504. Minimize Your Drama Around Food

Do you know why it’s so difficult to clean up your relationship with food? Because we can’t just cut it out of our lives altogether.

If you have a toxic relationship with a friend in your life, you can just decide to be done with that relationship and done with that friendship. But food is something that we need and actually I would encourage you to want and still let it be a joyful, entertaining, and fun part of life. But it’s tricky to navigate, right, especially if you have a long history of a toxic relationship with food, as most of us do. But you’re going to love what I have to teach you on today’s episode. We are going to minimize your drama around food today. Let’s go.

Welcome to Better Than Happy, the podcast where we transform our lives by transforming ourselves. My name is Jody Moore. In the decade-plus I’ve been working with clients as a Master Certified Coach, I’ve helped tens of thousands of people to become empowered. And from empowered, the things that seemed hard become trivial, and the things that seemed impossible become available, and suddenly, a whole new world of desire and possibility open up to you. And what do you do with that?

Well, that’s the question… what will you do? Let’s find out.

Sometimes, listening to a podcast is enough. But sometimes, you’ll feel inspired to go deeper. If you hear things that speak to you in today’s episode, consider it your invitation to a complimentary coaching workshop.

On this live, interactive Zoom call with me, you’ll get a taste of the power of this work when applied in real life. You can participate, or be a silent observer. But you have to take a step if you want to truly see change in your life… two steps, actually. Head to JodyMoore.com/freecoaching and register. Then you just have to show up. Your best life is waiting for you. Will you show up for it? JodyMoore.com/freecoaching. I’ll see you there.

Hey there, everybody. Welcome to episode 504.

Thank you for being here on the podcast today. I am so delighted that you’re here. I value your time. I want to take good care of you. I want to ask you that if you like this episode, will you please share it with your friends, family, coworkers, whoever you think might also like it? Just throw up a share on your stories or something on social media, if you’re on social media, or just mention it to somebody.

I would greatly appreciate you helping me get the word out about the tools that we are offering here on the podcast. And also I want to explain to you what you’re about to listen to. So this week we started a four-week course I teach called Make Peace with Food. I’ve taught it a handful of times. People are always blown away by it. They get amazing results. And I’m sorry to say that you’re too late to join us. Technically you could join us, but we’re halfway through. You would get all the replays if you want to join us. I don’t even know if the doors are open actually now that I say that. Don’t bother joining us, but listen, today’s call, we did a coaching call today where I teach live, I can answer questions, and then we bring people on for coaching. And it was so phenomenal. Not because I’m phenomenal, just because you guys brought amazing questions, amazing examples, and we had some major breakthroughs that we created together as we dissected our relationships with food.

And so I wanted to share it with all of you here on the podcast. So that was what you were going to get today is the audio from that call. And also, if you’re thinking, gosh, that really was good, and I want to participate, then I want you to go sign up for the free public coaching call, because we do a different version of that.

We don’t just stick to food on the coaching call, we talk about all kinds of topics. But you can just head to JodyMoore.com/freecoaching, and you’ll learn how to get more help. And you’ll get to ask me questions and join in with us live.

So without further ado, here we go. 

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Jody Moore: Well, good morning, friends. Welcome to Make Peace with Food. I love this workshop so much. I’ve taught it a handful of times now, and I just love getting to connect with you, getting to know you, getting to expose you a little bit to how coaching can help in all areas of your life, but especially around something really challenging like changing your eating habits or your relationship with food, improving on your health. 

I’m so delighted that you’re here. Welcome, welcome. Thank you for being here. Hopefully you’ve been getting and watching the videos that came out this week. Oh, I just remembered we have a brand new function where we are piping everything out to our own private podcast feed. 

We just wanna make it as convenient as possible for you to listen to the videos that come out on Mondays and Wednesdays and listen to the replays of this call here today in case you wanna listen to it again after you come live. What we did is we emailed the link to you guys to sign up for the private podcast. It’s just a one-time really easy process to sign up and then you get everything right in your podcast feed. 

Anyway, welcome, welcome. Here’s what we’re gonna do today. I’m gonna talk to you a little bit about the things that you learned this week, but this Friday call that we do is meant for us to have dialogue. It’s for you to get more specific individual help. And if you’re the one who raises your hand or asks a question or what have you, that’s gonna be powerful for you. If you don’t do that, I’m still glad you’re here or listening later because it’s the real life application of this stuff where we really make a difference, right? 

The things I’m teaching on these videos are not earth shattering. I’ve put them in my own way in formats that have been really powerful for me and others, but it’s not any brand new, I don’t have brand new information about food or bodies or psychology or any of that, right? What makes the difference is right here, what we’re doing on these Friday calls. It’s trying it and then seeing what comes up and then working through that part. 

So here. Here’s where I want to begin today. I want to know why you signed up for this program. Why are you here? So I call this class Make Peace with Food because that seems to resonate with all of us, whether we want to lose a little bit of weight, we’re just sick of the chatter around food, we’re sick of feeling out of control, we have blood pressure we want to lower, we want to gain weight. I’ve coached people a handful of times who want to gain weight and it’s interesting they say the same things as those of us wanting to lose weight in that they say, I’m just tired of having to think about food all the time.

I’m tired of feeling like food controls my life. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want it to have so much power over me. Okay. So, so why are you here? It might be you want a mental and emotional peace and freedom around food. It might be that you have a health goal you’re trying to achieve. What is the reason why you’re here? 

Maybe you’re just curious about what I teach. Maybe you are a health coach and you help other people. No right or wrong reason. I just want to know you guys. I want to know who’s here and I want to know why you’re here. Somebody says, want to lose weight for the last time. Make changes for the life I want. So frustrated with gaining and losing the same weight over and over. Tired of identifying as someone who struggles with her weight. 

Somebody says, I know what to eat. Now I want to work on the mental peace around food. Good. My body says I still need to lose some more weight. want to have diabetes like my mom. Okay, good. To gain more control over my food and emotional eating, I am tired of being so overweight and unhealthy. I want to live a long, healthy life. Yes, my friend. I can’t stop thinking and worrying about everything I eat because I’m so scared to gain weight, somebody says. I want to reach a healthy weight and maintain it. Why do I eat all the time? I don’t feel full. Diet Coke has ruled my life for years. I’ve tried to stop for years, someone says. I’m out of control with food. I want to avoid drugs for health problems down the road. If I continue on the road I’m on. Okay, good. I want to lose weight and feel peace with food. And then somebody says amen to everything everyone else is saying, right? I want to break my addiction to food, someone says. I’m trying to lose weight in a healthy way to resolve some health problems and also I want to get away from using food to solve all my problems as an emotional crutch, thank you for sharing. 

I’m tired of emotional eating and binging and feeling out of control, someone says. Hello, my friend from Vermont. She says, I’m in this group to lose weight and I also have prediabetes. I’ve had a lot of health problems since I had my two girls, eight and five years ago, and I’m hoping this will be a game changer for me. 

Okay, good, good. All right. I’m not going to have time to read all of these, but I think that we’ve covered the ones that you guys are sharing here. I think we’ve basically covered, I think we’re all here for basically the same reasons, right? Some nuanced differences, but mostly we all feel the same way. Like, why is this so hard? Why can I not stop thinking about it? Why do I get it? And then I lose it again. I gain control, then I lose control. I lose weight and then I gain it back. Or I’m tired of feeling this way. You’re in the right place if you feel that way. Okay. 

Now this is not going to be an overnight fix. This is not even going to be a four week fix, but I’m going to give you a good jumpstart and some tools that you can use that for me and many of my clients have made a huge difference. But I wanna be very clear. I think one of the reasons changing food relationships, I’m gonna call it your relationship with food, okay? Changing our relationship with food is so difficult is because it has to be an ongoing part of our lives, right? 

