Sohee Lee on Important Fitness Habits & Mindsets

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Hey, this is Mike and welcome to podcast. Podcast in this episode. I have so he Lee back on to talk about some of the key habits and mindsets of [00:03:00] people that succeed in achieving their fitness goals versus those that don’t. Now, in case you’re not familiar with, so he, she’s a writer coach and bikini competitor, and like me, she works hard to spread the good word about the actual science of proper diet, nutrition, and exercise.

Now, in this interview, I wanted her to talk about something that she has really dived into in her own research and writing, and that’s the mental side of fitness. I’ve written and spoken a fair amount about it myself, but I think it’s generally underserved and underappreciated. And I’d actually like to put together an entire book on the subject, but I also would like to do Eight million other things.

So we will see how that plays out. But my point is that we tend to get very focused on the physical things, calories, macros, training, variables, supplementation, and so forth. And we can forget though, that none of that really matters in the long run. If we can’t stick to the plan and enjoy the ride.

And a lot of that is in our minds. [00:04:00] That’s why I’m always talking about creating a sustainable lifestyle first and looking at what that looks like. And then looking at what can be done in the kitchen, in the gym to build the type of body that we really want. Sustainability is the key here. So I hope you like the interview and let’s get to it.

Hey, so he thanks for coming back on the podcast. It’s been a little while since we spoke last. 

Sohee Lee: Hey, Mike, thanks for having me back on. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, my pleasure. All right. So we’re here to talk about something that I guess is right up your alley because you said that this is something that you are, you’ve been focusing a lot on in your career.

research for school. If you want to give a quick breakdown of what are we going to be talking about? 

Sohee Lee: So my actually most of it is my own self interest and the research that I’ve done on my own over the past several years is, which is on a fitness mindset, more specifically understanding behavior change, willpower, motivation, as it relates to health behaviors, as it relates to achieving our body composition goals, as it relates to creating lifestyle [00:05:00] habits.

All that stuff is what I’m interested in, so I’m currently, actually just started my master’s program in psychology to better understand that and learn how to become more effective thinker and a better scientist so I can more effectively interpret the research on willpower and motivation out there and then effectively convey that to the public.

Mike Matthews: Cool. Yeah. And ultimately turn it into something practical that everyone can understand. Oh, 

Sohee Lee: Absolutely. 

Mike Matthews: Do something with. 

Cool. So with that in mind, let’s just start with, what are some of the most common misconceptions that people have on these subjects and how they relate to health and fitness?

And getting the body that we want. 

Sohee Lee: Yeah. So actually we were just talking about that some of my colleagues on this past weekend about willpower and self control and about how a lot of times when, you know, most of the people that I work with tend to be general fat loss clients, they just want to shed.

Maybe 10 to 20 pounds, maybe 30 pounds and do it in a way that doesn’t have them bending over backwards, doesn’t compromise their quality of [00:06:00] life and allows them to sustain their results over the long haul. That’s really what most people want. It wants to come to me anyway. And I find that a lot of times, let’s say they are on a nutrition program that I’ve set up for them or they’re on a workout program and then they’re doing really well for a while.

And then on day eight, they slip up. And they don’t follow the plan perfectly. What tends to happen is that they come to me and their first response is, Oh, I just need more willpower or I need more self control. And I understand this because I used to think this way for probably about six years of my lifting career.

I just thought I wasn’t trying hard enough. I thought that the program wasn’t the problem. It was me. I wasn’t, I wasn’t being strict on myself. So I thought the answer was that I need to pick up my slack. I need to have more self control and white knuckle it even more. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, really put the screws to yourself.

Sohee Lee: Yeah, and that’s the backwards way to think about it, and it really sets you up for failure, I found. [00:07:00] The truth of the matter is, with willpower and with self control, the way I encourage other people to think about it is more like You don’t want to rely on willpower. You should strive to rely on willpower as little as possible to get to where you want to be.

And then in that case, people will say then what, how do I, what do you mean? How do I do what I want to do? Then you want to rely on making lifestyle change, making smaller incremental changes to your everyday behaviors, such that you’re relying less on willpower and more on habit to get the sustainable results.

And if you think about it, it makes sense. The more something is a habit, the less you have to conscientiously think about it in order to make it happen, which means that the more successful you’ll be at it, the less willpower you rely on and the easier it will be to keep up over the long haul.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, exactly. You get to that, you get to that point where, that’s what you’re going to be doing at that time. Okay, so let’s say the habit of working out. You get to a point where, you [00:08:00] know, that let’s say your program is five days a week or three days a week, whatever it’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday, that unless you’re in the hospital Monday at 5 PM, you’re going to be at the gym.

It’s just what you do, just like how, that you’re going to brush your teeth tonight, or you’re going to, wake up tomorrow to go to work or whatever. There’s no question in your mind, whether it’s going to happen or not. 

Sohee Lee: It’s a thing you do by default. And if you don’t do it, then it feels off.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. 

Sohee Lee: So it’s almost becomes with a habit. You also have it when it’s almost harder not to do the behavior. It’s, it feels weird. It feels off. Not for example, let’s say biting your nails. Some people do it and when they don’t do it, they start to get really anxious and they feel this urge to put their fingernails in their mouth.

The same thing with things like working out. You, if you normally work out Monday at 4 PM or 5 PM, then that’s what feels right to you. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And that’s much easier obviously to do is just go with what feels right. So if you can make the right things feel right, then you’re setting yourself up for success.

Yeah. So cool. What’s another common misconception out there? Stay 

Sohee Lee: Behavior change is easy. 

