How to never feel deprived again?
Do you know that the feeling of deprivation or restriction makes you feel miserable while losing weight & feeling deprived is the exact reason that causes you to gain all the weight back or face a hard have a time maintaining it. Let’s unpack deprivation today! Stay tuned…
Hey there,
Picture this…you go on a diet that banishes all your favourite foods…obviously…And so you can’t wait for your “cheat meal or cheat day”…
You feel you deserve it…you’ve earned it. After all you’ve been so good all week long avoiding sugar and deep fried foods and eating salads & vegetables…you’ve even put in 45 minutes of exercise every single day of the week. So, of course, you get to eat that pizza or chole bhature….ya
Now just for a moment, draw an imaginary line in front of you as if you are looking at a piece of paper & there are two columns…put five foods that you know you should be eating to lose weight & then think about 5…only 5 of your favourite…like “favourite most” foods that you think “OMG, I can’t live without these”…you get the idea…you get the idea…such 5 foods….for me, it’s going to be…hmmmmm there are lots actually, let’s say chocolate ice cream, a warm really moist brownie…then there is this Haldiram badam lachcha…i grew up eating that…i love it…n then there is papri chaat & lets say a pizza…
Are you thinking about your 5 favourite foods…are you? No really…do that…
And as a side note - even though I told you my 5 favourite foods, to my surprise, I had a hard time thinking about them. Like don’t get me wrong, I eat them for sure but I surely don’t miss them if I don’t… Isn’t it fascinating. I mean, thats the power of working on your brain…
Anyways, coming back to you…
Now that you have your 5 favourite foods, I want to ask a question…
And my request is don’t tune out of today’s episode because of this question… I promise, it’s going to be worth it to listen all the way through…ok
Now the question is - What if you never eat those foods again…ever?
I repeat I promise I don’t promote this neither do I personally do this…in fact, my friends know me often ask me when we are on vacations or we eat out…are you going to eat all that…are you really going to eat all those deserts…ha ha…
But this is one of those questions that more than a decade back changed my life …
What if you never eat those foods again…your favourite foods…
And by the way, even the promise of a diet is…do this diet & try and avoid your favourite rich foods for a while & then once you lose the weight, you will be able to eat your favourite foods again…that is the fantasy that we live in…
Oh, we have to watch what we eat when we are losing weight and then once we have no “weight issue”, we can eat anything we desire…isn’t it…
But as your coach & guide, I will tell you the uncomfortable, real truth that most weight loss experts either are not aware of or are misguided…let me put it this way…
And the truth is if you don’t eat your favourite foods, you will feel deprived or restricted…right…you will certainly feel “deprived”…and the goal of making that deprivation go away is a flawed concept to begin with…
And this emotion of deprivation, the feeling of “missing out” your favourite foods, the experience of not getting to feel the pleasure that these foods bring is suffering…it is this deprivation that causes so many women to not even attempt to lose weight…it is this deprivation that causes women to fall off their “healthy eating” or their diet, sooner or later…ya
And the other thing is if you are thinking that that deprivation will end once your diet ends…or lets just say that love to cook, and you are trying to make “healthier” version of tiramisu…ahhhhh it just makes me mad… healthier ice cream…healthy brownie… healthy wholewheat cake, swelled by not sugar but by dates or jaggery…OMG…such red hot lies that keeps you in weight suffering n defeats the whole point…
I want to consider that the emotion of deprivation is a mandatory part of human experience…without embracing it…and constantly trying to cover it, not feel it…run for it…all such a waste of precious life force & this ignore cost you your dreams…
So I’ll give you 3 ways to think about deprivation that will surely shift your perspective…shift the way you are managing your weight & for sure bring in more ease as to how you approach the whole eating shabang…
Ok, so the first thing is deprivation is a feeling… it’s a feeling in your body that is generated by a thought in your brain & it has absolutely nothing to do with food….whatttt
Yes, what I mean is the emotion or the feeling of deprivation or restriction is not caused by your not eating or not getting to eat your favourite foods…
Which is crazy I know…we believe that when we don’t get to eat chole bhature or the cupcake because of being on a diet or a weight management program, then we feel “deprived”…and who likes feeling deprived…no one…isn't it…
But I’m spilling out the secret…the emotion of deprivation is generated, only and only because of what you a thinking about what you get to eat or avoid…
So lemme give you the most common thought examples of what my clients tell me…
And I want you to even think about your default thoughts
So picture your favourite food in front of you & then imagine you will never get to eat it… Thoughts like
I cannot live this food
I deserve this
I had a day day, so I deserve it.
