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 and 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 it 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 Russler.

Jonathan: 1:13

Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the podcast that cuts you the noise and the nonsense and all the bullshit that you had industry and those internet and Instagram influences are throwing your way, telling you lies about how to lose weight and not really giving you the true story. So today I'm gonna actually try to give you what that really looks like. So in early April of 2023, when I walked out of the hospital after 21 days, I didn't walk out healthy. I walked out patched together, like basically a Frankenstein held up by medication and luck. Sepsis had nearly killed me. My body was wrecked. They sent me home with a plastic bag full of fucking orange bottles, blood pressure medication, cholesterol meds, blood thinners, a diuretics, something for gout, something for kidneys, and something to help the side effects from all that other shit. And I remember looking at that lineup of pills and thinking, man, this is my new breakfast. It was so complicated, I had to set reminders on my phone just to keep up with the schedule. Every morning it was the same ritual. Choke down the meds, chase them with some water, wait for the dizziness and nausea to fade, and then just kind of pretend it was normal. And the doctors kept repeating the same warning to me. Jonathan, your heart's weak, your kidneys are damaged, and you can't keep living like this. I nodded, I promised I'd do better, and I said all the right words. But the second I got home, the very same day, I went right back to my bad habits. Because that's what addiction looks like when food is your drug. It's not dramatic, it's quiet, it's autopilot. You don't binge because you're hungry, you binge because it's the only thing that still feels like control. So there I was, a walking pharmacy with failing organs, sitting in my kitchen ordering takeout. The hospital bracelet was still on my wrist. That's the kind of sick that I was, not just physically, but spiritually. My body had almost died, and my brain's first instinct was let's eat. That's a level of denial that doesn't even feel like denial anymore. It just feels like routine. And that's where I was living. The days after the hospital were a blur of pain and pills and all kinds of shit. My legs hurt, my joints were on fire from the gout. I could feel my heart working too hard, and every beat was like a warning siren. But instead of listening, I just fucking numbed it with food, with TV, excuses, and then some more food. You can't medicate shame, so you just buried on something that tastes good for like five minutes. And everyone around me, my family, my doctors, they were scared. My cardiologist looked me dead in the eye and said, if you don't lose weight, you're gonna die. You need bariatric surgery. You don't have a choice. I'd heard those words before, but I I really didn't even give a shit. I just wanted to be left alone and get back to the only thing that brought me joy, which was eating. So if you read my book, you know all about the singing pink gorilla and how it saved my life. If you don't know the story, here's the short version. Vicky, my lifelong friend at the time, now significantly more, but she sent me a singing pink gorilla gram for my 59th birthday. It was funny, and I knew I had to send her a photo of me and the gorilla to her as a thank you. At that moment, I saw a photo of myself, and I didn't recognize the person at all. I I had avoided all reflective surfaces, and the person in the picture is proof that I was living a life of delusion and denial. I wasn't someone I recognized, and I surely was not someone I was proud to be. When I finally saw myself, I actually started believing the doctor. I didn't feel invincible anymore. I felt fragile, like I was breakable, like I was like one cheeseburger away from a headline. So I did what scared people do. I looked for the fastest way out. I started researching bariatric surgery. I read about the sleeve, the bypass, the band. I watched testimonials from people crying on camera, how it saved their life. I wanted that. I wanted to be safe. But insurance might not touch it, and the waiting times were months and months and months. I felt like I didn't have months. And then I found this clinic in Mexico, part of a booming medical tourism world. They promised expert surgeons, five-star recovery suites, luxury hotel transfers, and results that would quote unquote change everything. It sounded like salvation wrapped in customer service. So I did it. I scheduled the surgery, 30 days out. That night I sat on my couch surrounded by prescription bottles and junk food wrappers and thought, maybe this is how I finally win. I felt like handing my life over to someone else, and for the first time in years, that actually felt like a relief because I was tired of being responsible for me. I didn't tell anyone how scared I was or that I was even doing it, to be honest. I just kept imagining waking up thin, healed, and fixed. But later that same night when the adrenaline faded, it was just me in the dark, I started thinking about everything that could go wrong the surgery, the anesthesia, the infection risk, the recovery, being alone in a foreign country. And somewhere in that storm of fear, a single sentence from the doctor came echoing back to me. And that was start eating less now, start preparing your mind for life after surgery. And I kept hearing that, and I heard it in a repeat. Start eating less now. Well, if I can start eating less now, why the hell am I flying to another country to have my stomach cut open? That question, it wouldn't let me sleep. It was like my brain finally called my own bluff because the truth was brutal. I didn't need a surgeon, I needed accountability, I needed honesty, and I needed to stop waiting for someone else to fix the shit that I kept breaking. So that night something cracked. I saw myself clearly 411 pounds full of medication, barely functioning, and still trying to find the easy way out. And I thought, hey, maybe the hard way isn't the enemy. Maybe it's the only way left. I didn't decide to change my life that night, to be honest. I just decided not to surrender it. So the next morning, I canceled the surgery. And for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel hopeless, I felt awake. Because the truth had finally landed. I didn't need surgery. I didn't need Ozempic. I didn't need another miracle. I need to start fucking choosing again. Because what I really needed wasn't a smaller stomach, it was some self-respect. So the morning after I canceled the surgery, I woke up with that same pit in my stomach, the one that comes when you do something huge and immediately wonder if you just made the biggest fucking mistake of your life. My phone was full of reminders from the clinic of Mexico, some paperwork, asking for a deposit, travel itinerary. I stared at him for a minute, and then when the last email disappeared, the silence was deafening. No plan, no surgeon, no safety net, just me. And the same broken shit that had put me in the hospital bed in the first place. I gotta tell you, it didn't feel empowering. It was honestly a little terrifying. So I walked in the kitchen, I opened the fridge and saw the wreckage of my old life. Half-eaten takeout containers, soda bottles, leftover shit and food that honestly smelled like denial. I didn't even know where to start. So I did the only thing I could think of was that I threw shit away. Not all of it, not some dramatic Instagram ready purge, but just enough to create some space because sometimes the smallest act of defiance is just cleaning up your own mess. And then I made myself breakfast, and not a healthy one, not like some perfect meal plan, just something real. I made some eggs and toasts and I had a glass of water. It wasn't much, but it was mine. And for the first time in years, I sat down, I ate slowly, and I actually tasted my food. No phone, no guilt, no plan, just a quiet, stubborn sense of maybe I can do this. And I have to be honest, for the next few days I was in a fog. Physically I felt like shit. My body was still wrecked from the hospital. Every step reminded me of how far I had actually fallen with my swollen legs and aching joints and a heart that felt like it was running uphill. But somewhere under that pain, something new was growing. And it was curiosity. I started asking myself questions instead of making excuses. Why am I hungry right now? Why do I eat when I'm bored? Why do I reach for food when I'm scared? For the first time, I think I wasn't trying to be perfect. I was just trying to be honest. About a week into that, I called the cardiologist and he, of course, he asked me, So did you schedule surgery? I said I did, but then I cancel it. Nothing. Silence. Then he sighed. That disappointed parent kind of said, like, Jonathan, you're gambling with your life here. And I said, No, I already did that for years. I'm done gambling. I'm going all in on me. He didn't get it. Most people wouldn't, so I chose to tell no one. To them, surgery was discipline. To me, it felt like surrender. They didn't understand that I wasn't chasing a smaller stomach, I was chasing a bigger life, and that's really important. So in those first 30 days, everything was kind of hard. Cooking was hard, moving was hard, saying no to comfort food was hard. It felt like betrayal. But every day I made one small, smart choice. Just one. I didn't overhaul my life overnight. I just started stacking small wins. I'd walk a little bit further, and believe me, that wasn't a lot. Walking a hundred yards was wind, I was wiped out. But I tried to walk just a little bit further. I drank water instead of anything else instead of iced tea and soda. I took my meds on time. I tried to go to bed an hour early. I really tried to focus on me. Tiny things that look pointless to anyone else, but to me they were proof. Proof that I wasn't done yet. And every time I kept a promise to myself, I felt the flicker of something I hadn't felt in years. And that was trust. That's the thing about rebuilding your life. It starts in moments so small that you almost miss them. You don't wake up one day motivated. That's a bunch of