1. Do the action in micro-sized steps, and
2. Do it daily until the action has sunk deep into your subconscious and you do it without thinking.

For some habits, like drinking more water, a habit can form in as little as 10 days, for others, like doing daily sit-ups, it can take up to 6 months. But sometimes during those 3-12 or 24 weeks it takes to build your new healthy habit, life gets busy and complex along the way (as it almost undoubtedly will) and it can be all too easy to forget about the habit simply because your mind is tied up with other things.But there is a super simple way to make sure that you never simply “forget” about your tiny-habit ritual, and that’s to track it.

Now of course, you can do it the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. You draw up a table, stick it on your fridge and simply tick off your habits as you do them. Or… if you’re a bit of a technology lover like myself, you could make the whole process a little more sexy by taking advantage of one of the many available habit tracking smart phone apps.

I’m not sure why, but there really is something strangely rewarding about ticking off an action every time it’s completed!

I’ve been tracking my own habits for over 2 years now, including things like working out, studying French, and reviewing my goals each morning, and have to say that it really is a powerful way of keeping yourself motivated and on track. The only question is, with such a huge number of apps popping out of the wood works every other week, which one is the best? To answer that question, I’ve pinned down 5 top habit tracking apps, and reviewed them for you to speed up your decision making process:

Daily Deeds

Technically speaking, Daily Deeds is no longer a leading habit tracker app. It was, 2 years ago when I started using it, but perhaps it hasn’t bothered to adapt to the new and larger iPhone 5 interface, or perhaps for other reasons, it seems to have dropped off of the radar. Still, I love this app for its simplicity and design. It’s easy to add habits, check them off, and glance over the data of the last month or two to see how you’ve been getting on. But considering that this is a paid app and comparing it to some of the other apps available at the moment, it wouldn’t be my first recommendation.

Good Habits

Good Habits is a super simple, no frills, clean and functional app. And it’s free, which is the kind of price I love. But like daily deeds, it seems to be a little too simple, lacking some of the core functionalities that I’ve come to expect from a habit tracking app, like the ability to export and share my data with others.

Way of life

This app is certainly a step up in the functionality department. It is very simple to use, with some beautiful graphs that chart your progress over time. And the best thing is that you can email these graphs to your friends. One drawback is that these graphs only become meaningful after you’ve gathered a minimum of 6 weeks of data. So for that reason, I feel that this app would be less suited to habits you’ll only need to track for a small period of time (like drinking water or adding a piece of fruit to breakfast), and better suited to those harder to stick habits that you’ll probably want to track for many months or years (like working out). You can try this app for free on a limited number of habits, but for unlimited use you need to pay for an upgrade.

Habit List

People are raving about this paid app online, but honestly, I can’t see why. I agree that it’s a very clean and simple app to use, but in terms of features, it’s so limited that I really don’t see the advantage of this app over some of the free ones. The graphs are very limited, and unless you’re willing to wade through some weird CSS, exporting your data is near impossible.

Lift

The lift app is totally free (yay!), but I admit that it has me feeling a little torn. This app clearly trumps the rest in terms of social interaction. You can follow friends, comment and give them “props” (akin to a Facebook ‘Like’) to cheer them on as they log each daily action. Another feature I like is that you can add a note to your own daily action that everyone can see. So by posting exactly what you ate as your healthy snack helps others with practical ideas for their own healthy snacks. The reason I am a little torn, is that I feel this app still has a long way to go. I find it a bit more confusing to get the hang of, and sometimes makes it a more difficult than necessary to d simple things like check-off previous days actions that you may have forgotten to log at the time.

My overall thoughts:

All of the apps I’ve discussed have clean interfaces and are fairly easy to use. But I feel most of them (aside from Lift) fail miserably on the social side of things, which as psychology research clearly shows, is one of the most important aspects to achieving your goals.

Personally, I’d also like to see a simple habit tracking app that lets you track multiple logs for a single habit per day. So if you want to track drinking glasses of water for example you can tick 6 or 7 times, or burpees 10 or 20 times, rather than just once. This certainly is a feature that is lacking in my opinion.

My choice

Although far from perfect and underdeveloped in some ways, I think I will be making a slow transition to Lift. My primary reason is that I can share my progress with my friends, and the Feed Your Awesome Machine readers.

In second place would be the app: Way of Life. Still, in saying that, I don’t think I’ll be completely ditching Daily Deeds too soon. After all, old habits die hard and I do still really like this app even if it is due a good update!

If you want to work with me and some other FYAMers on building some healthy habits, I’ve just started adding some FYAM habits to Lift. You can find these directly in the app itself, and start logging your own daily actions for free. All you need to do is:

• Follow me on lift by searching for my name: Melanie Stephens
• Choose and add any of the habits under FYAM (just search FYAM and they’ll come up).

Using an app like one listed here would be the perfect accompaniment to the free, 9 day Level Up Your Health Challenge, so if you’re not already on-board, make sure you sign up for it on the homepage.

If you’re a android user, feel free to share your recommendations for good android habit tracking apps in the comments below.

I don’t know about you, but to me advice like that is pretty much a waste of time.

So… let me get this right: you’re saying, whatever I want in moderation?

What on earth does moderation even mean anyway?

Is it once a day, twice a week, monthly or twice a year?

Is moderation of mars bars the same as moderation of avocado?

Moderation = Confusion & Excuses

This fuzzy notion of moderation doesn’t do anything to keep us healthy.  What it does instead is give us a very clever way to excuse our… *ahem, not so positive habits. I mean, how can you argue with someone who say’s they only eat X or Y Junk food in moderation?

Our brains are pretty good at conjuring up rational excuses for everything we do. And the funniest thing is: we believe ourselves!

In the case of food moderation, we trick ourselves into thinking that moderation is the ultimate objective and rational guide to how often we can eat junk food and still hang on to our health.

If you think “in moderation” is the ultimate guide to fitting junk food into a healthy diet is enough, then check out this next bit (responses taken from a number of my coaching clients):

• Fast food moderation: Twice a week. Weekly. Monthly. Twice a year.
• Coffee moderation: Three times a week. Once a day. 4 times a day.
• Croissant moderation: 2-3 times a week. Once a week. Once a month.

