Why Weight Loss Starts With Who You Believe You Are

Most women think weight loss starts with food.

I don't.

I believe lasting weight loss starts with who you believe you are.

In this episode, I explain why your identity and self-concept shape your daily habits, why diets rarely create permanent change, and how becoming a different woman naturally leads to different choices. We talk about the stories you've been telling yourself for years, how your brain looks for evidence to support those beliefs, and how you can begin creating a new identity that supports the life and health you truly want. 

If you've ever told yourself, "I'm just not disciplined," "I always quit," or "I'll never be consistent," this episode will challenge you to think differently.

Because when you change who you believe you are... your habits begin to change too.

Enjoy!

Courtney

Grab a free copy of my Playbook "Take Control of Your Evening Eating" here: https://mailchi.mp/43700070f134/playbook

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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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

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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 140-one Why weight loss starts with who you believe you are. Now I know that for so many of you, and this used to be me as well. I really thought weight loss started with a calorie deficit. It was all about the food and how to eat less and how to eat the right things and how to figure out exactly the combination of things to eat and what not to eat and how much exercise and the certain all that. But I promise you, that's not where it starts. Weight loss starts with who you believe you are. We behave in ways that are consistent with who we believe we are. I'm going to say that again. We behave. The things we do and don't do are consistent with who we believe we are. We act in a way that is in accordance with our self-concept, with our identity. And by the end of this podcast, you are going to be nodding in agreement, like I can see it, Courtney. That's what I want for you. Is I want you to be like I can see it. So today, I want to teach you why weight loss really does start with who you believe you are, and this is really good news because we can change who we believe we are. We not only can change who we are, but we have to start by changing who we believe we are. What is possible for us? How we talk about ourselves, the way we think we are, what we're capable of, what we're all about. We don't just have habits. I think a lot of times we think that we just act in certain ways is just who we are, but what we really have is we have an identity, we have a self-concept first, and that dictates the habits we have. So most women think that they need better habits, and I think a lot of us do need better habits. And and I don't know about you, but as I even get better and better habits, I'm always trying to become a better version of myself. There's nothing wrong with wanting to uplevel our habits. We just need to make sure we realize we need to uplevel us and what we believe about us first, because habits don't exist in isolation. Habits don't just exist. That exist. They're they're an expression of who we believe we are. Let me give you an example. Someone might believe that they're just not a morning person, and what's going to happen if they have that belief is in the morning, even if they've told themselves, even if they've promised themselves that they're going to start getting up earlier, they're going to probably hit the snooze button, not because they're lazy, because they're acting consistently with who they believe they are. One of the things I always tell my clients is, is who we believe we are can be changed, which is a beautiful thing. It's not like we were born and right away the doctor looks and goes, "Oh, this baby, this baby's not not a morning person. Oh, and this one over here, this one is just always late. And oh, this one over here, this one just really struggles with sugar. Like we say these things as if it is just who we are, and when we do that, we are literally handing our power over to-I don't even know who we're handing our power over to. It's certainly not us. It's certainly not us. And let's give a more positive example. If we believe, like I'm a runner, I'm really good at running, right? We will always find a way to run, even if it's inconvenient, even if it's raining. So the behavior makes sense because of what you believe about yourself, because of your self-concept, because of your identity. This is why diets don't create the lasting changes you want for your body and life, a diet does not change how you see yourself in your everyday life. Now, a diet might change how you see yourself while you're going through it, and I especially see this in the longer diets. If you go on like a 45-day cleanse, or I did Whole 30 one time for like 45 days, and people who are doing like a 75 hard, when you're in that, or if you do like a, I'm not going to drink alcohol for 30 days. While you're in it, there's a little bit of a oh my god, I'm doing this. Like I'm, this is actually going really well. I feel so good. I'm so proud of myself. There's a little bit of a changing of who you believe you are. The only problem is if you are going to ever. Get out of that thing you're doing. If you're going to stop the whole 30, if you're going to start drinking again, if you're going to you know end the 70-five hard and then go back to your quote-unquote normal life, you're going to go back to your normal identity. So this is why, like the difference between what I teach in so many other programs is we get you eating and thinking and living in a way that will be your new normal, one that's not perfect, one that's not totally restrictive. And here is where we change your identity. So I want you to strap in for this podcast. It might be long, and it might be exactly what you need right now. Let me tell you what I'm so excited about. Doors are officially open for you to join us in the Aligned Life membership for the month of August. Our first call is August 5th, and the doors are going to close the night of August 5th, so we can coach and learn and support each other in this group for the month of August. So every month there is a different focus, different resources, different conversations happening in the membership, and the focus for August is