Nia Peters, September 2022
Well here I am. Back again and working on habit development. I remember about 20 years ago, I just declared that I was only going to drink water. So I started drinking water…ordering it at restaurants….keeping water bottles on me….and now I look up and that’s what I drink….water. My children drink water also, mainly because I realized early on that any other drink led to potty accidents.
As I work to develop healthier habits and make better decisions about my food and fitness, I reflect on how this small declaration resulted in a life-long change. I’m trying to figure out how to recapture that. My hope is that these 30-day challenges will help me in this endeavor: small changes over longer periods of times resulting in life-long habits.
Challenge Description: Do not eat after 8-pm. That’s it. For those who have read my blog, you probably remember this challenge. I did it about a year ago. I failed it. I attributed the failure to:
“…, stresses of work and everyday life. Either I have to mitigate these stresses or find ways to avoid eating despite them.”
It’s a year later and I am actively working on strategies to mitigate the stresses of work and everyday life through self-care and “being present” behaviors. I look forward to working through this challenge again. I am much more confident in being successful.
Motivation: After reading the book Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, I was impressed by the simplicity of some of the ideas. I wasn’t looking for a diet, I was looking for a way of life. I admit I tried practicing the principles in the book and could only last about a week or two. I figured I would work through these principles one at a time. One of the principles is allowing you body to rest and digest all the food of the day especially since in the night your body is at rest and working the least.
This idea was reinvigorated during a podcast episode I heard the episode: Inside The Vault: How to Take Control of Your Health and Create an Abundance of Wealth with T-Walk the Hawk. T-Walk talked about what your body needs to do to heal itself. In the interview the host Ash Cash asked T-Walk how could people get started. He said just start one month at a time, month one eliminate one bad habit and then the next month eliminate another (I’m paraphrasing of course). Overall the message I took away is, all my good efforts will be negated if I don’t start taking away some of my bad habits, one month at a time.
Other motivation is that when I eat late, I usually wake up feel “drunk”. I will monitor my energy levels in the morning as time goes on to see if this method gives me more energy in the morning.
Expectations: My expectation is that I will have more energy in the morning and that if I successfully complete this challenge, it will set me up to overcome one of the greatest challenges I’m working to overcome, late-night stress eating.
Grade: C
Outcome: It’s an improvement from the F I received the last time I tried this challenge. Breaking habits takes time and I’m happy to try these challenges to start the process. Overall I had a few slip ups. Some nights I ate closer to 9 and 10pm, but overall I was able to maintain pre-8pm meals. The nights I was able to adhere to the challenge rules, I felt so much better in the morning and had a lot more energy. During these challenges I won’t be stepping on the scale, but rather monitoring and tracking how I feel and how my body reacts to these new habits.
Next Steps: I’m going to keep going with this one as I continue to add new challenges to my repertoire.