Getting Healthy – One Small Software Update at a Time
Autopilot, step-by-step, catching glance-after-glance. Pondering my decision as I catch them glide up effortlessly beside me. From the far edge of my peripherals I catch a glimpse of a like-minded individual – going the opposite direction but still – embarking on the similar journey (it wasn’t their fault the winds were at their back). I give them “The Nod” (I guess that’s one of my autopilot features), wondering what was driving them to opt for burning calves over catching up on their social feeds.
I’ve reached this point of just doing rather than thinking. This particular case an extreme example, walking up Eight Storeys of stairs from the 63rd and Lex subway station (the third deepest in NYC OR the deepest if we’re using below sea level metrics), but in my mind I wasn’t even presented a choice. Since moving to the Big City, whenever I need to hop on the Majestic F-train (and now the Q), Eight-Storeys of stairs await, a descent that makes you question how sturdy the rocks are that hold up the City’s 232 miles of towers (towers which sway their hips with each gust of wind).
What’s Your Autopilot?
An interesting aspect about living in an urban City is it’s unintentional promotion of exercise through its high density of activities available. Need to get somewhere? More times than not, it’ll require more walking than sitting. Compared to suburbia, where venturing anywhere usually entails entering a motorized vehicle (you do walk the driveway to your car), taking a minute to compose yourself (finding what station is playing T-Swift), and driving to your location. As you arrive you spend about 7 minutes (on average) circling the parking lot, scanning for the closest possible spot, attune to the slightest movements (one will open up, it always does). Once your chore is complete you return and repeat. Adds-up to a whole lotta sitting. And who can resist making a quick stop at one of those dandy establishments that serve food right into your window. I know! It’s stupid if you don’t!!!
I bring up these examples because -naturally- for most daily activities we flip on the autopilot switch. It’s muscle memory dictating daily operations, and that my friends is what we need to manipulate.
Muscle memory (in my eyes) is the outcome of doing something in repetition until it becomes a function of pure intuition…….. Naturally you want to make a change for the better but it simply doesn’t happen overnight, one must unleash the excretions of “Effort“. We know that our bodies are capable of taking on major changes at a blink of an eye, but are they sustainable? It depends, many studies have shown humans ability to rapidly lose unwanted weight….. BUT they also highlight that we’re quite good at gaining it back. After all those years practicing “packing on the pounds” our bodies attempt to revert back to our pre-diet lifestyle.
Health & Software Updates
If we’re going to use the autopilot feature, why not program them to aid our life (health, happiness, mood, fitness….) rather than hurt it? Losing 20 pounds in a week is not a re-program, it’s more of a rip-and-replace of your current operating system(OS) with a new one. It may work for some, but for most, the new software will short-circuit causing us to roll back to our legacy (unhealthy) systems.
But what if we slowly (and mindfully) added new features to our current OS, while retiring ones that are responsible for the majority of help desk tickets (aka medical issues). Small feature updates (lets say one a week/month) will transition from a (possible) slight annoyance to daily habit, from habit to routine, and finally from routine to an autopilot feature.
What are examples of small changes?
- Taking the stairs
- Parking further away
- Increasing your weekly vegetable intake by 5%
- Decreasing Processed foods intake by 5%
- Walk breaks/ Walking Meetings
- Biking once a Week
- Taking you pet for a walk instead of just opening the back door
I don’t even think twice about taking the stairs, it’s actually quite extraordinary, the only time I’ll think about the “stairs” is when I’m looking for them. I’ve reprogrammed my brain to go out of the way to take the stairs, there’s a noticeable glitch in the system when I’m forced to go in an elevator (unfortunately some of these skyscrapers don’t allow you to walk the stairwells). From the eating perspective, I’ve slowly migrated my OS feature-set to a fully Plant-Based ‘Whole-Food’ diet (that’s been sustained for the last 2 years). I said Goodbye to the dairy, meat and processed goodies. Not easy if you take the “cold turkey” approach, but systematically learning new plant-based dishes and ways to get my ‘natural’ sugar-fix made it quite doable. Week-by-Week, Feature-by-Feature, Adding the GOOD and Removing the BAD- I updated my software. It’s an ongoing process too, I’m not perfect, nor will I ever be. We’re always learning, and as a result the feature updates should always continue to roll out. Look at it this way:
Small software patches work much better than large -often complicated- upgrades!
All your doing is upgrading your software in a systematic and safe way. Apple does it every month for your IPhone (I’ll now pause to give you time for a sarcastic sigh and IOS upgrade complaint). Your mind is an incredibly powerful machine that keeps your story going in real time, but just like us (cause it is us) it gets lazy! It develops ways to become super efficient, with the ability to excrete less effort to accomplish repeated tasks, so the Art of “Switching it Up” is quite important. By incorporating healthy habits as small software updates you will be able to continue your life with minimal noticeable change, no major system cut-over needed (nor wanted). Small weekly updates can go quite a long distance over the course of a year, and you’ll have a solution that’s sustainable!
Walking from Point-A to your desired destination of Point-B and enjoying the journey is so much more appealing than sprinting on a treadmill and ending up the very place you started. Have a Macro Goal but understand it’s the daily Micro Habits that are going to get you there.
Speaking of Steps…….
OS Update #1: Start taking them!
