{"id":18543,"date":"2017-04-12T09:07:19","date_gmt":"2017-04-12T08:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/?p=18543"},"modified":"2022-08-15T12:10:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T12:10:11","slug":"burning-1-calorie-led-two-stone-weight-loss-strategy-always-completing-tasks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/2017\/04\/12\/burning-1-calorie-led-two-stone-weight-loss-strategy-always-completing-tasks\/","title":{"rendered":"How burning 1 calorie led to a two-stone weight loss and a strategy for always completing my tasks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"822\" src=\"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040-1024x822.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18548\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040-1024x822.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040-300x241.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040-768x617.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040-510x410.jpg 510w, https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040-1080x867.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/6\/files\/2017\/04\/iStock-537879040.jpg 1143w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-efca5\">At the age of 44 I was 15 stone. Had I been 6ft 8, this would have been fine, but at only 5ft 9 I had a problem. A big problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-65e7c\">My expanding waistline shouldn\u2019t have been a surprise given that my favourite foods were Easter eggs and pancakes &#8211; though not together, I wasn\u2019t quite that off the rails &#8211; so my challenge was not only getting the weight off but also changing my lifestyle. Even thinking about it now is painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-b4800\">The catalyst for change arrived in the form of a visit to the Doctor and a photo. The Doctor <em>told <\/em>me I was overweight, but it was the photo of my son pointing at my stomach curiously as if to say \u2018is there a baby brother in there?\u2019 which really confirmed the problem. The good news is that I changed my eating habits and lost two stone, though like everyone else it fluctuates around Easter and Christmas. The weird way that I did it is the lesson here; one that I also use to help me tick items off my Getting Things Done(GTD) system. If you\u2019re like me, human, with failings and a penchant for creme eggs, it could help you too.<br><br>Fuelled with motivation and guilt after seeing the photo, I joined the gym, bought a spin bike and joined a judo class. I was on it! The first two weeks went well, with five pounds lost. Then I missed a session, then another and before I knew it, despondent and in need of immediate comfort, I had some chocolate \u2013 which incidentally provides the same dopamine release as completing something like going to the gym. I felt good\u2026 for an hour, and then felt bad again. This went on for a few weeks, the judo suit was put in the closet and though I still used the bike every day, it was now to hang shirts on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-eda4e\">Rapidly falling back into my own ways, by chance I watched a video on building habits (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AdKUJxjn-R8\">Tiny Habits &#8211; YouTube<\/a>), and decided to set myself what I thought was two ridiculous goals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Burn one calorie daily on my bike<\/li><li>Open the Weight Watchers app on my phone (note the goal was so small it wasn\u2019t even to enter the food into the app)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-e9ba8\">And then something amazing happened. Every day I got on my bike, literally and metaphorically. And once I was there, I almost always burned more than one calorie. And because the resistance to doing it was so low I\u2019d open my Weight Watchers app and, wait for it, actually enter my food and exercises for the day. I was now aware of what I\u2019d eaten and how many points I had left, so I stuck to my diet. I did it. I lost the weight. Buoyed by success and in a fit of bravado, I started building other habits, for example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Three times per week I\u2019ll <strong><em>drive<\/em><\/strong> to the gym<\/li><li>I\u2019ll have one healthy thing for breakfast every day<\/li><li>I\u2019ll write 10 words every day \u2013 blogging etc\u2026 wild eh?!<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-50482\">Notice I didn\u2019t say work out, just drive to the gym. As I learned more about setting new habits, I also used it to break bad ones. For example, I\u2019ll delay eating that chocolate for 60 seconds, and often that is enough to avoid it completely &#8211; unless it\u2019s Galaxy chocolate &#8211; no one can resist that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-eafd6\">The key to my success was that the willpower required was so low that I always, at the very least, &nbsp;got started. And once I did, I\u2019d generally go on to do more. Today for example, I got up for a flight at 3:15am, I got on my bike and burned 1 calorie. This made me feel good so I boiled and ate one egg (instead of coffee and three Jaffa cakes), then I entered one item into my food tracker, and since I\u2019m writing this blog I can tick off that I wrote 10 words. &nbsp;Low effort beats willpower every time, because even though it was the middle of the night I actually did more than my small habit demanded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-0217b\">How does this help us if we want to stick to or get better at our GTD practise? David Allen says GTD isn\u2019t free\u2026 it takes effort to write stuff down and keep it out of our head. Even the most disciplined of people have off days, which can turn into off weeks and months. So when It comes to GTD I have a very simple agreement with myself \u2013 \u2018every day I\u2019ll commit to doing just one action from my list.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-a315a\">Again, I\u2019m sure you\u2019re thinking \u2013 \u2018does that really that allow you to be productive\u2019? Absolutely. I consider myself to be a busy person and it would be easy to put things off but here\u2019s what happens: I commit to doing one task and then I go on to do more, every time. It gets me out of my inbox and into my GTD system. Sometimes the real challenge is, like exercising, simply getting started. And, when I do more I get a little hit of that lovely dopamine and I feel motivated. It\u2019s a self-perpetuating cycle.&nbsp;&nbsp; Even on an off day I still do the habit and before I know it, I\u2019m motivated again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-31efc\">When it comes to being productive, most of us are human, and we need every help we can get to keep doing GTD and other things that require at least some willpower. Jim Rhon, the personal development guru, said that we must all deal with two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. Wise words indeed, but I prefer to use the low effort, low willpower principle so I never have to suffer the pain of either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"gp-gutenbergpro-0283f\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/contact-us\">Find out more about how Next Action Associates can help you get back on the GTD &#8216;wagon&#8217;.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the age of 44 I was 15 stone. Had I been 6ft 8, this would have been fine, but at only 5ft 9 I had a problem. A big problem. My expanding waistline shouldn\u2019t have been a surprise given that my favourite foods were Easter eggs and pancakes &#8211; though not together, I wasn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":18548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{\"0283f72f-8b24-46a8-937f-71216982353a\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-0283f { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"31efc4f1-5ee3-4944-b4f2-a0287ae90056\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-31efc { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"efca5d1b-608e-435a-a164-d90ea607b045\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-efca5 { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"65e7c31d-9cb0-412d-b872-ca63c7d051b6\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-65e7c { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"b4800926-26ec-438b-ac09-e7eb6487e7a5\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-b4800 { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"eda4e8b3-4761-4ca6-bf2f-cb695010902a\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-eda4e { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"e9ba85f3-e078-492d-b56f-4fee54cdb484\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-e9ba8 { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"504822e3-2ab1-4d07-9dcd-594f5037df03\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-50482 { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\",\"eafd6692-156a-4706-a549-170176e548ff\":\" .gp-gutenbergpro-eafd6 { background-position-x: 50%;\\nbackground-position-y: 50%;\\nbackground-size: cover;\\nheight: px; }\"}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[312,318,940],"tags":[951,952,942,946,949,51,53,941,945,943,948,947,950,944],"yst_prominent_words":[936,956,955,961,935,957,959,460,711,939,953,958,802,910,960,506,937,938,934,954],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18543"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=18543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}