Make Progress in ANY Area By Doing this ONE Thing

On this podcast, I share a real client story about how she went from weeks of frustration and zero movement on the scale… to losing four pounds in just one week. The difference? This one habit. I’ll also tell you how my son called me out on my own excuses in the gym and helped me level up my own results.

What if the secret to breaking through plateaus, reaching your goals faster, and truly transforming your life came down to just one small habit? In this episode, I’m revealing the powerful — and yes, sometimes uncomfortable — practice that can help you make consistent progress in any area of life.

We’ll talk about:

• How to track “from curiosity” (instead of shame or perfectionism)
• Why tracking isn’t just for food — and how it can apply to fitness, habits, business, relationships, and more
• The surprising truth about why we think we’re doing better than we are
• How being radically honest with yourself can change your results permanently
• Why imperfect consistency beats perfection every time

Whether your goal is weight loss, building strength, improving a routine, or creating new habits, tracking gives you the awareness and accountability to make real change — and it’s often the exact “next level” move you’ve been avoiding.

Interested in speaking with me about how we can work together? Click here to head to my website: https://www.modernbodymodernlife.com/ and schedule a free consultation with me.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:06

Foreign Welcome to Modern body, modern life. The podcast for women who want to lose weight permanently feel in control around food and learn how to stop obsessing about their body and food a modern way of thinking about your weight, your body and your life includes mindset. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and each week I'm going to teach you the mindset tools that are necessary for changing the way you eat forever. We will uncover why you're eating when you said you were going to stop, what to do when you're really craving something, and how important it is to decide what you want to believe is possible for you, I believe we can get in the best shape of our lives at any age, a modern body, a modern life, all starts in your mind, and when you learn how to manage that, losing weight permanently becomes so much easier. Welcome to the podcast. Episode 92 make progress in any area by doing this. One thing a little mysterious, is it not, I can't wait to dive in. I am loving summer. I'm loving the heat. It's supposed to be up to 106 this weekend, and I'm I'm not mad. I'm not mad about it. I am loving having my son home from college. He's going to be leaving this week, so that will be a little bit sad, but I know I'll be seeing him soon, and wrestling season starts soon, so it'll be so fun to follow his career this week. By the time this podcast comes out, I will be starting my august group coaching program. I actually have two groups, starting I have my modern body, modern life foundational program, and then I have an advanced program for women who have already worked with me that that want to go deeper. And I'm so excited for both of them. I'm spending a lot of time this weekend kind of up leveling and redoing my materials and my curriculum for both programs. You know, I am always getting better. I am always updating. I'm always thinking, how can I teach this better? How can I say this differently? How can I help them get more of a transformation? So I'm really excited to spend some time this weekend doing that and swimming in my pool. So let me start out this podcast with a client story. So I had one of my wonderful, beautiful, lovely clients this week. This is a story I'll tell, but this story has happened so many times. This was just the catalyst, like, I'm like, Okay, it's time to talk about this on the podcast. So I have a client that's doing wonderful. She's really working so hard in my program. She's watching the videos, she's doing her protocol, she's doing her journaling. She really is doing a great job, and she has lost weight even more. She's losing inches. She's thrilled about the progress, but she ended up, a few weeks ago, hitting a bit of a plateau, which is frustrating, right? Any of us know when we are putting energy into something and we're not seeing the results? So frustrating? I remember my coach, Brooke Castillo, said one time, and it was one of the most powerful things she's ever said that. I think about it often that one of the most amazing, I don't know if she said amazing, this is my iteration of what she said. I don't know if she said amazing or magical, or whatever powerful. Think one of the most amazing, powerful things you can do is believe something is possible when there's no evidence of it in your life in that moment. It's also one of the hardest things, I think, to all of a sudden be working really hard to lose weight and get healthy, and you're doing so many different things in positive things for your life, but