Episode #49: Deprivation vs. Discipline

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Summary

Today’s episode is all about understanding and unraveling the difference between feeling deprivation versus discipline. You have a disciplined plan, but sometimes following it doesn’t feel so good, like you’re depriving yourself. When you’re feeling deprived, you won’t want to follow your perfectly-laid plans. You might muscle through it for a while, but eventually, you will abandon it.

So, what’s the difference? How can you generate the feeling of discipline on purpose, instead of feeling deprived? The answer lies in your thoughts. As a high-achieving ninja working mom, you’re already doing a lot, so it’s no surprise your brain doesn’t want to stick to a disciplined eating plan as well. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless, destined to always feel deprived.

Tune in this week to discover how to move from deprivation to discipline. I’m sharing the biggest mistakes I see high-achieving working moms make when they feel deprived, how rest and relaxation have been intertwined with food in our minds, and how to see that following your plan is something you do in service of yourself.

Join me on Tuesday, March 14^th, 2023, at 12PM Eastern for a free webinar! If you feel like you’re coasting along in neutral gear and not seeing real results, but you’re ready to shift into drive, I’m sharing three frameworks that are going to help you do exactly that. Click here to reserve your seat!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why, as a high-achieving working mom, it’s no surprise if you feel deprived.
• Where the feeling of deprivation really comes from.
• Why changing your plan to solve for the feeling of deprivation is the biggest mistake you can make.
• Some of the most common thoughts that create a feeling of deprivation, and how to spot them in your brain.
• How resentment and regret keep you from achieving your goal 100% of the time.
• One question to ask yourself to discover how to give yourself rest, relaxation, and pleasure without food or alcohol.
• How to stick to your plan with ease, instead of muscling through deprivation.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

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  Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, and you're listening to The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast, Episode 49, Deprivation vs Discipline. Today's episode is all about understanding and unraveling the difference between feeling deprivation versus discipline. You have a plan, but sometimes following it doesn't feel so good.

  When you aren't feeling good or when you're feeling deprived, you are not going to want to follow that perfectly laid plan. Maybe you'll muscle through it a bit, but eventually you will abandon it. So what's the difference? How can you generate the feeling of discipline on purpose? I'm getting into all of that today on the podcast.

  Before we jump into the podcast, I want to make sure that you know about my next live webinar, where I'm going to be teaching you my three frameworks to help you shift out of neutral gear where maybe you've been coasting along and not seeing real results and shifting into drive. It is happening on Tuesday, March 14th at 12:00 PM Eastern.

  You do not want to miss this one. You can reserve your seat over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/webinar. If you can't attend live, don't worry. If you're registered for the webinar in advance, you'll be sent the limited time replay. Okay, let's get into today's episode. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life.

  I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories, or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching.

  Ready? Let's get to it.

  Hey, Unstoppable friends. This podcast episode today is a topic that I have been thinking about for quite a long while, and it's a topic that I think really especially affects high achievers and busy working moms because I think, again, I've shared this before on the podcast. I think about high achieving working moms as having seriously two full-time jobs that we are working really hard at.

  There is your mom life, your mom role, and how you show up with your family, and there is the work that you do in the actual workplace. To really talk about today's topic, which is deprivation versus discipline. I want to start by painting a picture. So I want you to settle in, whether you're driving or on a walk, to allow yourself to visualize this picture that I'm about to paint for you.

  You know that you want to feel better in your body and you know that you want to lose weight, you make a plan to do so, and you know that if you followed the plan, the number on the scale would absolutely trend down. But sometimes, or maybe often, the idea of following the plan doesn't feel good. You feel deprived.

  You know that you're working so hard at work and with your kids. You're a high achiever after all. So we already know that you are doing so much. It makes perfect sense that your brain is like, um, I'd like to be able to eat whatever I want. Thank you. I deserve it. I want it. And your plan is telling me, no.

  Your plan is telling me I can't have it. And therein enters the struggle. The struggle is that we want a goal. We want to feel better. We want to lose weight, but there's this other side that is feeling deprived, feeling like we are saying no when we just want a break. Before we really get into this, I want you to become aware of something first.

  That feeling of deprivation isn't ever coming from your plan. Even if you've been doing the strict counting and the calories and the points, even if you've been logging and writing it all down, even if you have been putting every single limit in the world, counting carbs and treats and sugar and flour. The feeling of deprivation is never ever coming from the plan.

