How To Lose Weight Fast

That's the question everyone wants to know the answer to. How can you lose weight fast? Now, I normally don't talk about this because— and I'm going to, but before I do, I want you to understand that the fastest way to lose weight is also going to be the shortest lasting one, because without exception, the fastest way to lose weight is the most extreme. Right? Think about it. The fastest way to lose weight technically is just stop eating, stop drinking. That's it. And let it ride. So that's going to be something you can only do for a certain period of time, though. So the fastest is usually the shortest. So I want to talk about how can you lose weight in the fastest way possible that you have a chance of actually sustaining. And again, I'm going to give you a warning that I think how fast you lose weight should not be the main focus because it's difficult to lose weight long-term and fast at the same time. It just is. Okay, because in order to lose weight long-term, we need to do it kind of more slowly and systematically and build on top of our habits and our new thought patterns and our new routines that flow automatically so that we start doing the things naturally and automatically that keeps us at our goal weight. But I know everyone wants to know how to lose weight fast, so I'm gonna talk about that and how I would approach it. And I think what I'm gonna share with you is a more balanced way to do it, uh, because again, right now When you think about losing weight fast, and that's what most people are thinking about, they're really going right to the most extreme thing, which is gonna be the hardest thing to keep up. Okay, so how do we kind of balance that out a little bit? Fast weight loss in a way that we have a potential to kind of build on top of. So the first thing I'm doing is I'm not drastically changing the way that I eat. What I mean by that is that I don't want to go straight into an intermittent fasting routine where I'm just not eating for 16 hours. Because that is so different than how I normally eat that now I've got to manage this complete different way of being, right? All of a sudden, I've totally shifted my eating when I do that, and that's very disorienting. So I don't want to, you know, cut all the carbs out, stop eating for 16 hours, track every single point. I don't want to do drastic things that are going to change how I eat. Right off the bat. So what I'm looking to do is to maintain the general patterns I have, meaning I want to eat at the same times I typically eat. I don't want to maintain the same kind of time structure of when I eat. And we all have time structures, okay? Please understand, some people say, well, I have no structure, I just eat when I eat. No, you don't. You have very specific patterns of how you eat. You eat similarly on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays. There's a pattern to how you eat, and it's usually time-based. So, the first thing I wanna do is I wanna keep those structures, but now I want to change how I'm eating within them. So, whatever I first start eating for breakfast, I'm gonna maintain that, but I'm gonna change the way I'm eating. And the first thing I'm looking for to change is I'm looking at the high-calorie-dense foods. So, the highest calorie-dense foods— well, calorie density is the amount of calories in a volume of food. So a cookie has a lot more calorie density than an apple, even though they can be a similar volume. The calorie difference is tremendous because the cookie's packed with butter, sugar, flour, a lot of calories in it. The apple's not. So they take up a similar amount of space, completely different calories. So the first thing I'm looking at is when I typically eat, what are the highest calorie dense foods I eat? And I'm specifically looking for butter. I'm looking for oil. Dairy, cheese products. These are the big ones. Okay. Again, we can work it down and there's other things, but the things you're going to get the most benefit out of dialing down in your diet is oil, butter, dairy. These are the big calorie-dense foods that most Americans are consuming. Now, the other thing I'm going into, once I have a sense of like, what are the biggest bang for my buck? Okay. So, if I can take a calorie-dense food and trade it for something that's less calorie-dense, I'm still consuming food. I'm still getting volume into my body, but I've reduced the calories tremendously. Okay, so one thing you have to understand is that your body consumes about the same volume of food every day. So when it comes to calorie density, we're maintaining the volume; we're reducing the calories. That's really, really helpful. So once you start to realize what the more calorie dense foods are in your diet, now we bring the three Rs approach to it where we're going to reduce. Replace, remove. And again, I give you three options because dieting is going to tell you if you want to lose weight quick, just remove. You find the high calorie foods, just get out of get get rid of them. But again, what's going to happen then? If you just remove the high calorie dense foods from your diet, you're going to feel really hungry because you've also reduced the volume. And so now your body starts sending off alarm