Like if we could just cut it out altogether, like let’s think about somebody that has an addiction to heroin, right? Ultimately what we wanna help that person do is just not take heroin ever again, not do heroin. Is that how you say it? Do heroin? I don’t know. Anyway, not do heroin ever again, right? So we would maybe put them through detox of some sort. I don’t know how you get somebody off heroin. I’m not an expert in that, but my guess is they would detox them. Maybe they would give them some kind of a, something to help them come down off of it in an easier, healthier way. And then ultimately we would want to heal like the emotional issues that might be led to that, the physical issues and help them become an overall healthier person. And they would never take heroin again, ideally, right? 

That is not an option for us with food. And food is not heroin. I’m not trying to say that food is terrible like heroin. I’m just saying food is something that not only always needs to be a part of our lives, but it’s a regular occurring part of our lives, right? We need to eat daily, multiple times a day in most cases. And so it’s tricky to figure out how to unwind what is really toxic beliefs and patterns and behaviors and psychology that we all have around food. And it bleeds into so many things. 

It bleeds into our own self-worth, it bleeds into our relationships, it bleeds into whether or not we feel accepted by other people, whether or not we think that we are lovable, worthy human beings, which is so crazy if you think about it. Your body, your health has nothing to do with your lovability and worth, but we’ve been taught our whole lives that it does, either directly or indirectly or both. 

And we’ve been taught that if we were good, mature, solid people, we would take care of our bodies and we would eat like a normal, healthy person would. And at the same time, we’ve been fed a bunch of food that is addictive, that has messed up our hormones, has messed up our bodies, and now we’re stuck. We feel stuck. But the good news is you’re not stuck. We just are going to have to unwind some things, okay? So that’s what we’re going to do in this next four week course. Thank you for joining me. 

All right. So the first thing I want to do is I want to understand, I want to hear from a couple of you who did the homework assignments. There was a video that came out Monday and one on Wednesday, and that’s going to happen for all four weeks of this program. You’re going to get a new video every Monday and Wednesday, and then we’re going to have a call Friday. Really easy to navigate, right? 

So on Monday, there was a video that talked about neutralizing food, about not making food be good guys and bad guys, about stopping labeling food as good or bad, because when we do that, we give food a lot of power. And we make food either tempting, powerful in that it’s tempting and we can’t say no to it, or powerful in that it’s scary and bad and harmful and we’re afraid of it. Either way, we’ve given food a lot of unnecessary power. Here’s what I want to tell you about food. It has no power over you, okay? 

The foods that you love, that you think are amazing, I have many of these myself, okay? I have a very strong sweet tooth. If I could just eat dessert and nothing else, it feels like I would just be super happy and live forever. I know that not to be true, but it feels that way, right? But that food doesn’t care about me at all. This is why we have toxic relationships with food. 

It’s like a bad boyfriend, right? It’s like a guy that I’m obsessed with, that I think is so cool or so hot or so smart or so brilliant or whatever, for whatever reason, so funny and charismatic and I’m so attracted to him and he doesn’t care about me at all. It’s not that he hates me. It’s not that he means to do me harm. He just doesn’t think about me at all. And if I want to go have a booty call with him one night, maybe he’s up for it. Stay with me on my analogy, everybody. He’s up for it. But the next day I walk home thinking, why did I do that to myself? 

I know he’s not thinking about me and I’m left feeling like I’m not treating myself very well. And if I respected myself more, I probably wouldn’t do that. And after the high of something really exciting and forbidden comes the low of the regret and that shame. And some of us are booty calling our food. And all I’m saying is not that you have to stop seeing that guy. Okay. I’m just saying that food is inanimate. It doesn’t care about you at all. It’s not out to get you. It’s not trying to do you harm. It just doesn’t love you the way you love it. It’s not that powerful. 

It just is a thing that exists, okay? Now also the foods that we label as good for us, healthy, nutritious, okay? Those foods also don’t care about you at all. Now they are like being in a healthy relationship, a relationship with someone who wants to take the time to get to know you and who you want to take the time to get to know. And it’s actually those kind of quote unquote healthier foods are more like a marriage that you’ve been in for 20 years. 

It’s not super exciting anymore. It’s not super forbidden and hot. You guys both know each other really well. You’ve seen each other be up and down. You’ve seen each other looking gorgeous with your makeup on and cool hair and great clothes. And you’ve seen each other every day, first thing in the morning or when you’re sick, when you have bad breath, right? And it’s 50-50. It’s kind of more boring, we might say, but much healthier and stable in the long run. And so that’s how I want you to think about your food. 

Is that relationship, that 20 year marriage relationship, isn’t it like a rollercoaster anymore? Now, some of you might say, well, mine is actually really hard. My marriage is really hard, right? And that can be the case. I realize this. My metaphor is not perfect here, but stay with me. We’re talking about like a relationship that is healthy, a marriage that we want, that is overall great. And we appreciate it and we value it, but we’re not thinking about it all the time. We’re not like, when’s my husband gonna get home? I can’t wait to see him, unless he’d been gone for a while, right? We’re just like, I love him. I miss him when he goes and I wanna see him, but it’s okay. That’s actually our healthiest relationship with food. Are you with me? 

Who will be brave now and raise your hand because I gave you an assignment, which was, everybody’s like, I love that analogy. You just put into words how I felt. Yeah, maybe because I can relate too. I feel this way too, okay? I wanna have somebody click raise hand if you’re willing to come on and tell me how it went because the assignment I gave you was to take a food that is like the bad boy boyfriend that I described to you, right? The one that you’re like, this is not good for me, but I really like it. And to eat it very slowly, very intentionally, to pay attention to how you feel before and what does it feel like in your mouth and how do you feel after. 

And we really slowed it down rather than a booty call. We were just like, what if I went on a long date and hung out with this guy for a long time? Do I really like him? And the answer might be yes, still. I just wanna hear how it went. So we’ve got a few hands up. So thank you to those of you that raised your hand. What’s gonna happen is I’m gonna click promote to panelist, okay, and you’re gonna have to accept my invitation, and then you’ll start your video and unmute your audio. Those are the two, you can do those in any order, but you’ve got to start video, unmute audio after you accept the invitation, okay? And I will try to prompt you through it, but we can do this, I promise.

Speaker: Hi.

Jody: How are you, gorgeous?

Speaker: Good to see you. Thank you for doing this. It’s great.

Jody: Okay, tell me how it went. What was our food of choice, first of all?

Speaker: It was a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and an apple.

Jody: Two of my – you know I’m a Reese’s girl. Tell me about it.

Speaker: My husband has candy wrapped up in his closet and he takes it to work. He has to wrap it up and tape it up. So I had to get the ladder out, get the chocolate out. And I thought I want more than, I took two because they were just one individual thing. So I knew right away, I want a handful of this. I want even more. And I got them on the counter and I got my apple out and I wanted right away to eat the chocolate and eat a lot of it. So I thought I’ll start with the apple. So I cut it in half and smelled it and tasted it and just could not believe how good it tasted and really enjoyed it. And just a half of an apple was almost too much. I was very satiated. I was just very satisfied with that I was paying attention to that. Then I had a glass of water, and then I had the candy, and I was surprised how it did not taste good, the chocolate. It just did not meet the need I thought in my brain that it would need. It tasted waxy. The peanut butter tasted fake, and then I wanted to stuff it. I didn’t want to savor it like I did the apple. I had the urge to just eat it quickly. So it was, it was really good exercise.

Jody: Okay. That’s so fascinating, right? Do you normally enjoy apples to that extent, or was that more unusual?

Speaker: When I’m eating well, I do enjoy apples and almond butter, but I haven’t had apples in a couple of months because I’ve been eating other foods. So yeah,

Jody: That’s so awesome. I’m so glad you had that experience. So notice how, when [speaker] just slowed it down, I love that you did both. I love you did the Reese’s and the apple because the apple became more enjoyable to you, right? And you only, like, interesting, you’re like, I only even needed half of it. It was like pretty sweet. And the candy that, right, the Reese’s, it’s true. As much as I’m a Reese’s girl, if I eat it fast, I’m like, oh, that was good. But if I slow it down, it is waxy. It is fake peanut butter. It’s very processed, right? And did you feel disappointed at that point after the recess or not really?

Speaker: No, I was disappointed. Yeah, I was. 

Jody: Tell me about that part. 

Speaker: The illusion is that it’s going to taste so good and be so satisfying and just such a treat that I would savor and appreciate. And I kind of felt like the one night stand that you talked about, it just felt very unfulfilling. And when I really thought about it, just the taste of it, it just felt like, gosh, in my mouth. It was like, this isn’t even good.

Jody: Thank you so much for sharing. I love that so much. Okay. Okay. 

Speaker: Hello. 

Jody: Hi, how are you?

Speaker: Good. So I was making, I had a really hard time thinking of what to pick. Like I was like, just pick something. Stop like making this hard. And I kept thinking, I’m going to go out for a hot fudge sundae or something, but I didn’t even get around to doing that. So that didn’t happen. But I was making supper and I’m like, well, I bought these new guac chips. And my husband wasn’t home and I’ve moved to a new place. So loneliness is a thing sometimes. So I was physically hungry. So I’m writing the answers to your questions. I was feeling lonely. I was physically hungry.

And so instead of waiting till my, I was making fajitas for supper, Instead of waiting till they were ready, I opened the bag of chips. And then I was thinking about what you said and I’m like, okay, I’m going to eat them right now, even though I should wait, but I’m going to savor every single chip. And so I was eating them, I was enjoying the crunch, I was enjoying the flavor. They left a good aftertaste in my mouth. And then I ate my regular fajitas for supper. So I stopped eating after that. But I noticed my stomach felt full and a little bit bloated, but then around 10pm, so that would be like three hours later, I felt like I was getting almost a canker on my tongue. And so they didn’t make me feel sick to my stomach, really. They did make me feel like my mouth was toxic.

Jody: Yeah, yeah. That was a lot of….

Speaker: The ingredients. I looked on the chip’s ingredients. There’s not even avocado in the chip. 

Jody: Right, because how do you put an avocado in a chip? But some kind of artificial flavoring or something. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. So in the end, I found your words were sticking with me all day or all week. And I kept like, every time I ate, I would stop and just eat and try not to do anything else. And so I’ve been trying to think of it like the fuel idea, like you said. So that was my experience.

Jody: Oh my gosh, that’s so brilliant. I love it. Thank you for sharing it.

Speaker: Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me on.

Jody: Yes, thank you for raising your hand and sharing.

Speaker: Of course. So the food that I chose was Cadbury mini eggs, which I guess for me, it feels kind of like a forbidden food because they only come out once a year. So I’m like, I get as many as I can because they’re not coming back.

Jody: That’s good marketing right there that they do. Yep.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And they’re so easy to eat too many because they’re little and they’re yummy. So I thought, okay, I’m gonna slow down and really enjoy them. And I think the thing that stood out to me the most was just the satisfaction that comes from intentionality. And I’ve realized that in other areas of my life too, being more intentional with my kids, being more intentional with my work. Just the act of saying, I’m choosing this and I want this right now, so I’m gonna invest and enjoy it was really a good experience. So I did, I sat there and I had like four or five little Cadbury mini eggs and they were creamy and crunchy and yummy. And like, I do really enjoy them. And it was good to have a very intentional moment and then feel satisfied and not like I had to sneak them throughout the day.

Jody: Yes, what I love so much about that is you turned it from a booty call into just like a pleasant interaction with a person, right? where you’re like, nothing wrong, probably, I don’t know what your goals are, but you could achieve your goals, no matter what they are, and still have four to five Cadbury mini eggs, probably.

Speaker: Yeah, exactly, and that’s a good feeling. 

Jody: Yeah, what happens when we’re not doing this, when we’re just kind of like telling ourselves that we shouldn’t, we make it powerful, we make it the villain, is we actually usually wanna eat a lot more than that. Right, and we’re not even enjoying, like you said, we’re not doing it with intentionality. We’re not enjoying the experience. That’s why we need more of them. We’re feeling bad about eating them, which makes us actually ironically want to eat even more. And so I love what you discovered there, which was like, they still are good. Like my family and I were talking about this too. Like, it’s so amazing. You get the crunch and the creamy, right? But different than M&M’s, it’s like a really thin layer of crunch. Like there’s something about the proportion there that’s very satisfying, just the texture. And the taste is good, it’s good chocolate. but if you slow it down, just a few does the trick.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Jody: Beautiful, okay, thank you for sharing that. Okay, you guys, so here’s the point of this exercise. First of all, obviously what we just heard from those three ladies is pretty powerful. If you were to repetitively, like one of the rules I made for myself years ago is if I’m gonna eat something that is just pure joy food, like Cadbury Mini Eggs, it’s not something I’m eating because my body really needs Cadbury mini eggs, right? It’s just for joy and pleasure. 

If I’m gonna eat something like that, that I consider to be either pure joy food or mostly joy food, like French fries. Yeah, carbohydrates are good for my body. Even like potatoes have some things that aren’t terrible for me, but I… It’s still like mostly joy food. My rule for myself is I refuse to feel guilty about it. I refuse to feel bad about it and I’m going to try and I’m not perfect at this. That’s why I say I’m going to try, but I’m really good about not beating myself up. I should say 99% of the time, but the part I’m probably only 90% good at is I’m going to try to slow it down and be intentional. 

Now I asked you to really slow it down and if you didn’t get a chance to do it, I would encourage you to do it on occasion. I don’t slow it down to that extent every time. Like I can’t, I don’t always eat and not do anything else. That’s what I asked you to do. Sit down, eat your food. Don’t be talking even to somebody. Be like, I need to be alone with this food so that you can really focus on it. And I would encourage you to keep doing that like once a month at least. 

Some of the experts in this industry want you to do that every time you eat because the more intentional and present you are, the more you really experience what’s happening. And that’s what we’re trying to do here. But even if you’re not that present, I try to be as present as possible. And I refuse to beat myself up. I refuse to feel guilty. I refuse to say I shouldn’t be eating this. There’s zero upside to that. It just gives it my power. So what I want you to do is think about food as something that you are interviewing. I don’t want the food to be powerful like it’s the company trying to decide if it’s going to hire you or not. I want you to be the boss trying to decide if this food is going to be one of your employees or not. Do I want to keep these Cadbury Mini Eggs on my staff? 

Do I want this Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup? Do I actually think this apple is doing a better job? And maybe you want Cadbury Mini Eggs, but you’re reducing them to part-time. They’re no longer a full-time employee. They’re just a contract employee that every now and then you have come in and do a job for you and then it leaves and you just pay it here and there. Not full-time salary, getting benefits. Okay. You’re interviewing the food. The food doesn’t have power over you. It’s not controlling you. That’s how I want you to start thinking about your food. This apple is a real A player. We want to promote the apple, right? 

And I’m using apple because that’s the example that came up today. But you know what I mean. Whatever’s serving your body. And we want to give the best employees the best positions in our company, on our team. Are you with me? Okay. So it’s okay if you have… Again, if you had an experience where you’re like, this is amazing. I couldn’t stop eating it. Okay. Well, that’s just interesting to notice. And is that something that I want to keep in my life because it seems to have a lot of power over me? 

