December 17, 2025 • 33 mins
The fastest way to change your body is to stop acting like a bystander in your own life. Today we pull the curtain on the stories that keep people stuck—why “I barely eat,” “I’m just big and happy,” and “this plan failed me” feel comforting, yet block real progress. I share why I named the book and show “Shut Up and Choose,” how dropping 140 pounds came from decisions that fit my messy, real schedule, and why anyone can build the same control without diets, pills, or a gym membership.
We challenge the “fat and happy” myth with ruthless honesty. If excess weight delivered joy, there wouldn’t be dread before doctor visits, panic at photos, or late-night messages asking for help. This isn’t about shaming bodies—it’s about rejecting a storyline that glamorizes avoidance and punishes accountability. Real self-love includes self-protection: food awareness, intentional routines, and boundaries that support your long-term health. That starts with trading explanations for execution and choosing the next right step.
Then we draw a clean line between dieting and choosing. Dieting is outsourced control and built-in blame. Choosing is internal leadership that adapts when life gets chaotic. You’ll hear practical approaches to handle stress eating, recover after slip-ups, and build momentum through tiny, repeatable actions: protein and fiber at meals, water before coffee, a daily walk, and guardrails for nights out. No collapse, no perfection, just steady choices that compound into results. If you want confidence, control, and sustainable weight loss, the plan is simple: stop performing effort and start choosing it.
If this hit home, subscribe, share it with someone who needs the truth, and leave a quick review so more people find it. When you’re ready for real change, grab the free weekly tips at JonathanWrestler.com, read Shut Up And Choose, or reach out to work with me directly—then tell me: what’s the next choice you’ll own today?
Stop Dieting. Start Choosing.
I’m Jonathan Ressler, Transformation Guide and author of Shut Up and Choose. I lost 140 pounds and built a movement the diet industry hopes you never find. No starvation. No obsession. No gym marathons. Real transformation starts when you stop outsourcing discipline and start leading yourself.
The truth is simple: weight loss isn’t about willpower—it’s about integrity. Every time you keep a promise to yourself, you rebuild confidence. Every smart choice strengthens self-trust. That’s the foundation of lasting change. My mission is to help busy, high-performing people take back control of their health, energy, and mindset—without diets, shots, or shame.
Each episode of the Shut Up and Choose Podcast cuts through the noise with real talk, proven strategies, and small, smart steps that actually last. No gimmicks. No hype. Just truth that works in real life.
Get free weekly tips at JonathanRessler.com/weekly-tips.
Click here for my Choice-Weight Analysis
Grab my book Shut Up and Choose on Amazon.
Follow me on Instagram @JonathanResslerFatLoss.
Leave a review—it helps ...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Annoucer (00:01):
You're listening to Shut Up and Choose.
The no bullshit, no excusespodcast for people who swear
they want to lose weight, butkeep choosing everything that
stops them.
And before we continue, ifyou're gonna bitch and moan and
act like a fucking pussy theentire time, skip this one.
(00:24):
I'm standing by JonathanRessler.
This dude dropped 140 poundswith no shots, no diets, no
pills, and not one singlefucking membership swipe at the
gym.
Just real choices that fit reallife.
If you're tired of gimmicks,tired of the bullshitting, and
(00:47):
ready for somebody to finallycall you out and tell you the
truth, you are in the rightplace.
This show punches all of themright in its fat face.
Stop commenting, startchoosing.
(01:08):
This is Shut Up and Choose.
Now, here's Jonathan.
Jonathan Ressler (01:18):
Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the
podcast that touches the noise,the nonsense, and all the
bullshit that the internetinfluencers and gurus and pretty
much the whole night industryis throwing your way.
Hopefully, we've cut throughsome of that noise and give you
some great insight today.
So I want to start today.
As you know, I probably maybeyou don't know.
I get a lot of emails, peopleare always asking me questions,
(01:40):
but there's one question that Iget a lot, and I I guess I
really need to answer it becauseI I thought it was painfully
obvious, but clearly it isn't.
So people always ask me why Iname my book in the podcast,
Shut Up and Choose.
They tilt their head, they lookconfused, they whisper, like I
said, something we all agreed noone should say out loud.
And they always ask me, why soharsh?
(02:02):
As if honesty is offensive andexcuses deserve protection.
But here's the truth (02:05):
the people who get offended by the
title are the exact people whoneed the title.
It hits them because itdirectly cuts through the
bullshit in the story thatthey've been performing for
years.
People always pretend they wantchange.
They love the fantasy oftransformation, they love
(02:26):
imagining themselves lighter andhealthier and finally in
control.
But they also cling to the onething that keeps them stuck, and
that's avoiding responsibility.
That's why I called it shut upand choose.
Because the entire weight lossconversation has turned into
this dramatic opera, for lack ofa better word of excuses, with
zero accountability anywhere.
(02:47):
So people narrate their lifelike they're victims of some
mysterious force.
I don't know why I gain weight.
Really?
You have no guesses?
None?
Not one?
It's it's always somethingexternal.
Work, distress, kids, holidays,traffic, metabolism, whatever
you name it, the grocery store,anything except the reality
right in front of them.
(03:07):
And that's their choices.
So the title makes peopleuncomfortable because it removes
the escape hatch.
It becomes a lot harder to say,I don't know what happened when
you're staring at a booktelling you to stop performing
and take responsibility.
It becomes harder to say, Ihave no control when the entire
philosophy reminds you that yourchoices created your current
situation and your choices canget you out of it.
(03:30):
People resist that becauseadmitting they played a role in
their own results is reallyuncomfortable.
And let's talk about the crowdthat really takes the most
defense in this thing.
The aggressively fat and happyactivists who pretend being
dangerously overweight is apersonality trait.
They hate this message becauseit destroys the narrative they
(03:51):
depend on.
The narrative where health isoptional, consequences don't
exist, and accountability isjust being cruel.
They want applause foravoidance and validation for
habits that hurt them.
And that's not empowerment.
That's unhealthy and it'sdangerous.
And deep down, they know it.
People don't get pissed becausethe title's rude.
(04:12):
They get pissed because it'strue.
It forces them to confront thepart they want to avoid.
Their weight didn't magicallyappear.
It came from decisions they andyou made.
And if you want differentresults, you need different
decisions.
That level of truth, I guess itfeels confrontational because
it removes the fantasy thatchange happens without
(04:33):
responsibility.
And let me be clear aboutsomething important.
Shut up and choose is not aboutsilence, it's about leadership.
And it's your leadership.
It means stop performingexcuses and outsourcing
responsibility, the diets thatcollapse the first time your
life gets fucked up, and stopglamorizing habits that wreck
your health.
Stop pretending you'repowerless.
I did it for years, so I know.
(04:54):
You're not.
I wasn't, and you're not.
You choose every day.
You choose what you eat, howyou respond to stress, and
whether or not you stay stuck oryou move forward.
And for the people I speak to,this matters even more.
I'm not here for the rip dabscrowd or the gym obsessed.
I'm here for real people whowant to lose weight to get
healthy while living a real andnormal life.
(05:15):
People who want control and notat some performance, people who
want to feel better and notjust pretend that everything's
fine, which I did for years.
For them and for me, choosingis everything because my life
will never hand me perfectconditions, and yours probably
won't either.
So this episode is for thepeople who need the reminder
(05:36):
that their life is shaped bytheir decisions, not by the
stories they tell.
So settle in because if youwant real change, the
instructions are pretty simple.
So let's get into why Shut Upand Choose even needed to exist
in the first place, which ispretty simple, because everyone
has an excuse.
Not some people, everyone.
