Episode 50: Set Point Theory and How it Relates to Diet and Weight Loss
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Episode Transcription
Participant #1:
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the UPP Diet Patients podcast. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Pod. Today we have a very good episode. I'm very excited about this one. We're going to be talking about what's called the set point theory, which if you haven't heard of it or it's going to describe it more, but to kind of give you a brief synopsis so you know what you're getting into today. It's basically, again, we're going to get a lot more detail, but it's the weight that your body is kind of like predetermined to be at. And it's kind of the reason why we think that diets don't work and why BMI is garbage and all of that. So that's kind of what it is we're really going to get into more about what it is, why it's important to kind of find or be able to have that set point weight to rely on, how to tell if you're at your set point, wait, and then also, like, how to get there if you're not there yet. So there's going to be some of the big bullet points today. But the reason why we're kind of getting into this is, you guys know that we don't really subscribe to the whole idea of BMI or ideal body weight. We always say that there's no way that everybody who's five foot four is going away the exact same. Like, we're all diverse spies are meant to be different. But a question that I get a lot, Emily, I'm sure you do too, is always like, what should our weight be then? And I hate answering that question. I'm always like, you don't have time for my talk on what I think your weight should be today, because it's definitely not whatever the BMI scale says or whatever it is based on your height and inches for ideal body weight. That's not it either. And so we're going to go over again, like how to kind of figure out what your weight maybe should be and spoiler it's a range. It's also not like one hard number, but, yeah, that's what we got coming up today. I'm so excited for this episode. I feel like it's something that is slowly coming into the conversation a bit more, especially with dietitians and whatnot. But I feel like it makes a lot of sense when you kind of think about the history of dieting and even like, if you've think about your own personal experiences and whatnot. Yeah, it can be scary because we're taught to always just try to shrink our body, but we're going to be telling you today to trust your body and it's going to find the weight that it wants to be at if you nourish it properly and honor your hunger cues and ditch the diets and all of that. But again, that can be scary when you don't have that external control and you're relying only on those internal queues. Yeah. Especially when years of guiding can disrupt those cues. So you don't even know what's relying that's when working with a dietitian can be helpful or even like a therapist that can help you as well. Exactly. All right, let's get into what's the point theory is. So, like, I kind of already alluded to it's a theory that our body has, like, a predetermined weight that it wants to be at. And no matter how hard we try to change it, like through dieting or whatever other crazy things we do to shrink our body, our biology is always going to fight us to get it to that weight. An example I saw when I was researching this was like, thinking like a thermostat, like, you have it set at 68 deg and the weather or whatever is going to try to change it. There's going to be kind of other factors that influence that internal temperature in the house. But the thermometer or your biology would be the alternative. Or the comparison is always going to try to fight to get it to that number. So that's why when we die, it and we kind of put our body through, like a semi starvation, if not full out starvation, depending on the diet. Our body thinks that food is going to be super duper scarce, that it is super scarce, and so it's going to preserve energy stores or body fat in most cases to protect us. And that is why our set point weight can kind of increase over time if you are kind of a chronic Yoyo Dieter. And that kind of explains why chronic dieters often experience weight gain and why only or 10% of dietitians are able to maintain that weight loss for over a year, which is a very scary statistic. Yes. This is something I actually bring up. I never really knew I was bringing up in the kind of way of set point theory. But I was trying to talk to you about how when you go into a major caloric deficit, your body freaks out. Like it thinks you're dying. Yeah. It doesn't know if you're stranded in the desert or like, it doesn't know you're trying to lose weight. It thinks it's your last couple of days on this deserted island and you don't have a food source. And it's like, oh, my gosh, we must preserve all this energy to keep us alive for as long as possible. And that's why it's so difficult, especially with diets that have such a drastic caloric deficit when they're like 1001, 200 calories a day. Your body does not just drop weight. It's freaking out. And there is a biological response to that. It's not just your body's, not just letting you not lose weight. I don't know if I just said not a lot, but you know what I mean. We know what you mean. And it's not that you won't even lose weight. Like you will lose weight at first when you go into this ridiculous deficit. But that's not going to be like body fat that you're losing, especially at first. It's going to be water weight, muscle mass, maybe a little bit of body fat. But like Emily said, your body sees that or feels that or whoever experiences it and it freaks out and then it starts to preserve from there. And that's why you cannot maintain those ridiculously low calorie diets for I don't even know what time range to give because everyone is so different in how they respond to it, but not for very long. And then when you kind of go back to normal eating, it's like, oh, happy day. And then the weight comes all back is no longer in this high stress state of survival mode. Exactly. That's why diets don't work. I think we had an episode with our friend Kayla, a dietician, and she really debunked, like why diets don't work. And I think she brought up set point weight. But if you guys want to hear that episode, we should link it so they can. Yeah, it kind of goes more into like the whole dieting side of things. Yeah. Okay. So the set point weight is, like, I kind of said a little bit too already is a range. It's not meant to be like exactly like 180 or whatever. It can be a range and everyone is so different. So I don't even want to give, like, what the range could be, but it could be like a ten to 20 pound range. I don't weigh myself, but I'm pretty sure my weight kind of fluctuates at least like £5 from day to day without even like big lifestyle changes in stress or being hungry or for a little while or whatever. And as females especially, I feel like it really drastically changes because we have our menstrual cycle, which we retain a ton of water, our BMR increases, so we have to eat more, but then that all goes back down. It's not like we get our period every month and we just gain £10 every month for the rest of our lives. Just accumulates your body adjusts, it, regulates it. And that's what this whole thing is about. If we are at our set point weight, we can maintain that weight pretty effortlessly. I think I said it before in the new episode, but I talked about how I set a weight goal for new to be dramatic and how I was like, my weight has been the same for the last five years or so and I haven't been trying to make it stay what it's at. I just have gotten, thankfully really great at listening to my cues, and I eat when I'm hungry. I eat what I'm hungry for. That means I also actually surprisingly do crave things like vegetables and salads, because I know that if I just ate brownies 24/7, not only would that maybe lead to weight gain, perhaps, but I also feel like garbage if I ate like that. And when you listen to your body, it really will. I know it sounds so cliche and like, well, whatever, lady, your body will, though. I promise you tell you what it needs. Yeah. It's something that is definitely not something that happens overnight where you can just suddenly decide, I'm going to listen to my hunger cues, and then tomorrow you'll be cured. That's not how it works. It's going to take a lot of practice. It's going to take a lot of different product types of exercises and being a lot more mindful of kind of when you're eating what stuff like that. But it will come in time because I'm the same exact way where my body knows what I haven't had a vegetable, and I do not feel good. I'm like, I need broccoli in the stats. So weird. It's like wild how that works. Yeah. And it also makes vegetables a lot more enjoyable, in my opinion. I also crave salads more in the summer. I think that's because of the heat. But when you feel good and you also allow yourself to eat fine foods, it's a lot easier to balance kind of your food choices and make sure you are having a variety of both nutrient dense foods as well as whatever fun foods you are that you like to enjoy because. Right. That's kind of life is about is finding a balance of everything. It literally is. I know we say balance all the time, but it really is. And if you're not making yourself just like, eat vegetables as punishment, it's like terrible thing. Yeah. You might actually find that you like some of them and they can be like a really tasty part of a meal and you don't feel like you're just eating because you have to eat it. Yeah. That's another huge part of it is the punishment part. Did you eat your vegetables? You can't have dessert then if you didn't eat your vegetables. Right. That's a big one. There are days I don't eat a veggie. And again, like, I usually can feel it. My body is like, oh, we probably should get a little extra tomorrow or else you're not going to feel very good. So I want to keep emphasizing during this episode, if you're like, yeah, there's no way I'm ever going to feel like that. I hope that you just keep listening know that you can. It's just like Emily said, it's not going to happen overnight. It takes a lot of time and practice and even help from Rd if you need it to learn how, because we'll kind of get to how to find a set point. Wait, but again, spoiler alert. Often the first step is to stop dieting and like trust, put some faith in yourself and in your body and it will come from there. Yeah. And that's such a scary time, too, when you do decide to stop dining, because now you're kind of just putting all the power over into your body and your body's weight will change. Someone made who it was someone on TikTok. They said it so well. And I was like, I want to share this on every single platform. But essentially they said when you stop dieting, you're probably going to lose weight because when you stop being dehydrated and you drink water, you'll drink more water when you what was the other idea? They said it so much more eloquently than I'm making it sound right now. But it's essentially like different kind of life situations where or like if you're choking and the first thing your body is going to do is want to get like more oxygen to your body, it's going to overcompensate for that deprivation of whatever it is and your body is going to adjust. So when you're a chronic diet or you've been severely restricting yourself for a long period of time and you start to trust your body again, your weight will probably go up because your body is in this strong deficit and it's adjusting. It's trying to maintain what's going on and change itself. That doesn't mean that you're going to gain weight and continue to gain weight. It means forever. It's not just going to keep going up and up and up unless you just increase the amount of food you're eating every single day by drastic amounts. Right. But your weight is going to change when you start trusting your body. And that's something that is very scary. But it is also very important to get back in tune with those hunger cues and those folders cues and just trusting your body. Again. Yeah. And this is another segue, so apologies, we're going to get off track for a second. But this often comes up when like, we talk about intuitive eating in general, but everyone's like, okay, if I start intuitive eating, should I expect like weight loss or weight gain or what's going to happen? We don't know. No one knows. That's. The scary part, I will say, of intuitive eating is like if you have this fixation on changing your weight, manipulating your weight, jumping into intuitive eating and not having that control over the number on the scale anymore is very scary. But yeah, when you start to ditch the diets and adopt intuitive eating and again, build that trust, you might gain weight. You might lose weight. Some people maintain their weight. I have clients who have done all three. Not like individually, they didn't like paying them lose and maintain some that lose, some that maintain, some that gain. And I will say a lot of them do get a little nervous with the weight gain because they're still in that diet mindset a little bit. We got to keep like as dietitian. It's my job to keep reminding them it's okay. We're focused on these health learning behaviors. Like, you're doing all these great things. You have less stress in your life now because there's no control over you. You're getting more activity because you actually want to do it. So again, it's kind of a little Sidebar, but when you do ditch the diets and maybe you do want to do intuitive eating, like I keep saying the scale is going to do what the scale is going to do. Yeah. It's not a reflection of you getting better, your health getting better or worse. It's just a reflection of your body adjusting to the strategic change because going from going on a diet to off a diet is huge. There's a lot going on not only from a physical standpoint, but also the mental standpoint. And the weight is just exactly what it wants to do at that time. And I've also seen it go every single way where either this is actually I can say from personal experience, both situations are a bit abnormal. But I would say when I started developing more intuitive eating habits, at first I gained a lot of weight, but that was because I was severely underweight. And then a little bit of time, like, I lost my hunger cues and whatnot. And then when I started re implementing them, I actually ended up losing weight. And it was reflected in the scale that I knew my weight was changing. It was how kind of like clothes are fitting and energy levels. And it's a lot about just kind of being aware of how your body is changing. And I don't know if I actually had a point to this, but I was essentially I was like your client that went that your client experienced all three. And that's true at first. You obviously don't experience all three. That would be crazy. But over time, you might gain weight at first, and then you might kind of adjust and your supply can lower. It can change. I feel like it's a good segue. I was just going to say, so your set point, weight will change. And Emily and I always say this, oh, my gosh, you are not meant to weigh what you wait in high school. If you are a 40 year old female listening to this podcast, stop making that your goal weight. You were a child. You were eight years old. And if you were like me or maybe Emily, you played multiple sports year round. You were constantly running. You were a child. You were growing too. Like, your needs were completely different. You no longer have to kind of optimize your bone mineral density. Your brain doesn't have to grow, like, develop anymore. It's very different now, especially even in your 20s. I feel like that's something also where I've had a lot of discussions with patients and clients that they're either like mid or upper 20s. They're like, I want to weigh how much I weighed in high school, and you're completely different. You're in a completely different not only portion of life, but also your body's needs are completely different. And that's okay. But we should kind of understand that I don't want to be the same weight. I was like, how many years ago? And also let's unpack this. Why high school? Is that our goal weight? What about high school was like, high school sucks. Why do you want to go back to that? Everyone's so mean. Yes. But also, like, if you want to go for a lower weight. I'm not saying this from no perspective in my life. I do this. But you weigh less in middle school. You weigh less in elementary school, right? Why not have a goal of where we're at? I want to wait while I wait in fourth grade. That makes more sense to me from a diet culture standpoint. Like, aren't we always going all or nothing in diet culture? Let's just go down to when we were actually like, toddler at this point. I was like 2ft tall. We're eating like toddlers. You might as well like, way what toddler's way. But yeah, essentially, your set point weight changes depending where you are in life. And also when you're like 65 years old, your set point is going to be completely different, too, as well. Yeah. And I want to point out, too, for the females listening, whether you like it or not, I don't think everyone as a woman needs to bring kids into this world. I don't even think that I want to bring kids into this world. But when you become like 20s or 30s, your body thinks that you're going to bring some kids into this world. And so let's get ready. Let's get ready to put some meat on those bones. Like, we've got to support another child's life. So that's also a pretty, I think, valid reason why your weight is going to be different than it was when you were in 11th grade. Your body is in its like fertilization era. It's like, we're ready to reproduce. Let's go. Whether you like it or not, whether you think you're going to drink it or not, your body thinks you are. Yes. But I think this also kind of also leads into our next one, which we've already touched on a bit, is your set point weight range is not just static. It's not just one thing. And as we kind of noted, that your set point weight will change depending on the kind of age you're at. It'll also change depending on your genetics, your lifestyle, your biological makeup, the environment, and all these other factors. Because if you've been around for a bit, you know that genetics plays a huge part in body type. It's kind of one of the biggest influencers over what you will look like. And that also plays over into the set point range as well. And there's an example with genetics. And let me know if I am going to completely screw this up. But essentially there are so many different breeds of dogs in the world with all these different genetic makeups. But we are not going to discriminate St. Bernard's for not being as small as Chihuahuas. So why would we discriminate someone who lives in a larger body naturally for not looking like some naturally thinner person like, we're all humans, just like all dogs are dogs. We don't like dogs like, try to conform to these, like, little Chihuahua standards if they're meant to be in a Saint Bernard body. I know it's different because we're humans. We're more complex than dogs, but it gets the point across. Our genetics are a really big determinant of what our weight is going to be. Yeah. And then also lifestyle like, Emily kind of already touched on. That's obviously going to play a big role, too. Not only does our dieting history play a huge role, I kind of already touched on if you're a chronic diet can be those like Yoyo weights, but stress, depression, having a super busy lifestyle, whatever, that can biologically affect our hormones, our hunger hormones making us either want to eat more, it can suppress our appetite and make us not eat enough. And then we end up binging in the evenings. It can have all these different effects on our hormones as well. So that can also play a role in the set point. Obviously, it's crazy. Crazy. It's not just calories in, calories out, but just do a calorie deficit. If you want to lose weight, you want to get back to your fourth grade weight. Just do a calorie deficit bro. Take some creatine, get a calorie deficit. Spend 4 hours in the gym. Yes, because you have to spend 24 hours in a day. I'm a 19 year old bro with no theater lifestyle. I can do it's my full time job to be in the gym. But we are the same 24 hours. That's my current rage, like 20ft. Haven't noticed my social media content last three months. I can't stand it if I hear the word calorie deficit one more time. I know it's like an actual thermodynamic process right there is science behind it, the way that it's used. Okay. It's like the calorie deficit is the cauliflower of the fitness industry. It's abuse. And it's not going to be involved anymore. Leave it alone. It's just trying to be taught in your metabolism classes. It's not meant to be this, like, thing. You just like shoving people in larger bodies, faces all the time. Okay, so that's the gist of it. That's what the set point weight theory is. Bottom line, if you ask me what your set point weight is I could not tell you. The only one who knows is your body, and obviously it can't