In this inspiring episode of the Simple Nourished Living podcast, Martha McKinnon and Peter Morrison explore how embracing the journey of weight management can lead to lasting transformation. Together, they dive into the power of self-improvement, the importance of challenging unhelpful thought patterns, and how accountability can serve as a catalyst for reaching personal goals. With warmth and honesty, they share personal stories, practical strategies for portion control, and tips for navigating the all-too-common excuses that can derail progress. This thoughtful conversation is a gentle reminder that cultivating self-compassion and setting realistic expectations are key ingredients in building healthier, more sustainable habits.
Key Takeaway
- Learning is a journey, not just about outcomes.
- Enjoying the process is crucial for sustainable change.
- Negative thoughts are just thoughts; they can come and go.
- Self-compassion is key when facing setbacks.
- Portion control can be managed with smaller dishes.
- Accountability helps in overcoming excuses.
- It’s important to set realistic expectations for yourself.
- You can counter negative thoughts with positive affirmations.
- Mindfulness in eating can lead to better choices.
- Community support can enhance personal growth.
Questions on Accountability, Portion Control, Excuses and Negative Thoughts Podcast
Video Transcript
Martha McKinnon (00:00)
Hi everyone, welcome to the Simple Nourished Living podcast. I’m Martha McKinnon and this is my partner and brother, Peter Morrison. Hi, how you doing?
Peter Morrison (00:08)
Hi there. I’m doing good, how are you?
Martha McKinnon (00:13)
I’m good, I’m good, happy to be here.
Peter Morrison (00:18)
We’re still here.
Martha McKinnon (00:19)
Yeah. So as part of we’re still here, we’re still showing up. We’re not going to give up, right? It’s not our style. Even when it’s uncomfortable.
Peter Morrison (00:36)
That’s right.
Martha McKinnon (00:37)
Thank you, thank you. A lot of our readers submitted questions and topics and ideas. And so we’re going to share one of those questions from one of our submitters today. But before we get to that, you know me, like what’s going, what’s going really well in your world? What’s new? What’s good?
Peter Morrison (01:00)
It’s not new, but I guess it’s good. It was a learning experience. I played in that pickleball tournament. I guess it was, wow, it was about a week ago. I played with a new person. I mean, I’ve been playing with him locally, but we had never played a tournament before. It was fun. It was a big tournament. A lot of people there. It was a beautiful day, beautiful weather. My mom and my other sister came out to cheer us on. We won a few games, lost more games than we won, and it was not the outcome we wanted, but it was fun and we, you know, it’s just kind of a learning experience as most things in life are.
Martha McKinnon (01:48)
Right. So I really think this is kind of analogous to the whole like anything, anytime you’re trying to learn anything new, anytime you’re trying to move yourself forward, right? Whether it be losing weight or like me trying to learn Spanish or like you challenging yourself around pickleball. It’s a learning experience and we’ve got to figure out how to enjoy the journey, right?
Peter Morrison (02:13)
And I think to get there, I kind of have to let go of the outcome. To some degree. If you have your mind set on you’re only gonna be happy or appreciative if X happens, but Y happens instead. I mean, you still have to give yourself credit and that you showed up and that you tried. So yeah, there’s something about that. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about for me letting go of the outcome and appreciating the journey.
Martha McKinnon (02:53)
It’s about the process. I think that’s very analogous to the journey we’re talking about here. We get so hung up, I think on a number, on a scale or an expectation. And we think everything’s gonna be magical. Like, you know, when that happens or when we reach that goal, that achievement. But the truth is, it’s…
Peter Morrison (02:55)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (03:19)
I mean the truth is that it’s not, I mean it’s still you showing up right now in this new place and if you are miserable the whole time you were trying to get there and you tortured yourself to get a number on a scale then it’s not gonna be, I don’t think it’s sustainable. And you’re not gonna be any happier I don’t think when you get there than you were being miserable. It’s kind of silly to think that we can be miserable all the way along a journey and then show up happy. Right? I think you gotta be happy now.
