The health, fitness, and wellness world is anything but straightforward — wildly shifting from one hot trend to the next, companies and businesses benefit from endlessly complicating messages about health. The cacophony of information on how to be healthier, fitter, leaner, makes even the most grounded person’s head spin and ears ring.
Much of the noise in the world of nutrition relates to relatively superficial changes – Coconut oil! Chia! Quinoa! Kombucha! These foods are often promoted as life changing panacea’s. And while yes, substituting coconut oil for vegetable oil or quinoa for white bread are positive switches, one change’s overall impact on health is relatively small. What drastically influences health are foundational habits which can be tweaked and improved upon over time. Few people discuss habits because they’re not sexy, and, because they take true effort to modify, they’re hard to commodify.
Foundational habits are the base-line habits that drive much of our daily activity. Keep in mind, habits are not intentions. We might intend to eat nutritiously, but when we inspect our consumption habits (what we actually do), a different picture may emerge. Foundational habits will differ depending on your goals, expectations, and preferences, so what is appropriate for one person, is not necessarily appropriate for another. For reference here are some of my current health habits:
- Eat a whole-foods, plant-based diet full of vegetables, quality fats, and protein, and low in added sugar.
- Intentional movement everyday and fitness improving exercise 4-5 days per week.
- Actively manage stress with outdoor activity, playing with my daughter, cooking, listening to music, or practicing yoga.
- Get sufficient sleep to feel well-rested, 8 hours is ideal for me.
- Drink at least 64oz of water daily, with low-moderate caffeine and alcohol intake.
- Limit non-work screen-time as much as possible.
What are some of your health habits? Are those habits in line with the direction you want your life to go? If not, there is little chance of achieving your outcome. Resetting foundational habits, especially if they are appreciably different than our current reality, can be incredibly challenging, but it’s also extremely rewarding. To begin the process of change, try to determine the root reasons or causes for the current habit you would like to modify. Then establish a new outcome with incremental steps to get you some momentum toward that outcome. Some habits will be relatively straightforward to adjust. However, if you’re honest, some habits may uncover difficult truths about your life. It is at these uncomfortable points that we often make excuses and try to justify our actions. Try to avoid the justification pitfall while also avoiding assigning blame or negativity. You have to assess your reality with as little bias as possible in order to be able to make the best decision on how to move forward. But keep in mind, we do not make change from a place of shame, so be kind and curious with yourself.
Even nutrition and wellness professionals can find themselves living lives that are less than healthful. Seth Godin recently wrote a post that ended with the line, “the best way to end up mediocre is via tiny compromises”. Even though I knew better, I made a series of compromises that eventually resulted in mediocre health and a life that I was deeply dissatisfied with. For reference this is what my foundational habits looked like 2 years ago:
- Eat a plant based diet (this was a decent start, but I still ate a lot of processed convenience foods & sugar).
- Inadequate exercise (1-2x per week).
- Inadequate sleep (averaging 6 frequently interrupted hours).
- Excessive caffeine and alcohol intake (I was never addicted to either, but I used them as coping strategies for a lack of sleep and excessive stress, respectively).
- Excessive screen-time, both at work and at home.
Changing these habits required substantial effort and persistence, in fact, I realized that my less than healthy habits were a symptom of much larger problems related to my relationships, priorities, and work not aligning with my values. Those problems were fundamental incongruities in my life that I had to address in order to put my life back on a track I am now happy and proud of. But this full reset of my habits took over a year and a half, because so much of my life had to change. I hope that most of you do not have such drastic shifts to make, but if you do, know that they’re 100% possible with sufficient effort and determination.
Be brave, honest, and resolute in reseting your habits, the result will be a healthier and more satisfying life.