The most common weight loss concerns
Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the one day at a time podcast. Let's get stuck in today. I'm gonna answer three questions or three comments I've seen in the group, and I'm gonna reply as if I was Epictetus. So luckily, the AI tools today can and basically, Steve Jobs predicted this in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1:He said one day computers, you'll be able to read the entire works of Shakespeare or Socrates or Plato, and you'll be able to speak to the computer as if as if it was Plato himself. And you can do it now. So we've got the works of Epictetus, and the AI learns it, and you speak to AI and say, hey, Epictetus. What would you say back to this? And I've done this for three things.
Speaker 1:And, obviously, Epictetus is he's a famous stoic philosopher from two thousand years ago. He, was essentially a disabled leg. He was a former slave, and he yeah. He was, you know, a master of himself essentially. His handbook that is still alive today has helped a lot of people over the years, and it became the precursor to cognitive behavioral therapy, thanks to work.
Speaker 1:So he's a big player in kind of the psychological stuff. I'm gonna reply I'm gonna talk as if I'm him. This is what he would say. It's quite harsh sometimes. It's not I wouldn't word it some you know, how he does him all the time, but I just wanna share kind of how the Stoics would learn that some of their problems, and I think it'd be quite interesting to read anyway.
Speaker 1:So the first one is, surely my calories are too high. There's no way I should be on these calories as a woman if that's not the calories a man has. This is very common. My calories are too high. My calories too high.
Speaker 1:What would Epic Titus say about this? Okay. You are new to the path and already you doubt the guide who knows the way. You weigh heavy, you say, and wish to become lighter. Good.
Speaker 1:You seek instruction, better. But the moment you are told something different from your old opinions, you cry out, surely this can't be right. Tell me, how what has your old thinking brought to you but the very condition you now seek to escape? The body requires fuel according to its needs. When it's larger, it requires more.
Speaker 1:Reason dictates that a woman at two hundred plus pounds does not live by the same rule as a woman a hundred and twenty pounds. If you starve yourself now out of fear, you will neither be healthy nor patient enough to finish the race. Would you scorn the physician because the medicine tastes strange, or would you follow the prescription and wait for the healing? You have not yet tested the path. Therefore, hold your judgment.
Speaker 1:Attend first to obedience, not to endless questioning. Let your actions bear fruit and then ask whether the seed was good. Okay? Brilliant. Brilliant reply.
Speaker 1:I think it's bang on. Okay. Next one. So we had a question about love the podcast on GLP ones, but reluctant to eat processed foods. Okay?
Speaker 1:To hit the protein target. Wanna eat whole foods only for majority or whatever. Okay. Epictetus reply. You speak of processed as if the word alone makes a thing evil, as if by naming it you have condemned it.
Speaker 1:Foolishness. Does cutting an apple process it and make it bad? Does grinding wheat into flour process it and make it bad? Is a thing bad because your ignorant tongue labels it so? This is childish thinking.
Speaker 1:To trust words more than reason. You are not here to play games with language. You are here to master yourself, to build strength, discipline, health. If a food helps you achieve your end, it is good. If it leads you to weakness or failure, it is bad no matter what name you give it.
Speaker 1:You are full quickly, then every mouthful must be chosen for its power nor is poetry. Your disdain certain foods, then you must answer, is it pride you serve or progress? Enough of this sophistry. Choose what nourishes you. Drop the superstition about natural and processed as if nature herself cares about your words.
Speaker 1:She cares only that you live well or else die by your own foolish standards. Will you be ruled by wisdom or by vanity? Oof. Again, this is not me, guys. So listen.
Speaker 1:I'm not coming at anyone like this, but, know, he's a he's a he's a direct man, this guy. Was there another one I got? I think so. Hold on. Oh, no.
Speaker 1:Those are the three. I did three there, didn't I? Yeah, I think look, it's all about like we have to reframe stuff. There's another question as well about, yeah, losing weight, eating a good enough calories, but you know, I'm not really hungry. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:You know, is it bad? I'm not hungry. But we don't have to suffer, like, you don't have to suffer, you know, to to make results in in in health of fitness. You know, it's it's a bit silly. I got another one here.
Speaker 1:Here we are. On this one. I thought there was another one. Yeah. So basically, on higher calories, losing weight, happy about that, but I'm not hungry.
Speaker 1:Surely, this can't be right. How can I quiet my mind? Epictetus would say, Are you so foolish that when things go well, you trouble yourself with suspicion? You eat, you are satisfied, your body grows lighter, yet you whisper to yourself, surely this is wrong. Tell me, when a sick man begins to recover, does he sit there questioning whether he ought to feel better, or does he follow the signs of health and walk forward boldly?
Speaker 1:You have been enslaved so long to bad habits that freedom feels suspicious to you. This is no fault of the body or of nature. It is the cowardice of the mind that cannot believe good can be simple. It is hunger you should trust or fear. Is it your progress you should follow or the old chains that still clatter behind you?
Speaker 1:Enough. Attend to what is attend to what is up to you, your reason, your choices. Leave off this whining of the soul. If your judgment is sound and your body bears witness to it, then walk the path without looking back like a fool who doubts whether the sun truly rises. Trust in what is now, not the shadows of the past.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Do you know
Speaker 2:what think I should add to the app?
Speaker 1:I should add an epic Titus chat. You can call it you call it parrot or turtle whatever parrot Titus parrot Titus. Basically, you wanna have any, brutal replies to kind of any questions you have, you can we can train her on Epictetus and obviously train him on the actual research because if you just give it Epictetus' work, might not know the the literature. So it could feed it all the literature that is, you know, legit to the randomized controlled trials, the meta analysis, and all our stuff, not just like one hand picked study from, like, 1983 or whatever. And, yeah, you can start, hey.
Speaker 1:Hey. What about this? And he'll reply quite harshly. Maybe it's a feature. I think it'd be quite cool sometimes.
Speaker 1:It's quite cool you can get replies though, and it sounds how he would reply, you know, and there's obviously a lot of wisdom in those those things I've said that he would say. Of course, you know, like, the old chains are clattering behind us. You know? Are we are we walking forward without fear leaving them behind, or do you wanna keep looking behind and drag them with you? And the question I'll leave you with today is this, you've been through so many years of bad nutritional advice, diets, up and down, punishing yourself, hating yourself, building up the self image of yourself, building up the image of good and bad and foods and stuff.
Speaker 1:You've built this entire world has been built up over the years. Now can you, as a human being, because now is the only thing that exists, because tomorrow is now again, does that make sense? So now literally is the only time that exists. Can you be free from that now? Can you decide right now?
Speaker 1:Fine. I get the I get the passes all messed up. Fine. Objectively, that weight I've gained on the scale this morning is not fat. I'm moving on.
Speaker 1:Do you have the free will to be able to detach? The thought might come up, but do you and think about this. Do you think now, right now, you can decide a different path to what's been given to you before? Can you walk down the objective path and go that two kilograms I've gained today is obviously water weight because I didn't eat tens of thousands of calories yesterday, and it's just water retention and food and all sorts of things in different parts of my cycle. I'll get on my day.
Speaker 1:Happy days. Can you do that if you want? Or do you think you're always bound to be questioning it, to be thinking of the past and and actually getting a stress response from the past? Answer that question. Let me know in the groups what you think the answer is, and I'd love chat more about this.
Speaker 1:But have a good day and get your steps in, hit your calories, your protein target, that's all you need to do Unless you got a medical need, like I mentioned before, with carbs, and you're doing everything you
Speaker 2:need to do. Have a good
Speaker 1:day, speaks one.