Peter Morrison (03:46)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (03:48)
You got to be happy and enjoy the journey and see it as a process of learning and unfolding. It just, yeah, it seems crazy to think that we’re going to just, we’re going to be miserable until we get there or we’re going to give up, right? Or forget this, it was too hard. Like if, you know, I know you with your pickleball, if you didn’t reach, if you had set an expectation that you had to reach a certain number of games won, and if you didn’t get there, like forget it.
Peter Morrison (04:15)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (04:15)
Who’s the loser in that, right?
Peter Morrison (04:17)
Right, right.
Martha McKinnon (04:20)
And it’s the same way with me with Spanish. I mean, my Spanish is, it’s very, it’s a very slow process, but my new and good is that I have, I showed up, there’s an opportunity to take a Spanish class here once a week. There’s two or three ladies who show up and I’ve joined that class this week. And so now it’s another opportunity to work on Spanish and to meet a couple of new people and to continue moving forward beyond just my Duolingo.
So I’m patting myself on the back. And so we practice grammar, we play games, she talks to us in Spanish. So there’s a little more, a little more listening and conversation maybe than I would get in Duolingo and also just being with other people.
Peter Morrison (04:49)
Is it like an immersion type course where you only speak Spanish?
Martha Mckinnon (05:13)
And so it’s a step up from what I was doing, it’s not like total immersion, but it’s moving in the right direction slowly, slowly, slowly.
Peter Morrison (05:20)
Awesome.
Martha McKinnon (05:21)
Yeah, so good for you and good for you for enjoying your tournament and for continuing on.
Peter Morrison (05:29)
Well, thank you. And like I said, it’s just a process to get to the point where, you play against it’s sort of like you and your Spanish lessons. It’s like, well, if I don’t win, I still would rather play a tournament or a match against better players to try to increase my own ability than win a tournament where I’m playing people who are not, you know, at the same level.
Martha Mckinnon (05:37)
Right? Because well, how fun would it be to show up every week and like beat people who are much less adept than you are? How long is that going to be fun? It’s just, you want to be challenged. But I think that that’s what I’ve learned from all my reading around change and behavior change is that there’s a sweet spot in there. You want to be slightly challenged, but not like…
Peter Morrison (06:12)
Right, right, not fun at all.
Martha McKinnon (06:33)
Overwhelmingly challenged so you got to find that place where you’re working but you’re not feeling totally overwhelmed For example, if you showed up in like a totally, like if they were much much better than you that wouldn’t have been fun, right? And if they were not as good as you that wouldn’t have been fun. There’s like that sweet spot where you’re being challenged but in a realistic way.
Peter Morrison (06:35)
Sure. Sure. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (07:00)
And think that’s again analogous to what we’re talking about here around like weight loss and healthy eating. It’s like make realistic expectations for yourself, you know, so that you can feel a little bit challenged, but not get totally overwhelmed and defeated. If every day you’re waking up feeling defeated, then you set your goals too high, right? Because you want to set milestones and goals for yourself that are achievable.
And that’s going to make it, again, much more sustainable for the long run.
Peter Morrison (07:33)
Absolutely. So shall I read the question or the comments or the suggestions?
Martha McKinnon (07:36)
Yeah. Yeah. So this is multi-part. So you may have to keep me back on track with this because there’s a lot in this question or comment.
Peter Morrison (07:47)
So this comes from a reader, L, and they write, I find reminders of our accountability helpful, shedding light on the excuses we give ourselves. Reminders about portion control, sharing insights on the role of consistency and good habits. Good intentions are not enough. We have to do the work. Looking for some pointers on how to stop the negative thought processes.
Martha McKinnon (08:22)
Okay, so there’s a lot there and I think I might start with the negative thought processes first because it’s most in my mind having heard it last. I don’t think I mean, and I’m doing a lot of reading right now around this topic of thought and thinking and I’m having a lot of insights around it. And I think that when I’m learning is is very helpful. I think I can help people maybe with as I am learning.
But I think that what I’m learning about thinking and when I, cause I tend to be an over thinker is that we can’t really necessarily like thoughts come in, thinking comes in, thinking happens. We can’t necessarily control what thoughts will come into our head or what we’re thinking about. What’s really powerful I think is to understand that it’s just a thought and that it is just thinking and that we can sometimes get pulled into our thoughts and believe they’re true.
But they’re not. I mean, we can think a lot of things that aren’t true. And so when it comes to negative thinking, I think where I struggled for a long time was believing that someday if I kept doing the work and I kept meditating and reading and trying to improve myself and getting on my yoga mat and studying the Bible and that suddenly there would be no more negative thoughts in my head and I was in this struggle.
So to overcome my thinking and what I’ve come now to understand with about a year now of meditation and reading on this topic is that that thoughts are thoughts and they’re going to come and go. It’s sort of like they talk a lot in meditation about you’re the sky and your thoughts are the clouds, know, thoughts will come and go, but you’re the thinker. You’re not the thought. And this has been really powerful for me to understand and to just give myself a break around it.
The negative thinking that comes in now feels much less intense because now I don’t try to fight it. I don’t try to argue with it. If suddenly a thought comes in like, you know, you’re totally stupid and who do you think you are to be having a podcast? Who do you think you are? And I have this negative thought, just like, there goes that thought again.
There it is, you know, and I just sort of let it go. And, and it just, and pretty soon you’re onto some other thought like, what am I going to have for dinner? Or, you know, I wonder how my deviled eggs will turn out, that I’m going to bring to a potluck soon. So that I think is can be very helpful instead of thinking that you have to overcome your thoughts. You can just see them for what they are. They’re just thoughts.
And just because, because I think it doesn’t mean it’s true and just see how that works for you and see how that resonates to just give yourself a little space around it. You can also just, you know, counter your thoughts with every time you have a negative thought, just counter it with a positive thought, so there’s lots of ways to play with that. But my real suggestion where I’m having a lot of success right now is to just don’t try to fight with them and just let them come and let them go.
Peter Morrison (11:37)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (11:48)
There’s a saying somewhere in the world of meditation and all this is that an uninvited guest soon leaves. So if you think of these thoughts that just come running through your mind and if you don’t engage the thought and if you don’t try to fight it or beat it up and you just kind of let it pass, pretty soon it’s just like gone and you can just move on to something else. So that would be my suggestion around negative thinking to see if that provides some help. Do you have other thoughts, Peter, around how you handle negative thoughts?
Peter Morrison (12:23)
No, but I was just wondering like what advice you might give or suggestions or ideas like you had a brownie or you ate something where, maybe you felt like you didn’t need it or, or maybe you had two brownies and you maybe felt like you overdid it somewhat and, you’re sort of beating yourself up where, um, it’s still a thought, but it was sort of the result of an action.
Martha McKinnon (12:36)
Okay. Mm-hmm.
But it’s a thought tied to a specific behavior versus just a random thought coming in – the thought is tied to something that you did and now you’re beating yourself up. Yeah, and so and this is very common in the world we’re talking about and my counter to that is to and again because we can all have very very critical very very mean voice.
Peter Morrison (13:02)
Correct. Right. Right.
Martha Mckinnon (13:22)
I mean I have an inner mean girl who’s not as mean as she used to be. But so we can all relate to that this like mean voice who’s constantly beating ourselves up and who you know, why did you do that? And that was stupid. And you have no self control and you’re never going to get where you want to be. And I think what’s really been helpful for me around that voice is this concept of learning not to talk to myself…
Peter Morrison (13:31)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (13:51)
in such a mean way and always thinking like if somebody came to me, my best friend came to me and was explaining, that I just screwed up and I ate two brownies and I’m such a loser and I’m never going to, you know, meet my goals. What would I tell my friend? Like would I tell her she was a loser? What would I say to her?
Martha McKinnon (14:16)
I would say, give yourself some slack. I mean, it’s brownies. It’s not the end of the world. I would be kind and I would say, you know, what do you think? Maybe have a conversation around it. Like, well, what, why do you think you ate more than you wanted to? And, and ask a few questions and say, you know, I would try to start talking to myself the way I would talk to my best friend, or to somebody I really cared about and to offer that same kind of compassion and empathy and understanding. And I think that’s magical because it just, it takes so much of the power and the venom out of what we’re doing to ourselves.
Peter Morrison (15:06)
And it’s true, I think if somebody came to us looking for support and help, you would not beat them down. You would do what you can to help lift them and help.
Martha Mckinnon (15:21)
Right. Right.
Peter Morrison (15:25)
Help make them see it’s not a life changing decision.
Martha Mckinnon (15:34)
Right. That’s so true. I mean, so we went up to our friends, with people who are struggling, we helped them see that it’s not, again, it’s not life threatening, right? It’s, not, it’s not life threatening and it’s so what, you ate too much. And I always used to ask this because this would come up a lot in my Weight Watchers meetings. People would say, well, I ate a brownie. And my first response would be, cause I think this is what can help us change too.
Martha McKinnon (16:03)
Did you enjoy it? Was it good? Because so many times we’re eating it, but we’re not even letting ourselves enjoy it. So first thing is if you’re going to eat something indulgent, at least give yourself the opportunity to really savor it and enjoy it on one level. And then if you still you feel like, you overdid it. Again, give yourself grace around that.
It happens to everybody and tomorrow is your next meal. That’s the cool thing about this space is that you always have an opportunity to make a new choice at your next meal. You know, in a few hours, you’re going to be hungry again and you get to practice again. So it’s a practice. Self-kindness has been very, very helpful for me. I know because like I said, I used to have a mean girl who was much, much meaner, much more vicious than the one who’s left in my world today.
Peter Morrison (17:09)
Right. So again, they also asked about reminders with portion control, insights on the role of consistency in good habits and good intentions are not enough and reminders of accountability.
Martha McKinnon (17:22)
Right. So again, again, because like anything, when you’re wanting to change, when you’re wanting to learn something new, when you’re wanting to start a podcast, learn a new skill, you have to you have to do the work. Right. We could sit there together. I mean, and again, tomorrow, right, we could we could expect that we’re only going to be happy if we’re perfect. We might decide we’re never going to even try.
Martha McKinnon (17:54)
But the truth is you just have to try, show up, and do your best. But you have to actually try and you have to show up. Because I think one of the most dangerous words can be tomorrow. You know, like, I screwed up today. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I didn’t have time. I mean, there’s just always a million excuses. So you really have to look at yourself and be honest about the excuses that you’re using that are preventing yourself from getting started, you know, or for showing up or for doing what it is you know you can do on any given day.
Peter Morrison (18:06)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (18:24)
You have to really figure out how to get started. There’s this suggestion around all the teaching around habit change and what really works is that start gentle and start small and think about how can I make whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish – like portion control was mentioned here – like how can I make it easier? How can I make it more satisfying? How can I make it like more fun?
Martha McKinnon (18:59)
What’s the other one from James Clear? Obvious to like portion control. What are the things that I can do to make it like less overwhelming? And one tip that I have that I learned back from the book Mindless Eating, which we’re going to need to explore in greater detail because it had so much wisdom for me, was to look at the size of your dishes. And I actually went out and bought some smaller dishes because portion control became much easier when you were eating smaller dishes.
You know, if you’re eating cereal in a reasonable size bowl versus some of these dishes now which are just tremendously huge. So think about what you can do for portion control to make it easy on yourself. Downsizing your dishes is huge. I remember my former mother-in-law, we would get together for Sunday dinner quite often and everybody would have a dinner plate except she ate her dinner on a salad plate. And it was just a natural way to eat less in a way that didn’t look meager, you know, so her plate looked just as full as somebody else’s but she was eating less and satisfied.
So the science shows that when you eat from a portion that looks generous, then you’re more satisfied. So that’s one really tip that’s helped me around portion control. Another tip around portion control that I instituted again as a result of Mindless Eating is what we call Dish and Dine, so we don’t serve family style. We stopped serving family style a long time ago. We keep the food in the kitchen. We put it on our plate The only exception might be salad or vegetables or maybe something you want to eat a little more of – you might put those on the table. But to just keep it all in the kitchen and we call it sort of dish and dine. You eat and you eat and you enjoy it, then you wait, such that if you think you need more you’re gonna have to get up and actually go into the kitchen to get more versus what I would do if it was just in front of me, family style would be scooping a little more, scooping a little more if you’re sitting around, you know, having conversations. So that can be helpful around portion control. Other tips around portion control?
Peter Morrison (21:17)
I was thinking it’s along the lines of what you were just saying about how you serve it, but not eating like if you’re having a sandwich and chips for lunch, don’t put the bag of chips on the table. Put a handful or however many chips you want actually on your plate with your sandwich.
Martha McKinnon (21:35)
Absolutely. Absolutely.
That’s a big one. Like don’t be eating out of the container. You know, put the portion in a dish and, and, and ideally sit down and eat it, while you’re paying attention and you’re not distracted. Like don’t be, you know, don’t be snacking while you’re checking your email because you’re gonna, you’re going to eat it without even enjoying it or really even realizing that you’re doing it.
Martha McKinnon (22:04)
So yeah, put the handful of food like you said, on your plate. Don’t be leaving the bag out. And that’s true of anything that you’re reaching in and grabbing for. You’re much better off to take one or two cookies out of the cookie jar, out of the box, stepping away, putting the box back away, and sitting down and actually enjoying them. That can be a really big portion control help. Do you have other thoughts and things you do around portion control?
Peter Morrison (22:28)
I’ve seen, this is not me personally, but I’ve seen there are like, I don’t know what you’d call it, like a thing you put on your plate that you put your meat, your vegetable, your starch. It doesn’t really measure, but it sort of guides you in quantity.
Martha McKinnon (22:57)
So it’s almost like a little serving template. It’s like a little silicone template that you put on your plate. Then you can put your portions right in those spaces. Other people will say like, I’m not gonna let my food touch, you know, if it’s a really big plate. So you can play with downsizing the amount that you’re eating.
Peter Morrison (23:07)
Mm-hmm
Martha McKinnon (23:25)
One good tip that we’ve talked a lot about in Weight Watchers through the years when you go to a restaurant – because restaurant portions are typically just oversized – was to ask for your to-go container as soon, you know, with your meal. Please bring me my to-go box with my meal. And then you would just take the portion that you did not want to eat and put it in your to-go container and put it aside and just eat your portion. Another thing that Rod and I do a lot now, I mean, when we go out is to share, like share an entree.
Peter Morrison (23:47)
Okay.
Martha McKinnon (23:50)
So we might each get a salad and then share the entree, especially if we don’t want to be bringing home leftovers. That’s another tip around portion control in restaurants. Those are some of the big ones. Yeah, How’s that working?
Peter Morrison (24:07)
Yeah, we’ve been trying to use smaller dishes. It is good, especially for lunch. I know several people have wrote in to the to the website where their husband or somebody might be ill or severely underweight and they’re doing a lot of cooking trying to help them and they’re struggling as a result. I’m in a situation where I’m very active, probably more than a lot of people and certainly my partner.
Martha McKinnon (24:32)
Mm-hmm Sure.
Peter Morrison (24:59)
And I tend to make lunch and the quantity would be based on my appetite and it would often be too much. So a request was made to just, you know, cut back on portion size. Now if I make a sandwich or a wrap for lunch, I’m not using the big dinner plate. I’m using like a small, more like a bread plate almost or something just to put the sandwich on. That’s a good reminder for me too, because even though I’m burning more calories oftentimes, the quantity I was making, was just too much even for me.
Martha McKinnon (25:34)
Our eyes can be bigger than our stomach for sure and there’s been studies that show like if you go out and look at an antique shop where you’ll see old antique dishes. They’re so much smaller. I mean, over time, I mean, we’re creating dishes now that can hardly even fit in the dishwasher. You know, they’re so gigantic. And you go look at antique dishes and the dinner plate really looks like the size of our today’s salad plate.
So when you think about why are we so much bigger than previous generations? I mean, that’s only one example that we’ve let our portions just keep getting bigger and bigger. And there are so many examples of this that are so interesting to me.
Peter Morrison (26:03)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (26:18)
When the Hershey bar came out, it was like a one ounce. It was like the size of those little mini candy bars that you get at Halloween when it first came out. And there’s all kinds of examples of this. Like when Coca-Cola first launched Coca-Cola in a bottle, it was eight ounces. It wasn’t the 64 ounce Big Gulp.
You know, cookies. When you look at a recipe for like chocolate chip cookies in a really old Joy of Cooking (affiliate link) cookbook, it’ll tell you that it makes a hundred chocolate chip cookies. You look at the recipe, the more recent version of the Joy of Cooking, same recipe, you know, and it might tell you that it makes 24 to 48 cookies. So everything, in every way you think about it, just keeps getting bigger. Bagels, you know, you think about what a bagel was, I mean…
Peter Morrison (26:53)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (27:13)
back in the 60s or 70s versus these things that are as big as your head now. And that becomes, if that’s all we see, that becomes our normal. We eat these cookies now from these bakeries and stuff that are like the size of what five or six cookies would have been a few generations ago.
Peter Morrison (27:37)
Yeah, there’s a dessert on Simple Nourished Living. It’s a bars or squares recipe. I know you wrote up about on All Recipes, a similar recipe is I think it’s like 12 or 16 bars. And I think it’s in a nine by 13 pan. And it’s like, this should be like 24 or 36 servings.
Martha Mckinnon (27:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Right, right.
And so that’s what’s happened over time because now we see what’s like what would have been a reasonable portion a couple of generations ago and we think it’s meager. We think it’s too small, you know, because our everything’s changed. The way we see things has changed just because everything around us has gotten bigger. Portion distortion is real. And so and the more I think the more you know that the more understanding you have, the more comfortable you can get with backing off.
Peter Morrison (28:18)
Portion distortion.
Martha McKinnon (28:29)
And just testing yourself. And one thing that I also do is like when I’m going to have a sweet treat, like always order the small, just get in the habit. You know, when you’re going to have the ice cream cone, just get the one scoop, not the four scoops, you know, and all of these things that you don’t have to totally do away with these treats, but we need to learn to make them, you know, a more reasonable amount, which would have been just typical, you know, in our grandmother’s generation.
Peter Morrison (28:55)
Right.
Martha McKinnon (28:58)
So that can be real helpful to just wrap your brain around it and to make it easy just the downsizing the dishes has been magical for me. Because it isn’t hard, it’s easy. I don’t have to worry about over pouring the cereal or the yogurt or the cottage cheese or whatever. I’ve got these really pretty smaller bowls for those kinds of foods. Often like you said, I’ll make, I’ll serve lunch or dinner on like a salad sized plate.
We also have these smaller bowls now that we’re using more and more you know for our entree, is just less space to fill up. So that’s perhaps helped around portion control. So we’ve talked about negative thoughts, we’ve talked about accountability, we talked about portion control. What else was Elle asking about, Peter?
Peter Morrison (29:45)
Shedding light on excuses we give ourselves? I don’t remember.
Martha McKinnon (29:49)
Okay. Yeah, so I can think of dozens of excuses I give myself like what kind of excuses do I give myself, how about I deserve that? That’s like a classic one, right? It’s like I had a bad day. I earned it. I mean, that’s really dangerous when you’re I think when you’re exercising.
Peter Morrison (30:09)
I earned it. I earned it. Yeah
Martha McKinnon (30:21)
I mean, I remember days in California where I was at a really unhappy place in my life. But I would basically, and I was not very active, but if I could gin up the energy to take the dog around the block, then I would reward myself, I’m not kidding you, would reward myself with a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar. I don’t even know how many points one of those would be, but they’re probably, what, 300 calories easy? Do you know how far you have to walk to burn that off?
You know, I’m totally intrigued by those studies. Like how many hours on the treadmill would it be? Right? Because typically when I work out on the treadmill, I end up burning enough calories to justify a small apple. Not a big chocolate covered Haagen-Dazs bar. So one of my classics is like I earned it or I deserve it. So that’s one that I tend to to use a lot.
Peter Morrison (31:16)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (31:20)
I’ve said often that for me, part of this journey and reigning in my accountability and just getting to where I wanted to get to, I feel like I have an inner spoiled child who just she wants what she wants, and she’s going to stomp her feet and have a little hissy fit. And she just like this, like I want it, I deserve it. Give it to me now. And I’ve had to just tell that spoiled child because again, if I had a child, wouldn’t want to spoil the child, right?
And it’s like, well, no, tomorrow or, you know, or that’s something we do. I’ve made rules around chips. For example, you talk about chips. Typically I have, you know, it’s like, well, on the days that I have a sandwich, then if I want, I can have a serving of chips, but I can’t, but I don’t allow myself to have chips just willy nilly whenever spoiled little Martha Jean decides she wants potato chips and if she can’t have them she’s going to have a hissy fit. It’s like no, we’re not having a sandwich today, we’re having a salad. So we’re not going to have chips at this meal.
That’s been helpful for me to just say that I have this child and sometimes I just have to delay the gratification and say no, maybe we’ll have pizza, I want pizza and they’ll know we have dinner in the crock pot.
Maybe Friday, maybe on Friday. Then oftentimes, we forget, you know, by Friday you’re onto something else. So learning how to just in a nice way, not a mean way, but just to just set boundaries around these expectations or these demands from that inner child, I think I’ve found it just like to talk that person down and say, no, I’m sorry, not today.
Peter Morrison (32:43)
Right. I think some other excuses might be created around times when early in the day, you might not stay on track as much as you thought. You might have messed up with your diet or eating, and then you just sort of say, well, you know, my day is shot anyway. It’s gonna be a free for all. I’ll just start again tomorrow.
Martha McKinnon (33:33)
Right.
Peter Morrison (33:33)
Oftentimes we allow ourselves where maybe it might be better to sort of catch yourself and say, well, okay, well, I slipped up at lunch. I’m gonna have a lighter dinner.
Martha McKinnon (33:44)
Right, right. So we learn to compensate
Martha McKinnon (33:48)
So we’re gonna learn compensation skills versus throwing in the towel. Like if we’re gonna throw in the towel every time we don’t act the way we think we’re supposed to perfectly act and just give up and throw in the towel, how far are we gonna get in life? Right?
Martha McKinnon (34:11)
So we have to learn to just say yeah okay, so I didn’t eat breakfast perfectly, you know, and that can happen to me sometimes like on Sundays, we sometimes will go out to breakfast and I’ll order the omelet but I often want Rod to order the combo which brings pancakes because I want a little bit of pancake. And sometimes I’m more into his dish than I should be right with the syrup. So okay, so do I beat myself up and say, I you know, I really only meant to have…
Peter Morrison (34:35)
Right.
Martha McKinnon (34:40)
a few bites of pancake but I really ate half his pancake so now game on. No you say okay so I ate a few more bites than I should have so now we’re gonna compensate you know and we’ll think about what we’re gonna have for dinner or and oftentimes again like when we really start to get in tune with which I think we want to if ultimately get to is this hunger directed eating because we ate more chances are we’re not gonna be as hot like if we’re really tuning in.
