Most of us sit around in a rut, waiting for doubts to go away before we…

• lose our weight
• feel as good as we want to
• love ourselves

But a life you love isn’t just gonna fall into your lap.

We fool ourselves into thinking confidence will magically build itself. You’ll lose your weight and then a switch will flip and you’ll feel better.

Don’t do that to yourself.

If there is even a little part of you who wants to lose weight, you can start making that possible for yourself by practicing the skill of believing.

When you listen to this week’s podcast with my friend Jennie Guinn, you’ll have insights that will help you start creating the life you love (instead of hoping you’ll magically wake up skinny).

Listen to Episode 308: How to Create New Possibilities today.

And if you’re interested in working with Jennie Guinn, click here to get more information.

Hello everybody. Welcome back. I have a special podcast today. I want to introduce Jenny Gwen. She has been a friend of mine for years and years and years, but for all of you that have been following for years, you know I have a son named Logan. Jenny happens to be Logan’s kindergarten and third grade teacher. He was so lucky to get her twice. I also credit Jenny with being the first teacher that opened up my child’s love of books. When he was little, we didn’t even read that many books together. We would try to, but he was not into books and stuff, he was a Baby Einstein fan. He liked his videos and stuff, like most kids do. And then, he went to third grade and Jenny got him to read. What was those books? Oh, the Tree House. It was the Tree House ones.

Jennie Guinn:

Yeah, it was the Magic Treehouse.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yes. Well, she introduced him to the Magic Tree House and that child is 20 years old today, he still reads. That’s probably predominantly the only thing he does. I always joke around with Jenny, but not only when we were friends, but she was definitely the person that lit his little butt on fire when it comes to books. So I want to welcome Jenny. We both went to the same elementary school. We were, what were we, two years apart, three years apart?

Jennie Guinn:

Two or three years.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. And then, I’ve known her sisters and we’ve been in the same circles for a long time and now she’s a life coach. So it’s just exciting. I’ve watched her go from just being an amazing school teacher. She has always been someone in the church that everybody could count on. She has an incredible faith, really. I would call her and Kathy Hartman my diehard Catholics that I know. They’re the ones that are always like, “Is this when you’d like to start going to church again, Corrine? I’ll go with you this weekend.” So let me introduce Jenny. I’ll let her talk a little bit about herself, and then we’re going to talk today about, we want to talk about weight loss belief.

And the reason why I wanted Jenny here today is because, I’m constantly talking to her about whenever she’s losing belief in being a weight loss coach or losing her own weight, I know how strong her belief in God is, and I always challenge her to, can you believe in yourself and in your weight loss and in building your business? Can you believe that? Can you have that unshakeable belief? So we’re going to dig into that today. So whether or not you’re religious or not, you’ll love this podcast I am sure, because all of us need help with our beliefs. So Jenny, tell us about you.

Jennie Guinn:

Well, first of, I want to say I’m so honored to be here. Our journey together when Logan started at St. Edward, started many years ago, and you have been a huge mentor to me, and it’s been so exciting to see you share your passion for women and helping them get healthy and lose weight and live the life that they’re called to live. I’m so grateful for you.

Corinne Crabtree:

Thank you.

Jennie Guinn:

I taught, like you said, for 26 years and was in administration and church ministry, and I kept feeling God calling me in a different direction. And I kept resisting, because I was comfortable where I was. I was good at what I was doing, I was respected, but when you feel that nudge and then you start to believe that there’s something missing, that there’s something more. So in the middle of COVID, I signed up for Life Coach School in January.

Our first class was literally that March, when the world was going crazy. And so, I went through training during COVID, which was such a blessing, and my life has literally changed since then. And for so long, I was not aware of what I was thinking or what I believed or I thought feelings happened to me. I didn’t realize that I had a choice and I had a great life. It was one of those, “Well, you have a good life. You have so many things, you have a great marriage and great children, that should be enough.” But life coaching opened the door that, yes, I could be grateful for all of those things, but there’s still more that I could accomplish.

