? When you think back about when you were a kid, Did you see your parents or your cousins, your aunts and uncles. 

Did you see them relaxing? Did you see them valuing downtime? Or did you just see working was like really important and that’s what they spent most of their time doing. Did you see gender rules?  How you manage time. I have so many distinct memories of being at family functions and just watching the women in my family just. Never stopping. And the only time they really kind of stopped. To visit and chat was when they were doing dishes. And so, but I remember the men all sitting in their literally their lounge chairs. And just talking and talking and they never really got involved. 

Even with the activities with the kids, quite often, it was the moms that did everything and they I never really saw, you know, model playing. Like my mom never sat and did Play-Doh with me, but she would definitely do reading homework over the summer holidays.  I just want you to just give yourself a minute to reflect on how was time management model to you. Because however, they spent their time, whatever you spend your time on, that’s what you value.  So if you are. And now if you’re rebelling against that, or you’re not aligned with like the values that you have about how you want to spend your time, then you’re not going to feel good. But if you don’t spend some time thinking about it, then you’re not going to even know that that’s why you feel off, you know, when you have that feeling of like, ah, I’m not quite there. 

Now, what were the messages you received about how a good person should spend their time?

This is a really good opportunity for you to spend some, just thinking about it, really looking at. What is my relationship with time? How often did you hear.

Your, your parents. Your cousins, grandma and grandpas. Talk about your touch. A waste of time. 

One of the problems around time management. And is that we actually only have a limited amount of time. Are. So when you have a limited amount of time, that can bring up scarcity, which is means not enoughness. If you feel

like.  It’s true because I love this analogy. You can make a cake in one minute. You can make a cake in an hour. You can make a cake in like 10 hours.  The one minute is literally you can go online, click, click, click, put your credit card in, and the cake will be made, delivered and brought to you. Isn’t that amazing. You can do it in an hour where you just go and get like a cake mix and just put together.  It could be done in 30 seconds when you assign it to one of your children or whatever that is, or you could decide that you’re going to make this certain kind of cake and it’s going to be amazing and incredible, and you’re going to learn how to do it, and you’re gonna learn how to make good nosh and you’re gonna do all these different techniques.

You can do that too.  You can decide how you want to use your time. But the truth. The matter is there is a limited amount of time.  I’ve done a podcast about mind juice, and I remember I’ll never forget listening to Jody Morris podcast. When she introduced me to the term of mind juice. She said we only have so much mind use and she gave you an example of She gave the example of deals at stores. 

When you go to a store and they’ll say, Hey, if you get this card, you can get 10% off. Or Hey, if you do this, you can get these points. And I remember her saying that it was just, it just used up so much. I’ve heard mind juice. That she’d rather not. And I couldn’t believe it. I thought that is that’s crazy. 

Of course you need to get the deals. And when I thought about it, I thought I could see how that could be a problem. Cause then she said, you know, then I have to worry about the credit card payments. I have to set up a whole new account on my online banking. And it’s just one more thing and it just takes up. It really does soak up my time. Just very interesting concept of when you only have so much time.  When you go into scarcity. Your body goes into more of a. Like deprivation of, I’m not enough. 

There’s like a shame part. We also have our Vegas nerve, which goes from our brain down to our elimination parts. And we have two parts of our. Our nervous system does attach to the Vegas. We have our

sympathetic nervous system.  We have our parasympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic nervous system, it operates things like our digestion, our breathing, all of that.  That’s why, like, if we become super nervous, What do we have to do? 

We have to go pee. Right?

The sympathetic nervous system, it controls the fight and flight response.  If we need to like always be monitoring the five things. The sympathetic nervous system. It accelerates our heart rate. 

It widens our bronchial passage. So our lungs, so we could breathe more. It decreases our large intestine. It’s like if we have to go to the bathroom and we have to be running. It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. We don’t have time for that. It constricts blood vessels, it causes pupil dilation, it activates glutes. Goosebumps and start sweating and raising blood pressure. So it’s letting us know. 

We need to go into action. But the sympathetic nervous system, I like to think of it like a A parachute, it opens and it slows everything down. And we’re able to really look at what’s really going on. And so. You can, you can actually get your body into the parasympathetic nervous system by deep breathing. By thinking yoga, deep breathing. Nature walks. That grounding even putting your feet on the ground. 

Like I, I do with my clients and to say, okay, hold your. Put your hand on your chest connect with your body. Take a breath. Look around reassure yourself. You’re in a safe place. All of that will help you to get back into your parasympathetic nervous system. Now the reason I’m bringing this up when it comes to time management, is that when we are looking at something that is a limited amount, we only have so much time in a day. It can bring up that scarcity of like, I don’t know how I don’t want to waste things. 

