December 10, 2025 • 27 mins
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--
Even if you know what to do for nutrition and strength training, you keep stopping, falling off, and starting over.
Discover why this has nothing to do with discipline, willpower, or motivation, and everything to do with two trainable psychological skills that predict whether you'll follow through or quit.
Episode Resources:
- Try Fitness Lab for an AI coaching app that gives you microactivities and psychological wins. Special link for podcast listeners to get 20% off.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Why you keep starting over with strength training and nutrition
8:36 - Skill #1: Self-efficacy (believing you can execute the next step)
13:58 - Small wins and progressive overload for confidence
14:40 - Join the 3-Week Strong Finish Challenge
15:55 - Skill #2: Self-regulation (following through when life gets messy)
20:22 - 4 tactics to build self-regulation
24:04 - Related psychological models explained
26:18 - Practical steps and identity shift for lifters
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:01):
Even if you know what to do, you've listened to
podcasts, watched to videos,maybe hired a coach, you know
how to eat, how to train, how tolose fat, build muscle, and yet
you still keep stopping, youkeep falling off, you keep
starting over.
Today I'm gonna show you whythis happens and why it has
nothing to do with discipline,willpower, or motivation.
(00:22):
You'll discover the twotrainable psychological skills
that predict whether someonefollows through or gives up and
walk away with specific tips tobuild these skills.
(00:43):
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, Philip Pape,
and today we're gonna talk aboutthe psychology of adherence,
specifically what the researchtells us about why people stick
to strength training andnutrition and why most people
don't.
(01:04):
This is one of those episodesthat is about mindset and how
you think about consistency.
And we're gonna go beyondtypical advice and probably
beyond things that I've evendiscussed on the show because I
recently came across a researchreview, it was in mass, that
examined the factors related tolong-term resistance training
(01:25):
adherence specifically.
And they challenged some of myown assumptions, they confirmed
some others, and I'm alwayslearning and trying to apply
what I've learned for you guysand to our programs and to the
Fitness Lab app, and really justmake sure we're using the latest
uh knowledge from the evidenceto help us out, myself included.
(01:45):
What struck me most from thisreview is that the psychological
mechanisms that determinewhether someone sticks to their
training and nutrition, they'retrainable.
I guess it didn't surprise me,but it was really cool to see
the validation that these areskills that you can develop.
They are skills.
They're not personality traits,they're not, you know, stuck in
(02:06):
your permanent identity.
They are skills.
So let's get into it.
Let's start with what theevidence shows about why most
people quit, but why some peopledon't.
And that's going to give us aclue about what we can do.
So here's the thing aboutsticking to anything really, but
specifically your training andnutrition, is that I think we're
focused often on the wrongvariables.
(02:27):
It's kind of like when we talkabout energy balance and we talk
about calories and calories out.
And calories in, calories outare variables, but they're
usually the wrong variablesbecause most people, even if you
understand that, have troublegetting the right calories in
and producing the right caloriesout.
And it's like, what upstream dowe actually care more about in
terms of variables that get usto those other variables being
(02:50):
what we want?
And you've heard lots of thesemethods.
You've heard of smart goals, forexample, you've heard of finding
an accountability partner.
You've probably heard, hey,you've got to make it fun,
you've got to remove friction.
And I've talked about all ofthose.
And some of it can help.
These are all, I'll say, toolsmore than anything, but none of
(03:11):
them actually explain why twopeople, if you put them side by
side and they have the sameenvironment, the same program,
the same knowledge, one of themsticks to that for years and the
other one might quit after threeweeks, right?
And they may have some of thesetools in place and still it's
not working.
So what's going on?
Well, the research tells us thatthe factors that drive long-term
(03:34):
adherence, they're not externalfactors, they're internal
factors.
They're psychological constructsthat are operating beneath the
surface.
Now, I want to make somethingclear up front.
We don't have a ton of directevidence on long-term resistance
training adherence specifically.
As is the case with most ofthese studies, they're looking
(03:54):
at acute responses, short-termoutcomes.
Maybe they're looking at aerobicexercise, not strength training.
And so the research I'm drawingfrom today looks at
psychological models thatpredict health behavior more
broadly and then connects thoseto what we know about lifting.
But I am quite confident that tosay that, like when we talk
(04:15):
about principles, principlesapply to lots of different
contexts and situations.
And so these models make a lotof sense to me.
And that's what we're going totalk about, right?
These are I'll say universalmechanisms.
The same psychological factorsthat predict whether you stick
to walking or running or healthbehavior should apply to
training and nutrition as well,because we're talking about
(04:36):
human behavior, right?
The principles don't change justbecause you're doing one thing
instead of another.
So, what are these factors?
Well, the research points to afew key items here.
Positive, effective response isone.
That's how you feel aftertraining.
Interesting, right?
Positive, effective response.
Self-efficacy is your belief inyour ability to execute specific
(05:00):
behaviors.
That's how much you believe inyourself and your confidence to
do something.
Intrinsic motivation is doingsomething because you genuinely
want to do it.
And then self-regulation is theability to follow through on
your intentions despiteobstacles.
Interesting, right?
Your ability to follow throughdespite obstacles.
(05:20):
And so these four things areworking together in a kind of
like a system, and theyinteract, just like many things
interact, right?
You can't necessarily separatethem.
And when we understand that,then we can engineer our
approach to try to maximizethem.
So I want to start with the onethat surprised me a little bit
in the research.
And this is this is theemotional payoff of training.
(05:44):
What the data shows us thatpeople who lift weights usually
feel better afterward.
All right, that sounds obvious,and that I could get on board
with.
That's not the surprise.
I agree.
I tell people that all the time.
Like, you may not feel likelifting.
It may feel, it may be hard.
Once you do it, you're gonnalove it.
You're gonna do it, you're gonnafeel great afterward.
But in this case, there was athere's research, right?
(06:04):
So a 16-week study looked atrecreational adults, and it
found that uh feeling scale, uh,a score on a scale of how you
feel, right?
How good you feel, increasedconsistently from before to
after training.
The interesting thing though isthe highest positive feelings
came after strength-focusedsessions like deadlifts, squats,
(06:25):
etc.
Compound movements produce themost positive emotional
response.
That's pretty cool.
Okay.
Now, what does this mean foryou?
Well, if you've ever felt liketraining should be a slog or
punishment or suffering, youknow, you have to suffer through
it.
Research is telling usotherwise.
You don't just have to take itfrom me anymore.
Training, especially heavycompound lifts, actually make
(06:48):
you feel good, better thanbefore you started.
And you know what?
I can buy this for sure.
It's not until I started liftingthat way that I really started
to enjoy lifting.
And I try to get that messageacross to people who are like,
well, I don't like to work out,I don't like to, you're not
doing it right.
And I think this matters a tonbecause of something called
hedonic theory.
(07:09):
And that's the idea that peopleare going to repeat behaviors
that feel good at the end,right?
It's an incentive.
There's a there's a famous studywhere people stuck their hands
in cold water, and one of theconditions was cold water for
one minute, another was coldwater for one minute, plus an
additional 30 seconds where thetemperature was raised slightly.
And then when they were askedwhich condition they wanted to
(07:31):
repeat, most people chose thelonger one, even though it
involved more total coldexposure because it ended
better.
And this has implications to ourtraining because if you're
crushing yourself to the pointof feeling awful at the end of
every session, which I don'trecommend, you're fighting
against your own psychology.
You know, you might think I'mbeing hardcore and this, you
(07:53):
know, I think of my CrossFitdays.
Man, I was like, at the end, Idon't know if I felt great or
not.
Like maybe hours later I did,but right afterward, I felt
pretty terrible.
I like I wanted to die.
And we often put that on apedestal.
But you're actually programmingyour brain to not like training
when you do that.
So the takeaway is leave the gymfeeling good, not destroyed.
Whoa, pretty cool, right?
(08:13):
Like research supports this,where you know, progressive
overload matters, training hardmatters, but there's a
difference between a challengingsession where the weights are
heavy and one that like crushesand destroys you and demoralizes
you.
There is a difference.
And usually the former is goingto end up being the more
effective workout anyway.
So that's that's feeling capableafter because you've done
(08:36):
something.
But now let's connect that tothe next factor, which maybe is
the most important factor, atleast in my opinion.
And that is related toself-efficacy.
I think self-efficacy, it comesup a lot.
I hear people, well, I guess Idon't hear people use the phrase
a lot.
I've used it a lot since I metDr.
Eric Helms years ago and he usedit.
And there's something calledself-self-motivation theory that
(08:57):
it's part of.
But a lot of people, I think,confuse self-efficacy with
motivation, and they'redefinitely not the same.
You know, motivation is wantingto do something.
And I heard someone sayrecently, hey, anytime you do
something, you were motivated todo it.
So if you're doom scrolling onyour phone on the couch, you
were motivated to do that.
Motivation gets you to dosomething.
(09:18):
Whatever, it doesn't matter.
Good, bad doesn't matter.
Self-efficacy, on the otherhand, is believing you can do
it.
Specifically, it's believingthat you can execute the next
step successfully.
It's a level of confidence,isn't it?
And here's how I like to thinkabout it.
So motivation is saying, do Iwant to go to the gym?
(09:38):
Self-efficacy is saying, can Icomplete today's workout
successfully?
There's a difference, right?
Do I want to go to the gym?
Motivation.
Can I complete today's workoutsuccessfully?
That's self-efficacy.
That's more on the confidenceside.
And the research is clear hereas well.
Higher self-efficacy isassociated with more positive
feelings after training, as wellas greater intention to continue
(10:01):
training or exercising, and evenbetter self-regulation around
food choices.
So it is a predictor acrossmultiple domains.
And what I find super powerfulabout this is that
self-efficacy, it's not justbelieving you can achieve some
umbrella long-term massive goal,right?
(10:22):
It's not.
It's granular, it's down to theprocess level, skill level.
It's can I hit my protein today?
Not can I master flexibledieting?
Can I do this workout?
Not can I become a competitivelifter or can I get jacked in
six months, right?
And the cool thing here, we'regoing to tie it into the first
thing I talked about, is whatthe research found that lifting
(10:43):
heavier loads was related togreat, greater self-efficacy.
And if you think about it, itmakes logical sense because
every time you add weight to thebar, every time you hit a PR,
even if it's Rep's PR, yes,you're making physical progress,
but it's also psychologicalprogress.
You did a hard thing and you'vedone it.
And now you say, your brainsays, I can do this because I
(11:04):
did it before and I can do itagain.
You're collecting data pointsthat reaffirm your efficacy.
And this is also, if to take ahighly relevant tangent, this is
why progressive overload is alsoso important beyond what it gets
you.
It actually builds thatself-belief.
Because every time you have asuccessful extra rep or higher
(11:26):
load, when you complete aplanned workout that you
intentionally designed to beslightly more challenging than
last time, that is like adeposit into your self-efficacy
bank account.
And that's what's also reallypowerful, where I see people
change from I hate working outto, oh my God, I can't wait for
my next session because I wantto see if I'm stronger.
(11:48):
There is a difference there.
Now, you have to build thisintentionally.
It's a skill.
You have to engineer your wins.
You have to bring them fromnowhere into existence, not fake
wins, but real wins that areachievable.
So that means they have to besomething you can achieve
because you have to start withthe self-efficacy, self-efficacy
you have right now, which ifyou've never lifted weights at
(12:10):
all, is going to be quite lowcompared to somebody who's even
done one gym session and knowsthat they can do a lift.
Does that make sense?
So you're starting where youare, and you want to guarantee
what I'll call technicalsuccess, which means starting
with a minimum that youabsolutely 100% can hit rather
than some ideal that's likeyou're not sure how challenging
(12:33):
it's gonna be, and then there'sa chance you're gonna miss it.
This goes back to the always getyour reps philosophy that I
originally learned in startingstrength.
And it's a super powerfulpsychological model because it
means you need to track in a waythat shows that you progress to
give your brain evidence thatyou did progress, but you have
to progress.
So rather than fail, because itkind of breaks the loop or
(12:53):
breaks the chain, if you will.
Okay.
And that's starting with atarget that's slightly above
where you are now.
That's why I'm a big fan of thesmall wins and the small steps.
Same thing goes with protein,calories, whatever.
If you're not eating very muchprotein, don't double your
protein.
Pick a goal that's a little bitmore than that, and then a
little more, and you hit that,and then a little more and you
hit that.
And then within weeks, itdoesn't take long, guys, it
(13:14):
doesn't take long for any ofthis stuff.
Within weeks, now you are at alevel that you thought in the
past was impossible, but now youtotally believe you can do it
because you've done it.
It's like when your squat goesfrom 95 to 135 to 185 to 225.
And a few months later you lookback, you're hitting 275, and
(13:35):
you're like, oh my God, rememberthat time I did 95?
That seems like nothing.
275 would have felt impossible.
And now you're like, when am Igetting a 315?
Right?
And your brain is gonna predictsuccess based on past data.
So you have to feed it gooddata, good meaning data that
emphasizes you can do this andhave the self-efficacy.
(13:55):
So quick break here becausewe're talking about
self-efficacy andself-regulation.
Today is Wednesday, December10th, and we are just kicking
off our three-week strong finishchallenge today.
If you haven't had a chance tograb a spot and sign up, you can
still do so atlive.witsandweeets.com and you
can get the replay from ourkickoff two days ago and all the
resources, the strength trainingtemplates, the custom nutrition
(14:18):
plan, access to our coaches,accountability, all of it.
And that challenge is designedaround what we're talking about
today, about proving to yourselfthat you can maintain or even
progress with your training,your nutrition, your recovery,
even in the hardest weeks of theyear.
And this is exactly relevantbecause we're gonna show you how
to have that achievable level ofsuccess rather than a wishful
(14:41):
thinking that you fail at.
And that framework is what wecall the flex framework, right?
It's about setting minimums andthen also having bailouts.
And even the bailouts give you apsychological win that you're
not manufacturing, but you'reactually achieving.
And that helps you build theevidence that you can do this
and follow through no matterwhat's happening around you in
the hardest time of the year.
And that's exactly how you buildself-efficacy, aiming to prove
(15:05):
that you have a floor that youcan always count on no matter
what.
There's still time to join.
The challenge runs through theend of the year.
So join now.
If you're seeing hearing this acouple days later, it's we're
just getting started.
You have plenty of time.
Go to live.witsandweights.com,register, jump in.
You'll get all the resources.
I'm not going to go over thoseagain.
Just go check it out.
You can read about it.
If it doesn't look interesting,don't have to join.
(15:27):
Live.witsandweights.com.
And then by the end of the year,you'll know what your
sustainable baseline is.
Not what you hope you can do insome random perfect conditions,
but what you can actuallymaintain when life gets super,
super chaotic.
And that knowledge is soinvaluable.
That is the self-efficacy thatwe want to build.
All right.
Live.witsandweights.com to joinour three-week strong finish
(15:51):
challenge, whether you're tryingto lose fate, fat, or just
maintain your results.
All right.
Let's get back to the psychologyof adherence.
And I'm going to talk about thesecond trainable skill that
determines whether you followthrough.
So the first one wasself-efficacy.
I know I talked about feelinggood after a workout.
That wasn't really the skill.
The skill was tied toself-efficacy itself.
The second one, so self-efficacyis about believing you can do
(16:13):
something.
Now I want to talk aboutself-regulation.
So self-regulation is actuallydoing it, but when life gets in
the way.
This is the whole point.
Think of it this way: self-efficacy is the foundation. (16:25):
undefined
Self-regulation is what keepsthe building standing up when
the wind starts to pick up.
Does that make sense?
It's doing it when life gets inthe way.
And the research defines it asthe ability to control your
behaviors, your feelings, andthoughts in service of a goal.
Right?
So self-regulation is theability to control your
(16:47):
behaviors, feelings, andthoughts in service of a goal.
Notice that's not a habit.
A habit is automatic.
This is a skill.
It's what allows your behaviorto match your intentions despite
obstacles.
And that despite obstacles partis the crucial part.
It's what we've been talkingabout since day one on this
podcast when we talk aboutsustainability, flexibility, and
(17:09):
all of that.
Because here's the reality.
You're going to have days whereyou're tired, you're stressed,
you're busy, you're traveling,you're dealing with family
stuff, right?
And the older we get, the moreof that stuff there is just it's
not going to go away.
Work emergencies, in my owncase, a surgery a week after a
(17:31):
colonoscre.
Come on.
Come on, world.
Right?
Self-regulation is what allowsyou to make a useful choice in
those moments.
A useful choice in those momentsinstead of abandoning ship.
So, what does this look like inreality, in practice?
Well, it looks like choosing ashortened version of your
(17:51):
training when time is tightinstead of skipping the
training.
Or moving it out a day insteadof skipping it.
It looks like logging your foodeven when you don't eat like you
intended, because the data stillmatters.
It looks like adjusting yourdinner because your lunch was
bigger than you planned.
It looks like lifting whileyou're on vacation, but using a
(18:12):
minimalist plan in a local gyminstead of pretending the gym
doesn't exist till you get home.
Now, that last one's a little ofif you choose to do that, right?
That's if your goal is tocontinue training on vacation.
Now, the research, as always,shows these cool little insights
that if you're not payingattention, you don't realize
this stuff, and then you justhear the same thing everybody
else says on podcasts, whichisn't always reality according
(18:35):
to research.
Self-regulation can transferbetween domains, going back to
our idea of principle, our ideaof principles and universal
mechanisms.
And what I mean by this isimproving your regulation in one
area like training can improveyour self-regulation in another
area like nutrition.
(18:56):
Pretty okay.
Now this is interesting.
I didn't mention when we weretalking about self-efficacy, a
thought that I had, which isthat the more I've become
confident as a lifter, the moreI become confident in other
areas of my life.
Same thing applied to myconfidence of public speaking.
And self-regulation is the samething.
It's connected.
(19:16):
It's like upward spiraling.
When you build the muscle offollowing through in an area,
that strength, that confidencecarries over.
The person who learns to adjusttheir training when time is
limited is probably more likelyto adjust their meal when their
circumstance changes.
It's the same skill, which issuper powerful because it means
(19:38):
you don't have to learn 20different skills.
You learn one skill and youapply that principle to multiple
areas.
So, how do you do that?
How do you buildself-regulation?
Well, again, we're going to lookat the research.
What does it say?
Because I'm not an expert inthis area.
I'm learning like you guys, butthen I try to bring this to my
clients and uh, you know, theapp that I have, Fitness Lab, I
actually put those principles inthis app so that you can benefit
(20:00):
from it.
So I'm gonna give you four tipsto build self-regulation.
The first one is to use actionplans and implementation
intentions.
So, what do I mean?
This means deciding in advancewhat you'll do when an obstacle
arises.
This is the if-then strategy.
That's all it is.
It's not figure out when I getthere.
(20:22):
It's if X happens, I will do Y.
If I'm traveling and the hotelgym only has dumbbells, I will
do this dumbbell workout.
If I wake up late, I will do a20-minute session instead of my
full 60-minute session.
Now, not every scenario has tobe accounted for, just the ones
that you feel are common to you.
And what I like to do withclients is say, what scenarios
have hit have bothered me a lot?
What have gotten in the way alot?
I'm gonna make strategies forthose first.
(20:44):
That's the first one.
So implementation intentions, ifthen.
Second, it's is something calledpre-commitment.
It's like pre-planning, butyou're actually doing something,
like you're actually doing athing.
For example, packing your gymclothes and your gym bag the
night before, right?
So you're doing something tomake the situation easier, lower
(21:04):
friction, et cetera.
Pre-logging your meals in yourfood app and then just
executing.
Same thing with your workouts.
Setting up your environment sothe default is the best choice
for you, like your kitchen, yourcabinets, your fridge.
That's what pre-commitment is.
You've already committed to thething by taking action ahead of
time.
The third tip I have for you ishabit strength.
(21:26):
Habit strength.
Now remember, I mentionedearlier, habits are automatic
things.
Working out is not a habit.
Working out is part of yourlifestyle.
It's a series of habits andintentions and behaviors, et
cetera.
But a habit is automatic.
So the more automatic a behaviorbecomes, by definition, the less
self-regulation it requires.
This is why I love systems.
Systems are always going to besuperior to a decision.
(21:49):
Decision can be, can causefatigue and stress and can
interfere with your emotions, etcetera.
A system, I won't say makes itautomatic, but it helps all the
automatic things happen on aregular basis.
So if you're training at 6 a.m.
and that's just what you dobecause you've you've done the
pre-commitment with your gymbag, you've developed the habits
(22:11):
of just getting up at 6 a.m., itall leads to you ultimately
training, being the person thattrains at 6 a.m.
Do you know what I mean?
So you don't have to regulateyourself into it.
This is a little more complexitywhen we talk about habits and
how habits build up intobehaviors.
Okay.
And then the fourth tip I havefor you is tracking micro winds.
(22:31):
Very common theme on this show.
Every time you successfully doanything where you've adapted in
some way, and that could bephysical adaptation, but more
likely psychological or habitadaptation.
Every time you do one of theseintelligent pivots because you
have high self-regulationinstead of quit, you know, you
find a way around the obstacle.
That is data and that isevidence.
(22:52):
And you should track that insome way, whether that's a habit
streaker, some sort of app.
This is, I love my app for this.
I'm just gonna toot my own horn.
Fitness lab is all about thisbecause you get little
microactivities every day andyou can build wins.
And it's always asking you,like, what do you feel about
your choice?
What would you win here?
What would you win here?
And then it reinforces that foryou.
(23:13):
And that builds thatself-regulation as well as the
self-efficacy, right?
So, self, what isself-regulation not?
It's not white knuckling yourway through life.
That's not what we're doing.
It's building a system thatreduces the willpower that you
need in the first place.
All right, so in my notes, I wasgonna start going over some
different psychological modelsbehind all of this.
I don't want to make thisepisode longer than it needs to
(23:34):
be.
I'm gonna quickly list them out.
There's actually seven of themthat explain health behavior and
adherence.
And you can look them up andlook, if any of these are ones
that you want me to dive into ona future episode, reach out to
me on Instagram at Wits andWeights or go to wits and
weights.com slash question.
Reach out to me and let me know.
Here they are.
Self-determination theory, thatis, that's what I meant to say
(23:56):
before when I said somethingelse.
I said it wrong.
Self-determination theory.
That's when you have autonomy,competence, and relatedness.
And that helps you developintrinsic motivation and that
leads to greater adherence.
Okay, related to what we talkedabout today.
I'm not going to get into it,but self-efficacy is related to
competence and capability.
So it's very important here.
(24:18):
Second is the theory of plannedbehavior.
That's when you have a strongintention to do something and
increases your odds of doing it.
The third one is the integratedbehavior model, which takes that
further and says, hey, externalfactors can get in the way.
So this is where you have to useself-regulation to control your
environment, resources, context,everything like that.
(24:38):
The fourth one is socialcognitive theory, which
emphasizes self-efficacy andyour belief in something.
And when you believe insomething, you're going to more
likely do it.
And then there's three more.
Those are, or what are how many?
I mentioned four.
I'm just going to stop itthough.
Those are my four favorite.
They all overlap with what we'vealready talked about.
You don't have to pick any ofthese models.
(24:58):
I just thought it'd be cool tounderstand that there's hard
science behind a lot of this.
You just have to buildcompetence through these winds.
You have to create autonomy bygiving yourself choice within
this structure.
It helps to find community thatcan reinforce this identity of
yours as someone who trains andeats well, and ultimately design
a system that makes it easy tofollow through, easier to follow
(25:20):
through than not follow through.
You're stacking the deck in yourfavor using this psychological
knowledge.
So the last thing I'm going tomention is how do you put this
into practice, like literallypractically?
All right.
Self-efficacy, you wantstructured wins.
You want things that arerepeatable, which we already
alluded to when it comes to yourtraining, of picking something
(25:42):
achievable, but that's stillgrowth.
That's an example.
For nutrition, self-efficacyagain comes to wins like hitting
your protein, eating one moreserving of vegetables than
usual.
Some sort of micro win likethat.
So that's self-efficacy.
For self-regulation, you justwant to reduce friction.
So that's pre-logging, that'spacking your gym bag the night
before, that's doing meal prep,that's having your workout
(26:03):
template ready to go, or youknow, your training template
ready to go.
The less that you have to decidethe moment, which means less to
regulate by definition.
And then what are your fallbackplans?
What's your minimum viable whensomething happens?
What's your bailout, which iswhat we talk about in the flex
framework, which we're what whatour challenge is all about.
And then all this connects toyour identity.
(26:23):
Seeing yourself as someone whotrains, someone who prioritizes
good food and protein, someonewho adapts, who doesn't quit.
That's a very powerful thing.
So if you're if you're gonnatake one thing out of all of
this to start from, I'm gonnasay look at your strength
training.
If you're not already doingstrength training in the way
that we've alluded to today,focus on that because it's a
backbone of everything.
If you can start training andmaking progress and building
(26:45):
strength and muscle, it's gonnagive you self-efficacy and
self-regulation that translatesto all the other stuff.
It's pretty powerful.
All right.
And then remember, if you wantto put this into practice right
now, during the hardest threeweeks of the year, join us in
our three-week strong finishchallenge.
It's still open, live.wits andweights.com.
We are building these skills,your self-efficacy, your
self-regulation, using astructured challenge that have
(27:07):
minimums, bailouts, and ofcourse, community and coach
support.
Go to live.witsandweights.com.
Prove to yourself that you canmaintain and grow through the
holidays.
Enter 2026, knowing exactly whatyou're capable of.
Go to live.witsandweights.com orclick the link in the show
notes.
All right, until next time, keepusing your wits, lifting those
(27:27):
weights.
And remember, self-efficacy andself regulation aren't gifts
that you're born with.
They are skills that you build.
One rep, one meal, onesuccessful adaptation at a time.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast.
Even if you know what to do, you've listened to
podcasts, watched to videos,maybe hired a coach, you know
how to eat, how to train, how tolose fat, build muscle, and yet
you still keep stopping, youkeep falling off, you keep
starting over.
Today I'm gonna show you whythis happens and why it has
nothing to do with discipline,willpower, or motivation.
(00:22):
You'll discover the twotrainable psychological skills
that predict whether someonefollows through or gives up and
walk away with specific tips tobuild these skills.
(00:43):
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering, and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach, Philip Pape,
and today we're gonna talk aboutthe psychology of adherence,
specifically what the researchtells us about why people stick
to strength training andnutrition and why most people
don't.
(01:04):
This is one of those episodesthat is about mindset and how
you think about consistency.
And we're gonna go beyondtypical advice and probably
beyond things that I've evendiscussed on the show because I
recently came across a researchreview, it was in mass, that
examined the factors related tolong-term resistance training
(01:25):
adherence specifically.
And they challenged some of myown assumptions, they confirmed
some others, and I'm alwayslearning and trying to apply
what I've learned for you guysand to our programs and to the
Fitness Lab app, and really justmake sure we're using the latest
uh knowledge from the evidenceto help us out, myself included.
(01:45):
What struck me most from thisreview is that the psychological
mechanisms that determinewhether someone sticks to their
training and nutrition, they'retrainable.
I guess it didn't surprise me,but it was really cool to see
the validation that these areskills that you can develop.
They are skills.
They're not personality traits,they're not, you know, stuck in
(02:06):
your permanent identity.
They are skills.
So let's get into it.
Let's start with what theevidence shows about why most
people quit, but why some peopledon't.
And that's going to give us aclue about what we can do.
So here's the thing aboutsticking to anything really, but
specifically your training andnutrition, is that I think we're
focused often on the wrongvariables.
(02:27):
It's kind of like when we talkabout energy balance and we talk
about calories and calories out.
And calories in, calories outare variables, but they're
usually the wrong variablesbecause most people, even if you
understand that, have troublegetting the right calories in
and producing the right caloriesout.
And it's like, what upstream dowe actually care more about in
terms of variables that get usto those other variables being
(02:50):
what we want?
And you've heard lots of thesemethods.
You've heard of smart goals, forexample, you've heard of finding
an accountability partner.
You've probably heard, hey,you've got to make it fun,
you've got to remove friction.
And I've talked about all ofthose.
And some of it can help.
These are all, I'll say, toolsmore than anything, but none of
(03:11):
them actually explain why twopeople, if you put them side by
side and they have the sameenvironment, the same program,
the same knowledge, one of themsticks to that for years and the
other one might quit after threeweeks, right?
And they may have some of thesetools in place and still it's
not working.
So what's going on?
Well, the research tells us thatthe factors that drive long-term
(03:34):
adherence, they're not externalfactors, they're internal
factors.
They're psychological constructsthat are operating beneath the
surface.
Now, I want to make somethingclear up front.
We don't have a ton of directevidence on long-term resistance
training adherence specifically.
As is the case with most ofthese studies, they're looking
(03:54):
at acute responses, short-termoutcomes.
Maybe they're looking at aerobicexercise, not strength training.
And so the research I'm drawingfrom today looks at
psychological models thatpredict health behavior more
broadly and then connects thoseto what we know about lifting.
But I am quite confident that tosay that, like when we talk
(04:15):
about principles, principlesapply to lots of different
contexts and situations.
And so these models make a lotof sense to me.
And that's what we're going totalk about, right?
These are I'll say universalmechanisms.
The same psychological factorsthat predict whether you stick
to walking or running or healthbehavior should apply to
training and nutrition as well,because we're talking about
(04:36):
human behavior, right?
The principles don't change justbecause you're doing one thing
instead of another.
So, what are these factors?
Well, the research points to afew key items here.
Positive, effective response isone.
That's how you feel aftertraining.
Interesting, right?
Positive, effective response.
Self-efficacy is your belief inyour ability to execute specific
(05:00):
behaviors.
That's how much you believe inyourself and your confidence to
do something.
Intrinsic motivation is doingsomething because you genuinely
want to do it.
And then self-regulation is theability to follow through on
your intentions despiteobstacles.
Interesting, right?
Your ability to follow throughdespite obstacles.
(05:20):
And so these four things areworking together in a kind of
like a system, and theyinteract, just like many things
interact, right?
You can't necessarily separatethem.
And when we understand that,then we can engineer our
approach to try to maximizethem.
So I want to start with the onethat surprised me a little bit
in the research.
And this is this is theemotional payoff of training.
(05:44):
What the data shows us thatpeople who lift weights usually
feel better afterward.
All right, that sounds obvious,and that I could get on board
with.
That's not the surprise.
I agree.
I tell people that all the time.
Like, you may not feel likelifting.
It may feel, it may be hard.
Once you do it, you're gonnalove it.
You're gonna do it, you're gonnafeel great afterward.
But in this case, there was athere's research, right?
(06:04):
So a 16-week study looked atrecreational adults, and it
found that uh feeling scale, uh,a score on a scale of how you
feel, right?
How good you feel, increasedconsistently from before to
after training.
The interesting thing though isthe highest positive feelings
came after strength-focusedsessions like deadlifts, squats,
(06:25):
etc.
Compound movements produce themost positive emotional
response.
That's pretty cool.
Okay.
Now, what does this mean foryou?
Well, if you've ever felt liketraining should be a slog or
punishment or suffering, youknow, you have to suffer through
it.
Research is telling usotherwise.
You don't just have to take itfrom me anymore.
Training, especially heavycompound lifts, actually make
(06:48):
you feel good, better thanbefore you started.
And you know what?
I can buy this for sure.
It's not until I started liftingthat way that I really started
to enjoy lifting.
And I try to get that messageacross to people who are like,
well, I don't like to work out,I don't like to, you're not
doing it right.
And I think this matters a tonbecause of something called
hedonic theory.
(07:09):
And that's the idea that peopleare going to repeat behaviors
that feel good at the end,right?
It's an incentive.
There's a there's a famous studywhere people stuck their hands
in cold water, and one of theconditions was cold water for
one minute, another was coldwater for one minute, plus an
additional 30 seconds where thetemperature was raised slightly.
And then when they were askedwhich condition they wanted to
(07:31):
repeat, most people chose thelonger one, even though it
involved more total coldexposure because it ended
better.
And this has implications to ourtraining because if you're
crushing yourself to the pointof feeling awful at the end of
every session, which I don'trecommend, you're fighting
against your own psychology.
You know, you might think I'mbeing hardcore and this, you
(07:53):
know, I think of my CrossFitdays.
Man, I was like, at the end, Idon't know if I felt great or
not.
Like maybe hours later I did,but right afterward, I felt
pretty terrible.
I like I wanted to die.
And we often put that on apedestal.
But you're actually programmingyour brain to not like training
when you do that.
So the takeaway is leave the gymfeeling good, not destroyed.
Whoa, pretty cool, right?
(08:13):
Like research supports this,where you know, progressive
overload matters, training hardmatters, but there's a
difference between a challengingsession where the weights are
heavy and one that like crushesand destroys you and demoralizes
you.
There is a difference.
And usually the former is goingto end up being the more
effective workout anyway.
So that's that's feeling capableafter because you've done
(08:36):
something.
But now let's connect that tothe next factor, which maybe is
the most important factor, atleast in my opinion.
And that is related toself-efficacy.
I think self-efficacy, it comesup a lot.
I hear people, well, I guess Idon't hear people use the phrase
a lot.
I've used it a lot since I metDr.
Eric Helms years ago and he usedit.
And there's something calledself-self-motivation theory that
(08:57):
it's part of.
But a lot of people, I think,confuse self-efficacy with
motivation, and they'redefinitely not the same.
You know, motivation is wantingto do something.
And I heard someone sayrecently, hey, anytime you do
something, you were motivated todo it.
So if you're doom scrolling onyour phone on the couch, you
were motivated to do that.
Motivation gets you to dosomething.
(09:18):
Whatever, it doesn't matter.
Good, bad doesn't matter.
Self-efficacy, on the otherhand, is believing you can do
it.
Specifically, it's believingthat you can execute the next
step successfully.
It's a level of confidence,isn't it?
And here's how I like to thinkabout it.
So motivation is saying, do Iwant to go to the gym?
(09:38):
Self-efficacy is saying, can Icomplete today's workout
successfully?
There's a difference, right?
Do I want to go to the gym?
Motivation.
Can I complete today's workoutsuccessfully?
That's self-efficacy.
That's more on the confidenceside.
And the research is clear hereas well.
Higher self-efficacy isassociated with more positive
feelings after training, as wellas greater intention to continue
(10:01):
training or exercising, and evenbetter self-regulation around
food choices.
So it is a predictor acrossmultiple domains.
And what I find super powerfulabout this is that
self-efficacy, it's not justbelieving you can achieve some
umbrella long-term massive goal,right?
(10:22):
It's not.
It's granular, it's down to theprocess level, skill level.
It's can I hit my protein today?
Not can I master flexibledieting?
Can I do this workout?
Not can I become a competitivelifter or can I get jacked in
six months, right?
And the cool thing here, we'regoing to tie it into the first
thing I talked about, is whatthe research found that lifting
(10:43):
heavier loads was related togreat, greater self-efficacy.
And if you think about it, itmakes logical sense because
every time you add weight to thebar, every time you hit a PR,
even if it's Rep's PR, yes,you're making physical progress,
but it's also psychologicalprogress.
You did a hard thing and you'vedone it.
And now you say, your brainsays, I can do this because I
(11:04):
did it before and I can do itagain.
You're collecting data pointsthat reaffirm your efficacy.
And this is also, if to take ahighly relevant tangent, this is
why progressive overload is alsoso important beyond what it gets
you.
It actually builds thatself-belief.
Because every time you have asuccessful extra rep or higher
(11:26):
load, when you complete aplanned workout that you
intentionally designed to beslightly more challenging than
last time, that is like adeposit into your self-efficacy
bank account.
And that's what's also reallypowerful, where I see people
change from I hate working outto, oh my God, I can't wait for
my next session because I wantto see if I'm stronger.
(11:48):
There is a difference there.
Now, you have to build thisintentionally.
It's a skill.
You have to engineer your wins.
You have to bring them fromnowhere into existence, not fake
wins, but real wins that areachievable.
So that means they have to besomething you can achieve
because you have to start withthe self-efficacy, self-efficacy
you have right now, which ifyou've never lifted weights at
(12:10):
all, is going to be quite lowcompared to somebody who's even
done one gym session and knowsthat they can do a lift.
Does that make sense?
So you're starting where youare, and you want to guarantee
what I'll call technicalsuccess, which means starting
with a minimum that youabsolutely 100% can hit rather
than some ideal that's likeyou're not sure how challenging
(12:33):
it's gonna be, and then there'sa chance you're gonna miss it.
This goes back to the always getyour reps philosophy that I
originally learned in startingstrength.
And it's a super powerfulpsychological model because it
means you need to track in a waythat shows that you progress to
give your brain evidence thatyou did progress, but you have
to progress.
So rather than fail, because itkind of breaks the loop or
(12:53):
breaks the chain, if you will.
Okay.
And that's starting with atarget that's slightly above
where you are now.
That's why I'm a big fan of thesmall wins and the small steps.
Same thing goes with protein,calories, whatever.
If you're not eating very muchprotein, don't double your
protein.
Pick a goal that's a little bitmore than that, and then a
little more, and you hit that,and then a little more and you
hit that.
And then within weeks, itdoesn't take long, guys, it
(13:14):
doesn't take long for any ofthis stuff.
Within weeks, now you are at alevel that you thought in the
past was impossible, but now youtotally believe you can do it
because you've done it.
It's like when your squat goesfrom 95 to 135 to 185 to 225.
And a few months later you lookback, you're hitting 275, and
(13:35):
you're like, oh my God, rememberthat time I did 95?
That seems like nothing.
275 would have felt impossible.
And now you're like, when am Igetting a 315?
Right?
And your brain is gonna predictsuccess based on past data.
So you have to feed it gooddata, good meaning data that
emphasizes you can do this andhave the self-efficacy.
(13:55):
So quick break here becausewe're talking about
self-efficacy andself-regulation.
Today is Wednesday, December10th, and we are just kicking
off our three-week strong finishchallenge today.
If you haven't had a chance tograb a spot and sign up, you can
still do so atlive.witsandweeets.com and you
can get the replay from ourkickoff two days ago and all the
resources, the strength trainingtemplates, the custom nutrition
(14:18):
plan, access to our coaches,accountability, all of it.
And that challenge is designedaround what we're talking about
today, about proving to yourselfthat you can maintain or even
progress with your training,your nutrition, your recovery,
even in the hardest weeks of theyear.
And this is exactly relevantbecause we're gonna show you how
to have that achievable level ofsuccess rather than a wishful
(14:41):
thinking that you fail at.
And that framework is what wecall the flex framework, right?
It's about setting minimums andthen also having bailouts.
And even the bailouts give you apsychological win that you're
not manufacturing, but you'reactually achieving.
And that helps you build theevidence that you can do this
and follow through no matterwhat's happening around you in
the hardest time of the year.
And that's exactly how you buildself-efficacy, aiming to prove
(15:05):
that you have a floor that youcan always count on no matter
what.
There's still time to join.
The challenge runs through theend of the year.
So join now.
If you're seeing hearing this acouple days later, it's we're
just getting started.
You have plenty of time.
Go to live.witsandweights.com,register, jump in.
You'll get all the resources.
I'm not going to go over thoseagain.
Just go check it out.
You can read about it.
If it doesn't look interesting,don't have to join.
(15:27):
Live.witsandweights.com.
And then by the end of the year,you'll know what your
sustainable baseline is.
Not what you hope you can do insome random perfect conditions,
but what you can actuallymaintain when life gets super,
super chaotic.
And that knowledge is soinvaluable.
That is the self-efficacy thatwe want to build.
All right.
Live.witsandweights.com to joinour three-week strong finish
(15:51):
challenge, whether you're tryingto lose fate, fat, or just
maintain your results.
All right.
Let's get back to the psychologyof adherence.
And I'm going to talk about thesecond trainable skill that
determines whether you followthrough.
So the first one wasself-efficacy.
I know I talked about feelinggood after a workout.
That wasn't really the skill.
The skill was tied toself-efficacy itself.
The second one, so self-efficacyis about believing you can do
(16:13):
something.
Now I want to talk aboutself-regulation.
So self-regulation is actuallydoing it, but when life gets in
the way.
This is the whole point.
Think of it this way: self-efficacy is the foundation. (16:25):
undefined
Self-regulation is what keepsthe building standing up when
the wind starts to pick up.
Does that make sense?
It's doing it when life gets inthe way.
And the research defines it asthe ability to control your
behaviors, your feelings, andthoughts in service of a goal.
Right?
So self-regulation is theability to control your
(16:47):
behaviors, feelings, andthoughts in service of a goal.
Notice that's not a habit.
A habit is automatic.
This is a skill.
It's what allows your behaviorto match your intentions despite
obstacles.
And that despite obstacles partis the crucial part.
It's what we've been talkingabout since day one on this
podcast when we talk aboutsustainability, flexibility, and
(17:09):
all of that.
Because here's the reality.
You're going to have days whereyou're tired, you're stressed,
you're busy, you're traveling,you're dealing with family
stuff, right?
And the older we get, the moreof that stuff there is just it's
not going to go away.
Work emergencies, in my owncase, a surgery a week after a
(17:31):
colonoscre.
Come on.
Come on, world.
Right?
Self-regulation is what allowsyou to make a useful choice in
those moments.
A useful choice in those momentsinstead of abandoning ship.
So, what does this look like inreality, in practice?
Well, it looks like choosing ashortened version of your
(17:51):
training when time is tightinstead of skipping the
training.
Or moving it out a day insteadof skipping it.
It looks like logging your foodeven when you don't eat like you
intended, because the data stillmatters.
It looks like adjusting yourdinner because your lunch was
bigger than you planned.
It looks like lifting whileyou're on vacation, but using a
(18:12):
minimalist plan in a local gyminstead of pretending the gym
doesn't exist till you get home.
Now, that last one's a little ofif you choose to do that, right?
That's if your goal is tocontinue training on vacation.
Now, the research, as always,shows these cool little insights
that if you're not payingattention, you don't realize
this stuff, and then you justhear the same thing everybody
else says on podcasts, whichisn't always reality according
(18:35):
to research.
Self-regulation can transferbetween domains, going back to
our idea of principle, our ideaof principles and universal
mechanisms.
And what I mean by this isimproving your regulation in one
area like training can improveyour self-regulation in another
area like nutrition.
(18:56):
Pretty okay.
Now this is interesting.
I didn't mention when we weretalking about self-efficacy, a
thought that I had, which isthat the more I've become
confident as a lifter, the moreI become confident in other
areas of my life.
Same thing applied to myconfidence of public speaking.
And self-regulation is the samething.
It's connected.
(19:16):
It's like upward spiraling.
When you build the muscle offollowing through in an area,
that strength, that confidencecarries over.
The person who learns to adjusttheir training when time is
limited is probably more likelyto adjust their meal when their
circumstance changes.
It's the same skill, which issuper powerful because it means
(19:38):
you don't have to learn 20different skills.
You learn one skill and youapply that principle to multiple
areas.
So, how do you do that?
How do you buildself-regulation?
Well, again, we're going to lookat the research.
What does it say?
Because I'm not an expert inthis area.
I'm learning like you guys, butthen I try to bring this to my
clients and uh, you know, theapp that I have, Fitness Lab, I
actually put those principles inthis app so that you can benefit
(20:00):
from it.
So I'm gonna give you four tipsto build self-regulation.
The first one is to use actionplans and implementation
intentions.
So, what do I mean?
This means deciding in advancewhat you'll do when an obstacle
arises.
This is the if-then strategy.
That's all it is.
It's not figure out when I getthere.
(20:22):
It's if X happens, I will do Y.
If I'm traveling and the hotelgym only has dumbbells, I will
do this dumbbell workout.
If I wake up late, I will do a20-minute session instead of my
full 60-minute session.
Now, not every scenario has tobe accounted for, just the ones
that you feel are common to you.
And what I like to do withclients is say, what scenarios
have hit have bothered me a lot?
What have gotten in the way alot?
I'm gonna make strategies forthose first.
(20:44):
That's the first one.
So implementation intentions, ifthen.
Second, it's is something calledpre-commitment.
It's like pre-planning, butyou're actually doing something,
like you're actually doing athing.
For example, packing your gymclothes and your gym bag the
night before, right?
So you're doing something tomake the situation easier, lower
(21:04):
friction, et cetera.
Pre-logging your meals in yourfood app and then just
executing.
Same thing with your workouts.
Setting up your environment sothe default is the best choice
for you, like your kitchen, yourcabinets, your fridge.
That's what pre-commitment is.
You've already committed to thething by taking action ahead of
time.
The third tip I have for you ishabit strength.
(21:26):
Habit strength.
Now remember, I mentionedearlier, habits are automatic
things.
Working out is not a habit.
Working out is part of yourlifestyle.
It's a series of habits andintentions and behaviors, et
cetera.
But a habit is automatic.
So the more automatic a behaviorbecomes, by definition, the less
self-regulation it requires.
This is why I love systems.
Systems are always going to besuperior to a decision.
(21:49):
Decision can be, can causefatigue and stress and can
interfere with your emotions, etcetera.
A system, I won't say makes itautomatic, but it helps all the
automatic things happen on aregular basis.
So if you're training at 6 a.m.
and that's just what you dobecause you've you've done the
pre-commitment with your gymbag, you've developed the habits
(22:11):
of just getting up at 6 a.m., itall leads to you ultimately
training, being the person thattrains at 6 a.m.
Do you know what I mean?
So you don't have to regulateyourself into it.
This is a little more complexitywhen we talk about habits and
how habits build up intobehaviors.
Okay.
And then the fourth tip I havefor you is tracking micro winds.
(22:31):
Very common theme on this show.
Every time you successfully doanything where you've adapted in
some way, and that could bephysical adaptation, but more
likely psychological or habitadaptation.
Every time you do one of theseintelligent pivots because you
have high self-regulationinstead of quit, you know, you
find a way around the obstacle.
That is data and that isevidence.
(22:52):
And you should track that insome way, whether that's a habit
streaker, some sort of app.
This is, I love my app for this.
I'm just gonna toot my own horn.
Fitness lab is all about thisbecause you get little
microactivities every day andyou can build wins.
And it's always asking you,like, what do you feel about
your choice?
What would you win here?
What would you win here?
And then it reinforces that foryou.
(23:13):
And that builds thatself-regulation as well as the
self-efficacy, right?
So, self, what isself-regulation not?
It's not white knuckling yourway through life.
That's not what we're doing.
It's building a system thatreduces the willpower that you
need in the first place.
All right, so in my notes, I wasgonna start going over some
different psychological modelsbehind all of this.
I don't want to make thisepisode longer than it needs to
(23:34):
be.
I'm gonna quickly list them out.
There's actually seven of themthat explain health behavior and
adherence.
And you can look them up andlook, if any of these are ones
that you want me to dive into ona future episode, reach out to
me on Instagram at Wits andWeights or go to wits and
weights.com slash question.
Reach out to me and let me know.
Here they are.
Self-determination theory, thatis, that's what I meant to say
(23:56):
before when I said somethingelse.
I said it wrong.
Self-determination theory.
That's when you have autonomy,competence, and relatedness.
And that helps you developintrinsic motivation and that
leads to greater adherence.
Okay, related to what we talkedabout today.
I'm not going to get into it,but self-efficacy is related to
competence and capability.
So it's very important here.
(24:18):
Second is the theory of plannedbehavior.
That's when you have a strongintention to do something and
increases your odds of doing it.
The third one is the integratedbehavior model, which takes that
further and says, hey, externalfactors can get in the way.
So this is where you have to useself-regulation to control your
environment, resources, context,everything like that.
(24:38):
The fourth one is socialcognitive theory, which
emphasizes self-efficacy andyour belief in something.
And when you believe insomething, you're going to more
likely do it.
And then there's three more.
Those are, or what are how many?
I mentioned four.
I'm just going to stop itthough.
Those are my four favorite.
They all overlap with what we'vealready talked about.
You don't have to pick any ofthese models.
(24:58):
I just thought it'd be cool tounderstand that there's hard
science behind a lot of this.
You just have to buildcompetence through these winds.
You have to create autonomy bygiving yourself choice within
this structure.
It helps to find community thatcan reinforce this identity of
yours as someone who trains andeats well, and ultimately design
a system that makes it easy tofollow through, easier to follow
(25:20):
through than not follow through.
You're stacking the deck in yourfavor using this psychological
knowledge.
So the last thing I'm going tomention is how do you put this
into practice, like literallypractically?
All right.
Self-efficacy, you wantstructured wins.
You want things that arerepeatable, which we already
alluded to when it comes to yourtraining, of picking something
(25:42):
achievable, but that's stillgrowth.
That's an example.
For nutrition, self-efficacyagain comes to wins like hitting
your protein, eating one moreserving of vegetables than
usual.
Some sort of micro win likethat.
So that's self-efficacy.
For self-regulation, you justwant to reduce friction.
So that's pre-logging, that'spacking your gym bag the night
before, that's doing meal prep,that's having your workout
(26:03):
template ready to go, or youknow, your training template
ready to go.
The less that you have to decidethe moment, which means less to
regulate by definition.
And then what are your fallbackplans?
What's your minimum viable whensomething happens?
What's your bailout, which iswhat we talk about in the flex
framework, which we're what whatour challenge is all about.
And then all this connects toyour identity.
(26:23):
Seeing yourself as someone whotrains, someone who prioritizes
good food and protein, someonewho adapts, who doesn't quit.
That's a very powerful thing.
So if you're if you're gonnatake one thing out of all of
this to start from, I'm gonnasay look at your strength
training.
If you're not already doingstrength training in the way
that we've alluded to today,focus on that because it's a
backbone of everything.
If you can start training andmaking progress and building
(26:45):
strength and muscle, it's gonnagive you self-efficacy and
self-regulation that translatesto all the other stuff.
It's pretty powerful.
All right.
And then remember, if you wantto put this into practice right
now, during the hardest threeweeks of the year, join us in
our three-week strong finishchallenge.
It's still open, live.wits andweights.com.
We are building these skills,your self-efficacy, your
self-regulation, using astructured challenge that have
(27:07):
minimums, bailouts, and ofcourse, community and coach
support.
Go to live.witsandweights.com.
Prove to yourself that you canmaintain and grow through the
holidays.
Enter 2026, knowing exactly whatyou're capable of.
Go to live.witsandweights.com orclick the link in the show
notes.
All right, until next time, keepusing your wits, lifting those
(27:27):
weights.
And remember, self-efficacy andself regulation aren't gifts
that you're born with.
They are skills that you build.
One rep, one meal, onesuccessful adaptation at a time.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast.
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