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If you want to lose weight you have to change the habits, behaviors and old patterns that lead you to becoming overweight in the first place. Most people just try to change their food – that’s not enough.

Every woman, in her heart of hearts, knows that the quick fix doesn’t work!

You have to be willing to change your lifestyle and the emotional connection you have to food, otherwise your weight loss goal is always going to be something that you chase.

Join Lisa Goldberg and I as we discuss several issues, both from a mindset and behavior point of view, that women face when trying to lose weight and get healthier. We share our best tips and strategies from our own personal experience,  of having lost weight and kept it off for years, and from the research.

In this episode you will…

  • Hear powerful questions you can ask yourself that can be complete game changers with how you approach your weight loss goals
  • Learn new ways to deal with self-doubt and fear of failure so you finally succeed
  • Get new strategies for how to deal with peer pressure from friends and family to eat and drink
  • Be re-inspired to commit to choosing you and creating the kind of healthy body you want to live in

Most people who struggle with weight loss have difficulty in mastering their mindset and the healthy thought processes that are required for long term success. By tuning in you can make sure this is something you can let go of!

Episode Resources: 

5 Radical Truths About Healthy Weight Loss [Full Text]

Jen: Hey everyone and welcome back to the Energy to Thrive Podcast. I’m super excited to introduce my special guest to you today. Her name is Lisa Goldberg. Her and I are colleagues, but we’re also friends. We happened to have met at an event a few years ago and we’ve stayed connected because we’re in the same industry and share very much the same belief system when it comes to getting women healthy.

Lisa is a nutritionist and lifestyle coach who has a Master’s Degree in Clinical Nutrition from New York University. She worked on the stock exchange in New York as a nutritionist and now runs her own nutrition and lifestyle coaching company out of New York City. Not only that, Lisa has just written her first book, Food Fight, which we’ll be talking about more at the end of this episode.

Lisa, welcome to the show today.

Lisa: Hey, Jennifer. It’s great to be here.

Jen: It’s my pleasure to have you. I think we’re going to have a great conversation. What I want to start off with is asking you the basic question. In today’s world where there is so much information regarding food, nutrition, weight loss, exercise, we have blogs and magazines, why are women still struggling so much? How is still possible that we have this as a massive challenge in our society?

Lisa: We’ve all heard the terminology ‘diets don’t work,’ and I think that every time somebody goes on a diet they’re just changing the food that they eat, they’re not changing the habits and behaviors and old patterns that got them to be overweight in the first place. I truly believe that’s the stuff that needs to change in order to lose the weight and, most importantly, to keep the weight off that’s lost.

Jen: I think that is the point. As crappy as it is, diets do work for weight loss, but you never keep it off because of exactly that reason.

I know you have an interesting story. I think we’re both in our 40s, right?

Lisa: Actually, I’m in my 50s.

Jen: Oh my gosh. Well, you look very young. I think it’s really interesting for women to hear that people like you and I have had our own struggle with weight and that it is possible to overcome it permanently. Maybe just share a tiny bit about your story, a quick version of it.

Lisa: My story started in college. I was always a normal weight kid, really athletic. Then I went to school and freshman year your lifestyle is different. At home I ate dinner, then went upstairs to do homework or hung out with my family. At college, I was going out every night, which I didn’t do at home. I was spending more time in the dining hall hanging out with new friends and getting to know people. I was spending more time just picking and eating, which is what we sometimes do when we’re just sitting around food even though we’re not hungry.

As the month went on, truthfully the first two months of school I gained 15 to 20 pounds. It was like in an instant. To the point where when I went to Florida to visit my parents for Thanksgiving vacation I got off the plane and it was almost an involuntary reaction where my mother was like, “What the hell happened to you?” She dropped off this relatively normal weight daughter and then two months later this person shows up, which she wasn’t really used to ever seeing me that way.

It was kind of at that time when I started to go on a diet. The truth is I hadn’t really ever dieted before, so I actually had to read books and figure out what you need to do to lose weight. I remember actually lying in the backyard, because I refused to go to the pool, and I was listening to a self-help tape. I don’t remember what it was called, but it kept saying, “You have a healthy sexy body.” I just didn’t eat anything that was bad while I was away. My fish had lemon, my salad had lemon, it was restrict, restrict, restrict.

