Losing 370 Pounds on a GLP-1 w/ Jamie Selzler

Jamie Selzler weighed 652 pounds. Four years later, he's lost 370 on a GLP-1 without bariatric surgery. And the lesson he wants you to take has nothing to do with the scale.

Ana Reisdorf, MS, RD sits down with Jamie Selzler, who has lost 370 pounds over four years on a GLP-1 with no surgery. They cover the airplane conversation with an endocrinologist that first opened the door, the three turning points in three weeks that finally made him act, the four mindset rules he developed along the way, how he rebuilt movement into his life from a starting point of needing a walker, and the message about self-worth he wants every person at the very beginning of their journey to hear.

IN THIS EPISODE
- The decades of failed dieting that came before — Slim-Fast, Atkins, Optifast, and a 100-pound regain
- The three turning points in three weeks that pushed him to finally act
- The four mindset rules that made this attempt different (and why motivation isn't one of them)
- How he started movement at 550 pounds and now walks 12,000+ steps a day
- The self-worth message he wants every person in the very beginning of their GLP-1 journey to hear

ABOUT THE GUEST
Jamie Selzler is a certified personal trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine who has lost 370 pounds over four years on a GLP-1, going from 652 pounds to under 285 without bariatric surgery. Featured in The New York Times and followed by more than 100,000 people on social media, Jamie now works with NASM to help reshape how the fitness industry treats people on GLP-1 medications. His mission is to make movement accessible — physically and emotionally — for anyone who has struggled with obesity.

CONNECT WITH JAMIE
Website: https://myonechange.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jselzler/

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jamselz

SPONSOR
Tyde Wellness — sustainable weight loss with support, for women.
https://tydewellness.com/GLP1Hub — use code GLP1HUB50 for $50 off your first month

CHAPTERS
00:00  You can't hate yourself thin
01:37  From 652 pounds and counting
03:26  A history of dieting and broken promises
07:45  The airplane conversation that opened the door
09:07  Three turning points in three weeks
12:40  The four mindset rules
24:43  Starting movement at 550 pounds
29:48  Becoming a certified personal trainer
30:25  Changing how the fitness industry sees GLP-1s
32:36  The one message Jamie wants you to hear

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*The content of this show is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The goal of this show is to provide various points of view about GLP-1 Medications. The personal and professional opinion of the guests and their content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Ana Reisdorf or GLP-1 Hub.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You see this, and I don't have to tell you you see these trainers online who are trashing GLP ones and trashing people who use them and saying it's the easy way out and when it's really just a tool and it's a treatment for a medical condition. And that just makes my blood boil. That makes me really angry.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

And the lesson he wants you to take from his story isn't about the scale at all. Welcome to the GLP One Hub podcast. I'm Anna Reisdorf, registered dietitian, GLP One user. And today I'm joined by Jamie Seltzer. Nine months ago, he had zero social media followers. Today he has over a hundred thousand, has been featured in the New York Times, and is now a certified personal trainer working with the National Academy of Sports Medicine to change how the fitness industry treats people on GLP ones. And we're talking about the moment on the plane in 2021 that changed everything, why he never went the bariatric surgery route, what losing 370 pounds across four years actually looks like, and the one thing he wants every person in the very beginning of their journey to hear. And as always, if you enjoy this podcast, this is a great, powerful one. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or leave your comments below if you're watching over on YouTube. Now let's get on to this incredible episode. Welcome to the GLP One Hub Podcast. I am really, really excited about the conversation with our guest today. You may know him from all of the amazing content that he creates online, Mr. Jamie Seltzer. Welcome to the podcast. I am so excited for you to come here and share your story. Can you tell the people a little bit about you if they don't know who you are already?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Sure. Well, thanks for having me. I love your podcast. I listen to it on my walks. I go walking a lot, so I always listen to the new episodes there.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Uh to my future self. Hello, Jamie. I hope you're having a good walk today when you're finally listening to this. Um, so my name is Jamie Selsler. My my highest weight was 652. Uh and I used to say that I was 650 pounds, but now um I I had 650 pounds. I've sort of separated myself from my the that my identity was my weight. Sure. I've I've now lost 370 pounds over the last almost four years now using a GLP one. So I use uh Zip bound and as I was losing weight, I started incorporating movements, so weightlifting and walking, and I increased those over time. So I've now lost 370 pounds and my life is better in every single way. And uh I share my story on social media and other places, mainly because when I started out, there are a lot of people who were trying to, you'd see, who had lost 100 pounds or 50 pounds, but I knew that I was gonna have to do something that was gonna take me a long time and I was gonna lose, you know, 400 pounds. And there was just no one like that out there that I saw who had not used a bariatric surgery. And so that's why I started sharing my story. So thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Happy to answer any questions about anything.

SPEAKER_03 3:14

No problem. So when you were 600 pounds, you said you mentioned that you had never had bariatric surgery. Had you tried other things to lose weight, or like what how did tell me a little bit more about that history?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, I had I tried everything. So I started gaining weight when I was nine or ten years old. I I really specifically recall, you know, we had never really drank soda when we were kids. And over Christmas break one year when I was nine, I went to my grandparents' place and they for like two weeks over Christmas break, and they had a fridge in the garage that was full of soda. And they're like, anytime you want one, just go grab one, kids. Because you know, they're grandparents. They thought you're supposed to do. So I had gained like a lot of weight just in those two weeks. And after I got back home, I had stopped. I'd gotten this craving for sugar. Like I'd never really had this before, candy and sugar. And so I stopped spending my allowance money on baseball cards and switched to buying Mountain Dew. And at that point, I just started gaining weight. And so I think the first time I ever tried to lose weight, I remember being in sixth grade. And another friend of mine who's also a bigger kid, we had heard about at this point. So I'm I'm 47 now, so this would have been late 80s, had heard about, you know, slim fast. So we were like drinking slim fast shakes, and we were getting up in the morning and like going running. You know, that's what we did. We went jogging around the track at our school in sixth grade, and that was the first time I tried to lose weight. And I had, over the course of years, many times had lost weight and regained via every diet that you can imagine. I'm sure folks listening, I'm not telling them anything they don't already know. We've all been down this road. Many of us have, anyway. Probably the most successful that I was at weight loss was around 2015. I had lost, lost weight in the past using very restrictive diets, specifically stuff like Atkins. Remember Atkins, I did that Atkins in the early 2000s and lost a lot of weight, injured myself in the gym, stopped eating the Atkins way and regained it all. But in 2015, I went to my doctor and he referred me to his hospital, had a medical weight loss program uh using um Optifast.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

Oh, yeah, I used to work for that program. Or a program had that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

And so basically what it was is you'd go, I'd go every week, I'd do a weigh-in, and then it would alternate. Some weeks there would be like a group meeting with a dietitian, and then the alternate week would be like a group workout session. And I did that for about three months, and I lost over a hundred pounds in three months with Optifast. And it was Optifast and using like uh like frozen meals, vegetables, and I lost a significant significant amount of weight because I discovered that the one thing that was stronger for me than anything was my ego, and that I had to go weigh in every week in front of other people. And I refused to let myself gain weight. The problem is that after three months I lost all that, I moved for work to a new city, which meant I was I was technically still doing the Optafast, but I was not doing the weekly weigh-ins. And uh so started testing the boundaries. And next thing you know, I regained all of that weight back in like four months. And that was when I noticed my life had it got significantly harder to lose weight after that and easier to gain because what I realized now is that I had lost a ton of muscle in that process and regained fat. And so my my metabolic rate was significantly lower afterwards, even though I'd weighed about the same. And after that is when it got really hard to lose weight.

