Understanding your Triggers

You are invited to my next Live Workshop....How to Feel in Control Around Food, Click HERE to sign up.

Today I am talking about Triggers and how to understand and use them to reach your weight loss and health goals.

Interested in talking with me?  Let's get on a consultation call!

Interested in my new Personalized Weight Loss Blueprint?

Click the link below....

Join me....at www.courtneygraycoaching.com to schedule a consultation call.

TO LEAVE A REVIEW...

On Apple Podcasts:
-Open the Apple Podcasts app on your iphone or ipad.
-Locate The Courtney Gray Podcast.
-Make sure you are on the Landing page for The Courtney Gray Podcast, not on an individual episode.
-Scroll down to the bottom till you reach Ratings & Reviews.
-Click one of the 5 stars under Tap to Rate to leave a rating.
-Under the most recent review, tap the Write a Review.  Press send in top right corner.

On Spotify:
-Open the Spotify app on your device.
-Tap the search tab, then type The Courtney Gray Podcast in the search bar, this will lead you to the show page. (If you are on a specific episode, simply tap the podcast thumbnail and title to be directed back to the show page.
-Tap the rating immediately underneath the podcast's description....alternatively, tap the More (...) icon, then choose Rate Show.
-Drag your finger or tap one of the stars to leave a rating.

I have 2 bits of Exciting News! I have a NEW podcast called Modern Body Modern Life....here is the link to Listen...

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/welcome-to-the-first-episode/id1720478442?i=1000637985103

And Enrollment is NOW OPEN for my March Group Program, click HERE to find all the details,

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 episode 85. Understanding your triggers. I just got back from Montana, literally like 2am. So I'm pretty exhausted. But I had such an amazing week. Being in Montana for the first time with my life coach, she hosted a small intimate mastermind with about 20 Different all women and one man it was it was at the montage in Montana, it was amazing, very high end very, I felt like exclusive because there was only about 20 of us. And the the icing on the cake of this mastermind in Montana was one of my best friends Heather was there. And we just we've only actually been in person with each other two times. So we got to meet in Montana and spend about five days together, it was absolutely wonderful. If you ever get the opportunity to go to a mastermind or go to a retreat or go to a women's conference or something like that. Do it was so powerful. I'll tell you the first time I ever went to anything like this. It was not it wasn't date with destiny. It was a Tony Robbins event what is the one before date with destiny, oh, Unleash the Power Within. And that was a two or three days, it's been a long time. It's been years, it was a two or three day event. And it's called the like an immersion event. It's when you go and you leave your family behind and you go all in on yourself. And most of the time when you do a mastermind or any kind of in person retreat like this or experience, you really focus on your goals and your dreams and what standing in your way. And it's just so so powerful. So I encourage you, if you ever have the chance to go to one, do it, it is so much fun and so powerful, and very pivotal in your life. A few things before I start talking about understanding your triggers. This Thursday, I am doing a free live workshop over zoom it is going to be how to feel in control of food. I'm really excited for this workshop. If you haven't been to my workshops before, let me paint you the picture. I am going to be live over zoom coming to you from my studio here in my home. And you are going to be in the comfort of your home with your camera off. So no one's going to see you it's totally private for you. I always love to say that because there's been one or two times over the years where I've gone to a workshop or a masterclass. And I've joined and all of a sudden I pop up like the Brady Bunch introduction and I'm like one of seven people and I'm like, oh my god, I had no idea. So that like to this day, I still do not like that. So I always want you to know that that's not what's going to happen for you. You will have your privacy you can be in your pajamas, you can do whatever you want. It is going to be this Thursday, it's going to be how to feel in control of food. This is such a huge issue for so many women, so many people feeling in control. And imagine if you felt in control, you would be able to eat the food you tell yourself you want to eat, you will be able to lose weight you would be able to then after losing weight, maintain that weight if you felt in control. feeling out of control is what so many of my clients when they first start working with me tell me they feel out of control. It's the reason that they oftentimes do start working with me. So I am going to teach you so come sign up the link is in the show notes. The link is on Instagram. Sign up for this live workshop if you cannot come live, that's okay. There will be a replay but I'll tell you live is really fun because then you can ask me any questions in the chat as I am going through this valuable workshop. So the idea for this podcast came from my belief that the more we understand ourselves, the easier it is to really create the lives we want and that's again what what you're doing when you go to a mastermind, you're learning to understand yourself more understanding why you want the body that you want, why you don't have it what has been stopping you from getting what you want, in all areas of your life. So understanding triggers is so important to start understanding why you eat the way you eat. And then you make a plan on how to gain control over your eating. First, what is a trigger a trigger when we when we Google what a trigger did go to dictionary.com? What a trigger is it really just means to activate. It really makes me think when I hear the word trigger, I think of that Pavlov's dog experiment where the dogs salivated when it heard a bell after being fed over and over while the bell was ringing. And so then anytime that dog heard a bell, it would immediately be a trigger, and it would start salivating. We have triggers in all areas of our lives. And triggers aren't bad or good. But if they're activating you to do something that's not serving you. Let's get clear, let's uncover what these are the, you know, it's the whole idea of when you know better you do better thinking about triggers. So sometimes it's helpful to think first of all, what are triggers in other areas like forgetting food, think about like when your husband or partner or children do something, there's like, they do a lot of things that sometimes agitate you. But a lot of times, there's certain things that trigger you. And so for me, if I look at my life with my kids, when I wake up in the morning, when I will be back up, when I clean the kitchen and make the kitchen look beautiful, before I go to bed, and then I wake up in the morning, and there's like dirty pots and pans on the stove and in the sink. And it smells like old food, they didn't take out the trash, huge trigger a huge trigger for me, my kids can do lots of things, leave their backpacks on the ground, do a lot of things. But that is a trigger for some reason. It just fires me up. So that's kind of a negative one. And so then like a positive one, like I love music, and certain songs are triggers for me. Like It literally makes me start moving my body. Let's talk about triggers around your eating habits. Some people feel so out of control in the beginning of when they come to me and we start working together, that they can't even really identify triggers, because they feel like all food is a trigger. They just they they're just at a bad place. So if that's you, I get it. And that's okay, but you know, strap in, and let's kind of really piece it out and get more clear on what really are the triggers. Most of us have specific foods that are harder than others. We feel like we