
Shut Up And Choose
The No-BS Weight Loss Podcast
I Lost Over 140 lbs Without Dieting, Without Exercise, and Without Giving Up the Foods I Love—And You Can Too.
If you’re sick of dieting and done wasting money on weight loss gimmicks that never work long-term, you’re in the right place.
For years, I was just like you. I was the ultimate yo-yo dieter, jumping from one fad diet to the next—keto, low-fat, no-carb, meal plans, shakes, you name it. I’d lose some weight, gain it back, then beat myself up for “failing.”
I was stuck in the cycle. Every Monday, I’d swear, This is it! This time, I’m really going to lose the weight. And by Friday? I’d be back to old habits, feeling like a failure. Sound familiar?
Then, I finally cracked the code.
I figured out how to lose 140 lbs and keep it off—without giving up my favorite foods, without spending even one minute in the gym, and without turning my life upside down. And now, I’m sharing everything I’ve learned with you.
Now, I’m a bestselling author on Amazon for my book Shut Up and Choose and a keynote speaker, helping thousands of people finally break free from the diet industry’s lies and lose weight the right way. No gimmicks, no nonsense—just real, practical strategies that actually work in real life.
If I could do it—while juggling a busy life, eating the foods I love, and without ever stepping foot in a gym—so can you.
What You’ll Learn in This Podcast:
✔️ How to lose weight without starving yourself – No more crash diets or miserable meal plans.
✔️ Why 85% of weight loss happens in the kitchen, not the gym – You don’t need grueling workouts to see results.
✔️ The easiest ways to cut calories without tracking every bite – Because nobody wants to live with a food diary forever.
✔️ How to break the yo-yo dieting cycle for good – Finally lose the weight and actually keep it off.
✔️ Why motivation is overrated—and what actually works – Willpower won’t save you, but the right strategies will.
✔️ The exact steps I took to lose 140 lbs and maintain it – No fads, just real habits that work.
No More Excuses. No More Waiting.
Listen, I get it. Life is busy. You don’t have time to meal prep like a bodybuilder, count every calorie, or spend hours in the gym. Neither did I.
But here’s the truth:
Nobody is coming to rescue you—not your doctor, not a $500-a-month weight loss coach, and definitely not another diet plan.
If you want to lose weight, you have to start making better choices.
But that doesn’t mean you have to eat like a rabbit or give up your favorite foods.
🚫 No meal plans.
🚫 No shakes.
🚫 No gimmicks.
Just real, practical, no-BS strategies that actually work—even if you’re busy, stressed, or have failed 100 times before.
Who This Podcast Is For:
🔹 You’re sick of dieting and want real, sustainable weight loss.
🔹 You want to lose weight without giving up your favorite foods.
🔹 You don’t have time for hour-long workouts but still want results.
🔹 You’ve tried everything—and nothing has worked long-term.
🔹 You’re finally ready to take control and make it happen.
Shut Up And Choose
Small Smart Choices = Big Results- AKA How I Outsmarted My Inner Fat Kid
At 61 years old and 140 pounds lighter than I was two years ago, I've discovered something profound about weight loss that most "experts" won't tell you: it's not about dramatic overhauls or punishing yourself thin. After failing at over 100 different diets throughout my life, I finally found success through making small, smart choices consistently.
When I stopped chasing the quick fix and focused on one better decision at a time, everything changed. I didn't cut out foods I loved, count every calorie, or spend a single second at the gym during that first year of transformation. Instead, I changed my relationship with failure. One "bad" meal no longer derailed my entire week. I learned to treat each choice as its own event rather than spiraling into a cycle of guilt and shame.
The real game-changers weren't sexy or revolutionary—they were practical shifts in how I approached everyday decisions. I stopped using hunger as a badge of honor and learned that proper nourishment actually reduced cravings. My self-talk became supportive rather than punitive. The scale lost its power to dictate my worth. And perhaps most importantly, I stopped waiting for motivation and built consistent habits that worked even on my worst days.
Sustainable weight loss isn't about flipping a switch—it's about rewiring your approach to food, movement, and self-respect. It's showing up imperfectly but consistently, taking full ownership without excuses or blame. If you're tired of starting over every Monday, if you're exhausted by the all-or-nothing approach, this episode offers a more compassionate and effective path forward. Because weight loss doesn't have to be miserable to be successful—and you don't have to hate yourself thin to transform your life.
