Nir Eyal

But if you persist long enough, you'll break past that plateau.

But some things, persistence doesn't matter.

You're just banging your head against the wall.

So if you meet those three criteria, you met your mile marker, you're not learning anymore, and persistence doesn't make a difference, then yeah, go ahead and quit.

But short of that, you're probably quitting way too soon.

Yeah, so for many years, I was obese starting at a young age.

And for many years, I was a kid at the community pool.

I grew up in Central Florida.

And so we always hung out around the pool in our condominium complex.

And I was always the kid who wore that baggy t-shirt and who never went to the pool without my shirt on because I didn't want anybody to see my belly rolls.

And I started dieting pretty early in life as a teenager.

I was trying to get into shape and it didn't work.

And every time I would try a new diet, you know, I started out with low fat.

and then I became a vegetarian, and then I started keto, and then it was intermittent fasting, and every time I had this zeal of being a new convert, and I wanted to tell everybody about this new diet that I had started, and why it was so great, and then inevitably, something would happen, and it wouldn't work anymore.

And why wouldn't it work?

Because I started hearing

doubts, I would start hearing, oh, you know, a low fat diet is not so good for you.

And vegetarians don't get enough nutrients and keto diets are bad for your liver.

I would start hearing these doubts creep in.

And then when I stopped believing in my diet, I stopped losing weight.