Choosing Freedom! A Sample Lesson from the Food & Body Freedom Program | Ep.56

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no whole fat, unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry lives, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go.

Hello, my friend and welcome to it tastes like freedom. I am your host, Chanci dawn, and I'm so happy you are here today because I have a special gift for you. I am currently in the process of finalizing the course portion of the food and body Freedom program. And as I was doing this, I was listening to this one lesson. I'm like, You know what, this is so important. Everyone needs to hear this, whether they joined the program or not. So I am going to post it on my podcast. So this is what it is you get a free lesson from the program. And it's all about retraining your brain to look for evidence of why you want to go down the path of freedom. Okay, we're going to talk about the damages that diets do to us mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and also physically, of course, and we're going to do a deeper dive into the diet cycle. This my intention through this is to equip you with the knowledge you need to empower yourself towards freedom. So I hope you enjoyed the program. If you do want to join the entire program, the group program, please let me know doors closed, May 19. It's coming up fast. There's only five spaces left, which is so cool. It's really filling up. And I I just love the beautiful souls who are coming in. I feel so honored. And I can't wait to see who else is. So if it's going to be you, please don't delay. Let me know if you have any questions. Let's connect, you will find the link in the show notes. Enjoy.

Hello, and welcome to module two. This module is all about education. So far, you have learned loads of tools and knowledge to really be able to set a great foundation to do this work together. Now, what we want to do here is we want to equip your brain. So your brain, as you know, is totally wired to keep you safe and alive. And she will always be looking for proof in your environment that her thoughts are actually true. This is a self fulfilling prophecy. And this is why it's so easy to self sabotage. So what we want to do is we want to take care of this beautiful brat brain of yours. And we want to educate her. We want to give her evidence that the new patterns that the new path you are walking down is in fact where you do want to go where freedom is found. And this is really going to help you stay on the journey. Also remember this non this journey is nonlinear. Ups and downs, ups and downs. It's like the wave that is a welcome. But what we don't want you to do is allow your brat brain to keep yelling and shouting at you. Right to stop, stop, stop, go back on that diet. Okay, so let's like educate. We want to educate her. We want to fill her with facts and knowledge to give her this really solid foundation in truth. So I just want to start off by saying that the way you do food truly is the way you do life. You will hear me say this a lot during this program because it is so true. And I love to heal. I love to come back like help women come back to their wholeness through the lens of food and body healing food and body health. But it doesn't stop there. What you learn here and the knowledge and the wisdom that you are going to gain is going to filter into all areas of your life. Sometimes it's just a little trickle and honestly sometimes it's going to be like a big huge gush again, and it's all welcome. So as you're doing this work, get excited cuz your entire life is going to open up to you. Now, let's talk a little bit about why diets suck the like The basic here, the basic of it is like is that 98% of diets fail. That means that yes, you might lose weight initially on them, that does not equal their success. In order for a diet to be successful, you have to lose weight, and then keep it off. And this is where the problem is, your brain is complete your brain and body right are wired, to bring you back to that natural weight setpoint to keep you safe. So diets are inherently set up to fail, you do not fail the diet, the diet fails you. If the FDA actually had to pass them like they do medication diets would be outlawed. Yet they are a 271 billion global business and growing. It's projected that in 2030, it's actually going to be like for over $400 billion business. Isn't that crazy? We just keep pouring money into it pouring our soul into these thinking they have the answer when they are actually set up to fail. It's the only business that actually produces a product that is created to fail. It's not just like a possibility of failure. It's actually created in a way that it will fail you yet. It's not blamed for it. You are, you keep going back to thinking I didn't stick on my diet, I failed. I lack this. I'm not enough. All of these crap things that diets feed to us and the diet industry industry screams at us in order to keep us coming back for more. It's like, okay, you failed that diet. Well, here's a new one. Here's hope your friend lost 10 pounds, you should probably do it too. But no sweetheart, come back to the truth. They are set up to fail. So compassionately, come back to this and get curious, what do you actually want in your life? Do you want to be caught up in a cycle of feeling? Like you're never doing it? Right? Okay? Or do you actually want to break free from that cycle and go, there must be a different way. I am here for a different way I am here. To love to respect myself. Let's get started. It's time to take your power back. And by joining this program, you've done this good job. And we are going to now dive into the facts around dieting. This isn't all of them. If you want to learn more totally check out the book The obesity paradox. It's full of amazing education. Like it blew my mind right? Wide open when I was listening to this book. I knew a lot of it. But I was just like, holy actual crap. Are you serious? Yet, this is what we are buying into Oh, my goodness. So I'm going to equip you with some basic facts that really stand out to me as things that need to be known. But like I said, go and educate yourself. Because if you are still wanting to join the diet culture, if you're still like, oh, it's calling to me, no shame, no judgement there. Of course it is. That's okay. These are just old patterns on repeat. And the more you equip yourself, the more you educate yourself, the easier it's going to be to not repeat that.

