Mini Habits for Weight Loss: Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering.

by Stephen Guise

  3

  Weight Loss Speed

  Beware the Counterattack

  “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”

  ~ Mark Twain

  Weight Gain Secrets

  Since you’re reading this book, I’m going to assume that you’d like to lose weight, but here’s an interesting idea for you to think about. What if your goal was to gain fat? Bear with me here, because this is going to change the way you think about weight loss.

  I’m getting at the fundamentals of change, because to gain fat is a body change just as much as losing fat is a body change. Thus, these two processes, while opposite in goal, share the fundamental component of changing from a previously established norm. How do people typically gain fat and become overweight?

  Do they pump their fist at 12:01 AM on January 1st and say, “This is it. I’m really going to do it. I will gain 35 pounds this year!”?

  Do they post to Facebook saying, “Hey everyone. I’m really serious about it this time. My goal is to gain 10 pounds this week on a milkshake cleanse.”

  Do they get inspired at 2 AM one night to consume more cheeseburgers, fries, and soda?

  Do they swear to never leave the couch again?

  All in all, do they stand on the proverbial mountain and declare the change that was about to happen?

  Or does it just… happen? Gradually. Subtly. Sneakily. Pizza-ly.

  People gain weight in the same way that people successfully lose weight: small and seemingly insignificant lifestyle choices accumulate over time into bigger changes. No matter what those “fast weight loss” books tell you, real change doesn’t happen from a huge and sudden shift in behavior. The accumulation and progression of small changes is how we all change over time (without always intending to). It’s how you’ve developed every bad habit you currently have, and though it’s often a powerful force to our detriment, we can harness this same power for our benefit.

  Your Body Does Not Want to Change

  According to a 2006 Duke University Journal Study, the subconscious part of the brain dictates about 45% of our behavior in the form of habits.27 As we covered, the subconscious mind is a routine-driven machine—it dislikes change and will resist it. This makes it the grim reaper of goal pursuits, because every goal pursuit is a change from your current position.

  Beyond subconscious resistance, there is yet another layer to overcome—biological resistance. Weight loss experts refer to this as the body’s “fat set point.” The set point is the amount of fat the body currently holds and will try to maintain.

  Mainstream weight loss strategies have us fight the fat set point, but not intelligently! The studies I mentioned earlier on calorie restriction and yo-yo dieting are a good example of worsening the fat set point by triggering the starvation response. The fat set point is so persistent that not even surgery can change it.

  Surgical Fat Removal Doesn’t Work

  Liposuction is the surgical removal of fat from the body, and it doesn’t work because of the fat set point. A study at the University of Colorado found that after one year, liposuction patients’ body fat was no different from the control group.28 Obesity researchers weren’t surprised by this, as it’s well known by now that our fat stores are controlled by the central nervous system.29

  The most surprising thing is that liposuction remains popular. After breast augmentation and nose reshaping, liposuction was the third most popular cosmetic surgery procedure in the United States in 2014.30 Not only that, but it was the only procedure in the top five to have registered an increase over the previous year.

  As for how the body regains fat after surgical removal, it’s likely as simple as increased food intake. A rat study (you want to hear more about rats? I knew it!) found that those that had fat tissue surgically removed ate more compared to the control group. “Over a wide range of body compositions, there was once again a clear inverse relationship between the induced change in adipose tissue mass and spontaneous chow intake.”31 Some may read this and think calorie counting could prevent the regain, but they’d be missing the point. This is yet another warning sign against aggressive plans like calorie restriction.

  Dr. Salans, an obesity researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, says, “I suspect that the body’s regulation of weight is so complex that if you intervene at this site, something else is going to happen to neutralize this intervention.”32

  The Human Body Demands Balance

  Let’s zoom out and take notice of a larger concept at work here. Balance. Here are just some of the ways the body fights for balance. Internalize the concept behind these facts and think about some of your previous extreme weight loss attempts in this context.

  When you consume insufficient sugar or carbohydrates, your body converts fat into glucose to maintain proper energy and bodily functioning. This is called ketosis.

  When you consume sugar or carbohydrates, your body produces an appropriate amount of insulin to uptake some of the glucose energy into cells and normalize your blood sugar levels.

  When you consume a lot of cholesterol, the liver makes less of it to compensate. When you consume less, the liver makes more. This is why high-cholesterol foods like eggs can still be very healthy (and not cause your cholesterol to rise).

  When blood is drawn, your body will produce a greater amount of red and white blood cells and platelets until levels are back to normal.

  When you exercise more (expend energy), you get hungrier (to intake energy).

