7 Things You Can Do Differently this Year to FINALLY Keep the Weight Off FOR GOOD

Paul Salter:

You can’t change unless you change. Yet, too often we are all guilty of desiring to change an aspect of our lives, but we never follow through on the literal tangible changes that need to be made to create the change we desire. If significant, sustainable weight loss has been a primary motivator for countless years, yet you’re not really any closer to that goal becoming a reality, this episode is for you. It’s time to change. In today’s episode, I will detail seven changes that you can make to accelerate your journey to never having to diet again.

Hey, I’m registered dietician, Paul Salter, and you are listening to Screw the Scale Radio. If you’ve been losing and regaining the same 20 pounds and struggling to have a positive relationship with food and a loving relationship with yourself, you’re in the right place. Ready to get out of your own way and truly feel and look your best? Buckle up as I dive deep beyond the nutritional X’s and O’s to teach you how to build massive amounts of self-confidence, self-love, and self-trust, so that you can not only lose the weight you desire and keep it off for good, but truly feel your best.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the first official episode of Screw the Scale Radio. I’m your host and registered dietician, Paul Salter, and I am so grateful that you have chosen to tune in and to listen along to today’s episode. I just really appreciate you. I have been podcasting since 2018, and this is the 224th episode I’ve ever recorded. My excitement, my commitment are higher than ever, and I owe a lot of that to you, my dear listeners. So thank you for being here.

Really excited to unveil this new season, new chapter of the show where I’m bringing on a boatload of incredible guests, but also spending some time flying solo to connect with you, to encourage, support, coach, educate, and ultimately find a way to hold you accountable to not only lose the weight for good, but to help you feel, look, and be your best. Today’s episode is no different. We’re talking about change.

That quote that you heard to kick off today’s episode has been a quote that has drastically changed my life. I first heard it in early 2022, and I love the irony of it. If you’ve followed me for some time, you know I love puns and plays on words. But if you can’t understand that quote, you can’t really understand how to change because you can’t change unless you change.

We’re all so guilty of desiring this change, wanting that, wanting to feel, look, or be a certain way, wanting to achieve or accomplish a certain feat, but we don’t make the internal changes. What that quote could also mean is for all of the external changes we desire in our life, we need to begin by changing what lies within, the way we speak to ourselves, how we regulate and master both our energy and our emotion.

Today, I want to build off of that quote, that quote that, to be very candid with you, is now tattooed on my right forearm. You can’t change unless you change. That’s how near and dear it is to me. But we’re going to go deep and specifically applying this framework, this quote to your goal of losing weight and keeping it off for good. So what I’m going to share with you are seven things that you can do differently this year to finally keep the weight off for good.

The first item we are going to focus on is your intention for January. My recommendation, if you truly want to change, do not start a diet this January. You are not ready. Emotionally, physically, mentally, you are not ready to diet. It is in your best interest if sustainable weight loss is your goal, instead of diving headfirst into a calorie deficit, to redirect that focus time, energy, and effort into not only rebuilding a foundation of unique, simple, flexible, healthy eating behaviors, but to rebuild your relationship with both food and yourself.

Here is the mistake so many people make, and maybe you can relate to this if you’ve had a weight loss New Year’s resolution in the past. When we dive headfirst into a diet, a literal calorie deficit where the primary goal is to lose weight, we often forget, because it’s masked by the excitement and the sexiness of seeing a new number on the scale week after week, that a calorie deficit is a major physiological, psychological, and emotional stressor.

Sure, anybody can, when they put their minds to it, if they’re really committed and they’re jacked up on willpower, motivation, and dopamine, can commit to something for a short period of time, 30, 60, maybe even 90 days. But inevitably, that stress is going to force you to regress back to your foundational habits. In this instance, well, your foundational habits are founded upon inconsistency in the exercise, nutrition, self-love, and self-care domains.

It’s the collection of those that ultimately put you in a position in which you were unhappy, overweight, unhealthy, and desiring to lose weight as quickly as possible. So rather than dieting this year, we’re going to go back to the drawing board. We’re going to focus on really doing a lot less and focusing on what matters more, building the foundation of consistent exercise and movement, consistent healthy choices, consistent meal prep.

What that inevitably does is not only, first and foremost, help you better adhere and promote consistency, but also if you can really make consistency your priority, not perfection, consistency, you’re going to experience a plethora of wonderful benefits inside and out. That’s going to be encouraging.

But most importantly, you’re going to have conserved so much physical, emotional, and mental energy that could be better spent on rebuilding this foundation of healthy eating habits that eventually when you have accumulated four, six, eight, maybe even 12 weeks of strong consistency without weight loss being a priority, not only will you have likely actually lost some weight just due to the sheer fact that you’ve been consistent, but you’ll put yourself in a position that when you do eventually transition to a diet phase, it’s fucking easy because you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel and blow up all of your routines.

You’ve already cultivated a foundation of eating habits, a relationship with food in a routine that helps you feel your best and promotes consistency. The only thing that will change when you then enter a diet is simply the amount of food on your plate. That’s it. That makes your success and, ultimately, your sustainability both during and after the diet, a hell of a lot more likely.

So point number one, do not start a diet in January. Instead, focus on consistency. I like to call this the pre-diet maintenance phase. Get all of your ducks in a row emotionally, physically, and nutritionally to promote strong consistency for at least four to six weeks before you consider actually entering a diet phase.

Number two, chase a feeling rather than a number. Behind every goal, whether it’s in the health and fitness space, the financial space, your career, your relationships is really just a feeling or a collection of feelings. You don’t want to weigh 145 pounds. Yeah, on a surface level you might, but the reason that number is so prominent and etched in your mind is because the last time you weighed that you felt confident. You felt in control, sexy, strong, energetic, and healthy.

The reason you felt that way is because you were making promises to yourself, and you were fucking keeping them. Hear me on that. It’s not the number that’s important to you. It’s the feelings associated with it. You want to feel, again, confident, strong, calm, sexy, in control, alive, energetic, healthy. Rather than chasing a number, chase a feeling, when you get really clear on how you want to feel.

I recommend you choose two or three adjectives. Maybe comfortable in your own skin’s another one. Choose two or three because when you’re clear on how you want to feel, this creates an opportunity when you can now ultimately best choose and filter those action steps that are going to help you feel that way now. You see, the mistake so many people make is they delay feeling confident, strong, sexy until they weigh a certain amount.

They wear a certain clothing size so they look a certain way. That’s bullshit. That’s ass backwards. It’s actually counterproductive. By getting clear on how you want to feel and then aligning the most appropriate and effective action steps to feel that way in the now, you actually accelerate your results to achieving significant, sustainable results. Because when you feel good, you continue to seek out more behaviors, both consciously and subconsciously to reinforce those actions that fuel that feeling.

So if you know you want to feel confident or in control, do the two to three behaviors that help you promote that feeling on a regular basis. It’s going to become a high of its own. It’s intoxicating, motivating, and will ultimately help you remain more committed and execute with better consistency towards not only feeling your best, but inevitably looking and being your best, too.

Whew. I’m getting fired up on this episode. Number three, diet less. Did you know of the, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands or millions of people who diet every year, the average dieter diets four to five times per year? Is that you? You a diet hopper? Every other Monday, once a month, maybe January, April, August, and December, those are your dieting months. Diet less. Stop diet hopping. Slow the fuck down.

Build a foundation of healthy eating habits that is unique, simple, and flexible because that promotes adherence. Consistency is the catalyst for significant, sustainable results. Put yourself in the best possible position to lose weight and keep it off and know that that takes time. What that could potentially look like for you is spending four to 12 weeks in that aforementioned pre-diet maintenance phase and then dieting for eight to 10 weeks and going hard.

But remember, it’s actually going to be easy because you’re only making one single change, and that’s just putting less food on your plate. And then spend the next 12 to 16 weeks, maybe even longer, in a post-diet maintenance phase. When all is said and done, just diet once this year, one diet where you do the work ahead of time, during, and after to achieve significant and then sustainable results.

If you’re dieting more than twice per year, you’re doing it wrong. You are absolutely doing it wrong. The more you diet, the longer you diet, the harsher your diet, the harsher your calorie restrictions, the more likely it is you will regain the weight you lost and then some. Diet less this year. Choose what you believe to be an ideal timeframe, not perfect, an ideal timeframe.

Do the work necessary before to set yourself up for success, and then go all in, which leads me into point number four of what you can do differently this year to finally keep the weight off for good. Invest in help. Invest in yourself. Asking for help is the quickest way to achieve your results. Get out of your own way. Put your ego aside. I’ll be candid. 98% of those I work with already know what to do. You know what to do.

But like you, for both of us, we get in our own way. That is where help and a coach, a community, and a support system come into play. I am really fucking good at what I do because not only can I help you see the best in yourself and help you see potential in yourself even on your worst days, but I can help you get the fuck out of your own way. That is why asking for help is so powerful because when we can get out of our own way, we can achieve all we desire and then some.

It’s really simple. Losing weight, keeping it off, making a lot of money, growing a business, building a strong, healthy, loving relationship, all of these are simple. Simple is not the same as easy. But the reason they’re not easy and we make them so overcomplicated is because we get in our fucking way. Every single opportunity, every single day in some instances, invest in help. Ask for help. Invest in yourself. Hire a coach. Join a community of like-minded people.

Obviously, you know what I recommend most. The 5% community is the best coaching program, community, and transformational experience to help you not only lose the weight you desire and keep it off for good, but to help you rebuild massive amounts of self-confidence, self-love, and self-trust so that you can look, feel, and be your best. If you want to learn more, obviously, check out the show notes. DM me on Instagram at Paul Salter Coaching. Just send me a DM with 5%. We’ll get that conversation started.

Point number five, make fewer changes to your habits and use the framework, addition by subtraction. Look, this time of year, all throughout your social media feeds and all over the internet is a plethora of different growth hacks, hacks to improve your sleep, improve your meal prep, improve this, that, and the other. But the truth is you don’t need more. You need to do less.

You need to focus on fine tuning, upgrading, and mastering the select few what I like to call keystone habits to feel, look, and be your best. A keystone habit, you ask what is that? It is the habit, the single habit or the collection of two to three habits that are most responsible for the results you achieved. Think 80/20. It’s the two to three habits that produce 80% of your results. So in this case, it might be getting 10,000 steps per day, meal prepping twice per week, drinking 60% of your body weight in water.

Those are just a few select ones that you know if you commit to doing those three, it’s as if everything else falls into place. The stars align, and you have a wonderful set of days, weeks, months, and so forth. You ramp up and build tremendous consistency. Stop trying to add more to your plate. Subtract. Where can you say no more often in your life? Get really good at saying no, focusing on less.

Make fewer promises to yourself, and keep them all. Have fewer commitments. Go all in on them. Get really good on them. And remember this. Significant, sustainable results are founded upon a few basic actions done over and over. It’s fucking boring, but fall in love with boring. Fall in love with monotony. I promise you. You will achieve success beyond your wildest dreams.

Point number six, what you can do differently this year to finally keep the weight off for good, surround yourself with like-minded people every single day, whether in person or virtually. Surround yourself with like-minded people. Find your tribe. Find your community. Look, this one’s near and dear to me. For the first 29 years of my life, I was very much a lone wolf. I tried to do anything and everything by myself. Rarely did I ask for help.

As a result, well, I often felt overwhelmed, frustrated, defeated, hopeless, and alone until one day the entire trajectory of my life changed when a mentor of mine shared this quote with me. He said, “Paul, if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go with others.” Think about the application of that quote to you and your weight loss journey right now.

If you want to go fast, go alone. Hence, if you want to lose weight fast, go alone. You’re probably a professional dieter. You know how to lose weight really, really well. But if you want to go far, meaning if you want to lose the weight and then keep it off for good, you have to go with others. You absolutely have to go with others because when you surround yourself with women who share your frustrations, your diet challenges and history but, like you, are ready and taking action to be a different person, to achieve different results, immediately you replace the feelings of frustration, overwhelm, and hopelessness with feelings of hope, positivity, and inspiration.

That is a powerful fucking cocktail to achieve results at an accelerated pace. Find your community. If you don’t know where to look, DM me. Let’s talk about the 5% community, the community that is transforming hundreds of lives of women just like you. Lastly, one thing you can do differently this year to finally keep the weight off for good, number seven, is speak kindly to yourself.

Stop shaming yourself. Stop picking yourself apart. Stop putting yourself down. Look, your words, they carry great emotional energy. Your words make up your thoughts. Ultimately, it is how you speak to yourself and the energy behind it that really solidifies and forms the beliefs and the stories you tell yourself. Your word choice, self-talk, and beliefs all influence the action that you do or do not take.

Your actions influence the results you do or do not achieve. Your results ultimately cultivate your identity, which shapes your reality. All of your present-day results, your identity, your reality can be traced back to the words you use to speak to yourself. Speak kindly to yourself. Love yourself. Write down something you’re grateful for every day. Write down something you love about yourself every single day. Choose your words wisely. They matter.

As we began this episode with a quote, I would also like to close it with another one that is near and dear to me. That quote and that message, that reminder I have for you is to quit doing what you feel like doing and start doing what you need to be doing. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Screw the Scale Radio. I am incredibly grateful that you are here.

I hope that you found this episode valuable. If you did, find someone who you know needs to hear this message. Share this episode with them. It would help me tremendously. One of my primary goals this year is to really grow the podcast to be all in and committed like none other, like never before. You sharing this episode goes a long way in helping me achieve the goal of being able to deliver this type of messaging, education, coaching, accountability, and support through the podcast platform to serve more people just like you.

If you haven’t done so already, another way you can help me help you is to leave an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever it is you are listening to this show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. Have a wonderful rest of the day. And remember, screw the scale.