shit. You wake up and realize you're tired of your own bullshit. And that's what I did. I remember one night, maybe two weeks after canceling the surgery, I was sitting in my car outside of a fast food place. The same shithole that I gone to a hundred times before. I could smell the grease from the fries, and it was right there. My brain was screaming for it. And I just sat there. And then this quiet voice in my head said, You don't have to do this shit anymore. So I didn't. I turned on the car, I drove home, and I made a boring sandwich. That was it. No fireworks, no dramatic transformation. But in that moment, I felt more powerful than I ever did when I was chasing a miracle cure. Because I didn't follow a rule. I had made a choice. And that's the difference. Rules keep you obedient, and choices keep you alive. So over the next few weeks, my body started to change. Not drastically, just little signs that something real was happening. The scale started moving, my energy shifted. I had a lot more energy, and the bloat started to fade. And believe me, there was a lot of bloat, partially because of the medicine, but mostly because of the food. But more importantly, my mindset started to thaw out. And for the first time, I didn't wake up hating myself. I woke up thinking, let's see what happens if I keep going. That's when I realized I didn't cross some, I guess, invisible line from surviving to actually living. Because when you stop looking for someone else to save you, you start saving yourself. And it's messy, it's slow, it's painful, but it's fucking real. By the end of the month, I learned more about myself than I had in 40 years of diets. I learned that food was never the enemy. It was my escape hatch. I learned that comfort is just another word for avoidance. And I learned that I didn't need to be fucking perfect. I just needed to show up. That was the real wake up. Not the hospital, not the sepsis, not the doctors warning me I'd die. It was the quiet moment after I canceled surgery when I realized I didn't need to be saved. I needed to take responsibility. That's when I stopped waiting for motivation and started building momentum. I didn't know it yet, but that 30-day window, that time that was supposed to lead up to the surgery, became the first chapter of my actual recovery. Because what I discovered was simple but life-changing. The human body will fight like hell to survive, but you gotta meet it halfway. I wasn't trying to lose 140 pounds. I was trying to find the man buried underneath all of them. And for the first time in years, I believed he was still in there. So before I ever even booked Death Fantasy Mexico, I went down the rabbit hole every night, sitting there surrounded by pill bottles, lefters. I was scrolling, bariatric surgery forms, YouTube testimonials, before and after pictures that looked like fucking miracles. I was desperate. I wanted hope that came in a package with tracking information. The more I read, the more I felt like salvation. People saying, finally felt free. Other people crying on camera, holding up these genes and like they were holy relics, these massive genes. And then I kind of stumbled on the other half of the conversation. The new miracle, everybody was raving about. It was Ozempic or Wagovie, it was one of the GLP ones. All you have to do is take a shot once a week and poof, your hunger's gone, your craving's gone, appetite gone. It was marketed like magic and it still is. And I'll be honest, I almost believe it. Because when you're 411 pounds and scared to die, magic sounds logical. If a needle could make the noise in my head quiet down, why wouldn't I do it? So I did what I always do when I'm a little bit nervous or scared. I researched the shit out of it. At first it was hope, then it started to feel like dirty or cheating. Like I don't want to do this. People posting about constant nausea, vomiting, muscle loss, ozempic face, the insane rebound when they stopped. Some said they couldn't eat, others said they couldn't stop once they went off. The pattern was obvious. They hadn't changed. They'd just been chemically silenced. And that scared the shit out of me. Because I realized if I needed a needle to stop eating, I wasn't really healing. I was outsourcing my willpower. That wouldn't be fixing a problem. It would just be finding, I guess, a shinier version of denial. That's when the surgery started to feel like the same trap, just more expensive. Every article promised a new life, but buried in the fine print was the same instruction my doctor gave me. Start eating less now and start preparing for your new life after surgery. Wait, eat less now? If I can eat less now, why the fuck am I paying for someone to cut me open? Same thought. That single sentence punched through every layer of bullshit that I built for myself because it exposed what I really didn't want to admit. I was still searching for a shortcut. So I convinced myself that surgery or a Zempik would save me when what I really wanted to do was stop being responsible for my own choices. And I don't think it was laziness, it was exhaustion. I was tired of failing. But there's a big difference between being tired and being done. So before I officially booked the surgery, I sat there with all my research spread out, my clinic brochures, my cost breakdowns, my medical orders, and it hit me like a freight train. Every one of these solutions requires me to do the same thing they claim to make easy. Eat less, move a little bit, pay attention, and be honest. The surgery just forced it and the drugs numbed it. They both treated my body like a machine that needed rewiring, not a fucking human being that needed rebuilding. That realization cracks on the open at me. Because the truth is, I wasn't looking for a cure. I was looking for permission to keep running from myself. If I can make it medical, then it wasn't failure, it was treatment. Or if I can make it chemical, then I was out of control. I was just imbalanced. That's the bullshit that keeps people stuck. We medicalize what's really a behavioral problem, then sell the cure on a payment plan. The diet industry, the pharmaceutical companies, the fucking influencers, they all thrive on one message. You can't be trusted with yourself. And that's the lie, that's the bullshit that I almost believed. I looked at the numbers again, the deposit, the travel, the risk, and something inside me just snapped. I'm about to pay thousands of dollars to fly to another country and have someone physically restrict my ability to eat. Then maybe the problem isn't my stomach, maybe it's my spine. So I, like I said, I didn't book it. I closed the laptop, sat there in silence, and realized I'd just dodged the most expensive surrender of my life. And yet, the next day I came. I convinced myself I was overthinking. That was fear talking, not logic. So I called the clinic back and scheduled it. 30 days out. But that night, lying in bed, I couldn't breathe. Not just because of my weight, because that was also a problem, but because I knew I just betrayed myself again. All those hours of research, all those red flags, and I ignored them because I was still chasing easy. That's the real addiction. Not to food, but to convenience. At two in the morning, I got out of bed. I opened my laptop. I reread every horror story I bookmarked and pretended that didn't matter. The ones where people couldn't eat without puking, the ones where they lost weight but not to shame, the ones that ended with I wish I tried harder before I did this. That last one really hit me because that was me. I I really hadn't really tried. I just kept outsourcing the effort. So I canceled the surgery again, this time for good. And for the first time, the silence didn't sound like fear, it sounded like freedom. That's when it finally clicked. The easy way is always the most expensive. It costs your autonomy, your confidence, and your self-respect. You can shrink your stomach, you can cut off your appetite. But if you never learn to trust yourself, you'll always need another fix. So yeah, I canceled the surgery. I skipped the shot. I chose the hard way because I didn't need a smaller stomach. Honestly, I needed bigger balls. I needed to prove to myself that I could still make choices and live with them. And that's exactly what I did. So when I canceled that surgery the second time, I didn't have like some fucking movie moment, like no soundtrack, no sunshine, no, no teary epiphany. Just me sitting in bed in the dark, surrounded by prescription bottles, realizing there's no plan, no backup, and no miracle coming. But somehow that didn't scare me anymore. It just kind of pissed me off because I finally saw it. Every time shit got hard, I handed my power away. A doctor, a diet, a guru, a program. Every single time I said fix me, instead of I'll fix this. So that night I made a deal with myself. If this kills me, it'll at least be on my terms. No more outsourcing, no more looking for easy, just raw, daily choice. That was the beginning of the rebuild. Like I said, the next morning I started small. I drank water before I drank coffee. I ate breakfast, a real breakfast instead of dog shit. I walked just a couple hundred feet because that was all I could do. But I moved. And then I did it again the next day and again the next day. And by the end of the first week, something happened. Like I said, the scale dropped. Not a pound or two, but fucking 10 pounds. The bloat, the information, that all that poison that I've been carrying, it started to leave my body like it was escaping a burning building. By week two, the difference honestly was visible. My face was less swollen, my ankles didn't feel like sandbags, and I could actually breathe. And that's when the moment happened. I was in the grocery store, the same Publix where I used to grab all kinds of shit. And I walked past the bakery department, past the fried chicken, past every comfort food that I used to owe me. And I didn't want any of it. Not because I was being good, because I was finally done being numb. Right there, a couple weeks in, I realized something I'd never felt before. I wasn't dieting, I was deciding. People always talk about slow and steady, but fuck that shit. My body was ready to heal the minute I stopped assaulting it. Once I cut the poison and started moving, it responded like it had been waiting for fucking years for me to show up. That's the part no one tells you. Your body doesn't hate you. It's just begging you to listen. The weight, like I said, came off fast, but it wasn't luck. It was the compound interest of every honest choice finally paying off. And every pound I dropped made me more dangerous because it proved the bullshit was wrong. The doctors who said I couldn't, the industry said I needed them, the voice in my head that said I was fucking broken, all of them wrong. I kept going another week, then another, every day, just another small, smart choice, eating food that fuels me, moving more than I did yesterday. And again, just a cup, maybe even a couple more steps, but sleeping, hydrating, don't quit. I never tracked a fucking macro or counted a single calorie. I tracked integrity. Did I keep my word to myself today? Yes, then I'm winning. Because every promise kept is a brick in the foundation of self-respect. And for the first time in years, I was building something solid. By the end of the first month, I was down almost 30 pounds. My clothes were loose, my energy was up, and to be honest, I was fucking shocked. But the number wasn't the story. The ownership was. I wasn't living by restriction, I was living by alignment. Food stopped being the enemy and started being information. And the more I listened, the more my body responded. If I wanted to eat donuts or cake or candy, I just would. But the funny thing is, I didn't want to. I knew I could, but I didn't because I knew I was on the path that I'd been searching for for literally my entire life. That's when I understood this truth. Control isn't the goal, trust is. Control is just fear pretending to be discipline. Trust is freedom. I stopped dieting and I started choosing. That became my mantra, my compass, basically my rebellion, because I didn't lose 140 pounds by finding a better plan. I lost it by finding my backbone, by finding the balls. I stopped worshiping willpower and started practicing awareness and being present. I stopped chasing discipline and I started chasing honesty. And every time I made a choice that aligned with who I wanted to be, the old version of me died a little bit more. And I didn't mourn that motherfucker either. I buried him. That's what led to my book Shut Up and Choose, because when you strip away the drama, the hacks, and the systems, what's left is the truth. People don't need another diet, they need to believe they're capable of choice. That's the core philosophy. That's what stop dieting, start choosing actually means. It's not some motivational fluff. It's my middle finger to the billion-dollar energy built on keeping people helpless. Because when you finally choose for yourself, they can't sell you shit. You don't build transformation in big cinematic moments, you build it in boring, relentless honesty. The kind where nobody's clapping, the kind where it's just you versus your old pattern, and the kind where you win because you refuse to quit. That's what I did. That's what anyone can do. So yeah, the weight came off fast, but what stayed off for good was the bullshit. And if you take nothing else from this story, take this. You're just one choice away from momentum, and momentum is one choice away from freedom. Here's the truth you don't need another plan, you don't need a new fucking pill, you don't need another guru in your feed pretending to care about your journey. You just need to decide that your life matters more than your comfort. That's it. That's the secret. I found the 411 pounds covered in hospital wristbands and excuses. The moment I stopped looking for easy and started choosing hard, and hard is a relative term. And to be completely honest, it wasn't hard. It was liberating and empowering. And if you're listening to this right now and thinking, hey, maybe I could do that, then good, because you can. You don't need surgery, you don't need ozempic, and you surely don't need fucking permission. You need honesty, consistency, and a little bit of self-respect. That's what my book, Shut Up and Choose, is all about. It's not a diet book, it's a manual for taking your power back. It's how I lost 140 pounds, built trust with myself again, and created a life that I actually enjoy. And if you want something you can use right now, go to my website, jonathanwrestle.com, and sign up for my free weekly tips. They take less than a minute to read. There's no sales pitch, no bullshit. I'm not selling you anything. It's just practical, bite-sized truths that help you make small, smart choices that actually work. Because the longer you wait to choose, the longer someone else profits from your hesitation. So start today, not fucking Monday, not after the holidays, right fucking now. You've tried every diet, you've trusted everyone but yourself. It's time to do something radical and make your own choices. Stop dieting and start choosing. Because you don't need surgery, you don't need a syringe, and you don't need permission. You just need to shut up and choose.

Announcer: 27:02

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 Jonathan WrestlerBocaraton. Until next time, shut up and choose.