becoming her. You know who this is, the 2.0 version of you that you know is already inside of you. It is it is the way you think about yourself. It's the way you feel on a regular basis. It's the little habits during the day that we tend to negate, but we know are making up a big part of our life. I really believe that we are always becoming something, and I want you to become the future version of you that delights you. For the month of August, I'm going to teach you how to get clear on who you want to become. Often we think things like I want to lose 20 pounds, and we really dive into this is what I want, and I need to eat this way and that way, and I'm mad at myself for the future. I'm mad at myself for where I am, and so I love that you might have a vision of like you want to lose a certain amount of weight, but in order to do that, we have to change who you're becoming. In order to change the action, like of eating better, moving more to be able to lose weight, we need to change who you are at your core. So for the month of August, we will spend time getting clear on who you want to become. Now you're amazing already, for sure, in so many areas. But when I say becoming her, it's in this one area of your life that you keep telling yourself, coming back to you, keep coming back to, telling yourself this is important. I want to lose weight. I want to get healthy. I want to move more. I want to get stronger. This becoming her in this area. I know that you're already amazing in so many other areas. The coolest thing that's going to happen is when you become her in this area, there is a ripple effect that you will see in every other area. Like the tide rises all boats, right? So we are going to get you clear on who you want to become. We are going to get you clear on how to identify with her every single day. We are going to get you acting as her even before you believe you are her, and we do this by creating evidence that you are becoming her. You might want to rewind it, but those are the things we're going to be working on in this in the month of August. So I would love to have you join us in the membership. When you join, you get access to the replays from all of the past calls. So our first call isn't until the fifth of August, but when you join, you automatically can start listening to the calls from July. In July, we've we talked about balance. The calls were absolutely amazing. You're going to get to know my coaching style at a deeper level. You're going to get to see and listen to the other amazing women in the group and kind of get the vibe of what we're doing here. And then by the time we even start on the fifth, you're going to be like,"Oh my God! You're going to be even more excited to be in in the membership. So automatically, when you join, you not only get the replays to the past calls, you also get access to the four courses that come with the membership: the weight loss course, the self-concept course, the habits course, and the managing your mind course, and all the resources and past resources, workbooks, and journals from past months. So head to modernbodymodernlife.com/membership and join us in the membership for $97 a month. You are going to love it here. So let's dive into why who you believe you are matters so much to weight loss and upleveling your health. Of course, I say weight loss. I'm always talking about upleveling your health. It's the same thing, right? Many of you want to lose weight. Many of you just want to feel stronger, healthier. Let's start with your brain. Your brain is always trying to keep you safe, which also means your brain is always trying to get you to stay doing what you've been doing. It's funny because a lot of times people will come to me and they will say, "I'm just not consistent. But you know, in a way, they are consistent. They're consistent in letting. Their brain take over and living in ways that don't serve them, so one of the things our brain loves is consistency. But it's consistency doing the same thing you've been doing, not the consistency of doing anything new, right? Your brain wants you to stay safe, wants you to stay stay reliable. Anything new to your brain says danger. We don't know what could happen here. Danger, right? So, if you believe, for example, that you're always someone who quits, what's going to happen is your brain is going to notice every time you quit. Our brain is always looking for evidence that what we believe is true, and if we tell ourselves, for example, that oh my gosh! I'm always someone who quits. It is going to notice every time you quit in the past, but it's going to ignore any of the times you've followed through. And so, why does this happen? Your brain is trying to keep your beliefs, your self-concept, your identity intact. Your brains are constantly collecting evidence to support what we already believe about ourselves, so this is why it matters for you to really know what do I believe about myself. You've probably heard me on the podcast talk before that I really discovered a few years ago that I really had this deep belief that I wasn't very smart. In some ways, I was smart, but there was this really like overarching theme that I wasn't very smart, and for years and years and years since sixth grade, my brain was always collecting evidence, looking for evidence that that was true. When something would happen where I was actually quite intelligent, quite smart, my brain would negate that. It'd be like, no, no, no, you have decided that you're not smart, so that is what we are going to prove true over and over. This is what feels safe. This is what feels normal. We don't need to start thinking anything different because I'll tell you what happened when I started going. Wait a minute, I'm I'm I want to change that around because that's no longer serving me now that I'm an adult, and I want to start believing I'm actually really smart. When I started believing I was really smart. I started taking bolder action in my life. I started doing things my way. I started voicing my opinion even more, if that's possible. I started doing things differently, and my brain was like, "This doesn't feel safe. This feels different. And remember, different equals danger. This is why change can feel so uncomfortable when you begin eating differently, or drinking less, or moving more, you're not just changing up your food, your alcohol, your movement. You're changing who you believe you are. So imagine

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imagine a woman who spent most of her life saying, "I have no willpower, and I've heard many people say, "I have no willpower. My parents had no willpower. I just I'm never motivated. All these type of things, right? And now all of a sudden, she let's say she joins my membership and she decides, okay, I have been telling myself I have no willpower. I have been telling myself these negative thoughts for so long, but you know what? I want to change the way I'm thinking about myself. I want to decide. I'm actually really good at making a decision and sticking to it, which is kind of the opposite of like I have no willpower. And let's say she starts like packing her lunch for work. She starts going on a walk. She starts getting up 20 minutes earlier and journaling for like five minutes. She starts like eating, like stopping eating before she's too full, what's going to happen is her primitive brain is going to be like, "What is absolutely happening? Like,"Whoa, whoa, danger, danger! What is happening? Not because what she's doing is wrong, because they're unfamiliar. She's acting in a way that is not aligned with her old way of thinking about herself. She's acting in a way that's not aligned with who she was. She's acting in a way that's aligned with who she wants to become. That discomfort-it's proof that she's growing. It's proof that she's changing. This is why I'm always talking about, like, you need to choose the discomfort that is going to lead you to what you truly desire. So let's talk about what happens to a lot of people. A lot of people don't realize that they're even telling themselves negative stories. They don't realize that maybe they they have beliefs about themselves that are are not helping them. What happens is is they can temporarily change what they're doing. They can temporarily change their behaviors, their actions through willpower. But eventually, what's going to happen is they're going to drift back into who they believe they are. Again, this is why diets don't work. Diets work until they don't, right? You can follow someone else's meal plan while you're in the group, but then if you still believe I'm that kind of person who I really struggle with follow through. I'm that kind of person that always gives up on the weekends. Eventually, you're going to lose that willpower, and you're going to return to what you believe about yourself. That's why this work is so powerful, and this work is certainly not just about weight loss. This work applies to every area of your. Think about someone who believes like I'm always late, I'm bad with money. I used to tell myself I'm not good at math. Now math, I would tell you honestly, math is not my strong suit, but I no longer tell myself I'm bad at math. Some people, a lot of people, tell themselves I'm just an anxious person. I have an anxiety disorder. I cannot tell you how many, especially the younger generation, have told me that they have an anxiety disorder. And when I've said like, "Who diagnosed this? they're like, "Oh no, I just know. And I've said, "This is a problem. You can't label yourself with this. It doesn't mean you aren't anxious. We can fix that. But if you have decided that you are an anxious person. If you have decided that you have an anxiety disorder, this is going to affect the way you feel and live your life and the results you get. Some people believe like they're terrible at technology. Some people believe they're not disciplined. And notice something. Ask yourself a question like, "What if this isn't a fact. What if these are simply stories you've repeated so many times that feel true? A lot of times, these identities, these beliefs about ourselves, were given to us when we were kids. One thing that you'll notice is with birth order, sometimes this happens. A lot of times, the first child has been told like you're the responsible one, many many times. So they believe that they're the responsible one. Sometimes, if someone is like deeper on the list of birth birth order, they're they're they're sent a different message about who they are and whether they're responsible or whether they're flaky or flighty or just fly by the seat of their pants, whatever. So a lot of the things we think about ourselves, we never chose. I would suggest that most of the negative things we we believe about ourselves, we never chose. No one would actually say, "I'm going to start telling myself that I'm always late, that I just am always overwhelmed, that I'm not good at getting things done, that I just really struggle with emotional eating, and I just-I mean, no one would say, "Yeah, you know what? I'm just going to start telling myself that story. So let me take a moment, and you can ask yourself, "Who do you believe you are when it comes to a few things in your life? So you can decide who do you believe you are when it comes to food. Who do you believe you are when it comes to movement and strength? Who do you believe you are when it comes to being consistent? Also, ask yourself, like, what stories have you been carrying around for years? And you can try to identify where they came from. This can be helpful when I realized that when I was realized when I was telling myself for so long that I wasn't very smart. When I realized it came from my sixth grade teacher, I literally was like, "Hell no, absolutely no! Sixth grade has been over for a long time, and I certainly don't want to be believing something that some silly woman decided to put on me as a sixth grader, held to the note. So if you can find out where you got it, sometimes you can go, "Oh my God, someone made one comment to me when I was young, and I've been carrying it this whole time. Maybe you want to put that down. Think of it as a backpack. Think of it as this this way you believe about yourself. Think of it as like wearing a backpack, and like the belief is in the backpack. What if you? Gosh, this is so interesting. Even as I'm saying this, I I feel a little emotional. Like I feel my body. Imagine