then you hit a plateau, and it can be very frustrating to believe that that plateau is going to move again and you are going to continue progress. Same thing with my clients that I coach with business like to believe that the clients are coming when you're doing all this marketing, all this sales, but yet maybe you don't have any consults booked. You know, when you believe that you're putting so much energy into your parenting, we you know, all of us parents know how this is when you're just loving on them so much and thinking about them so much and trying to just be such a good mom for these kids, and sometimes they're sassy, or sometimes they're not doing well, or sometimes you can't figure out what's wrong with them. When they're a baby, they can't talk to you. It can be so frustrating. I get that for sure. But this client, I said to her, you know, after a week or two, I said, Hey, have you tracked your food? And this is what this podcast is going to be about. It's going to be about. It's going to be about tracking. I'm going to talk about my with the way I speak about tracking is tracking from Curiosity. So I said, Hey, have you tracked? Because that's part of my program, is I have curriculum, I have videos, I have I have ways to track your food. And so I said, Have you been tracking? And the bottom line is, she hadn't been tracking. She actually had never tracked. So I said to her, your next up leveling is tracking. And I said to her, because I could see a look on her face, and this happens so often with my clients, I said, here's what you might be thinking. You might be thinking tracking sucks. And so first of all, I kind of agree with you in some. Ways in the beginning that you know the result you get from tracking, that's what I'm going to talk about later, is is amazing, but actually logging your food totally sucks. So I said, so I'm here. You know that I understand what I'm asking you to do sucks. But I said, What you're also probably thinking is, I'm working so hard already, why do I have to do another thing? And she goes, Oh my God. And she started laughing. She goes, Yes, that's what I'm thinking. And so this thought, I want you to embrace this experience of having this thought, because if you are like many of my clients, if you're like me, if we are going to continue getting better in any area of our life, you are going to come up. You are going to bump up to this thought I'm already doing so much, and maybe it's going to be an iteration of already doing so much. I can't do another thing, or I'm already doing so much. Why isn't this working? Why do I have to do more? I shouldn't have to do more. I promise you. I'm thinking this all the time. In fact, I'm going to take a little segue, I'm going to take a little pause from that story and tell you another story is I have been working out harder, harder, harder, lifting heavier weights at the gym. And I was talking to my son about it. He goes, What are you doing? Tell me everything. And so I was telling him, and he goes, Well, how much weight are you increasing, like, every month? And I kind of was like, Oh, I don't I don't really know what. He goes, what he goes, What do you mean? You don't know. And I told him, I go, well, first of all, I don't wear my glasses at the gym, so I really cannot see very well. And he's just looking at me like, What? And I'm like, so there's an excuse, right? I'm working at the gym. I can't really see very well, so I can't see to log something in my phone. I have a hard time logging something in my phone. Of course, you and I both know that's totally an excuse. But I said, I can't really see on my phone. And he goes, so then, what do you do when you go up to a machine that you use, when you do legs and you go up to that certain hip thrust machine? And he goes, what do you do? And I say, I just think to myself, like, what, what seems like hard to for me today, like, I know I have to work hard. My son has taught me that I know I have to work hard, and I know that things don't change if things don't change, but I'll just put on what feels hard, and then I'll do a few reps and say, does, how does that feel? And he just said, No. And I'm like, What do you mean no? And he was no. He was mom, if you want to keep building muscle and keep gaining strength, you have to track how much weight you are putting on, how much weight you're lifting, so you can continue to lift heavier. So whether that be heavier weights, more reps, maybe you're going to change that up. He goes, but you can't. He goes. You're putting so much energy into this already. You need to do this next thing. And I had the thought that my client, when I sat there and I said, I have a feeling you're having a thought I'm already doing so much. And I had that thought, and I said to my son, I just feel like I'm already doing so much. And he goes, Yeah, so now you're ready for this. And he goes, give me your phone. And I just was obedient. And I he he downloaded an app for me, and he said, This is how you're going to track