WHAT SHOULD YOU DO
WHEN YOU HATE YOUR PHOTO?
One of Australia's Most Popular Podcasts with Hundreds of 5 Star Reviews
Grab your FREE Ebook copy now!
Have you struggled to lose weight and keep it off?
Start your journey to boost metabolism and transform your body into a fat-burning powerhouse.
Episode 250:
Show Notes
Episode 250:
Transcript
Dr Lucy Burns (0:03) Welcome, gorgeous one, to our 250th episode of the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast. I'm Dr Mary and I am just so incredibly grateful that we have such an amazing bunch of fabulous listeners and want to thank you all for your wonderful ongoing support. It's kind of hard to believe that Dr Lucy and I are still here five years on, but it has been an incredible journey. We've covered a lot of ground in the last five years and we've been thrilled to be ranked in the top 1% of podcasts worldwide, and we frequently are ranked in the top 10 health podcasts in Australia. So we want to say thank you for being a wonderful part of this community. So grateful, so humble, and here is episode 250.
Dr Mary Barson (0:59) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.
Dr Lucy Burns (01:03) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.
Both (01:12) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!
Dr Mary Barson (01:17) Hello, lovely friend. Dr Mary here on this lovely summery day. And I am, as always, I am joined by my fabulous, lovely colleague, Dr Lucy. How are you, lovely Lucy?
Dr Lucy Burns (01:30) I am good. I'm good. If you've listened to the podcast for a long time, back in the olden days, I used to bang on about sleep being my superpower. And then I went through menopause. It was like, and suddenly my superpower, you know, was taken away. And even though I now use MHT, and the majority of the time my sleep is way better. Every now and then I get a one out of the bag that just goes, wow, I'm awake at three o'clock looking at the ceiling, what's going on? Anyway, that hasn't happened for a couple of weeks. So I'm feeling well rested.
Dr Mary Barson (02:03) That's good. You just take on the world, can't you? When you've got that feeling of being well rested. And sometimes it feels like we actually have to take on the world, which is a little segue into our topic today of body shaming, body positivity. How can you accept yourself as you are? How can you foster a positive body image whilst at the same time, wanting and pursuing change? It's a tricky one.
Dr Lucy Burns (02:40) It is. And I think like, like lots of our themes, there's no right or wrong. And people who go one way or the other, the extremes are never helpful. So there is a narrative that is around body positivity, in that you should just accept yourself exactly as you are, and be grateful and that nobody should have to change or want to change. And you are what you are. And that's just it.
Dr Mary Barson (03:08) Yes. And that can have this double edged sword that people in these groups can feel like if they do want to change their body, they can feel guilty about that. Like they shouldn't want that they shouldn't be and they're not allowed to want that. But I think you are allowed to want that. But by the same token, I think that every single human being listening to this is worthy of love and self acceptance, where you are right now. So there is a nuanced balance, I reckon, which acknowledges that you may want to change, you may want to change where your body is right now, from a health point of view, or even from an aesthetics point of view. And that might be driven by health, but it might also be driven by societal pressures. Like that's okay. This is the world that we live in. You live in this world and you're allowed to live in this world however you want. But it's also really unhelpful to hate yourself. And finding a way to love and accept yourself is also helpful. So it's a minefield out there. Sometimes it's impossible to be a woman, I think in this world. And I know men suffer with this too. So I don't make too many broad reaching broad reaching statements. But this is a big problem for women. And we could be put in these impossible positions.
Dr Lucy Burns (04:23) Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it reminds me of the America Ferrara speech in the Barbie movie where, you know, the themes along, you know, you're, you have to be thin, but you're not allowed to want to be thin, you just have to somehow be there. You're not allowed to talk about being thin, you have to talk about health. But my health is thin. So if you're not thin, you're not healthy, you know, all of this sort of stuff. And it really is a lot like that. And I think overall, you know, body positivity or body acceptance is a fabulous movement. Because as you know, you can't hate yourself thin or berate yourself well. But the thing with it is it's not always easy. Like it's easy to go, yeah, you know, just be positive about your body. And, you know, you and I still, you know, struggle with this.
