1705: How To Stick To Your Diet

All right, everybody. Today's episode is all about diets, why they fail and how you can stick to your diet. So you're not one of those statistics, like everybody else. When they start a diet, they fail. Now to help everybody out, here's the giveaway. Okay? We have an intuitive nutrition guide that talks a lot about nutrition in ways that are sustainable, maintainable, realistic, and effective. So we're going to give a free intuitive nutrition guide to one of you viewers. Here's how you can enter to win. Leave a comment in the first 24 hours that we dropped this episode, subscribe to this channel, click your notifications on. If we like your comment, we'll notify you and you'll get free access to the intuitive nutrition guide. Also, we've got two workout programs on sale right now, 50% off. MAPS HIIT, that's high intensity interval training, and then MAPS SPLIT. This is a bodybuilder split routine, both 50% off. So if you're interested, head over to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code DEC50 with no space for that discount. All right, here comes the show. You know, we're entering into diet season right now. I think, uh, is that true? Yeah, it is right. It's diet season. January is when a majority of people. Okay, you mean January? Cause I was like right now, I don't think people are dieting so much. We're about to enter into, right? This is, this is when a majority of people start a diet for the whole year. And, um, 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, right? 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 start a 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%. It goes down significantly. The success rate over three years, I want to say was like five or three to 5%. Something like that. 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 managed big box gyms for, 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 hundred percent increase in January and that would die by about, I'd say April. But you know, you'd see it after about March, you'd start to see a 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 to wait 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 are, 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, 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, their gym membership after three months, but continue paying for seven months after that. And that's why the 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 that statistic for sure. So yeah, it's actually why these gyms can, can make money because theoretically, if you had everybody who had a gym membership paying for it, they all tried to come to the gym, you know, and they all try to be consistent to shut the door. Yeah. They, the, the fire marshal would not allow every, every gym you'll, 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. They never hit that. And they have, most gyms have 10 to 20 X that amount of members, but you know, 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. Like they, 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 just the momentum stops. Yeah. So, so here's what I want to start with. And I think this is very important early on. I used to think that this was a lack of, you know, motivation or that people were lazy or they didn't really value their health in real ways. But I've started to realize that it's not that because many of the people, most of these people who fail on their diets or buy a membership and 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 or lazy across the board. They're successful business people. Executives are good parents. They show up, they're consistent. And yet with this particular, uh, part of their lives, it's, it's just the fail rate is almost a hundred percent. 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 a hundred percent. You are not a hundred percent. 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 part of that, you know, almost a hundred percent fail rate. What's the five steps to consciousness or whatever that you call, I forget what you call it. They used to 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, uh, most people, we were talking about this off air about other things, which is most things, right? You're unconsciously incompetent. 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, oh, okay, I just got to eat less and move more because that's the law of thermodynamics. So this is all I need. Part of the blame goes to, I'd 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. We're profiteering off this, this massive way. A hundred percent. They are pushing and literally feeding into the wrong approach, the wrong ideas, the wrong ways to enter into this process. And so if you're the average person who's like, man, I got to lose some weight. Uh, I got to 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, that's what I got to do because that's what they all say I got to do. Even though the fail rate is literally it's, 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 want to 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 a minute, 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 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 implies you're going to get on and then get off. Yes. That's the first, that's the first mistake right out there. Probably the first and number one mistake is the conversation. Go on this diet. That's right. Which implies I'm going to go off. Right. I'm going to go on this diet, get to my goal and then I'll go back to normal is what people think. By the way, this changes everything because when you stop thinking that you're going to go on and go off, because if I, 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. Uh, 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, 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're just going to drink celery juice or a diet that says you're just going to eat, you know, these foods, you're going to avoid all this stuff. Now you look at it and you go, what? Forever? That's not going to work. Yeah. 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 when someone getting ready to, you know, 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 best quickest. They're looking, 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. Totally. 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 partner, healthy and healthy. If I want to be able to keep up with my grandkids or whatever, and they have a different motivation behind why they, 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 into it. 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, you know, affects 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 and, but that doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. It hasn't. 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 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 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, you know, changes that, that you're like, I can do this for 90 days. That will almost always. This is the biggest difficulty because it's so hype driven in this, um, you know, in the beginning of the year where everybody is really trying to address, uh, 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, um, know what 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, we'll 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, cause I'm sure there's people listening right now. Okay. Well, what does that look like for me? Um, 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, it's a ritual that already happens. Yeah. It already happens. And currently right now your, 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 friend. By the way, it can 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 super challenging? It doesn't need to be that 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, 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 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 the, 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 steps started becoming bigger and bigger and more impactful. And then he lost 35 pounds in three months and he kept it off. I, this was 10 years ago. He has not gained the weight 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 and it's also the only way to accomplish kind of these, this 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 need to, 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 going to 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 going to want to and they start to become bigger. 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 weight and then they, 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, and they, 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 going to start going for hikes every weekend. I know that you feel motivated to do all those things. I'm going to 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 going to tell you, I don't want you to do all those things. Well, there's two simple examples. And I know it's pretty vague about like, trying to find like that one, like simple thing that has this cascading effect for me nutritionally was to not drink with my meals. And that sounds so ridiculous. But if you think about what that does, it, you know, 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 kid. 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. Uh, and then also you're more mindful of what's in front of you. Like what, what it is I am consuming. Uh, and so from there 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 as is that it's 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 going to 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 phytonutrients 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, one of the things that they try and do is 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 going to look at the most is going to be, well, is this going to be healthy for me? Is this going to fuel my body? Is this going to make me feel good? Is this going to make my digestion feel good? My skin? Is it going to give me energy? But sometimes you're going to 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 going to 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 you're somebody, you know, makes you a dish and it's homemade and it's really good. You're like, man, I haven't had, you know, your pie in a long time. And this looks incredible. Right now I'm going to value enjoying the taste and the flavor of this food. Once you do this, you'll find this balance because you're not going to go just in one direction or the other. You're going to 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 as 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, it's where I started to actually start to enjoy seeking out, you know, cruciferous type vegetables or, you know, something where I'm not, I don't typically like the flavor of fish or something, but I know it's good for my you know, for my, for my digestion. It's good for like a lot of hosts, a whole host of different reasons to, to change that up. And so, you know, for, 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 kinds of foods in. 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, 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 want to put that work in. For example, like you guys just all kind of listed off some real general stuff. But when you, when you know that you are trying to give yourself a full feeling and you know you're going to go sleep tomorrow, you and I are going to go sit on a plane. We're not going to 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 going to get a full workout in and be moving around all day long. Like I'm going to choose a food or a choice for breakfast that's going to satiate me and make me not want to eat any more food or, or I might choose something that I know is low calorie. Or let's say the last couple of 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 than 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 for the day, 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, you know, friends and socializing. And then the, 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. I went, 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. 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? Good example is what Justin was saying 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 shift. And in many people that will reduce your calories by about 10% just, 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, 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, I'm cutting the other one. I'm not cutting food out necessarily. I'm just saying, I'm going to 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, uh, that 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, the weight loss was magical. I used to love doing this. I'd tell clients, listen, eat until you're full, just avoid heavily processed foods. I'd be 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'd come to me and be like, Oh my God, that's just so weird, Sal. I'm eating until I'm full and I'm losing weight. Like what's going on with my body. And then I would tell them what, what's happening without you realizing is you're eating about five or 600 calories less every single day. Like what a, what a, what a, uh, how much more of an effective approach is that because we're focusing on behavior rather than focusing on the, the, the numbers, right? Yeah. You're not telling yourself you can't have it. I mean, it's like the, 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 distracted eating, right? All these things, all these things are food ways or saying that, um, 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 behaviors around eating and it's not telling you, you can't do something. It's you deciding to build better habits around. Here's another one. Like, um, 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, you know, they kind of connected that the food they would medicate with food to 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 going to use food right now. I'm going to wait until 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 you know, understand your own behaviors and then, you know, make the decisions based off of that. Like some people after they drink alcohol tend to in overindulge or eat to the point where they have a lot of pain. So they'll tell themselves, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to eat before I drink and then I'm not going to eat after I drink. You know, these are behavior based approaches versus counting calorie, you know, type of approaches. Um, here's along those lines, right 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 people, and I, this used to shock me actually, as a trainer, I remember I would have clients and, you know, after training a few weeks, I would learn more about them and I'd have clients that are like, Oh yeah, I, I take, um, you know, I eat Rolaids every, every day at 11, every day at 11. I take a couple Rolaids, 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, it can't be. I've been eating that bagel for, for five years. Well, how long have you been having heartburn? Oh 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, 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. 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 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 at the 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 want to 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-thru and got this, but you know what? I was listening to mind 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 is like, well, ---- at that chicken breast and you know, potato did not taste as good as the number one at McDonald's with a taste. Cause 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. 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 food you either love or you think is always going to 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, will benefit you going forward. But it does take that, 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 when she identified that, right, we took bananas out of her diet. And then I had another client who made the connection that a 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'd text me and be like, Sal, you'll never believe what I craved. As soon as I got home, a big bowl of turns it more into like medicine, right? It's, it's, it's benefiting you a hundred percent. 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 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. Cause 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 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've got to make this connection. I can't 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, you know, 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 acknowledge that it will taste good when I eat it. Right. Okay. That's not what we're talking about. Cause if some people get confused, one part of wanting, yeah, they'll say to themselves, but I do want that pizza. No, no, no, no. You are identifying that that pizza is going to 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, it'll taste good, but I don't want it. It's like, it would be like going up to someone, but Hey, you want to do heroin? I mean, I guess we could acknowledge that heroin is probably going to feel, that's why people get addicted to it. But do you really want to know? I don't want it. I know it might, maybe it'll feel good. Who knows, but no thanks. I don't want to do that. Right. It's the same thing with, uh, with certain foods. 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. And it does not result. Nobody wants to rebel from being empowered. Okay. Everybody wants to rebel, rebel from feeling oppressed and tyrannized. And if everything is, I can't, I can't have that cookie. Can't have some pizza. I can't have some pasta. 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, you know, one cookie, you have a whole box of cookies because you're rebelling against the, 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, uh, 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, you know, personally, instead of deflecting that and putting it off on, you know, this, this other sort of tyrannical version of yourself saying, no, you can't, you can't, you can't. Yep. Yep. By the, by the way, um, this, this works so effectively in environments where you might feel social pressure. I remember learning this as a kid because I had, you know, 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, go to these family functions and they'd say, Hey, have another bowl of pasta. Have this. No, I can't, I can't, 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 debate me and argue me. Oh, come on. One meal, not a big deal. Who cares? Just have this. You're not going to. And then I remember one day saying, oh, I don't want any. And then people left me alone. I think because people, um, know intrinsically that you say you don't want, well, 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 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 going to 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. It also 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 want to do, but then you also recognize that you're going to have, you're going to be tempted because of your craving. Then you know, if I'm in a situation where everybody's drinking and partying, it's only going to be that much harder. I don't want to drink, I don't want to eat bad, but I am going to be putting myself in this situation. And so being aware of what you're going to 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. Yeah. The, the impulsive, uh, so I had a client once who, she, she would, 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, she would track it and she wouldn't 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's, she was, 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. Right? So we all have this, by the way, we all have these impulsive actions and many of us have these around certain types of foods, right? 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, yeah, 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, you know, maybe my mom bought 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 to the store. And buy yourself a single serving. Like if you really want chips drive to the, 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, you know, this chocolate, then I have to do a hundred pushups. You know, that's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is creating enough space between you and the impulse. And what that space does is it opens the door for a little bit of awareness. And so sometimes I'll drive to the store to buy the chips, but sometimes the awareness kicks in and I go, I really don't. 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. Uh, maybe I even skipped a meal. And so I haven't ate. And so I'm, 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, 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 missed lunch or whatever. A lot of times what I'll do is I'll say, I'm going to have that pie or maybe I will have that pie, but first I'm going to 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'd note that craving goes away. Right now when I haven't eat, I'm low on calorie. My body's craving damn 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 have to go 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, 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, that pie because I'm already filled up on what my body needs. I had a client who did this was just specifically what she did for herself is she said, uh, you know, 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, just 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, it makes it real. And I think that a lot of that is, is definitely like, we want to, we want to kind of push that under the rug and just, yeah, I kinda, I kinda go through phases of this and you don't really want to 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 it's one of the, I don't look at it as a problem all the time, but it's just, it's totally impulsive. I don't want to acknowledge that I have that behavior. So I'm just going to kind of 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, you write 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, yeah, you know, take the steps to me. Yeah. You really want cookies. You know what I'm saying? 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 to bake them. And you know, and a lot of times the work it takes to bake and then you're just like, I don't really feel it's all it is. And that is, it's all it is. Is it's creating that time of like, Oh God, do I really want it that bad to where I'm going to have to go put it all together. I love that one. So I do that one with cookies in my house. And the reason why I like that one is exactly what you're saying. I eat way less cookies because of it. But also when I do make them, I have the kids help me 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 burned, they're still being burned. And you 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 Wolfman down before he sees you sitting down on the couch and you know, peeling away at him, watching a Netflix series, but that getting up and actively having to work and move around totally creates a real, you know, it just reminded 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 barrier situation. And he said, Oh, you know, it 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 going to 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 got to eat it in front of your kid. Yeah. You got to eat them for your kids. Yeah. 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 a slow, I got to go get them. And Oh, it's so much easier to put blocks roadblocks for your kids because yeah, I'm glad you, 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, here's another good one. And I'll, 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 ---- if you end up failing. So, 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 you, 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, this is the, or for me personally, this is the most powerful one of all of them. And it's, I take this one the most serious out of all of 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 and last minute 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 because you do that and you, and you don't follow through, then that's how people will look at how you do anything is 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, you know, 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 going to do this thing with my nutrition. And she's like, Oh, well, what does it look like? And I tell her a bunch of stuff and then she may say to me, that sounds like a law all at once. Sal, are you sure you want to 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 where 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 the 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. Okay. 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 going to run over my kid. I'd be a terrible dad if I ran to 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 or 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 going to 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, you're still going to stumble a few ways, a few times along the way. Okay. You're not, it's not going to 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 going to get punched in the face. Sometimes that's going to happen while you do this process. So 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, it's one that a lot of people don't have. A lot of people fail at business or fail. And then after that is decide that they can't do it or they weren't cut out to be that way. 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, 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 failures, like I learned something, 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, let's have a different approach and being okay with it, accepting it. Right. It's done. What's done is 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, um, you know, being aware of like how this all kind of came about and like what the triggers were and, um, uh, you know, what, what preceded that to, to make it so you felt like, you know, uh, you wanted to go in and, and, 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, you know, 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, uh, 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 and the target because you gotta, you gotta do something after that. Right. What, you know, now what? That's how you always tell people, Oh, I'm gonna lose their pounds. That's my goal. And that's all I'm going to do. And then, okay, well what happens after you lose the 30 pounds? Well, I'll figure it out then. No, no, no, no. That's not going to work. Enjoy the journey or learn to, by the way, it's not going to happen overnight, but learn to enjoy the journey. Like if you learn how to really value and enjoy, for example, eating healthy, the, the, the, the target and the goal don't matter. You're going to hit targets and goals along the way. And it's always going to 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 a Mark Manson on the podcast a while ago. He wrote a, what was that? What was the book he wrote? That's it. And I remember him saying how it was like this big goal to write this bestseller and his life dream. And then he finally did it and it became this bestseller. And then he went through a period of depression afterwards. This is a well-documented phenomenon. You see this with athletes, people who train their whole lives for the Olympics, they win a gold, then they go through a year or two of depression because it's all about the goal. Once they're there now, what, right? 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 it 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 5am 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 gonna hate the process. It's not going to 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, that's the destinations and the goals for themselves. I think you have to learn to look at failures, setbacks and challenges in the journey though. Different. You know, 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 this story before on the podcast, but it was such an important moment for me to look at, you know, the challenges that I had in this. 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. I was frustrated with 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, I don't know, I'm just ranting. I'm just barking to her and stuff like 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, 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, it, I took a long pause and I remember going like, you're right. Like if it was this whole journey that we are in and building this, this business was easy, would I enjoy it as much? And I wouldn't if it were, if anybody could do it and it was so simple that all you had to do was a couple of little things, it wouldn't, it wouldn't mean anything. It wouldn't have the same value. And, and in fact, the harder that it is and the more of these challenges I have, and the more of 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 it, 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 faced those challenges, those setbacks, there's not going to be any real opportunity for change. You're just going to do the same thing. I mean, what, where's the fire to move in a different direction? It's not going to 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. So 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, uh, 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, um, 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 and my kids and I made together, I made by myself. So the journey means a lot of different things, but you, if you enjoy the journey, it's, 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 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 mindpumpjustin. I'm at mindpumpsal and Adam is at mindpumpadam.