Gretchen Rubin: Why Low Carb Diets Work, Habit Hacking & Why You Should Get a Puppy

hi folks this is Abel James and thanks so much for joining us on fat-burning man where we talk about real food and real results today's show is with the blockbuster best-selling author Gretchen Rubin you may have seen her on Oprah or listen to her hit podcast The Happiness Project you're going to learn why low carb diets work simple tricks to be happier and how to hack your habits to kick butt in health and life did you catch the premiere of our new show on ABC last night I'm starring with celebrity trainers including Sean T of the hit workout program insanity don't forget to tune in at 9 p.m. 8 p.m. Central on Thursdays on ABC to see my ugly mug on national television the show is crazy and I think you're going to like it now here are a few quick tips for how to drop fat and get results with your New Year's resolutions this year number one choose wild fish and seafood instead of farm-raised to bump up healthy fats in your meals get quality protein and nourish your brain and body number two spend more time outside in fresh air and the Sun this boosts your mood reduces stress and increases vitamin D number 3 swap your starches for salads or green smoothies this will help you lose fat remarkably quickly especially if you haven't tried that before switching out starches can really help you bust through that plat cell number 4 eat better treats like dark chocolate some of my favorite dark chocolate is the stone-ground kind from little chocolate ears that you find you can find one of my favorites tazza I like the 87% stone-ground in in a lot of you know health food stores these days even some grocery stores are starting to carry it so try it if you never tried real dark chocolate the stone-ground stuff before it's a completely different experience so give that a try this new year and finally 5 don't eat diet food that tastes like cardboard eat fresh whole real wild foods instead now speaking of New Year's resolutions we have something special for you to get in the best shape of your life this year over 65 percent of people who make resolution include fitness goals and their promise to themselves to be healthier but not so promising is that one out of three will have abandoned their goals by the end of January many people quit because they either lack knowledge about how to accomplish their goals or they don't have a supportive community to make sure that they're accountable and that they stick to it and I get it because we're all swimming in misinformation when it comes to health fitness and nutrition and at the beginning of my fitness and health journey I was following the wrong information which made me fat and sick in my early 20s I want to make sure that never happens to anyone else again so the good news is that we're here for you with all the tools motivation and support you need to get in the best shape of your life and this year we're doing something exciting with our online community the fat burning tribe we're just about to launch the wild diet 30-day challenge to help you get in great shape once again you can sign up for a 30-day challenge right now at fat-burning mancom forward slash challenge during this challenge we're providing everything you need to get rapid fat loss including our 30 day meal plan shopping lists recipes videos motivation journals and community support everything is done for you it's been planned out for you to celebrate our 30 day challenge we're even giving away goodies like autographed copies of my best-selling book the wild diet which by the way the paperback version is just about to hit book shelves of bookstores everywhere you can also get it online so check that out we're also giving away spiralizer crock pots lifetime memberships to thrive market and even a really comfy squishy bacon pillow if you join the wild diet challenge today you'll get the first month of the entire program for just $1 and it's a value of over $100 following the wild diet our readers and listeners have lost twenty sixty even more than 100 pounds by eating real food just simple meals that you can prepare in a few minutes at home some have lead down to three percent body fat for three percent body fat for fitness competitions others have shattered their personal bests in races and the gym what are you going to do this year so don't wait the bonuses and giveaways expire soon join us today all you have to do to get in on the fun is type in from any device fat-burning mancom forward slash challenge once again that's fat-burning mancom forward slash challenge on to the show with best-selling author and podcaster Gretchen Rubin this one's really fun on this show you'll learn why the low carb diet works the simple thing you can do to get exercise in every single day how to set up your surroundings to make success automatic why you should get a puppy and much more alright let's go hang out with Gretchen hi folks today we're here with Gretchen Rubin the author of several books including the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers better than before The Happiness Project and happier at home Rubin started her career in law and was clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor when she realized that she wanted to be a writer and I freaking love that part so we're gonna talk today about how you can upgrade your life by tackling your habits and also joining Gretchen here today is Barnaby her new puppy so that's going to be an awesome addition to this oh that's not even fair Gretchen how's it going it's good having a new puppy has a lot of effect on your habits yes which everybody told me what happened and it's true so anyway Barnaby seems to be a willing participant right now so we'll just have to hope that he stays um as as mellow as he seems to be at the moment he's doing really well so far um no it's cool that you bring that up because one of the reasons I got a puppy now I guess it was over three years ago was because I kind of wanted to destroy my life in a way I wanted that to be okay right and so whenever you especially you come into adulthood if you're a clean freak or type A personality like I think both of us are it's it's tempting to want everything to be perfect you get a little puppy that's pooping everywhere and licking everything and destroying everything it starts to change your life so how is that it's only been a couple weeks right how has that changed your habit so far well it's definitely gotten me I was always an early riser but now I get up at 5:30 um for this little guy um and it is if you really have to be aware like what time deceived your eat what time to see drink like you really do have to be very aware of this other creatures needs and also you know like don't let him run around if you think there's gonna be missed if a foot yeah I feel like we should get one of those industrial size four they're like no industrial accidents on site for 57 days really no house breaking accidents for two days it's like yeah we're heat we're so great like that yeah and so it and it is it's funny that you mentioned that like kind of the desire to keep things very simple and clean and orderly um so I could see all the pros about getting a dog especially from the happiness research which is that all you know dogs make people happier and healthier by the way yeah then I could see all the cons which was you know the lack of freedom and the money and the errands and you know whatever at the pooping right um and then I decided I would choose the bigger life that's a question that I often use when I'm trying it when I'm have a really difficult decision and I can't decide which way to go I thought choose the bigger life and I got the bigger life for me and my families to get a dog and I think that that's been very true that's so cool so why do you say that why why is that a bigger life you know because I think I like the question choose the bigger life because I think it forces you to really think about what's true for you because for some people not having a dog would be a bigger life they could do more traveling they'd have more money they wouldn't have the responsibility um but for us I think it's like it's a family project that's something we're all interested in I have a 16 year old daughter and a 10 year old daughter it can be hard to find things that both of them like to do but they're both like so excited about the puppy and it's like what's the puppy doing and what what what treats us a puppy like let's go buy the puppy a toy and you know it's something we're like we gotta go you know we're gonna learn how to train em and love it like can he do a trick and you know um so it's something that's fun for all of us to do and it's a whole new relationship you know a dog is a whole new relationship so it's exciting in that way if there's anything that makes people happier it's relationships and so now we have a relationship with our dog yeah a relationship with the terrible puppy it's definitely improved our life in in so many different ways especially considering the fact that it it discourages bad habits right because you're not we tried going out late we had a puppy what we came home to was an absolute disaster so it's kind of like it keeps you compliant with the good life as it works yeah there's definitely a reckoning with a dog a dog doesn't want excuses the dog doesn't accept your justifications a dog just wants what he wants mm-hmm yeah and and needs what it needs and also is a great teacher in finding simple pleasures I think it's it's so interesting to me just from a habbit perspective how many people know that they need to take their dog for a walk and they do it right but if but if they don't have a dog they don't take their inner monkey for a walk twice a day three times a day or whatever what's that about well there's research that shows that people and I think it was funded by a pet food company so there you go but but that people who have dogs get more exercise and enjoy it more than people who belong to gyms and I there is you know for a lot of people accountability is really important and if they just are all if they're only accountable to themselves like oh I should go for run they're not gonna go in my I created a framework to sort of explain people's tendencies in there and how their habits form in different patterns and so for bludgers they readily meet out our expectations but they struggle to meet interacts potations so if they had if they were on a team but they had a coach in it and a team waiting for them they'd have no trouble exercising but they can't go on the weekends yeah well having a dog is like accountability if you were just gonna go like every morning I'm gonna get up and go for a run maybe you wouldn't go but if you know that your little puppy is gonna be sad and also mischievous if you don't go for that run well then you're gonna find it a lot easier to go that's right I think the thing that people don't always connect is that we're a little puppy - if we're cooped up all day and we don't go on that walk we get just as crazy don't we yes no I one of my mantras is treat myself like a toddler and I'm like Gretchen can't be on the call too long cuz she really doesn't like the cold Gretchen can't get too hungry because she gets really crabby Gretchen needs to get seven hours of sleep or she can't function you know Gretchen doesn't like clothes that are too uncomfortable or shoes that are too tight you know I mean um yeah I think you really need to be aware of like what you need to have just your body functioning it's easy to start thinking uh you know about these transcendent abstract things but really your physical state always influences your emotional state and with exercise you know a lot of times people think oh I'm too tired to exercise but unless you're really exercising at the extreme exercise tends to boost energy not drain energy so feeling tired is a reason to go exercise is not a reason to you know flop down on the on the sofa yeah it's fascinating so you mentioned what you eat and you had a whole section in your book where you talked about reading why we get fat from Gary Taubes who's also a past guest of the show awesome awesome stuff why was that such a lightning bolt moment for you I think that's how you described it yeah well you know in my book I just got I discuss all the strategies that we can use to make our break our habits and I argued that there jennife i-21 strategies you know which sounds like a lot but actually it's good because it means there's a lot to choose from some work for you but might not work for me some work sometimes and not the others and the strategy the lightning bolt of the 21 strategies is it really stands alone this is a strategy that's not within our conscious control it's not something that we do that we choose to do it's something that happens to us and it comes to us when we have a big realization of PIFAN e we get new information new knowledge and new experience something happens that overnight changes our habits effortlessly and the thing about this lightness try the lightning bolt is it's a very easy way to change our habits but you can't do it on command so it's frustrating because it makes everything easy well so I was on vacation and I read why we get fat and it was like