Mini Habits for Weight Loss
Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering.
By
Stephen Guise
Blog: http://stephenguise.com
Book site: http://minihabits.com
Copyright
Mini Habits for Weight Loss by Stephen Guise
Copyright © 2016 Selective Entertainment, LLC, All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations, without written permission from the author.
Legal Disclaimer
The information contained in this book is the opinion of the author and is based on the author's personal experiences and observations. The author does not assume any liability whatsoever for the use of or inability to use any or all information contained in this book, and accepts no responsibility for any loss or damages of any kind that may be incurred by the reader as a result of actions arising from the use of information found in this book. Use this information at your own risk.
The author reserves the right to make any changes he deems necessary to future versions of the publication to ensure its accuracy.
More From Stephen
Check out minihabits.com for additional Mini Habits for Weight Loss content, tools, and resources!
Mini Habits
If you haven’t yet, I strongly recommend you read my first book, Mini Habits. Although you don’t need to read Mini Habits to benefit from Mini Habits for Weight Loss, it will give you more of the nuts and bolts of the original mini habits strategy.
Based on the science, Mini Habits is arguably the most effective habit formation strategy in the world. And, based on reviews, it’s arguably the most loved and the most successful! Many lives have been transformed as a result of adopting the mini habits strategy. It can change your life too!
Mini Habits Book: http://amazon.com/dp/B00HGKNBDK
Mini Habit Mastery
If you prefer video and want to learn the mini habits concept, you can take the Mini Habit Mastery Video Course. Use coupon code “MHWL55” for an exclusive Mini Habits for Weight Loss discount. Mini Habit Mastery is among the world’s most popular habit courses, with over 9,000 students.
Mini Habit Mastery HD Video Course: https://www.udemy.com/mini-habit-mastery/?couponCode=MHWL55
How to Be an Imperfectionist
My second book applies Mini Habits to the problem of perfectionism. If you struggle with depression, fear, and inaction, this book has a lot to offer. It’s the highest-rated product I’ve ever created.
How to Be an Imperfectionist book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UMG535Y
Tuesday Messages
Every Tuesday, I write about smart life strategies and email them to subscribers. People have told me this content is life-changing. When you sign up, you can look through the archives of previous messages of interest. These are exclusive to subscribers and free. Also, signing up means you’ll get to know when my next book or course is available.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
More From Stephen
- Preface
Part One
Introduction: Diet’s Two Definitions
1. The Unhappy Marriage of Weight Loss and Dieting: Dieting and Smoothie Cleanses Are Effective for Weight Gain. Wait... What?
2. Brain Change before Body Change
3. Weight Loss Speed: Beware the Counterattack
4. Everyone's Wrong: Weight Loss Is Not About Carbs, Fat, or Calories
Part Two
Introduction: Strategy Rules
5. General Strategy: Look, If It Were Intuitive, We’d All Be Slender Billionaires
6. Food Strategy: Here’s a List of Foods to Eat and Avoid. Just Kidding. Let’s Do Something Smarter.
7. Fitness Strategy: Let’s Make it Fun
8. Mini Habits: Everyone Laughs until They Experience the Results
9. Situational Strategies: Rules Can Be Broken, Strategies Are Forever
10. Conclusion: You’ve Tried Dieting Many Times, Try This Once
Thank You
More From Stephen
-
Preface
Mini Habits and the One Push-up Story
"Success is simple. Do what's right, the right way, at the right time."
~ Arnold H. Glasow
December 28, 2012
I prefer to do the easiest and most enjoyable things, even if it’s sometimes at the expense of moving my life in a healthy direction, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
For most of my life, my propensity to do the fun but less advisable things was extremely frustrating. It kept me from becoming the person I wanted to be. But I found a way to turn the odds in my favor. Not to be dramatic or anything, but my life changed forever on December 28, 2012. Here’s what happened.
The end of the year was three days away, and I sat on my bed thinking about making some changes. Namely, I desired to exercise consistently, something I had never been able to do. I’d do it for a week or two and quit. The reasons varied; there was always an excuse.
I’m not fond of New Year’s Resolutions with their arbitrary start date of January 1, so I decided to begin my change that day by exercising for 30 minutes at home. Problem: I couldn’t do it. I felt lethargic, unmotivated, and out of shape. The idea of exercising actually repulsed me, and no motivational tactic helped. I had been in this situation before, but a recent book I read gave me an idea.
Earlier that month, I had read Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko. Michalko gives readers a number of creative problem solving tools, one of which is called “False Faces.” To use this technique, you simply consider the opposite of your current idea. A crude example: If your idea is to build a water park, maybe the opposite idea would be to build a desert-themed park. The opposite idea is not meant to be great in itself, but to open your mind to a wider spectrum of possibilities.
My idea was to exercise for 30 minutes, but I had hit a motivational brick wall, so I tried out “False Faces” to see if it could solve my problem. Since I saw my workout as an intimidating amount of effort, I figured the opposite would be something that’s very easy to do, say, one push-up.
I laughed at myself for considering such a worthless idea.
Thanks for nothing, Mr. Michalko! Your little technique didn’t work!
One push-up? I may have been down, but I could do better than that. Eventually, I decided to do it out of self-mockery and frustration for failing to get motivated.
If I can’t do a simple 30-minute workout, then I’m going to do one push-up. Great job, Stephen. You can do a push-up. Your dreams will surely come true now.
As I lowered myself to the ground, my joints creaked, my arms were weak, and my body screamed at me to sit on the couch… but all I had to do was one push-up. So I did, and it transformed my life.
While in push-up position, it seemed silly to do a single push-up, so I did a few more, then stood up. At this point, I was intrigued. This was the same way I would have started a 30-minute workout. I had already met and exceeded my goal, and my body was warmed up. I set a few more small goals and my push-up count reached 50 reps. After that, I grabbed my pull-up bar and did the same thing. A full 20 minutes of exercise later, I faced the ultimate challenge.
I had the idea to do a 10-minute ab program to finish off
my workout, but my brain shot it down like a professional skeet shooter. You’ve had your fun with exercise, Stephen, but I’m drawing the line here. Go play video games.
Resistance was strong, but I’m a quick learner. I used my new secret weapon, and made sure to compliment my subconscious (the source of resistance). My thought process went something like this.
Oh mighty subconscious, I wouldn’t dare exercise my abs for 10 minutes, but would you mind if I just set up my exercise mat?
Oh great brain of legend, now that my mat is set up, would it be alright to sit on it?
Oh tremendous cranial overlord, is there any harm in finding an ab exercise video on YouTube and pressing Play?
Bingo. It worked. 10 minutes later, my abdominal muscles were ablaze. I sat on my bed with a glass of water and took it in: My one push-up had somehow grown into the 30-minute workout that I was unable to do before. My brain nearly exploded out of surprise and delight. I had broken through an amount of resistance that I had never overcome previously. That situation had always meant failure, but this time, I succeeded. What could this mean for my future?
From that day on, I vowed to do at least one push-up every day. Admittedly, I missed two days in the next six months, but otherwise, I always did my push-up(s). Sometimes, it would spark a full workout as it did the first time. Other times, I would only do five to 10. On a few occasions, I did just one push-up to meet my requirement.
A Pleasant Surprise
I was already happy about one measly push-up sparking full workouts and more exercise; then I noticed something even more exciting. The baseline level of resistance I felt to exercise had decreased significantly over time. When considering exercise, I no longer felt repulsed. How could I? It was now part of my life and I did it in varying amounts every day. I knew I was ready for the next step.
After roughly six months of doing one push-up per day, I began going to the gym. To this day, unless I’m traveling, sick, or injured, I go to the gym several times per week. My unwillingness to exercise is no longer an obstacle.
When one push-up morphed into a full gym habit, my already-wide eyes grew to the size of bowling balls (you should see the picture). Just as I had leveraged small steps into a big change, I knew I could leverage this entire concept to improve different areas of my life. I immediately began daily goals of reading two pages in a book per day and writing 50 words per day. My reading and writing activity spiked. As a long-time writer, I had been thinking for the previous year about writing a personal development book, but couldn’t decide on a topic. Well, I certainly had one now!
Using my 50 words per day goal, I wrote a book about this concept called Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results. That’s right: I used a mini habit to write Mini Habits. The words poured out of my soul. I was excited to tell others about this discovery, and scared that nobody would read it or believe it.
