The Diary of a CEOBehaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi | E222
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
110 min read · 22,414 words- 0:00 – 1:33
Intro
- SBSteven Bartlett
Imposter syndrome. How does one move past it?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Ah, sit back. Sheroo Izadi.
- SBSteven Bartlett
She is an expert in breaking bad habits and beating addiction.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Women's Health magazine has called her Britain's answer to Brené Brown, and she's also an author, including the number one bestseller, The Kindness Method. I am determined to have binge eating, and powerlessness, and lack of trust that people have as a direct result of weight-loss diets to die with my generation.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- SIShahroo Izadi
I started dieting from a really, really young age. And I was using food as a drug. When I got to my heaviest, I was like, "That's it. I'm done."
- SBSteven Bartlett
How heavy?
- SIShahroo Izadi
126 kilos. And it eventually culminated in secretly getting a gastric band fitted. I started working in addiction treatment, and I started realizing that I was going about this the wrong way. I wasn't meant to be making my body smaller. I was meant to understand why I didn't like myself enough to take the same advice I'd give someone else. When someone you love is struggling to get back on track, you don't pretend that what they're trying to do is simple, and you don't tell them to throw in the towel. And that's where people feel super disempowered, 'cause they're not taking the advice they'd give another person. I think people feel patronized because what they needed was understanding why, if I have all this information and I wanna do this, I'm not doing it. What I always tell them is...
- SBSteven Bartlett
If you were to try and identify why some people are unsuccessful in their change, what are, like, the overarching themes?
- SIShahroo Izadi
One of them is...
- 1:33 – 5:39
Your professional bio
- SIShahroo Izadi
- SBSteven Bartlett
Sheroo, can you, um, tell me what your sort of academic professional bio might say?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yeah. I did a undergrad in psychosocial sciences in Norwich, and then a postgrad in psychology, and then I went on to work for the NHS. I did an, uh, one-year placement as an assistant psychologist in substance misuse in North West London.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And then during that time, I was trained in all sorts of different, um, evidence-based approaches that I use to help people to change really ingrained behaviors around, mainly around opiate and, um, alcohol addiction.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Now what about your, um, your personal context? So take me below the age of... Uh, you know, I, I'm a big believer on this show that that ori- that origin story and our childhoods really shape who we become. Um, tell me about that.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Well, um, I was born here. I was born in North London. And my parents, um, are from Iran, and they came after the revolution, or during the revolution. And, uh, my first language is Farsi, so I learned how to speak English. And then I moved, uh, to the States for my dad's work for a little bit and ended up coming back. And during that time, I started to struggle. I s- I started to struggle with, um, trauma responses to things, and I started stammering to the extent that I found it really hard to speak at all at school. And then we came back to the UK, and I started going to school here, and I didn't have a great time. I was, uh, really overweight. Kids weren't super nice to me about it. And then I started dieting from a really, really young age, 'cause of course it was like that's what doctors were recommending at the time. And I started to have a really mean relationship with myself. Everything from the way I spoke to myself, to what I thought I deserved, to how un-boundaried I was, to, like, behaviors of just, like, low, really, really low self-esteem, to the extent where I had a lot of really shameful behaviors. A lot of codependency, a lot of anxiety, controlling stuff. I just didn't have the best time at school, to be honest. And I didn't like myself at all, like really didn't. And now that I work with people who don't like themselves, I can say with confidence that sadly I was on the more extreme end of things. And I developed what I now realize was a binge-eating disorder. And where I was eating myself, I was using food as a drug essentially. I didn't know that at the time. And I was just eating and eating loads, and then it eventually culminated in me kind of secretly getting a gastric band fitted, which gave me all sorts of other issues. Lying to people, lying to my friends about it, feeling ashamed, like it was a easy way out. And then I had to have it removed by emergency surgery, and it was terrifying. And when I think now about the lengths that I went to, and weirdly, the fact that I never thought to change my relationship with food. I always just thought if I was smaller... The world was telling me, "If you're smaller, everything will, everything will sort itself out." Um, so that was the angle I was going in for. Plus, I, I seemed to think that getting smaller would teach me how to change behaviors, which is ki- kind of does a disservice to the whole science of behavioral change anyway. And then I went to work in addiction treatment. Uh, long story short, when I, you know, I did my... Went to uni, made the same friends I have now, and I started, uh, I started working in addiction treatment, and I started realizing that I was going about this the wrong way. I was going about this completely the wrong way. I wasn't meant to be making my body smaller. I was meant to understand why I didn't like myself enough to take the same advice I'd give someone else, or I didn't like myself enough to think I was worthy of liking food. Um, I didn't trust w- I didn't trust myself. I felt powerless. Like, these were the fundamental things I should've been dealing with. Um, so I went to therapy, and I started getting on board with the fact that I didn't need fixing, and then my habits started changing really, really quickly, and I was like, "Wow."
- 5:39 – 11:35
What’s your relationship with food now?
