and we are back what's up and welcome back to talking nutrition i'm your host johan vesters and today we're going to chat about my personal 30 kilo or 60 plus pound fat loss journey because it was not a easy one i'll tell you that the working out parts running that was fun but the food that was a little bit difficult let's be honest i'm gonna give you kind of like a little overview of how i kind of went about this but also a little bit of a hey let's let's actually do something about this right now okay because the only thing that will drive change is you actually taking that step today your next meal your next workout it is a decision that today you can make now it's not going to be easy we're called the odyssey right odyssey coaching systems for a reason it stands for the journey the journey of self-development the journey of overcoming challenges and obstacles and i even had to think about this as i was watching it was watching the odyssey in the cinema recently and i'm like hey so let's let's recap the timeline of odyssey is coming home because it's like a 10 year journey right and then once he's left the island where he was in quotes stuck right which was actually just a life of right abundance right he was there living with the goddess all the food all the pleasure right um he was eating these lotuses right kind of basically doing drugs and eating um and having sex for you know just about seven years i believe it was and then once he left that island it was basically like right we had cyclops and then the the sirens and like every obstacle along the way they obviously had to fight the suitors at home but like that part of the journey was actually not that long if you think about it was really like a couple years i was thinking about that but it's also still a great analogy because what turned out to be the actual biggest thing keeping him from achieving his goal of returning home keeping him from actually getting there right before the journey even started it was him being on that island living in and obviously right whether this happened or not it's the story right but the main thing that took the longest across his whole journey was him just living in comfort having sex doing drugs eating all the food in the world that actually turned out to be a lot longer right than the actual journey of fighting monsters and everything right um kind of funny to think about that right discomfort is really or sorry comfort i should really say is the biggest thing holding you back it's the familiarity it's the safe like hey right now i'm pretty good here right we don't want to leave that island uh but you got it okay if you have that goal we got to take that first step okay so let's not wait seven years like odysseus right to actually make a change no all joking aside let's let's talk about my journey because um it definitely wasn't easy i felt very um insecure and i already grew up an insecure kid you know i was bullied a little bit and um you know i did have some friends at one point but i was also bullied for a while i didn't have that many friends um or as many as i would like too right at that age um but you know not to make it too much about my childhood let's just say i was a quiet very shy insecure kid already and i always was the kid with the fast metabolism okay i was always active but my parents told me like yo you're you could eat and not gain a single gram you know what i mean obviously from growing but like i wouldn't gain fat okay and i was all throughout my early teens mid-teens and that's when it hit around like that mid-team maybe mark where you know 15 16 when i started drinking alcohol smoking cigarettes like that's when i really went pretty fast okay so by the time i was 22 i was at my worst and that's really where and you might have even seen this i'm not sure if you currently follow me on instagram or if you have if you have seen that move sorry movie uh photo of me on stage playing guitar and that before and after that i like to share sometimes and sometimes i look at that photo i'm like the only thing i recognize is that guitar in my hand everything else is a completely like i am a different person than who i was in 2012 okay so we are talking about what is right now a 14 year journey uh which also i mean 14 years playing with the band it's kind of like a funny kind of timeline thing but at the end of the day like that is when i was at my worst and in this episode i want to kind of tell you my story of some of the mistakes i made okay uh the changes i really just you know experienced uh that were not on the scale right and also just giving you a little bit of a hey let's let's actually do something about it right now come on i mean it's september right now september 10th that i'm recording this and i will be putting it up right away let's be honest for a second okay what kind of role model are we if we don't take care of ourselves okay if we are burned out if we are stressed if you are snappy to your kids if you are impatient with your kids if you have no energy to keep up with them you have no time you feel like you have no time for yourself because you are taking care of the kids what kind of a role model what kind of a responsible parent are we if we don't take care of our own health first it's the analogy of the airplane and i think about it every single time i'm on a flight which is quite frequently recently it is when that oxygen mask drops you put it on yourself first and then you will help the person next to you that's the same thing here with your health but somehow we think we got to take care of everything and everyone else before we finally eventually someday get to our own shit okay let's step it up here come on it's september i know this time of year is a bit risky in terms of like now all of a sudden you go from vacation mode into the kids back to school you're going back to work you have your first deadlines your projects and now all of a sudden we kind of shift back into that day-to-day routine all of a sudden everyone needs to get up on time in the morning again why you might have been sleeping in a little bit longer during vacation and kids we're staying up a little bit later now all of a sudden especially if you're a busy mom right you want to perform well at work you also have multiple kids to