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Episode 275:
Show Notes
Dr Mary Barson and Dr Lucy Burns, specialists in weight management and metabolic health, discuss key mindset shifts important for healthy living, particularly focusing on habits formed around food scarcity and social conditioning.
- Health Foundations ("The Six Ss")
- Sustenance, stress management, sleep, strength, sunlight, and social connection are identified as critical pillars for wellbeing, especially through menopause transitions.
- Implementation of knowledge—actually putting advice into practice—is emphasised as essential for success.
- Mindset and Food Stories
- The doctors explore the psychological impact of societal narratives like "eat everything on your plate because children are starving," which often leads to overeating and guilt.
- Such beliefs affect both self-feeding and parental behaviors, fueling the urge to finish food unnecessarily.
- Body Respect: "Your Body Is Not the Bin"
- The hosts highlight the importance of not treating one's body like a garbage bin by mindlessly eating leftovers or excess food just to avoid waste.
- Strategies include using smaller plates, storing leftovers, and giving oneself permission to dispose of uneaten food when necessary.
- Scarcity and Last Supper Mindsets
- The discussion includes the urge to consume all tempting foods before starting a new diet (“Last Supper” phenomenon), likening this logic to irrational actions like trashing a garage before cleaning it.
- They explain how ancient survival wiring drives modern behaviors but advocate for conscious choices over automatic responses.
- Empowering Language
- Changing language from "I can't eat that" to "I don't eat that" is encouraged to foster empowerment and autonomy around food choices.
- Using temporary reframing—"just for the moment"—instead of "never again" helps counteract restrictive mindsets.
- Marketing and False Scarcity
- The episode debunks product marketing strategies that prey on consumers by creating a false sense of urgency or limited availability for foods, encouraging listeners to challenge these beliefs and recognise food abundance.
- Challenging Automatic Beliefs
- The doctors urge listeners to critically assess ingrained beliefs about food, asking whether they are truly helpful, and to begin questioning what is accepted as fact in daily routines
Episode 275:
Transcript
Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (0:16) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Mary Barson (0:21) Hello beautiful friend, Dr Mary here and today I am joined by my fabulous gorgeous beautiful colleague Dr Lucy Burns. Dr Lucy, how are you today?
Dr Lucy Burns (00:34) I'm really really well May, it's really well. I had a cracker of a sleep which always cheers me up. You know it's so funny in the olden days I used to always talk about my sleeping being my superpower. Honestly I never had a bad sleep unless I had to get up to you know go to an airport or something but otherwise ever since menopause came along my sleep is less guaranteed which is sort of a tiny bit sucks but anyway it is way better than it was during the throes of perimenopause that's for sure.
Dr Mary Barson (01:02) Yep this is all the things that are soon to come before me so I hear you.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:08) I know as you train for menopause I do love that that you mentioned the other day that you're training.
Dr Mary Barson (01:13) I am training for menopause.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:16) Yeah and I know this isn't the topic of our conversation but it is really really important that people do that that they try and get their their health as well as possible before the perimenopause transition and that once they've been through menopause they really really need to focus on what we call the 6 S’s for success because menopause really does impact women's metabolic hormones so you know the 6 S’s just a quick note because we're actually gonna move on to mindset but the 6 S’s for people: S1 sustenance,
Dr Mary Barson (01:51) S2 stress management
Dr Lucy Burns (01:54) S3 is sleep,
Dr Mary Barson (01:57) S4 strength,
Dr Lucy Burns (01:59) S5 sunlight
Dr Mary Barson (02:02) S6 social connection.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:05) Absolutely so all of those S's contribute to your well-being and all of them need to be optimised whether you're pre peri or post menopause but the thing that I guess wraps around all of those that's the knowledge the knowing but the thing that wraps around all of them is the doing so yes knowledge is important but if you don't implement then the knowledge is almost useless.
Dr Mary Barson (02:35) That's right and key to implementation is managing your beautiful tricky slippery amazing mind mind management.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:46) Indeed it is it does remind me I don't know there's some sort of analogy about an octopus in a in a bag of in an orange bag and I can't actually remember the exact analogy but it is your brain is a bit like that like you've got it in this bag you think it's all wrangled up but you know if you think about an orange bag it's one of those sort of netting bags and the octopus can just sort of sneak a tentacle out and just go rogue.