taking this backpack off and just putting it down. Oh, I've been carrying this around for so long; it is totally not serving me. And now I'm going to put it down. Now sometimes you can find where the like origin of this belief is, and sometimes you can't. It's okay if you can't. Sometimes you're like, I have no idea. If you can't, that's okay. You can still put the backpack down, and then if you want to, what you can do is decide what you want to believe on purpose, and put that in the backpack and sling it over your shoulder. How would your life change like day to day if you started believing that? Here's another question that I think is really powerful. If someone followed you around for a week silently, like a creep, like a stalker, what would they assume you believed about yourself? This is a really cool question. Let me ask it again. If someone followed you around for a week, what would they assume you believed about yourself. Ask if I did. If I followed you around for a week, what would I assume? What would I look and say? Oh, she's doing all these things. She believes this. What would they assume you believed about yourself? This is a really, really cool question because what it does is it has you really understand the connection between. What you believe and how you show up in your life, what you believe in the actions you take, what you believe and the actions you don't take because you believe that. So that's a really powerful question that you can journal on. One of the things I decided to believe a few years ago is I always figure things out. I remember long ago in my jewelry business, in my glass jewelry business. Before I ever actually sold jewelry, I actually made this this beautiful collection of glass nightlights. I sold, I mean, I was going to say hundreds, 1000s of glass nightlights. If you were listening to this podcast, you might own one of my night lights. They were absolutely amazing, and I just love them still so much. But anyways, I remember I sold these nightlights for the night lights. I needed the base, you know, the plug-in part that you plug into the wall, and I had a supplier that was like from Wisconsin or something. I found these, I found these bases, and I bought them from this mom and pop shop in Wisconsin, whatever. Hundreds and hundreds of bases, and one time when I went to go buy the bases, like the the company was out of business, and I was kind of losing my goddamn mind about it. I was like, oh my god, because I'm like, oh my god, where do I find these bases? And I was really freaking out. And I remember my dad came over, and my dad's very business minded, and I remember telling him, and I remember crying and going, oh my God! I I don't even know what to do. The bases are gone. This company's out of business, and whatever. And he looked at me and he just smiled and he goes, Courtney, slow down. And he said, You're gonna figure this out. And he said, Someone is making those bases. Someone is making those bases. You just need to find who is supplying this mom and pop shop with those bases. Now it might to you sound very obvious, and it does to me now too. In the you know, but I was a new entrepreneur. I'd only been in business for a few years, and the internet back then was not what it is now. Now this would not be. This wouldn't even ruffle my feathers now. I would just be like, oh, they're out of business. I'm going to find it better. I could probably find it at a better price, but this was when I was a new entrepreneur, and I remember I started thinking I I'm going to have to give up the night lights. I'm not going to be able to sell them, and in that moment, he really made me realize, oh, I'm going to figure this out, and I think what came from that, and I did figure this out. I did, in fact, I did not only find them, I went directly to the source. I ended up having to spend more money buying them in bulk, but I ended up getting a better price, which is, as a business owner, absolutely brilliant. But the best part that came out of that is a new way of belief that I had about myself. I always figure things out, and that belief serves me so well. It serves me so well when I'm locked out of my Facebook page. It serves me so well when I all of a sudden feel like what I've been doing for my fitness or my weight or whatever doesn't seem like it's working anymore. I remember I went on hormone replacement years and years ago, and I remember the doctor was like, "Well, kind of does does lead to weight gain, and I said to him, challenge accepted, and he totally started laughing. And I will tell you, I went on hormone replacement surgery. Surgery, I went on hormone replacement. I had like a hysterectomy at a really young age, so I went on hormone replacement. And I'll tell you, after about six months, I did notice it was harder to eat the way I had eaten before my my my surgery, now that I was on hormone replacement, and I just decided I'm going to figure this out. Like, oh, it turns out I'm going to have to do things differently. The reason I was able to make that happen is because I already had a belief. I always figure things out. That's part of my self-concept. It's part of the way I think about myself. So all of a sudden, when I started gaining a little bit of weight on this medicine, I wasn't like, "Oh my God, this stupid medicine! Oh, nothing's working. I was like,"Oh hell no! I'm figuring this out, which meant that I started tracking my food for a little bit, and I was like, I think I might need to eat a little bit less from here on out. I've got this because I always figure things out. So, how do we change what we believe about ourselves? We practice changing how we believe about ourselves. Your identity, your self-concept changes through practicing and through creating new evidence. So once you identify who you believe you are now, right? If you really look and say, "What are my beliefs about myselfs now? and then you figure out where you're going, and this is the work we're going to do in August. If you're in my membership, then you can ask