your weights, and you're going to see progress. He goes, within even a few weeks, you are going to be so proud of yourself that you're going to go, oh my god, I really am strong. I'm feeling stronger. I'm lifting heavier. And he goes, and it's going to make your time at the gym more efficient, because, yes, I agree with you. You're putting in effort, but you're not getting as big of a bang for your buck. And so this is what I actually told my client this story, and this is what I said to her, I know you're working so hard, but you're leaving money, not really money, but you know what I mean? We're leaving money. We're leaving effort on we're leaving progress on the table by not tracking. And so for most of my clients, when I tell them it's time to track. Some of them will do it, but some of them won't. They're busy. They feel like they're doing well already. They feel like they're making progress. They don't really want to. They mean to, and then they don't. And so it had been a few weeks of me saying, hey, I want you to track. I want you to track. And so finally I told her this week, you are tracking like I'm not allowing you to not we laughed about it. So she went on her merry way, and she came back to the call next week, and right when she popped up, I could see her energy was totally different. And I said, Tell me everything. And she said, You're not going to believe it. I said, I probably will. And she said, I lost four pounds in a week. So she had had a few weeks of plateau, and then she lost four pounds. And I said, How are you doing that? And she said, Well, I finally tracked, let's just take a moment. This is one client, but I could probably tell the stories of 20 clients that have had this exact experience. And she goes, I wish I would have listened to you five weeks ago. And I said, Yeah, I get it. And I said, and I told her, I said, I'm going to be a little tougher on my clients from now on, and I'm putting a stake in the ground for any of my clients right now, I'm coming. I'm coming after you. I'm going to be a little bit more forceful with my coaching and with my insistence on tracking, because we let shenanigans get in the way. We let. Excuses get in the way. We let our resistance to feeling like, Oh, I'm doing one more thing, and then I'm feeling frustrated that I'm having to do one more thing. I said to her, was it worth it? And she's like, Oh, my God, of course it was worth it. And I said, why was it so powerful? And so she went through my process of tracking through curiosity, and it really also we broke down her macros. So if you don't know what that means, what that means is it was, it isn't just calories in and calories out, calories in and calories out, is a very antiquated thought about our food and what we eat and how all works. When you track your macros, basically what you're doing is you're putting your food in, and it breaks down how much of that food is protein, how much of that food is fat, and how much of that food is carbohydrates. It matters. I'm not going to break down the science of it to you right now, but it matters, right? You can get 1500 calories of French fries and only eat french fries during the day, and your body is not going to respond well. Your body is not going to feel well, you're not going to be proud of yourself, but when we really put in food, and we see the breakdown of the macros, we see how much of that, let's say you did eat french fries all day, how much of that is protein, how much of that is mostly all fat and carbohydrates, we realize that it's not just about calories in, calories out. It's about the quality of our food. It's about the quality of our protein. It's about how we feel and how it affects our weight loss and our sleep and our skin and all the things. So my client went through my tracking from Curiosity process, and she was like, I wish I would have done this five weeks ago. And I said, What did you learn? And she said, I learned that I think that I was kind of resistant to doing it because I've been lying to myself about how good I've been eating, and so many clients have said this to me now they're not actively lying to themselves. This is all subconscious. It's like I'm resistant to tracking because I have a subconscious knowing that I am not eating as good as I can eat, and again, going back to and I'm already eating better than I have been. So it's like, Please God, don't tell me I have to eat even better. But we need to be radically honest. We need to take ownership of what we're putting in our mouth. We need to take ownership of our bodies. We need to take ownership of our lives. So she learned a beautiful lesson. And I said, Are you going to keep tracking? And she goes, Oh, hell yeah, I'm going to keep tracking. One of the first things I tell my clients is, this is not a three month program of tracking. This is not I don't track very often. When you track from Curiosity, you track for a few days, you track for a few weeks. I just actually got done when I did my group coaching program