Hmmm…. See what I mean? Moderation is completely different to each and every one of us. Could it be possible that we’re all right?

Of course not!

So let’s just get one thing straight: It’s highly unlikely that your notion of moderation is the best guide, which means if you’re currently eating unhealthy food “in moderation”, you’re probably not be doing yourself many favours.

Where did you find your moderation anyway?

Moderation most often comes from our environment. Our friends, our family, our colleges, the country you live in, advertisements, TV shows and things like that.

As an obvious example to this: I think you can agree that the notion of -gelato eating moderation- is going to be very different for an expat living in Italy to an expat living in Brazil.

Here’s a few other examples:

• Walk past a bakery every morning before work? Croissant moderation could very easily be 5 times a week.
• Have friends that eat out in fast food restaurants often? Moderation may be twice a week.
• Your housemate loves coke & always keeps a few bottles in the fridge? Your moderation might be once a day.

So here’s the big take away:

If you don’t choose your moderation, your environment chooses for you. (tweet this)

How to beat the moderation trap

The simplest way to beat the moderation trap is to stop, reflect on your habits and actually make a decision about what moderation means to you. Then of course, take action.

If you’re happy feeling tired all the time, having horrendous skin, and carrying around all those extra pounds, then sure, drinking soft drink once a day might be just fine. But if you want more from your health and your body, then that moderation is NOT going to work out for you.

Next Steps

• STEP 1. Make a list of the Junk: Grab a pen & paper, and list out all the things you eat that you know aren’t moving you towards your health goals.
• STEP 2. Write down how often you usually eat them.
• STEP 3. Define your new moderation: Take a mental step back, and ask yourself: “if I was to eat in the way that would allow me to be super healthy, but without depriving myself of a little joy, what would a SMART moderation be?” Write this down.
• STEP 4. Stick it on your fridge, and keep looking back on it until you’ve drilled these new ideals into your head.
• STEP 5. When & where: If you’ve decided to change your old moderation of 1 blueberry muffin a day to 1 blueberry muffin per week, then decide in advance when you’ll eat it. What day will be your “muffin day”? What time? This clarity will make it LOT easier to adapt to your new moderation.
• STEP 6. Choose a substitute: Whenever you reduce something unhealthy, you’ve got to add something healthier back in. After all, this isn’t about deprivation or eating less. It’s about eating better.

A cautionary note: If you’ve got a few moderation points you want to recalibrate, then be patient and do it one at a time.

Working on recalibrating the muffins this week? Then wait until next week or the week after to tackle the white chocolate latte’s / after dinner ice-creams / (…insert your junk food nemesis…).

Otherwise, you may well be setting yourself up for failure.

A few examples of my current moderations:

• Baguette: a little once every 1-2 weeks
• Dark chocolate: 2-3 squares every 1-2 days
• 100% Nut butter or raw nuts: 1 tablespoon or a small handful each day
• Crepe: once every 3-4 weeks. Come on… I live in France after all!
• Soft drink: Never. I quit soft drink and fast food when I was 13, and while I don’t have many “nevers”, these are two things I very happily live without.
• Fast food: Never. Although I will eat a burger once every few months, but only if it’s made with high quality ingredients and NEVER from a fast food joint- no mass produced burgers for me!

Note: these are just my personal moderations and take into consideration all the high quality nutrient dense food I eat on a regular basis, where I live -the land of baguette and crepe!- and how much exercise I do. You make your own mind up in terms of what moderation means to you.

So what does moderation mean to you? Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments below, or on the Feed Your Awesome Machine Facebook page.

Mother-in-law:

Me: “Well that depends. What do you think about getting melted dark chocolate all over your hands?”

Mother-in-law scoffing: “What? A problem with getting chocolate on my hands?” + Slightly evil laugh. “That my dear… will not be a problem.”

So the morel of this story is, if you don’t mind spending 10 minutes indulging in a little chocolate messiness, then these decedent dark chocolate truffles are relatively easy to make.

The secret to a killer dark chocolate truffle is all in the ganache

I go into a heavenly daze when I hear the word ‘ganache’. Just picture it: High quality dark chocolate. Plus cream. Melted. Together…

A good chocolate truffle is really just a couple of short hops away from this. You let that blissful mix set in the fridge overnight, then roll it into balls and dust them in cocoa powder, desiccated coconut, chopped nuts, or whatever other coatings you can conjure up. They’ll then keep happily in the fridge for around 4 days, although I admit that I’ve never seen a chocolate truffle last that long.

But you know me. I’m obsessed with taking a perfectly good recipe, and seeing if I can make it healthier, without sacrificing flavour, texture or any other pleasure factors. And because a good traditional truffle is only made from a few real food ingredients to begin with, this really didn’t take much effort on my part. And the best thing, my healthier truffles taste identical to the original recipe, and have the same rich silky smooth mouth feel too. Essentially, I only changed two things. I swapped the dairy cream for coconut milk, and the butter for coconut oil.

The result? I had expected them to turn out tasting of coconut- which wouldn’t have been such a bad thing, but surprisingly I could barely detect the coconut at all. If I needed to pin down 3 words to describe them, they would be: 1. Decadent. 2. Rich. 3. Divine.

Dark, Vegan Chocolate Truffles Recipe

Feel free to add a couple of tablespoons of brandy (my favourite addition) or a few drops of natural peppermint extract to the mix if you’re in to that kind of thing.

MAKES AROUND 25 TRUFFLES

• 300g High quality dark chocolate (70% coco solids minimum)
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• 30g / 2tbsp virgin coconut oil
• 230g / around 215 ml tinned coconut milk (60% coconut extract minimum. Try to get one that’s just coconut  and water, without all the extra additives)
• For garnish: Desiccated coconut & 100% Cocoa powder

But no matter how hard I tried, it always ended the same. Me eating the chocolate cake… and feeling like a complete failure… yet again.

