As perhaps you know, for more than ten years I have worked with obese people on NBC’s The Biggest Loser, training and coaching them on how to lose weight for weekly competitive weigh-ins; on the show, the person who loses the highest percentage of body fat wins. For even longer than that—more than twenty-five years in all—I have trained private clients who often had less to lose than the TBL contestants, but pounds they needed to shed nonetheless. In other words, I witness—up close—the lives of people trying to lose weight every single day.
I coach all these people to eat better (and less) and work out efficiently (and more), and I never stop preaching my “twenty nonnegotiable rules for getting to thin,” the nutritional dos and don’ts that I detailed in my 2012 book, The Skinny Rules. Those twenty rules really work (they are reprinted at the back of this book so you can refresh your memory), and I’ve seen countless inspiring transformations when people stick to them. Amazing weight loss, proud smiles, new wardrobes. Amazing health improvements, happy doctors and spouses, a new lease on life!
What’s the key phrase there? When people stick to them! Because of course people start off great and lose some weight, but then they partly revert to their old eating and nonexercising patterns and, no surprise, their weight loss plateaus well shy of the number on the scale they were aiming for. Unfortunately, too many people revert to their old ways completely and over time gain back even more than they’d lost.
It usually starts with some small slipup (say, you eat one more brownie than you’d set as your limit), which leads to irrational and unproductive shame (I’m never going to lose this weight because I’m weak, so what’s the point of even trying?) and you binge (an entire “splurge week”!), which sets you off on a course to increasingly unhealthy behavior and yet more shame. This slip-shame-binge cycle is the bane of every dieter’s existence.
The fact that you’re reading this book tells me you’d like the madness to stop. You want to lose weight once and for all. And then you’d really, really like to stop worrying about it! Wouldn’t it be nice to move on to other concerns?
You’ve come to the right place. Because in all my time of coaching and training and encouraging and taking notes, I’ve figured out what differentiates the people who stick to the plan from those who don’t. In other words, I’ve figured out what differentiates them from you. And I know how to make you one of them! The best news yet? You don’t have to have a personal trainer or coach, a personal chef or nutritionist to master these patterns. What we’re talking about in this book is not what you put in your mouth and how often you get off the couch and into the gym.
Boiled down, what separates the consistently healthy and slim from the chronically overweight are six key thought patterns and behaviors: six habits. By the time you turn the last page in this book, you’re going to understand what I understand, see what I see, and be able to begin making the small mental and physical changes needed to turn things around for you.
For good.
A slipup is an action: you eat that darn brownie. And another.
Shame is a mindset. You berate yourself for your “weak” behavior; you feel pessimistic about ever being the kind of person who can resist fattening food or who can get herself to exercise regularly.
And so you binge and/or go back to your unhealthy behavior. More destructive action.
Slip-shame-binge is an action-thought-action cycle, right?
The six habits you’ll learn in this book will break that terrible cycle for good. Some are habits of the mind, some are physical things you do. Habits 1 and 2 focus on the psychological portion of the cycle, toughening you up mentally to fight your worst tendencies; Habits 3–6 get you out of your head and into things you can touch and change and undertake immediately.
So, what do healthy and slim people know and do that you don’t? Here’s a quick overview to get you excited:
1. They plan: To avoid unhealthy eating, encourage exercise, resist temptation, and guard against that first slip, healthy and thin people create their own internal scripts for dealing with difficult but unavoidable situations.
2. They push back: Using simple, proven psychological techniques, they have developed and maintained the mental muscle to deal with setbacks (aka the cascading shame from that inevitable slip!).
3. They reengineer their environment: Successful weight maintainers have rigged their world to accentuate the people, places, and things that support their goals, and they deemphasize (or eliminate) those that don’t.
4. They challenge themselves: Boredom is the gateway to overeating and sitting around like a lump on your couch. Having a hobby or a mission keeps the mind engaged and excited about something other than the monotony of daily responsibilities.
5. They rest: You can be engaged, excited, focused, and energized only if you are rested. Thin and healthy people protect their sleep and relaxation, understanding the connection between rest and weight control.
6. They dress for thinness: Thin and healthy people dress like they have something to show, not hide. Even if they aren’t aware of the fascinating science underlying their choices, they enjoy the psychological and physiological benefits of what’s in their wardrobe (and what’s not).
Here’s what I want you to get your head around before you turn the page: you are not at the mercy of your current bad habits. You can replace your poor habits with healthy ones—the six above—faster than you might think. As you’ll learn in Chapter 1, changing/replacing a bad habit with a good one takes practice, but that’s why each habit has “Habit Homework” at the end of the chapter—ideas for ways you can start making new routines and laying down new neural pathways right away.
When you plan for challenges and situations—when you think about how you want to behave in situations that have always broken your resolve in the past—you can create new go-to behaviors. When you push back against automatic and irrational thoughts, you train your brain to go to a happier place instead of a negative and unproductive one. When you set up your environment to support your goals, you reach them. When you challenge yourself, and yet also rest, you give your brain the one-two punch it needs to stay the course. When you dress for thinness, you get there.
Let’s get started!