Since it was a ridiculous premise, but I knew it worked, I researched habit formation, willpower, and motivation, and it all came together. This crazy “one push-up a day” idea actually had scientific merit! This made me even more excited to share it because if I could explain exactly how it worked, people might believe my story, try it themselves, and change their lives. The book was published on December 22, 2013, almost exactly a year after I did that single push-up that changed my life.
Luckily, a lot of people did read it. Mini Habits has become a worldwide bestseller, selling more than 125,000 copies in its first two years in over a dozen languages and becoming the #1 selling self-help book in three countries. This was my first book, and its success is a reflection of the success readers have had with it. People changed their lives with this strategy, and shared it with others.
The mini habits strategy is different from 99.9% of self-help content because it emphasizes consistency over all else. Other books that correctly promote consistency don’t usually have a thoughtful application strategy for it. Importantly, Mini Habits doesn’t merely say “be consistent”—it is woven into the fabric of the strategy.
What does any of this have to do with weight loss? More than even I thought when I started writing this book. It turns out that behavior change and biological change work in much the same way, and the strategic mistakes that prevent people from changing their behavior also prevent them from losing weight. For example, when people forcibly restrict their calories, they almost always gain the weight back, just as someone reverts to their typical way of living after trying to force themselves to reach ambitious goals.
Why Lose Weight?
Being overweight is not a crime. It doesn’t lower your value as a human being. Weight, however, can affect your health. It can affect your ability to do and/or enjoy activities. It can affect your self-esteem. It can affect nearly all aspects of your life.
If you want to lose weight, do it for yourself. Don’t do it because you’re “supposed to be thinner” or have a certain body mass index (BMI). There is no rule that states “Thou shalt have a BMI between 18.5 and 25.” Body weight is a shallow, incomplete measure of a person’s health. Some exceptionally muscular and fit people are actually considered overweight or even obese according to their BMI.
When you say you want to lose weight, what you really mean is that you want to play with your kids without getting winded, you want to look in the mirror and feel good about what you see, you want to impress someone, you want to live a long and healthy life, you want to improve your overall quality of life, or you want to look good in spandex. These are all fine reasons to lose weight as long as they come from you.
Book Structure
There are two parts to this book. Part one covers weight loss: current popular methods, why they’re broken, how the brain and body naturally change, how weight loss works, and the resulting best approach.
Part two covers strategies that are based on the conclusions of part one. We’ll begin part two with the ideal psychology of weight loss. How should we think about our weight loss journey in general? How should we approach food and fitness? Once these questions are thoroughly gone into, you’ll have a solid idea of not only the best way to lose weight, but the best mindset for weight loss. For example, you’ll know that processed food is a major cause of weight gain, but also that you shouldn’t try to resist it directly.
At this point, you’ll be ready to formulate your mini habits plan, and there’s an in-depth guide to help you create a plan that suits your lifestyle. Unlike dieting, a mini habit plan is completely flexible and adaptable to you. Once you’ve got a mini habit plan, we’ll talk about situational strategies, like how to handle holidays, snacking, temptation, peer pressure, eating out, and buying groceries.
Some books give you recipes. Some books give you a list of foods to (not) eat. This book teaches you how to change your behavior to lose weight permanently, and that’s more valuable than the world’s greatest recipe book or most accurate list of weight loss foods. When you can change your behavior, you can become the person you’ve always wanted to become.
The techniques in this book are powerful and transformative, and yet they’re so simple that anyone can succeed with them.
Part One
Introduction: Diet’s Two Definitions
Before we begin, to avoid confusion, we need to define the two ways people use the word “diet.”
Diet (n): food and drink regularly provided or consumed
Diet (v): to eat less food or to eat only particular kinds of food in order to lose weight1
Every single person has a diet (#1), but not everyone is on a diet (#2). The second definition is also known as “dieting.” The easiest way to think of it is that #1 is a noun and #2 is a verb. Dieting or “going on a diet” is something you may or may not do, but a diet is a noun that every person possesses.
I mention this so you don’t think I’m contradicting myself as I verbally destroy the practice of “dieting” (v) and then suggest a particular type of diet (n) for weight loss. To “go on a diet” or start “diet
ing” means that you’re consciously modifying your food type or amount. It’s one specific (and ineffective) strategy to change your diet (n) and lose weight. If you determine a particular diet is ideal for weight loss, dieting is NOT the only way to get yourself to eat that way.
Mini Habits for Weight Loss: Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering. Page 1