Mike Matthews: Cause I’ll like, yeah, you hear about that. Oh, it [00:09:00] just takes, if you just do something for 30 days, then you’re locked in, 

Sohee Lee: What really grinds my gears with a lot of the coaches in the industry is, and granted, some of it is not entirely their fault because they don’t fully understand how it works.

But when they tell other people and they tell their clients or just to lay public, just do it, or you have to want it. That’s only one small part of the equation. Wanting something is not always sufficient to actually achieving your goal. And 

Mike Matthews: Why what’s your insight on why behavior change is as hard as it is?

And what’s, people think it’s, relatively easy, or they think that it’s just a 30 day thing. And what have you found? 

Sohee Lee: Most people tend to think that behavior change is all about making drastic lifestyle change and hoping it’ll stick and then somehow find themselves surprised when it doesn’t work that way.

And I can empathize because again, that was me for a really long time. Yeah. We’ve all 

Mike Matthews: been there in one way or another. 

Sohee Lee: It never crossed my mind that there was a lot another [00:10:00] way. It never crossed my mind that, Hey, you know what? It actually doesn’t have to be this painful. I couldn’t fathom that. Oh, this feels doable.

That was not a feeling that was familiar to me for a really long time. For whatever reason, I think we’ve been trained to believe that if we want to make drastic lifestyle change, we have to resort to drastic measures when really, if we go the more moderate route and. Be more patient, take smaller steps, then over the long haul, we’re gonna make a lot more drastic change.

And it’s hard to see that because it’s so far in the future, let’s say three months from now. Three months from now, if you employ these small steps on a daily basis, you will be a lot further along than if you try to do these drastic overhaul, lifestyle overhauls that will only stick for about three weeks.

One of the mindset traps that we get ourselves into, it’s called the hot cold empathy gap. Which is where we tend to under appreciate or not fully appreciate [00:11:00] how difficult, or how uncomfortable, or how unpleasant a future situation will be when currently we’re feeling great. When it comes to dieting, for example, let’s just say New Year’s Resolutioners, because that’s, It’s a really popular thing.

A lot of times when, you know, January 1st rolls around, you have a lot of people saying, yes, this is the year I’m gonna get in shape, I’m gonna get the weight off, I’m gonna keep it off for good. And I’m gonna do it in 12 weeks. I’m gonna lose 30 pounds in 12 weeks and keep it off for good. I’m gonna go from working out 0 days a week to 6 days a week.

I’m gonna eat these 12 food items. I’m gonna slash my calories by In half, I’m going to start sleeping more, taking care of my health and really taking things seriously. And they’re expecting to do a 180 degree lifestyle overhaul. They say this when they are well rested, fed, feeling motivated, and they overestimate their abilities to persist through discomfort in the future.

So right now then would be considered a cold situation. The future would be a hot [00:12:00] situation where they cannot empathize. With that future situation, which is why we always many of us tend to set unrealistic goals. That’s why we tend to commit to waking up at a much earlier hour in the morning Then and then when that hour rolls around we’re hitting the snooze button over and over and over So that’s the hot cold empathy gap I think that’s one of the biggest mindset pitfalls that people make.

Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. We’ve all, again, we’ve all been there. We’ve all experienced that. So what’s, is there, are there any other common ones that you’ve come across? Myths, mistakes? 

Sohee Lee: Yes. Let’s see. Interpreting failure, learning from your mistakes. I found that I’m actually writing a blog post on this right now on observations with fat loss clients and what sets the winners apart from those who tend to stumble over and over again.

And honestly, the main thing like comes down to how they view failure or mistakes. And, the ones who tend to do well are the ones who very enthusiastically rebound from a mistake and they go that didn’t work. [00:13:00] Okay. So why did it not work? What can I do better moving forward?

And they’re very proactive with self improvement, whereas those who fail. 

Mike Matthews: They just go right on their, on themselves and how it reflects on their character. It’s 

Sohee Lee: my fault. They internalized the mistake. This is a reflection of my character. I’m obviously not cut out for this. If I ate one cupcake, why not eat a dozen?

Even though logically it doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. They tend to think in very black and white terms. There’s no flexibility. We a lot of people talk about flexible dieting, but I actually think that it’s even more important to have a flexible mindset 

When it comes to your overall fitness regimen.

Carol Black is a researcher at Stanford who has done some Really important entry work on mindset over the years. 

She has a book called Mindset, right? 

Sohee Lee: Yes, which is a great read. Very easy read. I’ve read it twice now. I’d recommend it. 

It’s on my list. I haven’t read it yet. 

Sohee Lee: Yes. I think you can read it in probably one or two days.

Nice. 

Sohee Lee: And she talks about growth mindset. [00:14:00] Versus fixed mindset, which is exactly what we just discussed. Growth mindset is where you are growth oriented, you view failure as a learning opportunity, you are excited by challenges, you do not back down when you are faced with a problem you can’t initially solve right away, and you view talent, you view your ability as something that can be molded and shaped over the years.

Whereas with fixed mindset, you believe that you are stuck with what you were born with. If you were born at a certain challenges level that’s all you get. No amount of effort will improve upon that. So why even bother you like these are the people who like the easy A’s who will take all the easy classes in school just to get the grade to don’t actually care about the learning who will not try in class or just in life in general, because.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Looking for shortcuts and weird tricks to melt belly fat and all that. 

Sohee Lee: And they’re embarrassed to try. They think that trying means that you’re just not that smart to begin with. You shouldn’t have to try. And studies have [00:15:00] consistently shown that those with growth mindset do a lot better in life, have better life satisfaction, have better jobs, but get a great, have better relationships, all that stuff.

