Program Yourself Thin Live 4-30-26
Jim Katsoulis argues that sustainable weight loss means managing hunger with whole foods, not fighting it. Fiber and micronutrients in real food create satiety that processed foods can't match. He uses Transactional Analysis to help people replace the harsh inner critic that diets create with an adult voice that actually works.
Chapters
Hi everyone, welcome to today's program, Yourself Thin podcast. Today we're talking about the number one hack to reduce your hunger. I think this is so important because at the end of the day, you can't fight your hunger. And I think dieting kind of conditions you and sets you up to think you can and to think that your weight loss success is directly going to be related to how much you can fight your hunger. In Program Yourself Thin, we have a completely different approach to this, that we're going to manage our hunger. We're not going to fight against it. We're not going to try and ignore it. We're certainly not going to inflame it by over-restricting and starving ourselves. We're going to manage it strategically. And we understand that, yes, if you want to lose weight, you're probably going to have to feel some level of hunger. Okay. But we want to regulate that. We don't want to feel too much hunger. I'm going to keep a little vague. We don't want to feel too much hunger. What's too much hunger? Too much hunger is when you can't control your behavior anymore. Too much hunger is what leads to way overeating food. So we're looking to get comfortable with a slight level of hunger. That's the sweet spot. So what is the best way to manage your hunger? How do we actually reduce calories in a way that feels relatively comfortable? This is my number one hack to do it. And it's so important because right away we're not doing the dieting thing where we're going to focus on what we can't do, right? Most diets are going to focus on what you can't eat, right? Keto, you can't eat carbs. Intermittent fasting, you can't eat for 16 hours. When you're counting your calories, you can't eat more than this many calories. So this is about what you're going to do, the thing that you can do that's going to have the biggest impact on your hunger. And if you start doing this thing regularly, you are almost guaranteed to experience a sensation of satiety, feeling actually satisfied in a genuine way. And with the way I'm going to tell you how to do it, not only do you start to feel more satisfaction, But simultaneously, it usually leads you to consume less calories. And this becomes the holy grail of weight management, is to be able to relatively comfortably reduce your calories. And the way to do this above all else is to start eating more whole natural foods. That's the main thing. If you start putting more whole natural foods into your body, whatever whole natural food you like. You like fruit? More fruit. You like greens? More greens. You like vegetables? More vegetables. You like all of them? More of all of them. But the more of those foods you start putting into your body, you start to influence your body at a deep, deep level to be able to feel better. It's so powerful because if you are consuming 5 to 0 to 10 to 15% of your calories are whole natural foods, that means that your body is literally starving for nutrients. And when your body, whether it's starving for calories or nutrients, it's going to send you a hunger signal. So if you're struggling with hunger, one of the main things I want you to look at first is what is your whole natural food calorie consumption looking like? How many whole foods are you eating a day on average? This is really going to illuminate a lot of what you're experiencing, because if you're consuming less than 20% of your calories from whole natural foods, this is an enormous opportunity for you. Because just by adding more whole natural foods in your body, you can start to feel more satisfied and simultaneously those foods tend to have way lower calorie concentrations in them. So you start to reduce your calories. So this is the magic secret that very few people talk about. And you're really— the big benefits you're getting from eating whole natural foods, number one is you're getting fiber. Okay, so pretty much all whole natural foods are going to have much higher fiber levels than processed foods. So right off the bat, you're putting more fiber into your body. And fiber is the number one macronutrient, if we want to categorize it that way, that has been stripped from your diet because fiber does not process well. So it's been stripped out of a lot of the foods you eat. And so what happens is you don't have the fiber staying in your gut, right? Again, you're not absorbing the fiber. It's staying in your gut. So the microbes in your gut have something to feed on. And it keeps you fuller longer. It activates what's called the ileal break in your gut. It makes you feel fuller, more satisfied. That's the value of fiber. But the other thing you get from whole natural foods is you also get more micronutrients. You're getting the micronutrients your body needs. We've gotten so fixated on macronutrients that we've forgotten about the value of micronutrients. And this is why I say if your micronutrient levels are too low, Your body knows this and it's sending you a constant hunger signal because it thinks that you're back in the old days where eating more food, which back in the old days was whole natural food, is going to lead to more micronutrients. So a lot of that hunger you're feeling is directly related to an absence of fiber and a low level of micronutrients. And then the third thing, I'm gonna get a little weird on you. Is this concept of a food matrix. So there is a concept that whole natural foods exist in a food matrix. So if you eat an apple, it exists in a food matrix. The calories are bound to the fiber, the micronutrients are bound to this, and the way that we absorb those calories and those micronutrients in an apple, natural whole form, we're consuming energy. And this experience of eating an apple, for example, the smell of it, the look of it, the texture and taste, the aromas of it. All of these things match up with the nutrients that we're going to get into our body. And when we eat whole natural foods, there's a match, a nutritive match from what we experience kind of cognitively of what we're eating and what we experience physiologically. And there's a match there. They equate. With processed food, it's not so. You're getting flavorings, you're getting, you know, palatants, you're getting extra ingredients, additives, all these different things. And so what we're tasting is not matching up with what we're getting in our body. And it becomes a nutritive mismatch which throws off our metabolism. Our metabolism starts getting confused because what we're getting up here is not what we're getting down here. And that can, I believe, forget it. I'm getting into woo-woo land. I will take that. But it creates a foundational lack of clarity, right? There's a mismatch between what's happening up here and what's getting in here, and that just contributes to the problem. So the more whole natural foods you start to eat, you get so much more benefit out of it. So again, I'm going to stop talking here and just encourage you over the next couple of days, over the next week, really make an effort to put more whole natural foods in your body. It doesn't matter— fruit, vegetables, greens, grains, whatever it may be. Put them in your body and notice how you feel after 3, 4, 5 days of doing that. I think you're going to be surprised. You're probably going to notice your hunger's lower. You feel a satisfaction you have not felt maybe ever in your life. You start to feel more at peace and calm because the connection has been reestablished between what you're reading and what's going into your body. And it can be quite a shift for a lot of people, and you've got nothing to lose. So go test it out and see if it helps you. And if you want some support with this process, mindset-wise, go click the link in my bio and go get the free hypnosis session that I made for you. Again, you can go to programyourself, then the link in my bio, and you'll be able to get that session. Takes about 2 minutes to put your email in there and go get that. And if you are in Facebook or YouTube land, I will put the link in the comments. Go get this. You got nothing, nothing stopping you. It's completely free. It's my gift to you. And not only do I give you a hypnosis session, but I also have a training I made for you. And I give you a bunch of free stuff. So go get on my email list. Go check that out. Let me help you. Let me show you a different way. Uh, if it works for you, it could be life-changing. So yes, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. I'm here to do what I can to help you all out manage your weight, and at the very least, I hope I can give you some perspective on things you may have been struggling with. I do this all day long, and sometimes the kind of insights I have come kind of left of center, I would say, and they can be pretty helpful or profound. What's up, Christina? Christina says fruits that you can eat the skin are considered higher fiber than those you peel the skin off of. Yes, absolutely. Um, yeah, absolutely. The, the, I, I, you know, again, I, I think I love eating the skins and stuff. I, I like, like, the, the skins of potatoes, apples, you know, not oranges, bananas, but, you know, anything you can eat the skin of, I think that's just bonus fiber, bonus micronutrients. Why not? You know, so I would agree with that for sure. Yeah, yeah. But they're all great too. Exactly. And I think that's important. You know, I, I think that don't let the, the great be the enemy of the good, right? So, you know, again, there might be some ideal fruit or vegetable you think, oh, that's what I gotta eat. But again, anything usually is gonna be better than, than the standard American diet. Timothy says, is Metamucil good to take for extra fiber? I mean, like, it's probably better than nothing. Okay. So, so again, on the spectrum of no fiber, Metamucil, whole natural fiber. Okay. So, because again, it's not just the fiber. The fiber is a big part of it, but the micronutrients are another part. And you're not getting the micronutrients with Metamucil. You're not getting that food matrix and that, that internalizing that information in food form. Again, I don't know if I sound nuts to you all, but I think that's a legitimate way to think about food that, that's very valuable and true. So again, Metamucil is better than no fiber, but I think whole natural foods are infinitely better than Metamucil. I think you're getting tons of benefit from eating those. Remember folks, we have been, we've evolved on earth for millions of years eating whole natural foods. That's what we've evolved to eat. And there's a lot more going on. You have to understand we never even thought about food in terms of macronutrients and calories until the 1960s. No one primarily thought about food in terms of macronutrients and calories. That's not how we ever