Cold Open And Credo

Annoucer 0:01

You're listening to Shut Up and Choose. The no bullshit, no excuses podcast for people who swear they want to lose weight, but keep choosing everything that stops them. And before we continue, if you're gonna bitch and moan and act like a fucking pussy the entire time, skip this one. I'm standing by Jonathan Ressler. This dude dropped 140 pounds with no shots, no diets, no pills, and not one single fucking membership swipe at the gym. Just real choices that fit real life. If you're tired of gimmicks, tired of the bullshitting, and ready for somebody to finally call you out and tell you the truth, you are in the right place. This show punches all of them right in its fat face. Stop commenting, start choosing. This is Shut Up and Choose. Now, here's Jonathan.

Why “Shut Up And Choose” Exists

Jonathan Ressler 1:18

Hey, welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the podcast that touches the noise, the nonsense, and all the bullshit that the internet influencers and gurus and pretty much the whole night industry is throwing your way. Hopefully, we've cut through some of that noise and give you some great insight today. So I want to start today. As you know, I probably maybe you don't know. I get a lot of emails, people are always asking me questions, but there's one question that I get a lot, and I I guess I really need to answer it because I I thought it was painfully obvious, but clearly it isn't. So people always ask me why I name my book in the podcast, Shut Up and Choose. They tilt their head, they look confused, they whisper, like I said, something we all agreed no one should say out loud. And they always ask me, why so harsh? As if honesty is offensive and excuses deserve protection. But here's the truth: the people who get offended by the title are the exact people who need the title. It hits them because it directly cuts through the bullshit in the story that they've been performing for years. People always pretend they want change. They love the fantasy of transformation, they love imagining themselves lighter and healthier and finally in control. But they also cling to the one thing that keeps them stuck, and that's avoiding responsibility. That's why I called it shut up and choose. Because the entire weight loss conversation has turned into this dramatic opera, for lack of a better word of excuses, with zero accountability anywhere. So people narrate their life like they're victims of some mysterious force. I don't know why I gain weight. Really? You have no guesses? None? Not one? It's it's always something external. Work, distress, kids, holidays, traffic, metabolism, whatever you name it, the grocery store, anything except the reality right in front of them. And that's their choices. So the title makes people uncomfortable because it removes the escape hatch. It becomes a lot harder to say, I don't know what happened when you're staring at a book telling you to stop performing and take responsibility. It becomes harder to say, I have no control when the entire philosophy reminds you that your choices created your current situation and your choices can get you out of it. People resist that because admitting they played a role in their own results is really uncomfortable. And let's talk about the crowd that really takes the most defense in this thing. The aggressively fat and happy activists who pretend being dangerously overweight is a personality trait. They hate this message because it destroys the narrative they depend on. The narrative where health is optional, consequences don't exist, and accountability is just being cruel. They want applause for avoidance and validation for habits that hurt them. And that's not empowerment. That's unhealthy and it's dangerous. And deep down, they know it. People don't get pissed because the title's rude. They get pissed because it's true. It forces them to confront the part they want to avoid. Their weight didn't magically appear. It came from decisions they and you made. And if you want different results, you need different decisions. That level of truth, I guess it feels confrontational because it removes the fantasy that change happens without responsibility. And let me be clear about something important. Shut up and choose is not about silence, it's about leadership. And it's your leadership. It means stop performing excuses and outsourcing responsibility, the diets that collapse the first time your life gets fucked up, and stop glamorizing habits that wreck your health. Stop pretending you're powerless. I did it for years, so I know. You're not. I wasn't, and you're not. You choose every day. You choose what you eat, how you respond to stress, and whether or not you stay stuck or you move forward. And for the people I speak to, this matters even more. I'm not here for the rip dabs crowd or the gym obsessed. I'm here for real people who want to lose weight to get healthy while living a real and normal life. People who want control and not at some performance, people who want to feel better and not just pretend that everything's fine, which I did for years. For them and for me, choosing is everything because my life will never hand me perfect conditions, and yours probably won't either. So this episode is for the people who need the reminder that their life is shaped by their decisions, not by the stories they tell. So settle in because if you want real change, the instructions are pretty simple.

Excuses Versus Responsibility

Jonathan Ressler 5:45

So let's get into why Shut Up and Choose even needed to exist in the first place, which is pretty simple, because everyone has an excuse. Not some people, everyone. It's the one universal truth in weight loss. People will look you in the eye while holding a bagel the size of a steering wheel and sending you a frappuccino with a bazillion calories and swear, they don't know what where they went wrong. Really? Really? You have no theories? None? People pretend their weight is some unsolved mystery. They act like, you know, it happened overnight, like it crept up quietly without their involvement. Meanwhile, there's a full history of the exact choice that got them there. I know I lived it. Whether it be skipping breakfast or eating lunch in a vending machine, eating late at night, turning weekends into an eating contest, zero consistency, zero awareness. But ask them, and they talk like the universe gained the weight for them. The excuse list never ends. Work is stressful, kids are making me crazy, the holidays are hectic, the schedule's chaotic, my metabolism is slow, my thyroid is acting up, my husband or wife eats junk, coworkers keep bringing muffins in, restaurant portions, big genetics, bad knees, retro, energy shifts. The universe is plotting against them. Anything except the mirror. People don't want responsibility. They want sympathy. They want someone to pat them on the back while they avoid the truth. They want validation that their choices didn't count. And they build a storyline that removes them entirely from the equation. In that version of events, it was my version. We're victims of timing, right? Cravings, circumstances, biology, stress, fate, whatever. It's never about decisions. It's never about the choices. Choices mysteriously vanish from the narrative. So let's be clear. People who are overweight because of the choices they made. Period. You're fat because you choose it. Choices they continue to make, choices they pretend were accidental. No one accidentally eats a dozen cookies. No one accidentally hits a drive-thru at 11 o'clock at night, and surely no one accidentally orders two entrees because the first one wasn't enough. Those are choices. What comes next is the cover-up. They erase the choice from the memory like I did, so they can stay confused about why they feel the way they feel. And these choices aren't rare. They repeat them daily. I know I surely did. And it became my lifestyle that was built on convenience and impulse and frustration and autopilot. Then they step on the scale. I stepped on the scale, and treated the number like a personal attack instead of a reflection. And that is why I wrote the book. Because the gap between what people do and what they claim to do has become absurd. People swear, they tell me all the time, I barely eat anything. While drinking a mocha frappuccino with enough calories to cover two meals that people swear they eat healthy and they stack non-stop. They swear they don't eat at night, but the kitchen tells a different story. And of course, they always swear that they try hard when the only thing they've tried consistently is avoidance. That is where shut up and choose cuts through the performance. It removes the drama and strips away the excuses people like to polish like trophies. It demands honesty. And I'm talking about real honesty, the kind that makes people uncomfortable because it shines a light on why they're stuck. Shut up means stop reciting the same old fucking story. Stop defending the habits that hurt you and pretending that your choices don't matter. Stop blaming your circumstances. Stop building bullshit narratives designed to protect your comfort instead of your progress. Choose means take the responsibility for your next choice. Not your entire life, just the next choice. Own your habits, own your patterns, and own the truth that you've been avoiding. Real transformation starts the second you stop talking and start choosing. And here's the part that people hate to admit the people most offended by the title are the ones who need it the most. The excuses aren't the real problem. The attachment to the excuses is what the problem is. So yeah, everyone has an excuse, but the moment you start choosing, everything changes. So now let's talk about the real reason people hate the message shut up and choose. It's not because it's mean, it's not because it's harsh, and it's definitely not the tone. It's people hate it because it removes their favorite escape route. The second they hear those words, every excuse they rely on loses power, and nothing scares people more than being confronted with their own bullshit and their own responsibility. Think about how most people approach weight loss. They want something to hide behind in a blueprint written by somebody else, and when it collapses, they have a convenient villain. They want to be able to say, see, it didn't work, while pretending they played no role in the outcome. Diets are fucking perfect for that. Diets hand people a structure to blame, a coach to blame, a meal plan to blame, a program to blame. People cling to that external blame because it protects their ego. But shut up and choose removes every shield. There's no coach to blame when you skip breakfast. If that's something you do, there's no plan to blame when you binge at night. There's no system to blame when you repeat the same destructive pattern for the 10th year in a row. For me, it was 50 years of that shit. Choice removes that finger pointing. Choice puts the spotlight exactly where people don't want it on themselves. Because choice demands ownership and accountability and truth. And truth is the last thing people want when they're working overtime to avoid responsibility. They want comfort and approval. They want to keep repeating the same habits while being told they're trying. They want applause for effort that never actually existed. That's why people cling to diets. They want something to fail. They want a structured collapse, and diet programs are the perfect little scapegoats. When people fall off, they can say it wasn't realistic or it was too strict or I couldn't keep it up. As if someone forced them into it. Diets let people fail without feeling responsible. That's the entire appeal of diets. But choosing exposes them and it eliminates the dramatic collapse that they depend on. Choosing gives you no villain, no storyline where you're the innocent victim of some flawed plan. And it leaves you with one simple truth. You made the decisions that shaped your outcomes, and people hate the truth because it removes the fancy that change

