I recently started working with a coach to optimize my diet. He lives somewhere in the maple syrup plains of Canada, so we communicate via Facebook Messenger.
During our first coaching session, he had me send him a list of what I eat on a typical day. I shot him a few examples of recent meals I’ve had.
He gave them a look and told me: “You’re getting an insanely low amount of potassium… Take 500mg of a potassium supplement, like potassium citrate, three times tomorrow and let me know how you feel”.
I did it. Noticed great things, and reported back.
“Great – continue that for a couple more days, then up it to 2500mg a day”.
I did that. Felt great.
Then, he asked me to add a single food to my diet.
“I want you to start eating grape tomatoes with each meal. Do that for a few days and let me know how you feel.”
Every 4-5 days, he makes 1 tweak to what I’m doing, and asks me to pay attention to how I feel over the ensuing week.
He’s baby stepping me. He’s patient. He’s getting where I want to be by manipulating one variable at a time.
It’s amazing. The norm in the fitness and diet world (from what I can tell) is to give people epic programs—“this is what you’ll eat for breakfast, and then you should eat one of these three options for lunch…”. But that’s hard. It requires a lot of simultaneous change.
The Tiny Habits way of change is way better. Just shift one small thing at a time. Let it gain some strength, let it solidify, then change the next thing.
Your future self will thank you… even if your present self keeps asking: “are we there yet?”
