Announcer: 0:02

If you're a whiny snowflake that can't handle the truth, is offended by the word fuck and about 37 uses of it in different forms gets ass hurt. When you hear someone speak the absolute, real and raw truth, you should leave Like right now. This is Shut Up and Choose, the podcast where we cut through the shit and get real about weight loss, life and everything in between. We get into the nitty gritty of making small, smart choices that add up to big results. From what's on your plate to how you approach life's challenges. We'll explore how the simple act of choosing differently can transform your health, your mindset and your entire freaking life. So if you're ready to cut through the bullshit and start making some real changes, then buckle up and shut up, because we're about to choose our way to a healthier, happier life. This is Shut Up and Choose. Let's do this Now. Your host, jonathan Ressler.

Jonathan: 1:13

Welcome back to Shut Up and Choose the podcast that cuts through the noise, the nonsense and all the garbage of the diet industry. Internet gurus and Instagram influencers are spitting your way, telling you they have the answers and if you just follow their simple plan, hey, it'll be all good. But normally I spend a lot of time talking about internet and Instagram influencers who think they just got it all figured out, who've never lost a pound in their fucking life, and, yeah, just, I like to rip them apart as much as I can. But today I'm going to take the episode off that. Today I'm going to talk about probably a lot of people that you know, people in your regular everyday life, just regular people. And those are the people that tell you hey, I don't know why you're overweight, all you have to do is eat less and move more. Hey, I don't know why you're overweight, all you have to do is eat less and move more.

Jonathan: 2:05

And that, to me, is probably the single worst weight loss advice ever created. For years, people have been told and people told me hey, it's easy, weight loss is easy, man, just eat less and move more. And that, of course, it sounds logical, right, if you cut back on your calories and you exercise more, you're just going to watch the pounds melt away. Except that's not really how it works. If weight loss were really that simple, nobody would struggle with it. The diet industry wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar industry, weight loss drugs wouldn't exist and people wouldn't keep losing and regaining the same 50 pounds over and over again. But the problem with the advice to eat less and move more is that it's just too simple, it's misleading and, honestly, it sets people up for failure. It ignores the mindset, the mental part of weight loss, and you'll never convince me that losing weight and keeping it off and sustaining that weight that you're trying to be at is not a 99% mental game. So that advice ignores the psychological, the emotional and the physiological challenges come with weight loss. It assumes that, like most people are just robots who can just flip a switch and eat less. I can tell you I know it makes sense, right, eat less and move more. But it never really considers why people eat the way they do. So I'm going to break down for you the biggest flaws in that bullshit, shitty advice to eat less and move more, and the most important one for me is the role of psychology and emotions in eating.

Jonathan: 3:45

Most people don't struggle with weight loss because they don't know how to eat less. Come on. They struggle because they don't understand why they overeat in the first place. We all know how to eat less, right, just put less shit in your mouth. But until you understand why you overeat, you're really kind of behind the eight ball.

Jonathan: 4:04

The reality is, people don't really just eat because they're hungry. They eat because they're stressed out. Right, food is comfort. After a long, exhausting day of dealing with bullshit, food kind of feels like a reward. Or they eat because they're bored. I'm so guilty of that I would just spend hours mindlessly snacking in front of the TV or scrolling through social media. That's just like that's second nature in our society.

Jonathan: 4:28

A lot of people eat because they're sad or they're anxious. Food provides relief. You can say, oh, it doesn't bullshit If someone's overweight food is probably providing some temporary relief from some negative emotion. I'm not going to do a deep psychological dive and figure out what your fucking problem is, but I know for me there was definitely some sadness and anxiety there. But on the flip side of that, food is also part of celebrating. Food is part of every holiday, every birthday nights out with our friends. Food is definitely considered a celebration.

