Small Tweaks

When it comes to small, manageable goals, I’m much better at giving advice than taking my own.

When I was at Elliot’s doctors appointment yesterday though, I got on the scale and realized I needed to take my own advice and make some small tweaks to my everyday habits.

Since Elliot’s arrival, 8 weeks ago, I’ve ran only once. While my training load dropped significantly, my eating habits stayed the same.

Instead of taking a complete 180 and trying to forcefully overhaul everything at once, I identified a few key tweaks that I can make that will make all the difference for me. This removes the added stress of dieting, or making too many significant changes while I try to run a business during a pandemic and take care of an infant.

Here are my 3 small tweaks:

Skip breakfast more regularly.

Since 2012 I’ve been intermittent fasting. When the pandemic hit, and I found myself at home everyday, I started eating breakfast with Hannah most mornings. While this was fine and good, eliminating this meal will reduce total caloric intake and I know I can handle fasting well, since I had done it so long.

Limit peanut butter consumption.

When I’m training really hard, I can get away with putting away a half a jar of PB in one sitting. With a reduced training load, I can’t get away with this so easily anymore. Peanut butter is highly caloric, and delicious, so it can really ramp up daily intake.

Lastly, I’m going to limit my beer consumption to the weekends. I’m not always a big beer drinker, but I’ve been in a phase lately where I’m having one most nights. This simple reduction will have a big pay off.

So why am I doing all of this? To show that small habits can make or break your goals. I’m not restricting anything I’m going to eat. I won’t be tracking anything. I’m getting back to the simple things that have worked for me in the past so I can get down to my normal fighting weight. If I didn’t just have a baby, I probably wouldn’t have been concerned with this at all, but I have this new found motivation to be as healthy as I possible can. I want to set a good example and be sure that I’m ready to kick ass for a long time.

If you’re looking to make some changes, I urge you to identify a couple of very small things that can have a large payoff.

Justin Miner