Motivating Yourself To Lose Weight

Motivating yourself to lose weight. This is the first thing you need to do to successfully lose weight, and it deserves to be seen as its own little phase because I think a lot of people just blast through motivation and just expect that when they start— because usually when people start their weight loss, they're motivated by pain. They step on the scale, see a picture of themselves, someone says something rude, something causes a lot of pain in the person, and they say, that's it, I'm going to change this, and they jump into whatever plan they use. But that's not enough motivation to get you to the finish line. Please understand this: the motivation to start is not the same motivation you need to finish. And so what most people experience is starting weight loss really quick out the gate, following the plan perfectly for a couple days, a couple weeks, sometimes a couple months, but that's it. The motivation doesn't last. It doesn't serve you long term. So motivation needs to be seen as its own little phase and category. And you need to increase the motivation you're starting with and understand what exactly is motivating you in the first place, because you're going to need to manage your motivation the whole process as well. Not here to freak you out with that, but think about it. In the past, again, you've started off with this crazy motivation. It always ends up going back down. So you need to learn how to manage your motivation. It all starts in the beginning. And it starts with one big distinction that the motivation that's really going to power you is not just about what you look like. And that's the big lie you've been sold through the diet industry your entire life, is that wanting to look a certain way, wanting to wear the skinny jeans, the bathing suit to the beach, having some visual goal of what you want to look like in pictures at the wedding is enough to get you to your goal weight and keep you there. And it rarely is. So we're going to keep that motivation, right? We're going to keep the motivation you already have. Yes, you want to look better. Great. You've thought that about that so much. You don't need to worry about that right now. That's there. Leave it. But let's build you deeper motivation that's going to last. And the way you do that is you start focusing on what we call intrinsic motivation. So focusing on how you look is extrinsic because it's based on other people saying, wow, you look great. If you're the only last person on the planet, you may not care about losing weight, right? If all you care about is what other people are going to think about how you look, not enough motivation. We want to find the intrinsic motivators, and that's simple to do because you start with the things you're already motivated at into your life. What are the things you're most motivated about? Not even the things you're most passionate about, the things you're most motivated about. The easy way to look at that is what are things in your life you do No matter how you feel, right? You wake up tired, you still go to work. You're not feeling good, you still take care of your kid. You're kind of in a bad mood, you still, you know, stay married to your partner or with your partner. So there are deeper motivations in your life that allow you to get through difficult times. And so we want to start with what's motivating in your life. It might be your kids, your partner, your relationships, your friendships, your work, your personal development. Your health, whatever it is, we start building your weight loss motivation around those things. Because whatever is most important to you in your life, the way that you're eating and the way you're living, which is what's in control of your weight, is simultaneously in control of your quality of life and your ability to show up with the things that matter most to you in your life. So if being a parent, being a great parent, is really motivating to you, We start looking at how is the weight, the lifestyle, the eating affecting my ability to be the parent I want to be. Now, all of a sudden, we widen our perspective here and we realize that losing weight is not just about looking better in a picture. It's about you being able to show up more for your kids, more for your partner, more for yourself, more for your work, more for whatever is interesting to you and important to you, because the way you show up for those things is directly related to how you eat and how you live. So again, the same things that cause your quality of life are affecting your weight. So now we start to get more motivated to do the right things that affect our weight positively, but they simultaneously look at and we say they're also going to help me with work, with parenting, with being a better partner, whatever is important to you. And the more you start to focus in on this and start to define your weight loss success as your success in your life with the things that matter most to you, you give it more meaning, and more meaning leads to more motivation. Because again, we're still wanting to look good, but what's happening is we have a deeper level now where we start to realize that I don't— I'm not going to say no to the ice cream because it's going to make me gain weight. I'm going to say no to the ice cream because I want to sleep well tonight. I want to wake up tomorrow clear-headed, energized, and able to focus and be the person I want to be. And when we start to weave our weight loss goals into what's already important to us, this is how we start to reframe the process. So it doesn't become about, oh, I'm just gonna eat better so I can lose some weight and look better in a picture. Not enough motivation. I'm gonna eat this way so that I can be the person I want to be. I can have the relationships I want to have, the job I want to have, the whatever. Insert your motivation in there. And the more you start to think this way, the more the whole process starts to transform. You bring more motivation in. And motivation makes the whole thing a lot easier. You know, it's kind of like the engine size of your car. If you're driving around with a lawnmower engine in your car, it's hard to get up the hill. But if you've got an oversized engine, it's easy to get up the hill. And this is an area that most people overlook with their weight loss and just assume, oh, okay, my motivation's high now, so it ought to last. Well, it won't. So you've got to master your motivation, and this is a way to get started to do that. And if you take a moment right now Let me take to help you take it one step deeper, because it's one thing to have this conceptual idea of what I just said of having more motivation; it's another to feel it firsthand. And if you take a second and you relax your body, relax your shoulders, your chest, your stomach, connect to your breathing, let the exhales become longer than the inhales, and just ground yourself. And now imagine areas of your life that are really important to you. Again, typically it's relationships, your kids, your partner, your parents, your friends. That's usually at the top of the list. Your work, ability to support yourself, your goals. Maybe you're in school, or maybe you're learning things. Maybe you're interested in hobbies. Whatever is really important to you in your life, take a moment and imagine that area of your life. How would it be if you started to eat more healthfully, more