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I feel like I'd lost and regained multiple times. I never can strongly considered bariatric surgery. One, I had this mentality that like I could do this on my own, you know, I don't, I don't need any help. It it felt like giving up to me to have the surgery. Uh, and then I was also really worried at my size that I wouldn't survive the surgery because I know it can be dangerous when you're really big. In hindsight, um, I wish I would have done a bariatric surgery because I um I'm glad I lived long enough for a GLP1 medication. But I uh my life is better in every single way. There's nothing in my life that has not improved since I got to a healthier weight. And if I could have had this 15 years ago with a bariatric surgery, I I wish I would have done it.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah. So I don't have any uh judgment or or hesitation about uh or you know concern about a bariatric now. I think it's still a tool I have in my toolbox if I ever need it at some point.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Right, for sure, for sure. And so what made you start considering GLP one? Because it's still a medical intervention, right? It's a prescription medication. So what made you think that this would be something you wanted to try?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

You know, uh a year after COVID, so it was my first flight during the COVID time. I was on an airplane next to this woman. And, you know, when you're no one likes to fly anyway, but when you're really big, when you're 650 pounds, like I was at that point, it is horrifically bad. And I did had not purchased two seats. And I was next to this woman, I was encroaching on her. I felt so bad, and I was very apologetic, and she was really nice to me. And this would have been early 2021. And she said, she said that she mentioned that she was a doctor, an endocrinologist, and she'd asked if I had heard about these new medications, and I said I had not. And she said they were just starting to be prescribed for weight loss is Ozempic, she was talking about, but this was at the very beginning. And she said that she thought that they would arrival bariatric surgery one day and gave me her card and said, give me a call when you get back to Seattle. Unfortunately, I never did, but it opened up my eyes that okay, there's another option here. And I didn't because it seemed crazy to me to just take a medication and cause you to lose weight. But about the reason I I approached for real getting help with the GLP one is about three and a half, I guess it was almost four years ago now, four years ago next month, or four years ago this this month, I had three things happen all about the same time in the course of a few weeks. Is one, my sister got married, and so I officiated her wedding. It was on the beach in Florida, and I fell in the sand, like I physically fell. I could not get up. And I was terrified because it's a public beach. I was terrified that someone was gonna pull out a camera and take my picture or a video, and I was gonna become a meme. I was gonna be, you know, the beached whale or something. And it was uh terrify terrifying to me. I was really scared. And I mean, I was laughing at the time, ha ha, you know, it's funny, whatever. But uh, I was really, really it's the most embarrassing moment of my life. All these people staring at me. Fortunately, someone there was able to help me get up, amateur power lifter. So he got me up by a miracle. And I never showed up on the internet, fortunately, until it was my choice to show up on the internet anyway. And then a few weeks later, I was having dinner with a group of friends. And afterwards, one of my friends pulled me aside, and he was 70, he's at the time was 75 years old and still ticking. I mean, this is he's 79 now, he's doing great. Uh but he was 75 and he pulled me aside and said, Jamie, I want you to go to my funeral. I don't want to go to your funeral. And when a guy who's 75 tells you who's 43 he's going to your funeral, I realized no one my size was alive in their 50s. And then the third thing a few weeks later, I got stuck on a toilet. Like I could not physically get it from the toilet. I was too weak. I couldn't stand up. And it was, I had all these terrible thoughts, like, what if I can't? Like I knew at the moment I would figure it out. I didn't have my phone with me, but I figured worst case I'd like throw myself on the ground or something. But I thought, like, what if I'm in a situation where I'm I can't get help? And is this how I'm gonna die? I mean, it was rough. I needed a walker after that. And so that's when I realized I needed to do something. So I I started just moving a little bit more. I lost about 50 pounds in a year, which is great. I'm glad I lost 50 pounds. But when you're 650, 50 in a year is not a huge significant amount. Sure. But it was a constant food noise battle. I knew I was gonna regain the weight. So I talked with my doctor and uh started with Wagovi and later switched to Zetbound after during shortages. And now I've lost 320 pounds specifically just with a GLP one and completely changed my life in every possible way.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

