39 - [Results] Why You Can't Keep The Weight Off & How To Do Better Using The 3 S's

What's up guys? Welcome back to Talking Nutrition. Today's episode 39 and you're going to have to do with Just Me. There's no Christine. Unfortunately, nowhere to be found. She's going to be back with us next week. Now she has some stuff come up and figured, Hey, let's knock one out. Anyway, because we are trying to stick to our weekly cadence. Let's go. That's right. Of at least one episode last week with the two, which was great. And yeah, see where this conversation takes us. Right. It's always weird to kind of like just be talking. into a microphone by myself instead of having crusade over there. You know, now I wanted to talk to you about losing weight. Why you're not losing weight, why you don't look like you're working out, right? Why you're struggling with low energy, maybe low performance, et cetera. And what you could do about it, right? So over the years as a coach and even throughout my, my personal fitness journey, right? So 10 years ago, I lost 30 kilos and there's a lot of shit to figure out along the way. But like over the years, with the same stuff over and over again. That goes for my current clients, Christine's clients, I know are dealing with the same things before they sign up. Like myself, like I said, like 10 years ago, it was definitely not easy to figure that out. How to diet, how to lose weight, how to actually keep it off, et cetera. And even just friends and family and just people I talk to, I swear like nine and a half out of 10 times when I get someone on the phone and we're talking about whether it's coaching related or they're, just want to talk strategy and have some questions like I swear like just about every call includes these three issues that we're going to talk about today. Now before we get into the episode, this episode is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems, my nutrition coaching company. If you're ever looking for more individualized help, I'll make sure to drop the link in the show notes. I am currently taking on clients. So if you want to have a chat, feel free to reach out. And that being said, we are also doing a webinar upcoming Wednesday. So that's going to be two days from now, where we're going to break down the things that we're going to talk about today into even further detail, which is really why I wanted to talk about this today. So the three issues, right? The three issues that most people struggle with. Let's start with just trying about every single diet under the sun. You try keto, low carb, now it's like the whole carnivore shit, you know? You try, you know, anything like cutting the carbs. raw vegan or you try intermittent fasting, which technically is not really a diet, but you know what I mean? A lot of stuff that's usually very strict, that usually leads to binge eating instead of actually losing the body fat. But it's frustrating, right? You can't stick to that stuff long term, but we'll get into sustainability in a sec. But the issue here is that there's no strategy in place. We're constantly trying to diet, to diet, diet, and then you sign up with a coach and they're like, hey, you wanna lose weight? Here you go. boom. Then you try a meal plan and you know by the end of the year it's just try to cut calories, try to cut calories like there's no real like nourishing of the body you know. So what happens is we end up with more body fat less muscle especially when we're yo-yo dieting what happens when we lose weight really quickly you'll lose muscle. Guess what happens when you bounce back up in no time you'll gain more body fat and that muscle you're not gonna gain back. So we end up with more fat, less muscle, crappy metabolism, our hormones are out of whack and just all together it's just a lot of stress to the body or on the body with you know tons and tons of negative consequences. Feel frustrated, we're unhappy and even though we feel like we're trying everything right we're doing everything right, trying all the diets, we're not really moving forward. Second, we don't really know how to progress. There's a lot of guesses Like other than odd just cut sugar or cut the carbs. There's not necessarily a way to really determine like hey Are we progressing? How can we make changes? How are we gonna stick to it? Especially when motivation fades and Like how will we move forward right because I think a lot of times It's not like hey, okay. We're gonna do this. We know the actions we got to focus on This is what needs to happen. Okay boom. Let's execute. Let's get you to your goal kind of like guessing and not really knowing what's up and a lot of like just trying random stuff really. We don't know if we're consistent right we should always hear that right you know get consistent like what the hell does that even mean how do you get consistent I had a good chat with someone recently on my Instagram about this but there's no system in place here we cannot really stick to it right we don't really know if we're moving forward and that's an We're just guessing at best. I guess what? Guessing doesn't really get you results. Lastly, we just can't seem to stick to their strict diets. We tend to always think like all or nothing, right? That's either I got to go like all clean or it's like if it fits your macros where sure, I count my calories, but you know, or my macros, but food quality doesn't fucking matter. Or we do super well during the weekend, or sorry, during the week, but then when the weekend comes around, there's no rules, right? We don't know how to control that. So instead of that all or nothing thinking, right? Where all is unsustainable, which by the way is exactly why now, beginning of April basically. You know, people almost, which is why people have already given up on their New Year's resolution, right? Because we're only three months in now. We got nine months left. Most people already quit. And that's not even just this month, that