YouSaid · the spoken record

Shahroo Izadi

lines on the record: 77
first: 2023-02-16
most recent: 2023-02-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“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, to be honest with you. Of course there are traumas that I can't speak to. Of course, I mean, I've worked in addiction with young people in addiction. I wouldn't have the audacity to sit here and say, yeah, just, and that's actually what really pisses me off by Instagram sometimes. I'll see something and I'll be like, oh, just replace negative thought with a positive one. It's like, oh, wow, are you a wizard? You should be on the news But I think one thing I will say is I have been really pleasantly surprised by what happens when you appeal.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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, 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. I put it in the book step by step”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 that 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 these predictable alerts from my body are turning into commands that I obeying. I just think these are check-ins we should do.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, that's smart, it's not smart. And that's where people feel super disempowered because they're not taking the advice they'd given 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,”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So if let's say, for example, you came to me and you're like, Sharu, I'm trying to stay on track with this plan. And I've just fallen off track. And my task was to get you back on track believing in yourself as quickly as possible. 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. Should start on Monday”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. It also deprives you of understanding whether there's a problem that still needs solving when you take that away And with compassion Sometimes people find themselves filling that gap with another solution. As opposed to doing it in a way that says, 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 This whole tough love, the way you speak to yourself thing. People think that like tough love when you're speaking to yourself often isn't very smart love.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They need to be ready to have to 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, what else? Oh yeah, of course. I mean, you've had Gabo Mate on here that 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...”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then you forget that 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 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. And they don't have that locked and loaded for that moment where they doubt themselves. They want to throw in the towel and think I can't do this.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 want to 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way of self care and self soothing and self-compassion and affirmation. Then you can take it choice by choice, and the direction it becoming easier until you really do update the fact this idea that this is assumption that you can't do it.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 want to behave from. So as such, I was depriving myself of a real asset that could have 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. 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,”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Being allowed to take care of themselves and being allowed to feel sexy and being allowed to feel all this 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 I thought, well, if I don't change, then I never start living. I never stop being nice to myself. That's what that day never comes. So I came out and 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 never going to change. I just started doing the stuff that I was putting on hold. And then everything changed. Well, what I needed to address was things like boundaries, things like that.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can start enjoying this stuff because at this point I was so wrapped up and not liking myself that I wasn't even listening to like a piece of music that I liked because 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, oh 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and my North Star my whole life had been like one day a wee, slimmer, and you'll be someone who does exercise, and you'll be someone who stands up straight and does their hair and all that stuff. And then you can do all the stuff.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 have been really useful to me, frankly. You know, like I'm not going to exercise until I'm thin. I'm not going to drink water. I'm not going to take care of myself. I'm not going to 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, Sort of learned to put kindness towards themselves, they made it conditional on achieving a goal. They're making it harder to get there because the girl will be achieved more quickly if you take your life off hold. And I learned this. I write about this in the first book. I went to counselling. And I was really, really low. This was maybe in 2010 or something like that. Really low.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Weight loss, I think weight loss dieting's got a lot to answer for in that sense. This is your goal weight and this is how you'll look and then reward yourself with a new wardrobe because then you'll deserve it. Women who carry water bottles are slim and 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 have done more to not that you're saying that, but I think sometimes people will say like, what 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, 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, all sorts. We can start with the fact that I was, you know, if you're a kid in the 90s, if your kid's being bullied for being fat, and you go to the GP, they were going to put you on a diet. They were going to 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,”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah Using the tools that I hand over to people now. It isn't a plug. That was the whole thing. The reason I personally... Didn't learn to like myself. And this will be different for each person. But my value was wrapped up in how I looked big time and my size. 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... 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I didn't trust myself. I felt powerless. These were the fundamental things I should have been dealing with. And 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The world was telling me if you're smaller, everything will sort itself out. So that was the angle I was going in for. Plus, I seem to think they're getting smaller would teach me how to change behaviors, which kind of does a disservice to the whole science of behavioral change anyway. Then I went to work in addiction treatment. Long story short, when I did uni, made the same friends I have now. 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. 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 say with confidence that sadly I was on the more extreme end of things I develop what I now realize was a binge eating disorder. Where I was eating myself, I was using food as a drug essentially. I didn't know that at the time. And I was 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 an easy way out. And then I had to have it removed. Emergency surgery, and it was terrifying 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”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 really overweight. Kids weren't super nice to me about it. And I started dieting from a really, really young age because 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 unboundaried I was to like behaviors of Like 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I was born here. I was born in North London. And my parents are from Iran and they came after the revolution or during the revolution. And my first language was Farsi, so I learned how I was speaking English. And then I moved to the States for my dad's work for a little bit and ended up coming back. And during that time... Started to struggle. I started to struggle with trauma responses to things and I started stammering to the extent that I found it really hard to speak at all at school.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I Undergrad in psychosocial sciences in Norwich, and then a postgrad in psychology. And then I went on to work for the NHS. I didn't one year placement as an assistant psychologist in substance misuse in Northwest London. And then during that time, I was trained in all sorts of different. Evidence based approaches that are used to help people to change really ingrained behaviors around mainly around opiate and alcohol addiction.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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 because they're not taking the advice they'd given other person. I think people feel patronized because what they needed was understanding why if I have all this information and I want to do this, I'm not doing it. What I always tell them is...”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“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. 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.”
2023-02-16 · The Diary of a CEO · Behaviour Change Scientist: How I Lost 120lbs With Kindness: Shahroo Izadi · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT