Improve your eating habits with an agile project management approach
You decided to lose some weight or to change your eating habits. You made a deliberate plan upfront, installed 15 calorie counting apps, and are ready to reach your goal. The first day went as planned, the second went as planned, and suddenly it’s Christmas with lots of nostalgic foods, overeating, and undertraining. And not surprisingly you are back to day one (best case scenario) of your original plan.
You repeat this iterative process of losing weight again and again, but there is always something unplanned on this path. When you’ve reached your limit, your motivation is just descending until you completely lose interest.
Sounds familiar? You are not alone. I have for once been there. I probably tried everything to lose weight. Sometimes I could lose 5 kg in 1 month, sometimes I could just drop the diet without any results. My two biggest challenges were boredom and short-lasting results. I wanted to lose weight painlessly and keep that weight off in the long run.
If you also have struggled with losing some kilograms, continue reading. I will provide you with a slightly different approach that diminishes the painfulness of the whole “dieting” process, keeps you motivated, and provides you with life-long results.
Inspired by project management
Assume losing weight or changing eating habits is your high-priority project and you are the project manager. Every project has its life cycle — the steps you take to develop a product or a solution. Since my favorite and most effective approach is agile, I came up with an idea that worked for me and hopefully will work for you.
Follow 5 simple steps inspired by the agile project life cycle.
- Treat your body like your valuable customer
Imagine your body is telling you that it needs some improvements to feel better and more confident. You say, “All right, let’s start a ‘lose weight’ project. I have a few solutions that we can try together.” You start brainstorming, planning, and researching keeping in mind the very first principle behind the Agile Manifesto, which is:
“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software”
2001, ©The Agile Manifesto authors
2. Break your big project into small pieces
You see, the final goal “change eating habits” or “lose weight” is very abstract and, thus it is hard to see if it is feasible or not. However, when you reach your goal step by step, breaking one big project into many small pieces, it becomes much easier to see the progress and conjure up the final image in your mind. You take a small step, you succeed, you reward yourself with something joyful (your favorite specialty coffee, tea, fruits, chatting with an old friend, visiting a new place, and so on), and you know that the next step will also be a success. The best part is, that you WANT to go to the next step because you know how great it feels.
“The anticipation of future events depends on remembering the past and perceiving the present.”
3. Adjust as the needs evolve.
I remember when I worked with clients in a web development studio, they came to me only with their abstract ideas in mind, without any technical knowledge about the product they wanted. I had to use all my senses, curiosity, and empathy to understand how to build the product this person needed. Then I translated all the gathered information to my development team, and we started the process. I showed every sketch, every small adjustment, and every new idea to my clients and only after approval, my team continued to work on the project. As the project evolved the client’s needs and understanding of what he/she wants were also evolving.
Remember your body is your best customer. Use a pragmatic mindset — we know not much, but enough to effectively plan. Be flexible and patient. We shouldn’t try to control something that isn’t controllable. Focus on what your body needs, and as the needs evolve you adjust to them. For example, your first step was to remove trans-fats from your diet, because you know that they cause DNA damage and as a result, the metabolic processes in your body are not efficient.
Your preliminary research showed that trans-fats are found in shortenings, french fries from fast-food restaurants, and your favorite doughnuts. So, you’ve decided to exclude those things as a first thing. Consider this as your first iteration and you need to check with your customer (your body) if it is working.
Instead of shortening you used vegetable oil or butter, you forgot the road to the fast-food restaurants, and you treated yourself with some delicious juicy fruits instead of sugary sticky strangely colored doughnuts. You did this for 5 days in a row. How does your body feel now?
You are energized, you work much more efficiently, your skin looks better, and you finally feel a very strong desire to just walk and fill your lungs with fresh air.
“Awesome! This is exactly what I asked for. Let’s try to add other features and see if we strengthen the effect”, your body says.
Oh, you’ve just read an amazing book called “The Art of Fermentation” by Sandor Ellix Katz where you found out how to make kimchi from scratch, and you now know how beneficial it is for your body. So, you try it and get more positive feedback from your client. “Great! Just continue to surprise me.”, your client says.
4. Make change — test — refine — repeat
Add small changes to your flow and notice how your body responds to them. If positive, add them to your project design. If negative, remove it and try something else. There are many helpful articles out there for your healthy eating inspiration, I wrote one as well and will write many more. Just keep an agile project management spirit going. As your project continues, you may notice some deviations from your original vision. Remember, you first stated that the final goal is to lose weight? But you realize that you want to radically change your lifestyle, eat healthy food, be active, or maybe even run a marathon. What would you call your goal or project now?
5. Deliver your project
Now that you have tested, improved, gathered an array of feedback from your body, and improved again every step of the project flow, you are ready to deliver the final result. You have created a perfect solution that aligns with your body’s needs and can be adapted as necessary. You should be very proud of yourself, you made it all happen.
The whole iterative process taught you that something that seemed unrealistic and difficult from the beginning is very easy to achieve if you break it into small pieces. You have also learned that every small success is tentatively rewarding, and you want to have this feeling as often as possible. While you were happily collecting your successes you didn’t even notice that you lost many bothering kilograms of excess weight.
In summary, to break your cycle of countless attempts to lose weight you need to be agile. Consider your body as your most valuable customer and listen to it, collaborate with it, connect with it, and do everything you can to make it happy. The happier your body is, the fullest life you are living: You become more productive, less stressed, more energized, more active, and whatever you always wanted to have in your life.
Thank you very much for reading. Please, share your thoughts in the comments, follow me to read more inspiring articles, and enjoy your life.
