Feel It Before You Get There

Before you get there is the advice I give everyone who wants to lose weight. Don't wait until you get to your goal weight to let yourself feel the feelings you expect to feel. You know what you imagine it's going to be like to be in your body. Don't wait until you actually get there. Feel it now. Because what happens when you start to step into your goal now is you start to get motivated at a way higher level. To prove this, think about every single food commercial you've ever seen. What's happening? They're showing you through a commercial the experience of eating the food. We're talking about food commercials, right? They're showing you the joy of eating the food that you're stepping into. A commercial is a hypnotic process of stepping into the experience of consuming the product. What does that do? It makes you imagine what it's going to be like. What does that do? It creates desire and craving to get that thing. Why would it be any different with your weight? But what most people do with their weight is they just think about where they're at now. They may say, I want to lose whatever amount of pounds, but they don't really step into what it's going to feel like. And they certainly do not let themselves feel the emotions they expect to feel once they lose the weight. And that's one of the biggest mistakes people make, because most dieters almost hold their good feelings hostage As a form of motivation to get to their goal weights, they say once I lose the weight, then I'll be confident. Once I lose the weight, well, then I will be feel better about myself. You know, once I lose the weight, then I'll be more successful financially. Whatever. A lot of times people put in the future once they lose the weight all of these feelings that they want to feel. But wouldn't it be helpful to feel all those feelings now? Whatever emotions you expect to feel at your goal weight, wouldn't those emotions help you to get to your goal weight? So most people do is they restrict all the good feelings. No, I can't feel successful yet. I still got 5 pounds to go. And that's restricting yourself from feeling successful. But this is a big problem because a lot of dieters end up superstitious that if they feel successful, if they feel good, then they're going to lose all the results. Yeah. That's another kind of dark side of that whole approach. But in addition, we need all the good feelings we can have to get us towards our goal weight. And real simple, in your experience, do you make better food choices naturally when you feel good or when you feel bad? Right. So again, the better we feel, the more we focus on feeling good. And one of the easiest ways to feel good now is to really step into what we expect to feel when we get to our goal. Yeah. So again, not just saying I want to lose X amount of pounds. There's no feeling with that, right? You didn't connect to it. There's a huge difference between saying I want to lose X amount of pounds and saying let me take a moment and imagine what it feels like to be at my goal weight. And you can do this right now. Take a moment and imagine waking up tomorrow morning at your goal weight. Let's just imagine magically something's happened overnight. You wake up, it's tomorrow morning, you're lying in bed before you even open your eyes. You realize you're at your goal weight. Take a moment to really connect to that. How would it feel to be lying in bed at your goal weight? Now imagine yourself hopping out of bed and you're in this body. Notice how you feel lighter, stronger. Imagine yourself getting dressed in the exact outfit you'd like to wear. How would that feel? How would it feel to get dressed in that body? How would it feel to wear those clothes and look at yourself and see yourself in that body as that version of you? And now imagine moving through your morning. Whatever you expect to do tomorrow morning, do the exact same thing, but do it at your goal weight as that version of you. Notice what's different. How does it feel to go up and down stairs? How does it feel to get in and out of chairs? How does it feel to walk, to move? The physical comfort of it. Now imagine moving through the rest of the day at your goal weight. How do you move? Do you walk taller? Do you hold yourself higher? Do you breathe deeper? Are your shoulders back? Do you feel more confident? Do you feel happier? Do you feel lighter? Do you feel more energized? Do you? Probably. And you feel that right now before you've even lost a pound. That's the power of your imagination. So the more that you step into the goal that you want to achieve, the more you magnetize it. You charge it up so that it starts to pull you towards your goal. Most dieters are trying to push themselves towards their goal while their feet are digging in, pushing back. Right, and that's what it feels like. But once you start to consistently imagine what it's going to be like to be at your goal and all the pleasure and the joy and the programming of all of that, it starts to change your mind. It starts to change how you think about it. And one of the big things that changes is all of a sudden, subconsciously, nervous system-wise, you start to associate pleasure to being at your goal weight. Because most dieters associate pain to being at their goal weight because they think they're going to have to diet and do miserable things and be deprived forever. to get there and stay there. But that's not true. And the more you start to think about the positive sides of it and step into those feelings, the more you reinforce that perspective on it. And what happens is, just like we're talking about the food commercials in the beginning, how they create desire and craving for the product, you can create desire and craving for the body you want to be at and the emotions you want to experience at that weight. And the more you desire and crave them, the more motivation you build up. And the easier it is to move in that direction. So if you would like to do this, I made you a hypnosis session that will literally walk you through this process. It's called the New Thin Me. It's completely free. Go check it out. And it walks you through this process where it clarifies and connects you to you at your goal weight. This is something you probably haven't done much of. Yes, you have a logical idea of how much weight you'd like to lose, but it's very cold. It's very kind of logical. It's BMI chartish, right? There's not a lot of emotion with it. There's negative emotion, how you don't like being overweight. There's lots of emotion with how much you don't like being overweight. I know that. But there's not a lot of positive emotion that you can step into when you imagine being at your goal weight. And it's a big problem. Once you have those feelings there, it changes the whole game. So go get that hypnosis session. Listen to me prove it to you. If you're on TikTok, just click my little picture of me on the left there. If you're on Facebook, all you have to do is type Mind, M-I-N-D, and you'll get sent a link and you can go get it. But, uh, yeah, go check that out. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. What's up, Debbie? Debbie says, good afternoon, just returned from Publix, tried to get all healthy foods, good BOGO sales. Oh, nice, nice. Love the BOGO sales, right? Like getting 2 for 1. Well, that's great. Now you're stocked up, you got nice healthy stuff there. So that's great. So that's one of the hardest, hardest steps is getting the food in the house. The next hardest step is eating it. But you got the first one out of the way, so nice job. Uh, what's up, Lynn? Lynn says, good morning, first day this week that I can be here live. Well, glad to have you. Yeah, and of course, you know, right, you can listen to the replays anytime you want. Um, I think— I guess the easiest way, it's up— depends, I suppose, what, what sites you kind of frequent. Um, but there, there's kind of 3 ways to watch the replays of this. I do one of these every weekday pretty much. Um, first is podcast, right? So you're gonna podcast platform, search Program Yourself, then And you can listen to the podcast, just the audio. Um, second, which is maybe the best way, is go to Facebook and follow the Program Yourself Then Facebook page, um, because the replay will be up there immediately. It's instantly up there. And then there's also a replay video on YouTube. Um, I say Facebook's a little better because I post other stuff there as well. Um, and YouTube is, you know, obviously just videos, but, um, you get a lot of videos there too. So either one's fine, but I think Facebook's a little bit better. There's a little bit more of a community there, I guess, than the YouTube. But yeah, you can check any of those out there. What's up, Lisa? How's it going? How's it going, Pamela? Yes, Debbie says pleasure equals goal weight. I like that. Yes, yes, yes. That's what we want to do. You know, again, the greatest pleasure you can have really is living life at your goal weight. That if it doesn't feel that way, you're going to be in big trouble. You know, most people don't feel that way. Most people subconsciously associate pain. See, think about it, right? It may not make logical sense, but let's talk about your nervous system for just a moment. If your entire life, every time you've thought about losing weight, um, in your entire life, every time you think about losing weight, you've thought about doing a diet that's really hard and difficult. And so all of a sudden you're going to take this difficult thing on. All of a sudden you're going to, you know, not eat your favorite foods. You're going to feel miserable. You're going to feel deprived. You're going to feel frustrated and annoyed. You're going to be hungry. You're going to be sleeping worse. And for most people, that's how they— that's what they associate to weight and weight loss. Fine. And so most people have no, no ability to imagine being at their goal weight and it being pleasurable. You have no ability to imagine losing weight in a pleasurable way, right? It doesn't even exist in your mind. It's not even a concept. It just doesn't. It's— there's nothing there in terms of pleasurable weight loss, living at your goal weight pleasurably. Right? Notice that. Experience that. It's a blank space. Um, in, in, in the Zen tradition, the Zen meditation tradition, right? If you don't know, and I might say this wrong, either cones, cones, um, but like, what's the sound of one hand clapping? Um, the idea of these questions in part is to cause your brain— well, you've got no— what's the sound of one hand clapping? Well, there's no reference, right? It's a blank space, right? So, um, in the Zen tradition, they literally use things like that as a meditation tool. But here's another one. How do you, how do you lose weight easily and comfortably? That could be a news anchor, right? Your brain just goes blank. There's, there's nothing there, not even an option there. It doesn't exist in your, in your reality, in your mind. There's no concept of losing weight comfortably and enjoyably and pleasurably. And that's the main reason why you're not doing the things to lose weight, because you're always putting off losing weight because you don't want to do it. But why don't you want to do it? Because it's miserable. We overlook that because our entire lives, that's just what we've been told. This is how you lose weight. No pain, no gain. It's miserable, but that's what you got to do. That's not true. I'm not miserable. I love it. I love how I live. I love how I think. I love how I eat in order to maintain my weight. I love it. Very pleasurable. It's the greatest pleasure I can achieve is living and doing all this. So I don't have that blank spot in my mind. My clients don't have that blank spot in their mind. So yes, pleasurable. Lisa says I ordered your book and it should be here today. All right, nice. Yes, the book is talking about is the Tao of Living at Your Goal Weight. Ba bam. And the main thing I want to point out is living, living at your goal weight, living at it, la la la, living at it. Not the Tao of getting to your goal weight; it's living there, right? That's the big difference. So we want to be able to live there for the rest of our lives as easily as possible, as comfortably as possible. Now, of course, we got to get there first. Fair enough. But the way that we get there is going to be the exact same way that we live there. So we're going to start right from the beginning with the end in mind. Oh, I see. Which is, um, we want to state our goal weight. Uh, what's up, Meow Meow? Says, I had a gastric sleeve surgery, lost a lot of weight, caused a tumor in my breast to grow from estrogen. I am sorry to hear that, Meow. Um, where are you at now? Did you— you dealt with all that? Do you still have the sleeve? You do. Again, I mean, the big thing I take out of this, you know, there's no easy paths. You know, there's no easy paths to weight loss. I say it every day. So you might as well just commit to mastering it. You know, it's something you're going to want to master for the rest of your life. It's probably one of the most worthwhile things you could dedicate yourself to, in my opinion, is learning how to master your weight. Because there is no— there is no easy shortcuts. GLP-1 is not an easy shortcut. Please let it be known. It's easy in the sense that you just inject yourself in the beginning and you lose weight. But I think GLP-1s—I think what people are going to find with GLP-1s is they get progressively harder. That's what I think. What do I mean? I mean that when you're losing weight, most people don't give a shit what they're doing because they're so excited about the weight loss. But the reason I say GLP-1s get harder the longer you do them is because eventually the weight loss stops. With GLP-1s, it's. On average, it's about 16 months. You get about 16 months of weight loss, and then that's it. And I think the reason I say GLP-1s get harder is that the longer you're on a GLP-1 without losing weight, even if you're at your goal weight, it gets harder because you still have to inject yourself. You still got to pay that money. You still don't enjoy food the way you used to, and most likely you're still dealing with issues that the weight didn't fix anyways. We talked a bit about this yesterday. Weight doesn't fix everything. Weight doesn't fix emotional issues. Weight doesn't fix self-esteem issues. It doesn't fix confidence issues. It doesn't fix your productivity. It doesn't fix your ability to run your mind. Doesn't fix your hydration. Doesn't fix your physical comfort. Doesn't fix your energy levels. So there are no shortcuts. Then obviously the surgery, I think that's a little more obvious of why it's difficult, but That certainly is not an easy path at all, and I think people most people don't really understand that it's a very challenging path. You know, way more effective than dieting, absolutely, but a very difficult path, whether it's the surgery or the sleeve. You know, so I wish you the best of me. I hope I hope you're you're getting on a path to fix it. This fucking thing is driving me nuts here. All right, I gotta. There we go. I, you know, it's my fault. It's all my fault. I've got like— this is what I'm doing now. I'm a big fidget guy. I like fidgets. Um, my little camera thing here is acting weird. Okay, here we go. There we go. We're good. Are we good? Uh, Okay, we're getting there. Sorry, folks. Uh, yeah, Meow says, from fat loss made me afraid to lose weight. Oh yeah, sure I do, but I have a fear of losing weight a little bit. Yeah, yeah, I