How (and why) to hack your habitat

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Research done in school cafeterias shows that making the lid of an ice cream cooler opaque reduces ice cream sales, while having a bowl of fruit by the cash register increases fruit sales.

But kids aren’t the only ones who are powerfully influenced by visual cues.

In the Weighless program, we work on tweaking our homes and workplaces in ways that make it easier and more automatic to make healthier food and movement choices. (We refer to this as “hacking our habitat.”)

For example:

  • Put fresh fruit, raw veggies, sparkling water, and other ready-to-grab healthy options in the front of the fridge at eye level.
  • Keep foods that you are likely to overeat out of sight–or better yet, out of the house altogether. It’s much easier to exercise your willpower once at the grocery store than consistently trying to exercise willpower every night while watching TV.
  • If your office break room is always full of donuts or other not-worth-it temptations, figure out fun ways to avoid going in there. Can you buy your afternoon coffee at a cafe instead of getting it from the break room? Can you fill up your water bottle at a water fountain by the restroom?
  • Keep a set of hand weights or resistance bands in a basket near the TV and use them while viewing.
  • Position your walking/running shoes so that you see them every time you open the closet.

If all of that seems too simplistic or obvious, you may be underestimating the power of behavioral economics.  Even the researchers who study these effects are subject to their influence!

In one study, a group of nutrition professionals attended a lecture in which they reviewed studies and watched video demonstrations showing that people eat more when they use larger bowls.

Immediately after the lecture, they attended a reception (which was actually part of the study). Sure enough, those who were handed larger bowls served themselves more ice cream than those who were given smaller bowls–and adamantly denied that the size of the plate influenced their consumption.

My point is that none of us is too smart to benefit from a little habitat hacking.

As you go through your week this week, look around your familiar environment with fresh eyes. See if you can think of any small changes that would support your healthy goals. Got a good one to share? Shoot us an email – we’d love to hear about it!

How to stop the guilt/deprivation cycle

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We’ve been talking lately about the many choices that we get to make about what, whether, and how much to eat, and working on making these choices more intentional.  But I want to caution you against framing these choices in terms of Want vs. Should.

“I really WANT to have a bowl of ice cream. But I SHOULD say no.”

This is a lose-lose scenario!   If you give in and have what you want, you feel bad for not doing what you should.  And if you stick to your guns and do what you should, you don’t get to have what you want.

If this is how you are setting up your choices, your whole day becomes a depressing and exhausting series of decisions that either lead to guilt or deprivation.  Who wants to live like that?

As you’re considering what to choose, avoid loaded words like want, need, should, and shouldn’t. Focus instead on the fact that you have options, and that each option has pros and cons.

“I could have a bowl of ice cream. Or I could have a piece of fruit instead.”

“I can have ice cream tonight or I can look forward to that as a treat at the end of the week.”

“I can have two scoops or I can have one scoop.”

“I could eat ice cream until I feel better or I could take a walk and see if I can find a way through this feeling that doesn’t move me away from my goals.”

Consider what you get from each.  How much and what kind of satisfaction or pleasure would you get? How long will that last? (5 minutes? 10?) How will you feel after that? (Stronger? Calmer? Regretful?) How long will THAT feeling last? (A day? A Lifetime?)

Even the difference between saying “I get to make so many choices every day!” instead of “I have to make so many choices every day” can be so empowering.

This week, I invite you listen to your self-talk a little more carefully.  Instead of setting yourself up for a lose/lose situation, see if you can frame your choices in terms of which presents the more meaningful win.

Choose to Say Yes More Often

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Last week, I talked about the many choices that we get to make each day about whether, what, and how much we want to eat. Becoming more aware of these choices is one of the first thing we work on in the year long Weighless program.  But our members are often confused about this at first.

They think this means self-policing every move.

They think doing it “right” means always doing what they “should.”

But it’s more subtle than that. It’s about noticing how often we actually have an opportunity to make a choice. (Remember: A habit is just a choice we don’t realize we’re making.)

