141. "I'll lose 2lbs this week"

Some people love the chat with the consultant in front of everyone at the diet club, and some hate it. What camp are you in? Either way, there was always the same question..... "how much are you going to lose this week?". Now first off, I have no idea. But still I, like everyone else there, picked a number..... "I'll lose 2lbs this week".

What is with that number? Why did I pick it? Why did half the diet club pick it? This week I'm pondering over that and trying to work out why the 2lbs loss was such a popular target. 

Spoiler alert! I'm also going to be telling you why it's a bit ridiculous!

Let's chat about the struggles with achieving that 2lbs loss, why it feels different depending on the week you have just had, how our bodies behave naturally, and how setting that 2lbs target for the week can encourage more restriction and more guilt.

Get 'Eat From Within - The 3 Steps To Food Freedom' course totally free!

Transcript

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Hello. Little heads up before we get into this episode. So you will have seen that this episode is called, I'll lose 2 pounds this week. I am going to be talking numbers this week. It is only going to be the, I'll lose 2 pounds this week, but we are going to be talking about what that means, what it feels like, how that works in a diet club session, that sort of thing. So if numbers are triggering for you, if that is going to be difficult for you to listen to and stay safe with, then please feel free to skip this episode, come back to it when you're in a better place, a better headspace or just pass it by altogether. You do not have to get involved with every episode that I record. So if that is not for you, then please stop. Don't go any further. Stay safe. Keep your mindset healthy. Keep your body healthy. And I'll see you next week or go and find another episode that you haven't listened to yet. But if you are happy with that, I hope you enjoy it. But if not, it's all good. Don't worry. I'll speak to you again soon. Welcome to the Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri  and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity and health at every size, and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies. Bodies. Do you ever have thoughts? Well, once you've thought about them for a little while, you think, I must be the only person in the world that thinks about things this way. Because my brain does that to me quite often. And the latest 1 was when I was in a group coaching session and I was talking about lots of, oh, I can't remember what the session was about, but we were basically talking about weight loss and going to diet clubs and this conversation came up around the goal weight that you have each week. So, you know, when you go to a group, you go to a slimming group and you have the chat with a consultant and she says, what is your goal for this week? What are you going to achieve this week? What are you going to achieve this week? Now, some people love that chat, right? Some people love that chat with a consultant in front of everybody. Some hate it. What camp are you in? For me, it depended on what kind of a week I'd had. If I'd had a great week, for example, then I was quite happy to have the chat with a consultant and talk about how awesome my week had been and what I'd done and how much more weight I was going to lose next week and I'd be all fired up and I'd be ready to go and I'd be like, yes, this is what I'm going to lose this week. If I'd had a rubbish week though, that would look completely different and I'd be shrinking back on my chair thinking, please don't talk to me. Please don't talk to me. Please no, keep going, don't talk to me. And of course, she talks to everybody, doesn't she, the consultant? So there I was explaining what kind of a week I'd had. And then at the end of this conversation, there'd be the, what are you going to do this week? And in my brain, I'm going nothing. I'm going to eat cake. Thank you. So it depended what kind of week I'd had as to what I was going to strive to achieve the next week. I don't know, what camp are you in? What do you feel? Do you like that conversation? Do you not like the spotlight of that conversation? It doesn't really matter. But no, first off, I have no idea what I'm going to lose next week, Right? Not a clue. I do not have a crystal ball. I do not know what my body is gonna do. I don't know what I'm gonna eat next week. I don't know how I'm gonna feel. I don't know what my emotions are gonna be doing. I don't know what my hormones are gonna be doing. But still, like everybody, I picked a number. I picked a number, a goal for the week. Again, it depends what kind of week I'd had as to what that number looked like, but bear with me. Some people go big and bold with their goals. They are going in hard. They are going to smash it. They're gonna stick to that plan 100%. They are going to go for the big numbers and they're coming in with a loss next week. That is, that's how they feel. That's what they're doing. Some a little more reserved, even if they'd had a good week, they were happy to go with a bare minimum. They were happy to just go with a loss, any loss. Some are just happy with a maintain or just think like this teeny tiny tiny little loss. Some people are fine with that. Me, I always wanted the big numbers. Did I ever achieve them? Well, that doesn't matter, but I was always 1 of those people that's super competitive with myself and I'm like, right, well, if I did this this week then I need to do that next week. It's all very unrealistic, isn't it? But on the whole, the most common number that gets banded around in these clubs is £2. What is that all about? This is where my brain went. I was like, why is it even 2 pounds? Where does this 2 pound goal come from? Why is it 2 pound? And why is it that everybody says 2 pound? I mean, not everybody. Obviously, there's people who don't say 2 pound, they say the numbers outside of it. But on the whole, once somebody in club starts saying 2 pound, off it goes. People are in the 2 pound club. So there is the distinct possibility, right, that this is herd mentality? It's 2 pounds because that's what everybody else did. 1 person says 2 pounds, the next person says 2 pounds, the other person hasn't got a clue, they just don't know, so they're like, I'll pick a number, everybody else is saying 2 pounds, so I'll have 2 pounds as well. Everyone else picks 2 pounds therefore so did I. I did it all the time as much as I wanted the big numbers and sometimes if I was feeling a little bit enthusiastic, I would say the big numbers. On the whole, my response was usually, yeah, I'll lose 2 pounds this week. I'll lose 2 pounds this week. That's what I'll do. And I think this is a classic example of people not being educated at these diet clubs, right? No 1 knew what to do. No 1 knew what was an actually good number to aim for. God, that was bad English, wasn't it? What was actually a good number to aim for? Is there such a thing as a good number to aim for? They didn't know. They didn't know because nobody's ever said to them, this is what suits your body. This is what's achievable. This is what you should do. This is what you could do. So they just went along with it and they just went with the 2 pounds and thought that'll probably be okay, they'll probably be all right, other people can do it so can I, it's fine? They could probably do it if they worked hard enough. Part of the problem with this approach though is that it's not about you anymore once you've picked that £2, is it? It's about keeping up with everyone else in the group. It is about blending in. It's about doing what everybody else is doing. It's about being accepted. It's about being seen to do the right thing. Well actually what you probably want to do is yell, screw you I'm having a week off, thank you, out the top of your lungs. If you're not feeling positive, if you're not feeling motivated, If you've had a really crappy week, then it can be really easy to get lost and frustrated and just dragged along with it. And you're already on the back foot feeling like you failed before you've even started. Because If you are in that place where you're getting dragged along because you've had a bad week, you're not motivated for that weight loss next week. You're not feeling good about going into this diet plan next week. You're not feeling like it's achievable. You're just feeling like it's going to have the same effect this week as it had last week. I'm just not capable of doing it. I'm not good enough. I'm a failure. I can't even stick to this diet. And then the cycle continues because then you're going into the week already negative. But you've picked that 2 pound anyway, haven't you? You've picked that 2 pound. That's your goal. And it's a struggle. It's a struggle. It's a real struggle. How does that target of £2 set you up for the week ahead? For me, again, it was very much dependent on the weighing that I'd had that week, how it had gone that past week, how I'd felt on the diet plan, how my body felt. Yeah, just how I'd stuck to it and the results that I'd had and had I stuck to it really well and got really good results or had I not really stuck to plan and still somehow got really good results, you know, these are the weeks where I was feeling good and I was feeling confident and I'm going into the next week ready for that £2 and more. But there's also the weeks where it's been tough and I've stuck at a plan 100% and I've gone into this week feeling crap because I've got on the scales and there's been barely any shift. You know, you feel like you've worked your backside off for a week for nothing and then that £2. Although you've agreed to it because everybody else is saying £2. It just feels rubbish. It just feels like an impossible goal, doesn't it? Yet, I'd voluntarily set that for myself. I had set that goal for myself. I had sat in group and said, yes, I will have £2 this week. I will lose £2 this week. Voluntarily. Nobody bullied me into it. Nobody encouraged me even. Nobody except the consultant. They always encourage you, don't they? You say 2 pounds and they go, yeah, go on. Or you say, well, it's been rubbish, so I'm just going to have half a pound. And then they're like, oh, go on, push, you can have a bit more than that. Go on, why don't you? But you know, and you get direct along with it. And the consultant does