Ever feel like you're making progress, only to backslide into old habits? That’s self-sabotage, and it’s not just about willpower—it’s wired into how our brains work. But here’s the good news: you can break the cycle.
In this episode, I’m sitting down with Carrie Lupoli, a certified nutritionist, behavioral expert, and award-winning educator who has helped thousands of people rewire their mindset and transform their health. She’s built her career on disrupting the diet industry and teaching people how to break free from unhealthy cycles—without deprivation or guilt.
We’re unpacking why self-sabotage happens, the sneaky triggers that keep you stuck, and the simple strategies to finally break free. If you’ve ever struggled to stay consistent with drinking less, eating better, or sticking to your goals, this episode is for you. Let’s get into it.
ABOUT SUNNYSIDE: Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol moderation app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.
Disclaimer: This podcast is not intended as medical advice, and the views of the guests may not represent the views of Sunnyside. If you’re concerned about your health or alcohol use, please consider seeking advice from a doctor.
Chapters
Ever feel like you're making progress, only to backslide into old habits? That’s self-sabotage, and it’s not just about willpower—it’s wired into how our brains work. But here’s the good news: you can break the cycle.
In this episode, I’m sitting down with Carrie Lupoli, a certified nutritionist, behavioral expert, and award-winning educator who has helped thousands of people rewire their mindset and transform their health. She’s built her career on disrupting the diet industry and teaching people how to break free from unhealthy cycles—without deprivation or guilt.
We’re unpacking why self-sabotage happens, the sneaky triggers that keep you stuck, and the simple strategies to finally break free. If you’ve ever struggled to stay consistent with drinking less, eating better, or sticking to your goals, this episode is for you. Let’s get into it.
ABOUT SUNNYSIDE: Sunnyside is the #1 alcohol moderation app that helps you drink less without any shame, guilt, or pressure to quit. Optimize your alcohol habits to achieve benefits like sleeping better, losing weight, feeling more energy, and saving money. We know that an all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work for everyone, so we focus on helping you set your own goals, celebrate small wins, and build a lasting system of accountability. As a result, 96.7% of our members see a big drop in their drinking after 90 days.
Disclaimer: This podcast is not intended as medical advice, and the views of the guests may not represent the views of Sunnyside. If you’re concerned about your health or alcohol use, please consider seeking advice from a doctor.
Creators and Guests
Host
Mike Hardenbrook
#1 best-selling author of "No Willpower Required," neuroscience enthusiast, and habit change expert.
What is Journey to the Sunnyside?
Journey to the Sunnyside is a top 1% podcast, reaching over 500,000 listeners every week. It’s your guide to exploring mindful living with alcohol—whether you're cutting back, moderating, or thinking about quitting.
While Sunnyside helps you reduce your drinking, this podcast goes further, diving into topics like mindful drinking, sober curiosity, moderation, and full sobriety. Through real stories, expert insights, and science-backed strategies, we help you find what actually works for your journey.
Hosted by Mike Hardenbrook, a #1 best-selling author and neuroscience enthusiast, the show is dedicated to helping people transform their relationship with alcohol—without shame, judgment, or rigid rules.
This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the leading platform for mindful drinking. Want to take the next step in your journey? Head over to sunnyside.co for a free 15-day trial.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in our episodes do not necessarily represent those of Sunnyside. We’re committed to sharing diverse perspectives on health and wellness. If you’re concerned about your drinking, please consult a medical professional. Sunnyside, this podcast, and its guests are not necessarily medical providers and the content is not medical advice. We do not endorse drinking in any amount.
Mike:
Welcome to Journey to the Sunny Side, the podcast where we have thoughtful conversations to explore the science of habits, uncover the secrets to mindful living, and, of course, inspire your own mindful drinking journey. Have you ever felt like you're making progress only to backslide into old habits? That's self sabotage. It's wired into how our brains work. But here's the good news.
Mike:
You can break the cycle. In this episode, I'm sitting down with Carrie Lupoli, a certified nutritionist, behavioral expert, and award winning educator who has helped thousands of people rewire their mindset and transform their health. She's built her career on disrupting the diet industry and teaching people how to break free from unhealthy cycles. We're unpacking why self sabotage happens, the sneaky triggers that keep you stuck, and the simple strategies to finally break free. If you've ever struggled to stay consistent with drinking less, eating better, or sticking to your goals, this episode is for you.
Mike:
Alright, Carrie. I am really glad to have you here. Thanks for coming back today, and I'm really excited to get into this. But first, thanks for coming on.