I don’t want to mess up. It feels like the stakes are kind of higher. It feels very scary. And so the more that we can just be calm and.  Kind of look inside of ourselves. That’s going to be really helpful. Now we have this activity here in the worksheet. So if you were to do a time inventory for how you spend your time every day, How aligned would it be with your values as a person? Now I have written the 12 step perfectionist recovery.

I’ve written the 12 step perfectionist recovery program. 

 This is what it looks like. When you’re in my membership, you actually, you get it. And at the back of this. I have. Time capture. So this is to see how much, how are you using your time during the day? It’s looking at. What I like what you’re doing. And so it kind of, it helps you to keep track. Because how often are we spending time? We don’t even realize it. 

Like how many times do we think, oh, how could it be four o’clock already, like, how did that hour just zip by where did it go? What happened? And so when you look at that, you can see what’s happening.  I want you to. So the other thing that’s of limited supply is our. Thinking. So how much. Thinking space we have in our brain. Because eventually we need to go to sleep eventually. 

You know, when you say like I’m brain dead. Because if you’ve been thinking a lot that day and making lots of decisions, there’s a great podcast that I have on decision fatigue. Then you feel exhausted because you have exhausted. That ability to make good decisions and we need to refresh. That’s why we need good sleep. 

And so

I I said earlier, whatever you feed will grow. If you don’t know how to manage your brain, and if you’re spending a lot of time distracting yourself you’re looking, you’re trying to veer off in a different direction. That’s not grant like not grounded. Then you’re getting a lot of results in your life that you, that don’t feel like you, because you’re not in alignment with what, who you want to be.  It’s very interesting to look at different studies over the years on the effect of unmanaged brains.

There was a study done in 1985 and 1987. Bye Paul Olivia. Olivia and Herman. So on a psychological level.  People. Yeah. Psychological level people respond to the deprivation of dieting with the desperation of bingeing. So binge eating or compulsive eating is both a consequence and a precipitant of dietary restraint. That’s another study in 1987. Compulsive eating, which is increasingly prevalent in the population. Tons of studies. Reflects the conflict between a biological drive for food and cultural drives for thinness. So when we are depriving ourselves. 

So kind of like we’re talking about with time management, we’re not really looking at, you know, what we’re doing. We’re not looking at our thoughts.  If we’re all of a sudden. Saying you are not allowed to eat. This is not a good choice. You’re taking that away from yourself. Then you are not giving yourself permission to really look at what’s going on. 

One of the things that happens when we could do the same thing with time management. We could say things like, look at you. You’re such a loser. You’re not to be trusted. What were you thinking? Of course you couldn’t be so successful. You’re just so pathetic, right? There was another study done. It by Hetherington and basmati. I will have these in the show notes, but the subsequent self hatred, which mimics cultural attitudes towards overeating and overweight. Serves to punish the individuals for needing to go to food for help. Compulsive eating also serves to block self-awareness and meaningful thought about identity and implications of life events. In the end, it disguises the true nature of the problem. People spend lifetimes thinking that they have eating and weight problems when in fact. They don’t know how to calm themselves down.  They don’t know how to be with themselves. 

Just like with time management. It’s like, what is the real issue? Is it that you’re a loser? Is it that you’re deficient or is it that you’re, you’re using your, in your sympathetic nervous system that you’re feeling afraid? That you are you’re hearing your mother say you’re wasting your time. 

What, what were you thinking about being an artist? You should have just been a secretary or whatever, whatever story that is. 

When you don’t go to the root of the issue you end up  with time management, you end up buying lots of apps, calendars, planners. You follow somebody else’s system.

Instead of really looking at what’s really going on. And this is why. We have such a problem. And that’s why we have obesity as a, as at an all time high. Recently I had a coaching session with my original coach. I was struggling with an identity shift for myself. She said to me,  what would it be like if you just talk to your 90 year old self. What would she say to you right now about this kind of a crossroads of where I was at?  It was really sweet because I took her up on her offer and I wrote a letter from my 90 year old self to me now.  It kind of surprised me, the things that I said. 

There’s a lot of wisdom there.  One of the things I said was, remember, when you were nervous about getting married.  Because of your parents’ divorce and that you are afraid that you would try to control him. Do you remember when you were really afraid about having your fifth child? Because your fourth child was so busy, you didn’t know if you had it in you to take care of five. Aren’t you so glad you did. It was so interesting that my 90 year old self was reminding my 50 year old self. Of when I was 20 and 30 and 35 and 40. There was other times where I was struggling and I always got my own back.  Even if I had difficult situations, I, I didn’t turn away. 