So let's dive in first to some of the biological and physical damages that diet diets do. One, they actually condition the body to gain more fat. So as you lose weight, your body is going to go, Ah, she's in famine, she's starving, there's a lack of food, something has gone wrong. And by doing this, she is going to slow your metabolism, slow your rate of digestion, she's going to up the ghrelin like your hunger hormone, absolutely change your biology right in order to maintain homeostasis. She wants balance. She wants to keep you healthy and alive. So by doing this, by dieting, it's training your body that you are not safe, and she will drive your body to gain more fat. Now also what happens here is as you regain this, the whole yo yo thing you lose you gain you lose the gain. As you regain it actually puts the fat back in places that it thinks you need it the most for your survival. This is often in the mid middle area, which is very dangerous. So this is what we call visceral fat. And as you gain more and more visceral fat, it actually can create premature death and heart disease and all by diabetes and all of these different diseases that are blamed actually on obesity. But what's actually the problem here is the diet industry the losing the gaining the losing the game During the losing the gaining tuning out of your body, not knowing how to listen to her cues, not trusting yourself, that map is needs to stop, it's creating so much sickness, so much disease, when really what we need to do is just Ha, come back to our bodies, learning how to listen to her learn how to wake her up and trust her, your body really is the best nutritionist, you know? Absolutely. And the diet industry really disconnects you from that truth from that wisdom. So I kind of went off into tension there because it's also true. But what we want to do is want to take back our power, don't make yourself sick any longer. And I want to also compassionately tell you that your body is created. It's beautiful, it's strong, and it wants to heal. So if you have yo yoed, like your entire life and you've done some metabolic damage, it's okay. You Your body will respond in time. It might be a slow process, but it's a process that is worth it. Embodied eating heals you, okay, it heals your brain, it hears your soul and it heals your body. When we die it it also increases binges and cravings. So this is what you're told has gone wrong with you. Okay, I'm craving this. I have an urge for this. And I've been binging this, honey, no, you are actually doing exactly what your brain is driving you to do there in order to keep you safe again. She's like, ah, there's a famine, she's starving. I better up the cravings for high fat sugar, salt foods, right? Those things that are getting me Give me a lot of calories so that I can stay safe. And the binging aspect is such a common thing when we are depriving ourselves when we are restricting and depriving because that brat brat brain of yours, she hates to be told no, that feels stressful to her. And when she is stressed, she thinks her her life is that threat that your life is being threatened. And again, she will do whatever she can to create ease to create pleasure to like distract or move away from the stress. And she thinks, Okay, if I actually eat everything that I'm being told, I can't that'll make me feel better. And this is why binges happen. We're like, no, no, no, no self control willpower, and then screw it, your brains like just eat it all, that'll feel so much better. But then on the other side of that comes guilt and shame and judgment. And the ridiculous cycle continues. Dieting also causes your hunger cues to atrophy. Right? If we don't listen to our bodies, she's not going to speak to us. But again, this is something that you can re establish, reconnect, awaken your sensations. We do a lot of this in your program. So don't worry, you are okay. We just want to know what happens so that we don't go there. Again.

psychological and emotional damage. So dieting is strongly linked to eating disorders. And I think it's really obvious, right? When this is something that is inherently set up to fail, and you think you are a failure, but you don't understand that it's actually the diet itself. You're gonna go back and continue this cycle, continue restricting, continue depriving, and then maybe binging and then taking extreme measures, because it's like crap, I can't even do this, right. You know, I'm not even good enough for this frickin diet. So then you create extreme measures of control. And this can actually lead to disordered eating or full out eating disorder. And this absolutely happened to me probably about 15 years ago. I remember a friend made us all of these, these wonderful Christmas treats. And I was really, like, caught up in the diet scene. And at this point, and I took these home and I looked at them and I'm like, Oh my God, I want to eat these so bad. I remember I had one. And then I had to, and I felt so freakin bad. I put it away, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. And then I'm like, oh, you know what I'm going to do? I'm just going to eat them all. And spit it all out. Like hello. That seems smart. So I started doing that I sat stood in front of my sink and I just like Storm ate all of these beautiful, yummy snacks. These treats that she made for us that she poured her love into. Definitely didn't appreciate them in genuine pleasure, but I just stuffed them all into my mouth and I chewed and chewed and chewed and then I spit it all into the sink. And I thought I was being incredibly marked here, I could still taste the food, I could still taste the texture, experience it, eat it all. And then they were gone, and I wouldn't be tempted anymore. But this led me down into about a three year spitting and chewing and spitting habit. And I would plan to go to the grocery store, I would actually have my husband take care of the kids at the time, so I could be alone. And I would have this huge adrenaline rush. And I would have this pattern that I would go and I would get these Slowpoke chocolates and get a bag. Then after my groceries were done, I would go down to the lake and I would park in the same spot every single day next to this garbage can. And or not every single day, every single time I did this, and I would chew them all and spit them into the bag. And then I would throw it into the garbage can and go home. And I felt disgusting. Like it didn't satisfy. There's nothing pleasurable about this, it just became this intense need that I had to do. And I really did have this adrenaline rush like this drive to do it. I used to like think about doing this and feel excited when I was going to get get to do it. And then one day, I was watching Oprah and and it was a segment on eating disorders. And she interviewed a woman who did the exact thing that I was doing. And I stood there and I'm like, holy crap, this is actually considered an eating disorder. Here, I thought I was just being smart. So I really had a wake up call. And I decided not to do it anymore. But it was not easy. It took me about a year and a half to actually be in full recovery where I didn't do that anymore. And there's still some times when I'm tempted like there's some times when I'm feeling hormonally low, are exceptionally stressed. And my brain is like, Hey, you should probably go to the store and get all those slowpokes and chew them and spit them out. And it's okay that my brain has these thoughts. Just because I have these thoughts. And you might have thoughts of whatever is going on for you. Doesn't mean anything's gone wrong. This just means that your brain has some patterns, she has some thoughts that you get to take her kids take care of her in. So when I have thoughts like this, I don't linger there. I don't like beat myself up for them. I just go, Oh, right. Yeah, I used to do that. And I am now in freedom, I no longer do that. And I take care of myself on the other side. So hello. Like I did not intend for that to be something that was in my life. People don't usually intend to go out and have an eating disorder. But the patterns that dieting gets you into and the mindset that it does, it's so easy to slip into that. So if this is something you're dealing with, okay, disordered eating in eating disorder, please know you are not alone. And total freedom and healing is available to you, I promise. So more psychological and emotional damage. Obviously, it causes stress. When we look at just how the brain functions, how any sort of difficult to feel, emotion feels very stressful to that brat brain, restricting depriving denying self control, trying to willpower, judging yourself, looking at others and comparing feeling like a failure. All of this is extremely stressful to your beautiful brain vulnerable to a loss of control when eating a forbidden food. And this is why permission is so important. And we're going to talk a lot about this. There's a whole module on permission. But when you're looking at saying no, no, no, no, no. And then all of a sudden, you do say you're like no all week and then you're like, Okay, treat day treat day on, you know, treat or cheat day on Saturday, I'm going to have the doughnuts or the cookies or the chips, whatever it is ice cream, whatever is the thing that you're like, ah for okay, that you're like, This is forbidden. But I can have it once in a while as a