Your Weight Loss Isn't A Race

Everyone, welcome to today's program yourself, Thin Podcast. Today we're talking about your weight loss not being a race. Think about this for a second because it's weird to hear this, right? Because you intuitively think of your weight loss as a race. How fast can you get to your goal? Weight is kind of how you think about it. And the next step becomes, how fast can I run that? Because you think of as a temporary thing. And the truth is that that's not your real goal. Your real goal is not to just lose the weight as fast as possible. It's to get to your goal weight and then live there for the rest of your life and see. So it's important that we think about that properly. And if you don't, what ends up happening is you get so obsessed with just getting to the goal, no matter how. Doesn't matter, right? So again, once you think of as a temporary thing, that all that matters, how fast I get there, then you're willing to do extreme things. Do you understand? This works because subconsciously, what goes on is in your mind. You say, the more extreme thing I do, the faster I'm going to get there, and the less time I have to do the extreme thing, you see? So it breaks your mindset because again, you're thinking, I'm going to do the extreme thing. But again, it's like a seesaw in your mind. The more extreme you think you're doing it, the faster you think it's going to go. And so the shorter the amount of time you have to do the extreme thing is going to be. And so it sets you up for failure, though, because a number one, the more extreme thing you do, the less likely you ever are to even get to your goal. Because the more extreme thing you do, the less likely you are to be able to keep it up to even get to your goal weight. This is. And by the way, eventually what happens is the more extreme things you do to lose weight is that as you start to build up a repertoire of. Or not a repertoire, I suppose, but a history of failure, right? I've tried this and I tried this, and that didn't work. That didn't work. That didn't work. That didn't work, you start building up this whole history bank of failure and how difficult it was, and now it starts to prevent you from even doing anything to lose weight, right? Because the only way you're probably thinking about losing weight at this point is doing something kind of extreme or difficult. And so thinking of your weight loss as a race is one of the most damaging things you can do in so many ways. And again, you have to realize that it's not a race because you want to stay at your goal weight. You know, that's the difference. It's not just to, you know, reach a high mark and then just that. I'll talk about that forever. You know, it's something you want to live day in and day out. You want to be at your goal weight, you want to live at your goal weight. And so if you want to live at your goal weight for the rest of your life, then that is not a sprint, that's not a race. It's a forever process.

If you think about brushing your teeth right, that's another forever process that you have. You're going to do forever. You never imagine a time in your life that you're going to get your teeth so clean that you never have to brush them anymore. You see, but when you think about weight loss, you imagine this time where you're no longer going to have to diet or think about your weight anymore because you'll just be at your goal weight. And that's what sets people up for failure, is that the truth is that you have to manage this forever. Just like your teeth, you got to brush your teeth forever. That's just part of the deal if you want to have healthy teeth. And it's the same thing with your weight. If you want to live at your goal weight forever, you need to be able to manage your eating, your lifestyle, your mindset and your weight forever. So always focusing on short term plans so that we can get fast results becomes a trap. It's, it's, it's a self contained trap and it sucks your mindset right into it and it sucks the strategies that you even consider into it so that all you can think of now are these extreme, overwhelming approaches to lose weight for a little while. That's the part we never say out loud. Because again, who wants to be keto for the rest of their life? Who wants to, you know, count calories for the rest of your life? Most people don't. And the problem with these strategies is they are built for short term, rapid results. But the truth is you want long term, forever results. So it starts by clarifying your goal and realizing that your real goal is not rapid weight loss. It's really not. Again, I know you want to lose weight quickly and I'm not even talking about that. But what I'm saying more is don't you want to live at your goal weight? Do you want to live at your goal weight. And I'm going to assume you do. And what I'm saying to you is that your entire life, you have been programmed to think about weight loss as only losing weight, as just the process of losing it. And again, that sets you up to choose extreme, overwhelming things. And now you associate weight loss to stress, overwhelm, deprivation, boredom, difficulty, hard. And so you avoid it. So when you start to realize this is a forever process, like brushing your teeth, you can relax. You're never going to figure it out so much that you never have to think about it again. This is something you have to manage just like your teeth. And if you start to approach it that way, you naturally start to choose more sustainable, comfortable.

Strategies that work for you, that work with you, as opposed to trying to fight yourself to do things that are really difficult and overwhelming. So I hope this helps you out. If you want to go deeper into this concept in this mindset, click the link in my bio. Go get the free hypnosis session I made for you. I also made a training for you. Three steps to live at your goal weight. Go check it out. It's free. And there's other cool things I give you as well. So check that out. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them. What's up, Patty? Pat? Patty says yes. I have lost ten pounds in the last five months. Very slow, but it is actually staying off. I'm very excited and finally feel that I can lose 15 more to get to my goal and maintain it. Thank you. You're welcome, Patty. That's wonderful. What a great mindset, you know, and again, I know the idea of £10 over five months for people may seem so slow, but I see that right in the sweet spot, because who gives a shit if you lose £15 or £10 over five months or £50 over five months? I know what you said. Well, what do you mean? Who gives a. Jim, we want to get this as fast as possible. No, wrong focus. It's the wrong focus, you know, so Patty's got the right focus. It's on maintenance. And when you see the flip side of losing weight really slowly, you know, of only losing 2 pounds a month over 5 months, of only losing 10 pounds over 5 months. The flip side to that slow, tedious weight loss is that you have been practicing the whole time maintaining. And at the end of the day, that's really what you're looking to do. See, that's the. That's the paradigm shift is that you're not looking to Lose weight. You're looking to learn how to live at your goal weight. I hope you can get that difference, because it's crucial. It's an identity shift, you know, one is you being an overweight person who's just losing weight for a little bit. That's how you code it. And the other one is that you transform yourself into a thin, healthy, happy person able to live at their goal weight for the rest of their lives. And when you start to think of it that way, that mindset sets you up for success again. You do this with your teeth automatically, right? But imagine if you thought about your teeth. You're like, all right, I just want to get them really, really clean. As if once they were really clean, they would never need to be cleaned again, right? Now, that sounds silly, obviously, right? But your weight's the same way. But the diet industry has conditioned you subconsciously to associate that. When you get to your goal weight, you're done. And that's the biggest mistake, you know? So, again, seemingly slow weight loss on one hand always means that you have the way you've done it. You've stuck with it, right? Because if. If you've achieved weight loss and it's been tediously slow, but you've achieved weight loss, that typically means that you've been at it for a little while. So five months is a long time, you know. Patty, by the way, where would this be? I'll give you. Let me give you the numbers here. See if I can find these real quick. I'm using a new. I have, like, a digital brain is what I call it, and it has all my books in it. But let me see. I got this new thing. I'm gonna see if I can find.

No, I want to see over here.

See if this works. It's called Notion. Y' all know Notion. It's kind of cool. Let's see. I know a book this is. Oh, what book is it? I'll just do that.

Percentage. No, I know where it is, too. I could just look it up easier, but I want to test something out.

Let's see. Let's see if this works. I just had a pretty stupid prompt in here, to be honest. Let's see.

Because I want to. I want to make you feel good, Patty, for a second. Because I want to give you the flip side of slow weight loss most of the time. All right, this isn't showing up yet. Oh. So I got 79 results.

Remove. Let's see here.

Okay, okay, stop, stop.

Sometimes the AI stuff go too crazy.

How would I find this search. There it is. Okay, this is taking longer than I wanted it to, but. Oh, what's his name? I'm totally blank on this guy's name.

Well, we'll have to find it this way.

Wan sync? Yes, Brian. Wan sync?

Yeah. Okay, there it is. It took us a little while to get there. 75 of dieters gave up after the first month. Okay? So for you.

Patty, congratulations, right? Because right off the bat, you're past a month, so that puts you in the top 25%. Now, it doesn't have the stats past that because most people don't make it past there, but so the fact that you've made it to five months, I would say probably puts you easily in the top 10% of dieters. People trying to lose weight, if not probably the top 5%. It doesn't take long to get to the top of that list, by the way, because most dieters can't make it past a month. Most dieters can't make it past a week. Well, not most. 39% of dieters don't make it past a week.

I bet. I bet 30% they'll make it past a day. But anyways, so, Patty, great job, right? Because the. The flip side of slow weight loss is that you've maintained it for five months, and I would take that any day of the week over fast weight loss, I would take. Let me put it this way. Let me put it real clear. And I wonder if you all agree or disagree with this, which would you take? I already know what most of you would take, but I'm gonna say it. Would you take.

10 pounds of weight loss over 5 months or 10 pounds of weight loss over.

One month? So which would you take? 5, 10 pounds of weight loss in a month or 10 pounds of weight loss over 5months? Which one do you think is better? That's the way to frame the question. What do you think? Which one do you all think is better? Now, of course, your diet brain says, well, 10 pounds in a month, Dipshit. What are you, thick? What's wrong with you? Nah, I will take ten pounds over five months, all day long, because it implies that I've integrated what I've been doing, you know, so if. If I see one person, they've lost 10 pounds in one month, 10 pounds in five months, I'm gonna put my money behind the 10 pounds in five months that they got a way more likely chance to get to their ultimate goal. What do you all think? That's a great. I've never really framed it that way. But that's such a great way to think about it because again, we have this knee jerk reaction to just the fastest weight loss possible. But again, we're blinded to the real goal here. And the real goal is not the fastest weight loss. I know you think it is, but it's not. The real goal is the longest lasting weight loss. You want to live at your goal weight so you never to lose weight again.

So.

Anyways, that's always this story. It's, it's a hard. I mean we're impatient by nature and then it's just, you know, on top of being impatient by nature, we are conditioned to be impatient on top of it by the diet industry. So it really is a double whammy. What's up, Anna? Just finished dinner. Nice.

Yeah.

This is thanks to your live. I manage my overeating in the evenings. Thanks for all your teachings. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, that's great. All right, Anna says five. There we go. Yes, that is the right answer. Now again, I get it. But that, that's a great, great question. I gotta, I gotta put that question out there to the world because that's a good way to kind of conceptualize it because it brings you straight to. It brings you face to face with a subconscious diet bias you have, which is that you always just want the fastest results possible. That's like I'm telling you, if you're, if you've been struggling with your weight for a while, I can almost guarantee you that you are subconsciously programmed to focus and be obsessed on the fastest weight loss possible. And that is right at the core of that, that's your biggest challenge, mindset wise. Is that thing there. So.

Jiminist strict questions. That is a trick question. It's a good one though. Again, I thank you, Patty, for sharing that because that kind of brought me to that. That's a good question. I like that. That's a good one. What's up, Karen? Karen says, what are your thoughts about tofu? Is it a dense protein? Yeah, I mean, I like tofu, I eat some tofu. But again, you know, it's. I think it's fine within reason. Although I know, you know, obviously there's giant population that consume tons of tofu.

So, you know, I, I think tofu is. Is it a dense protein? I mean, I get that's relative. I'm sure there's things that are denser and things that are less dense, so. But I like tofu. You know, I know they did a little bit of A scare. Work on it. Right? That it's. I love it too. I, I think it's so funny that. What did they find about tofu? That was a story not long ago, that it has estrogenetic qualities to it, right? And I just think that shit's funny and maybe it does. I don't even know. But I just think it's so funny and what a coincidence because a lot of times if you eat a lot of. So, you know, Sawyer. Tofu, if you're a guy, it's like, oh, you're not a real man. Oh, you eat tofu. You're a soy boy. And it's like, I. I'm a vegetarian, so I guess I, I fall into that category. I'm practically a vegan. Even though I don't need a ton of soy or tofu, I eat it as much as any other bean. I suppose that's not true. I eat black beans and, and chickpeas the most. Then probably lentils, then soy tofu, you know, but. But it's very much subconsciously the soy thing, tofu thing. And I just think it's funny with the estrogen, maybe it gives, maybe it increases estrogen level. So I'm not going to say it doesn't, but I just think that's such a coincidence because again, far before they ever had any idea that it might have had estrogenic properties, they would, you know, people would say things to me, you know, basically questioning your manhood, because I'm eating tofu.

So anyways, I think tofu is great. I think soy is great and, you know, probably in moderation to some degree, even though I do know there's populations that ate it regularly. But I think it's a pretty clean protein and pretty responsible, and I think it's good. It hasn't turned me into a woman yet, but we'll see. So, so anyways, Sandy says I have to see progress on the scale consistently to stay motivated. Yes, Sandy, but that's your, that's your number one problem. You know, people say that all the time, I need to see progress, progress on the scale or I'm just not motivated. And that, that's, that's why you're probably not at your goal weight. Just to be honest, not to sound like a jerk here, but that's part of the problem. You can't just accept that. You know what I mean? Because there's going to be a lot of times in your weight loss that you hit plateaus and you don't have the results showing up. On the scale now, they'll be showing up in other ways for sure. But you may not. Again, I always say this. In the short term, weight loss is inconsistent and unpredictable. And over the medium term, it's inconsistent and unpredictable. The long term, again, it does follow a pretty consistent trend line, but, you know, you'll have weeks up and down. You know, just there's so many different factors that can impact your weight that if the only thing keeping you motivated is the scale has to keep going down, which, by the way, I call that conditional motivation. And conditional motivation in life rarely works out very well for people, right? Conditional motivation is, okay, well, as long as what I'm doing is working, then I'll keep doing it, you know, but it's like when you start doing something, you suck at it. So there's a great chance that it's not going to work all the time. And so you can't just expect. It's like you start a business, you're like, okay, well, I'll do this business as long as I keep making, I make profit right from the beginning. Well, what are you going to do when you don't make a profit? Just quit? You know, I'll learn this new thing as long as I understand it the whole time. Well, what. So you know, again, Sandy, that that's a tough spot to be in. And again, I'm not picking on you because I know that's so important to me that then program yourself. Then we follow the goal weight pyramid. And the very first section of it, the biggest section, is mindset, right? And if you look, the very first thing we do is motivation because very few people know how to actually motivate themselves. Most people, again, you know, Sandy, are motivate themselves just like you, where it's like the scale has to keep going down for them to stay motivated. The only thing matters is a scale going down. And if the scale doesn't go down, their motivation disappears and they can't stand track. So, yeah, it is a problem, you know, but the solution is to come up with better motivation. You know, think about things in your life. So again, I don't know, you know, if you're a parent or you're in a relationship or, you know, you can think of, you know, any relationship you're in, but. Or your work, right? If you work or do school, but in areas of your life, if you only show up when you're getting good results, it's rarely not going to work. And so I know there's areas of your life that you show up. Even when things aren't working right. If you got kids, you still show up. Even when they're not listening to you and they're being little shits, you know, work, you still go to work. Even when you're not being productive and your boss is yelling at you, whatever, you still do it. And it's because you have a deeper motivation with those things. And when it comes to the weight loss, your motivation is just superficial, you know, it's surface level. That's why if it doesn't, you know, if the weight loss stops for a little bit, you just. You lose motivation, you quit, you know? So the answer is to find a deeper motivation that lasts way beyond the scale going up or down. So, yeah, so you got to work on that, you know. But I said to everyone, I think. I think literally, where every single person who's struggling with weight, I've seen one thing they all have in common is they have almost always low motivation. They do not have good motivation. Now, I shouldn't say that. I'm not going to judge it like good or bad. I don't mean that. But they don't have the motivation to get them to their goals. Let me put it a different way. You weigh what you want to weigh that. So here we go. So I would say to Sandy that you weigh what you want to weigh. I think you're. If you really are honest with yourself, your weight is probably a pretty good reflection of your motivation, you know, which isn't to say that you don't want to lose weight, but you want to live and eat the same way more than you want to lose weight. If you're at the same weight you're at, if you're not currently losing weight and you want to, it is because your motivation to lose weight is here. Your motivation to continue eating and living the way you're living is here. I have never seen that not be the case. And so when I say you, you weigh what you want.

I mean that literally. I. I think literally, if you're overweight and not losing weight, I think the primary issue is that you're not genuinely motivated. So I know that upsets people sometimes, but. But I've just found that to be true. What's up, Barb? Yeah, Barb gets it. Good. Yes. So, yeah, it's always mindset, though, in my opinion. You know, I think. Well, it's not. It's not all mindset, though. You know what I mean? That's why I say, again, I can't stress this enough and program Yourself. Then we have the goalway pyramid, which, by the way, I'm gonna be doing a whole training on this. I got a whole free program coming. It's gonna be a couple weeks. I'm gonna put this out there for a couple weeks, but I'm gonna have a whole free program. I'm gonna give you all, it's gonna be in my community. I got a bunch of cool free stuff coming. So make sure you are on my email list, and you can do that by clicking the link in my bio, going to program yourself, then dot com, and looking for the free hypnosis session. Once you sign up for that, you're on my email list and you'll, you'll get all the information. But I got so many cool things happening over the next couple weeks, but one of them is literally a training showing you all about this goal weight pyramid and how to use it to reach your own goal. And I, I, I will give that to you and take you through the whole thing, and I think it'll be very enlightening for you. Okay. Because it's.

It kind of, it illuminates a lot of blind spots that you may have. But yeah. So, yeah, if anyone's got any questions, feel free to ask them. Any questions are welcome. Anna says, can eating smaller portions help losing weight? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's quantity.

Well, that would just be quantity. I was gonna say timing, frequency, frequency and quantity. Right. But, but basically, let's just, let's just start from the beginning. Your weight is a reflection of your average calorie consumption. Okay. This is true for everyone. Your weight, your average calorie consumption. All right? And so to lower your weight, we need to reduce your average calorie consumption. And so there's a lot of ways to do that, portion control being one of the main ones. Right. So if we're going to control portions. And again, I don't really like portion control. Yeah, I like, I like kind of reducing, eating smaller portions. I like that. But absolutely, that helps losing weight. And I think that's one of the best strategies there is in program yourself. Then we call it the reduce strategy. Right. So it's basically just doing what you're doing, but cutting 10, 15% out, 20% out and getting comfortable with that. And then if you want to lose more weight, dialing more down, you know, so again, we target specific habits and we target general habits. Just dialing them down is a big part of what we do in the program. But absolutely, eating smaller portions and shrinking Them will usually turn into weight loss. Although, again, you have to watch out when you start dialing portions down that you might get hungrier, and now you might start snacking more, you know, or you might start eating more of other portions. So, again, you have to keep an awareness in general over your average calorie consumption. And we can't get too fixated on, like, one thing because sometimes we'll slice portions down over here, and then we get hungrier over here and start snacking more, you know, so we got to be careful of that. But, yes, in general, dialing portions down by a percentage is a great strategy to lose weight, I think.

What's up, Lisa? How's it going?

So, yeah, that is kind of the way it goes, you know, when we get out of here, I got actually this kind of quick one today, and that's okay, because I just wanted to pop on here, say hi to everyone. I do have a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes. So over the next couple of weeks, there's gonna be so much cool stuff, people in the program. The Circle app's gonna be revamped, updated, just a lot better. Jimmy I is going to be integrated into it more. It's gonna be really cool. So keep an eye out for that stuff there. And then again, if you're on my list, there's gonna be free stuff coming. Like I said, that'll be a couple weeks because I'm kind of finishing up a book I'm writing on the very, very final, final lap of that, I would say. Well, that's what I say now. But I'm definitely. I've been working on this now probably seven weeks. It's a short book, too. I mean, it's 40 chapters, which may sound like a lot of each chapter is a page or two, you know, so it's. It's not that long, but I am. I've been working so much on that. So once that's kind of done, the next things. But these things are starting to change anyways, so who cares anyways, if you're not my email list, make sure you go, go. Click there. Go check it out. Go to program yourself then.com and sign up for the hypnosis session. Or go to my bio, click the link, Go get it, the link to it. And once you opt into it, you'll get the hypnosis session, and then again, you'll be on my email list, and I'll send you a bunch of cool stuff. All right, everyone, have a super day, and we'll talk soon. Bye.