Willpower vs. Systems: Why Your Diet Fails & How to Fix Your Relationship w/ Food | Sohee Carpenter

29:47So as soon as I let myself actually eat more calories on a day-to-day basis and also feel less deprived with my food choices. One, I started liking the way I ate more, right? And then I felt, because I felt less deprived, I didn't have the urge to binge one away for me. And when I did that, of course, my actual day-to-day calorie intake actually dropped. And then over the course of like, I want to say eight months or so, I lost like 10 pounds without trying. and this was about 10, maybe 10 plus years ago. And I was so amazed because I was like, I'm actually trying, I'm putting in less effort and I'm getting, I'm losing weight when I'm trying less.

30:34And I was like, oh my God, I feel like I've understood something that I really didn't get before. And that was a moment? Oh, it was huge. Yeah, and it really changed a lot of my messaging. And I've continued to evolve my messaging since then, but it really highlighted to me, okay, it's really not about trying harder. Which is counterintuitive basically to, I think, a lot of messages out there. This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. If coffee is what gets you through the morning, but also what leaves you jittery, unfocused, or crashing by mid-afternoon, you're not alone. A lot of people are using coffee to push through.

31:08I might be one of them. But not actually support their brain. And that's why Four Sigmatic's Focus Organic Dark Roast is different. You're getting a premium organic Arabica coffee blend with Lion's Mane. And hey, I'm talking Mufasa style and Chaga mushrooms. Lion's Mane supports focus and mental clarity. And because it's adaptogenic, it helps smooth out the spike and crash cycle that caffeine alone can cause. If you're thinking, hmm, gross, does it taste like mushrooms? The answer is no, but it's smooth, full-bodied, dark roast with subtle chocolate notes. It tastes like real coffee. And if flavor wasn't enough, Four Sigmatic third-party tests their coffee for mold, mycotoxin, pesticides, and heavy metals.

31:54It's also one of the best-selling functional coffees at retailers like Target, Whole Foods, with over 100 ,000 five-star reviews. And right now, listeners of this podcast can get a free bag of their best-selling dark roast ground coffee. Just pay shipping and handling. Go to foursigmatic.com slash Gabrielle. That's F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C dot com slash Gabrielle. When you work with people, you have online coaching and do this stuff. What is it for most people? Is there a theme that you see? In terms of like the nutrition mistakes that they make? Yeah. So if someone's listening to this and they're going, you know what?

32:41I have been trying so hard and I don't want to do a GLP-1. I want to do it with nutrition and training and increasing my activity. So back like the old school way, we could call it the old school way. how can they what would be the first step in beginning to unpack or reposition their mind around dieting to overcome that particular aspect yeah one thing that okay so this really changed my perspective a lot for me what clicked for me was understanding it's not about because I used to believe that the stricter I was the more miserable I was the better the results I was going to get I now think, and this was about 10 years ago, I had this revelation.

33:25It's not about making things as strict as possible. It's about removing as many pain barriers as you can and removing as many obstacles while mitigating how much extra effort you have to exert to see the results you want to see. Do you think about food now? Only in like, I'm really excited to eat dinner. Like that sounds great. That sounds, but not in, not in the obsessive food noise way that I had before. So I can, and a lot of people will relate to this. And a lot of, a big reason why a lot of people will take GLP ones is that it eliminates food noise, you know? And when I was binge eating, my food noise was constant.

34:02I do not have that anymore where I can, I cannot tell you how freeing it is to be able to eat a meal, feel actually satisfied and move on with your day without, and going like four or five hours without having to think about food. Isn't that, it's amazing. It's so freeing. And I know, and a lot of people have never experienced what it's like to not have food noise. Is there sustainability in the way in which you are thinking about nutrition? Now? Yeah. Absolutely. I would say, I would describe myself as an intuitive eater now. I wasn't even 10 years ago. I was still heavily macro tracking. I was all about flexible dieting.

34:38And that's also, but now let's take a pause. Intuitive eating. And again, you went to Stanford, also have a master's in psychology, also just completed your PhD. Congratulations. Thank you. I have always believed in evidence-based, right? Don has trained me. If I say something wrong, he'll call me like, why did you say it that way? And then comes along intuitive eating, which by the way, think about that just conceptually is it doesn't make scientific sense at all. but there is a level of freedom yeah that comes from being able to trust and i say this cautiously because it's a skill by the way it's a learned skill yeah yeah and i think uh the thing with and i used to i used to be like intuitive eating sounds that doesn't work i would sound like we need some tarot cards 50 pounds heavier cards and essential oils yeah like frou-frou but the thing is uh there is actually a growing body of research in support of intuitive eating not for weight loss It's not, the purpose is not for weight loss, which a lot of people say, I'm intuitively eating my way to weight loss.

35:42That's not true. That's not intuitive eating. But what, well, what is intuitive eating? There's a really, so intuitive eating, I'm going to, in the simplest terms is a huge principle is, is of course honoring your physical hunger and fullness cues. But another, there's, there's multiple principles to it. a lot of uh one principle that a lot of people do not know about actually is the concept of gentle nutrition which is one of the last steps gentle nutrition it's the last step of the intuitive eating process and that's the part that i think is really important where you are still actually making choices that honor your health while also honoring your your personal preferences so for example um have you heard of the concept of like i don't restrict in nutrition and i've never heard of gentle eating okay okay yeah yeah oh great we're talking about it so the idea of add don't restrict a lot of dietitians love to talk about it i didn't come up with it but i love i'm a huge proponent of it is the idea that they say have what you want add what you need and you you don't have a food restriction mindset and so for example let's say um i want a pizza we know that pizza is not like the most nutritious meal necessarily but maybe you'll add if you're making your own pizza you'll be like i'm gonna add some bell peppers i'm gonna add some mushrooms I'm going to add some onions.

36:57I'm going to have a side salad with it so I can get in some extra veggies. And maybe, you know, it's got like two slices of pepperoni. I'm going to add some more protein on that. So you're adding in the nutrients that you need. And I love this because from my learnings from food psychology, we want to keep people out of the restriction mindset as much as possible with nutrition. So it's not necessarily about actually. So obviously, we know people have like dietary, legitimate dietary. Basically, what you're saying is pizza is not its own food group. this is not your ideal choice and that's also like not a rule either so i i'm like okay if you do that like a lot of the time and they occasionally you have a cheese pizza a greasy cheese pizza by itself that's also fine too because again i don't want to have rigid food rules but a lot like this is my this is my approach is what we teach our clients if you have you know a wrap and there's one slice of thin deli meat can you be like can i get it at some extra protein on that And this is add, don't restrict.