signals that something's really wrong. We're stressing out. We're not getting the food we normally do. We got to eat, and this is what we really want to focus in on: is the calories you cut down, but you also want to measure the stress you experience. And this is what it all comes down to, in my opinion, is that we can't just cut calories down to the max. You've tried that before because the more you just drastically cut calories down, the more stressed out you are. So you have got to keep an eye on the stress levels of what you're doing. And you all have experienced this. You know that when you get too strict, too restrictive, you try to track every single calorie, you're never letting yourself eat a carb. When you make giant swings and shifts in your eating, it's stressful. The more stressful something is, the less helpful it is for you because the stress is, A, causing your biochemistry to hold on to the weight, and B, it's causing you to just rush through to the quitting faster. Because you're not going to maintain a state of stress long term. So we're looking to recognize the stress we're experiencing and we're looking to reduce the calories in the most stress-free way possible. And I think this is the difference, because I think most dieters subconsciously are looking to reduce calories in the most stressful way possible, because deep down they associate that the harder it is, the more stressful it is, the more extreme it is, the faster they're going to lose weight. But you've got to zoom out a little bit and realize that, you know, you could lose 5 pounds a week, but if you can only do it for 2 weeks, that's not going to get you to your goal. So the sweet spot is to find the reduction of calories in a way that's manageable. And so in that way, I find the sweet spot hunger-wise is to be slightly hungry. Now, if you really want to lose weight quickly, maybe you start to go to moderately hungry. But nothing beyond that, because if you start getting extremely hungry, you are not going to stay on that plan long enough to get the results you want. The only chance you have of really getting the results you want is to do it in a moderate to light hunger way, because that's not as stressful. And that one you can keep and maintain and move forward with. But everything else, it's just, again, an endurance test to when you quit. So that's my, my strategy. If I was going to want to lose weight quickly, I would continue to— my patterns would stay the same. I'd eat at the same times, but I would look for the calorie-dense foods and I'd focus on dialing those down. So if I was eating chips in the afternoon for a snack, usually I would switch that to an apple. If I usually ate French fries with a burger, I would switch the fries to something else, you know, a salad or some vegetable or something. Again, I'm looking for the most calorie-dense foods in my diet And then I'm looking to remove, reduce, or replace those with something that's less calorie dense. And if you follow that approach, that's probably one of your best ways possible to start to lose weight quickly, but also in a way that you could actually have some ability or possibility of maintaining long term. All right. So give this a shot. And what I would suggest as well is you take a moment before you do any of this and you imagine it going the way you want to in your mind. So let's do this for just a second. Because a lot of times people approach their diet or their change in plan and they are actually anticipating that they're going to be stressed about it and that they're not going to last with it. So it's so helpful before you're going to make a change to take just a second and imagine it going just the way that you wanted it to. That doesn't guarantee it's going to go that way, but it starts to set your mind up to imagine the scenario being the one that you want. So let's just take a moment. I want you to imagine yourself. If you want to reduce calories, think right now of just one high-calorie food that you consume regularly. Now, I want you to imagine when do you typically eat this food? I want you to think about that food and I want you to notice the context in which you normally eat it. Where do you eat it? When do you eat it? How much of it do you eat? What state are you in when you're eating it? How do you eat it? Are you paying attention to it? Are you distracted eating it mindlessly? Okay, now I want you to think of a solution. Again, we got reduce, replace, remove. You take that challenging food, that challenging behavior, and I want you to improve it. And again, it's up to you how much you want to improve it. You can just remove it and cut it out. That's going to be more stressful. You can reduce it, do the same thing, just consume less of it. That might be the right option for you, or you might replace it. You might take that option and switch a different food in there instead. Just pick one because again, you're going to experiment and see what works, see what doesn't, optimize and move forward again. But I want you to take a moment with whichever strategy you're going to use. Imagine yourself doing that strategy and imagine yourself doing that strategy of removing it, reducing it, or replacing it with something else. Imagine yourself