It’s important for you to become the Dominant Force in your own life and not look to others for approval of what you should or shouldn’t look like.
Video Transcript:
Hello everybody. I’m Dr. A, and this is the Conscious Forum. We didn’t do one last month because I was traveling in Denmark, actually, doing some work, looking at how we mimic some of the things they do to create long-term health. I mean, they’re much more health-conscious. They ride bikes everywhere, and it was really an eye-opening trip. I learned a lot of stuff that goes along with the work that I do, and certainly in here [Dr. A points to his head]. That’s why we’re here today and we’re going to talk about something that I find really important. But first, let me just kind of go over—if this is your first time—the Conscious Forum is designed around first, consciousness.
What is consciousness? Well, if refers to the state of being aware of your surroundings, your thoughts, and your feelings. All these things. Most of our day we’re operating on automatic. We’re really not conscious of what’s going on. Like, you know, if you’re driving your car, you don’t pay much attention to the lines—other than to make sure you stay on your side of the road. We’ll be talking on the phone, you know, hands free, and all of a sudden—boom—we’re at our garage and we have to open up the door, and, you know, how did we even get there? So, a lot of our time spent in these automatic loops and our personal mind, our ability to filter this, and our thoughts, and our feelings kind of get in the way. And we miss a lot of stuff. We miss stuff about our kids and our families. We miss stuff. I live on the ocean and, sometimes I’m so caught up in working and getting ready for this, that I miss how beautiful it is outside.
So consciousness is really starting to build the psychological flexibilities so that you can manage your life at a time when everything is chaotic. I mean, we’ve never been in a crazier time, where everything is changing rapidly. So basically, what is a forum? Well, the forum’s a place, a meeting, it’s actually this Zoom for us, where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged. And so what I usually do in the formatting is I pick a particular subject, things that are relevant to us today in our crazy world we live in, and then I’ll open up for discussion.
And actually, as you listen to the first part, hopefully it’ll kind of stimulate some discussion that you want to have, maybe in your own life, for someone you’re helping, whether you’re coaching them, or guiding them, or a parent. And so this is open to everybody. This is really my way of giving back, and I learn so much. And I’m doing a lot of writing. I’m writing a new premiere right now and part of that is on what we’re gonna be talking about today. So, let’s go ahead and get started.
How we think about ourself matters. Interesting. And we’ll dive into that, and how we think about our health matters, too. So this is a kind of a dichotomy that’s going on right now in our country and in the world. Seventy-four percent of us are overweight or obese. That’s three in every four of us. So if you’re sitting in the room and you’re not, the three people around you on average are. So this is a big thing. And we’re gonna talk about this in terms of our body image. And so I think it’s really important, the psychology, the reference, how we think, what we feel about it. We all have a body image as a way we think of ourselves. And here’s the interesting thing, if we go back seventy years, almost seventy-five years ago, in the fifties, very few people were unhappy with their bodies. We kind of just went as it was. Obviously, the rates of being overweight and obese were much lower, but also we didn’t have social media. We didn’t have TikTok and all these social media platforms where the influencers are there and, “How pretty can I be?” And using cosmetic surgery, plastic surgeries, and going on these extreme diets, and all the things that can happen.
But what that did is it changed, and it changed today, and today, 90% of women are discontent with themselves, with the way they look, and 70% of men. So we’re talking about a huge part of our population. If this many people in our world were depressed, we would do something about it. We’d make it a major, major focus. And so today I just wanna really talk about that because what I find is that when we don’t feel good about ourself, when we’re discontent with ourself, it creates a lot of internal stress and a lot of the lack of consciousness, the unconsciousness, what we call the “cognitive emotive loops.” Where you’re thinking about it and you’re feeling it. And our self-image of ourselves and all this stuff is highly stressful to us and really not very effective for us.
So how did all this happen? Well, if we feel bad about ourselves, we’ll buy whatever will make us feel better. And so this has been played to the queue in marketing of all companies all over the country and all over the world because if we have a deficit, but buying their product makes us look better, then we’re more likely to do that. And this gets—every day. I mean, they’re making us think, “Here’s what beauty looks like,” and if you don’t look quite like this, then you need our product to look like this. And so we’ve been played that. And the same thing goes, by the way, and I have to mention it, in the pharmaceutical industry, in the United States, we are the only country, other than I believe one other country down under, that actually is allowed to sell sickness on TV and actually have pharmaceutical ads.
So we’re selling sickness. We’re advertising, “Buy this drug, buy that drug to take care of your problem.” And no other country does that. And if you look, we’re 5% of the world’s population. We consume 50% of the pharmaceuticals in the world.
The same thing goes with our body images. Our body images are being told every day on multiple commercials, on multiple different levels, on multiple different social platforms, that we have a deficit. And so if you use their product, that you will then get better. So after decades of exposure and reinforcement, we now have a distorted ability to even see our own bodies. And they did a survey and looked, and most people highly overestimate how big they really are, and really don’t understand even what their ability is to see their own body, to the point where people that are dealing with extreme obesity, some of them won’t even look at themselves in the shower.
So we’ve created the shame, this guilt, this prejudice, which I’ll talk about in a minute, and it serves no useful function, and it’s actually quite harmful to people. And on the other side of the coin, which we’ll talk about in a moment, it’s also eating disorders on the other side of being—thinness. So with that: positive body images—what we need to do as individuals is appreciate and love our bodies. You know, our bodies are our bodies and they support us. Can we get better with them? Can we certainly work on our health? That’s absolutely [unintelligible 00:07:08] and I’m gonna talk about that in a moment. But it’s important for us not to look like someone else, basically, that’s not in our interests. We all have different body types, and for us to appreciate and love our bodies from the standpoint that they’re amazing. What are you—you know, I studied as a physician in my training and the incredible nature of our body, our eye, I mean, the things we can do, not even advanced cameras can do what our eyes can do.
Our digestion, our lungs, our heart, our skin, being able to replenish, being able to replenish our cells. I mean, it’s so amazing what we have and we should appreciate that. And we should love our bodies. And so there’s a term in psychiatry—psychology, called functional appreciation. So you see your body not as an object that is being constantly evaluated by others, but as yours, giving you your gifts. I mean, if you think about it, this morning I was on my Peloton watching an instructor and just feeling my heart rate changing and just appreciating how our body can adapt to change, and how it functions, and how it can help us. And it’s just, it’s something that we really need to functionally appreciate. We have this incredible thing called our body. It’s not us, it’s not our consciousness, but it’s a thing that we all have, and we should appreciate it because it allows you to do a lot of stuff. Without your body, you would be a big pile of mush just sitting there.
So it’s important for us not to be—and not to worry what other people think about us. I think that’s the first thing. It’s important for you to take ownership, become the Dominant Force in your own life, and not be looking to others for approval of what we should look like or we shouldn’t look like. And this certainly becomes important when we talk to people that are in a state where they’re overweight or obese. So also getting out in nature can help. When we get at nature, our ego—thinking about looking in the mirror and being inside, about, how do we look as compared—and do we have the nicest dress, or the nicest figure, or is our nose to big? I mean, it goes on and on and on. But it allows you to see in the big picture of things as we’re out in nature that we feel compassionate and connected on a conscious level.
So all these things are so important for us. And the third is embodiment activities.
These are things we can do, like play, sports, dance, that should say yoga, not “yoa” [there is a typo on screen], CrossFit, promotes what your body can do
and promotes a greater self-care for ourselves. And so, even going out for walks, taking the dog out, and enjoying the day, all these things—being sensed that we can do things and activities, and our body is there to service us, and we should sense it as a gift, not as an issue or something that’s not where we want it to be.
So this goes to the second thing, self-acceptance versus self-starvation. So one of the things that happened, some of you may remember if you’re a little older, but the “Twiggy Syndrome.” And in 1966, high school girls—50% believed they were too fat. By 69, it was 80%. And actually only 50% were even slightly overweight because we changed our image. The Twiggy, this model that came on, was basically, pretty thin, pretty much skin and bones, became the image of what was in, what was cool, what was acceptable. And basically, this has created a lot of issues. And, and it’s important today. And I’m writing a primer on a Prescription for Life right now that one of the things we’ll talk about is, with the onset of the new GLP-1 drugs, it’s a collision between those two worlds—promotion of an unnatural thinness. It seems that everybody wants to be thin, and that’s the cool thing to be in. And actually, what’s scary is now with these GLP-1 drugs, it allows you to really restrict what you eat.
Naturally, your natural tendency is to, when you don’t eat, is for all the signals in your mind, and your brain, and your stomach, and your hormones, to say, “You gotta eat. I’m hungry, I’m hungry, I’m hungry.” And that usually will overcome it, and you’ll end up eating, because your body says, “I need that energy.” It’s just that simple, physiologic basics, the way we’re designed, and it can lead, as you know, to eating disorders where people binge eat. But the reality is, your body usually makes you eat because it knows that. Well, these GLP-1 drugs, because they totally suppress your appetite and it can be very dangerous. And we need to be very cautionary about using these. Especially on people whose BMI is less than 27. And it’s important for us to monitor the use of these drugs and make sure they’re controlled because it can be a real problem, especially for people with eating disorders. Now, on the other side, that you shouldn’t try to reach a healthy weight and accept yourself at whatever weight you are.
So this is about in response to fat prejudice, the social stigma, the harm that’s caused by that. You know, for many, many years, people look at people that are overweight or obese and think that they’re lazy or they just don’t have any willpower, and it just isn’t true. It’s really not true. And we really need to move beyond that because it can have great implications for people that are already struggling with their weight, and to be in the social stigma, basically, being looked down on is a level of prejudice is not acceptable, and it’s something we have to fight hard. So fat acceptance or fat pride is changed and being called now “Healthy at any weight,” and basically, you should be happy with your body and what we talked about in the beginning, about your body image, but there’s no such thing as “Healthy at any weight.” As a society, we should stop shaming overweight people. It’s imperative as we know that the main reason why we’re overweight or obese, is because of our environment.
It’s actually, we are programmed to eat and to store energy, and we live in a society where fast food, processed food, all this food is so harmful to us, and for people, especially with genetic propensity, it is very difficult, especially if you do come from a lower socioeconomic standpoint and you can’t afford to eat all whole food. It’s very difficult. And we’re a product of our environment. So this is nothing that people are doing because they’re lazy. It has nothing to do with that. But on the other hand, it’s important to note, being positive about our body and not being guilty about our weight is important. We don’t wanna shame ourselves. We don’t wanna guilt ourselves. But when we look at it, body positivity or looking at yourself, and again, appreciating yourself, going out into nature, functional appreciation, as I talked about, doing activities, all these things to help offset that so we have a good feeling about ourselves. But on the other hand, we should all be aware that being overweight or being obese is diminishing our health actually to the point that it’s eight times more likely to be unwell if you’re overweight or obese, even if it hasn’t showed up clinically yet.
And that was one of the things with fat acceptance or fat pride, was this thing that, you know what, you can be healthy with the BMI—and there were a couple studies that came out showing that when they looked at the u-shaped curve, that people between the BMI of 25 and 30, were actually healthier. And when we look at that, and then go back and look that those studies were faulty, any BMI over 25–25 or over—progressively puts you at higher risk for disease and for metabolic syndrome and all those things. Even if you don’t have it now, within a ten year period, you probably will have it, and obviously, if our BMI is over 30, we’re at much higher risk for metabolic syndrome, and then the risk of dying goes up dramatically. So it’s really important to understand they are two very different things.
So in summary, we need to reduce the stigma that harms people’s minds. We shouldn’t be looking at people that are overweight, obese, that they’re somehow less or diminished. But at the same time, it’s important that we need to reduce the excess weight that harms people’s bodies. So, hopefully, that was helpful. Both forces hurt people and we can demolish both with compassion and love. So now I’d like to open it up for questions. Any questions we have, Rachel?
Rachel: Yes. First up we have, Cliff.
Dr. A: Yeah. Hey, Cliff.
Cliff: Okay, I am unmuted.
Dr. A: Great.
Cliff: Alright. Hey, Dr. A.
Dr. A: How are you?
Cliff: I’m great, thank you. How about you?
Dr. A: I’m awesome.
Cliff: Terrific. So, I got on the call in August and I was asking you for some advice because I was—I found myself reacting very quickly to the negative situations—emotional. My emotional trip wire was very, very tight. And I said, what is the one thing that I could do that would make me be able to react in a more positive manner?
Dr. A: I remember that.
Cliff: Yeah. Yeah, and you went through, really, some great information. And at the end I said, “Thank you.” I said, “So what’s the one thing?” And you said “Cliff, I just gave you a whole bunch of information. Go to the mental gym and work on this stuff and get back to me.” So that’s what I’ve been doing, particularly, actually what I did, I went back to your Conscious Forum where you had that video that you—wonderful video that you did, about how we can work with our mind. And so I went to that—was reviewing that—and every day, I really went into the mental gym and you know, it’s funny that you use that term because when we go to the gym, we don’t just go to the gym and we got it, right? I mean, yeah. You know, we work out that one day, but it’s every single day it’s going in and conditioning ourselves over time. So the fact that you use that term, the “mental gym,” is really, very meaningful to me. Anyway—
Dr. A: Before you go on, I just think that’s so important because if we’re 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years old, we have all those years of our personal mind being in control, and it started when we were three to five years old that to protect ourselves, and we’ve created this whole scenario in story and bottom line is, your personal mind or your ego is running the show and it doesn’t want it, it will do everything you can to continue to run the show. So what I was addressing, and now what you’re seeing is that you are, you’re a physician, you’re intelligent, you hear the knowledge, you hear what I say, but it actually is applicable to your being. It’s actually reprogramming. It’s actually putting yourself in a position where now you’re open, you’re conscious. This whole thing about Conscious Forum, it is about now being conscious that there’s somebody else talking there, right? And that’s your personal mind, and because you’re smart and you say, “Oh, I’m smart enough.” It’s got this whole story and you can understand it at a cerebral level, at a cognitive level. But until you start taking pause and separating and putting it to the side and realizing at a full conscious level, this is what’s happening, then you can’t really change. And your ego is gonna fight tooth and nail.
It doesn’t want you to change. And especially, someone like yourself that’s gone through all this professional training and been put on a pedestal, your ego got all— listen, I’m a physician. I know the deal, I know the drill. And so, chairman of my department, director, and that stuff—that stuff keeps you like, “Yeah, I know what I’m talking about,” when the reality is, we know so little about what really matters and what matters is moving us from struggling and suffering and like you said, reacting emotionally to those things. So, I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I just wanna use it for our whole audience, that it’s natural for your ego to not want you to actually go to the gym and practice what we’re talking about. So I love that. Thank you.
Cliff: No, you’re welcome. Thank you. So specifically, I’ve been using the techniques of trying to turn the negative into a positive, seeing what is there and flip that switch, which is really helpful, and that’s something I can do in a moment—just remembering to do it. The other one was, the big one was really being the witness—witnessing the situation, and I picture the kids standing on the rock looking at the river, and watching what’s going on and that piece is, I think, the part that has been taking repetition to really be able to get that better and better. But it’s been really very, very helpful. I’ve also, I’ve been a meditator for probably around fifty years—no, yeah, probably around fifty years, and over the last, really since COVID, I’ve really been upping my meditation, and very specifically, since we spoke on the phone, since we spoke on Zoom, I’ve been meditating, I would say almost every single day, twice a day for twenty minutes, and that also has been very, very helpful. So I wanted to get back, let you know, and thank you for the help, and that it is working and it has actually been spilling over into different parts of my life. It’s been spilling over into my relationship.
It’s been spilling over to my business for sure. Thank you.
Dr. A: You’re welcome, and does it feel nice not to suffer?
Cliff: It does. It does.
Dr. A: What a concept, right? We spend so much time beating ourselves up, right?
Cliff: Well, there was, I think it was a zen expression, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”
Dr. A: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That was, that’s 3000 years of wisdom coming from the Eastern philosophy that is so critical. And just to tie in what I talked about today when we have a poor body image and we don’t accept ourselves getting out in nature, which is meditative in itself, is just mind-blowing. To get out. I went out on a dock yesterday, and all kinds of aviary, all these birds, all kinds of birds at the dock—it’s where my new house is, and the dock isn’t open yet. There’s no boats there, so birds—it’s a great area for them to hang out. And I mean, there were a hundred pelicans and little, little sandpipers and turned, sitting on the thing. And I went out and just all of a sudden, to connect with them, and some of them were more nervous because they haven’t seen me out there, some weren’t, some actually, were curious. And to feel that connection. We are so fortunate to be alive in this world. I mean, it’s incredible, and to realize that when we get kind of—we’re not the center of the universe, right? And our egos want us to be the center of the universe, and we put ourselves in that position, we’re gonna suffer because the world’s not gonna be by the plan that our ego wants it to be. And so if things don’t match the way you want things to be, you’re gonna suffer. And there’s just no reason for it because we should be so appreciative.
So really appreciate that, Cliff. I’m glad it’s working. That’s the idea, I’m not here to hear myself talk. I’m here to help us all grow and for us to work together. So really great feedback. I appreciate that.
Cliff: Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. A: You Cool? Awesome. Rachel, who we got?
Rachel: All right, next up we have Wanda. Wanda, can you come on camera?
Wanda: There we go.
Dr. A: Hi, Wanda.
Wanda: Hi. How are you?
Dr. A: I’m fantastic.
Wanda: First of all, thank you so much for covering this topic because it is definitely a needed topic, in my opinion. I am—I struggle with the mindset of accepting my body daily. I have always struggled with that—being obese since childhood, and then I went on to lose a significant amount of weight, and over the last few years, and last year, just really struggled a lot with my body because of excess skin. I carry about fifteen pounds of extra skin on my body, and it daily affects how I see myself. And I do pretty well most of the time, but there are times that I just don’t even wanna look in the mirror, and it makes me sad that I’m even doing that to myself because I worked really, really hard with nutrition, and fitness, and with my coach, and to get to where I am, and I love myself, and I love the work I’ve done, but then there’s these moments where I’m triggered and it’s just really overcoming sometimes. So I just wondered if you could speak to: what do we do in those moments where it takes us to this really sad place where we don’t like our bodies at all, and the outcome after so much work?
Dr. A: Yeah, well, that’s a tough one, because, you know, I was talking with Cliff, you’ve had your ego, the way you look at yourself, right? And the way you position yourself and the way you numb yourself or repress those emotions for so long in your life. And now you’ve made such gains, and it’s really important to focus on the gains. Not what’s wrong, but what’s right. And I think the things that I talked about, basically not just acceptance of yourself, but functional acceptance that look at how much you’ve changed. I mean, you have—and I’m gonna use something that we don’t usually think of because depending on how old we are, but let’s just take the extreme. Let’s take a twenty-year-old beautiful woman that’s gifted by her genetics with beautiful looks. Now, if she spends her whole life using that as her functional relationship with guys and with life, that’s gonna end. She’s gonna get to the point where she’s gonna be sixty, seventy, eighty, and that’s where movie stars, people that are in the modeling agency, that’s where they go to the plastic surgeon and they look, and they can never have enough. That’s extrinsic motivation. That those are things that we use to reinforce that we’re okay. And they have nothing to do with us. They have to do with things—if you look like the model, one of the, I don’t know who right now. I guess, what’s her name? Margo Robbie, right? One of the models from, Wolf on Wall Street, that actress, she was gifted physically.
But if you actually look at her, she’s a great actress, and she’s actually worked on her craft to become a great actress. And so she’ll be able to go into her thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and still do films and be able to adjust that because she hasn’t made it about her body, and I think it’s really important to look at it the same way, is that some, some of us are luckier than others, but the reality is that the improvements you’ve made, and the work you’ve done, the reinforcement of all the things you’ve done to get healthier are so much more powerful. You’re loving your body like you said, you’re loving your body in that your physicality and how you actually look about yourself isn’t dependent on anybody else. And you shouldn’t compare yourself. You are a unique human being with all the talents and gifts. The love you have for other people, your relationships, your family, the things that are important. And you need to look at those things and say, you know what? I am so grateful, and so grateful that I’ve been able to improve my health. Because the bottom line is improving your health has dramatically altered the quality of your life, the physical quality of life, your lifespan and your health span. And so you are able to do so many more things, and you should be so grateful. And I think the things we talked about today are a great thing to practice. You know, as I talked about going to the mental gym, go
to the appreciative gym, right?
Go up there and be appreciative. Appreciate yourself and don’t look at yourself like there’s this little person inside of you, that ego looking down and being judgmental of yourself. Right? And, “Oh. I don’t look like that.” Listen, there’ll always be, just like the neighbors, right? It’s all the same, psychological, and the grass is greener on the other side. There’s always gonna be people prettier than us and people that are uglier than us. And it honestly doesn’t matter a bit. And when we do compare reality, it’s really organizing your life around what matters most to you, not to anybody else. Bottom line is you have such gifts and your body gives you such gifts, and because you’ve now taken care of it and because you’ve lost weight and gotten healthier, and you’re moving more and you’re sleeping better, and you’re enjoying it, I’m sure functionally you’re able to do so many more things, right? That’s what you focus on because that’s the real work. That’s the work that really matters. Does that make sense?
Wanda: Yes, it does, and like I said, the majority of the time I’m there, but honestly, it’s like when I’m changing, or in front of the mirror, or getting dressed and it’s like a deep dive and I have to work. It’s exhausting, sometimes mentally, to have to work myself back up to that place that I try to stay most of the time.
Dr. A: So, do you remember, Stop. Challenge. Choose.? Do you remember me talking about that a whole bunch? Okay. As soon as you start feeling that feeling, stop, challenge yourself, “Why am I letting my past, my ego, take me to that place?” It’s so unhappy that you’re happy most of the time now, right? Your ego wants you to suffer and it wants to alleviate the suffering by being in charge. It’s just like, I have to tell you that, and we’re not gonna get into this, but I think psychologically, the reason why a lot of people struggle is they lose weight, is because they were at that weight because it helped take care of things. It could be something they might’ve been—psychologically damaged or sexually molested as a child, and so they gained the way to protect them. You know? I mean, there’s many, many different things that we do in response, especially when we’re little to protect ourselves, and we’re now at a point where we’re getting healthy, we’re in charge and there’s part of it, almost this feeling of hopeless, of desperation as we’re losing the weight and we don’t understand it.
It’s because inside our ego and our subconscious and the stored trauma, the energy, the negative energy in there. We start worrying about, “Is that going to come out?” When the reality is our past is our past. Your present is all you’ve got, and as you learn these skills, you go to the mental gym, you develop psychological flexibility, you learn to release and when you have, when you start feeling that stuff coming up, that “icky sauce” coming on, bottom line is—stopping, allow it to come up. Don’t repress it back and say, “No.” Because as soon as you do that, you’re not addressing it. Allow it to come up and have a good cry. You know, have a—Wanda, have a 92nd cry about it. Like, “Oh God. I wish I looked like Margot Robbie, but you know what? I don’t, and I have a damn good life.”
Wanda: Yeah.
Dr. A: Does that make sense?
Wanda: I think that’s what I’m not doing, is allowing it, as you said, I’m not allowing it to come up and make me sad. I’m suppressing it because then I start guilty because I’ve lost half of a human being. I mean, I’ve lost half of my body weight and [crosstalk 00:32:26]
Dr. A: How long have you had that?
Wanda: December 9th will be four years. I lost 110 pounds the first eleven months but was triggered. One of these things was the trigger. I started binge eating for a year and a half, but I got some help with that this summer. For about three months, I leaned in with my coach, and a therapist, and worked on just binge eating. But it’s, I’m ten—I haven’t binge eaten for three months, which is a huge win, and I’m about ten to fifteen pounds from my goal weight. But as soon as I start getting close, these thoughts come up.
Dr. A: Yeah. They’re excuses. They’re excuses because you’re struggling with this new you. Now, here’s what I would say to you. I want to tell you something. I wish [crosstalk 00:33:16]
Wanda: I wanted her to look better in the mirror!
Dr. A: Hey, I would give you—if I could come through the phone right now, the Zoom right now, and give you an Academy award. I’m gonna tell you something statistically, to lose half your body weight to lose—I’ll just tell you statistically, to lose 50 pounds and to keep it off for four to five years, less than 0.1% of the population does that. So you have learned, grown, and you did it. It’s cool. It’s so cool. So don’t let the superficiality of that get in the way. It’s your ego trying to make you feel bad and get shame. “Come on, let’s gain some weight back.” You’re done with that. You are done with that. Cool.
Wanda: Yeah, that’s good.
Dr. A: Alright. Good. Just keep it going and work on it daily. Don’t let and feel those feelings, remember, learn to feel your feelings all the way through. Okay?
Wanda: Let myself be sad, but don’t stay sad.
Dr. A: Yeah. Listen, those are emotions. You have that reflection, and you say, “Okay, bottom line”—Listen, I lost my wife six years ago. Okay? And I have times, like during Thanksgiving, and I have that ninety seconds, right? And I’ll cry, just like I’m crying right now because I’m so proud of you. And the bottom line is you need to be proud of yourself. This is about not what any other person thinks, it’s about what you think. And to feel those feelings to be alive with emotion. That’s a good thing. That’s not a bad thing. The bad thing is to try to repress it and say, “Oh, I can’t let this happen.” No, it did happen. You made the changes. You’re a different person. You’ve got incredible progress. Be so grateful and proud of yourself and move on. You should see how you look when you first got on the line and looking at you now I can see a glow. You’re incredible.
Wanda: Thank you. That 0.1%. I had no clue about that statistic, but I’m just sitting here going, I’m in a dang good club.
Dr. A: You are. You’re in a dang good club. And you’ve done the work. Congratulations.
Wanda: Thank you.
Dr. A: Cool. All right. Who’s next? Oh. man.
Rachel: Up next we have, Andrea.
Dr. A: Hi, Andrea.
Andrea: Hi, Dr. Andersen. How are you?
Dr. A: I am fantastic.
Andrea: Good! So, my question is, when you created this, of how we think about ourselves matters, I have a very strong feeling about who I am. I know my intelligence. I know my worth. I know my appearance is good. I lost a hundred pounds. I feel great. I felt great when I was a hundred pounds heavier, had all the confidence in the world, just was not healthy. So I’m back to healthy. But, so I know that, but the problem is that I don’t think I actually believe it. And I don’t know if that makes any sense. I think sometimes there’s so much doubt and a fear of being a fraud, that I know those things. But sometimes it’s hard to believe in yourself and actually do what I need to do. I don’t know if that makes any sense whatsoever.
Dr. A: Well, let’s talk about belief because belief is a really misunderstood thing. To make yourself believe something that’s not true is a lie. That’s why I’m not, I’m not into the self-affirmations at all. Now, when I talk about body positivity and being grateful for your body, I’m not saying, “Hey, I’m a supermodel,” or “I could go on Broadway,” or whatever. That not what I’m saying or what I am saying though is that your body is a pretty amazing thing. If you lost a hundred pounds, you’ve done a pretty amazing thing and you’ve dramatically helped your health. So I wanna talk about the difference between your body image and your health. Right? You’ve dramatically altered your health and you factually, if you’re down a hundred pounds and you look at those numbers, you’re down a hundred pounds. That’s not a made-up affirmation. That’s a fact.
And so in that, you have done, just like we were talking about with Wanda, you have dramatically lowered your risk of disease. You put yourself in a really good position, but you have work to do so, right? And so what happens is our mind plays this funny game with us, like, “Oh, am I a fraud?” Well, what does that mean? Am I a fraud? No, you’re someone that if you look at your desired outcome, which is to be completely healthy and where you were before, you’re on the path. You’re not there yet, but you’re on the path. That’s all that matters. Your mind, your ego, is playing games with you because there’s an advantage. You know, I wanna be really clear on this, because most people that have gotten themselves in position where they have a high BMI is because it somehow is still serving them. It’s still serving them somehow, and it’s very common. Just the same thing with the GLP-1 drugs, by the way.
People start coming, losing weight because they’ve just totally suppressed their desire for their appetite in their brain. I mean, if you think about it, I’m writing this primer right now called Prescription for Life, and in it, looking at the dichotomy, we’re a human being in the middle over here we have the food industry that’s feeding us kaka, complete crap, and taking the addiction centers, the nucleus incumbents in our brain and stimulating it, overstimulating it with all these foods that basically don’t allow GLP to be released naturally from your gut. That actually many of the ingredients I’m finding as I study this are actually suppressing the release of GLP. So we’re not actually sensing full, and most processed food is digested proximally, and it never gets to where your receptors are in your lower part of your intestines, and so there’s never an off switch. You never get the off switch, and they’re designed to stimulate, like, in ice cream [unintelligible 00:39:49] basically, it now inhibits GLP release, and they specifically added it. They said it’s an emulsifier, but you don’t get signaled that you’re full and that’s why you’re getting that instant pleasure of eating that Häagen-Dazs. But it’s not shut off. So we have the food industry conspiring against us, creating an underlying environment and unless we become aware of that and basically—so that’s one part.
The second part is in your mind, it’s in, most people that have seen this since they were children, they did that for a reason. There was a reason they have now, it’s getting worse because of McDonald’s and all these companies and the on TV soliciting, Fruit Loops to kids, and I mean, it’s gotta stop. It’s gotta stop. But until it stops, what I’m about is helping you become the Dominant Force in your life and putting you in position where you start to understand the underlying structure is not supporting me getting healthy. So I need to get the heck outta that structure. I need to change my pantry. I mean, I know just over Thanksgiving, my daughter’s twenty-three, she’s slender, she’s never had a weight issue, and they bring in stuff, they go to the store, they want to be nice to dad at Thanksgiving dinner, and they bring in this stuff that I just don’t have in my house because if it’s here and if I’m—like right now, I’m writing like eighteen hours a day and I get tired. If it’s there, I think maybe I just have—and I am a healthy person. I’m at a healthy weight. I’m active. I sleep well. I heliski, but I’m a human being and that stuff is tempting and so one of the things is getting it the hell out of our houses. Right? And these are all things we can do. It’s not willpower. Willpower’s bought at the grocery store. I’m just using it as an example, but you’re not a fraud. You’ve lost a hundred pounds. That’s a fact. You’re on a journey. Need to know. Just like talking to Cliff, and talking to Wanda, we have this voice in our head that shames us and guilts us and tries to say we’re not worthy. And honestly, it’s a bunch of kaka. And I can say that because I’m a doctor, right? Does that make sense?
Andrea: It does. Thank you so much.
Dr. A: Yeah. So the creative process, Andrea, is one about where you want to go. What is your desired outcome? And everything leading from that to today you just say, “No,” to the things that aren’t taking you where you want to go, because the things you value most, and one of them should be our health, because our health, without your health— I have friends, one that was a really good looking dear friend of mine, and he died of pancreatic cancer, and I remember when he was dying, he said, the person that said when you got your health, you got everything really nailed it. And I remember that because he lost his life, and being here, being here to be able to—and be appreciative that we are here and appreciate that we want to take good care of our body and that we don’t want to beat ourselves up in the psychology of people that are overweight or obese and the fat prejudice that permeates. You know, when the time when you got the Twiggy of the world, and there’s such a dichotomy about what’s right, it’s not what anybody else thinks that matters, right? It’s, what are you doing? Where do you want to go and become the Dominant Force in your own life? And the Dominant Force in your own life is not your ego. Your ego is the defence mechanism to try to keep the world like Pollyanna. Like it was when we watched Snow White as a kid, right? The birds taking her dress and everything, that’s not reality. Life is intrinsically unstable, but yet it’s better than the alternative. Right?
Andrea: Then the alternative, that’s right.
Dr. A: So if that’s true, and when I’m talking about being grateful and appreciative of your body—be grateful, appreciative that you have a body and you’re here. And at the same time know that one of the things you wanna do for yourself, the gift to that body is you wanna get to a healthy weight because it allows you to have a longer lifespan. So you get more time on this incredible planet and you have a greater health span or the quality of your life. Just look for a moment at Japan, not to digress, Japan has 3% obesity. They don’t need the GLP-1 drugs because, in their culture, they start teaching those little kids all the things we’re talking about to respect eating healthy, that these are the things that are good for it. They actually taste better, they give us more satisfaction. They start exercising, doing things, they exercise in the factories. They make living a healthy lifestyle part of their culture. And you do what other people do. We copy each other, and so if you create an environment of surroundings that are healthy, then we’ll copy that, and that’s the goal. That’s what I’m all about, is knowing that you have everything inside of you and we have the tools and the vehicles to help you create exactly what you want. So stop spending time doubting that, appreciate where you are and what you’ve done already, and go to work.
Andrea: Me against me. Go forward.
Dr. A: Yeah, not you against you, you against creating an Optimal Health and Wellbeing, and wellbeing is in here [Dr. A points to his head].
Andrea: Got you.
Dr. A: That Cliff’s working on, and Cliff was a very successful physician. He doesn’t need to lose weight, but he was struggling because it’s your ego that wants you to have the world be a certain way and so as a result of that, we struggle. And what I’m saying is it’s under your complete control, but it takes going to the gym daily. It requires you to Stop. Challenge. Choose and not, I can’t wiggle—you can’t wiggle your nose. I can’t give a wand and bequeath that to you. But what I said, every day you work on it. Every day you’ll get a little better at it, and it’ll become your dominant way. Then you can organize your life around what matters most to you. The things we value the most require the least amount of motivation. Think about that. So find what you value most. One of them hopefully is your health and get on with it.
