Organize IT

Over the last year my diet has greatly improved. Gone are the days of binge drinking, snacking and takeaways every night (such was the life of a student). While I’ve certainly not become some super fit, salad eating health freak, I am now much more aware about what I eat and it has been one of the more successful lifestyle changes I’ve developed. Below I’ve described how I put my habit building suggestions into practice. Why not share tips from your own experiences?

• Be realistic about your ultimate goal
  I wanted to have an healthier diet. It was realistic, it was practical, it was achievable and most importantly, it was something I wanted to do. I wasn’t setting some overly optimistic goal to be that super healthy, salad eating guy. I just wanted to eat better so that I would ultimately feel better. That doesn’t mean, cutting out the occasional bacon sandwich, but it does mean getting the balance right.
• Keep it simple and easy
  Break your intended habit down as low as you can. In fact, treat it just like you would a next action. What was the easiest step to take when I wanted to start eating more healthily? For me that was eating ONE piece of fruit per day. One little apple, banana or pear that doesn’t need any preparing. How can you not do that on a regular basis?
• Deal with the obstacles
  You WILL face problems and obstacles with any habit you try and develop. Accept that fact now so that when you fall flat on your face you won’t automatically think, “oh my god I can’t do this!”. One difficulty I had with healthy eating was that it was usually so much harder and time consuming to make meals and snacks. Fruit is simple. No cooking, no preparing, sometimes you might have to peel but that’s it. Don’t say you don’t like fruit, there’s so many types out there, you will like something.
• Don’t track everything
  So there I was with a basket full of bananas. It was tempting to create snazzy charts or trackers, and come up with some clever motivational tool to follow my progress but I didn’t do it. That approach emphasizes every little slip-up (bananas, slip-ups… get it?) and puts the whole process of habit building on a pedestal. As soon as I’d get up in the morning, I’d have a banana as part of my breakfast. Goal completed for the day… next!

So, that was how I got onto the first rung of my bigger goal of eating healthy. I increased my efforts gradually over time as and when I was actually ready. I started including other fruits in my diet, buying prepared salads and vegetables at the market (remember what I wrote about dealing with obstacles?), replacing sugary snacks with healthy alternatives and so on. Don’t think that just because you might be taking baby steps, you aren’t moving forward enough. Eventually, it all just became a natural way of thinking and living for me, and that state of mind is really what we should all be aiming for.

Related reading

• Best of Organize IT: April 2008
• Organize IT Recap: Myths About Work, Albert Einsten
• First Steps To A Healthy Lifestyle
• Habit Building: Laying The Foundations
• Develop Habits With Repetition