#129 - Falling off, Frustration, Overcoming Obstacles, and How to Get Unstuck

What's up and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. It's been a minute. Not that long, but I missed a couple of episodes. I want to say I'm just about a week behind and I want to kind of open up and share why that it's the case, how I've kind of felt stuck with content and, you know, thinking of like what to post about or, you know, even new episodes on and the framework or maybe the approach I should maybe say for getting unstuck. Because as you see, things are not going to be flawless. They will not be. And it's about how we respond that will make the difference between the person who makes it or wins, let's say, and the person who does not achieve the goal they have set for themselves. So that being said, apologies for missing a couple of episodes. Not supposed to happen, you know what I mean? But then again, it's how you respond. So that's why we're here. I'm recording this Monday. April 15th, as soon as this is done, it's going to go up. So you see, like we're still making it happen and we're picking it up from here on Thursday. I'll be back with the Q &A episode next Monday for account. Like I'm putting this out there for accountability, right? So next Monday is going to be a client interview and I'm going to do Q &A still. So from here, we're going back to the usual. So thank you for your patience and let's dive in because To be fully transparent with you, I've kind of felt stuck mostly out of frustration, I feel like, as well as just busyness, just overall. We're doing a lot behind the scenes and I'm not someone who likes to talk about, you know, all the things we're, you know, right? Kind of like bragging about like, you know, the things that are going on behind the scenes, but we're doing a lot and I'm very excited to share that with you and you'll be with us on this journey, but either way, so it's... That's been my main focus. And if you follow me on Instagram and stuff, like you've seen me also post less than I usually do. So that's one of the reasons, but it's also a big part frustration maybe with the current state of social media, the current state of the clickbaity stuff and the misinformation that's being spread, which also was the exact same thing that reminded me of why I do this and why I should be showing up for you. You know what I mean? So I just want to get real for a second before we jump in, because I want to mostly share with you the exact steps for getting unstuck and also just being super real with yourself. So in a way here, I'm going to show you how I walk myself through this. And that's why I wanted to bring this up. So I guess it works out, right? But first of all, I just need to get real. Because right now, social media is a mess. And it has been, let's be honest. But... I feel like it's gradually getting worse and worse. And it's not necessarily a good thing. For the amount of good content out there, there is a lot of stuff that's more confusing than it needs to be really, or it's misleading maybe on purpose. There's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of information misunderstood. There's a lot of people who quite frankly, should not be posting the shit they are posting, but they're doing so for the likes, for the views. And we all know this by now. And as a fellow content creator, I do understand from an engagement standpoint and what the platforms like TikTok and Instagram are currently favoring. It's right. Like, let's think about this for a sec. What's the goal of an app like Instagram or TikTok, whatever it is. I'll answer that one for you. is their goal to use their product, right? The app as much as possible. So they will do what it takes to keep you on that platform. As a content creator, people go on then. Obviously, you'll benefit off the views, et cetera, and people try to figure out how that works. And there are certain tricks. Now, one of the tricks, I guess, too, when it comes to putting statements out there is really putting statements out there that are polarizing. And I do like that to a certain extent, in a way. But where it goes wrong is where people start to make claims that are simply false. There will be people who do this on purpose and there are people who don't do it on purpose but they simply don't understand. And I'm not here to judge anyone but I do want you to understand that hey, a lot of the stuff that you see online is simply not helpful and can likely do more damage than good. Because when you see things like there's nothing that sheds body fat as much as cold water, it's like... Okay, so now people maybe like yourself, right? People like passed me in 2012. We like I used to go in this before like Instagram stuff blew up, but like I used to go online, you know, look up how to lose weight because I was 110 kilos. My muscle, by the way, but like I went online and right. You see all this all this misleading stuff and you're more confused, but like, you know, someone like that. I mean, that's you listening. who now thinks, okay, so it must be that, so I'm gonna have to do the ice bath. And there's nothing wrong with that inherently. There are some benefits, especially from kind of like a mental resilience standpoint. However... that might just remove the focus that you need on the right things. And that's practicing the basics and eating healthy, et cetera. Now you have all the carnivore craze where without getting into it too much, people are literally telling you that fruits and vegetables are bad for you. Like that's how far we've come now, right? Fruits, veggies are bad for you, supposedly. Then it's protein, right? Then it's, I mean, the list goes on, guys. By now, like every food, every food group has been demonized. That is artificial sweeteners. Then it's the, the process food debate going around where there's so little focus on, Hey, like what you actually should be eating, right? Instead of fear mongering, but okay. The list goes on so you can feel my frustration here. Now, before I lose you, I wanted to get productive here because I always tell my clients this too. It is not productive to be frustrated and to let that take