moderately? You began to hydrate yourself, nourish yourself, relax yourself, get the proper amount of sleep. Your body starts to slim down and you feel better, stronger, healthier, more mobile, more excited, more confident. How would that version of you impact that area of your life that matters so much? How would being that version of you— so it's not just what the scale says, but you living as the person who you want to be, taking good care of your body and your mind and your health. How does that version of you show up in the areas of your life that are most important? Take a moment, imagine this. How would you show up to work as that version of you? What would you be able to accomplish? How would you show up as a parent if you're a parent? How would you show up as a partner if you're in a relationship as this version of you? Again, not how you look primarily, but how you are, who you are being. How you're living, how you're acting—all of that matters. And the more you start to imagine yourself this version of you in the different areas of your life that matter most to you, now again we start to dive into deeper motivation. And the deeper your motivation is, the easier your weight loss is. So if you want to go deeper into this whole process, I made a free hypnosis session for you. It's called the New Thin Me. You can get it by clicking the link in my bio. Go to programyourselfthin.com. Or if you're on Facebook, you can just type Minden, M-I-N-D, in the comments and I'll just send it to you. So, uh, it doesn't get much easier than that. So yes, if you're in any of those places, go get that hypnosis session. It will help you go deeper with everything we just talked about. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. If you don't know, I'm here every Monday through Friday, usually talking about weight loss and all the different aspects of it. And there are a lot. I tend to say a lot of times that we're trained to think of weight loss almost as like debits and credits, like a bank account. But the reality is that weight loss is much more like the stock market. It is an enormous system of things impacting each other. And in Program Yourself Thin, one of the ways we look to address all of that and put into a systemic, systemic form Is with our goal weight pyramid: mindset, lifestyle, and eating. So in this approach, what we tend to do is we focus very strategically and systematically on mindset, lifestyle, and eating, and kind of diving into those different areas and improving them. Because when you fix those three areas of your life, it is a lot easier to manage your weight. I will tell you that. What's up, Pamela? How's it going? Yeah, where are we at here? Monday. Get my bearings. Last week was kind of a crazy week. I don't know, I hope everyone else is having a nice week here. I don't give a fuck says, I— how can I stop viewing— how can I stop viewing sugar and healthy foods as treats? Um, I don't think you can necessarily. You know, if you're talking about seeing it as a reward, that's a little bit of a different thing. That might be what you mean. Um, but In Program Yourself Thin, we see treats, rewards. I mean, it's kind of there. We call them pleasure meals, pleasure meals, pleasure days. But we don't try and get rid of pleasure days. We get good at them, if that makes sense. I don't know how we would ever live in a reality where we don't have treats or rewards for things or foods that we really look forward to eating. I don't know. what that reality would look like. And I think the idea that we're going to live in a reality where there's no such thing as treats, there's no such thing as ice cream or cookies or brownies or cake or bakery pastry goods— I, I don't know how we would ever live in a reality where we would just see those foods and just not see them as something different than a carrot or, uh, you know, a bunch of celery. So in programming yourself, then we accept that yes, there are foods— we refer to it a few different ways, but one way is kind of fuel and fun, right? And so we respect that there's some foods we make the decision it's more about fun, right? I go— I went to a Greek festival this week and I got these things called loukoumades, and they're kind of like fried dough balls with honey in them and cinnamon on top of them. They're so good, and you really can't get me. So that to me is a real treat. I would never eat those every night after dinner. Okay. But it's literally once a year, once every few year thing. And so it's kind of a treat. It's a fun food. It's— there's not a lot of fuel going on. There's not a lot of good nourishment going on. That's not what they're built for. They're built for fun. And so I recognize that dynamic and I see food a lot of times on that scale, that spectrum of fun over to fuel. Right, where again the salad I'll have in a few minutes with greens and carrots and celery and tomatoes and radishes and peppers, all that—that's a real fuel-based meal. Do I enjoy it? Yeah, I enjoy it. Do I enjoy it as the Luca Modas, the honey fried honey balls? No, no, I don't. I enjoy the fried honey balls way more taste-wise. Okay, so I make a big distinction between fun and fuel, pleasure and clean. But then I go to work on engineering the best combination of those two things so that I can get to my goal weight. So kind of out of hand, I don't really know. I don't know how you would stop viewing sugar and healthy foods as treats. They're always just that's what they are by definition. I think you can manage how you view them and how you consume them so that you are more balanced and more able to be what you want to weigh. you know, while you still have treats. A life without treats or pleasure, I think, is a life most people are not going to live, you know. So it's a reframe. I, I think I get what you're saying, but I would reframe it. Uh, he says, I love these, I, uh, had them in Naxos. Okay. Yep, I look at it as an inflammatory food. Okay, I see what you mean. Thank you. Yeah, an inflammatory food I think is fair. But I don't like inflammatory because, see, I think when we try and demonize pleasure foods— I'm just gonna use my language, fun foods, pleasure foods, that's just what we use here in the program. But when you try and demonize them, and that's what inflammatory does, you know, not— and I'm not saying it's not true, by the way. Please understand, when I eat fried honey balls, I know, I know that I could give you a whole story on what they're doing to my body that's not positive. So I'm well aware of the impacts of that. But I also realize that I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna live a life where I never eat those, where I never eat foods that are really about fun and pleasure for me. I'll never live a life where I don't eat that. That to me would lower my quality of life. So when I eat those foods, I am focusing on the good parts of them, and I'm also focusing on eating moderately so I can enjoy them as much as possible. Because I believe the way I can enjoy those honey balls more than anything else is to eat them at my goal weight in a relatively moderate way. You know, so yeah, I go I go one step further, and I know they're inflammatory. I don't disagree with that, but I kind of I let that go, and I really focus on the fun pleasure of it in a healthy way because I think a lot of times moderation really is that X factor between you know is it good or bad? You know what I mean? Like a lot of