Program Yourself Thin Live 7-2-26

Hey everyone, welcome to today's program, Yourself Thin Podcast. Today we're asking the important question Can you hate yourself thin? I guess technically you can, right? We've seen people do it. You've probably tried it yourself. And it usually goes like this. You hate your body. You hate how you look. You hate how you feel. You hate how you look in pictures. You hate how you're behaving and eating. Right. And we use this hate with what we're doing and who we are, what we've become. And we try and power our journey forward towards who we want to be with hate. And I will tell you that I have seen this many times over my 20-year career. And while it can work for a little while, it almost never works long term because it doesn't feel good. And I would suggest that even the people that are able to hate themselves thin end up not really being very happy. So what's the point? Okay. I hope you want to do this for more than just what you're going to look like visually. We want to do it because you're going to feel better so that you're going to become the best version of you in the body you want to live in. We want to power this process with love, ideally. But what happens for a lot of people is they have a very difficult time tapping into any sort of self-love, any love for their body. You've been conditioned your whole life to hate your body. Right? They hate how it looks. Doesn't look like someone else's and it makes you feel bad. You hate your legs. You hate your arms. You hate your midsection. Do you hate it? And when we think this way about ourselves, we send ourselves a really negative, unhelpful message. Again, even if we start losing weight, it's powered by this hate for who we are. And I think the big trick is that when you hate yourself to get yourself to take action, you never end up in a place where you love yourself. And this might be the biggest kind of surprise working with a lot of clients over the years who have tried this in the past, because you think, okay, I hate my body now, but then once I lose the weight, then I'm going to love it. What ends up happening is you really develop your hate muscles and you find that even when your weight's where you want it to be, you're still unhappy with how you look. You're still unhappy with your legs and your arms, your midsection. And I drive that point home. I had a, uh, I remember a coach that I was certifying in Program Yourself then. She was actually a competitive bodybuilder. So what's it like the second before you walk on stage? I mean, you've been living for this moment and preparing for, for months, and here you are. I said, what's it like to be in perfect shape? She goes, I'm just noticing flaws. So it's a mindset. When we hate ourselves, and it never goes away just because the scale now says, oh, I'm at this number. It just starts to become smaller, typically smaller and smaller and smaller flaws that we hate. And so I would suggest once you realize this, that you start walking a path of love, a path of loving your body, loving yourself for who you are. You can love your body and want to change it. And it's a much more enjoyable process that I would argue is a lot more effective because Again, love keeps growing. It's something we work on developing. It's a skill set. Loving yourself is not something you just do because now you're at your goal weight. It's a mindset you develop. You begin to be able to see the world through those lenses, see yourself and your body through the lens of love, where again, you can be thankful that your legs are strong and carry you through the day and want to slim them down. Fine, okay? But we can have a foundation of love instead of this hatred that has been really stoked in most of us, and especially women. Your entire lives you're trained and taught to compare yourself to other people, and if your body doesn't look like theirs, then you start to hate your body. And again, it's just an unpleasant way to go through it, and, uh, I would argue that it's a very ineffective way to go through it because No one wants to stay in that energy for long. It's very unpleasant. So give this some thought and start loving your body. And again, one of the easiest ways to love your body is to start focusing on the functional aspects of it. Um, what your body can do for you, the fact that it gets you around, that you can pick things up, that you can see, touch things, move things with your legs. Again, basics that a lot of times we overlook and take for granted. We want to start appreciating those things, and from that appreciation of their functionality, then we start working into appreciating and, you know, loving how we look, which again is a little bit of a longer path but a very important one as well. So I hope this helps you out, and if you want to go deeper into this way of thinking and you want some support with it, click the link in my bio or go to programyourselfthin.com and go get the free hypnosis session that I made for you. It is there waiting for you, and it will help you to to see, um, and think about yourself a bit differently, you know. And again, that work really does start on the inside first because so many people— and I imagine you've felt this— have gotten in that trap where you're trying to make everything perfect so then you'll love yourself. But that's not really how it works. It's the other way around. And that hypnosis session will help you do that. So go check that out, uh, if you are over in Facebook or YouTube land, I'll put the link right in the chat window. Where is this thing? And I hope you all had a nice Fourth of July if you're in America. I just had Fourth of July weekend. I know this is a very— statistically, and again, I was a little confused because last week, um, the holiday fell right on a Saturday, and I guess the, the, the observance is on a Friday. So, but usually the, the week 4th of July week is the biggest vacation week of the year. So hope y'all had a nice, nice week though. Uh, what's