Ep3: Beyond SMART Goals Part 2: - Creating the external frameworks to achieve your intentions.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of "Blasphemous Nutrition," Aimee discusses the importance of creating external frameworks to achieve health goals, emphasizing that successful goal achievement is not willpower, but skill power. She shares strategies she and her clients have successfully used as well as principles from the book "Atomic Habits" by James Clear to guide listeners in transforming their goals into actionable steps and offers practical tips for reducing obstacles and increasing ease in making positive changes.

Key Takeaways:

• Focusing on the outcome of a goal can be problematic. Instead, create new habits to bring about lasting change.
• Break down goals into small, repeatable habits that can be monitored regularly for progress.
• Create systems and methodologies to support the implementation of new habits and track progress.
• Modify the external environment to reduce obstacles and make positive behaviors easier to adopt.
• Celebrate small successes to reinforce belief in one's ability to make lasting changes.

Notable Quotes:

• "To create change effectively, we have to maintain this change in our behavior by creating new habits."
• "The key to making lasting habit change is to reduce the obstacles that make it hard and increase the ease of making the change."
• "Goals are about the results you want to achieve, and systems are about the processes that will lead to those results."
• "Building incremental small changes can lead to a complete transformation over time."
• "Be the person who intentionally does the actions and habits of the person you want to become."

Resources:

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography
Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative
Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

• Book: "Atomic Habits" by James Clear

Find Research Citations and Transcript at Blasphemous Nutrition on Substack

Work with Aimee

Photography by: Dai Ross Photography

Podcast Cover Art: Lilly Kate Creative

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Transcript

MacBook Air Microphone-1 0:00

If you have health goals that you struggled to meet? But they still show up as your annual resolution or goal. You need to listen to this episode. The strategy is all share. Here are what I use with my clients to bring them from confusion and struggle to success. If you consistently fail to meet health goals that are genuinely important to you, your problem is not willpower. It is a matter of skill power. Tune into today's episode defined why focusing on goals is inherently problematic and what you need to do instead.

0:32

Hey Rebels, welcome to Blasphemous Nutrition. Consider this podcast your pantry full of clarity, perspective, and the nuance needed to counter the superficial health advice so freely given on the internet. I'm Aimee, the unapologetically candid host of Blasphemous Nutrition and a double degreed nutritionist with 20 years experience. I'm here to share a more nuanced take on living and eating well to sustain and recover your health. If you've found most health advice to be so generic as to be meaningless, or so extreme that it's unrealistic, and you don't mind the occasional f bomb, you've come to the right place. From dissecting the latest nutrition trends to breaking down published research and sharing my own clinical experiences, I'm on a mission to foster clarity amidst all the confusion, and empower you to have the health you need to live a life you love. Now let's get started.