times we pick a food and we say it's a good food or a bad food, but that's only one kind of level of it. The other level is the How much we're doing it. So if I eat honey balls very moderately, my definition of moderation is literally like once a year, once every other year. That that's fine. You know what I mean? So to me, because I'm consuming them so little, I don't really think about the inflammatory part because it's a rareish thing. You know, so I let that part go, and then I just focus on the enjoyment of it. Anyways, still tastes good. Yes, it just definitely all still tastes good. What's up, Pat? Pat says, Jim, I can't believe I did it. I'm so happy. I only ate half my sandwich for lunch. I realized I was satisfied, so I wrapped up the rest and still have it for dinner, adding a veggie. Pat, nice job. Yeah, Pat's in the program, just killing it, and I love it because that's what we talk about. Again, talking about moderation. Moderation is a skill. See, again, a lot of people don't look at their weight management as a process of developing skills. Because dieting has trained us to think of weight loss as a process of fighting against yourself with willpower. So most people tend to think of weight loss as a willpower exercise more than a developing skill exercise. And, um, that's a tough way to go about it because when, when you just do the willpower thing, you never get better at anything. You know, every diet ends up feeling like an endurance test to see how long you can do it for. And, you know, most people can do it for a couple days, a couple weeks, and sometimes a couple months. But when you've developed skills, skills at a certain point start to become automated. Brushing your teeth was a skill. Driving a car was a skill. Using your computer mouse was a skill. Using your phone was a skill. The first time you did not have that skill and you fumbled around. You acquired the skill through practice, and now you do all of those things on autopilot. Learning to ride a bike was a skill you developed, and now you do it without thinking about it. Walking was a skill. Then you can— there's hundreds of skills you've learned, and now you do them automatically. But you've never approached your weight loss as thinking about it as, what skills do I need in order to live at my goal weight in the most comfortable, enjoyable way possible? Well, eating moderately is one of those big skills, and it might be something you suck at now, but it's not because you were born that way. It's because you most likely have never practiced How to become a more moderate eater? Well, how do you become a more moderate eater on top of it? There's a couple different things, you know. So again, I'm not trying to be elusive on you, but, but to become a more moderate eater again and program yourself thin, we're getting you set up to be a moderate eater by getting your mindset, lifestyle, and eating in the right places. We want you to think, live, and eat like a thin, healthy, happy person. When you can do that It becomes a lot easier to eat moderately. And moderately, of course, becomes kind of a, you know, a specific skill that you develop as well. But wonderful job, Pat. I'm super proud of you. And again, once you do that, that opens the door to being able to do it a lot more. Doesn't open the door that now you're just always going to do it automatically. So don't, don't think that either, Pat. But now you've got the experience that you had the sandwich, you ate half of it, the world still spun the next day. It led to more benefit because now you don't have to think about dinner. You only ate half the amount of food and you still felt satisfied. So that's a wonderful experience to have, Pat. I want you to remember it. And so the next time you go into a situation where there's a sandwich that's set up kind of like that, now you can reference that and go into it with that expectation. And you have the ability to moderate more effectively, and you start to program yourself to do that naturally when you're around sandwiches. Do you see? Like, like that— we're building on skills. Nice job, Pat. What's up, Jane? Jane says, I was having a friend for dinner last night and just bought a small container of ice cream and shared it. Haven't had any ice cream in a few weeks. Yay! Nice job, Jane. Yeah, exactly. There's again another aspect of moderation, you know, and that becomes— again, Jane's in the program too, so, so Jane, that for you again is a skill. It's another form of moderation. You see what I mean? Like, again, it's another form of moderation. So it's like, for Jane specifically— so, right, so for Pat, it was moderating a sandwich. And again, it can be very contextually specific. It could be, you know, wherever you end up eating for lunch. If that's a typical place Pat goes to, to do it the first time is a big deal. Because if Pat goes to this place regularly, and now all of a sudden, 85-90% of the time that she goes there, she eats half the sandwich instead of the whole sandwich, That's a huge skill development in order to manage weight. And then same with Jane. Now hers is in the context of ice cream and having a friend over, but splitting that ice cream is a wonderful strategy. You got to have ice cream, you ate less of it than you normally would, and, um, it kind of works out, you know. So again, moderation is a skill that you want to develop, um, and it's one, you know, you got to maintain it to some degree too. You can have this skill and lose it. You know, as well, or it can get rusty. I should say, but once you have a skill, it's always easier to kind of regain it. I would say. Okay, girl says, "I think I demonize it because you wouldn't tell an alcoholic to drink in moderation." So I try to cut unhealthy foods off completely, but it's so hard. Yeah, but but I just I don't I don't buy into that equivalency. I think it's a false equivalency. I think yeah, you wouldn't tell an alcoholic. I don't think— listen, just let me just say this real quick. I've been doing this professionally for over 21 years. I've done over 6,000 private weight loss sessions. I just want to say that first. Um, so when I say that I don't believe that alcohol addiction and food addiction are even close to the same, I truly believe this. I find most people, when they struggle with their weight for a long time, can land on food addiction because it feels like the best Explanation, and I can't tell you the number of people I've worked with straight out of Bright Lines. Bright Lines really builds themselves around the concept of food addiction, and I can't. So the first thing they do is give you this quiz to find out how addicted you are to food. I can't tell you the number of people I've worked with that have scored a nine ten on that quiz. They're they're complete addicts of food who have turned out to not be addicts of food. You know, I've worked with a number of people out of Food Addicts Anonymous. You know, same thing. Um, are there actual food addicts? Well, of course. I mean, there's 7 billion people on Earth. There's always some people. But I think it's a much more outlier thing than people recognize. So I don't think that's a real fair equivalency. Um, but I get what you're saying too. But then you follow it up with the reason why I think it's a terrible strategy anyways, is that I say I try so hard to cut unhealthy foods off completely. And herein lies my What I think is the big problem in most diets is