- SIShahroo Izadi
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said a second ago you had to figure out why you didn't like yourself. Why didn't you like yourself? Did you ever figure that out?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yeah, yeah. Well, using the tools that I hand over to people now, you know. It isn't, it isn't a plug. That was the whole thing. The reason I personally, uh, didn't learn to like myself, and this will be different for each person, but I m- my value was wrapped up in how I looked big time, and my size. So if the scales weren't making me happy, then I wasn't having a good day.And as a result, I wasn't treating myself well in ways that may seem unrelated to other people. But I'd got into my head that unless you look like this, you don't deserve... It's almost silly for you to do the things that people who like themselves do. Acts of self-care, even taking pride in my appearance. All kindness was conditional on me looking a certain way.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why? Like, where had that come from?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Well, all sorts. We can start with the fact that I was, you know, if your kid, in the '90s, if your kid's being, uh, bullied for being fat, and you go to the GP, they were gonna put you on a diet. They were gonna put the kid on a diet. So with the best of intentions, that was happening. Second of all, I think the generation, particularly of women before me, weight loss di- I think weight loss dieting's got a lot to answer for, um, in that sense. The, you know, the, "This is your goal weight and this is how you'll look, and then reward yourself with a new wardrobe 'cause then you'll deserve it." Women who carry water bottles are slim, and like, all that shit. So it was a time. You know, that's what was going on. It isn't just that it was my own stuff and I should've done more to... Not that you're saying that, but I think sometimes people will say, like, "Well, was it deeper than that?" And I just think women especially, at that time, like, that's all you got. That's all you were shown anyway. Successful women, women who made money, women who got, uh, you know, who were in relationships with people of value or whatever else it was, they were shown to you as a particular type of woman. And I never looked like that. Um, so I just never saw that, I just never thought people like me did stuff like that. And then the worst bit was, some of it would've been really useful to me, frankly, you know. Like, I'm not gonna exercise and so I'm thin (laughs) . I'm not gonna drink water, I'm not gonna take care of myself, I'm not gonna engage in the habits that would actually make it easier for me. So I speak to people now who are the same, who are like, they've sort of learned to put, uh, kindness towards themselves, they made it conditional on achieving a goal. But they're making it harder to get there 'cause the goal will be achieved more quickly if you take your life off hold. And I learned this, I write a- I, I, I write about this in the first book. I went to counseling, and I was really, really low. This was maybe in 20, you know, 10, or something like that. Really low. And my north star my whole life had been like, "One day you'll be slimmer, and you'll be someone who does exercise, and you'll be someone who, you know, stands up straight and does their hair," and all that stuff. And then, you can do all this stuff. You can start enjoying the stuff. 'Cause at this point I was so wrapped up in not liking myself that I wasn't even listening to like a piece of music that I liked, 'cause I'd be like, "No, no, no, hold on, wait. My day is coming." Or even if I caught myself having a nice time, like on holiday or something, I'd look down and think, or I'd catch a glimpse of myself and think, "Well, no, actually, you'd be having a much better time if you'd actually sorted this out." And what I didn't realize is that none of those things had anything to do with how I looked. I just picked up this idea along the way that I didn't deserve those things because I didn't see people who looked like me taking care of, b- being allowed to take care of themselves, and being allowed to feel sexy, and being allowed to feel all the stuff I just didn't see it. And so then I had a session with my therapist and she said something that, she was like, "What if you never change?" And I was so angry, I can't begin to tell you. And I'm not a particularly angry person but I was really angry with her. 'Cause I thought, "Well, if I don't change, then I never start living, I never start being nice to myself. That's what, that day never comes." So I came out, I started thinking about it. Sort of entertained it. Long story short, spent a couple of weeks acting like, "If I don't change, I'm, I'm never gonna change." And I just started doing the stuff that I was putting on hold. And then everything changed.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What changed?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Well, what I needed to address was things like boundaries. Things like, uh, l-, binge eating, having no impulse control, putting a space between trigger and response. This was what was holding me back from the results I wanted both mentally and physically, right? So what needed to change is that I needed to do the sorts of things and engage in the sorts of habits that enabled me to put that friction in place, to put a space between trigger and response. And it turns out, if you start from a place of feeling like shit, and depriving yourself of all the stuff that makes you feel calm and positive, it's considerably harder to impose that space and to calmly decide which version of yourself you wanna behave from. So, as such, I was depriving myself of an en- of a real asset that could've helped me to do things in a row until they get easier. Which ultimately is what I see all behavioral change as. You know, I can see great books on behavioral change in the background there. Um, we're all trying to make people do things in a row until they're easier. My way about it is just saying that if you're nicer to yourself, and you have the same conversation with yourself in that space, and you do the things that make that space calm and positive and feel mature, in the way of self-care and self-soothing and self-compassion and affirmation, then you can take it choice by choice in the direction of it becoming easier until you really do update the fact this, this idea, this assumption that you can't do it.
- 11:35 – 22:55
Why do people fail to change?