Jonathan: 5:02

And then the last part is that food oftentimes eating is tied to routines. It's triggered by habit. If you've always had dessert after dinner or a snack before you go to bed, your brain expects it. You've trained your brain to expect that even if you're not hungry. So saying just eat less ignores all of that. And it seems people can just simply willpower their way through cravings and stop emotional eating by choice. Well, I do believe that you can choose to stop that emotional eating, but you have to actually think about it. Okay, if someone? Let me give you an analogy If someone smokes when they're stressed out, just telling them to smoke less doesn't work. They need to find healthier ways to manage that stress. Or if someone bites their nails out of habits, just saying just stop, that's not a solution. They need a strategy to break the cycle. And eating is the same exact thing.

Jonathan: 5:56

Most people overeat because of patterns, habits and emotional triggers, not because they don't know food has calories. We all know food has calories. We also all know that has calories. We also all know that a bowl of Captain Crunch has more calories than two eggs. We know that it's not just eat less and move more. So I think, instead of telling yourself to eat less, figure out why you're eating in the first place. This is where the mental game comes in.

Jonathan: 6:22

I didn't do this, but I kept it in my mind Before you eat ask yourself am I actually hungry or am I just eating out of stress, boredom or habit? And then, if you have to write it down, write down what you're feeling and over time you're going to start to notice that pattern. Like I said, I didn't keep any journals, I didn't do anything like that, but I was really focused on mindful eating. I still eat mindfully, probably 90% of the time. Sometimes I just shovel shit down my throat, but you know why? Because I'm a fucking human being.

Jonathan: 6:50

So you have to find other coping methods. If stress is making you reach for food, there's got to be other things you can do. I distracted myself by going out for a walk or just my version of whatever meditation is just kind of sitting there quietly. You can call somebody on the phone and whatever it is for you. Just find some other coping mechanism for stress and emotional eating. You could also this is kind of the same thing but you can create what I call an interruption strategy. So, if you're always grabbing a snack when you walk in the kitchen, change the routine right. Do something else first, even as simple as drinking a glass of water, chewing gum, or just go outside and step outside for a few minutes, take a walk, even if it's a three-minute walk. Just interrupt that habit that you always do. I talked about this before.

Jonathan: 7:36

Definitely, you have to focus on eating mindfully Instead of eating in front of the TV or scrolling on your phone. Focus on your food. Pay attention to your hunger and fullness so you don't eat just because it's in front of the TV or scrolling on your phone. Focus on your food. Pay attention to your hunger and fullness so you don't eat just because it's in front of you. I was the master of that. Not only that once I finished eating what was in front of me, I put more in front of me and I ate all that. So when you start to eat mindfully and you pay attention to when you're full and when you're hungry before you start eating, that will help you break that habit. And this is so logical, but it took me 59 years to figure this out.

Jonathan: 8:08

Make problem foods less accessible If you're always reaching for chips when you're stressed out or when you're sitting in front of the TVs. Just don't keep them in the house. If you want them, then get up off your ass, get in the car or whatever you have to do and go get them. But if you set your environment up to make healthy choices easier, mindless eating becomes harder. I will tell you that I didn't keep that shit in the house. There were times when I got up and went out and got the shit that I wanted, but it required some effort. So that's really a powerful one is make those problem foods less accessible.

Jonathan: 8:41

One of the biggest problems of eat less, move more is that it doesn't teach people how to actually change their habits for life. Yeah, cutting calories and increasing exercise is definitely going to help someone lose some weight in the short term. But what happens after a few weeks? You get hungry, you get tired, you feel deprived. Eventually you break and you binge and you regain everything you lost plus more, and that's yo-yo dieting. I like to say I'm the self-proclaimed king of yo-yo dieting, in case you don't know. This is like the cycle of what a yo-yo diet is. Millions and millions of people are trapped in.

Jonathan: 9:17

First, you go on a super strict diet. You cut your calories drastically, you eliminate entire food groups and you suffer through boring, flavorless meals. Step two you lose weight fast right, that's great. Scale drops quickly Because you're starving yourself I would starve myself, or cut out things and lose a ton of water weight and you're going to lose weight. And then step three this is the tough one you hit the breaking point. You start to get some hunger, some fatigue and the cravings are just starting to build up. I miss my favorite foods and I was feeling fucking miserable. I wanted to eat those things that I wanted to eat. And then step four, of course, is you binge and you put the weight back on Everything. You go off the rails and you start eating everything that you've been restricting and, like I said over and over again, you end up heavier than when you started. And the worst part is that I would blame myself for failing, when in reality, that approach of eat less, move more is completely unsustainable. Extreme dieting always leads to rebound weight gain.

Jonathan: 10:21

Your body doesn't like extreme calorie restriction. When someone eats way too little for an extended period of time, their body goes into survival mode. Okay, so your metabolism is going to slow down because the body burns a lot less calories when it's trying to conserve energy. It thinks it's going into some kind of crisis. Your hunger hormones go crazy, like ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone. It increases and it makes you crave the high calorie foods. And I can tell you, when you go into an extreme calorie deficit, you lose muscle Instead of just burning fat. Your body breaks down muscle for energy and that slows down your metabolism even more. And that's why most people who do crash diets, like myself, regain the weight and then some. Their metabolism now is slower, the hunger is stronger and you never learned how to eat in a sustainable way. And the same goes for exercise. Okay, you know I'm not a big exercise guy, but I have exercised in my life. At one point I was an athlete.

Jonathan: 11:12

But the move more part of this advice is just as flawed. A lot of people think they have to work out like a maniac to lose weight. You go spend two, three hours in the gym, run 10 miles or whatever it is, do the hit workouts, the high intensity workouts that just leave you wiped out. But the truth is, if you hate your workouts, you're not going to keep doing them If you're exhausted all the time, you're going to quit, and if you push too hard, too fast, you're going to hurt yourself, you're going to get frustrated and you're going to get burned out. So the result quit exercise altogether and go right back to the old habits. That's where I was and truthfully, lately I've been considering. This is a big announcement for me, but I have been considering going back to the gym. I've been talking to people. I don't know if I'm going to go to the gym, but I'm certainly going to start to do a more aggressive exercise routine. But I'd like to be able to do it at home, but I'm going to do a whole episode about that when I ultimately get back to it. But if you're not doing shit that you like, if you're not doing exercises that you can maintain, you're just not going to keep doing them.

Jonathan: 12:12

Exercise I came to the realization that exercise should be something that enhances my life, not something that makes me fucking miserable. If I force myself into a workout routine that I hate, it's only a matter of time before I'm going to quit. So better advice for nutrition to me is eat in a small, sustainable calorie deficit. You don't have to cut a thousand calories out of your fucking daily diet overnight. Start by just eating smaller portion sizes or just making some smarter swaps for food. So, instead of eating French fries, eat a salad. Definitely do not cut out entire food groups. Eliminating carbs I did that on paleo, on Atkins, on keto or cutting out sugar, which I always tried to do, no matter what extreme diet I was on or labeling foods as bad. It just made me crave it more and binge on it later, because sooner or later I was going back to that shit. And of course, I always tell you this. But prioritize protein. Protein keeps you full longer. Also fiber. So things like I eat overnight oats every morning. That will definitely keep you full longer and it's easier to eat less without feeling like you're fucking starving. And follow the 80-20 rule Eat mostly whole, nutritious foods, but leave room for the food that you actually love, but do it in moderation.

Jonathan: 13:30

As far as exercise goes and this is I'm telling myself this as I'm telling you this, but you got to start small. If someone like me I'm really not exercising at all other than walking expecting me to go work out, to go to the gym six days a week or even exercise six days a week, it's unrealistic. So I'm going to start out small, maybe 10 or 15 minutes a day, and I'll build from there. And you have to find a workout that you actually enjoy. Me personally, I don't even know if I could run, but I hate running. Then I'm not going to run, I fucking hate going to the gym, so I'm not going to do that. But if you like lifting weights, definitely do that. Exercise should be something that you look forward to, not something that you dread. And then again, like I focused on consistency with my eating, I'm going to focus on consistency with my exercise. So if I could do a 15 or 20 minute workout that I actually do is better than a 90 minute workout that I do for three days and then quit.

Jonathan: 14:27

So another problem with that eat less and move more mentality is that mentality treats all calories like they're equal, so like as if eating 1,500 calories of fast food and soda is the same as eating 1,500 calories of nutrient-dense food that actually keeps you full for a long body. It's not the same and it's not even close. Here's the reality. What you eat matters just as much as how much you eat. Certain foods make it easier to stay in a calorie deficit without feeling miserable, while other foods keep you trapped in a cycle of cravings and hunger and overeating. And at the most basic level, yes, a calorie is a calorie. Other foods keep you trapped in a cycle of cravings and hunger and overeating. And at the most basic level, yes, a calorie is a calorie. You burn more calories than you consume. You lose weight. That's physics. There's no dispute there. But here's what that calorie math doesn't really account for.

Jonathan: 15:20

Some foods fill you up, while others leave you starving an hour later. We all know that. You know that there's some foods that you could eat and you're like, oh man, I'm full and yeah, no, I'm not hungry right now. And the other foods you eat and you're starving as soon as you're done eating it. There's also foods that literally rewire your brain and they make you want to eat more. No, that sounds crazy. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that, but I'm.

Jonathan: 15:43

Fast food and chips and that junk food, that ultra processed shit, is designed to make you want to eat more. And then, of course, you have to know how different foods affect your blood sugar and energy levels. Some food spikes your blood sugar and makes you crash, and that leads you to more hunger and more bad choices. So let's look at this real quickly. So if we look at two different 1,500-calorie days, so in scenario one we're eating processed food and sugar. So for breakfast you're going to have a bowl of Captain Crunch and a big glass of orange juice. For lunch, maybe eat some kind of fast food burger, five Guys or In-N-Out whatever and some fries. You have a snack toward the end of the day, a granola bar, and then for dinner you go out with your buddies and you have some pizza and soda. That meal is packed with refined carbs, sugars and unhealthy fats. What happens? Well, we just talked about this. Your blood sugar spikes and then it crashes. So you're hungry again in an hour. Your cravings go through the roof because processed foods make you want to eat more processed foods and, of course, you feel sluggish because your energy crashes and at that point going to the gym sounds like fucking torture.

Jonathan: 16:51

Now, if you compare it to the second meal for breakfast you have some eggs, avocado, maybe some whole wheat toast. For lunch you have some grilled chicken, quinoa and, as you know, I recently decided I like quinoa and some other veggies. For your snack, you have Greek yogurt and maybe some almonds, some other kind of nuts, and for dinner you have salmon. Vicky made me delicious salmon the other night with some roasted sweet potatoes and greens. That meal, that meal plan for the day and I fucking hate meal plans but those meals for the day, they're high in protein, they're high in fiber and they're loaded with healthy fats, which means you stay full for hours so you don't need to snack every 30 minutes. Your blood sugar stays stable so you don't crash, you don't have any crazy hunger and your energy stays high because you actually feel good enough to do what you need to do. So those are the same calories. Both of those are 1,500-calorie meals, but they have completely different results. This is another thing that I find very interesting.

Jonathan: 17:49

If you ever wonder why it's impossible to eat just one chip or one cookie, that's not an accident. Processed foods are literally engineered to make you overeat. Junk food is designed for maximum craveability. Why is that? Because A well, they're high in sugar, salt and unhealthy fats. There's little to no fiber or protein that's going to fill you up and it hits the brain's reward system like a fucking drug.

Jonathan: 18:12

Man Lays ran a whole potato chip campaign. You can't just eat one. You can't. You can't eat one chip. You can't eat six French fries, you just can't. They're designed to make you want to eat more. So you just you can't. They're designed to make you want to eat more, so you don't stop when you're full, you stop when you're stuffed. So like, look at 200 calories of potato chips, you could eat an entire fucking bag before you feel even remotely full, whereas if you eat two of the same 200 calories of chicken breast, you're full after one serving. And I'm not saying chicken breast is an equivalent, is a great substitute for chips, but it's still 200 calories of chips or 200 calories of chicken breast. That's why willpower alone can't save. That's why I always say willpower is fucking bullshit.

