Episode Transcript
What if the real reason you’re stuck isn’t your body, your age, or your motivation—but the label you’ve been carrying? In today’s episode, I’m breaking down the hidden power of labels like “lazy” or “all-or-nothing” and showing you how to finally let them go so you can get the strong, toned arms you actually want.
Hey everyone! Welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode 82!
Today we’re talking about labels—and oh, do we need to talk about this.
I bring this up all the time inside the program, but I realized I haven’t actually talked about it here on the podcast. So let’s change that.
Labels like “lazy,” “inconsistent,” “all or nothing,” “unmotivated,” “undisciplined”… you know the ones. The sneaky little words we quietly assign to ourselves when we’re not seeing the progress we want with our arms.
And listen—I used to do this too. I’d say, “Well, I’ve just never been consistent,” or “I’m not the kind of person who sticks with things,” like it was a fact. Like it was my identity.
But here’s the truth: labels are just thoughts we’ve practiced. They feel like facts, but they’re not. They’re just stories we’ve been telling ourselves for so long that we stopped questioning them.
So today I want to break this down for you:
Why we label ourselves in the first place
How those labels quietly shape your habits (and your arms)
And whether or not you actually want to keep the ones you’ve been using
This is such an important conversation, because if you’ve ever thought, “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this,” you’re not alone—but that label might be the very thing holding you back.
Before we dive in, I want to say this up front: what I’m about to share is my perspective.
There are a lot of different takes on labels—some people feel empowered by them, and others find them limiting or even a little suffocating. So just know, you don’t have to agree with everything I say here. This is about exploring what feels true for you.
Some of you might feel like the label “disciplined” or “strong” helps you show up more powerfully—and that’s amazing. I've had clients tell me, “Once I finally saw myself as someone who follows through, that’s when everything clicked.” That label became their anchor.
But I’ve also coached so many women who feel weighed down by labels like “inconsistent,” “all-or-nothing,” or “I always fall off track.” And those labels? They just create shame. They become this invisible story running in the background that makes it harder to even start.
So, why does this matter?
Because labels don’t mean the same thing to everyone—and that’s where the Think-Feel-Act cycle comes in. How you think about a label creates a feeling, and that feeling drives your actions. One label might motivate you, and another might completely shut you down. The power isn’t in the word—it’s in what you make it mean.
So let’s zoom out for a second. What is a label?
A label is just a word or phrase we use to describe something—or someone. And I like the visual of it being something we stick on, like peeling a sticker off a sheet and pressing it onto ourselves: “Here. This is who I am.”
But here’s the kicker—we label everything. Not just our habits or our arms. We label our intelligence (I’m smart vs. I’m bad at this), our bodies (I’m overweight, I’m petite), our backgrounds (I’m from the Midwest, I’m city through and through), even our politics, our finances, our personalities.
And we do it for one big reason: our brains want to simplify things. Life throws a ton of data at us—so our brains try to organize it quickly. Labels feel like a shortcut. They’re efficient. “Oh, she’s just a perfectionist.” “I’m just lazy.” Slap. Label applied.
But here’s the problem: when we rely on labels to explain ourselves or other people, we stop being curious. We stop noticing what’s really going on underneath. And that can hold you back—especially when you’re trying to change.
I see this show up all the time—especially when women come into the program and think they already have themselves figured out.
They’ll say things like, “I’m just not a workout person,” or “I’ve never had discipline,” and it’s like… whoa. End of story. That’s the label. No more curiosity. Just—boom—stamped and done.
It’s the same way we sometimes judge others too. We think we know someone just because of a label. “She’s super fit, she must have tons of willpower.” Or, “She’s always been small, she doesn’t understand what it’s like to struggle.” We decide we have them all figured out.
Now, yes—your brain loves this shortcut. It’s trying to save energy. But just because something is easy for the brain doesn’t mean it’s helpful for your life.
This is the exact same thing we see with habits. Your brain gets used to taking shortcuts. It wants to keep doing what’s familiar—even if that familiar thing is skipping your workout or grabbing snacks at night and calling it “just how I am.”
Labels make people—and situations—seem way simpler than they actually are. But the truth? Humans are wildly complex. You are. I am. Your body is. Your journey is. And so often, we use labels to avoid doing the deeper work of actually understanding ourselves.
Because let’s be honest: it takes energy to get curious. To ask, “What’s really going on here?” It’s way easier to just say, “I’m lazy,” or “I always quit,” and move on. But that shortcut costs you. That label might feel factual, but it’s not. It’s a thought that’s shaped by your past—but you’re not living your past anymore.
And here’s where it gets even trickier. Some labels carry a lot of shame or stigma, especially around body image, weight, food, consistency, aging, health, all of it. So when we slap on one of those labels—like “I let myself go” or “I’m too old for this”—we start interpreting everything through that lens.
We stop seeing what’s actually true. We stop noticing the reps we did do, the meals we did prep, the mindset shifts we have made.
I started noticing this pattern years ago, back when I was working as a dental hygienist. I spent years talking to hundreds—maybe thousands—of women, and one of the biggest things I noticed was how often we label ourselves as the problem. Not because of what was actually happening in their mouths or bodies—but because of the stories they’d been carrying around for years.
“I have soft teeth—it runs in my family.”
“My gums are just bad—it’s genetic.”
“I’m probably going to lose my teeth anyway, just like my mom did.”
“My body is just falling apart.”
These inherited identities made so many women feel powerless—like their past or their DNA had already written the ending. It was like we’d all been trained to believe that if something wasn’t working, we must be broken.
But I remember one conversation that completely shifted how I see this now. I was working with a woman who had serious gum issues, and she looked at me and said, “I’m not broken. My routine is.”
Let me say that again.
“I’m not broken. My routine is.”
Whew. That one landed.
Because I realized—I had spent so many years watching people carry these labels like heavy backpacks. Like the problem was in them, when so often, it was actually around them. The tools they didn’t have. The support they’d never received. The way their daily habits were working against their goals.
And now I see this constantly with women trying to tone their arms. They tell me, “I’m just not athletic,” or “I’ve never had upper body strength,” or “I always quit,” and they wear those labels like they’re permanent.
But what if the problem isn’t you?
What if it’s the way your environment is set up?
What if the workouts you’ve tried before didn’t teach you how to build consistency… or the plan you were following wasn’t designed for women in their 50s and beyond?
Just like that woman with gum disease wasn’t broken—she just needed a better care plan and support system—you’re not broken either. Maybe your environment is just missing the tools, the structure, the mindset you need.
You know, when it comes to labels in the fitness world, there’s one that shows up constantly. And it’s not just “lazy” or “inconsistent”—it’s the belief that you are the problem.
We get so used to labeling ourselves that way—like something’s wrong with us—that we never stop to question the environment we’re trying to change inside of.
And here’s the thing: no one teaches us how to manage our urges. No one teaches us how to handle negative emotion without food, or how to sit with discomfort without quitting, or how to manage desire in a world that is literally built to overstimulate and over-reward our brains.
Think about it. We are surrounded 24/7 by things that light up our brain’s reward system: food, scrolling, TV, dopamine hits from emails and notifications… and yet we’ve been given zero tools for how to handle it.
When I think back to what I was taught about health, body image, or even taking care of myself—it was so vague. Eat less. Move more. Don’t get fat. Look put together. That was basically it.
No one taught me how to listen to my body.
No one talked to me about urges or emotional eating or the thoughts that were driving my decisions.
Even when I was working as a hygienist and talking to women every day, I saw how so many of them felt overwhelmed—by food, by their habits, by their emotions—and nobody had ever taught them the skills to navigate it. We were all just supposed to figure it out.