I felt totally out of control.

How is it possible that the one thing that I was trying sooooo hard to not do was the one thing that I couldn’t resist?

The attraction of the forbidden fruit

Almost every get-healthy or fat-loss diet I’ve researched revolves around a single thing: a list of food you can and can’t eat. Sometimes it’s entire food groups that you can’t eat like fat or carbs. Other times its specific food like bananas or egg yolks. But the thing that most people don’t realise is that the very list itself may be the thing that guarantees you’ll fail.

Don’t think of a white bear

A quick thought experiment. Look at your watch and for the next 15 seconds, try not to think of a white bear. Go on, I’ll wait….

Fail miserably? So did everyone else, I guarantee it (1).

It’s a paradoxical psychological quirk, but research shows us this: whatever we tell ourselves is forbidden, whether it is an immoral thought or a ‘bad’ food, we end up thinking about more, craving more intensely and quite often indulging in more than we would have if we hadn’t made the thought or behaviour outlawed in the first place (2, 3). This phenomenon is called “Thought Suppression Rebound”, and it’s not something you want to ignore.

The thing is, our mind is a powerful thing and likes to make sure that we are keeping in line with our intentions. So if we’ve decided not to think about that bowl of candy on your colleges desk, your mind will constantly have to ask itself “have I been thinking about the candy or not?” and bam… you’ve just doubled your thoughts about what you don’t want to think about (4).

How stop your food cravings- 1 quick trick

Well first let me start by clarifying what not to do. I had a serious chocolate cake addiction when I was in my late teens but of course I didn’t kick my addiction all those years ago by totally giving in and allowing myself to eat as much as I wanted.

What I did instead was accept that I had a craving, and then shift focus. I stopped pumping all my energy on concentrating on what I didn’t want to eat. I stopped trying to distract myself from every thought I had about chocolate cake, after all, that would only make the whole obsession stronger. Then, I started focusing on what I did want.

My new focus became this: drink 2.5 litres of pure water (which was more than 3 times what I was drinking at the time), and eat at least 3 pieces of fresh fruit, and 3 fresh vegetables each and every day (I was going from almost zero!).

Soon enough, without intending it or even realising it, I found that I wasn’t having to fight with myself every night and I was spending a whole lot less time staring at that evil chocolate cake containing fridge! Sure, I still ate chocolate cake every now and then, but it was no longer this all-consuming obsession that I couldn’t overcome. And opening the space for a positive rather than negative internal dialogue was a big relief in itself.

Although this was just a small step in the right direction, eating 60% less chocolate cake and saving myself from all the stress and pressure was certainly an improvement I was happy with at the time.

2 birds with the one stone

So that was my original goal, and while it worked, I now know of an even more powerful strategy; something we might call a “sneaky substitution”. What you do is take some whole food that’s totally nutrient packed and delicious and eat this at a time when you’d usually consume something not so good for you that you’d like to eat / drink less of.

Here are a few examples:

• Old forbidden food rule: don’t eat crisps after sandwich at lunch
• New sneaky substitution: eat a crunchy apple after lunch with a few almonds (if you want something salty, try roasting whole raw almonds for around 10 minutes in the oven and then splash over some tamari soy sauce while they’re still hot. They’re great for packed lunches too.)

• Old forbidden food rule: don’t drink so much coffee
• New sneaky substitution: drink 2 cups of green tea and 2 cups of other non-caffeinated herbal tea each day

Get the idea? I’ll say it again just in case you haven’t quite got it:

Stop setting all those crazy rules about what you can’t eat, and start focusing instead on what you want to eat. Or… Stop cutting the bad things out, and start adding the good stuff in.

Next Actions

So here’s your challenge for this week:

• Look at all the food / drink you’re trying to NOT eat. Are there specific days or times in a day when you usually eat them?
• Now pick a delicious nutrient dense whole-food that you know that will make you feel awesome to act as your sneaky substitution
• Plan ahead and prepare the sneaky substitution (and I can’t stress how essential this part is if you want this method to work!)
• Share the love by sharing this post on your facebook page, or spread the message by tweeting: “To stop food cravings: stop cutting the bad things out, and start adding the good stuff in. @feedyourmachine”

1) Wegner, D.M. White bears and other unwanted thoughts. New York: Viking/Penguin. 1989.

2) Erskine JA, Georgiou GJ. Effects of thought suppression on eating behaviour in restrained and non-restrained eaters. Appetite. 2010 Jun;54(3):499-503.

3) Coelho JS, Polivy J, Herman CP. Selective carbohydrate or protein restriction: effects on subsequent food intake and cravings. Appetite. 2006 Nov;47(3):352-60.

4) Wegner DM. Ironic processes of mental control. Psychol Rev. 1994 Jan;101(1):34-52.

While that’s an admirable ambition, the sad truth is that this approach just doesn’t work over 95% of the time (and if you don’t believe me, just check out the studies that show the success rates of diets (1). Hint:…they’re dismally low).

But luckily for us real humans, there’s a smarter way. And not just smarter, but easier, more effective, and a lot more fun too.

And it all comes down to the power of making 1, tiny change…

The woman who ignored 95% of my advice, and got impressive results anyway

Let me turn back the clock a bit and introduce you to Sally (not her real name). I met Sally one day while giving a public health talk in a college in Dublin. She came up to me afterwards and told me that she had been at one of my earlier talks and wanted to thank me.

Why? Because she had lost almost 7kg (and counting) and felt like she had almost doubled her energy by implementing what she’d learnt at my last talk.

• Me: “That’s awesome news. I’m really happy for you. Hey, do you mind me asking; exactly what actions did you take?” (note the plural –s- on actions here)
• Sally, + confused look: “Actions? No I only did one thing, and it worked like magic!”
• Me + even more confused look: “Seriously? Only one thing? What thing?”
• Sally + smug look: “Well, all I did was stop drinking junk and stuck to water. That meant of course that I had to adapt to black tea and coffee. It was hard at first, but just like you said, my taste buds adapted and now look at me! This stuff works!”

