Books
It may seem weird, but I learned a lot more about weight loss success by reading self-help books and other non-fiction books than I ever did by reading diet books. This list is not comprehensive. I’m a voracious reader by nature. One word of advice: if a book includes writing exercises, do them. It will change your life. Also, some of the books have strong language.
Skip to Section: Mindset | Eliminating Worry & Fear | General Life Improvement | Inspirational | Creativity & Career | Money | Productivity
Mindset
Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy – A book I read in 2014, shortly after I had my “I’ve had it” moment. Biggest takeaway: change your thinking, change your life.
The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy– Biggest takeaway: tiny changes compound over time and become big life changes .
Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins – Biggest takeaways: we can have control over our thoughts and our emotions. Inner dialogue should be paid attention to and changed when it’s found to be negative.
Mindset by Carol Dweck – Biggest takeaway: our mindset can either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. If it’s fixed, we don’t make changes. If we instead decide to have a growth mindset, we can successfully make changes.
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Dr. Kristin Neff – Biggest takeaway: it’s important to acknowledge your own pain and be kind to yourself.
The Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss – Though I didn’t follow the diet he advocates for, I found the ideas of experimenting with a weight loss plan of my own creation, cheat days for maximum compliance, and thinking like a scientist and tracking my data were all crucial to my success.
Eliminating Worry and Fear
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie – I have always been a worrier, which fed into my stress eating. This book helped me to get control over my worry habit. And yes, I’m still a work in progress!
The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker – Biggest takeaway: real instinctual fear is a gift that will keep you alive, worry is fear that manufacture in your mind that makes your life worse and doesn’t keep you safe.
The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale – (Yes, the title is cheesy and kept me for reading it for years, but I recently read it and wished I had picked it up years ago.) Biggest takeaway: make prayer a priority and make 15 minutes of silence per day a priority.
General Life Improvement
12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan Peterson– Biggest takeaways: stand up straight with your shoulders back, and get your house in perfect order before you criticize others.
Boundaries by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend – Biggest takeaway: If you feel anger in a relationship, that signals a need for a boundary. This includes relationships with food.
Inspirational
If The Poor Were Next Door by Gret Glyer, founder of Donorsee – Biggest takeaway: regular people can take on big problems like global poverty. The key is to take action. Side note: Donorsee is my absolute favorite way to give charitably. You donate to specific projects, and then receive video updates upon their completion. It has changed my life in a wonderful way.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand – Biggest takeaway: we humans are stronger than we usually realize.
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung – Biggest takeaway: this book made me rethink how I think of food in general. I no longer call any food “junk food” because in a starvation situation like Loung experienced, ANY bit of food would have been nourishment.
Creativity and Career
The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss – Biggest takeaway: figure out what kind of life you want to live, how much your dream life will cost, then make a plan to make that happen. (This book is one big reason we were able to begin full-time traveling in early 2018.)
Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss – Biggest takeaway: everyone, no matter how uber-successful, struggles with fear and imposter syndrome
Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher – Biggest takeaway: don’t feel guilty if you can’t pick what you want to do with your life. Refuse to choose!
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle – Talent isn’t inborn, it’s all about practicing. This expanded my horizons about where I could take my life, which I found very motivating. It goes hand and hand with the ideas in Mindset by Carol Dweck.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – Biggest takeaway: Morning pages. 3 pages of stream of consciousness that I write every single morning, longhand. I’ve found this really helps me to get a clear mind, and to work out things that I find are bothering me.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain – Biggest takeaway: I should not feel guilty about my introversion, and instead realize what a strength it is.
Money
The Richest Man In Babylon by George S. Clason – Biggest takeaway: become the type of person like Arkad who says,“If I set for myself a task, I shall see it through. Should I say to myself, ‘For a hundred days as I walk across the bridge into the city, I will pick from the road a pebble and cast it into the stream,’ I would do it. If on the seventh day I passed by without remembering, I would not say to myself, ‘Tomorrow I will cast two pebbles which will do as well.’ Instead I would retrace my steps and cast the pebble. Nor on the twentieth day would I say to myself, ‘This is useless. What does it avail you to cast a pebble every day? Throw in a handful and be done with it.’ No, I would not say that nor do it. When I set a task for myself, I complete it.” This was my mindset when in January 2016 I decided to start walking 6 miles every day. I walked 6 miles every day. Not 6 one day, 3 the next, 9 the day after that to “catch up”, just 6 miles every day.
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey – Biggest takeaway: the borrower is slave to the lender. Get out of debt with gazelle-like intensity and never ever go back into it again. Dave Ramsey has changed our life’s trajectory in a positive way. If your financial life is a mess, it’s likely affecting your weight. To get started with Dave’s recommended baby steps, click here.
Productivity
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity by David Allen – Biggest takeaway: your mind is where you get ideas, not where you keep them.
The One Thing by Gary Keller – Biggest takeaway: limit your priorities so that you can focus on one big goal and achieve it.