Can I play with having just a little bit of it? Can I have a little less of it? Can I shift my relationship with that thing from me feeling like a desperate girl clinging to a guy that doesn’t care about her over to like, I’m an employer and this person is on my staff and I don’t have it in me to fire them right now because I love them, but they’re not doing their job. So what are we going to do about that? You with me? You guys see I like metaphors. It really helps me to get my head straight about food. Okay. 

Before we go on and share again, I just want to, I’m going to peek in the Q and A, see if you guys have questions on what I’m saying or comments or anything. Somebody says, I ate my favorite chocolate cupcakes. First two bites were yummy. The other three were terrible, too rich and sweet. And then guilt comes after I ate it. Okay. 

The guilt is… we’re going to do some coaching in just a minute and I’m going to show you how to get rid of the guilt part, but good for you to know that the first two bites were good. And after that, not really. When I indulged in my favorite treat, I felt completely guilty when I started eating my ice cream. Then it was delicious. I couldn’t stop eating it. After, I didn’t feel great, but I wanted more. Okay. Thank you for sharing that. Wow. The staffing example hit home with me as a previous HR manager. Again, wow. Yeah. There you go. Okay. 

Here’s the next thing I want to have you share. And then I’m going to have some people come on because we’ve had guilt come up for several of you today. And that is something 100% in your control. So I want to teach you today how to control that. But first I want to hear, because there was a second assignment I gave you, and this one, we can have a couple of people raise hands. I asked you to think about what roles you want food to play in your life. Now we didn’t get specific yet this week about exactly what we’re eating. We just are thinking about, like, let’s go back to the work example that I gave you. You’re the manager of your team and your company, okay? What roles do we want food to play in our life? 

Do you want food to be joy in your life? I actually know some people that are like, I don’t want to get any joy from food. I just want food to do its job of fueling my body. And I want all of my joy to come from somewhere else. I don’t want it to be food. That feels for some people easier than saying, I’m going to get 20% of my joy from food, just not 80% anymore. I’m going to reduce the amount. So I want you to do whatever feels easier to you. Okay. 

I am not a believer that everyone should just cut out sugar and flour and whatever. I think if cutting out sugar and flour and other, you know, the kinds of fats that aren’t good for us and all of that, if that makes it easier for you to eat how you want, cool. I’m down for it. If that makes it harder because it creates more noise and chatter because of the deprivation, then don’t do that. I just don’t think there’s one right way to do this. Okay. 

You’ll hear people preach really hard on both of those things. And I just say, why don’t we all just decide for ourselves? Listen, you have the wisdom within you to know how to have a healthy relationship with food. Remember you’re the boss here. You know what your team needs. You know what you’re trying to accomplish and who the best players are going to be on that team. What is that for you? 

You might want to have some joy from food. I do. I still like to get joy from food. I like food around holidays. I like to celebrate with food. I like a treat every now and then. But when I get out of hand and food is most of my joy or even half my joy, it doesn’t serve my body. And I have to dial it in. So maybe you want food to be some joy. Obviously it’s going to be fuel for all of us. That’s a given. Do you want food to be entertainment? Do you want it to be a hobby? Or is it part of your literal how you make a living? 

Are you a cook? Do you share food on YouTube? Like what role do we want food to play in your life? Tell me. Now I’m going to bring a couple of people on so you can either tell me what you decided or it can help you decide if you’re not sure. All right, tell me.

Speaker: So I have had a very unhealthy relationship with food my entire life. Trauma in my life, bad example in how my mom used food. So the chatter, the conversations, the guilt, the overindulgence has been just to the point of exhaustion sometimes. But in recent years, I have already, I’ve been slowly trying to change that mindset, trying to change my journey to wellness, to have a better relationship with people, food, everything. And recently, I started doing something very specific with my food. And I thought it was going to be impossible because anytime I’ve ever tried to adjust my thinking. I sabotage myself. Okay. But I have been totally surprised at how well and how easy it’s been to make that intentional choice, for a specific reason. So on the assignment specifically, I’ve already been thinking about, well, I don’t want to just not have this and not do that. That for me is always, if you tell me no, then I overindulge.

I love this assignment and the way you’ve put it in, I get to decide what I want to do with this. I get to decide how much and when and why. And so for me, joy and celebrations and the social part is super important because I’m learning to find joy in relationships, not just with food, but with people, with everybody around me and stay connected. 

I used to either be over connected or I would just disappear and be dissociative. So joy and the social celebration part is huge to keep. But the most important part is my health and wellness. I’m expecting my 13th grandchild. I want to be playing outside when they’re big. You know, I don’t want to be the grandma sitting in the chair, having them climb up on my lap. I want to be out playing. So the wellness piece is huge. 

So as I’ve been thinking about this, I realized the joy will get greater if I’m focusing on the wellness and the health part. If I’m making choices based on fueling my body and what I need at any given time, whether I’m training for a triathlon or whether I’m focused on losing weight at the time or whether I’m needing to feel myself because I’m on a backpacking trip or something. I know, you know, for different things, we feel our bodies differently. And that’s part of what’s helped me is I’ve been doing some of those things and realize, well, this is the right way. But wait, maybe not because if I’m going to go on this backpacking trip, I’m going to totally change the way I’m thinking about food. 

So I’ve learned to use food as the fuel for what given activity I’m doing at the time, which opens the door for joy, because if I’m sitting around with my family and my grandkids, and we want to make gingerbread houses, and we want to eat the candy more than we want to make the house, I can find joy in that, and it’s okay. I don’t need to feel guilty about that. So I’ve loved the way this whole employee thing that you just did, too, because I was It’s like, oh. Yeah, I can decide who’s part-time and who’s full-time and when.

Jody: Today I’m going on a hike or I’m preparing for a triathlon or something. This is the team I need right now. And other times I’m hanging out with my grandkids and I want this team right now.

Speaker: It really resonated with me that I can do this. I can really do this. For the probably first time in my life, I feel like I can do this.

Jody: There’s a lot of people talking to us about what we should and shouldn’t eat and that’s okay, like they’re helpful people trying to help us, but we take good advice and use it against ourself, like this is bad or I shouldn’t do this, then we actually take what is a tool and use it as a weapon, right? 

We take like scissors, these scissors are really useful if I wanna cut paper and somebody telling me like protein’s good for your body, sugar’s not great for your body, like all that is really useful, but if I’m gonna take it and injure myself or judge others, then I’m actually gonna be using that tool in a dangerous, harmful way. And so I heard you say things like, wait a second, I get to decide. And I decide based on what am I trying to do here? Do I wanna have a little pleasure here and eat some candy with my grandkids or do I wanna go on a hike and I don’t want my blood sugar all over the place and I’m gonna need energy and fuel. So I love that so much. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do here. So, okay, thank you for sharing. Love it, okay. All right.

Speaker: Hi. So one of the things that I have discovered is that I eat more, just randomly eat more, when I’m bored and when I’m tired. I am in a situation right now where I am often just sitting by my parent as we’re caring for him, and so sometimes that gets a little boring. It also creates tiredness. And so then I find myself wanting to go raid the pantry of all of my grandkids’ stash of treats. And it’s not just to get it for joy or I just lose control and want to stuff my mouth. So I’ve tried to maybe replace that a little bit. If I’m still having to sit, I’ll grab my iPad and play a game or something. I’m still struggling with that really hard.

Jody: Okay, here’s what I want to ask you. So when you’re bored slash tired, okay, and you go eat food, we can all relate to this. Most of us, I bet. They’re like, yep, right there, sister. Okay, so I want to ask you this question. Does it take care of the boredom?

Speaker: No, not at all. It’s just something to do with my hands.

Jody: It does for a second, right? For a second it does, because you have something to do with your hands. you got to like go find the food and then figure out and then you eat it. And, and so for a second, and then you get a little dopamine hit a little bit, little hit of pleasure from whatever food. Cause you’re, are you like opening up a can of green beans or what are we eating?

Speaker: Heavens no, no.

Jody: Snacks, like something with sugar or salt.

Speaker: Pop the whole thing in my mouth. All at once.

Jody: Because it’s that it’s like, I just can have a little booty call with some food here for a second. Okay, so I just want to point out to everybody listening that food is not the solution to boredom. Right? It’s just not. It’s not even a very good substitute for a solution because it goes so fast. We don’t usually eat it slowly, right? We eat it fast. We don’t go get some grapes and eat them very slowly out of a bowl. We get candy or salty things or whatever, and we eat it fast. And then we’re just left bored and feeling sick or guilty or whatever else on the other side of it. 

But we’re still bored. We’re still tired. Right? Okay. So that’s just good to know. First of all, that again, on your team of employees, you’re like, I need someone who can edit videos. I think I will hire a public speaker and that public speaker is coming in and talking and talking and you’re like, he’s a really good public speaker, but my videos are still not edited. I still need a video editor on my team. You see what I’m saying? So you’re just like not hiring the right staff. That’s just good to know. Now here’s the second thing I want to ask you, because I love, I, I’m a big fan of like, Oh, maybe there’s something else. Maybe I could get on my iPad. It could make the solution to boredom. is do something that’s more entertaining, right? Right. But it sounds like you have this good heart that also wants to go spend time sometimes with family members, right? Who are kind of boring, let’s just say, right? Yes. And so what if you decided to get better at just being bored? I hadn’t thought of that.

Speaker: How do I do that?

Jody: How do you? How do you get better at something? 

Speaker: Practice. 

Jody: Practice it. And this is what I found is the key to life, is just to get better at negative emotions. Because if you got better at being bored, you could serve more in the ways that you might wanna serve. You could do things in your life that would ultimately serve you. And I’m not saying you have to be bored all the time. I’m just saying there’s times when you wanna do something that might be boring. And if you were just like, oh, I can just be bored. I know how to be bored. I don’t have to find an iPad. I don’t have to eat food. I can just sit there and be bored and be a little tired. It’s okay. I promise it would be a really useful skill you could pull out of your pocket.

I really like that because I’m thinking, you know, as I’m doing the things that I need to do, I usually have an earbud on so that I can listen to a podcast or listen to whatever while I’m sitting because there’s not a lot of interaction. And I really like that idea.

Here’s the thing, we live in a super entertaining world, which is fun, but it’s made it so that we’re not very good at being bored. And occasionally it’s useful to be able to be bored, right? Because if, so when you’re, like in the example you gave, you’re sitting there visiting family and you’re kind of tired and you’re kind of bored, instead of being like, well, what am I gonna do? Am I getting out of my iPad? Am I gonna get a snack? Am I gonna be like, what if I just experience what it’s like to be bored? Like, what is it even like? 

Just sit with it, be with it. It’s not gonna be fun and pleasurable. I’m not saying you have to enjoy it, but just be like, what if I, it’s okay. Notice my brain be kind of restless. Notice my mind kind of wants something to entertain it. That’s interesting. What if I could just be here and be more present with what’s happening around me? And notice what I smell or what I see or what I hear or what’s going on with my family member? 

Or like, just let my brain be here and be present and not distract it with something. What would that be like? And the more you do it, the better you will get at it. So if you’re like, I’m bored, I’m gonna get on my iPad or I’m gonna have a snack, you lose the opportunity to get better at being bored because you could have practiced it right then, but now it’s gone. So yeah. 

Speaker: I like that idea. I will work on that.

Jody: Okay, thank you for raising your hand. And for everybody listening, it might be boredom for you. It might be overwhelmed. It might be stressed. A lot of us answer stress, anxiety, et cetera, with food. And I want you to find ways that serve you. If the food is not serving you, or if it’s too much with food or whatever, find alternate ways, but also just get better at being stressed. Just get better at being anxious. Just get better at being overwhelmed. Just get better at being bored. It will make your life amazing, the better you get at feeling all these emotions. So we kind of talked about some different things and that’s okay, that’s useful. Here’s what I wanna do for the next 40-ish, almost 40, yeah, 40-ish minutes, okay? Here’s what I wanna do. 

I wanna bring people on, especially I wanna begin with someone who said, I felt guilty when I ate that food. Or maybe you didn’t that time because I told you to do it, but other times you feel guilty. I want to show everybody right here, week one, why you’re feeling guilty. And like I told you, my rule for myself is listen, girl, if you’re going to eat a treat, we’re not going to feel guilty about it. We’re done with that. But that’s easier said than done. So I want to show you how. So put your hand up if you want some help knowing how to not feel guilty. Okay. How are you? Thanks for being here.

Speaker: Thank you for doing this.

Jody: Oh, yeah. Okay. So tell me a little bit about your situation here.

Speaker: Okay. Mine is Diet Coke.

Jody: Oh, yeah, girl.

Speaker: Terrible for like 40 years. And I have tried and stopped. And then as soon as I have one, then I’m back on the wagon again. Okay. And what I had that morning was I sat down and did the diet coke, like you said, and drank it. I do it first thing in the morning. That’s my coffee. Drink it. And it really, I mean, I like the cold, the ice, the whole experience of it all. But it didn’t taste anything spectacular. But why I felt super guilty and what I’ve done every day since that test is as soon as I finished that one, I went right back and got another one. Back to back.

Jody: Beautiful example. Thank you for raising your hand because here’s what I want to show you. Have you ever heard me teach the self-coaching model, circumstance, thought, feeling, action, result.

Speaker: No. 

Jody: Okay, okay, perfect. So I want everyone to pay attention here, okay? We have circumstances, which are facts and things outside of us, okay? They are neutral. Remember I said food doesn’t love you or hate you, it’s not out to get you. It’s actually a circumstance, okay? So your circumstance, I’m gonna use a different color here. Your circumstance is diet Coke, right? Now, let’s just try what we talked about in the beginning of neutralizing it. You kind of have made diet Coke a villain a little bit, like a bad boy in a leather jacket.

Speaker: My whole family’s made it that way, yes.

Jody: Yeah, he’s pretty hot. We all love, we’re all like, yeah, he’s hot. We love that diet Coke, right?

Speaker:  They call it rat poison. My kids call it rat poison that I’m drinking. 

Jody: Do your kids drink it or no?

Speaker: No, no, no, nobody does.

Jody: No, you’re the only one who drinks it.

Speaker: Yeah, I’m the grandma and I drink it. And even my little granddaughter that’s three said, when I get big, I’m gonna drink soda. So I need to stop.

Jody: Okay, no, you don’t, you’re not in charge of her. Don’t worry, she’ll get it from somewhere else, okay? But you have made it pretty powerful in your mind because, and your family’s helping you do this and that’s okay, but my point is, it’s not. It’s really like, listen, you’ve had a lot of fun with that Diet Coke, right? Hasn’t Diet Coke been a good friend to you?

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Jody: Yes, so when we make it terrible and powerful and forbidden, we actually just want it even more. It’s not rat poison. It’s not creating a problem for your granddaughter to watch you drink it. She’s gonna have problems no matter what, and she’s gonna be amazing and be just fine no matter what. Okay? 

It’s just like actually mostly water with some other chemicals and some carbonation and some syrup and things and some artificial sweetener. That’s it. It’s so not powerful. And we don’t have to be mad at it because it’s been a good friend to you. Yeah? Okay, so stay with me. Okay, so after circumstances, we have thoughts. Okay, so you have a lot of thoughts about Diet Coke that it’s rat poison, it’s bad for me, but I can’t stay away from it, it’s so good. and when I have it, then I want more. And those thoughts are creating your feelings, right?

