Ep #386: So You’ve Gained Weight Back… – Weight Regain Series Part 1

Well, hello there my friend. Welcome back to Weight Loss for Busy Physicians. So glad you’re here. Thanks for joining me today. I have a two-parter for you. We’re going to do part one this week. And then next week we’ll follow it up with part two. 

 

We’re going to be talking about weight regain. And this is something that is bigger than just one episode. So I wanted to give it its full due and do it as a two-parter. So today we’re going to talk about what you do kind of when you’re currently in a position where you realize you’ve gained weight back and all the emotions and thoughts that come with that, and then next week we’re going to talk more about moving forward after weight regain. So there’s kind of like two sections to this. And so I want you to make sure that you come back next week as well so that you get kind of the full picture. So you know, not everybody has struggled with their weight up and down, up and down, up and down right.

 

Like I did losing and gaining and losing and gaining so many times. Maybe you’ve had that experience to where you’ve, you know, been on the diet roller coaster a bunch, but not everybody has. You know, there are people who kind of, you know, at some point. Right? It’s just and that might be you or you’re realizing, yeah, okay. This is kind of crept up. It’s become an issue. And so you might not actually have the experience of having lost weight and then regaining it back again. I still think you’re going to get a lot out of this regardless if that’s been your experience. 

 

But I’m more speaking now to people who have done a lot of work. And so I’m not talking so much about like, “Yeah, I did this crash diet type of thing,” or you know, did something like kind of, you know, “extreme” whatever you consider extreme to lose a lot of weight for some sort of event. And then I gained it back. I mean, that’s kind of like to be expected. Everyone kind of knows that’s going to happen. Instead, I’m more talking about like, no, you really gave it a solid try. Like you actually were working it, doing the work, maybe even doing some of the mental emotional work as well. Maybe you were, you know, doing a coaching program or even in my coaching program and got a lot out of it, and things were great and things were cooking along there for a while.

 

And then you find yourself gaining that weight back. And I’m also not talking so much today here of, you know, I gained back 5 pounds. I gained back 10 pounds, although that can have a strong impact on people for sure. Absolutely. I want to focus more on the close to or the full weight regain. So say you lost 50 pounds and you’ve regained 50, or maybe you’ve regained 55 or 60. You know, maybe it’s even more. And what comes along with that? 

 

This is something that was actually inspired by a friend of mine who had some really good success. It’s been a few years. It was kind of pre-COVID when she did this and really was doing the work, like really, really, really doing. Not just changing her eating work, but doing the mental emotional mindset work. And over the course of time has gained it back and we’re, you know, very close in discussing the struggles of all that. And, you know, I’m not her coach, I’m her friend. And so we talk about these things in a little bit of a different way. But she even suggested saying, you know, you should really do a podcast episode on this because there’s a lot to dig through.

 

There’s a lot to work out when it comes to the regain. And, you know, we might think on surface level, “Oh, well, you know, you just get back on track again,” and, you know, you just get started and do what you were doing before. And that should be enough. What I hear, though, from people who are experiencing something like this is that that feels really, really hard to do. Or it can be kind of like in fits and spurts. It’s like, oh my gosh, I have to get this back off. I have to get back to where I was as soon as possible. And then they kind of go pedal to the metal, trying to do everything as fast as they can and as intensely as they can, and then they burn rubber and, you know, and they don’t get traction.  

 

So then that even feels worse. And it’s easy for things to start feeling like it’s just not possible to get back there. You lost the special sauce, the secret formula, whatever was so good you can’t get it back again, and you can just start to feel heavier and heavier and harder and harder. So for some reasons why people in recent years have gained weight back is, of course, stress with Covid, that was a huge thing, particularly for doctors, just kind of eating their way through the stress of being a provider during those more intense Covid years.

