I left the gym at 11. I had arrived at 7. It was my second workout of the day.

Why on earth would someone want to spend 4 hours in the gym? If anything, you would usually say “I want to be fit and work out, but I don’t want my workouts to take over my life.”

I don’t spend as long in the gym anymore, and it’s been a long time since I regularly did two-a-day workouts. Turns out that much working out eventually does take over your life if you do it long enough.

I eventually eased up my workouts, but I was later able to effortlessly work out a normal amount because of what I learned by going to the extreme.

What was the key insight?

You have plenty of time – that isn’t the problem. A lot of people will tell you to watch less TV or spend less time browsing the Internet, without realizing that those activities have their own purpose.

They aren’t “essential” in the sense that you won’t have money for food or rent if you don’t do them – they represent “me time.” They are stress free activities that you don’t want to give up, just because you enjoy them.

You might be able to phase out “time wasting” activities eventually (I have not), but trying to do it right away is a recipe for failure. Instead, focus on the real reason you spend time on these things and use it to your advantage.

I was able to use psychology to consistently work out – a lot – because of the House of Cards Technique.

What is the House of Cards Technique?

When I was doing undergraduate research in college, I was at one point tasked with heavy duty data entry. I’m talking about putting hundreds of answers to hundreds of surveys into a spreadsheet. Not the most exciting work, and because of a flexible schedule and lenient professor, I was having trouble motivating myself to do it.

Then, by chance, I came up with the House of Cards Technique.

The House of Cards Technique revolves around this question:

“What would I be doing if I didn’t have to do this?”

When I was inputting data, the answer was lie in bed, browse the internet, and watch Netflix. I wanted time to enjoy myself with low energy, stress free fun.

Now, I couldn’t lie in bed or browse Reddit while doing data entry, but I could put some Netflix up in the background.

The change was drastic and immediate, and it started with House of Cards. For months I’d had friends bugging me to watch the show, but I never felt like I had time. But now I had found a way to blast through it, guilt free.

House of Cards, Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother – I watched all of them while doing data entry. Before, I had always wanted to escape the looming data entry ahead of me, but I could never motivate myself to do it.

But when I made data entry my excuse for watching TV, I suddenly was willing to enter a lot more surveys – I even got excited about it, because it meant I got to watch more shows.

It didn’t take long to realize I’d struck gold. I applied the same idea to my workouts and suddenly had time to do all the exercises I hated – mobility work, stretching, yoga, agility drills, and even running became much easier. Every new season of House of Cards means a lot more working out for Benyamin.

How to Use the House of Cards Technique

I’m not the first person to think of watching TV while you exercise – there are literally TVs built in to most new cardio equipment.

The House of Cards Technique doesn’t actually have anything to do with TV specifically. It involves your answer to the above question.

So, right now, stop reading and write down 4 answers to this question: “What would I do instead of working out?”

With your answers in hand, find some part of that activity, no matter how small, and figure out how to do it while you work out.

Unless you’re doing crazy interval training, you probably have some time to do stuff between sets. If you like to read, can you read an eBook on your phone? You may not be able to cook, but you could read new recipes or cooking blogs between sets. If you’re a gamer, catch up on the latest news or check out discussion in the forums.

The key to making this work is that it’s specific to you. There’s a huge difference between “watching TV” on some random channel on the screen of the elliptical and “watching the 7th episode of Heroes because I have to know what happens to Hiro” (sorry, I’m on a rewatch).

It also helps if it’s something that excites you. That could be anything from Netflix to Reddit stories to forums about your hobby.

Why it Works

The House of Cards Technique works because of simple classical conditioning. By pairing something that you, personally, love and enjoy doing with a habit that you aren’t sure about yet (working out), you start to associate your new habit with excitement.

Classical conditioning was discovered when Pavlov noticed his dogs salivating, but its basic principle of paired stimuli and responses can be used to have to salivating for your next workout.

Eventually, you look forward to your workout because it means you can indulge yourself.

It also works because it doesn’t mean sacrificing your “me time.” You don’t need to give up anything, and you may even start to think of your gym time as me time (that’s what happened to me).

On days when you don’t work out or have time after the gym, you can relax – and indulge in your “time wasters” guilt free, because you know you’ve already accomplished something.

When it Doesn’t Work

There are times when this isn’t the best idea. If you need to do something that requires a lot of thought, you probably don’t want to split your attention (and won’t be able to, if your technique involves reading). All the psych research shows that multitasking hurts your performance, so I wouldn’t have Netflix in the background when you are first learning new exercises or writing something up for work.

Another common mistake is picking activities that aren’t engaging enough. Listening to music or browsing social media barely requires your attention, which means they fade into the background and likely don’t excite you in the same way as other pursuits.

The House of Cards Technique works best when you use it on something that excites or engages you. Instead of just listening to music (you can also listen to it), try reading about new artists or learning lyrics. Instead of browsing social media, shoot a text to someone you haven’t talked to in a while.

Take the passive version of your activity and make it active.

7 Ways I’ve Used the House of Cards Technique

If you need a place to get started, here are 7 ways I’ve used the House of Cards Technique in the gym.

Some of these might resonate with you, some might not. You don’t need to be limited to these options, but they are broad enough that you can probably find something you like.

• Netflix – Of course I’ve done this. I like to use Netflix when the gym wifi is working well, but otherwise it’s especially great for home workouts that involve continuous activity (like intervals or long mobility sessions). I’ve found TV shows to be better than movies, and particularly like using How I Met Your Mother because it’s interesting enough to keep me going but doesn’t require a lot of mental effort to follow the story.

• Podcasts – A lot of people love podcasts, but I usually don’t. That is, until I found an Ultimate Frisbee podcast (a sport I’m super into). The lesson here is that personalization is key.

• Ebooks – I love reading. I prefer to keep fiction reading outside of the gym because it’s easier to get immersed with a big chunk of time, but I love reading books about psychology, fitness, performance, and productivity. Most recently I read “The Art of Learning” by Josh Waitzkin.

• Texting old friends – There are lots of people that I don’t talk to as often as I like because of geography and busy schedules. At first I hesitated with this (thinking it would be weird, we’ll just catch up some other time etc.), but most people have been very enthusiastic and I’ve had some lovely conversations as a result of this.

• Reddit – Not gonna lie, I’m a sucker for Reddit. Reddit has a ton of content, but I find the text based stuff to be key for keeping my attention, as images a bit too passive and not engaging enough for me. I particularly enjoy /r/AskReddit and /r/Relationships for the intriguing stories people tell.

• Memorize Poetry – I was involved with my high school’s literary magazine, but for a long time never did anything else related to literature. At some point I wanted to read more poetry, so I started learning more at the gym. Now I sometimes even recite “Invictus” before heavy sets!

• Other Reading – Every day I see a dozen articles that my friends post on social media but don’t have the chance to read. I also find myself randomly interested in ideas I come across and find myself needing to know more. So, I make a list of all the little reading I want to get to but don’t have time for. Then I use my time between sets to read.

Hopefully that gives you a place to start. I’m a guy that loves psychology and fitness, so I wind up reading or listening to things that involve those topics. There’s tons of material out there for you to choose from – you are limited only by your creativity.

What’s your answer? What do you do instead of working out?

 

Warning: This article contains entirely too many references to How I Met Your Mother. Enter at your own risk.

No, it’s not saying “I love you” on the first date. Classic Schmosby.

In fact, Ted Mosby, the main character of the popular sitcom “How I Met Your Mother,” has a pretty terrible track record of going to the gym. In the episode where the gang joins a gym, Ted is alone among the main characters in never working out.

In later episodes he is seen to do yoga, pilates, and (briefly) running, but in general he isn’t exactly someone to model your health on.

Adding to the confusion, his name is used to describe a few different things in the show. “Tedding out” about something is “to overthink something with disastrous consequences.” “The Ted Mosby” is when Barney pretends to have been recently left at the altar. And, of course, Ted is known for getting very invested in relationships very quickly.

But none of that has anything to do with fitness. So why do I bring him up?

Getting Fit with the Mosby Method

Ted’s big contribution to fitness is revealed in Season 5, when he teaches Barney his trick for getting over relationships.

Whenever a relationship ends, Ted writes a letter to his future self detailing why it didn’t work. Whenever he wants to give in and go back to the relationship, he reads the letter and holds out.

This technique, what I call “the Mosby Method,” can be easily applied to fitness.

It works for two reasons:

1. It’s available whenever you are having doubts or second thoughts. You can use it to remind yourself of your goals and confront negative thoughts immediately.
2. It represents the thoughts that you have when free from the distractions and stressors in your immediate surroundings. The letter represents a precommitment, which I touch on in this article.

How to use the Mosby Method

The core of Ted’s breakup technique is that it gives you something to latch onto in moments of weakness. You can adapt that idea to help yourself work out more consistently.

You’ll need a method of writing ideas down that will stay with you at all times. I think something handwritten has a nice effect for this purpose (because it feels more personal), so I’d use a small index card. Some other physical writing or a note on your phone would work too.

At the top of your letter, jot down your overall goal and 3 reasons that goal is personally important to you. If you haven’t come up with those yet, check out this article on effective goal setting.

In the bottom half of your letter, answer these 3 questions:

• How do I feel when I give up and skip workouts?
• What part of this workout will help me reach my goals, and how?
• What do you like about working out?

That’s it. The beauty of the Mosby Method is that it’s so simple. All you have to do is read your letter when you’re thinking about skipping.

You’ll be reminded of your goals and their importance, remember that skipping workouts won’t make you feel good, and get some much needed motivation from your past self.

Here’s an example of a Mosby Method letter, to give you a sense of how they look.

To get an exact template, along with a step-by-step fitness planning guide, check out the Fitter You Roadmap.

And here’s the text only:

“Dear Future Self,

Seems like you’re having some motivation trouble? Keep reading – you can do it!

Your goal is to lose 20 pounds and fit into your old jeans by the end of this year. It’s important because:

• You’ll feel more confident meeting people for the first time and going out on dates

• You’ll feel more comfortable in your body, have higher self-esteem, and stop worrying that you used to look better

• You’ll be healthier and stronger, and won’t have to feel guilty when you indulge in dessert every once in a while

Remember how it feels to not work out? I know it’s tempting to call it a day, but is it worth feeling lazy, like a quitter? You might feel crappy now, but you know you always wind up feeling energized after the gym (and you’ll feel even worse if you don’t go).

Remember your goals – the squats in this workout will help you get firm, toned legs that look awesome in those old jeans. Every workout is another step closer to that goal – stick it out!

Still not convinced? Think of how good you’ll feel after this workout. You might be a little out of breath, but you’ll be awake and energized. Plus, then you can really enjoy a good Netflix session without feeling guilty. Remember how good it feels to slip under the covers with a laptop, take a deep breath and feel your (slightly) sore muscles, and watch your shows without a care in the world?

That feeling is just one workout away.

You can do it,

Past You”

 

When do we reach the last straw and start taking fitness seriously?

Many of us mess around for years before doubling down and committing to an exercise habit. A recent thread on Reddit had incredible stories of what made people take the final step. The most common reasons were:

• They’re getting over a breakup
• They’re sick of how their body looks
• They’re scared that their unhealthy lifestyle will catch up to them

Of course there are also other reasons, but these are three of the biggest and most common.

One comment in the thread particularly stood out to me because it’s packed with fitness motivation insight. The poster was talking about what it feels like to be too skinny and struggle to build muscle, but the ideas apply to everyone (and go beyond advice like “Just Do It”).

Men, women, overweight, underweight, and totally normal people have all experienced the disappointment of negative comments and the rewards of compliments. We have all been encouraged at some times and discouraged at others.

Here’s the comment (reproduced with permission):

And here’s why it’s awesome.

Finding Your “Reason Why”

Take a look at the early sections. “I felt like I was perpetually a kid” and “Every time I get under the bar, it’s a big double-fisted “fuck you” to anyone who ever made fun of me for being skinny.”

I talk a lot about finding reasons why fitness is important to you, personally. If you understand exactly what you stand to gain from success, you are more likely to be successful.

This is a great example of that. The poster wants to be taken seriously and not be treated like a kid, and that reason motivates him to keep pushing.

You don’t need to curse at people while you work out, but it is definitely worth taking the time to appreciate how important fitness is to your life.

Practicing Positive Self-talk

Pay attention to your self-talk. Take a look at this:

“I think no matter how big I get I’ll always feel like a 120lb runt somewhere deep down inside.”

Working out can improve your body image and self confidence, but it doesn’t do that on its own.

If you don’t practice creating a positive body image, it won’t matter how good you look – you’ll never feel comfortable with yourself.

Notice I say “practice.” That’s because it actually is possible to practice positive self-talk. A simple activity (borrowed from cognitive behavioral therapy) is to write down your negative thoughts. Capture them, in writing, outside your head so that they are clearly defined. Then tear them apart with simple logic.

For example: “I’m fat and unlovable, and nobody will ever love me.”

That’s a real thought that comes from a real person. It seems pretty devastating, but breaking it down with logic makes it obvious how wrong (and dangerous) thoughts like these are.

Here’s one way you could battle this thought:

• You’re overweight, and not happy about it. It may not be a best-case scenario, but that’s something that you can work on. Dwelling on it won’t change anything – action will.
• Your weight (whether you’re overweight or very skinny like the original poster) doesn’t determine who you are. You have hobbies, interests, thoughts, and dreams that make you unique and interesting. Some of those things are probably pretty lovable.
• There are people that care about you and there are people that have cared about you in the past. So there will probably be more people who care about you in the future.

If you ignore your negative self-talk, you’ll wind up hating your body no matter how fit you get.

I once heard someone say “I think you should always kind of hate your body. It pushes you to get better.”

I couldn’t disagree more. You can be dissatisfied and start pushing yourself for that reason, but finding other motivation is a must in the long run. It doesn’t matter if other people love your body if you hate yourself.

Overcoming Negativity and Excuses

“I don’t think I could ever really be big.”

Again, that’s a real belief I’ve heard many times. You can see it in the Reddit comment too: “My dad’s skinny, so I’ll be skinny,” along with comments from friends and even the poster’s mom.

The belief that you can’t change is a dangerous one, and is related to a well-known idea in psychology: learned helplessness.

If you want to change, chances are high that you’ve tried before. Lifestyle changes are difficult, so chances are also high that you’ve failed before.

It takes an incredible amount of mental fortitude to consistently pull yourself back from failure and make another attempt. And the more you fail, the more likely you are to think that success is impossible.

That belief, that success is impossible, is learned helplessness.

Of course, you can overcome barriers. As the Reddit poster realized, gains began once more serious training and nutrition was put into place. Genetics, upbringing, and other factors play a role, but you can ultimately overcome them.

How can you fight learned helplessness?

Because learned helplessness is the belief that success is impossible, all you have to do is prove to yourself that success is possible after all.

Fortunately, this gets easier as you start to experience success. As you gain muscle, lose fat, or both, you gain confidence and tend to push yourself towards even more success.

When you’re getting started, I suggest reading stories of people that have had success despite similar limitations. The internet is full of people who have lost weight, gained muscle, or even regained the ability to walk after traumatic injury.

Read their stories, not to compare their success to yours, but because they show that consistency and the right program can get results even when you’re at a disadvantage.

Experiencing Rewards

Once you’re in the habit, the rewards of exercise are incredible. You don’t need to seek out a “gnarly pump” like this Reddit poster, but it’s true that the feeling of a good workout is something that you can’t get anywhere else. It’s also true that it feels incredible when you start getting compliments.

There’s a lot to take away from the comment’s description of rewards. One of the most important is to fully appreciate rewards as they happen.

It’s easily to wave off gym compliments, or start thinking about other responsibilities right after a workout. Instead, pause to appreciate them. Too many people minimize their successes, dismissing them as not real or too small to matter.

When people compliment you for working out, they probably mean it and you probably have made real progress. When you walk out of the gym on a sunny day, take a deep breath and congratulate yourself on a workout completed.

Motivation in One Comment

Reasons why, self-talk, learned helplessness, and rewards are all packed into that one Reddit comment.

Fast forward a few years. If you had to write a comment like that one, what would it say?

 

“I’m going to lift weights 6 times a week and also do cardio 4 of those days.”

That’s a real goal that comes from a real person that I worked with to develop their fitness habits. At the time, this person had no fitness routine and was barely active.

The mistake of setting unrealistic goals is a common and natural one – it’s not something to be ashamed of, but it is something to address.

In fact, unrealistic goals are so common that there’s an area of psychological study based on understanding why they happen (the planning fallacy).

If you set excessively unrealistic goals, you set yourself up for disappointment. Someone without an exercise habit is probably not going to successfully start working out 20x a week. I have an exercise habit, and I would likely find it difficult, if not impossible.

