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#141 - Building Discipline, Gaining Muscle In Your 30s, Losing Weight Without Gaining It Back & More
13 Plays10 hours ago
In this Q and A episode, we break down fat loss, muscle building, and discipline in a way you can actually apply starting today.
Here are a few things you can expect to learn:
- How to lose a large amount of weight without gaining it back
- Actionable tips to stop stress eating
- How to build muscle in your 30s the most effective way
- How to build real discipline that sticks into the new year
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Transcript
Introduction and Importance of Engagement
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. We got the weekly episode. It is time for another Q&A episode. Before I get into these questions, if you can continue to leave reviews, get this information, get these podcasts out to people who can use this information so we can help people look better, feel better, and live longer lives. I appreciate that.
Overview of Key Questions
00:00:28
Speaker
The questions that I'm going to get into for this week's Q&A. So we got five questions we're gonna answer. We have how fast can you lose weight without regaining it? We have how to overcome with stress eating.
00:00:41
Speaker
Best practices for building discipline. I like that question. Best methods for building muscle in your 30s. And then whether or not starvation mode is a real thing and what's actually going on here. So let's dive right into
Sustainable Weight Loss Methods
00:00:54
Speaker
it. Question number one.
00:00:55
Speaker
I have the goal to lose 80 pounds next year. I'm wondering if it's realistic to lose that in a year without rebounding. First of all, I love the emphasis on not regaining the weight because I really wish that more people approached weight loss with this in mind.
00:01:10
Speaker
Lots of people don't necessarily struggle to lose weight. If you ask the average person, most people will be able to lose weight. They just eat less and over time they lose weight. The problem is not a lot of people can actually keep that weight off.
00:01:24
Speaker
And the biggest reason for that is people do things that are just not sustainable. And so when you're going into this whole weight loss thing, If you want these results to stick, you really need to think a lot about the methods that you are using because if the methods are unsustainable, the results are typically going to be unsustainable.
00:01:43
Speaker
Talking about some of the factors that actually affect how quickly you lose weight, there are quite a few different factors that will go into this. And the first thing that I would say is just understanding that just because you have a friend or a family member or somebody that you know who lost weight super quickly, That doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to lose weight at the same rate because you are not then you have a whole different situation. You have a different body different genetics. There's a lot of different factors that go into this and how quickly you will lose weight depends on a lot of these things. Some of these factors, how much weight you actually have to lose is probably the biggest determiner of how quickly you will lose weight. And so if you have a lot of weight to lose. 50 pounds, 100 pounds, 150 pounds, more than that, you are typically going to lose faster than somebody who has maybe just 15 to 20 pounds to lose. The rule of thumb is typically as you get closer to that goal weight, it starts to slow down. And so your weight loss starts to slow down the leaner that you get because you have less fat mass to lose. Plus your margin for error as you get closer to that goal becomes smaller. And so somebody who is very heavy, who has a lot of weight to lose, they can make literally just one change and they will
Managing Stress Eating
00:02:48
Speaker
start dropping weight. I remember the first time I ever went on a diet, the main thing that I did was I just cut out sugary drinks and I started dropping weight pretty quickly.
00:02:56
Speaker
People who have more weight to lose, they typically got that way because there's a lot of different things that they need to clean up and a lot of different things that they need to start to change. And so just by changing one or two of those things, they will start to see progress pretty quickly.
00:03:08
Speaker
If you have a lot of weight to lose, you can expect that at the beginning. Most times it's going to be a little bit faster and you can lose at a little bit higher rate. But as you get closer to your goal or if you just don't have as much weight to lose, it is probably going to be a little bit slower.
00:03:22
Speaker
Another factor, a huge one, is just consistency. A lot of people aren't as consistent as they think. And especially the longer that you are dieting, being consistent becomes harder. People start to get what we call diet fatigue, where it's just hard to be in a diet for that long. Maybe your energy is lacking. Maybe you're just tired of tracking calories. Maybe the workouts are slipping. Life's getting a little bit stressful. And so consistency, if that starts to waver, that's going to play a role in how quickly or not how quickly you are losing weight.
