Corinne:

Hi, I’m Corrine. After a lifetime of obesity, being bullied for being the fattest kid in the class and losing and gaining weight like it was my job. I finally got my shit together and I lost 100 pounds. Each week, I’ll teach you no bullshit weight loss advice you can use to overcome your battle with weight. I keep it simple. You’ll learn how to quit eating and thinking like an asshole. You stop that and weight loss becomes easy. My goal is to help you lose weight the way you want to live your life. If you are ready to figure out weight loss, then let’s go.

Hello everyone. Welcome back. Today I’m going to be by myself. There’s a couple things going on, nothing serious. But number one, we’re having a tech issue. So I couldn’t have my ride or die partner today, Kathy. So you may hear a couple of episodes without Kathy in the next few weeks. Don’t worry. She’s doing great. She actually has taken a new position at the No BS Weight Loss company where she is our project manager extraordinaire now, making sure that we are handling business like boss ass ladies in the No BS world. And then also you might hear a little thunder in the background. This is that time of year where Nashville, Tennessee gets big ass, popup thunderstorms. And right as I was hitting record, I heard a huge pop behind me. So no need for concern here. It might be a little loud. You might hear a roll of thunder, but we shall press on.

So today I want to talk about the habits that I built for myself that changed my life. So if you are newer to the podcast, you might not know, but I’ve lost a hundred pounds. I have kept it off for over 15 years now. I teach women all over the world how to do the same in my membership, the No BS Weight Loss membership. And it really took me evaluating my life and figuring out who I wanted to be in this world. I had spent so much of my life trying to be what other people thought I should be. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I thought society thought they wanted me to be. And I never really just thought about who the fuck does Corrine want to be? If I had no influence from society, well meaning friends, well meaning family. If none of that ever had entered my mind, what would I choose for myself?

And so when I lost my weight, it was a lot of thinking about those things and creating habits around it. So I thought what might be fun today, I know that I love it when I look to someone who I think, either has done something I want to do further ahead than me, somebody I looked up to. I love hearing when they talk about what works for them, what they actually do that helps them be who they are. And so I thought that this might be a nice podcast to do today since I don’t have my bestie, Kathy, with me. My podcast bestie. As you know also, here’s a bonus habit for all of you. I have besties in all kinds of realms. Kathy has been my podcast bestie from day one. We both talk about the podcast.

We think about the podcast. We love all of y’all and we want to make sure that this podcast is helpful and relevant for you. I have a bestie in my, what I would call, real life. My best friend is Jane. She actually started as an No BS woman and we became really good friends and we have been literally ride or die friends for years now. She is the first person I talk to every day. Sometimes she’s the last person I talk to at the end of the day. If Chris falls asleep, sometimes I’m texting her before I go to sleep. She’s the person that I tell all my shit to. So I would say, a bonus habit that I didn’t even include was taking a look at my life and surrounding myself with good quality people. And I will be really honest, I did not do that most of my life.

If you don’t know my story in my high school years. By the age of 17, I attempted to take my life and I was dating someone. And if he ever was to listen to this podcast, I don’t hold any ill will against him, but he was not an honest person. He cheated on me. He stole from jobs. He just was a young guy who did not have his shit together. I am sure his shit is all the way together to this day, but he wasn’t at that time. And I just look back over the course of my life and the times in my life when I was really struggling emotionally. The times in my life when I struggled financially, the times when I struggled in my life physically, health wise and stuff, I was very often running with people who were never going to lift me up.

And so, one of the habits that I’ve gotten into is figuring out how to curate my circle. I surround myself with quality people. We may not agree on everything, but we agree on the most important things, core values. Everybody that I surround myself usually is someone who’s seeking to evolve and grow in their life. And I have lots of what I would call besties, friends and a social network that I have curated. Now I say this because a lot of you, it’s hard for you. You don’t have those people in your life like I didn’t. I just didn’t have those people. I had to go out and find them. And pay attention when I was hanging out with people who were going to take up valuable time, when I could be out looking for someone who was going to grow and evolve and lift me up. If I’m hanging out with people who are dragging me down, that’s less time to go find those people that I need.

