How To Stick To A Diet in 3 Steps Without Failing (Sunnyvale Weight Loss Coach)
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Feb 20, 2023
How to stick to a diet is impossible if you aren't thinking the right way. That's why you must think different. Here's how you can start to think different - Instead of 'following' a diet ... You must ... - play - choose - create - own Your own diet. For more informational resources on this topic, you may check out my other video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9gs8ndfdfo Or, read Zen Habit blog article here: https://zenhabits.net/17-arse-kicking-strategies-to-stick-to-your-diet-and-get-fit/ Now, a traditional diet like keto is a good place to start.
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Today we're covering how to stick to a diet, and this is only the first of really two major principles
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Now, the short answer, I'm just going to cut to it, is one of empowerment, it's one of control
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and it's one of not thinking of your diet or feeling like your diet is homework
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So, a lot of times you are told to go on a diet, you're told to follow a diet
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That's like the teacher saying, do your homework. Follow my directions. And I don't know about you, but I get really bored when I have to do homework over a long period of time
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I stop doing that. I check out. I blank out. I stop doing it. This is one of the key problems that people have and why you can't stick to a diet
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It's not your fault. It is not your fault. You are relying on external motivation and not intrinsic motivation
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External motivation is thinking that you'll be happy once you lose weight
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And that's part of it. It's thinking that you'll find your boyfriend or girlfriend once you lose weight
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And it's just concentrating on weight loss. And it does not take into account how you feel
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and most importantly, it does not take into control, it does not take into account your
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autonomy. When you follow a diet, you have no autonomy. You have no choice. You have no power
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And this thing right here, this lack of a power, your personal power, that's why this issue is one
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of empowerment, your lack of personal power in following a diet is the reason you can't stick to
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a diet. It's like you're, you're forcing yourself to do something that you emotionally don't like
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Now, of course, short-term rewards, um, the external rewards can motivate you for a certain
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amount of time, but you can't do it long run. Now I freaking dropped out a call. I didn't even go to
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college graduation because I was graduating with an economics degree doing accounting and it's the
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most boring work. Yes, I would have a secure job. Yes, I would have, you know, maybe money or things
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like that. This was back in the day, but I was so bored and I felt like it was meaningless. I felt
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that it was meaningless. Even if I thought it was different, I felt that it was meaningless
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So I didn't go to college graduation. I became a monk for 13 months. I lived in a, and meditated
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in the mountains. You cannot stick to something long-term if you don't feel that it's making you
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feel good. If you don't feel that you have a choice, if you feel that you're being forced to
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do it. Has the doctor ever told you or a personal trainer or a nutritionist, follow this diet
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Here's what you need to do. Here's when you need to eat, how you need to eat, what you need to eat
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blah, blah, blah. And they, they can be well-intentioned. They can be well-intentioned
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They can be educated people who are giving you the exact right nutrition, the exact right nutrition
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The problem is it's not you. It's not you. You didn't figure that out
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So how do we flip the script? How do we stick to our diet? Well, you know, the answer, this is the thing I help with people the most
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We start with whatever diet you want, really. You start with a diet, keto, low carb, healthy eating, you name it, whatever
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It all good You stick with that diet You start on it right But then instead of that diet being the standard we set that diet as the kind of the low expectation So we start with that but then we expect that you are going to make it your own that you are going to alter it that you are going to take your own spin
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on this diet. Now, how do we do that? There's three steps. Now, if you like this video, by the
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way, before I get in these three steps, go ahead and like it. Leave me a comment in a minute. I'll
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We'll go over some examples on how you can do this. I would love for you to actually apply these
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And step number two is feedback and learning. Step three is learning
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I would love for you to learn and get feedback on actually trying these suggestions
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And leave a comment below or email me, jared at weightlossenlightenment.com or follow me on LinkedIn or Facebook, wherever
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And just leave me a comment. Apply these strategies, though. They're pretty simple
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Let's get into it. Um, the three keys are practice, feedback, and learning
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Now these three keys, you might have heard them before. Of course you have
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It's how you get better at something. It's called skill mastery. Now the other day I had this conversation with a woman and she was thinking about going
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on keto. She was very confused. She had called her friend. Her friend had lost like a hundred pounds and kept it off for two years on keto
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So she had a lot of, you know, she was really inspired by her friend
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And that was great. But she felt a lot of confusion because she tried to keto before, but it didn't work out for her
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And so she wanted to try again, but it was like, ah, am I going to stick to it
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You know, when you, you know, this whole sticking to something is really, really important that you wrap your head around this
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So we talked about how, what were some things she had stuck with before and gained mastery
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over them. The key paradigm shift for her was seeing that weight loss, healthy living
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wellness, et cetera. It wasn't a plan to follow, but a skill, a joyful skill to develop that would
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bring her happiness. And for her to start with low expectations, because when you're learning a skill
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you're not going to be the best in the beginning, but through practice, feedback, and learning
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you'll develop your skill. So anyways, we talked about her. I asked her, what was a skill you did
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growing up as a kid? She kind of looked and she said, drawing. And so I said, what about drawing
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Like you weren't good at drawing in the beginning, right? You couldn't draw like
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figures and faces, right? She said, no, no, no. It took me time. I said, well
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why did you stick with drawing? What made you pick up that piece of paper
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and practice drawing. I mean, that's kind of a boring thing to do. Why would you do it
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She said, I could make things. I could get lost in my own world. And I really resonated with her
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because my mom's a painter. My mom used to say, you know, for a moment, I can lose track of myself
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and I can be God. I can be God. I can create. Now, if you hear that tone, I can create. I can
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God, I can make things. That is empowerment. That is control. And we want that spirit
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We want that light. You know, this is weight loss enlightenment. We want that light in your diet
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which is what's lacking right now. And that's why you cannot stick to a diet is there's no
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personal light in it. So we started talking about how she could practice
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how she could see health and weight loss as a healthy skill that she would develop over time
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That way she would learn to make it her own. So for example here some practical examples Now I want you to write these down or somehow apply them We started you know she started off with keto because she knows keto and blah blah blah You don have to do keto You know it really silly that all these weight loss programs are saying this is the right way
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This is the right way. This is the right way for every single person on the planet. That's
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bullshit. All right. You start with something that makes sense with you and we can go from there
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Um, so what you do is for keto, at least, you know, we said, okay, start with the basic
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right? Start with the normal keto plan, but then how are you going to practice, get feedback
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and learn so that you can make it your own? We said, okay, why don't you start off with keto and, and then maybe you try some more
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fish one day. Maybe you try some more avocado or maybe you switch things around to try more veggies
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So you alter, you experiment, you try, you play, right? you play. You play with the different ingredients, you play with the different amounts of them
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and then you get feedback. What feels good to you? What makes you happy? And what you
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what this feedback thing is important. Um, it's a probably a deeper conversation for another time
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but one key aspect of it is paying attention to how the food immediately makes you feel happy
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Does it taste good? Do you want it? Are you actually hungry for it? Are you bored by it
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and also the long-term. This is a little more subtle. It involves more self-care, but basically
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um, a sugary carbohydrate food is going to make you lethargic a few hours later
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maybe an hour or so later, you're going to feel kind of tired. And when you notice that veggies
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and all these good foods, healthy, unprocessed foods, they give you a sense of energy and
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uplifting. At least they don't, they don't take away your energy. When you start to get feedback
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personal feedback in your body that's how you start gaining this this sense of momentum this
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sense of empowerment because you're trying you have control you're not following a diet the diet
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is a it's kind of like a guide the diet instead of becoming this set in stone law it is now um
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it is now what's it called like sorry blanking it's it's now uh
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it's a guideline now. And now you have some wiggle room. And in that wiggle room
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you're going to find your own. It does take courage. It does take courage. I'm not saying
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it's easy, but this is how you make it your own. You experiment, you listen to your body
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how it feels. This is how you get your soul involved. And then, so there's practice
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feedback, and then the last step is learning. So you're going to relapse, okay? You're going
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to eat unhealthy. And first of all, drop the expectations, okay, that you're going to be a
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perfect person on your diet, okay? Drop that expectation. If you go to weightlossenlightenment.com
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there's seven enlightenments. And one of the enlightenments is let go of perfection, okay
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When you let go of perfection, you're going to feel a lot lighter, all right? So part of this is
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not beating yourself up for every little mistake, but also part of this is learning when you do make
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a mistake. Binge eating, emotional eating are things that come to mind. Expect those to happen
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They're going to happen. Don't expect it. Lower your expectations. They're going to expect it
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You're learning a skill. You're going to, you're not going to be the best in the beginning, but what you can do is when you binge eat or emotionally eat
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and this is a tough conversation because it can feel so overwhelming. You can feel so bad. You can, you know, just so much shame can be there
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I'm just thinking about my own rejection experiences. Just so much shame can be there
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That what got me into this field Um you know the shame of who I was at a core level And um sorry I just thinking about how painful this stuff can be
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Um, we have to learn from the pain. This is a, another deeper conversation, but there is
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oftentimes an unmet need, emotional need, a need that makes you human. Um, but oftentimes it's
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admitting that you're stressed out. And so it's learning what factors, triggers, conditions
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relationships, what mindsets and et cetera preceded my emotional eating or unhealthy eating
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So if you ate a candy bar, not that, not that you can't eat a candy bar, but let's say you have like
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20 candy bars, right? You binge eat a bunch of candy bars and then you're feeling terrible
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So instead of guilt tripping yourself, and I know that's a hard switch to turn, but instead of guilt tripping yourself, we start looking
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What thoughts, this is tough. This is where, you know, working with someone who can help you get inside your head and what you're actually thinking is useful
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But, you know, maybe before the chocolate, you had a stressful event
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So that's understanding. This is the learning step, the third step. You got to learn
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Maybe you had a stressful event. And then maybe you thought in your head, you made the conclusion in your head, this stress
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is intolerable. I cannot handle it. I am going to fail. Maybe there was some of that thinking going on
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And maybe, maybe if you had shifted your perspective a little bit, you would have realized that
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I don't know, this is just a hypothetical example, but maybe you would have realized that you, you've handled these stressful situations before
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and that you've actually dealt with this stressful situation before. So you could learn that the next time this stressful event happened
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you overreacted and that you actually didn't need to binge eat. Another way is learning different self-care skills on how to manage that stress if you can't control it
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So this learning thing is really, really important. And then the cycle repeats
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you try again. You say, okay, I binged eat. I emotionally ate. I compulsively ate. I stress
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ate. What, what kind of happened there? What caused me to do that? What can I do differently
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next time? Let's get back to the, the, the, not the original diet. We get back to the modified
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diet because you tried something different, right? You try to more veggies, try more protein or
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whatever. Try cooking at home. You get back to the modified diet. You get back to it. You say
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okay, I'm back. Next time you, you fall, you're going to fall. Uh, we, we, we learn, we get
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feedback. We repeat the cycling. And again, by doing this, you're going to improve. You're going
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to get better handling stress. Your confidence is going to go up your, um, you know, you're going to
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be taking control of your diet and honing and fine tuning different foods that feel good to you
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And when you start to become more confident, when you start to have more energy, when you start to
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take control over your food, you're going to get more invested in it. You're going to double down
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You're going to practice this skill, just like that woman practiced drawing. All right, so that's
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it. Thank you so much for your time. Now go implement these. Actually do it, okay? Like right
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now, with this video, your best chance is to take out your phone or piece of paper or whatever
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write down one idea, write down one idea, maybe even leave it in the comments below
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That's a great idea on how you can actually start taking action. I know you understand it
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in your soul. So do it. All right. Peace
#Eating Disorders
#Health
#Healthy Eating
#Nutrition
#Self-Help & Motivational
#Weight Loss