 

Also, there were people who were just super anxious and were eating to manage those emotions as well. Another big part that I don’t hear a lot of people talking about, though, is kind of like that post-Covid freedom. You know, it’s like, oh, we’re back. We are traveling, we are going on vacation, we are doing things. And it’s kind of, you know, it seems like every summer it seems like it’s ramping up more and more. I was talking to someone recently. We were recognizing how, like pretty much every musician out there is touring this summer, like everybody is out there taking advantage of the opportunity to, you know, play to a crowd. And, you know, in general the public is like here for it. 

 

Everybody’s like, yes, let’s go out, let’s do things, let’s make up for that lost time. And sometimes that sort of whiplash, so to speak, from, like being home, not really being able to do much, which for a lot of people is actually great for their eating because there just was a lot of predictability, you know, not not a lot of ups and downs, not a lot of, you know, events where they couldn’t control what they were going to eat and things like that, and then they get out and all those things are there. And life is back to regular life.

 

And they maybe either forgot some of the tools that can help them with that, or never really fully developed those tools and skills. And sometimes we just think like we just deserve it. We want to have fun and food is a part of that. Maybe alcohol is a part of that. So those can be some reasons for gaining that weight back. But then outside of that, which is, you know, of course, very circumstantial and not something hopefully that we’re going to be dealing with again anytime soon. Sometimes there’s like what I’m calling like a big thing. We’ll put that in quotes. The big thing, like a big thing happened and you had to go through that, some sort of life event that was maybe stressful. It might not even have been bad. 

 

It could have been good, but it could have been, you know, also, good things come with stress. It could have been stressful in that way, or it could have been also something that was not what you were hoping for, something that was more difficult or very hard, and that maybe you ate your way through that. And then that created some weight gain, like food was your support during that. And that can make a lot of sense, because often when, you know, we’re living our lives, we’re not going through a quote unquote big thing. And even when we’re doing like the work that I offer to, you know, my clients and weight loss for doctors, only when something big happens, I kind of am secretly glad because then they’re going to learn how to do this work and how to support themselves emotionally when there is a big thing in their lives.

 

So if we think like, oh well, I’m going to wait till things are all settled and then I’m going to learn this. Well, then we haven’t actually developed the resilience or the grit, so to speak, to get through the big thing without going back and relying on food. So not like we’re hoping for a big thing to happen, but it’s definitely not a bad thing. And it would make sense that if when you were losing weight, things were pretty subtle. There wasn’t a lot of up and down in your life. 

 

Then when there are more ups and downs, it would be harder, right? You might go back to those old habits. You might start relying on food again. That would make a lot of sense. Another reason people gain weight back is kind of like general life dissatisfaction. You know, kind of like the blahs. You just have the blahs, you’re just feeling blah about everything, you know? And maybe that’s a little bit of depression. Maybe it’s truly a mental health thing, or maybe it’s not. It’s just like, I’m just not loving certain parts of my life right now. And I think sometimes those things can actually be a really good indication.

 

It’s not like we want to always avoid that. Like if you’re feeling the blues about something, say your work. That can be a really good opportunity for you to hone in on. What is the problem there? Do I need to try something different, shift my role, move to a different place? You know, practice in a different way. You know, who knows something different and same way. Personally, sometimes when we are noticing we’re feeling that way, it’s a good indication that it’s time to do some reevaluation, find some different things to spend time on in our lives than the way that we’re currently doing it, and that can be very helpful. 

 

But when we’re going through it, it often doesn’t feel great. And again, when it’s just kind of like that feeling of the grind every day is just not that great. Sometimes we start relying on food again, and what I think happens for a lot of people is they think, well, just this time I’ll make an exception and, you know, I’ll whatever overeat or eat things that I wouldn’t typically eat, but then it doesn’t take long. And then all of a sudden you kind of like, open your eyes and you’re like, oh my gosh, I’m doing this every day now. Or like a lot of the times of the day, you know, a lot, a lot of days of the week or things like that.