tell you either, so there's no real way to know. But what I always tell clients and patients is like, I know it sounds so vague and I always hate to hear it, but you'll kind of know it when you get there. Just like I kind of know where I'm at now is where I'm probably going to be for this phase of my life. Like I said, it might change when I get into my 40s, 50s, 60s, but right now I think I'm at my weight at that point. Wait, but I don't know for sure. And that's okay. I have faith in my body that it's cool where it's at. So cool. Let's go into why you want to find your set point, why we think it's so important. It's kind of already touched up a little bit. But the biggest thing is, if you are at your set point weight, like Emily and I, we think we're at a set point weight. We don't have to die ever again. We don't have to try to manipulate our weight. We have just full confidence that we are at the weight we're meant to be at. And that's like a really freeing feeling. Our weights don't, like, drastically fluctuate. Like, I'm not going to gain £50 this year unless I do have kids, for whatever reason. Terrible. But my weight is probably going to stay the same for a long time. And even, like, as I do age and my set point maybe does shift, I am probably not going to ever weigh like 50 or 60 or £70 more than I do now. Even if it does ever change or the other way, I probably won't ever weigh £90 either, at least not intentionally. If I got really sick, which I would suck anyway. That's another thing. So that's another reason why you can eat what you eat. Like, I can eat a donut. I can have a day with no veggies. I can eat foods that aren't the most nutritious 24/7. And I'm not worried about, like, I was at work today and I heard someone in the lobby say, oh, if I even smell chocolate, I gained £8. First of all, no, you don't. That's Bull crap. Second of all, though, I get where she's coming from and her weight might fluctuate pretty drastically because she's probably not at her set point weight, whereas I can have chocolate pretty regularly if I want it. If my body tells me it wants to eat it, I don't have to worry about weight gain or weight loss or whatever with that diet coach was always telling us that we need to change our weight and we need to have that control over it. If you're not in a small body, you should really be striving for that. That should be your goal. You should be in a calorie deficit but we know when we try to manipulate our weight, when we try to have that external control over it, it always backfires. You end up with a poor relationship with food. The weight just Yoyo, it goes up and down. So focusing your energy elsewhere is going to be very beneficial, shifting your focus from that weight, which is not a behavior. I always talk about this too. Your weight is not a behavior. It's an outcome of your behaviors. So if you're focusing on healthy behaviors like eating fruits and veggies most days, getting plenty of water, getting protein in each meal, moving your body in joyful ways, your way is going to reflect that and be at the healthy set point that it needs to be. I like how you put that. It's not a behavior. It is an outcome of behaviors. And that's not even weight loss. Like your changes in weight. That is the outcome. Or if there are no changes in weight, that's also the outcome. Exactly. Let's get into kind of how because you're probably wondering now, Emily Hannah, you won't tell me what my set point is. How do I know? About 30 minutes first, what the heck? Get to it. So now is the time to learn about how you can you've earned it. If you could tell if you're in your set point. Wait, so like, we talked about that first. Kind of putting faith in your body is so scary and trusting your body not to freak out. It's something that we've all been taught by diet culture that we always need to make ourselves as small as physically possible no matter what. So when we are no longer controlling what we're eating as much in the sense of like, obviously you're controlling what you're eating because you are micromanaging the body. But when you're like, yes, micromanaging kind of what you're eating and whatnot it can be very scary because we might not know how many calories are in whatever we're eating, or we might not know if we're in a caloric deficit or we might not know for a caloric surplus. We don't know what's going on. And that can be very scary. But it's kind of the first step in accepting your set point weight, wherever that is. Maybe your weight won't change. Maybe it won't change. The unknown is always very scary, especially when it's something around weight that we've been taught to fixate on so much and shadow diet culture for that. But take that leap of faith because it needs to be also made a huge deal. You can just like, be like, I'm just going to listen to my body tomorrow. Great. Take it one day at a time. It's a good point, too. Don't feel like you have to go on a grand adventure whole thing tomorrow. Like, tomorrow. Just like, maybe try eating when you're hungry. We always say this too. Being anti diet and anti diet culture does not mean that we're anti health. Obviously, I want you to still think about your nutrition choices and not just eat just cookies or whatever, 24/7 if you want. It wouldn't feel very good. But yeah, that's such a good point, too, Emily. Like, take it day by day the rest of your life. I'm out of control. You can go as slow as you need to. You can start when you feel you're feeling comfortable or good or even if you have like, someone there for accountability that could support you. Yeah, you know yourself best. You know what works for you. But that is just the first step. So let's talk about, though, how we know if you're probably not at your set rate because that way you can kind of think of the opposite. So number one, if you're a restrictive either, we have a couple of questions for you to do. This is a good self reflection time. So if you're someone that you know that you restrict quite often, we want you to ask yourself right now, is it hard for you to recognize your hunger and fullness cues? Take a minute. We might need a pause to question if I'm probably going to go through these pretty quickly. Next one will be do you eat past fullness often feeling stuffed at the end? Are you feeling stuffed at the end of the meal? Do you go through periods of restricting food and then eating in excess? Do you often skip meals and then find yourself having one meal where you continually eat past fullness? Do you need to cope with emotions like stress, anxiety or boredom? Are you always bouncing back and forth between diets or plans to lose weight or to be healthy, quote unquote? Do you feel like you're always thinking about food and obsessing over it? Do you plan your meals days in advance to ensure you've been good with your eating habits? Has your period stopped or become very light or irregular? That's a big one. Do you find yourself over exercising to burn off, quote unquote, what you've eaten? And then our last question today is, do you feel like you've lost all hunger and fullness use?