You guys remember my conversation with Beth a while back, the one that became one of the most popular episodes? Well, Beth is from Tide Wellness, and that conversation is the reason I'm comfortable telling you about them today. So many people lose weight on GLP one, feel amazing, and then six months later, they're back to where they started because the program ended or the provider disappeared, or they were never set up for the long haul. But Tide Wellness is built differently. Licensed providers who actually adjust your dosing as your body changes, a real care team you can message when you hit a plateau or have a question or need help. Nutrition guidance designed specifically for how GLP ones change your appetite. And if you've got questions, you can book a consultation and actually talk to a provider, a rare find in this space. If you're looking for more than GLP1s, they also do microdose GLP1 programs, hormone therapy, longevity peptides, and the kind of support that matters when you're trying to feel your best long term. Tide is built with support by a team that really cares. Go to tidewellness.com backslash GLP one hub and use the code GLP1Hub50 for $50 off your first month. Again, it's TideT Y D E wellness.com backslash GLP, the number one hub, and the code is GLP one hub50. So what are some of the new habits you have? Because I see you walking and talking a lot.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

So what are some of the new things that have come into your life since you lost the weight?

SPEAKER_00 12:48

You know, the biggest thing for me is more of mindset change than anything. Throughout the process, I sort of developed these four rules for myself. Okay. And these are my mindset rules. And it's not like I started by saying, I'm gonna here are four rules I'm gonna follow. Like that's not how it worked. After I had lost this evening amount of weight, and I was actually gonna do a podcast interview about my very first time I ever talked about this. Someone I sat down to think about like what did I do differently this time, other than just using a medication. Because I don't think the medication did not cause me to lose weight. It just opened the door. I still have to do everything myself. But so I had some rules. Number one is I started keeping promises to myself, and that I we're we are very good about making promises or keeping our promises we make to other people. That's how I mean that's what vows are. I think that's how you prove you love someone, you keep your word. But we are really quick to break the promises we make to ourselves, like really quick. And for many of us, if we look back, our life is a history of broken promises. So I just sort of the very first thing I did honestly was say, like, whatever I say I'm going to do, I'm going to do. And whether that be about habits or getting medical help or whatever. And so I started keeping promises to myself. So those were things like I'd make a promise like every time I go to the bathroom, I'm going to drink a glass of water. Like that's the very first thing that I did. Go to the bathroom, glass of water allowed me to get my water and take up. Uh, and then over time, I just made sure I'm always keeping the promises I make to myself, which made a huge difference. The second is I I begin to realize that my consistency and my discipline had to matter way more than motivation does.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

And because if honestly, if I'm counting on motivation, I would, I would be sitting, I wouldn't be talking to you right now, although you're fantastic. I'd probably be watching some Netflix or something. And so I can't really rely on motivation. That's different than inspiration. Inspiration is why I lost weight, which we talked about, but motivation is sort of the daily reason. So instead, I just try to build consistent habits. And I did those by just changing one thing at a time. I mentioned the water thing. It's not like here's where people fail at weight loss. I don't have to tell you this. You help people, this is why you make a living is helping people losing weight. I realized that all the times that I I lost weight and failed, it's because I tried to do everything all at once. You know, you say, all right, starting Monday, I'm going to eat better and get my protein and start working out and go for walks and get my water and sleep and the whole list. Human beings are not, we are not built for that. We are not designed to change our life that way. Yet we always try all the time. And so instead to build habits, I just do one change at a time. And when I coach people now, um, formally if they reach out, I basically help them figure out what's the what is that one change for them. And it should be something that you can do on your busiest day when you have the least motivation. If you can do something that day, then that's the only thing you should change. And just do that one thing for a month. And then once that's normal, then you add another thing. And so just making one change at a time allows you to build up those consistency and the discipline. And then the third rule I have is that I celebrate every win. And I think this is really important. I have a book, like a physical, and when I say people should celebrate, they should speak it out loud. You should say out loud. Like, for example, I just flew on an airplane yesterday, and once again, I did not need a seatbelt extender. That's a huge win for me. And so I have to I say it out loud because it's worth celebrating. In fact, I needed a little, I needed to tighten it, which is a miracle in my head. Uh, and so, but I have a physical paper book and I encourage people to write down your wins, pen and paper, write it down. Like the first time I walked the 500 steps from my car to my door without having to stop to catch my breath, I wrote that one down. And I have uh about 1200 listed now. And I encourage people to write them down because one, when you write your wins down, it imprints it in your head, you know, you're winning, you're doing well. But we're all gonna have those difficult moments where the scale stalls or we wonder if it's worth it or not. And if you pull that book out and look through the wins you've had, you will realize the wins early on that you thought were cool enough to write down, those are things you take for granted now. Because, you know, for me, the first time I walked 500 steps was a big deal. I now walk at least 12,000 steps a day. And so if I were to judge my success just on what I'm doing today, I'd have a hard time doing it. But if I look back where I've come from, it makes a huge difference. Yeah. So I first be able to do that. And then the fourth rule, I think, is the hardest one for me and for many people. It's about how do you it's about goal setting and it's setting input goals versus output goals.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

