Why Is Fat Loss So Hard?
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. So hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:And remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Guys, why is it so hard to lose fat? Why? Like we know what we gotta do, we gotta go on a calorie deficit and we know we can eat anything we want really but we do say eat you know you should eat the greens and the nutrient dense foods it does matter right but we know it's quite simple in our way so why is it so hard to lose weight? Well the thing is we can't make decisions unless we use our emotional side of our brain.
Speaker 1:There's a study on this and it showed that somebody who couldn't use their limbic system I believe it was the emotional side of the brain couldn't make decisions even though they could list out all the logical things they should do, the reasons they just couldn't do the last thing and make decisions. So what that tells us is our brain needs our chimp essentially if you read a chimp paradox, it needs our part of the brain to make decisions. So really when emotion when we make decisions based on emotion, We think we're rational, we're not rational at all. We do tell ourselves we are like, you ask someone like, why did you buy that car? Well, I bought this car because it's like a really good mileage and I need to go to work.
Speaker 1:No, you didn't. You bought that car because it's status symbol. You bought a piece of metal with a brand on the outside with a logo thinking it matters, but you done it for status because you riding that car around gives you status. That's why you bought the car. It's got nothing to do with the mileage.
Speaker 1:Nothing at all. That's just what you tell people, the logical reasons. So we always fool ourselves into thinking when making logical decisions. So the sooner we realize it's not logic based, the better because then we can start looking at our worldview and our environment and start priming it to help us make better decisions. Now Robert Sapolsky thinks, the neuroscientist and, Stanford University professor, right, he thinks that we don't have free will as human beings.
Speaker 1:Very interesting. Very scary, but very interesting. And I do remember coming across a study that showed that they thought, do they plug their brain up to some electromagnetic stuff or they just made people go through a series of decisions, simple ones like eight and they asked them at the end, did you make all those decisions? They were like, yeah, course I did. Like, no, you didn't, we made those decisions for you.
Speaker 1:They were sending like some kind of electromagnetic waves or whatever they were to make them do the decisions they want them to do. So it is very scary, but very interesting that the environment does really shape our decision making. And I think like, if we think we make our own decisions, and we never actually admit that we don't, we're always going be fighting against it. And we're always going to be blind to what's happening. Do you know I mean?
Speaker 1:So if you think now like, no, no, I make all my own decisions. You walk into work or drive into work and seeing a logo from McDonald's causing a craving and then five minutes later you're starving while you're craving you think it's hunger, get to the office and you need to eat something fast like you might not even have noticed you saw that logo might have just come into your eyesight and then you might have been and they might have caused a change in your behavior. So things like that happen all the time, like all the time things like that happen, we have to because the brain we have been evolved to like look out for danger, look out for everything and your vision and senses pick up a lot more than just what you personally like you're consciously absorbing. Does that make sense? So your task really is to evaluate your environment because I think this is one of the most important and one of the biggest things you can do in terms of return on investment of time.
Speaker 1:It talks about this An Atomic Habit which is a fantastic book that I think everybody should read. Not everybody likes to read but the book is condensed, it's been written beautifully, a guy that's been writing about habits for like over a decade. There's a lot to learn from it, right? So he talks about an atomic habits doing these one time things that change your long term habits. So you'd buy this one time thing and it changes your habits.
Speaker 1:For example, like, you I created a reading corner in my in my flat because I wanted to see it and I wanted to read in the reading corner to make myself have reading habit and it worked because I didn't want to read in bed and stuff, mixed bed and reading and sleeping because it didn't make sense right. Then you have an office, you work in the office, you walk in, you work, you walk out, you stop working right, you create that difference, you build that first. It could be that you buy like a water dispenser thing that you've always got fresh cold water every time in the kitchen and every time you walk in you see it and you're like right to remind you to drink water, will that increase your water intake? Yes, of course it would. Is having a bowl of fruit the table going to help you eat more fruit?
Speaker 1:Is having in your fridge when you open it up full of healthy nutritious foods you meant to eat in your eyesight and not junk food? Is changing the entire structure of your home gonna help you like one time things? Well, of course, all of these things can help you. Right? So you need to think of, the one time things you can do or buy your change that will forever change your habits and your behavior because you'll forget that you've bought them and that change and then you'll just see it and it'll go, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because one of the ways to, like, create the habit is a point and say, right. I'm gonna go and clean up the dishes. And then after I'm gonna clean up the dishes, I'm gonna go and eat my food. And if you point and say it works. So try that next time, right.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna go and drink that water over there right now. Once I drink that water over there, I'm gonna put my worker clothes on the bed ready for tomorrow. So you can do stuff like that. So this is up for you to really analyze your own lifestyle, your own life, your own work environment because I can't tell you what one off things you can do, those are just ideas. And then in the book it talks about habit stacking and this comes from a book called Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg who's like one of the OGs in the hobby thing and we'll read that in book club because it might have a different perspective on habits and James Clear did.
Speaker 1:But habit stacking is an awesome idea so like what do you already do every day that you can attach another habit to like brushing your teeth after you brush your teeth what can you add on to that like brush my teeth and then put my gym clothes next to the bed. Can you do that every night? Because every time you wake up and you see your gym clothes, boom, they're on. That's gonna help you with a habit of getting up in the morning doing some activity, isn't it? Like, what habit stacks can you build?
Speaker 1:And other people who have read Atomic Habits from Octagon, if you can comment underneath this post with habit stacks you've built to give people ideas, think it'd be really good. But let's go back to basics. Like, if we're not building habits we're making it very difficult for us to change your lifestyle. You can't really change your lifestyle unless you build a new habit, it's as simple as that. So we can't ignore habits, we can't ignore researching habits, we can't ignore reading up more about habits because if we ignore the entire thing about habits then you're never gonna be a long term lifestyle change, end off.
Speaker 1:And how are you gonna learn about habits? It's not gonna just happen out of nowhere. So do read Atomic Harbors, do read Tiny Harbors, do ask people who've read the and they've got habit stacks and all that stuff who have done one off purchases to help with the habits. Ask them in the DMs on Mighty Networks wherever it is and start building positive habits in your life. Otherwise you're going to be the mental the cognitive load every day to do something that's not a habit is insane.
Speaker 1:Like when you're building a habit, yes, the neural pathways are getting built right and over time it becomes easy, it's easy, it's second nature. That's what habit is basically becoming your nature. But if you're trying to think about doing all these things every day, the cognitive load is so stressful and so tiring that you will never be able to do long term and it breaks down and then you don't do it. And I'll leave you in this. In the 5AM club, it talks about the three stages of habit building.
Speaker 1:There's the first stage which is destruction phase. You just kind of destroying your house, destroying it, destroying a room. The second phase is like where you're kind of like refurbishing the house. So you're taking all the parts away, you're bringing all the new like kitchen equipment in, it's messy, it's kind of like you've done a destruction, now you're doing a rebuild. The third stage is like when it's completely rebuilt and it's nice and done.
Speaker 1:So you have to go through the start when destructive, it's hard, it's tough. But once you get through that, studies say twenty one days, now they say sixty six days. What we can say is between twenty one days and sixty six days, you're gonna build a new habit. The best way to build a new habit is to do something daily. Okay?
Speaker 1:So let's get planning and, comment below. Let's help each other out. And that's it for today. See you tomorrow. And that's it.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Golf Leer. Hopefully, you understood something I said. I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today. I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website. What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today. Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy, and your life will change.
