Over the past several years, I've tried various approaches to losing weight. One worked really well but was difficult to keep up once we came back to the states. That was what I termed 'part-time vegan or part-time vegetarian' after a while. I lost 25 pounds I think and really liked how I looked. I had a 5 pack even for a while (even in my best shape I've never had a 6 pack for some reason, one ab refuses to split lol). It wasn't a strong 5 pack since I didn't do any ab exercises but the definition was there nevertheless.
Then we came back home and had 3 months of travel on the road where we simply ate what supporters offered and the weight came back slowly but surely. After those initial 3 months of 2019 I just stayed lazy in my eating and especially started drinking Mountain Dew again, which I've lovingly referred to as my 'sauce.' I've never been much of an alcohol drinker minus the occasional sweet alcoholic drink but man, soda is my preferred drink and arguably way worse than alcohol in terms of what it does to your body. A beer a day versus a soda a day, I'm pretty sure soda would be worse for your health in the long run.
As recently as February, I tried a 30 day cleanse which was super expensive (almost doubled our grocery budget) and proved to be too strict for me to follow. I only lasted 4 days which was quite discouraging. Other people do great on 30 day cleanses and lose weight fast. However, many of them if you follow them long-term gain the weight back and some even put on more weight. This one had a follow-up diet but again, one that seemed super strict and not sustainable for most people.
After that failure, I just got down on myself and felt like a failure myself rather than just that I simply failed at something. This happens a lot in my life, where I view myself as the failure rather than simply failing at something. They can be quite difficult to separate in one's mind, at least in my case.
So, I'm going to be trying something way different than what I've tried before. In short, it's a strategy called 'mini-habits' and I've read a book by the same title as well as one titled Mini Habits for Weight Loss. The basic idea is anything with a number of days in the title is probably not going to do you much good long term. 7 day cleanse, 14 day detox, 21 day weight loss plan, 30 day cleanse with a promise of sustainable change afterward.
The author's approach is much easier and makes much more sense to me. He talks about how we need a strategy that is something we can do every day for the rest of our lives. Nothing is off limits, since we often rebel against arbitrary rules. 'Don't think of a pink elephant' and you're naturally going to think of a pink elephant. Similarly, "Don't eat any added sugars" and you're naturally going to crave natural sugars more unless you're a willpower superhero.
Rather, you should build mini-habits one or two at a time until they make significant changes in your approach to diet and exercise. I've tried this before but again came at it wrong. Some of my mini-habits in the past included cut added sugars, cut out soda, etc. I missed the point the first time around. Now my first mini-habit is try and drink 100 ounces of water a day. Some experts say 8 cups of 8 ounces, others say half your body weight in ounces. I chose 100 ounces not because it's half my body weight (that would be 115 ounces) but simply because I like round numbers. For me it comes to roughly 5 or 6 of the glasses we have at home or about the equivalent of 6 regular sized water bottles you see everywhere.
This seems achievable to me, but I'm also thirstier than the average Joe historically so it might be quite a bit less for most people. 4 of the past 6 days I've had no soda as a result of this strategy. I'm not focusing on cutting out soda but rather on increasing my water intake, which makes a huge difference for me.
That's all I'm going to focus on for a few weeks until I get some winning streaks under my belt. Along with mini habits is the idea of small wins and building on those. So, basically the opposite of most diets or cleanses on the market these days which call for radical changes in your diet and exercise routine all at once and where you see dramatic results quickly but are usually difficult for average people to maintain long term. 19 out of 20 people who get on a diet fail eventually, how depressing is that?!
As for other mini-habits, we'll wait and see. Some I'm considering are brushing my teeth after dinner or at 8pm when I put my son to bed. I tend to eat worse later in the evening after dinner. Throughout the day I eat decently but after 8pm all willpower is shot. Nothing tastes good to me after brushing my teeth so that would be a good deterrent if I were to guess.
Another one I've considered is the classic 5 fruits and vegetables a day. I usually get 2 in first thing in the morning in my smoothie (a banana and some spinach along with other things that make it palatable) but the rest of the day can slip away before I've realized I haven't eaten enough fruit and vegetable for the day. That should help with filling me up on fiber where I'm not left feeling hungry for more simple carbs.
These mini-habits could be seen as rules as other things are, but they're not as extreme or restrictive. Again, no food is off limits because once you make something off limits it's immediately tempting and I'm the type of person that falls too easily into temptation. You're simply building mini-habits that will in time decrease your desire for all the junk food and sugary drinks.
We'll have to wait and see how it goes. This is going to be a much longer process than most diets but I think the results will be worth it in the long run.
May of 2018
Late April 2020
What a difference 2 years can make!
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