Atomic Habits, my brutally honest review.

Atomic habits by James Clear.

Having read some of my blog, you will clearly see my adoration of James Clear’s work in Atomic Habits. I am going to try here to explain why I love this work and why I think it helps so much on any weight loss journey.

I am well versed in human behaviour, I have always been a fan of studying how people work and how they behave, previously having read all of Desmond Morris works. His work on the The Naked Ape and his anthropological studies of humans as animals, has always fascinated me.

I have over 20 years’ experience watching humans interacting in a nightclub environment, watching their mating rituals, their social bonding skills and their violence and aggression rituals, which I might just add that it was my job not a perverse hobby. Once you have read a book like The Naked Ape and seen everything that Desmond Morris explains in his books, working in reality, true to his words, that make his works epic.

So why am starting a blog about James Clear, by telling you how good Desmond Morris is? Well as weird as that sounds, for a book to excite me, like, really excite me it must be true to its subject, not theories, real hard based evidence. When you have seen as many nightclub fights and arguments as I have, you know Desmond Morris was spot on with his lifetimes work.

When I first read James Clear, Atomic habits, it did not strike me as mind blowing, it was certainly an interesting read, it kept my attention. Certain things popped out of the text that made me think hmmm that might be useful, stored in the grey cells for a later date.  The book gives you a sense that there could be some truth in what James is saying, however it is easy to pass over some of the information as what I thought of as ‘padding the book out’.

To truly bring this book to life you just must try some of his techniques, then all the ‘padding’ will hit you in the face like a brick. Let me explain.

On my first read through, I decided to pick up on two of James’ laws, make it easy and never miss twice, so I decided to reduce my jump amount from 1000 a day to 500, however I made a promise to myself I would never miss twice. Well as luck would have it, I have never missed once yet. I have consistently hit my habit of 500 jumps every day for over two months now, the weight was falling off me, consistently, at around 1kg a week.

Then I realised what James was saying about not working to a goal, was true.  It was the system that I had got right, I had a system that if I did not change that system, I would continue to lose weight, then I also realised that other things James had mentioned, I was doing sub consciously, like my changing environments, my pre workout routine. Other things like ‘make it hard’, I don’t have snacks in my house. I only buy the food I require daily, etc, etc.

Very suddenly you will start living your life the atomic habit way. When you first open the book, no fireworks pop in the background, there is no instant million pounds in your bank account, you suddenly don’t read this book and lose 50kg, get a modelling contract and move to Saint Tropez. What does happen is very slow positive changes in your life, if you follow the system, you will over time lose the weight and gain the rewards of a healthier life.

Will James Clear, Atomic Habits change your life, yes, absolutely if you allow it to. I cannot recommend this book to enough people; I literally tell everyone who asks me about my weight loss journey to read this book. (link on resources page).

Many people I know and try to help, constantly yo-yo with weight loss, they are well educated on diets and food plans, however they are not seeing why they fail and why the weight does not stay off. To paraphrase James “There are no benefits to starting a good weight loss habit if all your bad habits still exist”.

I feel it is essential, that for a weight loss journey, you really need to know where your bad habits lie, and how to avoid them.

This book will help you to get rid of bad habits, start new good habits, and stick with them.

Please buy it, download it, listen to it, and try to remember, it is easy to walk down the right path, if the wrong paths do not exist.