Corinne Crabtree:

I think that’s such an important point, because a lot of people, they’ll say, especially when it comes to weight loss, “Well, if I liked myself, if I decided that I’m good and I’m worthy and I’m all these things, why would I ever lose weight?” And I think that you bring up a really good point. I’m not joking when I say this. Jenny has a good life. When she was at St. Edwards, respected is not even a good word. She was beloved, looked up to. She was the rock, everybody just knew. They knew Jenny and they just loved her, but loved her because she’s a great person. But also, that’s hard to walk away from. It’s just incredibly difficult to decide to go and do something that you don’t come out the gate, loved, respected, beloved, knowledgeable, an expert. You had to leave all that behind, because you wanted to go help women do something more with their life. And so, you weren’t specifically with women. I know that your website is Catholic Moms in the Middle. Can you tell me a little bit more about why you picked Women in the Middle?

Jennie Guinn:

I have always loved working with other women. I love community. I love bible studies. I love all things community, going to retreats, leading retreats, those are my favorite things. Seeing the light bulb moments. And one of the things I think is my unique genius is helping women connect to Christ, whatever they’re going through, whatever they’re struggling with, whether it’s weight loss, relationships, that through that, those struggles, those trials, even those successes and joys, there’s always the ability to connect with Christ. And so, that’s how I see myself is, there’s a million weight loss programs out there, and for some of us it’s been a spiritual struggle. It’s a spiritual stronghold in our lives that does leave us feeling shame and guilt and unworthiness. And so, unraveling that through thought work and belief work and learning about emotions and how to process them, that breaks through those spiritual strongholds, to have freedom from dieting and overeating and feeling unworthy because of your size or your weight.

Corinne Crabtree:

Can you talk a little bit more about that, because I just find that fascinating. What is it about, when you said the shame and the guilt, how does that all interplay When you’re working with people and they’re spiritual and they’re struggling with weight loss? Is there anything in particular that you notice or that you would love for our audience to hear?

Jennie Guinn:

I think weight loss, so many times our identity is tied up in the size of our body, the number on the scale or the size in our clothes. And no matter, like you said, all of those great things that I was doing at the church and school and how I was serving and impacting lives, I never felt that. I always felt that I wasn’t doing enough or that I wasn’t good enough or worthy, because of my weight. I always felt like once I lose weight, then I’ll believe what people are saying, then I’ll believe I’m making a difference.

So at times it was like, let me do more, let me volunteer more, let me head more committees or be in charge of more things, then maybe I’ll feel worthy. But really, that unworthiness was coming from shame. I felt like I was broken, that there was something wrong with me, because I was successful in all these areas of my life, but yet this weight loss was out of reach and it was preventing me from really being who God called me to be. I was tied up with guilt. I was tied up, like I said, with the shame. I had moments of despair and it prevented me from living the life that I wanted.

Corinne Crabtree:

Which is so common, because I think of you and I’m just like, Jenny literally is the… I’ll cry, but to hear you say that you didn’t appreciate yourself and that you couldn’t see yourself in that light. What most people don’t know about Logan is, he wasn’t going to get into St. Edwards the first round. He got denied kindergarten and we were looking at sending him to other schools, and I wanted him to go to St. Edwards so bad. I’d went there, my niece went there, my brother went there.

It was literally breaking my heart. And I thought, because he was on the spectrum, his only real shot was to get into a private school where he could have a smaller class and that kind of stuff. And Jenny was the teacher that year who called us back and said, “We have some spots. We’d like to see him one more time.” He would not have gotten his shot without you. I just think it sucks for women, that we have been taught to dismiss so much of who we are simply because of what we weigh and because no one’s taught us how not to eat through our emotions, And we throw so much garbage at ourselves.