It is very normal when people are trying to lose weight to set a goal weight. And not that there's anything wrong with having like an idea of where you want to end up, but so many people set a goal weight and they define their success by one of three things. One, what number do you hit on the scale? Number two, what clothing size do you wear? And three, are people saying anything to you? Are people like saying, hey, you're losing weight? The problem is you do not have direct control over any of those things. You're not a robot, you can't get in the scale and pick a number. You can't magically click your fingers and say, I'm gonna be an ex you know, size. You don't get to decide that. And third, you can't force people to say anything or notice anything. And so if you set goals about things you don't directly control, that is a great way to set yourself up to fail. So instead, I set goals, input goals that I directly control. I can't control thanks to the help of a GLP one. What do I eat? What what is what are my macronutrients? Am I getting my protein? Am I getting fiber? I can control how many steps do I get in a day? What do I do for my movement, for working out, for weightlifting? How much water do I drink? Probably the most critical thing people don't talk about enough is how much sleep am I getting? Like, am I going to bed at a certain time at night? And so my goals are things I directly can control. And I figure my weight is gonna be whatever my weight's gonna be. That's an outcome. That's not a goal for me.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

I think you've nailed it because that is the message that I'm trying to get. And that we see on social media this person is a size four, this person has lost 20 pounds in a month, this per you know what I mean. And the and all I see is these people that set this goal weight, and I've seen people online say, like, I'm devastated because I'm two pounds above this weight. Like two pounds makes zero difference with your health, with your ability to do stuff, you know what I mean? And but they're fixated on this thing. But I think that like shifting to controlling the outcomes, like that is the way that you find success. Is did I sleep well? Did I eat my vegetables, my protein? Like, though, that's that's the change that we want to see. Like this goal weight really doesn't matter. And you can't control, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

As I talk to people, I think when when folks set goal weights, it's often they pick a number for a few reasons. That and this is especially true of women, but I think it applies to everyone to some extent. They they pick a number at I was happy when I was 140 pounds. Like I was happy then, or that was before I had kids, or that's when I graduated high school or college. And so they pick a number that they in their head have connected to being happy. The risk of that is one, there's this few us. One, we we're older, it's just harder to hit those numbers when we're older. But beyond that, let's pretend, let's say you do hit that number and you hit it and you're not happy. Then what? You've built up this entire vision of your future based on this now false belief that your weight is tied to your happiness. And that is a great way to fail. And we see this, I'm sure you see this in your clients. Often it's those last five or 10 pounds that are hardest to get. And when I'm talking to people about it, I'm like, I have an idea for you. How about you increase your goal by 10 pounds? Congrats, you've hit your goal. The thing is, whatever you have to do to lose those last 10 pounds is what you're gonna have to do forever. And so is it worth it? Because what's going to happen is you're gonna lose that last, you're gonna get it, you're gonna lose that last 10, and you are going to almost immediately regain it. And you're gonna take a huge win, which is you've lost however much you've lost total, you're gonna take a huge win at the very end, you're gonna turn it into a failure by getting to a number you can't sustain. And if you are trying to change your life forever for the future, you don't turn it into a failure. You turn it into a success. So if you can't get those last 10 pounds or 20, whatever, don't destroy yourself to get it. Change your goal, take the win and feel good about it. Yeah. And then create habits that will sustain you. That's why I don't set goal weights. I figure whatever weight I end up being, that's the weight I'll be able to sustain because I'm not having to do anything crazy to get there. But I'd much rather have a sustainable weight that's a little higher than my perfect, uh, because I know that's how I can stay healthy rather than have to try to, you know, destroy myself to keep losing.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

So all this mindset stuff that you're talking about, which you are spot on about, that's like like literally, I should have recorded and put it as my Messaging on my website. But is this the same mindset that you had before? Or is this you something you developed over the last four years? Like, did you understand all this before?

SPEAKER_00 22:10

No, not really. Well, I should say I understood a lot of this in the my in the business context. I was, I worked in business and politics for the last 25 years. And so a lot of things like goal setting in the workplace, having to hit certain financial targets, uh, I knew I understood that. I understood needing to celebrate. I've managed tens of thousands of people over the years. And so I you have to celebrate wins. And so I knew how to celebrate. I knew about setting goals that you can directly control. So I understood all of that in the context outside of my size and my health. What was different this time is I began to realize I was taking all of these lessons I'd learned in work and I was now applying them for my health to a lot of success. And so, yeah, I didn't start by saying, here's here are the rules I'm going to use. It really kind of over time, the the only things I started doing right away were keeping a prom keeping the promises and then celebrating the wins. Like that's the only stuff I started doing right away very intentionally. And yeah, I think we people get, you know, I do uh you YouTube lives and TikTok lives where I'll live stream for a while, and I'll get a lot of people and they're asking questions. And they're almost always looking for sort of what's the magic answer, the easy button for physical stuff. They're like, what do you eat in a day? Which I refuse to talk about. I'll give general high level, but what I eat in a day is meaningless for you. The dose of GLP one I'm on is meaningless for you. You can use my story about mindset to help maybe drive some change. But if you try to copy what I eat, you're probably going to gain weight. If you you try to copy what I do medication-wise, it may not work for you. And so I really encourage people to find what works for them as opposed to copying other people. And so when they're looking for the easy button of like, what's the magic food you eat or how many calories do you eat in a day, whatever? It's like, no, let's talk about how what do you have to do to keep a promise to yourself? What do you have to change in your life to start making movement, a short walk, whatever, something you can fit into your life? Let's talk about that stuff as opposed to trying to copy what someone else eats every day.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Yeah, no, I agree. Like I I get those questions too. Who are you using for your medication? How much are you on? What are you doing? Did you count, did you do this? And it's like it's not really relevant because I'm not you. Like you and I are different. And what I eat is not what you eat. So it's the questions used, but I I do think that people are looking for the like one thing. Because I know for me, I became a dietitian looking for that one thing. So I think it's just human nature. So now you've uh really incorporated exercise into your routine, so much so that you were featured in a New York Times article about exercise. Can you tell us a little bit about exercise in your life and and that experience?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Yeah. So exercise, which could I always call movement because the word exercise scares a lot of people, but it's certainly what I do is exercise. When I was 650 pounds, I could barely move, I could barely walk, I needed a walker, and so I did nothing. And I I think a great, great way to hurt yourself or fail is at your heaviest is to start like working out four days a week or something. I think that's a that's a nightmare. I couldn't start really doing much until I got to about 550 pounds. And what I started doing then was basic body weight weightlifting, strength training from home. And actually on YouTube and TikTok, I make videos now. Like on TikTok, I have 50 videos where I show people how to do very basic at-home movements. And I have two rules for myself and the exercises I show people. One, I only do things that I could have done when I was 600 pounds. And I don't do anything that involves getting on the ground and getting back up. Because if you're just, if you're in a larger, in a larger body and you're just starting out, if you go on YouTube and search for like at-home workouts, it's a bunch of people, for the most part, in great shape who are like hopping on the ground and up and down. And for many of us, that's not even in the realm of possibility. So I've tried to create routines and workouts that I did that most people can do that are very accessible. So that's how I started. And then I went to a gym and I started doing resistance training at my gym. Uh, I, because I'd been working out from home a bit, I once I joined the gym, I started working out four days a week. It is a miracle I did not fail. Uh, the only reason I didn't fail is because I'd been doing that from home already, a few minutes at a time. And the stuff you can do from home are very basic, things like box squats. I'm sitting in a chair now. If I were to stand up and sit down 10 times, I've now done 10 squats. You can begin working out. You can do it right now while you're listening to me. You can start every day by sitting on the edge of your bed and standing up and sitting down 10 times. You can do that every morning and every night.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