  The reason that you ever feel deprived is because of something that you're thinking. You have some thoughts about the plan. You have some thoughts about your needs and wants, and there is the disconnect. Those thoughts are creating the feeling of deprivation, and it's really important to understand that before we really get deep into this episode.

  The biggest mistake that I see is when you start changing the plan to solve the feeling of deprivation. You think maybe if I put a cookie in every now and then I won't feel deprived. Maybe if I have a cheat meal or a cheat day, I won't feel deprived. Maybe if I did the occasional ice cream or Friday night pizza, then I won't feel deprived.

  This is a mistake. This is trying to change a plan to create or solve for a feeling. But the plan never created the deprivation to start. So we start going down the wrong rabbit hole. Changing the plan to throw in the occasional cookie or delectable delight is never ever going to solve the feeling of deprivation.

  So let's get into where the feeling comes from. Like I was just sharing a few moments ago, the feeling of deprivation comes from the thoughts that you are having. If you can pause the episode here and just take a few moments and explore. What thoughts do you have about food and your wants and needs that ever leads you to feel deprived ever?

  If you're driving or you can't do this exercise right now, it's perfectly okay. Just make a mental note to come to this point in the episode to do this exercise. I'm going to share some familiar thoughts that I have experienced myself and that I have heard from my clients, and I want to invite you to keep adding to this list.

  I want it and I can't have it. My needs aren't being met. Something is missing for me. I want something and I'm not getting it. I want it and I'm not supposed to have it. Let's just talk about for a moment the underlying common link between all of these thoughts. Why does the flavor and texture of these sentences feel the same?

  It's because there is a fundamental need of yours that you have that isn't being met. Now, I don't mean a fundamental need like food to survive or a shelter, but humans have a fundamental need to have pleasure and relaxation. We aren't designed to feel stressed and pressured and hustle and worry all the time, and I know that this is something that might feel hard for the high-achieving working mom to hear.

  Humans are most naturally at our most primitive level designed to avoid discomfort and seek pleasure. And I think that the biggest, biggest mistake that a high achiever can ever make is to believe that relaxation and pleasure is frivolous or wasteful. It isn't. It's necessary. You might have been brought up to believe that you need to work really hard to earn your breaks.

  But what I'm here to tell you is when you learn how to fold in breaks and rest, you will actually work better. Let me just say that again. You don't have to work hard to earn breaks. When you learn how to build in breaks into your life, you will work better. We've all experienced the truth of this. Believing that rest, relaxation, or pleasure is frivolous or wasteful is an expensive belief to keep.

  When you keep thinking that rest, relaxation, and pleasure isn't necessary, that it isn't important, or even that it's frivolous, you will keep feeling deprived on the other end. So how do we solve this? How do we start to unpack, unravel, and get to the other side? It starts with getting really intentional and thoughtful about creating rest, relaxation, and pleasure on purpose, and you have to teach yourself how to do this without food.

  Let me tell you why this might be challenging for you if this is the very first time you have embarked on such an exercise. It's because we have decades, literally decades of using food to create emotional experiences. We have used food as a break from stress. We've used food to solve for boredom. We've used food to connect with loved ones, to celebrate special occasions and to infuse relaxation and pleasure.

  Really think about all of those real-life examples. When you have a busy workday or a busy work week, or you're celebrating a special occasion or a big accomplishment, what is the very first thing that you think of? We think of food, and this is not just you. I want to really normalize this. This is something that so, so, so many of us, most of us have really learned from the youngest age.

  Food has simply become intertwined with rest, relaxation, and pleasure. So it makes perfect sense that your brain offers it to you often. Now, here's what I want you to really see. The solution to reaching your ideal weight isn't to cut out more food. It isn't to get stricter on the plan. It isn't to count calories and points.

  The solution is to untangle food from rest, relaxation, and pleasure. I'm going to be totally honest. This is going to take some of your attention and effort, but I promise you it will be well worth it. And if you want to reach your ideal weight with more ease, this is a necessary step. You cannot feel deprived on the road there.

  And I want to tell you how strongly I feel about this because I know firsthand that high achieving working moms deserve more. When you hear yourself at the end of the night or at the end of your busy work week, when you hear yourself think, I just deserve a break. The answer isn't to muscle through that thought, to muscle through deprivation.

  The answer to that thought is hell, yes you do. Hell yes. You deserve a break because you've been working really hard. You're doing big things. What's important to really see here is what you're really deserving of and what you're really wanting is rest, relaxation, and pleasure. So just take a few moments right now and ask yourself, if you didn't create rest, relaxation, and pleasure with food or alcohol, how else would you create this for yourself?

  Don't leave this to an in the moment decision. Really make a long, comprehensive list in advance, and then start getting to test them out. I wanna share with you how really understanding this and doing this work and unraveling food from relaxation can become the gateway to discipline. When you have a plan now and you trust that you're going to meet your needs, that you're going to follow through and offer yourself rest and relaxation, I want to tell you what happens when you get home at the end of a busy week and your kids are tucked in.

  You will want to actually follow your plan. Why is this? It's because you'll be thinking, I am so taken care of, my needs are being met. I will always take care of myself. And you can more deeply see the truth that actually following your plan day after day is going to get you closer and closer to your goal. You start to see the truth that following your plan is for you and it's in service of you.

  Can you just feel the struggle falling away? Following the plan stops being hard because you aren't fighting deprivation along the way. Sure. It might not always be smooth sailing because your brain in her very habitually practiced way might say, Ooh, those microwavable nachos would be so good right now. You simply can notice it and feel discipline coursing through you.

  You know that you just do what you say you're going to do. I'm going to get into a really specific example to further paint this picture, and I'm really pulling from my real-life personal story in a time that I used to feel deprived versus times that I have felt disciplined. I've experienced both, and I want you to know that nothing else in my life changed my work life, my kids, my partner, my time.

  None of it changed for me to allow myself to shift gears out of deprivation and into discipline. I'm also going to share with you how to know when you're operating from deprivation versus discipline. I'm going to call this the Rs versus the Ps. Stay with me. It's going to make sense in just a moment. I used to make plans that felt really reasonable.

  I didn't hate the plan, and the plan had foods that I liked fairly well, but then I would get home after a long day. Maybe I would have a middle of the night delivery, so I might have been a bit tired, or I might have had a really challenging case or project that really stretched me. I might have even gotten a call from the principal about my kid or gotten into a squabble with my husband.

  After getting home at the first opportunity, I would be faced with a decision to follow the plan or not. In the moment my brain would offer me, listen, you deserve a break. You've worked so hard today. You've had to deal with so much. You're getting no rest. You have a need that's being unmet. Now at this point in time, the idea of following my reasonable plan felt constrictive.

  I had two options. I could abandon my plan altogether and just make my microwavable nachos, or I could muscle through. I could grit my teeth and force myself to stay on plan. Either of these options, whether I abandoned my plan or I muscled through led to the two Rs. Let me tell you what that means. When I felt deprivation in the moment, I want a break and I'm not getting it.

  My basic needs for rest and relaxation are not being met. When I abandoned my plan, I felt regret 100% of the time. Let me say that again. When I feel deprived in the moment and because of deprivation, I abandoned my plan. I have felt regret 100% of the time. Either right after the fact or the next morning when I would step on the scale. Regret with the capital R or the alternative, when I would muscle through my plan, I felt resentment 100% of the time.

  If I ever came into my plan feeling deprived and I forced myself to get through it, I felt resentment 100% of the time. I would then start looking around at all the people who get to eat all the things. I would look at my husband who eats three dinners, and I would feel resentment with a capital R.

  Here's what I want to tell you about the Rs, Regret and resent. They will keep you from your goal also 100% of the time, and they will be the reason that you ultimately abandon or quit your goals. Here's what I want to really highlight. Why is this happening? It's because we aren't designed to live in a constant state of deprivation or regret or resentment.

  Your brilliant brain is going to want to solve this for you, and she will do it by negotiating and second guessing, and ultimately, she'll be offering you food. Here's what I want to tell you though. There is a solution to this, and I like to think about the solution in the form of discipline. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking that discipline is deprivation.

  They feel totally different in your body. Discipline really highlights the two Ps. Let me get into what that means. When I really did my own personal work, really unraveling and un-marring food from pleasure and relaxation through coaching specifically, I got to uncover all of the thoughts that I was having about myself, about my work, about my kid, and about relaxation and rest.

  I really did the work through coaching to unmarried food and pleasure. Let me tell you what happens when you do this, when you separate food from relaxation and pleasure. You get home after a long day and you've been working really hard doing projects and answering emails, you might be tired or gotten a call from the principal or even gotten into a squabble with your partner, and that night when you settle in, you already have your relaxation ritual in place.

  It's not all about the food. And so when your brain naturally offers you those microwavable nachos, you're like, of course. Listen, we are so taken care of right now. All of my needs are being met. You can meet that urge with so much more ease. You still have two options. You might still abandon your plan.

