The Yo-Yo Cycle Is Proof You Really Don't Want It

You can lose weight on almost anything for a few weeks. The real question is why it keeps coming back. I go straight at the uncomfortable answer: the yo-yo cycle is not proof your metabolism is broken, and it is not evidence you just have not found the “right program.” It is proof you keep treating weight loss like a temporary project, then returning to the same defaults that got you overweight in the first place.

We unpack what yo-yo dieting really is beneath the scale: switching from the choices that created fat loss back to the choices that created weight gain. That shift usually hides behind friendly stories like “I earned it,” “I deserve a break,” or “I’ll start Monday.” We talk about why “normal eating” is often the problem, how diet culture sells the fantasy that there is a perfect plan with an end date, and how identity stories like “I always gain it back” quietly steer your behavior even when you know better.

The practical framework is simple and brutal: small choices compound like interest, and the scale is a lagging indicator of what you have been doing for the last 30 to 90 days. We get specific about building sustainable weight loss habits that hold up when you are tired, stressed, traveling, or bored at night. You will hear how to choose one boring change you can keep forever, lock it in as your baseline, add the next choice only when the first one is automatic, and reset fast after slip-ups so one bad day does not become your next regain.

If you are done with gimmicks and ready for real behavior change, listen all the way through. Then subscribe, share this with a friend who is stuck in the cycle, and leave a rating and review so more people stop dieting and start choosing.

Stop Dieting. Start Choosing.

I'm Jonathan Ressler, and I lost 140 pounds without diets, programs, or obsession. Here's what changed: I stopped outsourcing my choices.

The Shut Up and Choose Podcast isn't motivation. It's not therapy. It's not a diet hack. It's about one thing: how choice determines everything—including your weight.

Every pound you lose (or keep) is a choice. Every broken promise erodes your integrity. Every kept promise rebuilds it. That's not willpower. That's consequence.

Each episode cuts through the noise with real talk about how busy, successful people take back control of their health, energy, and mindset—without starvation, shame, or delusion. No gimmicks. Just the truth about what actually works when you stop delegating your discipline.

Your move. Stop Dieting. Start Choosing.

jonathanressler.com

Book: Shut Up and Choose on Amazon

Instagram: @ResslerChooses

Choice Reset: jonathanressler.com/choice-reset/

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Transcript

Cold Open And Ground Rules

0:02

You're listening to Shut Up and Choose, the no bullshit, no excuses podcast for people who swear they wanna lose weight but keep choosing everything that stops them. And before we continue, if you're gonna bitch and moan and act like a fucking pussy the entire time, skip this one Hosted by Jonathan Ressler. This dude dropped 140 pounds with no shots, no diets, no pills, and not one single fucking membership swipe at the gym. Just real choices that fit real life. If you're tired of gimmicks, tired of the bullshit, and ready for somebody to finally call you out and tell you the truth, you are in the right place. Cravings, stress eating, late night sabotage, travel traps, holiday chaos, this show punches all of that right in its fat face. Stop dieting, start choosing. This is Shut Up and Choose.