up, Jim? John says loves this topic. Yes, this topic's really good. And says, I was hearing on a podcast last night that brain science can now show that thinking negatively about ourselves actually increases cortisol in the body. Now, not even surprised. Um, what we think can absolutely affect our biochemistry. As a hypnotist, an example I used to use a lot was the lemon example. That if you vividly imagine a lemon in front of you, you know, you gotta take your time and kind of imagine it. Um, but if you imagine a lemon in front of you, what it smells like, what it would look like, um, and then imagine taking a bite out of it and tasting all that lemon juice in your mouth, you might literally start to salivate, right? In order to, uh, you know, counteract the, what your imagination is creating in your body and mind when you think about eating a lemon. So that does not even surprise me that, yes, thinking negatively about yourself, I have no doubt that that would create cortisol. And I— that makes a lot of sense. Right. What we imagine affects us physiologically. I mean, that's really— that's the hypnotic point of view forever. And I think it's a very, very important one because what you are imagining in your mind makes your things in your body real. I was thinking that I'm not really a big, uh, you know, football, we call it here soccer. I'm not a big football fan necessarily, but I was watching some people watch a match. And, um, it just reminds me, you know, like if you ever watch sports, right? I mean, really think about it. You're, you ever watch sports from your home? You're watching something on a screen, right? It's not real. You're, you're seeing lights hitting your eyeballs and sounds are hitting your ears and you're giving it meaning. And as you watch that experience in your neutral environment, you start releasing adrenaline, right? Because you get so fired up about it. You're so stepping inside of that concept of a, you know, football match between these two places. This is the one I want. I don't want this. And you step into this reality, which really is kind of made up, and you are literally causing your body to release adrenaline. So again, this, It— I'm glad that neuroscience is kind of validating a lot of this stuff, but these are things that we can all know is true already because we've all experienced them. We are regularly— I'll give you one more example of that, is that they've tested people. They can show them a cheesecake and looking at the cheesecake, if you're someone who eats cheesecake and you look at a cheesecake and you see it, what'll happen is your body will start increasing insulin production if it believes it's going to eat that cheesecake. So even before you ever take a bite of the cheesecake, your body sees it. And if it thinks you're going to eat it, it's going to start increasing insulin production in order to deal with the spike of glucose from the cheesecake. And I'm sure this applies to a lot of other things. The one I read was about cheesecake. So, um, again, all of these things are to say that the way your mind works is pretty interesting. And, uh, a lot of people don't really understand how their mind works. And so they're kind of working against their mind. Without really understanding it. And that, I believe, is one of the core reasons why so many people struggle and ultimately fail to manage their weight, is they don't understand how their mind works. And, um, again, once you do, I think, um, personally, that, uh, it's a huge, huge advantage. A huge advantage to understand how your mind works. I think I ask that all the time. I said, you know, does your mindset affect your weight? What do you think? You know, what's up, Mustafa? Mustafa says, I'm struggling with weight loss. I wake in the middle of the night craving sugar always. And always is in all caps. Yeah, but again, I mean, what are you trying to do during the day? That's my first question to you, okay? Um, because technically you're not struggling with the weight loss, you're struggling with your behaviors. You're struggling with dialing down the sugar, it sounds like. And it sounds like during the day you're trying to completely eliminate sugar. So again, folks, usually when you have binge issues, however they show up, um, if you wake up in the middle of the night and you're just craving food so badly that you get up and eat it, um, whether, you know, it's the nighttime, you finish dinner and an hour later you just can't stop yourself from eating. Stop just focusing on that binge behavior and zoom out and look at the bigger picture. What led to that binge behavior? I find that a very interesting way to think because a lot of times where the problem shows up is not where it was created. So by the time someone falls into a binge, typically they've over-restricted and they're really, really hungry and/or they've over-restricted sugar, for example. Now they're really, really craving it. Um, then the other piece is kind of emotional, but we need to look at the bigger picture because we can't just look at the binge behavior. Because if we just look at the binge behavior, what that's telling us is the only way to fight— when we just look at the binge behavior, the only solution is willpower. And we're not looking to rely exclusively on willpower to change our weight. We're looking to find the easiest ways to influence our behavior moving forward, and willpower is not it. So again, we want to look at the bigger picture. So I would suggest that, Mustafa, that start looking at what are you doing during the day when you are waking up in the middle of the night with these, you know, super intense sugar cravings. That's what I'd want to know, because again, if you're just thinking that— those people do this all the time. They'll, they'll super restrict all day long, but then they'll blame themselves for not having the willpower to fight off the cravings that come at night. But my response to that is that, again, if you think about a marathon, right, let's just say you signed— you say you ran marathons, okay? And you sign up for a marathon. All of a sudden I say, hey, listen, I'm a marathon coach and I've got the most effective strategy possible. So what is it? You just sprint the whole way. You sprint the whole marathon, right? Everyone else is pacing themselves. You sprint, you're gonna win. So that sounds— yeah, that sounds great. I don't know why no one's ever thought of that. Well, I'll tell you why. Because once you're— you get, you know, 10 minutes into sprinting, you're exhausted and you're going to collapse. But it would be like, you collapse, then you start getting mad at yourself for collapsing. And this is kind of how dieters tend to look at their behavior is they feel like, well, I did great here and then I blew it over here. No, you didn't blow it over here. You didn't do great over here. You set yourself for— you set yourself up for failure here and then you failed over here. Perfect, perfect strategy. I can't think of a better way to get someone to binge or overeat than to super restrict their calories for the previous 12 hours, 24 hours. I can't think of a better way. So again, is it that you don't have the willpower to follow through, or is it that your strategy really isn't very good? As a matter of fact, the strategy might be the opposite of good. It might be literally causing you to binge. So careful of that. So yeah, if you want to give me a little more information, I might be able to give you a little more suggestions of how to deal with it. But that's what you need. Again, that's the, that's the other big picture thing, is that most people, when they have an issue, they, they don't have much details. So they'll say things vaguely like, oh, I keep overeating. But you can't just say overeat. You have different overeating patterns and you need to recognize what they are so you can deal with them. What's up, Barbara? Barbara says, when people lost weight, why do they still feel fat? Yeah, I think that's a great question to ask. And in Programming Yourself Thin, we call that the self-image. We all have a self-image of ourselves. We all have a mental image of who we are. And this came out of a book back in the '50s, 1950s. By Maxwell Maltz. He was a plastic surgeon, and back then plastic surgery was much more about, you know, kind of fixing deformities and things. But he would find that some clients, after they'd been— the deformity had been fixed, some clients kind of changed and then kind of stepped into their new body and physicality, and some people didn't. And that kind of led him to the discovery of the self-image. And I think it's fascinating because it's estimated that 85 to 95% of dieters that get to their goal weight put it back on. So there's something more going on here, and I believe a big part of that is a self-image. And I think a lot of people that lose weight are just so fixated on the calories and the scale and the weight and what it says that I don't think they're doing the inner work of starting to see themselves as a new version of themselves. They're not working on seeing themselves as a thin, healthy, happy version of themselves. So they just think of themselves as this dieter, this overweight person who always overeats, who's going to stop themselves from overeating. And it's coded that way. Most dieters never get to a point where they can trust themselves, where they're able to think, live, and eat like a thin, healthy, happy person naturally and comfortably. And a part of that is how you define yourself, you know. And unfortunately, most dieters define themselves as being out of control with food, sugar addicts, you know, carb addicts, all this stuff here. So, um, you know, I believe a big part of actually living at your goal weight is learning how to think of yourself differently. Which is why I think a program yourself, then to me, is an inside-out approach to living at your goal weight. And I think dieting is an outside-in approach, right? Because dieting is really about what you're going to do out here. You're going to change it all, it's going to make you thin, and then you're going to somehow magically transform into a thin, healthy, happy person. But we know for a fact that's not true, because again, statistically, the vast majority of people are gonna put the weight back on. So if they transform genuinely from the inside out into a thin, healthy, happy person, how would so many of them put the weight back on? You know, so yeah, very important. What's up, Sanjita? How's it going? I think— and again, even in Program Yourself Thin, right from the beginning we're focused on creating a new self-image. So it's not just changing your eating so you lose weight, it is simultaneously working on seeing yourself in a new way, building up that ability. It's a skill set to think of yourself differently. It's something you have to practice. So Emma says, is 60 kilograms with a height of 178— yeah, I never answer those questions because it's not up for me to decide what's a lot or a little. You know, we all get to decide our own weight. It's one of the most personal, um, choices we're allowed to make in life. You get to decide what you're going to weigh. So to ask me, is it a lot or not— oh, who am I? I'm just some weird guy on the internet. You know, like, don't add— don't trust me. You know, you're the one to decide, is it a lot for you? Now, you know, you can look at a BMI chart and that might give you a little bit of indication where you're at kind of health-wise to some degree. Remember, BMI chart really is not just a chart of health because you can be in the normal range into pretty much most of the overweight range and still be really healthy. So it's not that— that overweight range is not really a statement on health. Not really. And so if you're, if you're in that, you know, as you start moving into the obese category, you know, now you're statistically, you know, more, more problems going to show up. Okay. But a lot of times in the overweight, normal to overweight range, that's a big wide range where the health is going to be very similar. And now it's just a decision. Where do you want to live at? What weight do you want to be at? And the lowest number is not the right number. You know, it's a very personal intimate decision. Each person gets to decide what weight is the best goal weight for me. And I would suggest that weight is the weight that gives you the best quality of life. So I couldn't answer that for you because I'm not you. I know the weight that I'm at is the weight that I love being at. It's where I feel my best, and it's the— it's easy and comfortable for me to live here as well. So, I mean, could I look better? Could I, could I be more I don't know, muscular and defined and less body fat and abs and, and all that. Could I, could I do that? I guess, but I don't give a shit about those things. And I definitely don't want to put— I mean, listen, if I could, you know, work out for 10 minutes a week and get that, sure, I'd do it. It'd be fun. Okay. But it's not 10 minutes a week. It's a lot of work. And so all that extra work for me is not worth those things, but that's my decision that I get to make. So Again, I believe everyone— and I think this comes back to a core point that I think most people, uh, don't even know how to choose their goal weight because we've never learned how to choose our goal weight. We've just been given our goal weight either through the BMI chart or, um, you know, what someone said to you, a magazine you read, you know, what a doctor told you. So very few people know how to actually choose the proper goal weight for themselves. But I can tell you this, it's up to you to figure out what— if that's a lot, a little, or just right. You know, it's not up for me to decide. That. Barbara says, good words. Thank you. Barbara says, how do you not let your feelings get hurt when you get made fun of, uh, for being overweight? Yeah, that's tough. I mean, that's, that's a real thing, you know. How do you let your feelings not get hurt? And I think that's a great question, honestly. I think, um, I think here's what I'll say. You know, when people say things about your weight or about you in general, about anything, and it hurts your feelings, I think the first thing we gotta kind of take a step back with is really, I think we have to validate ourselves first. And I think a lot of people just feel bad, but I'll go into those feelings and I'll think about what was said first. Right? So if someone's like, oh, you're really fat. Well, if I'm really fat, maybe I'll sit with it. And I'll say, what am I upset about? Maybe I haven't been able to change it, or maybe that I thought that person was nice and they said something mean. I don't, I don't like that. Okay. So it's like, I'd like to go into the hurt feeling a bit and understand it. Because as we start to understand it, I think that's where the solutions come up. And so, you know, if they're saying something and then you say, well, it's true. Well, then maybe we shift the hurt to motivation and say, I don't want to feel this way, I don't want these words, I don't want to— okay. And or we say, I'm happy with my weight and someone said something mean to me. So then that, that situation, someone says something to us but we're happy with the weight we're at and they say, oh, you're overweight. There's a— fuck them, you know what I mean? Like, that's something you got to do too because there's a lot of dumb people in the world, you know, they're going to say dumb shit. And if you're okay with where you're at, I think then the conversation is really about forget that person, let me ground myself in my own reality, and that person can say whatever they want, I don't give a shit, you know. So again, I think, I think there's more to it. I think the hurt feelings— a lot of times people just have this reaction of hurt feelings and they don't want to go near it. I would say you go calm down, relax, and step into those hurt feelings. What exactly is hurting your feelings. I don't know if that sounds strange, but I've done this with many, many people, and they almost— we almost always get to a better place by doing this process because, like, oh, I can't believe they said that, and then we'll live in what they said for the next 30 years. We don't want to do that, you know. So kind of, I think it depends on what, what, what made you feel bad and kind of stepping into and understanding it, um, because hurt feelings aren't the end of the world. You know, uh, Sanjita says, I feel motivated to stay at my goal weight when I am working out daily. Is it directly related? Uh, yeah, sure. You know, I mean, everyone's different. Again, you got to notice for yourself what works for you. So I've noticed that I, I, I do things consistently, like I'll meditate every day, I'll drink my water every day, I've heard amount of fruit every day to myself, I'm doing some stretching every day, um You know, I'm sleeping a certain amount every day. I'm practicing gratitude every day. I'm doing all these things and doing all those things helps me to stay motivated because what really motivates me is not just the weight or the number. It's really about how I feel day to day. So working out every day or working out regularly, I think is great. What I would suggest, though, CNG, just have some alternatives. So again, you can have your plan A working out, which might be going to the gym and doing a full workout routine. Great. But I'd come up with a plan B and C probably as well for times when you can't get to the gym or don't want to go to the gym or aren't feeling well. But I think you're on the money with what the exercising is doing for you now. It's kind of an anchor. And so if you do— if you go and exercise, you feel a certain way, you have a certain mindset, you feel a certain way physiologically, and it helps you stay motivated. So, you know, we want to realize that feeling. We want to find some other ways to feel that, that