Your Body Isn't Hungry For Calories
In this extensive live session Jim Katsoulis argues that the human body is driven by a need for nutrients, not merely calorie counts. He explains that the modern focus on calories is a recent invention and that true hunger signals arise when the body lacks micronutrients. Over‑consumption of calories without nutrition leads to chronic hunger, especially in the Western diet of “overfed, undernourished” individuals. Jim recommends shifting to whole, natural foods—dark leafy greens, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and quality meat—to provide fiber, micronutrients, and satiety, thereby quieting the “food noise" in the mind. He then exposes the historical link between the tobacco industry and today’s ultra‑processed food industry, describing how former cigarette manufacturers (e.g., Philip Morris, R.J.R. Reynolds) pivoted to processed foods, using the same addictive science and aggressive marketing to create products that are cheap, long‑lasting, and highly addictive. This manipulation fuels the obesity epidemic. The core of Jim’s "Program Yourself Thin" (later "Program Yourself Then") system is presented: a long‑term, mindset‑first approach that teaches people to reprogram their relationship with food, focus on nutrition, and maintain their goal weight for life. Key concepts include: The "goal‑weight" vs. "goal‑weight‑maintenance" distinction. The 1 %‑better‑every‑day philosophy. The importance of calorie density, fiber, and micronutrient density over protein obsession. Behavioral phenomena such as the licensing effect, food‑noise, and the myth that you can "out‑train" a bad diet. Practical advice for athletes (e.g., runners) on managing hunger, calorie density, and avoiding the licensing effect. Jim also promotes free hypnosis sessions, email programs, and live Q&A calls as tools to reinforce the mindset shift. Throughout, his tone is conversational, passionate, and often confrontational toward the processed‑food industry, while remaining supportive and instructional toward the audience. The session ends with calls to action: links to free hypnosis, the "New Thin Me" program, and encouragement to join live calls or the podcast for ongoing support.
Chapters
It's hungry for nourishment. It's hungry for nutrition. Think about this for a second: the concept of calories didn't even exist till 50, 100 years ago. We ate for nutrition, and that is how your body thinks of food. And when you start thinking of it this way, this transforms your ability to manage your weight because when you start optimizing towards nutrition, it's amazing what happens to your body. Think about this for a second, because a lot of times we're taught to think in terms of calories, which is just an energy output. It's a very general energy output. And if you don't get enough general energy into your body, if your calories are too low, your body sends you a hunger signal, right? Because your body says, we need more calories, we need more energy, eat more food. So doesn't it make sense that if you're eating calories that do not have the nourishment, the micronutrients that your body truly needs, And craves. Doesn't it make sense if you weren't getting the micronutrients your body needs that your body would send you a hunger signal the same as it would if you weren't getting enough general calories into your body? And this is a source of hunger for a lot of people. The West— America is the home of too many calories, too little nutrition. Overfed, undernourished. And if you're overfed and undernourished, you're going to feel hungry all the time. You're going to have loud food noise. So when you start feeding your body what it's truly hunger for, and what it's truly hungry for is nutrients, nourishment. It needs the things it needs to survive and to thrive more than just calories. And when you start eating with this mindset, with this focus, you start choosing healthier foods. What are the healthiest foods? Whole natural foods in their normal form. Meat as well, if you want to include that. But we're talking about whole natural foods, not processed foods. Specifically dark leafy greens, fruits, vegetables, whole grains. These are foods that have lots of fiber, lots of micronutrients, and lots of satisfaction, which is what leads to a quieter food noise in your mind. So start making food choices based on nutrition and nourishment. Now again, not every food choice obviously has to be about fueling your body. Sometimes we're making choices for fun, obviously, but balance out what you're eating with some decisions that are based purely on fuel, because that is what food is primarily meant for. Of course, we've turned it into other things, and it's fun to have food as entertainment as well. But the primary purpose of food is to nourish your body, to give your body the micronutrients and nourishment that it needs. And there's a good chance it's not getting what it truly needs to thrive. And that is why you're feeling hungry all the time, and that's why you're struggling to eat right, because you're hungry and you're craving calories. But what you're really craving is nourishment. And as you start to live that way, you're going to see firsthand the difference that it makes. If you want some support in making these healthier, better decisions naturally, click the link in my bio or go to programyourselfthin.com and go get the free hypnosis session I made for you. If you're over on Facebook, you can just literally type MIND into the Uh, comment section, and it will automatically send you a link to go get that session. But, uh, go check that out. It's called The New Thin Me. It's a hypnosis session designed to help you clarify and connect to your goal weight. And on top of that, once you opt in for that, I also give you a training called Reprogrammed: How to Live at Your Goal Weight Without the Fight. And I send you a free email program, all included, all free. And I believe that if you use these tools, uh, that you will realize and believe that you can manage your weight in a different way than what you have historically done. All right, so go check that out. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. Thursday, sometimes it feels like a Friday, but no, it is Thursday. So I hope you're all having a nice Thursday. I hope, um, yeah, you're thinking about— you're thinking about what you want to do. I know this, this is a time of year where a lot of times people start focusing in. Ironically, I don't know if people know that there, there is Certainly, I would say it rivals January in terms of people tend to kind of start focusing on their weight right around now. And if that's you, you know, great. It's a great time to do it because, again, you want to start thinking about this and moving in the right direction before the holidays, you know, before the new year. Don't wait about that. Off the Beaten Track says, hi, Jim, can you talk about how the tobacco companies became the ultra-processed food industry? Yeah, sure. One of my favorite topics in the world. I expect to write a book about this at one point because I think it's fascinating. So yes, this is a great reframe, and this is actually something that's been proven to genuinely help people make better food choices, is by realizing that if you eat a lot of processed food, you are being manipulated. You are being tricked the exact same way that people were tricked for 100 years with cigarettes, and you're being tricked by the exact same people. Yes, the cigarette industry. Can you believe it? The cigarette industry and the processed food industry is one and the same. R.J.R. Reynolds and Nabisco are merged together. They're the same company. The parent company of General Foods and Kraft is Philip Morris. So in the late '70s, the writing was on the wall that, okay, cigarettes are really bad for you. They cause cancer and they lead to all these health issues. The cigarette companies could no longer sit on this science, and they knew it was going to get out, so they divested. And what did they go into? They went into food. They went into processed food specifically. And you know, I think almost to me anyways, I look at it. If you look at obesity and diabetes charts for America over the last 50 years, what you will notice is right around 1980 is when there's this huge spike, huge spike of obesity, gaining weight, overweight percentage of people. Uh, and type 2 diabetes. And so what the cigarette industry did is they took all of their cigarette shenanigans and brought it into the food. They used their science to create addictive products that they used for cigarettes, and they applied it to food to make the most addictive food possible. They used the most aggressive marketing that they possibly could, but they used it for food. And they sat on the science and confuse us so that we can't see directly how harmful the ultra-processed food is for us. So they are literally running the exact same cigarette playbook that they ran for 100 years with the food now. And so we find ourselves now in a situation where we're being marketed ultra-processed food the same way that people were marketed cigarettes for years. And it's the same exact people, unfortunately. So hopefully that makes you feel a little different. I mean, uh, you know, this is part of reprogramming yourself, is that these food companies are not your friend. You know, because if you think about the visceral reaction you tend to have towards cigarette companies, it's probably negative, right? But when you think about the associations you have to the food companies, they're probably positive. When you think about the companies that make your favorite food, you have this warm fuzzy feeling. When you think about the cigarette companies, even if you're a smoker, you, you know, you distrust them. You're cynical. You don't like them, right? You're angry at them. Well, you can bring that same emotion into the food, and I think it's helpful. A big part of why I won't eat their bullshit is because I'm not going to let them trick me. I'm not going to snow me. And to the point, let me just bring this dramatic fashion home, is that cigarettes, they didn't give a shit if they killed you. They did not care if cigarettes shortened your lifespan, made your quality of life worse, give you a shitty end of life. They— cigarette companies could care less. I'm not saying they want you to have that, but they don't care if it does. They'll still sell you their product and they'll be as aggressive as they can with it. And so we see the exact same thing with the food. Um, right now at this point in time, our diets, what we eat, is the number one cause of preventable death. Above cigarettes at this point when it's all totaled together. So, you know, these companies are selling products that absolutely shorten people's lives, reduce their quality of life, uh, and I think that's how you got to look at it, you know. So when people think, you know, because there's all this fun wrapper around processed foods, junk food, fast food, right? And, um, The reality is it's a lot darker than that. It's a lot bleaker than that is the truth. And so I think it's up to all of us to see through the bullshit and see what's real. And what's real is that you have these cigarette companies basically pumping these shitty foods down our throats, and it's up to you to not let it do that. Yeah, Beaten Sax said, uh, smoked cigarettes on and off from 15 to 35. Well, congrats. I mean, you're off at 35. Okay, you know, I mean, no cigarettes are good, but you know, the quicker and earlier you stop, the better. So good for you. Okay, yeah, I said I ate ultra-processed food from age 5 to today. Yeah, well, that's the point. And that's what they call it, cradle to grave. That's the philosophy of these companies, by the way, just in case you don't know. And you may not know. I mean, it really takes— you have to kind of become very curious and investigate. But as soon as you do, these are terrible companies. I mean, again, I'll give you— there's a soda company, I won't say the name of them, but they like to put the names of people on their cans. And when you go to that company and listen to the executives talk, they refer to their customers as users. So all within the ultra-processed food industry, cigarette industry, drug