Speaker: Yes.

Jody: Emotions. So when your thought is, I’m just gonna summarize it with the one your family labeled it, it’s rat poison, which you happen to love, rat poison, in this example, right?

Speaker: Yep, yep.

Jody: Then it feels, how do you feel when you think it’s rat poison and then I just drank it.

Speaker: I feel horrible. I feel like I’m, yeah.

Jody: You said you feel guilty, right?

Speaker: Guilty, yeah. I shouldn’t drink it. No, there’s even emotions. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve even had tears over this.

Jody: It’s real. You’re not alone, okay? Yeah, you don’t need to feel bad. You’re not alone in this. So thank you for sharing it, okay? Here’s what’s interesting. Our feelings are creating all of our actions, okay? Circumstances are just outside of us. This has no effect on us. This is what affects us. What we think about the circumstance, what we then feel, which drives how we behave. So sometimes, when we feel guilty, sometimes we resist and we like clench our fists and we just try really hard not to drink it. We can do that sometimes. And other times we, I’m just gonna call it overindulge because we can only resist for so long. And then we give in and we have it. And in fact, we want more. We feel terrible, but we want another one, right? That’s what guilt drives.

It’s this roller coaster of all or nothing. And it’s extreme and it’s exhausting, okay? So our thoughts, feelings, and actions are creating our results, okay? And the result is that Diet Coke is still very powerful. It has power over you, right? Because we have this powerful thought, we give it power in this model, we call it, okay? I want everybody to pay attention. 

The reason you feel guilty is because of what you think. It’s not because Diet Coke is bad for you. It’s not even because your family calls it rat poison. It’s because of what you think. Oh no, this is bad for me. Everybody knows it. I know it. I shouldn’t be drinking it. I’m messing up my granddaughter’s future. I can’t get away from it. And then you feel emotions that don’t feel good. You know what’s a nice escape from emotion that doesn’t, it feels like a nice escape anyway? 

Speaker: What? 

Jody: A diet Coke.

Speaker: That’s right. Right? That’s exactly right. Yeah.

Jody: Yes. Everybody listen, when you feel guilty about eating Cadbury mini eggs, you want to eat more Cadbury mini eggs. Yeah. Because you don’t want to feel guilty. So you want diet Coke, et cetera. Food is not a good solution to guilt, but our brains don’t think that. They’re just like, we just need something, some kind of quick dopamine hit to get out of this.

Okay? So here’s what we’re going to do, and everybody, listen up. What I want you to do is I want you to take the circumstance, I’m going to abbreviate it with a C, and we’re going to keep it Diet Coke. And let’s make us, you can make your circumstance be what happened. So for everybody listening, maybe you just ate, you opened a bag of chips and you ate the whole bag, or you ate whatever it is, you ate or drank. In Debbie’s case, it’s Diet Coke. And let’s say she drank two. I mean, Debbie, I used to drink at least 44 ounces of Diet Coke a day.

Speaker: I’m right there with you.

Jody: Yeah, and then sometimes I was like, that super big gulp was good, maybe I should get another one?

Speaker: Absolutely.

Jody: Okay, so however much you drank, you drank whatever amount of Diet Coke you drank. Okay, now, if our thought is I shouldn’t have done that, I gotta stop this, it’s so bad for me, that doesn’t work for you. We just saw it, it makes you feel guilty. Okay. So here’s the best news I have for you. You get to think anything you want to.

Speaker: Okay.

Jody: And what you think matters because it’s going to create everything else. And, and a shortcut is that what you think is going to indirectly impact your result. So let’s start with the result. What results do you want to have? Like right now your results is that Diet Coke is very powerful in your life. It feels like it has power over you. What do you want your result with to be with Diet Coke.

Speaker: I would like the result to be that I can have one occasionally as a treat.

Jody: So you have control and power over yourself and Diet Coke. Yeah? You want to be the powerful one, right?

Speaker: Yes, I do.

Jody: Yes. I have the power which is control in this case and I’m gonna call this a healthy relationship with Diet Coke. Cause right now it’s kind of toxic. Like it’s got a lot of power over you. It kind of, it, it gaslights you, right? Kind of abusive to you, but then sometimes it’s really nice and says nice things because you’re like that tasted good and the ice and the fizz. And so it’s, it’s like sweet at times and then it turns around and gaslights you. Yes. And that’s an unhealthy relationship with Diet Coke. Instead, we’re gonna have a healthy relationship with Diet Coke in the end, yeah.

Speaker: Okay, yes.

Jody: That’s what we’re going for? Okay, so in order to have that relationship, you’re gonna have to think something different up here, and you’re gonna have to feel something different, and it’s gonna impact your behavior in the end. So let me give you some things to play with.

It’s totally fine that I drink that Diet Coke. It’s not a big deal. And also, it wasn’t as amazing as I thought. Like after you drink 64 ounces of Diet Coke, how do you feel physically?

Speaker: Oh, bloated, gassy.

Jody: I can drink this Diet Coke and it’s enjoyable, right? Let yourself acknowledge like, I enjoyed it. It was fizzy and cold and there’s things about it that I liked and it was a nice distraction and it’s kind of a nice habit to sip on a drink all day, right? But there’s also a lot of negatives that I don’t enjoy about this Diet Coke, about how I feel after. It’s not rat poison. If it were rat poison, you’d be dead.

Speaker: Right, by now for sure, yes.

Jody: When your family calls it rat poison, I’d be like, well, I must be really strong then because I’m still alive.

Speaker: I have thought that.

Jody: Yeah. It’s not rat poison. Okay. And honestly, I know people that have lived to over age 100 and drink Diet Coke and they’re just fine. Okay. It’s literally not that bad. And also doesn’t feel good. And for whatever reason, you feel like it’s not serving you. Right? So that’s really our healthy, just like a healthy relationship is both like, I enjoy this and also I don’t want too much of this because I’m not gonna let it start gaslighting me and shaming me and abusing me. That Diet Coke has been a really good friend to me over the years, and I’m really appreciative of it. And also, I don’t know that I want it to be such a main character in my story.

Speaker: I like that. I like that a lot.

Jody: Right? Like you can love and appreciate Diet Coke and decide that it’s time for it to just have a little side role.

Speaker: Okay. I like that.

Jody: Does that feel true to you?

Speaker: It does, it does.

Jody: So it’s kind of like, I appreciate Diet Coke and it’s time to make it a side character, a side role. As you can tell, my brain works in metaphors a lot.

So you can put this into whatever words make sense to you. But that’s how I like to think of it, is I’m not gonna be mad at it. I’m telling you, I will tell you, Debbie, I don’t drink, I do drink a Diet Coke when I go out to eat at a restaurant, but other, I, and I was chugging it every day, 44 ounces at least. And because I, when I see Diet Coke now, I see a Diet Coke label or something like, I still have a little Diet Coke Christmas ornament that I hang on my tree and it’s a sparkly can.

I still love Diet Coke. But I just no longer, it doesn’t light me up like it used to when I drink it, but I’m not mad at it. I don’t, I don’t, I’m not saying it’s rat poison. Like, no, it was my best friend for ages. I don’t want to do that to my best friend, but my best, but I’ve kind of moved out of that town now. I’ve kind of outgrown that town where my best friend and I grew up.

Speaker: Okay.

Jody: Now, I still love her, but we’re just not hanging out on the weekends anymore because she’s not really actually great for me all the time, but I still love, I still love her. You see what I’m saying?

Speaker: Yes, I do.

