Picture this: you're killing it with your diet. You're meal-prepping like Martha Stewart. Cutting out all the "bad" foods. And feeling like THIS is finally your time.

Then life happens. Maybe you have to work late. Or your kid gets sick. Or you couldn't resist the cookies in the break room.

Just like that, your "perfect" streak is over. So you give up on weightloss.

Again.

In today's episode -- How Perfectionism Is Holding You Back -- I'm sharing:

• The real reason you go from "all in" to "screw it" (and it has nothing to do with willpower)
• Why trying to be "good" with food is sabotaging your weightloss
• A simple shift that makes losing weight feel easier (the same one that finally helped me lose all my weight)

I spent years thinking I just needed to try harder, be better, and do it "right."

But perfectionism is like the Darth Vader of weightloss. It's not your friend. It's actually your biggest enemy. And once you understand why, everything changes.

Ready to stop starting over and start making progress that lasts? Check out today's episode.

Hello everybody. Welcome back. So I've got a podcast that has been highly requested and it's all about why perfectionism is ruining our weight loss. So many people that I work with are self-proclaimed perfectionists, and I get it as women, we are kind of raised that way. We watch our moms self-sacrifice. They're always trying to do everything right. How many of you now to this day, you had mothers or you or yourself as a mother or grandmother is always trying to create the perfect holiday, the perfect family gathering, all these things women are just notoriously perfectionists. So I want to talk about it because it's something that really keeps women stuck when it comes to losing weight, and it's one of my most requested topics. So if you're anything like me, you might not even realize that you were a perfectionist. I didn't ever think I was a perfectionist. 

And so I started really looking at it because I used to think perfectionism was only for people who had a color coded planner or they were a types who've never made mistakes and such. I mean, that can be signals of a perfectionist, but what I have found after working with tens of thousands of women to lose weight over the last 15 years is perfectionism actually shows up in a shit ton of sneaky ways, especially when it comes to losing weight and it comes to food. So back when I weighed 250 pounds, this is how perfectionism was showing up for me. I'd start a new diet and like a good girl, I would go all fucking in on day one of the diet. I would cut out all the bad foods, you'd see me in the kitchen, I would be meal prepping. If you saw me at the grocery store, you wouldn't catch me in no medical aisle. 

It was perimeter shopping like a fucking boss. I would suddenly go from ordering takeout to Martha Stewart in a heartbeat, and I'd tell myself, this is it, Corrine. This time we're going to do it right. I would always start a diet with this idea that I have turned the page, I have gotten all the shit out of my system. Here's another telltale sign that you might be a perfectionist when it comes to losing weight. If you reenact the last supper before you start your diet, you're probably a perfectionist because you have it in your head that today I'm going to get it all out of my system. Today I am going to get all the food out because tomorrow my new life begins. Perfectionists love that. And honestly, you get excited. Why? Because it's like, oh my gosh, I'm on the brink of big, and your brain is just thinking about how you're going to just glide through and do it all different. 

Suddenly nothing's going to bother you, and being healthy is going to be amazing. It does feel good, but what the fuck actually happens? We're able to keep it up for a few days and maybe even a few weeks. I had a few good runs back in my day where I could even go two to three months of being dialed in, but it always happened. Something would go wrong, something didn't go as planned. I would either have to work late and that would be it. It was like, oh my gosh, I missed the healthy meal I was supposed to eat and I would be starving. I worked for a restaurant company back in the day called Shoney's, and I worked in their training department and I can remember my boss making me work late, and I would be there until seven, eight o'clock at night, which is awful for someone who emotionally eats because I would have the perfect storm. 

I would be doing so good on my diet, I would've lost some weight because up until that moment I could leave work, go home, eat my healthy meal, get my ass in bed, and not have to go through temptation, and then my boss would want me to work late and I wouldn't be able to eat. And by the time I'd be walking out the door, I was digesting my own stomach, I would hit hangry mode and I would go straight to McDonald's. It was almost like I didn't even know I was doing it. I remember hearing in my head, well, you did work awfully hard today. We'll just go to McDonald's this one time. Let's just get something. We just need something quick, and then tomorrow we'll get right back on track. I kind of remember that conversation, but it felt like it all happened so fast. 

