Why do so many people struggle with emotional eating—even when they know exactly what they should do?

In this episode, Ryan Jore sits down with fitness coach Steve Lutz to discuss the emotional side of weight loss and why lasting results require much more than counting calories. After overcoming alcohol addiction and losing more than 170 pounds, Steve shares how changing his mindset transformed not only his health but also the way he coaches others.

Together, Ryan and Steve explore emotional regulation, journaling, habit formation, stress management, perfectionism, and why flexibility is one of the most important skills for maintaining long-term health. They also discuss the role of coaching, building sustainable routines, and learning to navigate life’s inevitable setbacks without giving up on your goals.

In This Episode:

🧠 Why emotional eating isn’t a lack of willpower
💪 Steve’s journey of losing more than 170 pounds
✍️ How journaling can help break unhealthy habits
🚶 Why slowing down and taking a walk can improve decision-making
📱 How distractions and technology impact mental health and behavior
🎯 The importance of realistic expectations during weight loss
🤝 Why coaching is about building lifelong skills—not just losing weight
🔄 How flexibility helps you stay consistent through busy seasons of life
😌 The role of emotional regulation in sustainable fitness
📈 Why progress comes from consistency, not perfection

Whether you’re trying to lose weight, stop emotional eating, or build healthier habits that last, this episode offers practical strategies to help you approach fitness with a healthier mindset.

Connect with Steve Lutz

📱 Instagram: @lutz.fitness
📱 TikTok: @lutz.fitness

🎙️ Connect with the Host (Ryan Jore):

Instagram: @RyanJorePT

Website: JoreStrengthTraining.com

👉 Enjoying the show? Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review wherever you listen!

👉 Follow for more fitness tips and content: Instagram | Facebook

Ryan Jore 0:15 Hey guys, welcome back to this month’s episode. Today we have on Steve Lutz talking about the mental side of weight loss, and why some people can’t stop emotionally eating. Steve, welcome to the episode.

Steve Lutz 0:25 Hey, how’s it going?

Ryan Jore 0:27 Good. So, we met at the Real Coaches Summit in Vegas, which is perfect that you’re wearing that shirt today. And just, I just really enjoyed your background story of what got you into fitness and your side of weight loss. Could you give the audience kind of a breakdown of how that works for you.

Steve Lutz 0:43 Yeah, so just a little background about me. Yeah, I had kind of an unconventional path getting to where I am now, as far as being a coach, but I grew up playing sports and was always active, and then around my mid 20s went through some some stuff, and actually developed an alcohol problem where I was drinking every day, and also just binging and eating a lot, and then I moved to Korea, hoping to, you know, kind of get things back together, but it actually amplified everything, and I ended up putting on 170 plus pounds over a span of five years, a lot of that was put on during Covid. Then I came home back to the states and decided something needed to change, and you know, kind of then and there with the change of the environment, set my sights on getting back in shape, and, and got back to where I was in my early 20s, if not in better shape, over a two year span, so ended up losing 170 plus pounds, and then I decided, I think I’m going to get into coaching, because I was a teacher, but I decided that coaching was was the path for me, so yeah, that’s that’s the quick spiel right there.

Ryan Jore 2:04 Yeah, well, I thought it was really cool too, because honestly, like two of the most impactful talks for me at that conference, and I’m blanking on the second coach’s name, but one was Jared Hamilton, and how he broke down like the emotional side to fitness. It’s been really cool following your social media, seeing a very, very similar message to what he posts about it on how, like, it’s not about what’s happening, it’s about our emotional response to what’s happening. That’s again what I’ve got the most out of your content so far.

Steve Lutz 2:28 Yeah, yeah, no, that’s it. Definitely, you know, you come into a to a weight loss journey or fitness journey in general, and you think it’s all physical, but at the end of the day, a lot of it ends up being mental, and especially emotional, and so learning to learn to handle those emotions effectively really accelerates your progress, versus trying to just brute force it. So, yeah, no, I actually didn’t get a chance to see Jared Hamilton’s at the summit, but there was, there was another good one, I believe it was Lily Millardi. She had one

Ryan Jore 3:02 That’s who it was.