  It's possible. You might think, okay, those nachos sound really good, but honestly, the next day when you step on the scale or you feel uncomfortable, you can just note it that the nachos were not so great, and feel purposeful and get right back to where you were purposeful with the capital P. Or more likely, what happens in that moment is because you feel at ease and because you remind yourself that you are in fact taken care of, that your rest and relaxation has been accounted for.

  You can stick to your plan with so much more ease. You don't have to muscle through deprivation because there's no deprivation. You feel discipline coursing through you and let me tell you what happens on the other side of following your plan from that place. You feel serious pride and satisfaction.

  Let me tell you, pride with a capital P is the best form of pleasure. And purposefulness and pride feels so much better than trying to muscle through deprivation. They're the cleanest, most natural forms of pleasure that you can give yourself on a daily basis. I think it's so important to highlight that high-achieving working moms might have simply forgotten or never known, that they can be high achievers and want big things and work hard, and even work a lot of hours without feeling deprived.

  Let me say that again. You can be a high achiever and have big goals and work hard, and work many hours without feeling deprived, which means that this is the road to the ultimate win-win. When you know that there is a possibility to really fill the need of relaxation and rest and pleasure without food, you don't have to feel deprived in the work.

  Don't ever attach your status as being a high achieving working mom with deprivation. It's going to be a lose lose battle, and it's going to feel like such a struggle. Your brilliant brain will look for coping mechanisms because she's designed to serve you. She's going to look for coping mechanisms and solutions that will often involve food, snacking and grazing when your body isn't actually hungry.

  I'm telling you that no strict plan that you write down in advance can ever actually solve this, and this is why I want high achievers to stop solely relying on a strict plan to reach their ideal weight. I want you to understand and learn that the other side is so much better. I want high achieving working moms like you to know that you have to feel better alongside reaching your ideal weight. They go hand in hand like two peas in a pod. If you want lasting forever results, you have to learn how to feel better, feel discipline and pride and accomplishment coursing through you as you reach your ideal weight.

  So the intention of today's episode was to dispel the myth that you ever have to feel deprived in your journey to reach your ideal weight. Don't ever mistake discipline for deprivation, get familiar and really know where you are based on the two Rs and the two Ps. When you feel regret or resentment, ask yourself, have you been feeling deprived?

  How have you not been meeting your own needs for relaxation and rest without food? If it wasn't the job of your partner, your job, your kid, food to create relaxation and rest, how would you take ownership and agency of that. This opens the door for discipline and pride, and it's like a compass that will point you in the direction of your dream goal, prioritizing rest and relaxation on purpose.

  I know sometimes this is really, really hard for high achievers because we have been trained from our youngest years to believe we have to work hard to earn rest, and this episode is designed to challenge that. It starts with believing and proving to yourself without a shadow of a doubt that you are in fact taken care of and that your needs are being met.

  I promise you; this is the best muscle to strengthen. Do some reps on this every single day, and those muscles will in fact get stronger. I hope you found today's episode helpful, and it planted a seed of a new belief. You can achieve big things. You can reach your ideal weight and you can feel proud and purposeful on the way.

  We don't ever have to put rest, relaxation, or pleasure on the line as you hit big goals. This one was such a good one for me to share with you, and I hope you enjoyed it. Bye. Hey, if you're enjoying this podcast, listen up. I am hosting my next free webinar live on Tuesday, March 14th at 12:00 PM Eastern, and you do not want to miss this.

  Quit the Strict Meal Planning and Do This Webinar Instead is really a webinar where I teach some of my core principles and teachings and bring to life why I want high achievers to have more than just a solid plan to reach your ideal weight. If you miss the last live webinar, don't worry. This one is just for you.

  Put it on your calendar now and block the time come live because I promise you it is so much better when you do. You can grab your seat for free over at theunstoppablemombrain.com/webinar and make sure you check your email inbox where I will be sending you all of the details.

  Hitting your goal, reaching your ideal weight is not about cutting things out, counting points and counting calories and having stricter plans. Hitting goals is about solving what is missing at the root. I seriously love this webinar so much. It has been one of my absolute favorites to deliver. If you cannot make it live or if you miss it, don't worry because I'll be sending you the limited time replay.

  Only if you're registered. You will not be able to sign up for the replay after the event. So make sure you go right now to theunstoppablemombrain.com/webinar and I will see you there. Okay guys. Bye. Thanks for listening to The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain.

  If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to theunstoppablemombrain.com.