Podcast Transcription: Success Story: After Following All Restrictive Diets Out There And Gaining Back Every Pound He Lost Tracy Finally Started To Achieve Lasting Results In Our Program

Ted Ryce: Hey Tracy, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing your story today. Really appreciate it.

Tracy: Thank you, Ted. I appreciate the opportunity.

Ted Ryce: So, let's start off with who you are and the results you've got in the program so far.

Tracy: My name's Tracy. I live in suburban Houston, Texas. I'm a 60 year old man who recently had total knee replacement surgery and needed to lose a little over 100 pounds, ideally about 110 pounds. I started on the program around the first of March and in four months, I've lost 32 pounds. So, to say that I have been a success on this program would be a gross understatement of epic proportions.

Ted Ryce: Love it. And let's talk about this. So, share a little bit about what you've tried in the past.

Tracy: I am the world's pickiest eater. I grew up on meat and potatoes, canned vegetables, not a lot of fresh vegetables or fruits, although they were available to me, just wasn't my thing. And I always had great metabolism. I could eat whatever I wanted, never gained a pound up until I hit my mid-30s like a lot of adults do. And then I slowly started putting weight on. 

So, I have tried over the years, and specifically over let's say the last 10 or 12 years, I've tried all of the mainstream programs that you see advertised on television or you see on the internet or if you're local to Houston, Atlanta, and I believe South Florida, there's a program that was popular for a long time that used a lot of supplements that my doctor vetted and they were really good, but they were expensive.

That's the program that I had the best success on, prior to this program. I lost I think almost 80 pounds in about a year. But because the program itself and all of these other programs are so strict, they're so black and white that eventually I grew tired. I'm like, I can't do this. This is not me. I'm too much of a... I want to eat this this day and eat this that day. And those programs just did not work for me over the long term. And I think we'll probably get more into why that is.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, and when you say didn't work for you over the long term, can you say what you mean? What do you mean specifically by that? 

Tracy: So one of the things about your program, Ted, that you have pressed from the moment I was first considering all the way through today is the fact that this is not a diet program. It's a lifestyle program. And those words really resonated and clicked with me. At first I was like, yeah, sure, lifestyle.

He's going to give me a diet. And of course I saw the sample diets and I'm like Okay, there's a lot of stuff on here I'm not going to eat, but we'll see how this goes because you were like: "Trust me, give this a shot. If it doesn't work, then we shake hands and go our separate ways." 

And within two weeks and certainly within the first month, I was like, this has changed my life. It is truly a lifestyle program. It teaches you how to eat, not necessarily what to eat because you can eat whatever you want, but a totally different approach to nutrition, to exercise, to health, to daily outlook on what your goals are for today, next week and a year from now.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, now when you say that, I light up, right? And thanks for sharing, because I didn't get that initially when we started working together, you were that skeptical. So thanks for sharing that now. And I think a lot of people maybe feel that way, but don't say "Oh, he seems like a nice guy, but I don't really trust this process."

Where did that come from? Is it just the previous experiences or was it something I said or didn't say? And I'd love for you to just, you know, tell me, just no filter.

Tracy: The skepticism for me comes from my experience over all of the mainstream diets, like Atkins and Dukan and Weight Watchers and all of those things that say "you're going to do this and you're going to see these amazing results."

I mean, how many times have we seen Marie Osmond on television telling us how many pounds we're going to lose on the program that she pitches? And you go "Well, I can do that." And then you actually try the program and go "but it doesn't work for me." 

So, I believed that your program was very unique from the very first time you told me about it because you said things that I had never heard pitched to me before. But I was skeptical as to whether or not they would work for me knowing how my brain was working and how my body was working with regards to how I approached exercise, nutrition, diet, all of those things that make up the reason why I was 100 plus pounds overweight. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, I understand that. And what I find challenging sometimes for myself in talking about coaching is it's just a matter of like, if I can get someone to show up and tell me what's going on, we can figure out a plan forward within the principles. Can you talk a little bit about how we, you said like this was a lifestyle program and you mentioned some other things that was very different, but how specifically was it different for you?

Tracy: So virtually every diet program that I've been on, actually every diet program that I've been on, and I'm assuming others are the same way, there's always some sort of an introductory phase where they want you to be fairly specific with what the kinds of foods you eat and the volume and the mix of nutrients.

And then you move into various phases, so on and so forth. And, of course, as soon as I saw the list – and just so your podcast viewers understand, I will eat virtually any kind of meat, but my vegetables, true vegetables are green beans, broccoli and asparagus. That's it. 

Corn doesn't count. Potatoes don't count. Carrots don't count. Beans don't count. Those are all the things that you really, if you're trying to lose weight, make it more difficult because of the starch content, sugar content, and all of those things. 

And when we first started, or when I first started the program, and you were like, "Here's your sample diet", and I'm like "Yeah, but Ted, I don't like cottagecheese. I can't eat, I just don't like it." And you said "Well, try Greek yogurt." I had never had Greek yogurt before in my life. And I thought, "Okay, I can buy a container of Greek yogurt."

And I fell in love with it. I was shocked, my family is shocked. My wife and my daughter still laugh to this day, going "There's no way Tracy Clayton eats Greek yogurt!" Yep, I do. I eat it every morning. I absolutely love it.

And it was when you said the diet program or the food program, I hate to say diet because it doesn't apply to your program. The food choices that you give us are examples. Your meal should look like this, but it doesn't have to be this. Find something similar that does the same thing. It's a lean protein, it's a good vegetable, it's a good fruit, protein powders, all of those sorts of things and use those instead. 

And it was like a light bulb went off in my head. It supercharged my energy for the program, not on the program, because the energy, physical energy came naturally. But once that clicked in my head, that it wasn't this rigid you have to eat this on day one and this on day two and this for breakfast and this for lunch, and your snack has to be three sunflower seeds and a raisin, you know, that sort of thing. 

Once I realized that that's not what this program was, I realized it was a program that was going to work for me, and it has. 

Ted Ryce: Amazing, yeah. And so that's fantastic. What would you say is the hardest thing that you faced in the past four months working together? 

Tracy: The hardest thing for me has been in the middle, well, mainly towards the end of the last four months. 

We had a lot of, I had a lot of work and personal travel. So, I had a family reunion. I had two work conferences that I was on, where trying to eat not necessarily healthy, but not being indulgent was more difficult.

We had my daughter's birthday in the middle of that. And we had special desserts and meals for her, and you want to enjoy those. You don't want to sit there. I thought this the other day, I thought, you know what, it's like being invited to a meal with the president of your company and going "I'm sorry, I can't eat that, it's not on my diet."

And then what does that person think? And especially if that person is a close friend or a family member, it's like, I'm going to enjoy this. So that was the hardest part was reconciling mentally that it was okay to take part of those celebrations and those "reward meals" as your program calls them instead of "cheat days", which I absolutely love because the term "cheat day" always made me feel bad. 

But it was when you said "reward meal" or you said just "you're going to do something, don't worry about it this week." It was hard, but from the standpoint of, okay, I can't go and have four pieces of cake, but I knew I could have a piece of cake. And then it was, okay, now that period is over. Now let's jump back into the program and get back on track to start seeing the weight loss again and the other gains that we want to see.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, well, well stated. And I think it's hard for people to believe that you could eat a slice of cake on a weight loss journey. Now there's some nuance here for sure, but every single person can do that. It doesn't need to be as strict, but I think a lot of people have trouble believing that. 

What would you say to someone who has a similar situation, who's been on a bunch of diets and feel the same way that you felt when you came into the program, what would you say to that person about how what we do in this program is different and how it's not a diet? How would you explain that to them?

Tracy: I think that in the simplest terms, it's the fact that you are truly coaching us and you're not preaching to us. Every structured or monitored program that I've ever been on, somebody reviewed your weekly food list and your weigh-ins and all of those sorts of things. And if you had a day or a meal or two days where you didn't do exactly what they wanted you to do, you felt like you were going into detention in school. 

Sorry, you have to go sit in time out for an hour because you had an apple and a banana instead of just a banana. Or you had eight ounces of steak instead of four ounces of chicken. And yours is a coaching program where it is, okay, you did this week, but what did you do for the week as an average? 

And the average that you guys use, getting us to look at things as a running total as opposed to a daily line in the sand made a huge difference knowing that, okay, tomorrow we're going to have a big meal. So today maybe I eat a little bit lighter, tomorrow I'll eat a little bit lighter.

And then guess what? Sure enough, at the end of the week when I would check it on Saturday or Sunday, I was right where I needed to be on my calorie count on my... macro nutrition mix and count might be a little up one day, a little down one day. But that was the huge difference and is the huge difference in your program, Ted. And not just from you, it's from the people that assist you in the program. The support was, it was, there was, I never felt bad for any choice that I made. 

It was always, what can we do to help you get back on track? As opposed to here's what you have to do to get back on track. And I guarantee you anyone that's ever been in a structured diet has had that discussion with their monitor or their mentor or whatever the term is. And it's not fun.

Ted Ryce: Thanks for that. It really gets me clear on how we're different as well. And Tracy, you said something really interesting. Obviously, you lost 30 pounds in a four-month period and it was less structured than other plans. For example, you told this story of how you were in a program before and the woman who was helping you was trying to force you to eat salads. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Tracy: So, they were trying to be flexible with me because I flat out told them, the things that you're asking me to eat, I am not going to eat, period. Here are the foods that I will eat and I will figure out how to make them work. Well, in most weight loss programs, you hit a series of plateaus. Everybody knows that, Ted, you've said this, don't get discouraged when that happens. But what they said every single time was: "Well, you just have to start eating salads." And I said "I'm not eating salads, period.", "Well, you know, you can put this on it, make it taste good, or you can put that on it, make it taste good." I said "No, if you tell me this is what I'm going to have to do, then I'm leaving the program." 

And so we tried to work around it, but their answer to everything always came back around to, this is our program and you can't deviate from it. And as soon as you get put into a cattle car with the rest of the cattle, then that's what you feel like, is a head of cattle. And not an individual who... I'm not special by any stretch of the imagination, but my body works differently than someone else's body does. 

My tastes are different than someone else's tastes are. My family, every other member of my family, could probably eat a salad at every meal and be happy. For the most part. I'm never going to let ...

I've had a couple of salads in my life, and there are actually a couple that I do sort of enjoy, but that's never going to become a part of my diet. And having a program where you can say, okay, well, let's find something that's similar to a salad in its calorie and nutrition content and figure out what that is for you. And that then gives not only motivation to go out and look for those things on my own, but it lets me know that wow, I really can tailor this to me.

And would it be awesome to lose a pound a week or two pound? Let's say it was two pounds a week and I could lose a hundred pounds in 52 weeks. Boom, I've lost my hundred pounds. That would be awesome. But you know what? On this program, as long as I'm consistently losing, if it takes me longer than a year, it takes me longer than a year. Because I'm enjoying it. And it has changed the way that I, again, I mentioned this when we first started, it has changed the way I think about food, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle.

And my family has certainly noticed a difference, especially my wife. She's been very impressed with how well I've done and the initiative that I have taken as opposed to just saying, well, here's what the program says I have to do today.

Ted Ryce: Yeah, you mentioned that several times. You said it was transformative, not just I the losing 30 pounds, but in your life. Can you talk about some of the unexpected things or transformation? Can you talk about what has changed specifically outside the weight?

I had always been a person on whatever program where I thought, you know what, I'm going to do the diet, the nutrition side, but not the exercise side. I don't like being in the gym or I didn't really like being in the gym. I have enough other things that I do to keep me busy or my schedule's too busy,

I'm not going to go work out or whatever. And your program is, well, let's try this. Well, because I was coming off a total knee replacement that I had basically December 1st of last year, and was just coming out of my structured physical therapy, I knew that I had to continue strengthening my leg to get my knee back to where it needed to be. 

So, I had a 100% you-have-to-do-this reason to start exercising. So, nce I started exercising along with the rest of the program and... I could tell a huge difference in the weeks where I got in the workouts that I wanted to get in. I saw additional weight loss. I saw additional increases in energy. 

There was a change in my sleep pattern. On the weeks where either I didn't get exercise in or didn't get as much in, that tapered off some. And so that was another light bulb that went off in my head that if I want to see results faster and if I want to transform my body into a machine that can more efficiently burn fat and eventually burn fuel the way it's supposed to, exercise is key. 

But it doesn't have to be getting in the gym lifting half a ton or a quarter of a ton. And you guys structured an exercise program because I have days when I work from home, so you gave me a work from home program, structured around the equipment that I have at home, my exercise bands and a recumbent bike. I have fortunately access to a great gym at work. So you said, "Okay, tell me what machines you have." 

And then you created workouts for me. After about three or four weeks, I said, "You know what? These workouts are too long. I don't have time to do them." And so you said, "Well, let's cut them down. Here's what we want you to do instead." 

So doing all of those things and making them - I'm not going to lie to you, I don't see exercise as fun, but it becomes sort of a, something I've started to look forward. Looking forward to the exercise as a component of this program was something I never thought I would see myself doing.

And how has your family reacted to the changes that you've made? Well, there's such a positive..., my wife has always been very supportive of all of my weight loss efforts, but she also knows the way I like to eat, so she tries to tailor her style of cooking to what I eat because I basically can burn water and toast and that's about the only two things I can fix, maybe some jello. But because she has seen this, she sat down and she said:

"Send me the food list that your program sends to its new clients" and she says "and we'll go figure this out." So she's been incredibly supportive. It has sort of jumpstart started her to start her own journey to lose some weight that she wishes to lose. I think it has made a difference in my daughter.