Dr Mary Barson (05:12) Oh, absolutely. Challenging society's beauty norms is an ongoing battle that I have, sometimes a battle that we have in fairly public arenas. But like, it's deeply ingrained, I think that thinning is good. And I'm thinking back to my childhood, where I was, I was overweight, my whole childhood, there were brief moments when I wasn't, but mostly I was and then I was, you know, overweight my whole adult life. And I can remember the pain of feeling like I was unacceptable, that I wasn't good enough. I can remember the sting of rejection and how adversely it affected my mental health. I can remember the well-meaning advice from people just telling me that if I just did this, if I just got thinner, oh, you'd be so beautiful, you'd be so beautiful, Mary, if you could just, you'd be such a pity. Exactly. I can remember in primary school, I reckon I was probably in grade five and my friends all lined up outside and asked me to judge which of them was the thinnest. And of course, I couldn't be part of this competition because definitely there was no way I was the thinnest. So I had to be the judge. So that's how I was involved in this game. And just, I can remember the extreme stress and panic that I felt at this game, just knowing that I was on the outside. And it's terrifying for a child. The idea of not being socially accepted is really, really terrifying. It's quite traumatic for children. And, you know, I can't, the friend that I declared to be the thinnest in this toxic game, you know, gave me a hug of gratitude. She was so grateful that she had won, that she had won this important status competition. And like, I mean, this was years ago, but these things stick with you. So we've got all of this pressure and it's not, it's, it's the media. It's everywhere that creates these deeply ingrained stories in our head of what is an acceptable standard of beauty, acceptable standard of female beauty. And then fast forward many years, I've, you know, discovered real food nutrition. I've healed my metabolism, managed to lose weight in a sustainable way, but I'm still not a fitness model. I don't look like a fitness model. I never will. I don't have washboard abs. I've got great metabolic health and certainly have my body's a lot smaller than it used to be, but I've got bits of me that still jiggle. And I think I always will. And I work on loving and accepting those parts of me as well as loving and demonstrating in a very demonstrative way, the loving and acceptance of these parts of me in front of my daughter is incredibly important to me, but it's still hard because there's that little devil on my shoulders, this little voice saying, you're not good enough. You're not good enough. And then, you know, I took the decision to take what I had learned about metabolic health and mindset management to this broader arena, which then puts me out onto a public forum. And I know you can relate to this too, Lucy, this is not something that is completely, you know, just me. So I put my, you know, size 12 to 14 body out here on a public arena and say, Hey, you know, you want to learn about metabolic health and mindset skills and sustainable weight loss. You know, we advertise our programs and we get trolled. We get trolled on Facebook. Interestingly, that doesn't bother me too much. It does like it's, it's irksome and, and I don't like it. I definitely don't like it. I don't find it particularly soul destroying or anything like that, but it does add a little bit of fuel to that little voice on my shoulder that says, you can't do this. You're not good enough. You can't talk about health and weight loss. You can't talk about health and weight loss, unless, you know, you've got the perfect washboard abs, you know, a fabulous thigh gap, you know, you're not allowed to do this. You have to stop doing this. And it does, there is a little bit of me that wants to run and hide.
Dr Lucy Burns (09:14) Well, it's understandable that voice is there. Cause that's what the trolls are telling you. Yeah. They're saying, I mean, they're awful. They're saying horrible things like, you know, why would anyone listen to you? Or you clearly don't practice what you preach. And so it's no wonder that little voice is louder because it's, it's just hearing it. I think that it's a really interesting, again, just place where we're at, where some stranger feels it's okay to get on the internet and say mean things to other people. And, you know, this isn't just health and weight loss. This is lots of things, you know, we were talking about, there was an ad recently for somebody, you know, somebody we know was running and the background of their and had the staging where it sort of, the plants looked a bit weird. Anyway, I won't go into the whole thing. Basically everybody just criticised the staging of the background. It's like, why would you do this? La la la la la. And it's like, honestly, people, you know, the olden days of, if you've got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Dr Mary Barson (10:19) Yes. Yes. I mean, I never get these comments to my face and I don't, I don't, I just don't, I'm sure if I did, I would, I would handle them, but they would definitely take me back. I'm absolutely certain. I feel, I mean, I don't necessarily feel that I need to defend my right to be able to talk about health and weight loss because, you know, I'm a real person. I've got a real body, a real healthy and strong body, and I have got, you know, information and resources and techniques that are really, really helpful. But how can we help other people out there? People who want to be able to accept themselves where they are right now, what can you do? If you are someone who is absolutely hating on your body, you see photos of yourself, you look in the mirror, you can feel the little bits that jiggle and you think, what can you do?
Dr Lucy Burns (11:16) Well, I think the first thing is that it's sadly pretty normal that this is something that most people feel at some stage. Again, I don't know a single woman who for all of her life is completely happy where she is all of the time. And so I think sometimes the feelings do change. And then again, you know, speaking from personal experience, I'll look and I'll go to a photo, I'll go, oh God, that looks awful. And then later on, I might see that photo a year later and think, oh, that doesn't look too bad. So sometimes it's where you're at at the time when you, you know, you're looking and making assessments. One of the things that I find really helpful is to know that the reason we have this reaction is because of the way we were conditioned. So, you know, again, this is where the body positivity, you know, Taram, Brumfitts, Embrace Kids Movement, all of that sort of stuff is really helpful because it at least gives kids a different narrative. They're still going to get the toxic narratives because of social media and whatnot. But there's now at least another narrative that didn't exist, certainly when I was a kid.
Dr Mary Barson (12:35) Yeah. We're not just idolising one specific body type. You know, there is a broader conversation that our bodies are lovable regardless.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:44) Yeah. And it's interesting. And I think about that game that you were just describing and basically what you and your friends were doing is a beauty pageant. I mean, it's just modeling that, isn't it? Totally.
Dr Mary Barson (12:55) Yes. Because that's what beauty pageants are. Yeah.
Dr Lucy Burns (12:56) And I mean, you know, they still go on, they still go on. So, yeah, there's and, you know, there's some acceptance in shape and differences and blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, it's still then again, the woman in there, I think there was some woman maybe from Nepal who was curvier than the other woman and she had to endure all the trolling. And it's like, oh, for God's sake. So, I think when our brain goes to that point and says, you're not good enough, you're not thin enough, you're too fat, you look ugly, you're too frumpy. It's recognising that that little component of our brain has been conditioned to believe that over decades. And so, it's not always going to just magically disappear overnight suddenly because you've decided that it's a good idea to accept your body.
Dr Mary Barson (13:46) And I think awareness and acceptance is really important, but also having compassion for that, that little part of you, that part of you that says, you know, you're not thin enough. Oh, God, look at that photo. Oh, God. Oh, look at what these trolls are saying. Because, I mean, our brain just wants to keep us safe. Our brain wants to keep us safe and wants us to feel good. And that little voice, it is trying to make us acceptable. It wants us to be accepted by society, wants us to be accepted by our tribe. From an evolutionary standpoint, we needed to be accepted by our tribe in order to survive. And also, we're always looking for our status and our position. And that's normal too. Status, where we sit in a certain tribe, where we sit, where's our position in the tribe, was also an intricate part of our psychological makeup and our psychological DNA. And, you know, in a tribal setting, you know, it would be far more healthy than it is today. It would be, you know, we would know, okay, look, that person's more beautiful than me, but I'm smarter than them. I can run faster than them, but I'm a much better swimmer than them. I'm better at singing than them. By goodness me, they are much better at hunting than I am. And like, we could find our little spot in the tribe and we knew where we were. And that was probably psychologically helpful, psychologically adaptive. But in modern society, when our points of reference is no longer, you know, our immediate sort of tribal group, it's social media and celebrities and, you know, people on the internet and movies, it's then this constant psychological desire we have of finding where our status is has become really unhelpful. And when we're comparing ourselves to the shiny images online or the shiny images, you know, on our screens, we're definitely going to come up short. And that little voice in our head that doesn't understand that, you know, this is 2025 and, you know, not thousands of years ago is going to panic and say, goodness, we have to do better. You know, we need, we need more status. We're going to have to do better. So just understanding that this little voice in your head is looking out for you can be helpful too, because if you hate it, then you're basically just hating a part of you.
