Dr. Sarah Stombaugh:
This is Dr. Sarah Stombaugh and you are listening to the Conquer Your Weight Podcast.

Announcer:
Welcome to the Conquer Your Weight Podcast, where you will learn to understand your mind and body so you can achieve long-term weight loss. Here’s your host, obesity medicine physician and life coach, Dr. Sarah Stombaugh.

Dr. Sarah Stombaugh:
The secret to keeping weight off is not just more willpower. And that is exactly what we’re going to talk about today is how do you create an identity shift so that your weight loss is not just a short-term temporary thing, but it’s actually creating lasting results in your life. A lot of times people think I’m totally crazy when I’m talking about weight maintenance, even from the beginning from the weight loss journey. But the reality is, is that we’re creating this shift over time such that you become a new person. And I am so excited in our episode today to dive into how do we support you in understanding what this looks like? How do we take what sometimes starts off in very temporary type ways and work to create that we are adapting this new identity so that long-term we’re able to maintain our weight and really become a new person in the process.

I’m Dr. Sarah Stombaugh, board certified family medicine and obesity medicine physician, and let’s dive into this really important topic. So very commonly, weight loss journeys look like a sort of quick fix program. I think we’ve seen for the last many decades, a six-week program, a 12-week program, certainly over the last couple of years with the popularization of the GLP medications, there are a lot of people who have had this very short-term temporary weight loss goal where it’s like, okay, I’m going to lose 50 pounds or goal is to get back down to a size six or I’m going to do this defined program. And that is all in find and dandy. And the reality is that is where most people start. And if we want to create lasting results, we need to take it a step further than that. Right now, we are in the middle of an eight-week series where we talk about what this looks like to not just lose weight, but how to shift your psychology so that you can become a new person in the process, connect with your body in a way that maybe you never had before.

And today’s conversation is such an important piece of that. I want to encourage you though to listen to some of our other episodes where we talk about your underlying why, your motivators for driving weight loss, as well as as we look into the future, some of this long-term success and how do we give ourselves grace in this process? How do we get back when self-sabotage has occurred? We’ve got some awesome episodes coming up. So make sure that you like this video, subscribe to my channel. If you’re listening on the audio only version, you can check this out on YouTube as well. So let’s talk about this identity shift that can start to happen because one of the biggest challenges is that when we are engaged in any sort of temporary behavior, it is going to create temporary results. And a lot of times when we’re thinking about this temporary behavior, it’s because we’re involved in a really intensive program.

The program may be very restrictive. There may be entire food groups that are eliminated, or even if you’re allowed to eat all three macronutrients, maybe they’re very strict in their ratios of those. You’re trying to limit carbohydrates, you’re trying to really emphasize protein. Maybe it involves calorie counting or weighing your food, and it can be fine to do that for a period of time, but once that goes away, sometimes we feel like we’re floundering and we don’t know what we can do next. So when I’m talking about this temporary behavior creates temporary results, a lot of times some fear can come up because people imagine these programs that they’ve been through where they’ve been really sort of white knuckling it through three months or six months or 12 months of a program. And as soon as they say we want to be thinking about the long term, it’s like, oh my gosh, well, this thing that I’m doing right now, I cannot imagine doing that long term.

And if you’re feeling that way about the way that you’re losing weight, I’m here to tell you that we need to shift the way that you’re doing it to really feel good in your body and feel like it’s a sustainable and doable and loving thing for your body rather than feeling like you’re white knuckling or restricting through it. So if you’re like, oh my gosh, I could not do what I’m doing forever, that is a red flag and it can be changed. I don’t want you to feel like, oh my gosh, I’ve failed and there’s no answer here. But if you feel like that is the case, I want to make sure that you’re getting more in-depth support from someone like myself in obesity medicine, maybe from a therapist, a psychologist who is practiced in the weight management area. Because one of the most important things that I will say to patients is how you lose weight is how you keep it off.

And this is because of the underlying identity shift that is happening. So a lot of times we have identity shifts. We’ll feel like I’m a fat person or I’m a lazy person or I always clean my plate or I don’t like to exercise or I don’t do these things or I don’t behave those ways. And when we are constantly fixated on those type of identities, it can be really hard to have behaviors that contradict their identity. So if you have an identity of I’m a lazy person, the idea of exercising three days a week, that behavior directly contradicts that identity that you’re having. So it’s really powerful to see where our identity shifts need to happen, ones that are not in line with our goals, and they’re not just going to change overnight. Sometimes we have this idea that, okay, I’m feeling like I’m a lazy person and the ideal opposite of that would be I’m a person who exercises everywhere or I’m a very active person.

