Summary 

In this episode, we dive deep into the difference between discipline and deprivation in the context of weight loss and fat burning. Many high-achieving women, especially busy working moms, struggle with feeling deprived while trying to follow strict plans. But what if the real issue isn’t the plan itself? Instead, it's our thoughts about the plan and the emotions those thoughts create. Join us as we explore how shifting your mindset can transform your approach to weight loss, allowing you to achieve your goals without sacrificing joy or pleasure.

Be sure to check out my private podcast and discover the steps to burn stress + fat for lasting weight loss here: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why random cheat meals don't solve feelings of deprivation
• The common mistake of changing plans to combat deprivation
• Understanding the source of the deprivation mindset
• The importance of untangling food from relaxation and pleasure
• How embracing discipline can lead to pride and satisfaction in your journey

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Download the full transcript here.

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  Hey, my Unstoppable friends. Welcome back to the podcast today, we are talking about discipline versus deprivation. What I have found after talking with so many women, this is my own experience as well, is throwing in a random cookie every now and then popping in a weekly pizza night or a random cheat meal will never actually solve for the feeling of deprivation that I know so many women feel as they're trying to lose weight, burn fat, and hit their personal body goals. Trust me, I have tried it that way. I think you have too. And you and I both know that it doesn't really work to try to solve deprivation by throwing in random treats, random food every now and then. So many of you have told me over the past many years that I can double down. I can do really hard things, but something always comes in the way with Doubling down and working really hard when it comes to weight loss, especially when we don't address this piece because you haven't lost the weight you wanted, or maybe you've lost it, but you gained it back. You haven't been able to maintain it. It is very, very normal and natural to assume that to lose the way you want has to be a painful process. And it's probably why you haven't challenged the notion that deprivation should play no role. In your fat burning weight loss experience. And in fact, feeling perpetually deprived is going to be the ultimate reason that you quit on your strategy and undo all of your successes.

  Today on the podcast, I'm sharing exactly where this feeling of deprivation and fat burning weight loss actually comes from. And then I'm going to be talking you through a concept that I created called the R's and the P's where you can strategically pivot out of an experience of very powerless. and into really fire filled determination so that you can hit your goal in a way that feels powerful. And if you're listening to this episode in real time, I'm actually currently on vacation in some of the most beautiful and tropical places with my family. And I'm going to be sharing in real time over on Instagram stories, how I maintain my 60 pound weight loss without an ounce of deprivation when I'm on travel, when I'm traveling with my family, when I'm in hotels and Airbnbs and flying and driving, you know, long travel experiences over on Instagram and Instagram stories. So if you want to see exactly how I do this, it's a lot. A lot of my Instagram stories are very real talk. In the moment, I just throw my camera on and we just start to chatting. I will be over on Instagram, sharing on Instagram stories. So you can find me over @theunstoppablemombrain, that is my Instagram handle. And I highly suggest that you come and meet me there. I always am having such a good time. This is a podcast episode that I actually aired a little over a year ago. It was such a hit that I wanted to bring it back where I teach the concept of discipline versus deprivation. And if you don't see the visual video, it is only because if you're watching this on YouTube, it's only because video podcasting started for this episode originally aired. So without further ado, let's get into discipline versus deprivation and how understanding this concept at the core is going to shift something for you forever. When it comes to fat burning weight loss, let's get into it. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories, or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you. Ready? Let's get to it.

  Hey, Unstoppable friends. I'll This podcast episode today is a topic that I have been thinking about for quite a long while, and it's a topic that I think really especially affects high achievers and busy working moms, because I think, again, I've shared this before on the podcast, I think about high achieving working moms as having seriously two full time jobs that We're working really hard at, there is your mom, life, your mom role, and how you show up with your family and there is the work that you do in the actual workplace. To really talk about today's topic, which is deprivation versus discipline. I want to start by painting a picture. So I want you to settle in whether you're driving or on a walk to allow yourself to visualize this picture that I'm about to paint for you. You know that you want to feel better in your body and you know that you want to lose weight. You make a plan to do so, and you know that if you followed the plan, the number on the scale would absolutely trend down. But sometimes, or maybe often, the idea of following the plan doesn't feel good. You feel deprived. You know that you're working so hard at work and with your kids. You're a high achiever after all, so we already know that you're doing so much. It makes perfect sense that your brain is like, um, I'd like to be able to eat whatever I want. Thank you. I deserve it. I want it. And your plan is telling me, no, your plan is telling me I can't have it. And there in enters the struggle. The struggle is that we want a goal. We want to feel better. We want to lose weight, but there's this other side that is feeling deprived, feeling like we are saying no. When we just want a break before we really get into this, I want you to become aware of something first.