Carrie:
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm so jealous of your background to the fact that you're out in the beach of, Spain recording this, but I I will put that aside for now, and we will have an awesome conversation.
Mike:
Well, you're you're being a little bit modest, though, because you are in your ski gear getting ready to go hit the slopes right after this interview. So you got the good life going on too.
Carrie:
That is true. That is
Mike:
true. Well, during the holidays, we had an amazing conversation. If anybody's listening and haven't, they should go and check out the episode that we did before where we talked about basically how to enjoy yourself without totally going off track around your habits and your diet specifically. And today, we're gonna get more into this fact that a lot of us deal with, which is self sabotage. And we're gonna talk about the science of self sabotage.
Mike:
But first, let's get into it. Many people struggle with this, but they don't really recognize it. Can you share your own experience where you found yourself in this cycle of self sabotage?
Carrie:
I mean, I think I'm I still am in it all the time. We're always in it. Yes. And I remember a recent rest episode that you did on on the podcast around it's sort of like I'm a different person in the morning than I am in the evening, in the afternoon, and and things like that. And that happens to all of us.
Carrie:
Literally yesterday, I had full intentions of going to CrossFit. I put it in my day, I put it in my plan, all that, and I talked myself out of it. Literally, talked myself out of going. And what we're gonna talk about with self sabotage was exactly what happened to me. We the brain is such an amazing tool for us to be able to explore and to become more self aware of.
Carrie:
And as somebody that teaches this and that really works hard to live it, I just had a self sabotage episode yesterday. When I reflect on it, and we'll talk all about that, I know exactly why it happened. But when you're in the moment, sometimes it's really hard to take a step back and be able to coach yourself through it. But awareness is the first step. So we're gonna talk all about awareness, why we self sabotage, and then the strategies that we can use to be able to get us out of it.
Carrie:
And even then, it's not always gonna work. But there are a few things that we can do that even when self sabotage hits, we can get ourselves right back on track without feeling like we're just, you know, without the guilt and and all of the regret that we often have.
Mike:
Yeah. I love all that. I mean, every single person, I don't it is a human quality. Everybody does some form or another of self sabotage. We find ourselves in these.
Mike:
I think it's all about catching yourself and seeing it and recognizing when you're actually gonna do it. And you're like, nope. I'm actually I've done that before, been there, done that, and I'm gonna stop and do something different this time to interrupt that pattern to keep from repeating it. So I love that. I mean, I'm we talked about this a little bit about blood sugar, and here I am, you know, you know, abroad.
Mike:
And the most tempting thing ever is the baked bread everywhere in Spain, and I'm not really supposed to have that kind of food. It's not great for my glycemic index even though I'm going for walks afterwards. But I definitely catch myself in doing these things, and I wouldn't say that there's an emotional attachment, the way of self sabotage, like, I'm actually intentionally doing it to punish myself in some way. Right. But, certainly, that's in the same category that we can talk and and get into.
Mike:
But so you work with a lot of clients, and a lot of them face self sabotage in their health and wellness journeys. Can you talk about what some of the common patterns that you see with your clients?
Carrie:
Yeah. And and you actually just sort of nailed it. There's sometimes two different kind of categories of this quote, unquote self sabotage. And James Clear from Atomic Habits talks about the fact that, like, when you fall off and I try to, like, even I talk a lot about self sabotage because we're so we resonate with that word. But, you know, just the word sabotage makes it sound so big and, like, so, intense.
Carrie:
But at the end of the day, it's just us falling off. Right? It's falling off and kind of either going back to, old habits or to your point, kind of, like, maybe wanting to binge on something that you don't normally do on a regular basis. And we can call it self sabotage, and I think it's great for that this discussion and something that I I'm not afraid of that word, but it really is just falling off. And what James Clear says is expect to fall off.
Carrie:
It's the people that are the most successful. It's not that they are perfectly disciplined all the time. The real habit is getting yourself back on. And that when I remember reading that, when I was first reading its habit habits, that really, like, made me feel like, okay. Like, I'm not alone and there's a lot of grace in this.
Carrie:
This isn't, like, about being perfect. The real habit is getting yourself back on. So the fact that I didn't go to CrossFit yesterday is okay because as long as I get myself back on the wagon and that's focused as a real habit, then I can really live with the grace that I deserve.
Mike:
Yeah. No. I love that. I mean, last earlier this week, I had an interview with somebody that wrote, his name is, Craig Ballantine, and he wrote a book on the perfect the perfect week and the perfect day formula, and he's known as, like, you know, mister discipline. But everyone, and I mean everyone, including the guy that wrote the book on discipline, falls in this category because we're all human.