cannot resist these food items. That's a food trigger. It's more than just a food we love or food we want or a favorite food. It's a food that we kind of feel like we can't control ourselves around. And we have a lot of history to prove this. Can you think of a food, you might not even be aware of all your triggers when it comes to your eating because some of them aren't food. There's a few kinds of triggers, there's a type of food that I'm going to talk about is a trigger. There's an emotional trigger, meaning like feeling tired might be a trigger for you. feeling excited might be a trigger for you feeling stressed, I think most people would comment that feeling stressed for most people is is a trigger, wanting to feel better when you're stressed. Then there's also like circumstantial triggers, times of day for me, I think I've said on the podcast so many times for me right around four o'clock is a trigger doesn't matter what's happening my day, right around that time, I know that if I'm going to want to eat more food than I have planned for myself, I'm going to want to just even if I'm not hungry, right around four o'clock, I'm going to think oh, I should have some chips in guacamole. It's just that time of day for some reason. And maybe that circumstantial trigger is also because I'm a little tired during that time of day. Another circumstantial trigger is like a time of year, or location. Or like maybe after you've had two drinks like you, you have to drinks and then all of a sudden that's a trigger. And it makes you just I know, for me, I used to have one or two drinks, and then I'd be like, Oh, it doesn't matter. You know, the influence of a little bit of alcohol would change my thoughts on things. And that was a trigger for me to kind of get into eating all the things. For some people even taking one bite is a circumstantial trigger. It makes them just go no, I'm in I've had one bite, I'm just going to go all in. And I want to dive into all of these so you can see if any of them feel true for you. But first, let me say that you don't need to understand why something is a trigger for you. It doesn't really it's not really helpful for you to understand why especially if it's like a food trigger. It's okay if you want to but sometimes, sometimes we can get a little in our own head with this work. And we think why why do I love that food so much? Why is it a trigger? And I'll just tell you right now you can think about that and try to answer that question, but that for some reason, finding the why for that kind of a food trigger doesn't necessarily help us move forward. But once you recognize it is even in just the recognizing of it, you can be prepared and it can make you so much more prepared to handle that trigger. What is a food trigger? So this one's pretty obvious, right? My used to be Oreos, it's no longer a trigger for me. But where he was, for some reason, when Oreos were in my sphere, I just felt like I was completely out of control around them. And so one day, I finally realized, I think Oreos are an issue for me. And the power of coming to that conclusion of the power of admitting it to my felt self because I think I felt a little bit stupid. But when I finally realized, oh, okay, now I can go throughout my day. And I can say like, I remember one time, specifically, my mother in law would come visit us. And she's such a good cook, and she brings treats for all my kids and, and she brought Oreos, and it finally got to a point where I said, Hey, you know what, you can bring in all the ice cream, you can bring it all the things, but I'm gonna have to ask you that you don't bring Oreos, because I just I feel like it's a trigger. And I feel kind of silly saying that, but it's a trigger. And so that's why identifying triggers is so important. You can go Oh, clearly, I get a little crazy around the Oreos, and then you can make a plan to not be around them. So that's the power of identifying the trigger. So what's an emotional trigger? I want to spend more time on an emotional trigger, because I feel like I feel like it's pretty the food triggers pretty obvious. So what's an emotion, emotional food trigger stress is probably the most common that everyone can agree on. When you get stressed, you want to comfort yourself. So you eat. And it literally is your body feels stress. And because of the motivation to feel good, and to not be in pain out of like a survival primitive level, we subconsciously think I gotta get out of this stress. We want to feel good, we turn to food. And you can probably see that I'm sure we're in any area of your stress. What about some other different types of emotional triggers? What about boredom? This was a big one for me. As I grew my business and I was trying to not overwork, I had to allow myself to be bored. Because that was a trigger. I hated feeling bored, I felt it was like bored, and then kind of worthless and all these feelings will come up and it was a trigger for me to then want to eat to feel better. What about confused, a lot of people sit in confusion, confusion is, is one of those emotions, I don't really feel it has a big purpose. And you might feel confusion. And that might be an emotional trigger for you like I'm confused. Has this ever happened to you, you're like trying to do something with work or make a decision and you're like confused, and you want to not feel confused. So then you eat if you really start thinking about and like seeing the patterns as you go throughout your day. Confused is a big one for people. And then of course worried or stress. I already talked about stress, being worried it's pretty obvious, you're worried you don't want to be worried. And you almost turn to food as like a distraction from the worry. But here's another one you might not have considered. What about excitement, elation, feeling powerful with the accessibility of food in our society. Right now, we are triggered to eat for almost every emotion in the book, I want to talk to you about like an example of excitement and elation. So I've been thinking for a while about kind of slowing down my drinking of alcohol. I don't really drink for him. I've never been a big drinker anyways. But I've been thinking that I just don't value drinking. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But probably the last 10 times I had a drink. And usually when I do drink, it's like two drinks. But the last 10 times I had a drink. I just felt like it didn't add anything positive to my life whatsoever. I used to get back in the day, like in college, I would get a buzz now I feel like I hardly even get a buzz. And then the negative impact on my life is I don't sleep as well. So then usually I have to take a medicine to sleep after I drink. Sometimes I make choices I don't want to make after I've had two drinks, like I'll eat food that I don't necessarily want to eat. I'll stay out later than I want to stay out. And then the next day even after one or two drinks, I feel like it totally affects my motivation. I find that those are the days I give in to not working out the days after I've had a cocktail. So I think to myself, Why do I drink if there's all these negatives in my life? Why do I drink water? Like what's happening there? Right? So I started to look at what was triggering me to drink and I found that it wasn't coming from a negative emotion. I wasn't thinking oh my god. This is what a lot of people say is Oh my God, I need a glass of wine. This was a hard date. If that wasn't my experience, I wasn't trying to escape any kind of negative emotion, there wasn't a negative trigger, I found out that the trigger was excitement. So when I would get in a social situation with people I love, and I was excited to see them, all of a sudden, I was like, Yes, I'll have a cocktail. Let's go, life is so good. I love you so much. It's so festive. I'm so excited. And when I came to that realization, I was shocked. And so then I started really paying attention to the story, I was telling myself around those moments. And so I started telling myself, I went from thinking, I don't want to drink. And then I would literally get to my friend's house. And I would be so excited to see them so excited to be around their kids or their husband, and, oh, it's been so long. And I would think, Oh, my God, this is going to be even more fun and festive, especially since they'd be like, Hey, let me make you drink. And it would be like, of course. So that emotional trigger was excitement. It was like elation. And so now let me tell you the beauty of understanding this trigger is now when I am going into a social situation that I know that I'm going to be excited. For example, Labor Day, I know that I am going to be around some of my favorite people. We camp every year for Labor Day with some of my favorite people. And it's going to be so fun. And I know, I'm going to change the story on myself. So right now I'm thinking, I'm not going to drink it. When I was in Montana, I didn't drink at all. And it just felt really great. I slept pretty good. It just I was very clear. It just felt really like I was being I was really showing up for myself and trusting myself and living the life I wanted to live and had amazing time with no alcohol, I know that I am going to get to camping. And then all of a sudden, I even do this thing where it's like kind of shaking my shoulders like let's go, let's go. And I'm going to want to have a drink. And I am going to know that that is going to be a trigger that excitement, especially when I start walking towards all my girlfriends, and they all most of them are probably going to have a club soda vodka, something like that. I'm going to think oh my god, I should just drink. It's no problem. I now know the triggers there for me. And so I can when it's there, it's no problem. Of course you want to drink, Courtney, you think it's so it's going to be so much more fun. But we know that you're already going to be sleeping in a trailer, you're already gonna be a little bit uncomfortable. You're going to sleep, you're not going to sleep as good if you have a drink. So let's just like stick to the plan. You prepare yourself for the trigger. And then when it's there, you're not surprised and it doesn't derail 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 too 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 let me tell you another one of my triggers which is totally a circumstantial trigger. So like certain songs or a certain central trigger like the one song by Billy ocean Caribbean Queen Queen oh my god, I hear that song and I am like on my body starts moving I can not control myself in fact it was so funny. The reason I remembered this song is I've been thinking about this podcast for a few days and and what I wanted to share with you and we were at dinner during the mastermind and I heard that song like in the background like as a part of either someone else's party it was very far away but I heard it and it was very hard for me to not start moving my body I just love it so much. And so that is the circumstantial trigger for me it has nothing to do with food, but it triggers my body. So circumstantial triggers can be like time of day I talked about before time of year. I know for me like when it's raining outside and it's cold and it's fall. I that kind of triggers me to want to eat comfort foods. Is there a location or is there a time of year that makes you is a trigger for you. And here's another very simple one that most of us can agree on. It's almost like movie theaters and popcorn. It's like, of course, it's almost like an association, they go together. So here's another circumstantial trigger. My alarm in the morning is a trigger for coffee. I hear that alarm. And it's like coffee time. If you're someone who gets home from work, and immediately pour yourself a glass of wine, the time of day is a trigger for you to drink wine. It's not a problem. But if you decide you don't want to drink wine, or you want to drink less wine, or whatever, you knowing, okay, I'm gonna walk in the house. And that's kind of even just walking in the house is a trigger for me, then you can decide in advance totally not a problem. The trigger will be there. What do I want to do? What story do I want to tell myself, if you while you're cooking dinner, and you have a cocktail, cooking is probably a trigger for you and wanting a drink in your hand while you're cooking. And also cooking can be a trigger, if you're the kind of person, I don't really do this. But there are some people that while they're cooking, they literally eat their dinner, I have a friend who, while she's cooking dinner, she actually eats her dinner. So by the time she's done cooking for her family, she's actually done eating. But sometimes this leads to overeating, because then she's