Make healthy the default
Humans tend to follow the path of least effort. Here’s how to make that work for you.
By making healthy behavior the default, you stack the odds in your favor, as you are less likely to opt out of something if it’s the norm, even if you don’t want to do it.
Austrian example
In Germany, only 34% of citizens are organ donors. In neighboring Austria that number is 99% because “yes” is automatically checked for organ donation as the default answer on voter registration forms. It takes almost no effort to check the “no” box, but because it’s any effort at all, people don’t.
Here are 10 simple ways you can make healthy the default in your day to day 👇
Nutrition 🍽️
1. Keep a list of grocery staples on your phone. Never add anything that isn’t nutritious to that list. When you shop, use that list and stick to it. Keeping the less healthy or easy to over consume foods out of your home makes eating fruit instead of sweets and biscuits the default. If you decide you want sweets/cake/crisps etc. then make a concerted effort to have to source them.
2. Automate grocery delivery and food prep in your week. Set the same groceries to be delivered/bought at the same time in your calendar and set aside the same couple of hours to prep each week. If you ned up not needing all that time or need to move it then great, but do your level best to set groceries and food prep as default actions on your schedule.
3. Eat from a plate, at a table, with a knife and fork. Limit hand held food. You’ll be more likely to slow down, pay attention to what you’re doing, and feel satisfied when you’ve finished. If you’re eating, then it’s at the table.
4. Eat the same meal each day when you find yourself to be the most stressed/hungry/rushed. Many builtXyou guys standardize breakfast because that’s when they’re the most pressured. This makes prep efficient and lowers decision fatigue. When we are stressed we revert and rely on our habits more, so make sure yours are effective ones.
Training 💪
5. Workout at the same time and on the same days each week. This becomes a default part of your routine, helps you protect it from other demands, and helps you keep a fitness rhythm by training your body to expect and desire a workout at that time/date.
6. Follow a training plan. Don’t leave your training efforts up to chance and/or how you feel on that day. Having a structured plan to follow allows you to dedicate your focus to effort and performance rather than creating a workout routine on the fly when you’re pressed for time and low on energy.
7. Keep your gym bag packed and by the door. Make it part of your nightly routine to pack your bag for the next day. I personally grab my gym kit as part of my nightly routine when i’m setting up the coffee maker and filling the dishwasher.
Pro tip; Keep extras in the car in case you forget.
Lifestyle 🛌
8. Set a sleep and wake alarm and routine. Sleep is the linchpin and without you’ll struggle at work, in the gym, and everywhere else. Make going to bed at within the same 30 minute window each night and waking up within the same 30 minute window each morning a fixed behavior and you’ll notice your body will come to expect sleep and wake at these times.
9. Use app limits and/or delete apps. This is an obvious one. Make the things you use obvious and the things that suck your time and focus hidden. Next time you’re on the couch, take 2 mins to run through your “screen time” data on your phone and set up limits for the apps that cost you the most.
10. Block your calendar permanently by scheduling your most important tasks on repeat. I should have put this one at the top really. If you live your life by your work calendar, then that is exactly where you should be keeping the things that enrich your life too. It’s got all 168 hours of the week plotted out for you. Use it to prioritize and protect your most important tasks. Do it now. Don’t even read the rest of this article….OK BYE.
With all of these behaviors, it pays to make them the most obvious, simple, and realistic version of that action as possible. The more hidden, complicated, difficult a behavior is, the less likely we are to perform it, regardless of its impact.
One of the first things we do with our guys at builtXyou is help them identify the most obvious, simple, and realistic behaviors they can perform to make healthy the default in their lives.
If you’re a busy guy who wants a specific, clear, and guaranteed plan to achieve the results you want so that you can live a life you love in a body you are confident in and proud of, then we want to work with you.
Apply below for one of our limited monthly coaching spots.