- SIShahroo Izadi
- SBSteven Bartlett
And this leads onto The Kindness Method, which was the first, first book you wrote, um, very much inspired by your own experience with weight loss and s- struggles there. You work with people that want to change, you know? Many of them, I'm sure, are successful in that change. Some of them are unsuccessful in that change. If you were to try and identify why some people are unsuccessful in their change, what are, like, the overarching themes?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Ugh. Sit back. So I've got, one of them is focusing on the outcome. Thinking that your long-term desired outcome is going to be compelling enough on the spot to get you where you wanna be.So you start from a place of desperation. "This is it. This has got to change. I want this, I want the health, I want the outcome, I want the progression." And then you forget that that isn't, that isn't going to be enough. Your motivation will waver. Your plans will not go to plan, and you're going to need to have a conversation with yourself when your plans don't go to plan that talks you into take, m- making a decision you'll be proud you made the next day. So I think, one, people wildly underestimate how much it's about zooming in and getting involved in and excited about demonstrating your capacity in a row, as opposed to hoping that remedying some negatives long-term will be exciting enough to keep you on track long enough to make that habit automatic. The other thing that people do wrong, I think, is focus on what's wrong with them as opposed to their assets. Um, and they, and they, don't have that locked and loaded for that moment where they doubt themselves and they want to throw in the towel, and think, "I can't do this." They need to be ready to have to f- really debate with that with genuine evidence to the contrary, in the spirit of wanting to update it more generally, not just in the context of that habit. Taking life off hold. So all those things I said now, everything you're going to reward yourself with, really look at it and ask yourself, "If I started doing it now, would it put me in a better position to do difficult things?" Which is ultimately what behavioral change is. Simple, but not easy. The other thing people do is they, um... What else? Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, you've had Gabor Maté on here. The, um... They focus on what's wrong with the behavior that they're engaging in as opposed to how it's serving them. They look at it as a problem as opposed to a solution, and not only does that take away the component of compassion and understanding that's required when they're stuck thinking, "Why am I finding this so hard? I have no willpower. I must be stupid," or whatever it is, is. It also deprives you of understanding whether there's a problem that still needs solving when you take that away-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... and with compassion. And sometimes people find themselves filling that gap with another solution, um, as opposed to doing it in a way that says, "Do you know what? This behavior is doing a job for me, so if I'm not changing, something's going on, and that needs some curious, compassionate inquiry." That definitely. I think the other thing is that, um, this whole tough love, the way you speak to yourself thing. (sighs) People s- people think that, like, tough love when you're speaking to yourself often isn't very smart love. So if... Let's say, for example, you came to me and you're like, "Shroo, I'm trying to stay on track with this plan, and I've just fallen off track," and I'm- and my task was to get you back on track, believing in yourself as quickly as possible, and equipping you to carry on, ultimately making myself redundant to you. I wouldn't say to you, "Come on, you shouldn't be finding this so hard. This should be easier. This is just like your teacher told you when you were little. You're just the sort of person who starts things and doesn't finish them, and then you should start on Monday." You know? "That's smart." It's not smart, and that's why people feel super disempowered, because they're not taking the advice they'd give another person. That's the important bit here. That's the self-esteem bit. We don't have a problem in knowing how to change habits, and people don't have a problem in knowing what habits they want to change and how they would benefit them. And now, thanks to many of the books behind you, we don't have a problem understanding exactly how habit change works. I think people feel patronized because what they needed was understanding why, if I have all this information, and I'm smart, and I want to do this, I'm not doing it. And instead of beating themselves up about it, to delve into the story. How did I come to be this way? With compassion. How cool is it that this isn't my fault, but I've decided to make it my responsibility? How can I use behavioral change as a Trojan horse? And the discomfort I have to sit in that's unavoidable, short term, urges, cravings, to listen in on the way that I speak to myself and work out whether, uh, these predictable alerts from my body are turning into commands that I'm obeying. I just think these are check-ins we should do. And I wanted to give people something so that they didn't feel like they had to wait till things got really bad, and also so it was a private process. That's what The Kindness Method became. It was basically everything useful I wish I'd had, everything useful I saw in addiction, and then when I went on to train addiction staff, which was my next job after that and working in criminal justice. Just everything useful I saw with the most challenging, resistant client, myself included. Bear in mind, I start using this stuff and, like, iterating using it on myself, using it in different ways. And I put it in the book step by step, just in case there were people like me who wanted to change habits on their own terms. Kind of checking with the program that they're running. Where did it come from? Who's it from? Do I want to switch it up? Do I want to update it? Some of it fake news. I think habit change is a great Trojan horse for listening in on the way you speak to yourself and debating with it until it's updated, and I'm really surprised that we don't do that in life.
- SBSteven Bartlett
If I've got a really stubborn story that I tell myself, really stubborn, you know, something traumatic that happened to me under the age of, I don't know, 10, and it's created a story, a narrative in my mind that is just, you know... It has control of the wheel, is driving m- my life and my decisions, and is driving the self-talk in my head that's utterly negative. Um, you must encounter people who have that, that just can't shake it. Is that possible that there are some things that we just can't, that just have too much power over us? They've, they've changed the, the circuitry in our brain to an extent that, you know-We can't change.
- SIShahroo Izadi
I don't think people like me should say yes or no to things when they don't know who they're talking to, with the size of the platform that you have-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... to be honest with you. Of course there are traumas that I can't speak to. Of cour- I mean, I've worked in addiction-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... with young people in addiction. I wouldn't have the audacity to sit here and say, "Yeah, just..." And that's, uh, that's actually what really pisses me off about Instagram sometimes. I'll see s- I'll see something and I'll be like, "Oh, just replace the negative thought with a positive one." And it's like, oh, wow, are you a wizard? You should be on the news. And, uh, but I think one thing I will say is, I have been really pleasantly surprised by what happens when you appeal to people's need for evidence. Disprove it. The stuff we tell ourselves a lot of the time, it's not true, or it hasn't been true for a long time. That's compelling.
- SBSteven Bartlett
People think they can disprove it by looking in the mirror and saying, "That's not true, you're w- um, y- I love you, and you're amazing, and you're fantastic, you're gonna be so successful." Does that work?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Helps. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Does it?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Some people, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Does it?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Affirmations help, yeah, of course. I think with all this stuff, it's gotta be a combination of things. I think people just have to have the- have to be given the permission to not be judged to strip this harmless stuff down, you know, and do it in a combination of ways that makes them feel good. If you wanna do a couple of affirmations for a while, fine. And then you go off it, and you wanna do something else, whatever, fine. Well, I th- I just feel like we have to hold it lightly and stop calling it remedial. You're just checking in with yourself. Um, but no, I think, listen, I was a b- I was a pretty extreme case, and for me it was a case of saying, right, which... When you write down, and it's one of the exercises in the first, uh, in both books actually, when you start writing down, like, "What are things I say to myself when I fall off track?" A lot of people realize that they don't even use that vocabulary in their day-to-day life. That's not theirs, and that makes it compelling to change it too.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is it that people tend to say when they fall off? W- what did you say when you fell off?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Me?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Oh, all of it, like, "Of course I'm not gonna be able to do it. I'm weak-willed. Some people can do it. That was just, uh, that was a fluke anyway that I had a bit of a streak. Uh, people like me don't get things like that." Um, "Mainly I'm weak, I'm stupid. I must hate myself." Because bear in mind, all these people are giving you these, like, legit reasons why you should do other stuff, and you're going the other way. And telling you that you're harming yourself, and you know that you are. You know, "I'm powerless. I'm weak. I can't trust myself," all of it, and then thinking up, like, extreme ways to sort it out.
