Corinne:
Hey, y’all. I have a special podcast for you today. There are over 300 episode of the Losing 100 Pounds Podcast, and we’ve covered topics like what to eat to lose weight, planning for vacations, and how to get your mindset right so you can lose weight for good, but I’ve never gotten the chance to speak directly to you and answer your questions until now.
Corinne:
A new audio-only social media app called Clubhouse has given me the chance to talk directly to you and answer your questions live and in-person. Clubhouse is basically like a big party line where everyone tunes in. It’s awesome. You can drop in on conversations around topics you like and even raise your hand to speak and ask a question. I’m holding a free weekly weight loss Q&A session for the public every week with Kathy on Fridays at 7:30 AM Central time. If you want to attend, all you got to do is download the Clubhouse app from the app store. You’ll know it because it’s the one with the black and white photo, and then register your username. You’ll need an invite from a friend to get in, but once you do, type Corinne.Club into an internet browser on your phone to find my profile and follow me. Make sure to hit the bell and set your notifications so that you never miss when I go live.
Corinne:
Now, the Clubhouse app is still in test mode and is limited users. I know not every one of you can attend. So, I’ve decided to record these special episodes so you can hear what it’s like and believe me, I’m going to need a new mic because I keep dropping it like it’s hot. Take a listen.
Sarah:
All right. Our first question today is going to come from Shan. Good morning, Shan. Do you want to unmute? Just let us know what your question is.
Shannon:
Hello. I have been following Corinne for many years now, and it’s not just weight loss, it’s the mental part that she does so well with. A few years ago, she said something to the effect of you don’t have to believe your story like of something in the past you don’t have or you can change your story. I was going to see if she would embellish on that. Thank you. I’m Shannon and I’m done speaking.
Corinne:
Yeah. So, this is a really good question. It’s like what I was talking about earlier after my … So, let me tell you how we teach the brain, and then I’ll tell you why you don’t have to believe your story. So, you have two parts to your brain. We have what’s called our habit brain, which is the 95% of the workload part of your brain. So, when you think about your mind, 95% of it is supposed to be what controls your lungs, what controls your heart, all the automatic functions, but a huge significant part of it also is repeated patterns, whether that be how you eat, how you think, how you feel. The brain’s real job in order to keep all of us humans going strong is as much as we can, let’s put any repeatable thing into the habit brain.
Corinne:
Once it’s in the habit brain, all that means is that it’s going to automatically throw it up to you. So, let’s say you have a story. I’ll give you my story. So, everybody in my family is overweight. It’s always going to be hard for me. I grew up bullied and overweight. I mean, I literally was overweight from the time I was nine years old. The vast majority of my life I have either struggled with my weight, been losing weight or learning how to keep weight off. So, weight has definitely been at the forefront.
Corinne:
So, my habit brain is very used to the idea that weight loss is hard, weight loss will always be my thing, weight loss and maintaining weight is something I need to watch for. That’s just the story that I have around what I currently weigh. So, what my brain likes to do is it likes to talk about it a lot. So, it just offers it up, offers it up, offers it up.
Corinne:
You also have, thought, a part of your brain called the conscious or reasoning part of your brain. I often tell you guys that’s the front part of your brain. It’s the part that if you let’s say get a brand new car. Are we getting … Oh, somebody came in. So, if you get a brand new car, you have to consciously look for the new controls. You have to figure out the radio. You have to figure out the navigation system, stuff like that. If you’re doing work at your job and you’re doing budgets for the year, you have to consciously think about the math and stuff.
Corinne:
Now, if you’re just filing papers, you’re probably not having to think so hard. You can just do it on autopilot. So, 5% of the time our reasoning brain is happening. So, our stories live inside of our habit brain. Our stories are literally just things we’ve heard, people have told us things, shit we’ve collected around social media, TV, magazines and stuff over the years or assumptions that we made at a time when our brain really wasn’t prepared to make assumptions.
Corinne:
So, for me, when I was 12, and every guy on the class made fun of me for the size of my ass and stuff, I made an assumption that if I wasn’t thin, I’d never be loved or liked by anyone. So, I carried that into my 20s and had very destructive relationships and battled with my weight all the time because my 12-year-old brain was convinced that men only liked you if you were thin and they only were disgusted by you if you were overweight.
Corinne:
Well, once I got into my 20s, if I want … So, I’m married now to an amazing husband that I met at the height of my weight. If I wanted to trust this relationship and stuff, I was going to have to take the story that a good man would never want me, and I was going to have to change it. Now, my brain in the habit part wanted to offer that all the time, but I also wanted to marry this guy because he was amazing. My conscious brain knew how great he was. It was like, “Oh, my gosh! No one’s ever treated you this way,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. My conscious brain was very much thinking about the possibility and all this other stuff.
Corinne:
My habit brain was scared and telling me, “It can’t be true. He’s going to hurt you. He’ll cheat on you like everyone else. Good men don’t love girls like us.”
Corinne:
So, if I wanted to get married and I wanted to have a good relationship and a marriage that thrive, that meant Corinne had to get over her bullshit story around so that every single time my brain wanted to think about how Chris would fail me, is likely to cheat on me, that I needed to lose weight, all this other stuff, I had to override it by looking for what was right in our marriage, why I could trust it, what was different, why my story was wrong. I had to do all of that conscious work.
Corinne:
So, no story in your brain is set in stone. All of it is up for debate. That’s the thing that we have to remember is that a lot of times, we have these painful stories that we want to hang on to that it’s not fair that we’re overweight, it’s not fair the way we were brought up, my momma should have done better, if those kids hadn’t said these things, it’s in my genes. We have a lot of stories around our weight and we forget that they’re debatable. We just believe them.