Because when we can tune into the fact that we’re actually making a choice, making a different choice suddenly becomes an option!

So, before I reflexively order/serve/grab/eat something, I take a moment to consider: Am I actually hungry or just responding to a cue? Do I really want this or would something else be more satisfying?

The other big misunderstanding is that your only two choices are Yes and No.   (And that the right choice is always No.)

But these are not your only choices!  Other great choices include:

“Yes, but just half that much, thanks.”

“Yes, but not right now. I think I’ll save that for later.”

“No, I’d actually much prefer ____________ instead.”

And, of course, every once in a while the right choice is: “HELL YES!!”

So, as you continue to tune in to the many choices you get to make every day, try to enjoy the freedom this offers you. See if you can find ways to say Yes more often, but in ways that are more aligned with your goal of weighing less.

The difference between losing weight and weighing less

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If you’re not happy with your current weight, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about how to lose weight.

“I will eat 1200 calories a day.”

“I’ll ban all carbs.”

“I’ll drink protein shakes for breakfast and lunch.”

“I’ll do Whole 30. (Again).”

But these are not strategies that lead to weighing less. These are strategies that (sometimes) lead to losing weight, and then (usually) regaining it.

I want you to stop focusing on how you’re going to lose weight.  Instead, I want you to imagine that you weigh less right now. Really picture what that looks and feels like. And now, I want you to walk yourself through a typical day. What sort of habits and lifestyle does that version of you have?

For example, as a person who weighs less, you’d probably:

  • Limit your intake of sweets, refined carbohydrates, and fried foods. (Note: I didn’t say “never eat sweets, refined carbohydrates, or fried foods.”)
  • Avoid eating in front of the television or computer.
  • Eat more vegetables and fewer starches. (In other words, gravitate toward foods that fill you up for fewer calories.)
  • Take slightly smaller portions.
  • Stop at a single cocktail or glass of wine.
  • Have fruit for dessert—or no dessert, most of the time.
  • Drink water or tea instead of soda.
  • Make time most days for a 20-30 minute walk at lunch or before dinner, or both.
  • Take time on weekends to shop and do a little cooking so that you’re not as dependent on take-out and prepared foods to get you through the busy week.

The Secret is to Start at the Finish Line

Can you picture that trim, healthy person? Can you imagine what a typical day looks like? Can you see what’s on the dinner plate, shopping cart, and kitchen cupboards? Good.

Because that’s what I want you to start choosing right now.  Start practicing the mindset, habits, and lifestyle of someone who weighs less and you will become someone who weighs less. (Instead of someone who is constantly trying to lose weight.)

This is not some sort of law of attraction baloney. It’s pure (and proven) cause and effect.

So, who are you going to be today?

The Magic of Making Choices

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How many food or beverage related decisions do you make in a typical day? Most people estimate that number to be around 15. In reality, the actual number is closer to 200.

Whether or not we are conscious of it, we are constantly making decisions about whether or not to eat, and what, where, how, and how much to eat. We make a similar number of decisions every day about whether and how we use our bodies.

This is great news.

It means that hundreds of times a day, we have an opportunities to choose something different.

  • We can choose to sit down for lunch without a phone or tablet and enjoy the benefits of eating more mindfully.
  • We can select a smaller plate or bowl.
  • We can choose to stand up while participating in a conference call.
  • We can order a side salad instead of fries.
  • We can choose to pour a glass of seltzer instead of a second glass of wine.

The great thing about having so many opportunities to make choices is that we don’t have to nail every one, every day. Seizing just a handful of these opportunities every day can start adding up to a different sort of lifestyle and, eventually, a different set of habits.

And, as we see over and over again in the Weighless program, that ultimately leads to weighing less…without dieting.

But before you can start making different choices, you’ve got to tune into the fact that a choice is actually being made. A habit, after all, is just a choice that you don’t realize you’re making.

As you go through your day today, try to notice when you are making a food, beverage, or movement-related choice. What are you choosing? What else could you choose? How would it feel to make a different choice, just this one time?

