1: Of all the potential habits to focus on, “health habits are some of my favorites to work on because they have extraordinarily high payoffs,” Tynan writes in Superhuman by Habit.
“Rather than improve just one area of your life,” he notes, “they tend to really transfer well to other areas.”
This is sometimes called a “keystone habit: One habit that leads to positive changes in other parts of your life, too.
That’s why Tynan recommends starting with health.
“I use health as a general term to describe habits which will improve your life expectancy, average well-being, as well as your ability to use your physical and mental facilities to their maximum,” he explains.
2: So, where does he recommend you begin?
“Eating healthy food may be the single most important habit that you can cultivate,” Tynan writes. “It has a large impact on life expectancy, well-being, and the use of your faculties.”
But those aren’t the only benefits.
“The most surprising improvement,” he writes, “is the increase in mood and mental ability not normally associated with healthy eating.
“In addition, eating healthy food encourages an upward spiral of taking good care of oneself, feeling better because of it, and, as a result, being motivated to build other positive habits.”
Tynan says he’s noticed that when people start eating healthier, they often cut back on alcohol and drugs and become more motivated to exercise.
What inspired him to eat healthier? He read Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman.
“Besides laying out a reasonable and sustainable diet,” Tynan notes, Ray also “explained the precise negative implications of eating unhealthy food.”
This realization led to a complete change in his habits.
“When I understood the long term negative effects of continuing to rebel and eat McDonalds, sweets, and fried food, I immediately began a habit of eating healthily, which has persisted to today.”
3: Tynan’s approach is decidedly practical: Don’t try to create the perfect diet overnight. Start by eliminating what he believes does the most damage.
He recommends not getting overwhelmed by all the different healthy-eating diets out there.
Instead, focus on “a few key dietary components that are universally, or near-universally, agreed to be significant,” he says.
So, what’s a good place to start?
“Sugar and highly-refined grains are the most significantly unhealthy things in the standard diet,” Tynan explains. “Eliminating those two groups of foods is about eighty percent of getting to a healthy diet.”
Based on his experience and research, that’s where Tynan suggests focusing your willpower initially.
“Items to cut out include refined sugars (including all fruit juices), agave and maple syrups, and honey, and refined grains such as white flour, white rice, and white pasta.
“You’ll be inclined to find cheats like ‘whole wheat’ bread whose main ingredient is actually white flour,” he notes, so “it’s important to avoid those.”
Tynan’s recommendation? Eliminate them completely.
“The first year is difficult, but then it becomes very easy,” Tynan observes. “By then, you will have completely weaned yourself off of them, you will find them to be too sweet and unpleasant, and your honest preference will be for healthier foods.”
Eliminating sugar and highly-refined grains will require you to find new foods to eat.
“Just cutting them out will leave you at a caloric deficit,” he explains, “which your body will fight by introducing cravings.”
He also suggests giving yourself some flexibility. Choose foods you like, even if they aren’t the absolute healthiest.
“Replacing French fries with plain kale will be tough, but replacing them with baked sweet potatoes is pretty easy,” he notes.
Tynan recommends finding complex carbs you enjoy, such as brown rice, and natural simple carbs like fruit.
“The goal isn’t to have a perfect diet in every way,” he explains, “but to eliminate the dozen or so foods that do the most damage, and to enjoy your diet enough to make it sustainable.”
Because the best diet isn’t the theoretically perfect one. It’s the healthy one you can actually turn into a habit.
More next week!
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Reflection: What is one health habit that, if you improved it, might create positive changes in other areas of your life?
Action: Rather than trying to overhaul your entire diet, identify one unhealthy food or category you regularly eat and replace it with a healthier alternative you genuinely enjoy.
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