get that, Meow. Um, yeah, and that makes total sense, right? By the way, and by the way, I think a lot of people deal with that. Um, a lot of people have like a kind of a fear of losing weight. And you say, what? That's stupid. No, it's not, because a lot of people in their lives have had an experience of someone who's been sick, and as they've gotten sick and potentially died, they got lost weight along the way. I can't tell you the number of times I've worked with that with people. So that's just one kind of more obvious presenting one. But anytime our brain's associative, so when we lose weight and then get sick at the same time, our brain is very likely going to link those 2 things together. And now we're gonna have this fear of losing weight, you know. So yeah, that's legit. Yeah, I mean we would need to dig into that deeper to help you remove that fear. But most likely that well you said it was from fat loss, so fat loss caused you get a tumor. I'm not— I don't understand that, but, um, that is, uh, possible. And I don't know that. I don't know how it's gonna work. Um, Jim Lover says you're going to pay, stop trying to ignore it. I don't know what you're talking about. Are you talking about like losing weight when I was just talking about— are you threatening me? I'm not sure which one it is. Let me know and I'll respond to it. What's up, Pamela? Uh, Debbie says I listened to the new Thin Me this morning, woke up around 4 AM. Why? So I played that, it's really good. It is really good. The new thin me is one of my favorite sessions. I made that one special for all of you. It's completely free, so go check that out. And again, it's so easy to get. If you're on Facebook, all you gotta do is type mind into the comments and I'll take care of the rest. And if you're on TikTok, you gotta do a little more. You gotta click the picture of me up up here and then click the link in my bio, answer a few questions, and then go check it out. It's there for you. You'll forever have it. Forever have that session. And I think it's one of the best ones. Um, that there is, and I just give it to you. I just give it to you. Um, so Blinlin says, feel like I dropped the hypno sessions ball this week. Been hectic. Not beating myself up over it, but it's a reminder for me to just do it first thing when I wake up rather than wait a bit. Then the nightly sessions, I tend to put my phone on the charger and forget to do the evening session and fall asleep, then wake up an hour later and remember. But should I just get up and listen to it? Um, yeah, I would definitely just get up and listen to it, Lynn. Um, but you know, listen, that, that's a big— the biggest, the biggest part of losing weight is changing your behavior, and the biggest part of changing your behavior is remembering to do the new thing, you know. And so we have to give ourselves some space to practice that. I, I find this is the most unbelievable thing about dieting to me, is that people will be like, okay, here's the plan I'm gonna follow, right? It doesn't matter what it is. Here's my plan. And now they expect because tomorrow's Monday and I'm going to start my plan that I should just do it. Well, that's not even how you operate. You operate primarily on autopilot, and now you're expecting yourself to do this new behavior. Um, how's that work? You know, so again, Lynn, I, I like— yeah, not beating myself up. And you learn something really important, and it's no different, you know what I mean? Like, it's no different. Um, you know, for me, I was going through that this, this week with, um This camera's crooked, it's driving me insane. Oh, there we go, I just got it. Okay, never mind. Uh, yeah, with push-ups. So I do push-ups every weekday, and usually what happens is I come into my office and I do them right, right off the bat. Um, and this week here, I didn't want to— I wanted to work in my house before the office, and I said, yeah, but one thing I've realized is if I don't do the push-ups in the morning, I'm less likely to do them. It's not a guarantee that I won't do them because I may do them, but definitely I noticed that the later it is, the less likely I am to do them. And so I was very, very lucky to be able to find push-up bars in my house and then do the push-ups inside the house. So now I have 2 options, right? I can do them in the morning there and I can do the morning here. And it reinforced that the earlier I do it, the better, the better, you know. Jim Lover. Yeah, I'd love to know who that is. I appreciate using my kids' names. What's up, Tamara? Tamara says, love the psychology and this guy. It's great, great advice in daily lives. Okay. Oh shit. Yeah. Oh, I think you're, you're forwarding it, but thank you. I appreciate you sharing, sharing the, the message. Um, I'm here every day Looking to help you all out. So yes, the more people the better. Yes, Lynn says love that book. This is the book she's talking about. This book is really good if you're looking to manage your weight. This is a really, really good book to get. It's very unusual, but what it does is again, this book is written in kind of well, Tao Te Ching, if that means anything to you, is a book that I used to read a lot, and I copied the style for this book. So. You may refer to more just like it's kind of like poetic style, poetic style, but it makes it really easy to read. And the cool thing is that it actually takes you through the entire program yourself then system. So it it actually is a very accessible way to kind of interface with the program. You know, so go check that out. It's over on Amazon. Debbie said bought some hummus today, bogo and a cucumber, but I also got. Malamar's World's Greatest Cookie. I won't open that till I can share with people. Yeah, great, Debbie. Yeah. And again, Debbie, please understand this program here is not about like you never get Malamar's again or you never eat them, right? It's about how do I eat them more moderately, you know? And so you're figuring all this out. I don't know if you eat a lot of hummus and cucumbers, but if you're looking to do something healthier, again, you're figuring it out. You know, you're working to figure out how to eat those things all together. Um, and, uh, that can be That's really what we're doing here. So nice job. You're well on your way. Lisa says, I loved my life when I was at my goal weight. Arthritis and joint replacement and bad eating habits and many years of diet fails and not understanding that I really need the knowledge that you offer. I never even thought there was a pleasurable way to lose weight. Yeah, fair enough, Lisa, right? Um, yeah, exactly. And, uh, yeah, the arthritis, joint replacement, bad eating habits. Yeah, yeah, it's common story. Right? And it can happen. You know, I was saying to someone, you know, this isn't any profound idea, but, you know, losing, losing weight obviously requires you to make different food decisions. But making different food decisions consistently in this environment is maximum hardness. Like, like, it's very difficult because it would be literally like someone who has, uh, you know, alcohol issues living in a liquor store. I mean, we are constantly being surrounded by the most addictive, hyperpalatable, triggerable foods ever invented, you know. And so, um, you know, first off, we have to get rid of the concept of perfection. It's not even possible. Um, but we don't need to be perfect, you know what I mean? We just need to be able to, um, consistently kind of get ourselves back on track. And, um, so, so, you know, these things happen. People get pulled off track, obviously. Um, but now you're here, and now you've got a different approach. And so you can look at the past and the mistakes you may have made and what you wish you would have done differently, As experience and wisdom, you