Jennie Guinn:

And I just want to say that I think you and Chris and Logan, I have such a place in my heart for your family because of what you. All went through and not knowing, when I called you back and said, “Let’s assess him again, let’s see if he’s ready for kindergarten.” You all had done so much in those six months. You had taken what I said about he’s not ready, all of the developmental delays that we saw. And instead of just feeling hopeless or whining about it, you took action. I think the next day or two days later, you were on a plane to a conference in Connecticut or New York, so you took action. And the thing that I love so much and why Logan is so special to me is that through his struggles and through your trying to figure out how to be the best mom, you took action and you believed it was possible. You never doubted that Logan couldn’t be the person that he is today.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. Well, actually it was so funny. So that was Chris. And I think this brings us to what you want to talk about today when it comes to belief. I did always doubt. I just didn’t let my doubts stop me. I remember writing, when I went through Life Coach School, I went through in 2015, and we used to always have to do a future self letter at the end of our training. And so, I sat with my current coach today, who I had hired a few years ago because she and I have just been connected since day one. And that letter was supposed to be my future self in 25 years. What life is like for you and blah, blah, blah. In 2015, I thought life would be like, “Well, Logan is living with us and he’s doing okay.” Basically, my story was that he was just barely functional. And you all have to remember, he was a little squirt when I wrote this letter.

We were still in that stage of whatever. Chris always had that faith. Chris to me, is what you are with God, this unshakeable belief in Logan, in his mind, he’s going to be all the things. For me, it’s always been harder. My brain always wants to go to, but what if, what if it’s not good enough? What if you don’t? What if he can’t?

It always wants to circulate there, but I’m also really good at taking action despite it, because I know at the end of the day, it’s like, yeah, but nothing good will come out of doing nothing. Let’s talk about belief, because you were talking about how, before we got on this call, how you think about how belief is created. Can you talk to all of us about your thoughts about, because I always think of you like… You and Kathy, which I just want to say as a side note also, Jenny is the one that organized the workshop that I taught at the Catholic church with a priest that Kathy Hartman showed up at and ended up losing her weight and coming work with me. So it’s just-

Jennie Guinn:

God works in amazing ways.

Corinne Crabtree:

Very mysterious, because if this mouth can cut through to these two Catholic people, it’s amazing.

Jennie Guinn:

When we would have retreats at the church, I was always sitting on the edge of my seat like, “Okay, how many F-bombs is she going to drop today?” And you always did really good.

Corinne Crabtree:

Thank you. Sweating bullets, but I would do it. All right. So tell us how you think belief is created, since we’re talking about belief.

Jennie Guinn:

I think your belief, if you go all the way back to childhood, your beliefs are created through your parents, through your family, through experiences that you have through your culture or society. So you start making all of these assumptions and judgments. And when you’re young, you don’t have a filter. What’s said to you, what’s done to you, what happens, you internalize it and it becomes this belief. And it’s not until you get older, or for me it was learning how to do thought work and belief work, opened the door to, I can question my beliefs? Just because somebody did that or said that to me. Or I can remember in first grade, I had a teacher who she seemed like she was in her 80s when she taught me in first grade. And I’ll never forget where I was sitting in the classroom.

It was after lunch and we were doing math. And she said to me, “Don’t worry about this. You will never be good at math.” And that is a belief I’ve had my whole life. And I’ve always struggled with math, because every time it got a little hard or I was in geometry or algebra II and things seemed overwhelming, I would just think of what she said. Well, she said I was never going to be good at math. So that was something that I internalized. And so then, I took action from that. Well, I’m not even going to try. I barely slid through high school and college. All of my other grades were great, but that math grade was, I was happy if it was a C. So your beliefs come from what you experience. And as women, what we perceive in the world as what makes you worthy, what we see on TV or social media through filters or lots of work, we perceive that as being, that’s healthy.

That’s how I should dress, that’s what I should look like. And then those beliefs, when we internalize them, they come and become the core of who we are, and then we take action from them. And so many times it’s from a place of punishing ourselves because we’re not enough. It’s seeking approval, and which I did from signing up and being in charge of everything that I could, it appeared to others that, look at her volunteering and giving of her time. But really, once I took a minute to think about it, it was because I needed that approval. I needed to feel worthy, because I didn’t feel that on my own.

Corinne Crabtree:

The similar happened to me when I was… My mom. God love Mamie, but she-

Jennie Guinn:

Your mom is the best.