MacBook Air Microphone-1 1:30

Welcome back to blasphemous nutrition. I'm your host, Aimee. And I do not have Cheeto dust on my fingers. Today, I'm going to discuss how to take our goals and transform them from a destination we intend to get to into a GPS system that can guide you there effectively, mindful of the construction and the potholes that might derail you. I see the thing is, is that her is an inherent problem with goal-setting. It focuses on the wrong thing. When we create goals, we often focus on the outcome. Like I'm going to get my blood sugar into normal range, or I'm going to run a marathon this year, or I'm going to get in shape, whatever that might mean to you. And we begin by telling ourselves, okay, I'm going to make all of these changes, but. What does it mean to change? It means behaving differently than before. And doing so. For a sustained period of time is what we call a habit. Therefore to create the change that we desire. What we actually need to do is create new habits. To create change effectively. We have to maintain this change in our behavior. By creating new habits, we make it easier to attain and maintain the goal, right. That we've been looking for that objective. We don't. Complete the goal of running a marathon by. Registering and running it, at least most of us are not able to do that. And if you have the ability to do that, You often end up feeling really damn shitty at the end and likely injured. Most of us need to regularly train and run for a period of time in order to achieve the goal of running a marathon. The reason why any kind of 30 day exercise challenge or a nutrition challenge, or, you know what I'm air quoting here and rolling my eyes detox. Doesn't work in the long run is because they're not designed for longterm change. We go into these programs thinking, Hey, you know, I'm going to do this for 30 days. I'm going to be very focused. And when it's over, I can sustain a lot of this by myself, but unless we do several other key aspects, essential to long-term behavior change, we're going to divert back to our norm. By day 45, because it's just less effortful. Right? The key to making lasting habit change is to reduce the obstacles that make it hard and increase the ease of making the change so that we can have consistency and progress. Now a lot of what I'm going to talk about today comes from principles discussed in the book, atomic habits by James clear. He talks about several principles, but there's three of them that I use with my clients to facilitate a longterm outlook and foster more patients in that process of making lasting change. Now, one of the biggest reasons that goals fail is that people will set it but either neglect to create the systems, to ensure success for this goal, or actually forget to regularly monitor their outcomes and ensure that they're on the right trajectory. There are many systems available to manage large goals and objectives. And I have my own method, which I use and teach to my clients, but this is a crucial piece to creating change over time and ensuring that we are on the right track as we make progress. It also keeps us mindful of this small successes, which will buoy our spirits when results are not as dramatic as we expect. And honestly, we have been sold lies so many times over the course of our lives. That it's really difficult to have realistic expectations, particularly when it comes to physique changes. or fitness goals. So the first thing that you want to do with this goal that you have is to break it down into small habits that will ultimately lead you to achieving it. In atomic habits, James clear talks about how small habits make a big difference. And honestly, many of my most successful clients have implemented the strategy. But one of the things that was different for them is that they also started off their process with a very longterm mindset, right. These were, they stepped into our work together with the expectation that what they were wanting to do was going to take years. Two clients immediately come to mind. When I think of small habits making a big difference. One is Julietta and the other is Sasha. Now. Sasha hated exercise. But she knew that it was going to be a key component for her success. Long-term. However, she also often lost focus when making changes and knew that she needed ongoing accountability. And that was her primary reason for hiring someone who knew both the fitness end of things, as well as the nutrition end of things. When we started, we began by establishing a habit of movement. And honestly, it was as easy as going to the mailbox on days when she felt completely unmotivated. Now, a couple years later, She was stunned to realize that she's the person who doesn't feel right if she misses two or three days in a row. One of my very first clients, Julio at the started by reducing her soda intake by one soda a day. Each week. So, and, you know, honestly, it's been so long. I don't remember the quantity. Um, but I, you know, it was something like if, she was having six sodas a day, every day, then she went down to five sodas a day for week one and then four sodas a day for week two. Right? So she was incrementally reducing her sugar intake And then she decided to increase her movement by getting off of the bus one stop early. Like Sasha, she hated exercise. And so she started with just that extra step of making herself walk a little bit further to work. Next she transitioned to doing dance, dance revolution three times a week at the bowling alley. And, uh, this was something that she realized she really enjoyed doing I think she had, if I memory serves me, she had been bowling with some friends and saw the DDR machine and realized that was a place where she could move regularly and enjoy herself and not have to get to a gym because a gym membership was never going to happen for this woman. Right. But she knew she liked DDR. So three times a week, she would show up at the bowling alley and she would do DDR. You know, starting off 10, 15, minutes, and then working up to 30 minutes and continuing to make progressions there. Over the course of several years. She went from, you know, incrementally, reducing her soda intake and slowly incorporating movement to losing somewhere between 50 and 70 pounds. And becoming a blue belt in jujitsu. And that is, you know, talk about someone who completely transformed themselves and who they perceive themselves to be. Kuleana is a fabulous example of incremental small changes leading to a complete