Imperfect Commitment

It doesn't need to be perfect.  Neither do you.

You can lose weight, get healthier than you have ever been in a committed and imperfect way.

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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. In my 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 84 imperfect commitment. What's going on? I am headed to Montana for a mastermind with my coach and I could not be more excited about it. I've never been to Montana, I'm going to be going with one of my best friends and we are going to be masterminding with a small group. So two times a year. Well, it's a long story. But two times a year I go to a mastermind with my boss, my company, I work for her and I help her run the mastermind. But then another time, every year I go to a mastermind with my Life Coach School who I got certified with. And both of those are with hundreds of people. In fact, the one with my Life Coach School, I think has 1000s of people over 1000 people that go this one with my coach, he invited me to Big Sky Montana. And there's only going to be like 22 people there. So it's going to be a really high end intimate high touch situation. And I'm I could not be more excited about I'm so so excited. Remember, my word for this year is adventurous. So I'm I'm definitely bringing in the adventurer with all these fun vacations and, and masterminds. I am also working on a killer workshop, I haven't done a workshop in a while I've done the master classes, I've done the webinars, but a workshop is different. Because it's very hands on you will come to the workshop, it's going to be free, you will come and you will bring a workbook and I'm gonna give you time to take notes and really kind of make a plan for yourself. And it's going to be very teaching over delivering and it's going to be something about like how to feel in control around food. It is coming at the end of the month. I don't even have a signup form. But be Be on the lookout. I'll talk I'll talk to you about it more in the next few podcasts. But yeah, it's going to talk about it's going to be about how to feel in control around food. This is one of the biggest things I work on with my clients, my clients come to me. And they so often say, I feel pretty dialed in every area of my life. But I feel like I'm I just feel out of control when it comes to food when I go to restaurants when I'm in my home. And if I you know, sometimes my husband will bring in food that I wouldn't necessarily shop with. And I just feel out of control around food. So I'm going to teach you how to feel in control around food. How great does that sound. So that's going to be coming, I believe on August 31. So stay tuned for that. So imperfect commitment. It seems like these two words kind of contradict each other. But I want to explain, it's the idea that you're fully committed to something, but yet you're willing to get kind of dirty in the process, I have what's called this doing it dirty, but that sounded kind of dirty. So being fully committed, but willing to do it imperfectly. And also, when I think of doing something imperfectly, I also think of doing it small starting small, just starting. And the reason again, I wanted to do this podcast is I think that there are so many people out there that when they think about getting healthier, or they think about warding off diabetes or they think about losing weight, or they think about getting stronger any of these things. I think they think that their life has it has to be some like huge overhaul, almost kind of like I've got to clean out my pantry, I have to food prep, I need to get a food service bringing in some meals, I need to get a gym membership, I need to I need some new clothes for the gym. And I need and this is a little I'm exaggerating a little bit. But sometimes we can get caught up in how big it has to be, and how detailed and dialed it has to be. And by doing that, it can feel a little overwhelming, and then we don't do it. And then we don't just start. So I would rather encourage you to commit imperfectly and just start because think about how amazing that will be think about how if you did something small you started today and just did something small. And literally just did it for the rest of your life. You became the person that did that small thing for the rest of your life, it would have an effect on your life. First of all, the biggest effect is I think it would be a ripple effect to other areas of your life. You'd feel really proud. So that's what we're talking about here today. When we decide to go all in on ourselves on our goals on our desires in an imperfect committed way. We You start small, we might start mid day, we might start at 2pm. On a Wednesday, you might start on on a weekend, it doesn't matter, you're just going to start. So if you're waiting for perfect, the perfect time, the perfect food, the perfect shopping list, the perfect eating plan, the perfect thing to eat the perfect weather to do that sport or that outside exercise, the perfect work situation like, oh, I have to work these hours or this kind of situation at work, you're not owning your power. Another one actually, I should say too, is if you're waiting for your partner to get on board. Let's not wait for any of that. Let's just You do you. And let's start doing it imperfectly and commit. At the end of this podcast, I want you to feel fired up to get started, even if it is small. So I was out to dinner the other night with a friend. And she was asking me about my coaching business and how I helped women lose weight permanently. And after I told her like all the ins and outs of what I teach and how I helped my clients. She said, have you read atomic habits, and I had not read atomic habits. But I remember the title because my husband has that book. And he read it long ago. And it's been on our shelf. And it's been one of those books that I thought when I I'm gonna get