284 - How Ignoring Your Body Signals Impacts Your Health After 40

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Elizabeth: So years ago, I was standing in a kitchen at a party, and I was talking to one of my friends, and I was complaining about how once I eat one brownie, I just couldn't stop. And a woman that I'm friends with looked over and said, "Huh, I guess I just listen to my body." And then she walked out of the kitchen.

Now, I was taken aback. I was like, "Oh my God, what a B." But underneath that, I was confused because I had no idea what she was talking about. Listen to my body? What does that even mean? I had already been in the fitness world for years. Like, I knew macros, I knew training programs, and I could tell you the protein in anything that you had put in front of me, and I could not have told you the first thing about what my body was actually saying to me.

Now, here's what I've figured out since then. [00:01:00] If you know exactly what you should be doing for your health and you still can't get yourself to do it, this one thing might be why: you've stopped listening to your body, and you've gotten so good at not listening that you don't even hear it anymore. Your body has been talking to you this whole entire time, and today I'm gonna show you what it's been saying and why ignoring it stopped working the day that you hit your mid-40s.

Because you cannot outthink your body. I've watched women try for 30 years. It doesn't lose. It always collects. So stick with me. This is gonna be a good one.

Welcome to the Done with Dieting Total Health for Women over 40 podcast, the podcast for women who are done with the start over cycle and ready for a way of taking care of [00:02:00] themselves that actually works.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Done with Dieting, the podcast for total health for women over 40. I am your host, Elizabeth Sherman, and I am so glad that you are here with me today. If you are new around here, take a second and I would love for you to hit follow or subscribe wherever you're listening. That way, the show shows up for you every week and you don't have to go looking for it.

And if you've been listening for a while, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Really, I know how many things are competing for your attention, and you chose to spend your time with me. Okay, so I wanna tell you about a party. Now, this was years ago. I was standing in someone's kitchen the way that you do at parties because the kitchen is always where everybody ends up.

And there was a plate of brownies on the counter, and I was talking to a girlfriend of mine, and I was kinda complaining, not in a serious way, but [00:03:00] in that way that women complain to each other about food and dieting, where you're sort of laughing, but you already kind of sort of mean it, too. And I said something like, "I cannot stop with just one brownie.

Once I start, I cannot stop. I'll eat one, and then I'll circle back for another, and then I'll stand there and have a third, and at that point, I've stopped eating... tasting them. I'm not just eating them." And my friend was nodding along. She got it, and she was right there with me. Now, there was another woman in the kitchen, and she wasn't really part of our conversation.

She was just doing whatever you do, like, in parties when you're kinda overhearing other people. She was maybe getting a drink or half-listening the way you do. And she looked over, and she was like, "Huh. I guess I just listen to my body." And then she walked out of the kitchen. Now, I want you to understand my reaction because it was two things all at once.

Now, [00:04:00] the first was, I thought, " My God, what a bitch." Now, I'm being honest with you. That was my actual thought. Like, who says that? Who stands in a kitchen and hears two women being vulnerable about something hard like overeating and drops that on the counter and then just walks away? But underneath that, and this is the part that stayed with me for years, was something else entirely.

I was confused. Not so much offended, but confused because I didn't know what she was talking about. Listen to my body? What does that even mean? I remember standing there, running it through my head, and coming up with nothing. Like, listen to my body do what? Say what? I didn't have a category for it. It was like she had spoken to me in a language that I'd never [00:05:00] heard and expected me to understand it.

And I had been in the fitness world at this point for years. I knew about nutrition. I knew about macros, about training splits. I could tell you the protein content of pretty much anything that you put in front of me. I had logged my food for years. I knew what I was supposed to eat and what I was supposed to do, what I wasn't supposed to eat and what I wasn't supposed to do.

And I had no idea what it meant to listen to my body Now here's why I'm telling you this. You have probably heard that phrase 100 times, "Just listen to your body." It's on posters. It's in every wellness article. Some yoga teacher has said it to you while you were lying on the floor at the end of the class.