doing that with that food in that situation as the best version of you. So imagine yourself being calm, relaxed, grounded, making the decision that you want to make because you want to get the results that you want to get. See yourself being calm, grounded, motivated, making the exact choice and decision that you think would work best for you in that situation. Imagine yourself doing it. Feel it happen naturally, automatically, comfortably, and then anticipate the next time you get to test that out and be prepared for it. Again, you can do this as many times as you want, imagining that situation going exactly the way that you wanted it to. So I hope this helps you out. Again, the more you do this, the better. If you like this, again, you can comment mind if you're on Facebook, and I'll send you a free hypnosis session to help you kind of reinforce what we just talked about here. And if you're over on TikTok, you can click the link in my bio and go get the hypnosis session that will help you kind of get control of this process and take it a bit deeper. But yes, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them again. I'm here every Monday through Friday, usually at noon Eastern. Today I was a little bit late, but usually here at noon Eastern, and that that can be really helpful. I see Carolyn says over here, replace. Yes, replace will help me so much. Yes, reduce, remove, replace, I think, is a much better strategy. Instead of options, then just remove. Again, dieting is always just telling us if we're doing something wrong, just stop doing it. But just stop doing it really isn't a good only solution, only answer, because it's the most stressful one. When you try and stop something cold turkey or completely, it's the hardest path forward. I'm not saying it can't work. I'm saying it's probably the least likely to work long term. And, uh, you could take that, take that for what I'm saying. Uh, what's up, Saskiba? Saskiba says, down 133 from 313 to 179 in 20 months doing deficit. Yesterday I ate 7 donuts and I'm not even mad. Um, wow, congratulations. Yeah, wow, 133 pounds, that's a lot of weight. Nice job. And, um, I'm glad you're not mad because again, mistakes are gonna happen, you know, along the way. Uh, and you're still successful, you're still moving the direction you want even if you make a mistake. I think that's one of the biggest things. If I had to really pick one ability to give people, one skill to give people that want to manage their weight more effectively, it would be the ability to get back on track quickly. And that's the perfect example of it, that, you know, you could be 133 pounds down, have an off day where you eat 7 donuts, and that could sometimes have the potential to— oh my God, I totally blew it. Okay, now good news is, says she's been doing this for 20 months. You get 20 months of kind of, um, this new version of you, this new muscle memory building up. So that's good that you have so much time behind you, but it's especially good, um, that you're not even mad. Okay, because again, if you look at that 7 donuts, what I'd want to do is I'd want to learn from it. What was going on there? What mood were you in? Were you too hungry? What led to that situation? And so again, it's not what happens to us so much, it's how we respond to it. And if you go into this process of managing your weight, realizing that you're going to make mistakes for literally ever, you're always going to make mistakes. You're always going to overeat or choose the wrong food for the rest of your life. You're never going to get to a position, most likely, where you're just perfect with your eating. That's just not even a possibility. So once you start this process, realizing you're going to make mistakes, then you can focus on getting good when you do make mistakes. That's a core part of programming yourself then, is the ability to recover quickly from when we make mistakes. we're always going to make mistakes. Dieting is telling you start day 1 and be perfect. So when you're dieting, you're really in this game of like never making a mistake. And in Program Yourself Thin, we start right off the bat by saying, I know I'm going to make mistakes. Let me get good at being able to get back on track quickly. Now that's a whole process, but I'll tell you, the main part of that is to learn from the mistake. There's so much wisdom in our mistakes that we make. There's so much— I promise if SAS people went into What pre— what led to eating 7 donuts, you would, you would gain a lot of wisdom and awareness from that process because I know something was going on. Um, and there's a, there's a big lesson to be learned there. And letting it go and learning the lesson and getting right back on track is the secret to success when it comes to managing your weight. So I appreciate you sharing that, Saskia. That's a, it's a great story and keep it up. I don't know how much— if you're at your goal weight, congrats. If you're still moving towards it, Um, good for you. All right, says, yep, right back at deficit the next day. I do that once a month with something I really want. That's great. Okay, so that's part of your strategy, right? So that's perfect. So even— that's not even a mistake then. Okay, in Program Yourself Thin, we refer to that as pleasure meals or pleasure days if you take the whole day of it. But the idea is that it's not a cheat meal. I hate the word cheat, right? That's the worst languaging. Uh, for, for a day when you let yourself kind of eat food you really enjoy. We call them pleasure days and program yourself then. But if it's planned and it's expected— I did this the other day, Saturday or Sunday. I went down to New Haven and literally planned to overeat pizza, and I did overeat pizza. Felt like shit, but I did it, and I did it with my eyes open and intending to do it. So I think that, uh, having pleasure days and doing these things is fine when they're part of a whole system. And it sounds like you've got that down, uh, Sasquatch. Now, I would say one other thing. I would give you a little recommendation because I'm hearing you say the word deficit. Is— I always have a little bit of a bone to pick with that, that language. I don't like the word deficit because it kind of implies lack from normal, right? So we're not— we're under normal, and that subconsciously feels a little offsetting. It feels temporary, right? Because we don't live our lives in a deficit. So I would suggest the language shift from deficit to reducing my average calorie consumption, because a deficit, your brain kind of codes as a temporary thing, and reducing your average calorie consumption is coded as a long-term thing. And so again, I don't know what your goal weight is, but I would reframe in my mind the calories from a deficit, like I'm just reducing calories until I get to my goal weight, I'm gonna be in a deficit until I get to my goal weight, And I would change that languaging to, I'm figuring out the average calorie consumption that I need to be at to be at my goal weight. It may sound like the same to you. It's not. But, um, that'd be one little suggestion I, I would, um, I would make. Uh, goal 163. All right, nice. Yeah. So Saskiba says it was a reward meal. Um, sure, you know, reward's fine. I, I could, I could have a little, little— I could pick hairs with that. If it works for you, stick with it. Um, sometimes the reward— again, it may sound like reward and pleasure are the same thing. Um, they're adjacent, but they're different. But hey, if it works for you, nice job and keep it up. It sounds like you're doing amazing. That's quite an accomplishment to manage that weight that well. Uh, what's up, Carolyn? Carolyn says, does a lot of the choosing lower calorie have us using like mustard instead of mayo? So are they things we need to learn? Um, yeah, absolutely. I mean, yes. Uh, you know, there's a lot of knowledge. I, I think everyone knows generally, in a vague sense, what they should do to lose weight. And I think most people, especially if they're really focused in the nuts and bolts of nutrition and calories and calorie density and all that, you have some sense. I should eat less donuts, I should eat less pizza, whatever. But in my opinion, right, if we're— I always think of this, if you're gonna Master living at your goal weight. If you're going to learn how to master your weight is how I approach it, because I think of it as mastery. See, dieting is just like this temporary thing you're going to do to lose weight, but I don't think of it that way. I think of it as a skill set. I want to, I want to acquire the skill, the ability to live at my goal weight. Now again, in Program Yourself Thin, we use the goal weight pyramid here. So Program Yourself Thin, we break that skill of mastering your weight down into these main three. kind of categories of mindset, lifestyle, and eating. And so you learn how to think, live, and eat like a thin, healthy, happy person. And again, we break down into more subcategories. But the idea is that you're creating the skill, the ability, the thoughts, the lifestyle, the eating that allows you to live at your goal weight for the rest of your life. And we want it to run on near autopilot. So the language is a little different there. But yes, one of the skills I believe you're going to have to understand— I certainly have gone through this myself— is the concept of calorie density and understanding where the calories are coming from. It's a very counterintuitive thing. You have no real ability to measure the calorie of modern foods. You just don't. So you really do have to train yourself. You have to learn which foods have a lot of calorie density and which ones don't. And the big reason for that, why you miss it, is you don't— you don't intuitively understand how much butter or oil could be in some food. Certainly like a restaurant, processed foods, certain processed foods, junk food, fast food. You just— you cannot even internalize how many calories are in that food through the butter, through the oil, through the dairy. Those are very calorie-dense foods. So a lot of people, um, just don't even have that awareness. I certainly didn't. And once you have the awareness and you say, oh, I'm using a lot of butter or mayonnaise there, I want to use less, you know, then there's the process of actually getting yourself to do it. I always say like, like managing your weight really is a 2-part process. You need to know what to do and you need to be able to get yourself to do it. And that's