CHAPTER 13
Love Yourself Slim
Change is hard. You probably know you need to make changes in your life, but you may feel stuck. The secret to getting unstuck and feeling back in control of your health is to discover methods that make lasting change instantaneous. Of course, you won’t lose all the pounds in an instant (that’s not how your biology works), but in an instant your perception can change, immediately ending this struggle and making an almost unimaginably bright future infinitely more achievable (that is how SANE psychology works).
It might be hard to wrap your ahead around this concept now, but by the time you finish this and the next chapter, you’ll have a whole new mind-set that will make achieving your new body so much easier. For example, think about a woman who smoked most of her life and is addicted to nicotine, the third most addictive substance in the world, and finds out she’s pregnant. She stops smoking instantly. How is instantly changing behavior linked to a chemical addiction possible?
Once you get that moment of clarity—boom—you “get it”; there is no going back. Please believe it can happen for you. No matter how much you have struggled in the past, when you give yourself permission to take on a SANE mind-set, you will experience these types of breakthrough moments. Your perception of food, fitness, your body, and even your “self” will transform, and you will achieve your long-term weight and health goals without worry or struggle.
So why hasn’t this happened to you yet? Until now, you haven’t been given the right tools. You see, it’s not just about “what to eat” or “how to exercise.” If you have ever struggled with sticking to a plan consistently over the long run, breaking old habits, dealing with cravings and emotional eating, engaging in self-sabotaging behaviors, or simply staying motivated, then you are missing the key tool our most successful members call “the SANE mind-set.”
Trying to change how you eat, exercise, and live without a SANE mind-set is like getting on the freeway and attempting to change lanes without a steering wheel. You may get lucky and get where you want to go sometimes, but most likely you will veer off course and get into a wreck. It doesn’t matter if you have a stack of maps, or the best GPS system in the world, or even a professional driving instructor sitting next to you, if you do not have the tools needed to put all that information into action, you will not consistently get where you want to go. The instant you give yourself permission to adopt the SANE mind-set, you will be able to put all the information you are learning into action effortlessly.
If you have ever felt like you “know what to do” but struggle with “doing what you know” in today’s insane world, then what you are about to learn will have a dramatic impact on your life, your setpoint weight, your health, and your overall happiness. Why? Because practically every “weight-loss” program on the planet is missing the vital ingredients for success that you are learning here. You can’t will your speeding mind to change course any more than you can will your racing car to change course.
There is an alternative path with amazing psychological tools that work with your brain rather than against it—tools proven by modern psychology you won’t find in any weight-loss program, anywhere. You have learned how to work with your biology with a completely different model for eating and caring for your body; now you’re going to learn how to work with your psychology. Much like you can instantly and permanently change the direction of even a massive truck once you put your hands on the wheel, you will be able to instantly change the direction of massive health challenges once we put your hands on your wheel with the SANE mind-set.
It begins with the story you tell yourself about your life and the words you use to talk to yourself. As you read these chapters, keep this question in mind: What story am I telling myself about my weight and my body? Is it true? Really, is it true? And then actually write out an answer to that question. Honestly. Listen to what you are saying to yourself, ask “Is that true?” and start writing.
Start considering the possibility that you can rewrite your story and rewire the way you talk to yourself. Instead of struggling with bad habits, you can easily replace them with positive, health-promoting habits that lower your setpoint weight automatically. You never have to look at the scale again. Instead you are looking in the mirror into the confident eyes of a new slim, vibrant you, with more than enough energy to do all the things you’ve always wanted to do. You genuinely love yourself, and the years of shame and guilt are sinking into far-off memories. You never feel bad about the choices you make. You have control. Effortless control. Finally.
When you reshape the story that you tell yourself and change the conversation that’s going on in your head, you will experience positive results that no food list could ever match. The only path to permanent weight loss requires that you believe in yourself and that you love yourself, so on these pages, I want to give you the clinically proven tools to do just that. It’s time to create a new empowering story, and that is exactly what you and I will do.
