I get a lot of email from clients who tell me how their friends / coworkers family members are trying to sabotage their efforts.

Ugh, I know. It’s frustrating.

But instead of fighting reality – let’s explore why this might happen. If you understand why, it’s a lot easier to deal with.

First, we have to understand human behavior – at its worst.

A study quoted in the book The Paradox of Choice gave participants hypothetical choices concerning status and asked for their preferences. For example, people were asked to choose between a) earning $50,000 a year with others earning $25,000 or b) earning twice as much, $100,000 a year but being surrounded by people earning $200,000.

More than half the respondents chose the option that gave them the better relative position. That means earning $50,000 to $100,000 because they were at $50,000 earning more than others, while at $100,000 they were earning less than others.

Although we’re hard wired to compare, it’s who you compare yourself to that can make or break your happiness. Ideally, you wouldn’t compare yourself to anyone. Really!

Because we now know that many would prefer the better relative position, it’s easy to see why people would sabotage your efforts.

Let’s go even deeper…

Are you familiar with the term cognitive dissonance? This happens when we have two conflicting desires. For example, smoking. It is well known that smoking cigarettes can cause lung cancer yet every person I’ve ever met wants to live a long, healthy and fit life.

The uncomfortable tension caused by these two opposing ideas is known as dissonance.

As humans, we look to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling. This is known as dissonance reduction.

The only way to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling is by a) quitting smoking b) denying that people actually get sick from smoking or c) justifying and rationalizing.

For example, a smoker could rationalize their behavior by believing that few people get sick from smoking, it only happens to people who smoke more than they do, if smoking doesn’t kill them something else will, they’ll quit next year or they only live once.

In essence, they either need to take action (quit smoking and get whatever help they need <---- this is very hard!) or they need to make themselves feel better by rationalizing their smoking - which is what most people do (<---this is much easier and that's why most people do it).

Knowing both of these concepts let's explore why even people who love you dearly would sabotage you:

1. They wish they had the courage to take action and do something about their health and fitness but in reality they rather just talk about doing something. So, to make themselves feel better they try to bring you down.

2. They enjoy being the thinner one - aka - better relative position.

3. They feel bad whenever they eat unhealthy because their desires and actions aren't in alignment. To get rid of that uncomfortable feeling they encourage you to do the same so they don't feel as bad. In this case, in their head, two wrongs do make a right.

4. They are used to you being the out of shape, over weight person so they feel threatened that you're going to become a different person. They want their 'old' friend back because they felt 'safe' with you that way. ---> Here is an opportunity for you to squash these fears.

Again, as sad as it is – it’s human nature. Soon we’ll explore ways we can actually deal with those who sabotage us.

I wanted to share a routine with you that my extremely smart friend, Cal Newport, does that’s extremely corny but also great.

Cal is incredible. He is an aspiring professor who just completed his PhD at MIT and is now completing his post-doc there too. While doing all of this – he was maintaining his popular blog, Study Hacks, and is now on his 3rd book. If anyone knows about productivity and stress – it’s him.

So, a while back he had a post about he drastically reduces work stress with a shutdown ritual.

When he’s done with work for the day, he says his magic phrase, “schedule shutdown, complete.”

I know. I know. Even he was embarrassed to admit it. But there’s a golden nugget for us…

Many people do the worst of their eating late at night, when no one is around, after they already had dinner.

I want you to try a new routine this week. I’ve been experimenting with it for a few months and it’s helping a lot.

As soon as you’re done with dinner, I’d like for you to go to the bathroom and brush your teeth. Even better would be to floss, and use mouth wash as well.

Then before you go back to the kitchen to clean the dishes, log on and submit your feedback.

I promise the dishes will still be there.

By doing this not only are you cleaning your mouth and in essence ‘closing the kitchen’ so to speak but you’ll also be way less likely to eat anything else while you’re cleaning up the kitchen.

Many people eat 3 dinners. While they’re preparing dinner, during dinner and after dinner. This will definitely help with the after dinner eating.

Because your mouth will feel so fresh, you won’t want to eat anything else. You’ll also be less likely to have mouth cravings – which is when you ‘truly’ just want something sweet.

One of the many reasons why MBT works so well is because lying to yourself (and us) is the worst feeling in the world. Of course, if you choose to eat something after submitting your feedback, you’ll feel compelled to report to us. And that’s okay. Honesty is key! But it just adds another barrier to eating.

“Do I really want to eat this?” “Do I really want to email my tutor about this?”

And if you feel like getting all goofy, instead of saying, “schedule shutdown, complete,” how about saying, “feedback is submitted, kitchen is closed!”

Happy Friday!

I’m fascinated by the story we tell ourselves – about ourselves.

Hear me out. We all have an ego. Some bigger than others but we all have one. Our ego is essentially the way we perceive ourselves. Or the story we tell our self about our self.

We also have an ongoing story that we tell ourselves. And it becomes very easy to connect random occurrences into a ongoing story that makes sense to us. This is known as our preferred narrative.

In other words, we’ll rationalize everything. This is good and bad. It’s good because if we didn’t have the miraculous ability to rationalize, we wouldn’t be able to function in this insane world.

But it’s bad because if something we do doesn’t fit into our story we tend to ignore it.

For example, if someone thinks they are extremely honest – and if they do something that is dishonest – they will somehow completely ignore it and rationalize it.

They will chalk it up to something other than being dishonest.

Being self-aware certainly helps. However, we’re all only self-aware to an extent – because of this phenomenon.

So how does this apply to us? I think it applies to us immensely.

Every time you indulge in unhealthy food what do you tell yourself? Every time you let up during a workout as opposed to pushing harder what do you tell yourself?

Every weekend what do you tell yourself?

Now when you start to pay attention to your actions, as opposed to your story, it starts to get really interesting.

Because your story is the person you really want to be. That’s how you’d like to view yourself.

Your actions, of course, are you! You can’t define anyone but by their actions.

You can be great. But unless you do great no one will know that.

Think about that today and this weekend. Make your actions follow your story!

If we can master our emotions, we’ll be less inclined to eat junk. And that is why I spend so much time writing and talking and thinking about happiness.

If we can work on ways to become happier and figure out ways to make ourselves happier, we’ll be setting ourselves up for success!

Here’s the problem, though.

All we ever heard as a kid was “stop crying” or “relax” or “calm down” or “everything will be alright!” But no one ever told us how to deal with complex emotions.

When our mind floods with emotions we might feel panicky or upset or anxious or angry. How about feelings like rage, loneliness, abandonment, shame? These feelings can be horrifying.

The challenge with feelings and thoughts is that we can’t control them. There are a lot of new-agey books that are sorta goofy in my opinion. Many suggest that we ‘let go of our ego’ and all sorts of things.

The reality is I can’t control my thoughts. They just pop into my head. As do my feelings.

If we were all going to a gorgeous island that was beaming with sun we’d go prepared with sun tan lotion. (One day I hope this is the case, as one of my dreams is to have an annual MBT retreat!)

Well, what if we prepared ourselves for when we’re sad or anxious or unhappy, etc?

What if we had a secret stash of things to do or look at or people to call when certain feelings arise? The idea here is to figure out ways to positively deal with our emotions.

The goal is to actually face them head on because we have a bunch of ways we can soothe ourselves that don’t require food. We don’t want to stop and then have to deal with them later on. And that’s what emotional eating is simply doing: delaying the inevitable.

It’s also important to remember that, like clouds, feeling and emotions do pass! We must remember this.

Remember: The monster is never as scary as it seems! Ever.

I hope your Monday is off to a rocking start!

I don’t write enough inspirations about celebrating small wins. In fact, the only way to create big wins (weight loss, dropping sizes, baggy clothes, etc.,) is by having small wins.

Getting the body you want is about the accrued power of 1000’s of meals and 100’s of workouts. Each one counts just as much as the next one. But like with anything in life – it’s unrealistic to expect rainbows and butterflies all the time.

Dealing with the lows is the hardest part, of course. But even in the worst situations there can be a win!

Let’s say you’re in the middle of a binge (not going to get into how to prevent one now) and you typically eat everything in sight and then some. Or, you typically eat a carton of ice cream. Well, leaving even a few bites – is a win nonetheless. That’s progress!

Let’s say you really don’t want to exercise. So you don’t. Typically, you would then proceed to be inactive all day. But instead, you do 50 jumping jacks before you shower. That’s progress. It’s a win nonetheless!

Let’s say you have a terrible day of eating. You’re disgusted with yourself so you choose not to submit your daily feedback, as you usually do, when you’re unhappy with how you eat. But instead, you submit it and are as open and honest as possible.

I learn the most about myself and you when things are going poorly. Not when things are going great! It’s smooth sailing when it’s going great! The greatest growth happens when the sh*t hits the fan. And it ALWAYS will!

Let’s say you’ve been hating how you’re feeling and looking. So like many in this situation, your bury yourself with food in hopes of changing the way you feel. (Of course, this will only make you feel worse.) Nope. Not you! Not this time. You took action and signed up for MBT. Boom. That’s a win!

While some might see a binge as a negative, these can also be seen as wins. As progress…

Ingrained behaviors and habits aren’t easy to change.

But it’s very possible. It takes a lot of work. It takes effort. Lots of courage. Patience. And mostly, it takes a willingness to change.

And part of that is not only celebrating the good but also how the bad is getting less bad.

Emotional eating is one of the top causes of obesity in the world. Emotional eating is when we eat to change the way we feel. We’re not physically hungry, we’re hungry for something else.

We eat because we’re bored, lonely, miserable, stressed, anxious, uncomfortable, tired, or any one of a number of reasons – none of which has anything to do with real physical hunger.

Remember: Physical hunger comes on gradually. Emotional hunger comes on suddenly.

If you eat based on emotional/habitual/mindless hunger, your body will never feel satisfied by food. This is why emotional eaters never feel full. They never get the signal to stop eating because they weren’t hungry for food in the first place.

Many of us have the dysfunctional habit of eating when we feel upset, lonely, bored or just want to escape reality for a few minutes. This habit stems from a misunderstanding of why we feel what we feel.

Let’s think of an emotion as someone knocking on your door to deliver a message. If the message is urgent the knock is loud. If it’s very urgent it’s very loud. But if it’s very urgent and you don’t answer the door, the knock will get louder and louder until we open the door or the door gets broken down!

Either way, the messenger will keep trying until it delivers the message. Just like our emotions will continue to come up until we finally pay attention to them.

And as soon as we ‘open the door’ by listening to the emotional message and taking action, the emotion will go away. And if it comes back, it won’t be nearly as loud.

You don’t have to be a victim anymore if you’re willing to open the door.

So onto one of the most powerful questions you can ever ask yourself when it comes to food:

Drum roll please!

“Am I hungry, or am I eating to change the way I feel?”

It turns out that 95% of the time when we eat poorly, we’re eating because of the way we feel.

The scary part is that when we actually open the door, and listen to the message, we may not like what we hear. We may get scared, we may want to crawl up into a little ball, and we may want to do a lot of things. That’s okay. At least you faced the monster!

The only way to overcome emotional eating is to engage in some self-discovery. To listen to what you really want (hint: it’s not food). And the more you tell me on your feedback, the sooner we can identify triggers and come up with strategies that work for you.

I’ve helped many people who are lifelong emotional eaters overcome their emotional eating. As rewarding as it is for me, it’s even more rewarding for them. As scary as it might seem, it’s worth ‘opening the door’.

I’m right here for you. In fact, I’ll be right next to you when you open the door.

“Am I hungry, or am I eating to change the way I feel?”

Next week, we’ll talk about 3 questions you can ask yourself once you realize you’re not hungry for food and also why we’re so scared to actually open the door.

Helen, a client from Japan!, has a special request.

She writes to me, “I wonder if you could give some ideas about how to maintain a sense of purpose and discipline without feeling like you are holding your breath all the time. I’ve heard the phrase ‘relaxed mastery’ somewhere and I have it when I teach my students. I think you know what I’m driving at; could you write something on it?”

Let’s take a shot:

I’ve struggled with the question, ‘What’s the purpose of life?’ for a long time. I’ve come to the conclusion that our purpose in life is to be happy, and to help other people be happy.

[Your purpose may be entirely different. That's okay!]

What makes me happy, might not make you happy. We’re all wired differently. The problem with being ‘happy’ though is that it’s elusive. I’d argue that everyone reading this is ‘happy’.

Once our physiological and safety needs are met, we’re fortunate enough to focus on self-actualization. (Read: Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.)

So the question then isn’t how do I become happy, but how do I become happier?

When I was in 7th grade working out in my room at 10:30 at night after doing my home work after basketball practice, I never really knew why I was doing it. I just knew that I had to or else I didn’t feel right – even though my mom and sister thought I was nuts.

I’ve realized that working out made me happier – even in 7th grade. People ask me how I’m so disciplined and for me it’s about happiness. I’ve written and thought a lot about happiness because I believe that’s why we do everything.

[I can understand how people can think all of the happiness talk is silly. But if you ask yourself why you do anything, it always comes back to happiness. I'm very happy. Why not be as happy as I can be?]