where Program Yourself then is really focused on. This is the goal weight blueprint right here, what I'm holding. So this is the what to do, right, where you create a customized plan for yourself to live at your goal weight. But the other half of the program is how to program yourself to get yourself to actually do it. But yes, um, being able to choose You know, mustard instead of mayonnaise is a classic replacement example. You know, but but I one of the big ones I've used with butter and mayonnaise is reducing. I have found that I can use way less butter and mayonnaise and still enjoy the food, and that's been a huge thing. So again, I use all three. Sometimes I cut it out completely. Sometimes I replace it with something else. Sometimes I reduce it, and I have those options available to me. But yes. A big part of managing your weight is understanding nutrition, understanding the calorie density of foods, and understanding their alternatives, options you have. And that just takes learning, it takes practice, um, and that part is a skill, a knowledge piece for sure. Um, Carolyn says, yeah, I don't think I could eat 7 donuts. Yes, people, people have different eating patterns, I will tell you, you know. So yes, we all have different— we're all different. That's That's why we all need our— our kind of customized plan, 'cause we— we can't— again, that's what bothers me so much about dieting. Dieting is kinda like this one-size-fits-all concept where one diet is supposed to work for everyone. And, uh, I can tell you after doing over 6,000 private weight loss sessions that you need more than one approach, right? There are just so many different types of people, so many different types of situations. You have to really create a one-size-fits-one plan for you personally. I— I truly believe that. Yeah. Um, Audrey says, I reduced my morning coffee with French vanilla creamer. I now drink half, refrigerate the rest for the next day. I still get my coffee the way I want. That's perfect. That's perfect, Audrey. That's what I'm talking about. That's the fun game to play. Again, reduction's the game, I would say. And the game is, how can I reduce— I'll give you an example with butter. I certainly have done this with butter in my life, um, cut it down tremendously, even to the point that I found if I'm eating bread with butter, the I can put a lot less butter on it, but simultaneously, if I put the butter on my tongue as I'm eating it, I can't tell. I really can't tell because I'm getting— it's butter forward, right? So I'm putting butter right on my tongue. So I'm using way less butter, but I'm putting it right on my tongue. So that's a strategy that served me very well. I don't feel like I'm missing out at all, but I am cutting literally hundreds of calories that way, you know? And I've done the same thing with mayonnaise. Now, again, I'm not— I'm not depriving myself. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. So I'm still getting the flavor of that. But I'm getting it in a way smaller package, and a lot of that was just awareness. I don't need this much of it to get the flavor and the enjoyment out of it. So to me, that's a very comfortable way to reduce your calories, and I don't think most dieters look for that. Again, most dieters—they're just going in there and just hacking real quick because they just want instant results. But if you take your time and do this more strategically, you can get way better results because again, the results you truly want anyways. don't— you can't just get them in a week, you know. You just can't. You can't get them in a month. The results you truly want come 6 months from now, a year from now, 5 years from now. Compounded improvements. That's what you really want. There is no instant fix. There just isn't. The GLP-1 people are finding this out, you know. You may lose weight. That's not really what you want though. There's more to it than even just the weight and the number. You can believe that. Yeah, the morning coffees. For a lot of people, the morning coffee is definitely a thing, right? And, um, that's because they ain't coffees anymore. They're morning milkshakes. Let's be honest, right? What's a milkshake? A milkshake, right, is coffee cream and sugar, right? Ice cream, you know, and sugar. Um, and that's what— what the coffee is basically a milkshake, you know, but instead of ice cream, it's milk. And then there's sugar in it. So— so it's again, it's deconstructed ice cream milkshake. And, uh, that's what a lot of people's coffee is at this point. And again, if you're drinking that, oh my goodness, and especially if you're getting one from a place, it is a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of calories. And on top of that, just to get into liquid calories, liquid calories, your body doesn't even measure the calories in them because historically, evolutionarily, there were no liquid calories. You didn't drink calories, right? This is kind of a new thing. And so now our body is not good at measuring the liquid calories, and you don't get the satiety from it. So, you know, again, you could drink a 300-calorie coffee drink or eat 300 calories of whole natural food. Well, they're both 300 calories, but one is going to trigger you to eat more food, and