The Second Law - Make it Attractive - Nutrition Habit Formation pt. 3

In the first 2  part of this series, we discussed what a habit is, how habits form, why they are so powerful, and then how to leverage the first law of behaviour change.  You can find those posts here:

https://www.coachrambling.com/post/nutrition-habit-formation-pt-1

https://www.coachrambling.com/post/nutrition-habit-formation-pt-2

Our brains are preloaded with a set of certain rules of behaviour.  From an evolutionary perspective we place a high value on foods that are calorie dense and rare.  Salt, carbs, and fat drive our reward systems into a whirlwind. However today we live in a calorie rich environment, but the human brain still craves these dense and rare foods like they aren’t regularly available. The food industry knows this and purposely designs foods that act as a supernormal stimuli on the reward systems of our brain, the heightened version of reality elicits a stronger response than usual.  The goal is to make their product more attractive to the consumer market.  They have even gone so far as to figure out which mixture of salty, crunchy, sweet, smooth, and creamy will keep us taking bite after bite.  On the other end of the spectrum, natural and unprocessed foods are boring, how does that 20th bite of spinach taste?

This is a great example of the food industry taking advantage of the second law and making their product attractive.  We need to learn to do the same with our nutrition habits; we need to manufacture craving in order to make our habits irresistible. 

In order to manufacture craving it is good to have a basic understanding of some key factors influencing the reward centers of our brains. When our brain experiences a reward, it receives a spike of dopamine when you experience something pleasurable. Research has found associations between dopamine and all different types of habits – motivation, learning, memory, punishment, aversion, voluntary movement - Our habits are dopamine driven feedback loops.  When habits begin to form, dopamine is not only released when you are experiencing pleasure, but also when you begin to anticipate it.  The prediction of the reward causes a dopamine spike that drives us into action.  For some, the brain has more activity caused by wanting a reward than actually receiving it. 

Temptation Bundling

Given what we know about the reward centers of our brain, we are going to try to leverage that information to try to build some new habits that we want in to habits that we already have.  In the last section we talked about how to stack old habits and new habits together, now we are going to use that system to reward ourselves for new habits. 

After [Current Habit], I will [Habit I Need]. 

After [Habit I Need] I will [Habit I Want]. 

If doing what you need to do means that you get to do what you want to do, it makes your habits that you are trying to form more attractive.  This goes back to trying to set ourselves up with rules and regulations that help to guide our behaviour.  If rewarding yourself with an Oreo at the end of the day after you have stuck to your menu and hit your vegetable serving target helps you eat more vegetables and engrain better habits, that is a win.  I remember hearing Connor Lutz talk about whenever he was dieting he would always find a way to keep a bagel mixed into his daily plan.  He knew that if he could have that 1 bagel then sticking to his diet the rest of the time would be fine.  Whatever we can do to make our habits more attractive is going to help us stick to those habits over the long term.   If 90% of habits are effective habits, and the ineffective 10% of our habits are not entirely destructive (e.g. eating an entire extra large take out pizza vs. eating a few slices from a moderately sized home made pizza, having a glass of wine vs. drinking a whole bottle) then our trajectory will still be heading in the right direction. 

Reframing our Mindset

If we have a desired habit that we don’t enjoy trying to complete, we often have a negative relationship with that habit.   We feel it is a burden to have to do this thing.  One strategy that can be helpful is to reframe our mindset.  We don’t have to do this, we get to do this, we have an opportunity. 

On a personal level this has been a very important tactic over the last year.  I am afraid of public speaking, and every week I get in front of a college class multiple times per week and try to present information that I am passionate about.  I noticed during my second semester of teaching that I was having all kinds of anxiety while I was driving to the college.  I started employing this habit every time I go to speak publicly, and it has paid off very well.  I don’t have to stand in front of a class and speak, I get to.  I have the opportunity to spread the word of about something I am passionate about.   I have the opportunity to improve my public speaking skills.  I put on the same song on repeat every time I drive to the college and tell myself about my opportunity and try to run through the key points of my presentation in my head.  I am by no means amazing at it, I still stumble and get nervous, but I am getting better, and this strategy has been a huge part of that.

We don’t have to eat vegetables that we don’t enjoy, we get to eat vegetables that help to fill us with the nutrients that we need. 

We don’t have to stick to our nutrition plan, we have the opportunity to get maximally jacked and shredded. 

Family and Friend Support

Before trying to overhaul our nutrition habits, it is a good idea to take a step back and look at how the support of our family and friends may impact what we are trying to achieve.  It is important that we inform them so that they have an understanding ahead of time, they can provide productive feedback, hold us accountable, and hopefully they can try to avoid any behaviours themselves that may in turn lead to unproductive behaviours by us. 

Physical environment is not the only stimuli that can influence our behaviour, social norms can be very powerful in influencing what we do from day to day.  We will imitate the habits of the individuals that we are closest to.  Peer pressure is only bad when we are surrounded by bad habits.  One strategy to try to curb this desire to belong and mimic those around us is to join a culture where your desired behaviour is the norm. 

In section 1 we took a look at our day-to-day habits in order to dissect whether our habits were productive or unproductive.  You can do this with your weekly social habits as well.  I want to repeat, the goal of this exercise is not to punish or judge yourself, the goal of the exercise is to raise your awareness and objectively observe yourself so that you might be able to make yourself better.  At the end of the day you need to enjoy your life and be able to go out and socialize without falling into destructive behaviours.  

Say for example you have a weekly habit of going for beer and wings with your friends.  This time with your friends is important for a number of reasons, and wings and beer are delicious.  Depending on the volume of intake, Beer and wings may or may not be destructive to your nutritional goals, but assuming that your daily nutrition habits meet your standards the rest of the time, I would probably argue that the psychosocial benefits of this behaviour trump any negative impact that this behaviour may have.  What I am trying to say is that even if this habit may be destructive to our nutrition, I don’t think that isolating ourselves from our friends is the answer.  Take a look at this habit and try to decide how you can make it fit into your goals.  Have 1 beer instead of 3.  Have coke zero instead of beer, your boys might roast you, but you are more jacked than they are anyways.  Have 1 pound of wings instead of 2.  Ask your server to split your meal in half and put half into a takeout container ahead of time (bonus: meal prep is done for tomorrow).  Unless you are a bodybuilder in prep (you probably aren’t reading this anyways) with insane food cravings I cannot in any way see how you might not be able to fit this habit into your weekly plan.  Stepping back, remember that we are trying to make your habits 1% better; we are not trying to force the habits of other people onto ourselves. 

The next part in this series will continue with the third law of behaviour change, Response Making Habits Easy.