Jody: Okay. Now when you think this, and it’s, and it’s totally fine that I just drank that yesterday because a part of me still is kind of hooked on this diet Coke thing. I’m like, trying to get over it. Right. Then how do you feel? What’s the feeling of the emotion it creates for you?

Speaker: This second sentence approach. Yeah.

Jody: This one. Yeah.

Speaker: It feels as if, well, I have a little bit of doubt. I’m going to be honest, but.

Jody: Yeah, because you don’t totally believe this yet, but you’re working on it. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: But I like what you said about, you know, you only having it when you go out to eat. I like that idea. That makes me feel good, like to think, okay, well, that I that’s doable. That’s a treat. That’s something to look forward to.

Jody: Yeah. Okay, good. So you feel a little bit I can tell a little more peaceful around the topic. You even feel a little bit more empowered because I heard you start having ideas about how Diet Coke would fit into your life and the ways that it wouldn’t. And make sure, you guys, we’re going to get into this next week. Over the next two weeks, we’re going to start deciding things like how much Diet Coke do I want to have. Make sure that you’re very realistic with yourself. Don’t try to go from 64 ounces a day to I’m only going to have it when I eat out, if you don’t eat out. Just go from like, you know, two, three cans a day to one can a day or something, make it very realistic. Even a part of your brain’s like, that’s still too much. Okay. But we’re just taking a baby step here. We’re not, we’re not totally breaking up with Diet Coke. We’re just weaning off the relationship a little bit. Right. Okay. So.

Speaker: Yeah, my friendship, I still have my friendship and my love, but it’s changed.

Jody: Yeah. Okay. And every time your family calls it rat poison, I’d be like, not to me. I love Diet Coke. I love it. Okay. I love her and and I’m never gonna stop loving her, even though I’m not gonna drink her as much. Okay, see what I’m saying? Okay, because from peaceful and empowered, you will overall make better choices, I promise. Because you will not have to run away from the guilt and the shame and the fear and all of this. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna be perfect at it, especially in the beginning. It’s gonna be a process, it’s gonna take time. But you will overall be more in control and have a healthier relationship with this. Yeah.

Speaker: Yes, yes. And that’s my goal. And to even to get to the point where I don’t have to think about it.

Jody: Yeah. I mean, that, honestly, I cannot get over that I’m at that point. I did not think I would ever get to that point.

Speaker: That’s encouraging to hear.

Jody: But when I see a Diet Coke logo or something, I’m like, oh, she’s my friend. Or commercial. Yeah, I’m like, yeah, Diet Coke is awesome. We just don’t hang out that much anymore because I kind of outgrew her.

Speaker: Okay. Okay. I can outgrow her.

Jody: You absolutely can. 

Speaker: I’m so much older than you, but I hope I can get there.

Jody: It has nothing to do with age. Nothing to do with age. I promise you.

Speaker: All right. Okay. Thank you. 

Jody: You’re welcome. Okay. Who else wants to come on? I’m popping in the Q&A actually, and then I’m going to bring someone on. Maybe you have guilt around food or something. You want to clean up. What’s going on? questions about what I’ve taught you this week, anything goes. We still have 20 more minutes, so we can bring on at least one, maybe two more people. 

I struggle with Diet Coke too, somebody says. I’ve been trying to quit for 15 years, but my girls all drink it and I love the social part. Going to get a drink is fun, but it doesn’t match my goals to be healthy. Okay. I want to offer this to you because for some of you, this is Diet Coke. For some of you, it’s going out for ice cream. 

We tell ourselves this, right? We’re like, I mean, I just struggle with missing out on the social part, but that’s a kind of a lie we tell ourselves, right? Because drinking a Diet Coke has nothing to do with being social. Here’s how I know. My family loves ice cream. They love to go out for ice cream. And I just don’t really love ice cream. It’s okay. I don’t hate it, but I just don’t really love it. And so when we all go out for ice cream, I go with them and they eat ice cream and I don’t. 

And I’m not missing out on anything social. They’re eating their ice cream and we’re talking and I’m sitting there listening and talking. And me eating ice cream has nothing to do with being social with them. And sometimes they say, mom, are you going to get some ice cream? And I say, no, I don’t want ice cream. You know, I don’t really like ice cream. They’re like, oh yeah, that’s right. Mom doesn’t really like ice cream. And they don’t care at all. And when we go to the Maverick, and some people are getting Diet Coke and big drinks, I get a bottle of water. And sometimes I get a protein bar, or if I’m feeling really crazy, I might get a vitamin water or something. And I just don’t get a Diet Coke. But you know why? Because I don’t want one. I don’t even want it anymore. It doesn’t even sound good. 

I know the first sip or two tastes good. and after that, it doesn’t taste very good to me. And so I just don’t even want it, and so I don’t get it, but I still get to be social. I still go wherever they’re going, and I either don’t get it. For those of you that are members of the LDS Church, I want you to think about this with alcohol, right? If you have a bunch of friends that drink, and they’re like, come to dinner with us, and they’re all ordering wine, are you like, well, I can’t be friends with these people now? No, you still do. You just drink water while they’re drinking wine. It’s not, this is just your brain trying to trick you. Okay. 

But I’m so glad you brought it up because common problem. Okay, let’s see. I want to bring someone else on. Hello. How are you doing? Tell me what’s going on for you.

Speaker: So I just kind of feel like I have my family. We’re kind of foodies. I like to cook. I like to bake. I like to do all of this stuff. And so having joy, like I just kind of feel like I’m obsessed with new recipes that I’m going to miss out on I didn’t make this or that I’ve got to feed my family super great, crazy things. I don’t know. So I kind of feel like I have that I’m going to maybe lose myself or maybe like you’re talking about the FOMO of going out. I kind of feel that FOMO with if I move my joy to something else, I’m going to have FOMO with the food. I don’t know. Does that make sense?

Jody: Yeah, totally. And it’s, again, something that so many of us can relate to. Not the cooking part for me, but the FOMO and for a lot of people, the cooking and the trying out recipes and baking and things. Okay. So fear of missing out is a real thing. Okay. It’s valid. I want everybody, when you notice the fear come up, you got to be very tender with yourself. We’re not going to just push it away and go, well, that’s dumb. Like I gave you guys our explanation just now, but it’s important that you really acknowledge I see what’s going on here. This is how you connect with your family. This is part of your entertainment. This is part of your joy. This is even part of your identity is what I hear you saying.

Speaker: Yes.

Jody: Yeah. Right? And so it is scary when we’re like, now we’re going to change that. It is normal, understandable, scary that your brain would resist it. Okay. But let’s just play with it for a minute. Why do you want to change it? What are you trying to achieve here?

Speaker: Recently we just went on a trip and we got some pictures back and I’m like, oh my gosh, I have got to eat better. I don’t like how my body looks. Lose some weight. Just overall be more healthy and not eat like I’m still 12 and have the metabolism of a teenager.

Jody: Okay. All right. So I’m going to put this on. I’m going to show you guys a little bit different tool and this is going to come up again later in one of the videos in a slightly different way, but I want to introduce it to you here. Okay. So I want you to think about this on a continuum. So when you think about yourself, okay, and your identity, your behaviors around food, your body, all of it, we want to do this in a way that improves your relationship with yourself, not in a way that beats yourself up and makes your relationship with yourself even worse. Okay? 

So on the one hand, we have FOMO. If I change, if I stop making all these great recipes and baking and all this, then I’m going to miss out and my family’s not going to like it. And this is just what we do. And this is just who I am, right? And on this hand, we have, I don’t like how I look, how I feel. I don’t like it. I don’t like that photo. I don’t like the way I’m eating like a child. I don’t like this part of me. Now, either one of these extremes is going to put you into fear or judgment or shame, scarcity, right? All of these emotions are versions of what I call fear. Okay? They’re fear-based. There’s something wrong with me. There will be something wrong if I change it. You with me? 

