Food or Mood

Jim Katsoulis breaks down emotional eating: most eating episodes aren't hunger but mood or environment. He recommends identifying your triggers, testing non-food alternatives like walks or naps, and having backup plans for common situations. GLP-1 drugs work but require lifelong use; learning to manage food mentally takes longer but sticks.
Chapters
It.
Everyone, welcome to today's program yourself Thin Podcast. Today we are talking about food or mood. Probably the most important question you can ask if you want to lose weight. Because so often what you think requires food really is just about a mood you're in. And if you make this distinction and start to recognize which is which, boy, it'll drastically help you reduce calories, because you're going to find that a lot of your eating choices, obviously the emotional eating ones, but also how much you eat, what you choose to eat, snacking, grazing choices, all of these things are directly impacted by this question of whether it is food that you need and nourishment, or whether it's a mood you're in and you're using food to help deal with it or manage it or celebrate it. Okay, because again, we, when it comes to mood, it could be positive moods or negative moods, right? So again, obviously, the negative moods we tend to focus on but can just as easily go the other way, where all of a sudden you get out of work and it feels like you deserve a reward, right? And so you're kind of celebrating that you're done with work, with food. So food can show up any number of ways emotionally, but all you want to start doing is recognizing which one's which. And I'm not going to say this is the easiest thing to do. I think this definitely takes some time, some energy. You're developing a skill of awareness. You know, you're kind of slowing down and adding a new habit into your life. So please don't think that just listening to this and thinking about it for a few minutes is going to change much. It becomes something you weave into your life. Because you're going to have to ask this question forever because you never really just your reading is not this static thing. Each and every day kind of brings its new challenges and situations. So you're going to embed this question into who you are as a person and begin to see your world through this prism of is it food or is it mood that I'm looking for here? So how do you make the distinction? Again, you're going to need to start with experimentation, because you don't know. Most likely because at first when you start doing this, it feels like everything is food. I'm hungry and so I need to eat. But a lot of times, what's generating that hunger is really the interesting question. And is it that you genuinely, in your body, need more nourishment, nutrition right now, or is it this mood that you got into that makes you think about eating, it makes you feel like you're hungry. And so separating these two things takes a little bit of effort, but it's so worth it. So start to look at your typical eating experiences. And again, you want to kind of set yourself up for success here. So look over a typical week and notice times when you're sure it's mood. All right? Start to look for your emotional eating situations. You'll notice they kind of run in patterns. They might run in similar patterns, similar days or times during the week. It might run in certain situations where you're around certain people or when you're alone. You know, again, there's going to be clues there. But start to look in at your emotional eating and start to recognize what emotional mood related food choices feel like, okay? And once you start to recognize what they are, you can go into them and you can begin to experiment and really figure out if it's food or mood. And so once you have a sense of what the emotional eating habit may be, let's. I'm just going to give you an example just so you can kind of see what I'm talking about. Let's just say pretty much every day after you finish work, you've been working eight, nine hours, you finish work and you stop at a convenience store and get a snack on the way home. Let's just say that's that. Okay? And so in that situation, you may know that a lot of that's emotional. You're just kind of like done with work, you're finally exhausted, you're looking for some snack to kind of give you a boost and celebrate the end of the day, right? And so what we want to do is we want to realize that that's an emotional based eating pattern and not necessarily hungry, because you may have known, you know, I had a lunch and I actually had a healthy snack right in the afternoon. And I know I got dinner coming up, so I know I've had enough nourishment in my body, but I feel hungry here, but I got a good feeling it's emotional. And you start to diagnose it, deconstruct it a bit and look at it. And then what you do is you start to create alternative strategies in that situation, all right? So you start to understand that habit and you say, what else can I do in that scenario other than just get food? And this is where things get interesting. Now again, the more specific you get on the emotions you're feeling, the better. So, for example, I've had many people the, you know, they go and eat after work because they're just exhausted. And what they've done instead is they said, you know, instead of going get something to eat, I'm going to go and take a walk when I get home, instead of going get something to eat, I'm going to take a nap when I get home, instead of going to get something to eat when I get home, I'm going to scroll my phone for half an hour, whatever. It doesn't matter what the thing is. We just want it to be a non food related behavior. And once you do this, you start to clarify because if you go take a nap, take a shower, scroll on your phone for a little while, you may find that over a few more minutes, the food starts to fade away from your mind a little bit. Right. Because you changed your mood. So as you start to look at things between food or mood, it can be a real clarifying question that will help you move forward and help you decide what to focus on. Right. Because again, if you are actually hungry and need food, you can start to optimize that nourishment. And if it's for mood, you can start to come up with other strategies to deal with those moods that don't involve food. And so as you walk this path, you start to clarify which is which and you start to develop and accumulate strategies to deal with each. Right. And both of these are going to help you profoundly, you know, transform your reading in a way that's relatively comfortable because again, you're still dealing with the emotional piece of it, but you're dealing with it in a new way. So I hope this helps you out. And if you want to go any deeper into this process, click the link in my bio, go get the free hypnosis session and check that out. And there's also training in there I give you as well, all free. So, yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. How you doing, Claudia? How's it going? How you doing, Rhea? How's it going? YouTube land and we're all over the place. We had a tough week. I know. Monday we were down. Amazon had a big power outage on the server and it actually affects the system we use here. So we're unable to go live on Monday. But here we are today on a rainy Thursday.
It is. Although not, I guess, not anymore. I guess the clouds are kind of parting and the sun's coming out and a beautiful fall day. But yes, get into late fall for sure, which brings with it candy, Right? Candy and Halloween. So I hope you're all managing that well, not getting too caught up in the candy. One of the strategies I use, I don't get candy until, you know, I'll probably get it this weekend. I'll probably get it Saturday, Sunday or Monday or something. And so I will eat it. I'll let myself eat it for a week or two, and then I will eliminate it again. That's kind of the strategy I stick with. I mention this all the time. It's always funny to me when I do this. Every year it's the same thing where the first time I. The first candy I eat, I'm like, this isn't even good. And then like, you know, 20 minutes later I got any more of that. You know, it's funny how that habit sneaks in, you know, But I like playing with it. And I suggest, you know, we always have options where how we deal with Halloween candy. I think what a lot of dieters do, because most dieters are kind of all or nothing. So Halloween comes, I'm not getting any candy this year. And then as soon as they one piece of candy, oh my God, it totally blew it. And now they feel like they're total failures. So I think, you know, in program yourself, then we really follow the all or something model. And so for me, I would rather manage my candy consumption and be intentional about it than, you know, just hope and pray that I'm just never going to eat any candy, you know, because A, that's probably not going to happen. And baby, if I do eat some candy, I want to have a kind of a backup plan. So I don't think there's anything wrong. If you want, if you don't want any candy during Halloween, fine, let that be your goal. But good Lord, please have a plan B. And C, you know, I think that's where dieters really fall short, is they never have a plan B. Dieters go into their diets, just it's all or nothing, right? It's, it's a do or die. And it's usually die, you know, because it's very difficult to change all of your behavior all at once, you know, And Halloween is like such a good example too. How's it doing, Verna? Verna's from Michigan. Nice. You know, Michigan people. I'm out in Massachusetts. I gotta turn this heater off. That is the funny part of this time of year. But I'm off here for it. But it's like, it gets kind of cold, right? And like it's hot, then it's cold again. I Kind of like the change in temperatures but sometimes get caught in the middle of them. But yeah, with the Halloween thing, right. So it's like, if you think about the Halloween candy, like that that's. Oh, Jesus, what is that?