The consequences of unrealistic goals are significant. Not reaching goals results in negative emotions: disappointment, frustration, and feeling like a failure. It also makes you more likely to quit, be even less healthy, and claim that your genetics make success impossible.

I want to help you set better goals and avoid that disappointment. Goals are a critical part of a comprehensive fitness plan. You can reach your goals – if you set them well.

Here I’ll break down why we set unrealistic goals and how we can set better ones.

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If you want a full guide that breaks down the psychology of goals and teaches you how to stay consistent when “life gets in the way,” just let me know where to send it.

Send me the 5-step guide

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Why We Set Unrealistic Fitness Goals

Through my email course and coaching experience, I’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of goals. Throughout this experience I’ve learned that people never think their goals are unrealistic. Why?

There are two major reasons we set unrealistic goals:

1. Optimism
2. Uncertainty

Optimism

When we set goals, we don’t take a step back and consider that, hey, maybe it isn’t the best idea to 10x our exercise right away. A drastic lifestyle change like that is hard to stick to.

We don’t consider that we’ll start feeling resentful when we sacrifice other parts of our life, guilty when we start missing sessions, and disappointed when we eventually throw in the towel.

Instead we feel excited and energized. Even if we’ve never stuck to an exercise program for more than a couple months, we think things like:

• THIS time I’m going to do it
• I’m gonna push it until I can fit into my old jeans
• I’ll keep going until I have a toned, fit, strong body

I want to make it very clear – this is natural. Everyone thinks like this about something (tonight I’ll actually go to bed early, tomorrow I’ll actually stop snacking, etc.). But if you can break out of that thinking, you can create a plan that will work.

It is possible to accomplish the above goals, but if you use the same methods you’ve tried in the past you’re likely to have the same results you’ve always had.

When most people set an unrealistic goal, their plan is to will themselves to success. The odds against that plan are high.

Now, I have nothing against optimism. In fact, I think it’s important to battle negative thoughts and remain positive throughout your fitness journey. However, optimism needs to be tempered by realism.

Ask yourself: how much would I need to change my life in order to achieve this goal?

If the answer is a lot, it might make sense to scale back a little.

Uncertainty

The second reason for unrealistic goal-setting is much simpler: we aren’t sure what a realistic goal is. Maybe we’ve heard stories of crash diets, where people lose 10 pounds a week for a month, and think that goal is realistic.

Usually uncertainty goals involve losing too much weight or building too much muscle too quickly. Goals like “I want to lose 60 pounds in 2 months” or “I want to gain 40 pounds of muscle in 6 months” are probably not achievable. It took me 4.5 years to gain 40 pounds of muscle without fat. When I’ve trimmed weight, it’s rarely come off faster than .5-1lbs a week (although around 2lbs per week is possible if you’re more overweight).

It makes sense – of course we want to achieve success as quickly as possible. Still, there are physiological limits to how much weight we can gain or lose safely in a given period of time.

How to Set Reasonable Goals

Setting realistic goals is challenging, but people also make it more challenging than it needs to be. It’s critical to keep in mind that you have more than one goal-setting opportunity – as long as you are setting checkpoints.

If you are setting frequent checkpoints, you will be able to assess your progress and correct your course as necessary.

The methods of correction depend on whether your unrealistic goal stems from optimism or uncertainty, but they have one thing in common.

It’s all about the long term.

Consistency trumps everything. If you reach your goal in 3 months but your system is unsustainable, you’ll backslide and end up right where you started. If you don’t reach your goal after 3 months and get frustrated, you’re more likely to assume that there’s something wrong with you, that you’re just too lazy, or that your goal was never really possible anyway.

If, on the other hand, you build good habits, you can achieve your goals for a lifetime.

Again, it’s understandable that we don’t want to build up our habits slowly. We want to do more now and get results faster. But building up our habits over the long term will get results – eventually. Even if the start is small, the momentum will gather faster than you think.

On the other hand, going all in up front might get results. It might also leave you terribly frustrated and spark a backslide that leaves you worse off than when you started.

Adopt a habits mindset instead of an intensity one. With that in mind, let’s talk about fixes.

Overcoming Unrealistic Optimism Goals

There are two fixes if you reach a checkpoint and discover that your goal is too optimistic.

1. Scale back the frequency of your workouts
2. Scale back the intensity of your workouts

Let’s use the goal at the beginning of this article as an example:

“I’m going to lift weights 6 times a week and also do cardio 4 of those days.”

This goal can be made more manageable by reducing the number of days per week. Instead of lifting 6 times a week, try 3, or even 1.
This idea is often met with resistance. “One or two days a week? That won’t accomplish anything.” Yes, it will – it gives you a place to start and scale up from.

The other option is to scale back the intensity of each workout.

So you want to work out 6 times a week – fine, but make them super short workouts. Doing a set of squats and running on the treadmill for 2 minutes counts as 1 lifting day and 1 cardio day.

Again, what does this accomplish? It gets you started. You can scale up the intensity gradually, and you’ll probably find that you wind up doing more than just one set anyway.

But by reducing the commitment up front, you give yourself an out. You don’t need to “work out for at least an hour every day” (another common goal). You just need to do something. If that turns into an hour, awesome! If it doesn’t, that’s ok too – you can put a plan in place to build up to that.

Overcoming Unrealistic Uncertainty Goals

Once again unrealistic uncertainty goals are simpler than optimist ones. If you reach a checkpoint and it turns out you were way off the mark, all you have to do is reassess.

First, take a look at the habits you have in place. Were you sticking to your plan? Is your plan a credible one that you know can get results?

If the answer is yes but you haven’t reached your checkpoint sub-goal, your goal might have been unrealistic. Scale it back – try losing 20 pounds in two months instead of 40, or 10 pounds of muscle in a year instead of 40 in 6 months.

Then, reassess again at your next checkpoint.

Conclusion

Realistic goals are important – they reduce frustration and make you more likely to reach your goals.

The most common mistakes we make in goal setting happen because we are overly optimistic or uncertain.

We also tend to rush towards results right away, without considering that it’s better to be successful in the long term than the short term.

There’s nothing to be ashamed of if you make these mistakes – we all do. The mistakes don’t matter as long as you set realistic goals and get back on track.

You can be a little fitter in 3 months, or you can be really fit for the rest of your life.

What are your realistic goals?

Note: I was introduced to a lot of this material through Brian Wansink’s fantastic book “Mindless Eating.” This post includes information from that book, mixed with other psychology and explained through my personal experience. I highly recommend the book if you want to learn more (or you can check out http://mindlesseating.org/)

Imagine if you could eat or drink anything – from the most decadent chocolate cake to your favorite imperial stout – and still own a body you’re proud of.

The truth is, you can.

I’m not going to claim that the quality of what you put in your body doesn’t matter, because it does. But for weight loss (or gain), how much food you eat matters way more than what you are eating.

With that in mind, there’s no reason you need to give up any specific food – as long as you can control how much you’re consuming.

That said, you do need to think about what you’re eating. It doesn’t matter how consistent you are with your exercise – you can’t out exercise a bad diet.

See if some of these sound familiar:

• I feel satisfied after having a cookie, but for some reason I always go back for more
• I’m tired and hungry after work, so I snack while I wait for dinner to be ready
• I tell myself that I’ll eat out “just this once”
• I want to have a piece of cake “every now and then” – but “every now and then” is more often than I’d like
• I get grumpy and have a headache when I don’t eat

Or even:

• I’m super skinny and can’t gain weight no matter what I eat
• I want to gain weight, but I feel like I’ll explode if I keep eating

Understanding the psychology behind your eating can help you manage your portions and ensure that you eat on YOUR terms – so that you don’t look back in disgust and think “why did I do that?”

Let me ask you a question:

Chances are you’ll leave something out, even if you’re generally very health conscious. It’s easy to forget the tiny snacks you eat while distracted. Grabbing some french fries from a friend or snagging a free sample at Trader Joe’s doesn’t register as a meal, so we forget it.

Even if you can remember everything you eat, you probably misjudge how much you eat. Research tells us again and again that we are terrible at remembering how much food we eat. Worse, we vehemently deny that our eating is affected by our environment.

In truth, our environment has a massive effect on our food intake. Understanding the factors that influence us means we can make them work for us. If we eat mindlessly, we can also mindlessly eat better.

What about calorie counting, or other methods of painstakingly tracking what we eat?

If you can stick to a specific diet with a caloric deficit (or surplus!), that’s fantastic. It will work eventually, especially if you also start working out. But a lot of people fail at counting calories because it takes effort, because it sometimes means depriving yourself, and because it means worrying about what you eat at all times.

That might work for you, but it might not. Even if you count calories, understanding your eating habits makes it easier to stick to the program and hit your daily targets.

This guide is split into two parts.

Part One covers the common elements of our environment that cause us to over or undereat. You’ll learn why you don’t just eat when you’re hungry, and begin to identify the deeply ingrained food habits that govern your behavior.

Part Two tackles the most common eating struggles we face as mindless eaters. You’ll learn how to control portion size, how to control snacking, how to eat out less, and what to do when you eat out.

Part 1: You don’t just eat when you’re hungry

Over and over, the research shows that we don’t eat because we are hungry. Sure, sometimes that’s the reason – but even when it is, we often wind up eating more or less than we intend to because of the influence of our surroundings.

As an extreme example, one study showed that moviegoers ate popcorn right after lunch time – even when it was stale. It’s also not uncommon for amnesia patients to eat extra meals because they forget that they’ve already eaten.

We eat food because it’s lunchtime, because we’re bored, because we’re tired, because we’re with other people who are eating, or just because it’s there. This section will go over some common eating habits, then take a look at the elements of our environment that affect our eating.

Eating Habits

As with many of our everyday behaviors, eating is governed largely by habit. We eat at certain times, when we’re with certain people, and while we do other activities.

These are some of the most common eating tendencies.

Social Eating

Without a doubt, social eating takes the top spot on this list. Social eating combines two powerful persuaders: social influence and distraction.

One of the most common problems people face when losing weight is that it can be isolating. Part of that isolation is because so much of social interaction involves food.

People go out for drinks, grab coffee/lunch, host gatherings, and always, always are surrounded by food. These settings are full of eating influencers.

How do common social scenarios affect eating?

• When you’re invited to a gathering, you eat because you don’t want to disrespect the host
• When coworkers go out for lunch, you don’t want to be excluded because you brought food from home
• When you go out for drinks, it can be uncomfortable to be the only person not drinking

Take the last scenario. As the night continues, one drink turns to two, two turns to three, and three turns into regret.

The same is true of random pastries or appetizers at parties.

As you talk to your friends, you unthinkingly reach for another cookie or piece of cake. Maybe you manage to choose healthier fare but you still eat more than you realize and more than you intend.

Our eating habits are hugely affected by the people around us. If people around us eat poorly, we are less likely to eat well.

Time-based Eating

 

The time of day can cause us to eat even if we aren’t really that hungry.

When I started my first 9-5 job after college, I sat down for lunch at noon like everyone else. I would unthinkingly chow down and head back to work at 1, because that’s what people do at lunch time.

In fact, I usually wasn’t hungry at noon. Eating that early meant that I was ravenous by the time 5 came around (and I still had to work out). After a few months of this I realized that I should just eat later in the day, and the problem was solved.

Stories of amnesia patients are particularly telling here. One well-known patient would wake up, make breakfast, go back to bed, and repeat the process again an hour later.

These patients thought it was breakfast time, so they ate breakfast.

A word of caution: time-based eating doesn’t only apply to meal times. Do you always have a snack when you get home, or drink a cup of coffee at 3pm (like I do)? Chances are you do this even on days you aren’t hungry or tired.

Clean-plate Eating

Many of us were taught to clear our plates from a young age. Eating all of your food was a good thing, and often led to praise. Not eating your food right away might have meant being hungry or being forced to choke down some icky vegetables (that were cold by the time you had been convinced to give in).

When we were children clean-plate eating was not necessarily a bad thing. Kids don’t always have the best judgement when it comes to food, so it makes some sense for parents to dole out portions (although the parents are still susceptible to normal portion biases, discussed later).

Now though, the tendency to clear your plate can be a dangerous one. Restaurant portions can be enormous and your environment can make you put too much food on your plate.

We don’t want to stop eating until the food is gone, regardless of how much food that is.

How Your Environment Affects Your Eating

Your surroundings affect how much food you eat. This result has come up in study after study after study. However, study after study has also shown that people don’t believe that their environment changes their eating habits.

There are dozens of environmental factors that are relevant, but I want to focus on two:

• Dish size
• Barriers to food

Dish Size

People eat more, and serve themselves more, when eating from larger dishes.

Eating from a larger dish causes you to eat more because the food itself looks less substantial. If you transfer food from a heaping 9-inch plate to a 12-inch plate, it looks like less food. Because it doesn’t seem like that much food, we serve ourselves larger helpings and eat more of those helpings.

Clean-plate eating is also at work here. Most people don’t care if a “serving” is supposed to be 1 cup of food, or 2 or 3. To us, a “serving” is the amount of food on one plate – regardless of how big that plate is.

Dish size is about more than just plates, too. Wider glasses make it appear as though there is less liquid in them (so we pour more). Larger serving spoons lead to giving ourselves more food. Larger eating utensils require less effort to eat from, so we eat more.

Just about everyone is susceptible to these factors. Nutrition experts serve more ice cream into larger bowls and veteran bartenders pour too much into wide glasses.

Being aware of our tendencies is the first step to combatting them.

Barriers to Food

In the same ways that barriers to working out can reduce your consistency in the gym, the introduction or removal of barriers to food can change your eating.

If I want to have a cookie while sitting in my apartment, I have to get dressed, take the elevator down 8 floors, walk at least 2 blocks, and find a convenience/grocery store that sells cookies. If I kept cookies in my apartment I would just have to go to the pantry and chow down.

That’s a relatively extreme example of an eating barrier, but it makes the point. Make it harder to eat food and you’ll reduce overeating. Make it easier to eat and you’ll eat more.

Even small barriers can make a difference.

Ever hear someone say “take this away from me so I stop eating?” If you’ve ever said that, you recognize the value of barriers. With food directly in front of you, it’s easy to keep eating. Once it’s been removed, you realize that you aren’t actually hungry – you were eating because it was there.

If you have a snack jar on your desk, putting it in a drawer (out of sight) will keep your hands out of it more often. Putting it across the room (so you have to get up) is even better. Putting it across the room in a drawer is clearly the best of the three options.

My Experience with Food Barriers

I used to love sitting at my desk with a big bag of chips while watching Netflix and browsing the internet. I would happily munch away at the bag for a while before realizing that I wasn’t really hungry. Then, because the bag was right there, I would reach into it again and eat a bit more.

Eventually I started hiding my snacks behind my laptop. Technically I still knew it was there, but with the snacks out of sight they lost their appeal. Sometimes I would even forget about them and bump the bag with my computer when I got up.

I’ve used this trick in reverse to get myself to drink more water. First, I got a reusable water bottle to use at my desk, reducing the number of times I would have to get up to refill. But even then I found myself not drinking enough.

I kept the water bottle on the floor next to my desk. It was out of sight, and therefore out of mind. Once I realized that, I moved it onto my desk and instantly tripled my water intake (and bathroom breaks!).

Summary of Part 1

You don’t eat just because you’re hungry.

You do, of course, eat because of hunger. But you also eat because of time of day, the people around you, the size of the plate you’re eating from, and because the food is there.

Accepting this reality is the first step to developing tools to counter mindless eating – or to mindlessly eat in ways that better match your goals.

Part 2 will cover specific tactics you can use to mindlessly tailor your eating to your goals.

Part 2: Ways to Control Your Eating

You now know some of the hidden factors that influence your eating. Great! But how can you take advantage of them to eat what you want, when you want, without sacrificing the body you want?

Part 2 covers techniques you can use to limit (or expand) the amount of food that you’re eating.

Remember, what you eat does matter for your overall health, and it can affect the ratio of muscle to fat that you lose or gain. Your weight, however, depends mostly on the amount of food you eat.

The section is divided into 3 main categories, each of which has several tactics you can use right away to control your eating.

1. Ways to control portion size
2. Ways to control snacking
3. Ways to stop eating out – or control how much you eat when you do

Ways to Control Portion Size

I can’t say it enough – portion size is the most important factor when it comes to weight. Once food is on your plate you will probably eat it, so controlling your portions is critical.

Here are 5 ways to control your portion size.

1) Use Smaller Dishes/Utensils (Naturally or Artificially)

As discussed in part 1, using smaller dishes will generally cause you to serve yourself less food and eat less. If you want to lose weight, use smaller plates.

That said, I don’t really expect you to replace your kitchen. If new dishes aren’t in your budget or you don’t have control over your plate size (college cafeteria, mess room, etc.), you can artificially shrink the size of your plate instead.

To artificially shrink your plate, fill up half of it with low-calorie greens before taking any other food. In college, I used to fill up my plate with spinach before going to the other stations. Not only did I get the vegetables I desperately needed, I prevented enormous portions of high-calorie foods.

2) Keep Serving Dishes Away from the Table

If you keep the pot on the table, it’s really easy to grab seconds. Leave your pots on the stove or kitchen counter instead. Introducing even this small barrier prevents mindless overeating.

You now have to explicitly decide to get more food rather than just reaching out and grabbing some. You need to stand up, walk over to the food, serve yourself, and walk back before you can start eating.

Increasing barriers makes second helpings a decision instead of an impulse.

3) Get a New Plate for Each Serving

If you really do want seconds, eat it off a fresh plate. This accomplishes a couple things:

1. You have a clear record of how many servings you’ve had (the dirty plates)
2. You increase barriers by creating more work for yourself (a new dish to clean)

Having a dirty plate in sight prevents you from chowing down on serving after serving of food. You can, and should, eat until you’re comfortably full. But this will stop you from eating until you burst.

You’ll also eat the minimum amount of food required to be comfortably full, instead of the maximum.

4) Slow Down

It takes around 20 minutes for your body to tell your brain that you’re full. If you eat in less than 20 minutes, you have the capacity to eat a lot more food. Slowing down gives you time to recognize and assess how hungry you are.

I definitely appreciate that it can be difficult to slow down your eating (I’m known as a fast and big eater).

One trick that worked for me is counting chews. If you chew a bite 10 times, you’ll eat slower. I also found myself enjoying food more, as there’s more time to actually taste what I’m eating. Eventually it becomes second nature to chew more.

If you’re in a group, try to be the first person to start eating and the last to stop. Pacing your eating like this will get you to eat more slowly without getting in your head about the specific amount that you eat.

5) Be Mindful (Sometimes)

If mindless eating is the enemy, shouldn’t you try to be more mindful?

I actually don’t think that mindful eating is the best idea (in most circumstances). Making your food intake mindful makes it subject to the whims of willpower – not a good position to be in.

It also means that you have to think about eating a lot, and it’s too easy to zone out while doing something as everyday as having lunch.

However, as you change your eating habits, you may discover that you’ve become more aware of your eating.

I personally have become much better at taking a step back and asking myself if I’m really hungry for more food. If I notice myself eating because food is there, I stop for a few minutes to make sure I actually want to keep eating.

If you want to make that mindful tip more mindless, try portioning out your meals. Move half of your food to one side of your plate. When you finish the first half of your meal, wait 10 minutes before you keep eating.

Summary

You’re now armed with 5 tactics to control your portion sizes:

1. Use smaller dishes/utensils
2. Keep serving dishes away from the table
3. Get a new plate for each serving
4. Slow down
5. Be mindful (sometimes)

Ways to Control Snacking

Snacking is the bane of many healthy lifestyles. Food is there, you’re hungry or bored, and it’s easy to eat.

There’s nothing wrong with snacking – as long as you don’t let it get out of hand. Here are 6 quick ways to control your snacking.

1) Hide Your Snacks

You can’t snack if you don’t have any snacks. The simplest way to stop snacking is to get rid of your snacks and stop buying new ones.

The common advice actually works here. Have a snack-free grocery list when you go to the store and don’t stray from it. Don’t shop hungry. Shop at the perimeter of the store, not the snack-filled center.

If you still want to have snacks and just want to cut back, hide your snacks at the back of your pantry. Make the least healthy snacks hard to get to and the healthier ones easily accessible.

If you’re trying to snack more to gain weight, do the opposite: fill your pantry with easily accessible, high calorie snacks (nuts are a good, high-calorie, healthy option).

2) Never Eat from the Bag

If you eat out of the bag your snacks come in, your brain sees a serving as one bag. You’ll keep happily munching away, until you realize that you’ve eaten far more than you intended.

Instead, get a small plate to put snacks on, put a specific amount of food on the plate, and sit down to eat it at a table. No eating over the sink! Eating only at the table helps you remember what you’ve eaten and prevents mindless indulgence.

If you finish that snack and want more, get a new plate and leave the old one out. The used plates remind you of how much you’ve eaten and help you stop when you’re actually satisfied.

Weight gainers should do the opposite of these things. Mindlessly chew away while watching TV! The hardgainer challenge is eating past the point of hunger, and mindless eating can help you do that.

3) Use a Cookie Counter

Keep a tally of how often you snack (even if you aren’t eating cookies).

Stick this tally somewhere visible, like your fridge. Any time you have a snack, add a tally mark to the count. You can restart the tally at the end of each week.

This works similarly to using fresh plates. The tally ensures that you don’t eat without realizing. It’s ok to snack, but it’s less ok to snack mindlessly. Chances are the number of snacks you have is higher than you think, and keeping track of that number keeps you grounded.

This also works because it’s enormously simple and highly visible. All you have to do is draw a line whenever you eat outside of a meal. If you snack outside of your home, bring your tally with you.

Just keeping your tally will reduce overeating.

4) Swap, Don’t Stop

If you have trouble quitting a snacking habit, make it work for you. It’s a lot easier to swap high calorie foods for low ones than it is to stop snacking altogether.

I don’t typically go through bulking and cutting cycles, but when I’m trying to drop a little weight, I swap out the peanut butter in my oatmeal for PB2. It tastes the same when added to oatmeal, but allows me to mindlessly reduce my calorie intake.

Keep in mind, even healthy snacks can be high calorie – even healthy, low calorie snacks can cause weight gain if you eat enough of them. Chowing down on almonds is probably healthier than potato chips, but it’s still a high calorie option.