over. You can have the feeling. But then you move on or you use that feeling as fuel. That's fuel currently for this podcast, for this episode. Because social media is a fucking mess right now and it's not going to get any better soon. And I doubt it will, to be honest with you. Because. I don't know. I don't know what needs to happen for that not to be the case. Now, what I can do, though, is remind myself of my mission. that goes for myself, for my company, Odyssey Coaching Systems, and the vision that we have and the goal. Because it's our mission to fight the global health crisis, like one person at a time. So I had to remind myself of that last part, one person at a time. I can sit here and be frustrated with social media, or I can focus on helping you, the one person listening, or it's more than one, but you get it, right? I'm talking to you here. I can focus on putting my energy towards you, helping you learn about nutrition, right? Work through obstacles. That's how we can actually create a change here. So again, we can have the frustrated feelings. And I want you to also translate this into your journey, right? And notice that these feelings will come up, right? So we can have the feelings. But again, we're not going to linger on those feelings. We're going to use it or we're going to discard it, right? We're going to say, Hey, okay, not helpful. Get rid of it or you'll use it as fuel. Those are the only productive ways to move forward. Again, if that is my mission, right? And if I put this out there, it's on my website and you'll see this on our website. If you want to, you can go to OdysseyCoachingSystems .co, go to About Us and you'll see the mission and everything that we're focusing on here. You'll see that that's a big statement there. So I have to remind myself of that. Just how you sometimes want to remind yourself of your big goal. I also want to share our vision because we see a future where health of fitness coaching stands at the forefront of personal health care to where, hey, instead of pills and potions or whatever, you're prescribed exercise, certain right food recommendations. Ideally, you would work with someone one on one and a lot needs to change still for this to happen. But ideally, you would work with someone who can guide you, hold you accountable because that's the biggest part, right? to change your habits, to follow up with you on a week to week basis, because that's a big part. We need to work together on this to teach you, because that's our goal, how this works. It's our goal to simplify nutrition, not to make it more confusing. And I want to provide you with a sustainable, repeatable solution that ultimately puts you back in control of your own health. That's why we are here. So I just had to step out of my own negativity for a sec, not be frustrated. I mean, I still am, but put it to good use because if you go and I'll just make sure to link this to, if you want to read it a little bit more in depth, but if you want to go to the website, right again, about us, you'll see as well, if you scroll down our core tenants, and I want to really break down one today as well, because this plays exactly into where we are currently at. where I'm currently at. The first one is action is everything. We take action period, right? It's the only thing that creates and maintains momentum. Whether we deal with setbacks, self doubt, obstacles, discomfort, unmotivated feelings, frustration, failure. good days and bad days, the only thing that will create lasting change, the only thing that's required for that really is action. That's the only thing that's going to help us snap out and move forward. So that's what I'm currently doing today. I just had to move in to my little office, hit record and start talking to you. Because what else do we do? We get in our own heads. And trust me, I've had those feelings. I had those feelings last week. where I was already behind on the podcast, even though I could have done a quick one. I could have shared a Q and a with you, which I will actually do this upcoming Thursday. You see, I also still get in my own head. So I had to snap out of that and I had to take action. That's the only thing that can move us forward. So now back to you. If you're feeling stuck at any stage of your journey, please remember this moment that I'm currently sharing with you. is it's not going to be flawless, right? We are going to have moments where you fuck up, where you overeat, where you miss all your workouts, you don't eat your steps, but it's how do we respond? That's what matters the most. How do you respond? This analogy is used a lot and I kind of don't even want to use it because in fitness it's used so often, but I'm still going to because it is the perfect example. What do you do when you mess up? How do you respond? The analogy here is you're driving a car and you have a flat tire. What happens? How do you respond? The flat tire still sucks. The problem is still there, right? The initial feeling of, fuck, we have a flat tire, that is going to be there. Maybe we're frustrated, maybe we're rushed, whatever it is, we're worried. But it's how do you respond? There's kind of like two things people do. One, we have a flat tire, you get out of the car, you scream. You yell, you kick the car, you're angry, pissed off. How can this happen to me, right? You're playing the victim here. And you kick the car and you go out and you stab all three other tires. That's basically what a lot of people do with their nutrition, right? It's like, hey, I messed up one meal, one day, whatever it is. Now I'm going to allow myself, right? Cause you are still in control. I'm going to allow myself to let the spiral into a week long binge. And then we feel better for ourselves and it gets worse from there. Or do we do what's called the more proactive approach? Are we going to be resourceful here? And are we? As much as we're still going to have that initial frustrated feeling of shit, we have to flat tire, right? And hey, you know what, maybe you still feel like kicking the car. Maybe you still feel like stabbing all the three other tires, but you don't do it. Instead, you get out, you assess what has happened, right? Objectively zoom out, step away for a little bit. Look at, okay, what has happened? Try to stay calm. Okay. Flat tire. Okay. It sucks. What's next? What can we do? Let's go to the back of the car, open the back. Do we have a spare tire? Yes. Okay, great. Do we have the tools to fix it? Amazing. And we go about it and fix it ourselves. We try to initially fix the problem ourselves. If that doesn't work, if we don't have the tools, we don't know how to do it, the experience, and we'll bring this up in a sec. Maybe we don't have a spare tire. Okay, what can we do then? We're still going to be resourceful and think, okay, what can we actually do now? Maybe something, someone drives by and they can help you, or maybe you call for help because there is going to be someone, usually the road service, you know, who can help you. So either way you are in control. You are the person actually going out your way to make a point of, hey, I'm going to look at this objectively. I'm going to try to keep calm, calm, even though like I'm still frustrated. And I'm going to be resourceful. I'm going to troubleshoot. I'm going to figure this shit out because that's the only thing that can get to proverbial car back on the road. Right. When you get that flat tire, you still have the destination to get to that doesn't change. And the only thing that will allow you to get to that destination is getting the tire fixed and moving on. So how are you going to do that? How are you going to do that? Now? Here's the thing, here's what happens, right? When we get stuck, when we feel like we messed up or something, when we feel like, hey, you know, things are not moving forward, whatever it is, there's really only a few scenarios here. So remember, it is how do you respond to the situation? When you're frustrated, I want you to think about a few things first before we even get into like problem solving at all. Because I see a lot of people, usually clients also in the beginning, right? When we come from the restrictive diets and we think that the weight loss is going to be super quick, right? The kilo is going to fly off the first couple of weeks. And you know, sometimes yes, we do see a good amount of weight loss early on, but still, right? If we're coming from the unrealistic expectations from all the crazy diets and stuff, you'll often see people get a little impatient and as soon as they learn, it gets better. But I see people make this mistake over and over again. It's they see a little bit of slow down or they are not seeing the results yet. Even though they usually just focus on the skill too much and they are actually dropping centimeters or inches around the waist. Because fat loss remember is not the exact same as weight loss, but okay. The first thing we need to do here before we even get into troubleshooting or whatever. before we really focus on getting unstuck, it's like, first of all, are you giving it enough time? And we need to start with these two because again, I've seen it over and over again. And a lot of times people do not have these two, right? In check. First of all, are we giving it enough time? Are you actually sticking to something long enough or do you get impatient after one week of tracking your food? Do you expect your life to change after two weeks of a little bit of effort? Do you think... You can reverse multiple years of bad habits over the course of a month. This is all very direct, I understand that, but it needs to be mentioned. Are you giving it enough time? Are you actually patient enough? Yes or no? Ask yourself that question and just be super honest and you'll know. Cause if not, okay, then keep going. Then don't even worry about the next steps. Now, if you have been giving a time, okay, next one. Are you consistent enough? Are you actually consistently putting in the action? Are you focused on your steps? For example, have you actually hit them? Let's say you're supposed to hit 10 K steps because you're in a fat loss phase, but you're hitting you know, 5 ,000, whatever. Okay. How many days is that 5 ,000? Is that every other day? Most days. How consistently are you tracking your food, weighing your food, hitting your workouts, eating your whole foods? How consistently are you actually doing those things? Again, ask yourself that brutally honest question and give yourself the brutally honest answer and then move on. Because once we've covered those two, Right? Once we looked in the mirror, we've really asked ourselves like, Hey, am I giving myself enough time here? And have I been consistent? If that's a yes, you are giving it time. And if it's, Hey, I have been consistently showing up and putting in the effort. Okay. Now we can get into getting unstuck because there's really only. three reasons here why that could be the case. If you're currently stuck, there's usually a lack of knowledge, skills, or experience or combination. And it's not a bad thing, but we need to understand that that's not a stamp, right? Where, Hey, I just don't know how to do this. I just, right. Whether it's a knowledge or a skill thing. And maybe the experience just needs to be gained first. Because I think we forget sometimes it's like, Hey, if you don't know how to do something yet. Let's learn. Let's get educated. If we do not fully understand how nutrition works, if you don't fully understand how, I don't know, habit creation, self -reflection, neuroscience, willpower, all that stuff, if you don't fully understand how that works, hey, guess what? We can get educated and we can learn how things really work so that we fundamentally understand. Because at the very foundation of everything that we do with Odyssey Coaching Systems, it's education. We need to teach you exactly how things work. Cause at the end of the day, like I want to put you in charge. No one's going to have a coach forever. So you better learn from this whole process, right? So that you are in charge. Meaning we have to educate you. Is it going to cost you not even cost? Are you going to invest additional time into getting educated, watching a few videos, reading a couple of things? Yeah, of course. But it will. have a