And I see it with my clients as well. My clients send in their check ins to me, I can bear it. You can pick up on the general tone of their mood and how their mindset’s doing and the correlation is unmistakable. The people with growth mindset are way more enthusiastic.

They’re less neurotic. They have fewer questions. They are enjoying the journey a lot more and they tend to catastrophe. I can’t even say this word catastrophization. Okay. I haven’t 

Mike Matthews: heard of it, so I can’t help making what is that? 

Sohee Lee: It’s when you make a mountain out of mohill.

Mike Matthews: Oh, okay. So like turning something into a catastrophe. So they don’t do that. 

Sohee Lee: They do not do that. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. So what that’s a good segue into what are, so we’ve covered some of these myths and mistakes. So what are some of the other things that now you’ve coached what, about a thousand people.

[00:16:00] Now, so you’ve seen a lot and I know how that is. And we’ve done thousands of meal plans and worked with tons of people, seen everything. Everybody runs into the same issues more or less. If you just generalize, it’s not that at least that’s what I’ve seen is that is the people that struggle.

It’s not that their problems are all that unique. It’s not like they’re the only ones really dealing with that issue. It’s just they’re dealing with it differently. And you’ve touched on a few of these points, but are there any specific things that you’ve just, top of mind on what do the winners, what are the people that, that do well with their diet and with their training and so forth, what sets them apart from the people that don’t, 

Sohee Lee: yes there’s a big difference.

The winners tend to first of all, obviously important thing is hiring the right coach. If you decide to do work with a coach, because they can really screw you over for the long haul. If you’re. If you’re not careful with who you work with, cause there’s a thing, cause a concept called the psychology of obedience to authority, where Yeah, the 

Mike Matthews: Milner experiments where 

Sohee Lee: People are told to do 

Mike Matthews: ridiculous things by authority, they’ll do it.

Sohee Lee: When we can [00:17:00] tell that it’s clearly not right, even I’m questioning our morals. We will still do what we’re told a lot of the time because we were told to do it by an authority figure, which is why I am led to believe that this is why when it comes to I’m hiring coaches who don’t have your best interest in mind and who don’t really understand the right way to do things, people who are well educated and highly intelligent will still listen to them blindly and end up.

Rebounding really bad later down the road and being completely miserable anyway. 

Mike Matthews: Unfortunately, you see that, but just if you can take, it’d be like for a lot of these people, they’re not, they may be very well educated in a certain field or, in, in certain ways, but in, when it comes to diet and training, they may know nothing.

And they’re just going, Hey, this guy, This is why I think this guy or girl is an expert. I’m just going to do whatever they say. I don’t even, I don’t even know what a calorie is or a macro. I’m just going to, but he’s going to tell me what’s her, she’s going to tell me what to do.

So I’ll just do that. I can understand that. 

Sohee Lee: As a side note, loosely not yeah, very loosely related, I’ve observed that, and I’ve had a number of [00:18:00] conversations with friends about this before I’ve observed that the people who are highly skilled in one area of life. Yeah.

Tend to also tend to be very lopsided where they have major deficits in other areas of their life. 

Mike Matthews: Absolutely. I’ve written about that and I’ve experienced it myself, man. You know how it is because if you want to get really good at something you want to acquire, you want to get skilled enough to, let’s say, make a very good living at something.

You’re looking at thousands of hours of work. Maybe it’s not. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Maybe it’s not 10, 000, that, that research has been qualified at least by later research. But you’re still looking at thousands of hours. You have to obsess over something. So you have to choose to be, we only have so many hours in the day.

You can’t be a Jack of all trades if you want to be a master of something. I know. I’m not going to say I’ve mastered anything, but at least I’ve experienced that where I’ve come to my own. Like I know a lot about some of these things, but there’s a lot of things I just don’t know anything about.

I’m pretty ignorant in many ways, actually. 

Sohee Lee: I think it’s amusing. I don’t think it’s good or bad. I think that’s just amusing. I’ve got a friend who has a PhD who doesn’t know how to open and close [00:19:00] Tupperware, doesn’t know how to do laundry, simple everyday things. And you look at that and you think they should know because they have a PhD, but you realize it’s a whole different domain.

Yeah, they are not expected to know those things. And yeah I’ve observed that in myself as well. And when it comes to fitness, also, you have these highly accomplished people in their professional careers who come to you, they’re a lawyer who did this and this, they’re doctors, et cetera.

And then when it comes to fitness, they just, Have no, and then you talk to them and they realize you realize they’ve been doing every single thing wrong for the past 20 years of their lives when it comes to nutrition and working out. Yeah. Anyway the winners tend to be, so even, okay, let’s say regardless of whether or not you hire a coach winners, things they do well.

Winners are very proactive with their learning and their journey. So even if they do have a coach, and the coach says, Okay, here’s what you’re going to do with your workout. Here are your exercises, sets, and reps. These are the days you’re going to work out, etc. Let’s just say I were to tell a client, Okay, you’re going to do barbell rows for three sets of eight, with this many seconds for [00:20:00] rest, and they don’t know what a barbell row is.

Or they think they know, but they’re not sure. So instead of sitting there emailing me and being like, what’s the barbell row? They might go to YouTube first, type it in and be like, Oh, that’s what it is. I know what that is. And then not have to ask me at all. Just because they have a coach or they have access to free information, they don’t abuse it.

