You Can't Gain (or Lose) Weight

Everyone, welcome to today's program. Yourself then podcast. Today we're talking about the fact that you can't gain or lose weight. This is a semantical conversation that I think is going to help you. A lot. A lot of times people say, oh, I gained weight, I lost weight. But the reality is you didn't gain or lose weight. You changed how you ate. Okay, this is really important because when you start thinking about your weight as a reflection of how you're eating, and I know you kind of do, but I'm talking about, like, specifically when you think in terms of cause and effect, right? There's a cause and then there's an effect.

When you think about your weight this way, it's very clarifying for your subconscious mind because you can change how you eat. You can eat more calories, you can eat less calories. And over time, through some magical process, you have no control over, your weight goes up or down. So when we start splitting hairs, you're not really gaining or losing weight. What you're really doing is you're changing your eating. And the reason this is important is because you can affect how much you eat. You can affect how quickly or slowly you lose weight. You really can affect that process. Short of, again, chopping a limb off, there's no real way for you to lose weight. Okay? Again, you can make changes in your eating, you can take changes in your lifestyle, and over time, that can turn into your weight going down. Now, when you think of it this way, again, it's very, extremely literal. But this is important because your subconscious mind is very literal. And so a lot of times this little sneaky thing that happens, we say, well, I need to lose weight, so I don't. I can't. I don't know how to lose weight. And so what happens is we're. We're meeting the process a level too high. We need to take it down a level and say, when the scale goes up, oh, I've been eating more. When the scale goes down, oh, I've been eating less. Do you see? So. So we've replaced I lost weight, I gained weight with I've been eating more, I've been eating less. And. Or if there's some other factor that led to this, okay, but this is the key thing, because now you're always staying connected with the reality, and you're staying connected with the part that you actually have influence and control over. And so for your brain, it's much clearer, and there's just a sense of, okay, I get it. And now we can put all of our energy into changing the way we're eating. And again, if you change your eating, if you reduce your calories, your weight is going to go down. It's just a matter of time. But it does take a little bit of time, and it takes this process to happen outside of your control to make the weight go down. So again, this is really important because if we just talk about the effect on a subconscious level, we feel disconnected from being able to change it. I'll give you one more example where this shows up is people do this with money, right? I need to make more money. But technically, you're not making more money. You know, you're creating more value. You're, you know, figuring out ways to, you know, get people to compensate you at higher levels. But that's where your power is, not in just making more money. Unless you got a counterfeiting machine, you know. So again, it sounds semantical, and it sounds like we're splitting hairs, and we are, but it's a very important way to do that because what happens is when the weight goes up now, we don't feel as out of control because most people, when the weight starts going up, you can hear it in their language, oh, my weight went up. That's a disconnected, disassociated way to explain it as. As if it just happened on its own. Now, technically, it did. Your weight does go up or down on its own, depending on what you're eating. But when we just focus on the process of going up or down on its own, we start to confuse our subconscious mind. So again, stop saying I gained or lost weight and start saying, I've been eating more, I've been eating less. Because that is focusing us. Put a spotlight directly on what's leading to your weight. And the more you think this way, the more empowering it becomes, because that's what, in my opinion, mastering your weight is all about. It's really focusing and concentrating on the right things in the right way. And this is a small, subtle way to change how you're thinking. That has huge impacts because, again, it keeps you connected. So when the scale goes up, you're, oh, my God, what's going on? So I've probably been eating more. And it directs your brain to say, where have I been eating more? Where have I been eating less? And it keeps you connected to where your power and your influence is greatest, which is controlling your reading, your lifestyle, your behaviors, not controlling your weight. So I hope this makes sense. I know it's kind of a. Kind of A lofty, you know, sort of idea and a big. A big concept. But if you really think on this and internalize this and start approaching your weight with this different mindset, I think you're going to start to feel more empowered. And regardless of your weight going up or down, you're going to start to feel more control over it. And that's what we're looking for here. So again, if you want support with this approach, click the link in my bio, go get the free hypnosis session, watch the training video I made, read the emails I send you. They're all there to help you succeed with your weight. So if you have any questions, feel free to ask them.

