Jonathan Steedman (00:01.89)

Hey food groupies, I'm going to talk today about whether now is the right time to lose weight, which is a really unexciting topic, but unfortunately a really important topic and one that doesn't get talked about a lot. Because if I'm trying to sell you my weight loss program, which I am going to, you finding out that now is not the right time to lose weight doesn't help my bottom line, does it? But that's okay, because I love you and I care about you and I would much rather you do things at the right time.

And so what I want to help you do today is something I hope the guys inside the group do as well, kind of on a smaller week to week basis, is figure out is now the right time to lose weight. Now, the first thing is remembering that this is very different from do you want to lose weight right now? Because maybe you do, right? But just because you want to doesn't mean now is the right time. So I want to take you through a few things to consider. And then also just another couple of important mindset pieces.

mindset, that effing word, but things about weight loss and approaching it the right way and at the right time. So the first thing to remember is like weight loss is hard, right? Which is probably no surprise to anyone. No matter how intelligently and cleverly and smartly you do it, there's going to be some degree of work and planning and organization and more time spent organizing this stuff in your week.

And so because of that, we do need to be careful with when we choose to to pursue weight loss. And so you want to really be sensible, look at that calendar and look and go, okay, for the next four to six to eight weeks, is my what does my life look like? Do I have a bunch of overseas travel or even? Yeah, do I have a bunch of travel? Do I have a huge big holiday booked?

Do I have a really important project at work that's occurring? Maybe something you've been working on for 12 months and it's finally going live and you really need to be like, you know, all in mentally for that. Is my kid sick and going getting surgery next week or are they going through the year 12 exams and I really need to be there to fully support them as best I can. Is my partner doing something where I need to be like, I need to run the household pretty much myself. So I need to be like, you know, all systems go. Do I have some kind of

Jonathan Steedman (02:23.66)

physical performance, physical, I mean like a marathon or something or like a CrossFit competition or a powerlifting, you know, is some kind of sports performance, an important event coming up. All of these things can make it a really silly time to try and lose weight, okay? And that's okay. It's much better to recognize that and to choose to maintain or to fuel yourself effectively throughout this time. So then you can come back better.

What's a better, fastest, I can't remember, but better. And when you attack that next weight loss goal, you do so properly and with all of the resources that you need to actually crush it. So looking ahead, deciding that actually now is not the best time for me to lose, to focus on weight loss is really, really important and probably a step that a lot of people miss. Like I said, we focus a lot more on, but I want to right now, sure. Unfortunately, we might just have to hold that.

patience a little bit longer until it's the right time. Look, I would say on the flip side of that, people can sometimes often go the other way as well. You know, like, I've got small kids, you know, works pretty busy at the moment. And it's like, you know what, you're going to have kids, hopefully for the rest of your life. Wow, that got dark. You know what I mean? Like the small kids aren't going anywhere. Hopefully your job isn't going anywhere. You know, particularly if it's sort of

I frame it with the guys inside Weidof as like regular chaos, Like my life personally, business owner, husband, two small kids. I do a lot of the household chores because I like cooking and shopping and stuff like that. know, life's pretty full on trying to keep myself vaguely healthy by training regularly as well. And so like I can't wait till life is calm because it's just not going to be, you know, when life's going to be calm, when I'm like 60 and I don't want to wait until I'm 60 to take care of myself. Right. So

I can look at my regular chaotic week as or month as a good opportunity to fit that in because if you're truly wanting this stuff to be lifelong, right? And I think most people come to me saying like, I want to do this sustainably and keep the weight off, which is an amazing goal and absolutely what I want for you. But that means you're going to have to learn to do it during the chaotic moments and during your normal life chaos. So you can't wait until a calm moment.

Jonathan Steedman (04:48.723)

I would argue if you did wait until the calm moment, that's kind of the worst time to practice because you're not getting real world exposure to that. You're getting this little insulated like, look, if life is perfect, I can lose weight. Yeah, great, but life's probably never gonna be perfect. So that's not really helpful. Anyway, that's probably a whole other, pardon me, rant for another time. But just to put this in, I have had a huge number of clients over the years who I've worked with really intensely for a few months and they've been like trying really hard and we've been changing our plan.

you know, making all these adjustments. They've seen some weight loss, but they haven't really been able to commit to it. And it hasn't been the rate that they've wanted. And we've sort of hit pause and they've said, John, I need just a bit of a break from working with you. And I'm, you know, can we, can we catch up again in three, six, 12 months, you know, that sort of stuff. And so, you know, often they come back in six to 12 months and they're down like a reasonable, you know, five to 10 % of their body weight. And like,

in the time that we weren't working together. And so obviously curious me a little bit, my self confidence, I'm like, oh, what did you do? Like you lost this weight when we weren't working together. And it's always like, oh, John, I just did the plan that we originally worked on. It's just that X, Y, Z changed. Oh, my kid was sleeping through the night. Oh, I actually changed jobs to something that wasn't a 80 hour week and I work a regular sort of 40 hour week and get evenings back, know, or.

yeah, that injury heal like there's just there were these big things that probably meant they shouldn't have been losing attempting to lose weight in the first place. And so they worked the exact same plan they put in this exact same quote unquote amount of effort and got very different results. And so that's why you do want to weigh up is now the right time because it can be the big difference between results. It's not necessarily the effort and the approach it can sometimes be what else is going on.

in your environment. The last thing that I would say that we talk about in the group when we're, you know, we do something called the escape plan, which is when we intentionally pause, we come out of our weight loss phase for a whole host of reasons. Basically, all of the stuff I said at the top of this episode of like, if this is a bad time for you to lose weight, because of dot dot dot. If you know, the guys, pardon me inside the group.

Jonathan Steedman (07:08.078)

saying like, John, we're going away for a couple of weeks in a little while or, you know, we just had Easter. Well, not just, but a few months ago we had Easter. And I know that can be a difficult time with food for a lot of people. so ahead of all of those times, we work on how do we build up to maintenance and how do we maintain, intentionally maintain our weight. And I just wanted to touch on the huge mental difference between intentionally maintaining your weight

or accidentally maintaining your weight during that time. even though the outcome is exactly the same, if you have headed into, I'm gonna use Easter as this example. If you have headed into Easter going, look, I'm just gonna park my weight loss goals for now. I don't wanna gain weight over this time, but I maintain my weight throughout this time. Still enjoy all of the delicious Easter foods, but still, know, fuel myself effectively. And then a few weeks after Easter, I'm going to get back into my fat loss phase.

So for those three, four, maybe even weeks, you've maintained your weight. Great. Intentionally. Option B is like, nah, I stuff this Jonah. I really want to lose weight right now. So I'm going to keep trying to lose weight. Unfortunately, because you're slightly hungrier, slightly more fatigued, it's part of what probably is going to happen in the deficit. And there's countless hot cross buns and chocolate bunnies around. You end up having multiple occasions throughout the week where you overeat those foods.

and you actually end up being at maintenance anyway, and you end up maintaining your weight anyway. So even though the outcome is exactly the same, both end in weight maintenance, option B, technically you've failed, right? I don't love using pass fail, but you had a goal of weight loss and you didn't achieve it. And that mentally is gonna take its toll. If you were consistently setting goals of weight loss and not hitting those goals, that's gonna stack up. And there might have been times where you've set a goal of weight loss, where you should have set a goal of weight maintenance.

and that would have turned a failure, quote unquote, into a quote unquote success, right? So that's another reason why I think looking ahead, picking what is the smart approach for this period of time, and if it is maintenance, picking maintenance can be a really healthy, really powerful choice, right? Like I said, it's a huge part of what we do in the group. Like even though it's an eight week thing, it's not eight weeks of weight loss.

Jonathan Steedman (09:31.761)

It's talking about these lifelong, these seasons of when to push, when to pull or rest and when to knowing what the difference is between all of those. So look, if that is something that you have struggled with or if something in this podcast made you be like, holy crap, I've never even thought of this before. I really think that you should come and join us. And so I'm gonna put the link in the description if you want to check it out. Or of course, if you have more questions, find me on Instagram and we can have a chat. Otherwise, I hope this has helped you plan a little bit more.

intentionally about what you're to do and I'll chat to you next time.