Dr Mary Barson (03:10) And just eat a few cream crackers before you even realise what's happened.
Dr Lucy Burns (03:14) Yeah yeah yeah and for many people it does feel like that it feels like your mind is going rogue and just you know people think my mind has a mind of its own. It kind of does. It does but look underlying some of this is what we call you know stories and so we thought we're going to do a series on the stories or underlying beliefs that you might not even realise you have that have come about because of particularly social conditioning and marketing messages. So we thought we'd start the ball rolling with a really really common one and I don't know if you grew up with this Miss but I grew up with the you have to eat everything on your plate because there are children starving in Africa. Yep. So again it might not be Africa depending on which part of the world you're from it might be in India it might be something else but for you know and the messaging behind it was to try and get I think you know children to recognise that they're you know they need to be grateful for food that they're privileged that they you know lucky because they've got food available when there are people in the world without food.
Dr Mary Barson (04:24) A consequence of this you have to eat everything on your plate story is that we can feel guilt and shame if we don't eat everything on our plate — guilt and shame because we've got food in front of us. It can create all kinds of stories but one of the biggest ones, the way in which it is unhelpful for us as grown-up women, is that we will eat food to get rid of it when we don't necessarily need it.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:54) Totally, totally. And this — there's multiple scenarios in which this occurs. So certainly you might have served yourself a plate full of food and you might be halfway through and actually think that you're full. You just sort of push through, so your brain goes, oh well we've got to eat it all, it's on the plate, you know, children starving in Africa. And so your brain is sending you a signal, like it's sending you a satiety signal, it's saying I'm full, and you're ignoring it. And honestly after years and years of this, the brain goes, oh I'm not gonna bother telling you I'm full anymore because you're not even listening to me. So you do lose touch with your, you know, your intuition or your satiety signaling in many cases.
Dr Mary Barson (05:34) Yes, this scarcity mindset can rear its head in many ways. It's not just us eating beyond hunger cues, eating beyond our physiological requirements because we put it on our plate and therefore we have to eat it. It can spill out into other areas of our lives. And I fall into this particular trap quite a lot. As a mum, you feed your kids and they don't eat their dinner, and then there's the food on the plate and I feel compelled to eat it. And I just need to be aware of that. Sometimes I choose very mindfully to eat their food, particularly the meat. I don't want the meat to go to waste. But it is, hey, it's like if I used to think that you know my body is my temple, yeah we want to feed our body. There's something a bit reminiscent about "my body is a garbage bin" if I'm eating my children's leftovers. And this is a key point — we don't want to treat our body like the bin.
Dr Lucy Burns (06:33) Well it's interesting, Miss, because even within that sentence you said "I don't want the meat to go to waste." So it is absolutely engraved in our brain that food that we don't eat, no matter what it is, is somehow wasteful. Now I understand exactly where you're coming from because I am particularly keen on, particularly if we're eating animal proteins, that you know an animal has sacrificed its life. This is nutrient-dense food, we definitely don't want to be wasting it. But it's interesting how our brain goes — we'll apply that message to all foods no matter what. But also that the idea that well if we're not wasting it, so throwing it out is clearly wastage in our brain, whereas eating it is not necessarily wastage in our brain.
Dr Mary Barson (07:28) But then if it's extra food that we don't need then it just creates other problems that we have to get rid of so whether we're getting rid of it you know before we eat it or we're dealing with the long-term consequences of eating it once we do so it's very important I think a mantra that we have at Real Life Medicine that my body is not the bin your body is not the bin is a useful one to remember
Dr Lucy Burns (07:51) Yeah absolutely because if you're eating it only to then have to get rid of it later well it's sort of a waste again depending on the type of food so a couple of strategies that I will use to avoid food wastage particularly a ground high nutrient expensive food is I now use small plates serve myself small bits of food the deal being if I'm still hungry I can go back and get another serve but it means that I don't plow through to finish the food just because it's on my plate and the other thing with depending on the food is you can just put it in the fridge and heat it up later like we're so lucky these days we have fridges who knew.
Dr Mary Barson (08:33) That's right put it in a container and eat it tomorrow yes you can if one wants to remember.
Dr Lucy Burns (08:40) Absolutely and that you don't have to you know I like you I when my kids were little I used to eat the crusts like honestly what was it doing that for but it felt like wasteful to throw it out because but I think just because something is edible doesn't mean you have to eat it.
