Around the time that I had just become a coach with TFM, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this book needs to be required reading for everyone who is on this journey of fasting and eating the way that their body functions best." I thought, "Everyone needs to read this book." [music] Welcome back to another episode of The Fasting Method podcast.

This is Coach Terri Lance, and I am coming to you today with a solo episode.

Some of you who have listened to the podcast, or if you've ever been a member of the TFM Community, you know that I am really interested in self-help books.

Almost any topic we discuss, almost any question that comes up, I often come back to something I have read or, more accurately, have listened to over the past few years.

I recently came across something on YouTube, actually.

It's by an author of a book that I enjoyed.

His name is Mark Manson, and some of you may have read his book, The [Subtle] Art of Not Giving a F**k.

I read his book many years ago and I really enjoyed it.

So I thought I would watch his video.

What he does is he summarizes 33 of the books that he thinks are the most influential and important to read.

In this video, number one, and I don't know that they're ranked in order, but number one is Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Now, if you have ever listened to me, you probably, at some, point have heard me talk about this book because it is one of my favorites.

I found, when I first listened to it-- I was driving across the island, the big island in Hawaii.

I had a couple of hours on my hands with nothing really to do but enjoy beautiful scenery, and I listened to this book.

Every couple of minutes, I just had to kind of stop and think, "Oh my gosh, yes!" This was around the time that I had just become a coach with TFM and I thought, "Oh my gosh, this book needs to be required reading for everyone who is on this journey of fasting and eating the way that their body functions best." I thought, "Everyone needs to read this book.

Oh my gosh, we need a book club!" And I was just having like all of these thoughts at that time.

I've referred to this book often.

I know Coach Lisa has covered many habit books, and one of the most popular ones in my mind is Atomic Habits.

I know that many listeners have read it and I know that many people in our community have read it.

So I wanted to talk about three of the main points from Atomic Habits as Mark Manson summarized them in his video clip that I found.

I think he's spot on that these are three of the most important takeaways.

And if you don't ever read the book, if you are a believer in 'too long, don't read' kind of responses, it's okay.

I've got you covered because I want to talk about three things that I hope everyone who has read the books takes away with them and implements into this journey, into their weight-loss journey and into their health journey.

I think they are fundamental to what TFM really wants to help you know how to do.

Obviously, we believe very much in teaching

you about fasting: how to do it safely, how to build your fasting muscle, how do decide how much fasting to do, and when to fast, and all of those things.

We also want you to learn how to eat in a way that supports your fasting, supports your health, supports your weight-loss goals, and supports you physically, optimally.

So those two really important factors.

But, beyond those two things, we also really want you to understand behavior change because, without significant behavior change, knowing about fasting and knowing about proper nutrition won't get you there.

So we spend a lot of our emphasis at TFM, I spend most of my emphasis in most of my meetings focusing on behavior change and habit change.

It's a very common theme in our community.

So let me go through the three takeaways that Mark Manson identified about James Clear's book so that-- again, if you have read it you can remind yourself of these key points, and, if you haven't read it and you don't decide to read it (maybe you will after you hear me talk about it), you will have the three biggest points that I hope you carry with you.

So, the first one, the first takeaway is small lifestyle changes compound over a period of time.

Now, many of us think when we want to change something, when we want to learn a new skill and develop a new habit, that it should happen quickly.

We think that we should be able to lose 20 pounds, we should learn how to fast in a week, we should able to do anything quickly.

And I think this takeaway is so important because making actual change, sustainable change, change that actually moves you to your goal and then allows you to sustain those results happens or develops over a period of time.

I like the focus here on it has to be a lifestyle change.

Just learning to fast, to do it short term isn't really going to get you into this long-term lifestyle.

The compounding portion of this takeaway I think is so important.

If I think about any one, given fast, it really doesn't mean that much.

It's fasting consistently.

It's doing two or three fasts a week.

It's eating appropriate meals every time in a week that it's time for you to eat a meal.

It's changing our thought processes about how we feel about what we're eating - if we feel deprived or if we feel nourished or satiated.

It's about how we talk to ourselves.

These lifestyle changes compound over a period of time.

They're not like a light switch that we just flip on, and now they're on.

And if we don't want them anymore, we just turn them off.

Actual changes, significant changes that we want to make in our life have to be approached by looking at the small steps, the daily things that we're going to do, and that they compound over a period of time.

One of the things that James Clear points out in Atomic Habits is that, in order to be better at something, in order to reach a goal, you can't just expect to do the thing and achieve the goal.

Instead, you really want to focus on the power of the tiny gains that you make.

And in order to make tiny gains, you have to work on being better, 1% better, 100 days in a row, not 100% better in a day.

Nothing happens that quickly.

So again, it's that power of the tiny gains that is really important.

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[music] The next big takeaway is we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the levels of our systems.

Now, many of us spend a lot of time figuring out what our goals are or we kind of haphazardly decide on a goal, like, "Oh, I want to lose 45 pounds." And we just think that, by focusing on that goal, you know, setting up, "I'm going away myself and I will rise to the level of my goal.

I will work hard enough to reach that goal," the 40 lbs, the 75 lbs, the 150 lbs that we need to lose, that somehow, just by choosing the goal, we are going to rise to that occasion and accomplish it.

But instead, the reality is that we fall to the level of our systems.

What systems we put in place will determine whether we actually reach our goals.

So what systems are you putting into place for yourself?

Are you putting into place systems that make the change actually almost impossible to not do?

It makes the change inevitable if you put the right systems into place.

If every night I sit down on the couch with my snack food with me because my favorite way of relaxing is watching, you know, television with snacks, if I continue that as my main approach I'm going to struggle to reach my goal.

I have a lofty goal but I can't reach it because I have not put into action, I haven't created those systems that support me.

If you are someone who has looked at maybe starting a morning routine, what do you need in your morning to get your day really going in the direction you want it to go?

Do you want to spend some time focusing on your intentions, setting your plans, creating your food plan, creating your fasting plan.

And other goals that you have in life that you're working on, how are you going to ensure that you can follow through on those plans?

Do you need to take a lunch with you to work if your plan is to eat a meal during your workday?

Do you have to have meals ready so that, when you come home, you have something available?

Do you need to set up social gatherings that involve allowing you space to fast or the option to eat food that supports your body with people in a social group?

Are you getting support?

Have you set up a system of support?

Are you listening to this podcast as part of that system?

Do you listen to it regularly?

If you find an episode that you really resonate with and it covers something that you really need to keep reminding yourself, have you listened to it more than once?

Are you a member of the TFM Community?

Have you joined, where we have all of our resources, where we have live meetings six days out of the week that you can attend?

And if you're unable to attend them, we record many of them so that you can watch them later in the week.

Are you talking with people in the Community?

Are you sharing?

Are you joining the forum and writing messages in there?

Are you tracking your progress?

Do you have a system of monitoring your goals or monitoring the steps you're taking toward reaching your goals?

These are the systems that, if we don't put them into place, we are not going to reach our goals.

Remember, we fall to the level of our systems.

If we don't have a well-curated system to help us, we're not going to just rise to that goal, we're not to accomplish complex things.

We're going to fall to the lack of development of our systems.

You know that saying that failing to plan is planning to fail.

To me, that fits in here.

If I don't know that I have food that supports me and is available when I'm ready to break my fast, it's like the wild, wild west.

I might choose anything to eat.

I might go off track.

Instead, planning, having something already chosen that I know will support me in breaking my fast.

So, again, creating your systems to help you reach your goal.

Otherwise, the goal is just this lofty ideal that really has a small chance of being realized without that good system.

I think one of the challenges about setting our goals and wanting something that is really important to us is that many of us still work under the kind of erroneous belief that it's about having ambition, and putting in a lot of hard work, and automatically goals will happen.

It's really not just about having ambition or doing good effort.

It's about have systems that support us to take the steps regularly.

Going back to the first takeaway, it's the small steps every day.

It's that improvement, that consistency that happens day to day, not being super ambitious and taking it all on in one day or one week.

It doesn't happen that way.

And now the third takeaway is one that you have heard me talk about in the podcast, if you've listened over time.

If you're new to the podcast, this one may be new to you, but it's one that I think is so important.

And that is habits don't stick unless we alter our identities.

Habits don't stick unless we change the way we think about ourselves, the way we interact with other people, the choices that we make based on our values.

We have to work on changing our identities.

I think this is one of the things that has always made me so much of a James Clear fan is that he really emphasizes this part, that, if you want to make something a long-term, lifestyle change, you have to start to identify with it.

You have to change how you talk about yourself and think about yourself.

One of the examples I always share is that I am someone who eats low carb, quite low carb most days and most meals.

So when a friend says to me, "Hey Terri, let's go out to dinner," I say, "Okay." I'm not worried because I'm going to figure out what to eat wherever we go.

Now, there are a few types of places where I struggle more, it's a little harder to find good options.

But if my friends say to me, "Terri, hey, let' go to that Mexican restaurant," and then they sometimes stop and say, "Oh, that's right, you probably can't eat there." I say, "No, I can eat there," because I identify as someone who has a low-carb approach to eating.

So, when I go to that restaurant, I know what I'm looking for in that menu.

I know what substitutions to make because it's part of how I see what I eat.

It's how I see myself, as far as what I eat.

Just this evening, I went to a social gathering in our neighborhood.

And you can imagine, it's the beginning of summer, it was a going-away party for some neighbors, and all of the food that was brought in was super-highly-processed, cookout kind of gathering foods.

But I know myself.

I am someone who eats low carb when I'm eating a meal.

So I made it a meal.

I chose the things there that worked for me.

If I had known that there wouldn't be enough food that worked for me, I would probably eat something that fits my approach prior to going, and then, once I got there, just held my sparkling water and walked around and talked to everyone.

I may have avoided the meal because my identity is so clear to me that this is the way I eat.

And if that isn't available there, then I will make a different decision.

But here's the challenge.

If it's not part of the identity that you're creating, it's very easy to be kind of tugged off of your plan because you don't see options, you don't see how to make it fit, and so you just kind of slide into the old behaviors that you're actually working on eliminating or decreasing.

So, if you aren't working on your identity, it's really hard to make something stick.

Let's say, for example, you want to be more physically active.

Now some people might say try to stick with something that fits you, not try to pretend to be something else.

So for example, I like to do some physical activity things.

I don't consider myself an athlete.

That is not my identity.

But I am someone who likes to bike, I am someone who enjoys some hiking (I would call it walking with maybe some hills), and I'm someone who enjoys skiing.

So I don't have to identify as an athlete, I need to identify as someone who does active things because I enjoy them and I value taking care of my body in those ways.

If I said, 'Well, I hate it, there's nothing about this that fits me, but I have to do it," it's going to be very hard for me to create a lifestyle change or a habit out of that behavior, so working on changing your identity, how you see yourself, how you talk to yourself.

Are you still using terms to describe yourself that are negative and hold shame and blame?

Are you calling yourself a fat person?

Is that serving you well?

If I continue to call myself that-- and trust me I don't because that phrase just has so many negative connotations for me and such negative impact.

But if you are someone who is calling yourself that, that is your identity.

Why would you do a behavior that's going to change that if that is your identity?

Maybe you need to change that identity to, "I am someone who values taking care of my body," "I am someone who is developing a fasting lifestyle," "I am someone who is learning ways to nurture my body so that it can work well and do all of the things that I ask of it." These are some ways to work on changing your identity.

Another example that comes up often in our community is people really struggling with something that they feel like they're grieving, or have to give up is, they identify as a foodie, meaning-- sometimes, maybe I don't even understand what that means, but I think it means I love food, I love decadent food, I get a lot of my pleasure from food.

And one of the challenges is that, for many people who hold that identity, they aren't necessarily healthy choices.

They are kind of more recreational choices (like I said, decadant choices), foods that, for many of us, are causing insulin resistance, are causing us to be hungrier and have more cravings, causing pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, you know, leading to serious health concerns.

That identity of being a foodie stands out as something we are known for to our friends and to our family.

So I have encouraged people, when they come to me with that, to change how they say it.

And actually one person in our community, he described in a meeting that he was changing that label.

Instead of identifying himself as a foodie, and all of that kind of connotation that came along with that, he was changing his identity to being a healthie.

And I just love that, that it's this focus on, "I am someone who supports my health.

I'm someone who makes choices geared toward my health." And I think in order to create that as an identity we have to value it, we have to embrace it, we have to make it something that we do regularly, we have to think of ourselves that way.

And I think, when it comes to this example with food, I think we have enjoy what we're doing.

One of the big reasons people identify as a foodie is because they enjoy it.

So can you enjoy being a healthie?

Can you enjoy being someone who eats in a way that supports you metabolically?

Can you enjoy being someone who takes breaks between meals and fasts for your healing journey?

It's changing how you think of yourself.

Rather than, "I'm someone who once in a while kind of ekes out a fast," to start identifying as, "I'm someone who fasts regularly." You don't have to identify in that exactly what type of fasting you do and how many hours you do, but to start seeing yourself as a faster.

I remember, many years ago, I decided to do the Couch to 5K running, training program.

I wanted to run and do a little bit of a distance run.

But I remember at the time what was so incongruent for me was that I did not see myself as a runner.

I was, you know, growing up in elementary school, middle school, high school, I was that person that hated to run.

It was like punishment to me.

When we had that presidential physical fitness test, ugh, it was the most torturous thing.

When I was in high school and playing sports, I loved playing the actual game, but please don't make me run to train for it.

It was the worst part.

So here I was years later deciding I wanted to start running.

I want do some 5Ks.

And mostly I wanted to do it.

It was a social thing.

I had friends that were all going to run a specific run, so I wanted to be able to do that.

But what I found over time, and I did work myself up to completing a half marathon, was that I had to change it.

I couldn't say, "Yeah, I'm going to go out and do a run, but I'm not a runner." I had start thinking of myself as a runner.

What do runners do?

They run.

[laughs] What do runners do the day after the race?

They run, they do a, you know, kind of a, a smaller workout.

What do they do-- you know, do they stay out all night before the big run?

No, I'm going to go home because I'm a runner.

So I had to start thinking of myself as a runner.

Now, I didn't have to say I was an Olympic runner.

I didn't have to exaggerate it.

But without identifying that that's part of who I am, that's something that I do, it's really hard to, like I said, to make that a consistent behavior.

Your brain is going to resist it, it's not going to feel natural, and it's going to be really easy to stop as soon as there is some kind of interference.

Let's say, for example, it was raining out.

It would be really easy to say, "Well, I'm not going out in the rain." So I had to think of an alternative plan to fulfill that sense of myself as someone who runs.

If you are someone who does yoga and you go on vacation, there's no reason to not do a yoga routine before you start your day because you are someone who does yoga.

If you are someone who meditates, you don't have to work so hard anymore to decide, should I do a meditation today?

It's part of who you are, it's part of how you see your day going.

So working on addressing and changing your identity is a huge piece of creating habits that will stick.

So again, just as a kind of summary of these three takeaways-- and trust me, folks, there are so many valuable things in the book, but these three I think are so important to this TFM journey, so important to this weight-loss and health journey.

Number one - small lifestyle changes compound over a period of time.

Two - we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.

And number three - habits don't stick unless we alter our identities.

I want for all of you to create habits that create long-term change for you.

I want you to reach your goals.

I want you to reach your health goals and your weight-loss goals.

And I think if you spend some time really

reflecting on these three things:.

Am I working on small steps that I can take that will compound over time?

Am I creating systems that make these habit changes possible, feasible, sustainable?

Am I working on changing my identity, how I see myself, how I interact with other people around these things, how I think about it?

Then I think you stand a really good chance of finding the success that you're seeking.

I look forward to talking with you again soon in our next episode.

Until then, take good care.