know, now transform that and turn that into how you move forward in a more effective way. Because absolutely, as you dial in your reading and, you know, your mindset, your lifestyle, you can absolutely, um, help the arthritis, you know, and then the joint comfort that you're experiencing. Um, yes, commit to mastering. Yes, thank you for saying that. I'm going to remember that and work. Yeah, commit to mastering it is, is really— again, I approach— I mean, I play guitar and stuff, so Beau, it's, um, you know, when I play guitar, I plan to play guitar forever. You know, like, it's just a forever thing, and I just dedicate my time and energy to mastering it. I'm— I wouldn't say I'm mastering guitar. I commit my time and energy to playing it. I haven't gotten a level of mastery, but weight and our health is fundamental. I think it's well worth the decision to master it. You know, because it's it'll be the greatest decision you ever gave yourself. But mastering, I think, is the right answer because there's a lot to it. You know, again, in program yourself, then we talk about having a a holistic strategy, you know, to managing our weight. And again, we use kind of the goal weight pyramid as kind of a shortcut to understand that. Wonder when it's going to be this page is going to rip because I show it so much. But you see, right? We got mindset, lifestyle, eating. And so it's not just an eating plan, which is about that much of the eating part, by the way, but it's a holistic plan, right? How do we shift our mindset, our lifestyle, and eating so we can think, live, and eat like a thin, healthy, happy person? And, um, that goal is no different than how can I play the piano, how can I learn to draw, how can I learn to play golf. If you start walking that path with any of those things, it's a never-ending path, right? You just keep getting better. And that's part of the joy of it. You know, it's never ending, which is actually a good thing because you can just always get better, always improve, always work on it. And that's kind of fun because you always look forward to something that's better. Right? He says, "Just get on the video. I like the pleasure equals goal weight." Yeah, yeah, of course. Right? It feels nice. And program yourself then. Honestly, what we're looking to do, and tell me if you've ever heard of a plan like this. With Program Yourself Thin, it's a very systematic way to figure out for you, right? Because it's different for each person. Um, Program Yourself Thin really takes you through a process. There's certainly the hypnosis that's, that's similar for everyone, but then there is the blueprint, the goal weight blueprint, which is this thing that I reference. Um, you know, it's a 144-page workbook, so, you know, it takes a little bit of time. There's no rush to do this, but this is a complete, uh, plan That's customized to you for how to get to your goal weight and stay there. But the goal isn't just to get to our goal weight. The goal is to live at your goal weight. And in order to get there and live there, the highest percentage chance of you doing either of those things is to figure out the way that's most comfortable, most enjoyable, and most pleasurable for you. So we got to get rid of the dieting idea, which is I'll do anything, you know, I'll eat shit. I don't give— I don't care what I got to do. I'm just going to eat shit and I'll kill myself to lose weight. I don't care. I'm so motivated. That's a terrible idea because you're never gonna do really hard, difficult things that you hate to do for long. It's never gonna last. And so instead, we gotta take a step back and say, what's the easiest, most enjoyable, most comfortable way possible for me to lose the weight and then keep it off? Because they're one and the same. And program yourself in. It's the same thing with diets. Your weight loss and then living at your goal weight are 2 separate things. And no one figures out how to live at their goal weight. I mean, it's estimated that 85 to 95% of dieters that get to their goal weight put the weight back on. So how are you going to figure out how to stay at your goal? I know you're irrationally confident that once you lose the weight, you will just figure it out. But I don't know why, because everyone here has been at their goal weight before. Did that give you some magic ability to stay there? No. So again, in Program Yourself, then we start day one focusing on maintenance, on living at our goal weight. And we're going to lose weight comfortably and enjoyably, and we're going to live at our goal weight comfortably and enjoyably. And I don't know if that sounds ridiculous to you all, um, but it's possible. Off the Beaten Snack, I love that. Oh, Off the Beaten Sack. I always thought it was Off the Beaten Snack. My bad. Hi Jim, it's so nice to listen to you live as I prepare frozen veggies, beets, tempeh, Mesta Matcha Fitness Toast. And string cheese, delicious and nutritious. Happy Thursday. Yeah, nice. Glad you're here. Yeah, it sounds delicious, right? And a lot of people listen to this while they're doing good stuff, whether it be walking, exercising, cooking, you know, doing stuff. So again, that's the beauty of— that's the beauty of being able to tap into these podcasts, you know, or live videos. Again, I'm here every Monday through Friday. Sherry says no sound. What happened? Uh-oh. No one else is saying that, but maybe it might have just been your computer. And boy, technology, am I right? Am I right? Um, yep. Pamela says, yes, I'm behind on the morning and evening hypnosis. Um, no, Pamela, you're never behind. Not in this program. You're never behind because each day is its own day. And if you don't get it done today, you just move on the next one tomorrow. So there's no getting behind. It's not like these sessions, if you miss a couple of them— I mean, I would say, you know, in the program, the first 8 weeks, you definitely want to listen to those 8 weekly sessions for sure. Um, and you certainly want to listen to most of the sessions, but there, there's no, there's no getting behind. If you miss a day, you just start over again. The next day is this whole other day. You can certainly re— you know, listen to one you might have missed yesterday if you choose to. But it's not necessary. What's most important is the routine and the habit of listening to a session each day. That really is valuable because again, hypnosis session—it's not just that you're hearing these words I'm saying that are changing your mind; it's that every time you you go into a you use a hypnosis session, you're relaxing your body. Again, you have to think of hypnosis a little bit like you think of meditation because when you think of meditation, you think of it as a this. Physical mind-body experience, and I think that it's important to realize hypnosis is exactly the same thing. It's the same brainwave patterns as meditation, so they're very similar. And so hypnosis sessions are not just that you're getting good ideas pumped into your brain; it's also that you're experiencing relaxation, calm, you're grounding yourself, and then you're letting those ideas go in, and they both kind of work together. So, but don't feel like you're behind, Pamela, again because we. The key thing we're looking to do is develop a state of calm and relaxation. And life's life, you know what I mean? We're gonna— some days things come up and we forget to listen to our session. No big deal, another one coming tomorrow, right? And again, if you want to make them up, make them up, but don't feel any pressure to do it. The pressure is more harmful than anything. So let it go and just pick it up tomorrow. That's the attitude. What's up, Rhonda? Rhonda says, I'm living at my goal weight range and I wake up every morning so grateful. This is the first time I have