I remember for me personally, I had no idea how to handle urges around food or rest or exercise. I had unknowingly trained myself to numb uncomfortable feelings. I’d come home from a long day, feeling exhausted or discouraged or just emotionally spent—and without even realizing it, I’d reach for something to eat. Not because I was hungry. But because I didn’t know what else to do with the discomfort.
It was like my brain had written this script:
Feel bad → Find relief → Eat something.
And I carried that into everything—my health, my habits, even the way I saw my body. I didn’t know how to feel things without trying to fix them right away with food or distraction or giving up on myself.
Now looking back, I think: what would’ve changed if someone had just said to me, “Hey, you’re not broken. Your body’s not the enemy. You’re just trying to manage something hard, and there’s another way to do it.”
What if there had been someone there to say,
“You’re feeling anxious or uncomfortable—let’s look at what’s actually going on in your mind.”
“You don’t have to eat through your emotions or quit on your goals—you just haven’t been taught how to handle discomfort yet.”
That would’ve changed everything.
But no one told me. And no one tells you, either.
So here’s the thing—I didn’t know how to manage urges when it came to food, emotions, or even just the pull to quit on myself. So of course I didn’t know how to handle urges around things that gave my brain an even bigger dopamine hit—like checking out, procrastinating, or numbing with comfort.
And this is where I think we go wrong with how we label people—especially when it comes to health and fitness.
We act like if you’re struggling with follow-through, the problem must be you. You’re “lazy.” You “don’t want it bad enough.” You “have no willpower.”
It’s the same pattern: the label gets slapped on the person—you’re the problem—rather than questioning the environment you’ve been trying to change inside of.
But no one’s teaching us the actual skills we need to:
manage urges (like skipping workouts or snacking out of habit)
handle our emotions without reaching for food or distraction
and understand how our thoughts are creating the desire to quit in the first place
Instead, we get handed these oversimplified labels:
“You’re either motivated or not.”
“You’re either disciplined or you’re not.”
“You either care about your health or you don’t.”
It’s this black-and-white thinking—and I see it all the time.
Women come to me and say, “I’ve always been inconsistent,” or “I used to be in shape, but I’ve totally let myself go,” like it’s a fixed identity. Like there are only two options: you’re either someone who’s strong and fit or you’re someone who struggles forever.
But that’s just not how this works.
Your relationship with food, exercise, your arms, your body image—it evolves. It changes with your life. I’ve coached women who never struggled with their weight until their hormones shifted… or who used to be super active until they went through a divorce, a loss, or hit a rough patch emotionally.
And I’ve coached others who say, “I never cared about arm strength in my 30s, but now I’m in my 50s and I just want to feel capable again.”
The label doesn’t account for any of that. It just freezes you in place. Like, “This is who you are. Case closed.”
But in reality? All of this exists on a spectrum. Struggle isn’t binary. Motivation isn’t binary. Even habits exist on a continuum. One week you might be crushing your workouts. The next week you’re just trying to hold on emotionally.
That’s not failure. That’s being human.
And when we treat health like it’s either all in or all out, strong or weak, good or bad—we miss the point. The point is progress. The point is learning how to respond when life throws you curveballs.
Now here’s the thing… no one starts out at the far end of the struggle spectrum.
Nobody wakes up one day and suddenly hates their body, has zero motivation, or feels completely defeated about their arms. It doesn’t happen like that. Just like physical addiction doesn’t start after one drink, this kind of stuckness builds slowly—over time and with repetition.
You miss a few workouts. You start labeling yourself as “inconsistent.”
You eat emotionally a few nights in a row and suddenly you’re “undisciplined.”
You gain some weight during a hard season, and now you’re “too far gone.”
It’s not true. But your brain keeps repeating the story until you believe it.
And here’s the real problem: we only seem to have one label for people who are struggling.
You either have it together, or you don’t.
You’re either “fit” or you’ve “let yourself go.”
You’re either strong or weak. Motivated or lazy.
Like there’s no middle ground. No spectrum. No room for complexity.
But that’s just not how it works.
There are many degrees of struggle.
There are women who’ve never picked up a dumbbell before and are just starting.
