I can’t eat junk food. I have to eat more vegetables.
It sounds correct and innocent enough, but this is an awful way of thinking about weight loss. First, notice the loss of control in the language. I can’t, I have to. These are phrases we use when we have no choice; these are phrases we used when our parents told us we couldn’t spend the night at a friend’s house.
“Sorry, James, Mom says I can’t sleep over tonight.”
~ An actual quote from a young, sad Stephen (I still love you, Mom).
In contrast, what does a non-smoking adult say when offered a cigarette?
“No thanks, I don’t smoke.”
The child is not in control of his situation. The adult is.
Consider that “can’t” is more an appeal to authority than a personal decision to change. Like in the child’s case, he wants to sleep over, but he can’t, because his parents said so. When an adult tries this “can’t strategy” with dieting and they realize that they are in fact still the decision-maker, it’s really easy to break that rule.
There’s science, too. Vanessa Patrick and Henrik Hagtvedt gathered 120 students and asked them to quantify their desire for healthy eating (on a 1-9 scale).124 Some students were told to use “I don’t eat X” and others “I can’t eat X” to combat temptation to eat unhealthy snacks.
After this, participants were moved to what they thought was an unrelated study, and, once they handed in their questionnaire from that, they were offered a chocolate bar or “healthy” granola bar. A piece of fruit would be a better fit as a healthy snack, but regardless, the study results were quite interesting.
They saw 64% of the “I don’t” group choose granola bars and the rest choose chocolate bars. Only 39% of the “I can’t” group chose granola bars.
The reason “don’t” works so much better than “can’t” is because it’s identity-based, rather than a superficial attempt to control your behavior. In the study conductors’ words: “Since the ‘don’t’ frame suggests a stable and unchanging stance that invokes the self (‘this is who I am’), it is more effective when goal focus is internal and related to the self (I don’t eat fast food).”125
The takeaway: identity-based decisions EMPOWER your internal long-term goals (such as those in weight loss); following baseless rules of a “can’t” nature WEAKEN you and activate your rebellious side.
If you decide not to have cake and someone pushes you to have some or asks you why you won’t, please don’t say that you’re on a diet. Don’t say that you “can’t have any.” That makes you look and feel deprived. Instead, say that you don’t want any. That makes you look and feel powerful. See the difference?
As surprising as it sounds, it’s perfectly okay to turn down unhealthy food because you don’t want it, rather than because you’re “watching your weight.” Society places a lot of pressure on us to succumb to processed foods, but they’re not as appealing when you consider the ingredients and the effect they have on your body. You may not yet see processed food in this way, but when you train yourself to enjoy real food with mini habits, you’re going to feel and look better, and your preferences will change. The person who eats low-quality food isn’t aware of how great they’d feel eating healthy food.
This is not to say that you won’t ever eat French fries again. I’m the weird guy who offers his friends carrots for snacking and fresh fruit for dessert when they come over. I still consume things like French fries, hamburgers, wine, beer, and pizza. Rarely, I’ll even drink soda, even though I hate what it’s done to human health. Nothing except artificial sweeteners and trans fats are completely off limits for me. I don’t have rules saying what I can and can’t eat. I don’t eat unhealthy foods very often because I’ve changed my identity. You can do it too.
Don’t Assign Morality to Your Food Choices
Once you make food a moral battle, you weaken. Eating certain types of food doesn’t make you good or bad. It doesn’t make you inferior or superior to anyone else. We eat food to survive. Some food is more nutritious than other food, but it all (mostly) works to keep us alive. Did you know there’s a woman who has eaten nothing but pizza for many years?
I eat a very healthy diet relative to most people, but it makes me no better or worse than anyone else. It makes me no better than I was when I ate fast food all the time in college. I have more energy now, and my diet has improved my health, but our value as people has nothing to do with what we eat.
You know how people will say, “Oh, I’m so bad,” before eating an entire chocolate cake? That’s making food into a moral battle. It is saying that you’re doing something wrong. Can you guess what emotions that generates? Guilt and shame. Whoops.
Food choices aren’t good and bad. They are beneficial or harmful to your health, well-being, and weight loss goal. When you eat a doughnut, you needn’t feel as if you betrayed your best friend. You needn’t feel like you’re a bad person. Instead, be aware that you chose to eat food for entertainment over sustenance. Be aware that you likely added a bit of fat to your belly. There’s nothing wrong with it, but there are consequences.
Forget the Congruency Mindset and Binge on Healthy Food
Have you ever thought about why you’re more likely to binge-eat potato chips than broccoli? You might think it’s because chips are tastier and easier to consume in bulk, and that may be true to some extent, but there’s another, more dangerous reason.
People are less likely to eat significant amounts of healthy food because of their mindset. Chips are known to be a weight-gaining food, as they’re high carb, high fat, high calorie, and not very satiating. So when a person begins eating chips, they see it as a “poor choice.” Since we tend to desire congruency, and overeating chips is a combination of two weight loss mistakes (eating a weight-gaining food and eating too much of it), it’s mentally satisfying, albeit disappointing later, to act in congruence with the “bad label.” We’ve all probably thought, “Well, I’ve made this mistake, so I might as well finish making it.”
When we eat broccoli, we’re cognizant that we’re doing a good thing for our body, and eating an excessive amount of food would seem to “go against” our good decision. Since we’re being “good” at the time, we don’t want to overeat and tarnish our good deed. But it’s almost impossible to overeat healthy food and unwise to moderate it artificially. If you artificially limit the amount of broccoli you can eat now, you’re going to eat more of something else later. This isn’t to say that you MUST eat a lot of broccoli. It’s to show you why you don’t need to fear overeating healthy food.
One reason real food triggers satiety before ultra-processed food is because of a concept called sensory specific satiety. Sensory specific satiety is the term for losing the desire for a particular food after consuming a certain amount of it. For me, egg nog and chocolate fudge trigger my sensory specific satiety very quickly. They taste delicious, but they’re so strong and “in your face” that I can’t handle too much.
Food scientists know about this phenomenon, and they’ve found a way around it. If a food or drink is nuanced with different flavors, we can consume (much) more of it. Did you know that soft drink flavors are engineered to be pleasant, but nuanced and not too strong to avoid triggering your sensory specific satiety so that you’ll drink more? It’s true.
When you are near healthy food, eat as much of it as you want. It will feel strange to mix large portion sizes with healthy food choices because common wisdom says to eat less, but overeating is rarely an issue with fruits and vegetables. The 24-year study with over 100,000 participants I mentioned earlier found that the most weight loss was associated per serving of fruit, meaning that additional servings of fruit meant more weight loss.126
I regularly binge on frozen fruit (typically mangoes and blueberries) covered with cinnamon for dessert, and it usually amounts to only about 200 to 300 calories before I’m completely satisfied.
Don’t Aim to Lose Weight, Aim to Not Gain it
&n
bsp; A study on obese Black women found that the women had better weight loss results when they aimed for weight maintenance rather than weight loss.127 Attempting to “lose weight” makes you think you have to do more than you actually do. It suggests that you are “behind” and need to do something extra, which isn’t true. It leads to the scarcity mindset and suggests that you eat less food (both of which are weight-gaining perspectives). Trying not to gain weight correctly puts your focus on things like the type of food you’re eating and not stuffing yourself (rather than aiming for a deficit).
Heavy Thoughts to Avoid
There are certain thoughts that practically add pounds all by themselves, because of how much they affect your behavior. Don’t think these thoughts if you want to lose weight.
1. I can trust this food. People place too much trust in the food system. It’s important to remember that people who sell you food are running a business, and your health is not even close to the top of their concerns list. This includes “diet” products, as the perfect “diet product” is one that you think works, but doesn’t.
When something is labeled “diet,” it often means it contains artificial sweeteners. On examining data from a 9-year study in San Antonio, researchers found that those who consumed 21 artificially sweetened beverages (ASBs) per week were almost twice as likely to be overweight or obese. Those who consumed artificial sweetened beverages experienced a 47% greater weight gain than those who did not. “Significant positive dose-response relationship emerged between baseline ASB consumption and all outcome measures.”128 Another study found that artificially sweetened beverages may even promote weight gain more than sugar sweetened beverages.129
2. I deserve a treat. Dogs get treats. Humans get rewards. We need a broader term than treat, because we can reward ourselves in many different ways besides eating. Finding alternative rewards is an essential part of transforming habits like overeating and stress eating.
3. This meal is a small exception. Special occasions and exceptions are the enemy of consistency, and that means they’re the enemy of successful weight loss. Remember the power of small compounded changes that we discussed? This applies to small exceptions, too. The innocent-sounding “just this once” has ruined lives by creating or sustaining addictions. It’s necessary to understand the compounding power of small directional shifts in your life for better AND for worse. Never discount the helpfulness of eating a carrot, or the possible damage from saying “just this once.” (Note: Mini habits minimize the need or desire for exceptions.)
4. If other people are doing it, it’s acceptable. Social eating dynamics are a big reason why people struggle with their weight. It’s a triple whammy:
We want to fit in.
We don’t want to offend anyone.
We assume that other people take care of themselves to a reasonable degree.
Imagine you’re eating dinner, and everyone orders a cheesecake to share. In this situation, you don’t really want the cheesecake because you know it contains artificial ingredients, is highly processed, and the taste isn’t worth it to you at this time. If it were just you, you’d turn it down easily. But everyone encourages you to try a bite, they’re all enjoying it, and it seems that they’re reasonably healthy and having fun, so what’s the harm?
The harm isn’t the individual case of eating a little bit of cheesecake. It’s that you are allowing your decisions to be controlled by something outside of you. If you eat cheesecake or anything else, be sure that you’re the one making the decision and don’t be afraid to say no.
It’s more important to uphold your values than to be courteous 100% of the time; it’s okay to be rude if you’re protecting your values. Some people will disagree with that, because they believe that social etiquette rules all. If someone is so offended that you won’t eat cheesecake or drink alcohol with them, you are the one who should be offended that they don’t respect your desires and values. True friends will support your quest to become a better person, and not get upset if you refuse to consume unhealthy food with them. It’s critical to be able to say no, because, if you can’t, you’ll be at the mercy of other people’s ideas for life.
In the United States, it’s “normal” for people to drink soda with every meal. To be at a healthy weight in a country with a population that is 70% overweight, you have to be different from most people. We’re influenced by those we spend time with, and within that truth is a good piece of advice: If you can find them, seek out and spend time with people who live a healthy lifestyle.
Even with the strategies I’m going to give to you, it will remain extremely difficult to change if your environment is filled with people with unhealthy habits who always eat unhealthy food. Environment is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. If you find yourself struggling, take a close look at how your environment is driving your behavior.
5. Dancing for 30 seconds right now won’t help me lose weight. If you want to gain weight, make your standard for exercise and healthy eating so high that you can only meet it when you’ve prepared extensively for it. When you put healthy living on a pedestal, you’ll do it less.
Yes, exercise is important. Yes, it can help you lose weight in the long term. But no, you don’t need to do it impressively in clean 30-minute segments. Make exercise a common thing, dance around for a few seconds in the same way you’d grab a snack. Do a push-up (or a few) while waiting for the microwave to finish. A low bar to entry increases the number of entries. Right now, stand up and move around for 10 seconds. It’s just 10 seconds. You don’t have to do Tai Chi if you’re in the airport. You can simply get up and stretch or walk around for 10 seconds. If you can do this, you can succeed with mini habits. Read on when you finish.
If you haven’t done it yet and are feeling resistance to doing it, explore what you’re feeling. Your objections are probably about it not being good enough, that it’s inconvenient with no payoff, that you’d do it if you were in a different situation, and probably a vague feeling that you’d be better off not doing it. This is because you haven’t practiced doing such small behaviors and seen the payoff. When something is foreign to you, your subconscious will throw up these “smokescreen” excuses. Just this once, force yourself to do it as an experiment. It’s just 10 seconds. After you finish, compare the experience to your thoughts prior to doing it. At worst, you’ll see it as a neutral experience.
Did you feel your heart rate or alertness slightly increase? This is good. This little bit of movement is good enough, because it’s better than sitting for 10 seconds. It doesn’t prevent you from doing more, but it does make you far more likely to do more now or in the future. Every time you demonstrate your ability to take a small positive step like this, you decrease your resistance to further steps now or later.
6. In order to lose weight, I’ve got to do something big. I’ve got to make a huge change. Similar to the previous point, those who put the most pressure on themselves to make the biggest changes are the ones who fail most frequently. In a previously mentioned study, the best predictor of dropping out of weight loss treatment was high expectations for a lower BMI.130 The more weight they expected to lose, the less weight they lost.
The people who succeed financially are rarely those who receive windfall gains; they’re the people who methodically save and invest their money, growing their net worth steadily. In the same way, those who successfully lose weight don’t do it in 10 days; they gradually change their behavior over time and their body steadily improves. As with the wealthy, no individual day’s progress is electrifying, but the overall result will be.
7. I need to eat less. Careful with this one! This is one of the counterintuitive aspects of weight loss. It seems smart to think this way, but it activates your scarcity instincts. Scarce things are irresistible to us. When your life revolves around the amount of food you’re eating, you’re a slave to it, not a master of it. In the long term, it means you’ll probably overeat.
To lose weight, you need to
have a mindset of abundance. Think: I have enough food to eat. This amount of food is satisfying. I’ve had plenty, and my next meal is coming soon. This will encourage you to stop at satiety rather than careen into belt-snapping territory because you’ve made food seem scarce and rare.
Shame Is the Obstacle, Not the Solution
Shame is different from guilt. Shame is inward, and guilt is outward. As Joseph Burgo, PhD, puts it, “Guilt and shame sometimes go hand in hand; the same action may give rise to feelings of both shame and guilt, where the former reflects how we feel about ourselves and the latter involves an awareness that our actions have injured someone else. In other words, shame relates to self, guilt to others.”131 Shame is the feeling that you’ve let yourself down, that you’ve been “bad.”
Mini Habits for Weight Loss: Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering. Page 13