Ep #52: Brain Exercises for Weight Loss

Do you feel like the less time you spend in your head the better because you aren’t to be trusted, stop dreaming or making goals for yourself? You don’t have a lot of confidence that you can be successful so helping others is the best of your time? Lucky that you are about to take part in this episode.

I am Dara Tomasson, and this is Weight Loss for Quilters, episode 52, Brain Exercises for Weight Loss.

Did you know you could lose weight and keep it off for good? After 25 years of hiding behind my quilts, I have finally cracked the code for permanent weight loss, and I’ve lost 50 pounds without exercise or counting calories. I’m Dara Tomasson, professional quilter turned weight and life coach, where I help quilters just like you create a life they love by losing weight and keeping it off for good. Let’s jump into today’s episode.

Have you ever stopped to think why knife, knight and know all have a K in front of them or why do we even have a knight and night, two different spellings, two different meanings? Or why pair, pear and pare are all the same word but spelled differently? Or why does the English language have so many rules and then exceptions to the rules? We all speak English and if you’re listening to this podcast you’re understanding this English language. But there is so much about it that we don’t understand.

Grammar lessons in Grades 7 and 8 were so annoying. I also learned French. And trying to memorize all the rules was also annoying and I still struggle with trying to remember everything. This is the same with weight loss. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of you listening have lost weight many times. You have even been good at losing weight but keeping it off is a totally different story, how come? This episode will pull back the curtain on why the brain needs to take center stage at any hope of experiencing permanent weight loss.

You can expect to learn the number one rule of weight loss and how to embrace it with your brain and stop arguing with reality.

Okay, so before I go into the bulk of the podcast I am going to share just a win that we had in our program. And a lot of the ladies in my program, they are also caregivers for either their spouse or their grandkids. And it’s really challenging for them to prioritize themself. And of course, the last episode, episode 51 we talked about the importance of prioritizing ourself. But one of my members in my program, her husband has a condition where he needs dialysis, I believe three times a week.

And I think he’s there for four hours, three or four hours and it’s about a 45 minute drive one way to take him there. So, she has found herself having time on her hands on the city, not being where she’s from. And so, she’s been making friends with a lot of the quilt shops. And so, a few weeks ago she went to one of the quilt shops and said, “Is it possible for me to watch my class from your shop?” And they were really accommodating.

And she just shared today that she went to a different quilt shop and was just talking to them, and it turned out that they were having a class offered and they didn’t want her to feel bad that she wasn’t involved. And she wasn’t necessarily interested in doing the specific class that the teacher was instructing. They found a sewing machine for her. She bought some fabric. She worked on the pattern. And she was able to just be with other people and she wasn’t so alone.

And the reason why this is such a huge celebration is that a lot of times, especially women who, or people who are caregivers, they’re exhausted. They are giving so much. They tend to have a hard time taking time for themselves and I love that she is making her own self-care a priority. And these are things that happen when you start embracing the Love Yourself Thin tools. So, I’m so happy for her and I just wanted to shout her out. And I wanted to just share with you, these are the kinds of experiences that the members in my lifetime membership are having.

Not only are they losing physical weight but they’re losing so much mental weight. And they are gaining so much more confidence and they’re finding their voice. So, talking about this podcast, I’ve been thinking a lot about how do we make friends with our brain? And how do we change the way we think of something that has always been so negative?

So, you know when you see those pictures where it’s either an old lady or a vase, I think that’s one of those classic ones. Depending on how you look at the picture you can see something different. And this podcast episode, I really want you to look at why do you struggle with weight loss? Why are you so good at losing weight but you just keep gaining it back? And just like with the English language there’s lots of rules like, knight, night and knife, there’s silent K’s and something there’s just an N. It’s just so confusing sometimes.

But we all know how to speak English, and we know what sounds right. But we don’t necessarily know why it’s that way. And so, today’s episode I wanted to talk about what is the basic weight loss science principle? And when you understand it, it can actually give you so much insight. So, for us, speaking English it’s really not that big of a deal why they have a silent K and in fact someone just recently was telling me that there’s this whole reason why there’s a silent K and all of this thing.

That’s actually my son’s teacher and she was just having so much fun learning all these things. So, you could go, and you could learn all of those things and you could spend hours delving into it. But today’s episode, I really wanted to share with you what needs to happen for permanent weight loss. There’s a worksheet. And I’m going to walk you through that worksheet because there are just too many ladies and men if you’re a man, you’re for sure welcome to listen to this podcast of course.

