Menu Design
It should come as no surprise to readers here that the way I suggest you alight this murderous merry-go-round is to make the switch to a manner of eating you can and will do forever. It takes work, but a helluva lot less work than switching your dietary allegiance every week or month or year all on the same hollow promise. Not to mention dealing with the same dissatisfaction and anxiety surrounding your health and fitness.
Most of you will know that I am not one for shortcuts. A life hack is usually just a quick way to be shit at something, but today you’re going to get one. One simple rule to help you cut to your dietary chase, and no one else’s.
And one that by contrast to ignoring reality and viewing your dietary intake steadfastly through a single lens - typically calories - you instead look to mealtimes as an opportunity to make everything better. Because health, body shape, and enjoyment of life are not, and never have been, mutually exclusive.
Baby steps: Bringing the abstract of a distant goal into everyday reality.
Behaviour goals are the means to the end, an action, over which you have direct control every day - things you can choose to do. Or not. This step further imposes a degree of honesty likely missing from an ‘aim for the stars’ fantasy. If reality was absent from the goal-setting process, here is where it makes it's boringly necessary appearance.
New horizons: The practice of goal setting
The most inspiring speech from someone else will never outweigh your own whispered argument in defence of your goal.
Comfortably Dumb - part 2: Cold Comfort for Change.
If this degree of discomfort presents an insurmountable barrier, how do you think that type of self-limiting thinking will play out in your everyday life? Your brain is a learning machine, and this becomes a practised and ingrained behaviour - catastrophising anything that doesn’t fall inside your neatly drawn parameters.
Comfortably Dumb - part 1: The misery of eternal comfort
Comfort and convenience cocoon us but this is a reverse chrysalis, transforming us from butterfly to caterpillar. Instead of stepping outside your comfort zone - the mantra of all personal development - it's become far more likely you'll leave it only on a stretcher.
Free Will Hunting: Who are you working for really?
A post in which movies Star Wars, The Matrix, The Usual Suspects, Fight Club and even Shakespeare all get a mention. What could be the common thread there, I wonder...
The Leftfield Nutritional Guide to the Holidays
Divide your holiday into 2 simple categories, numbered as shown in the following example.
- Party time
- The rest of the time.
Enough: portion (and mind) control.
You may want to question whether you really should be adopting the number one strategy of a sumo wrestler at every meal.
The Good Oil
Although the beneficial omega-3 fats EPA and DHA are prevalent in fish, commercial fish may be contaminated with environmental toxins in varying amounts - particularly mercury. So while it’s fine to get a portion of your requirements by adding fish to your diet, this is one of the rare cases where supplementation really makes sense.
Slow. Down: Eating fast is as bad for you as fast food
An armchair shrink would attribute it to having four other siblings. My guess, is it’s more to do with the years I spent working in kitchens - always rushed, standing up, multi-tasking. Whatever the reason, the fact remains, despite it’s simplicity, this of all nutritional principles remains my stumbling block...