When I decided I wanted to lose weight at the beginning of 2020, by goal wasn’t simply to “lose weight”. Instead, my goal was to lose weight more easily and feel good doing it.
Yes, you heard that right. I wanted a feel good system for losing weight.
For example, I didn’t want to force myself to eat less calories and feel miserable and deprived.
Instead, I wanted to make it feel good, comfortable, and natural to eat less calories, so that I naturally ate less calories on autopilot and was naturally happier and more successful losing weight as a result.
I have some good news: I did, indeed, create a feel good system for losing weight, which helped me lose 30 pounds from January to June of 2020.
And by creating this feel good system, I discovered an unexpected tip for weight loss that I’ve never heard anyone talk about before, and that I’m very excited to share with you to today.
How to lose weight and feel good doing it
Before I share my unexpected weight loss tip, you might be wondering what my feel good system is for losing weight. So here it is.
First of all, you want to identify the specific actions that will lead you to weight loss. For example, eating smaller portions of food.
And then you want to identify a Tiny Habit that will help you make this action part of your daily routine. For example, whenever you serve yourself food, you make it a Tiny Habit to put your food on a smaller plate, like a salad plate, instead of a larger plate, like a dinner plate.
Right away, just by doing this, you’ve made it always easier to eat smaller portions of food.
And now that you’ve made this easier to do, you want to make it feel good, comfortable, and natural to do. This requires a different step.
Make it more enjoyable to do anything
For every action I identified for weight loss, I made certain that the action felt good, comfortable, and natural to me from the beginning.
I did this by consistently rewiring my mind to think in ways that made it easier and more enjoyable for me to do whatever action I wanted to do.
For example, instead of ever feeling like it was weird or strange to eat on a smaller plate, or feeling like I was missing out by not eating more, from the get go I changed my thinking so that it felt completely good, comfortable, and normal to do this.
And this changed everything, because it made it super easy and enjoyable for me to do things that create weight loss.
As a result, I naturally lost weight and felt good doing it. Indeed, this time it was easy for me to lose weight, especially since I was enjoying every step of the journey.
An unexpected discovery along the way
Just like I wanted to make it easier and more enjoyable to lose weight, I wanted to make it easier and more enjoyable to literally do anything I wanted to get done.
For example, I wanted to make it easier and more enjoyable to get the dishes done. And I wanted to make it easier and more enjoyable to relaunch my website. And on and on…
Anyway, I made it a Tiny Habit to do 4 feel good steps every day that help me change my thinking and make it easier and more enjoyable for me to get things done.
The funny thing is that during my period of weight loss the bulk of my thinking changes had absolutely nothing to do with weight loss.
And yet I’m completely convinced that these non-related thinking changes made it easier and more enjoyable for me to lose weight.
This is the unexpected tip that I would like to share with you today…
A tip for losing weight that no one talks about
Here’s the tip: if you feel better, happier, and more successful every day, you will find it easier to lose weight.
Every thinking change that I make every day intentionally helps me feel better, happier, and more successful. Even if a particular thinking change has absolutely nothing to do with weight loss, I know it still helps me lose weight by putting me in a better mood.
For example, let’s say I make a thinking change so that I feel happier and more successful paying some bills.
You might ask: how on earth does feeling happier and more successful paying bills help you lose weight?
I’m glad you asked. Because it might sound counter-intuitive, absurd, or even like complete nonsense right now.
But I’m hoping that in just a moment you’ll see the direct connection, and it will be obvious how feeling happier and more successful about such a seemingly unrelated thing can make it easier for you to lose weight.
Why losing weight is easier when you feel better, happier, and more successful
Here’s the thing: many people feel tempted or even driven to eat unhealthy, highly caloric junk food to feel better and happier.
For example, let’s say you feel down, tired, or sluggish, and you reach for a sugary soda or a candy bar to get that sugar spike and feel better and happier.
Or, let’s say that you’re stressed and anxious, so you eat your favorite “comfort food” of choice to feel better, happier, and more calm and relaxed.
