Corinne Crabtree:

All right everybody, welcome back. Today I have a special treat. We have … Well, she happens to be one of our No BS women. She’s also an amazing podcaster who has a really good drinking podcast, which all of you know I have been talking about my drinking, working on my drinking. It just is one of those things that I’m just excited to have somebody here today, because for the last … I want to say couple of years, I have really been … I worked on my weight and built a business and everything, but I always felt like my drinking was the next big thing that I really wanted to tackle for myself. What I love about your work, Angela …

Corinne Crabtree:

Let me just introduce you. This is Angela. I’m going to let her tell us all about herself in just a moment, but what I love about her work is this is for people like me, who have never … I don’t ever feel like I had a problem. What I have felt like is like, “I don’t like feeling like shit today, because I’ve got things to do, I’ve got goals,” and I started really thinking about drinking, and there’s a part of it that I love and there’s a part of it that I don’t. It’s basically been, the last two years, me defining the relationship that I really wanted with it. And I know you ended up dropping your drinking completely, correct?

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. So Angela dropped hers. I did not, but it is probably reduced 75% without it even feeling difficult.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah! [crosstalk 00:01:33]

Corinne Crabtree:

And it was the mindset. Go ahead.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah, no, I think that’s really good. Welcome. Thank you for having me on, by the way.

Corinne Crabtree:

Oh, you’re welcome! I know, we’re just like, “We’re just going to jump in. We’re not going to introduce her, not going to do any of that bullshit.” No, go ahead and say your thought, and then I’ll let … People love it when I just get started.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah, no, it’s good. It’s good. We’ll jump in.

Corinne Crabtree:

Because I think they’re like, “No, tell me the good stuff. Seriously, we want to know the good stuff.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yes. No, I think a lot of times people get so worked up in their head about how hard it will be, and think, “I don’t want to do that. It’s not going to be fun. My relationships are going to change. What will people think?” All of that head drama. And then once they actually try it, they’re like, “Oh. I don’t have to just give in to my urges in the moment? I can just say, ‘We don’t need to do that tonight,’ and it’s not that hard?” I’m like, “Yes!” A lot of times, it’s just not that hard. And of course, it’s our mindset and what we’re thinking about it, but …

Corinne Crabtree:

It’s so funny you say this, because I’m literally creating all the content … I just finished creating content for our January three-day virtual event for our members, and I have been thinking about this really hard this last year, because with COVID, everybody just, it’s like we just all were like, “Okay. We don’t use excuses, but COVID really, now that’s like a legit thing. We should all gain weight, we should all eat, we should all drink.” But I have been thinking about weight loss in general, like why do people … Why do they have a hard time getting started and all this other stuff? COVID really sent people into a tailspin, and I figured it out. It’s the process and our mindset about what is ahead of us.

Corinne Crabtree:

People really don’t understand that they have a very shitty mindset around what they’re fixing to do, and then they’re just dazed and confused like, “But I don’t understand why I’m not motivated. I hate everything in front of me. I think it’s all going to be terrible. The only way I could ever do it is through suffering. Now tell me why I’m not motivated. What do I need to do, Corinne, to get started?” Like, “I don’t know, get out of your own fucking way with your mindset?”

Angela Mascenik:

Seriously! No, seriously. I am all about making it fun. When I first started doing … So I’ll just give the little introduction now.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, go ahead and introduce yourself, yes. Yeah, and then we’ll just, right back into it.

Angela Mascenik:

I’m a life coach. Corinne and I, we both got certified at the life coach school, so trained in very similar ways. I applied everything I learned before I became a coach to stop over-drinking, lose a shit-ton of weight, and my goal personally was never to stop drinking. I just wanted to stop over-drinking. And I think this ties into the topic of the podcast, about losing weight and stopping over-drinking at the same time. I took on both of those things at the same time, because I didn’t want to have to spend a whole year tackling the over-drinking or the weight loss and then doing the next … I’m like, “Why would I do that?”

Angela Mascenik:

It makes sense for me in my head, and this is what I try to teach my clients too, it’s like if you’re going to stop over-drinking, you don’t want to replace that behavior with food. You’re not then going to get to the underlying issue to why you’re over-drinking in the first place, and it’s the same thing with food. A lot of times people replace … especially with gastric bypass or a big issue like that, they’re like, “Oh, I’m going to drink,” but they haven’t addressed the underlying issue to why you’re eating in the first place if you switch, right? So, to me, it’s like if you just expose it all and solve it at one time … worked for me. And that’s what we try to do in my program, too, if there’s weight loss goals and over-drinking goals.

