Never Diet Again with Max Lowery

This One Belief Is Keeping You Stuck in a Cycle of Guilt, Shame, and Weight Regain

• Max Lowery

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So many women over 40 say, “I know what I need to do, I’m just not doing it.”

But what if the problem isn’t you—it’s the approach you’ve been taught?

In this episode, Max Lowery and Shane Copeland break down:

✅ Why knowing isn’t the same as doing—and how to bridge the gap
✅ How emotional eating and metabolic inflexibility keep you stuck
✅ The real reason restrictive diets fail (and what to do instead)
✅ How to shift your mindset and finally make weight loss sustainable

If you’ve tried every diet, followed all the “rules,” and still struggle to keep weight off, this episode will change how you approach fat loss forever.

Watch my The Cravings & Fat-Burning Masterclass:   https://www.neverdietagain.uk/register-podcast

Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/max.lowery/

Book a Food Freedom Breakthrough Call: https://calendly.com/maxlowerycoaching/food-freedom-breakthrough-call

Max:

I know what I need to do, I'm just not doing it. I hear this multiple times a day, every single day, mostly from women who are struggling with their weight loss. They're frustrated and they're stuck in a vicious cycle. So why do you feel like this? The reason is not what you think, because the reality is you don't actually know what you need to do. You just think you do, you've done every diet, you've read every book, you follow every fitness influencer and do. You've done every diet. You've read every book, you follow every fitness influencer and you only know what diet culture has told you. You think you need to cut out carbs. You think you just need to eat less and move more. You think you need to restrict and deprive yourself and just try harder. But this is exactly why you're stuck. In this episode, we're going to break down exactly why this is happening, why everything you've been taught about weight loss is wrong. And not only is it wrong, it's actually working against you. But, most importantly, we're going to tell you exactly what to do instead. So if you've ever felt like a failure and you're wondering why you can't do what you should be doing, make sure you watch this episode. How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight, eat the foods that you love and sustain the results.

Max:

Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm max lowry. I'm an author, personal trainer and weight loss coach. In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and understanding so that you never diet again. Hello, welcome to another episode of the Never Diet Again podcast. My name is Max Lowry. I'm a weight loss coach and specialize in helping women over 40 lose weight and keep it off for the rest of their life. I'm joined by Shane, who is the head of the Live360 program, which is how we help our clients lose weight and keep it off. Hello, shane, how you doing? Very good, max. Good to be here. Yeah, what's a bit strange is you're actually upstairs in my house right now.

Shane:

You pulled me out of the sauna and put me in front of another questionable background the fake sauna.

Max:

So, yeah, look, today we're talking about something really important. It's actually something I hear, I would say, say at least five times a day, every single day, cause, remember, I have one-on-one conversations with women over 40 who are trying to lose weight. I on average three a day, and I've done that for the last five years. So that's a lot of conversations. And there's one thing that I've heard more than anything else, and it's it's usually a relation to why they're stuck, like why nothing's happening, and it is. I know what I need to be doing, I'm just not doing it. So let me know in the comments if this is something that you said to yourself, this is something that you have thought to yourself. And is this just how you feel? Do you feel like you know exactly what you need to do to lose weight, but, for whatever reason, you're not doing it? So this is a really important topic. So we want to, in this episode, ultimately break down why this is happening. Why do you feel like you know what you need to do but it's not happening? It's really important because, if this is what you believe, and this is what's happening, this just leads to a constant cycle of guilt, like you essentially think, like you, you blame yourself and it's a critical in a voice for, like you, know what you need to do. Why aren't you doing it? And it can become a huge problem and really negatively impact people's life. So is this something you've also heard over the years? Shane, countless times, yeah, so we're going to break down exactly why this happens. So, firstly, countless times, yeah, so we're going to break down exactly why this happens. So, firstly, do you actually really know what you need to do? And I think this is the crux of it. So, in our experience, people think they know what they need to do.

Max:

So let's list some of the things when I probe potential clients and conversations that I'm having when I probe them. Okay, what do you think you need to do? There's usually a list of things they need to do. Well, I need to cut out carbs. I need to stop eating desserts. I need to go keto. I need to cut out alcohol. I need to go to the gym. I need to do HIIT sessions. I need to do running. I need to stick to a strict calorie target. I need to follow my macros. I need to weigh every gram of food. I missed any, shane.

Max:

No, it's pretty comprehensive, yeah, so basically all those typical things which most people have done. So most people have read. Most of the clients that we're working with They've read every book, they've done every diet, they follow every influencer, they bought every meal plan, they've Googled every which way to lose weight over the years. So they're drowning in this information and with all this information, they're like well, I know how to lose weight, like everyone knows that I need to eat less and move more ultimately. So the real question is then why isn't it happening? So, if everyone knows what they need to do, why isn't it happening?

Max:

And this is the second issue, is that, ultimately, all the things that we listed, they might get you short-term success. You might lose some weight when you've got willpower, motivation, but that's it. They are dependent on willpower, motivation. They are unsustainable and unenjoyable on the whole. So when you're at the start of your weight loss journey, you're going to have lots of motivation and willpower to do these things and you'll get some success, but when, like many of our clients, you lose weight, put it back on.

Max:

Essentially, each time this happens, it sows a seed of doubt and, essentially, why would you go through the short-term discomfort if you're not going to get the long-term benefits. So, essentially, you end up in a situation where I know I need to do these restrictive things to lose weight, but I don't want to do them because what's the point anyway? They're horrible, they don't fit into my life, they're miserable. I can't eat my favorite foods, I have to become antisocial and I don't even get the results I want anyway. And this is unconscious, like this isn't necessarily a conscious process that you're going through, but this is something that I have seen like time and time again. I don't know what your thoughts are on this, shane.

Shane:

Yeah, the problem there is whether that belief is conscious or not, or whether the recognition is there that you're unable to do this because it's just so unpleasant you. It still becomes almost like a judgment against yourself. But actually, if you spell it out like that, it's no wonder that you're not doing these things. So it's always like I'm flawed because I'm not putting in the work necessary to lose weight. But the work necessary to lose weight just makes me completely and utterly miserable yeah, and I think, unfortunately, most people don't come to those conclusions.

Max:

So it takes a certain line of questioning for me to get our clients and the countless women that I speak to to realize okay, that's why I'm not doing it, it's not because I don't have willpower, motivation, it's not because I'm weak, it's not because I lack discipline. This is because these things are fundamentally unenjoyable and don't fit into my life. And when you don't have that awareness of what's going on, then it does end up being this constant cycle of guilt and the longer this goes on, it becomes part of who you are. You just become someone who cannot succeed at weight loss, and this is a huge problem. And this is ultimately where most of our clients are when they first start working with us. They've tried everything and they are struggling and they don't know what to do, so you don't actually know what you need to do. This is to take the guilt and shame off yourself, and this is also part of the problem that we have as coaches is most people, a lot of people we speak to, is like what is a coach going to help me with? Like I already know everything, I've already done everything, but the thing is you don't know what you don't know and you have no idea what a good coach could teach you unless you've actually been through the process. And all our clients are very surprised at the stuff that we're incorporating with our clients to get them long-term success, because ultimately it takes more than just cutting out your favorite foods and smashing gym sessions to get the results that you want, especially if you're a woman over the age of 40. So again, let me know in the comments if you're resonating with this so far. It'd be really interesting to hear from you guys if this is something that you resonate with and have experienced personally.

Max:

So we've established why these methods don't work in the long term because they're unsustainable and unenjoyable. No one can cut out their favorite foods for any length of time. But there's also another reason why they don't actually work in the long term and that's because they don't actually address the root cause of the problem. So we talk a lot about root causes with our clients and on this podcast as well, because ultimately that's the only way that you're going to get long-term success is if you address the root cause of the problem instead of addressing the symptoms. And I would say that typical things that people are doing are addressing the symptoms. So I would say the two main root causes that we help our clients with are the fact that they are stuck in sugar burning mode or they are metabolically inflexible. We've got a whole podcast on this, a whole nother episode on this, so make sure you go and listen to that if you want more detail on this.

Max:

But essentially, when your body gets stuck in sugar burning mode, it needs a constant stream of food to function. So you're likely to be craving and thinking about food all the time. You're likely to need to eat every two or three or four hours just to be able to function. And if you miss a meal, if you have a period of time where you don't have any food, you're going to feel hangry, you're going to feel lowry, you're going to feel low energy, you're going to have low focus and it's not going to be a good place to be. So obviously, if you are dependent on a constant stream of food, then that is going to make long-term weight loss very difficult.

Max:

But essentially, the way that you're going to feel if your body's stuck in sugar burning mode is you're going to be thinking about food all the time. You of the time. You're going to be assessing about food all the time and you are going to feel out of control with food all the time. This is like typical things that we help our clients with, so doing these kinds of diets. You can potentially shift your body into fat burning mode using keto. If you cut out carbohydrates, you will go into ketosis and go into fat burning mode and maybe you will get some of the benefits of stable energy levels. You feel less hungry. But I don't know about you, shane. I did keto for quite a long period of time. Keto is fucking miserable.

Shane:

Yeah, I hated. I didn't hate every second of it. There was that initial period of excitement, as there often is with many different diets, but, yeah, after a few weeks it was a pretty miserable experience for me.

Max:

Really quick one for me. Guys, I don't run ads on this podcast and I do aim to give you as many high-value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never diet again. The way to do that is to rate, review and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds, but it would mean the world to me. But, more importantly, it could help change the life of someone else.

Max:

Look, carbs are good. Everyone loves carbs, there's no question about that, especially where I live. French pastries we're going to be having some French pastries at some point on this trip, shane, don't worry about that. A good dessert in a restaurant. What's the point in life if you can't enjoy these things? So there are, and carnivore might do the same thing To a certain respect. Fasting will also do the same thing as well, but ultimately, for a lot of people, fasting, carnivore and keto are unsustainable and unenjoyable, and especially if you are a woman over the age of 40, who's going through the hormonal changes of the perimenopause and the menopause, you could do a lot of damage with some of these things. So the number one reasons these methods don't work that we've described and people think they know what they need to do is because it's not addressing this key issue, and so we help our clients shift into fat burning mode so they're not thinking about food all the time. They have control over their food, they're enjoying food, they're eating carbohydrates and they're losing weight at the same time.

Max:

The second big root cause that the typical diets don't address at all is the fact that for many of our clients and I know many of the listeners and the people watching this, listening to this now turn to food when they're stressed, when they're bored, as a reward, any emotion, they can turn to food. So the way that I describe this and the way that we work with our clients, we want to be really efficient with what we're suggesting our clients to do. So I talk about it in terms of levers. So I, as a coach, want to pull the biggest and most powerful lever, which will have a huge impact on our clients' lives but actually not be too disruptive. Okay, so that's what kind of we're looking for, and so let's think of it this way Hypothetically, the average person who turns to food in times of stress, boredom and negative emotion.

Max:

Let's say they're going to be consuming 500 calories whenever this happens. Let's say that's five times per week. So that's 2,500 calories extra in a week, in calories you don't even need. In a month that's ten thousand calories and that's a conservative estimate based off what we've heard from our clients. So you going and doing some restrictive diet where you just cut out your favorite foods, I would say it's like a medium size lever that you can pull and you're just. You're not touching this big lever that I've just of emotional eating at all, it's just it's still there. So you can force your way through this with motivation and willpower and people do. But then guess what? Life happens. Something happens at work and suddenly one of your bosses is off, sick and you're suddenly having to do all the extra work. One of your children's paying up. You have an argument with your family, with your partner, your parents, elderly and in hospital. Guess what? That motivation and willpower goes straight out the window and you turn to your usual coping mechanism, which is to use food to process your emotions.

