[00:00:00] Introduction: Is Changing Your Diet Easier Than Quitting Drinking?

[00:00:00] Camille Kinzler: Do you think that it's easier to change your diet than to quit drinking? Well, if you say yes to that, let me ask you, how's your paleo whole 30 diet going now? It might be a different response for you. You might think, well, it's easier to quit drinking than to change my diet. Well, then I say, how's that going?

[00:00:18] Typically, if you're listening to this episode, maybe not so well. So in today's episode, we are going to explore that question a little bit deeper, as well as talk about why change is so dang hard, even when we want it so badly. All right. See you in the show.

[00:00:57] Personal Updates and Reflections

[00:00:57] Camille Kinzler: Hi friends, I am back in Austin, Texas after, it was actually six weeks of travel. We went to, I think, 12 different states in one country. So all the way from Austin, Texas up to northern Ontario, northern Canada. And it was a lot of fun, and you learn a lot about yourself and your family when you are trapped in a car together for 4, 500 miles.

[00:01:25] It is really good to be back home and back in some semblance of sanity. Although coming back to Texas, I heard from a dear friend about a healing opportunity for her. And really putting into practice all that she believes, everything that she has learned up to this point. And so, although my heart feels really tender towards her, I know that she will just bloom on the other side of this.

[00:01:53] And she'll have such stories to tell that will be so helpful for so many people. And then I heard from a dear family member who is hospitalized right now. So there is a lot of opportunity for my husband and I to be present and be here in our best and highest versions of ourselves in order to hold these dear people with our best intention.

[00:02:17] So, yeah, so here we are back in Texas. 

[00:02:22] Exploring the Difficulty of Change

[00:02:22] Camille Kinzler: And I'm here to have a short and quick podcast episode, mainly because I wanted this to be one. So I'm going to have this in two parts. Like I do quite often. And mainly this is because I want to be able to give you the fullest of my attention as I talk about a really important topic.

[00:02:40] And it's really around this idea of quitting drinking is easier than changing your diet, or one person might say changing your diet is way easier than quitting drinking. It just depends on what side you are and what your vice is. And I'm here to really dig deeper into that, and then, as always, offer some really important tips and tricks that can help you sustain lifelong change and what you really should be focusing on.

[00:03:07] And it's not really the outcome of not drinking or not eating sugar or eating more healthy or exercising more and really not looking at that outcome. But the one or two things that would be very beneficial, and we'll really get into that next time, but make sure you listen to the very end of this episode, as we can talk about some of the reasons why we can get stuck in this pattern of it being really difficult to change.

[00:03:31] The Psychology Behind Change

[00:03:31] Camille Kinzler: So let me ask you the question. Do you think it's easier to quit drinking or change your diet or start exercising? Now, your answer, I am sure, depends on what your vice is. Is it food? Or is it drinking? Or is it sedentary lifestyle? You might say quitting drinking is way easier. Or changing my diet is way easier.

[00:03:50] Or exercising is way easier than all of it. And more than likely, you've seen ads on Facebook or inspirational stories on TikTok or IG about these jaw dropping transformational stories, right? Where an expert or an influencer or maybe even your neighbor looks like their 20 year old self again because, I don't know, they're eating 60 grams of protein and lifting weight, or maybe they're all mocktails and no cocktails, or maybe they've added on a hormone like estrogen.

[00:04:20] Or maybe even they're taking a GLP 1 agonist like Ozempic, or what's also known as the Skinny Shot. Whatever they're doing, they make it seem easy, simple even. If you just do this one thing, it will change your life, right? But I don't have to tell you, it's actually really hard to change. But no one likes to talk about that.

[00:04:40] Well, for one, because it isn't sexy. And for another reason is they feel like if they fail, it's their fault. These other people can do it and seemingly super easy. They just commit and they do it, but that is not the case. And we'll talk about why so many people feel like it's their fault that they can't quit drinking.

[00:04:59] They say, I must have a bigger problem. If I can't quit like all these other people are doing, or maybe it's, I can't spend all day cooking these nutrient rich foods and consciously sourced proteins. So I must not want it enough. Or maybe if you gain weight after going on a diet or being on one of these GLP agonists, like Ozempic.

[00:05:23] You may think, I'm just so lazy. But again, I totally think why you think it should be easy. Moderation is sold to us by the alcohol industry, by the health and wellness industry, and if we can't drink responsibly or eat less than 25 grams of added sugar a day, then somehow it is our fault. Even though there is so much ad spend, advertisement spent on the health and wellness industry.

[00:05:49] 4.5 trillion is what the U. S. spends on health and wellness. Now, there is over 900 million that goes into advertising to you and me. About how to stay healthy and well, it's battling up against these other industries that so badly want us to continue to eat the snack size Cheetos. So let me ask you again, is it easier for you to change your diet long term or quit drinking?

[00:06:17] And by long term, I mean eating differently for more than two years, a sustainable, lasting change. And if you say it's harder to quit drinking, then let me ask you this, how is that Paleo, Keto, Whole30 diet going? 

[00:06:30] Statistics on Dieting and Sobriety

[00:06:30] Camille Kinzler: Research shows that 45 percent of Americans go on a diet each year, and two thirds of Americans are still considered overweight or obese.

[00:06:38] Per the American Addiction Center, only 14 percent of AA, of Alcohol Anonymous members stay sober between 10 and 20 years. Around 9 percent of people keep their New Year's resolution. So that means 91 percent of people do not keep their New Year's resolutions. So again, why is it so hard to change even though we so badly want to?

[00:06:59] Well, we'll dive deeper into this, the psychology and the physiology of this next week. And more importantly, we'll also talk about tips and tricks to make it easier to change.

[00:07:09] We will look under the microscope at things that get in the way of change. And no, it's not willpower or the box of cookies or the bottle of wine. It's deeper than that. It's the fear of failure. It's the fear of change. It's the fear of discomfort. It can be that we are on autopilot, not even recognizing our own sabotaging behaviors.

[00:07:30] But again, we'll dive into that next week's episode and how to move from fear into your comfort zone where change actually occurs. 

00:07:39] The Importance of Resilience

[00:07:39] Camille Kinzler: For now, I want to leave you with this. No one changes their drinking habit the first time they try or the 50th. No one sustains weight loss the first time they try. No one breaks any vice immediately.

[00:07:51] The biggest thing we need to learn to move the needle is resilience, the capacity to jump back up after we fall down. This is where all of your focus should be. Because failure, discomfort, and change are inevitable. So we need to become experts. We need to receive that gold medal at getting back up just like those gymnasts do at the Olympics.

[00:08:16] As the time of this recording, the Olympics are going on. And it is remarkable to see these gymnasts on the, I think they're called the split bars when they go from one to the next and they land face flat, like a belly flop on the mat and immediately get back up and go back at it again. We need to learn that type of resilience.

[00:08:37] So we'll dive more into that next week. 

[00:08:40] Conclusion and Next Steps

[00:08:40] Camille Kinzler: And apologies again, that this is so short and sweet. I wanted to get something out to you guys. And as always, just an opportunity for us to really think about this, really think about how all change is hard. All change can be difficult because we're looking at it all wrong.

[00:08:57] So if we can change the way we look at change and we look at our outcome. Then we can make this process more transformative in your life. If you enjoyed this episode, please go over to wherever you listen to podcasts and leave a five star review. This will be very helpful in the algorithm. And in next week's episode, we will talk about how to move from the fear zone to the comfort zone where change and transformation really happen.

[00:09:23] This is not only important in how you can change your habits, but also how you can upgrade your entire life. See you then!