Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1705: How to Stick to Your Diet
Episode Date: December 13, 2021In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover ten steps to a successful, long-term fat loss and maintenance strategy. An open secret in the big box gym industry when it comes to making changes. (1:51) Why... the approach you are taking is all wrong. (6:02) Ten Steps on How to Stick to Your Diet. (8:53) #1 – Don't think of it as a diet. (9:44) #2 – Start with small, but challenging, realistic goals. (13:37) #3 – Understand and value all the benefits of food. (20:53) #4 – Focus on your behaviors first. (27:04) #5 – Become aware before, during, and after you eat. (30:23) #6 – It's not that you can’t have the food, but you choose not to. (33:57) #7 – Create barriers between you and your trigger foods. (37:58) #8 – Tell the people in your life who care about you. (45:04) #9 – Be empathetic to yourself. (48:13) #10 – Learn to enjoy the journey. (51:26) Related Links/Products Mentioned December Promotion: MAPS HIIT and MAPS SPLIT 50% off! **Promo code “DECEMBER50” at checkout** Visit Four Sigmatic for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout Long-term weight loss maintenance Mind Pump #1050: Mark Manson- The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*Ck Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Mark Manson (@markmansonnet) Instagram
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If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go.
MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts.
Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews.
You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast.
This is Mind Pup, right? In today's episode, we give you the 10 steps to ensure that you can stick to your diet.
In other words, you won't fail if you follow these steps
or at least the odds are quite high,
you won't fail at that 90% fail rate
that we see with everybody.
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You know, we're entering into diet season right now. I think uh, is that true? It is right? It's diet season
anywhere. He is when a majority of you mean January because I was like right now I don't think people are dieting so much
We're about to enter into.
This is when a majority of people start a diet for the whole year.
I don't know if a lot of people are familiar with the statistics,
but you can look them up.
The 12 month success rate of diets, that's a year, by the way.
So just 12 months, the success rate is less than 20%. In other words,
if you started diet, you're likely to fail within a year at about 80%. Now, if you extend
that out by three, four, five years, I would, I could easily make the argument that the
fail rate is north of 95%.
Yeah, it goes down significantly. The success rate over three years, I want to say was
like five or three to five percent. So I'm going to tell you, it's down significantly. The success rate over three years, I wanna say was like five or three to five percent.
So I'm like,
it's like really, really low.
It's really low.
And you know, we saw this firsthand.
This is a, I don't know,
an open secret in the big box gym or gym industry.
You know, because, I mean,
I'll speak from personal experience, right?
So I manage big box gyms for 24-hour fitness
during their heyday.
So they were very, very popular at the time.
And you could expect, I'd say, a safe number would be about 50% increase in foot
traffic and revenue kind of across the board.
Some clubs would double.
So you'd see a 100% increase in January.
And that would die by about, I'd say, April. You'd see it after,
about March, you'd start to see it taper off. April, you're kind of back to where you were before.
A percentage of those people stick around, and I don't mean stick around like in the gym,
but they stick around. They just keep paying their monthly dues. This is kind of how the
gym industry's model kind of works. but most of those new people leave,
and everybody who works out consistently know this.
You go to the gym in January, oh, it's busy,
got away a couple of months before.
So I used to have all the exact numbers on that,
and I don't, I don't, so for the audience, I'm sorry,
I don't have the exact, but I do know that it was
a large percentage of those that fail within that year.
A big portion of them come within the first eight weeks.
And there's a whole host of reasons why,
but that's the big portion is right away
in the first two months,
so they get going and then they don't even make it beyond that.
And then as far as what you're saying
about the gym membership and paying,
the average person stops using their gym membership
within, and it's a high number,
it's up there above 75%.
Stop using their gym membership after three months,
but continue paying for seven months after that.
And that's why that's-
That's average.
That means that there's a large percentage
that keep paying even beyond.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
I mean, I'm guilty of this.
I'm still paying for two gym memberships
that I haven't used in two years right now.
So it definitely, I'm part of this. I'm still paying for two gym memberships that I haven't used in two years right now. So it definitely, I'm part of that statistic for sure.
So yeah, it's actually why these gyms can make money
because theoretically, if you had everybody
who had a gym membership paying for it,
they all try to come to the gym,
you know, and they all try to be consistent.
No, they have to shut the doors.
Yeah, the fire marshal would not allow.
Every gym, you'll see, especially in the big box, you'll
see somewhere in the gym, there'll be a little plaque on the wall that will say max occupancy.
Yeah, they never hit that.
And they have, most gyms have 10 to 20x that amount of members, but they never all show
up and they've never had to worry about that.
Sometimes I wonder too,
like how many operators are fully aware of this
and never really have the intention
of truly helping everybody about.
It's always just about keeping it turning.
Yeah, it's interesting.
I keep trying to think into the psychology.
Your average person that's going through this,
it's almost like it's already a seasonal thing.
They have this in mind that like,
there's this massive hustle,
I need to, you know, address all the bad behaviors
and things I've done throughout the last year.
Let's get as much in as I can.
Let's put my horse blinders on.
Let's see as far as I can go.
And then inevitably it's just the momentum stops.
Yeah, so here's what I wanna start with.
And I think this is very important.
Early on, I used to think that this was a lack of,
motivation or that people were lazy
or they didn't really value their health in real ways.
But I started to realize that it's not that
because many of the people, most of these people
who fail in their diets or buy a membership,
or don't use it, or start working out and stop, are very disciplined in other parts of their life.
They have consistency in other parts of their life. They're not slackers or whatever you thought
it, or lazy across the board. They're successful business people, executives,
their good parents, they show up, they're consistent. And yet with this particular part of their lives,
it's just the fail rate is almost 100%.
So it's not that.
The problem is not what we used to think
or what a lot of people think in the fitness and health space.
Oh, they're just lazy.
It's the approach.
Yes, the mentality going into it.
The approach is all wrong.
The approach that most people go into a diet with
is going to result in failure.
That's just 100%.
You are not.
It's just to prove that.
100% and so what we have to do is say,
okay, it's not your fault in the sense that
it's not that, you know, something wrong with you,
it's your approach.
And so what we need to do is go out this
with a different understanding and different approach. If you expect to not be approach. And so what we need to do is go out this with a different understanding and different
approach.
If you expect to not be part of that, you know, almost a hundred percent failure.
And what's the, what's the, the five steps to consciousness or whatever you call, I forget
what you call it, these can talk about all the time.
And a lot of that is just because they don't know that they don't know.
No.
I mean, most people, we were talking about this off-air about other things, which is most
things, right?