Or, let’s say you’re unhappy with your appearance in general, so you eat a bunch of fast food that temporarily gives you a dopamine hit and temporarily helps you feel better and happier.
It doesn’t matter what the situation is, the pattern is the same: you feel “bad” in some way, so you feel tempted or driven to eat in unhealthy ways.
So, of course, this makes it hard to lose weight.
But what if you didn’t feel bad or down as much?
Properly understood, feeling “bad” or “down” is a powerful prompt for many people to eat in unhealthy ways, because they want to change their state to feel better and happier.
So what if you remove that prompt?
Doesn’t it stand to reason that if you don’t feel “bad” or “down” that you’ll naturally be much less tempted or compelled to eat in unhealthy ways?
After all, if you don’t feel bad or down, you remove any sense of urgency to eat to change your emotional state.
In short, as a result of not feeling bad or down, you’ll naturally be less tempted or compelled to eat in unhealthy ways, making it much easier and more enjoyable at the same time to lose weight.
And what if you felt better, happier, and more successful on a regular basis?
This is where it gets really interesting. Instead of just not feeling bad or down… What if you regularly felt better, happier, more successful, and more energized on a regular basis?
How would that affect your eating habits?
While I was losing weight most recently, I was puzzled by a mystery: I found it very easy this time around to cut out most instances of obvious refined sugar. (Like doughnuts, cookies, ice cream, etc.)
Yes, I did some thinking changes to make it easier to not eat such things, but I really thought it would take more work to successfully do this.
And then I realized something…
If you’re getting regular dopamine hits, you’re not looking for a “fix”
Here’s what I accidentally did this year: I made it a Tiny Habit to feel better, happier, and more successful every day getting things done.
And as part of my thinking change process to achieve this, I deliberately included feel good elements like creating exciting epiphanies, and celebrating new ways of thinking.
When you do these kinds of things, you create a dopamine hit on demand that feels great. And I made it a part of my regular routine to regularly create these kinds of dopamine hits.
Well guess what?
At the end of the day, when you reach for a candy bar, or ice cream, or any other sugary thing, whether you’re conscious of it or not, you’re looking for a dopamine hit. You’re looking for a “fix” to pick you up.
But I simply didn’t need that “fix”, because I’d already been getting plenty of dopamine hits from a non-caloric source!
So I’m convinced this is a huge reason why I didn’t feel nearly as tempted or compelled to eat sugary things this time around (which of course made it much easier to lose weight).
Lose weight more easily and feel good doing it
Earlier, I proposed the idea that feeling happier and more successful getting things done every day helped make it easier and more enjoyable for me to lose weight, even when I was focused on things that had nothing to do with weight loss.
For example, maybe one day I was feeling happier and more successful writing an article, or the next day I was feeling happier and more successful paying the bills, and so on.
It didn’t matter that these things have nothing to do with weight loss.
Instead, what matters is that feeling happier and more successful have everything to do with making it easier and more enjoyable to lose weight.
First of all, you naturally remove the feeling “bad” or “down” prompts that naturally tempt or compel you to eat in unhealthy ways.
And, second, you get dopamine hits from a healthy, non-caloric source, so you’re less likely to look for a “fix” from unhealthy caloric sources!
I’m absolutely convinced this is a huge reason why sugar was less of an issue for me this time around.
Test this tip for yourself and see how it works out
If you’re trying to lose weight, I recommend that you use this unexpected tip to make it easier and more enjoyable to lose weight.
Here’s what to do: every day, ideally towards the beginning of the day, make it a Tiny Habit to use the Happiness & Success Tool to feel happier and more successful getting something done.
It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be going for a walk, sending an email, taking out the trash. Literally whatever.
All that matters is that every day you feel happier and more successful in some way.
And see for yourself if this does, indeed, make it easier and more enjoyable for you to lose weight. Even if the connection doesn’t seem obvious, I believe the connection is there and that it is powerful.
It barely takes any time or effort to do this, and the payoff is potentially enormous.
So why not get started doing this right now?