Cultivating Values & Creating New Identities with Coach Steven | DFIO Ep.249
About Today’s Episode:
Today’s episode is a super cool one. I am interviewing one of our newest Assistant Coaches, Steven Thibert.
Steven has some amazing life experience—prior to coming on board with us, Steven was an independent coach and he has gone through his own incredible weight loss transformation.
Steven has lost over 100 lbs—on his own—and is now helping people in our community achieve their weight loss goals.
Steven is a perfect culture fit with us and has become an integral part of the team. I wanted to get him to talk about some of his perspectives, especially having been able to lose a significant amount of weight on his own, and I think there is a lot of valuable insight there.
I’m really excited for you all to hear this conversation, so let’s get into it!
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introductions
02:32 Sponsors
05:34 About Steven
15:40 Identity & Values
25:39 How to Enjoy The Weight Loss Journey
35:59 Places Where Weight Loss Goes Wrong
43:33 20 lb vs 120 lb Weight Loss & the Dangers of Rigid Timelines
52:46 Closing Thoughts
59:51 Jared’s outro and how to apply for coaching
Transcript (click to expand)
Ep. 249 Coach Steven
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Cultivating Values & Creating New Identities with Coach Steven | DFIO Ep.249
0:00:00.2 Steven Thibert: When I look at the research, it's staggering, right? I mean, I lost from my heaviest, like 150 pounds. I've been able to lose all that weight and keep it off for over 17 years now. That's because I've cultivated the values. What does the person that gets that result, what do they do every day? What actions do they take? And then you commit to being that person even before you've achieved the result. The mindset has to shift into that identity before you're gonna achieve that result.
0:00:27.0 Jared Hamilton: What's going on guys? Welcome back to a brand new episode of Dieting From The Inside Out. Man, do I have a cool episode for you, like right now. So it's super cool. I actually just finished an amazing interview with, his name is Steven Thibert. So Steven is actually one of our newest assistant coaches on my coaching staff. Steven is an integral part of my team. He's doing an amazing job with our clients and he's just crushing it along with the rest of my coaching staff. But a lot of you guys aren't as familiar with Steven. Like I know on the podcast we've had, like Grant has been on a bunch, Abby's been on a bunch. And over time I'm wanting to get my entire coaching staff on so you guys can really get to know them more and see a little bit more into their lives and kind of their brains and all of this. I just think it's a little bit more valuable because a lot of you guys go from the podcast and end up applying for coaching, but I think it's really helpful that you get a little bit of a feel for each of my coaching staff members.
0:01:23.9 Jared Hamilton: That way you get a really good feel for what's going on. Now today I interviewed Steven. Steven has some really, really cool life experience with his stuff because prior to coming on board with us, Steven has been coaching for like a decade on his own. But then also he has gone through the most insane weight loss transformation of his own. Steven has lost over 100 pounds on his own and then now is helping other people do that but within our coaching community, which is amazing. I knew from the very first time I interviewed Steven that I was gonna be hiring him and he was gonna be coming on board. He's an absolute culture fit. He's an amazing dude. He's a great father. He's got a little man at home and is just an integral part of the team now. But I wanted to get him on in to talk about some of his perspectives because like being honest with you, I have not lost that much weight personally, right? Not as many people have lost, been able to lose 120 pounds plus going through the trenches on their own. So I think there's a lot of valuable insight where Steven has going from being in the trenches of having done that himself to now on the other side, helping coach people through that too.
0:02:29.9 Jared Hamilton: So that's what we're gonna get into on today's episode. Now, before we get into all the goods of the episode, huge thank you to the sponsors of the show. Sponsor number one is FlexPro Meals. Right along the lines of weight loss, it makes things quite a bit easier when you don't have to cook all the time. For me, I use FlexPro as like a little substitute when I don't have time either to cook, we don't have meals made, we're between grocery trips or I'm just running around like a chicken with its head cut off because that's how just life is sometimes and we don't always have time to make food in that moment. So for me, having FlexPro in the fridge, on deck, ready to go where I love the meals, they taste amazing, they're high protein, they're dialed in from the calorie perspective, they were made by a chef and they come to my door every month. It's just a no brainer to be honest with you. So if that's kind of something that you think would be beneficial to you, I definitely wanna save you some money because they're already gonna save you money from going through drive-throughs and gas stations and whatnot, but I wanna save you an additional amount.
0:03:22.5 Jared Hamilton: So if you use my code, HamiltonTrained, at their website, flexpromeals.com, it's in the description as well, you'll save an additional 20% at checkout, which is pretty cool. Then we have our second sponsor of the show, we have 1st Phorm. As always, I'm wearing one of their shirts because they're some of the most comfy clothes that I have. 1st Phorm is amazing, but you guys know that, I talk about a lot that supplements are not everything. They are there to supplement and substitute holes in your nutrition that you are not getting with food. Because of course, if you're getting enough fruits and vegetables every day, you're good. If you're getting enough protein from actual food, you're good. If you're eating enough things like fish or other fatty foods that are gonna give you like your omegas, you're good. But if you're having trouble with those areas, this is where we do want to use supplements so you don't fall short with vitamins and mineral deficiencies or your protein or your inflammatory stuff, anything like that. So that is why I partnered with 1st Phorm because I wanna make sure your guys' money is going to the right places where you're getting something of value that is actual high quality and gonna help you and that you're not wasting your money on stuff that isn't gonna help you, that's either made in someone's basement or isn't the accuracy on the label and is not made the right way and things like that.
0:04:33.5 Jared Hamilton: I just wanna make sure you're getting the best possible products you can. So that's why I work with 1st Phorm. That link is down below in the description. Definitely hit that and go see what they have to offer and see if there's something that you want to upgrade or start taking. If you have questions, I have my supplement video down there as well. If you're not sure where to get started with supplements, or just shoot me a message and I'll point you in the right direction. But otherwise, let's get into this episode with Steven. I know you're gonna get a lot of value out of it 'cause at the end of the day, a lot of people really don't quite understand... Like they approach it the wrong way going from 20 pound weight loss to 120 pound weight loss or their mindset is different or they go about it the wrong way. And I think you're gonna get a lot of value from hearing Steven talk about his journey. But then now how we coach people that have that kind of weight to lose, I know you're gonna get a lot of value out of it.
0:05:20.2 Jared Hamilton: Be sure and subscribe to whatever you're listening to this on and leave us a review. And if you're into watching your interviews and would rather actually see Steven and I go back and forth, the interview is as well on YouTube. But otherwise, I appreciate you being here. I will talk to you in just a second. Well, dude, I know this is the first time you coming on the podcast. So for those listening, like I mentioned in the intro, Steven is one of our newest assistant coaches and it's been fucking amazing. And which is why I wanted to get him on here to talk about kind of his perspectives on stuff. Because I guess the thing dude, is you have a different perspective as a whole. Everyone has a different perspective, but especially with your story around like losing over 100 pounds, now all the way from that to a coach, to helping people with this stuff, your perspective and journey is a lot different than most people 'cause you've seen it firsthand being in it, but now you're out of it helping people who are in it. So before we get into some of the tactics and strategy and all of that, just talk a little bit about your story so that way everyone has a little bit more context 'cause you can tell your story better than anybody. So talk a little bit about kind of your journey with your weight loss and everything like that.
0:06:27.1 Steven Thibert: So yeah, I guess it starts when I was 16. So I was always kind of like the "fat kid" growing up, right? I started to put on weight when I was really young. I think of that was a lot of just parents not understanding nutrition well, a lot of fast food, a lot of processed shit around the house. And I think for me, this is why it connects so much with what we do in Hamilton Trained is like, for me, I was very emotionally shut down growing up. I don't know where that switch got toggled off, but I was very emotionally shut down. And looking back now, I was very numb, but I look back now and like realize that food was like comfort for me and that developed a lot of emotional eating behaviors and things like that. So anyways, by the time I was 16, I was 320 pounds. I didn't really have much zest for life. I was the kid, like I always say, like I pray my child doesn't end up like me with my parents because man, I like challenged the fuck out of my parents. Me and my mom would battle like every morning. Like I was the kid that missed like 60 days of school every year, just because I hated school.
0:07:34.3 Steven Thibert: Like I was very, I was always like intelligent, but then they tried to put me in like advanced classes and I would like purposely fail the tests because I didn't want to be like...
0:07:42.8 Jared Hamilton: No...
0:07:43.2 Steven Thibert: Yeah, I didn't want to be like different. I just wanted to be "normal" or whatever. So, I'm 16, I hate school. I don't like going to school. I'm playing video games all the time. I started smoking weed with friends, so on and so forth. And just again, no zest for life, right? No real want or desire to really, I didn't know how to be happy. And I didn't really know all the greatness that life entailed. So my mom, funny story, my mom caught me smoking weed when I was 16.
[chuckle]
0:08:12.7 Steven Thibert: And yeah, she found roaches in a coffee mug that me and some friends got super high on Halloween.
0:08:17.7 Jared Hamilton: That's hilarious.
0:08:18.5 Steven Thibert: And then the next morning she dug in my car and found it, and said, "What the fuck is this?" And so that turned into this whole... So my mom's brother was a quadriplegic and he died of basically an opiate overdose because he was... I mean, the dude could only move his neck, right? So he was on all kinds of painkillers and shit like that from a work accident. And so my mom freaked the fuck out and was like, oh my God, my kid's doing drugs, you know, smoking some weed. And so my mom sent me... Her and her therapist at the time sent me to rehab in Montana, like legitimate rehab.
0:08:55.9 Jared Hamilton: For weed?
0:08:57.5 Steven Thibert: Yes. And we're talking like, it was like the number one rehab facility in the country. So like, I swear, I always say, if I didn't have a solid foundation, I would have came out of that place a fucking drug addict because there's a dude from New York telling me he would like snort cocaine off a dashboard. There's one guy that said, you know, hands down crack is the best high. There's one guy that said that his brain was fried from Coricidin, which is like, you know, cough pills, you know what I mean?
0:09:26.5 Jared Hamilton: Oh, really?
0:09:29.0 Steven Thibert: Yeah. And I'd never seen it in my life, but he had like delayed responses. Like you'd say his name and it would take him like 30 seconds to respond type shit. So it was nuts. So after six days, I got...
[laughter]
0:09:37.6 Steven Thibert: It was nuts, bro. And I won't dive too deep into that, but it was insane. So I'm like, "I don't belong here." So I became the first person in like their 20 years to get discharged after six days, so these guys wake me up in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night and I think I'm going home. I'm like, "Fuck yeah, these guys are gonna transport me home or whatever." We ended up driving like 10 hours to Idaho and they dropped me off in the middle of the fucking desert. And I'm like, "What?" Like first they take me to the hospital for a physical. Then they dropped me off in the middle of the desert. And they won't tell me where I'm going, right? That's like their whole job. They're like this logistics company that my mom had to hire. So lo and behold, my mom and her therapist decided, even though I wasn't this drug addict or didn't need the help with this, I still had a lot of issues in terms of like just non-compliance, just very rebellious, right?
0:10:25.0 Steven Thibert: And so turns out I got enrolled in this program called SUWS in Idaho, which is basically, we lived outside. You learn how to live outside. By the end I was making fires with a bow drill type shit, right?
0:10:40.3 Jared Hamilton: Wow.
0:10:40.4 Steven Thibert: We had to pack a 40 pound pack. You have to learn how to roll this pack. And then you sleep on the ground every single night, like under the stars type shit, right? You're literally sleeping on the ground with a makeshift sleeping bag, dude. It was nuts, right? And so through that, we had to hike like three or four miles every single day. We're talking the fall, winter in the Idaho desert, which I didn't even know Idaho had a desert. So through that, I actually lost, and we're talking like no showers for like 40 days.
0:11:08.7 Jared Hamilton: Dear God.
0:11:09.7 Steven Thibert: It was like rugged, like crazy shit. They had to shut it down and reopen it under a different name because kids actually died. Like people actually died...
0:11:19.1 Jared Hamilton: Wow.
0:11:19.4 Steven Thibert: Because of negligence of their instructors or whatever. Anyways...
0:11:23.5 Jared Hamilton: That's crazy.
0:11:25.3 Steven Thibert: It's nuts. That's a crazy story too. But that's kind of like the cliff notes version of that. But how this ties to weight loss is I lost like 40 pounds just hiking every day and on this very controlled diet, right? Where it's like, you know, breakfast was like oats with, you'd have to make oats. So you get this can of peaches and then you put your oats in there, your rations and water, and then you cook it on a fucking fire every morning and they make you choke them down. Like I threw them up multiple times cause it's disgusting, right? The oats that they give you. For a long time, I had like this aversion to oatmeal. Now I love it, but I like couldn't eat it for years. And so then lunch, they give you like pita bread with peanut butter and apricots so you don't get constipated. And then at night you make like rice and lentils, right? So I'm on this probably really calorie restricted diet, drinking a ton of water, but I lost 40 pounds in like 40 days, which is...
0:12:18.4 Jared Hamilton: I fucking bet.
0:12:20.0 Steven Thibert: Yeah, which is insane weight loss, right? And when you have a lot to lose, sometimes it can come off quicker, right? And this was very controlled, mind you, right? It's not like I had access to snacks and shit like that, right? So anyways, come home, had lost 40 pounds. And my agreement with my parents, I was going to therapy at the time, is like, you have to stay active if you're gonna live in this house. And so I started going to the gym and I just started walking on a treadmill. And like, in terms of nutrition, I had no guidance, no coach, but like, I basically, I cut it. So I made a few changes that I always say like can really have a huge effect. So like, I cut out all fast food, which I was like a fast food junkie. So like, to this day, I think I've eaten Chick-fil-A like once in my life.
0:13:06.0 Jared Hamilton: That's the Lord's chicken, bro. [laughter]
0:13:07.0 Steven Thibert: Here's the thing, I'm not against it, I just don't really like fast food. So like, I've hardly eaten it the last, you know, 17 years. But so I cut out all fast food 'cause that was like a big trigger for me, right? I used to just always be like a drive-through junkie. And then I cut out all sugary sodas and then candy. And those are like the three things that for me just made sense. Cause I, again, I didn't know anything about nutrition. So it's like, oh, these things are bad. Stay away from them type mentality, right?
0:13:34.1 Jared Hamilton: Diet culture stuff.
0:13:35.5 Steven Thibert: Exactly. And then just walking on a treadmill every day for like, shit, like a year, I had lost 100 pounds, right? And that was really like what catapulted the weight loss. And so then I started to train with a personal trainer at the gym. I would do like a free monthly session or whatever, just getting into weights, like loving strength training, really finding that I like enjoy this, you know, how do I build muscle type thing, right? I've lost a bunch of weight and I got in a really bad car accident, right? I got T-boned in a Mustang that I had. And I didn't realize it like twisted my neck like this. So like when I went to do squats one day, I got these crazy like pressure headaches, right? And at that time, not knowing what I knew about strength training, you know, I was afraid I was going to hurt myself. So I actually fell away from the gym for like over five years and no exercise at all and was able to like maintain the weight loss, right? So it was really just a principle of like, just change.
0:14:36.7 Steven Thibert: So a lot of what that is about, if we want to like dive deeper into that, I think it was really just about like, once I made that commitment that I wanted to lose the weight, like once I got back home, I was like, oh, I'm starting to get attention, I'm feeling better, I'm feeling lighter, I'm not going to be doomed to be, you know, fat or obese all my life, I wanted to continue to pursue it. And at that point, once I had already lost that weight, I was determined. So it was kind of like that momentum just rolling, right? But we also talk about, there were identity shifts that I didn't even realize I was making at the time, which was like committing to exercising X amount of times per week, committing to keeping promises to myself in terms of not engaging in these things that were triggers for me at the time, right? So...
0:15:20.9 Jared Hamilton: No, it's huge, dude. I love that. So let me ask you this, knowing what you know now, looking at old Steven, who had the weight to lose, and let's say you weren't out in the wilderness eating gross ass peachy fucking oatmeal and sleeping on the ground and biking every day, how would you go about it now? If knowing what you know now, if all of a sudden this Steven's head woke up on old Steven's body, how would you go about it now to lose the weight, to get back to where you are here?
0:15:49.8 Steven Thibert: Yeah. So I think the foundations really would be, because I'm such a big believer in it, I would be logging my food, I would definitely be logging my food every day. I would be making sure I was hitting a protein target because we know how much that helps. And then really I would just start moving my body, man, moving my body. Those are like the two things in terms of like very strategic quantifiable things. And then obviously I would really just be focused on the mind game, right? 'Cause if you say, okay, if I'm this person and I woke up in that body, I would still have...
0:16:21.7 Jared Hamilton: Mentally you're the same person, or the different person still.
0:16:24.7 Steven Thibert: I would still have this identity, but a lot of it is I would have to battle like those mental hurdles of like, you know, 'cause we all get frustrated if we gain weight or the scale is not coming down. We focus so much on that. Even when we've been coaching, it can still creep back up into our minds. So it's like keeping your mind right and playing the long game, I would say, would be a big part of that too.
0:16:44.0 Jared Hamilton: Yeah. No, that's huge. On the subject of identity, that's a huge one. We talk about that a lot. We just finished the Jared's 12 days of Christmas where we talked all about identity. So for someone who is in that situation, like right now, let's say they're listening and they're 100 pounds overweight, 'cause you said a couple of things that really made my ears perk up under these headphones, when you said, "I know I'm not destined to be this, I can change and this is who I wanna be," when you were talking about that, those were unconscious identity shifts, you saw this potential and you were like, I could be that. And then ironically, your actions aligned with that. So for someone listening, where does someone who has that much weight to lose, start with shifting their identity? Because we see people who have just 20 pounds alone have trouble shifting their identity, let alone someone who has 120 pounds to lose. So where would you start with how to get someone to shift their identity when they have literally the past, let's say, 20 years of their life lived overweight and they have that much weight to lose and they're feeling... 'cause most people I know who have that much weight to lose, they have this almost hopeless feeling, like that going through, they're like, man, I don't have just 20 to lose, I have 120 to lose. So like, I could lose the 20, but it's like, why even bother when I have another 100 to lose? So where would you start with that?
0:18:00.9 Steven Thibert: Yeah, and that's... I love that you said the hopeless piece, right, is huge, 'cause what comes to my mind is like, and this is where kind of like I guess my path with clients that have that much weight to lose, what I really focus on now, is like a lot of, you know, I would say, I know when I was overweight and I run into, when I... And with someone who has a lot of weight to lose, one thing that comes up is like, not a very strong like sense of self, not a very strong sense of like self-love, self-compassion. And I think ultimately, like that's where lack of belief comes from, that hopelessness, that I can't do it mentality, really comes from not having a strong foundation of self-love and self-compassion. And so I think that is really the foundation. Like if I notice a client is struggling with that, we just, we put, you know, everything else, we're still doing as best as we can, but we really want to dial in on creating that self-love and self-compassion. One thing that you and I were having a conversation the other day, I think you said that Nick Ross said is like, you could go to bed tonight and then wake up a different person tomorrow.
0:18:57.5 Jared Hamilton: Mentally, yeah.
0:18:57.8 Steven Thibert: Yeah, and so I think it's like that, that exercising that willpower of like, I want to change, I'm going to change, and I believe it, even if in the back of my mind is gonna creep up and tell me I can't do it, I'm gonna shut that down. And I'm gonna tell myself I can do it. It's like that conversation you and I had the other day, even when I was a very negative, pessimistic person, which is another part of my journey, when I wanted to change my identity, I said, you know, I'm gonna replace every negative thought with a positive thought, even if I don't believe it at the time, because that track runs in your subconscious if you're saying that mentally, right? And so I think that's really where I would start if I was in that position again, is cultivating that really great sense of self-love, self-compassion, and go from there. But really that's gonna be the foundation to changing identity, I believe.
0:19:50.5 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, no, I agree with you. And I think a lot of people though have it in their head, is I call it a gatekeeper, that most people think they have to have a result, then the identity shift, right? I can't feel like the fittest, healthiest, best version of myself until the 120 comes off, versus it's actually the other way around. We have to say, no, that's the fittest, healthiest, best version of me, and then when your physical body isn't in congruent with that when someone has 120 pounds to lose, but their identity is now, no, that's the version of me. That's when it really starts, because having the identity shift first, then going after the result is way easier than having the old identity and then trying to white knuckle through that to get the result. Because again, that's what you said you did. You said, you looked at yourself and you said, no, this is who I wanna be. I could do that. That's a possibility. Like you saw the site and you saw that version of you first, then went after it. And then all of a sudden it was much easier for your actions to be congruent with that version of you.
0:20:54.0 Steven Thibert: Exactly. And I think that's, you know, when I look at the research, it's staggering, right? I mean, I look at, I mean, I lost over 120 plus pounds at the height of it when I competed in bodybuilding. I was from my heaviest, like 150 pounds down. What's crazy is, you know, like I've been able to lose all that weight and keep it off for over 17 years now, right? And the statistics are staggering on the amount of people that can actually do that. I think it's like really low. And how do they quantify these things? But they say it's like 5% or something like that, right? And I always look at like, that's because I've cultivated the values, right? I've cultivated that identity and also my values align, right? My priorities are someone who takes care of their health, someone who strength trains regularly, right? And so these things just became a part of who I am. I thought, who is that person that... What does that person do that has lost the weight, kept it off, what is someone that wants to build muscle, has built a lot of muscle, how did they do that?
0:21:50.5 Steven Thibert: What actions do they have? And so I think you really have to think about a couple of things in terms of reflection. You have to think about, you know, what does the person that gets that result, what do they do every day? What actions do they take, right? And then you commit to being that person even before you've achieved the result, right? Because the psychological has to come before anything else, right? The mindset has to shift into that identity before you're gonna achieve that result.
0:22:18.5 Jared Hamilton: You said one thing that was so profound and this is, I think, a big reason amongst the identity stuff why so many people struggle and then why the people who succeed succeed. You just labeled the fuck out of yourself. Because if we look at someone who's struggling, they have all these shitty labels that don't serve them. Oh, I'm never motivated. I'm not the kind of person that gets healthy. I'm not the kind of person that's consistent. Meanwhile, they like brush their teeth every day, right? Or they have all these negative labels. But we know even in the world of persuasion, like if you read any book or study psychology when it comes to persuasion, if you can label somebody and then like really reinforce that label, behaviors unconsciously act towards that.
0:23:00.4 Jared Hamilton: So for example, you said, "I'm the kind of person who strength trains. I'm the kind of person who does the things they said they would do. I'm the kind of person that invests in themselves. I'm the kind of person who spends their time wisely. I'm the kind of person who has high standards." Well, then all of a sudden, 'cause if you believe those labels, you unconsciously act in congruence with those. But if we see the people that struggle, they go, oh, I'm always kind of lazy. Then they naturally unconsciously are lazy. When I first got into therapy, one of the first questions that my therapist asked me, she goes, "Did you have any labels growing up? Like, did your friends or family give you any labels?" And ironically, a couple of the labels that I had growing up was the word, "oh, you worry all the time," or another one was, "oh, Jared's like a little Eeyore," like a little depressed Winnie-the-Pooh bear Eeyore, "Jared's Eeyore," "Jared's the little whatever." Well, then ironically, manifesting into my adulthood, guess who struggled with anxiety a lot? Well, because when I was a kid, I took on the identity of a worrier.
0:24:04.0 Jared Hamilton: This person worries, this person's always thinking worst case scenarios because I took on that identity and that label because I believed it was part of me. The same thing with Eeyore, all of a sudden I was this emotional little kid who was always sad, always depressed, always like down in the dumps. It was because I took on the identity of these labels because that's how we act in congruence unconsciously. If you can get someone to label something about themselves, you control that person, right? So the fact that you early on didn't identify and didn't say, "Oh, I'm a lazy person, I'm not the kind of person who breaks statistics." You said, "I'm the kind of person who trains, I'm the kind of person who invests in themselves, I'm the kind of person who reads lots of books, I'm the kind of person who breaks statistics." And then it's no wonder that you acted in congruence unconsciously with those labels.
0:24:52.5 Steven Thibert: Yeah, and again, over time, it's like, you know, over time I just continued to realize where I'd gotten and that I wanted to stay there. And then it just continued to change. 'Cause then I realized even what's interesting is like, I unconsciously did a lot of these things, but like still had a lot of issues years later, when I got back into exercise after that five years off. And so then I had to even look further at other parts of my identity that I wanted to change. And I think that just kind of pinpoints the fact that like, you gotta learn to enjoy the journey and there's always gonna be something to work on and something to develop, right? But creating that foundation of who you want to be and then having that be like your North star, like that's gonna lead you. I think that's ultimately what leads you to success, but you gotta enjoy the journey along the way.
0:25:39.5 Jared Hamilton: I love... Dude, that's so good. Now I wanna rewind it, I wanna stay in that for a second. So with someone who has a lot of weight to lose, let's just use your example, like 120, 130 pounds. That's a long fucking journey, right? Like we're not talking about just like losing... Like we say fat loss in general is gonna be a slower process. But when someone has that kind of weight to lose, we're talking about a level of consistency for years, right? Like we know considered a more sustainable fast fat loss is right around that pound a week-ish mark. That's assuming things are perfect and don't have any problems. But let's say someone has 150 pounds to lose. Well, fuck, you're at three years right there. You know what I mean? Like if you base it off of that. So for someone who has a lot of weight to lose and you're saying, well, you've got to enjoy the journey. I wanna know your opinion from someone who's been there. How can you enjoy the journey and how do you teach that to say, enjoy the journey when you're telling this person to buckle up for the next couple of years, right? So what are some ways that you were able to teach yourself to enjoy the journey, but now as a coach, helping people to enjoy the journey?
0:26:44.6 Steven Thibert: Yeah, I think the key is don't let the scale have control over you, right? So don't let your happiness come from just seeing a number drop. Like I always talk with clients about, if the goal is weight loss, I always say, let's focus on the actions, the behaviors, the habits that we know are ultimately gonna lead you to the goal, but not necessarily just the outcome. Cause when we focus on the outcome, that's where we set ourselves up for disappointment. So really I would say, you know, find things that bring you happiness and joy outside of just seeing your weight loss, right? Just seeing your weight go down. Because if that's where, and you talk about this a lot, but it's like, if that's where you base your happiness, like, guess what? After you lose the weight, you're not gonna be fucking happy 'cause it's not gonna bring you joy, right? Like you might have less health problems, but you're not gonna be ultimately a happier person just because now you're this smaller version of yourself or whatever, right?
0:27:38.6 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, no doubt. I mean, happiness is never outside of you. And the fact that when we do put it, like here we see it in weight loss a lot. I'll be happy when I lose the weight. I'll be happy when I get money, when I have the kid, when I get the car, right? That's always a big red flag. One thing I was studying, a lot of people who listen to the show know I just had one of my heroes on, Kyle Cease. Well, I've been also diving into, I'm a member on his site, his Absolutely Everything Pass. So I absorb a lot of Kyle's content. And one of the things that he said on a module I was watching the other day that I thought was brilliant is when you aren't in these good places, when happiness is outside of you and you don't trust yourself in all this, he goes, you're in a smaller level of fight or flight. So you're not a safe place to get results, right? So like, if you think about how the mind works and how the brain as a whole works with like, it's just about self preservation, when you're not happy and you're in this constant mini fight or flight and you don't trust yourself and you don't trust the journey and you're just like all over the place and you're in a small level of fight or flight, you are teaching your brain you're not a safe place to generate results, whether that be making money, losing weight, being happy, whatever it is, but you're teaching yourself you're not a safe place.
0:28:50.9 Jared Hamilton: This is why we need to start with I'm happy now. And then now it's easier to lose weight. I'm happy now, then things can come to me. Because if you're in this mini fight or flight all the time, you're quite literally telling yourself at a subconscious level, you're not safe to generate results. And it's just one of the things on how that works that I never even thought about, 'cause if you're thinking about it, the way his analogy was, imagine you're trying to paint a painting, get creative, receive insights and paint something, but there's a murderer in your living room, you're not gonna be able to be creative. You're not gonna be able to receive insights. You're not gonna be able to receive the result that you're looking for 'cause there's this part of you that's like, but there's a murderer in my living room. So if you view yourself as not safe, not dependable, not reliable, not good enough, you're not gonna be open to seeing progress into making results happen. It's just an interesting insight that I got.
0:29:45.8 Steven Thibert: Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. And I think also like that just leads to lack of belief in self, right? Which is when you don't believe in yourself, I mean, it's like that old saying, it's like, if you don't believe in yourself, how do you expect anyone else to? And so I think you have to start with that foundation of belief in self, and that's cultivated through the inner work. And the beautiful thing is like the inner work is where, and working on yourself and personal development, you and I geek out on this stuff, but it's like, that's really where happiness is cultivated. And if you think about it, I love that you brought up fight or flight, 'cause one thing that I consider is like, I call it my self care or stress relief hygiene, that every single day...
0:30:26.5 Jared Hamilton: That's such a good way to put that. That's so good.
0:30:30.1 Steven Thibert: Yeah, and so like every day I meditate and every day I read. I at least do those two things. This year, and especially going into 2023, I wanna journal more, 'cause it's like one of those things where I do it a couple of times a week, I could definitely benefit from doing it more. So I'm working on doing that more because always have profound insights when I do journal. And that's why we're such fans of it because we see such a huge shift with clients, right? But those things in and of themselves, when you think about it, activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and relax, the rest and digest. It's like that other side of that sympathetic nervous system, that fight or flight that you just mentioned, right? So I always talk to clients about, these are the things that activate that. So if you think about it from just physiology for a second, it's like when blood pressure is coming down, when heart rate's coming down, you're feeling more relaxed, you're probably gonna be a lot more fucking happy than when you're stressed out, when you're depressed, when you're anxious, 'cause that's what's gonna activate that fight or flight, right?
0:31:23.6 Steven Thibert: So the things that I always talk about are gonna bring that, and do bring that for me, is like meditation, reading, journaling, yoga is another good one, just going for a walk, interacting with your dogs, your kids, whatever. I mean, there's so many things that we could list off, but I think that having those things in your life every single day and making time for those things and making those a priority are gonna over time bring you more happiness, especially if you're consistent with them. You know what I mean?
0:31:50.1 Jared Hamilton: That's why I love the way that you wear that around like your hygiene, because if we treat it like any other hygiene, we don't let it get out of control. We brush our teeth every fucking day, twice a day, because when they're clean, like this is my one argument, or my one reasoning with a lot of this stuff is, we never let other areas get that bad, right? But we look at weight loss, someone may wait till gain 100 pounds before they do anything about it. Someone may not do inner work until they're binge eating every day out of control, or they may not do inner work at all until shit really hits the fan. But think about brushing our teeth. If you go to sleep at midnight, brush your teeth, wake up at 8:00 AM, you brush them again, nothing happened in the middle of the night, you did not get your teeth dirty, but yet you brush them anyway, because we know twice a day, every single day, it just keeps the hygiene at such a high level where nothing bad happens.
0:32:44.6 Jared Hamilton: We always empty the lint trap in the dryer, because we know it's impossible to do a load of laundry without creating lint, so we always empty it. We don't wait till the dryer catches on fire because of the lint trap. We empty it every load or two. So I love the fact that you're in the world of the inner work and your peace, and your own emotions and stress and things like that, looking at it through the lens of normal hygiene, because if we wait till shit hits the fan before we do something about it, then it's too late. Like we don't wait till we need a root canal to start brushing our teeth. I think it's very much the same thing.
0:33:17.5 Steven Thibert: Yeah, absolutely. And I think also this draws upon like your ability to be resilient when it comes to adversity. So we're talking like strictly about my weight loss journey, but I've been through a lot in life, a lot of hard situations, as we all have, everybody goes through their own things. So I went through a really nasty custody battle with my son's mom about a year and a half ago. I mean, it finalized about a year ago, but people ask me, it's like, how did you do that? Because it took so much emotional resilience, mental fortitude, financial resources, money's constantly going out. I spent $40,000 in six months. It's like so much stress and people are like depression, like traumatic experience, and people are like, how did you handle that? I couldn't do that and how did you go through that? And it's like, because I had this routine of keeping my stress low, like I had faith that it would all work out. I believed in myself to get through the situation and I implemented stress relief strategies all throughout that time, so I wasn't constantly in that fight or flight mode, even though it did get activated a lot.
0:34:19.9 Steven Thibert: And there'll be times in your life where you go through heavy shit that's really hard, but you have to make sure that you're bringing yourself back down to earth, that you're doing things that are bringing you that stress relief. And so I think that can totally be related to this weight loss journey that people wanna go through. It's like, if you are constantly stressed out and you're like letting the scale dictate your happiness every morning, whether or not it's going down, I mean, you're not gonna be in a good place. And that's what leads to when your mind is off track and you're highly stressed, that's what leads to the binge eating, the emotional eating, the sabotage that we talk about, right?
0:35:00.3 Jared Hamilton: Sure. You won't make it to your results. Every now and then you'll see someone who lives in that state, get their results, but they never keep them. But I see most people who live in that state and stay there, their brain doesn't let them get to the result. They just don't make it. We have this organ in our brain, like people who listen to the podcast and watch the YouTube channel, know my training on this a lot, are really well, but it's the reticular activating system. Like when your head space is off, your RAS kicks in and will straight up try to ruin your life. It will hide opportunity, it will hide wins, it will hide the data to validate you winning. And it will only highlight and show data that you're a failure, it's never gonna work and to validate your shitty belief systems, which is why most people who have their head off, her head space off, never make it. But then every now and then one or two slips through the cracks and they have their goal for a fucking two months and then they lose it all. But that's why I wanted to have you talking about this because very few people can say, yeah, I've kept my weight off for 17 fucking years.