No matter what the voice in your head is saying right now, or what your story is, you absolutely do deserve to look and feel your best. When the voice in your head is telling you the right story, filled with truth, appreciation, and confidence, you will find that consistently making SANE choices, and subsequently lowering your setpoint and then permanently losing weight, becomes almost effortless. If you are ready for that turning point in your life, the one that leads to permanent and lasting weight loss, then let’s get started.
PROGRESS VERSUS PERFECTION
The number-one psychological secret to lowering your setpoint weight is letting go of the pressure to be perfect. In fact, the surest way to struggle is to seek perfection. It is essential that you shift your focus to “make progress” and let go of “be perfect.”
The idea of “I need to be perfect” makes change impossible because it robs you of the belief that you can change. Deep down, you know that “perfect,” especially when it comes to how you eat or how you look, is literally impossible.
What does “perfect” even mean? And have you ever met a perfect person? I wrote the book on SANE, and I am not perfectly SANE every second of the day. I don’t expect you to be perfect. I don’t want you to be perfect! And I need you to not expect nor want YOU to be perfect. It’s not a realistic or helpful expectation.
Consider a different mind-set. Imagine if you believed the following: “What if each day I got 1 percent better? Then, in 100 days, I’d be 100 percent better.” It’s the simple math of sustainable change, and 100 days are the blink of an eye when you think of all the time you’ve spent struggling with your weight. The best part is that a 1 percent improvement is easy when you use SANE tools, while trying to be 100 percent better overnight is a recipe for disappointment. If that has ever happened to you, you are not the only one. You are not alone anymore, because together we are going to change that. Starting today, you are going to be courageously consistent at getting a little better each day. You are going to stack small, sustainable success on top of small, sustainable success and your setpoint will plummet.
For example, here’s what a day could look like when you focus on progress, getting 1 percent better, and not perfection. You start your day by making a SANE green smoothie. Just this simple action shows you that you are worth loving and that you deserve to start your day with the most convenient and optimal source of nutrition imaginable. Besides the cascade of feel-good emotions after your SANE smoothie, you have already enjoyed 5 servings of non-starchy vegetables, along with 1 serving of nutrient-dense protein, so your body and mind feel satisfied and full of energy.
You then effortlessly make another small step by skipping your usual sugar-filled mocha latte supreme—not because you will yourself to but because you have so much natural energy from your SANE smoothie that you don’t want it. In fact, thanks to all that extra energy, you decide to take a walk in the park for some restorative activity, while enjoying the sun and the nature around you. Inspired by your earlier successes, at dinner you swap out your usual soda for a refreshing glass of lemon water. That’s a lot of progress in just one day!
The best part is these small changes have a compound effect, just like earning interest in your bank account. It’s not the size of the change that matters; it’s being able to stick with it, enjoyably and consistently. You are making small, meaningful changes toward your goals. Not only is this effective, but it also makes you feel great, which gives you the motivation to take the next small step, which then makes you feel even better—and wow, before you know it, you are somewhere you never thought possible. You have begun to rewrite the story of your life.
Write this down and post it everywhere you can (desk, car, fridge, etc.): “Nobody’s perfect. I am making progress.”
BREAK THE CYCLE OF SHAME
When you require “perfection” to feel successful, you will constantly feel ashamed. Shame is a powerful emotion. In fact, renowned psychiatrist, physician, and researcher Sir David R. Hawkins, MD, PhD, has found that shame is the most debilitating of all emotions. It literally weakens you more than any other emotion you could possibly feel.
This is because shame is the intensely painful feeling of being fundamentally flawed and therefore being unworthy of anything positive. It is the root cause of many struggles in your life, particularly with your weight, body image, and self-esteem. Even worse, feeling shame can cause you to feel ashamed about feeling shame. That leads to a vicious and setpoint-skyrocketing downward shame spiral. Until we break you free from this insane cycle of shame, no food or fitness plan will give you the experience of life that you are after.
