Ted Talk 184: The Harsh Truth Behind Sustainable Body and Health Transformation

Podcast Transcription: The Harsh Truth Behind Sustainable Body and Health Transformation

Ted Ryce: Have you ever embarked on a health journey? Perhaps you wanted to lose some weight, improve your healthy habits, but over the years you found yourself in this situation where you go forward, make a change, but end up sliding back. And it's become such a habit for you that you question whether you'll ever be able to get this handled. 

If that resonates with you at all, then today's episode is for you. What's up, my friend? Welcome to the Legendary Life podcast. I'm your host, Ted Rice, coach to entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, and other high-achieving professionals. We produce this show for two reasons. One, I've been in this business for 24 years, and I want to bring to you the best information on health and longevity on the internet. 

The second reason is because many of my listeners end up becoming my clients. And if you're a high achiever and you value coaching and want to have as much success with your health as you do in other areas of your life, you'll know who to hire. 

So, let's get into today. I was having a conversation with one of my clients recently, and this client, he's an ideal client. I really love to work with people like him. He is successful. Now, he actually isn't an entrepreneur or business owner. He works in private equity. So, he has a job, and he's made millions of dollars in his job. So, he's high achieving, high performance. 

And he was at a point where he knew he needed to make a change in his body. And when I asked him why he joined my coaching program, he said, you know, I feel like I'm stuck in quicksand. That's what he said. He's struggling to get out but he's not making any progress. 

Since joining my program, he's lost 10 pounds. He's no longer struggling in quicksand where... More specifically, he felt like he was working super hard with what he was eating, what he was doing.  

In fact, he trains with a trainer three times a week, but he wasn't making progress. So now we change that. He's made progress. He's lost 10 pounds, but a new problem has manifested. And for me, I'm used to this stuff. I see it coming from a mile away. 

But for him, it was interesting. So, what's the problem? Now he has a much better idea of what to do to get into great shape, but he's having trouble doing it even in the context of a coaching program. 

And these challenges, by the way, this is what coaching is for. I'll talk to you about another client too. But if you resonate with this idea that you know what to do to an extent now, sure, someone like me who's an expert for 24 years, certainly I have strategies that you don't have. Certainly, I know how to implement different, let's say, hacks that you don't know. 100%, just because this is my business, this is what I do, it's what I do all day long. I've never been better at it than today. 

But often that information isn't enough to create a transformation. And in the case of Gene, he... He knows what to do now, but he's having trouble doing it. The motivation is slipping away. And we had a conversation about it and here's what came up. 

What came up was his goal was to get out of the quicksand. He was in. He's done that. And I said, well, great, now we know what you don't want, but what do you want? 

And he's a little unclear about that because he's always been in average shape. He was never obese or very out of shape. He was doing alright. And now he's doing alright. And when we talked about some goals, he initially said, well, you know, I'd love to be lean and look great on my surfboard when I go surfing in the summer.  

But when he talked about it. And maybe you can relate to this. It's just a nice-to-have meaning. Oh, yeah, I'd like to, you know, have a million dollars or drive a Ferrari or have 10 million dollars or you know, whatever it is, but you it's just a nice-to-have it's like, hey, would you like that? Oh, yeah, sure. But there's no emotion behind it. There's no I need this. I must have this. This is a must-have for me. I will stop at nothing until I achieve it.  

In fact, I was talking with my client and he said, listen, when I'm super motivated, I'm unstoppable. When I'm so clear, and he mentioned how he met his wife and it took four years of courting her for them to get married. And he also talked about what he's created in his career. In fact, he told me, and this is what I love about my clients. 

Is there a super cool, he's like, listen, I, I have way more success in my life than I ever set out to achieve. It just kind of happened because I showed up, did my work and did a great job. I'm well respected in the industry. I'm well respected in my business and the business I work in, but I'm not feeling the same level of commitment of desire. 

And as we dug a little bit deeper, one of the things that was in the way is he views himself as an intellectual, as a person who has used his brain to create the success in his life. And very much like that's the world we live in. Nerds rule the world. It's Mark Zuckerberg's and Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk. We live in the world where, you know, and I say that because I'm a nerd too, by the way. 