Angela Mascenik:

So that’s what I did, and then it was so compelling to me to become a life coach, and now I specifically help women stop over-drinking and start living the life that they want to live, and that is solving those underlying issues of why we’re drinking in the first place. It’s not about the alcohol, just like it’s not about the food, it’s about why you’re doing it in the first place, right?

Corinne Crabtree:

Right. And I think that’s so important, because that’s the way that I tackle weight loss, which I think what we’re both doing is very different than what the industry does, which is … You can go out and get a trainer, and you can go out and get a food plan and stuff, but that in and of itself just tells you what to do. But if you’re eating because you’re miserable, you need to figure out why you’re miserable, and let’s work on your mindset around it. People just don’t really make the connection that if you change your life first, then all of the sudden, giving up drinking, giving up over-eating and stuff, you have no more reason to need it.

Angela Mascenik:

Yes!

Corinne Crabtree:

So if we just … And this is the other weird thing to me. It’s like people will, even when they join No BS, they will fight me tooth and nail on the journaling piece, and I’m like, “But this is the piece that helps you feel better!”

Angela Mascenik:

Right!

Corinne Crabtree:

And they are insistent that, “No, this is the piece that will make me feel bad.” I’m like, “No, no, no, no, no!” The whole idea in all of it is let’s get you feeling better, because you change your outlook on yourself, you know how to talk to yourself like a boss, you start looking at the things that you’re going to do … Like if you’re going to stop drinking, you start talking about it like it’s a gift and not a burden, we teach you how to do those things. You and I are so good at teaching people how to do that so that when it comes to, “Tonight I’m not going to drink. Tonight I’m not going to eat pie at 8:00. I’m going to talk to myself so well because I’m training myself.” It feels right. It doesn’t feel like deprivation and restriction.

Angela Mascenik:

And I don’t remember what podcast it was … it may have been your recent urge one that you did … but you talked about, we need to sell what you’re thinking about your work, what your relationship, yourself, so that you’re not looking for a freaking escape at the end of the day from that shit. And your urges will be so much less when you clean up the way you’re thinking about the rest of your life, right?

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. People will tell me, “I do so good all day long, and then by the end of the day, I’m just exhausted,” and they act like it’s their job or their kids and stuff that are exhausting them, and then when I ask them questions, it’s like, “My kid was doing this today and I just thought, ‘Oh my God, I must be a terrible mother. Only my kid is doing that.’ So I’m yelling at them, and then I’m mad at myself for yelling at them.” I’m like, “Okay, what your kid did is not the exhausting part. It’s you thinking you’re a terrible mom, it’s you thinking no one else ever has these problems but you, and then it’s you beating yourself up because you had a human moment.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah.

Corinne Crabtree:

And it’s like, “That’s the exhaustion.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yep.

Corinne Crabtree:

So if you want to quit ending the day exhausted, you don’t need to say, “All right, kid for sale. $10 in the front yard. I’m going to end my exhaustion right now.” No, we have to let go of our mindset that keeps us wanting to eat. We have to let go of our mindset that keeps us wanting to just take the edge off at night with a little wine.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah. I think, too, I read this … We can try to link up this article; I think I bookmarked it … but it’s like, our brain likes to create drama so it can get an escape from it. So when you’re doing that repeatedly over and over again, it’s like we create such a bigger story than is absolutely necessary. Like you say, if you just stick to the facts, it’s really freaking boring.

Corinne Crabtree:

Right.

Angela Mascenik:

“My kids did this. My co-worker sent me this email.” If we just kept it to the facts and let go of all the other drama in our head, we would not be seeking the escape at the end of the day. It’s fascinating.

Corinne Crabtree:

I know, and that is the hardest part for people, is to let go of the … So many of us could actually be novelists. We could write amazing books about our lives, [crosstalk 00:09:32] so much drama in it, it’s a compelling read. I always tell our girls … say you have an over-eater or something … “When you go into your accountability group, you better tell it, and it better be a snooze fest. I don’t want adjectives, I don’t want to know about what you think about so-and-so, I don’t even want to know what you think about yourself. I just want to know what happened.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yep.

Corinne Crabtree:

And how we sound like … If they’re like, “Girl, tell me more!” we have a problem.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah.