And I'm guessing it has never once meant anything to [00:06:00] you. It just sort of floats past. It sounds nice. It sounds like the kind of thing that you'd say if you had a lot of free time and a light schedule and nobody depending on you. It does not sound like instructions. It sounds like a fortune cookie. So if that's where you are, I want you to know that that is exactly where I was, standing in a kitchen with brownie crumbs on my fingers, annoyed at a woman who now I understand was telling me the truth.

And so And so last week, we talked about your diet history, about how every plan that you've ever followed taught you the same lesson, which is that your body's opinion doesn't count. The plan knows. You don't. Eat at noon, whether you're hungry or not. [00:07:00] Don't eat at 9:00, even if you are. Follow the rules and stop asking questions.

You've learned that, and you learned it really well, and it worked, sort of, for a while. Now, today, I wanna look at what that learning has cost you, because here's what I know about you. You know what to do. You could sit down right now and write out exactly what you need to eat for this week to feel better.

You know you should be sleeping more. You know that the wine on Tuesday probably isn't helping. You know that walking would probably do you some good. None of this is a mystery to you. You've read the articles. You have done the programs. You could probably teach the material, and you still can't get yourself to do it.

And not because you don't care, not because you're lazy. You [00:08:00] are one of the most capable people in your own life. Like, you run things. People count on you. You show up for everybody else. So why can't you do the thing that you already know how to do? That's what this episode is all about. And what I wanna offer you is that the reason might be sitting somewhere that you've never actually thought to look before, and it's not in your schedule.

It's not about motivation or commitment or anything like that, and it's not whether you want it badly enough. It might be that you stopped listening to your body a really long time ago, and you've gotten so good at not listening that you don't even hear it anymore Here's something I want to share. You cannot out-think your body.

It's going to get what it needs one way or another. And so I want you to think about your day, your actual day. You wake [00:09:00] up, and before your feet hit the floor, you are already running it. What's on the calendar? Who needs what? What are my commitments? What do I need to do? Did I respond to that email? Is there anything for dinner?

Your mom's appointment is Thursday and you need to move the call. And then you're up, and you're moving, and you're in your head the whole entire time. Most of us walk around all day like we are bodiless heads. We are a head on a stick, planning and remembering and worrying, and everything below the neck is just getting us from point A to point B.

It gets us from the car to the office. It carries the groceries. It's not generally part of the conversation or consideration. And the only time that you notice your body at all is when it interrupts you. You're in the middle of something and you realize, "Oh my gosh, I have to go to the bathroom."

And what do you do? You finish the email [00:10:00] first. You get through the meeting. You hold it because you are busy You're at your desk at 2:00 in the afternoon and you're starving, and instead of eating, you think, "I'll just get this done first." Then it's 4:00 and you're standing in the kitchen with your hand in a bag of something.

You're thirsty, and there's no water on your desk, and getting up feels like too much of a hassle. You're tired, actually tired, and you think, "Not now, I can't do this." Here's what I want you to notice about that. Every single one of those, your body is saying something to you, and every single time, you experienced it as an inconvenience.

There's something that's in the way. Your body is being needy at a really inopportune moment. So many women are annoyed with their bodies. [00:11:00] We're irritated that we have to drink water. We're irritated that we need to go to sleep. We're irritated that our knee hurts on the stairs, that we're sweating through our shirt in a meeting, that we can't remember the word that we were reaching for.

We treat it like the body is doing this to us, like it is failing, like it's letting us down at the exact moment we needed it to just do the thing that it's always done, just cooperate and be quiet. We are so incredibly mean to our bodies. The brain fog, the aching joints, the hot flashes, the cravings that seem to come out of nowhere, the 2:00 in the morning being wide awake, the mood that turns on a dime.

You have been reading all of that as evidence that something is wrong with you, but it's not [00:12:00] evidence. It's information. It's data. It's your body talking, and it's been talking this entire time, and you have been so busy being annoyed at it, at the interruption, that you've never once stopped to ask, "What is it saying?"

