Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast

Maintaining Ain’t Easy. Weight loss, Motherhood and Marriage.

• Tiara • Season 1 • Episode 8

Share episode

Send us a text

In episode 8; Tiara talks about the maintenance required to uphold what we’ve started.  Be it in motherhood, marriage, or even weight loss. She describes how mental health crisis impact that maintenance but comes to the realization that we can always start again. She talks about the science of comfort eating and withholding joy in her sex life. It gets real. Come on in the room. 

Welcome to Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast.

Follow us on Instagram @browngirlsandmentalhealthig

http://www.browngirlsandmentalhealth.com


Maintainin ain’t easy

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 8 of Brown Girls and Mental Health Podcast. I am so hype to even be able to say episode 8 because baby girl, I did not fathom or imagine making it through to the eighth episode. You know how sometimes you just have an idea, right? And it's like I'm just gonna start doing the thing and all you really think about is starting but you don't think about the maintenance of it or maintaining. It's kind of a similar thing when I think about when I had children I always imagined myself with babies, right, so I could see myself as the mother of infants but when I was younger, I never imagined myself as the mother of older children. So that's been a really interesting journey, walking through the maintenance of the things that I have started. And the maintenance is not an easy journey. I think sometimes we have these dreams, we have these ideas, and it's easy to start it… let me let me backup because it honestly it's not always easy to start I think that it takes a lot of confidence to start something new, it takes courage to start something new, but once you get over that hump and you start it it's like okay I did the thing. But what is the purpose of starting if you don't complete the task and who's to say how long it will take to complete the task. 

You think about motherhood and you know as young girls we may have um dreamed of having children or having babies right but when does motherhood end? The answer is never it does not end right and it is a beautiful journey. But I just want to kind of think through and discuss what that follow-through takes, what that follow-through feels like. And, I think where a lot of us go wrong is thinking that the follow-through, the completion of the task, it has to be something that you feel like doing all the time or it has to be something that…you know the starting is almost like you have an adrenaline rush I would say it's like yes I'm gonna do this thing even when I think about weight loss it's like okay I'm gonna get on this plan I'm gonna do this thing and you start right but you hit a bump and I can only speak for myself because here's how I'm set up. Something that I'm working through when it comes specifically to weight loss. I have to go through the process of convincing myself, okay, you can do this, right? Convincing myself to start. So I go through this process. This is mostly a mental process for me of convincing myself, you can do this. You can cut out some sugar. You can eat less bread. You can count your calories.You can exercise however many days a week. And so I'll convince myself that it's something that I can do and then I hit a snag. So I'll start it'll be going fine, and then I'll hit a snag and for me the snag is usually like a mental health crisis.

Loss of my Uncle- 3:55

So I remember back before I had my first child. I was losing weight. I was doing a fantastic job I was like 40 pounds and it was just for fun like I wasn't trying to get pregnant I just I don't want to say just for fun but it was something that I had made the decision like I'm gonna get out here I'm gonna walk I had started running and I lost like 40 pounds and then I lost my uncle to suicide and this was an uncle that was… he saw me you know and and as a child that's something that I so desperately craved was to be seen and noticed like just for existing, right? I have this qualm with love that requires me to perform and he did not require that of me. He loved me just for existing. He would call us niecey… “hey niecey”. He was just the sweetest, kindest man and I think he might have been in his 50’s and the news of that event taking place knocked me off my feet… and everything else went to the back burner.

Science of comfort eating- 5:39

So I am a comfort eater I am an emotional eater and I'm really learning the intricacies of that in itself because I recently learned like there's something called oral stimulation and how sometimes people eat because they like the way that things feel in their mouth. And so it's like you know stemming or self -stimulation it's a way of soothing yourself and when I am highly emotional, of course you need to be soothed. These are just pieces that I've been putting together for myself as I figure out who I am, but I had started emotionally eating. Eating helped me to feel better. Eating helped me to feel like, Like I can't control what's going on around me in my life, but I can do this thing that gives me brief ecstasy… that sends positive, you know hormones, vibes, whatever it sends it through my body, even if just momentarily, right? 

And if you think about it, this is the same reason that people get on drugs or drink alcohol. It's like they're looking for something to numb them even if just for a moment and so food was that thing for me. And so I largely neglected my weight loss journey because I was so incredibly sad and instead of thinking of weight loss as something that I have my entire life to do and it's not something that I have to get perfect or get right every single day, but it's the overtime that makes a difference. I wasn't in that space to recognize or realize that And so when I quote unquote fell off, I was like, oh, I failed, you know, and in retrospect, weight loss is just not that type of thing. And this is something that I'm coming to grips with over 10 years later. Not 10 years. Yeah, just about 10 years later is that I have the rest of my life to get it right, is what I've been telling myself.

You Can Start Again- 8:29

And when I say that, I don't mean, I don't have to start today, I can start tomorrow, I have the rest of my life. When I say that, I mean, if I mess up, if I fall, if I make a poor decision today, it doesn't mean that I have to give up. It doesn't mean that it's over. Like it's not a competition and you broke a rule and so now you're out. Weight loss is forever, I feel. And there's so much psychology behind weight loss and it's just there are these truths that I'm uncovering as I try to find something sustainable for um but it is something that is it's ongoing and you don't have to get it right every single day and I think it is a lesson in discipline but also grace and self-forgiveness. Even just yesterday I had some sushi and then you know I had it with some like hibachi and I had been trying to eat more like salads and grilled chickens and things like that. But I had this meal and I was just kind of laying there you get that feeling of fullness and whenever I'm trying to lose weight like… I I'm hesitating because I don't want to say something that sounds reckless but I'm gonna just tell what my truth is,right? Whenever I'm losing weight, I try to avoid that feeling of like extreme fullness.Not like satiated, but like full. Stuffed is what I'm trying to say. And so I had hit that that feeling of feeling stuffed and I was like “you suck” you know. But then I had like an epiphany or I was just thinking to myself like yeah that that wasn't a great decision, but let's pick back up tomorrow. Right? So you can still go walk tomorrow. You can still eat better tomorrow. And even looking at the scale sometimes for me, most of the time for me is something that kind of makes me wanna quit or, you know, stop. But I feel like again, weight loss is a lifelong journey, right? So if I don't get it right the first time, make adjustments and continue. And so that is my goal for myself for this time. Instead of, oh, I'm going on this trip, I need to lose this much by this day. Because even that gives it like a stopping point. Whereas losing weight it's a journey of losing but then there's the journey of maintaining and finding a lifestyle that's healthy for you and good for you. So, even though I feel like the scale is not changing in the way that I feel like it should because you know you lose pounds and I was like yeah I'm doing it right, I can keep going. But like I've been walking and eating better and the scale isn't changing right but I feel so many positive benefits from the changes that I've made so far and there are more changes to make and I feel like I feel like I'll kind of learn as I go what's working for me and what's not because I do feel like there's a reason that the scale is not changing. But in this moment, that walking that I've been doing, trying to get more steps each day, that makes me feel good. And so it's wrapping around my mind that even though the scale is not changing, my body feels better, my mind feels better. So don't stop. 

Withholding joy- 13:00

Like, I have this thing where I like fight off joy and I don't know if any of you can relate but it's like I have a tendency to if there is something that I really enjoy if there is something that makes me feel good it's like I feel like… wow I'm kind of getting an epiphany as I'm saying it but it's like I feel like i don't deserve it oh that is deep. I feel like i don't deserve it and so i withhold joy for myself um and this this uh happens in so many areas of my life right so even when it comes to sex I have you know me and my husband have been married for almost nine years and it's like I feel like I'm not allowed to enjoy and if I do like really enjoy sex it's like I feel like I've done something wrong. I know there's so much psychology behind that and don't get me wrong I'm not saying like oh when I have sex I make myself And that is kind of what I'm saying, like I have a hard time letting loose completely in the way that would cause the experience to be as enjoyful, is that a word? Enjoyable for me as it is for him. It's like I in the past have treated it like, you know, this is something that I need to do um and I want to want to do but when it starts to feel really good or when I find something like okay if we do this that really takes me there I'm sorry explicit content I won't be graphic but when I find something that's like wow I really enjoyed that it's like my mind is like don't do that ever again. 

That's what I'm trying to say. That's what I mean by withholding joy for myself. I started walking outside and it was like instantly after the first or second time I'm like “you need to go in the gym now” but I'm like why I like to be outside I found that that's something that I enjoy why now do I feel like I need to go do something different. And my mind says well you won't be able to walk outside all the time so you got to get used to walking in the gym too. But also like, I can walk outside now when the day comes where I can't walk outside then I'll go in the gym but like it was almost like I was pulling this thing that I enjoy trying to pull it away from myself before it got ripped from me and I think you know that has to do with people talk about waiting for the other shoe to drop or something like that we were just constantly living in this state of anxiety, anxiousness because you don't want something bad to happen. And if there's something that you like and that you really enjoy you're afraid to like or enjoy too much because it might get taken away. Wow, I am on here therapizing myself like that is so deep. At the end of the day I think it's the recognition that all the pieces of life are a journey and a lot of them are our journeys that last for a long time and there really may not be an “I've made it”  because there's always work to do. But I am grateful that in this conversation I have uncovered some truths about myself, hopefully it helps you to uncover some truths about yourself or even to reinforce some things that you already thought or already knew.

So I am going to go sit with my thoughts based on the conversation we've had here today, but thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I hope that you have a beautiful week and stay hopeful. Bye.