Shane:

I think we can always liken this to learning, like if we're liken weight loss to learning to ride a bike. If you're trying restrictive diets as an attempt to lose weight, it's restrictive diets as an attempt to lose weight. It's almost like riding the bike with stabilizers on and you think you know how to lose weight, but as soon as the stabilizers are taken off, then you fall over and break your leg and you only know how to lose weight under very specific circumstances, and that is when discipline and willpower are present, and as soon as those are gone, then you can't lose weight anymore. And the question then becomes is that really the same as knowing how to lose weight? Is that really knowing how to ride a bike? Probably not 100%.

Max:

I think that's a good analogy Because, look, really, you guys listening to this are still struggling with your weight. You don't need more information, that's not what you need. You need implementation of the right techniques and levers that are specific to you and your life, and that's how we help our clients. Ultimately and I'll say that's like another problem with a lot of what people are doing it's completely generic. You go to Slimming World, you go to Weight Watchers, you go to the personal trainer it's all just generic bullshit. It's all the same stuff, whereas each one of our clients has a very unique life and perspective and history and relationship with food and all that needs to be taken into consideration. So people think they know what they need to do. They don't know what they need to do at all and that's why, ultimately, they don't do it, because it doesn't work. And the worst part is they get stuck in this vicious cycle of guilt and shame and labeling yourself as a failure and just becoming someone that cannot succeed at weight loss. And once you have, once you hold that belief, that core belief about yourself, it can be very difficult to get out of that, not impossible. That's exactly what we help our clients do, but it's not a good place to be. So hopefully this has been useful I'm now going to share.

Max:

What do you actually need to do? Okay, so let's talk about what you don't need to do. Stop cutting out your favorite foods. Stop smashing yourself in the gym. Stop seeking generic solutions for your specific problem. Stop seeking short-term solutions for a long-term problem. If you can't do something forever, don't do it for a day. Stop going to people like personal trainers who don't understand you. Stop going to Slimming World and Weight Watchers and all these stupid clubs which ultimately want you to stay in their ecosystem. Don't actually empower you to know how to lose weight or address the root cause of the problem, and actually it leads to disordered eating and you're around a load of people who aren't succeeding Because, look, you might lose weight for a few years on Slimming World, but, trust me, it nearly always comes back on, and we've had plenty of clients over the years who that's happened exactly. Don't do weight loss drugs, ozempic unless you're literally on death's door, all right. So those are things that you shouldn't do.

Max:

So what should you do so? Firstly, focus on eating more at meal times. Prioritize protein. Drop the snacking. Get seven to 15,000 steps in per day, move your body in a way that you enjoy. Those are four or five habits which ultimately will create a calorie deficit without the need to track calories, and the thing that's going to underpin that is to learn how to process your emotions in a way that doesn't involve food.

Max:

So the process we go through with our clients is to get very clear and aware on what your triggers are. So in what specific situations are you likely to turn to food? Is it a problem at work? Is it an argument with your colleague or partner? Is it the fact you are stressed about doing a task, you procrastinate or you're bored, or is it, at the end of the day, you're rewarding yourself with food or a glass of wine? The first step is awareness. You need to be really aware of when this is happening. The next step is to, once you've got that awareness, in the moment when you're feeling hunger or what feels like hunger, ask yourself how am I feeling, what's the emotion here? And you can use a feelings wheel.

Max:

Humans are typically very bad at labeling how they feel and what their specific emotions are, and that can be a really powerful skill if you're able to do that. So dial into exactly how you're feeling and then have a list of three to five things other things that don't involve food in which you can process that emotion in a different way. So it could be going for a walk, it could be journaling, it could be meditation, it could be exercise, it could be having a conversation with a friend, it could be doing some deep breathing. Your breath is probably the quickest and most powerful way that you can change your physiology and take you out of that fight or flight response into kind of a more calm state, just using your breath. And that's essentially the process that we go through with our clients. This takes time, it takes support, it takes accountability, it takes help from experts a lot of the time to phase this out gradually over time.