What is this?
There I am. Sorry everyone. That's on YouTuber Facebook. I just changed my whole video picture there by accident.
Yeah, so. So when it comes to Halloween, that's a good example, right? Because I, I was talking about food or mood, but. But a lot of times they kind of blur together, right? And I think Halloween's a good example of that. That Halloween, you know, it's not just candy. It's not just sugar that's the problem. It's the memories, it's the associations, the subconscious associations you have to. Not just candy, but to this time of year, you know, so it's like you're getting, you know, if you grew up in America with kind of the typical, you know, Halloween, you go trick or treat and eat candy and all that stuff, you have to understand that it's not just the candy, you know, I mean, it's not just one level of like, oh, candy good and I like candy. Right. There's a deeper level going on here. There's all the neuro associations you have to Halloween. I eat more candy or treats or whatever it may be. And not only is there that, but it's like, oh, this time of year is associated with fun eating candy. You know, seeing, you know, people I like, you know, enjoying myself. And you're getting all these messages through multiple channels. It's the temperature, it's the light difference, you know, it's the, you know, reality has a cyclical situation. So you have kids, you know, like, they just went back to school, so they just kind of get in the flow of it. There's all these subconscious cues you're getting around this time of year that can almost literally age, regress you back to being a kid. And you start to think and feel like a kid and then you put the candy in front of you. So you see what I'm saying? Like, it's more than just like, you're just like this automaton who just looks at candy and likes candy and eats it. There's all this other stuff going on in the background that's driving you towards it. Because again, you know, most the year you probably have a lot more control over candy, you know. Now again, part of that is also there's just more of it out. And you know, it's, it's. Again, it's queuing up itself because people will put bowls of candy out. There's just candy more around. You're seeing it more in the stores. So you're cued, though, in so many different ways to focus on candy. And that candy being seen through the lens of you as a child, that's what's going on. And I think you have to look at things in this deeper way to really understand really what you're up against and what you, you know, what you're up against and what power and strength you actually have, you know, because I think people don't really appreciate their mind and how it's organized and how to utilize it properly in the best way possible. And I think that again, even looking like Halloween candy, when you kind of deconstruct it a bit and understand why you may think or feel or behave the way you do around here, it's a great opportunity to realize it goes beyond just willpower. It goes beyond just, you know, these superficial goals you may have. There's a lot of stuff going on, but not beneath the surface. Right. That you can appreciate and utilize. So, Karen, Karen says it's Wednesday. I noticed that I tend to eat more when I go out to eat. Plus there are so many deals. There's a half pound burger deal near, near me on Wednesdays with all you want on it, along with fries for 14 bucks. So I'm going to make my own sirloin burger tonight and forego the roll, plus eat lots of veggies. Yeah. Great job, Karen. And again, I think you, you hit on something really important, which is awareness, you know, and I would say that's just another thing coming down the pike now that's even more challenging is, you know, we've all been alive in mass media times, right? But what's going on now is that the. The media is smarter. So meaning commercials can be more targeted and smarter. They hit you, right, with what you like. I mean, you know, you see a picture of a place that you don't really like. Who gives a. But when all of a sudden all the marketing aimed at you are all your favorite foods and favorite places to go. And obviously deals always appeal to us. When they really hit all these boxes, it makes it harder and harder and harder to say no. So one thing I would say, Karen, is I would recognize as much as you can where you notice these deals because sometimes a lot of these deals are coming through into your inbox and through your social media and any of the ones that you can unsubscribe from I would suggest it. You know, I get them and I have a very few. But, you know, for example, I'm just sitting here and I'm like, oh, I'm not sure I'm gonna eat tonight. And all of a sudden I get a coupon for, you know, some place I like to go. It's gonna nudge me in that direction, you know. And so again, I'm not saying you can't have any of these, but I'd say, you know, I would unsubscribe from as many as you could. You don't want to be getting 15 food coupons a day. You know what I mean? Like, that's a strategic thing. You can improve. It doesn't fix everything, but it certainly helps because, you know, changing your weight, this is, I always say this, this is like war. You know, it's so serious. Like, because again, this is your weight. This is most likely, you know, what you eat throughout your life is gonna be the number one thing that impacts how long you're alive, your quality of life while you're here. And so to me, you know, and again, my father died of a heart attack at 54. So for me, this is serious business and I treat it as such. And I really think of managing my weight as being a fundamental focus of my entire life. You know, kind of like I went to college, right? If anyone that went to college or went to some kind of training thing that took a while, you had to make that a focus of your life, right? Well, you're gonna have to do the same thing with your weight if you want to live at your goal weight. There is no hack, there is no simple thing. There's no one little thing you do and change your weight. There's nothing like that. You've got to really commit to this and make it a central part of your life. Because we don't live in the old world where it was just all natural food. We live in a world where we're constantly being exposed and influenced to consume hyper addictive foods. And they're using the most aggressive and sophisticated marketing that's ever existed on the planet. So, you know, again, you. It's up to you to kind of take a step back and look at your environment and clean it up and set it up for your success. So I think that's wonderful, Karen. And Karen says it's actually on the restaurants marquee as I drive by. So again, now, how do you deal with that? Let's talk about that for a second, okay? Because there's many Ways to deal with things. Obviously, if it's an email, you can unsubscribe. That's one of the simpler ones, although it's a little trickier than that sounds. But anyways, so I will give you a so on email. What I would say again, what I just tell you, I said, you want to have a plan A, a plan B and a plan C. If you just did that, folks, if you dieters, if you don't listen to anything else, I say if you would start having a plan A, B and C, that that would be enough to get you fantastically better results. How about that? Because again, you dieters are all or nothing. You know what I mean? You always are just winging it, and you're just winging it, trying to do everything all at once and everything, right, for a couple days, weeks or months, and then you always go back to doing nothing. And it is literally the exact same pattern your entire life when it comes to weight. So in programming yourself, then we're all or something. And the difference is that, yes, sometimes we're going all in, we're excited, we're motivated, we're doing everything, tracking blah, blah, blah, blah, everything, right? But when we're not doing that, we got a plan B, a plan C, a plan D. We're always doing something. That's the difference, because we're always working on it. Then we never have this nothing mode. We're always working on something. And when you're always working on something, you're always improving. And when you're always improving, shit starts to look real different after three months, six months, a year, five years, 10 years. Things look fundamentally different when you're always improving, because you dieters, you know, you. You confuse yourself because you go so hard when you do it. You go all in, 100 miles an hour, 100%. And then you always burn out and then do nothing. And so it is the nothing times, which are the vast majority of what you're doing, most likely, that's causing you to not get the results you want. And so ironically, like, getting better results is easier because we don't have to overwhelm ourselves, we just have to get better and program yourself. Then we follow the 1% better philosophy every day, let's get 1% better day after day. That builds on itself. And ironically, or not ironically, but I guess unknowingly for a lot of people, when you improve 1% better a day each day, on top