The Kaizen Approach to Sustainable Weight Loss: Small Steps, Life-Changing Results

Have you ever started a diet with tremendous enthusiasm, only to find yourself back where you started a few months later? You're not alone. The traditional "all-or-nothing" approach to weight loss sets most people up for failure from day one. But there's a better way—one rooted in an ancient Japanese philosophy that's transforming how people achieve lasting weight loss.

What is Kaizen?

Kaizen, which literally means "good change" in Japanese, is a philosophy of continuous improvement through small, incremental steps. Originally developed in Japanese manufacturing, this approach focuses on making tiny, manageable changes that compound over time to create remarkable transformations. When applied to weight loss, kaizen becomes a powerful tool for creating sustainable lifestyle changes without the overwhelm and burnout associated with extreme dieting approaches.

Why Traditional Diets Fail

Most weight loss programs demand dramatic changes overnight: eliminate entire food groups, spend hours at the gym, track every calorie obsessively. These approaches require enormous amounts of willpower and motivation—resources that are finite and easily depleted when life gets stressful or challenging.

The result? A predictable cycle of initial success followed by inevitable backsliding. According to research, 95% of people who lose weight through traditional dieting methods regain it within five years. The problem isn't lack of willpower; it's the unsustainable nature of the approach itself.

The Kaizen Advantage: Small Changes, Big Results

The kaizen approach to weight loss operates on a completely different principle. Instead of overwhelming yourself with massive changes, you focus on implementing tiny modifications that feel almost effortless.

 

These might include:

• Adding one extra glass of water to your daily routine

• Taking a five-minute walk after lunch

• Replacing one processed snack with a piece of fruit

• Going to bed 15 minutes earlier

• Practicing three deep breaths before meals

These changes are so small that they bypass your brain's resistance to change. Your subconscious mind doesn't perceive them as threats to your current routine, making them much easier to stick with long-term.

The Compound Effect of Tiny Changes

What makes kaizen so powerful is the compound effect. Just as small amounts of money invested regularly can grow into substantial wealth over time, small healthy changes implemented consistently create profound transformations in your body and health.

Consider this: if you made just one tiny improvement to your health every week, you'd implement 52 positive changes in a single year. These changes don't just add up—they multiply, creating a synergistic effect that transforms your entire relationship with food, movement, and self-care.

Building Habits on Autopilot

Perhaps the greatest advantage of the kaizen approach is how it naturally builds sustainable habits. When changes are small and manageable, they integrate seamlessly into your existing routine. Over time, these new behaviors become automatic—requiring no conscious effort or motivation to maintain.

This is why kaizen-based weight loss leads to long-term success. You're not relying on willpower to maintain extreme behaviors; instead, you're cultivating natural, healthy habits that support your ideal weight effortlessly.

My 30 Years of Experience

In my 30 years working in the weight loss field, I've witnessed countless approaches come and go. I've seen people achieve rapid initial results with extreme methods, only to regain the weight—and often more—within months. But I've also seen the transformative power of the kaizen approach.

The clients who embrace small, sustainable changes are the ones who not only reach their goals but maintain their results year after year. They don't rely on motivation or perfect conditions; they've built systems and habits that support their health automatically.

Why Kaizen Works When Everything Else Fails

The kaizen approach addresses the fundamental flaws in traditional weight loss methods:

Sustainability Over Speed: While crash diets promise quick results, kaizen focuses on changes you can maintain for life. The weight comes off more gradually, but it stays off permanently.

Low Effort, High Impact: Because the changes are small, they require minimal motivation and effort. This makes the approach accessible to everyone, regardless of how busy or stressful their life may be.

Habit Formation: Small changes are more likely to become ingrained habits. Once a behavior becomes automatic, it no longer requires conscious effort to maintain.

Reduced Resistance: Your mind doesn't resist small changes the way it resists dramatic ones. This psychological advantage is crucial for long-term success.

Flexible and Forgiving: The kaizen approach allows for imperfection. If you miss a day or make a less-than-ideal choice, you simply return to your small, sustainable practices without guilt or the need to "start over."

The Long-Term Vision

When you embrace kaizen for weight loss, you're not just changing your diet—you're transforming your entire relationship with health and wellness. The skills you develop through this approach extend far beyond weight management, helping you create positive changes in every area of your life.

Most importantly, you're building a foundation for lifelong health rather than pursuing a temporary fix. The habits you develop will serve you for decades, supporting not just weight management but overall vitality and well-being.

Your Journey Starts with One Small Step

The beauty of kaizen is that you can start right now, exactly where you are. You don't need to wait for the perfect moment, buy special equipment, or completely overhaul your schedule. You simply need to identify one small, positive change you can make today and commit to it.

Remember, the goal isn't perfection—it's progress. Each small step you take is moving you closer to the healthy, vibrant life you deserve.

 

Ready to discover how the kaizen approach can revolutionize your weight loss journey? If you'd like to learn more about how these principles can help you lose weight for life through sustainable, manageable changes, visit my Live Your Way Thin website and discover the power of small steps that lead to big transformations. OR visit our personal training facility in Danbury CT.

How To Become More Resilient and Not Give Up On Yourself Easily!

  Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language or some new skill, and after a few weeks of trying, you gave up because you got busy, lost your motivation, or simply got frustrated because it did not seem that you were making any progress?  Imagine instead of quitting you had made a commitment to yourself to practice that skill or studied that language for just 5 minutes, 5 days per week no matter how little progress you were making!  You would simply practice or studied for at least 5 minutes 5 days per week without judgment.  If you started doing that one year ago, do you think you would have mastered whatever skill you were trying to master or learn whatever language you were trying to learn by now?   Most likely yes and if you had not completely mastered it, you would have been well on your way.  Don't you wish you had made that commitment now?  Here is a quote I read once that made a huge difference in my life:  “Don't underestimate the potential of a small amount of time put to good use on a regular basis”  I live by this rule.