was already in January. Why is that? They said all or nothing thinking. All of a sudden we think, hey, we're gonna do everything right. I'm gonna focus on my protein, my water, my steps, the workouts. And eat these foods and just clean and you know cut to alcohol or whatever you try to do everything all at once. Guess what? That's great. And if you can stick to that amazing. But guess why people usually can't stick to things like 75 heart, which I'm not bashing by the way, but there's a lot of stuff you got to focus on. In reality, most people with a busy life, right? Parents work studies. It's really fucking difficult to stick to that stuff. established that all doesn't really lead to anything either because eventually we hit a wall, right? And then we just go fuck it. And then nothing is also not really getting us anywhere. So we need to find that sweet spot, right? Which we like to call the 80-20 rule, flexible dieting, that's the approach that I use is what Christina is with our clients. And that's really how we find that sweet spot between like being healthy, right? And enjoying because we do want to enjoy life. want to include the flexible foods. But let's zoom out a little bit. Other than just the meals, you also want to be able to include the flexible moments like evenings out, weekends, and we talk about this stuff all the time on the podcast, but like vacations, holidays, they're not like separate, right? And I just had a good chat with my client who is currently in still in Thailand. And she's just like enjoying it, right? And in in her check in, it was like, I feel so good now, like not stressing around like my food choices and I'm not stressing around kind of like You know my my old way of thinking where I was like, oh, well it's vacation now We're gonna make the most of it, you know Like instead she's now able to include that stuff, which is super cool, right? That's where we want to get you And that's ultimately also going to lead to you actually being able to stick to healthy diet because it's not going to be so super fucking strict all the time. And here's the thing too, right? With that, with it all or nothing thinking, where we don't really move forward in either case, there's a lot of like strazzling guilt around the favorite foods, you know, your, your pizza, even your drinks and stuff, by the way, or the weekends, right? Or the vacations that we, we already go into like Easter or Christmas, like whatever time of the year it is. go into that period knowing like, okay, well, I'm not gonna be able to track, I don't know what I'm gonna be eating or cooking, et cetera. I don't know what to do, I'm already stressed. So we actually wanna prepare for those moments too. So how are we gonna bridge that gap, right? How are we gonna take you from that point to actually losing the weight, to building the muscle and actually looking like you work out, right? Because a lot of people do also work very hard at the gym but they don't see the actual results. which kind of sucks, I've been there. I know, it's frustrating, you know? I know what it's like to try to go hard, but just have shitty energy levels. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. I know what it's like to just not be in a healthy spot, you know, and I've seen people struggle with that. There are three S's that are going to help you here. Our strategy, systems and sustainability. So let's cover them one by one. Right. First of all, strategy. I like to call this the diet before the diet and the diet after the diet. Now, in our coaching program, we run our clients through three distinct phases. Right. There's no special diet. There's no like, bullshit with like supplements or foods etc. We actually work on our habits. And yes, we do our tracking. We focus on the food choices, et cetera. Right. But in a slightly different way. First of all, our very first phase, we get you ready. We get you up to speed. We build momentum. We want to make sure that we get consistent first before we actually jump into a fat loss phase or muscle gaining phase or combination or even performance. We need to have a starting point, right? When we build that foundation, once we actually know, Hey, okay, this is This is where we want to get you to, but hey, are you even eating enough right now? Are we even consistent yet? Yes or no? Right? If not, let's work on that. This is where we build the main habits, right? This is where we get into things like tracking. Because here's the thing, which is another reason why most people fail, especially with their New Year's resolution. They try to figure it all out all at the same time while we're dieting. And we also want to build the muscle, right? And we also want to run the marathon. Oh, and by the way, we're not sleeping more than five hours and we're stressed as fuck, right? And we're not eating any fruits and veggies. Okay, cool. Like let's work on that stuff first. Let's get you ready, get you up to speed and then go into the transformation phase. Let's cut. right? Let's make sure that we walk you through that fat loss phase in a sustainable way. And I will say here, right? So dieting is not sustainable per se. Like it's not a long-term thing. It's not meant to be forever. So in a way, maybe sustainable is not the best word, right? What I'm trying to say is we're going to do it in a way so that your energy levels don't suck, so that you're not cranky and hungry all the time, so that you can actually stick to it. That's the goal here. So So that being said, right? So we've prepared you for the road ahead. We should have, you know, we should have the habits in place now so that we can actually go into a cut without hating the process. And by the way, even there, we'll plan for breaks and stuff too, right? But then lastly, you know, let's let's say we're at the end of a fat loss. It's like, what happens then? Like we all know that usually it's not the weight loss problem. It's a weight loss maintenance problem. Like most people do manage to lose the weight with those restrictive diets. It's like the keeping it off part. That's, that's usually where it goes wrong. That is where you will make or break your results. And that is usually where people break their results. So let's avoid that, right? By slowly bringing you back up, right? Not everyone needs a very long reverse. we do need to keep you in check. Cause once we keep you in check and we go up back to maintenance in a controlled way, we kind of keep you from going, oh, I'm done, I've lost the weight. I'm going back to normal. Guess what? There's no fucking normal anymore, right? We're changing, like we're creating a new normal. We're raising the bar basically, you know? So keep that in mind, like we're not going back to, in quotes, like normal, like we're actually establishing a better normal, a new you basically, right? You literally need to become a different person in order for this to last. So no, we're not gonna go back to normal. However, there will be room for flexibility again, so don't worry. So we're gonna bring it back up, right? Reverse side or not, bring it to maintenance, but we'll keep you in check and only there will step away from things like tracking, et cetera, right? So that we can also enjoy flexibility without and by the way with your macros you can be really them flexible to you because you're going to learn how to include all that stuff but we'll talk about tracking this back but just like that we now have a strategy in place instead of just pushing that diet button all the time and trying diet after diet after diet now we actually have a strategy in place a strategy that you can repeat which is very important and throughout life you're going to be able to just maintain your I want to kind of like build some muscle or I want to run a marathon or I want to Join a crossfit competition or whatever it might be or I want to lose some more body fat or I want to build some muscle Okay, cool. We'll start with a preparation phase, right? I like to call that accelerate. It's our name for that phase That's where we get you up to speed Then once you're ready, you actually get into the transformation phase right transform They solidify your results and just like that. You have three phases you can work through strategy that you can apply that works for all of your goals. And here's the cool thing. I know for a fact that if you walk through those three phases proactively, because that's a big word that we cannot forget here, but you need to really be like proactive here and not half-asset, right? Then I know that this stuff will serve you for life. So that's it for strategy, right? There's actually a roadmap. We know what we're doing, we're not doing all at once. Getting into the next s systems need to have some systems in place. I feel like we want to do things like intuitively, you know, in quotes, we want to be able to wing it. We want to be able to just make the healthy food choice. And yes, we will get you to that point. But in reality, if we're talking like, you know, intuitive eating Most people, you know, gain all the body fat because they follow their natural hunger cues. Most people, and not judging by the way, this was me 10 years ago, right? There's this stuff our clients struggle with all the time, but most people are not great at portion control and do not know what's in certain foods and that's okay. So that being said, first of all, we need a system for your meals and your metrics. So for your meals, I do really recommend tracking macros you could even go with the plate method or maybe something like hand portions but in my experience it's not really going to be great. Best way to learn is going to be tracking and then also moving away from this. So you'll see now too that strategy and systems are already starting to interconnect. That's part of the strategy. We're going to lead you through the preparation phase basically, keep you in check when we do a cut because hey by the way we're not going to just because you're gonna lose a lot of muscle too. If you're in a muscle building phase, we're also, you know, we're not gonna like dirty bulk and just go really quick because you're gonna gain a bunch of muscle, sorry, you're gonna gain a bunch of body fat with your muscle there. So also there, like the tracking is gonna allow you to control things so that you don't rush the process so that you do build the muscle and you do lose the body fat without losing, you know, the definition. No. That being said, once we get back to that place where we just maintain our results, it's very easy to kind of move away from tracking. We usually do that like, we'll go from like seven days to like five days maybe, maybe three days of tracking, maybe one even, or we just take a break and we see how we do, but we even practice this already, right? So even during cuts and other phases, we're gonna see like, hey, what's the right moment to do this, right? Hey, I'm gonna go, I'll wait for the weekend. Okay, cool. for that weekend to see what's up, like the strategy. But okay, with those systems, right? So you're going to learn about portion control, what's in certain nutrients, you're going to be able to be more flexible because now you'll be able to kind of plug and play, right? Not just that, it's going to keep you in check because now we have objective data, we know exactly what's coming in, pretty much exactly. It's not 100% accurate, but we pretty much have a grip on what's coming in. Now we can make adjustments. Now here's the thing, we're never going to know calories burned. that reason we do need to track our calories, sorry, our metrics as well. Not calories burned. Now calories burned, we did a whole episode on this, but fitness trackers are inaccurate. You can only really figure out it's calories burned in a lab setting. So we're not going to track calories burned at all. I'm not even in like your fitness app or whatever. Even in chronometer, which I absolutely love, we use that for our food intake, but we simply cannot figure out calories burned. It's impossible. Now, that being said, We do need your metrics. So we need your average body weight as well as measurements as well as your photos because that way, right, we know what's coming in. We know what it's doing to your body and we have those three different ways of tracking progress because usually we'll see fat loss without weight loss, which is a big one. So I can't tell you like how often I've seen people get really pissed off or frustrated, right, because the skill is just not moving for like two weeks. But then their centimeters or inches are going down and down and down and their clothes are fitting better and they get compliments from friends and family, right? That's the shit that's actually important, but okay. That's why we have those, the triple check basically. I like to call them. We also need a system for habit creation because I think with habits too these days, like it's very popular, right? Like all habits, you know, like, and we have a habit tracker and stuff, but like we do need to understand that a habit is not something that you just decide that is now, you know, your habits. It's not like, hey, I now create the habit of eating my protein, or I now create the habit of getting this many steps in. Like it takes time. Habit is something that you do without thinking about it. It's just part of what you do, right? Which is also why it's so damn difficult to change your habits, because it's just ingrained in your identity. So we need to give that some time. I've seen like conflicting data and on social media too, you'll see like 21 days or 30 days or 60 days, whatever I believe in the atomic habits, James Clear says it's 66 days on average, but who really cares? I don't think it's really important to focus on how long it takes. Instead, we need to look at, hey, how consistent are we actually getting? This is what I was talking about earlier, like... How can we actually get consistent? Like, what does that mean? And I always like to use a Habit Tracker here, because again, it's objective data. It shows you, it puts it in front of you, tells you, hey, this is how consistent you are, right? There's no like hiding there. Now, the Habit Tracker is just a checklist basically, right? We have the month, we write down, hey, this is what we wanna achieve, this is the habit I wanna achieve or create, now let's work on that. Let's say I wanna work steps and I do actually want to get some water with it. little little sip. Let's say we want to increase our steps and we want to create the habit of being active because that's the ultimate goal, right? Okay, let's set a target of maybe, let's say 8K steps and this is gonna be individual. So maybe for you, it's gonna be less or more, who knows. But let's set that goal, right? We're now gonna aim for X amount of steps and we're gonna just try that every single day, day in, day out, every single day. There's gonna be days where you do that. There's gonna be days where you fall off or let's not even call it fall off, you just forget, whatever, stuff comes up. But you have the checklist. So you see in front of you, hey, okay, this week, had three out of seven days. Let me now try four days next week. Let me now try to get my daily wins up to like a six day streak. And then maybe sometimes we fall off, that's okay, you try again the next day. And you wanna continue to remind yourself until it becomes a habit. And that's the goal here. So I don't really care if it's 60 days or 30 or 66 or whatever, right? What I do care about is how much are you actually putting into action, right? How much actually are you putting into this process? And then we can focus on your actions instead of the outcome or instead of being like, hey, I'm going to create this habit now, right? It usually doesn't work that way. It's just part of who you are. So it takes time for that to happen. That's exactly why it's difficult for people to change. Now, that being said, we do need a point Now that's where the coach, you could even do this on your own, but there needs to be a point where you sit down and you say, hey, I'm going to ask myself right now, right? How like, what's my effort looking like? Am I actually doing the thing I said I would and you could do this on a weekly basis, but I think daily would even be better. And I know it sounds like a lot, but if you do it for five minutes every single day and it keeps you in check, like, hey, why not? Five minutes is all you need maybe ten for it go in depth, you know But if you take five minutes and you just ask yourself a couple of things that you can do this in the morning, by the way, like you start your day, fill your own cup first, you take some time to address, hey, what's my day looking like? Do I need to bring some meals with me? Do I need to prepare for the gym? Whatever it is, right? What needs to happen, right? What are my to-dos for the day? Give yourself that checklist. What's my habit? Oh yeah, by the way, I'm working all my steps. I can't forget. I'm gonna take a quick 10 minute walk after lunch. That way you go into your day knowing exactly what needs to happen instead of just kind of going about your day and just kind of doing random shit, which in reality is the case for most. Now, at the end of the day, you kind of want to have a similar touch point as well, but now instead we're going to reflect and we're going to look at, hey, first of all, these are the things I said I was going to do, did I do the thing and no, like if not, why, right? What am I most proud of? Those kind of things, right? What do I need to do tomorrow to get a little bit better? How will I do so, et cetera? And the questions here can be individualized too, right? But have those touch points because that way, and this is also a great moment your habit tracker, which by the way, if you want, I could drop it in the in the shoulder to have it down there as well. But that being said, right? That's a good moment. Hey, did I hit my steps yet for today? I keep using that example, but it could be fruits and vegetables, it could be whatever, you know, going to bed at a certain time. But that way, you're very in the moment, which avoids growing through your week and then being on Sunday, being like, oh, fuck, I forgot I was gonna do this this week, right? Write shit down and remind yourself. No, those are our systems. So meals and metrics, meals for your habit creation and self reflection. By the way guys, why do you think it's easy for people to stick to their nutrition during the week and they have no fucking idea what to do during the weekend? It's because during the week there's a system. I mean, this is literally why the third word in my company's name is systems. Like we need to create systems to be successful, right? During the week, you know, this this time I need to get up. This is when I begin my work day. This is lunch These are my coffee breaks. This is when I end work, etc. It's very easy to follow along That's why most people are successful during the week But then guess what happens Saturday Sunday now. It's up to you Now that structure kind of falls away and structure was going to be like the fourth as here But I'm just going to include it here in systems That's exactly where it gets tricky. So even there, you want to create a system for your weekends. And it doesn't have to be super strict, by the way. A system is just simply something that you can create so that you know you can stick to that. That could be flexible, which really brings me to my next point, the last S, sustainability. Sustainability is key because, like I said, we can't always think all or nothing because neither is going to actually do you any good. So we want to apply a flexible. dieting here, where we just focus on making good food choices most of the time. That's really the idea. Right? We want to include the weekends, we want to look forward to your vacations, your holidays and all those moments like I swear, like most people in the beginning, especially they're like, Oh, shit, this is not the right time or I don't know what to do. It's the weekend, right? Or I have a vacation, like I don't know how to track them. Okay, cool. Let's talk about this stuff. what's important for you right now like let's say Christmas right because that's always a big one or maybe Easter which is coming up very soon next week in two weeks or something. But let's think about that, right? Going into Easter, OK, cool. Let's say you celebrate Easter, you go away, you have family dinners planned. What's really important here? What's your goal? What are your expectations this week? Like, what's my priority, right? Because that's how you get successful and flexible. You plan for this stuff, whether you're tracking or not, right? these moments, that's just go in with a plan. And that's the most important thing, whatever you do. Because when you go in with a plan, and you have a rough idea of what's that's going to be, you know, looking like. If you have a rough idea of, Hey, this is what on track, in quotes, looks like for that weekend or week, whatever, they can never fill. And hey, by the way, even if it goes different than planned, that you can still learn. And then you try again next holiday or vacation. And really every weekend is like a new chance, you know, or every evening out. So also there we need to kind of figure out kind of like, hey, okay, cool. Well, yes, there are times where you do want to kind of like tighten the grip, right? If you're in the fat loss phase, and I want you to be fucking around with alcohol, and I like trying to puzzle everything in, and like removing real food, just to squeeze in 10 beers, right? So that's not really what we want to do. But in reality, right, context, we should not be dieting forever anyway. So that means that there's going to be plenty of times with plenty of calories plenty of food Which means that you know plenty of flexibility because as your calories go up that 20% also increases It's not something that we really like calculate, but still you know keep that in mind like Keep that mindset in your head of like doing well most of the time or making better choices most of the time like that's the idea most of the time Can be perfect don't have to be either All right, so that being said guys Pretty pretty solid a for my first like solo episode. I think It was really funny when I wanted to start this podcast Because I sat down and I was like I hit record and I just started you know Like rambling and it was just a whole mess and now we're here. It's just quite funny But now I swear it was actually the day I began to try and I actually gave up that for that day Then actually, Christine hit me up and she's like, hey, you know, like, start podcast, like wanna do this together. I was like, yes, let's do so. Here we are. So we're gonna be back on next week, Monday, next Monday. Don't forget to sign up for our Body Transformation Blueprint. So just do this left to sign up. Once again, if you are based in the US or anywhere else where it's not central European time and you cannot make it at 7 p.m. Again, at 7 p.m. That's okay, just sign up, I'll send you a replay, but I'm only going to send it to those who are actually signed up and are on the list. The reason being is that I do have a very special announcement, which I really kind of want to announce right now, but I cannot do it yet. I simply cannot. So in two days, I will do so. You guys will hear about it in the next episode maybe as well. But it will be limited, that's all I'm going to say. So if you want to know what it is. Right sign up you'll know Be there preferably life. This is nice to see your phases, too And that being said I think it's been a solid episode so I will leave you guys to it. Have a great week I'm gonna get ready for my seminars this weekend, and then I will talk to you next week again with Chrissy