Jonathan’s Story
Choice Weight Analysis
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Shut Up And Choose Book
Welcome back to Shut Up and Choose, the place where weight loss nonsense and bullshit goes to die. We don’t talk about motivation or willpower or quick fixes or cheat codes. We just talk about the choices you make and the body that you get as a result of those choices.
So I want you to listen to me and really actually listen. So turn the volume up if you need to, cut out all the distractions. I don’t care where you are. You’ll be driving, in the gym, in the kitchen. None of that really matters. What matters is that for the next few minutes you stop pretending you don’t know what’s happening in your own life.
This isn’t an episode about weight. Weight is just the receipt. The real subject here is choice. The kind you make when nobody’s watching, when pressure shows up, and when you’re tired or bored or stressed out, or feeling sorry for yourself. Those choices don’t feel dramatic in the moment, but they stack and they decide everything.
It’s the end of January, and your New Year’s resolution, well, who knows where that is, but it certainly didn’t fail. You abandoned it. You made the same decisions you always make and hoped that the calendar would do the work for you. Guess what. It didn’t.
January didn’t betray you. You chose exactly what you chose last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. And people love to talk about motivation and discipline and character flaws and personality types. That’s all a bunch of shit.
You don’t have a character problem. You have a behavioral problem. You run the same loop every single year. Big intentions, a clean start, emotional commitment, and then real life shows up and you quietly negotiate yourself back into the same outcomes.
You’re a killer at day one. You’re unbelievably elite at starting. You’re addicted to the feeling of the beginning, but you’re completely untrained in continuing. Day 14 exposes your weakness. Day 60, you’re done. Day 300, forget about it. You’re right back to where you were.
Not because you’re weak, but because you never change the decisions you make when it gets uncomfortable. Look at yourself honestly. Strip away the bullshit, the stories. Do you really believe that a date on a wall changes who you are?
Do you think the universe pauses and resets and grants you a fresh identity because the month changed. Come on. We all know it doesn’t work that way, and it never has.
Outcomes respond to one thing, and that’s behavior, period. Not your intentions or your vision boards, your plans, not what you meant to do. What you repeat under pressure is who you are. What you allow when it’s inconvenient is what defines you.
The scale doesn’t lie. Neither does your calendar. Neither does your bank account. Neither do your relationships. You carried the same habits into this year that shaped last year. That’s why the results look familiar.
The calendar didn’t fail you and the system didn’t fail you. You chose exactly what those outcomes require.
So here’s the real question. And it has nothing to do with weight or resolutions, or even January. Are you going to keep choosing the same behavior and acting surprised when you get the same results. Or are you finally willing to choose differently and accept the cost that comes with those decisions.
That’s what this episode today is about.
Let’s stop and look at the wreckage of your promises. Resolutions sound serious, don’t they. You say them in that deep cinematic voice. You whisper them to yourself like you’re taking a vow.
You might even buy a brand new, overpriced journal, write the resolutions down and convince yourself that the weight of the paper adds the weight of your character. You sit there feeling responsible, focused, and different.
But it’s a scam. A psychological shell game that you play with yourself. Because a resolution is not a decision. It’s a wish you refuse to put a price on.
A real choice costs something immediately. Resolutions exist so you can delay the cost while making believe the decision has already been made.
The problem is that sounding serious has never produced a single result. Sounding serious is nothing but a performance. It’s theater for an audience of one. Your ego.
Results come from doing uncomfortable things repeatedly when no one is watching, when the house is cold, when your joints ache, and when there’s nothing to post, nothing to celebrate, nothing to prove except whether you followed through or not.
Resolutions are designed to skip that part. They’re built to bypass the work and go straight to the emotional reward.
And think about the cost of entry. What did the resolution cost you. Nothing. No money, no effort, no friction.
You can make a life-altering resolution while laying on the couch half asleep, half full, and completely unchanged. You don’t have to alter a single habit to feel like a different person.
That’s exactly why everyone loves resolutions. There’s no risk, there’s no accountability, there’s no immediate consequences. You get the emotional reward without earning it.
And that’s the real trap. The moment you tell yourself, or worse, you tell other people that you’re going to change this year, I’ve said it a hundred times, your brain gives you credit that you didn’t earn.
Not because your brain is stupid, but because you chose to reward intention instead of behavior.
So you feel motivated and hopeful and proud, and you mistake that feeling for progress. But that isn’t progress. It’s a chemical pat on the head for thinking about doing something hard later.
That early good feeling is dangerous because it convinces you the hardest part is behind you because you made the commitment. That’s a lie. Making the commitment is the easiest part.
