TW: body image.
I have an okay relationship with my body.
I’ve always been a little insecure about my stomach. Not terribly — I’m still very full of myself and think I’m very attractive. But, there’s always a feeling that I could lose a few.
In the past, I’ve always gone for the more chaotic, unsustainable solution to my problems. My college friends will remember the time during freshman year when I tried an “alternate sleep schedule” which consisted of me sleeping an hour and a half every six hours, for a total of 4.5 hours per day. All that extra time, I thought, could be used to do so much more with my life. This, of course, only lasted about two days and ended with me crashing during an econ 101 lecture, fighting to stay awake amid mild sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations.
When it comes to wanting to lose weight, I’ve gone for similarly chaotic techniques. For example, after a particularly large meal, thinking “if I just stop eating, I’ll be in a calory deficit, and I’ll just lose weight,” then not eating for 3 hours before devouring a whole family-sized box of Annie’s mac and cheese.
Needless to say, these types of techniques are not sustainable and will not have a positive, long-term effect on me, my self-image, or my wellbeing.
But, I do want to lose weight. I just need to do it in a sustainable way.
The difference is that now I have a newsletter that I use to build tenable longstanding habits! Through this newsletter, I’ve positively changed aspects of my life and myself that I thought were set in stone. I read every day, work out multiple times a week, and have drastically reduced my phone screen time. Maybe I can do the same with my weight?
A few weeks back I finished reading Darren Hardy’s “The Compound Effect”. He discusses how he’s been able to set strong, long-lasting positive habits in his life (he started them in college and is now 50, so I’m talking long-lasting). One key thing he swears by is the power of tracking. Tracking your progress, he says, is the only way to know if and how much you are really progressing. That’s part of the reason I have this newsletter, to make sure I keep real data on my progress.
But Hardy goes even further and discusses the idea that the simple act of tracking and recording data often ends up making a difference in itself. Basically, what he has seen in his life is that when he starts tracking an aspect of his life, suddenly it gets better — a sort of “quantum measurement problem” for habits, where measuring changes the very thing you are measuring. Essentially, as you track and become aware of a certain aspect of your life, you automatically become inclined to improve it.
So how can we apply this to my weight? How and what do I track? How do you “measure” what goes into your body with numbers? The obvious answer is counting calories. But I hate this idea, and for multiple reasons:
I’ve tried it in the past with apps like MyFitness pal, and it never really worked in practice. It’s great if you’re eating pre-packaged food that has calories pre-calculated on the box, or if you are making simple meals with few ingredients. But that’s not who I am. I like the cook, and most meals involve many different ingredients. The hassle of having to count each ingredient’s calories (or even macros) would make this impossible to turn into a habit.
It doesn’t resolve my chaotic nature. If I am told how many calories I should eat in a day, I will calculate how many cookies that equates to and just eat that many cookies. Not very healthy — and not sustainable! Eventually, I will get hungry because I am not getting enough good food in my body and then give up on tracking calories altogether.
It is not a long-term solution. I want to find a solution that I can uphold, theoretically, for the rest of my life. I don’t want to limit what I eat in the shorter term just so that I can gradually put that weight back on when I stop the diet. I want to change my relationship with food for the long run so that I don’t feel restricted and am taking good care of my body.
All in all, counting calories, if I am even able to uphold it for long enough, will make me lose weight, but that does not mean it will do this in a healthy way. After all, my primary goal should be to be healthy. If I get to a point where eating healthily and treating my body right is a given, then counting calories could be an effective way to reduce my body weight. But health has to come first.
Now, this just moves the goal post one step further. The new question is, how do I track whether or not I am eating and being healthy?
Lucky for me, I have a solution: an “Am I Healthy?” chart.
A few weeks ago I came across this newsletter that was basically the answer to all my problems (sorry to all my non-French readers, it isn’t in English). Funny enough, the guy who writes that newsletter was my boss during my government-mandated 9th-grade internship (and is also named Max). In his post, he talks about how he distilled the question of health down to ten variables, and that’s what he tracks. And he does it in a handy-dandy excel spreadsheet.
So here’s the solution: a simple excel sheet where I track ten variables every day. And those variables are binary, I either did it (1) or I didn’t (0). It’s that simple. No counting, no measuring, just 1’s and 0’s. I love how simple it is. It takes 5-10 minutes to track and record the 1’s and 0’s each day, and over time I can see where I am progressing, what variables come easy, and which are more difficult.
Now, I stole some of the variables from the article above, but not all of them. Some I adapted to my own ideas of health. The final list is this:
Weigh myself first thing in the morning — to keep track of my weight and see my progression over time. First thing in the morning for consistency.
Sleep 8 hours — Sleeping plays a huge part in our overall health, but also in our performance each day. If I want to do my best during the day by exercising and working productively, a good night's sleep is key.
Drink 2L of water — Also very important for general health.
No eggs/milk/cheese — There are countless studies that show a correlation between the consumption of eggs/dairy and many diseases (particularly heart conditions, but I’m no expert, do your own research). This one will definitely be hard but even simply lowering my consumption of these will be positive.