Women who’ve been athletic their whole lives but feel like they’ve lost themselves.
Women who’ve gone through grief, menopause, divorce, burnout—and suddenly their bodies and routines feel like strangers.
One label can’t possibly capture all of that.
But we keep using these simplified, black-and-white labels—and the worst part is, they always make you the problem.
Instead of asking, “What support do I need?”
Or “What tools have I never been taught?”
We default to, “What’s wrong with me?”
And that’s not just damaging—it’s false.
Because the truth is, most of us were raised in environments that didn’t teach us how to manage urges, how to process emotion, or how to stay consistent when life gets hard.
We weren’t taught how to keep showing up for our bodies without slipping into guilt, shame, or punishment.
So when we struggle, we blame our character.
We say, “I have no willpower.”
“I’m just lazy.”
“I always sabotage myself.”
“I’m too emotional.”
“I’m selfish for wanting more.”
That kind of narrative is everywhere. And it sounds a lot like what I call the “character defect model.”
It tells you:
“You’re struggling because something is wrong with you.”
“You’re inconsistent because you’re weak.”
“You’re not toned because you don’t want it badly enough.”
“You just need to try harder. Be better. Do more.”
Now listen, I’ve got problems with all of these frameworks that tell women their struggles with consistency, food, or their body are a reflection of who they are.
Because let’s be honest—our culture has done a terrible job helping women navigate this stuff. We’ve taken a whole spectrum of human struggle, and reduced it to a handful of loaded labels. And then we act like those labels tell the whole story.
So now you’ve got a label—*“lazy,” “unmotivated,” “emotional eater,” “past your prime”—*and that label makes you the problem.
It doesn’t reflect the season of life you’re in.
It doesn’t reflect how your habits, hormones, energy, or even mindset may have shifted over the years.
It doesn’t leave any room for context, nuance, or change.
And worst of all? We pile shame on top of it.
We act like struggling to follow through means something about your essence.
That if you keep stopping and starting, it must mean you’re broken.
That if you’ve gained weight or lost strength, you just don’t care enough.
That if you’re in your 50s and still haven’t figured it out, you’re probably too late.
None of that is true. But that’s the message these labels send.
They reduce a strong, complex, multifaceted woman down to one behavior: “She doesn’t stick with it.”
And not only that—they carry this toxic little undertone:
“She must not have what it takes.”
“She must be weak.”
“She must be doing something wrong.”
And when that’s the narrative? Of course we don’t want to ask for help. Of course we keep it to ourselves. Because now it feels like asking for support means admitting there’s something wrong with who we are.
That’s the danger of these labels—they don’t just describe our struggle, they start to define us. And once they do that, we stop reaching out. We stay stuck. We suffer in silence.
And I’ll be real with you—I was one of those people. I didn’t want to admit that I needed help with my body, my habits, my health, because everything out there made it sound like the only way to change was to fix my character.
To hustle harder.
To be more disciplined.
To basically become someone else.
That never resonated with me.
What finally shifted everything was realizing:
This isn’t a character defect.
It’s a learning process.
Your brain has simply been practicing a set of thoughts and behaviors on autopilot. And once you start learning how your brain works, and what it’s been taught to desire or avoid, everything starts to make sense.
You don’t need a label.
You don’t need to “fix” yourself.
You just need to learn how to work with your brain—not against it.
And when the only help out there is rooted in shame, guilt, or outdated thinking, no wonder so many women opt out.
Now listen… a lot of the labels we use in the fitness and wellness space? They’re not just unhelpful—they’re outdated.
They don’t reflect how real women actually live. They don’t reflect the spectrum of struggle. And most of the time, they’re rooted in shame, perfectionism, or all-or-nothing thinking.
Think about it: we still throw around labels like “lazy,” “all-or-nothing,” “emotional eater,” “binge-restrict cycle,” “fitness junkie,” “health nut,” “yo-yo dieter.” These terms get tossed around like they’re normal, but what they actually do is collapse the complexity of your experience into a single story—one that usually makes you the problem.