Corinne Crabtree:

She is, but it was hard for her. She raised me and my brother, all single income. And I remember her telling me thousands of times that my number one goal should be to find a good man who can take care of me, because then I would have no worries. And I love Chris. I did find a good man, but when I started my business… People look at No BS now and they forget that there was over 10 years of me working and making a few bucks for tights. I did so much work. I would work 60, 70 hours a week with my little bit of clients, because I had this belief, but you have a good man who takes care of you. You can’t grow a business. For me, that’s how it played out. And then, until I went to the Life Coach School, this is becoming an advertisement for the fucking Life Coach School.

Not supposed to be, but we do love it. But it wasn’t until Brooke, I remember her saying, “I don’t understand why your business isn’t a lot bigger than it is.” She would say, “Oh my God, every time you talk you’re hilarious and you make sense. You make more sense than even I do.” She just kept saying these things, like I don’t understand why your business isn’t bigger. Why aren’t you helping more women? Why aren’t you doing these other things? Until she dropped this belief that, oh, you don’t have to just sit back and be taken care of by your husband. If you want to go make money, you can love that and him, and you can go do your own thing. It never even occurred to me.

Jennie Guinn:

And I-

Corinne Crabtree:

Go ahead.

Jennie Guinn:

I’m sorry. So many times we think it’s impossible. We just assume it’s impossible to build this business. It’s impossible to lose weight. It’s impossible to exercise every day. So we shut our brains off. And just asking the question, what if it is possible? What if I could build this business? What if I could lose this weight? That tiny question is a huge mindset shift.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, because I think when it comes to belief, there’s two major components. One is, sometimes you don’t even know to believe something. There’s so many women when it comes to just making money or whatever, we don’t even know it’s possible for us, because no one’s ever even said it to us. And then other times it’s our locked in identity that we got. I remember my… Poor old Mamie, good lord, I’m not throwing my mother under the bus. I love her to death, but I can’t remember how many times she told me when I was little, “We just got big legs in this family, honey. We’ll always be big.” I was always told that. And even to this day, when I look at my body, my eyes travel south first. They’re always looking at my legs to see how big they are. So a lot of times there’s beliefs that we carry that were handed down to us.

Then there are just beliefs that we could adopt, but you got to talk to other people, because sometimes you just need to hear something from someone and be like, “What did you just say?” In my world, that’s never been an option. And I think weight loss happens that way for some women. A lot of us grow up in families where we’re always told, we’re a big family. We all just love to eat. We’ve all been big, we’ve all struggled with our weight, especially the women and stuff. And we don’t even know that it is literally a possibility that you don’t have to struggle with it the rest of your life. We may want to lose weight, but we don’t even know that there is a possibility that, what if I didn’t have to struggle with it for the rest of my life? So I think that’s important.

Jennie Guinn:

And I think questioning, understanding, and having this awareness, that’s one of the components of my weight loss workshop is to have this awareness of what you think, learning where your thoughts come from. And I’ll always share that your thoughts are the seeds that bloom into your life. So whatever you’re thinking, is what you’re going to have in your life. And the same with your beliefs. It’s a thought you’ve had over and over. And so, I think allowing yourself to question your thoughts and to question your beliefs. And when we talk about faith and faith in God, I think doubts are normal. When you talked about having those doubts about Logan, I think it’s normal, because you couldn’t see the path laid out before you, but you had Chris who kept you grounded and kept you centered, “Okay, but we’re going to try this and we’re going to try this.”

And I think that’s so similar in my faith with God is that, God is what keeps me grounded. Going to mass and reading the Bible and knowing the gospels and taking those and applying it to my life, those lessons and applying it to my life. So then it becomes the core of who I am, and then I act from that. And so in weight loss, I have to look at, what do I believe about myself, and then question those beliefs so that I can choose the thoughts and beliefs that are going to help me live that life that I want.

Corinne Crabtree:

It’s so interesting, because one of the things that I’ve been asking you lately, and I ask this a lot of all my friends that are religious, that have a deep faith in stuff, and I heard this a long time ago, and it’s always stuck with me, which is… I know with you and Cathy in particular, you all have an unshakeable belief in God. And I ask you all about it all the time, because there are certain things that you don’t have an unshakeable. So weight loss is one that I think the three of us have had in common, where we’ve had periods of our life where we’ll say things.

