Million Pound Weight Loss Challenge with Stanley Bronstein

Many thanks to Stanley Bronstein, CPA, attorney, author of the 7 “Ways of Excellence” books, and leader of the Million Pound Weight Loss Challenge. One day, when Stanley was about to turn 50 years old, he realized that he was going to die, very soon, if he didn’t do something about the 350 pounds he was carrying around. He lost 100 pounds with Weight Watchers, but put most of it back on. Finally, he discovered a more permanent solution.

Today, Stanley is a trim 145, and he’s maintained that slender frame for more than 15 years. He makes sure his dogs have a healthy diet, too.

Stanley found the secret to weight loss, and he’s eager to share it.

To learn more, tune in to our 40-minute conversation here:

You can contact Stanley here: https://stanleybronstein.com

For more on healthy eating, check out Podcast #148 on October 12, 2025, with Courtney Cowie, LBT.

#weightloss #millionpoundweightlosschallenge #wayofexcellence #weightwatchers

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Transcript

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (0:07 - 1:13)

Welcome to the Art of Medicine, the program that explores the arts, business, and clinical aspects of the practice of medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Wilner. I've planned a great program for today, but first, a word from our sponsor, locumstory.com.

Locumstory.com is a free, unbiased educational resource about locum tenens. It's not an agency. Locumstory answers your questions on their website, podcasts, webinars, videos, and they even have a locums 101 crash course.

Learn about locums and get insights from real-life physicians, PAs, and NPs at locumstory.com. Today, my guest is Stanley Bronstein, author, CPA, attorney, and creator of the Million Pound Weight Loss Challenge. Stanley is a trim, 145 pounds, but he wasn't always that way.

He found his own body transformation so inspiring that he decided to share his method with others. Stanley, welcome to the Art of Medicine.

[Stanley Bronstein] (1:14 - 1:17)

Thank you for having me, doctor. Very much glad to be here.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (1:17 - 1:37)

Well, Stanley, you've written seven books in the Way of Excellence series, and you have this Million Pound Challenge. You're also a successive business person. You're an attorney or a CPA.

By the way, I'll just add, my dad was an attorney and a CPA. We're very rare.

[Stanley Bronstein] (1:37 - 1:40)

I estimate there's not a whole heck of a lot of us in the country.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (1:40 - 1:51)

You know, because both of those professions are actually quite demanding, but I remember he said that there was a group of people who did both.

[Stanley Bronstein] (1:51 - 1:54)

American Institute of CPAs.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (1:54 - 2:02)

There you go. Attorney CPAs. Attorneys and CPAs.

Are you still employed? Are you still working full-time? I still work.

[Stanley Bronstein] (2:03 - 2:34)

I work full-time, but I don't work as much in my legal and accounting practice simply because I'm in a stage in my life where I have become selective about what I do. If somebody comes to me with a good client on a really good deal, I'm going to say, thank you very much, and I'm going to work on it. If it's just some little nothing thing that comes in the door, I'm not particularly interested because you're able to do that as you reach a certain stage in your life.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (2:34 - 2:48)

Right. So that's a goal to have the privilege to be selective and not have to do everything just so you can pay the mortgage and eat. So let's talk about eating.

So you used to eat a lot.

[Stanley Bronstein] (2:49 - 2:57)

Yes, I did. I used to eat this much a lot. That's a lot.

That was me at 367 pounds.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (2:58 - 3:12)

I think that just goes to the root of all this, that people are overweight and they say, why am I overweight? Frankly, sometimes I just can't help but say it's not that politically correct, but it's because you eat too much.

[Stanley Bronstein] (3:12 - 3:42)

It's not necessarily that you eat too much. It's that you eat too much unhealthy, crappy, non-nutritious food. Because what I counsel people, especially when they're starting out, is now, granted, you have to put some limits on it, but I tell people, if you will only put nutritious, healthy food in your mouth, and if you will quit eating when you get full, you can pretty much eat whatever you want.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (3:44 - 4:05)

I have a recommendation that works for me, and that you can eat as much as you want of anything as long as you don't like it. Like Brussels sprouts, or something healthy that really doesn't excite you. Eat as much as you want.

[Stanley Bronstein] (4:05 - 4:22)

Well, you know what's funny? My taste buds changed. When I was growing up, you couldn't get me to eat greens.

You couldn't get me to eat tomatoes, even, and things like that. And now I eat them all the time. So your taste buds can change.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (4:23 - 4:51)

All right, well, let's back up. I think one of the most important things that you can share with us is you were overweight. You were overweight for a long time, and like more than half of America.

So the question is, what made you able to change that? Because everybody says, oh yeah, I'd love to lose weight, and it rarely happens. But in your case, you did, and you've kept it off.

So there's a secret. How did that happen? What was the motivation?

[Stanley Bronstein] (4:52 - 8:53)

I'm going to give you a little bit more history around the story. I'm going to take five minutes, and I'm going to give you the full story that ultimately answers that question, but gives a lot more information as well, if that's okay. That's perfect.

My journey started when I was eight years old. My mother died. Needless to say, that messed with my head, and I was living with my massively obese father.

He was already big. And we both ate ourselves into oblivion. And if you look at my pictures from that time, I just got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

You know how a lot of men say their goal is to be able to wear the suit they got married in? If I still had it, which I don't, I could wear my suit I got bar mitzvahed in at 13, and it would be big on me. So I weighed less than I did when I was 13 years old, and I actually found some pictures to prove it.

So I was big. Several times along the way, I would lose some weight, and then I'd go back to my old habits. And when I went back to my old habits, I started gaining more weight.

So that leads me to draw this conclusion. Temporary changes, you're going to get temporary results. Permanent changes, you'll get permanent results.

It was not until I made permanent changes that I kept my weight off. So that's one of the things I learned from here. Somewhere along the way in that journey, I lost 100 pounds from Weight Watchers.

I got my 100-pound ribbon, but I don't advocate their program anymore because I advocate something that I think is much better. But I did their program. I got my 100-pound ribbon, and then I went back to my old habits.

I put on almost all the weight, but 40 pounds of it stayed off. And you know why 40 pounds of it stayed off? Back to the temporary changes, temporary, permanent, permanent.

One permanent change I made, didn't realize it at the time, I used to eat full meals in the middle of the night. I would wake up, and I'd go to the fridge, and I would eat a full meal in the middle of the night. When I started on Weight Watchers, I was eating their frozen dinners, which I don't recommend because they're loaded with sodium.

But I didn't know what I know now, and that's what I was eating then. So I'd wake up in the middle of the night hungry, wanting to eat. I went to the freezer.

I pulled out the box that had the picture on it of what was inside the box. I looked at the picture. I said, I know what that tastes like.

That was delicious. And then I put the box back in the freezer, and I went back to sleep. So that broke me from eating in the middle of the night.

So the eating in the middle of the night was good for 40 pounds off right there, breaking that one habit permanently. So I maxed out as I was getting ready to turn 50, which was 17 years ago, almost exactly 17 years ago. I'm 66 now, but I was four months away from my 50th birthday.

I weighed 320 pounds. I hadn't had a heart attack yet. I hadn't had a stroke yet.

I hadn't collapsed from diabetes yet. I wasn't on high blood pressure medication yet, but I probably should have been, but I wasn't going to the doctor, you know, all those good things. And like all men who are getting ready to turn 50, you start asking yourself some questions.

And I said, where am I going to be in five years if I keep doing what I'm doing? And I didn't like the answer. Can you guess what the answer was?

Dead in a box. I would be dead in five years if I kept doing what I was doing. And I did not like that answer.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (8:55 - 9:01)

So, so it was your 50th birthday. That was the trigger that caused you to face upcoming.

[Stanley Bronstein] (9:02 - 14:29)

That was the trigger I had started many times before, but that was the ultimate trigger that got me to say, what am I doing? I'm spinning my wheels. I'm wasting my time.

I'm wasting my potential. This is BS. And I need to quit this right now.

That was the trigger. Yes. And so I turned to my wife and I said, I'm cooked.

I'm done. I'm going to start making permanent changes in my life right now. I'm going to learn to start eating better right now.

And I'm going to start exercising. I'm going to try to do it every day if my body will let me right now. And my exercise of choice is going to be walking.

I said, I'm going to stop tolerating BS in my life. And the number one person I'm going to stop tolerating it from is myself. So I took personal responsibility.

Didn't blame anybody else. But then I also said, I'm getting ready to make some changes in my life. And you might like them and you might not like them.

I'm going on a journey and I hope you come along with me. If you come along, wonderful. If you don't, I don't care.

There's the door right now. You can walk out because I have to make these changes or I'm going to be dead. I call that healthy selfishness.

I was a very selfish moment, but it was healthy selfishness. Needless to say, I'll give you a spoiler alert. We're still married.

But those are some pretty hard words. You know, to sit there and have your spouse tell you there's the door. You can walk out right now.

So anyway, that's how serious I was. So right away, I started doing three things. First thing I did was I quit drinking alcohol.

I was drinking scotch. I won't say I was an alcoholic, but I will definitely say I was drinking too much. And I will definitely say I was serving the alcohol.

It was not serving me. So I said, no more alcohol. I haven't had a drink since quit right away.

Just cold turkey. Haven't had a drink. And it's very interesting when you go to a party and you're not drinking.

You're the only one not drinking and everyone else is drinking. It makes the party actually very interesting to see everybody else. Then I said soda, soda pop.

Those two liter bottles. I was drinking the diet caffeine free ones, but those weren't any better. Those are garbage.

And I was drinking three of those a day. I said no more. I quit drinking those.

And I gave up red meat. I gave up beef and pork. And considering my father was a butcher, that was a pretty radical thing for me to do.

But I gave up beef and pork. And the weight started coming off of me and I started feeling better and I started walking and I was getting better and better and better, but slowly. Then about five years into that, I decided to go vegetarian.

I gave up chicken and turkey, but I kept eating eggs. I kept eating cheese, bread, butter, ice cream, things like that. Lost some more weight.

Got down as low as 180 pounds, which was pretty good. But my weight was not stable. It would go 180, 190, 200, 210, 200, 190, go back and forth.

It would fluctuate. And this is all while I was walking. Okay, that's walking is a whole other story.

When I started walking, I really meant it. I went from being a couch potato to a person. By that time, I was walking 10 to 15 miles every day.

And I mean every day. Almost 100 miles a week. Yeah, easy.

Well, I do a lot more than that now. Seriously, I do. To give you a bit, I will get into that later.

So I'm sitting there, I'm eating, I'm vegetarian. I'm eating this stuff. I'm walking 10 to 15 miles a week and I can't get my weight below 180 pounds.

So I analyzed what I was doing and I said, I need to make some changes. So I quit bread, butter, cheese, ice cream, and dairy. Essentially, I went whole food plant-based.

I went vegan at that time. But I was still eating some processed foods. When I did that, I lost 50 pounds in like five minutes.

I mean it. The weight just came off of me. Boom.

So the moral of that story is, you cannot exercise your way out of a poor diet. I saw an article the other day. It said, how much walking does a person need to do to lose 20 pounds?

And the answer is, that's the wrong question. Because if you're still eating a garbage diet, you can walk all you want. You're not going to lose those 20 pounds.

It always amazes me, one cookie.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (14:31 - 15:02)

Oh, I have a one cookie story. But anyway, go ahead. I was just going to say like one, you know, obviously a healthy diet complemented by exercise is the way to go.

But what people don't realize is that exercise is really, you have to exercise a lot to compensate for your diet. So one cookie is like 200 calories, which is like 30 minutes running, you know, as fast as you can on a treadmill just for the price of one cookie.

[Stanley Bronstein] (15:05 - 15:10)

Do you want me to jump to the end and tell you what I advocate for people? Or should I wait until the end and tell you then?

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (15:11 - 15:13)

Yeah, let's go to the end.

[Stanley Bronstein] (15:13 - 18:00)

Let's hear the bottom line. Okay. The bottom line is this.

I have what you call an addictive personality. I'm an all in kind of guy. When I started making these changes, and it was a gradual process, I did it in stages, but ultimately I went all in.

And I have this thing, I have a 100% commitment that no unhealthy food is going to enter my mouth, period. Okay. And I have and that works very well during the holidays.

Because people put garbage in front, I'm not going to eat it. You know, somebody gave me cookies and cupcakes right before Christmas. I didn't eat it.

I didn't even think about eating it. The thought never crossed my mind. I gave it to a neighbor and said, God bless.

Have a great day. Now, I advocate for people something that's much simpler than what I do. But I'm going to continue telling my story after I go to this.

I just tell people, and I think you'll agree with this. If everybody would eat a little bit less processed food, and we'll talk about what that is, more whole foods, plants, and even if you're going to eat meat, don't eat processed meat. You know, don't eat those, you know, you know, plant-based sausage products, you know, or plant-based burgers or, you know, or whatever things.

Eat real meat. If you're going to eat meat, eat real meat. So although I don't, but if you're going to do that, but eat whole foods.

Don't eat processed foods. That's first thing. Second thing is quit eating five hours before you go to sleep.

Give yourself a buffer. You know, you might need to eat dinner earlier or whatever, but don't go to bed with food. My grandfather used to say, don't go to bed with your meal.

And I said, my father and I used to laugh at him all the time, but the man was right. And then walk 20 minutes a day. And you don't have to walk fast.

I walk at probably two and a quarter miles an hour. I walk slow, but I walk and walk and walk and walk, and I don't stop. And I keep going and going and going.

But if you would just walk, don't eat processed foods or reduce the amount of processed foods you eat. Quit eating five hours before you go to sleep and walk 20 minutes a day. Doctor, if everybody would do that, what do you think would happen to the healthcare costs in this country?

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (18:01 - 18:55)

Well, so you raise a good point that being overweight, you know, has a lot of personal issues in terms of your stamina and how well you feel. But it also leads to chronic health issues. Yes, diabetes.

I mean, I have these patients come to me. They weigh several hundred pounds and they say, my knees hurt. And yeah, well, well, you know what?

They're not made out of metal. Those knees, they're carrying around hundreds and hundreds of they weren't designed for that. You know, you're going to have arthritis in your knees and you lose some weight.

And now it's probably too late because you've really beat them up. I mean, and then you have this chronic health issue now for the rest of their life. I mean, being overweight is expensive for the healthcare system, you know, if you're community minded, as well as, you know, a big personal issue.

[Stanley Bronstein] (18:56 - 22:23)

Yeah, but I'll give you a story to put it in perspective. A couple of years ago, I was going to Costco and I had to buy 50 pound bags of birdseed. I bought four 50 pound bags of birdseed.

That's 200 pounds. I put them on a cart and they're in the back of the store. So I'm huffing and puffing as I'm pushing this cart through the store.

And it dawned on me that I used to carry that much weight and more on my body. And I just went like, whoa. And it has many costs.

But the point is, it's real simple. If you get started and never quit, you will ultimately get better. See, I'm in year 17 of doing what I call beat yesterday.

The goal today is to be better than I was yesterday and to be better tomorrow than I was today. But there's a funny thing about beat yesterday. Sometimes breaking even and not sliding backwards is beating yesterday.

But I'm in year 17 of that. And just like interest in the bank, if you would put money in the bank and let it compound over 17 years, you're going to have a heck of a lot more money. It's the same thing with your health.

You know, I am nowhere near the person I was back when I started. Can I give you an example? I went from being a couch potato who could barely walk two or three blocks.

You know how much walking I've done over the last 17 years? This much. I have walked 30% of the way to the moon.

This is how much I walked last year alone. I started off in Los Angeles. I ended up, you know, almost the UK.

Nice. And it and why do I do that? Well, first of all, I'm obsessive.

Sure I am. But it's a positive obsession. And I do it because I can.

And I do it because I want to see what I can do at the age of 66. And the answer is at the age of 66, I can do things that I couldn't do at the age of 30. That most 30-year-olds could not do.

Now, granted, part of it is finding the time to do all of this. I'm at a stage in my life where I work from home. I work for myself.

I mean, I have clients. But I'm very fortunate where I can adjust my schedule to accommodate these things. And I have created a lifestyle for me where I can do this.

But I do it because I can. And you're not spending a lot of money on food. No, it's funny.

People complain to me about the prices of food. My food is actually pretty cheap compared to what a lot of people are paying. I mean, it really is.

I, you know, I cook my own foods. I want to know what's going in my mouth. And it's actually a lot cheaper.

It really is.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (22:23 - 22:30)

How did your wife, you know, you both eat together, I presume, several times a day. How does that work out? Is she buying food?

Not always.

[Stanley Bronstein] (22:30 - 24:22)

That was one of the changes. Which is, we don't necessarily sit down at the table and eat together. We will, we might sometimes.

But we don't necessarily do that. And that's okay. But I've tried, she's never been overweight.

I mean, you know, maybe a pound or two, but never anything bad. She is in good shape. And I want her to eat healthy.

And I've been encouraging her to eat healthy. And she has, you know, as she started getting to the stage in life where osteoporosis becomes a concern for women, she has started exercising more. She's eating better.