maintenance plan because I am continuing the good choices of eating healthy foods. That helped me get there, get here, that are also sustainable now. It is still a mindful decision daily to really value the pleasure of being disciplined. I've changed my identity. I'm not a person who regains weight. That's not me anymore. I'm a person who has a healthy weight range that gives me joy with good food choices, with flexibility and grace. Thanks, Jim, for helping me let go of all nothing thinking and something that is so much kinder. Geez, Rhonda, I really appreciate it. I'm gonna screenshot that. That's wonderful. I really appreciate you sharing that, and. Given some of the subtle details of what makes it so powerful, right? Um, one of the greatest things I read— I had asked a bunch of previous clients to kind of share their stories, but one of the coolest ones I read, and a message I heard over and over again, is that this approach is very compassionate. And, and that, that is really important for me to kind of let you all know about, because dieting is not compassionate. You know what? Um, honestly, GLP-1s aren't compassionate. Stomach surgery definitely is not compassionate. I'm not saying they're not effective for what they do, but they're not compassionate. And I think most people, especially women, have never even had the option of having a compassionate path to follow when it comes to managing their weight. And it just feels a lot nicer. And that kind of goes back to what I was saying in the beginning about, you know, feeling it before you get there. And part of it is the compassion and the acceptance and the love for your body. You know, most people start their weight loss journey hating their body. And see, you can't hate yourself healthy. And you think to yourself, well, once I lose the weight, then I won't hate my body anymore. You sure about that? Are you sure about that? Because I've got a lot of experience and a lot of conversations say that's not true. I've had plenty of conversations with people that have lost their weight and still are hating their bodies for different reasons. So yes, it can help, but it's not the whole answer. You know, we need to figure out new ways of thinking, living, and eating, um, in order to get the things we want to get. Um, weight loss by itself doesn't do it, unfortunately. You know, if it did, we would know that by now. 100 years of diets. But nice job, Ronnie, you're killing it, and I love it. And I just love the way you're writing. And I, I can always tell my clients write— it's so interesting, you know, that you can just— I can just tell right away. I love it. It makes me so happy. It's one of the things that brings me so much joy in life is when I see my clients just talking the way they talk now, because that's the transformation. Almost everyone starts with just such negative internal dialogue in the way they kind of describe losing weight, the way they think of themselves, the way they talk about themselves. And then after being in the program a while, oh my God, it's so much more gentle and compassionate. And it makes all the difference in the world. You know, the meaner you are to yourself, the worse you feel. The worse you feel, the worse your food decisions tend to be. Right? So I just think, you know, feeling at peace, feeling compassion for yourself, to me is a starting point, not an ending point. I think it's a starting point to get the results you want, not the thing that happens once you get the results. So, and I think everything you just said reinforces that, Rhonda. So thank you for sharing that. Lisa says, how do you recommend people get past their weight loss fears, whatever they may be? Yeah, that's a great question because yeah, most people have tons of weight loss fears. Yeah, we talk about this in the program a lot, and there's all kinds of fears. So I would say, you know, how do you recommend people get past their weight loss fears? Well, I think the first thing is to become aware of them. You know, program yourself. Then we talk a lot about awareness because the way our brains are set up, we operate on autopilot. So a lot of times. We're living our lives just doing what we've done without really a lot of thought. And so the first step to changing things, in my experience, is that we first have to become aware of the more granular components. So instead of saying, I got weight loss fears, well, what's that mean? There's lots of weight loss fears that I've worked with with people. So depending on what fear it is, is going to dictate which solution we use. Right? If you have a fear, like a very common one, um, unfortunately, that a lot of women experience is that at some point in your history you may have had a situation, um, where you felt unsafe and you were unsafe. And somewhere in your mind you might have associated that if I put weight on, I will never have to deal with this. In another way, it could be if I put weight on, I'll be more secure. A lot of women have that belief running under the surface, and that shows up as a fear, right? It shows up as a fear because it says, if I lose the weight, I'm going to be less secure. I might get attacked. I might get assaulted. I'm not as safe if I lose the weight. A lot of people feel that. And it's not just that example. It might be emotionally. Sometimes people feel, with the weight, I feel protected. It feels like a buffer from a shitty world. You know, these are things that have come up. There's a lot of different fears that can be there, but we need to kind of figure out what is the fear first. What is the fear? There are different ones, you know. You could have a fear of getting sick. I was just talking about that. That's not an uncommon one either. A lot of people I've worked with, deep down when we get to it, I always remember, I remember one lady specifically. She had a fear of losing weight. And when we got down into it, she's like, because I think I'm going to get sick. She associated weight loss with being sick. And we went into a little bit deeper. Her grandmother, she'd watched her grandmother pass away and she lost a lot of weight before she finally passed. And so in her mind, you know, she was 12, 13 when this happened and she was close to her. And so it was very emotional. She made the association. And so now, you know, 30 years later, she's wondering why she's anxious about losing weight or scared to lose weight. Or she, she didn't have the insight originally. She's again, I don't know, I just feel like I'm nervous. And we had to go into it. What's the fear? Oh, that I'm gonna get sick. Oh, well, okay, let's go a little deeper into that. Oh, it's because my grandmother. But she didn't say— she didn't come in and say, I have a fear of losing weight because I watched my grandmother pass away and she lost a lot of weight right before when I was 12 years old, and now it's a subconscious association I have. She didn't come in and say that, right? That's what I'm here for. I'm here to help guide you all from kind of vague land to specific land, because specific land's where it's way easier to solve problems and challenges. Not easy, right? It always takes some work and some effort and all the rest of it, but it's a lot easier because most of the time we speak in kind of big vague terms where it's almost impossible to fix it. So yeah, if you want to share some of those fears, you— I could go a little deeper with it. Um, Lisa says, do you have any recipes that you recommend to help people lose weight? No, I don't really do that. I don't get in the recipe game. I'm not saying I never will because I plan on it, and I think I have a slightly different take on it. But at the end of the day, you've got to figure out what recipes work for you. Obviously, if I could give you some recipes that really resonated with