diet. Dieting is an all or nothing mindset. Okay, and so even what Loki is saying here is that I try to cut unhealthy foods off completely. No unhealthy foods. And if we got into what what you consider unhealthy or healthy, I bet we'd get very very specific, and there would not be a whole lot that you would be okay with yourself eating. And so, in my opinion, you've set yourself up for failure because yeah, you might be the healthiest person on the planet, but your quality of life might be down here. Let me frame it a different way. I don't want to be the healthiest person I can be. I want to say that out loud, and I want to say it proud because I think we all agree. I think you're all the same. We—I don't want to be the healthiest person I can be because that to me would not be the quality of life I want to live. I like drinking wine sometimes. I like eating fried honey balls sometimes. I like having pizza sometimes. I like, I like doing the things that people might say are unhealthy. Now I want to do them moderately. I'm looking for that sweet spot where I can eat foods that I really enjoy that aren't the healthiest sometimes and still have the health and weight and happiness that I want to have. So this in program yourself, then we have an all or something mindset, not an all or nothing. The all or nothing is going to wreak havoc in your life forever, in my opinion, because what you're setting yourself up for is a life where you never eat anything unhealthy. I don't think you want to live that life. I think if you were really honest with yourself and really granular about what your goal was, you want to be able to live at your goal weight as a happy, healthy version of you, and also be able to have some enjoyable foods in your life as well. That, I bet, is more accurate description of what your goal really is than this goal that you want to cut out all unhealthy foods for the rest of your life. I don't buy into it. I don't believe it. Who wants to never have the foods that you enjoy eating ever again? Now again, there's a huge dynamic, you know, a huge space between, you know, I'm never going to eat these foods ever and I'm going to eat them constantly every single day. But I find a lot of people think they're more addicted than they actually are. Um, again, just literally they're not good at moderating. If you're not good at moderating, you struggle with overeating food. I would go and mess around with the getting better at moderating first. There's a lot of going on there. Uh, Corbella says even the positive mindset versus stress mindset makes a huge difference on a life well lived. Yes, agreed, 1,000%. 1,000%. Yes, yes, sharing that experience on a person is great. Yep. Yeah, Olivia says all about balance. I agree, I agree. And that's what I think we want. I think we want balance. Again, I just think We can get so obsessed this day and age with certain things. And, um, again, go knock yourself out. Spend a life trying to eliminate all unhealthy foods. If you can do it, great, I guess, if that's what you want to do. But if you're struggling with it forever, that as well. I just don't know. Um, if you're struggling with it, you've been struggling with not eating any unhealthy foods, I don't know. What's up, Kent? The diet police are coming for you. I know that they finally found my location. Diet police are coming. Yeah, dieting's crazy. It is funny though, it's like dieting low-key is just like— we've all known it doesn't work forever, but now it's like, um, you know, we, uh, have GLP-1s and now it's like we just know for a fact we're able to acknowledge now and admit that the diet doesn't work. But program yourself is another option. It's an option that stands outside of dieting, stomach surgery, and/or GLP-1s. And, um, I have had plenty of people that thought they could never lose weight lose weight. Um, so if you think that's you, um, you know, at least give this a, you know, a look-see, a little listen first, um, and see, see if it's possible this could help you. I've been dealing with food noise for over 30 years personally and over 21 years professionally. There are ways to influence food noise, to turn it down naturally. Uh, see, Loki says, I know it's unrealistic. Yeah, so if you know it's unrealistic, like, I don't— I don't— that's what I'm trying to say though, right? Because I think, Loki, you're wasting a lot of your energy by chasing something that's unrealistic they don't even believe in. This is what I mean. When we set a goal for ourselves, it's like— I always use this example. If I told you, like, I know— hey, I figured out a way you can fly. You just gotta go in the— you know, you gotta get in a field so you got some running room. And you're just gonna flap your arms really, really fast and run as hard as you can and you'll start flying. Well, I can tell you that you don't believe it, and so you're never going to try that hard. And so when you set a goal for yourself that you yourself believe is unrealistic, you're never truly setting yourself up to reach that goal because you're not activating all of your resources to achieve it because you don't believe it's realistic. You don't believe in it. You don't believe you can do it. And what's underneath all of that is that you don't want to do it. That's the biggest piece. You don't want to never eat anything unhealthy again, and that is why you have never gone really that long without ever eating anything unhealthy. And so again, if it's unrealistic and you don't believe in it, you're wasting a lot of time and energy chasing something that you don't even want, most likely, but you certainly don't believe is possible. And so what I'm talking about here is, you know, how do you manage Your eating choices more effectively in a way that you do believe, in a way that is realistic. And you know, because once you believe in it, low-key, it's just it's a completely different game. It's again, you just don't believe in it. So you know, you're kind of half trying and sort of trying, but deep down you don't believe in it and you don't want it. So you got to resolve that. If that's not resolved, it's always going to be an extra struggle to achieve your your goal. Yes, Pamela says learning how much food you put on your plate is a skill. Measuring for a while and it helps. Yeah, again, and you can break everything down into kind of component parts. And I think that's a key piece of this whole process, is that we'll even take moderation, we'll break it down into smaller pieces, um, and it's different contextually. Being able to moderate ice cream at night's different than moderating, um, you know, the portion at dinner, or, you know, what you eat for lunch or whatever. Each one is contextually different, and I think that's another piece that's really important to understand. But when you focus on the contexts that are most impactful to you, uh, meaning you don't program yourself thin— we don't change everything all at once. I know you dieters like to change everything starting on a Monday. 100%, everything changes, right? Everyone start their keto plan on a Monday. No more carbs. 100% different eating plan, but that's a hard way to go about it. So in Program Yourself, then we're more strategic. We're not going to change all of our eating all at once because that has a low likelihood of success. So what we do is we strategically look at our eating patterns and we pick the habits, the routines, the patterns that are responsible for the most calories coming in. So for me, my biggest pattern that I started working on right off the bat was my nighttime eating. 