I work hard, so I earned it.
I relax by eating this food.
What’s a life without _____
What’s a life without a chocolate once in a while.
I feel happy when I eat this.
This is soul food.
Im a foodie.
I live to eat
My life would be boring without this…
I go on on…
But what I want you to know that is these are the kind of thoughts that causes you to feel deprived…the food has zero power to make you feel anything…whether you eat or not…
And its not that its wrong to think these thoughts or this the wrong way to think about your favourite foods…thats not what I’m saying…what I’m saying is that when you think…I deserve this or I cannot live without this…no wonder you feel deprived….no wonder you hate the experience of that food taken out from your life even if that’d for a few weeks or days…no wonder you feel compulsive on weekends n can’t stop eating or cannot wait to devour your cheat meals…
The next thing about deprivation that I want you to consider is that the deprivation is neither a positive experience nor a negative one. It’s neither good or bad. It feels yucky & uncomfortable because you resist it. Because you reject this emotion. Because you are not open to experience it. You feel entitled not to experience it…Oh, I eat everything in moderation…Oh, I listen to my cravings…anybody!!!
No wonder, you want o squash it the moment you feel a twinge of it.
If you do not resist deprivation, if you feel it through your body without reacting to it…if you don’t make it mean that anything has gone wrong…you will notice that its not that bad…sure it can & it might feel uncomfortable especially in the beginning when you are not used to feeling deprived, but its not anything that your body is not capable to handle, with grace. But you got to remember that it is when you try to “suck it up” & try and use will power to to overcome it, you are actually not feeling it. You resisting feeling it…and when you do that, yes it feels very uncomfortable.
The third thing that I want you to know about is what I call the deprivation trap. So deprivation as I already told you will always be a part of human experience. There is no way out of it. You are even getting deprived when you choose to eat your favourite rich, sugary or fatty food…
What are getting deprived of…
Results…
Ya…you are getting deprived of living in a body that feels home. You are getting deprived of the vitality & the zest which is robbed of when you eat the foods that don’t serve your body.
So as an adult…you get to choose your deprivation body of work…
You get to choose if you would honour the pseudo & temporary that comes from not feeling the deprivation by eating such foods & deprive your self from your ideal happy body weight
Or you would honour your body & feel deprived by not eating such foods and so are not ultimately deprived of the amazing results you create for your self…
So either way, you are the boss…the ball has always been in your court.
My suggestion, now that we have dismantled the deprivation trap & the fantasy land of never feeling deprivation that doesn’t exist…you choose you over foods…
So here s the thing when I started feeling deprivation in my life…when my clients start prating these concepts…they literally are training their primitive brain that they can survive deprivation…in fact, its no big deal…its normal, its expected & their body is actually efficient in doing deprivation, guess what happens…their brains begin to rewire…and that my friend is an amazingly delicious experience.
As I said in the beginning of today’s episode, the food has lost its emotional charge…i enjoy all my favourite foods but I don’t miss them when I don’t get to eat those…like corona first wave, we were not stepping out…ya Gaurav was experimenting & creating amazing dishes which I just taste usually, mostly I eat my favourite foods when we step out…so during that lockdown period, far from feeling deprived, I actually lost weight…which is in contrast to so many people who reacted to that high stressful situation as well boredom with what everybody called as corona pounds…another topic fo another day…
Anyways coming back to your homework…you remember episode 2 where I gave you 3 tips to outsmart your overweight brain. If you haven’t listened to that, pls do that…because if you are not making eating decisions ahead of time, you will not even know if you are falling for deprivation trap. becauseThis is because, you will end eating before you feel deprived. Right..
This week’s challenge if you choose to accept it is to deliberately feel the emotion of deprivation in your body. Just 15 minutes, sit with it. Let it flow through your body. Don’t distract yourself by doing anything else other than feeling the emotion of deprivation.. Ok.
This is an extremely powerful exercise. Just 15 minutes of sitting with deprivation literally rewires your neural pathways that are wired to not feel it & cause you to eat instead. It registers a WIN in your brain…a WIN towards what you want to create from your higher, pre frontal brain instead of recreating the same old patterns that imprison you. Lemme know how it goes.
That is it. Hey it would be great if you could leave me a review on iTunes. That would help in my mission & spread this message to more amazing women like you. Thank you so much. I will talk to you soon.