But there’s just too many people walking around confused about what is going on. And to be fair, you have a lot of reasons to be confused. You can go to the library and there are endless books. You can do a Google search, you can go on Amazon, there are so many people telling you so many different ways of losing weight. And my goal for this podcast today is I’m going to teach you how to make your own rules based on fact. And so here they are. And actually, they are written in the worksheet as well.

So permanent weight loss requires three hormones. So, we have leptin is the hormone that tells your brain when you are full, or you’re satiated. Ghrelin is the hormone that tells your brain that you are hungry. And then the last hormone is insulin. Insulin’s like the trapdoor that regulates all the sugar in your body. So, when these three hormones are regulated you are on your way to becoming permanently thin. Your body works naturally at working as it was meant to.

Reducing refined sugar and flour, getting a good night’s rest, drinking lots of water, managing your stress and eating well balanced foods will help you regulate these hormones. And so, when I say that your body wants to be at it’s natural thin weight, I’m going to tell you two different things because you’ve heard me talk about our lower brain and our higher brain. And this is really important. And as you’re listening to my podcast, especially if you’re binge listening to it or you’ve been listening to it over time, as I explain these principles your brain is evolving and changing.

So yes, I will talk about the lower brain and the higher brain over and over. And it’s so helpful because you have more experience now. So, for example, when you’re doing the dishes, you start thinking about your lower, higher brain. And so, you now start having a relationship. It’s just like a friendship.

Let’s say there’s a neighbor down the street and they sweep their porch every once in a while and so you talk to them. The more you talk to them, and the more that you get to know them, and the more that you spend time with this neighbor, they become your friend. And it’s the same thing with these principles that I’m teaching on my podcast. It’s the same thing for the ladies in my program. The more time we spend, the more that we build this relationship the better we are at understanding it, applying it and being with it.

And so, the worksheet that I have is a very practical hands-on worksheet. And I definitely want to encourage you to respond to it, to show it to me so I can help you. And this is the kind of work we do in the lifetime membership because this is not a one and done kind of situation. You are always going to be learning, and progressing, and growing because we have a human brain. So, let’s go back to the example of our higher brain.

So, our CEO, our elite brain wants our body to be at its natural thin weight because it knows that if there is danger, or if there’s any problems, that when we are in our top fit body we can handle anything. And our lower brain, it at times fights and it wants us to hold on to calories. It wants us to not expend a lot of calories because if there is a famine we would survive.

And I had an experience just this Sunday, I was at church, and I could hear this baby crying and fussing. And I had five babies, and I love babies, and I feel like I’m really good at helping babies not cry. I just felt pressed to leave and I saw the grandma actually and she was so lovely. I could tell she had had a long night. And I just said, “Can I help with this baby?” And I was able to get the baby calmed and I was able to hold that baby, and walk the baby, and rock the baby for an hour and a half.

So, when I’m in my most fit, healthy shape I can do that. I can be in a place and build my community, support other people when I can rock and hold that baby for an hour and a half straight. So, our higher brain wants us to be at our best self. Having said that, I want you to ask yourself why do you have the extra weight you have? Why have you been able to lose weight but not keep it off? What do you think that is? Just like English, we know how to speak English, but we don’t necessarily know all the rules.

So now that I’m teaching you these three simple rules of the hormones. Bo leptin is the hormone that tells your brain when you’re full, but you have to be connected. Your brain has to be open, that pathway has to be open. So, there can’t be a lot of sugar and flour. If there’s too much of that it clogs it up.

And ghrelin, the same thing, it can’t tell you if you’re hungry if you’re constantly snacking, if you’re eating a lot of refined flour and sugar. Those receptors, they’re dulled. It’s like a knife that you’ve just taken, and you’ve hit it against something. It just dulls it, and it doesn’t work properly. It’s the same thing, and insulin the same thing. If we overdo the insulin, if we’re constantly eating, the insulin just can’t keep up. And it just gets run down and it’s not as sensitive, it doesn’t work properly.

So why do you put the weight back on? This is what we’re working on for today’s episode. And the focus of today’s episode is making friends with your brain. So, what do you need to do to be in your higher level of your brain. Now, going along with the episode right before this, when we talked about essentials, necessaries and nice to do’s. And the essential thing you need to know with weight loss is the difference between a circumstance and a thought, that a thought always has a feeling. That’s where feelings are born, it’s from our thought.

And then our feelings are what generate our actions. Our actions are what generate our results. So, if we are unaware of our thoughts, so if we’re running out of the lower brain, if we’re running out of fear, and scarcity, and injustice, and frustrated. And we’re fighting against that, we are then going to have actions be reflected of the mad, injustice, frustrated, discouraged. And then those are the kinds of results we’re going to have.

So, I’m just going to go through some of the common struggles that the women that I’ve worked with previously and the women in my program really struggle with. And when we talk about making friends with your brain we’re also talking about there’s rules to weight loss. So, the rules are, we have three hormones, they need to be regulated, leptin, ghrelin, and insulin, if they’re not then our body stores more fat than it can use up. That’s just the way it goes. And so, I want you to think about how do you approach those rules.

So do you get mad? So, for example, why can’t we eat whatever we want? So, if we have that thought then we get mad. If you have the thought, some people are so thin, and they don’t have to do anything. So, if we have that thought then we feel injustice. And then when we feel injustice, what are the actions we take? And then of course with those actions what results do we have? Another one is I keep trying but I always fail. So, if you have that thought and you believe that that’s just the story about yourself then you’re going to feel frustrated.

And when you feel frustrated what actions do you take? You compare yourself to other people. You look at all the times in the past where you’ve been thin. You sop trying to listen to your body and you fight against it. You turn to food for comfort. You turn to food for escaping. And then when you spend all your time doing those things your result is you just keep failing at having the body that you want.

Another thought that I see a lot of women struggle with is that they use a lot of willpower and feel like they’ve gone too far. So, if you feel like weight loss, you rely on willpower then that is discouraging or that is defeating because willpower, it only lasts so long. It feels terrible and horrible and if that’s all you’re doing, why would anyone want to keep doing that if that’s the results of it? That sounds like a terrible idea.

So, when you feel like weight loss is dependent on willpower then you feel discouraged. And when you feel discouraged you do things like give up on yourself. Spend a lot of time on the couch eating food for your enjoyment, escaping from your brain probably by eating, or baking, or scrolling and eating while you’re scrolling. These are the actions. And so, when you spend your time doing those things, then the result is you just keep gaining weight.

So, when you fight against reality you’re punishing yourself, you’re relying on willpower, it feels really hard. And you’re also fearing emotion. So, this is how you resolve it. And in the worksheet I want you to write down and I have a space for you of all the obstacles that you have had to get your hormones regulated. And then I want you to come up with one strategy and I’d love you to share it. Now, I’m going to tell you now the three things that are going to help you with this to make a permanent change for you.

So, the first step is to accept what is. So, we have to accept that these three hormones need to be regulated. We’re not fighting against the rules. I just had this thought. I remember going to Hawaii, I was babysitting for a family, and it turned out that an old boyfriend wasn’t too far. He was on another island. So, he flew, and he hung out with me during the day while I babysat. And then at night the parents came back, and I was able to go out with him at night sometimes and it was really fun.

So, one night we decided to go to the beach, and it looked like really fun to go. And then someone had just said to us, “There’s been some shark sightings nearby.” And it’s like you want to fight against that. You’re like, “No, I should be able to go in the ocean.” But it’s like, yeah, if I go in the ocean I could get eaten by a shark. So, we want to have all these freedoms but there’s always reality and there’s the consequences of everything. And so of course going in the ocean, I definitely could have gone in the ocean but I also by doing that, I also could have been eaten by a shark or bit by a shark.

So, this fighting against reality, it’s such a hard thing because you’re just punishing yourself. If you get mad at someone you’re like, “I’ll show them.” And you go and get a Blizzard from Dairy Queen. You’re just punishing yourself. Okay, so number one, accept what is. The three hormones need to be regulated. And we have to understand why sugar and flour affect us the way they do. And we need to look at the reality and decide what we want to do with it.

So, these are the parameters. There is a shark sighting. What do I want to do? Do I want to take my chances, or do I want to be safe? This is always your choice.

Number two, decide what you want for yourself and why. So, I believe that the more that you can operate from your higher brain, of course that CEO brain, you’re going to make decisions that are going to serve you so much more. So, I want you to write down, what does it mean to you to be thin? So, to have a thin body, and I know a lot of my clients will say, “Well, I’m never going to be a cover girl.” And I say, “Of course.” But I mean you could be a cover girl. I think all my clients are the most beautiful women ever. But we don’t have to be thin to be a cover girl on a magazine.

