(air whooshing)
– So you wanna lose weight? What really matters? Diet? Exercise? Let's get into it. (bright upbeat music) Welcome to the series. I'm Alyssia and I'm so
excited you're here. Before we get started, don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell. And remember the course only
launches through tomorrow. So if you want all the
additional downloads you've gotta sign up before tomorrow. You get the back catalog. The videos will stay up on YouTube but everything else
you've got to get there at mindovermunch.com/foodfreedom.
All right, today, I am addressing a topic that I often avoid. I've avoided it for years on this channel but it's time to talk about it and that is weight loss
because I know it matters. So I don't like to focus on it. I don't want to play into diet
culture or make it seem like we should all be focusing on weight loss. That said, I know what it feels
like to wanna lose weight. I know what it feels like to think I shouldn't wanna lose weight or to wish I didn't care about losing
weight and then still care. I said this earlier in the series If right now when you're
sitting here watching this video if you want to lose weight, that is okay.
Why is it okay? Because you have to let whatever is actually happening now be okay before we can go anywhere else. That is meeting ourselves where we're at. I don't encourage people to forget about wanting to lose weight or to reject diets. These are extremes on the pendulum. I wanna find that middle
ground in that piece. So instead of ignoring this desire that you have to lose weight, I ask, can you focus on
developing the inner wisdom? Can you, you know trust
that this is a foundation to make use of outer wisdom
tools like dieting, you know, trust that the pieces
will fall into place.
The weight will be lost
when it's supposed to and those pieces will come together. Probably when that happens,
you won't care as much as you do now about the weight. But right now you do and that's okay. So you get it. Inner wisdom is number one. That's what we want most of all. Until we have that, I don't
believe the outer wisdom helps. And in fact, we've talked about how some studies suggest
it may actually hurt. But right now this is where
you are. You wanna lose weight. So what matters? When it comes
to nutrition and exercise how important are they really? So many have heard the saying,
abs are made in the kitchen. This is false really because
abs are made in the genes. Some people will just never have abs if they're approaching health in a truly mentally,
physically healthy way. I mean, for women, you have to get to such a low body fat
percentage for abs to show up that for most people it's
not gonna be achieved without extremes, you know,
without those pendulum swings. Without the restriction
or the overexercise.
For the people that can get abs it's most often because of genes. I love Melissa Urban,
the founder of Whole30. In her social media she talks this a lot because she has abs. And she says, " Yeah, you know, I work out but it's not because of that.
It's because of my genes." But abs are made in the kitchen. That's not true but what
it's nodding to the idea that your body composition
will be more impacted by diet than exercise that is true. Exercise can impact body
composition for sure but it's a detail that
comes after the diet. The diet matters more. Exercise is needed for a healthy lifestyle though. So we shouldn't you know, just neglect it and forget about it because it might not impact
our weight loss as much. And in fact it will in some
ways like, I really believe stress is the biggest
inhibitor to weight loss and exercise is great at
helping to relieve stress. So it's all you know interconnected. And still the exercise will impact it depends, you know, how
much exercise you're doing, what kind and what the rest
of your lifestyle looks like.
So when it comes to exercise
what matters really, all that matters is that you move, okay. Movement matters more than the details. And I think so much of our
stress around health and food is getting caught up in those details. You know, what kinds of
food to not eat or eat? How many reps of this? Which
kind of exercise is best? The truth is what's best is
what's sustainable, you know. Some cardio, some resistance, is there a middle way in between? Whatever resonates with your
body that's what you should do. Now cardio could burn more
calories but not necessarily because if you're a weight training and you're going heavy enough, you're gonna burn a lot of calories too. Weight training may also build muscle but it's so dependent on
diet and body composition. So shift the intention here, you know, exercise for health and how we feel. I encourage you to try if you do this to disconnect food and exercise, you know, or rather be curious about
how you connect the two, just notice, you know, do you
make up for food you've eaten with exercise or do you reward yourself for exercising with food? I did this for years,
but it really contributes to disordered thinking around food.
