We all have a self-image problem. How can we deal with this?
Good morning everybody, it's Monday, it's a new week but we don't care it's a new week, we only care about the next twenty four hours ahead of us, don't we? That's what we do in this podcast, that's the aim of the game with us here. So this podcast today though is important. It's on the topic of self image. We spoke about this in Book Club last week and we touched upon it on on the weekly review as well.
Speaker 1:And I think that it's something that's not really spoke about so much because what happens is you go on your phone and you see a photo of yourself from two years ago and you were lighter and you go, oh, I wish I looked like I am now. But then if you really think about your honesty to yourself, you weren't happy with your body then either. You're never happy with the body you're in. Like, of course, you feel progress, you feel strong, you get it. But there's always a sense that we're not we're never gonna be good enough, we're not there, we'd always we always need to change, we always need to keep up with things, we always need to do this and that based on obviously what society is telling us, Instagram and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So with that knowledge of knowing that even when we do lose the 25 pounds or 50 pounds, 100 pounds that we think we need to lose to get to a certain state, we're still then not fully appreciative of what we look like or what we are then or of our body. Those days are kind of gone. Like you don't even remember those happy days basically because we're always unhappy with who we are and what we're doing. So the days become blurs. And it's a self image thing.
Speaker 1:It's nothing to do with like the actual losing of weight. A lot of people lose weight and nothing happens. And they're saying there's a book called Psychocybernetics that covers this. A plastic surgeon kept doing plat successful surgery on people fixing their noses. What and I mean fixing them, you know, in very calm eyes.
Speaker 1:And he kept the people still weren't happy after it. And he's like, what is going on? Like, weren't doing exactly what they want, they're still not happy. And he figured out his self image problem. So he started doing, like, before doing surgery, he started doing, like, actual chatting to them first and understanding their self image problem, improving that first.
Speaker 1:And I don't know the exact number because it eludes me, I haven't read the book in ages but it's like a huge drop off in people actually then going on to surgery because they're like doing the acceptance part. And I think that's the important part in fitness, health fitness to start with this. If we don't start doing this from the start we hit the ultimate failure. The ultimate failure is we get to the goal we set out previously and we're still not happy, we're still not fulfilled. That's the ultimate failure.
Speaker 1:Imagine losing. You got a goal, say it's 30 pounds. You lose 30 pounds. You're still not happy. You didn't like any day from day one until the day you lost the 30 pounds.
Speaker 1:You still essentially hate yourself. Right? I mean, every day of that life you've wasted because every day, if we make the most of every day that's what makes up our life, doesn't it? So if we if we're always like grueling through the days, no pain, no gain, we hate ourselves, we're punishing ourselves to lose weight because we think we're unworthy or whatever, We get to the end and it's still ours and we're still unhappy like what do we do from there? Like then we go back reverse and the oyodietin happens.
Speaker 1:So the first thing we need to do is is that total like weight loss, okay, is important in regards to if you need to lose weight. So if you are overweight or obese or whatever, you accept that fact and you look at her in the face, do you know what? I am overweight. I am obese, and I wanna change it, I wanna lose weight. And of course I'm gonna look better you know I think I'm gonna feel more comfortable in my own skin but also the health benefits because there are health benefits to be at a healthier weight in the range but that's gonna happen over time as a byproduct of the lifestyle we build.
Speaker 1:We're not doing weight loss at all costs, which is what the fitness industry is. We're doing weight loss at all costs, and it is at the cost of mental health a lot of the time. And we're always in conflict every day. We wake up every day, we go, I shouldn't eat sugar, so you're always in conflict with you and sugar every day. I can't eat that, I can't eat that, I can't eat that.
Speaker 1:You're always willpower fighting, you only got a finite amount of willpower a day. You're always fighting. You're always fighting everything every day, you're fighting yourself, you're fighting going to the gym because you hate that you don't know what you're doing or you're confused. You're fighting the temptations, you're fighting the crave and you're fighting the hunger, you're fighting everything all the time, you're in conflict 20 fourseven. How would you think you're gonna feel when you live a lifestyle away?
Speaker 1:And you know that people say like be kind to yourself and it's kind of like that's a simple part of it like what does that mean? But what really we need to happen is we need to be more aware of all the, stimulus like the stimuli we have so the environment we're in causes us, know triggers cravings, triggers us to want to you know change your training. For example as a young man I'd go on Instagram maybe back in the day see a guy shredded and go, oh you know I need to change my training right now. Go and plan to change my training. You speak to boys and then, you know, all kind of boys are on all kind of performance enhancing drugs and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:You're actually in your head debating, like, well, you need shortcut because and it all comes from the trigger of just seeing a photo of a guy in his peak who's got edited the photo, looks phenomenal in that photo. Has caused me then to even debate thinking about doing like extreme diet and extreme training or whatever it is like as an example that could happen that does happen. But what if I was able to just notice the fact that I see that photo, I see that it's now myself wants to kind of pick up my own training to look like that. I don't want to stop the fact that that's happened. I don't want to fight against them purely accepting the fact that that's happened.
Speaker 1:And the power it has over you diminishes. Because you're not trying to fight everything all the time. Because if I took that photo and I wanted to be there, which is not possible right now, it's not a fact, it's an illusionary goal in the future, I'm now in conflict all day to try and get to that. I'm trying to figure out ways to get to that now, now, now. My day, the minutes and hours go throughout the day, my day is gone of me trying to fight the fact that I wanna be like I'm in conflict.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? I think we need to remove those. This is where where comparison is absolutely root, like terrible. Like we we have to get rid of comparison. Like we we have to figure out we have to be to be totally aware in each day.
Speaker 1:If we be totally aware every day of these influences on us without trying to change them. We accept them. I don't want to fight against it. I don't want to go with it. I'm just seeing it.
Speaker 1:That's the magic. So that's what we're trying to and I spoke about that last week. But in terms of the self image stuff, right, if you're with turtle, if you're with us, eventually over time the weight will come off because we're building a lifestyle that is a byproduct. That's what happens. Right?
Speaker 1:So we then use the mental energy we've saved from the fact we always look in the numbers of weight and all that to look at the more important stuff, to look at how we're gonna build mental resilience, awareness, self awareness, self knowledge, you know, reading books, learning about that, putting our energy in into friendships and family because the studies are clear and 60% of our happiness according to research comes from our relationships and friends and family and your partner. So the vast majority of our happiness comes from the interaction we have with other humans in our lives. That's just flat out truth. And you know even on weekly review people saying you know not being able to go into work and stuff makes it hard, the days you know work from home is horrible you know mean a human kind of fulfilment. So whilst when we're on this weight loss journey, we start something especially in January, we're in the danger of zooming in so much to the fact that we're trying to lose weight.
Speaker 1:We ignore the other things that are actually more important. And then we end up too late realizing that this struggle for months has resulted in weight loss, but I'm still not happy. I've my friends haven't spoken to them. My work has suffered. I've been a miserable git.
Speaker 1:I've been just been researching about fat loss stuff and all this toxic stuff. And now now I'm here. And that's what happens and it's a downward spiral, then it's comfort eating, getting out of bed, binge eating, yo yo diet, and then just go back into a diet. It's kind of this what they call, you know, the diet culture type of stuff. So, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think self image, you know, the question really is, is it possible to be living a day today with joy, with happiness, with, you know, attention to our friends, family, the most important things, whilst not being at the the at the body we want be at, at the health levels Is it possible? Of course it's possible. So we don't actually need to be at our goal physique or goal life to make the most of the days ahead, the days in front of us. That's what people are doing. You think you need to get to the goal first to then become happy.