this is a whole new way of thinking about nutrition it solved many things that had always puzzled me or annoyed me about what I was reading I'm suddenly everything everything he said seemed to make sense um and in a flash overnight I effortlessly changed my eating habits and I mean except for leafy green vegetables I think I ate everything differently everything different from the way I'd been eating yeah I have been one of those like oh I'm gonna eat you know egg white omelets and turkey burgers and you know last year and yeah a lot bran cereal skim milk all that stuff and tons of fruit all that and so I changed everything the way I ate and then of course I saw this amazing change in my body so that made me feel like oh I really my lightning bolt is true this is this is at you know it confirmed my belief that that in the ideas that I had been reading but for me that like the lightning bolt was just this new way of thinking this this focus on insulin um really radically changed my habit and I've heard of people finding out that they're pregnant for instance and overnight kicking some big habit or people um getting a doctor's report and thinking like oh my gosh this is really serious like I have to change this now um or you know sometimes there's just something you can have a casual conversation with somebody and for whatever reason it'll just set off some chain of events in your head and your habits change and so that's what happened to me so I would love for have a little to have everyone experience that right you go from eating brand in the morning then all of a sudden it's bacon and eggs you eat all just like wonderful stuff that's so delicious and you seem like the pounds start melting off and everything's great what is the disconnect there why isn't everyone kind of having that experience even with that subject in particular yeah let's just use your example yeah I mean it's funny you can't um it's hard to convey that power to someone else you can't everybody has to get there on their own and yet to me it's so utterly compelling I'm constantly telling people to read this book and some have the lightning bolt but the consequence tone I'm like I'm sort of loving with you I'm like how can you not be utterly persuaded by this um and it's funny because I was talking to a friend of my friend AJ Jacobs who's this wonderful brilliant hilarious writer and he wrote a book called I'm drop dead healthy where he's sort of experimented with all these health things and he he knows all this research about low carb and then he eat but he sort of came out in a different place sort of more the traditional you know way and I said him I was just like but AJ like how can you not believe you know it's the arguments are so compelling and he said and I was like ed look at me like I eat this way now and I lost all this weight I feel great all my hungers gone and he said and he said it in this really nice way like big Gretchen you're just a data point of one meaning you know you're just look for it and I was like AJ I'm the only data point I care about I mean data point one you know and I realized a lot of times at the lightening bolt to one person's story is more compelling to us than a whole book right or a whole bunch of research or a whole bunch of studies one person saying like oh man I do heist you know um high-intensity weight training and it's been crazy and it's been so fantastic for me you're like oh maybe I'll try that you know sometimes that's more compelling to us um that sort of annek data you know um then even reading studies or something sometimes that doesn't make as much of a doesn't it doesn't go through us with the same intensity as an idea um so it's interesting I know I wish I could wish you could figure out how to make people have lightning bolts on command because that would be amazing second your next book okay yeah how to make people have a lightning bolt ya know so that I get a lot of people writing in and asking about why it's so difficult especially once they star getting these massive results becoming these zealots for a new lifestyle to convince the people around them it seems like the closer they are to you especially if it's family the harder they are to convince that any sort of change is advantageous especially if you're kind of living proof of it what is what is that though you'll take advice from strangers but not people who are you know emotionally close to you well you know it is funny when you especially when when we become so convinced and we see the benefits the personal benefits and we see the research that all supports this way of eating you think oh I just I want to come I want everybody in my life to eat this way now I very satisfying for me I completely converted my father my father who's like in his mid-70s I had you know it was like 30 pounds overweight had all these you know all his numbers were wrong and moving in the wrong direction steadily for decades and everything and and I have to admit you know I was like he read the book and totally followed along and I was and as I see my 70-something dad eating you know scrambled eggs bacon I thought to myself well I really hope this theory is right because it's one thing for me but here's my dad you know who's like candidate number one for all the health heart problems is oh well of course my father had amazing results like the kind of thing where now his doctor was like hey Jack how have you changed your diet you know and and and and really it's been so exciting for him because he lost he weighs what he weighed in high school and he all his blood numbers won it so it was fantastic so he's a real convert and whenever I like see a new study or something I like to sip it off in an email to my father because I know he's like he's right there with me and that's very satisfying other people not so much it's interesting that my husband over time without having a big lightning bolt just started slowly changing slowly eliminating bread slowly amping up you know eggs I would say we eat so many more eggs in our household than we used to so I think sometimes even if people don't intend to change if we change then they may change and even my daughter's like you know we used to like have pasta for dinner well we never have pasta anymore you know just maybe if we're out to dinner and they get it or we're at a friend's house or something they might eat it but we don't have it for dinner and so they've been changing slowly too and and but I think it's frustrating when you want people to really accept the theory and really follow along and and and people have to get there on their own you know but I do think examples are helpful