37:55Add, don't restrict. Or like I'm going to add some, like one of them, I love eating ramen, for example, but we know it's not like, I would not recommend an all ramen diet. Yes, she does. Any sponsors for ramen? But sometimes they'd be like, I'm going to add an egg. I'm going to add another source of protein, like a handful of chicken. I'm going to add some beans to it for the fiber, you know? Okay, so then what is the psychology of what is it that when we restrict something makes us course correct the opposite way more intensely? There's a lot of different theories out there. The big one I'm going to go with, and again, it's very complicated.

38:32My interest with all of this, I really honed in on the idea of willpower, right? Everyone says, you need more willpower, you need more discipline. The problem is willpower feels fatiguing. Willpower feels fatiguing. And the way, the analogy that a lot of scientists use is that you have one source of willpower, like a battery, that gets drained by multiple sources. Do you believe that? So there's a lot of, there's some controversy now. but basically that's why I and there's also some research saying the key to behavior change is not in relying on willpower willy-nilly with brute force it's about being more strategic about when you use willpower and I think the smarter way to do it is I'm going to use willpower to do to form new habits to form the healthy habits that I want to have in my life because the key feature of habits is that they are cognitively not fatiguing.

39:38They're automatic. So the more healthy habits or the more pro-goal habits you have in your life, the easier it is for you. That is fascinating. How does someone begin to instill a habit that requires a lower cognitive load? Yeah. There's a lot of ways to do this. so the most effective way that you have seen especially when it comes to body weight and nutrition yeah so i would first first do a nutrition i would do an audit first of all like because everyone's going to have a different thing and what i would do is probably identify a few key behaviors we can modify in your life that i think will make a big difference without like excessive amount of effort okay give me an example um someone wants to lose 30 pounds they've never they they don't know anything about protein they've never um done a proper like a reasonable diet in their life they have a history of crash dieting and they go from extreme diet to completely given up right that's pretty common and then you're like okay tell me about what you eat they're like okay from for breakfast i have a pizza i have a pizza and i have a venti extra large latte with all the sugar and this and this and this um and then for lunch i have a box of donuts.

40:53And then for dinner, I have a lasagna and then a tub of ice cream or something like that. And while it's dead sound extreme, we do have clients coming up to us where that is their normal diet. And I would say, okay, how about this? We're going to do, and I think it's important to give them a certain level of autonomy as well and be like, okay, here's some things that we can do. What do you want to choose? I think, how about, would you be willing to, instead of 12 donuts in one sitting, would you be willing to reduce it to six? And then instead of remove the six donuts and then add in, so you have six donuts, take away the other six, then we're going to add in like a protein shake or a meal replacement shake or something that's going to, you know, give them a little bit more protein because we know their protein needs work.

41:38Their sugar intake is through the roof. Fiber intake is like non-existent, you know, things like that. You're like, okay, there's so much move for improvement that even the most modest changes will actually elicit a lot. How about instead of your extra large latte in the morning, how about a small? Okay, you don't do a small, how about a medium? I get the picture. Yeah. How long does that phase last? Depends on the person. It can go weeks, it can go months. This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. When the holidays wind down, what you usually want isn't another planner or productivity hack. You want sleep.

42:11I mean, I know I do. And if you're a parent, you want sleep that doesn't feel like a negotiation. For me, a fresh start begins at home and one of the easiest resets I've made going to the new year is upgrading our bedding with Cozy Earth's Baja Bedding Set. It's a complete matching set, which I'll show you if you look at some of my videos, with sheets, duvet cover, quilt inspired by the textures and colors of Baja California. The fabric is incredibly soft, breathable, and has a reversible design. Listen, you just slide in there even when the rest of the house is crazy. And here's the thing, when you sleep better, you recover better.

42:49And that doesn't matter whether you're training hard or working long days. We need recovery and we do need rest. So what I appreciate is that Cozy Earth stands behind their products. You get a 100 night sleep free trial, no pressure, 10-year warranty and if you don't think it's comfortable you can send it back so start the new year's right that is not with partying but with rest go to cozyearth.com use my code drlion for 20 % off that's cozyearth.com and then you use the code drlion my thing is i don't want to make drastic changes unless i have to and if we can see if we can get you to see the progress that you want to see if we can get you moving in the right direction while things still feel easy why would i want to make things harder that's my take yeah i you know oftentimes people will come in and again as people are learning more and listening and getting more information a lot of people will come in and say okay i want the best diet plan give me the best diet plan yeah or they're like if it's not extreme it's not worth doing and if it's too modest they're like i don't want to do it.

44:00But… It was just how I used to think too. Yeah. Exactly. Perhaps in order to set people up for success, what you're saying and what it seems like some of the evidence supports is depending on where someone starts, the standard American diet and all of those things that you mentioned are very high in the standard American diet. I think pizza is one of the number one foods eaten. I think that it's the number one source of saturated fat. And it's so good. Yeah. I don't really like pizza. Really? No, I haven't been good. Yeah, I know. But instead of, you know, as I reflect, I think because as we are now, you know, professionals, if you think back to when you started, when I started working with people, I actually started working with people before I was in, was I in med school?

44:51With their fitness? Yeah. Okay, cool. And nutrition because I studied nutritional sciences in my undergrad. Okay. And then when I graduated, I started doing programs for people. Oh, okay, cool. And instead of doing it that way, I would say, okay, here's your boiled chicken. Here's your chicken breast. Yeah, that was the norm. And it probably would have been so much more effective to start where people are. what I think is very eye-opening is that the longer you go in practice like you and I have been the more perspective we have for all of the patients or people that we have treated you look back and you're like oh I should have done this and this right and it's this kind of evolving experience yeah yeah yeah I mean you don't know what you don't know that is one way to do it so this is the adding not subtracting yep but when it comes to fat loss specifically the way that you would use the add, don't distract, not subtract, or the add, don't restrict, the goal of that would be displacement by addition, right?

45:52So you displace the calories by adding in more filling, like protein and veggies. Talk to me through that a little bit. And we're talking about changing habits. So basically when it came down to, so what you're doing is you're integrating the science of nutrition plus the behavior change. Yes. Right. And the habit is not to completely obliterate someone's plan because the reality is it's like if someone wants to start a workout plan maybe they shouldn't start a crossfit as their first ever or if they if they if they're like i really hate sprinting and you're like well too bad you're doing sprints day one and every day they're like they're not going to stick to it for a long time and the same the same idea applies to nutrition where the norm is to cut out all their favorite foods because i think they're automatically bad and have to go and i'm like no i want you to keep your favorite foods as much as you can but can we be a little bit more judicious about a little bit more intentional about um our portions so step one is really repositioning portioning yeah as well as adding in for example protein and then the other easy thing you can do too is again when you talk when you do an audit you're like oh i see you uh like to eat this handful of the candy bowl at your desk when you're working are you even paying attention to the candy when you're they're like no i'm in a eating and I'm putting it in my mouth because I'm bored and you're like okay so they're actually mindless calories that you don't even enjoy if if you're not gonna miss them if we take it away why don't we get rid of why don't we move again from a behavior change standpoint why don't we move the candy bowl to somewhere that is more inconvenient for you to access even simple things like changing it from a clear bowl to an opaque bowl and putting it at the back of the closet where you can't it's not an arm's reach anymore where you have to stand up open the closet grab above steps, dual, da-da-da-da-da, you make it harder for you to get to, the easier thing is to not eat it.

47:41So why don't you make the default behavior the thing you will actually want to do and the thing you don't want to do less of, can you, how can you make that behavior more inconvenient for yourself? How can you make that behavior more inconvenient? Yep. That is a good strategy. Do you have another, another habit changing tip or a way of thinking about it? So basically what you want to do is, this is not my quote, you want to design for laziness. Okay. My husband will love hearing Yeah, yeah. So there's an example. This is not mine. I think I read it in a book. I was like, oh, that makes complete sense.

48:10So there was an anecdote of a guy who wanted to practice his guitar more often. And he was like, oh, I'm going to do like 20 minutes a day. It's great. He put the guitar in his closet. That was enough for him to completely forget that it was there. Because visibly, the visual cue is gone, right? So the way a habit works is you have the habit loop, right? You have the cue or the trigger or the prompt. This is the thing that says, do this now. So if you pick up your phone, it might be because someone's ringing you, right? That's your trigger. In terms of the guitar playing, he needed the visual cue of like, oh, I see it.

48:48He didn't have the cue. He put it away. He forgot it was there. So because the trigger was removed, the behavior doesn't happen. And he was like, okay, this isn't happening. What am I missing? Okay. What I did was, okay, I pulled the guitar out of the guitar, oh, sorry, out of the closet and I put it in the living room where I would pass it every day. So now I can see it. I became a lot better at remembering to practice because the cue is there. So what can you do to whatever it is you want to do? For example, if you are in the, you want to get in the habit of taking creatine or your daily medication, but you always forget because it's in the cupboard.

49:18What I do with my prenatals right now, cause I'm pregnant. I didn't know if we were going to talk about that. Yeah, it's fine. I was like, I may as well, I'm going to use my own example. Okay. Um, I went a period of time where I was so spotty with my prenatal daily intake and I was like duh I can use my own knowledge of behavior change to make this better I put it on my coffee machine because it was away in the cupboard you mean you put it on your coffee machine looking at your coffee machine that you can only have 200 milligrams of caffeine a day uh when you're pregnant in case you are listening or someone is pregnant which is the biggest mistake ever and then what I did from my perspective And then what I did was now a very popular term is called habit stacking, where you pair a new behavior that you want to turn to a habit with an existing daily habit.

50:06Right? And what do I do every single day at home is I'm in my kitchen, either making breakfast or making lunch. So as I'm getting ready to make my meal and sit down, I see my prenatals and I'm like, I'm going to take those out and sit down with me and I'll pop it in before I eat. so yeah someone thinking about how they are going to change their diet would you have them pretend it's not a supplement right what if it's i mean you're not going to put a chicken breast on the counter but how would they start to think if they are someone who is not really interested in eating healthy but we know that we have to get them there okay so i'm going to tell you about two really cool studies that kind of that illustrate this point um so there was one study where they took a hospital cafeteria, okay?

50:53And what they did was, all they did was very quietly, they changed the placement of bottled water versus soda and other no-calorie-laden drinks in the cafeteria. So they moved the water bottles to the front, or they had them in the back where you had to open the fridge and literally go like this, reach a little bit more to access the water. that was enough to significantly change water bottle water consumption fluid consumption there was another study where there was um you know those ice cream freezers where you there's a sliding door and whatever um leaving it open people grab more if you leave it shut and they have to do this they're like yeah we are really simple people we're simple not people we are simple creatures so this is what i mean when i say design for laziness and it sounds negative it's really not how can you use that to your advantage okay how can you uh in your fridge can you make the foods you want to eat more of put in my eye level and marketing psychologists know this already put it at eye level put it where it's easier to reach not behind the the you know the fried food and this and that or the sodas put them in front your protein shakes readily as soon as you open your fridge i want to see it right away so there's the visual cue and it's also easier for me to grab it, make it more likely.

52:15If I have my protein powder, you know, on my counter, I'm more likely to meet my protein target versus if it's in the back of my pantry. Because I think of it, I'm like, I don't want to do that. If someone has tendencies towards, let's just say, binging, or they, for example, Friday night comes along and they have done really well all week and they have movie night with their kids. It's like popcorn movie night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. I know, totally. And it's not on their plan. Yeah. And they fall off their plan. Okay. How do you reorient people to get right back on there? Because now we haven't taken them in a very restrictive way, which I can really appreciate that.

53:01And it takes a lot of pressure off of people and then they don't – they're not failing all the time yeah yeah right my okay so my very first thought when you were bringing up that example was how can i incorporate the popcorn into your plan and my and my next thought was why can't it be part of your plan you know and so there are ways to small things like okay you can have your popcorn but does it have to be a bucket size because we know that the more of a certain meal that you eat the less you enjoy it over time okay that is yes can you pause there because I want to tell you a little story, which I've never, I've never even told you.