  Feeling of deprivation isn't ever coming from your plan, even if you've been doing the strict counting and the calories and the points, even if you've been logging and writing it all down, even if you have been putting every single limit in the world. Counting carbs and treats and sugar and flour, the feeling of deprivation is never ever coming from the plan. The reason that you ever feel deprived is because of something that you're thinking. You have some thoughts about the plan. You have some thoughts about your needs and wants, and there is the disconnect. Those thoughts are creating the feeling of deprivation. And it's really important to understand that before we really get deep into this episode. The biggest mistake that I see is when you start changing the plan to solve for the feeling of deprivation. You think, maybe if I put a cookie in every now and then, I won't feel deprived. Maybe if I have a cheat meal or a cheat day, I won't feel deprived. Maybe if I did the occasional ice cream or Friday night pizza, then I won't feel deprived. This is a mistake. This is trying to change a plan to create or solve for a feeling, but the plan never created the deprivation to start. So we start going down the wrong rabbit hole, changing the plan to throw in the occasional cookie or delectable delight is never ever going to solve the feeling of deprivation. So let's get into where the feeling comes from. Like I was just sharing a few moments ago, the feeling of deprivation comes from the thoughts that you're having. If you can pause the episode here and just take a few moments and explore what thoughts do you have about food and your wants and needs that ever leads you to feel deprived ever.

  If you're driving or you can't do this exercise right now, it's perfectly okay. Just make a mental note to come to this point in the episode to do this exercise. I'm going to share some familiar thoughts that I have experienced myself and that I have heard from my clients and I want to invite you to keep adding to this list. I want it and I can't have it. My needs aren't being met. Something is missing for me. I want something and I'm not getting it. I want it and I'm not supposed to have it. Let's just talk about for a moment, the underlying common link between all of these thoughts. Why does the flavor and texture of these sentences feel the same? It's because there is a fundamental need of yours. That you have that isn't being met. Now, I don't mean a fundamental need like food to survive or shelter, but humans have a fundamental need to have pleasure and relaxation. We aren't designed to feel stressed and pressured and hustle and worry all the time. And I know that this is something that might feel hard for the high achieving working mom to hear. Humans are most naturally at our most primitive level designed to avoid discomfort and seek pleasure. And I think that the biggest, biggest mistake that a high achiever can ever make is to believe that relaxation and pleasure is frivolous or wasteful. It isn't, it's necessary. You might have been brought up to believe that you need to work really hard to earn your breaks. But what I'm here to tell you is when you learn how to fold in breaks and rest, you will actually work better. Let me just say that again. You don't have to work hard to earn breaks. When you learn how to build in breaks into your life, you will work better. We've all experienced the truth of this. Believing that rest, relaxation, or pleasure is frivolous or wasteful is an expensive belief to keep. When you keep thinking that rest, relaxation, and pleasure isn't necessary, that it isn't important, or even that it's frivolous, you will keep feeling deprived on the other end.

  So how do we solve this? How do we start to unpack unravel and get to the other side? It starts with getting really intentional and thoughtful about creating rest, relaxation, and pleasure on purpose. And you have to teach yourself how to do this without food. Let me tell you why this might be challenging for you if this is the very first time you have embarked on such an exercise. It's because we have decades, literally decades, of using food to create emotional experiences. We have used food as a break from stress. We've used food to solve for boredom. We've used food to connect with loved ones, to celebrate special occasions and to infuse relaxation and pleasure. Really think about all of those real life examples. When you have a busy work day or a busy work week, or you're celebrating a special occasion or a big accomplishment, what is the very first thing that you think of? We think of food and this is not just you. I want to really normalize this. This is something that so, so, so many of us, most of us have really learned from the youngest age. Food has simply become intertwined with rest, relaxation, and pleasure. So it makes perfect sense that your brain offers it to you often. Now, here's what I want you to really see. The solution to reaching your ideal weight isn't to cut out more food. It isn't to get stricter on the plan. It isn't to count calories and points.

  The solution is to untangle food from rest, relaxation, and pleasure. I'm going to be totally honest. This is going to take some of your attention and effort, but I promise you it will be well worth it. And if you want to reach your ideal weight with more ease, this is a necessary step. You cannot feel deprived on the road there. And I want to tell you how strongly I feel about this because I know firsthand that high achieving working moms deserve more. When you hear yourself at the end of the night or at the end of your busy work week, when you hear yourself think, I just deserve a break, the answer isn't to muscle through that thought, to muscle through deprivation. The answer to that thought is hell yes, you do. Hell yes, you deserve a break because you've been working really hard. You're doing big things. What's important to really see here is what you're really deserving and what you're really wanting is rest, relaxation, and pleasure. So just take a few moments right now and ask yourself, if you didn't create rest, relaxation, and pleasure with food or alcohol, how else would you create this for yourself? Don't leave this to an in the moment decision, really make a long and comprehensive list in advance and then start getting to test them out. I want to share with you how really understanding this and doing this work and unraveling food from relaxation can become the gateway to discipline. When you have a plan now and you trust that you're going to meet your needs, that you're going to follow through and offer yourself rest and relaxation, I want to tell you what happens.

