Episode 362: Develop a healthier relationship with yourself & food

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, and I am super excited today because I get to talk to the wonderful Laura Conley. Laura, thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Oh, thanks for having me. I feel like we're like fast friends already.

You know, it's so funny when you meet someone and feel an instant connection. I'm like, I love this woman and I know this is going to be awesome.

Same.

So let me tell you a little bit about Laura because she is going to help all of us. She is the founder of the Yummy Mommy Method. She offers a comprehensive program called the Yummy Mommy Experience, if I could say it. This 6-month journey includes group coaching, coursework, and access to a private community, all designed to guarantee weight loss for her clients. Her approach is holistic, focusing not just on diet and exercise, but on cultivating real self-love practicing genuine self-care, and transforming the way her clients see and use food. Now, selfishly, I'm very excited for myself.

I'm excited for you too. If you're interested in it, it's really—

oh my God, I can't stop. I want to learn all about this. This is amazing. I love the title. I want to know your journey to becoming a life and weight coach. Coach and what sparked your interest and where did the title come from?

The title literally came out of nowhere. Like, I, I, I did not like hire branding consultants. I didn't even think about it for more than a second. It just sort of hit me and I was like, oh, this has to be the name, obviously. And it stuck. And it's very cheesy and very silly, but it really does represent the brand because I, I like to call myself the fun weight loss coach because in order for weight loss to be permanent, it has to be fun. So it's actually part of the methodology and it's a part of the strategy that we use. So we can talk about that all day long. But I got into weight loss coaching, um, about 6 years ago, 6 and a half now, because I had had my daughter Luna, uh, 6 and a half years ago and I was 6 weeks postpartum and I had this little baby. She was— I just gotten out of the shower. She was sitting in her little rocker because, you know, like, they're— you're— they're attached to your hip at that point, of course. And, um, you know, I take like a 4-second shower, get out, and I kind of caught myself beating the crap out of myself for not bouncing back and being in my pre-baby jeans. And I was like beating myself up for the way that I looked in my postpartum body and I was like, I had a big wake-up call. I was like, oh no, this stops here. And it was like this out-of-body, like, knowing. It was like, if I don't heal this at the root, I'm gonna pass this down to her. She is gonna end up with all this diet drama, with a crap relationship with food, and having a love-hate relationship with herself, her body. And so in that moment, I vowed for her to heal this. Prior to that, I had really accepted defeat. I was like, this is just gonna be my thing, you know what? And like, and it's like, well, suck it, suck it up, because like, you know, you could have it worse. Like, there could be a million worse things that could happen. So like, I just thought I was always going to be gaining and losing weight. I would always be on a green juice cleanse and then, you know, come Friday night stuffing my face with pizza and wine. I just thought I would just always be gaining or losing, gaining or losing. And until that moment, and I was like, no, there has to be a way, there has to be an answer to this. And I was so— I was like, I was so compelled because not only did I not want to pass it down to her, life had also just been kind of flashed before my eyes. We had just come out of being in the hospital for 3 weeks. So my baby little tiny daughter was in the ICU for 3 weeks. So it's like, okay, we just got through this life or death situation with her, which was totally traumatic. And I was like, and now we get to do this, we get to do life. And so I was like, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it right, right? I'm not like— she is alive, she fought for her life, she is here, thank freaking God. And I'm not— and I'm not gonna give her a life where she is constantly yo-yoing or constantly in her head counting points or going to the gym for the third time in the day, right? So I was like, I am going to go on this maniacal mission because I also knew I could kind of say the right things. Like, I, you know, at that point I probably could have gotten a degree in nutrition and exercise by how much I knew. And it's not about how much we know, and we'll talk about that later too. But I was like, I know I could say all the right things, but I still knew that I would pass it down to her because she would catch me trying on 72 outfits before the night out. She would catch me like turn away from my husband when he like inevitably went to grab my ass in the kitchen, right? Like I knew she was going to catch it even if I said the right things. I knew she was gonna inherit it. So I was like, there has to be a way. So I really went on this maniacal mission to heal it and ended up using a lot of my background in yoga and meditation and mindfulness to do it along with some tools that I feel like we should all know that I just didn't know. And so it was— it kind of became my journey. And then I sort of had another moment when I really felt like I cracked the code. I still remember saying to my husband, like, I can't believe it, like, I, I really did this. And this is a practice, like, I still practice, right, like, my relationship, just like a lot of us do with our marriages. Like, I still practice my relationship with my body, with food, and with my health. And, um, so, but, but when I kind of feel like I had cracked the code, I like said to my husband, like, I can't believe it. And I was like, I have to do this for other women, like other women, other moms. I was like, we have to free the moms. I have to free the moms. We are all trapped in freaking diet culture. So that's kind of the, the story how I got started.

Oh my God.

Coach prior to that for like 6 years. So, um, I just I just like, I, I have to niche down to this instead of just doing life coaching, which was great, but I really wanted to do the weight loss coaching and the food freedom coaching, whatever you want to call it.

I mean, you, you don't realize it because we're not in person. You might realize it, but I think I got teary 3 times during that whole introduction. First for your daughter. I mean, thank God she's okay. That's traumatic.

Oh, So traumatic.

Oh my gosh. And I mean, everybody— there's tons of listeners who are going to relate to us. The up and down since I was like 20 years old is just, you know, I'm on a down trend right now.

Amazing.

You— I mean, you know from experience that there's— there's definitely a code that I don't know that I've cracked yet.

But I'll tell you the code.

I'll tell you the code today. Help us crack the code. Crack the Code. So I mean, I don't even— I have so many questions to ask you, I don't even know where to start. But can you like start us off with like a little introduction to starting to Crack the Code? Because I promise you, I have not done this.

Yeah, well, I alluded to a couple things already. Number one, it's a lifelong practice. Yeah, so you— it's kind of like, I always use the analogy of brushing your teeth. Like, can you imagine if you just never went to the dentist, and then poof, at age 40 or 35 or 45, whatever, you wake up, you haven't gone to the dentist. You would need like an immersive experience at the dentist, right? You would need your teeth whitened, you would need the cavities filled, you'd need a root canal, you would need braces, you would need all kinds of stuff, right?

Yes.

And then after those 6 months, or however long the dentist takes, let's say 6 months, a year, of all of him fixing your mouth, or she fixing your mouth, or however you say that grammatically correct, I don't know, um, You still have to brush your teeth, right? You still have to brush your teeth every day. You have to floss every day. And it's the same, right? Diet culture teaches us that there's an end date, right? You, 75 Hard, 21 Day Fix, Whole30, right? It's like everything has an end date. And some of these programs have like maintenance plans, but that's not the way it translates into our brains, right? And in our brains we're like, oh nope, day 75, I'm done. Phew, made it. And we're white knuckling the whole way there. We're grinning and bearing it. Right? So number one, I teach my clients that is a lifelong practice, and I teach them how to practice daily in a way— again, the other thing I alluded to was fun. It actually has to be fun. That can be very triggering for people because it can feel unsafe. Well, it can't be fun. If it's fun, that's not— it's not gonna work, right? A lot of us are high achievers, and hard work equals results. And I'm not gonna say that there aren't moments that are hard in weight loss, in the Yummy Mummy Method, but for the most part, it has to be fun, it has to be enjoyable so that you don't wanna quit. So that's another thing that we kind of hack. A lot of the methodology is around hunger hormones. So we actually do have a plan. So it's not a diet, it's very different than a diet. My clients create their own plan. So that's another reason why it works. Is because they're bought into why they're doing what they're doing. They actually know the science. And every one of my clients has a different plan that fits their bio-individuality and also fits their lifestyle. But for most of my clients, their plans balance their hunger hormones, which has huge health benefits as well. So it greatly lowers your risk of lifestyle diseases like metabolic diseases, type 2 diabetes, type 3 diabetes, like they're calling Alzheimer's, um, all kinds of things. Cancers. So we work on hunger hormones, which again, that was nothing— I, I was never taught about hunger hormones. Um, and that is the key. It's not calories in, calories out. We're not tracking anything. We're not counting macros or calories. Like, doesn't work. I tried it. I— if it was going to work, I would have— it would have worked by now. Um, another thing that we do is we do a lot of mindset work. So if you feel like, you know everything, like I was talking about, like, you could probably recite all the diets backwards and forwards, right? You know, like, every calorie count and every, like, North American food, but you just can't get yourself to do the actual thing. It's because you don't have the mindset. And so we use a fancy word, you've probably heard of it because it's like talked about a lot now, neuroplasticity. So we literally rewire your brain so that your brain operates like get that naturally thin friend that you have. We all have one. They're so annoying, right? I'd be so mad at my naturally thin friend all the time. I'd be crying to my husband, why does she get to eat whatever she wants? It's not fair. I was so entitled. I was so mad.

Yeah, I understand.

Yeah, it's— yeah, so we heal all that as well, but a lot of it is mindset. So we retrain your brain so that your brain operates as if you were a naturally thin person. So your brain starts to perform habits for you without you having to try so hard. It's like, you know, you live in Buffalo, New York right now and you drive to CVS. It's probably pretty automatic. You probably just drive there right now. If you move to South Carolina, you would probably have to work or you'd have to at least pay attention in terms of how you drive to CVS. And then eventually you would just drive to CVS in South Carolina without paying attention. It's the same with our eating habits. So many of us are performing eating habits that don't serve us. They don't give us the results that we want. We do a rewiring process so that your brain can work for you, not against you. Another part of the methodology is emotional eating. So I did not think I was an emotional eater, which was so crazy because our culture depicts emotional eating as like you have the most stressful day and then you come home and you eat a carton of ice cream followed by a bag of chips followed by like whatever else you can find, like the Butter bunnies, right? And anytime you're eating and you're not hungry, it's probably an emotional eat. Now, emotional eating is not wrong or bad. Actually, our culture teaches us to do it, right? Like, right, we are taught, oh, you had a bad day? Let me take you out for ice cream. Oh, like, oh, you skinned your knee? Come on inside, you have a popsicle, right? Like, I watch myself want to do it with my kids. I'm like, oh, interrupt, don't do that, Laura, let them feel their feelings, right? So, I realized I was an emotional eater, right? If hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution. So, that little handful of nuts because I was bored at 2:30 in the afternoon, right? That wasn't an emotional eat. Oh, I'm at the party, but the party's not that fun. I'll have another cupcake. That'll make it more fun, right? So, we eat for positive— like we eat to make emotions or we— sorry, let me correct myself. We eat to make experiences that are kind of neutral or eh more fun. We eat to soothe, we eat to avoid, escape, whatever. So we learn how to feel. We were not taught in school. I wish we were. I mean, I feel like the schools are doing a better job now, but we were not taught how to feel our feelings. We were taught to resist them, ignore them, fix them, right? And food is one of the ways that we can do it. Again, it's not bad or wrong. It probably actually served. If you— whoever's listening out there— if you identify as an emotional eater, you're kind of picking up what I'm putting down. Don't make yourself wrong or bad. This is what we have been taught and it served you while it served you. And this is the first step in that awareness process, which is, which is everything because we can solve for that. We can learn to feel our feelings. And to my point about the neuroplasticity, we also weren't taught how to think. That's another thing we do. We learn how to think. Um, we also have loving accountability. I talked about fun. We also learn how to love ourselves. My clients cringe. They're like, I don't want to learn how to love myself, I just want to weigh what I want to weigh. I was like, well, you can't have one without the other. If you want to weigh what you want to weigh permanently, you actually have to learn how to love yourself. So we learn— we stop beat— we learn like a whole process on how to stop beating yourself up, because that's a huge, huge part of dieting, right? Like, we say we're not gonna eat the cupcake, we eat the cupcake, we beat the crap out of ourselves. Hey, if that worked, I would like be like Great. Go beat the hell out of yourself. It doesn't work. No, it doesn't. So I'll stop talking. But those are, those are some of the things.

No, you just addressed like 5 questions. So I'm going back through my questions because I guess my, my questions are, can you give us an example of what would look like it being fun? What would it look like if it was fun?

Yes. Okay. So we do inside the Yummy Mommy, we do a thing called over-celebrating. So we are like celebrating the crap out of ourselves. So I ask my clients to celebrate every day in their journals. And if you're like turned off by journaling, you can— by yourself, you can— yeah, too bad. It's— trust me, this is the easiest way that I found. I've tried all the things. This is the easiest, best way that I have found to lose weight. Journaling. Okay, big deal. Oh, you don't want to call yourself a journaler? You could call yourself a writer downer. So— or you could put it in your phone. Doesn't matter. But I ask my clients to celebrate every day. We do it live on the calls every single week. So what we're doing is we're looking for things that are working. We're looking for things that are going well because when, I mean, you probably know this, right? Confirmation bias. When we tell the story inside our brains, like it is working, I am doing this, this is the last time, our brain goes and collects more and more evidence for it. So we learn this process of over celebrating. And I mean, I personally think that that is very fun.

That sounds like a lot of fun. I think we all need to do that more because we make these achievements or we make these food choices and we don't give ourselves any credit. We just keep going with our day.

Yeah. Yes. And exactly. So it's like I teach my clients this concept called almost immediate gratification. So, right, we all know what immediate gratification is. You see the cupcake, you eat the cupcake. Immediate gratification. But then you don't get the delayed gratification of losing a pound that week or whatever. So, I like to teach my clients, if you say no thank you to the cupcake and you say it to yourself with love, because we do not use willpower. Willpower is not a renewable resource. That's why we're all eating at 9:00 PM or at the end of the week, right? Because we've white-knuckled it. Willpower will run out. It's another reason why it's, it's fun. We use allow power. We're not fighting our whole way through. So, um, oh, I totally lost my train of thought. What was I saying?

Almost, almost, almost.

Yeah, almost instant gratification, almost immediate gratification. So when you say no thank you to the cupcake, wait 5 seconds, 10 seconds, and what you get is a feeling of pride. And that feels so good. So I try to teach my clients— I do teach them to kind of like revel in that for a little bit instead of just moving on. Your point exactly, instead of just moving on to the next thing. Wow, I'm amazing. Like, my hus— my husband thinks I'm psychotic because I do this now. Like, I'm like, did you see that? I cleaned the kitchen. It is so clean. Can you— can I have an accolade? Like, I call it like—

I call it like you're asking for it.

Oh, I asked for— it's a huge joke in my house now, but now I've named it as 'Come on, compliment me.' And I asked— I asked my clients to do it with their, like, families themselves. Like, 'Come on, compliment me,' and compliment yourself. 'Wow, yes, I am amazing.' Yeah, so anyway, it's very fun. Now, you might think that that won't work, right? So, like, people will talk about the, uh, 5 love languages, which I don't love. We could talk about that more later if we want. Anyways, My point is, if you are a words of affirmation person, give it to yourself. And people will be like, I can't just ask my husband to say that, or my partner to say that to me, because it doesn't count. It's not coming from the heart. I'm like, who cares? It works, right? And it's— it actually makes me feel even better than if my husband did it organically, because now there's so much play and humor in it, and it's so funny. So like I just cleaned, we had a party yesterday. I just cleaned, I don't know, like 20 wine glasses. And I was like, babe, look at these wine glasses that I just scrubbed by hand. And he's like, oh my God, you do what? I'm gonna get you a trophy. And it's just this big joke now.

I love this. Well, and I also have to say that I feel like we're also training them. Like I feel like my family learns what I need. Like, excuse me, where's my thank you? Where's my, you're amazing, ma.

Yes, yes. And people will be like, oh, but then they say it and it's like fake. And it's like, no, no, honestly, it's just— try it. You don't have to. Yes, you don't have to keep doing it.

I love all of it. I'm eating it all up. And I really want to know, can you give us some examples of some self-love throughout our day? Because I feel like people don't know what that looks like.

Oh my God, yes. What the heck is self-love? It is this term, right, that gets thrown around on Instagram. And it's like, yeah, but like, how? So the way that I would start, the way that I like to define it, it's literally just the thoughts that you choose, okay? So like I was saying before, we were not taught how to think, we're not taught how to feel. So let me give you like a little lesson on how to think, and then we'll talk about self-love because this goes hand in hand. There is your brain and then there is you. You are two— they're two separate entities here. Okay, and so your brain is an amazing servant but a horrible master. So you need to take back the reins. You need to get in the driver's seat versus your brain being in the driver's seat. Now, what is your brain's job? Your brain's job is to think thoughts, and your job is to select them. So like, think of Marie Kondo. Are you familiar with Marie Kondo? Yeah, I mean, I think most people are, right? So what she has you do is if you're gonna clean out your closet, she has you take out every every single piece of clothing that's in your closet, put it in a big pile, and then hold up each item and be like, does this spark joy? And— or like, I like the question, like, is it useful? That's a little bit more like realistic. So is this useful? Um, and that's what I want you to do with your thoughts. The thoughts that come into your brain, they're not you, they're just how your brain has been programmed. So I recommend you hold up each thought. Now, some of the thoughts that come in, you can just keep them, like stand up, go to the door, open the door, go into the bathroom, go pee, whatever, right? Like some of the thoughts, just leave them. They're fine, right? We think 60,000 thoughts a day, so most of them you do not need to pick up. But the ones like how you're relating to yourself, how you're talking to yourself about your decisions, how you're talking to yourself about your parenting, the way that you look, the food choices. That's where the self-love comes in. So I define self-love as just the way that you talk to yourself. That's it. Now we can get into the way you treat yourself and like the actions you take, but the actions are always driven from your thoughts anyways. So it's always about your thoughts. So how can you talk to yourself? Like, you can put it through the BFF filter. Like, think of your best friend, or think of like your kid that like your favorite kid, the one that's like easy to parent. Or think of somebody who you just genuinely love, like they're just easy to love. You all have hopefully one person in your life that is very easy to love. Put it through the easy to love filter. Would you say that to that person? Would you say that to your kid? Would you say that to your younger self? I like to do it with like my kids because, you know, I, I am fairly nice to them. I am working on my yelling. I've gotten a lot better on it. But my point is, put it through the filter of, would I say that to my kid? Would I say that to my BFF, the one that I really like? Um, and if you wouldn't say to them, don't say it to yourself. Now, I— now you've probably heard this advice before, but what brings it home is when you start a practice. And we do this inside the Yummy Mummy Method. I give I, I make my clients— I mean, of course my clients are adult individuals, they can do whatever they want, but I ask them to write down every day just like a brain dump. We call it like a thought download, and they just like empty their brain on paper. And that, that makes it easier to learn how to think because you have separation. Then you can see on the piece of paper that, oh, that's my brain and this is me. That's my brain. Now which of these thoughts are useful, are helpful, are loving. If they're not useful, if they're not loving, if they're not helpful, they go to Goodwill, they go in the trash. Like, they're out of here. Throw them out. You don't have— like, no one taught us that you are an adult human and you can think whatever the fuck you want.

You don't—

like, nobody gets to dictate. It's the funnest thing, right? Like, you get to think whatever you want, you get to believe whatever you want, you don't even have to tell anybody. So like The way that you are thinking right now is delusional. And loving yourself, you might be like, well, that's delusional too. Who cares, right? Like, whatever. Like, you're like, well, I can't just think whatever. Just try it for 2 weeks. If you don't like it, go back to the way that you're thinking. And so you could, again, on that piece of paper, what are you constantly thinking about? Like, when you look in the mirror, when you're taking a shower, when you're getting dressed, what are you saying to yourself? Can you just upgrade it? I'm not asking you to do a 180 on the thoughts unless it works. If you're like looking in the mirror, you're like, wow, I'm busted. And then you're like, you know what, I'm effing beautiful. I'm the most gorgeous person I have literally ever seen. If that works and you can believe it just 1%, then go with it. But if you need a ladder thought, it could just be like, Maybe you look in the mirror and you're like, oh, barf, woof. Instead, could you think, there I am, that's me, like just a more neutral thought. And then eventually we can work our way up to the loving thoughts if they feel really, really far. And I mean, yeah, I could go on and on. Another thing I will say is this enoughness. We do this as women, right? I didn't do enough. So what questions are you asking? Are you asking yourself loving questions? Are you asking yourself crap questions? So like, my brain will be like, oh God, we got nothing done today. What's wrong with you? And it's like, wait, whoa, wait a second, brain. And like, I like to be humorous with my brain because my brain is not as mean if I meet it with play, if I meet it with silly, if I'm like, whoa, what did I do today? And my brain will be like, oh, actually, right? This is where your brain's a great servant. If you direct your brain, your brain will go to work for you instead of work against you. I'm like, no, brain, what did I do today? And my brain's like, oh yeah, actually, you recorded that podcast. That was a good job. That was so— how were you? You were on fire. And then you coached that client, and that total— she was lit up, right? And so make your brain go to work for you. Two separate entities.

So good. I mean, you're speaking my language. You don't know me very well, but you're speaking my language, and I love what you're speaking. And I know moms, and I, and I just did this yesterday, and I was like, you only weeded the front. I'm like, cut it out. How about, yes, good, great job in the front.

Yes, you killed it. Who even weeds? That's amazing. You are awesome. And that's the way, like, you really, you guys, you really can talk to yourself like that. So it starts with your thoughts, because I like to teach our thoughts cause our feelings cause our actions. Thoughts, feelings, action. So if you speak like, wow, you're amazing, you weeded the whole front yard, then how do you feel? You probably feel proud. And then what do you do? I don't know, skip around the house and act like a cool good mom, right?

It's, it's everything versus being hard on ourselves and then coming in and being cranky and miserable.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. If you're like, I only weeded the front, what is wrong with me? And then you feel— I mean, I would feel just disgusted at myself, and then I'm a little moody and I'm a little mean and, you know, I'm a little snappy. So it's— it really starts with your thoughts, and that's the actions too. Like, I think for, for moms, it's like you're gonna have to be willing. So there's the way you talk to yourself and then the way you treat yourself, like things you do or you don't do. And then maybe just start with one thing, right? And this is not going to be easy. There probably will be some resistance. You probably won't want to follow through at the beginning on these self-love things. Like, maybe you're like, okay, I'm gonna go get a pedicure, oh, I'm gonna like lay down and take a nap for 20 minutes, I'm gonna— like, it doesn't— I feel like self-love gets touted as like bubble baths and pedicures, and that can be self-love, that can be, but it's really more about the way you speak to yourself and then carving out just 15 minutes a day for you. What does that look like? Is it reading a Is it a 15-minute walk around the neighborhood? That would be mine. I love a walk around the neighborhood, right? And the first couple times, you're not gonna want to do it. You're gonna be like, oh no, but I could get one more thing done. Oh God, I got to do this thing. It's like, that's where the rubber meets the road right there, is that decision. Decide to follow through on that plan and you'll start to build a new habit. And that's very loving. But it's so funny, we're addicted to the familiar. We're addicted to, right, We're addicted to what we always do. And as moms, we haven't been trained to love ourselves. We've been trained to be martyrs. And again, I want to pass down— yes, I want to pass down this relationship with food and body to my daughter and my son too. But I also want to teach them to love themselves and to like, how do you treat yourself when you make a mistake, quote unquote? That's, that's where you can really tell, like, do you love yourself unconditionally? And that's That's one of the reasons why I don't want to give my clients magic pills, because then they miss out on the opportunity of learning how to love themselves unconditionally and then passing that down to their children. Which, that is the greatest gift that we can give our kids, is the ability to love themselves unconditionally in their mistakes, quote unquote mistakes, little failures, whatever you want to call them, detours, roadblocks, plot twists, whatever you want to call them, right? That's That's the test. Like, can you love yourself in the moment? And like my clients do, because what do they do? They say they're not going to eat a cupcake, and inevitably they will eat the cupcake. Now they will lose weight for the last time, but on the process, during, during the journey, they're going to eat a cupcake and they're going to learn to be like, wow, I love you even though you ate a cupcake and you said you weren't going to. You know what? It's okay. I wonder why we ate that cupcake. Let's learn from that. And move on instead of let's beat the crap out of ourselves, right? It's like I'm getting into pickleball right now. Oh my God, I suck at pickleball, you guys. It's so annoying. But am I like crying? Am I like throwing in the towel on me playing pickleball because I missed, um, 7 serves today? No, I'm just, I'm just learning. I'm just getting better. I got a coach. I have a coach who helps me. She's like, oh no, no, you have to stand like this with your paddle. Oh no, no, you have to serve like this. I'm like, oh great, that's why it didn't work. Same with weight loss. We just haven't been taught the skill of permanent weight loss. That's why we don't weigh what we want. That's it. It's really that simple. My God, tell me I am on one today, am I not? I'm crazy today, Rebecca.

Well, I mean, you're making, you're making this really easy for me. Like, the little next question was going to be about making a mistake eating something like a cupcake, so I was like, she's making this so— you're like, this is the easiest podcast Ever. Oh my God.

It's so good. I gotta, I gotta quote you. Um, um, yes. So I teach a process called Look Back with Love to answer your question. So if you eat something you say you don't like, some people call it like kind sight. I call it Look Back with Love. And this is where the buried treasures are. Like, do not miss that opportunity to learn about yourself. And actually when we can like bathe ourselves in love before before we go look at the mistakes. So that's what I tell my clients: look back with love. The love part is key. You will feel shame. You will, because you've been so practiced at feeling shame when you make a mistake around eating, because we attach so much morality to our food choices. And it's just— it's just not— it's just neutral. It's just fine. It's not freaking heroin. That's what I am always telling my clients. I'm like, uh, it's a cupcake. It wasn't heroin, okay? I think— I think we're all gonna be okay here. Um, so it's like we've been taught that if you eat the cupcake, you either beat the crap out of yourself, right? Which, that doesn't feel good, and it doesn't change behavior. If you study behavior change, what you will find is you have to meet yourself or your children. Like, when I'm helping my kids to, like, you know, be functioning humans in the world, it does not help me to— or them— if I verbally beat them up or like whatever, right? I cannot yell at them if I want their behavior to change. I need to meet them with love and compassion and understanding, right? So we're taught we either beat the crap out of ourselves— doesn't work— or throw our heads in the sand, right? Like, oh, it's fine, it's fine. And what we'll call it giving ourselves grace— that's not— no, that's not graceful. That's putting your head in the sand. That's actually not loving. I know I get kind of a, like, a bit of a kind of harsh coach here, but it's not, right? Like, if my kid If Phoenix hits Luna and I ignore it and put my head in the sand, it's not the loving choice. It's not, because I'm ignoring his behavior. I'm not helping either of them in that moment. So the third option is look back with love. You bathe yourself in love after you calm down, if you got riled up, and then you look back. Hey, what happened there? I wonder what was going on for me. I wonder what I was looking for when I wasn't hungry and I ate the cupcake. Oh, you know what? I was looking for relief. I needed relief in that moment. How can I take care of myself next time when I need relief? What questions can I ask? What can— how can I talk to myself really? So you make a plan for next time, right? Just like you would with your kids, or just like with pickleball. It's like, okay, next time, how do— how are we going to handle this? What are we going to do and not do? And it's a practice. It's a practice. It does— just because my pickleball coach told me how to serve doesn't mean I'm going to serve perfectly from now on. Serena Williams— I don't even know if there's any like famous pickleball people, but Serena Williams still gets it wrong sometimes, right? Are going to lose weight for the last time and weigh what you want, and you're still going to get it quote unquote wrong sometimes. Big deal. You're going to have the result that you want. This is not about being perfect, it's about a practice, right? So I mean, I'm just— I am, I am passionate today.

I mean, we all need to hear this. We all, every single person, learn this. I mean, this is stuff that we weren't taught about food. And, you know, I don't want to keep you forever because I do know that I'm not your only appointment today. But I do have a couple more questions.

Please. I'm here for it. Clearly, I'm excited.

Well, I mean, it's really important to me. I have two daughters. It's really important to me to be a good example and to model for them how I want them to eat, how I want them to treat themselves. Can you— so we're teaching them through what they're seeing, not through what we're telling them. So can you give us a couple of your important pointers of how we can teach our kids good stuff about the subject?

Yeah, for sure. So I believe that food is for fuel. Like, I believe that's the point of food. Now, everyone gets to believe whatever they want, right? We talked about thoughts. Beliefs are just thoughts that you've thought a bunch of times. So I believe that that's the point of food most of the time, not all the time. Like, I do believe there's room for treats, right? Like, what I'm trying to think of— oh, we just had s'mores. We just had a fun barbecue and had the fire pit going, and I had a s'more. I wasn't hungry. I just want to have a treat once in a while, and that's totally fine. There's, there's room for that. It's just that for me, I had a lot of room for that before, right? And now, and now I just plan it. I'm just really— I'm actually just strategic about it, um, and it's not a big deal. So that's— you're right. Like, I think the way we teach our kids is by modeling. Yes, we can put words to things, but by modeling it So like, for example, I'll just ask my daughter, like, my son's kind of little still, but I'll ask my daughter like to check in with her body, right? If I notice that she's like housing an entire bag of chips, I'll just be like, "Hey, let's just check in and see how your body feels." So it's about asking questions. Like if you notice something, just ask a question that's fairly neutral and believe them too, right? She'll be like, sometimes she'll be like, "Actually, yeah." My body is telling me I need to stop. Or she's like, no, I'm still hungry, or whatever. It's like, trust them. They will figure this out. They're allowed to be on a journey too. They're allowed to not get it quote unquote right. There's no such thing as right or wrong. Anyways, don't get me started on that. So, um, I also like to compliment them on, and I'm sure you do this too, on their behaviors versus like their looks. Or like ask them, right? Like I can tell sometimes my daughter, she'll like put together an outfit and she's like, oh, I am rocking it. And so I'll just like, and I, I will want to say, oh my God, you're so cute. And I will say that sometimes people will say, you can't say that, you can't— I'm like, okay, it's a little black and white, it's a little harsh to me. It's like, what if you did— what if you could compliment them on their looks, it just wasn't the number one thing you were complimenting them on, right? It wasn't the only thing you're noticing. Like, I do think it's okay to once in a while be like, you look really so cute. I think it's fine. I don't think it needs to be this black or white. But can I direct what I'm saying to her to, how do you feel in that outfit? Like, tell me about how you feel in your body in that outfit. So it's more of a conversation versus, versus like me telling her. Um, so I like that a lot. We also do. Yeah, I mean, I love the questions. I also love, you know, when I do her hair or we're getting ready together, I like to like throw an affirmation in there and just be like, let's, let's just do some affirmations, right? Like, I'm creative, I'm kind, I am resilient, I'm confident, right? So I know that's kind of cheesy, but if you habit stack it, like, we're already doing her hair, why not add something that will help her, right? Because we really do have the ability to brainwash these kids. I know that sounds psychotic, but like Seriously, their brains are malleable, so why not pre-program them with good stuff, you know? So, so really modeling the behavior around food and your body and the way that you talk to yourself. Again, people always say— have you heard this line— that our children's inner voices are the way that we talk to them. The way that we talk to them becomes their inner voice. I think that's how it is.

It's a lot of pressure.

So much pressure. It's so much. Okay, so we could talk about that too. Yes, so much. It's so much pressure. The way that we talk to them becomes their inner voice, but I also think the way that we talk to ourselves becomes their inner voice again because they're picking up the way that we look at ourselves in the mirror. So watch when you look in the mirror, what are you saying to yourself? Is that on purpose or is it on autopilot and it's actually not helpful for you or your kids? So again, it goes back to the thoughts. A lot of— we do a lot of thought work inside the Yummy Mummy. Um, But I also, you said like, it's a lot of pressure. Like we're not gonna get it right. We are gonna screw them up. And so like, if that's true, then what? Let's just do our best, right? Like I think I find so much peace around like, I'm not gonna be a perfect parent. That's impossible. And even if I was able to be a perfect parent, then that's what they're inheriting, that, that they have to be a perfect parent. Oh my God. That is like, so let's model. To our kids that it's okay to make mistakes and love ourselves in those mistakes. That's like, I feel like that's my really the legacy that I want to live. Um, but again, when it comes to food and your body, I think what's really important— people always ask me like, can you come teach a workshop on how to talk to our kids about their bodies or how to talk to their— our kids about food? I'm like, sure, but you want to know the real workshop is doing the work on yourself and finding out what you want to believe, what you do believe about your body, about bodies, about food and what it's for. Because when you know in your heart of hearts what you believe, it's, it's just so easy to pass it down. Like, I'm pretty convicted in what I think about marriage and what I think about love. And so I don't have to like go to a workshop on how to teach my daughter about love and marriage and partnership, right? I just do it, right? And so that's why it's like It's an inside job. I really believe it's like, it's our duty, it's our right, it's our responsibility to heal our relationship with food, with our body, so we can pass it down to our kids. Like, my daughter, the other day, she was like, um, what did she say? It was breakfast time. I typically intermittent fast. I intermittent fast most days of the week. I love it. I'm very energetic because of it. I just, I love intermittent fasting. Not all my clients do it. Some of them do, some of them don't. You don't have to intermittent fast. If you do the Yummy Mummy. Anyways, she was like, why aren't you having breakfast? Um, and I was like, I'm not hungry. That was it. It was like literally it. And we were, we're so screwed up from diet culture that we're like, oh my God, I have to have this like canned answer. Like, can you imagine if like, if I was just sitting on the toilet and I didn't have to go pee or poo? Like, I know this is ridiculous. Like, no, it's be like 'Why are you on the toilet?' Yeah, like, or like, 'Why aren't you on the—' It would be like her being like, 'Why aren't you peeing when I'm peeing?' Because I don't have to pee, right? Perfect. It's like, yeah, it's like, 'Why aren't you taking a nap?' Because I'm not tired. Like, it's just so— like, 'Why are you eating?' Because I'm not hungry.