Participant #1:
Yeah. If you answered yes or something of the type to multiple of these, you're probably restricting yourself a bit too much. And that means you're probably not at your set point. Wait. It's a good sign that you are not if you are restricting in general, we ask these questions to kind of help you think and rationalize. First of all, if you are a restricted eater, because if you are, you're probably not at your set point. So like we said, a few ways to kind of get to it. Let's get into that. This is our last section. Then we'll get into our bonus question. So how to get to your set point weight if you answered yes to any of those questions or have another reason why you're not at your set point. Wait, you guys probably guessed this. Stop dieting. You guys probably already knew that. Again, it's scary. It's a leap of faith. It is nerve wracking to not have a diet or any kind of rules to be able to follow. But the calorie counting, the point counting, trying to earn your food through exercise, using your Fitbit or your Apple Watch to track your calories and your calories burned, and then only eating whatever you've earned through that. Those are again, just like external cues. They're not actually like you trusting your body and also they're not even accurate. Calorie counting is not even accurate. I always talk about this too. First of all, we don't know unless you're like going into a lab and getting your BMR checked every day, you don't know what your calorie needs are. And then she's going to bark again. Can you hear him? Filipino? He's booing. And then in terms of calorie counting, those apps like the margin of error can be like way off. Minius, I'm trying to talk about calories. No calorie counting for you. I forget what the actual range is. But the FDA like USDA, I forget who manages this allows a range of error on food labels. All those boundary animals, the calories you see on a food label are not actually, I think it's FDA. I think you're right. I always forget who's who. No, but like, yeah, every single kind of component, almost every single I'm not going to say everything because we do not make all tomatoes here. Almost every single section of the nutrition food label has some area where there is area for air. Also, you can round things on that. Like there's all these rounding rules on the calorie, the nutrition label, especially when it's like zero calories or zero when it's not actually
Participant #1:
accurate. That's why micromanaging, that is just a waste of your time because it's probably not even right. So the next way you can get to your set weight is not to weigh yourself. If the numbers influence your food choices and this is an external piece of information, it doesn't tell you what's going on internally. You need to trust kind of what's going on. Because if you're someone that I feel like this happens so often where someone will weigh themselves and then it'll affect the mood for the rest of the day. They'll be like, wow, I was an 8th of a pound up or whatever it is. I gained weight. So now I'm going to severely restrict myself because I gained weight or their weight would have gone down and they're like, oh, I've been really good. I can't have a cookie or I don't even know if they do that. But you get the gist where essentially weight this data, this one point of data is affecting so much of not only your mood but also your food choices. We got to stop doing that. And kind of the best way to do that is either weigh yourself less frequently. Sometimes I recommend, like, once a week at most. I typically recommend, like, once every two or three weeks. And then if it's something that you feel almost like, I can only think of one where it's not, I'm thinking of seduced. I don't think that's the right way. But you feel like, oh, it's there. I need to know it's drawn to it. Yes, that's much better. There we go. The way scale is seducing you, it's trying to ruin your day. Put it on. That's just a hammer. Don't give it that much power. It does not reserve that much power over your life. It's a little, as Brendan said way back when, it's a little dumb robot. The robot. Screw the robot. Yeah. You could end that scale. You could take out the battery. Then it had nothing to say to you. What's going to do about it? Yeah, literally throw it away. It's not serving you at all.