You need to apply the same type of thinking to your weight loss efforts.  Let me explain.  As you already know by now, the only way to achieve sustainable weight loss is to change the habitual behaviors that got you overweight and the only way to change habitual behaviors is to focus on changing one behavior at a time.  So far so Good?

As you are working on developing a new habitual behavior make a commitment to yourself that every day you would do something towards the development of that behavior, no matter how small the action is.  So for example, let say you were trying to develop the habit of doing more aerobics.  Make a commitment to yourself that you would walk on the treadmill or outside for at least 1 minute 5 days per week.  Don't judge yourself if you are getting any benefit from it or not, just do it judgment free.  Before you know it, the 1 minute becomes 2 minutes and then 5 minutes and so on.  Before you know it you will be doing 20 and 30 minutes habitually.

As you are working towards the development of this behavior, you will have negative thoughts that will try to convince you to stop because you are not getting any results from just doing 1 or 2 minutes of aerobics.  Remind yourself that if you quit your efforts to develop this behavior and the rest of them, a year from now you would be looking back at this moment thinking, “If I only stuck with the program and did not quit, by now I would have developed all the healthy behaviors that I needed to lose weight and improve my health and now I would be enjoying a lean and healthy body, instead of suffering the consequences of being overweight and out of shape” You would be wishing you had a time machine that could take you back to this moment to convince yourself not to quit.    So do yourself a favor and don’t quit.

So, every time you think of quitting your efforts to develop a healthy behavior or eliminate an unhealthy one, think of how you would feel a year from now, about your decision to quit today?  Remember, there will be days you will not feel motivated to workout or to eat right, on those days just do enough to keep the momentum going.

The focus should always be to do at least something toward the development of the behavior you are working on, it does not have to be big.  Nobody has the perfect schedule when you have more time or you are more motivated do more, but when you don't have that much time or lack motivation do less, but always do something.  By doing something every day, that trains your subconscious mind to take over the behavior and make it habitual.

Do you remember how you learned to ride a bike?  I am sure you fell down a few times, but you did not quit, why?  Because you knew it was only a matter of practice before you mastered the skill of riding the bike.  The thought that you might not be able to learn to ride a bike did not cross your mind or if it did you parents or whoever taught you to ride, dismissed the idea right of way and reinforced the idea that you could. Well, developing and making habitual any other behavior is no different.  Just keep practicing the behavior you want to make habitual the best you can, you will mess up from time to time, but sooner or later you will master it just like you have mastered many other skills that you have today.  We all need a little encouragement from time to time, and that is the purpose of this blog, to remind you that yes, you can develop or eliminate any behavior you choose to, all you have to do is keep practicing.


Stavros Mastrogiannis is a practical fitness coach and has been working in the weight loss field for over 30 years.  He is the creator of a revolutionary weight loss system which he teaches at his facility  Live Your Way Thin LLC, which is located in Danbury CT and also on line.

Longest Serving Personal Training Services in Danbury CT

 Live Your Way Thin & Healthy | Personal Trainer in Danbury CT

Stavros Mastrogiannis, Owner

(203) 778-9545

https://liveyourwaythin.com/

Longest Serving Personal Training Services in Danbury CT

June 16, 2025 Danbury CT - This past May 2025, Live Your Way Thin & Healthy celebrated 29 years of helping people in the Greater Danbury area lose weight and improve their health in a way that is effortless to maintain.  

Stavros Mastrogiannis, the owner of Live Your Way Thin who has been a personal trainer in Danbury CT since 1992, early in his fitness career realized that with the current methods people had a very hard time keeping the weight off.  According to Michigan Medicine researches around 90% of people who lose weight, regain it all back.  This realization made Stavros take a very different path to fitness and weight loss.   

What made Stavros the best personal trainer in Danbury CT and gave him the edge in finding a sustainable solution to the weight problem was his background.  You see, Stavros didn’t just study health and fitness.  He was born and raised in a very healthy region in Greece and saw first-hand how people who live long healthy live lived and ate.

He created a 4 step approach the eliminates the root cause of most people’s weight problem and most importantly works with human nature.  Because his approach eliminates the root cause of weight gain, keeping the weight off is almost effortless.

This is one of the most common comments Stavros gets from his clients after they go through this program: “If I knew how simple and easy it would be to lose weight and get in shape, I would have joined your coaching program years ago”

There are many personal trainers and weight loss coaches in Danbury CT that can help you lose weight, but if you want to keep it off with minimal effort Stavros’s way is the way you want to lose weight.  If you have been struggling with weight don’t hesitate to reach out and talk to Stavros.  

For more information or to schedule a free discovery call with Stavros, visit our website https://liveyourwaythin.com/ 

The 30-Second Secret That's Revolutionizing How We Think About Exercise

 What if I told you that the people who stay consistently active have cracked a code that the fitness industry doesn't want you to know?

Here's the uncomfortable truth: 73% of people who buy gym memberships stop using them within the first six months. Millions of workout videos sit unwatched. Expensive equipment gathers dust in spare bedrooms.

But here's what's fascinating—the same people who "fail" at traditional exercise programs brush their teeth every single day without fail. They never miss checking their phone. They consistently make their morning coffee.

So what's the difference?

The Fatal Flaw in How We've Been Taught to Exercise

The fitness industry has sold us a lie: that exercise must be this big, intimidating production. An hour at the gym. A 45-minute workout video. A "no pain, no gain" mentality that leaves you exhausted just thinking about it.