It's the one universal truth inweight loss.
(05:57):
People will look you in the eyewhile holding a bagel the size
of a steering wheel and sendingyou a frappuccino with a
bazillion calories and swear,they don't know what where they
went wrong.
Really?
Really?
You have no theories?
None?
People pretend their weight issome unsolved mystery.
They act like, you know, ithappened overnight, like it
crept up quietly without theirinvolvement.
(06:19):
Meanwhile, there's a fullhistory of the exact choice that
got them there.
I know I lived it.
Whether it be skippingbreakfast or eating lunch in a
vending machine, eating late atnight, turning weekends into an
eating contest, zeroconsistency, zero awareness.
But ask them, and they talklike the universe gained the
weight for them.
(06:39):
The excuse list never ends.
Work is stressful, kids aremaking me crazy, the holidays
are hectic, the schedule'schaotic, my metabolism is slow,
my thyroid is acting up, myhusband or wife eats junk,
coworkers keep bringing muffinsin, restaurant portions, big
genetics, bad knees, retro,energy shifts.
The universe is plottingagainst them.
(07:01):
Anything except the mirror.
People don't wantresponsibility.
They want sympathy.
They want someone to pat themon the back while they avoid the
truth.
They want validation that theirchoices didn't count.
And they build a storyline thatremoves them entirely from the
equation.
In that version of events, itwas my version.
We're victims of timing, right?
(07:22):
Cravings, circumstances,biology, stress, fate, whatever.
It's never about decisions.
It's never about the choices.
Choices mysteriously vanishfrom the narrative.
So let's be clear.
People who are overweightbecause of the choices they
made.
Period.
You're fat because you chooseit.
Choices they continue to make,choices they pretend were
(07:44):
accidental.
No one accidentally eats adozen cookies.
No one accidentally hits adrive-thru at 11 o'clock at
night, and surely no oneaccidentally orders two entrees
because the first one wasn'tenough.
Those are choices.
What comes next is thecover-up.
They erase the choice from thememory like I did, so they can
stay confused about why theyfeel the way they feel.
(08:05):
And these choices aren't rare.
They repeat them daily.
I know I surely did.
And it became my lifestyle thatwas built on convenience and
impulse and frustration andautopilot.
Then they step on the scale.
I stepped on the scale, andtreated the number like a
personal attack instead of areflection.
(08:25):
And that is why I wrote thebook.
Because the gap between whatpeople do and what they claim to
do has become absurd.
People swear, they tell me allthe time, I barely eat anything.
While drinking a mochafrappuccino with enough calories
to cover two meals that peopleswear they eat healthy and they
stack non-stop.
They swear they don't eat atnight, but the kitchen tells a
(08:47):
different story.
And of course, they alwaysswear that they try hard when
the only thing they've triedconsistently is avoidance.
That is where shut up andchoose cuts through the
performance.
It removes the drama and stripsaway the excuses people like to
polish like trophies.
It demands honesty.
And I'm talking about realhonesty, the kind that makes
(09:08):
people uncomfortable because itshines a light on why they're
stuck.
Shut up means stop reciting thesame old fucking story.
Stop defending the habits thathurt you and pretending that
your choices don't matter.
Stop blaming yourcircumstances.
Stop building bullshitnarratives designed to protect
your comfort instead of yourprogress.
(09:28):
Choose means take theresponsibility for your next
choice.
Not your entire life, just thenext choice.
Own your habits, own yourpatterns, and own the truth that
you've been avoiding.
Real transformation starts thesecond you stop talking and
start choosing.
And here's the part that peoplehate to admit the people most
offended by the title are theones who need it the most.
(09:52):
The excuses aren't the realproblem.
The attachment to the excusesis what the problem is.
So yeah, everyone has anexcuse, but the moment you start
choosing, everything changes.
So now let's talk about thereal reason people hate the
message shut up and choose.
It's not because it's mean,it's not because it's harsh, and
it's definitely not the tone.
(10:13):
It's people hate it because itremoves their favorite escape
route.
The second they hear thosewords, every excuse they rely on
loses power, and nothing scarespeople more than being
confronted with their ownbullshit and their own
responsibility.
Think about how most peopleapproach weight loss.
They want something to hidebehind in a blueprint written by
somebody else, and when itcollapses, they have a
(10:34):
convenient villain.
They want to be able to say,see, it didn't work, while
pretending they played no rolein the outcome.
Diets are fucking perfect forthat.
Diets hand people a structureto blame, a coach to blame, a
meal plan to blame, a program toblame.
People cling to that externalblame because it protects their
ego.
But shut up and choose removesevery shield.
(10:55):
There's no coach to blame whenyou skip breakfast.
If that's something you do,there's no plan to blame when
you binge at night.
There's no system to blame whenyou repeat the same destructive
pattern for the 10th year in arow.
For me, it was 50 years of thatshit.
Choice removes that fingerpointing.
Choice puts the spotlightexactly where people don't want
(11:16):
it on themselves.
Because choice demandsownership and accountability and
truth.
And truth is the last thingpeople want when they're working
overtime to avoidresponsibility.
They want comfort and approval.
They want to keep repeating thesame habits while being told
they're trying.
They want applause for effortthat never actually existed.
(11:38):
That's why people cling todiets.
They want something to fail.
They want a structuredcollapse, and diet programs are
the perfect little scapegoats.
When people fall off, they cansay it wasn't realistic or it
was too strict or I couldn'tkeep it up.
As if someone forced them intoit.
Diets let people fail withoutfeeling responsible.
That's the entire appeal ofdiets.
But choosing exposes them andit eliminates the dramatic
(12:01):
collapse that they depend on.
Choosing gives you no villain,no storyline where you're the
innocent victim of some flawedplan.
And it leaves you with onesimple truth.
You made the decisions thatshaped your outcomes, and people
hate the truth because itremoves the fancy that change
happens without participation.
(12:22):
And here's the uncomfortablereality.
Most people don't really want asolution.
They want a story.
They want to sound like they'retrying without changing
anything meaningful.
They want to tell friendsthey're on a plan because it
sounds disciplined.
They want to talk about carbsand fasting and macros and steps
and points or whatever fuckingtrend is circulating because it
(12:45):
gives them a sense of identitywithout any effort.
Dieting is performance art forpeople who want credit without
results.
Shut up and choose ends theperformance on contact.
You know, like one of thosekills bugs on contact.
It strips away the theatrics.
No diet to blame, no plan tocollapse, no rules to break, no
(13:05):
spreadsheets to hide behind.
When you choose, every decisionis yours.
Every outcome is tied directlyto what you did or didn't do.
That kind of ownership makespeople panic.
But that's exactly why itworks.
Choosing forces growth becauseit forces honesty.
And it makes you confront yourpatterns instead of running from
(13:25):
them.
Choosing allows you to adjustinstead of just quit.
And choosing builds confidenceinstead of dependence.
Because choosing nevercollapses because it's not tied
to perfection, it's not tied tosome bullshit, rigid rules, and
it's not tied to fantasy.
Choosing is tied to reality,your reality, the life you live,
(13:48):
the schedule you have, thedemands you can't pause.
And that's exactly why peoplefear it.
But then it transforms them,which is the whole point.
So I want to dig a littledeeper into one of the most
delusional trends out there, andthat's the myth of fat and
happy, one that I lived foryears.
And it's the glamorizing ofobesity, the idea that carrying
80, 100, 150 extra pounds, justsome kind of personality
(14:10):
glow-up.
It's one of the biggest liespeople tell themselves and tell
each other.
And I know because I lived it.
I stood there 140 poundsheavier, smiling like everything
was fine, telling people I wasfat but happy and shockingly
healthy.
It wasn't bullshit.
It was nonsense.
It was performance.
It was something I repeated,hoping I would eventually
(14:31):
believe it.
But here's the truth.
If being obese made people sohappy, no one would DM me at
midnight and tears about theirweight.
No one would avoid mirrors likethey're dangerous, like I did.
No one would step on a scaleand feel their entire mood
fucking implode.
No one would dread clothesshopping.
I hated clothes shopping.
(14:51):
No one would panic before everydoctor's appointment.
No one would feel the shame atthe beach, at parties and
photos, or even in their ownhome.
Happy people don't live likethat.
The fat and happy narrative iscoping disguised as confidence.
It's avoidance disguised asempowerment.
It's a shield that people usebecause the alternative requires
(15:11):
honesty and accountability.
And people aren't thrilled tobe out of breath like I was.
They're not celebrating jointpain.
They're not excited about thehealth damage creeping in behind
the scenes.
And they're sure as shit notsecretly thrilled that walking
up steps feels like punishment.
They're not enjoying thatconstant anxiety around food.
The smile, that's just themask.
(15:34):
The narrative is a script, butthe truth sits underneath all
that.
And we have to be real aboutfat activism.
It's loud for one reason.
You know, every if you've everlistened to my podcast, you know
I can't stand a fat activist.
But fat activism is loud foronly one reason because it
depends on denial.
It depends on convincing peoplethat accepting their size means
(15:56):
ignoring the consequences ofit.
And it depends on shaminganyone who talks about
responsibility or choice.
The louder the message gets,the clearer the fear becomes.
Because the second people stopbelieving the script, they have
to face their own behavior.
They have to confront what theydo every day, and they have to
accept that their choices mattermore than the story.
Obesity is not a fuckingpersonality trait.
(16:18):
It's not a brand, and it's sureas shit not empowerment or an
identity.
It's a health crisis.
It's something you can fix bytaking control, not by building
movements that encourage denial.
And people hate this because itdestroys the narrative that
they're emotionally attached to.
I was attached to it too.
I told everyone I was fine.
I told everyone my labs weresurprisingly good.
(16:39):
Meanwhile, I was fucking wipedout, insecure, and terrified to
change.
I was lying because the truthscared me.
That's why shut up and choosehad to be blunt.
That's why I'm blunt.
People don't need a gentlenudge or affirmation to
celebrate being stuck.
They don't need a messagetelling them to love their
habits that are really hurtingthem.
(17:00):
What they need is fuckinghonesty.
They need accountability andthey need to choose.
You can't glamorize your wayout of a health problem.
You can't positive mindset yourway out of consequences, and
you can't call yourself fat andhappy while draining in the
reality that you refuse to face.
That part is simple.
(17:22):
Fat and happy is nothing but afucking myth.
Fat and coping is the truth.
And choosing is the only wayout.
And you know I love to harp onthis fat activism thing.
So before anybody melts out, Ijust want to be clear.
It's not about judging bodies.
This is more about judging thecomplete refusal to take
responsibility for the choicesthat created that body.
(17:43):
Fat activists preach acceptancewhile avoiding the word
responsibility like it'sradioactive.
They chant about empowermentand inclusion and loving
yourself at any size.
But if you ever hear them speakhonestly about their daily
decisions, no, because honestybreaks the narrative and
accountability kills thatstoryline.
(18:03):
Fat activists blame everythingexcept for themselves.
So it's society, it's media,it's beauty standards, big
corporations, childhood drama,capitalism, the air condition,
the food industry, doctors,anything except the fork in
their own hand.
They treat personal decisionslike mythological events no one
can confirm.
They preach acceptance whilepracticing complete avoidance,
(18:27):
and they demand respect whilerejecting responsibility.
It's the most aggressive formof denial you will ever see.
And here's the part to hate.
I'm really, I'm not judgingtheir bodies.
Bodies are bodies.
I'm judging the performance andthe victim role.
The refusal to acknowledge theone truth every human lives by.
(18:48):
Your choices shape your realityevery day.
That's not bias, it's physics.
It's energy in versus energyout.
Habits repeated, outcomesearned.
Ignoring those mechanicsdoesn't make you empowered, it
makes you scared.
I I say the same thing to fatactivists that I say to people
(19:08):
that I help every day.
If you want different results,you need different choices.
You can't keep doing the samething over and over again and
then scream at the world for notrearranging itself to
accommodate the consequences.
That's not activism, that'sfantasy.
No hashtag or slogan protectsanyone from reaction of their
(19:29):
own behavior.
You don't need a movement, youneed ownership.
So fat activism convincesself-love without
self-protection.
And real self-love includeshonesty and includes
responsibility.
And it's about facing the truthabout your habits.
Fat activism replaced all thatwith performance art loud,
(19:51):
emotional, dramatic, andcompletely disconnected from
real health.
And let me say this as someonewho lived in that body.
And repeated those same lines.
Telling yourself everything isfine doesn't make everything
fine.
Acceptance without addressingthe habits behind it changes
nothing.
(20:11):
Pretending your weight is apolitical statement instead of a
personal outcome keeps youstuck forever.
Now I never did that, butthat's crazy.
But you're not oppressed.
I wasn't oppressed.
I was avoiding.
And the sooner people admitthey're avoiding, the sooner
things shift.
This is where shut up andchoose cuts the noise.
It ends the blaming and theemotional storytelling and the
(20:34):
fantasy that the world owes youcomfort while you refuse to take
control.
Shut up means stop performingthe fucking victim role.
Stop defending the habits thathurt you and pretending that you
have no agents, that you haveno power.
Stop asking for applause whilecompletely ignoring your and
choose means take charge of yournext choice.
(20:56):
Stop waiting for society tovalidate you.
Stop asking for protection fromconsequences and start choosing
your own fucking life.
Fat activists and fat activistscan yell as loud as they want.
It still can't change thetruth.
If you want different results,you need different choices.
(21:16):
And until you make them,nothing shifts.
Not the scale, not your health,not your life, not the story.
So stop performing and startchoosing.
So now I'll go a little bitdeeper and I'll break down what
shut up and choose really meansbecause people love to pretend
the phrase is some kind ofattack, which it isn't.
(21:37):
It doesn't tell anyone to besilent.
It tells them to stop hidingbehind the stories they like
that are keeping them stuck.
Silence is passive whilehonesty is active.
Shut up and choose is abouthonesty.
People love to talk themselvesin circles.
They create narratives sodramatic that they can win
awards while insisting they'retrying.
(21:59):
They insist they're unlucky.
They insist they'reoverwhelmed.
They swear this time isdifferent while repeating the
same exact behavior.
They promised, stop.
I know I did it.
People drown themselves inexplanations and wonder why
nothing changes.
Shut up means stop feedingyourselves those stories and
excuses.
(22:19):
Stop narrating excuses likethey're facts and stop
explaining your patterns likeyou weren't the fucking one
choosing.
You were.
Then there's the wholeoutsourcing and power thing.
People hand their health todiets like they're surrendering
to it.
They let some program that someasshole wrote decide what they
eat.
They let a template decide howthey should live, and they get
(22:40):
shocked when the plant collapsesand they collapse along with
it.
That's what diets do.
Choosing is the opposite.
Choosing is taking the powerback.
Choosing means choices comefrom your life, not someone
else's bullshit template whodoesn't even fucking know you.
And then we have to talk aboutglamorizing that
self-destruction because this iswhere everything has gone off
(23:01):
the rails.
People call binge eatingself-care.
Just go on YouTube and look.
They call quitting, listeningto their body, and they call
avoidance boundaries.
They rebrand all their harmfulhabits as empowerment and get
pissed off when the consequencesshow up.
Shut up and choose calls thatbehavior what it is.
It forces you to confront theimpact that the choices you make
(23:26):
and the choices that you'vebeen sugarcoating.
The phrase is a wake-up call, areset, a reality check people
avoid with everything they have.
Because once you accept thetruth behind it, the entire game
changes.
You stop pretending and stopconfusing structure with
progress.
You stop performing the sameexcuses that kept you stuck, and
(23:47):
you start owning the tiny, thesmall, the tiny little choices
that move you forward.
Shut up means stop the excuses,okay?
Stop the speeches, stop thebullshit.
I'll start tomorrow.
Stop the I slip so the wholeday or the whole week is
running.
Stop my schedule is crazy.
Stop the I barely eat bullshit.
Stop the emotional theater.
Cut it off the second itstarts, because nothing
(24:10):
productive comes after thoselines.
Only self-sabotage.
Choose means takeresponsibility for your next
choice, your next decision.
Not your entire life, not thenext three months.
Just the next choice.
That's the heartbeat oftransformation.
The next choice is always inyour control.
That's where the power is.
(24:31):
Once you understand that, youcan change anything.
Shut up and choose isn't aboutextreme fitness or chasing abs.
It's about real people tryingto get healthy while living real
life, people with jobs andstress and obligations and chaos
and craziness.
Choosing is the only systembuilt for the life that you
already have.
So the phrase isn't an insult,it's liberation.
(24:54):
It frees you from the mentalbullshit and from that diet
mindset.
It frees you from the excusesthat turned into your identity
and it frees you from waitingfor the perfect moment or the
belief that change requirespunishment.
Shut up and choose means yourexcuses are optional and your
choices matter.
Every person needs that truth.
(25:15):
And once you accept it, youstop living for the illusion of
effort and you start living forresults.
That's what it really means.
Okay, now let's get brutallyclear about the difference
between dieting and choosingbecause this is where most
people feel the smack in theface.
Dieting and choosing are noteven in the same fucking
universe.
One keeps you stuck and onesets you free.
(25:37):
One feeds your excuses and theother one exposes them.
And one lets you pretend you'rechanging and the other one
forces you to actually change.
Diet is blame shifting.
Choosing is ownership.
When you diet, you hand yourresponsibility to a set of
rules.
And when the rules break, youblame the plan.
When you break the rules, youblame the stress, the schedule,
(25:58):
the party, the restaurant, allthe shit that we talked about,
the weather, whatever othercosmic interference you want to
point to.
Dieters collect excuses likeit's a hobby.
It's never their fault becausethe system wasn't realistic.
Choosing kills that escaperoute.
Choosing says, this is mydecision and my outcome.
This is on me.
(26:18):
Ownership is uncomfortablepeople who want credit without
responsibility, which is whychoosing works and dieting never
will.
Dieting is external rules.
Choosing is internalleadership.
When you diet, you outsourceevery decision to someone else.
A program that tells you whatto eat, a chart that tells you
(26:39):
how much, a meal plan that tellsyou when.
You follow it instead ofactually thinking.
And the second the structurecollapses, you collapse right
along with it.
On the other hand, choosingrequires you to lead yourself.
It forces you to buildjudgment.
Choosing makes you understandyour patterns and your triggers
(26:59):
and your needs.
And it means using your braininstead of hiding behind someone
else's.
Dieting treats you like arobot, and choosing, honestly,
treats you like an adult.
Dieting collapses with life,and choosing adapts to life.
There's no debate.
Diets require perfect days andtiming and perfect energy and
(27:20):
perfect conditions.
You don't have perfect days.
You have a real life.
One missed meal or broken ruleor unplanned moment in the diet
just detonates.
Choosing bends with it.
Choosing adjusts, and if youhave a busy day or travel or
stress or restaurant holidays,none of it destroys choosing
(27:40):
because choosing is built forthe reality you already live in.
It never asks you to pause yourworld to satisfy its rules.
Dieting lets you pretend andchoosing forces the truth.
Dieting gives the illusion ofdiscipline without any of the
actual growth.
You get to hide behindguidelines and say, your plan
didn't work, as if the planfailed you instead of you
(28:03):
choosing not to take control.
Dieters love the performance ofeffort.
Telling friends they're onsomething new, acting
disciplined without beingdisciplined, choosing erases
that fucking theater.
Choosing doesn't give a shitabout the story you tell.
It cares what you actually do.
It makes you face your patternswithout somebody else's script.
(28:25):
This is the core message.
When you shut up and choose,you stop arguing with reality.
You stop negotiating with yourown habits, and you stop looking
for loopholes.
You stop pretending yourchoices didn't create your
results.
They did.
You're fat because you chooseto be fat.
Life gets simple when you stoplying to yourself and you stop
(28:47):
performing and you startactually acting.
When you stop dieting and startchoosing, you stop guessing and
start changing.
You stop searching for theperfect plan and start building
the one that actually fits yourreal life.
You stop chasing these crazy,dramatic, quick fixes, and start
making intelligent decisions.
Most important part is you stopfalling off and resetting and
(29:11):
then falling off again.
You start stacking choices thatbuild momentum.
You start building control thatlasts because you created it
instead of borrowing it fromsomebody else.
Dieting is temporaryperformance.
Choosing is permanenttransformation.
And once you feel thatdifference, I promise you,
(29:33):
you'll never go back.
So dieting is the universaldistraction.
People cling to it because itlets them feel busy without
owning anything real.
They get to say they're workingat it while following rules
that collapse the second yourreal life gets messy.
Dieting is blame shifting,dressed up as effort, and it
(29:54):
gives people script so theynever actually have to face
themselves.
Choosing is the exact opposite.
Choosing hands responsibilityback where it belongs, on you.
It forces you to lead your lifeinstead of outsourcing somebody
else's plan, and it cuts outthe drama and kills the stories.
It basically strips away everyexcuse until the only thing left
(30:15):
is the choices you make next.
That's why Shut Up and Choosehits so hard.
It's the truths people spendyears avoiding.
I spent 50 some odd yearsavoiding it.
And it's the message behindeverything that I teach.
When you choose, you stopguessing.
You stop circling the sameproblems, and you stop
(30:36):
collapsing every time the daygoes sideways.
You stop arguing with realityand you start building a life, a
real life that you can control.
If you want help stepping intothat mindset, start with my free
weekly tips.
They take less than a minute toread.
There's no sales pitches,there's no nonsense, just one
sharp, useful idea everyWednesday to keep you steady
(30:58):
while everyone else losescontrol.
Tens of thousands of peoplealready get them, and you can
sign up for free.
They cost nothing atjonathanressler.com.
That's my website.
If you want to go a littledeeper, read the book.
Shut up and choose has beenbought by thousands of people
who are done with diet cultureand want something rooted in
real behavior instead ofpunishment.
It's not a diet book, it'sbasically a simple guide to
(31:20):
changing your life throughchoices.
It shows how your habits form,how your excuses work, and how
you stay in control of the lifethat you already live.
There's no restriction, nodeprivation, and honestly, no
bullshit.
And yes, it makes a greatholiday gift.
Now, if you're at the pointwhere you don't just want
theory, you want transformation,reach out and work with me
(31:40):
directly.
My one-to-one transformationsare for people who are serious
about changing their health andtheir patterns.
They keep me stuck.
More than 300 people haveworked with me and lost over
13,000 pounds combined.
I mean, that's an insanenumber, over 13,000 pounds
combined, between 300 people.
And that's with no diets, nopills, no shots, no gym, and no
(32:03):
starvation.
They changed their bodiesthrough choices that fit their
real lives.
They stopped performing effortand started taking ownership.
That is exactly why it worked.
So here's your moment.
You can cling to diets that letyou blame something else or
somebody else.
The second things fall apart,or you can choose.
You can take ownership of yournext meal, the next night, the
(32:26):
next pattern, the next momentwhere you usually quit.
You can build momentum insteadof waiting for a date on a
calendar to give you permission.
You want results, you wantconfidence, you want control,
then you need choices, notrules.
You need ownership, notstories, and you need reality,
not another fucking performance.
(32:46):
So subscribe to the tips, readthe books, reach out if you read
it to transform your lifeinstead of talking about it.
So now the only thing youalready know you need to do is
to shut up and choose.
Annoucer (33:04):
Thanks for listening to Shut Up and Choose.
If today's episode slapped youwith some truth, good.
That means it worked, andyou've dropped the pussy
attitude.
Make sure to like, rate, andreview, and connect with
Jonathanon Instagram at JonathanResslerFatLoss
@ on YouTube at JonathanResslerR, and online at
(33:26):
JonathanResslercom.
Just smarter choices, startingthe second you hit stop on this
episode.
Shut up and choose.
Now go make a better fuckingchoice.
You're listening to Shut Up and Choose.
The no bullshit, no excusespodcast for people who swear
they want to lose weight, butkeep choosing everything that
stops them.
And before we continue, ifyou're gonna bitch and moan and
act like a fucking pussy theentire time, skip this one.
(00:24):
I'm standing by JonathanRessler.
This dude dropped 140 poundswith no shots, no diets, no
pills, and not one singlefucking membership swipe at the
gym.
Just real choices that fit reallife.
If you're tired of gimmicks,tired of the bullshitting, and
(00:47):
ready for somebody to finallycall you out and tell you the
truth, you are in the rightplace.
This show punches all of themright in its fat face.
Stop commenting, startchoosing.
(01:08):
This is Shut Up and Choose.
Now, here's Jonathan.
Jonathan Ressler (01:18):
Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the
podcast that touches the noise,the nonsense, and all the
bullshit that the internetinfluencers and gurus and pretty
much the whole night industryis throwing your way.
Hopefully, we've cut throughsome of that noise and give you
some great insight today.
So I want to start today.
As you know, I probably maybeyou don't know.
I get a lot of emails, peopleare always asking me questions,
(01:40):
but there's one question that Iget a lot, and I I guess I
really need to answer it becauseI I thought it was painfully
obvious, but clearly it isn't.
So people always ask me why Iname my book in the podcast,
Shut Up and Choose.
They tilt their head, they lookconfused, they whisper, like I
said, something we all agreed noone should say out loud.
And they always ask me, why soharsh?
(02:02):
As if honesty is offensive andexcuses deserve protection.
But here's the truth (02:05):
the people who get offended by the
title are the exact people whoneed the title.
It hits them because itdirectly cuts through the
bullshit in the story thatthey've been performing for
years.
People always pretend they wantchange.
They love the fantasy oftransformation, they love
(02:26):
imagining themselves lighter andhealthier and finally in
control.
But they also cling to the onething that keeps them stuck, and
that's avoiding responsibility.
That's why I called it shut upand choose.
Because the entire weight lossconversation has turned into
this dramatic opera, for lack ofa better word of excuses, with
zero accountability anywhere.
(02:47):
So people narrate their lifelike they're victims of some
mysterious force.
I don't know why I gain weight.
Really?
You have no guesses?
None?
Not one?
It's it's always somethingexternal.
Work, distress, kids, holidays,traffic, metabolism, whatever
you name it, the grocery store,anything except the reality
right in front of them.
(03:07):
And that's their choices.
So the title makes peopleuncomfortable because it removes
the escape hatch.
It becomes a lot harder to say,I don't know what happened when
you're staring at a booktelling you to stop performing
and take responsibility.
It becomes harder to say, Ihave no control when the entire
philosophy reminds you that yourchoices created your current
situation and your choices canget you out of it.
(03:30):
People resist that becauseadmitting they played a role in
their own results is reallyuncomfortable.
And let's talk about the crowdthat really takes the most
defense in this thing.
The aggressively fat and happyactivists who pretend being
dangerously overweight is apersonality trait.
They hate this message becauseit destroys the narrative they
(03:51):
depend on.
The narrative where health isoptional, consequences don't
exist, and accountability isjust being cruel.
They want applause foravoidance and validation for
habits that hurt them.
And that's not empowerment.
That's unhealthy and it'sdangerous.
And deep down, they know it.
People don't get pissed becausethe title's rude.
(04:12):
They get pissed because it'strue.
It forces them to confront thepart they want to avoid.
Their weight didn't magicallyappear.
It came from decisions they andyou made.
And if you want differentresults, you need different
decisions.
That level of truth, I guess itfeels confrontational because
it removes the fantasy thatchange happens without
(04:33):
responsibility.
And let me be clear aboutsomething important.
Shut up and choose is not aboutsilence, it's about leadership.
And it's your leadership.
It means stop performingexcuses and outsourcing
responsibility, the diets thatcollapse the first time your
life gets fucked up, and stopglamorizing habits that wreck
your health.
Stop pretending you'repowerless.
I did it for years, so I know.
(04:54):
You're not.
I wasn't, and you're not.
You choose every day.
You choose what you eat, howyou respond to stress, and
whether or not you stay stuck oryou move forward.
And for the people I speak to,this matters even more.
I'm not here for the rip dabscrowd or the gym obsessed.
I'm here for real people whowant to lose weight to get
healthy while living a real andnormal life.
(05:15):
People who want control and notat some performance, people who
want to feel better and notjust pretend that everything's
fine, which I did for years.
For them and for me, choosingis everything because my life
will never hand me perfectconditions, and yours probably
won't either.
So this episode is for thepeople who need the reminder
(05:36):
that their life is shaped bytheir decisions, not by the
stories they tell.
So settle in because if youwant real change, the
instructions are pretty simple.
So let's get into why Shut Upand Choose even needed to exist
in the first place, which ispretty simple, because everyone
has an excuse.
Not some people, everyone.
It's the one universal truth inweight loss.
(05:57):
People will look you in the eyewhile holding a bagel the size
of a steering wheel and sendingyou a frappuccino with a
bazillion calories and swear,they don't know what where they
went wrong.
Really?
Really?
You have no theories?
None?
People pretend their weight issome unsolved mystery.
They act like, you know, ithappened overnight, like it
crept up quietly without theirinvolvement.
(06:19):
Meanwhile, there's a fullhistory of the exact choice that
got them there.
I know I lived it.
Whether it be skippingbreakfast or eating lunch in a
vending machine, eating late atnight, turning weekends into an
eating contest, zeroconsistency, zero awareness.
But ask them, and they talklike the universe gained the
weight for them.
(06:39):
The excuse list never ends.
Work is stressful, kids aremaking me crazy, the holidays
are hectic, the schedule'schaotic, my metabolism is slow,
my thyroid is acting up, myhusband or wife eats junk,
coworkers keep bringing muffinsin, restaurant portions, big
genetics, bad knees, retro,energy shifts.
The universe is plottingagainst them.
(07:01):
Anything except the mirror.
People don't wantresponsibility.
They want sympathy.
They want someone to pat themon the back while they avoid the
truth.
They want validation that theirchoices didn't count.
And they build a storyline thatremoves them entirely from the
equation.
In that version of events, itwas my version.
We're victims of timing, right?
(07:22):
Cravings, circumstances,biology, stress, fate, whatever.
It's never about decisions.
It's never about the choices.
Choices mysteriously vanishfrom the narrative.
So let's be clear.
People who are overweightbecause of the choices they
made.
Period.
You're fat because you chooseit.
Choices they continue to make,choices they pretend were
(07:44):
accidental.
No one accidentally eats adozen cookies.
No one accidentally hits adrive-thru at 11 o'clock at
night, and surely no oneaccidentally orders two entrees
because the first one wasn'tenough.
Those are choices.
What comes next is thecover-up.
They erase the choice from thememory like I did, so they can
stay confused about why theyfeel the way they feel.
(08:05):
And these choices aren't rare.
They repeat them daily.
I know I surely did.
And it became my lifestyle thatwas built on convenience and
impulse and frustration andautopilot.
Then they step on the scale.
I stepped on the scale, andtreated the number like a
personal attack instead of areflection.
(08:25):
And that is why I wrote thebook.
Because the gap between whatpeople do and what they claim to
do has become absurd.
People swear, they tell me allthe time, I barely eat anything.
While drinking a mochafrappuccino with enough calories
to cover two meals that peopleswear they eat healthy and they
stack non-stop.
They swear they don't eat atnight, but the kitchen tells a
(08:47):
different story.
And of course, they alwaysswear that they try hard when
the only thing they've triedconsistently is avoidance.
That is where shut up andchoose cuts through the
performance.
It removes the drama and stripsaway the excuses people like to
polish like trophies.
It demands honesty.
And I'm talking about realhonesty, the kind that makes
(09:08):
people uncomfortable because itshines a light on why they're
stuck.
Shut up means stop reciting thesame old fucking story.
Stop defending the habits thathurt you and pretending that
your choices don't matter.
Stop blaming yourcircumstances.
Stop building bullshitnarratives designed to protect
your comfort instead of yourprogress.
(09:28):
Choose means take theresponsibility for your next
choice.
Not your entire life, just thenext choice.
Own your habits, own yourpatterns, and own the truth that
you've been avoiding.
Real transformation starts thesecond you stop talking and
start choosing.
And here's the part that peoplehate to admit the people most
offended by the title are theones who need it the most.
(09:52):
The excuses aren't the realproblem.
The attachment to the excusesis what the problem is.
So yeah, everyone has anexcuse, but the moment you start
choosing, everything changes.
So now let's talk about thereal reason people hate the
message shut up and choose.
It's not because it's mean,it's not because it's harsh, and
it's definitely not the tone.
(10:13):
It's people hate it because itremoves their favorite escape
route.
The second they hear thosewords, every excuse they rely on
loses power, and nothing scarespeople more than being
confronted with their ownbullshit and their own
responsibility.
Think about how most peopleapproach weight loss.
They want something to hidebehind in a blueprint written by
somebody else, and when itcollapses, they have a
(10:34):
convenient villain.
They want to be able to say,see, it didn't work, while
pretending they played no rolein the outcome.
Diets are fucking perfect forthat.
Diets hand people a structureto blame, a coach to blame, a
meal plan to blame, a program toblame.
People cling to that externalblame because it protects their
ego.
But shut up and choose removesevery shield.
(10:55):
There's no coach to blame whenyou skip breakfast.
If that's something you do,there's no plan to blame when
you binge at night.
There's no system to blame whenyou repeat the same destructive
pattern for the 10th year in arow.
For me, it was 50 years of thatshit.
Choice removes that fingerpointing.
Choice puts the spotlightexactly where people don't want
(11:16):
it on themselves.
Because choice demandsownership and accountability and
truth.
And truth is the last thingpeople want when they're working
overtime to avoidresponsibility.
They want comfort and approval.
They want to keep repeating thesame habits while being told
they're trying.
They want applause for effortthat never actually existed.
(11:38):
That's why people cling todiets.
They want something to fail.
They want a structuredcollapse, and diet programs are
the perfect little scapegoats.
When people fall off, they cansay it wasn't realistic or it
was too strict or I couldn'tkeep it up.
As if someone forced them intoit.
Diets let people fail withoutfeeling responsible.
That's the entire appeal ofdiets.
But choosing exposes them andit eliminates the dramatic
(12:01):
collapse that they depend on.
Choosing gives you no villain,no storyline where you're the
innocent victim of some flawedplan.
And it leaves you with onesimple truth.
You made the decisions thatshaped your outcomes, and people
hate the truth because itremoves the fancy that change
happens without participation.
(12:22):
And here's the uncomfortablereality.
Most people don't really want asolution.
They want a story.
They want to sound like they'retrying without changing
anything meaningful.
They want to tell friendsthey're on a plan because it
sounds disciplined.
They want to talk about carbsand fasting and macros and steps
and points or whatever fuckingtrend is circulating because it
(12:45):
gives them a sense of identitywithout any effort.
Dieting is performance art forpeople who want credit without
results.
Shut up and choose ends theperformance on contact.
You know, like one of thosekills bugs on contact.
It strips away the theatrics.
No diet to blame, no plan tocollapse, no rules to break, no
(13:05):
spreadsheets to hide behind.
When you choose, every decisionis yours.
Every outcome is tied directlyto what you did or didn't do.
That kind of ownership makespeople panic.
But that's exactly why itworks.
Choosing forces growth becauseit forces honesty.
And it makes you confront yourpatterns instead of running from
(13:25):
them.
Choosing allows you to adjustinstead of just quit.
And choosing builds confidenceinstead of dependence.
Because choosing nevercollapses because it's not tied
to perfection, it's not tied tosome bullshit, rigid rules, and
it's not tied to fantasy.
Choosing is tied to reality,your reality, the life you live,
(13:48):
the schedule you have, thedemands you can't pause.
And that's exactly why peoplefear it.
But then it transforms them,which is the whole point.
So I want to dig a littledeeper into one of the most
delusional trends out there, andthat's the myth of fat and
happy, one that I lived foryears.
And it's the glamorizing ofobesity, the idea that carrying
80, 100, 150 extra pounds, justsome kind of personality
(14:10):
glow-up.
It's one of the biggest liespeople tell themselves and tell
each other.
And I know because I lived it.
I stood there 140 poundsheavier, smiling like everything
was fine, telling people I wasfat but happy and shockingly
healthy.
It wasn't bullshit.
It was nonsense.
It was performance.
It was something I repeated,hoping I would eventually
(14:31):
believe it.
But here's the truth.
If being obese made people sohappy, no one would DM me at
midnight and tears about theirweight.
No one would avoid mirrors likethey're dangerous, like I did.
No one would step on a scaleand feel their entire mood
fucking implode.
No one would dread clothesshopping.
I hated clothes shopping.
(14:51):
No one would panic before everydoctor's appointment.
No one would feel the shame atthe beach, at parties and
photos, or even in their ownhome.
Happy people don't live likethat.
The fat and happy narrative iscoping disguised as confidence.
It's avoidance disguised asempowerment.
It's a shield that people usebecause the alternative requires
(15:11):
honesty and accountability.
And people aren't thrilled tobe out of breath like I was.
They're not celebrating jointpain.
They're not excited about thehealth damage creeping in behind
the scenes.
And they're sure as shit notsecretly thrilled that walking
up steps feels like punishment.
They're not enjoying thatconstant anxiety around food.
The smile, that's just themask.
(15:34):
The narrative is a script, butthe truth sits underneath all
that.
And we have to be real aboutfat activism.
It's loud for one reason.
You know, every if you've everlistened to my podcast, you know
I can't stand a fat activist.
But fat activism is loud foronly one reason because it
depends on denial.
It depends on convincing peoplethat accepting their size means
(15:56):
ignoring the consequences ofit.
And it depends on shaminganyone who talks about
responsibility or choice.
The louder the message gets,the clearer the fear becomes.
Because the second people stopbelieving the script, they have
to face their own behavior.
They have to confront what theydo every day, and they have to
accept that their choices mattermore than the story.
Obesity is not a fuckingpersonality trait.
(16:18):
It's not a brand, and it's sureas shit not empowerment or an
identity.
It's a health crisis.
It's something you can fix bytaking control, not by building
movements that encourage denial.
And people hate this because itdestroys the narrative that
they're emotionally attached to.
I was attached to it too.
I told everyone I was fine.
I told everyone my labs weresurprisingly good.
(16:39):
Meanwhile, I was fucking wipedout, insecure, and terrified to
change.
I was lying because the truthscared me.
That's why shut up and choosehad to be blunt.
That's why I'm blunt.
People don't need a gentlenudge or affirmation to
celebrate being stuck.
They don't need a messagetelling them to love their
habits that are really hurtingthem.
(17:00):
What they need is fuckinghonesty.
They need accountability andthey need to choose.
You can't glamorize your wayout of a health problem.
You can't positive mindset yourway out of consequences, and
you can't call yourself fat andhappy while draining in the
reality that you refuse to face.
That part is simple.
(17:22):
Fat and happy is nothing but afucking myth.
Fat and coping is the truth.
And choosing is the only wayout.
And you know I love to harp onthis fat activism thing.
So before anybody melts out, Ijust want to be clear.
It's not about judging bodies.
This is more about judging thecomplete refusal to take
responsibility for the choicesthat created that body.
(17:43):
Fat activists preach acceptancewhile avoiding the word
responsibility like it'sradioactive.
They chant about empowermentand inclusion and loving
yourself at any size.
But if you ever hear them speakhonestly about their daily
decisions, no, because honestybreaks the narrative and
accountability kills thatstoryline.
(18:03):
Fat activists blame everythingexcept for themselves.
So it's society, it's media,it's beauty standards, big
corporations, childhood drama,capitalism, the air condition,
the food industry, doctors,anything except the fork in
their own hand.
They treat personal decisionslike mythological events no one
can confirm.
They preach acceptance whilepracticing complete avoidance,
(18:27):
and they demand respect whilerejecting responsibility.
It's the most aggressive formof denial you will ever see.
And here's the part to hate.
I'm really, I'm not judgingtheir bodies.
Bodies are bodies.
I'm judging the performance andthe victim role.
The refusal to acknowledge theone truth every human lives by.
(18:48):
Your choices shape your realityevery day.
That's not bias, it's physics.
It's energy in versus energyout.
Habits repeated, outcomesearned.
Ignoring those mechanicsdoesn't make you empowered, it
makes you scared.
I I say the same thing to fatactivists that I say to people
(19:08):
that I help every day.
If you want different results,you need different choices.
You can't keep doing the samething over and over again and
then scream at the world for notrearranging itself to
accommodate the consequences.
That's not activism, that'sfantasy.
No hashtag or slogan protectsanyone from reaction of their
(19:29):
own behavior.
You don't need a movement, youneed ownership.
So fat activism convincesself-love without
self-protection.
And real self-love includeshonesty and includes
responsibility.
And it's about facing the truthabout your habits.
Fat activism replaced all thatwith performance art loud,
(19:51):
emotional, dramatic, andcompletely disconnected from
real health.
And let me say this as someonewho lived in that body.
And repeated those same lines.
Telling yourself everything isfine doesn't make everything
fine.
Acceptance without addressingthe habits behind it changes
nothing.
(20:11):
Pretending your weight is apolitical statement instead of a
personal outcome keeps youstuck forever.
Now I never did that, butthat's crazy.
But you're not oppressed.
I wasn't oppressed.
I was avoiding.
And the sooner people admitthey're avoiding, the sooner
things shift.
This is where shut up andchoose cuts the noise.
It ends the blaming and theemotional storytelling and the
(20:34):
fantasy that the world owes youcomfort while you refuse to take
control.
Shut up means stop performingthe fucking victim role.
Stop defending the habits thathurt you and pretending that you
have no agents, that you haveno power.
Stop asking for applause whilecompletely ignoring your and
choose means take charge of yournext choice.
(20:56):
Stop waiting for society tovalidate you.
Stop asking for protection fromconsequences and start choosing
your own fucking life.
Fat activists and fat activistscan yell as loud as they want.
It still can't change thetruth.
If you want different results,you need different choices.
(21:16):
And until you make them,nothing shifts.
Not the scale, not your health,not your life, not the story.
So stop performing and startchoosing.
So now I'll go a little bitdeeper and I'll break down what
shut up and choose really meansbecause people love to pretend
the phrase is some kind ofattack, which it isn't.
(21:37):
It doesn't tell anyone to besilent.
It tells them to stop hidingbehind the stories they like
that are keeping them stuck.
Silence is passive whilehonesty is active.
Shut up and choose is abouthonesty.
People love to talk themselvesin circles.
They create narratives sodramatic that they can win
awards while insisting they'retrying.
(21:59):
They insist they're unlucky.
They insist they'reoverwhelmed.
They swear this time isdifferent while repeating the
same exact behavior.
They promised, stop.
I know I did it.
People drown themselves inexplanations and wonder why
nothing changes.
Shut up means stop feedingyourselves those stories and
excuses.
(22:19):
Stop narrating excuses likethey're facts and stop
explaining your patterns likeyou weren't the fucking one
choosing.
You were.
Then there's the wholeoutsourcing and power thing.
People hand their health todiets like they're surrendering
to it.
They let some program that someasshole wrote decide what they
eat.
They let a template decide howthey should live, and they get
(22:40):
shocked when the plant collapsesand they collapse along with
it.
That's what diets do.
Choosing is the opposite.
Choosing is taking the powerback.
Choosing means choices comefrom your life, not someone
else's bullshit template whodoesn't even fucking know you.
And then we have to talk aboutglamorizing that
self-destruction because this iswhere everything has gone off
(23:01):
the rails.
People call binge eatingself-care.
Just go on YouTube and look.
They call quitting, listeningto their body, and they call
avoidance boundaries.
They rebrand all their harmfulhabits as empowerment and get
pissed off when the consequencesshow up.
Shut up and choose calls thatbehavior what it is.
It forces you to confront theimpact that the choices you make
(23:26):
and the choices that you'vebeen sugarcoating.
The phrase is a wake-up call, areset, a reality check people
avoid with everything they have.
Because once you accept thetruth behind it, the entire game
changes.
You stop pretending and stopconfusing structure with
progress.
You stop performing the sameexcuses that kept you stuck, and
(23:47):
you start owning the tiny, thesmall, the tiny little choices
that move you forward.
Shut up means stop the excuses,okay?
Stop the speeches, stop thebullshit.
I'll start tomorrow.
Stop the I slip so the wholeday or the whole week is
running.
Stop my schedule is crazy.
Stop the I barely eat bullshit.
Stop the emotional theater.
Cut it off the second itstarts, because nothing
(24:10):
productive comes after thoselines.
Only self-sabotage.
Choose means takeresponsibility for your next
choice, your next decision.
Not your entire life, not thenext three months.
Just the next choice.
That's the heartbeat oftransformation.
The next choice is always inyour control.
That's where the power is.
(24:31):
Once you understand that, youcan change anything.
Shut up and choose isn't aboutextreme fitness or chasing abs.