Jonathan: 18:53

If your diet is built on food designed to make you overeat, you're fighting a losing battle. And when you eat those things, when you eat mostly sugar and refined carbs, your blood sugar is going to spike, followed by that crash that makes you feel even hungrier than before. That's why just eat less fails. When you're starving all the time, you're way more likely to binge. So high-protein, fiber-rich meals keep your blood sugar stable, which keeps your hunger and your cravings in check. So, like I said before, a bowl of Captain Crunch might be 300 calories, but you're starving an hour later. But a bowl of oatmeal with some nuts and berries or some kind of fruit in it you stay full for hours.

Jonathan: 19:36

So I would say, instead of assessing how many calories you eat, focus on what you're eating. So again, eat that protein. It builds muscles and keeps you full. You know what that is chicken, fish, beef, greek yogurt, all that stuff, fiber, that slow digestion. It's hard to digest those overnight oats every morning. For me, hard meaning my body has to work harder so it digests it more slowly and it keeps my hunger in check. But it's not just overnight. So that's vegetables and fruit and whole grains. And then also you have to eat some healthy fats, because that helps you with your hormone balance. So those are things like avocados and nuts, olive oil, fatty fish, like that salmon I talked about. Just by choosing the foods that keep you full and satisfied, you naturally eat fewer calories without feeling like you're starving. Because, at the end of the day, the best weight loss plan isn't just one you can stick to, it's one that makes you feel good while you're doing it.

Jonathan: 20:28

One of the worst parts about eat less, move more advice is that it makes weight loss seem like a personal failure. If someone struggles with losing weight, the message becomes well, you're just not trying hard enough or you just need more discipline. If you really want to lose weight, you just stop eating so much and go to the gym more. That's complete and utter bullshit. Weight loss is not just about willpower, it's about habits, it's definitely about mindset, it's about food choices and it's about environment. If someone is constantly struggling with their weight, it's not because they're lazy, it's because they've been set up to fail with terrible advice. So you know I like to shit on willpower because I don't think you need willpower to succeed.

Jonathan: 21:14

Let me tell you why willpower, in my mind, does not work. Willpower is like a battery right, it runs out If you think about it. You wake up determined to eat healthy by noon like I would be stressed at work and I'm craving some junk food by the nighttime. By the time I got home from work, I was exhausted and suddenly that bag of chips was calling my name. Did I suddenly become weak or lazy? No, I just ran out of willpower. So there's actually been studies that show that willpower is a limited resource. It gets drained throughout the day as you deal with stress and decision makings and temptation, and that's why relying on willpower alone is a recipe for failure, a recipe for disaster.

Jonathan: 21:58

People don't fail because they lack willpower. They fail because they don't have a system that sets them up for success. So real weight loss is not just about trying harder. It's about if someone is constantly failing, it's usually because of one of these factors. There could be a couple of factors. One is you're constantly surrounded by junk food. I always had junk food around me. My house was full of chips and cookies and ice cream and eventually I would always give in. And it wasn't because I was weak, it was because I'm fucking human. If the stuff's there, it tastes good, I'm going to eat it. The second reason that you may fail, and that I certainly failed, was I was following diets that were unsustainable, cutting out all carbs or slashing calories too low. That's not willpower, that's just a fucking bad plan. Another reason I fail is that I never had an easy go-to system for meals. If every meal feels like when I'm making the meal, it's a fucking battle. I eventually grab the easiest and, honestly, usually the worst option.

Jonathan: 23:00

And the last thing maybe not the last thing, but a big one for me, and I still kind of see it this way, to be perfectly honest. But a big one for me and I still kind of see it this way, to be perfectly honest. But I see exercise as punishment. If I force myself into workouts that I hate, which I've done a hundred times, I just can't stick to it, period. There's no other way to say that Exercise is punishment for me. Or let me rephrase it Going to the gym is punishment. I do like to exercise, I do like to go out and walk, but going to the gym is just fucking punishment for me.

Jonathan: 23:27

And the last thing that really helped me was I never had a routine that made good choices automatically. I never thought about my food. I never put the right food in my house. I never thought about okay, if I'm out, what am I going to eat? So if healthy eating and exercise require constant effort, that's not going to last.

Jonathan: 23:46

But if you set yourself up, that's how this sustainable thing works. Like I said, I've been doing it for coming up on two years. So it's not about discipline, it's about systems. So instead of trying to white knuckle through every meal during weight loss, you need to set yourself up a system that makes healthy choices automatic. So, like I was talking about before, I mean create an environment that makes success easier. If junk food isn't in the house, you won't eat it. Or if you do eat it, you're going to have to do some work to get out there. So that's number one Make your decisions ahead of time. Again, I'm not a meal planner, but if you get onto a routine where you know every day you're going to do this at this time, it makes it a lot easier. I eat the same high-protein breakfast pretty much every single day. I eat overnight oats and it just works for me. It takes the decision and the choice and all the thought out of it. So you know for you it's taking a walk after dinner or even if it's lifting weights a few times a week. The more automatic your stuff is, the better it is for weight loss. And of course I talked about this before If you struggle with eating at night, don't keep that shit in the house.

Jonathan: 24:53

That's it. Or if you're the young I'm almost 61 now If you're for younger people, if you're like mindlessly scrolling through food delivery apps, just delete them off your fucking phone. I mean, it's that simple. If you're always ordering. My son told me the other day that he came home. Now, granted, he might have been mildly intoxicated, but he came home and ordered $75 worth of Chinese food, I think. He said he had roast pork, lo mein, some fried rice, eight egg rolls and seven spring rolls. Now, granted, he fell asleep before that was delivered. It was sitting outside his door the next morning and he didn't eat it. But I mean, if you have those food apps and getting food delivered is so easy, delete that shit off your phone. And then, of course, find something that you actually enjoy. Find exercise you enjoy. For me, it was walking. I'm going to try to do a little bit more. Don't force yourself into workouts that you hate. Find, I'm going to try to do a little bit more. Don't force yourself into workouts that you hate. Find something that you actually want to do.

Jonathan: 25:49

And the last reason, or maybe the second to last reason, that eat less, move more is so fucking bad, is that it's so vague. I mean, it's meaningless. What does eat less even mean? Eat less than what? By how much? Less food overall? Is that what I should do? Or just fewer calories? Should I stop eating carbs? Should I walk 10 minutes a day? Or should I train for a marathon? Does vacuuming the house? Does that count as moving more? What if I'm already active and I'm not losing weight?

Jonathan: 26:19

Advice is like telling someone struggling financially to just spend less and make more money. Yes, tactically that's true, but it's completely useless if you don't know how to do it. So it's just crazy vague advice. It just leaves so much room for interpretation. Some people take eat less to the extreme, cutting their calories and starving themselves. Others might make these tiny, insignificant changes, like skipping a single snack, and they both wonder why they're not losing weight. It obviously creates confusion If one person hears eat less and cuts out all the carbs, another one thinks move more means you have to start running five miles a day. Neither one of those approaches is necessarily right and neither is sustainable long term. And lastly, it fails to provide any kind of actionable steps.

Jonathan: 27:08

If someone's overeating, they need to know what to change and how to do it in a way that's actually sustainable. I didn't know what to do and how to do it until I stopped and sat down and read and thought about it. If someone is inactive, they need guidance on what kind of movement actually matters the most. So you got to get specific and you got to make small changes that work. So if you want to eat less, here's a couple of things you can try Simple, easy stuff.

Jonathan: 27:37

Swap out one processed snack a day for a whole food alternative. So, for example, get rid of those chips with a handful of almonds or some Greek yogurt. I would definitely tell you, and I've told you this many times eat more protein. Put protein in every single meal, because it keeps you full longer and it prevents the cravings. This is a trick that I taught myself, or maybe I read it, I don't know but use a smaller plate for meals. Our brain tells us that we should eat what's on the plate. Well, if your plate is smaller, that gives you portion control without necessarily counting calories. It's easy. One thing that I always try to do is drink a glass of water before every meal, because it makes you a little bit more full, but it helps you with your fullness cues and it helps you to overeat, to stop overeating rather, and definitely slow down while you're eating.

Jonathan: 28:22

This is something that I struggle with on a daily basis. I don't know, maybe it's just the way I was raised, with two brothers and my father, my mother was never really part of that issue, but if you didn't eat fast, you didn't eat. We ate like animals. I struggle with that every single day, trying to eat slower. And the last piece to this puzzle why this is the shitty eat less, move more is the shittiest advice on the planet is that it completely overlooks the importance of mindset. One of the biggest reasons people can't lose weight and I couldn't lose weight and I went up and down and I was a yo-yo dieter. It had nothing to do with food or exercise, it was all about my mindset. Most people don't struggle because they lack knowledge. We all know what it takes to lose weight. We all know eating a calorie deficit. We all know that Captain Crunch is not as good for you as overnight oats. And most people don't struggle because they lack willpower. I might have lacked willpower, I don't know, but a lot of people don't and that's not why they struggle. And most people don't struggle because they've already lost the battle in their own head, because they even start.

Jonathan: 29:31

If you believe that weight loss is about suffering and restriction and punishment, you're not going to stick with it. Most people look at weight loss and say, all right, I have to starve myself to lose weight, or I have to exercise every single day or I'm failing, or if I eat one big meal, I've ruined everything. I was the king of that. I'd be on some diet and I'd be strict, strict, strict, strict, strict. And then, as soon as I ate something bad or went off the plan, I ruined everything. Bad or went off the plan, I ruined everything. And last, here's a big one for everyone If the scale doesn't go down fast enough, I'm failing. That negative all or nothing approach is why so many people fail and quit.

Jonathan: 30:03

The second they slip up. I know I do. Well, I shouldn't say it because, like I said, I'm paleo. I was really strict paleo, then I was somewhat paleo, then I was kind of paleo. If you slip up, no big fucking deal. So you have to get your head thinking right and you have to get into a weight loss and a fat loss mentality if that's what you want to do. So if you think the weight loss is temporary, I can assure you you're going to gain the weight back.

Jonathan: 30:27

So, anybody, if you're looking at your diet as a short-term diet, you're always going to go back to your old habits once you reach your goal, guilty as charged, I would say, okay, I got to lose 50, 60 pounds, whatever, 100, whatever it was. I would lose the weight, but I would always put the weight back on because, hey, I reached my goal. It was just a short-term thing. Successful weight loss is not about what you can do for a few months. It's about what you can do forever. I've learned how to eat this way forever and, like I've told you many times, I go up a few pounds, I go down a few pounds, I'm kind of maintaining my weight, but I'm coming up on two years. I've passed the I can do this state Now it's a habit for me.

Jonathan: 31:04

And second thing is, if you think about weight loss as suffering, you're going to quit when it gets hard. That was the biggest thing I learned. When I told myself I had to cut out all the carbs and never eat a jelly donut and work out for hours, I always eventually gave up. I always said I want to go back to eating those things that I love. So people who lose weight and keep it off this is what I learned find a way to enjoy the process instead of making it torture, and the way for me that I learned to enjoy the process is I never aim for perfection. I always said I can eat those jelly donuts anytime I want. I'm just not going to eat them right now, but I can eat them tomorrow. So if you're aiming for perfection, when you fuck up you're going to quit. But here's what I want to tell you.

Jonathan: 31:48

Nobody eats perfectly every day. Nobody sticks to their plan 100% of the time and if you think one bad meal means that you ruined everything, you're going to give up when you don't need to. People who succeed, people like me because in my mind I'm a success man. I lost 140 pounds and I'm keeping it off. The people who succeed like me we're just consistent. I eat plenty of bad shit. I eat plenty of stuff that everybody would say is, oh, you can't eat that Bullshit. I'm teaching myself, like I said last week, to eat like a normal person.