So I think one of my best habits probably, in order to lose a hundred pounds and keep it off has been to be very mindful of who I talk to, who I listen to and who I let into my life. I think that goes with the people you hang with. So I have my best friend, Jane, she is a go getter in life. She’s also super compassionate. She will listen to me all day long. She will tell me the stuff I don’t want to hear in a kind way. And she will also commiserate with me sometimes in my shitty ass diapers. She’s just a good, rock solid person that I love to have in my life. I’ve got my husband. It took a few going through some bad eggs, I didn’t compromise on who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I was determined that I would rather be alone than to be with a bastard. I had dated enough bastards. I had been in a lot of relationships that sucked. And when I was over 200 pounds, I had just enough, I guess, self worth to tell myself, “I’d rather figure out how to be alone and like myself than to be with someone that I know is not a good fit for me.” And those are just some of the tough decisions that I had to make and then I ended up finding Chris. I’ve had great mentors. I’ve talked about one of my most impactful mentors a million times on this podcast, Brooke Castillo of The Life Coach School. She continues to be someone that I know. I don’t talk to her very much, but if I ever needed her, I am a hundred percent sure she’d come through.

And she has just changed many people’s lives, including mine. And nowadays I basically just listen in her podcast. I participate in anything that she offers through The Life Coach School. If she does a video, I listen to it. Whatever she does, I listen. And that’s how I keep her in that social circle for me. I have great business friends that I have made over the years and I have had some that I’ve had to let go. So I think building your circle of influence is probably one of the habits that I have done that I would say would be helpful for you. So let’s just make that one a bonus. Here are some others. The first one that I wrote down was the best habit I ever gave myself was breaking shit down into doable steps. For years and years and years, I hung onto the belief that in order to lose weight, I was going to have to change everything and do radical deprivation shit.

I did crazy ass diets. And then when I lost weight this time, I really thought about, what is the real problem, Corrine? Why do you quit? What is so hard? And I realized there was this moment that was like, you set yourself up to fail by doing things you’re not ready for. So you can either continue to set yourself up to fail, or you can figure out how to stop judging yourself for doing small, simple things. And I just decided every step is going to count. I am no longer going to tell myself it’s not good enough. I am no longer going to tell myself it’ll take too long. I had to shut that shit down the moment it would start up and be like, “No.” In the past, when you talk to yourself that way, that’s why you failed. It never had to do with anything other than you discounted the small steps.

So we’re going to do small things and we’re going to keep doing them because the small things build momentum, the small things add up. I changed how I thought about small steps. And you can break anything down in your life and do that. I’ve got the No BS Weight Loss business, this is what this podcast is all about. But I also have a second business, the No BS Business Women’s membership. And I am taking the same principles that I learned while I lost my weight and applying it to building a second business because it worked in weight loss. And I tell y’all all the time, I think weight loss is the best proving ground for figuring out our shit for life because the lessons in weight loss apply everywhere. And so even in my second business that I’m building every single day, I think about what are small little things I can do today to move the needle.

So breaking things down into doable steps and respecting them is probably one of the, if I could leave you with one nugget, it would be that one. Learn how to respect taking small steps forward every day. Stop discounting them, stop making them not important. Stop telling yourself it doesn’t count because that’s the bullshit that we quit over. The second thing for me is I’m going to tell you, daily walks. I know this sounds crazy and a lot of people are like, “What? That’s your daily habit?” Hell yeah, it is. I started daily walking the first day when I decided to lose weight. I thought about what could I do and what was going to make a difference. And so I started with 15 minute walks. It was before I was ready to give up my favorite foods and not that I’ve given up my favorite foods in order to lose weight.

But in the beginning I was like, “I can’t quit eating ice cream.” Because in my brain, I always thought in order to lose weight I was going to have to quit eating ice cream. What I didn’t realize is that I was going to need to learn how to eat ice cream in a way that would help me lose weight over time. Then I was going to need to learn how important ice cream to me on a daily basis, on a weekly, on a monthly basis. And now I have an amazing relationship with ice cream. I love it. I think it tastes good, but I also only like certain ones now. I don’t just eat any ice cream and I don’t want a bastard relationship with ice cream. I don’t want to eat it after a bad day. Now when I eat ice cream, I want to call it fucking enjoyment.

I want to enjoy the shit out of it. It’s no longer acceptable and tolerable for me to eat things when I’m in a bad mood because it does nothing for me. It doesn’t make my mood go away. It makes me ignore my problems. It takes my focus off the things I can fix in my life. It gets me out of problem solving mode. It also doesn’t make me enjoy the ice cream. I’m too busy shoveling it in trying to escape a problem. I ain’t tasting the shit. Now I’m getting relief from all the beat down I’m giving myself, but I’d rather just stop beating myself up over problems and bullshit than to eat ice cream. Because the moment when I learned how to quit beating myself up over, was I a good mother? Was I a good wife? Did I do enough today? When I unlearned that habit by not eating ice cream over it anymore, by saying I eat ice cream, when I’m really going to enjoy it. I gave myself the chance to level up my life.