“Well, I don’t know if I believe I can lose weight and stuff, because I’ve never done it.” And I always think about when we believe in God, at the end of the day, we have zero proof. There’s world religions, there are bibles and books, and every religion has lots of manmade evidence that there’s a God. But at the end of the day, we all strongly believe in something that we won’t know. We’re hedging all this work that we’re doing on this earth on, you’re not going to know until it’s all over. That’s when you’re really going to know, but you all would stake everything on it. And I’m like, “Why can’t we do that in weight loss?”

Jennie Guinn:

Right. And I think when I look at my faith and that deep belief that I have, it comes from taking action. It comes from making sure that I fill myself with reading the Bible, going to mass, receiving the Eucharist, receiving the sacraments. It’s the core of who I am. It’s how I take action in my life. I start my day with prayer. We never miss mass on Sunday. Those are the constants in my life. And so then, when something comes up where that belief comes in question or there’s so many people suffering right now, how can that be part of God’s plan? Those unknowns, they strengthen my faith, because I take those questions, I take the unknowns or the doubts, and then my faith is like the litmus test. I take it back and I bounce it off of that. And because I’ve been filled, that’s where my beliefs grow.

Corinne Crabtree:

So when you say you bounce it off your faith, go deeper into that. So let’s say there’s bullshit suffering happening somewhere, and we would all be sitting around going, “Oh my God, there’s no way this could be part of God’s plan.” This is a moment. When you say, “I bounce that off my faith.” What do you mean by that?

Jennie Guinn:

I go back to what I know. I go back to the Bible and what does Jesus say about suffering? I go back to what does the church teach about suffering, rely on the homilies or the Bible studies that I’ve done where we’ve talked about suffering and how this life that we live, we’re not guaranteed that it’s going to be rainbows and daisies. There’s going to be trials and struggles, but God never leaves us. We may wander from him, we may try to do it on our own or think that we don’t need him, but he’s always there waiting for us to turn back. And so, when those things come up, I don’t understand them. I don’t understand why they happen, but yet I know, I believe that I have a God who works everything out for good, [inaudible 00:27:26].

Corinne Crabtree:

So let me ask you this. How would you equate that to an overeat?

Jennie Guinn:

An overeat? There’s always a lesson in it. There’s always a reason behind it. And so, that overeat was when I stepped out or stepped away from what I believe, and it’s just bringing it back in. I’m not unworthy. This doesn’t make me a bad person. This was one action in my day or in my week. What can I learn from it? And then, when I see that maybe it’s coming up again or I’m leaning that way, what are the thoughts or beliefs that will prevent it?

Corinne Crabtree:

Well, I think it’s really important, because to me, there’s so much correlation. Because when we’re trying to lose weight, especially because my audience, the vast majority of them have never been able to lose weight before and keep it off. So they have zero evidence that this time will be different. All of you, please hear me when I say this. And this is what Jenny is saying, you have to quit waiting for the evidence that you can do it. You have to decide to give yourself reasons why you can.

And that’s what happens in religion. That’s what happens even just looking, we pull it all the way back to overeating. If I go out and overeat, I’ve got to come back and decide who I am going to be in that moment. What is my identity in that moment? What am I going to choose to believe? Because all of you are going to have the doubts, you’re going to have the fears. Your brain is always going to offer up the complete opposite of that. The only way an identity will ever shift is to be very conscious about deciding, this is who I am in this moment.

This is what I will choose to believe in this moment, in the face of all of my doubts. And I think I did that a lot with Logan. I had immense doubts. And it’s even hard for me to admit, even when I see him as he is today, he drives. Every fear that I ever had about that child, has been disproven. And yet, if you catch me on the right day, I’ll be sitting and thinking about my baby and thinking, “Yeah, he’s probably going to have to live with us the rest of his life.” My brain wants to go there, and then I have to go back to, what do I want to believe about him? What do I want to believe about my mothering? Why not just believe he will have the exact life he wants, any life he chooses?

Jennie Guinn:

And I think it’s your brain’s way of protecting you. It’s much easier, we can see the future if we think he just has to live with us for the rest of our lives.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah. That feels very safe, because I know I can keep him safe.

Jennie Guinn:

Right, but it’s possible that he could live on his own, and then he is on his own and he makes his own decisions and they may not always be the right decisions. And so, that’s much more uncomfortable than just keeping him in the little nest.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yep. It’s just amazing to me, I’m always trying to figure out ways to help women believe harder, believe more, because it’s just too easy to not believe. It’s always going to be easier to not believe in something that it ever is going to be to believe in, something will happen for you and staying determined to making it happen. So go into that, because this is where I love what you talk about when it comes to, belief comes from actions. The way the-

Corinne Crabtree:

… I always think about it is, whether you believe initially or not is so irrelevant. I always like to tell people, “Probably aren’t. Let’s just get really good at accepting the state of affairs. No, you don’t have evidence. No, you don’t believe right now, but you still have choice and agency over how you want to show up. And there are certain ways you’re going to show up that you know would get you closer to who you want to be. And there are certain ways that you can show up that will get you further away from who you want to be.”

So talk about that, creating the evidence for yourself before you even believe. Do you know what I mean there?

Jennie Guinn:

I think so. If we explain it this way, there’s confidence, and then there’s self-confidence. Confidence comes from feeling secure about doing … you have the ability to do things. Driving. You’re confident that you can get in your car and get from point A to point B, because you’ve done it so many times. In fact, how many times have you gotten home and had the thought, I don’t remember getting on the interstate. Your brain just takes over and you pull in the garage and you’re home.

Your self-confidence is going to come from creating the belief that you can take action, that the results can be different. That you have the ability to lose weight and reach your goals. And so confidence is based on the past, what you’ve done in the past, and you have the proof for it. Where self-confidence is based on the present and what you want to do moving into the future.

And that’s how belief is. We have these beliefs about our past weight loss attempts. We’ve tried everything under the sun. We’ve bought the book, we’ve bought the program, we’ve done the crazy stuff. And we see in the past how they didn’t work, time and time again. There’s very little evidence that it can be different in the present or in the future. And so you just have to let those go. Go, “What if it could be different? What would my life look like if it were different? What would I do? How would I act? What would my day look like moving forward?”

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah, I … Oh, go ahead. You finish.

Jennie Guinn:

And then that’s how the belief comes, when you start doing those things. When you stop at enough, when you make your plan, then you start to see, “Okay, this is possible. I am making progress.” And then you become that person who makes their daily plan, who drinks all of their water, who gauges pauses to check their hunger.

Corinne Crabtree:

And I teach it just slightly different. It’s really the same concept, but it’s the idea that confidence comes from … I always like to tell my clients, “You don’t have to be confident right now. Confidence comes in from looking at how you’ve shown up in the recent history. And then you’re either going to show up in the future to give yourself something to say, I did that. That’s great. Or you’re going to do stuff in the future to say, see, I can’t do that.”

So for all of you that lack confidence, you do not need to be confident first to do the things that will get you what you want. You need to be willing, which is a very different emotion than confident, to do the things that you can look back on one day and say, “Okay, that’s good. I did the right thing.” Self-confidence, to me is the belief in just me. It’s me asking each day, “I may not believe I can lose weight, but I believe today I can do this thing.”

Jennie Guinn:

Right.

Corinne Crabtree:

So a lot of times I think when it comes to confidence, especially in women … I even got asked this question this morning on our Q&A about, “I lack confidence. What can I do about it?” It’s a popular question. The best thing most people can do is to do like Jenny is saying. Take the actions that you know that someone who is going to lose weight, that they would be doing. Do those with your doubts. Do those with your disbelief, until you do it enough to where you give yourself something new to think about.

Most of us, what we do is we keep waiting on the doubts to go away and we keep waiting on confidence to build so that then we can go out and do things that someone who loses weight does, and then I can feel better. Don’t do that to yourselves. Be on a mission, to every day show yourself, I can live like someone who’s going to lose weight. And I bet if I do this often enough, my belief will catch up to me.

