Formalizing a Tally Clicking 90 Day Food Challenge

Contrary to my earlier article on attempting two habits, I’m starting tally clicking away food urges today by itself. Over the weekend Lydia and I went through the protocols and realized that it’s quite a lot to handle. So at least at the onset it’s going to be this one thing alone (though I’m going to also start a planner habit soon).

IMPLEMENTATION INTENTION

Anytime I have an urge to eat off the plan for the next 90 days, I’ll click.

At the end of the day I’ll record the total number of urges for the day.

This is to satisfy my curiosity for the question “How many clicks does it take to remove the habit of wanting to eat non-clean foods?”

MENTAL CONTRASTING

A) Positives
Success in this has all manner of positive benefits. It will help me look better, feel better, and have less loss of energy. I’ll be able to finally make concrete progress on something I’ve struggled with for over 25 years, getting me very close to mastery over a major aspect of my life. That will in turn result in loss of guilt for feeling out of shape, and the ability to finally move on to other things like improved posture, reaping the benefits of working out, improved finances, and the confidence and base strength for other far more interesting athletic endeavors: advanced body calisthenics, martial arts, social sports, hiking, rock climbing, etc.

It will also (hopefully) shift me away from nighttime activities towards becoming more of a morning person. It will help me feel less judged and self conscious, especially in terms of helping people. Often people hook on to something to criticize in the one giving them advice, and this will help bypass that. It will also help bypass the guilt I feel going to foreign countries and being judges as a fat American.

I can be an example to help other people improve their life. This will give me better standing in terms of authority to help people because most people in the self help arena immediately turn to the most visually obvious thing about a person, which is weight.

And lastly, i want to prove this technique works.

B) Obstacles
The Fear of Missing Out when it comes to unique foods or experiences, social situations, feeling pressured by friends, embarrassment through passive aggression when some people make an overly big deal of my eating preferences. I’m afraid because I’ve always failed at this and nothing has really worked. I’m worried about lack of options, of letting Lydia down when I just want to give in to random food cravings as a mood lifter for her.

B-1) There are events coming up that I will have to navigate around. A trip to Albuquerque and Dallas for a birthday and a potential trip to Cincinnati. I’m going to a gathering in my college town, a potential road trip, Valentine’s Day, and Lydia’s birthday. There are also smaller events to account for, like movie nights (no popcorn!) and dinner with parents (no dosa or naan!).

I’ve created workarounds by listing out places that have healthy options near me, as well as a list of snacks to add as must-haves in my weekly grocery habit.

WHAT IS “CLEAN”?

For the purposes of this challenge, it’s going to be “primal” eating, according to Mark Sisson of Mark’s Daily Apple. That’s no sugar, no processed carbs like pasta, bread, naan (ouch!) or pizza. No cokes, no beer, and 2 servings of alcohol a day max.

There are fuzzy edges to all of this. Primal guidelines work according to the 80/20 rule, with some foods dubbed as “ok to eat once and a while”. Since tally clicking attacks the urges to eat in the hopes of rooting them out entirely, the 80/20 rule doesn’t really apply. Therefore I wont be eating rice, beans, potatoes and no sweet potato fries when I’m out. I won’t eat gluten free versions of products from the grocery store or at restaurants (like gluten free pizza or bread) unless we make it. No rice noodles common in Asian food. no popcorn. And no hummus.

UPGRADES

The picture above is a a beautiful old tally counter I purchased made in 1910 used to count train passengers in New York. It’s not only gorgeous, but it lies flat in my pocket, and has an incredibly smooth mechanism.

I’m also using a Google Drive spreadsheet rather than a series of notes. I made some annoyingly bad bookkeeping errors doing it the old way. It really is amazing how the small administrative functions have such a huge impact on adherence.

The last thing I want to do is to get a blood workup, record measurements of my body, and take before pictures this week just for metrics.

After 90 days are up I intend on reassessing everything like I did with cutting out beer: How I feel, what’s changed, if I really am missing out on experiences, etc.

Whew! Let the challenge begin!

Big Post on Food and Other Habits

I started a healthy eating habit about two months ago.

I decided I was going to try to follow Primal eating based on Mark Sisson’s books and blog. So basically, no wheat, no grains, lots of veggies, regular amounts of meat, and fat is ok. I chose this because several friends of mine who I trust researched it, did it, and recommended it.

Last year I attempted it and failed. But what stuck with me was that I felt noticeably better than I did previously when attempting to eat “clean” - when I went low fat. The afternoon slump in energy I had disappeared, I felt more satisfied with my meals. Pretty soon not eating grains was more to avoid that heavy feeling rather than for any health or weight loss gains.

Two months ago I decided to eat Primal, but decided not to worry about it. If I messed up, no biggie. And in general, I don’t care about eating out occasionally - getting pizza or sushi. I just don’t worry about it and just generally try to keep to it.

It has been phenomenally successful, both in terms of a habit and in terms of fat loss. I’ve lost 5-6 belt buckle loops, the bloat of my gut is gone and I feel great. But my main concern is with the habit.

I initially thought I’d have to start slow - make a habit of not drinking anything but water…then build up. But I’ve been rock solid, and I think there are several reasons why it could be this. 

1. I don’t care about it, but I feel better when I do it.

2. There is a carrot and stick element to this - It makes me feel better, but when I don’t do it I feel horrible. I think I’m sticking to it more because I don’t want to feel awful. 

3. The area I’m living makes it hard to get good carby food . It’s rural, there are only a few restaurants nearby, and I’m not next to, say, a Mexican restaurant (my Kryptonite) - it’s easier to eat like this in this location.

4. It’s only been 2 months - I estimate a habit to fully form in eating clean to take at least 250 days. It feels rock solid now, but is it really? I should take a SRHI and analyze it.

The reason why this is important is because it appears, points #3 and #4 notwithstanding, that I’ve created an incredibly difficult habit by just not caring about it, in an easy stress free manner. How can I analyze this and apply what I get to other habits? More on this later…