Podcast Transcription: What To Do When You Don't Get The Support You Need?  

Ted Ryce: Welcome back to another Ask Ted episode on the Legendary Life Podcast. Today, we're going to be answering the question, how can you be more consistent with your exercise, nutrition, and body transformation goals in 2024?

And you know why I love this question now? Because we're coming up on Quitter’s Day. Quitters' day, if you don't know, it's the second Friday of January.

And I want to ask you, have you already quit? How are you doing with your resolutions to improve your health, improve your body in 2024? Hopefully, you're doing well, but regardless if you've already given up or you're in the zone, this episode is going to help you avoid the pitfalls that so many people make.

So, let's dive right in. And of course, I got to say, well, welcome to the Legendary Life podcast. My name is Ted Rice, health expert and coach to executives, entrepreneurs, and other high-performing professionals. And we do this show for two reasons. Number one, I've been in the business almost 25 years now and I've made a lot of mistakes. And so, I want to save you the trouble and give you the best information on health optimization. Can't speak English today. I am in Mexico, so cut me a break, mi amigo. And so long-term health optimization and fat loss.

And the second reason is if you are a high performer and you understand the value of coaching, but you're not sure who to choose to help you, you can make up your mind after listening to this episode. So, let's dive in. And I love this topic. I love it when we're not talking about New Year's resolutions because it's still the most important thing. How can we be consistent?

Because if you can't be consistent, then you can't achieve greatness at anything. If you regularly take breaks from parenting, for example, or you don't show up a few days, if you can't consistently come to work, it's an issue.

Now those are kind of ridiculous examples because most of us will never lack consistency when showing up to work because we know what the consequences are. You'll lose your internet and won't be able to listen to the show or watch YouTube or Netflix. However, with our health, we can kind of put it aside.

And I want to talk about Quitter’s Day for a minute because the research was conducted by Strava, which is a social network for athletes. And what they figured out was, from their data, that the second Friday in January was that fateful day when most Quitters, well, their motivation began to falter.

And they analyzed 31.5 million global January activities and they were able to pinpoint the second Friday in January as quitters' day.

And most resolutions in 2024, like I think every year for the past, I don't know, 10 years, it's been to lose weight, eat healthy, exercise more, it always has to do with health. It's so fascinating. Great job security for me and other coaches as well, but also, it's something that's irked me for years and I want to help with my clients because I want one thing and then we'll dive in.

I'll promise we'll dive into the content here, but I want you to understand that the fitness industry most of what passes for, let's say coaching or help or trying to help you, it's really about like, hey, let's sell people this stuff that is going to help them lose a few pounds or get them in a little bit better shape, but they won't be able to keep it up.

And so, they'll end up gaining the weight back or they'll never make much improvement. And so, we can count on this recurring revenue model. I mean, so many people talk about how big pharma is so bad and they never talk about how the fitness industry is, it sucks pretty bad too. And of course, I've done my best to not be part of that. And I want to talk a little bit about how we help our clients in this episode.

So, the first thing that we do, and you've probably heard it on the show before is the breakthrough call.

It's a free call we offer, and it's a bit of a reality check. And I'm sure you've heard me say, hey, I'm about to call with me. You're like, man, he's just going to pressure me with hardcore sales. And listen, I've never done, I'm a coach. I have a degree in biology. Okay. So not, it's not hardcore sales. Also have a small business.

What we actually do on that call is we, well, and I'm doing them right now. It's one of my goals is to remove myself from the breakthrough call, but it's not a resolution. And it may not happen this year, I digress. But what I do on that call with potential clients is two things. Number one, why me?

And what I'm really asking there, I think a lot of people hop on the call. They're like, okay, sell me. I've had people even, oh, I've had people basically say, come on. They didn't say this directly, but they were basically asking me, Ted, sell me on you and I'm like, dude, I'm not good at sales. I'm not going to sell you on me. I'm not. I mean, I'd like to think I'm fairly charismatic, but I'm not the guy who you're like, wow, he just talked and looked at me at a twinkle in his eye. And I've just said, shut up and take my money. I'm not that guy.