- SBSteven Bartlett
They do that 'cause they love you though, right? Like, that's the paradox is they're doing that to try and help you. They're saying, "You're doing something wrong, you know, you're..."
- SIShahroo Izadi
No, well, no, actually, if you think about it, like, when you tell someone you... When someone you love is struggling to get back on track, you don't pretend that what they're trying to do is simple, and you don't tell them to throw in the towel. You remind them of their capacity to do something difficult. You remind them of the times they've done difficult things in the past, and you support them. Plus, you give them perspective. This is what I mean about the smart thinking too. You don't go, "Oh, well, you've that one blip, that's you've sh- go- gotta just spiral. This is a terrible catastrophe." You say, "Well, just get back on track." And do you know, back in the day, like, the first thousand times I had this conversation about self-talk, I used to always use the example in groups and stuff, like, um, think of someone you love. Write down what you'd say to someone you love. Write their name in the middle of the page. If they'd fallen off track and you were tasked with getting them on back on track and through the discomfort involved in achieving their most mo- meaningful long-term goals, so their behaviors and their values are aligning. And people would write, like, "You can do this. You're amazing. Uh, what can I do for you? It's just a blip. You can learn from it. Think of all the other f- amazing things you've done." And then I would get them to cross their- th- that person's name out and write their own name in, in the spirit of starting to say, "Look, this is by your own admission these are the things that you would tell someone you love." Then over time, I realized if I give someone 100 grand to motivate someone who's fallen off track, they're not gonna say, "Oh, it's 'cause you're weak and you're rubbish, just like your teachers told you. There's no point starting until Monday. You might as well, you know, destruct this whole thing for now. You might as well throw the whole plan out just because of one tiny blip 'cause you weren't perfect." It's not just kind. It's just not good advice.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Um, yeah. I'm just not here for the tough love.
- 22:55 – 30:55
Impostor syndrome
- SIShahroo Izadi
- SBSteven Bartlett
There's this word we use a lot in society at the moment, which is imposter syndrome. It's a really in- interesting concept. I mean, the word itself, the phrase itself is kind of loaded with a series of assumptions, um, that I- I don't think are necessarily helpful. But you must, in your practice, deal with a lot of people that are s- showing signs of what we know as imposter syndrome. What's your, what's your take on it? And really, like, how does one, how does one move past it?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Well, this is a very new, this is a hot take, because it's through an observation. The way that I come up with things is I spend as many hours as I can speaking to people, human beings, one after the other, as many human beings as I can in different contexts, and seeing how they are using these tools, and what's working for them and what isn't. And for imposter syndrome, essentially not, not being able to internalize your accomplishments, feeling like a fraud, which I've had, um... Managing my binge-eating and my anxiety differently helped me... it changed my imposter syndrome for the better, and I'm seeing why that is now. I've just started to wo- well, now that I'm so passionate about binge-eating as a result of weight-loss diets being a thing that goes with my generation, um, what I've noticed is that when people give themselves permission to find whatever they find difficult difficult, whatever it is, even if it's subjectively-... far more simple than all the things they're managing to do every day, something extraordinary happens. And that tends to have a really extraordinary impact because usually w- with the people I work with, because I'm talking about, like, booze and other drugs and food and stuff, there's a lot of shame and guilt associated with it. So that extra bit, we all, we all find it difficult to acknowledge, you know, a lot of us find it d- difficult to say, "I was great at this." And that's the end of the sentence without any caveats or, "And it could've been da-da-da." When it comes to acknowledging our, say, our professional accomplishments or academic accomplishments, the people I work with a lot of the time feel so ashamed and guilty about this thing that, that, that still eludes them that that's the bit. They'll be like, "Yeah, I got a pay rise, but I still haven't sorted this out. People don't know how I behave when no one's watching." I'm like that bit, that's what drags people down. It doesn't let them really, really internalize and process their capacity because, well, for example, I've written two books. That's cool. They've done well. Um, writing books was not hard for me. Doing this, this is way, this is a, you know. Being able to not stammer while I speak to you-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... because I had the confidence to sit and breathe before I came in here rather than look at notes or only binge eaters will understand this, but being able to start a binge and then bring it back as opposed to just starve myself for weeks or whatever I was doing before-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... is a power and a trust in myself and an ability to close the gap between what I, why, what I would tell other people to do and what I do, and a sense of integrity when no one's watching that seeps into every area of my life. But the trick was to allow myself to find something incredibly difficult that other people thought was a no-brainer, and not think that that meant I was stupid or weak, but just that's the way things have gone for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I, I remember sitting with Marisa Peer, um, and she said that she's never had a patient, whether they were a sports star or a, you know, successful millionaire or whatever, that believed they were enough in terms of her patients. So, the people that had come to her struggling with something, at the root of it is that they, they didn't believe they were enough in some capacity. Do you agree with that?
- SIShahroo Izadi
(sighs) I think, uh, yeah, I think self-worth. Self-worth is something that comes up a lot.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And if I come to you and I, you know, it's clear that I have, my self-worth is in the proverbial bin. I just think I'm a fucking, you know, useless, wor- worthless, don't deserve anything, um, what's the start of that process to, to get me to a better place? Like where do you, what do you do with me?