The hardest part is choosing differently when it costs you something. Saying no when you’re tired. Showing up when no one would notice if you didn’t. Acting in alignment mode when every part of you wants comfort instead.
Resolutions let you skip that reality while you’re still feeling accomplished. That’s how people stay in the same body, the same habits, the same life for decades while telling themselves they’re evolving.
You mentally upgrade your identity without upgrading your behavior. That gap is self-betrayal.
Every time your actions fail to match your declarations, your trust erodes. Your discipline rots. Shame creeps in. And then, of course, you quit.
Then you wait for the next clean slate and pretend the plan was the problem.
So stop rewarding yourself for intentions and start demanding receipts.
You’ve lived this script so many times you should know it by heart. You made the promise. You felt the surge in excitement. You pictured the new version of yourself. All disciplined and controlled and different.
And then real life shows up. Monday morning hits. It’s dark. It’s raining. It’s fucking cold. Work is a mess. Your kid is puking somewhere. Something goes wrong.
And suddenly the new you disappears. Not because life surprised you. Because you chose familiarity over change the moment pressure arrived.
You didn’t wake up on January 1st wondering how the story ends. You already knew. You’ve run this experiment before. Many, many times.
You have the evidence. A lot of years of it. And your history matters more than your intentions ever will.
Your history shows the pattern. When things get uncomfortable, you negotiate. You talk yourself down. You reduce the cost.
You choose relief over progress and then act shocked by the outcome.
You didn’t change your behavior. You changed your language.
Last year it was keto. This year it’s balance or a ton of protein. Next year it’s something else.
The vocabulary changes so you don’t have to.
Balance is what people say when they want permission to quit without admitting it.
If you’re miserable and overweight, you don’t need balance. You need correction.
You need decisive change. You need to stop choosing comfort in the moments that demand action.
You brought the same habits into January that destroyed your progress in October. The same food triggers. The same avoidance. The same rationalizations for why today doesn’t count.
Calling it a fresh start doesn’t erase your history. It just delays accountability.
You’re trying to build something new while protecting the behaviors that already failed you.
You’re confusing hope with commitment. Hope is passive. Hope is what you lean on when you don’t want to choose differently.
Hope says maybe this year will change.
Commitment shows up immediately. Commitment costs you something today. Not someday. Today.
If you were committed, your behavior would already look different.
I’m not saying it would be perfect. But it would be different.
Your grocery cart would reflect it. Your screen time would expose it. Your internal dialogue would shift from explaining to executing.
Commitment leaves evidence. Hope leaves explanations.
You built your plan around a version of yourself that doesn’t exist under pressure.
You trusted willpower. And you know fucking willpower never works. But you trusted it anyway.
So stop lying.
If this year is going to break the cycle, you don’t need a better promise. You need different daily choices.
Especially the boring ones. Especially when they’re uncomfortable. Especially the ones you’ve been avoiding your entire life.
I know I avoided them my entire life.
So let’s get this straight right here.
January did not help you. And December didn’t hurt you.
A calendar has no authority. It doesn’t act or decide or force you to eat or skip movement or ignore your alarm.
It tracks time. That’s all a fucking calendar does.
So when the calendar did nothing, you made choices. Thousands of them. Small ones. Easy ones. Comfortable ones.
You ate when you didn’t need to. I was guilty of that for 59 years.
You avoided movement because it felt inconvenient. Guilty.
You chose relief over effort. Guilty again.
Then you pointed to a month and blamed the month for the outcome that you built.
People love blaming December because it gives them cover.
There’s parties. Travel. Family. Stress.
Everyone nods along because everyone’s protecting the same behavior.
It sounds reasonable. It sounds mature. And it allows the same habits to survive untouched.
When you blame a season, you preserve the choices that created the problem.
Here’s the bottom line.
The date did nothing to you.
It didn’t remove your ability to say no. It didn’t prevent you from walking for 10 minutes. It didn’t override your awareness of hunger and fullness.
Dates do not act. People act.
The moment you blame timing, you give up control.
You tell yourself your health and self-respect depend on circumstances instead of decisions.
Bullshit.
That’s surrender.
Your daily choices did everything.
Not the dramatic ones. The quiet ones.
The extra bite. The extra drink. The extra hour scrolling instead of sleeping.
The decision to avoid discomfort before you were tired.
Those choices stack. They compound.
Outcomes are built slowly and predictably.
You didn’t gain 50 pounds by accident. No one gains weight by accident.