thought about food until recently. And don't get me wrong, it's a valuable— it is a valuable lens to be able to think of food in, but it really ought to not be your primary lens, in my opinion. I think the lens is going to serve you the best in terms of your weight, your health, and your happiness in your life is if you start to have the lens of whole natural foods and foodstuff, processed food, food, foodstuff, that, that dividing line is going to serve you better than any other food dividing line I can think of. Your carbs, tracking carbs, because again, by the way, if you eat whole natural carb thing, I'm going to assume you all know, you know, the carb thing gets me all triggered. I got to calm myself down. Calm down, Jim. It's not carbs. The healthiest populations on the planet, folks, eat high-carb diets, and it's unquestioned. There's no question about it. The healthiest populations in history in the modern world consume high-carb diets. There's not a— I don't know of a population on Earth in the modern world that consumes a high-protein diet that we would consider healthy. If you know that, let me know it. Please tell me the society. Please don't tell me the Inuit Eskimos. Please don't tell me the tribe out in Africa there. What society are we referencing to just— okay, I'm going to move off of that. But again, we, if we eat whole natural foods, that category in and of itself, it's pretty hard to go wrong there. Okay. Because that's going to control your refined carbs, which are the problem. It's going to control your sugar. It's going to control your blood sugar. It's going to control your speed at which you absorb food, your calories. It just automatically covers a lot of the things that you're trying to micromanage. So it's one of the biggest distinctions I think you can make food-wise is food, foodstuff, whole natural foods, processed food. That's the line. And I'm not saying you never eat the processed foods. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you most likely boost up your whole natural foods because if you're the standard American diet, then you are woefully lacking in whole natural foods, the micronutrients and all the other things that gives you. Know, so again, push yourself to— if you're gonna consume Metamucil, which is a new behavior, go that one extra step further and let it be in fruit, whole natural food form, fruit, vegetable, whole natural food form, you know, because again, you get a lot more benefit out of a little more effort. Um, and he says, okay, so whole fruit and veg is better. Thank you, more micronutrients. Appreciate you. Yes, thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Um, yeah, absolutely. Anything natural, in my opinion, is gonna be better than something processed, you know, and even Metamucil. That's what I'm talking about. Like, listen, I love science and science is great, but science doesn't know everything, folks. The big boom in GLP-1s was by discovery of gut hormones that affect our hunger. They just discovered that 25 years ago. There's a lot of stuff they don't know. Again, science is amazing, and what we do know is amazing. But there's— for what we do know, there's so much we don't know. So instead of waiting until they figure every single thing out, I'm just going to go with what we've been doing for a million years on Earth. You see what I'm saying? Right. So again, fiber, Metamucil, you're going to put fiber in your body again, better than no fiber, but woefully, you know, second place to whole natural foods because there's so much more going on with those and probably so much more than we can even defined yet. That's why I referenced the food matrix stuff to you. I'm getting a little woo-woo with you, but I would not be surprised if in the next 50 years, 100 years, this concept of food matrix described in a much more scientific way becomes the default setting. You know, that there's, there's something important about what we eat for reasons we don't even know yet. That's what I think. I could be crazy, but regardless, I don't think you can go wrong eating whole natural foods. Christina says, when eating fiber, don't forget to hydrate more to move things along. Yes, absolutely. Although there's another benefit, by the way, of the whole natural foods compared to Metamucil is that again, Metamucil, we've just taken the fiber out in a powder form. It's unbalanced. It's one thing when you eat whole natural foods, not only are you getting the fiber, but typically you're also getting hydration. Remember, throughout most of history, we ate a lot of our hydration because the foods we were eating had a lot higher water content in it. Processed foods strip the fiber, they strip the water because water and fiber don't process well. It doesn't allow the food to last as long. So yes, if you're going to consume Metamucil, make sure you start drinking more water. If you start eating more fruits and vegetables, you don't really have to worry about that because they already have a lot of water in them. And there's another piece, and again, this I think is going a little too woo-woo far, but there's this concept of like gel water, meaning that, you know, you can drink water from a pure stream and that's one type of water. But the water that is in fruits and vegetables is a little different. And I guess part of it is because the cells in the fruit and vegetables absorb the water and the water is considered to be a little bit of a different state than water you would just drink. It's more plasma-y. And so it interacts in our body a little differently. I don't have the science to really know that. I've read that and I guess I don't know. It's beyond my pay grade. But I think that again, it just points to potentially things that we, things that we just don't know yet, you know, that may be more important in the future as we start to understand nutrition, our bodies and everything else more. So, but yes, and but you can never go wrong with more water anyways, usually as well, typically to a point, right? To a point. So Dina, Dina says, do you like psyllium husk tablets to supplement the whole food intake and get more benefits from fiber? Again, I mean, to me, I like to eat my, my kind of North Star for eating is whole natural foods. And so in that way of thinking, I want things to be as natural as possible because I think natural ways of approaching things kind of has a balance. That's— there's already a balance there. So it's like if I start consuming more whole natural foods, I'm not really worried about extra fiber. You know, and it's just, well, how much fiber can I put in here? I'm not saying to be bad. I don't know enough about psyllium husk. So, so I leave that up to you to kind of experiment with it and see how you feel. But, but my, my, the way I approach it typically is that whole natural foods, in my opinion, they're already balanced with enough stuff. You know, that's kind of how I think of it. Now, I've never taken psyllium husk, so I don't know. But I absolutely have been successful managing my hunger and ultimately my weight um, by really building around whole natural foods. And, um, keep it simple, keep it enjoyable. That's kind of what I think. Um, Marta says, I agree, I can tolerate whole foods better, like grains, legumes, or fruit, without crazy blood sugar spikes. Of course, in moderation and paired with healthy protein and fat. Yeah, absolutely, Marta. Yeah. And, um, again, the whole foods, there's so much going on there that's supporting us. I, again, I go into the food matrix thing just to kind of— I, I'm always doing this. I just want to expand my thinking. Nutrition, I think, I think nutrition— it seems odd, right? Because even nutrition— I've had so many conversations with nutritionists and dietitians, and, um, I don't think nutrition's really had its day in the light yet. I really mean this because I think even with nutrition, we look at it under a microscope And it's like we see it so— oh, this micronutrient. Oh, this thing. Science does this kind of sometimes to understand things. We just keep splitting into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces. And I think that there's value in that. But I also think that sometimes with nutrition in the medical industry, and I believe Western medicine is a for-profit enterprise, and what drives most of their profits is not eating right. That, that's what's driving most of Western medicine is not eating right. Don't get me wrong, there are natural things that we would still have to deal with, but what is absolutely flooding the system is the way that we eat. Number one, no question about it. No question about it. And so I think that, I think that for-profit enterprises have a tendency to intentionally or unintentionally they got their biases. And so I think that they're in the medical system, in the Western medical system. I think that there is intentionally or unintentionally a lack of focus on the holistic implications of nutrition. And I think nutritionists can tell you about all the little details of what each thing does, but I think we're missing an overriding big picture concept of the value of nutrition. If that makes sense, that's what I think. And so again, experimenting with yourself, I think is really important, folks, because we live in a crazy world right now. You know, the world we live in— let me just frame it a different way just to really drive this point home. If you look at the cigarette industry and you think about, um, you know, 70 years ago when it came to cigarettes, most people I'm not saying they thought cigarettes were healthy, but they didn't really think they were that bad for them. And it wasn't until the science finally got out that cigarettes are directly related to cancer, directly related to all these negative health implications. This— the companies knew about that beforehand, but they sat on a lot of that science. And it wasn't until there was whistleblowers and finally the information started getting out there, then we start learning about it. Now most people feel different about cigarettes. But those cigarette companies, when they— then that all happened in the '70s, they divested and went into the food industry. So the food industry that we live under is really run by the cigarette companies and they're doing the exact same shit where they're sitting on the science of how dangerous this processed food is to humans. And it's just like the cigarettes, the value that the danger was underestimated and, you know, understated. We're doing the same thing with the food right now. And if you don't believe me, by the way, Nabisco and R.J.R. Reynolds are literally merged together. They're the same company. The parent company of Kraft and General Foods is Philip Morris. So if you don't believe me, go look it up. I'm not making this up. So these cigarette companies now run the food companies and they're doing the exact same shit. So my, my, the message I'm saying to you from telling you this is that, you know, it's 19 65, and you're a smoker, don't wait 25 years to finally learn how bad cigarettes are for you to stop, because that's 25 years later. And sometimes same thing with the food. And I'm saying start realizing how dangerous this processed food is. Now again, you can still consume it in moderation, but to be consuming 70 to 80% of your calories are processed food. Is a very dangerous lifestyle, a very dangerous one that's in the ballpark of smoking a pack to 2 packs of cigarettes a day. That's how you have to think of it. I think that's how I think of it. Take it or leave it. Um, so either way, all right. Um, what's up, Jane? Jane says, I ate really well yesterday and then a disappointment at dance last night caused me to feel sad. And although I fought it, I headed to the store on the way home And back to my usual Cadbury Mini Eggs. Damn, that's okay, Jane. Again, we don't want to look at— let's just look at the last 3 days, Jane. The last 3 days, percentage-wise, you have eaten a lot better the last 3 days percentage-wise than you ate the 3 days before that, the 3 days before that, the 3 days before that. So again, you're on the upswing, and just because you had a dip now, that doesn't wipe all that out, right? We got to look at things statistically, Jane. And at the end of the week, you can look at the week and you can know that you had these good days in the week, which makes this week statistically better than last week, statistically better than the week before. And the good days you had were not diet days. They were days that just kind of flowed. So again, don't let a mistake wipe out all the good stuff you do, folks. That's the biggest thing dieting's trained you to do. Dieters, you know, the second they make a mistake, it's catastrophic and they're totally blown off course. And Program Yourself Thin, again, we build around our mistakes because mistakes are going to happen. They're not a big deal. We want to think statistically. So this week here, you know, again, Jane, how many clean days did you have last week? Because what I'm hearing now is you kind of had 1 and 3/4 clean days this week. And last week, as far as I knew, you had zero. So if you have 1 and 3/4 more clean days than you had last week, that's like a 20% improvement. That's, that's pretty significant. And on top of that, the clean days you had just flowed. They were easy. They were natural. It wasn't a white-knuckle affair. Okay. And so you learn from that. You redo the Cadbury egg thing and the disappointment and how you could have handled it differently. You prepare for the next week to have the clean days you had and then maybe add a little bit more to it. So again, you're doing perfectly, Jane, but this is what real improvement looks like. Diet improvement is a fucking illusion. It's bullshit. Just gotta tell you, dieting is bullshit, folks. It's an illusion. No, you can't just change how you eat in one day for good. That's crazy talk. That's like saying you're going to learn to play the piano and be great at it tomorrow. You're going to learn to swing a club and be great at it tomorrow. No, you're not. Things take time. And this is an example of that. So as long as you learn from that, Jane, um, you get better and then do not allow the mistake to eliminate and wipe out the previous couple of days. Again, that's diet thinking right to the core, right? Dieters, isn't that what you do? You do great until you mess up and then it's all down the toilet. No, that's not true. If you eat well for 3 days and then eat terrible for the 4th day, That's 3 days of great eating that you don't normally have. What the fuck? How are you just going to eliminate that? It makes no sense logically. I know emotionally you get caught up in it. You don't realize it. I understand that, but it's time for you to grow up, folks. Yeah. Let me hit you with the big language. Become an adult. You know, that's an aspect of Program Yourself Thin. I don't get into explicitly sometimes, but a bit of Program Yourself Thin is really modeled on transactional analysis. And Transactional Analysis's core idea is that we all have kind of like a child inside of us, a parent in us, and an adult in us. And everyone has been a child and everyone has had a parent model in their life. Okay. But not everyone's had an adult model. And so most adults find themselves really stuck. Now, most you dieters are going to find yourself stuck in the dynamic of a child part of you. That's the rebellious little part of you. Part of you wants to eat what you want to eat. Then you have a parent part of you trying to come on. No, we got to do this real strict. And you did all mean to us, trying to force us to do the right thing. But you don't have an adult voice when it comes to your weight loss. You don't have a voice that's warm and encouraging and supportive. A voice that says, hey, great. Yeah, a day and three quarters of eating really well, way better than you normally do. And so you got some Cadbury eggs because you got disappointed and sad. It's okay. Let's learn from it. Let's get better. Let's get back on track and get moving. That's an adult voice. Okay. But you dieters don't have that voice at all. It's not your fault. You've been trained your whole life to think like a dieter, which is to say that you've been trained to get trapped in that dynamic of the child-parent voice. And specifically in transactional analysis, they call it the pig parent, right? So there's kind of a healthy parent voice and an unhealthy parent voice. Most of you dieters are trapped in the unhealthy parent voice. And the child, and they're just bickering back and forth forever. Right. And you feel that, you know how you feel like that, you know, you feel like there's a rebellious part of you. That's your child. And you know how you feel like there's that mean punitive part trying to force you to do the right thing. That's the pig parent. And most of you dieters are stuck in that dynamic forever. So in Program Yourself Thin, one of the key things we're doing is we're developing an adult voice in our head. I want to be the surrogate of that. That's what I'm attempting to be for all of you. I want you to hear how to approach your weight as a warm, encouraging, supportive adult. You don't have that voice, do you? None of you have that voice, do you? I know you don't. Don't you think that's a big part of why you're getting the results you get? Because you keep going through the same pattern. You get all fired up, like, again, like a child. I don't mean to hurt your feelings, folks, but I'm just going to be honest. You're like a child when you start your diet, are you not? Are you not? Is it not childlike thinking to think that tomorrow's Monday, and so starting tomorrow I'm not gonna eat more carbs again? I'm not getting any more carbs. This has never worked for me. I've tried this 50 times and I've never been able to stick with it, but tomorrow's different. Tomorrow's different. Santa's coming tomorrow. I'm not gonna eat any more carbs. Is that, is that an adult, is that an adult thing to think? Is it an adult thing to think that you're just tomorrow going to change your eating completely? 200 food decisions a day we make on average. You're just going to all of a sudden tomorrow magically turn into a different version of yourself and just make great food decisions starting tomorrow. Is that an adult thought? Is that logical? Or is that childlike, right? And then you have the parent voice trying to force you to follow it perfectly, and any little mistake you make, it's not good enough, and it beats you up and all the rest of it. And then you have the child part when you've had the rules put on you. So then you stick to your plan, you start your keto plan, right? Everything's going to change. You force yourself to do it for 3, 4 days, and then what happens? The child starts to rebel. The child's, oh my God, what are we doing? This is terrible. I want a cookie. I want a cookie. No, you can't have a cookie. I want a cookie. Right? And you just keep going. You flip forward, back and forth. Then you go and eat all the cookies. And then the parent comes, see, why'd you do that? See, that's why you can't lose weight. Oh my God. Does this make any sense, folks? I don't know, but that's how I think of it. And I think it's extremely clarifying. I think it gives you language and concept to what's going on in you all. You dieters, you're trapped in this, this kid-parent dynamic, and it's a, it's a path to nowhere. It's, it's a, it's a hamster wheel. It's a roundabout. It doesn't go anywhere new. It's just repeating the same thing. And you've all been doing this your entire adult life. And again, what I believe the answer is, is to create an adult voice, a supportive, encouraging voice that guides you through this process. What do you say, folks, when you're attempting to lose weight and you've been doing good and then you make a mistake. What do you all say to yourself? Is it encouraging and supportive or is it punitive and mean and, you know, belittling? And I'll let you sit with whatever your answer is, but I already know what the answer is, right? So I think that again, the way we talk to ourselves is going to have a huge impact on the results you're going to get, good or bad. How you talk to yourself is front and center. The reason why you're getting the results you're getting. And if you're a dieter, you're probably super mean to yourself. Farm Girl says, are there reasons why we feel hungry all the time, even if I eat healthy and protein? Yeah, for sure. I mean, first of all, I'm going to push back on even if I eat healthy, only because most of the time when people tell me they eat healthy, it's not what I consider to be healthy, just to be completely honest. And protein— protein is, is the, the it girl. It is the, the, the Macro of the, of the hour. Um, but eating more protein is not going to make you lose weight, folks. I'm here to tell you, it's just— Jesus Christ, they just ringing. I was saying this yesterday, it's like, my God, how can you— the golden goose of protein and weight loss. Holy shit, how can this be happening? How can we be 40 years after Dr. Atkins was on the scene? How can we still, in just a different I guess going straight to protein now, but it's like, my God, how does this not die? We just keep cycling through low fat, low sugar, low salt, low carb, high protein. It's just— so, yeah, I mean, protein, healthy forms of protein are important, obviously. Even if I eat healthy, I got to push back. I don't know what you mean by healthy because I find a lot of people that say healthy, they're not really eating healthy. And protein. If you're eating protein bars, folks, and you're wondering why you're hungry, because protein bars are designed to make you fucking hungry. All processed food is designed to make you hungry because you know how processed food companies make money. They make money when you go and buy their food and they create all their food in labs. You don't think they're engineering how to take the satiety out of the food so you eat more of the food? Do you think it's in any food company's interest to make food that fills you up so you eat less of it? So I don't know what eating healthy is, but anyways, even if you— okay, so let's just say you do eat healthy, you are eating healthy proteins, you're still hungry all the time. Then my next thing is it's probably an emotional thing. And so we can use food for emotional reasons. And so that would be the next thing I would go into. To diagnose it and get to a thing we could kind of work on. Whispers of a Soothsayer says, you dieters? Question mark. Yeah, you dieters. You people out there that think you're going to lose weight dieting, that's who I mean. Those of you who have dieted 50 times for the last 30 years, you dieters. Yeah, you dieters. You people that think that, that starting the diet for the 38th time is going to be different than the first 37 times. Those, those dieters, you dieters who think that starting Monday you can completely be a different version of yourself. Yeah, what's up, Incognito? Absolutely love that teaching, brilliant. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But yes, you dieters, I gotta see yourself that way because it's trapping you. That's what I'm here to try and tell you. Your diet mindset is no good. Um, Farm Girl says, I thought protein helped you feel more full. Um, sure. I mean, sure, protein helps you feel more full, and it does too. Listen, listen, the two, the two things that lead to the most satiety, right, satisfaction, length of feeling satisfied for, for a while, protein and fiber. But here's the thing, folks, you all are getting enough protein. The fucking protein is not your main problem. I promise you, the main problem for the average American is not that they're getting enough protein. You all are protein maxing. Are you telling me you're not hungry anymore? Is the protein max phase of 2026 causing people to drop weight like crazy? What sense does that make? It's not working. Why fiber is going to make a bigger difference for all of you is because Listen, you start 2025, the protein wars where you started eating this much. This is how much protein you need. You all started the protein wars eating this much protein. So now you're eating this much protein. Okay. But here's why fiber is more important for most of you, because this is how much fiber you should eat. You're eating this much fiber. So if you start eating this much fiber, you're going to notice an enormous difference, a lot more difference than if you are supposed to eat this much protein, you already been eating this much protein, and now you're gonna eat this much protein. That's not gonna make much difference in your satisfaction because you're already all overeating protein. Protein's not some magical thing. There's not— I ask this every day, prove me wrong. I would love to be wrong. I love being wrong. I genuinely do because I love learning new things. Any of you out there that love protein, tell me one single population of people, one population of people in the modern world that consume high protein diets that you want to have their level of health. All I'm asking for is one population of people. That's all I'm asking for. So as much as everyone loves protein, tell me, A, why are you so worried about protein? You've never taken a protein deficiency test in your life. You want to know why? Because it's impossible to be protein deficient if you consume enough calories every day. So why are we so worried about protein? Could it have anything to do with the fact that protein is an enormous profitable thing for these companies? Is it possible that protein is an enormous driver of profits for these food companies? Could that possibly be the reason? There's a lot more money hawking protein than there is hawking fiber. And I think there's no one in the world that could make an argument to me that in 2026, the core problem is we're not getting enough protein. Y'all been fucking protein maxing for 40 years. What were you doing on the Atkins diet? Were you not eating enough protein on the Atkins diet? Were you not eating enough protein on the keto diet? The paleo diet wasn't enough for me. Oh my God, folks, this shit has been debunked. I don't know how much more evidence you need to know that protein alone is not going to fix your weight problem. What the fuck? 50 years later? Are you kidding me? We're going to go to carnivore? All you're going to eat is protein? Based on what? What are you basing this life-altering decision on? What are you basing it on? Some fucking Podcaster, some influencer who's being paid to sell protein bars and protein powders. You know, I get offers to sell protein bullshit every single day. There's a lot of money being made selling protein. I don't see a lot of people losing weight eating protein. The protein paradox is that protein is the thing that's going to make you lose weight, and protein is the thing that's going to make bodybuilders the size of a fucking truck. Which is it? Huh? Which is it? Which is it? So yes, I mean, if you have no protein, yeah, you better get some protein. It's satisfying. Is protein more satisfying than a cube of sugar? Yup. Is it more satisfying than a bunch of refined carbs? Probably, yeah. Is it more satisfying than fiber in the form of a bunch of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, it's in the ballpark. But you're already getting enough fucking protein. You're all getting enough protein, I promise you. I don't even know you, and I know you've got enough protein in your body. Fiber, though, you got a whole foods in your body. Don't you find it odd you never hear about fiber? And when you do hear about fiber, your brain instantly goes to Metamucil. Psyllium husk powder. Don't you find it odd your brain never goes to whole natural food? You've been studying diets for 50 years. Don't you think it's odd your brain never thinks about whole natural foods as a, as kind of like a reflexive thought? When you think weight loss, you think carbs. You think weight loss, you think protein. You never think whole natural foods. That's the main thing that's missing from your diet. If you want to know. Yeah, I'm gonna calm down. I get all worked up with the protein. What do you want? I get worked up about weight loss stuff because the weight loss industry is a bunch of bullshit. A bunch of bullshit. Whispers of Soothsayers doesn't let you people— stop it, stop. Don't do that shit with me. You people, you dieters are dieters. I mean, are you not a group of people? Right. As I said, you, you piano players. Oh, you said you piano players. Is that offensive? Dieters are dieters and dieters are dieters. Yes, they are. Dieters are more dieters than piano players are piano players. Like dieters are a personality. It's a mindset. It is a programming. And it's keeping you trapped, I'll absolutely use that language. Farm Girl says beans, like on bean talk. Oh my God, there's a bean talk? But that's the problem too, because honestly, like, God Almighty, this— we live in this day and age where like, oh hey, fiber is good. Well, what's the source of fiber? Beans. Okay, I'm gonna start eating beans 5 times a day. No, calm down, calm down. Just a little more beans. Let's just slowly add this stuff up. Jesus Christ. That's the diet thing too, is that it doesn't matter whatever solution you're given. It's like, okay, that's it. You know, it's always like, we're gonna just max it out immediately. Calm down, relax, relax. You know, I can't even imagine Bean Talk. I've never seen it. I'm gonna have to look at it because I'm sure every kind of talk I look at is just always pretty eye-opening. Uh, it's so funny. Oh man. There we go. Peter says, from November till now, I lost 14 kilograms and I grow, uh, and I grow another person. Not sure what that means, but congratulations, nice job. 14 kilograms, substantial. Mandy says, beans, potatoes, rice, veggies are way more filling and satiating than any protein to me. Yeah, of course, of course. And again, protein's important too. I'm not saying don't eat protein, do you understand? I'm saying you eat enough protein. The— you're getting marginal benefits from more protein. You're getting outmoded benefits from eating more fiber and whole foods if you're the average American, you know what I mean? Again, I can't speak for every single person, but for the average American, it's way more, way more. Farm Girl says it's hilarious, people swear by the beans. I do too. I, I love beans. Um, but again, I just know people always take things to the level where it's like, maybe I don't like beans that much, you know? It's like, but I love beans. Beans really are one of your best friends, folks. And, um, Jesus Christ, I was driving around today and I see the gas went up 30 cents since yesterday, so I'm like Man, you know, that's all going to funnel down. The other message to you is that if you're worried about money at all, eating whole natural foods is way, way, way cheaper, folks. You know, that's another bullshit meme that's been put into the population that eating healthy is expensive. It is not. It is not. I promise you, my breakfast for the week is like $7 for the week. My, my lunch cost— my lunch for the week is probably $15. So don't tell me eating whole natural foods is expensive. It is not. Beans are as cheap as you can get. A can of beans, organic beans, is $0.90, and half the time it's on sale for $0.70. So don't tell me, don't tell me eating healthy is expensive. Eating meat's expensive. Oh my God, look at the price. I walk by the meat house, I'm holy shit, I can't believe it. And that's to cook it yourself. That's not going out to a restaurant, folks. You know, they're just wringing the money right out of you. I don't know what I'm gonna tell you, you know what I mean? We all get to make our choices in life. But, um, Crystal says, what's a day of eating like for you? Okay, well, I have two kinds of days. I have clean days and pleasure days, and so they're a little bit different. My clean days are really focused on nourishing myself at the highest level possible. That's the intention. I don't always live up perfect to it, but that's the goal. And so Monday through Friday, I eat the same breakfast. My breakfast is typically Ezekiel bread, which is a sprouted bread. It's a whole protein, natural peanut butter. And then I'll usually have an apple with natural peanut butter, drink a bunch of water. There we go. Okay. And then lunchtime, Monday through Thursday, I have a salad. A giant salad. It's a huge salad. I should show it to you. I've made a video about it if you're on TikTok. And that salad will literally be a bowl of salad, all greens, little small leaf greens, different red and green leaves all in there. Carrots, celery, radish, tomatoes. I might put egg whites in there. I might put chickpeas in there, maybe a little bit of high-quality blue cheese. Maybe a couple homemade croutons, peppers. That's a typical one, right? And that'll be— and then I'll have a banana with peanut butter sometimes after that as well. That's my lunch 4 days a week. Right now, my dinners are— they change night to night, but a lot of times it's a whole grain, beans, vegetables. Occasionally I'll eat some fish. Um, you know, that's kind of where it's at. But no matter what I eat, almost all