massive ROI return on investment. So moving on from knowledge, maybe it's skills. Coming into our three -phase system and going into the Odyssey, The skills that you're going to have to gain might not be there and that is also okay. And I'm thinking maybe tracking macros, maybe certain skills at the gym, things like journaling, meditation, whatever it may be. There's such a list, a laundry list of things that you may be applying on your journey, but a lot of people will come in without certain skills and that is okay. If portion control is not your strong point, okay, we got to work on that. because then we also know, okay, so we're coming in, we're currently stuck. Okay, we know we are not good at portion control or let's say something else. We know we are not skilled enough yet in dealing with certain settings like weekends, vacations, or maybe even stress eating, whatever it may be. Okay, so we need to learn certain skills to be able to learn, sorry, handle different scenarios. And then most importantly, it's the actual experience that we do need to gain. Now working with a mentor or with a coach, which is why we do what we do, is the only hack in life. It's the only shortcut to benefit off of other people's experiences together with books, by the way, right? And maybe even things like this podcast, because I've made all the mistakes in the book myself. That's over a decade ago, but still. Plus I've helped. hundreds of people overcome their struggles and reach their goals by now. Okay, so we have the experience. Now I get to share that with you in this podcast, but understand that the only way to really experience or gain experience is by doing the thing. Because I want you to remember what I just said, the first core tenant in our company, action is everything. That also goes to applying what you learn that goes into the skills that you need to create and gain and experience that you need to gain. The only way for you to really gain all of that is by doing the thing, doing the work, going through those different phases that we always talk about, doing fat loss phases, doing muscle gain, reverse diets, staying at maintenance for extended periods of time. Because here's the thing too, I could talk about this for hours and I will. Like I said, I mean, we're doing the podcast twice a week. Yes, I had a hiccup, but we're going back to twice a week, you know? But it's like the only thing that will actually make it click in your head is by applying what you learn. So get off of social media, kind of bringing that one back, but get off of social media, wasting your time there, looking at new hacks or whatever it may be, and actually start doing the thing, right? Focus more on that instead of being distracted. by all the crazy nutrition noise out there. Maybe invest more time in more productive things. Maybe like a podcast like this one. Now I will say too, there's probably a lot of podcasts, you know, spreading bullshit. Okay, well, do your own research. Are these people qualified to talk about it? Do they have a company? Do they have the proof that they can help people like yourself? If yes, great. If not, right, pay attention to that. Because also in podcasting, there's probably a lot of BS. But like I said, try to be productive here. Maybe go into like reading books more, listen to audiobooks as you go on a walk. I think we need to get away a little bit from the short form stuff and start to learn how to just focus on, okay, there are certain basics that just need to be taken care of. I currently know that I have a lack of knowledge or skills or experience or combination and that I need to gain those three to be able to move forward. Because that's it. We talked about giving it enough time and being consistent enough. If you are taking action and you're patient enough, you should be seeing results. And if not, that is knowledge, the skills and experience that you're lacking, which is then direct information, direct feedback on what you can do to get unstuck. Cause if you have a knowledge gap, then you can learn that could be through books. It could be through audio books, maybe podcasts. Ideally, it would be through something like what we do, right? Educating our clients. So you can do that through a coaching company, get coached. Again, mentorship is the only real shortcut here. Because that also gives you the access to the experience and these people can help you create the skills or gain the skills that you currently do not have. Now you can also do that through people in your direct environment, at the gym, whatever may be. Look for people around you. the people who've maybe been there, done that, whose reality is what your current goal is. And I'm not saying compare yourself, but I'm saying, hey, if you see someone at your gym who's lost a bunch of weight and is now lean, there's maybe something to either bring up and ask for. Hey, how did you do that? Right. You can use it as inspiration. You can ask people for accountability. But again, try to gain that knowledge, gain the skills and the experience. And then you will move forward. There's literally no way that you will not. Because through that experience, and through learning the skills and knowledge, I think you're also going to uncover the actual roadblocks. And then you can troubleshoot, because now you're going to have the tools, and then you will be progressing, if that makes sense. So I want to thank you for listening. Again, give me a massive favor. If you haven't yet, go into Spotify or Apple drop is a quick rating. It takes 10 minutes or 10 seconds, even better 10 seconds. And actually massively helps us grow the show. We do this for free. Like I said, in the middle of the podcast as well. And yeah, we're back on a roll now. So again, apologies for the hiccup, right? I missed a week of a little bit more even of podcasting, but we're back. We're going back to twice a week. And this is just to show you that we can always have those moments where we feel frustrated. We... We lack inspiration. We lack motivation. We don't know what to do. We feel stuck. At the end of the day, it's really just action that will fix that. I'll talk to you on Thursday.