Corrine:

All right, everybody. Welcome back. Today we have another little book study that we’re going to do. I’ve got coach MJ here from the No BS Weightloss community. For all of you listeners, you don’t know coach MJ. But when I hired her I was like, “Thank God, someone just like me on the team.” So I if you like me, you’re going to love coach MJ. She’s very sassy, down to earth, common sense like I am. So we are going today talk about a book that I read it first. And just thought it was amazing. Gave it to my entire team. My entire team is currently going through a book study on it. Just because as people in the weight loss industry, we want to stay… I want to help all women lose their weight, but I don’t want to stop there. I want them to change their lives. I want them to feel amazing.

Corrine:

And part of that is really loving your body at any size. Even though I promote weight loss, I do not want people losing weight at the expense of losing themselves. At the expense of not loving themselves until they get there. I really just believe that weight loss should be the by-product of falling in love with who you are, knowing who you want to be. And then getting there through a process of becoming someone you just love how she thinks. And you love her actions. And you’re so in love with you that the whole weight loss part of it just kind of happens. You’re just doing things that get you there. So we’re all reading the book and today coach MJ and I are going to talk about it.

Corrine:

Before we get into The Body Is Not an Apology, we are going to introduce her. Let her talk a little bit about her. So tell everybody just a little bit about your story. And how you’ve struggled with weight a good bit of your life just like me. How you lost weight, how long you’ve been a member, why you’re a coach, all those good fabulous things.

Coach MJ:

Yeah. So I found you on the podcast in 2017 and a little bit into 2018. But I had already decided I sucked at losing weight. I was never going to do it again. I was going to be big and happy. And I was going to be the best dressed fat person. That’s what I could tell my kids. I’m [inaudible 00:02:37] look wonderful and I’m going to love myself right where I am. But then in January of 2018, I went to the doctor. And I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides. That was not part of my plan. I was going to be what I said.

Corrine:

I love your body but not if it’s honestly [crosstalk 00:02:54].

Coach MJ:

Yeah. You’re about to go on all of your medicines. And I’d already listened to you. There were women in my life that were following you. Because I said, “If I’m ever going to lose weight, it’s going to be with this lady. Because she makes so much sense. But I’m not losing weight, so I’m not interested, but you should listen to her.” And so I got in the car at that doctor’s appointment. I turned on your podcast. The next day I made my first 24 hour plan. The membership was not open at the time. So I did it on my own until the membership opened. And I joined in March of 2018 and I’ve lost 85 pounds. And I am all normal. I never had to go on medicine. I begged my doctor to give me three months, she did. When I went back, everything was still not normal, but it was headed in the right direction. She gave me three more months. And now three months my way into, everything was normal. So it was awesome.

Corrine:

Good. And then tell them why you became a weight loss coach. I mean, what prompted you to decide? Because you changed careers to come and work-

Coach MJ:

I did.

Corrine:

… with me.

Coach MJ:

I was a physical therapist. Never in my life read a self-help book until I found you.

Corrine:

That’s so funny.

Coach MJ:

I am a Fifty [crosstalk 00:04:13] Shades of Grey.

Corrine:

And now I must jam them down your throat all the time.

Coach MJ:

Yeah. I have read Morris… I have never done… I’d never read anything. I have three daughters, Layla, [Lida 00:04:23] and [Mina 00:04:23]. I will shout them out. And people always ask, how can I change my kids’ lives? It happened because they watched me. It happened because they watched me and I became a better mom. I was a yeller if you asked my kids. I probably still I’m a yeller at times, but not nearly… Our relationship got stronger. They started to come to me to ask for advice and stuff, because I was making sense. And I felt like not only did you give me weight loss and you gave me help. But you also gave me a life I never imagined in every area of my life.

Coach MJ:

And I just really wanted to give that back to women. I just couldn’t believe like you were talking about. Weight loss was kind of like a byproduct. I learned how to speak nice to myself. I love taking care of myself. I loved being an example to my girls and I happened to lose weight at the same time, which was great for me.

Corrine:

And that’s just I think what makes the process of what… Most of us go through our lives doing these diets. Because we have this mindset that I’m going to lose weight. And then I’m going to fall in love with myself. And then I’m going to be happy. And then I’m going to be doing all these things and it’s ass backward. Why don’t we change how we talk about ourselves? Why don’t we just wake up every single day cheer lead the out of ourselves. Make amazing decisions because we finally love ourselves enough to do it. We do it all unapologetically. And through that process, you change your eating. It just makes the process of weight loss so much easier when you love you. And you’re making real choices for you because you choose to. I think what we end up doing in weight loss so much and what she kind of talked about in this book.

Corrine:

We just sit around and apologizing. Like, “Let me do a diet because I’m terrible, because I’m horrible.” There’s such a fat stigma especially in the United States. I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I can for sure speak for the United States. That we just think if you are fat that equals lazy, and bad, and all these other things. It just means you’re eating more food than your body requires right now. It doesn’t have anything to do with your self worth, you as a human, or anything like that. And one reason why I love teaching weight loss is not just to help people lose weight to feel good. It’s to help them feel really good so that they can take any kind of care of themselves if they ever want to. It’s no longer a burden I have to, a force, a punishment or anything. I mean, I was actually writing about this in my own journal today.

Corrine:

One of the things that I’m most proud of, I still to this day write about things that I’m proud of. In terms of my whole weight loss journey. Is that I’m the kind of person who before she plans her food for the week, I always think about what are some really good foods I could put in my body this week? That are going to keep me around for the long haul? For Chris and for Logan. I just want to live a long life with them. And when you are thinking about food… And I did this even when I was at the 75 pound overweight mark. I mean, when I first started, I started off really slow. But there were these transition periods where I started eating better quality foods for me. Never because I had to. It wasn’t just for the weight loss. It was literally from this mindset of thinking the bigger picture.

Corrine:

For a long time, I wanted to do my damnedest to outlive my son. I want to be here as long as I humanly possible can be here for him. To help him in his life and navigate everything that will come up for him. That’s motivating. I never felt like I had to eat anything. It always felt like an honor. It felt like a loving, motherly choice. And I think that, that’s the part that’s missing in weight loss. Is we don’t fall in love with the process or ourselves. We hate the process and hate ourselves and wonder why it’s so hard to get there and stay there.

Coach MJ:

I think we grew up like this is in… We’re going to talk about this. We’ll go ahead and talk about it now.

Corrine:

Go ahead.

Coach MJ:

Learning to speak [crosstalk 00:09:01]. I know. So it talks about… She says on page 96. It’s two friends in a dressing room. And that friend tries something on and she was like, “Oh my God, I look like a cow in this.” And her friend is like, “No, you don’t, you look wonderful. I would look like a cow in that.” You beat your own self up to make somebody feel better. But I always talk to my private clients about this. We always think that we have to beat ourselves up like, “I better lose this weight because I’m bad.” Or, “I better lose this weight because people look at me.” You just kind of beat yourself up all the way down. Now I say, think about somebody you really don’t like very much at all.

Coach MJ:

We all have people we don’t love. And so you’ve got kids are doing school at home. And you got homework, you might be Zooming and working. And then you’ve got dinner to cook and all this other stuff. And this person that you don’t like says, “Hey, I need somebody to come and let my dog out, do you mind?” You’ll be like, “It’s a no. Look at my [inaudible 00:10:00] stuff I got to do.” But if it’s your best friend, somebody you love so much, you’ll be like, “I can put dinner off a little bit longer. I can make it work for you.” You’ll go out of your way for the person you love. And that’s how it has to be with you too. You can’t be the person you don’t like and think that you’re going to take care of you. You have to be the person you love. Because you can see it everywhere in your life. The people we love, we take better care of.

Corrine:

Yeah. It makes you want to step up for yourself.

Coach MJ:

Yes, exactly.

Corrine:

And that’s the thing. And I also love what you just said. Because I think what ends up happening is it’s so common in the weight loss for all to think that you’ve got to beat yourself up. Be like, “That’s how I stay on track.” That’s how you burn out. This is what ends up happening in weight loss for all of you so that you know this. You may be sitting around tearing yourself up about your body now. And that in itself you just want to get away from that version of you. So you will restrict and you will do crazy bat shit diets. You’ll do anything you can to get away from an asshole. It’d be like going to a party and there being a complete asshole there. And you’re just like, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to just stay in here.”

Corrine:

You’d go find someone like, “I think someones else is calling my name. Peace out.” So in the beginning, when you were trying to lose weight, if you’re an asshole to yourself, you will do shit just to get away. But suddenly you’re going to have moments where you’ve lost enough weight till it just triggers you to be like, “This is working.” Or, “I look good.” You’ll start having that. Well guess what? If the process you picked sucks, you’re going to need to trade your suck mind energy. So now that you don’t beat yourself up so much, because the scale keeps going down, you’re wearing clothes you couldn’t wear before. You have those moments of happiness. But then the next thing you’re like, “I just need a break from this. That I’ve been doing so good.” You start feeling good enough to where you are not going to punish yourself anymore.

Corrine:

The motivation to do assholery to yourself is now gone. That’s why we end up burning ourselves out before we even get to the end of the journey. Because you didn’t learn how to love yourself. And this is the point. You will feel better sometimes when you look in the mirror. In the beginning when you first lose weight, I promise you, you will have nice thoughts. But after a while, you’ll get used to that version of you. You’re not going to four months later be like, “Oh my God, I’m wearing a size eight.” It’s a no. Eventually it’s like, “I sure as fuck hope I can stay in these size eights.” The newness wears off. And then you’re just left with how you normally think. And I just love that you brought that up because it’s really important.

Corrine:

That’s why we are so all in, in No BS on. We have to quit dieting to feel better. We have to quit waiting to lose weight to feel better. Because there’s only a small window of time when you lose weight where it’s like, “I can’t help, but think nice things.” Then that’s gone and you’re left with a bullshit process you started that you never loved. And then you’ve got your bullshit thinking about yourself that you never fixed. And you’re just sitting there going, “Well, what the fuck? I lost all this weight. Nothing feels good. A snicker, I’ll have one today because I’ve lost my weight.” That’s how we end up regaining weight.

Coach MJ:

Well, and the other part too that falls away is people noticing. I mean, nobody says, “Oh my God, you look so good to me.” Anymore. Nobody says [crosstalk 00:13:55]. “Oh my God, are you losing weight?”

Corrine:

You lost 100 pounds? Nobody knows.

Coach MJ:

Nobody’s coming up to me and saying that now. And so all of that… Because a lot of times what happens too, I think is people are beating themselves up on the inside. But they’re getting just enough hit from that, “And you look so good. Oh my gosh, what are you doing? You look so good. You’ve lost so much weight.” All this kind of stuff. So on the inside you feel bad. But then on the outside, you’re still getting that little, “Well, maybe I am doing good.”

Corrine:

It’s kind of like that concept we talk about, the equal airtime. It’s like you’ve got your old shitty voice on the inside. But you’re getting some equal airtime by all this external validation. It’s like, “Oh, I can feel good about myself. I’m getting approval. Right now I can feel good.” But you’re right, that stuff goes away. The cheers, the celebrations, all of it falls to the wayside. And you’re left with how you think and how you’ve allowed yourself to think. And one of the things she talks about so much in this book, that I absolutely adored is the unapologetic love for yourself. I was actually developing some camp content. And one of the questions that I ask in there is what would it take for you to just wake up every day, and apologize for nothing to yourself or to anyone else?

Corrine:

And what would it take to just decide, “You know what today, I’m going to love myself, applaud myself, think amazing thoughts all day long.” If you did that day in and day out, think about how different your life would be like. I think a lot of you should write about that shit. And one of the things I will say about this book that I adored, journal prompts. There are so many good ones. For all of you who are wondering how to get onto the path of self-love through journaling, you should read this book. Because she’s got a bajillion in there. It will be your roadmap to loving your body. All right, so what do you want to talk about next?

Coach MJ:

And then I want to talk too about this whole not apologizing. Because it’s not just for our body that we’re in. It’s for the choices that we make too. I think that’s what really got me the most. Is you don’t say, “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Unless something’s wrong. But when you’re apologizing for yourself, I’ve thought about it when I was reading it. I could even imagine myself walking in front of… “Oh, I’m so sorry.” I’m sorry and I’m doing it now with my shoulders. Trying to make myself small so that I would not encroach on somebody else. And then I was also thinking she talks about like it’s what you wear. Apologizing for the clothes that you choose.

Coach MJ:

Or I have a tattoo that my husband doesn’t like. I’ve apologized for that before. And I’m like, “I’m not going to… I love it. I’m not going to apologize for that.” I went to a football game last weekend and this guy walked up to me in the morning. We’d spent the night and he was going to ask me a question. He didn’t have a shirt on and he had tattoos and he said, “I’m sorry, I’m not as scary as I look.” And because I was reading this book and I thought he’s apologizing because of what he thinks I’m going to think about him. Because of his appearance and I was like, “It’s so sad to see.” I don’t know. It just broke my heart to see him thinking, “She’s going to be scared of me because I have these tattoos.” That’s his opinion of himself.

Corrine:

I think that… I just remember even when… This was back in my twenties. I would be in meetings and if I needed to go to the bathroom, first of all, it took courage to even get up to go to the bathroom. Because I always wanted to get to the meetings early so I could sit on the outside. So that I wouldn’t have to squeeze between chairs. But there would always be some meeting that I’d get to late. Where naturally the middle seat in the middle of the room was the only place to sit. And I would remember apologizing to people. And I wasn’t apologizing because I had to go to the bathroom and I didn’t want them to move their seat. I was apologizing because I was overweight. It’s different if you kick someone’s purse on your way to the bathroom.

Corrine:

“Of course I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kick your purse.” But every single person that would have to move their chair I would say, “I’m sorry.” Because I just thought, “If I just wasn’t so fat, nobody would have to have to scoot your chair in.” And that’s that subtle self-loathing that we do. It’s like when someone… And I want to really touch on this. Because apologizing it’s not just saying you’re sorry. It’s when someone says, “Oh, you look so good.” And you’re like, “Well, I still got 20 pounds to lose.” At times it’s like we’re so afraid to love ourselves. That even when somebody else is trying to pay us a compliment, we have to match. There’s no way I can take that in. What I need to do is I need to match my emotions to how I normally feel.

Corrine:

I normally feel bad about myself. So somebody compliments me. I need to tell them, “Well, let me just say [crosstalk 00:19:27].” The what?

Coach MJ:

It’s the thank you but. “You look so good.”, “Thank you but…”

Corrine:

Right. It’s so dismissive and we do this. We dismiss opportunities to feel good. And it comes from that undeserving mentality that’s underneath it. So for all of you look around in your life and just think about where are there times when I’m apologizing for my size. I’m apologizing for being a woman. I’m apologizing for whatever that I’m apologizing over. And this is the big thing. Do not beat yourself up over it. I know that in the podcast, we have, you do a lot of journaling and a lot of uncovering all this. But that is a gift you give to yourself when you start understanding. All the places where your mind is just not currently set up to be the best place for you.

Corrine:

Find those things. Do not beat yourself up over it. Be glad you’re hearing it now and start replacing some of the conversation with something different. I work with our clients all the time on that. I was just telling them the other day that we have the poop emoji, squeeze ball that everybody’s going to get for old shitty thoughts. While I was telling them, “When old shitty keeps coming in, that’s not an opportunity to beat yourself up. Be grateful because now you hear it. Now you have your trigger to think something better. That’s all it is.”

Coach MJ:

Yeah. And they’d been running around like a raccoon before. At least you can see them. I mean, that’s important if you just let them go. And you don’t become aware or even notice that they’re there, you don’t even give yourself the opportunity to change them. That’s the first step. I mean, thank goodness you’ve heard now once you start to become aware of them. And at least you give yourself a chance.

Corrine:

Exactly.

Coach MJ:

But we didn’t have a chance.

Corrine:

Tell us about fear versus danger, because I thought this was awesome.

Coach MJ:

I love this. So she talks [crosstalk 00:21:41] about… I loved the story and what he does scares me to death. So she met a man called David Carrera, I think it’s his name. On the beach in Long Island, Bahamas at Dean’s Hole. He was from Italy and he was a free diving champion. And his record was 111 meter dive, which is the equivalent of a 35 story building.

Corrine:

Isn’t that crazy?

Coach MJ:

I just can’t imagine. But anyway, she was like, “How do you do it?” And she was asking him all kinds of questions. And he said, “In the water, I must learn the difference between fear and danger.” I thought that was so good. Because so many of us think fear and danger are the same thing and they’re just not. I have clients all the time who are afraid of hunger. And it is a fear-

Corrine:

Afraid of what the score will say.

Coach MJ:

… that they have of being hungry. Maybe they didn’t have food when they were younger. Or maybe if you didn’t get to the front of the line, you didn’t get your food. And so they equate that now as if danger. They can’t get food if they don’t have their food. So they’re afraid of it.