Lose Weight Without Starving or Obsessing! Learn the simple, no-BS system that helped me lose 140 pounds naturally—no extreme diets, no endless gym hours, just real, sustainable fat loss for real people.
Join the Effortless Weight Loss Academy HERE
Please leave me a review on whatever platform you listen to your podcasts.
Send me questions or comments to Jonathan.Ressler@gmail.com
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.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the podcast that cuts through the noise and the nonsense and all that garbage and the diet industry and internet gurus and Instagram jerk-offs are throwing your way, telling you just do this and you'll lose weight, just do that and you'll shed the pounds like magic. And the truth is they're all full of shit. They're all trying to sell you something and it's a bunch of garbage. I lost over 140 pounds making small smart choices, and I thought today I would share exactly what that means. Making small smart choices, because I get emails and questions all the time Like what do you mean by small smart choices? To me it seemed obvious, but maybe to you it's not. And I thought this was an appropriate time to do it because last week, april 24th, was my 61st birthday and wow, that sounds old. I don't know when the hell that happened. I still think I'm 30 in my head, but I guess I'm 61. And the reason that's important, the reason why I'm doing this today, is because I started, as you know, or for those of you who are new here I started my weight loss journey on my 59th birthday, on April 24th 2023, I guess it is and now I'm over 140 pounds down, feeling the best that I've felt in God I don't know. 20, 30 years, living my best life, doing all the things that I wanted to do, and I really have all that because of making these small, smart choices. So, like the big changes that didn't happen when I changed everything, which was like going on all the old diets, they happened when I didn't. And the truth is we all crave that dramatic transformation, the instant fix, the overnight success story, the viral before and after pictures to make everyone on Facebook and Instagram grasp and go oh my God, what's your secret? But here's like, the real truth, the unfiltered truth. No one really wants to hear that big results come from small, smart, consistent choices. Not massive overhauls, not extreme restriction, not trendy diets with crazy names, the latest fad that came out. It comes from making small, smart choices.
Speaker 2:And when I started my weight loss journey, I wasn't looking for a quick fix because I was exhausted by it. I'd done keto, intermittent fasting, clean eating. I did points, I did Nutrisystem you name it I did it. I've been on over 100 diets and every time I went on a diet I'd lose a fair amount of weight different amounts on different diets, but the truth was, eventually I failed and I gained it all back and felt like a failure again. So when I finally stopped chasing the shortcuts and focused on one better choice, one small smart choice at a time, things began to really shift, and I mean really shift. In just one year, I lost over 125 pounds.
Speaker 2:My first year, that was no. I didn't do any fad diet. I didn't take any expensive shots you know what we're talking about. There's so many of them. There are no magic pills and not a single second spent in the gym. I've changed that now, not that I go to the gym, but I do exercise. But in that first year when I lost all that weight, I didn't go to the gym for one second and, most importantly, I didn't starve myself and I didn't cut out the foods that I loved and I didn't spend hours meal prepping or counting every calorie like some kind of math major. Get some fancy app and count my calories. No, I didn't do any of that.
Speaker 2:I just committed to making small, smart choices and I did it consistently. And was it sexy doing that? No, it definitely was not sexy. Was it hard sometimes? Sure, I always say weight loss is easy, but there were days when it was hard. There were days that I made mistakes. And was it sustainable? Hell, yes, it was sustainable.
Speaker 2:Here I am two years later and I don't even know what to say. I don't feel like I'm ever on a diet. Two years later and I don't even know what to say. I don't feel like I'm ever on a diet. I'm just doing what I do. I'm just making small smart choices, and I believe that's why it worked. So here's what happened because people always ask me tell me more about small smart choices. Here's what happened when I stopped trying to be perfect and started showing up with small, consistent, smart choices, day after day, even when no one was watching, and that's where this transformation really happened, and, honestly, it can happen for you too. It's not hard. Like I said, there'll be some hard moments, but it's not hard overall.
