Robyn Spurr

Personal Health and Weight Loss Coaching For Women

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Behavior Change Doesn’t Have to Suck

Since starting my business, I’ve promised to keep it real.

Health related content tends to lean idealistic. I mean, I’m a dang Health Coach and I find myself rolling my eyes at 90% of the articles and blog posts out there.

One of the reasons (and perhaps THE main reason) so many people give up on behavior change is because they feel like it requires drastic habit transformation. When the Health Coach you’re following on Instagram is only posting pics of being in the gym and eating lean protein and veggies, well – it feels entirely out of reach for most of us.

I’m here to say you can make progress (and sustain that progress) without giving up bread or Hazy IPA’s forever.

To be fair, if your goal is to be fitness competition ripped and have 19% body fat, you’ll need to make some big ass changes (and I am NOT the coach for you). But if your goal is to simply live a healthier life and lose some weight, congratulations – it doesn’t have to suck.

Here’s an example.

A new(ish) client of mine showed up to our first call eating the majority of her dinners from restaurants. She fully expected me to tell her she needed to start meal prepping/cooking at home. There was an audible sigh of relief when I suggested simply ordering slightly healthier options. She put together a list of her favorite restaurants + what she normally orders + ideas for meals that were a little bit healthier, but still satisfying.

In just over two months, she has lost 14 pounds. And she is THRILLED because she is finally losing weight in a way that feels sustainable long-term.

Another example.

Many of my clients began drinking more during the pandemic to manage stress. Heck, even I started drinking more in 2020.

Although the world has begun to open back up, old habits die hard. Sure, you can go cold turkey and try to stop drinking entirely. Or – you can step it down little by little.

Drinking every night of the week? Aim for only six days to start.

Drinking a bottle of wine/night? Try stopping at half a bottle a few days/week. Or better yet – purchase half bottles of wine.

Too much + too fast usually results in throwing in the towel. But we have somehow convinced ourselves that too much + too fast is the ONLY way.

I’m not saying behavior change is easy. It’s not. I’m just saying it doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it out to be.

💙 Robyn

Interested in a one-on-one coaching relationship with me? It would be an honor to work with you if and when the time feels right.

To learn more about Personal Weight Loss Coaching click HERE. 

To schedule a Discovery Session click HERE.

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Messing Up is Part of the Process

About 10 years ago, I enrolled in a Weight Loss Coaching Certification program. I was already certified as a Health Coach with ACE, but that program didn’t teach about the mindset of weight loss. The new program was ALL about mindset.

During my certification, I was asked to assess any overeating I did. What did I overeat? What were my sabotaging thoughts?

But, I DID NOT DO IT.

Why?

Because I was beating myself up for not being perfect instead. I was too busy swimming in shame + comparison + judgement.

  • How can a Health Coach possibly make mistakes?
  • I’m supposed to be the example.
  • Who would hire a coach that overate sometimes (or GASP, gained weight)?

I tried SO HARD to do it all perfectly so I wouldn’t have to feel the shame of overeating and the shame of trying to hide it. As you might suspect, that approach didn’t work very well.

Perfectionism is often a symptom of low self-worth. And our self-worth has nothing to do with what we weigh or what we’ve accomplished in life. Low self-worth comes from a story we’re telling and believing.

I believed my own bullshit story about not being enough for a LONG time. Much too long.

Not every woman who struggles with food is a perfectionist, but so many are. The best way I have found to rewrite the perfectionist script is to do the work. I ask my clients to show up no matter how sideways things go.

To post what they’re eating in Ate.

To assess how their day went.

To get on the scale.

I do the same and freely share this information with my clients. Especially when I make mistakes.

If my clients feel compelled to hide, I ask them to simply notice why. Without judgement. With curiosity. Just notice. You can do the same.

What are you thinking that is causing you to not want to post the cookies in your food journal?

What are you thinking that is keeping you from getting on the scale?

What gets uncovered are the bullshit lies we’re telling ourselves that are causing us to feel not good enough.

Once the thoughts are out of your head and on paper, read it back and ask, what could I say that might be more helpful?