53:42Oh, I'm interested. I don't even know if I'm going to keep it in the podcast. When I was in college, I competed. I competed in fitness. Okay. And after a show, you're, at least for me, I was like off the rails. A hundred percent. I had dieted down so low and I wouldn't even say it was this dysmorphic association with my body. I'd like starved myself. So I went, do you remember insomnia cookies? Yes. Do they still around? Yeah. Okay. I probably got 12. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. and sitting in my room in college totally feeling terrible that i'm eating i got to three and then by four i was like this doesn't even i can't even believe this number one it's not even enjoyable anymore yep my stomach hurts i'm still eating it it doesn't taste good there was diminishing returns yeah i i fully relate to that okay what is that you know what i don't know the answer to that but i would be curious to know i wonder it has to do with dopamine responses or something similar but it's it's i mean i think we can all really like oh i get that because if we know that's going to happen then that fourth cookie it's not going to make you happy yeah but i think there's a lot of all or nothing mentality there where you're like well one i've already committed to this i've already bought all this whatever two uh tomorrow i'm never gonna i'm not i'm gonna go right back to my strict diet anyway so this is my last chance last chance syndrome right this is my last window of opportunity to to eat as much as I can so even if I'm not enjoying it I should eat it because this is my window right now and I think that's a very very calm I had that I would I would remember in the middle of a binge I had this logical thought where I'm like I'm not even enjoying this this isn't even yum this is dry this is stale but tomorrow I can't eat it so you better eat it now I did that too and I wonder you know I'm curious for the people that are listening I would love to hear if you guys have experienced this because maybe it's an age thing when you're in your 20s i don't know do you have um more mature clients that suffer from this now yes you do yes okay yeah um so it's not necessarily just an age thing and it can be a restriction but yeah but i do think that in general i would say mindless eating is a huge problem and especially if you're um there is research when you're distracted you are more likely to eat a higher calorie intake.

56:18Is there any data or have you had any experience or would you have any advice for someone who is in the middle of a binge or a behavior and they just happen, God willing, to turn this podcast on or watch it on YouTube and they're listening to this and they're kind of in an out of control cycle? Do you think, is there something that we could tell them to stop them in their track? The thing that's so hard about binge eating is that when you're in the middle of a binge there's almost no reasoning with you you're not being logical and you know it and you it it almost feels like an out-of-body experience i would describe it as for me i felt like i was watching myself from above like an aerial view and i had no control of what i what my body was doing right and so even you can see all the logical this and that you want no you're in this mode it's hard to snap out of it but when you're when you're not binging uh no when you're not actively binging but still struggling with binge eating it's easier to be like okay let's get to get to the root of why you're struggling um one you're not the problem which can be um really validating for people who continually think why am i so weak why am i like this to another another big reason why people struggle with binge eating actually has something to do with food itself a lot of it is um poor stress coping mechanisms when you um have poor emotion regulation skills or non-existent emotion regulation skills.

57:42And every time you're stressed, you're bored, you're something, you turn to food as a self-soothing behavior, right? So we go back to the habit loop. We have the cue or the trigger. In this case, the cue is an unpleasant emotion. The behavior is the binge eating. You turn to food as a distraction. The reward is that you're temporarily, you don't experience the negative emotion temporarily. But of course, it perpetuates It's a problem because, and the problem in this case is that the cue is always going to happen. I don't think it's ever realistic to say, never be sad again. Do we become more resilient to the cue?

58:18We want to expand our toolbox so we're better able to handle the emotions. So the goal is not to never feel the emotions again. The goal is to have better tools in our toolbox. So if I'm stressed, I'm not immediately turning to cookies. Maybe I'll call a friend. Maybe I'll go for a walk. Maybe I'll go do a hard workout, you know, something that's, and then you have multiple options. That way it's not always every time I'm stressed, I eat to a thousand extra calories. Do you think there's a way to lower the... The salience of the stressor meaning your mom is annoying not my mom mom I'm not talking about you but when you're in college, just say you get a family member annoying call.

59:08In your 20s, it could throw you off. It's a huge deal. It's a huge deal. You have a big reaction to it. Huge reaction. Eventually, you hope that over time you mature out of that. And that's just one example. How can someone change the interpretation of the cue? Yeah. So the reframes are super important, right and basically uh okay so going back to that it would be like the trigger would be you get an annoying phone call from a family member your reaction is huge stress response and if how can you reduce the stress response is is going back to the reframes and i think one thing too you can say okay you're having all these thoughts in your head so we have what we call cognitive distortions right we have them all the time there's all different types of cognitive distortions i never Where you have, for example, like, I never get the pronunciation right.

1:00:08Catastrophization. Right? That's an example of one. I'm great at it. Right? Tell us what that is. Tell us what it is. You know what a catastrophe is? Is when you, in your mind, you're like, oh my God, everyone. Whatever. This is going to happen. And you blow your perception of something completely out of proportion. or like you know if I don't get a straight A's on my report card my my world is gonna end life is not worth living anymore big big big reactions right um there's also there's a lot but like another example is like monkey mindedness or or um believing that like you you know exactly what other people are thinking about you everyone hates me they're all judging me they hated my talk they're this and that you're like you don't know that that's true right so what you can do is what are your thoughts in your head what is the evidence that that's true and when you do a little bit more digging all times you find okay um i'm actually making this up where's this coming from oh it's because i'm sensitive to this and that i really care about what other people think um you think that um you know you think dr gabrielle hates you why do you think that oh because of this okay but what other evidence is there there isn't really have you ever read byron katie's work the work um i know i'm familiar with her though okay no of her she i'm probably gonna get this wrong but i'm gonna just go yeah it goes something like this you and there's a you know it's a i think it's a four-step process but it is the statement okay dr gabrielle you know doesn't like me and then the the statement is do you know it's true what evidence do you have yeah how would you respond if it wasn't true.

1:01:50And then there's one more thing. There's like a turnaround. If people do that, do you think that then that lowers that cognitive load of the cue? I think it can. I think it's easier for some people than others, depending on how much of a hold that has on them and how willing they are to change. And I think it can be like a several year long process for some people and another thing too is you know taking a step back and having a bit of more of a bird's eye view of of life in general like is okay is this really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things like for example for me a huge something that used to strike a trigger a huge stress response is uh if I didn't get to do my workout exactly the way that I planned like for example if I something happened in my day and I had 20 minutes less for my workout than I wanted I would have a meltdown right and then that might then maybe turn me to like I'm not gonna do my workout at all.