I lost the weight and then went back to school and gained the weight back. Then I was going on spring break and I did one of those shake diets, like the Cambridge Diet.

Jen: I think that you’re describing an experience that so many women have gone through. The freshman 15 or the freshman 30, whatever it is, is literally a real thing.

Lisa: Totally.

Jen: And if it’s not the freshman 15 or 30, then it’s the post-momma body where the pregnancy weight just never gets lost, even 15 or 20 years later.

Lisa: Right.

Jen: Then you get that cue where you try new clothes on or you see yourself in the mirror, or somebody that you love comments on your appearance, and you become willing to anything, even a shake diet.

Lisa: Right. That’s where the vicious cycle comes in. You restrict, you go on these diets, you lose the weight, but what happens is you don’t continue doing what got you to lose the weight in the first place. If I had stayed on the shake diet or the restrictive diet, or whatever I was doing with my lemon juice on everything, then I probably would have maintained the weight. But, I didn’t. I lost the weight and thought, “Now I’m done,” and I went back to whatever I was doing before I put the weight on.

Jen: Yes. This is really diving into the deeper issue around how the quick fix doesn’t work. If you do not change your lifestyle, if you do not change your emotional connection to food and why you’re eating what you’re eating, then that long term result is something that you’re always going to chase.

Lisa: Right.

Jen: How do you start to look at that lifestyle piece?

Lisa: It’s kind of like baby steps. It really starts with how you feed yourself and what you choose to eat. When I’m working with my clients I really want to teach them how to eat in the life that they live. It has to be what their life is like, because how a mom with three kids starts her day might be different than a person who is retired. It really has to be about them.

I’m a big believer in eating whole, healthy, unprocessed foods, and getting people into a routine. I also kind of believe that there is nothing you can’t eat. I know a lot of nutritionists would probably disagree with me, but I kind of feel like when people restrict they want something more.

Jen: Totally. It’s the psychology of it.

Lisa: I actually had this conversation with a client this morning where if she eats one cookie she then wants four more. How does she get to the point where she eats that one cookie and she realizes that “this is delicious,” but she doesn’t need to eat the others?

Jen: Okay. Let’s answer that question. How does she get there? I’m pretty sure that of all the listeners who are going to be tuning into this episode that’s the problem, they can’t stop. They intend to have just a little square of chocolate or just a handful of chips, or just one two-bite brownie, or whatever it is, and then they finish it. What’s going on there? How do you change it?

Lisa: I talk a lot about self talk and mindset. If that doesn’t change, it’s always going to be a lifelong battle.

What I told her to do is take the cookie and give yourself permission. The dieter’s brain thinks, “I’m going to do that right now. I’ll just have a few more now and I’m not going to eat cookies for the rest of the month,” or, “I’m not going to do this ever again.” That’s what you tell yourself, which really isn’t the truth.

The self talk and the awareness and the mindset is first recognizing what are you telling yourself. Are you telling yourself the truth or is it not the truth?

What I told her to do is give yourself permission to eat the cookie and enjoy the cookie. When your brain feels like you want to go back – because it’s our brains and not our bellies that are getting us back into the refrigerator – the conversation is, “I know for a fact that I’m going to feel bad about myself and I’m going to be unhappy with myself if I go back into the kitchen and eat more cookies. I’m going to be good for right now. That cookie was delicious. Maybe later in the week or maybe part of my snack tomorrow I’ll incorporate another cookie.”

I make it so that it’s not forbidden. A lot of times they’re going to go to the next day and they probably won’t even want the cookie, because it’s in the moment. Everyone says to me, “What do I do in the moment?”

The self talk is first get connected to the outcome. What do you really want? It’s okay to have a cookie, but you don’t really need to have four because then there is remorse and regret. Just intellectually you know, “Why would I choose to eat something that is going to make me feel bad longer than it is going to make me feel good?”

Jen: That’s the intellectual part. Like you, my clients are all super smart, successful, driven, accomplished women. It’s the emotional piece. How do we start to deal with that sense of, “I just need a treat,” or, “I want to indulge,” or, “I’m a good person, I’ve had a hard day, if I eat this it’s going to make me happy. I should be allowed to feel happy.”