What does the insane shame cycle look like in real life? Take a situation like a weekend binge on sweets. Shame says, “You are a bad person who never has self-control!” But the objective truth is actually a little different: “I ate a lot of cookies, which moves me further away from my goals.” This may sound like a small distinction, but understanding the difference is essential. It is the difference between thinking you are a bad person and thinking that a specific action is bad.
When you feel ashamed about who you are as a person, how motivated do you feel to make SANEr choices and to take care of yourself with the love and respect you truly deserve? Compare that to knowing that you made an isolated mistake and will do better in the future. It’s the difference between a slight bump in the road and the end of the road.
Shame is setpoint poison because it attacks the part of you that believes you can create lasting change. How can you ever make positive changes if you believe you are inherently bad, flawed, wrong? If “you” are the problem, then “you” have no hope of solving the problem. Ever hear the old saying “Wherever you go, there you are”?
The truth is: You are not the problem. The problem is always something external, a choice that was made or a habit that has become hard to overcome. To put it more simply: The problem is the problem!
This is especially true about food. In my own research and working with clients for more than 15 years, I have found that everything that encourages shame about food is guaranteed to make you fat, sick, and sad. And unfortunately, shame involving what people eat or do not eat is rampant and causes a condition I call FOF, or the Fear of Food. It’s time to take back your power and toss shame in the trash along with the tools that cause it: your scale, food scales, calorie counters, and all that nonsense.
Shame and Moral Licensing
One of the ways shame-based labeling of foods and behaviors as “good” or “bad” causes you to sabotage your goals is called “moral licensing.” This term describes a pattern where even “good” behavior has setpoint-elevating results. For example, have you ever said to yourself, “I had a bunch of great workouts this week, so I’m going to splurge on pizza and desserts this weekend”? In other words, rewarding yourself for something “good” with inSANE foods that elevate your setpoint.
Now that you know food is more than just calories, you can see just how counterproductive this is. “Rewarding” yourself for exercising by eating a cupcake is like “rewarding” yourself for exercising by smoking a pack of cigarettes. Exercising off calories doesn’t “cancel out” the setpoint-elevating damage of the cupcake any more than exercising off calories cancels out the cancer-causing damage of smoking. The end result is that shame-based moral licensing—that is, doing “bad” to reward “good”—at best leads you to take one step forward, and two steps back.
The “What the Hell” Effect
Unfortunately, the setpoint-elevating impact of shame gets even worse because it triggers what scientists call the “what-the-hell effect,” the cycle of indulgence, regret, and greater indulgence.
For example: “Well, that doughnut I ate for breakfast messed up my ‘points’ for the day, so might as well make this a ‘bad’ day and eat pizza for lunch and ice cream for dinner.” Then tomorrow rolls around and the internal dialog happens: “Since yesterday was so ‘bad,’ what the hell, might as well forget the whole week.” And a “bad” meal becomes a “bad” day becomes a “bad” week becomes a “bad” month becomes a “bad” year becomes a “bad” decade becomes diabesity and an elevated setpoint!
So how do you prevent this vicious cycle? The most important move you can make is to recognize when you start moralizing eating or anything related to your weight or health. What do you think about who you are as a person when you eat SANEly? Do you immediately think of ways to “reward” yourself for being so “good”? What do you think about who you are as a person when you eat inSANEly? Do you immediately become self-critical and beat yourself up for being “bad”?
The antidote to this insanity is to shift into a mind-set of self-compassion instead. Self-compassion is treating yourself with the same kindness and care that you would extend to someone that you love. In a multipart study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Duke University researchers instructed a group of body-conscious women to eat a Dunkin’ Donuts doughnut (Adams and Leary 2007). After eating the doughnut, half of the women were given a message of self-compassion and self-forgiveness, encouraging them to not be harsh on themselves for indulging. The other group of women did not receive this message and were left to their own self-critical thinking.
In the next part of the study, the women were then served bowls filled with candy, including Reese’s and Skittles, and were invited to eat as little or as much of the candy as they wanted to. The women who were given the self-compassion, self-forgiveness message ate less than half as much candy as the women who didn’t get that message. That’s the huge difference self-compassion and self-forgiveness can cause. They help shut off the stream of shame and guilt and prevent “what the hell” type thinking to lead to inSANE choices and downward spirals.
Think of a time in your life when you felt the “what-the-hell” effect. What was going on in your brain then? Were you being self-critical? What was the little story you told yourself? Building awareness is the first step to making a change in this vicious cycle. Beating yourself up for having these thoughts won’t change anything. Instead, recognize when these thoughts are present and start to develop an awareness of what triggers them. When they happen, take three minutes to write them down and then ask yourself: “What would I say to a friend who experienced the same setback?”
Keep in mind, too, that your “setback” is not the end of the world. Setbacks are normal and expected parts of life that everyone will encounter. They don’t define you as a person, nor do they mean you’re a failure. Focus on self-compassion—responding to yourself with kindness, both through words and actions, whenever possible.
Another part of being self-compassionate is to take the shame, judgment, and fear out of food and fitness. To lower your setpoint as effectively as possible, instead of putting “good” and “bad” labels on every food or action, focus on what you can learn from what happened. If you eat a doughnut, ask yourself what led up to your decision and how you could make a SANEr choice the next time you are in that situation. This is the “progress vs. perfection” mind-set in action. It helps you avoid “bad” causing “bad” (what-the-hell effect) and “good” causing “bad” (moral licensing).
The Solution to Shame Cycling
You are a miracle. Seriously. I am a science guy and can tell you that there is no scientific explanation for how you came to be. You are rarer than the rarest diamond. That’s not “woo woo.” That is a mathematical fact. And it’s essential you know that you are a miracle, because to break free from shame, you must be able to recognize that shame is a lie. Nothing you do—especially nothing about how you look, eat, or exercise—can strip you of your worth. I need you to really get that. You have tremendous worth no matter what you do or how you look.
Therefore, if your mind starts to send you shame signals, you must recognize that those are lies. Think about it like this: When you look at an optical illusion, your brain tells you something you know isn’t true. Shame is an “emotional illusion.” Once you can see that, you escape from the setpoint-elevating effects of shame in an instant.
The first step to this freedom from shame is understanding the three characteristics of shame: personal, pervasive, and permanent—or the three poison Ps. In other words, shame is personal because it is about you, the person. It’s pervasive because it affects all areas of your life. Finally, because it’s about who you are, it is permanent. For example, say Jane eats a piece of birthday cake at her son’s birthday party. If she feels shame, it’s because she thinks something like this: “I (personal) always (permanent) mess everything up (pervasive).” Compare that to this reaction, which would not have triggered shame: “That party was awkward (not personal, not pervasive). I will not stand right next to the cake next year (not permanent).”
Can Jane accurately conclude that she always messes up everything because she ate a piece of cake? She ate a piece of cake. That’s it. If you have made choices in the past that did not move you closer toward your goals, here’s what that means: “You have made choices in the past that did not move you closer toward your goals.” Period. It doesn’t take away from your worth. It doesn’t tell you anything about every area of your life. It can’t tell you anything about your future.
To start replacing shame with self-compassion, try this: On a sheet of paper or in a journal, list three areas or situations in which you felt shame. These can be about what you ate or how much you ate. It may be about how you feel about your body. It may even be about how you think others see you. As always, there are no right or wrong answers. Just go with the first three things that come to mind.
Now pick one of those three. Choose one that holds the most emotion for you. Write down what shame said about you in that situation or is even saying right now. Identify the personal, persuasive, and permanent aspects of what shame is saying. Can you see how those are lies? Directly challenge each of the three poison Ps with “Is that true? Really, is it objectively true?” Or if you are really struggling with shame, you may find it more helpful to imagine someone you love feeling the way you feel now. How would you respond to the lies shame is telling about them? Write it down. The key is to catch shame harassing you and lying to you, and defending yourself because you know you deserve better because you know you are a miracle.
THE SANE WAY TO SET AND ACHIEVE GOALS
All the diets you have tried in the past didn’t effectively lower your setpoint. This is because they focused you on negative goals (do not eat too much fat, do not eat too many calories, do not eat too many points, do not eat after 6:00 p.m.) instead of positive goals (eat more non-starchy vegetables, eat more nutrient-dense protein, eat more whole-food fats). At best, negative goals make success harder; at worst they make it impossible. Here’s why: When you tell your brain “don’t do something,” your brain responds by hyperfocusing on that thing. What else is it supposed to do? If your ancestors were out hunting and told themselves, “Don’t get eaten by a tiger,” what is the only thing their brain can do to help them? Put tigers at the top of their mind!
You can see this in your own life anytime you’ve felt nervous and found that the more you tell yourself “Don’t be nervous,” the more nervous you became! The more your brain hears “Don’t be nervous,” the more it hyperfocuses on things that could make you nervous. Ironically, the harder you try not to do something the more likely it becomes.
The same thing happens with food. Have you ever tried not to think about a certain food? What immediately happens? You think more and more about that food. In other words, when you tell yourself, “Don’t think about X” or “Avoid X,” it’s like your brain hires a private investigator to be constantly looking for X everywhere. Want to make it as hard as possible to avoid sugar? Tell yourself, “No sugar.” What is your brain going to help you see everywhere and think about all the time? Sugar.
To get your goals working for you—rather than against you—make sure they focus you on pursuing the positive rather than attacking the negative. This approach empowers your brain to keep what you want at the top of your mind, and you effortlessly find opportunities to lower your setpoint everywhere. Instead of experiencing life as an exhausting slog through a minefield of things to avoid, you experience life as a treasure hunt with setpoint-lowering delights wherever you look. For instance, you go to a party and don’t even see the inSANE foods because your brain automatically focuses on the sliced veggies, meat, and, look, there’s even some shrimp!
This approach is awesome because it works with your brain—rather than against it—and thus makes reaching your goals much easier. In this SANE approach to goal-setting, you are going to be adding positive strategies rather than depriving yourself. By setting goals that pursue the positive rather than attacking the negative, you will get better results and have a more enjoyable time getting there!
Bite-Sized Success
Have you ever come up with a big goal, and after only a few days, you felt overwhelmed and possibly paralyzed, thinking to yourself, “How in the heck am I going to get from here all the way to there?”
As much as self-help gurus tell us to create massive goals and then plaster them all over a vision board, new research from Harvard, Northwestern, and the University of Pennsylvania show why this doesn’t work. While massive far-off future goals sound sexy and wonderful, the approach isn’t supported by science. If you have ever set a massive goal and didn’t reach it, you didn’t fail. That approach failed you!
In fact, modern science shows that most often these far-off future goals decrease your chances of success. I know this sounds crazy after all the “goals gone wild” messages you’ve heard, but think about it: How has that advice worked out for you so far? Are far-off future goals fun to set, then overwhelming within a week? They’re almost like mental junk food—enjoyable in the moment, but because they have no substance, they leave you feeling worse after you come down from the initial high.
Results Goals versus Process Goals
If you tell yourself you are going to lose 100 pounds, that is a specific type of goal called a “results goal.” The problem with results goals is that they focus on things you may not be able to control, and they take place in the future. A SANEr approach is to set process goals that deal with things you can control right now—for example, drinking a SANE smoothie with breakfast.
While small process goals you can achieve today may not seem sexy on the surface, I promise that achieving them consistently is the key to everything you want in life. The only thing you can control is your actions. So why focus on anything other than taking positive actions to lower your setpoint now? Look at it this way: If you achieve small process goals consistently—for example, eating one more serving of green veggies today than you did yesterday—you can’t help but eventually get where you want to go.