 

And, and I think that’s normal for to have a bit of a creep where all of a sudden you like, didn’t think it was making a difference. And then all of a sudden it has made a difference. And that can be disheartening, too, for a lot of people. So, you know, when you have the the blahs, you’re just like not feeling great. You know, maybe you don’t have a lot of motivation. Maybe, you know, the things to do that would help you, but you just aren’t feeling motivated to do them, just not feeling it, you know? 

 

And another reason can be having some sort of medical issue, needing to have surgery, something that’s really kind of like a physical upheaval as well. So like there’s sort of those emotional mental upheavals and then more physical kind of upheavals as well. And there are so many other reasons this could be happening. And so, you know, for sure, my list was not exhaustive of all the reasons why people gain weight back, but I did want to just kind of speak to those things, because often when we’re going through this, we tell ourselves the story that we’re the only ones who are struggling in this way, or other people have it figured out or, you know, somehow other people are not struggling as badly as we are. Somehow we miss the memo. 

 

There’s something wrong with us, which is why we can’t get over it or get through it faster, or why we let it get so bad, you know, like things like that.

 

And so it’s just important to recognize, like, yeah, these are all normal things. And it doesn’t mean just because this happened and you gained weight back that you’re hopeless or it’s never going to work or you can’t figure it out, or that you were stupid to think that you actually had created permanent weight loss. Like there’s all kinds of, you know, judgment and things like that we can put on ourselves when these things have happened. So there comes a point where we recognize, like, okay, this has gotten out of hand in the sense of like gained all this weight back or whatever has happened. 

 

And we sort of recognize that what I really want to encourage you to do is to, well, I’m going to discourage you. I’m going to discourage you from being reactive. I want you to not be reactive. What I mean by reactive is to recognize what has happened, and then kind of panic and start doing lose weight quick schemes, doing things to try to get the weight off as quickly as possible, just trying to run away from the discomfort, physical and mental emotional that you feel. Try to get it off really fast to get away from it. Because if you do that, it’s actually, well, first of all, often not sustainable the next time either.

 

But also, it’s a true missed opportunity on figuring out what happened that created this. Again, any time we have any kind of result, ones that we like, but also ones that we didn’t want or don’t like, there’s something to be learned there so that we can prevent ourselves from repeating that. And when we get reactive and just like rush and try to get the weight off ASAP, we are missing that lesson. And then the lesson will present itself again, probably with the next time that we gain the weight back, right. So what I would suggest is that we learn the lesson when it’s presented itself, so that we don’t need to repeat it again. 

 

That would be awfully nice, right? So we want to take a little bit of time to understand what got us here. And to understand what we currently think about this situation. So let’s kind of break that up into two little chunks here. So the first is building awareness around what got you here. So you know, we can kind of take a moment to backtrack to whenever, you know, we were at a place where we were happy with our weight and with our eating. And look at the time between then and now and better understand what happened truly what happened, like being really honest with yourself and not that kind of like mean honest. Like I’m just keeping it real.

 

But really, what it was, is I turned into a lazy piece of crap. No, that’s not what we’re talking about here. What we’re talking about is truly separating ourselves, you know, getting more into that like watcher or observer mode, where we can more objectively look at it. Okay, here are the facts of what happened. I hit my goal weight on this day or whatever, you know, around this time or something. And then things were good and I was continuing to support myself for the next nine months. And then for this six months after that, I was doing pretty well, gained a few pounds back, but, you know, like wasn’t quite doing quite as much as I had been doing prior to support myself. 

 

And then the thing happened or whatever it was, you know, like some whatever and making this up, something happened. And then to get through that, I went back to relying on food. And then that’s been about a year. And now here I am. It’s like, okay, like there’s no judgment, you know, this is good or bad. It’s just these are the things that happened. You know, it’s very helpful to build awareness on like, oh, look what happened there. When I did these things, I was able to maintain my weight loss. When I stopped doing those things regularly or at all, I went back to food and I gained weight back again. Super duper good to know.