From those emotions, the only hope we have is to use willpower. Let me just white knuckle it and try to use willpower and try to not eat the food or let me override myself here or let me give in and overeat it. We overeat or we white-knuckle it, okay? And that is not something we can do long-term. So what exists in the middle is a version of it’s all okay. Everything’s okay. This is like something’s wrong, something’s wrong. You with me?

Speaker: Yep.

Jody: Wrong, wrong. From these extremes, we don’t tend to get good results long term. In the middle is it’s all okay. It’s love. It’s trust. It’s faith. It’s compassion. It’s all the useful emotions exist right here in the middle, which is it’s all okay. And so let’s play with that on both extremes, okay? The FOMO end, it really will be okay. You can change what you’re cooking. You can find different hobbies or ways to connect with your family, or you can cook really amazing things that are really healthy, right? That serve you, that will help you. 

You can cook something amazing for your dinner or for your family and modify it a little bit for yourself. Like there’s so many ways to address this and a lot of people have a lot of good advice about how to do it. You know it’s possible, right? And identity shifts feel scary but only in the process of shifting and then you find a new identity which is I used to be a person who baked dessert every night and now I play the piano every night or something like you’ll find a new identity. So none of this is really a big problem like your brain thinks it will be it’s all figureoutable right? 

Speaker: Right, yeah.

Jody: But still, a lot of work like we just acknowledge with our brain yeah that will be work that will be uncomfortable at times but it’s not it’s not really true that I’m missing out on my family will never survive. And like, it’s not dramatic, like our brains making it right now, guess what else is okay. 

Speaker: The other side.

Jody: The way you look in that photo that you saw, the way you, whatever weight you are, whatever health condition you’re in, whatever your body looks like, it’s also okay. Like you could stay this weight forever or gain weight and keep your, you’re very judgmental of yourself. I asked you to stop eating like a 12 year old…

Speaker: I totally am. And then I’ve got that scarcity feeling because I feel like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to have that. Like, and I don’t know if I had feelings as a child that I was always hungry, but it’s that like, I’ve got to have food. I’ve got to have, yeah, like I’m afraid. And then I judge myself and then I’m looking at other people, well, what are they eating? They look better than me. I don’t know. It’s this bad cycle.

Jody: And again, you’re not alone with it. That’s what so many of us do. We bounce from one end to the other. We go, well, forget it. I’m just not going to pay attention. I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing, or I’m going to overeat or whatever. Or we’re like, no, no, no way. This is terrible. This has to change. Look at everybody else. I’m behind. I can’t believe I look like that in that photo. 

And this is exhausting, the bouncing back and forth. That’s why you’re exhausted. And what I’m saying is you got to land right here. Okay. Like, listen. And so it’s both. It’s making peace with the fact that you absolutely could change your habits and your routines and the way you cook and the way you all of it. And you could still be you and you could still have just as much joy and pleasure and just as much connection with your family. It’s all possible, right? And not even that hard. 

And the way you look right now and if you never changed any of it would be totally okay. You’re just as lovable. You’re just as wonderful. You’re just as mature. You’re a, you’re a legit adult. You’re not a 12 year old child. we don’t even have to go back and figure out, where did this come from? Was I traumatized in my past or my childhood? Maybe, but it’s okay. It’s okay. Like you are, there’s nothing wrong with your body. There’s literally nothing wrong with your body. I still have to do this all the time. When I do the same thing, I’ll see a picture of myself, see a video, I have to be on video a lot. Luckily, it’s usually just my head, but every now and then it’s like a full body video and I’m like, oh my gosh, I didn’t know I looked like that right now. Right? It’s not how I looked in my mind.

Speaker: Exactly.

Jody: Yeah. And then you know what I do? This work. I come back to here. I go, you know what, Jody Moore, I love you. And your little bit chunky body that looks different than I thought it did. I didn’t realize that your belly was poking out that much these days. I didn’t realize that your arms got quite that way. And you know what? I love you, body. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re amazing and brilliant. Do I wish you looked more like a Victoria’s Secret model? Yes, I do. But I’m not going to hold that against you. That’s actually social conditioning, and not really even valid. Like I love you. It’s okay. It’s okay. Right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Jody: Now, for those of you listening that are like, but I don’t think it’s okay. It takes some time to embrace it. 

Speaker: So is it just talking to myself every day saying it’s okay? Is that?

Jody: It’s okay, and I love you and listen. I’m gonna take care of you body because I love you I love you too much to keep putting you through what I’ve been putting you through which is shoving a bunch of stuff in you that you can’t really utilize and you’re having to find places to store it and you’re trying to keep me alive and well. And I know that’s really hard on you body so, I’m going to step it up for you because I love you, not because I hate you and you look bad in pictures and we need to fix that, but because I appreciate you’re doing a good job, body. You haven’t done anything wrong. The reason your thighs look like that is because I fed you too much food and I like to cook with my family, but I’m not mad at you. You didn’t do anything wrong, body. 

And I’ll tell you what, here’s what I’m gonna do for you, body, because I love you this much. I’m gonna make it easier for you now. I’m gonna figure out how to alter my cooking a little bit, or I’m gonna make some baby steps in the right direction. It’s going to take me time. I’m not going to be perfect at it, but I love you too much to keep judging you and punishing you and also feeding you a bunch of stuff that you don’t quite know what to do with. We’re going to meet in the middle. You see what I’m saying? We’re meeting in the middle. Not because I hate me, but because I love me and my body. Do you feel the difference?

Speaker: Yeah. I do. 

Jody: Okay. But if you think like, wait a second, I don’t have to go to, oh my gosh, I have to eat it or else I’m missing out. And I also don’t have to go to, if I don’t change something, I’m never going to be able to love myself. Right here in the middle. I’m great as I am. And also I am capable of losing some weight and changing my eating. That’s where you’re going to make progress. Okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Jody: You’re welcome. Okay. You guys. Oh my gosh. So many amazing, beautiful people. Thank you. We’re going to keep doing this on Fridays. We’re going to have a lot more chances to bring people on in the last five minutes. I’m going to pop in the Q and A, will this This call will be available in video form in the future or only as audio on the podcast? Your visuals are very helpful. Video as well. We’ll be posting the video on the portal where the other videos are. So you will have this in video. 

I know I draw a lot on the board and you will also get it in the podcast feed. So you’ll have it both ways. What if my identity is tied to my weight? My dad and brother died from diabetes. I have to change. Okay. I want you to put that into the model I taught you today. thought, feeling, action, result. When you think the thought, I have to change, how do you feel? Does it fall more in this category or does it fall up here? Because if it falls down here, it’s not serving you. 

You don’t have to change. You don’t. You could die of diabetes and it would be just fine. Did you know this? You really could. You’ll have an amazing, still, full life until you die. And that’s okay. We’re all going to die anyway, sometime. You really don’t have to change. If you want to change, you can, but it’s not going to be very easy to do from fear and scarcity and all of this that you’re doing. Okay. All right. You guys, I love you. Thank you for being here. Video comes out Monday and Wednesday, and then I’ll see you again next Friday.

Oh wow, look at that. You made it to the end. Your time and attention is valuable, and I don’t take it lightly that you made it this far. In fact, it tells me you might be like me; insatiably curious about people and life and potential and connection. Maybe you have big dreams but a small budget and no time. You’re tired, but bored. You’re content, but dissatisfied. Sound familiar? Come to a free coaching call and see for yourself what’s possible: JodyMoore.com/freecoaching to register. That’s JodyMoore.com/freecoaching.