Dr Mary Barson (08:58) Yeah apples really get me with a toddler it takes three bites of an apple and then puts it down and I'm like looking at that sad apple like I need to do something with that apple and you know sometimes I have little brisk moments of energy and I will slice it up squeeze some lemon juice on it put it in the fridge and serve it to them later but other times I think it is okay just to let it go to the chickens or to green waste and and just I don't need to eat all the apples just because I have a toddler in the house
Dr Lucy Burns (09:28) No I know so the second sort of area I think where people eat food is sometimes to get rid of it so they're not tempted to eat it later which when you when you spell that out that logic is just nuts but our brain is going I don't want the temptation of this later so I'm just gonna eat it all now
Dr Mary Barson (09:58) Yeah you know 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance is totally totally irrational in the first week of our 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance we sort of talk about this being a prep week you know you can dive straight in or this can just be your first week to get your head around it to understand what the the real food is the low-carbohydrate real food to sort of shop prep plan prepare and in this week we really do sort of help people guard against this idea that right so I'm going low-carb real food next week I better eat everything in my house right now I'm just gonna eat all of the chocolates and the crackers and all of the cereal and all the bread because you know I'm next week I'm not gonna have any it's like this last supper phenomenon but more so and we use an analogies one of your analogies Lucy our analogy Queen that that just understand why this might not be helpful can you imagine instead of it being a 12-week challenge around real food stress management, sleep management, improving your metabolic health you imagine it was a 12-week challenge around getting your garage really really really organised and neat and tidy 12-week garage cleaning challenge would it make much sense so there's been that first week just go into that garage and completely trash it to just throw paint cans everywhere to just get all of the nuts and bolts and screws and just throw them all over the floor in a really big mess to just grab all the tools throw them on the ground and to just trash the place because starting Monday next week you're gonna start tidying it of course it doesn't but that's kind of what it is when you're eating the food to get rid of it.
Dr Lucy Burns (11:40) Yeah absolutely and it's like even worse you're going around to your neighbors and going if you got any junk that I can put in my garage because I'm doing a garage clean out so if I've got extra junk in there well that that's gonna be helpful which of course it's not because logically that's whereas you know if you're wanting to improve your metabolic health and lose weight basically that's what you've done you've just added a whole heap of chaos to your body got some you know some of the neighbors extra junk put that in and then you're starting there's a couple of mindsets in that one is this concept of the last supper so when your brain says I can never ever ever have it again then our brain goes what what are you talking about never ever well I better make the most of it now and so again some of that comes back to our I guess ancient thought processes around the way we used to gather food particularly seasonal food there would be some giant you know tree of apricots or whatever that then wouldn't be available for the next 11 months and so the brain and the body this was helpful for them to eat it because it stored up your vitamins it stored up actually stored up a bit of extra body fat for for that because you know winter was coming but we don't live there is no winter coming we live in this now hyper abundant environment there is no winter.
Dr Mary Barson (13:09) But we are wired thatway the Hudson people in Uganda have been witnessed to like climb up perilously like life-threateningly high trees to go and grab honey and be stung by bees and when they get the honey like to eat like three liters of it in one setting because they don't get honey very often in that particular hunter gatherer lifestyle and when it's available they eat it as much as they can which makes huge amounts of sense from a survival point of view you want to be able to eat the sweet fruit while it's available you get into a little bit of insulin resistance and in that insulin resistant state while the sugary food is available store that extra fat you absolutely want that because then we're going to move into a time of scarcity and that fat storage is going to be super helpful and this is why we are prone to insulin resistance is why we can gain weight and this is why we're wired for this food but that that brain wiring is so maladaptive right now in our modern society for the rest of us and we can work with our brain to sort of overcome that to work with that rather than feeling like we need to eat all the food all the time because it's there.