you know if they see that you're doing it and you're you know people often say like oh but what about all those foods you're giving up I'm like think of all the foods that I'm getting you know for me that's enough it can't hurt yeah I mean you're right and so um so uh so sometimes the they just see like oh this is great and you're eating all this great food and it's fine it's fine you know you're not pining away for toast or whatever it is right now dry toast come on yeah so you also mentioned in the book a really cool thing about figuring out what your Constitution is right and so I took your online test is there this is a shot in the dark do you know what I am just from our limited experience so far oh no I don't questioner okay I thought was like totally that makes sense doing interviews that's my thing right sure that makes great sense yeah but you you mentioned kind of like a shorthand test of who are you can you eat one square of chocolate oh that's for abstainer moderator right so can we talk about that because there are totally I can I can eat one square of chocolate all the people absolutely that's a different framework so there's the framework of so for I have said they say there are two kinds of people that were all the kind of people like to divide people into two kinds of people on the Pentagon I divide people into guides all often right so questioner is one of the four tendencies and that has to do are you in a polder a questioner obligor a rebel and I have a quiz for that online right now you're also a moderator that's the difference between abstainers and moderators and that's can you eat one square of chocolate so you're a moderator well that makes sense because you know a lot of people who give nutrition advice our moderators which has a lot of implications for the advice that they give because a lot of the people who need nutritional advice are abstainers like me and abstainers are people who they they kind of are all or nothing people they find it easy to have none but once they start they can't stop like I can't have half a dish of ice cream I can't have one square of chocolate you know and so but it's hard because moderators will often say things like we should just have a little bit or just have it sometimes or have a cheat day or don't be too hard on yourself if you're too rigid like you won't be able to sustain it um you ought to be able to have a brownie once in a while yeah but that doesn't work for abstainers like me if standards we do better when we have none when we just take it off the table my sister is and this has to do with a strong temptation not a we can all be moderators about a week temptation yeah but my sister who is an abstainer about french fries because she loves french fries but she's one of these people that always wants everything to be praying in the positive and so I said to her I know you want everything to be afraid of the positive so how do you tell yourself no when it comes to french fries cuz telling myself no is not something that's hard for me yeah and she said to me we know I just say to myself now I'm free from french fries and I thought that's the thing for an abstainer you can free from it by not having any of it but that doesn't work for moderators cuz moderators get kind of panicky and rebellious they can't have something sometimes Fumi hell so you're a moderator so you can have a little bit you can notice it sometime what's interesting about that though is all definitely a flip-flop right there are certain things where yeah I'll drink every weekend for a period of time they don't go months without doing it at all and it's it's a wonderful experience because it is you are free of it and there's so much mental energy you bring this up in your book of kind of like the flip-flopping syndrome am I going to exercise today it's Tuesday I should probably exercise but you know and then a half an hour later maybe we'll do a little layer what's what's that about and how can you kind of like shut off that wasted energy well that's where habits come into play because you're exactly right it takes energy it's draining and difficult to make decisions and to use our self-control and you can spend the entire day should I exercise or should I not exercise and never even go to the gym and become completely exhausted and use every inch of your self-control failing yeah wahhhh failfish oh yeah and you don't you haven't kind of the dimmadome and habits are helpful because they get us out of decision-making in and out of self-control because I don't decide I don't decide to get up at 5:30 in the morning I notice and I used to not decide to get up at 6:00 I don't decide to give up sugar I don't decide to not eat dessert I don't decide whether to post to my blog I I do these things because you know it's one day at 10:00 a.m. I go to yoga I'm not debating should I go to you or not good I always go to you at 10 o'clock um and so then you don't have to then you don't have to make those decisions and in turn use up that willpower and you so it's free for other things until I'm better than before I really try to go through all the ways that we can make things into habits because it is because life just because if there's things that are important to you that you want to do consistently it's just a lot easier to get them done when their habit yeah so that sounds easy though and habits are hard how do you make that that transition well you know the first thing I said like I said I have 21 strategies so there's a whole bunch to choose from and to change it to change challenging habit you might use five six seven strategies all at once which sounds a lot harder than it is and then any one on they'll a lot about yourself so because I think the big mistake that a lot of people make what happens is they think that there's one magic one-size-fits-all solution like I'll do it first thing in the morning or I'll start small I'll do it for 30 days in a row and then that's the answer but it doesn't work like that there is no magic one-size-fits-all solution the thing that works for you might not work for me the thing that works for you might the very opposite might not work might might work me so you really have to start by understanding yourself so I spend a lot of time trying to help people think of it like abstainer moderator how do what are the things that you might notice about yourself that would affect how you have your habits and then go through and think well how can I use accountability how can I use scheduling how can I use monitoring how can I use convenience how can I use inconvenience how can I use clarity how can I spot loopholes that's that's the