You are working out. This is valuable resistance training. If you want to make it even better, hold a jug of water or a backpack in your hands. And now you have adding resistance. Now you're doing what's called the goblet squat. So that's how I started. And then I couldn't really walk a whole lot. 30, 30 feet, I'd be out of breath. Once I got to about 475, so I'd lost almost 200 pounds at that point. I started really intentionally walking more. A thousand, two, three thousand steps a day. I slowly built up over time. I now walk at least 12,000 steps a day, which is about six and a half-ish miles for me. I don't do it all at once. I wake up in the morning and I go for a 20-minute walk right away, either outside if I can or just around my house. I have a walking pad that I use. And then every time I eat, I go for a 10-minute walk after I eat. Good for digestion. Uh, also sort of makes you feel better. And you can get a lot of steps in that way. And then I typically do one longer walk a day, an hour or so. And I just prioritize differently. I don't watch as much TV as I used to. I listen to way more podcasts now that I'm wal doing all the walking. And so that's how I incorporated movement in it. Yeah. So uh the New York Times had heard heard about my story from someone at the Obesity Action Coalition, and they reached out and we did a few interviews. I thought it was just gonna the this article was specifically about um, if you want to read it, I have a website called my1change.com. It's linked on there, just the uh free a guest article if you want to read it for free. And I basically just shared my story about why I started moving my body and the joy I get out of it. And I really encourage movement. So much so I've now become a certified personal trainer with the National Academy of Sports Medicine. And because I really want people to know you can exercise, you can work out, you can move your body, and you can get joy just from that movement. People are like, what's the best thing about the weight loss? I don't know if they're, I don't really know what they're expecting me to say, but my answer is usually disappointing, which is, oh, I just like to walk. Like I can get up, I can walk to my car, I can park anywhere in a parking lot, I can go to the grocery store. Like, I can just, I don't have to stop and consider how long am I gonna have to walk, how far away is the door, are there steps involved? I don't have to enter that into my head anymore. So that's my favorite thing about the weight loss, and it's about the joy and movement. So I encourage people to find joy and movement that is not tied to weight loss. I do not move my body and work out and walk to lose weight. I don't do it for weight loss. I do it because it makes me feel good mentally and physically. Is there a weight loss component? Yeah, to some extent, minimally. Certainly it helps me maintain my weight loss. I think that's it's critical for weight loss maintenance, but that's why I do it. And I really want others to do it. So that's why I became I went through all the education to be certified, mostly because I was just wanting to learn more. Because I'm just giving people telling people all the time to do resistance training. I wanted to make sure I know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Definitely. So, what do you see as the future for you? You've been you've grown quite a following, featured in the New York Times. What is what is the future for your your space right now?