Steve Lutz 3:03 Really resonates with kind of my approach. So, yeah.

Ryan Jore 3:07 Honestly, it’s been so since coming back from the conference. It’s honestly what I’ve read the most about in terms of doing my continuing ed has been almost entirely focused on that, and it’s been the main focus with most of my clients right now is focusing on an emotional side, because so often I think people think it’s just numbers, you know, it’s just given this exact calories and protein, and there’s definitely something to those. I mean, obviously, they, you do need to hit a certain amount of calories, but if someone’s consistently not hitting those calories, it’s not a numbers issue anymore, it’s figuring out, okay, like what is it, whether it’s your mental side or whatever, that’s limiting you from hitting those numbers

Steve Lutz 3:38 Exactly. Yeah, I mean, there’s there’s so many different things going on in our lives, and so the emotions can be coming from lots of different places, not even the fitness journey itself, and you can get stuck there, like, why can’t I do this? Well, you have to kind of take stock of the other things that are going on in your life, and the capacity that you have to even, you know, put forth fitness, and so it really becomes kind of a holistic approach, where you start looking at all the areas in your life, and how you can, how you can feel better in general, not just, you know, hit numbers and all that, because feeling better is really the goal at the end of the day, and it’s going to make losing weight and getting in shape a lot easier.

Ryan Jore 4:23 Exactly, I think one of the things Jared talked about is how you know our brain likes to chunk things into habits, so it’s like every time you have stress, you reach for a candy bar, whatever it is, because that’s just easier for your brain to memorize versus having to have a new program for every single thing it does, and so he even talked about how just like simply like a one minute journaling exercise, because at the very least we’re breaking up that habit of, like, okay, here was the stressor, but now at least I’m putting 60 seconds in between that stressor and giving into whatever my usual vice is, and over time maybe that stops us from doing it sometimes, or at the very least it starts to extend how long it takes us to give in each time it honestly just blew my mind. How simple that is, but how effective that could be.

Steve Lutz 5:02 Yeah, yeah, a little bit of a pause before you know if you’re overthinking a task is huge, and journaling is a big one too. Because I have a tendency to kind of overthink, and things will start looping in my head, and I can think for a really long time, but you open up the journal and just write it down, and it’s, it becomes fixed and stops looping, and it just makes a lot more sense, and you’re able to kind of pick apart your thoughts and move forward, and it’s just calming and makes you feel better. Anyway, so yeah, I’m a big advocate for journaling; that’s actually, if I ever get stuck, whether it’s work stuff or fitness, whatever the case may be, and I, I do find myself in a state where I’m just overthinking, I’m like, why can’t I do this? I’ll either journal, play piano, or go out for a walk, and then after that, usually transition into whatever it is with a clear mind.

Ryan Jore 6:03 So one of the books I just finished reading was called The Upside of Stress, and it’s weird to listen to that talk, and then immediately read this book, because, again, it talks about a lot of same stuff, of like the importance of that journaling, and like even said, going for a walk just without something, I think I’m so, so used to always like having my AirPods in it all the time, and realizing, like, you don’t get as much out of that walk in terms of actually clearing your head when you’re also still in taking input from four other things, and it does make such a dramatic difference. Just actually go for that walk, and like you know we were talking earlier about like the difficulties in making content. Sometimes it’s amazing how if I just stop listening to something, how the answer comes so quickly, and that could be for you know, for a weight loss person, that could be that exact same thing of realizing, like, oh, here’s what, here’s what’s holding me up, and I never pause long enough to give myself a chance to like make that connection.

Steve Lutz 6:48 Exactly, exactly, yeah, that you know, with the walking, is it’s tough because I see the value in doing it without music, but I also love music at the same time, but I do, I do try to go without any distractions, for sure, here and there, and yeah, it absolutely can make a huge difference, because once your mind clears out, that’s when a lot of the good ideas start to come.

Ryan Jore 7:13 No, exactly.