You built it. One this doesn’t matter decision at a time.
Then you reach January and act surprised as if it happened to you instead of being chosen by you.
Blaming time kills progress because it protects the behavior that needs to die.
It gives it an excuse and a place to hide.
You tell yourself you’ll deal with it when things calm down.
They never calm down.
Life doesn’t pause.
Stress doesn’t disappear.
Chaos is normal.
If your discipline only exists when life is easy, it’s not discipline. It’s convenience.
Real discipline shows up in the middle of a shit show.
When you’re tired. When you’re traveling. When conditions are not perfect.
That’s the only time your choices matter.
Stop giving months credit. Stop giving seasons blame.
Own your fucking decisions.
Ownership is the only path forward.
Here’s another thing that kills progress. Waiting.
Waiting is a slow, cowardly death.
You’re not waiting because you don’t know what to do.
We live in an information age. You can find out how to do almost anything.
You’re waiting because delaying feels easier than choosing.
You tell yourself you’re waiting for motivation.
Motivation is not something that arrives.
Action creates momentum. Momentum sometimes produces motivation.
Waiting produces nothing.
Motivation is unreliable because you treat it like a requirement instead of a side effect.
You choose to act only when conditions feel favorable.
The moment things get uncomfortable or boring or inconvenient, you stop.
Then you blame motivation for leaving.
You also wait for energy.
You tell yourself you’ll act when you feel better.
But you feel depleted because of what you keep choosing.
Poor sleep. Shitty food decisions. Avoiding movement. Constant stimulation.
You drain yourself, then wait for energy to fix the behaviors causing the exhaustion.
That’s self-inflicted paralysis.
Energy is generated.
You move. Then you feel better.
Waiting for energy is choosing to stay exactly where you are.
Then there’s waiting for life to calm down.
That place doesn’t exist.
Life doesn’t have a pause button.
The people who wait for peace before action spend their lives standing still.
Waiting feels responsible. It sounds mature.
But waiting weakens you.
Every delay trains escape.
Avoidance compounds.
The people you admire are not more motivated.
They act without negotiating with how they feel.
They decide first. They act second.
Waiting doesn’t protect you.
It costs you.
So stop waiting.
Choose when you’re tired. Choose when you’re busy. Choose when it’s uncomfortable.
Choosing creates motion.
Now let’s talk about all or nothing thinking.
This is the coward’s exit.
You build a clean plan. You follow it for a few days.
Then something goes wrong.
You make one imperfect choice.
Instead of correcting it, you collapse.
This is ruined. Might as well quit.
That’s permission.
One bad choice becomes ten worse ones.
Correction forces ownership.
Collapse avoids it.
Resetting feels clean. Correcting feels uncomfortable.
You don’t need a restart date.
You need a better next choice.
The best thing you can do after a bad choice is make the next one better.
Adults correct immediately and quietly.
High performers recover fast.
No drama. No announcements.
All or nothing thinking is avoidance disguised as standards.
Resolutions are harmful.
They confuse promises with action.
They encourage identity overhauls with no behavioral grounding.
They collapse under pressure.
Then you blame yourself instead of the broken approach.
Repeat it enough times and you train failure.
Shame replaces action.
You avoid honesty.
You wait.
If you want progress, stop making promises you can’t enforce.
Choose actions the current version of you can execute under pressure.
One choice on your worst day matters more than a perfect plan you abandon.
Big promises protect your ego.
Small choices change outcomes.
January is irrelevant.
Fuck January.
Behavior decides everything.
Here’s what actually works.
Eliminate resolutions.
Stop announcements.
Kill the moment you tell people what you plan to do.
Silence protects momentum.
Destroy timelines.
Pick one non-negotiable rule.
Follow it today.
Correct immediately if you miss.
No reset. No shame.
Reliability beats transformation.
You’re not broken.
You have discipline.
You just choose not to apply it.
You choose comfort.
That realization hurts.
Good.
If you built it, you can dismantle it.
You’re not stuck.
You’re trained.
And trained can be retrained.
If you want my free weekly tips, they arrive every Wednesday.
They take less than a minute.
You can sign up on my website, JonathanRessler.com.
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It’s not a diet book.
It’s about choices.
And for the few ready to stop negotiating, there’s direct work.
No diets. No injections. No punishment workouts.
Just choices that work in real life.
The moment you stop pretending something is wrong with you, you regain control.
Ownership is where a life worth living begins.
You’ve had enough fresh starts.
What you need is a commitment with no exit.
Stop talking.
Make the choice.
Shut up and choose.