around to reading that book. So I started reading it, and out. And as I've started reading it, it is such a compliment, that what I was talking about, reminded her of this book so far, and I'm not even very far into the book. But there was a quote that I just it said something that I just loved, it says changes that seems small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results, if you're willing to stick with them for years. I'm gonna say it again, because I loved it so much. That's what this whole podcast is about. I'm gonna say it again, changes that seems small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you're willing to stick with them for years. This is almost like a my philosophy. It's almost the anti diet, right? It's like, let's start eating healthier right away. And let's stay committed to it getting better iterating, tracking, figuring out what works, what not works, and let's keep going and get healthier and healthier as we age. So what can you do today to start your weight loss or your health journey, like forever. So I thought it would be fun for me to give you a bunch of questions to get you to think about how you can decide to go all in and commit, but yet be imperfect about it. So now when you're answering these questions for yourself, think of something you could start doing today. Be willing to be imperfectly committed to getting healthier or losing weight getting stronger, whatever it is. But I also want you to think of something that's small enough that you could decide to do it forever. That's why we go small, right? It's something that's not overwhelming. And when I go through these, ask yourself like it can I become the woman who does this, because that's what it's all going to come down to we're going to do these little things. But really what it is, is you're changing your belief about what's possible for you. So I'm going to just I came up with a bunch of fun ones, and then I'm gonna give you a bunch that I've done at the end. Some of these you might be like, it's a no, I don't want to do that. And that's not a problem at all. These are all just meant to like spark curiosity, and just think about him. And here's the thing, too, is if I say something that you're like, it's a no, you might want a question why why is it a no, because a lot of times we have thoughts and beliefs that are getting in our way. Like I might say, This isn't one of them. But I might say something like, could you work out in the mornings? And you'd be like, No, I can't I can't get up early. I'm not a morning person. Hmm. I have my finger up by mail. That is something that could change. Is it possible that maybe you want to be a morning person? And maybe you don't. But this is what I mean is like, let's just be open to all of it. And hard know, whatever you want. Okay, how can you change up your bedtime routine? Could you go to bed earlier? Could you right after dinner, brush your teeth, wash your face and do get all that done earlier, so then you feel like getting into bed is easier. I know a lot of times people they they almost get revved up at night and then slowing down is hard for them because they're there. They're working or they're doing the kitchen or they're clean air organizing and doing all this and then when they have to go and brush and floss and maybe shower or wash the face and do all that. It just seems like it's taking them too long to wine wine down. So can you change up your bedtime routine? Can you maybe read before bed instead of watch TV? Can you do a little journal writing? I don't know. Can you change up your bedtime routine? Is that something that would improve your life improve your health? I want you know one thing that I used to do at Don't do this anymore. But this was really great for me for a while, was I now do this mostly at the beginning of the week. But for a while, I would actually write out my schedule for the next day right before I went to bed, I would just kind of check in with myself. And that just made me feel very calm and organized. How can you change up what you drink? So there's a study over the past 37 years, the amount of calories that Americans get from drinks has doubled. If this is true, right? Think about all the calories we're getting from drink our drinks, what would happen if over the next six months, you drink water instead of what you're drinking? And I know there's people out there listening to this that are like, I want to get off soda. Yeah, I get it. And so what could you do to maybe take a step in that direction? And maybe if all of a sudden not doing soda anymore? isn't possible? What if you backed off? Would if you drank one less or stopped drinking them after two? I don't know what if you made an effort to change up the way you drink. Maybe you want to back off on the sweetener you're adding to your tea or your coffee. Maybe this comes with alcohol. Maybe you don't want to drink during the week, maybe you only want to drink on the weekends. So just think how can you change up what you drink. 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. This next one is a big one. How can you increase your capacity for exercise? Like could you go harder? Could you go further? Could you lift heavier? Could you try a new kind of exercise. You know, my sister was telling me the other day that she has a new friend that lives you know, now I feel bad or even mentioned it because I forget where she lives. But she does live in another wonderful country. But she was saying that she was they're different. They're when it comes to outdoor exercise. She says it doesn't matter if it's raining, it doesn't matter if it's snowing, it doesn't matter if they're the type of person that walks or hikes or whatever they do it year round. And I thought that was so funny because I'm the kind of person where we got a peloton because once it gets cold outside, I don't want to run outside, I don't want to walk outside, I certainly don't