No Excuses Cold Open

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You're listening to Shut Up and Choose, the no bullshit, no excuses podcast for people who swear they wanna 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 Hosted 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 bullshit, and ready for somebody to finally call you out and tell you the truth, you are in the right place. Cravings, stress eating, late night sabotage, travel traps, holiday chaos, this show punches all of that right in its fat face. Stop dieting, start choosing. This is Shut Up and Choose. Now, here's Jonathan Welcome back to Shut Up and choose the podcast

Body Positivity Vs Diet Culture Trap

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Nonsense and all the bullshit memes running you out there from Instagram influencers to TikTok twits and all those people online that are telling you how to lose weight who haven't lost a pound in their life. I'm here to tell you the truth, and hopefully that's what we're gonna learn today. And today we're gonna talk about body positivity and diet culture. They're basically the same shit, different package. let's talk about it. You're stuck. And the reason you're stuck isn't diet culture, and it's not influencers. It's not the AI. We all like to blame AI for everything. It's not the complicated protocols or the confusing trends. The reason you're stuck is because you've weaponized body positivity to avoid making a choice. Let me explain what's happening because this is the most fucked up trap that I see right now. You've been told that loving yourself and losing weight are opposites, that you either accept your body as it is or you hate yourself and try to change, so you pick a side. You pick the body positivity side because, hey, it feels good, because it sounds enlightening, because it lets you off the hook. "I'm body positive. I accept myself. I don't need to change for anyone." And that sounds great. That sounds like self-love, except it's not. It's avoidance. It's you using self-acceptance as an excuse to not choose. On the flip side, some people might pick diet culture. They literally hate themselves into change. They buy programs and follow protocols. They outsource the choosing to someone else. "The program will decide. The expert will tell me what to do. I don't even have to think." And that's just a different version of the same trap. You're avoiding choice. You're just doing it a different way. Both of these movements are selling you permission to not do the actual work, and the actual work is choosing every single day consistently. That's what changes things. Not acceptance, not shame, choice.

How Both Sides Profit

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Here's what's really going on. The body positivity industry makes money off of you accepting yourself and staying stuck. The diet culture industry, on the other hand, makes money off you hating yourself and staying desperate. They're both profiting off your confusion. They're both betting that you'll never actually choose. Because if you actually choose, if you really committed to making a different choice every single day, you wouldn't need either one of them. You wouldn't need to be told to love yourself. You wouldn't need to buy a program. You'd just choose, and the choice would do all the work. But I will admit choosing is hard. Choosing requires responsibility. Choosing means that you can't blame the culture or the industry for your circumstances. Choosing means admitting that the only thing standing between you and change is your willingness to make a different decision. So instead, you hide behind "i love myself, so I don't have to change." Or you hide behind diet culture. "The program will change me, so I don't even have to think." Neither one works because neither one is about you actually choosing And here's the thing, you can accept yourself completely right now as you are and still choose differently. Those aren't opposites. In fact, that's the only version that actually works. You respect yourself, you accept yourself, and then you choose every single day. The body positivity movement doesn't wanna tell you that because you wouldn't need them. Diet culture doesn't wanna tell you that because you wouldn't buy their shit. But I'm telling you, you need to choose. That's it. That's the entire game. So let's talk about what that actually means. Listen, I, I need to tell you something about what you're actually doing right now, and you're not gonna like hearing it because it means looking at yourself, and nobody really likes to look at themselves. You're using body positivity as a get out of jail free card. You know it. Deep down you know exactly what you're doing. You say, "I'm body positive. I love myself. I accept my body as it is." And that sounds good, right? Sounds enlightened. Sounds like you've figured some shit out. But if we're being honest, that's not what's happening. You're using self-acceptance language to justify not making a choice. You're wrapping avoidance in a package that just sounds good. The real deal, loving yourself and choosing differently aren't opposites, but you're treating them like they are. You're saying, "If I love myself, I can't wanna change," and that's complete bullshit. You know what real self-love actually is? It's choosing water instead of soda because you respect your body. It's stopping when you're full because you listen to yourself. It's being consistent because you respect your word. But that requires choosing. That requires doing something different, and that's harder than just saying, "I accept myself" and scrolling on. So body positivity became your escape hatch. And by the way, it became mine for a little while. I, I'm not, I'm not beyond or not above all this shit. It became the reason that I didn't have to do anything. You get to feel enlightened, but you still stay exactly where you are And then there's diet culture doing the exact same thing. On the other side, you've got diet culture, and it's the same bullshit just dressed differently. Diet culture says, "Follow the program. Don't think. Let me decide for you." And you buy it because it removes responsibility. You follow the protocol. The program actually works for a few weeks. You think, "Great, this program is doing it for me." And you feel good because you're not responsible for the success. But then you stop. You get bored. Life gets busy. And what happens? You gain it back, and suddenly you blame the program, not yourself. The diet didn't work. That coach wasn't good enough. This approach is bullshit. And the diet industry loves that. They need you to fail because failure keeps you a customer. If you actually chose and took responsibility, you'd stop needing them. You'd be dangerous to their business model. So they've built the entire system to make you dependent. You can't do this alone. You need the expert. You need the program. But here's something that always pisses me off, and it should piss you off too. Both of the movements are making money off your confusion. Body positivity influencers sell you acceptance, merch, courses, sponsorship. They, they profit off you staying comfortable because comfort doesn't require anything. Diet culture influencers sell you change, programs, supplements, coaching. They profit off you staying desperate because desperation creates customers. They're literally on opposite sides of the same argument. And while you're choosing which side to believe in, neither of them is making money off you actually doing anything. Because if you actually choose, you wouldn't need them, and they can't have that. So they build the choice into your head. Either you love yourself or you change yourself. Either you accept or you improve. You have to pick a side. And you picked one. Maybe you picked body positivity because it feels better to accept than to struggle. Maybe you picked diet culture because at least someone's telling you what to do. But here's the thing. While you're debating which side is right, you're not actually choosing. You're just picking a different excuse. With body positivity, your excuse is, "I love myself, so I don't have to change it." With diet culture, your excuse is, "The program will do it, so I don't have to think. I always just do it. I'm not capable of making good choices. I don't wanna think. I'll just follow a program." That's bullshit. It's the same result. You're stuck, but now you've got philosophical cover for why it's not your fault. All right, let me ask you something. Why does body positivity appeal to you? Because it lets you off the hook. You don't have to say no to yourself. You don't have to make uncomfortable choices. You don't have to sit with hunger or discomfort. You just accept and move on. That feels better than choosing. Well, of course it does. But why does diet culture appeal to you? Because it removes responsibility. You don't have to think. You don't have to make decisions. Someone else decides for you. Someone else's name is on the program if it fails. That feels a hell of a lot safer than choosing. Of course it does. But both of them are just different ways to avoid the actual work, and the actual work is choosing every single day, making one decision that's different from what you usually do. That's hard. It's uncomfortable. It requires you to take responsibility. That's why you'd rather hide behind acceptance or desperation Body positivity isn't supposed to mean never change anything about yourself. Accepting yourself just means you're not bad. It means your worth isn't determined by your body. That's valid. But you've twisted it into, "I accept myself, so I'll never choose differently." That's not acceptance. That's surrender with good marking. Diet culture isn't supposed to mean you're incapable of thinking for yourself. Following a program just means you're following instructions, and that's fine. But it's been twisted into, "The program will fix me, so I don't have to be responsible." That's not progress. That's dependency with a fitness influencer's name on it. So the real problem is that you're using both as excuses, both as ways not to choose. You could accept yourself completely right now, today, as you are, and still choose to make different decisions. They're not opposites. They're the same thing. You could respect yourself and still follow a program. Those aren't contradictory. But you're choosing neither. You're hiding behind body positivity or behind diet culture, and you're never actually choosing. Choosing is what changes things. Not acceptance, not programs, choosing. Every single day, choosing to drink water, choosing to stop when you're full, choosing to be consistent, not because you hate yourself, not because someone told you to, because you choose to. That's what both industries don't want you to understand. That's what keeps their business models alive, and that's the problem you're probably in right now.

The Real Life Oscillation Cycle

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Let me show you what this actually looks like in real life because you might be thinking, "Yeah, that sounds right in theory," but is it actually happening? Yes, it's happening everywhere, and I can prove it. Just look at your own behavior. Think about the last time you made a decision about food, not the decision you tell people about, the actual decision you made. You're scrolling, you see body positivity content. Love your body. Stop restricting. Food is not the enemy. It feels good. It feels like permission, so you eat. Maybe you eat more than you planned to. When you feel uncomfortable, when you feel bloated, when you look in the mirror and feel disappointed, what do you tell yourself? "Yeah, I'm body positive. I love myself. My worth isn't determined by how I look." And that statement is true, but you're using it to avoid feeling the consequences of the choice you made. You're using acceptance language to not acknowledge that you made a choice that you're not happy with. That's not self-love. That's self-abandonment dressed up as enlightenment. Now flip it. Different day. You see some diet culture content, some influencer talking about their transformation. You feel desperate. You feel like you need to fix yourself, so you buy the program. You follow it for two weeks, and it works. You're down five pounds. You feel great. You tell yourself, "The program is working. This is the answer. I've finally found it." Then week three hits, and you're bored, you're tired of the restrictions, you have dinner with friends, and you can't follow the protocol, so you eat normally. You feel like you failed. You feel shame. And what do you do? You blame the program. The approach doesn't work for my lifestyle. And then you search for a new one. You find a different protocol, and you start over. You never actually chose. You just followed someone else's choice. And when that choice didn't work, you blame them instead of admitting you never committed to anything. And that pattern repeats. This is what I see over and over. People oscillate between two extremes. They use body positivity for a while. Guilty. They accept themselves and stay stuck. Things stay the same. Nothing changes. Then they get frustrated. They get tired of feeling disappointed in themselves, so they swing the other way. They buy a program. They follow it. They see results for a few weeks. They feel hopeful. Then they quit. They gain it back, and they feel shame, so they swing back. They find body positivity content again. Stop dieting. You're fine just as you are. They accept it, and they stay stuck, and the cycle repeats forever. Back and forth between two excuses: body positivity, diet culture, body positivity, diet culture. Years go by. You look the same. You weigh the same. You probably weigh more, but you've convinced yourself that you've tried everything. You blame the movements, you blame genetics, you blame your metabolism, but you never actually chose. You just pick different excuses.

Outcomes Don’t Lie

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And here's the thing about proof. Outcomes don't lie. If body positivity was actually helping people, people would be healthy and happy. They wouldn't be oscillating between shame and acceptance. They wouldn't be getting more frustrated over time, but they are. I see it constantly. People who've been trying body positivity for years, and they're still stuck. They still hate how they look. They just feel guilty about hating how they look because body positive people aren't supposed to feel that way, so they hide it. They post body positive content while privately feeling disappointed in themselves. They're living a fucking contradiction. If diet culture was actually helping people, people would lose weight and keep it off. God knows I was on 100 diets and lost a ton of weight, but I never kept it off. You wouldn't be cycling through programs every six months, and they wouldn't be gaining it all back. They wouldn't be feeling more desperate every single time they try, but they are. I also see that constantly. People who've tried 20 different programs. I admit it, I've tried probably 100. People who've spent thousands of dollars. I spent thousands. People who are heavier now than they were when they started Because each failed attempt teaches them they can't do it. I am guilty of that thing. And there's an emotional toll. It's not just about the weight, it's about what this does to you emotionally. When you hide behind body positivity, you're splitting yourself. Part of you accepts yourself, part of you is disappointing yourself. You're living in contradiction, and that's fucking exhausting. You're posting about self-love while secretly hating how you look. You're defending body positivity online while feeling shame in private. You're telling yourself that your worth isn't determined by your body, while feeling your worth is determined by your body every single day. That contradiction creates anxiety. It creates cognitive dissonance. It creates a version of you that's fractured. When you hide behind diet culture, you're creating a different kind of split. You're not responsible for a success or failure, the program is. So you're never actually learning, you're never actually building confidence in yourself. Each failed diet makes you feel weaker. Each program that doesn't work makes you feel more broken. You're not learning that you can choose. You're learning that you're incapable of choosing. And I've said those words myself 100 times, "I'm incapable of making good choices." Then you need someone else to fix you. That creates dependency. That creates shame and a version of you that's smaller than you actually are. And of course, there's a time cost to all this. Do you know how much of your life you've spent in this cycle? Not just on diets or programs, on thinking about it. For me, it's, it's, uh, 50 years at least, thinking about whether you should accept yourself or change yourself. Reading content from both sides, debating which one is right, feeling conflicted, feeling confused. Years. You spend years thinking about this instead of just choosing it. And while you're thinking, time is passing. You're still the same weight, you're the same size, you're the same person you were five years ago, but five years older. That's what this costs you. Not just the money on the programs, the time, the mental energy, the opportunity cost of spending your life debating which excuse is better instead of just making one choice. The proof is that nothing changes. That's the real proof. If body positivity and diet culture actually worked, people would be different. The statistics would show massive success rates People would be maintaining weight loss and people would be happy. But the data doesn't show that. Weight gain is at an all-time high. People are cycling through programs faster than ever. The diet industry is bigger than ever before because people keep failing and coming back. And why? Because neither movement is designed to help you. They're both designed to keep you consuming content, buying programs, and staying confused. If you actually chose, you wouldn't need either of them. You'd just be doing it, and doing it consistently, and getting results, and not needing to buy anything else. But you're not doing that. You're stuck. And the proof is that nothing has changed for you in years. Despite all the content you've consumed, and all the programs that you've bought, and all the philosophical debates you've had with yourself, you're still in the same place. That's the proof that both movements are failing you because they're not designed to help you, they're designed to keep you stuck.

The Third Option: Choose

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So what should you do? Here's what I think. Forget both sides. Forget body positivity, forget diet culture, forget all that shit. There's a third option, and it's so simple that both industries don't want you to know about it because they can't sell it to you. The solution is just choosing. That's it. That's the entire answer. So stop philosophizing and start choosing. You don't need to love yourself into change, and you don't need to hate yourself into change. You just need to choose. Right now, today, pick one thing, one small thing, and decide you're gonna do it differently. Again, I've said it before, water instead of soda. Stop eating when you're full instead of when the plate is empty. I was tremendously guilty of that. Skip the snack instead of grabbing One choice. That's all. That And here's the beautiful part. You don't need permission. Yeah, and you don't need a program. You don't need an influencer to tell you it's okay. You don't need to even feel good about it first. You just choose. That's what both movements don't wanna tell you. Choosing doesn't require belief, it doesn't require feeling ready, and it doesn't require anything except deciding to do something different. Why does choosing work when body positivity and diet culture don't? Because choosing is honest. Body positivity is a fucking lie. You're not just accepting yourself and staying the same. You're using acceptance as an excuse to avoid making a choice. That's dishonest, and dishonesty creates internal conflict. Your body knows you're fucking lying to yourself. And diet culture, that's a lie too. You're not actually changing because you want to. You're following someone else's rules because you're desperate. That's dishonest, and dishonesty creates dependency. You're always waiting for someone else to fix you. But choosing, on the other hand, that's honest. You're saying, "I respect myself enough to make a different choice, not because I hate myself, not because I'm not good enough, because I choose to." That honesty is powerful. Your brain knows you're being real with yourself, and your body knows you're actually committed. Your actions start aligning with your words because the words are actually true Here's what happens when you choose.

Stack Small Choices Into Identity

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The choice becomes automatic. You choose water instead of soda day one. Doesn't feel like much. Day two, you do it again. Day three, day four, day five. By week two, you're not even thinking about it anymore. Your brain has accepted the new default. That's not willpower, and sure as shit not motivation. That's just repetition. That's your brain updating what normal is. Then you add another choice. You choose to stop when you're full. Same thing. Day one feels weird. Day two is easier. By week two, you're not fighting yourself anymore. Stopping when you're full becomes normal. Now you got two choices stacking, they're compounding, they're working together, and neither one required you to hate yourself. Neither one required you to love yourself. They just required you to choose. And here's the part that body positivity and diet culture both miss. Once you stack a few choices, your entire identity shifts. You're not someone who is trying to lose weight. You're someone who chooses water. You're not someone on a diet. You're someone who stops when they're full. You're not someone who hates their body. You're someone who respects their body through their choices. That identity follows the choice, not the other way around. You don't have to feel like a different person first. You have to choose like a different person, and then you become that person. And why does this beat everything else? Because body positivity says accept and stay the same. It doesn't create change. It creates stagnation with good marketing. Diet culture says follow the program and be dependent. It creates short-term results and long-term failure. It creates customers, not changers. Choosing says make one decision, stack it. It creates momentum. It creates compounding. It creates actual sustainable change. Why? Because choosing is the only one that's based on your power. Not on acceptance, not on someone else's protocol, on your power to make a decision. And once you realize you have the power, everything changes. Not just weight, everything. You start choosing in other areas: money, relationships, career. You realize that the mechanism is the same everywhere. Make a choice, stack it, compound it. That's how you build the life you actually want But diet culture and body positivity don't teach you that. They teach you helplessness. They teach you that either you have to accept everything or follow someone else's plan. Choosing teaches you that you are in control, and once you believe that, it's over. You're

Physics Beats Philosophy Every Time

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going to win. And by the way, the physics don't give a shit about your philosophy. Here's what should make this obvious. The mechanism is the same no matter what philosophy you wrap it in. Burn more calories than you consume. That's physics. That's not opinion. That's not debatable. That's just how bodies work. Body positivity can wrap that in acceptance language. It's still burn more calories than you consume. You can accept yourself and still follow physics. Diet culture can wrap that in program language. It, it's still burn more calories than you consume. You can follow a protocol and still just be following physics. And choosing can wrap it in honesty language. Still burn more calories than you consume. You can make a choice and still just be following physics. But only one of these approaches actually gets you to execute it. Choosing. Because accepting yourself without choosing creates stagnation. Following a program without choosing creates dependency. But choosing with full awareness of physics creates action. You're not trying to hack your metabolism. I fucking love that. You know, biohack. You're not trying to trick your body. You're not trying to find the secret angle. You're just choosing to consume less energy and move on with your life. This is the part that should really make you feel free. You don't need anyone else's permission to choose. You don't need body positivity to tell you it's okay to accept yourself. You already know that. You don't need to post about it or defend it. You just accept it and move forward. And you don't need diet culture to tell you how to change. You don't need to buy a program or hire a coach. You just choose and execute. You just decide today, right now, that you're gonna make one choice differently, and you're gonna repeat that choice until it becomes automatic. Then you'll add another choice, then another. You don't need anybody's permission. You don't need any fucking program. You don't need any philosophy, just choice.

The 30 Day Consistency Plan

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So what does it actually look like? Well, you drink water. You do it consistently. After 30 days, it's automatic. You're not thinking about it anymore. You stop eating when you're full. You practice listening to your body. After 30 days, it's automatic. You can feel fullness now. You choose consistency over perfection. If you slip, if you fuck up, you just make a different choice the next day. You're not off the diet. You're just adjusting. After 30 days, consistency is your baseline. By day 90, you're a different person. Not because you love yourself differently, not because someone told you how, because you chose every single day, and you stacked those choices. The weight came off, the body changed, but more importantly, your identity changed. You're someone who chooses. That's just who you are now, and that identity transfers everywhere. You start choosing in money, you start choosing in relationships, you start choosing a career because you've learned that choosing works. That's the real win. The weight loss is just a byproduct. The real win is that you realize you're in control. You realize that you don't need permission. You realize that you don't need someone else to fix you. You just need to choose and keep choosing. That's it. That's why this works better than anything else, because it's based on your power, not your shame. It's based on action and not philosophy. It's based on physics and not opinions. So stop dieting, stop accepting, stop waiting for someone else to tell you what to do. Just choose and watch what happens. So here's where we are. You now know that both movements are selling you bullshit. Body positivity tells you accept and stay the same. Diet culture tells you to follow and stay dependent. Neither one is actually about you taking control. And you know the answer. Choose. That's it. Make one decision and stack it. Repeat it until it becomes who you are. But knowing and doing are different things. You can walk away from this episode understanding everything I just said, and tomorrow you'll see a piece of body positivity content and think, "Yeah, I should just love myself." Or you see a program and think, "Yeah, maybe this one will work." Because understanding requires one thing.

Book, Choice Reset, And Next Steps

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Executing requires something else entirely, and that's commitment So if you wanna get the framework, get Shut Up and Choose. That's my book on Amazon. The book is complete. It's gonna give you the entire framework for how choice works, not just for weight, but for every area where you're stuck. You'll understand why you keep oscillating. You'll see exactly how I move from shame to acceptance to actual choosing. You'll learn how small choices compound into entirely different life. You'll understand the mechanism and why it works across weight, money, relationships, career, and everything else. The book completely stands on its own. Read it, apply it. You have everything you need to start choosing and building the life you actually want. That's not an incomplete answer. That's the full framework. Amazon bestseller, thousands of people have used it. We have tons of great reviews. Check it out. But if you're not just consuming information, if you're, if you're ready to stop the oscillation right now, today, then book a choice reset with me. It's one hour. That's it. No philosophy, no debate, no bullshit excuses allowed. We cut through everything. We expose exactly where you're hiding behind body positivity. We expose exactly where you're using diet culture as an escape hatch. We'll pull apart the pattern that's been keeping you stuck for years or maybe even decades, and then we build an actual system, your first choice, how you're gonna stack it, how you're gonna make it automatic. We don't talk about it. We don't philosophize about it. We decide it, and you leave knowing exactly what you're doing tomorrow. One hour, and once you hear it, once someone actually holds up a mirror and shows you what you're doing, you can't ignore it any longer. You can't go back to pretending. You can't hide behind either movement anymore. You just have to choose. This is one hour that I guarantee will change your life. If you want the framework, get the book. It's complete, it's thorough, it's everything. If you want the acceleration, if you wanna do it faster, if you wanna cut away the excuses and get to execution in one conversation, then go to jonathanressler.com and book your choice reset. Either way, you have no more excuses. You have everything you need, the framework, the philosophy, the mechanism, the knowledge of why both movements are designed to keep you stuck. Now you just have to choose today. Pick one thing, one small decision, not because you hate yourself, not because someone told you to, because you decide to take control of your life. Do it for 30 days. Let it become automatic. Then add another. Stack it. Compound it. Watch what happens when you actually own your choices instead of hiding behind someone else's philosophy. Stop debating which movement is right. Stop using philosophy as permission. Stop listening to anyone trying to sell you acceptance or programs. You already have everything you need. Just choose, take your power back, and finally stop making excuses and shut up and choose.

Final Kick And Outro

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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 @jonathanresslerfatloss, on YouTube at Jonathan Ressler, and online at jonathanressler.com. No diets, no gimmicks, no excuses, no bullshit. Just smarter choices, starting the second you hit stop on this episode. Shut up and choose. Now, go make a better fucking choice