For 2022, I have decided to build some new habits using an identity based approach as identified in Atomic Habits.

In my previous post, I already declared the identities that I would like to focus on in 2022. This post is about building the processes for the second aspect of my identity:

A health conscious person who enjoys cooking healthful meals

I went through the same process with my first identity focus, which is to be an author. I will be following the same Four Laws of Behavioral Change:

1st Law (Cue): Make it obvious

The process of behavior change always starts with awareness. We aren’t able to change habits if we aren’t aware of our cues and existing behaviors.

Habit Tracking is considered a useful way to ensure that we become more aware of what we do. So my first step to becoming a healthy person is to be aware of what I eat, but specifically, I want to be aware of my food triggers.

I spent the first 10 days of January 2022 tracking what I eat. Of course, the act of tracking has a slight effect on behavior but my goal wasn’t to change or judge just yet. My goal was simply to observe. I wrote down what I ate each day, the time, and the immediate triggers surrounding the choice, if there was one I could identify.

I’ve included the tracker that I used to log my habits:

Based on the tracking I have concluded on the following results:

• I eat when I am bored. Situations where I want to eat something include walking around the with the baby (soothing), or times where I am watching/waiting for him to fall asleep. Other times are when I have a few minutes between tasks. If I am going to pick up my daughter from daycare at 5:10PM, but it is currently 4:40PM, I have a need to snack on something.
• I eat when food is accessible to me. During the holidays, we ended up with a lot of junk food in the house. Between stocking stuffers and all the traditional holiday baking of goods, I have found that chocolate, candy, and/cookies are always within reach, regardless of where I was in the house. This was a problem. There was a point where I felt like I was just walking from room to room, eating various things that were laid about in that area.
• Dinner is the big bad. For the full day, I can be eating conscientiously, but once dinner comes around, it’s something quick or take-out more often than I care to admit. The reason for that is unless I have done a splendid job planning ahead, it’s difficult to get dinner on the table in a timely manner with two little children who always demand my attention. The days where I fail are days when meat hasn’t been defrosted, or the prep work of cutting vegetables hasn’t been done by the time of pre-school pickup. (Note: I am currently on Mat leave, so time is a bit more flexible, once I go back to work, I will need better time management strategies around dinner.)

Reduce Exposure: One of the most practical ways to eliminate a bad habit is to reduce exposure to the cue that causes it. Self control is a short term strategy, not a long term one. Based on that, I need to eliminate the above cues. Here are the ways I have thought about doing that:

I will prepare one day ahead of time what we will eat for supper so it eliminates the trigger of just getting take-out at the last minute.

I will not purchase any junk food or bring any of those types of foodstuff into the home. If they are not in the house, then I won’t risk eating them.

I will make snack boxes of veggies and make sure that each day always ends with at least two snack boxes of veggies available for the next day. This way, I won’t be tempted to snack on unhealthy options.

2nd Law (Craving): Make it attractive

The dopamine driven feedback loop: Habits are just that, when dopamine levels rise, so does our motivation to act. In the second law, we have to make the habit attractive by increasing its dopamine production.

I don’t know about you, but NOT buying junkfood, grabbing for a box of veggies, and meal prep are all things that do not provide any source of dopamine, in fact, they suck it right out of my dopamine loving brain.

One of the ways to increase dopamine on these habits is to bundle them up with some good ol’ temptations.

Given that, the above has now turned to:

Meal Prep + A good audiobook: When I do meal-prep for the next day, I get to listen to a fun audiobook.

Don’t buy junk food + an amazon credit: Whenever I am able to stave off the purchase of junk food, I’ll add the same amount of money as an amazon credit so I can buy something else later on the site.

Snack box veggies are staying the same… because I actually love making them and I love eating them!

3rd Law (Response): Make it easy

Law of Least Effort: Humans are wired to take shortcuts. We will gravitate to the method that requires the least amount of work. So by that vein, it is important to create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible.

One of the things I want to try is to dedicate a time to do the meal prep for the next day, but also to cut up my vegetables. I am now dedicating 10pm-11pm the previous night to do all the kitchen work. In terms of making it easy, this is the best time as my toddler will be in bed, and I only have to deal with the infant. We will be sleep training the infant in a few months time, so hopefully, the schedule will pan itself out over the year.

2022 is my experimental year, but it is also a transition year. At the end of the year, I’d like to have tried a bunch of techniques and figured out what works best for our family going forward.

So, making it easy:

Prep food from 10-11pm the night prior.

Don’t buy junk food and don’t bring them into the house.

4th Law (Reward): Make it satisfying

Once again, I need a method to make things satisfying. Making progress is satisfying, but how do we measure progress to ensure that we can still continue when we are down in the weeds?

In building my habits for daily writing, I’ve joined a number of accountability groups and habit tracking methods, but for healthy eating, I want to try something different.

I’ve enlisted the help of my husband and given him a job. His job is to ask me every day how my progress is going and his sole responsibility is to encourage me and tell me I’m doing an awesome job. We’ll see how that plays out!

One of the problems I have had with habit tracking or even accountability partners, is that the momentum fizzes out really quickly. I need something that helps build long term daily habits. By enlisting my partner to help me, I am hoping that he will help create some accountability and also (perhaps) join me in the endeavor. This is definitely one of those things that will be easier with the whole family on board.

That’s all I got for now.

Stay tuned to see how this all plays out.

Summary

• I will prepare meals ahead of time the day before from 10-11pm and cut up veggies and fruits for the next day’s snack (Make it easy)
  • I will listen to a fun audiobook while doing this, and only while doing mealprep can I listen to my books (make it attractive)
• I will give myself the monetary credit of not buying junk food towards something nice later (in the form of amazon credits) (make it attractive)
• I will get my husband to ask me daily about my progress and remind me to do my meal prep work (make it satisfying)