But there's also this nerd-jock dichotomy. And it's not just a dichotomy, it's a false dichotomy. And as we got into talking, he was telling me, well, you know, I'm not a finance bro. I don't drive a Ferrari and, you know, lift weights and party and watch sports and all that. I'm not that stereotypical finance bro.  

I like reading philosophy. I like, you know, I like... those types of activities. He was into video gaming. And so, what we're coming up against here is a difference in identity because I want to just very quickly, this whole path to transforming your body, it's so simple. It's so simple. You have to know what to do. And that's what I give my clients. And then you have to do it repeatedly. 

So, those strategies become habits. And then you have to keep doing it so that those habits become a lifestyle. And then you keep doing it longer. And so that lifestyle becomes who you are. It's so simple. But again, if information were enough, then we'd all be billionaires with six-pack abs, but we're not. We all know exactly what to do, but we can't bring ourselves to do it. 

 And a lot of it comes down to this motivation. And so we started having a conversation about connecting or reframing rather his core belief because this core belief, and we all have core beliefs, his core belief was, "I'm a person who values their brain and I value all the success that I've created with my brain. And I don't see why I should focus on my body because my brain is where it's at." 

That's the core belief. "I'm a nerd, not a jock" is what we could say. And I related to him. I said, you know what? I'm not a jock either. I was an outcast in high school. I liked to read science fiction. I played Dungeons and Dragons, both the, not board game, but the role-playing game on paper and also on video games. I skateboarded, smoked weed, listened to heavy metal. That was not the popular crowd where I grew up. I was an outcast.  

However, I'm doing better than every single person that I know that went to – and I mean doing better meaning like, I shouldn't say I'm doing better than every single person I went to high school with, but I'm doing better than the majority of the people who were jocks and now they're in business or careers, and they're overweight, and some of them are doing well, and most of them are just doing okay. 

Again, nerds rule the world. So, I said, I related to him. I'm like, listen, I never got into sports either. I think it's cool. I got into martial arts. I got into the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but it's really a martial art for me. The sport is just how we practice it. So, I relate. I'm a nerd too. 

And what I also said was this is a faulty belief because the reality is that your brain is part of your body. It's one of the organs of your body. And it's very much dependent on your physical health. Now, you know that, I know that, and even he knows that. But he was having trouble embodying that knowledge. He was having trouble emotionally connecting to that knowledge, to that information.  

And so, he started having a conversation about it. Because the reality is he likes philosophy. One of his favorite philosophers, Socrates, had this great quote: "No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable."  

In fact, he's the one that showed or shared that quote with me. I said, I love that quote. And look who it's from – one of the most prominent philosophers in Greece. One of the people who we still even use the Socratic method, I use the Socratic method today in my coaching. 

And here Socrates is talking about how no man has the right to be an amateur when it comes to physical training. And that's because, I would argue, they understood the connection between mind and body. There is no separation between brain and body or mind and body. It's holistic. 

And it's not even the Greeks. The Chinese were like this too. Monks in China did not sit there meditate and talk about Buddhist philosophy; they practiced kung fu too. They practiced qigong. They knew that mastery over themselves was beyond just the intellectual. It was the practice. It was the embodiment. 

And now we even have science to back this up. And I'll even tell you this: It's a huge mistake that we make in the modern information age that we live in. We all think, "Oh, I just need more information. Oh, I just need to learn a little bit more. Oh, I just need to learn. I just need to listen to a few more podcasts, read a few more books and articles, or perhaps watch a few more YouTube videos."  

Because, yeah, that's the way to get great at golf, right? Or tennis or swimming. You can read all the information you want. You can even get a PhD in how to swing a golf club. You can get into the physics of it and the biomechanics of the human body. But guess what? Once you're on the green, trying to get that hole in one isn't going to do anything for you. You'll probably hit the ball way off course because there's a difference between the intellectual knowledge and application of that knowledge. 

And what I'm here to do or here to tell you today is it's in the application that leads to that shift that leads to that transformation in who you are. 