Corinne Crabtree:

They should be like, “So?” You know that you are boiling your life down to what it actually is if somebody can be like, “So what?” If it’s that boring, then … Because I think this is important, and this is kind of just a concept come into my head … It’s like the so-what concept of if you can get it down to that little bit, then you can ask yourself, “So what?” Literally, if I take all of my drama out and I’m looking at it … A lot of times I tell people, “Take a look at the non-dramatic version, then ask yourself, ‘Does that equal you should for sure be drinking’?”

Angela Mascenik:

Right.

Corinne Crabtree:

Because it won’t match up. But it’s like you said, it’s like your brain, it says, “But I really want wine.”

Angela Mascenik:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Corinne Crabtree:

“So let me just tell you, your boss actually hates you. Every single day, your boss thinks about a thousand ways to make your life miserable, and that’s why they asked you to work extra today.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yep. No, it’s crazy, right? But I think just knowing that about the brain, too, and educating yourself about it in the way we teach it, it’s liberating to know that there is nothing wrong with you. And you really helped me do that in the self love workshop. I was spinning out in my own brain, thinking there was something wrong with me because I didn’t love myself all the time, which I had done so much work on loving myself, and then seeing it … Sometimes we can’t see it without the help from our coaches.

Corinne Crabtree:

Right.

Angela Mascenik:

But just knowing that that is normal, of course your brain is going to do that, because its job is to protect you. If you can think about it, too, when you do over-eat and over-drink, and remove the shame from that action that you’re doing by understanding why the brain is doing that in the first place, and it really is because it thinks you’re suffering.

Corinne Crabtree:

Well tell us a little bit more about that. Just for my podcast listeners who don’t really understand the deep cuts version of how we understand the brain, why does the brain ask for booze? Why does it tell us that we’re a terrible human being? Give them a little background of the brain science.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah! I think, just looking at the motivational triad, we’re programmed to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and save energy. So when you think about if you’re feeling stressed, that doesn’t feel good, right? That feels like pain to us and our brain. So your brain, when it’s in that moment, thinks, “We’re suffering here. We need to get you some pleasure so we can stay alive and that you can conserve your energy.” So it’s going to motivate you in that moment to go figure out how to do that, and if you have been treating your brain and rewarding it with food and alcohol in that moment, that’s going to be the first idea that it delivers you to get out of that suffering. Right?

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah.

Angela Mascenik:

And then when you give in to it in that moment, it just creates that very strong neural pathway, like, “This is what we do when we feel this way,” no matter what it is. “Oh, that worked last time when you felt stressed out? Let’s try that again this time, because that helped you feel less,” right?

Corinne Crabtree:

Right.

Angela Mascenik:

So that’s the basics of it. So when you are suffering and you have an over-drink and we go into this shame cycle, that feels bad for us, and the shame or the guilt just drives more of the same behavior, right?

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, and that’s one of the things that I really work with our girls on, especially my binge eaters. We have got a binge eating course running right now for all of our members, and I always tell everybody, “I think the key piece when it comes to ending over-drinking and ending over-eating is, step one always has to be you have got to remove the shame from it.” You have to start talking to yourself differently, and that always starts, number one, with just understanding if you are making yourself out to be the bad guy because you’re drinking or because you’re eating. It’s the horrible things we say to ourself. The reason why I always tell people, “Before you can ever tackle not drinking, and before you can ever tackle not over-eating and anything, number one, every single time you have an over-eat or an over-drink, the first step is always unlearning the conversation you have with yourself.

Angela Mascenik:

Yep.

Corinne Crabtree:

Because step two is always looking at what’s going on and trying to understand, “Why did I do it in the first place? What are my patterns? What are my habits and all this other stuff?” But step one has to be done, and most people want to just be like, “Here’s what I want to do. I want to feel extra terrible and motivate myself through shit-talk to stop doing it.” That has never worked. It never will work. Get over the idea that that is going to be something.

Angela Mascenik:

It’s so hard for people to let that go though, because they think that if they take their foot off the brake or the gas or whatever they want to say, it’s like then they’re going to be complacent, and that is not what we’re talking about here at all. It’s not complacency to stop shaming yourself. It’s loving to stop shaming yourself, and when you love, then you do more.

Corinne Crabtree:

Exactly. That’s the thing, I think, and that is such a hard concept, because if you’re going to stop shaming, a lot of people say, “Well then I’m just going to say, ‘It’s okay.’” When I love, if I over-drink or I over-eat, I don’t go ham on myself with a bunch of like, “Girl, you suck, blah blah blah.” But I also don’t go, “Well it’s okay.”

Angela Mascenik:

Right!

Corinne Crabtree:

That’s not love.

Angela Mascenik:

Exactly.