Corinne:
So, once you really start understanding how your mind works when it comes to weight loss and you really understand the process behind making them debatable, what does that look like, how do you do that, that’s the stuff we teach inside of the No BS Weight Loss Program. It’s very different than the diet industry. Diet industry just tries to tell you, “Eat this. Don’t eat this. Here’s your macros. Here’s the plan. Here’s these things,” but they never really teach you how to override all of that story that we have that makes us scared we can’t lose the weight, makes us fearful of food, causes us to deprive ourselves.
Corinne:
We have stories around we need to self-loath or we would never be motivated to lose weight. If I love my body, if I decided to love myself and appreciate myself and find what’s right in myself, then why would I ever lose weight? I mean, we’re just taught by the diet industry that story around in the diet industry is, “Let me show you how miserable your life is. If you want to be happy, you need to get to the after picture. That’s where is happiness lies,” and it’s just not true.
Corinne:
Nobody is teaching us that that’s the worst way to get there. If that was the best way to get there, the diet industry wouldn’t have such shitty ass statistics. We wouldn’t only have 4% of the people who ever lose their weight able to keep it off if those methods still work. We just have so much evidence that they don’t. So, the real trick is really learning how to decondition those stories, unwire your brain, rewire it for what you need to think, and then know that your stories are debatable and the process to unwind all of it. Does that help?
Shannon:
Yes, ma’am. You’re the best. Thank you.
Corinne:
You’re welcome. Thank you.
Sarah:
Thank you, Shannon. What a phenomenal question and a great answer from Corinne about deconditioning, rewiring, and debating our stories. All right. We’ll go to our next caller, S. S, do you want to unmute and introduce yourself and ask us your question?
Sarah:
Sure. My name is also Sarah. So, my question is what do you suggest, I work on first and near my goal weight, and I’m still not happy. I’m tempted to further lower my goal, still be working towards something. I’m a tribe member. What do you suggest?
Corinne:
All right. Well, answer me this, Gloria. Where does happiness come from? Gloria, you got to unmute yourself because you’re going to have to answer the question.
Sarah:
This question is coming from Sarah.
Corinne:
Oh, I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m just staring at Gloria like a goober. All right. Sarah?
Sarah:
It comes from within, and I know it comes from thought work. I’m finding myself very overwhelmed in changing my thoughts and-
Corinne:
Where does that overwhelm with changing your thoughts come from?
Sarah:
My thinking about them.
Corinne:
Yes. So, step one is to find the thought that’s causing you to be overwhelmed with your thinking. So, when you think about like, “Oh, my gosh! I got all these thoughts,” what is your thought about your thoughts, basically?
Sarah:
That once I start to dig in deep I won’t be able to stop. I will feel all of the things.
Corinne:
Okay. So, that’s really good to know because if your thought about changing your thinking is, “Once I start, I’m going to have to feel everything,” that does lead to overwhelm. Let me ask you this. Is it true?
Sarah:
Yes.
Corinne:
Really? Prove to me that it’s true that if you dig around and find your thinking that you’re going to have to feel everything.
Sarah:
I understand what you’re saying. I rationally know that I have a choice on how I respond.
Corinne:
That’s the thought right there, the one you just said. That’s the one you’ve got to use more versus the one that says, “Yeah, but when you dig around, you’re going to feel all of it.” You’ve got to do the other side. This is just where we have come in to equal airtime. I think right now what you’re doing is you’re just allowing that one thought come up about your thinking, and you’re just like, “Well, that’s true.” You’ve got to rationalize it out. That’s what I was talking about earlier. We have to actually debate it because let me ask you this. If you think, “If I dig around and find thoughts, I’ll probably have to feel all of them,” and then you say, “Well, rationally, though, when you find sentences, no feeling is attached to them. It’s when I don’t find sentences where feelings are attached,” because that’s what we have right now.
Corinne:
You didn’t know that you were thinking overwhelming thoughts about your thoughts. You’re wondering why you’re not being happy. Now, you’re just getting to feel confused. You’re having the thoughts and they’re causing the feelings right now. So, the real truth is by not finding the thoughts, I have to feel them without any choice in the matter.
Sarah:
Okay.
Corinne:
That’s the thought that you’ve got to start practicing more of because if you don’t get over the fear of finding your thoughts, why would you ever look for them? You’ll just keep trying to look for them in your weight loss. So, let me ask you this. How much weight have you lost?
Sarah:
I joined about two months ago and I’ve maintained. I’m in a healthy range and I got to this range in unhealthy ways, and-
Corinne:
Okay. Well, let me just ask you that. How much in the unhealthy way? How much weight have you lost total?
Sarah:
Probably 35 pounds.
Corinne:
Okay. I want you to go back to Sarah 35 pounds ago. Do you think she would have been on a coach? Does that Sarah sit there and be like, “You know what’s going to happen? We’re going to lose 35 pounds and we’re not going to be happy, and we’re going to need to get a coaching call to figure out why we’re still miserable”?
Sarah:
No.
Corinne:
Right. That’s how we know that if you lose 10 more pounds, five more pounds, way more pounds, happiness won’t be found there because if 35 didn’t do it, 10 more won’t. 10 more will just keep you on the same cycle of trying to figure out what you need to do to create a feeling when the answer is, “I actually have to start liking myself. I have to start finding thoughts that aren’t creating happiness for me right now, that are creating fear, that are creating judgment, that are creating self-loathing. When I find those thoughts, then I’ll just work on those.” That’s the thought that I want you to have because they’re already causing it or you wouldn’t be looking for a solution to lose more weight to find your happiness.
Sarah:
Right. That makes sense.
Corinne:
Okay. So, I have a homework for you.
Sarah:
Yes.
Corinne:
Since you’re in the No BS group, this month is Thoughts 2.0. So, literally, just now, the webpage for Thoughts 2.0 went up on the website. That’s the program I want you to focus on this month. We’re going to do a deeper dive into module two of No BS. So, between today and next Wednesday when I do my first live Q&A, I want you to go, just download the resource guide. It will tell you which videos to watch. There’s just a handful. They’re super short. I want you to get them watched. Then on Wednesday, I will be with you at 9:00 AM in the morning, and if you can’t attend live, that’s fine, you can watch the replay, but I want you to watch because I’m going to be teaching everybody how to find thoughts, and how to switch them without it being a miserable process, where you have to be scared, where you have to be overwhelmed. We’re going to do it like basically the No BS way. That’s all we’re focusing on for the entire month of June.
Corinne:
So, I think it’s perfect timing for you to be able to do it with me, do it guided, and to do it in a way where you don’t need to be afraid of the thoughts. At the end of the day, thoughts, when they’re found, become sentences. When they’re not found, they are your feelings.
Sarah:
Yes.
Corinne:
Okay.
Sarah:
Okay. Thank you. I needed this. Thank you.
Corinne:
I’m glad we could help. All right. You have a good day, Sarah.
Kathy:
Hi, Corinne. I’m going to go on the way that machine for a minute. I remember a day I was standing in your house, we were podcasting. This is pre-COVID, back when we podcasted in-person, and you were telling me, you were talking, giving a similar conversation about thoughts and you were telling me to question everything, question everything. I was like, “I don’t even know what that means. What does it mean to question everything?”
Kathy:
You said, “Kathy, not everything you think is true.”
Kathy:
I felt the top blew off of my head. I was like, “What? You mean I can have thoughts that aren’t really true?”
Kathy:
You were like, “Yes.”
Kathy:
I just think it’s fascinating with these last two callers or last two people we’ve talked to on Clubhouse to just add that little concept to their coaching. So, when you have a story about your past, it might not actually be 100% true. When you’re thinking about your goal weight, what you’re thinking might not exactly be true. If you’re thinking you’ll be happy when you reach goal, it may or may not be true. So, just the whole concept of questioning what you’re thinking, just really listening to yourself thinking, asking yourself, “Is this really true?” can be super powerful in both these cases.
Corinne:
Yeah, and I just want to add to this about when we’re talking about we just did a maintenance call I think it was either last week or two weeks ago. I can’t remember, but for all of my members who are here, if you’re in maintenance or you’re zeroing in on maintenance, like you’re in that last 10 to 20 pounds, I highly recommend you listen to it. It’s the video replays in the member podcast.
Corinne:
One of the things I just to tell everyone, number one, I am going to write a maintenance program. It will probably be later this year or early 2022, but we are doing it. We have too many people hitting maintenance, and I used to think we didn’t need one. I was just like, “Fuck that, lady. We’re going to lose weight the way we’re going to live the rest of our life, and we’re just going to slide on in the maintenance.” Well, we don’t really act any different in maintenance, but, man, we think different in maintenance.
Corinne:
What I mean by that is as much as I offer you thought work and enjoying the process and doing everything, when you hit your goal weight, you are presented with a new fact in life. For most of us, that fact has automatic thoughts attached to it. We’ve hit that weight before in our life, and we fucked it up. So, our thoughts come up with, “You fucked it up, and you won’t be able to keep it off.” Our brain is always going to offer up what we talked about in the beginning, those habit thoughts.
Corinne:
So, I want to just tell all of you, believe this. You will not be happy when you hit your goal weight. Just let that land for a second. I think it’s a critical skill to learn that your goal weight will not make you happy. Your goal weight will be an accomplishment. Your goal weight will on the way down teach you. You will develop habits. There will be all kinds of things that will come along with it, but it’s not going to make you happy.
Corinne:
What’s probably going to happen is it’s going to churn up a lot of fear, a lot of old thinking, a lot of old stories that you never had to address in your weight loss journey until you got to the goal weight. So, I just appreciate all my girls are coming on here that have lost weight or that are in maintenance. I am spending the rest of this year studying it because I feel like this is the year that I have been able to really go back and look at my maintenance life and figure out what worked, what didn’t, where my mental pitfalls have been, where I feel like I’m a maintenance boss, and where there are just areas with maintenance that I struggled with self-concept, where body image didn’t get put to rest.
Corinne:
So, many things come along for the ride in maintenance, and no one is teaching us that. I think that it’s good for us to learn it, but if you don’t hear anything for all of you who were at the beginning to the middle, to the end of your journey, goal weight, I promise you, won’t make you happy. You will have moments where you’re proud. You will be enjoying the new clothes. There will be these times where you’re experiencing relief from a lot of your self-loathing because you won’t choose those thoughts, but if you’re used to picking yourself apart, you’re used to being worried about your weight and stuff, it comes back in a new way. It just comes back in, “I’m worried I can’t keep it off. I’m worried something will get in the way. What will happen if something bad happens in my life? Will I go back to eating? My body didn’t look the way I thought. It’s so much better, but it still got these things.”
Corinne:
Our brains always regulate to what we’re used to. So, that’s why I think it’s important that a maintenance program gets created. We help you guys stabilize what that new mindset has to evolve to, and that’s all I wanted to add, Sarah.
Sarah:
Sarah, thank you so much for the great question. Great discussion about maintenance and goal weight not making you happy. I am excited to take Thoughts 2.0 this month inside the No BS membership. If you are a member and you want to go look at that maintenance coaching call, it’s titled How To Manage Maintenance with Corinne 5/25/21. With that, we’ll move to Asbeta. Good morning. What is your question?
Asbeta:
Good morning. My question is coming from that fear of reading, but how do you find the balance between restriction and including a variety of food on the plan?
Corinne:
Okay. So, I actually did an Instagram post about this. It was I think, gosh, it was either yesterday or day before. So, today is June the 4th. So, if you go to my Instagram account and you read it, it’s a really good post, where it talks about the difference between restriction and whatnot, but at the end of the day, when we think of the word restriction, we think of it as being a bad thing. Restriction is not a bad thing. It’s just something that we do. It’s the mindset behind what we do it.
Corinne:
So, for all of my members, you’ve heard me talk and I believe and, Sarah, if you will find it, in Basics 2.0, the big course we did last month where I went live every day. I actually did a whole 20-minute video on this concept. Are you in the membership?
Asbeta:
I am.
Corinne:
Okay. Did you watch that call or do we need to give you … We’ll give her the link, but did you happen to watch the call where I actually did the description of restriction?
Asbeta:
I did.
Corinne:
Okay. So, the thing that we confuse is that we think the foods we do or do not eat that defines restriction, and that has nothing to do with it. How we think about whatever food you’re going to eat and whatever food you’re going to include do not make you feel fulfilled, deprived, restricted or anything. Those are just things you do. It’s always about, “Why am I doing it to begin with?”
Corinne:
So, I used the example the other day of orange chicken. Oh, my God! I love orange chicken, sesame chicken, you name it from Chinese food restaurants. I could eat it all fucking day, except when I do eat it, I get diarrhea like it’s nobody’s business. I mean, it’s never failed. Within an hour or two, my stomach is tore up from the flora, I cannot do it. So, I restrict Chinese food, but my thought is I don’t want diarrhea. I want to feel good. What else can I have?
Corinne:
So, even though I’m in the active restriction, it’s coming from a place of, “I’m taking good care of myself here. I got my own back. This is such a better choice.” What most of us do is let’s say the same thing is happening and you decide, “I’m going to lose weight.” One of the first things you’re going to do is you’re going to cut out your orange chicken and your sesame chicken. Here’s why restriction goes bad.
Corinne:
You won’t focus on the idea that it gives you diarrhea and stuff. This will be the whiny ass version, “Oh, my God! I just can’t have it. It’s so unfair. This fucking blows goats because I can’t eat Chinese food just like everybody else.” That thinking around it is what causes the restriction. Both people may not be eating the food, but one person is just like, “I’m all in with not having it,” and the other person is like, “This is where it blows the goats,” and that’s why it feels terrible.
Corinne:
We do the same thing when it comes to our husbands and wives. For all of you ladies celebrating pride month with your wives, if you see another hot chick, do you go and just kiss on them and grab boobies and stuff? No, you don’t. You know why? Because you’re married. Guess what? You’re restricting yourself from everybody else. It’s the same thing with me and Chris. I go to the pool, hot guy walks by, I don’t just say, “It’s an all you can eat buffet.” I hate to feel restricted in my marriage. I don’t do that. We restrict ourselves when we drive home the Interstate. I blow 75. That’s the speed limit. I don’t sit around saying, “I’m so restricted by the government. I can’t do 120 in my Jaguar. I’m driving because I don’t want a ticket.”
Corinne:
So, we have to think about our reasonings why. When you understand that we’re always restricting, the one area that most of us feel like it’s so unfair or bad is around food, but when we do it the rest of our life, we’re not sitting around dwelling on it, it’s because our thoughts are very different. So, that’s the biggest thing to consider is that when you’re planning what you’re going to eat, if you are going to, for me, I don’t eat French fries when I go out to eat if I’m having wine, but I don’t feel restricted.
Corinne:
Now, one person might sit there and be like, “Well, because I’m drinking wine, if I want to lose weight, I can’t have any French fries,” and they’ll sit there and be consumed with not being able to have fries and feel restricted, but that’s a choice. Whereas I’ll go and I’m like, “I want to enjoy wine. I don’t need fries and wine.” Guess what? I’m still restricting the fries knowing that it is a lot easier for me to keep my weight off if I just choose wine or fries. I have a lot of thoughts around it that make it seem reasonable, doable, a good idea, not that bad. I’m always just like, “Yay me. I can keep my weight off. I can lose weight and drink wine. This is great,” because my mind has gone to focus on something that doesn’t feel terrible, but all the time, we’re just restricting on what we’re doing. That’s it.
Corinne:
So, I think it’s when we start understanding it’s not so much about what we do or don’t eat. It’s what we tell ourselves about what we’re going to eat and what we’re not going to eat. It’s just even with food. A lot of you will say, “Well, I’m going to do what Corinne says. I’m eating whatever I want. Fuck this. It’s all the food,” but you’ll plan from non-awareness. You’ll plan from fuck it mode. You’ll plan from a feeling of justification. You’ll make your plan like, “Oh, it’s okay. She said I could eat whatever I want,” but you didn’t consider all the other things you wanted for the day. You didn’t consider you wanted to sleep good. You didn’t consider all this other stuff. You only considered one side of the story.
Corinne:
A lot of you will be like, “Yeah. I’m not feeling restricted,” but if you’re feeling a lot of justification to include foods that are slowing down weight loss, maybe giving you heartburn, choking up your colon, zapping your energy, causing you to have way more urges for other things, then that’s not helpful either.
Corinne:
I want you to plan foods that you’re truly going to enjoy, not that you’re going to feel justified in eating. So, when you plan foods that you truly enjoy, it means there’ll be no regrets. It means “I’m literally going to truly enjoy it, which means I’ll stop at enough because if I’m really mindful about it, if I’m truly having it, I really, really want this, I would always be willing to plan for it. I wouldn’t be justifying, grab assing. I wouldn’t be doing this.” That’s not truly enjoying.
Corinne:
So, it’s like thinking through, “Why am I making changes to my food plan? Why am I choosing the things I’m choosing? Why am I withholding the things that I’m withholding?” Get your reasons very pure, very clean, really loving, caring, and well-thought out. When you do that, you can eat the things you want, but don’t be surprised if sometimes the things you want will surprise you, just like when I want to cut out fries when I’m drinking wine. That surprised me when I was willing to start making that level up, and it wasn’t because I decided I needed to restrict, it’s because it was legit coming from a place of I’m really shocked. I’m totally okay with having one thing I’m going to enjoy because I’m going to be so focused on enjoying this. I don’t need the rest of it. I’ve learned how to live my life now to its fullest, and it doesn’t always include all the food. All right. I hope that was helpful.
Asbeta:
That was. Thank you so much. I know that a lot of it comes up when I’m actually grocery shopping and I’m trying to figure out, “Well, I shouldn’t bring that into the house.” So, it’s my mind just going back and forth, but thank you. That does help me a lot.
Corinne:
Well, that’s a good point. I just want to touch on that. That’s a good point. There are foods that I don’t bring in to the house, but it’s never because I feel like I’m restricting myself in terms of saying things like, “You’ll be out of control. This is bad for you.” I want you to think about, for me, there are certain things, we just don’t keep a lot of chips and stuff in the house. I just tell myself this all the time. It’s like, “I’m not going to be tempted. I got better things I think about at home.”
Corinne:
When I’m at home, if I really want some chips, we will go get some chips. We will plan to have the chips. I’m having the chips tonight as a matter of fact. Do I have chips in the house now? No. I decided if we’re going to have Subway and chips tonight, and I only like particular chips. I’m really picky about my chips. I’m not just going to get what Subway has to offer. I’m going and I’m getting my fucking pot chips that I love.
Corinne:
So, I told my son today. I was like, “Hey, you and I, we’re going to run to Kroger today and we’ll get the chips. You get a bag, I get a bag, daddy gets a bag.” We’re going to bring them in the house because we’re going to enjoy them, and it’s a planned meal, and it’s like, “Yay us.”
Corinne:
If I went on a Sunday to the grocery store, I would tell myself, “I’m not going to buy chips.” I don’t want to be sitting around thinking about chips all week long. That’s doing a solid for myself, and I feel really good about that. If I tell myself, “You just can’t have chips in the house. It’s impossible for you. You always overeat them,” or blah, blah. If you create a dramatic story around it, you will feel very dramatic and restricted around food or deprived.
Corinne:
If you create a very good reasonable story like, “This is how I take care of myself. This is how this week my mind space will be freed up to focus on what I need to be focused on when I’m at home so that I won’t be just sitting around eating my feelings with chips.” That’s such a better conversation, and it starts allowing you to have your own back around food. I just wanted to add that, but thank you.
Kathy:
So, just to add real quick here. We did a podcast on this on that very topic, Corinne, episode 147, Foods We Still Don’t Keep in the House and Why. We talked about that very thing about how there are just certain foods that I don’t want to have to manage my mind around knowing they’re in the pantry. I want to enjoy them when I enjoy them, and I’ll buy them when I’m ready for them, but I don’t need to keep them stocked up in the house. So, that was a really good podcast episode. I just want to throw that out there.
Asbeta:
Thank you.
Sarah:
Thank you for your question, and I wanted to loop back and give you some resources. So, if you are inside the No BS membership, you can go on the website to our self-pace workshops and under Basics 2.0 class 19, you’ll find the lesson on restriction versus level up. If you are wanting to read that Facebook or Instagram post about restriction, it came out on June 3rd, and you can find that on Instagram, @Corinne_Crabtree or on Facebook, facebook.com/losing100podcast, and that’s the number 100. All right. With that, we’ll go to our next question from Joelene. Good morning, Joelene. Would you like to tell us your question?
Joelene:
Good morning. Oh, God! My question is, how do I figure out my feelings if I’ve had to hide or deny my feelings my entire life? I grew up in a family where feelings were not allowed, and married a man 36 years ago who is the same in that feelings caused fights, fights lead to the silent treatment. Honestly, when I try to identify my feelings, my brain screen goes black. So, it’s taken me eight months and 56 pounds to get brave enough to talk to you or any coach. So, I have to breathe now. That’s my question.
Corinne:
Okay. So, tell me why you have to breathe right now.
Joelene:
Because I have been waiting to get called on and I’ve got myself so scared to talk out loud.
Corinne:
So, you do know how to identify your feelings and feel them?
Joelene:
Because I got scared?
Corinne:
Yeah.
Joelene:
Yeah. Okay. So, yeah.
Corinne:
So, let’s debunk one thing that I’ve spent my entire life denying my feelings and you can’t do that.
Joelene:
Well, when I’m about to have a panic attack, I know I’m scared, but I’m talking about the other feeling. Well, no, I’m not. I’m talking about all feelings, so I’m going to bow to you on that, but I have a really hard time thinking, “Okay. This is what you’re feeling and this is what you can do about it,” other than I try to go back and change my thoughts rather than resolve the issue. So many of my feelings are negative. I’ll hear myself say, “Oh, that was so stupid. You’re so dumb,” and then I say, “Look. We don’t say that anymore.”
Joelene:
So, I’m doing okay with that thing, but what I’m not doing great at is trying to do the feelings work like, “Why have I been obese since I was age 10? Why has it always been such hard?” The big question, I just go blank.
Corinne:
Well, let me ask you this. Why do you even need to figure all that out? If you’ve lost 56 pounds, why do you need to go back and figure out why you’ve been overweight?
Joelene:
Well, I’m 64 and I remember the first post on Facebook I said, “I’m 64. Is it too late for me?” You answered me right away and you said, “Absolutely not. You are normal, and a lot of people feel that way,” but I guess my history has been that I have lost weight a couple of times. I actually lose weight as a lecturer when I was 30, but I then had two ectopic pregnancies, and I gained back some weight, and they kicked me out. So, anyway, I’ve done all the things, but I’ve never been able to keep my weight off, but I believed that I can.
Corinne:
Right. So, this is what I think, number one, let’s quit trying to go back to our past and figure out why we’ve been overweight. I don’t think it’s relevant anymore for you. I think what’s more useful for you is to figure out who you want to be like, “I want to be someone who keeps my weight off,” would be a much better use of your time to be thinking about, and what does that person do each day, and what does she think about, and how does she think about her feelings, the kind of person who keeps her weight off. Does she think that feelings are hard and comes up with all the reasons why it’s so hard or does she think that she can learn them, that she can start finding them and it would be okay? I mean, you’ve already displayed that it just shock your mind here.
Joelene:
Okay. I’m going to have a boo moment.
Corinne:
Yeah. Did you say you’re 64 years old?
Joelene:
I am.
Corinne:
All right. You’re 64 years old and you’ve lost, what? 56 pounds?
Joelene:
56.2 this morning.
Corinne:
56.2 pounds. You’ve already probably blown your mind as it is.
Joelene:
I have, but guess what? I’m eating good food.
Corinne:
Well, and you’ve also been able to start listening to your thoughts and find them.
Joelene:
Yup.
Corinne:
Now, I think my story sounds way better than yours.
Joelene:
It does.
Corinne:
Your story is I’m married to a man where feelings cause fights and blah, blah, blah. You only go large and in-charge story around feelings other than, “I’m 64. I’ve lost 56.2 pounds. I’m hearing my thoughts for the first time in life. It seems like this is working for me.”
Joelene:
Absolutely. It is working for me, and I have every belief in my heart and thoughts that this is the time. This is my time. I don’t know why. I know a lot of people say it in the group. It blows my mind that never before did it enter my mind to say, “You hungry?” Now, I do it three or four times a day, five times sometimes, six times sometimes.
Corinne:
Well, this is the other thing I want to point out when it comes to your feelings. I just want you to quit talking about them. Literally, I want you to do Thoughts 2.0 this month. It’s going to be really good for you, but I want you to quit talking about them from your past, which means, “I come from a family that does this, and this …” That whole part, we’re going to drop this in the podcast in a couple of weeks. I want you to listen to it and all that stuff you said, I just want you to tell yourself, “That’s my old story, and when I hear myself saying that, that’s me talking from the past. I want to now tell from the future, and the future is I already know how to feel feelings. I’m just not giving myself credit for it.”
Corinne:
Just like today, you were able to feel nervous and scared and panic, and you knew exactly why you were feeling all of the things, and you could articulate it. You have no problems. You also were able to articulate that when you are listening to your thoughts, that you’ll say things like, “That’s so stupid. That’s so this,” and then, “Oh, no. We don’t think that way anymore.” So, you know how to feel like you’re going to self-loath. You know how to feel almost shameful, judgey or bad about your thinking and you know how to pivot to being like, “No. I got my own back. This is how we’re going to think.”
Joelene:
I say it out loud. I don’t even just self-talk.
Corinne:
Yes.
Joelene:
I say these things out loud to myself walking around the house and I’m alone here. It’s like, “Who are you talking to when you call yourself names?” I’m only talking to me, and it’s not fair. It’s not good to do.
Corinne:
Well, I think you’re better at this than what your old story is wanting to give you credit for. I think that that’s-
Joelene:
Really?
Corinne:
Yes. When we’re very locked in, it’s just like when we’ve always struggled with our weight, we’ll lose weight and we’ll say things like, “Well, it was only one this week. I don’t know if that will happen again next week.” It’s like we don’t know how … I have had so many … My mom is a good example. She’s lost over 110 pounds now. Sometimes when she talks about she’ll lose a pound or she’ll lose half a pound or something, she’ll say stuff like, “Well, it’s just been coming off slow,” or “At 63, it’s hard for me to have one pound loses.”
Corinne:
I’m like, “Of all the things that you could think about 110 pounds, this is what we got?” That’s what we do. We forget to give ourselves credit because our brains are used to bringing us down, matching the story that we have. I think that’s what’s happening with your feeling work. I think your brain is just trying to match the story that you have. So, it’s probably missing a lot of the times when you are feeling something because it has a story around feelings are bad and feelings are hard. So, if it starts feeling a feeling, it’s like, “Oh, that’s bad. So, let’s switch gears.”
Joelene:
It used to be, “Let’s switch gears and walk out in the kitchen and see what we can have.”
Corinne:
Well, and the other thing that was super curious about what you talked about was you said, “So many of my feelings are negative.” Okay. Welcome to the human brain. That’s the way it’s designed. It’s supposed to mostly be negative. That’s what it does to keep all of us safe, but that’s why we want to have our conscious thinking. That’s why you do want to listen. When you have thoughts about, “That’s so stupid,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that’s normal, but you’re doing the thing I teach you, which is let your habit brain say what it naturally wants to say. We’re just not going to let that be the last wording. We’re now going to listen and we’re going to change gears.
Corinne:
So, that’s some of the stuff, but just give yourself more credit. I think what you’ll find is that as you do Thoughts 2.0 this month, as we start looking into more stories and things, you’ll find that most of the time, feeling our feelings, like when you talked about you and your husband and it just turns into fights and stuff, we’re not usually feeling our feelings in the middle of a fight. What usually is happening is we’ve been resisting our feelings for a long time, then we just go straight to anger and we start yelling. We’re reacting to our feelings. We’re not sitting around having a kumbaya expressing them.
Joelene:
That makes sense. The way that it usually works is he screams, I retreat, and then he’s silent for three days, and then we start again. So, 10 years ago, I made a deal with myself and I said, “You know what? I’m not going to have any expectations, whatsoever, of him and that way I can’t get disappointed.” My healthy brain knows that’s not a great way to deal with this, but my intelligent brain also knows Steve’s never going to deal with feelings. So, if I’m here, I’m here, and so I’ll get myself right.