Speaker 2:And these are a couple of things that I guess the small smart choices that I made and hopefully you can make, and the first one is probably the most important. The first thing is I stopped quitting. Every time I messed up, I gave myself a little grace, I allowed myself to make mistakes. So if I ate something off plan, like, let's say, pizza on a Friday night, normally it was game over. One crazy meal would spiral into a full-blown weekend binge, or even longer. I'd tell myself, ah, fuck it, I already messed up, so I'll start fresh on Monday. And the truth is, monday never really fixed anything. I wasn't starting over. I was restarting the same cycle of guilt and restriction, self-sabotage.
Speaker 2:But after I started making these small smart choices, I learned to treat each choice like its own individual event. One slice of pizza or you know, everybody knows I love to eat donuts. One donut didn't cancel out my progress. It didn't mean I had to eat like a raccoon in a dumpster either for the rest of the day. I just stopped turning a single fuck up into a full-on freefall. I gave myself the grace to move on immediately. And not next week, not tomorrow, just the next meal.
Speaker 2:And guess what? That shift alone really changed everything. I guess it was the death of the all or nothing mindset, the mindset that keeps most people stuck forever. Bottom line I'm not a robot, you're not a robot, we're fucking human beings. There's going to be off days, there's going to be times that you skip meal or eat too much. Or, yeah, maybe eat a cookie or a donut that doesn't make you feel weak or shouldn't make you feel weak. It makes you real. That's what real human beings do. Sometimes we indulge.
Speaker 2:So by refusing to throw in the towel every time I fucked up, I built resilience, I stayed consistent, and I learned that consistency isn't about being perfect. It's about coming back over and over, no matter how many times you slip up. And that's the difference, the real difference, between people who get results and people who keep starting over. You don't need a perfect day. You just need a better next one, a better next choice. Another thing that happened for me was my self-talk became supportive, not punitive, not beating myself up.
Speaker 2:My inner voice before I did all this was a full-time bully. Every time I fucked up, the thought of not going to the gym, even though everyone told me to go to the gym, they gave me that great advice eat less and move more. And every food choice that wasn't clean or whatever it triggered like a mental breakdown why can't you stick to anything? You'll never lose this weight. And I was there where I was just I'm never going to lose this weight and this is just who you are. Get used to it and accept it. And that voice didn't help me get better. It helped me quit right Every time I talked shit about myself to myself my inner monologue. It helped me quit again and again and again. I told you I've been on over a hundred diets and I quit every single one of them.
Speaker 2:I thought that being hard on myself would keep me accountable, like if I hated myself enough I would finally change. But the reality is it doesn't work like that. What I learned was I made a conscious decision to stop being an asshole to myself. Instead of what the fuck is wrong with you, I started asking what triggered that choice and what can I do differently next time. I accepted the choices that I made. Some accountability there. So instead of shaming myself, I gave myself credit for trying.
Speaker 2:I shift from perfection to progress and from punishment and from punishment to problem solving. I started talking to myself the way I talked to a friend who was going through the same thing, with honesty, but also with some compassion. And I believe how you talk to yourself is how you treat yourself. If your inner dialogue is a stream of guilt, shame, disappointment, guess what, your behaviors are going to match that energy. But if you speak with ownership, like hey, this is my journey, with some clarity, yes, even kindness, you're more likely to make better choices and, more importantly, you're more likely to keep making them over and over again. I learned you can't hate yourself into a healthier version of you, and, trust me, I tried that. The real change started when I stopped tearing myself down and started coaching myself on what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it, and continue to make these small, smart choices.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I realized and this is probably going to be a big one for people is hunger isn't a prerequisite for weight loss. For years, I believe that feeling hungry meant that I was doing it right. If I wasn't walking around the growling something, I must be doing something wrong. So I skipped meals, I chugged water to curb my hunger and convince myself that suffering was the price of progress and in the long run, looking back on on it all, all that did was backfire. Every time I starved myself through the day, I'd end up binging at night like some kind of rabid animal, and the hunger it always won. And when it did, I didn't eat, I overate and then pile the gills on top of that vicious cycle. Oh my God, I can't believe you can't stick to anything.
Speaker 2:But after, when I started this thing, I gave myself permission to eat and I mean to really eat and that's when things shifted. I started focusing on nourishment over punishment. Real meals with real protein and fiber and healthy fats and stuff that actually satisfied me and kept me full. Those overnight oats every morning, I have to tell you they were a game changer. They kept me full and I felt great.
Speaker 2:And guess what happened when I started doing that? When I started eating the right foods, I stopped obsessing over food. My cravings dropped and I wasn't constantly skating the fridge or fantasizing about my next cheat or next thing I was going to binge on like, oh, get some donuts. My brain was finally calm because my body wasn't starving. So if you're hungry all the time, your body isn't working with you, it's fighting you. And when you're in a constant state of deprivation, that thing that we all like to talk about willpower doesn't stand a fucking chance. You end up going 90 miles an hour through the day and doing everything right and then crashing at night.
Speaker 2:And when I started eating the right things and really fueling my body the right way, I gained control of my eating habits, not by restriction, but by support. So it turns out, shockingly, that eating is not the enemy, undereating is the enemy. And once I learned that the results actually stuck here I am a little bit over two years since my start date and I'm down over 140 pounds I also learned that my cravings really diminished, naturally. So before I started this thing, before I started making all these small smart choices, my cravings ran the fucking show. Whether it was sweet, salty, crunchy, you name it, I wanted it all the time I could be full from lunch and still find myself standing in front of an ice cream store or a donut shop and convincing myself that you know what I deserve? This treat, that urgent snack, wasn't about hunger. It was emotional, habitual, honestly and constant, because I was always trying to eat less, skip meals or cut carbs. My body was basically screaming for anything remotely satisfying, so I'd crave and I'd cave over and over then feel like I had no discipline at all. So once I started making these small smart choices, I found the plot twist that no diet plan ever told me.
Speaker 2:When I started eating real balanced meals consistently, my cravings started to fade. No magic, no willpower seminars, just meals with actual protein, fiber, healthy fats and enough calories to support a functioning human body, and I had a big body. I also started drinking a lot more water because, yeah, sometimes thirst really does mask itself as hunger, and I stopped waiting until I was hangry to eat. Everybody knows hangry so hungry that you're angry. That alone cut my. I need something that urges in half the biggest kicker. I didn't cut out any of the foods I used to crave, I just didn't need them all the time anymore.
Speaker 2:Most people treat cravings like a discipline issue. Just say no, right, no, that's bullshit. Cravings are often your body's response to being underfed, overstressed or actually both. When you give it what it actually needs all that noise, all that bullshit, all those cravings they die down. So you don't have to white knuckle your way through cravings forever. You just have to stop setting your body up to scream at you. Once I did that, the cravings became background noise, not the boss.
Speaker 2:The next thing was this concept of starting over became obsolete. If you've ever been on a diet and gone off it and gone back on it, you're constantly starting over. Anytime I went off track, whether it was an unplanned slice of cake or skipping a workout or eating fast food I tell myself I blew it. The only logical next step in my old mindset was to throw in the towel, eat whatever I want for the rest of the day, and usually the next day or a few days after, and vow to start over after the weekend. If that sounds familiar to you, it's the classic diet reset trap and it kept me stuck for God I don't know 40, 50 years. I wasn't actually making progress. I was just perfect for a few days and then wrecked it and then hit reset again and again and again.
Speaker 2:And after I started making these small smart choices, what changed? I stopped treating the journey like a video game that resets every time I make a mistake. I started to view my choices as part of a long-term commitment, not a short-term contest. So one bad choice wasn't the end of anything, it was just a single choice. You hear me say that all the time you ate a donut big fucking deal. You went off your diet. Big fucking deal. It's a speed bump and there's no need to go off the rails and there's no need to start fresh. Just pick back up where you are and keep going. There was no big dramatic comeback, just consistency. And that start over mentality keeps people trapped in guilt and shame and delay. It makes you think your progress only counts if it's perfect, and that is complete and utter bullshit. What worked for me was staying in motion, not punishing myself, not throwing in the towel for an entire day because of one bad decision. When I dropped the idea of starting over and replaced it with keep going, I finally started seeing the kind of progress that sticks, because consistency isn't about a clean slate, it's about not stopping.