We complicate everything.

Yes. And she's like, 'Oh.' She's like, 'Oh.' Moving on. Like, she does not care. That I'm not hungry.

Well, because you, because you didn't complicate it.

Yeah, exactly. I, I could see myself in my dieting days, but oh well, I'm on this plan and I have to do it this way. And it's like, I'm literally not hungry, I'm not gonna eat.

Oh my God, you are a hoot. So, okay, so there's a, there's a ton of moms listening to us and some of them are feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to start. So to Let's leave them with like, where, where do they even begin with this?

Yes. So I hope this is okay. I made your audience a free Create Your Perfect Weight Loss Plan plan. So this is literally what I was desperate for, desperate for when I was in my dieting days. This would have been the key that, that began to unlock it. For me. And so that's like, my business coach was like, I don't know if this is like, this is the thing you should create. I was like, I don't care because this is what I would've wanted. This is what I was again desperate for. So I just made it. So that would be a great place to start. Okay. So you just go to plan.lauraconley.com. I usually charge for it, but you will see your audience will not have to pay when they go to plan .lauraconley.com, and I can give it to you if you want to put it in the show notes. But my name is L-A-U-R-A, and then Conley is C-O-N-L-E-Y. So plan.lauraconley.com, and your audience can go get that for free. Um, it's like a whole roadmap. It's really awesome. It will help them create their— oh my God, you're welcome. It's like, I mean, again, this is, this is like my— I don't know if if like you're woo-woo or spiritual or anything, Rebecca, but like, absolutely. This is, this is my, like, this is my assignment, is to free the moms. Like, I genuinely believe I have to free the moms. Literally, I have to free the moms. It is, it is my like divine assignment, and that's what I'm here to do. I had this vision one time. I was playing in the pool with my kids after I had healed my relationship with food and my body, and playing with the kids in the pool and I look around at all these chaise lounges with all these moms and it was like they were handcuffed to the chaise lounge because they didn't wanna take their cover up off. They didn't wanna put, their kids are desperate, like, please go down the water slide with me. And you know, the moms are like, no effing way am I like going down the water slide with you. I'm like, I want to play in the pool with my kids sometimes. Yeah. Not all the time, but I want to and I want to. Be the one suggesting it. I don't want to say yes out of obligation. I want to say yes out of like genuine wanting to do it. It's like, you want to get meta, you want to get like spiritual. It's like, what is the point of life? I literally think the point of life is to swim in the pool with my kids. Literally, like, that's the point. Or however you want to phrase that, you know, like, however you phrase it, like hanging out with our people. I heard Martha Beck say that one time on a podcast. I'm like, yes, hanging out with our people. Like, that's the point of life, having fun with our friends. What if you don't like the word fun? Use enjoyment, use another word, whatever.

So anyways, I'm all about connection. Yes, for me it's all about connection, and if we feel good, we make more connections, right? Agreed, agreed.

So that's why we have to get these women off the Chase lounges. I mean, if you want to be on the Chase lounge, that's great. I do not, but you just don't want to be handcuffed to the Chase lounge. Yes.

Well, so to the, to the moms who want to find you and start the program with you, is that where they're going to go? Is theplan.lauracom?

Yeah, they can go there and they will automatically get on my email list. And so you'll start getting emails. Um, our next cohort is going to start, uh, July 16th, and then we'll have a cohort that'll start end of September, beginning of October. Um, but people can start anytime. So like if say you're listening to this in August or September, you could always join and do like our quick start. So, um, so yeah, you can also just go to lauraconley.com if you want to like stalk me or go down the rabbit hole. I have a podcast as well called the Yummy Mummy Podcast, uh, with Laura Conley. The name is going to change to Lose Weight for the Last Time, so search one of those and you'll find it. I'm on Instagram too, @lauraconleycoaching. That's pretty much the spiel. Well, thank you.

I mean, I kept you way too long. She has to run to her next appointment. I loved talking to you. I have never laughed so much on a podcast while learning at the same time. See, it's fun, Rebecca.

See, that's how my whole entire program is. That's how the whole 6 months are.

Oh my God, you're amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your expertise. Thank you for the laughs.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So fun. This is Rebecca Green, and I want to remind everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving. Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.

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