Steve Lutz 7:14 Yeah

Ryan Jore 7:16 My thing, is a more, is like, I’m like, if I’m walking in town, then I’m like, okay, I can still do a podcast, but like, from in nature, I’m like, maybe I should actually just connect to nature and not not have something in my ear at all times.

Steve Lutz 7:26 Yeah, for sure, for sure. I, you know, I’ve actually been using like a soundscape app recently, because I also have diagnosed ADHD, which I makes things a challenge, so having like music itself can be too distracting, but like having like a noise, whether that’s nature sounds or whatever the case may be, that can be really good for me to clear my mind and think as well, because yeah, if I do music, I’ll start thinking about the actual music and get distracted again.

Ryan Jore 7:56 Yeah, one of the themes that I’ve noticed a lot with your stuff, like you even talked about, like, going to the bathroom without a phone, and just the distraction that phones can be. It kind of reminds me of a book. Did you ever read The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry?

Steve Lutz 8:08 No, I haven’t.

Ryan Jore 8:10 Okay

Steve Lutz 8:11 It sounds intriguing.

Ryan Jore 8:12 It’s funny because, like, what you’re saying honestly embodies so much of what he talks in there about. Talks about the phone becoming a distraction. He even references how, like, I think it was in, like, 1999 our average attention span was like 12 seconds. It’s already down to, like, eight seconds, and, like, a goldfish is nine seconds. This book is written, like, seven years ago, so it’s probably like six seconds now. And just our inability to just stick with anything. And the other thing I made to connect is just how you talk about, like, for people like needing to slow down a little bit more, I think we always get this idea of, like, well, I need to be doing more, and that’s why I’m not hitting my goal, and it’s actually more a matter of, like, just actually need to slow down and address the things that they actually need to address, rather than trying to add 500 things at once. 

Steve Lutz 8:53 Yeah, yeah, no, that’s definitely something that resonates with me a lot, and I’ve been applying to my life a lot, because you know, I get kind of obsessed with productivity, and like, I need to do this, this, this, and all these things, and then it just becomes overwhelming and harder to do anything at all, and so, yeah, I mean, I kind of forgot where I was going with that, but no, yeah, it makes a huge deal.

Ryan Jore 9:23 I totally get the same thing. Where for me, it’s a little bit of that autism, where I’m just like, okay, I need to do this for x number of minutes a day, and I need to do these five tasks every single day. And Rosen, like, like that matters as a general degree, but like, if I occasionally miss a day, everything’s probably going to be okay, right? It’s not. I think sometimes, yeah, we get a little bit too rigid and don’t focus on the overarching principles. We’d like to think like every single little detail matters, and on the whole, they do if we’re hitting them most of the time, but it’s not like throwing in the towel because you know you didn’t measure one thing one day, type of deal.

Steve Lutz 9:53 Yeah, exactly, like as long as you’re, as long as you have a minimum, you know that you want to achieve throughout the day. Like, at least in some movement, you know, then it is what it is, and some days your capacity is going to be lower, and that’s something that I struggle with, is like accepting that, like, it’s a lower energy day, and like the output is not going to be quite where I want it to be, and because it just ends up in frustration, trying to like brute force my way through the day, and then not being able to do it anyway, and just being frustrated. So, setting realistic expectations, which you know goes along with what we’re talking about, is just having it’s like three things, and not like 1000 on your to-do list.

Ryan Jore 10:38 I trained a lot of realtors. That’s something like realtors, not surprisingly, have crazy schedules, because randomly someone wants to see a house or they need to, you know, sign up a contract or something like that. And so almost all of them have like these crazy schedules, where some days they’re my 6o’clock and some days are my 10 o’clock class, and some days they just can’t make it. And also, one of the things that we found successful for them recently is I gave each of them like a default, like ABC workout, where it’s like, if you miss Monday’s workout, this is what you can do from home, and it’s like, you know, 10 minutes, so it shouldn’t be time-constrained. And then that way just still gives their body the signal of, like, I’m still on track, I’m still doing what I’m supposed to do. You know, the fact that I didn’t get the full workout doesn’t matter, because my coach said to do at least this, and I got that in, and it just, it stops that like constant guilt and beating ourselves up, or the fact that they missed one workout.

Steve Lutz 11:24 Yeah, absolutely. And that’s that’s something that I try to, you know, really emphasize with clients, is that something is always better than nothing, and like it can be hard to get that message across to people in general, that like doing just like a couple sets of bodyweight squats, even, or whatever is huge for momentum, because it’s really all about momentum and the trend, right? Because you know, not every day is going to have an all-out workout in it, and that’s certainly true for me, especially after the weight loss journey, like in the past year, my focus has been more on, you know, coaching and building up my business, and so the workouts have kind of fallen by the wayside, not out, but you know, I don’t have as much time that I want to commit to it, and so some days I’ll have, like, do a set of push-ups and a set of pull-ups, and I’m just like, all right, that counts for today, and like, it doesn’t necessarily feel great to do it, but like it makes it so much more likely the next day that I’m actually going to get it done versus doing nothing, and then you know, because it’s all about the trend, you can either be trending up or trending down and I like to be trending up.

Ryan Jore 12:34 Totally, and that’s what I’ve told my people, and said, like, when I’m giving them that, or like a travel workout, because almost as if I’m writing someone a hotel workout, it is much shorter, because I know the likelihoods of them doing it are already kind of tenuous, so I want to give them something where time is not the constraint. And so it’s like the goal of that workout is not for you to get stronger, the goal is not to burn calories, the goal is that it’s just giving your brain that signal, so then you don’t feel like you’re falling off plan by, you know, being on vacation or something like that. We just need to keep giving our body that signal like this is what the coach said, this is what I do, and now we keep moving forward.

Steve Lutz 13:04 Exactly, exactly, because, yeah, man, if you, it comes back to regulation too, because it working out or doing some kind of physical movement is gonna help you feel more regulated and perform better in, in other areas of your life, because we haven’t even touched on all the mental health benefit benefits of just doing for sure, because those, and that can be easy to forget too, like you forget how much it helps your mental health when you’re not doing it super consistently. Then you do it, and you’re like, oh, wow, I should do this often.

Ryan Jore 13:36 I was just talking with a client the other day, because so normally I start my day at like 5:45 is when I’m starting classes, so obviously I don’t work out in the morning beforehand, because that’s just I have to get up so crazy early, but now on Wednesday, since in my class, first classes until eight, I can actually get in my workout in the morning, and I forget, like, how much better your day feels when you just start with your workout then versus doing it, you know, like normally I’m like working out like 1o’clock which is fine, but it’s sometimes, but then you’re already just burned out. It’s so nice to just, you know, be done early in the morning.

Steve Lutz 14:06 Yeah, it is really nice. And I keep telling myself, like, I need to start my day with workouts, but I also love the night workout too. That’s when I worked out, like, when I was losing weight, so, and I was, I was worked up to like five, six times per week that I was going to the gym, and it was always in the evening, so it really became kind of a habit, but I do agree, especially now that I’m trying to build the business up and all that, because you know, work can can drag on, and you can get too exhausted by the end of the day, and then just having it out of the way in the morning is huge, plus it energizes you, and everything just feels better, like you said.

Ryan Jore 14:47 Yeah, exactly. It’s like, and very rarely, like, or is like, sometimes a friend comes into town, or someone wants to go to dinner, like that doesn’t happen at five, six in the morning, but you know, yeah, if you save your workout to 6o’clock at night, it’s so easy for something to come up, or you know, whatever, and. Get in your way.

Steve Lutz 15:01 Yeah. Absolutely, and it doesn’t have to be something big to get in the way, either. Like, you can, you can get distracted easily once, once the, you know, I try to think that I can, you know, maintain focus into the, into the evening, but I have to admit it, my brain power starts dwindling, and it’s like distractions become even like I like we were talking about earlier, like I was trying to film a reel and I just saw this Lego set I had and I didn’t even think about it, just like, oh, that sounds good, and then all of a sudden an hour and a half passes and I’m like, oh, so yeah, doing it early is good.

