3 Steps to Lose Weight on the Weekends

Often, people will eat well and be gaining momentum towards their health and body goals, and then the weekend comes, and the go rogue. 

Telling themselves they will start on Monday, again.

I am excited to offer you 3 steps to take to actually lose weight on the weekends, or maintain if you are already at your goal weight.

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Courtney

Transcript

Unknown: 0:02

Welcome to the Courtney Gray podcast the show for women who are ready to lose weight permanently, and love their body love the way they feel. And look, I'm going to teach you how to stop overeating and obsessing about food and your weight. So you can be more confident and empowered to then create an even bigger life. I'm life and body coach Courtney Gray. And each week, I'm going to be teaching you how losing and maintaining your ideal weight can be so much easier than it's been in the past. And by taking care of you and achieving your health goals, you will live in even more amazing life than the one you have lived so far. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast number 82. Three Steps to losing weight on the weekends. Doesn't that sound fun? Aren't you like? Yes, please tell me all the things I will tell you all the things. First of all, let me tell you, I'm quite the traveller. When this podcast comes out, I am going to be in Santa Barbara, California with my family. Yes, it's my second time going this year. And yes, that was intentional. And I am so excited about it. And I'm so excited about it. Because I'm going to be down there for about five days, maybe six days, I can't remember five or six days. And I'm going to be working at the same time. So I'm still going to be able to see all of my clients. And I'm going to in between clients be able to enjoy Santa Barbara with my whole family, my boys and my husband. So I'm really excited about it. So wanted to talk about losing weight on the weekends. Because I know there's it's just one of those things that I think a lot of people struggle with, they struggle with. I know I've had clients before where they feel like they're doing well all week. And then all of a sudden the weekend comes and they kind of say, Oh, I'm gonna give myself a cheat day. And then the cheat day turns into a cheat weekend. And then they start Monday morning. And they feel like they lost all progress they made. So that's why I wanted to talk about this. Because it doesn't have to be that way, you're making it too hard. So strap in. So I know weekends can be hard. I know that I think that's why we have this term that we say this thought like, I'll start on Monday, because we feel like oh, it's the weekend, I want to be able to stop working for so many of us we work during the week, we take weekends off. So it's the thought of I don't want to I don't want to do anything I don't want to do on the weekends, I certainly don't want to have to restrict and deprive myself. So this whole thought of I'm going to start on Monday, I think that's why it was created. Because it's like Saturday afternoon and you were planning on doing maybe you're planning on going for a run, maybe you were planning on eating a certain way. And then your friend calls you and say let's make let's make a cocktail run at two o'clock or whatever. I don't know, whatever happens. But then you say, oh, you know what, let's just wait for Monday, let's just, let's just all start on Monday, we want to enjoy the weekend, we want to not worry about food at all, we don't really want to think about being healthy. And we get some relief by committing to Monday. Even though in the back of our mind, we know, we know that I will start on Monday, it's totally not going to happen, because we've said that to ourselves, like 500 times. So first, before I dive into the three steps to losing weight on weekends, I want to talk about associations. We associate certain activities with food and certain types of food. So for example, like we associate going to the movies, or even now doing a movie at home with popcorn and candy. And now it's actually become for a lot of people watching TV in general is associated with eating something. We associate girls nights with cocktails, there's there were times in the past where I would go to a girls night. And I would feel this pressure to get a cocktail, even if I didn't want to get a cocktail. And even if I thought I'm just going to do a club soda, what's the big deal? It's almost kind of like I I would get anxious because I felt like there was an expectation that I would be drinking a cocktail. So that's an association. I don't know if anyone else does Bunco anymore, or if that's like something of the past. But I remember with Bunco the association was like little bowls of candy on the table and it made it it was so hard for me sometimes I would not want to go to Bunco because I wouldn't want to sit there with that candy on the table. That's the dissociation holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving is associated with a lot of food and drink and almost like it's an expected that you're going to over consume. Right. We talked about how full we are at the end of those holidays. I also think of like camping and smores. I also think of food and work, especially if you're in any kind of office cubicle type of situation. You know, I used to work at Hewlett Packard. And I remember when I got it I got a job at Hewlett Packard right out of college. And it was a whole team of I think they were about 15 of us. We were all customer service. And we came in as a class quote unquote class and they trained us together and we all became friends and it was so fun and then they kind of did First as to our groups after we were out of training, but they talked about like the freshman 10, or the freshman 15. And I remember being like, that's not going to happen to me. But it did. I don't know, remember how much weight I gained, but it definitely was like, an environment where everyone was always bringing in food, donuts and candy and cupcakes and and I swear to God, the birthdays is like, every day, when you have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people working in a building, there's always birthdays. So that's an association like food and work, or what about like buffets and full plates? And I think of this specifically, because there's been probably a handful of two or three times where I've been in a buffet, and I have people saying to me, why aren't you like eating more? Oh, why aren't you getting the bread? Why aren't you eating the meat? Why aren't you depending on whatever in that moment I'm eating? I've had people almost look at me like you're doing it wrong. It's a buffet. Hey, girl, you're doing it wrong. So we kind of associate buffets with filling our plates with as much as possible. Even when if you think about it, it's not like you're going to when you go to like one of those homes. I've never been to a hometown buffet. But I know my husband takes his basketball team, they're on the road. But But I know when you go to a hometown buffet, you pay like$17, or whatever it is. And so I can see, I can see it's logical that you'd want to fill your plate up. But if I'm at a wedding, and I'm going to a buffet or I'm at a banquet, and I'm going to a buffet, the buffet is not going anywhere. Why are we like you got to fill the plate. But yeah, so that's an association buffet and filling your plates. But I think there's also an association with weekends. I think we associate freedom from work. And often we wrap this freedom to include work on ourselves like eating well, it's almost like we're like, I'm done doing what I don't want to do. And I and I also don't want to have to worry about food, I don't wanna have to worry about anything. And it's ironic, because that's what I teach my clients when they're working with me to have all of that not be a worry, right. But right now, for a lot of you who I haven't had the chance to work with, it's like, I don't want to have to even think about this. So I also know, for example, some people like to talk about like taking a cheat day, which sometimes a cheat day on the weekend. Sometimes some people even take like a cheat meal. But then sometimes it turns into a cheat day because you're like, Oh, I already ate that. I might as well eat all the things. And then sometimes a cheat day turns into a cheat weekend, to whole day of cheating. So again, I've been talking about this a lot lately. If we think of eating something that tastes delicious as cheating. It's almost like we're saying to ourselves, we're doing something wrong. But there is no right or wrong. It's just a choice of what you want what you want for your life. So there's also some social pressure with these activities, kind of like what I talked about with a buffet, but we get comments sometimes. And we'd like to think that it doesn't matter. We'd like to think that we don't get comments, but I think all of us can think about in any of those scenarios of associations I described. I think you can probably think of I can think of one with almost every single situation. Even as something as simple as my kids going, you're not having a smore why wouldn't you have us more? There's a little bit of social pressure with these activities. So like, you'll get things like well, why aren't you having another drink? Oh, come on. Have a drink with me? Or why aren't you eating the bread? Are you on a diet or like Oh, live a little Are you you know, you look great. Don't even worry about this. Oh, now you're making me feel bad. Like you think about these. And I don't think anyone that is saying these is trying to be a mean person. But I think it adds to the social pressure. It makes it that much harder. You're already sitting there thinking oh my gosh, I would love to have a smaller oh my god, I would love to have another Margarita. You're already sitting there trying to stay true to yourself. And then you have Sally over here on the right telling you You look amazing. You don't need it. And you've got Jan on the left it making you feel bad because now she feels bad for not having another Margarita. And I don't even have Sally and Jan like in my friend group those names, but they just came to me. You're welcome. So there's no right or wrong. It's just a choice of what you want for your life. But this thinking this association, it's not serving you thinking that you need a break from quote unquote trying to lose weight over the weekends is not helping you. And it reconfirms to yourself that losing weight is hard, right. Well, that's what it says is, it's hard and I don't want to do it. It's hard, and it's too hard. It's hard and I can't enjoy my life and lose weight at the same time. It's almost like you're telling yourself, you need a break. Now I'm not saying oh my god, losing weight is so easy. Let me show you how it's not easy. Doing things that we want for our best self is not always easy. It can be simple, but not easy. But if the story you're telling yourself is that you need a break from eating well, and eating in a way that is helping you reach your health goals. I think you need an Story. Now, I know in the past, it has been hard, especially when you did the hard work, lost the weight only to regain. But if what if it didn't have to be so hard. That's the whole idea for this podcast, let's make the weekends easier. Let's continue to lose weight or maintain whatever you are trying to do right now and still have an amazing weekend. So here's the story, I want you to consider because you have another story in your head right now that's like weekends are hard, or I want weekend to be weekends to be fun. And so I can't still be losing weight. So here's a different story, I want you to consider something that goes like this. I'm committed, this is what you would say to yourself, This is the kind of way I talk to myself, I'm committed to losing weight and getting healthy. It is hard work, and I am totally in for it. But this time, I'm doing it in a way that feels good in my body, I'm choosing to eat better forever. I'm going to enjoy the purchase process. I'm going to allow frustrations, I'm going to celebrate myself when I do well. And I know I'm really becoming a different woman in this area of my life. I would say this to yourself every day, or whatever iteration you have for yourself. Maybe you want to say to yourself, you know what, I can have an amazing weekend. And I can have this treat. If you feel like you want to treat. Maybe you don't need to have a treat all day. Maybe you say to yourself, I can go away on a girls weekend. And I can eat a little bit less than I normally would to maintain my weight, whatever. What story do you want to tell yourself? And if you truly believe this? Would you need a break from it over the weekend? When I laid out that story? I don't need a break from that story. It's an amazing story. It all starts with your mind. Is it possible to have an amazing weekend and lose weight? Yes, you totally better believe it is. Is it possible to go on vacation and lose weight? Yes, 100%. It is. In fact, sometimes people think, oh, I want to go on vacation. Therefore I have to be able to eat all the things. I think vacation a little bit differently. To me, I think like I just I just went on a business trip. It wasn't a vacation for sure I worked the whole time. But I thought to myself, I'm going to easily maintain my weight and I didn't want and I knew I wasn't gonna be able to work out I wouldn't have time I did a little bit of yoga in my room every day. But I'm like, I'm going to easily this is going to be no problem for me. Because I know I'm going to be having so much fun when I am there talking with my colleagues and coaching and doing all the things and getting a break from being at my own home and being in charge of my family and know that's going to be so fun. I'm not going to need to find food as fun. I've got the fun, the fun is going to be in Nashville. So it all starts with your mind. Is it possible to have an amazing weekend and lose weight? Yes. So the first step I've told you is gonna give you three steps. The first step is ask yourself some good questions. How can I have a really fun weekend and lose weight? Can you come up with 10? answers to that question, because I think the answer in the past possibly has been no. So can you come up with 10 answers? Right? And your answers might look like a bunch of different things. Can I stop snacking? A lot of you are snackers a lot of you are eating all the time. A lot of you hardly ever feel hunger because you're eating all the time I see you it's okay, I still love you. But maybe you could stop snacking. Can you try intermittent fasting? Can you cut something out that you've been telling yourself you wanted to cut out? And then celebrate the shit out of yourself this weekend? Can you take one weekend and cut out soda? Or cut out creamer in your coffee or less creamer? In your coffee? I don't know whatever. Can you cut out something? Can you get your partner on board? Or a friend on board? Like can you text them to celebrate even if they don't even live around you? Can you say hey, this weekend, I'm going to really try to up my game in terms of my health, I'm going to really stay true to what I want for myself. And I'm going to text you every time I do well. I'm going to text you and I want you to tell me I'm a badass. I love that. Can you add in movement? Meaning like can you take an extra walk in the morning? Can you take an extra walk at night? While you're walking? If you're if you're pretty athletic and you've been getting movement in? Can you throw in some runs in the middle of that walk? Can you add 20 Push Ups three times a day? I don't know. Can you add in movement? Can you do a two day challenge for yourself and actually go all in on the weekend? What would that look like? So instead of just like, Oh, let's see how this goes. Can you actually go all in balls to the wall this weekend? I'm gonna actually see if I can lose weight and do a little two day challenge. How fired up would you be Sunday night or Monday morning if you actually did a challenge over the weekend. The way you think about your weekends will determine the way you feel If you've been following along, you know, the way you feel is directly going to affect the action you take. And also, the action you take in reverse is going to make you feel amazing. So the second step is take Extreme Ownership of your life and your body. We dictate what goes in our mouth, to other people, other situations outside of ourselves. But you are a grown ass woman. I'm cussing a lot in this one. I'm fired up. I'm fired up. I'm excited for this. So what do I mean by that? It means if you're going out to dinner, you don't have to say to yourself, I don't know what they have on the menu. Hey, listen, I want to give you permission to never say that, again. It's called Google. Google the restaurant, get the menu and look and see what's on the menu. So you can go there and prepare yourself to make a good choice. prepare ahead of time. And then all you have to do is follow through. Tell your partner