And what I want to know is like, have you seen the results we get in the program? And I'll talk about, you know, in case you're like, well, this is not relevant to me because I don't think I'll be a client. I'm going to talk about how it's relevant to you as well. Because you need to be sold on the person helping you need that emotional connection.

I've talked to some people who've listened to my show for a year. They're like, uh, yeah, I'm already sold Ted, just, you know, we don't need to do this call. Just tell me what it is and I'll pay and let's get started. They didn’t say it like that, but that was the vibe. And that's the number one because the most important thing is a connection like an emotional connection with the strategy that you're doing or the person who's helping you with that strategy.

And the other thing that we do is the readiness for change because you may like me, you may enjoy the show, you are an avid listener, and you think that you want to make change, but then when I talk to you, and then when it comes time to actually taking action, and the reality of changing yourself becomes apparent, you're not really in it.

You start making excuses, not the right time, too busy. I'll start when I get back from vacation. Often get that, I've gotten that recently. Hey, listen, I'm going on vacation. Should I start when I come back? I'm like, if you stop this, the chances of you coming back are not high. And more importantly, and I tell people this, by the way, I tell you, if you don't start now, you're telling yourself that you can only be successful under optimal circumstances.

Think about that. You want to start when it's not convenient to start. In fact, that's exactly what coaching is for. So that's the breakthrough call. And here's why it's important to you, regardless of, you know, whether you end up working with me or not, most people won't become my clients. If you're an executive, entrepreneur, or a high performer, okay.

But most people aren't that. And that's okay. I still want you to listen to the show. Or maybe you're an executive, entrepreneur, or high-performing, you just are focused on other things.

So, here's the thing you got to be connected to why you want to change and why now is the right time and the strategy. And I'll share a personal example here. I shared that I'm looking to get my black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu in 2024. I actually have coaches helping me, but I'm going to be traveling.

So, I'm not going to be able to train in just one school and I'm very connected with it. I'm not going to; I'll hijack the podcast if I start talking about that. So, I won't do that, but that's the reality check. Are you sold? Have you sold yourself on the idea of change is necessary and it's necessary now and I'm ready to do it. Because if you haven't sold yourself on that idea, nobody else is going to sell it to you or sell you on it.

And if they do, it's a good chance you're going to get buyer's remorse afterward. You need to sell yourself on this.

And step number two is the assessment aka Facing the Facts. And the important of the initial assessment. So, I have clients, they take before photos, they weigh themselves, they do a DEXA scan or some other type of body fat percentage, body fat test and blood work.

In the past, I always wondered, what can I tell this client to get them motivated? And now I don't do that anymore. I laugh because I think about like, oh yeah, what can I say? What are the words? What is the inspiration? And none of that works. Or it might work for a moment where I say something particularly inspirational and a client might say, Oh, wow, I'm so inspired. But then they get an email or a dumpster fire ignites in their business and they forget all about that inspiration.

But you know what really works? When clients take that first before photo and they got to take off their shirt. If they're a guy or get into their athletic wear if they're a woman or bikini and take a photo of themselves, it's hard for a lot of people. And I just had a client today talk to me.

She was super motivated to change. She's been lacking motivation to change and she was super motivated to change. What was the difference? She had a body fat test and found out she was 30% body fat. Now that's not even that bad in case you don't know, for women under 25% is where you want to be, 32% and higher is obese. So, she's in the overweight category.

Not terrible, but not good either. For her though, she, I forgot the word she used, but she used strong language about it. She was not happy with the reality.

So, I don't need to pep-talk her. She's ready to go. She doesn't need to talk about it. What she needs is a plan that gives her results. Another client. He, this guy, I really like him a lot actually, a very successful entrepreneur. So, when I look up to and wonder like, how did I, how am I so blessed to be working with some of these great entrepreneurs? And he'd had done my group.

And no, it did okay in it. And we had a talk and he was like, Ted, I want to keep working with you, but I'll be honest, I'm just not motivated to do much. And so, what I ended up doing, I was like, hey, well, let's work together for a month one-on-one is what I'm talking about and see how it goes. And if you want to continue after that, we, you know, figure out what that's going to look like. But if you want to stop.

No harm, no foul. We're, we're still friends either way. And the first thing I did was have him take a body fat test and blood work. When he got the blood work back in particular and saw that he was nearing pre-diabetic levels, he wasn't pre-diabetic, but he was nearing pre-diabetic levels.

Your doctor's not going to tell you, they may say something. They may not say something. If you're pre-diabetic, I'm sure they'll say something. If you're full-blown diabetic, you better believe they'll say something. But if you're not quite even pre-diabetic, then it's like, Oh, you're, you're good. I mean, you're barely it. That's like being in school and you're barely passing class. You're barely passing, but you are passing, right? It's yes or no pass or fail.

But if we wanted to rate you qualitatively, not doing great, you're barely passing.

So, he was motivated to change. And that's what we do. So how can you use this? Get some tests. Take a photo of yourself. Weigh yourself if you haven't in a while. You need that outside feedback. And while it may be emotionally tough, and that goes back to that first part where it's like the reality check, are you ready for change? Because if you're not able to take photos of yourself or weigh yourself, then we're going to have a really hard time working together.

So, get some data and face the facts, be strong. There's nothing to fear about reality face the facts, it's empowering. And it will give you the motivation to do something. All of a sudden, you'll be motivated. You'll be like, oh my gosh, I got to get my act together. Let's see. What can we do here? You'll find the energy. So, so that's what I would tell you.

So, the third thing that we do in our program is create momentum. So, I have this rapid fat loss plan. I call it the phase one rapid fat loss plan. I know it's not super sexy marketing. I could do better with, I'm not that great of a marketer, not that great at sales, but getting better, right? Hopefully it's not too bad. But one, the thing that I found, so many people, they wonder like, well, okay, I have trouble sticking to a plan.

And there's two reasons why people have trouble sticking to a plan. Number one is they, it's not the appropriate plan. We'll talk about this in the next segment, but, uh, in the next key rather. But right now, what I want to say is the other thing is people don't get results.

The thing that gives you the motivation to keep going after you get started is results. So, what I do is I help people lose four to six pounds in the first 10 days. And let me tell you, I used to go slow before you'll hear coaches say, oh, don't lose the weight fast, you got to lose it slow because the faster you lose it, the faster it's going to come back. I don't think that's true. I think that's, I think that's a shortcut to critical thinking.

I asked myself, is it really them losing fat fast that causes them to gain the weight back? And what I would tell you is this, it's about time practicing the habits and embodying those habits and automatizing those habits. It's not about whether you lose fat fast. I think you need to lose fat fast.

And I've seen it work with clients. Maybe it's the type of clients who I attract. They want, they want a fast win. But I mean, I think about it from somewhat like my situation. I'm about to sign up with another business coach. When I sign up, I don't want slow results. I want a fast win. I want to know I'm in the right place.

That's what I would want, if I signed up for a health and fitness program or a fat loss program are helping me get to the next level. And I think, and I've—it's not just thinking, I've done coaching virtually for years now. We used to have slow progress. I don't really remember it. It's, you know, a lot of things have happened in the past years. I don't remember all the details of what we used to do, but it was slow progress. People would lose a pound a week, roughly.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to say, "Okay, yeah, it's this guy's great plan." In fact, that isn't that great, right? I think. I wouldn't pay for a pound a week result. I mean, I would have to because I'm quite lean, and if I lose more than one pound a week, there's a problem, probably losing muscle. But if I was overweight or obese and losing one pound a week, I don't feel that's great.

And I don't think that's worth paying for. The other thing is this, when clients join a coaching program, they are never more motivated than when they first join. And I'll talk about how this is relevant to you, if you're, you know, again, not working with a coach or not interested in working with me, but they're never more motivated than when they first start.

So, the level of motivation dictates the amount of suffering and work you're willing to do, let's say. So, I push people hard at the beginning and everybody is happy. Nobody has ever told me, "Oh, that was totally messed up." And also, because it's a coaching program, we dial things in, we make tweaks. If someone's too hungry, we'll increase the calories or help them choose more satiating foods.

If someone feels like the workout's too easy, we'll adjust that. We'll talk about the workout in a second, actually. So, I'll keep it to the fat loss nutrition plan. So, if someone doesn't feel like they're eating enough, they're too hungry, if someone's not getting results with it, we step in, we create momentum. And the thing I would say for you, get momentum fast. Do something a bit more drastic at the beginning.

Because not only will you feel more confident when you get those results, you're physiologically going to feel better. Overeating is not good for you. It's not good for you psychologically. It's not good for your body. We all do it. It's okay. It's part of having an abundance of food and a brain that's adapted and evolved to deal with an environment that has food scarcity. It's all right. But, um, it's going to happen, but it's also important that we have these strategies that we can go to.

That's what fasting is for people. I just personally don't want to do a juice cleanse or anything like that or just a water fast. I'm not interested in that. But this rapid fat loss plan, it's something I've done personally. I've tweaked it over the years. It works great. Clients get fast results.

They feel better physiologically. They have more confidence in me as their coach. I don't have to, again, sell them the results, sell them on, you know, whether they're in the right place or not and get yourself results. You'll fast at the beginning, just have something to transition into that is more sustainable, but nothing wrong with doing a bit of a crash for the first week or two.

So, the next thing we do is a personalized workout program. I ended up—I have a new client, he's a former military and actually we've had quite a few people in the military come through our program and he was talking about, he kept talking about reducing friction. And I really liked that. And when I—when it comes to designing a personalized workout program for a client, and again, this is also relevant for you, you want to reduce friction.

Here's the mistake that most people do. Let me know if this sounds familiar. "Oh, I haven't worked out in a while. Oh my gosh, and I want to get in shape. And oh, you know what? There's this program that I used six months back, a year ago, and it gave me great results. And so, what I'm going to do is I'm going to just jump right back into it." And what happens? You do it, you're sore for three or five days.

And you skip your second workout, you just can't move, you feel terrible, being sore sucks. Some people like it, and if that's you, you're a sick person. Just kidding, but I do think there is something wrong with people who like being sore. A little bit of sore is okay, but you know that soreness where you're just, you're a bit masochistic.

If you like trashing your legs to the point where walking up and down stairs is barely doable. I can't stand that. I don't mind suffering, but I want to suffer for results. I don't want to suffer needlessly. And we know that sort of being that sore is actually the opposite of what you want to achieve because you could have started out with one or two sets and been a little bit sore, then come back again a couple of days later and hit it again and you would have gotten better results.

So, it's really important to reduce friction, remove obstacles and design a program that's optimized for consistency. When a client first joins my program, I don't care about writing the best program for them objectively, the best program because you know what the real best program is for them? It's a program that they'll do every week. That is the best program. Period.

No arguments. Oh no, but I had this great program, okay, when's the last time you, did it? Oh yeah, about three weeks ago, okay, it isn't the best program for you right now, okay? So, I've started clients out with five-minute workouts, 10-minute workouts, 15-minute workouts, 20-minute workouts.

You optimize for consistency before you try to give people the perfect program or try to give yourself the perfect program make sure it's enough that challenges you. Of course, you don't want it so easy.

Like what James Clear talks about in his book, just do one squat today and then tomorrow you'll do too. I think that's a joke. I think that's terrible advice. He actually says with pushups and if it's worked for you, fantastic. I don't think it'll work for most people and certainly not the type of clients I work with.

I want you to challenge yourself, but I want it to be something you can feel that you can do every single week several times a week, four times a week ideally.

You know, whether that's two different workouts or one workout, or four different workouts, I want you to do it frequently.

So, this is what's important. I'll even share one more thing. I only do jujitsu twice a week. Want to know why? Because if I bump it up to three, my body feels super achy.

Maybe I can get there. We'll have to see. But right now, I'm training twice a week because I'm optimizing for consistency. If I wanted to optimize for the best results objectively, I would go three, four, five, six times a week.

The problem is I'll miss out on consistency because I'll end up having to take a week off just to let my body recover. I'd rather go two days a week and be consistent, not take time off, then sprint and then crash and burn. That's what happens to most people, crash and burn.

So, think about that right now. If you've been doing a workout and you've been having trouble sticking with it, you want to make sure that you reevaluate things and make the necessary changes so that you're making sure that you're doing it. Oh, but I went on vacation. I don't care. Do something on vacation.

Oh, but it got really busy at work, and I couldn't work out for an hour. Then why didn't you do 30 minutes? Oh, 30 minutes was too much. Why didn't you do 15 minutes? I don't want excuses. I want, what can you do? And I want you to do that.

So, let's move on to the next thing. Weekly coaching and check-ins. So, we created—everyone needs a support system. Now in our coaching program, we do weekly coaching calls.

The coaching calls are super powerful, especially the group calls. One-on-one calls, I love doing those too, but something special about the group because, you know, look, I like to feel like, well, people are there for me, they join because of me, and they're there because I'm sharing all this great information and this insight into the science of behavior change and long-term health optimization and fat loss.

But when I asked clients, after they'd been in the program for a while or after they left the program. It's like, hey, what, what about the group really hit home for you? They say, they always say the other people.

Now, of course I know, I know they're there for me and they wouldn't be there without me, but I think it's fascinating. And when I first heard that I restructured my coaching calls to invite more participation and more collaboration between the people on the call and it's been amazing to see. So, the community, so important. And what can you do? Well, create a community for yourself.

Create a community for yourself. It's so important. There's that saying that you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. There's a lot of truth to that. There's actually research. I'm not going to go into it because I don't remember all the research, but there's research on social networks and how we influence each other. If you want to make a million dollars, go hang out with a bunch of millionaires. You might not believe

You might believe it's so hard to make a million dollars and you're hanging out with guys who are making, you know, $10 million and you're thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, I haven't even made a million dollars. I'm like, what's going on here? That's happened to me with coaching, with some of these coaching programs I've been in. I'm like, oh, it's so hard to make this money.

And then, and then hearing them, I'm like, I'm not hearing anything that lets me think that this person is smarter than me, but yet they're twice, they're making twice the amount of money I am.

They're doing something different, and they, they don't need to be a genius to do it because not that they're dumb, but they're certainly not striking me as someone so, so far advanced. I, and believe me, I've talked with some of my clients, some of the people I worked with in Miami Beach, who was just like, wow, your brain is just on another level than anyone who I've ever talked to before.

I've met people like that, but you'll see the, when you're surrounded by a group that are, they all have families, they all are busy running their businesses or in their professional careers or high-performance professional careers, everyone has the same kind of stuff going on and you can still get results and it creates a standard of like, well, this is, this is what we do here.

And we also do check-ins. So, the, for the weekly coaching, well, create your own support system. Who can you go on walks with, gym buddies, accountability buddies?

And then we also do check-ins. That's really important. You need to look at your program, your results, and measure the numbers.

And that's what we do in the program. If someone is having trouble with hunger, I know I need to change something. I know I need to up their calories or look at their food choices and make sure they're choosing more satiating foods. If they're feeling an ache in their knee from one of the workouts or exercises in a workout, something needs to change.

So, make sure you evaluate your system or your plan weekly and see what needs to change and make changes. There is no cookie, cookie-cutter plans don't work because they're inflexible. But even if you add a cookie-cutter plan, you could adjust it.

And I wish someone had told me that, you know, going back to the thing I said at the beginning where I made so many mistakes, I wish someone had told me that. And then the last thing is the time factor with people in my program, I tell them straight up, I want to spend a year with you. If you spend a year with me, you will not be the same. You will be an enhanced and optimized version of yourself.

And if you spend time with me, you're going to be different with your health and fitness or in a professional level. I say that I was hanging out with my cousin. I like to think I had a positive impact on other people who don't pay me to be their coach too, but certainly the people who invest in coaching. I mean, it's, it's really clear from their feedback, not mine, right? No ego here.

I work very hard to be where I am. So, time spent in a program will lead to better long-term success. I've seen that with my clients. And when it comes to you, what you want to do is you want to commit to a year, find the plan, adjust it, but commit to the year.

And listen, the thing about this, I want to say this to you. How fast did 2023 fly by? For me, it was very quick. I had a lot of good times this year, a lot of personal growth, business growth too, but man, it feels like it flew by.

And so, if you're thinking about a year and think, oh my gosh, that's so much time. This year is going to fly by to mark my words. And if the time is going to pass anyway, commit to doing this. You're going to look back and be so happy you did. There's nothing wrong with buying luxury watches or super cars or luxury cars or there's not no problem with buying stuff, buying your wife, a Chanel bag, whatever you're into.

The issue with those material things, and I would even argue vacations, even though I've done my share of vacations this year. Positano, that was amazing. Not cheap either, right? Tulum. Anyway, they were great, but the things that I look back on and say, you know what, I got the most out of this at a personal level, And it allowed me to enjoy some of those vacations more were the things that I invested in personally.

I invested in going to Rhythmia to drink ayahuasca for the second time. That wasn't a lot of fun in, in many ways, but it led to a big change in who I was. Um, I did a year, another year of coaching with my previous coach, I went and met him and a bunch of entrepreneurs in Jamaica.

And those things helped level me up in a way where I look back and said, I am so glad I did that. It made everything else worth it. Because the other stuff, it's kind of like, it's just, you know, you're just trying to make yourself feel better, trying to reward yourself, trying to make yourself feel good. And nothing. Excuse me.

There's nothing wrong with that. The issue is if you're only doing that and not investing in yourself, so invest in yourself long-term commit to a year of change and you will look back and be so happy you did.

So, the conclusion here is the first part is the reality check, understanding why you want to change, why now is important, your emotional connection to your goal how ready you actually are to change.

Number two is facing the facts. Get those assessments, take the photos, weigh in, get your body fat test, your blood work, confronting reality helps setting the stage for change. Then the momentum builder, you need some fast results to get your head in the game and also to clear up that brain fog that the systemic inflammation is causing.

So, get, do something a bit more drastic, then you can switch to something more sustainable. So, but build some momentum. And I am talking specifically about your nutrition. If you overdo it with exercise, we'll talk about exercise in a second, but if you ever do it with exercise, you can be too sore.

So, the next one is the consistency key. Optimizing your workouts for consistency, whether it's walking, lifting weights, rowing, whatever it is optimized for consistency first.

Number five is the support system. It is just extremely hard with our short attention span these days to focus, to come back and focus on what we have a habit of ignoring unless we have a support system.

And also, so that looks like having buddies, of course, you know, already talked about what we do in our coaching program, but that works, that looks like having people with you and also evaluating your plan weekly.

And number six is the time factor. Give yourself a year to make this change.

All right, that is it. Listen, you have more power than you know. You can make this happen, you can change, but you'll most likely have to do things very differently than how you're doing them now. Use today's episode as a guide to, to pinpoint the changes that will give you the most results.

That's what I want to leave you with. And of course, if this hit home for you today, and you know someone who would benefit from listening to this, please share this episode. It's the highest compliment you can give this show. We spent a lot of time producing it for you.

So, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And that is it for me. Hope you enjoyed this. Have a great one and I will speak to you soon.