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah. So I really sort of view my mission in life at this, and it's crazy. I'm almost I'm 47 now. I'm gonna turn 50 in a few years, which is it's emotional for me thinking about because I I didn't think I would ever turn 50. And so I'm approaching this new phase of my life. And so my mission is really just to try to help people in a few ways. One, if someone needs direct help, I'm happy to help them directly one-on-one. But beyond that, I really want to try to change the fitness industry to be more reflective of those of us who've struggled with obesity over the years. And I want the fitness initiative to be more helpful to these to folks like me. And so I'm now working on occasion with the National Academy of Sports Medicine, which is the number one certifier for personal trainers. They're making it their mission as an organization to make trainers more open and accessible to people who are specifically using a GLP one. You see this, and I don't have to tell you so you see these trainers online who are trashing GLP ones and trashing people who use them and saying it's the easy way out, and when it's really just a tool and it's a treatment for a medical condition. And that just makes my blood boil. That makes me really angry. And it makes the blood boil of the people at NASM who certify these trainers. And so I've been working with them to film content that is geared towards trainers about how do you train someone who has obesity? How do you talk to someone and train someone who has who uses a GLP one? What are these medications? And it's all science and evidence-based, which I really appreciate. And so that's my mission now is just to try to make fitness and movement accessible, not just physically, but emotionally for people who need it by being able to find a trainer and go to a gym or find a trainer on online if they need it who understands their story and cares about them and does so without judgment. So that's what my goal is right now and where the future is. And that's why I'm doing all the social media stuff, which I never I never I didn't I I started posting on social media in it's been eight or nine months now. That's it. I really yeah, I I'm brand new at all of this. I only started this last summer.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yeah. And so I started with zero followers. Now I have like a hundred thousand. I started with zero followers, just like, hey, here's my story. And so it was never my intention to share this stuff anywhere at all, nor to do it as a career or to make money. And I still don't do any of that stuff. But that's so yeah, the future is to try to help people this way.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

That's amazing. That's an amazing thing for you to do for so many people. That's really incredible. So, where can people connect with you if they aren't already connected?

SPEAKER_00 32:36

So you can I have a very easy of a very unique name. I think I'm the only Jamie Sells around the planet. So if you just uh I have a website called mywenechange.com, it has all my social media link there. And so you can find me there. You can just also search my name on you know TikTok or Instagram or YouTube or whatever. One thing I want to kind of leave folks with though is I know that we're talking about weight loss here. Your podcast is about using GLP1 specifically to help with weight loss, and it is something to be celebrated, and I'm happy to, you know, take a pat on the back for this, but it's really important for people to remember that your self-worth, your value is not tied to the scale. That you are worthy of love and respect and empathy and compassion, regardless of the size or shape of your body. And I at 275 pounds now am worth just as much respect as I was when I was 650 pounds. My weight loss should not get me any more respect than I had at the beginning or any more love than I had at the beginning. And so if you are listening to this, especially if you're at the beginning of your journey, and I know many people are because they're like trying to binge all the info that they can find, please don't tie your value to the to your weight. Use the information you've learned today and elsewhere to sort of help you, but don't do it as a goal of finding a way to love yourself because you're worthy of love now. And as you go undergo this change, remember that you can't cannot hate yourself into a body that you love. You can only love yourself into a body that you love. So find things you love about yourself now that will not change as you lose weight and focus on those things, not just on what you're trying to change.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

It's amazing. Perfect summary of all the things, Jamie. Thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate your bravery of sharing your whole story and uh continuing to do it online to help the people.

SPEAKER_00 34:30

Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Thank you so much for listening to this incredibly powerful episode of the GLP One Hub podcast. I'm so grateful Jamie was willing to come on and so bravely share his story and continue to share it over on uh TikTok and Instagram, social media. So please give him a follow. It's he's very, very inspirational. And if you want more support around your journey, make sure you are on the GLP One Hub newsletter. It's called the Steady State newsletter. You can find it down in the show notes below. I send it out every Tuesday with nutrition advice, all sorts of tips to help you along your journey so you can be successful and healthy. So I'll see you in the next episode.