1:02:43I'm going to turn to food instead. Whatever, right? So obviously now you self-sabotaged. You've had a, you're, you're, you're very upset. You're snappy. You're moody. I was, I would get very moody, you know, and I didn't do any of the things that I wanted to do. So how can I break myself out of that? So then I realized, okay, it took me a long time to learn this. A 40 minute workout is still better than zero minutes, even if it wasn't the full 60 minutes that you wanted and really learning to understand, accepting that good enough is still good enough. And you can actually get quite far with good enough consistently done.

1:03:22Yeah. And when you were studying psychology, did you have these breakthroughs or were these things that, because your PhD is, why don't you tell me what your PhD is in? Resistance training in women. Yeah. It was not psychology. There wasn't a psychology. Yeah, I kind of switched. Yeah. I mean, listen, you probably mastered. I had multiple interests. Do you know, I did psychiatry for two years. Oh, amazing. And then I was very interested in the mind as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And over a period of time, it either becomes the path, right? So maybe you go become a psychiatrist or maybe you become a therapist or you use that in your toolbox to then really help people begin to find their strongest, most resilient self.

1:04:08Was there one thing that you really learned? So it sounds like the habit reframe was huge for you in terms of how a habit is formed. So it's a cue, response. What was after that? Reward. Reward and then the cycle. And then it goes in. Was there something else or anything else in your studies or something that is like, man, I wish I had known this and I wish everybody knows that. So actually my master's thesis was on dichotomous thinking towards foods. which is the all or nothing mentality towards food. And again, stemmed from my personal interests and from my own personal struggles for years and years and years.

1:04:46And I administered a survey, analyzed a survey, da-da-da. And the conclusion was, and people who have gone through this will not be surprised. The more all or nothing mindset you have towards food, the higher the likelihood of binge eating. We want to be more flexible. We want to sit in the gray area. I like to say the gray area more. This makes me worry about the diets that we're seeing, the novelty so there's the carnivore diet it just makes me think for those that are on the carnivore diet that is really restrictive and all of these diets are potentially if what you're saying is true yeah gonna set people up for a really rough patch yeah it's there's a lot of things happening that are quite concerning nowadays but in general i'm very skeptical of diets that exclude food groups uh barring medical restriction like if you have an allergy or something that's obviously different um and obviously if you have a genuine preference to not eat something that's also different right because there's a difference between like the vegan diet yeah like there's a genuine preference between uh like i difference there's a difference between genuinely not wanting to eat something like i don't really like um for example like i'm not a dark chocolate person so if i never eat it again i'm not going to be sad about it right but if i am if they're like you could never have lattes ever again and i'm like oh my god then i'm going to feel deprived right so for me it's about minimizing the feelings of restriction not about what are you actually excluding from your diet that to me is really important is how are you doing mentally and also how mentally satisfied do you feel from your food that is a really good perspective you know on this show we talk a lot about the evidence base you know donna and i talk all the time we talk about this study we talk about the anabolic threshold yeah but we don't talk very often about the psychological infrastructure that is required for people to be successful for the long term.

1:06:36And one of the things that you've said before is that motivation isn't the secret, but systems are. Can you unpack that a little bit? Yes, and by motivation, I'm specifically referring to, there's different types of motivation. I'm referring to extrinsic motivation, right? So when we're like, I don't want to do my workout, but let me go pull up this YouTube video that's going to get me amped up and whatever. Like that's a form of extrinsic motivation. Does it work? Does that work? Short term. It can work short term. Or if I'm like, I really hate this style of workout and I hate this diet, but I have this really important gala coming up that I want to fit into this dress for this event.

1:07:17And so I'm going to do this thing that I don't enjoy for the sake of this other goal. That's more being extrinsically motivated. Extrinsically or intrinsically? Or I'm going to the gym only because my friend is forcing me to go and I don't want to be there. Right. She's forcing me to do it. Versus we have, again, different levels of intrinsic motivation where I'm like, I love the way it makes me feel. I genuinely like the exercise by itself. Or I have a deeper why. It's more than about like, I want to fit into these changes. It's maybe like, for example, for me right now, I have, even though I've been exercising consistently for over 20 years, my motivation for exercising is even more meaningful now because it's about a healthy pregnancy too, right?

1:08:03We know exercise is so good for pregnancy. And so it's yet another reason for me to keep doing what I'm doing with my resistance training and with my running. And so I'm like, my why is so, so deep, right? And I want to just pause on that. It's extraordinary. how much we're able to do for someone else, not ourselves. Yes. Can I tell you something? Yes, please. I had, exactly to your point, when I was doing a day collection for my PhD, my training study, right? I was studying resistance training in women, as I said. So I would go to the campus lab and train women. And I had one participant in particular, she said at the end of the study, she said, you know what?

1:08:44I was really struggling with my exercise adherence before when I was by myself. But as soon as I heard about your study and I volunteered, it was really easy for me to show up because I was doing it for you. She said, I was contributing to your PhD and to your research, and it was so easy to show up for you. I couldn't show up for myself consistently. I thought that was so interesting. Even though I had never, I didn't know who she was before. She only knew me from online. And she was like, oh, I'm doing this for the greater good of someone else. I think that that's where community, you know, in medicine and in health and wellness.

1:09:18and maybe it's just human behavior, there's a lot of division. But the division, you know, if we really think about what it is that we're doing, we want a better, stronger world, right? It's not about dividing. And I think that it's so much easier when we show up for others and a movement, you know, like what we're doing here for House of Strength. yeah it's not about i mean you girls are working really really hard um and you're pregnant so you're also working exponentially hard but it's it's easier because you're showing up for other people how do we move to intrinsic motivation like that i don't think extrinsic motivation is useless it's still useful for example obvious example you're in a race you're in a 5k whatever you're getting tired you're in the last like little hundred meter sprint whatever and you're like i want to give up and then you see you see your parents you see your boyfriend your whatever you see people in the crowd screaming your name and all you get this burst of energy right you're like ah you have this heroic dash to the finish that's extrinsic motivation it is helpful but it's not enough as lasting for lasting behavior change to happen right uh so the intrinsic it's more about I think getting people to be a little bit more introspective and sometimes they have a deeper why but they don't know it.