Andrea: Awesome. Thank you.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. Alright, cool. All right. Who else we got?
Rachel: All right, next up we have Giuseppe. There you are.
Giuseppe: Hello, Dr. A.
Dr. A: Giuseppe, good Italiano!
Giuseppe: Yes. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I lost sixty-five pounds on Optivia and have kept it off for five years. So that’s been a game changer.
Dr. A: You’re in that club too!
Giuseppe: Yeah.
Dr. A: And by the way, let me just—because it’s not by coincidence, okay? The National Weight Control Registry, when I started this twenty-three years ago, the National Weight Control Registry is one of the only places I saw that actually had people that were successful long-term, right? Most people that have been on a diet are actually heavier than before. They want a diet and most people gain their weight back, including, by the way, if you come off these weight loss drugs. So they are not the answer. They are a tool. And that’s what the primer’s about, that they’re a tool to help us. But you better use them as a tool and not as an end-all, because it’s not going to work. You’re gonna plateau, end up being on the drugs for the rest of your life. So what you’ve done is you’ve taken the ingredients of the Habits of Health and the things that we do, providing a healthy underlying structure, having a coach, having a community of like-minded people, and having a guide through the Habits of Health, which includes not just what you eat, but how you move, how you handle stress, how you sleep, how your surroundings, your mind, and puts those all together, that is the formula for success. So I didn’t want to interrupt you, I just wanted to emphasize that it’s not by coincidence. We have two of those people that the National Weight Control Registry are only 0.1% of the population on the call today. And because [unintelligible 00:48:09] and you’re here because you want to learn and grow. So anyway, I just wanted to give you accolades.
Giuseppe: Yeah. Thank you. It’s a battle. How can I determine if I have a body image disorder, and what strategies can I use to avoid addictive behaviors and prevent slipping into a depressive state while striving for specific body image? And lastly, is it unhealthy to desire a certain body image?
Dr. A: Okay, so…I’m gonna reword it. We all have a body image, okay? We have that little—it’s almost like, think of it—it’s your ego, but you have this little thing, it’s a little person inside of you that’s judging you all the time, right? And what it’s doing is it’s looking out and it’s surveying what you see on TV, what you see in romantic movies, the love, all the beautiful people, “The Bachelorette,” and it goes on and on and on, right? It is pervasive in our society, and the idea is if they can make you not feel good about your body image, then they can sell crap to you. And most of it’s crap. Why do you think the gobbly goops, you know, and if you look at—especially, because women—you saw 90%, it’s a huge number. So they have this huge market and what they do, just like Godiva chocolate, more expensive, wrapped up in a pretty package, and so you’ll pay for it because it brings you instant satisfaction. All these high-end cosmetic, gobbly goops, right? The serums and the anti-aging and the stuff they wrap them up in gold and everything. What they want you to do is, “Oh, okay. I don’t look like I want to because they want me to look like this.” And they have these beautiful models and these people that, by the way, most of those people are miserable because they are fully motivated by extrinsic motivation, which is their looks. And that’s why they’re always in, getting more surgery because they need that to keep them going because they’re—none of the extrinsic measures, by the way, are long-lasting. They’re all going to go away.
If you’re counting on your beauty to last, it ain’t gonna happen. If you’re counting on your wealth to keep you happy, you can never have enough wealth. And the same thing with actors, and baseball players and athletes with fame, right? You can never have enough of those things if that’s what drives you. The highest level of motivation is intrinsic motivation—finding something you love, that you want to get good at, and you wanna share with others. That’s where I’m at. That’s the joy. That’s this call. I love doing these forums. People say that, “You’re so busy, do you have time to,”—I love doing this because I am intrinsically motivated to awaken people, like just everybody that’s been on so far, including yourself. You’ve done the strides, you are listening, you’re learning, you’re growing, you’re not letting that program from five years old continue. You’re open and you’re curious and you wanna learn and grow. And as a result of that, you have the opportunity to change. So the first answer is yes, you have a body image, it’s okay to look at it, but be grateful for where you are and say, “I want to improve.” And the things that you can improve that are intrinsic, number one, is your health. Okay? You made a dramatic change by losing that much weight. You dramatically changed your health, and your healthspan and your lifespan.
So that’s something you should be really proud of. If you want to—it’s okay to want to look good and that’s fine, but make that from the inside, not from the outside. It’s not about getting cut up on the face, and you know—now, if someone is in the industry or someone wants to have plastic surgery for something and it’s one of their goals, not as an extrinsic motivation, but because they’re still on TV or whatever, that’s okay. But if you’re looking to do something on the outside, to make you feel better on the inside, it just does not work. That’s not how it works. Everything we do—and that’s why psychological flexibility, that’s why we go to the mental gym, so that we now can take those moments where we’re not feeling quite right, and analyze them. Most of them are from childhood trauma or triggers or negative energy that we’ve stored in us. Let them come up and just work on releasing that. Because basically, as you know, there are—including Andrea, right?
She said, “Yeah, I felt great about myself even when I was a hundred pounds heavier,” right? She chose to be that way, right? But she’s still dealing with the reality of the things that are real, and we want to make sure we adjust them. So the answer to your question, our body image is our perception of how we compare to everybody else. And I can tell you that if you compare yourself to everybody else, you will never be happy and you will always suffer. So that’s the second one. The third one is reaching a healthy weight. Getting yourself aesthetically pleasing by lifting, or weight resistance training, or running, or eating healthier, or adding more antioxidants into your diet. Making sure you’re avoiding things that are bad for us.