You're unconsciously incompetent.
Let's just start.
You're just unaware that you're unaware.
You have no idea that you don't know.
And a lot of times people think that they do
because, okay, I just got to eat less and move more
because that's the law through my damage.
So this is all I need.
Part of the blame goes to, I say a big part of the blame
goes to the fitness and health and diet industry
because what they do is they feed into and promote
profiteering off this massive way.
100% they are pushing and literally feeding into the wrong approach, the wrong idea,
the wrong ways to enter into this process.
And so if you're the average person who's like, man, I gotta lose some weight, I gotta improve
my health.
Where do I find the right information?
You go popular, health, diet, fitness, media,
whether it's books or social media or blogs,
and you read all that stuff and you're like,
oh yeah, that's what I gotta do
because that's what they all say I gotta do.
Even though the fail rate is literally,
I can't think of an industry that promotes techniques
and methods
that result almost always in failure all the time
as often as our industry does.
So what I wanna do is I want to present the alternate,
the more effective way.
By the way, what we're about to talk about
is based off of behavioral psychology.
So if you talk to people with who are experts in that field, they'll
tell you a lot of these approaches are backed by studies. And it's not just diet. This is
stuff that will help you with other parts of your life. But it's also backed by our experience
training, lots and lots and lots of people and also failing a lot for the first five to
10 years of our careers and really only piecing it together, the back half of our careers because,
luckily the passion for helping people
was able to overcome, you know,
what we thought was the right approach
and us, you know, question ourselves and say,
wait, this isn't working.
Well, what are those common characteristics
and traits of the, you know, 20% of people
actually make it all the way through
and then it sticks and it becomes like a lifestyle.
Well, I'd say number one is when you're about to embark
on some nutritional changes, don't think of it as a diet.
And here's why.
Okay, I know what the word diet mean.
Diet literally means supposed to mean.
If it implies you're gonna get on and then get off.
Yes, that's the first mistake.
Right out there.
Probably the first and number one mistake is
the conversation. I'm gonna go on this diet, which applies, I'm going to go off this diet.
I'm going to go on this diet, get to my goal, and then I'll go back to normal is what
people think.
But by the way, this changes everything because when you stop thinking that you're going
to go on and go off, because if I know I'm going to go on something and then go off of
it, I'm willing to do a lot of things that I know that I won't want to do
forever. Like if I'm going to do something for 60 days, even 90 days, I'll be like, well that sucks,
that's really hard. I don't want to do that, but for 90 days, I can push through. I could do it
because I'm going to go off after 90 days. So it changes how you approach your nutrition. Now,
diet literally means the food that you eat, but the way that people use it is literally what we're talking about, which is go on and go off. So you are not going on a diet,
and in fact, don't go on a diet. What you're doing is you're starting to change, or at least the
winning approach is how can I make changes that'll stick forever? How can I make changes that I can
maintain? By the way, this is going to change for you as you progress through this and we're going to talk more and more about this
But that's the mentality. So if you go into something and you think I'm going to make some changes that I'm going to stick with forever
All of a sudden a diet that says you can eat no carbs or a diet that says you you're just gonna drink celery juice or a diet that says, you're just gonna eat,
these foods, you're gonna avoid all this stuff.
Now you look at it and you go, what?
Forever?
That's not gonna work.
Well, have you guys figured out to be able to tell
the people that are going to fail
by the questions that they ask leading into it?
I mean, like, so on getting ready to,
they're asking questions like,
what's the fastest diet for this?
Or what is the best diet for that?
Or what is the newest,
like people are asking for the newest,
the fastest, the fastest, quickest,
they're looking for that from a diet.
Right away, I know that they fall into that 80%
because they're already going into it with the wrong attitude.
The people that you see that succeed are saying things like,
I know I need to live my life different if I want to,
you know, whatever fill in the blanks, you know,
be a better party.
Healthy and thriving.
I want to be able to keep up with my grandkids
and they have a different motivation behind why they want
to change their lifestyle.
Those people are the people that fall in that small percentage
that are actually successful from this.
It starts right from the beginning
and the attitude that you go to.
So I want to say this, and this isn't a point
that we're going to go over,
but this is I think important to point out is
that the physiological and effects the science
behind proteins, fats, and carbs,
and certain foods, and how
they affect your insulin, and all that other stuff, is not nearly as important. It's not
even close to as important as the behaviors and psychology and the connections that you
have to food. That's way more important. And here's my evidence. If it was just about
the physiology, at this point, with the obesity epidemic
and the challenges that we have surrounding it
and the chronic health issues that have happened,
we would have already migrated towards this.
I have a packet of meal replacement
that I have every day because I don't care
because this is my nutrients.
But that doesn't work that way.
So that is not the focus.
Although diets will sell themselves that they're the most effective
because of this science behind what they do and this, you know, speeds up the metabolism
in a particular way and this, don't worry about that, worry about the behaviors, that's
the most important part.
So that brings us to the next point which is this, because now you understand that this
is not a diet that you're on and off, but rather we're starting to make some permanent changes.
The only way to move forward now is to start
with small challenging yet forever realistic steps.
Okay, so they have to be small but challenging.
If they're not challenging, they don't mean anything.
So it's gotta be something that you're kinda like,
okay, I can see how this is gonna be a little bit challenging, if they're not challenging, they don't mean anything. So it's got to be something that you're kind of like, okay, I can see how this is going to be a little bit challenging,
but it also simultaneously has to be realistic forever.
You have to say that to yourself, can I eat no carbs for the rest of my life?
No, that's probably not realistic, right?
Can I, you know, can I just maybe instead of drinking three sodas a day,
can I start by just drinking two sodas a day and then oh, that's kind of hard
I really like my sodas
But I think I can do that and I think I could stick to that forever
start right there and then what'll happen is once that becomes a
very consistent kind of part of
How you eat or how you drink then you move to the next step.
This is the only way to make those long-term changes.
You will always find that making big, radical, crazy,
motivated state of mind changes,
that you're like, I can do this for 90 days,
that will almost always be.
Well, this is the biggest difficulty
because it's so hype-driven in this,
in the beginning of the year where everybody is really trying
to address some of these glaring issues that they see
and to be able to pull yourself out of that hustle
and know yourself, know your behaviors,
know your tendencies, know what you're drawn to,
and really just start to kind of focus on something
very simple that, I mean, yes, you're drawn to and really just start to kind of focus on something very simple
that I mean yes you do have to think about like forever but also even just like a year
long of just like is this something that I can do that's it's not too invasive in terms
of like I I will will do that every single day is that's the one thing I can do every single
day well one of the one of the ways to have success with figuring that, because I'm sure there's people
listening right now, okay, well, what does that look like for me? I think one of the smartest
strategies is pairing it with things you already do. So, for example, like, I'm going to start to
walk after I eat. You eat every single day. Like, that's something that you'll do.
It's a ritual that already happens. Yeah, it already happens.
And currently right now your behavior is I eat dinner
and then I plop on the couch and I turn on the TV
or I eat dinner and I put my feet up
and I talk to my friends.
Yeah, by the way, it could be a five minute walk.
That's right, and that's what I mean by it being so simple
and pairing it with something that you already currently do.
Or I get up in the morning and I have, you know,
a half hour to an hour
cup of coffee reading my articles, like, okay, instead of just doing that, how about I'm
going to listen to them and walk outside for 30 minutes, like find something that you
already have a ritual around that you currently do and build something that's going to improve
your health and fitness around that and make it very obtainable and almost easy, challenging because it's new, right?
So that's why I even wanted to elaborate a little bit on you saying like find something
challenging.
Sometimes people hear that, well, why do you need to find something?
No, not super challenging.
It doesn't need to be that challenging.
Challenging just means it's something that you weren't consistently doing before.
And that can be challenging.
So it can be something as simple as adding a 10 minute walk after your meals or on Saturdays
when you normally sleep in and watch TV for an hour.
Hey, that's you get up and go,
there is no judgment here or with you,
there should be no judgment on the steps that you take.
Okay, it's different from,
I had a lady literally, I've told the story a million times,
I'm sure she's heard of the podcast by now, sorry,
I keep bringing you up, but her first step was literally
reading one page
out of a health and nutrition book a day.
That was her step.
That was challenging yet realistic forever.
Now this woman eventually got phenomenal results.
I had another client, I love this guy,
good friend of mine still, and his goal was to lose 35 pounds.
He had a long history of bad relationships with food
and losing weight and gaining weight
and doing all kinds of crazy diets and all that stuff. And we did this approach and here's what happened.
It took him two years to lose 35 pounds, two years. Now this is what it looked like. He lost no
weight for like a year and a half. But then things really started to click because he did this small
step approach. And then the step started becoming bigger and bigger and more impactful. And then he
lost 35 pounds in three months
And he kept it off by this is 10 years ago. He has not gained the way back versus he lost 35 pounds in three months initially
And then gained it back with a 95% you know, you know probability right so this totally works
It's very very effective, but it's but it's also the only way to accomplish
kind of these permanence with your results.
By the way, this is how you develop
the skill of discipline, with this particular,
in the context of what we're talking about.
This is how you build discipline with anything.
So when you apply it to yourself with nutrition,
little steps start to build upon each other,
and what you'll find naturally,
and you might need to just trust me on this
because some people might not believe this,
that the steps will naturally become bigger on their own.
You don't need, you're not gonna need to have someone
tell you what to do, you'll do it yourself,
and you'll find each time you take a step
you're gonna want to, and they start to become bigger.
Well, that's one of the biggest challenges that,
you have people that have been probably thinking about making
this change or maybe they just went through the holidays and they put on all this excess
way.
And then they're motivated to get started and they've decided, okay, I'm going to make
this change, but then they want to do everything they think is best.
The motivation is the problem.
It is.
It really is.
And they want to apply all the resources or all
the things they know that would benefit this new goal of changing your lifestyle or getting in better
shape. And it's actually a mistake. I don't you know, it wasn't until later in my career that I
learned to be able to see that in somebody and go listen, I know you want to you say you can get
to the gym four or five days a week. I know you say that you can jump on this diet and start doing this
I know you're saying that you're gonna start going for hikes every weekend
I know that you you feel motivated to do all those things. I'm gonna tell you right now
I don't want you to as your trainer as a person who's trying to help you reach that goal
I'm actually gonna tell you I don't want you to do all those things. Yeah, well there's two simple examples and
And as you know pretty vague about about trying to find that one simple
thing that has this cascading effect for me and nutritionally was to not drink with
my meals.
That sounds so ridiculous, but if you think about what that does, for somebody like me
who would just slam food down and would just wash it down as quickly as possible,
it was a speed issue.
And so I had to slow down and really chew, digest my food,
I had to keep chewing in order to even get it down.
And then also you're more mindful of what's in front of you.
Like what it is I am consuming.
And so from there it was like a building block
to make better decisions. And by the way, it was like a building block to make better decisions.
By the way, eating fast results in a consistently 10 to 15% increase in calories. That's a great
step. Okay, so here's one of the big challenges around diets and nutrition as well, is that
it becomes very hard to understand what balance looks like, right? So it's like, okay, I'm going to
start eating really, really healthy.
And then that means I'm not eating these foods at all.
And then you're like, okay, but I really like those foods.
And then eventually like, I'm gonna eat those foods
and then you go off in the opposite direction.
And so it's hard to accomplish kind of this balance.
Here's a wonderful way to help yourself
with balance with food is to understand all of and value, by the way.
So understand value, all of the values of food.
So what kind of values does food provide you?
Well, there's the obvious,
gives me nutrients and energy and proteins and fats
and carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals
and phyto-nututrances and all these
incredible things that my body needs, that's one value.
But does food also bring people together?
Of course it does.
Food brings people together.
Can food be used as a way to celebrate?
Can is food enjoyable just for the sake of eating it?
Like I'm eating this dish and it's so enjoyable to eat and I'm really, really loving it,
is food a way to show love or care.
I mean, absolutely.
If you've ever had a baby, you know that your family members
and friends are one of the things that they try and do.
They bring you food.
Let me bring you some food so you don't have to cook.
So food has all these different values.
Understand that and value that.
Okay, why is that important?
That will allow you to create some balance
because once you get this, most of the time,
the value that you're gonna look at the most
is gonna be, well, is this gonna be healthy for me?
Is this gonna fuel my body?
Is this gonna make me feel good?
Is this gonna make my digestion feel good?
My skin is gonna give me energy but
sometimes you're gonna be like you know what I'm with my friends right I haven't
seen I haven't seen my friends in a while and we're gonna have some beers and
eat some pizza and the value of this food right now is the friendships around
which by the way is very important as well or maybe your somebody you know
makes you a dish and it's homemade and it's really good like man I haven't had, I haven't had, you know, your pie in a long time and this looks incredible.
I'm gonna, I'm, right now I'm gonna value enjoying the taste and the flavor of this food.
Once you do this, you'll find this balance because you're not gonna go just in one direction or the other.
You're gonna realize that there's so much more value to food than just its nutritional value, for example. Well, yeah, and two, once you start to kind of really peer into the values of food in terms of
how it makes you feel and you're focused on more bringing nutrients into your body,
you know, that's where you can kind of break a lot of the associations you had previous to that.
So it's where I start to actually start to enjoy seeking out cruciferous
type vegetables or something where I don't typically like the flavor of fish or something
but I know it's good for my digestion. It's good for a whole host of different reasons
to change that up. And so for you to kind of refocus on incorporating, you know, whole foods into your diet, it's going to have like this whole other effect to it.
And you're going to be able to break a lot of those, those common things that would
deter you from bringing those kind of foods in.
What, when you do what we're talking about by recognizing all the values of food,
you will find that you will crave some foods for their flavor, which you probably already do now.
That's an easy one. But you'll also value some foods for how they make you feel, or your digestion,
or your energy, or like, I like to eat this before I go into meetings because I feel energized.
And then you'll find that you'll actually start to crave them and enjoy them because of these
associations. That's what Justin's referring to. It's a real phenomenon. And by the way, food,
manufacturers use advertising
to do this all the time.
They create associations for you to make you
crave their foods even more.
I find this one to be a little bit challenging
for people because it does require
some pretty good awareness and then also
how much you're willing to dive into educating yourself on that,
because the deeper you dive into learning
about the different values of food,
the easier this part becomes.
But a lot of people don't wanna put that work in.
For example, like, you guys just all kind of listed off
some real general stuff,
but when you know that you are trying to give yourself
a full feeling and you know you're gonna go sleep tomorrow,
you and I are gonna go sit on a plane,
we're not gonna be moving a lot very much.
And so, I bet what you choose for breakfast
is different than what you would choose,
knowing you're gonna get a full workout in
and be moving around all day long.
Like I'm gonna choose a food or a choice for breakfast
that's going to satiate me and make me not want
to eat any more food learned. Or I might choose something that I know is low calorie or let's say the last
couple days my stool has been off I just I have not I haven't been pooping normal
and so I will choose a food that I know is high in fiber to do that I'm thinking
about other things and just what sounds like what's good to eat I know you
definitely do this with your stomach because you have specific issues going on with that and that if that gets disrupted,
you know to go after certain foods. You know if you're trying to build muscle or let's say you're
losing body fat and you want to hold on to as much muscle as possible, you know the value of protein
in that context over other foods. And if you're not at a certain protein intake today, you now make a choice to eat more protein
because you know how important it is to your overall goal.
So this one is, this one there's some surface stuff
like understanding that food provides value
with friends and socializing.
And then yes, it has all this nutritional value.
But the deeper you go on understanding the nutritional side,
the easier this becomes to make that choice.
Yes, this sounds really good.
I'm craving this one, but oh, wow, I'm only at 30 grams of protein right now, and so I
really do want to go have that cake, but I know that I'm not fulfilling what my body needs.
I know if I don't fulfill that, I know I won't feel good and I know I won't get the results
I want.
Totally. I know I won't feel good and I won't get the results I want. Totally, absolutely. And the next one is to focus on your behaviors first,
and make that the priority, and then design structures around that.
I'll give you a simple example, right?
Well, good example is what Justin was saying.
Justin said, with the water and stuff like that.
You know when you're drinking water,
you tend to shuttle a food down just by simply changing that behavior.
You can make a huge difference.
And in many people that will reduce your calories
by about 10%.
Just by slowing down the speed at which you eat, right?
Here's another one, right?
I could either have a client track their food
and cut their calories by about 500 calories a day.
I'm talking about the average person,
or I can say just eat until you're satisfied,
but just avoid heavily processed foods, which will also result naturally in a 500 calorie
reduction in food intake, which has been proven by study after study, right? Eating heavily
processed foods, typically results in about five or 600 calories of increase. Now, what's
different about them? They both have the same result.
Well, one of them I'm restricting and cutting.
The other one I'm not cutting food out necessarily,
I'm just saying, I'm gonna avoid these types of foods
because I know that the behaviors that they induce,
but I'm also allowing myself to eat as much as I want
so long as they're kind of whole and natural.
And that is a, it's a better approach
from a behavioral standpoint.
I'm speaking again from experience.
When I would tell clients to do that,
they would come to me as if the weight loss was magical.
I used to love doing this.
I tell clients, listen, eat until you're full,
just avoid heavily processed foods.
And it's like, really?
And they would think that there was something
like intrinsically wrong with heavily processed foods
that they somehow magically made you gain body fat.
And so they would go and do it. And they come to me and be like, oh my gosh, it's just so weird, Tyle. zikli wrong with heavily processed foods that they somehow magically made you gain body fat.
And so they would go and do it and they come to me and be like, oh my gosh, it's just so
weird, Tau.
I'm eating till I'm full.
And I'm losing weight, like what's going on with my body?
And then I would tell them, what's happening without you realizing is you're eating about
five or six hundred calories less every single day.
What a, how much more of an effective approach is that because we're focusing on behavior
rather than focusing on the numbers, right?
Yeah, you're not telling yourself you can't have it.
I mean, it's like the chew one, right?
Telling yourself that for every bite you have to chew
so many, or not eating in front of the television
or your phone, like you just distracted eating.
Right, all these things, all these things are,
are ways, or saying that, I'm not telling you
you can't have these foods, just don't put it in your house. You know, those, all those things are ways or saying that, I'm not telling you you can't have these foods,
just don't put it in your house.
Those all those things are behaviors around eating
and it's not telling you you can't do something,
it's you deciding to build better habits around.
Yeah, here's another one, like,
I've done this with a couple of clients where I'll say,
don't eat when you're really sad, right?
I had a couple of clients that,
they kind of connected that,
the food, they would medicate with food, make themselves feel better. I still listen to code. I'm not telling you not really sad, right? I had a couple clients that, they kind of connected that the food,
they would medicate with food,
make themselves feel better.
I said listen, I'm not telling you not to eat,
but just when you're feeling really bad,
just say okay, I'm not gonna use food right now.
I'm gonna wait till I feel a little bit better before I eat.
And that also results in a natural reduction in calories.
That one's a little bit more individualized,
but understand your own behaviors,
and then make the decisions
based off of that.
Some people, after they drink alcohol, tend to over-indulge or each of the point where
they have a lot of pain, so they'll tell themselves, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to eat before I drink and then I'm not going to eat after I drink.
These are behavior-based approaches versus counting calorie type of approaches.
Here's along those lines. Along those lines, I think if you, I don't think I know,
if you become aware of how you feel before, during,
and after you eat, that will help bring awareness around
what we just talked about, behaviors,
and the values that the food provides you.
A lot of, and I, this used to shock me, actually,
as a trainer. I remember I would have clients
and after training a few weeks,
I would learn more about them,
and I'd have clients that are like,
oh yeah, I take, I eat roll-aids every day at 11.
Every day at 11, I take a couple of roll-aids,
it's been doing this for years.
And I would look at their nutrition,
I'd say, I wonder if it's what you're eating for breakfast,
and they'd say, well, no, I can't be.
I've been eating that bagel for five years.
And well, how long have you been having heartburn?
Well, geez, about five years.
So just try cutting out for a few days
and see what happens.
And they'd be like, oh my God, it's crazy.
I don't have the heartburn anymore.
Well, the thing was that they just weren't aware
that what they were eating was causing the heartburn, right?
What about feeling irritable after or sluggish after just weren't aware that what they were eating was causing the heartburn, right?
What about feeling irritable after or sluggish after or what about while you're eating the
food, you find yourself in this binge mode, right?
Some foods can cause that or notice that you're reaching for certain foods because you're
anxious or bored versus feeling good and and or how about the opposite.
You notice how amazing you feel yes you
eat something and you recognize like you know maybe it wasn't this you know heavy meal that
you were craving and you made a healthy choice a better choice for yourself but then making
the connection of how you felt oh wow man at work I was on point I was sharp I didn't feel
bloated the entire time my my stool was normal I had good energy bloated at the end time. My stool was normal. I had good energy levels.
Start making the connection to the good choices too.
Like it's pretty easy to point out.
When I eat something bad and I feel sluggish
and I feel bloated and I don't wanna get up
and I feel tired.
It's like, but also learn to connect the dots
when you make good choices.
When you do discipline yourself to,
oh, normally I would have went through a drive-through
and got this, but you know what,
I was listening to my pump, here's the advice
they gave me about whole foods.
I went and made myself this dish and then connect,
don't think about just how that tastes.
It's like, well, shit, that chicken breast and potato
did not taste as good as the number one
of McDonald's would have tasted,
because that's what most people think right away.
It's like, yeah, I did it, but boy,
it wasn't nowhere near as good as McDonald's.
Because they're not acknowledging you.
Well, sometimes not even that obvious. Like if you're talking about like a food
that you would never associate with some of those gut problems
or like, you know, you're on, you have diarrhea,
you have heartburn, you have all these types of things.
And it's some, a food you either love
or you think is always gonna be healthy
because it's recommended all the time.
But to be able to kind of pay attention to that and really trace back, it takes work.
And it takes that kind of awareness that will benefit you going forward.
But it does take that work.
I have two examples.
One of the example what you're saying with the healthy, I had a client identify that
bananas triggered her psoriasis.
Bananas, bananas, a healthy fruit, natural fruit. So once she identified that, right, psoriasis. Bananas, bananas a healthy fruit, natural fruit.
So when she identified that, right,
we took bananas out of her diet.
And then I had another client who made the connection
that well-cooked vegetables resulted in far,
she suffered from bloating and digestive issues
and constipation, well-cooked vegetables
really was the most effective thing she could eat to help her.
And then she started to crave them
She would go on business trips and come back and she texted me and be like, so you'll never believe what I craved
As soon as I got home. Yeah a big bowl of turns it more into like medicine, right?
It's benefiting you 100% well this step is crucial in order to make it to the next step in order for you to make choices
About foods that it's like it's not that I can't have this because my coach
or I'm on this plan, I'm not allowed to have this,
it's that I don't want to.
I don't want to.
And the reason why you truly won't want to
is because you've learned to connect that.
You've made those connections and you understand,
oh yeah, right now that sounds good
because I'm craving it, but I know how it makes me feel
and I know what I have to do in the next four to five hours.
And then I also know that when I do make a good decision, how it makes me feel and I know what I have to do in the next four to five hours. And then I also know that when I do make a good decision
how that makes me feel.
And it's not that I can't eat that McDonald's,
it's that I don't want to,
because I want to feel this way.
And so it switches the psychology around your quote unquote diet
and it's not about, oh, I can't have it.
It's that I choose I don't want to.
In order to get to that step,
you got to make this connection first.
Yeah, I can is oppressive, it's tyrannical.
It makes me want to rebel.
I don't want that is empowering.
It's my choice and I feel good about it.
Now, Adam, you touched upon this a little bit,
but I want to really elaborate.
I don't want to eat that.
Does not mean that I don't want to eat that, does not mean
that I don't acknowledge that it will taste good
when I eat it.
Okay, that's not what we're talking about,
because some people get confused.
It's one part of wanting.
Yeah, they'll save themselves, but I do want that pizza.
No, no, no, no.
You are identifying that that pizza is gonna taste good,
but you also understand all the other things,
surrounding that particular food at the moment.
And so what you're saying is, I don't want that.
Yeah, I don't taste good, but I don't want it.
It's like, it would be like going up to some of the,
hey, you want to, you know, do heroin.
I mean, I guess we could acknowledge that heroin's probably
going to feel, so why people get addicted to it,
but do you really want it?
No, I don't want it.
I know it might be, it'll feel good, who knows,
but no thanks, I don't want to do that, right?
It's the same thing with certain food.
So you can acknowledge and
say, wow, that looks like it's going to taste incredible. I don't want any though. I don't
want it. Very empowering. Yeah. And it does not result. Nobody wants to rebel from being
empowered. Okay. Everybody wants to rebel, rebel from feeling oppressed and tyrannized.
Right. And if everything is I can't, I can't have that cookie.
Can't have some pizza.
I can't have some pasta.
Yeah, why not?
Who's stopping you?
Well, eventually you're like, this is what happens.
Eventually you're like, you know what?
I just want to enjoy my life.
I'm off this diet.
And then you don't just have one cookie.
You have a whole box of cookies
because you're rebelling against that I can't.
But it's not that.
It's I don't want. and you have to recognize that.
And that, again, that creates this natural environment
for balance.
Well, now I'm driving, I'm driving, I'm steering.
I'm the one in control saying that I don't want this,
personally, instead of deflecting that
and putting it off on this other sort of tyrannical version of yourself saying,
no, you can't, you can't, you can't.
Yep, by the way, this works so effectively
in environments where you might feel social pressure.
I remember learning this as a kid
because I got into fitness real young
and I come from this really big Italian family.
We love to celebrate with food.
And there's lots of foods that we can eat
that tend to bother my gut.
And I remember as a kid, I'd go to these family functions
and they'd say, hey, have another bowl of pasta.
Have this, no, I can't do that.
I can't do that.
It hurts my, I can't do that because I have this fitness goal
or whatever.
And then they'd debate me and argue me,
oh, come on, one meal, not a big deal.
Who cares, just have this.
You're not gonna, and then I remember one day saying, oh, I don't want to, and then people debate me and argue me, oh come on, one meal, not a big deal. Who cares, just have this, you're not gonna,
and then I remember one day saying,
oh, I don't wanna name, and then people left me alone.
I think because people know intrinsically
that you say you don't want what you're empowered.
You don't say you can't, well, oh, you can.
Let me help you get away from this,
you know, this tyrannical situation, right?
So save you.
So much more effective, and I don't want,
does not mean you don't acknowledge it tastes good
It doesn't mean that you don't acknowledge that you're gonna have this fun time eating it in the next 10 minutes
It just means for what you're looking to do and what you're valuing at that moment
I actually don't want you know that particular
Well, it also sets you sets you up for the next one which is like strategizing around how to create barriers
You know yourself you know your own desires
You know what you really wanna do,
but then you also recognize that you're gonna be tempted
because if you're craving, then you know,
if I'm in a situation where everybody's drinking and parting,
it's only gonna be that much harder.
I don't wanna drink, I don't wanna eat bad,
but I am gonna be putting myself in this situation
and so being aware of what you're gonna feel like,
and then also trying to set boundaries and barriers to make it more difficult for you to make that choice
that you know you don't want to do.
Yeah, the impulsive, so I had a client once who she had an issue with chocolate.
Chocolate was her trigger food and she would almost, oftentimes not even include it.
So this particular client, we eventually went through this process where she would log her food, she would track it,
and she would include the chocolate,
but she would tell me afterwards.
So it's like, it wasn't written down,
but then she would tell me, and I'd say,
that's interesting, why do you tell me?
Why don't you write it down?
So we had this long conversation,
and she's like, I almost don't want to acknowledge that it's happening
because she was trying to maintain
this impulsive behavior and not become aware of it, which would result in her becoming
aware of this particular impulse.
We all have this by the way.
We all have these impulsive actions and many of us have these around certain types of
foods.
For me, it's potato chips.
If there's potato chips around, I am going to, throughout the day,
have some potato chips eventually resulting in me eating
a lot of potato chips by the end of the day.
So I know I have this impulsive behavior
around this particular food,
and I don't necessarily need to break down
why it is potato chips for me.
I mean, they're very palatable.
And yeah, I'm sure I had a connection to it
when I was a kid,
because that was the snack, the one snack that,
maybe my mom bought or whatever. Nonetheless, I'm sure I had a connection to it when I was a kid because that was a snack, the one snack that, you know, maybe my mom bought it
or whatever.
Nonetheless, I know I can become impulsive with potato chips.
So the barrier that I put between myself and potato chips
is this, I can have potato chips.
I never tell myself I can't have them.
I just tell myself, if you want them,
you got to drive the store and buy yourself
a single serving.
Like, if you really want chips, drive,
by the way, the store is literally a mile and a half
for my house.
So it's not like I have to drive across town,
it's a mile and a half,
but I'd have to get in the car, drive over there,
walk in, grab a single serving bag, bring it home,
and then eat it.
So what does that do?
It gives me space.
That's all it does.
It's not necessarily a barrier with all these crazy challenges.
Like, you know, people are like, well, if I want to eat this chocolate, then I have to do 100 pushups.
That's not what I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is creating enough space between you and the impulse.
What that space does is it opens the door for a little bit of awareness.
So sometimes I'll drive the store to buy the chips, but sometimes the awareness kicks in
and I go, do I really want them? I'm actually don't want them. I'm pretty full. Bar to buy the chips, but sometimes the awareness kicks in and I go, ah, really, do I really want them?
I'm actually don't want them, I'm pretty full.
Barriers can look different too,
they can look like this and this works for me a lot, right?
So I come home, it's been a long day of work.
Maybe I even skipped a meal and so I have an eight,
and so I'm hungry.
The cravings, the cravings are kicking in,
and I know there's a pie or a dessert
or something that's in the refrigerator that I love
that's amazing, and I want it. It's like, oh, that sounds so that's in the refrigerator that I love that's amazing.
And I want it.
It's like, oh, that sounds so good right now,
even though I haven't had dinner
and I even mis-lunched or whatever.
A lot of times what I'll do is I'll say,
I'm gonna have that pie, or maybe I will have that pie.
But first, I'm gonna make sure I eat this dinner
or this meal first.
And many times what ends up happening
is once I feed myself and I get what my body needs,
I note that craving goes away. Right now when I have an eat, I'm low on calorie,
my body's craving down near anything and then I have something that's very tempting that's
already there at my house and I don't have that barrier to where I think I'll somewhere.
But sometimes the barrier could be, okay, I'm not going to say no, or say I can't, I'm just going
to tell myself I have to eat my dinner, eat what my body needs first.
And then if I still want it after that, then I'll have it.
And two things end up happening.
Either one, you totally don't eat it whatsoever, or instead of crushing half a pie, like I would
have done and get full on that because I'm so low calorie.
Now maybe I just have a slice or a little bit of that pie because I'm already filled
up on what my body needs.
Yeah, I had a client who did, this was just specifically what she did for herself.
As she said, she had her own trigger foods
and her barrier was, if I really want it,
I have to write down, she would open her phone
in the notes, I have to write down how I'm feeling
and why I want it.
I mean, literally would take three minutes to do that.
But the pausing was enough space for her
to develop a little bit of awareness
around the impulse. And it actually resulted in her eating it like half as much as she
did before.
That's a great one. Writing down, it makes it real. And I think that a lot of that is definitely
like we want to we want to kind of push that under the rug and just yeah, I kind of I kind
of go through phases of this and you don't really wanna acknowledge it
because you also like it.
Like, there's a lot of times where I just like
to have something sweet at night
and I don't look it as a problem all the time
but it's just, it's totally impulsive.
I don't wanna acknowledge that I have that behavior
so I'm just gonna kinda sweep it under the carpet
so nobody sees it real quick and it's real secretive.
You take that whole secret side of it out
once you ride it down and make it real.
Another funny one that I've seen work
and people have success with is making a rule
that you just have to make it.
Like, you know, you really steps the make it.
Yeah, you really want cookies.
You know what I'm saying?
If you can't go to the grocery store and go buy them
or can't go open them out of a package,
like you got a bacon.
And you know, at a lot of times the work it takes to bake
and then you're just like, I don't really feel.
It's the space.
It is.
And that is, all it is is it's creating that time of like,
oh God, do I really want it that bad?
Or I'm gonna have to go put it all together.
I love that one.
I so I do that one with cookies in my house.
And the reason why I like that one
is exactly what you're saying.
We at way less cookies because of it.
But also when I do make them,
I have the kids help me.
That's right.
And it becomes a different value, right?
And I'm much less likely to,
impulsively eat a crap ton of them,
because now I'm really enjoying the time with my kids,
we're listening to music and we're baking the cookie.
Yeah, and not to mention you're probably up and moving around,
even though we're talking about a minimal amount of calories
that are being burnt, they're still being burned.
And you're still better when you move.
Yeah, exactly, you're moving around,
you're doing something versus walking over to the cupboard
and opening a box of cookies.
And there it is.
And wolf them down before you can see.
Yeah, yeah.
Sitting down on the couch and, you know,
peeling away at them, watching a Netflix series
about that, getting up and actively having to work
and move around totally creates a real.
Oh, you know what, just reminding me of another one.
I had a client who had kids and he told me,
and we're trying to create, we're trying to figure out
this, like this barrier situation.
And he said, oh, you know what, really sucks.
He goes like, I have to hide certain foods.
I have to hide ice cream because my kids see it
and they're gonna want and eat a ton of it as well.
So I told him, I said, oh, here's an idea.
What if your barrier is, if you want that ice cream,
you gotta eat it in front of your kids?
Yeah, you gotta eat it for your kids.
You know, and it worked, it totally worked for him
because he's like, you know, I still ate it sometimes,
but sometimes I was like, do my kids really need
to have ice cream right now?
And then I got to slow, I got to go get them.
Oh, it's so much easier to put blocks,
roadblocks for your kids because, yeah.
I'm glad I, I can do it, I'm an adult.
I'm glad it didn't backfire by the way, right?
Everybody just kids.
Yeah, right.
All right, so here's another good one and I'll use myself as an example. Okay. When I'll
have certain goals or targets or things I want to change and I'll think about them for
a little while, when I know I'm going to get serious about them is when I tell the people
in my life that I know really care about me because when I tell them it becomes very real and
by the way, it's very important you pick the right people, pick people who really care
about you because people who really care about you will do two things simultaneously.
They will number one, help keep you accountable but also simultaneously, this is a person
that cares about you, is empathetic towards you and isn't going to just pile on the shit
if you end up failing.
And it's a very powerful, this is such a powerful step that some people are afraid to make it
because, oh, I don't know if I want to do this one because this makes everything real
real.
But boy, is it effective?
And I think you guys do the same thing.
We'll come here to work and we'll announce what we're going to do to each other.
Oh, well, to me, this is the, for me personally,
this is the most powerful one of all of them.
And I take this one the most serious out of all these.
If, cause I just, your word is your bond.
And if I put something out there
and say I'm going to do something,
it's extremely important to me personally
that I follow through and I do that.
So, I mean, the success of the whole competing thing to me
was heavily attributed to, I announced that,
to, at that time was a small amount of people,
but my YouTube and Instagram following,
saying, telling people, this is what I'm going to do.
When I put it out at that point,
I mean, there was a lot of thinking behind closed doors.
Yeah, and talking and kind of planning,
what would this look like?
Could I commit to that and kind of working it all out?
And then once I said it, that this is what I'm going to do, to me, there was no looking
back after that.
Yeah.
Because you do that and you don't follow through, then that's how people will look at,
how you do anything, how you do everything.
And if you're the type of person who says they're going to do stuff and it doesn't follow
through, people will look at you like that.
But that's why it's also, that's why it's very important to tell someone
that you know personally who actually cares about you
because here's what may happen.
If you tell, let's say I tell my sister,
I know she really cares about me and I know she's
the person that will celebrate my victories
and mourn my losses with me and let's say I tell her,
hey I'm gonna do this thing with my nutrition.
And she's like, oh, what does it look like?
And I tell a bunch of stuff.
And then she may say to me,
that sounds like a law all at once, Sal.
Are you sure you wanna take this big step right now?
Maybe you should start a little smaller.
Because I respect her, because she cares about me.
I'm more likely like, yeah, I think you're right.
I'll do that.
Also, the empathy is there.
But real empathy and real from people who care about you is also honest.
It's like, all right, yes, I know you said you did, you were going to do something.
And yes, it's true.
You didn't do it, but it's okay.
A lot of people fail.
We can try again, right?
That's the person that you want to, by the way, studies show.
This is not just my experience.
Studies show that when you tell somebody close to you that cares about you, about something
you want to do, your success rate does go through the roof and this
stick rate also goes through the roof. So pick this person or these people very carefully.
Now this takes me to the next one and this one's a really hard one. Be empathetic towards
yourself. Now if you're a parent, this might be easy for you to understand if I put it this way.
Be empathetic towards yourself like you are for your kids.
Okay, so if I'm teaching my kid how to ride a bike
and they keep falling down, I'm not gonna run over my kid.
I'd be a terrible dad if I ran in my kid
and was like, you idiot, you moron,
I can't believe you keep falling, you suck.
I would never say that to my kid.
I would say something like, hey, you keep falling,
keep getting back on a try again.
Hey, why don't you try this instead? This might be something that
you're doing wrong. Try and do it this way, right? That's empathy. Not the whole
shame make you feel like garbage thing. We're so quick to do that to ourselves.
So quick to make ourself feel worse for something that was challenging to
begin with, okay? So by the way, empathy and love are also real and honest.
It's not, it's just like I wouldn't be empathetic
to my kids by letting them eat candy all the time
that they, whenever they wanted it,
that wouldn't be the very loving, right?
It would be sometimes, most of the time I'd say,
no, you can do this with yourself,
and I'm gonna tell you this right now,
even if you follow the steps that we're saying
in this particular episode, even if you follow the steps that we're saying in this particular episode,
even if you follow the steps,
you're still gonna stumble a few times along the way, okay?
You're not, it's not gonna be perfect, I promise you.
Almost nobody's gonna have a perfect game
all the way through.
If you get in the ring,
you're gonna get punched in the face sometimes,
that's gonna happen while do this process.
So, and it's okay, Don't hammer yourself for it.
Just say, okay, what can I do differently?
I think that this is one of those steps
or keys to success in life in general.
And I think it's one that a lot of people don't have it.
A lot of people fail at business or fail at it.
And then after that, decide that they can't do it,
or they weren't cut out to be that way.
They shame themselves so bad.
I'll never do that again. Right.
And the people that you have found that are the most successful, they didn't not fail.
In fact, they probably failed a lot more than the average person, but that's just it.
They had that empathy, they had that ability to not beat themselves up over it and to embrace
it.
Like, oh, instead of looking at it, like it was, I learned something.
Embrace that.
I learned that barrier or I learned that strategy
wasn't right for me.
There's other strategies, there's other things out there,
there's other ways that I can accomplish this goal.
And just because I didn't get it or because I had a setback,
it doesn't mean you just throw the whole thing out.
It just means that, oh, let me try it a different way
or let's do a different strategy that didn't work well for me.
Let's have a different approach.
And being okay with it, accepting it, right?
It's done, it's done, it's done.
I made a decision, I didn't do a good decision,
it set me back, now boom, I'm right back at it again.
Yeah, and that speaks back to the awareness piece
is being aware of how this all came about
and what the triggers were and what preceded that
to make it.
So you felt like you wanted to go in and completely abandoned this plan that you had out in
front of you. And so if you come back and you can then readjust it and tend to navigate
through that and move past it as long as you acknowledge that it happened and you forgive
yourself, you move forward.
Yeah, totally. And that brings us to the last point here. Now, goals are great. Having
targets are great, but they're not the be all end all. Don't fall in love with the goal
in the target because you got to do something after that, right? What, you know, now what?
That's how you always tell people, oh, I'm going to lose their pounds. That's my goal.
And that's all I'm going to do. And okay, well, what happens after you lose the 30 pounds?
Well, I'll figure it out then.
No, no, no, no, that's not gonna work.
Enjoy the journey or learn to, by the way,
it's not gonna happen overnight,
but learn to enjoy the journey.
Like if you learn how to really value and enjoy,
for example, eating healthy,
the target and the goal don't matter.
You're gonna hit targets and goals along the way,
and it's always gonna be that way
because you enjoy the process.
By the way, the process is where all the value is.
And this happens not just in nutrition and in fitness.
This happens for lots of different things.
We had Mark Manson on the podcast a while ago.
He wrote, what was the book you wrote?
So, you were not giving a fuck? That, I already know how to give you a fuck.
That's it.
And I remember him saying how it was like this big goal
to write this best seller and his life dream.
And then he finally did it and it became this best seller.
And then he went through a period of depression afterwards.
This is a well-documented phenomenon.
You see this with athletes.
People who trained the whole lives for the Olympics,
they went at gold, then they go through a year or two
of depression because it's all about the goal once they're there, now what?
So if you start to learn how to enjoy the process or do things within the process that you
enjoy, for example, if you're going to pick a form of cardiovascular exercise to do within
your workout routine, pick the one that you're going to enjoy the most, right?
Because now you enjoy the process.
Don't pick the one that you think is the most effective that you freaking hate.
Like, I don't care what studies say.
If waking up at 5 a.m. and swimming in a cold lake burns 50% more calories and it's far
more effective body fat, and you hate it because most people would.
Don't do that one.
Just don't do it.
You're going to hate the process.
It's not gonna last.
So pick those things and work around the situations
where you think you can start to enjoy this process.
And if you enjoy the process, the destinations,
the goals of themselves.
I think you have to learn to look at failures,
setbacks, and challenges in the journey though, different.
Most people have a failure, a setback,
or a challenge, and they're frustrated,
or they're irritated, or they wish it didn't happen.
When you actually learn to reframe that
as part of the process that you actually like,
it completely shifts the way you look at this.
And I've shared the story before on the podcast,
but it was such an important moment for me
to look at, you know, the challenges that I had, but it was such an important moment for me to look at the
challenges that I had.
And this was related to business, but it applies to what we're talking about in fitness.
And I talk about the time that I called Katrina up on the phone and I was venting to her.
I was frustrated.
It was frustrated.
What was going on at work?
And we were having some challenges.
And it was just, it felt like I wanted to pull what little hair I had left out of my head.
And I'm calling her and I'm just ranting.
I'm so, I'm just barking to her and so on that.
And she just let me go.
And then when she finished, or when I finished,
she asked me if I was done and I was like,
yeah, well I'm done and she had,
like I thought she had nothing to say.
And she says, would you have it any other way?
And I took a long pause and I remember going like,
you're right, like if it with this whole journey
that we are in and building this business was easy,
would I enjoy it as much?
And I wouldn't, if it would, if anybody could do it, and it was so simple that all you
need to do was a couple little things, it wouldn't mean anything, it wouldn't have the same
value.
And in fact, the harder that it is and the more these challenges I have and the more these
setbacks I have in the pursuit of this,
the more value and the more enjoyment I truly have
and to learn to reframe those when you hit them
because it's inevitable.
If this is a lifelong journey,
this pursuit of having this ultimate health
and living longer and having a more fulfilled life,
if that's a lifelong journey,
then it's inevitable those things are going to happen
and you just need to learn to look at them
from a different perspective.
Yeah, if you never face those challenges,
those setbacks, there's not gonna be any real opportunity
for change, you're just gonna do the same thing.
I mean, where's the fire to move in a different direction?
It's not gonna be there.
So yeah, to look at it completely different,
like, oh wow, this is obvious now. Like this is something
that I can now step out of that and do it differently. But I have to see it first. You have to
present it to yourself as this is an opportunity for me to now redirect.
Yeah, and to bring it to fitness and nutrition, when you start to enjoy the journey,
the steps that you take on that journey
can change depending on what happens in your life.
Like, maybe working out at this moment
means I'm getting strong
and I'm having great workouts
and I'm pushing my body because everything's going great,
but maybe in a few years,
stressful things happen in your life
and the workout is a time for you to get away from things,
to center, to feel stress relief.
Maybe nutrition means, like I said earlier in this episode,
I'm fueling and nourishing my body.
Maybe other times the journey means,
you know, right now I'm enjoying connecting
with the friends and family around myself
or I'm enjoying eating this incredible dish that my spouse and I made together, my kids
and I made together, I made by myself.
So, the journey means a lot of different things, but if you enjoy the journey, it doesn't
matter.
The destinations don't matter so much.
You're going to hit them all.
You know, if you love walking, you're going to walk five miles, 10 miles, 20 miles, you're
going to walk all the miles, right? At some point, because you love walking, you're gonna walk five miles, 10 miles, 20 miles, you're gonna walk all the miles, right?
At some point, because you enjoy walking.
Look, if you like our information,
head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out
all of our free guides.
We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness
goal.
You can also find all of us on Instagram.
So Justin is at Mind Pump Justin.
I'm at Mind Pump Salon, Adam is at Mind Pump Adam.
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.
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