of the previous improvement over a year, you're not 365% better. You're 3,500% better because it keeps compounding on itself. And it reminds me of the saying that most people overestimate how much weight they can lose in a month and underestimate how much weight they can lose in a year. And so the diet industry has gotten you fixated on fast, instant results. But in doing so, you now think about weight loss as overwhelming yourself, as stressing yourself out, as depriving yourself. And so you avoid it. And so, again, we got to be more strategic with how we approach this. So, okay, so plan A, B and C is what I was talking about. So if you have, like emails coming in from different restaurants with all sorts of special offers, obviously unsubscribing from the smart move, but you may find that you can't do that because what if I go there? I want to have the discount. Okay, so what you can do is with a lot of email programs, you can set coupons to automatically go into a folder so you don't actually see them. But if all of a sudden you want to go to a place and you're going to go there, then you can go to the coupon folder and get the coupon, but you don't want the coupon just showing up randomly in your inbox that is going to cause you to eat more of that food. So, anyways, there's your first strategy. But if. If you are driving by a restaurant and they've got the special deal up on the marquee, how do we want to deal with that? What I would suggest, again, two options. First option is you train yourself not to look at it. They may sound crazy, I don't know. When you understand how to run your mind, that becomes a possibility. But anyways, so if you know how to do that, obviously that's a good, easy or one. Secondly, you can change how you respond to it. So instead of just being at the mercy of that sign, reading it, and then being like, oh, that sounds delicious, you can start to practice and come up with an alternative response to that. So it could look like this. Now, again, you have to design this based on what you want to do. Okay, but you could look at that sign and when you see it, you could practice this. You can say, when I see that sign for, you know, the special burger, I'm going to remind myself of how many calories are in that and what my weight loss goals are. And that while it technically seems like a deal, actually the sirloin burger I make is less. And it's a lot healthier for me and I feel a lot better afterwards. And it's going to help move me towards my weight loss goals, which can make me feel better and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, So I hope that makes sense. And so what you're doing is you're taking control of the internal dialogue in your head. Because usually when Karen drives by the sign and says, oh, you know, $14 burger, everything you want on it and fries, everything, you say, yum. Oh, that sounds delicious. And you start imagining it eating it. Remember the last time you got it? That sounds amazing. Okay, so we don't want that internal dialogue getting just triggered. We want to have a different dialogue queued up and ready to go. And we see that sign. So I see that sign and say, oh, yeah, they're doing a discount, but that's what they always do to get you eat more calories. I don't want to do that because my weight's really serious to me. I. I'm taking this seriously and I want to just make my own burger because I feel so much better. I know what's in it. I still save money. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, so it gives you a different response to it than the one you're having. That may help. What's up, Julianne from Northern Ireland. All right. I get Irish people too. I always say that, like, I get a lot of, obviously America is most people, but then I get Canada, Australia, England. And then I would say, yes, Ireland, but I guess that. Yeah, that's right. Right near England too. So, yes, I get a lot of. I get a little bit more people from England, I feel like. But I do get a lot of people from Ireland too. So it's cool. We had a bunch of people from Thailand yesterday in the Philippines. That was kind of cool. Yeah, Karen says, right, good. Yeah, you're welcome, Karen.
Yeah, Christie says, yeah, what's up, Christy? Yeah, I'm going to use that dialogue with Halloween candy. Yeah, that's super. That's super. And that's what I mean. Right? So again, Chrissy's in the program. So, you know, Christy, what you want to do as well is you want to redo and rehearse this. Okay, so again, this is why program yourself thin. One of the big differences, and there's a million of them, but one of the big differences with program yourself then is that we anticipate that you're going to make lots of mistakes. So, you know, if you look at every diet you've ever done and never going to do it always starts with you Being perfect. Right. Every diet starts with you being perfect, and it's just a matter of time until you make a mistake, and then it's pretty much over. Okay, with Program Yourself, then we don't start being perfect. You just start doing what you did yesterday. And. And we work to improve one thing. And so really, in Program Yourself, then one of the differences, we don't seek to be perfect in the beginning. We seek to learn from our mistakes. So we know we're going to make mistakes. But the difference is we've got a plan and a process to use with our mistakes to learn and grow from them. Okay, so for you, Christy, use the redo rehearsal technique on the candy. And what you're doing is maybe you ate some candy today, but we redo it. And then you redo it with your new dialogue. And then tomorrow, you imagine a similar situation where you're exposed to the same candy and imagine practicing that new dialogue. Notice how it feels, internalize that, and then practice it a couple more times. Now you set yourself up for a lot more success. So, yeah, that's a great point, Christie.
Sorry. Tick Tock if I'm missing any questions here. Let's see.
It's harder on Tick Tock to find the questions. Shakira. And I am live here. I know Tick Tock people always ask me if this is live. It is.
Ah, yeah. Sister Taytay said I ordered vintage candy because of the sweet memories. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. You know, and again, it's fun. That's why I think the sweet spot is enjoying candy again. I look at sugar very much like I look at alcohol, and I treat it with tremendous respect. Same with flour. I treat flour, sugar, alcohol very similarly, and I treat them with tremendous respect. I like using them in a moderated way. That's where I find the sweet spot is for me. And I've spent a lot of time practicing that, coming up with strategies, the mindset that support that. But for me personally, I mean, what would you rather have? A reality where you could never eat candy again to maintain your weight, or one where you could have candy occasionally, enjoy it, and then get right back on track, and it doesn't even throw you off. I mean, I think the answer is obvious. And so, you know, if you practice that, you know, usually you can do it. You know, it really is a skill set. You know, what's up, Julie? Julie says I ordered very expensive organic dark chocolate with pecans. I wouldn't eat Reese's when I have this. That's A good one too. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's helped me a lot too. My daughter started. I think there's a couple things I used to eat a lot of Reese's Pieces, and I think it was a combination of a. Really looking at the ingredients of it, really considering what I was actually eating. And the other thing was that I. My daughter started working at a really nice chocolate place and I started eating better chocolate, which I kind of been eating before. Like, I, I've been eating dark chocolate for a long time, but this was better chocolate in different forms. And I think that definitely made me realize how shitty most of the processed, crappy chocolate is. And so that's always valuable, folks. Any one of you can do that. Anytime you get a better quality candy version of a candy you like, that's a very, A lot of times that's a very powerful exercise because it makes you realize how that other one's not as good. And once that happens, you're. You're well on your way, I think, to changing it. Yeah, yeah, Chris, it feels good saying that right now. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's super. And again, that's the idea is we'll look for more. You know, we're, we're. We walk this path always looking for better improvements, mindset improvements, strategic improvements, all of this stuff. And so once you figure out a better saying, you know, some and better internal dialogue or response to candy, you know, than what you used to say, it feels good, you know, because you kind of upgrade things. That's so much what we do in Program yourself then is upgrading, upgrading our mindset, upgrading our strategies constantly until, you know, we're able to limit our goal weight in the easiest, most comfortable way possible. You know, that's the goal here. And it's a different focus than dieting. You know.
