Category: habits

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behaviour change habits weight loss

Five Top Habits For Weight Loss

All Diets Work

In one sense, all diets work. No one diet is the ultimate best diet! E.g. Low Carb, Low Fat, Keto, Paleo, Primal, Plant Based etc. When studies equate for calories, all diets do about the same.

The best weight loss diet is really the diet that we prefer, and can stick with the most.  This will be different for many people. Some will thrive on low carb, some on low fat, some prefer counting calories, others macros. And so forth. 

“Find the method of restriction that feels the least restrictive to you”

The adherence rate for all diets is pretty appalling, and studies show that more people regain lost weight than keep it off. This illustrates that diets alone, are not always enough.

Habit and Behaviour Based Weight Loss

Ultimately, changing behaviours and habits is fundamental for long term weight loss & maintenance.

Below are five habits and behaviours from Dr Layne Norton for successful weight loss and maintenance. Studies show that these behaviours are very prevalent in people who successfully lose weight and keep it off .   

Layne Norton has a BS in Biochemistry and a PhD Nutritional Sciences with honours, and has published several studies, in areas such muscle protein synthesis and leucine. He’s also an author of several books including his recent “Fat Loss Forever”.

He’s also been a pro natural bodybuilder and pro powerlifter. He’s now bodybuilding & physique coach.

  1. Cognitive Restraint

Successful dieters who lose weight and keep it off employ some type of cognitive restraint.

For Example, Calorie Counting, Fasting, Carb Restriction, Fat Restriction, Points System, Macro Counting.

2. Regular Self Monitoring

They employ some type of regular self monitoring such as regularly weighing or measuring themselves.

This provides very rapid or instant feedback to help keep them on track.

3. Regular Exercise

They exercise regularly.

There is good evidence that exercise sensitises us to satiety signals, and may also help lower our body’s set point as we lose weight. 

4. Structured Programmes

They follow some sort of structured programme, such as hiring Weight Loss Coaches, or Nutritionists, or joining groups such as Weight Watchers, etc.

These people on average perform better. Dieting without a structured plan doesn’t often work out very well.

5. Low Recency

People who did better at weight loss and keeping it off, also considered the effects of their momentary actions against their long term goals.

Considering long term goals into their decision making process, made it easier to decline foods that were not on their plans, and complete their planned exercise activities.

People with low recency would choose their long term goal over their short term feelings.

When I see clients for weight loss in my hypnotherapy practice, a large component is helping them to change their underlying habits and behaviours.

We spend time in our first session, working together to identifying the habits & behaviours that they want to change, then using hypnosis and other techniques to make that process more automatic.

There are other areas we work on too, such as boosting confidence, self worth, and self belief.

This can really help boost motivation and determination to stay the course and engrain the new healthy habits.

Read more articles here

RAIN Method to Break Unwanted Habits and Cravings
The Power of Friction To Stop Bad Habits and Create Better Ones
Categories
goals habits mindset success

The Rep Effect – How To Achieve Big Goals

The rep effect (rep is short for repetitions) is a body building principle that can be extremely useful when working towards difficult goals, and they don’t need to be fitness related either.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was able to use “the rep effect” principle not only to dominate the Body Building world, becoming one of the most successful body builders of all time, he also conquered two other extremely difficult domains.

Schwarzenegger went on to become one of the most successful and highly paid actors at that time. He then went on to become the Governor of California.

This is extremely difficult to do, as goes the saying “once lucky, twice good”. Therefore, three times really takes some skill.

One of Arnold’s success principles is the “rep effect”. He understood from body building that every rep moved him closer to his goals.

He calculated how many reps were required, the weight, frequency, diet etc to reach the size and shape he needed to be a professional body building contender.

He then broke this down into a plan, and framed everything as “a rep” / “a repetition” towards achieving his goals.  

This wasn’t just the literal reps of lifting, but the reps of everything. Every meal, every stretch, every pose, every show, every bit of studying. He visualised every bit of effort required as “a rep”, and understood, that each rep took him closer to his goals.

Arnold was well known for smiling during his brutal workouts. He often was quoted as putting this down to his reframing of the pain of every rep into a a postive step towards accomplishing his dreams.

Arnold used the same principle in acting. Every acting class, every audition, every film was a rep that bought him one step closer to achieving the goal.

And the same went for politics. Arnold worked out all of the steps, and saw every step as a rep until he reached office.

“The rep effect” principle can be a really good mindset to adopt when putting in effort to achieve any long term or difficult to reach goal.

For example:

With careers: Every CV, every interview, every bit of research, every bit of skill advancement is a rep.

For Financial Independence: Every payday is rep, every investment, every cut back is a rep

For Weight loss: Every 1lb loss is a rep, every healthy meal eaten, every fattening meal avoided, every workout, every rep within a workout

For stopping smoking: Every cigarette not smoked is a rep.

And so on….

Anything significant worth having, usually will take a lot of work. Staying focused on the end goal, breaking it down, and reframing the discomfort as reps that edge us closer can really help sustain the energy and motivation to accomplish it. It might even put a smile on our faces while we do it too.

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Fear habits mindset

The Scorpion and The Frog

The Scorpion and The Frog is a classic fable with many variations. The gist of the fable can be read below.

A scorpion approaches a frog sitting by a river bank. The scorpion wants to get to the other side of the river, but cannot swim. The scorpion ask the frog if it will carry the scorpion on it’s back across the river to the other side.

The frog is naturally afraid and says “no, if I do that you will sting me and I will die”. The scorpion replies “Of course I won’t do that, if I sting you, we will both drown and die. That wouldn’t be logical would it?”.

The frog slightly re-assured by the logic, but still a little hesitant agrees. Half way across the river the scorpion stings the frog. In pain and dying, the frog asks the scorpion “why did you sting me, now we will both drown?”.   The scorpion replies, “I’m a scorpion, it’s in my nature.”

Meaning

There are many interpretations and messages in this fable, however, the one of the most useful is that the behaviour of some people, is impossible to stop, no matter how kindly they are treated, or regardless of the consequences to themselves and their victims.

So rather than continuing to ask ourselves “why are the like that”, “why do they keep doing that”, at some point we have to accept that for some people it’s their nature, and we are powerless to make them change.

It’s then up to us to decide if we want those people in our lives at all, to limit exposure to them, or accept it.

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habits

The Power of Friction To Stop Bad Habits and Create Better Ones

Wendy Wood is the author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Change, and a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California.

One of her underlying principles on how to manipulate habits is by adding or removing friction.

Our habits are automated and rarely involve much decision making. Using willpower alone has proven time and time again to be really ineffective in breaking habits, and creating new ones.

People who are successful at reaching their long terms goals are very good at structuring their environment to make it as easy as possible to do the habits they want to do (removing friction), and more difficult to do the habits they don’t want (adding friction).

Adding Friction To Break a Habit

An example of adding friction to break a habit can be demonstrated with an experiment at a cinema involving stale popcorn.

Two groups of people were selected to watch a film at a cinema, one group were selected because they rarely ate popcorn, and the other selected because they often ate popcorn.

Both groups were given boxes of popcorn, some boxes contained fresh popcorn, and some contained stale popcorn.

The group who rarely ate popcorn, ate plenty of the fresh popcorn, but as expected didn’t really touch the stale popcorn.

However, in the frequent popcorn eating group, 70% of the popcorn was eaten regardless if the popcorn was fresh or stale.

When asked afterwards about the taste of the stale popcorn, the frequent popcorn eaters described it as tasting awful, yet they still ate 70% of it.

Their behaviour was so automatic, that they mindlessly consumed stale popcorn, even though they didn’t enjoying the taste at all.

Interesting, they ran the experiment again, this time, right handed people were directed to use their left hand to eat the popcorn, and left handed people directed to use their right hand.

After adding this small bit of friction, and interrupting the habitual popcorn eating, much less stale popcorn was consumed. The group had become much more mindful when eating, and were able to stop eating out of habit, and make a more effortlessly decision not to eat.

The British business magnate Alan Sugar, published a book many years ago entitled “The Tiny Fork Diet”. He basically exchanged his regular fork for a tiny fork, even going as far as taking it to restaurants with him to eat with.

His thought process was that it slowed his eating, and therefore, allowed enough time for him to feel full and not overeat. This is also a good example of adding friction to an unwanted habit to disrupt it.  This disruption allowed him to be more conscious and mindful, and build better long term eating habits.

Remove Friction To Create Habits

Just as adding friction can help to interrupt and break unwanted habits, removing friction can help to make it easier to form new desired habits.

The easier a desired habit is to do, the more likely we are to do it.

An example of removing friction might be to leave vitamins or medication by the kettle, as a reminder when we have our morning coffee or tea.

Another might be to the leave weighting scales at the bottom of the stairs at night, so they are seen first thing in the morning when coming downstairs.

Another classical examples might be arranging the fridge so that the “good/desired” foods are easier to get. Or leaving workout clothing by the bed, so that when we wake there is less friction to putting them on.

The key to breaking and making habits isn’t just to use willpower alone, but to set up our environments in our favour to help us succeed.

This involves removing as much friction as possible for the habits we want to do, and creating as much friction as possible for our unwanted habits, to allow us to make more mindful decisions, rather than automated ones.

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RAIN Method to Break Unwanted Habits and Cravings

Categories
habits mindset success

The 10% Target Mindset

“The 10% Target” is formula or mindset developed & promoted by best selling author & entrepreneur Jennifer Cohen to help achieve higher levels of success, and get more of what you want.

Success is more about Boldness

The central theme is that success is much more about boldness than raw intelligence.

Most of us live on default – default to what’s convenient, take what’s available, acquiesce to what’s in front of us. Boldness is chasing what we want, and not just settling for what we can get.

Many people assume they are either born with boldness or not, but boldness is actually a skill like anything else. To develop boldness simply takes practice, and we can get better at it.

The 10% Target

The 10% target means deciding what we want most in life, and making 10 attempts at it. This dramatically increases our chances of success. Most people don’t even make one attempt at really striving for what they actually want.

The purpose of the 10% target is to get very comfortable with failing 90% of the time. If we make 10 attempts we will either get the thing we want, or get something we didn’t even know was available, or discover what we were meant to do.

Most people don’t get what they want, because they don’t go after what they want, but rather settle for what’s available.

One example she gives is a survey of 160,000 people who really felt like they deserved a pay rise. 2/3 of those people never even asked for a raise. However, of the 1/3 who did ask, 70% received a pay rise.

How do we get comfortable failing 9/10 times? – Practice. After a short time, it becomes our new normal. We can start small too, which cultivates the boldness skill and builds confidence. This is training our brains to be bold.

Categories
habits

Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits

“Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. You get what you repeat” – James Clear, Atomic Habits

Establishing and maintaining good habits is probably one of the best skills to us to develop.

Relying soley on motivation is setting ourselves up for failure.

Establishing and maintaining good habits allows us to repeat desired behaviours even when we don’t feel like it. Thus, increasing our chances of long term success where we want it.

Categories
Anxiety habits

RAIN Method to Break Unwanted Habits and Cravings

R.A.I.N Method

The following is a basic outline of the R.A.I.N method to Break Unwanted Habits and Cravings.

It was developed by neuroscientist Dr Judson Brewer who is director of research at the Centre for Mindfulness and associate professor in psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Brown University.

This technique really brings into play his long experiences with mindfulness.

First of all, just think about the habit you want to stop. Spend a few minutes really thinking about that habit and what it does for you, what you get from it. 

What does it feel like in your body, what are the rewards? Dr Jud says it’s imperative to understand why we do the habit.

R.A.I.N is a simple acronym that makes the technique easier to remember, and simpler to apply.

R.A.I.N

  • Recognise
  • Accept
  • Investigate
  • Note

Four Step Process for cravings and unwanted habits

Now anytime we feel a craving or unwanted behaviour, we should apply the following fours steps.

  1. Recognise: First of all, we just need to recognise when we are doing the habit. Otherwise, we are just on autopilot.
  2. Accept: Rather than pushing away the craving or habit we just accept it.
  3. Investigate: Now, we investigate those feelings and notice where we feel them. This should be playfully curious and light without judgment or criticism. Is there a feeling in the stomach? What does the mind do?  What are the feelings involved? We want to be really curious and look deeper at the craving & behaviours, and their effects on our bodies.
  4. Note. Finally, just note down those feelings and experiences for a minute or so.

Dr Jud recommends using this technique for cravings, or unwanted thought patterns. Repetition is key.

Every time we repeat the process the cravings will get weaker and we will gain more control.

Categories
Anxiety Fear habits Stress

The Wailing Dog and the 5 Minute Rule

There is a story about a wailing dog.

One day, a man was walking past a house with an old couple sitting out front on their porch and a dog lying just in front of them.

The man noticed that the dog was constantly wailing and whimpering in a lowish tone.

For several days the man walked past the house, and every day noticed the same thing. The couple were sitting out front and the dog was lying on the porch in front of them whimpering and wailing.

Curiosity eventually got the better of the man, and so he decided to go an ask the couple what was wrong with their dog.

They replied, “oh he is just lying on a sharp nail”.  Perplexed, the man asked why the dog simply didn’t move off the nail. “That’s because it hurts enough to groan about it, but not enough to move”.

This story illustrates how many people experience problems in their life. They moan and complain about them, but do very little of nothing at all to actually fix the issue.

In fact, some people, actually get a kind of pleasure from their complaints, it’s almost like a source of comfort, or something to talk about.
 
I’m sure we can all think of people we know who are like this. They aren’t really looking for a solution or change, they just want to enjoy a little bit of complaining.

A little complaining here and there is perfectly normal, but it’s important that those little complaints don’t grow and expand over time and become part of our identity

The 5 Minute Rule

The 5 minute rule is a useful strategy where all complaints, moaning or negativity are limited to 5 minutes – not a second more!

Then simply STOP, and move on to some other conversation or activity – preferably neutral or positivist.

This can be challenging at first, but many people doing this consistently over time find they feel more calm, centred, and peaceful.

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