So today my good friend, and one of our documentary subjects called me and said he needed my help.

Most of the time when people say this, it means their computer has crashed…but this time it was because he felt his eating was off track. He knows exactly what he should eat, as he’s done it before, but he just couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t doing it.

This is so common for everyone, us included…that we just don’t follow through with the things we know we should do. So I asked him a series of questions:

1) When are you not eating right? All the time? His response was that his breakfast and lunch were almost always good…not too much trouble. It was in the evenings…

2) Are you going out to eat? His answer was yes, more frequently.

3) What are the things you are eating in your house? Snacks, eating cereal at night…etc.

What we are often looking for is some sort of strength, that will allow us to resist these bad behaviors…some might call it willpower…but there’s a much easier way, that we all already know.

We can all troubleshoot our failings and find ways to fix these behavior patterns without worrying about the random nature of our willpower.

1) Going out to eat is NEVER a good idea when you are trying to eat right. This is because there is just too much temptation, and the portions and calories are too much for almost everyone. The unfortunate truth is we MUST limit our restaurant eating if we expect to make significant progress on our fitness…some can do the right thing and still go out to eat…but most cannot.

2) The foods we keep in our house, and the foods we find ourselves snacking on, matter way more than we think. We all really know this, but when we fail to execute this idea, we can’t be surprised when we reach for those cookies we didn’t plan to eat…that are in our pantry.

3) Are there people or things that are triggering our behaviors? We can all “reverse engineer” our bad behaviors if we use common sense. We can’t underestimate the little things that are precursors to “bad” behavior.

So while often times I’ll write about something that makes so much sense, because it seems obvious…all of us need to be reminded of these practices in order to keep moving in the right direction!

Is your environment shaping your success or taking away from it?