We’re slaves to our happiness. However, I think there’s a big difference between pleasure and happiness and many times we become slaves to pleasure. (I’ll explore this later on in the week.)

I think our actions make us happy in the short term and many times our actions will (hopefully) make us happier in the long term. Here’s the challenge we all face: If we’re working to be happier in the long term, what are we now?

Well, that’s the paradox we all face. Happiness doesn’t always bring happiness – at least in the short term.

When I started MBT I did it because I had to. Ultimately, because I knew it would make me happier. But there’s been many days where I’d wonder why in the world I had to do this. Many days that are stressful and frustrating.

It’s like studying to become a doctor. All of my friends in medical school are miserable, right now. Eventually, they’ll (hopefully!) be very happy when they’re actually practicing medicine.

So for me, it has become a journey of figuring out what makes me happier and what makes me unhappy. I’ve even created a daily happiness check list for myself.

Here’s the thing: I’m relentless with myself on things that make me happier. I’ll spend and invest whatever it takes. Time/attention/money/sweat/etc.

Most people view every dollar they spend as an expense. But it’s not an expense because expenses don’t pay dividends. Feeling happier certainly does.

Just because I’ve identified what makes me happier on a daily basis, doesn’t mean I always do it. Knowing is one thing. Application is another.

One of the things I’ve learned with my work through MBT is that us adults are kids – just older in age. We can’t transform into the person we want to become overnight. We can’t sidestep ourselves. We must go through ourselves.

And even if we transform ourselves, it doesn’t mean our past ghosts won’t haunt us. We just become better at managing and dealing with them.

Just because someone quits smoking, doesn’t mean they won’t ever crave a cigarette again.

To me, relaxed mastery means how do I master something so I’m not obsessive about it. Or I’m not constantly killing myself or walking on egg shells so to speak.

The key, I think, is to focus on how you want to feel. Let that guide each choice you make. The problem though is that sometimes we make choices based on short term impulses and pleasure vs. happiness.

I would guess that teaching feels easy because it feels good in the moment. You can connect with your students. The challenge for us is that eating salty, sugary and fatty foods feels good in the moment too. I’ve never denied this.

But eating healthful foods feels even better! That’s the twist we must not forget.

As much fun as eating ice cream and watching The Real Housewives is, deep down I have more fun (and feel happier!) when I’m eating healthfully and moving around.

The battles get easier and easier but they’re still battles. The only way to master anything is decide that you’re going to and fight like hell every single day to make that happen doing whatever it takes, surrounding yourself with whatever it takes, to make it happen.

Choosing that feels happier. Not fighting like hell doesn’t.

I hope this helps. If you have a special request for a topic, feel free to shoot me an email.

Sayonara,

Anyone who’s a fan of basketball knows that tonight, Lebron James, is announcing his decision of where he’s signing.

Either he’s going to stay in Cleveland, or sign with Chicago, Miami, or New York.

Once he makes his decision, it’s final. He can’t change his mind.

However, we make decisions all of the time. In fact, life is a series of choices.

Unfortunately (na, fortunately!), we’re not robots. We’re human beings.

Economists love to refer to us as Econs. They believe that we’re rational beings and that we’ll always choose what’s best for us. Ha!

We’re all predictably irrational.

And thankfully, in our day to day life, especially when it comes to our diet and exercise, we’re not making irreversible choices.

There in lies the problem. Just because you made a decision to lose weight, or eat better, or realize your body’s full potential – doesn’t mean you’re never going to revert back to your old ways from time to time.

That’s silly! What? Just because you decided that you’ll never overeat again, you’re never going to overeat again in your entire life? Or never have too much dessert?

That’s crazy talk.

Behavior change is extremely hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone in this world would be exactly who they want to be.

Instead, we rationalize and justify our choices so we can (comfortably) live with ourselves.

The question, though, is what do you do once you make a bad choice? Do you make another bad choice afterward because it “doesn’t count anymore”?

“Ah, I’ll start tomorrow,” we say to ourselves. Momentum is EXTREMELY powerful. It can be our worst or best friend.

Most people fall off track for days, weeks and even months at a time – all because of one bad choice that set them off.

Instead, let’s embrace the bad choices. Hey, the milk already spilled!

And let’s obsess, that’s right – obsess – over the question, “How quickly can I recover?”