Needless to say I looked like someone who had just seen a florescent yellow monkey pop out of thin air and start doing the gangnam style dance on my projector.

And I’ll confess, in that instant my ego wasn’t too impressed. I mean, I labour over every talk I give. I take pride in filling each talk with as much evidence based, actionable advice that everyone the audience can use to completely turn around their life… And there was this woman who had ignored almost all of it, but STILL got great results…

Making sense of the nonsensical

It turns out, Sally wasn’t only partial to the odd vanilla frappuccino or caramel mocha late. On her ‘good days’ (ahem) she’d drink large low-fat lates with sugar. For Sally, low-fat = healthy, so she had the misguided idea that made this habit ok.

But here’s the truth. Considering some of these drinks can fit a massive 40% of our daily calorie allowance into one tall cup, and the devastating metabolic effects of all that sugar and milk, I’m not surprised that cutting them out completely lead to her losing fat and feeling more energised. But still, it was a puzzle to me why that single action would lead to such dramatic results.

It wasn’t until much later while trawling through some change psychology research that I finally found my answer.

The compound interest of willpower training

Let’s be honest, saying no to fruit juice and soft drinks, and cutting out the sugar, milk and all the other fancy flavourings from your coffee isn’t easy. But, in saying that, it’s not as if it’s something that would leave you crying in grief. Although uncomfortable on the taste buds for the first week or two, it’s something that anyone can do.

I think Sally had picked this habit because although challenging, it had seemed manageable to her. And it turns out that this was a very wise decision.

Why? Well, according to recent psychology studies it all comes down to the benefits of willpower training. And to fully understand the power of willpower training, you first need to know a few things about willpower:

• Our willpower is in limited supply (2). Once our daily quota is used up, we start making very bad decisions that aren’t exactly aligned with our best intentions (just ask any tired and stressed dieter if they want a cookie at 3pm, I bet they can’t resist).
• Will power is a little like a muscle; the more you work it, the bigger and stronger it gets (3, 4).
• Committing to any small consistent act of self-control can dramatically increase our will power reserves.

So how does this relate to Sally?

Well, here’s my favourite bit:

• Once we increase our willpower reserves, we start making better choices in other areas of our lives without even noticing.

And that’s likely why Sally saw such great results. By resisting the sweated junk drinks she was essentially doing a small, daily willpower work out. This increased her willpower reserves, and all that extra willpower spilled out into other areas of her life making the healthier and better choices seem easier and more natural.

So while it seemed like Sally had ignored 95% of the advice I presented that day, she’d actually taken action on a lot more than she had realised.

And all this by simply cutting the liquid crap and drinking her tea and coffee black.

Sound like something you can do?

Of course it is.

If like me you already take your tea and coffee black and unsweetened, here’s another few daily will power training ideas. And by the way, it doesn’t need to be food related to see results.

• Always take the stairs; never the escalators.
• Do a 2 minute mini stretching / workout when you get out of bed every morning.
• Stop complaining about your body, to your friends, husband / wife, to yourself (for some, this is a lot more difficult than it seems- and your friends will thank you for it).
• Do a 5 minute relaxation / meditation each evening after dinner, after work or immediately after you wake up.
• Keep a small notebook on you and keep a record of each piece of unhealthy (or healthy) food you eat each day.

Next Action:

• Think small… very small.
• Choose a single tiny action that’s a little uncomfortable but still doable.
• Do this every day for at least a month.
• Tell us about your will power training action in the comments below.
• Share the love by sharing this post on your facebook page, or spread the message by tweeting: “Willpower training 101: Cut the liquid crap & drink your tea & coffee black. @feedyourmachine”

• (1) Mann T, Tomiyama AJ, Westling E, et al. Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: diets are not the answer. Am Psychol. 2007 Apr;62(3):220-33. [PDF]
• (2) Baumeister RF, Gailliot M, DeWall CN, Oaten M. Self-regulation and personality: how interventions increase regulatory success, and how depletion moderates the effects of traits on behavior.  J Pers. 2006 Dec;74(6):1773-801.
• (3) Muraven M, Baumeister RF, Tice DM. Longitudinal improvement of self-regulation through practice: building self-control strength through repeated exercise. J Soc Psychol. 1999 Aug;139(4):446-57.
• (4) Muraven M. Building Self-Control Strength: Practicing Self-Control Leads to Improved Self-Control Performance.  J Exp Soc Psychol. 2010 Mar 1;46(2):465-468.

I’ve set goals for myself. Both personal and professional. And I’m sure you have too.

But despite how motivated you probably feel right now, the stats clearly show that only a tiny minority of New Year goal setters actually succeed.

The rest fail.

So, a very smart question to ask yourself would be:

What do successful goal setters do different that make them succeed?

The reason this question is so smart is, as psychology research shows us, that there is a very big difference between the way successful goal setters think and act, and the way failed goal setters think and act.

Essentially, the research shows that there is a formula used by successful goal setters each time they set a new goal, which gets them success. And it’s a formula you can use to. In fact, even if until now you’ve failed at almost every goal you’ve ever set, you can learn to think and act like a true goal setting maverick and ultimately achieve anything you put your mind to.

There are 8 essential mind-sets that set dreamers and goal setting mavericks apart. As you read through them, think back over your goal setting past, reflect on your new year’s resolutions for 2013 and ask yourself where you’ve been thinking like a dreamer and where you’ve been acting like a goal setting maverick:

1. Dreamers: Set a goal because they think it’s something they “SHOULD” do

Their doctor said they need to lose weight and eat more fruit and vegetables to control blood pressure. They feel obliged to do it.

1. Goal Setting Mavericks: Have a REAL reason to make change and use this to fuel their motivation

They WANT to make change because the positive results they get are a MUST. They simply won’t tolerate the status quo of waking up tired each morning, buying baggy clothes to hide their growing belly, or feeling scattered and demotivated all the time because their body isn’t getting the right fuel to run properly. Instead, they are ready to do almost anything to bounce out of bed each morning feeling fresh and alive, feel focused and motivated, and have enough energy to live a rich and exciting life.

2. Dreamers: Set vague goals that exist only in their head

They think vague things like “In 2013 I want to get fit”, or “in 2013 I want to be more productive”   and never commit to what they’re specifically going to do.

2. Goal Setting Mavericks: Set clearly defined, specific written goals

They say “I’ll workout at the office gym 3 times a week for 30 minutes, immediately after work on Monday, Wednesday & Friday nights before dinner”. They write this down on paper and stick it on the wall in their bedroom, on the kitchen fridge, in the office, and even in their car so they can’t possibly forget it.

3. Dreamers: Set too many goals at one time

They say “This year I’ll eat healthy and workout every day”. Week one: They set a diet plan, exercise plan and then get started. They’re on track and feeling great. Week 2: They go out with friends and decide to treat themselves to a pizza, a burger and a kebab for all the hard work they’ve done up to that point. The next day they feel guilty and ashamed. Week 3: Their energy and motivation start to drop. They’re finding it difficult to keep up with all the rules and deprivation. Week 4: They feel exhausted and overwhelmed. They have 2 cheat days in a row. They feel like a failure. Week 5: They decide to give up on their resolutions because life’s too busy at the moment and can’t sustain all the effort. Perhaps they’ll have better luck next year.

3. Goal Setting Mavericks: Set one small habit at a time, and space the habits out over the year

They know that the failure rate is close to 100% when they develop two or more new habits at one time. So they schedule in advance a single new tiny-habit each week, fortnight or month. January’s habit might be to eat healthy snacks. February’s habit might be to work out Monday & Wednesday nights, March’s habit might be to prepare their own lunch for work each night in advance.

4. Dreamers: Don’t clearly know the right steps to take & don’t ask for help

Want to eat healthier and tone up, but don’t know what exactly they should be doing and what will get them results. They try anyway, feel hungry all the time because they don’t know what to eat and then give up after 3 weeks because they’re not seeing results.

4. Goal Setting Mavericks: Hire professional help & do the research required

These people spend time reading books, blogs and articles that help give them the knowledge they need to make effective plans. When they aren’t sure, they don’t hesitate to ask questions or hire expert help to make sure they get the best and quickest results.

5. Dreamers: Keep their goals secret & go-at-it alone

They don’t want to tell their friends and family in case they fail and look foolish.

5. Goal Setting Mavericks:  Tell as many people as possible, and ask for help & support

They know that social accountability is a powerful way to keep them focused and fuel their motivation. And if they need a little help or moral support, they’re not afraid to ask their family and friends.

6. Dreamers: Depend on will power

They say “no sweets or snacks”. They hold out for the first few times, but when a real craving hits and they’re low on will-power, they cave and binge.

6. Goal Setting Mavericks:  Focus on realistic systems & strategies

They know that will-power is an expendable resource, so they pre-plan their actions in advance. They say “when the snack urge strikes, I’ll slice a crunchy apple and eat a hand full of almonds immediately, and then if I’m still craving, I can have 2 squares of 70% dark chocolate”. And of course they make sure to have some tucked away in their desk draw, or on their fridge for when those cravings strike.

7. Dreamers: Have no way to monitor their success

Plan to eat more fresh fruit, but aren’t clear on how much they now eat, or how to measure their progress.

7. Goal Setting Mavericks:  Know where they’re now at, and make a plan to monitor their progress

They spend a day or two monitoring their current fruit eating habit before setting a realistic goal. Then they monitor their new behaviour by recording on a piece of paper or on their phones each piece of fruit they eat for the next few weeks. This way they see their progress which keeps them motivated to keep going.

8. Dreamers: Have an all or nothing attitude

They expect 100% perfection. When they eat that handful of crisps at the party, they throw in the towel and think “well I’ve ruined everything so I might as well just give up”. Afterwards, they feel guilty and worthless.

8. Goal Setting Mavericks:  Expect set-backs and when they slip up, they just get back to it

They recognise that there will be times when they fall off the bandwagon. When they eat that handful of crisps at the party, they think “that wasn’t great, but it’s ok. I think I’ll go fill up on the salad and chicken over on the other table, and next time I’ll make sure I eat before I come to these parties!” They learn from their slip-ups and still feel positive afterwards.

Ultimately, successful goal setting comes down to this:

“A goal without an action plan is nothing but a dream.”

Got it?

Now’s the time to pull out a pad of paper and a pen, go back to your new-year’s resolutions and ask yourself how you can start thinking and acting less like a dreamer and more like a goal setting maverick. Then stop thinking about it and go get started!

Next Actions:

1. Leave a comment and share your new year’s resolutions below. Be specific, and let’s hold each other accountable!
2. Share the love and link to this post on twitter or Facebook so all your dreamer friends can become goal setting mavericks too.

The huge excess of processed junk food and alcohol tends to leave everyone feeling like a nauseous sack of old bloated potatoes, and nothing like the energetic, smiling faces you see on most Christmas advertising.

But that doesn’t cut it for me. I just can’t tolerate feeling that crappy on a day when we should all be feeling awesome.

That’s why I’ve developed a system that helps me keep feeling totally energised, positive and light all without sacrificing the delicious food that Christmas is renowned for.

So here it is. My 10 tips to an awesome and healthy Christmas.

1. Power up with a 10 minute morning interval workout

It’s Christmas so you’re going to eat more than usual right? If you want to prevent the dreaded post-Christmas waistline spread, and the typical food induced coma- then you’ll need to do something active to wake up your metabolism.

The best way?

A short, intense, resistance workout. (see my past post on how to put together a simple interval workout here)

Now, I won’t have time on Christmas day to do a long workout (who does?) but I can fit in 10 or 15 minutes. I bet you can too. I make this work by doing it first thing when I get out of bed (not my usual routine) so it’s done and dusted and I can get on with the days’ celebrations.

And the best part?

It leaves me with that natural post workout high that lights up the rest of my day.

Even if you haven’t worked out in a long time you can still get active. There’s loads of ideas for you here.

2. Have a post-workout green-smoothie

After sweating it out and revving up your metabolism, you’ll want to feed your hungry cells with a quick hit of easy to absorb nutrients. And that’s where the green smoothie comes in. It also happens to enhance the “post-workout high” that I love so much.

If you want to feel great on Christmas, then you need to do things that make you fell good, right? So why not go all out?

Here’s how I make mine. Load a blender with:

• 2 huge handfuls of washed raw spinach leaves (or even better, torn kale leaves without the stem)
• 1 piece fresh / frozen fruit (i.e. ½ cup frozen berries & ½ a small mango)
• Ice
• Water

Blend it until smooth and drink it as you dance around to Christmas carols (or whatever other music you love) in the living room.

3. Eat a whole-food breakfast

You’ll have more than enough time to splurge later. Start your day with a simple, nutrient dense whole-food breakfast. This kind of breakfast will do a couple of great things. It will give you sustained energy that’ll last until lunch time and will set your liver up with nutrients it needs to handle that oncoming wine!

Need ideas?

• Try a bowl of cooked oats with chopped apple, pear or berries (stew them for a bit of sexiness)
• Mashed avocado and feta on whole-wheat toast
• Chopped fresh fruit with plain organic Greek yogurt.

Not fancy, but they taste great nevertheless.

4. Serve up healthy snacks

This Christmas, forget about the crisps, fried and salted nuts and Bombay mix. Plate up snacks that have some class instead. Go for big bowls of fresh berries, nuts in their shells, hummus and baked corn chips, vegetable sticks, or smoked salmon on whole-wheat toast.

5. Eat only what’s been made by a human you know

Some of the worst Christmas food is the stuff that comes pre-made in a packet or tin. Think about it; premade Christmas cookies made with trans-fats, gravy mix that contains more e-numbers than an international phone number and cranberry sauce with enough sugar to sink a ship.

Definitely not the sort of ingredients that’ll leave you feeling energised.

The best way to avoid the junk?

Only serve up things you’re prepared to cook yourself (or can convince others to cook for you; see next point) from whole, fresh ingredients.

6. Take the load off and delegate

That doesn’t mean you need to spend 5 days in the kitchen cooking. If you’re the host, this year, do yourself a favour, ignore your inner control freak and get your guests to prepare some of the dishes. There’s no rule against sending them the link to a healthy recipe that you want them to use, and they may even thank you for making their job easier.

If you’re not the host, send the link of this post to whoever’s in charge with a gentle wink & a nod, and let them know you’re 100% willing to lend a hand to help. This way, everyone gets involved and everyone eats only the best and most delicious food possible. That’s what Christmas should all be about shouldn’t it?

7. Tweak your Christmas dinner

If you’re reading this and starting to feel like you might want to toss your Christmas menu out of the window & start from scratch, stop!

The simple truth is that almost every dish can be made healthier (and often more delicious) by tweaking a few ingredients.

Here are a few ideas:

• Mashed potato: mash through some oat milk and a little olive oil rather than cream and butter.
• Stuffing: swap the sausage for diced mushrooms and chestnuts, swap the white for wholegrain bread, and use 100% apple juice as a liquid rather than butter.
• Cakes & Pastries: Make with wholegrain flour instead of white and reduce the sugar in all the recipes by half (don’t worry, they’ll still be sweet).
• Mac & Cheese: If this was part of your Christmas dinner plan then maybe you should consider starting from scratch… Kidding! Try a few of these tweaks: use whole-grain macaroni rather than white; swap half the macaroni for lightly steamed cauliflower; use 1/2 natural greek yogurt & ½ vegetable broth rather than cream; top with wholegrain breadcrumbs.

So take a minute or two to think about each dish you plan to serve on Christmas day and ask yourself what simple tweaks could turn them into something just a little bit better.

8. Serve your Christmas dinner with as many bright green sides as possible

That’s vegetables of course!

I love to lighten things up with a huge rocket and strawberry salad with a sharp home-made French dressing for example, and serve simple steamed or quick sautéed vegetables like shredded Brussels sprouts, cabbage, or broccoli.

9. Drink the good stuff, and keep hydrated

What’s Christmas without an alcoholic beverage…or 3? If you’re going to take action on even one of the tips on this post, why not go with the flow & drink what is actually half good for you?

My number 1 option?

Red wine. You’ll be getting some potent antioxidants at least.

The worst?

Anything mixed with fruit juice, soft drink or milk.

If you’re not drinking booze (and hats off to you) create yourself a classy drink by diluting some 100% apple juice with sparkling water (let me clarify- drinking straight fruit juice is like drinking a glass of sugar. That’s why we dilute it!).

Either way, keep hydrated and match every glass of alcohol with a glass of plain water.

10. Play games and have fun

Seriously, Christmas should be a time for fun and there’s more than enough psychology research that says that us big-kids (ahem… adults) just don’t play enough.

In fact, playing more is shown to help us not only decrease stress, but increase our mental capacity and overall health too. So get out those cards, draw some pictures with the kids, run around with the footy out the back yard or if you live in the northern hemisphere, go build a snow-man!

Just let loose and have some real fun.

But whatever you do, I wish you and your family a totally awesome and merry Christmas.

Cheers! (Sláinte, Στην υγειά σας, A votre santé, Salud, Salute, Chin Chin, Proost, Kampai, Kong Chien, Konbe, Fee saḥitkum, etc)

Don’t forget to share your Healthy Christmas ideas in the comments below!

A few wise words from the memory of a great but arrogant French chef

Every time I make a pumpkin soup it takes me back in time to a past life when I was in chef’s school learning the arts of the culinary craft. One of our tutors was this rather obnoxious but very talented French chef, and although I can’t remember his name, there are two vivid memories that still stick out in my mind:

1. His hatred towards any student chefs that didn’t seem fully committed to the very serious business of professional cooking…
2. And, on a more useful note, his wise words that stated that a good basic vegetable soup (like this creamy butternut squash soup right here!) shouldn’t need stock. Providing that you’re careful to gently sauté your onions and garlic (and in this case ginger too) long enough so that they become rich, brown and translucent before adding your water, stock is completely unecessary. It is from this beautifully rich yet simple sauté that he said all the flavour comes from.

Sounds like good advice to me and it’s a tip I still follow to this day. And in terms of flavour, I think it beats those heavily processed little stock cubes that are filled with uncountable questionable ingredients.

Try it and see. You’ll thank me after!

  Creamy Butternut Squash Soup with Ginger, Coconut Milk & Red-Lentils

Feeds 5-6

• 1 large onion
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 inch piece ginger
• 1tsp extra virgin olive oil
• 150g red lentils
• 1.5 ltr water
• 1kg butternut squash pumpkin
• 200ml coconut milk
• Salt and pepper
• Coriander

Whether you’re traveling for business or pleasure, I’m almost certain that you want to arrive at your destination feeling energised, and mentally alert. But usually people end up totally tossing out all of their healthy eating principals, while gorging on whatever “food” is on offer at the airport, which is more likely to leave anyone mentally foggy, sluggish and feeling like a bloated whale. And this isn’t a great way to start your holiday or prepare for that important meeting is it?

Do you get caught out by these junk food traps when you travel?

It all starts with the  stressful rush to the airport, then a 15 minute wait at check-in, followed by an additional 20 minutes at security, you’re then through to the departures lounge (and very relieved that you’ve made it with a little time to spare) but feeling famished. So what now?

Perhaps like many people who value their health, you take a quick look at the restaurant options before making the frustrating realisation that there’s absolutely “nothing healthy” to eat. Then, after a few minutes of mental back-&-forth, you resolve that it’s either junk or starve, and since it’s just this one time, you duck into a fast food joint hoping no-one you know sees you.

But is that the only option?

How to beat the system with healthy travel snacks

I’ll confess that I’ve been in this situation more than a few times. But I very quickly realised that I wasn’t doing myself any favours by getting frustrated each time I went to the airport & complained about the lack of healthy options. Most airports around the world are stocked full of overpriced junk. It’s just a fact that I’d needed to accept and learn to work around.

So I started to formulate a simple strategy to do exactly that. Ultimately, I wanted to completely avoid the horrible tasting, overpriced, unhealthy food traps you get in most airports & get to my destination feeling fresh, switched on & ready to go. Enter my 4 step strategy:

(Oh and by the way, I use this same strategy when I’m going on long train or car journeys too.)

1. Eat a full & healthy meal before you leave the house. Definitely don’t leave the house half hungry thinking that you’ll just grab something on the way. This is setting yourself up for failure before you even step out the door – so it’s definitely not a good idea.

2. Pack healthy travel snacks. A lot of people don’t know that you can actually take food through security and on the plane too, aside from the obvious restrictions like liquids. The simplest snacks for me are:

• Fresh fruit like a couple of apples or mandarins
• Raw unsalted nuts & seeds (I pop these & the rest of the options into zip-lock bags)
• A little dried fruit like unsweetened un-sulphured dried apricots, apple or mango
• Raw veg sticks like carrot, celery, pepper
• Home-made breakfast bars (I’ll post a recipe for my favourite one soon)
• A block of 70% dark chocolate (best to have this in-case sweet cravings strike!)

3. Make a quick meal to take with you. I normally go through the fridge the night before I travel to clear out any perishables. Quite often, I’ve got loads of little bits and pieces that when thrown together form a perfect little on-the-go meal. It only takes a few minutes and saves me loads of unnecessary stress the next day.  My 2 favourite options are:

• Quick whole-grain wrap. Stuff it with leftover chicken, hard boiled eggs or goats cheese and loads of salad. Or…
• Lunch-box style meal. Pile the same types of ingredients as you’d put in a wrap into a sealable and disposable plastic container. You can always pick up a plastic fork from the airport when you arrive & just toss the box into the rubbish when you’re done. Simple.

4. Drink loads of water. I know you know this already but I’ll say it anyway! Being thirsty can make you hungry, and when we’re hungry we don’t tend to make the best decisions about what we eat. So, make sure you grab a bottle of water (no, not diet coke or fruit juice!) once you’ve gone through security to keep you hydrated during your trip.

The MacGyver guide to surviving when you haven’t had the chance to plan ahead

Now these strategies work for me around 90% of the time. But there are times when my schedule is so tight that I don’t have the opportunity to prepare anything.

At this point, you’ve got to find the “best of the worst” as I like to call it. First things first, you’ve got to forget about caving and dipping in for a quick burger or bacon & egg breakfast roll.

Instead I want you to step into your MacGyver shoes & find the best options possible. Now what this best option is of course will depend on where you are, and what options you’ve got around you. So here’s now I suss out the best options.

I usually start out by doing a quick reccy, darting in and out of a few food places to see what options they have before I decide on my plan of attack. Then, I think of things like a 4 piece puzzle. I’ll need some protein, some whole-carbs, some fruit or salad veg, and a something a little sweet, but healthy for afters (and why not?!). By keeping this in mind, you can generally piece together a half decent meal if you collect the different pieces from different outlets. Here are the kinds of things I tend to look out for:

Puzzle Piece 1, protein:

• A mini block of cheese. I tend to look for those little travel packs of cheddar cheese, or a small goats cheese log.
• Single serve packet of smoked salmon or ham. For some reason, a lot of airports sell packets of cured meats & fish, perhaps for people to pick up as gifts. So if you can find a small single serve packet (around 80-100g) this is also an ok option.

Puzzle Piece 2, carbs:

• A small bit of whole-wheat bread. Sometimes you’re lucky and there’s a small bakery, other times, you might need to dip into a self-serve style restaurant to find mini loaves of whole-wheat bread. Make sure it isn’t just white bread that’s been coloured brown (a common trick), or any other “multi-seed” loaf that’s made with white flour, but real 100% whole wheat.
• Plain 100% whole oat crackers / oat-cakes: These are pretty common in UK and Ireland, and getting more common in other countries too. So keep an eye out.