you, that'd be the easiest path. But the chances of me having a recipe that I like and that I make that you like equally is very little. We're different people, you know. So I think it's better for you to kind of figure out what foods you like. And then start researching and looking for some healthier options for them. And again, the criteria I use for foods that are going to help you lose weight is not just if it's going to help you lose weight. That's part of it, though, right? So say I'm looking for foods that help me lose weight, right? So they're lower calorie density, lower calorie. Okay, that's number one. But here's the other things that are really important. It also needs to be relatively enjoyable. I can't hate it. And then the third thing is it needs to be relatively easy to prepare. Okay, relatively easy to prepare and get right. I put those one and the same. And so those 3 things are really the starting point, you know. And again, the easiest way is just to start with what you typically eat and like to eat and then look for healthier versions of it, you know, instead of saying, well, I like to eat this thing and I'm going to pick something that's completely opposite and just steamed broccoli. That's how I got to eat now. Dieters do that all the time. They go from what they typically do and then they drastically change it to something they hate. And they wonder why they can't stick to it. So again, I would take it in baby steps, um, and start by looking for healthier versions of what you already eat. Debbie says, true, reached my goal weight a few times and always put it back on. Why? Could be because I never learned how to live there. I usually start with one off-diet food, then spirals. Yeah, exactly, Debbie. Off-diet food. Exactly, that's exactly right. And that is really a consequence of the all-or-nothing mindset that dieting Trains you to have, right? Most of you all think about your weight loss in a very all or nothing way now, and so you're either 100% on or you're 100% off, and there's no middle ground. And what happens is exactly that because you can't be perfect either, you know. And especially listen, most people trade the pleasure and excitement for the food for the pleasure and excitement of the weight loss. Okay, and so when you get to your goal weight, you have to understand that a huge part of your motivation has. vanished and disappeared. Now I know a lot of people say, yeah, but I'm gonna be at my goal weight, it's gonna be fucking awesome. Well, yeah, that's true, but there's also a thing called hedonic adaptation. The way your brain works is it normalizes to your reality. So losing weight is exciting because you're always looking at this future, which you're projecting all of this stuff onto, by the way. You're like, oh my God, once I lose the weight, oh, my health's gonna get better, my foot's gonna feel better, my relationship's gonna improve, I'm gonna start making more money, I'm gonna get job offers. People are gonna like me. I'm gonna feel better about myself. We can really project all kinds of stuff onto that, and then we're losing weight. Like, oh yeah, I'm getting there. I'm getting there. All right, keep doing it. Yeah, this is amazing. Everything's getting better. Everything. And then you get there, and you get there, and you're like, this is cool. Oh wow! Look out! Look good. I'm happy. I'm like, this is cool. And you're like, yeah, my fucking my foot still hurts. I just got in a fight with my boss. I didn't get that job. I didn't get a callback. What the shit? I know that that's call. Oh, I got just get bill. Oh shit. And now what are you looking forward to though? Yeah, I'm at my goal weight. Yeah, you normalize to that though. Again, hedonic adaptation is, you know, your new car turns into your car after a couple months, right? New things turn into just things. That's just how our brains work. And unfortunately, you know, your goal weight just turns into your, your weight. That's why in Program Yourself, then we take the weight and wrap it in personal development. The weight's not enough motivation for most people. So personal development absolutely is, you know. So in Program Yourself Thin, we really make the weight loss secondary. We make you being the person you want to be the primary thing, you know. Because yeah, absolutely, this spiral effect you just talked about, Debbie, is very, very common. And so again, um, you know, here, here, what you're going to gain here, Debbie, is you're going to get very good at being able to get back on track. That I think the number one skill to managing your weight is the ability to get back on track quickly. And I think dieting never teaches you that, and there's a lot of reasons why. But again, that is—you're right—that that is a—I think you've identified one of the big reasons, Debbie, right there. And you'll get much better at eating an off-diet food and then just getting right back on track because your track is built for you, Debbie. That's what you're building here. When your track is built for you and when you love your track, it's easier to get back on track, right? What's up, Vicki? He's on the way home to work. Loves listening. Happy Thursday. Yes, happy Thursday. Happy Thursday. It's almost the weekend. I'm not so much a weekend guy. I, I love weekends, don't get me wrong, and I am looking forward to them. I also love Monday. I love working too. I'm a very lucky person. But, um, this week here specifically, I am kind of looking forward to the weekend, looking forward to kind of relaxing and chilling. It's been kind of crazy time in my life here. Um, Offbeat Sacks, my channel, posts daily hacky sack music videos if you like rock, dance, and jazz music shorts while I hacky Hacky sack to the beat. Yeah, that sounds awesome actually. I will definitely check that out. And now I get it. Okay, off the beaten sack. Okay, brain readjusting. That wasn't the first thing I thought, so I like that. Okay, hacky sack. Yes, off the beaten hacky sack. That's awesome. That's cool. Well, I love, I love jazz music and I love rock, so, uh, and I like hacky sack. I never got good at it, and I used to play a good amount of soccer. I'm pretty good with my feet, but I never really Practice the hacky sack, and so of course it feels like it's impossible. But yeah, that sounds cool. I have to check that out. Yes, Carolyn says your hypnosis is incredible. Thank you. Yes, hypnosis is pretty good, and not not to sound like an egotistical asshole, I am one of the highest paid hypnotists on the planet. So to get to get my hypnosis session, you have to ah I've tried hypnosis. I went to the person down the street and sucks didn't work. You know, I'm a different hypnotist. I'm a— one of the top hypnotists on the planet, sir. Well, you know what, I can certainly say I'm one of the highest paid. Am I one of the best? Well, that would be up for people to decide, but, but I am one of the highest paid. Um, Debbie says, regarding emailed sessions, I seem to get the email 6 days a week, then a day is skipped. The day after is a consecutive number from the day before it was skipped. Follow that And my weekly is off by a day or two. That stresses me dumb, I know, but being an overthinker— no, that's legit, Debbie, and that is annoying. And it's annoying to hear that that's happening to you. Um, that is something I'm actually aware of. I'm always working to fix. Yes, I think I know what you're talking about, and you actually are a little bit in a weird spot. That's something I've begun doing somewhat recently. Let me look into that and, um, I know it's not the end of the world, so I can't even promise I can fix it. I'm working on it. Um, but do know that after 8 weeks it won't matter at all. Go to— it'll all be fixed anyways. But that, that 8-week thing, some— for some people