Tracking my daily habits has been a game changer. And I don’t use that phrase lightly. In just three months, I’ve built a handful of habits up to 80% consistency.
In fact, my focus for April was to nudge those handful of habits to 80% consistency. Here’s how I did:
I’m really pleased for a few reasons. Even though I fell just short of 80% for sleep (I missed it by one day) – I’ve shown that last month’s improvement was not a fluke. I also had a curve ball in the form of a camping trip that pulled my numbers down. I was more on the ball over the weekends too.
As with March, I wasn’t counting ‘Be active’ because I’ve only been walking and doing rehab for my back injury. I’m starting to ease back into training now, so I’ll start counting that in May.
So, the big question – what’s my focus for May?
I’ve been trying to decide if I should give myself another month to let the handful of habits really settle at 80% before tackling something new. That would probably be the sensible thing to do. But, I’m also itching to tackle my nutrition. After some thought, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s long overdue.
I would usually focus on only one thing at a time. However, there are two things that are very closely linked, which it makes sense to tackle together.
The first is eating paleo. This is going to be challenging for me. I have a bad relationship with food and tend to over-indulge in foods that are bad for me. I don’t know why I do it. I’ve tried to explore this with therapy and reading – but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. I’m hoping that by making nutrition a focus within the framework of my daily tracking, I can make a breakthrough.
The second is intermittent fasting (8 hours eating, 16 hours fasting). But, wait – I’ve been telling you my intermittent fasting is already at over 80%? It is! Well, kinda. I drink cups of tea (and quite a few) in my 16 hours fasting window – so technically it’s not fasting because I consume milk.
The reason these are linked is because milk isn’t paleo (it’s dairy). So if I’m going to focus on eating paleo more often, I should also take the opportunity to tighten up my intermittent fasting.
So, my goals for May are:
- eat paleo – meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts (50% of the time).
- Intermittently fast (8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting) under new stricter rules (50% of the time).
I’ll now only consume water or black coffee in the fasting window.
If I can achieve 50% consistency for eating paleo and strict fasting, that would be massive for me. I can then see a path to nudging both of those to 80% over the next few months.
Of course, I’ll continue to maintain my 80% levels for sleep, drinking two litres of water, a maximum of three cups of caffeine before midday and taking my supplements.
A big ambitious month ahead. I’m ready for it. 👊
P.S If you are interested in my progress for February and March, you can find them here – Feb, March.
Get my ideas straight to your inbox. Sign up for my newsletter below: