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 Shoes. 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 : 1:14

Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose Podcast. Bullshit. And where we do something radically different. We stop dieting and start choosing and finally take control of your health. So today I want to talk about something just absolutely insane. And that is that now you can walk into Costco and buy Ozempik or Wagobi for $499 a month. No insurance, no doctor, just a miracle shot sitting between the toilet paper and the trail mix. They'll sell you the syringe, they'll sell you the hope, but they will never, ever sell you the freedom. Because freedom doesn't make them money. Dependency does. We're now living in a time when you can order willpower online. One injection, once a week, and you can pretend you've solved your problem. The ads, they call it control. The influencers call it empowerment. But let's not bullshit each other. It's sedation. This country has turned weight loss into a subscription service. Big pharma doesn't want you healthy. It wants you hooked. Every pound you lose is another reason for them to keep you paying. And before you roll your eyes, let me say this. I get it. I I almost fell for the same thing. When I was 411 pounds and sick and scared out of my wits, fresh out of the hospital, I was ready to sign up for anything to promise relief. Bariatric surgery, Ozempic, any other magical fix. Whatever would stop the pain, because pain makes you desperate and desperation makes you dumb. I spent nights scrolling through miracle stories, reading about people who dropped 100 pounds without even trying, a new life, they said, finally free. But none of them sounded free. They sounded dependent, addicted to the idea that their health was somebody else's job. And that, my friends, is the billion-dollar lie. The industry has convinced you that you're incapable of choosing for yourself, that you need their program, their product, or their pill, that you're just too weak to decide what goes into your own fucking mouth. But here's the truth: you don't need another diet. You don't need another injection. You just need to stop giving away your choices. Because the second you do, you stop being a person and start being a customer. They'll tell you it's not your fault. They'll call it science. They'll pat you on the head and say, oh, don't worry, we'll fix you. But every time you outsource responsibility, you rent your results. And the minute you stop paying, the weight, the cravings, all the chaos and craziness, it all comes rushing back. You don't need a doctor to shrink your stomach. You need a decision to change your life. When I finally understood that, everything shifted. I didn't find a plan that worked. I became a person who works a plan. And that's what this episode is about. Today I'm going to show you how the addiction to easy fixes poisons more than just your body, it poisons your power. I'm going to tell you why the people selling quick results don't want you choosing and how you can take that power back. Because weight loss is not about discipline. It's not about motivation. It's about ownership. And once you start choosing, and I mean really choosing, the whole game changes. You stop dieting, you start choosing. You stop following, you start leading. You stop being their product and become your own solution. So buckle up because this episode is definitely going to piss some people off. The companies making billions off your insecurity won't like what I'm about to say. But if you've ever looked in the mirror and thought, you know what, I'm better than this, then you're in the right place today. Because I'm not here to sell you a shot or a shake or some fucking meal plan. I'm here to sell you the truth. The only permanent weight loss is the kind that you choose. This is the billion-dollar lie why Big Pharma doesn't want you to choose. So let's jump into this thing. Every weight loss miracle starts with the same promise. This time it'll be easy. And that word easy is the most expensive lie in the world. We've built an entire fucking culture around it. We want express shipping on everything, our food, our dopamine, our success. Hell, you can even now prime ship your willpower, scroll any feed, drop 20 pounds in 20 days, reset your metabolism with this cleanse, lose fat while you sleep. It's all the same hustle. They're not selling the results. They're selling relief from the effort because effort is bad for business. When I was fresh out of the hospital, still swollen, still on a whole pharmacy worth of pills, I didn't want to plan. I just wanted peace. I was exhausted from fighting myself. So when my doctor and my family said, you need surgery, I kind of nodded because what I heard wasn't you need surgery. What I heard was you don't have to try anymore. That's what easy really is. It's permission to quit. And the system and the marketers, they know it. The weight loss industry has turned surrender into a strategy. They dress it up in lab coats and call it science, but the message is the same. You can't be trusted with your own choices, so let us do it for you. That's how they make billions by convincing you that you're broken. I remember sitting at my kitchen table scrolling through pages of these success stories. People holding up jeans, they can now put both of their legs in, tears streaming down their faces, swearing their lives were changed forever. And honestly, for a second, I believed them. Because when you're desperate, hope is a drug stronger than any GLP one. But deep down, I knew something was off. The stories always ended with dependency on the pill, the program, the follow-up subscription. Nobody ever said, I learned to trust myself again. They said, I finally found something that works for me. But what they really meant was, I finally found something that works on me. That's not empowerment. That's enslavement with a better branding. Every shortcut you try to take steals the same thing. And those are the lessons. And those lessons are what make the change last. When you grind through the discomfort, you learn what hunger really feels like. You learn the difference between craving and coping. You learn how to sit with your emotions instead of eating them. You can't inject that. You can't download it. The only thing you can do is earn it. The first time I chose to cook instead of order takeout, I can tell you I didn't feel powerful. I felt stupid. But when I did it again the next day and the next, it stopped being punishment and started being proof. And that's when I understood the hard way works because it forces you to participate in your own life. And the truth is, there's no such thing as effortless weight loss. There's only unconscious effort. The kind of comes from stacking a hundred tiny little honest choices until they run on autopilot. People call that discipline. I call it momentum. Momentum doesn't come from a miracle, it comes from motion. And the beautiful part, once you start choosing, the effort doesn't feel like effort anymore. It just feels like alignment. And that's when I laugh when people call what I did the hard way. You know it was hard? Hating myself every fucking day. Feeling entrapped in a body that was dying while pretending that I was fine. That was hard. Eating real food, moving my body a little bit, drinking water, that shit's not hard. That's called being alive. But we're so conditioned to chase easy that normal feels impossible. So yeah, the diet industries, the drug companies, the internet influence, they all sell easy. Because if you ever realize how powerful you actually are, they're out of business. When I say stop dieting, start choosing, I'm not preaching some self-help, fluffy bullshit. I'm handing you the exact tool the billion-dollar industry can't sell. And that's responsibility. Because responsibility is freedom in disguise. It's not punishment, it's power. And once you taste it, you'll never swallow their bullshit again. So let me ask you this. If easy worked, wouldn't we all be done by now? Every new miracle comes with a new excuse, and every excuse keeps you stuck in the same place, waiting for somebody else to make the next move. But the day you stop waiting, the day I stopped waiting, that's when everything changed. Because the real miracle isn't the shot, the surgery, the supplement, all the bullshit they're selling. It's the moment you realize you already have everything you need, which is the ability to choose. So that's what I'm going to dive into a little deeper today. I'm going to show you how the addiction to easy keeps you trapped, and how every diet, drug, and doctor-approved plan, I love that doctor-approved plan is designed to rob you of the one thing that actually creates freedom: your decisions. This is not about food, it's about ownership. So stop looking for easy and start looking inward. Because the second you do, the game changes. So I guess let's be brutally honest. No one in the weight loss industry actually wants you to win. If you did, if you really figured it out, the whole fucking machine would collapse. Diet companies, supplement brands, pharmaceutical giants, they all survive on the same unspoken business model. Keep people believing they're broken. Look at the money trail. They always say that if you want to find the crime, follow the money. This company, I'm probably saying this wrong, but Kyleera Therapeutics just raised $600 million to push a new GLP1 drug into trials. Eli Lilly's stock has doubled because of Manjaro. Costco, yeah, Costco is now selling Ozempik and Wogovi at the pharmacy counter. That's not innovation. That's addiction at scale. They turned insecurity into a revenue stream. So every time you feel like a failure, someone rings a cash register. Every time you say I'll start Monday, a shareholder gets richer. Every time you buy the next detox cleanse or miracle shot or whatever, you're confirming what they need you to believe. That you can't do it without them. Here's the thing that nobody tells you the weight loss industry doesn't sell transformation, it sells maintenance of misery. They need you to stay almost there, close enough to feel hope, but far enough to keep paying. They can't sell done. If they did, the game would be over. I I'm guilty, man. I used to feed that system myself. When I was 411 pounds, I spent thousands of dollars chasing someone else's solution. Diet plans, pills, trainers, you name it, I did it. Like I always say, I did over a hundred diets, but they never gave me the long-term results until I figured out how to choose. Everyone came with the same promise. Every single plan, every diet, everything I tried will fix you. And every time it failed, I blame myself. That's the brilliance of the business. They sell you the cure, they sell you the guilt, and then they sell you the next cure for that guilt. It's a perfect cycle of dependence. The language is the same everywhere. Science back, doctor-approved, clinically. I mean, all that means is we can legally market that. That's all it means. It doesn't mean it works long term. Because long term doesn't make money. Recurrence does. You want to know the real disease? It's not obesity, it's helplessness. We've been trained to treat choice like a symptom instead of the solution. They have convinced us self-trust is dangerous. That if we're not following a plan, we'll spiral out of control. And like I said, I get it. Choosing for yourself is scary. There's no app, there's no pill, there's no shot to tell you what's right. You have to actually listen to your hunger, to your energy, to your emotions, and to your habits. And that's uncomfortable. But it's also the only path to freedom. The billion-dollar industry thrives on obedience, not ownership. It needs you submissive and scared of slipping. That's why every diet has rules. Every program has penalties, and every miracle shot comes with a recurring charge. It's not about your waistline, it's about your fucking wallet. So when I finally started making progress, and I'm talking about real progress, it wasn't because I found a new plan. It's because I stopped giving a shit about their plans. I stopped asking, what should I eat? And started asking, what do I actually want? I stopped chasing macros and counting calories, and I started chasing meaning. And I stopped renting my results, and that's what it is. You're renting your results, and I started to own them. And the craziest part is that's when the weight came off fast. Not because I was starving, but because I was choosing. Because I stopped believing the lie that I needed someone else's permission to take my life back. That's what the never tell you. Choice doesn't sell well. It's not shiny, it's not instant. You can't bottle it or inject it, but it's the only thing that actually works, and it's free. That's why they hate it. Because the minute you start choosing, you stop buying. So, yeah, the billion-dollar business of helplessness is alive and thriving, but you don't have to fund it anymore. You don't need their detoxes and all their miracle bullshit. You just need to make one honest decision and back it up every day. They sell control, but you can build confidence. They rent you the results and they literally rent them to you. They don't last, but you create your own reality. They sell diets and you make choices. And that's the difference between being a customer and being free. But here's the thing Big Pharma, the diet companies, every self-proclaimed wellness influencer, jerk off will never admit to you. You can't patent choice. You can trademark meal plans, brand protein powders, and charge a thousand bucks a month for some accountability coaching. That's really just an email reminder not to eat donuts. I never got that email. I love to eat donuts. But you can't package ownership. You can't monetize self-trust, and you sure as shit can't bottle self-respect. That's why they don't talk about it. Because if you understand the power of your own choices, they'd all go out of business. When I finally stopped chasing the fix, I realized something that changed my life. The only plan that actually works is the one that fits your life. That's the irony of all these billion-dollar programs. They sell personalization, but what they're really offering is pre-approved obedience. They hand you someone else's rules and call it structure. But structure isn't freedom. It's a cage painted in motivational yellow. So you want to know what real structure looks like? It's alignment. It's building your plan around the reality you actually live. Your job, your stress, your sleep, your chaos, your cravings. Not some Instagram influencer's perfect routine with sunrise yoga and homemade green juice. My mornings didn't start with kale smoothies, although I've had plenty of smoothies, but they started with coffee and a fight with myself. And that's okay. Because transformation doesn't happen in perfection, it happens in participation. I built my plan, and it was my plan, around my life, not the other way around. I built it on five pillars, not rules, but principles that actually respect how human beings live. The first one was awareness. Stop tracking calories and start tracking behavior. Notice what triggers you, what sets you off. Notice what helps when you feel like you want to eat or binge. You can't change what you don't understand. The second one is alignment. You gotta make choices that fit your life. If you hate running, don't fucking run. If you love pasta, eat pasta. Just own it. The goal isn't to impress anyone, it's to build something you'll actually do when life punches you in the face. The third one is adjustment. One thing at a time. Don't blow up your entire fucking life on Monday and then quit by Thursday. That's stupid. It doesn't work. Make one small, smart choice and let it ripple. That's how momentum builds. Quietly, consistently, like compound interest for your self-respect. The fourth one is accountability. Keep promises to yourself, not to your scale. The mirror is a much better metric than the number. You'll never trust yourself if you keep breaking your own word. And the last one, number five, is adaptation. Life changes, man. Shit happens. You're not living the same life two days in a row. So when life changes, your plan should change too. Rigid plans crumble under pressure. Flexible ones bend and hold. And that's how I lost 140 pounds. Not by following a diet, but by choosing, adjusting, and adapting every single day. There's this idea that weight loss is supposed to be a fight, that it's a war between discipline and temptation. But when you stop dieting and start choosing, the fight fucking ends because you're not at war with food anymore. You're finally on the same team as your body. I didn't lose weight because I punished myself. I lost weight because I started showing up for myself. When I stopped asking, what's the best diet and started asking what's the best decision right now? I stopped feeling like a failure because I wasn't chasing perfection anymore. I was practicing progress. That's choice. That's the unpatentable power. They'll never sell you. And you know what's wild? The moment you start choosing, people will try to talk you out of it. You need structure. You can't do it alone. Bullshit. You've already done harder things. You've survived heartbreak and stress, grief, deadlines, a lot. I mean, you've survived a ton of shit in your life. I don't care if you're 21 or 91, but you've rebuilt your life after things fell apart. And you're telling me you can't eat better, move a little bit, want too smarter? Of course you can. Come on. You just forgot. The world taught you to doubt yourself, and every product you've bought since then has reinforced it. But once you remember that you're in charge, that you're truly in charge, something switches. You stop chasing control and start creating confidence. That's the part that can't sell. Self-trust. Because self-trust is earned through the smallest, quietest acts. Showing up when no one's watching, keeping promises no one knows you made. I told you a hundred times. I didn't tell anybody when I started this thing because I just wanted it to be my own thing. Self-trust is the most powerful drug in the world. You can't inject that. You can't subscribe to it. You can only build it one choice at a time. And that's why the mantra matters. Stop dieting, start choosing. It's not about food, it's about freedom. It's not about calories, and don't take that literally because, of course, you have to eat less calories than you burn. But it's not about calories, it's about character. And it's not about the size of your plate, it's about the size of your ownership. So when I talk about choice, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying it's yours. And once you realize that nobody can take that away from you, nobody can take it away from you. That's why Big Pharma doesn't want you to choose. Because choice doesn't refill prescriptions, it doesn't renew subscriptions, it doesn't require coaching products or programs. Choice is free, and that scares the living shit out of them. So the next time you see an ad for a miracle fix, some shot, some shake, a system, a surgery. Ask yourself one question. Does this make me more dependent or more powerful? If it makes you dependent, it's not a solution, it's a sale. But if it makes you powerful, if it makes you more capable, more aware, more you, then that's a choice worth making. Because the moment you start choosing, you stop being their customer and you start being your own hero. I'm going to talk about this part because I know no one talks about it, but here's the reality freedom is scary, right? Rules feel safe. Meal plans, macros, pills points. They take away the burden of thinking. They promise certainty in a world that constantly kicks you in the ass. So when you spent years being told you can't trust yourself, rules feel like rescue. You think if I could just follow this plan, I can't screw it up. But that's not safety, that's sedation. Every diet you've ever tried works the same way. It gave you someone else's map and said, stay inside the lines. You didn't have to decide, just comply. And for a while, that feels comforting. You don't have to think, so you just obey. But you can't build a life inside somebody else's lines. Because when real life hits, when the work trip runs late, when your kid's growing up, when you're exhausted, and the only thing open is pizza, the map stops working. And you blame yourself instead of realizing the truth. You were never the problem the plan was. Choice, I get it, feels terrifying because it puts the steering wheel back in your hands. There's no rule book, no coach, no guru to blame when it gets messy. That's why people call it hard. Not because it's complicated, because it's yours. At first, choosing feels like chaos. Second guess, every bite, every workout, every decision. You'll crave the full security of the diet. You'll miss the comfort of the control. But the more you choose, the stronger that muscle gets. You stop asking, what should I do? And start saying, here's what I'm doing. That's ownership. The diet industry hates ownership because it kills repeat customers. If you actually learn to listen to your body, to pause before you eat, to choose consciously instead of reactively, you stop needing their systems. The first time you choose for yourself, I promise you, it won't feel empowering. It'll feel scary. But that's how freedom always starts. Freedom isn't clean, it's clumsy. You'll stumble, you'll question yourself, you might even fall. But every time you get back up without running to a rule book, you rebuild that trust. That's what happened to me. The first time I said no to the easy option, I wasn't proud. I was scared shitless. But I did it again the next day and again the next. And eventually, choosing stopped feeling like rebellion and started feeling like peace. Again, that's why I say stop dieting, start choosing, because dieting is dependence, dressed up as discipline. How many times you've heard people say, you need more discipline? Bullshit. Choosing is commitment dressed up as chaos, but it works. Choosing says, I trust myself enough to fuck this up and still keep going. That's the kind of confidence no supplement, no app, no shot can ever give you. When you choose, you're not chasing control. You're creating it. You're not outsourcing your life, you're owning it. The moment you realize that, you become absolutely unstoppable. Not perfect, not robotic, just honest, present, and free. So if you take nothing else from this episode, take this. You don't need another plan. You don't need another product. You need to remember that you're the one driving. Because the minute you start choosing, you stop dieting. And when you stop dieting, you finally start living. So here's the thing about the transformation it's never about food. It's about ownership. You spent years giving that ownership away to diets and drugs and doctors and influences and who knows who else. But those people have never lived a day in your body. And every time they hand you a set of rules and say, do this and you'll be free. But you're not free. You're following. You're renting the results. You're surviving instead of living. The truth is, transformation doesn't happen when you follow someone else's rules. It happens when you start writing your own. That's exactly why I do what I do. People call me a weight loss coach. I fucking hate that term. I'm not here to count your calories or tell you what to eat. I'm a transformation guide. My job isn't to give you a plan, it's to give you your power back, to help you see that you never needed a guru or a macro chart or a fucking cheetah. You just needed permission to trust yourself again. Because when you learn how to choose consciously and consistently and intentionally, when you learn how to be present, you don't just lose weight, you change your entire life. That's what my Amazon best-selling book, Shut Up and Choose, is all about. It's not another diet book filled with bullshit promises and motivational fluff. It's the blueprint for real transformation, the kind that sticks because it comes from you. It's helped thousands of people take control back, not just of their food, but of their focus, their habits, their energy, and most important, their self-respect. People who thought they failed too many times to ever get it right, and now you know what they say? That this was the first time it didn't feel like punishment. Because when you stop dieting and start choosing, you stop living under rules that make you small and start building a life that actually fits you. That's what transformation really is, not a six-week shred or a before and after photo. Transformation is when change becomes part of who you are, when it stops being effort and starts being identity. And that's why no meal plan, no app, no system can give it to you. Because if it doesn't come from you, it won't last. That's not transformation. That's a rented result with an expiration date. So I don't sell programs. I teach frameworks, I don't tell you what to eat. I help you learn why you eat. I sure as shit don't hand your rules. I help you reclaim responsibility because the only kind of transformation that lasts is the kind that you own. So if you're ready to stop dining and start choosing, start where I did with the truth. Grab my book on Amazon. And if you want something free, if you're not ready for that, you want something real, something that works, go to my website, jonathanrestler.com, and sign up for my free weekly tips. They take less than a minute to read and they're packed with small, smart, sustainable ideas that help you take control. No sales, no fluff, no bullshit, just free tips. Because you don't need another guru, you don't need another plan. You just need to remember what you've forgotten, that you already have everything you need, and you definitely have the power to change. Transformation doesn't happen when you find the perfect plan. It happens when you finally decide you're done waiting for one. So stop looking for easy, stop chasing control, and stop renting your results. All you need to do is shut up and choose.

Announcer: 29:15

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 gem. 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 JonathanWrestlerBocaritan. Until next time, shut up! And cheers.