one of them is going to satiate you and satisfy you and cause you to feel fuller. Quiet your food noise, and you know support you making healthier choices naturally. So again, understanding the even beyond just the caloric density and the caloric piece of the food puzzle, it's also understanding the other factors as well that that all contribute to the whole. Again, I believe I don't believe there's any. This is one of my biggest nitpicky. That's not nicky. One of my biggest. You know, issues with diets is they're really built around changing one big thing. Like if you just like if you just stop eating for sixteen hours a day, there you go. You'll lose weight. You stop eating carbs. There you go. You'll lose weight. You start tracking every point. You'll lose weight. You start taking a GLP. You'll lose weight. But I have never seen one single solution to living at your goal weight long term, and I've studied hundreds and hundreds of people have lost weight and stayed there for at least two years. I've never seen any of those people do just one thing. It becomes a holistic, comprehensive thing that involves lots of stuff, and I don't want that to scare you off, okay? Because it's the real path forward. Uh, Cherry says, I do that with my salad dressing. I stick my fork in dressing, then eat my bite instead of pouring dressing all over my salad. That's brilliant, Cherry. That's what I mean. That is— again, you get the flavor, but you have reduced calories by potentially 70-80% doing it that way. Maybe that's a little overstated, but again, in dressing, I don't want you to ever do— I always say too, let me just say a quick note on dressing, because people get very like, uh, people are so funny with the dressing because I made a video one time. I said I'd use hot fudge for dressing if it would get me to eat more salad. So again, I don't want you to reduce salad dressing to the point that you don't want to eat a salad, because I think you're better off if you get extra calories from your dressing. If you're still eating a salad, it's worth it. Okay, so I promise you there's other calorie-dense things you're doing that would require your focus and could use your focus more. But that's a great strategy. And again, another one I use in terms of salad dressing: when I make a salad, I put in a bowl and I'll dress it in the bowl and then mix it all up. Okay, because again, I mean, how are we taught to eat salad, right? We pour it on the top. Okay, well, that layer was great, and now I'm just got lettuce. So pour more. That's a way to maximize salad dressing. Use, okay? And so Cherry's idea and what I do with mixing the bowl around are two ways to reduce salad dressing use in a way that's still comfortable and you still get to enjoy yourself. And that again is the real secret. So I don't want you to get caught up on the tactic of how oh use a bowl with salad dressing. Oh got it. Yes, appreciate that and use that. But take a step back and what are other areas of your life you could use that exact thing for? What can you? Because first you got to know you got to know the calorie dense food you're consuming regularly. You got to know what those are, and a lot of people don't. Because again, a lot of times the calories are coming in in ways that they're not really seeing. I, I can't— there's almost never a person I've worked with who is really accurate with what the calories were coming in. So you might be one of them, okay? But don't believe that. Test it out, you know, because a lot of times calories can slip by us, and if we can't see it, we can't fix it. So stay extra aware of where the calories are coming from, and that sets you up to be able to change that. Okay, but first step is awareness. So, all right, I'm gonna get out of here. I got a kind of a busy day here. So again, if you're not in my world, please click the link in my bio, um, or go to programyourselfthin.com and go get the free hypnosis session I made for you. Um, I got something really cool coming for you guys tomorrow, um, completely free. Can't wait to show you. Uh, and if you are over on Facebook, you can type mind, M-I-N-D, uh, into the comments and you will get messaged, uh, how to get this Hypnosis session for free. Again, completely free, and I give you a bunch of stuff anyways. So go check that out again. Mind mind in the comments if you're at Facebook. You can go to program yourself then or go to my bio if you're anywhere else seeing this. So this is also a podcast. If you I'm here every Monday through Friday anyways. If you have any questions, pop in here, ask them. I'd love to help you out. If you can't make the live, it's also a podcast you can listen to anytime you want. Um, and go check that out. I see, Al, I saw you write mine. TikTok, that doesn't work. If you're on TikTok, you click the little picture of me up in the top left, um, and you'll see a link right in the bio. Click that, it'll bring you there. It'll take you 2 seconds to fill it out. You'll have it in, um, 2 minutes. And, uh, you can do that. And so yeah, this is also a podcast. You can go search Program Yourself anywhere. Um, geez, I think we got over 800 episodes right now. So, uh, go check that out. All right, everyone have a super duper day and we'll talk soon. Bye.