Reset Your Routine & Rework Your Health Habits
It’s summertime and we are full on in summer-mode over here at our house! And with summertime mode often comes a more flexible and lazy schedule. But, sometimes this season of summer fun and relaxation can leave us feeling all over the place - and like we’ve completely lost track of our goals and any resemblance of schedules or structure.
If this sounds like you my friend, you are not alone, I’m right here with you. There’s hope on the horizon as we begin to shift into the rhythms of back to school. And as seasons change we are also offered the opportunity to make some other changes in our routines and habits.
Enter The Routine Reset Challenge! This August, I want to invite you to reset your routine with me. But, before we can jump into our routine reset, we need to lay the groundwork and prepare for our Routine Reset overhaul success.
In today’s episode, I’ll be sharing how science shows evidence to back the claims for clearing out the clutter, and establishing a regular bedtime routine. We want to ensure we have peace of mind and a well rested body to help set the stage for healthy habits to begin to take root.
When I was working in corporate and working with stats and data, one of the common trends I noticed was that behavior changes and metrics went in optimal directions. At the beginning of the year, everyone was ramped up and motivated to make changes after the holiday hangover - and this trend sustained until about the month of May. And then, when summer hit with its many obstacles, the commitment and motivation to continue these intentional changes waned.
So, therefore, August became a sort of reset month, with the same sense of hope to recommit to healthy habits as the school year started back up again, and schedules became more stabilized. People seemed eager to get back on track and continue to work towards taking care of themselves in an empowered way. So, I truly believe that August is a vital month, offering a perfect opportunity to reset and show up with more intentionality.
So today, we’re going to tackle two things to help us prep for the kick off of our routine reset week. The first will be to evaluate our environment. And, because I’m a dietician, we’re going to specifically talk about the kitchen. The second, is evaluating how we take care of ourselves at the end of the day.
Let’s talk about our eating space and what’s happening in our kitchen. One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books Present Over Perfect by Shona Niequist states:
“When I open my closet and see only things I love, and relatively few of them, when I open my cabinets and see nothing but white plates, those are just that many fewer decisions to make in a day, that always invariably make that day just a couple ticks easier. And I'll take it, I've been able to give more focused attention to the higher stakes decisions in my life. The ones about parenting, marriage and friendship, when I don't have to think hard about what to wear, or how to manage all my stuff, the ambient noise of my life gets quieter, when there's less stuff in my life, and fewer decisions to make about that stuff. And then the newfound silence is space for connection, rest, listening, and learning.”
And folks, that right there is what we need to enhance our skills as empowered eaters. We need that space for connection to our body, to our biofeedback. We need to have adequate rest so we're not running on anxiety and adrenaline. We need the space to listen, and the mindset to learn from our actions. And I really believe that in order to do that, specifically, when we're looking at food, we need to have a kitchen and an eating environment that brings us peace.
Now, this doesn’t have to be overwhelming, we can chip away at this one step at a time. The end goal is to create an eating space that gives us peace when we walk in. Because, if we're trying to become empowered eaters we must be able to listen to our body and tune in to our own biofeedback. And when the environment around us is chaotic and we feel overwhelmed, we're setting ourselves up to have a difficult time connecting to our body.
Furthermore, when it comes to food decisions, research shows that we make over 270 decisions about food in a single day. So, if we're trying to clear some of that mental space so that we can make empowered decisions, we are going to need an eating space that doesn't add on more decisions for us to make. Instead, our kitchen can be a place that brings us peace.
Pick one area in your kitchen to start clearing out the clutter. Maybe it's your pantry, maybe it's your kitchen, maybe if you're like me it was your kitchen table. Pick one area, and devote one hour to cleaning it up.
And then, I want you to see how it impacts the next time you eat. Now if you have the capacity and space to take this further, like doing the pantry, the refrigerator, and your kitchen table - let's do all of that. Because at the end of it, we do want that clear clean space to walk into so that we can practice some of our empowered eating skills.
Recently, I had the urge to clean out my refrigerator. It felt so good to clean everything out! As I put things back in, I started thinking really intentionally about every particle of food I was putting back in. I asked myself: what is the purpose of this food? Is this something that brings me joy? Is this something I like to add to my meals? Is this something that fuels my body? And if the answer was no, I got rid of it.
Now, if you're inside my program, you know this about me. I believe that when we are an empowered eater, everything we eat has a purpose. And sometimes that purpose is fuel: like when we're eating adequate protein, we're fueling with carbohydrates appropriately before our workouts. And sometimes it's fun: like ice cream with our kids. So there is a purpose for all kinds of foods! Remember, if we have to make over 270 food decisions in a single day, let’s make our life a little bit easier and weed out some of those decisions by filtering our fridge.
Let's look at some of the other things cleaning out your eating space can do. It can reduce food clutter, which reduces distractions. Research published in the Journal of Environment and Behavior emphasized the impact of organizing your eating environment on food choices and consumption. They found that by decluttering and organizing your kitchen, you create a visually appealing and less distracting space making it easier to be mindful. For those of you that are working to build your empowered eating skills, one of the first steps is learning to listen and tune into your biofeedback. We talk a lot about what biofeedback is, and how to monitor it, inside the Empowered Eating Course. But in order to do that, we need to have that reduced food clutter to reduce some of the distractions so we can actually connect to that biofeedback.
The other thing cleaning out your eating space can do is it increases the visibility of intentional foods, some of the things that you are wanting to like train yourself to eat. Whether that's adding more carbohydrates to your meals, adding some color, whatever it is you are working on adding to your plate we need to create some space for those foods to sit and be easily accessible.
A study conducted by Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab found that individuals were much more likely to consume fruits and vegetables when these items were predominantly displayed in easily accessible areas in their kitchen. When I read this one, I laughed because I also know that a lot of food companies target children by placing their food products (or the grocery store will put their food products) at kids' eye level. So things like Gushers and Lucky Charms and all those really brightly colored foods, they'll put it three feet high so your kids see it. So this concept or reorganizing our kitchen, is using this same tactic, but in an intentionally healthy way.
Your first routine reset assignment is to pick one area of your kitchen to clean out.
Pick one spot at a time and just start somewhere because clearing that space is going to make your empowered eating skills much more accessible in the kitchen.
Your second routine reset assignment is to work on establishing a nighttime routine.
When we are in summer, and schedules are crazy, we tend to end the day exhausted and we end up on autopilot. This is where we tend to start scrolling on our phone. One of my clients the other day called it a ‘doom scroll’.
Maybe our eating habits aren't in alignment with empowerment. And that can go either way, right? Like maybe we're snacking on things without being intentional. Or maybe we're not eating because we're just feeling like we're done, so we just skip the last meal of the day. So my challenge for you is to keep yourself from functioning on autopilot.
Now, if you're finding you really need a break and you want to give yourself some social media time, or watch a show, for some decompression time, let's give ourselves a time cap. I usually give myself 10 minutes of scrolling, or a 30 to 45 minutes show if I really just need to turn off and shut down. But let's challenge the all or nothing mentality here and give ourselves that time to reset without sabotaging the rest of the night.
Here are some reasons to establish a nighttime routine.
For one, it keeps us out of autopilot. Research shows a structured nighttime routine can significantly impact our sleep quality. Research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania found that individuals with a consistent bedtime routine experienced better sleep outcomes, including reduced sleep disturbances and overall improved sleep quality.
As a dietitian I loved one part of the study in particular. The study highlighted that high quality sleep was actually linked to decreased cravings for low nutrient food. As someone that helps people make intentional decisions with their food for a living, I believe it's important that we tune into that biofeedback, and poor sleep can mess with our biofeedback. So that's why the second part of your homework assignment, on this routine reset prep week, is to establish a nighttime routine.
Take five minutes and choose two to five things you can commit to doing every single night. Everyone’s routine will look different.
For example, my nighttime routine consists of five things.
First, I do the dishes. I don’t like waking up to dirty dishes in the sink so I do the dishes.
Second part is taking my supplements, including my sleep time supplements.
Third is washing my face, brushing my teeth, and putting on pajamas. The putting on pajamas piece was new to me. I used to always sleep in a workout shirt, a sports bra, and I read. I actually was present perfect. That quote from the book I read to you earlier, she also talks about putting on pajamas and taking time to pick out clothes for rest and how this routine sends a message to your brain that rest is important. So now I put on pajamas.
The fourth part of my nighttime routine is a decompression of 20 to 30 minutes, whether that's watching a show, reading, or journaling. Sometimes I scroll on Pinterest or browse my shopping apps. All the fun things like that.
And then the fifth part is putting on my sleep mask. I have this amazing sleep mask that has Bluetooth speakers and I listen to a meditation while I fall asleep. So this is my nighttime routine. I can take it with me just about anywhere I go. But I have to stay committed to it.
Let’s recap your two homework assignments for routine reset prep week.
homework assignment #1:
pick one area of your kitchen to clean out.
Clean out at least one part of your kitchen. Let's get that space cleared out so we can make room for empowered eating skills to be employed.
homework assignment #2:
work on establishing a nighttime routine.
Map out and start planning a standardized nighttime routine.
I'm so excited for you to reset your routine with me!
This podcast is here to support you weekly, but it only scratches the surface. For more info on how you can become an empowered eater grab my FREE MASTERCLASS on how to become confident in your body without obsessing over food at jessbrownrd.com.
Don’t forget to join me right here every Monday - where I can’t wait to fuel your awesome.
Cheers, and happy eating!