want to ride a bike outside. So that's something that I could someday do is go could I be the kind of person that will like, Hey, I'm running, it doesn't matter what the weather is. I did that a little bit during the pandemic, where there would be days where I'm like, I gotta get out of this house, the fact that it's raining is irrelevant. So maybe that is something you can increase your capacity for exercise. Another thing I was gonna say save this to the end, but I'll say it now is I have really started lifting heavier weights, my son has told me like Mom, if you want to get reach your goals, you have to lift heavier. And so now just everyday that I go to work out, I lift heavier, and it's I just know that it is going to be more of an effort is going to be harder. It's just going to be a harder workout process and that is going to be getting my body stronger. What is one thing you can do every morning to make yourself happier? Or every night? Is there something you can do to make yourself happier? And that's just I love that one. I just think it feels it falls it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with weight but it falls in line with wellness and with happiness and mental happiness and mental wellness. If you want it to start today, what little change can you make at dinnertime? So maybe you want to cut out TV during dinner, right? There's a lot of studies that show that we eat more when we are watching TV we get into this trance of like mindless eating. Do you want to say you know what, I'm not going to eat bread anymore with dinner. Or maybe you want to give up meat a few nights there's people that that are trying to eat less meat for health reasons. Maybe that's what you want to do. What Foods Could you start out Adding at dinner, you know, when I was growing up, my mom was a really good cook. But we didn't have tons of side dishes, we would always have side dishes, but we didn't have tons of them when and then when I got married, my mother in law is like the queen of side dishes she has sometimes up to like six side dishes, I was sitting there by what is happening, but it really inspired me to have more side dishes. So I really one of the things I do is I try to include two vegetables at dinner. Sometimes it's a salad. But sometimes we'll have a meat salad brussel sprouts and carrots or and potatoes, something like that. What is one little thing you could do after dinner, like between dinner and bedtime? That's a like a window of time that a lot of times what most people are doing is watching TV. And usually I would say I wish we were having a conversation, you could either agree or disagree, but I'm thinking like two to three hours between dinner and bedtime. That's like a little chunk of time, what could you do during that time, that would improve your life, get you to reach your goals faster. And now let me give you some of mine. And some of some of these might make you want to punch me in the face. And that is okay, I'm willing to have you be annoyed at me to just be honest, and possibly inspire and possibly think of what's possible. So here's the first one. I don't eat bread. I don't eat bread, imperfectly committed to not eating bread, which means that every once awhile when I'm on vacation, I will but most of the time, I don't eat bread. And one of the reasons I don't eat bread is I just love bread. And I really don't think it has any nutritional value. Some people might say that's not true, but I just felt like it's something that I could cut out. And I did probably like six years ago, I decided not to hit snooze. I mean, this was probably in college, I just don't hit snooze. It's not like I don't and I try I don't even know where the snooze button is. And so if this if you hear this, and you're like That sounds amazing, I actually want to do that the first one you might want to punch me in the face for. But if this one, you're thinking that that sounds amazing, I would love to not hit snooze, and be able to do that. I want to tell you one little trick and I learned this from Mel Robbins. She did a TED talk on it. And I think I've talked about it on the podcast, but it's the whole 54321 It's the concept that when all of a sudden, it comes time to do something, you have like five or six seconds before your brain starts rationalizing why it's not a good idea. It's like your primitive brain, right around five or six seconds, your primitive brain kicks in and starts going, oh, you should just sleep longer. Oh, you don't want to work out Oh, eat the food. So your brain, you know, the primitive brain takes over. So if all of a sudden your alarm goes off, and you'll say to yourself 54321. And at one you immediately get out of bed and you walk into the bathroom, do not turn back to do all the things that you have more of a chance of actually getting to do what you ultimately really want to do. Because then your primitive brain doesn't have time to take over and negotiate with you. So give that one a try. I gradually backed off putting anything in my coffee years and years ago, it was hard at first and it took me some time. But I put less sugar less creamer less sugar less creamer. And now I have been drinking black coffee for many years. I also don't drink sweetener in my tea. For many years, I already told you that I lift heavier, do less reps. I intermittent fast. That's something I decided to do. And I definitely do this imperfectly. It's been a few years now my friend gave me a book about it. And it just all the studies and research were there. And I really had a blog talk about like how sometimes our brain and our beliefs get in the way. I have this thought like I'm hypoglycemic I am I well, I don't know if you can be hypoglycemic all the time. But I have moments where I have some like, low blood pressure or low blood sugar. I don't even know if the doctors listen to this. They're probably losing their mind right now. But I have been told I'm