Try the 100-day nutrition question.
Last modified 2 weeks ago.
Today you might be deciding to start on a better plan for your diet.
Big reminder here . . .
The only diet that can help you is the one that you’ll do consistently.
Bankers’ hours don’t work for diets. . . you know, just 9-5, Monday through Friday, with weekends, holidays, birthdays, breakups, happy hours, and inclement-weather days off.
Whatever it is you’re going to do, ask yourself what helpful change you could make that you could conceive yourself doing 100 days in a row. If you can’t see yourself doing it consistently, don’t even bother… for now. Try something less challenging right now, then come back to that higher bar later.
That doesn’t mean you won’t make a mistake or slip up on day 45 or 81 (or whenever).
It’s the mindset shift that’s important. You’re trying to think long-term. You’re trying to get past the boom-and-bust cycles of your previous habits. You know, the cycles of doing things well for a little while, maybe a few weeks, then chucking it, then realizing you’ve gone in the wrong direction (again), and then telling yourself you gotta get back to it, but you just don’t know when–maybe tomorrow? Or next week? Or to heck with it, why even bother now, because your coworkers brought catering in today?
All the while, you could have been consistently . . .
- Eating 1-2 fistfuls of non-starchy vegetables before (or with) every meal.
- Drinking water (or even unsweetened tea) instead of that 300-Calorie Coca-Cola you’re attached to, because you’ve been drinking it since you were eight years old.
- Walking 20 minutes every day in the morning. (Not a diet habit, I know, but walking is good).
- Switching from eating cold cuts, salami, and other garbage, to just eating whole-food protein sources, like steak and chicken.
- Starting to lifting weights just once per week for 30 minutes and doing that cycling class once per week for 45 minutes, too.
Damn, there’s so many things you could do that would be better than just saying, “Screw it, I’ll start tomorrow.”
Be honest with yourself. You know what you could change and what you could do to keep yourself accountable.
Start right now.
Start with something small that you believe you can and will do consistently. Take a 100-day perspective.
Because it’s only what you can do consistently nutritionally that will ever make a difference to your life and health. Remember why you’re doing it, too. If you want to look great (in little-to-no clothing), that’s a perfectly legitimate goal. If you are always sick and tired, and you want to feel better, that’s an even better goal. Just remember why you’re doing this, then do whatever you can consistently to move towards that.
And if someone else criticizes your efforts (or you), or offers their unsolicited advice (again), be polite, but to heck with them. Ignore their noise and nonsense.