I want to give a personal example. 

I have a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Super proud of it, really. Just smiling, just even thinking about it. 

And I've competed in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I'm no world champion, but I've won more matches than I've lost. 

And while, again, I never competed at that world championship level, I was on that path before pivoting. That's what I did. 

And the reason I got into jujitsu was deeply personal. I was bullied in high school. As I said, I was a nerd. I was picked on for playing Dungeons and Dragons. I was called a devil worshipper. I had, I brought my Dungeons and Dragons books to school. Now, this is not in high school, it's actually in junior high. And they would throw my books, and I'd have to go run to get them...  

I got punched in the back of the head a few times. I mean, it wasn't great. Wasn't great for me in junior high. In high school, it was a bit better, but I was still pretty much an outcast. And so, I have a history of being pushed around, a history of being bullied. Even when I started lifting weights when I was 14, I wasn't that strong, and certainly, I didn't know how to... 

Even when I did get strong because I was bench-pressing 200 pounds when I was 16, weighing 150 pounds, it was pretty cool. But I didn't know how to stand up for myself because there's a big difference, as you probably know, between bench-pressing 200 pounds for a few reps and standing up to someone who's pushing you around. 

And when I got into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at 28 years old... 

I still had this fear in me. I still had this fear that, you know, I can't handle myself. I can't protect myself. 

And as I started to get into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, something happened. I started to change. My beliefs started to change. And what happened? I went from a person who was scared of physical confrontation, who thought that, yeah, I can lift some weights, but I can't really protect myself, even though I had trained in karate and done some other martial arts. But I wasn't that good at defending myself. Those arts, I got into a few situations where they just didn't work out for me without going into the full drama. 

But when I got into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it changed me. And then when I started competing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it changed me. In fact, when I showed up at my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition, I was scared, and I walked in, and someone had their leg broken in a match right as I was walking in, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, what the hell am I getting into here? 

And whoa, that first match in particular, it just... I ended up winning my first match. I lost my second and won my third. I came in third place that day, but whoa, though I came in first place in conquering my fears. And so, what I'm trying to tell you is I had a deeply personal reason to get into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu because you have to have a really strong why, an emotional reason to take on a tough journey. 

And for me, I just was tired of being a coward because that's what I felt like. Was I really a coward? That's debatable, but it's not about what people think about me. It was what I believed about myself. I was sick and tired of being a coward. And I was determined not to be a coward anymore. And so, I got into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. 

That's the first thing. And the lesson there for you is you need a strong why. Why this is important to you. Why your health is important to you. 

On a side note, you shouldn't ask a guy like me or anyone in the business because it's our job to be in shape, and we make more money when we're in shape. Because even if someone doesn't know, even if someone's a terrible coach, if they're lean and take a photo of themselves and put it up on social media, everybody thinks they know what they're talking about. Even if they're using drugs, even if they use extreme methods to achieve that level of leanness and muscle growth, even if... 

They're unhappy with their lives. A lot of those people in fitness are unhappy in their relationships, struggling in business even. 

So we're motivated because it's our job. And if it was your job to be in shape, you'd be motivated too. 

So what is your why? Because you need a strong reason. It's not a cliche. It is a must. And that's why, that's one of the things I help my clients with. 

Gene didn't need a strong why to join my coaching program. His why was, "I'm sick and tired of being stuck in the quicksand, struggling to get out and not moving an inch." 

But as I've taken the pressure off and helped him get out of the quicksand... 

Now he's struggling again because he doesn't have a strong why to get to that next level. But he has logic. He has information. Everyone knows, "Hey, you want to not end up popping handfuls of pills, stuck in a chair, unable to get out of it. Do you need to exercise and take care of your health? You want to avoid having a heart attack, stroke, or diabetes and reduce your risk of having cancer? Better get your act together with your health."  

But you already know that, and you still don't do it.  

You need that why. And that's one thing I help my clients with. The other, coming back to my story about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I spent years training. And I went from someone who felt like a coward or even said, "You know what? I'm a bit of a coward when it comes to standing up for myself physically. Even though I'm no longer being..."  

I mean, people don't bully me, especially as I've gotten bigger, but I felt like at a deeper level that cowardice was holding me back in other areas. 

But as I went to class weekly, as I went from someone who was tapping out all the time to tapping people out all the time, which is what you do if you're not sure what I'm talking about, when someone gets you in a choke or a joint lock, you tap out to let them know, "Okay, I give up." 

To someone who was tapping people out, my identity shifted. I didn't have to journal to do it. I didn't have to sit there and reflect. I didn't have to spend months thinking about it and intellectualizing the problem. It was through the practice of showing up to class, of developing skills.  

It happened naturally. And that's the same thing that happens with my clients. They show up. People join my coaching program because they're not where they want to be. Some people are like Gene...where they feel like they're stuck in quicksand. 

Other people are like Trevor. If you remember Trevor, Trevor came to me, he was working out. He was a bit of a jock. Very smart guy too. Shout out to you if you're listening, Trevor. 

And Trevor was different. Trevor already had a lot of skill and knowledge. He just been doing the same thing for a long time, and it wasn't getting him results, and his approach to nutrition wasn't getting him results either. 

But Trevor and I hit his goal in two months because all Trevor needed was to learn the right strategies. 

And what Trevor and I worked on was a little bit less of an identity transformation, although that was there. It was really Trevor was lacking specific information, specific knowledge and strategies about how to get better results, especially when it came to nutrition, especially when it came to stress management and sleep, and now he's operating on a whole new level.  

In fact... You'll hear some of my other clients who are coming on the show to give their testimonial say not only they joined because of Trevor, and they said the reason they joined was that not only did Trevor look amazing, he also had this amazing energy to him. 

And he was still drinking alcohol and eating food that you wouldn't think you could eat if you're trying to get lean. 

So those are two different situations. And I know I'm jumping around a bit here, but I'm trying to connect some dots for you to help you see, help you visualize what's missing for you. 

Are you making the mistake of not understanding why this is so important to you to get better with your health? Or are you making the mistake of trying to learn more when it's really through the practice that you actually learn? And then the other thing I wanted to say is this. 

It takes probably six to 12 months, and I would say 12 months, to give you some leeway to transform your identity. 

Of another client, Dan. Dan's been on the show a few times sharing his story. He's lost 50 pounds in a year, went from 33% body fat. Now he's down to 16%. 

And Dan crushed the entire year. He made consistent progress with the exception of the holidays at the end of the year, December. He gained some weight and then rapidly lost it after the holidays, and he's down to an all-new low, not just with his weight, but with his body fat percentage. And he's actually gained a couple of pounds of muscle, not too much muscle growth. 

Because we only do four 20-minute workouts. And I bring Dan's case up because he said it was somewhere in the six or seven-month range where it started to become automatic for him, meaning he wasn't using so much cognitive effort to follow the plan. 

And so what I'm trying to tell you here is you have to stick with these habits long enough for them to become automatized. And you're not sure when that's going to happen, but it's probably somewhere in the six to seven-month mark, consistent practice, and that's if you don't take a drastic step back. 

I've got a client right now. He's lost 20 pounds in four months, or actually two months. He lost 20 pounds in two months, but two months later, he hasn't moved, he hasn't budged an inch. Why? Because the level of stress in his life right now, all the habits he was practicing. 

He's, let's say, not practicing them the same. It's not that he's given up, but he's struggling right now. Why? Because of the level, because his workload, he has an organic farm and is involved in some hotels, the management of some hotels. He's in a bunch of different things and the workload is such that he's starting to default to old patterns of behavior, which, by the way, is going to slow down the process of that identity transformation. Which is another mistake. 

It's not a mistake, but it's something that happens to us. And I want to even talk about this client for a second. So, he lost 20 pounds in two months, amazing progress. But for the past two months, he's been stagnant. Metabolism, age, hormones, no. He's not following the program anymore. Well, why? Stress, he's not sleeping as well. He's under a lot of stress. He's spending more hours working. 