Dr Lucy Burns (15:57) Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you're, you know, you're a hundred percent right. Again, we back in the, back in the olden days where you actually were comparing yourself to your, you know, compatriots that were real people. Now we're comparing ourselves to, you know, AI generated images, to filters, to things that aren't even, to Photoshopping, things that aren't even real. We might as well be comparing ourselves to a cartoon and wondering why we don't have the gigantic eyes of an anime. Yeah, that's right. It's recognising that. And so, and again, I would love to say to people, oh, I, you know, I completely accept where I am and, and I've sorted out all my body image issues and, and my weight issues. And, you know, I'm at peace. And I am for a lot of the time, but not all the time.
Dr Mary Barson (16:46) I would agree with that too. I think a lot of the time, but not all the time.
Dr Lucy Burns (16:49) And I kind of go, well, I think that's okay because that's, and that's because of this societal shift or this, sorry, this societal constructive comparison that we're always being bombarded with. I think one of the things, and I mean, you mentioned it right at the start of the episode around the body positivity movement, where people then want to make a change or do make a change and then are sort of shunned from that society because clearly they haven't accepted themselves the way they were. That came up in Johan Hari's book in the magic pill, where again, one of the founders, the leaders of that movement then, you know, was actually developing health complications with type two diabetes. And so went on to Ozempic and yeah, lost a whole pile of and then sort of that movement shunned her. It's like, wow, it's interesting. And, you know, Tash, who we had on the podcast earlier, who didn't get her job, felt like she wasn't ever getting a job that, you know, she had hundreds of interviews and never got a job because society judged her for her size. And that was one of her drivers for bariatric surgery. And people will go, you know, you just need to stay strong, you know, don't cave to society's expectations. And I just think that that's, you know, a little bit of bullshit. Like, honestly, people are often trying to survive in a hostile environment.
Dr Mary Barson (18:18) Yeah, that's right. We're in an impossible situation. And I don't think we should beat each other up for being in an impossible situation.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:27) Yeah, like women that dye their hair or don't dye their hair, you know, people have got thoughts on it. Women that have Botox or men these days, anybody, anybody who has Botox, but so it's the same thing. You're not meant to have wrinkles, but you're not allowed to have Botox. So if you have Botox and you don't tell anyone, well, then you're somehow, you know, cheating. I don't know. I don't get it. No.
Dr Mary Barson (18:48) It's ungettable. I reckon it's ungettable.
Dr Lucy Burns (18:52) Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, they're, you know, weight loss medications these days. There are people losing weight. They're not telling anyone they're on weight loss medications. They don't want to tell anyone they're on it because they're fearful of judgment. I get that. But then what that the messaging it sends again, is that you have to lose weight, but you're not allowed any help.
Dr Mary Barson (19:09) Yeah, that's right. And you have to be thin, but don't, you can't not be allowed to want to be thin, you're not allowed to get any help to be thin. Yes. Yeah. It is. Yes. And it's hard.
Dr Lucy Burns (19:19) It's so hard. So again, I guess lovely is what we're saying is that body acceptance is really, really helpful for our psyche, for our psychological wellbeing. It doesn't happen overnight. And like lots of things, it just needs constant work. We live in a hostile environment. We live in a hostile food environment. We live in a hostile body image environment, and we need to constantly be sharpening our skills, you know, honing our skills, deepening our resolution around this, because it's easy to feel like you're not good enough.
Dr Mary Barson (19:55) That's it. But the thing is, is that you are, you are, you're enough right now. Nothing needs to change. Self-worth is unconditional. It's unconditional. And you're allowed to want to improve your health, and you're allowed to want to lose weight, and you are worthy right now, all at once, all together.
Dr Lucy Burns (20:22) Absolutely. Absolutely. And so lovely, if it feels a bit hard, sometimes it is. But again, just keep focusing on self-acceptance, accepting all parts of our brain, which is part of what self-compassion is. It's not just, you know, giving yourself a whole pass to eat 20 donuts because you feel sad. That's not self-compassion. Self-compassion is accepting that there are all parts of your brain. There are some parts of your brain that you don't like. Most of the time, that part is there to defend you. And so even if you don't really like it, it's usually useful to you on some level, and that's okay. Yep. All right, I think that's it for us this week on a little sort of philosophical episode. All right, beautiful ones, take good care.
Dr Mary Barson (21:01) See you later, lovely ones.
Dr Lucy Burns (21:13) 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.