Jonathan: 32:23

So, instead of looking at this and approaching this thing, the mindset here is don't look at it as a short-term diet. Shift your mindset to thinking it's long-term success you're going after. Accept the fact that it's not going to be perfect. Weight loss is not linear. It's an up and down road. If you look at it on a graph. It goes up and down. One bad meal or one missed workout is not failure. The only way to fail is to quit. So you do that by focusing on consistency over perfection. If you can eat well 80% of the time, that's a hell of a lot more effective than being perfect for a month and giving up.

Jonathan: 33:01

And then the third thing is try to find a way to make your weight loss enjoyable. If you hate every second of what you're doing, do you really think you're going to fucking stick to it? Of course not. Then, of course, stop seeing food as good or bad. Nothing is off limits For me. When I was doing this thing, no food was off limits. It was about balance and portion control and making smart choices most of the time. And last but not least, and maybe even the most important, stop looking for the fucking quick fix. It doesn't exist. Stop looking for the quick fix and start focusing on what you can do for the rest of your life. Now, if you don't fix your mindset before you go and start that journey, no diet or workout plan is going to be long-term. Weight loss should not be about suffering or restriction or perfection. It's about making small, smart choices consistently and finding the plan that you can actually live with. Because, like I said, the people who succeed aren't the ones with the most willpower, they're the ones with the best mindset. So that's what I think about eat less and move more.

Jonathan: 34:08

If someone tells you to eat less and move more, you can be pretty sure of one of these three things. One is they've never struggled with weight loss themselves. Number two is they have no real understanding of how behavior works. And number three, they just don't give a shit enough to give you real useful advice. Because here's the truth Weight loss isn't just about math, it's about mindset. So telling someone to eat less just ignores the emotional and psychological reasons that people overeat. It ignores the fact that food cravings and hunger hormones work against extreme calorie restriction. It ignores the fact that processed foods are engineered to keep people addicted. And in terms of the Move More advice, it completely ignores that over-exercising without the right nutrition can actually make your weight loss actually harder and that physical activity should improve the quality of life, not feel like punishment. And the bottom line is that eat less, move more. That advice is not just lazy, it's fucking harmful Because it makes people feel like their failures are their own fault and it suggests that someone isn't losing weight they're just not trying hard enough, when in reality they were just given some really shitty advice. So the bottom line here is weight loss isn't about starving yourself and running on a treadmill until you hate your fucking life. It's about finding a way to eat, move and live that works for you forever. So forget that whole eat less, move more bullshit. Instead, learn to eat smarter, move more consistently and build habits that last. That's how real, sustainable weight loss happens and that's how you win this game for good. So there's my thoughts on that fucking horrible advice eat less, move more. If you want to find out how I actually lost the weight, I kept it off for well, not really going to tell you. I kept it off, but I was going to tell you all about my journey.

Jonathan: 36:01

You can buy my book. It's called Shut Up and Choose. It's on Amazon. We're an Amazon bestseller, great five-star reviews. Again, it's called Shut Up and Choose. You can also get, if you need a little bit more advice. You can get, my 20 plus video course. It's available at well, first of all, it's called the Effortless Weight Loss Academy. You can get that at learnshutupandchoosecom. That's learnshutupandchoosecom. So that's it. That's all I have to say today. Next time someone tells you to eat less and move more, you got two choices. You can tell them. The first choice is you can tell them to go fuck themselves, which I might actually suggest, actually, you know what. The second choice is better Shut up and choose.

Announcer: 36:42

You've been listening to Shut Up and Choose. Jonathan's passion is to share his journey of shedding 130 pounds in less than a year without any of the usual gimmicks no diets, no pills. And we'll let you in on a little secret no fucking gym. And guess what? You can do it too. We hope you enjoyed the show. We had a fucking blast. If you did, make sure to like, rate and review. We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find Jonathan on Instagram at JonathanWrestlerBoccaRaton. Until next time, shut up and choose.