Ryan Jore 15:39 And it’s again, it is always easier to speak from the fitness side of, like, obviously, for both you and me, since we’ve been training long enough, at a certain point, like, it’s almost harder for us to miss a workout then than to not do it, if that makes sense, but again, when people are trying to build that habit, it becomes so easy to convince themselves that, like, this one random small fire that popped up is more important than the workout, and it’s easy to just then push that workout aside, and yeah, like, you need to go long enough to build that to research, like, the workout is the important thing, or figuring out ways to align to do both, or you know, at least do enough towards both goals, if that wasn’t really a question, but

Steve Lutz 16:13 No, yeah, that, that definitely makes sense, yeah, no, I don’t really have anything to add there.

Ryan Jore 16:20 Yeah, so last question I wanted to ask you, because I thought was a really good post, was you had one on people trying to continue to try to fix the problem with the same method, and then just, just again, just kind of beating their head against the wall with that, and repeating that. Could you elaborate a little bit more on that, where you, where you see that tripping up clients when it comes to like emotional eating, like continuing to try the same method to fix the same problem. Steve Lutz 16:45 You know, that’s it’s a tough one, because it shows up a lot in general, like with anything, but you know, kind of it can, it can be even like we were just talking about, like trying to do your workouts at night, and you keep missing your workouts at night, and it’s like, if you have the evidence, where it’s like, well, you’ve planned to do workouts at night, like the past three weeks, and you haven’t done any, then it’s like, well, maybe we need to switch up what we’re doing, because obviously it’s not, you’re just running over, running into the same problem again, it’s tough with stuff like that, though, because you can feel motivated in the morning, and like, no, I’m definitely going to do it tonight, and then it’s just like, well, you didn’t do it again, so stuff like that, where, yeah, I mean, I can’t think of the exact post that you’re referring to right now, so I, if I had it like in mind, I might have remembered why I wrote that post in the first place, but yeah, that’s just one example, right there.

Ryan Jore 17:47 As we wrap up, what would you say are your top, like, two to three things you would tell someone that they would want to focus on if they were, they knew anything, an issue for them emotionally, and they’re trying to stop that?

Steve Lutz 17:58 Yeah, you know, that’s a tough one, because it, it’s going to be so different for everybody, but there’s always going to be different nuance. But first of all, first and foremost, just understanding that running into the emotional problem, like not problems, but running into difficult emotions, is going to happen, it’s an inevitability, and I think that’s important, because a lot of people go into it and think that the journey itself is going to like magically start making them feel better, and just everything’s going to get solved in their lives, and there’s there often comes a part in the journey, especially once you get into like the messy middle, where you know you start running into a lot of speed bumps, and it can be very.

Ryan Jore 18:49 Kind of an almost like an acceptance,

Steve Lutz 18:51 Exactly. Yeah, because, because one thing that makes a lot of people quit is discomfort in general, so already having the expectation that, like, this is there’s going to be a significant amount of discomfort here, and that goes with the physical side of, like, doing the actual workouts, and also with the emotional side, and it’s not about eliminating that discomfort, it’s just about learning to sit with it, and not, you know, have it stop you, so that would be a big one, there is just knowing that it’s okay, you know, it’s okay that it’s hard, it’s hard for everybody, and it’s okay that you’re frustrated, and sometimes there’s like sad that your progress is like all the emotions that you’re feeling are totally fine. So I think that that’s a big one.

Ryan Jore 19:37 I think that is, I think that’s also where it is, so helpful to have a coach, because it’s someone you can ask to make sure, like, because sometimes you’re not sure, like, is this normal to be here, and it’s nice to have someone in your corner who’s like, this is just part of the process, this is normal, and we keep moving on, versus if you’re by yourself, you’re like, well, maybe it’s not supposed to be this way, and I’ve failed, or I’ve done something wrong.

Steve Lutz 19:55 Exactly

Ryan Jore 19:56 And realizing you’re just, like, you said, you’re just experiencing a normal human emotion that happens when things, when things are difficult.

Steve Lutz 20:01 Exactly, and that, that kind of leads into my, my second point, which is, you know, having a focus on your own general regulation, which is so important, because a lot of the times when we encounter friction, are we having this discomfort, or like we get stuck in that loop, is, you know, we’re getting dysregulated, and so, you know, taking that time to pause and breathe, doing breath work, stuff like that, and just get a clear head can be, can be super duper important, because yeah, I mean, I was going somewhere with that, and I can’t remember exactly where it was, but yeah, I have a very regulation-focused regulation-first approach to my coaching.

Ryan Jore 20:43 I mean, we all know that we don’t make our best decisions when we’re under like super stress, right? So, it does make sense that, yeah, if you’re just constantly flying by the seat of your pants and going, you’re not going to be making your best decisions versus taking the time to step back and just like you said, breathe for a second before we make a big decision,

Steve Lutz 20:58 Right. And I remembered where I was going with that too, because you talked about the, you know, having a coach. It’s like, and that’s why it’s so important to have a coach in the beginning, because the coach can help you regulate through those, those trials like that you’re unsure of. And then the goal is that I help teach them skills to self-regulate, but you know, co-regulation is a big part of it too, like sometimes you need the validation or you need the assurance, because those are skills that take time to build, and everyone needs a little help every once in a while, but eventually you build the skills on your own, so you can, you know, not have to reach out and, you know, figure, you know, get the assurance, or whatever, you just know, and you’re like, oh yeah. Well, hey, that happened. I’m still here, I’m still alive, I’m still moving forward. My progress is not halted, and I’m good to go.

Ryan Jore 21:49 Well, that’s awesome and before I wrap up, that’s great. Because that’s literally the last episode I recorded today. We were talking about a similar thing, was how one of the issues when you see people doing like an ideal protein or any of these are methods, it’s not that we can’t lose weight there, but they never learn any of the stuff that’s going to help keep the weight off, like you said, like you never learn to emotionally regulate when all you do is you know that you should eat these specific foods that are sent to you, or whatever, every month, versus like learning through an actual coach, and learning, like, okay, you’re going to have times where a stressful moment comes up, or you have to go to some party where the food doesn’t fit your plan, and that’s where a coach is super valuable in learning how do I handle this situation. How do I not freak out and just relax for a second?

Steve Lutz 22:27 Absolutely, and also just, you know, modeling that to them, that you know I’m not perfect either, you know what I mean? Like, I miss workouts every once, but like I don’t eat perfectly all the time, like, and that’s totally fine, and I’m still moving, so like, and you know, I’ve made great progress that way, so it’s, you know, recognizing that you don’t have to be perfect, and being able to model that for four clients is like, yeah, I run into these struggles too, especially like right now trying to build my business, I can relate, like, you know, I struggle with this the same way you’re struggling with fitness.

Ryan Jore 23:00 Everything’s seasonal, right, like, right now your fitness is a little back burner, while your business is priority. And then, as that gets rolling, then those can kind of start to shift a little bit, where you can devote more towards your fitness as your business becomes a little more self-reliant.

Steve Lutz 23:13 Exactly, exactly. And it’s important to learn that approach with fitness, too, so that when you know it, when life does happen and your priorities do shift. You know, you’re not panicking because you’ve just had this rigid approach, where, like, I work out four days a week and eat this and whatever, and then life changes, and you didn’t learn the flexibility to roll with the punches and let the fitness journey not always be the priority, because you know when you’re on a weight loss journey, it’s probably going to be the priority, but it’s not necessarily always going to be, and you’re going to need to learn how to keep up your results and maintain without it being the priority.

Ryan Jore 23:50 Love it. That’s such a perfect way to end. If any of our listeners had questions, where could they reach out to you on social media?

Steve Lutz 23:57 Yeah, it’s Lutz Fitness, Lutz.Fitness on Instagram, and that’s the main one, but yeah, I’m on TikTok also with the same username, but Lutz Fitness. If you look that up, you should be able to find

Ryan Jore 24:09 L-U-T-Z right?

Steve Lutz 24:11 L-U-T-Z

Ryan Jore 24:12 Awesome, thank you, Steve. Appreciate you coming on.

Steve Lutz 24:14 Of course man. Thank you.