3 Mindset shifts that will transform your weight loss journey in 2025

Think weight loss is all about dieting and exercise? Think again.

In this episode, Max and Mollie uncover the real key to long-term success: your mindset. 

Join us as we break down three essential mindset shifts that can transform your weight loss journey:
✅ How to break free from all or nothing thinking
✅ Why focusing on progress over perfection is the secret to consistency
✅ The difference between restraint and restriction (and how it changes everything)

Plus, discover why weight loss is not about quick fixes, but about becoming the person who can lose the weight—and keep it off. If you’re ready to ditch the yo-yo dieting and finally create sustainable habits, this is the episode for you.

🎧 Listen now and take the first step toward a healthier, happier 2025.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Mindset Shifts for Weight Loss
• 1:37 Understanding All or Nothing Thinking
• 10:20 The Long-Term Perspective on Weight Loss
• 17:46 Practicing Restraint Over Restriction

Transcript

Max Lowery (00:01.592)

Hello, welcome to today's podcast. No, wait.

Mollie (00:07.708)

So good.

Max Lowery (00:09.698)

Yeah. Hello, welcome to today's episode. Today we're going to be talking about three essential mindset shifts that you need to have to get long-term results in 2025. Because it's not all about nutrition and exercise. If you only focus on nutrition and exercise, you're likely to get short-term success. Unless you have these really important mindset shifts. Your mindset is what will keep the weight off. Because in our experience,

90 % of the weight loss equation and especially long-term weight loss equation is your psychology and how you think So if you don't know who I am a max Lowry weight loss coach been helping women lose weight for the last 10 years literally helped thousands of people mostly women Not doing real well today If you don't know who I am, my name is max Lowry I'm a weight loss coach and I've been helping women lose weight over the last 10 years and I've helped over 1000 women do that I'm also joined by live 360 coach Molly

Hello, Molly. And yeah, let's get into it. So there are three main mindset shifts that we were going to talk about today. And there are many more and they're always going to depend on the individual, but these are kind of the three big ones, which we think will make a massive, massive difference. So we really want to make sure that you're not going making these mistakes and these mindset issues into 2025 so that you're not doing the same thing that everyone else does, which is do something, some kind of quick fix, put a load of

Mollie (01:08.156)

Bye everyone. Hi Max.

Max Lowery (01:37.87)

pressure on themselves to achieve loads of results in the short term, but then ultimately fail come February. And this just feeds into this cycle of self belief and limiting beliefs that weight loss is not possible for you. So the first big one is known as all or nothing thinking. It is huge, huge problem. I would say that 90 % of the clients that I've worked with in the last 10 years suffer from

all or nothing thinking in some way, or form. It can also be called black and white thinking as well. And all or nothing thinking can start from when you're a child. It can be reinforced by parents, teachers, school, how you grow up, but then dieting makes it worse. And essentially all or nothing thinking is when one slip up means complete failure.

So you're trying to be perfect. So the classic thing that everyone's going to be doing in January is, right, I'm going to cut out alcohol for the next 30 days. I'm going to cut out carbs and never eat sugar again. I'm never going to have a dessert. I'm going to train seven days every single week. I'm going to get 15,000 steps in every single day. And inevitably, you're not going to be able to do that one day. And people with all or nothing thinking tell themselves that they failed and

then they give up, right? This is an incredibly draining cycle to be in because you're essentially using all this excitement and willpower motivation to set these completely unrealistic expectations on yourself. But ultimately you are setting yourself up to fail. And every time you fail, it feeds this idea that you cannot lose weight. And the longer it goes on, then you actually develop.

identity of someone that cannot lose weight. And this is a big big problem for a lot of our clients.

Max Lowery (03:43.887)

Other examples would be missing one workout and then quitting the gym, eating a single off-plan meal or a cheat meal as it were and then giving up entirely. And I think I've used a video demonstration of how ridiculous this is on Instagram and the video kind of visual that I use is I spill a tiny bit of tea so that I actually just pour the whole thing of tea.

out onto the table all over myself. Other examples would be if you had a single argument in your relationship, you'd break up. If you made a single mistake raising your children, you put them up for adoption. If you made a single mistake in your job, you quit. So obviously in other parts of life, it looks completely ridiculous, but for whatever reason, when it comes to dieting and weight loss, people don't see it as ridiculous. And it is a huge, huge problem.