1:10:51About what matters. About why they're doing. And for a lot of parents a huge part of it is I want to be around for my kids. I want to be I want to be able to keep up with them as they grow up you know. I want to be able to chase them up and down the stairs run across the field with them. That's super meaningful. It's not motivation in order to have this desire this ability to to take the next right step the discernment you have to understand where it's coming from because you'll always be able to fall back yes and one there's one exercise that you can do which a lot of people like this is really annoying but i'm like but it can be really eye-opening is it's called the five whys sometimes i pull it back to the three whys where you say you're like i want to lose 20 pounds why because i'll look in this dress why does that matter to you uh because i will get compliments from others why does that matter to you why is that important you keep going you keep going you keep going and sometimes they get down to the root of whatever it is um then my mom will stop whatever my mom will stop criticizing me or we know who knows what it is it's always different for people right there's always a reason do you use it yes and i i always kept i'm like you might roll your eyes at this but bear with me let's do this together because some people are like this is stupid why would i stop asking me this question but it's uncomfortable because you're forcing them oftentimes to think about their reasoning at a level that they're not used to you know they're not used to that level of introspection and again what you're talking about is something we haven't really talked about this in i don't know we've been podcasting for three years or so we i mean i've touched on psychology but not really this is good this is really good for people i mean there's i mean there's so many directions i can go and another one you can do to instill behavior change without relying on discipline is um where you change your perceived identity of yourself so you say like yeah like i want to be a runner right i want to be a marathoner whatever uh as an example you're like cool what does a marathoner do they do xyz things cool they will um plan their workouts in advance they'll lay out their clothes the night before they'll eat in this and that way um they'll plan out they're like these are my running sessions I'm going to do on these days of the week.

1:13:00Okay, cool. Then you go do that thing. So the next step is, okay, if you say you want to be a marathoner, why don't you now identify, you identify now. I'm someone who runs a marathon. I'm someone who trains for a marathon. You're that person now, even if you're not there yet, if you already perceive yourself to be that way, you're more likely to act in alignment with that identity. That could be actually very fun. Yeah, it's really effective. If you tell yourself, I'm not a morning person, you're more likely to hit that snooze button. If you say, no, I'm a morning person, I love getting up before the sun is up, you're more likely to do it.

1:13:35You know, I heard a quote a long time ago, and it was, if you can talk yourself out of something, you can talk yourself into it. Yes, it is absolutely super effective. We're going to switch to exercise. Cool. Because you've been studying exercise for a really long time. Yeah. And you and I were talking at dinner, which was very fun and we were talking about women and training and strength training yeah so important it is important because you did your phd in this and i want to talk about what is important for women to know about strength training and that's i know that that's very wide open but i do want to touch on it from an evidence-based an evidence-based perspective because it's so important for women.

1:14:21I mean, arguably it's so important for everyone, but for women. Yeah, well, we're definitely on the same page with our views on resistance training for women. Everyone should be lifting. The good news is there's no one specific type of lifting you have to do. You don't have to do nonstop circuits if that's not your thing. You don't have to train like a bodybuilder if that's not your thing. As long as you are doing some form of challenging your muscles, on a consistent basis. And I know you had a question the other night about like how often does that mean? Obviously, there's like a lot of variables involved, but I would agree with you that probably like two to three days a week is a really great starting point.

1:15:00And even if one day a week is all you can do, you will still see health benefits from one day a week. So yeah. And do the same mental tools work when you're changing a diet for nutrition? Do they cross over to exercise? Yes. I will say from my personal experience and my practical experience, my observation is that people tend to struggle less with exercise than they do with diet. I think part of it is that exercise is something you do in a finite period of time and then you can move on with your day. Whereas nutrition is you have opportunities all day long, isn't turn off. That's my thing. And also a lot of people actually do enjoy exercise, right?

1:15:47And they might feel less resistance to it. No, of course, this doesn't apply to everyone. Yeah. It doesn't apply to everyone. Some people still struggle. But there's a lot less, there's a lot fewer complex feelings with exercise a lot of the time. That's fair. Yeah. That is really fair to say that, you know, in the nutrition space and in food is very emotional for people. I mean, I guess one would say exercise can be emotional. Of course. But it is less complex. If someone, and I'm sure some of the strategies for good habit building work, make it easy. Avoid, you know, I guess people talk about putting your shoes out and your...

1:16:27Yeah, those things can help. Yeah. Those things probably help. Yeah. Do you think there's anything else? Whatever your mental resistance is to exercising consistently, reduce, do whatever you can to reduce that barrier if there if the barrier is i am afraid of being judged by people at the gym watching me uh several solutions one can you go do you have the flexibility to go when it's less quiet uh can you train at home you know can you either set up a home gym situation or carve out a corner of your living room where you can do it without people watching you or if you are into people watching you you could probably set that up too yeah that too or if If you're like, I'm a woman and I'm intimidated by these loud grunting men, can you join like a women's group class, you know, where you feel safer and less judged or whatever?

1:17:16There's so many different ways to tackle it. If time is your barrier, which is a huge one, is I don't have time or the perception of I don't have time. And you're like, tell me more about it. What do you think is enough time? oh I think I need to drive 30 minutes to the gym and uh spend an hour in the doing my workout and then drive 30 minutes back home okay you're like okay um one is there a closer gym you can go to two if there's not let's can we make something work at home where you can get rid of the entire commute that way you get a whole hour back maybe more of your time do you find from a behavior perspective people will stick to that yes but sometimes it takes some trial and error to find the best system that works for the person, which is why I'm a huge fan of individualized one-on-one coaching on an ongoing basis.

1:18:03It's really important. I have a coach. Yeah. And I've been training for a long. I mean, since I was 17, so just yesterday. But yeah, because I know my weaknesses and I like to do things as a team sport. Yeah. I like to have friends. I like to talk to people. I'm very social. Yeah. I don't want to train by myself versus that one's huge too. The accountability or so that's my mom. She will train if it's social, she will exercise. She will go golfing with her friends, right? So she's walking a ton. She'll train if it's with me or my dad, you know, but she will, she will not do it on her own. She'll go to Pilates class.