That’s often if you have the good angel and the bad angel on your shoulder, the good angel is the intellectual side and the bad angel is that emotional, “Just do it. Who cares? You can start again on Monday,” the people who are constantly restarting their diet next week and next month.

Lisa: Right. That’s the dieter’s mentality. I do tell my clients that puppies get rewarded with food, not people. Food is not a reward. When did food become a reward? If you’re having a crappy day, it’s not going to un-do your crappy day.

Jen: Exactly.

Lisa: It really doesn’t make you happy for more than in the moment. Most people, when they have that thought process, will eat something and then they’ll be unhappy that they did it.

The biggest question to ask yourself is, “Is that the truth? Will it really make me happy? Is food really a reward?” It’s about staying connected to the outcome. If weight loss is really your goal and your desire, then that way of thinking, that food or that cookie, is just getting your further away from what you really want.

What I teach my clients is to find that Plan B. What else can you use to make yourself feel better from a bad day that’s not food?

Jen: I just had a thought there. This is really the crux of it. The myth that I believe many women hang onto, especially our kinds of clients, is “I’m smart. I should be able to do this on my own.” Except when I hear you talk about the coaching process involved here, to self-coach sometimes it’s really hard, especially if you’re giving your energy to everybody else in your life – your family, your boss, your kids, your parents – and you’re left with the crumbs of your energy.

Tell me why, in your opinion, reaching out for support is actually a sign of strength, not one of weakness.

Lisa: Totally. Here’s the thing. If people could lose weight on their own and keep it off, they would have done it. I just had somebody come in and see me yesterday and she told me that she had gained and lost 50 pounds twice. There was part of her brain that felt like, “I should be able to do this by myself,” but intellectually she knows she can’t lose weight and to get through those obstacles in those moments.

Here’s what I know. Most people who struggle with weight spend a lot of time kidding themselves about what we talked about before, “I’m going to eat it now, I’m not going to eat it later. I deserve a reward. I’m a good person. I had a bad day. I deserve to eat this. I’ll worry about it tomorrow. I start my diet on Monday.” If you could have stopped that thought process on your own, you would have lost the weight the first time and never gained it back.

If you’re somebody that struggles, getting the support, being accountable, have somebody else looking in to help you understand the messaging that you’re giving yourself and why you’re repeating your habits and your patterns over and over again and give you the tools to break those patterns and to break those habits and behaviors that you have around food and eating.

Jen: Episode 003 of this podcast was Why Weight Loss is Like Death by a Thousand Cuts. Literally I said if we stopped focusing on food and exercise and actually started to create radical self trust, stopped lying to ourselves and betraying ourselves every day 100 times a day, then weight loss would be no problem.

This is it, in the moment, and it’s almost like you have to handle it with tough love with yourself, which can be hard to do. You do it for your kid, “No, you can’t eat sugar right before you go to bed.” With yourself you’ll sneak it in and give yourself that permission. This is it. You can ask the hard questions, but most often these women aren’t making themselves answer them. It’s just easier to stay in the deny and distract or lie to myself conundrum.

Lisa: Right. It not staying in your comfort zone. It’s uncomfortable to do something different. The truth is if it was easy to lose weight and keep it off, we wouldn’t have a whole society and a bunch of people who struggle with yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. That’s the part that people can’t concur every time they go on a diet and they lose the weight, if the habits, the behaviors, the old patterns doesn’t change along the way then most people when they lose the weight think, “I’m done,” or I have a name for that, cocky dieter syndrome, where they somehow think they’re now Teflon to calories and they take those extra bites, “It’s just only this,” or, “What about a little bit of this?”

They’re kidding themselves again and they truthfully forget about all of the hard work that they put into losing the weight. They start to do the old behaviors, the old habits, they kid themselves a little bit, and then one day they wake up and say, “I don’t understand. How did this happen?”

Jen: Weight gain can be a slow process, because it’s exactly what you’re talking about. I have many clients who eat actually pretty well, their main meals are pretty balanced and healthy. It’s all the other crap in between.

I think in North America we have become snack obsessed. It’s like we turn to snacking if we’re bored, if we’re tired, if we want to procrastinate, the mindlessness of how we’re consuming. Maybe share a little bit of your view on that. To me that is the biggest problem, not understanding the handfuls of chocolate almonds or the half bag of a chips while you’re standing at a counter at someone’s party, that sort of stuff.

Lisa: Right. I actually have a name for that. I made a little slogan, “It’s just onlys….” the little bites that you take throughout the day and then wonder why you can’t lose weight.

I tell people every time you hear your brain saying,” It’s just only…,” I don’t care if it’s two peanuts, “It’s just only two peanuts,” that is a red flag. That’s not hunger, that’s either boredom, a habit, or something is going on.

The whole thing with snacking and eating when you’re not hungry, I always tell my clients if you’re hungry I want you to eat, but if you find yourself thinking, “I think I feel like…,” that’s usually a feeling that is driving you towards eating, whether it’s boredom, loneliness, stress, anxiety, whatever that feeling is. When we’re hungry we say, “I’m hungry.” We kind of just declare we’re hungry, because hunger is a feeling, too, but it’s a physical feeling, it’s not an emotional feeling.

With snacking, I’m not opposed to snacking, but I want people to snack if they have a long gap of time in between when their meals are so that it takes the edge off until you get to your next meal. I’m also a little fanatical on what you’re snacking on. To me a granola bar is not a good snack.

Jen: Not at all.

Lisa: So it really depends on what you’re snacking on. If you’re snacking on a tablespoons of natural peanut butter and an apple, that combination of food will keep you satiated, there’s nutrition in it, it will keep you full for a couple of hours until whenever your next meal is. Most people love peanut butter, so it’s satisfying. It’s that sort of thing.

I kind of feel like people just eat just because, so when people start to become aware of their habits; for instance, the coworker’s jar or bowl of candy, pretzels, or whatever is there, and every time somebody walks by they dig their hand in. A lot of times I’ll be working with people and once the awareness process starts they’ll realize how many times they actually stick their hand in that bowl and it’s mindless.

Jen: It really can be. I think that’s so critical. Let’s just take a moment to talk about something that you said. Whether it’s coworkers or family, what I’ve found is that so much of our food and liquid consumption really can be driven by peer pressure.

In many families, the untold story is food is love for a mother or a grandma. “I’ve made this for you because I love you. You’re going to come here and eat it to show me that you love me.”

Or social acceptance and peer pressure with drinks. Notice how when you go to a restaurant or somebody’s house the first thing within the first five minutes that you’re offered is a drink. Most people say yes, down it, have no enjoyment from it, and have just packed on 100 calories.

How do listeners start to disentangle the peer pressure and social pressures to conform to an environment, or maybe to what their friends and family do, without constantly feeling like they’re drawing attention to themselves? A lot of my clients don’t want to have the, “Oh, she’s on a diet again. We’ll see how long this one lasts.”

Lisa: The judgment.

Jen: Yes. What do you do with that?

Lisa: I tell my clients before they go to an event, whether it’s a family dinner or out with friends, to make a mental plan. I want them to be prepared with what they want to do. Sometimes I have them look at the menu in advance, if they’re going to a restaurant, and make their choice. This way they know what they want, they don’t have to deal with looking at the menu, they make a healthy choice in their mind and they have a plan.

Let’s start with the peer pressure. What I tell my clients to do is to exercise their ‘no thank you’ muscle. Just be prepared that people are going to want to push food on you. Let’s say you’re out with your girlfriends and somebody wants dessert or somebody wants that extra glass of wine and they want you to have it too. A lot of it is they don’t want to feel bad that they’re having it and you’re not having it, because as women we feel like, “I shouldn’t be eating this either.”

Jen: It’s validation. If I do it and you do it, then I’m okay because you’re doing it too. That means everybody self esteem stays intact. If you say no, it’s going to force me to look at what I’m doing. Now I’m uncomfortable and I don’t want to be uncomfortable, so I’m going to pressure to do what I want you to do. It’s a lot to handle.

Lisa: Right. That’s where I tell them to practice, “No, thank you. I’m good. Really. Thank you. I’m good.” Just keep saying it. Eventually they’re going to stop asking.

Here’s what I tell people, especially when it comes to your family. Your mom or your grandma is going to say, “Have a little more. Do you want some?” No thank you. No thank you. Because here is what happens. If you eat something that you don’t really want to eat to make somebody else happy, now they’re going to be happy and you’re going to walk away unhappy because only you ingest those calories.

I never want my clients to eat to make somebody else happy.