Max:

So if turning to food and using food to process your emotions has been something that you've done for a very long time, since you're a child or a teenager, it's something that you've learned from your family, then it's going to be very difficult to unlearn that behavior Not impossible, and that's exactly what we help our clients with. But it's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take the process of months and sometimes years and really think of it. It's not an on off switch. You don't suddenly just stop forever. It's more of like a dimmer switch where, gradually, over time, you're doing it less. When it happens it's not as bad and the gaps between it happening are wider and wider and wider. And plus, when it does happen because you're not stuck in all or nothing mentality anymore it's not a big deal. You learn from it, you move on. You don't tell yourself you failed.

Max:

So those are the things you really need to do, the habits that I listed. So lose weight in a way which you're still eating the foods, you enjoy the process of eating, improve your relationship with food and learn how to process your emotions differently. Let me know in the comments if any of you have ever actually done that, because it's not your fault. Ultimately, you are not a failure. Diets have failed you. All the ways in which you've tried to lose weight in the past have failed you. I really want you to embody and listen to those words, because a lot of the clients that we speak to are blaming themselves and just trapped in this cycle of guilt and shame, when in actual fact, they're intelligent, they're driven, they're motivated in other areas of their life like they're succeeding, but when it comes to losing weight and keeping it off, they've just been barking up the wrong tree, and everything that they've done ultimately has failed them that's ultimately part of the problem, I think, is when you're successful in other areas and you consider yourself to be quite accomplished.

Shane:

It almost feels worse when you think you're failing at the weight loss right. So you're more self-critical and mistakes are even less forgivable.

Max:

Yeah, this is a hundred percent right, and I would say this is another big blocker on people getting help and support and coaching, because there are plenty of highly intelligent, successful women out there who are like I shouldn't need the help, I should be able to do this by myself. But if that's what you think right now, then if and if that was true, you probably wouldn't be listening to this podcast. You wouldn't be listening to a podcast named Never Diet Again and still struggling with your weight. If it was possible for you to do this by yourself. It's nothing to do with your intelligence, it's nothing to do with your motivation or willpower, it's just this stuff is hard and all the information that you've been fed is keeping you confused, overwhelmed and, ultimately, overweight. So I think that's a really good point, Shane. So our best clients and if you look at the most successful people in the world, they don't, on the whole, say when they have a problem, how can I fix this? They say who can help me fix this? The quickest and most effective way to solve a problem is to get help from someone who has already solved the problem. It's as simple as that.

Max:

And those listening? You wouldn't. You wouldn't try and study for a degree by yourself. You'd have professors and you'd go to university. You wouldn't try and color your hair yourself unless you wanted to look like a weirdo, and it's to go completely wrong. If your children need the tutors, you're not going to teach them. You're going to get a tutor. People hire experts in every other aspect of their life.

Max:

When it comes to getting a proper weight loss coach who actually knows what they're talking about, people just seem to think they should be doing it by themselves or doing the same bullshit they've been doing time and time again. So hopefully this is useful. Sorry, this has been a bit blunt, but I really wanted to convey the point because this is a really big problem. So if any of you have said or thought that you know what you need to do but you're not doing it, hopefully this has been useful. Where can you take this to the next level, next step? So we've got a whole cravings and fat loss masterclass you can get access to by clicking the link below, and that will teach you exactly about how to get into fat burning mode and how to process your emotions differently.

Max:

You know, if you feel like you've already tried everything, if you feel like you, are one of those people who is intelligent and driven and successful and wants to take this to the next level, then the best way to do that is book to book in for a food freedom breakthrough call and on this call, essentially we'll help you diagnose what is the root cause of why you've been struggling. We'll help you diagnose if you are really in sugar burning mode or fat burning mode and we'll share a step-by-step plan for you to get started by yourself. That's even if we don't end up working together. If we think we're a good fit and this works mutually for both of us, then I'll explain exactly how we can help and what that looks like. But yeah, if you are serious, book in for that Food Freedom Breakthrough Call and, if not, check out the Cravings and Fat Loss Masterclass. Thanks a lot, shane. See you in the next one.