Corrine:

But if I’m not mistaken, the brain does not really understand the difference between when you’re in fear, and when you’re actually in real danger. Most of us live in emotional fear all the time. But our brain equates, it’s the same chemical reactions that happen with real true danger. So the brain just like, “I just need to send all the cortisol, and all adrenaline, and all the things.” And your brain freaks out. That’s why I think this was such an important concept. Because if you think about it, if you are allowing yourself to never change your narrative around your body, around others bodies, around food, around the scale, around all these other things. If you stay in this constant state of fear, you’re ginning up danger in your body. That’s why we have such a visceral response to it.

Coach MJ:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). And do you know I mean it even used to be way back in the caveman days. It was fear and danger around food. You felt a sense of danger around certain berries because they would kill you.

Corrine:

That was the wrong barrier, did you see Sam go down?

Coach MJ:

No. And so it used to be danger. Or certain animals you wouldn’t want to kill because you couldn’t. I mean, there weren’t guns and you had to get really close. So you didn’t want to get too close to certain things. So it was a danger thing that was around food. But we don’t have that anymore. And it starting to bring down that conversation like nothing has really gone wrong. I can always get food if I need it. I can always pull over if I need to.

Corrine:

That’s just like our times.

Coach MJ:

All of these things.

Corrine:

How often have you heard somebody say… And I get it, I still have… I’m going to eat dinner. Tonight’s the night I’m not having my eight o’clock snack. I eat it every night. Not when I ain’t hungry, but I’ve been eating it because every night I’m all worried what if I get hungry? That is fear of some hunger. Well, what if you do? What if it’s nine o’clock and you actually got a little hungry? Is this just the impossible problem that cannot be solved? You can’t wait. You can’t just sit there and be hungry or go get a snack. Just don’t eat your face off because you’ve told yourself something terribly’s gone wrong. I see that all the time.

Coach MJ:

Yeah. Or, “I better eat dinner. I’m not hungry, but I better dinner.”

Corrine:

Or, “I need to overeat at dinner.”

Coach MJ:

That whole concept.

Corrine:

This [inaudible 00:25:32] I was coaching somebody. This wasn’t too long ago. She was like, “Well, I quit eating at eight o’clock at night. But what I noticed was I’m now over eating at dinner.” I was like, “Well, why?” And she said, “Well, because I’m [inaudible 00:25:44] when we hungry.” I said, “Well, what’s going to happen? What’s the worst? What if we just see if we… First let’s just see if we actually get hungry.” I said, “But don’t overeat at dinner in trade for fear of getting hungry.” You haven’t solved the problem. The problem is we have to quit eating more than we need. We have to be courageous around food. We need to be confident. Let’s figure out the feelings that we want to have around it and start working our way there. Instead of just trying to avoid. I love it when we are convinced that if we’re not going to get a snack, the only option is to think it’s going to be horrible.

Corrine:

What if we just thought it won’t be that bad? Maybe we would test hunger more often. If we’re like, “It probably won’t be as bad as I think it will be.” But when we sit there and we constantly tell ourselves, “It’s going to be terrible. What if I get hungry? It’ll be horrible. I’ll be just sitting there.” When our brains run wild with fear thoughts, we’re never going to want… People ask me, “Well, how do you just want to not eat at eight o’clock at night?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, quit making it a fucking horror story of what’s going to happen.” You might want to. All right, you just jacked me up. Just the energy makes me want to go.

Coach MJ:

I know. I love it when you preach. I do love it when you preach. And then the last thing I want to talk about is she has a quote from Brene Brown in this book. Which I think it was one of my favorite quotes in this. It’s so good and I also love Brene Brown. But the quote she had in there is, “One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on going it alone.” Somehow we’ve come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s like we have divided the world into those who offer help. And those who need help. The truth is we need both.

Corrine:

That’s true. That is so-

Coach MJ:

I thought that was so good. I loved that so much. And I was going to… I mean, I was even going to talk about our community. I mean, we have the podcast community and they’ll have the membership community. And it amazes me the way that these women love each other. The way that we love these women. I don’t know. It gets me going every time. I love these women so much.