Speaker 1:It's the biggest lie we do. We this is one of the biggest lies we say to ourselves. We say, but, yeah, I I just need to get that job. I just need to earn another $5 a year. I need to earn another $10.
Speaker 1:I just need to be able to go on one more holiday a year. I just need to be able to buy a bit nicer food every week. I just need to be able to, like, live in a slightly nicer place. And with this, the biggest lie, we as this progress lie. We think, well, once we get to that, then we can be happy.
Speaker 1:It never happens. It doesn't. I mean, there is a there is a correlation between earning money and happiness, and it drops off at the, you know, not at the huge level at, like, I think it's, $75,000 a year or something, which is still a a considerable amount of money. But and it's not to say all people under the poverty line can just do it. That's a different topic entirely, and I'm very, something I I actually look into a lot.
Speaker 1:And I think it is actually quite frustrating sometimes when people don't take into the fact that your socioeconomic background can massively impact weight gain and stuff because cheaper food is full of calories, it's junk food. When there's families to feed single mothers no time, you know, what do you think they're gonna eat? Do you think they're gonna worry about their total calories and being at a good, you know, at a decent level of body fat? No. The first thing is to earn more money for security, for rent, for bills, and, you know, most people are now getting to debt and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:That's a completely different topic. But we can't wait until we become what we think we wanna do to be making the most of each day. So this is a self this is the selfish thing. That was self, our ego thinks we always need to be progressing all time, and we'll get there. And it keeps tricking us, and we keep going and going and going.
Speaker 1:And you hear stories of these millionaires, business tycoons, know, especially someone like Steve Jobs who absolutely loved Apple and his creative pursuit of building products for the world, helping the world, you know, connect and stuff like that. Even he in his deathbed was like, you know, just wanted to be with his friends and family. Do know I mean? Steve Jobs, the guy that thought Apple was his actual kid and basically even said that, you know, that was the most important thing to him. So his ego kept on going going and going and, you know, he he likely regretted a lot of his years of his life because he didn't give any of that energy to his to his family.
Speaker 1:So why are we are we gonna get tricked by the same thing? Are we gonna let our ego trick us into thinking we're never good enough because we need to keep getting better, right, and better and better and better, and our self image is always getting hit because we have this certain image of ourselves. And that image of ourselves, we think is never good enough based on what society's bouncing back of it. And therefore, our self image is always taking the batter in, and therefore, we're always in conflict with it. And therefore, we're never totally happy with ourselves.
Speaker 1:Therefore, that'll be the state forever and ever and ever and ever. And that's the warning. That's what I don't want to happen to any like, look, over Christmas, wedding, drinking, whatever, ate whatever I wanted basically. Try to be try to be moderate, of course, like always. Didn't put loads of weight on.
Speaker 1:But I'm obviously put weight on. Looking at myself now to, oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely put fat on there. I have no emotional reaction to that.
Speaker 1:I have no worry in reaction to the the fact that I've put weight on over Christmas because it's not that much of a big deal to me. Like I know why it's happened and I know what I need to do to reduce it. So I know the whys and hows or whatever and that's the fact of it. I'm not putting my self work on. I've put that on because I'm a lazy miserable git who should never have eaten those delicious, delicious cakes and cookies and, you know, dinners and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:No. And I'm not saying if I manage to then lose the three or four pounds I've gained, I'm gonna become an absolute legend and different person. Well, obviously not either. So there's peep some of us think there's a difference between weighing, you know, one thirty and one forty or one thirty and one forty five. What is the difference apart from your slightly lower in body fat?
Speaker 1:If you're not changing who you are fundamentally on the journey of health and it's a forever journey by the way, this health journey, total health is forever. It's your new path. You know, if you're not becoming a person of integrity, value, honesty and all this stuff on the way, then what are we doing? What's the point losing fat to just become a leaner person who hasn't made any progress mentally? Absolutely pointless.