I didn’t quit. I worked through it. I was really glad that I was able to give myself that chance. So potentially that’s something you could do and look at yourself from that perspective.  The last thing I want to share in this podcast that I think is going to be so helpful. Cause I shared a lot of different concepts, but so I, I talked about how we have different values. 

We are handed down different values from our parents. If we’re not aware that we’re punishing ourselves with those values, and maybe we’re not aligned with them anymore, or maybe we don’t even think that we could change them, or maybe we don’t even realize that it’s an option.  You know, in my, in my family, do I, do I keep up that same thing of me just being in the kitchen, doing all the cleaning and all the cooking. 

Is that something I want to keep doing? Or do I want to have my husband be more involved or do I want my kids to want to make sure my kids, I have four sons and one daughter. That they all help equally. Do I want to, like, how do I want my family functions to look like? Especially going forward with my grandchildren eventually when I get them. It’s like, what, what do I want? 

What’s my legacy to pass on. In fact, one of my, I, my grandma died when I was seven. My one grandma.  One of my happiest memories of her is it was a Christmas dinner and there was tons of people. I remember thinking, I remember thinking she has so many dishes to do.  It looked like they just had so much fun in the kitchen. And that was such a fun memory for me. And I thought, oh, it doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be difficult. It could actually be really fun. That that’s a fun memory.  We learned about looking at your past and then looking at the way you talk to yourself and doing a time capture to see, like, are you being in integrity with who you want to be? 

 Our other lots of places in your life where you’re avoiding and you’re like numbing out. Is that what you’re doing? 

 You can see  your time inventory are you spending time in the way that you want to be spending it? And then what would your 90 year old version of yourself talk to you about in your, about w what your situation is right now?  We have a lot of major thought errors. Like when I finished this one thing, then I can relax.  Or spend more time doing this. 

I’ll be happy when, and after I cross this hurdle, then I can feel happy or fulfilled. We also talked about different weight loss struggles of how we think that you know, if we. We limit ourselves at different food, then we will feel better. And I just want to finish off with a post that I, so I’m in a Instagram class right now. This lady has a really big Instagram following.  She posted this very vulnerable post. She said every time I go on social media, I’m hit with ads to lose weight. 

It’s like social media knows how much I think about not being small enough. Last year I went on semaglutide per the recommendation of my doctor. It made me violently ill. I even had to get fluids once at the emergency clinic. After seven weeks of sickness, not abating. I stopped it and gained 25 pounds. 

All that I had lost. And then some.

I share this because it’s really hard to live in a world, obsessed with thinness, and it feels even harder when your job is social media. For me semaglutide wasn’t the miracle I hoped it would be. I’ve had to learn again that my value isn’t a number on the scale. No matter my weight, my beauty, I am beautiful. 

No matter my weight, I am worthy. No matter my weight, I am whole. And so are you.  Then she has tons of comments, just so many comments. And

And I w I liked one of the things that she said was I’m going to leave comments on, but if it turns into a debate about weight loss methods for losing weight, I will turn them off. Please be the level you respectful people. I know you to be.  One of the problems that I see so much with weight loss.

Just like by hope that the whole purpose is number one, your worth as a human has nothing to do with your weight.  Then number two is the reason you’re gaining weight. Is because there are emotions. There are challenges. There are difficulties that you don’t know how to deal with. You’re not aware of how to work through that.  You’re hurting, but you don’t know how to solve the problem. I’m here to help you with that. This woman is incredibly smart.  

She’s an author, a speaker. She has over 140,000 Instagram followers. She’s created quite an amazing life.

Yet, there are some food issues. There’s not this, not the food issues. It’s that. I don’t know how to connect with myself issues.  She’s really scared and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.  Have tools and abilities to help people to change that.

I heart goes out to her.  I’m here to help.

 If you’re ready to be helped. If you’re ready to really look at what’s going on. Let’s do it.  The month of may, we’re doing a we’re learning. All about perimenopause and menopause. So whether however old you are calm, you’re going to learn so much. There’s webinars every week for the month of may. 

We’re going to take a deep dive in my program. On perimenopause and menopause. For the month of June. So, if you’re interested in diving into that, You can go check it out. Alright, take care. Bye.

  If you find so many tools and gems from the podcast, you wouldn’t even believe what a difference it is in the membership where we go deep into these topics. And for the month of May, we are going to work on how our mental health impacts our physical health. And so if you are struggling with anxiety or. 

Depression or any of those  mental health issues, I invite you to consider coming and preparing for joining us in Love Yourself Thin, where we’re really going to take a deep dive into that. I can’t wait to see you there. Bye.