in June. It was called ready for change. One of the goals I set for myself was to track my food every day, because I hadn't tracked in a while, and I just wanted to really get back to basics. How am I doing? Am I getting enough protein? Am I getting the right amount of fat? Am I getting the right amount of carbs? And I really saw a lot. I had a lot of aha moments in the month of June, and now that the month of June is over, it's a month and a half later that Aha, that knowledge that I gained has stuck with me. I now go throughout my day, and I make more aligned choices because of the awareness that I got by tracking my food. And let me just say something right now about tracking is when you track your food, you track every single lick, bite, sip now, and you might say, well, it's really hard in a tracker, especially if you cook. Yes, it is. It's really hard if you just have a lick or something. Yes, it is, do your best. That's my little coaching for you. Do your best. Is what I tell my clients. Do your best. It can be harder if you make a big salad and you olive oil and vinegar and what, and you're like, how many nuts did I get? How much of that hard boiled egg did I get? How much you have to estimate and do your best. And I always overestimate. If I think I probably got a teaspoon, I maybe will put two teaspoons in, just to be as radically honest as possible. So when we're talking about tracking from Curiosity, this isn't just about food. This is about any area of your life that you want to make progress. You can be tracking your steps. You can be tracking your alcohol, you can be tracking your routines, you can be tracking your habits, you can be tracking your sex life. Like anything that you want to improve on. Tracking is such an amazing tool to get better in that area, and there is research supporting the fact that we all think we are doing better than we are. We think we're getting more steps. We think we're eating better, we think we're drinking less. We think we are saying, I love you more. We we think that we are doing better than we are. It's interesting because human beings are biased to the. Negative, but when it comes to proclaiming or admitting to what we are doing, for some reason we have like, rose colored glasses. I don't know why that is, but there is research that supports that. They've done research studies showing that people just say that they're doing better than they are. And I don't think it's necessarily just to our doctors that we're saying this, I think we're telling ourselves we're doing better than we are. And when you're tracking, it can be so powerful because it allows you to be radically honest. Here's another reason why tracking is so powerful. When you track, you are going to fail, and then you get the opportunity to ask yourself, why? One of the beautiful things in my program, I'm always telling my clients is we are going to get you in your best health, best weight, best routines and habits ever, and we're going to do it not perfectly. So you're going to mess this up, and when you mess up, we are going to talk about it. We are going to figure out why you messed up. And there is so much awareness that comes when you mess up. So let's say, for example, that you decide that you're going to start tracking your steps, and maybe you have an Apple Watch brilliant. So you decide you're going to start tracking your steps, and then all of a sudden you look and you're like, Oh, I didn't get my steps today. So what most people do is that they immediately go, it's fine, I'll just get them tomorrow, and they immediately don't want to look at it. But what you're missing out on is the opportunity to change your thoughts and change your mindset around the way you're living. What does this look like? This looks like you saying, huh? I've been telling myself I was gonna get 7000 steps a day today I got five. Well, first of all, what happened? And from a place of not like you're an idiot, we knew you would do this, right? A lot of you are talking to yourself horribly, so be on the lookout for that. And if you talk to yourself horribly, say, Oh, we're not doing that anymore. So let's just get curious. Why? What happened? Oh, I had said I was going to go for a walk in the morning, but then when I woke up, I realized that I had hit snooze a few times, and then I didn't have time. So again, instead of going it's no problem, it's no problem, I'll do better tomorrow. Say, wait a minute, that might happen again. How can I do better? Why was that such a problem for me? Why did I hit the snooze button? How can I prep myself to actually do better tomorrow and then try to do better tomorrow, and then maybe you're going to mess up again, huh? Is this important to me? Do I want to do this? If it's important to me, why do I keep not giving it my attention? These kind of conversations with ourself, we get so much depth of our own knowing from these conversations. I know that sounds very heavy, but like we were able to really go is this important to me? It is