Continuous progress today adds up to massive transformation over time—for two big reasons. First, you are hardwired to be a goal-completing biological machine. Even if they are small, checking things off your to-do list feels great. When you complete small daily process goals, you set yourself up to easily complete the next goal in front of you because you have positive thoughts and emotions driving you forward.
If you focus only on your future final goal weight, you never get to feel the excitement and joy of those small everyday wins. In fact, you’ll experience the exact opposite. You’ll only feel the anxiety and stress of “failing” at that “perfect” future goal repeatedly. You wake up and think, “Am I at my ‘perfect’ weight? No. Failure. How about now? No. Failure. Now?” You get the point.
Second, this SANEr approach simplifies any process into bite-sized pieces that are fun to complete. You only need to focus on the next bite-sized task, which is clear, tiny, and easy, and that’s motivating. For example, let’s suppose you decide to run a marathon. If you have never run a mile before, and you try to compete in a marathon on day one, that will not go well. Instead, if running a marathon was your goal, you would start small by first buying a pair of running shoes. The next day you’d walk around the block. The next day, you would do that twice. The next day, you would pick up the pace. And on and on. Checking a lot of things off your list and having fun doing it. By taking small steps consistently, eventually you develop the positive momentum to enter the race.
What you did was take a big results goal and then you broke it down into the smallest pieces possible that are under your control—that is, process goals. Since you are reading this book to learn how to lower your setpoint, let’s take an example results goal of effortlessly weighing 160 pounds. This is a results goal that you can kind of control,12 and you can break it down into small steps you can control completely. You are literally shaping your future with present action. Here are some sample steps to do this in your own life:
Write down that positive results goal of effortlessly weighing 160 pounds (or whatever a healthy goal weight is for your height). Like we talked about, always make sure when writing a goal that you pursue the positive. Effortlessly weighing 160 pounds is positive; it states what you want. Losing 30 pounds is negative; it states what you don’t want.
Next, break that goal down into two categories of process goals: Action Steps and Consistency Steps. Action Steps are one-time actions while Consistency Steps are actions that get repeated with regularity—goals that you will want to do consistently over time.
Examples of Action Steps are:
Find a gym close to my home or buy a good blender so I can make SANE smoothies.
Spend a half hour clearing my kitchen of all inSANE food. (These are things you generally need to do only once.)
Examples of Consistency Steps are:
Go to the gym every Monday and Thursday.
Blend a SANE smoothie with breakfast daily.
Eat at least 2 servings of non-starchy vegetables with each meal.
Again, frame up your Action and Consistency Steps positively—around what you will do, not negatively around what you won’t do or avoid.
See the difference and how it makes things so much easier to take on one step at a time?
I’ll show you how to do this in more detail in your 21-Day Plan, but if you want a preview, you can get started by sitting down and thinking of as many little process goals—Action Steps and Consistency Steps—that you can take that will lead you to your main results goal. Then choose one small Action Step and Consistency Step you can do today to increase your self-esteem and easily check off the list and start the ball rolling.
Also, another goal-setting and motivating action you can do to move your health in a positive direction is to track your Action and Consistency Steps in a journal. Every morning, write the small actions you want to take for the day and cross them off with joy as you complete them.
At the risk of repeating myself, make sure that your goals pursue the positive. If you write down a goal to “drink one less soda a day,” that is a process goal, yes, but it is still negative. A more effective approach is to say: Drink one more SANE smoothie a day. That way, you have set a process goal in which you pursue the positive.
THE SECRET SAUCE TO A LOWER SETPOINT: IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS
A little known but very powerful psychological “secret” to make your Action and Consistency Steps stick is a technique called implementation intentions. You already know how to take a results goal and break it down into process goals that include both Action Steps and Consistency Steps. Implementation intentions specify:
• The behavior you intend to take.
• The situation where/when you will take that behavior.
• The ways you will overcome obstacles to that behavior.
In other words, implementation intentions specify the what, when, and where—and are written in an if/when/then format. If/when situation X happens, then I will do behavior Y to reach positive process goal Z. Implementation intentions are extremely powerful. They have been proven in hundreds of studies to significantly increase the likelihood of achieving your goals.
Psychologists from the University of Manchester in Great Britain undertook a study to test whether implementation intentions could help with weight loss (Armitage et al. 2017). There were 216 people in the study. All were following healthier eating plans but only some of them used implementation intentions.
The participants instructed to use implementation intentions were given a worksheet where the left-hand side of the page contained common situations in which people feel tempted to eat, and on the right-hand side was a list of possible solutions. The participants were asked to select a situation on the left-hand side that applied to them personally and draw a line linking it to a solution on the right-hand side to form an implementation intention. An example in the study was: If I am tempted to eat when I feel uncomfortable, then I will do something else instead of eating when I need to relax or deal with tension.
After 6 months, the researchers followed up with everyone. Amazingly, the individuals who set implementation intentions lost nearly twice as much weight as the controls!
An earlier study, published in Health Psychology in 2007, produced similarly encouraging findings (Luszczynska et al. 2007). University of Sussex researchers in Great Britain enrolled 55 overweight or obese women in a program designed to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation intentions. The women were assigned to either an implementation intention group or a control group. Over the course of 2 months, the women who wrote implementation intentions lost twice as much weight as the control group. The researchers noted: “Among obese or overweight women participating in a commercial weight-loss program, those who learn to form implementation intentions can achieve greater weight reduction.”
These studies suggest that you can nearly double the effectiveness of your process goals by creating and using implementation intentions. Really think about that for a moment. What else do you know of that costs nothing, has no negative side effects, can be done anywhere by anyone, and has been shown in studies to nearly double weight loss? I can’t think of anything else either, and that’s why I hope you will give yourself the gift of implementation intentions.
Getting Started with Implementation Intentions
Implementation intentions define when, where, and how you want to act on your goal. There are two different aspects you need to consider when you set them:
1. Identify the action that you’re going to take to accomplish a certain goal, and when to take it.
2. Identify possible obstacles to goal-achievement, and how you’ll manage them.
For example:
When I get up in the morning, I will immediately put on my sneakers and jacket and go for a 30-minute walk to increase my restorative activity during the week.
If it is raining on my walking days, I will put on a poncho before I go outside.
When I get home from work, I will immediately reheat and eat one of my batch-prepared SANE meals (even if I don’t feel like it).
Before I leave for work, I will look to see if I have enough SANE groceries to cook. If I do not, then I will stop at the grocery store on my way home and pick up a rotisserie chicken and a pack of frozen veggies.
If I am hungry between meals, then I will get a SANE smoothie out of a container on the second shelf of the refrigerator and drink it.
Let’s look at how to create your own implementation intentions. Remember the sequence: If situation X happens, then I will do behavior Y to reach positive process goal Z.
All you need to do is fill in these blanks here:
If/when 
(situation X happens), then I will 
(do behavior Y) to achieve 
(positive process goal Z).
When you create implementation intentions, you plan the specific action that you are going to take to reach your process goals, and when and where you are going to carry out that action. You’re also creating a plan on how you will move forward even when an obstacle might get in your way. Give this one a try: “When I finish reading this chapter, I will write down three implementation intentions to help me eat more non-starchy vegetables tomorrow.” (See what I did there?)
Making progress without seeking perfection, breaking the shame cycle, setting positive process goals, and taking Action Steps and Consistency Steps framed up with implementation intentions will transform your life. Combine this proven psychological science of behavior change with the metabolic science you now know about eating and exercise, and you will get to where you want to go. You will lower your setpoint while upgrading the story you tell yourself about food and your body. You will begin to love yourself and gently make lasting changes that lead to permanent weight loss. You will leave behind the frustration of quick fixes, shame, guilt, and blame and the embarrassment and broken promises of all the diets that have failed you in the past. You will genuinely love yourself again, care for yourself again, and finally see the change you deserve in your life… for the rest of your life. You will be sane and SANE.