Latest / Man In Your Corner with Shaun Tucker / Ep. 62 | How One Simple Habit Boosted My Mental Fitness and Beat Dad Guilt
Transcript
- Shaun: Welcome back to the reset episode 62 with me, Sean Tucker. I have been experimenting and I invite you to try it too. For some of you may not realize that I kind of love to self experiment. And if you're listening to this podcast, if you know me personally, you probably are someone who likes to experiment on themselves too. Recently I've been getting to know that I have always had this tendency that I like to kind of eat and probably binge eat more towards the end of the day. Especially when it comes to eating chocolate. Obviously we've just got out of Easter. So, you know, there's discounted chocolate at Coles and Woolworths right now and probably every other supermarket that ever existed. And it's never been easier to kind of buying. go and buy chocolate and consume it, right? And I'm, I love chocolate and I love dark chocolate and I love like expensive dark chocolate, but any day of the week I will take a Cadbury block and I will probably finish that pretty quickly. Reason I say that is I know it's not the best chocolate. It's full of things like soy. It's full of ⁓ vegetable fats as well, but Anyway, point is not to point out how terrible it is for your health. The point is, what I've noticed is I like to eat chocolate and especially late at night when I've had a big day, I'm mentally exhausted. I find myself wanting to go and grab all the chocolate that I can. Even to the point where it will probably make me feel sick, but because I'm so attuned and accustomed to this almost ritual or behavior, I don't get sick. I don't get sick. But recently and probably the last month or so, something that has really broke this pattern for me. Yes, I still ate chocolate. Yes, I still kind of eat it when I want, but I no longer eat it late at night. I no longer eat it late at night because the pattern interrupt that I've been using is when my wife and when my daughter are preparing for bed, right? When they're going to go have their shower and then I'll have my shower after theirs. When they're in the shower, instead of me playing on my phone, which is what I used to do, because I'm obviously helping ⁓ my daughter with bath time and... my wife with with bath time for the little one I will actually brush my teeth. Sounds simple right? Sounds sounds too good to be true. Right? This guy's brushing his teeth and that's all he's doing and that's stopping him from late night eating. Well the on flow positive effects of being consistent and brushing my teeth at 730 at night or between 7 and 730 it's usually when they have their shower. it stopped me from eating late at night and snacking which has actually allowed me to get better sleep, deeper rest and wake up more refreshed and more energized. Whenever in the past I have eaten late at night, I've woke up feeling a little bit heavier, a little bit more inertia and not really wanting to get out of bed. But what I've noticed now is in the last month of doing this, it's becoming lighter, it's becoming easier. And my understanding of this is because I'm not Like I'm leaving a gap between when I go to bed and when I have my last meal. So my last meal is usually 6 to 6.30, finished up by 6.45 and then I'm in bed 9.30, 9.45. So that's a good three hour gap now that I've got as opposed to what was happening before. I was eating late at night, probably. up until nine o'clock sometimes, like snacking, maybe 8.30, nine o'clock, something like that. And then I was going to bed at the latest 10 o'clock. So that hour and a half difference of increasing the gap between My last meal and when I go to sleep has actually allowed me to get better rest. It's actually the thing that's giving me more energy in the morning. And it's funny, when you've got more energy, you feel like doing more things. the one thing I want you to take away from listening to this podcast episode is it's just one simple habit change. But it's the on-flow effect of that habit that can make all the difference. And so I'm just experimenting. I'm gonna keep that habit, I'm gonna keep it going because it has such a positive effect on my overall wellbeing. And I'm all about making yourself feel better because then, having good health is a natural consequence. You know, I know my chocolate amount will naturally limit as I get more and more involved in the process of feeling better. and it's a bit of a catch 22 because you kind of have to stop the thing that's getting in the way from you feeling better in order to feel better. But this is where having little pattern interrupts pattern breaks where it feels easy. Sometimes it doesn't feel easy. Sometimes in my mind when my wife and daughter are having a shower, it's like you have that thought. You want to eat more. You want to eat your feelings right now. Do you not brush your teeth today? Or do you, as in do you not brush your teeth right now and go down after you put your daughter to bed and you go down and eat more snacks? Or do you man up and you show up and you do that rep, you brush your teeth and then you go down and do your work as opposed to letting the feelings dictate how you act and therefore you you go down and you eat all the foods and the snack foods and you feel terrible you feel guilty you go up it disrupts your sleep and then you wake up in the same cycle feeling like crap so which which way do you want it you can't have it always but I guess the thing is When you're in that moment and you're like, I really want to. You can let yourself, as long as you don't feel guilty, as long as you don't feel attached to, if I do this, I know I'm going to feel guilty. If that is the thing you know, that's the thing that you're to create. So can you enjoy the cycle or the compulsion without the feeling of attachment? or without attachment to the feeling of what it brings. If it's enjoyment, go and enjoy it. But don't feel guilty because you've enjoyed something that you said you weren't gonna do. Because it's those little promises that you make to yourself that actually keep your integrity alive. And that is the most important thing when it comes to showing up and being a man. It's integrity. It's holding that standard for yourself. It's not easy. Initially you might be motivated and it feels easy and then it becomes a bit of a test. We're here again. You have that same feeling. You want to go and destroy it. You want to go and be compulsive about it. You want to go and eat all the food. But it's just in those moments. where if you use a little bit of your executive function, not even willpower, just, is this what I want? Do I want to be a better man? Do I want to be a better husband? Do I want to be a better father? If the answer is yes, just brush your teeth. It's that simple. Anyways, I hope you have found value in this episode and let me know in the comments or one of the replies wherever you find this episode or this short. What is one little habit that you have that you swear by? The thing that sort of brings you stability, balance and feeling like you're actually making a positive difference on your life and the people around you. Let me know. And thanks for tuning in, look forward to seeing you in tomorrow's episode.