This approach works against everything we know about human psychology and habit formation. We're asking our brains to suddenly love something that feels like punishment, takes significant time, and disrupts our entire day.

No wonder we quit.

Enter the Game-Changer: Micro-Movements

What if exercise could be as effortless as checking your notifications? What if it took less time than making a cup of coffee but delivered results that compound over weeks and months?

Micro-movements are exactly what they sound like—tiny bursts of physical activity that slide seamlessly into the life you're already living. We're talking 30 seconds to 2 minutes, scattered throughout your day like breadcrumbs leading to better health.

The Psychology Behind Why This Actually Works

Your brain loves small wins. Every time you complete a micro-movement, you get a hit of dopamine—the same reward chemical that keeps you scrolling social media. But instead of empty digital satisfaction, you're building physical strength and mental confidence.

More importantly, you're proving to yourself that you're the type of person who moves their body. Identity change happens through consistent small actions, not dramatic overhauls.

Your Micro-Movement Toolkit: Steal These Ideas

☕ Coffee Brewing Ritual: While waiting for your coffee (we know you're not giving that up), knock out 10 squats. Your glutes will thank you, and your coffee will taste like victory.

📺 Commercial Break Challenge: That 30-60 second ad break? Perfect plank time. Turn mindless TV watching into core-strengthening gold.

📱 Phone Check Tax: Before you unlock your phone, do 5 wall push-ups. Given how often we check our phones, you'll accidentally become stronger.

🦷 Bathroom Balance: While brushing your teeth, stand on one foot. Two minutes of daily balance training that requires zero extra time.

⏰ Elevator Ambush: Waiting for elevators is dead time anyway. Roll those shoulders, stretch that neck, or do some calf raises.

☎️ Walking Meetings: Turn phone calls into walking sessions. Your creativity will spike along with your step count.

🍽️ Pre-Meal Energizer: Ten jumping jacks before each meal. You'll aid digestion and feel more energized.

The Science That'll Blow Your Mind

Here's what researchers have discovered: your body doesn't care if you exercise for 60 minutes straight or accumulate 60 minutes throughout the day. The health benefits are virtually identical.

A landmark study published in the American Journal of Health Promotion found that people who did brief, frequent exercise sessions had:

• Better metabolic health than gym-goers

• Lower stress levels

• Improved cardiovascular function

• Higher adherence rates (they actually stuck with it)

• Enhanced fat burning throughout the day

• Reduced stress-related eating and cravings

Translation: You can literally outperform the person spending hours at the gym by moving for minutes throughout your day.

The Compound Effect: Why Small Adds Up to Extraordinary

Let's do some math that'll change how you think about fitness forever:

• 5 micro-movements per day = 35 per week

• 35 micro-movements per week = 1,820 per year

• Each micro-movement burns 10-50 calories and builds strength

You're looking at thousands of movements and potentially 20,000+ calories burned annually—just from embracing tiny pockets of activity you barely notice.

Your 7-Day Micro-Movement Challenge

Day 1-2: Choose ONE micro-movement. Link it to something you already do without thinking (like washing hands = 5 squats).

Day 3-4: Add a second micro-movement to a different daily habit.

Day 5-7: Feel the momentum building. Add a third if it feels natural, or deepen your existing ones.

The secret: Don't try to be perfect. Try to be consistent.

Why This Changes Everything

Micro-movements solve the three biggest exercise problems:

1. Time: Takes less time than scrolling Instagram

2. Energy: Energizes rather than exhausts you

3. Equipment: Your body is all you need

But here's the real magic—once micro-movements become automatic, your relationship with movement transforms completely. You stop thinking of exercise as something you "have to do" and start experiencing it as something you naturally do.

Ready to Transform Your Health Without Transforming Your Schedule?

The research is clear, the method is simple, and the results speak for themselves. But if you're someone who wants personalized guidance, accountability, or has specific health goals you're working toward, sometimes a conversation with a professional can accelerate your progress exponentially.

Micro-movements are just one piece of a comprehensive approach to lasting health transformation. Visit my practice to discover how we incorporate micro-movements into our unique weight loss system—a method that transforms not just how you move, but how you think about food, habits, and sustainable health. These techniques are tailored to your unique lifestyle, health history, and goals. While micro-movements work for everyone, the most powerful transformations happen when they're part of a customized approach to your specific situation.

 

Your Next 30 Seconds Start Now

Don't let this be another piece of information that you read, nod along with, and forget. Stand up right now. Do 10 squats while you think about which daily habit you'll attach your first micro-movement to.

Your future self—the one who moves effortlessly throughout the day and feels energized rather than exhausted—is waiting for you to start.

What micro-movement will you try first? Drop a comment below and let's build a community of people who prove that small actions create extraordinary results.

 

🔔 Ready to discover how micro-movements fit into a complete weight loss system that works with your real life? Visit www.LiveYourWayThin.com to learn about my unique approach that makes achieving and maintaining a lean, healthy body not just easier—but effortless.

92 Studies Later: The Breakfast Marketing Myth Exposed

Today the majority of people in the Western world believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, whether they eat it or not. As we have learned from history, popular beliefs have been proven wrong many times. Let's look at the breakfast idea a little closer. 

The first question is, how did we even start believing that breakfast is the day's most important meal? If you look at human history, people did not eat anything first thing in the morning. Even today, if you look at healthy cultures around the world, people don't eat breakfast, or if they do, it's coffee or tea with something very light. In Greece, as kids, we did eat something light in the morning for breakfast, but most adults never had breakfast. If you look at cultures in Africa and South America, untouched by the West, you will find that none of them eat breakfast. So how did the Western world come to believe that breakfast is the day's most important meal? The answer is Marketing! As sad as it is, we live in a world today where with the proper marketing, you can get people to believe almost anything. Is it possible that special interests are driving this idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? It wouldn't be the first time special interest groups tried to convince us to believe something untrue. 

You hear about studies on breakfast all the time, stating how important breakfast is to your weight and health. If breakfast is vital to the human body, why are most people not hungry in the morning? Is their body trying to sabotage itself? You can find a study to prove almost whatever you want. So let's take a closer look at these breakfast studies. 

Dr. David Allison of the Nutrition Obesity Research Center at the University of Alabama and his colleagues took a closer look at breakfast studies. After they analyzed 92 breakfast studies, published between 1994 and 2011, they learned that there is very little substantial evidence to support the notion that breakfast makes any difference in losing weight. Most of the studies were observational. Simply put, the author suggested an association between breakfast and weight change based on their observations, but there may have been other behaviors common among breakfast eaters that they did not consider. Often, the biases of the researcher influence the conclusions of the research. 

According to Dr. David Allison and colleagues, the bottom line is that no hard evidence links eating breakfast with weight loss. If you need more than this to convince you that breakfast might not be the most important meal of the day, let's look at breakfast from another point of view: digestion! If you look at healthy cultures around the world, including the one where I was raised in Greece, the main meal was always eaten at a time when we could rest afterward. In the cities in Greece, people ate a big lunch but had a 3-hour lunch break, and we usually took a nap right after eating. In the villages where my mother came from, they did not have a break in the afternoon because they worked in the fields, so they had their main meal at dinner, where they would rest after the meal. If you look at other cultures, the main meal is also eaten at a time when people can rest afterward. Look at animals like lions, tigers, or even our domestic dogs and cats. What do they do after eating? They sleep or at least rest. 

Think about it: how do you feel after eating a big meal? Don't you feel like taking a nap, too? That is because when you eat a big meal (not necessarily overeating), a big part of your energy goes toward digestion. Digestion, by the way, requires lots of energy, so your body naturally wants to rest so digestion can occur properly. If you eat and don't rest afterward, you compromise digestion. That is why resting after the main meal is a very good idea for proper digestion, which animals know how to do instinctively and all the healthy cultures around the world also seem to know. 

However, eating like a king in the morning and then going to work creates a problem for your digestion. If you have a stressful job, it makes it even worse because stress is not suitable for digestion either. In my expert opinion, breakfast is the worst time to eat for the vast majority of adults. 

If all of the above information is not enough to convince you that breakfast is not the most important meal of the day, here is a quote from Marion Nestle, Former chair of the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health and Professor of Sociology at New York University taken from one of the articles she wrote: "Many—if not most—studies were demonstrating that breakfast eaters are healthier and manage weight better than non-breakfast eaters were sponsored by Kellogg or other breakfast cereal companies whose businesses depend on people believing that breakfast means ready-to-eat cereal." I don't eat breakfast, but I do make exceptions. I believe in the 80/20 rule. If you eat ideally 80 percent of the time, your body will forgive you for the 20 percent when you don't.

There are directions to Live Your Way Thin & Healthy | Personal Trainer in Danbury from Lake Kenosia Park, Danbury CT

We Have The Solution To The Weight Problem, But It's Hard to Get The Word Out!

Let me start with a question.  Why do you think we were able to figure out how to send a man to the moon and back safely, but we can’t figure out how to solve our weight problem?

The answer has a lot to do with the difference between the reasons why the space agency was trying to travel to the moon and back and why most of the companies involved in the weight loss industry are trying to solve the weight problem.

The space agency was trying to send a man to the moon and back because the US government asked them to do so and they were paying for it.  In addition, if they solved that problem, they would stand to make a lot more money in the future.  The government did not give the space agency any restrictions on how they needed to accomplish that goal.  They were free to use whatever technologies or materials they need it in order to achieve that objective.

On the other hand, most of the companies involved in finding a solution to the weight problem are companies that make their money through the sales of their products, not the government.   For example, diet companies like Jenny Craig, Nutri-System, and Weight Watchers are owned by food companies and make most of their money through the sales of food.  NordicTrack makes most of their money selling exercise equipment and companies, like GNC, make most of their money selling supplements.  So, although I am sure, all of these company are looking for the solution to the weight problem and truly want to help people, they are only interested in a solution that would increase the sales of whatever they are selling.  If a solution does not involve their product, they have no interest in that solution and  I can't say I blame them.  So you see, although they are all looking for the solution to the weight problem, they are not free to come up with any solution that would fix the problem, like NASA. The solution must include what they are selling. 

This is why the space agency was able to get us to the moon and back but the weight loss industry is still not able to definitively solve our weight problem.

In most cases, whatever those companies are selling, is part of the solution, but not the complete solution.  So, yes, you do need to exercise, but exercise only plays a small role in weight loss and fitness.(Much smaller than people are made to believe). But if I am selling exercise equipment, I would focus on promoting the exercise part as the most important part.  Here is another example:  Although the foods you eat do play a role in weight loss and health, what plays a much bigger role, is how long do you allow your body to go without food.  Allowing your body to go without food for a period of time is extremely beneficial to your health and weight and this is a proven fact.  How come you never hear this from most weight loss programs?  Well, most of the popular weight loss programs are owned by food companies like Nestle, and Heinz.  It is not in their best interest for people not to eat.  So their weight loss programs only focus on telling you the benefits of eating their food, but they will not tell you about the benefits of taking a break from eating. 

The end result, is you have all these weight loss programs that offer only part of the solution, but they are promoted like they are the complete solution.  This is why the weight loss industry is full of misinformation and half-truths that only produce temporary results.  Now you know how in the past 25 years, although we have more than doubled the amount of money we spend on weight loss products and services, the obesity rate has almost tripled from around 12% to over 36% today and over 70% of the population is overweight.

How Can We Solve The Weight Problem?

The simple truth is that we already know what needs to be done in order to lose weight and improve our health, and there are many people and small companies like mine, that is teaching the truth to people and are making a real difference in their life.  The reason we were able to solve the weight problem was because we are only selling information.  

Since we are not selling supplements, food, or equipment, we are not limited to how to solve the weight problem.  Our only objective was to come up with the best way we could help people lose weight, get in shape and stay in shape. The better our solution worked the more informational products we could sell.  But just because you have the answer it does not mean you can make a difference.  You need to get the answer out to the people who need it and that is where we have the problem.    

Big companies spend millions of dollars every year on marketing and promoting what benefits the sales of their product and also suppress any information that could hurt the sales of their products.  We, on the other hand, have a very limited marketing budget and can't compete with the big companies, so our message gets drowned in the sea of weight loss misinformation and half-truths.  Yes, our message does get through to some people but not enough to make a difference in the weight loss battle. 

Our solution to the weight problem is called the Live Your Way Thin System and it's unlike any other weight loss program on the market today.  With our program you will be able to lose weight and more importantly keep it off without counting calories, points or measuring your food, also without long and hard workouts that leave you in pain.  To learn more visit our website: www.LiveYourWayThin.com

Why People Can't Keep The Weight Off After They Lose It!

Currently, around 95% of the people who lose weight, regain the weight back.  The main reason why most people regain the weight back it's because, most weight loss programs on the market today don't help people make permanent changes in their lifestyle habits, only temporary one. 

Here is a fact everyone needs to know about achieving sustainable weight loss and health.  The only way to achieve sustainable weight loss is through permanent changes in your lifestyle habits.  The best way to make permanent changes in your lifestyle habit is to first change the way you think.  Changing the way you think is the first step to changing the way you act.  To help people change the way they think so they will have a better chance of achieving sustainable weight loss, at Live Your Way Thin we have created The Right Mindset for Sustainable Weight Loss Mini-Course and we offer it for free to everyone who wants sustainable weight loss.

 The Mini-Course is completely Free and anyone can sign up.  No catch! It is our way of giving back to our community. The Mini-course consists of 5 email and each email covers 1 of the 5 factors that make up The Right Mindset for Sustainable Weight Loss.  If you have been thinking of starting any type of weight loss or fitness program, go through this mini-course first.  It could be the difference between sustainable weight loss or temporary!

Click On This Link To Sign Up


Stavros Mastrogiannis
Founder of the Live Your Way Thin System

How To Stick to Your New Year's Fitness Resolution For Life!

Do you have a fitness related New Year’s resolution?  If you do, read this article!

Every year, millions of people set a new year's resolution to lose weight and to get in shape and unfortunately the vast majority of them fail.

So, the question is, why do so many of them fail?  Is there something wrong with most people, or is there something wrong with most weight loss and diet programs?

The answer is the latter.  There are a lot of things wrong with most weight loss and diet programs but especially the way they approach weight loss.  They expect people to change overnight.  They don't take into consideration the fact that people are creatures of habit.  Did you know that according to cognitive neuroscientists, 95% of the things we do and think are controlled by our subconscious mind?  In other words, they are habitual behaviors.  Consciously, we only control 5% of our daily actions. 

So, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, whatever you did to lose weight has to become a habitual behavior.  In other words, you have to train your subconscious mind to take over all of the actions you took to lose weight and get in shape.

The way most diet and weight loss programs approach weight loss, makes it impossible to make the new actions habitual.  Since your subconscious mind can't take over those actions, it is only a matter of time before we burn out and quit, thus regaining the weight back.  This is one of the biggest reasons why 95% of people who lose weight gain it back.

Do you want 2018 to be different?  Do you want this New Year to lose weight and keep it off for life?  If you do, here is the only way.  Whatever you do to lose weight has to become a habitual behavior and the only way to create new habitual behaviors is to introduce the new behaviors into your life, one at a time. 

In other words, figure out what habits you need to develop in order to lose weight.  Then pick one habit that you would like to develop first and start working on it.  Don't worry about the weight.  Weight loss will come sooner or later.  It is only a matter of developing enough healthy habits and also eliminating unhealthy ones.

This is the way I help people achieve sustainable weight loss with my Live Your Way Thin System for years, and the results have been amazing.  One of the things that many of my clients tell me about my approach is that it is very easy to follow.   It does not take as much effort (physical or mental) to stick with the program, which makes it very easy to make it part of your life.

Let me give you an example:  Let’s say you are overweight and you wanted to start eating better and also begin to walk more.  Some of your bad eating habits include eating too much junk food and you don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables.  I would first start with developing the walking habit.  Set yourself a goal to walk 4x per week for at least 5 minutes each time.  I know that 5 minutes of walking does not sound like a lot but by keeping the duration very short, it is more likely that you will stick with it long enough to make it a habit.  Think about it, if you made your goal to walk at least 30 minutes 4x per week, like many fitness professionals recommend, and you got home late and you were very tired, what is the chance of you getting on the treadmill and walking for 30 minutes?  Not very good, right?  

On the other hand, if your goal is to walk only 5 minutes, you are more likely to get on the treadmill.  Remember, your first objective is to get into the habit of walking 4x per week.  I don’t care how long you walk for.  Over time you will find walking becomes part of our daily routine, and you would also find that your 5 minutes of walking has become 10, 20, 30 or more minutes.  The difference here is that you chose to walk the extra minutes, you did not have to walk the extra minutes.  You feel very differently when you choose to do something than when you have to do something.

Once you get into the walking habit, start working on the next habit you want to develop or eliminate.  Let’s say now you want to cut down on the amount of junk food you eat.  My suggestion would be to make junk food special.  In other words, allow yourself to eat junk food only on the weekends and holidays.  I would never suggest that you completely eliminate junk food because that could backfire.  It is in human nature to want what we can’t have, so if you are a big junk food eater and all of a sudden you tell yourself that you cannot have junk food again, you will be craving junk food even more.  It is much easier to resist cravings when you know sometime in the near future you can have it. 

By the way overtime, you will find yourself eating less junk food naturally. (I am talking from personal experience and also from the experience of all my clients).  So, I would set my goal not to eat any junk food, Monday through Friday.  Just so you know, very few people can do it cold turkey, so expect to break this rule in the beginning.  My suggestion is to keep track, only Monday through Friday, of how many times you ate junk food.  Each week try to eat less junk food than the week before.  For example, if last week you ate junk food during the week 5 times, this week your goal should be to not eat junk food more than 4 times.  Once you get into the habit of not eating junk food Monday through Friday, you start working on the next healthy habit you want to develop, which in this example would be to eat more fruits and vegetable.  Again, start by keeping track how many vegetables you eat each day.  Each day, try to increase the number of servings you have until you get to the recommended number of servings.

My other advice is not to wait until the New Year to start working on your fitness resolution, I would start right now.   

“The best time to start a weight loss program was last year, the second best time is right now”

FREE GUIDE on How To Make Exercising a Habitual Behavior

This year, at Live Your Way Thin, to help people with their New Year’s fitness resolution, we are giving out a Free Guide on How To Make Exercising a Habitual Behavior.  Click On The Link to sign up and receive your Free Guide.

If you have been thinking of starting an exercise program, read this exercise guide first.  It will show you how to approach exercising, so it becomes a habitual behavior and avoid burn out!

Stavros Mastrogiannis

Creator of the Live Your Way Thin System

Stavros@liveyourwaythin.com

Live Your Way Thin

18 Mill Plain Rd

Danbury, CT 06811

(203) 778-9545

How To Put Your Weight Loss Program on Autopilot

Let’s say you were the only pilot of a modern passenger plane with all the latest technologies, and your destination was Fiji.  You were looking forward to an easy flight and a nice time on the beach once you got there.  As soon as the plane took off, you realized that the autopilot was programmed by the previous pilot to fly you to Antarctica and not to Fiji.  What would make more sense, take the time and reprogram the autopilot so it can take you to Fiji, or just grab the yoke and steer the plane to the direction you want the plane to go and fight the autopilot and fatigue the whole way there?  

Obviously, the best thing to do is to reprogram the autopilot to take you to Fiji so you would be free to enjoy the trip more and only have to check the autopilot from time to time to make sure is working correctly and has not deviated from its course. Then, when you arrive in Fiji, you can relax on the beach. 

Well, we all have an autopilot, which is our subconscious mind.  According to cognitive neuroscience, 95% of your daily actions and thoughts are controlled by your subconscious mind.  In other words, 95% of your daily actions and thought are habitual behaviors.  Only around 5% of your daily actions and thoughts are controlled by your conscious mind.  This makes perfect sense because our subconscious mind has, almost, unlimited processing power, whereas our conscious mind is very limited.   

Getting our subconscious mind to run most of our daily tasks frees our conscious mind to focus on the important stuff, like enjoying life. Think of your subconscious mind as the autopilot and your conscious mind as the manual control.  The problem with the conscious mind (manual control) is that it requires a lot of mental energy and it can only do one thing at a time.  So if you are focusing on your diet or to make sure you get your workouts in, you are not focusing on enjoying life.

If you look at the typical weight loss and diet programs they don't help you train your subconscious mind (autopilot) to develop new habitual behaviors.  Instead, they rely on your conscious mind to take all the necessary actions (manual control).  As I explained earlier, this takes a lot of mental effort, which, in most cases, leads to burnout.  This is why 95% of the people who lose weight regain the weight back with the current methods of weight loss 

If you look at the healthy regions around the world, all the things that they do that keeps them in shape, are habitual behaviors.  Basically, their fitness program is on autopilot.  My kind of fitness program!

Best way to achieve sustainable weight loss is to make habitual all the healthy actions you need to take in order to lose the weight you want.

This is the way we approach weight loss with our Live Your Way Thin System with great sustainable results and this is the way we strongly recommend everyone to approach weight loss.

Stavros Mastrogiannis

Live Your Way Thin

18 Mill Plain Rd

Danbury, CT 06811

(203) 778-9545

Thanksgiving Advice & Tips

Another Thanksgiving is upon us with all the food temptations.  It seems to me that Thanksgiving has become a holiday about food and not about giving thanks.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the food; what is wrong is that the food has become the main focus.

Here are few tips to help you get through Thanksgiving meal:

1. Keep in mind, the more food you eat, it does not mean the more fun you have.  
2. If at the Thanksgiving meal you are serving yourself, (buffet or family style) put on your plate half of the food that you think you can eat.  You can always get more.
3. Remember to eat slowly and mindfully.  Always put your fork down between bites and chew your food well.  By eating slowly and mindfully you will get more satisfaction from eating and you will end up eating less.
4. Go to the Thanksgiving meal hungry, but make sure you eat slowly when the meal comes. 
5. If you are serving yourself, the first time you go up to get food, get salad only, and then after you eat the salad go back for the main course.
6. Don’t forget to leave room for dessert.
7. Keep in mind the consequences of overeating and how uncomfortable you will feel after. Why do that to yourself?  You can have a great time at Thanksgiving without having to stuff yourself.  
8. Whatever you do, DON'T GO LOW FAT.  If you go low fat you will simply just eat more.  So just enjoy your food and try to stop eating when you have satisfied your hunger.

The only thing that was meant to be stuffed on Thanksgiving is the turkey!

Have a Great Thanksgiving

Stavros Mastrogiannis is a 25 year veteran of the weight loss field and specializes in sustainable weight loss. He is the founder of Live Your Way Thin LLC in Danbury CT and the creator of The Live Your Way Thin System. 

The Root Cause of Your Weight Problem

The Live Your Way Thin System

A day does not go by without hearing or seeing an ad for a weight loss product or service.  Although there are thousands of weight loss programs on the market today, we are still gaining weight as a nation and our health is getting worse.  How come?

Well, the reason is because most weight loss programs don't address the root cause of your weight problem.

You see, the one thing you need to realize is that you don't have a weight problem in the first place.  What you have is a behavioral problem.  Your current shape is the sum of all your past and current habitual behaviors.  If you are overweight and out of shape that is because you have more unhealthy habitual behaviors than healthy ones.  If you want to lose weight and get in shape, and more importantly maintain those results, you must first identify the unhealthy behaviors you engage in. (keep in mind, some unhealthy behaviors you might not be aware of them at all, so you might need to ask your friends and family for help).  In addition, you want to identify healthy behaviors you should engage in, on a daily basis.

Once you have done that start working on changing or developing one behavior at a time.  The problem with changing behaviors is that you can't change more than one behavior at a time.  If you don't believe me, just check all the popular weight loss programs on the market today that try to help people change all thier unhealthy behaviors all at once.  Over 95% of the people who lose weight with those methods, regain the weight back. 

If you want sustainable results, you must focus on changing one behavior at a time.   This is the way I help my clients lose weight with great success and I recommend everyone approaches weight loss the same way.

Stavros Mastrogiannis

The Live Your Way Thin System.

Simple, Sustainable Weight Loss, Without fuss.

How Not To Give In To Cravings

We all get cravings from time to time, the question is how to best deal with them.  The advice I keep hearing from many weight loss experts is to remove the bad foods that you crave, from your home or office.  Sounds like good advice but in actuality is not and here is why.  Let say you love chocolate and you removed all chocolate from your house so you will not see it.  What happens though, when you go to a friend's house who keeps chocolate on the counter?  Usually, most people give in because they have not learned to control themselves.  

The answer to cravings in not to remove the bad foods that we crave from our environment because we don't always have control of our environment. The answer is to learn to control ourselves.  How can you do that?  It is easier than you think.

Learning to control yourself.

Did you know that cravings get their power from you?  Yes, cravings get their power from you when you are contemplating whether you will give in or not.  Once you start contemplating whether or not you will have the bad food, you've lost the battle already and here is why.  Do you know what happens in your head when you are contemplating?  Subconsciously you are asking yourself this question:  “What excuse can I come up with so I can have the chocolate?”  Once you ask that question, your brain will come up with an answer.  You see, the brain is like a search engine.  You put in a question, it comes up with the answer, it can't reject the question.  So since you asked yourself, what excuse can I come up with so I can have my chocolate,  It won't  tell you that you are not supposed to have the chocolate but instead, it will come up with very creative excuses as to why is OK to eat the chocolate today and I am sure you know what excuses I am talking about.

You see the problem with humans is that we can rationalize everything, even things that are bad for us.   By the way, some junk food on occasion,  is fine. Too much junk food is bad for your health.  So what should you do when you are having a craving?  Simple, change the question.  Keep in mind that most of the times we crave junk food when we are stressed or bored.  If you are familiar with my weight loss program, The Live Your Way Thin System, I teach my clients to make junk food special so they can have it on the weekends only.  

So, if you are having a craving for chocolate during the week the question you should be asking yourself is this:  “Today is a weekday and I don't have junk food on weekdays, what else can I do instead that does not involve food?”  You might not come up with an answer right away but keep asking the question every time you have a craving.  Sooner or later your brain will start coming up with an answer that will take your mind off the chocolate and you will find, over time, easier and easier to resist the cravings and eventaully you will not be having any cravings at all.  I am speaking from personal experience and the experience of many of my clients.  Also remind yourself, what is the point of having the chocolate now, when you are going to feel guilty for having it.  How long will you actually enjoy the chocolate, before the guilt kicks in?  Wouldn't you rather wait until the weekend and have your chocolate guilt free?   The key to resisting cravings is not to give yourself a choice.  A craving goes away as soon as you decide you will not be giving in.  With practice, this pattern of thinking will become second nature and cravings will lose their power over you. 

Stavros

www.LiveYourWayThin.com 

Do You Want Fast Weight Loss or Permanent Weight Loss?

I am sure by now you know that the vast majority of people who lose weight end up regaining the weight back.  How much more money do we need to spend on the current methods of weight loss before we wake up and realize that there is something seriously wrong with the way we approach weight loss?  

The problem is that the vast majority of weight loss programs have focused on what people want because it is easier to sell a program that delivers what people want.  People want fast results!  For the most part, most weight loss programs are able to deliver on their promise.  The problem is that the fast results that they deliver are also temporary results, but I guess, that is not their

problem.  Besides, that is good for business; repeat customers.  The fact is that fast results are almost impossible to maintain because in order to get fast results you need to make big changes in your eating and activity behaviors all at once, and big changes all at once almost always lead to burnout.  This is why most weight loss programs fail to help people keep the weight off long term.