And they’re still thinking, how can I. Get the most out of this journey on my own. And they’re in the gym there. They pay attention to their exercises. They might come back with, let’s say I prescribe barbell hip thrust three sets of five, they might do that and come back and say, I like this movement. But I didn’t really feel it in my glutes so much.

What am I doing wrong? So they’ll speak up when needed rather than just staying quiet. But at the same time, they don’t obsess over ask, the my news, they don’t assess over the minutiae. And we don’t, what I tell my clients a lot of time, Is you hired [00:21:00] me for a reason you hired you’re paying me money You hired me as your coach because you want me to take over the reins of your workout your dieting and your training Your job is to execute the program.

My job is to do the worrying you hired me to worry for you on your behalf To do the thinking for you to create the program. So all you have to do is execute do not worry Do not stress do not worry about What kinds of results are going to see? And I want you to focus on the process itself. That’s what they do.

The winners, they are more process oriented. They focus on the journey. They let the results take care of themselves. And I tell them, if you focus on adhering to the program consistently, which is the priority, adhere to the program consistently, you will get to eventually get to where you want to be.

However, if you obsess over the end goal. And try to skip steps along the way. You’ll never going to get there. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen that a lot myself also with a lot of readers, people that, I have sold [00:22:00] and sell a lot of books. So I hear from people every day that they’ll go, Hey, I read your book. I liked it.

I did exactly what it said for six months and check it out. And now I’m, 35 pounds lighter. And I’ve doubled my strength across the board. That’s 

Sohee Lee: awesome. 

Mike Matthews: That’s great. 

Sohee Lee: They were not necessarily aiming for those specific numbers. And I don’t know about you, Mike, what I’ve noticed is that a lot of people try to set weight loss goals or specific body weight goals where they want to gain a certain amount of weight or lose 20.

They want to weigh 120 pounds. Why? I don’t know. It’s arbitrary, but they are so fixated on achieving a certain number. And I just, I had to write, I wrote a blog post about this not long ago. On how, relying solely on scale weight can be very misleading, and especially when you throw resistance training into the mix, everything with body weight changes.

And so I have to constantly teach people how to detach themselves from the scale weight, which is not to say that it’s not important, I think it is important, and can be a very valuable tool, it provides important data. But, to rely only on [00:23:00] that, and to ignore other indicators of progress, body circumference measurements.

Progress pictures, strength in the gym, quality of life, things like that would be misguided. And those who do well are not married to a bodyweight goal. They go let’s say you’re doing a bikini competition. I’ll use myself for an example. When I two and a half years ago, I wanted to make my come back onto the bikini stage after having taken a number of years off.

And I, at the time, I was 5’2 124 pounds. And I heard my coach, who was a friend of mine, and I said, Here’s where I think I will end up on stage. What do you think? He goes, Yeah, that sounds about right. I go, Okay. This is my expectation in my head, but I’m going to be very flexible with it. I may end up right on, right at 102 pounds, which is what we had predicted.

I might be a few pounds over, I might be a few pounds under. But it just gives me a good ballpark, general area just to know what to expect. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, especially when you, cause you know your [00:24:00] body if you’ve done it before. 

Sohee Lee: And I’m like, okay, it looks like I have about this many pounds of body fat to lose.

And, okay, so anyway, over the next six or so months so I strict, I dieted, actively dieted for four months, but before then I had lost weight on my own without really trying, which is a whole other topic. I had lost about eight pounds on my own without actively trying to diet. And then, so I did a 20 week structured prep, and I came in on stage at a hundred and, I want to say a hundred and five pounds or a hundred and six pounds.

Anyway I was thrilled with my look, because this, it was the leanest I had looked in a really long time. I did not get to my predicted goal weight of a hundred and two pounds. But that was more than fine because on the bikini stage in everyday life, people don’t look at you and judge your physique based on your body weight.

They see what they see. It’s how do you actually look aesthetically. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: And that’s the point. Cause I get people that write in all the time asking, especially yeah, I guess both guys and girls that are. That are new to weightlifting and usually have quite a bit of [00:25:00] fat to lose where they’re trying to set that.

I just, what should my what should my goal weight be? Or they’ll come with some number in mind. And I, so I know exactly what I mean, I tell him, look, let’s just go by how you look in the mirror and then let’s see what that is for you. We could say that, okay. The look that you want, if the guy, okay.

Sounds like you want to be around 10 percent body fat. So you have abs and blah, blah, blah. Okay. So the girl, maybe you want to be around 20%. So we can say that as a. At least that’s a little bit better of a metric than just straight body weight. But I totally agree that just learn it. That’s part of learning your body to really is how do you look at different weights?

Do you like that then? Okay. If you don’t, then change it. 

Sohee Lee: And then, I tell people all the time when it comes to physicals, it’s fine to set a body weight. Goal, but don’t be married to it. Rather you want to set a target. Look. 

Yeah 

Sohee Lee: at the same time I find myself saying this more to women than men because women tend to they one they have less body Muscle mass to begin with and two they have a harder time building muscle mass and [00:26:00] oftentimes Where they are now versus where they want to be with their end goal physique wise you can’t get there with one round of fat loss You can’t get there with one round of building muscle or that you can’t get there in the time frame that they want.

What’s funny, when I first started my fitness journey almost nine years ago now with my weightlifting journey, I was at 5’2 1’10 and so I’m actually, nine years later, I’m, again, I’m 1’9 ish. Now, so I’m essentially the same body weight, but my body comp is completely different because I’ve been lifting for nine years anyway, but at the beginning I thought, so I first discovered lifting weights when I came up with a similar cost on the oxygen magazine at the grocery store and I saw the magazine cover.