So, I want you to think of all the reasons why you want to be thin. So, I’ve come up with a few. I want to have more energy. I want to have less medical problems. I want to have more freedom to do what I want. I don’t want to limit myself. I don’t want to judge myself, which means I don’t want other people to judge me. So, I want you to write down all the reasons why you want to be thin. I want to have more shopping options. I want to be able to feel good in my clothes, whatever that is, you’re just allowed to do that.

But I want you to review your reasons. Do I like my reasons, and do they feel like love? So, I shared this example in a previous podcast, but lately my clients have been talking about do I want to sit comfortably in an airplane, or do I want to eat these chips right now? Do I want to play at the beach with my grandkids? Or do I want to have this chocolate bar right now? And the more consistent you can be with that, the more consistent you’ll be with weight loss, and taking it off, and feeling powerful and happy in your own body.

And so, as I talk about the third step of how to make friends with your brain, I want you to think about, so first of all we’re accepting what is, so we can’t fight the rules of weight loss. Number two, decide your why, what is the reason, your north star? And then the third one is taking responsibility for your results. And in this way we’re going to once again talk about the power of evaluating. So, the only way that you will get better at making a quilt, or making a cake, or preparing a dinner, or hosting people, or whatever that is, it’s by doing and evaluating.

And so, I’ve included these in the handout. What went well? What didn’t go well? And what will I do differently next time? So that is how you’re going to become your own authority. This episode is such a great review. I really loved thinking about there are rules in the English language, I don’t understand them. I could go and look them up and I could go spend hours and hours figuring it all out. Or I can just love the English language, use it, communicate, and have the best life that I want.

And it’s the same thing with permanent weight loss. Truly some people could spend hours and hours, you can talk about mitochondria, and macros, and micros, and you could get really scientific. And you could measure all your food, you could obsess about all those kinds of things. You could spend hours and hours working that all out. But I promise you I have lost this weight, my clients have lost this weight and keeping it off with very basic principles. I don’t understand any of those really scientific terms, I really don’t because they are not necessary.

But what I do understand is my relationship with my brain. And I understand that to have permanent weight loss I need to balance these three hormones in my body. And in order to do that I can’t be overeating refined flour and sugar. I can’t be having really bad sleep. I can’t be not drinking water. Very, very basic things. And so, when I understand those things I have incredible success and I don’t get distracted, I don’t get caught in the weeds. And that is what I want for all of you ladies.

I love that you’re listening to this podcast. I’m actually recording this at 6:39 at night because I had so many different disruptions today and my kids are at basketball. My mom’s visiting and she said, “Dara, go and take advantage of this time, the house is quiet.” I love making this podcast for you.

I love knowing that you are very similar to me, when I first heard these skills, these tools, when I binge listened to Jody Moore’s podcast in the summer of 2018 my mind just kept getting blown over and over again. Because I had these thoughts, I am not broken. I can be fixed. I am good enough. I am worth this change. I don’t have to give up on myself. I can do this. When I do this work for myself everyone benefits. These were all the thoughts that just kept coming. And I’m telling you since that time my life is more rich and full than it ever has been.

And there is so much joy from watching these women in my program change, and that is what I want for you. It is so wonderful to know that I can do a podcast and I can reach out to you and share with you that you can change, that you don’t have to know all the rules. You don’t have to understand them. When you respect them and you watch them, and you adhere to them your body is going to get to its naturally thin set point, and you are going to be able to keep that weight off with ease as you learn to embrace these tools.

So, if the things that I’m saying on this podcast are really resonating with you, I invite you to join Love Yourself Thin. It’s a lifetime membership. You pay me once and you’re in forever. We have three coaching calls a week. We have an amazing Facebook group, so supportive. You have all the modules. You have all the videos, all the worksheets all on demand and have me and my coaches to help you.

If you have any questions before signing up, please just sign up for a 20 minute conversation with me. You can ask me anything. You can email me any time, [email protected]. It truly is such a pleasure to share with you this podcast and I wish you all the very best as you start learning to making friends with your brain and weight loss. Take care. Bye bye.

Thanks for listening to Weight Loss for Quilters. If you want more info, please visit daratomasson.com. See you next week.