The cluster of eating habits most negatively affecting you is:
Busy & Tired Habits
You're super busy doing a million things and while you probably kick ass, you end up feeling wiped out. Maybe you also work or play into the night a little more than you should and don’t rejuvenate yourself enough for all the things you do. Being really busy means you’re distracted a lot and meals often involve whatever is convenient. When food is an afterthought, it results in it not getting the attention it needs to truly nourish you.
Juggling many priorities and tasks also diminishes your willpower, which has probably been missing in action at key moments when you need it most. And when your energy gets low, your body adjusts by increasing your appetite and reducing your sense of fullness, which is likely the root cause of eating more than you’d like sometimes.
Read more to find out what bad habits this causes + simple steps to break them
Watch out! These unconscious habits result in:
Being tired directly causes strong cravings for sugar and fat. It also increases your appetite and turns off your sense of being full. Double whammy!
Low energy makes you think you need some sugar or snacks to keep going. And your distracted mind won't notice how much you're actually eating.
A busy, tired mind is much more impulsive with food and willpower doesn't step in to stop you from making poor eating decisions when it should.
Take Action
Your Personalized Action Steps
Here’s where you should start to get some quick wins and begin disrupting this cluster of habits. If you do the following three simple things a handful of times, you'll start to see distinct results. If you do them over and over in the same context, they'll start to rewire your brain and become automatic. Make them a habit to transform your health!
When you get hungry, add a delay before you decide what to eat. This literally wrestles control away from your lizard-brain (“Must have french fries!”) and gives your rational brain a chance to weigh in and decide what is best for you. Say to yourself “I’ll decide what to eat for dinner after I get off the phone" or "I'll choose a snack after my meeting is finished”. Willpower is part of your rational brain but it can't override your lizard brain if you're distracted or busy (it only works when you're paying attention to your food). If you habitually pick up food to go while you're deep in your to-do list and talking on the phone all at the same time, your food choices will skew towards unhealthy. What's worse, you probably won't notice!
Eat protein frequently throughout the day to stabilize your blood sugar. When you’re tired or always on the run, your body has to work extra hard to maintain your energy levels. It sends signals for you to eat more sugar when energy levels are dipping, but sugar in 'normal' quantities causes a blood sugar spike.. and then a crash. When you're tired, it impairs your system's insulin gauge so it overcorrects, causing much bigger swings than usual and making it very difficult to recover. This results in stronger sugar cravings on and off through the rest of the day. Frequent bites of protein produces even energy over many hours and helps buffer this effect, substantially reducing your cravings.
Map out 5 convenient options that are healthier than what you typically eat on the run lately and start using them. There’s almost certainly several options very close to that convenient fast food place or vending machine that are far superior in quality and not much more in price. If you’ve had pizza a little too often lately, find a great burrito place, or anything else that’s one step better for you. Take a little time now to identify them (and bonus points for gathering the menus together so they’re always on hand). When it’s time to eat, use your willpower for one key task only, to choose one of your pre-vetted alternatives, and know that the little bit of extra time or money you spend is a habit investment that will pay dividends over time.
One Key Skill to Master
Want to 10x your results? Recommended just for you based on your quiz answers:
Resting & Replenishing
Restoring your energy is the single best core skill to focus on to get you through your busy and tired days. Our society pushes us to overwork despite proof that this reduces productivity. Research shows which types of breaks help restore energy the best: the kind that stimulates the relaxing parasympathetic nervous system (the opposite of fight or flight) and switches your brain into diffuse mode thinking (the opposite of focused, doing mode). This means sitting in nature, letting your mind wander and a few minutes of walking or self-massage top the list of quick ways to rejuvenate throughout the day. Also great are micro-naps and talking or laughing with a friend. Checking social media, watching some quick YouTube videos or playing a game on your phone all seem like they’re a nice break, but they’re actually more of an intellectual escape and less of a time your body and mind use to restore themselves.
Deep replenishing also happens when you sleep in more without guilt (or even better for rejuvenation is going to bed earlier). Maybe it means allowing yourself a day completely off, when you turn off the phone and computer and go to the beach or the forest. Or joining a class or group that always makes you feel good (like a yoga class or a dinner club that cooks and eats together). It’s a skill to give yourself these simple pleasures and know that your success is bigger and better when you allow yourself to rest. When you feel wiped out or overwhelmed with tasks, say to yourself “Wow, it’s really hard to keep going like this for so long! I know that taking short breaks to rest is going to massively improve my ability to get _________ done and I’ll be a much better _________ for it. I deserve to feel rested”.
Kendra Markle, MEng
Habits Behavioral Scientist
Before you go crush your new habits, let me introduce myself..
Hey there, I'm Kendra!
I'm a behavioral scientist who's obsessed with how to make good habits and break bad ones. Can you tell?
I've coached hundreds of clients, patients and research subjects through changing their behavior with all the most fascinating tricks and methods that research has shown to actually work. I spent years in the habits research world learning all about what makes people do the fascinating things they do, how to change behavior by design and of course, all the best and worst health habits you need to master to level up your health.
I've seen it all.
I really enjoy teaching habit design techniques to sharp-minded people like yourself who are struggling to change their own behavior and just want to know what works so they can level up, improve their health and live with vitality and longevity.
I love habits because they're fun and easy, if you do them right, and they're straight up super impactful. They have the power to transform your life and your health. If you want to laser focus on easy changes that generate enormous results, you're in the right place.
I'm so excited you're here and I can't wait to help you experience the power of habits and the thrill of success with a new toolbox full of all the best ways to make good habits and break bad ones.
xxoo,
*Kendra
xxoo,
*Kendra
PS This is just the beginning..
I don't just want to tell you about how awesome habits are, give you a few tips and then get back to work. I'm here to help you through the whole process of taking your habits up to the next level.
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