00:03:51
Speaker
Number three, how big of a deficit you're in. So the only way to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit. And there's different styles of calorie deficits that you can be in. So some people will go with a really small, subtle calorie deficit because they just want to do it slower and they don't want to have this super big feeling of being in a diet and like feeling more of that hunger and those sorts of things. Some people will go with a more moderate approach. So like somewhere in the middle where I think a lot of people do well with. This is something where you're definitely going to know that you're dieting and you feel hungry sometimes and you're dealing with some of those things that we deal with when we're dieting.
00:04:24
Speaker
But it's not so extreme to where like you're extremely hungry. All you can think about is food. and you're going to end up going on that deep, and it's not something that you can sustain for a good amount of time. And then you have larger calorie deficits, which some people will do this. They'll use more aggressive approaches. This is something like if you have a lot of weight to lose, sometimes people will use more aggressive calorie deficits, or if you're more of an experienced dieter, like you have done this before,
Muscle Building in Your 30s
00:04:50
Speaker
and you already have a good foundation of habits and skills and things like that, you can be a little bit more aggressive with these things if you know what you're doing. But for a majority of people,
00:04:58
Speaker
Staying in that mid range somewhere typically around like 500 calories or aiming for about a pound of fat loss a week is a pretty good place to be. Another factor that will determine how quickly you lose weight, how much exercise you do on a regular basis, and then also your activity level. So if you have like a highly active job, you walk a lot of steps, you're just generally more active, you're going to typically be burning more calories, if you work out. four or five times a week, you're going to be burning more calories than if you only work out two times per week. And so your exercise and just your activity level in general is going to play a decent role in this as well. And then the last thing is just genetics. So some people lose weight very easily. As I mentioned, like sometimes people will hop on a diet and they'll just change one or two things and they'll just start dropping weight very quickly. For other people, they have to be a lot more regimented. They have to be a lot more detailed. They have to really stick to the plan and their weight loss is still slowing. So there's certain factors with genetics that are going to play a role. People's metabolisms are a little bit different. And so some people will just naturally have slightly higher metabolisms than other people.
00:06:01
Speaker
People's NEAT differs. So non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is just a fancy way to say all the activity that you do that you don't think about throughout the day. So like fidgeting or moving around play a role in how many calories you burn. And there's some different studies out there with people who have high rates of NEAT. Maybe you noticed this like when you were younger, there was just certain people that you around that just never could seem to sit still. Maybe there's adults that you know like that too. like they're always fidgeting they're always moving around they're always like doing something moving their body in different ways some people just naturally have a higher tendency to do this and you wouldn't think it burns that many calories but this can be several hundred calories per day from this neat activity some people just naturally have a lower level of that and some people have higher levels of that and so they just burn more calories And then the last thing is just adaptive thermogenesis, which is just a fancy way to say how quickly your body starts to adapt. As you start to get into a calorie deficit, your body will start to adapt a little bit from a metabolism standpoint. It's not a crazy amount, but it does adapt over time. And some people tend to adapt quicker and others like they can be on a diet for weeks, sometimes months and not really ever have to change their calories or Reduce their amount of food or anything like that. And they just continue to lose weight and other people, they have to adjust more frequently, push their calories down so they can actually continue to see those changes. And so all those things put together, they play a factor in how quickly you are going to lose weight. Back to the original question of, is it realistic to think that you could lose 80 pounds in a year?
00:07:34
Speaker
For the right person, that could happen. But one thing to understand is that whatever kind of timeline you have in your head about weight loss, it almost always takes longer than that. I've had that in my own personal experience. I've had it now with helping dozens of other people who want to lose weight. We all have some sort of timeline that we want to...
00:07:51
Speaker
hit our weight loss goals by maybe it's like summer or
Debunking Starvation Mode
00:07:54
Speaker
three months or six months or a year or whatever but it almost always takes longer than you think for a lot of different reasons and probably the biggest one is just that life happens like there's going to be some weeks where things don't go great there's going to be some times when things come up and you don't focus on your diet or workouts or activity or things like that and so it almost always will take longer than you think it will so Going in with that expectation, I think is important because if you have unrealistic expectations, as soon as things start to go sideways and they're not working out the way that you think, that's where a lot of people quit. So really just embrace that and just be honest with yourself and just understand that think changes will happen, but it's going to take some time.
00:08:32
Speaker
As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to the rate that you lose weight on, about half a pound to somewhere around like two pounds a week is the range for a large majority of people. There are some variants in that. Again, if you have a lot more weight to lose, if you're just starting out on your diet or if you're on the other end where like you don't have a ton of weight to lose or you're just a smaller person, you might be on that lower end. But generally around a pound a week is the golden standard that a lot of people will talk about. That's very realistic for most people and that's very manageable, something that you can do and stick to and continue to see progress. But just because that one pound per week is the goal, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to see the scale drop
00:09:10
Speaker
every single week. You want to see a downward trend
Developing Discipline
00:09:14
Speaker
for your weight. But again, some people have bodies that they don't drop that weight as quickly and it doesn't show up for sometimes couple weeks at a time. And so don't get discouraged if you have weeks where that scale stays kind of flat, or even you're seeing some spikes in the scale and things like that, because all that is normal. But over time, you want to be trending in the right direction. Otherwise, you know that there's something that's going on, whether it's consistency, whether you need to make some tweaks to how many calories you're eating or add in some more activity or cardio or things like that.
00:09:43
Speaker
Those could all be options. With that being said, since you can't control what that scale is going to say, I'm a much bigger fan of controlling the other things that you can control. So control the controllables. You can control your diet. You can control your activity, your steps, your workouts. You can control hitting your protein goal.
00:10:02
Speaker
You can control all those things, but you can't control what that number on the scale is going to say. So put most of your effort on that, and then that scale will take care of itself over time. The other thing that I would really encourage you to do is to find other ways to measure progress. So if the only way that you measure progress is the scale and that scale isn't dropping as quickly as you want, or maybe you have some weeks where it's not really moving at all, you hit a plateau, that can be very discouraging for a lot of people. and using the scale is fine. And I recommend for many people that you do use the scale as part of your way to track progress, but also tracking other things like how your clothes are fitting, using progress pictures so you can see some physical changes using measurements maybe around your waist your arms your legs to see if you are losing inches around your body that's a good sign that you are losing body fat if any of those things are improving that is a good sign and then on top of that you also have non-scale victories so things that are going on that the scale can't tell you whether those be physical or mental like gaining confidence your energy is improving your sleep's improving You're just feeling better. You're getting in better shape. You're not as winded anymore. Your joints are feeling better. Like there's so many things that improve through the process of trying to lose weight, even when that scale isn't dropping as quickly as you want it to. And so it's important to really think about those things and really seek those things out. Because if you get one track minded and just set on the scale, it's a really easy way to get discouraged. And it's a really easy way to fall off because I promise you that scale is not going to move as quickly as you want it to.
00:11:29
Speaker
Question number two. I know that I tend to overeat when I'm stressed out, but I still can't seem to stop myself a lot of the time. Any tips on getting over this? the first part of this is just becoming aware of it which you obviously are and so that is good you're already past that step one because a lot of people will have certain eating habits and not even realize when they are stress eating or they are emotional eating or they're just eating out of boredom and so just becoming conscious of that is important because you want to be making sure that you are actually making these decisions when you realize that you're making these decisions versus just like going through the kitchen or going to the cupboard or going to the fridge and
00:12:07
Speaker
Finding yourself half a bag of Doritos deep and not even realizing what just happened. So becoming aware of it is important. And that's the first step to this whole thing. When it comes to being stressed out, food is the way that you are using to regulate yourself right now. And so finding other ways that you can regulate yourself.
00:12:25
Speaker
and get rid of that stress or just manage that stress is what you wanna do here. And so rather than going to the kitchen, rather than going through some drive through, rather than going and getting some takeout, finding other behaviors that you can use to manage stress is one of the best strategies here. Because if you simply just get stressed and you have that urge to eat something and you're just like trying to white knuckle your way through it, just willpower your way through it, and you don't have any other behavior to replace it with, that's pretty difficult. But if you can find other ways to regulate that stress. So a lot of people use working out as a way to do that. a lot of people run, a lot of people will go on walks.
00:13:00
Speaker
Some people do other things like listen to music or write or journal or Meditate or whatever. it doesn't really matter. Like have a conversation with somebody, anything that you use already to manage stress, you can use that in these situations. And the more that you start to do these things, the better that you get at these things over time. And you don't have that urge to always use food as something to manage your stress.
00:13:24
Speaker
I will say that there are times where like you are just going to eat and like one thing that you can do is just. Get healthier alternatives in your house or when you're stressed, like if you know those things are happening, if you know you're going through a stressful period, try to get better options around versus things that are super easy to overeat because when we get stressed.
00:13:43
Speaker
We're not typically reaching for an entire bag of carrots and just ripping through those or going through and getting four or five apples or bananas. Like we're typically going for the super highly processed things, the salty things, the sweet things, the sugary things, the things that are very easy to overeat so we can get that.
00:13:58
Speaker
cheap shot of dopamine and start feeling better and get rid of that stress and take our mind off things so if you can just limit some of those things and maybe not keep those things around as much and focus on some healthier options it doesn't end up being as big of an issue because you're not going to eat 2 000 calories worth of like super high quality food just because you're stressed you're typically going to do that only when the snacks are highly processed things or things that are just very easy to eat the sugary salty fatty type of foods and so get some better options around and then you don't have to worry about that as much or feel like you're using your willpower to turn those things down all the time and the last thing that i would say about this as well is it's a process figuring these things out and replacing old eating habits that don't serve you anymore like habits that you're really trying to get rid of it takes time because a lot of times these are things that we have been doing for years and sometimes decades like if stress eating is something that you picked up when you got into this certain job and you've been in that job for 10 years now, and that's just something that you've been doing, it's going to take some time to figure that out and start to break this old habit and replace it with something new. And so don't be super stressed out when you try to fix this and it doesn't just happen overnight or it happen in a week or even in a couple weeks. I feel like for myself, going through this whole journey of figuring out food and all these different types of things, like
00:15:21
Speaker
It took me years to get to a point now where like I don't necessarily struggle with a lot of these certain things of just overeating or stress eating or emotional eating or boredom eating like those things don't really affect me anymore. Like I still have my days where I overeat, but it's so much more of a conscious choice now. versus back then it was just like something that I was doing unknowingly and it just seemed like the food had control over me and I didn't really have any power or control over it but the more that you do it the better you get at it and then eventually you get to a point where it doesn't feel so stressful and it doesn't feel like it's such a hard thing to do so
00:15:56
Speaker
Don't be discouraged. with like you have a day where you are stressed and you go through the drive-thru you eat too much food or whatever. It's like those things are going to happen. It's not like you're going back to square one. You're just continuing to hop back on track. And then the next time that the situation happens, you just do better next time.
00:16:10
Speaker
Question number three. I used to be in really good shape when I was younger, but I've let myself slip over the years. And now I'm in my 30s and know I need to get back into shape before it becomes a bigger problem.
00:16:22
Speaker
I'm wondering what's the fastest way you build muscle in your thirty s This is a common story for a lot of people, especially people who were active or played sports or like involved in things when they were younger, like their teens and their twenty s Once they get into their 30s and they're not doing those things anymore, they're eating a little bit more, like people just get out of shape. like If you don't use it, you lose it. And so if you're not working out, if you're not being active, if you're not eating a decent diet, all those things are going to disappear. and So it's important to start to build those habits or bring those habits
Integrating Discipline into Identity
00:16:52
Speaker
back as you start to age. If you do want to age better and you don't want to have these health issues and feel like crap all the time and gain weight and different things like that, it's much easier to start doing these things
00:17:03
Speaker
the earlier that you can do it. And so even in your 30s, like you have plenty of life to live. If you can get these solid habits down in your 30s, like you still are going to be in really good shape and be in a spot where like you can live a very long and high quality of life if you implement some good strategies and some good habits now in your 30s. Glad that you are addressing this now. Getting into what you should do. So the biggest thing that you can do to build muscle is going to be strength training.
00:17:30
Speaker
Obviously, high protein diet, that's important. Sleep, recovery, those things are also going to play a role. But the biggest thing that you can do to build muscle is strength training. The actual strength training itself is the same. So like you're going to build muscle by giving your body a reason to adapt. So you give it a stimulus, you train hard, you train consistently and your body will build muscle. you can do that when you're younger. It can do that in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, all the way up into your old age. like You can continue to build muscle by doing strength training. So that is all the same, but how you train is probably going to look slightly different than when you were in your 20s. So in your 20s, lot of people, they just feel really good. They can do a lot. They can do hard, crazy, intense workouts all the time. They can sleep three, four hours a night. They can kind of eat whatever they want and they can get away with a lot of those things.
00:18:17
Speaker
As you start to get older, you can't do those things as much. like You need to be a little bit more regimented with your diet. You need to be smarter about your training program. You need to be making sure that you're sleeping. And so when it comes to actually strength training, that might look slightly different as a 30 year old than when you were 22. And so make sure that you're not just training hard. You want to be training smart as well. And so that might look like picking better exercises for your body, not fighting through those painful exercises. Like if you have some sort of naggy injury going on, adjusting your plan a little bit, maybe utilizing more machines rather than doing a bunch of free weight stuff to sort of get your body back into a good place. Because you can build a lot of muscle doing lots of different things. You don't have to just necessarily do certain exercises. Like if those things don't feel good on your body anymore, pick different exercises. Use good form. Don't be doing a bunch of stupid stuff. Like when you're young, you can go in and try to max out every other workout and you'd be just fine. When you start to do those things in your thirties and forties, as you get older, like the risk for injury goes way up and you don't bounce back from those things. So just not doing stupid stuff in general, making sure that you're actually following a good structured plan.
00:19:26
Speaker
So again, your body can start to adapt over time and you start to get used to those things. If you're just doing random stuff all the time, it's a random workout. Every time you go in the gym, you're always going to be sore and you're never going feel like you're actually making good progress.
00:19:38
Speaker
Following a good plan is a super big thing and it's super simple thing that you can do. There's lots of good plans out there, but it's something that can make a really big difference. Train smarter, lift weights. That's obviously high on the priority list. As I mentioned, high protein diet. You want to make sure that you're giving your body to the fuel and the building blocks to actually grow that muscle. so Eating plenty of protein in your diet is key for that.
00:20:00
Speaker
And then sleep and recovery, just making sure that you're sleeping so that you can build muscle. If you're sleeping five hours a night, that's not going to be very helpful for building muscle. And so utilizing sleep, because it is one of the most important things and one of the best supplements that you have is to just get
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:20:17
Speaker
good sleep. It's going to help with building muscle, building strength, recovering, staying injury free, all that different stuff.
00:20:24
Speaker
Question number four. I know it takes a lot of time, but I've been lifting pretty consistently for a while. And I'm wondering how long does it take to build a noticeable amount of muscle? So this is a good follow-up question to the question that we just had.
00:20:37
Speaker
The first thing that I would say is even small amounts of muscle can make a very noticeable difference on your body if you are lean enough. And so if you have lower levels of body fat, even adding a couple pounds of muscle can make a big difference. And I say that because I think a lot of people think that they need to see really big jumps on the scale in order to build a significant amount of muscle. When in reality, that's not the case. Like professional bodybuilders, and obviously they're using enhancements and things like that. But like when they get into competing, they may only add a couple pounds of muscle per year. So like from year to year, when they're trying to improve their physique and become a better bodybuilder and add muscle to different areas, they might only add two or three pounds of muscle in an entire year. And when you see their side-by-side pictures from year to year, you can see noticeable difference in their physiques because they have added muscle. And when you're lean enough, that muscle makes a big impact.
00:21:34
Speaker
Don't think just because that scale isn't going up or like you don't feel like you're gaining tons of muscle. It doesn't take a lot to make a good noticeable difference if you are lean enough. I just want to reiterate that because sometimes people think, I need to gain 15, 20, 30 pounds of muscle. like You're not going to gain that much because it doesn't work like that.