Speaker 2:The next thing that I learned by making small, smart choices is the scale lost its power. Now, I freely admit I weighed myself a bunch of times, but I knew that if I ate more or if I weighed myself later in the day, I was going to weigh a little more. I used to weigh myself like it was a fucking job. Right In the morning, if I went to the bathroom after meals, before bed, you name it, I stepped on the scale. Every decimal point either validated me or ruined my entire day. Up half a pound. Clearly it was a failure. Down one temporary victory, cue the obsession to do even more. It didn't matter how I felt or how I was showing up. If that number didn't move fast enough, I convinced myself that nothing was working. And if it went up, total fucking spiral.
Speaker 2:So after I started making the small, smart choices, I started asking myself why am I giving this stupid, fucking inanimate object complete control over how I feel about myself? So I stopped chasing that daily validation and started focusing on the non-scale victories. Again, I weighed myself a lot, but I didn't tie what my success looked like to the scale. I was looking at non-scale victories, things like waking up with more energy, not needing a nap in the middle of the day, feeling confident enough to wear a t-shirt without sucking in my stomach although my stomach was so big, sucking in it really didn't do anything, but I thought it did.
Speaker 2:A big victory for me was just saying no to food. I really didn't want to eat without feeling deprived. I said I'm not going to eat that for now. I know I can eat it later, I can eat it tomorrow, but for right now I'm not going to eat that. Huge, huge victory for me. And most times in fact I would say almost every single time I said that. Every time I said, yeah, I'm not going to eat that right now, maybe I'll eat it tomorrow. I didn't want to eat it later or the next day. I just kept telling myself that, and another non-scale victory for me was just being proud of how I bounced back if I did make a bad choice. Those were the real wins and they told me way more than a number on the scale ever could.
Speaker 2:So look, the bottom line is your weight's going to fluctuate. My weight fluctuates. There's your hormones, your sleep, hydration, stress. If you have a really salty meal, even gravity probably affects you on certain days. If your self-worth is attached to just your weight, you're handing your confidence over to something that isn't even stable. It's craziness. It's the non-scale victories that actually matter. I always say you pick a number out of your ass and you say that's the number I don't get to. How about, like your pants feel better, or you have more energy.
Speaker 2:When I started measuring progress and strength and mindset energy and creating habits, repeatable habits, everything changed. The scale became just a tool, not the judge, jury and executioner of my success. And that freedom. That's really what helped me to keep going all the time. The next thing is again. My motivation was replaced by desire. I used to believe that the key to success was motivation. I'd watch these hype videos, I'd scroll past Transformation Tuesday posts and wait for the magic wave of inspiration to smack me in the face and make everything easier. And sometimes, yeah, it would come and I'd have a good day where I ate clean or went for a walk. Well, I didn't really walk, that's not true, but where I walked, maybe a little bit more, I felt like I was really back on track. But the next day I'd be tired, annoyed, stressed out, whatever, and go right back to eating like a fucking animal. And why? Because motivation is garbage fuel. It burns fast and it disappears even faster.
Speaker 2:When I started making small, smart choices and I stopped waiting to feel ready and just started showing up, everything shifted. I built habits that didn't rely on my mood. I made rules for myself that were enough for debate, things like drink water before coffee, eat a real lunch, not a handful of bites while standing, take a a walk after dinner. I did that a little bit further in, but no negotiations. Was I motivated every day? Hell, no, but I was consistent. That's what matters. I treated my health like brushing my teeth not exciting, but non-negotiable.
Speaker 2:The bottom line here is motivation is unreliable. It shows, shows up late, it leaves early, it disappears when life gets messy. But your desire, your reason. Your knowing your real reason for why you want to lose weight. That sticks around forever. Desire doesn't care if you're too tired or in a bad mood. It's the quiet commitment that builds results. Long after that motivational bullshit has died, you don't need to feel inspired. You just need to show up, even when it's boring and even when it's hard. That's where the real progress lies, not in hype. It's in habits. It's making small, smart choices that lead to sustainable weight loss and create good habits. I also embrace something that I call the good enough approach.
Speaker 2:For the 59 years before I started, I was a perfectionist, pretending that I had discipline. My meal plan had to be flawless, every meal prepped, every snack timed, every macro counted and if I missed a step, fucking game over. One misstep and the whole day was ruined, which meant I'd throw it all away and start to spiral again. It wasn't just all or nothing thinking. It was an all out binge thinking. If I couldn't do it 100% right, I'd do it 100% wrong, because in my head, good enough wasn't actually good enough. It was a failure.