Obviously, smoking and even alcohol now, you know, alcohol is not a good thing. You know, we used to try to quasi-say, red wine, and in one of my earlier books, because of the French paradox, but we’re learning as a whole, there might be some phenolic compounds in that that are good for us, but as a whole, you can get those things through eating grapes or eating phenolic compounds or green colored vegetables versus drinking alcohol. But, the bottom line is we all—everything is a trade-off off and we have to decide what’s most important to us. Like I can tell you, for me personally, I’m not into cold plunging and I was in Denmark, and those people get in that crazy forty-degree water. And theoretically, yeah, I think it’s the way to stress the heck outta yourself, and although it may boost your immune system and give you a rush, it’s just something I prefer not to do. And so if that’s the thing I have to do to live that extra month, I’d rather spend the rest of my life than comfort in warm water versus cold water. So everything is a trade-off.
So I think—and I love that you’re smiling like that because we shouldn’t take ourself too seriously, right? But what we should do is understand the things that are most important to us, and then make sure we’re not allowing other people to dictate and organize our life. We become the Dominant Force and we organize our life around what matters most to us. And so I always ask people in the key areas your life, whether it’s your vocation, your relationships, your health, your finances, all those areas, find out what is most important to you, and then organize your life around having those things that are the most important, that you value the most, at the top. So you’re constantly motivated. I mean, my family was here and says, “Are you gonna retire?” And I said, “Retire? Are you kidding me?” I love my—I wouldn’t trade my life for everybody else’s because I’ve organized my life around what matters most. And what matters most to me is my family, staying healthy, being active, enjoying nature, and helping other people really realize that they’ve let this thing inside of them called their ego, their personal mind, get in the way, including what we talked about, the theme today, about body image, right?
We have a body image and we’re not happy, and so we suffer. That is not good for us. Just like fat prejudice is not good for us. It’s not good for people to do it to others. It doesn’t help anybody, and yet, at the same time, so that’s why this movement came, fat pride, is because people are so tired of being prejudiced against and it’s not right. But also to realize you can have both. You can feel good about yourself at the same time. One of the things about feeling good about yourself is continually working on, in a tough place, it’s an obesogenic world. I’m not saying any of this is easy, but it’s worth it because just like, you got how proud the people that have been on this call today, how proud they are of what they’ve done, and you’ve done that and it brings fulfillment to you. And that’s the essence of life. I really believe we were put here to evolve our souls. So we’re basically connecting with our soul, and we’re part of a community of humans helping each other. People that don’t help each other, that make it all about themselves and don’t reach out and help others, they’re missing one of the most important pieces of being alive.
Giuseppe: Hmm, that’s good. I just wanted to say thank you overall. I really appreciated the Identity book. I read that towards the beginning of my journey. I think that was a good foundation, honestly, when pursuing the whole process. So anybody who hasn’t read the Identity book, definitely pick it up and check that out. Thank you.
Dr. A: Yeah. Thanks, Giuseppe. I really appreciate it. Great talking to you. And you got this, you got this. Okay, all we’re about out of time, Rachel, but I can take one more question if somebody really, really wants to ask a question.
Rachel: Okay. We do have Allison.
Dr. A: Yeah, let’s talk to Allison.
Rachel: There you are.
Dr. A: There she is! How are you?
Alison: Good. I’ll make it quick. I’ve been doing the work that you walk us through.
Dr. A: I know you have.
Alison: So much so that I love what I see in the mirror now, which is massive for me. However, it’s keeping me from getting to my healthy BMI because I’ll catch myself in the mirror and wink and talk positively to myself. Like I’m so good to myself, but it’s keeping me from sticking to program long enough to get to the healthy BMI that I really want and need.
Dr. A: Okay? So let’s talk about that. Okay. Bottom line, there are two very different things. To love yourself and to be happy and appreciate yourself is one thing. To reach a healthy weight is another thing. Statistically, there is no healthy way—a BMI of 25 or less, or right around there, or less puts you at the optimum place in terms of your health span and your lifespan. So that should be enough if you love yourself so much, then bottom line is, say, “This is a priority and I need to do it.” They’re not related to each other, you know? Yes. You don’t wanna beat yourself up and you wanna love yourself because if you’re beating yourself up and suffering, that causes emotional eating. That causes you not to want to get off the couch. That causes all the secondary things. So that part’s awesome, you got that covered. But the most important thing is reaching your healthy weight from your body standpoint.
So if you like your body, take good care of your body, right? Because it’s gotta last you a long time. Does that make sense? And that’s just the switch. That’s the only switch you need to make, is make that decision and to know that they are, that’s a different task, right? Reaching a healthy weight and you’re working on emotional wellbeing, right? You are getting that down and you feel much differently about yourself. But make sure that it’s completely—I’m gonna just challenge you for a minute—make sure it’s completely real, that you’re not feeding yourself a bunch of bull, Okay? Yep. Because you can say, it’s kind of like in the Saturday Night Live skit, “I am good enough. I’m worthy in America.” I forgot the name of it, but it was a skit. Yeah, that’s BS. That’s actually telling yourself something that isn’t true. And that will come back and bite you in the butt. Okay? All right? Does that make sense?
Alison: It does.
Dr. A: All right. So let’s go do this.
Alison: Okay! [laughing].
Dr. A: Alright. Thanks, Alison. Nice seeing you.
Alison: Thank you.
Dr A: Okay, everybody, well, it’s right at one o’clock. It’s time for us to stop. Thank you guys so much. Hopefully, if you like this—the whole idea here is to get everybody you know to come on this. This is a free forum that we do once a month. And, you know, think about how it’s helped you. It can help so many of the people that you care about. So let’s make sure we really build this out and get a whole bunch of people. We want to create a community of people that are interacting together because it’s important for me to get your feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, so I can help adjust because I don’t want to say or do anything that doesn’t work. That just doesn’t make any sense. So, thank you guys for your contributions. I’m really excited about the future together. Let’s go change the world. See you guys. Bye.