Corrine:

… And it’s really important because I think that in our society, if you look at how weight loss is marketed, it’s marketed as if you’re unhappy and bad. And then you’re good and happy. And so it becomes a natural conclusion that with your weight loss, you shouldn’t have help. Because it’s shameful. How many times have we had people? And people say that I mean on the daily in our Facebook group. People will finally make a post and say, “I’m so ashamed to say this because I don’t think anybody thinks like me.” And they’ll say something and hundreds of comments later, it’s like all these people saying, “Oh no, I think that all the time. And here’s what I’m thinking now.” Or, “I used to think that way.” Or, “Here’s how I’ve worked on it.” And they’re like, “What? You have these thoughts too.”

Corrine:

I just want for all of us, not only to… I want all of us to just normalize that there’s nothing wrong with being overweight. Let that just for all of you who right now are listening, who are wanting to lose weight and stuff. What if there’s just nothing wrong with you? That doesn’t mean if you think nothing is wrong with you as a human because of it. That doesn’t mean that you might want to lose weight. You might not want to lose weight, but you get to just be amazing as you. You get to start rather than beating yourself up over your usual shit. Deciding maybe you just start focusing on what you do like about you. Maybe you start focusing on some things to stop saying so often. To get to where you can neutralize the relationship with yourself, so that you can build it up. But I think it’s really important just for the whole diet and weight loss industry.

Corrine:

We have to quit convincing people to lose weight. And this is what I see most often, “Here’s why you need to lose weight, because you’re miserable.” Nobody is miserable because they’re overweight. Every single person who’s miserable, or sad, or defeated, or whatever is because of how they think about themselves in relation to the weight. And I think it’s a big disservice of the whole diet industry to continue to push the narrative that your weight is a bad thing. And you need to feel bad about it. “Hey, I’ve got the solution to make you happy.” I think it’s a shitty way that we sell it

Coach MJ:

Well. And she talks a lot in the book about kind of how society is set up. So if you see women who are overweight, they’re usually the butt of a joke. They are usually put in…. They’re usually always the funny one, never a serious one.

Corrine:

They’re never married. And they’re always the single fat friend in shows.

Coach MJ:

Yes. And then if you see the thin people, I mean they’re having wine with the neighbors. And they have this nice job and everything. They’re so happy and so put together. And so she talks a lot in the book about that being kind of the default that you see. You talked about this in your podcast several podcasts ago. About cleaning up your feed. What you put in your brain all the time becomes it’s normal. If all you’re watching is that overweight women aren’t married. And they’re just the butt of the jokes and all that other kind of stuff. Then that is what your brain takes in. And it sees it all the time. That becomes its normal. And then you see all the happy, thin people you’re like, “Well, then that must be the way to happiness.”

Corrine:

It’s just I think one of the things too, that I loved about this book. Is the normalization of all bodies. So much I mean I have changed my entire newsfeed out. I mean, it is full of all women, of all sizes, of all colors, all over the world working out. Taking care of themselves, enjoying their life. Having a donut. Being normal. We get to have a normal life. And for me, I just think about my weight loss journey. And I always want to go back to it and pull it apart. I know that mine… Nobody worry, there was plenty of self-loathing in Corinne’s land. But when I lost weight, I think I always say the reason why it made so much sense this time for me. And the reason why I was able to do it was because it was the first time that I was thinking about who I wanted to be.

Corrine:

I wasn’t thinking about this version of me is so terrible I must change her. I wasn’t desperate to just do anything or be anything and sorted out at the end. I would sit there and change how I talk to myself. I remember celebrating when I would… I’ve always talked about this story, but I used to eat ice cream every single night. I did love ice cream. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it. But I didn’t eat it every night. A whole half a gallon because I was happy. Was sitting there eating ice cream, trying to drown out my guilt for not being the world’s best mom. For worrying that I was a terrible wife to Chris. That’s why I was eating. And when I started working on myself and changing how I talk to myself. I started thinking about I want to be the kind of wife that doesn’t need Chris to build her up anymore. But I wanted to be a wife that didn’t rely on her husband to carry her emotional load.

Corrine:

That was really important for me because I was always depressed and stuff. And I just didn’t want to be that version of me anymore. I knew that I had to unlearn how I spoke to myself and I’m needed to do that. And weight loss gave me the gift when I started removing foods that drowned out the self-loathing. It allowed me to turn up the volume on what conversation I was having and to be able to question it. And I know that is the only way that I explain why weight loss made sense for me. And it was because I was taking all the ways that I was talking to myself terribly. And it was changing the conversation. And as I changed the conversation, I wanted to do more for me. I wanted to move my body. I wanted to eat in new ways. It just it’s how I got here.

Corrine:

And I love the version that I created through the process. And I just think that, that’s important. She’s not a big proponent, I will say from what I got out of the book. I think we both agree on this. Is I don’t want anybody literally losing weight because they think it will make them happy. I literally don’t. I want my clients, I teach a very simple, easy process for weight loss. That allows you to find all the areas in your life where you use food to feel better. Or you use food to relax, or you use food to prevent you from growing and doing the big things you were always meant to do. And that’s my purpose in the weight loss. Is to help you through the way that I teach it. To uncover that version of you that you’ve been afraid to go after. To uncover the version of you that you just keep feeling bad about. So that we can build her up if that makes sense.

Coach MJ:

Yeah. And I mean, it’s not even… If you’d have told me four years ago, I was going to be sitting on a podcast as a life coach with you. It’s a life I never even dreamed of. And I just never would have imagined. But it was like you said. I was like, “Corrine says I have to do four things to lose weight. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m do these four things.” And then it just kind of snowballed from there. I started off small because I kept telling myself, I had always told myself that low carb worked work for me. I knew it did because I would drop 20 pounds whatever. Then I would gain 30. But every time I would go on any kind of diet, I was like, “It needs to be low carb.” But finally I realized. I was like, “It didn’t work.” Didn’t work. And you were like, “You have to just do these four things.”

Coach MJ:

And I never knew what it felt like to go to bed proud. Because I said no to myself over an extra bite of food. I did not know what that felt like. And when I started doing the four basics, I finally realized… I would be standing in my kitchen at night needing eight more ounces of water. And I’d go to bed at night. I’d be guzzling it because Corrine said I needed 64 ounces of water. I’ll be damned, I’ll get up and pee. But Corrine says I have to have 64 ounces. But I would lay down in the bed and be like, “Oh my God, I did it.” I did that. I seriously ate when I said I was going to eat. And I drank water and I’m in bed on time. And then that feeling of pride that I had, it made me want it more. Wonder how else I can get it. I just took the four of the most simple things. The four basics and it sent me on this pride road that I didn’t even know existed.

Corrine:

Well, and that was because of how we teach it. We teach you as you do the simple things, cheerly the fuck out of yourself on the way. Don’t say, “I have to.” Or beat yourself up or say, “I don’t know if this is good enough.” You all got to shut that shame train down. That’s what she’s talking about in here when we talk about apologizing. It’s all of that. What if you quit saying I have to eat this. No you don’t. You might choose to eat something one day, but don’t sit there and act like you got to do something. We just do so much subtle bullshit to ourselves in our thinking. And it’s just time for all of us to do a collective reset. And just to say, “I’m fucking proud today. Here’s the things, all this other shit that I keep thinking that’s going to drag me down, not thinking that one today.”

Corrine:

If you all don’t start anywhere but there, that’s good enough. But I just think you guys will enjoy the book. She does such a good job of talking about just our body types. In our group, we’ve got women of color. And they sit around and all they see is skinny white women everywhere. And that’s supposed to be the normal. And it doesn’t even feel right to them. And yet we push it as a narrative. I think all of us need to reset. What we think it’s going to be amazing. And that’s all sizes, and all shapes, and all colors, and stuff. I just think the book was really good. It was very eye opening. I loved it. If you just want to listen to us and if you don’t even want to go get the book yet, she did an amazing podcast with Brene Brown. If you go to Brene Brown’s podcasts, listen to her there. Let her convince you to read her book.

Coach MJ:

And Brene Brown’s podcast is Unlocking Us. That’s the name of Brene’s podcast. I called her Brene like we’re friends, but we’re really not.

Corrine:

Brene, we’re just saying. Big fans. Call us girl.

Coach MJ:

I called ber by her first name. We must be tight.

Corrine:

That’s right. All right, well that was so good. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with all of us here at The Other Side. You’re on the No BS Weightloss Program. This is the losing 100 group.

Coach MJ:

I know this is where I started though. This is what started it all for me. I love the podcast.

Corrine:

That’s right. All right. You guys have a wonderful week and we will talk soon.