No meat/fish — Same as above. Should be somewhat easier as I can often just avoid eating meat if I am sharing a meal with friends/family.
No added sugar — This is a big one, and something I am borrowing from my friend Francesco. No added sugar means no desert, no sweetened sauces, and no sweetened drinks. It’s probably, in my opinion, the easiest way to reduce overall calory consumption, as the added sugar rarely adds to the feeling of being full while being packed with calories.
No alcohol — Similar to the above. It is an indulgence that is fun with friends, but the occasional beer I would have at the end of the workday is not doing me any good. Reducing my overall alcohol consumption will be a big plus.
No seconds or snacks — Restricting myself to only consume food during meals and specifically in the first course of a meal means I will be more mindful of what I am actually consuming and the quantity. If I get hungry later in the afternoon, rather than grabbing a snack, I’ll instead think of either having dinner earlier or increasing how much I will make. I also tend to take seconds before I check with my body to see if I actually am hungry for it, so this will stop that bad habit.
5 fruits & veggies — This makes sure that when I take out meat and animal products from my diet, I am not turning entirely to carbs (pasta, rice, potatoes…) but instead to fruits and veggies.
Work out — I am already doing this through my goals, but it does have something to do with my health, and keeping track of it in this excel sheet makes sense.
The key thing here is that these are not ten goals that I am setting for myself. I am not saying that, from this day forward, I will be consuming no eggs, dairy, or other animal products. That is an ideal to strive for, but in the first stage, all I am doing is recording. Some of these will be easy. I drink lots of water already, for example, and have been working out pretty consistently. Others will be much harder. It’s just about knowing.
I started this spreadsheet on June 14th, and it will be interesting to see the data after a month and see if any of the variables should be turned into goals (For example “no meat for the month of august” or something along those lines). Until then, I’m just recording the values. You can see the data here: “Am I Healthy?” Spreadsheet. I’ll continue updating the data each day. Feel free to copy the format it if you find it cool.
So yeah, that’s the plan. I already feel way more mindful of what I am consuming, especially with eating enough fruits and veggies and not too much meat. It’s also very satisfying to check off all the stuff where I did well each day, and knowing where I have room to improve. I also feel like my mindset on my weight has changed very drastically. I used to see the number increase on the scale and get down on myself, but now knowing that I am working on it each day means that a slight uptick doesn’t matter.
As always, I’ll just keep at it, and the results will come. That’s the secret sauce.
🗓 Daily Routine
The weekly schedule I set for myself last week worked brilliantly! The morning routine of waking up, reading, then working out was easy to follow, and meant I already got two goals out of the way for the day by the time I started work. Amazing!
What I want to work on for this week is my “lunch” routine. Last week, I scheduled my meditation for lunch time, but ended up missing it twice when I my lunch plans were a little jumbled (like going out for lunch on Friday). I need to find a better cue for that habit. What I will do this week is set a timer everyday at 10, and meditate as soon as the timer goes off.
Another thing to improve is TikTok. Last week I said I’d try and catch up my lateness with TikToks during my “free time”, but that never ended up happening, and then I travelled yesterday and my Saturday TikTok-ing when out the window. So once again, we have ourselves a TikTok-less week. Because I’ve made posting on TikTok easier (through shorter videos), I think I can work on them daily after work. I’ll schedule in a thirty minute block after work to post one TikTok.
I’m also adding in a nightime routine. It’ll get me ready for bed, both physically and mentally.
My updated routine:
💪 Goals
Year progress: 50%
Publish one newsletter a week.
Read 30 minutes a day. (182 hours total)
Work out once a week.
Post 52 videos on TikTok.
Consume less, create more.
Meditate daily.
Paint two paintings.
Do a Leetcode coding problem each week.
Get a tattoo.
Make music.
Pretty easy week. Reading and working out was easy. I meditated five times. I did a leetcode problem everyday after work. Still need to paint and get a tattoo, and eventually make music.
📥 Input
Newsletters posted: 21 📈 +1
Hours read this year: 93.5 📈 +4.5 (1 ahead of schedule)
Workouts this year: 48 📈 +6 (22 ahead of target)
TikToks posted in 2021: 9 (@maxzechef) + 4 (@maxlascombe) = 13 +0 (13 behind target)
Screen time this week: 18h23
Number of times meditated: 5 📈 +5 (2 behind schedule)
📤 Output
Newsletter subscribers: 43 (thank you ❤️)
Books read this year: 14
Number of abs: 1
TikTok followers: 125 (@maxzechef) + 22 (@maxlascombe)
📚 Reading
Currently reading:
“The Hobbit”, J. R. R. Tolkien.
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”, Taylor Jenkins Reid.
Please leave any book recommendations in the comments and add me on Goodreads.
Thanks to all my subscribers and readers new and old. Really means a lot that you read this week after week. If you’re not reading from your email inbox, please consider subscribing below:
See you next Sunday ❤️
In the meantime, you can read last week’s newsletter: