Strategies for compliance

We have a lot of posts about nutrition, but so far we haven't shared ideas about staying the course when it's difficult. Since Thrive is a behavior-based course focusing on building habits, I think it would be beneficial to share our personal strategies for maintaining compliance.

For instance, my former step daughter is spending spring break with me and I want her to enjoy her vacation with me, so that means I'm around a lot of unhealthy foods. She asked to learn how to make homemade chocolate chip cookies...and how am going to resist that?!  I know technically cookies aren't outlawed on Thrive yet (for me), but it's common sense to save them for Sunday.

Anyway--I'd love to hear examples of what makes it hard for you, and what strategies you implement to stay the course. 

Great Idea Julia.  Not really related to your example, but being confident in eating til I'm full has helped me avoid a lot of poor food choices.  For me, I don't keep stuff around that isn't exactly nutritionally useful, otherwise the temptation gets me.  One thing this course has helped me with is improving my relationship with food- being more in control.  I am not at this stage yet, but towards the end of the course, Jeff has set us up to have a ready rotation of high quality meals- you can cook- to choose from.  I think having one's own, well thought out, repertoire of meals that are on point, could save a lot of problems.  I'm keen to hear other's tactics.

I have -10 will power so I try to remind myself of how I feel after eating not so great food. That immediate reward has now become more regret and a reminder of how bad food makes me feel, slow and sluggish. 

I like how Thrive tasks are designed to add positively rather than negatively restrict things. I eat well but sometimes I am better than others but I get the job done move on and let business take care of itself. This is what I repeat to myself. 

I also tell myself to enjoy that part of Thrive now because it may get tougher in part 2!

I've been staying focused on changing behavior as the course outlines.  Repetition has been key.  Before Thrive I had been eating the nutrition prescribed by the program just not the right timing or proportions.  I keep repeating daily and weekly in preparation and shopping and make adjustments along the way.  Feels like that will be some time before Level Two is released for folks to get Level One habits instilled.  Similar to the patience for the release of Stretch and Movement series. 

I have found the cravings for "sub-optimal" food have been easing off, because--as others have noted--you get used to feeling healthy, and anything that messes with that, by contrast, makes you feel crap. Now the only dodgy food that still tempts me from time to time is pizza, and even that is weakening as I've noticed mild inflammation symptoms after eating it on Sunday. (I still eat it though. It's pizza, for god's sake.) One simple trick if I do notice cravings (as distinct from genuine hunger) is to brush my teeth. Something about that clean mint feeling in my mouth--I'm reluctant to mess it up. 

The single most important tool I've found for compliance is advance food prep. I find if I have quality food readily available I will eat it in preference to any junk food. The hardest for me is the starches, since they tend to take forever to cook. As of today in my fridge, I now have a container with a spaghetti squash and one with the remains of 3 large baked sweet potatoes so when I'm making lunch I can just grab and go.

The genius of Sundays is that they train us that we feel worse when we eat crap.  Over time that will be quite reinforcing.  Preparation is the key, as David mentioned.  If you let yourself get in a situation where you don't have good options, you will be doomed to failure.  keep healthy snacks available, prepare for meals at least the day before, and don't give yourself the hint of a suggestion that you might eat what you aren't supposed to.  If you take a wait and see approach, your will power will let you down in a weak moment.  If you say "no cookies today", instead of "cookies only on special days", you will be much more successful.  The mind is a sneaky little devil.   Establish rules at the beginning of the day, and under no circumstances do you break your promise to yourself.  

All really good post. Lets keep this one going. 

Dr Jekyll: If ISIS captured your family and put them in a Syrian prison and told you the only way to get them out was to complete Thrive - do you think you would be tempted by cookies or forget to check boxes? How long would it take you to complete the course? 9.5 weeks like Colm or would you leave your family in prison for longer? 

Mr. Hyde: Staying to course in nutrition is one of the hardest things to do in the world. You have instincts that kick in and try to over ride your conscious. Telling you that you that you "need" this pizza to stay alive. Its really a tough thing to fight your natural instincts. Hearing how each of you deals with the tough times is great for me and hopefully everyone here. 

I'd get them out of that damn Syrian prison as fast as possible! But then, when I got them home, we'd eat pizza. 

Your already out!

I'm kind of a freak regarding compliance and if I decide something is what needs to be done it will be done, plus my diet was pretty close to Thrive before, so in fairness not a lot of "true" efforts either. But I do have one thing that helped me to share here.

My biggest struggle by far has been water intake (not going into details of goals). Before Thrive, I would drink some water, but not nearly enough and not consistently.

I've never missed a water goal, but I struggled to fulfil it throughout the day effortlessly. Sometimes I would just drink half a liter at 9pm because I thought I was behind by potentially that much. And since I have a hectic day most days in difefrent places, I spent far too much time thinking about how much I drank and where to see if I reached my goal.

My breakthrough was just buying a 500ml water bottle, having it with me at all times and making sure to drink only from it and empty it at least X times a day. Obvious, I know, but I would have sweared before that this would be a hindrance more than a great help, and I didn't do it until far later.

Personal confession: I used to think most persons carrying around a water bottle with them at all times looked silly...

I was seriously wrong. If drinking enough water is a challenge for you, don't make my mistake and buy a bottle. I found 500ml was great for me as it's small enough to have it everywhere with me, even in formal meetings, etc.

The times I'm at my weakest are when life is dumping on me and I feel like I "deserve" a break, or when I'm in social settings.

When life gets very overwhelming, I inevitably want to order in dinner and/or eat some sweets and generally buck the rules I ordinarily adhere to.

In these times I try to tell myself what I deserve is a sleek and healthy body. Sometimes (rarely) that's enough.

If I need to go to plan B, I try to find another way to indulge myself. Have a light session at the gym so I can come home and watch crappy TV. Or maybe I'll buy an expensive cheese I don't normally treat myself to. Those strategies usually give me some emotional release without going full on junk food.

the other scenario I struggle with is Intimate social settings. A big party? No problem. But I struggle with getting together for wine night with my girlfriends when my bestie made a stellar homemade dessert, or someone is visiting and I don't want to lessen their experience by skipping out, etc.

What helps me in this situation is to just tell the person why I can't. If I'm upfront that I'm on a diet challenge or in a weight loss competition and I can't partake, it 1) puts it out there, so if I succumb I look weak and 2) keeps people from being sad/offended I'm not joining in the social rituals.

Guys, even the best home run hitters only hit homers 5-10% of the time. The game of nutrition is similar to the game of baseball. Its all about base hits. A majority of you are saying I basically did Thrive before the course but the course has changed these 3-4 things. Water consumption, breakfast composition, sleep, food prep, etc. These are all base hits. And, thats how you win the game is base hit after base hit. Pay attention to details and follow the steps to a "T" and keep getting on base. You will eventually win the game. 

I'm not sure I'm gunna give myself a break on Sundays at all. Once I get away from something not good for me it still wants to whisper in my ear at times. If I give in a little then the dam breaks on me and I'm screwed. I do better if I dont' let myself get "hangry"-(so hungry I'm angry) so Ive been snacking on nuts at times during the day when necessary. I go without eating too long I kinda lose my mind and become useless. I also had to drop the hammer on what comes into the house crap wise. Biggest thing working against me is convenience, If its there then I'm likely to eat it. I guess will see if I have the fortitude to stay away from it all. Plus I want to lead by example in my home, but I'm not perfect for sure.  

 Got some not so great blood work recently and it gave me a bit of a wake up call given how I felt that I wasn't that unhealthy.  If you haven't done it pre-course I think that should be added as a consideration to be reviewed after to see empirically the benefit. Wasn't till then that I realized how badly off track I've been over the last while in some way, mostly quick fixes and being lazy to cook. So this course is timely for me and I've been given a chance to change. So when my body was say's to me "Hey bud, do you mind losing the use of your left side on a saturday a year from now, oh and while your add it Type 2 diabetes wants to chat with ya"  kinda scared me into some better living. Guess thats my motivation and strategy, don't die before getting through the course.  

I could care less if someone doesn't want to respect my eating choices when for the better. No thank you is an acceptable answer that doesn't require any explanation. They still want to make a big deal about, I have choicer words for them and go find better company.  People can sometimes be like crabs in a bucket, they don't like seeing others get ahead so when they see one escaping over the edge to get out they reach up and pull it back in. Moral of the story is... avoid the crabs. 

On Friday, March 18, 2016 at 10:16 PM, Jeff Serven said:

Guys, even the best home run hitters only hit homers 5-10% of the time. The game of nutrition is similar to the game of baseball. Its all about base hits. A majority of you are saying I basically did Thrive before the course but the course has changed these 3-4 things. Water consumption, breakfast composition, sleep, food prep, etc. These are all base hits. And, thats how you win the game is base hit after base hit. Pay attention to details and follow the steps to a "T" and keep getting on base. You will eventually win the game. 

That sums it all up nicely. Thanks much!

Don't think I'm weird for not posting much; Coach probably thinks I'm a freak at seminars too, because I have my mouth shut taking everything in learning a lot here a few weeks behind everyone else

haha so you knew I was going to comment on the lack of posting. Funny. 

9 hours ago, Jeff Serven said:

haha so you knew I was going to comment on the lack of posting. Funny. 

I figured it was coming, but the benefit of travelling over New Years and being late to the party was seeing my questions answered in other people's posts

I'm only up to dinner veggie, but I think the behavioural approach is definitely working - been away from GB for about a month/6 weeks (due to moving house and a ton of other changes), and over that time I found that I'd got into the water, fat, veggie habit enough that they just started occuring to me without to much additional effort.  They're all things I was doing to a degree before I started, but focusing on them for a period has definitely helped make them more solid, and when I get interrupted I find they stick a little better now.  Looking forward to getting back into the course.