So let me show you what this looks like when it's happening. So for example, let's say it's Tuesday night. You want pasta, and you're not necessarily craving it, but you just want it, something warm and comforting. And your body is telling you what it wants, but you are following a plan, and the plan says no pasta.

So you have a salad and chicken, and you eat it, and you're full, technically. You did everything right. But then 20 minutes later, you're back in the kitchen, and you're eating crackers or [00:13:00] something starchy, maybe some cheese. And then you find the almonds, and you stand there over the counter eating those out of a bag, and you're not even really enjoying it.

You're just eating Now, you ate more than the pasta would have been, and you never got the thing that you actually wanted. Now, some of us need more carbohydrates to feel satisfied. Some of us need more fat. That's not a preference, it's not a weakness, it's just how our particular body works. But you've never been allowed to find out which one you are because you've spent 30 years eating what the plan says instead of eating what makes you feel good and paying attention to the difference.

Now, here's the bigger version of the same thing. The diet says eat 1,200 calories, right? So you eat 1,200 calories. Meanwhile, you're walking the [00:14:00] dog, you're at the gym for four days a week, you've got a job and a house and people who need you, and for a while you are fine. Two weeks, three tops, you are proud of yourself, and then one night you're standing in front of the open refrigerator at 9:00 and you are eating things that you don't even like.

It feels like a frenzy. Cold pasta, a spoonful of peanut butter. Whatever is in there that looks appealing. And you know what you think about yourself the next morning. You think you blew it. You think, "I have no control." You think there's something broken in you because normal people can stick to a plan and you can't.

But here's the thing: nothing is broken. You gave your body less than it needed for three weeks, and your body came and it got paid on the [00:15:00] debt. That's not weakness, that's math. Your body will not let you starve it quietly. It's going to collect, and it doesn't ask your permission. It doesn't care that it's 9:00 at night.

Now, you think that there's something wrong with your DNA, that it was a subtraction problem. It works the same way with exercise. When I started running, I loved it. It was my thing, and I wanted to do it all the time. I ran and I ran and I ran through a lot of things that I probably should have paid attention to, like my shin hurt, and then it hurt more, and then it hurt when I wasn't running, but I kept running because I'm tough and because I had a plan and because stopping felt like quitting.

Giving myself rest wasn't part of the plan. I ended up with a stress fracture. My [00:16:00] body had been telling me for weeks. It finally said it in a way that I couldn't override it. Or here's the version I see all the time. You download a workout program six days a week, and here's exactly what you do on each of them, and it doesn't know anything about you.

It doesn't know where you are in your cycle. It doesn't know you slept for four hours because you were awake at 3:00 for no reason at all, or your partner was snoring. And so you get to Thursday, and you can barely lift your arms. Everything feels just heavy. And instead of thinking, "Huh, my body is asking for something today," you think, "What is wrong with me?

Why can't I do what the paper says?" So you push through it, and it's miserable. And you do that a few more times, and then one day you just stop, and you decide that you are someone who doesn't stick with things Now [00:17:00] think about your evening. It's 8:00, the dishes are done, for the most part, and you sit down on the couch for a minute, and the minute you sit, you feel it.

You are exhausted. Everything in you wants to go upstairs and get in bed, and you think, "But it's 8:00. Can't go to bed at 8:00." So you turn on the TV, or you start scrolling on your phone, and you watch something that you don't remember, and around 9:00 you are asleep, sitting up with your mouth open. And then at 11:30, you wake up disoriented with a crick in your neck, and you go upstairs and you brush your teeth, lie down, and now you are wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

You had exactly what you needed at 8:00. Your body handed it to you, and you decided a rule about what time grown women go to bed mattered [00:18:00] more than what was actually happening inside your body. Cravings work exactly the same way. You've decided that certain foods are off limits, not to moderate, but off limits.

So the cookies are in the house because your kids like them, and you're not eating cookies, so every time you walk through the kitchen, you have this little conversation with yourself about not eating the cookie. The cookie is off limits. Monday you don't, Tuesday you don't, Wednesday you don't, and then Thursday you eat four of them standing up at 9:00 at night.

And then Thursday you eat four of them standing up, and then you finish the row because the package is open, and now you've already ruined it. If you had eaten one cookie on Monday when you wanted one, and sat down with it and actually tasted it, you would have actually had one cookie. But instead, you spent four days managing a cookie, and then you ate seven.

And then there's the one nobody talks [00:19:00] about. Somebody says something to you, your partner, your sister, a woman at work, and it lands a little wrong. Something in your chest goes tight, and you say, "Nope, it's fine." And you don't say it out loud, that would be a whole thing, so you swallow your reaction, and you swallow the next one.

And then you tell yourself that you shouldn't be so sensitive, that it's not worth it, that you are being ridiculous. And then one day someone leaves a glass on the counter and you become completely unhinged about that glass, and everybody, including you, thinks the problem is the glass. But it was never the glass.

You just stopped checking in with how you actually felt about anything a long time ago, and it collected somewhere, and it came out sideways at whoever happened to be in range. So here's what I [00:20:00] want you to see across every single one of these situations that I've just talked about. You wanted the pasta and you ate the almonds.

You needed food and your body took it at 9:00. You needed rest and you got a stress fracture. You were tired and you slept badly on the couch. You wanted one cookie, you ate seven. You were hurt and you exploded about a drinking glass. Your body got what it needed every single time.

That's the part I wanna sit with you on. Not once did your body simply get the thing. It got it. It got the rest, the food, the release. It just got it in a way that didn't serve you, that you didn't choose at a time that you didn't pick in an amount that you didn't want. You cannot outthink your body. You cannot outsmart it.

You can't out-discipline it into silence. [00:21:00] You cannot wait it out. It is not going to lose this argument because it isn't having an argument with you. It's just doing what a body does. You can give it what it needs... You can give it what it needs on your terms, or it will take what it needs on its own.

Now, here's the part that makes women feel like they're losing their minds. You've been doing this their whole... You've been doing this your en- whole... You've been doing this your whole life, overriding, pushing through, ignoring, and it has worked up until now. Think about who you were at 30. You could stay out until midnight during the week, have three glasses of wine, get five hours of sleep, and show up to work the next morning and be fine.

Not great, but you could be okay. You could function. You were, you were doing it. You'd be a little foggy until 10:00, and then you'd be back. You could skip lunch and be okay. You could train hard on no sleep. You could take the extra project and run on [00:22:00] fumes for a month, and then take a weekend and come on back.

Your body absorbed all of it. It sent you signals then too, but it whispered, and when you ignored the whisper, nothing much really happened. So you learned something. You learned that ignoring your body works. That's not a story that you told yourself. It's the truth, and it's data. It was true for 20 years.

And then you got to be around your mid-40s, and then the whole thing quietly changed underneath you. Your body doesn't handle stress the way that it used to. It doesn't handle sugar and flour the way that it used to. Coming out of your reproductive years, you become more reactive to stress and more sensitive Coming out of our reproductive years, we become more reactive to stress and more sensitive to insulin.

That's not your body failing. That is a different body with dimm- that is a different body with different chemistry. [00:23:00] So now, one bad night of sleep costs you three days. That glass of wine wakes you up at 2:00 in the morning, and now you're staring at the ceiling doing math about how many hours you've actually slept and how much time you have until you have to wake up.

You skip lunch, and by 4:00, you're standing at the counter eating tortilla chips or pretzels like it's your job. The stress that used to make you productive now sits in your belly, and it will not leave. The signals didn't start. They just got a little louder at this age. Your body used to whisper, and you got away with not listening.

Now it's yelling, and it's yelling more often. And what are you doing? At the same t-

Now it's yelling, and it's yelling more often. And what are you doing? The same thing that you did at 30. You're pushing through it. You're powering through. You're getting to Sunday because that's the strategy that worked for two decades, and nobody ever told you that it [00:24:00] wasn't gonna work after a while, that it had an expiration date.

You are running a system that got discontinued, and when it doesn't work, you don't think this approach

And when it doesn't work, you don't think, "This approach doesn't fit this body." You think, "What is wrong with me? Why can't I handle what I used to be able to handle? Why is this so hard for me when it isn't hard for anyone else?" Nothing is wrong with you. You just- You're just still trying to ignore a body that has stopped being willing to be ignored.

And so I wanna go back to that kitchen that I was talking about at the very beginning of the episode, because I was standing there with brownie crumbs on my fingers thinking that a woman was insufferable, and I wanna be clear about something. She wasn't smarter than me, she wasn't more disciplined than me, and she didn't have better genes or more free time or a lighter load.

She just knew something that I hadn't figured out yet. And what I wanna tell you, [00:25:00] what took me years to understand, is that is learnable. I know that because I have learned it, and I teach it now. I didn't learn it from a book, and I didn't learn it from a podcast episode. It took a long time, and it was not a straight line, and there were plenty of years in between where I would have told you that it was complete nonsense.

But I can tell you where I am right now. I know how much I can eat and still feel good. I know what a second glass of wine does to me at 2:00 in the morning, so I usually don't have it, and I don't have to white-knuckle that decision. I can eat one cookie and put the package away, because I can feel what happens when I don't listen to my body.

I know what happens when I get deep into a [00:26:00] project and skip my breaks, because I will find myself standing at the counter after dinner wanting to eat more than I want. I don't follow rules about any of this. I stopped following rules a really long time ago. And that's the piece I never understood in the kitchen.

I thought she meant she had better self-control. She didn't. She meant she'd stopped needing it. When the reason you do something changes from I'm supposed to-

When the reason you do something changes from, "I'm doing it because I'm supposed to, because this is a rule," to, "This makes me feel good," the whole thing stops being a fight. You're not fighting yourself anymore. There's no one in there to fight. You're just doing what feels good, and what feels good happens to be the same thing that you were failing to force yourself to do for 20 years.

And [00:27:00] that's what changed whether I could stick with the things. Not more information, not a better plan. I changed the reason behind what I was doing and why I was doing it, and this is available to you, too. I really want you to hear that. You are not a different species than the woman in that kitchen or me, myself.

She had something that you can have. But I am also not gonna stand here and tell you that you can listen to a 20-minute podcast episode and walk away knowing how to hear your body. That's not how that works, unfortunately. If it were, I would've gotten it that night standing at the counter. Because you've spent decades learning to override your body, and it takes something to undo all of that.

It's specific to you. Where your signals are breaking down is probably not the same place where your neighbor or your friend or your [00:28:00] sisters are breaking down. So here's where I'd start. I built a quiz called Why Do Your Healthy Habits Keep Falling Apart?

If you have ever sat there wondering why you know exactly what to do and still can't get yourself to do it, that quiz was built for you. It takes about three minutes. It identifies your specific pattern. Not habits in general, not what women in midlife should do, but your specific pattern. The actual reason your follow-through keeps breaking down, and then what to look at first, because you can't work on all of it at once.

Now, when you take the quiz, your results go straight to your inbox. Go to elizabethsherman.com/quiz. That's elizabethsherman.com/quiz. And it's in the show notes too, so you don't have to write it down while you're driving. Take the quiz. Find out where this is happening for you, because your body has been [00:29:00] talking to you this entire time.

It's been talking to you today. It's talking to you right now. And you can keep calling it an interruption, or you can find out what it's actually trying to tell you. Thank you for being here with me today.

I appreciate you, and thanks for spending the time with me. Have an amazing day. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye

Hey, before you go, if you are someone who says, "I know exactly what I should be doing, I just don't do it," hey, if that's you, I made something for you. It's a free three-minute quiz that gets underneath that exact problem. Not to give you more information, but to show you the specific reasons your follow-through keeps breaking down, because it's not the same for everyone.

And once you can see your pattern clearly, everything else seems to change. Head to elizabethsherman.com/quiz. It's free, it's fast, and it's [00:30:00] honest