I wasn't even a real participant in it. I would eat the McDonald's and go home and feel awful about myself. I would say, see, you can't lose weight. See, you always screw up. Something always happens. I'd go to bed and the next day I'd wake up and I'd try to punish myself. I'd eat a little less. I'd try to make up for my sins, and then guess what? By the time I'd go into the evening, I'd be even hungrier and my brain would be freaking out again like, oh my God, we need to eat. And it just felt like the death spiral. It would only take one meal or a series of two to three days of trying to be good and then blowing it before I would just be like, I got to start all over. Might as well just fuck this and stop. 

If I'm never going to get it right, I might as well quit and I would eat my face off for a little bit and I would wait before I start another until I was so fucking miserable about being overweight that it was better to start a diet. It would seem like a better deal to start another diet than it did to stay that fucking miserable. And I stayed trapped in that cycle for years. So if I had one drive through, I'd tell myself, oh my God, you messed up. And then the next day I would start the cycle. If I missed a workout, I would think, screw it, the week is ruined. And I wouldn't even go back to the gym for the rest of the week. I was so caught up in this all or nothing world. I was either being perfect or I was a complete failure. 

I had zero in between and it was a miserable experience because the only time I could ever feel good is if I was doing things right. There was no gray area, there was no encouragement. I was either, thank God you're doing it right, or, oh my God, you're such a fucking screw up. So that mindset, that is why I stayed stuck so long bouncing between 1 75 and two 50, and I will just tell you 1 75 was the lowest I was ever able to get until the last time I lost weight. I weigh one 40 now, but I will tell you back in the day, sometimes I could get all the way to 1 75 and then I'd go right back up. So perfectionism, most of us have a little bit of it. If not, we are complete perfectionist, especially when it comes to dieting. For some of you, you may be a perfectionist in all the areas of life, and for some of you you're not. 

But when it comes to weight loss, you're either on track or you're off. You're either on plan or you're off. You're either a good girl or a bad girl. You're either doing it right or you're doing it wrong. So perfectionism at its heart is a complete liar. It tells you that if you're not doing something right, you must be doing it wrong and perfection will make you believe that one slipup means you're the failure, but that's not even the worst part. Perfectionism convinces you that the only solution is to throw away everything you've done and you have to start from ground zero. Now, I know some of you who listen to me are nodding because this is the same shit you've been doing for years and years and years. Maybe you eat off plans sometimes at lunch, and then by dinner you're like, anything that's not nailed down is going in my damn mouth. 

You are hoovering, you are doing, fuck it, I've already screwed up. I might as well. Maybe you miss a workout. I know a lot of people who work out God, as long as you're working out, you feel like you can hold things together. But the second you miss a workout, you feel guilty. You think the scale's going to go up, you're afraid of everything that you ate, and you finally, you start sitting there thinking the whole week is ruined because one day you couldn't go to the gym for 45 minutes. This is what you need to hear. Perfectionism is the absolute enemy of weight loss. If we were going to have, it's like the Darth Vader to the Luke Skywalker. Perfectionism is dark vader, so you cannot expect to be perfect and lose weight because weight loss requires consistency. It does not require perfectionism. So let me explain what that actually looks like because a lot of people don't understand the difference between consistency and perfection. 

I think that's one of the biggest hoses in weight loss is that we think being consistent means we are being perfect. Perfect means you're shooting for streaks. Perfect means there's only one way to do it, and there's this one right way, and anything outside of that way has to be wrong. Whereas consistency isn't about doing it the exact same every single day with no mistakes. Consistency is about effort. Today, how hard did you try? Did you make efforts? Did you make any progress? Consistency is about like, okay, if we had 10 things we have to do to lose weight every day, some days you do four, some days you do all 10. Some days you do six. Some days you do one. Some days you do zero. Consistency is about the next day showing up and getting in there. Again, consistency is about looking at a situation and saying to yourself when things don't go right, what is the best decision I can make right now? 