industry, they speak about people as users, which is a phrase you would typically use for someone addicted to a substance. And it's all very intentional. You know, and I think we have some sense of that, but not 100% sense of it. It's dark. It's dark. And it certainly, in my opinion, once you start to understand this— I mean, shit, didn't we all go through it with cigarettes? You know, if you're, if you're old enough, right? I mean, shit, if you're at least old as me, you know, growing up, both my parents smoked. Everyone was smoking. I don't think anyone thought it was healthy for you, but no one really thought it was that bad. It's just like the food. No one thinks junk food, processed food's healthy for you, but I don't think people are internalizing how bad it is for you, just like the cigarettes. And so with the cigarettes though, you know, if you're anywhere near my age or, you know, my experience, you know, you start off one point not really thinking much about cigarettes, you know, and it was just ubiquitous. You saw it everywhere— TV commercials, um, they would have cigarette vending machines when you walked into restaurants, you walk by them, they'd be in restrooms, they're everywhere. And we went through a real evolutionary period there, probably in the '90s, I suppose, most dramatically. They would have commercials about the truth, you know, and I think that's what they call Truth Out or Truth something. And they educated people. They reframed cigarettes in the public's mind and smoking dramatically went down. So I believe at some point this will happen with ultra-processed food because at some point the evidence is just going to be so dramatic about how damaging it is. And that's what, you know, that brings me to a direction of this whole conversation that I like to focus on because, yes, I want you to lose weight and look better, of course. But more importantly, I want you to eat better and lose weight so you can live longer and have a better quality of life while you're here. That motivates everything I say. For me, this whole process was started because my father died of a heart attack at 54. I was 9 years old. So for me, that's kind of my origin story, and that's why weight is so much more important to me than just wearing the skinny jeans or wearing a bathing suit to the beach. Again, those things I want for you as well, but I hope that you would agree that how long you're alive, your quality of life while you're here, is more important than those things even. And that may not be the way you mainly think about weight loss though. Most people, because of the diet industry— you've seen literally tens of millions of diet ads in your lifetime— every diet ad is conditioning you to think about weight as an aesthetic thing. As something about what you look like, and we tend to not really focus on the dramatic negative impact that eating ultra-processed food has on our body, our mind, our spirit, our life. And when you start to see it that way, you know it's different. It's like telling a smoker, you know, oh, you shouldn't smoke because your fingers get yellow. Well, they don't give a shit. They don't care about that. But when smokers started to really internalize that holy shit, this might take ten years off my life. Oh my God, this is— give me this disease and it puts me in line for these problems. You know, as soon as we talk that level, that's what started to soak in and change people's minds. But the exact same thing's happening with food. So if you have a negative association to cigarettes and the cigarette company, uh, it's not— you're not that far away from having a lot of those same feelings for the foods that you might have been struggling with. And if you do have those feelings and start to develop those, you'll have a much greater control over them. What's up, Gil? Gil says I have lost one stone, six pounds in ten weeks. Feel great and losing the weight is a bonus. Is a bonus carnivore. Didn't think it was for me, but I missed nothing. Sugar processed food just walked past it in the supermarket. Gradually introducing some fruits and veggies. Great job, Gil. Yeah. Nice job. I mean, you know, I I I will say the carnivore thing. I don't see any evidence that that carnivore diet is going to be long. I mean, you already talked about how you're going to introduce some fruits and veggies. Okay, so I like, I like to hear that. So if you just want to use the carnivore thing as just a, you know, a jumpstart, you know, kind of phase to go through, um, you know, I think that's good. But I think what you want to be thinking about all the time as well is what's a plan I can live with long term, you know. So again, I'm proud of you. Took a lot of action. You've gotten some good results so far. You're feeling good. You know, noticing some of the changes in the difference. So I think all that's wonderful, but just pay attention. That carnivore thing is usually gonna be a short-term thing for most people, and maybe it won't be for you. You know, I guess there are the few outliers that do carnivore forever, I suppose, but the vast majority of people do not. And this goes for veganism, this goes for calorie counting, this goes for Weight Watchers, this goes for South Beach, this goes for Mediterranean, it goes for intermittent fasting. Most of these things people are gonna do for a little while, and then they're gonna go back to normal. Back to normal, and normal is really your programming. You know, so again, to change our programming, we need to have a long-term. Like, let me give you an example what I mean. The way that I eat today is the way I expect to eat for the next 50 years. Like, I I love how I eat. I love my breakfast. I love my lunch. I love my dinner. I love my clean days. I love my pleasure days and the whole mix of them. I love it. It really feels good to me. And that is allowing me to really be excited about the future, but simultaneously to have this long-term mindset where also I'm not in a rush. Um, and every decision I make about what I'm going to do is bounced again. Is this something I'll be able to do long term? You know? Um, yeah, Gil says keto, I think. Yeah, I love 16-hour fasts. You know, maybe you do. I, I gotta, I gotta tell you because it's just a rule of mine, you know, and maybe you do love 16-hour fasts. So let me just start there. You could love 16-hour fasts. There are people that do. So I just want to say there's clearly people like that. And the golden rule of program yourself then is there's no right or wrong, there's only what works for you. So if you absolutely love only eating meat or not eating carbs or doing 16-hour fasts or doing all of them combined, then great. Okay, but I also usually say the worst person to listen to about how to lose weight is a person who's actively losing weight, because a lot of times people trade the pleasure and the excitement of the food for the pleasure and the excitement of the scale going down. And so I can't tell you the number of times I've heard— and tell me if you have heard this as well, folks— how many times have you heard someone who's actively losing weight Doesn't matter what it is. It could be keto, Weight Watchers, um, intermittent fasting, carnivore. Literally, it could be any of them. And when they're losing weight, they're like, oh my God, it's amazing. I feel incredible. It, it's, it's not hard. It's easy. I've been doing it. The 16 is no problem. All this stuff. And what ends up happening is either you get to your goal weight and now there's no excitement of the scale going down. So now you're just kind of living at your weight, and now where do you get your excitement and pleasure from? Well, I know you say, "Well, I'll be fit and healthy, so I'll just be happy every day. I'll be over the moon every day." Well, no, you've already been at your goal weight. You've been at your goal weight before, and you still put the weight on. So just being at our goal weight is not enough to guarantee we're going to stay there. As a matter of fact, it's the opposite. Eighty-five to ninety-five percent of dieters that get to their goal weight put the weight back on. So we have to recognize this concept though. So I'm not being negative. I'm being realistic here that we've got to come up with a strategy. How are you going to continue to do your intense thing? You know, so if you've been doing 16-hour fasts for the last 10 years, then I believe you. I believe— I think you love it. If you've been doing 16-hour fasts for the last 10 weeks because you keep losing decent amount of weight, well, that's not a real honest situation yet. Because what's going on is the excitement of the scale going down is the main driver of doing the extreme thing of 16 hours. And somewhere in there you're, oh, this is great. Yeah, losing the weight quickly is great. I love 16-hour fasts. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. You'll never really know either. You couldn't even argue with me about this until you've been at your goal weight for, you know, really a year. You know, when you've been at your goal weight for a year or two and then you come back and say, I love 16-hour fasts, I do them every day, I do them 5 times a week, whatever, then I would say, oh wow, great, nice job. Yeah, you do love them. You know, I love how I eat. I love how I eat, and I've got proof. I've been eating this way for 30 years, and I keep optimizing, refining it so it doesn't look the same as it did, but the structure is very similar. I love how I eat, and I have been at my goal weight eating this way, living this way for decades at this point. So it's proven, you know what I mean? Like, I've proven that. And again, it's not to be a jerk because this gets to my main core of program yourself then. Because what makes Program Yourself Thin so different from virtually every other diet out there is Program Yourself Thin was built by studying people that had lost weight and kept it off, whereas most weight loss is built around studying people that are able to lose weight fast. And losing weight fast is a completely different thing than living at your goal weight. 2 totally different things. All right, so we got to keep that in mind. But again, I say this to you, not— not— I'm absolutely not being negative. I'm talking about this stuff because all of you, at some point, if you're going to do something relatively extreme— and 16 hours of fasting is relatively extreme, um, carnivore is certainly extreme, okay— but usually you're able to do that because the weight's going down pretty sizable chunks, and that focus and that motivation is keeping you going. And you're going to run into a week where the weight doesn't move and you get a little wobbly. Or again, you get to your goal weight, even it can get a little wobbly. So be careful of that. Okay. And again, it's a combination of, you know, again, managing our motivation and simultaneously creating strategies that really resonate with us. So again, you don't program yourself, then we follow the goal weight. Oh, shit. One second. Take time. I'm trying to. Flip this screen so you can read this. There we go. This is the goal weight blueprint. We use this in the program, and we follow the goal weight pyramid. Okay, it's kind of the general plan of the program. So I don't give you a plan; I give you a plan to create a plan, right? And so that way you can customize this plan to yourself. And so we basically focus on mindset, lifestyle, and eating. And you figure out how can I think, live, and eat like a thin, healthy, happy person. And everyone's answers are going to be different because everyone's unique. Everyone's their own person. Okay, so we have to figure out what works for us as well. So I have developed my way of eating directly around me, my lifestyle, my you know my schedule, my environment, my likes, my dislikes, my genetics, all of these things. And I have ultimately gotten to the the answer to the most important question there is. How can I live at my goal weight in the easiest, most enjoyable, most comfortable way possible? That's the big question, because when you have the answer to that question, you have the ability to live at your goal weight for the rest of your life. All right, so yes, keep that in mind. But I appreciate all those, uh, questions and comments. Yes, Carolyn, garbage in our packaged food. Yes, there's lots of garbage all around us to eat, you know, a lot of food stuff marketed as food, so be careful. What's up, Susan? Susan says Cisco and Cheney Brothers supply a lot of restaurants. I have a feeling these suppliers are providing a lot of processed foods. I always feel sick after eating out. Um, yeah, I mean, the truth is, and I know this, I've been in the restaurant industry and I'm related to people in it. The truth is that the restaurants, most of the restaurants, certainly all the chains, all the big chains, you're basically— they're different facades for Cisco food. You know what I mean? So these are not high-quality ingredients typically. These are very highly processed foods designed primarily to be as cheap as possible, cheap as possible, last as long as possible, right? Be as addictive as possible. But nowhere in that rubric is there anything about being nourishing. Or are healthier or helpful for you, right? So yeah, I mean, that that is a general. When I look at when I look at like a fast food restaurant chain, when I look at a chain restaurant chain place, I literally just see a Cisco truck there. I see now again, I've had the advantage of working in restaurants, so I know what these packages look like when they come in the back door. I know what they look like coming out of the freezer. Okay, it's a lot different than when it's coming out on the plate to you. And in my mind, when I look at those places, I see right through the marketing, right to the reality that I'm basically eating frozen shit off a truck that was created by multi-billion-dollar multinational companies who employ thousands of chemists to create the most addictive, long-lasting, cheapest food possible. And that's the truth. I'm not just being negative. I'm not being paranoid. This is an absolute fact of reality. And it doesn't take a lot of research to see it, but once you see it, it's a game changer, you know. So yeah, I would agree that pretty much all those foods are by the same companies. What's up, Vanessa? Vanessa's PYT member here. Oh shit, hold on, just lost that question. It disappeared right while I was reading it. Oh, come on, where are you at? There it is. Uh, PYT member here. Any tips on managing hunger during weight loss while being a runner and training? Um, yeah, for sure. Um, so, okay, so running and training. So you say being a runner or training. I'm getting the impression that you are a runner in training because there's a big difference if you have been a runner and in training. That's a completely different situation than if you're gonna become a runner and start training, right? Those are two totally different worlds, right? So it really does matter, um, which one's which. But okay, so Let's just say you are a runner and you're training and you want to manage your weight loss. At the end of the day, it does come down to the same thing. Again, there's specific differences with each scenario, but the main thing about managing your hunger for weight loss, in my opinion, is the concept of calorie density. Because we need to understand that calories are not the only thing that dictate how satisfied you feel from the food. So we have been conditioned by literally, literally tens of millions of ads in our lifetime from the food processing companies. That our hunger is satisfied with calories, right? You're hungry, dump some calories in. But that's only part of the equation. There are other things that are at play too. The nutrients in the food. So I started off talking about this. If you eat a lot of empty calories and don't that don't have a lot of micronutrients in it, you're going to eat that food and then your body is still going to send you a hunger signal because it needs to get the right nutrients in it. Okay, so one of the first things you can do— calorie density is the amount of calories in a volume of food. So you take a, you know, a hamburger here might be 700 calories, an apple about the same size might be 150 calories. Okay, and so they both take up similar space, and that's important because a big part of what actually makes you feel full is the volume of food you eat, not just the calories. And so when you're able to consume a similar volume or more Higher volume of food than you typically used to eat, but you've reduced the calories. That is the best strategy possible to lose weight comfortably, specifically managing your hunger. Okay, so what I'd suggest, Vanessa, is go to the blueprint. Go to the blueprint. Okay, and go to the eating part. Go to the eating blueprint and start to go through that. Even if you don't fill it all out right now. Scan through the questions 'cause it'll start to put into your mind, um, how to look at this a little differently, how to reframe it. And if you start focusing on calorie density and choosing more, uh, or less calorie-dense foods, more whole natural foods, more fiber, more micronutrient-dense foods, more hydrated foods with higher water content, as you start choosing those types of foods, runner or not, I think you're gonna find that you're able to manage your weight more effectively because you feel satisfied. You know, our bodies, we tend to consume a similar volume of food every day. So the volume of food you eat is a huge signal to your body of whether, you know, you had enough or you need more or there ain't enough in there. Um, that's another factor, okay? But again, there's micronutrient level, there's hydration level to it, um, there's obviously the calorie density of it. These are all factors too, and there's other factors as well, but those are the big ones. So that's what I would pay attention to, and that's what I do pay attention to. Calorie density is really the the foundation of my entire eating strategy. Yeah. So yeah. So I hope that helps you. Yeah, Vanessa says I do run and now training for a full marathon. Max distance was a half marathon. Wow. Okay. So yeah, I mean you're doing a lot of running too. One thing I'll suggest to keep an eye on. is the licensing effect. Okay, so the licensing effect is basically when we do something good, moral, or virtuous, um, we tend to follow it up by doing something less moral, good, and virtuous. And how it shows up with weight loss a lot of times is we'll go to the gym or we'll be training for a marathon. I'm like, oh my God, I just ran a half marathon. Um, I can, you know, I probably burned 1,000 calories. I can have this thing here, you know. Um, it's only 500 calories. When in reality you probably burned 500 calories and the thing you want to eat is 1,000 calories. So watch out for the licensing effect. Um, it's fascinating. I, I, the licensing effect I find fascinating, but be careful of that because we do something good, we get so fixated on the, on the running piece of it that we didn't pay attention to the calories. And I will let you know that, that running— now again, you've been running, so I'll let that— that's a slightly different thing. But they did a study with a big group of women where they had them run a lot during the year. Okay, and when I say a lot, they were approaching marathon levels by the end of the year. So they dramatically ramped up from zero to a lot over the year, and it did not make much impact on their weight loss. So again, there's a saying that you can't outtrain a bad diet, and even running marathons, even training, most likely your brain's gonna think you're burning more calories than you are, because again, when the more active you are, the more hungry you get. Okay, and so, which is just natural, right? Because when you're when you're training, when you're running marathons, you're burning more energy, and so then your body goes into overdrive. Say, come on, we gotta we gotta fill up. We gotta eat more. We gotta replace those. But again, so you're gonna get that anyways. But when you do replace the calories, you need to make strategic decisions to consume more whole natural foods and be a little extra vigilant about it because your brain, your tendency is that you're gonna say, wow, I got you know I've ran all that out. I'll be fine here. You know that that's a big issue, so it's something to keep in mind. I'm not saying you're doing it, but it's definitely a common pattern, and it's one you want to watch out for. Yeah, all right, very good. Yeah, Vanessa says yes, working through the eating portion of the blueprint. It's amazing. Thanks for the tips. You're welcome, Vanessa. Yeah, and again, get on the Tuesday calls too, right? So on Tuesday, we have the live Q and A's, and you can get on there. We can go back and forth in more depth. But again, you'll get a lot more out of it if you do. You know, if you start working on the eating blueprint. First and then come to the call. You'll ask much more specific questions, and I think you'll get a lot more out of it. But yeah, nice work. And again, you just keep going with it too. So it's not like there's just one answer, but it's like we just kind of— we keep working on the next issue. We just keep getting better and better and better, if that makes sense. Vanessa said, I'd never heard of the licensing effect. Oh my goodness, this has definitely been a thing for me. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. It's a very big thing. The licensing effect is huge, folks. So Again, I could talk all day about it. It is— I find it absolutely fascinating. Um, I'm at the mercy of it, and when I, when I find myself at the mercy of it, it's, it's just, it's a surreal thing almost. It's just, it's very strange, but it can— we can be blind to it and literally blind to it. That's what's fascinating about it. So yeah, keep an eye on that. You may find, um, some blatant examples of that, and be excited if you do, because then you can change them. And again, once you see what you may be doing that you were kind of missing, You're more powerful. You have more control now, right? Because you understand the reality more effectively and accurately. Susan says, "I pretty much eat at home because I can't tolerate all the preservatives and additives in restaurant food." Yeah, me too. I very rarely. I'm not gonna. I eat out, but the places I eat out are places that make make the food. Do you know what I mean? Like honestly, I'm not trying to sound elitist here. I just. I have almost zero desire, and I used to eat junk food, fast food, processed food all the time. So I know what it's like to be in that, that space. But for me now, there's just not an appeal to it because I've learned about it. But please hear what I'm saying, because most of you are trying to not eat junk food or not eat fast food or not eat processed food by using willpower to stop yourself. And this gets to the core of everything I'm saying. I would suggest instead that you shift your mindset so that you think differently about those foods so that your desire and craving for them naturally go down. And that's where I'm at. I'm not relying on a lot of willpower to stop me from going to fast food places. What I've learned about fast foods and how I think about them in terms of my own goals and my own values—I don't want that. So if you say, oh yeah, I just get here's some free free fast food I just picked up. I don't want. I don't want to put in my body, which isn't to say that sometimes I don't eat bullshit. Okay, because of course I do. But it's a very strong paradigm of mine. The way I look at food is I. Genuinely, one of my core distinctions is food, whole natural food, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meat, real food that you can look at it, you understand it, versus foodstuff. This shit ain't really food. It's literally not food technically. It's manipulated, and manipulated things act different in your body. So, and on top of that, they're manipulated things that are created by multi-billion dollar companies to be as addictive as possible. So I don't want to play that game, right? I'll bet you can't stop at one. Oh yeah, you're right, you're right, you would win that. I mean, shit, you know what I mean? Like, you could say that with— there's probably certain substances you probably can't just stop at one. Great, I'm gonna avoid it, you know? I give them their respect. These food companies know what they're doing. They're the cigarette companies. There's just unlimited resources and they're creating the most addictive shit possible and marketing in a way that makes it As close to irresistible as they can make it. And so, you know, for me, I just in a very big general way, I look at those companies and I think that they're just shitsters. I don't want to support them. I don't want them to manipulate me. You know, and that's a big part of how I look at it. Susan says, "You flipped a switch in my brain. Your hypnosis sessions have helped me immensely. Lost five pounds, then ten pounds. Now looking to get to my goal weight." By losing five more pounds. Nice job, Susan. Nice job. Proud of you. Little screenshot of that. It's been it's been a fun week. I actually had sent out to a lot of my clients, kind of to get their stories, and I've been reading those stories over last week. And man, you know, as I say, I always say this: I'm probably you're looking at probably one of the luckiest people on the planet, and the fact that I get to do this for a living is. It's amazing because it really is life-changing, you know. It's really— it's not just a weight thing. And that's what I'm reminded of over and over again, that what we're talking about here in Program Yourself Thin is that it's a transformation of you into a new body, but also into a new you. You know, we use the weight, the shift in weight, the weight mastery, ability to manage your weight as an opportunity to improve yourself. Let me put it a different way. We take the weight loss wrapped in personal development. So it's not just about losing weight, it's about becoming the best version of you who lives at their goal weight. You know, that's just one piece of that. Okay. And so, um, yeah, you know, I think that's the key. And so it's funny reading these stories because it's not just about how much weight they've lost. It really is this transformation of how they think, how they feel, um, obviously how they look and their health and all the rest of it. So yeah, that's awesome. I appreciate you sharing that with me. Off the Beaten Path says anyone who figures out how to consistently eat 100 less calories every day than they did yesterday could theoretically lose about 10 pounds by the end of the year. Yeah, well, that's the thinking. That's exactly the thinking I agree with, is I'm looking to make— you know, program yourself. Then we always focus on getting 1% better every day. That, that's the goal. And that really starts to apply to everything. So if I want to lose weight, I'm looking to dial down 10 to 15 to 20% of my calories, nothing more than that. I'm looking to make little shifts long-term, forever. I don't think dieters don't think that way. Dieters, you think you're going to dial the calories down drastically for a little while. That's what you think, whether you realize it or not. You think of the diet as a temporary thing. I'm going to do this until I lose the weight, because the whole goal is getting to your goal weight. Here in Program Yourself Thinland, the goal is to live at your goal weight. It's such a focus. I wrote a book on it, The Tao of Living. Look at that word though: living, living, living at your goal weight. That's the key word—not getting to your goal weight. Okay, getting your goal weight's hard enough. We all know that. But staying there, everyone always says that's the hard part. Well, no shit, it's the hard part. You've never even focused or learned or concentrated or worked on. That part. You treat the maintenance as an afterthought. Look, be honest. I've asked, I've asked hundreds of people that are actively losing weight, what are you gonna do when you get to your goal weight? Ah, I'll figure it out then. Don't be a buzzkill, Jim. Shut up. I'll figure it out then. Okay, well, 85 to 95% of dieters that get to their goal weight put the weight back on. So this might be something you want to consider now and plan for. This is why in Program Yourself Thin, you're never gonna believe it, in the mindset section The very first thing we work on is motivation, and then the very last thing we work on is maintenance. But we start that on day one, okay? So we're starting maintenance on day one because that's the goal. The goal is not to get to your goal weight for one day, it's to live there for the rest of your life on near autopilot. So it's a different goal, but most likely you haven't had that goal, so no wonder you haven't gotten that result. Because the goal, the goal of losing weight as fast as possible is a completely different strategy than the goal of living at your goal weight. They're two totally different strategies to achieve two totally different goals, and even though they're adjacent, they're totally different. I know. What's up, Lori? Lori says you cannot run a bad diet. First time I heard that one, but it made sense to me lately. I want a snack. I will see running to the fridge differently. Yeah, yeah. Running— you cannot run a bad diet is, um, you know, classic. There's a bunch of those. You cannot train a bad diet. Um, bodybuilders always say, you know, abs are— well, that's kind of a different thing, but abs are made in the gym and shown off in the kitchen, you know. But again, I, I say it, I put it this way, that the— your eating controls your weight, your exercising controls your shape. But you can't exercise out the calories. The math is just bad. You know what I mean? Like you can eat a bagel and 400 calories in two two minutes, and it would take you 45 minutes of intense exercise to burn that. So it just it does not work to to have a burn calorie off first focus. It just doesn't work well. Mathematically, you're not set up for that. So it's more important that you. I think that you focus on the eating piece of it. You know, you can certainly work out and exercise and work to burn calories. Hold on. Light go on the fritz. But yeah, food food first, eating first. How's this? Uh, yeah, Susan says fast food can be old food because it was processed months or years ago. Yeah, that's— I love that. Yeah, fast food can be old food. Fast food is old food. Fast food isn't even food, you know. Um, but yeah, it's old. It's old, but it's by nature, and it ain't food by definition. You know, um, yeah, Mary says water and fiber help immensely. This is true. Water and fiber are amazing. You, you increase your fiber content through, you know, whole fruits, vegetables, you know, natural whole grains. I think you'll be shocked at what happens to the food noise. You know, food noise cannot only be managed with, um, GLP-1. You know, there are other more natural strategies to attempt first. And eating whole natural foods is definitely, um, definitely one of the biggest ones. I think fiber— I say this all the time— I think fiber is the number one thing missing from the American diet. And it goes back to processed food because fiber doesn't process well. So most processed foods have a low fiber content. Because it helps them stay good longer, right? Um, so most people— again, most people are fixated on protein maxing, but really the bigger problem is that you're way fiber deficient. That's, that's the majority of people, right? There's always outliers. But, um, Sherry said, hard though to lose weight when your body is scared to lose it because it triggers a trauma memory. Even framing it as losing makes the brain panic. Um, yeah, Sherry, I totally get that. And I think there's definitely better, um, you know, if that's the case, right? If you got trauma in the past and there's, you know, it's evoking trauma responses, then for you, you know, what we talk about here in Program Yourself is even more important, which is to be very, very specific with your language, you know. And, um, as a hypnotist, I think your words matter so much. Um, they're so specific. So yeah, the idea of losing, I agree. The concept of losing weight as the main focus is wrong anyways, because again, folks, you don't want to lose weight. You want to live at your goal weight. You've all lost weight before and then put it back on. Are you happy you lost weight, or are you upset that you put it back on? So losing is absolutely— I think you're right on the money, Sherry, that beyond even just a potential trauma response, you know, that you may have, losing— our brain does not get as motivated about losing something as it does about gaining something. And so in Program Yourself Then, that's a big part of our focus is to not. So and I'll give you an example how how this shows up. In Program Yourself Then, I always advise people not to focus on losing X amount of pounds, which is usually the dieter's mantra. I just want to lose X amount. I just want to lose X. I just want to lose. Instead, say I want to live at X amount of pounds, right? It's just that it's another way to say the same thing, but it makes a total difference in their mindset because when you talk about I want to lose fifty pounds. In your mind, you imagine yourself being 50 pounds heavier and wanting to lose it, right? And so when you say, I want to weigh X amount of pounds, you imagine yourself at your goal weight as that person. And as you— those two things lead to completely different places. One's about what you're not going to be, which is just not that motivating. It really isn't. And the other one is about what you're going to be, what you're going to get, what you're going to experience, right? And that's way more motivating. Carolyn says, and most low fiber food is often low carbs, so people feel healthiest choice. Oh, Carolyn, yes, I agree. I agree. Yeah, people are the protein thing right now is just it's so crazy. And again, protein matters. It's not I'm not saying protein doesn't matter. I'm saying protein is way over indexed. It's just way focused on too much. And if you're an American, well shit, you know, just so you know, if you get enough calories, if you hit the minimum amount of calories all day, you can't be protein deficient. So this idea that you just need to max on protein so that you have more and more muscle is just— it's not true. And again, it works because they just keep repeating it. And everywhere you go, you just keep seeing more and more protein-laden foods. And the implication is it's going to fix everything. It's going to help you live at your goal weight. It's going to give you muscles into your old age. And it's bullshit. It's not, you know. Not necessarily, unless you work out a lot and make other changes as well. But the idea that you're just going to eat protein and that's going to fix everything is fucking bullshit. I don't— it makes me so mad, you know, because it's just like, yeah, protein is important as part of an entire tapestry of important things, but it's no more— it's not more important than fiber. I mean, not when it comes to managing your weight. Again, I can almost guarantee you you're getting more than enough protein and way too little fiber. I can, without knowing you, I can almost guarantee that. If you eat a standard American diet, that's almost certainly true. And that is absolutely wreaking havoc with your hunger. Yeah, protein is more satiating than other things. I wouldn't argue that. But it's not the only satiating thing. Fiber, I think, is even more important because fiber is like superfood for your microbiome, a healthy microbiome. What's up, Baked by Jackie? Happy October. Yeah, I forgot. I'm gonna put out the October weight loss session today. So keep an eye on that in the social media sites. There, I will be putting that out today. All right, I'm gonna get out of here. If you're not in my world, please click the link in my bio or go to programyourselfthen.com or click and type MIND mind into the Facebook comments, and it'll send you a link automatically to go get the free hypnosis session I give you. There's also a training there, and yeah, I give you a bunch of stuff for free. And then if you like this, I'm here every Monday through Friday at noon, and if you can't make the live, it's also a podcast. You can search Program Yourself Then. On any podcast platform, and you can listen anytime you want, and or you can go to Facebook, our Facebook page, Program Yourself Then, and watch the.
More from Jim
Weight Loss Visualization: Wake Up in Your Dream Size #programyourselfthin #weightlosshypnosis
What If You Pretended to Be Thin for One Hour? #programyourselfthin #weightlosshypnosis
