I've been listening to a book (Small Move, Big Change) on how to break "resolutions" down into doable steps, hoping it will be more grist for the mill on my non-food problems. (It will probably tell me something I already know but need to hear again.) The author says you need to determine a new, relatively small behavior and use attitudes (thoughts) that support the behavior. (No news to me.) As an example, I think she had decided to forgo afternoons snacks. The supporting thought was, "I enjoy my dinner so much more when I'm hungry for it." She used to spend all kinds of time on previous diets allocating calories for numerous snacks a day. She says now she rarely snacks because she values having an appetite. Hmmm.
I guess the public needs to hear it from as many directions as possible.
She even talks about the value of walking to work! She probably has no idea she's just following in someone else's footsteps.
I guess she doesn't live 13 miles away and have to take a rollabout, either.
I wonder if Reinhard is working on a habit book? It's about time someone who isn't working on Wall Street, making money for big corporations, gets the kudos- and dough. But I guess the rest of his life is too interesting for him to have to play the Twitter/promotion game. I'd admire him either way.
"Microsolutions" book
Moderators: Soprano, automatedeating
"Microsolutions" book
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 71
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
12/20/24 24.1
There is no S better than (mod) Vanilla No S
Age 71
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
12/20/24 24.1
There is no S better than (mod) Vanilla No S
I'm re-posting from my Keep Calm and No S on thread...
From "Small Move, Big Change"...
"The habits you are building through microresolutons will ultimately give birth to new preferences.After a bit more time than it takes to move a behavior into autopilot, your preferences will realign with your new habits, and nostalgia for old routines will fade away."
"As your preferences shift to support your new habits, your sense of who you are will shift too."
I really like the part about old routines fading away.
I had a powerful habit at my favorite coffee place. Every morning I would stop in and get a coffee and one of their homemade (delicious!) english muffins. I ate one a day for years. Hundreds of homemade (delicious!) english muffins.
I would still be eating them if I didn't make the decision to give up wheat. I kept failing at my wheat-free plan because I couldn't get the english muffin monkey off my back.
I finally stopped eating those (delicious!) english muffins. The craving was present every time I stopped in for coffee. I averted my eyes when I saw the display case. For about a year I was very nostalgic about my coffee/muffin habit.
Fast forward to a couple years. I now go into the coffee shop and don't think about eating english muffins. I look into the display case and am detached from what I see. My preference has shifted to align with my wheat-free habit.
From "Small Move, Big Change"...
"The habits you are building through microresolutons will ultimately give birth to new preferences.After a bit more time than it takes to move a behavior into autopilot, your preferences will realign with your new habits, and nostalgia for old routines will fade away."
"As your preferences shift to support your new habits, your sense of who you are will shift too."
I really like the part about old routines fading away.
I had a powerful habit at my favorite coffee place. Every morning I would stop in and get a coffee and one of their homemade (delicious!) english muffins. I ate one a day for years. Hundreds of homemade (delicious!) english muffins.
I would still be eating them if I didn't make the decision to give up wheat. I kept failing at my wheat-free plan because I couldn't get the english muffin monkey off my back.
I finally stopped eating those (delicious!) english muffins. The craving was present every time I stopped in for coffee. I averted my eyes when I saw the display case. For about a year I was very nostalgic about my coffee/muffin habit.
Fast forward to a couple years. I now go into the coffee shop and don't think about eating english muffins. I look into the display case and am detached from what I see. My preference has shifted to align with my wheat-free habit.
Last edited by LoriLifts on Thu Jun 26, 2014 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables.
I am still enjoying the book but I do want to point out that the author so far (and I am on disc 4 of 6) very much downplays, IMHO, the possible discomfort and difficulty in the moment of practicing the new habit for quite awhile. The behavior is supposed to have an immediate payoff, and I would bet that many people would assume that that payoff in good feelings right away always matches the degree of discomfort in performing the new habit, but that is misleading. In my mind, this doesn't discount the deep value of the book.
The funny thing to me is that it now looks like going straight to vanilla No S is traveling at lightning speed compared to the small eating changes she and others in her book learned.
The funny thing to me is that it now looks like going straight to vanilla No S is traveling at lightning speed compared to the small eating changes she and others in her book learned.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 71
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
12/20/24 24.1
There is no S better than (mod) Vanilla No S
Age 71
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
12/20/24 24.1
There is no S better than (mod) Vanilla No S
Sounds like an interesting read.
