Transform Your Weight Loss: Stop Dieting, Start Forming New Habits, and Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering with Mini Habits

The Rebecca Review: "Fat loss is a side effect of living healthier." ~ pg. 153

I have a diet saboteur in my house! Often this person will bring home six donuts or bags of candy and leave them on the counter. I myself have been known to buy candy on occasion and hide it from this person because they will eat it all up and I think of sugar as a treat for good behavior. I also sometimes get in the mood to make 24 cupcakes but I give 99% of them away. Usually I have one or two and that is about it. I just really love baking!

So between me and this person we are causing ourselves ill health because of ingesting some of the wrong foods. What to do? I figured reading a book on developing good habits couldn't hurt! I was right. This book has a lot of helpful tips and tricks to make healthy living much more easy and not as challenging.

One of the best sentences in the book is this:

"The home eating war
is won and lost in the grocery store."

I figured this out years ago actually. I knew if I bought it, I'd eat it so I stopped buying sugary chocolates on impulse and started ordering stevia sweetened chocolate from amazon. That alone cut down a lot of sugar cravings because...

United States on Oct 05, 2023

Terry S. Barker: This is the most helpful book I've ever read when it comes to changing my eating and exercise habits. I can't wait to read the authors other books!

United States on Sep 04, 2023

Eleana: I went looking for a way to make weight loss easier and more sustainable. I knew that dieting was over. There had to be a better way.
And I found this book and it made sense to me.
I could finally work with my neuroscience and not against it. The principles in this book will be with me forever. Learning mini habits has made everything easier. I can adopt a new habit so much better now and sustain it.

Australia on Mar 24, 2023

Amazon Customer: Ive read this book a couple of times but this time it really made sense, ive had enough of extreme diets, ate some fruit the day i read that suggestion and have ate some everyday since and I NEVER ate fruit before, really quite surprised, picked another 2 mini habits from the list and so far so good, would def recommend to anyone sick of dieting.

United Kingdom on Sep 18, 2022

Sudarshan G.: The author goes through every devils argument that you can pose and gives you strategies to handle them.. unlike any other weight loss regime or book - this one is different, it EMPOWERS you to be your own CAPTAIN 😇

India on Aug 28, 2022

Bodiccea: My GAWD, how I rankle at self-help books that go on and ON AND ON before they get to the meat. Oh, how their lives have changed, all these studies and statistics and personal stories of growth, how this new thing is a MIRACLE and the world as we know it will CHANGE.

Reading things like that makes me just want to lie down and watch sixteen hours of television which is, uhhhh, the problem?

Luckily, Stephen Guise is not toying with my mental health in that way. It's short. It's to the point. A minimum of cutesy language OR! way! over!! the! top!! promises and gushing.

And it really makes sense. It's not rocket science - it's just a common sense view of why it is so challenging to begin and maintain new habits and how to minimize that challenge. It's worked pretty well for me - no, I haven't suddenly developed Olympic athlete-level focus or commitment but I have been able to establish and maintain some new, healthy habits.

And the critical thing about doing that? It makes me far less critical and skeptical about myself. I was getting to the point where I thought I was just bone lazy and would never get any consistency. Not so! For me, the tiny BUT...

Canada on Aug 26, 2018

Happy Sea Slug: Have you ever eaten a decadent slice of cheesecake, only to finish and think, "Man, I could really go for some vegetables right about now"?

If not, let me introduce you to Stephen Guise and the concept of mini habits. The idea, as conceptualized in this book, is not to take an approach of deprivation and radical change, but to make small, incremental, consistent changes that ultimately result in a permanent, healthy lifestyle. Stephen (can I call him Stephen?) is upfront from the beginning: this is not a journey of quick fixes, rapid weight loss, and cleanse diets. This is about working with the brain's natural resistance to change by fooling it into thinking you're not asking much from it. And really, you're not. If your goal is to do one push-up a day, you will find yourself down on the ground much faster than if your goal is to do 20. And once you are down there, you will do some more. It's human nature. The hard part, the decision to do a thing, is over at that point. And even on your worst day, even if you really only can do one, you've still made some forward momentum and reinforced that daily habit.

I only finished this book a couple of weeks ago, but I have...

United States on Mar 07, 2017

BVB: Great book with a strategy that really works. I had already read his first book but it was worth getting this one also as it helped consolidate the concept of minihabits in my head.
Personally, I have found success with my first mini habit (putting my washing up gloves on after dinner & certainly before bed). My minihabit took 3 months to establish but now I always have a clean kitchen because putting on my gloves is the spark to clearing my kitchen. The point - this strategy works. My current mini habit - to do one star jump a day.
I did find that I got a bit inpatient about getting to some actual examples of minihabits for weight loss/fitness. Up until that point I genuinely couldn't think of any. But when I got there, it was worth the wait.

I however disagree with the author about 'partial completion is failure in mini habits'. For me, the only reason why the minihabits approach works is because I combine it with another strategy to help me 'fix' failure so it never feels like failure. If it had, I wouldn't have been able to continue for long enough to establish any consistency. My first minihabit (putting on my washing up gloves) doesn't get any more mini than...

United Kingdom on Dec 17, 2016