  When you get home at the end of a busy week and your kids are tucked in, you will want to actually follow your plan. Why is this? It's because you'll be thinking, I am so taken care of. My needs are being met. I will always take care of me. And you can more deeply see the truth that actually following your plan day after day is going to get you closer and closer to your goal. You start to see the truth that following your plan is for you and it's in service of you. Can you just feel the struggle falling away? Following the plan stops being hard because you aren't fighting deprivation along the way. Sure, it might not always be smooth sailing because your brain in her very habitually practiced way might say, Ooh, those microwavable notches would be so good right now. You simply can notice it and feel discipline coursing through you. You know that you just do what you say you're going to do. I'm going to get into a really specific example to further paint this picture. And I'm really pulling from my real life personal story in a time that I used to feel deprived versus times that I have felt disciplined. I've experienced both. And I want you to know that nothing else in my life changed my work life, my kids, my partner, my time, none of it changed for me to allow myself to shift gears out of deprivation into discipline. I'm also going to share with you how to know when you're operating from deprivation versus discipline.

  I'm going to call this the R's versus the P's. Stay with me. It's going to make sense in just a moment. I used to make plans that felt really reasonable. I didn't hate the plan and the plan had foods that I liked fairly well. But then I would get home after a long day, maybe I would have a middle of the night delivery, so I might've been a bit tired or I might've had a really challenging case or project that really stretched me. I might've even gotten a call from the principal about my kid or gotten into a squabble with my husband. After getting home at the first opportunity, I would be faced with a decision to follow the plan or not. In the moment, my brain would offer me, listen, you deserve a break. You've worked so hard today. You've had to deal with so much. You're getting no rest. You have a need that's being unmet. Now at this point in time, the idea of following my reasonable plan felt constrictive. I had two options. I could abandon my plan altogether and just make my microwavable nachos or I could muscle through. I could grit my teeth and force myself to stay on plan. Either of these options, whether I abandoned my plan or I muscled through led to the two R's. Let me tell you what that means. When I felt deprivation in the moment, I want to break and I'm not getting it. My basic needs for rest and relaxation are not being met. When I abandoned my plan, I felt regret 100 percent of the time. Let me say that again. When I feel deprived in the moment and because of deprivation, I abandoned my plan. I have felt regret 100 percent of the time, either right after the fact, or the next morning when I would step on the scale regret with the capital R or the alternative when I would muscle through my plan, I felt resentment 100 percent of the time.

  If I ever came into my plan feeling deprived and I forced myself to get through it, I felt resentment 100 percent of the time. I would then start looking around at all the people who get to eat all the things. I would look at my husband who eats three dinners and I would feel resentment with a capital R. Here's what I want to tell you about the two R's, regret and resentment. They will keep you from your goal also 100 percent of the time, and they will be the reason that you ultimately abandon or quit your goals. Here's what I want to really highlight. Why is this happening? It's because we aren't designed to live in a constant state of deprivation or regret or resentment. Your brilliant brain is going to want to solve this for you and she will do it with negotiating and second guessing and ultimately she will be offering you food. Here's what I want to tell you though. There is a solution to this and I like to think about the solution in the form of discipline. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that discipline is deprivation. They feel totally different in your body. Discipline really highlights the two Ps. Let me get into what that means. When I really did my own personal work, really unraveling and unmarrying food from pleasure and relaxation through coaching specifically, I got to uncover all of the thoughts that I was having about myself, about my work, about my kid, and about relaxation and rest. I really did the work through coaching to unmarry food and pleasure and Let me tell you what happens when you do this. When you separate food from relaxation and pleasure, you get home after a long day and you've been working really hard doing projects and answering emails. You might be tired or gotten a call from the principal or even gotten into a squabble with your partner. And that night when you settle in, you have already your relaxation ritual in place. It's not all about the food. And so when your brain naturally offers you those microwavable nachos, you're like, of course, listen, we are so taken care of right now. All of my needs are being met. You can meet that in the moment urge with so much more ease.

  You still have two options. You might still abandon your plan. It's possible. You might think, okay, those nachos sound really good. But honestly, the next day when you step on the scale or you feel uncomfortable, you can just note it that the notches were not so great and feel purposeful and get right back to where you were purposeful with the capital P or more likely what happens in that moment is because you feel ease and because you remind yourself that you are in fact taken care of that your rest and relaxation has been accounted for. You can stick to your plan with so much more ease. You don't have to muscle through deprivation because there's no deprivation. You feel discipline coursing through you. And let me tell you what happens on the other side of following your plan from that place. You feel serious pride and satisfaction. Let me tell you pride with a capital P is the best form of pleasure and purposeful and pride feels so much better than trying to muscle through deprivation. They're the cleanest, most natural forms of pleasure that you can give yourself on a daily basis. I think it's so important to highlight that high achieving working moms might have simply forgotten or never known that they can be high achievers and want big things and work hard and even work a lot of hours without feeling deprived. Let me say that again. You can be a high achiever and have big goals and work hard and work many hours without feeling deprived, which means that this is the road to the ultimate win win. When you know that there is a possibility to really fill the need of relaxation and rest and pleasure without food, you don't have to feel deprived in the work.

  Don't ever attach your status as being a high achieving working mom with deprivation. It's going to be a lose lose battle and it's going to feel like such a struggle. Your brilliant brain will look for coping mechanisms because she's designed to serve you. She's going to look for coping mechanisms and solutions that will often involve food, snacking and grazing when your body isn't actually hungry. I'm telling you that no strict plan that you write down in advance can ever actually solve this. And this is why I want high achievers to stop solely relying on a strict plan to reach their ideal weight. I want you to understand and learn that the other side is so much better. I want high achieving working moms like you to know that you have to feel better alongside reaching your ideal weight. They go hand in hand like two peas in a pod. If you want lasting forever results, you have to learn how to feel better, feel discipline and pride and accomplishment coursing through you as you reach your ideal weight. So the intention of today's episode was to dispel the myth that you ever have to feel deprived in your journey to reach your ideal weight. Don't ever mistake discipline for deprivation. Get familiar and really know where you are based on the two R's and the two P's. When you feel regret or resentment, ask yourself, have you been feeling deprived? How have you not been meeting your own needs for relaxation and rest without food? If it wasn't the job of your partner, your job, your kid, food to create relaxation and rest. How would you take ownership and agency of that? This opens the door for discipline and pride, and it's like a compass that will point you in the direction of your dream goal. Prioritizing rest and relaxation on purpose. I know sometimes this is really, really hard for high achievers because we have been trained from our youngest years to believe we have to work hard, but To earn rest and this episode is designed to challenge that it starts with believing and proving to yourself without a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact taken care of and that your needs are being met. I promise you, this is the best muscle to strengthen. Do some reps on this every single day. And those muscles will in fact, get stronger.

  I hope you found today's episode helpful, and it planted a seed of a new belief. You can achieve big things. You can reach your ideal weight, and you can feel proud and purposeful on the way. We don't ever have to put rest, relaxation, or pleasure on the line as you hit big goals. This one was such a good one for me to share with you. And I hope you enjoyed it. I hope that you loved today's episode as much as I loved resharing it today on the podcast. If you did, if you enjoy today's podcast episode, I would absolutely love it. Love it. And love you to the moon and back. If you could share this podcast episode. specific podcast episode with a friend or with your local mom's group over on Facebook. And if you can take an additional 30 seconds to leave this show a rating and review over on your favorite podcast platform, I would greatly appreciate it. I know that it is an extra step for you to take, but it really does just takes less than 30 seconds. It makes this show and the message and mission that we have here together much more findable By other professional women. And that is really what I want for the world of women that don't just want to lose weight, but really to address the way that we are losing weight through holistic approaches where you don't have to feel deprived along the way. And I have one more really exciting announcement. I shared this on the podcast earlier, but in just a couple of weeks on September 3rd, The Unstoppable Mom Brain is going through a little bit of an evolution. I'm going to be announcing the brand new name of the podcast, of my Instagram handle, of the website, and really the intention of me changing the name and me evolving Unstoppable is not at all to change my mission. It is still for professional working moms to feel unstoppable in your life, to lose weight in a way that feels truly empowering, but also I want the name of this podcast and really my mission to be a lot simpler and to really reflect the work that we are doing here. So I cannot wait to unveil the new name of the podcast and Instagram and my website in just a couple of weeks. Make sure that you are following along, subscribed to the show. You won't have to take any new steps, but I wanted to let you know that that was coming. I hope you guys all have an amazing week next week's episode. I'm going to be talking all about back to school, having a back to school reset. If you feel like you need a reset after the summer, don't worry, have an amazing week friends.

  I will see you next time. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com.