Mini Habits for Weight Loss

Mini Habits for Weight Loss: Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering. by Stephen Guise
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If I had written a book about making successful lifestyle change, this would have been it. I mean seriously. Guise and I are so in synch with our thoughts and attitudes that at times I felt as if I was listening to myself while talking with a coaching client.

So, yeah. 5 stars!

Basically, Guise advocates for change through the implementation of mini-habits, small consistent changes that are doable even on our worst days.

Change is hard and in the past (at least from a survival standpoint) may have threatened our ability to thrive. We resist it because it takes work, conscious effort, motivation, etc, and we prefer the devil we know even if it is an evil little bastard.

The key is to fool ourselves by making the change so small as to go under the radar of the "change police" (my phrase not his).

In between, he gives lots of great advice about diet and exercise. He clearly knows his stuff. There is also a worthwhile discussion about the limitations of willpower and the tenuous nature of motivation that is not just spot on but extremely helpful for those who have felt the sting of failure when they've come up short at the end of a long hard day.

I was given this book by a client who hoped we could read this together. She is in the process of trying to make healthier lifestyle choices, new habits to replace other more destructive and deeply ingrained behaviors. For her, the idea of the mini-habit, aka the mini-effort, is very appealing. She also feels as if Guise has provided clear strategies as opposed to just an overall theory about the do's and don'ts.

I would definitely recommend this book to my clients as it reinforces many of the themes in the coaching process.