By training your environment, your habits follow.
Changing how you think
is hard. Changing your environment isn’t. By training your environment, your
habits follow. Here are strategies from the experts. They’ll help you
improve your lifestyle and transform your body, no willpower required.
Research has shown that most of our decisions are automatic,
based on patterns and brain shortcuts.
Instead of slowly deciding, step by
step, our brains quickly process a handful of grab-n-go inputs and pick from a
recognizable menu of options. We ignore stuff we don’t like or want to see, and
we’re easily compelled by shiny distractions.
Sound familiar?
Basically, our brains like the
thinking version of fast food — go to the place that’s most appealing, speed
through the drive-thru, pick the favorite combo from the menu, slam the
decision, move on to the next choice.
So we don’t actually think much when we think we’re thinking.
We follow patterns, physical cues that
bubble beneath our awareness, and what’s around us. That means our environment powerfully
shapes our decisions, more than we realize.
For instance:
· Most of us will eat
all that we’re served — no matter how big the portion is. If
we’re served a small bag of popcorn, we’ll eat that. If we are served a bucket
of popcorn, we’ll eat that. Presumably if we are served a Volkswagen full of
popcorn, we’d do our best to finish that off too.
·
We often eat more
when we’re multitasking. Ever started snacking while watching TV
or playing video games, then found yourself staring at an empty bag or bowl,
wondering where it all went? Your attention was elsewhere, so your eating
machine just went on autopilot.
·
If we consistently
eat bigger portions, bigger portions will seem “normal” — and
we’ll regularly overeat. Our great-grandparents (who drank 7-ounce soft drinks
and ate 4-ounce hamburgers in the 1950s) would be astounded at the 50-ounce
Double Gulps and 12-ounce Monster Thickburgers commonplace in the US. We’ve
lost our perspective on how much we should really be eating.
Our environment: The foundation of habit.
It’s the opposite of what you might expect.
All the “expert stuff” — adjusting
macronutrients, advanced nutrition strategies, etc. — is a very small part. Think of a pyramid it would be on top. You might
not ever even get to it. It’s a “nice to have”.
The base of the pyramid — your
foundation — is what surrounds you.
·
Your social environment and culture.
·
Your kitchen.
·
Your grocery habits.
·
Your day-to-day routine.
·
Your people.
In general, when it comes to
engineering healthy eating, here’s the golden rule:
1.
Make healthy behaviors convenient.
2.
Make other behaviors less convenient.
Some examples:
·
Use smaller plates
and cups. Most people eat everything on their plate. Use a smaller
plate and you end up eating less naturally.
·
If there’s a food
you don’t want to eat, avoid keeping it around. Why risk
the temptation? Make it less convenient to eat.
·
Have fresh, healthy
whole foods prepared and in plain sight. Veggies and
fruits on your kitchen table or counter; that’s a good start.
·
Park your car
farther away from where you’re going so you have to walk. Those
extra steps add up.
·
Keep your bike ready
to go by the front door. Instead of driving, consider biking.
·
Get a dog that needs
walking. Even better, one that will chew up your couch as
punishment if you don’t take it for a daily spin around the block.
People often try to “work hard” to
change their habits because changing how you think and feel is hard.
But why should everything be so hard,
all the time?
There’s no need to white-knuckle the willpower.
You can actually make change much easier by
simply changing your environment.
Harness your brain’s autopilot for the
side of good!
By just changing
what’s around you in small ways, you can make changes without even
thinking about them.