It's about real people tryingto get healthy while living real
life, people with jobs andstress and obligations and chaos
and craziness.
Choosing is the only systembuilt for the life that you
already have.
So the phrase isn't an insult,it's liberation.
(24:54):
It frees you from the mentalbullshit and from that diet
mindset.
It frees you from the excusesthat turned into your identity
and it frees you from waitingfor the perfect moment or the
belief that change requirespunishment.
Shut up and choose means yourexcuses are optional and your
choices matter.
Every person needs that truth.
(25:15):
And once you accept it, youstop living for the illusion of
effort and you start living forresults.
That's what it really means.
Okay, now let's get brutallyclear about the difference
between dieting and choosingbecause this is where most
people feel the smack in theface.
Dieting and choosing are noteven in the same fucking
universe.
One keeps you stuck and onesets you free.
(25:37):
One feeds your excuses and theother one exposes them.
And one lets you pretend you'rechanging and the other one
forces you to actually change.
Diet is blame shifting.
Choosing is ownership.
When you diet, you hand yourresponsibility to a set of
rules.
And when the rules break, youblame the plan.
When you break the rules, youblame the stress, the schedule,
(25:58):
the party, the restaurant, allthe shit that we talked about,
the weather, whatever othercosmic interference you want to
point to.
Dieters collect excuses likeit's a hobby.
It's never their fault becausethe system wasn't realistic.
Choosing kills that escaperoute.
Choosing says, this is mydecision and my outcome.
This is on me.
(26:18):
Ownership is uncomfortablepeople who want credit without
responsibility, which is whychoosing works and dieting never
will.
Dieting is external rules.
Choosing is internalleadership.
When you diet, you outsourceevery decision to someone else.
A program that tells you whatto eat, a chart that tells you
(26:39):
how much, a meal plan that tellsyou when.
You follow it instead ofactually thinking.
And the second the structurecollapses, you collapse right
along with it.
On the other hand, choosingrequires you to lead yourself.
It forces you to buildjudgment.
Choosing makes you understandyour patterns and your triggers
(26:59):
and your needs.
And it means using your braininstead of hiding behind someone
else's.
Dieting treats you like arobot, and choosing, honestly,
treats you like an adult.
Dieting collapses with life,and choosing adapts to life.
There's no debate.
Diets require perfect days andtiming and perfect energy and
(27:20):
perfect conditions.
You don't have perfect days.
You have a real life.
One missed meal or broken ruleor unplanned moment in the diet
just detonates.
Choosing bends with it.
Choosing adjusts, and if youhave a busy day or travel or
stress or restaurant holidays,none of it destroys choosing
(27:40):
because choosing is built forthe reality you already live in.
It never asks you to pause yourworld to satisfy its rules.
Dieting lets you pretend andchoosing forces the truth.
Dieting gives the illusion ofdiscipline without any of the
actual growth.
You get to hide behindguidelines and say, your plan
didn't work, as if the planfailed you instead of you
(28:03):
choosing not to take control.
Dieters love the performance ofeffort.
Telling friends they're onsomething new, acting
disciplined without beingdisciplined, choosing erases
that fucking theater.
Choosing doesn't give a shitabout the story you tell.
It cares what you actually do.
It makes you face your patternswithout somebody else's script.
(28:25):
This is the core message.
When you shut up and choose,you stop arguing with reality.
You stop negotiating with yourown habits, and you stop looking
for loopholes.
You stop pretending yourchoices didn't create your
results.
They did.
You're fat because you chooseto be fat.
Life gets simple when you stoplying to yourself and you stop
(28:47):
performing and you startactually acting.
When you stop dieting and startchoosing, you stop guessing and
start changing.
You stop searching for theperfect plan and start building
the one that actually fits yourreal life.
You stop chasing these crazy,dramatic, quick fixes, and start
making intelligent decisions.
Most important part is you stopfalling off and resetting and
(29:11):
then falling off again.
You start stacking choices thatbuild momentum.
You start building control thatlasts because you created it
instead of borrowing it fromsomebody else.
Dieting is temporaryperformance.
Choosing is permanenttransformation.
And once you feel thatdifference, I promise you,
(29:33):
you'll never go back.
So dieting is the universaldistraction.
People cling to it because itlets them feel busy without
owning anything real.
They get to say they're workingat it while following rules
that collapse the second yourreal life gets messy.
Dieting is blame shifting,dressed up as effort, and it
(29:54):
gives people script so theynever actually have to face
themselves.
Choosing is the exact opposite.
Choosing hands responsibilityback where it belongs, on you.
It forces you to lead your lifeinstead of outsourcing somebody
else's plan, and it cuts outthe drama and kills the stories.
It basically strips away everyexcuse until the only thing left
(30:15):
is the choices you make next.
That's why Shut Up and Choosehits so hard.
It's the truths people spendyears avoiding.
I spent 50 some odd yearsavoiding it.
And it's the message behindeverything that I teach.
When you choose, you stopguessing.
You stop circling the sameproblems, and you stop
(30:36):
collapsing every time the daygoes sideways.
You stop arguing with realityand you start building a life, a
real life that you can control.
If you want help stepping intothat mindset, start with my free
weekly tips.
They take less than a minute toread.
There's no sales pitches,there's no nonsense, just one
sharp, useful idea everyWednesday to keep you steady
(30:58):
while everyone else losescontrol.
Tens of thousands of peoplealready get them, and you can
sign up for free.
They cost nothing atjonathanressler.com.
That's my website.
If you want to go a littledeeper, read the book.
Shut up and choose has beenbought by thousands of people
who are done with diet cultureand want something rooted in
real behavior instead ofpunishment.
It's not a diet book, it'sbasically a simple guide to
(31:20):
changing your life throughchoices.
It shows how your habits form,how your excuses work, and how
you stay in control of the lifethat you already live.
There's no restriction, nodeprivation, and honestly, no
bullshit.
And yes, it makes a greatholiday gift.
Now, if you're at the pointwhere you don't just want
theory, you want transformation,reach out and work with me
(31:40):
directly.
My one-to-one transformationsare for people who are serious
about changing their health andtheir patterns.
They keep me stuck.
More than 300 people haveworked with me and lost over
13,000 pounds combined.
I mean, that's an insanenumber, over 13,000 pounds
combined, between 300 people.
And that's with no diets, nopills, no shots, no gym, and no
(32:03):
starvation.
They changed their bodiesthrough choices that fit their
real lives.
They stopped performing effortand started taking ownership.
That is exactly why it worked.
So here's your moment.
You can cling to diets that letyou blame something else or
somebody else.
The second things fall apart,or you can choose.
You can take ownership of yournext meal, the next night, the
(32:26):
next pattern, the next momentwhere you usually quit.
You can build momentum insteadof waiting for a date on a
calendar to give you permission.
You want results, you wantconfidence, you want control,
then you need choices, notrules.
You need ownership, notstories, and you need reality,
not another fucking performance.
(32:46):
So subscribe to the tips, readthe books, reach out if you read
it to transform your lifeinstead of talking about it.
So now the only thing youalready know you need to do is
to shut up and choose.
Annoucer (33:04):
Thanks for listening to Shut Up and Choose.
If today's episode slapped youwith some truth, good.
That means it worked, andyou've dropped the pussy
attitude.
Make sure to like, rate, andreview, and connect with
Jonathanon Instagram at JonathanResslerFatLoss
@ on YouTube at JonathanResslerR, and online at
(33:26):
JonathanResslercom.
Just smarter choices, startingthe second you hit stop on this
episode.
Shut up and choose.
Now go make a better fuckingchoice.
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