STOP DIETING & Do This INSTEAD For Better Health

First you have to develop the habit, then the habit will develop you. Diets work short term for a reason or a season. All right? Dieting is a waste of time. All right? Diet is a waste of time. And think about this. Why do 98% of people who go on a diet gain all the weight back? Why do most people that go on a diet gain all the weight back? All right, Lose fat, not weight. That is correct. Lose fat, not weight. What is weight made up of? What do you think happens in your brain when you go on a diet? Right? What is your brain supposed to be doing day in and day out? So intermittent fasting, that's a strategy, all right? But what is it that you brain is doing when you go on a diet? Do you understand how your brain works as it relates to food and nutrition? Right? How does your brain work as it relates to food and nutrition? What's the purpose of this thing called your brain? And the answer is, it regulates all of your bodily functions, right? Like, regulates your autonomic nervous system, right? So what happens, do you think, when you go on diet, let's say you're, you know, overweight? How many pounds would you want to lose right now if you were to guess how overweight are you? Are you 10 pounds overweight or 10 kilos, 20 kilos? 30 kilos? 40 kilos? 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds? How much weight, all right? Do you have in excess of what you need? So think about this, right? You eat, you drink, and guess what happens. Your body obviously uses what it needs. And then what happens to the excess food or sugar that you eat that gets converted to glycogen, what happens to the excess food? Right? It stores this fat. And then what happens? Your body creates a set point. Your brain creates what's known as a fat fat set point and a weight set point. And then since our brain is wired to maintain our homeostasis, or homeostatis, depending on how you like to say it, anytime you lose weight, what do you think is going to happen in your brain? You reduce the caloric intake that you normally eat. Maybe you stop drinking alcohol, Maybe you stop sugar and desserts. Maybe, God forbid, you start to exercise and you start to release weight and some fat. What do you think happens in your brain that is focusing, number one on survival and safety, number two, on avoidance of any pain or discomfort, number three, conserving energy. So what do you think happens when you start to lose weight? What do you think is happening in here? Initially, you get excited, right? I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to get in shape, I'm going to stop this, I'm going to start that. And you see the scale going down. And in most cases, are you losing fat or are you losing mostly water? When most people go on a diet, do you think they use the fats or do you think they lose mostly water and so they lose £3, £5, £7 in a week. Oh my God, I'm doing so great. What do you think happens in your brain? Your brain is conditioned to maintain homeostasis. You start to exercise, using up energy. You start to eat less or not get enough or not get the same amount of calories that you were getting before. And your brain goes, hey, what's going on here? She is losing weight, she is not eating enough, she's using more energy. Let me slow down the metabolism to accommodate the reduction in caloric intake, the expenditure of calories, energy. Now it doesn't happen right away, it doesn't happen like in the first week. But do you know why you start to have this negative self talk of, oh, I've lost some weight, I can eat that pizza or cake now, or I can have that beer or that glass of wine because I've been so good for the last week or two. Our brain is very, very, very, very, very smart. So if you are 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 pounds or kilos overweight, that is your set point, your weight set point, which also comes with what's known as a fat set point. Do you know why most people who go on a diet lose the weight but they don't keep it off. So they go on a diet, they exercise, they do the things needed to do to get their diet working, get to their ideal goal. Let's say it's release 10 pounds or lose 10. I like to use the word release. I'll tell you why in a moment. I use release instead of lose. But do you know why most people that lose the weight not only gain it all back but then they gain a few extra pounds? Do you know what I'm talking about? Do any of you know what I'm talking about? Many of you know, 12 years ago I was 243 pounds, 33% body fat, borderline diabetic, borderline hypertensive, and I had a fatty liver. Holy mackerel. But up until that point I had lost 250 pounds. Now I lost 20, gained 25 back, lost 15, gained 15 back, lost 30, gained 35 back, lost 35, 40 on another diet, gained it all back. I was like, what's going on? I'm a pretty smart guy. What is happening in here that is causing me to lose the weight and gain it back? I got fascinated with the science of weight, the science of what actually causes us to yo yo diet. So I start to understand like what is actually going on. And so we develop these habits, we develop these internal set points that are tied to our self image of ourselves. Our brain has a responsibility. Our brain's responsibility is to make sure that our external world of results matches the internal conditioned map that we have around our self image. Does that make sense? Our brain regulates the outside results. Now how does it do this? Well, when we go on a diet initially, it's usually because we know we look ourselves in the mirror and we just don't like what we see, we're embarrassed or like, you know, I don't like looking at that in the mirror. Or we try to put on a pair of pants or a skirt or a bathing suit because it's summertime is coming in the northern hemisphere anyway and it just doesn't fit anymore because we've gained the COVID 19, 19 extra pounds, right? So usually we get disgusted or tired of being tired of either looking at ourselves in the mirror, not feeling sexy or attractive, not fitting into our clothes. And we said, okay, enough. So we go on a diet. Now diets work. Almost every diet works. I studied hundreds of different types of diets over the last number of years. And especially when I was doing research on how can I release the weight and keep it off forever, right? Because I was working hard on the diets, I was working hard on the exercise, but I just got tired of doing it and gaining it back and doing it and gaining it back, especially, you know, in my 40s and 50s. Anybody else feel that way? So if we have a weight set point and we have a fat set point and we have a self image that our brain automatically maintains consistency between the inner world and the outer world. I start to ask myself a question, like, are there people that have actually lost weight and kept it off? And the answer was yes. And so the first question was, what do they know that I don't know? What are they doing that I'm not doing? Because I'm like, I've dieted, I've given the effort, I've lost the weight, right? And so I decided I was going to get smart. Now something happened to me that, that caused me to want to release the weight and keep it off. There are two occurrences, and I'll share this with You, I'll give you some tips. Let me share with you two stories that I'll share with you what I did. Story one, I was doing my annual physical with my doctor, did my blood tests, you know, blood pressure, everything, and you know, did my height and weight. And then I went to obviously meet the doctor and he looked at me, looked at my charts and he said, listen, you are about 40 to 50 pounds overweight, you have fat around your liver, your elevated cholesterol is way too high, you're borderline diabetic because you're eating too much sugar. And he said, you're on the wrong train, going in the wrong direction, picking up speed. I was 48. And I said to him, he said, I think I'm going to need to put you on medication, pre diabetes medication and hypertensive medication. And I'm anti taking any pills or drugs. And so I said to him, no, no way. I'm done. I'm going to get better. And went back on a diet, went to start exercising again. And then I let it all go again. And then I was sitting on the chairlift with my son Noah and Keenan skiing on one of our ski trips, which we do every March. And some of know I love to ski. And at 10:30 in the morning, I was on a chairlift, chairlift number 10 in Telluride and Keen. Noah was sitting next to me and Keenan was sitting next to him. And I looked at my sons and I said, hey, after this run, I'm going into the house. And both of my boys looked at me and Noah said to me, papa, you're always so tired. I said, we were here on vacation, we've done two runs and you already want to go in the house. I thought we were supposed to be a family spending time together. And I got angry with him initially and I said, well, I'm tired, I work hard, you know, it's not easy for me to ski anymore. And then I caught myself making excuses to my son. And I said to him, hold on a second, sweetheart. And I thought for a moment, I looked at him, I said, I'm going to make you a deal. I am going to get into the best shape of my adult life. And not only am I going to get into the best shape of my adult life, but I am going to make you a promise today that I am going to teach your children how to snowboard or ski. Now, my sons at the time were 15 years old, okay, and 12 years old. So I had to think 20 years ahead of that moment. What I did is I actually did go into the house. I called one of my friends, Ari Whitten, who is a brilliant sports guy. Exercise, nutrition. I called some of my neuroscience faculty members that are part of my company, Neurogym. I said, okay, what is going on with my brain? Why am I doing this? And they said to me, the first thing, first and foremost, you're going on a diet. And diets work short term for a reason or a season. Did you hear that? Diets work short term for a reason or a season. So if you have a reason to lose weight, like you want to get into your bikini or a suit or a dress, you know, for an event, a summer season, go on a diet, do some exercise, and you'll be able to lose weight, but you will not keep it off. Why? Because once we get off of the diet, once we stop the exercise, then our caloric intake goes back up, our metabolism re regulates and we put on all the weight back. That's why we have these yo yo dieting. So my first step was I decided no more freaking diets. And I asked myself, what food plan can I go on that I could sustain for the rest of my life? Huge difference between a food plan, a diet. Would you agree? So I personally, for me, you know, I chose being a vegan as a test and that what worked for me, some people do paleo, some people do keto, some people do a different diet, they maintain it. So whatever diet you take, all right, whatever it is that works for you, you have to make a decision to change your lifestyle, not your diet. Does that make fundamental sense? Number one, there's a whole bunch of points to this point. Number two was that I learned from these experts was that calories do matter. The type of calories you take in does matter. So I had to learn like what kind of diet did I want? I chose vegan. But then I had to learn what kind of protein was best for me. How much did I need to eat every day? What were the best carbohydrates for me with fiber? How much fat that I need to have? Right? So I just found a path for me to say, okay, here's the food plan that I'm going to have. Here is the caloric intake that I need for my body size. Now I'm 6 foot 1 and at 243 pounds, I was fat at 197, which is what I'm at now. It's perfect. So I know that my base metabolic rate at rest, I burn 2,000 calories a day. So I want to make sure that I get at least 2,000 calories a day plus what I use for working out and exercise. So in addition to the food plan and the caloric intake of specifically proteins, fats and complex carbs, then I said, okay, what is the best exercise plan for me? And there's another piece to this. That's the, this is the little piece I'm