I don’t remember who was on the cover, there’s the fit muscular fitness model. Lean, feminine very athletic. And I became a possessed because that was the first time I realized that you didn’t have to be a professional athlete to look that way. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember having a similar moment.

I was like, I could look like that. Really? 

Sohee Lee: And, but here’s the thing I thought I could [00:27:00] get that look in six months. I thought that was, I go, that’s, that seems realistic to me to get the, the cap delts and the big quads. And here I am nine years later, I’m a bikini pro. Cause I just could, I don’t have it.

I’ve been lifting heavy and hard for nine years and I don’t have cap delts. And I always joke that even now I don’t even look like I lift when I’m fully closed. And which is, 

Mike Matthews: that’s just ’cause you stay lean like that. That’s, any, anybody that stays lean barely looks like they lift unless they’re just freaks or on drugs.

Sohee Lee: And I say all the time, I’d rather be lean year round and be a little bit less muscular and a little bit not, just not quite as strong as I would like then to fluctuate. 20, 30 pounds. Yeah. Throughout the year. No I’m the same day I’m with you. 

Mike Matthews: It’s not fun. It’s not fun at all.

You just get to that point where like. You just hate eating the amount of food you have to eat. And I totally know how that is. 

Sohee Lee: Yeah. And so at the time I didn’t realize how, no one talked about the time they thought you just, if you work hard, you’ll get to where you want to be.

And I realized now, you know what genetics [00:28:00] actually matters. People don’t want to talk about it, but it absolutely matters. It determines your potential for getting muscle, for getting strength, all those things. And, I’ve known women who have been lifting for one year, and they’re already more muscular than I am, and that’s genetics.

It’s not 

Mike Matthews: or a or drugs if but if drugs aren’t involved then yeah, 

Sohee Lee: right and It’s sad because people develop these egos. They go. I’m more muscular than you because I’ve been working harder than you And that’s not that I work, we were people with subpar genetics were very average in X work A lot of times work just as hard as those with elite level genetics.

And it’s just the way that it works out. We don’t have control over our genetics and they just happen to do better than us. So anyway, that was us. Greg 

Mike Matthews: Knuckles wrote a good article on that for anyone listening. If you go to strength theory and go to search, Google strength theory, genetics, whatever.

I think he wrote it. I think that’s where I saw it. It was a good article on it. 

Sohee Lee: Cool. Yeah, he’s a great guy to follow. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. So let me throw this out there as obviously here’s a common issue that [00:29:00] anybody that has tried to diet down and get lean has run into. So how do the people that do well, like deal with specific things, like for instance just slipping up.

On diet and eating too much for a day or eating stuff that they weren’t supposed to eat or missing workouts. You talked about this earlier, just in that, like the growth mindset versus fix, but there any, are there any specific behaviors that you’ve seen, even ways that they look at it, like what their attitudes are, their perspectives on making mistakes.

Sohee Lee: Yeah, so remember before I mentioned briefly the black and white mindset. 

Mike Matthews: Sure. 

Sohee Lee: And how those who Struggle have a very fixed way of thinking it has to be this extreme or that extreme There is no middle ground and the thing is and it seems backwards is navigating that middle area I like that what I call the gray area.

That’s Moderation is really difficult and two years ago, one of my clients said this to me and I stuck with me ever since she was submitting a check in was just talking about, general behavior change. She goes, [00:30:00] extremes are easy. Moderation is so freaking hard. 

It’s true.

Sohee Lee: And I’m like, man, I just had a light bulb moment. Then I go, that’s completely true. Moderation is hard, but those who are willing, 

Mike Matthews: I think that’s especially true with people, even cause you have a lot of people that are, that come to you and that come to me pretty there, there are Lisa there, there are a lot of people that are fairly motivated to do what they want to do.

So it’s just, There’s that desire to just go all in and thinking that it’s either it’s on or off. It’s yes or no, it’s black and white. Either you’re doing every, either you’re fully on and you’re fully into it or you’re fully off and fuck it. You know what I mean? 

Sohee Lee: And they think if you’re going to do it, you might as well go all out.

Mike Matthews: Yeah. And if, and then if you’re not able to go all out, then, what’s the point. And unfortunately, I think this is a lot of it seems to just happen subconsciously. It’s like you necessarily think those things that just, there’s something going on behind the scenes. 

Sohee Lee: Exactly.

And, I find that the people who tend to do well, they don’t bounce from [00:31:00] one extreme to another, rather they fluctuate a little bit within the moderation area, so let’s say we have one extreme is from a one to scale of one to ten, we have one is one extreme is one is completely sedentary lifestyle your diet is, Full of nutrient devoid foods.

Your calories are through the roof. You’re just not living a healthy lifestyle. 

Yeah. 

Sohee Lee: Then you have 10, which is the opposite extreme. You’re working out too much. You’re not giving yourself enough rest. You’re not eating enough calories. You’re eating like five food, different foods a day.

That’s it. You have no social life. You feel like crap, et cetera. So you have 1 to 10. A lot of people who struggle in yo diet, et cetera, they tend to bounce from 1 to 10 throughout the year. They go 1, 10, 1, 10. People who do well, rather than, they never even get close to 1 or to 10. They go more from let’s just say 4 to 6.

So maybe if one day they tend to overeat a little bit, let’s say they were at a birthday party or something and they had a few extra slices of birthday [00:32:00] cake, then the next day, rather than crash dieting, they go, okay, they tend to auto regulate and 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, just eat a bit less the next day. Just 

Sohee Lee: Back away a little bit, like there, there’s no need to starve yourself. They just go maybe I ate, 500 extra calories today. So tomorrow I might go for an extra walk, extra 30 minute walk, nothing crazy. And skip dessert tomorrow night. That’s it. Other people will look at them and go, that’s it? Yeah, that’s it.

Because I, again, I say that the less you rely on. Self control and willpower the better off you’ll be so for me. I’m always thinking. How can I make this more automatic? How can I make this behavior more automatic and yeah, there’s this myth out there that people who say lean your round And who don’t fluctuate in weight are always relying on self control to do the right health behaviors every day you’ve lived this lifestyle for a while now.

I have lived this lifestyle for a while now We can attest to the fact that we’re not sitting here grinding our gears every single day 

Yeah. 

Sohee Lee: We’re not like, Oh [00:33:00] God, it’s so hard to eat this much protein every day. It’s so hard to 

get in the gym and, 

Sohee Lee: Yeah, have a moderate calorie intake. It’s what we do now.

This is our default behavior now because we’ve worked to set up these. This is our default lifestyle. We do not rely on extra willpower. However, I will say, in fact, 

Mike Matthews: It gets to the point where it requires willpower to not do those things. Like you were saying previously, 

Sohee Lee: right? 

Mike Matthews: Like I’m taking a week off the gym this week cause I haven’t taken I’ve taken a little bit of rest in the last couple of months, but it’s been a while since I’ve just done no exercise for a week.

And I was just feeling it’s time to chill out. So I don’t, it’s fine, but it takes more willpower for me to stay out of the gym and continue doing it. 

Sohee Lee: So one thing I will say though, is that it’s not that so most of the time you don’t want to rely on self control as your default. However, When there are circumstances where it might behoove you to use your willpower to do the right thing, then the people who are leaner tend to be more effective.

Mike Matthews: So because in that way, you’re not as exhausted from constantly fighting yourself. [00:34:00] 

Sohee Lee: Yeah, so yeah there’s that too. We can’t avoid using willpower all the time. Sure. But you want to minimize that as much as possible. Yeah. So things like, 

Mike Matthews: I think it’s even ties into decision making, right?

That’s like the thing that’s repeated over and over. I think it’s Zuckerberg. Why? And then Steve jobs, same thing. I’m like, why they wore the same clothes every day or something is because they don’t want to waste time making decisions on that stuff. They have, they only have so much mental energy and analytical power and, same thing with food.

That’s why personally, when I’m dieting, I like to eat the same foods every day. I just don’t want to think about what am I going to eat? I have too many other things to think about. 

Sohee Lee: And what’s interesting is two years ago, I used to believe, and I used to say that when it comes to abstaining from junk food, for example, it’s not a matter of not keeping it in your home.

It’s learning how to have a healthy relationship with yourself, with the junk food. I’ve changed my view since then from the reading that I’ve done and whatnot. If you have a food available to you, you’re more likely to eat it. That’s how it is. And especially if you have a desire to eat said food [00:35:00] and, my friend Josh Hillis wrote and is one of his books not long ago.

You’re going to eat what you have access to. And I’ve since said that to my clients. So many different times you’re going to eat what you have access to. So if you have junk food in your home, chances are you’re going to eat it at some point. And conversely, if you don’t have nutrient dense food in your home, if you don’t have, eggs in your home, you’re not going to eat eggs 

or vegetables or fruit, 

Sohee Lee: right?

And I’m at the point now where, I would consider myself to be more advanced in my nutrition journey than most people. I’m at the point now where I can keep junk food in my home and not succumb to it every single night. It’s not a problem for me. Because I, especially with one with the flexible dining approach and two just honing my mindset over the years and making that my priority, I don’t, I’m not at the point where junk food, it controls me where I obsess over it or have a strong desire for it, really.

So I’m okay having junk food around the house, but I think for the beginner or someone who’s just starting out on their [00:36:00] journeys, maybe remove that as an option to start out with. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. That’s just a simple, it reminds me of a book called triggers, which is like Marshall Goldsmith or something, but just talks a lot about environment and a lot of people don’t realize how many environmental triggers there are that trigger all kinds of thoughts and behaviors.

So this is a good example of one of just looking at the box of, yeah, looking at the box of cocoa. Pebbles or whatever it, that can put, gears in motion that are hard to stop. So why even subject yourself to that? Just, when you’re, while you’re cutting, just know, don’t even, just don’t buy the cocoa pebbles.

Sohee Lee: The whole goal with modifying your environment is to make. The right behavior, the easier thing to do. 

Mike Matthews: I think there’s also something we said for managing expectations going in. This kind of goes back to the moderation point you’re bringing up, where if you go into it expecting that, and I’ve include this in my books and talk about whatever, but that don’t expect that you’re going to, you’re going to slip up on some days, expect that you’re going to miss some workouts now and then don’t like already get ready for it now, mentally.

How is that going to feel? [00:37:00] How are you going to feel when you overeat on that, on the, on that day? Cool. Cause it’s going to happen. So just be ready for it. And then from there, you can work out when it does happen. How are you going to respond to it? Work it out right now, in, in premeditation, premeditate your failure essentially, and decide how are you going to think about it and what are you going to do about it?

So then when it does happen, that can kick in as opposed to panic mode. 

Sohee Lee: Exactly. Yeah. Very good. And also have a more long term view of where you want to be. And a lot of people, they go I want to do this for 12 weeks. And I go, what about week 13, day one? And then they don’t, they haven’t even thought that far ahead.

