Welcome back to the podcast today. I want to talk about something that I think can be just so powerful, and that is our thoughts. So, if you're ready to unlock the power of your thoughts, I want to, if you're ready to uncover the power of your thoughts, then you are in the right place. So, I'm your host Dr. Stacy Heimburger, and I want to dive into this really crucial aspect of our eating, our wellness journey in general. I think this idea of how powerful our thoughts can be can be very transformative across multiple realms, not just your eating, but I do find that it really helps there. So, I want you to come away from this episode really understanding how powerful your thoughts can be. And the best part about our thoughts is that they're optional. So, we can choose the thoughts that give us our most powerful selves. We can choose our thoughts that will create feelings and actions that we want. We can ignore thoughts from other people. Just this idea that we get to pick our own thoughts and that our thoughts are optional, I think is amazing. So, I want to revisit how thoughts and feelings and actions are all connected. So, I think I've talked about this before, but we start with a circumstance, a neutral circumstance. We then have thoughts about that circumstance. Those thoughts are like sentences in our mind. So, I always kind of picture like a window on either side of my head, right? They come in one window, they are little sentences in front of us, and they go out the other window, or we sort of latch onto them and give them a little bit more time. When we have these thoughts, these sentences in our mind, and we've chosen them and we are looking at them a little closer, those thoughts create feelings. Our feelings are vibrations in our body. There's lots more feelings than we describe in a normal day. Sometimes we just say, "I'm happy. I'm sad." Right? There's actually multiple nuances of feelings, and we'll talk about that more next week. The important thing is that these feelings are generated from our thoughts. So, there's been a circumstance in the world, we have these sentences floating in front of us, we choose one of those sentences, we choose our thought about that circumstance, that sentence creates vibrations in our body. Those are the feelings or emotions. Those are interchangeable words here. From those feelings and emotions, we take action. Okay? So, we have these vibrations in our body, we take action from those, and then we create results in our lives. It all starts with our thoughts. So, that's where I'm saying it is so powerful. Our thought is like the GPS for our results. So, I'll give you an example that's weight-related, and then I'll give you one that's not weight-related and kind of see how this works. So, if someone stands on the scale and it shows a number, that number is actually neutral. Okay? There's no good or bad to it until we have a thought about it. So, someone can stand on the scale, that number is just a scientific number or gravitational pull, right? So, let's say it says 200. 200 pounds. We then have a thought about it. We can have a positive thought or a negative thought or a neutral thought. Right? There's probably lots of thoughts that come in the window when we step on the scale, but specifically about the number, there's probably something on the positive, something on the neutral, something on the negative that we can choose from that floats through. To show you how the weight is actually neutral, that same number of 200 can mean very different things to different people, right? So, we could have three people, we could have a positive, a negative, and a neutral. Okay? So, if someone has been losing weight and they maybe started at 250, when they step on the scale and see 200, they will have a positive thought about that number generally, right? They've been losing weight, they see some of the results of their actions in that number. They have a thought on the positive spectrum, something maybe like, "I've been doing a good job." They will have a positive feeling that's generated by that thought, and that feeling may lead them to take action in ways that reinforce their original thought. If they think, "I'm doing great. Look at that. I've lost weight. I'm doing great," they have a positive feeling. The actions they take from that might be to stick to their food plan for the day, to really tune into their hunger and maybe not drink that extra glass of alcohol tonight. So, their actions are being generated by the positive feeling of their original thought. The results of those actions might be that they lose more weight. The results always reinforce the original thought. It's a little bit of a kick, right? So, if I have a positive thought about my number, and that thought is something like, "I'm doing great," the results generated from that will reinforce that I'm doing great. Okay? Someone else could stand on the scale and see 200. We're back to our neutral circumstance, our gravitational, pull a scientific number. If that person hadn't weighed in a while, and their normal fighting weight, I call it my fighting weight, their normal fighting weight is 180, and they see 200, they may have a thought on the more negative side, right? So, they might think, "Wow, I really have been eating too much. I'm really not doing good." I don't know, let's go back to some thoughts that I've had about the scale in the past. "Oh my gosh, what happened? How did I get this far? I can't be trusted with food. I'm a mess. This is a disaster. This is the end of the world," negative side of the feelings spectrum. Those negative feelings, those negative vibrations in my body will generate action. I don't like feeling bad about myself. My action may be to hit the button and go eat some sugar because that dopamine surge from the sugar will make me feel better, and I don't want to feel bad. So, my action from that very negative thought cascade might be that I go overeat or eat something that I shouldn't eat or not go to the gym, just something on the negative wallow in sorrow spectrum. That result is not going to be losing weight. It's not. So, the result is going to reinforce my original thought, whichever one of the ones I picked up on and decided to examine more closely. "I can't be trusted around food." There's a result of that thought which generated a negative feeling, which then spurred negative action of overeating, will reinforce the thought, "I can't be trusted