funniest chapter we all have a lot of loopholes that we invoke to let ourselves off the hook oh it's I've been so good so good that's moral licensing that I'm gonna be so good tomorrow that's the tomorrow loophole there's a lack of control loophole there's concern for others loophole there's the one coin loophole there's um there's a million loop there's ten loopholes and and and we're such good advocates for ourselves so there's all kinds of strategies to deploy and I think even for people who are just courage because they've tried and failed a lot of times what happened to me usually when I'm talking to them about it I'm like I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit I think there's a lot of things that you can do that are gonna be right for you that are gonna make it a lot easier for that habit to stick yeah so for you when you want to install a new habit and turn it into something that's effortless what do you do well one of the things that I found out about myself that came as a big shock is when I did my 4 tendencies framework and I divided all of humanity into 4 categories like I thought I was pretty typical when it came to habits um but it turns out I'm actually on the freaky fringe okay um and uh which many things became clear to me when I realized that by the way cam is a surprise to no one that I'm like this extreme personality what are you talking about I'm totally average they're like no you're not right I'm actually part of a very small category of people called upholders who find it pretty easy to form habits we'd find it easier than other people and so for me it's not as challenging as a lot and and it was really important for me when I was writing the book to realize how differently people approach this thing so what I might use is scheduling I really put it on my calendar and know exactly what I'm gonna do it I monitor it you know if this works for a lot of people do if you monitor something you're much more likely to do it consistently I make it as convenient as possible I make it you know as pleasant as possible so there's a lot of different things that I would do depending on what the habit is yeah one that's really powerful that I advocate because it's worked so well for my personality type is working it into your identity right it's fat burning man does not work if he's fat well yes and it's interesting that you point that out because I have to confess that when I was writing the book that strategy the strategy of identity was one that really eluded me for a long time it was very hard for me to understand how important it was even though like one of the people who I was speaking to about her habits all the time consistently was talking about it but I just wasn't hearing what she was saying and what I found is that when people have a challenge a habit that they can't seem to change even though they keep saying how important to them a lot of times it's tickets of identity so right you're like why can't I leave work at 6 o'clock and take the weekends off and they're like but your identity is that you're a workaholic right once that identity has to change if your habits are going to change or if you say like oh you know I'm a baker well then you're gonna be baking all the time and if you want to eat differently you're gonna have to change that identity and sometimes it can be painful like a friend of mine was saying like oh we have this new baby my husband and I we need to go to bed earlier we're exhausted all the time but when I asked her about why she wasn't going to bed it was clear that she associated going to bed early like before midnight she considered early it was like a very suburban domestic thing to do and she was clinging to her her kind of younger identity and like her cool you know out on the town type of person and so she had to accept that that identity had to change if she was gonna move into this new stage of her life and be able to keep her sanity so how can you tell if if your idea of your identity is something that's serving you or not well I think if it's interfering with a good habit with a habit that you want to have then you need to think about how is this how is this not serving me um you know like you know like sometimes with really well I'm texting and us Texans you know we eat this way we drink that way we do this we do that was like well you know okay well maybe you've got a different identity that you can tap into you know it's one thing BTEC what's another way to be texting while we Texans also do this and do that you know we Texans love nature we go out and you know I whatever it is and just figure out a new way which part of Texas you're talking about having lived in Texas for you yes it's a big state you can find something that works for you you know whatever uh but I think a lot of times once people once once you point this out to people they be they begin to see pretty easily what it is about their identity that's that's interfering now another thing that is that is so powerful and you talk about this a lot in your book is being in harmony with your surroundings and intentionally designing your surroundings to make good habits easy bad habits hard that's something I talk about a lot so what are some of the things that you can do to make sure that your your surroundings and your environment are serving you so you want to use the strategy of convenience and the strategy of inconvenience because like an uncanny degree we're very influenced by just how easy or hard it is to do something yeah so if you're thinking oh should I join the gym that's right across the street from my office or should I pay a little less and walk one block oh you should get the one right across the street from your office worth bangle you throw a little money at that or um you know I I have this problem where I'm constantly checking my cell phone while I'm driving I know it's really dangerous like but what can I do it's like put your turn put your put your phone in the trunk or put it on the underneath your seat in the backseat on mute on something that's really inconvenient to get your phone because you're going to find it a lot easier to to resist on so you want to go through and think everything that you want to do you want to make it convenient anything that's Enki inconvenient are the things that you want to discourage um guess these little you know if you don't want to watch TV instead of keeping the remote control right by the chair where you always sit put it on a high shelf behind a closed door it's there if you want it you can go get it but you're gonna have to work to get it and so it's not going to be so easy to just flop down and say I'll just I'll just see what's on whatever and it's a the the power that your environment has over you is something that is hard to overestimate it's a you know living in a place right now we live in the Smoky Mountains and just being able to open up the door and go for a run with a dog is an amazing life-changing thing but you really need to be I mean obviously moving to a place and setting your life up is the hard part but once you once you do that and you kind of like craft this way of living then living well becomes easy is there anything that people can do to kind of like bridge that gap and connect the I guess the present right of making their life better with the immense amount of work and intentionality it takes to really craft that environment well you know I think just take it little bit little you know you don't feel like you have to move to a different state or whatever you know find what it is you know if you want to just think about whatever it's gonna make it work for you I'm like why something's not working it's interesting somebody emailed me on my blog and they said you know I used to always love going for walks and then I stopped and then I was going and staying with my father while he was sick and I went for a walk every night and I was trying to figure out what the difference was and it turned out he lives in a very well lit subdivision and I realized that I just felt a little uneasy walking after work in my neighborhood because of the cars going by so I got a reflector vest and now I walk all the time so see sometimes it's sometimes you just have to think a little bit hardly cool what's it yeah it's just so those little things like well what's getting in my way or what's problem or you know maybe you're under my for tenancies framework there people who do much better with external accountability so if you're gonna if you're gonna exercise maybe you need to have a trainer maybe you need to work out with a friend maybe you need to be part of a group an accountability group um there's a you can get a starter kit on my site Gretchen Rubin comm you want to start in an accountability group where somebody's gonna be little saying to you hey how did it go did you go to the gym did you go for that walk did you go to that class um you know it's often I think easier than people think once they know what to do but a lot of times they just feel like well I couldn't possibly you know I work so hard I couldn't possibly do XYZ it's like well let's think about it maybe there maybe there are things that you can do that if they're set up right for you won't seen this owner us ya know what about the things that you might be doing you know are good for you why are those habits so fragile right I mean this is the thing or even things that you love to do that was nothing was just right people will say I love doing this and yet I can't make a habit of it you know we had these same 21 strategies we used to make her break a habit and it doesn't matter if a habit is fun for you it doesn't matter if the habit is good for you um these are the strategies that use and I think one of the big risks that people take is they think Oh enjoy this habit so much I don't need to worry about protecting it or particularly sticking to it or oh this is so good for me why would I ever stop taking my blood pressure medication it's so obviously good for me but then I stop you know it's like yeah I've never focus on um on you know the results you know because I think you have to work I think process is much more helpful to think about in habits like how am I gonna go about doing this right and so one of the little procedural things that I loved I heard you mention on your show is called the 60 second rule this is something I started started doing all the certain houses lot cleaner her stuff done there's so many loose ends that are being tied out those clothes loops that suck all that energy are all of a sudden just tied up in a nice little book can you talk about what the sixty second rule means yeah well this is a rule that there's anything that you can do in less than a minute you do without delay so if you can hang up your code if you can put the jar the lid back on the jar of peanut butter and put the peanut butter back in the cabinet you close the cabinet door don't you yeah if you can rip up in a letter and scan it and toss it you know if you can throw the newspaper in the recycling um and what this does is that there's like there's just these tiny tasks that are just kind of the scum on the surface of life nothing consequential on their own but added together they make us feel sort of overwhelmed you know and drain our energy and you look you you know you walk into your office and you think others just like a million things I don't know what they are they're out of place they need to be put away or thrown away or filed or uh you know and then you just walk right back out again yeah and the one minute rule is something where you don't have to take an afternoon you don't have to take a personal day from work um you know you just do it in these these interstitial parts of your day and a lot of people say you know after a few days after two weeks it's amazing how much gets done um with just these little little bits of time yeah because otherwise even if it's just say checking email right if you have your email open all day and you're reading this thing I'll respond to that later I'll respond to that later you have it open all day and they're all these things that are kind of adding up as opposed to just like jamming through it in twenty minutes you don't hear from me in 20 minutes you're not gonna hear from me type thing its it's massively efficient but it's hard to do it you know it's one of these things that once you just put up your mind to do it I think for a lot of people they realize that it actually makes life a lot easier in the long run when they do these things as they come up no I I also have a lot of people who listen to the show who are definitely perfectionist like me and I assume you was right so how do you make sure that profession isn't the enemy of progress that's that's a big one mmm right don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good um well and that's why I called it better than before in the book because it's like it's not a I'm reaching some goal some magic utopia of perfect habits and perfect happiness um just really yeah yeah it's not very realistic I think it's all it's better to think about moving in the right direction if you do this you know are you are you better than before are you doing better than before are you getting better if I'm getting better is what we all want it's getting getting better is the best um and and so I think it's it's like not worrying too much about and not beating yourself up one of the things that that comes up with habits alot is how do you handle a slip-up um you know most of us you know you try to keep a habit and then you break it here and there and so how do you handle that and a lot of people think that if they load themselves with shame and guilt if they mess up that that's somehow going to energize them to do a better job but their habits in the future and in fact research shows that the people who are actually better at kind of getting back in the saddle and giving it another try are the people who show compassion of themselves and who say things like well that wasn't my best day or well you know I learned that lesson and the next time I go to a cocktail party I'm not going to stand right next to the hors d'oeuvre tray you know or whatever it is and kind of try to learn from something and move forward and then and and because because since they because a lot of them sometimes if you load yourself with really bad feelings about breaking a habit what do you do to make yourself feel better often you turn back to that very bad habit so like studies show that when gamblers worry about money they go gamble some more to make themselves feel better people who are worried about being overweight eat in order to comfort themselves or PEO and so often the thing that you're doing to make yourself feel better ends up just making you feel worse right um so you want to break that cycle by basing you know like an English proverb that I love is a stumble may prevent a fall so you could be like well you know what I didn't do so well at this birthday party but the holidays are coming up and I learned a really important lesson about the fact that I shouldn't show up somewhere hungry or you know well I didn't exercise well I was on that trip but it just reminded me you know I really need to make sure that I stay at a hotel that has a gym because I never feel like going outside of the weather's lousy or whatever it is like you can learn from it and do and and and that can help you going forward to do a better job with those habits right so now we're some of the in studying habits what are some of the things that really surprised you because there are a lot of things as I read through your book that are like really missing an eyebrow what what wasn't it's you well one of the things that probably surprised me is the thing I mentioned before which is that there is no magic one-size-fits-all solution like you know people keep wanting to find like well what's the perfect habit if like as if we would if only we would identify it we could all be perfect and it's like that's not going to work obviously so that's one thing I'm another thing was that was the rewards the negative effect of rewards on habits because people the first thing people want to do is say oh if you go for one give yourself a scone or you know oh you did a great if you did this you're gonna get that and what I would I would learned about how this is that rewards are very undermining you don't want to reward yourself or have it and less and less and less and less and the only reward that works is a reward that takes you deeper into the habit so if you're doing a lot of yoga you could say well I need to get new yoga clothes because a person who does a lot of yoga needs fresh clothes or I've done a really good job of cooking healthy meals I am gonna get myself some new not some new fancy expensive knives because a person who does a lot of cooking really benefits from having a lot of knives because what are the knives good for more cooking yeah um which reminds me of an old joke about making partner in a law firm and they say making partner in a law firm is like entering a pie-eating contest winning and discovering that the prize is more pie um so the prize for the good exercise should be more exercise um or you know the prize for bringing lunch is a new lunchbox you know fabulous fancy you know now they have all these like super elegant fashionable let foxes not something like oh I've been so good now I get to have a giant piece of chocolate cake which is a lot of times people give themselves perverse rewards they reward you like the friend of mine who said you know soon as I have lost 10 pounds I'm gonna go and get a giant chocolate eclair and I was like really like no no that's not that's not gonna that's not gonna make you happy in the long run right what is that temptation why why do we want to reward ourselves with the thing that's going to basically do the opposite of what we're rewarding ourselves for well you know it's moral licensing loophole which you mentioned before I've been so good I deserve it and then I also think you know part of the things that happens with with with like my friend losing 210 pounds it's like people have this idea of like well I'm gonna lose ten pounds I'm gonna hit my goal and then I'm gonna go back to eating normally well when you eat normally weight what you're what you were you know what you were before that's what happens when you eat in that way yeah and so I think a lot of times people don't want to acknowledge the fact that if they want to if they want their bodies to be different or they want their health to be different they need to make changes that are really indefinite you know it's not about doing it for a certain amount of time or six months or to lose 20 pounds or whatever it's really to do it indefinitely and so you want to figure out what can I do really forever but maybe let that be a Miss that you don't think about so much some people get freaked out some people it is gonna say this is what I'm doing today this is what I'm doing today yeah you do this today um I'm choosing to do this today so why is change though such a dirty word why is it such a scary concept for people when they know that change will be good right well I think that I think it's because a lot of people times people are discouraged I mean I think they've tried to change their habits before they've tried to make it change they failed and so they feel bad about it they feel impotent they feel um powerless to you know it's like my father with his blood work it was like every year I think every time I went in every six months or whatever it was just a little bit worse and just a little bit worse and I'd say hey Jack you should lose weight but he just he just wasn't and he would do this he would do that nothing would really change and it just starts to give you a very bad defeated feeling and so you'd be like I don't want to change it's too hard and it doesn't work and it depresses me you know so why why bother but that's why I feel like it's really exciting and encouraging when there really are these tools where you can say look this is the kind of person you are this is the kind of thing that's likely to work for you and here's like five six seven things tools in your toolbox that you can use and it's exciting for me to hear from people who are like and I just I you said it you said this one thing are it completely describes me I've done I've made this one small change and like now I can do this thing that has been frustrating me for years because a lot of times it's not that it's so hard to do it's just that you kind of need to know what key to put into the lock in order to allow that change to occur right and when in doubt get a puppy yeah yeah yeah yeah good for some habits bad yeah absolutely if you're a person has trouble getting enough sleep I'm not sure that a puppy I'm really good about making sure that I get out of sleep and that's good because this puppy man when I get down there I'll get up at 5:30 and I would not want to push it until I'm any further that's he's good to wait that long you know well he's been so good at this interview I can't believe good join yeah I know good brining me here he's gonna say hello hello wanna be the kakapo Rick and cute so anyway we're just about out of time but before we go please talk about your awesome podcast the projects that you're working on your book all of that wonderful stuff oh thank you yeah I have a new podcast with my sister called happier with Gretchen Rubin and we talked about happiness good habits human nature all that good stuff and we're sisters so we don't let each other get away with much it's tons of fun it's been a big success which has been fantastic yeah I'm sorry can I just say you guys are very different so the interplay between the two personalities is fascinating yeah we are um yes uh she I call her my sister the sage because she's just always this like sighs I'm five years older than she is so I'm the big sister but she I feel like she has all these words of wisdom and she's hilarious yeah so it's tons of fun for us um and it's been it's really been a hit with listeners which is very exciting for both of us um and right now I mentioned in a couple times my four tendencies framework and since that's just one of the strategies in the book and better than before but I've had so many emails for people like asking extremely complicated sophisticated questions like I'm the parent of a rebel child I want them to play it practice violin what do I do or I am the manager of an obligor and I don't know how to you know create systems I can allow them to avoid burnout or whatever in asking these great specific questions so I'm writing kind of a like a little book not my next big book but a little book that just goes into are far far more detail about the four tendencies that I could do and I write on my blog Gretchen Rubin comm practically every day about my adventures and happiness and good habits and yeah I'm all over Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest and all that stuff so I'd love to hear from listeners so awesome well Gretchen Rubin it has been a true pleasure this has been a lot of fun thank you thank you and thank you for letting burning me come on did you make a resolution this year to drop stubborn fat improve your health or finally bust through your fat loss or training Plateau good news you still have time to join the wild diet 30-day challenge in our online membership community the fat burning tribe we're here to help with all the tools motivation and support you need to get in the best shape of your life for one month only you'll not only gain access to our library of videos recipes articles downloads and a supportive group of community members you'll also be able to grab your 30-day wild diet done for you meal plan a $97 value when you sign up my wife Allison and I developed the 30 day meal plan using our favorite recipes backed by the principles of the wild diet to help you shed fat as quickly as possible while enjoying delicious meals and real food treats there's a six pack under there and we're going to help you find it if you join the wild diet challenge today you'll get your first month of the entire program for just $1 it's a value of well over $100 so don't wait the bonuses and giveaways expire soon all you have to do to get in the fun is type in fat-burning mancom forward slash challenge once again from any device that's fat-burning mancom forward slash challenge I'll see you there thank you so much for joining us on this episode of fat-burning man if you liked it don't forget to hit the subscribe button on iTunes stitcher YouTube the podcast app or wherever else you might be listening to or watching this show got a second please leave me a quick review on iTunes I always love hearing from you and if you think someone else might like and benefit from this free show please take a second to share it with a friend or with a family member you can get in touch with me on twitter at fat burn man and facebook by typing in abel james or a fat burning man drop me a line any time did you know that I've recorded over 150 episodes of fat burning man winning four awards and independent media and hitting number one in more than eight countries here's some more good news you can download and listen to every single episode for free all you have to do is type in fat-burning mancom will give you a second to type it in fat burning man calm and you'll get all the show notes and video and audio versions for all the past episodes of fat burning man better yet enter your best email at fat-burning mancom sign up for my newsletter and I'll even send you a QuickStart guide to start burning fat right now and a few of our ridiculously tasty recipes as a special thanks for signing up once again just go to fat burning mancom right now enter your best email to get your free fat burning download straight to your inbox and make sure that you never miss a show again this is Abel James signing off thanks so much for listening and have a great week lair and Sheamus I think food itself is indicative of that as well and it's almost like a metaphor for life you know I invite people so and I'm going to share my experience and then there's a nomad tombola and I love it you get to listen so

Channel: Abel James

Views: 15,397

Rating: 4.5625 out of 5

Keywords: abel james, abel, fat-burning man, fbm, podcast, paleo, gretchen rubin, habits, habit forming, positive change

Id: JumK1gMSd94

Length: 48min 56sec (2936 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2016