And all those things, many things that I had advocated many years earlier. But she's doing them. But things that I do is, I just make sure there's always healthy food in the house.

You know, so like, for example, she used to snack on all kinds of garbage. Well, I keep a ready supply of dehydrated apples or dehydrated fruit. They're great, tasty, not fattening.

You can eat that. I keep unsalted raw nuts, no sodium, no added oils. I might dry roast them in the air fryer to bring out their own natural oils, but no added peanut oils or anything.

Like most oils, you go to the store, most nuts are loaded with extra oil and loaded with sodium. So healthy nuts and things like that, healthy things to snack on. I keep them around the house.

So if she wants to eat, eat something healthy kind of thing. But that's how we do. We do a lot of things together.

What about walking? We do a lot of that together.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (24:22 - 24:24)

Because if you're walking for hours and hours.

[Stanley Bronstein] (24:24 - 24:30)

We've already walked the dogs two times today, and we're going to take them again after dinner. Do the dogs have a healthy diet?

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (24:31 - 24:33)

Do the dogs have a healthy diet?

[Stanley Bronstein] (24:33 - 25:33)

Pretty much, yes. Another thing I learned is my two previous dogs before these, I used to make them a lot of chicken. And I would feed them chicken for snacks all the time.

Well, as they got to be 15, 14, 15 years old, one of them had neurological conditions and died. The other one had pretty much diabetes issues. He got the animal equivalent of diabetes and he died.

And so these dogs, I do not feed them all that chicken and stuff like that. I will give them a lot of the same things I eat. I might give them some nuts to snack on or some other things that I make and do that.

So I'm guessing that these dogs are going to, one of them's 10 and the other one's eight. I'm guessing they're going to hold up better than the other dogs.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (25:33 - 25:35)

Do they walk with you? Do they go on your walk?

[Stanley Bronstein] (25:35 - 25:53)

Yes, absolutely they do. That's one of the things I did. I made sure I got myself a lab who loves to walk.

Not that I needed that, but it's nice to have somebody to go walk with you. But to be honest with you, I out walk him. He can't keep up with me.

I mean, in terms of just the hours, and it gets hot.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (25:53 - 25:58)

Do you listen to podcasts or do you just daydream or what do you do on these long walks?

[Stanley Bronstein] (25:59 - 26:59)

Well, first of all, I say when you walk as much as I did, you meet some very interesting people. And would you care to guess who the most interesting person you're going to meet is when you do that much walking? No idea.

Yourself. I talk to myself a lot. I take notes.

I do a lot of thinking. Sometimes I'll listen to music. Sometimes I'll listen to podcasts.

Sometimes I'll listen to audiobooks. I'll make phone calls. It just varies.

But as long as I have this with me, I'm not necessarily tied to my desk. And so I can do a lot of things. And actually, if people want to know things you can do with walking.

I actually one of the books I wrote that's available on the Million Pound Weight Loss website is called Walk 20. Walking 20 minutes a day and things you can do while you're doing that, all the benefits of it and everything else. So I mean, I actually because people ask me that question all the time.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (27:00 - 27:08)

Right. And I saw your books are all on your website and Amazon. What's your what's your website again?

[Stanley Bronstein] (27:09 - 27:11)

OK, well, I have two websites.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (27:13 - 27:15)

So the first one is excellence.

[Stanley Bronstein] (27:15 - 30:01)

The first one is the way of excellence dot com. That's where most of my books are. That's where all my self-help books are.

You know how to create a better life. And they are all available digitally for free. Oh, wow.

You do not have to buy them. It is my gift to you because I have been blessed. I'm giving back now on the same on that website at the bottom of the website.

There's a link you can contact me if you want to work with me privately or you want to join a group that I put together. You can do either one of those things. Those cost money.

But if you want to just download the books, read them yourself and there's videos there and everything, you can spend hours on there yourself. Then there's Million Pound Weight Loss Challenge dot com. Million Pound Weight Loss Challenge dot com.

That website is devoted to weight loss. The reason why I got the million pounds from that, I believe in ambitious goals. My goal was to get 50,000 people to lose 20 or more pounds each.

Okay. So that'd be a million pounds. That's where I came up with that.

Now, people who join that website, you have to create an account. It's free, but you have to sign up and create an account. And the reason why I made it that way was I wanted it to be a safe space for people who want to lose weight.

I did not want to create a website. That's why I didn't do it on Facebook or Instagram or whatever. I wanted it to be a safe space where trolls could not go to make fun of people who were trying to lose weight.

I see. So I made it a safe space. I monitor it.

I mean, I'm proud to say it's about seven months old. I haven't had any problems with garbage comments or bad people going on there or anything like that. So that's why you have to create an account.

But I have tons of nutritional information on there. Another one of my books you can download from that site, The Case for Eating Healthy 100% of the Time. Which is what I do.

I made a statement to you that I made a commitment that no unhealthy food is going to enter my mouth. I didn't make that commitment in the beginning. That I made that commitment along the way.

Because I have found when you become 100% committed to a thing, it becomes much easier to do. That's why people talk about losing weight. They fall off the wagon.

It's actually easier. Walking around like this was harder than what I go through every day. Trust me, that was much harder.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (30:02 - 30:31)

You know, there is this phenomenon, and I've certainly experienced it myself. Because, you know, you have to watch your weight. That being absolute.

In other words, I'm not... We'll just use cookies, for example. I'm not going to eat any cookies.

Somebody offers you cookies. Say, no, I don't eat cookies. That's easy.

But if you say, oh, okay, I'll just have one cookie. Then you have a big decision. Should I have a second cookie?

Because that first cookie was so good, right?

[Stanley Bronstein] (30:32 - 36:26)

And also every... First of all, Weight Watchers used to say, nothing tastes as good as the first bite. Or something like that.

That's true. No, nothing feels as good. Something like that.

The first bite was always the best. So anyway, you're correct. When...

I'll tell you what the power of one cookie is. The first time I lost 100 pounds, or actually, it was March 7th, year 80. I was on a road trip with some friends of mine.

And they were driving, and I was sitting in the back seat, and they had cookies in the back seat. I ate one cookie. It turned into five.

It turned into 10. It turned into going back into my old habits. It turned into putting all that weight back on, plus more.

When you have the type of personality I have, like I told you, an addictive personality, sometimes abstinence is better than moderation. Look, I have no doubt in my mind. I could eat a cookie right now, and I would not drop dead.

I could eat a cookie right now, and it would not set me on a course to putting all my weight back on. I could drink a soda right now. I would not drop dead.

It would not put me on the course to going back where I was. But I don't want. I've already had my lifetime share of those things, plus yours, plus about 20 other people's.

I don't need this. And here's another funny part. Just like I told you about the picture on the box in the freezer, I have learned I can look at food.

I can smell food. I can imagine what it tastes like. And then I eat it.

My wife, we'll be going out. We were at a wedding reception two, three months ago, and all this food was out there. It was on a farm, so generally the food was pretty healthy.

But I knew it was probably loaded with sodium. So I sat there and I said, let me smell it. And I smelled it.

I said, yep, I can smell the salt. I know it's loaded with sodium. So you know what I did?

I went to one of the servers and I said, do you have any of those tomatoes in the kitchen that haven't been prepared yet? She said, yeah, we do. And she brought me out a plate of sliced tomatoes with nothing on it.

And I ate that. But I can smell things and know what they taste like and imagine what it tastes like. And that satisfies me.

These are tricks, things you learn. But it is so much easier when you just say no up front. You know, I'm not going to do it.

Because then there is no decision to be made. Because look, when I get up in the morning, I do not, it has been years since I asked myself, do I want to walk this morning? My clothes are on the nightstand.

I get up, I get dressed. I go stretch. I go walk.

Every day. That's just the way it is. It's who I am.

It's been over eight years since I missed a day. And then eight years ago, I was sick as a dog for three days. And if you don't ignore those three days, it goes back 12 years.

So I don't make a decision. And you know, part of what helped motivate, you asked about motivation. Motivation is a dirty word to me.

Because motivation wears off. This is January 19th. Doctor, how many people do you think joined a gym at the beginning of the year who have already stopped going as of today, January 19th?

And then if they have not stopped yet, will stop by March 1st. A lot. Because motivation is what gets you started, but motivation wears off.

Discipline, on the other hand, doesn't wear off. If you create, if you eliminate your negative habits, and you create new positive habits, you will follow those all the time. You don't need motivation.

And you know what else helped me about the walking? There's a woman I interviewed back in 2007. Her name was Peggy Chun.

She lived in Honolulu at the time. She's since passed away many years ago. She had Lou Gehrig's disease.