like, I want more now I feel like I should sit down with my family. So then she almost sometimes ends up eating two meals. So when I said, Hey, you know, I think cooking is a trigger for you, you you know, when you cook, you automatically eat and just be aware of that. She's like, Oh my god, I never thought about that. So much awareness, when you know better you do better. So I was talking about circumstantial triggers with one of my clients. And she said something that was interesting, she said, a trigger for her is just one bite of food that she loves. So maybe one bite of one of her trigger foods, she feels in control, as long as she just says no, and doesn't start, she even said the trigger food can be there. But as long as I don't start, she really makes a decision ahead of time if she'll be eating certain foods, because she knows she's one of those people that just can't have a bite. Are you one of those people, there's a lot of people that they can just have one bite, I'm not really one of those people either, I would feel like Oh, I'm not gonna have one bite of the brownie, I could have three. They're not three bites three brownies. So this was so powerful for her to uncover in our work together. She now knows I'm the type of person that I can't just have one bite, that's a trigger one bite triggers for me. And she knows now that she's just not wired that way. And it's okay. She sees it more clearly. There are two schools of thought when it comes to trigger foods. Either one learning to have restraint, whatever restraint looks like maybe only having it at certain times, or only having a certain amount. That's one school of thought, and then taking it out of your life completely. I was reading a book by Stephen, I think his last name is pronounced Gallo, it's G you ll Oh, it's a very old popular book. It's called thin taste better. In the book. He said, these trigger foods, so your trigger foods, situations, behaviors and emotions never truly leave you. It's best to permanently avoid them. That's what he believes. And I'm honestly still wondering where I stand on this. So I'm, I'm I'm presenting this to you that that is his idea. I resonated with it when I read that. But I'm still on the fence where I stand. I do think we are all so unique. And I think you really need to get to know yourself and what works for you. I really think this is an individual choice. I have found for me, after taking my triggers away the ones especially the food triggers away completely for a period of time, it got rid of the trigger with most things. So then I could then have it every once in a while. Like for example, I didn't eat bread for years. And now on occasion, I have a piece of bread and it's no big deal. When we were in Montana. My girlfriend Heather was like, hey, I want the corn bread. And I'm like, usually I don't eat. I mean, I can't remember the last time I had bread. And so I said actually, that sounds really good. And it was delicious. I had two pieces. It was delicious. I had it with no regret. I it didn't affect my weight. It didn't throw me off. I still feel in control. And so I took right away for a while I did what Dr. Steven Carrillo said I took it away for a while. But then I have so much more peace and clarity that I've been able to bring it back once in a while. But uncovering your triggers allows you to create a plan for yourself if you know where you might struggle to make decisions because of these triggers. So I'm going to give you another example. A trigger for me sometimes still can be baked goods by About I don't really love ice cream, I'm one of the rare people that like I could take it or leave it ice cream. And still to this day when I want to buy my kids a treat, I will defer to ice cream, or some sort of like baked goods that I don't like like, you know, in the bakery those like sugar cookies with a big crystals on them. There's like certain baked goods that I don't like at all. For me if I know for the rest of my life, like Dr. Steven Gallo said is like, that's probably going to be a trigger for me. I plan accordingly. If I'm like, I want to get my kids a treat, I will think is there ice cream is there some baked goods that I don't want in my house, let's make it easier for ourselves. I want to make my life easy. And if that's a trigger for me, I set myself up to win. If you know there's always food at work for a lot of my clients, a whole lot of my most of my clients, if you know there's always food, and usually crappy food, I'm gonna say that at work. And you really can't do anything about taking that food away. You can decide in advance what you will allow yourself if you want to allow yourself any of it. And the story you want to tell yourself when you feel triggered at work. I would suggest starting by asking yourself what you want to eat or not eat, like create a plan? And how you'll feel when you're presented with this food. Are you going to feel like want? Are you going to feel deprivation sitting there not having it? What story? Will you tell yourself when you feel this way? And here's the big thing, and I'm gonna be talking about this a lot on on the workshop on Thursday is can you sit with that feeling? Do you want to be in a smaller, healthier, powerful, more controlled body life so much that you're willing to feel a little deprived sitting there that you're willing to want it and let the walk kind of wash over you and I can teach you how to do that there is a process for doing that. So when you are aware of your triggers your food triggers, emotional triggers, and circumstantial triggers. It just really clarifies everything and it lets you know what your work is. Like when I'm working with my clients and we kind of figure out what their triggers are. I was like oh okay, you know, when you're tired, that's a trigger for you. Okay, you know, being at work around that table food is a trigger for you. Okay, you know, when your husband picks the restaurant that usually ends up being a trigger for you because you and him have different ideas on the way you want to eat right if we know this, we can set us set ourselves up to win. I hope this one was powerful for you when you know better you do better my friends. So I hope you will join me on Thursday. Make sure you sign up for my free live workshop there will be a replay if you can't make it live and 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