So I started with daily walks and I still take them, usually they are about 20 minutes long. In the summer, I get up really early and I go out and I usually catch up with my friend Jane. We use an app called Marco Polo. I leave her a message every morning. “Hey, this is what I’m going to do today. Here’s what I’m dreading. Here’s what I’m looking forward to.” I just talk to her like a friend. And then I listen to her Marco Polo from the day before. I also use it to self-develop. I listen like you might listen to my podcasts on your walks. I listen to my mentors on my walks. My daily walks, they are a gift I give myself and some days that’s the only exercise that I do. And I love them. I never say they’re not good enough. I never say they don’t count.

I never think anything of them other than this is my time. This is me time. This is what I’m doing. In the winter, I have a treadmill. We decided to put one in our garage. In my garage, we also invested in a heater and an air conditioner. So if I ever need to use it in the garage, guess what? I can heat and cool my damn garage, because I was like, “I’m going to want to walk year round. And if it’s raining or whatever, I want to be able to do it every day.” So I just decided to invest in. I saved up my money and made it work. I will tell you before I had a treadmill, I walked around my house if I had to. My son never gets on the treadmill and I bet you, my child gets 10-15,000 steps a day.

He loves nothing better than to plug in a YouTube video or something he enjoys to listen and he just walks the house all day. So as my grandfather always says, “Those who won’t, will do.” The third thing that has been a habit that’s been helpful for me is planning my week. I am a huge planner. If you know anything about me, whether you are in my business membership or you are in my weight loss membership. You know I’m going to, on Sundays, be planning. I plan my food for the week. So I think about, what am I going to want to eat this week? I need to make sure that it’s here. And back in the day, I would plan ahead so I could go to the grocery store. I’d come home on Sunday, not food prep. If you go way back in the podcast to some of the very first episodes, you’ll hear me and Kathy talking about food prep and how we do it and how we plan and break it down. These days because I run two businesses, I pay my sister-in-law to do all of my cooking for me.

And she brings it on Monday morning and she has food for me and my son and my husband so that all we have to do is heat up our meals. So I plan all of it. I plan the exercise I’m going to do. I try to make as many decisions around the important things in my life ahead of time on Sundays. So that throughout the rest of the week, I’m just showing up getting my shit done. It’s so much easier to do life that way. And it has been a game changing habit for me. The fourth thing is I plan every day too. So I create an overall bunch of decisions on Sunday. Then every morning I get up, I write about what I’m going to do today and I don’t put an exhaustive to-do list on there.

I put only things on the list that I know are going to make an impact today, that are very important today. You will never see on my list dishes. You will never see on my list check email or bullshit. We always find time for stuff like that. And if we can’t find time who gives a fuck if the dishes sit overnight, at least I don’t. I put on there the things that I’m like, “By the end of the day, if I get these things done. I will have made a difference in my life and others. I will have made a difference in my business. I will have made a difference in my health.” I put the things that deserve my utmost respect and my utmost importance on that list. I don’t make a glorified to-do list every day. I put those things down first.

And then I ask myself a key question, what might get in my way of doing these things today? And if it’s really important, then I question whether it should even be on the list for that day. That gives me an opportunity to move it if I need to. If it’s shenanigans that normally get in my way, then I need a plan to work around or just to remind myself, “Don’t say yes to that shit. Don’t fall into the trap of that.” I write that out every day, that is a game changing habit. The next big one. It’s a habit that changed my life was setting bigger goals and letting my mind run wild on ideas on how to get there. I used to not set big goals because I would tell myself, “You can’t do that. That’s too big. You’ve never been able to do it before.” All of those things.

And one of the things that I have learned is set big goals for myself and then let myself imagine how I could get it done. What would I need to do? It doesn’t mean I have to go after the goal. I just have gotten into the habit of practicing thinking bigger for myself. I’ve gotten into the practice of dropping the expectation that I have to go for it. I’ve just practiced dreaming. And I think that’s really important because I have worked with thousands of women. And Kathy, if she was here, would tell you about it. Dreaming was one of those things that she quit doing and didn’t know how to do until she became a part of my inner circle. And I challenged her, we are going to teach you how to dream. And now she does make dreams. And she thinks about those things and she makes progress on them.