important to me, but why do I keep not doing it, and how can I do better. How can I set myself up to win? What needs to happen? Is there another time of day, right? And then you can say to yourself, this is some things that I've had a lot of clients find is that they'll have a friend that claims that they're very healthy and that talks about how they're wanting to be healthy. They're wanting to move more, they're wanting to lose weight, all these things. And every time they hang out with their friend, their friend ends up ordering extra drinks, ordering dessert, deciding not to go for a walk, let's just go to lunch. And they find themselves going, Okay, I'm tracking my progress and maybe food, maybe exercise, but I'm finding every time I hang out with a certain friend, I think everything's gonna go well, because she talks the talk, but I'm finding she doesn't walk the walk, so then I'm not making progress when I'm with her. Doesn't mean we ditch this friend. In fact, if anything, we energetically, need to love on this friend and go, Oh, I get it. This is hard. Maybe you need to be strong for the both of you. Maybe you need to go into that going, Okay, I'm tracking my food. I don't want to have a glass of wine at lunch, and she's saying she's not going to but then she's, I know her, and she's going to be like, let's just do it. Let's celebrate or whatever. And I need to be prepared, because I love her and I want to be with her. I need to be prepared to be strong. I need to see that that obstacle is is coming. So when you track you're able to look back and look at all your failures and do better. And I know you're probably sitting there going, this makes so much sense. Of course it does, but I promise you that when you do it, you will start getting good at it. You will start tracking and then messing it all up and then getting back on track even faster. By being curious, you will also realize the importance of imperfect consistency. I used to be very hot and cold with everything I would do really well with my eating for a few days. And then I would be like, Ah, fuck it. And then I would just be like, i This doesn't matter. And then after a few days of that, I would get back on track, because I felt so horrible. Horrible. I felt horrible in my mind. I felt horrible in my body. And so I get back on track. Same thing with the gym. I was so hot and cold, I'd go good for a week at the gym, and then something would come up, and then I'd fall off, and then I have to get back at it. And I was constantly getting back at it. But I think when you realize you can be imperfectly consistent, you're not getting back, you're just maybe taking a day off, or taking a weekend off when you have covid, or we, uh, take it, you know, you hurt your wrist, so you're not doing arms for a few weeks, but you're still imperfectly consistent, because we don't have to be perfect. Tracking will help you see this. Tracking also allows you to celebrate your wins and to really be proud of yourself, and it also helps you hold yourself accountable. And when you can start holding yourself accountable, you can really change your self concept. You really start having thoughts like, I'm doing this. Oh my god, I'm doing this. This is amazing. I think I could do even more. And so one of the most beautiful things with my client this week when she came on and say, oh my god, I lost four pounds. I'm so excited. I wish I would have done this earlier. I said to her, when I mentioned and I really said to you, hey, I'm insisting you track this week. I could tell you didn't want to do it, right? We all don't want to do it. And I said, But now you've up leveled to a woman that tracks and sees her progress, can call herself out on her own bullshit, can understand herself at a deeper level. Now you're going to start really understanding the macros. You're going to start understanding, oh, I'm going to up my protein. How can I do that without getting more fat? Because a lot of times what people are doing when they're upping their protein, their protein, this is just something I see with a lot of my clients, is you up, and with myself, is you up your protein then, and that oftentimes ups your fat. So then you say to yourself, Okay, how can I up my protein without getting more fat? This is an experiment. This is the work. And I said to her, you allowed yourself to be a little exhausted with the thought of it. And are you glad she goes, Yes, I'm so glad I go, this is your up leveling. And I said, and next time something happens where I ask you to do more, or you have a son like mine who says you need to do more, you're capable of more. You're going to be able to look back and say, You know what? I'm kind of feeling like, I'm doing a lot. I kind of feel like, Oh, why do I have to do more? You don't have to do more. Do you want to do more to go to your own next level? And every time you've done more, you've been happy with it. I look at the times in my life when I felt like I was doing all the things and I couldn't do more, and