the, it's a new week. It's a new week. You know, it's almost the start again on Monday mentality, isn't it? It's a new week. I'll start again on Monday or Tuesday. Tuesday was my way day. It was always the reset day, you know, it's a horrible, horrible way to think about it. But anyway, it didn't affect how I felt inside. Setting that £2 target didn't change how I felt. It didn't change my drive for the week because although it's very encouraging in the early days, isn't it, when you start having these losses? It's really encouraging. But those are the early days and we know that when we diet, everything is escalated in the early days. When you've been on these diets for a good while, that £2 is just like, okay, I'll have another go, I'll give it another £2, I'll try. But actually, that's not always how I feel inside, you know? How was I supposed to find that motivation when I was feeling so rubbish about myself? So each week, that £2 goal was either the start of having to do it all again, but feeling pretty good about it, or having to do it all again and feeling depressed and demotivated and like I was going to fail again. See so that 2 pounds, it depends how you frame it. You know, what happened leading up to it? What have you got actually coming up after you've set that goal? There's lots of factors that can affect how you feel about that £2 goal. You know, the number that we've plucked out of nowhere voluntarily as a target for the week. Either way, you are back on the diet wagon for the week, aren't you? Either way, you're going to do it all again. And if the vibe was really good, I was trying to repeat the restriction, trying to repeat being good, trying to repeat staying away from all the bad foods and sticking to that plan 100% again because I could do it, I did it last week, it got me great results, I'm going to do it again. I could do it. I could repeat it. I could repeat that strict approach to food because it's all worth it. It's all worth it for that weight loss, right? If the vibe was negative, I would give myself a real battering for it. Trying to do better, follow the plan better. This is how this next week is looking, right? Trying to follow the plan better, trying to eat better, trying to be better, just be better. Ramping up the restriction, ramping up the misery around not eating the food that I really enjoyed in favor of the very small amount of food that I stuck to because let's face it, if I knew what worked for a week, I tended to stick to those foods a little bit more. So the restriction got greater and greater and greater and just trying to achieve it again. But if I had failed, I was sure to fail again this week, right? If I could just sort myself out, if I could not be so weak-willed, If I could just be better, then I could get that £2 loss again, couldn't I? Either way, the week was spent obsessing over the scales, standing on them every day to see if I was on track for that 2 pound loss, getting ready for weigh-in on Tuesday. And then the weigh-in comes and you start again. You start all over again. You weigh, you justify yourself or you celebrate yourself, you say what you're going to do the next week, you pick your goal. 2 blimmin' pounds, probably. Why? Why is it 2 pounds? This is what my brain just can't kind of wrap itself around. I just can't understand why this 2 pound meant such a big deal when actually I didn't realize at the time how much pressure that number was putting on my expectations of myself and my judgment of myself. So this is the bit that really got my brain thinking, like why is that£2 so important? Would I even notice £2 gone or £2 on if I wasn't weighing myself? If I wasn't getting on the scales at all, ever, would I week to week notice that £2 on or £2 off? Because here's the big thing, right? If you do achieve that£2 loss, how does it feel? Do you actually really, genuinely feel any different for it? If you didn't weigh yourself at all and you lost 2 pounds, what difference would that have actually made to your life? Would you actually know that you'd lost 2 pounds? Are your clothes suddenly hanging off? Does the world treat you differently for it? Does your life suddenly change overnight because you've lost 2 pounds? Likewise, if you gained that 2 pounds, would you notice, you know, if I gained 2 pounds between now and next week and I didn't stand on the scales at all, would I actually notice that? Would everything suddenly feel different? Would my clothes suddenly not fit? Am I suddenly going to be really unhealthy and really unfit and unable to function physically because of£2. Is the world going to treat me more negatively because of £2? You see, whether it's a £2 loss or a £2 gain, all of the answers to those questions are no, aren't they? Surely. I couldn't answer 1 of those questions honestly with a yes. The world does not treat me differently either way. My clothes do not feel massively different either way. Take out of this equation the natural fluctuations in the body. You know sometimes you can feel a bit bloated, you can carry a bit of extra water weight at certain times of the month, that sort of thing. You can feel naturally bloated because of what is going on in your female body that is prone to all these