Mike Matthews: Is there anything that your successful clients that you, that comes to mind on that aspect of it in that it isn’t just a crash, they’re not here to just lose 50 pounds in nine weeks or something. How do they look at it and how do they make it more of a lifestyle, which is the ideal approach.

Sohee Lee: I tell my clients, my goal with working with you is not to have you stay with me. As a client forever, that’s 

Mike Matthews: in my, that’s on my [00:38:00] sales page is that I want you to fire me after 90 days. That’s actually what I want. 

Sohee Lee: My goal is for you to learn how to do this on your own. And whenever you decide to part ways, which I will take absolutely zero offense to, in fact, I may be slightly excited about that because it means you’re going to be more independent.

I fully expect you to continue implementing the lessons that you’ve learned with me. And maybe six months or a year from now, I’d love to hear from you just to be like, Hey, just say, Hey, so he I worked with you this long ago. Here are the lessons you’ve taught me. Here’s what I’ve done since then.

And guess what? Look at me. I’ve maintained my measurements. You’re here. My life is great. Still. I’ve gotten this promotion at work. I’ve gotten this PR in the gym and you were right there. There’s never a time when I’m done learning on my journey. Here are some lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

Here’s what I’ve changed with my program, et cetera. So I expect my clients to always be implementing lessons and always be paying attention to how they’re [00:39:00] eating and how they’re exercising and how it’s making them feel and modifying accordingly, because there’s never a point. There’s never a point when you’re done.

Mike Matthews: Yep. And also you could say continuing to educate themselves too. 

Sohee Lee: And recognizing that there’s always more that you can learn. There are always ways to get better. There’s never a time that you’re going to wake up, or there should never, there should not be anyway. There should never be a time when you wake up and say, Oh, I’ve made it.

I’m done. I’m done. I don’t need to try hard anymore. I don’t need to Cruise 

Mike Matthews: control has activated. 

Sohee Lee: Learning is finished. And Those who really learn to enjoy the process and love what they’re doing, they’re the ones who, continually show up day after day, who are like, who are excited to make an observation about their eating behaviors or something.

They do really well. 

Mike Matthews: Awesome. I think that’s a good place to to wrap up. Is there any other major points you think we should cover? 

Sohee Lee: I don’t know if I I guess I should bring it up. On a related note, I know Some of the listeners out there, [00:40:00] when it comes to self control and willpower, may think of ego depletion, which is the concept that self control is limited.

A limited resource, and the more you use it, the less of it you have. Helps to explain a lot of things. Behaviors things like why do people tend to cave on their diets at night? Oh, that’s because willpower is low obviously Why do people tend to get really snappy when they’re on a diet? They get really cranky because they’re using all their willpower to adhere their diets 

Yep, 

Sohee Lee: it makes sense right and number of studies have shown that will ego depletion is a real thing, etc Earlier this year, shook my world, earlier this year, Registered Replication Report came out where they tested the ego depletion effect in 23 different laboratories with over 2400 different participants, which is A pretty large number.

Yeah, it’s a good sample size. 

Sohee Lee: Yeah, great. And they replicated one of the self control protocols. One of the most [00:41:00] popular ones that they used to test for the ego depletion effect. And they found that the effect size was not that big. And the authors are now speculating that maybe the effect size Results of previous studies have been exaggerated or something And anyway, they’re now calling into question whether or not ego depletion actually exists I’ve 

Mike Matthews: seen research when I first come across this.

I may have come across it in a called the willpower Effect if I forget who wrote it, I wrote I read it. 

Sohee Lee: The Willpower, 

Mike Matthews: willpower something. 

Sohee Lee: Willpower Instinct? 

Mike Matthews: That one. Yeah. I think that’s, it’s either that or the other the, it’s just called Willpower. Again, I read these books a while ago, I don’t remember the name of the authors but that, yeah, that it may be influenced by how people feel.

If somebody feels like they’re all stressed out and they don’t have enough willpower that alone can be enough to basically it’s a self fulfilling prophecy. Whereas people that go into [00:42:00] something just feeling that, they have a lot of willpower and they’re not super stressed about things and they can do it.

Oh, 

Sohee Lee: Yes it’s actually, that was, I think Carol Dweck there was a study that Carol Dweck was a part of it. It said that self control is limited. Dependent upon whether or not you believe it’s limited. 

Mike Matthews: Exactly. 

Sohee Lee: Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: So there’s that there’s also, if I remember correctly, there’s research that indicated that the more you exercise your willpower the stronger it can become like a muscle in the body.

Oh, 

Sohee Lee: Kelly McConagall took that. Approach. Yeah, there are a number of different theories to that, that they try to explain that you get a patient model. There’s the energy model, which says it depends upon your blood glucose levels. There’s the motivational model, which says it’s not about the blood glucose per se, but about motivation.

And then, there are a number of different ones. But with science and things like that, I try not to take a super hard stance. Yeah, of 

Mike Matthews: course. Because who knows? In six months, it might be Something else might come out that says, Oh no. This is definitely true. And then jump on that.

And then another one says, Oh maybe it wasn’t definitely true. Maybe it’s more just under these [00:43:00] circumstances. 

Sohee Lee: And so now I’m realizing that with ego depletion, we maybe don’t have enough evidence right now to say, yes, ego depletion is a real thing, but we also don’t have enough evidence to completely reject ego depletion.

In fact, just yet, however, here’s my issue. Okay. UNDP should may not exist, but it feels real. 

Mike Matthews: Sure. 

Sohee Lee: The phenomenon feels real. So how do we explain that? 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Why? Why is it happening? 

