[00:00:00] All right. Welcome back. This is episode two of Not Another Mindset Show. And I’m excited to chat with you about something that I have, the term that I’ve coined for this thing is post diet recidivism. And if you listened to episode one, you got to hear me talk about how I went from academia to entrepreneurship and how, when I first started in the world of research, I spent a lot of time in the prison and jail system.

And I don’t mean like me personally. Those are, those are different stories, maybe episodes later on. No, just kidding. Kind of. Um, but I really wanted to be a prison warden and part of the role of the prison warden is to be paying attention to rates of recidivism. So when someone leaves a jail, And they go back out into [00:01:00] their community, will they re offend and make their way back into jail again, make their way into prison, what have you.

Obviously, the goal would be that jails and prisons are actually doing something beneficial for people, so that when they do go back out into the world, they don’t necessarily continue to re offend and get themselves killed. back in jail. Obviously, we know that does tend to happen a lot. And a big reason for that is because we’re literally putting them into this box for a period of time, you know, some prisons, especially people who are going to be there for for longer periods of time, you can get your GED, you can do work like jobs, learn skills, but how Great of a job are we doing, of getting people back into the world to a point that they’re not re-offending and just coming back into jail.

And I, I am [00:02:00] using this as an example because. What we see in the health and fitness space is a lot of quick fix diets, a lot of things that people are doing for a short period of time, just like if you were to go to prison, go to jail for a shorter period of time, and then are released back into prison.

their normal environment, just as these people are, quote unquote, released from the diet, back into their same environment, back around the same people. So I’m using these parallel examples here, where re offending, you know, for someone who was in jail, maybe like, oh, they stole something again, they were arrested for drug possession, drug possession again, they got a DUI, whatever.

For someone who is dieting. A reoffense would be, oh, they’re, they’re overeating again, they’re not being mindful, they are overdoing it on the weekends, whereas before they were super buttoned up. [00:03:00] And the problem with quick fixes short term diet plans is that your rate of recidivism is very, very high.

Your rate of reoffense is very, very high. Because in those situations, you’re not necessarily learning a lot of new skills and strategies, how to actually operate in the world, how to go out to eat, how to go on vacation, how to navigate a birthday party while still Maintaining the weight loss that you achieved or the body composition goals that you achieved and not just going back to square one, which unfortunately the billion dollar diet industry wants you to do.

They want you to re offend because if you were good to go after 21 days, you did your 21 day quick fix situation, their lifetime customer value would be very low. And that’s not what most businesses [00:04:00] want. They want people to come back and purchase something else and do something else or go through something again and again and again.

They would very much prefer you stay a customer for life than having to go find a new customer. So, what do we, what do we do with this? How do we keep from re offending? After going through a diet phase, after going through a fat loss phase, losing some weight, how do we make sure we don’t gain it back?

Because the truth is, the statistics are not very, very good. They are not very favorable. The folks who do lose weight, their ability to keep that off for the long term, Those statistics are pretty bleak, but my argument, the hill that I will die on, is that it’s not because diets don’t work. And that’s what you’ll hear a lot.

Diets don’t work. Look at the statistics. Most people regain the weight after a year and sometimes even more weight than [00:05:00] where they started. Yes, that’s true, but that’s because the majority of our people. are doing these short term, quick fix diets where they do lose weight in the short term, but aren’t set up for success for the long term.

They are set up to re offend. So, here’s the thing. Diets work. It just depends on the diet strategy that you’re using. So what I want to talk about today with this is essentially how to make sure you don’t re offend. How to make sure if you lose weight, if you change your body composition, that you’re actually able To maintain it and there is a lot of different things from a psychological perspective environmental perspective.

I mean we could go Down a million different rabbit holes here But to keep this short and a little bit more concise and I’m sure we will of course be touching on everything all of those other rabbit holes at some point During this show the three that I [00:06:00] do want to talk about are your social social circle the influence that you’re getting from the people around you your environment and And to no surprise, your mindset.

And I can pretty much guarantee, here’s the thing, I’m not gonna pretend that I am an expert on every quick fix fad diet thing that is out there. I would hope that some of these, really really hope that some of these diets are teaching people about the importance of your social circle and the importance of your environment and oh my gosh the importance of your mindset.

