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Everything You’ve Heard About Dieting is Wrong (Weight Loss Wednesday)

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Everything you've heard about dieting is wrong
Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Everything you’ve heard about dieting is wrong.

Diets don’t work.

Most people who attempt to lose weight fail.

Of the few who succeed, 95% gain it right back.

I’m different.

I lost 30% of my body weight, and have kept it off 20 years.

What did I do right?

Welcome to Weight Loss Wednesday

Welcome to Weight Loss Wednesday, a new feature where I give quick tips on weight loss, healthy eating, and easy exercise.

This is based on my experience as one of the few people who spent half my life obese, then figured out how to lose weight, and keep it off forever.

Why everything you’ve heard about dieting is wrong

Why do I say that everything you’ve heard about dieting is wrong?

Because I was only able to lose weight by ignoring all the standard advice.

Here’s the biggest reason why what they tell you to do doesn’t work:

IT’S TOO HARD

Gurus who look like underwear models manipulate you to sell a fantasy.… Read more

10 Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Health

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Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Health is the first in a series of incredibly easy ways to improve your life.

Watch for upcoming entries including “Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Mental Health,” “Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Sleep,” “Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Your Finances,” and more.

Incredibly easy ways to improve your life

Incredibly easy ways to make your life better are the best ways to improve your life.

Because, well, they’re incredibly easy.

Many gurus and motivational posters insist only difficult things are worth doing.

If it's easy it's not worth it. If It's worth it, it won't be easy. For Incredibly Easy Ways to Improve Yourself.
This sounds cool, but makes no sense when you think about it.

That’s ridiculous. It’s easy to breathe, and you wouldn’t stop doing that to seek out a greater challenge.

There are some challenging life-improvements worth pursuing. But if they’re hard, that means you won’t succeed at all of them. And you can only do a few hard things at any one time.… Read more

What Victory Tastes Like

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Weight Loss Habit cover for What Victory Tastes Like

“What Victory Tastes Like” is the epilogue to The Weight Loss Habit.

This is the final day of the Weight Loss Habit takeover of the site, celebrating the book’s release this week.

For those of you uninterested in weight loss content, I promise I’ll get back to the regular Self-Improvement Made Easy content with my next post.

Don’t forget to buy your copy of The Weight Loss Habit.

What Victory Tastes Like

The Weight Loss Habit Changes You

I started off this book by quoting Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit:

“If you believe you can change – if you make it a habit – the change becomes real.

This is the real power of habit:

The insight that your habits are what you choose them to be. Once that choice occurs – and becomes automatic – it’s not only real, it starts to seem inevitable.”

I ended Part One of this book by telling you it will get easier.… Read more

Weight Loss Habit Out Today!

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Weight Loss Habit

I’ve been talking about it for months, and the day has finally arrived. My book is available for immediate download on Kindle. You can buy it for $6.99, or get it for free through Kindle Unlimited. You can also order the paperback version for $9.99.

This is my first published book, and I’m really excited about it.

It tells the story of how, after spending the first half of my life obese, I figured out the secret to permanent weight loss:

Building easy habits to help reduce the amount of food I ate, and keeping those habits for the rest of my life.

I lost the excess weight, and have kept it off for twenty years. The book tells you how you can do the same.

Of course anyone can tell you to eat less. And since you’re not an idiot, you already knew that was a way to lose weight.… Read more

How a Comedy Sketch Changed My Life (From The Weight Loss Habit)

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Weight Loss Habit for How a Comedy Sketch Changed My Life

“How a Comedy Sketch Changed My Life” is the prologue of My book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, which comes out tomorrow, June 9.

It’s only $6.99 on Kindle or $9.99 on paperback.

I’m copying the prologue here:

My Chubby Childhood

It all started with a comedy sketch.

Let me take a step back.

I was always a chubby kid.

I’d get my clothes from what was politely called the “husky” section.

I was cursed with a slow metabolism, and learned terrible eating habits from my father, who was the kind of guy who would order his corned beef with extra fat, and go back to the buffet for thirds and fourths. (And then needed triple-bypass surgery when he was fifty, and died from heart-failure when he was fifty-seven.)

My family tried to spare my feelings by calling this “baby fat” and complimenting me on my broad shoulders, even though I would have been better served by them teaching me proper eating habits and refusing to stock cookies in the pantry.… Read more

Why Diets Fail (From The Weight Loss Habit)

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Weight Loss Habit for Why Diets Fail

“Why Diets Fail” is the introduction to my book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever, which is being released in less than a week. (Tuesday, June 9.)

The book tells the story of how after growing up obese and many failed diets, I figured out strategies to make weight loss easier.

I built these strategies into habits, lost the weight, and have kept the weight off for two decades, without relying on willpower.

I’m posting the introduction here so you can see what the book is about.

Why Diets Fail – The Best Health Advice Isn’t The Best Health Advice For You

This book isn’t going to give you the best health advice.

If your goal is to appear on the cover of fitness magazines or win bodybuilding competitions, stop reading right now. This book isn’t for you.… Read more

The Miracle of Frozen Meals

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This is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Weight Loss Habit. Since we’re all stuck at home, can’t go to restaurants, and it’s a time of habit change, it’s a good time to start eating healthier. Here I explain how frozen meals are one of the easiest ways to do that.

Edit:

The book is now available.

There was a period of time where my wife decided to go vegan. It made her feel generally better and healthier, but she ultimately gave it up because it was just too much of a time commitment.

Every day I’d come home from work and she’d be in the kitchen blending smoothies, making pastes, sorting seeds and grains, and doing god knows what to prepare all her meals. She’d stay in the kitchen the entire evening until it was time to go to bed. Eventually she decided, “Screw this. I want my life back,” and switched back to a normal diet just because it was easier.… Read more

Reward Yourself During or After Exercise (But Not With Food)

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[This is an excerpt from my upcoming weight loss book, The Weight Loss Habit]

Edit:

The book is now available.

Remember my tip about forming habits from Part 1: To be able to form a habit, it’s really best if it’s something that’s easy, convenient, enjoyable, provides immediate positive feedback, or is incremental improvements over time.

You can kind of cheat this with exercise, by making it more enjoyable and giving yourself immediate positive feedback through the use of a reward.

If you do something that makes you happy or is really enjoyable immediately after, or even better – during – exercise, then you’ll mentally associate the two things, and start to crave exercise because of the reward.

Some possible rewards are:

  • Watch a favorite or “guilty pleasure” TV show.
  • Watch movies.
  • Exercise with friends so that you can socialize at the same time.
  • Listen to your favorite music.
  • Listen to your favorite podcast.
… Read more

Twenty-eight Ways to Exercise That Aren’t Going to the Gym

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Note: As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been working on a book called The Weight Loss Habit. From time to time I’ll post excerpts from the book.

Edit:

The book is now available.

My approach mostly focuses on eating habits rather than exercise, because diet has a much bigger impact on your weight and overall health. But exercise certainly has some impact. And you absolutely should be getting exercise.

But not at the gym. Here’s the dirty little secret about the gym industry: Gyms are only for people who enjoy going for the gym. Take note of that. Commit it to memory. Recall it anytime a commercial, salesperson, corporate wellness program, overeager gym cultist, New Years Resolution bug, doctor, or well-meaning friend suggests you join one. Do not join a gym unless you are the kind of person who finds the gym actively fun. If you do, you are just wasting your money, and setting yourself up for frustration, failure, and self-hatred.… Read more