Shut Up And Choose - STOP DIETING. START CHOOSING.

You Don’t Need a New Diet — You Need to Grow a Set

• Jonathan Ressler • Episode 231

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Ready for a hard reset on everything you’ve been told about weight loss? Jonathan pulls no punches as he explains why you don’t fail diets—diets fail you—and how the cycle of rigidity, restriction, and unreality keeps you stuck in guilt instead of building real momentum. Rather than hand you another plan, he shows you how to take back the steering wheel and create choices that actually fit your life.

We dig into the hidden cost of dieting: the slow erosion of self-trust. If every plan collapses the moment life gets messy, the answer isn’t more control—it’s ownership. Jonathan lays out a practical, human framework to rebuild that ownership with five steps: awareness (notice without judgment), alignment (fit your plan to your reality), adjustment (small, smart choices that compound), accountability (keep promises to yourself), and adaptation (let the plan evolve as life changes). Along the way, you’ll hear why perfection shatters and choice bends, how confidence comes from consistency, and what it takes to turn “trying” into “choosing.”

You’ll leave with clear moves you can make today—like swapping one drink, taking a ten-minute walk, or eating slowly—that build momentum without the all-or-nothing trap. This is not about macros or miracle fixes; it’s about building self-trust, ending food guilt, and designing a plan you can live with on your busiest days. If you’re ready to stop outsourcing your life to rules and start creating results that stick, this conversation is your blueprint.

If this hit home, subscribe for more straight talk, share it with a friend who’s stuck in the diet loop, and leave a quick review so we can reach more people ready to choose for themselves.

Stop Dieting. Start Choosing.


I’m Jonathan Ressler, Transformation Guide and author of Shut Up and Choose. I lost 140 pounds and built a movement the diet industry hopes you never find. No starvation. No obsession. No gym marathons. Real transformation starts when you stop outsourcing discipline and start leading yourself.

The truth is simple: weight loss isn’t about willpower—it’s about integrity. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you rebuild confidence. Every smart choice strengthens self-trust. That’s the foundation of lasting change. My mission is to help busy, high-performing people take back control of their health, energy, and mindset—without diets, shots, or shame.

Each episode of the Shut Up and Choose Podcast cuts through the noise with real talk, proven strategies, and small, smart steps that actually last. No gimmicks. No hype. Just truth that works in real life.

Get free weekly tips at JonathanRessler.com/weekly-tips.

Click here for my Choice-Weight Analysis

Grab my book Shut Up and Choose on Amazon.
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Announcer:

If you're a whiny snowflake that can't handle the truth, is offended by the word fuck and about 37 uses of it in different forms, gets ass hurt when you hear someone speak the absolute real and rama truth, you should leave. Like right now. This is Shulp and Chews. The podcast where we cut through the shit and get real about weight loss, life, and everything in between, we get into the nitty-gritty of making small, smart choices that add up to big results. From what's on your plate and how you approach life's challenges, we'll explore how the simple act of choosing differently can transform your health, your mindset, and your entire freaking life. So, if you're ready to cut through the bullshit and start making some real changes, then buckle up and shut it up, because we're about to choose our way to a healthier, happier life. This is Shut Up and Choose. Let's do this. Now your host, Jonathan Russler.

Jonathan Ressler | Transformation Guide:

Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the podcast that cuts and noise, nonsense, and all that bullshit that the internet and the Instagram gurus are throwing you away, telling you, eat this, don't eat that, follow this exercise plan, do they're all full of shit. You know it, I know it, you may not want to admit it, but today I'm going to tell you more about it. So if you think about it, a few weeks ago I told you my story and a lot more. Or at least I told you my story two years into this thing. But today I want to tell you the how part. You've tried keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, weight watchers, macros, juice cleanses, detox tea, 75 heart, and a few plans with names that honestly sound more like cults and nutrition programs. You spent months measuring and counting and cutting and tracking, Richard, and for what? To end up right back where you started, Googling best diet to start on Monday. Now here's the thing: you never actually tried the one plan built by the only person who lives in your body, and that's you. That's the part nobody really talks about because if you trusted yourself, half the diet industry would go broke overnight. You're not lazy, you're just loyal. You followed every set of rules that promised freedom. You've done everything the quote unquote experts told you to do. Carbs are evil, fat is evil, breakfast is mandatory, breakfast is optional. Eat six times a day, eat once a day. Don't eat after dark, don't eat fruit, eat fruit only. You've been obedient, you've been disciplined, devoted, and honestly, at the end you're probably just exhausted. But dieting isn't devotion, it's dependence. It trains you to outsource your instincts to somebody with a ring light and affiliate link. It replaces choice with compliance and convinces you that control means following orders. And I know this, you know how I know? Because I did it too. For years, I treated every new diet like a religion. I memorized the commandments. Thou shalt not eat carbs, thou shalt drink two gallons of water, thou shalt log every crumb. I'd follow the plan perfectly for a few weeks, and then life would happen. Stress, travels, birthdays, cravings. And when I couldn't keep up, I didn't blame the plan, I blame myself. And that's how the system works. It sells you guilt as motivation. Every time you fall off, you feel broken. You were just following someone else's blueprint for a life that isn't yours. The day everything changed for me wasn't the day that I started losing weight. It was the day that I stopped giving my choices away. I realized that no influencer, app, or meal plan knows my life, my stress, my schedule, my cravings, my chaos. They don't know what it feels like at 9 p.m. after a 12-hour day. They don't know how the emotional weight that shows up long after the physical kind. So I stopped dieting and started choosing. And it turns out choosing isn't about perfection, it's about power. It's not about good or bad foods, it's about ownership. When I started making choices that actually fit my life, my body finally listened. And that's what today's episode is about. It's not about food, it's not about calories, but it is about freedom. Because freedom isn't found in another plan. It's found in permission. Permission to trust yourself again, to eat without guilt, and to stop asking for permission. So if you're tired of starting over, tired of waiting for Monday, or tired of following someone else's rules for your own body, you're in the right place today. This is the moment you take it back. The decisions, the directions, the fucking steering wheel. You don't need another diet. You don't need another download or a checklist or a cleanse. You just need one honest decision to believe that you already know what to do and that your next choice, not your next plan, is what changes everything. Because the truth is simple. If you've tried every diet like I did, you've trusted everyone but yourself. And it's time to try something radical. Your own choices. So here's the part the diet industry will never admit. You don't fail diets. Diets fail you. And they're designed to fail you. The whole system is built on a revolving door. Pull you in, hype you up, burn you out, and then sell you the new version six months later. That's not an accident. That's their business model. So let's break it down. Every diet, no matter how shiny or trendy or science-backed, is built on three things rigidity, restriction, and unreality. So the first thing is rigidity. Diets love rules because rules sell certainty. No carbs after six. Only eat in an eight-hour window. Never combine fruit with protein. Give me a fucking break. You know what that really means? Don't think, just obey. Rules feel comfortable because they remove risk. You don't have to decide what's right for you. The plan does it for you. But that comfort comes with a cost, and that's your freedom. When you hand over your decisions, you lose your instincts. And the second life doesn't fit the plan, dinner runs late, you're traveling, you grab something fast, you feel like a failure. But the truth is, you didn't fail. You just bumped into real life. The plan failed because it wasn't built for reality, it was built for control. Diet love control. But life doesn't give a shit about control. Life laughs at your macros. So the second part is this restriction. Restriction makes you feel powerful at first. You feel clean or on track or disciplined, but it's fake power. Power built on deprivation, not direction. When you cut out entire food groups, you don't eliminate cravings, you amplify them. You're not fixing the problem, you're just pressing mute until the whole thing fucking explodes. And when it does, and when you cheat, you when you binge, when you eat something off plan, you go into a spiral. You tell yourself you're weak. You tell yourself you blew it, you promise to start over Monday, and boom, the cycle resets. The guilt isn't accidental, it's the product because guilt keeps you buying. Every failure sends you back for another plan, another system, or another accountability program. But here's the real truth. You were never supposed to succeed in the first place. If you did, what would happen? They'd lose you as a customer. And then, of course, the third part is the unreality. You believe that if you just tried harder, you could be good. You see the shredded influencer on Instagram eating boiled chicken and kale, and you think, okay, I'll do that now. But you're not a 27-year-old who lives in a gym and gets paid to meal prep. You're a 49, 50, 60-year-old parent with deadlines and kids and stress and a calendar that doesn't give a shit about your macros. That plan doesn't work for you. Not because you're lazy, but because it was never written for your life. And yet you keep trying to squeeze yourself into somebody else's story, believing that you could just be better, it would finally click. But it's not about being better. It's about being real. Because pretending that your life looks like a fitness model isn't discipline, it's delusion. Every time a diet fails, it takes a piece of you with it, not just physically, but emotionally. Each failure erodes your self-trust just a little bit more. You start to believe you can't be trusted around food, that you're weak, or that you need structure. I got to a point where I honestly told myself that I couldn't be trusted to make good food choices. You actually start to believe that you're the problem, but you're not. You're just stuck in a loop of borrowed systems that were never meant to fit. And the longer you stay in that loop, the more you forget that you ever even knew how to choose because every diet trains you to distrust yourself a little more, a little deeper, until you forget that you were born knowing exactly what to do and how to listen to your body. You weren't born counting calories, you weren't born fearing bread. You learned all that through repetition and honestly through marketing and through the shame that's the skies of structure. You've been trained to trade intuition for instruction. And the shittiest part is that you actually think it's normal. I know I did. But it's not normal to be afraid of food. It's not normal to see every meal as a math problem. The whole macro thing blows my mind. And it's not normal to measure your worth by your weight. That's not health, that's conditioning. And it's time to unlearn it. Because diets don't just fail your body, they fail your humanity. They disconnect you from joy, from spontaneity, from confidence, and of course, most importantly, from trust. They make you think that living a balanced life is weakness. They turn something as simple as eating into a lifelong battle. But it doesn't have to be that way. The truth is, you don't need more rules. You need reality. You need a plan that bends with your life instead of breaking you when life happens. And that starts with one simple shift. Stop following other people's rules and start writing your own. Because if every diet you have ever tried has failed, maybe it's time to admit the obvious. They weren't built for you. You're not failing the plan. The plan is failing you. And the moment you finally understand that, that's when you stop taking the blame and start taking back the choice. And that's when everything changes. That's where freedom begins. And that's where you start to build the only plan that will ever last. And that is your own. Let's not bullshit each other. It's easy to roll your eyes to the latest diet trend and still secretly wonder if maybe this is gonna be the one. Maybe this one will work. Maybe the problem wasn't the plan. Maybe it was you. Maybe you just didn't stick to it. Maybe you weren't disciplined enough. That's what every failed diet whispers in your ear. But here's the truth: you don't keep following new diets because you're weak. You keep following because they're comforting. Control feels safer than responsibility. We live in a world that loves certainty. We want someone to tell us what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, and what to feel about eating it. We want structure because structure feels safe, and diets know that. They sell you safety, pre-packaged, branded, and priced at a couple hundred bucks a month. But here's the thing: thinking is scary. Choice is scary. Responsibility is terrifying. If you decide for yourself, you risk being wrong. But if you follow a plan and it fails, you can say, well, that wasn't my fault. That's the comfort of control. It gives you an out. You don't have to face yourself, you just have to follow orders. And the diet world honestly has weaponized that comfort. Trust the plan, trust the process, don't think just follow. Those phrases sound empowering, but they're manipulation. Every expert, coach, or guru who tells you they have the answer isn't building your confidence. They're stealing it. They sell dependency disguised as discipline. They make you believe that if you do exactly what they say, everything will finally click. And when it doesn't, they tell you to buy the upgraded version. I live that cycle over and over again. I've told you I am the self-proclaimed master of yo-yo dieting. I've been on over a hundred diets in my life. And every time I failed, I convinced myself I needed a stricter plan or a tougher coach or more extreme rule set. I was chasing structure like it was salvation. But it wasn't salvation. It was sedation. It kept me quiet, compliant, and obedient. And it felt good until it didn't. So I guess we need to talk about the difference between discipline and dependence. We call it discipline, but the truth is it's really dependence. Discipline is when you make the rules. Dependence is when someone else does. And you confuse obedience with progress. Here's how you know the difference. If your plan falls apart the second your real life shows up, it's not discipline, it's dependence. If you panic when you don't have your meal prep or your app, that's not structure. That's a cage. Diets are cages that make you thank your captor. And we're so conditioned to believe that suffering equals success that we wear the cage like a badge of honor. I'm being good, I'm I'm sticking to it, I'm on track. Being good according to who language doesn't come from freedom, it comes from fear. And the truth is that most people don't fail diets because they can't follow the rules. They fail because they're terrified of a life without them. Freedom sounds beautiful in theory, but it's uncomfortable as shit in practice because freedom means you're in charge now. And if you're in charge, there's no one left to blame. No coach, no program, no off-plan day. Just you and your decision. And that level of accountability, that's raw. That's real. But when I finally stopped dieting, I didn't feel powerful. I felt lost. I'd spent years outsourcing every decision about food and health and body image. And suddenly there was no one telling me what to do. And honestly, it was terrifying. But underneath that fear was something that I hadn't felt in years. And that was possibility. Because when you're following someone else's rules, you only ever get their results. When you start making your own, the potential is limitless. So breaking up with diets is like leaving a toxic relationship. At first, you kind of miss it. You miss the structure, the certainty, the sense of purpose. You even miss the guilt because at least the guilt felt familiar. You start to wonder, what if I go back? What if this time it works? But it won't. Because it never did. You're not meant to live in a world of calorie penalties and food moralities. You're not meant to fear your next meal. You're meant to live, to eat, to enjoy, and to choose. The first few weeks after you stop dieting, you'll feel on anchored. You'll second guess everything. But that's how freedom feels at first. Uncomfortable, uncertain, but you'll definitely feel alive. And that's the moment where real change starts. Not when you find another plan, but when you start writing your own. And you need to go from control, which is what a diet is, to choice. Diets offer control, but control is fragile. It breaks the second life gets messy. Choice, on the other hand, is resilient. When you live through choice, you can adapt, bend, and still move forward. When you live through control, you shatter every time something doesn't go as planned. Control says, I have to be perfect. Choice says, I just have to keep going. And that's the difference between living in fear and living in freedom. You've been trained to believe that control equals strength. But real strength comes from ownership. When you stop waiting for someone else's permission to live, eat, and to basically be fucking human, that's when you finally start becoming unstoppable. So stop chasing control. Start building choice. Because the moment you take obedience for ownership, you don't just change your diet, you change your life. And once you taste that kind of freedom, you'll never go back to another plan again. So, all right, so let's take a little shift here and let's get real. If you've made it this far, you already know the problem isn't food, it's ownership. You spent years following other people's rules, but you never learned how to make your own. So let's change that right now because a real plan, the one that actually works, isn't written on a PDF or printed on some meal plan. A real plan isn't written, it's lived. So the first thing you need to have is awareness. Okay, so stop counting and start noticing what you're doing. You don't need another tracking app, you need awareness. Awareness is the foundation of every transformation. It's not about control, it's about clarity. Don't start with what you should eat. Start with what you actually eat. Not to judge it, but to understand it. So ask yourself: when do I eat? Why do I eat? What triggers my choices? It's not about good and bad, it's about honest or dishonest. When I first started paying attention, I mean, really paying attention, I realized I wasn't overeating because I was hungry. Well, I always kind of knew that, but I was overeating because I was overwhelmed. I wasn't reaching for food, I was actually reaching for relief. And once I saw that, I could finally start changing it. So awareness gives you power because you can't change what you won't face. The second part is alignment. You have to build the plan that actually fits your life. Your plan should fit your life, not the other way around. If you work 10-hour days and have three kids, you don't need a diet that requires three hours of prep and 18 fucking Tupperware containers. You need a plan that works in real life, your life. That means your plan might include a drive-thru sometimes. It might include pizza on Friday night. It might include snacks at your kids' games. And guess what? That's not failure, that's alignment. Alignment means building something you can actually live with, something sustainable, something that's flexible, and honestly, something that's human. If it doesn't fit your schedule and your stress and your season of life, it's not a plan. That's a fantasy. And the diet industry sells fantasies. You're here to build reality. The next step is adjustment, and those are the small, smart choices that I talk about all the time. This is where stop dieting, start choosing really comes to life. Most people fail because they try to change everything at once. They burn out, they crash, and then they blame their willpower. But it's not willpower, it's strategy. The secret is to make small, smart choices over and over because small choices compound, they create momentum. You don't need to overhaul your entire diet. You just need to choose one thing today that moves you closer to who you want to be. So drink water instead of soda. I say that all the time. Take a 10-minute walk instead of scrolling on your phone. Eat slowly instead of inhaling your food in a meeting. I suffer with that. I suffered with that for a long time. Eat slowly. That's how real change happens. Not in a week, but over a lifetime. The first small smart choice I made was really a simple one. I stopped and thought about what I was about to eat every time I opened my mouth. That was it. I didn't track macros. I didn't swear off carbs. I just stopped eating mindlessly. And that one decision changed everything because it made me aware. It made me present. And it made me accountable. You don't need massive effort, you need meaningful direction. Now the next step, and this is accountability. Basically, I'm telling you to keep the promises you make to yourself. You want confidence? Keep promises to yourself. Every time you do what you said you would do, even the smallest thing, you build trust. And trust is everything. Most people think confidence comes from results, but it doesn't. It comes from consistency. The scale doesn't make you confident. Keeping your word does. Every I didn't moment, every tiny win rewires your brain to believe you again. And when you start believing yourself, you stop needing someone else's approval to keep going. So start small. Keep your promise to yourself and then repeat it. That's the formula for self-trust. And self-trust is a secret weapon every diet stole from you. Step five is adaptation. This is a big one. Gotta let it evolve. Your life is going to change, and so should your plan. The problem with diets is they freeze you in time. They assume your life is static, that you'll always have the same schedule, the same stress, all the same shit going on. But life moves and your plan has to move with it. There will be times when you crush it and times where survival is the win. There'll be days where choosing water instead of wine feels like heroic, for lack of a better word. That's okay. That's real. Adaptation means giving yourself permission to adjust without quitting. If your plan can't evolve, it's not sustainable. It's a setup. The goal isn't perfection, it's progression. And the most powerful part of adaptation, it kills the all or nothing mindset. Because once you accept that life changes and that you can too, you stop starting over. You just keep going. So let me tell you a little story about that. So I once coached a guy who'd been dieting for 20 years. We connected because I had honestly been dieting for probably 40, 50 years. But he could tell you the caloric count of every food on earth, but he couldn't tell you the last time he enjoyed a meal without guilt. So I gave him one simple assignment. Just one, one simple assignment. I said, stop counting. Instead, every night, I want you to write down one choice that you made during the day that you're proud of. Three months later, he didn't just lose 25 pounds. He lost the anxiety that had been running his life. Because for the first time, he wasn't following rules, he was following himself. And that's what this is all about. When you start building your own plan, everything changes. You stop asking, can I eat this? And start asking, do I want this? You stop saying, Oh, I blew it, and start saying, I made a choice, big fucking deal. You stop trying to be perfect and start trying to be consistent because you realize freedom isn't found in control, it's found in ownership. And that's what building your own plan really is: ownership. Ownership of your health, your habits, your time, and your life. The truth is, you don't need another plan. You just need to start building one you'll actually live. Because the only plan that ever works is the one built by the only person who knows what your life really looks like. You. So I get it, it's kind of scary, and I get the freedom scares you, but it's the only way forward. And let me tell you the thing that people don't want to talk about. Most people don't stay stuck because they can't change. They stay stuck because they're afraid of what happens if they do. Diets might suck, they fucking suck, but they're safe. They tell you what to eat, when to eat, what to avoid, and when to feel guilty. They give you rules, and rules are comforting. I mean, freedom, freedom is scary, it's terrifying because freedom means you have to decide. And if you decide, you could mess it up. That's why most people cling to diets long after they stop working. They'd rather live inside a cage they understand than step into a world that are responsible for every choice. Choosing means you're in charge now. It means you can't hide behind the plan or the program. You can't blame the coach or the macros or the meal prep company. There's no one to answer to except yourself. And that kind of accountability feels like exposure because deep down, choice makes you face the truth. Every bite, every excuse, every skipped workout, those aren't mistakes, they're decisions. And that's hard to swallow. But that's also where the power begins. Think of decision making like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. But if you spent years letting diets make decisions for you, the muscle's kind of atrophied, it's gotten soft. So when you finally try to choose for yourself, it feels awkward a little bit. It feels heavy. You'll second guess everything. You'll wonder, am I doing this right? Should I go back to what I know? That's normal. That's the process of building back strength. The first few times you choose instead of follow, it won't feel empowering. I promise you. It'll feel scary as shit because freedom doesn't feel like confidence at first. It feels like chaos, but give it time. Every honest decision you make, every moment you trust your own judgment instead of someone else's plan, builds the muscle back. Soon, choice becomes instinct again. And when it does, you realize something incredible. You were never broken. You were just out of practice. So I want to talk for a second also about choosing versus trying. Trying is effort without ownership. Choosing, when you try, you're already preparing to fail. When you choose, you're committing to whatever comes next. Trying says, I'll see what happens. Choosing says, I'll make it happen. And that's the entire difference between dieting and deciding. Diets ask you to try their plan. Choosing asks you to trust your own. And that's why my mantra is always there. Stop dieting, start choosing. It's not about perfection, it's about power. It's about saying, I'm done waiting for permission, I'm done letting strangers run my life, and I'm done mistaking obedience for progress. Freedom, it's not easy. It's uncomfortable, it's inconvenient, and honestly, it can be kind of lonely. People will tell you you're all wrong. But it's the only path that leads to peace. Because when you choose yourself, really choose, you stop living in reaction and start living in creation. You stop asking, can I, and start asking, do I want to? You stop punishing yourself for being human and start building a life that fits humanity into it. That's what real transformation looks like. Not compliance, not perfection, choice. So if you're listening right now and thinking, I'm scared to let go of the structure, that's okay. You're supposed to be. It's not fear of failure you're feeling, it's the weight of freedom landing on your shoulders. But own it, carry it, make it yours because it is yours. Because the moment you choose yourself, everything changes. You stop dieting, you start deciding. You stop following and you start leading. And that's really where your power lives. So here we are. You spent a lifetime following other people's plans, counting, cutting, waiting, hoping. And now you know the truth. Every diet you've ever tried was borrowed. The only one that lasts is the one you build yourself. You don't need another reset. You don't need another Monday. You need right fucking now. Because the longer you wait to choose, the longer someone else profits from your hesitation. Choice is your birthright. It's not earned, it's reclaimed. And when you take it back, you stop dieting and start living. So if this episode hit home for you, if you're ready to stop following and finally build a plan that fits your life, here's what to do next. Go to my website, jonathanwrestle.com and sign up for my free weekly tips. They take less than one minute to read, and there's no sales pitch, no marketing, bullshit, just solid practical advice that helps you make small, smart choices that actually work. And if you want to go deeper, grab my Amazon best-selling book, Shut Up and Choose. It's not a diet book, it's a manual for taking your life back. It's a story of how I lost over 140 pounds and gained something much more important. That's ownership of my life. Because that's what this is all about. Not losing weight, but losing limits. Not following rules, but reclaiming responsibility. So stop waiting for your next plan. Stop apologizing for the last one. You've tried every diet and you've trusted everyone but yourself. Now it's time to try something radical. Your own choices. So if you're ready to go, and I know you are, the next thing you need to do is shut up and choose.

Announcer:

You've been listening to Shut Up and Choose. Jonathan's passion is to share his journey of shedding 130 pounds in less than a year without any of the usual gimmicks. No diets, no pills, and we'll let you in on a little secret no fucking gem. And guess what? You can do it too. We hope you enjoyed the show. We had a fucking blast. If you did, make sure to like, rate, and review. We'll be back soon. But in the meantime, find Jonathan on Instagram. At Jonathan Wrestler Boca Ratan. Until next time, shut up and choose.

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Jonathan Ressler

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