The Secret to Setting and Achieving Long-Term Weight Loss Goals

Table of Contents

Learn the exact foods you must eat if you want to finally lose weight permanently. Click here to download your free Weight Loss Food List, the “Eat More, Lose More” Weight Loss Plan, and the “Slim in 6” Cheat Sheet…CLICK HERE FOR FREE “HOW TO” WEIGHT LOSS GUIDES

Real-Life Insights and Takaways

  • For any lifestyle change we are considering, we have to ask ourselves if we can do it long term.
  • Popular ways to lose weight quickly:
  • Intense caloric restriction:  increase calories out dramatically by exercising for hours each day and reduce caloric intake dramatically by starving ourselves. This approach is not sustainable long-term.
  • The quality approach to losing weight includes finding a lifestyle ‘diet’ (i.e. Atkin’s diet, the South Beach diet, Paleo diet, Vegan diet, and even in a lot of ways the SANE lifestyle), that focuses on the quality of what you’re eating and eating only certain foods.
  • Long-term focus changes your health goals.
  • It is natural for our bodies to want salty and sweet flavors. When you eat SANE foods, you can have savory and sweet options that are not addictive or toxic.
  • If you continue to eat toxic foods and can only have taste and licks of them you will continue to feel frustration and not achieve your long-term health goals.
  • SANE allow you to achieve nutritional serenity and fully enjoy the flavors you crave.
  • Regardless of how much weight you have to lose, you can start the journey toward health today.
  • Envision yourself in three years as a healthy and fit individual who can sustain A SANE lifestyle for the rest of your life.
  • Learning how to live healthily brings lasting changes, rather than paying for services to get rid of body fat, etc. you learn how to make changes that you can maintain on your own for a lifetime.
  • There is a new paranoia called orthorexia, in which people stop eating because no foods seem to meet their standards.
  • SANE isn’t necessarily the easy way out, but it is an approach that will work and that you can live with for the rest of your life.
  • If you are tired of being hungry, SANE is a sustainable alternative.

—NEXT ACTION—
Look at your current health plan/program and ask yourself, “Can I do this enjoyably for the rest of my life?” If the answer is no, then you will not get the results you want long-term.

Reflection Questions

  • Do you want to look like you do now in three years?
  • Can you maintain your current health program for the rest of your life?
  • Do your current eating habits leave you feeling hungry?
  • Can you keep from starving yourself and still lose weight?
  • Do you currently feel like you are in food prison?

SANE Soundbites

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  • 3:14 – 4:19, “The question is, for any lifestyle change, is can you do it long-term?  When we take that long-term focus, everything changes. First and foremost is there are two very popular ways to lose weight “quickly.”  The first is intense caloric restriction, which is the Biggest Loser model, right?  So we increase calories out dramatically by exercising for six hours per day, and we reduce calories in dramatically by starving ourselves.  And that causes rapid weight loss. Then people who are on the inside of the industry know that as soon as the cameras turn off it causes even faster weight gain. I’ve worked with Biggest Loser alumni who tell me verbatim, “Jonathan, I’ve lost 100 pounds over five times.  Weight loss isn’t the issue.  Weight maintenance is the issue.”  So intense caloric restriction is not sustainable long-term bottom line.  So it can’t work long-term unless your goal isn’t to be slim, healthy, and happy long-term.”
  • 4:21 – 4:26, “The moment that you know “I can’t do this long-term” then you’re on the wrong plan.”
  • 6:20 – 6:56, “So if right now you are over a hundred pounds overweight, or if you’re any amount overweight, to transition from using high fructose corn syrup, and other nonsense, to Stevia is a massive win.  It’s a huge – if you enjoy Stevia and if it makes you happy, and you say hey using Stevia in my coffee or in my tea instead of sugar is something I can maintain for the rest of my life – anything that makes you feel like you’ve screwed up instead of doing something positive, that’s a positive change… I mean run in the opposite direction!”
  • 9:21 – 10:10, “The reason we’re biting, snacking and licking on things is because in a traditional calorie counting methodology there’s entire tastes that we don’t get to experience anymore.  And it’s natural for the body to want the sweet flavor.  It’s natural for the body to want the savory and salty flavors.  But when food is considered this terrible thing that we need to avoid, we can only eat this tiny, little amount of it. The bottom line here is similar to what we talked about when it comes to emotional eating, which is when you eat SANE foods, when you eat SANE sweets, when you have SANE salty options, SANE’s fatty and savory options, there’s no need to just snack on it, or lick it, or just have one bite, because it’s not toxic and it’s not addictive.”
  • 10:30 – 11:02, “…If it’s calorie counting you can eat whatever you want.  You just can’t eat more than 1400 calories of it. Look, that is a roadmap for just continuous frustration and nonsense because it tells you to do things like you continue to eat these toxic and addictive foods, but just take bites and licks of them.  Whereas when you achieve nutritional serenity and when you’re focused on the long-term you say I’m going to find ways to enjoy all the flavors in the world in abundance so I’m completely full and satisfied because I’m focused on the long-term.”
  • 11:43 – 12:07, “The new me has six eggs, mostly egg whites and I’ve got an egg yolk.  I’ve got tons of vegetables in this huge breakfast, totally full and happy, staying SANE.  I mean, I don’t even have the words to express how frustrated I feel when I watch someone else starving themselves the way I did.
  • 12:25 – 13:11, “Regardless of how much weight to lose, if I were to say if I could wave a magic wand, like if we could sign a contract together and I would say three years from today you will be incredibly fit and healthy.  You will be thrilled with your physical appearance.  You’ll be thrilled with your energy levels.  You will not think about how much I’m eating.  You will never feel deprived.  You will never have low energy.  If three years from today you were at that state and could easily maintain that state for the rest of your life, would you be excited to sign that contract? I think most people would say, “Holy Moly, if three years from today I was in that state that would be incredible!”  Because you know what?  For 30 years, I haven’t been in that state.”
  • 18:00 – 18:34, “Because unless you learn how to live in a way that is sustainable and will keep this level of success, you won’t be able to do it. So yes, you can pay someone to melt your fat off with lasers.  You can pay someone to give you injections, or do therapy that will strip your body of all that fat.  Like you can pay for all that, but unless you know how to maintain it, and that’s what SANE is, you’re not going to be able to have that success long-term.  SANE is long-term.”
  • 19:56 – 20:36, “Whenever I hear these stories of people who are in other programs that are doing the same old thing again and again to make you eat hardly anything, exercise as much as you can, putting you in food prison, and trying to convince you that this is a great thing that you’re doing for yourself, I just want to give you a big hug and say, “Can you please just come check out what SANE has to offer?  Come try SANE.  Listen to what Jonathan has to say because it was a game changer for me, it was a game changer for my daughter.  A game changer for thousands of people you’ve worked with, and it’s sustainable.”

Secrets To Achieving Long-Term Weight Loss

April:Hi everybody! It’s April Perry and Jonathan Bailor back with another episode of the SANE Show. Jonathan, are you excited for today’s show?

Jonathan: I’m excited for today’s show. I’ve got my SANE green tea, I’m sipping on it. It is delicious and I’m ready to go.

April:Well, today we’re actually talking about how to help somebody who really needs to lose a lot of weight and is feeling stressed out, overwhelmed. I mean, I feel like this podcast is something that whether you need to lose a little bit of weight, or a lot of weight, or whether it’s just all in your head and you’re stressed out about the process. I’m really excited to talk about the principles of SANE today and help us to see how this fits in context with other offerings that are out there to help you to lose weight.

Now I’m going to kind of paraphrase an email I received from one of our listeners that really touched my heart. As soon as I read the email I knew I needed to talk with you about this on a podcast. So she says – I’ll read a little bit of it here: “I get frustrated by myself because I know a lot about nutrition but can’t seem to apply it to my life. I’ll be honest and just kind of dabbled with the SANE eating” and she talks about some of the things she’d gone through with other Facebook groups, more for food addicts and things like that.

Then she talks about how she personally hasn’t done binging or purging or things like that. But she gave up sugar since the beginning of the year and she’s lost 18 pounds so far. But on this diet that she’s on, mainly for food addicts, she says, “I feel like I am in food prison. They tell you to only eat three meals per day and it’s pretty much such food – I can have two fruits a day, one starch in the morning, like yams or oatmeal. But no snacks, no licks, no bites, no tastes in between. She talks about she does eat about 20 ounces of vegetables a day. She says, “The no sugar I can understand, but they also say not to have Stevia because it causes an insulin response, could trigger people to want to eat more sweets.” But she says, “I feel so restricted and I don’ think I can last doing this. I have 95 more pounds to lose and this diet’s been successful, people do lose weight, but I know that right now I can’t do this long-term.”

So Jonathan, I’m seeing five to ten different topics coming up right in this paragraph, but I know you have the answer for this. So I’m excited to turn it over to you now because my initial response to her would be go do whatever Jonathan instructs you to do. Like I would go to Jonathan right away. So here you go Jonathan

Jonathan: Thank you April. Yes, there’s a lot to cover here. I wrote some notes down here so hopefully you’ll need to interject and reel me in because I might go. So the first thing, and actually I really appreciate the individual writing in this courageous email. She uses a phrase which is so important, and it’s a phrase that we all need to write down on a notecard or put in our smart phones, which is she says, “I can’t do this long-term.”

The question is, for any lifestyle change, is can you do it long-term. When we take that long-term focus, everything changes. Let me give you an example. So a couple things. First and foremost is there are two very popular ways to lose weight “quickly.” The first is intense caloric restriction, which is the Biggest Loser model, right? So we increase calories out dramatically by exercising for six hours per day, and we reduce calories in dramatically by starving ourselves. And that causes rapid weight loss.

Then people who are on the inside of the industry know that as soon as the cameras turn off it causes even faster weight gain. Like I’ve worked with Biggest Loser alumni who tell me verbatim, “Jonathan, I’ve lost 100 pounds over five times. Weight loss isn’t the issue. Weight maintenance is the issue.” So intense caloric restriction is not sustainable long-term bottom line. So it can’t work long-term unless your goal isn’t to be slim, healthy, and happy long-term.

April:So that’s a warning sign right there. The moment that you know “I can’t do this long-term” then you’re on the wrong plan.

Jonathan: That’s exactly right. So I usually say there’s like the quantity approach to weight loss, or fat loss and health, and there’s a quality approach. Now the quality approach, those are things like the Atkin’s diet, the South Beach diet, Paleo diet, Vegan diet, and even in a lot of ways the SANE lifestyle, it focuses on the quality of what you’re eating. But that can be taken to an extreme as well. In fact, there’s now a condition which a lot of therapists are dealing with called Orthorexia, which is this paranoia of I’m not eating perfectly. People just stop eating because they say to themselves, oh my gosh I can’t eat sugar because it does this. Then I can’t eat xylitol because it does this, but then I can’t even Stevia because of this. And if I breathe in air then the air has pollution in it so I can’t even breathe, and it ends up making us crazy.

So we also have to watch out for that because just as unsustainable as being hungry and tired your whole life is if this food doesn’t fit into this theoretical perfect model, which if anyone tells you they know the perfect way to eat, run in the opposite direction because nobody knows the perfect way to eat. So that’s also this pursuit of perfection from a food quality perspective is also equally non-sustainable long-term. So that’s another thing to really watch out for.

April:Okay, I think that’s something that’s really helpful to hear. Now as far as this question about the Stevia, so that does trigger an insulin response? I mean we’ve talked a lot about safe sweeteners versus non-safe sweeteners, what do you say on that?

Jonathan: This is another thing that I wrote down here is how we talked about the long-term, and I really want to keep coming back to that because a long-term focus changes things. So there’s a thing called over optimization, right? So if right now you are over a hundred pounds overweight, or if you’re any amount overweight, to transition from using high fructose corn syrup, and other nonsense, to Stevia is a massive win. It’s a huge – if you enjoy Stevia and if it makes you happy, and you say hey using Stevia in my coffee or in my tea instead of sugar is something I can maintain for the rest of my life – anything that makes you feel like you’ve screwed up instead of doing something positive, that’s a positive change… I mean run in the opposite direction!

April:All right!

Jonathan: Because regardless – yes, there’s been studies that say even thinking about something sweet can – and that sounds crazy but right now think about eating a lemon. Think about eating a lemon. Your mouth will produce excess saliva because the thought of eating a lemon triggers these sort of pre-digestive reactions. So it would sort of make sense that if you’re thinking deeply about eating sweets… So again, it’s this over optimization, which is just not sustainable. Maybe if you have one more pound to lose and you’re getting ready to run that marathon. I mean that’s what fitness models do when they get ready to go on stage the days leading up to their fitness competition are crazy strict. I mean crazy, down to the minute planning everything. But even those people do not do that year round. They’re photo shoot ready and they’re “perfect” for those three days. Then they stop because that’s not sustainable long-term.

So the question is not like what about Stevia, da da da da. Is Stevia better for you than what everyone else is doing? Yes. And is it something you should celebrate and hug yourself for doing instead of sugar? Absolutely yes.

April:Okay. Can we talk about the concept of food prison for a minute? That really touched my heart when I read that in her email. She says, “I feel like I’m in food prison.” Now I remember, I went to a weight loss class after I had my first child and they said we want you to really beware of the BLTs. I’m thinking okay, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches? They said, “No, BLTs are bites, licks and tastes.” They said the reason why you need to be careful is because those add up calorie wise and if you take a lick of something, or one little bite, you might think it’s not a big deal, but that can make or break your diet and that’s going to determine whether you lose weight this week for your next weigh in, something like that.

So what she’s telling me here is she can only eat these three meals a day, no snacks, no licks, no bites, no tastes in between. So can you explain why with a SANE diet we don’t have to worry about that?

Jonathan: The reason we’re biting, snacking and licking on things is because in a traditional calorie counting methodology there’s entire tastes that we don’t get to experience anymore. And it’s natural for the body to want the sweet flavor. It’s natural for the body to want the savory and salty flavors. But when food is considered this terrible thing that we need to avoid, we can only eat this tiny, little amount of it.

The bottom line here is similar to what we talked about when it comes to emotional eating, which is when you eat SANE foods, when you eat SANE sweets, when you have SANE salty options, SANE’s fatty and savory options, there’s no need to just snack on it, or lick it, or just have one bite, because it’s not toxic and it’s not addictive. You know, the reason – I mean I get emotionally frustrated when I see things like ads on Weight Watchers that show up on my Facebook feed that say like you can eat anything you want, which is technically true on a Weight Watcher’s diet because if it’s calorie counting you can eat whatever you want. You just can’t eat more than 1400 calories of it.

Look, that is a roadmap for just continuous frustration and nonsense because it tells you to do things like you continue to eat these toxic and addictive foods, but just take bites and licks of them. Whereas when you achieve nutritional serenity and when you’re focused on the long-term you say I’m going to find ways to enjoy all the flavors in the world in abundance so I’m completely full and satisfied because I’m focused on the long-term.

April:Yes, it’s a whole different philosophy, a whole different way to look at it. I’m the same way. I’ve been following what Oprah’s been saying about Weight Watcher’s, I mean there’s a lot about Weight Watcher’s out there right now. It’s a big industry and as I’ve been watching here’s how you can eat a great breakfast that’s this big, with one little egg, and a tiny bit of avocado, and one little tomato slice. Here you go! Here’s your breakfast that you’re just going to love and it’s going to taste so good. And I watch that and I think that was the old me who would have made a really, really tiny little breakfast and tried to enjoy every bite, then just say, “I’m satisfied and that’s great.”

The new me has six eggs, mostly egg whites and I’ve got an egg yolk. I’ve got tons of vegetables in this huge breakfast, totally full and happy, staying SANE. I mean, I don’t even have the words to express how frustrated I feel when I watch someone else starving themselves the way I did. I can’t even explain it and I’m just grateful for you Jonathan.

Jonathan: Well thank you April. I want to make one more point about the long-term, which is – we talked about this in a previous episode, but this individual has 100 pounds to lose. Regardless of how much weight to lose, if I were to say if I could wave a magic wand, like if we could sign a contract together and I would say three years from today you will be incredibly fit and healthy. You will be thrilled with your physical appearance. You’ll be thrilled with your energy levels. You will not think about how much I’m eating. You will never feel deprived. You will never have low energy. If three years from today you were at that state and could easily maintain that state for the rest of your life, would you be excited to sign that contract?

I think most people would say, “Holy Moly, if three years from today I was in that state that would be incredible!” Because you know what? For 30 years, I haven’t been in that state.

April:Yes!

Jonathan: So what I would encourage us to do is – this has happened quite a few times recently because we’re recording this here in January and January is a big time for New Year’s resolutions and there’s people who have like a hundred pounds to lose. We’ll have conversations with them and we’ll say we can provide you with a roadmap and you’ll take those hundred pounds off, which we hate talking about because we’re not about weight, but sometimes you have to speak in the vernacular that people understand. Two years from today, so January 1st, 2018, you’ll be at that point and you’ll be at that point in a way that you will enjoy and love for the rest of your life. And they’re like oh, too years from now?

But there’s two ways to think of that. If two years from today you had the body, the mind, the spirit, the lifestyle that you’ve always wanted and you could maintain it for the rest of your life… Like if two years ago you had that opportunity, would you have jumped on it and would you have wished you would have jumped on it? If three years ago you knew that you could start that journey… Sure, you didn’t do it three years ago, but you can start it today. Then 10 years from now you’re going to look back and say I can’t believe what April’s saying! She’s looking back at April from 18 months ago, 24 months ago. Not 14 days ago, we’re talking longer timeframes, and she saying —

April:Yeah, it’s been two years.

Jonathan: I’m good, but I’m good for the rest of my life now. I mean that’s such a different mindset.

April:Well, and it’s been really sweet watching my daughter Alea, so she’s 16 now and she has friends who are not eating. She comes to me and she says, “Mom, I’m trying to tell them about SANE. I’m trying to explain what we’ve gone through and what we’ve done and how wonderful it is.” She has a hard time when people don’t listen and they say, “I can’t do that I’m just not going to eat.” I wish I could adequately explain what it’s like to watch a 16-year-old who gets it, who’s looking around her high school and just thinking is the world crazy, what’s going on?

So this individual who sent me the email asked the question have people had success that you know that had a lot of weight to lose. And Jonathan, I know that you’ve worked with people who’ve lost a lot of weight. Maybe you could just share that experience.

Jonathan: Oh, absolutely. I mean, we’ve had – yes, there’s been dozens of people who have lost hundred plus pounds.

April:You don’t just work with people who are trying to lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds.

Jonathan: Correct. In fact, often times the neatest opportunity is working with an individual that has a radical amount of weight to lose because the more weight you lose it’s diminishing marginal returns. So the first 20 pounds are actually the easiest 20 pounds to lose. So it’s just like someone who’s never weight trained. Like the first couple of workouts you do you’re going to see like immediate increases in strength. So it’s incredibly exciting and it offers us the most opportunity to have that long-term success. So yes, eating more foods that are proven to heal your body at a cellular level and less of foods that are addictive and toxic has been proven to work. People who have any amount of weight to lose, and it will actually cause more weight loss by definition, in people who have more to lose simply because they have a lot more to lose.

April:Yeah. Okay, I just thought of an analogy. I know you like analogies Jonathan, so I’m going to share this real quick. So one of the things that I specifically do is help people learn how to get their paper piles completely down to zero. So I used to have lots of piles in my house. I’d move them around from the front room to the back room and back to the front room. I mean lots and lots and lots of piles of paper. So sometimes people will come to me and I’ll explain to them, okay here’s your roadmap, here’s the path to go from having piles of paper everywhere to having zero piles and never have a pile again. Like I haven’t had a pile of papers in my house for over seven years, and for most people especially who have kids, that’s all they have is piles. So what I’ll hear though is people will say things like, “Well, I could just hire a professional organizer to come in and just organize my house and just get rid of all the piles and that would solve the problem faster, or I could come into your program and learn how to do it for myself and learn how to process things and how to make decisions, and how every single paper and task and email that comes in from this point on I actually know what to do with it and where to put it.”

As opposed to when you watch Extreme Makeover TV shows where they send a family to Disney Land while they clean up the whole house, then the family comes home and ta-da it’s all clean. Well, you never go back and see what their house looks like six months later or a year later. Because unless you learn how to live in a way that is sustainable and will keep this level of success, you won’t be able to do it.

So yes, you can pay someone to melt your fat off with lasers. You can pay someone to give you injections, or do therapy that will strip your body of all that fat. Like you can pay for all that, but unless you know how to maintain it, and that’s what SANE is, you’re not going to be able to have that success long-term. SANE is long-term. I feel like I just need to shout it from the rooftops!

Jonathan: And April, I appreciate your passion there, and it’s tough though right because we don’t – it’s not sexy to say – colleges have a really hard time saying hey, you want to become a doctor? Awesome! We’ve got this 18-year journey you’re about to go on and it’s like really, really fun! Then you get to do a residency and blah, blah, blah. And we get that. Like if someone was like I can teach you to become a world class pianist in 14 days, we would say that is nonsense! But we think somehow when it comes to weight loss or health it’s the same thing. You’re exactly right. It’s not the give a person a fish, it’s a teach a person to fish and to enjoy the process of fishing so that you don’t want to stop that’s so important.

April:And it’s not necessarily easy. This isn’t the easy way out and I don’t mind saying that. I mean, just in working with my husband, who just doesn’t love vegetables. He was brought up eating a lot more of inSANE foods than I was, so it’s a little harder for him. I get it! In this world and all the junk food that’s out there, I understand this isn’t like hey, we’re going to go grate cabbage and it’s going to be really fun!

I understand, but just whenever I hear these stories of people who are in other programs that are doing the same old thing again and again to make you eat hardly anything, exercise as much as you can, putting you in food prison, and trying to convince you that this is a great thing that you’re doing for yourself, I just want to give you a big hug and say, “Can you please just come check out what SANE has to offer? Come try SANE. Listen to what Jonathan has to say because it was a game changer for me, it was a game changer for my daughter. A game changer for thousands of people you’ve worked with, and it’s sustainable. I’ve been SANE for about two years. It was two years ago that I heard your first podcast and just kind of started. And about a year and a half, almost two years now I’ve been 99% SANE, and I’m doing it for the rest of my life. There’s no going back and I don’t even have a problem even saying that. It’s just there’s no issue.

Jonathan: That’s beautiful April, and I think the next action at this point is pretty clear. That is to ask yourself for any plan or program or change. One simple question, which is can I do this enjoyably for the rest of my life? If the answer is no then you will not get the results you want for the rest of your life. You might get them temporarily, but you will not get them for the rest of your life. So that next action is just to write on an index card, put it on your phone, put it on your mirror, “Can I do this enjoyably for the rest of my life?” If the answer is no, you have your answer as to whether or not you should do the program.

April:All right! I think that is a great piece of advice. I’m really thrilled. I mean I feel grateful every day for you and for your work. I feel grateful that I get to just help be a voice to help others know we understand. If you’re going through a lot, if you have a lot of weight to lose, if you feel stressed out, if you’re tired of being hungry there’s an alternative and we’re grateful that you’re here with us and just grateful that we can be helpful to you along the way. So thanks again for being with us in today’s podcast and remember to stay SANE.

Learn the exact foods you must eat if you want to finally lose weight permanently. Click here to download your free Weight Loss Food List, the “Eat More, Lose More” Weight Loss Plan, and the “Slim in 6” Cheat Sheet…CLICK HERE FOR FREE “HOW TO” WEIGHT LOSS GUIDES

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