How to Have Fun and Still Lose Weight

In this episode, I’m talking about a belief that keeps so many women stuck...

The idea that you have to choose between having fun and losing weight. 

Click HERE to sign up for my Free Workshop to go deeper into How to Have Fun and Still Lose weight.

Every summer, I see women put their goals on hold because they tell themselves they'll focus on their health later... after vacation, after the long weekend, or after life settles down.

All because they feel like they are missing out if they are doing what it takes to lose weight.

But what if the women who are creating lasting results aren't choosing between fun and progress?

What if they're learning how to have both?

We talk about why so many women find themselves stuck in the cycle of "I'll start Monday," why vacations and celebrations often feel like a setback, and what it really means to enjoy yourself without abandoning yourself in the process.

Because true freedom isn't eating whatever you want and feeling frustrated afterward.

It's trusting yourself.

Feeling at peace around food.

Feeling confident in your body.

And knowing you don't have to start over every time life gets fun.

This episode will challenge the way you think about fun, weight loss, and what's actually possible for you.

Because the most fun version of you may just be the woman who enjoys her life... and still reaches her goals. 

Courtney

Transcript

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Paul, 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 desires 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: 0:39

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 136 How to have fun and still lose weight. How to have fun and still get in your best health ever. How to have fun and still eat better than you've been eating, and all the things that you truly desire for yourself. So, I see this every year, right around end of May. I've been coaching long enough that I see something happen, and I used to see this with myself. The first recognition is that this started happening with me. There is something that happens where all of a sudden, when we feel like, yes, we want to lose weight, yes, we want to eat better, yes, we want to all the things that we want, but then all of a sudden, when summer comes, it feels like it's not possible to have all the things, we feel like we can't have it all, we feel like we really need to choose between happiness and fun, and enjoying our life, and really, what, quote unquote, life is all about. For many of us, we think that, and making progress on our goals, and for that reason, what I see happening so often is because they have this belief that they can't have both, that they really give up their desires for themselves, they give up their goals, they tell themselves this isn't the right time, I'll do it later. And then, because of that, they're living in this constant state of not really experiencing the joy of living in their body, they're experiencing the peace of figuring out this whole eating thing without having to stress about it, without having to be perfect, and they create a whole long year of it never quite being the right time to eat better and to work out harder and to reach their goals, because that feels like they're missing out. Are you resonating with this? This is what I used to think so much, and for many women, what they do is they say, you know what, for the next two months I'm just not going to worry about this, which first of all, that doesn't happen, because they do worry about it, even if it's a subconscious, like low-grade worry. It's like I'm not going to worry about this, but then they kind of do, because they don't like how they look and they feel, and they don't like how they are thinking about food all the time, even though they tell themselves they're not going to worry, and then they tell themselves that once, like, the kids go back to school, or once summer is over, that they're gonna lock in, but then what often happens, and this happened to me for years, is the kids would go back to school, or fall would come, and they'd go back to work, whatever happened, summer would officially be over, and then it would be like, oh my god, I'm so exhausted, kind of from having so much fun, there's other things I need to do first, I really am so busy that I need to lock into these other things first, and then I'll start taking my true desire seriously. And then what happens is, well, but now the holidays are coming, and this is really hard to do around the holidays, so I think I'm just going to wait to the new year, and on and on and on, and for this reason I am coming in hot with a free workshop for you, and this free workshop is called How to Have Fun and Still Lose Weight. So, this podcast is going to be like a teaser, it's going to be like an entry level, and on the free workshop over Zoom, I'm going to be live teaching this at a deep level, what needs to happen in order for you to have both, and I promise you, you can have both. There is a link in the show notes, and there's also a link on my website. If you go to my homepage and scroll down, you'll see there's a link for you to sign up for this free live webinar. I would love to have you come, because I would love for you to feel like you really can have both. It is a lie that most women believe that they believe they have to choose between fun and losing weight, and not just fun, too. I know fun is kind of the easiest way to say this, but for a lot of people, they say, you know what, a life is supposed to be joyous, life is supposed to be about living in the moment, and I agree with that, but that doesn't mean that you have to be eating all the things and drinking all the things and not having any restrictions on yourself. Women think they can either have fun or they can lose weight. Women think they're either living life to its fullest or they're working on their fitness. They think they can enjoy their vacations and their dinners out and their wine nights and their ladies nights and their. Girls' trips and their birthdays, and all those things, or they can make progress, and I feel like people don't really say this out loud. That's why I, of course, am always the one to go first. I'm willing to say it out loud, but so many women are living from this belief, and that's what's keeping them from ever really fixing this area of their life, forever really making progress to a point where maybe you still have goals, but you're feeling like, oh, this is a sweet spot. Have you ever had the thought, I'm just going to enjoy myself on this vacation, I'm just going to enjoy myself, and then I'm going to get serious later. Very, very common, but the problem with that thought is every time we postpone our goals and our true desires, we reinforce the belief that weight loss and really health and enjoying your life cannot coexist. We really create evidence that we can't have it both, and then this is a cycle that goes on for years, and it's not like we're having so much fun in this cycle. It's not like we're actually doing it. It's not like we have the thought, I just really want to have fun, so I'm not going to worry about this now. And then we have fun, because unfortunately, we're living a life and a body that we know is not what we want. We know we're capable of more. We know that there is a problem to be fixed. We know that it shouldn't be this hard. So, what if the most fun version of you? What if living life to the fullest isn't just being the woman that eats and drinks whatever she wants? What if the most fun version of you, what if the most powerful way of living life is feeling confident, is feeling powerful, is feeling ease. What if it's you feeling comfortable in your clothes, not perfect in your clothes, but comfortable in your clothes? What if it's you not obsessing about food. What if it's you having one and not having two or three of whatever it is? What if it's you not negotiating with yourself all day? That's fun when you get to a place where you're not negotiating all day. That's fun. And what's really fun is not promising yourself you're going to start on Monday or after the long weekend or after your friends leave or after the wedding, whatever. This thought that we can't have both is just a lie that we tell ourselves. And I'll tell you what's available to you. What's available for you is to become a woman who goes on vacation, whether it's a long weekend or it's an official vacation, and you really enjoy yourself, you eat amazing food. You have dessert some of the time. You relax. You move your body. You create amazing memories. You connect with the people that you're with. You really stay present. You understand yourself at a deeper level. You make decisions and you stick to them. And then you come home and you feel proud of yourself, you're not feeling guilty, you're not feeling like you have to start all over because you're mad at yourself, you're not punishing yourself, you're not telling yourself you need to be good because now you've, you, you've been so bad, you don't tell yourself that you have to lose 10 pounds, you don't have to intermittent fast for three days, you don't have to go on a restrictive diet. You don't have to go on a cleanse from alcohol. You're not starting over. So that woman I just described is not having less fun than you. The woman I just described, who goes on vacation and does it differently, is not having less fun. She's actually having more fun because she's feeling comfortable when her picture gets taken, she's feeling in control, she's feeling like she's enjoying food, but she's not having to over enjoy food in order for it to be fun, she's trusting herself to do what she wants for her body and letting everyone else do what they want for their body, she's putting on her cute vacation clothes and feeling cute in her vacation clothes. So, let me ask you, is it actually fun to feel uncomfortable in every photo? Is it actually fun to spend the whole drive home or the whole flight home feeling disappointed in yourself and making plans to do better, because again you did so bad. Is it fun to have to tell yourself you have to start over again? Is it fun to be thinking about food and alcohol and making promises that you know are empty promises to yourself? So, maybe what we've been calling fun all along really isn't that fun, and I think for a lot of people, they sometimes push some of these negative things down. They tell themselves it's not a big deal. Again, they say life is meant to be lived. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is the way I really am going to enjoy myself. And then afterwards, some people don't sit in the mental whipping, they kind of push it down and go, this isn't a. Deal, this isn't a big deal, but I think if you're truly honest with yourself, you're not living in alignment. What I think women really want, this is what I wanted. I think they want freedom, I think they want confidence, I think they want peace, and I always say the peace isn't perfect. Your brain doesn't ever totally shut off. I talked about this in one of the calls with the women in my membership this morning. It would be so amazing if it gets to the point where your brain totally shuts off and does not make crazy suggestions to you. It doesn't like try to negotiate with you, it doesn't get you to try to change your plans. It would be so wonderful if we could shut it off forever in a healthy way, but that's just not the truth. But what you can do is make peace around it, and hear it, and go, oh, there it is, but that's okay. I knew that was coming. I think what women really want is to trust themselves to make a decision and stick to it, and to trust themselves that they can feel a little discomfort. You hear me talking about discomfort all the time. I love the fact that I can go somewhere and want something, and go, yeah, I kind of want that, and that's okay. Every time we go out with my husband and my kids, and we, if we get an appetizer, they love getting calamari. Now, I do love calamari, it tastes good, but first of all, calamari isn't helping me maintain what I've created or achieve any of my goals, and in addition to that, calamari hurts my stomach, so sometimes I'll make a decision, like, oh, I'm gonna have chips and salsa, or, oh, I'm gonna have dessert, or whatever, but calamari is one of those things where it's like a double-edged sword for me, because not only is it really, it's like an indulgence that isn't helping me stick with my goals, but it also hurts my stomach, so it's like a double-edged sword, and I have gotten really good at sitting there going, there's a part of me that feels like I'm missing out because I'm not eating this caliph, this calamari, and that's okay, that's how you have fun and still lose weight, realizing that, oh, this, my primitive brain is telling me that I'm missing out, but that's not true, because I'm going to be so glad when I go home tonight that I didn't have that calamari, I think what women really want is to feel good in their body before the vacation, during the vacation, and after the vacation. There is a mindset shift that changes everything, a story we can change in our lives, in our minds that changes everything when it comes to you and having fun and getting everything you want out of your body in life. There is a reason some women can still enjoy life and keep making progress. There are skills that they have that maybe you have yet to learn again. So I'm doing this free workshop, there is a reason why some women keep starting over and over and over, and you don't have to keep starting over and over and over. So, if you have ever felt this way, that you have to choose between having fun and losing weight, or having fun and getting stronger, or losing weight and getting healthy, whatever it is you want from you, you don't have to choose, and this, a mindset shift, a story shift, a self-concept shift, is what I'm going to be talking about in this free webinar. It is what is going to take you from feeling like, ah, to you feeling empowered, and from you feeling sometimes like you're the only one there that knows this mindset shift and that really understands it at a deeper level. It's almost kind of like imagine you at your next event, where in the past you would have thought, like, I'm missing out if I don't, if I don't eat and drink all the things. Imagine you in that moment, all of a sudden feeling like you were wearing blinders, and then you take the blinders off, and you see so much more clearly about what fun is really about, about what life is really about, and how you have so much more control, and so much more peace available to you, and so much more fun available to you than you thought in the past. This isn't about more discipline, and I don't believe the answer is giving up all your goals, and the answer isn't postponing your goals, and the answer isn't giving up the fun. It really is believing that you can have both, and I'm going to show you how. So, I know I'm coming in hot with this workshop. It is called How to Have Fun and Still Lose Weight, and it is very timely. It's very needed. I'm offering it for free. We're going to go deep, about an hour, maybe a little bit longer than an hour. This workshop is going to be on the 25th of June, and so join us. The link is in the show notes for you. The link is also at Modern Body Modern life.com And I think you're gonna walk away going, 'Huh, okay, let's do this differently. That's my, that's my intention for you. Oh, and I have one more thing to tell you. I can't believe I almost forgot this. In the Aligned Life membership, we have a focus every single month, and the focus for July is going to be balance - the balance between having fun and losing weight. Can you tell I'm on a roll with this? It's just such a needed topic right now. Out, so this is what we're going to be working on in the whole month of July. You reaching your goals, making progress on your goals, and having the most amazing, fun July ever. Doors are going to close to the Align Life membership at the end of the day, july 1. And here is why I want people to come in and join us, and then I want to just focus on coaching the women, loving on the women, helping the women in the group. So, if you would love to join us for the July Balance Aligned Life membership focus, I want to invite you to join us. That's also, you can head to Modern Body Modern life.com There's also a link in the show notes for the Aligned Life membership. So, every month it's so fun, we work on something new, and I really want to just get everyone who wants to be a part of it in, and then be able to focus on the women and not have to worry about selling more people into the group. So that is also coming up. So, if you have been thinking, hearing me talking about the Aligned Life membership, and thinking, I think I might want to do that, it's a great time to do it. And so, if you head to Modern Body, Modern life.com it gives you all the information on the workshop and aligned life membership, private coaching, you know, all the things. I hope you 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 I.