Participant #1:
Now, I've been in this place with food, and I'm very thankful to be here. I'm like, Why would I weigh myself? What does that tell me? I've had moments of weakness. I probably weigh myself like, three times a year. And it's like times when I feel really good about my body and I'm like, yeah, I've been exercising. I feel, like, really good physically in my clothes. I'm like, I wonder what my weight is. And I always know going in. I'm like, Emily, this is going to impact you a lot more than you wanted to. And Luckily I only do it like three times a year, but nothing good comes out of that. Exactly. What does that do? It doesn't help anybody. No. Why are scales of things? Why do they matter? I'm getting really upset about this all of a sudden. What's the point? There's so many other ways you can tell how we're doing. That's like, the least interesting and least important measurement of success. I just realized how dumb they are. Important. The only times I'll say they're important aren't in children. When you're, like, zero to probably five, that's like one of the most important times. And then, like, pregnancy to make sure you're gaining growth. Any time with growth involved, even if you are intentionally trying to lose weight, let's say you have a pretty big weight loss goal. What is getting on the scale going to do for you? You can probably tell by how you feel, how your clothes fit, your labs, how you're doing with your food choices, whether you get weight or not. Ever. Even if your goal is weight loss, you don't need to weigh yourself. I just realized how dumb scales are. I always knew it. I've talked about it a million times, but it overcame me like a wave. All of a sudden for so stupid. I'm thinking right now, if I were to get on a scale, what would that tell me? It would tell me nothing. It doesn't know what choices I've been making for the past, like six months or how long I have gone without weighing. Yeah, that's only my body composition. That's all I care about a lot more. Me, too. And even like that, you obviously can't look at your body and know for sure, but I can get a pretty interesting. Yeah, it is. Okay. Anyway, a couple more the scale fish. The scale is stupid. I just got really upset about that. But thinking about myself personally, I was like, again, if I got on that right now, what would you do? What would you do with that information? Right. It would tell me nothing. It doesn't dictate what's going to happen in the future. And it has not affected any of my previous choices, thankfully. Anyway. Okay. I can wait to go over this one or a tool I use all the time with my clients, and it's called the hunger scale. So if you have a really hard time assessing, am I hungry? In my soul, I just don't have those cues anymore because I've been ignoring them for so long. I've been doing diets, trying to treat my body a really good, like, visual tool can be what's called the hunger scale. And essentially all it is the scale of one to ten. And I often get honest, like, long winded description of it, and I might as well give it to you guys. Here we go. Help with Hannah approach for free today. It's a scale of one to ten and essentially saying that we don't want to get to either side of the spectrum because what happens if we get to, like a one or a two? And that would be in terms of hunger, that's going to be you feeling super duper hungry. It's like, ravenous, you're going to pass out. Like you're just starving. And what happens if we get to that point is we kind of, like, lose all rationale. We aren't able to really think about what sounds good. What do we need in this moment? Our body is just, like, looking for a very quick source of fuel, and so it's going to want whatever is right in front of it. And we also have a really hard time stopping when we're full. And so that leads to us getting to, like, the 8910 category or territory in terms of fullness. And that's, like, just feeling, like, way too full. You're uncomfortable, kind of feel like not good. And what happens if we get to that point is we're so full that we may not eat for a while, whether it's intentional, like we're restricting because we feel so guilty for eating that much, or it's unintentional. Like we just don't feel hungry because we got too full. And then we're just, like, back and forth in that pendulum. Like, you go from one or two all the way over to 8910, just back and forth all the time. And so you just pretty much always feel like crap. So the goal is to kind of find that middle ground of like a three to a seven is what I often talk about. So in terms of a hunger goal, like a three, so that's like a feeling of, yeah, I'm feeling pretty hungry. It's time to eat. What should I start thinking about to grab? Do I have a meal planned? If not, what should I make that kind of thing? And then we want to eat very mindfully. Eat slowly, eat with no distractions, which is, I guess, a nice point so that you only get to like a seven in terms of fullness. And actually, I define seven as like a feeling of satisfaction. Not even really fullness. It's a feeling of like, yeah, I feel pretty good. I definitely could eat more. And if I did, I shouldn't feel guilty about it, but I probably wouldn't feel very good. Just like physically it's a little bit uncomfortable, that kind of stuff. So if we can for the most part, stay in that three or seven range, we are most likely to not only balance our weight and kind of reach that set point weight, but that will allow us to eat when we're hungry, stop when we're full, and just kind of build that trust. Yeah. And it's something that also figuring out what the numbers on the scale feel like takes a lot of practice, too, because I can personally tell when I'm nearing like eight or nine, I'm like a couple more bites and I'm going to be out. And it's something that takes a lot of practice and a lot of mindful eating. And also intuitive eating will help you kind of gauge those feelings. It's not something you're just going to know off the bat. Like, oh, I'm a three, I'm a nine right now. It's going to take time. I just do a lot of these things, and you just kind of have to learn to trust your body again. That's like the theme of today stop your body, trust your body. Even though you feel like you can't or shouldn't, it is only disobeying you because you haven't been trusting it the whole time. It's like rebelling. You're on the same team. You're not fighting. Your body is not the enemy. If you support it, it will support you. Yeah. So Hannah already kind of talked about the next point and how to get your point weight. But eating mindfully so you can pay attention to those hunger and satiety hues is crucial. And this is something especially with how busy today's society is, especially with technology. It's very easy to eat mindlessly. So in order to eat mindfully, we want to remove those distractions, like using your phone, scrolling through social media, answering emails, or like, watching TV where you're zoned in and pay attention to the TV and not really engaging at all. Like, you're mindlessly eating and you're not really gauging, am I Fool what's going on? Or you're more in tune with kind of TV and then also working while eating. That can be a huge distractor as well. I struggle with that one. We all just work at our desks while we eat. We usually talk and we'll turn our chairs away from our computer, like talk in our little circle. But we still work while we eat, and it's not a good thing. The good thing is exactly. Which is our next point. So our next one is to assess your food choices without judgment. Think of everything as like, a learning opportunity. Like, if you do eat while you're at work on your computer, typing away and you notice that you overeat, don't like getting mad at yourself and say, I'm a failure for doing that, what have I done? Just kind of recognize and reflect. Like, oh, that makes sense. I was distracted. It makes sense that I over ate because I couldn't assess my fullness and then think about how you can do better next time. Like, can I step away from my computer and go eat somewhere else so I don't have that distraction there to kind of attempt me? Can I take lunch a little bit earlier or later so that I don't have to worry about catching up on whatever the task is? So it's about assessing, again without judgment and just thinking about what happened and how you can maybe make that choice different next time? That's another really important thing is not beating yourself up. Yeah. It's not like a combination of yourself. When you beat yourself up, you're only hurting yourself. We're on team. Help yourself in any way and heal yourself and get yourself through this. You don't want to
Participant #1:
worry. We are our toughest critic. Yeah. And I always tell people, would you feel comfortable saying what you're saying to yourself right now to your loved ones or your best friend or your significant other, or even, like, your pet? Would you feel comfortable saying that to them? Probably not. I hope not. Treat yourself with the same Grace you'd give to those ones around you.
Participant #1:
You would not tell any of them you overeat today. I would fight anyone who's doing that. Yeah. Actually, I always joke and I'm like, kind of serious. Finn is an amazing, intuitive eater we've talked about. Yes, we have. He's amazing. I don't think you guys have heard about it. Maybe you have. I don't know. I'm going to tell you anyway. When we first got him here on the podcast, I don't think we had either. When we first got him, he was from a shelter, so he probably didn't have that trust with food. He wasn't sure what his next meal was going to be all the time. And so he would always, like, eat, like, right away when we fed him. But since he's, like, lived with us and he knows his schedule. He's always going to get food every day. He knows, like, morning and night. He gets X amount. He doesn't eat if he's not hungry. He'll only eat his breakfast when he's hungry for his breakfast. And sometimes his breakfast will last till dinner, and he'll have, like, a late breakfast. And then I even feed him again, just, like, let him know it's still that time. I'm going to feed you. He either will eat it or he won't. Like, he's just, like, really in tune with his body on her cues. I'm just, like, so proud to be here. All learned from Finn. Yes. It's so amazing. I'm like, of course you're my son. I just love that I've raised a little intuitive eating dog, so, yeah, I'm not going to cry. He's so cute. Oh, my God. I'm obsessed with him. I could never have children because I would not be able to ever get anything done. My heart is too big for my things. Okay. Anyway, that's the point where we hope you guys at least take it and digest it and think about it and don't feel like you have to make all these life changes tomorrow. And if you do have, like, a dependence on the scale or adjusting your weight or whatever, again, take a slow date of time. It can be really scary to make that leap, but just know this theory is out there. And we didn't even say this either. This is a theory. That's another scary part. It's like, we don't know exactly how this works and influences your body or whatever, but I don't really know how they would. So I guess it's why it's a theory, because everyone's set point way is so different and it's so dynamic and complex and fluid. Yeah, take that for what it is. I guess I don't really have much to say Besides the theory. Yeah. It's very subjective, especially to the person, but a lot of things also make a lot of sense. So that's kind of why we incorporate into our practices. Right. So let's get into our bonus question of today. I'm so excited. Me, too. I don't think we've ever talked about this before, anything like this. This is, like a different style. Yeah. It's not even food related. Oh, yeah. Well, it could be, depending on your answer. That's true.
Participant #1:
Yeah. So today's bonus question is, what is your favorite scent handy? You can start because you're not going to have one answer. I don't have an answer. It depends. I will say I have some go to. I'm a big fan of essential oils. I have a whole thing, like, right here of different ones. Not because I think they detox you or heal you of your ailments, but they just smell nice. And I'm not afraid of them. Like, burning down my house like a candle would. I love candles, but I'm terrified they're going to burn down my house. So I don't use them very often. I have anxiety, so I would say one of my favorites is, like, eucalyptus. I love that lavender. Love that. I often do a eucalyptus, lavender and like a Mint mixture. It smells amazing. But I recently learned that eucalyptus is, like, not good for dogs. So I try not to do it very often. So I don't do that one very much. But I do love eucalyptus and also anything like citrusy. I love the smell of too. Just smells nice and clean. But I also love those candles that smell like minsus claws cookies. I love the smell of vanilla and like sweet cinnamon. So basically all good smells. I like, honestly? Yeah, I don't know. I can't pinpoint it. But you guys knew that already coming into this. Yeah, those are all really good smells. Like the combination sounds really good. I did not know you felt this was not good for dogs. I know it kind of stinks. I need to ask a vet for sure. But I've been playing it safe and just like, not diffusing it around. Too smart. Yeah. Okay. Well, you probably have it. Do you have an answer? Of course. This is why you're the backbone of the podcast. My favorite scent is vanilla bean. I am absolutely basic. I do not care at all. For reference, I have warm vanilla sugar lotion. I have a warm vanilla sugar hand sanitizer. I also have only. Wait, I have to share this. This is so stupid. I have to share this. But I come from a family of sensitive smellers. Ross is one of those. Yes. And like my sister, she listens to this. She's going to hate. You know what, Lizzie? You're fine. But she's, like, thrown up from the smell of Apple cider vinegar. Apple cider Donuts what? The vinegar. I kind of was like Donuts. The Donuts and my mom, they both hate candle scents. I've never seen them anything like more than any of those. Strongly even like lush. Something like that. Yeah. And I feel bad because I, like, sometimes use perfume. They can tell I don't put a lot on what I'll use in my bathroom. I even closed the door now to try to keep it in say no, say no. They're like it's throughout the entire house.
Participant #1:
So I like, develop partially that I hate strong scented smells. Like it needs to be subtle or else I won't vomit. I get a headache. Yeah, I won't feel nauseous at least. But the thing I wanted to share, I have this all nicely organized. I'm going to mess it up for you guys. Anyone watching on YouTube? Prepare yourself. Oh, boy. I have a reputation now at work that I love hand sanitizers and sense for Secret Santa. My coworkers got me all these hand sanitizers, but now I guess find some around the house and they just give it to me. So I have
Participant #1:
eleven. Look at these. No one needs eleven. But there's so many different scents. That's true. I remember in College you always had the Germans that I needed. Yeah, I have a hand sanitizer in every single bag. I can always count on you for that. Yeah. My mom was like, do you give off like, germophobic vibes? I'm like, no, I don't know. I can sanitize. I wouldn't get that from you. Overall, vanilla is my go to. I currently found this really nice champagne Apple body wash from Bath and Body Works. It is incredible. I recommend very subtle. It was kind of wild because I was not getting normal vanilla or I'll do vanilla or any pumpkin alteration. That's when I thrive at Bath Body Work. So there's all the pumpkin things. All the vanilla things during Christmas time. Like fall. Yes. What are your thoughts on the vanilla bean, Noel? Oh, I love that one. Me too. I always think of that. I think of vanilla bean. That one's really nice. Yes, it's always good. I like, want to eat it. It smells so good. Hannah, you can't eat the vanilla bean. Noelle, it's like on the office. Hope someone gets this. You can't eat the cats, Kevin. Since I don't like. I know not the answer, but I do not like alcohol flavored scents. They make those. And Bobby's going to listen to this and get mad at me because I got him a bourbon scented body wash. I don't want to contradict you, but you did just say you got a champagne Apple body wash. That was really nice.
Participant #1:
Okay. I don't like any other.
Participant #1:
They don't smell. They're too much. I could see that. I don't know if I have like a least favorite Besides the obvious. Like, now I poop and vomit. We're talking like candles. Okay. They do have like, pranks. You can get like, Spencer's.
Participant #1:
I think it's like, super. Just to clarify, to clarify, Emily also does not look the spell of like, poop and vomit, but I'm trying to think of my essential oils I have here. Tea tree. I like it, but in large Joseph, it's too much. I just know if I went to Bath and Bodyworks, I would not like half the smells just because it's like, too strong. Yeah. What are your thoughts on, like, back in the day? Like Hollister and Abercrombie? Like, going into one of those. My sister could not go into those. She could never. No, she would have to stay outside. I could brave it, but it was. What were they on? It was so dark. I hate axe. That's the scent I hate. It's like middle school vibes. Like middle school boy vibes. Bracing in the hallway and then you're gagging. I like the smell of a nice smelling man. Like, in general, I like Cologne and the smell of it, but it really depends on what kind and degree, how much? 15ft away. You have too much. Oh, my gosh. Remember, like, in middle school, I can't even tell it at work. Like if I walk past someone I'm like no, if you're listening and not watching Emily and they're making really bad faces
Participant #1:
and citrus, in my opinion, you said citrus. I love citrus. You want to go towards those are food. That makes sense. Yeah. We like food everywhere. We like food, if you can tell. Yeah. Cool. Let's finish this episode so people can get on with their lives. If you're still here, we really appreciate that. So we thank you all for tuning into another episode of the epidemicians podcast. Of course. Thank you for sticking around for this long and listening to us get off track constantly. But we hope you learned a lot about that point today. It's something that is or at least that point theory. It's something that's been brought up a lot more in the conversation and is really important, in my opinion, to kind of think about it, at least give it some critical thought. At least you don't have to jump into it. But you also love it. It might explain a lot of kind of what you've been dealing with for a while or even just now. But yeah, we appreciate you and we will see you next week. See you next week, y'all. All right. Bye bye.