then I did do more, and now I've increased my capacity for the kind of woman I am. I've increased my capacity for what I can lift in terms of heavy weights. I've increased my capacity for being able to go to a wedding and have an amazing time and not have any alcohol. I've increased my capacity for going and dancing sober. I've increased my capacity for camping and not necessarily having a smore every night or doing things differently. And now it's okay. And now not only is it okay, but now I'm having the time of my life, and my life gets more and more exciting the way the better I feel in my body, the more empowered I feel, the more control I feel with all of it, I'll tell you, I think I might have talked about this on the podcast, but I have, like, pretty bad acid reflux. Is something I've been dealing with for a few years, and first of all, I'm grateful that that's what I'm dealing with. So that's number one. I'll take it right. I'm grateful to be dealing with that, but my doctor told me about a year ago, like, go off coffee. And I remember feeling like I went off coffee, and I was just frustrated, like, this isn't fair. I eat so healthy, I drink so healthy. I don't even put cream on my coffee. Why should I have to give up coffee? Poor, poor me. I'm so, like, such a victim type of thing, right? But that was part of the process, and then I did give up coffee. And then I remember my husband saying, you know, I think it's not only coffee. I think you need to give up caffeine. And the same thing happened, I thought. And I think I even said to him, Are you fucking kidding me right now? Now I have to give up caffeine. And I have not all the time, but most days I don't drink any caffeine. And I remember having this whole This isn't fair. I'm doing so much already. And I remember sitting and I was journaling one morning. This was actually just a few months ago. Is journaling one morning, and I journaled and I said, it's really hard to go to the gym at five o'clock in the morning or six o'clock in the morning when I don't have, like, a buzz from some some caffeine. And I thought, and I wrote down I said, this is my upload. This is my next up leveling. Can I become a person who can go to the gym with no caffeine in my system? And if you don't drink caffeine, you're probably thinking, what's the big deal? But if you do drink caffeine, girl, you know. What I'm talking about. So this, and I thought, I there's a part of me that's like, this isn't fair, but then there's another part of me that's like, but you know what, if this is going to help my acid reflux, is this is going to help my overall health, then this is something I want to do. And I'll tell you total side note, going off mostly caffeine. I just have a little bit of caffeine. And when I do, I have it like I try to have it before 11 o'clock, but most days I'm not having caffeine. And I'll tell you one area that's been surprising, that it is so improved for me, is my sleep. I have always whenever I've had caffeine, I've had it before one o'clock in the afternoon, but even now, I've scaled that back to 11 o'clock in the morning, and I am sleeping so much better, and I've always been a pretty good sleeper anyways, but I think it's the caffeine. So again, I'm gonna say to myself the same thing I said to my client, is it worth it? Hell yeah, it is worth it. Am I getting amazing workouts in the gym, even though I'm not caffeinated? Hell yeah. And I'm not doing any of that pre workout. I'm not doing anything. I'm literally eating healthy, resting my body, managing my mind, and I feel better than ever. So I want to encourage you as your homework, to track. If you are in my program, and we are starting this week, we are going to be tracking strap in sooner than later, and it is going to be frustrating and empowering and enlightening and amazing, and it is going to be part of your up leveling, and that is for my advanced group as well. I know you guys have done all the tracking, and you might think that maybe we're not going to do that, but we are. I we're going to track in some capacity to get you to your own next level. So this is the work being able to look at your progress and track and say, Am I doing what is important to me? Am I putting myself as a first priority in my life? Am I willing to track to see my progress, to be radically honest with myself. This is the work, so I suggest it. Let me know. Email me and let me know. Email me. Let me know that you've listened to this podcast and let me know how it goes for you. I would love, love. Love to hear. I love hearing from women who listen to the podcast and who are feeling like it's really improving their life. It means, it means so much to me. So have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently and feel confident and at peace around food, I invite you to head to Courtney Gray coaching.com to learn about how to work with me. I work with women privately, one on one, and I also offer small group coaching. There is a link to my website in the show notes you.