we have as backups. We don't just want just the one thing. That's what a lot of people do. As long as I'm working out every day, everything's great. And the second they can't work out every day, everything collapses and falls apart, right? We don't want to be— we don't want that. So, um, just make sure you have, you know, some alternatives as well, I think. Um, what's up, Connie? Connie says, what are the first thoughts in the morning and last at night to put into your mind to grow your neuroplasticity of subconsciousness? Thank you. Um, yeah, it's a great question. Um, I kind of have two answers for this. You know, in Program Yourself Thin, this is actually a really important part of the program because in Program Yourself Thin, one part of it is the hypnosis system. And so every morning you get a 5-minute hypnosis session and every week you get an evening 10-minute session that you can listen to repeatedly at night. And so that's one of the easiest ways to put really good ideas into your mind first thing in the morning. Last thing at night. All right. And those mantras change, though. So each session is built around a different weight loss mantra. So by the end of the program yourself, then over 8 weeks, you've had like 60 morning mantra sessions put into your mind and, you know, 8 core weight loss mantras at night put into your mind. So those are really helpful and they're just all different, you know. The other one, though, is that at night we use the program yourself, then technique to program our mind. Now, what you say to yourself there, that's a more independent thing, right? So everyone's a little different. And, um, a lot of times what I find my clients saying is they'll, from the hypnosis sessions, there'll be certain mantras that really kind of resonate with them. And they'll take those mantras and kind of install them, um, themselves with the Program Yourself Then technique. And so I don't have like a, a one-size-fits-all thought. Okay. But I'll give you a couple of them we got, like, just as an example. And I think it's important to have multitude. I think just one mantra, I don't know, you might get bored of it, but nothing tastes as good as thin and healthy feels. That's a huge one. I think it's a great one. Dinner and done. Mistakes are our greatest teachers. I'm just blanking on them now. But again, like I said, there's over 70 of these in the program, so it's like I just kind of forget them. But, um, it just depends on what your particular struggles are, what your personality is, which ones kind of resonate most. Um, but I do think that, you know, figuring out what sayings, what phrases really resonate with you and building around those is the answer, is the right answer. Um, yeah, Mary Jane says, yep, it's just called making a habit. It never happens overnight. Yeah, so true. Um, again, I mean, dieting is always training us to rush the process and I think that's the, that's the paradox of the dieting is that people are in such a rush to lose the weight that they're always approaching it with this rushed mindset and they're never really following a strategic, comprehensive, holistic plan to make it happen that's built in the right time frame. We're actually talking about that today on the PYT Thrive call, time frames. So it's pretty good. But yeah, I mean, habits just take time, you know? I mean, again, I, I use the example of college a lot, right? If you ever went to college, there's time frames associated with it, right? You want to get associate's, 2 years. Bachelor's, 4 years. Graduate, 6 years. Doctorate, 8 years, right? And so when you are going into that, you have time frames that are extending. But it's like with weight loss, it's always about like how much weight you can lose this week. And it's so fixated on the here and now that we're really so unbalanced time-wise with dieting. Dieting has so conditioned us to think in terms of days, weeks, and months when the real solutions you're looking for are on a much longer timescale of months, years, and decades. But every time you approach your weight loss, you're using these short-term strategies of willpower, you know, over-restriction, drastic shifts and changes in your behavior, and they're not set up long-term. That's why you'll, you'll jump into the diet and do it 100% perfect for a little while, and then you 100% stop doing that, and you're, you, you get that whiplash effect, you know, of dieting. Um, but a big part of why that happens is because, um, dieting has really conditioned us to think short-term, and the short-term thinking really, really, um, really sabotages people. Some science says I was once at 98 kilos and now at 82, but when I look in the mirror, I still feel fat. Yeah, that's what I mean. And that's the problem, you know. I mean, like, the, the culture, and certainly the weight loss culture to some degree, and the beauty culture for sure, it's always just like there's no limit to it almost. It's just like it's always skinnier is better. And I just don't agree with that. I don't. Because Again, you have to look at quality of life, and quality of life is not defined only by what the number on the scale is. It's also the, the quality of life you're living. This is what I'm trying to say, because most of you are not willing to do what it takes to get to your goal weight. Do you understand that? Most of you have a goal weight that's way down here, but you don't want to do what it takes to live at that goal weight, which is totally fine, by the way. Please understand, the, the lowest weight possible is not like the, the the king of the mountain, the queen of the— queen of the castle. Do you understand? Like, just— it's the slimmest possible thing you could be. That's the best. I mean, I get it. I get that's what we're trained with. I understand that. But most of you here are older. As we get into our 40s, we've really got to untether ourselves from just looking at weight as what we look like, and this idea that just the thinnest is the best. I