Speaker 2:But once I started clinging to these small smart choices and really concentrating on making them, I realized that trying to be perfect was the exact thing that was keeping me stuck. The people who succeed. They're not perfect, they're just relentlessly consistent with being pretty damn good. Most of the time, I always tell you make 80 small%, small, smart choices, and the other 20% of the time you're not going to make such great choices. 80-20 works.
Speaker 2:So I lowered the bar, not on my goals, but on the pressure I put on myself to be flawless. I started asking myself what does a better choice look like right now? And I wasn't looking for the perfect choice, just a better one. If I didn't have the ingredients for a perfect lunch, I made a decent sandwich instead of hitting a drive-thru. If I was craving something sweet, like a donut, I had it, sometimes without turning it into an all-day binge fest. Or I told myself, hey, you know what, I'm not going to have it right now.
Speaker 2:But I allowed myself to be less than perfect, because perfection is a trap. It sets you up to fail and it makes you feel like a fuck up when life doesn't go according to your little color-coded plans. But good enough, that builds consistency, and consistency. That's what creates results. Every time, that mindset took the pressure off and made the process sustainable, and it also made it enjoyable. I wasn't chasing perfect, I was finally choosing progress, and it worked.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I learned I didn't realize it until, I guess I was a little bit into this journey is I began respecting my body through the process. I abused my body For most of my life. I treated self-respect like a prize I earned once I got my shit together, once I lost the weight. I believed that I didn't deserve to feel good about myself or even take care of myself. Until I looked different, until the number on the scale dropped, until I fit into the clothes that I used to wear, until I earned the right to feel proud. So what did I do in the meantime? I treated my body like shit. I skipped meals, then I binged. I talked to myself like an idiot in the mirror. I wore clothes that hid me. I punished my body with the same shame instead of taking care of it with good intentions. So here's a truth bomb that changed everything. You don't get the body you want by hating the body you have.
Speaker 2:Once I stopped waiting for a finish line to treat myself with respect, things began to shift. I started eating in a way that made me feel good, not just look better. I started moving my body, and again that was a little further into it. But I started moving my body because it felt strong and capable, not as a punishment for eating. I also started to dress better. I got a bunch of new clothes that fit me better, I stood up straighter and I spoke kinder words to myself, even when I knew I still had a long way to go, and I still have a long way to go. But that matters, because when you respect your body, you're way more likely to take care of it, not from guilt or desperation, but a place of actual self-worth and that energy. That's the kind of energy that sustains real change. You don't have to wait until the end of your journey to act like someone who deserves better. You just have to choose it Small smart choices. You just have to choose it Small, smart choices. You just have to choose it, starting right now. And then the last thing, which I never thought I could do, is I actually found joy in the journey Before I started making small smart choices.
Speaker 2:When I first started trying to lose weight, which was who knows how many years ago, it always felt like a punishment, like I was being sentenced to a joyless life of grilled chicken or steamed broccoli and had a social isolation until I hit my weight goal. Every healthy choice that I had to make again going back from when I was a little kid, it felt like a sacrifice. Everybody else was eating all this great stuff, but I would be on a diet when I was younger and everybody would be enjoying this. But I would be on a diet when I was younger and everybody would be enjoying this and I'd have to eat some bland shit. Every skipped treat felt like a loss to me. Every day of discipline felt like a fucking grind that I had to suffer through to finally be happy. I thought that once I got the results then I could enjoy my life again.
Speaker 2:But once I started making the small smart choices, somewhere along the way, something clicked. I didn't need to hate the process to love the results. I started finding those small moments of satisfaction in the doing, not just the outcome, like the confidence I felt after making a solid food choice when I normally would have eaten like shit, or the clarity I got from going out for a 10-minute walk when, again the first year, I did nothing. But now, when I go out for a 10-minute walk instead of scrolling my phone or the weird grown-up joy of drinking water first thing in the morning and realizing I didn't need to feel like shit by the afternoon. It stopped being about suffering and it started to become a journey of empowerment. And I guess that really matters, because if the process feels miserable every step of the way, you won't stick with it, period. That's why so many people quit. It's not that they're weak, it's that they're doing it in a way that fucking sucks.
Speaker 2:When you enjoy the journey, even just a little, you stop white-knuckling your way through change. You start building a lifestyle that you want to keep living, and that's what makes it stick. So I didn't just lose 140 or more pounds, I gained ownership in my life, and that was the best part of this journey is taking ownership of my life back. So, looking back, there was no single turning point once I started, no, like huge moment where I felt that everything changed. You know there was no perfect meal plan and definitely no miracle workouts for me. That just wasn't in what I was doing. There was no moment that I could look at wasn't in what I was doing. There was no moment that I could look at.
Speaker 2:What actually changed my life were a series of small, smart, unsexy choices, made consistently, even when it wasn't convenient and even when it wasn't exciting and even when no one was watching. I didn't lose over 140 pounds by starving myself, by going to the gym or cutting out everything I love. I lost it because I stopped chasing extreme fixes and started choosing better, one small, smart choice at a time. I stopped quitting every time I slipped up. I started talking to myself like someone worth rooting for. I learned that being full wasn't failure and being hungry wasn't a badge of honor. I stopped letting the scale run my emotions. I stopped waiting for motivation and built routines and habits that worked even without it. I definitely traded perfection for progress. I respected my body as it was. I didn't love it, but I respected it as it was, not just when I thought it would finally be good enough. And, maybe most importantly, I found peace and power in the actual process.
Speaker 2:That's what this journey is really about not grinding your way to some short-term goal so you can go back to normal, because if your normal is what made you miserable, why are you fighting to return to it? It just doesn't make any sense. The game changer is realizing that this, the small smart choices, the daily choices, the mindset shifts, the messy real-life moments. That's the journey, and when you stop trying to rush through it and instead you start learning to enjoy it, that's when the real results show up. Sustainable weight loss is not about flipping a switch. It's about changing the wiring. It's about showing up imperfectly but consistently, and it's all about taking full ownership of your outcomes. No more blaming, no more excuses, no more starting over, no more bullshit.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm living proof that you don't need to be perfect, you don't need to be miserable and you surely don't need to be punished to transform your life. And the truth is, if I did it, so can you. This is not rocket science. This is something that you were born with. It's pre-wired in all of us. We all know what to do. It's whether or not you're willing to make those small smart choices and stay consistent and build those sustainable and healthy habits. So that's my thought on what small smart choices mean. I didn't give you specific small smart choices, because everybody's different. You know where you're fucking up. You know where you're making mistakes. You know when you're binging. You know all that. It's just finally taking accountability and taking action that really creates the results that you're looking for.
Speaker 2:If you want to learn more about how I did it, I have a book called Shut Up and Choose, which you probably know. You definitely know if you listen to this podcast more than once. It's available on Amazon. It's an Amazon bestseller. People send me notes all the time letting me know that it changed their life just by changing their thinking.
Speaker 2:This is a mental game period, people. It is mental, it's not physical. Everybody's physical is different. You could be an exercise nut and lose weight, but if you don't change your mindset about eating, you will never get to the goal, to the place. You'll never get to your why if you don't fix your mindset.
Speaker 2:If you're more of a visual person, I have a video course called the Effortless Weight Loss Academy. It's 23 videos. You can watch them in a couple hours max, but they'll really help you get your head in the right place. You can get that at learnshutupandchoosecom. That's learnshutupandchoosecom. I promise you, watching those videos, investing two hours into your life, will change your life completely.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess that's everything for today. I'm going to make a small smart choice right now and go outside and do a little bit of walking and start to enjoy my 61st year like I've never enjoyed any year before, and hopefully you'll make the right small, smart choices to start your journey, or continue on your journey, or tell somebody else to listen to this podcast so they can get started on their journey, because it's not hard, people, it really is not hard. It's just about making small, smart choices. So, with that being said, I'm going to go outside, get some air, walk a little bit, and the only advice left that I have for you is to shut up and choose you've been listening to shut up and choose.
Speaker 1: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 JonathanWrestlerBocaRaton. Until next time, shut up and choose.