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If I was already her, if I was already the 2.0 version of myself in this area of my life, what would I be thinking, and what would I be doing? And then you do that. So even though you might have some thoughts right now. That are aligned with what you've believed in the past about yourself. We figure out what you want to believe, who you are becoming, and you start acting as if you are her in order to become her. We don't wait to feel motivated. We don't wait to feel confident. We don't wait to feel like totally ready. We don't even wait to totally have things figured out. We just decide to align with what our future self is thinking and feeling and doing. Becoming her isn't pretending; it's practicing, and I think this distinction is really important. Sometimes people might hear like"become her, and they might think like I'm just faking it, but no, you're practicing it, and there is a difference. If we think of like, if we think of like someone who plays piano, right? They're not pretending to be a pianist; they're practicing and practicing and practicing until it became who she was. And the woman you want to become is built the same way with practice with repetition, and so here is the the most beautiful thing I want to tell you is who you believe you are is your choice, especially now that you're an adult. What we believe about anything is our choice. It's practice. The beautiful thing about doing this work about self-concept and belief is that it isn't something like you discover, like come upon. Sometimes it is, but it's not something you just like come upon. It's something you create on purpose. Every time you make a decision that's aligned with the woman you want to become, you are becoming her. You're creating new evidence that you're her. Not someday you're you're creating that evidence today. You don't have to fully believe you're her yet. You don't even have to fully believe it's possible. You simply have to be willing to practice becoming her. So come practice with us in the membership, learn how to think differently about you. Learn how to think differently about what's possible for you. Learn how to lose weight in a sustainable way by eating better. Learn how to do this without perfection. Learn how to get in your strongest, best health, surrounded by other badass women doing this work. Head to modernbodymodernlife.com forward slash membership and have a lovely, lovely Tuesday. For information on how we can work together, head to modernbodymodernlife.com to schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs.