Welcome back, everybody.

So today we're going to be talking about the most frustrating thing in the world when it comes to losing weight, and that is when you know exactly what to do. And guess what? You don't do it.

And I bet this is you. You have done a bajillion diets. You have read the books. You have paid for the expensive programs. And a lot of the stuff makes sense. I'm not going to kid you because we ain't dumb, ladies. I wasn't dumb back in the day. I did all the shit too. And when those diets tell you how many calories to eat, it's not like we don't know basic math. I graduated first grade just like you did. The stuff makes sense to us.

But then when it's time to actually do it, when it's time to be good, it's like all that knowledge flies right out the fucking window. And you're left standing there going, what the hell is wrong with me? I mean, I used to say it all the time. It's like, I know better. Why can't I just do what I said I'm going to do? I must have screamed that, wrote that, and thought that five million times back in the day.

So I want to say right now that this is for every person listening to the sound of my voice. It does not matter where you are in your life. You could be a young mom with little ones hanging off your tit all day long. Maybe you're in your 50s and 60s and you've got the grown kids and the grands, and you're taking care of your parents on top of taking care of your husband, your partner, your girlfriend, whoever. And maybe you work 60 hours a week. Maybe you're retired. Maybe you've got a house full or you live alone. It literally does not matter what stage of life you're in or what your situation is.

If you've ever known what to do and you've not done it, today, that's what we're talking about. So you are in the right place. Because what I'm about to tell you is happening to so many women who are trying to lose weight.

You see, when you don't do what you say you will do, you immediately assume what? Well, I must be lazy. I ain't got no willpower. I'm just undisciplined, Corinne. And then here's the biggest lie that we all tell ourselves. I guess I just don't want it bad enough. That is some bullshit. Every woman I know who wants to lose weight wants to lose weight really bad. Our want-to, our wanting to lose weight, is not broken.

But you know what there is? There are just times when you don't want to do the thing that you need to do to lose weight. And it's just normal, y'all. It doesn't mean that you're hopeless or some broken soul or that nothing's ever going to work for you. So get out of your shitty diaper because that is not what the fuck is going on.

So I want you to hear me when I say this. The problem is not you. Let me say it again for the woman in the back who ain't paying attention. The problem is not you.

Knowing what to do and actually doing it are two completely different things. And not one diet that you ever did probably taught you the second one. They taught you the what, but nobody ever taught you how your own brain is naturally wired to fight you on doing that shit. And when nobody teaches you that, you've got nothing left to blame but yourself. So you do, and you do it for years and years and years.

So by the end of this episode, I want you to understand what's actually happening in those moments that you don't do the shit. Because once you understand that, you will stop calling yourself lazy because you know better.

All right, so let me ask you something. Have you ever woken up in the morning and you were just full of good intentions? I mean, piss and vinegar is running through your veins. You are going to plan your whole day. You're going to eat good. You know exactly what you're going to make. You can even picture yourself suddenly being a diet diva. And then you get to the end of the day and somehow ain't none of that shit happened. And you don't even really know why.

Like, who was that this-morning person making all those plans? She must have been on crack. Because the person at 5 p.m. doesn't do jack shit with anything that crackhead in the morning wants to do.

It is literally like you are two different people. But here's the thing. You really are two different people. And once you understand why you are actually two different people, all of this is going to start making some really good sense.

So when you go to sleep at night, you need to know this. Your little brain, it gets to work. It's like the little dwarfs. It's like, hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work we go. Your brain is cleaning house while you sleep.

All day long, as you go through your day, you're piling up clutter in there. Your worries are in a big pile. Your fears are stacked on the shelves. Your doubts are piling up in the corner. The 18 things you didn't get to, the extra crap added to your to-do list, all of that shit by the end of the day is just laying all over the floor of your brain like a house that's gotten wrecked by a group of 15-year-old boys.

And while you sleep, your brain comes in and it just tidies it all up. It's like Alice from The Brady Bunch comes in and puts everything back on the shelves, takes out the trash, polishes up everything. So when you wake up in the morning, your mind house, your brain house, it's nice and clean. Everything's in its place.

That's why morning you is the way she is. She's clear-minded. She's not tripping over the clutter of worries. She's got the best attitude about your hopes, your dreams, your goals for weight loss. So when she makes a plan, she is literally planning from her best self. She actually cares about what you want most in this world. She's all aspirational. She's got her hopes and dreams. She's got her eye on your future.

Now let's fast-forward to the end of the day. You've been adding to the mess since you woke up. Everything you didn't finish, everybody who needed something from you, every little worry, it's all back on the floor again.

And now here comes night you. And we're asking her to make and follow all those decisions that morning you made while standing in the middle of a trashed house. She's worn out. She's looking around. Everything feels overwhelming and hard. She does not want to do a damn thing. She could give a fuck if you ever lose weight. She's like, I don't care about that shit.

And of course she doesn't. And here's why. She's exhausted. She can't even see the floor of the house.

So when night you doesn't do what morning you planned, or afternoon you, that's not a character flaw. That's not you being lazy or undisciplined or not having enough willpower. That's literally just two different versions of you with two completely different amounts of energy, completely different amounts of clarity.

And the biggest problem we run into is we don't really plan for there to be two versions of you each day.

So I want to be careful here because every time I bring up morning and night, my women immediately say, yes, I'm so good all day and I blow it at night. And listen, for some of you that is very true, but that is not what this podcast is really about. And I don't want you sitting here thinking that your problem only shows up in the evenings.

Your problem can literally show up at any time of the day. Maybe you don't want to eat what you planned for lunch. You don't want to stop and think before the afternoon snack. The morning-and-night thing is just the easiest way for me to explain all this because that gap is very obvious, and so many women are able to handle it most of the day and fall apart the later the day goes.

But the real thing that I'm talking about here is the gap between the version of you who makes plans to lose weight and the version of you who's actually having to do it in the moment, whenever that could be. So that could be at 8 o'clock in the morning. It could be at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. The clock just isn't the point. The point is there is a planning you and a real-life you, and they're not the same person.

So let's talk about that real-life you, the one who's standing around trying to get the shit done when it counts, when it actually matters. Because there's a big-ass tug-of-war going on that probably no diet has ever explained to you.

So you've got one part of your brain, and that part of your brain is the part that's responsible for knowing what to do. She's smart. She has all the knowledge. She knows you want to lose weight. Her goals, her dreams, her hopes, they're all stored there. She knows you're going to feel better if you don't eat like shit, if you don't eat like it's the last meal on earth. That is your planner. She is your planner brain. She is the one who shows up in the morning with the clean house.

Then you've got the part that actually does the stuff. This is the part of the brain that has to take the action. This is the part that sees the plan and says, fuck that shit, I'm ordering takeout. I'm going out with my lunch buddies. I'm going to have that Snickers bar at 3 o'clock because this is one shitty-ass day.

And the reason those two never seem to be able to get on the same page is that there are two other forces right in the middle of those two, between the planner and the executor. There are two forces between them, and they are the ones who are actually making all of the real decisions.

The first one is your habit brain. This is your autopilot. Your habit brain's entire job is to do whatever you've done before over and over again because doing what you always do takes the least amount of energy. It knows exactly what to expect, which is typically you get an immediate payoff when you eat. And your habit brain also hates change.

I always like to say the habit brain is like a really lazy motherfucker. It's just sitting back, smoking a cigarette with a box of popcorn, watching your life, making fun of it, and trying to get you to do anything but grow, change, develop, chase your dreams. It's just like, no, let's just sit on this couch, eat popcorn, and smoke all day.

So the main reason that your habit brain doesn't like to do the shit is because it doesn't know if what you're fixing to do, because you're changing things, is going to be good, bad, safe, or dangerous. Change to the habit brain goes completely against how it's been designed and wired from the caveman days.

So basically, the habit brain is like the honey badger. It just doesn't give a fuck if what you're about to do or not do is good for you or bad for you. It only cares that you just keep doing things the way you always do. So if that's eating candy at night, it just is like, we're going to keep eating candy at night. I don't care if your pancreas is about ready to explode out of your damn stomach. We're going to eat the candy. It really doesn't give a shit if it's good for you or not.

So let's say that you have grabbed candy every afternoon for 10 years. Your habit brain will want to keep doing it regardless if it's jacking your diabetes, making you fat, blowing your diet, and leaving you feeling ashamed by 5 p.m. every day. The habit brain does not have logic. So it's not trying to ruin your diet. It thinks it's really just doing its job by keeping you doing the same shit over and over again, regardless of how good or bad it is for you.

Now, the second force, we've got our, remember, there's the planner and there's the executor. And then between the planner and the executor, we've got that habit brain sitting there calling some shots. Well, you've got another one that's right there with it, and that is the reward brain.

And this one just wants whatever feels good right now. Eating feels good. Laying on the couch instead of the gym feels damn good. Wine, scrolling, takeout, all that feels great too. So when you go to do the harder thing, your reward brain plops down and goes, oh, hell no. We like the easy stuff. Come on, we deserve to do the easy things.

So I want you to picture this. It's time to do what you said you would do. You know what to do. You're a smart woman. Your planner is over there going like, hey, we wanted to lose weight. Please don't do this. And your habit brain and your reward brain are throwing a big fucking party so big and so rowdy that the planner can't even be heard over it. They've got the jam blaster turned on loud, and the planner is just like, hey, we're supposed to not be eating candy right now. And nobody can hear her. She's just standing there mouthing the words while those two are hooting and hollering and turning the music up. They are bigger than her and they are stronger than her.

And that right there is why you know what to do and you don't do it.

It was never that you were weak. It was never that you don't care. It's not that there's something wrong with you. It's that the smart part of you is getting drowned out by two parts of you that are throwing a rager every time it's time to eat.

Now listen up. Your planner brain, the one that knows what to do, she's not broken. She was never broken. She's just getting overpowered your whole life because nobody taught you that other two were even in the room. You just always thought that because you made a decision and you knew what to do, that it should be easy to do.

But nobody ever taught you that you're going up against how you're naturally wired for habit. And you've never been taught that you're going up against a reward system. And we have to go up against them. We have to learn how to work with them. We have to learn how to manage them if the planner part of you, the part that knows what to do, is ever going to win.

So here's what I think is going to help you.

First of all, we have to just realize that a lot of times the reason you don't do things in the moment is because you don't want to. Because your brain knows it's going to get a reward, and your brain knows this is just how we do it all the time. So in the moment, you won't want to when you're starting to change things.

But you need to know that you do things all the time, all day long, that you don't want to do. You already have the skill. You just don't notice.

But somewhere along the way, we think that when it comes to losing weight, that we only have to do something if we feel like it. It's like, well, I don't feel like skipping that snack. I don't feel like eating what's on my plan. I don't feel, I don't feel, I don't feel. And that is a lie that is keeping you fat and frustrated.

I'm going to give you my favorite example to prove to you that you can override the hooting and hollering anytime you want to.

You see, I've got cats, two of them. They shit like a madhouse. And I have never once in my life been motivated to change their litter box. Not one time have I ever sat on my couch thinking, oh my gosh, I sure hope Nacho takes a big shit soon because I would just love the joy of changing the box one more time today. That has never happened.

But you know what? When that thing does stink, when Laquita and Nacho have loaded it up like a volcano, I go change the motherfucker. I don't want to in the moment. Never once have I ever wanted to change it. But I do it anyway because it needs doing. Because I would rather be doing literally anything else. But in that moment, I'm willing to get off my ass and take care of it because I don't want to smell it.

But I don't sit there and go like, well, I don't want to smell the cat box anymore, so now I have a motivating reason why I'm going in there. No. I just know that wanting to change the cat box is not required to go change a cat box.

And you do this all day, every day. You just never give yourself any credit for already knowing how to do shit you don't want to do in the moment.

I bet you don't want to get up at 6 o'clock every day and make everybody's lunch, but you do it. I bet you don't want to sit in that meeting one more time listening to Jon over there drone on and on about bullshit that could have been said in a simple email, but you do it. You don't want to call and argue with that insurance company for the 30th time, but it needs to be done, so you do it.

You are a woman who does hard things she doesn't feel like doing all the time. You've just never once aimed all of that willingness at yourself and your own weight. You think you're supposed to feel like it. You think you need to be motivated to do it.

The only thing you need to do is to be willing. And that is the biggest piece. You need to be willing.

The question was never, do I feel like it? You're almost never going to feel like changing habits. You're almost never going to feel like following through on what your planner wants to do, especially if you've had a hard day.

So the question is, am I willing to do it? You need to ask yourself because those are two totally different questions. Not, do I feel like it? It's, am I willing?

And we've spent our lives asking the wrong question when it comes to losing weight. We ask, do I feel like it? The answer is no. And so we quit before we even start. We don't even try. Nobody ever told us you're allowed to do something you don't feel like doing when it comes to losing weight.

Now, I'm going to tell you, we want to figure out the emotional reasons behind your eating and all that stuff. All of that is work we want to do because without that you're just losing weight grinding. But at the end of the day, every now and then, you're going to need to just do things because, yeah, I'm willing to do it even though at this moment I don't feel like it.

So when you're in that moment and it's time to do the things, here's what I want you to actually do. And this builds on what I talked about in the last episode. So if you didn't listen to last week's episode, make sure you listen to it after this one.

First, you've got to catch yourself in the act. And this is the part almost everybody doesn't do. Most women do not notice the second they don't want to do something when it's happening. They only figure it out later. They look back and they're like, yeah, I didn't feel like it. What am I supposed to do if I didn't feel like it? But right when it's happening, you need to start noticing that you are saying, I don't feel like it.

Most of the time what we do is we don't notice that moment. We just roll straight in from not wanting to into just not doing it. And we have no acknowledgement of the in-between.

So the first thing is just getting good at catching, in real time, when you don't want to do something. And catch it kindly. I do not want you catching it like a bitch face. Don't go, oh great, here you are again not wanting to do something, you loser. That is not the way to do it. It's more like, oh, I notice I caught one of those times where I would normally just not do what I said I would do without a second thought. I'm starting to notice these moments. That's all I need you to do.

So get good at that first. Then the next thing you want to do is you want to say to yourself, and out loud if you can, where you can hear it, because there's power in saying things out loud to yourself. It's like it doubles down on changing what you believe.

You want to say, this right here is one of those times I don't feel like doing the thing I said I would do.

That one sentence right there, it's going to feel completely different from silently just giving in. Because now you're kind of awake to the moment. You're really noticing what's happening. You're getting to watch what's happening instead of just being at the effect of it happening.

Now you can actually do something different instead of finding out tomorrow like, oh God, I said I would do this and I didn't do it. I don't know what's wrong with me.

Now, when you notice that moment, when you acknowledge it's happening and you say out loud, hey, I've caught another moment where I don't want to do something that I said I would do, that I don't feel like it, this is when we want to give ourselves a second and give yourself permission to do just a little.

I think this is one of the best things that I teach inside of No BS, and it's that can I just?

Can I just is an amazing and powerful way to get you from doing nothing and just shitting all over what the planner wanted you to do to getting in motion. So you don't have to do everything you said you would. You just ask yourself, can I just do like this? Can I just put on my shoes? Can I just eat a salad first? Can I just whatever it is?

You want to pick something small and easy. I always like to ask myself, what's the easiest thing I could do right now? Like if I was just going to do a little piece of this, what is the easiest thing I could do? Because here's what happens most of the time. All that resistance, the not wanting to, it burns off the second you start doing something.

So for example, I do not like going to the gym. In fact, as I'm recording this podcast, I have not worked out today, and I have got to go to the gym after recording this podcast. And I will tell you, not an ounce of me wants to go. Ninety-eight percent of the time, I don't want to go. There's always something more important. It always seems like it's going to be hard. I can always think of a reason not to go.

But I also know me. I am never going to magically want to go to the gym. So here's the deal I make with myself. I'm just going to put my gym clothes on, and I'm just going to drive there. And if I get there and I still don't want to work out, I can turn around and bring my happy ass home.

Eighteen years of doing this. Eighteen years. You would think I would want to go to the gym by now, and I don't. You know how many times I've actually come home? Maybe five. Five times in 18 years. Every other time I would get there, I do one little thing, and then guess what? I kind of just keep going and finish. Sometimes I have a better workout than I had all week. And this is from a woman who, an hour earlier, didn't want to go at all.

And you've got to make peace with something because here's the thing that's probably been keeping you stuck all these years. You are not supposed to feel like doing things that are hard or new for you at all. You're just not.

Nobody bounces out of bed excited to, you know, eat on plan today. You have to think about this. If you've been eating like a jackass for most of your life, like when I first started, I didn't bounce up every day like, oh boy, I decided to start losing weight. Today I can't wait to change my eating habits. Said no one ever. I did not do that, and you won't either.

We don't bounce out of bed looking forward to doing things that are brand new to us unless it's something like vacation. Yeah, maybe that. But when we're talking about losing weight, we're just probably not going to feel like it most of the time.

Our brain is smart enough to know this won't be easy. You're changing the way I've been handling things. You're changing the way I do things. You're experimenting with stuff. I don't know if this is going to work. There are so many reasons why your brain would have hesitancy.

So I want you to just remember, it is rare that a single human looks forward to doing things that are going to be hard for them in the beginning. So stop using I don't feel like it as proof that something's wrong with you. Not feeling like it is so normal. It means absolutely nothing about whether you can do this or not.

So another thing that makes doing things when you don't want to easier is this: just make a tiny change.

I think this is a big one, and you hear me talk about it in the podcast all the time. You want to make a change that's so tiny it almost feels stupid. So tiny that you think that it's not even worth doing, that it'll never add up to anything. And when you think that, when you think this isn't good enough, that is from now on, that is your green light. You are now green-lit to go do the thing. And I mean it.

Most women hear this isn't good enough, and they think that is a red light, and then they don't do anything. But I'm going to tell you right now, if you trigger yourself to think it's not good enough, this is probably the exact size of change that's actually going to be doable, easy to convince yourself to do. You will feel more willing to do it because it's small enough that you can override the two party animals living inside your head, the reward system and the habit.

You need to sneak up on them, especially the habit brain. Slight changes, the habit brain doesn't freak out as much. When you make slight changes, guess what also happens? The reward brain gets a small reward because doing something small has power. It's small enough to not feel worth it, but at the same time small enough that you can do it without a lot of effort. And your habit brain hates the effort, so you bypass that part. And when you do something small, you're going to get a reward. So your reward brain now is getting a payoff for following through instead of getting the reward of complacency.

So back when I was losing weight, this is really how I lost a lot of my weight. It was just one stupid small little change at a time.

So back in the day, me and Chris, we ordered pizza damn near every night. And the first change I made was not something huge. I just said, what do you think if we went from thick crust to thin crust? That was the big change. I shit you not. I didn't cut out pizza to lose weight. I didn't tell myself I could never have it again. I didn't tell myself I couldn't have it again until I lost weight. I just said, you know what? I think if we go from thick to thin, that will be an improvement.

And I'm going to be honest, my brain had a big, big, big laugh at me over that. It was like, thin crust? That's your big weight-loss plan? That is some bullshit. You're going to be fat forever, girl.

But I did it anyway because it was so small that I knew I would at least be making a change that maybe one day I would be able to make another one. And so changing from thick to thin wasn't super scary. It didn't ask a lot of me. It was worth trying. And it kept me still having something that I liked, so I was getting the reward of pizza, but I was also getting the reward of making a change.

Then once I got used to that, I started putting some veggies on my pizza instead of just a big-ass meat lover's. Then instead of us splitting a big large, I decided, hey, let's order two mediums so I can order one the way I want to order it and then you and Logan can have the other one. And then I started telling myself ahead of time, you know, instead of eating a medium all to myself, which is what I did for a long time, I was like, I'm going to have three slices and I'm going to add a side salad. That's going to be my next big epic change.

Then after a while, I was having a big salad with two slices. Then after a while, I was having a big salad with a slice of pizza and a side of fruit for dessert.

I just kept making changes so that eventually the habit of making changes was now what my brain was used to. My brain wasn't freaking out about not doing things anymore. My brain was forming the habit of always looking at all my eating behaviors and thinking, hey, what is something small that we can do today that's a little bit better than yesterday? And guess what? My reward brain was getting a ton of payoff because the scale was going down. I was feeling better. And my habit brain wasn't freaking out because I was making one little change at a time and forming a new habit where change was now becoming a habit.

So if you had told me at the very start of my weight-loss journey that I'd be sitting there with my thick crust and my whole pizza, that little old thin crust was going to matter, I would have bet my life that it wouldn't have made one dickwad change. It felt like it was too small, not good enough. But that little step was the first step, and every step made the next one so much easier, which meant I could climb that whole staircase of weight loss without ever having to white-knuckle, starve myself, or even hate my life.

It was so much easier to do the things I said I would do when I broke it all down and worked with my mind instead of against it.

So that's really how a lot of this works. It's not one giant leap that you grit your teeth through and pray in the moment that you can override how Mother Nature designed everything in your brain. It's just a bunch of small steps that felt too small to count, stacking up while I wasn't looking, when my habit brain and my reward brain were barely looking.

Now here's the last thing, and I want you to write this down if you can. You do not need a perfect streak in order to lose weight. You just don't.

Habits have never in the history of your life required you to do something perfectly every day for a month. I want you to think about how you became a clean-plate club member. Your mama didn't tell you to clean your plate one time in your life and then boom, every day from that moment on you had a lifelong habit. She told you a thousand times when you were a little kid, and you hated every ounce of it. You didn't want to, but you did it. Then eventually it was your habit to clean your plate.

That's just how habits form. They don't come from perfect streaks. They come from you trying to do things over and over again imperfectly, reminding yourself to keep doing it until one day it is just what you do.

So when you mess up at dinner and then the next day you go, all right, trying again, your brain goes, huh, she keeps trying again. So this must be really important. I guess we should start doing that new thing. We should make the habit trying again instead of quitting.

You see, messing up your diets was never the problem. Quitting after you messed up has always been the problem. And that's been the major thing that stopped you.

So if you've ever thought, I know what to do, I just don't do it, I hope you can hear now that it was never because you're lazy, and it was never because you didn't want it bad enough. You've got a brain wired to run on habit all the time. You've got a part of your brain that has good intentions, makes the best plans. The habit is sitting there saying like, uh-uh, you're trying to change the game. Here's how I want to do it. The reward center is like, and if you keep doing it this way, I'm going to give you a juicy fat reward. Then you've got the version of you that's got to take all that into consideration and decide, am I doing it? Am I willing? Is feeling like it even necessary?

So the diets, they haven't done shit for you when it comes to this stuff. They just handed you calorie counts and told you to make giant changes overnight. They didn't talk about the tiny steps. They didn't talk about the in-between. They didn't tell you that you're probably not going to feel like it. They didn't tell you that you need to be willing. They didn't do the can-I-just. They didn't do any of this stuff. So of course they didn't stick because you were set up to fail and then blamed yourself for everything not working.

This stuff is really important for you to know. It's exactly what I teach inside No BS Weight Loss. I want you to know how your brain works so you can stop fighting it so you can work with it. And we will help you find those tiny, not-good-enough changes that stack up so that you're losing your weight without your life being a miserable shit show, without you feeling like you're just grinding, white-knuckling, depriving yourself, restricting yourself, and dragging yourself across the finish line of weight loss.

But I'm just going to be real honest with you. One podcast isn't going to rewire all of this for you. But I hope what it does is it shows you the real reason that this has been really hard. It gives you some hope that, you know, you don't have to keep beating yourself up, that there are reasons why you've been doing things the way you've been doing them. Hope that there are really simple fixes out there. And once you know them and you have somebody helping you through them, that this can change for you.

Because you do need to know how your mind works. You do need to know about the emotional eating pieces that I talk about all the time. And you need to know all the other things that are missing in those diets that you keep wasting time and money on.

So I'm going to keep saying this till I'm blue in the face. You aren't supposed to figure all this shit out by yourself. I sure didn't. I had to learn every bit of this the hard way. And now I just hand it over to the women who work with me, who were smart enough to stop trying to do it all alone.

Okay, I hope you have a great week, and I will see you in next week's podcast.