39. Being yourself and how that affects weight loss

In this episode we cover the topic of being yourself, which also really includes the ideas of self-trust, masking, and conforming. 

We discuss:

• Why it's crucial to be able to be yourself in the process (and really in life overall)
• How conforming and masking can impact us
• How this will affect goals such as weight loss
• What are some ways to help to foster more of a sense of self

As I mentioned in the episode, I would love to hear of ways that you have seen this impact you in your life and weight loss journey. Please feel free to DM me on Instagram or send me an email. 

I'd love to hear from you! You can connect with me in the following ways:

Instagram: @thejennwatts
Email: jennifer@jenniferwatts.ca

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Your feedback helps me continue to create content that supports you on your journey.

I'd love to know if there's something you want to hear more about or if you want to let me know about your own experiences with ADHD and weight loss.

Transcript

You are listening to losing weight with ADHD, the podcast to help you discover solutions to well being, improved health and sustainable weight loss with ADHD, if you're a woman with ADHD who's tired of trying every diet and weight loss program with no lasting success, I understand exactly where you are, and I want to help you to finally see the change you deserve. I'm your host Jennifer watts, an accountant turned nutrition and life coach with ADHD myself, once I discovered the connections between ADHD and my lifelong struggle with weight, I was finally able to make lasting change in a way that felt great. If you want to do the same, then let's get started. 

Hello, everybody. Welcome to this episode. A couple caveats before I start. There's somebody who's been chainsawing, cutting down trees and everything since 8am so you might be able to hear it. I really hope you can't, and it's not disruptive or anything. But I've been trying to wait to record this episode until they stop, and it seems as though they will never stop. 

So my apologies if you can hear this in the background. I also was trying to assemble a bookshelf like, kind of IKEA style, but it was from a different store, and I got super frustrated, and I thought just gonna, like, you know, change directions and go record my podcast now, because I need to get away from that stupid bookshelf. So here I am, so I really hope the sound will be just fine for you guys. I'm sure that it will be. 

But all right, so today I want to talk about being yourself and trusting yourself in in the whole process of weight loss. But really, I think just like in the course of living your life as a person with ADHD, I see this come up in so much of the areas that I struggled in. Personally, I see it in my clients. I see it in my peers, I guess you could say or like people that I know who are neurodivergent, and I think this impacts us so much more than we realize when it comes to things like reaching your goals with things like weight loss, because you might instinctively, you might think like, what does this even have to do with weight loss? 

But I think, in my own experience, it's, it's a really important component. So I just think, when I think about all the times that I've, like tried to lose weight over the years, a lot of it involved a lot of conforming, and I think they can be kind of it's a tough thing for us as ADHD ers, because we've spent a lot of our life conforming, like so much so to the point that we don't even realize how much we're doing it and the Stress and the toll that it's taking on us, you know, trying to, you know, be like everybody else and do things the same way as everyone, and talk the same way and perform the same way, and, you know, follow a schedule and do all, all of the things, you know, all of the things that I'm referring to. 

I don't need to regurgitate that, but I think this struggle of conforming can really impact us, because if you're expending all of this energy on trying to, you know, mold yourself into something that you maybe are not, it is so exhausting. It's so exhausting, and then No wonder you don't have the capacity left to put energy towards additional goals that you have. So I think that, you know, trying to conform, it really does. It creates the stress. It really creates dysregulation, which, again, is just, you know, being a regulated state, I think is our greatest shot at being successful. And I always think that's really the goal, is to get into a state of regulation versus dysregulation, more often than not, because that's where we really kind of have the opportunity, opportunity to flourish. 

So, yeah, it just, it just affects all aspects of it. It affects your ability to make progress. And I think, yeah, for me, I do see so many examples and and ways that this affected my ability to reach my weight loss goals. I think it's so easy not to see, like I said before, how it's affecting all aspects of your life. And really like grading away at your energy levels so you have nothing left, and then you are searching for, you know, do. Something to provide relief or ease the dysregulation, or or or just make you feel better. And for me, I know that often was food, and there's so many, a lot of mine would be social. So you know, different things, like not trusting my ability in interacting with people, you know, like other moms at school or people at work or just all of those, all of those kind of things. 

And that really just drained me so much that I had nothing left to give to myself. And I think this is such a, I mean, that's such a, that's such a general example of an effort to conform, that is is draining, but also isn't like something that we are mindfully doing, because I think so much, I mean, it's a lot of it is masking, right? Like many of us experience have have put on these masks so much for so long that it's just our natural inclination to do this, and we don't really realize that we are and don't recognize that that's what's draining us, and why we have nothing left to give and and then here we're stuck kind of wondering, why am I like? I must be lazy. I must be like, Why can't I just do this stuff? 

Well, other people really have a lot left in the tank, because they're not in this constant state of trying to conform. So they they might have more sort of cognitive energy remaining that they can allocate to things like that, like a weight loss program or something like that. So I just, I think I really want to draw attention to the fact that this can really impact you when it comes to weight loss, because we need to have, we want, I mean, of course, we have the desire and the drive to do it, but we might not be able to have that resource of energy to put towards that. And I believe a big deal or a big amount of our energy is drained through not trusting ourselves, not feeling like we can be ourselves, because we are trying so hard to conform, and we are masking. 

And I guess a lot of this is, this is sort of, what's that word anecdotal? This is a lot of this might be anecdotal because a lot of this is based on my own experience, but I do know, like I don't have scientific papers to support this or anything like that. This is just as somebody who I think I really believe a lot of you can relate to my experience, and I could relate to a lot of yours. So this is just my own experience, but I also think that this dysregulation and this not trusting ourselves and this masking and trying to conform has a big impact on us in terms of our mental health as well, because I already mentioned that it can really, you know, it elevates our levels of stress. So we kind of have that constant low grade stress happening, which then affects our bodies, right? Like that flows through and affects your digestion. It affects your hormone levels. It affects your cortisol, like all that kind of stuff, right? Because that's just our natural nervous system, fight, flight, freeze response, like our bodies are just built that way, right? 

But I think it also, well, I know for me, it always like, really perpetuates the anxiety and those sort of constant feelings of inadequacy, especially for me, in like, social situations. But I do believe that that we feel, we feel a lot of inadequacy. I know there's that stat that's always going around about, like, you know, a child with ADHD experiences like 20,000 more. Negative I don't, I don't know, I don't know what. I always hear different numbers from different people. But you know, like, of course, we experience, have experienced so much more sort of negative feedback from people, so that creates this sort of constant feeling of inadequacy, but that can really be exacerbated as an adult, when you feel like constantly feel like you never quite fit, and that can also make, like, really deep cuts to your sense of your self esteem, right? 

And also perpetuate a lot of the will, like the RSD contributes to this as well, right? So as a whole, these things really affect our mental health, and our mental health is health, right? Like health and pursuing weight loss is not just about food. It's not just about your ability to follow a plan, although these things really do. Impact your ability to follow a plan, like an eating plan. But health, I know I've talked about this before, is so many other things. It's emotional health, mental health, spiritual health. It's like your your like, relational health, you know, all of these aspects. 

It's not just the food that you're eating. It's obviously physical health as well, in the way that you're moving your body and all those kind of things. But when your mental health is so impacted by these kind of things, of course, that affects you physically as well. So all of this together, can you can see what I mean, like this does really impact you, and that affects your ability to make progress on your goal of weight loss. 

So I really think that when we recognize how much this is impacting us, and can maybe find the areas where we are trying too hard, usually without realizing it, where we are trying to conform or still trying to be the way that we maybe think society expects us to be. If we can find little ways to tweak this and be able to be more ourselves and slowly start to reduce that stress that's really gonna deep, deeply impact your overall sense of of well being. And this is, I know this is not easy to do, because I know for myself I am a natural rule follower. Like, I think a lot of that has to do with me thinking, like, that's the way I can be. Like, good is by like, following the rules to a T. Because I always think my natural inclination is not to be the same as everybody else, but if I can follow the rules and I can be a good, you know, people pleaser and all this kind of stuff, then that makes me a good person, freaking exhausting.

And then we have no like that really doesn't help us with our sense of self. So if we can start to identify the areas where we are doing this, and really don't need to be, because I think a lot of this carries through from childhood, but I think there's lots of ways that you can probably, I'm sorry my dog's barking. There's probably a lot of areas in your life where you can identify that you might be doing this that you don't even realize. So learning to trust your own instincts is another part of it, and your preferences. So things like, you know, making any kind of progress is really about following whatever sort of plan or lifestyle or whatever the case may be, that actually suits you, fits into your actual real life and incorporates the things that you like and enjoy. And so I think learning to listen to ourselves on what our preferences are, what we like, what we don't like, as opposed to like, the all the external noise of what we should like or what we shouldn't like. 

Those are great opportunities to start to listen to yourself and then trust yourself and then recognize that, oh, I actually can make my own choices, and I don't have to do things exactly like everybody else. I mean, there's, there's so many examples of this, you know, whether it's, you know, the only way to lose weight is to eat these macros or or keto, or do this, follow this plan, and those things work for some people, and some people feel amazing when they do them. Maybe it doesn't work for you. Maybe you don't feel good when you do that, and you're allowed to figure out what actually works for you. 

I think it's a lot simpler than we have been led to believe, because so many people just just really preach that there's just one right way to do things. And I've said before too that, like I really think a lot of these people, they're not it's not a malicious thing. They've just maybe seen their own successes, and so they want to share that, and they want other people to succeed like them. And so they really deeply believe that their way is the only way. And I would say that that's probably not true. 

So I have this weird kind of analogy that I think of this in terms of and of course, I love food, and I love to bake and cook and all that kind of stuff. So this is the example that I'm using when I think of, you know, a weight loss plan, like, say your goal is weight loss, or it could be anything else. But if you think of it in terms of like somebody is telling you to prepare dinner and they're making like a meatloaf or something, I use that word example because I don't like. Meatloaf. And even the word kind of grosses me out. I don't know why meatloaf. It just sounds so gross. Anyways, say this person is like, Okay, you're gonna you're gonna make dinner, and you're gonna make a meatloaf. 

And so here's the instructions, and like, you need to have all of these ingredients, and you're kind of looking around your kitchen, and you're like, I don't have beef or whatever goes into it, pork, I don't know. I don't have those meats. I don't have any ground meats. I don't have the right pan for that. And then, you know, you're thinking like, Well, I was gonna make a chicken souvlaki because I thought the goal was to make dinner. Like, there's nothing wrong with you because you don't want to make meatloaf and you don't have ground meat on hand, but it's so easy to think like, well, everybody else is making meatloaf, like, What the What is wrong with me? I don't have all these supplies, and I don't even want to do it that way. But we so easily forget that actually the goal is just to make dinner. That's what the goal is. The goal is not for you to make and eat a meat loaf. I don't want to have to say that word anymore.

You can make chicken souvlaki. I picked that because I like chicken souvlaki. But it's so easy for us to think like, Oh no, that's the way I was supposed to do it, because that's what everybody else is doing. And actually, no, that's not even the goal. The goal is just to make dinner. I hope that example makes sense to you guys. You can make your chicken soup off. You make it whatever you want, because the goal is to eat. In the end, the goal is not to do it exactly like everybody else, but you are allowed to trust your own instincts, of like, what do I actually want to eat? Or what do I have on hand that goes into because, like, maybe you like, what do you have capacity for? Right? 

There's just so many ways that I think we naturally don't even realize that we have choice and say in different ways of reaching your our goals, because we so easily just take in all the external noise and think that that's the only way that we're supposed to do it. And there's nothing wrong with you that you don't recognize these things. Because I first there's, I'm sure there are still so many ways that I do this and haven't recognized it for myself, but this is where, like, getting curious and questioning things, like, not in like, I don't, I'm not a contrarian person at all. But I think there's lots of ways that we can it's okay to ask, like yourself or somebody else or whatever, like, why do we do something this way, you know? Or what does it have to be this way, or whatever? There's just a lot of ways that you are allowed to infuse your own likes and dislikes and preferences and stuff that is actually going to make it more likely for you to reach your goals. It's not you like breaking the rules, you know what I mean? 

So, yeah, I mean just helping yourself out by kind of identifying where you might be masking, where you might be conforming that you don't really realize could be really helpful for you in the process. And just, yeah, like just taking a chance on some areas that you might want to try to just be yourself a little bit more. Yeah, incorporate your own likes and dislikes. I mean, using the calm process is a really good way of doing this, because that's why I call it creative planning. Because it's not you following a plan given to you by somebody else. It's you figuring out, how do I want to do this? What foods do I like to eat? What you know, do I want to have the same thing every day? That's okay. Or maybe I want to have more variety, and that's okay too. 

And developing awareness around you and yourself and how you operate, and, you know, putting your lifestyle the way that you want to live your life and what makes sense for you above all else, not not trying to do it the way other people are doing it. And the movement piece of it, the might well, yes, it's mindfulness as well, but the movement piece of it, again, it's so important, you'll notice that in all four of these areas, the creative planning, the awareness, the lifestyle and the movement and mindfulness, each one of those really specifically stresses the fact that you are to do this in a way that makes sense for you and incorporates what works for you, because movement. 

Let's use that as an example. Yes, I know everybody says strength training. And then I see a lot of stuff nowadays too, where it's like, cardio is terrible for midlife women. Or other people are saying, like, No, you just have to do like, this many minutes of HIIT workouts, and then the. Much minutes of strength, right? I get so overwhelmed, and I'm just like, I don't want to listen to any of you anymore, because what will work for me is the thing that I'll like to do and stick with. I have, like, a Echelon bike. It's like the not quite peloton, some alternate brand that I got from Costco, and like, I'm just trying to actually, that's part of why I'm building that bookshelf, is so that I can make space in this one area of my house to bring that bike in from the garage into this part of the house, because I don't want to go out into the garage to ride the bike. So if I can bring the bike inside, I know I'll actually do it. If I get up in the morning and go to the bike and it's right there, and I'll do it, because actually enjoy that. And I honestly, like, really, actually didn't realize I was listening to this noise of, like, cardio is bad for midlife women, because I thought, Ooh, I probably shouldn't be riding the bike if I'm gonna take time to exercise. I should probably be doing strength training. Well, do you think I ever do it? No, I don't, but I would ride the bike. So that's what I'm gonna do. 

Because the movement that I will enjoy and I will actually do is the best type of movement, because that's actually doing it. So that's a good example of really like listening to and trusting yourself, because your preferences and Your choices matter. You don't have to do it like everybody else. So, I mean, those are the kind of things like, follow the calm process, you know, work on building your Yeah, just listening to yourself so you can slowly, incrementally build up that self trust and just accepting, accepting yourself for what you like and don't like or what you want to do and you don't want to do. And I'm not saying like some kind of free for all, but I think it's just so important to know that you not being able to do things exactly like everybody else is not a character flaw. It's not and you were not put on this earth to, you know, be just a number who lives life exactly like everybody else. There's no medal for that. You're not gonna win a conforming award, or, like a rule, following award. 

How about you live your life the way that you want to live your life, and you get to experience that inner peace and that freedom and that fulfillment, all of those things, like you deserve those things. And so much of that, I believe, comes from trusting yourself and learning how to build a life that helps you towards the goals that matter to you. And it doesn't always have to be goal setting. You can just be. You can just be, you know, but trying to conform, I think, so often you just white knuckle your way through this to the point where you just, it's like a elastic snapping, and then you just it. I think it just backfires. I know for me, the times when I've worried so much about that and stressed so much about that, are the times when I've spent a lot of time in the pantry, you know? 

So anyhow, I really hope that you can find ways to slow down and quiet and listen to what you really think and feel and what really makes sense for you, so that you can build a way to reach your goals that is actually enjoyable, that really feels like you, that feels like a life that you want to live, and isn't just following along with what other people are doing. Because, I mean, it's, in a way, it's almost like saying, like, I'm just going to be neurotypical until I lose the weight. Like, sorry, that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. You need to be you in the process. And if there's none of you anywhere in the process, like it's not gonna last for you, so you need to infuse yourself into the way that you do these kind of things. 

So that's all I have for you today. I would love to hear from you guys, if you can think of if you notice, if this has helped you to notice ways that you might be not trusting yourself, that you might be masking or conforming or not really giving yourself a chance to truly be yourself, even if it's the littlest of things like I would love to hear from you. So reach out to me. Instagram is the best way DM me on Instagram. You can email me as well, but I would love to hear if there's different ways that you notice that you do this, because I've got a laundry list of them, and probably a lot that I still don't even recognize. It's a work process all the time, but I'm going to keep working at it, because I know. That I deserve just as much as you deserve to get to really be your real self. Yeah. Anyhow, that's all I have for you this week. I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, and I will talk to you next week. 

Thank you for listening to the losing weight with ADHD podcast. You can find more from me on my instagram at Jenn watts, dot ADHD, it's the best place to reach out to me, and I would love to hear from you. I also have a free guide to the calm method for weight loss with ADHD, you can find the link to grab that on my Instagram or just message me the word calm. I love to hear from you. So please reach out, especially if you have anything that you would like to hear about on the show. Thank you so much for listening.