1:18:43If she's in a group, we'll not do it on her own. So whatever the barrier is or the sticking point is for what they're different for everyone, right? So you have to know your weaknesses and you have to acknowledge it because they will show up all the time. Yes. Okay, let's address the barrier. Let's reduce the barrier. Yeah. Whatever that is. Lots of myths out there. Oh, by the way, I got to tell you, do you know I created a national holiday? What is that? Are you ready for it? I don't know if you're ready for this. Okay. And this is, we're announcing it right now. Okay. And this is a real thing.

1:19:10Uh-huh. I applied and we have a legitimate national muscle health month. I didn't know you could do that. I did it. and it's november that's incredible coming up so you adidas yeah is gonna help bring awareness to muscle health and it is listen you can have movember mo movember yeah and mo muscle there has to be a moment that we recognize the importance of skeletal muscle beyond strength beyond which is so important beyond strength, beyond just all the external or, you know, physicality, but really as the pillar of health. Yeah. And hopefully, which I think in the next five years, it is going to be so impactful.

1:20:03We are entering, don't you think that we're entering in the era of strength or muscle, muscle health? In some ways, absolutely. Especially for women. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah. We know that the percentage of women lifting weights has been increasing. What is it now? It depends on the survey. It depends on the paper. I would say – and it depends on the country, right? I know. And the demographic. I can tell you the data that I have, but, you know, again, people might say so. The research usually puts that somewhere between like 20 % to 28%. I had 17%. That's low, yeah. For the U.S. You can say like 1 in 5 or 1 in 4.

1:20:38For the U.S. For resistance training. Yeah. um and then also that that also depends on how you're defining consistent adherence oftentimes it's two or more times a week of resistance training and if you have like spotty adherence they won't really count you there right um so anyway proportion is low but you know 20 years ago when we were in the gym you were probably the only one of the only women in the weight room for sure yeah i was a freshman at stanford like surrounded by a bunch of dudes early in the morning in the weight room you know they're like what they'd always be like what are you training for and what do you bench i'm like i'm not lifting like that like you know but for them it was so novel it's universal chest here i'm like i'm lifting for myself and they're like you're not training for uh whatever i'm like no not necessarily i don't know um and obviously i did eventually go on to compete in bikini and whatever but it wasn't an ongoing thing uh but but now now you go to gym do you see way more women on the gym floor can i ask you a couple i don't want to say true or false but questions that I think are important.

1:21:36Number one, do women have to lift heavy? Heavy is relative to the individual, right? I would say the way that it is, maybe the way that you're interpreting is different from the way that I'm interpreting it. We actually know that you can see a lot of muscle and strength gains from a variety of different rep ranges. So in terms of heavy, like do you have to lift a one rep max or a three rep max? No. But even if you are lifting lighter weights for higher reps, you still want to be pushing close to muscular failure. And that is the key. And that's also what my research, my PhD, one of my chapters, my manuscript found that as long as you're pushing close to technical failure, you can see muscle and strength gains with a variety of different rep ranges.

1:22:25And a variety of technical or muscular failure. I was actually, I was in muscular. Okay, muscular failure. And I believe, don't quote me on this, on the exact number, I want to say there's research showing that you can stop like two to three reps shy of failure. One to three reps shy of failure maybe. And still see significant gains. Which is nice because who wants to train to failure every set? I've seen the same research. And I also get concerned. The reason I asked you that question is, and I appreciate you expanding on the nuance, is do women have to lift heavy? And the answer is no. No, but heavy is relative.

1:23:02But heavy relative to the rep range that you're doing. Yes. And it is not a – I wouldn't want my mom doing three to five rep maxes. No. Also, there's no reason for her to do that. Right. But I think the space – and I'm not sure where it's coming from. The idea that we have to – I have never lifted that heavy. I used to – I did two powerlifting meets, which is so funny because I'm like, my squat is so average. but like for example i don't enjoy pushing my warmer max i would hate trying to do a three or max back squat so then that would be a barrier to make me not want to lift if that was what i and that's why i wanted to ask you that question um because we do hear that are you hearing that in social media that women have to lift heavy yeah sometimes yeah i hear it a lot and i don't think that that's true i'm like but if you hate it why would i try to force you to do but what I'm worried about is as women are postmenopausal, getting more, you know, I trained in geriatrics.

1:23:59Once they're injured, it takes them out. If they have not been someone of a lifelong athlete, and again, I'm not talking about from a data perspective, I have seen thousands of patients. They're done. You mean mentally? Both mentally because they, so let's say they're listening and they feel that they have to lift heavy they go and they tear their legroom or they tear up their shoulder or bust their knee because they're injured from lifting yes because they are hearing that they have to lift heavy then there's then there's the fear factor then and now they don't want to even try anymore so this is what so this is what i have seen your answer was no but but heavy is relative and you're talking about two to three reps in reserve yes totally agree It doesn't have to be heavy per se, but it should still be challenging.

1:24:52And I think the thing I see, and you'll probably agree, is that with a lot of women, and even the women that I trained in my study, even though they consider themselves experienced lifters, almost every one of them would say, and I would say, I watched her set, and I said, you can lift a lot more than that. You can go heavier, again, relative to the right range, and you can go closer to failure. And they would say, oh, I wasn't sure about my form, and I didn't want to get hurt, so I was being conservative. I was being cautious. and so a lot of women or or they simply don't know how hard they're supposed to push and so what they do is they end up leaving so much in the tank so even if they are being consistent maybe they're not pushing themselves to the level that they should and that's highlighting an important point because we it sounds like we both agree that that does happen and that's we're training with a friend or a coach or someone to be able to feel to get to the point where you're like we're like that's how it should feel that's how it should or that's how your rep should look you know yes do you want do you have a myth that um you want to dispel i heard growing up and i would repeat this because i heard it so much that um circuit training is not effective for body containers oh talk to me talk to me goose and i and even a couple years ago i had a friend say that to me and i was like i have research i have i'm doing data collection and we're not seeing that actually and so what we found was we compared circuit training with traditional strength training.

1:26:15Can you define it for those? So we specifically actually did, we called it high intensity or high resistance circuit training, where you would do exercises in a back-to-back fashion, right? Let's say you have, we have six exercises. You do exercises one, two, three, with little rest back to back to back. And you go back to one, two, three, one, two, three, then you rest, right? After you complete all sets of those three exercises can be four, can be five, the exact number doesn't matter. And then you go four, five, six, four, five, six, four, five, six, you rest. That's what our heavy, our circuit training group did.