the days get a little weird, and it's a long story why that happens, and I'm always working to try and fix it. And so, heard, heard. I, I hear you. And I'll work on it. Uh, maybe they'll screenshot on a loop in a video. Yeah, Lisa says, well said that you can't hate yourself healthy. You say so many important things I need to hear and have never heard before. Yeah, I'd agree. Again, I'm not trying to sound like an egotistical asshole, but, but honestly, I'm like the Michael Jordan of living at your goal weight. And I say that very specifically because there's certainly a lot of people that know more about nutrition and The biology of weight loss, you know, and the biochemistry of weight loss. There's way better experts on that. But I feel like in terms of someone who has actually worked with a ton of people over the last 20 years, normal people, how do you change their minds? How do you get normal people to live at their goal weight? Let's just start with a real big ask and. What your brain's gonna say is gonna say, "Well, you go on a diet," right? That that's what you know. You ask a thousand people how you lose weight; you're gonna hear, you know, ninety-five percent go. You go on a diet, you know, shots or surgery. So when people think they're gonna do it on their own, though, it's a diet, and that's not true. Dieting doesn't work. Dieting is an official failure. Like there's no diet, and I challenge you. I do this every day, but. 100 years of dieting, tell me one diet that works statistically to keep people at their goal weight at a lower rate long term. And there's not a single diet. There's not even one. Weight Watchers is probably at the top of the list because they have the social component that they're kind of weaning off anyways. But, um, so with diets, you just never— the focus with a diet is to lose weight, not to live at your goal weight. And so what makes a lot of things that I'm saying so different is that my journey started differently because I didn't focus on losing weight. I began— I learned neural language. I was 50 pounds heavier than I am now. Um, it's 30 years ago. I, through no fault of my— I just luckily neurolinguistic programming hypnosis just fell in my lap. Right at a time when I was— it was kind of a dark time for me, honestly. And I found this. And neuro-linguistic programming, long story short, it's the science of role modeling, okay? If someone can get a result, you can get a result too if you're able to think like them, okay? So all of a sudden I was like, holy shit, that's great. So I want to lose weight. Now I've always been around people telling me— around people who are struggling with their weight telling me how to lose weight. Tell me diets, you do this, all the same shit you always hear. The big difference that clicked in my head then was I'm going to go talk to people that used to be overweight, lost weight, and have kept it off for at least 2 years. That was my criteria. And I began speaking to them, and almost instantaneously I realized, holy shit, they are approaching this completely different from how I'm thinking and all these other people are thinking. And that is literally what has led me to create, you know, Program Yourself Thin for sure, but this Goal Away Pyramid. Because I started to realize all of them, whether they intentionally did it or not, had transformed their mindsets, their lifestyles, and their eating patterns. All of them had learned to think differently. And so I found it over and over and over and over and over and over again with the people that I wanted to get results from. See, you don't want the results. You think you want the results of the person who lost 50 pounds last month. That's what you think you want. You think you want to lose weight as fast as you possibly can. But that is not really your goal. You do not want to lose weight. You want to live at your goal weight. That distinction is everything, and it's the reason why the diets are never going to help you, because diets are focused on short-term results. That's what they're built for. That is their main focus. That's what they sell. That's what you want right now. So you have to start by changing your goal. Your goal is not to lose weight. Losing weight is just the first phase of the ultimate goal. Your ultimate goal is to live at your goal weight for the rest of your life on near autopilot. Now, that's an interesting thing to hear for the first time, because if you're like most my clients, you have been focusing obsessively on your weight for decades at this point. 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years obsessed with your weight. And yet you have never once in your life articulated that, hey, my goal is not to lose weight, it's to live at my goal weight for the rest of my life on near autopilot. Which really implies that your entire time you've been trying to change your weight, you've been so far off the mark. And this isn't your fault. The diet industry is not your friend, and they're trying to condition you to fail, and it's working. But yeah, so a lot of things I say are very different than what you've heard, and it's very unusual for people because you've been in the weight loss area for so long. You've heard all the diet stuff. You could teach a diet course, probably, right? But what I'm saying is just a bit different, right? It's diet adjacent. It's, it's somewhat like it, but it's, it's also somewhat different. And the core pieces of it are fundamentally different because I'm focusing on living at your goal weight. And the beauty of living at your goal weight is that's where it gets easy. The first— the beginning part of anything's the hardest part. Right? Anything— playing an instrument, drawing, speaking a language, dancing— literally pick anything in your life. The very first part of it's the hardest because you have no neural connections for it. You have no experience with it. But the thing with dieting is it never gets easier. The thing with programming yourself then is it gets supremely easy because that's what we're aiming at. Now we know in the beginning it's a little harder and it gets easier as we do it. And we build that right in, you know. So it's a different focus in that way, but I appreciate you saying that. Pamela says, I keep flipping back and forth a few pounds on a daily basis, but I have modified my diet as much as I can, so I'm going to have to move more. Um, yeah, okay, yeah, sure, moving more is great, but modified my diet as much as I can, maybe, maybe Right calorie density though really gives us a lot of options when you understand calorie density the options are almost limitless so I would I would have a hard time believing um that you've modified as much as you can maybe you have you know um but there's almost always less calorie dense versions of what you're eating that'll be just as satisfying and moving more is good too but moving more is also going to make you hungrier most likely too. So remember that calorie density really is, in my opinion, the golden road to managing your weight. Debbie says, "Jim, can you talk about refocusing during hypnosis sessions? I do morning and night, and sometimes during the day, but I find my mind wandering and thinking about other things. Is that going to slow down progress?" No, no. Your mind can wander. That's fine. I'm speaking to your subconscious mind. I'm not speaking to your logical mind. So if your mind wanders. Uh, it's still going in there. And there have been some studies that, that imply potentially that, that like when you're thinking about something and something's going in subliminally, that it has even more impact on you. Is that true or not? I don't know. But again, every time you listen to the session, first off, you're getting the benefit of relaxing, Debbie. And I know, Debbie, for you, being more relaxed, calm, grounded, bringing your attention inwards is probably going to be more beneficial than anything at all. So right off the bat, you're doing that even if your mind wanders. Okay, so you're still getting that benefit. And then even when your mind wanders, my words are still going into your mind. And again, we know this— commercials, right? The people that think commercials don't impact you, you know, they do. And a lot of times the most impactful commercials are the ones you're not paying attention to. They're playing in the background while you're having a conversation. So that's what I mean. So, uh, yeah, your mind wandering is fine. I mean, you know, keep your mind on what we're talking about as best you can. But it's natural for your mind to wander, and it's not going to slow your progress down at all. Right? Ah, there we go. Yeah, Lisa says, "How do we get past that fear of unwanted male attention? I'm married and have been forever, and some men don't respect marriage and are a problem that I dread experiencing again." Yeah, well, I'm glad you you gave me a little more detail, Lisa, because that is very, very, very common. I would say a majority of women I've worked with that that's something we got to deal with at some point. Is this fear of attention from men, right? And so a lot of women are out there overweight because they decided to be overweight in order to use that as a strategy to avoid male attention. And the first thing I say is that a lot of times people have made that decision in a place where they weren't as wise, weren't as powerful. So what I like to do is I like to bring into the current moment, and I say, Lisa. At this moment in time, who you are right now, not who you were when men didn't, you know, respect marriage and other things, but who you are right now. And again, it might have happened yesterday, so this could be, you know, not a thing. But the first question I want to ask is, you right now, do you right now have the ability to communicate or behave in a way where you can really lower the chances that any male attention that you don't want comes at you? That's my first question, because a lot of times when I'm like, yeah, you know what, I made that decision when I was 20, I'm 55 now, yeah, it's totally different and it's a different situation, I'm more whatever, and then it's just like it vaporizes, it vanishes. And sometimes it doesn't, okay? But that'd be the first question I would ask. Um, and then the next question becomes this, okay? Because you're trying to figure out a problem, right? Um, but I would like to say, how can I Weigh what I want to weigh and deal with unwanted male attention most effectively, and being married is clearly not it. Okay, so maybe there's other ways that you can communicate that keep you safe and also repel unwanted male attention. But I'd love for you to ask that question for a week or so: How can I live at my goal weight and reject unwanted male attention? In terms of how I communicate and how I behave and what I do in life, is there a way that I can do that now at this moment in my life? And we kind of start from there. All right. So Deanna Deanna says, "I've been a yo-yo dieter my whole adult life." Yeah, I mean virtually everyone's a yo-yo dieter, right? Because Um, again, diets don't teach you how to live at your goal weight. Diets are— diets are the one phase, right? It's just diets are about losing weight, not about living at your goal weight. And so in a weird way, like, when you're a yo-yo dieter, it just implies to me that you're really good at dieting, because dieting is about losing weight. I'm gonna diet until I lose the weight. And then what are you gonna do? Well, 85 to 95% of dieters that get to their goal weight put the weight back on. Right? So if you've been a yo-yo dieter your whole life, what that means to me is that you know how to diet very well, which again is about getting your weight down. But what happens is during those times of dieting, you fight against your subconscious programming. Right now, your subconscious programming has you overweight. So if you're not dieting, you're overweight. Then you diet and you fight against your subconscious programming, get your weight down. And then you stop dieting and your weight goes back up because you're programming— you're programmed subconsciously to be overweight. So what you— right now, for Deanna and all you yo-yo dieters, you have the mindset, lifestyle, and eating patterns of an overweight person, and then you go on a diet and you fight against all of these things and get your weight down. Then you stop dieting, and these things which never left just go come back online, and then you start thinking, living, eating like an overweight person again. So in programming yourself, then we learn how to think, like, eat, and live like a thin, healthy, happy person. But what diet have you ever done that's taught you how to think, live, and eat like a thin, healthy, happy person? And the answer is going to be zero. So all you're learning with the diets is short-term you know, changes to your behavior for a little while until you lose the weight. Well, then what? Well, what do people always say? I'll figure it out. I got news for you, no one's figured it out. 85 to 95% of people put the weight back on. That's, that's dismal numbers. So again, it's not— there's nothing wrong with you, Deanna. There's nothing wrong with any of you yo-yo dieters. The problem is not you. Please, if you, if you get nothing else out of this, please understand that. That the problem is not you. The problem is that diets are not built to live at your goal weight. That's not the focus of a diet. If we put it into race metaphor, a diet's like a sprint. Like if you think about the Olympics, right, different races, the diet's like a sprint. It's a short-term thing you do intensely to get to a goal. And living at your goal weight is more like a never-ending marathon. They're two totally different approaches, two totally different strategies. And like I always say, if you try and sprint a marathon, you're always going to lose because you're going to collapse. You know, so funny on TikTok, they always do weird stuff. Invite the handsome boys to co-host. I've never done that. That is something I'm gonna do it. I was gonna do it last month and just things got pushed, but On TikTok anyways, I know you can get in there and you can have like conversations audio-wise with other people. I gotta do that. That'll be fun. Um, but yeah. All right, I gotta get out of here. I got stuff I gotta do. Oh man, 102. All right, so if you're not in my world, please click the link in my bio and go get the free hypnosis session. It's kind of the least you can do to kind of test this out, right? I don't know what more can you want in life. You either don't care about your weight or Well, that can be the only thing I could care. What else would stop you from clicking a link and getting a free hypnosis session to help you lose weight? And it's um if you never experienced hypnosis, it's really powerful. I'm not going to talk into it. I just give you a free hypnosis. Take ten minutes and find out for yourself. I go check it out. Click the link in my bio if you're on TikTok. You can just write mind M I N D into Facebook chat comments there, and it'll automatically send you a link if you want that. Then I also made a training for you called Reprogrammed How to Live at Your Goal Weight Without the Fight. And I give you a bunch of other stuff, so go check that out. If you like this, I'm here every Monday through Friday at noon Eastern, happy to answer any questions you have. And if you can't make the live, it's also a podcast. You can search Program Yourself then on any podcast platform, it'll pop up. And it's also on my Facebook, Program Yourself