It’s mid-January and my daily weigh-in tells me that my weight has gone up again. Intermittent Fasting is a back and forth game.

I know that.

But today’s weight is more than I have weighed in two years!

The weight will go back down. I’m not worried.

But at this rate, my average monthly weight will be higher than December’s average weight.

I could get frustrated, if I’m not careful. I’ve been working on reaching my Marathon Weight for almost two years now. Shouldn’t I be there by now?

I have reached the weight goal, but it’s maintaining it for a monthly average that’s tricky.

I try to get curious instead of frustrated when it comes to intermittent fasting and weight loss.

It’s a concept I picked up from BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits.

In terms of behaviour modification or changing your habits, there’s three things to look at. Ability. Prompt/trigger. And motivation.

The problem is that most people look at motivation first. They try to “will” themselves into doing the behaviour they want.

Motivation is the least reliable component to focus on. It constantly changes.

It’s much more effective to focus on making the good behaviour easier to do (ability). Or make the bad behaviour harder to do. You can also remove the prompts and triggers that make it harder to do.

So, when faced with my weight gain, I got curious.

I checked on some of my previous data. Every January I gain more weight than December. Interesting…

It makes sense when I think about it. All the holiday goodies from December that weren’t consumed get eaten in January. By me and Deb. Because our kids have gone back to their homes.

And it takes a little while for me to get back into swing of cooking for only two people. When there’s lots of leftovers, I’m compelled to eat them.

I also stay in holiday mode for few weeks. Even though I fast, I’m still eating a lot of junk food. And consuming alcohol. In the evenings.

While in the holiday mode, I also watch a lot more TV. And TV often triggers the snacking impulse.

Instead of getting frustrated, I’ll get focused. And work on my systems.

During the week, I’ll cut back on my TV watching past 10pm. That will curb my triggers for snacking. I was getting pretty good at it before the holidays. I also had an alarm to remind me to stop eating and drinking.

Every little bit helps because a lot of our behaviours are unconscious. Often I’d be stuffing my face with nachos before realizing I should have already started my fast.

I’ll also get back to meal planning with an awareness that it’s only for two of us. It’s time to let the fridge get back to normal and stop stocking it for 7 people.

Hopefully, I’ll remember some of these things next January. So that I can break the trend of gaining more weight than December.

I’ve got some things to work on for the rest of the month. No need for me to get frustrated. I got curious instead. And came up with a plan.

Now, if I could only apply that thinking to other things that tend to frustrate me like work and annoying people…