Elephant and Rider

Sketching a report card. Managing self-control.

General Notes

Something I'm going to try is giving myself a little report card of metrics that tell me when a day is going well:

• Start
• Shower
• Planned breakfast
• Water with meds
• Brush teeth, rinse
• Morning (end of start until 1:30pm)
• Walk to 3k steps
• Planned lunch
• Finish 20 oz water
• Afternoon
• Finish second 20 oz. water
• Planned snack(s)
• Walk to 6k steps
• Planned dinner
• End
• Floss, brush, rinse after dinner
• Finish steps to 10k steps OR workout
• Plan tomorrow's food

Sketching tomorrow's meals:

• B: Fried egg on lightly buttered toast.
• L: Rice, vegetables, lamb shawarma.
• D: Buffalo chicken rice bowl.

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Daily Article Notes

Relevant notes from my daily set of Noom articles.

• Especially relevant to my thoughts today, Noom suggests finding ways to keep my routine fresh. No immediate action here. Just something to keep in mind.
• A while back, Noom introduced the idea of an elephant and a rider. Essentially, the elephant is the more impulsive side, the rider is the more rational side, self-control.
• How to control the elephant?
• Plan. Planning food and exercise helps.
• Control environment. This is tough given how accessible things like DoorDash are for impulses. It's not a simple matter of not keeping cookies at home. But I can control my environment by keeping things clean, organized. That helps.
• Have back-up plans. Prepare a menu of other healthy meals in case my main plan falls through.
• Set realistic goals. Yes. Definitely.
• Treat yourself regularly. Noom's budget provides room for "red" foods. Embrace this.
• Be nice to your elephant. Self-hate is tough to get away from, but I can try.
• Recover normally. If I fall off, don't overcorrect.