But I don’t think that’s usually A top priority, again, because those companies don’t want you to be successful long term. They want you to keep coming back and buying things and restarting. They, they need you to, otherwise they’re not making money. Like they’re banking on you not being successful in the long term, literally and figuratively banking on it.

[00:07:00] So with that said, before I get like too worked up about that entire industry, your social circle, the influence that you’re getting from other people in your lives. If you’re thinking about, if we’re thinking about people who are in jail and are going back into their community, those people are so important.

Whether or not those people support that person’s new lifestyle, the things that they’re doing to change, how they want to stop doing drugs, you know, earn an honest living, whatever. If those other people are not on that same page, and they’re like, Yo, bro, welcome back. Let’s just get back to our usual bullshit.

That person’s going to have a really hard time at succeeding. And I see this, have seen this for the over a decade that I’ve been a health and fitness coach so many times where clients will say like my, my friends, my family, they just don’t understand, or they could very well be the reason like the, Oh my gosh, the number of times I hear my husband wants to get order pizza all of the time [00:08:00] that like.

That is like the most common thing, I think, from like a barrier from a social circle perspective. Husband always wants to order the pizza and the number of times. I’ve had a conversation with people regarding this, asking them, Okay, so if these people in your life are saying, you’re saying these people in your life don’t understand your health and fitness goals, and they are still, you know, doing all of these, the same things, they’re ordering the pizza, they’re not caring about what they’re eating, they’re pushing additional drinks on you, whatever.

Number one, from a mindset perspective, it is very, very important to understand that it is not Those other people in your life. It’s not their responsibility to make sure that you are successful they don’t have to change just because you want to a little bit of like a hard pill to swallow, but the Quicker you can wrap your head around that fact [00:09:00] the easier it will be for you to continue to make decisions for yourself and Not necessarily allow the opinions or the influence, negative influence of others weigh on those decisions.

So please, please, please keep that in mind. That is, it’s the, it’s the ultimate truth. Those people don’t, aren’t responsible for your health and fitness goals and they aren’t needing to change just because you are. Of course, that would make your life a lot easier. Which brings me to my next point regarding social circles and influence.

The number of conversations I’ve had over the years. When a client comes and says, they just don’t understand, they don’t get it. They don’t, they don’t get what I’m trying to do here, why I’m tracking macros, why I need to bring like a scale to mom and dad’s house. And then I always follow up with, well, did you talk to them about it?

Are they aware that these are your goals? Do they understand that this is something that is [00:10:00] valuable to you and something that is really important to you? Have you talked to them about this? And every single time, it’s some version of no, but it’s usually some kind of like roundabout no. Oh, I don’t know.

They know that I have a health and fitness coach, I think, or yeah, I mean, I’ve definitely talked about having interest in losing weight. And they know that I got a gym membership, or obviously. They see me ordering healthier. It’s never a, yeah, for sure. I sat down and talked to them about how important this is and how I could use their support.

So, before you go blaming the husband with ordering pizza, have you actually sat down and talked to your husband about the goals that you have for yourself and how much it would mean to get his support? Because what I hear a lot then too is that we get so And [00:11:00] to this point where we’re resenting our family and friends, and we’re frustrated, and we, we’re blaming them for our lack of progress.

And the reality is, all you needed to do was have a conversation at the forefront. It’s a lot harder to do that when you’re deep in it and you’re already doing this, like, I’m blaming them in the back of my mind for my lack of progress. If you would have started off having a conversation like, Hey, I am planning to hire a coach and get really serious about my health and fitness journey.

Maybe that’s something that you’re interested in doing too. And we could do it together. That’d be great. If not, that’s fine too. But I also could really use your support because I know it’s going to be difficult not having your support. And I know easier said than done a lot of the time with that type of conversation, right?

But it’s a lot harder, a lot harder. To do that, when you’re in the depths of say, a fat loss phase, and you’re getting frustrated and resentful, because at that point, if you sit down to have that conversation, [00:12:00] it may come out sounding like you are pissed at them. It may come out sounding like, the reason I am still struggling, and this is so hard, is because of you.

And it will be a lot harder to not come off with that error even if you don’t say it directly. So it is much better to operate from a headspace, a clear headspace of I’m starting to pursue this goal and I would love to have your support and love to have you on board with me if you’re interested versus Yo, I’ve been trying to lose weight for six months and it’s been so hard because you keep wanting to order the damn pizza.

And then what am I supposed to do when you just keep on wanting to order pizza? You know, now it becomes, they feel bad, they feel guilty, they feel attacked. Instead if we can consistently, and again, this, it doesn’t have to be at the beginning of a goal pursuit. If you’re hearing this and you’re like, this is going on for me right now, you can absolutely still have a conversation with these people.

But just make, make [00:13:00] sure. Be really diligent with how you have this conversation. So they don’t feel like you’re blaming them for your lack of success, your lack of progress, for making things more difficult for them and instead approach it as a, I really want you on my team. Is that something that you feel like you can do?

And like, what do you think you could do to support me with this? And just start to have. Conversation, use lots of open-ended questions, and we’re gonna get into a lot about communication strategies, especially when it comes to behavior change. So stay tuned for more on that. When I moved from Minnesota, it’s where I grew up, where I did my undergraduate degree, the University of Minnesota.

Go, you know, I’m, I’m not a sports fan, so I don’t even know why I said that, but we can pretend for today. Um, I was really, really. intentional about who I was going to find when I moved to North Carolina from Minnesota. I did not have a [00:14:00] group of health and fitness type of folk in Minnesota and I was very determined.

I knew I will find my people who are just as interested in health and fitness as I am. And I did. I was, I literally found most of my friends, all of my friends really. And then it obviously snowballed into meeting new people when I was there and everything, but through social media and through the gym that I knew I was going to go to.

So I found people, I reached, I literally slid into their DMs, let them know that I was moving there, that I felt like I would be interested in connecting with them when I got there. And I built a quote unquote fit fam before I even moved to North Carolina because I was very aware, especially, especially after spending time doing research in the prison system, how important your social circle was.

And it wasn’t, at that point for me, so much about post diet recidivism and re offending on my, on my diet and going back to unhealthy behaviors, but more so just knowing how much easier [00:15:00] And how much more fun and just, like, good all of those health and fitness behaviors would be if I was surrounded by other people that were also interested in those things.

So, with that said, the second thing I wanted to talk about to make sure that you aren’t re offending after you go through a diet phase, change your body composition, you want to maintain everything that you just worked so hard for, is your environment. And again, it is so easy to just go back to your old ways if your environment doesn’t change.

And I’m not going to be the person who says, Go into your kitchen, go into your pantry, throw out everything that is tempting for you. Everything that could potentially throw you off and you could overeat, basically get rid of all of the foods you actually really enjoy. Like, no. I have, again, episode for another time because we could go deep into that one specific topic, but I don’t think just removing something is ever really the full answer.[00:16:00] 

Because then we’re still leaving The actual reason as to why you’re feeling that way. You feel like you need to like go overboard on the Oreos. Removing the Oreos does not solve or. We don’t learn anything about why you felt like you needed to go overboard on the sweets in the first place. You’re just removing it.

It’s somewhat of like a Band Aid in my perspective. So, how, what do we do? If we’re gonna keep the Oreos, but we don’t want to re offend and we don’t want to like go back to our old ways after this diet, you know, I’m sure these quick fix diets typically don’t have lots of Oreos in them or the things that you really would be more likely to, to overindulge on.

What do we do? One of the biggest things is to create more friction, or in some cases you may be wanting to decrease friction. So what I mean by that, and I talk a lot about this in the health mindset coaching certification as well, when we’re talking about habits and trying to get rid of. Old habits, unhealthy [00:17:00] habits, create new habits, something like the Oreos.

We’ll just, we’ll just go with this example. We’ll run with it. We’ll see if I can, if the Oreos are the most tempting thing for you, obviously, please use your, think of your own example here. How do we keep them? So you can still enjoy them because what is, what is a happy life without enjoying some of these things that you really enjoy, enjoying the things that you enjoy, I could use a better word there, but, um.

We need to create more friction. That’s all it is. Put, this is gonna sound silly, and will it actually work? And it does, because we have research that supports that literal things just like this do work. Make it harder to get the Oreos. Put them on the top shelf, put them in the freezer in your garage, just somewhere that is It essentially requires you to expend a little bit more energy to actually have the Oreos.

And again, like I said, this is, back to my [00:18:00] research, there’s one study, I should’ve got a little bit more information on this before I dove into it, but I know it exists, where researchers were trying to help children, I think it was like elementary school age, Drink less chocolate milk and choose more regular milk or water.

And they took essentially the cooler where the beverages were in, and instead of having the chocolate milk be in the front row where it was usually, they moved it all the way to the back, made it just barely out of reach. And put everything else in front of it. And again, don’t quote me on this exact statistic, but it was something insane.

Like 60 percent of chocolate milk sales went down wild. And that was just because it was a little bit more difficult. So how can you do this in your own environment to make sure that you aren’t re offending after you diet? Um, this could also be for a variety of other [00:19:00] things, for those of you who are entrepreneurs that you’re listening, or you’re just in the workforce and struggle with procrastination, which most people do.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur or otherwise. How can we make it harder to procrastinate? Let’s say you procrastinate by scrolling on your phone. Just put your phone in another room. How can Just make it more difficult to access. And I know we’ve all probably heard some form or fashion of this suggestion before, but it’s oftentimes brushed off because it seems too simple, like it’s actually going to do anything, and I promise you it will do a lot.

So that’s one way. I also would like, love for you to think a little bit more about just self control in general, and in future episodes we are going to dive deep into all things self control, self sabotage. Because self control Is really something that you have a lot of control over. And the typical thinking is that.

You either are good at self control or you’re bad at self control [00:20:00] and the reality is again from research We know this the people who say that they are Good at self control are the same people who are rarely having to use self control in the first place whereas the people who say that they’re I am bad at self control.

Like, this is all self report, right? Like, I, Casey, say I am bad at self control. It’s because I’m having to use self control all the time. I’m constantly putting myself in situations where I have to resist temptation and use self control. So, from a mindset perspective. Think about what you think about self control and whether or not it’s something that you feel like you’re actually good at or bad at and then reflect with that on how often you are in situations where you have to use self control or resist temptation.

My guess is My very educated guess is that those of you who are saying, Oh, I’m good at self control is because you’re not often in situations where you have to use it. To wrap up this conversation [00:21:00] about how environment obviously impacts things like recidivism, re offense, or you actually being able to maintain your weight loss and your progress, or if you’re a coach, thinking about this for your clients.

I want you to make sure that you are thinking about instances in your life to where this makes sense. For instance, let’s say whenever you go home to visit family, stay with your parents, be around grandparents, things of that nature, is it more difficult for you to stay on track with specific behaviors that you’ve cultivated while you’ve been away.

So I’m assuming the majority of you that are listening no longer live with your parents, and you’ve started a life on your own with your own routines, and your own behaviors, and your healthy habits, and once you’re placed back into that environment, some of you may even be going back to the same house that you spent a lot of time in when you were growing up.

How much harder It is to maintain those behaviors [00:22:00] and it’s just like the air of being around the same people in the same place. It can really trigger some of those old habits and behaviors to snap back into place. So, think about how this shows up for you in your current life, what you can be doing to increase, decrease friction, think about self control in your environment and how that impacts things.

And that will take you a really long way when it comes to maintaining body composition goals after a diet. Honestly, any, anything in your life that you have achieved and now want to maintain. So the final thing we need to talk about, which we’ve kind of been talking about this entire time, and I think, I think that that is probably how most of these episodes will go, is I’ll be talking about mindset without actually directly saying I’m talking about mindset.

I will probably do that a lot. I think I do that a lot in just, like, my day to day life as well. I am pretty biased when it comes to thinking that. That mindset is important. So [00:23:00] something that we do with new clients that come into KJO coaching, it’s the one on one health and fitness coaching company that I own.

The first thing that people do is they have to watch a welcome video from me. And in this welcome video, big surprise, we’re talking about mindset, but really setting the stage for how important your mindset is. And we’re talking about mindset. We’re talking about the lens. Through which you see the world through, how you assign meaning to things, how you make sense of things, that is your mindset.

And then we can break it down into growth versus fixed mindset, and we’ll do a really quick like intro into these things because I am going to be talking about growth versus fixed mindset till I’m blue in the face. We’re really talking about, do you actually believe that you can change? Do you actually believe that you can improve, develop some sort of skill, whatever thing we’re talking about that the mindset is related to, do you actually think you can change it?

And I talk about this in a, in a welcome video for our new clients, because at the end of the day, it does not matter what strategy we use from nutrition and [00:24:00] exercise perspective. It doesn’t matter how many different behavior change exercises we throw at you, how much we work on your self control. If at the end of the day, You have a fixed mindset about changing your health behaviors, about losing weight, whatever your goal is.

If you’re not entirely sure that you can change, if even if there’s just a little voice in the back of your head saying, There’s a really good chance you’re not going to be successful in this. We’ve seen this before. You’ve tried this before. It’s never worked. Why do you think it’s going to work now? If that is something that you’re sitting with and it does not get addressed, You will have a very hard time.

I’m willing to say, like, near impossible. It will be nearly impossible for you to actually make those changes and see. Successful maintenance of those changes. So in that video, I’m not saying don’t come, don’t come around here. Don’t hire a health and fitness coach. If this is where your mindset’s at [00:25:00] instead, it’s if this is where your mindset’s at, I need you to be aware of it.

Because we can help you. That’s literally what the coaches at KJO Coaching are trained to do. We’re here to help you from an evidence based perspective, from a psychological perspective, to work through that stuff so that you can learn new skills, develop new methods, and actually stick to it for the long term and see results that last forever.

But if you’re not aware that that’s where your mindset is at, we need to start there. Like we need to become more aware of those things because Without awareness, you have nothing. You can’t change what you don’t know needs changing. You can’t improve what you don’t know needs improving. So the purpose of that video is to set the stage for a lot of the mindset work that we do at KJO.

And similarly that I teach inside the health mindset coaching certification to other coaches. But a lot of things will fall flat if someone is not aware of where their mindset’s at. And as a coach. You [00:26:00] should, your responsibility is to help people, help your clients recognize where that fixed mindset is without directly telling them.

We’ll table that, that conversation for another time because that’s a whole episode in and of itself. But again, we’re not looking for someone to come in with a perfect mindset. That’s literally the purpose of what we do, how we’re supposed to help people. But we need to start helping. Helping people automatically realize the importance of their mindset and how that could be the very thing that’s holding them back.

So, it’s this awareness of your mindset really, really needs to come first before you can start changing your mindset, changing your life. So. On that note, how to make sure you don’t re offend, how to make sure, um, for all of my, uh, prison inmates that are listening to this, right? To make sure that after you complete a diet, you lose weight, you change your body composition, you introduce all these new healthy behaviors [00:27:00] into your life, how do you actually make sure that you stick with it and don’t go back to your old ways?

The three biggest things you need to focus on are your social circle, the influence that the people around you have on you, the conversations that you may or may not be having with them about your goals, your environment, understanding how just going back into where you were before, what it was like before, how everything was set up before, like you go, you go through this diet that is super restrictive, and now you just go back into your kitchen with your, your normal things.

Make sure you’re addressing your environment, social circle, environment, and lastly, and definitely most importantly, your mindset. Do you actually believe that this is something you’re capable of doing? Because if there’s a voice in the back of your head telling you that you may not be. Then it doesn’t matter what you do.

You’re going to keep running into wall after wall after wall. And you’re going to see those walls as indicative that you’re not cut out for this. That you’re not meant to do this. That like, no wonder we knew this the entire [00:28:00] time that I wasn’t going to be able to do it. Here’s another reason showing that.

Another piece of evidence to support that. And that’s how you will end up seeing things like setbacks, obstacles, etc. And that’s not the mindset that you need to be operating from if you want to be successful. For the long term, obviously we are looking for a growth mindset here, looking for obstacles and setbacks to be lessons, to be information, to help show you the way, cut off the way, and throughout this process.

Show for all of the episodes that are to come, we’re gonna talk more and more about growth versus fixed mindset, but I do feel like I was able to give a little bit of, um, a foundation of growth versus fixed here, but we’ll dive into that in, in more detail going forward. But all in all, if you feel like with any goals in your life, be it health, fitness, or otherwise, you’ve had a hard time actually [00:29:00] maintaining the results of that or you’re worried.

That you won’t be able to maintain the results of it, so you’re not even starting in the first place, which, my friend, is also a fixed mindset. Keep these big things in mind, because I promise you, if you can get a handle on these big rocks, your social circle, your environment, and your mindset, ah, oh my gosh, girl, boy, man, bro, you are set up for so much success, I promise you.

These are really the big, three big dial movers that I’ve seen after, again, being in the coaching industry for a decade. Doing years and years of mindset work when it pertains to health and fitness behaviors. Those are the big dial movers. So I hope this episode was helpful. I would love to hear from you if you want to reach out on Instagram, continue the conversation there, but otherwise I will see you next [00:30:00] time.