Dr Lucy Burns (14:18) Absolutely and you know a simple thing I we often recommend is that people will use the word can't or I can't eat that and that comes from you know diet plans where you'd have a plan and there would be a list of things on that were on the diet and weren't on the diet and so you you can't you're not allowed like it's all of this sort of restrictive language whereas you know you're the boss of you you can do whatever you want there's no food police no one's gonna come and arrest you you can do exactly whatever you want you're the boss of you there are consequences obviously and you need to be aware of those but at the end of the day it's not about whether you can or you can't it's whether you do or you don't so a vegetarian they don't say to people I can't eat meat because I mean unless I guess if they're vegetarian or veganism is imposed upon them by maybe religious beliefs maybe they say I can't eat although even then most of them would say something like oh I don't eat you know I don't eat bacon because I'm Jewish or I don't eat pork because I'm Muslim they don't say I can't so I think for us it's really empowering to say that you know I don't eat cake I don't eat cake so much better than I can't eat cake people go why can't you eat cake. I'm on a diet well you're on a diet you gotta live you gotta live
Dr Mary Barson (15:42) Just have a little bit it's a celebration come on yeah this birthday cake won't ever be available ever again
Dr Lucy Burns (15:47) Yeah absolutely so certainly that's empowering to say don't versus can't the second thing is that if by saying those words in your mind that you can never ever have them again triggers this concept of the Last Supper what you can say to yourself is that you're just not gonna have it for the moment it's not about never ever it's for the moment it's not helpful for me to have this you know insert whatever food it is so it doesn't mean never ever again in the future because maybe your brains not ready to focus on that and that that feels really hard for some people so it's just for the moment for the moment I'm not going to have that food or for the moment I don't eat cake and that can be really helpful for your brain as well.
Dr Mary Barson (16:39) Yes I can another way in which we are vulnerable to this scarcity idea with food is that it's using marketing like this particular mindset is preyed upon by food companies marketing particularly marketing their processed foods to us they'll use scarcity as a tactic because it works.
Dr Lucy Burns (17:01) Yeah absolutely I used to joke that I was the marketing a marketers dream client because I kind of was anything that had a shiny star slapped on it anything that said limited offer I was in there having it even if I didn't really want it just because you know I might never ever get this opportunity to have it again and I mean how's this for a joke there was a time that Cadbury partnered with Vegemite and made Vegemite chocolate it was disgusting it was so gross I bought it and I ate it all I didn't even like it it was terrible it was the worst product ever but you know I would never get that opportunity to try it ever again it's
Dr Mary Barson (17:45) yes absolutely then they prayed straight into that perfectly human mindset trait of yours or about the we're coming into Christmas now and the chocolate Santa marshmallows are already on the shelves and they are there and it's like but either now because you know it's Christmas time you can only eat these particular chocolate-coated marshmallows at Christmas time and we do fall into that you know we will we'll buy them get them now eat them now but of course this is all a fallacy you know in today's day and age you can get chocolate-coated marshmallows at any point in time they may or may not be wrapped in no elves and Santa foil but chocolate-coated marshmallows are everywhere hot cross buns it's just rice and bread it's available all year round yeah it is yeah it is you can get these things all year round
Dr Lucy Burns (18:37) It is Christmas shortbreads you know you can buy them all year round they're just didn't not in the shape of Christmas trees yeah absolutely right there is almost nothing now on earth that is limited because honestly you can you can buy it online Christmas puddings you can buy any time of the year you know Christmas cake Christmas cake it's just fruit cake you can buy that any time of the year
Dr Mary Barson (18:59) We're not suggesting that you need to go out and buy it for a cake at any time of the year we're just using this to understand so that you can understand that there is no real scarcity you see through this marketing mischief so when your brain tells you the story that oh I'm only gonna be able to get this now this will never be available again it will be just recognise that story for what it is and you can tell yourself look I'm just not having this now and I can absolutely have it later and you can have it later if you want to
Dr Lucy Burns (19:26) Yeah absolutely so I think what we need to do is work out what is the most useful belief is it useful for us to believe that we need to eat everything on our plate because there are children starving in Africa probably not useful could it be useful to believe that your body is not the bin that you are allowed to throw food out if you want to probably useful you get to decide because you're the boss I'm not telling you what to think or believe but you can decide but what we always want to do is start thinking and this is our series coming up over the next few weeks is what are just things that I accept as fact when in fact when in fact when then they're not actually facts they're just beliefs that we have never thought to challenge that we have just gone along with but that don't actually serve us that's actually the key to mind management so there we go
Dr Mary Barson (20:20) It is recognising those beliefs and asking yourself is this helpful
Dr Lucy Burns (20:27) Indeed indeed good I'm looking forward to busting through some of these over the next few weeks so my lovely friends we will catch up with you next week.
Dr Mary Barson (20:36) Bye now!
Dr Lucy Burns (20:40) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.
