Thinking Of Yourself As A Thin, Healthy Person

Person is a crucial part of your weight loss journey, and it's usually ignored by the diet industry. So usually when you approach your weight loss, you're just focusing on what you're doing. You're not really thinking about what you're thinking about. If anything, you're just gonna fight against your mindset. You're gonna fight against your thoughts. You're gonna fight against yourself in order to do the right things. And this is how most people approach weight loss, but it creates a core problem that you always have to fight against yourself. And that uses a lot of energy. And ultimately, you're going to default to the behavior that's the easiest for you. So, the idea and concept of thinking like a thin, healthy, happy person that you want to be now, and letting that be part of the process, is really important. And it's super helpful because instead of just focusing on, on the behavior, we can start to do some of the subtle work that's deeper down. And you can practice thinking like a thin, healthy, happy person in a number of ways. But the value of it is that the more you start to think of yourself as the person you want to be, the more you start to act like that person. And obviously, the more you start to act like that person, the more you start to become that person and get to have the results that that person gets. So this is a longer-term thought process, right? Because again, dieting really sets Sells you on it by saying you're going to get instant results, right? If you just dramatically change your behavior, you're going to get instant results by end of the week. Okay, but what I'm talking about is a little bit of a longer time frame, but it's a lot longer lasting too, and that's the real secret there. What a lot of this comes back down to is our self-image. We all have an image of ourselves that we believe, right? This identity, this sense of who we are as a person. And if you've been struggling with your weight for any amount of time. you probably have the self-image of an overweight person. And that's kind of a big description of a lot of little beliefs you have about yourself. You might think you're a fast eater, or you're a sugar addict, or you have no willpower. You can't stop yourself when you go out to a restaurant. You might have all these little beliefs and ideas about yourself that ultimately lead to the self-image you hold. And of course, all of our behavior flows out of our self-image. So the idea that I'm sharing with you here is to start realizing this process that Um, yes, you can just focus on your behavior, but it is your thinking that's generating that behavior. So why not go a level deeper and make the change there? Because once you make the change on that level, it starts to bubble up and impact everything else. And the truth is that it's actually easier to change your thinking than anything else. It's hard in the sense that there's a lot of thoughts going on in there, but it's easier, uh, because it's just changing a thought. It's a lot easier to influence a thought than it is to get yourself to go to the gym and work out for an hour. That's what I'm trying to say. So, um, the idea of thinking of yourself as a thin, healthy, happy person starts now. That's the other piece. A lot of dieters wait till they get to their goal weight, and then they believe they're gonna have transformed into this other person. But the statistic that kind of fights against that is that 85 to 95% of dieters that lose weight and get to their goal weight put it back on. So we can't rely or believe that just when— because we lose weight, or just because we get to our goal weight, Now we're going to stay there. There's more to it. And what I would suggest that more to it is, is really starting to shift your identity so that you not only lose the weight, but you also create an identity of being a thin, healthy, happy person that you want to be. And you can start that process on day one before you've ever lost a pound. And it really just comes down to practicing, practicing thinking like a thin, healthy, happy person. And it does require practice, but the good news again is that I'll take the practice of influencing my thoughts all day long over, you know, going to the gym and having to do a hard workout. It's a lot easier. The challenge is to be consistent with it. Okay, but it's easier than you think. And really, the the reason it takes—I think the hardest part about it is that you're going to be solution-oriented. You're going to be focused on what you want, and. If you're not already doing that, which you're probably not, it takes extra work, right? Because it's something you're kind of newly doing. So it requires its own kind of dedication and time slot to practice thinking like a thin, healthy, happy person. But let's do it right now, right? Because you can literally practice this any time you want. And I want you to start— we always start in Program Yourself, then programming ourselves by relaxing. So I want you to relax your body, relax your shoulders, your chest, your stomach, your face. Let all the muscles of your body relax. Connect to your breath. Take a deep breath in and slowly let it out. Okay. And so continue to follow your breath. Exhale extra. Connect to your breathing. And what I want you to do now is I want you to imagine it's tomorrow. And I want you to imagine going through tomorrow as the person you want to be. It's that simple. I want you to imagine yourself thinking and feeling and ultimately behaving the way that you want to. And it starts right now by imagining tomorrow as you that you want to be. So as you think about tomorrow, you can start by imagining you're in bed. You haven't even opened your eyes yet. You're lying in bed and you are at your goal weight. You're the person who you want to be. You got the weight that you want, the health, the happiness, the behaviors that you want. And I want you to take a moment and connect to what that would feel like to know that you had achieved your goal, to know that you'd done it, you'd been successful. I want you to internalize that feeling. Do you feel more relaxed and calm when you think about that? Do you feel more grounded and at peace? Whatever feelings come up, let them come up. And now imagine yourself hopping out of bed. You get dressed in the outfit you'd love to wear. Imagine yourself getting dressed. And now imagine yourself moving through the day, and I want you to notice all the little decisions that you're going to make, all the thoughts that you're going to have as you move through that day as it unfolds. And the easiest way to do this is just kind of imagine in your mind as the day moves forward. So after you get dressed, what do you do next? What do you do after that? So as the day kind of unfolds in your mind as you expect it to go, I want you to take an extra moment and imagine yourself moving into that next phase of the day. As a thin, healthy, happy person. And as you imagine yourself moving through tomorrow as the person you want to be, you're going to start to notice that the thoughts and way you imagine yourself when you're at your goal weight bounce up against how you typically think. And so I want you to notice that that's the first step to thinking like a thin, healthy, happy person is to recognize when we're not thinking that way. So a lot of times this exercise we're doing. It's not so much about programming yourself right away as it is understanding and revealing the times when you're thinking the other thoughts, right? And once you recognize those, then we can take a second and say, wait a second, let me imagine this as the thin, healthy, happy person. So maybe you imagine going to lunch and your mind initially says, oh, let's get a burger and fries. It's— wait a second, no, we don't eat that anymore. We're thin, healthy, and happy. That's not what we eat. We eat this here instead. And maybe you feel that. And so this is the process of kind of recognizing when you say other things to yourself and then replacing those thoughts with the thoughts of you at your best, you doing the things you want to do. Now, the more you practice this— and again, in Program Yourself Then, we practice this both ways, rehearsal, kind of imagining tomorrow, and we do the redo technique, which is to go back in time as well. But they both do the same thing, that it's ultimately you imagining yourself as the person you want to be. In the specific context within which you live. So this is a very, very powerful exercise, and it becomes more powerful the more that you do it. Um, so practice this. And if you want some help practicing this technique and going deeper into this, um, even more so, is to click the link in my bio or go to programyourselfthin.com. Um, if you're on Facebook, you can just type mind, M-I-N-D, into the comments. And it'll automatically send you a link and get you started. But it's a free hypnosis session. It's called The New Thin Me. And I can't think of too many sessions that are more powerful than this in helping you connect to the body and the person you want to be at your goal weight. It is very, very clarifying, and it's very inspiring because when you step into that reality deeply, it's very exciting. To kind of see life from that perspective, and the more you start to do that, what happens is you kind of charge it up. You kind of magnetize the goal, so you feel pulled towards it. And again, that's a free session that I give you. Go check it out again. Click the link in my bio. Type mind, M I N D, into the comments if you're on Facebook, and go check that out. On the other side of that session, I also made a training for you called Reprogrammed: How to Live Your Goal Weight Without the Fight. So. That is free as well, and you will get that as soon as you opt in for that session. Go check that out. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. Any weight loss questions are welcome. What's up, John? How's it going, John? Yes, just scrolling and you came up. Great to see you. Go Sox. Yeah, yeah. How's it going, John? Yeah, I was thinking about you not long ago. So, so things are going well. That's awesome. Yeah, Sox, right? We'll see, we'll see if they can do it. I don't know, uphill climb. Um, says, I got Luku. Not sure what that means. Oh, got loukoumatis. Okay, I got loukoumatis the other day because of you. Come on, you can just get loukoumatis where you live. You live in Greece? I'm glad, I'm glad they don't have loukoumatis around me. Loukoumatis, for anyone who doesn't know, are these Greek I don't know how to make these things. They're Greek honey balls, but they're like— I don't know if you ever get like, uh, Dunkin' Donuts had the munchkins, right? They're kind of like that size in their dough, but they have a ton of honey in them. It's, it's almost like they boil them in honey. I don't know how so much honey gets in there. They're so good. Put cinnamon on top. Um, I was talking about those. I went to the Greek festival last week and got some of those. But, um, yeah, that's, that's a once-a-year thing around me. So man, yeah, I don't need to have those around me regularly. I've been thinking about them too, and I'm glad They don't have them. I'll probably get another fried dough. I'll go to a fair next week and get some fried dough. That's funny. I hope they were good ones. The ones I got are so good. Yeah. All right, LA. Yep, of course. Yeah, well, that's the downside. I don't live in the city, I live in a rural area, so that is the downside. And then the plus side of obviously living— Nick the Greek in Westwood. Oh man, sounds good. I bet that's good Greek food. I'll tell you, the weirdest thing for me is, uh, Where I grew up, there was a ton of Greek food, and, um, over the years a lot of those businesses have gone out of business. I don't know why, because to me Greek food is literally one of the best foods there is. I think it's just so good, and, um, it just seems like Greek restaurants have not— not as popular as they used to be, and I don't know how that's possible. Maybe it's just around me, but, but that's— it's a number of them around me have closed up. So yeah, oh man. And even the restaurants though, I never remember them selling lukumadas. I don't— I could be just missed them, but, um, that's funny. What's up, Pamela? How's it going? But yeah, if anyone's got any weight questions, feel free to ask them. Anything's welcome. Um, we work on all kinds of— oh, I meant to put this up here. I'm always looking to work Restream. We'll put that there. Uh, yeah, any, any questions are welcome. Um, Weight loss questions. Oh, look at that. I see. Yeah, we're over on Facebook. If you're not— if you don't follow me on Facebook, you ought to. Um, I spend a lot of time over there now, and I'm kind of putting together some plans to offer even more. Um, I think the thing about Facebook is that it, um, it allows me to kind of post different types of content. And I love TikTok, but you know, obviously TikTok's really basically just the The TikToks and even the live, they never—they don't offer a replay of the live on TikTok. Facebook and YouTube do. I like YouTube as well, but again, YouTube obviously is video, long-form video primarily. So Facebook's probably the place where I am going to be giving the most content away. So if you like this stuff, go over to Facebook. You can search the Program Yourself Then page, follow it, and. Not only will you be reminded if you choose to when we go live, usually go live every every weekday around noon. But yeah, there's gonna be other stuff on there. So go check that out. But yeah, if you got any questions, feel free to ask them. You know, I've been doing this for over twenty years. Any weight loss questions are welcome. It's funny. I was thinking. This weird cold thing too. I don't know, it's funny, I was doing a thing last night and people are— everyone there was someone in their house or they themselves were dealing with kind of a, I don't know, cold, mini flu, throat thing. Yeah, it's definitely been my family. Um, I'm right on the edges of it, right on the edges. I'm skirting by it. I think I'm gonna get by it, you know. It's just unbelievable. But yeah, it's the second time really in 3 months, I would say. Just skirting by it though, so I'll take it. But yeah, kind of recovering, hoping I can miss that. Thinking to yourself, yes. So yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. You know, again, program yourself. Then one of the things we do is we really build around the goal weight pyramid, which I'll show you here real quick. You can see that right there. So we've got mindset, lifestyle, and eating. And so this is more of a comprehensive, holistic, um, approach to managing weight. It goes far beyond just like a meal plan or a diet, and that's what I think is necessary. So if you've struggled with your weight, I mean technically you don't struggle with your weight; you're struggling with your eating, you're struggling with your behavior, and you're struggling with those things because you're struggling with your emotions, you're struggling with your mindset. Yeah, so it's kind of again that that pyramid is diagnostic, I think, as well as prescriptive. It's kind of an idea of like. How to figure out what to do right, but simultaneously what you haven't been doing right, perhaps. Right? And I think that's important because dieting doesn't give you any place to go. Right? It's either working or it's not. It's a very binary concept. Dieting is it's all or nothing. You're either doing it perfectly or you're not doing it at all. And so, with a situation like that, it's hard to diagnose what went wrong because every time the diet's not working, it's your fault. Right? With dieting, you're either doing it perfect or you're not because you got no willpower or self-control or focus or whatever. And there's really nowhere to go with that. It's such a big thing that it feels overwhelming. Oh, I guess I just can't do it. And so in Program Yourself Thin, a lot of what we're doing is breaking down these big chunks, um, so that we can work on them. And that's how you get better at anything. I say this, that you want to play golf, you want to play It literally doesn't matter. Art— I just, I saw that TikTok was trying to sell me an art book, which I know I'm gonna get. It looks really cool, but it's basically a bunch of different sketches, and you just kind of copy the sketches and use different perspectives and do whatever. But the idea is that you're not just going to learn to draw, you're going to take drawing, you're going to break it down into different kind of components, and you're going to work on those components. But when it comes to dieting, you're not doing any of that. Dieting You're just taking everything on at once, right? You're just going to change everything. I ate like shit yesterday, but today I eat perfectly. And it's it's like I mean it'd be nice if you could do that, I suppose. But where in human history have you seen that someone can just decide to be a different person the next day and then they're just that different person? I think sometimes we gotta balance our you know what we want with what's. what's possible. And I'm not sure if it's possible to just completely change our behavior for good in one day. And so I find this to be a relief personally. I think that, you know, at least this gives us a place to go. So if things aren't working and we're struggling with something, we have a way to kind of break it down, look at it, understand something, get better, and move forward. And I think that's the way we move forward with most things, you know. But when it comes to dieting, the idea is that you're either going to be perfect and follow everything perfect, or you're not, you know. And it's this binary thing that's so big and vague that it's difficult. It can be difficult to move forward with it, right? And I think that's where most dieters find themselves. Most dieters end up just in a state of eternal apathy, you know. And what that feels like is like you want to lose weight. You think about weight all the time. But you can't get yourself to do it, and usually the reason you can't get yourself to do it is because you've done it so many times and failed that your brain now says, "Well, what the hell? What's the point of even trying?" Because even when we succeed, we fail. And at the end of the day, honestly, there's almost nothing worse than losing weight and then putting it back on. To put all that work and effort in and then just to have it disappear is devastating. You know, so again, a lot of people reach this state of apathy where they. They can't even get themselves to do anything anymore. But it, to me, the main reason why that is existing is because you have not broken it down into smaller pieces. So it just feels like it's just one big thing. You're just going to do everything right. I'm just going to play the piano. Well, how are you going to play the piano? You can't just play the piano. You can break it down. You can work on scales. You can break it down. You can work on— Chords, you can break it down and work on rhythm. You know what I mean? You can break it down and work on stuff, but you can't just be good at the piano. You know, and so it ends up feeling overwhelming and discouraging. Yeah, Olivia says that's me. I'm so tired of thinking about my weight. Yeah, I get it. I get it because I mean my clients, they're smart, successful people, and they just think about it constantly. Constantly, but but thinking about it and doing something about are two different things. That's literally where I came up with program yourself then was that I realized that I was thinking about my weight constantly. I was thinking about eating food, all this stuff constantly. And I said, okay, sometimes I'm doing the right stuff and I'm doing the things, and sometimes I'm not. But I'm always thinking about it. That's what I realized for myself. Turns out a lot of people are in the same boat, and that is why. I came up with all this because you know what I said to myself? I said, okay, Jim, sometimes you're doing the right thing, sometimes you're not, but you're always thinking about it. So let's focus on the thinking piece, right? So again, we've got— I always think of this as kind of like above and below ground. I think a mindset below ground, you don't see it. And I think a lifestyle and eating above ground, you see those things, right? The lifestyle behaviors, they're obvious. You're doing them or you're not doing them. The eating—you're doing it or you're not doing it, right? It's a thing you can see with your eyes. The mindset is invisible, but it's really, really important. It's really crucial, you know. So I almost think of this like a tree, you know. And this is the ground and the roots, and this is the branches and the leaves. That's just metaphor for how I think about it. But so what I realized is that even when I wasn't doing the right stuff—I was eating like shit, I wasn't exercising, I wasn't doing any of the right stuff—I was still thinking about it. And that was so freeing to me because I said, okay, well, if I'm always thinking about it. I can go to work on that level at least all the time. And that, again, that was so freeing to me because getting myself to go to the gym was a ton of effort. Getting myself to think was something I just automatically did. So I started really focusing on my thinking, and that was everything that changed everything. Because I promise you that when this changes, when your mindset changes, your everything else changes as well. Yeah. And so, yeah, you're going to think about it anyways, Olivia. You're always going to think about it. The thing is to think about it differently. I know that sounds kind of simplistic, but again, we break it down, right? Mindset we break down into these categories: motivation, self-image, habits, emotions, thinking, and maintenance. So again, we break it down into pieces, but it allows you to just still think about it, but think about it in a way that moves you towards your goal. Because what's happening, unfortunately, is the thinking Olivia is talking about— I'm going to assume here— is the thinking a lot of you are doing, where you're constantly thinking how nice it would be to lose weight, or how you should lose weight, or you have to, or you need to, but you don't. And really what you're thinking about is, what's wrong with me? That's what most of your thinking ends up being. What is wrong with me? How come I can't do this? How come Susie over there did it and I can't do it? How come I can't stick to anything? How come I can't not eat the ice cream? How come I can't do this? How come I can't control myself? That usually becomes the thinking that people wrap themselves up in, and in a simplistic way, and program yourself then. That's problem-oriented thinking, right? You're saying, okay, I'm an overeater. Why am I an overeater? I can't control myself around sugar. Why am I so addicted to sugar? And your subconscious mind's a servo mechanism. It just answers the questions you ask it. But most of the time, if you really start paying attention, you're going to realize the questions you're asking are very problem-oriented. They presuppose the problem. The more you think about it, the more they kind of hardwire it in. This was my big discovery personally, is I realized I was doing the same shit. I was always trying to diagnose and understand my screw-ups, my mess-ups. And I changed a lot of that into not worrying about why I was doing it as much as articulating and clarifying what I wanted to do. How could I get myself? So I started shifting my problem-oriented thinking into solution-oriented thinking, and I really started to focus on that. And that is an absolute game changer, because if, if you all start asking way more solution-oriented questions, if your mindset becomes a lot more solution-oriented, you're never going to believe what you get a lot more of in your life— solutions. You get a lot more solutions. See, there's this weird thing that our minds do where it thinks that if we keep obsessively thinking about the problem, that we're gonna have this cognitive breakthrough and it's gonna give us all the answers, and then we're gonna fix it. But you have to look at yourselves, folks, and say, how long have I been trying to understand why I keep overeating or why I do this? You all have been thinking about this for decades at this point. Have you ever had a breakthrough? And honestly, even if you did, if I could tap you on the head and give you total insight into why you overeat, Oh, because, because this happened when I was a kid. Oh, because I used to eat this, or because I did this, or this thing happened. Even if you knew exactly why you do the wrong thing, you're not going to be better off the next day to do the right thing. So again, the time spent focusing on the problems is time wasted, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, there's a little bit, you know, you got to diagnose and understand them a bit. So I don't want to say never focus on the problem. Some diagnosis is valuable and necessary, but The vast majority of your time ought to be spent on the solutions in your life, and that is something that very few dieters have ever learned about. And so unfortunately, when I say program yourself, then you know you program yourself overweight too. You're always going to program yourself; there's no avoiding that. The question is which are you going to do? And the thing is that as a culture, we are all taught and trained to program ourselves to be overweight. It's an obesogenic environment. Every single food ad you see, every magazine. Every radio ad for bullshit food, um, is all conditioning you to think about the things and focus on the things that make your weight an issue. So you've got to take control of this process and start to intentionally aim yourself at the solutions. And that goes back to what I was talking about at the beginning there, of thinking of yourself as a thin, healthy, happy person. You have to intentionally make that decision. I'm going to start creating the mindset of a thin, healthy person. You all have never done that. You've never done that. And you just assume that if you can lose the weight, then it'll just happen naturally. And it doesn't. This is why no one ever keeps the weight off, because it's not enough to just change your behaviors for a little while. You've got to transform yourself from the inside out into the person you want to be. And the mindset piece is the foundational, fundamental piece of all that. No, um, Lois says diet all or nothing, lifestyle all or something, slow and consistent. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And we talk about that every day, you know, dieting really is an all-or-nothing mindset. And so you're either doing perfect or you're not doing anything at all. And that does not work. That doesn't work in life to get results. Um, you really need to be able to do all when you want to do it, but when you're not able to be perfect Still be in the game. Being in the game 20% is a lot better than being in at 0%. You know what I mean? And so dieting doesn't really teach you that, but super important. Yeah, Pamela says, "Yep, gave up." Yeah, that's what happens. People give up because again, it just gets overwhelming. And even thinking, see you see what I'm saying? Like if you think about your weight 24 hours a day, what you don't realize is you're thinking about your weight in a very ineffective, negative way. Because you're not— you're not— when you say you're thinking about your weight all the time, that doesn't mean you're in your head saying, okay, all right, how can I do this? How can I get control of my weight in the easiest, most enjoyable, comfortable way possible? How can I get myself to eat the right foods so it just feels second nature? How can I feel indifferent to the unhealthy foods that are sabotaging my weight loss goals in a way that feels really comfortable for me? That's not how you're thinking about your weight 24 hours a day. At all, you know. I mean, again, you're fixating on the problems. Why am I? Why do I keep screwing up? How come I start strong and then I always quit? How? What's wrong with me? These are the questions you're asking, and they grind you down. They make you feel bad. And most dieters do that on autopilot. You know, that's the thinking about your weight. What you really mean is you focus on why you can't lose weight and what's wrong with you. And again, it just makes feel like shit. You know, but it's an obvious thing that has a relatively simple solution. You know, so Stephanie, Stephanie says, I love your tip about the goal weight rather than needing to lose X amount of pounds. Yes, I love that one myself. Um, and again, that goes right back to what I was talking about, thinking of yourself as a thin, healthy person, um, impacting your self-image. So instead of thinking of losing 20 pounds, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, You focus on what weight you want to be. So instead of your goal saying, I want to lose 50 pounds— see, because when you say, I want to lose 50 pounds, you're pinning yourself, your self-image, at that 50-pound-plus weight, the weight you're currently at. Dieting does this intuitively without you even realizing it. When you frame things as, I want to lose weight, the I you're referring to is your overweight self. Does that make sense? I want to lose 50 pounds. Okay, well, that means without saying it all explicitly, but it's there. I, at my current weight, me, my, my identity, how I define myself, me, I, the heavy person, want to lose 50 pounds. Okay, you, the overweight person, wants to lose 50 pounds. So you want to be an overweight person who's lost 50 pounds. Does that make sense? There's always a friction there because you are identifying as an overweight person. Well, an overweight person struggles to eat the right amount of food. An overweight person eats too fast. An overweight person makes the wrong choices. Again, it's different for each person. You all have your own specific formula for being overweight, but it's all solidified, I want to lose 50 pounds. I, the person who has eaten and lived the way to get to this weight, overweight— I, the overweight me, wants to lose 50 pounds. You see what I mean? So it's reinforcing a self-image and identity of being an overweight person. And so when you diet, you never get away from that. And you can take it right to the extreme of the person who loses the 50 pounds and gets to their goal weight. And they say, I, the overweight me, lost 50 pounds. So you're still identifying as an overweight person. You're just identifying as an overweight person who has lost 50 pounds. And of course, the expectation is that it's going to find you at this point. So in Program Yourself, then we don't set the goal that I want to lose 50 pounds. We set the goal as I want to be X amount of pounds. Right from the beginning, we're starting to shift our self-image. We're starting to work on shifting our identity. We're getting comfortable with defining ourselves as this version of us. So right from the beginning of the process, we're internalizing it as well as externalizing. So we're not just going to say, I'm just going to okay no more carbs, no more eating for sixteen hours. We're not just going to have an external strategy. We're also going to have an internal component to it. And part of it's gonna be built around your self-image and your identity, because at the end of the day, you're always gonna live up or down to your self-image. You're always gonna live in congruence with what you believe about yourself. And most likely, if you're struggling with your weight, your core mindset belief that needs to change is that you identify as an overweight person, an out-of-control person, a fast eater, an overeater, whatever it is. So we've gotta work on changing those if you're ever gonna be able to live at your goal weight comfortably and naturally. And you can change them. It's not that hard, to be honest. Once you start focusing, it takes a little bit of time, but it's not rocket science. You know, it's just practicing. But it starts right from the beginning of how you articulate your goal, because your goal, folks, is not to lose weight. Your goal is to live at your goal weight. And there's a huge difference between those two goals. Just if your goal is only to lose weight, then you reach it as soon as you get to your goal weight. But then what? And dieting has not set you up to live at your goal weight. Dieting has set you up to lose weight for a little while, and that's why you've gotten those results. It's not because you're broken, it's because you're running, um, a strategy that's designed to do that. Dieting is designed to get you to do something intense for a little while and then quit. That's that. You can't even think of one diet— tell me one diet that's not set up for that. What diet is set up to be forever? We gonna fucking count points with Weight Watchers for the rest of your life? You're not gonna eat a carb for the rest of your life? You're never gonna eat in the morning again, ever again, ever, never? No, no situation can break it? These are very rigid, unrealistic ways of living your life forever. And so I, I don't know, you tell me a diet that's built for the long term. Go ahead, tell me a diet that's built for the long term. I dare you. I dare you. I dare you to tell me a diet that's built for the long term. I ask this every day. I never get an answer. Am I crazy? So, you know, listen, this is my main point though when I talk about this, is that you most likely blame yourself for not being able to manage the weight. But I'm telling you, the bigger issue is that you don't have a good plan. You don't have a good strategy that you have access to. You have stupid diets that you try and follow to manage your weight, and they're not effective. They're not effective. So you change your strategy up a little. Um, Stephanie follows it up, thinking about how I want to feel at the goal weight rather than, um, yeah, and then losing weight. And that's what we do as well. We, we step into the reality. I mean, Jesus, every commercial you see does this. I mean, it works. It's a hypnotic technique, but it's used in every single ad you see, especially for food. They're always showing a person getting the food and then eating the food. It's that way with every product. But why do they do that? Because we have mirror neurons. So when we watch someone getting food and eating the food, to some degree we're experiencing that. We're living it. We're imagining. We're programming it into our mind. And if it's a food you like, an experience you've had, the chances of you making that a reality for yourself are pretty good. But we're doing the same thing with program yourself. Then we're using the same process of stepping into the reality we want to experience, right? The commercials aren't making logical explanations for why you should go buy a Snickers bar. They're giving you emotional reasons, and they're helping you to imagine what it would be like to open one, get one, open it, eat it. And you watch that enough, you're imagining it, and eventually it nudges you and drives you towards that behavior. But the same thing is true for good things. The more you start to imagine yourself being calm and grounded and motivated and relaxed and making good, healthy, happy choices, the more you imagine yourself as that version of you, the more you imagine yourself living that way, the more it starts to become a reality for you. But you got to practice it. It's no different than if you, you know, you've never kicked a soccer ball and I go and teach you how to kick a soccer ball. Well, at first you suck at it, and as you practice, you get better at it. Well, it's the same thing with all of these things, and that's where dieting is so ridiculous because it just assumes that someone who's struggled with making good food choices for 30 years—well, tomorrow's Monday, and I'm going to change all of those 30 years of programming experience, and from now on, because tomorrow's Monday, I'm always going to make good food choices. How's that sound? It sounds great if it was possible, but it's not because you're a human being. You can't just. Change on a dime. You can't just become a whole different person because you just want to. I wish it was that way. So again, I mean, you want to play golf. Oh, I'm going to watch a couple videos on how to play golf, and tomorrow I'm going to go and I'm going to be, you know, a great golfer. Well, no, you're not, because there's a difference between knowing what you should do and being able to do it. It's no different with your behaviors, your eating behaviors. Your eating behaviors are no different than a golf swing. You have learned how to eat, when to eat, what to eat, and now you do it on autopilot. And this idea that you're just going to stop it, it does— it's just, it reveals a complete lack of understanding of how your mind works. So my point is that there's better ways to manage your mind, certainly better ways to manage your weight. And the best way to go about that is to go get the free hypnosis session I give you, because I also give you a training, um, called Reprogrammed: How to Live at Your Goal Weight Without the Fight. It's all completely free. Go check it out. I mean, that stuff alone could could change the game for you. Certainly the training as well, because I think it explains everything. So again, you click the link in my bio or type mind M I N D into the Facebook comments and it'll send it to you. What's up, Carolyn? Carolyn says, "Yep, keep seeing yourself as overweight, wanting X Y Z." Yeah, exactly. Again, our identity is huge, hugely important with the results we get. So again, program yourself. Then we want to shift. Our identity right from the beginning. Um, oh, Vanya says thank you for amazing positive words, it's helped me. Well, thank you, I appreciate you saying that. And that's what I'm here for, here every Monday through Friday at noon Eastern, um, to help you all approach your weight differently. And I think when you hear this stuff, I think it— I don't know, makes a lot more sense than dieting, gives you a lot more ways forward than just willpower. I think that's a good thing. That's a Debbie Debbie said. I agree your thoughts create your reality, and it's very possible to reprogram your brain with positive reinforcements. Not easy, but possible with lots of practice. Yeah, absolutely. Agreed. Agreed. That's what program yourself then is built to do. It's literally I mean one aspect of the program is just a hypnotic cocoon. So every morning you get a five minute hypnosis session. Every night you got a ten minute session to listen to, and every night you do a sixty second kind of self hypnotic mental rehearsal technique. It's really easy. It's fun. Um, but it's a very powerful way to program your subconscious mind to start thinking, living, and eating in a different way. And it just, it follows well-worn practices of acquiring a skill. Um, the thing is, we never look at dieting and weight loss as acquiring skill. You look at dieting and weight loss as really an endurance test for how long can you force yourself through willpower to do something. It's not built for the long term. You know, yeah, Pamela says no pretzels ever. Oh my God, yeah, exactly right. The idea that we're gonna give up foods forever too, that's another silly one. Uh, Lois says I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined a creative art and writing class, and one exercise was to explore what our name's meaning. My name has 2 meanings, beautiful and warrior, and my exercise class friends call me a warrior. With your information, I am that warrior. I'm so much happier and healthier. Yeah, Lois is doing great, part of the program. And yeah, that's another example of a self-image and identity is as you start to identify as a warrior, for example. I went through that the way The Peaceful Warrior. I thought that was such a great book back in the day. Carlos Castaneda's warrior concepts in his books, those were very profound for me. Thanks, HR. Those are very profound concepts for me, but it was a way for me to identify as something that was more powerful than how I was identifying myself, if that makes sense. Um, certainly more resilient. I, I really identify that peaceful warrior for me was really about a life of, of consistently working on things, you know. And, and there was a time frame aspect to it, but that was so internal for me and so such an important concept to internalize because It gave me the resiliency to get the results that I want, you know, because you need resiliency because the results just take longer than you want them to, you know. So you got to have the ability to keep moving forward when you're not getting the results that you want in the time you thought you were going to get them, you know. But nice job, Lois. Keep it up. Um, All right, you know, I gotta get out of here. What am I doing? I gotta go. I gotta eat and pick my kid up. So, all right, I'm gonna get out of here. Again, if you're not in my world, please click the link in my bio or go to programyourselfthin.com. If you're on Facebook, all you got to do is type mind, M-I-N-D, and it'll automatically send it to you. Um, so go check that out. But again, the, uh, the other thing is that if you like this, I'm here every Monday through Friday, usually around noon Eastern. Um, and if you can't make the, the live Uh, you can watch it as a podcast and it is a separate one. How much is the program? Um, go to programyourselfthin.com and you can go learn all about that. But again, before you ever even consider getting the program, please listen to the hypnosis session and watch the training. The training is like 20 minutes and the training is going to be really valuable for you regardless of what you decide to do. Um, but watch those things first. Do not just get the program. I'm trying to save us both headaches. If it ain't the right program, I've got plenty of free stuff for you to figure that out. Okay, and I only want— I don't want you to waste your time. So I strongly suggest go get the hypnosis session, but most importantly, watch that training. That training, I think, is the best training I've ever put together, and it explains everything we do in the program. So, you know, it either resonates or it doesn't. And, uh, you know, for a lot of people it doesn't. I'm not— I'm not saying Program Yourself In is for everyone. You never hear me say that because it's not true. It's for certain people. But if it's for you, um, it's absolutely life-changing. Okay, so go check that out, and, um, you all owe it to yourself because I promise you there is a better way potentially, um, out of this mess than dieting, um, and certainly better than GLP-1s. Can you imagine? There is actually