Speaker 1:So you know a leaner version of your same self, which is the same problems because all of our problems are essentially psychological. We all have fear, anxieties, la la la la la. And they gotta go basically. Or we gotta accept them so they do melt away. If we accept them, they melt away.
Speaker 1:If we try and fight them all the time, we're always in conflict, which means every day is miserable. So let's stop with the conflict every day. Stop fighting our own self image to say, look at it. You see, you've made that up. The self image you have yourself is purely made up in your mind based on society.
Speaker 1:Look, if you were a hunter gatherer, they're always naked. They're not walking around going, oh my god. Look at her. Look at him. Look at Timmy with a crossbow.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't say it with a crossbow, but maybe maybe it is. Timmy with a crossbow. You know how much of a fat he's got? They're literally naked. Some more of the women I see I went to a hunter gatherer, what was it called?
Speaker 1:Amazonia in a in a natural history museum. Just portraits of them standing there naked because society, their society, their environment is not telling each other that, you know, if they weigh a bit more that they're not they're invaluable they're not as valuable or whatever. So they're just happily walking around looking whatever they want. It's just how they are. There's no there's no, kind of image attached to certain physiques.
Speaker 1:Does make sense? So our self image is purely made up on the society we're in. But we've made our society, we've created this inside us individually because we keep playing into it. So can we be free from that? Is the question.
Speaker 1:Can you be free from the demands that this environment, society, whatever wanna call it, on your self image that it wants you to look excellent? Can we just look around and go, pretty ridiculous. I get it. I get the influence. That's powerful.
Speaker 1:Images, whatever. It's These adverts tell you can all the sex and the desire and these women and men after you and you this and that. And you can sit back and just be totally free from it and laughing essentially. Like, I get it. A powerful force.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It'd be nice. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be really nice to have everybody after me if I looked like that with some abs and people come up to you on a beach and touching your abs and you know those stupid ads that used to happen.
Speaker 1:But it's an illusion. It's not true. You know, we wouldn't be free. So that's it for today. I hope I don't know if any of that made sense.
Speaker 1:Tell me. I think, like, I'm just I'm thinking out loud. I'm trying to think of all the conversations I've had in the book club and the weekly review and conversation with people, it all come in. It's all similar things coming up and doing this for years and years talking because we have we do speak mentally and turtle, but mental stuff. So we don't just talk about white rice versus brown rice and chicken versus, you know, beef and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:That's not the main discussion of the topics we do. So we talk more mentally. So this stuff is we've gone into a deeper and, self image. If we can all remove the problem we have with our own self image, then the goal of weight loss has way less stress on it. Like, it will come and we're fine with it.
Speaker 1:We're gonna live every day. We know who we are. We are gonna be our full authentic selves every day, happy with who we are, joyful, making the most of the twenty four hours ahead, making sure we focus on the interpersonal relationships we have because that's what life is. And we just look at every day with a smile. And that's what we do.
Speaker 1:And then that's what we can do. And I think if we do that, we don't re the thing is, paradoxically, if you do that and you don't focus on the fat loss as much as you ever most people do, the fat loss actually just comes off faster somehow. It just that's just what happens. You reach your goals quicker when you just stop putting so much pressure on them. The classic of this is people start dating someone else and they just go all in flat out, boom, put all this pressure on the other person straight away and then straight that's just repel someone.
Speaker 1:But if you take it slow without pressure and enjoying the moments you spend the days, the present moment, things tend to just go the right way and they might go faster than you ever thought or whatever. Do know what I'm saying? Anyway, I could go on, but I'm not because you need to go on with your day, I need to shut up. You get on with your day, guys. You're not morons.
Speaker 1:You're not a carrot. Well, maybe some of you been carrots. I don't know. As doctor Amir can't go back to me, no, he hasn't. Didn't rope in the car last week, guys.
Speaker 1:Sorry to say. But Octagon details end of the week. Enjoy your day. Get your one big thing done, and I'll be speaking to you tomorrow.