Yo-Yo Dieting Is A Choice Problem

1:11

Now, here's Jonathan Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the podcast that cuts through the noise and the nonsense and all the bullshit of the internet influencers and Quitting tips. All those people out there online are trying to tell you it's all a bunch of bullshit, and I hope on this podcast I'm here to tell you the truth. That's my goal, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm gonna talk about the fact that, look, you know you've done this at least three times, maybe four. You've lost 40 pounds and gained 50 back. You lost 35 and gained 45 back. You're sitting there right now thinking, "Man, my metabolism must be broken," or that, "This diet didn't work. I need to find the right program." Well, let me tell you, that's wrong. That's dead wrong, and I'm done watching guys like you and people like me blame ourselves for everything but the actual problem. Here's the truth. You're not ready to hear this, but the truth is the yo-yo diet cycle is proof that you don't actually want it. I was on that yo-yo diet cycle for years, for decades, but I really didn't want it. It's not weight loss. You want the fantasy of weight loss. I wanted the fantasy of weight loss. You want the body without the choices. You wanna look like the guy who makes hard decisions while continuing to make the easy ones. But guess what? That's not how it works. It's never how it worked. So let me be direct and put it right in your face. You're not failing at diets, and diets aren't failing you. You're choosing to stay the same exact way as you are and then blaming the mechanisms instead of looking at the operator. You're the operator. You're the problem. And until you own that, you'll be right back here in six months telling yourself the next program, that's the one, that one'll be different. But it won't be, 'cause you won't be different. I lost 140 pounds, a little bit more, but not because I found the magical diet or that I had the discipline that you don't have, and certainly not because my metabolism is special. I lost it because I stopped treating weight loss like a temporary project and started treating it like permanent choices, choices that stack up, that compound, like compound interest in a bank account. Choices that I make every single day, not just Monday through Friday, but choices that I make every single day. And here's what kills me, and you already know this 'cause you're not stupid. You know that eating like garbage gets you to 280 pounds. Got me to 411 pounds. You know that you can't lose 40 pounds and eat like shit like you used to and expect to stay at 240 or two-whatever you're at, or one-whatever you're at. You're not an idiot. You're just unwilling to admit that you want the old choices more than you want the new body. Because if you really wanted the new body, you'd make the choices. Full stop, no bullshit, no excuses, no "I'll start Monday," no "I'm waiting for the right program," no fucking supplements or 30-day challenges, no fitness influencers, assholes telling you that this time will be different. This time won't be different until you're different. And you won't be different until you accept something brutal. There is no fucking end date to a diet, okay? There's no going back to normal. Normal is what got you fat. Normal is the problem. The guys who keep the weight off, the people who keep it off, they're not white-knuckling through life. They're not suffering. They just figured out how to build choices they could actually hold, and I'm not talking about for 90 days, not for some contest or some wedding or an Instagram photo. Forever. Boring choices, medium choices, choices so normal that nobody even notices they're happening, and that's the difference between yo-yo and gone. That's the difference between trying and choosing, and that's what we're gonna break down today. You came here because something made you listen to this. Hopefully, it's because you think I'm funny and you think what I'm giving you is worthwhile. Maybe you're in the middle of gaining it right back right now, or maybe you've convinced yourself that this time will be different. Maybe you're finally ready to stop bullshitting yourself. Regardless, by the end of this, you're gonna know exactly why you keep failing and what you actually have to do to stop.

Temporary Projects Create The Yo-Yo

5:29

So let's get into it Let's talk a little bit about what's actually happening when you yo-yo. And I'm not talking about the scale going up and down. I'm talking about the cycle of choices that creates that scale movement in the first place. Most people call yo-yo dieting when they lose weight and gain it back. That's what yo-yo dieting is. But that's just the symptom, not the disease. The actual yo-yo is this: you stop making the choices that created the weight loss. Then you act shocked, "Oh, shocked," while your body returns to its natural state given your actual behavior. You're not experiencing a body failure. You're experiencing a choice failure that you've decided to blame on your metabolism or your genetics, this program that you're doing, the timing, the stress you're in, whatever you find some bullshit excuse. Anything but the actual problem, which is that you went back to operating like you did before. Think about it this way. You have two modes. Mode A, that's the choices you made while losing the weight, and mode B, the choices you made before you lost weight. Mode A got you to your goal weight, and mode B got you fat. So what happens when you switch back to mode B? You get fat again. This isn't rocket science. This shouldn't require a PhD to understand, but somehow people act like this is some kind of fucking mystery. But here's where the real damage happens. Most people, and I mean most people, approach weight loss as a temporary project. Except your life is the life that made you overweight in the first place. You put an artificial end date on the behavior change. Week one through 12, you're strict. You fucking do it all. You meal prep, you track, you say no to things, you're white-knuckling because you know it's only temporary. You can see the finish line. Just 12 more weeks and then I can eat normally again. But normally is the problem. Normal eating is eating without thinking. Normal is mindless snacking. Normal is using food as a reward or a crutch or distraction, whatever else you use it for. Normal is what got you here. It's what got you fat, that concept of normal. The second you cross the finish line, that 12 weeks, the moment you hit that 40 pounds down or whatever your finish line is, your brain is already planning the celebration. Hey, you deserve it. You earned it. This is the trap. You think weight loss is a prize you collect and then move on from. But it's not. It's a permanent shift in how you operate, or it's not a shift at all. There's no middle ground. It can't be like, "Hey, I got there. Now, whoa, go fucking wild." No. It's either a permanent shift or no shift at all this connects you to something that most people don't wanna admit, but you've weaponized the word earn. You earned pizza this weekend because you worked out. Give me a fucking break. You earned dessert because you were good all week. You've turned weight loss into a transaction where every bit of restraint gives you permission to indulge later. That's not a diet. It's more like a hostage negotiation with yourself, and you always lose because you keep moving the goalpost. The person who keeps the weight off doesn't think in transactions. They don't earn anything. They make choices every day based on who they're becoming and what they actually want, not based on what they think they deserve as a reward for some temporary suffering This is the part that always pisses me off because the machine is designed specifically for this. Every diet company, every fitness influencer, every jerk-off out there, every person that's selling you a supplement or a supplement brand is betting on one thing: that you'll try again, and again, and again. You've tried keto. I-- A-and I'm guilty of all this, by the way. I've tried every diet under the sun. But you tried keto. It worked for 12 weeks, and then it stopped. You tried calorie counting. Did that, same story. You tried cutting carbs. Did Atkins and paleo. You increase your protein, intermittent fasting, metabolic confusion, whatever, whatever the current trend is. And you know what? Some of them definitely do work in the short term. I lost weight. You lose weight. You felt great. You posted your mandatory progress photo. But then the real world happened. Life got busy. Your motivation faded, or you started eating normally again. That's such a fucking bad word, normally. And six months later, you're heavier than when you started. So now you're convinced that you haven't found the right program. There's one out there with your name on it, one that'll stick, one that won't require willpower because it'll be so aligned with your natural preferences that you'll just want to keep doing it forever. That person, that program, those influencers, they're selling you a fantasy. The honest answer is that there is no right program. The only program that matches your life and that you can sustain, because it's not actually a program, is just how you operate. Not perfectly, not 100% of the time, but the baseline, the default. Now, here's something even