Corinne:
Well, yeah. That’s always where it starts. Well, let me give you a helpful thought for Steve, where I’m going to say he’s never going to deal with his feelings. What if that is just the only way Steve knows how?
Joelene:
It is, and I give him that.
Corinne:
Yeah, and I think that that’s for all of you listening. My husband is very similar. He’s not a yeller. We’re not sitting around. I mean, he’s not like, “Oh, my God! Thank God I’m married to a master life coach because I’m going to sit here and we’re just going to feel feelings all night long.” Never happens. Chris could care less about that stuff. So, for me, I’m just always like, “I’m the one. If I want to feel my feelings, I’d do that shit in private,” and I’d do my stuff. Chris, he does his the way he does his. I don’t know what he’s doing, and I don’t need to know. That allows us a lot of space.
Corinne:
So, when I’m upset, I’m not running in there and being like, “I need to have a moment.” I’m running to my journal because I know that that’s where I’m going to do my best and strongest work. I think the biggest thing for all of us when it comes to our feelings is when we quit relying on other people to help us and support us and say the right things and do all this stuff. The moment we let all that go and we do it ourselves, then when we do find someone who wants to kumbaya about our bullshit, it’s icing on the cake, but it’s not needed.
Joelene:
True. Well, I have one last thing to say, and I just think this is an interesting personal statistic, hopefully. I’m from a family of eight, and I went home. I saw my family of origin for the first time in a year and a half last weekend. One of my sisters who I’m pretty tight with, she’s a lot like me. Anyway, she said to me, “Jo, how is it possible that all eight of us have memories of our childhood? Isn’t that interesting that we all grew up in the same house and we all took away different lesson?”
Corinne:
That’s just how the brain works. I mean, it’s like my brother and I took very different lessons away from our childhood. Partly, I was the older child, he was the younger child. We had very different experience of the same mother, the same situations. Every brain is going to interpret things differently, especially when you think about for all of you kids, you all went to school, and you had different influences, different teachers, different friends, different influences. All of those things combine into a big cocktail of how your brain is going to interpret the world. So, you can have the same parents and stuff, but-
Joelene:
Okay. That makes sense.
Corinne:
… based upon what TV shows you watched, what magazines you read, what friends you had, what teachers you had, all these different messages are coming in that do create different reasoning. That’s why a lot of siblings will say, “Did we even grow up in the same house?”
Joelene:
Right. It’s crazy. I mean, I am talking about school. I was the only one of eight kids that went to Catholic school. My father was a teacher at a Catholic Boys Reformed School. So, you know it was tough, tough love, but I was the only one that went to Catholic school, and my whole life I thought it was because I was their favorite because they had paid for me to go to school and I found out upon helping my mother to the path that it was because I was so naughty.
Joelene:
Anyway, I still think that I was special because I got to go to Catholic school, but I do have a totally different understanding of discipline because I went to a Catholic school and things like that. All right. I talk too much sometimes, which is okay.
Sarah:
Joelene, thank you so much.
Joelene:
It’s just who I am.
Sarah:
Yeah. Thank you so much for coming up.
Joelene:
I’m sorry to keep talking.
Corinne:
No, you’re good, Joelene. Thank you.
Joelene:
Thank you. I’m proud of this group.
Sarah:
Just give yourself a pat on the back, too, for coming up here and even though you were scared asking your question. With that, we’re going to move on to our last question of the day, but before we do, I want to remind everyone, make sure you’re following our club here, Losing 100 Pounds with Corinne. If you’re listening to the podcast, you can actually go to a web browser and type in Corinne.Club, C-O-R-I-N-N-E dot Club and it will take you to a webpage, where you can put in your phone number and skip the wait list to join Clubhouse. So, you can join us live here every Friday at 9:00 AM Central. With that, we’ll move on to Diane. Good morning. What is your question? To ask your question, Diane, you’ll need to unmute and you do that at the bottom right-hand side of your phone. All right.
Diane:
Oh, here I am.
Sarah:
There we are. Hey.
Diane:
I’m sorry. It took me a minute there. I was trying to do it on the picture. Okay. I am calling because I’ve had some pretty major health issues and I lost 43 pounds with No BS since September. I’ve been asked to take a hiatus on weight loss. So, I’m virtually in maintenance right now even though I have probably 25 or 30 more I want to lose. I’m getting behind that. I feel like it’s a good thing. I agree with them. Now, I am in maintenance. So, I am so excited that you’re going to do a maintenance part of this.
Diane:
I’ve lost 80 pounds or so four times in my life and gained back. So, my question is how do I have strong thoughts? I’ve done think, feel, do, and then rethink, feel, do on this subject, and I’m really wanting to hone in and get myself some really strong thoughts about that this is not temporary, and that I can maintain this and don’t have to do this again. So, that’s where I am is trying to come up with some, ask you for some help on believing that this is the last time I’m ever going to have to do this.
Corinne:
So, first of all, let me ask you this. Well, first of all, you already have some really good thoughts. So, the last few that you just said, “Man, I’m putting things on repeat.” Sticky notes, put them in places. I’ve had that phone go off. First thing in the morning when your alarm, make sure that you have to read that. If you can’t set your phone, my alarm on my phone, I have relentless, passionate, and unstoppable is the three words that pop up on my phone when my alarm goes off at 5:30 in the morning. I like to see words that I want to, the feeling words that I want to remember for the day first thing. So, my eyes get that visual feast.