take care of and do things with and driving them around right let's make sure we do something about that starting today okay and it could even be a small little step but let's go back just a little bit because that photo i swear like every time i see it i'm like yo this this looks like a just a heavier little brother you know instead of like actually me it's it's crazy because even if i because i had to work on myself a lot okay um on multiple things um but coming out of my shell was a big one and i'll tell you this if in 2012 you would have told me i would have been doing a podcast at some point and public speaking and coaching and like i would have told you like no not me you know what i mean that's also just to show you hey look if we don't have to self-believe yet we can create it okay we can achieve it we can make it happen okay we don't even have to believe in ourselves yet we can prove it and then over time the self-belief grows okay but completely different person um obviously you know losing 30 kilos is a lot i was at my worst i was i think it was actually like 31 kilos but at my heaviest i was 111 or 112 well and at my lightest i was like 80 81 kilos okay so again let's call it 30 kilos which will be like 65 pounds or so i think um still working on that conversion right but what started with a number on the scale what started with hey i want to do this diet to to lose some weight turned out into so much more i am a better person for my fat loss and fitness journey okay i'm a more positive person i am a happier person i'm not perfect okay i have times where i'm not positive i have times where i'm unhappy i have times where certain habits might slip because we are all human but as a whole if i look at like let's say the the baseline right it's like up here compared to like what i was doing back then you know what i mean and especially from a self-belief standpoint especially from a confidence especially from a hey if i put my mind to something i will fucking make it happen because i showed myself by doing this fat loss journey right by going through the odyssey by fucking up multiple times and overcoming challenges and going from zero confidence feeling weak being out of breath just walking the stairs right insecure unhealthy i would wear like these actualized t-shirts just to hide my gut now i'll still wear them sometimes because i have more muscle back then it was to hide my own belly okay going from that to taking my shirt off and feeling like you know what i actually look good and this is like a mirror moment i had in 2013 uh because i lost the weight really you know really just one way one year period and i literally went from like that's what kicked off this whole that was my moment okay we had a show with the band in brazil and i looked in the mirror and i was just unhappy okay i saw a version of myself that was it's it's not who i wanted to be okay not who i wanted to be uh made me very it made me feel unhappy okay so i used that moment not to give up on myself not to beat myself up but to say you know what today's the day i'm going to make a change so as jet lagged as i was mind you this was brazil we went to brazil for a weekend i flew back the next day right i went to bed next day i grabbed my little bike you know and i went to the next town to sign up to the gym i remember they had this like big old school printer and i got my first workout program you know which was pen and paper and we just filled it out at the gym it's it's so cool i kind of think back to that but i got started okay that same week i started running now it's been a medicine since i've ran now but like um that old injury that you know keeps coming back when i do get into running it's still there but um that was fun though right the training and the running and all that but the food you know the food that was a lot of mistakes first okay so everything i tried were the things that i was thought i was supposed to it was cutting carbs and then i downloaded my fitness pal which you know already i hate that app but my fitness pal and the first thing it had me do was hey what is your goal i said like hey i want to lose two kilos a day which is oh sorry not a day uh two kilos per week which is just a crazy like of course like that's not gonna be sustainable i was 110 kilos right for a dude i'm like 184 centimeters tall not sure what is in and you know feet and stuff but that is way too little that was like half of my you know my bmr i guess so all that being said that was not sustainable right i crashed i took the tracking too far um i did juice cleanses also based on a documentary i saw i did some fasting i had this crazy supplement stack uh with fat burners and all that and it was really just one of those where like all i was burning was was fucking money because those supplements with the knowledge i have now other than the whey protein and the creatine because i will say those two those still go right um the other supplements i was getting zero reason to get them okay what ended up happening i actually felt worse right because i tried i fell off tried fell off i felt worse because i did this crazy like impossibly restrictive juice cleanse for example and i thought it was me because i i went online and i'm like yo let me try to look up google how to lose weight right how to lose x amount of kilos right fat loss like all these things and i went to the forums and the blogs and all these things and it's really no different actually it is quite different now because there's more misinformation going around and every idiot with a phone can actually start recording and you know fear monger about every food there is um so there's a lot more exposure to it now but the things that worked back then are the same things that work these days still um but the majority of the information out there which was the case back then as well as right now is still just false misleading and a lot of people are really just after your money instead of trying to actually help you like what i do with my company odyssey coaching systems and obviously my great peers that i bring on the podcast there's a lot of great people out there i'm also not going to be negative nancy here about the fitness space the fitness space changed my life for the better i have everything to thank uh my past coach for right at the crossfit gym where i started in 2013-14 working out i did become a crossfit coach but that wasn't until like 2029 nay sorry 2019 i think or 18 even but he was the one who told me right hey this is how you build meals these are the foods you should be eating so instead of focusing on what to eat less of or what to restrict i was taught to add more and more and more of the good stuff okay and all of a sudden i wasn't dieting i was practicing these healthy behaviors and um i did learn about calorie deficits and having you know specific fat loss phases um and then once it clicked i just it was just a rinse and repeat process i was so motivated i was like working to make it happen i also quit smoking that year i quit drinking right and it was just a really big weird a year for me on a personal level in many many ways and but i had a lot of self-doubt when i made those mistakes i was like this isn't worth it why is it so difficult and if it's going to be this difficult i might as well not try and blah blah blah because i was doing all the in quotes right things right but i really had two choices at that moment right and i chose the the path of action of course but in those moments right where i looked in the mirror and maybe you've had these moments maybe you're listening to this now and you're like hey right now i'm unhealthy i'm not happy with the way i look i'm not happy with the way i feel i'm insecure i wear baggy clothing or nothing fits anymore i turn off the lights when we're having sex i feel like you know what i mean like we don't feel good about the way we look we don't feel good about the role model we're supposed to be actually the role model we're not being right for our kids and we want to do something about it but we're in such a negative space and we have zero self-belief and zero confidence that we almost don't think it's realistic right but what two choices do we have well first of all you can just give up right now and you can say you know what never mind it's too difficult i've tried so many diets already um let me just you know do whatever live in comfort right like odyssey is on that fucking island for seven years and maybe maybe eventually we get sick enough to say well now we have to okay but i don't think that's what you want right we can also do option two which is taking action today right now your next meal your next hell if you're listening to this right now and you're like hey i want to do something right now i want to check my first box i want to build momentum pause this podcast right now or just listen to it if it's in your earphones walk to the sink grab a glass and you're going to drink half a liter of water start with that or if you have some fruits in the fridge grab some fruit have it okay or you prep a breakfast or do whatever you want to do plan a workout for tomorrow hit up hit up a friend should we go for a walk or whatever it is take action right now take action right now you have my permission to pause this podcast take action do something to show yourself hey you know what half liter of water of course i can do that let's do that now and it's silly but those little things really start to add up okay it's a decision and we take small steps you've heard it before but you've never done it properly right because you still think think that you need to be on these restrictive diets no you don't need to that is not how i lost 30 fucking kilos it was basic stuff understand it was not a diet that got me losing the 30 kilos it wasn't low carb it wasn't keto it wasn't juice cleanses it wasn't fasting it wasn't you get it what got me to lose the 30 kilos were the basics done consistently over a long period of time and then one year later i was a completely different person from looking in the mirror hating what i saw full of insecurity to and this was new year's 2013 into 14 looking in the mirror it was just a random moment i was i went to the bathroom right and a random moment and for some i don't even know why i did it but for some reason i gotta pull up my shirt a little and then further and i'm like i'm looking at myself am i like being lean and i'm like actually you know what i remember now as i got up to use the bathroom i heard my friend behind me tell my other friend yo did you know how much weight johan lost that's actually why i checked um and i didn't respond to it but i just kind of like oh shit okay um and that's when i actually went to the bathroom now i remember and lifted up my shirt and i'm like you know what i actually look pretty good not in like a cocky way just like shit like this is what i've achieved and i was only a year i was a completely different person i had so much more energy so much more confidence right i felt good about myself probably the first time in life i was 22 right or 23 at that point almost 24 that was the first time in my life that i actually had confidence which is a crazy thing to think about you know i felt like fucking superman so i know what that's like going through that transformation not just physically or with a scale number but like feeling like crap and then you know actually feeling on top of the world afterwards okay now it's still up and down we're all human but i've maintained things really nicely and i've gone through big building periods and cutting and i just wrapped up a fellow space just now you know so um it's really just a decision just like i made that decision when i was fat and feeling like crap in brazil looking in the mirror just telling myself like yo i gotta do something about this right and that's the the point you're currently at maybe how often are you going to try to like another crazy diet you know is not going to work and you're going to sign up with another so-called pt or coach whatever with their 12-week fat loss program getting no exit strategy for weight loss maintenance getting no insight on your labs getting no insight on your gut health your hormones your thyroids your true habits your mindset the behavior change that we teach our clients something which you get in most programs you know what i mean we do it and i'm very confident in that my program is going to help you 100 if you put in the work and you communicate with me and we work as a team we can get you working towards any goal and we can