mean, come on. You know, so we have to figure out the sweet spot where the weight we want to be at and the way we want to live is balanced. Because folks, if the only thing that mattered was the number on the scale, then you would have succeeded with your shitty super strict diets in the past, but you didn't. And you didn't because it's a miserable quality of life. So you said, no, I'm not doing that. And so we need to find that sweet spot where we get the best return on investment of how we're living, how we're eating. And the weight that we're at. That's the sweet spot. Because otherwise we just get this never-ending focus. It's never thin enough. And that's a, that's just a path to failure, right? I mean, how can you succeed with that mindset? You know where that ends. So again, the idea of developing a self-image and developing love for— oh, there we go. I knew that. It's got restricted on TikTok. Um, actively working right from the beginning of the process on loving yourself, on appreciating yourself, on feeling good about yourself, feeling beautiful, feeling attractive. This is a skill you have to develop. This— I do not believe that just the weight is going to define that for you. If it did, we would have seen that working, and you all know that doesn't work. You all know that. We just don't think about it. So again, Sai, I get it, um, but the weight's never gonna fix that. It's not just a number on a scale issue, and it's not for anyone. I mean, again, in Program Yourself Thin, we follow the goal weight pyramid, which, um, let me flip this around. The whole bottom mindset, you know, we got to work on our mindsets because if we don't, that's exactly what's going to happen. You're going to lose the weight and you're still not going to feel like it's good enough, and you're going to still want to think you have to lose more weight. Common trap-a-diters. What can I say? You know, uh, Mary Jane says, your thoughts about parents getting involved with a child, or should a child figure it out themselves? Yeah, I mean, I think personally, um, that parents should influence their children by being good role models, as good a role model as you can be. That's the number one, top of the mountain, no question about it. So if you start modeling good, healthy habits and behaviors inside and out for your child, that's the number one thing you can do. Um, berating them, you know what I mean? You know, staying on top of them, busting their chops does not seem to work very well in my experience. I've done over 6,000 private weight loss sessions. I can't tell you the number of times we've gone over, you know, a mom who tried to over— overfocus on their weight, you know, and sometimes dads too, right? But, um, so yeah, my opinion is that if you start to like really micromanage you know, a kid's food eating so that they're waking up. So I think it tends to come out the other end with, you know, issues. So not a big fan of that. I think the bigger thing is to be the change you want to see in your child. You know, if you want to see them eat healthy, eat healthy foods. Let them see you eating healthy foods regularly. If you want them to love their body, show them what it's like to love your body. Talk nice about yourself. Talk nice about other people, okay? Model the behaviors that you want them to, you know, absorb. I think that's the best, best path forward. And I think the micromanaging it is toxic, extremely toxic most the time. That's what I think. I can't tell you how many times I've gone through that with people. Sai says, I agree, I can't find time to work out to be honest, but yes, it's definitely just an excuse. Um, is it though, Sai? Because a lot of people do this. I've done this myself where it's like for years I'm like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go to the gym, go to the gym, go to the gym, never go to the gym. And, um, you know, finally I realized I don't want to go to the gym because I don't want to— it's literally, it's 10 minutes there, 10 minutes back, it's 5 minutes walking in. I mean, we're talking about a half hour that every time I'm going to go, minimum. And that's a lot of time for me, and it's just one more barrier. So one of the best things I did is I said, okay, how— what can I do at home? And this was over a year ago now, but I've been doing like— like, I do push-ups every Monday through Friday, do these bodyweight squats, and I just do them right in my office. So I would suggest— again, this goes back to most dieters have an all-or-nothing mindset, and the all-or-nothing mindset is so toxic and ineffective. So I'd suggest that you use an all-or-something mindset. And so you can have your, you know, Plan A is going to the gym and working out and having time and doing all that. But I would suggest that having a Plan B and C, some workouts you can do at home quickly, easily, that might be the sweet spot. But a lot of dieters won't even consider that because it's not the best, you know. So you got to be careful. You know, there's that quote, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And I think that happens so much with weight and health and exercising that people really only consider the most extreme thing to be worthwhile. And it's— that's not true. So we have to fight against that urge and, you know, come up with some other alternatives, you know, so that we can comfortably and as easily and as comfortably as possible do the things we want to do. And a lot of times that answer is found in, you know, kind of thinking about what we want to do and thinking about easier, better ways to do it. That's what I did. At some point I stopped beating myself up trying to get myself to go to the gym and I took a step back and said, okay, what am I looking to do here? Well, you know, I just want to work out. I want to get my muscles activated. I want it to be as easy as possible, you know? And so now, you know, I'll do 120 pushups a day, um, 60 squats, you know, every Monday through Friday. And, um, I've been