A few suggestions…

  • I’m willing to believe that messing up is not a tragedy
  • I might be wrong about not having what it takes to change my behavior
  • I am becoming a person who believes in herself
  • I am someone who is willing to learn from my mistakes
  • I don’t have to believe everything I think about myself
  • I will figure this out as long as I keep moving forward
  • I can choose to keep going
  • I am a person who doesn’t give up on her weight loss goals

The #1 reason we quit on losing weight is not because we ate too much cake or gained 2 pounds. The #1 reason we quit is because we beat ourselves up when we make mistakes and that feels like crap.

Quitting on weight loss means we no longer have to endure the floggings. Quitting offers instant relief. Until — we start right back up with the mental floggings for failing again + being overweight. On to the next diet!

Let’s END THIS CYCLE. 

We WILL make mistakes when we’re losing weight. Messing up is PART OF THE PROCESS. The key to success is learning to process mistakes without judgement.

If you’re not practicing normalizing mistakes, you’re going to keep quitting on weight loss.

Mistakes are not keeping you from losing weight. Mistakes are TELLING you what you need to change to lose weight. When the low fuel indicator light comes on, you problem solve, right? You find a gas station + put gas in your tank + keep going. You don’t beat yourself up about it + ditch the car on the side of the road.

A mistake is simply an action or decision that produces a result you don’t want. It’s not a statement about your ability to lose weight.

Stop believing the pile of lies you’re currently telling yourself about why you can’t lose weight.

You can think (and believe) something new.

💙 Robyn

Interested in a one-on-one coaching relationship with me? It would be an honor to work with you if and when the time feels right.

To learn more about Personal Health Coaching click HERE. 

To schedule a Discovery Session click HERE.

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I Gained Weight

I gained a few pounds this year.

And this was the BEST GIFT for so many reasons.

I lost my weight 20 years ago. About 50 pounds. And since then, I’ve kept within my healthy range. But I recently crept into a place where I just didn’t feel good in my body. 

The last few months have been a bit rough. My father in law died in December + my Dad died three weeks later + COVID. 

Note: This is not a plea for sympathy. Life is just hard sometimes. And when shit gets hard, my husband bakes bread like he is feeding an army. FOR REAL.

Over the past few months, I was eating too much fresh bread + drinking too many gin and tonics + generally snacking more frequently than usual. 

This is probably a good time to share a “rule” I adhere to around weight gain. 

I never blame other people or circumstances for gaining weight. There is only person who decides what and how much I eat – and that person is ME. 

So, I got to work. I faced the weight gain with curiosity + a “let’s figure this out” attitude. And that’s why it was a gift. Because it put me in YOUR shoes + helped me generate a bunch of new ideas for helping my clients lose weight.

For the entire month of May I started doing the things (or thinking I was doing the things). Cutting back here and there. Less alcohol. Less bread. Hiking in the morning AND evening. And the scale didn’t budge.  

Sometimes it takes a minute (or a month) to figure things out. Sometimes we need to go from gaining to maintaining first.

But in the moment, my brain began swirling with…

  • Guess it’s just going to be harder to lose weight at 45
  • Maybe you just need to settle in at 140
  • But I don’t understand WHY I’m not losing. I’m doing ALL THE THINGS!

I put an end to that BS thinking FAST. Because it was in no way going to help me solve this.

What I did instead was get curious + shift into problem solving mode.

Then…

For a few days in a row in June, I crushed it. I stuck to my plan. And the scale went up. Here’s what I know FOR SURE after a decade of coaching women on weight loss.

The scale doesn’t always reflect our actions. Because hormones + weather + hydration + physiology. We have to stay focused + be patient and then BOOM, the scale moves.

No matter what that scale said, I was proud of the way I showed up and wasn’t going to let the scale steal that from me. I wasn’t going to throw away all those good feelings because I didn’t lose half a frickin’ pound.

But what we normally do is tell ourselves… 

  • This isn’t working!
  • It’s not fair. 
  • I’m broken. 