Yeah, let's see. All right, Lori Anderson, I've been the same weight for eight days. Please educate me about how to deal with plateaus. This is very frustrating. Yeah, no, I get that, Lori. And again, we got to learn how to deal with these. Okay. Meaning there's no alternative where you just lose weight every day. There's no alternative to that. Not, not long. I mean, you might lose weight every day for, you know, a couple weeks maybe even, but at some point along your journey, you're going to hit a plateau. And it might be eight days, it might be eight weeks. Just telling you what I've seen. You can do all the right stuff and all of a sudden it'll plateau. You can feel like you're doing all the right stuff and hit a plateau. So when we hit a plateau, the most important thing to remember is that, well, even before we hit the plateau, we want to be ready for it. We have to have a mindset. One of the phrases I think about a lot is that weight loss is unpredictable in the short term, it's unpredictable and inconsistent in the short term, and it's very predictable and consistent in the long term. So we kind of zoom in. And honestly, even eight days, and I know eight days can feel like a lifetime when you're attempting to do things better, clean up your eating, all the rest of it. But eight days really isn't that much time. I mean, it just isn't. And I have seen people who are doing all the right stuff and they plateau for eight days and they might plateau for another eight days. And then all of a sudden the weight starts going down again and they didn't really change anything to make it happen. So when you hit a plateau, the mindset I go into it with is that as soon as I hit a plateau, I want to treat it as an opportunity to practice maintenance where I am not going to drastically try and change things to get myself losing weight more because that throws me off balance. So when I hit a plateau, I'm saying, okay, I'm going to practice my maintenance, which for me means I'm going to focus on the things I did to get here. What did I do to lose weight? What differences and changes did I make to lose weight? And now I want to optimize those. And what does optimize mean? It means I want to make what I did to get here easier and more comfortable for me. So I'm not cutting more calories, I'm doing what I did to get here, and I'm making easier and more comfortable for me to continue with. Because what I'm looking to do, as soon as I start hitting a plateau, I want to optimize what I did to get here to make it easier, more comfortable. And then I just want to kind of ride it out. For me, I'm thinking about like a month. I'm going to wait a month, I'm going to keep doing what I did, I'm going to make it better and easier. And after a month, if I still haven't lost weight now, I'm going to say, okay, maybe I need to reduce the calories some more. But before that month hits, you don't know if it's just your body adjusting, you know, some hormonal imbalance balancing you really, there's just so many reasons why your weight can kind of stall out for a minute and then kind of kick start again without the calories even changing, you know, in the short term. So that's just the fact of the matter. You know, I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. So we have to acknowledge the truth of this process. Because a lot of times dieting is always getting us, you know, selling us this story about how we're going to lose all the weight, you know, this straight line of success down to our goal weight. And we never hit plateaus, we never have blips. Nothing ever happens like that. But that's not true. And so we have to recognize that plateaus are a part of the process. And the question becomes, how are you going to deal with them? And again, ideally, we've got to have a plan even before we hit the plateau, right? Because again, in your mind, what always happens, okay, I'm going to change all this. And what you're doing is you're being conditionally saying, okay, I'll do all this good stuff, I'll start eating better, living Better as long as the scale keeps going down. But guaranteed, at some point, you're going to be doing the right things and the scale is not going to go down. I guarantee you, for every one of you that that's going to happen. You are going to hit multiple times, too, by the way, not even just once. Multiple times along your journey, you are going to be doing the right stuff and the weight is going to stall or sometimes go up a little bit, and you're going to hit that experience. And so the question has become, what am I going to do when that happens? I'm going to relax. I'm going to relax and I'm going to focus on the things I did to get here. I'm going to optimize them. And I start cleaning up my breakfast. I'm going to make my breakfast even better and easier to make so I can keep that going on. I started drinking more water. I'm going to make it easier to drink my water and keep doing that. I've started walking. I'm going to keep walking, but I'm going to work on installing that habit making even better still, listen to a podcast or make it more fun or interesting or go some different paths, whatever. Okay? And I'm going to manage this out. Now, this is important because you've got to practice your maintenance. Because, listen, at some point, you get to your goal weight and there's no more weight loss happening.

So when I say practice maintenance, what I'm saying to you is, what is your motivation to keep eating well when you're at your goal weight, when you no longer have weight loss, to look forward to what's motivating you? And this is a good opportunity to practice that. And what I would suggest is that you focus on, hopefully what you've been doing to lose weight, hopefully, is also making you feel better mentally and emotionally and physically. So hopefully, whatever you've done to start losing weight, you start having a little more energy, you start feeling better about yourself, start feeling on track, you start feeling some momentum. And so when the plateau and the weight part comes, we kind of shift our focus a bit, too. We say, okay, well, the weight's, you know, kind of doing its thing for a little bit, so I'm going to put that to the side. But I'm going to keep doing these good things because I started feeling better and better and better and better. So Lori's in the program. So, Lori, what you can do now, you kind of deep dive into the blueprints. Whatever you've done, so Far again, optimize them, and then maybe add another thing to it. Okay? But you got to stay relaxed and calm, because this process is always going to be there with you the entire time during your weight loss. There's always the potential in the reality, because it's going to happen a number of times that you're going to hit a plateau. And the question becomes, what am I going to do? Because right now, again, in the back of your mind, it's saying, well, I'll do everything right as long as the weight's going down. That's a conditional approach. We need to get to an unconditional one. Says, I don't give a shit what my weight does. I am going to keep doing all these changes. I'm really feeling good. I'm. I'm starting to feel structured. I'm starting to really master this. And I don't know exactly what the weight's going to do this week, this month, but I'm going to keep making these changes because I know if I stay on this path, I'm going to master my weight. It may take me three months, it may take me three years. I don't know, and I don't care, because I just want to master this area of my life. And so what have I done so far to be successful? Hey, nice job. Great job. Let's make it better. Let's move forward. Let's keep going. You know, this is the little kind of, you know, pep speech I give myself when I hit plateaus or when I hit, you know, backslides a little bit. Okay? Because they're going to happen. So again, great work. Starting to lose weight, and now great work. Starting to deal with the plateau. You've got to learn how to deal with plateaus, every single person. Because if you're in your head saying, you know what? You know how I'm going to deal with plateaus? I'm not going to have any. The second I stop losing weight, I'm just going to cut more calories. That approach is just a race to back to the starting point, you know, so we've got to just relax, calm down this process, you know, you really do have to have some patience with it, because very often it takes longer than we think it's going to. There's a cognitive bias we all have, which is called the planning fallacy. And the diet industry has only made this even worse. But so most of the time, when we start our weight loss adventure and journey, we're starting off with this idea that we're going to start here, get on our plan and just have a straight line of success down to our goal weight. And that is almost never how it happens. It never happens, this straight line of success, and it almost never happens in the time frame you're thinking in, just to be honest. I mean, that's just something. Again, it's a. The way your brain works. You've just got to accept, acknowledge, and start to deal with. Or you can try and fight against it. You know what I mean? That's what the dieters do. It's not fast. I'm gonna cut more calories. I'm gonna lose more. I'm gonna cut more.

Right. Until you quit, because you burn out. You just. You can't stay in that mode. You cannot stay in that mode. Oh, God. More. Oh, God. I'm not losing weight. Oh, God.

Relaxed. Okay. This is the process. Look at other areas of your life where you've gotten good at something. Learning stuff and getting good at things just takes longer than you think it's going to. I wish it didn't. What do you want? You know? But it does. And so now it's up to you to change your mindset. Change your mindset. Not to change more calories out. Change your mindset, relax, enjoy what you've done so far. Build on that, and look forward to a future where you have complete and total control over your weight and that recognizing that plateaus are just a part of this process. Right.

What's up, Lois? Yeah. Lois says, love the idea of looking at goal weight, not today's plateau. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just. You're just going to hit these moments. I mean, look at your life. I don't care. It could be school. It could be some skill you've learned. But, you know, I do this with guitar, for example. It's like I'll start playing a new song, and I look at them like, oh, I get it. Okay, great. But then my fingers have to be able to do it, you know, and that takes longer than I think it should, but that's just how it is. And on top of that, it's just this bumpy, weird, wobbly approach. Learning guitar song. Right. So I'll play it. At first, I have no idea. I'm just playing.

Oh, it sounded better. Okay, it sounded better. Next day I go to do it. Or the next couple days I go to do it. It's plank playing. What happened? I thought I was getting this. Plank playing. What's going on? Then a couple more days go by.

But now it Sounds good. Again. So this is the real path of mastery and success. It's not starting on day one. And just every day is. You know what I mean? And you know this. We all know this. Okay? But now's your opportunity to deal with this directly. Because for you, Lori, this is directly. This is your challenge right now. Okay? And the challenge is not to just start slicing more calories and getting frustrated and panicked and worried and overwhelmed. It's relaxing. It's going back into the hypnosis sessions, calming yourself, grounding yourself down, working your blueprint again, working what you've done, optimizing it, giving yourself a little bit of time to see if your body's just gonna re. Kick the weight stars up again and. Or you just start tweaking the calories some more. Okay? But we do it all from a place of calm and relaxation. But great job even getting to this point. Okay? Darlene says, how do I get your emails? I'll tell you, Darlene, I see you're on Facebook, so I'm literally just gonna write the.

The link in here because I can't add your email to the list. That's against spam policies.

Can't be adding people's emails in, or I'll get in big trouble. So. But I will put this link in there for you and for anyone else and other things. You can always click on my profile and there's a link in there to go get the free hypnosis session. I made a free hypnosis session for you called the New Thin Me. It's a weight loss kickstart session, and it's free. Yeah, let's go check it out. And I made a training for you. I got a bunch of cool stuff coming too. I know I say that, but next week, it should start showing up. So I do have a Circle app. It's a community, and right now it's for my clients, but I'm gonna have a free section in there, and I believe probably next week or the week after that should be ready to go. And that's gonna be really cool. I got so much cool stuff coming. I can't wait. So. But finishing up a lot of things. Mainly this old. This old beautiful blueprint. Yeah, we just got these printed, sold out of them, which was pretty cool. Got new ones all on the way coming. So if you missed yours this, you'll get another opportunity to order one if you choose to. And.

Yeah, that'll be that. But this thing is awesome. Working on another book, and that's gonna. That's Going really well too, and it's really cool. So I'm super excited. Anyways, so, yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them. And yeah, go get that hypnosis session if you're not in my world yet. What is going on here? I can do this again. My tripod is. Oh, there we go. Fixed it. All right.

Sorry, everyone. My tripod was loose and it makes me crazy because it's just wobbling over there and every time I touch it, it wobbles more. So. So anyways. Oh, yeah. So if anyone's got any questions, feel free to ask them Thursday, one more day of the week. What's up, Karen? Hey, Jim. I'm doing so good, thanks to you. All right, Karen. Nice. Happy to hear that. I love hearing from Karen because Karen again, Karen's been. Been in the program in a while. And so what I love with Karen is again, you kind of come in here when you're struggling a little bit, get yourself back on track, you know, and so that's kind of the key thing is that, and I always try to say this, even my clients and even potential clients, I'm not trying to sell you some bullshit story that you're just going to lose weight and that's the end of it. What's really going to happen is your weight is something you can kind of manage and, and.

What'S the word?

Cultivate and, and watch over forever, you know, because things are always changing. Again, diet sells you this idea that you get to your goal weight and then you're done. And that it's. God, it makes me nuts because it's not true. It's just not true. You get to your goal weight and that's exciting. And then there's living at your goal weight, staying at your goal weight. You know what I mean? What's up, Uzo? Uzo said, didn't get to hear your response yesterday. I don't know if you saw my comments. I did, Uzo, and I did respond to him. Uzo said yesterday that they binged and gained eight pounds in one day. And my response to you was that I would. This, this to me is the perfect opportunity to start weighing yourself every day. Because unless you just keep binging. But if you, if that was a one day binge and now you're kind of back to normal and what you're probably going to notice is that your weight starts to go down.

This is a great time to weigh yourself every day.

Or else you're going to miss all that weight loss, you know? And you're going to reinforce in your mind that your weight goes up eight pounds, and then you're going to think you're staying up at eight pounds. It'll take you months to get rid of it. And that's not the case most of the time. So, anyways.

But I did answer that yesterday. So if you go back and listen yesterday, I gave you a bit more of an answer. So.

You can go check that out, because it's up there. But I won't talk about anymore. What's up. Creedy CRE says, does losing weight too fast slow your metabolism in the long run or is that not real?

Yeah, well, listen, when you lose weight, your metabolism slows, right? The less mass you have, the slower your metabolism. There's just less to do. Okay, so that's just a fact of weight loss, losing weight too fast. The bigger issue with the metabolism question is that losing weight too fast usually is. Listen, the truth is this. The fastest way to lose weight is the most extreme way to lose weight. So the faster your weight loss, the more extreme the thing you're doing. The more extreme thing you're doing, the less likely you are to keep it up. So never mind your metabolism, because most likely you have nothing to worry about with your metabolism, because most likely you're going to do something extremely lose weight quickly. You'll lose some weight. You won't be able to keep it up. Most likely, you'll never even get to your goal weight with that method. Okay? But let's just say you do get to your goal weight in the fastest way possible. Well, 95% chance you're not going to stay there. So it really doesn't matter about your metabolism. To be honest, you're focusing on the wrong thing there. So, you know, the slight shift in metabolic. Metabolic function from your weight loss is way less of a deal for most people than the process they're going to use to lose the weight. So, you know, again, 95% of people that lose weight on a diet put the weight back on. It is not because their metabolism slowed down. Oh, God. Again, don't get me wrong. It's a slight factor. It's a real thing. But it's a tiny part of the story. The biggest part of the story, why people put the weight back on, is because the way they lose the weight is so extreme, the only way they can get themselves to do it is to fixate on the weight loss. So they trade the excitement and the pleasure of the food for the excitement and the pleasure of the weight. Loss and the scale going down. And now all of a sudden, when the scale stops going down, you get to your goal weight and there's no more food, there's no more scale to look forward to. What's motivating you to do this really extreme thing? Oh, just being in my goal weight gym. Oh, yeah. Then why did 95% of people that lose weight on a diet put it back on if that's true? So again, you know, we get caught up on these little things, these, these metabolic questions, which, again, is a factor. But it just, like everything that they blow it up is. That's not even a story. The big story is that what you're doing to lose weight is not something you can keep continuing to do once you've lost the weight. And it has almost nothing to do with your metabolism. That's my opinion. What's up, Regina? Regina says my doctor asked how I lost weight and I told her about you. That is awesome. And I love to hear that. And I hear a lot of people saying that, so it's kind of cool. I do, you know, at some point, especially with these books, I'll tell you, like, I really.

I. I'll tell you a funny little story. Well, it's funny to me, but how long ago was it? I have been doing this now 30. Over 30 years personally, over 20 years professionally. And, you know, I'd started up a hypnosis office and I was always focused on weight. And I'd started Program Yourself then almost as soon as I started my office. And I was teaching that as a. As a group program in my office. And I was going around to some other places and teaching it there, too. And then at that point, I remember this so clearly because it was like December and I was like. Or November, and I was. I was going to write a book. And at that same time, I met a friend of mine who was getting into online marketing. And I got. Remember, this is over 20 years ago, so it's a completely different landscape. Anyways, we did a promotion for Program Yourself. Then it just blew up. And next thing you know, I was just doing online stuff and I never got to the book. So 20 years later, here I am. And this was the first one to get made. And there's two books coming pretty quick on the heels of this. The first one is kind of a shorter one. It's a hypnotic storybook. And that one will be out relatively quick. I'm not going to keep saying, like, next week it's going to take me a little longer than I think, because that's just how it always is, but relatively quick. I think within a month that book should be ready to go. And then there's the real main book, which will be out probably sometime next year, if I had to guess. But anyways, going into the books is really exciting because that's how a lot of people obviously consume information. So I've never really gone into that realm. Most of my trainings have been videos, webinars, you know, things like that. So it's exciting getting in the books, though. And it's exciting because, again, more doctors will hear about this approach and learn how to help their. Their clients and their patients. Not the clients, their patients more lose weight. Because most doctors have no idea how to help you lose weight, unfortunately. So that's awesome. Regina, thanks for. Thanks for giving me the shout out. I appreciate that.

Uzo says, is it true that the bigger the time window, the more weight I can lose? I hear about it recently. The bigger the time window. I don't know what that means, but I mean, you know, if you're talking about the time window, if you give yourself five years, yeah, sure, you can lose more weight in five years than five months, probably so. I'm not sure if I understand your question correctly, though.

Because the way you're asking it, when I hear you say I hear about it recently, as soon as I hear someone say I've been hearing about it recently, instantly my cackles go up. I said, it's probably then, because I instantly think it's coming through podcasters, influencers, and it's. That's just my natural reaction. It doesn't mean it is. You know, again, I'm not really sure exactly what question you're asking there, but yeah, anyways. But yeah, if you give yourself more time is usually a better thing.

D says, where are the new blueprints in the program? Have they just been changed? Yeah. D, if you go into, oh, I gotta change in the membership area, if I didn't do it already, I don't think I did. But Dia, you're in the Circle app, right? The. If you're in the pro. If you're in program yourself, then you've got to be in the Circle app. Okay? So let. Let me know.

Let me know. If you're not in the Circle app, shoot me an email at Jim at program yourself then and I'll get you in there. It's. It's free, it's with the program. Okay. And it's awesome now, and it's just going to Become way better. But anyways, in the Circle app you can get the PDF version of this right now. So it's really cool because you can just download the PDF, it's fillable, so you can just, you know, again, go through, it's all formatted. You can just fill out the questions right there. And then again, if you do want a physical version, these will be back in stock next week. I'll have more of them. But yeah, you can get it right now. The PDF version is right there in the Circle app. If it's not in the membership area yet, I will get that in there anyways. And if you're not in the Circle app, shoot me an email. D because you got to get in there.

What's up, Kent? Ken said better sleep was the key to my weight success. I don't even think about snacking at night any longer. Yeah, better sleep's crucial. Crucial. Again, there's so many fundamental, so many fundamental aspects to weight that people just ignore, lifestyle wise. And sleep's right at the top of the list, in my opinion. The most important. I think sleep is the number one lifestyle factor affecting your weight. And so I think that, that, that's, that's great to hear, Ken. It just kind of reinforces it one more time. But, but I think you're right on the money with that. Uzo says about like fasting there. I knew it and I knew it. So. Yes. Is it true that the bigger the time window, the more weight I can lose? I mean, yeah, obviously, if you, you know what, how about this? I'll start the, the, the 23:1 fasting protocol.

Which I actually, I'm joking. I already know it exists because someone told me about it, but asked me if it was a good idea. But yeah, I mean, if you, if obviously if you only eat, why don't you just eat five minutes a day? Let's just. Why are we stopping? You know what I mean? You need five minutes a day. That's the fastest weight loss you can achieve. How about five seconds? You get five seconds, eat as much as you can and then you're done for the day. That's the fastest weight loss you can achieve. Uzo, again, I know people get desperate. I understand it. I understand that you're desperate to lose weight, but you've got to get out of the state of desperation because when you're in a state of desperation, you don't make good decisions. This is what the diet industry just revolves around. The diet industry revolves on your desperation because when you're desperate you're just not thinking straight and you start asking questions like, if I eat less during the day, will I lose more weight? Yeah, obviously, yeah. Make your intermittent fasting window, you know, 23 and a half hours. That's the best weight loss you can achieve for about a day or two until you get stressed to the gills from it. Uzo says it's so hard. I tried 18:6 again, Uzo. But Uzo, this is Uzo's path. This is a lot of people's path, you know. Yeah, it's so hard. As soon as it's so hard, you should just stop it. I know that's not the message you usually get with weight loss and diets, but I'm here to tell you if it's really, really hard, don't do it because you're not going to do something really, really hard forever.

How am I going to lose weight then? Well, how about you do it comfortably and easily? How about you change things slowly and systematically? One time.

Sub. Shereen sh said, I got mine this this week my husband announced delivery from Jim. You're talked about a lot in our household. That's awesome. Wow, Shereen. Oh, I knew you were gonna get. Yeah, well, Shereen lives two towns over for me, so that's awesome. Yeah. Cool. And that's cool too. That's on a lot of you that got that ordered the book. You probably start getting them probably today and tomorrow because they were telling me they were going to be delivered like next Monday. But that's cool that you got it. That's awesome, Shereen. So I hope you like it. A lot of work went into that. I love mine. It's been fun. I've been looking through it. It's really fun to read through it.

Nice. Ken says PYT changed my life. Yeah, it's life changing. You know, obviously when you all of a sudden have a real systematic, comprehensive approach to manage health, happiness and weight. Yeah, it's life changing, you know, especially if you struggle with those things for a lot. So that's cool. Yeah. Karen said needed the reminder not to keep cutting calories. Yes, there you go. Okay, so there Karen just said that is again when we hit a plateau. It's almost this knee jerk reaction. We just need to cut more. But no, it's not not the truth because again, you just don't know what's causing the plateau. Sometimes it's your body just adjusting and if you just hold steady, the weight loss will kick start again. And sometimes it is that you need to reduce the calories. More, but you don't know right away. You don't know. After eight days, you really need. Again, I say 30 days. I've seen. That's just what I've seen. But pick whatever day you want. But again, if you're just going to keep cutting calories the second you stop losing weight, and eight days to me is kind of a second, like, that's not that long. I know it feels like a long time, but it's really just not, you know.

Uzo said, yeah, I guess I'm just used to having it really hard. And the whole no pain, no gain thing, I get it. Uzo, I understand that's pretty much everyone's experience, but it's just. I don't. Again, I'm not judging. I'm not. I'm not beating you up here. It's just that my whole message is to kind of pull yourself out of the trance you're in. Most of you all in the diet trance. That's the trance, right? That no pain, no gain. You got to make it. If you're serious, you got to do really hard things. It's got to be really difficult. And that's how you get the great results. But it's just not true, because no one's Getting great results. 75 of the population of American adults right now are overweight or obese. 95% of people that lose weight on a diet put it back on. So where's the success that we're chasing with this plan? I just don't understand it. And it's miserable the whole time. You know, it's just so crazy that the dieter. It's just like, you think about weight loss 24 hours a day on one hand. On the other hand, you don't want to lose weight because you dread it. So what changes? You know, to me, it's the approach you do not again. Or you can just keep trying to starve yourself. Just keep trying to starve yourself. I don't know at what point that works for people. I've never heard it work. But, you know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.

Yeah. Says it seems like if I'm choosing an easy path, it won't be any good. Uzo, I. I don't feel. From what you're saying, and I can't. I don't know your details too much, but from. From what you're telling me, it doesn't seem any good with what you're doing.

So I don't. You know what I mean? And I think you all have to look at it that way. You know, there's like what you believe, but then you have to take a step back and look at your own results. Are you at your goal weight? Are you at your goal weight? Is it enjoyable? Is it easy? I, I'm at my goal weight. I've been in my goal for 30 years. I won Blip 14 years ago. I put £25 on. Other than that, I've been at the same weight and I love it, I love it, I love how I eat. It's easy. I don't, and I use, I hesitate to use the word easy. It hasn't been like easy. It hasn't been automatic. It's been work, it's been effort. Like I, I, I, I take consistent action. I've taken a lot of work to change things, but I've done it in a systematic, comfortable, bite size way. That's the difference. I'm not trying to change everything in one day. I'm not trying to not eat for 18 hours, starve myself.

As it says. You're very right, it's not going good. I just blame it on my self control. I Uzo, I'll say it one more time. You know, it's the, it's the sprinter in the marathon analogy that you're, you're in a, you're at the start line of a marathon and you get the idea in your head that I'm gonna sprint this, I'm gonna win it because I'm just gonna sprint the whole thing. These doofuses are going to be pacing themselves. I'm just going to sprint the whole thing and win. And the gun goes off and you start sprinting and the first eighth of a mile, you're way out ahead everyone, you're like, holy, my plan's working, it's working. And the next eighth of a mile you collapse and pass out and you don't even finish the race. And then you look and say, ah, I just only could have sprint if I only sprinted more, if I only wanted it more. Well, you know, there's physical realities to the world too. And I would say, Uzo, if you look back at your weight loss attempts, I would bet they're all the same because you overwhel. And this is for all of you, by the way. So I'm speaking to literally all of you. Every weight loss attempt is the same story. You overwhelm yourself, you jump into your plan, you try to do everything perfect. You overwhelm yourself, you can't keep it up and you quit and you go back to what you always do. And then some time goes by, you get upset again, you repeat the whole thing over again. And it's been that way for decades now for most of you. And you just. Why? Because you're convinced it's some, some Monday, some magical Monday. I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have the, the self control of the gods. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be so willpowered out. Nothing's gonna, Nothing's gonna affect me. I'm gonna make. I'm gonna wake up some Monday and always make the right choice. I'm going to eat a thousand calories, eat for five hours a day. I'm never going to eat sugar again.

I mean, what, what, what? Why would you say that? You, why do you keep thinking you're going to do this? I don't know. How many times have you tried it? And I don't want this to sound defeatist because I'm not saying you can't lose weight. I'm saying you can't lose weight that way again. It's like, no, I'm going to sprint the marathon, Jim. Well, I don't think you're going to. I don't think you can physically sprint the whole 26 miles. I don't think you can do it. No, I can, Jim. I just got to want it more. I just got to want it more. Go. Wanna more?

It's that guy's name then.

David.

What's the motivating guy's name of no Pain, no Gain? David Goggins. Right. I was listening to David Goggins. He says, you gotta want it, Jillian. Michael said, if I want it, I just, I'll fight through it. Oh, God. Okay. You know.

Anyways.

Someone said. Are you talking about running a marathon? I'm just using a metaphor. But your weight loss is like a marathon. Assuming you would like to keep the weight off, assuming you would like to.

Live at your goal weight, you know, and I guess that's the first choice you have to make. Do you want to just get to your goal weight for a couple days, or would you like to live the rest of your life at your goal weight on your autopilot? Which one do you want? Okay. Because the strategies to achieve either are completely different. And so again, the idea that you're going to sprint through a marathon sounds great on paper. And then when you go to do it, you realize your body can't do it.

And yeah.

Says. Yeah. I used to listen to David Goggins. Yeah, I get it, Uzo. No, you're not being annoying at all, Uzo. Please understand that. But I gotta speak to it this way, because for me, again, I see what you're doing differently than you see it, obviously. But that's why I'm here, folks. I'm here every Monday through Friday to help you all out. And the primary where I'm able to help you out is to help you see what you've been doing to try and lose weight is not the right way. Dieting, these extreme things are not the right way if they don't work for you. Let me put it that way. Because again, if it works for you, if you're at your goal weight and you're intermittent fasting, you're eating one hour a day, and you've been doing that for five years, then I say, great job. That's awesome. You figured out what works for you. Do you understand? It's not me saying. I'm not just making this pronouncement from on high, that this isn't base if it's working or not, based on your results, in your experience of it. But you can't sit here and tell me, oh, no, Jim, I know what I need to do. Okay, well, when's the last time I've been at your goal weight? No, it's been six years. Well, you have no idea what to do. You. You just don't. And so what do you want from me? No, no, I know what I got to do. I got to not eat. I got to eat for like, one hour a day is. Is the answer. I gotta eat 500 calories a day. That's all, Jim. Oh, that. That's it. And dieters talk so much. You talk like, dieters talk such a big game. And it's so weird, you know, it's like. It's like a little kid. It's like a little kid, like, playing basketball, and they make a shot like, I'm going the NBA. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah. You keep practicing. It's like, no, you're not going to the NBA right now. Maybe you keep practicing. This little kid, you suck. You're not gonna go there. You know, it's like dieters like this. It's like, oh, what are you gonna do? Oh, you're gonna start next Monday and eat two hours a day. You're gonna need a thousand calories. You stop eating sugar, you stop eating carbs. Oh, my God. Why would the next time you do it be any different than the 20 times you did before. Oh. Because I want it more this time.

Okay. Okay.

Sarah says I'm at my goal weight, and I watch you to help me maintain. Thank you for helping me with not just losing, but maintaining. You're welcome, Sarah. Nice job. Proud of you. Again, the maintaining is the fun part, folks.

Yes, I said fun.

You know, weight loss can be fun. You know, weight maintenance can be fun. It is for me. Maybe I'm a weirdo. I'm definitely a weirdo. Okay? So I'm not gonna say maybe I. I am a weird person. I'm a strange person. I know this. But it's the strangest is not why I like living at my goal weight. It's because I've created a way to live at my goal weight that's customized to me. I've changed my mindset, my lifestyle, my eating, right? So we got here, we've got the weight mastery, the goal weight pyramid. This is where it all comes down to. And we'll see the missing pieces of your puzzle here. Okay, so we got the goal weight pyramid. You see that? And what most of you are doing is you're just focusing on the eating piece, and on top of that, you're just focusing on the eating piece. In terms of. You're just. Someone's giving you a plan, and you're just trying to follow it. Okay? So it doesn't matter. Weight Watchers, Keto, intermittent fasting, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter what diet you pick, okay? What you're doing is you're just working on this part, and you're not really working on lifestyle. No. Starting to exercise and work out a lot in steps and burning calories is not what I mean by lifestyle. Okay? So you're not doing any lifestyle stuff, most likely that supports your reading, and you're almost guaranteed you're not doing any mindset stuff to support your lifestyle and your reading. And so what happens is you get this situation where you're working on your reading, but you got no foundation underneath you. It's kind of like building on quicksand. There's nothing supporting you, holding you up. And so what happens is you. You do your drastic eating changes for a little while, and at some point, it crumbles, you know, and you can't keep it up. So, again, the real secret is to systematically begin to transform your mindset, your lifestyle, and your eating. And of course, we break it down into these categories. So mindsets, these six things, lifestyles, these eight things, and eating is really these three categories that we work Through. And so all of a sudden you have a real plan, right? Because like with the eating, for example, right. So I'll say, oh, I was doing it great with my eating and now it fell away. It's, it slipped up. Well, what else can you work on? Oh, I was gonna get myself to eat again. Oh, that's it, that, that's your plan, right? You're either eating right or you're eating wrong. And if you're eating wrong, you don't change that. You don't, you can't go, I'm gonna start tweaking my lifestyle. So for example, right. My eating gets a little off track. And it does sometimes, okay. I'm a living, breathing human being, so things change. So if my eating gets off track a little bit, I almost always go right to lifestyle. What's going on? My lifestyle? Oh, I haven't been sleeping as much, I've been a little dehydrated, I've been a little stressed. This is going on here. Oh, I started saying to myself, oh, yeah, you know, I mean, you put the weight back on, it doesn't matter what you do. I blew it. You stink. Why'd you do that? You know, so it's like I have the ability to kind of diagnose what I'm doing mindset wise, lifestyle wise and eating wise. So I just, I'm able to influence more things than a dieter can. And, and God, you got to know that's important. The idea that you're just going to willpower yourself and white knuckle yourself to some goal is it's just kind of short sighted, I guess.

Cher says, do you encourage fasting? I water fast for 10 days and lost 7kg, but I felt intimidated how fast it was.

No, I don't encourage fasting like that. I mean, I, my, my fasting story is kind of funny. I mean, I've been, I hate to say the word because I've, I've been fasting. I call it nighttime fasting. So let me just make a distinction right there. I'm not talking about intermittent fasting, even though they're going to look very similar. I think I call it nighttime fasting just to get away from the intermittent fasting place. Okay.

But I started doing this over 30 years ago. I, I used to eat pretty much right till bed. And what I did is I started making a bigger, bigger window and I stopped eating when I went to bed. And so eventually where I landed and what I do now is I will usually stop eating six, seven o' clock at Night and then I eat the next day, seven, eight o' clock in the morning. That's a typical.

Setup for me. Now I never jumped into it the first day. I didn't say, okay, I can only eat for eight hours. I didn't do that. I slowly worked my way up comfortably easily as I got used to it. And I landed in that place is where I feel is a sweet spot for me. So I, and it feels amazing for me. Okay. So when I, when I started doing that it was, I started feeling so much better. It gave my body a break, I slept better. Everything was great from that. So it was amazing. But the point I'm trying to say is this, that I don't want to just talk about numbers and fasting numbers because I want to talk about the process of how I came about it. It was very intuitive and natural for me. I, there was no intermittent fasting back then that I knew of. So I was able to kind of just figure it out for myself what worked for me. And I landed in a sweet spot. Had I tried intermittent fast. Okay. And I can't eat for 16 hours and it's like that's stressful right away. And then maybe 16 hours for me is too long. And so in the last two hours I'm just fighting and white knuckling it and you know, hungry. That's not what I did though. What I did is I comfortably listened to myself, worked it up slowly and now I'm in a place that I know resonates with me. So it's like think those two processes are totally different and so do I recommend fasting? Yeah, if it's like mine and it's built around you. If it's like a diet and you're white knuckling the last two, three hours of your fast every day. No, I don't recommend at all. I think intermittent fasting has probably created as many binges or be easy for you to say. I think intermittent fasting's created as many binge eaters as it's helped people to lose weight. And now again I have a biased view. I always get a stream of people that tried them in fasting and they've white knuckled the last three hours. And then when the time the wind eating window starts up, they're just pounding food for eight hours. I wonder why they're not losing weight. But what you're talking about 10 day water fast I think are, you know, those are silly, that's silly times. You're not going to 10 day water fast for long. So anything that's not set up for long term, I don't, I just, I don't even consider a real strategy, you know. So, yeah, intimidated by the how fast it was great, whatever thing makes you feel negative about that. I, I think is a great, is great because it's just a, it's just a dumb strategy. You're not going to 10 day water fast regularly unless you're a real outlier, you know. So yeah, I don't think 10 day water fasting makes any sense. I don't think it's good for your body. I think it sets up, I think it sets you up to have metabolisms that works against you. I just think everything's kind of bad about the long term. Fasting as a weight loss strategy for most people now again, there's always outliers. So again, if you fast for 10 days and you just feel over the moon and you love it and there's a million reasons why you want to do it, then knock yourself out. But.

I just think it's not, it's not a strategy I'd want to build my success around. You know, who gives a. If you lose, you can lose 100 pounds in a day, in 10 days. I, I don't know, it's just, it's just, it's weird. It's not good weight loss. And on top of it, you know, it's like you can look at famine studies because I think things like that almost replicate a mini famine within yourself. And if you look at the Danish famine study, that experience for those people literally changed their genetics. The, the following generation of people that were in that famine were were way higher rates of obesity. So again, starving yourself for long periods of time is really a short sighted approach in my opinion. And I just think it makes no sense for most people. What's up Darlene? How's it going? All right, gotta get out of here. Got a busy day, got calls coming up, got things got to get get going. So I'm gonna close it up here again. If you' world, make sure you click the link in my bio. Go get that free hypnosis session I made for. It's called the new Thin Me, it's kickstart session. It's ready to go for you. Just put your information you're brought right to the page. Well, actually I have to email it to you because it takes a second to, to get it going. But I also made a training for you that's free, that's in there. Go check that out and yeah. And this I do every day, Monday through Friday. So if you have any weight loss questions, please pop on here and ask them. I'm happy to help you out here every day, Monday through Friday, usually around noon Eastern. And yeah, and if you miss it, you like listening to. It's also a podcast, so you can go search program yourself then on any podcast platform, and it'll show up and you can listen to it whenever you want. Okay? So, all right, everyone have a super duper day, and we'll talk soon. Bye.