doing that for a year and a half, 2 years now. So I don't even know how long. I don't even know, a year and a half, 2 years. I don't even know. It might be 2 years. I kind of lost track of it, but I do it every Monday through Friday. So it's like, is that as good as going to the gym and doing a full workout? No, I guess, you know, no. If I went every day and did that, maybe that's better. But for me, I'm actually doing it. And so not only do I get to activate my muscles and feel good, um, but I also— it's always a message to me. Look, you're doing something. Nice job. It's just one more kind of nudge in the right direction each day, each time I do it. And that half hour that it would take me to travel back and forth, I'm able to do the whole thing. Um, and it just, it fits in my life better. So I think, I think a lot of people don't do that. I think a lot of people are very rigid in their thinking and they'll be like, this is what exercising is, you know? And even though it fights against their entire lifestyle, no, this is what I got to do. I think a lot of you out there, I do it with things too, but it's like, we have like, no, it has to be this way. And then we think that for like 10 years and we just never do it. And it's like, if we'd just been a little more flexible and a little more, you know, a couple more options to it, maybe we would have done it a lot more. So that, that's my suggestion on that. And it's really helpful if you do figure out a way to make it more consistent in your life. It's really helpful. Stefan, I've lost 135 pounds, so definitely not me. Nice job, Stefan. Nice job, nice job. Um, Stefan says, do you have a walking pad? I do not have a walking pad. I know a lot of people have those. I know I don't. I have been working a lot on just getting up and getting up out of the seat more, I will tell you that. Um, once I do that, everything kind of flows. But yeah, walking pads, a lot of my clients have a lot of success with those, so there are a lot of good things about walking pads. All right, yep. Stefan says, when I started, I was walking a lot. All right, yeah, 135 pounds. Nice job. It's a lot of weight. That's a lot of weight. Uh, what's up Kimberly? Kimberly says, when my child was getting overweight, doctor told me never say no, just take seconds and put her name on it, tell her yes in 15 minutes, she would never come back to eat. Um, oh, okay. Yeah, that's a, it's a pretty elegant strategy, I would say. Not bad, right? That's a way to influence kids, and it's not Yeah, kind of teaching them. Holy shit, Stefan's still walking 25,000 steps today. Holy cow. But again, folks, you know, when you hear this, you have to— again, that works for Stefan, okay? So that's great for Stefan, but for you, you may not like walking as much as Stefan. You may have the opportunity to walk as much. So what I'm saying is, a lot of times the dieting thing as well is that we hear someone like Stefan who's walking 25,000 steps a day, going to the gym all the time, And he said, that's what I got to do. I got to do that. You don't got to do that. You got to figure out what works for you. I mean, it's fine hearing that and then be like, oh, maybe I'll walk more. Maybe I'll do whatever. But you don't have to do what he's doing. You know what I mean? Like, and this is— please hear this because I feel like dieters, um, you know, are really— they hear someone who's having success and then they're just like, oh, tell me what you did and I'll do it. It's like, no, no, no, no, there's way more to it than that. You know, what worked for this person may or may not work for you, you know. And Stefan says, no, just eat less. Well, that's where— yeah, um, yeah, just eating less, obviously, you know. But, uh, I don't like when people say just eat less even if they've lost 135 pounds, because it's kind of like— it's kind of condescending. It's like, no shit, you know what I mean? Like, Stefan, You knew you should eat less when you were 380 pounds. Do you know what I mean? So it's like you would offer people a lot more insight and be a lot more value to them if you kind of went into your headspace. What flipped in your mind when you were 380 pounds that said, you know what, I really, I need to dial my calories out. Like, I want to know what went on in your head to internalize it. Don't just say, no, just eat less. You know what I mean? Like people said that to you for years and you fucking hated it for good reason. It's just so simplistic, you know what I mean? Like, what's more value to people, I think, is understanding something flipped in you. I don't know what it was, but it would be interesting for people to hear what flipped in your mind when you were 380 pounds. That, that's what I think is going to be interesting. And, you know, you didn't start the next day walking 25,000 steps. That's another thing that's valuable for people to hear, because people hear your story and they want to lose 135 pounds, so they're going to start walking 25,000 steps today. And that's what dieters always do, and they overwhelm themselves and they quit, you know. Yeah, I mean, eat more, but yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, I had to, I was 380 pounds. Yeah, but you didn't have to. That's what I'm trying to say too. You didn't have to, you know. I know in your mind all of a sudden something flipped, and now all of a sudden it feels like I have to. But that's really interesting stuff because you were 2 months before, you had that realization you were 380 pounds. You knew you had to lose weight, but you weren't, you know what I mean? So to me, the real interesting thing for Stefan is what shifted, what shifted in his mind. He's 380 pounds, he knows he should eat less, he knows he should eat better, he knows he should move more, he knows that he needs to do this or he's not going to be alive. He knew all that shit for months ahead of time, but something flipped in his mind at that point, and now here he is 135 pounds later. But I want to know, what was that flip? How did you internalize that? What did you think? What did you see? Would you say to yourself— what was it? Because something was there. And that's the interesting part. And that's the point I want all you to hear, because it's not enough to just have a plan or a strategy in front of you. You also have to have the right motivation with it, you know. Mental health. Yep. Yeah, so maybe the mental health got to a, you know, a rock bottom, you know, or felt rock bottom to you, and all of a sudden it's like you just saw things differently, started thinking differently, you know. But again, that's the interesting things, in my opinion, you know, that's more value that dieting never goes into. Because Stefan could sit here and tell you everything he did, and now you're going to say, okay, I'm going to do all those things. But you have done that literally hundreds of times, or tried to. Heard someone's lost a lot of weight, what'd they do? I'm gonna do that. And you try to do it, you do it for a little while, then you stop. So what Stefan really— what's different for him is not even so much what he did, although that's again a huge accomplishment. Um, celebrate that. But what really led to that is some mindset shift. Something clicked differently, and that's the interesting part in my world. I looked in the mirror and was annoyed at myself. Yeah, it's not easy. No, it's definitely not easy for for sure. Um, would you agree though, Stefan, that it's easier than living at 380? I think that's a— that's an interesting way to look at things too, right? That nothing's easy in life, not really, right? Because even eating all the food, it's easy to eat the food, but then it's hard to live with the repercussions of it, right? So at some point, something flipped in Stefan's mind. Obviously he said, oh my God, eating this, living this way is harder than walking 25,000 steps, 10,000 steps, going to the gym, eating better. That's, that's, that's that shift I'm talking about. Once you have that, everything is a lot easier because very rarely is it a knowledge problem for you all. It's not like you don't know what to eat as much as it is you can't get yourself to do it consistently. And that's a huge difference. Yeah, uh, Mary Jane says, absolutely, so many reels available on the internet. Jim Katsoulis should make you feel good. Yep, tried jogging but got bored trying to find newer and longer routes. Yeah, jogging is boring as shit. Again, I— and I'm not saying just quit on it, but it's like you can add to it, you know. Maybe jogging once a week is okay, and that, that's actually kind of interesting. So again, the, the diet culture, the exercise culture has really taught us to like be, how do I deal with boredom and difficulty and hard and deprivation and struggle? How do I get myself to just force myself to do all that shit? And again, anytime you're going to do something, there's obviously difficult, hard parts you got to push yourself through. But very rarely do dieters ask, how can I make this easier? How can I enjoy the process more? How can I make it, you know, happen on near autopilot? How can I eat the right foods automatically? No one's asking those questions either. So again, it's absolutely— things are challenging and difficult, but when we start asking solution-oriented questions, um, I think it brings us in a better direction, you know. So, um, yeah, I think that's the keys to the kingdom. Solution-oriented thinking, I think, is really how we get everywhere that's valuable, certainly on this, this journey, for sure. Yeah, just Stefan, I use fruit and keep myself busy. I think that's, that's brilliant. That, that's good strategy. Fruit's amazing. But yeah, keeping yourself busy, I think, is really overlooked. That's one of our, one of our kind of bonus lifestyle habits in the programs. We talk about hobbies and learning, you know, really they're kind of two sides of the same coin of keeping yourself busy and keeping yourself busy is actually really important for a number of reasons. So that's one of those strategies. Again, I just think it's overlooked and I don't know, most dieters really, again, they just think about everything as a willpower struggle. Everything's a willpower match, and that's the wrong way to approach it. You know, we want to— again, everything new is difficult to some degree, but we're looking for the easiest, most comfortable way possible to live at our goal weight, get there and stay there. And that's the question that we just really guides the path, you know, lights the path for us. So, all right, I'm gonna get out of here. I gotta go, gotta do some stuff. I hope you all enjoyed this. Thank you so much. I appreciate your questions and your comments. I hope you're all kind of recovering from the 4th of July and enjoying the week if you got it off or taking it easy. If you like this, please go to my website, programyourselfthin.com, and go get the free hypnosis session I made for you. You can also get it through my bio. If you click the link of me in the top left there, you can get it. If you're over on Facebook or YouTube, I just put the link in the comments. Go check it out. It is, again, a hypnosis session designed to help you clarify what your goal weight is and connect to it. And there's a lot of motivation in doing that. So go check that out.. And, um, if you like this, I'm here every Monday through Friday at noon, except for Tuesdays here at 1. Um, and, um, yeah, if you like this, you can ask any questions you want. I'm happy to help you. And if you miss it, it's also recorded as a podcast, so you can look up Program Yourself Thin on any podcast platform. It'll show up and you can listen anytime you want. And, uh, this book is available, uh, if you're looking for a great book about your weight, go check this out. This is my book. And it is available on amazon.com. Even though it's blurry, the text is not actually blurry in real life. So, all right everyone, have a super duper day. We'll talk soon. Bye.