'Cause nighttime eating for me, I did it literally 7 nights a week, and I would do it from 8 o'clock till 10, 11, 12. Um, it could easily be 500 to 1,500 calories every day, every night. So that was my first focus. I really began to focus in on that period of time, and I got good eventually. It took me months and months and months and months and months to develop the skills, the awareness, the skills, the understanding to get through the night without eating comfortably. Oh, could I have just stopped myself from eating? Yeah, sure. I mean, anyone can stop themselves for a little while, but here we're not just talking about for a little while. Programming yourself thin is about living at your goal weight. There it is. I'm so concerned with living at your goal, I wrote a book on it. It's my book. But notice it's not the Tao of getting to your goal weight, it's the Tao of living, living, living at your goal weight. Living at it—that's the big difference, right? Dieting is about getting to your goal weight. Living at your goal weight is about living there. So, so Carolyn. Carolyn says, "I agree. I like to have birthday cake sometimes." Of course, of course. I think we become much more moderate than we think we can, and I find a lot of the people that say we can't be, a lot of the people that that can't be. Say they can't be moderate. That's how well I can't moderate. And so how do you know? I tried, I tried, tried what? Tried what? Just controlling your behavior just in the moment. This shit's stupid, you know what I mean? Like, that'd be like if you never played golf before and I give you a set of golf clubs. Okay, just hit the ball right, swing right, just follow through and hit it nice, hit it right, hit it straight. Well, I can tell you that, but you don't know how to do it. So, you know, you can't just because you start a diet that says, oh, you know what I mean? Like, start a diet and be like, okay, now I'm going to be willpowered Is like again, it's like going to a golf course. It's like you don't have the skill. You don't have the skill to moderate. You don't have the skill to choose the right foods. You don't have the skill to stay calm and relaxed. You don't have the skill to be hydrated. It's not a judgment. I didn't have those skills. I developed them. But now it's way easier for me to live my goal weight. Pat says we are an Italian family and make honey balls only at Christmas. Oh man, you make your own honey balls? Don't even tell me about that. Start making my own honey balls. I'm still dealing with— so there's an example, right? So I started making sourdough bread. I'm coming up on a year of it, and I mean, I make a lot of sourdough bread. I mean, I make it like every day practically. And I've— I have gained— I will say I put 5 pounds on year over year here, and I think it's got to do with the bread. But I'm okay with that. That's what I'm trying to say. I enjoy the bread so much, I don't really— don't give a shit. I'll raise my goal weight 5 pounds, and I know it's this year. I'll figure it out. You know what I mean? I'll get the calories under control. I'll get my weight back to where it was. I liked it there more. But at the same time, I'm in a weird phase, a little chaos phase, because— and the chaos phase is, what, 9 months into it, 10 months into it? But I'll figure that out. My weight will go back where it goes. But again, we, we're living human beings. This idea that you're going to do a diet, this strict written-down diet for the rest of your life, is so silly. It just defies any expectation, and it defies reality. And it's back to what Loki said, really. And this is what you were were saying basically, Loki, when you said it's unrealistic is that it's not reality is another— that's how I confirm that. You know, when someone says it's not realistic that I'm not going to ever eat unhealthy foods. Yeah, no shit. It's not your reality and it's not the reality you want. But I find a lot of times people are aiming at not reality with their weight, unfortunately. That's why I'm here every day, though. Every day, Monday through Friday, I'm always popping in here. And so Again, if you're not part of my world, click the link in my bio, or if you're on Facebook, you can just type mind, M-I-N-D, and it'll automatically send you the link to go get the free hypnosis session I made for you. And not only did I make you a hypnosis session, I also put together a training called Reprogrammed. I give it to you as soon as you— it takes 5 seconds to go get the hypnosis session. You opt in and then the training's right there. It takes a minute or 2 to send you the hypnosis session, but in the meantime, I give you this training, Reprogrammed: How to Live at Your Goal Weight Without the Fight. 20 minutes or so. I show you the whole thing. I show you how to program your mind. I show you the reader rehearsal technique. Um, yeah, go check that out. So Pamela says it's nothing for me concerning snacks because I cannot stop once I start. Then it is all the pretzels in the bag until bag is empty. Is that cortisol snacking stacking? Um, I mean, it could be any number of things, honestly, but I'm just saying, like, again, I know a lot of people think they can't stop once they start. I, I get it, and I'm not going to argue with you. Okay, but what I am gonna say is, I mean, you have to understand my life. Let me just say it, and that's why I'm on every day. This is a mission for me, um, is to help as many people as possible live at their goal weight. And one of the ways I do that is do this live every day. I do it every Monday through Friday, noon Eastern. And I do it because the people that get into Program Yourself Thin are almost always overthinking, intelligent, action-taking people, and they've done a lot of things to lose weight and have lost weight in the past. So they're not scared to do The take the effort and do the work. A lot of my clients are absolutely hardworking people. The problem is that they don't have a system that really works, and that's why. And that's all of you dieters, in my opinion. You never been given any sort of system that really works. You've been given diets that are just they're they're so ineffective because they're just part of the story. Let me give you context what I'm talking about. So in program yourself, then we follow this is the goal way pyramid. Okay, mindset, lifestyle, eating. And obviously there's subcategories in that, but to me it's like a diet of like keto, don't eat carbs. Can you see that tiny little point at the top of the pyramid? That to me is about how much you're getting about how to lose your weight and live at your goal weight. You're getting like that much. Just, just eat for 8 hours, track every point, every calorie. That's like that much of all of this. It's virtually nothing. This idea that you're just going to do one thing and fix your whole weight issue is crazy to me. I can't think of any complex system where there's one change you're going to make. Well, you're going to be a golfer and you're just going to work on your drive. You're going to play piano and you're only going to work on your right hand. It's— you're going to be an artist and you're only going to practice lines. I, I don't— it's like, it's so crazy, this idea that the only thing between you and your goal weight Is an eating plan? That can't be it. The only thing between you and your goal weight is not eating any more carbs. Even if that was true, knowing that you don't have to eat carbs is one thing. Being able to get yourself to eat completely different starting tomorrow is another. And that's the big gap most people experience is that they have a sense of what they should do, but they have no idea how to get themselves to do it. Most dieters are relatively Aware of what they're doing that they shouldn't be, or what they should be doing that they're not. But that, and ultimately, is the main issue with weight: is that knowing what to do and being able to get yourself to do it are two totally different things. And you've never been shown how to get yourself to do it. And the answer to that is a more holistic solution than just telling you. Well, just don't. Just eat for eight hours. Don't eat for sixteen hours, and everything will be fine. Hmm. That can't be it. I wish it was. I wish this. I wish the answer was that simple, but it's just not. So back to reality. You know, we've got to acknowledge reality, and a lot of people they get depressed by that. I don't know why because because dieting is always promising this quick, easy fix. I mean, even keto is not easy, but it's, it's easy conceptually, if that makes sense, right? So keto is a hard thing to live, but it's an easy thing to understand. And so a lot of diets are built around this where it's— they're conceptually very simple, but to actually do it is, you know, practically impossible. It's like a carnival game. I always say it's like a carnival game. About to go to a carnival in a couple weeks. I'm not going to play their stupid games. But it's like, I don't know if you ever do that, like the the softball in the basket, right? And you go by and the guy's— he's throwing it in every single time. Every single time it stays in the basket. And then you go and, and it's like, boop, it bounces out. Like, that's what dieting is like. Sounds so simple. I don't understand. I want to win the prize. How come I keep throwing it so hard? You know, next thing you know, $20 later, you got nothing, you know. But it's no different than dieting. So, you know, I think that the first step to really mastering your weight is to realize Okay, this is um. This has to be seen almost as like a hobby. If this is something that you're going to live with for the rest of your life, because how long you want to live your goal weight? I assume you're saying forever. So if you want to live your goal weight forever, you can't just do a keto diet and then just live your do keto forever or get to your goal weight. Then what? Just eat normal again? Like I don't know. We've got to think about in a more realistic way. Back to low-key, right? We need to make it realistic. But part of making it realistic is acknowledging that there is no simple, quick fix to your weight. I mean, GLP-1 is not a fix, in my opinion. Does it help you lose weight in the short term to a certain point? Absolutely. For 70%, 80% of the people. But is it a solution? I would say it's not a solution. I'd say it's a That's what would be the word. I don't know. Well, it's like, it's a— I'm saying, I think a Band-Aid, but I know there's a more general term than Band-Aid. But it's, um, it's not fixing the core problem is what I'm trying to say, you know? Okay, so now you're not hungry, so you're eating less shitty food, you know? Is it, is it better to, you know, eat less shitty food and lose weight? Absolutely, for your health. I'm not gonna argue that. But are there things better than that? Yeah, of course, you know? And so, you know, there's just I get it. I get it with GLP-1s, and I think they're magnificent for a lot of people. But again, for the people that I work with, they they want more. They want more than just their weight to go down. They want their mind to be calm and clear. They want their lifestyle to support them feeling good, feeling healthy, feeling mobile and flexible, and you know having the stamina to live their lives. They want to eat in a way where they can enjoy the foods that they like and eat moderately so they can maintain their weight too. And be able to enjoy food though too, you know. And that's something the GLP-1 takes away to some degree. It's not, it's not the same enjoyment. So yeah, Pamela says snacking's me. Yeah, snacking. You can get better at it though, Pamela, I promise. Jane says, I find that what is making me happy is not the losing weight but more the gaining control that I'm learning from you. I'm so appreciate you. Thank you, Jane. Yes, I'm— I like the way you put that too. That, that, that is in a nutshell what I hear so often from my clients. Um, and listen, the weight loss is fun, okay? It's always going to be fun when you lose weight, but it's more being at peace with yourself. It's more— again, I always say in Program Yourself, then we take the weight loss rapid and personal development. So it's not just about losing weight, it's about becoming the best version of you possible, being the person you want to be. It's an inside-out process. So it's not just changing your reading so the weight goes down. It's not just injecting yourself so your hunger disappears and you eat less. It's about getting control of your mind, starting to understand how to talk to yourself, how to program your mind, how to get yourself to do the things you want to do and stop doing things you don't, so that you can get the results you want in lots of areas of your life. We focus a lot of it in weight and eating, but use those exact same skills in all the other areas of your life. And I think that's— again, it goes back to what I was talking about in the beginning, motivating yourself to lose weight. To me, requires that you see this as a bigger process than just your body getting smaller. There's so many other benefits you're getting out of this potentially, and so if you recognize those and make this about that too, I think you just tap into more motivation, which makes it easier. So appreciate sharing that, Shane. Carolyn says, "Don't take bag, take a portion at a time." Oh, look at you, Carolyn! Yeah, there you go. And that's how you— that's exactly it, Pamela, right? So it's like you start to understand that if I go and sit down with a bag of chips, I can't stop. But that's if I go and sit down with a bag of chips. What if I change it up? What if I put the chips into a bowl? Maybe I'll still eat the bag. I'm not saying none of these things are guaranteed fixes. What I'm saying is we start to understand the pattern of what we do. Because ironically, like, if you start to look around, you say, how can I get myself to eat the whole bag of chips even though I don't want to? will sit down with the whole bag of chips, you know what I mean? That's the perfect way. So there's other strategies we can test out to see if we can change our behavior comfortably. So good suggestion, Carolyn. Hey, Lynn says, whenever I'm told not to eat something, I want it even more. Exactly, paradoxical intention. Now, one of the key things to understand about your mind is that it does not understand negatives. So if I tell you, all of you folks here, get your willpower together and don't think about what I'm about to say, get ready. Okay, you get— you ready? You get your willpower. Don't think about a banana. Don't think about a yellow banana. Don't think about a yellow banana. Well, I told you not to think about it, and yet what are we all thinking about? A yellow banana, right? Because you had to think about what a banana is in order to not think about it. So your visual cortex lit up with a yellow fruit in your— in your mind, and it did it like that, did it instantaneously. So what do you think a diet is doing? Again, diets are not on your side, folks. Diets are there by the food processing industry. Weight Watchers was owned by Heinz. Jenny Craig was owned by Nestlé. Uh, the company that owns SlimFast, the same company owns Ben& Jerry's ice cream. These companies aren't gonna give you the secret to eating less of their food and managing your weight. They're gonna fill your head with rocks so that you're just lost and stuck for as long as they can keep it up. So yeah, most of us will When we're told to do something, we'll do the opposite. And that's what dieting promotes, because dieting promotes you willpower fighting against yourself and controlling it. How's that going? I again, as a hypnotist, I'm gonna do. I'm I got a whole book coming on this, but I'm gonna break down the hypnotic techniques and tricks of the diet industry. And again, once you understand that the food industry. Is really the diet industry, then it becomes very clear and obvious why they would do that. Because when you're dieting, it's really just like a training ground to be a binge eater. Geez, intermittent fasting is probably the best at that. I can't think of anything that will nudge you towards binge eating more than intermittent fasting. Now, if intermittent fasting works for you, great, then, then just ignore what I said, right? Because for some people, intermittent fasting is absolutely miraculous, incredible. They did it the first time like, holy shit, My life is so much better. I love this. This is a perfect way for me to eat. I love it. But that might have not have been you, and that's fine. You might have been like, holy shit, oh, I got through a day. Oh my God, I gotta do this again tomorrow. Oh God, I can't eat till noon. Oh my God. And you're counting down, you know, 8 o'clock, you start getting hungry. You're like, oh God, you look at the clock and it's 8:04. Oh shit, I'm never gonna make it to noon. I'm never gonna make it to noon. Oh, 8:06. Oh Christ, how am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Yeah, if that's your experience when fasting, uh, yeah, I'd suggest you Stop doing it quick. Intermittent fasting is just one technique, one little tactic amongst a bunch to manage your calorie consumption. And for a lot of people, it triggers them to overeat. I can't think of— if I wanted to make people overeat, I can't think of any other better strategy than making them not eat when they're hungry. So they're just revving the engine, you know, those last 2-3 hours just revving the engine, and all of a sudden the eating window comes up, it's like— and then you eat like that, then you're still hungry. That's the other thing, because if you're anything like me, as soon as I get into like really hungry mode, eating doesn't even fix it. It's like, it's like once I get into really hungry mode, when I get myself really hungry, I'm hungry for a long time. Even after I eat a lot of calories, I'm still hungry. I'm in that mode. So yeah, not a huge fan of intermittent fasting necessarily. Again, if it works for you, you've already tried it, works for you, great. Never tried it, go try it, see if it works for you. But if you, if you don't like doing it, if it doesn't make your life more relaxing and enjoyable and comfortable Then, you know, I, I don't know why you would stick to that. Loki says also you can't practice indifference to certain foods if you demonize them. Yes, yes, yes, exactly, Loki, because you don't have to demonize them. See, that's what I'm trying to say. Everything's good and bad. Everything's good and bad. Fried honey balls are good because they taste good and I enjoy eating them. They're bad because I didn't feel great afterwards. Both are true. In my life, I love feeling good, so I want to feel good most of the time. But also want to eat some bullshit here and there, and I want to eat it guilt-free, and I want to eat it knowing it's not going to you know make me feel horrible about myself and make me feel bad. And I still have the quality of life I want, so I don't need to demonize it. I'm looking at it with very clear eyes that the honey balls are good and bad. They're both. What do how do I want to experience them? I want to experience. I want to go eat the honey balls at my goal weight relatively moderately. Um, and occasionally anything more than that is, is not really up to my, my standards, not up to my criteria. But you're right, you're absolutely right about that, Lowkey. Yeah, good and bad equals neutral and equals indifference. Well, yeah, but I mean, everything's good and bad, so it's up to you how you think about it. You know, this goes back to what you're saying with inflammatory. That's why I wasn't a big fan of thinking about when I'm going to eat something enjoyable, I don't want to be like Whipping myself while I'm doing it, you know what I mean? If I'm going to do something I know is not the healthiest for me, I don't need to like focus on all the negative parts of it. Like again, especially if I'm doing it in a balanced way. I mean, we all do this, folks. We do it constantly. I mean, your phone, right? Your phone's good and bad. You can use it too much and it's bad. You can, you know, it does things that are good, that are fun. Everything is like this, and we're making decisions all the time, you know. And I think the food's no different. That I don't see, to me, a quality of life like if I could never I can never have a donut again. I don't— that's not really what I want. I like to eat donuts once in a while. Once in a while, that's the sweet spot. Let me flip it around. I'm gonna— I'm gonna low-key— the question I like— and I, and I like indifference too, by the way. We, we in the program, we use indifference a lot, very strategically and specifically. But, um, a question even before that is, how can I get the most pleasure possible out of donuts? A question no one ever asks. I know you haven't asked this. I can tell by how you've been asking, saying things. But you ask the question, how can I get the most pleasure possible out of donuts? But you pick ice cream, pizza, whatever food you've demonized. How can I get the most pleasure possible from them? And I think what you quickly find out is that the donut is most pleasurable when you're eating it at your goal weight in a Relatively moderate way, and so it really comes down to not just the food but also the behavior with it. So if I eat donuts twice a month, once a month, I get to I get to have my donut in my body too. How can I have both? See, I think a lot of people again it's all or nothing, either or, and that limits our thinking. That cuts us off from so many other options and possibilities that lay in front of us. And to me, it's easier to eat donuts twice a month than it is to never eat them again. I don't want to live a life where I can never eat a donut again. That's me. And he said, "I don't give a shit about donuts." Great. There's something you give a shit about, and the question becomes, how do you want to live with it? I never want to eat it again. Really? Never again? Really? That's fine if that's what you say, but I bet you would prefer if you could have it occasionally and be able to control your, your weight. And when you start looking at things this way, it's very interesting because what happens is you start to realize that you've got this whole category of unhealthy foods that I can't eat. And what you don't realize when you do that is that within that category of unhealthy foods, there's another spectrum. foods that are really unhealthy and foods that aren't really that bad. And so then you can start making distinctions there and you say, oh, the ones that are really unhealthy, I'm going to push those out less and less and less. But that was not that bad. I can have that more. That's another whole thing, but just about getting more strategic with it. Yeah. Yeah, the GLP-1 is a temporary tool. I mean, it is temporary. I mean, you can do it forever, but I just— again, I think, um, yeah, I, you know, it's not for me to decide. And I'm very GLP-1 friendly here. We have plenty of people in the program that are on GLP-1. So, um, it's not that, but it's just saying, you know, are you really going to want to be on this for the rest of your life? And that's— I will see. We'll see what people are going to want to do. Um, Yes, Pat. Yes, walk the way up. Yes, walk yourself thin. Nothing happened to it. I'm recording. I'm gonna be working on that today. So sorry, just got delayed. I got— I know, my bad, my bad. I got it coming though, got it coming. Yeah, that program might have to be for you then, Pam. Sorry. All right, I want to get out of here again. If you, uh, are not in my world, make sure you click the link in my bio or go to programyourselfthin.com. Go get the free hypnosis session I make for you. Um, if you're on Facebook, all you have to do is just type mind in the comments, M-I-N-D, uh, and it'll automatically send you a link to go get that hypnosis session for free. Uh, and once you opt in, I also got a training I made for you called Reprogrammed, uh, How to Live at Your Goal Weight Without the Fight. That is also free, so go check that out and, um, it will be waiting for you there. Uh, if you like this, I'm here every Monday through Friday. Um, I'm here every Monday through Friday, uh, usually around noon Eastern. And if you can't make the live, it's also a podcast where you can listen anytime you want. I see Loki real quick wrote, my doctor prescribed me naltrexone to combat my sugar cravings by blocking endorphin receptors. How's that working for you? How's that working? I just— I have not seen any good just chemical solutions. I mean, GLP-1 obviously is the leader of it all, but again, I think there's other ways to deal with sugar cravings. Um, now, by the way, please understand, I, I don't think you can consume lots of sugar and control your sugar cravings. I do, I do as well. I want to make clear. Um, yeah, not so great so far. It's been a week. Uh, yeah, it's— I want to be clear. Yes, the amount you're doing is going to impact the cravings and all the rest of it. So I think your, your reference to alcohol, um, or other substances, I think there's a place for that for sure as well. And I think one of the best ways to deal with sugar cravings is dial the sugar down. So, so I wanna make that point clear as well. But I think one of the easier ways to dial sugar down is to start having a strategy for when you can eat it. Because I'll give you an example. One of the most, um, important kind of food tests I've ever read about, food study they did, is they brought a bunch of hungry people into a situation where they would offer them dessert and they would have them say different phrases to see which ones help most with the cravings. So some people say, no, I can't have that, I'm on a diet. Um, no, I can't do that, I'm trying to lose weight, whatever. And the phrase that won by a mile that really actually helped people was, I'll have it later. So there's something about saying I'll have it later that seems to be most effective, and I think I know what it is. Because when we say I'll have it later, we're not cutting ourselves off from it. Um, we're still connected to it, we're just pushing it off. And this is really important because your brain actually has more wiring in it for the anticipation of pleasure than the experience of pleasure. So this is all about our dopamine system. And so when we keep the, the sugar, the treat out in front of us, we're still getting pleasure from it and we're looking forward to it. Um, and then we can have it. And that's a wonderful way to dial down the amount of sugar we're eating, as opposed to saying, compared to that, to no more sugar. That's it. I'm never having sugar again. And now your whole body and mind going to freaking out because you're like, oh my God, I'm gonna have a life without sugar. I'm never getting sugar again. Never, never. I'm never gonna have it again. And then you start overwhelming yourself and you give in by the end of the day. So it's a lot easier to start practicing. I'll have it then. I'll have it then. And start again. Start figuring out when you can have it and kind of building that ability up. So I know I'm kind of giving you a real quick solution to it, but what I'm saying is that. Yeah, this is— we've thought about this a lot in the program, um, and I wish you luck with the, with the, you know, the medicine. But as you're already finding out, it doesn't really work, unfortunately. So again, relaxing, grounding yourself, calming down, hydration, sleep, healthier foods, a better plan, better strategy, better internal dialogue, what you say to yourself, uh, more ability to program yourself. I don't want to overwhelm you, but I want you to know that there's a lot that's there to do that you've never even considered. You know, and what if, what if you did start to structure your sugar intake more effectively so that you could have sugar and enjoy the hell out of it, and you were able to maintain the rest of your eating and get to your goal weight? What if you could never have to not have sugar again in your life? What if you never had to cut out a treat ever again in your life? You could look forward to treats, you could have them, and you could do it moderately. You know, I want you to keep in mind that option is there too. Even though we never, um, never really consider it. Uh, Lauryn says, I finally learned to eat heavy for breakfast, even if it is dinner leftovers. Otherwise, I snack all day. I injured myself and I'm still not dropping much weight, but so much is changing internally. That's great, Lori. And again, I mean, sometimes— and this is the hardest part of programming yourself then— is we take what seems like a slower path than dieting, although at the end of the day it's quicker. But, um, initially it seems slower because dieting is just this, okay, do this and do this. It's this extreme thing that you're doing on day 1, but extreme things we do on day 1 that aren't built for us don't last long. So again, what Lori's saying here is that she's figured out if I have a heavier breakfast, that really helps with my snacking. So while the weight might not come off yet, you have resolved a core issue in your behavior. You have figured out now a very, very effective way to dial down your snacking. And so once you normalize to this new routine and see if it really does work for you, then you start optimizing and building on that to dial down calories in other places, perhaps. So, all right, everyone, have a super duper day and we'll talk soon. Bye.