Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #40| Drop the People Pleasing and Learn to Love Your Body to Feel More Calm and Confident

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#40| Drop the People Pleasing and Learn to Love Your Body to Feel More Calm and Confident · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

0:04
Michelle: Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
0:09
Michelle: Today we have a guest on the podcast and it is my friend and fellow coach, Laura Conley, and she is going to tell us about what she coaches on, and it's very interesting because she talks about and teaches women how to lose weight for the last time.
0:28
Michelle: In doing so, she does a lot of coaching and uses a lot of the techniques that we talk about on this podcast here.
0:35
Michelle: So she, for example, talks about people- pleasing eating, so eating to please other people, and how it's okay to take care of yourself first and how that's the first step in getting to your dream weight.
0:49
Michelle: And even I questioned her about if it's okay to say we want to weigh a certain amount instead of just loving our body as it is.
0:56
Michelle: So take a listen to our interesting conversation.
1:00
Michelle: I learned a lot just in talking to her and I think you will too.
1:04
Michelle: At the end and in the show notes are all the ways that you can reach out to Laura if you're interested in following her too.
1:10
Michelle: I'm on her email list and I always love the emails that she sends out.
1:14
Michelle: Okay, here she is.
1:15
Michelle: I want to welcome my friend, Laura Conley.
1:19
Michelle: She is a coach.
1:20
Michelle: Tell us who you coach.
1:22
Michelle: Kind of tell us your own backstory, because I like your own backstory about how you got here, and then I have a bunch of questions for you, because I feel like what you coach on is something that overwhelmed women really struggle with.
1:33
Laura: Yeah, totally.
1:34
Laura: Okay.
1:34
Laura: So first of all, thanks for having me on.
1:36
Laura: So fun to be here.
1:37
Laura: My name is Laura Conley.
1:39
Laura: I am a life and weight loss coach and I became a weight loss coach because I struggled with my weight like since I can remember so it was probably 12, 13, 14.
1:50
Laura: And it wasn't until I had my daughter, over six years ago, that I decided to heal this relationship with myself, my body, and food once and for all, because over my dead body was I going to pass it on to her.
2:04
Laura: So the story goes I was six weeks postpartum, I was getting out of the shower, I was buck naked, and I caught myself beating myself up for the way my body looked six weeks postpartum.
2:18
Laura: I know! And I was like, "what are you doing?
2:22
Laura: Like I was like "no, and I just had this kind of like come to Jesus moment where I was like you will never speak to yourself like that ever again, because if you do, your daughter is going to speak to herself that way.
2:36
Laura: And I just had this knowing of - even though at that point I, like, knew all the right things to do and say - I just knew that if she grew up and caught me catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and it was disapproving that she would inherit that, even if I said the right things, I knew that my inner voice was going to become her inner voice and it was - it was really like something came over me.
3:02
Laura: So prior to that, I really had accepted defeat.
3:05
Laura: I was like this is just going to be my thing.
3:07
Laura: I'm just going to yo-yo for the rest of my life.
3:09
Laura: I'm just going to be the girl that's always on keto or then totally not and eating all the things.
3:15
Laura: I'm just going to be that girl - until I had her.
3:17
Laura: And I was like, I will not accept defeat.
3:19
Laura: I was like, I'm going to find the answer that I thought there was no answer for.
3:24
Laura: And so I went on a mission and luckily, a lot of my background kind of led me to the answers through life coaching and through meditation and through yoga, and I kind of pulled my past to create what is now the Yummy Mommy method.
3:38
Laura: So when I finally solved it like once and for all and really weighed my dream- come- true weight but also loved my body and loved my - like this is the other nuance - really loved the way my body looked.
3:50
Laura: Right, I wasn't striving for this like fantasy body.
3:54
Laura: I really think that a lot of us can get to body love.
3:56
Laura: But can we get to the way my body looks love?
3:59
Laura: And so once I got to that spot I mean I was just shouting it from the rooftops I like couldn't - I still almost can't believe it.
4:06
Laura: Like my husband, I'm like, "can you believe that I really did this Because he had been on this journey - I've known him since I 18 - so he's been on this journey with me this whole time.
4:14
Laura: He's so happy and I weigh what I want.