Identity Stories And Tracking Choices

10:27

a little bit deeper. You've internalized an identity. I know I did. I would always make excuse, "Oh, well, you know, I'm just a-- I'm a, I'm a big guy. I'm a fat guy." You're someone who gains weight back, right? That's what you think. That's what I always told myself, that, "Well, yeah, I'll lose the weight, man. Sooner or later I'll... Hopefully this time I won't gain it back, but I always do." You're someone who can't stick to diets. You're someone with a slow metabolism, or someone with a sweet tooth, or someone who can't say no. I always used to say, "I'm incapable of making bad choices." Those aren't facts. They're narratives that you've repeated so many times that you've started to actually believe them. The worst part is the yo-yo cycle confirms that narrative in your mind. Every time you gain weight back, you think, "See? This is who I am. I'm someone who always gains it back." That thought then drives your next choice because identity-aligned behavior feels automatic, even if it's self-destructive. So breaking the yo-yo thing doesn't start with a new diet. It starts with rejecting that narrative completely. You're not someone who gains weight back. You're someone who stopped making the choices that kept it off. Those are different things. One is an identity, and one is a decision you made. You have to take responsibility. And this last piece, most people don't see the yo-yo dieting because they don't track the choices. They only track the scale. So everything feels fine until the day they step on the scale and realize, "Hey, I'm up 15 pounds." But that 15 pounds I promise you didn't appear overnight. It appeared through hundreds, if not thousands, of small choices. One little extra snack here, one skipped workout there. Not that I think a workout is important. You know my feeling on workouts. But it's those small choices I'll eat this now and be good tomorrow," multiplied across weeks or months. By the time the scale shows up, that damage is already done. The people who stay at their weight, the weight that they want to get to, their ideal weight, they're not obsessing over the scale. I don't obsess over the scale anymore. They're tracking the behavior. They know that if the choices stay consistent, the scale will too. It always does. And the scale, if you're worried about losing a pound or gaining a pound, you're not really in it. You're looking for that short-term fix. Your weight is always gonna fluctuate a little bit. It's just the way that it is. So you really need to be tracking your choices much more than you need to be tracking the scale. So now you kind of understand, why yo-yoing happens.

Compounding Choices And The Backslide

12:50

You stop making the choices, plain and fucking simple. But here's what most people miss. They don't understand how fast those choices actually work, in both directions, by the way. So I lost this 140 pounds, Not a year of dramatic transformation montages. It happened slowly almost imperceptibly, to be honest, through choices that seemed completely insignificant when I was making them. One day, and, and let me, let me actually clarify, because I did... I was drastic in the beginning. I needed to shock my system. So one day I chose water instead of soda. That's it, just one small choice. Nobody noticed. I didn't post about it. I was very specific not telling my kids about it. It didn't move the scale, but it was a data point. The next day, I made the same choice again, and the next, and the next, and in a week, I replaced seven sodas or, sweet iced teas with water. Still can't see it on the scale. My clothes didn't feel different, but something in my head shifted. Then I started making another choice. I stopped eating when I was full. I know that sounds crazy, but I ate when I was full. I ate whatever was on my plate and then a little bit more. I stopped eating when I was full. I actually felt fullness instead of eating until the plate was empty. Again, nobody noticed it, the scale didn't move, but I was stacking up choices. Another choice, I stopped mindlessly snacking at night. I had to actually decide to eat something instead of it being background noise while I'm working or watching something. Some nights I, I decide to eat something anyway, but most nights I decide against it. The choice was the unit of measurement, not the outcome. So here's what people don't get about compounding. The individual choice, honestly, is kinda worthless. One choice means nothing, but one choice repeated is everything, and that's where the power lives. I wasn't thinking about 140 pounds. I did not have an end goal. It wasn't a number that I was working to. That number was abstract the whole time. Was i-i-if I said to myself, "Oh, I gotta lose 140, 150 pounds," well, uh, uh, that feels impossible. It's, it's demotivating. I was thinking more about the choice in front of me right now. Do I choose water or the sweet tea? Do I choose to eat until I'm full or do I keep going? Did I choose to grab a snack or did I just say, "Eh, I'll have that tomorrow"? That's the metric. That's the one that matters. And when you stack those choices, when you make the same decision hundreds and hundreds of times, your body changes. And it's not overnight, it's over months. But it changes because the choices were never random. They were consistent, and they compounded. Here's where the shit goes in the other direction. That same compounding mechanism works in reverse, and it's invisible until it's too late. So now let's just say you're at your goal weight, if you have a goal weight. You've been making the right choices for four months. Everything feels stable. You feel great. You think, "Okay, I, I can relax a little bit. One, one cheat day won't hurt." One cheat day is a choice, meaningless on its own, but then the next week you have another one. "I earned it. I was good all week." Two cheat days. Still can't see it? The scale probably hasn't moved. But now you're starting reversing the compounding. Your schedule got busy. Work is fucking nuts. You're eating out instead of cooking 'cause you, you make believe you don't have time. There's another set of choices stacking in the wrong direction. You're eating more calories without thinking. You're ordering that extra appetizer, or you're getting large instead of small. Those are small choices. They're really small choices, invisible choices, but they're compounding. By the second month, you've had maybe two or three home-cooked meals, and you're eating out four times a week instead of once. You're having dessert three times a week instead of never. You're snacking at your desk without thinking about it. The scale? Eh, maybe you're up a pound or two or three. Still within the margin of error. Still feels manageable. This is where the trap snaps shut because three pounds doesn't feel like a failure. It feels like a fluctuation. It feels normal. You don't, you don't course correct and say, "Okay, I need to tighten this back up." You just keep going. Month three, you're up eight pounds. Now you start to feel it. Your clothes are a little tighter. But instead of recognizing this as a choice problem, you rationalize it. You say, "I've been stressed out. My metabolism must have slowed. I'm retaining water. Y- yeah, I'll get back to it after the project is done. I'll start this fresh on Monday or next..." But Monday is just another day where you make the same choices you made on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The compounding keeps stacking. By month four, you're up 15 or 20 pounds. Now you're frustrated. Now you're thinking about the diet again. But here's the thing. You didn't gain 15 pounds because something changed with your body. You gained it because you made a series of small choices consistently in the direction of weight gain. You just didn't notice it because they were all small. That's the reverse compounding. That's how people gain 50 pounds back, not in a binge weekend. Over four or six months or some period of time of incrementally worse choices, each one completely insignificant on its own, but each one completely predictable when stacked together So hopefully that makes sense to you, but I need to be really direct about something. You know this is happening while it's happening. Every time I gained weight back, I knew I was gaining weight back. You're not unconscious. You feel yourself slipping, but you feel that your choices get weaker, and you feel yourself reaching for things that you weren't reaching for before. You feel and you see the portions getting bigger. You feel the frequency of how much you're eating a- and how frequently you're eating, but you're not acknowledging it. There's a difference. You can feel it and ignore it at the same time. You can watch yourself gain weight back and tell yourself a story that it's not your fault or that it's some circumstance, or it's just temporary, and it's not. It's fucking choices, your choices, stacked and compounding and creating a predictable outcome. So if weight loss is about compounding choices and gaining the weight back is about reversing those same choices, then the only metric that actually predicts what's going to happen next is, are you consistently making the choices or not? Not, "Did I make the right choice today?" That's one data point, meaningless. It's completely fucking useless. Which is why I say if you make a mistake, if you fuck up, big deal. It's one data point. But are you making those choices consistently? Can I string 30 days together, 60 days, 90 days? That's what it comes down to. That's the metric. That's what tells you if you're building something that lasts or if you're just in a temporary phase that'll inevitably end with the scale going back up to where it was or even higher. Because here's the truth: the scale is a lagging indicator. It shows you the result of 30 or 60 or 90 days of choices that already happened. By the time you see it, the pattern is already baked in. You can't change the number on the scale today unless, of course, you wanna cut off an arm or a leg. You can only change the choice that's in front of you right now, and if you stack enough of those, the scale will follow. It's a lagging indicator. People who keep weight off aren't making perfect choices. I know I certainly didn't and don't make perfect choices, but you're making consistent choices. Always looking for that streak, not a scale. I'm saying, "How did I choose today? Did I make the right choice? Yes. Did I choose it yesterday? Yes. Can I choose it tomorrow?" If the answer is yes for 30, 60, 90 days, whatever it is, the body follows. It always does. There's no other way it can happen. That's not motivation or willpower. That's not luck or genetics or metabolism. It's math. Small choices compound over time, create big results. Reverse it, and the same fucking math applies. The question is, which direction are your choices compounding? So look, I, I get it. Hopefully you understand the problem now. You understand the, the compounding and that the yo-yo happens, you could treat it like a temporary project instead of a permanent shift, and that's good.

The Boring Sustainable Way To Win

20:58

Now let's talk about what actually fixes it, and I'm gonna tell you exactly what doesn't work first, because most people are still doing it stop looking for the dramatic overall. I, I know that's hard because everybody wants to have that dramatic, that quick fix, that, like big whatever, that big event, but that's not reality. So stop looking for the dramatic overall. Stop thinking you need to cut out entire food groups or go vegan or carnivore or eliminate sugar or cut out fucking carbs in your life or, honestly just eliminate fun completely. That just doesn't work. That's not sustainable, and it's also not necessary Here's why extreme approaches, in case you're wondering, here's why they fail, 'cause you run out of willpower. Willpower is a finite resource. I say this all the time. You can white-knuckle extreme restriction for 6 weeks, 12 weeks, as long as you want if you're stubborn, but then your brain starts bargaining. Just this once, or I've been so good, or I deserve a break. And once you break, you don't go back to extreme. You go back to normal, and then normal feels so good compared to the extreme that you've been at for all that time. The people who keep the weight off aren't doing anything extreme. They're not suffering or self-deprived or counting every calorie or measuring every bite. People who succeed have built a system where choices don't feel like a punishment. They feel like it's just how they operate. So the magic of this thing isn't in the diet, it's in the sustainability of your behavior. So instead of asking, "What's the fastest way to lose weight?" Ask, "What's the slowest, most boring way I can lose weight that I'll still be doing in two years?" That's the real question. For me, it was simple. I stopped drinking soda, and not diet soda. I stopped drinking the sweet tea. I stopped eating too much food. No, I wasn't drinking it on the weekends. I just stopped. I drank water and said, "That's it." That's one choice. It's boring. It's not sexy. It doesn't look good on Instagram. But I can do that forever. And over time, that one boring choice compounded into serious results. Then I added another one, eating until I was full instead of just eating mindlessly. I didn't count calories or food prep or measure shit., I just actually noticed when I'm satisfied, and I stopped. That takes practice because most people have trained themselves to ignore the signal. I know I did. But once you build it, you can do that one forever too. They're not restrictions, they're, they're just awareness, and they're not hard. They're just slightly different from autopilot. The people who fail are the ones who try to make five major changes at once. New diet, new exercise, cut out the sugar, start fasting, eliminate.. All at the same time. That's not sustainable. That's a temporary sprint, and sprints have finish lines. So build one choice, make it automatic, then add another, then stack them slowly. That's how you win. And here's what separates people who keep it off from people who yo-yo. Acceptance. You have to accept that there is no end date. You're not dieting until you reach a number and then going back to normal. There is no fucking normal. Normal is the problem So you have to grieve that. You have to actually sit with that fact that you'll never again be able to eat the way you used to. Not because you're not allowed, because you don't wanna be fucking fat anymore. You don't wanna be overweight anymore, and eating like that is what makes you fat and overweight. And most people can't do it. They keep thinking, "Well, maybe later, or maybe after the vacation, or maybe next year." Y- you're always giving yourself some escape route, and as long as you do that, you're not committing, you're not building, and you're just delaying. But the people who succeed, they say, "This is how I operate now. It's not perfect, not 100% of the time, but the... here's the baseline. These are the things that I'm gonna do. A birthday comes around, sure, I'll have cake. That's not a failure, it's a day. The next day I go back to my baseline. I don't f- spiral out of control because I had a day or two of shitty eating. I don't think, 'Oh, man, I, uh, fucking blew it,' turn it into a major catastrophe. No. I just go back to the way I operate So what does this actually mean in practice? Because people like to romanticize it. Doesn't mean you can never eat pizza again. It means pizza goes from, "Ah, I'll eat this three times a week without thinking," to, "I, I, I'll have pizza every now and then because I choose it." It doesn't mean I'm deprived. It means that I'm eating it intentionally. It doesn't mean that you have to be stressed out about every meal. It doesn't mean that everything you eat is boring and unremarkable and, tastes like cardboard. Just eating and moving on, and then occasionally you have something different, and you're aware of it, and you enjoy it, and you move forward. It means that holidays are not a free pass. They're just days where you make the same choice you made other days. Maybe you eat more on Thanksgiving. That's fine. That's cool. Great. You also probably eat less the next day without even thinking about it because it's just what happens when you're operating consciously. It means that in social situations, you don't get all fucked up because you're dependent on some external circumstances to make good choices, like a specific meal plan or... That's all bullshit. You go to a restaurant, you order food that aligns with how you're operating, and you enjoy it. You're not the person ordering salad while secretly wishing you could have something else. You're the person who actually wants what you're eating, and that takes time to build, but it is possible. I did it. Thousands of other people have done it. It's not rare. It's just not glamorous, so nobody's talking about it. No influencer's selling you a program on it because you can't trademark it. You can't sell that in a program.

Slip-Ups, Resets, And Wanting It

26:30

Here's something critical, and you know I've talked about feeding my soul many times. You're gonna make some bad choices. You're gonna fuck up. You'll have a day or a week where you're just not operating like you intend to. That's not a failure. That's called fucking life. The difference between people who keep the weight off and people who yo-yo is what happens next. When you slip, when you fuck up, when you feed your soul, you have two options. You can turn it into a major catastrophe. "Well, fuck it. I already blew it. I might as well keep eating garbage until I'm back to 400 pounds." That's the yo-yo path. That's where most people go. I would say 90 to 95% of people go there. Or you can do what I do. You can just reset. You can say, "All right. I made a bad choice that doesn't align with how I'm operating. Shit happens. Tomorrow I'll go back to normal." One day, one slip-up, not a season, not an excuse, just a moment. The difference is whether you identify as someone who blew it or someone who had a slip, someone who messed up. One is identity-based and creates a spiral. The other is event-based and creates resilience, lets you move on The final truth and the hardest one, you have to actually wanna make these choices. Not want the body, not want the result, want the actual daily choice of eating differently. If you hate the idea of giving up your daily soda, you're not gonna keep it off. If you love the feeling of eating till you're nauseous, I know that sounds crazy, but I did it 'cause if, if one was good, two was better. You can't out-discipline yourself out of a situation when you don't actually want the new behavior. So before you start, get honest. Do you want this, or do you really want the fantasy of being thin while eating like you currently eat? Because that second option doesn't exist. You can have one or the other, not both. If you actually want it then start small. Build one choice. Make it stick for 30 days, then add another one. That's it. That's what works. Everything else is fucking noise. So listen, you just spent 30 minutes listening to me explain exactly why you keep failing. You know the mechanism. You know where the problem lives, and you know it's not your metabolism, not your genetics, not the program. It's fucking you, your choices, your refusal to accept that this is permanent. And now you're about to close this podcast and do absolutely nothing with it. Come on. We both know that. Hopefully I'm wrong, but logically, I think I'm right. You're not gonna do a goddamn thing. That's the pattern, right? You listen to something that resonates. You feel motivated for like six, seven minutes, then life happens. You get busy, and three weeks later, you gain back the 5 pounds or the 10 pounds that you lost, and you're already thinking about the next diet to try. You're already planning the next temporary project, already setting yourself up for the next yo-yo. This time, I hope it's different. It should be different, but it won't be unless you actually act. So honestly, most people won't do anything. Most people will just listen to this, feel good about understanding the problem, and then make exactly zero changes. They keep operating exactly like they have for the last however many years, and in six months you'll be heavier, more frustrated, and more convinced that something is fundamentally broken about you. You don't have to be most people, but choosing to be different requires an actual decision. Not a vague commitment to eat better, not a mental note to make different choices. An actual decision, a real move, something that costs you something. Some money, time, vulnerability, whatever it is, because free information doesn't create change, only commitment does.