What'S up, Bookworm? Bookworm says, exactly. Jim. The question I ask myself is, do I need it or I just want it? Yeah, that's a great question, you know, and the other one too, you know, like another great question to ask. We talk about this a lot on the program. There's three phases of eating. Anticipation, consumption, consequence. And our whole lives have been fixated and focused through commercials and ads and experience on anticipation and consumption. And we tend to forget consequence. We think about the long term consequence. I don't like my weight. But we don't think about the short term consequence that always follows every food choice. And when you start to pay attention, it's very enlightening because what happens is behaviors you thought were so pleasurable, right? Eating that pint of ice cream, you think, it's just so enjoyable, it's so delicious, so great. And it may be, during the anticipation and consumption, very exciting and pleasurable, but the second you finish that last bite, six seconds after you finish that last bite, the consequence phase starts every single time. So it's always there. Whether you pay attention or not. It's another story. But as soon as you finish that ice cream, that cookie, that cake, whatever the food may be, what are you thinking and saying to yourself? What do you think about yourself? Are you thinking nice, positive, encouraging thoughts, supportive thoughts? Are you being nice to yourself? Supportive, proud, or are you being negative? Are you saying mean things to yourself? Are you berating yourself, beating yourself up? And what emotions are you feeling after you eat that way? Do you feel light, encouraged, proud, motivated, excited.
Momentum?
Do you feel those things? Or do you feel heavy, lethargic, irritated, angry, frustrated? Annoyed, Sad? Right. So again, there's no here. That consequence phase is always happening. You're just not paying attention to it. I promise you. Promise you, you're not. And this is why you think foods that you think are so amazing and so hard to stop consuming. You think they're the most pleasurable thing in the world, when in reality, a lot of times, those are the exact things that are causing the most pain in your life. You've just trained yourself not to focus on that pain. But when you start paying attention to that consequence, that starts six seconds after last bite. What are you thinking and what are you feeling? Notice I'm not talking about how you feel physically, okay? Because I feel fine. I feel. I know you feel fine. I'm talking about what you're saying to yourself and what you feel emotionally. And you don't feel fine there. You're beating the out of yourself. You're being super mean to yourself, or you're trying to ignore it. And the emotions you feel are all kind of dark, negative, shitty ones. And those negative emotions and what you say to yourself mentally, that goes on for hours, 24 hours, 40 hours sometimes. You ever be. You ever, like, be so mad at what you ate that you were mad at yourself for two, three days, weeks afterwards? That's what I'm talking about. So again, I mean, I go right to the core of this whole thing that foods you think are so pleasurable, they ain't as pleasurable as you think. And it's not a magic trick. It's not. I'm not trying to trick you. It's the truth.
Yeah, yeah. Julie says yeah, when, when you get really good chocolate, a little bit does go a long way and I think that's so true as well. I have found that to be very true that when it comes to the shitty chocolate I can eat it and then be hungry for more. And it just never ends. When I eat the real chocolate, I eat it and I feel satisfied. I found that to be a fundamental shift. I can't say everyone's going to feel that, but I certainly do and I find it very interesting because listen, all the processed food industry is a bunch of shitsters and their main goal is to create food that makes you constantly hungry. So it's not a surprise. What's up, Natalie? Natalie says I found 25 cent candy bars and immediately lost my mind. Great topic, Halloween candy pie coming up. Because of you I'm mindful working from a place of calm helps. I really enjoy going out with friends. I bring Tupperware and take half home to someone else. Trying to focus on non food joy these days. My friends and family are not overweight. Daughter's birthday tomorrow with cake. I love your response of I'm not putting that sugar in my body. Yeah, that's great stuff, Natalie. Yeah, again it's a, it's a process, you know what I mean? Like there is no magic hack, you know, and there it is, you know, there's no magic hack. And I see someone asking that what is your take on Ozempic?
You know my take on Ozempic, oops. Is.
I think it's better than dieting.
I, I get asked this all the time. Obviously I, I'm not a huge fan of Ozempic but you have to understand that. And it's so funny because I'm reading this book diets, drugs and Dopamine by a person I, I tremendously respect. And.
It'S, it's really frustrating to me to read this book to be honest. And so, so let me just start. I'm not against medicine and I'm certainly not against Ozempic. And I think Ozempic is the best solution out there pretty much other than program yourself then. Now I say this again, please understand my reality. I've been doing this for over 20 years so I will put obviously program yourself in success stories against those epic success stories. They just smoke them. I mean, I mean, you know what I mean? Both people have lost weight. Okay, so we're starting from the same point. They both lost weight. The difference is one person's going to have to inject themselves forever. They still haven't learned how to run their mind. They still haven't necessarily transformed their eating. They now have to be injected for life. They have to pay that money for life. They never, they don't really enjoy food the way they used to, so they can't celebrate and enjoy food like they have in the past either. So again, I say this all the time. You know, what a lot of people don't know about the GLP1s is you get about 16 months of weight loss with them. So it's not like these GLP1s bring you right down to your goal weight necessarily, depending on where you're starting. If you're starting from a high weight, you're not going to get to your goal weight in 16 months. So you could literally get to the end of 16 months of your weight loss and now you are still obese and you have to be on OIC for JLP ones forever to maintain yourself at being obese. So please understand that. And I think what we're going to do and what I'm really curious about, because I don't think these GLP1s are dangerous that we can tell yet. You know, again, you are a guinea pig with it because we don't know yet. But there's no indications that for most people it's going to have any negative health impact. I say that, you know, it's a very powerful thing. And so, you know, again, powerful things that haven't been studied, that again, you're taking a risk. But what I'm curious to see is when people start hitting that 16 month mark and we're coming up on it, we're coming up to right now where there have been a lot of people using GLP1s for right about a year and a half. And we're coming right up to it. And so I'm really curious to see because this is the core weight loss problem. You know, the core weight loss problem is that people can lose weight while they're losing weight. They can stay on plan while they're losing weight because what they do is they trade the excitement and the pleasure of the food for the excitement and the pleasure of the scale going down. And so what happens is they get to their goal weight and now they've got nothing to look forward to anymore. Now I know you think, oh, I'll just look forward to being thin. It doesn't work that way. Your brain, it's called hedonic adaptation. Your brain just adjusts to it. And so what a lot of people don't really think about or recognize is that even when you get your goal weight, you're still going to be unhappy with your body in some ways. You're still going to be hate your job maybe. You know what I mean? You're still going to be have issues with your partner. Whatever issues you have now in your life, you're going to have most of them at your goal way too. I'm not trying to be negative, but we got to be honest about this. And so I think what's happening is people are going to get to. This is what happens with diets, because 95% of dieters that get to their goal weight lose weight on a diet, put it back on. And I believe this is a core reason, because they don't have a thing to look forward to that's motivating them. Right. And so I'm curious to see what happens with people on these GLP1s when they do get to their goal weight and they've been there for a little while because now all of a sudden they start to realize what their reality is going to be. And yes, they're at their goal weight, but now I think it's going to start to dawn on they don't. They're never going to enjoy food like they did. And I know when you're losing weight, you don't give a shit, right, because you just want to lose weight. But once you get to that goal weight and you start looking out at your life and, and you look at the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life and you realize, I'm never gonna enjoy a birthday cake like I did. I'm never gonna enjoy pizza like I did. I'm not gonna enjoy food like I did. So, yes, the food noise and the appetite and the cravings. Cause what does epic makes you feel like you're full all the time. Do you all enjoy food as much when you're full as when you're hungry? You tell me. Okay, so now think of your life without having to be able to celebrate with food, to really, really enjoy food. I. I don't know. To me, it's one of the deepest, greatest pleasures that I have in my life. I would not want to give that up. So anyways, that's kind of how I think of it. I think there's a lot of questions I have about it, but I haven't seen anything that's, you know, drastically scary about them. And I think that it's effective. I think it's way better than.