00:21:52
Speaker
In your first year, you can expect to gain if you're really training hard and you're eating right and you're doing everything right and you're sleeping, all that different stuff. on average somewhere between like 10 to 20 pounds of muscle is something that you can expect to gain which is around a pound to two pounds per month and that is the most that you will ever grow is that first year of like real solid training and you'll see a lot of times people will have crazy physique changes when they first get into strength training because you have some of those newbie gains and your body responds so well and that is the most muscle that you will put on is in that very first year After that, and every year after that, it starts to split in half. And so in that second year, maybe two years, you might only gain five to 10 pounds of muscle in a year. And I shouldn't say only because five to 10 pounds of muscle is a lot of muscle, but it goes down significantly as you start to train more. And then maybe in that third year, instead of five to 10 pounds, now it might look like you're only gaining two to five pounds per year. And then as you continue to go for year five, year six, you may only be gaining like two, three, pounds of muscle per year. And then when you really get advanced, you might only be gaining a pound or two of muscle per year. And that's with really hard training. That's with protein. That's with sleep. That's with all that stuff. So as you start to get closer to your genetic potential and like maxing out how much muscle you can actually put on that rate starts to slow down quite a bit, but within your first two years, you can make a huge difference in your training with adding a good amount of muscle and
00:23:24
Speaker
As you're starting to get leaner, that muscle will make a big difference in your physique and be much more noticeable. Those are sort of the standards for men. When it comes to women, it's lower in terms of numbers. But when you're comparing men to women, the rate at which they can gain muscle is actually the same as men. They just don't gain overall as much muscle. And typically that's because women are smaller in general. And they're also starting with less muscle mass than men have because women have more body fat because of genetics and childbearing purposes and all that stuff. But as far as like the rate at which they can gain muscle, that is very similar to men. They're just not going to have the overall numbers, the overall mass that men are gaining. Women are typically not going to be gaining that much muscle.
00:24:12
Speaker
And so back to the question of how long it takes to build muscle. In the first couple of years, you can expect the most gains, and that could be anywhere from 10 to 20-ish pounds. And then after that, it drops off quite a bit, and the rate at which you're gaining muscle is a lot less. but you can make some pretty good changes and see a lot of good physique improvements by building that muscle and continuing to focus on progressive overload and the high protein diet, as well as stripping some of that body fat off and becoming a little bit leaner over time.
00:24:44
Speaker
Next question, is there any truth to eating too little causing you to gain fat? We'll keep this one pretty short, but the answer is no. Starvation mode is not a real thing. What is happening when people say this is sometimes people will go into really extreme diets by going into a really extreme diet it's going to start to mess with their hormones it's going to start to mess with their hunger cues it's going to mess with satiety and all those different things and so their body starts to adapt down lower and lower and so they're eating very little calories And then they also start to lose less weight over time as well. But then typically what happens is people will get to a point where they just can't sustain that any longer and they have a big rebound effect. So they can no longer stick to that super low diet and then they just go the opposite way. So they eat way more than they think. They're just hungry all the time. They're ravenous. They're eating way more calories and they see that weight jump back up. And this is typically a big cycle of like crash dieting that you'll see with a lot of people where they restrict, restrict, restrict too much. And then they'll go the exact opposite way where they're overeating all the time and they feel like they can't control themselves and they rebound, sometimes even gaining more weight than where they started. And it's just not a really good cycle to be in.
00:25:57
Speaker
starvation mode is not a real thing if you were actually keeping your calories that low all the time you would continue to lose weight or at least not gain weight at all and you can look at people in countries where they don't have food and like starvation is actually a real thing like those people aren't obese those people are very malnourished and you can tell that they are not eating because they don't have the calories there was also a really popular study done a while back and this study won't ever be able to be replicated because of the ethics behind it. just aren't like That wouldn't happen in today's world. But at the time, it was around when one of the world wars were going on and some of these guys were refusing to go to war. And so rather than do that, they asked these dudes if they would participate in this scientific study.
00:26:40
Speaker
And they told them it was not going to be fun and not going to be pleasant, but they would rather do this than go to war. And so they got this group of guys and and it's known as the minnesota starvation study basically they controlled what these guys were doing they put them on very low calories and they made them work a ton like do a bunch of physical activity because they wanted to see what was going to happen with these guys and like what results they would have so that they could use these results for some scientific findings and things like that in the future they wanted to like see how their metabolisms would react and all that different stuff but these guys on super low calories they continue to lose weight and they stayed at a very low weight until Way later in the study, like months later, they started giving these guys more food in which they rebounded. They were just eating like crazy. And some of them had like some eating disorders going on and different things like that. But as far as like starvation mode or gaining weight or anything like that, like these guys are on very little calories. They lost a ton of weight and they stayed at those low weights until they reintroduced these guys to more food. and Your body is not going to just magically start gaining weight or going to starvation mode or anything like that.
00:27:42
Speaker
The takeaway message with this is that you don't want to do anything that's too extreme because your body is going to fight back very hard from that. And then you're going to start to eat more. It's not that your body is just magically making you gain weight on very little calories. It's that you're not going to be able to sustain that for very long. And then when you do break, you're going to eat way more than you want to, causing that rebound, causing that fat gain. And it's just not a good cycle to be in.
00:28:06
Speaker
Last question of this pod. I understand how important discipline is, but I struggle to stay consistent and I really want to change that going into the new year. How have you learned to build discipline over the years?
00:28:18
Speaker
The first thing I would say about discipline is just realizing that discipline is a muscle just like anything else. It's just a skill that you develop over time. I don't think people are necessarily born with like crazy discipline. It's just something that you get better at over time.
00:28:32
Speaker
It's important, I think, to really understand why you are wanting to develop this discipline or like whatever goal that you have, like getting really clear on what the reason is for wanting to do this certain thing. Because if you're trying to do a bunch of things that don't really matter to you, it's very hard to stick to those things. But if you have a goal that's like very meaningful to you, it's going to be easier to stick to those things and build that discipline over time. So that's the first question that I would ask when it comes to like, why do you wanna be disciplined or what things are you wanting this discipline to help you with?
00:29:01
Speaker
Getting very clear about why those things are important to you. The second thing I would say is just to start smaller. Most people will take on too much too soon, thinking that they can do a lot more than they actually realistically can do consistently. And that leads to them not being able to do the things that they said they were going to do and falling off.
00:29:20
Speaker
So don't let your ego hold you back because you think because you're motivated for the first two days of the year that you need to work out seven days a week and you need to do this crazy extreme diet and you need to do all these different things because you're not going to do those things consistently for a long enough period of time because you haven't built those skills in.
00:29:38
Speaker
Start smaller than you think. That may look like starting with walking 5,000 steps a day. That may start with just getting protein at every single meal. Don't take on a million different things and don't take on something that's like crazy high level that you have no business taking on right now if you haven't proven that you can do those things.
00:29:56
Speaker
For a very small portion of people, like they may set that super huge goal and just go zero to 100 and be successful with that. But that's just not the majority. You see that in New Year's resolutions. You see that with weight loss. You see that with exercise routines. You see that with people trying to start businesses. You see that in so many different areas. And people still think it's the answer that they're going to be the anomaly to this.
00:30:18
Speaker
And it's just not the case for most people. I think the much smarter route is to start small and to build on that over time, get that 1% better that I always talk about, because that's where you can really build momentum. And that's where you really start to build that actual discipline. Like you're doing these small things that you said you were going to do because they're manageable and because they're important to you. And as you start to do those things more consistently, not only are you building habits and you're seeing progress, but now you are becoming that disciplined person.
00:30:44
Speaker
With discipline, I would also say make it easier to be disciplined. And if you look at people who are like pretty fit or people who are successful in business or people who are just really good at something, they have made that category that they're very disciplined in, they've made it easier.
00:30:59
Speaker
When you think about fitness, like following a good plan or following a good diet, that is going to make being disciplined and being consistent much easier. if you follow a very complicated diet, or your training program is super complex, the likelihood that you follow that is not super high.