around food." We could also do neutral in the middle of those two. Okay? So, I give you two examples, positive, negative. We could also just be neutral, like, "Oh, all right, that's my gravitational pull on the world today, 200 pounds." And that might generate just a neutral feeling and maybe not a lot of action. I find with my brilliant women clients that they are used to their brains telling them good information. So, they have a harder time realizing that thoughts are optional. So, the concept of the thought coming in the window and we don't have to listen to every one, we can pull it up in front of our screen, there, look at it, and choose whether to keep that thought or not, just because our brain thought it doesn't mean it's right or perfect or even for us. Okay? That thought might've come from someone else, from some past programming. Just, I don't know, your brain likes to throw up some bad thoughts sometimes. Okay? So, thoughts come in, we can... They're just sentences, sentences in our brain. We can look at them more closely, and then we get to choose whether we want to keep it or let it go. This can be very hard when you are smart and used to being correct. It can also be very difficult if you have done years of negative self-thinking, right? It's not a problem that our thoughts can be negative, primarily at first. An unmanaged brain is like a toddler with a knife. It is just causing trouble. So, if you have not been doing any mindfulness work at all, if you have not been journaling, if you have not been looking at these thoughts, it is very, very common that the first time you start paying attention, these first few looks at what's going on in there, you're going to see a lot of negative talk, and it's okay. It's not a problem. The important thing to know is that it's optional. Just because our brain tells us bad things about ourselves does not mean that it is correct. Just because our brain says people are judging us does not mean that it's correct. Our brain has been unmanaged, probably, and that brain has just been on the lookout for danger everywhere, and it has been coming up with some nasty stuff. We do not have to listen. Our thoughts are 100% optional. So, when we start looking at these thoughts, I want you to be curious and not judgmental. Let me give you another food-related thought that I want you to start being on the lookout for. After we sit down, the kids are in bed, crave something sweet, craving, that urge, that's a feeling. At that point, we can work backwards and try to figure out what thought is causing that urge or that craving. A lot of times, it is something like a pattern that we just have. We have dessert after dinner, that's what we do. More often than that, I find this might be the first time it's been quiet all day, and you've had a minute to yourself, and so there are thoughts about deserving a break. "I deserve a break. Now is my time to relax. It's been a hard day. I need or I deserve," fill in the blank, chocolate, wine, chips in front of the TV. When we start to ask ourselves, what is the feeling causing this food? I'm sorry, what is the thought causing this food urge, when we start to ask ourselves what's the thought, very powerful, because that is, "I'm really tired. I deserve a break." Maybe the answer to that thought, that feeling of being tired and overwhelmed is that we take a brain break or we take a nap or just go to sleep for the night, if you're me, or we go take a bath or we do some meditating or reread. The only answer that is food, if you're hungry, right? If you're tired, if you need a break, if you're deserving, if you're stressed, food doesn't help any of those things. Food does not... Food does not answer the only thing food solves for is hunger. But our brain is gonna give us the urge for food like 9 times out of 10 because it's like hitting the easy button, again, not a problem, not a problem. I'm teaching you what we can do instead. It is 100% normal that our brain comes up with negative stuff first, not a problem. It is absolutely normal that because we're smart, we think our brain is correct, and we haven't taken the time to examine, do I even like that thought? Okay? Totally fine. Understanding that we don't have to listen to these thoughts, we don't have to examine them under the microscope, we don't have to catch that thought coming through the window, we get to choose, is the most powerful thing we have full control there, and we can start choosing thoughts that make us feel a little bit better. We can start understanding the thoughts that cause the urges for food. When we start finding the thoughts, that's where we get a choice of what to do with that. Do I listen to that thought? Do I work on that thought? Do I kick that thought right out the window? Is there a different solve for whatever the thought is? Is there something else besides food that I need right now? A lot of thought errors around eating, most of them are programmed. Okay? We have all-or-nothing thinking, scarcity thinking, or just mindlessness, right? Mindless eating, scarcity eating, scarcity mentality, and how that causes overeating, I want to save that for its own episode. But it's important to know that the food industry likes to give us thoughts about food that make us want to eat it right now, or we're going to miss out. Okay? That's basically scarcity. We'll go into more detail later, but I want you to, for this episode, is that it all starts with our thoughts. Whatever result you're looking for this year in 2024, it starts with your thoughts. So, this week, I need you to start listening to them. If they are 99% negative, not a problem. Totally understandable, totally reasonable. We have had an unmanaged mind. Okay? We're going to take control back in 2024. All these thoughts are optional, and we get better ones. I'm going to teach you how to do that. All right, start working on evaluation, see what's going on up there. Okay? Remember, not a problem if they're negative. I'm going to change them. It's easy to change them once we recognize them. So, if we're feeling urges for food, let's see if we can backtrack one step and figure out what the thought is. We get to pick what thoughts we hang onto. The ones we keep. All right, until next time, please take a look at what's going on up there, but with curiosity and no judgment. Can't wait to talk to you next week. Subscribe and share if you've learned anything today, and I will see you next time. Bye