Gastric bypass, you know, just because it's about as effective as gastric bypass, but there's a lot less, you know.
Damage left behind, I suppose. And then it's better, you know, it's obviously better than diets. Diets don't work. We all know that. And. And it's better than even a lap band, you know. So, again, I think that it's better in that sense. And so I think for some people that don't want to, you know, approach their weight and, you know, again, and program yourself then. Listen, program yourself then is not for most people. I mean, this is. This is our workbook, you know, I mean, this is the blueprint. I mean, look. Look at this thing, right? So, you know, program yourself then is for people that are, you know, perfectionist, action oriented, overthinkers. It's this type of person. So I know, and everyone's like that. And so if you're not willing or able or want to put the work in to do this kind of stuff where you're figuring all these things out yourself, then I think the GLP1s are probably your best bet, you know. And again, you're going to get all the health benefits too, you know, of weight loss. So.
It'S kind of a nuanced answer. I wish I had clear answer for you, but that's my thoughts on it. What's up, Santina? Since he says, I just realized I watch cooking shows daily. It makes me hungry. Damn. All right. Very good, Santina. Great, great awareness. All right. And it's little things like that, you know, so often when I look at my path of weight mastery, it's so many moments just like that. Like, all of a sudden you realize this thing you do all the time that's making it really hard, right? Like watching cooking shows. I'm doing that to myself right now. It's so funny. This week.
My brother, this weekend, he. He's been making sourdough bread, and I haven't really seen what he's been making. I went in there and I was like, holy, look at that. I'm like, what'd you go to the bakery? Because I made it. I love sourdough bread. I was like, I can't believe you made that, right? And so not only was it delicious, but I was like, I was really impressed. I'm like, it was a skill, you know, like, wow, that's really. That's really cool. It's delicious. And so all of a sudden I'm like, I want to make bread, you know? And so I start watching this stuff and all of a sudden, you know, and again, that's what we got to watch out for. We, we don't got our grandparents marketing, you know, we don't have watching Walter Cronkite. And then some commercial, some shitty commercial comes on, you know, for Ovaltine. What's going on now is that, you know, I searched sourdough, you know, somewhere, and now it's like, oh, my God, sourdough. You know what I mean? Sourdough content for the next two weeks. And it's just like constantly in my face. And so I have thought more about bread and sourdough this week than I have in my entire life. And you better believe that I'm hungrier. I've been hungry this week, and I noticed because, again, my eating structured, so I'm aware of this stuff. But where my. When I get hungrier in general, one of the main places I notice it is right around 11 o' clock in the morning for me. I will feel hungrier at that point because I normally don't eat there. And so I've felt myself being hungry now. I got strategies I use to manage that. But I'm aware that my hunger's cranked up. I'm also a little bit tired, too. I've been waking up earlier and playing basketball, my kid. But. But I know it's a combination of those two. So, yes, Santino, watching cooking shows all day.
You know, you know, in one way, again, a plan B to that is watch some healthy cooking shows. They're not as enjoyable, I will tell you. But, yeah, cooking shows are tough. They're. They're just. Because, you know, there's a thing too, you have to understand again, when you understand your mind.
Your subconscious mind, well, you've got, you've got a thing called mirror neurons. So you can watch someone cooking and eating, and you in your mind, imagine what that's like. And so living, literally watching this is the most fascinating part. And this will be a big part of what we talk about in the program, how to run your own mind. But your subconscious mind can't tell the difference between vivid imagination and reality. And so if I put a cooking show on and I have them, make your favorite food ever, and you're a little bit hungry, you're going to sit there and you're going to start salivating more. You know that literally, right? So you, if you like cheesecake and have cheesecake, before you could look at a cheesecake, I could put a cheesecake on your kitchen counter. You could look at that cheesecake and what will happen is your body anticipating that you're going to eat that cheesecake and knowing what it does will start to release more insulin in your body in preparation for the sugar that you're about to put in there, the glucose spike. Okay. And so now what happens is, because you're anticipating that cheesecake and your body releases more insulin, it drops your glucose levels. Right, because insulin clears out glucose from your blood. And so now what happens? Just look at the cheesecake. Your insulin releases, you lower your glucose levels, and guess what? Now you start to feel hungrier. And you know you want that cake even more. So, you know, again, the way your body and mind work are fascinating. Most dieters have no idea how they work. And so you're kind of flying blind. You know, you're just winging it. You're just relying on willpower and you really have no real strategy or understanding how your mind and body work so that you can come up with a strategic plan. That's why in program yourself, then, you know, we go through the goal weight pyramid, mindset, lifestyle needing, and you learn how to transform yourself by taking control of your mind. And without that, I don't know how you're going to lose weight. Oh, you think? You just need to be told some macronutrient, you need to restrict more. Really?
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. Kelly says I have to be careful about recipe hunting on Pinterest. Yeah, for sure. That's another one. You know what I mean? So you got to pay attention to these things because that's the thing that drives me most crazy, I would say. You know, the, the phrase we hear so much these days is food noise. And I've been studying food noise for over 30 years. It's my main focus is what's going on in your head. And it's like I. There's a couple different aspects to food noise, but one of the key aspects to food noise is if you're watching cooking shows all day, if you're watching commercials for food all day, if you're looking up recipes on Pinterest all day, I promise you, if you're watching sourdough videos all day, that is going to increase the food noise. My sourdough food Noise has increased 10,000% this week. You know, so again, there's more to food noise than just that. Okay, but that is a component to it. What are you exposed to? What are you taking in regularly? It's impacting what you're thinking and that. That what you're thinking is impacting how you're feeling. And that goes and leads to how you behave. So, again, if you want to change your weight, you need to change your behavior. If you want to change your behavior, you got to get a handle on your thinking and what you feel. So that's what I think anyways, so I try to give you a little more, because that's the dieting thing, right. They always simplify it so much or to just eat less or just exercise more. It's such simple stuff. But really, changing yourself is a challenge, you know, and you have to understand what you're doing. I. I think.
Bookworm says I froze turtles to eat them less and ended up at the dentist with a root canal. Oh, yikes, Yikes, yikes, yikes. Yeah, turtles, right? Those ones with the nuts and, like, the caramel or something in them maybe, Right? Oh, yikes. That's tough. Hope you get better there. Yes, the consequences of kicker. Yes, consequences are tough. And again, not the ones of my pants even get mad at me. Yep, that'll happen. But again, it's not the.
Yeah. Diane says once they're off, they gain it. Yeah. I think everyone knows that the GLP ones, once you. You. You have to take them for life, because once you're off them. Yeah. And, you know, that's another piece of it, too, that people don't talk about, and I don't really like to talk about a lot because I don't want to be negative. I know I have people listening that are on GLP1s. But what I'm going to say, I don't think, is any secret to you as much as you may try and ignore it. But, you know, there is some. Some psychological aspects to GLP ones that I think should be addressed. One of them is that a. You might be nervous because who knows? I mean, this is a new thing, and it's a very.