And it's just, and he's told me this, he's like, no, it's just that hell period is what he calls it. It's the hell period. Here's the thing. He must get through this hell period and get to the next level, but he's having feelings like he wants to give up. And so, it'll be interesting to see if he gives up or not. 

But I'll tell you, whatever you're up against, the key is to push through whatever comes up. That is the path forward. The obstacle is the way, as Ryan Holiday might say. The obstacle is the way forward. You must push through because those things that come up for you are exactly why you're stuck, the reasons, and you have to find a way to work through them. 

If you want to get to the other side. Because if you don't, you will slide backwards. It's just a matter of time. It's very rare someone, let's say someone needs to lose 50 or 60 pounds. It's very rare someone loses 20 and just stays there. You have to push through, at least that's, it's rare in my experience. You have to push through to get to a place where you've never been. 

Kind of like I equated to, if you have ever flown first class, it really sucks to go back into economy. But if you've never been there, you don't know if it's any different. It looks different. The seats look bigger. It looks like it's nicer, but you don't have the experience. But once you sit there and the food's better, the service is better... 

And it's much easier to pop down your laptop and get some work done on a long flight, at least for me, you never want to go back to the economy, especially on those longer flights, those six-hour plus flights. 

But if you've never been there, you just don't know, and you don't even know if it's worth it. 

So what are you taking away from this conversation right now for you? What are you taking away from you that's actionable? What mistakes are you making? What do you need to do differently? 

What I hope you're taking away is that diet and exercise isn't the answer. It's part of the answer, but it's the consistency of habits. It's that identity shift that needs to happen. And that only comes from practicing habits for a long time. We're talking, you know, if you look at the research, it says 66 days to build a habit. I think that's BS. 

I think maybe if you're in a very controlled, I think if you're in the book, a military boot camp probably takes 66 days when you're surrounded by instructors, when you have serious accountability, a drill sergeant yelling at you, you have your whole routine structured, probably takes 66 days in that case. 

But if you've got a messy modern life where the seasons of the year change just like my client who's going through a tough period lost 20 pounds now he's stagnant for two months if you've got periods of the year that are much more stressful than others, it's going to take more than 66 days. We're talking six to 12 months, six to 12 months minimum, and that's a minimum. Really, it's going to take years if you're really... 

That's the truth. Took me years to become a brown belt in jiu-jitsu. Years. It's also taken me years to shift my identity when it comes to exercise as well. It just takes years, but at least if you give yourself a solid year... 

Then that will get you in the ballpark, and you'll start to see the truth. You'll start to not just listen to this, what I'm telling you right now and say, "Oh yeah, well, okay, well, that makes sense, Ted. Oh yeah, okay." No, you'll feel it, you'll understand it. Again, going back to the embodied knowledge of the Buddhist monks in China that practice Kung Fu. 

They didn't just talk about the practice of Kung Fu and Qigong. They did it, and that's what led to mastery. They didn't talk about meditation; they practiced it. 

The path forward is so old, it's ancient, it's known. It's just that we have to have that strong "why" to push forward. And for a lot of us, it comes from a painful moment, like me feeling like a coward, like my client who felt like he was stuck in quicksand. 

Like Dan, listen to the podcast for five years. And he was like, "I am so sick and frustrated that I need to hire someone to help me do this. And I think Ted's the guy." 

And Dan's going on his second year with me right now. He crushed it the first year. Now we're taking things to the next level, not just with his body. We're not trying to get him down to necessarily 12% body fat, but we're working on peak performance and longevity. But that first year, it's all about the transformation, transformation of your body, transformation of your identity. So again, I'll ask you, what's the big takeaway for you today? 

What's the one thing that you can take and implement right away? Please don't think about it and don't wait to implement this. Go and implement it right away. That's what leads to transformation. The knowledge, then the application of knowledge. But if you aren't taking action, that's the problem right there. 

And if you feel like you resonate with this and you're interested in talking about potentially working together because you're a high achiever and you want results like my clients, go to legendarylifepodcast.com/apply  and book a 15-minute call with me. And we can talk about whether it makes sense to work together or not. That's it for today. 

I hope it hit home for you, and I'll talk to you on the next episode.