 

Really, really, really good information. Like, we don’t want to have to learn that lesson again and again. We want to instead go, oh, you know what? I didn’t think it was such a big deal. You know, I didn’t think it really mattered that much if I did this thing or that thing and the other, and it turns out it actually matters a whole lot. Super good to know. So in the future, if I try to tell myself that those things don’t matter, I can remind myself that that actually isn’t true, that they matter a lot. You know what I mean? Like honestly understanding ourselves and what helps us. I would say that another thing that probably happened during that time of weight regain was a change in the way that you think. 

 

I mean, it had to have happened like the way you thought when you were losing weight or before, and when you were maintaining weight is different than the way you think when you are gaining weight back. And we know this because of the thinking cycle, which is from cognitive behavioral therapy. Doctor Aaron Beck, psychiatrist who’s, you know, hopefully, you know, about cognitive behavioral therapy. At least recognize that it’s, you know, a very well researched and accepted form of therapy. And while I’m not a therapist, we still can lean on this information to help us. So if we understand that our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings drive our actions, and then our actions create our results, right? Like if our thoughts end up driving our actions through our feelings, if we were doing one set of actions that created weight loss or weight maintenance, and then we take a different set of actions that create weight gain, we absolutely have to be thinking differently.

 

It can be very, very helpful to take some time to understand how the thinking changed. How was I thinking when I was losing weight? How was I thinking when I was regaining it back? Like what shifted there? What changed? And I do want to say that I have had some people that I’ve worked with who recognized in doing this kind of reflection that the way they were thinking when they were losing weight wasn’t actually maybe so great for them, in the sense that it wasn’t super supportive for them. It may be created the result, but, you know, I mean, I’m talking about simple things like even telling themselves, you know what, I’m just going to do the food part. 

 

I don’t know that I need the mindset work, you know? So then they did all that stuff, didn’t do the mindset work, and then shifted their thinking when arguably the mindset stuff would have been particularly helpful, right? When when life just continues going on. And so it’s important to understand the thinking, which thoughts were really helpful? Which thoughts are you interested in thinking again? Which thoughts are really driving overeating and, you know, are you interested in maybe switching those to something else? So we want to build that awareness to understand that.

 

And then we want to spend some time understanding again what you currently think of this situation, because this is also a big barrier to getting, you know, quote unquote back on track again or losing that weight again is the barriers that we put. Up to success. And this is, of course, completely unintentional. But we put these barriers up to essentially kind of punish ourselves often, you know, and so what has happened is you’ve, you know, you’ve lost weight and then you’ve regained that weight again. And then you have a whole lot of thoughts about that. 

 

You have thoughts about your current situation. You have thoughts about yourself as it pertains to this current situation. And often, you know, those thoughts create some feelings that are not great. You know, these are some real choice, um, thoughts that, uh, who you know, they can be rough and so common feelings that, you know, people have regained weight share with me are a lot of blame, right? They blame themselves. They blame maybe, you know, the situation of that in their life that they found themselves eating to get through. Just lots of blame. So number one, blame number two guilt. Right. They did something wrong that they made a mistake. They shouldn’t have done what they did and then feeling really guilty about it.

 

And then the next one is shame, right? Which is something is wrong with me because I’ve gained this way back again. This feels terrible. This feels so terrible when we make gaining weight back mean that something is actually wrong with us, when that is just not the truth at all of what it means. But when we tell ourselves that, and we believe it to be true, we start thinking this is factual, and then that makes us feel terrible. And coming from a place of shame, to try to lose weight is hard. Right. If we want to lose weight again, let’s get ourselves mentally into a place where we can actually have success and work through this so we don’t repeat it again. 

 

So blame, guilt, shame, judgment. Oh man, I know there’s some mean, mean thoughts that a lot of folks have in their minds when they’ve gained weight back again. You know, a lot of judgmental, mean, mean thoughts as though thinking about it that way or having that kind of self-talk is going to motivate you to to make a change. Unlikely, doubtful that that’s going to happen. A lot of frustration, you know, and I think it’s it’s honest frustration just like, oh my gosh, I’m here again. You know, like just so frustrated that like here we go again kind of a thing. So frustration is really, really common.