Mike:
So, like, what you just said is per perfectly, relevant. And, also, I think let's talk for a minute defining it a little bit because I do think that people define self sabotage as especially in the context here in Sunnyside when it comes to alcohol, is a lot of us will take this self sabotage definition as in, you know what? Today was a tough day, and some people position it not just in, like, I need a drink to unwind. Sometimes people are like, screw it. I'm sick of it.
Mike:
I'm gonna you know, almost in this, I'm gonna punish myself. And sometimes, definitely just that with with alcohol and other things. How how do we distinguish what we're talking about? Like, is there is this all the same thing?
Carrie:
No. I it's a little bit different because it's coming from different places, but it it all has to do with our stinking thinking. Let's be honest. But if we think about the cycle of self sabotage and how it keeps showing up in our lives, when we are trying to adopt either a new lifestyle or new habits. I work with women, typically women, but women and men, on really working to be the healthiest version of themselves, understanding more about food and their body and changing the way that they show up for themselves.
Carrie:
And that is like a long term lifestyle change. And that type of self sabotage actually has a different comes from a different place often than the self sabotage of, you know, like, screw it. I'm done. I'm just binging. Right?
Carrie:
Or that's it. I'm having all the bread. I don't even care.
Mike:
Mhmm.
Carrie:
And that type of self sabotage comes from a little bit of a different place. It often comes from the way that we've always handled, stress in the past. And I'm gonna show you how they're very similar, but the little nuance difference will be kind of how you respond. So when we think about the brain and we think about what our brain wants and needs and craves, it's familiarity. The brain doesn't like anything new, even if it's good.
Carrie:
It it it makes it uncomfortable. Mhmm. My husband and I always joke, you know, like, that wet, cold, drizzly rain? It's just, like, miserable. Whenever that happens, we're running through it.
Carrie:
We have, like, our hat you know, our our codes over our head, and we're like, I hate being uncomfortable. That's sort of our mantra. And I joke that that's that's true for our brain. And so let's just take the idea of wanting to start a new lifestyle. You you realize, okay, I am in a place that I don't wanna be anymore.
Carrie:
And when the thought the pain of, changing, because change is hard. Right? It overtakes or the thought of changing overtakes what the pain is of staying the same. Right? Like, we often stay the same even if it's not serving us because the pain isn't really that bad.
Carrie:
But let's take drinking for example. We know we have to stop drinking. We know we gotta do it. And it's like, but it's like the pain of staying the same just seems to outweigh how much work it's gonna be to change. Well, then you end up getting a DUI and maybe an accident and maybe, you know, end up going to jail for drinking.
Carrie:
And then you're like, wow. Okay. Now the pain of staying the same is not an option. The hard of changing has completely now, like, prioritized the hard of staying the same. And so very often, we need this, like, moment that makes us decide enough is enough.
Carrie:
I really want people to just love themselves and understand that they have a purpose on this earth. And to serve that purpose, you have to be the healthiest version of yourself, but it takes a little while to get there. Most of us have some sort of event where you're like, that's it. I'm done. I'm frustrated enough.
Carrie:
I gotta make a change. So you start to make steps to or take steps to make a change, and you start to feel good. And you're like, okay. Look at that. I'm making a change.
Carrie:
I haven't drank in, like, three days or, you know, I'm eating whole clean unprocessed foods, whatever it is. And your body starts to feel better. Your mind starts to feel better, but your brain recognizes that as different, and your brain doesn't like different. If you've been doing the same thing for decades, that's familiar. And when you start to make changes, your brain, your unconscious actually says, woah.
Carrie:
Woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. That is unfamiliar.
Carrie:
We don't like that. That's new. And it starts to make you question what you've been doing. And you start to rationalize, I can have the, you know, the bread. I can have the beer.
Carrie:
I because your brain starts to tell you, you know what? We need to question what we're doing here. And then you start to really crave that familiarity, and you go back inevitably to what you're comfortable with. And if your habit and your familiarity is things that doesn't serve you, it doesn't matter. Your brain just wants comfortable.
Carrie:
And that cycle of self sabotage happens over and over again because that one moment when your brain starts to feel like it's different, we don't recognize. We don't know what's happening. It's just unconscious. And then the next moment, we're like, what are we doing? Why am I doing this again?
Carrie:
But we've missed that spot right before that that says, oh, I don't like new. My brain doesn't like new. And if we can have that level of self awareness, we can start to recognize when our brain is starting to tell us things that it shouldn't. Does that make sense?
Mike:
A %. I mean, if I could put it, what story was running through my mind, which I know other people have had the same story. You start to do good. You're feeling great. Maybe you go a week.
Mike:
Either your goal is to take a break or your goal is to set a certain amount. You're doing well. And then all of a sudden, the next day you wake up and you say, what the hell was I thinking? I was being so awesome. Why am I back here?
Mike:
How did that happen? So how do we how do we catch ourselves in that moment?
Carrie:
Well, the first one is really that level of self awareness. Oftentimes, we choose to make a change because of self consciousness, because we've embarrassed ourselves or we are just, like, frustrated with ourselves. We compare ourselves to how we used to be with how we are now. And self comparison or comparison in general is really I always say it's a thief of all joy, but it's it's forcing you to look outside of yourself. And in that moment, it's about a feeling.
Carrie:
It's not really about who you are. It's not an identity. Self awareness is identity. And so we have to recognize why we're making the change in the first place and keep that why front and center. Literally, when I say front and center, I mean, like, post it notes everywhere.
Carrie:
You know, this is why morning time to me is the most important time of the day. Every single day, we have to spend a little bit of time with ourselves getting grounded in gratitude, getting grounded in intention, looking at our day and intentionally planning out what am I doing and when am I doing it so that I walk into the the the day in front of me with true clear intentions. And so that why is really important. I really believe in morning time, but there's that moment, like you just said, when you're doing really great and then one day you wake up and you're like, how did I how did I get here? That level of self awareness is so important.
Carrie:
So here's a great example of that. You know, when I was in college, I had to write papers. And when I wrote papers, I used a yellow legal pad. I didn't have, like, my laptop in the library with me. Me.
Carrie:
I had to go and find the card catalog and the microfiche and all of that. But thirty years later, I can still remember what some of the papers were that I wrote about. I have probably just today chat GBT ed and Google searched a dozen times, and I I have no idea what I even what I even searched. And I I think so much of us live our lives like we're Google searching and chat GBT ing. We can get through our to do list.
Carrie:
We can get through life just going by gut emotion, just kind of, like, getting through the day without thinking that much about what we're doing and why we're doing it. And I encourage my clients to actually start going to the library. Going to the library to write your paper, it was inefficient. It was more time consuming, but we got deeper, and we knew what we were doing at a deeper level. And I want people to start going to the library for themselves.
Carrie:
Like and it doesn't have to be a long process. It's just a consistent practice, which is why I believe morning time is so important because when you go to the library, you start to learn more about you, what you what you're doing, what your triggers are, why you're doing it, and you're not just, like, skirting through life unaware and then waking up one day and be like, why the how the heck did I get here?
Mike:
Yeah. That's great. So, you know, I'm gonna back you up here because I also remember those times of going to the library and paper. And I'm still if people have listened to multiple episodes there, do you know I'm a huge proponent of pen to paper. And You too.
Mike:
In fact, in classes, the studies show that you can take notes faster and retain more information using note taking with a pen and paper than you can with any electronic device, so it beats it. And, you know, the retention is there. And if you can set a place to have a connection between where you write and what you're thinking and that why that we're talking about because if you don't have that why in front of you, then that why will be whatever is convenient for your mind at that time to convince itself to do whatever it wants to do in that time. So when you say in the library, are you talking in a metaphor here?
Carrie:
Yeah. I'm really talking about a metaphor because it's just exactly what you said. Like, when we don't actually get things solidified, I'm a big proponent of writing too. Writing and speaking are the two things, like because everything that lives, it kind of in our brain and convinces us to, like, you know, that little negotiator that's in our brain, that's in the right side of our brain. That right side is our creative side.
Carrie:
It's a little bit of our messy side. And so if you've ever said, oh, that sounds different when I say it out loud. Like like, it sounded different in my head. That's because when you say something out loud or write it down, it actually moves to the left side of your brain, which is your problem solving side of your brain. And so when I say go to the library, I mean, how do we take that time to be able to understand our thinking?
Carrie:
Because I I I started off with it all has to do with our stinking thinking. And if it's sitting in our brain, then it convinces us that we are okay making the choices that we know don't serve us because our brain just subconsciously wants to go with what's familiar. So writing things down, doing a daily, like, devotionals, some journal writing, saying stuff out loud. It's a real game changer for being able to start to get to know yourself a little bit more, building that self awareness and getting quote into the library.
Mike:
This podcast is brought to you by Sunnyside, the number one alcohol moderation platform. And if you could benefit from drinking a bit less, head on over to sunnyside.co to get a free fifteen day trial.
