The Fundamental Rule of Weight Loss

Note: I’ve been working on a book tentatively titled The Weight-Loss Habit: The (Sort of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. This is an excerpt from the book.

Since the book is still in draft form, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this.

Edit:

The book is now available.

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Weight loss is all about habits. So is weight gain. In fact, your entire relationship with food is determined by your habits.

To lose weight, you need to change your eating habits.

You may argue that this is an obvious statement, and just kicking the can down the road. How do you change your eating habits?

That isn’t necessarily obvious, but at least you’re asking the right question.

One of my favorite books is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. This talks about the idea of Keystone Habits. Frequently, someone looking to change their life will pick up a new good habit or break a bad habit. And this will inspire them to make huge changes throughout their life. For example, someone will quit smoking, and six months later they’ve lost 50 pounds, are running a marathon, started a business, written a novel, and have a much better relationship with their spouse. 

Frequently, someone looking to change their life will pick up a new good habit or break a bad habit. And this will inspire them to make huge changes throughout their life.

The smoking didn’t necessarily have much of a direct impact on these things. Rather, the keystone habit demonstrates the impact that habit change can have on their life, which leads them to adopt habit change to empower them in other areas.

This doesn’t answer the question of how to change your habits. And that’s because habit change is generally hard. Moreover, to be successful, a habit change needs to be sustainable, which means it’s something you’re willing to do for the rest of your life.

So what makes a habit change feasible and sustainable? Well, it certainly helps if it’s convenient, easy, small, enjoyable, takes minimal time-commitment, offers immediate positive feedback, or is a series of small progressive changes that steadily build up over time.

Giving up the foods you love sucks. Going to the gym four times a week is unpleasant and takes up too much time. That’s why you can’t keep those habits. (Some people love going to the gym and hate ice cream, so it’s easy for them to keep those habits, but if you’re reading this book, that probably isn’t you.)

Some people love going to the gym and hate ice cream, so it’s easy for them to keep those habits, but if you’re reading this book, that probably isn’t you.

The trick is to find the keystone habit, and make it a habit that you will be able to form and keep. Something that’s convenient, easy, takes minimal time commitment, offers immediate positive feedback, and will have a big impact on your life.

So what is the keystone habit? The trick that will change your life and make weight loss (sort of) easy?

The fundamental rule of weight loss is to build a lifelong habit of thinking before you eat, make, or buy food, making a rational decision about what and how much to eat, and then to celebrate and take pride in your good decisions.

I’ll go into much more depth on this in later chapters, but let me unpack this a bit.

When you are about to purchase food at the store or restaurant, make food, or eat food, take a few seconds to think about it. Note how many calories are in it. Ask yourself whether the enjoyment you get from it is worth the calories. Maybe it is, and that’s totally fine. Or is there a diet version that is almost as good, that would be a small drop in enjoyment for a large decrease in calories, and you’d be better off with that? Then think about how much you want to eat. Would you get as much enjoyment from the small size as the large? Could you serve yourself less?

And then comes the easiest, but also the most important part: Anytime you make a wise decision for your health, choosing a lower calorie option or smaller portion than what’s available, take pride in that decision. Celebrate that you are taking control of your life and your health. Be smug. You are succeeding where so many others fail. You deserve to be proud.

This part is extremely important. Do not skip it. This diet will not work if you are not proud of yourself for being on it.

Anytime you make a wise decision for your health, choosing a lower calorie option or smaller portion than what’s available, take pride in that decision.

That last bit may seem a bit wacky. What does pride have to do with food and your metabolism?

To explain, let me take a brief foray into the science of habit formation. (This is explained more deeply in Charles Duhigg’s book.)

A habit is where repeated actions form neural pathways in your brain that allow your mind to go into autopilot. Once these neural pathways are formed, it’s very easy to slip into them, and very hard to avoid them. Standard diets fail because they’re premised on fighting our deeply ingrained habits.

The trick that I stumbled on was overwriting an existing habit, which is the best and easiest way to change habits.

Habits have what’s called a habit loop. They start with a cue – something that triggers the habit. Then a routine – the thing you do. Then a reward – something that makes you feel good afterward.

Habits have what’s called a habit loop. They start with a cue – something that triggers the habit. Then a routine – the thing you do. Then a reward – something that makes you feel good afterward.

So when you eat unhealthy food, your cue is seeing the food. The routine is eating it. The reward is the delicious taste followed by fat and sugar sending pleasurable chemicals to your brain.

Because these have become automated habits, we eat the food without even thinking. But to successfully lose weight, we need to overwrite the habit. We use the same cue – seeing the food. But substitute in a new routine. Actively thinking about if the food is worth it, and making a rational decision about if we really want to eat it, and if so how much.

But here’s where we run into a problem: Where’s the reward? If we eat a smaller portion, we still get the delicious taste, but a much smaller hit of fat and sugar. And if we opt not to eat the unhealthy food at all, we don’t even get the delicious taste.

If we don’t find a substitute for the reward, the habit won’t stick, and the diet will fail like so many others. That’s where the pride comes in. Pride feels good. Knowing we are taking control of our own lives sends a dopamine hit to our brain. 

If we practice this long enough, then eventually instead of craving nachos, we’ll start craving good decisions. That’s when the habit is formed, and keeping the diet becomes a whole lot easier.

If we practice this long enough, then eventually instead of craving nachos, we’ll start craving good decisions.

Note: Celebrating good decisions does not mean that you should feel shame or beat yourself up if you decide that an unhealthy food is worth eating. Rationally deciding to eat a high-calorie food based on the enjoyment you’ll get out of it is not a bad decision. In fact, it’s good to do this every so often so you don’t feel deprived. Otherwise you won’t be able to keep to the diet. Just as if you’re generally frugal with your money, you still might decide to take an expensive vacation, and wouldn’t consider that a bad decision.

I’ve mentioned “good decisions” several times in this chapter. But I haven’t said exactly which decisions are good. That’s what the rest of this book is about. A bunch of habits to build and tactics to use to help you lose weight that all share one very important characteristic: They are easy. Which means you can put them into practice right now, and keep them in place for the rest of your life. Without struggle, and without feeling like you’re missing out.

But ultimately, these all stem from the habit of thinking before you eat. So start building that habit, and start changing your life.