The key to weight-loss: behavioral psychology. Allow me to tell you why.

September 21, 2020 was the day I ordered Liz Josefsberg’s book, Target 100. It was the beginning of my weight-loss journey and a true game changer. In her book, Liz presents six steps to losing weight - carbs, stress management, hydration, movement, sleep, and exercise. Each of these areas are well developed, simplified, and easily understood. However, before expounding upon these topics, she speaks about the underpinning that is necessary to meet you goal, or target. And that is the topic of behavioral psychology.

Behavioral psychology is all about understanding why we behave the way we do. It’s all about habit. Afterall, we are creatures of habit.

Let’s talk about the anatomy of a habit.

The anatomy of a habit: 3 components - a beginning, middle and an end

Trigger —> Action —> Reward

• Trigger

  - Something stimulates our senses, and this moves us to action.

• Action

  - Action refers to movement, but it can also be the lack of action. It could be an aversion that moves you away from something.

• Reward

  - The action that triggered us to act leads to a pleasurable reward.

This reinforces the trigger —> action —> reward and becomes a loop or a habit.

When I understood this concept and linear looping connection, it helped me to identify my unhealthy triggers. Consequently, I took action to modify my trigger or eliminate it all together. This alone has help me to lose weight.

If you want to learn more about habits and how to add some and/or eliminate others, you must read Atomic Habits by Jason Clear.

In closing, I challenge you to identify a habit of yours, healthy or unhealthy, and then identify its trigger, action, and reward. With this information, you can use the power of psychology to change your behavior.

PS: Two interesting points to consider as it pertains to behavior psychology:

Thought distortions

Many of our thought patterns, when it comes diet, are either biased or negative. These biases or negative thoughts are what psychologists call thought distortions. An example of a thought distortion would be the classic, ‘I can’t eat chips because they aren’t on my diet.’ This is nonsense. We can eat anything so long as we account for its nutritional value and how it fits into our plan. Additionally, this belief only leads to deprivation and deprivation generally leads to binge eating. This isn’t good and only sets you up for inadvertent self-sabotage.

Positive reinforcement

A reward is better than a punishment. A reward increases the likelihood that we will continue a given behavior. Rewards can come in many forms. It could be a cheat meal, a new tech gadget, new shoes, or a vacation. The reward ideas are endless and are super important to keep you on track. Insert a reward into your weight-loss journey periodically but regularly.