- SIShahroo Izadi
So, if you came to me, it wouldn't be just, the problem wouldn't be I, I have low self-worth. It would be I want to change this behavior.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And I, and I want to change it. I've been, you know, drinking too much alcohol, smoking too much of that, sniffing too much of this.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Mm-hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Where would you start with me?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Well, we would get an honest baseline of where you're at now. So, that's why in the book we do, like, a snapshot letter without judgment, totally private, to just say, like... I think a lot of the time we create plans for who we want to be as opposed to who we are, and we use this stuff to find ourselves. And I think first of all, you meet yourself and you get on board with who you meet. And then I would help you to understand why you've come to be this way.
- SBSteven Bartlett
So, in that first step, g- getting-
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
... you know, getting to understand who I am and getting on board with who I meet, it, that's through a snapshot letter.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yeah. So, it's essentially saying, "Here we are t- today. This is where I'm at."
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
"This is where I've got to. This is where I'm starting." Usually it's quite a fed up letter, like, "Something's gotta change. Here we go." But what it does is it sort of anchors the process and says, "Right, this is where we begin." And then when we start moving onto is the fact that you already know what to do. I believe that the people who buy my books already know what to do, and I believe that a lot of people feel really patronized when they're told what to do. They know what to do. And if they don't, they can Google it. They don't know why they're not doing it (laughs) despite wanting to do it. So then we start thinking about closing the gap between the advice you'd give another person. So, I just say to people, "What would you like to be doing?" I don't give them an A or a B.
- SBSteven Bartlett
I would like to be running a marathon every d- ev- you know, ev- every couple of months. I'd like to be fit. I'd like to be skinny. I'd like to be a good partner. I wanna be perfect.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Okay. Why are, why are you here? Why are we having this conversation?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Because I'm not. I'm drinking so much alcohol, sniffing so many things, and doing all the na- naughty things I shouldn't be doing, and I can't stop myself. But I know, you're right, I do know what I should be doing, I just can't do it.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And in the past, when you've created plans to change-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- 30:55 – 38:49
How do we prepare ourselves to relapse
- SBSteven Bartlett
this really compelling in your book, the, 'cause it's something I think about a lot, you know, we think of motivation as being this, like, constant. People ask stupid questions like, "How do you stay motivated all the time?" Which is, again, a s- an assumption that people that are successful in whatever facet of their life are able to always feel a sense of motivation. But, um, how does one prepare for that, that dip, that speed bump, that, you know, the regression, the relapse?
- SIShahroo Izadi
It's, uh, I think the best bet you have is the conversation you have with yourself when your plans don't go to plan. And at the, uh, I think first of all, you prepare by, yeah, you can have the best plans in the world, but you should assume that your plans will not go to plan. And even with the best tools in the world, you should assume that you're not able to preempt every single trigger, every single challenge. The way that you do it is you start to reframe challenge as an opportunity to volun- voluntarily demonstrate your capacity. You're like, "Here we go. I, I'm off tr- I'm off grid right now. And all I've got is the advice I'd give another person, and the conversation I have with myself that's gonna turn into what I do with my hands or don't do." And I think that if you really focus on making that conversation one that holds firmness and compassion together, then that's the best thing you've got. Because what you're chasing there is to feel smart and calm and proud of yourself, and you already know what you'd tell someone else. So, the more you do that, and the more you take that advice, and you see the results obviously, and it actually works, the more you start doing it in other areas of your life. And my, my job is to make myself redundant to people as quickly as possible. I think we should've been taught this at school. We have to change habits our whole lives. Like, why is life dr- dragging us along and making us change them when we're all depleted and desperate?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Um, so yeah. I would say it's the conversation you have with yourself, and the conversation you have with yourself, very often, people, people say to me, like, "How, how can I hold kindness and firmness at the same time?" Right?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
"So how can I change habits which involve sitting in discomfort and craving and urges-"
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
"... and still be kind to myself? Because being kind to myself means doing whatever I want, whenever I want to do it." And what I always tell them is, "It's kind of like if you..." Let's say you have a kid and you read, uh, an article somewhere and realized that this treat you've been giving your kid at 11:00 AM every day for the last year is actually not very... S- it's, it's really unhealthy.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
So as of tomorrow, you're not gonna give the kid the treat. You know you're not gonna give the kid the treat. The kid doesn't know yet. Kid wakes up tomorrow, it's 11 o'clock. You're not gonna give them the treat. What's, what's the kid gonna do?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Want the treat.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And, and what else?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Cry.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Kick off. Yeah?
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Would you blame the kid for crying?
- SBSteven Bartlett
No.
- SIShahroo Izadi
You'd expect the kid to cry.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SIShahroo Izadi
It's used to something.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
You wouldn't make its life miserable. You'd make it as comfortable as possible, and you'd just repeat that in a row until it realizes that it's come out unscathed. Compassion, "I know why you feel this way. Of course you feel this way. You deserve to feel this way. You scream all you want, babe. That doesn't mean I'm gonna do what you want." That's the conversation you have with your body over and over again, where you hold compassion and firmness together until you've done it in a row until it's easy. That's my angle.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And if I, does it, does it help to remove the, you know, the kid wants the candy or whatever, you know, whatever the thing the kid was expecting in the morning. Does it help to remove it from the environment? So if I t- if it's... You know, I've struggled sometimes with like, had this like sweetie drawer in my house at one point, and I, I knew I didn't want to eat the sweets. But when something would happen, maybe it'd be late at night, I feel a bit hungry, maybe, you know, bit stressed, I'd end up in the drawer. And so I alwa- always wondered to myself, would it just help to just remove the drawer? Just like pour it in the bin? I ultimately did. Um, but I'm just wondering if the, those cues, those triggers, removing them completely is the answer.
- SIShahroo Izadi
I have this question all the time about abstinence and sobriety, and whether... Because, you know, again, there are some people for whom it's easier. My approach is very much more for the general population.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And so, a lot of the time it's more, you know, we all sit in the middle, and I want you to feel like you can have chocolate in your house-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... and consume it and enjoy it and not feel powerless over it. So at the core of my message is, you decide what you do with your hands. And any negotiation you have internally about it is a jumping off point and doesn't actually make you do anything, and is an insight into how, what you're telling yourself about the sugar and what it means and how you'll feel if you don't have it. If you were trying to build up a streak and get some time under your belt, yeah, maybe. But ultimately, what I would recommend under those circumstances, impose some friction. Give yourself some speed bumps to start thinking about whether you actually want to do it. So for example, if I want to, if I'm working into the night, uh, writing, which I love doing, invariably at like 1:00 AM I start thinking about Deliveroo.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And about 3:00 AM I regret it strongly.
- 38:49 – 45:53
Diets don’t work
- SBSteven Bartlett
us on this show. Means a lot. (paper rustles) You wrote a book about that topic, The Last, called The Last Diet. Why did you call it The Last Diet?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Because I will never go on a diet again.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Why?
- SIShahroo Izadi
I don't want anyone to go on a diet again. They didn't work. There- they just didn't work. Like whenever anybody says to me, like, "Yeah, but so-and-so is overweight and it's unhealthy," or whatever, "They have to go on a diet," I'm like, "Well, no. Actually quite the contrary." I'm now working with people who have not only been left not with the physical results that they wanted, but have been left with a much more serious issue, um, which is an eating disorder, a binge eating disorder, which is wildly damaging their mental health and their self-esteem and their ability to enjoy their lives. Most of the people who come to me now couldn't give a shit about losing weight anymore. They're like, "Remove this lack of trust, remove this powerlessness, like make this end. How did this come about?" And that was because of weight loss diets, in my opinion.
- SBSteven Bartlett
On the back of this book it says, "This is the last diet you'll ever go on."
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is that diet?
- SIShahroo Izadi
It's the diet of learning to stop do- of trusting yourself and taking common sense advice. Now obviously, we can- we can go into like whose body what and blood types and da-da-da-da. But ultimately, the people I speak to are doing so much... So many of their behaviors are causing them to gain weight, a lot of weight, because of the guilt and the shame and the all or nothing and the scarcity mindset and the- the feast or famine that has come with weight loss diets with the best of intentions. Um, and so once they have managed that and built the self-efficacy that they so deserve from managing to break the all-or-nothing thinking, trust themselves around food, learn to enjoy food again, sit in the discomfort of realizing that they're gonna be okay without it, get on board with the fact that they find it hard when other people don't, and build their self-esteem that way and use the unhelpful behaviors as a vehicle to remembering how capable they are, then they can just take the same advice they would give to another person 'cause they're not scared of food anymore and they're not scared of themselves anymore. And they like themselves, so they're more inclined to make, uh, to make judgments that feel smart. You know, I got to a stage where I was doing diets where someone would show me a banana and a canister of cream, and I'd be like, "Well, the canister of cream is obviously better for me." That's how messed up di- And do you know what? I know you think it's weird. I assure you I've spoken to enough people now who are going, "I know exactly what she's talking about." That's the extent to which intelligent people start moving away from intelligent decisions, because diets needed us to come back. They needed you to be powerless. They need you to need guidelines, or else you need to pay more and pay someone else and go find another guru or get another diet, as opposed to teach you how to take the same advice you'd give another person. There is no way that if someone was trying to manage their weight and they ate something bad, you would say, "Oh, well, you've blown it now. You should have 15 more."
- SBSteven Bartlett
You said earlier you secretly had a gastric band fitted.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Mm-hmm. Well, secretly. Close friends knew, but lot of my close friends didn't know. I was just done. When I got to my heaviest, I was like, "That's it. I'm done."
- SBSteven Bartlett
How heavy?
- SIShahroo Izadi
126 kilos.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And then you had it removed in, like, a emergency operation?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yeah, I'm always careful about talking about it 'cause again I'm afraid that people are gonna be... Actually, do you know what? I'm not promoting it by any means. Sorry. (laughs) I- I know that there are people for whom it's been really helpful-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... but it did not teach me to eat differently. And the reason I had an emergency operation is because my relationship with food was so profoundly important to me, I didn't understand at the time, that I, um... I've never talked to anyone about this, but the band moved 'cause I overate-... but I kept having it tightened 'cause I didn't want to be allowed to overeat, 'cause I thought, "If I've done this to myself..." And honestly, Steve, like the pain, it was horrible. It was horrible. I felt so ashamed. And then I lost a bunch of weight because it actually can, I won't go into details, but it can cause a different eating disorder. I lost a bunch of weight and I, people started being really ni-, like, you know, they reflect back to you your worst fears when you lose weight. They'll be like, "Oh, wow, we were so worried about you. Finally, now you can live your life." And you're like, "Shit, I thought that was just me." Um, and then I felt ashamed 'cause I thought, like I'd copped out. And now I realize on reflection, it's extraordinary that I thought I'd copped out. And do you know what? The first version of The Kindness Method doesn't have that in it. I wasn't ready. I wasn't, I hadn't forgiven myself for being so mean to myself. I hadn't forgiven myself for feeling so shameful, and I hadn't told some of my closest friends who were there at the time, and I'm sure knew, um, but had the grace and the kindness not to embarrass me. But it was horrible. And the day I came out of surgery, I remember, with the em- the emergency surgery, they told me they were gonna try and keep it in. And I remember I came out and the woman went, um, "I'm really sorry we had to take it out," and I burst into tears of joy. I hated it. I hated the whole thing. I hated the lying, I hated the shame, I hated the guilt. My body didn't feel good 'cause I, even when I lost weight, it wasn't 'cause I was taking care of myself. It's because I was live- living on so little. It just felt like another w- version of punishment, you know? Um, it did not do good things for me.
- SBSteven Bartlett
How d'you, how d'you feel about that person that you were, th- that young woman who made the decision to fit that band and went through all of that pain? How d'you, how d'you feel about her?
- SIShahroo Izadi
I can't believe how quick she was to think that people would be upset with her or ashamed of, or, or that she should be ashamed. I can't believe there wasn't that extra layer that said, "Gosh, this is tough. This isn't nice. Look what you're having to put yourself through, or you think you have to put yourself through." There wasn't even a bit of that. It was as though I was born with the knowledge, it's as though I had told- told myself that I was born with the knowledge to make the best decisions for myself ever. And if I wasn't, then it was a failing on my part and I was faulty. And I, you know, I don't feel that anymore, thank goodness. Um, you know, I think it's also important to remember that I was all the great things I am now then. That was the point. I was allowed to enjoy my life then. So there's also a part of me that's just like, "Wow, it's a real shame. It's a real shame that you didn't kind of lean into the other stuff," 'cause I was always fun, I was always funny, I was always kind. Um, I wish I had known at that age that you're allowed to think that you're good things too, and that, you know, that's okay.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What were,
- 45:53 – 51:11
The best actionable advice for change
- SBSteven Bartlett
were there any sort of specific moments or catalysts or dominoes that fell that created the change you've seen in your life from the person you were then to now? Was there, you know, if someone's, can relate strongly to that situation where you were having that gastric band removed in an emergency op-
- SIShahroo Izadi
... like a lot of this stuff, realized that if I stammered all the way through this, um, it would, I'd still be someone who was worth listening to.
- SBSteven Bartlett
That, that nervous system, the anxiety you talked about, what sort of methods have you put in place to help you calm down?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Writing, for sure.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Yeah.
- SIShahroo Izadi
So when I'm panicking about something, most of the time, you know there's that confirmation com- component of just like, "Yep, and it did happen." You only remember the times it did happen, right? So, I started collecting all the things I thought were gonna happen, that I was worrying about, and real, uh, like just writing them down or just saying them into, into my phone. And then every now and then I'd reflect and be like, "Wow, good to know that like..." I need evidence, you know? I need stuff. So I was like, "All right, well the last 100 times you worried about this, it did not happen." (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And so that helped me calm down. That made it compelling for me. Breath work, talking about anxiety, understanding anxiety and what it is and what the brain's trying to do and about keeping you safe and all that stuff. And eventually, much like, you know, whether it's the militant mindfulness that I come at or the more, like, meditative stuff and the more old school stuff, it was essentially a separation between, uh, what I'm thinking right now and what's actually going on, and a curious, compassionate, um, look into why my thoughts are going the way they are. And also, it's an understanding, it's a preemption. So for example, I should... Well, I probably won't now that I've said it, which is another thing, like get it out, put it in the, put it in the light. Loads of us are suffering with anxiety, um, to a different degree of course. But preempting it made it a lot more predictable and a lot less personal. So for example, the last big, uh, podcast I went on, I anticipated, I actually wrote myself a letter before, and I was like, "After you leave, even if you think you smashed it, you're gonna start second-guessing everything you said. You're gonna sketch out and not wanna talk to anyone about it, 'cause they're gonna ask you questions and you're gonna think you forgot something." So I just preempted it. I just, as we say in addiction, I played the tape forward. And then it started making it more like, "Oh, yeah, this is what my brain does to keep me safe, take me back to my place where I'm used to. But actually, the last 100 times it tried to do that I had nothing to be worried about." So I kind of just realized that I wasn't by myself anymore. I was with myself, and we were working out what was going on, and it got a lot more predictable, and that made it a lot less personal, which made me a lot more calm.
- 51:11 – 56:13
What’s your relationship with food now?
- SBSteven Bartlett
And in terms of food...
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yes?
- SBSteven Bartlett
What's your relationship like with food these days?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Calm and wonderful. I never thought this day would come. I eat what I like. I look forward to eating. I don't feel like I need to justify to anyone what I'm eating or why I'm eating it. And great thing happened, which for me, you know, with writing self-help books and stuff, you know, especially when you're telling people, "You're gonna change for good," and I've changed for good. Well, I only wrote it five years ago, what do they know? You know? So sometimes you have to do things privately for your own integrity to, to be like, "Oh, thank fuck for that." And lockdown, I put on weight. I didn't eat differently. I didn't feel bad. I thought I looked great. And I was like, "Yes, I needed this." And then after lockdown, I got into fitness and I've lost weight, lost a bit more weight. And I, honestly, I don't like myself less or more. So during lockdown, what I saw was, um, an example of what it is to just be a human whose body fluctuates without much judgment or emotion around food.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
And it was a wonderful, important lesson for me. And I'm really glad now on reflection, even though it wasn't planned, that I did put on weight during that period, 'cause I needed to see that it didn't matter anymore, and it wasn't because I was neglecting myself. 'Cause usually I run around town all day, and I wasn't doing that. And it was so lovely to just have that be for regular body reasons and not shame or guilt or sadness or abuse or numbing out or whatever. Um, so yeah, I love food now. Plus, I'm really, uh, glad no one talks to me about it anymore, 'cause of the book, but I think they're scared to. (laughs)
- SBSteven Bartlett
(laughs)
- SIShahroo Izadi
I think people don't quite know where I sit. Like, 'cause I think it's fine for people to want to lose weight. I think it's really messed up that we got told for a lifetime, especially women, "Lose weight, lose weight, lose weight, lose weight. Oh, no, you can't go on a diet, and you're not allowed to want to lose weight. You have to love your body exactly how it is." Meantime, a bunch of us tried to do what they said and came out of the diets bigger and with a eating disorder that makes us feel powerless even to em- um, even to follow common sense nutritional guidelines. So yeah, I don't have any problem with people wanting to do whatever they want to do. It's just that in my case, it came as a result... I was never... Before lockdown, when I'd do- I'd done all this work and I had all the methods and all the things I share, there was never a time when I was overweight 'cause I liked food, or I was enjoying food, or it was too much of a good thing. That's why I understood addiction. If you saw that I was overweight according to whatever's, you know, scales and society and whatever, bigger than I am now, it was always because I, it, those were the times I hated food the most. It was the bane of my life. I barely tasted it. I know. But the same if you speak to someone who feels dependent or powerless over alcohol. They're not gonna be like, "Oh, I love booze." It becomes, when you're powerless, it becomes horrible. Um, and so there was a space for me to like myself a lot more when I was bigger. But because I neglected all these other habits of self-care, I wasn't drinking water, I wasn't, like just basic stuff, at times when I was bigger it meant that I wasn't being good to myself. But that is not the case for everyone, by any means. In fact, for many people, it's quite the opposite. So that's why I think, because it's quite a nuanced conversation and one that I've given an enormous amount of thought to. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I didn't...I didn't, I wasn't naive about coming out to talk about things like this. I knew I needed to work out where I sat. But I knew I meant well, and I knew I was on the right path, but I had to understood, understand where I sat. So that's where now, I think people sometimes they don't ask me about it, because they're not sure which side-
- SBSteven Bartlett
Mm-hmm.
- SIShahroo Izadi
... I'm on. And the fact is, it's both.
- SBSteven Bartlett
What is your mission now? What's your, what's your personal mission? What are you trying to do with in the world?
- SIShahroo Izadi
The, I, it's twofold. I want, one, I want to convince people that kindness gets shit done. Being nice to yourself and taking the same advice you would give the people you love and closing the gap between what you would tell them and what you tell yourself and what actions you would tell them to take and what actions you take yourself, that's kindness, and it gets shit done, one. And two, now that I've seen what's come back from the second book with The Last Diet, I am con- I am determined to have binge-eating and powerlessness and lack of trust that people have as a direct result of weight-loss diets to die with my generation. Like, it's gotta go. 'Cause people my age, they know they don't wanna pass this on to their kids. No one does. Um, it's going with me.
- 56:13 – 59:58
What are you working on now?
- SBSteven Bartlett
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest, um, not knowing who they're leaving it for.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Hmm.
- SBSteven Bartlett
The question that they've left for you, ooh, is it ever appropriate to hurt someone's feelings?
- SIShahroo Izadi
Yes. I think so. I've recently hurt someone's feelings, and it was very upsetting for me as well. But it was appropriate because it wasn't all mine to carry, and it was appropriate to share. It wasn't nice for me either, but it wasn't all mine. So it was okay to say to them, "This is, this is what's upset me about you, and I know it will upset you to hear this. But I shouldn't be carrying all of this when you're responsible for some of it." And that will have upset them, yeah.
- SBSteven Bartlett
Shrood, thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for these wonderful books. Thank you for all of your work. Thank you for the wonderful way that you articulate and deliver your opinions. It's, um, it really does cut, and that's, um, that's exactly what makes for a great conversationalist and podcaster. And, um, I love your no BS approach to the way that you communicate and serve and think, 'cause it's, uh, it's really refreshing, to be honest. And that's pretty much why I- I- I've loved this conversation, but also why I wanted you to come here, 'cause I saw your conversation with Moe.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Ah, yes.
- SBSteven Bartlett
And you have a, you have a really no BS way of articulating yourself, which I think is very much needed. Um, and your, your perspective on, on kindness as a method, to many of these things that we, we're trying to solve as humans, we often default to, like, the opposite of kindness, we're mean to ourselves about and mean to others about, I think is, I've learned the hard way that is very much the p- the, the way forward. So, thank you so much.
- SIShahroo Izadi
Thank you for having me.
- NANarrator
(music)
- SBSteven Bartlett
You know, I never really usually pick the chocolate-flavored Huel's. My favorite are the banana flavor. I love the salted caramel flavor. But recently, I think I in part blame Jack in my team, who's obsessed with the chocolate-flavor Huel's. I've started drinking the chocolate-flavor Huel's for the first time, and I absolutely love them. My life means that I sometimes disregard my diet. And it's funny, that's part of the reason why I've had a lot of guests on this podcast recently that talk about diet and health and, and those kinds of things. Because I am trying to make an active effort to be more healthy, to lose a little bit of weight as well, but to be more healthy. And the role that Huel plays in my life is it means that in those moments where sometimes I might reach for, you know, junk foods, having an option that is nutritionally complete, that is high in fiber, that is incredibly high in protein, that has all the vitamins and minerals that my body needs within arm's reach that I can consume on the go is where Huel has been a game-changer for me.
- NANarrator
(music)
- SBSteven Bartlett
You got to the end of this podcast. Whenever someone gets to the end of this podcast, I feel like I owe them a, a greater debt of gratitude, because that means you listened to the whole thing. And hopefully that suggests that you enjoyed it. If you are at the end and you enjoyed this podcast, could you do me a little bit of a favor and hit that subscribe button? That's one of the clearest indicators we have that this episode was a good episode, and we look at that on all of the episodes to see which episodes generated the most subscribers. Thank you so much, and I'll see you again next time.
Episode duration: 59:58
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