At the time I met her, she was completely bedridden on a ventilator. And I interviewed her for a book I was writing. And the way she communicated was trained people would hold up an eye chart and they could read her eye movements and she could spell out words.

So that was how I communicated with her. I looked at her and I said, if I ever get like that, put a pillow over my head and take me out. That's what I thought.

Well, this woman who was completely bedridden and couldn't move had the most incredible joy of her life. Of anyone I've ever met. She said, my grandkids are coming over today.

We're going to paint. They're going to drive me out to the park. We're going to go out and sit out in the sun and we're going to go to the park and everything else.

I told her about the trip I was getting ready to do. I was going to be driving around the United States interviewing people in this book. She said, that sounds so exciting.

I wish I could go with you. You know, and things like that. So, you know, the old saying, what would Jesus do?

I started saying, what would Peggy Chun do? Okay. And the answer is Peggy Chun would have gotten her lazy butt out of bed and she'd have gone walking if she could.

So I said, Stanley, get your lazy butt out of bed and go walk in because you can.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (36:27 - 36:34)

Stanley, this has been inspiring. We're running out of time. Is there anything you'd like to add before we wrap up?

[Stanley Bronstein] (36:34 - 38:19)

Yes, I want to add one thing. All right. These are the four factors.

We've already touched on two of them. These are the four factors that determines whether or not someone's going to be successful. Okay.

The first one is willingness. You have to be willing to do what it takes for the rest of your hopefully very long, hopefully very healthy life. If you're not willing to do it for the rest of your life, nothing I've said matters.

Second thing, belief. Okay. The experience of losing this weight and keeping it off and walking like I do taught me three things.

First thing is I am more powerful than I ever imagined. Way more powerful. I'm a confident man and this experience blew my mind, what I did and what I've continued to do.

Second thing it taught me was is that I'm capable of doing this. What else is out there waiting for me to do that I haven't done yet? And that's what the way of excellence and the million pound weight loss challenge are.

And then the third thing it taught me is, is that if I am more powerful than I ever imagined, so is everybody else. I am no more special than you. You are no more special than me.

You are more powerful than you ever imagined. Believe it. You are capable of doing whatever you put your mind to.

Believe it. Then the third of the four things is discipline. We already talked about that.

Eliminate your negative habits, replace them with positive habits and stick to them. Be disciplined. Then commitment.

When you become 100% committed to a thing, it becomes much easier to do.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (38:21 - 38:26)

Well, I think the cookie manufacturers aren't going to be promoting this podcast today.

[Stanley Bronstein] (38:26 - 38:40)

Nor are the weight loss drug companies. That's the last thing I want to add. I'm not a fan of the weight loss drugs.

I'm not a fan of bariatric surgery, simply because I think if you do what I am suggesting, you can do it without those things.

[Andrew Wilner, MD] (38:40 - 41:19)

I think that's wonderful. Stanley, this has been a great conversation. I want to thank you for joining me on The Art of Medicine.

Thank you for having me. And now a final thanks to our sponsor locumstory.com. Locumstory.com is a free unbiased educational resource about locum tenens. It's not an agency. Locumstory exists to answer your questions about the how-tos of locums on their website, podcast, webinars, and videos. They even have a locums 101 crash course.

At locumstory.com, you can discover if locum tenens make sense for you and your career goals. What makes locumstory.com unique is that it's a peer-to-peer platform with real physicians sharing their experiences and stories, both the good and bad, about working locum tenens. Hence the name Locum Story.

Locumstory.com is a self-service tool that you can explore at your own pace with no pressure or obligation. It's completely free. Thanks again to locumstory.com for sponsoring this episode of The Art of Medicine. I'm Dr. Andrew Wilner. See you next time. This program is hosted, edited, and produced by Andrew Wilner, MD, FACP, FAAN.

Guests receive no financial compensation for their appearance on The Art of Medicine. Andrew Wilner, MD, is a professor of neurology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Tennessee. Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on this program belong solely to Dr. Wilner and his guests and not necessarily to their employers, organizations, other group, or individual. While this program intends to be informative, it is meant for entertainment purposes only. The Art of Medicine does not offer professional, financial, legal, or medical advice. Dr. Wilner and his guests assume no responsibility or liability for any damages, financial or otherwise, that arise in connection with consuming this program's content. Thanks for watching. For more episodes of The Art of Medicine, please follow on YouTube or your favorite podcast player. Please share with your friends and subscribe.

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