It may just be taken away from you at some point. You may not be able to afford it. It may run out. Who knows? You know what I mean? So we take it away, and there's that little fear. There's the fear of imposter syndrome that I don't even know what the hell I did. I'm just taking this stuff and I eat less now. And that. That creates a weird thing, especially my clients, because they feel like they haven't really figured it out. It feels they're almost cheating or something, and that it doesn't feel quite right, you know, and so. And. And again, that you feel different. You feel fundamentally different. You're changing yourself. You're gonna feel hungry all the time. That's weird. That's weird. And the GLP one, by the way, understand it doesn't just affect, like your gut. It affects. You have GLP1 receptors in your brain. They don't understand exactly how it affects your brain. So it does seem in some situations to affect your pleasure centers in your brain and how they code things. And so I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, it may affect the pleasure you get out of things. You know, it's like back in the day they had Prozac and people would be depressed and they would feel less depressed. But, you know, when I spoke to these people, a lot of times they would tell me that they also felt a lot less of everything. It was a general muting of emotion, you know. And so, yeah, it's great when the depression goes down, but if the pleasure goes down, the happiness goes down, it's a different, you know, decision to make. And I think that we haven't really talked about that GLP1 because everyone's so excited they're losing weight, and I get that. But at some point when the weight loss stops and you're now saying, okay, how am I gonna live my life? What do I have to look forward to? And there's never any food there. That would be a hard one for me, you know, So I don't know. And that's a real thing. That's real. So, again, I'm not trying to be negative here, but I think sometimes we don't really talk about the other side of it because, you know, to me, GLP1s are kind of their honeymoon period, you know, And I'm not saying they're not effective, I think they are. But what I mean by honeymoon period is I think we're at the phase where it's so new and so much of the message you hear about GLP1s is through marketing. Do you know? Right. So it's like you, you haven't. We haven't had the time to really have the, the data, the research, the deeper stuff happening, the long term consequence. We just don't know that yet. And mostly the way you think about GLP1s is literally from all the marketing they put out here most of, unless you've really researched it a lot. And if you have researched it, I think one of the best books on it is Dr. Greger, who I think is wonderful. He wrote a whole book on it, short book, and it's really interesting. And I think that, you know, it covers a Lot of stuff, but. But stuff you don't normally hear about. Not there's that much of it, but again, that you won't lose. You stop losing weight after 16 months. You know, I think most people don't know that, that there's a general decrease in, you know, enjoyment of food. I don't think people really consider that one because I don't give a. I just want to lose weight. But again, do you want to live your life not really enjoying food? You know, again, program yourself then we seek to balance that. And to be honest, the irony of programming yourself then is that you really learn how to control your weight by getting the most pleasure possible out of food. So, you know, not only are we trying to decrease pleasure of food, we're trying to maximize it in order to keep you at your goal weight. I know that might sound strange, but that's what we aim to do.
But yeah, if you got any other questions, feel free to ask them. And if not, that's fine too.
For information, GLP1s are not new. Um, I mean, they're relatively new. You know what I mean? Like, they've been around for 20 years. They've been studying them. They've been studying them for diabetics. So.
You know, the weight loss thing was kind of a side effect of what they were initially, you know, kind of focusing on. Because initially they were focusing, it was helping diabetics pancreas create more insulin, you know, and then it turned out it had this effect and, you know, on and on. So, you know, in terms of GLP1 is being used for populations that don't have diabetes, it's relatively new. There's not a lot of studies on that. So it is new. And again, everything's relative. So, I mean, it didn't come out last year, but. But yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Bookworm says. Yeah, exactly. The negative consequences of GLP1 haven't been determined yet. That's what I'm trying to say. And I'm not, I'm not saying that there's going to be a lot of. I don't. I don't see any. I haven't read anything about that. I mean, there's random little things, you know what I mean, that are kind of. I mean, listen, you know, when you get medicine, you're taking a chance and, you know, there are really relatively small populations of people that may have some issues with them, you know what I mean? And they're understanding more and more of that. So I don't want to sit here and fear Monger but at the same time that just the truth is, it just we. It hasn't been tested for any long period of time on a population that doesn't have diabetes. So, you know, and if it was, you know, again, I don't know, like, I don't know if you'll hear all the.
You're not going to hear stuff until it gets down to the population. We see what people are really experiencing, you know, over time. And that's how it always goes, you know, with these medicines. Every single time it's the same story. And I'm not saying GLP1's gonna be like the other ones, but if you watch like weight loss drugs over history, you know that they, they in like a lion, out like a lamb. That's been the case up until now. And I'm not saying that's gonna happen with GLP1, because these are unique, they're different than all the previous ones in a lot of ways. What I'm saying, though, is that this is the rosiest view of them you're gonna have. And I think over time there are going to be things that are come out and I'm not saying they're major things, but I think one of the things you're going to hear, I think it's going to be a deal, I don't know, but I think one of the biggest things is going to be this, this question of how do I want to live my life with food? I know I keep harping on that, but that's what I see. I see again, it's exciting to be at your goal weight, but you normalize to that and you start to habituate to it and the grass is always greener. That's just being a human. And I think when you start again, when you are at your goal weight now it's been a year, it's been two years now. The novelty's worn off. No one says anything, they just expect it out of you. But now, you know, when you go to birthday parties, when you go to celebrations, when you go to a fancy restaurant, when you go to a special vacation and the food's just not part of it anymore, he said, oh, I'm just so glad I got no food. Noise. Yeah, that's really fun in the beginning. But, you know, like I said, I just, I don't know, I just had my birthday a couple weeks ago, you know, went to this amazing Italian restaurant. So for me, to me, that's. Program yourself. Then's biggest, biggest advantage over GLP1s is that we learn how to manage food, how to get the most pleasure out of it. So I can, I can go to a fancy restaurant, I can go on vacation and overeat and eat, you know, and then come back and get right on track. So I have not depleted my, I have not reduced my pleasure with food to manage my weight. And people on GLP1 are, that's just the nature of it. That's why it works. It makes you feel full all the time. So again, imagine living your life feeling full. I know you're excited about it now because you want to lose weight, but what I'm saying is imagine being at your goal weight, waking up and then saying for the rest of my life this is how I'm going to feel. And I don't know, I'm curious to see. I don't know the answer to it, but I'm curious to see. And I can't wait.
What's up Vicky? Because I Jim been off track food wise for a stretch now, dialing down my consumption. Yeah, I tell myself I'm never going back. Moving forward. Yeah, exactly, Vicki. And that just happens, you know, And I think that's why it just makes me crazy. I, I, you know, especially reading this book and I like this guy so much. So it's like it really bums me out and maybe it'll end in a better place than where it's at right now. But this book diets drugs and dopamine. I mean, it's just so like the only way to deal with this is, I don't know, I'm just at the beginning. So maybe it changes. I don't want to talk about it. Like maybe it ends up in a different place. But everyone always talks about the thing with weight is that it's keeping it off, that's the hard part. And program yourself then is really built on that and it's built around the idea that you're going to make mistakes, you're going to get off track. I get off track regularly, but I get back on track quickly. And so that's a key part. So again, Vicki, you're right in the meat of the program. You know what I mean? Like when everything's flowing, it's easier, but when all of a sudden, you know, things kind of trigger our, you know. So Vicki, for you it's about looking at where are these calories coming from. So again, I know Vicki's in the program, just so we all know. But I also know Vicki works the program, so and I know you're Eating structured. So start to notice, A, where are the extra calories coming in? Is it extra gelato at night? Is it extra snacking here? Is it extra portion sizes? Where are the calories coming in? A and B, start to think about why. It's probably an emotional thing. There's probably. Maybe you're not sleeping as well, maybe you're feeling more stress from the world. Who knows? It could be any number of things. And start to pinpoint what the problem is, because as you pinpoint the problem, you make it much more likely that you're going to pinpoint a solution. Okay, so again, no big deal, Vicki, you know, you know that. Anyways, Vicki's been doing this for a while. But this is what, you know, this is the thing, folks. This is why I'm here every single day. Because I feel like, you know, if you're here listening to this, you deserve to be able to hear from someone and from people in general that have successfully lost weight and kept it off. The people you never get to hear from, you know, because you're always hearing from other dieters and from experts trying to sell you something, but you never hear from the real people that have lost weight and kept it off. And that's my. My business for over 20 years, and it's been my passion for over 30 years. I'm obsessed with people that have been able to lose weight and keep it off long term. That's like my obsession. And.
