Mistake #6: Not making it easy to go right (and hard to go wrong)
Today’s lesson revolves around your environment. Not THE environment, but what you’re surrounded by day to day.
Changing habits of a lifetime is hard enough. And we know that motivation comes and goes.
So one of the biggest mistakes we see if people putting themselves in situations that make it hard to make the choices that are in-line with their goals.
If you love pizza too…
Back in the day Lyz and I would go out for dinner on a weekly basis. Now, Lyz loves pizza. Problem is by her own admission she simply can’t resist it. So anytime we ate out and pizza was on the menu… She ate pizza. And she’d eat it all.
Not a problem. Until your goal is to reduce your body fat% and flatten your Abs.
So we tried and experiment. For the next month or so we choose restaurants that didn’t have pizza on the menu.
Lyz still enjoyed eating out. But she didn’t have to do battle with trying not to have pizza. She didn’t feel deprived. Didn’t miss it.
She managed to eat out and still make progress towards her goals.
Make it hard to go wrong
Numerous studies have shown that if we have to go out of our way to make poor food choices, we’re less likely to make them. Likewise if all we’ve everything we need to eat healthily on hand and ready to go we’re much more likely to make good choices.
If you’re surrounded by crisps in the cupboards at home (and you love crisps) at some point those crisps are going down.
So our recommendation – don’t put yourself in temptations way day in day out. It’ll wear you down and even the most strong willed will give in.
Instead, make it easy to go right
If you’ve pre chopped some veggie sticks to snack on while you’re out and about it’s more likely that’s what your going to snack on those (at least to start with) than go and pick up a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate from the shop.
Now, veggies will never be crisps. And I understand that sometimes only crisps will do. What I’m suggesting is that you arrange your environment (what’s around you at home, at work and in the car) so that you only have crisps when you really want them. Rather than just becasue they’re the closest thing to hand.
A few practical tips (if you find it hard to resist certain things):
Have some chopped veggies in the fridge ready to snack on when you come in starving hungry.
Avoid having things in your cupboards at home ‘for the kids’ that you actually eat more of than they do.
Seek out people who are in good shape, eat healthily, are active and hang out with them more.
Choose to eat at restaurants that serve tasty meals, but don’t serve those dishes you find hard to resist (and overeat every time).
Set up a reoccurring food delivery from a company like Ocado that’ll deliver a load of fresh, healthy foods to your door each week, until you tell them otherwise.
Fitness truth 6: make it easy to go right, and hard to go wrong
What we’ve learned
Changing habits is hard enough as it is, without making draining your willpower on resisting temptation at every turn.
So surrounding yourself with food (and people) that help you move closer to your goals and steering clear (or at least removing from your immediate surroundings) the foods (and people!) that prevent you from making progress towards your goals is one of the steps you can take – right now – to set yourself up for success.
