Asklemmy @lemmy.ml

3mo ago

What's Your Best Habit?

When I get fast food, I don't eat the fries until I get home.

79 comments

When I feel bad emotionally, I clean. I do the nastiest, most unpleasant jobs; since I'm gonna be miserable no matter what, I might as well get some use out of it.
- That's kinda genius.
- That's interesting. I wonder if I can trick myself into doing stuff like that as a form of punishment. Generally I find myself unable to move so I just stare into space. Sometimes I have a hard time even moving my arms and legs to drive home from work. Or to get out of the car once I've parked out front. How do you manage to start?
  
  I don't force myself to start right away. After years of "well I guess I might as well" I now more-or-less automatically start washing dishes, doing laundry, and tackling yardwork when my mood dips. I still need to make the conscious choice to tackle bigger jobs like mucking out the basement or turnjng the compost.
  
  It's a practice. It's about bringing your focus back to the present moment. When you're sitting in your car your head is probably swimming in the world of what happens when you step out. But you're not out yet, you're in your car. Breathe and remind yourself of that.
  Think of it like restarting your computer when it freezes. You've overwhelmed your system, it's easier to reset than try resolve the issue through direct control.
- Do you feel that getting the worst jobs done also helps to boost your mood, because that awful thing you didn't want to do is now done?
  
  Not in that way, but:
  A) my environment is usually nicer afterwards, which improves mood, and
  2] if I was miserable due to fighting with my partner, seeing me do chores usually improves her mood, facilitating reconciliation
- Stealing this
- I think I might try this. It sounds useful in so many ways.
- I also recently discovered this and it is so nice and genius
- There's definitely something to this. I tend to get a lot of chores done before my weekly floor disassociation time.

Every day I get up, get on the exercise bike and watch an episode of Star Trek.
Thanks to this, I've seen nearly every episode of Star Trek multiple times.
- ToS, NextGen, DS9, Voyager or are you a heretic I need to burn at the stake?
  
  I rotate between all of em.
  Except Picard and Disco...
  
  Enterprise really gets the heart rate up
  
  What's the problem? Has it been a long road? Getting from there to here?
- Branch out to another long-running show like Doctor Who.
  
  I do not care for that show.
  But I might rewatch the aughts BSG

When i post on asklemmy i write my individual answer as a comment, so people can reply to it instead of the post, where should just be answers to the question.
- I'll keep that in mind
- I think your best habit is correcting people without correcting them. Good job!

I'm extremely consistent with my weightlifting program (1.5 years aww yeah!)
Starting to lift with the best decision I ever made and the best habit I've ever formed. Nagging aches and pains are basically a thing of the past. I'm way more useful, and my lower body, which was once withered and useless after a decade of working in an office, have been replaced with tree trunks and a dump-truck ass
A couple of the accessory benefits of this that in order to support my lifting progress I now eat way better, quit drinking and prioritize proper sleep. Overall it's just been a huge increase in quality of life
- Same, except I lift with my teenage son and daughter. We got a power rack in the garage and now they drag me out to it with them. We’re all feeling better about ourselves!

Everytime I get a meal with vegetables I eat that first no matter what else is on the plate. I think of it working my way to the best part of the meal
- Nice. My dad is always a firm believer of eating vegetables last to help with digestion, but there are benefits both ways lol
  I brought this article up to him a while ago and while he's pretty set on his routine he has changed it up a little if he really wants to enjoy a steak or something as the last bite.
  
  Great article, thanks for sharing.
  TL;DR
  "...push refined carbohydrates to the end of the meal to help reduce post-meal blood glucose levels and keep you feeling fuller longer.
  Consider these tips:
  Start with high-fiber, low-calorie foods with high water content, such as soups, vegetables and fruits. They’ll fill you up and limit the sugar you take in on an empty stomach.
  Choose soluble fibers, such as nuts or beans, to slow digestion and possibly lower your risk of heart disease.
  Eat plant-based proteins, which increase your fiber intake and lead to greater satiety.
  Save high-fat foods for after fiber and protein since they affect heart health and don’t help with satiety."

I say the opposite: fries get cold too fast, they SHOULD be eaten before you get home.
- Heated seats ftw.

I clean up when I'm done. Never leave dishes in the sink and such. I'm not a cleaning freak or anything, it's just that I prefer not having to deal with these kind of obstacles before I can begin doing something else in that area.
- Doing many small tasks is easier than doing a large one. Kinda like the inverse of "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"
  
  Yes, for some things. Some tasks are better done summarized. Cleaning generally isn't, because it easily conflicts with other tasks when not done.
  I'm a rather busy family man, so if I have 20 minutes to cook a meal for the family before I have to drive someone somewhere it can really mess up the entire day schedule if the sink is full of dishes and the trash bin is topped up with unsorted garbage. So I try to be on top of it for my own sake. "Keep the tools sharp" goes for everything, even a diaper supply.
- This is the way! I never understood people waiting for the dishes to pile up before cleaning them. I'd just be more demotivated to actually clean them up.
- Dishes especially are one of those things that doesn't take any quicker to do in large batches. It's faster and easier to just do them after eating before things get dried on.
  Even dish-cleaning-youtube experts don't use their dishwashers anymore.

I mostly get naked in private
- I weigh 175lbs naked, but you really can't trust those grocery store scales.
- I get mostly naked in private. I get naked in mostly private. Mostly I get naked in private.

Is the fry thing really your best habit?

I'm paranoid about losing my wallet and other daily carry stuff, so I haven't. Been carrying stuff for like 30 years. Never lost a wallet, cell phone,pocket knife, or keys. Couple close calls.
- Me too. Often when I leave a grocery store or my home I check all my everyday carries. But I still lost my wallet last month. Forgot in on a car roof when I fled from attacking wasps. It flew somewhere and I lost some cards.
  
  Damned wasps. I over-filled a propane tank last week because of wasps.

I brush my teeth and floss every night before going to sleep.
- Flossing! I floss frequently. I floss more than I brush my teeth (yuck) but it works. Logic behind the lack of brushing is that in the morning I'm drinking coffee and running out the door. At night, sometimes I fall asleep before I brush. But I have floss on my desk at work and in my coffee table at home (as well as obviously in the bathroom with my toothbrush). My dentist can't even tell I miss brushing at times. But can definitely tell I floss regularly.
  You don't have to floss all your teeth, just the ones you want to keep.

Im not sure if it counts as a habit, but i never eat fast food
If that doesnt count: i always wash my hands before touching food

Daily reminder on al devices to think of three things for which I'm grateful every day. I'll do today's list now:
Despite the terrible heatwave in California, I now live in a place with AC for the first time in two decades (uncommon in the Bay Area)
My current work is so chill that I can be on Lemmy most of the day between calls
My partner genuinely loves our (my) kitties and takes great care of them with me

Aren’t they cold by then?
- I prefer them fresh but if needed, I retoast them when I get home especially with undercooked fries like Wendy's . Ensures they are hot and crispy
  
  Interestingly enough, my local Wendy's has the best fries out of any fast food chains I've tried. They are consistently perfectly crisp and salted. Better than how I even remember McDonald's fries in their heyday.
  I do know that Wendy's leaves more up to their franchisees than some places, so maybe I just got lucky with the people who own the one by me.
- The best (IMO) fast food place by me isn't exactly close. By the time I get home I have to nuke fries and burger. 🤷🏼‍♂️ Still didn't have to cook or do dishes!
  
  You need an air fryer. The fries will be back to crispy.
- Potatoes when cooked then cooled actually greatly lowers the glycemic index, so it's weird but actually not a bad habit to have!
  
  Maybe true, but they still taste nasty when cold

Make and bring my lunch to work every day. It takes planning and discipline, but over a year, saves me about $12/day, or $3,130 a year.

Dragging myself out of my house to deal with this maddening existence called life, despite every fiber of my being telling me to stay home and avoid all you annoying flesh-bags that just do everything you can to irritate me.
That and I read daily.

Probably exercise. Lifelong habit of exercise. Different sorts at different times but never nothing, always something on purpose to strengthen & keep flexible, most days of the week.
Night cream and sunscreen since my early 20s too, I do not look how I expected to at this age, nice surprise that was.

Meal prepping my lunch and breakfast for the week. Makes it so I don’t eat junk food or if I do it’s rationed in such away it’s premeasered. But chicken and salads everyday this way and I mix up my proteins. Leftover steak go great with A1 sauce. Pulled pork with BBQ sauce on a salad to die for.
Just easy for me to pull it out and now exactly what I am eating
- Any tips on how to avoid salad getting soggy? I have to meal prep most of my food and soggy veggies are my nemesis.
  
  Put the dressing in another jar. I use small mason jars. I have some glass Pyrex with a snug lid I just pour the dressing on at lunch time and then shake the shit out of it

When I'm really dragging at work I take a nap.

I've been really good with taking my medication first thing these days. I also walk during my lunch hour, and use that time to listen to audio books. Sometimes I don't wanna walk, but I still want to know what happens next, so I go for that walk.

What is good about not eating the fries until you get home? Did you think the benefits would be self-evident to everyone?

Whenever I see on Youtube Shorts something too crazy to be true, I immediately do a quick research and don't stop until I have three sources (counting wikipedia) to corroborate the information.

I quit coffee earlier this year and traded coffee for water. I now drink about 2 gallons of water a day and my teeth have never looked better

First thing I do once I've checked into the workplace is to itemize what I'd like to get done today. And I list a bunch but they're priorities and not requirements. So I have 8 on the list knowing I'll only do 3 and then 5 will carry.
And I forgive myself if something comes up and it hoses my achievements. And I refer to it often as I get unfocused fast.
Keeps me on track.
- Lifeprotips: ADHD edition.

Doing my job consistently enough to pay my bills

Reading

I don't know if it counts as a habit, because I don't have a schedule or anything, but I ride my bike an average of 150km per week.

Do something new everyday.

Handtool woodworking, especially if you tackle the hard stuff. I resaw 50% of my stock, by hand, then smooth, by hand. Just in the last 3-4 months when I started taking it seriously, I lost 20 pounds, with basically few dietary changes. It also keeps me so preoccupied I don't think about eating lol.

I wake up and before I get out of bed, I put on some TENS pads and shock my back for some minutes before I do a set of stretches. I'm 42 and I have an active job lifting stuff, if I don't stretch every morning I'm going to have a very bad rest of the week.

Perfectionism, I always strive to make whatever I create or do as close to perfect as possible!

79 comments