Jen: A lot of times I think that people forget that we can use our words. There is so much power, whether it’s your grandma or your mom, to be able to give them what they need. So often these special people in our life are looking for the approval and validation and the love.

I actually help give my clients some scripts sometimes. “Mom, that was so amazing. I’d love to know exactly how you made that so I can recreate that in my kitchen when I have dinner party. Tell me how to make it.” Get them talking about the food so that you don’t have to eat it.

Lisa: That’s really good. I’m going to have to share that one as well, because that’s really good. I’m big on telling them no thank you, but I guess sometimes people are really persistent, especially if somebody has cooked a special meal. That makes it really hard. I never want somebody to feel bad about eating something that they prefer not to eat, because the truth is at the end of the day it’s still your choice.

Jen: It’s your choice and you’re the one that lives with that resentment and that impact on your body.

Lisa: Exactly.

Jen: This is why weight loss is more complicated than just food and exercise, because now we’re going into boundaries. Where are your boundaries? Where are your boundaries weak and who do you let cross over your boundaries? Who has that kind of influence in your life? This can often be an eye-opening piece for some people.

Lisa: It’s true. That’s what really makes this so hard. That’s another reason for getting support and accountability with somebody to help you navigate those obstacles, because depending upon how long you’ve been struggling with weight or how much weight you have to lose it could be a really long journey.

When you come up against that stuff or when you go sideways, sometimes you have the perfect physical plan or you have the perfect mental plan and then I hear from a lot of my clients when they go off they’re not off for a meal that they’re off for days, and then they have trouble veering back and getting back on board. When you have somebody that you’re working with, you can get back on immediately because you have support. You have somebody that you can say, “S.O.S I need help, I’m struggling.”

That’s the beauty about having a coach, because you don’t have to stay in two or three or five days, two or three pounds into it, before you get the help that you need to get your brain back on board.

Jen: I think you just touched on two really important points. One, exactly what you said, a coach lets you get right back on track. It’s like having an investment planner who looks at your money and say, “Nope. You need to save a bit more this month. You can’t do that vacation until next month.”

The other part was the length of the journey. Let’s dive into this. I was literally just at the grocery store before our interview and it said, “Lose 10 pounds in 72 hours,” and there was a picture of Jennifer Aniston that this headline was emblazoned over. I just felt fury in my bones. This is the crap that women see and think, “Oh okay, I’m going to do that,” because they feel desperate.

The length of the journey for weight loss, I tell my clients this and I think we’re going to be on the same page, is a lot slower than most women understand it to be. You have to give yourself time.

I also say losing the first 10 pounds is the first step. Whether you have 10 pounds or 50 pounds or 100 pounds to go, time is going to pass anyway.

How do you help people reconcile their present to the length of the journey and to the consistency required for it?

Lisa: I tell them right off the bat that if they’re looking for quick weight loss, I’m probably not the best person for them to work with because that’s not what I do and that’s not what I believe in, because it doesn’t work.

Each person is a little bit different. What I tell them is really slow and steady wins the race. Let’s teach you how to eat, let’s get you into a good routine. A lot of it is the mindset work that needs to take place.

Here’s what I tell people. Every time you make a better choice, every time you choose you over the food, every time you stay consistent – because my thing is how much and how often in seven days, because this way you get to live your life a little bit – the more consistent you are with each better choice, you’re getting closer and closer to your goal.

The focus isn’t really on the scale, because when people work with me they can weigh, they can not weigh, or they can step on backwards so only I know what they weigh, either way is fine with me. With each better choice that you’re making each week, each day, it’s about choosing you over the food, then the weight slowly starts to come off.

The most beautiful thing I hear from my clients is, “I don’t even feel like I’m on a diet.”

Jen: Exactly. That’s a critical piece. For listeners, if you’re somebody who has struggled with weight loss or has been yo-yo dieting, I think the one takeaway that you need to get is until you’re ready – and there has to be an emotional acceptance and readiness to commit to the journey – it will stay a struggle.

But, I also think you have to believe and have hope that it is possible for you. Both Lisa and I stand as models that it it’s possible for us; it’s possible for any woman out there.

Lisa: Here’s the thing, too, speaking about that. So many women – same with your clients, same with my clients – if they’ve struggled with this, they’ve failed so many times that they have so much self doubt, they don’t trust themselves, they don’t believe they can do it, and they look to give themselves an out.

Your belief system is so important to being successful and changing your story. If your story was “at this point in my life this is what happens, this is why I did this, and however many years later,” this is your life, you get to change your story. You get to recreate or create what you want in your life starting right now.

Believing that you could do it and working with somebody who helps you with your belief system to remind you why you need to love yourself more, to remind you why you matter, and have that belief continue through the journey until that muscle gets stronger and stronger.

Jen: I think that’s such a fundamental point of this and one that I want to make sure is touched on pretty much in every episode. It brought me back to a moment for me where my own self value was fairly low. Did I love myself? Sure, I probably did. But did I value, did I have that intrinsic ‘I matter’? No, I didn’t. Everything else and everybody else really did matter more and I had fallen off my own priority list, I wasn’t even on it.

Often the first step for women is getting back on their priority list. How can you change all of these other things if you can’t even recognize that you’re worth it? That’s the emotional piece sometimes, I find.

Lisa: Right. A big part of the journey is self care. That’s something that, especially with moms, I’m just like, “Put yourself on the priority list, and you have to put yourself on the top,” even though for a lot of moms that’s a really hard thing to do. When you’re your best version of you, everybody else in the family benefits.

Jen: That’s so true.

Lisa, I want to ask you about your book. Food Fight is such a good title.

Lisa: Thank you. I’m really excited about it. It just came back and here’s what it looks like. It just came out.

Jen: For those listening, I’ll put a picture on the show notes, but she’s holding it up and it’s a beautiful black cover and it’s a woman punching a burger.

Lisa: Food Fight: Winning the Battle with Food and Eating to Achieve Sustainable Weight Loss. It’s really about what I coach on; habit, behavior, and mindset change to be able to lose weight and keep it off for good. It’s in Kindle and in paperback on Amazon.com.

I kind of wanted to put it out there and it’s not a diet book, it’s not about finding the right plan and going on a diet, even though there are food combinations and there are recipes in there. It’s really about habit, behavior, and mindset change. There are things in there on self care and being mindful, mindfulness around food and eating. Those are really the main components of not just the weight loss, but the weight maintenance and making the loss sustainable.

Jen: Oh my gosh, I’m excited. I actually haven’t read it yet, so I’m excited that I’m going to get a chance to do that.

Lisa: I will send you a copy.

Jen: Thank you so much. If you had to share that message of inspiration or hope for women tuning in and listening, what would be your three main things that you want them to know in their heart of hearts as they are somewhere on the journey to getting healthier and seeing that permanent weight loss happen for them?

Lisa: Here’s the thing. First, they need to believe in themselves.

Here’s what I say to my clients. Put your hands on your heart, because this is where we feel. A lot of the stuff comes out of our head and that’s where we think. When you put your hands on your heart and you just tell yourself, “I love you,” to yourself, or you could use your name, and that you matter.

One, you have to believe. You have to just know that it is a journey, I call it a process of change. You have to be kind to yourself in the process. You have to speak nicely to yourself. You can’t put yourself down or berate yourself if you don’t do something. There is no perfect. On the road to your transformation you might stumble and fall, but if you’re committed you’re going to get back up and brush yourself off and keep on going.

I promise you that if you believe and you change the way you think and your mindset, and you change your relationship with food, and you choose you over the food, and you stay connected to the outcome, which is what you want for yourself, you’re going to get there.

Jen: Yes. Just to give yourself the grace of time to do it.

Lisa: Absolutely.

Jen: Lisa, thank you so much. It has been a pleasure to connect and to hear more about your philosophy and to talk about this and to really share. I guess my goal is to spread the message of what is true and discern fact from fiction in this bullshit world of dieting and this multibillion dollar industry that many engage in only to emotionally and almost physically damage themselves.

Lisa: Exactly.

Jen: Lisa, give us a shout out right now. We can find you at…

Lisa: LisaGoldbergNutrition.com

Jen: Perfect. We’ll have links for everything and you can connect with Lisa over social media as well. Thanks so much for tuning in, everybody. Lisa, thank you for being on the show.

Lisa: Thank you, Jennifer. It was great to be here.

Jen: We’ll catch you on the next episode. Have a super day.