We won’t be as hungry later if we can really calm ourselves down and say, you know, we’ll eat again when we’re hungry, not just because it’s lunchtime or because we feel like we should be eating. So tune into your hunger and also just again, compensate. Yeah, we ate a little bit too much at breakfast, so we’ll cut it a little back at lunch, but we’re not going to just throw in the towel game on and start tomorrow because that’s just a no win proposition.
Peter Morrison (35:23)
And also just again, compensate. Yeah, we ate a little bit too much at breakfast, so we’ll cut it a little back at lunch, but we’re not going to just throw in the towel. That’s just a no win position.
Martha McKinnon (35:38)
And I’ve been there. I mean, the reason that I do feel like I can share here, honestly, is been there, done that, right?
Martha Mckinnon (35:47)
I mean, absolutely. So that’s that’s another good excuse. So again, we just have to learn about ourselves, be aware of the excuses we tend to use and figure out how to like, counter those in a loving way. Again, we’re not beating ourselves up. We’re not bringing up the voice. You know, we’re not shaming ourselves.
We’re just get, but we have to get real and get honest and know about the games that we play with ourselves. I mean, the more we sit here, the more thoughts I’m having about old games that I used to play with myself. And another old game I used to love to play around Halloween, even though we maybe got three trick or treaters was to have to buy my favorite Snickers bars, right? For Halloween candy. And it’s like, I told myself I was buying them for that trick or treaters, but that wasn’t true.
Even though we maybe got three trick-or-treaters, was to have to buy my favorite Snickers bars, right? The Halloween candy. I told myself I was buying them for the trick-or-treaters.
Peter Morrison (36:04)
Who you knew weren’t gonna show up.
Martha McKinnon (36:37)
Who I knew weren’t going to show up, right? So, yeah, my gosh, don’t even get me going on the games and the excuses we can play, but we got to just call ourselves, know, start being real with ourselves, start acknowledging it, make fun of it, make light of it. And so, mean, so yeah, and can learn and just change, like when you get serious, it’s like you start changing your behavior because you just don’t want the Snickers bars around anymore.
Like another great tip I learned back in Weight Watchers was leave the temptation at the grocery store, you know, or wherever you’re first having the temptation. Don’t bring it home, you know, and be tempted again and again and again, you know, until it’s gone. So you can choose to just say like, no, I’m going to leave that in the store at the store this week.
And that way don’t have to worry about every time I open the pantry, it’s staring me in the face. Other excuses you can think of? Any other excuses that come to your mind that you might have used?
Peter Morrison (37:45)
Nothing’s coming to mind, but I really like the idea of the games we play for a potential future podcast.
Martha McKinnon (37:51)
Yeah, because we do play games with ourselves, right? Totally. Yeah, that’s it. That would be a good one. Anything else that Elle asked or have we addressed all of her?
Peter Morrison (38:04)
I think we’ve covered it all.
Martha McKinnon (38:07)
Cool, okay.
I thought that was thank you again, Elle, for that submission because that felt really honest because I could just relate to all of the aspects of what you were talking to. So I hope this helps provide some insight and guidance around those challenges.
Peter Morrison (38:10)
Mm-hmm.
Martha Mckinnon (38:33)
And for those of you who have tuned in today, if you enjoyed what we were sharing, we would love to have you hit that like and subscribe button. We’re all very new to this. If you have comments around the games that you’ve played, the excuses that you’ve used, other tips and suggestions around portion control or tips for Elle, leave those in the comments. And if you have ideas for future podcasts, please leave those as well.
Peter Morrison (38:55)
Great conversation, thank you.
Martha McKinnon (38:57)
Thank you, thanks for being here and we will talk again soon. Bye bye now.
Peter Morrison (39:01)
Have a good day.