Jennie Guinn:

And I just heard you say … and I can’t remember if it was the podcast. But you made the comment in one of your lessons that before confidence, the first emotion you need is courage.

Corinne Crabtree:

Oh God, yes.

Jennie Guinn:

And so courage is what opens up the possibilities. Courage that maybe this time could be different. What if it’s possible? So we can create the feeling of confidence. We can also create that feeling of courage by letting go of the past failures and being willing to try something new and create new beliefs about the future.

Corinne Crabtree:

Well, also, it’s kind of like when we’re talking about religion. It’s like, you got to have the courage to try without any promises that something’s going to work. It’s just like we all have the courage to … for those who believe in God. You have the courage to believe in God without any promise that at the end of the day, that’s … I mean, even God himself is not promising it. He wants you to act on faith. That is a core tenant. I mean, unless I’ve been out of the church for so long that I’ve lost my way.

Jennie Guinn:

No, that’s true.

Corinne Crabtree:

One of the things I do remember from my brief stint in the church is faith is the thing that God really wants you to have. And I think that in weight loss, we have to ask ourselves, “When I lack everything, can I just have faith that doing these things is better than not doing them?”

Jennie Guinn:

Right.

Corinne Crabtree:

Sometimes that’s all we need, y’all. We just need these little shifts in our thinking to start building the belief stacks. To start building the courage, to start building all of the things that we need in order to lose our weight.

Jennie Guinn:

And they can be small. I think what society tells us and the diet industry is it has to be this huge change. Giving up everything and punishing yourself and not having foods that you like. And so that is the mindset that I had to break, that I don’t have to lose 50 pounds in a month. I have these unrealistic expectations. Five pounds is enough.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yeah.

Jennie Guinn:

But it’s becoming the person who can eat food and it doesn’t always have to be a reward or always have to overeat. That food is just food, because there are so many other good parts to my life.

Corinne Crabtree:

Exactly. So tell us about your workshop that’s coming up.

Jennie Guinn:

So I have a program called Lose with Grace, and it’s a 12-week workshop. And I’ve taken the letters in Grace, and they stand for, G is for God’s mercy. And that’s just understanding that you’re worthy because God loves you and because he created you. The R is for reveal and renounce, and that’s where we dig into those spiritual strongholds with dieting and food. The A is for awareness, like we’ve been talking about, gaining that awareness of thoughts and beliefs. The C is for connecting. Connecting to Christ, connecting to yourself, and connecting to what’s going on inside, your feelings and your actions.

And then the E is embracing where you are. Because so many times we resist where we are, the weight or the clothing size, but once you embrace where you are, you can be happy in your life. You can find joy in your life right in the present moment without having to reach a certain weight or a certain clothing size or until you accomplish something. So just embracing the journey and just living it to the fullest.

Corinne Crabtree:

And where can they go to get more information on it, and when does it start and all that kind of stuff?

Jennie Guinn:

It starts anytime. You can sign up at any time. We do a weekly coaching call.

Corinne Crabtree:

Oh, that’s awesome.

Jennie Guinn:

And women come in from … they just bring everything to the coaching call. And we coach and we pray together, and we have great discussions. You can go to catholicmomsinthemiddle.com.

Corinne Crabtree:

Awesome. All right, y’all. catholicmomsinthemiddle.com. We’ll put all the links in the show notes. You also have a podcast too, correct?

Jennie Guinn:

I do.

Corinne Crabtree:

Yes.

Jennie Guinn:

Catholic Moms in the Middle.

Corinne Crabtree:

Catholic Moms in the Middle. All right.

Jennie Guinn:

Yes.

Corinne Crabtree:

Well, thank you for coming on and talking to us about belief and faith and all the things. That was really good.

Jennie Guinn:

Thank you so much.

Corinne Crabtree:

All righty. Y’all, we will see you next week. Check her out if you want some help with losing weight and your faith and all the things. Talk to y’all later.