Oh and when Lebron decides he’ll be playing in NY, he won’t have to worry about recovering quickly. Because it’s going to be the start of a dynasty! [I'm sorry my fellow Florida and Illinois clients. No Ohio clients. ]

I think there’s two types of motivators that can be very powerful forces in our lives.

One might look at one (or both) of their parents, friends, colleagues, or someone they know, and want to be nothing like him/her.

Sometimes, I think being around what you don’t want to be, is just as, if not more, powerful.

And then of course there are positive role models. We look up to these people and love what they are about. We wish we could be more like them. We admire them for what they do, how they do it, and who they are.

We can choose our significant other and friends but we can’t choose our family, co-workers and boss (for the most part). And sometimes because your friends are so intertwined, you can’t choose who you’re around.

So what to do?

What if you looked at all of the people in your life and picked off their best qualities? Instead of letting the people you dislike ruin your day, why not use them as inspiration.

Make it a grab bag.

Say you admire a certain quality about a person. Go. Take it!

Ohhh! I like that quality about her! Go. Take it!

Ehh! But she has this quality I don’t really like. Skip that! Go for the good things.

Uh oh. Here comes your boss who you absolutely despise. Note to self: This is what you don’t want to be. You don’t ever want to be or act like him/her!

Knowing what you don’t want to be is just as important as knowing what you want to be.

I believe we are all actors playing who want to be in this beautiful show called, “Life!”

Why not play the character you’ve always wanted to be?

Is she sexy, strong and confident? Is he cool, calm and disciplined? Whatever characteristics you want your character to have – you can have!

Don’t say things like, “That’s not me,” or “I wish I could,” or “I just can’t play that type of character.”

Just do!

Start acting like the character you want to be. Stop acting like the characters you certainly don’t want to be right now.

Try it.

There’s nothing like show business.

The cool thing is if you keep acting a certain way, you’ll become that way!

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

A lot of people are off for the long weekend so I figured I’d give you some tips on how to deal with the extended weekend which means another day without structure.

People always ask me what my top tip for losing weight is. And it’s always the same answer:

Eat less. And move more.

It’s that simple. (HA!)

Let’s explore the eating less part of the equation, though.

Most people think about food often. Whether it’s a company luncheon or a BBQ, many of us use food as an escape.

The interesting part is that those who think about food all of the time – don’t actually think about it while they’re eating. Instead, they’re just shoveling food into their mouths.

Instead of tasting and actually eating and chewing it.

When someone eats a pint of ice cream there’s no way they’re tasting every spoonful. They’re just eating mindlessly or emotionally.

Here are some tricks for you to think about this weekend:

1. Put down your fork or knife after every bite. Sandwich? Put the sandwich down. It takes 20 minutes for our mind to realize we’ve eaten. That’s why when we eat quickly we still feel hungry. Slow it down! What’s the rush?

2. Drink a sip of water in between every bite.

3. The most important step of all – savor every bite of food. Taste and chew each and every bite. Feel the texture. Taste the veggies. See how much more fresh your salad tastes! Pretend you’re a food critic.

4. Focus on how you feel! If you really pay attention while doing all of the above you’ll realize you don’t need nearly as much food as you think you do. And you’ll be full before you expected.

5. Focus on the food. When you’re watching TV, or hanging with friends and family, it’s very easy to forget about all of the above. So try to only eat when you’re sitting. Make it sort of a ritual. Don’t eat on the go. Stop and sit down. Put a napkin next to your plate. The more you can ritualize your food experience – the more chances you’ll have to realize what it is you’re actually doing. Conscious eating is the goal – not mindless eating.

6. If you’re going to a BBQ, a party, etc., wear something a little tighter than usual. If you have a lot of room in your clothes you won’t feel your belly expanding. And you also won’t want to make yourself feel overly stuffed by eating too much.

7. Exercise before you go out. Your chances of exercise decrease significantly as the day progresses on weekends. Get it done first thing in the morning and feel amazing!

8. Keep pace with the slowest eater at the table. That’s right. Find someone to pace you.

9. Stop being a finisher! If you’re not hungry anymore – stop eating. It’s okay. Really! Your eating isn’t going to save any kids across the Atlantic (unfortunately). It’s only going to make you feel more full and less happy.

10. Have fun! But remember – it’s not entirely about food. It’s about laughing and Interacting. And when it is about food – slooowww it down.

Enjoy your weekend! And if you follow these rules you’ll enjoy it even more so!

Who doesn’t want to do that?

Because as much fun as eating poorly is, it’s even more fun to eat healthfully.