  When you semi-starve yourself, your hormones will make you hungrier until you eat, and then you’ll be more likely to overeat.

  When you semi-starve yourself and lose fat quickly, your body burns fewer calories at rest (food efficiency).

  When you process food and it’s stored as fat, your fat cells will release the hormone leptin, which gives you the sensation of fullness. The amount of fat in your cells determines the amount of leptin released. Therefore, the more fat you have, the more leptin will be released, and the fuller you’ll feel. This is a key way appetite is regulated (unless the person develops leptin resistance, which can block the “I have enough” signal).

  Our bodies are machines of balance. Everything we know about the body shows a clear biological pattern of homeostasis, or the tendency to self-stabilize. This makes weight loss an interesting proposition, because the goal is to radically change something that doesn’t want to change radically.

  If you’ve gained fat, your body is fighting to keep it. Knowing this, is the smart approach to “shock” the body into a new way of living? Must we stop eating food completely for a while for the body to get the message? Of course not. This is like cornering a dangerous animal. If you do this to your body, you’re going to provoke its very best counterattack. It’s going to do whatever it can to get you back to your starting weight and may overcompensate to make you gain even more weight. It’s like when the bank incorrectly shuts down your accounts “for your protection.” It’s frustrating, but the body is just doing its job.

  Slow, Easy, Sneaky Changes

  “Sure, I’ll try a cigarette,” said the chain smoker on the day that began a lifelong habit. “It’s only 50 cents more to add chips and a drink?” said the man who didn’t want to turn down a “good deal” and added 30 pounds of fat in the next two years as a result. If only we could use this technique to form good habits! We can.

  Bad habits are easy to form because they are highly rewarding and easy to do. Good habits are difficult to form because the reward is delayed and we make them hard to do. The logical approach is to make bad habits harder to do and good habits easier to do.

  Easy Does it

  Have you ever gotten into a thermostat battle with someone? You’re hot, so you move the temperature down three degrees. Someone else gets cold, and they move it back up three degrees and then a couple extra. Clever thermostat veterans win by changing it one degree at a time to avoid shocking cold-sensitive housemates into an
overreaction.

  Small changes don’t trigger your body’s “countermeasures.” In Mini Habits, I discussed how small behavioral changes are subtle enough to avoid subconscious resistance (or at least lessen it considerably). Small dietary and fitness adjustments work the same way to avoid biological resistance. This is why mini habits—the kings of behavior change—are also the kings of weight loss.

  Sneaky Does it

  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your circumstances, your body is active tissue programmed to survive. After blatant calorie restriction, the body reacts as it should for survival—you more readily store fat from the food you eat.33

  Losing weight is best approached as a covert operation. The change you want to reach is like a diamond in the center of a high security building. In this analogy, your body is the high security building, and fat is the diamond you wish to remove. Mainstream weight loss methods will tell you to run in the building with reckless abandon. And guess what? You’ll get the diamond quickly! But what’s this? You just set off 17 alarms, the building is in lockdown, the police have been notified, and a stressed-out security guard is pointing his gun at you. This is how your body responds to drastic weight loss measures.

  You got the diamond (lost weight), but you’ll have to put (gain) it back before you leave the building.

  This analogy is not extreme; it is exactly what happens when people try to change rapidly. The body has built-in homeostasis “alarms” to prevent change. It goes by the motto of “If it ain’t broke, don’t (you dare try to) fix it.” Your body says, “We’ve got a calorie deficit! Major calorie deficit! Send in the brownie lobbyists and set up a level four craving at noon!”

  Your failure wasn’t in obtaining the diamond (losing weight/fat); it was in having no exit strategy (lasting removal). Do you see how this also describes the dieting industry? They emphasize the fastest possible results, with little consideration given to what happens afterwards. Some people believe they can quickly lose weight and then go back to their former lifestyle without gaining it back. I wish it were true, but studies show that it’s not. Others believe that a fast weight loss start will inspire them to do more, but, just like in long-distance races, extreme starts result in exhausted finishes.

  Instead of running in recklessly to steal the diamond, a smarter thief would spend some time planning before entering the building. And what do you think the resulting strategy would be? The heist would be done at night. Slowly. Carefully. Surgically. Steadily. Sneakily. He’d move through the building while avoiding the sensors. Then, he’d claim the prize and escape. Nobody would know he was there.

  If you can lose weight without triggering your body to overcorrect, the prize isn’t just a lower number on the scale. The prize is changing your behavior permanently to support a new weight level and healthier body. That’s worth more than any diamond.

  When you use this approach, you also gain the benefits of compounding that we covered in the introduction. When you put it together, you have a reliable way to decrease your fat set point that can also compound into greater progress, more confidence, happiness, hope, and courage to continue forward. It’s not just the best way, it is THE way to approach weight loss. Let’s step out of theory now and get specific with the Mini Habits strategy.

  The Mini Habits Strategy

  Now that we’ve covered how the brain and body are best changed at their natural slow pace, I want to give you a condensed explanation of the mini habits strategy.

  What Exactly Is a Mini Habit?

  A mini habit is a “stupid small” behavior you do every day. I say “stupid small” because they sound absolutely ridiculous and generally take one minute or less to accomplish.

  One push-up a day

  Read two pages in a book per day

  Clean your home (or a specific area in it) for one minute per day

  Strike a key (on piano, guitar, etc.) or play one song per day

  Stretch one body part per day

  Eat one serving of fresh vegetables per day

  Floss one tooth per day

  A mini habit doesn’t look very useful on paper. Instinct is to say, “But I can do more than that!” And of course, we usually can do more than that. But the idea is to drop the requirement so low that “usually” becomes “always.” When you can always do something, you’re unstoppable. When you can usually do something, it means you’re stoppable, and that isn’t good enough if you want lasting change. The best way to tell if your mini habit is too big is if you can’t do it on your worst day. If you can succeed on the worst day(s) of your life, you won’t fail.

  In addition to doing this small behavior every day, you will also be encouraged to do what I call “bonus reps,” which comes from the one push-up mini habit (the first one I had). A bonus rep is an additional repetition of your mini habit. So if your mini habit is to dance to one song every day, you might choose to dance to two or three songs on some days when you feel especially groovy, or perhaps dance for a few more seconds after the song is over. If your mini habit is to eat a serving of fresh vegetables at lunch, maybe one day you’ll have two servings at lunch, or an additional serving at dinner. Bonus reps are anything extra, and there’s no amount too small or too large. My 50 words of writing per day mini habit has sometimes expanded to 100 words or exploded into 5,000 words. Both are bonuses. Both are great!

  Bonus reps are always optional, never required. You are always permitted to do your mini habit and stop there because a mini habit must stay small. Even if you’ve done bonus reps for 57 days in a row, you can always stop at the mini habit. A low requirement and high ceiling is perfect for consistency plus unlimited upward potential.

  The mini habit is the base of our strategy. It ensures that you’ll develop a new habit (that will benefit you for a lifetime). The bonus reps are an outlet for any excess motivation or grit that you may have on a given day. This system adapts to you on a daily basis.

  Every other plan you’ll come across presents you with a flat, high target. For example, a traditional nutrition-based diet includes a list of foods you are allowed to eat and some that you aren’t. If you’re lucky, you will get a single cheat day per week. But what if you don’t need a cheat day? What if you need two? You have to adapt to it, rather than it to you.

  The traditional structure of weight loss programs pressures you to rise to the challenge every day, and on the days you’re not able to do it, you will feel defeated and like a failure. Dieting probably has the highest quitting rate of any pursuit, which says a lot about it and little about the people who try it.

  In traditional goal pursuit, the beginning marks the highest point of motivation. It is slowly drained as time goes on, and practically destroyed once the first failure occurs. The mini habits strategy is the opposite. It’s rooted in positivity and designed for almost certain success every day. When you succeed every day, your confidence, self-efficacy, and motivation won’t shrink over time; they will grow.

  4

  Everyone's Wrong

  Weight Loss Is Not about Carbs, Fat, or Calories

  “What you eat actually changes how you expend energy. Similarly, how you expend energy changes what (and how) you eat. To be even more nuanced, what you eat further impacts what you subsequently eat. As you increase (or decrease) in size, this impacts how you expend energy.”34

  ~ Peter Attia, MD

  Setting the Terms

  Now that we’ve talked about brain change and body change, it’s time to discuss nutrition. This is the science-y discussion about how weight loss works. In this chapter, we’ll be seeking to answer the question of “What’s the best way to lose weight?” Before we get into that, I must clarify something.

  Observations Are Not Recommendations

  I’m going to be talking about how weight loss works, and that means I’ll say or imply things such as “processed food causes weight gain.” Most people (and authors) will immediately assume that the statement “processed food causes we
ight gain” means the answer is to “forbid processed food.” This is not smart.

  Strategy is our best weapon, and forbidding something is only one possible strategy of many to reach the goal of losing weight. Forbidding food is the dumbest strategy you can employ because it plays to our weakness (we’ll discuss why in depth later).