Conscious Competence

I was reading The 4 Stages of Mental Mastery by Chris Shugart yesterday, and this part in particular really struck me:

'Most experienced Testosterone readers probably find themselves stuck in the stage of conscious competence. And that's not a bad thing really. They aren't failures at all, but the daily grind and struggle make it easy to slip back to stage two.

Time is often the cure. Avoid shitty foods long enough and you won't want them anymore. Sometimes this can be done in as little as 21 days: a time period most behavior experts agree it takes to kick a habit.

With diet goals, that means that cold turkey is best. Let's take that 21-day example literally (although there can obviously be differences among individuals and individual habits). Okay, so if you avoid fried food for at least 21 days, you'll begin to lose your taste for it. But what if you have a cheat meal of fried food once per week, you know, 'cause you "deserve it" and it "replenishes glycogen or somethin'"?

Well then, you never reach 21 days of cold turkey, do you? In fact, you reinforce the negative behavior by making it special – a reward for being good all week.

The alcoholic doesn't kick booze by rewarding himself with a 12-pack every Saturday. Food addictions work the same way, which is why I now disagree with the idea of all-out cheat meals.'

This part of the article struck me because I am like this with sugar. My eating during the week is good (protein, veges, fruit, good fats, and carbs around training) and I deliberately avoid sugar, but during the weekend I am more likely to eat chocolate, biscuits etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I have a problem being 'moderate' with these kinds of foods. I need to get back into the habit of choosing other alternatives to satisfy my sweet tooth.

So I am going to try going without sugar for 21 days (with the exception of workout drinks). I figure if I can do it during comp prep, there's no reason why I can't do it any other time, right?

Because I found being accountable to my blog helpful to achieve my Christmas Day goal, I am going to do the same for this goal. Starting Tuesday morning I will briefly log how the previous day went, and what alternatives I've used when I wanted something sweet.