Which inevitably leads to a pity party with pizza and donuts and screwing ourselves over. 

I follow the same advice I give to my clients. Lose the weight in a way that is sustainable + you ENJOY. Losing the weight and keeping it off doesn’t have to be hard. But that’s what we’ve been sold by the diet industry.

Eat 1200 calories (HARD!)

Cut out the carbs (SERIOUSLY?!)

Count every calorie (SUCKS!)

Trade in all the foods you love for foods that taste like crap (NOPE!)

And what makes it hardest of all is while we’re trying to follow some hideous diet plan, we’re usually BEATING OURSELVES UP the entire time.

  • I suck
  • I don’t deserve food that tastes good
  • I’m disgusting
  • Look at that belly
  • There is something wrong with me

I’ve come to the conclusion that being mean to ourselves is the #1 reason we don’t succeed at losing the weight + keeping it off. Followed close behind by believing stories that aren’t serving us like, “I don’t have the time,” or, “But I just love food too much,” or,” My family will SUFFER if I make myself a priority.”

Our brain is wired to look for problems + what is WRONG, and it takes a bit of practice to unwind that pattern.

There are two questions I ask myself every single morning as part of my “Plan + Assess” routine. I’ve started asking my clients to do the same.   

(1) What did I do well yesterday?

(2) What is one thought I want to deliberately think about myself today?

My answer to question #2 today – I am a weight loss badass!

When we feel better, we do better.

💙 Robyn

Interested in a one-on-one coaching relationship with me? It would be an honor to work with you if and when the time feels right.

To learn more about Personal Health Coaching click HERE. 

To schedule a Discovery Session click HERE.

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Eliminating Triggers

The path to changing our behavior has very little to do with resolve.

We achieve control, not through willpower but by finding ways to take willpower entirely out of the equation.

The central force for eliminating bad habits, according to social psychologist Wendy Wood, author of “Good Habits, Bad Habits,” is friction. In other words, making bad habits inconvenient.

She cites the ways in which increased friction has produced a decline in smoking: laws that ban it in restaurants, bars, airplanes, and trains; taxes that have helped triple the price of cigarettes in the U.S. in the past twenty years; the purge of cigarettes from vending machines, and of tobacco ads from TV and the radio.

We can apply the same concept to eating behaviors. But first, I think it’s important to explore the science behind cravings.

In an ideal world, your desire to eat would only be triggered by the internal signals that come up from your body to your brain.

Hungry. Seek food!

Except we no longer need to seek food. And our desire to eat is triggered by so much more than physical hunger. We’re bombarded with food all day every day and images of food wherever we turn.

The main problem we face is that seeing + smelling + thinking about food creates an effect that mimics what we experience when we’re physically hungry.

When you see + smell + imagine food, all the same processes that happen when you need food occur. The signals that reach your brain through your senses activate a neurological cascade that result in a surge of insulin + a drop in blood glucose. Lower blood glucose tells your brain you need to eat. Additionally, your stomach relaxes so you have a bigger space for food + need more to make it feel full.

This happens in response to simply seeing, smelling or thinking about food. Which was super helpful back when food was scarce. Today though, not so much.

If you’ve ever wondered why using willpower to overcome a craving feels like pushing a boulder up a hill, this is why. When we don’t respond to the cascade of biological events with food – it feels kind of terrible. Even when we don’t need food.

The most effective way to control our cravings is to eliminate triggers as much as possible.

Since Halloween is just a few days away, here are a few tips specific to Halloween candy.

  • Don’t buy candy until the day before Halloween (or the day of)
  • Have someone in your family hide it if it’s already been purchased
  • Buy something you don’t like
  • Leave the leftovers in a bowl outside at the end of the night (they will ABSOLUTELY disappear)

Bottom line, make healthy options convenient + visible and unhealthy options inconvenient + out of sight.

💙 Robyn

Interested in a one-on-one coaching relationship with me? It would be an honor to work with you if and when the time feels right.

To learn more about Personal Health Coaching click HERE. 

To schedule a Discovery Session click HERE.