What You Think You Need to Lose Weight V/S What You Actually Need

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 In this episode, I’m talking about something I see all the time with women who want to lose weight.

We think we need one thing in order to finally lose the weight… but what actually creates lasting change is something completely different.

If you’ve ever thought, “I just need the right plan and then I’ll finally do it,” this episode is for you.

So many women believe they need more discipline, a stricter diet, or the perfect food plan. But those things are often the very things that keep us stuck in the cycle of starting over.

In this episode I talk about:

• The common things women believe they need in order to lose weight
• Why those things often keep us stuck in the cycle of starting over
• The difference between temporary weight loss and permanent lifestyle change
• Why lasting change has more to do with your mind than your meal plan

This is something I struggled with for years, and it’s something I now see in so many of the women I work with.

When we start focusing on the real work that creates lasting change, everything about weight loss becomes more sustainable—and honestly, a lot more empowering.

Courtney

Currently, I work with women privately and in my monthly membership.  Click HERE to head to my website to learn more.

Transcript

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Steve, welcome to modern body, modern life, the podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong and confident, inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desire seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for everything else, your relationships, your confidence, your joy, because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 122 what you think you need in order to lose weight versus what you actually need in order to lose weight. And as always, whenever I'm talking about weight loss. I'm talking about sustainable, permanent habit, changing lifestyle, uplifting, feeling in control weight loss. So that's what we're going to be talking about today. It is Sunday night, and I'm excited to be recording this podcast for you. My husband and I just spent a glorious weekend in Cal Poly visiting our son and his darling girlfriend in college, and we got to go to the beach. And I actually was so glad that I went. I wasn't originally going to go. I was just going to spend the day walking and working out and shopping and doing all that. But all three my husband, my son and his girlfriend were going to go surfing. And I'm like, You know what? I'm going to walk the beach. I'm not a surfer, and the water was just too cold for me, so I'm like, I'm gonna walk the beach. And I didn't even really know how warm it was going to be, so I brought my bikini, but I was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and my ears were covered and tennis shoes all that. And after they got out of the water, they started kind of laying there. I'm like, Are you guys, like, because it was beautiful, so I'm like, Are you guys going to just lay around for a little bit? And they're like, yeah, it's such a beautiful day. So I went in the so I went in the car, popped my bikini on, and came back and just walked the beach. And it was so cool because as I was walking the beach in my little bikini, no phone, no flip flops, I didn't even bring a hat. Don't tell my sister, she's like, a sun sun hat person, and I was just loving the sun on my skin and just feeling like I remember there was a time when I was feeling really insecure being in my bathing suit on the beach. I don't think it ever got to a point where I didn't wear my bathing suit, but I would be in my bathing suit. And there were times when I thought, I'm not going to just walk in my bathing suit. Like I would have been like, that's a no, especially since it was only a little bit over 70, so it wasn't that hot out there. So most people were walking around. There was a lot of people walking the beach, but I probably only saw two other women out of the 100 people I passed that were wearing bathing suits. Everyone else was just wearing athletic wear. And I was like, hello everyone. And I was just wearing my bikini, and it just felt so good to feel like here I am out here, not worried about a thing, feeling so good in my skin, knowing I'm not perfect, not caring a bit, not thinking and worrying about any of it. It just felt so good. And that is what I want for you as well. March is a very exciting month around here because enrollment is open for my modern change program. It is a program for 10 women. It's a small group of 10 women to work with me for three months to learn the emotional and mindset tools in order to feel in control of your eating so you can lose weight in a sustainable way. And in honor of open enrollment, I am hosting a free live workshop over zoom, and the workshop is one of my most popular workshops I have ever done. I do this workshop about two times a year. I teach it live over zoom. It's called, get control of your eating, and it is my most well attended workshop. And this workshop really is for women who want to lose weight permanently without going on another diet. It's for women who are tired of feeling out of control with their food and their eating, and it's for women who kind of go back and forth, like I used to for so long, where they'd be like, Oh my god, I really need to lose weight. Oh my god, summer's coming. I really need to do better. And then they just get to a point in their day where they're like, You know what? I don't want to deal with this. I'm going to start again tomorrow, that vicious cycle. So after this workshop, you really are going to understand why this has been such a problem for you, and understanding is always the first step. So many women tell me when they come to my workshops and webinars and trainings that they feel like I'm in their head, which is what I want them to feel like, because I want them to realize, Oh, my God, she's right. This is why this is such a problem. I'm going to be teaching my three step process so you can regain control in the moment, like in front of the cocktail or in front of the bed bread basket, or my favorite, in front of the basket of chips. You're going to learn how to identify your personal triggers and really create a clear. Plan on how to manage them, and then always, of course, you're going to understand the mindset shifts that have to be happening for you in order to be consistent with your eating, in order for that to finally be possible. And what I really teach in this workshop is how to stop starting over and starting over and starting over and create lasting change. And this is a lifestyle change. This is a you, changing you in the best way possible. So then you can go into summer feeling like, oh my god, I finally feel in control. But here's what I want you to know when you understand how to feel in control of your eating and have an urge and be able to sit with that urge for something and actually not eat it, and then be really proud of yourself after this isn't just you going into summer feeling like you're in control. It's you feeling like you're in control when fall comes, when winter comes, like really and just building and building and building on these skills of being able to trust yourself and be in control of yourself and your life. So at the end of the workshop, I'm also going to be sharing all the details of my modern change group coaching program. And so if you have been interested, if you're following along, if you've gone to my little sales page and you're like, Ooh, I think I might want to sign up, then definitely come to the workshop so you can hear me talk. And I've created an even longer space to have this workshop, so at the end, I can answer any questions. You'll be able to talk with me on the chat, over the chat, and on my workshops and any my webinars and trainings. When you come on to watch me, you're not going to be on camera. You're just going to be watching me, and you're going to bring a pencil and paper, and you're going to really dive into your own mind and your own habits and what has worked and mostly, really, oftentimes, what has not worked for you in the past and under understand yourself at a deeper level. So my workshops are extremely powerful. Get ready to learn. Get ready for some for some mind blowing from my workshop. So I hope you'll join me on March 19. There will be a replay if you can't come live, but coming live is the most transformative experience, of course. And last thing I'll say is, if you've been to this workshop before, I always am coming in hot with new examples, new teachings, new new ways of speaking. So I've had, I had two women say, I've already been to this one. Do you think I should come again? Hell yes, you should come again. Definitely come and join me. You will absolutely love it. And so let's dive into the podcast. So this podcast, again, is called what you think you need in order to lose weight versus what you actually need in order to lose weight. And all of these that I'm going to go through, I believe there are six of them. These are my story, but these are also so many of my clients stories. And so I'm going to dive right into really what I think people think they need when they when they want to lose weight, they think they need these things. And sometimes thinking they need these things is actually what is keeping them from losing weight permanently. So let's dive in. Number one, women think they need a complete diet, cleanse, redo, overhaul of their eating. Another way of saying this that I hear often, and I used to say this to myself, is they need, like, a kickstart. But it's not just a kickstart where they want to drop weight quickly, but it's this, this idea that, like, it has to be this radical, intense, I'm giving up all flour, all sugar. Maybe you're like, I'm giving up all meat, maybe like, I'm giving up all cholesterol, I'm giving up all alcohol. It has to be this huge, like, complete overhaul of your eating. And I think the reason we slip into this is, first of all, all these reasons, is kind of what is kind of what is presented to us from the diet and industry. It's usually what what we have been shown as the path for weight loss in the past. But I also think it's because we really are tired of feeling discouraged. I think we're tired of not fitting into our clothes. We're tired of going back and forth, like do we need to buy new clothes? We're tired of giving up on ourselves over and over and over again, only to then say, no, no, we really want this. No, we really don't care. We're tired of the cycle of planning and promising and giving up. And I think that we really feel like we want to change so when we are passionate about that change that we want to make in those moments, we think we need a complete overhaul. We think we need to do something drastic in order to really create lasting change, because we have not been able to create it in the past, and oftentimes the only times we have been able to lose weight is when we have done these things, when we have literally said, Okay, I'm not eating sugar the for the rest of my life. I actually done that before. I actually didn't eat chocolate one time for a full year. And so we get these like wild ideas of that it is. Going to take something drastic, because it's we have not had success in the past doing it any other way. So why is this not the way? Why is this kickstart, complete, diet, cleanse, redo, overhaul, overhaul, not what we need, because it's not sustainable. It really is that simple. When we go on any kind of restricted diet, any kind of all or nothing type of program, it's just not sustainable. It's not the way we want to live our lives. And so what do you actually need instead? You need an approach that fits into your life, you need an approach that makes sense for your life, one that feels doable. I had one woman one time when she started working with me, she goes, You know what? I just don't really like to cook. I've never been good at Food planning. I don't even like going grocery shopping. And so we started talking about helping her create, like a food plan. And she goes, okay, and she started planning out that she's going to create a food plan and go to the grocery store and start cooking. And I was like, Does this sound real to you? Like, do you does this seem sustainable? Do you want to be a person that cooks? She's like, not really. And I go, then we need to find another way. We need to find a way that's going to be sustainable for you. And she and it was so interesting. I remember when I said this to this woman, she actually went, Oh God, that actually Sure. Her whole body kind of took a sigh of relief. And I go, Yeah, yeah, we need this to work for you. And she said, Well, I think I was thinking that I have heard you say you love to cook. I've heard you say that you have recipes sometimes you share with your clients, and I said, Yes, for sure, but if you don't love to cook, I don't want you to try to be like me in this way. I want you to try to be your best version of you. And what does that look like? Does that mean buying meals that have already been pre made? Does that mean signing up for something like a hello fresh or some one of those food programs and just getting yourself to eat better. And really what it is too from for so many of us, is it's not what to eat. It really is what not to eat. Am I right? Can you think that so so often women, this is going to be one of the next ones I talk about, but so often women will say, like, just tell me what to eat, and I'll eat it. I'm like, that's just not true, because no one ever says, you know, dive into pretzels at 10pm no one ever says, have two bowls of cereal that's never on anyone's food plan. It's the shit we're eating off of the food plan. That's the problem. We need to get you eating in a way that you want to live, not in a way that is completely restricted for 30 days or for three months in my program, my three month modern change program, we help you create a food plan that works for you in your life, whether you're vegetarian, whether you intermittent fast, whether you don't really love meat, whether you want to focus on protein, whether you want to focus on fiber, whether you need to drink more Water, or you need to stop drinking diet coke, whatever it is we need to do what's going to create the life that you the like the body and life that you want for you, that is what is going to help you create a new way of living and eating and moving your body. So let's dive into number two, what you think you need to lose weight so often, women think they need a food plan. Again, women, I've heard them say it so many times to me, just tell me what to eat. And I used to feel this way too, and sometimes especially right now, with so much information available to us, so much information that is, information that is conflicting. It can be a little bit confusing. You have one friend, you'll say to her, wow, you look really great. What are you doing? I'm not eating any meat. Oh, amazing. Then you talk to one friend, what are you doing? I'm intermittent fasting. Then you talk to another friend, well, I'm doing Noom. Well, I'm doing this. I'm doing that. We think that if we find the right food plan for us, it is going to unlock some magical weight loss that is like, Oh my God. When I finally found this thing, it was the answer. This might be the biggest weight loss Lie we tell ourselves. And unfortunately, so many people are searching, searching, searching for the perfect food plan, for the perfect recipe, for the perfect breakdown of macros, for the perfect like, tell me exactly how much protein to eat for the perfect. Like, prescription and I always say you, if you've listened to the podcast before, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you've probably heard me say, if this were the case, we would all just need nutritionists. That would be the answer for all of this. A nutritionist says, Here's what to eat. Oh, I didn't know. Perfect. Thank you for telling me, but it's not the answer, because I can't tell you how many women have come to me and they've said, I've hired a nutritionist. She tells me what to eat. But the problem. Problem is I'm in the pantry at eight o'clock at night, or the problem is I do great until I go out with my girlfriends, or I do great until I go on vacation, or I do great until I'm on my period. So it's not about the food plan. A food plan only teaches you how to eat while you're on the food plan, so what you actually need is to create your own food plan of eating better, but having it be doable. What you actually need is to build self trust around the fact that you can create a food plan that makes sense for you and your likes and dislikes and your lifestyle, and learn how to eat that food plan. That is what you need. It's really not about the food plan. It's your ability to eat any food plan you decide to eat. That's where your power is. Number three, accountability. Now accountability is an awesome thing. I have many women that one of the reasons they join my program is, one of the many reasons is because they really want the accountability. But many women think they need this because they don't trust themselves. But what you actually need is to become accountable to yourself. What you actually need is to become a woman that trusts herself to eat in a way that aligns with her body and life goals. And so in the beginning, accountability with a group or with a program can be great, or maybe even a partner can be great. But really what needs to happen is you need to learn to trust yourself. You need to learn to say, this is what I want to do, and I trust myself to do it because I understand my mind, I understand my triggers, I understand my emotions. I understand what often gets in the way for me. I'll tell you one thing that has been so transformative for me is to have the ability to be navigating my day. You know, good things happen in our day, bad things happen in our day, frustrating things happen in our day. And I now know sometimes I will feel emotions or things will happen, and I will be able to go, whoa. Watch it. Courtney. You know this is a trigger for you when you learn to be accountable to yourself in one area of your life that ends up transferring to other areas of your life. So often, when I'm working with women, they'll be like losing weight, feeling in control around their food, and then they'll come on a call and say, I have just been getting so organized in my house. I just have been telling myself for six months now that I'm going to clean out the closets in the hallway, and I finally just did it, and they'll tell me what I'm learning from you I'm applying to every area of my life. Yes, that is the beauty of this work. When you learn to hold yourself and be accountable to yourself in one area, you learn the skill of doing that, and it transfers to other areas of your life. It is a beautiful thing. So yeah, we think we need accountability, and we do need accountability, but we don't need accountability from outside of us. We need accountability from inside of us, and that is a skill you can learn. It is a beautiful, empowering skill to learn. Number four, one of the things we think we need to lose weight is food tracking and weighing our food. Now, there is nothing wrong with food tracking and weighing our food, but thinking about having to do that often is so exhausting to people that it stops them from even wanting to go down the weight loss path again. They're like, Oh my God, please don't tell me I'm gonna have to track my food. Oh my food. Oh, my God, please don't tell me I'm gonna have to weigh my food. And it literally almost sometimes brings up, like, PTSD, like, like, legit, like, small trauma responses from some people, because they have done this so long. I cannot tell you how many women have told me that they literally learn to track their food, sometimes even weigh their food, like, as early as, like, elementary school from their moms. It's wild. And so when all of a sudden they're ready to lose weight again, they're like, it's the only way I know how is to track my food away my food, especially since when you're online, following a lot of these, especially like the fitness influencers they talk about, yeah, the only way to really know is to track your food and tracking and weighing. There's nothing wrong with it. I've done a podcast on the beauty of tracking anything you want to get better at. But you do not need a full every single day tracking and weighing every single thing throughout the the lifetime of your weight loss process. You just don't you really can make progress just by being a better eater, a better version of yourself. So this one stops people from even attempting to lose weight, because they've done it, and then they've gained the weight back. So instead of tracking all your food and weighing. All your food as a way of losing weight permanently, is what you really need. Is you need radical honesty, being able to really tap into that very intelligent woman that you are, and the ability to track and weigh sometimes in order to increase your awareness. I have weighed very rarely. I'm actually that's not true. I have never weighed my food. I don't even own a weighing scale. I have measured my food as a more accurate way of saying this, I have measured my food from time to time, just to get a little bit okay, what is, what does you know, 1/4 cup of chocolate chips really look like? Or, what does one cup of cottage cheese really look like? Every once in a while, I have done that, and in my program, we do a week of tracking your food to really understand your macros and your proteins and your carbs, to gain awareness. But tracking and weighing and measuring throughout your whole weight loss process is just not necessary. In addition to radical honesty and increasing your awareness by occasionally tracking and weighing, you really need to have the willingness to get curious about your eating. That is what is going to help you do better and better and better. Number five, support at home, and this is either someone who you live with or someone who you are best friends with that you see, often, a partner, a family member, so often people believe that in order to lose weight, they need a support system, and while it does sometimes make it easier. A support system in any area of our life is lovely, and while it does sometimes, sometimes make it easier, I will argue that sometimes it actually makes it harder. After a while, let me tell you what this looks like. So often I will have clients tell me that they are excited to join my program, excited to work with me, and then they'll kind of say, you know, my husband is actually really husband is actually really excited too. He's listened to your podcast before, and I've told them all about you. And he says hello, by the way, and you know, this kind of stuff, and he wants to lose weight too. And I always say, amazing. And I will, I will tell them, let him watch the videos in the portal. Let teach him everything you're learning. All of this can be applied to men. It is equally as helpful to men as it is to women, but sometimes the reason women feel that they want and need that support is because they feel like if the other person supports them, the other person is also going to be on their own health journey, which is going to make it easier for them to be on their health journey? Let's, let's break it down even more clear. If my husband isn't eating as much food, ice cream, isn't drinking as much, it'll be easier for me, like I want him, to do well, because then it'll make it easier for me to do well. And we can all kind of agree with this, right? If you're sitting at a restaurant and you're trying to not eat calamari, and your husband or partner orders calamari, it can be a little difficult. So yes, sometimes it can be wonderful if they're on board. But here's why, you don't need it. I have seen this happen very, many, many times where my clients are doing their thing, they're losing weight, they're feeling like this is starting to work. They are feeling like, Oh my God, I am understanding myself on a deeper level, and this is actually making my life better, amazing. And then all of a sudden, their husband starts having weak moments, because their husband really isn't in my program. Their husband says they're excited about this, but they're not doing the work. And so all of a sudden their husband is like, Hey, I'm making ice cream. Do you want some? Oh, hey, we're gonna go out and get this or that, can I get you something? So then, instead of it being a Hey, babe, we've got this, it turns into a they're doing their own thing, which they're not feeling really great about it, meaning they're not eating the way they really want to. And it would make it easier on them if you were also not eating the way you said you were going to. Often when someone wants to have some cake or wants to have another cocktail, if you also have another cocktail or have a piece of cake, it gives permission to them. So what I see oftentimes is women will come to me and they'll say, I've got a support system. I've got someone who's doing this with me. And I say, sometimes that's awesome, and sometimes it's not, and sometimes it's not, because when that person doesn't follow through on their end, it makes it harder sometimes for you to follow through on your end, because you're waiting and banking on their strength to give you strength. And here and this goes back to the accountability I want you to get your own strength. I. Want you to channel your own strength. I want you to feel empowered to do what's best for you and let everyone else worry about themselves. If you are going to only be able to eat in a way that serves your body and life, if your partner eats in a way that serves their body and life, we're putting a lot of pressure on them. We're banking our weight loss and our health on them. What I want for you is to be the example is to do what you want to do, and if they want to follow you, and if they want to be inspired by by you, amazing. But you're not waiting on them. You are accountable to you. How amazing does that feel when I was at the beach and I was getting ready to go for a walk, I said to my husband, I said, Hey, I'm going for a walk on the beach. Do you want to go with me? And he goes, Yeah, I'll go. And I could just sense he kind of said it in a way that was like he was doing me a favor. And I said, Hey, do you want to go? And he goes, I'm exhausted from surfing. And I said, Hey, I'm going either way, babe. So if you don't want to go, that's fine. I actually love being alone. So I was totally fine with it, and I went for a walk on the beach. I wasn't waiting for my husband to think a walk sounded good. I was doing what I want to do, and if anyone else wants to join me, you're more than welcome to join that's what I want for you. I'm not having dessert tonight. If you'd like to be inspired, feel free and be inspired. I'm making this for dinner. If you'd like to have some, I'll make sure to make some for you. But we're not waiting for other people to be on their best behavior, so then it helps us be on our best behavior. Makes sense. So you don't want to rely on someone else to follow through. In order to make it easier for you to follow through, what you really need to learn is how to support yourself, even if no one around you knows or cares about your goals, you care more than anyone. And can that be okay? I think so. Number six, one of the things that you might think you need in order to lose weight is a focus on what to eat and what not to eat. Again, back to just tell me what to eat so often that we think we need to know what to eat and what not to eat. But you have to remember the reason we are eating and not eating foods is so much more than just the food. It's all the emotions that we are either feeling or not willing to feel. It is all of the thoughts we have around food and why we celebrate, why we eat, why we grieve, why what we do with our stress, all of these things add up to why we eat and not eat. So when we just make any kind of weight loss goals focused on the food, when it's not really about the food, we don't fix the source of the problem. What you really need is to focus on your mind and your emotions and understanding why you're eating in the first place. This goes back to the podcast from last week. I talked a lot about understanding the real problem of why we eat. So this hyper focus on the food is not going to get you to where you are in a body that feels amazing. We need to focus on our mind in our emotions and understanding our habits, why we do what we do at a deep level. This is the work we do in my program, the modern change program, and this is also what I'm going to be teaching in my get control of your eating workshop. So I hope you will join me on March 19 for that workshop. So as we wrap up here, I want you to think, what do you think you need? Maybe one of these that I said resonated with you, but maybe there was something else I didn't cover that you might think, God, I really think I need this. Maybe you think I really need to know exactly how much protein to get right, but if it's not something inside of you, if it's not a change that is really going to change you and your thoughts and your emotions and your ability to go about your day with ease, why do you think that is what you need. Is it because society is telling you that's what you need? Is it because you have friends around you telling that's what you need? And I want you to take a moment and really think, what do I really think I need? Because you are an intelligent, educated woman, and sometimes we negate that. Sometimes we are always looking to outside of us to tell us exactly what we need, and usually it's the inner work that really fixes the source of the problem, especially when it comes to our habits. And eating is one of the biggest habitual things we do every single day that we have to do. I really hope this podcast. Has created some clarity for you as to what you really need to change you to create a body and life that is really sustainable, and not just fall back into old beliefs about what you need, like that have been possibly created from the diet industry. I promise when you change you and your daily habits and the way you think and feel. That is what makes any change that you want to make sustainable. If you loved this podcast, join me for get control of your eating workshop. It is going to be a good one on March 19, and the link is in the show notes, and you can head to modern body, modern life, calm to grab your spot. Have a great Tuesday for information on how we can work together. Head to modern body, modern life.com. To schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs you.