Corinne Crabtree:

That’s dismissive.

Angela Mascenik:

Yep.

Corinne Crabtree:

I usually tell myself things like, “I really want to understand why this happened, because I know this isn’t what I want for myself.”

Angela Mascenik:

Right.

Corinne Crabtree:

“And I want these things for myself. I want better for myself. I want to wake up feeling this way. I owe it to myself to understand what’s going on so that I can come up with new things to do.” That’s more of a loving conversation.

Angela Mascenik:

Yep.

Corinne Crabtree:

You know, it’s kind of like what you would say to your kid. If your kid comes home and they punched somebody in the face for no reason, you wouldn’t say, “Well that’s okay,” but you also don’t have to say, “You’re the meanest child in the whole wide world. You don’t deserve my love. Get out.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah. Yeah, it’s not so black and white. I think that’s what is hard for people to think, “Well if I’m not beating myself up and I’m not hard on myself, then I’m just going to be complacent and not do it.” There is a middle ground there that’s loving, from curiosity, openness that feels so much better. When you’re in the shame cycle, you can’t evaluate. You literally, your brain just shuts down and closes off to being open to thinking about it differently [crosstalk 00:16:37]

Corinne Crabtree:

And that’s so funny, because it’s like most of us are eating and drinking because a lot of people are in a shame cycle over something that happened in the day. A lot of my moms run into this, especially right now. They’re just living in a shame cycle, like, “I’m not a good enough teacher because my kid is at home learning online. I’m not good enough because my kids seem to be stir-crazy being home all the time.” Kids will do any little thing, and I watch the moms immediately make it mean they’re not good enough of a mother. And they’re in that shame cycle, and then they’re eating, and then they go into the next shame cycle, “Now I’m not good enough of an eater. Now I’m not even getting my goals.” It just doesn’t work.

Angela Mascenik:

It doesn’t. And just like shame begets shame, just like hate begets hate, all of that shit. It just packs and packs and packs, and then that is why we numb constantly.

Corinne Crabtree:

And I think it’s funny, because it’s like, for our people, something you said that was so good is it’s so black and white, it’s like we only know two ways. “Well, I either have to do like the diet industry and … ” And I will say, I think the drinking industry has kind of been the same way, where if you’re going to stop drinking or you’re going to stop over-eating, the only path is the suffering path.

Angela Mascenik:

Right.

Corinne Crabtree:

We’re very conditioned that it should feel hard and stuff. Well guess what? If you think it should feel hard, that’s not even just what you eat or what you do and do not do, there’s a lot of like, “Okay, I need to talk to myself like it’s hard. I need to talk about it like it’s hard. I need to talk about me like it’s hard. I’ve got to create the hard narrative.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah.

Corinne Crabtree:

And it’s like, so we’re either there, or we are completely like, “Well I’m just not doing nothing. I’m in complacentville. I’m all this other stuff.” So for all my listeners, I would challenge you to say, “If I was going to have an over-eat or have an over-drink, what is the loving conversation I have with myself that allows me to ideate, to create, to move forward, to find solutions, to figure out my next best step?” Thinking about it like that, allowing your brain to go to work on it in that way versus just, “Well I’m not supposed to shame myself. Since I’m not conditioned to think any other way, I’m lost, so I’ll just keep beating myself up.”

Angela Mascenik:

Right. I think having a strategy ahead of time, knowing that you’re not going to ever be perfect on this shit and dropping the whole, “I’ve got to do … ” especially for people and alcohol, and say they want to take a 30-day break or something, or they want to not drink during the week. To expect 100% perfection on that just sets yourself up for failure. Know that there’s going to be some fails along the way, even with the eating. Come on.

Corinne Crabtree:

So let me ask you this. You are a proponent of, if you’re going to do this and you have … Because my listeners have weight and drinking primarily. You suggest that they tackle both at the same time.

Angela Mascenik:

I think if both are an issue for you, you should tackle both at the same time.

Corinne Crabtree:

Can you just talk a little bit more about that? Because I have advised one or the other, but here’s the thing: I don’t think it matters as much, in my opinion. For you guys, I want you to hear both sides and then do the one that feels right. One thing you did say that I want to caution everyone on is, people who stop over-eating often continue the drinking, and it amplifies because they are not addressing the underlying issues. And the same thing with drinking. This is not just about the habit. The habit is the outward expression of what’s going on on the inside. So go ahead and talk about your theories.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah. I think, too, if you … To kind of back up, if you want to tackle both, you can. That’s what I did and it worked. If you don’t want to say, “I want to tackle both,” you don’t have to, but what you don’t want to do is make decisions about food or alcohol, whatever is your priority, in the moment anymore. And when you do that, then by default, you’re going to stop over-drinking, and by default, you’re going to stop over-eating. So if you want to keep drinking, that’s fine, but just plan in advance. Put it on your plan and don’t make decisions in the moment.

Angela Mascenik:

So I think it’s easier to kind of look at both at the same time, because if you’re over-drinking, it’s because you’re drinking from an emotional place. You are making decisions in the moment to drink based on how you feel or you don’t want to feel. If you are over-eating, it’s the same thing. If you’re eating more than your body needs, it’s usually because you’re doing it to solve some other issue, and that’s your emotions. So when you take that off the table and you commit to yourself, and you say, “I’m not going to make these decisions from an emotional place,” by default, you stop over-eating and over-drinking at the same time. Does that make sense?

Corinne Crabtree:

No, it makes complete sense, because I was going to say, basically if it was … I would just say it this way so that everybody has an easy … “I’m either doing A or I’m doing B.” So we’re going to do both, right? A people, if you want to really focus on the weight in terms of, “I want to see weight loss,” then you’re going to make your plans to where your weight loss is like, “I’m really trying new things with my food. I’m making my plan every day. I’m doing Corinne’s four basics like a boss. I’m going to really focus there. With my drinking, I’m still going to have drink plans, but it’s super doable. I’m not trying to cut back drinking, I’m not trying to do any of that, but I will not drink unless I have wrote it down on my plan.” Let’s say you’re a bottle-a-night girl, then you would put down a bottle a night while you’re working on getting super consistent over here with weight loss.

Corinne Crabtree:

Now, I’m going to tell everybody, it’s fucking hard to lose weight drinking a bottle of wine every night.

Angela Mascenik:

It sure is!

Corinne Crabtree:

Just saying.

Angela Mascenik:

I mean, unless you’re going from two bottles a night to a bottle a night, then that’s a different story.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, there you go. But if you’re like, “I could do just one bottle … ” But then other happens, is if you’re really wanting to work on your drinking … Because I think a lot of times people want to start with the drinking because it’s like, “I’m used to being overweight, but I’m really sick and tired of waking up hung over every morning, and I’m really sick and tired of … It’s starting to give me heartburn.” There might be some physical suffering that’s harder on alcohol.

Corinne Crabtree:

I know for me that was one of the big things that helped me with reducing mine the last couple of years, is that I really did a lot of journaling on how I felt the next day, and really focused on what price I was paying to continue to drink for fun, and to continue to drink for my list of reasons. And eventually my brain got so used to writing about the down side … not shaming myself, but just like, “Today was a lot harder. I ended up sleeping in. I got behind in my work, which meant I had to work a little later.” I was really honest about the price I was paying, to where when we would think about going out just because we wanted to for the day, I would say to Chris, “You know, I know it’ll be fun, but gosh, I just don’t think I want to tomorrow wake up late. I really want to get things done,” and that kind of stuff. So that started working.

Corinne Crabtree:

But if you’re going to start with the drinking, I would be figuring out what your minimum baseline is, I would be journaling about it and writing about it and doing all of those things, and then with the food side, super doable. Just follow the four basics, have snacks, have everything, but have everything on your plan to where the decisions to eat are conscious, so you’re not adding food because you’re agitated because you’re not drinking.

Angela Mascenik:

Exactly.

Corinne Crabtree:

But it’s like, “I’m not drinking tonight, and I’m agitated because normally I would like to.” If you have food planned, just make sure it’s like, “And the only food I have is the food I planned.” If you do want to plan your two cookies and stuff, it’s about that, “I’m going to do both at the same time, but I’m doing it deliberate as hell.” Because the problem with over-eating and the problem with over-drinking is there’s a reason why you’re wanting to turn your brain off, and the only way that you’re going to ever know your reasons is to no longer turn your brain off.

Angela Mascenik:

Exactly.

Corinne Crabtree:

You do not have to teetotal it on either side in order to hear that, but if you get conscious and deliberate and you’re like, “All right, it’s time for my planned snack, and I’m going to eat it at the table instead of in front of the TV,” whatever was bothering you, you start sucking some of the joy out of the drinking and the eating, the real reason behind why you want to be there to begin with starts illuminating.

Angela Mascenik:

Yes. Yeah. I would say, too, you’ve got to give yourself an opportunity. If it’s a big stretch for you to say, “I’m going to only have four glasses of wine,” then put that on your plan, but just know when you do drink the wine and you’re trying to lose weight, you do miss your brain’s thoughts about the other areas in your life that are wanting you to eat the things anyway. So it’s like, yeah, you can follow a plan all day and you can get really good at honoring that plan, but you’ve got to give your brain some space in there to not have something on board and dopamine levels going up so that you can uncover the reasons why you’re doing it in the first place.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah.

Angela Mascenik:

[crosstalk 00:26:40] yourself a little bit so you can see the obstacles, right?

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. And I think it’s a lot of … I have encouraged clients before, it’s like when we do a planned binge or we do a planned over-eat or something, or even like planned drinking, I tell them, “At some point … ” At first, I just want them to get really good at being like, “All right, this is what I said I would do.” I’m like, I don’t have the skill of doing what I said I would do, so first step for me is just getting really good at, “All right, I’m going to do the things I say I’m going to do,” and that doesn’t always equal weight loss in the immediate. Long-term, the version of you who loses her weight and the version of you who is not drinking, yes, she is doing the things she says she is doing, but she has learned how to do more things that get her there.

Corinne Crabtree:

But if you need that skill, that’s why I tell you guys, start with a doable plan, start with a doable drink plan, start with all of that. But there comes a point where if your end goal is to lose weight, if the scale is not moving, that means that it’s time to go to the next step.

Angela Mascenik:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Corinne Crabtree:

In and of itself, the doable plan and doing what you say you will do does not equal weight loss always. It’s just the first step. The next step is to say, “Okay, now that I’m really good at doing what I say I’m going to do, I can up the ante a little bit on what I say I’m going to do. Tonight, I’m going to try not drinking.”

Corinne Crabtree:

Now, this is my suggestion. You tell me if I’m right or wrong. When I first started, I picked easy things to not drink at. A lot of times at events, sometimes I will end the evenings with two glasses of wine. For me, at an event, that was the easiest place for me to say, “I’m just not going to drink, but on the one night where we interview me and Chris and we have our drinks together.” That was an easy one for me, because it was just as easy to say no as it was to say yes, so I planned to not have them. I gave myself the wins, I experienced what sitting in a restaurant without drinking was like without it being just date night, all my friends, and a party going on.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah. Yeah. No, I think—

Corinne Crabtree:

But I … Go ahead.

Angela Mascenik:

No, I think that’s a great idea. This is what I recommend, too, about allowing urges. It’s the same thing. Allow an urge, work through urges by not picking up your phone. Get good at doing that and working through an urge, and then you’ll have more skill in the bigger moment when you really want to show up, so I think that’s a very similar type of strategy. It’s like, make it easy for yourself.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah.

Angela Mascenik:

You know? What I did was a little wild in the beginning. I went 90 days without drinking in the very beginning, and when I was trying to lose weight, because I was just like, “I want to solve this.” And I put myself in hard situations frequently and a lot just because I wanted to be uncomfortable and work through that, and that worked for me, but that doesn’t mean that it works for everybody. So I think looking at what you’re willing to do and what you can pick off your little wins makes a lot of sense for most people.

Corinne Crabtree:

Well, and I think that it’s one or the other. I think you just have to decide which person are you. And it comes down to your motivation. You didn’t tell yourself you have to do it for 90 days, or that you’re going to have to go faster. You literally did it with the mindset of, “I want to learn faster. I want to get through this part of it as quickly as I can, so I’m willing to set myself up to go through scenarios where I know that I’m going to have a lot of urges.”

Corinne Crabtree:

And I think this is where my people get into hosed … is they would be like, “Well isn’t that really restrictive?” And I tell them, “No! Restriction comes from your mindset.” If you had said, “There’s no way I’m going to be able to do this unless I give it up for 90 days, so I’m just going to have to take a 90-day break, it’s probably going to suck, and blah blah blah.” That’s restriction thinking. And I think people get that mixed up very often. There’s restriction as what we do in order to get our goals, but restriction that way is like, “I chose this.”

Angela Mascenik:

Right. It comes about where it’s coming from. Mine was coming from excitement and hope and determination.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yes.

Angela Mascenik:

The restriction that you’re talking about comes usually out of a shame cycle, and they’re like, “I am so done with this. I have to go to extreme measures. I am miserable,” and then they’re like, “I’m not drinking for a month.” You know what I mean?

Corinne Crabtree:

Yes.

Angela Mascenik:

That is not where it came for me at all. I was very excited internally, I was hopeful about it. It felt really loving to give myself that break. And it wasn’t like I said, “I’m going to do a 90-day break,” I wanted to stop drinking until I got to my goal weight, and I’m like, “If it takes me a year, I’m willing to take a year.” It just so happened that it ended at 90 days.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, I wanted to say, I think a lot of people just get restriction confused. I try to tell people all the time, it’s like, restriction is just something that you do. It’s just like when … Brooke always talks about this. Those of us who are married practice a lot of restriction. We don’t go bone the first good-looking guy we pass on the street. We’re very restricted in our marriage just to be like, “It’s me and you, bro, all day every day.” So when we think about it like that, it’s like, “Oh, restriction is just a choice I’m making.” But where we get hosed up is we feel restricted. We confuse the action of restriction with the feeling of restriction.

Angela Mascenik:

That’s right.

Corinne Crabtree:

So for me, ways that I restrict, I don’t shop late at night, and I don’t do it on the weekends, because my cart gets magically full, and it’s Lucky Charms and all kinds of stuff. So I always, if I’m going to buy things online, I do fill carts, but I have a certain time on my calendar once a week where I go in, and if I do want to buy things, one, I have thought about it. I’m not just impulse buying. I have set myself up. That’s a restriction behavior. But it comes from not, “Corinne, you suck. There’s no way you can buy clothes.” I don’t talk to myself like that and then say, “Now I’m going to have to take away everything from you because there’s no way that you could ever shop responsibly.”

Angela Mascenik:

Right. No, it’s just—

Corinne Crabtree:

All I do is … Go ahead.

Angela Mascenik:

No, it’s just like a boundary that we put on for ourselves, and that is loving. When we do that for ourselves, when we show up and we’re deliberate and we think about things, and then we show up for ourselves, we like to have that. The whole planning your day, having that boundary for yourself, planning your food, planning your alcohol, planning your shopping experience, it serves us because we know when we do it, we have put in the power from our higher part of our brain behind it. It’s not coming from a need or a lack or something missing in your life.

Corinne Crabtree:

Well, and I think that that is what is important, because it’s like, there’s plenty of areas in life where we do some type of restriction. We do it with our kids all the time. It’s like, “All right, no phones after 8:00 at night. You need to go … ” I remember I couldn’t be on the phone past 8:00 when I was a teenager for a very good reason; because I would stay up until 1:00 in the morning talking on it. It was restrictive. It wasn’t because my mother was like, “You’re a horrible person, Corinne. You can’t have your phone.”

Angela Mascenik:

Right.

Corinne Crabtree:

It was, “[crosstalk 00:34:15] bed so that you can perform tomorrow.”

Angela Mascenik:

I have a boundary with myself; I do not look at my phone until after I have journaled and made my food plan for the day.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:34:24]

Angela Mascenik:

And that one is hard sometimes. I’m like, [crosstalk 00:34:26] There’s something in there. I know [crosstalk 00:34:28]

Corinne Crabtree:

“Something calling my name.”

Angela Mascenik:

You know what I mean?

Corinne Crabtree:

“Somebody’s Meeting on me, I just know it.”

Angela Mascenik:

[crosstalk 00:34:32] I’m not going to do it. And I do! I’m like, “I’m not going to do that,” because if I do pick up that phone before I have done my work, then my whole day is just off and I don’t have the open brain space that I need to create and set my intention for the day and all that, because I have dirtied it up with the media and the emails and the alerts and everything in my brain. You know?

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. And I think that that is just like, when it comes to all of this, I think at the heart of it, when we talk about the shame and the restriction, those two things are the two things that get people in trouble the most.

Angela Mascenik:

Yes.

Corinne Crabtree:

And it’s like, if you can build a relationship with … and you don’t have to use the word “restriction” if it kills you, because a lot of times people, somebody just has such a terrible working definition with something that’s hard, but it’s like, just think about loving guidelines. “What are the guardrails for me? What are the things I’m going to put into place that feel really good, are coming from a good heart, coming from I really want the best for myself? I’m going to do or not do these things when it comes to alcohol and when it comes … “

Corinne Crabtree:

One of my loving guardrails, or restrictions … whichever one you want to call it … that comes from a loving place is I don’t drink at home. I have found I don’t like it. I don’t want to drink in front of my son. If I’m drinking at home, it’s not as special. I was really unwinding my entire drink habit. One of the things that I love when I drink is when I actually go someplace and I’m dressed up and I’m with my husband and it’s an event. And I just started telling myself, “Unless it’s going to be special and an event, it’s not worth it anymore to just do it at home.”