0:35:57.2 Jared Hamilton: That's insane, bro. So along those lines though, I'm curious. So for you, where do you see most people who have a lot of weight to lose go wrong? Like what are some like, hey, here's where everyone goes wrong handbook. Like what would be a few things on that list?
0:36:13.1 Steven Thibert: I mean, the worst thing that you can do is give up, right? I always say like, if you don't give up, like you're gonna, you might not... 'cause like as humans, we are impatient and so we want things to happen a lot faster than they actually do, right? But I always say, if you don't give up, you'll eventually get to that destination. So it's like constantly picking yourself up when you fall down, like it's not about how many times you fall down. It's about how many times you get back up and keep fighting. And so I think that is huge. And in terms of like very strategic, I would say really buying into tracking food, I think that's like the most important. I always tell clients like that's the most important foundational skill that you can cultivate if you want to lose a lot of weight, you know? And so I think anytime we waiver on that, like obviously we talk about with the holidays, there's gonna be days where you don't track everything, you're not gonna be able to be approximate, right? But I think a big problem that people can fall into is letting one day throw them off and then I'm just not gonna log for a while or whatever.
0:37:18.2 Steven Thibert: You know, it's like not getting back to that foundational skill, 'cause that's really, I mean, the foundational skills, as I mentioned earlier, logging your food every day and moving your body, like those are the two things that are gonna lead you to that, you know, that big weight loss goal.
0:37:33.1 Jared Hamilton: Without a doubt. I wanna go back to what you were talking about when you said just not giving up. I think that's such an overlooked piece because so many people, number one, do give up. Most people do this, but especially like I see in so much of the extreme weight loss cases, where they give up before they even get started, 'cause they out the gate, they sabotage, they have a thought of, I think I wanna change my life. Ah, it's not very practical. Like they don't even get to day one and they give up, right? They don't even complete 24 hours. But when you said, this is one thing I think that no one talks about enough, and I don't, I take responsibility for that as well, I don't talk about it enough. Under the category of not giving up, I can't think of a single case of, let's just say achievement in general, weight loss, business, money, success, whatever, marriage, it doesn't matter, who is relentless and will not give up.
0:38:22.0 Jared Hamilton: And every day they just go, I'm gonna do my best and I won't give up. That person will every time find success in whatever it is. I don't know a single person who busted their ass every day, worked their ass off, did their best for years and did not find the thing they were looking for. It always takes longer than what they think, but eventually they get off the ground. But I don't know a single person who went to their grave, "Yep, I worked my ass off for the last 20, 30 years and it didn't work." I don't know a single person, like every person, even in business, like Andy Frisella, for example, is one of the favorite people I learned like to study business and stuff, Andy didn't, in part of his stories, he didn't make over, he was building his business with his supplement stores, and for the first 10 years in business, he didn't make any money. He said, oh, in 10 years in business, he made a total of $50,000. Not a year, not 50K a year, $50,000 in 10 years of revenue, $50,000 in total revenue, gross, not net, in over the course of 10 years, which means no more than a little over $500 a month for 10 years straight.
0:39:30.6 Jared Hamilton: But in his case, he talks about, "I just didn't give up and I knew one day it would happen." And then now he's a fucking billionaire, right? But if we look at cases where people go, oh, it didn't work, there are always people who gave up. No one went to their grave and said, "I busted my ass for my entire life and I never got what I wanted." No one does that, people give up. I think that's something that no one talks about enough.
0:39:51.6 Steven Thibert: Yeah, I agree. And it just ties so beautifully into what you were saying earlier. Why do people give up? It's because they let negativity win. They let the negative thoughts in their mind take over their foundation and then their behaviors are reflecting upon those negative thoughts. And one thing I was gonna bring up earlier, like you were mentioning the RAS, it's like, there's a really good book out there called Hardwiring Happiness that is really, and multiple books talk about this, but it really emphasizes the point that our brains, because of the way, like just the way physiology works, the way psychology works, the way that we were brought up as humans, our early ancestors, think to those days, we were created this way for a reason back then that doesn't serve us anymore today, but our brain is like...
0:40:38.1 Jared Hamilton: That's really good.
0:40:39.2 Steven Thibert: Our brain is really in tune with negative things. And so our brain highlights all the negative things while we gloss over positive things. So it talks about in this book, like if one bad day happens, one bad thing happens in your day, it's like the worst possible day ever. Now you have a negative mindset the rest of the day, right? But all these good things happen, but it's like, no, that doesn't matter 'cause one bad thing happened, right? So it's like your brain is programmed to focus on negative things and not positive things. So you have to consciously focus on those positive things. And I think that's why journaling is so powerful, especially if someone's having a lot of mindset issues. I talk about gratitude journaling and affirmations about the identity that you want, right? Like those are the positive things that you have to consciously put into your brain 'cause they're not just gonna... It's not just gonna pop up like negative things do. So you have to really fight that.
0:41:29.8 Jared Hamilton: Agreed. Well, and that's the thing, I think right around now in this kind of conversation, there's a lot of people who go, all right, they're just talking about like bullshit, be positive stuff. But like, it's deeper than that. It's deeper than that. Because when people give up before they get started or just give up in general, it's not just because letting negativity get in, but I think people need to understand what exactly is happening. They got sold a belief. They got like... Like we've all like purchased something, we regret purchasing. It's like, man, that sales person sold me on this. Fuck, I got fucked. They sold me on this thing and it's not what I thought it was, but they got sold. Well, so many people who are struggling or who quit and give up, they were sold a false narrative. They were sold a bullshit story. The, oh, I'll never make it. Who fucking sold you that story?
0:42:19.3 Jared Hamilton: Someone literally sold you this entire picture of this is what your life is gonna look like right now, that they're not gonna make it. They're gonna fall off, it's not even worth it. They're worthless. That is a story. That's just a story. This is one of the biggest things I've ever gotten from Kyle whenever I've absorbed his content and the relationship we have built and stuff like that, where it's, that's just a story. Someone just sold it to you, who at some point, probably when you were defenseless, someone sold you this story, this narrative that you're not good enough, you're not worthy, you're not the kind of person who does that, right?
0:42:53.7 Jared Hamilton: It goes back to labeling. They sold you this label and the story, but so many people imprison themselves and go, "Oh no, I'm not supposed to be happy. I'm not supposed to make it. I probably won't. Statistics show that I'm not gonna make it. Oh, I'm too far gone." That is just bullshit stories that just aren't true, but most people fall for that hook, line, and sinker and it's not true whatsoever. What would happen if we built the narrative? Like, what if you could pick the story, right? It's almost like a lucid dream. Like you get to pick the story. You get to write the play. You know what I mean? And it's the same kind of thing, but most people are sold this story over here on the one side that's just not serving them.
0:43:33.0 Steven Thibert: I completely agree.
0:43:34.4 Jared Hamilton: So for you, did you think, I think this is where a lot of people also go wrong. A lot of people treat fat loss different, losing 20 pounds versus like 120 pounds. For you, obviously there's a level of differences, but I don't think there's as many as people think. I'd love to hear you talk about like, like a lot of people will go, "Oh no, I have to do this differently because I've got a lot more weight to lose." You know, talking from a 20 pound loss to 120. What are your thoughts on that?
0:43:58.9 Steven Thibert: Yeah, I think that's bullshit. I mean, I think it's the same... Same strategies apply, right? Same strategies apply, whether you want to lose 20 or 120, it's just probably going to take longer if you have 120 to lose.
0:44:09.4 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, few more maintenance periods, a little bit more patience. I'm curious your thoughts on this. I think a perspective shift or a reframe, a lot of people need to have is, they just have one pound to lose X many times, right? If I want to lose 20 pounds, I don't have to lose 20 pounds. I've got to lose one pound 20 times because we don't treat it different. If you have 120 pounds to lose, I'll get flack with this online. I don't think you should be losing weight at a rapid rate. All right? A lot of people will say, "Oh, I've got more weight to lose, so I should be able to lose five pounds a week." But my thing is, no, that's the bullshit thinking that keeps you yo-yo dieting because for you to lose five pounds in a week, you've got to starve yourself even more. You've got to restrict, you've got to do all this stuff. So my thing is you don't have 120 to lose. You have one pound to lose 120 times because this also makes it easy to celebrate wins. You lose your first pound, holy fuck, I did it. This is all I have to do. I just have to keep doing what I just did. And it becomes simple and it becomes a game and not this monument you have to tackle.
0:45:09.1 Steven Thibert: Yeah, I like that you said that. And one thing that comes up is like, well, I think the biggest thing to recognize is like setting, because I was thinking about this earlier, setting like small tangible goals instead of the, and they were sold that story, that's what I was thinking of, they were sold that story by diet culture, right? And by like all these bullshit fad diets out there and all this crap.
0:45:30.7 Jared Hamilton: Or like a mom or someone who's struggled themselves.
0:45:33.2 Steven Thibert: Yeah, or someone that maybe lost some weight but didn't really know what the fuck they were doing and then gained it back. Well, this person did this and lost this, but then it's like, yeah, they probably gained it back too. You're not looking at the whole story. But I'm a big fan of setting small tangible goals. I like what you said with the one pound. And one thing that I've always done is kind of like looking at the five pound increments as well, 'cause a lot of times if you lose five pounds, you're going to start to notice changes in your body. You're definitely going to see a difference in measurements, right? So it's like, I like to think of any weight loss goal chunking it off by like five pounds. And I think even like you said, even the one pound. 'Cause when you lose that one pound and you see that you've done it, well now it's not like...
0:46:08.1 Jared Hamilton: It's believable.
0:46:09.8 Steven Thibert: Yeah, exactly. It's not like I'm always going to be this weight. I can't lose weight. Well, you just lost a fucking pound. So just keep doing what you were doing and you're going to continue to lose it, right? And me and Abby talked about this on a live in the group was like, you know, expectations can really lead us to...
0:46:28.4 Jared Hamilton: It's everything.
0:46:28.8 Steven Thibert: Yeah, and you have to have realistic expectations. It's when you have expectations of, I should lose X by X date, that's when you set yourself up for failure, right? Because like you and I have just talked about, it's like, it's probably going to take you longer to get to your goal than you would like, right?
0:46:45.5 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, well, and here's the other... No, without a doubt, because here's my thing. People are okay with outcomes they don't want if they expect that to happen. Case in point, do you like water?
0:46:56.0 Steven Thibert: Yeah.
0:46:57.0 Jared Hamilton: Okay, do you like... What's another drink that you enjoy drinking that's definitely not water?
0:47:05.2 Steven Thibert: Coffee.
0:47:06.1 Jared Hamilton: Okay, okay, perfect. 'Cause they're arguably polar opposites taste-wise, right?
0:47:08.7 Steven Thibert: Yep.
0:47:08.9 Jared Hamilton: If you are expecting to drink... You like coffee, you like water. If you look to the left to talk to your son and you reach to the right to grab your water and you take a big swig of coffee, you're repulsed, 'cause you're like, "Whoa, what the... No, no, no." You like coffee, but it's not what you expected. Or vice versa, if you look to talk to your son to the left and reach to the right and grab your coffee and you're expecting hot, bitter, beautiful coffee and you get a swig of cold water, you're repelled. You're like, "What the fuck? Oh, it's just water." Because you expected one and got the other or even a really morbid example. And this happened to us a couple of years ago in my family. So my grandma, we had our grandma and grandpa. We were very close. My grandpa, my grandfather was in very ill health. We all know what it's like to expect someone to pass away, right? You're as ready for it as you can be. Everyone knew grandpa was going to be going probably within the next month or two. Like it's time. We totally expected it, prepared ourselves for it.
0:48:09.2 Jared Hamilton: Grandma died out of nowhere. We expected grandpa to go, not that we forgot about grandma, but grandma was in fine health. She was fine. Grandpa was the one in the hospital every other week not being able to breathe, all these issues. And then out of nowhere, my grandma went in for a very routine surgery and her heart just never came back on. Like her heart just stopped.
0:48:29.9 Steven Thibert: Wow.
0:48:30.4 Jared Hamilton: On the table. And we're all like, "Oh, holy shit." That one was a little bit harder to process, because they were like 1000 years old. They grew up together. Grandpa died shortly after, 'cause you see that happen with a lot of really elderly couples, one dies and the other like goes the next couple of days. Well, we totally expected grandpa to die. And we were like more ready for it. Grandma caught us all off guard. We were like, "What? Grandma died?" We expected grandpa, and even death is hard no matter what, but we expected grandpa to die. We did not expect grandma to die. Grandma's was a little bit harder to wrap our heads around than grandpa because we expected one and not the other.
0:49:10.1 Jared Hamilton: So we can actually go through a lot of shit and all the way down to suffering. Not that we should be suffering during weight loss, but we can go through situations we don't like if we're expecting to go through it. We're okay with waiting a long time if we're expecting to wait a long time. But if you've been sold a narrative that weight loss is supposed to be fast and it's slow, I don't blame you for being pissed. This is why whenever we coach people, we lay out the expectation so fucking black and white. There is no issue around that because, again, it's not the problem that weight loss is slow or it's tedious or it's monotonous or it's boring, it's the fact that people think it's not gonna be that.
0:49:42.3 Steven Thibert: Absolutely. And doing this coaching thing for quite a while now, it's like one of the things that I'd love to ask anyone who comes to me and says, so like here's a real world example, where someone is like, "Do you think I can lose 15 pounds in three months?" And I'll say, "Well, I can't guarantee that, but what I can guarantee is if you put in the work, you focus on the behaviors and actions that are gonna ultimately lead to that result, you will eventually get to the result, but I can't put a timeline on it." However, then I say, "Let me ask you this. If you lost 11 pounds in three months, would you be excited about that?" "Well, yeah, of course." So then it's like, well, why are you trying to lose X amount by X date? It's like, you can't guarantee how much weight you're gonna lose in a timeframe, but if you're headed in that right direction, you gotta be happy about that. You gotta celebrate that.
0:50:35.4 Jared Hamilton: Well, the problem is though, they would be down though. That same person, if we got honest with them and they hit their three month mark and they weren't down 15, they're like, "I'm only down 11 pounds," right? We're all like mentally wired to do this, right? Like we all do it, right? But the thing is when we put a timeline on it, especially with extreme weight loss or weight loss in general though, we then instantly see through the lens of lack. It goes back, then you're in fight or flight again. You're in like, "Oh my gosh, I'm running out of time. Oh my gosh... " then you're not safe to make results anymore. Excuse me, but when we go, "Oh, I should lose this much by this timeline." And then what happens when you... Because weight loss isn't linear. Let's say you have a rough week. Let's say you overate one or two times, whatever the case is. Well, now you're off. Well, if you're like, "Okay, I should lose a pound a week every single week. And by the end of the year, I'll lose 52 pounds. Oh shit, I haven't lost any weight the first two weeks. Fuck, now I've got to lose 52 pounds in less than a year. Oh my gosh, what happened? Oh my gosh, the sales spiked. Oh my God, I'm so behind. Now I've got to go into a bigger deficit and da, da, da, da, da, da," and then they freak out.
0:51:31.9 Jared Hamilton: Again, goes right back to fight or flight. Now you're not looking for opportunity to succeed. Now you're just trying to be in self-preservation and your RAS shows you ways to sabotage. And that's why the last thing you want to do for those listening is to put this rigid timeline. This is why the guy hardly ever talks about fitness stuff. He talks about like business and sales and things like that. But he talks about this beautifully in business. And I think it applies here. His name's Alex Hormozi. I know Steven, you know who Alex is. Well, Alex talks about like, why don't we quit setting outcome-based goals? 'Cause we never can control an outcome, but we can always control our actions. So instead of getting excited about, oh, I did, I lost the weight, I made the money, I got the thing, what if we just set our goals based around, instead of the outcome, the action, but you can always control your actions. And then if you don't get the goal, it's now your fault. Because you're like, well, people get excited about the goal, but then because it doesn't go their way, they give up on the goal.
0:52:28.5 Jared Hamilton: But if we go, that's the goal, but then now our true goal is, all right, that means I have to eat in a calorie deficit every day. This means I need to hit the gym three days this week. This means I need to do journaling every single day. Well, that's the goal now is your actions because then ironically actions lead to outcomes. But I think people forget about it and get too hyper-fixated on the outcomes and not the actions.
0:52:45.9 Steven Thibert: 100%. And so one thing that I do strategically myself and that I encourage clients to do when they struggle is, and this is exactly what we're talking about with actions and behaviors and habits is like, so I have this really weird thing that I haven't talked about a lot through my journey with emotional eating and binge eating. It's like something developed over the years where, and I've actually talked to clients who have struggled with this. It's been kind of fun to walk them through it and help them, but it's like, it's this weird night eating thing, right? We're all like, wake up in the middle of the night, won't even really be hungry, but I find myself in my pantry eating something, right? And a lot of us have been there, right?
0:53:22.3 Jared Hamilton: Oh, yeah.
0:53:22.4 Steven Thibert: And for some people it doesn't become a problem. But what I notice is if I do it once, now I'm more likely to continue down that path unless I get really, really mindful around it. So with that, and with tracking my macros, what I do, or especially calories and protein, what I do, especially if I have a goal to reach or this night eating thing pops up, I start tracking it like a calendar. And so I go in my Notes app every single day, so I call it like no night eating, and if I'm no night eating, then I'm like one for one. And then the next day, if I had no night eating, I'm two for two. And I continue to build that momentum. And it's the same with macros, right? And like, I always revert back to the 80-20 rule all my years of coaching, right? It's like, if 80% of the time you're on point within your calories and the days that are out of range aren't like astronomically out of range, you're gonna achieve results. And that's really only 24 out of 30 days in a month. So I always think about in that frame, it's like my macros, same thing. Two for two, three for three, three for four. Like, oh, had a bad day. I'm seven for eight now, but I'm still on track. You know, that bad day didn't throw me off completely. So that's another strategy that you can implement in terms of behaviors and habits and actions for sure.
0:54:32.8 Jared Hamilton: That's super good. I love that, man. Because I think it also helps with the perfectionism side, right? When you know that like, okay, my goal is to not get below 70%, right? Or if let's say you hit 80-20, it's like, okay, I should probably keep it pretty tight the rest of the month. You know what I mean? Or the rest of the week or whatever the case is. Versus people go, oh, fuck it. But, 'cause you don't wanna get zero for 10, zero for 11, zero for 12. You know what I mean? So I like that.
0:55:00.7 Steven Thibert: And here's the other thing it does, right? There's been times where like, if I struggle, say I only did like 20 out of 30 on point with my macros, well, now I have concrete evidence that I can't be upset about not achieving a result 'cause I can go back and say, "Oh shit, I didn't do that great the last 30 days." But what I can do now, I can exercise that self-compassion, that self-love and say, "I'm gonna do better this next 30 days." And then if you do better, you probably are starting to walk down that path of results, right? So that's why I enjoy it.
0:55:27.1 Jared Hamilton: That's huge. 'Cause again, let's say someone's not doing very good. Let's say they are like two for 10, they're not doing very good. Well, let's make instead of next month's goal, 10 for 10, let's go four for 10, right? This is one of the things my mentor right now has really talked to me about is if I have like, let's say if my goal is this, my natural inclination personally is I want to like quadruple that, right? I'm like 100% improvement or nothing, right? That's where I naturally wanna live at. And he was the first one that's like, "No, Jared, let's just go to 20%. 'Cause he's like, "Cool, you have this high high, but then you're gonna follow that with a low low versus I would rather see slower, predictable success with you. I would rather you, instead of going from like, you're here right now, then the next two months you're at 100% increase 'cause that's not sustainable to keep that rate up. I would rather see you do 25% increase or 25% better than you did the last month. And then from there, the next quarter, 25% more." He goes, "Instead of you trying to have like 100% on 100%, that's not scalable. That's not practical." But I think clients need to look at it through the same lens. We would rather see someone get slower, more sustainable, more boring and predictable results than this fucking roller coaster of them going horrible, fantastic back to horrible again.
0:56:43.1 Steven Thibert: Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that's where coaching plays such a role, right? It's like, cause going back to the person that expects to lose 15 pounds in three months, but they lost 11. Well, we're able to really reframe that with them, as they work on it themselves, like, no, you lost 11 pounds in three months, like you're fucking killing it. You're on your way to your goal. You know what I mean? It's the same thing with incremental progress. Like if this month was a little bit better than last month in terms of the habits, then you're headed in the right direction, even if it's not quite showing up yet with the outcome. And that's why, again, I love what you said that you brought up with Alex is like, I'm a big fan of detaching from outcome goals and just having that goal be like what I call like your North star, like that's what guides you. So if that's your North star, your behaviors, your actions should be in alignment with that, right?
0:57:28.7 Jared Hamilton: Yeah, it's actually why I have my newest tattoos. I have on, for those of watching the camera, my two new tattoos on my wrist are action and ambition, I'm sorry, not action and ambition, ambition and equanimity. Because for me, it's the same thing. Like my ambition is my North star. It's like, that's what I'm wanting to do. But then the equanimity side is I have to be emotionally neutral, very calm and not like detaching from outcomes because that's a beautiful way of putting it, like the ambition is the North star, but you're not married to that outcome because now you're desperate and chasing, which means you're not equanimous where you're not neutral emotionally. So it's a big deal. So I love that you brought that up. Man, dude, this has been so good. I know we're already about an hour and it just fucking flew by.
0:58:11.9 Jared Hamilton: Any final thoughts for the people listening to this who have, let's say, a lot of weight to lose, let's say 80 pounds, 100 pounds, 120 pounds, and they're just like, "I'm not sure where to go from here," other than the logical answer, which is work with a coach, you know, they may listen to this and go, "I would love... Steven's been there. I would love to work with someone who's lost the weight themselves." And if you're listening to this and you want to apply for coaching, and especially even with Steven, there'll be a link below where you can schedule a call to apply for coaching. That way we can see if you're a good fit. And then we incentivize the podcast listeners too. But other than the no brainer, which is apply for coaching, what are some like last final thoughts on people, like where to go from here?
0:58:53.2 Steven Thibert: Yeah, I think the key is gonna be start with identity, right? So start with that foundation of self-love, self-compassion, cultivating that if you don't have that, doing the inner work to cultivate that, because you have to cultivate that in order to cultivate belief in self, in order to generate a new identity, because you have to believe that you can change your identity and that you can become a new person and you can make that happen in a very short amount of time if you really apply yourself to that work. So I really think for someone that has a lot of weight to lose, change that identity, think about who you want to become and what does that person do, right? Or what did that person do to achieve that result? Like looking back on my story, what did I do? What did I have to change in order to achieve that result?
0:59:42.1 Jared Hamilton: That's so good, dude. That's so good. Awesome, brother man. Well, this has been fucking great. I appreciate you. Thanks for doing this. And we will talk soon.
0:59:49.5 Steven Thibert: Yeah, thanks for having me on, man.
0:59:52.1 Jared Hamilton: And we are back. Thank you so much for tuning in for today's episode of Dieting From The Inside Out. If you stuck around for the whole thing, I know you got a lot of value out of this. And if you did, it would mean a ton to me if you left me a review wherever you're listening to this on or subscribe to the channel or share it with a friend. That's my one ask. Now, after having listened to this, if you would like to work with Steven, whether you have just 20 pounds to lose, or if you are in the boat of having quite a bit of weight to lose and you want to work with someone who gets it, who's had that experience firsthand, but also has been on the other side and knows how to coach that, absolutely apply for coaching. I'll leave a link below where you can go straight to a calendar. That way we can have a talk with you, make sure where we think this is a good fit. This is why before anyone ever signs up for coaching, no one can just go and sign up. We don't take anyone just with a credit card because we have to make sure that we learn about you, understand what's going on, and where we actually think in 100%, no, we can solve your problems, that's the only way you get accepted into the coaching program.
1:00:48.1 Jared Hamilton: And if that's you and you want to get help and you would like to work with Steven, especially after hearing his story, I will leave a link below and then you can actually request to work with Steven. As at the time of recording this, Steven does have some slots open on his roster personally. So you can do that. But otherwise I appreciate you being here. Be sure and check out the other resources. If you don't have a home base and you don't have somewhere where you can go to consistently get the help you need from a great community, you can join my Fat Loss Simplified Facebook community. It's totally free and it's gonna help get you where you need to be if you don't have anywhere else. If you don't have a home base where you're around other people who are like-minded, where you're not getting the help, where you can't ask questions and where you aren't getting supported, you really want to join my Fat Loss Simplified community because there's no place like it on the internet, in my opinion, but I'm biased because it's my group, but I've been in the industry a long time and I think it's a special place.
1:01:42.3 Jared Hamilton: If you're listening to this and you have no idea where to start and you're just like, "I don't even fucking know what way is up at this point," go check out my free fat loss course. It's in the description as well. It's called the Fat Loss Checklist. It's basically my simplified version on how to lose weight without the bullshit. So definitely check that out. My other socials are down there as well if you are not following me there, but otherwise I appreciate the fuck out of you. Thank you for being here. I will talk to you next time.
[music]
About Steven:
Steven was always heavy—he started putting on weight very young.
He was also very emotionally shut down and had developed a lot of emotional eating habits. Though he didn’t realize it at the time, food was a comfort for him.
By the time he was 16, Steven was around 320 pounds and didn’t have any zest for life—he didn’t like school, and despite being very bright, he would purposefully miss school and fail tests.
Steven didn’t know how to be happy.