Corinne:
So, that’s the first thing is you already know some thoughts that are going to really help you and you said them with conviction. So, when you guys are thinking about new thoughts, any time, like I really want to believe this, if you have a sense in you this could be true, then you’re on to a thought that you really want to be practicing. If you come up with some thoughts that you’re like, “That’s a fucking lie,” or “I can come up more evidence why that’s not true,” you feel so much resistance to it, that’s when you have the first sign of, “All right. Let’s get a baby step thought.” You only need a baby step thought when a thought feels very out of reach. It doesn’t mean that you’re not scared of your new thinking, but your body immediately is in resistance. I didn’t get that from you.
Corinne:
I got from you, “I’m excited about this. There’s something in me that senses this time’s different.” Those are the things that I’d be remembering. So, now, my best advice would be, we talked about this at camp when we were doing unwinding self-sabotage. So, I had that unwind process.
Diane:
I went to camp. It was awesome, the unwind. I’d love to hear more about that again. I’m not quite understanding it.
Corinne:
Okay. So, the replays for those videos just came out. I would watch the lesson where I taught the unwind process itself. I believe it was video three of day one if I’m not mistaken. I’m trying to remember, just remembering from being on stage. Basically, what I want you to think about is I want you to write your new thoughts down each morning and then I want you to sit there and then I want you to visualize those thoughts in action through your day. So, visualize if you want to believe … Tell me one of the thoughts that you had.
Diane:
That I’m not going to keep the weight off. You mean the negative thoughts or the ones that I’m working on?
Corinne:
No. I want the new ones, the new ones.
Diane:
Okay. Used to be I am willing to believe that this might not be temporary. Now, the new one is a step up. I am beginning to believe that this could be permanent.
Corinne:
Okay. So, I want you to write, “I’m beginning to believe this can be permanent,” and then I want you to write, “Here’s how I know because yesterday I did this. This morning I did this. The rest of the day I plan to do these things.” We’re going to create the evidence so that your brain now has something … because this is what happens. A lot of times we’ll have a new thought, but we won’t tell ourselves how we know the thought is true.
Diane:
I love that.
Corinne:
Yeah. We miss this part often because what happens is, though, if you think about old shitty thought like, “I can’t keep my weight off,” our brain will immediately go to proving it true like, “Yeah, because three days ago you did eat past enough,” and blah, blah, blah. It’s going to create evidence. That’s why the thought feels true. Evidence is created for it.
Corinne:
Well, if you want a new thought to feel true, then we have to start proving it true, too. So, we have to start looking for reasons why this new thought could be true. We have to write those thoughts down or those reasons down. Then I want you to sit and I just want you to take … This literally is a 10 to 20-second exercise. I want you to visualize yourself in the day thinking your new thought and doing some of the things that day that proves the thought true.
Corinne:
So, you would practice visualizing yourself making a plan. You would practice visualizing yourself sitting down for lunch, taking a big deep breath, focusing in on, “This is going to be an amazing lunch, and I’ll know exactly when I’ve had enough,” and you’ll visualize yourself having those successes. The thing about your brain is that visualization is a very strong part of how your brain works. What we usually do is we do our first colors. I’m so afraid to find my shitty thoughts, but they’re running around back there and then every time they run around, they have imagery that happens with them. So, we start visualizing how it’s going to go wrong and how things are bad.
Corinne:
So, our brain is getting practice rep after practice rep after practice rep of what we don’t want to happen and then we wonder why when we’re presented with what we don’t want to happen why it’s so easy for it to happen because our brain is well-rehearsed. So, now we want to well-rehearse this new stuff.
Diane:
That’s so beautiful.
Corinne:
The last part is catch yourself during the day doing the things and that’s that final part of the unwind process, do and delight. So, when you stop at enough, when you make a plan, when you drink a glass of water, when you put your ass to bed, whatever it is you’re doing that I teach you, I want you to tell yourself, “Good for me. This is how I know my weight will never be a problem again. This is how I know …” Every single time you reward yourself mentally for it. That’s how we start changing mindset over. Your brain will start to change and it will start adapting, and it mainly will adapt because this new version of you thinking about it, visualizing it, doing it, and then delighting in it every single time has positive dopamine hits coming along for the ride.
Corinne:
Your brain wants that. So, when it starts getting it regularly, it’s going to want to shift gears to make that the new habit part of you. It won’t want to keep something that makes you feel bad, unless you just keep practicing and it doesn’t know any better.
Diane:
Okay.
Corinne:
Does that help?
Diane:
Oh, that helps so much. Yeah, yeah. Again, I am so grateful that there’s going to be maintenance program because it’s all this thought work that’s different than anything else I’ve done, and I feel like the thought work, like you said, once you are done is it’s some big stuff, and I’m so grateful that you’re taking on that challenge. Thank you so much.
Corinne:
Oh, you’re so welcome. Well, thank you.
Kathy:
Corinne, I just have to say this. I think it’s worth repeating. I love finding evidence for new thoughts. That whole concept that you just taught there was gold. It’s just really, really important as we start to practice new thoughts to find the evidence. So, thank you for that.
Sarah:
Diane, that was just a great question and Corinne’s answer was fantastic. So, thank you so much for being brave and coming up here on the stage this morning. Man, Corinne, I have taken so many notes this morning. It has been great listening to what you are preaching here. If you’re new to Corinne and want more information, go to nobs.club and you can take her free video course that teaches you how to kickstart your weight loss for life. It’s a great course, and it’s got videos and a workbook, and I highly recommend it. It’s how I got started on my weight loss journey, too.
Sarah:
So, with that, we’ll wrap up the room and we will see you next week here on Clubhouse on Friday at 9:00 AM Central.
Corinne:
Bye, everybody. Thank you.
Corinne:
Thank you so much for listening today. Make sure you head on over to nobsfreecourse.com and sign up for my free weight loss training on what you need to know to start losing your weight right now. You’ll also find lots of notes and resources from our past podcast, help you lose your weight without all the bullshit diet advice. I’ll see you next week.