about to share with you, is the little hinge that swings the big door and makes it all work. So then I had to say, okay, what kind of an exercise plan can I start that I'm committed to continuing at least five days a week? And so initially I was really bad out of shape, so I just said, I'm going to do a little bit of walking and a little bit of the bike. I started with a little bit of walking and a little bit of the bike and a little bit of stretching. Now here is the thing that I want you to understand is the most important part of all of this is first you have to develop the habit. Then the habit will develop you. First you have to develop the habit and the habit will develop you. So once I started to get clear on a food plan that I was committed to for life, the number of calories and types of food in the right order that I needed, and the amount of exercise that I was going to start with, to develop a habit of being active daily versus sedentary, meaning sitting at my desk all day long, working. That was the outer game stuff. But I also had sleep to consider. I used to have terrible, terrible, terrible sleep. I'd go to bed at 12 o', clock, 1 o' clock at night, wake up at 4:30, 5 o'. Clock. And the experts shared with me that I had to understand the rhythms, okay, of the earth, but also my body. It's called circadian rhythm. Have you heard of circadian rhythms? So you know the rhythms of the ocean. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. Circadian rhythms start with the sunrise and sunset and our brains waves regulates to the circadian rhythms. So if I'm on my cell phone or computer, you know, before bed, I've messed with my circadian rhythms. So I started to do what is known as proper sleep hygiene, which means I turned off my computers, all right, I turned off my cell phones late in the evenings and I started to read and TV was okay. And then I would go to sleep when I was tired and I'd wake up when I would naturally wake up. And then I started to get between six to seven hours of really good restful sleep every day. Now, why is that important? Well, if you don't get good quality sleep, there's a hormone called leptin, lep t I n and leptin and the stress hormone cortisol work hand in hand. And if your leptin levels are off, it makes fat loss nearly impossible. So even if you're dieting and exercising but you're not sleeping well, then your leptin levels may be off. And if you're too stressed at work during the day, then your cortisol levels may be too high. And. And these hormones affect weight loss, whether your body will use fat for fuel. Is this making sense? I'm sharing with you the science of permanent weight release. All right, so. And let me share something with you. I got to the point in my life where I was committed to getting into the best shape of my adult life. I wasn't interested anymore because what I was doing worked temporarily. But I wanted to find a solution that would work permanently. So I worked on a food plan, I worked on an exercise plan, a sleep plan. And then, you remember earlier I said there's a little hinge that swings the big door. Well, if it's true, and it is, that we have a fat set point and a weight set point that's tied to certain circuits in our brain and our self image, meaning the picture that we have gotten used to seeing over and over and over again. The identity of being overweight, the beliefs we have about weight loss and our experiences of trying so many times and failing and regulating our emotions. I also started to retrain my brain and my self image. I started to retrain the fat set point and the beliefs and the identity and the characters by retraining the inner game side of my brain. So I started to create what I call is my brain training inner size program. Remember you know my, my best selling book inner size, which is over there, is all about retraining your core neuro muscles, right? Retraining the set points, retraining the beliefs, retraining your self image. And when you work on the inner game and you work on the outer game, what do you think? Okay. Is the predictable result? Let me ask you a question. What do you think is more important? The inner game or the outer game? The inner game or the outer game? Now, is it possible to know what to do, why to do it, how to do it, when to do it, and still not do it? Is it possible that we can learn all of the stuff by reading a really good Book on diet. But if we don't master the inner game, which includes emotional regulation, emotional regulation, why do you need to manage your emotions? Well, do you think there are triggers that want you to eat certain foods? Do you think there are triggers that don't want you to change your habit? Do you think there are triggers like stress that cause you to want to eat more than you should overeat? Do you think there are triggers that cause you to eat sugar? Do you think there are triggers, okay, that cause you to say, I don't feel like exercising? Do you think there are triggers to say, well, I can catch up on my sleep tomorrow? Right. So when we are focusing both on the inner game and the behavioral game and we commit, pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. 100 days, not one week, not three weeks, not six weeks. If you're not committed to doing what I've just shared and working on the inner game for 100 days, don't even start unless you want to lose weight for a reason or a season. What I'm talking about right now is only for those of you that are committed to releasing the weight, being healthier, having more energy, having more vitality, having more personal power so that you feel better at 50, 60, and 70 than you did in your 20s, 30s, and 40s. I made a commitment to my health and well being. I didn't make a commitment to a diet. I made a commitment to a lifestyle that I wanted. I made a commitment to my sons. I made a commitment to my wife. I made a commitment to the man and the mirror that knows enough about the brain to be a little bit dangerous. But to start doing what would work and keep working instead of a temporary win, does that make sense? Let me ask you a question. If you're going to do the work, doesn't make sense to do the work once and then reinforce it so you can sustain it. Like, if you're going to make a lot of money, don't you want to sustain the money? You don't want to make it and lose it. So why not treat our bodies the same way? Why not release the fat, get into great shape and then maintain it or just keep getting better? I have a plan to get better and better and better at 60, which I'll be in September at 70, and at 80 and at 90, I want to ski in my 90s. Now listen, I know that something could happen, of course I know that. But I also know that while I'm alive and I can make decisions, why not make decisions that give me a great foundation, and then I could build upon. I have more energy now than I did in my 40s. Right. And many of you know I have a goal of having a six pack at 60. I might even be changing that to an eight pack at 60. I've never had a six pack at 16 or 26 or 36 or 46. So the first thing is, are you committed to getting healthy? Question 1. Are you committed to doing the work that will build your foundation, both your sleep, your diet, your exercise, and a food plan that is going to sustain you for a lifetime, not for a day or a week or a weekend? Or are you going to do it so that you can achieve your goals and dreams? And Tony, is that vanity? No, it's not vanity. It's how I want to look and feel. It's a goal that I've set for myself. And it's not about how it looks. It's about the discipline it requires of me to become that version of myself. So it's not about what you think about me. It's not about anything like that. It's like saying, is having a lot of money about vanity? No, it's about how well you're playing the game. And so I want to play the game of life, the health game, the wealth game, the relationship game, the career game, the business game, the fun and experience game, the charity game, at the highest level that I'm capable of. So I'm not willing to be a settler. I'm not willing to settle for less than I'm capable of achieving and becoming. So this isn't for everybody. This is for people who are serious about, you know, their physical health goals and their emotional health goals and their mental health goals and achieving more than the average. I don't want to be average. There's nothing about me that is remotely interested in being average. There's nothing about me that wants to have an ordinary life. There's everything about me is about having it all about having an extraordinary life, extraordinary results. And I'm prepared to pay the price of discipline instead of paying the price of regret. Right? So I want to challenge myself to become the best version of me. You become the best version of you. If I can inspire you and help you, great. But you become the best version of you. Here's what I can tell you. You don't have to get old as you age. You can actually get and look and feel younger as you age, and then use the wisdom to live a magical, incredible life. All right, so are you ready to win the inner game? Of weight loss. Are you ready to release the weight? I'm going to leave you with a couple of things. Weight. What is weight? Right, like body weight. Of course, there's bones, tissues, muscles, organs, fat, fat, or 1 pound, 1 pound of weight equals 3,500 calories, right? So when you and I eat, the food is broken down into calories, right? And then you make the hair that you need, the nails that you need. You have energy that is stored in the form of glycogen and then released. And then the glycogen that's not released, right? Your break, your, your body breaks down the food into glycogen. The glycogen that's released or used is great. It just, you know, it is used like gas in your tank of your car. And the energy that is not used gets stored as fat. And so if you gain, you know, an extra 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 pounds of fat, that's just a big energy store. So what you want to do is activate that fat store, right, to burn fat because it's actually a more efficient fuel to use than sugar. But you need some simple glycogen stores also. So just understand that your ignorance may be holding you back, which just means you just don't know some of the things I'm talking about. And so instead of hoping and praying and trying stuff, why not just do it based on the latest brain science and brain research, right? Just, just do it based on science and release the weight and keep it off. If weight is energy and you learn how to activate your energy stores so that you use the fat instead, okay, of using anything else, then you can start to release weight and then keep it off. And that's why I said don't go on a diet to lose weight. Because diets work short term, but they don't work long term. But a food plan and a lifestyle decision is what works. What kind of lifestyle do you want to live? What's the identity you need? What's the self image you need? What are the beliefs you need? How do you reset your fat and weight set point in your brain that then causes you to want to maintain a certain movement plan, a certain eating plan, a certain sleep plan that supports the lifestyle that you want to live and the you that you want to be and the you that you want to see? All right, so did you enjoy this? If you did, give me a like or a love, Thanks a bunch. And here's what I'm going to leave you with. If you're interested. You'll do what's easy and convenient. And if you're committed, you'll do whatever it takes. And great results that are sustainable are reserved for the people who are committed. Not interested. Because there's so much more than changing your behaviors for a week or two or three that needs to happen in your brain. And if you don't sustain the change by changing the habits, you will never keep the gains that you have made, meaning the results that you have made. Hey, this is John. And if you like that video, watch the next video because it is packed with things that you can do right now to achieve success way faster than ever before.