Some she’s already accomplished. Others she’s like, “I just love the idea of knowing it’s possible for me if I’m willing to do the work. I know the things that I need to do to get there. I’m just not ready to do them right now.” And I’m the same way. I have lots and lots of dreams, lots of things I want to still accomplish in my life. And I allow myself the gift of dreaming about it and thinking about how it could happen. And then I released myself from the idea that I have to do it just because I want it, just because I dream it. I just want to live in the space of, I no longer want to limit myself because I tell myself shitty ass story lie, “You can’t do that. You can’t have that. It’s too hard.” Now this leads to the next habit that I have, which is I also expect a lot less of myself than I used to.

I used to have really high expectations for myself. I had to do everything. I needed to be everything to everybody. And I decided that I was going to stop expecting that I could do it all and start just focusing on each and every day. I spend a lot of time focused on my daily activities. What are the things I’m working on today that will make an impact? What are the things that I’m thinking about today that will make an impact? And I just make things small. I don’t set big expectations anymore. And I also, because I’m somebody who tends to overestimate how much I can get done in a day, I’ve learned to plan that things are always going to take more time than I assume. So when I’m planning my days and stuff, this is why I keep the list small. I would rather get really important things done, give myself more time than I think it should take in order to get it done. Do those things and have the gift of open space to fill it with whatever else I want, to fill it with things that might come up.

The seventh, the next big habit. I think this is the seventh. I didn’t number them. I just threw out a number, is lifting weights. Seriously, one of the best habits I ever gotten to my life, for women, especially. There are a thousand reasons why we should be lifting weights. I will give you a couple. Number one, I watched my grandmother being in so much pain in her older life. I have another grandmother right now who’s still alive, who has fell several times. Neither one of them strength trained. Neither one of them lifted weights. I don’t want to be in my seventies and eighties and barely be able to get around. I want to be that person who can fall in their eighties and get back up. I want to be that person that, if my baby decides to give me babies and grand babies, I can get in the floor and I can play with them. I think weights are so important for us and for nothing else, it is great for your self-esteem.

There is nothing like lifting weights and getting stronger as a woman and feeling like you can support yourself, that you can handle yourself. I tell people all the time, my biggest goal in life is to look so stout and so athletic and so strong that if I’m walking down the street, some motherfucker is going to be, “Not her.” When they want to steal a purse or try to Rob me. I want it clear when you look at me, I’m going to handle my business. And so lifting weights has been great. Lifting weights also has been such a self-esteem booster for me. It’s one of those things where I’m impressed when I’m getting stronger. It’s one of those things when I’m in the gym and I’m lifting, I love nothing more than seeing for myself my strength on display for me.

It just shows me I can do hard things. So I put weights on here because I think weights has been one of the best gifts I’ve ever given myself. And I lift personally four times a week. If you’re curious, I do a dedicated shoulder day every week. I do a dedicated arms day every week. I do a dedicated back day and I do a dedicated leg day. You’ll notice I left out chest. What I do is I usually plug chest onto either arms, back or shoulders and I rotate that in. I had got the fake boobies. So I lift chest just a little, I still lift heavy, but I only do one to two exercises and I just get after it with it. So I just usually tag chest on. It’s not a body part that I want to focus on. I just want to make sure it stays in balance.

So I rotate it. And when I lift on those days, I will start with my primary body part, like shoulders, arms, or back and then I will put chest on at the end. Another habit that I have that I important is I only keep my clothes that fit and that I love. So I buy clothes and often I’ll wear them a few times and realize I don’t love this anymore. It’s fidgety. It doesn’t feel good. Maybe it doesn’t wear like I thought it would. It’s annoying. I don’t keep them. I have found, for me, clothes are very triggering. If I am wearing something that is not flattering on me, if I’m wearing something that’s too tight, all I think about it makes me very body conscious. If I’m wearing something that’s fidgety, I don’t like slowing myself down during the day to adjust my clothes.

I want stuff in my closet that I’m like, I would wear any of it. And I work at it and here’s how I do it. So I keep a trash bag inside my closet. And every time I wear something that I think is, I don’t know, I’ve worn it. I don’t love it. It’s just not exuding greatness. I immediately put it in the Goodwill bag and then it just goes off the Goodwill. This is the easiest way I have found in order for me to keep a curated closet. For me, clothes help me stay in a state of mind of loving my body when I keep clothes that I love on my body. And one of the habits that I created a long time ago was I will not keep shit that doesn’t feel and look good on me. I don’t give a damn about anything other than that. That does not mean you got to go buy brand new clothes and stuff. You can go to Target. You can go to thrift stores.