of it is pretty much homemade. You know, I don't really eat a lot of processed food. And that's one of the most important things I can share with you. And it doesn't have to stop today. You don't have to— tomorrow comes, I'm never eating processed food again. No, start dialing it down. Start replacing. Monday night, I'm gonna eat a healthy meal, you know. Um, you know, Wednesday lunch, I'm gonna start having a salad or whatever. Start small and build on that. But that's the most important thing you can do for your reading, you know. What's up, Ken? Yeah, Ken says my local farm share starts this weekend. Oh, I hear you, I hear you. I, um, mine, the farm share too, folks. If you can do a farm share, it's amazing, you know. Now again, I will let you know because I remember— it's funny, my life— I remember, shit, it was 15, 16 years ago, I remember we got our first farm share. What's a farm share? Just real good, if you don't know, sometimes called like a CSA, farm share. CSA is community supported agriculture. Basically, you can go to a local farm, you know, fork over, you know, a few hundred bucks, and every week you get to go pick up, you know, vegetables, whatever is being grown. I'm very fortunate now because I have mine. It's an organic place and it's down the street. It's amazing. You know, it's just a whole thing. And I get to do pick your own there as well. So like, you know, when blueberries come in, you can go and pick the blueberries and they're amazing. Um, picking your food and eating it again, I, I think it's one of the most, you know, unique pleasures in life. Um, but yeah, the farm share is just a great way to put high quality solid nutrition into your body. And, um, yeah, there's so many benefits to it. Um, Intuitive Bestie says making bread is kind of hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a bread maker now. You know, uh, but I'll keep trying. Yeah, I make sourdough bread. I've been doing that for what, oh my God, it's been like 6 months now. I've gotten really good. I, I, I'm almost— I'm a master. You can't master anything in 6 months, but it's, um, man, I love my sourdough bread so much. Big fan of it. But yeah, it's kind of hard trial and error. There are some, some bad loaves. Uh, Marta says, replying to Jane, did you eat them because you wanted to calm your emotions or you really wanted them? I'm finally learning that I will have what I really want. Can't tell me no. But I ask myself, I really want something else most of the time, is the other thing. And I get that instead of food. Sometimes food. Yeah, nice job, Marta. Great questions, great questions. Uh, Marta says, what do you think about emotions while eating? I made a great experiment. I ate food which I will normally not eat too often while in the restaurant, socializing, having fun, great company, and my blood sugar did not spike at all. It was an absolute shock. Then I had the same food by myself, thinking that I should not be eating this, and within a few minutes my blood sugar was out of control. I think it's incredible. Marta, that's really interesting. I gotta tell you, I, I don't, I don't hear a lot of new things very often anymore. That is very interesting to me, Marta. I've never thought about that or heard that. Fascinating. Not surprised though, I will tell you, Marta, because now we're getting into the territory— I'm kind of talking about like the food matrix. There are, there are— I don't know what the word would be— like levels to life that we just miss. I'll give you an example. Um, multiple personality is really interesting. People that literally have diagnosed multiple personalities, because they've done really interesting studies with them. And one of the ones that always sticks in my head is that they were studying this multiple personality person, and they were literally testing their blood sugar. And in one personality, they had one blood sugar reading, and the other personality, a few moments later, they had a different blood sugar reading. And that was shocking to me. So, you know, I'm a hypnotist and an NLP trainer. So the power of the mind is always front and center for me. And I don't like to sit here and overstate the power of the mind. I don't want to be that person who just, you know, can make up shit and say things. But I do believe a lot of them deep in my heart. I'm going to be honest because I've just seen so many things that, you know, traditional science or psychology can't really explain. Right back to your point, Marta. That is fascinating to me. I, I will be honest, in my heart, I totally believe that. I totally believe that because I think, you know, our bodies are biochemical machines. And so when we're stressed, we have a different biochemistry. When we're relaxed and calm, we have a different biochemistry. And I think those two different biochemistries probably interact with food differently. So that's how I think about what you're saying, Marta. And I think it's fascinating to have discovered that. And I would explore it more. I think, again, those glucose monitors are really— I think the biggest value they offer, um, you know, outside obviously keeping diabetics alive, managing their insulin, is that it can really give you a, a clear sense of how your body operates. I think, you know, I always recommend people that want to lose weight, weigh yourself every day because you're getting way more consistent feedback. And I think the glucose monitors can be in that ballpark where it really it gives you a quicker insight to what's going on in your body than weight does. The problem with weight is that the time between eating and the weight gain or loss is too long for our brains to really keep track of. So, again, stepping on the scale every day, tracking your glucose levels. The biggest one of all is kind of getting more mindful after you eat so that after you finish eating, you pay attention to what the consequence of that eating is on you physically, mentally, and emotionally. That I think is the most powerful thing. But, um, that's really interesting, Marta. So yeah, keep, keep paying attention to that. Notice if you start to notice a pattern. Um, Jane says, gave myself a stomachache, so annoying. Yep. Yeah, remember that, Jane. Um, yeah, Marta says, yeah, it was shocking to discover that nicotine industries are involved in processed addictive foods production. Yeah, they absolutely are. Yeah. Yeah, I always say that because again, it's funny with the food companies, you'll, you'll all feel this. Again, it's not a judgment thing, it's just, it's the truth. It's a, it's what it would be basically. We all have implicit biases, and that's a fascinating topic. If you've never studied implicit biases, it's, it's mind-blowing, I think, right? In the realm of cognitive biases. If you don't know about cognitive biases, folks, you better look it up today, right? Because if you want to know what you're dealing with with this thing Right? We all have kind of wiring that we've evolved over millions of years that doesn't necessarily serve us now in the modern world. So to understand our biases, to me, is to really understand yourself at a much deeper level. But, um, so one of the biases a lot of us have when it comes to the food companies is we have these warm fuzzy feelings. You know, we think about our favorite, we think about our Oreo cookies or our, you know, Keebler Elf cookies or something. And we have these warm fuzzy feelings to it. We imagine, you know, um, you know, chefs in a kitchen slaving away the best, you know, recipe for you to eat, when in reality it's, it's, you know, physicists and chemists in lab coats coming up with the most addictive product. So if you start to think of the food companies as the cigarette companies, would you feel any different if Marlboro put some potato chips out? Hey, if Newport started making, uh, you know, menthol ice cream? I'm not saying you wouldn't need it, but would you feel any different about those products compared to the food companies? Probably because you have negative implicit biases with the cigarette companies, but you have positive warm fuzzy biases with the food companies. And that's, that's not serving you well. Okay. And they've done studies on this. That was a fascinating study where they split a group of people up in one group. They kind of gave them traditional diet advice and, you know, they helped them monitor them, coached them, worked with them. And the other group, they educated them about how food was produced, the companies, how they operate. And the group that was educated did better at the end of the study with their weight loss. And I understand it because people do not like to be manipulated. They don't like to be screwed. And these companies are screwing you. And the main way they're doing is they're hiding behind this warm fuzzy food, you know, store the Keebler Elves. They're hiding behind the Keebler Elves. They're hiding between— behind all their, their cute little marketing bullshit. But you really ought to see these food companies as the cigarette companies. As I said, they are literally the cigarette companies. The cigarette companies own the food processing industry in a big way. Yeah. Um, Diane says, confused about making a change versus what is recommended. Skipping my usual English muffin with peanut butter and dates to cut calories and waiting to eat lunch. Will I end up eating more at night? If 3 meals is better, snack on whole foods when hungry. Um, yeah, great question, Diane. I can almost guarantee you if you skip your breakfast, you're going to eat more during the day. Number one diet pattern I would say watch out for, folks, okay, is that the number one diet pattern I see— I say this all the time— the dieter will come up to me and say, Jim, I don't get it, you know, breakfast and lunch is going great, and but everything falls apart in the afternoon and at night. Can any of you relate to that? Ever said that, thought that, experienced it? Hey, I said, what do you eat for breakfast and lunch? Nothing. What do you want to eat for dinner? Nothing. Not hardly anything. I want to lose weight. But it's like, yeah, if you starve yourself and get yourself really hungry and weak, you're probably going to overeat, folks. So again, this is exactly what I'm talking about, that it's not about fighting your hunger. It's about managing your hunger strategically, logically, intelligently. And unfortunately, dieting's never even taught you how to do that. Most of you all don't even have a concept of how to manage your hunger. Think about that. Don't have a concept. Like, it, it's just a blank spot. When I tell you, you know, what's the Chinese— what's the Chinese word for, uh, you know, phone? There's just nothing there, right? There's not even a, not even a spark of anything. You have no idea. And when I tell you, how do you manage your hunger? It's the same. You have no idea. You have no idea how to manage your hunger. You know how to fight against it. You know how to manage it. Again, dieting has set you all up for failure, folks. Dieting is not there to help you lose weight. Dieting is there to keep you stuck being overweight and continue to eat the same way you do for the rest of your life. Dieting is just a branch of the food processing industry. Dieting is not there to help you. So yeah, you find yourself like Diane, who's confused. If you're a dieter, you're confused, which is kind of odd considering you've been dieting for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. You would think at this point you might have a little bit of clarity, but no, you don't, and you never will, because there is— the intention of dieting is not to have clarity. Dieting is there to keep you stuck, to get you excited and do some extreme shit for a little while and then go back to normal. That's what dieting is there for. So yeah, I mean, what do you do there? I would manage my hunger. I would Listen, here's the thing. If you can skip breakfast, then you can make breakfast really, really healthy, is my opinion. If you can just skip breakfast, use that energy to not skip it. Use that energy to eat something as whole, natural, and healthy as you can for breakfast, and then see what happens from there. That's what I'd suggest. Diane says, I love carbs. Can't just eat eggs without the carb. Yeah, well, our bodies love carbs, folks. We, we have evolved to eat carbs. We're carb-burning machines. We are carb-eating machines, folks. The healthiest populations on the planet are high-carb diets. You ever heard of the Blue Zones? If you hadn't, go look it up. Go look it up. Uh, Marissa says, I try to be very gentle with that child persona. There's a lot of hurt there. Yeah, I get it, Marta. And again, that's a— that's not unusual for people in the program. And so yes, we, we honor the child. We honor the parent, by the way. You know, we let the adult voice come in and help the parent and the child. That's the goal. We want all of them to improve, but you can't improve them when you're stuck in that child-parent dynamic, you know, which most dieters are. Um, Danny says, how many sessions to resolve the proper voice thinking and proper inner voice to carry me through? Is it ongoing forever or eventually resolved? How did your program work? Your teachings are brilliant. Thank you, Dandy. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's a forever process. I want you all to know that. And I say that front and center. I'm not going to pretend, um, the program itself is like 8 weeks as an initial kind of orientation piece to it. Um, but at the end of the day, yeah, you have to consistently manage your mindset. Now it gets easier and easier. I've been doing this for 30 years. I lost 50 pounds over 30 years ago, and it just keeps getting easier and easier and easier for me to be at my goal weight. Um, but at the same time, I still am paying attention because life happens, you know what I mean? And so all of a sudden I might get sick, all of a sudden, you know, a relationship blows up, or all of a sudden this financial stress comes, or this thing happens, or this thing happens, and it might blow me off and I might get caught up in eating a little bit, you know? And that's what occurs to all of us, but If your goal is to live the rest of your life at your goal weight, then yeah, it's going to be a forever process. And again, dieting has put this, this fairy tale idea in your mind that you're going to get to your goal and then you'll be done with it. And that's just not how it works. As long as you're alive, you're going to have to continually kind of maintain your mindset. It's kind of like, I guess the garden metaphor really is kind of appropriate, that it's like when you— if you're going to start a garden, the front parts it's front-loaded with work, right? You got to set up the soil, you got to make the soil, amend it, get it ready, go out, ready to plant the seeds, all the rest of it. But as— after you get through that first part, it's easier, right? Now, now you can move into maintenance mode. And maintenance mode is— again, now dieting has no maintenance mode, folks, because dieting is an extreme overreaction to lose weight as quick as possible. So the dieting approach is not a maintenance approach. They're two totally different things. So the idea with dieting is that you're gonna do some drastic extreme thing to lose the weight, and then you're gonna magically figure out what the maintenance level is and do that. And no one ever figures that out because 85 to 95% of dieters put the weight back on. So, um, with Program Yourself, then we start day 1 with maintenance. The whole goal is living at your goal weight, which is another way to say maintenance. I want to get to my goal weight and live there for the rest of my life. So how long does it say to change your voice and to put an adult voice in there and talk to yourself more supportively? I don't know. How long does it take to learn a language? You know what I mean? It's different for each person. It depends how motivated you are. It depends how much you engage with the program, how much you practice it. But, uh, you know, very quickly, um, because it's not even just the voice you talk to yourself regularly with. Um, it's really the strategies you have. It's your routines, your habits, uh, all these different things, you know, and in Program Yourself, then you get a ton of support to change that voice. Um, but I don't want to sit here and just give you an arbitrary number because that would be bullshit. Everyone's different. You know, but if you work at it, absolutely changes. And then on the flip side, though, and I want to make this clear, that negative voice never goes away, folks. The negative voice in your head never leaves because neuroscience tells us that you can't get rid of old wiring. So just like I could drop you off on an island where people only speak Chinese for the next 50 years, if I brought you back the 51st year, you'd be able to speak English to me. That wiring is never going to go away, and neither is that negative voice in your mind. Okay. but it doesn't have to. The secret is, again, I say this all the time, for me, that negative voice in my head is always there. It's first on the scene too. But what comes right after that is my supportive, warm adult voice that I've developed, and it talks me back down. Okay, so you don't need to get rid of your negative voice to succeed. But Dandy, what I would suggest is, um, I'll put the link back in the chat here, but go get this hypnosis session. That's a nice starting point. I give you a training. I give you a bunch of stuff. Go check that out, and, um, I think you'll find that it helps, helps quite a bit. Um, Serena says thank you for the good advice. You're welcome, Serena. Thank you. Uh, what's up, Nina? Nina said I've changed the questions I ask myself and it's changed everything. Instead of why I can't stop eating chocolate, I ask what would truly nourish my body. That shift moves my focus from craving to care. I start picturing fresh, healthy food and I actually crave them. There's a difference between believing and knowing. I know what a healthy version of me chooses because I'm already choosing it. I've lost 16 pounds, but more importantly, I'm choosing from a place of self-respect. This isn't restriction, it's self-love. I can't thank you enough. By the way, I eat carbs every day, but I listen to the mantras day and night. That's awesome, Nina. I just love what you wrote, and I really appreciate it because, you know, a lot of times my clients say things better than I can say them. And, and so I think that's the case here, that I, I just I just love that. And that's what we're talking about. That's changing the dialogue in our mind. It's changing the way we speak and think. And when you change how you speak to yourself and how you think, you tend to change your behaviors, and then that changes your weight. Okay, but it's a different approach. So thank you for sharing that, Nina. I think that that's beautiful. Um, Danny says, thanks for your caring advice, you're so correct. Thank you. Um, Martha says, I, I starve hour after a healthy shake with real food that I can chew. Yeah, exactly. Those folks, if you're eating, if you're trying to protein max and you're still hungry, if your protein is coming in the form of a powder, a protein bar or shake, yeah, that ain't doing it. That's not doing it. First of all, your body's not even good at measuring calories that you drink. You've never drank calories in all of history. So your body doesn't even measure those calories, meaning you can drink 500 calories of— you could drink 500 calories and your body doesn't internalize that you consume 500 calories, and so you're gonna feel hungry. Whereas if you eat 500 calories, your body experiences it differently and you produce more satiety. Now again, you could eat 500 calories of processed food, and that's the same type of thing. You eat 500 calories of Cheetos, you're screwed. You're going to be just as hungry half an hour after as if you hadn't eaten them. Now if you eat 500 calories of salad, you're going to be full for a while. Okay, that's how it works, and it's real pretty obvious and pretty simple once you kind of get your head around it. Um, so Michelle says, I'm mainly a protein eater. However, after 3 days of PYT before I went on vacation, I made more vegetable meal choices versus meat. I was actually more full than I've been in a long time. I did gain 3 pounds, but I walked and lived in my healthy body even though it's 50 pounds away. Well, 53 now. Excited to get going again on PYT, and thank you again. Um, for Jim AI. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Nice job, Michelle. And I wouldn't associate those 3 days, um, with the weight gain, those 3 pounds with the extra vegetables necessarily. It's just not enough data to make that clear of a decision. There's lots of things that could have impacted that 3 pounds, I'll say. Um, but great job. And again, if you follow that satisfaction, if you follow feeling healthier, it's almost guaranteed you're having an easier time getting your weight to go where you want it to go. All right. Um, Nina says, what makes me feel very full is a bowl of rice loaded with fresh veggies and chickpeas. My dressing is lemon juice with a great olive oil. Yeah, that's going to fill a lot of people up and it fills you up in a much more robust way a lot of times than just protein. Again, I love protein, but protein a lot of times is not getting you everything that you need to feel satisfied. It's not just about calories. It's not just about protein. It's about all of it. And a lot of you are sacrificing your micronutrient needs for more protein, and you're wondering why you're still hungry. Uh, Tree says, love your animation. When you make a point, you make me laugh, and your animation makes it stick in my brain. Good, good. That's part of the plan, right? Yeah, it said I'm all fired up today. I was, I was fired up. I've calmed down now a little bit. Just gonna be starting to talk about protein again. Yeah, Sheila says you make sense for sure. We are so gullible. But again, it's not that we're so gullible. I, I just want to push back on that a little bit because you have to understand when it comes to the dieting thinking, when it comes to being programmed with how to eat, it's been literally, folks, our entire lives. And it's been our entire lives being programmed by multi-billion dollar companies. You know, I always use this as an example just on the, on the physical side of things. Frito-Lay has a campus down in Texas. I think it's like 40,000 square foot, um, campus. And we don't really appreciate what we're up against. We tend to internalize the food companies again as having these kitchens where they're working on different recipes and make the most delicious food. We don't think of labs. We don't think of people in lab coats with pipettes and beakers, you know, doing scientific lab work to figure out what's the most addictive food. We don't think of it that way. So, so again, it's, we are gullible, but we're gullible because there's an authoritarian bias that we're subjected to amongst a million other biases. But we listen to these people without even realizing it, and they're constantly pumping bullshit into our brains from the food companies to the diets to the medical establishment. Again, I love medicine, I love science, but when it comes to weight loss, they got nothing for you, do they? Does the medical establishment have anything for you other than surgery and injections? Has your doctor ever told you anything valuable in terms of managing your weight? I know the answer is no, so I'm not expecting a yes, but I'm just trying to point that out that, you know, you really— we've all been given the short end of the stick when it comes to our, our nutrition, our health, our happiness, our weight management ability. We've never really been given a fair shot. That's literally why I'm here every single day, Monday through Friday, to share this stuff, because this for me is my— is a mission. My father died at 54 of a heart attack. So for me, weight is life and death, and I treat it as such. And that's why I am so passionate, and it's why I give so much shit away for free. It's why I show up here every single day to talk with you all and help you kind of think about this differently, because it's not fair. And the thing that drives me crazy the most is that most dieters beat themselves up. They blame themselves. For their, their inability to manage their weight. And I wish you'd start blaming the diets. The diets don't work. You're chasing your tail. So, um, Judy says, do you use salad dressing on your salad? I do. Uh, my main dressing— I've used this one for a while now— but my main dressing is actually a Greek dressing. Um, it's actually— it's literally made 15 feet down the street from me. It's so weird. Um, but literally this— I didn't even know they made it there. I looked at the— I was looking at the bottle. I knew it was local. I'm looking, I'm like, what? It's made— what? That, that's, that's down the street from me. So it's so weird. Um, but, but again, it's, it's decent ingredients. Um, not a million of them. There's no additives. All the rest of it's just, you know, olive oil, you know, flavorings, whatever. Um, and that's what I use, you know. Yeah, Marta says there's nothing wrong with eating chocolate. I found great company with dark chocolate only sweetened with dates. I have 2 squares after lunch with my afternoon cup of coffee. Um, along with fruit. Yeah, smart, Marta. Again, we want to maximize our enjoyment of food, folks. We don't want to restrict and deprive ourselves. That's a tough way to get to your goal and stay there. So again, I'd rather take the slower path where I figure out how I can have my favorite things in life and weigh what I want. I want to have my body and my cake too. I want to have both. And you can have both, I promise you. You need to learn how to eat different. You absolutely do have to eat different. You can't eat cake every day. Right? But you can strategically eat cake regularly— it's a relative term— but you can eat it regularly and weigh what you want. And when you start thinking that way, I think it opens up a whole new part of your brain that you've never really accessed when it comes to weight loss. Peter says, prep is a great part of my new lifestyle. It makes it so much easier, you know, it's really to eat. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Meal prep is essential and so important. I think it's such an underlooked part of this process. And I don't mean meal prep like you— most of you know it because most of you know meal prep as the first week or couple weeks of a diet you try to do where the meal prepping is overwhelming to you. I'm talking about meal prep where you internalize and it starts to become automatic. That's when the magic starts happening. And most of you try and rush it too quickly and it overwhelms you and you quit. But if you strategically work on getting good at meal prep, that's one of the magic secrets to getting your weight under control. So agreed, agreed. Um, Intuitive Bestie says, my husband fell in love with vegan Mario bread, but it's expensive. Vegan Mario bread? I never even heard of it. I mean, Ezekiel bread's expensive, I would say, but, but I don't eat very much of it either. Um, I only have a slice of it a day. Holy crap, $23 for a loaf of bread! Oh my God, oh my God, it must be pretty good bread. No, let's see here, I gotta look here. What's going on with this bread? Buckwheat sourdough loaf. Let's see what we got going on. 800 grams. All right, it's a big loaf at least. All right, filtered water, brown rice flour, buckwheat flour, tapioca, psyllium husk, pink salt, natural sourdough starter. So yeah, that's gluten-free though. Oh, that's the Gluten-Free World Bread Award winner. Okay. I've never made a gluten-free bread. That's pretty cool looking. I'm gonna— that's one of my goals too. I mean, I'm gonna make baguettes and, uh, gluten-free bread is one of my goals. But let's just see a regular one of theirs. They're sold out of a lot of stuff here. Extra sour, let's see, $25. Holy macaroni. Again, like I said, 800 grams is a pretty good size loaf at least. But okay, that's the gluten-full one. Structured water, brown rice flour, tapioca, psyllium husk. Brown rice flour, that's very strange to me. So that's gluten full. I don't know where the gluten's coming from. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, Vegan Mario's, that's very expensive. I will tell you, uh, making my own sourdough is, is nickels. It is nickels. I buy like a giant bag of flour that is probably $12, and I can make like 25 loaves of bread out of it. I mean, I've kind of estimated that each loaf of bread, I probably spend more on electricity baking it than I do on the ingredients. But the homemade bread costs me probably 50 cents a loaf, dollar a loaf at the most, you know, and it's way better than anything. It's so amazing. Intuitive Bestie says, I've heard some folks need lower noise to eat and digest. Well, maybe you're the opposite. Yeah, exactly right. That could be it. That's really— that's fascinating stuff, Mark. I really— that's one of the most interesting I've heard in a while. Um, Intuitive Bestie says, I got acupuncture in my lower leg for liver and lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks. It was weird. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah, weird things can happen, you know. It's true, it's true. Marie says, I wonder if lower blood sugar when eating with people is evolutionary because we were safer. That's fascinating. I think, and that's— I think that's an interesting thread to kind of pull on because I think that stress in general, I think fundamentally affects you. And, and I think we, we tend to think about like weight in a very— I always say like even just calorie consumption. And this is all the diet industry. The diet industry is always looking to simplify things, you know, to the point of almost being meaningless. But we tend to look at calories as like debits, credits, like a bank account. But really, like, like, your weight is way more like the stock market. There's just so many different factors in it. Your weight's not just a debit credit system. Calorie in, calorie out. I know, like, on a technical level, that definitely is going to lead you to lose weight if you do it accurately. Okay. I'm not arguing that. What I'm saying, though, is in the real world, your ability to measure calorie in, calorie out, to actually stick with it is very much dependent on your mental emotional state. And if you're in a period of extreme stress, it's really difficult to, A, track your calories and B, keep them at the level you want them to be at. So again, I think expanding the picture to how you feel, and that's really interesting. Yeah, maybe evolutionarily when you're stressed and you eat, it's a different experience than when you're calm and relaxed and you eat. We all know that. So if you take it to the next extreme, that makes sense. That could even affect your blood sugar. That, that's just fascinating stuff. And I think that that's. Just such an interesting kind of path to walk, you know. Um, someone— I can't say what their name is— what's your daily calorie intake? Do you count calories? I do not count calories. I never have. Um, I've gone— I'm gonna say this word, but I do not mean I'm an intuitive eater. Please understand, intuitive eating is not for weight loss, just so you all know. Intuitive eating is kind of a philosophy of how to eat, and I like a lot of things about it. But I want to help people lose weight. I want them to get their weight down to where they want it to be. Intuitive eating does not make that promise. It is not a diet, is not a weight loss plan. They will tell you themselves. Program Yourself Thin is 100% about living at your goal weight. So I eat more intuitively. Nothing to do with intuitive eating. And by that, I mean that I started to pay attention to I started weighing myself every day and I started to structure my eating. And eventually I got to a place where my eating was very structured. I was consistently eating the same foods, which doesn't mean I was eating the same thing 7 days a week. It meant 5 days a week I pretty much ate the same things. 