What is my next best move? Consistency has no beat downs in it. Consistency is full of compassion. It's like looking at your day and noticing, oh, I didn't do those things that I said I would. Consistency says I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to do it, but I'm curious about what I could do next. I'm disappointed. I thought I'd be able to do this, but I'm open to the idea that I could keep going. That's consistency. It is what is the next best decision instead of beating yourself up for what didn't go right or perfectly. So let's say you have a cookie after lunch. Maybe you are at work, you had a really good healthy breakfast, you had your perfectly packed little lunch, and somebody brought cookies and they're in the break room and you never get these cookies and you're just like, maybe I'll have one. 

A perfectionistic mindset will tell you, fuck Corin, you did so good all day and now you've ruined it with this cookie. So you might as well. And you sneak back into the break room and you grab one more, and the next thing you know on the way out the door, you notice there's a wayward soldier left there all by himself and you grab him. Then you go home and you're just like, I might as well order takeout because I've been screwing the day already. That is perfectionism. That is what we do when we are a perfectionist. But a consistent mindset says, I had a cookie. It tasted really good. That wasn't what I planned, but what could I do for the rest of the day? How do I just continue to move on? Notice how you will not be fucking eating. Perfectionism is going to make you spiral. 

Having a consistency based mindset is going to keep you figuring out the small ways to move forward. Do you see the difference? And here's the big thing, consistency actually fucking works. Do not let your brain fool you. I let it fool me. For over 30 years of my life, until I finally gave up perfectionism, I didn't realize the biggest thing I was going to have to give up in weight loss was being a fucking perfectionist that I had to give up. I didn't need to give up bread. I didn't need to give up cheese sticks. I didn't need to give up pizza, ice cream. I didn't give up food. I didn't to give up that stupid fucking mentality that I was carrying around because I was trying to be a perfectionist. Consistency works, and it's how I ended up losing a hundred pounds because when I stopped trying to be perfect, I started making small changes that I could actually stick to. 

I didn't cut out those entire food groups or swear off desserts forever. I didn't try to overhaul my entire life. In one stinking week, I decided for the first time in my life, I was going to figure out a way to show up for myself in small doable ways. Every single day. I was going to stay really focused on what I could do each day. And sometimes that looked like pausing after one cookie instead of eating the whole pack. Sometimes it looked like skipping a workout, but still going for a 10 minute walk. And sometimes it looked like giving myself a little bit of grace when I just didn't do things right. And that is why the weight came off faster for me and because it has stayed off for 18 years because I wasn't constantly having to start over anymore. I was just consistently making little chips away at my a hundred pounds every single day. 

I was always, always looking for a little way to chip away at that a hundred pounds. Now, I know this can feel hard, especially if you've been stuck in the all or nothing mindset for years. But the good news is you do not have to fix your all or nothing mindset overnight. So the next time you feel yourself slipping into perfectionism, I want you to pause and ask yourself, what is one small thing I can do right now to just keep myself moving forward? Maybe it's stopping after one cookie instead of finishing the bag. Maybe it's stopping at half a bag instead of finishing the bag. Maybe it's ordering takeout, but leaving a bite or two behind instead of just eating until you're stuffed. And maybe it's just reminding yourself that one mistake doesn't mean we have to start over. And it doesn't mean we have failed perfectionism, I promise you, is getting you nowhere. 

It's not helping you lose weight, it's just keeping you stuck. And the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can start actually losing weight and making it a lifelong weight loss, not a temporary weight loss. So here's some homework for all my little listeners. The next time you find yourself thinking I blew it, or I'll start over tomorrow, I want you to stop. I want you to just take a very big deep breath and remind yourself you don't have to be perfect to lose weight, but you do have to keep going. All right, that's it for today. Y'all have an amazing week and I'll talk to you soon.