It will probably feel completely unbelievable to make that type of leap, but we could instead be thinking about things like I am someone who practices healthy behaviors. I am someone who is reconnecting with my body. I’m someone who’s learning to find exercise that feels good and feels enjoyable. A lot of times it can be tough because in this example of exercise, for example, you may have a very specific idea of what exercise means. I mean, that’s even part of these belief systems, so it goes a little bit beyond identity here, but you might have a belief that the exercise that you have to do is exercise that involves one hour every time you go, it’s involved five days per week, and that simply feels like too much. So it’s really powerful to start to see where are our belief systems not really serving us and where can we start to shift that identity to help move in the direction of our goals?

So a lot of times these very action oriented ones like I’m someone who’s learning to reconnect with my body. I’m someone who fuels my body with nourishing food. I am someone who stops eating when I feel full. These are not extreme examples, but they become very doable type of things. If you look at where it came from, someone who finishes their plate all the time, if they say, I am someone who’s practicing, I’m someone who stops eating when I feel full, that can start to shift in this really powerful way such that long term, you all of a sudden have this tool that you’re not going to overeat, overeating being eating more than your body feels like it needs in a time. And sometimes, especially if we’ve really struggled with our weight in a chronic way, it’s hard to even imagine what does that future version of me look like, which is where these action I am becoming can be so, so powerful because they feel true.

So they don’t feel like this leap that feels like a huge lie for us. And the thing too is that a lot of times this is where restrictive thoughts can come up. So a lot of times this is where people, we talked about those really extreme diets, for example, you can feel like, okay, I would have to be restrictive for the rest of my life, or you’re looking at someone who’s healthy and that you identify as healthy, you may have no idea what’s going on, but you maybe look at someone you know, you look at their body and you assume, oh, they are this size, therefore they must do these certain things or eat this certain way. And it may or may not be true. The reality is everybody, and I guess it’s funny I said that, but everybody, everyone’s body is different in the way we respond to exercise and the way we respond to food.

And so making those external comparisons, especially because a lot of times we don’t even have the entire picture, there’s a lot of assumptions that are going on with those comparisons are rarely, if ever, helpful. And so it’s more about what is going on with me? How do I become a version of myself that is making food choices aligned with my goals? It’s reconnecting with my body, that’s finding movement that feels enjoyable, that feels really good. And to have someone alongside you who’s supporting you and seeing those things, so supporting you and pointing out those behaviors that are starting to become part of the habit. And there can be this cyclical thing that happens where our identity is starting to shift and it can reinforce those healthful behaviors. And as you’re doing those more and more, it creates evidence that this identity is truly part of what’s going on for you.

And there can be this very cyclical, powerful thing that happens. But what I want to be really careful with is this does not mean perfection. So someone who identifies as a healthy person, someone who’s like, I eat really well, they still have birthday cake probably on their birthday, probably on their loved one’s birthdays. They have birthday cake a few times per year, certainly. What they don’t do is have a cheap cupcake at every birthday party that they go to for their toddler. I know I’m in a situation of life. I’ve got kids who are young and we are frequently at little kid birthday parties and there are frequently cheap grocery store cupcakes. I do not have one of those every single weekend because that is not in line with my health goals, but I do definitely enjoy birthday cake on my birthday and my husband’s birthday and my children’s birthday.

And if we’re celebrating with grandparents or parents or nieces, nephews, siblings, we definitely will celebrate in those ways. And so you can still have this identity of I am a healthy person and that healthy person can still eat birthday cake. It’s just not every single birthday occasion. There might be someone who identifies as a runner. They will still skip running days if they are sick. So let’s say they have the flu. They will skip running. They will lay in bed, they will sleep, but they will still have that identity as a runner. But because that identity is built in joy and built in feeling really connected with their body, when the opportunity arises, when they’re feeling better, they’re going to be excited to get back into running. Now I’m not saying that you need to be a runner, but that your identity does not have to be every single moment of every single thing that you do during the day, but it is this big driving force that helps you to understand and believe who am I and what does that mean about the choices that I make every single day?

As I said, working with someone who can help pull this out from conversation, celebrate some of those process wins, those behavior wins, celebrate with you as you’re getting into new habits and those new habits become your routine and you start to shift in the person that you are, it’s really powerful to have that shared with you and reflected back to you. This is something that we do every single day in my medical practice. And if you were looking for someone to support you in that way, I would love to be that person. I see people by telemedicine throughout the states of Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia and in person in my Charlottesville, Virginia clinic. My goal is to help you reconnect with your body, improve your relationship with yourself because over time it is not just about the number on the scale. The greatest win that I want you to celebrate is the identity shift that happens and becoming the person that you feel really proud of being. And so if you are looking for that, I would love to be that person. You can learn more at www.sarahstombaughmd.com. Thank you for joining me for this week’s episode. See you all next time.