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Corinne Crabtree:

And so we quit drinking at home a long time ago, and for me, that came from this really loving place. So, for you guys, I want you thinking about that as you put up … call it, “Here’s my rules, here’s my boundaries, here’s my loving guardrails,” whatever you want to call it … around your eating and your drinking. Just think about those things. But they have got to come from either love … And I know a lot of my clients, and probably yours too, probably have a hard time loving themselves. Sometimes it has to come from like, if you were … I use this a lot, and I use this in self love, so you’ll remember this. Sometimes you have to be the gift of the parent to yourself.

Angela Mascenik:

Oh, the mother to yourself!

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, like the one you always wanted.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah!

Corinne Crabtree:

I always tell everybody … Some of us had amazing parents—

Angela Mascenik:

[crosstalk 00:37:04] mom.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. Well some of us had amazing parents, but sometimes we can remember areas where we’re like, “If I could have had any mom who said anything, it would be these things.” The beauty of being at our age, once you get past 18, you get to do the do-over any time you want. You get to say, “I’m going to parent myself in the best ways, in the most loving ways, and here’s the things that I would do for myself and say to myself and stuff.”

Angela Mascenik:

I love it. I think putting that under the umbrella of self love, like the restriction or the boundaries or whatever it is, this is what we have a whole month inside my program on, loving yourself. It’s like sometimes it says, “No.” Sometimes it says, “No, we don’t need to do that right now.” Sometimes it’s being with the shame and processing that through and feeling uncomfortable and validating your own feelings. That feels hard and it doesn’t correlate to feeling what love, what we think of love feels like, that emotion of love, but saying no to yourself and working through those uncomfortable feelings is love. It’s respectful to yourself, it serves you every single time, and it helps you achieve your goals faster, but it doesn’t always feel like that warm glow of love. I think people get confused of that sometimes.

Corinne Crabtree:

So I think the bottom line is basically, when it comes to drinking and weight loss combined, it’s that you need to figure out what’s really going on with yourself, and the only way you’re going to be able to do that is if you’re willing to love yourself enough to find it.

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah.

Corinne Crabtree:

All right, let me tell everybody about what you’re doing for us, and then you’ll tell everybody about how they can find you. For all of my members who are listening to this podcast, Angela is our guest host with the most in January. We have been doing these four-week series where I have been bringing in experts like Angela to teach our members a four-week class on something that helps with weight loss and just helps with their journey. We have had parenting … which, we needed parenting bad this year … we have done binging, and you’re going to be doing a four-week class on drinking and weight loss, and just helping our members with unwinding some habits and stuff. So my members can look forward to that in January, but everybody else who is not one of my members who listens, how can they find you? What do you do? Give us all the information.

Angela Mascenik:

Thank you. I’m super excited to do the course, and I’m super excited to be there for your members. It’s so fun! And I’m a member, so … it’ll be great!

Corinne Crabtree:

It’s like a full-circle moment!

Angela Mascenik:

Yeah, yeah! So you guys, the easiest way to find me would be to just look up my Stop Over-Drinking And Start Living podcast. It’s on iTunes, all the players. We just put it on YouTube now, so it’s just everywhere. You just type in “Stop Over-Drinking And Start Living” and you’ll find it. And then—

Corinne Crabtree:

And I just listened to episode 101, so you get to binge listen on her.

Angela Mascenik:

Right. Yeah! We just celebrated our huge 100th episode. I had a bunch of people on, some of my clients and past clients. It was super fun. And then my website, angelamascenik.com. You can sign up. That’s probably the best way to, if you go to my website, there will be a little pop-up there that you can get my top three podcast episodes emailed to you and then you’ll be on my email list. Then you’ll get all the information, like a lot of free classes I teach, and workshops and things like that, and then how to join me in my six-month Stop Over-Drinking And Start Living program, which is super amazing.

Corinne Crabtree:

That’s awesome. We will put all the links, too, in the show notes so that you all can find it so you can easily get there. Well thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it, and I appreciate that you’re going to work with our members in the month of January. I love bringing in experts. I just, I want my members just to have the best, and I think you have been doing an amazing job, and I’m just glad you agreed to come and help us.

Angela Mascenik:

Of course. We have got to make this stuff fun, you all. This is not something you should want to be worried about and start restriction in January. We can have fun and stop over-drinking and lose weight at the same time.

Corinne Crabtree:

Exactly. All right, well thank you so much.

Angela Mascenik:

You’re welcome.

Corinne Crabtree:

And guys, I will talk to you next week. You all have a good one.