This is just one of the many techniques we use in the Weighless program to gradually develop habits and behaviors that lead to weighing less without dieting. Try it for a week and see what you think!

Collecting the Evidence

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It’s frustrating to see how persistent our bad habits can be. Maybe it’s the 9 pm snacking free-for-all that happens every night.  Or your seeming inability to drive past the drive-thru on your way to work without pulling in. Or always succumbing to temptation and pouring that second glass of wine, despite your intention to stop at one.

Whatever it is, you can clearly see that this habit is standing between you and progress. But you can’t seem to change it. Day after day, despite your best intentions, you repeat the pattern, making you feel like a failure. It seems pretty obvious that you simply don’t have the ability (or will power or strength or resolve or whatever) to change this habit.

It’s hard to keep believing that change is possible when all the evidence seems to point to the contrary.  And that’s why it’s so important to collect some evidence that a different choice is possible.

If you have a long-standing habit that you want to change, not doing it for a single day is obviously not enough to undo years of daily reinforcement. But it is the beginning of showing your unconscious brain that change is, in fact, a possibility.

It’s not enough to know what we want to choose.  If you have a long-standing habit that is getting in your way, start by collecting some evidence that it is possible for you to make a different choice. Even once.

Choosing something else may be uncomfortable at first but will get more and more comfortable with practice. Also, remember that habits get momentum the more you practice them – both good and bad – so make sure you fuel the good ones and starve the unwanted ones.

The Limits of Will Power

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One reason that diets don’t work is that they rely too much on willpower.

Willpower is like a muscle: it can get fatigued.

In the Weighless program, we don’t count on willpower as the main ingredient for success. Instead, we develop an entire suite of strategies to keep us moving in the right direction even when our willpower fails.

Here are three tips for relying on strategies other than willpower to make healthy changes.

1. Use positive redirection. 

When we’re trying to make healthy changes, we often focus exclusively on what we need to stop eating – fast food, candy, soda, chips.

When we instead of focus on what we want to eat more of, our brains relax a bit and we feel less deprived.

Instead of swearing off dessert, why not splurge on some particularly luscious fruit to enjoy after dinner? Instead of forking your way through a boring pile of lettuce and cucumbers, make your lunchtime salad something to look forward to by topping it with some fresh avocado or a few shrimp. If you’re trying to wean yourself off that nightly glass of wine, be sure to have some sparkling water on hand to sip on instead. Put it in a nice glass and garnish it with a sprig of fresh mint, dash of bitters, or wedge of lime.

Using positive redirection is a lot more fun than white-knuckling your way through a diet that requires a ton of willpower.

2. Have a plan.

It’s a lot easier to stick to your healthy eating plan if you actually have a plan! It’s easy to set the intention in the morning of “eating healthy” that day – but then things can quickly go downhill when you impulsively order a giant muffin with your coffee, work through lunch, and order pizza for dinner because you’re starving when you get home.

Tonight, take a minute to think about your schedule for tomorrow and plan what you’ll eat. Pack a salad or container of soup to take for lunch, thaw some chicken to cook for dinner. Or, if cooking isn’t your thing, decide in advance where you’ll order lunch and what you’ll have, and where you’ll pick up dinner.  You’ll almost certainly make better choices ahead of time than you will in the heat of the moment.

3. Keep it simple.

For some reason, when we make up our mind to lose weight or get in shape, we’re often attracted to complicated regimens that have lots of very specific rules and requirements. Subconsciously, we seem to believe that the more elaborate the program — and the bigger the departure from our current habits — the more likely it is to be the one that finally works.

This is a trap!

The bigger the departure from our normal routine, the more likely we are to crash and burn.

In the Weighless Program, we start where we are and make small, sustainable changes to our routines and behaviors, gradually building the lifestyle and habits that lead to weighing less. We suggest you take the same approach!!

Is your goal weight keeping you from weighing less?

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I’ll bet you have a number in your head that represents your “goal weight.”  Whenever you start a new diet, that number gleams in the distance like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Other times, our goal weight seems more like a mirage in the desert…a tantalizing fantasy that we will never ever reach.

In fact, I think that darned number we’re all carrying around in our heads often keeps us from weighing less.

How your goal weight works against you

One problem with being overly focused on your goal weight is that it emphasizes the distance between where you are now and where you want to be, which gets defeating over time. It also reinforces the idea that life begins when you reach your goal weight. (And it had better be good, because life on a diet sucks!)

Today is too precious to throw away because of some number on a scale.

One of the principles we live by in the Weighless program is that it doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you are moving in the right direction.

And there are so many things you can do to start moving in the right direction. You can take a walk after dinner instead of having a second glass of wine. You can stop buying snack foods that call to you from the cupboard at night. (You won’t hear them hollering if they are still at the grocery store.) You can do some batch cooking this weekend so that you have some healthy meals in the fridge for the week ahead.

Small changes like this may seem too minor or insignificant to make a difference but, take it from me (and about 500 Weighless members), these small changes can lead to others, and it starts to add up.

So instead of focusing on your goal weight and feeling defeated, focus on the next small action you can take.

Frequently Asked Questions about the Weighless Program

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Q. I don’t live in the U.S. Will I be able to participate fully in the program? 

A. Geography is no barrier to taking part in Weighless!  We have people enrolled from Australia, Canada, the UK, Middle East, South America, and Europe, so you also will not be the only one! As long as you eat food, move your body, and have access to the internet, you have everything you need to participate. We will also be sure to schedule our live check-ins at a variety of times of day so that everyone will have a chance to take advantage of this.

Q. I will be traveling for a period of time during the program. Will this be a problem?

A. The Weighless approach goes wherever you go! The whole idea is to cultivate a healthy approach that works in the context of real life, which sometimes includes travel. If you have no access to the internet for an extended period of time, you may have a little catching up to do when you get back online. But any materials you miss will be waiting for you when you return. (If you give us some advance notice, we can also try to send some advance work along with you.)

Q. I’m a vegetarian. Will this work for me?

A. The Weighless approach accommodates any and all dietary preferences, restrictions, and requirements. There are no required or forbidden foods and no one-size-fits-all dogma. We believe there are many ways to put together a healthy diet. Our goal is to help you discover what works best for your body, metabolism, lifestyle, and preferences.

Q. My husband and I are trying to conceive. Will I have to drop out if I get pregnant?

A. We have gotten this question from so many people that I suspect we are going to have a Weighless baby boom! Although some adjustments will obviously need to be made if you get pregnant during the program, Weighless is an ideal approach for those wanting to maintain healthy habits and manage weight gain during pregnancy.

Q. I’ve been diagnosed with pre-diabetes? Can I do Weighless?

A. Our program draws on an evidence-based curriculum designed specifically for those at increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. There is no better place for you to take steps to reduce your risk.

Q. I only have 10-15 pounds to lose. Is this a good fit for me? 

A. Absolutely! This program is not about losing a certain number of pounds. It’s about developing the mindset, habits, and lifestyle that allow you to maintain a healthy weight without dieting. Whether you have ten or a hundred pounds to lose, the process is the same. Those who have less to lose will simply be practicing their maintenance skills a bit sooner in the process. (Although even those with a substantial amount of weight to lose will have ample opportunity to practice the art of living at a lower weight.)

Q. I have a surgery scheduled during the program which will restrict my ability to exercise. Will that prevent me from participating? 

A. There is no prescribed exercise requirement or regimen. We do work on finding ways to make our lives more active, but based on what’s possible for you. Unfortunately, life occasionally serves up injuries, surgeries, and other inconveniences and we believe it’s important to have an approach that can accommodate all of that.

Q. Do I have to be on Facebook to participate? 

A. No.  In response to feedback from our members, we have move the member’s discussion forum off of Facebook and into the private membership site.  When you sign up, you’ll get access to our secure membership site where everything you’ll need to participate in the program is housed.  You’ll also receive regular emails from us.

Are you ready to stop dieting and start weighing less? Details for enrolling are here.