I don't know that my son has seen it as much because we don't see him as often with his work schedule, but... they noticed, they're incredibly supportive and all of my friends and..., excuse me, my friends and coworkers are the same way. They see me and they go: "Man, have you lost weight?" And I go: "Yeah." And they're like: "What are you doing?" And I tell them and they're like: "Man, that's awesome!" Like "Well, when you're ready to sign up, I'll give you Ted's link and off you go."

Ted Ryce:  Love it. And it's so cool that you said that your wife started to take action too. And one of the things that we've noticed is that people have to lead by example. You can't convince a partner to change. And she was supportive of you. She also got inspired by you. And I think that's a good lesson for everyone listening.

One of the things that we've seen is when a partner is, when there's some issues with a partner, husband or wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, and they're not on board, that can be a challenge sometimes. So I think that's a really good, really good lesson for everyone out there. Sometimes it's not an exercise or diet program or even coaching program, but really making sure you're on the same page and supporting each other before you try to take on something like this. 

So... What would you say to someone who is hearing what you've talked about, they've heard other clients come on, they've been listening to my podcast, but they're still a bit skeptical, what do you think that person needs to know about the coaching? Because it's not right for everybody, I'm not the right coach for everybody. But what would you say to a person listening so that they could figure out if I was the right coach and this was the right program?

I think you have to have the one-on-one conversations. I think yours and mine was primarily over Twitter. Ask those questions. If you have skeptical things, ask, ask Ted: "Why will this work for me when this other program or series of programs has not?"

The other thing that you have to understand, everybody who is severely overweight, obese in my case, obese whatever the highest category was, they want the weight to come off in a month. You didn't put it on in a month, you're not going to take it off in a month. But this program, I'm not going to say it's fun, but it's enjoyable, it's real results. 

And again, as the pickiest eater on the planet who has tried all of the mainstream diets that are out there, this is the only one that has truly changed my lifestyle. And when you understand that the only way you're going to get the weight off and keep it off is to have a lifestyle change, that doesn't mean you're not going to eat foods that you enjoy today, it means you're going to approach them differently.

And this program has taught me how to do that and continues to teach me how to do that. I'm not at the end of my journey yet. I still have a long way to go and I know that I'm going to get plateaus and roadblocks where I'm going to need Ted's help and his team's help to say "Hey, what can I do to get over this next hump and get to my next goal along my journey?"

And I don't know that there's any other program that's structured that way other than, well, just stay the course. One of the things that I noticed the other day is, you know, you could make a trip from New York to Los Angeles and you could make that trip straight through and get there in however many hours that would take, depending upon the vehicle that you're driving, right? 

And at the end of that drive, you're going to be exhausted, you're going to be worn out, and you're going to go, "Man, I never want to do that again!" But if you're allowed to take little detours and take little journeys, you know, "Hey, I'm going to stop at Grand Canyon on the way, I'm going to stop and see the Arch in St. Louis, I want to go see Graceland in Memphis" or whatever, and you take those little detours, understanding that it may have delayed when you reach that final goal, but you enjoyed the journey to get there, that's what this program has been for me.

Ted Ryce: Amazing. And what got you, one last question Tracy, what got you to pull the trigger with all the skepticism? What was the thing that you said, okay, I'm going to give this a try?

Tracy: It was, well, your persistence, number one, and I don't mean that in a bad way, I mean that in a very good way, because you took... I understand you're a businessman, you're trying to add clients, but you took a genuine interest in me. You asked me specific questions: "Tell me what you've struggled with.

Tell me why this hasn't worked for you." And then you in a, and really, you were persistent in a low pressure pitch, "Here's why I think this program will work." I also understood that at my age and with the amount of weight that I needed to lose, I was about to reach a tipping point where my health might have never been able to recover. I was at a risk for a heart attack, a stroke. 

You know, I have high blood pressure. That has come way down from where it was when I first started. So those were the other things. It was mentally knowing before you and I ever met that I need to do something. And then it was you being able to address the specific concerns that I had about a weight loss program that said, I'm willing to give this a try.

Ted Ryce: Amazing! Tracy, thanks so much. I always learn a lot from these conversations and really appreciate you. You're a great speaker, you're inspirational and really appreciate the chance to get to work with you. Thank you.

Tracy: Thank you, Ted.

Ted Ryce: Alright.