4:17
Michelle: He's probably so happy you don't have to talk about it anymore.
4:21
Laura: That's what he said.
4:21
Laura: He came on my podcast and he was like it's just so boring, like I just didn't want to hear about the next diet.
4:27
Laura: And he's like, "I'm so happy that you're so happy now", so it was great for him, and I always do like I can't believe it.
4:34
Laura: I can't believe it.
4:34
Laura: So it's almost like I had the same moment where something came over me and then I had this knowing that I had to bring it to the moms and the women of the world, because I knew I wasn't alone in this and I was like I have to free these moms, have to figure out how to basically package what I just created and free the moms from the traps that diet culture and the conditioning and programming and socialization that we diet that we inherit.
5:02
Laura: I have to help them free themselves.
5:04
Laura: So that's kind of the backstory of how it came to be.
5:09
Michelle: Okay, that's awesome.
5:11
Michelle: I love that.
5:12
Michelle: I think that this is really relevant to overwhelmed working women, which is who we're talking to, because we always tend to push ourselves to last place.
5:24
Michelle: Even if we want to be healthier, eat better, we just don't make the time to do it until everybody else has everything that they need.
5:32
Michelle: So that's point one, and I want your opinion on that.
5:35
Michelle: Then the other thing is I feel triggered when I hear you say what weight do you want to be at, because I feel like, oh my gosh, we can't talk about weight.
5:46
Michelle: We can't talk about how much we weigh or what we want our bodies to look like.
5:49
Michelle: We just have to have body positivity for whatever it is.
5:53
Michelle: So, whichever one of those you want to start with, maybe start with the first one.
5:57
Michelle: Let's talk about that for a second.
5:59
Laura: It's literally taboo now.
6:01
Laura: It's taboo to be like I want to lose weight.
6:04
Laura: It's taboo to be like I want to have my dream- come- true body.
6:07
Laura: It's like a dirty word.
6:09
Laura: I swear to God I think we've swung the pendulum too far, because it used to be like crazy diet culture and then we swung the pendulum all the way over here to body positivity and I'm all for body positivity, but if it's real.
6:24
Laura: I fake- did body positivity for years and years I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love my body because I thought I was supposed to and I felt like wrong and bad for not doing it.
6:34
Laura: So it was like my dirty little secret that I didn't love my body for so long, especially as a yoga teacher.
6:41
Laura: I taught yoga full time in LA for eight years and I have like a lot of shame around like, oh you know, you're supposed to love your body and so I kind of want to give like women permission to want to lose weight.
6:55
Laura: You're allowed to want to lose weight and the reasons you want to lose weight are probably very valid and legit.
7:06
Laura: Even if one of those reasons is to rock a bikini, you're allowed to want to rock a bikini.
7:11
Laura: You're also allowed to want to change the legacy in your family and not pass down diet culture or whatever you know, whatever it is that you and I right.
7:20
Laura: So I do think that we're taught like you have to love your body at any size.
7:26
Laura: And, yeah, you can love your body at any size if that's true, unconditional love.
7:30
Laura: But if you are faking it like I was, I want to give you permission to want to lose weight, because that is an act of self love.
7:39
Laura: Admitting to yourself that this is something that you want is an act of self love, because if you want to lose weight, that is a deep desire within you and the reasons behind it are true and real, and a lot of them are health reasons too, or just to feel good in our body or to have a nice experience with ourselves when we get dressed.
7:57
Laura: Like getting dressed sets the tone for your whole entire day.
8:02
Laura: Right, you're not - when you have a positive experience, you get out of bed and you feel good in your body and you're kind of like lightened, alive, and then you get dressed and your closet isn't beating you up and giving you side eyes because you can't fit into anything, and it's actually a pleasant experience that carries into your whole day and that's our whole lives.
8:17
Laura: So if you have this desire inside, I want to encourage you to like, stop ignoring it and to listen to it, because you listening to you is an act of self love.
8:27
Laura: It really, truly is, and you ignoring your deep desires is not loving it.
8:34
Laura: That's not positive.
8:35
Laura: That's not body positivity.
8:36
Laura: I don't know what that is, but it's not that.
8:38
Laura: You got me all passionate, Michelle!
8:42
Michelle: I know, I know, just like we were talking about the Barbie manifesto.
8:47
Michelle: Like you have to want to be healthy, but really you want to be skinnier.
8:51
Michelle: I can't remember the exact wording, but it's like don't say what you really want, it's bad to even talk about it.
8:59
Michelle: And just the other day, my daughter's 13, and she just asked me,
9:03
Michelle: "So, mom -", I've been teaching her all along in her whole life about, like protein, okay, if you're hungry, eat some protein and some carbs, whatever.
9:11
Michelle: Trying to give her, like some you know, ideas of what to do with stuff.
9:14
Michelle: And she's like "so, mom, the part I don't get is are calories good or are calories bad?
9:19
Michelle: " And I was frozen with fear because I was like I can't mess this up.
9:23
Michelle: I don't know what to say to her, like I'm going to damage her whole life.
9:26
Michelle: You know, if I say they're bad or they're good, but not too many.
9:29
Michelle: And I don't know, I just think it's so stressful right now to even think about talking about it.
9:34
Michelle: So for you to just give permission to be like, okay, - if you mean not my 13 year old - but like, if anybody, an adult, wants to say, oh, I'd like to go on spring break and feel good in a bikini just cause I want to.
9:47
Michelle: You can do that.
9:48
Laura: That's allowed.
9:49
Laura: I mean, people will be like "I don't want to tell you my reasons, cause some of them are vain".
9:53
Laura: I'm like the work that you're going to do to lose weight for the last time is going to be deep work.
9:57
Laura: I don't care if you have vain quote unquote reasons.
9:59
Laura: And some of my clients have kind of a mixture of both quote unquote again we don't have to label calories, we don't have to label our reasons, but you want it.
10:08
Laura: If you do want it deep down, you want it for a reason and it's not bad or wrong to want it and you don't even have to tell anybody except for yourself.
10:17
Laura: Like I do get clients that like, don't tell anyone that they're doing my program because of the way that our society has trained us to like feel shame about wanting to lose weight.
10:30
Michelle: Yeah, and then people see her and they're like why you look so confident, what are you doing?
10:36
Laura: Exactly.
10:36
Laura: Please tell me all your secrets.
10:37
Laura: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
10:39
Laura: Oh, you brought up the other point, too, about like these overwhelmed working women that we're talking to today.
10:46
Laura: You know it's really easy, and I did this for so long, it's really easy to put ourselves at the bottom of the list or like not even put ourselves on the list like at all, especially when it comes to like getting healthy or losing weight or whatever the thing is.
11:02
Laura: And I just want to like validate that for the listeners that like that's normal that you've fallen to the bottom of the list, because, again, that's the way that we've been trained, right, it's like everyone else, but like we get accolades, we get like freaking trophies as women for not being on the list, like yeah yeah, like it's a compliment to say, oh, she's so selfless.
11:27
Laura: She's so selfless.
11:28
Laura: And I just saw - there was a guy and he was like celebrating his mom and that was all like great and proper and cool and whatever.
11:36
Laura: But he was like "she was the most selfless woman" and I was like oh F that I got so mad because that just perpetuates it.
11:44
Laura: And then it's like what is his partner then, or his wife or whatever - what messaging is she getting?
11:50
Laura: And then what is his daughter like, what messaging is she getting?
11:53
Laura: And I'm like, oh, it just frustrates me so much because I really think and I think number one, it's totally down, totally normal to like not be on the list or to be at the bottom.
12:03
Laura: And it can be scary to put yourself on the list or put yourself at the top of the list and like I kind of think we all just need to take a leap of faith and just try it.
12:12
Laura: We can always go back to the old way, but it's like waiting till you're not scared to put yourself on the list, or number one, two or three, it's probably not going to happen.
12:21
Laura: You're probably just going to have to like feel the fear and do it anyways and then see that it's, it's better over here when we're on the list, like the first act of true selflessness is selfishness because we really can't pour from an empty cup, we really can't contribute in the way that we're meant to contribute to this world when we're just a shell of ourselves.
12:40
Laura: I get this image sometimes, Michelle, of like women walking around, like just these, like these zombies, like these shells of ourselves, because we - I don't know where I got this imagery just comes to me sometimes - I just, yes, like as women, like just zombie, driving through the carpool lane, sitting in traffic, showing up for the bake sale, running the board meeting, like yeah, just driving through to get lots of coffee to make it through and not feeling good about ourselves and doing everything for everybody else.
13:13
Michelle: I totally agree.
13:14
Michelle: I think the other perception is - and you and I both know as life coaches - change is hard.
13:21
Michelle: You have to feel a certain amount of discomfort if you want to change something.
13:25
Michelle: But I do feel like if you're going from a place of I never work out and I don't eat healthy and I don't prep meals and those kinds of things, it feels so overwhelming to think about doing that.
13:37
Michelle: So what do you say or how do you coach your clients on that?
13:41
Laura: Yeah, because it can feel like, okay, we have to start doing like two-a- day workouts and we need to like go to this grocery store, and then you have to go to Trader Joe's too, because we have to get - So I actually like to teach my clients like we're gonna lose it for the last time without meal prep, without deprivation, without exercise.
13:56
Laura: It really does sound like way too good to be true.
13:58
Laura: It really does.
14:00
Laura: But what I ask my clients to do is what I call brush their brain every day.
14:04
Laura: So I have my clients journal for five minutes a day and that is the daily practice.
14:10
Laura: That is it.
14:11
Laura: And when it comes to food options, I also teach them that in any situation, no matter what, there's always something that they can have that's going to work for their body.
14:23
Laura: So I don't give my clients a plan.
14:25
Laura: I encourage them to create their own plan with a - it's a very systematized approach, so they know exactly what to do and how to create it and how to test it so that it works for their unique body.
14:36
Laura: Right, because, like we all know, one size doesn't fit all, this is very customized.
14:40
Laura: But I hold their hand and creating what they're going to eat and what they're not going to eat, or you know, some clients don't cut anything right and they just think that's a whole other conversation.
14:50
Laura: But my point is, all you have to do is a journaling practice, and what I like to recommend is that in your journaling practice, you just write down what you're going to eat for the day, if you know where you're going to be, what you ate yesterday and this is it.
15:04
Laura: We're not calorie counting or not counting anything, we're just bringing awareness to what we're eating.
15:09
Laura: And is it working for us from a weight perspective, but also from an energy perspective, because a lot of us are eating foods that we're crashing from at 2pm, right?
15:18
Laura: So it's also like a holistic approach to like is this working in terms of like me feeling the way I want to feel in five minutes and five hours and five weeks and in five years?
15:27
Laura: That's kind of like how I frame it.
15:29
Laura: So this daily brushing your brain, it's what did I eat yesterday?
15:32
Laura: What am I going to eat today?
15:34
Laura: Where's my compelling reason?
15:35
Laura: Like why am I even doing this?
15:37
Laura: Like, why am I even eating in this way?
15:39
Laura: And so I have my clients journal every single day, five minutes, and that sets the tone, so that they know what they're going to have.
15:46
Laura: They know why they're doing what they're doing.
15:48
Laura: I also have them -
15:50
Laura: there's a couple more questions, I don't want to get too detailed, but like I do have them do a gratitude practice to as a part of it, because when they feel really good in their bodies, it's just really easy to make good decisions that are supportive.
16:03
Laura: There's a whole bunch of science behind it, but so I would just say to start, which is going to sound like kind of counter intuitive, like most people that are listening, they're like just give me a day, just tell me what to eat and tell me what not to eat.
16:13
Laura: Right, and what I want to say is journal every day what you ate yesterday and what you're going to eat today and why.
16:20
Laura: And, like, really get lit up by that why.
16:22
Laura: I do teach hunger hormone balance, so I teach my clients how to go from being - most of us in our country and our culture are insulin resistance, so I bring them into insulin sensitivity, which just means your hunger hormones are balanced, and we do that together.
16:37
Laura: But if I had to tell your listeners because I know they're grasping for it what I really like to do is encourage my clients to move away from processed foods and move into whole foods, move away from processed sugar and flour and move into whole foods.
16:51
Laura: And that does not mean by any means no carbs at all, and my clients, up most of them, do what I call like a yummy mummy munchies.
16:57
Laura: So they do, kind of a swerve, eat once a day, if it's really small, or like once a week.
17:01
Laura: So there's always room.
17:03
Laura: Like I always tell my clients like you can eat whatever you want, probably not whenever you want, like we can't just eat like seven cupcakes a day and weigh what we want, but there is room to eat what you want and feel how you want to feel.
17:17
Laura: So I really think that right now, with full plates, if you can, if you can brush your teeth, you can brush your brain.
17:23
Laura: Seriously.
17:24
Laura: And it's just three minutes, it's five minutes a day, just looking at your day.
17:28
Laura: What did I eat yesterday?
17:29
Laura: Did that work for me?
17:30
Laura: What didn't work for me?
17:31
Laura: How do I want to adjust, without shaming yourself?
17:33
Laura: And then, what am I gonna eat today?
17:35
Laura: And then why?
17:37
Laura: And then following through on that, and as you continue to journal, you'll get better and better at following through on what you said you were gonna eat.
17:45
Laura: And it's really great to plan from your prefrontal cortex, like when you're planning, you're sitting down, versus your lower brain and the moment when you're, you know, at the end of the board meeting and there's sandwiches and chips and cookies.
17:57
Laura: It's not your prefrontal cortex that's gonna be making the decisions, it's your lower brain, and your lower brain's job is to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and do it as quickly as possible.
18:05
Laura: So of course it's gonna go for the sandwich and the chips and the pasta salad and the two cookies at the end and the soda or whatever it is.
18:12
Laura: Y our brain wants that hit.
18:14
Laura: So I'm always like - it's our culture that designs food.
18:19
Laura: There's literal labs that design food to make you get a bigger hit from that food - processed foods.
18:26
Laura: So like we've got the food industry and we've got our lower brains working against us.
18:32
Laura: So that's why we need to plan from our higher brains, from our higher selves, so that we can get the results that we want.
18:38
Michelle: Yeah, and it makes so much sense because, just like when you plan in the morning 'here's what I'm gonna work on today', if you plan what you're gonna eat, you're just much more likely to do it.
18:47
Michelle: I feel like every time I eat something that I wish I hadn't, that makes me feel like crap or have no energy, it's never planned.
18:53
Michelle: It's always like, I'm tired, I'm gonna eat a couple cookies, and I'm gonna feel good for like five minutes and then I'm gonna feel like total crap.
19:01
Michelle: So that makes so much sense to me and that feels so accessible and easy.
19:05
Michelle: So what are - what's like the number one problem that your clients have when they start working with you?
19:13
Michelle: Like, what do they realize about the way that they have been eating?
19:17
Michelle: Or, like, what distresses them out the most?
19:20
Laura: Yeah, so this is, this is so funny.
19:22
Laura: We're totally right on the same wavelength because I was gonna bring this up.
19:24
Laura: I think, for your audience - well, for all the humans really - we don't realize that we're emotional eaters.
19:33
Laura: Most of us in our culture we are emotional eaters.
19:37
Laura: Now, our culture depicts emotional eating as having the most stressful day ever, coming home eating a pint of ice cream, you know, having a whole bag of chips and then the gummy bears and then like this big binge fest, right, but that's, I mean, that *is* emotional eating, or it could be, whatever, but emotional eating is eating food *anytime* you're not hungry, like so, if you're a little bored and you grab a couple nuts, you're a little restless, so you have the rest of your kids grilled cheese.
20:09
Laura: Anytime you're eating and you're not hungry, that's an emotional eat and there's an emotion that we can look at and process through.
20:14
Laura: So that's a huge thing that my clients learn is that they're emotional eaters and then we solve for that inside the program.
20:21
Laura: We learn, and this is a skill that I feel like we should all be taught, but we're not taught, how to feel through the stress, through the frustration, through the boredom.
20:29
Laura: It's really actually not that hard at all.
20:32
Laura: It's just that we haven't been taught.
20:33
Laura: So I think that's a huge kind of light bulb moment for a lot of my clients.
20:36
Laura: Like, oh I'm, I'm eating for positive emotions, right, this isn't that fun, so I'm gonna eat to make it more fun -
20:44
Laura: that's another version of an emotional eat.
20:46
Laura: Or, another version of an emotional eat: as I said, I wasn't going to have the gummy bears, or whatever.
20:52
Laura: And now I want the gummy bears, and so I'm gonna eat the gummy bears.
20:55
Laura: They don't want to feel uncomfortable not having the gummy bears.
20:58
Laura: That's another emotional eat.
21:00
Laura: And so I teach all my clients how do we feel through that discomfort.
21:03
Laura: It's again, it's really not that hard, but I think that's a big - it was a big mind-blowing moment for me, like I never identified as an over-eater, actually, or an emotional eater, but then I really learned like oh, any time, if hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution, like yeah, so simple.
21:25
Michelle: Say that again because that is so simple and so profound: if hunger isn't the problem, food isn't the solution.
21:32
Michelle: That makes so much sense.
21:34
Laura: It can help to be like, 'what's really going on'?
21:35
Laura: Like, if you notice you find yourself in the snack room or you find yourself standing in front of the fridge, and you're not hungry, like just ask, hey, what do I really need?
21:43
Laura: Hey, what's really going on?
21:45
Laura: For me, it can be like really kind of sweet, a good, nice way to get to know yourself actually.
21:49
Michelle: Yeah, absolutely that's true, and I do feel like this is the bonus of you being a life coach and then coaching - I know you know a lot about hormones and macros and you know all that kind of stuff, but being a life coach and stopping to look at your feelings and your thoughts, which we know drives everything we do, so that's awesome.
22:09
Laura: I think that's another one of the kind of - the mind - like the thing that my clients come in and they're like, oh, it's really my thoughts that are creating my results here.
22:19
Laura: Like I get clients all the time, "I'm a special unicorn.
22:22
Laura: I really can't lose weight".
22:24
Laura: If you think you can't lose weight, you won't lose weight.
22:27
Laura: If you think it's hard, it's hard right.
22:31
Laura: And so really teaching clients that this is another thing we're not taught, like how to think.
22:36
Laura: I literally teach my clients how to think.
22:38
Laura: What thoughts are.
22:39
Laura: Do you want to believe them?
22:41
Laura: Because if you continue to believe that you can't lose weight, you will continue to live in a body that is not your dream come true weight body.
22:50
Laura: Really, look at you know, we really distill that down and and teach them how to think so that they can have the results that they want in their life.
22:59
Michelle: I love it.
22:59
Michelle: I love it.
23:00
Michelle: That's exactly what I do with my clients, too, but it's just a different, different result.
23:04
Michelle: Okay, last thing, and then I'll ask you to tell us where people can find you and follow you in all the things.
23:11
Michelle: What about the people- pleasing eating?
23:14
Michelle: This is something that you taught me that, I think, is so interesting, because we talk a lot about people pleasing on this podcast.
23:20
Laura: Yes, okay.
23:21
Laura: So if you've ever gotten a little gift from your co-worker and then they're like standing there and they're like waiting to see if you're going to eat it, but you're not hungry, you don't actually really like the Crumbl cookie flavor they bought, like you're probably people- pleasing eating.
23:38
Laura: Anytime we eat to ensure that the people around us don't feel a certain way, don't feel disappointed, don't feel whatever, t hat's a people- pleasing eat.
23:51
Laura: And I get this other vision, Michelle, around us walking around,
23:56
Laura: I'm like, we're all walking around with like five to ten to fifteen pounds of people- pleasing pounds because we're afraid our mother-in-law is gonna get mad at us if we don't eat the special gluten-free pie that she made us.
24:09
Laura: Right?
24:09
Laura: And so it's like the willingness to let other people have their emotions and to let them feel whatever they want to feel about what we're doing or not doing, and that you know that that takes courage, but it's so worth it because I always say like we have to be willing to disappoint our mother-in-law, our friend, our co-worker, whoever, in order to appoint, in order to be our future selves, to be who we really want.
24:36
Laura: We have to.
24:36
Laura: I mean, people are gonna, even if you do everything perfectly and correctly and you eat the exact right amount of chips and dip, people are still gonna judge you, they're still gonna have thoughts.
24:47
Michelle: So it's like, yeah, but live the life that we want to live.
24:50
Michelle: People are gonna think what they want to think.
24:51
Michelle: Yeah, and instead of trying - when my clients worry about, well, I'm worried they won't like me.
24:57
Michelle: I'm like, what if they already don't like you, before you even did all this?
25:00
Michelle: You know like, people are judging us all the time, so just bring the focus back to you.
25:05
Michelle: I used to really feel your example of the boardroom, because I've been in many boardrooms with sandwiches and chips and all that stuff and I really hate it when people would say, like, aren't you gonna have a cookie or why are you having - why are you eating a salad instead of the chips?
25:19
Michelle: And it was like should I just eat - just get a bag of chips, so nobody's gonna say something to me about not eating the chips?
25:27
Michelle: And it was like I was trying to say, okay, I eat healthy, but I'm just like you, I can have chips too.
25:31
Michelle: You know, it's just so silly.
25:33
Michelle: Yeah it's like playing along, playing along.
25:35
Laura: It's like, yeah, but why?
25:37
Laura: Like, I don't even actually want the chips, I'm just doing it so that I can make *you* feel comfortable.
25:42
Laura: Yeah, it's just so backwards.
25:44
Laura: And you're so right, people are gonna judge us.
25:46
Laura: Even if we're doing it perfectly like, even if we could, like, be a freaking robot, they're still gonna judge us.
25:53
Laura: So, like you pick, like the people are gonna judge you if you're perfect and they're gonna judge you if you're doing it your way.
25:59
Michelle: So you might as well do it the way you want.
26:00
Michelle: Exactly - might as well please somebody: yourself.
26:05
Laura: I think it's like fun to kind of, like, you know, test these things out, like, okay, I'm not gonna people- please eat for two weeks or a month, and then you can always go back.
26:15
Laura: You can always go back to people- please eating.
26:16
Laura: Like, just show yourself that you don't die from saying no, thank you.
26:20
Laura: It's like, always think about like vegetarians or people that eat in certain ways for religious reasons.
26:26
Laura: Like they're just like, no, I don't want the shrimp cocktail.
26:29
Laura: And most people are like, oh, okay.
26:32
Laura: it's.
26:32
Laura: It's usually when we have these big emotions and make feelings about like what other people, like people, can pick up on that and then they start to go, oh, are you gonna have a cookie?
26:38
Laura: Are you gonna have the shrimp?
26:40
Laura: Like usually, if you're like, oh, no, I'm good, people are like, oh, okay.
26:42
Laura: Like, I remember we have this - oh, because people want to eat for traditions too, right?
26:46
Laura: So we have this tradition in my house when we make these like little mini grilled cheeses on Christmas Eve.
26:50
Laura: It's a whole long story, but we have this tradition, and it was gonna be like the first year that I was like not having flour and sugar.
26:58
Laura: Of course I could have made it my yummy mommy munchie, right, or my like swervy for, for the week or the day, but I just didn't want to.
27:04
Laura: I just didn't want the bread, I genuinely didn't want it and I had this whole speech prepared about like what I was gonna do, and w hy I wasn't having it - the whole thing.
27:11
Laura: I'm like, no one asked me, like no one cared.
27:16
Michelle: Aren't you mad that I'm not having the bread?
27:18
Laura: Everyone was like, we literally don't care.
27:19
Laura: Most people don't care when you have your own back.
27:24
Laura: Most people can be supportive, like you know, it's like people say, " I don't know.
27:30
Laura: I can't, I can't say no to that, to her special peppermint bark that she makes every year.
27:35
Laura: I'm like, well, my friend Leanne over here.
27:37
Laura: She's saying no to shrimp and pork all day long because she's Jewish.
27:40
Laura: No one's saying anything, yeah and it's just fine.
27:44
Michelle: Yeah exactly.
27:45
Michelle: My Nana used to always say don't flatter yourself, nobody's thinking about you anyway.
27:49
Michelle: Don't worry about it.
27:51
Laura: It's so true.
27:52
Laura: And the few people that do, it's usually their stuff, you know?
27:55
Laura: T hey're dealing with something.
27:58
Michelle: Yeah, agreed, agreed.
27:59
Michelle: I quit eating dairy like a year ago because it made me feel crappy.
28:03
Michelle: And n ow?
28:05
Michelle: I mean, first of all, it's not a big deal.
28:07
Michelle: People will be like, that's so awful, how do you do that?
28:09
Michelle: I'm like it's actually not that big of a deal, yeah, but the times when I have eaten, it is totally in people-pleasing situations, like at someone else's house, and I don't want to say anything.
28:20
Michelle: And then, literally one time I did that and I got sick to my stomach for the whole night and I'm like why on earth would I put something in my body that makes me feel sick?
28:30
Michelle: You know what?
28:32
Michelle: I can't eat that pizza.
28:33
Michelle: I don't want to eat that pizza.
28:35
Michelle: It's crazy.
28:36
Laura: It is crazy and I think about that with like sugar and flour.
28:39
Laura: Like for me, sugar actually makes me sick and I'm like maybe I'm actually allergic to sugar and it's just like, yeah, it's not PC to be allergic to sugar, but I'm like, sugar makes me - I have a cashew and nut allergy.
28:52
Laura: I'm like sugar makes me feel just as bad as eating cashews but like nobody gives me crap about the cashews, right?
28:59
Laura: I'm like, what if, you know, I'm allergic to processed sugar?
29:02
Michelle: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
29:06
Laura: It's so fascinating and it's so interesting too, what you say, like it just really not that bad, probably because you know it's not filling - dairy wasn't filling a void there.
29:16
Laura: A nd I think to your audience, too, I think a lot of times we're really overwhelmed or stressed and we don't have a lot of true pleasures.
29:22
Laura: We want to use food for pleasure but it ends up being a false pleasure because it ends up giving us this net negative and ends up causing more stress and more overwhelm.
29:31
Laura: So I'm like, I've just been thinking about your audience,
29:35
Laura: I'm thinking like if you do feel stressed or overwhelmed, or like it's too much or whatever, like how can you get the pleasure that food - like I'm not saying that your whole audience is using food to solve for overwhelm.
29:49
Laura: But if you are, what is something else that can give you the hit that food gives you but doesn't give you the negative effects?
29:56
Laura: You know, whether that's like a walk in the sunshine or early to bed or a bath or a shower, or like even for some I'm like this is gonna be like so crass for me to say out loud, but like even some of my clients, and this is me too, like for me a glass of wine, it's actually a net neutral for me, but having a bunch of gummy bears is a net negative.
30:16
Laura: So I'm like, okay, well, I'll have a glass of wine and I'm not gonna have the gummy bears, you know, and that actually works for me and there's no shame in that.
30:24
Michelle: Yeah, totally exactly.
30:25
Michelle: I feel like everything can be too much and make you feel like crap.
30:29
Michelle: But if you can have the glass of wine and feel better than you feel with the gummy bears, go for the glass of wine.
30:34
Michelle: Sounds good, my gosh, okay.
30:37
Michelle: So where can people find you like?
30:39
Michelle: Tell us where they should go.
30:42
Laura: So if you guys are podcast listeners, you should come over, and we should have Michelle on my pod too - it'd be so fun! - to the yummy mommy podcast with Laura Conley.
30:51
Laura: And then you guys can find me on Instagram as well, @Laura ConleyCo aching, and my name is l a u r a c o n l e y.
31:00
Laura: And you can also go to Laura Conley.
31:02
Laura: com if you want to check out the yummy mommy experience, which is my six month group coaching program and course that guarantees you lose weight for the last time.
31:10
Laura: So you lose weight or your money back, guaranteed.
31:14
Michelle: Guaranteed.
31:15
Michelle: You must feel strongly about your program.
31:18
Michelle: That's great.
31:18
Michelle: I really do.
31:19
Michelle: I love it.
31:21
Michelle: I love it.
31:21
Michelle: That's so great.
31:22
Michelle: Okay, wonderful.
31:23
Michelle: Thanks for being here.
31:24
Michelle: I'll link all that in the show notes, and I appreciate it.
31:27
Michelle: I learned so much just from interviewing you today.
31:30
Laura: So, thank you, thanks so much, Michelle.
31:32
Laura: I really appreciate it so fun.
31:38
Michelle: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
31:41
Michelle: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
31:46
Michelle: com.
31:47
Michelle: See you next week.