Sohee Lee: Yeah. Those are the next steps. There’s no denying the end of the end of the day. You have, you tend to have less control over your behaviors.

You tend to make poor decisions. I think that much is undeniable. Pretty much all across the board with just about everyone. What same thing when you’re stressed 

or if you’re tired or. 

Sohee Lee: Yeah, exactly. So I think that the principles of ego depletion can still apply at least for now until we know more, the practical applications of ego depletion effect.

I still use with my clients because it still works, but that’s just one thing, one thing to keep in mind. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, no, that’s a great point [00:44:00] for people that have dug into this stuff a bit more because they will have come across that. 

Sohee Lee: Yes. And I really, honestly, I, it was really frustrating for me when that came out.

Cause it just. But right up until then, it was just so easy. It made so much sense to explain behavior. And, but as we’ll come to, to realize the world is rarely ever explained in such a pretty package and very rarely does it, does the world very neatly fit into a model like that?

Mike Matthews: Yeah. Now it’s just black and white and you can just say yes or no. 

Sohee Lee: Yeah. So hopefully in the next few years and actually I might be looking into this as my research topic for my master’s thesis is to look further into ego depletion. Hopefully get more questions answered, but we, there, there’s, there are so many questions out there, who knows what we’re going to learn in the next few years.

Mike Matthews: Totally. Totally. Awesome. That’s great. No, that’s, I’m glad you brought that up. So I think what we should do is wrap up with where can people find you? And also what are your, what, if you have any projects you’re working on? 

Sohee Lee: Yes. I am available just about on every platform. I do not Snapchat.

[00:45:00] However, 

Mike Matthews: Same. I just can’t, I can’t get into it. I’m just not a social media. Yeah, I think I 

Sohee Lee: downloaded it maybe about a year and a half ago, but I never, and then I deleted it. So like people are like, but I have you as a Snapchat friend. I’m like you do. I don’t even, 

I don’t know if 

Sohee Lee: I can. Anyway, I’ve never snapped or anything.

So I have everything. Online of mine is so he fit. So my blog, so he fit. com, my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Also he fit. And 

Mike Matthews: just so everybody knows that’s S O H E E. 

Sohee Lee: Yes. F I T correct. 

Mike Matthews: Sure. 

Sohee Lee: And then I’m. Currently in my first semester of grad school, which is a two year program, I’ll be pursuing my master’s in psychology, as it relates to health behaviors, as it relates to fitness in general, so I will not be, I’ve gotten some questions, I’m not leaving the fitness industry.

I’m trying to improve upon it. From an angle that I think has been grossly overlooked over the years. And for sure, 

Mike Matthews: because it’s easier to talk about, calories and [00:46:00] workouts because those are a lot more straightforward, 

Sohee Lee: right? So I’m not leaving. I’m very much doing the opposite, I have slowed down my business a little bit to make room for school and whatnot.

So anyway, I’m pursuing my master’s right now. I also just. Finished writing my first book. Awesome. Written, yeah, with Human Kinetics. It’s called Eat, Live, Thrive, which is my brand slogan. Eat, Live, Thrive will be tentatively published next June. So June of 2017 will be in bookstores near you.

Awesome. And, thank you. And I I most, when it comes to social media I’m most active on Instagram and I talk about my book. I’m very open with my journey. I just you know, I Over the past several months i’ll say, I just finished taking all the pictures for my lower body exercises Just finished my upper body just submitted my first draft of the book And so I keep everyone up to date on the progress with that and i’ve currently got my first my official photo shoot for the book in December and all that stuff.

But that’s my next big project. But until then, I don’t think I’ll be [00:47:00] working on any other projects in the meantime. 

Mike Matthews: What? You have to sleep? What’s wrong with you? 

Sohee Lee: Yeah. How amazing 

Mike Matthews: would it be if you didn’t have to sleep? 

Sohee Lee: I, what’s the, I actually I need more sleep than anyone. I know I sleep about nine, 10 hours a night just to feel fully functional, which is highly inconvenient.

And I’ve tried getting by on less sleep and I, if I get six, seven hours, I’m very cranky. And I’ve always said, Do you know how nice it would be to get by on two hours of sleep and feel completely alert in the best mood? It would be amazing. It would 

Mike Matthews: change your life. 

Sohee Lee: Oh my gosh, it would be great.

But at the same time, I also wonder, what if I would just fill out time with more crap? Maybe, what if I would just watch more episodes of my favorite TV show? Would that 

Mike Matthews: even be worse, though, if you didn’t have to sleep? 

Sohee Lee: I don’t know. I wonder that. 

Mike Matthews: Maybe that would just make you even more, satisfied in that you can do all your work and watch all the TV shows.

Sohee Lee: That would be nice, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point where I get to experience that. 

Mike Matthews: Maybe aliens will come. Maybe that’s what they’re going to do for us. 

Sohee Lee: [00:48:00] Maybe. 

Mike Matthews: Okay. Great. Cool. So you have the book coming out. People can find you. Sophie. So he fit. com. And I highly recommend that you go check.

And you also do quite a bit of. Podcast interviews and so forth so people can find all kinds of stuff out there. 

Sohee Lee: Yes. 

Mike Matthews: I myself have been following your work from release. 

Sohee Lee: Oh, thank you. 

Mike Matthews: Since the last time we spoke. So I recommend everybody go and follow Zoe. She’s good. 

Sohee Lee: Awesome. Thanks for having me on again, Mike.

Mike Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for taking your time. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you like the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.

muscleforlife. com where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscleforlife.

com. Alright, thanks again. [00:49:00] Bye.