And I get asked a lot why I don’t use labels like “recovered,” “disciplined,” or even “sober from sugar” or whatever the latest trend is. And it’s because those labels just don’t feel true or useful for most of the women I work with—including myself.
I don’t describe myself as “recovered” from anything. Not because I don’t understand the struggle—I do—but because the choice to live the way I live now? It doesn’t define me. It’s not my whole identity. It’s just… part of how I take care of myself. It’s a piece of the puzzle, not the headline.
So when someone asks me, “Are you super disciplined?” I say, “I follow through because I’ve trained my brain to want what I want.” That’s it. I don’t use discipline like a badge of honor. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else because I meal prep or move my body. I just know what feels good now—and that took time.
And honestly? A lot of the labels people use in the wellness world carry the vibe of restriction or punishment.
“Clean eating.”
“Can’t miss a workout.”
“Bounce back.”
“Cheat day.”
It’s all so serious. So extreme. So black-and-white.
But I don’t see myself that way at all.
I’m not here for solemn, joyless routines. I’m not trying to live like some disciplined little robot who never has cravings, never feels tired, never skips a day.
That doesn’t feel like me at all. In fact, that feels like the 1600s version of health—a bunch of rules and shame and wool dresses and guilt trips.
What does feel like me?
Feeling strong.
Choosing what I want with confidence.
Loving the way I move, eat, and live—because I want to, not because I “have” to.
Letting go of labels that make me feel smaller, quieter, or boxed in.
Now I know there are people out there who try to reclaim labels like “fitness junkie,” “disciplined,” “recovered binge-eater,” or “all-or-nothing”—and by reclaim, I mean they take a label that’s been used to shame them and try to wear it with pride, try to give it new meaning.
And listen—more power to them. If it feels empowering for you to take a label and make it your own, I’m all for it.
But for me? It just doesn’t resonate.
I don’t feel like not overeating or being consistent with my workouts is some kind of defining trait about who I am.
I mean, I wouldn’t introduce myself and say, “Hi, I’m Kristine and I don’t eat when I’m bored anymore,” or “Hi, I’m Kristine and I don’t skip arm day.” That’s just not how I think about myself.
Because honestly? It’s not the most interesting or important thing about me. It’s just something I’ve learned to do differently over time.
And I want you to know—you get to decide what fits. You get to choose what feels true for you. You’re not required to carry any label that doesn’t feel right.
Another one I hear a lot is “recovered.” And that’s another label I personally don’t use.
Because to me, recovered implies that I was once in a healthy, balanced state, and I’ve now returned to it.
But I wasn’t.
Before I changed my habits, before I learned how to manage urges, emotions, and my thinking—I didn’t have those skills.
Nobody taught me how to listen to my body.
Nobody taught me how to pause before reacting to a craving.
Nobody taught me how to feel self-doubt or discomfort and still show up anyway.
So how could I recover to something I never had?
If anything—I didn’t recover.
I grew.
I learned.
I built something new.
And I want you to hear this: you are not trying to “go back” to some version of you from the past.
You are becoming someone you’ve never been before.
Someone with a new mindset. New tools. New habits. New strength.
So whatever label you choose—or don’t choose—I want it to feel empowering.
You never have to wear a label you didn’t ask for.
Especially not one that suggests you are the problem.
Because you are not the problem.
Your brain is not the problem.
Your desire, your inconsistency, your past—none of it makes you broken.
You and your brain? You’re the solution. You’re the key to figuring this out.
You just haven’t been taught how—yet.
That’s exactly what this podcast is here for.
So I know this one was a little longer today, but I hope it gave you some clarity on why I don’t use labels like “disciplined,” “recovered,” or “fitness addict,” and why I believe your identity should never be reduced to your past struggles.
If you have questions, or there’s something you’d love for me to talk about here, just reach out. I’d love to hear from you.
And I’ll see you next week.