1:26:46Heavy and high intensity means, as I was mentioning, every set was pushed close to failure. So it wasn't like I'm casually lifting this and we're having a conversation. I'm laughing. It wasn't like that, which is what we see a lot. Then we compare it to traditional strength training where it's the same six exercises, but they completed every exercise one set at a time. They would do leg press, one set, push close to failure, rest three minutes. Set number two of leg press, rest three minutes. Set number three of leg press and then they fully finish that they move on to the flat dumbbell bench press same thing one set rest one set rest and so on so one the obvious thing is there's a huge time difference right duration difference so the circuit training group they were done roughly 20-25 minutes faster which is significant when we see that time is such a big barrier perceived barrier to exercise adherence they were done faster two uh surprisingly we did not we saw uh similar gains in muscle muscle and strength we did a three root max testing pre and post and dex scan pre and post similar similar gains in both groups um which i thought was pretty remarkable and really to me it's really good news okay that means from a practical application perspective uh you don't have to do one modality over the other i think okay a couple variables well a few variables one is your personal preference i am not a circuit training person i don't like it i would much rather if i want to do if i want to make my lifting a bit more conditioning style i'd rather do um i'd rather do a speed run intervals right i want to separate it personally i enjoy the longer rest periods way more so i would be like i'm a traditional training person i don't like it at all i love circuitry really but the good news is you're like you're not going to get inferior results now we know as long as you're pushing your sets close to failure okay two is uh your work, individual work capacity?

1:28:40Do you have the level of fitness to keep up that level of fast paced, low rest circuit training while pushing every set close to failure? Not everyone does. It's very taxing. It's a lot more metabolically demanding, of course, when you have such little rest. Okay. And last thing is from a logistical standpoint, does your gym setup allow you to even train in a circuit fashion? Because you might be at a busy gym and you're like, I can't take up three pieces of equipment at once now of course you can get creative with your exercise selection where you're like all i need is these two pairs of dumbbells in this corner and i can make work absolutely you can do that um but even then you're still a bit more restricted with exercise selection and whatnot so take those factors into consideration you can also the other option too is you can do a combination right you can do like your first two or three exercise is more traditional style and then you finish with a short circuit i've done that for many years yeah so So that's also, you know, obviously we didn't study that, but I think it's not a big jump to then say that's probably fine too.

1:29:38One more question and then you're off the hook. Cool. Fasting. You hear women, have you heard this? Women should not train fasting. Yeah, I actually addressed it in my talk today. This is one of the common misconceptions that I do want to address. I think there's a bit more nuance to that than what is often preached online. So I don't know. So my take in general is that there are fewer differences, exercise differences between men and women than we have been led to believe. Again, to me, this is good news. Okay. Yes. We have more similarities than differences. Okay. Even our training recommendations are very similar.

1:30:17When it comes to training fasted, I'm not aware of research that shows that training fasted necessarily leads to negative health outcomes. I will say I would not recommend training fasted on a two hour run but does that is it a sex difference right it's not specific to women I would not recommend that it's not a smart strategy for anyone for obvious reasons yeah and also training for any kind of two hour run is not a good strategy I'm just kidding I have a long run tomorrow I'm like I should be and by the way you are pregnant and I took a video of you and here's you you're coming down I was on my run yeah I'm training for a marathon right now and well done I'm still I'm like all I need is like what are we at 16 more days and I need to cross the finish line I'm so close it's amazing so that's the goal it's amazing I think it's cool and I think my my uh and I have a lot more to say about that and I won't get into it too much but I think it's really important to um show women that even when you're pregnant you are very capable and if you are you know medically clear if you don't have medical complications and you want to do something like a marathon and you have a level of fitness for it do it pretty awesome that's so cool it is it's breaking a barrier it's very cool yeah um and you know there's a myth out there that exercise even like marathons are harmful to the baby that's actually we've they're actually quite resilient and also people think your baby's bouncing around and they're they're actually not they're sitting there they're floating in your amniotic fluid they're not doing this for four hours straight um which is another i get that comment a lot too baby's bouncing around no that's not and you probably spend a lot of time researching because you love to as soon as I found out I was like can I still run the marathon let me find out and there's lots of women who have completed marathons and been fine while pregnant and I think it's so cool again if you don't want to do it no one's forcing you to do it but this is something I really want to do I think it is amazing you know I trained throughout both pregnancies yeah amazing yeah everyone's like oh I don't know you're squatting a lot it's like nah listen and it's great it's great and I think it's inspiring and I also think on a side note it's really important for the mom to continue doing things that make her happy would you train fasted no you should not train fasted if you are doing a hard workout a very long and or very intense workout session absolutely not if you're going for a light jog in the morning you're fine you are not going to have negative metabolic consequences as a woman if you're training fasted and i think the thing that people forget is when you wake up fasted, you have food in your system.

1:32:53You have glycogen stores from the day before, you know? And when we talk about post-workout and recovery nutrition, your pre-workout food impacts your post-workout recovery as well. So I remind people, I'm like, you don't wake up completely empty. You're not an actual car. Well, like people like to use the car, you know, fuel in the tank is analogy. I'm like, that can work in some ways, but it's not like your tank is completely empty every morning so he carpenter this has been really fun and i want to close it out with three things that you want everybody to know and it could be habit it could be you pick it yeah yeah yeah okay first thing that came to mind is a 20 minute workout that you can do a few times a week is going to be so much better than the hour-long workout the perfect looking workout on paper that never gets done i love that any incremental change you can make to your diet to i like to say nudge yourself in the right direction because it seems a bit more gentle and less aggressive whether it be having a next swapping your coke for a glass of water or adding a serving of protein to one meal or adding a half cup of vegetables to one meal all that does add up and makes a difference over time uh last one is health is about more than what you eat and how you exercise your relationship with food and your body also is vastly important.

1:34:20Your quality of life matters too. Your mental health matters too. Your social support has a huge impact on your health. And so it's important to look at health from a more well-rounded holistic view rather than food and diet only. Yes. Very well said. This was a blast. And hopefully after you run your marathon, have your baby you probably won't take much time off and then maybe we talk about pre-pregnancy post-pregnancy nutrition yeah all right my friend thank you so much thank you