 

And as well as hopelessness and despair just kind of really feeling like oh my gosh. Like I have hit rock bottom here. Like this is super, super hard. Um, you know, I’m feeling really terrible about myself. I just am not in a good place, you know. And when that is the case, this is the time to get help. You know, I think sometimes we think, oh, I need to have sorted this all out before I, you know, get coaching or, you know, work with someone to lose weight. 

 

And I want to let you know that no, when you’re in this stage where you’ve got these really intense negative emotions is the time to get help. Okay, because we want to work through these feelings, process them, but also understand the thoughts that we have that create them. So that we can, you know, move through this, understand that, and then work to find some compassion for ourselves, some understanding, maybe some tenderness in the struggle. Like, this is a struggle. Yeah. This happened. Not our favorite. I’m not saying that you have to get to a place where you’re like, well, it’s no big deal. That’s not what I’m saying. But we don’t need to make it mean more than it is. Really. All it is is you ate more food than your body needed for fuel, and so it stored that in the form of fat on your body for another day.

 

That’s really all that happened. I mean, you know, that’s the facts. It’s really, really not as intense as our brains like to make it mean for us. And, you know, of course, there’s so many reasons why we do. And I don’t want to minimize that, you know, in terms of societal pressures and messaging and all of that, of course. But those are still thoughts like the facts are more food was consumed than the body needs. And here we are. Right? So if we can find some compassion, find some understanding, you know, find some tenderness, and we can start moving toward creating some belief in yourself. And from that place, that is an excellent place to start losing weight from. Right. 

 

Do you have to be in that place to start losing weight? You do not, but it sure feels a whole lot better when you’ve moved away from those negative emotions that are holding you back and instead going, you know what? Yeah, that happened, I understand it now. I’ve learned the lessons that are to be learned, and now I’m going to move forward. I’m going to create something else. So so good okay. So I’m going to end this part here. This is some great work to do. If you’ve gained some weight back. I want to really encourage you to work through this to start understanding these things better. Just because you gained weight back does not mean that you can’t.

 

Figure it out. And in fact, if you find that you’ve tried to lose weight again a few times and maybe some false starts and things that just didn’t really work out, it could be that getting some coaching help is absolutely what you need before you can really be successful, or follow through on another round of trying to lose weight, something that’s very much overlooked. But, you know, we often think like, oh, I’ll do the mindset work later. Like, let me just get the weight off. I really want to really, really want to impress upon you how important it is often to do the mindset work first so that we can have success with the weight loss so that it is a more comfortable experience and more likely to be a long term result that we are able to maintain. 

 

So I want to encourage you to think about this more. And if you’re like, whoa, this is a lot, I need some help. Guess what? Help is available to you. So our weight loss reduction is only coaching program is an amazing, amazing place to work through those kinds of things. And, you know, it’s really going to be something that you’re going to want to look into so that you can figure this out. And I didn’t really mention it. But also, you know, people who are using medications and stuff, like there’s a whole element of that, too, people feeling like they’re cheating, they’re getting away with something and a lot of drama around.

 

How am I going to maintain this weight loss if I don’t want to take the medications forever? These are all things that coaching can help with because that’s all brain based. It’s all mindset based, and that’s what we work on, right? Medication isn’t shifting the way that you think okay. Yep. We’re gonna wrap it here. This is enough for today. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope this is giving you some good things to think about. And, you know, if you are not on the path of regaining, if you are maintaining currently working on losing, maybe for the first time, you can still learn so much from this, so much from this. It would be really nice if, you know, you didn’t have to go through this whole experience. 

 

You know what I mean that I’m talking about here, so we can learn from the experiences of others to try to prevent ourselves from having to go through it as well. Thank you so much. Part two. Next week we’re going to talk about moving forward, what to do when you’re like, okay, let’s do this. Now it’s time. Let’s actually lose some weight. I hope you’ll join me then. And thanks again for your attention. Thanks for being here. All right. Take care. Bye bye.