Mollie (04:40.271)

I think with this as well is...

looking at the all sides of this. So often, you know, if you're thinking about going into the new year and you're wanting to go to the gym seven times a week and cut out on alcohol and change things quite significantly, you know, for how long are you going to enjoy that? Is that something that you can sustain? And I'm sure the answer will be no. So I think when you're thinking about this as well as you, this all or nothing thinking is when you really start to set high expectations and want to

change something so significantly and then suddenly when there's a slight feeling of failure you go to nothing. So with weight loss and something that we do on the program it's all about making it sustainable and this approach is really difficult to sustain when you're setting these high expectations and thinking about doing all of it at once.

Max Lowery (05:35.906)

Yeah, look, basically, if you can't do it forever, don't do it for a day. It really is as simple as that. And some of the questions we're always asking our clients is, okay, what's the absolute minimum that you can do and be consistent with it? Because that is the key. The only thing that will actually get you success is consistency. It doesn't really matter what you do as long as you do it consistently. And that is the hardest thing to achieve. And when you have all or nothing thinking, when you're setting these completely unrealistic expectations, when you're telling yourself that you're going to lose all this weight,

by this day or you failed, then it's never going to become an enjoyable experience. And ultimately it has to be enjoyable, it has to be easy, it has to fit into your life. So really the mindset shift that needs to happen is progress over perfection. Perfection doesn't exist. If you try and be perfect, you are setting yourself up to fail. You are ultimately self-sabotaging yourself before you've even started. So, you know, we're looking for like 80 % consistency. We're looking for...

things that you can do in the long term. And often that is dialing back and it's really focusing on doing the minimum because that's how we help our clients. Ultimately, we get them the maximum results, but we do that with a minimum effective dose. And that is much harder to visualize what that looks like. Black and white thinking, all enough thinking in some ways is much simpler. It's like, right, if I just cut out all carbohydrates and don't eat any of those carbs, then

I'll get this result in this much time. And that's a bit easier for human beings to understand. But whereas this minimum effective dose of basically you've got to make these tiny tweaks and changes and ultimately do them forever for the rest of your life, it's not very satisfying. It's difficult to understand and visualize what that looks like. And it's also very difficult to have confidence in knowing what are the small tweaks and changes that you need to do as an individual. And ultimately that is where having a coach makes this much, much easier.

All of us coaches have got like 20 years combined experience working with clients. And we know just by talking to someone what the minimum effective dose is going to look like for them. So next time you make a mistake. And I want you to really think about this going into January. Let's say you set all these expectations. You're to do this, that, and that fine, whatever, but really think about what goes on in your head when you feel like you've made a mistake.

Max Lowery (08:02.616)

Because often the mistake isn't the issue. Like the fact that you've gone out and you've drunk more than you would like to, you've eaten more than you would like to, you told yourself you're not going to eat carbs, but you ate carbs for dinner one evening at a friend's birthday. That's not the issue. It's the reaction to the perceived mistake, which is the issue. That reaction of quitting ultimately, which then leads to a whole host of issues and more weight gain and...

this idea that you can't succeed. remember, it's not the mistake that's the issue, it's the reaction and the beliefs about the mistake. Those are the things that will actually stop you from finding that consistency.

Mollie (08:43.398)

when I joined the program, think Shane said it to me on one of my first calls was curiosity and kindness. And I now use that with clients, but I think that's really a nice way of seeing this as well. You know, be curious with where this happens. But then when it does happen, be kind to yourself, you know, don't feel like a failure, you don't feel...

you know, there's never, there's not going to be a way to move through it. So, you know, if there's two words that you take into this reflection, for me, they really helped explore where my all or nothing thinking came from.

Max Lowery (09:21.688)

Yeah, it's a key. Compassion and curiosity is really, really important in this situation because basically what usually happens is someone sets themselves as unrealistic expectations that I'm not going to eat any carbohydrates. And then obviously inevitably they give in and they have the carbohydrates. And usually what happens is there's a load of judgment and there's a critical inner voice of what's wrong with you. You failed, you've got no motivation, you failed again, know, pathetic, all this kind of stuff.

But actually if you attach that compassion and curiosity, you can be like, okay, why did I eat the carbohydrates? And it can be like, well, actually probably what I set out to do was completely unrealistic. Carbohydrates are actually quite enjoyable and there's no way in hell that I'm ever going to be able to not eat carbohydrates in the first place. So is it that I'm unmotivated and undisciplined or is it that I just wasn't doing the right thing in the first place? So this compassion and curiosity is a really powerful skill which can take that pressure off yourself.

It's far more likely to lead to consistency and it's not a self-fulfilling prophecy, ultimately. All so all or nothing thinking, you need to stop and you need to get into the mindset of progress over perfection. Which leads us nicely into the next mindset shift and that weight loss is not a quick fix. The goal isn't to lose weight.

The goal is to become the type of person that can lose the weight and keep it off. ultimately have to, like the person you've been up until this moment and that has led you into this situation of having weight to lose is not the person that is going to get you the results. So you have to fundamentally shift your identity and this takes time. Right, you're not gonna get it from a meal plan you do for 30 days. You're not gonna do it from an.

Like even we have a 90 day program and yes, lots of clients lose a lot of weight in 90 days. we have, you know, loads of clients end up continuing with us because they realize there's more work to be done when it comes to their identity and their beliefs and their mindset and the root causes. So this is not a quick fix. Like you really can't go into this thinking, right, I'm just going to smash something for 30 days and then return back to normal.

Max Lowery (11:42.648)

You know, the classic example is with alcohol, everyone goes and does dry January and, you know, fair play to them. They don't drink for 30 days, but then guess what? They go back to the exact same behavior when they return back to drinking because they haven't fundamentally changed their relationship with alcohol. They haven't shifted their identity. They haven't addressed the root causes of why they drink too much in the first place. And this stuff takes a lot of time.

And I think for lots of you listening that might really put you off, starting. You might think that's too hard, but really you gotta choose your heart. Because either way life is hard. Like right now, if you have been struggling with your weight for a long time, if you feel like you've got nothing to wear when you're going out for special occasions, if your confidence has been ruined, if you're trapped in this cycle of dieting, then that is very hard.

Which hard do you want? Do you want the hard of staying stuck exactly where you are? Do you want the hard of working towards getting yourself up the situation, which is hard, but actually there's light at the end of the tunnel and there's loads of benefits and every aspect of your life will improve as a consequence.

Mollie (13:00.248)

I think with the hard as well as the...

Often people think that losing weight is really difficult, often because of what they've been through, previous diets, know, having this mentality and feeling that they failed for so long. actually losing weight is simple and the way that we teach it is through the basics. What is difficult is continuing to show up and continuing to stick by those small changes and those basics that we teach and go

through and I think that's the hard and it's interesting because I definitely experienced it a bit during my journey of the basics are boring and we're so used to having this stimulus, this constant reward, this excitement, this instant gratification and it's really difficult to continue to do the basics right.

for a long period of time. So it's starting to enjoy those basics and trusting that they do work and getting those basics right, which is obviously what we help our clients with, is really important. So you're not feeling like you're doing lots of things and lots of changes. Actually, you know the basics that are right for you and we help you to find the motivation and the identity in the changes to keep that consistent.

Max Lowery (14:23.278)

Yeah, think you raised a really good point because a big limiting belief that people that we work with have is that to lose weight, have to restrict and deprive yourself and punish yourself and throw your life away. So obviously when you hear us saying that this is going to take a long time, this is for the rest of your life, people are thinking, well, there's no fucking way that I am doing the things that I need to do to lose weight. But if you remember what we just spoke about with the previous point that

when you actually focus on the minimum effective dose, you do less, you do things that fit into your life, you do things that are sustainable and enjoyable, then yeah, weight loss isn't hard. Usually, I'd say four to six weeks into our program, clients are saying, it doesn't feel like I'm on a diet. I'm losing this weight and it doesn't feel like I'm dieting. I'm not hungry. I'm eating the foods that I enjoy. I'm moving my body in a way that I enjoy.

That's what it needs to feel like. when I hear that, and it happens with virtually every single client, I know we've done our job properly and this is going to work.

Get out of that mindset of you're just looking for this quick fix because guess what? Keep doing the same thing over and over again, you're going to get the same results. That is the definition of insanity. All right. Don't be insane. You can't keep doing the quick fix, the keto, the fast 800, the juice fasting, cutting out carbs, know, smashing the gym for a month. You can't keep doing that and then expecting different results. Yes, you'll get a short time weight loss with that, but the weight is always going to come back on.

And every time the weight comes back on, you're going to hate yourself, you're going to blame yourself, and it's just going to plant this seed of doubt that you can't do it. So the next time you do it, you won't try as hard and eventually you will give up. Usually our clients are coming to us as a final, final resort. They've tried every possible scenario and then they finally realize they can't hide from the truth anymore. They need proper support and accountability. They need to address the real reasons why they put on the weight in the first place.

Max Lowery (16:34.702)

and then their life changes as a consequence of working with us. final message on this second mindset shift, I'm going to tell you the same thing that we tell our clients at the very start of the program. This weight loss journey is going to take at least one year. So take that pressure off yourself at the start of 2025 to lose this much weight by the end of January or to lose this much weight by the end of February.

take that pressure off yourself and accept that this is going to take the entire year. Just that small mindset shift will mean you're far more likely to be consistent because if you haven't got those specific markers that you need to hit by the end of January, because most likely you won't hit them, you're more likely to continue. You won't be telling yourself that you failed. So this journey is going to take at least a year. And yes, you could lose the weight in three to six months.

But the goal isn't to lose weight, the goal is to become someone who can lose the weight and keep it off. And shifting your identity, becoming that person takes time, especially if you've been dieting for 10, 20, 30, 40 years like some of our clients.

The mindset shift is to get out of a restrictive mindset and start to practice restraint over restriction. So this is sometimes a bit of a difficult concept to understand because people initially don't understand what the difference is between restriction and restraint because they're quite similar words, they both begin with R and they kind of maybe involve similar behaviors.

However, there is a massive difference. Okay, so let's define what I mean by restriction and restraint. So someone who is being restrictive tells themselves, I'm not allowed to eat this food because I'm on a diet. Okay, basically it's like a child. You are acting like a child. And when you've got willpower motivation, you will be able to...

Max Lowery (18:45.71)

cut out the foods and not eat the foods that you want to eat. But those feelings of restriction and deprivation are going to build and eventually you're going to give in. It's going to be like a pressure cooker. It's going to explode and you're going to eat all the food. You're going to gorge and binge on the foods that you've been restricting yourself from. And obviously, weight's going to come back on. You're going to tell yourself you failed and it's just this vicious cycle. All right, so that is restrictive, being restrictive. And at no point...

should you be restrictive with food or whatever you're doing. But then we've got restraint. And restraint is essentially making decisions like an adult. So it's I'm choosing to have less or I'm choosing not to have this because I'm an adult and I'm listening to my body and maybe actually I don't want this food right now. All right, so an example would be, let's like again, give a real world example. So.

Person number one is practicing restraint is at a friend's birthday and a piece of cake is offered. And this person says, no, I can't eat this because I'm on a diet. That's restrictive. Person number two comes in as an adult who's not in a dieting mentality, he's not being restrictive, is offered the cake and said, that slice is way too big for me. I'll have half. Or I'm not hungry right now. I'm not going to have any of the cake. All right. So it's essentially just learning to listen to your body and your hunger cues and

mindful eating really. And what this means is you can still eat the foods that you enjoy. You know, this is a big promise of ours is that you can lose all this weight and still eat the foods you enjoy. And this is how you can actually do that is by practicing restraint. Another example would be going out for dinner. And I think the usual thing that people do is either they're on a diet and they're not going to have the dinner, sorry, they have dessert or

They are, they're like, I'm on a diet, but I'm out for dinner, so I'm definitely gonna have dessert to make the most of it. Neither of those situations are they actually listening to their body and being mindful. Whereas someone who's practicing restraint will go in and be like, right, I'm an adult, I can have the dessert if I want. Eating this one dessert isn't necessarily going to ruin everything and it's not gonna mean that I don't lose weight or I put on weight. But if there's nothing I like on the menu, I'm not gonna have dessert.

Max Lowery (21:10.706)

If nothing takes my fancy, I'm not going to have dessert. If I'm not hungry at the end of the meal, I'm not going to have dessert. So two big differences.

Mollie (21:11.068)

Hmm.

Mollie (21:18.172)

I think a really good question in these moments as well is, as you're practicing restraint, when you're confronted with a meal or a decision, asking yourself what do you want more? Do you want the piece of cake or do you want your weight loss goal? Do you want the piece of cake or do you want to feel good tomorrow? Do you want the glass of wine or do you want to sleep well? And it's asking those questions to yourself when you're...

looking at it more as a restraint will help you work out whether or not you want something in that moment.

Max Lowery (21:56.334)

Yeah, a hundred percent. It's going to be much harder to practice restraint if you're not connected with why you might be trying to change your behavior. So, and also we call this your deep why, and it's what we kind of focus on with our clients right at the beginning of the program. We get to really to focus on why they're doing these things, because ultimately if I could summarize all self help into one sentence, it would be,

choose long-term over short-term, which is essentially what you're just describing. It's, I want this short-term gratification, which might not mean that I get the long-term benefit of what I'm trying to achieve. The more connected with you are with not just like, I want to lose weight, but with how and why losing weight is going to drastically improve your life and how staying stuck where you are is not an option. It means that in those moments,

you're going to be able to practice restraint better because you could like, yeah, I can have the dessert if I really want it, but actually is this going to make my whole journey much easier? Is it worth the calories? What's been going on the rest of the week with my eating? How am going to feel afterwards? Is the dessert even nice? You know, all these kinds of questions. And it is ultimately just asking yourself questions instead of just acting on autopilot. That is ultimately what practicing restraint is and being mindful is.

is just bringing awareness to your daily thoughts, feelings, reactions, emotions and behaviors. And this is why we do have a mindfulness expert within the program, Ed. If you want to understand more about mindfulness and how it can help you, then do check out the podcast that we've recorded with him a few months back. But yeah, so get yourself out of a restrictive mindset. You're an adult. You can eat any food that you like.

No food is off limits. There's no such thing as good or bad foods. No single food is gonna make you lose weight. No single food is gonna make you put on weight. It's about the bigger picture. And instead, start to practice restraint. And the way that you can do that is by getting really clear on why you are actually trying to lose weight in the first place. All right, so let's wrap up. So the three mindset shifts for 2025 are get out of all or nothing thinking,

Max Lowery (24:21.314)

Get out of that being a perfectionist and focus on progress over perfection. What's the minimum that you can commit to and be consistent with? Just start with that in January. Just pick a few very small habits. It could be, right, I'm going to eat more protein. I'm going to try and cut out snacking to the best of my ability. I'm going to try and get more steps in. All right, don't put numbers on it necessarily. Just say, I'm going to up my steps.

Do those small things and do them consistently. And if you make a mistake, remember reframe it and tell yourself this is all part of the process. The reaction to the mistake is often worse than the mistake itself. Then we've got getting out of that quick fix mentality. This is gonna take a long time and at least one year. Take the pressure off yourself. This is gonna be a much more enjoyable way to change your behavior.

And finally, stop being restrictive. Instead, practice that restraint. All right, so hopefully this has been useful. As always, any questions at all, you know where to find me on Instagram. If you wanna book in a chat, click the link below for a very quick 10 minute conversation with either myself or one of the team. And we'll be able to help you address what the root cause of the problem are and just explain how we might be able to help you. All right, it's very, very relaxed. Thank you very much, Molly.

Mollie (25:46.438)

Thank you for having me.

Max Lowery (25:47.894)

and we'll see you same time next week.