Perhaps weight loss is a special case that is particularly difficult and thus people are easily discouraged or disillusioned? I did use a version of microresolutions when I quit caffeine (although I didn't know it, not having read the book). I went from 4 cups to 3 cups and so on over the course of many weeks. I finally replaced my 1 cup of coffee with 1 cup of tea, then went to HALF cups of tea before finally stopping. It worked really well for that particular habit.
*Ok I made this one up, but I would love to try it.
I think Reinhard touched on this briefly in his discussion about taking "one S at a time". The problem for most people, I would imagine, is that if they are making the effort to do something uncomfortable (change a long standing habit of overeating) they want to see a reward. No-S is moderate, and therefore can suffer in comparison with other diets that take more extreme measures and promise one will lose X pounds in Y weeks! If changes were slower than vanilla, or even slower than 1 S at a time I can imagine any actual weight loss would take months and months to show up on the scales. In my own experience, my weight naturally fluctuates up and down several pounds each month, so it might take 6 months for a drop of 3 pounds to be noticed. In the mean time, the person has become discouraged, completely given up and moved on to the "Martini Olive Diet(TM)*" to try for faster results.oolala53 wrote:The funny thing to me is that it now looks like going straight to vanilla No S is traveling at lightning speed compared to the small eating changes she and others in her book learned.
Perhaps weight loss is a special case that is particularly difficult and thus people are easily discouraged or disillusioned? I did use a version of microresolutions when I quit caffeine (although I didn't know it, not having read the book). I went from 4 cups to 3 cups and so on over the course of many weeks. I finally replaced my 1 cup of coffee with 1 cup of tea, then went to HALF cups of tea before finally stopping. It worked really well for that particular habit.
*Ok I made this one up, but I would love to try it.
Roy Baumeister has said that studies show that changing eating habits for the purpose of weight loss is one of the hardest things to do. Even people who should change their eating for health purposes don't always do it.
The author said she had failed many times at traditional dieting, so she decided to just see what would happen with a more subtle approach. I think she said it took about a year to lose 22 pounds. Most people keep going for losing the 22 pounds as fast as possible and then worry about how to maintain it. This approach has worked for only the few. What I love about this book is that she says she was not wiling to add any changes until the first one was firmly in place, so that there was no sense of doing something just for now. The new habit was entrenched and paying off in greater pleasure in eating, so there was no reason to abandon it.
I know many people who are very heavy would likely not be convinced of this strategy, but I've seen on my other site that many obese women there started with relatively small changes. These often cascaded into ones that would have been much more dramatic if they had started with them, but were relatively easy once they had practice at implementing new "rules."
Also, this approach takes a willingness to keep looking in a way that many dieters don't want to have to do. EVen with No S, though the rules are simple, the mindset and experimenting with foods within the parameters can take commitment. Some rare people here stumble on the right mix right away. Others don't and give up pretty fast. In this culture, nearly all eating behavior changes are going to need some shepherding.
The author said she had failed many times at traditional dieting, so she decided to just see what would happen with a more subtle approach. I think she said it took about a year to lose 22 pounds. Most people keep going for losing the 22 pounds as fast as possible and then worry about how to maintain it. This approach has worked for only the few. What I love about this book is that she says she was not wiling to add any changes until the first one was firmly in place, so that there was no sense of doing something just for now. The new habit was entrenched and paying off in greater pleasure in eating, so there was no reason to abandon it.
I know many people who are very heavy would likely not be convinced of this strategy, but I've seen on my other site that many obese women there started with relatively small changes. These often cascaded into ones that would have been much more dramatic if they had started with them, but were relatively easy once they had practice at implementing new "rules."
Also, this approach takes a willingness to keep looking in a way that many dieters don't want to have to do. EVen with No S, though the rules are simple, the mindset and experimenting with foods within the parameters can take commitment. Some rare people here stumble on the right mix right away. Others don't and give up pretty fast. In this culture, nearly all eating behavior changes are going to need some shepherding.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 71
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
12/20/24 24.1
There is no S better than (mod) Vanilla No S
Age 71
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
12/20/24 24.1
There is no S better than (mod) Vanilla No S