make it happen okay especially with the functional knowledge that we have and the testing that we can provide you with anywhere from your hormones to your stool tests to your adrenals right and obviously lap you know blood work is is very important um you're gonna get so much a lot more than what i used to to actually have to work with you know what i mean which i will still say these things will get you there faster and give you more clarity and more knowledge it puts you in more control of your own health um but the things the actions you need to take are on a daily basis are the exact same as for me you know we're gonna get our steps in eat healthy etc and of course i'm gonna be helping you with these kind of things also in a podcast and all that right but i do want you to kind of think here what if you don't change okay because the average life expectancy is about 80 and if you're at least 35 plus then you've almost lived half of your life sit with that for a second right because you act like you have all the time in the world you had you act like you have forever but no you don't like you're almost halfway into your life or maybe further already right you're already in the second half so no you don't have that much time right you don't how long are you going to wait how long are we going to get sicker how long are we going to keep yo-yo dieting how long are we going to lose a little bit of weight and then gain more back and then lose muscle back because you're doing too restrictive diets and then during the week you do really well and then over the weekend you binge and then we drink too much alcohol and then you do really well for a few weeks and then you go on vacation or it's christmas and then we blow up again how long are you going to live like that until you finally make a decision because what if it doesn't change like what if you don't change that's that's okay too to think about for a second right what's going to happen if we stay right here we're going to be sicker we're going to be fatter and we're going to die sooner and that sounds very direct but that is the reality if we do not take care of our own health but i also want you to fast forward and imagine the other side of this okay walking around in your swimsuit on the beach feeling confident wearing that little dress that's been catching dust in the closet for years you're lean you're strong you're confident and there's no more impossible diets you need to try next or whatever or the meal replacement shakes or right and you keep the lights on in the bedroom right now i'll joke inside it looked like as much as we can very clearly picture what it's going to look like if you don't change right now you can also visualize what life's going to look like if you take action okay it's possible i've lived the transformation i've seen hundreds of my clients go through the transformation people in their 20s 30s people in their 50s 60s everyone if you follow the plan you work with your coach we overcome challenges and you follow our restore method with our dedicated seasons you can literally reach any goal for more specific hormonal and gut and autoimmune and thyroid cases you're going to do a little bit more testing okay but even then with the right data you can make it happen working with the right specialists okay you can make it happen so i'm going to ask you one thing are you ready to make this the last time you will start over forever leaving dieting behind because that decision can be made right now this week okay now why am i kind of telling you this now a bit of a random thursday evening podcast right we're close to the next week i'm only going to say this um and i'm sharing this nowhere else but the podcast right now so you're hearing it here first actually right not on my newsletter not on my social media not in my feed posts or my stories nowhere do you heard it heard it here first on sunday okay right now it's thursday september 10th so we're gonna let me see you friday saturday sunday we got september 13th sunday september 13th so this week i'm going to make a big announcement on my instagram if you're on my newsletter you'll also get an email okay i'm gonna give you two clues and then i'll stop i want you to put this in your calendar write it down somewhere a little reminder that on sunday you'll check my instagram or if you're on the newsletter you'll check your email or both okay because waiting for the right moment is one of the main things every one of my client used to have in common they were waiting right to a certain extent at least some people were a little bit worse with that and they kind of waited a little too long while we could have been coaching already for a year and then they sign up but waiting for the right moment this time it actually is the right time and sunday is that time okay and the last time we did this it completely changed someone's life and that's all you'll get today okay i lost 30 kilos myself and i know exactly how i did it i've helped over 400 men and women young and old do the exact same i've seen clients put their autoimmune condition into remission while their doctors couldn't help them and only medicated them they are now in remission through nutrition and lifestyle and some targeted supplementation and with the right testing okay i've done this myself i built the odyssey around this we have our restore method to literally check every box from food to movement to your labs your symptoms okay to getting your results maintaining the results and ultimately teaching you how you become the person who does not need a coach because that's actually my end goal for you i tell every client this sounds funny but i actually want to make sure you don't need me anymore now where that point is going to be after 6 12 or maybe 24 months or even multiple years depending on the goal depending on the journeys the challenges along the way right but i kind of want to make sure that you don't need me anymore because i've been there i've done all these different diets and it doesn't stick we need to build the lifestyle we need to be the example we need to lead from the front especially if you're a parent and this sunday you're going to get the actual chance to take action right now check my instagram check the newsletter and i'll talk to you soon