The fact is, the only way to lose weight and keep it off is through permanent changes in your habitual behaviors and the only way you can do that is by changing one behavior at a time.

I understand that people want fast results, but sometimes in life, what we want and what we need are two different things.  I don't know about other weight loss experts, but I did not get into the weight loss field to help people lose weight temporarily, I got into the weight loss field to help people lose the weight for the rest of their lives.  So my focus is on telling people what they need to do in order to achieve sustainable results and if that means fewer people join my weight loss program because that is not what they want to hear, I am fine with it.  I can sleep well at night because I know that people who I am helping to lose weight, they have the best chance of keeping the weight off for life.  I also know that sooner or later the people who want fast results at any cost will get tired of losing weight, only to regain the weight back.   When they do and they are ready to lose weight the sustainable way, I will be there to help them.

I call my approach to weight loss, The Live Your Way Thin System, and it is a very simple system.  The fact is, losing weight and getting in shape does not have to be hard or complicated.  The fitness industry has brainwashed people into thinking that in order to lose weight you must workout hard, you must eat certain foods, you must count every calorie, basically, that the whole weight loss process is a hard and complicated process.  

The fact is the only reason the weight loss process is complicated is because the fitness industry has made it that way so they can sell more DVDs, and to make people more dependent upon fitness trainers and nutritionists.   It does not have to be that way.  To lose weight and improve your health is a very simple process but it takes patience which, unfortunately, many people don't have. 

The only way you will achieve sustainable weight loss is by making permanent changes in your daily habitual behaviors.  Your current habitual behaviors got you to the shape you are in today and the only way you are going to change permanently your current shape is by changing the habitual behaviors that got you here!

The best way to develop new habits is through repetition.  In other words, an action must be repeated many times before it becomes habitual and the best way to ensure you keep repeating an action long enough to make it a habit is to keep the action simple.  That is why when I help people lose weight, I try to keep the whole process very simple and very easy to follow.   The question I always ask people who want to lose weight fast at any cost is this:  “What is the point of losing weight fast if you are going to regaining the weight back? Wouldn't you rather take a little extra time to lose weight the sustainable way by developing the right habitual behaviors and never have to worry about your weight again?

Stavros Mastrogiannis

www.LiveYourWayThin.com 

Let's Start a Family Walking Tradition

I was talking to a client of mine the other day, and she was telling me about a German colleague of hers and how the city he was from had a very interesting walking tradition.  Every Sunday, the whole family would go out for a walk around the neighborhood.  My thought was, what a great way to get some exercise for the whole family, and get to know your neighbors at the same time.   Another great benefit of taking family walks is that you will get to strengthen the bond with your kids.  Studies have shown that kids tend to talk to their parents more when they take long walks together.   You see, when the family just sits at home, the kids usually are playing video games or watch their iPads, and they are not talking as much.  So walking is not just good for the health of the family, but also a great way to talk with your kids and bond with them. 

This story reminded me how in Greece, we have a similar tradition.  Whenever we would go out to a restaurant for dinner, we wouldn't just go to the restaurant, sit, and eat.  We would first walk back and forth at the paralia (Every city or town next to the ocean has a paralia.  Paralia is what Greek people call the street next to the ocean and that is where most of the restaurants are).  It was a casual, slow walk and we would talk about all different subjects.  Usually, the whole family would be participating in the conversation.  Because almost everyone in my city would take that walk at the paralia, it was a great way to stay in touch with people.  Back when I lived in Greece, not everyone had a telephone in their home.  Many times we would also take a walk after dinner.

Talking to another client of mine, who had lived in Italy, told me that the Italians have similar walking traditions.

The interesting part is that people did not walk because it was good for their health, but because it was something nice to do and also a great way to meet and talk to your neighbors and friends.  The health benefits were just the side effect, not the goal. If you look at other European nations, you will find that most of them have some type of walking tradition.

This got me thinking.  Why can't we start our own walking traditions, something that we can pass down to our kids just like many healthy European regions have done?  I am not talking about walking clubs.   I am talking about families starting a tradition of taking a walk together in their neighborhood every Saturday or Sunday, or both days when the whole family is together.  I think is a great tradition to start.  It is good for our health, a great way to bond with our kids and a great way to meet our neighbors.  Keep in mind, I am not talking about power walks or speed walks, I am talking about strolls.  Don't worry about your heart rate, or if you are breaking a sweat or not, just walk.   You will get benefits from walking whether you get your heart rate up or not.  Another great benefit of walking slowing is that it is very relaxing for the mind.  I personally like slow walks and find them very relaxing.

My family and I have started doing these walks every weekend.  Yes, there are weekends that we skip but we always try to get out and walk together as a family as often as we can.

At Live Your Way Thin, we want to start a family walking tradition.  We ask all the families who read this article to make it a point every weekend to take a walk together in your neighborhood. Please don't let a little rain or snow stop you.  I think is a great tradition that every family in America should start.  As a side benefit, you will also finally get to meet your neighbors.  If you live in an area that you can't safely walk in your neighborhood, see if you can find a park nearby that you can go with the family and walk.  I think this is a tradition worth developing as a family and as a country.

I would love to hear from all the families who started this new walking tradition.  Let’s make it a Connecticut family walking tradition and, hopefully, other states will also adopt this great tradition.   Also, if you have any suggestions as to how we can help spread the word about this tradition so it can take root, I would love to hear them!  Please share this article with your neighbors, family and friends.

You can email me at Stavros@liveyourwaythin.com.   Looking forward to suggestions of how we can build on this tradition.

The Live Your Way Thin System
"A completely New approach to weight loss for people who have no time for exercising or complicated diets"