little treat. Or if you're like absolutely no, it is absolutely forbidden. And then you have a weak moment and you have it. When this happens, it completely creates a sense of loss of control. This is where binging will happen. This is where that out of control eating or going, Okay, I ate that. Screw it. I'm going to start again tomorrow or start again on Monday and I'm just going to eat whatever I want. If this is something that you do, please take heart again. It's normal. This is just your brain doing its brain thing. It's wired to do this. And when you drop into true permission, and true pleasure, this is absolutely erased. It's not even part of the program which was so free In and of itself, eroded self trust, when you were taught that you can't trust your body when you're taught that you can't listen to her, and you have to look outside of yourself. And then that fails. Because it's all wrong. As we know, we're set up, or diets are set up to fail. But you're thinking holy crap, I can't even trust myself to stay away from the cookie jar. I can't even trust myself to stay on my Protocol, or to not completely binge after I have a fast day, I can't even trust myself to do this. And as this happens, more and more evidence that you can't trust yourself will start to appear because your brain is going to look for it. And this erodes, and it's painful. And when we say the way we do food is the way we do life. It's so true. And when you stop trusting yourself when it comes to nourishing yourself, and taking care of yourself and moving your body. This self like lack of trust, self trust is going to filter into all areas of your life. Disconnection from one's body. Very obvious why right? When you're told you can't trust when you disconnect when you look outside of yourself, and then you can't even trust yourself to do that it feels horrible. This creates a strong disconnection. So we want to bring yourself home, your body is so wise, she loves you, your body wants to feel good, she wants to be healthy, she wants to eat things that feel amazing and help her thrive, she wants to move in ways that are pleasurable, and satisfying. Okay, so time to connect back in my friend. Let's look a little bit at the diet cycle. We've talked a bit about this last module, but I think it's really important to dive in a bit deeper. So it starts off with a desire to lose weight, okay, so whether you see yourself in a picture in the mirror, you see, you know, a friend losing weight, you try on some clothes, maybe a bathing suit, whatever happens, there is a trigger that creates a thought that, oh, I need to lose weight. So you decide, you're like, I'm going to start this diet. So for the sake of this program, when we talk about a diet, I'm referring to anything that you do any action you take to intentionally shrink your body, whether it is intermittent fasting, cleansing, you know, juice, fasting, weightwatchers, or eliminating carbs, right, like whatever it is, it is a diet if it's done with the intention of losing weight. So you desire to lose weight, you start a diet, and you get all excited, and you download all the recipes. And maybe you join a facebook group, and you are so motivated and hopeful. And you feel like this is it. And at this point, this is where your brat brain is like, oh, yeah, this is good. Okay, this feels good. She feels hopeful, she feels excited. I'm in I'm up for this, I'm down for it, let's go. But because you are human, and because of all the reasons we've talked about willpower, self control, you know, depriving restricting denying will not work for the long run. So what will happen is you'll come to a point of going, well, this sucks. And this is where the really like disconnection from yourself starts to happen. You think that you have a problem that you can't stand, stay on it. And essentially, it feels like you lose control. Right? It's like, now I'm eating behind my own back. And now I'm binging or now I'm what even binging and purging like now I'm here back in this pattern that happens all the time. And inevitably, you regained the weight, and then some, and then then some happens because your body is like, Ah, she, this was stressful, she was losing weight, we need to bring her back up to that natural setpoint and then add about five or 10 pounds more as a buffer in case she loses his weight again. And this can feel like it's crazy making. But when you understand that this is actually what the diet cycle does, and it's not your fault. This again, will empower you to choose different for yourself. So I invite you right now, take out your journal, and spend some time thinking, how has dieting impacted you? Your life and your health? Look at the psychological right the biological, the emotional, the mental, the spiritual impacts. What do you see? And do this with loads of compassion? Just get curious. We are not here to judge ourselves shame judgment that does not serve at all curiosity and compassion. Shouldn't does, we want to show your brain why you are committing to never diet again? Write this down. Why am I committing to food freedom. This is a new path you're forging. You are linking arms with me and the rest of the women in this group to be able to move forward towards freedom which you desire and you absolutely deserve. I am so blessed to be your mentor your coach your friend along the way. Thank you so much for being here and for watching this first video. Now take care