transformation. And this was over the course of 5, 6, 7 years. Okay. But what she had was incremental small changes that she built upon. As she found solutions for herself. As she cultivated greater resiliency and belief in her ability to make change. She was able to accomplish phenomenal things. Now by utilizing concepts of tiny changes, as well as the positive psychology concepts that I discussed in the last episode. We can reduce some of that perceived effort, as well as the actual effort that it takes to make change. And allow the process of change to become more meaningful and fun and more gradual. So next, you want to create the structure to get you there. When it comes to setting goals, you actually do want to set it and forget it, but instead of forgetting it completely, what you want to do is put your focus on your systems for the year. Your goal is the destination. But the systems and methodologies that you implement is the route that takes you there. Another way to think of this is that goals are about the results that you want to achieve. And the systems are about the processes that will lead to those results. If you want to get stronger. You're not going to do this without regularly, consistently lifting heavier things without creating some resistance on your physical body. On a regular basis, right? Whether that's body, weight, exercises, or weights at the gym, or working with a personal trainer. You need to implement a process consistently to get to the result of getting stronger. When working with my clients, we both create their system for success. And we do so incrementally by layering in new habits and monitoring them at regular intervals. To determine when and how to course correct if something is not working. So the difference between this method and general goal setting is the difference between Lewis and Clark, aiming to find a practical route westward in 1804, and you setting your GPS to Portland and letting Google maps take you there. If there are obstacles or missteps along the way, Google's going to let you know pretty quickly, right. So when you have an idea of where you want to go, create a system that will facilitate you getting there. Now an often overlooked component of success. And one which eases the transition is your external environment. You want to step into your goal setting, expecting the best of yourself. But planning for the worst in your environment. Knowing key triggers that derail you and countering them with strategies which create ease, reduce the friction between desire and action. For instance, putting a bowl of fruit or precut vegetables on the counter with a container of hummus instead of a bag of tortilla chips. Having your gym bag in the car, ready to go and having not one but two sets of workout clothes in there. So there's a backup in case you forget to replenish. save a super juicy audio book for exercise or meal prep time so that you're more excited to actually do it. Right. Another thing is to employ habit stacking. And this is attaching a desired habit that you're looking to create. To one that you've already mastered. So an example of this would be leaving your vitamin D next to your toothbrush so that you take it each night before brushing your teeth. When you see that vitamin D next to your toothbrush, you're like, oh yeah, I need to take my vitamin D and then you take it and brush your teeth. That's a great example of habit stacking. Now, if you have a goal that necessitates doing less of something, then you want to make your environment more effortful and more challenging to do that thing. Keep what my friend, Marty Kendall calls, kryptonite foods out of eyesight. And if possible, out of reach. I being five foot to find it relatively easy to keep things like tortilla chips out of reach, because nearly every damn kitchen in this country has a shelf that I can't get to without a stool. And I am stubborn, like I mentioned in my last episode. So I really resist having things like ladders and steps tools to help me out because I just. I don't know. I can't acknowledge the fact that I'm the size of a 12 year old boy. I don't know. Someone's like go analyze that one for me. Another thing that you can do to make your habit more effortful is brush your teeth immediately after dinner to reduce the likelihood of post dinner. Snacking. This is great. If the flavor of your toothpaste happens to, um, Be absolutely disgusting with your favorite post dinner snack or drink. I can't even fathom drinking a glass of red wine after brushing my teeth. Right. So this is a great way. To create some friction to deter yourself from doing something you are trying to do less of. Another thing you can do if you're aiming to. Implement better strategies at home or spend more time connecting with loved ones is to create a firm boundary between your work environment and your home environment and make it harder for you to do work at home. This is something that I have seen be especially problematic since the start of the pandemic in 2020. A lot of, particularly for a lot of Americans, the work home life boundary was pretty much erased during the pandemic. And re-establishing, those boundaries has been very difficult because there is now long-term expectation. That people are always available at any time. And like, it was, it was bad. It was shit before the pandemic. And now it's, it's. Toxic to use a very. Overused word. But, but it is it's. There is. So little separation between work and home life now for so many of my clients, And it's. Significantly eroded their physical as well as mental health to have that lack of boundary in place. So if one of the things that you would like to do for yourself as re-establish more clear work-life boundaries. Leave your laptop at work. So you cannot access work activities at home. I put a signature in your email that says I only respond to emails during this time of the day.. Find ways to streamline and limit the communication and then announce it publicly. So that way you can start to reclaim some of your life for yourself. Now, additionally, let's say you have a workplace that has a gym onsite. Like you're one of those lucky ducks and you don't mind going to the gym.. And one of the things you want to do to make. Your fitness goals, easier to achieve, uh, start working out at the gym onsite. Park your car by the office, Jim, and then leave your keys in a locker in the gym so that you have to go back and get them before going home. But take your gym bag with you to the office and then change into your exercise clothing. Before going down to the gym. That is a wonderful way. If you have lockers on your onsite gym, that you can force yourself to go to the gym before going home. So these tips can provide the best laid plans for you to succeed. How whenever the best laid plans rarely go as expected. And this is where a regular practice of gratitude reminders of your resilience and your ability to overcome challenges. As well as regularly monitoring your progress. So you can course correct are incredibly helpful. Additionally tapping into that person that you're becoming, like I talked about in my last episode is a great way to find solutions to obstacles. How would your ideal self. Navigate the challenge presented before you. How would your ideal self established healthier work-life boundaries? How would your ideal self. Get from work to home and make it easy to prepare a meal at home, instead of going through the drive-through on the way home. So for instance, If I'm a person. Who wants to be active? At least five days a week, but. I can't get to the gym that often. I do pushups off the counter before I go to bed. My goal in becoming a more active person is to maintain the actions and habits of an active person. Even if it doesn't turn out exactly the way I want to. And then to reinforce, I celebrate the fact that I did it differently this time. Hey, you. Like you did pushups instead of just saying, well, I can't get to the gym, so I'm not going to exercise today. Right? This is doing it differently. And this is reinforcing. This concept of becoming a person who values activity, right? This is what Sasha did. This is, what Julio did is they looked for little ways to make improvements and to. Practice the habits of the person that they were wanting to become, even if it didn't look exactly like they wanted it to look in real time. Give yourself the big win. Often, and this helps shift your focus to your successes, increase your self efficacy, which then becomes this positive feedback loop that gives you more energy and motivation and drive to continue to do the things that will ultimately get you to that destination that you are. Aiming for. Now, here is an example of what all of this looks like in real life. And I'll use myself. So my goal is to put on extra muscle now, so that I have a good buffer for menopause, which is coming at me sooner rather than later. So my plan is to shift to a more resistance training focused lifestyle that all maintained throughout this next phase of life. Now for most of my life, I have preferred to run over lifting weights. In times historically, where I've been consistent with weight training, it's been really good for me, but it lacks, the dopamine hit that I get from running and it's more complicated to get to. So inevitably I go back to running because I can just put on my shoes and head out the door. Right? Super efficient form of exercise. Plus I get the dopamine hit. And that's a hard thing to turn my back on. But I'm well into my forties and I know I need to start making, lifting weights as routine as making meals. I've had this as a goal for over a year, but I keep falling short. Averaging, maybe once a week on good months when I want to be lifting two to four times a week. That said last year, there were some pretty significant changes in my life, personally, that upended a lot of my plans and required me to table all that the bare minimum for several months, but things finally settled in the fall. And I was able to reestablish that once a week, habit that I want to build upon. Now in assessing what worked and what didn't. I realized a couple of things. One. Having a gym membership works really well for me. Too. If that gym has a sauna, I am much more likely to get there. And so I need to remind myself, I have access to a sauna is especially this winter, right? Cause that can help motivate me when I would otherwise prefer to stay in bed. And looking at my strengths and my shortcomings. I see that some of my strengths are that I liked the gym. I have access to a sauna. Through a gym membership. And I also have some experience lifting weights and I'm comfortable doing so these are great things that I can lean into remind myself of and build. Belief in myself. Through reminding myself that I have these things right. I will get to the sauna more. I will. I'll get to the sauna more consistently. If I have a gym membership and that's ultimately my objective. There's my subconscious coming to the forefront to say hello. I will get more experience lifting by seducing myself with that sauna. And by reminding myself, I have experienced doing this, it works well for me when I do it, I want to feel that again. Now some of the obstacles I have are fatigue. If I, you know, I have a very weird window of sleep that works for me. So I need to get either less than six and a half hours of sleep the night before. Or eight hours or more in order to get up early enough to get to the gym. If I wait and I aim for, you know, the afternoon or the evening, it's not likely to happen. So one of my obstacles is that I have a limited amount of time to get there in order to really make it happen. And some days I don't want to leave the house. To go to the gym or I don't want to take the extra time involved in the gym. Right. That's an obstacle for me. Another obstacle that I've discovered is that if I don't time it right, I get really hungry. And that is a problem. And this tends to be more of a problem. The more miles I run. So early morning is the most reliable time for me to exercise. But if I wait until the afternoon, it's unlikely to happen. I still like to run. I find a lot of value in running and I'm not likely to just stop running and lift weights instead. So I need to keep running on the table. And maybe use it as another seduction technique. Like the sauna. To get me into the gym if I need to. Right. So with all of this information, my strengths and my shortcomings, right. And my goal. My process that I'm trying out to get there. Is to habit stack running and lifting. Right. So, but, but here's the catch I'm going to go to the gym first and then do a short run afterwards because doing a short run and then, oh, I'll just stop at home and then get my clothes. Nope. Nope. I've tried that. It doesn't quite work for me. I need to go to the gym first and then do a short run afterwards. And I'll start scheduling weightlifting on days when my runs are less than an hour and not a hard run, right. It's not a speed workout, not Hills. I'm putting weight training days in three to four times a week. However, Two times a week is my goal. But I'm giving myself up to four times a week to do it. I am scheduling for aiming for, to giving myself extra time, extra opportunities to do the thing I want to do. So my new system starts with two days a week. That's the gold star. And then when two becomes norm I'll work up to three. Because I have a history with weight training because I am a certified personal trainer. I have a repository of workouts that I can resurrect. So I do not have to create a new program for myself or think about what to do when I get there. I don't want to do that right now, but I can't afford a personal trainer right now. So this is the way that I'm making it easier to build this habit. I'm removing obstacles by not expecting myself to source my own workouts, but rather to use workouts that, past Aimee created. Or you know, that I had used with other personal trainers in the past. When I had them. And this will allow it to be easier to build the habit now to deal with the hunger issue. I'm bringing a bunch of picky bars or protein bars in my gym bag to take care of hunger. And I also scoped out a grocery store on route to the gym for emergency rations, if needed. Based on all of this I'm planning two days a week on my calendar. on days that I'm not running or have runs less than an hour, I've resurrected body weight workouts on days where I don't want to go to the gym and even the sauna can't get me there. So I have something I can do at home. And I've downgraded my expectations. And I'm allowing 15 minutes of body weight activities, or plyometrics to count as a workout. So essentially what I'm doing is I'm also creating an environment where I do not give myself a chance to overthink it, because then it'll be paralyzed and indecisive and just opt out or let perfection be the enemy of good enough. Right now I'm simply asking myself to be the person who intentionally does resistance work twice a week for at least 15 minutes. Once I have that down, I can build upon it with an extra day or longer duration. So to keep it top of mind, it's scheduled in my bullet journal and I have set up a movement habit tracker where I record the days that are either lift or run. So this keeps it top of mind and allows me to easily anticipate what's coming so I can plan ahead and also see how well I have done, with implementing my plans. I see my tracker, as soon as I open my planner. So if days go missing, it's totally in my face. And I know I can stop what I'm doing and do 15 pushups to at least prove the story that I do not have time. Is a lie, right? I have time for 15 pushups, no matter what I'm doing. Once I do those pushups, I'm likely to keep going with other exercises since I started that habit, but I need 15 minutes to check the box of getting it done. I'm also reminding myself that building more muscles will make me look like a bad-ass granny. And I'm going to reward myself by exploring personal trainer possibilities. When I get strong enough. To do more heavy lifting that requires a spotter and a professional to check my form. Now my ultimate goal is to put on extra muscles. So I have that good buffer for menopause, which is coming sooner rather than later. And these are the systems that I've created. And the intentions top of mind that will get me there. So hopefully my personal strategy this year for changing decades, long habits and favoring running overweights helps you see some ways that you can make changing your own habits to achieve your goals easier this year. All right, folks. That is a wrap. And again, I want to leave you with the key takeaways from today's episode so that you can begin implementing them right away. Number one. Remember that setting a goal is a destination and what matters more is how you plan to get there. So refine your goals to focus on the process rather than the outcome. Number two break that process into small repeatable habits that you can monitor often to assess your progress. Number three, create a system to reinforce the successful implementation of those habits. Now a successful system will allow you to track progress and monitor outcomes. This is what I do with my clients and allow reflection to implement course correcting when needed. So you need to make time for those things. Number four alter your physical environment to make implementing habits easier, or make it harder to engage in a behavior that you're trying to minimize or break. If you've thought of someone, you know, while listening to this, send this episode to them and let them know you thought of them. People love that. They love knowing you're thinking of them and they'll appreciate the information in this episode. Also by scrolling down and leaving a review, you do others, a huge favor by making it more easy for them to find this podcast, thus find a salty and sane, alternative to all the insane information that's out there. Thanks again for listening folks until next time.

28:56

If you have found some Nuggets of Wisdom, make sure to subscribe, rate, and share Blasphemous Nutrition with those you care about. As you navigate the labyrinth of health advice out there, remember, health is a journey, not a dietary dictatorship. Stay skeptical, stay daring, and challenge the norms that no longer serve you. If you've got burning questions or want to share your own flavor of rebellion, slide into my DMs. Your stories fuel me, and I love hearing them. Thanks again for tuning in to Blasphemous Nutrition. Until next time, this is Aimee signing off, reminding you that truth is nuanced, and any dish can be made better with a little bit of sass. Any and all information shared here is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not to be misconstrued as offering medical advice. Listening to this podcast does not constitute a provider client relationship. Note, I'm not a doctor, nor a nurse, and it is imperative that you utilize your brain and your medical team to make the best decisions for your own health. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked to this podcast are at the user's own risk. No information nor resources provided are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Be a smart human and do not disregard or postpone obtaining medical advice for any medical condition you may have. Seek the assistance of your health care team for any such conditions and always do so before making any changes to your medical, nutrition, or health plan.