What you learn from that is you learn these layered strategies. You know, you really understand that there's more to it than just what you're reading. You know, I mean, there's the lifestyle piece, there's the mindset piece. And again, once you recognize that you have such a richer map to go with, you have such a richer ability to diagnose what a problem may be. And, you know, again, that leads to having more ability to resolve it, too. So. Yeah, yeah. Vicky says even people have lost weight and kept it off have their struggles. That's what I'm trying to say. Yes. But strategies, and specifically the PYT strategies really help. Yeah, exactly. But I think, you know, and I'm glad we're having this, we're able to say this because I think a lot of people.
You know, a lot of people what happens with dieting, you're sold this magical fairy tale that you're going to get to your goal weight and you're all done. And again, that's why it was so fascinating to me in this book. And I love him so much. I think he's such a brilliant person, super smart, and it just so well researched. David Kessler, I think he's just brilliant, but I, I think his mindset is not that good. I think he's a science guy and he knows so much science and it's brilliant. He's a doctor, I mean, brilliant. But there's no mindset in what he writes, and it's glaringly obvious that that's omitted. And at one point in the book, he struggled with weight himself. He talks about this realization that hit him recently. This is a guy who was head of the fda, who's been obsessed with weight himself, talked to all the experts in the world, top experts in the world about weight, cares about weight as much as I do. And recently, within the last couple years, he said, because he started taking the GLP one, he goes, all of a sudden I had this realization that this was going to be a forever thing, because the medicine's forever. So it made him think, oh, this is gonna be something forever. I have to do. I say, holy, how can you be so smart and dedicate your life this for so long and just have that realization? But this is a problem for dieters, because you dieters, we've all been conditioned by the diet industry to think of this fairy tale land where we get to our goal weight and then we just stay there forever. It's just not how it goes. Your weight in managing it is like managing your teeth. You know, you don't get them so clean and then be like, okay, now I'm done cleaning them. It's something you do for the rest of your life, you know. And I think for a lot of people, when they start, when they lose the weight, and even when you get to your goal weight, when all of a sudden a fluctuation happens, for most people, it's devastating. It's catastrophic. You're not prepared to handle it because you thought you were just going to be at your goal weight forever. And so I'm program yourself then right from the beginning, you understand, I deal with it now. It's not a struggle anymore. I mean, I, I mean, sometimes I get into a little bit of a deeper struggle. You know, I put ten pounds on this winter. That was a little bit of a deeper struggle. But I was never worried about it. I knew I was going to pull out of it. I did pull out of it. And I'm right back to where I'm at, you know, so.
We learn how to manage those times, you know, and why are those times happening? There's A lot of reasons, but one of the big reasons why weight gain can happen is stress. All of a sudden you might move. All of a sudden you start a new job. All of a sudden you don't have a job. All of a sudden you're arguing with your partner a lot. All of a sudden you got an extra responsibility, you got a bill come out of nowhere. I don't know. There's so many things can happen in life all of a sudden trigger us, and next thing you know, we just go to the food. We didn't realize it, you know, so that's normal, that's natural. You're not broken, you're not a bad person because you did that. Things just change and we just need to learn to adapt and be flexible, you know, and. And figure out again. I always think of like managing my goal weight. I think of like surfing. Like, I'm always engaged, you know. If you think about surfing, it's like the wave's always changing. You can't just stand on the board stiff. You have to constantly be adjusting to the changing dynamics of the wave. And that's kind of how you have to think about your weight, that you're always adapting and changing to it. And sometimes you get whacked out of nowhere and you're like, oh, you know what I mean? That's happened to me this winter. A bunch of things just happened, things I would have never imagined. A bunch of things happened, you know, kind of stressed me out, get me a little off track, distracted, whatever. And the way went up a little bit, you know, some eat more cookies, make more cookies, doing this stuff. So I try and share that with you because I don't think you hear that story enough. You never hear the stories of people that lose weight and keep it off. You never hear from them. And that's one of the biggest challenges and reasons why you're not at the weight you want to be at. Because you're constantly being told bullshit by the diet industry. And the diet industry is not there to help you. The diet industry is not people that have lost weight and kept it off. The diet industry is a branch of the food processing industry. Weight Watchers was owned by Heinz. Jenny Craig was owned by Nestle Atkins Food Products, owned by the same company, owns onions, pretzels and Cinnabon Slim Fast, owned by the same company, owns Ben and Jerry's ice cream. These companies do not want you to lose weight for good. They want to take your money when you want to lose weight, give you some dumb plan that you'll follow for a little bit and lose a little bit of weight. And then ultimately you just go back to what you always do and eat the same you always do. And that's why you're so flummoxed and confused. You know, what's up, Jen? Jen says I'm one of them. I listen to you to stay on track. Thanks for all you do. Thank you, Jen. Yeah, I really, I love that, Jen. And that's something I'm thinking about. I got a bunch of plans for stuff I'm kind of wrapping up another phase of kind of upgrades and projects. And one of the things on the docket in the next couple months that I think I'm going to start doing is having conversations with these people that I've been interviewing for years. You know, I've interviewed over a hundred people that have lost weight and kept it off for years. That's by the way. So when I have this goal weight blueprint, right, where we go through the mindset, lifestyle needing, we break those down to sections. This is all built on the strategies I've learned from people that have lost weight and kept it off.
I'm one of them. So my strategies are in here too. But this isn't some book I just made up out of nowhere. I began speaking with people that lost weight and kept it off when I was 50 pounds heavier 30 years ago. That was the thing that changed my life. It was neuro linguistic programming that taught me to focus on the people that got the results you want and learn from them and do what they did.
And most of you kind of think you're doing that with dieting, but you're only trying to copy their actions. You're not learning how people that lose weight and keep it off think.
I have focused on that for over 30 years, so I have a much deeper understanding of what it takes to actually not just lose weight, but how to live at your goal weight for the rest of your life on near autopilot. And you don't get that information very, very often, you know, so great job, Jen. Keep it up. And I'm glad you're listening. And yeah, stay, stay engaged.
Yeah, because that fallacy, you get to your goal weight and you're done for all time is such bs. Yes, absolutely. Yes. And it screws people up mentally. Yes, it absolutely does. It absolutely does. That is a belief that probably sabotages more people than anything else is what I think. You know.
User765 says, how to stop the obsession with the scale. I lost 25kg and I struggle with the last 2kg.
You know, it's so funny, though, and I don't mean to laugh, but. But it's like, yeah, okay. So she follows up by saying, I. I know that it will not make a big difference, but certain numbers stuck in my head. Yeah, okay. But, you know, I laugh because this again, gets to the heart of the problem that as a dieter, your main goal is really just a number. I was literally just working on this chapter in my book. I cannot wait for you all to get this book. It is so close. I don't want to tease you, but it's so close. It's so great. I can't wait till you get it. You are all gonna love this book. I know it. This book is so good. I don't know if I'm crazy, you know, sometimes I've never. I wrote my blueprint. You know what I mean? Like, I worked on this at the beginning of the year for months, like six, seven months. But this book here, like, feels like a real book. It's. It's so exciting. So I don't know, maybe it'll be the worst book ever. I don't know. But I'm so into it. I think it's so good. And it's. It really came out of nowhere, you know, it's a book that I was just kind of hanging out doing stuff, and I just had this idea for it. Next thing you know, I was creating it. And it's fun. Anyways, okay, so. Yeah, how do you. How do you stop obsession with the scale?
Yeah. Okay, so in program yourself, then we take our weight loss and rapid and personal development, because that goal on the scale, that number is not enough motivation for you. It's not enough motivation for anyone. That number really doesn't even mean anything to you subconsciously. I know you don't believe that, but you've taught to give that number meaning, but subconsciously it doesn't have intrinsic meaning to it. So, for example, if all of a sudden people said, you know what, we're not using pounds or kilograms anymore to measure our weight. We're going to start using.
Square inches of skin. That's the new measurement right now. If all of a sudden they said, you know, I'm just arbitrarily picking a number. 40 square inches of skin is the ideal number. Right. Notice how that has no meaning to you. Right. You'd have to think about it, you'd have to understand it, you'd have to learn what that meant. Okay, but it doesn't intrinsically have any meaning to you. And so what does have meaning to you? Feeling energized, feeling proud, feeling momentum, feeling successful, feeling confident, feeling energized. These are things that have intrinsic meaning to you. They're valuable. You've wanted them your whole life. You. You value them. So just focusing on a number, it's, it's like trying to scratch an itch on your foot through your shoe. It's just, it's missing a level of motivation. So what I would suggest, user765, is to reflect on the deeper reasons why you want to lose the weight. You know, what are you going to get out of this weight loss, first of all? So congratulations. Right, so what have you experienced from dropping the 25 kg already? Take a moment and see. Like, what I was laughing at initially was that dieters always do this where, you know, if we think statistically, you have, you've got a 27 kilogram weight loss goal and you've lost 25 kilograms of it. So you're about 90% of the way to your goal and yet you probably feel.
You'Re 90% of the way to your goal, but you probably feel 90 of the way away from your goal because you never allow yourself to enjoy the success you've achieved so far. And this again goes back to why you're probably going to struggle to keep it off, most likely. Again, please don't take this negatively, but because.
You'Re superstitious, you're worried that if you celebrate your success, you're not going to be motivated anymore and you put all the weight back on. Probably. But you probably 25 kilogram, 25 kilograms ago, I bet you thought you'd feel a lot better when you'd lost 25kg, and now here you are, 25kg lighter and you don't feel a lot better. You do feel better, but you're still so fixated on the fact that it's not the 2kg down more that you don't really feel that much better. You mostly feel like you're not at your goal yet and you're struggling.
Right. You still feel like you're struggling. You don't feel the success of 25kg down. You feel the, the struggle of you can't get these final 2kg off and so you still feel bad. I bet that's how it's going.
So let me know if that's the truth, because it's very common. Yeah. Jen says eating real food and feeling my feelings instead of eating over them were my biggest lessons. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Jen, those are typically the biggest lessons I see right there in a nutshell. I think you're right. Eating real food, feeling my feelings, and running. Running, your being able to run your own mind. I think those are the three biggest things right there in a nutshell. So, yeah, keep, keep doing what you're doing, Jen. I think that's beautiful.
Bookworm says. Jim, what are your thoughts on the body mass index? It's funny, I was just reading about the body mass index. The body mass index, you know, it's, it's interesting. It's not what you think it is. It's, you know, it's, it's not necessarily a marker of health. Let that be known. So, you know, you really have to wonder, what exactly is that? Exactly, you know, because first of all, the BMI was originally just based, and I got this. I did not see, but the BMI originally was just based on a population of European men. So it's white men. So it's kind of a racist, sexist kind of marker. It doesn't represent all populations. So that's the first thing. So don't take it too serious. In terms of health markers, the height to weight ratio is a much better.
A much better predictor of health impact of, of the weight on you. So what are we talking about with bmi, you know, Exactly. And so it's not a complete measurement. That being said, I mean, I use it as just a ballpark figure and number of a place I'd like to be, but I'm also a white European man, you know, so it's, it's, it's, it's representative of me. You know, it may not be a representative everyone else, but the big thing I want to share is this, that that BMI chart is not really a good predictor of health. So to that point, I'm not saying always because everyone's unique. Okay? But most the time when we look at a BMI chart, a lot of the people in that overweight range are going to be just as healthy, if not healthier than people in the normal range. So if we look at overweight and associate overweight in the BMI chart with health impacts, I think we're making a mistake there. In a lot of situations, obviously there will be people in both categories that will have health issues. Right. When we start getting to obese, well, then the correlation starts to become stronger. Okay. There starts to be much more of a correlation between being in the obese category and having more and more health issues. Right. And as we get deeper into that obese category that the chances statistically go up. But again, I mean, there's people in the base category, morbidly abuse category, sometimes they have health markers that look fine. So again, it depends on what your goals are with the BMI chart. You know, if you're just trying to pick a goal weight, what I would say is that anything within the normal to overweight range, it's just your choice, right? So health wise, for the average person, whether you're a normal or overweight range, your health's going to be good regardless, potentially and really just becomes a decision of what you want to weigh at that point. So hope that helps.
Higher Power Athletics says it's just a baseline of how many calories you should be taking in to adjust from a baseline of how many calories you should be taking in to adjust from.
The bmi chart. Body mass index.
It's about how many calories you should be taking in.
My misunderstanding the BMI chart. I thought it was a measurement of height to, you know, tallness ratios.
Anyways, you can all look that up yourself. Let me get out of here. So for anyone who likes listening to this, I'm here every day, Monday through Friday, usually around noon Eastern. So any questions you may have, feel free to ask them. I'm here for you. I'm happy to help you out as best I can. If you like listening to this, you're welcome to listen to this as a podcast. So you can look up program yourself then and you can search any podcast platform. It'll show up and you can listen to this whenever you like. All right? And if you're not in my world, make sure you click the link in my bio or go to program yourself then and go and get the free hypnosis session I give you and watch the training I made. They're all free. Okay? So go check that out and it'll help you out. All right? All right, everyone have a super duper day and we'll talk soon. Bye.
More from Jim

Weight Loss Visualization: Wake Up in Your Dream Size #programyourselfthin #weightlosshypnosis

What If You Pretended to Be Thin for One Hour? #programyourselfthin #weightlosshypnosis








