To change your body, first change your mind: The right approach to changing behavior

Chapter 2

To change your body, first change your mind.

Motivate? Let's not talk about that again!

Habit is more powerful than reason.

Why Change Doesn't Work (by American philosopher George Santayana)

You will not see this in this book:

Exclusive recipe.

The act of calculating heat.

The "best" diet for weight loss.

Statements that demonize carbohydrates and fats.

This book offers insights that are often lacking in other weight loss guides: you'll learn easily implementable strategies that can be integrated into your lifestyle for lasting changes. I'll discuss the nutritional components of different foods and their impact on weight, but if you're confident a particular diet works for you, combine it with the strategies in the book. Don't force yourself to switch to a completely different diet to "diet" (don't use previously recommended strategies; create your own micro-habit plan). Beyond understanding the basic principles of weight gain and loss, the key to weight loss lies in your ability to make long-term behavioral changes.

Scams promising results in 30 days (or even faster)

If you see a book that says "Lose X pounds in X days," burn it immediately (if it's an ebook, mock it). For the sake of cabbage, please stop expecting changes in 7, 10, 21, or 30 days! The 30-day plan is most effective when you only have 30 days left to live. But a person's life is approximately 28,000 days long; what does a change in 30 days amount to?

I know some people believe that if you can make a change within 30 days, you'll form a new habit or have enough motivation to stick to it after 30 days. However, no scientific research shows that it takes 30 or even 21 days to form a habit. A 2009 study found that participants took an average of 66 days to form a habit, with the time varying from person to person, ranging from 18 to 254 days. This result tells us two things: first, the brain changes slowly, but the exact speed is difficult to predict; second, it is highly likely that a new behavior cannot become a habit within 30 days.

People also like to set very difficult 30-day challenges because they only need to stick to them for a short period of time, but this is even less conducive to forming a habit. The research above also found that the difficulty of a behavior has a significant impact on the speed of habit formation. The brain turns simple behaviors into habits much faster than difficult behaviors. For example, it only takes about 22 days to form the habit of drinking a glass of water every morning, while it takes much longer to form the habit of doing a headstand for two hours after dinner every day.

The famous ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu once said, "Victorious armies first secure victory and then seek battle; defeated armies first engage in battle and then seek victory." Change doesn't mean you have to fight yourself for 30 days; it means you have to strategically ensure you win before the battle even begins. Applying this principle to weight loss, it means you must change your mindset before changing your physique.

The process of changing the brain

If the body is a reflection of the brain's state, then how can we change the brain?

Your subconscious mind is the mastermind, as it directly controls half of your behavior and constantly influences the decisions you make consciously. People always try to fight their subconscious and always fail. The right strategy is to follow the nature of the brain to change the subconscious, rather than using trendier methods to tell people, "Dude, you should be more assertive."

So what is the nature of the brain? The brain changes slowly, which is a good thing. If your brain could completely change overnight, you would become mentally unstable. For example, imagine your day: you wake up in the morning, drink coffee, eat bread, read the newspaper, walk the dog, and watch the news. Then one night, at 3 a.m., someone calls you to check on your neighbors, and you run out in your underwear. If your brain instantly turned this behavior into a new habit, wouldn't you be running out in your underwear every night at 3 a.m.? Nobody wants that. Therefore, the brain needs repetition to form a habit, which is a good thing. Let's accept the brain's slow pace and thank it for keeping us in a stable state.

The ideal process for changing the brain is slow and gradual, so slow that you might not even notice the change. This is very beneficial for us. The more obvious the change-for example, if you go from eating hamburgers and fries to only drinking green vegetable and fruit juice-the more your brain will resist that change. (To clarify, it's okay to supplement your nutrition with vegetable and fruit juice while maintaining a regular diet, and even a one- or two-day intermittent fast with vegetable and fruit juice may be beneficial to your health, but drinking vegetable and fruit juice is definitely not a long-term solution for weight loss.)

Tyranny of Power

I'm going to tell you a dark secret about human nature, which you may already know-most people are terrible... I'm not finished yet... Goal achievers, for example, it's said that only 8% of people manage to complete their New Year's resolutions each year.

People want to make changes but often fail, leading others to believe it's because they're too lazy or lack the motivation to persevere. In reality, most people fail because their methods don't align with the brain's natural processes. It's like suggesting there's a way to stop a bullet-catching it with your teeth (this would only work if you were Superman). The value of a solution lies in its feasibility; if it's not feasible, even the "greatest idea" (like teleportation) is worthless.