If you want to gain weight, those high calorie options could be the way to go. An apple with a lot of peanut butter is both delicious and high calorie – I used it as my main dessert during the years I was gaining weight.

5) Search Your Feelings

In order to cut down on snacking, you need to understand what makes you snack. If it’s hunger, it might make sense to keep snacking (or you could try eating more at meals).

If it’s boredom or fatigue or craving for sweets, you might want to tackle the root cause.

• If you eat when you’re bored at work, can you keep the food away from you to reduce temptation?
• If you eat because you’re tired and hungry while you wait for dinner, can you prep meals in advance to reduce snacking?
• If you crave sweets, can you indulge by using smaller portions?

The final point is key. Depriving yourself of foods you love is hard, so allowing yourself small bits of it is important.

I stopped eating sweets a few years ago, but I still find ways to satisfy my cravings. I’ve made frozen protein cookies (basically chocolate protein powder, oats, and peanut butter) and have learned to do more creative things with fruits and berries.

You can be healthy and lose weight without depriving yourself.

Summary

You have 5 key tactics to control snacking:

1. Hide your snacks
2. Never eat from the bag
3. Use a cookie counter
4. Swap, don’t stop
5. Understand your snacking

Ways to Control Eating Out

Eating out is one of the simple pleasures. You get delicious food in a symphony of different styles, without putting in any effort beyond pulling out your credit card. It can be a social experience, a romantic date, or even a burrito picked up after work and eaten on the couch.

However, it can also take a toll on your weight and wallet. When you eat out, it’s impossible to know exactly how much food you’re eating.

You don’t get to control the plate that you eat off or the environment you’re eating in – and restaurants do everything they can to get you to order more food.

I don’t mean to say that you should never enjoy a night out, but do it on your terms. There are strategies you can use to stop eating out just because you’re tired. There are also tactics to help you eat less during that night out with friends.

Here are 4 ways to stop eating out – or control how much you eat when you do.

1) Meal Prep

I’ve been there – it was a long day at work, you’re hungry, and you don’t want to cook. I used to regularly stop in to the taqueria across the street from my train stop to grab a burrito dinner.

Then I started meal prepping.

The idea is simple: every weekend I cook up a ton of food. Then, during the week, I have leftovers for lunch and dinner.

In my experience, people fight against meal prepping for three reasons:

1. They don’t know what to make
2. They don’t want to eat the same food for a whole week
3. They think food will get less appetizing over the course of the week

But if you think about it, there are ways to overcome all three. If you don’t know what to make, gradually build up your food knowledge. You don’t need a million recipes – you just need to understand cooking in general.

One of my recent go-to’s is stew. You can put basically anything in a stew! Once you understand the concept (put stuff in a pot and let it boil), you can experiment to find your favorite combinations. The same is true of baked foods (is making baked chicken breast and stuffed peppers really that different?), salads, and any number of other food categories.

If you don’t want to eat the same food all the time, prep two meals! I eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast and then different prepped meals for lunch and dinner. I’ve made pork carnitas, southwest chicken stew, chicken salad in an orange vinaigrette, and even simple mac n cheese. The possibilities are endless.

2) Get Better at Cooking

This goes closely with point one. If your food is close to restaurant quality, you’re less likely to eat out.

How can you get better at cooking? As stated above, gradually learn recipes and food styles.
Beyond that, learn to use spices.

Not only are spices healthy (once being used to preserve meats), they taste amazing. There are dozens of spices, but learning which ones go together isn’t that hard.

Here’s an example list of spices by style (some are not necessarily the most authentic, but are easier to find and still delicious):

 

If you ever have doubts about which spices go well together, just try them! The worst thing that could happen is one sub-par meal.

One great way to experiment with spices is by mixing them with a relatively flavorless food. Scrambled eggs or white rice can both work. Try new spice combinations until you discover what you like.

Before long, cooking goes from a chore to an opportunity to experiment and discover new flavors.

3) Track the Cost of Eating Out

 

Just like with the cookie counter, tracking your spend on take-out can help you realize how much you do it. Even if you don’t religiously track your spending, keep a tally of the number of times you eat out.

If you’re one of those people that loves budgeting, you probably already do this. If you’re like me and you just want to enjoy yourself within your means, try instead comparing the cost of eating out with things that you love.

From my experience, even with cheap meals:

• One meal at a restaurant is equal to at least one book
• Two meals at a restaurant is equal to seeing an IMAX 3D movie in theaters (with popcorn)
• Three meals is the difference between my good gym membership and the sucky gym I used to go to
• Seven meals is the cost of a personal training session or a massage

Keeping spending in perspective helped me realize that, yes, I could afford to eat out, but that eating out too much would cost me – I wouldn’t be able to do other things I enjoy.

4) Portion Control

Let’s be real – you’re still going to eat out sometimes. When you do, have a strategy in place to control your portions.

The simplest way to control your portion is by dividing it up before you start eating. Ask for a box at the beginning of the meal and immediately pack up half your food. If you’re still hungry when you’re finished eating you can dip into those reserves. Otherwise, you have another meal for later!

Also keep eating speed in mind (as discussed earlier). If eating with others, be the first person to start eating and the last to finish, so that your body has time to tell you it’s full.

Summary

That’s 4 tactics to manage eating out.

1. Meal prep
2. Get better at cooking
3. Track the cost of eating out
4. Portion control

Conclusion

Food is central to your fitness goals, no matter what they are.

Unfortunately, hunger is not a good way to regulate your eating. We are too susceptible to our surroundings to rely on internal cues.

Fortunately, there are tactics we can use to make eating less mindless – or even better, make mindless eating work for us.

What about you? Why do you eat when you aren’t hungry?