2 days a week, my pleasure days, I would eat the same things. Okay, so meaning clean days, I ate the same things week to week. My pleasure days, week to week, I ate kind of the same things in the same ballparks. And so I started to stabilize and structure my eating, and then I was weighing myself consistently. And so eventually I got to this point where I started to notice my weight's here and I'm eating this way. This was consistent. My weight was consistent. Now the magic happens because now I can look at my consistent eating and I can say, okay, if I want to lose weight, where would be the easiest place for me to cut some extra calories around? Maybe I cut the snack between lunch and dinner. Maybe I optimize the snack between lunch and dinner and cut 100 calories out of it every day. Okay. So, so that's kind of how I approached it. I never actually tracked calories. Now I did go through different phases where I would pay attention to calories of what I was eating, just to get a sense of, of the, you know, what had a lot of calories and what didn't. But I never once, never once, um, counted the calories for a day for me. I did it in a much more loosely intuitive way. Um, and just one more time, that does not mean intuitive eating because intuitive Oh, there we go. I don't know. Body exposure and sexualized behaviors. Okay, I'm not sure what I said, but I just got, got restricted on TikTok. Not sure. Um, Violet says it's craving. You don't eat ice cream to be full. Um, yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Uh, craving's a whole nother piece of it, you know. Absolutely. Um, and craving, you know, appetite and hunger are two different things, speaking to that kind of scientifically, right? And so you can be full and not hungry and still have an appetite for something. So, um, Jane says, I find that I like to sit and watch TV and nibble on something that takes a while to eat. That is why the Mini Eggs rather than a chocolate bar. Oh yeah, okay, makes sense. Um, Martha says, what do you think about the fact that humans have a stomach which is good in digesting complex proteins, not like most animals that only eat vegetables like cattle? And I have a few stomachs to digest those over time. Um, and I get a lot of gastric issues when I eat raw greens. Um, yeah, it's good at digesting complex proteins. I think, listen, I think humans are adaptable. So, so let me just start there. I think people, humans can thrive on a lot of different diets. Okay. However, I also think, you know, to some degree that your genetics impact that as well. You know, what a lot of keto people don't know is that the Inuit Eskimo that they always reference that, that have high protein diets also have a genetic mutation where they can't go into ketosis. So, you know, the, the genetics we inherit, I think, play a part too. You know, just like, like lactose intolerance, you know, virtually all Asians are lactose intolerant. 75% of African Americans are lactose intolerant, and a lot of white Nordic northerners are lactose tolerant. So, so the genes we're born with also play a part for what allows us to thrive. Okay. So that being said, Marta, you always have to build around what works for you. And so again, I think protein's wonderful. I think it's great. I think it's necessary. I just find most people are under— underdoing the whole natural foods now. I will let you know from direct experience and from studies is that when you change your diet, whatever way you go, if all of a sudden I start eating a bunch of meat, I'm going to have stomach issues. When I started eating a lot more beans 6 years ago, I had some stomach issues for a little while. When I first became vegetarian, I had some stomach issues. So I do think that the first thing is when you change your diet, whatever direction, You're— there's a good chance you're going to have stomach issues because what's happening is you're transforming your microbiome. You know, it's not your body that does most of the digesting. It's the microbiome, the microbes in there that do most of the digesting. And if you have a high-sugar American standard diet, you're going to have a specific microbiome composition. If you have a whole natural food diet, you're going to have a different microbiome composition. And different foods are gonna impact you differently because of that. Some foods are gonna be more easily digested, more comfortably digested if you're eating what's in line with the microbiome community you have. And if it's out of alignment with it, you might notice some effects. So that's the first thing I say, Marta, is that, um, eating raw greens, it may be an initial reaction to it. So my suggestion would be to experiment with raw greens softly. Meaning I would probably start with cooked greens. I would probably start with, you know, one night make some baby spinach and sauté it. And that's probably going to be less harsh on your digestive system. Right. And then start to introduce greens a little bit at a time and start to build up your ability to consume them more comfortably. Now, you may find you're someone who just cannot metabolize greens comfortably. Okay. We all have our own unique kind of situations. And so that's what we're figuring out though. But I think a lot of people make that decision way too quickly because they overdo it. Because again, they do the dieting thing where, okay, now I'm just going to eat a giant salad every day. Okay. Eat a giant salad every day, but get ready. You know, when the first month, month where I started eating a lot more salad with a lot of beans in it, my, my intestines felt like someone poured concrete in them. It didn't feel good for the first month, but then I normalized to it and then it became easier. So that's a reality too. So again, you've gotta manage that. You know what I mean? Like, again, you, there are people that I forget what the, the condition is, but if they eat raw broccoli, they'll get really sick. And there's, that's, that's never gonna change, right? It's a genetic thing. And so, um, we all have to take care of ourselves and recognize where we're at and, and make the appropriate decisions. But Be careful of like overdoing the greens and then feeling like shit and saying, oh my God, my body hates greens. You know, make sure you're not overdoing it. Again, transition into it. And I have found for most dieters, that's the number one issue is that they're diving into the greens instead of kind of slowly stepping into them. So be careful of that. And then again, yes, potentially your body just— greens don't agree with it. But again, as well, there's lots of greens as well. Okay. So I would, I would not want to just throw greens out because, you know, I started all of a sudden green maxing and got, got really sick. Um, I would, again, I would approach it more simply and see how's cooked spinach make me feel. Cooked baby spinach, by the way, folks, if you've never had it, it is night and day from— I remember growing up with cooked spinach. I had it was, oh my God, it was a nightmare. An absolute nightmare. When there's spinach, was a nightmare. Frozen spinach, you know, and when I found baby spinach as an adult, I— they're not even the same thing. So that's just one more thing to keep in mind. But yeah, I would, um, yeah, work on— well, so I see Marta saying that I'm retraining my stomach to eat overnight oats. Sugar is regulating better, but still a little upset stomach. Yes, I can tolerate cooked vegetables better. Yeah, Marta, exactly. Retraining is the keyword. That's what I would say. Retraining. That's what you're doing. And sometimes we just need to retrain a little bit slower, you know, and I think a lot of people don't really consider that part of it. Um, and again, the slower retraining is going to lead you to a place where, you know, some things work and some things don't, you know, again, that's a reality too, but I think people get too, they make that, that decision way too early. So keep experimenting and keep playing with it. All right. Um, Pat says, excellent. Informative podcast, super interesting. Well, thank you, thank you. Yes, I like to at least kind of give you a different take on things than you normally hear, um, and hopefully, you know, put a couple light bulbs on in there that help you all out. Um, Demi says, I'm scared to stop counting calories because I'm scared that I'll gain weight and I don't want to stretch my skin any more than I have. Also, I have this constant urge to binge and intense cravings. Um, I get it, Demi, I, I hear you. Uh, so many of my clients have felt that way, um, coming into the program. And it's a scary place to be, you know, because unfortunately that fear, right? That's the thing running through your whole comment there is you're scared to stop counting calories. You're scared that you're going to gain weight. You know what you don't want to do? There's so much fear in you that that tends to drive overeating. Unfortunately, it drives up cortisol levels, drives up hunger, reduces our ability to say no, reduces our satiety. So the fear is really the main thing I would be focused on, Demi. And so I don't know if you do any kind of like calming work, right? Grounding work. That's so fundamental to program yourself then. Program yourself then. The foundation is really being calm and motivated. And so I would suggest to you, Demi, because I can hear it even in your comment that you're kind of in this, this frazzled, fearful state and it's hard to think clearly and make good decisions from that place. So you would be well served. Doing a little bit of relaxation work, a little bit of grounding work, um, with your breath perhaps, uh, maybe a little bit of meditation or calming or guided, guided meditation. Go listen to hypnosis session I made for you, right, is another thing. But I would work on relaxing, calming down, and then coming at this from that place. Because right now I can hear the fear and the, the stress and the anxiety and even in the question, you know, and it's hard to succeed with that. Um, all right everyone, let me get out of here. Um, make sure that you, uh, if you're not in my world, make sure you get into my world by clicking the link in my bio. Go get the free hypnosis session I made it for you to help you along. It's a kickstart session, right? So you listen to that and, um, you just move forward, you know, in a new way, and it costs you nothing if other than 10 minutes of your time, go check that out. All right. And if you like this, I'm here every Monday through Friday, usually around noon Eastern to answer your questions, help you in any way possible that I can. So please pop in here and join me if you'd like to. And if you can't make the lives, it's also a podcast. So you can— any podcast platform, search Program Yourself Thin on them and you will find it. And other than that, I'll get the book too. I didn't show the book at all today. Oh my goodness. This book— let me flip this around, TikTok. But yeah, this is my book. This book is available on Amazon. It's a great book to get because it's about living at your goal weight, which makes it kind of unique in the weight loss world because most weight loss books are about losing weight. This book's about living at your goal weight, and you don't have to be at your goal weight to read this. Someone said that yesterday. I want to make that point. This book is about getting to your goal weight and then staying there. Of course, if you get to your goal weight in a comfortable, enjoyable, easy way, then you're probably going to stay there. Okay. So this is about getting to your goal weight and then staying there. I want to make that clear. I'm glad for the person yesterday kind of pointed that out to me that they were thinking, no, I'll read that once I get to my goal weight. No, no, no, no. Get it now because this helps you get to your goal weight in a way that able— it sets you up to be able to live at your goal weight. So, all right, everyone have a super duper day and we'll talk soon. Bye.
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