He started smoking weed, and his Mom caught him when he was 16—which deeply frightened her because her brother, who was a quadriplegic after a work accident, died of an overdose.
His Mom sent him to a rehab facility, but he was quickly discharged. When that turned out not to be fruitful, his mom enrolled him in an outdoor youth program (SUWS) where he had to backpack and learn survival techniques—this program was later shut down and “rebranded” due to negligence.
While he was in this program, Steven lost about 40 lbs over 40 days. The outdoor program had him on a very restricted diet, he was hiking every day, and drinking lots of water.
When Steven returned home, part of the agreement he had with his parents was that he would stay active, so he went to the gym and started walking on the treadmill.
A few things that Steven did when he started going to the gym were—in addition to walking—cutting out all fast food, cutting out sugary beverages (i.e. soda), and cutting out candy.
After about a year of just walking and avoiding fast food, soda, and candy, he had lost about 100 lbs.
After this initial weight loss, Steven began working with a personal trainer and got into strength training. Unfortunately, Steven was in a bad car accident, where he injured his neck, and this caused him to shy away from lifting and the gym for about 5 years.
Despite not going to the gym, Steven was successful in keeping the weight he’d lost off.
Though he did not realize it at the time, Steven had gone through many identity shifts that helped him sustain his weight loss.
Identity:
Today, if Steven were trying to lose weight, he would track his food, hit a protein target, and move his body. He would also focus on the mental game and overcoming mental hurdles.
To start working on the identity shifts associated with losing a significant amount of weight, Steven likes to work on building a foundation of self-love and self-compassion. He believes that combating your negative thoughts with positive affirmations that you can do it is very important in building that foundation of self-love.
Jared has noticed that many believe they need to achieve results before changing their identity, so they try to force their way through to results without building that foundation and working on the identity shifts needed. Steven, Jared points out, saw the version of himself he wanted to be and went after it—making his actions congruent with the identity he wanted.
Steven has lost more than 120 lbs and kept it off for over 17 years by cultivating the values and priorities that are aligned with those results.
He believes that you need to consider the results you want and think about the actions and decisions a person who has those results makes. Then, you need to commit to being that person before you start.
One thing Jared noticed that Steven did was label himself—he labeled himself as someone who strength-trains, does what he says, etc. People who can utilize labeling appropriately will rise to those labels.
If you say you are a person with high standards, you will raise your standards.
Similarly, people also label themselves negatively, perhaps saying they are a person who “struggles with consistency”—and then fulfill that expectation.
When Jared was first starting therapy, his therapist asked him if he had any labels growing up. When he was young, Jared was often called a worrier or a “little Eeyore.” Later in life, Jared struggled with anxiety because he believed and had adopted those labels as a part of his identity.
Steven, over time, realized the changes and identity shifts he needed to make, but when he got back into exercise after taking 5 years off, he found he had to go deeper and continue to shift his identity.
How to Enjoy The Weight Loss Journey:
Steven believes that the key is finding happiness beyond the scale and seeing the number drop.
He likes to have his clients focus on the actions, behaviors, and habits that lead to the goal, but not focus solely on the outcome.
He asks his clients to find happiness outside of the weight loss because simply losing the weight and being a smaller version of themselves will not bring them happiness.
Jared notes that, as Kyle Cease says, when you are unhappy, you are not in a safe place—you are in a mini fight-or-flight state, so you need to find happiness now and make yourself a safe place for your own progress.
Steven sees this mini fight-or-flight state as a lack of self-belief.
He believes in self-care and what he calls “stress-relief hygiene”—every day he meditates and reads, and going into 2023, he wants to begin to journal more.
Doing these things activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which relaxes you, allowing you to reduce stress.
Finding things that help you relax—and making time for those things—helps you to become a happier person and escape that fight-or-flight state.
Jared loves the approach of treating self-care as hygiene.
He uses the examples of brushing your teeth—something you do twice a day—as a basic way of taking care of yourself, or cleaning the lint trap in your dryer—you don’t wait until the dryer catches fire to clean the lint trap…
…and we shouldn’t wait until our weight or food relationships are out of control to change.
When Steven was going through a difficult custody battle with his son’s mother, he implemented stress-relief techniques to help keep him out of the fight-or-flight state and keep himself mentally and physically healthy.
Jared has found that people who live in a state of fight-or-flight can’t get to the results they desire—and if they somehow manage to, they can’t keep the results.
Those who follow Jared know his focus on the reticular activating system (R.A.S.)—when your headspace is off, your R.A.S. will hide your successes and only highlight data that supports your negative beliefs.
This is why those with a poor headspace will nearly always struggle to achieve or maintain results.
Places Where Weight Loss Goes Wrong:
Steven says that the first place people go wrong is by giving up.
If you keep picking yourself up when you fall down and continue working, you will get there eventually.
People want things to go fast, but weight loss—especially significant weight loss—is a long journey.
Steven also believes that tracking food is one of the most important skills you need to cultivate.
Even around the holidays—when it’s particularly difficult to track or estimate well—you can’t let one day throw you off.
Tracking and moving your body are two things you have to do and be consistent with.
Jared has seen many people—especially those who have a significant amount of weight to lose—give up before they even start. He has not seen a single case of someone who is relentless in a goal and did not succeed in the end.
Steven sees people give up because they let negativity win. They let negative thoughts take over their mind and fulfill those outlooks.
He refers to a book titled Hardwiring Happiness (by Rick Hanson) that talks about how our brain is very in-tune with negative things because, in the past, those served us for survival—but they don’t now—so if one bad thing happens in your day, you will have a more negative outlook for the rest of the day.
You have to fight that natural tendency to see the negative by focusing on the positive—one place where Steven finds journaling to be very helpful.
Jared points out that this goes beyond just thinking positive thoughts.
People need to understand that you were sold a belief and a story of your life. The idea that you are “not good enough” or “can’t achieve your goals” are stories (or labels) that you are buying into.
20 lbs vs 120 lbs Weight Loss:
Jared sees many people believe that they must approach weight loss differently when they have a large amount to lose—but he personally believes that no matter the amount of weight, you should approach weight loss more or less in the same way.
Steven agrees that the same strategies apply no matter the amount of weight needing to be lost.
Jared believes that people would be helped by reframing their weight loss as “I have 1 lb to lose X number of times.”
Though many disagree, Jared believes that when you have a lot of weight to lose you should not lose it rapidly because you have to do a lot more to lose 5 pounds in a week versus 1 pound.
If you go slowly—taking your weight loss one pound at a time—it allows you to celebrate your small wins and build momentum.
Steven agrees that small, tangible goals are the best way to go, and the belief that you need to approach weight loss differently or lose weight more rapidly is a story sold by diet culture.
Steven is also a fan of breaking your weight loss into small chunks—1 pound or 5 pounds—and setting realistic expectations.
Jared points out that our expectations have a heavy effect on us, using the example of taking a sip of a sip of coffee when you were expecting water—you will initially be taken aback, even repulsed, because your expectations were not met.
This is why Hamilton Trained works hard to set expectations with clients—because they have been sold a story by diet culture and the reality of weight loss is not in line with their initial expectations.
Steven has had many people ask if they could lose X amount of weight in 3 months, to which he replies that if they do the work they will reach their goals, but he cannot guarantee that it will happen in a certain time frame.
He then follows up by asking them if they would be happy if they were to lose X amount of weight in 3 months—to which they always reply yes—so he points out that there is no reason to be attached to the timeline if they would be happy no matter the amount of weight lost in that timeframe.
Jared points out that, many times, people get too hyper-fixated on the outcome and not the actions required to actually reach the outcome.
Closing Thoughts:
Steven has found that he developed a habit of night eating—waking up in the middle of the night and snacking.
For Steven, if he does this once, he is very likely to do it more—so he tracks each day, noting whether he night-eats or not.
Steven believes that the 80/20 rule applies to calories. If you are on target 80 percent of the time, you’re doing well.
Being 24 for 30 is still a good month. If you were only 20 out of 30, you know why you’re not reaching your goals and you can exercise some self-love and get back on track.
This is something Jared has worked on with his mentor because he naturally wants to achieve large, often overly-ambitious amounts of progress. His mentor has him set smaller, more consistently achievable goals.
Steven likes to work on this with his clients so that they can see their behaviors and know when they are heading in the right direction as they work toward their goals.
He likes to have his clients detach from outcomes and keep that as their “North Star” to help guide their actions.
In closing, Steven emphasizes again that you need to start with building your foundation of self-compassion and working on your identity. Think about who you want to become to achieve the result and act in a way that supports that identity.
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