00:31:14
Speaker
If you have something that is a good plan for you, it's much easier to stick with that for the long term. And so make it easier on yourself to be disciplined. Another thing I would say is like make your environment more conducive to being disciplined. So if you're trying to lose weight, having tons of highly processed foods and super easy to overeat things or going out to eat multiple times per day to get your meals, like that's not very helpful towards your goals. And so spend time and create an environment that makes it easier to be disciplined.
00:31:43
Speaker
Third thing, just get around good people. Get around people who have already done the things that you want to do or they are currently chasing goals similar to yours. if You get around people who already are disciplined, you're going to naturally start to do more of those things. And it's not going to feel so hard and feel so weird and and feel so just like far off when you see other people doing the things that you want to do. and seeing people who have maybe weren't always the way that they are right now, or maybe they're once in your shoes and now they're super disciplined, like getting around those people is very helpful. So getting around the right people can help a lot. And then the last thing I would say about just making discipline easier from that standpoint is just to get some form of good accountability, whether that be training partner, whether that be a coach, a trainer, like a group, whatever, like find somebody who can help to keep you accountable because that is also helpful when things are tough and you don't necessarily want to be disciplined.
00:32:37
Speaker
It's harder to give up on things. It's harder to not show up. It's harder to not do the things that you're supposed to be doing when there's other people involved and people know these things that you want to do and you're not doing them. It's harder to follow through on those things and and not do all those things that you want to do when other people know about it. And so get some other people involved to help hold you accountable.
00:32:58
Speaker
And then finally, when it comes to discipline, think about making discipline part of your identity. And what I mean by this is like, if you talk to people who exercise consistently and you ask them like, how do they stay so consistent? How do they stay motivated? What are they doing or not feeling it? Like, how do they get so disciplined? All these different things. it's like working out isn't something that they do. It's just part of who they are. And so when they don't work out, they feel like a piece of them is missing or they feel like something is really off or they feel like extremely guilty or they feel let down because working out is just part of their identity. It's not something that they do. It's it's who they are just fundamentally like it's part of who they are. And so the more that you can start to ingrain some of these things that you want to be disciplined about into your identity, the easier that it becomes because As humans, we don't like to do things that don't align with how we see ourselves.
00:33:50
Speaker
If I'm a person who really values working out and eating healthy and doing all these things to prioritize my health, if I'm not doing those things, that feels very uncomfortable to me and I don't want to do those things. But when you can get to a place where all those things are just part of who you are and that obviously doesn't happen overnight, but the more that you can do these little things and really start to attach that to just who you are and your identity,
00:34:13
Speaker
staying disciplined is just who you are. It's like, it's just what you do. It's just something that you wake up and like, you don't always feel like working out. You don't always feel like eating the quality meal or the healthy diet or anything like that. But it's just what you do most of the time, because it's just ingrained in you so deeply.
00:34:27
Speaker
There will be times where you slip up, where things don't go as planned, where maybe you aren't as disciplined. And that's a process too, but you're always just one decision away from being right back on track. One meal from being right back on track, one workout from being right back on track. You don't need to dwell on it and make it a bigger thing than it needs to be because the sooner that you can get back on track and just building on those things the more that you can continue to build that discipline when you think about health in general you're making hundreds of decisions every single day so every single one of those decisions where you're making positively towards being a healthier person that's another chance to just add on to that and just to continue to get your reps and continue to just prove to yourself that this is important to you and this is who you want to be and so
00:35:10
Speaker
Hopefully, there was some nuggets in here that you were able to gather. That is all the questions for this podcast. If you have some questions in the future, you can always shoot me a message so I can address these on the pod.
00:35:22
Speaker
Otherwise, I appreciate you listening. The one-on-one coaching link is in the show notes if that is something that you do want some help with and you are looking to build some of these habits and just figure out this whole health and fitness stuff and you want somebody who's been in your shoes.
00:35:37
Speaker
That is what I do with coaching. You can check out that link, but I appreciate you listening and we will see you next week.