You can get fabulous clothes at all sizes, but I’m not going to keep anything. It’s not worth my emotional currency to keep clothes, be like, “I paid for that.” When I’m paying for it in negative thinking, I’m paying for it in a poor self image. I’m paying for it in fidgeting and irritation and stuff like that. Emotional currency to me is more valuable than money currency. All of us can save some money. All of us can go make some money. Money is one of those things that you can replace, but here’s what you can’t get back. The days and the time that you spend not loving yourself. Being uncomfortable in your clothes, when this is something that we can easily fix. I want to go to the grave one day and I want to feel confident that I did everything possible to always be trying to live the best life I possibly could for myself. And I think this is one of the things that was important for me.

Another habit that I have that I swear by is I get up early and I go to bed early. I don’t fuck around with this one. I am up almost every day by 5:30 and sometimes I’m up by 4:30. I don’t even set alarms anymore. I just don’t need them. The only time I ever set an alarm is if I’m traveling and I’m on a different time zone. When I’m at home, I don’t have to set one because I am naturally going to wake up in that window. I also go to bed early. My ass is usually asleep every night by 8:30, most nights by 8:00, some nights by 7:30. We have blackout shades. So I had those installed because I really like my sleep and I just know me. I do better when I am well rested. I am a better wife. I’m a better mother. I am a better mentor to people. I’m a better podcaster. I’m a better business woman. I eat better.

Everything’s better when Corrine’s getting her sleep. So I prioritized it and we installed blackout curtains so that when I’m ready to go to bed, I can make my room like a cold ass tomb if I want to. The last thing, and this is one that I think is important is I often ask myself in a non-blaming way, when things aren’t going the way I think they should. When something’s happening, I ask myself, how might this be my fault? A lot of times in relationships, I have found this has been a saving grace. This is not to compensate for people, and I’m not talking about abusers and total straight up douchebag assholes. I’m talking about relationships and things in your life that you care about. I usually will ask myself, if Logan’s upset about something, how might this be my fault? And usually I come up with a really good answer like, “I never really talked to him about frustration.” The other day. He had a fit over, if you don’t know, my son has autism and he also works for us.

He’s 19. And he’s a brilliant software developer, just smart as a fucking whip on this stuff. But he’s also really hard on himself at times. When he thinks he should be able to get something done or solve something and he gets stuck on a problem, he often gets really frustrated. We have taught him how to safely throw papers and things in his room, to have some outward expression of his anger. Well, the other day, he just all day long was doing this. And I asked myself, “How might this be my fault?” And I realized, I need to teach Logan how to figure out how to address the thinking that’s causing his frustration. He thinks it’s because he can’t solve a problem. Instead of he’s never made the connection, when I can’t solve a problem, I make it mean what about getting my project finished on time.

What do I make it mean about me? And so I started talking to him about that stuff. And lo and behold, he realized he had some shitty thoughts about if he didn’t solve the problem that he reports to his daddy and Chris never gets mad at that child. And yet, because he’s seen this stuff on YouTube and seen this stuff on videos he’s watched, he made it mean that if I can’t solve the problem that his daddy would be disappointed in him. And I was like, “Well, is that true? Is daddy disappointed if you can’t solve a problem or is daddy usually the one person you can talk to who can brainstorm with you?” And it was just like the light bulb went off in his head. And I tell you this story, because I think it’s really important that when something is not going right to look for self ownership first, how can I own this problem?

What can I control? What are the things I could do? Because very often we just get mad, we make it mean terrible things about ourself. Or we go immediately into blaming like, “Well, so and so should have done this. And so, and so should have done that.” And it’s fine if you want to have a baby moment like that, I still have them myself. I just don’t want to stay there because the solution isn’t in blaming, the solution isn’t in ranting, the solution isn’t in feeling bad and sorry for yourself. The solution is when you decide, what can I do about it? So those are the habits. Most of them are just ways I see myself. If there was an overarching habit, I’ve just learned how to physically and emotionally take care of myself. And that’s probably been the best habit that I have developed.

So I hope this was helpful for you. If you love everything you just heard, please consider going to www.nobsfreecourse.com. Take a look at my free course if you’re new to the podcast, maybe it’s been a minute since you took it. Try taking the free course. I talk about all kinds of stuff like this there. Or if you are a businesswoman, you’re like, “Hey, I didn’t even know you had a business membership.” Feel free to go over to www.nobsbusinesswomen.com. You can check out all the things that I’m doing to help women who are online entrepreneurs, ready to scale and grow their business. Y’all have a great week and I’ll talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening today. Make sure you head on over to nobsfreecourse.com and sign up for my free weight loss training on what you need to know to start losing your weight right now. You’ll also find lots of notes and resources from our past podcast, help you lose your weight without all the bullshit [inaudible 00:35:09]. I’ll see you next week.