The “Fat And Happy” Myth Challenged

Jonathan Ressler 12:20

happens without participation. And here's the uncomfortable reality. Most people don't really want a solution. They want a story. They want to sound like they're trying without changing anything meaningful. They want to tell friends they're on a plan because it sounds disciplined. They want to talk about carbs and fasting and macros and steps and points or whatever fucking trend is circulating because it gives them a sense of identity without any effort. Dieting is performance art for people who want credit without results. Shut up and choose ends the performance on contact. You know, like one of those kills bugs on contact. It strips away the theatrics. No diet to blame, no plan to collapse, no rules to break, no spreadsheets to hide behind. When you choose, every decision is yours. Every outcome is tied directly to what you did or didn't do. That kind of ownership makes people panic. But that's exactly why it works. Choosing forces growth because it forces honesty. And it makes you confront your patterns instead of running from them. Choosing allows you to adjust instead of just quit. And choosing builds confidence instead of dependence. Because choosing never collapses because it's not tied to perfection, it's not tied to some bullshit, rigid rules, and it's not tied to fantasy. Choosing is tied to reality, your reality, the life you live, the schedule you have, the demands you can't pause. And that's exactly why people fear it. But then it transforms them, which is the whole point. So I want to dig a little deeper into one of the most delusional trends out there, and that's the myth of fat and happy, one that I lived for years. And it's the glamorizing of obesity, the idea that carrying 80, 100, 150 extra pounds, just some kind of personality glow-up. It's one of the biggest lies people tell themselves and tell each other. And I know because I lived it. I stood there 140 pounds heavier, smiling like everything was fine, telling people I was fat but happy and shockingly healthy. It wasn't bullshit. It was nonsense. It was performance. It was something I repeated, hoping I would eventually believe it. But here's the truth. If being obese made people so happy, no one would DM me at midnight and tears about their weight. No one would avoid mirrors like they're dangerous, like I did. No one would step on a scale and feel their entire mood fucking implode. No one would dread clothes shopping. I hated clothes shopping. No one would panic before every doctor's appointment. No one would feel the shame at the beach, at parties and photos, or even in their own home. Happy people don't live like that. The fat and happy narrative is coping disguised as confidence. It's avoidance disguised as empowerment. It's a shield that people use because the alternative requires honesty and accountability. And people aren't thrilled to be out of breath like I was. They're not celebrating joint pain. They're not excited about the health damage creeping in behind the scenes. And they're sure as shit not secretly thrilled that walking up steps feels like punishment. They're not enjoying that constant anxiety around food. The smile, that's just the mask. The narrative is a script, but the truth sits underneath all that. And we have to be real about fat activism. It's loud for one reason. You know, every if you've ever listened to my podcast, you know I can't stand a fat activist. But fat activism is loud for only one reason because it depends on denial. It depends on convincing people that accepting their size means ignoring the consequences of it. And it depends on shaming anyone who talks about responsibility or choice. The louder the message gets, the clearer the fear becomes. Because the second people stop believing the script, they have to face their own behavior. They have to confront what they do every day, and they have to accept that their choices matter more than the story. Obesity is not a fucking personality trait. It's not a brand, and it's sure as shit not empowerment or an identity. It's a health crisis. It's something you can fix by taking control, not by building movements that encourage denial. And people hate this because it destroys the narrative that they're emotionally attached to. I was attached to it too. I told everyone I was fine. I told everyone my labs were surprisingly good. Meanwhile, I was fucking wiped out, insecure, and terrified to change. I was lying because the truth scared me. That's why shut up and choose had to be blunt. That's why I'm blunt. People don't need a gentle nudge or affirmation to celebrate being stuck. They don't need a message telling them to love their habits that are really hurting them. What they need is fucking honesty. They need accountability and they need to choose. You can't glamorize your way out of a health problem. You can't positive mindset your way out of consequences, and you can't call yourself fat and happy while draining in the reality that you refuse to face. That part is simple. Fat and happy is nothing but a fucking myth. Fat and coping is the truth. And choosing is the only way out. And you know I love to harp on this fat activism thing. So before anybody melts out, I just want to be clear. It's not about judging bodies. This is more about judging the complete refusal to take responsibility for the choices that created that body. Fat activists preach acceptance while avoiding the word responsibility like it's radioactive. They chant about empowerment and inclusion and loving yourself at any size. But if you ever hear them speak honestly about their daily decisions, no, because honesty breaks the narrative and accountability kills that storyline. Fat activists blame everything except for themselves. So it's society, it's media, it's beauty standards, big corporations, childhood drama, capitalism, the air condition, the food industry, doctors, anything except the fork in their own hand. They treat personal decisions like mythological events no one can confirm. They preach acceptance while practicing complete avoidance, and they demand respect while rejecting responsibility. It's the most aggressive form of denial you will ever see. And here's the part to hate. I'm really, I'm not judging their bodies. Bodies are bodies. I'm judging the performance and the victim role. The refusal to acknowledge the one truth every human lives by. Your choices shape your reality every day. That's not bias, it's physics. It's energy in versus energy out. Habits repeated, outcomes earned. Ignoring those mechanics doesn't make you empowered, it makes you scared. I I say the same thing to fat activists that I say to people that I help every day. If

What “Shut Up” And “Choose” Really Mean

Jonathan Ressler 19:10

you want different results, you need different choices. You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and then scream at the world for not rearranging itself to accommodate the consequences. That's not activism, that's fantasy. No hashtag or slogan protects anyone from reaction of their own behavior. You don't need a movement, you need ownership. So fat activism convinces self-love without self-protection. And real self-love includes honesty and includes responsibility. And it's about facing the truth about your habits. Fat activism replaced all that with performance art loud, emotional, dramatic, and completely disconnected from real health. And let me say this as someone who lived in that body. And repeated those same lines. Telling yourself everything is fine doesn't make everything fine. Acceptance without addressing the habits behind it changes nothing. Pretending your weight is a political statement instead of a personal outcome keeps you stuck forever. Now I never did that, but that's crazy. But you're not oppressed. I wasn't oppressed. I was avoiding. And the sooner people admit they're avoiding, the sooner things shift. This is where shut up and choose cuts the noise. It ends the blaming and the emotional storytelling and the fantasy that the world owes you comfort while you refuse to take control. Shut up means stop performing the fucking victim role. Stop defending the habits that hurt you and pretending that you have no agents, that you have no power. Stop asking for applause while completely ignoring your and choose means take charge of your next choice. Stop waiting for society to validate you. Stop asking for protection from consequences and start choosing your own fucking life. Fat activists and fat activists can yell as loud as they want. It still can't change the truth. If you want different results, you need different choices. And until you make them, nothing shifts. Not the scale, not your health, not your life, not the story. So stop performing and start choosing. So now I'll go a little bit deeper and I'll break down what shut up and choose really means because people love to pretend the phrase is some kind of attack, which it isn't. It doesn't tell anyone to be silent. It tells them to stop hiding behind the stories they like that are keeping them stuck. Silence is passive while honesty is active. Shut up and choose is about honesty. People love to talk themselves in circles. They create narratives so dramatic that they can win awards while insisting they're trying. They insist they're unlucky. They insist they're overwhelmed. They swear this time is different while repeating the same exact behavior. They promised, stop. I know I did it. People drown themselves in explanations and wonder why nothing changes. Shut up means stop feeding yourselves those stories and excuses. Stop narrating excuses like they're facts and stop explaining your patterns like you weren't the fucking one choosing. You were. Then there's the whole outsourcing and power thing. People hand their health to diets like they're surrendering to it. They let some program that some asshole wrote decide what they eat. They let a template decide how they should live, and they get shocked when the plant collapses and they collapse along with it. That's what diets do. Choosing is the opposite. Choosing is taking the power back. Choosing means choices come from your life, not someone else's bullshit template who doesn't even fucking know you. And then we have to talk about glamorizing that self-destruction because this is where everything has gone off the rails. People call binge eating self-care. Just go on YouTube and look. They call quitting, listening to their body, and they call avoidance boundaries. They rebrand all their harmful habits as empowerment and get pissed off when the consequences show up. Shut up and choose calls that behavior what it is. It forces you to confront the impact that the choices you make and the choices that you've been sugarcoating. The phrase is a wake-up call, a reset, a reality check people avoid with everything they have. Because once you accept the truth behind it, the entire game changes. You stop pretending and stop confusing structure with progress. You stop performing the same excuses that kept you stuck, and you start owning the tiny, the small, the tiny little choices that move you forward. Shut up means stop the excuses, okay? Stop the speeches, stop the bullshit. I'll start tomorrow. Stop the I slip so the whole day or the whole week is running. Stop my schedule is crazy. Stop the I barely eat bullshit. Stop the emotional theater. Cut it off the second it starts, because nothing productive comes after those lines. Only self-sabotage. Choose means take responsibility for your next choice, your next decision. Not your entire life, not the next three months. Just the next choice. That's the heartbeat of transformation. The next choice is always in your control. That's where the power is. Once you understand that, you can change anything. Shut up and choose isn't about extreme fitness or chasing abs. It's about real people trying to get healthy while living real life, people with jobs and stress and obligations and chaos and craziness. Choosing is the only system built for the life that you already have. So the phrase isn't an insult, it's liberation. It frees you from the mental bullshit and from that diet mindset. It frees you from the excuses that turned into your identity and it frees you from waiting for the perfect moment or the belief that change requires punishment. Shut up and choose means your excuses are optional and your choices matter. Every person needs that truth. And once you accept it, you stop living for the illusion of effort and you start living for results. That's what it really means. Okay, now let's get brutally clear about the difference between dieting and choosing because this is where most people feel the smack in

Dieting Versus Choosing

Jonathan Ressler 25:30

the face. Dieting and choosing are not even in the same fucking universe. One keeps you stuck and one sets you free. One feeds your excuses and the other one exposes them. And one lets you pretend you're changing and the other one forces you to actually change. Diet is blame shifting. Choosing is ownership. When you diet, you hand your responsibility to a set of rules. And when the rules break, you blame the plan. When you break the rules, you blame the stress, the schedule, the party, the restaurant, all the shit that we talked about, the weather, whatever other cosmic interference you want to point to. Dieters collect excuses like it's a hobby. It's never their fault because the system wasn't realistic. Choosing kills that escape route. Choosing says, this is my decision and my outcome. This is on me. Ownership is uncomfortable people who want credit without responsibility, which is why choosing works and dieting never will. Dieting is external rules. Choosing is internal leadership. When you diet, you outsource every decision to someone else. A program that tells you what to eat, a chart that tells you how much, a meal plan that tells you when. You follow it instead of actually thinking. And the second the structure collapses, you collapse right along with it. On the other hand, choosing requires you to lead yourself. It forces you to build judgment. Choosing makes you understand your patterns and your triggers and your needs. And it means using your brain instead of hiding behind someone else's. Dieting treats you like a robot, and choosing, honestly, treats you like an adult. Dieting collapses with life, and choosing adapts to life. There's no debate. Diets require perfect days and timing and perfect energy and perfect conditions. You don't have perfect days. You have a real life. One missed meal or broken rule or unplanned moment in the diet just detonates. Choosing bends with it. Choosing adjusts, and if you have a busy day or travel or stress or restaurant holidays, none of it destroys choosing because choosing is built for the reality you already live in. It never asks you to pause your world to satisfy its rules. Dieting lets you pretend and choosing forces the truth. Dieting gives the illusion of discipline without any of the actual growth. You get to hide behind guidelines and say, your plan didn't work, as if the plan failed you instead of you choosing not to take control. Dieters love the performance of effort. Telling friends they're on something new, acting disciplined without being disciplined, choosing erases that fucking theater. Choosing doesn't give a shit about the story you tell. It cares what you actually do. It makes you face your patterns without somebody else's script. This is the core message. When you shut up and choose, you stop arguing with reality. You stop negotiating with your own habits, and you stop looking for loopholes. You stop pretending your choices didn't create your results. They did. You're fat because you choose to be fat. Life gets simple when you stop lying to yourself and you stop performing and you start actually acting. When you stop dieting and start choosing, you stop guessing and start changing. You stop searching for the perfect plan and start building the one that actually fits your real life. You stop chasing these crazy, dramatic, quick fixes, and start making intelligent decisions. Most important part is you stop falling off and resetting and then falling off again. You start stacking choices that build momentum. You start building control that lasts because you created it instead of borrowing it from somebody else. Dieting is temporary performance. Choosing is permanent transformation. And once you feel that difference, I promise you, you'll never go back. So dieting is the universal distraction. People cling to it because it lets them feel busy without owning anything real. They get to say they're working at it while following rules that collapse the second your real life gets messy. Dieting is blame shifting, dressed up as effort, and it gives people script so they never actually have to face themselves. Choosing is the exact opposite. Choosing hands responsibility back where it belongs, on you. It forces you to lead your life instead of outsourcing somebody else's plan, and it cuts out the drama and kills the stories. It basically strips away every excuse until the only thing left is the choices you make next. That's why Shut Up and Choose hits so hard. It's the truths people spend years avoiding. I spent 50 some odd years avoiding it. And it's the message behind everything that I teach. When you choose, you stop guessing. You stop circling the same problems, and you stop collapsing every time the day goes sideways. You stop arguing with reality and you start building a life, a real life that you can control. If you want help stepping into that mindset, start with my free weekly tips. They take less than a minute to read. There's no sales pitches, there's no nonsense, just one sharp, useful idea every Wednesday to keep you steady while everyone else loses control. Tens of thousands of people already get them, and you can sign up for free. They cost nothing at jonathanressler.com. That's my website. If you want to go a little deeper, read the book. Shut up and choose has been

Ownership, Adaptation, And Momentum

Jonathan Ressler 31:10

bought by thousands of people who are done with diet culture and want something rooted in real behavior instead of punishment. It's not a diet book, it's basically a simple guide to changing your life through choices. It shows how your habits form, how your excuses work, and how you stay in control of the life that you already live. There's no restriction, no deprivation, and honestly, no bullshit. And yes, it makes a great holiday gift. Now, if you're at the point where you don't just want theory, you want transformation, reach out and work with me directly. My one-to-one transformations are for people who are serious about changing their health and their patterns. They keep me stuck. More than 300 people have worked with me and lost over 13,000 pounds combined. I mean, that's an insane number, over 13,000 pounds combined, between 300 people. And that's with no diets, no pills, no shots, no gym, and no starvation. They changed their bodies through choices that fit their real lives. They stopped performing effort and started taking ownership. That is exactly why it worked. So here's your moment. You can cling to diets that let you blame something else or somebody else. The second things fall apart, or you can choose. You can take ownership of your next meal, the next night, the next pattern, the next moment where you usually quit. You can build momentum instead of waiting for a date on a calendar to give you permission. You want results, you want confidence, you want control, then you need choices, not rules. You need ownership, not stories, and you need reality, not another fucking performance. So subscribe to the tips, read the books, reach out if you read it to transform your life instead of talking about it. So now the only thing you already know you need to do is to shut up and choose.

Annoucer 33:04

Thanks for listening to Shut Up and Choose. If today's episode slapped you with some truth, good. That means it worked, and you've dropped the pussy attitude. Make sure to like, rate, and review, and connect with Jonathan on Instagram at JonathanResslerFatLoss @ on YouTube at JonathanRessler R, and online at JonathanResslercom. Just smarter choices, starting the second you hit stop on this episode. Shut

Choosing Over Performance

Annoucer 33:40

up and choose. Now go make a better fucking choice.