I spent fourteen thousand two hundred and forty-seven dollars on weight loss programs. Twenty-three years. Keto, paleo, intermittent fasting, calorie counting. Every one of them worked... for a while.
Not one of them was the problem. If you're starting today or starting over for the tenth time, I already know what your browser looks like right now.
Ten tabs open, comparing programs, reading reviews, trying to find the one that's finally gonna work.
I lived in those tabs for years, but there's a reason most people quit before week three, and it has nothing to do with which program they picked. Today, I wanna hand you the real first step.
Not a program, not a meal plan. The one thing that decides whether any plan you choose holds. I know this because I picked the right program four times. Every one of them was correct on paper.
Every one of them fell apart the same way. So let's talk about that browser with ten tabs open. Maybe it's keto tabs this week. M- Could be a fasting app.
Might be one of those quizzes that promises to match you with your perfect plan in ninety seconds. Doesn't matter which one.
You're doing exactly what I did for over two decades: comparing, researching, looking for the one program smart enough, strict enough, different enough to finally be the exception. Keto came first.
Dropped fifteen pounds in six weeks. Felt like a miracle. Then a birthday landed, a work trip followed, and slowly the miracle came apart. Paleo came next. Same story, different name. Fast start, real results.
Then life got busy, and the plan couldn't survive an actual week. Then intermittent fasting. Sixteen hours, eight hours, the whole thing. Worked beautifully for two months, then it quietly stopped holding.
Three programs, three completely different philosophies, and the same ending every time. So of course, you're stuck comparing plans right now. Nobody ever told you the plan wasn't the decision that mattered.
I wanna say something that's a little hard to hear. If you pick a program today the same way I picked mine, and you're honest with yourself about where you'll be in a year, you already know the answer. Another restart.
Another day one. The same conversation with yourself on repeat. It doesn't have to go that way. There's a different kind of beginner you can be, one who knows something I didn't know for twenty-three years.
Let's talk about why the foundation matters more than whatever program you're about to stack on top of it. The diet industry sells every beginner the same lie. I call it the right program myth.
The idea that somewhere out there is the one plan built for your body, your metabolism, your lifestyle, and once you find it, everything clicks into place.
That quiz, the app with the five-star reviews, the program blowing up your feed right now, that's all diet culture is selling you: a better car. Picture a parking lot full of cars.
Every program you've ever tried is parked in that lot. Keto is a car. Paleo is a car. Whatever you're eyeing on your phone right now, that's a car too. Some are faster than others. Some ride smoother.
A handful even have great reviews from other drivers.
And most people spend years walking that lot, test driving car after car, comparing the mileage, reading the specs, convinced the next one is finally gonna be different.
Almost nobody gets in and asks the one question that matters: Where am I even going? You can have the nicest car in the lot. Doesn't matter. If there's no address programmed in, you're not going anywhere.
You're driving in circles until the tank runs out. Then you park it, walk back into the lot, and start test driving the next one. That's what happened to me for twenty-three years. Great cars, no destination.
Diet culture sells you a vehicle. This work gives you a destination, and the destination is your identity, the person you believe yourself to be.
You will always drive toward the identity you believe is true, no matter which car you're sitting in.
If some part of you still believes you're someone who can't stick with anything, it doesn't matter how good the program is, you will find your way back to the same parking lot.
The tank ran dry because it never had an address. This is what starting looks like. The real first steps before you download a single app or sign up for a single plan. Step one, decide the destination first.
Before you touch a program, answer this honestly. Who are you becoming? Not what are you going to eat this week. Who's the person on the other side of this?
Someone calm around food, someone who trusts their own choices, who isn't negotiating with a bag of chips at nine o'clock at night. Write that down before you write down a single meal. Step two, set a real timeline.
The industry sells you 30 days, a new you by summer. That's not a realistic expectation. That's a countdown to disappointment. Real change looks boring.
It looks like small, consistent evidence stacking up over months, not a dramatic before and after in four weeks. If your timeline is 30 days, you'll quit on day 31 when you're not a finished person yet.
Set a timeline that matches how people change, and you'll stop quitting for the wrong reason. Step three, then and only then, pick your structure.
Once you know the destination and you've set a real timeline, go ahead and choose a program if you want one. But now it's just a car, a tool serving the identity you've already chosen. I had a client, Pam.
She joined one of my programs because of this exact difference. She told me the moment everything shifted was realizing her identity never depended on what she ate.
Once she understood that, choosing food stopped being a fight. She described it as something closer to pleasant, more awareness, more curiosity about her own choices.
That's what happens once you finally program in the address. The car stops being the whole story. That's the address. Now the car is just a car. So hear this clearly.
You don't need the right program, another 30-day promise, or one more lap around a parking lot with no address. You are someone who decides the destination first.
You are someone who sets expectations built on evidence, not fantasy. You are someone who picks the vehicle last on purpose.
We've both stood in that parking lot, test driving program after program, wondering why none of them stuck. I spent 23 years and over $14,000 learning this the hard way. You don't have to.
You can keep comparing cars, or you can finally set the address. If you're ready to do the identity work first, the real first step, Escape the Willpower Trap is exactly where that happens.
Not another program, the destination work. The doors are open when you are. [singing] You've been told to eat less, move more, try harder, want it more. You've been told the problem is discipline, the problem is you.
You've been lied to. The diets didn't fail because you're weak, they failed because they were designed to fail. Willpower was never the answer. Shame was never the fuel. And your body was never the enemy.
This is the way out. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. It's the way out. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. It's the way out. Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's the way out.
It's the way out. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. It's the way out. Oh, oh, oh, oh.