Hey, listen, I'm gonna get the chicken fajitas tonight, if that's what you want to get, if you feel like that would be a good healthy choice. You're right, I'm gonna get the chicken fajitas don't let me get that pulled pork sandwich. Right? How like, elicit some help from the people that love you. I'm taking a moment to tell you that I work privately one on one with women to help them lose weight permanently, and create a body they love. This is not a diet program. This is a customized program to teach you how to eat the way you want to eat forever. No more restriction, no more willpower, no more losing weight only to sabotage and then gain it back again. The problem is not you, we women are so hard on ourselves. And we think if we could just get motivated or more determined if we could find the right diet plan or cut out certain foods, we will lose weight and be happy. But the answer is changing your brain and how you think and feel, changing your self image and how you talk to yourself. Learning how to trust yourself. This is how you lose weight permanently. It sounds too good to be true. But I promise you it's not. The work I do with my clients is powerful, exciting, and loving. And it's hard work to but the result is change forever. The women I work with are smart and successful in so many areas of their life, they just haven't been able to figure out their body. This is where I come in, head to my website to schedule a consultation. And we can talk about all the details back to the podcast. So don't tell yourself, I'm going to have to see I don't know what's on the menu. So let's say you're going on a trip Do you find yourself thinking? Well, I'm going to be traveling all day, we'll we'll see what would happen. If you didn't say we'll see. And you said I'm going to be traveling all day. And it does not matter what situation I run into, I'm going to be able to be able to make a healthy choice. And so let me give you an example. I again, just went to Nashville and I was at the airport really early in the morning. I don't like to get on a plane without eating like early in the morning. Normally, I'm an intermittent faster, I don't eat till around 10 o'clock most days. But when I am flying out really early for some reason, I think I always get a little bit nervous with flying. And I just I'm up early, I usually like I drove to the airport at 3am. So I'm already a little bit tired. I feel a little bit nauseous. I'm a little hypoglycemic. So the last thing I want to do is get on that plane with no food in my system, especially since with the time change. And I'm always like, how long is this flight, I'm always a little bit like I don't know what's going on. So I know for myself, I am going to not intermittent fast. And I'm going to make sure that I have food. And I also know that when I'm driving at 3am to the airport, Starbucks is an open and when I'm on the road, Starbucks is my favorite place to go to because I know there's healthy things there for me. And so I know that I am going to the day before my trip, I bought like 10 beef sticks, and I put them in my luggage for when I was at the conference. And then I also put one in my travel in my purse, so I would have it at the if there was nothing open in the airport, I would have a beef stick. And then that morning, I also grabbed a banana and so to speak to me. I'm not like let's see what the airport has to offer. No. I'm like, I've got this. I have extreme ownership over my body and my food and what I put in it. Maybe you think okay, I'm going to my friend's house. So I don't know. You know, I don't know we're going to be having for dinner. What will she will she expect me to drink with her? Like, I don't want to be rude? What would it look like if you had extreme ownership over yourself and what you put in your mouth? What How could you navigate that? Could you talk to her beforehand? Could you bring I know for myself sometimes when I go to a friend's house, I will actually bring a Lacroix and a lime or I'll bring a lot of times what I'll do is I'll bring a whole case because they think well this is what I want to drink and I'll bring it for everyone in case anyone else wants to it'll be like me contributing to the meal. Maybe you say to yourself, hey, listen, we're so excited. Let me know what can I bring? I would love to bring a side dish and then you make a side dish that you know you can eat in case, all the other food is not really what you want, you do know that at least you can fall back on that. So my last example of how sometimes we dictate what goes in our mouth to other people, other situations outside of ourselves, as you might say to yourself, I don't know what I'm going to feel like eating. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you some hard coaching on this one, what the what you decide what you feel like, none of us knows what we're gonna feel like eating, but you get to decide in advance. And in any moment, you get to decide what you feel like. And you sometimes can decide that it's okay, if it's not a party in your mouth, that you in the moment have complete power to decide what you're going to eat, and maybe you're going to decide it, it doesn't matter what it tastes like, what I feel like eating is irrelevant. If you find yourself saying, I don't know what I am going to feel like eating. I would say, You know what, I if you say that to yourself, I would talk back and say you know what, I trust myself to figure it out. I trust myself to find something that in that moment tastes good, that's healthy, or find something that maybe it's not going to taste that great, but it's going to help me get to my goal is nonetheless it's going to be fine. I'm not waiting for it to feel good. I'm going to take Extreme Ownership of what I put in my mouth either way. The third step, can you prepare some alternative options for yourself. So I like to think of people who are trying to quit smoking. Often people go for a substitute when they're trying to get quit smoking, they don't necessarily go cold turkey, so they'll do like gum like you've heard of Nicorette or something. This is because smoking is not just about the addiction of the nicotine, it's also about the habits surrounding it the addiction of the whole experience. It's about the dopamine hit a person gets when they move towards like the pack of cigarettes. And so that's how quickly you can get the dopamine hit. It doesn't come right from when you take that first drag. It comes from when you make that decision to go to your purse or go to your wallet or whatever and grab those cigarettes. So if you have some deep habits with food, I think it's safe to say there's possibly some addiction there, especially with all the crazy stuff that that we now put in our food that actually creates addiction. We can say this with no shame. You might have some food addictions. I know I have in the past as well. But if going cold turkey sounds horrible. What if you chose a substitution. Years ago when I was in the phase with my kids where they all drove? And they all lived at home? What started happening is I kind of lost control over the food that came into my home. And the boys would bring in their biggest thing was we have a very Papa Murphy's really close to us. And I'm telling you at least five times a week they would bring in Papa Murphy's cookie dough and Papa Murphy's pizza and my boys are healthy eaters, but they also eat all that stuff to their teenagers, right? They're normal. And so they were bringing all that stuff into the house. And so here I was trying to maintain my weight and maintain not eating after dinner, right, because I do intermittent fasting. So I try to finish eating around six, and then I don't eat till 10. But after six, I mean it's nine o'clock at night, and they're like making pizza and making cookies and making sundaes and, and I'm telling you it was hard. I mean, I'm smelling these cookies, it was hard. And so I decided in in order to kind of help myself in order to feel festive. While I was sitting on the couch with my kids watching a movie and they were all shoving cookies in their face. I decided to make myself some herbal tea. Now, some of you are gonna want to punch me in the face right now you're like, No, that doesn't sound good. Herbal Tea doesn't sound good to me either. But I needed I felt like I needed something. I felt I acknowledged the fact that there was a little bit of a dopamine I needed. I didn't want to be turning to my phone. I didn't want to be doing other things. I was feeling the feelings of wanting and I thought okay, in order to support myself right now, I think that if I had a small cup of herbal tea, like a small cup, I think this would be easier for me. And it was and I didn't do it every night. But if I had an especially hard night where I felt the urge and craving for something, I would like literally leave the room take a moment and acknowledge I completely want these cookies. But there's another part of me that doesn't. So I am going to make myself some tea just so I can give myself something and take care of myself. That's supporting yourself in this journey. So some other alternative options for yourself is popcorn with no butter. If you're making popcorn At Home, it's like maybe you go popcorn. Maybe instead of saying okay, I'm not doing popcorn anymore. Maybe you go popcorn or no butter. Maybe you really watch your portion sizes. Maybe you have something but you just have a little bit. Maybe you choose one meal that sounds delicious this weekend, and then the rest you just get pleasure from other things. What else can you do this weekend? That sounds So fun connecting with your family, maybe creating a vision board, maybe going and touring a winery, maybe going to see the Barbie movie, I don't know, maybe there's all these different things you could do, and have fun, that has nothing to do with food. And so I'm going to end with giving you a little piece of extra advice. I'm gonna give you one more because I love you. And I want you to be willing to want something. Can you say that you're not going to eat dessert and be okay? That you're going to want to? Can you allow the feeling of desire and urge to eat something that you have decided not to eat? This can be hard at first, but I promise you, it actually gets easier. If you get to the point where you say you're not going to have something and allow the desire and the craving and all that to go through you. It will get easier after a while you've possibly never done this before. And so on the fifth and sixth and seventh time you have done this. First of all, you build evidence that you can do it. But you also like it's a skill. It's like riding a bike playing soccer or driving a car. It's something you've possibly never done that you can actually get better at. If you want to go deeper and you want to get this done. These are the skills I'm teaching my clients. So message me if you want to talk about possibly working together, and we can schedule a consultation, it's a good time. I've got you have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently, if you have tried diets and you know they don't work and you're ready for real change. I would love to have a conversation with you. I coach women privately one on one, and I'm currently offering consultations to talk about working together. click my link in the show notes or head to Courtney Gray coaching.com Or you can find me on Instagram at Courtney Gray coaching