How to Lose Weight Automatically (3 Key Strategies) | Jason Fung

today i'm going to talk about three key behaviors to make weight loss automatic and stick around to the end i'm going to talk about arlene's story and the fasting schedule that she used to lose her weight [Music] the first key behavior i'm going to talk about is habits here i want to compare the eating strategies of the 1970s to those that happened in the 2000s i chose the 1970s because this is a time before the obesity epidemic everybody thinks that gaining weight losing weight it's all about willpower so do we really think that people just had more willpower in the 70s and somehow this was an epidemic of low willpower that everybody in north america and now the world just has less willpower than they did i find that really hard to believe and i think it's not about willpower at all i think it's about habits when you look at a map of the united states and how much obesity there is there's data from the cdc showing that in 1990 obesity is relatively uncommon the states with the most obesity have about 10 to 14 percent now let's fast forward this is an obesity map produced by the cdc in 2019 there's no states that are in the blue which was the 10 to 14 which had the most obesity in 1990. here the state with the least amount of obesity is still at 20 percent and there's many states which are deep in the red pushing 30 percent how did this happen there were several major changes in the way we eat when we look at large american surveys of how people ate we can see from this graph that in 1977 most americans were eating three times a day that is breakfast lunch and dinner no snacks in between no snacks at bedtime and that's it you ate when you ate and when you didn't eat there's no reason for you to be snacking or getting a cookie or getting a muffin or anything like that when you do the same survey in the mid-2000s what you can see is that people are eating almost six times a day double the amount that they were just 25 30 years ago so that is instead of breakfast lunch and dinner it's breakfast snack lunch snack dinner snack when people are eating all the time that means they're not fasting the mean number of minutes in between the meals has steadily started to shrink this is a change not in willpower but in our habits and i think this has played a key role in the obesity epidemic if we want to try and break this habit of eating all the time we have to understand how habits form and how you can change them habits are generally broken down into four phases the first step is the cue this is what triggers off the whole habit it's what reminds you that hey you want to eat so for example if you are used to eating at a movie theater then that is the cue you see a movie and then that is your cue that you want to go eat some popcorn for example and this is the craving after the craving you want decide that you want to get some popcorn this is the response you go out to the concession stand you buy yourself some popcorn and you eat it and you feel good and that's your reward and that's the four steps where habits are formed and it's a self-reinforcing cycle so you get the q get the craving which leads to the response the reward which reinforces the cue if you want to break these habits most people focus on going between steps two and three between the craving and the response and this is where people think it's all about willpower that is oh you go to the movies and you want popcorn but you impose hard will and you say no or you want ice cream or you want cookies and you say no or you want candy and you say no and that's where your iron will power is well that's really exhausting and generally not very successful but there's a better way what you have to do is start at the beginning with the queue it's much easier to get rid of the queue rather than let the cycle get started and then try to break it so instead of trying to get rid of the craving can you remove the cue what is the prompts to eat well we have a lot these days so for example people sit in front of the tv and they decide that they want something to munch on or they get into a car they take a road trip and they decide they want something to eat or the cue could be you're in the office you have a meeting and somebody is always ordering a plate of cookies for your afternoon meeting or muffins candy bowl in the middle of the in the middle of the work day might be your cue to eat that rather than relying on willpower why don't you simply make a rule no food at meetings no eating at your desk no candy balls because people are trying to lose weight and it's unfair for those people removing the cue is a lot easier than trying to let the cycle run if you do wind up with the queue the other place to intervene is with the craving instead of trying to quit cold turkey can you replace this craving for say popcorn at the movies with something different and less harmful if you sit down in front of the tv at night time and that's your relaxation period instead of snacking maybe make your habit getting some nice green tea or a coffee decaffeinated perhaps something else that you can replace so that when you get this cube you no longer get the craving for the popcorn or the chips or those other unhealthy things if you want to encourage a good habit such as fasting now what can you do and that leads me to step number two put it on the schedule what you'd like to do is schedule something instead of eating so that it makes it easy that's your cue so what i do for example is instead of having lunch i schedule a meeting zoom meeting these days but something where i'm not going to have time to eat and by the time i'm finished i'm going to be doing something else and i'm going to be busy i'm not even going to think about it so your queue might be every mondays and thursdays you have a meeting with your team or you go for a walk something else that's your cue you're going to trigger the craving the idea that you need to fast and pretty soon you're going to notice that you're not even that hungry because you've put it on the schedule and that's how you're going to make your weight loss automatic the response is the fasting and how are you going to make it easier for yourself well there's one proven way to make it easier for yourself and that's to do it with other people peer pressure is what we call it when children generally have pressure to do something and we think of it in a bad way but it can also work in a good way and this is called peer support so if everybody around you is fasting hey you're going to want to fast and you're going to find a lot easier too doing it in a big group is how people used to do it if nobody that you know of is eating well that's going to be a lot easier for you to not eat it's going to be hard if your friends your family are eating they're cooking you see it you smell it it's going to be very difficult so put it on the schedule and find other people to do it and finally what's the reward well obviously food is not going to be a good reward you don't want to break your fast with a dozen donuts that's going to eliminate all the benefits that you got but there are lots of ways maybe you want to do a manicure or a pedicure you're going to buy yourself some flowers for example go for a massage have a nice soak in a bath something else buy yourself a book just enjoy reading it there's lots of different ways to reward yourself and you put it on the schedule you know hey mondays i'm going to do the fast i'm going to finish early go home because you had more time to do your work and i'm going to go for a massage something like that and while you're enjoying yourself you're reinforcing this cycle and you're going to make it easier and easier for yourself the weight loss will become automatic when you're trying to break those bad habits of eating junk foods there's something else you can do and that brings us to tip number three after making a habit putting it on the schedule that's spoil your appetite what do i mean by this when you're hungry you're going to be tempted by a lot more foods so when you have things like chips and ice cream and cookies all around you well it's going to be very hard to resist them if you're hungry so not during fasting but on your regular days make sure you eat enough if you fill up with meat and vegetables you're going to be less likely to want to eat chips after dinner because you're going to be full it's just like your mother said if you wanted a bedtime snack in the 1970s she would have told you no you should eat more at dinner time and that's the key if you are full well those things are suddenly not that appealing think of a time that you really ate a lot at a buffet or something like that and that's i think part of the secret of how people in the 1970s effortlessly kept that weight off they weren't trying to lose weight they weren't barely even watching what they were eating the diet industry was nowhere to be found gyms were not a big thing yet they were able to keep that weight off by making the weight loss automatic they made the habit of fasting they put it on the schedule and they spoiled their appetite with good natural food so arlene was able to lose a lot of her weight and she did this by understanding really the body's natural insulin response and how that is the key to controlling your weight it wasn't about calories it was a hormonal imbalance not a caloric imbalance and by understanding that she made it a habit to fast 16 to 20 hours in a day when she did eat she avoided all those foods that were going to stimulate an insulin response predominantly the refined carbohydrates the grains the sugars the sweeteners the starchy vegetables and she was by eating those foods she was avoid snacking by spoiling her appetite from the beginning she took her about 11 months to lose all that weight and she lost an average of 1.3 pounds every week a year later she's still able to maintain that weight loss because she's able to make it a habit i think you've done a great job arlene congratulations on your success and thanks for sharing it with us here so that's it for this week i hope you learned something in this video if you did maybe share it with your friends maybe they'll learn something too if you enjoyed this video well you could do me a favor hit that like button the one down there i'll see you next week

Channel: Jason Fung

Views: 363,929

Rating: 4.9579015 out of 5

Keywords: how to lose weight, obesity code, dr jason fung, jason fung, lose weight, how to lose weight fast, weight loss tips, weight loss, habits, weight loss motivation, weight loss journey, how to lose weight without exercise, how to lose wieght, Lose wieght

Id: A33eMFcud04

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021