Puzzle Piece 3, veg / fruit:

• An apple or some other piece of fruit. You can usually find these in the fruit bowls of some cafes, or if you’re desperate, most fast food joints sell sliced fruit or grapes in little bags.
• A bag of cherry tomatoes or carrot sticks. If you can find them… Sometimes you get lucky (no, ketchup doesn’t count!).
• A pre-prepared salad. Although this is generally my last option. They never look particularly fresh or attractive, and paying the bloated price they tend to charge for a few bits of brown iceberg lettuce & wrinkled tomato doesn’t really get me excited.

Puzzle Piece 4, something sweet:

• Block of dark chocolate. Most gift shops or magazine stores nowadays stock high quality dark chocolate. As a treat, pick yourself up a bar of plain 70% cocoa chocolate, and enjoy a little of this for dessert with a cup of black coffee or tea. Mmmm…

A 1,2,3 all-in-one option:

• A whole-wheat sandwich. Most pre-packaged sandwiches are so overloaded with additives, preservatives and junk sauces, and so devoid of actual nutritious fillings that I would seriously advise you to steer clear of them. But, if you’re lucky enough to find a sandwich place that’ll build you a sandwich to order, then this may be a simple option. Start with 100% whole-wheat bread or a wrap, and fill it with fresh chicken breast, tuna (not the mayo type!) or hummus for protein, and heaps of fresh salad veg. Hold the sauces and instead spread with mustard for flavour. Skip the side orders of cookies, crisps & soft drinks (obviously).

Still, don’t over-rely on these last options because I can’t count the number of times when I’ve not been able to find whole-food pieces to fill my puzzle and ended up eating nothing at all. Not fun. So whenever you can, always take some healthy travel snacks with you.

What strategies and tips do you have to keep healthy while going through airports? 

The following very delicious and healthy fish and lentils recipe with Salsa Verde, comes to you with complements from the very talented Chef:  David Stephens.

Most food lovers I would guess have a collection of favourite recipes that they have a slightly irrational emotional attachment to. You know what I mean- those ones you cook up when you’ve got guests that are winners every time and even the thought of giving them away feels like you might just loose a part of yourself.

Well, about 10 years ago I was out to dinner at the house of a family friend. I can’t remember most of what we ate, but I do remember the dessert. It was a rather divine tiramisu, which just so happened to be one of my favourite deserts at the time. Afterwards, like any dutiful guest, I complemented her on her cooking, and wasted no time in asking for the recipe of that heavenly tiramisu. Sounds innocent enough really, but her answer surprised me.

“No”.

“No?” I asked. “Really?”

“No”. She then explained her recipe sharing policy which went something along the lines of this: “I NEVER  share any recipes. With anyone.”

Hmmm….

She was just one of these women I guess who had an emotional attachment to all her recipes.

Anyway, the week after, I returned the favour and invited them around for dinner. But I had a plan. I was going to cook her something she would love. Some delicious recipe she’d beg me for, which would give me leverage to negotiate for that blissful tiramisu recipe.

That night, I served up seared scallops on a carrot and fennel roti, with crème fresh and a citrus chili jam. And it worked. I have to admit that it was rather enjoyable to see her squirming uncomfortably when she asked me for the recipe at the end of the night. To which I said:

“I’ll give you the recipe… but only if you give me the tiramisu recipe”

Cha-ching.

So I got my recipe, and she got hers, but honestly, the whole little charade seemed completely absurd. Perhaps that’s why it’s still stuck in my mind all these years later. I mean, there was a woman who really had nothing to lose from sharing and yet she had this archaic idea that all recipes should remain a closely guarded secret.

Now the point of this little reminiscence is that the recipe I wanted to share with you today didn’t come from me, or a stay at home mum for that matter, but a qualified and highly experienced chef, David Stephens. Dave has ran kitchens all around the world, from every corner of Australia to Dublin, London, and France and everyone seems to just love his unpretentious, laid back approach towards food, cooking and… well life.

A few weeks ago, Chef Dave was at my house and offered to cook me and some friends of mine lunch. At the end of the meal, everyone agreed as they put down their knives and forks and restrained themselves from licking their plates: the dish was amazing!

So, I thought I’d be bold ask him if I could share the recipe with all my FYAM readers. Here was his reply:

“Sure”.

Pure, simple and without hesitation. He then grabbed a scrap of paper and a pencil that was lying around and scribbled it out.

At that moment, it struck me how silly that woman had behaved all those years ago. There in front of me was a highly qualified chef who had everything to lose by handing out one of his carefully crafted recipes, and yet he was 100% willing to share it with the world.

Why? Because he has a different way of looking at food. To him, if food is good, the recipe should be given to anyone who wants it. It’s the way he relates to food, and it’s his personal philosophy. And his philosophy was clarified for me in that instant, and I love it.

And what’s more, in my opinion, if you really want other people to appreciate your artful cooking skills, then what better way than to share the recipe so that each and every time they cook it, and each and every time a guest of theirs raves about it, they’ll be thinking of you and your generosity.

So, as Dave instructs, cook this recipe, eat it with relish, and then share it with as many friends as you dare. And please, the next time someone asks you for your honoured family recipe, take it as a compliment, share the love and give them the recipe!

Oh and by the way, to make the whole thing seem even more ridiculous, it turns out that that prized tiramisu recipe was in-fact not her own, but taken directly from a Woman’s Weekly cook book.

And, in case I forgot to mention, chef Dave also happens to be my brother. Lucky me eh?!

White Fish, Roasted Beets, French Lentils & Salsa Verde Recipe

Feeds 2

• 4 medium red beetroots
• 1/2 onion
• 1 medium small carrot
• 1 stick of celery
• ¾ cup / 175g dried French Puy Lentils
• A few tablespoons of flour
• 2 medium or 4 small fillets of white fish like sea bass

For the Salsa Verde Recipe

• 1 large handful fresh basil
• 1 large handful fresh parley
• 1 large handful fresh chives
• A few fresh mint leaves or a dash of dried mint
• 6 capers
• 3 anchovy filets
• 2-3 tablespoons of high quality extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lemon