So, I read a lot of Harvard Business Review. Probably too much. The other day I was listening to a podcast about habits
https://hbr.org/2015/03/set-habits-youll-actually-keep
I'm guessing you've probably all heard the stuff about how decisions are hard but habits are easy (which is why planning your meals,snacks exercises) makes things easier to be healthier. The author above went on about different types of people, which was vaguely interesting (FYI, I'm apparenlty an Upholder, and good at forming and keeping habits - quiz here https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1950137/Four-Tendencies-January-2015) but what I found most interesting were her thoughts on goals. Bascially, goals, e.g. training for a marathon, actually made it harder to form lifelong habits.
This of course is rather contrary to dietbet, or dieting in general. Who wants to be doing this forever? But I guess that's the point. We want to be slim/healthy/whatever forever, but we don't want to put in the work forever. Unfortunately, being a human is not like building a pyramid - one herculean effort and now something awesome for the rest of time.
Well @#$. So, this begs the question, what are the habits that I can be happy with indefinitely?
The easy ones:
Excercising daily? Love it. I'm in.
No aspartame? that stuff is gross. Really.
Lots of green tea and water? No problem.
Protein every meal? Really not hard at all
Not so easy:
Under calorie goal -I suppose this one will be easier when I'm not so calorie restricted.
1/2 cup grain max - I love bread. Like, fantasize about eating a whole loaf of fresh bread.
No 'junk' - 2 problems for me here. Candy and chocolate. Problem is, even in small doses, it just makes me want more.....
Is being healthy worth bread, candy and chocolate? Hmmmm.....Yeah, it totally is.