It contributes to emotional eating and it causes more
stress rather than less. Okay. When it comes to nutrition I am gonna link a book, and I sent it out in the email today. But it's by a guy named Scrinis.
It's called "Nutritionism." And he writes about how
essentially we don't know as much about nutrition as we think we do. And he calls it nutrition
reductionism, I think. And if you remember, when I
talked about health approaches, like the Eastern and Western models. The Western health approach tends to boil humans down to machines. Treating symptoms rather than root causes and this is often referred
to as reductionism. Essentially reducing right.
Taking something complex, making it simpler although not always
accurate or sufficient. Now he comments on the fact that we have a very distorted view
of food quality and nutrition. He points to actual published
science showing that we can't make all the assumptions we do. Essentially he shows how nutritionism has tried to meet the
demands of the consumers rather than give the full
picture of the science.
If there's anything I've
learned in grad school and looking at all of this research it's that our approach to
science is far from perfect. The scientific method is
not the end all be all and it has problems and loopholes. So we have to really be discerning. All that being said, from that book and from my own journey and research I found there's no one right way to eat.
Studies have shown, you know, people can eat low carb or high carb and still experience the same weight loss. You know, we really don't understand all of the mechanisms behind this yet. Ultimately we know less than we think and if we cling to anything,
it's for our own comfort. It's not for the truth.
It's not seeing clearly which is the whole point of this series. So right now nutrition science
is so nascent, it's so new, we can't say, this works
and that doesn't work and how it will affect
us long-term, right? If most studies, most of these studies haven't even been around for a lifetime. Can we really know what happens if we eat keto for 50 years, no? What about, you know, sweeteners? These new sweeteners for 50 years. When will we have that information? Are the tests being done? Maybe, but what are the sample sizes? What are the experimental designs? We probably won't know it. We won't have any useful information before I'm dead. So what I've decided
rather than getting hung up and trying to read everything
when it's constantly changing and getting so stressed out,
is that the stress I experience matters more than the
nutrition information that we don't really know that much about.
It's that the emotional and mental health affect my physical health and
if those aren't accounted for then my physical health is gonna struggle no matter how much information I have. It's that triangle. That
triangle of the body, the mind and the emotions. So instead, rather than
trying to figure out what nutrition is right when
I realized we don't know. The scientists don't really
know, I decided let it go. Find my inner wisdom and just take the outer wisdom where I can. What happened when I did that? Less stress, less fear, less anxiety, and eventually the weight loss,
but it didn't really matter because more importantly, I felt peace. Peace with food and health and my body. The best chance we have to
feel good about ourselves which is really what we want. And we say we wanna lose weight it's not really about that
number which nobody sees it's about feeling good
and peace and comfort, you know, okay as we are.
The best chance we have is getting to know ourselves
and seeing clearly. Getting to know how to
listen to our bodies. How to respond to our bodies
in the present moment. How to be in the present moment. How to take in information and process and decide what serves us
and then continue adapting. The fastest way out to the other side is just straight through.
But one day at a time. It feels slower and it's harder
but it's actually faster. Okay. So mindfulness is a framework, a system to help me keep seeing clearly. And meditation is a tool
to keep me practicing and keep me, you know,
shutting the conditioning and rewriting the neural pathways.
But also with that
process I gain confidence and I start to trust my brain and my mind. You know, it's mind over munch. The mind is most of it, almost all of it. I've been so focused on
the munch all these years but it's the mind, the food, the exercise, the habits will follow the mind. If you found this video helpful please share it with someone
or on your social media. So share in the comments, you know, what has been the hardest thing
for you on your journey to? Whether it's healing
relationship with food or health or losing weight, what's
the hardest thing? And what do you suspect would
help you find some peace? And feel free to kindly reply to people in the community as well.
At the end of the day remember it's all a matter, really it is, a matter of mind over munch. (bright upbeat music).