Decision Time And How To Get Help

30:02

If you really wanna break the yo-yo cycle, you need more than just a framework. You need execution. You need someone to hold up a mirror and show you exactly what you're choosing and what it's costing you. You need a system that works when you're tired, when you're stressed, when every part of your brain is screaming at you to go back to your old patterns. That's what my Choice Reset does. It's 60 minutes. It's one conversation. It's brutal honesty about what you're actually choosing, what regrets that you're building, and what needs to change. Then we build a system. Not a diet, not a program, a system that holds up when pressure shows up It's not motivational coaching. I'm not gonna kiss your ass and blow smoke up your ass and tell you, "Oh, no, it's not you." It's your fucking fault. This isn't someone telling you that you can do it,\ and everything will be fine. I'm telling you, you have to wanna do it. But this is something showing you exactly where you're lying to yourself and what you need to do to stop. That's accountability. That is the execution. If you're serious about breaking the cycle that you're in right now, and I mean serious, not just thinking about it, book that session with me. Go to jonathanressler.com, my website. Don't scroll past this. Don't think, "Ah, I'll do it next week." Book it right now while you're listening. Shut Up and Choose, that's my book. It's on Amazon. If you want the full framework behind all this, it's right there for you. It's an Amazon bestseller. Tens of thousands of people have read it and understand the mechanism, but understanding isn't enough. You need execution. That's where the actual change happens. So here's what I need you to think about for the next 60 seconds. How much longer are you willing to do this? How many more times are you gonna lose weight and gain it back before you actually commit to something different? How many more years are you gonna spend frustrating yourself, blaming your body, waiting for the right program to come along? Because the right program, it's not coming. There's no magic bullet. There's only you making choices every single day, and those choices are either compounding toward the life you want or compounding toward the life that you're running from. You know this. You've known it the entire time. The question isn't whether you understand it. The question is whether you're finally ready to do something about it. So again, go to jonathanressler.com, book your Choice Reset, read my book, have your 60-minute conversation that changes how you operate, get in the system, stop adding to your regrets, stop waiting for the perfect conditions that are never gonna arrive, and stop negotiating with yourself about whether now is the right time. It's the only time. The only difference between people who break the cycle and people who stay in it is that one group stops thinking and starts acting. They make the decision, they buy the book, they book the session, they show up, they do the work. That person can be you, but only if you actually shut up and choose.

Final Kick And Where To Follow

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Thanks for listening to Shut Up and Choose. If today's episode slapped you with some truth, good. That means it worked, and you've dropped the pussy attitude. Make sure to like, rate, and review, and connect with Jonathan on Instagram @jonathanresslerfatloss, on YouTube at Jonathan Ressler, and online at jonathanressler.com. No diets, no gimmicks, no excuses, no bullshit. Just smarter choices, starting the second you hit stop on this episode. Shut up and choose. Now, go make a better fucking choice