hypoglycemic. I don't even know if that's an accurate way to say but I definitely, if there's a chance of fainting, it's me, it will happen and I get very kind of lightheaded. And so I at first thought I don't know that I can intermittent fast because I get very lightheaded, especially if I'm hungry, whatever. And so I decided because there's so many health benefits to intermittent fasting to imperfectly commit to intermittent fasting and what I mean by imperfectly commit. If I am going on vacation, sometimes I have to change up my intermittent fasting, but for the most part, I do it. Here's another one where you might want to punch me in the face. I don't eat pizza, because if I don't eat bread, I don't eat pizza. I probably haven't had a slice of pizza in six years. And this was one of those ones where pizza was a trigger for me like Oreos. Oreos is no longer true. burger for me, I can have one or two, it's no problem. But pizza was such a trigger for me and I have a huge capacity for food. So I could eat six, seven slices, no problem. And I felt horrible after. And that was one of the reasons why I wasn't able to lose weight. So when I decided to give up bread, I decided to also to give up pizza. And it's one of the ways I maintain my weight and one of the maintains I maintain my health. Now that being said, if over the next few years I go to Italy, it's going to be imperfectly committed because if I'm in Italy, and the pizza looks good, I might have a slice. But I am imperfectly committed to continuing with my not eating pizza. I decided one today guys, because I was doing this podcast for you. I decided what else can I do? Today I decided I'm doing 50 Push Ups a day. Now, I don't know that I can do boy push ups I have to do girl push ups. I know that's like not adequate to say girl push ups, but you know what I'm talking about. Because I could probably do 10 Boy push push ups and then the rest are gonna be have to be on my knees, girl push ups. I wanted to 50 Push Ups a day. Because this time of year is when I start getting really busy. Because not only am I building my coaching business and coaching all my people, but I also it's it's we're coming into holiday season and I have my jewelry. And so sometimes in terms of workout, I I'll go days and days in historically, I would go days and days without really doing much upper body weight, and I want to continue building my strength. So I've decided that I'm just going to be the kind of woman that I do 50 pushups a day, like forever. Like, it's just who I am. I mean, it won't take very long. But that's what I'm talking about. I'm going to do it every day. And I'm going to do it imperfect. I'm sure there's going to be a day I don't I'm sure I'm gonna have an injury at some point. But that is my new thing. I am the woman who does 50 pushups a day to maintain her upper body strength. I floss every day, which I don't think it's a big deal. But there's a lot of people that don't. I floss every day. I didn't used to. I had gum replacement surgery, which was not fun, just FYI. And ever since them I was I was like I am going to floss every single day and really take care of my mouth. I don't drink soda, like ever. I will do drink Lacroix. I should say that, but I don't drink Coke and Diet Pepsi and all those sodas ever. I used to but I don't need more. Today I'm making another one I was thinking of what else I could do is I'm going to meditate for five minutes a day at least I love meditating. I consider myself a meditator. Is that how you say it meditator? But I have not been doing it. I have not. I've been struggling to find the time to fit that in. And so I think it's going to be easier now that my husband and everyone's going to be out of the house during the day because the kid my son here will be at school. And my husband will be going to work earlier. But it's just been hard to find time to where I'm not interrupted. So I've just decided I'm just going to commit at the very least to five minutes. And last thing your this is a funny one too. Today I decided I'm baking my own chicken. What am I mean? I mean, you know, you go to Costco and you get those chickens. They are so good. I don't know, I don't know what's going on with them. They're so good. But they're so good. There's a part of me and you'll have to let me know what you think there's a part of me that thinks that it can't be healthy. Because there's so so good. So I have decided to start baking my own. I'm going to buy an organic chicken and I'm going to bake it in the oven. In fact, I have one baking right now. So that's why tonight, I was like you know what, I'm going to start baking my own. I only probably get two a month at Costco. And so I'm going to start baking my own chickens just because I feel like they're organic. And then I know what is what is rubbed on the skin and put in them. I know they probably won't be quite as tasty. But I'll be less suspicious about what's going on. Most of the meat I bring in the house is organic. So I feel really good about that forever change. So I hope you had fun with this one. Even if you just pick one small thing I promise you, you start doing something and it really, it really becomes who you are. It's like I look at some of these like eating Don't you know not eating bread? Not any pizza, flossing, drinking coffee, like it's just who I am if someone said oh, hey, do you want do you want me to put some sweetener in your tea? I wouldn't even go yeah, I'll do Yeah, that'll be good. I wouldn't do that. You know, I might have a cookie after dinner if I want something sweet. But these are things that I do consistently that I will do for the rest of my life that is going to help me maintain the goals I've already committed to and already achieved and also go even further in my life. So I hope you love this one. I hope 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 pro have at least 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