changes. And it can feel different. But what is that caused by? That's not caused by the weight gain. That's caused by you bloating. That's caused by you carrying extra water. That's caused by you feeling uncomfortable because your body is doing something at this time of the month that is not a particularly pleasant experience for most women. Now if you took all that out and you just thought about your weight based on what you've eaten, what you've drank, what is that £2 really doing? I mean even back in the days where you went to slimming clubs and you got on the scales and you put 2 pounds on, sometimes wasn't that a surprise? Didn't you get on the scales and think, what? I feel like I've had a great week. I feel like I've lost weight. I feel like my body is feeling better. And quite the opposite as well. Sometimes you'd go and you'd weigh and you'd feel sluggish, you feel a bit bloated, you feel a bit heavier for want of a different word and you get on the scales and you've lost. You're like, what? I'm sure I gained weight this week. How have I lost weight? I'm sure I gained weight this week. You cannot tell. You just can't tell accurately what your body has done. You just, you can't tell. You can't tell the difference with just 2 pounds. All that struggle, all that restriction, all the emotional drain and what has it actually got you at the end of that week? Nothing significant, not really, just a week of restriction and the prospect of doing it all again. And again, and again. Another week, and another week, and another week. That is the prospect that you've got lying ahead. But the body does what the body does, right? Your body does what it naturally does. So if you think about the natural functions of a body, Your body weight is going to fluctuate up and down by that 2 pounds or more in a day, in a day, let alone a week. So You eat and you drink and the weather changes. You go to the toilet, you drink more water, you drink less water, your hormones change. It's your star week. Yes, yes. That ridiculous thing made up by diet clubs so that you don't have to call it your period. Can we just say what it is, please? Can we just call it a period or a menstrual cycle or, you know, you don't need to make up these words to describe something very natural about the human body. But anyway, rant over. All of these things have an impact on your weight. They just do. That's the way it is. That's the way your body works. And so if your body can fluctuate by that in a day and you really don't notice it that much, then why is it having such a big impact on a week? Your target of £2 loss you're setting, that you know, pie in the sky number that we've plucked out in air to follow the crowd at Slimming Club and voluntarily aim for, that target of £2 doesn't allow for all of those other things. When you say, I'll lose £2 this week, did you calculate that based on all of those factors? And more, actually, there's way more that goes into weight control than even the things that I listed. So, did you calculate those things when you were choosing your number for the week. No, of course not. Why would you? Why would you? You didn't sit there in that chair at Slim and Club going, right, well, I've got my period this week, but that should only be half the week. And then we'll be going out for dinner with friends that 1 day. And I'm gonna go to the gym that day. So I'll probably drink more water than the day before. And just see what I mean. You don't do it. You don't sit there calculating all the variances in your week. You just pick a number. You just pick this random £2 out of thin air. And so now you've got a made-up target, varying degrees of motivation for the week ahead, depending on what your last week was like, and you have no idea what your body is going to naturally do. Sure. Sounds like a raving success, doesn't it? So sitting in diet clubs, this 2 pound was just like, sure, I'll, I'll lose 2 pound this week. And now, now sitting and thinking about it, it's like, where does that 2 pound come from? And do you know what? That week might be a raving success. It might just be, but equally, it might not be. But, Terry, wait a minute. All those £2, they manned up. I hear you say. True. Yeah, it might do. You might get the big change that you're looking for, but at what cost? This is what we're weighing up. So what I'm talking about in this episode is the impact on your life week after week after week, week at a time. And then how those weeks mount up and what you put yourself through each week in order to get multiple £2 losses to try and make that big change that you're looking for. Only you can decide if it is really worth it. Looking back, for me it's definitely not. It's absolutely not. And I hope because you're involved and you are listening to me waffling on at you about this blooming£2 loss this week, I hope that you're in the same space as me, that you're in that you want to take yourself away from that. You want a better way, you want to understand more about it, you want to rationalize what is the irrational, you want to do something different, you want to stop all those dieting behaviors. So this is what I'm trying to explain here. So yeah, you might get those results at a slimming club. They will be temporary, they will be short term. And by short term, I mean, once you stop dieting, no more than 2 years for most people before that weight is piled back on? And what have you put yourself through in the meantime? You know, all these targets that you're straining for, all the restriction that you're going through, all the upset, the emotional drain, the things you're missing out in life to get those 2 pounds each week. Well, yes, they might mount up, but what are you going through to get there, you know? You might lose 2 pounds, you might not lose 2 pounds. So what does that 2 pound actually mean? What impact is it having on your life every single day? You might lose that 2 pounds, you might not lose that 2 pounds, but the result of it either way is that it's had such a big impact on your life for such a little return. It doesn't seem like a fair trade to me, it just doesn't. All that effort, all the emotional strain in exchange for something that if you didn't know it was happening would bear no relevance on anything, wouldn't make any change in your life, wouldn't make any difference to your life at all. And that's the point that I'm trying to make here. I am willing to bet that there have been weeks, like I said, where you thought you'd lost and you hadn't weeks that you gained and you thought you hadn't, which goes to show that a lot of this is in the mind. You know, you've convinced yourself it's going 1 way before you even get there. Putting it into perspective, honestly, what do you think the effort of losing that amount of weight is doing to you? What do you think that target of 2 pound that you've plucked out of thin air, you know, just kind of pie in the sky number. What is that doing to you? How would your life be different if you weren't striving for that 2 pound loss? If you didn't have that goal to aim for each week, how would that look? What would life feel like then? What if you could instead choose to feel better about yourself each day in different ways? What if you could choose not to obsess over that £2 loss and you could just enjoy eating this lovely range of foods without the guilt, without the worry? What if instead of obsessing over that £2 loss and whether you're going to get it this week, you could enjoy wearing clothes that fit you now. And you could enjoy getting dressed up a little, putting some jewelry on, having your nails done or your hair done or, you know, what if you could just make yourself feel good in other ways? Doesn't that sound lovely? Doesn't it sound much nicer to be spending your week doing nice things for yourself, treating yourself, taking care of yourself, eating well, drinking well, just taking general good care of yourself? How lovely does that sound when you think of that in comparison to how you're going to achieve that 2 pound loss this week. You can have it, it's all in your hands. You absolutely can. If you'd like me to support you to become a more intuitive eater and to stop the dieting malarkey, then I'd really love to do that. I'd really, really love to do that. You can find all the links to all my stuff in the show notes. There's plenty of options there for everybody. And if you're not sure what to do, if you're not sure what you want to do next, then let's just have a chat, just book in a free 30 minute call with me and let's have a nutter, let's have a chat over a cu- well I say let's have a chat over a cu... Well I say let's have a chat over a cuppa. Do you know what? I don't drink tea. I drink fruit tea if it's the morning and it's very cold. The rest of the day I'm going to have a glass of something fizzy, I'm probably going to rock up to the call with a glass of Diet Pepsi or Pepsi Max or something like that. And I'm not going to, but you can have a cuppa if you want to have a cuppa. Don't bother me. But yeah, if you don't know what to do next, let's have a chat. Let's have a chat. Right. So nice to talk to you again. It's been a bit of a gap, isn't it? Just life. Just life. I love you. I love the podcast and it's nice to be back and waffling at you again. So next week, I'll see if I can come up with something interesting in my life to tell you about. There isn't really much of interest at the moment. Maybe I'll give you a little lunar update, a little Tales from the Cat Diaries next week. But yeah, Other than that, have a great week. Don't strive for any kind of made up number on the scales, please. Just have a good week, be kind to yourself, treat yourself nicely. Actually, do this for me. If you do nothing else, do this for me this week. Choose to do something nice for yourself this week that you wouldn't normally do for yourself. There we go. That is my wish for you this week. That is what I would like you to do for yourself. Just wing me a message and tell me what you're doing. That would be nice. That would be really nice. So if you listen to this and you've gone, yeah, I'm going to do something really nice for myself this week, get it in your diary, do it and then send me a message and say, Terry, I really treated myself. Guess what I did. Guess what I did and it was glorious. That'd be nice. I'd like to hear from you. Right. Take care. I'll speak to you soon. Bye. Bye!