Week 10 Healing Habits 2-Minute Checklist
WEEK 10 —
Recap. Reorg. Redefine.
Rebuild. Remake. Refrain. Restate.
In these final 3 weeks for Healing Habits, you will see the entire Metacardio Method summarized point-by-point in an at-a-glance format day-by-day. There’ll be no seconds under BREATHING ROOM and STAND-STRETCH-SMILE but extra helpings in THOUGHT FOR FOOD for zero-calorie nourishment.
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Week 10 Day 1
Recap
MINDSET RESET
Life Destiny. Not Quick Fix.
The Metacardio Method here is a tool to empower your body, heart, and mind in shaping your own destiny by building healing habits for a happy, healthy, hasslefree life of wellness.
“Quick fixes don’t last;
Lasting changes aren’t fast.”
Metacardio©
Our tri-factor foundation:
State-of-the-art science (1,000+ published references on the Metacardio website)
Enduring wisdom of the ages
Success stories of 2,000+ clinic patients and staffers over 25 years
Our 3-prong approach:
Mindset Reset—stress resilience and wellness, what truly matters
Moving—call it exercise if you insist
Eating—no, not another diet
“Don’t make a wish.
Make it your purpose.”Metacardio©
an optional relaxation training/practice for a day to a week, then anytime at will sharing various well tested techniques to help you build a habitual breathing exercise routine
If you can’t even find room in your day for some Breathing Room, it’s time for you to make room and come up for air.
MOVING
10,000 steps a day or equivalent (20 minutes of moderate activities in any number of sessions).
Every “genius” has put in 10,000 hours of focused practice under the belt.
“A journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step.”
Laozi
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
(Sadly, Sitting and Sitting is Sickly as Smoking)
Stop Sitting Still. Stand-Stretch-Smile. Smarter Still, Stroll.
Set to do this for Several minutes every Second hour or So:
Stand, you want to stay firm.
Stretch, you want to go far.
Smile, you want to have fun.
EATING
By now, you’ve watered down your sweet drinks already by ¼ to ½. Consider ‘dissing’ all that diluting and deluding by just drinking plain or sparking water.
Water - Your best liquid asset.
Metacardio©
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
The buck starts here!
“Repair yourself before you can have
your family together,
the nation governed,
and peace on earth.”Confucius
REMINDER:
“It’s not what you’re eating
but what’s eating you.”Many Observers
Another Ex-excuse
“I’ve tried, but...”
Trying is hard. Doing is easier. Do it now. And keep on doing. One day, it’ll seem like you aren’t doing anything while you’re getting it all done. Your body is already keeping you alive that way.
See you tomorrow.
. . .
Footnote for The Newcomer:
Healing Habits for a Happy, Healthy, Hasslefree Lifestyle for Life are success stories collected from some 2000 of my patients and coworkers in a non-profit private clinic after-hour coaching program over 25 years. This series of posts are Metacardio Methods’ daily checklists in that 3-month program.
Pick and choose which of the items are useful for you to follow. The nutritional suggestions are as applicable to weight loss as transitioning to a healthier eating habit.
Where relevant, all suggestions have been updated to current national health guidelines and state-of-the-art expert consensus. Wisdom from sages over the ages remains perennial.
The basis for these suggestions is discussed in long-hand on 15 prior posts here. All are archived under “Metacardio”.
Metacardio©
. . .
Week 10 Day 2
Reorg
MINDSET RESET
Get Re-arranged, Not Deranged.
Weigh daily for a better chance to maintain or lose weight.
Dedicate only 1 place to eat at home and at work.
Re-route your footprints to avoid temptations (and add to step counts).
Replace old bad habits with new healing ones. It’s hard to discard habits, but you can displace them.
Don’t deny, deprive. Just revise, resize. More to follow.
Organic reorganization lives with you. Dramatic changes, even if good, go away soon.
You know what to do by now.
MOVING
You know the drill.
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
Stand against sweet temptations.
Stretch away from unneeded sweets.
Smile along with all your natural sweetness.
EATING
If you need to, gradually trimming ¼ off all your portions will lose you 1-2 pounds a week, which is safe and sustainable. Leave the yo-yo for the kids. Your adult body can’t take the jerking around or the ups and downs.
For baseline, estimate your typical daily calorie intake with free online snapshot apps for a few days. The average is around 2,000 calories a day. An error margin of about 250 is ok.
Target a daily ¼ reduction (about 500 calories), gradually over 2-3 months.
If you get hungry between meals, eat a palm-size (not palm-leaf-size) snack. Many tasty, healthy choices from the Mediterranean menu online. Go nuts, literally.
Discard and dilute sweet drinks by ½ over 2-3 months, so gradually you can’t taste much difference, thus dissolving your sweet tooth painlessly.
Avoid artificial sweeteners. They can grow your sweet tooth and cause bitter illnesses, including some cancers.
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
Pleasures in daily life are a must for sanity. Yet even simple pleasures require specific provisions. Guilty pleasures cost more, and then some more later. Most pleasurable sensations last only briefly. Then the craving for them can be unpleasant and long-lasting. After seeking pleasures for sanity, how about attaining deeper happiness for stability? More tomorrow.
REMINDER:
Another Ex-excuse
“I was so determined. I took the pain many times before. In the end, I still had to give up.”
Even iron-willed people can only suffer for so long. Why suffer at all? A lifestyle habit must be pleasant and enjoyable, not only healthy. Otherwise, why do it for life?
“We cannot solve our problems with
the same thinking we used when we created them.”Einstein
See you tomorrow.
Metacardio©
. . .
Week 10 Day 3
Redefine
MINDSET RESET
Stress Resilience, Not Stressor Avoidance
Stress is mostly self-generated and surprisingly manageable once you know how. It may be the root of many poor lifestyle habits, hence ill health, lack of fitness, and excess weight, plus too many bad-hair days.
You can’t learn relaxation when you just got hit by stress. Master this powerful weapon with regular practice when you’re fine. Then, you can quick-draw on demand.
MOVING
Check your pedometer for step counts. It’s the trend toward 10,000 that counts.
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
Stand up to stressors.
Stretch to uphold stress resilience.
Smile to upend stress.
EATING
“Stuffing your face isn’t facing your stuff.”
Metacardio©
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
Happiness is deeper than mere pleasure. However, it requires conditions to be even more favorable, for a longer time, and on a bigger scale. Sure, we all try hard to get it. We must accept the reality that things are good only about half the time, counter-balanced by the not-so-good half . The craving for happiness is, in itself, a cause of stress and suffering. Of course, we don’t give up. How about some dependable eternal joy for backup? More on that tomorrow.
REMINDER:
Another Ex-excuse
“I can’t cop. It’s just too stressful these days. Pass me those cookies.”
Stressors happen to you. Can’t do much about that.
Stress happens in you. That’s all your doing and up your undoing.
You want those cookies go to-you or in-you? Pass?
See you tomorrow.
. . .
Week 10 Day 4
Rebuild
MINDSET RESET
Make It a Habit
Auto-Piloting — Empower yourself to build new good habits painlessly and enjoyably, using proven neuroscience principles, such as the M.A.T.R. method. Once built, you can cruise for life.
“Death by a thousand cuts” — Health (life, too) is generally not ruined by great disasters but by repeating little destructive behaviors and habits.
Habit Forming — Mastering the building of lifestyle habits also builds your mastery of many other worthy ‘moon shots’ in life. Same principles and methods.
Give yourself enough of this.
MOVING
The M.A.T.R. method is particularly effective in building an exercise habit.
Double-dip by building stress resilience in your mind while toning your body. Strengthen your body muscles by resistance training; strengthen your stress resilience by non-resistance training.
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
Stand with pleasure.
Stretch for happiness.
Smile in joy.
EATING
Don’t give any quarter to the quarter food portions you’ve trimmed off. Don’t let them take refuge anywhere in your body.
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
Joy – Feel free to pick any other word that resonates more with you. When external conditions are bad, you’re busy fixing that; and when things around are good, you’re taken up by pleasure and happiness. Joy is different. It requires nothing outside of you.
Joy is your intrinsic, fundamental state of being. It naturally prevails over all of life’s inevitable negativities, if only by a thin margin. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be alive or want to. It is always within you. You don’t need to go anywhere to get it. You only need to return to it.
Sitting in stillness, nesting in Nature, and similar mindful practices of wellness will re-acquaint you with this intrinsic joy that’s in you—that is you.
REMINDER:
Sleep It Off – If you sleep less than 7 hours a day, you will tend to be heavier and in poorer health, not to mention a foul mood.
Another Ex-excuse
“Oh, what harm can this small treat do?” “What good will just a short walk do?”
Not much, if that’s really it. Otherwise, a handful of sand grains every day will fill a sand trap, and tiny raindrops day after day will pool into a mighty stream.
See you tomorrow.
. . .
Week 10 Day 5
Remake
MINDSET RESET
Methods to Our Medicardio Madness:
Painless Portion Parsing
Schooling for Supermarket Super-Shopper Status
Conquering the Cunning Calorie-Industrial Complex
Mediterranean Menu’s Many Munchies
After yourself, give other people some, too.
MOVING
If your mind is bogged down by the same problems over and over, try ‘walking meditation’ by counting steps from 1 to 10 (or 4, or 7, or whatever) over and over. You’ll be surprised how much lighter and brighter you get after repeating these silly numbers rather than the same old deadend problems.
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
Stand to see one.
Stretch to do one.
Smile to teach one.
EATING
Don’t abruptly disrupt the food you enjoy. Just gradually trim the portions by ¼ over weeks, even months. In time, your stomach will shrink, so you won’t feel hungry or deprived. Before that happens, quelch any hunger pangs with small scoop-size snacks. Discover your favorites from the soundly validated Mediterranean “Diet” Menu.
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
In training doctors to learn clinical skills, they recommend, “See one. Do one. Teach one.” Copy that? Copy that.
REMINDER:
Another Ex-excuse
“I know, for my own good, I got to put up with some pain. But I’m only human.”
Precisely. Most people quit diet/exercise boot camps because, being human, they can force themselves to endure displeasure for only so long. You must take it lightly, or you’ll just get heavier, or life will. Play the (life)long game. Take it easy, steady, and breezy.
See you tomorrow.
. . .
Week 10 Day 6
Refrain
MINDSET RESET
Don’t. Just stand there.
What You Resist Persists — Savor a sample and say that’s ample.
Saved by O2 and H2O — Caving in your food craving? Take a few breath cycles and down some water before you eat up.
Will-Power and Won’t-Power Both Powerless? — Out-of-sight/out-of-mind is a more reliable out-of-body experience when dealing with unhealthy food.
Pummeled By a Primal Plunge? — The deep sugar plunge soon after a quick sugar spike arouses a worse hunger pang—a primal instinct few can beat.
Hungry as Hell? — Savor a small snack (of proteins and fibers) for a sumptuous, sustaining satisfier.
From Fryer to Fire — That is, if you go from grease to sugar. Instead, proteins and plants, together with water, make better firefighters.
This is your “oxygen tent” away from all the ‘toxic smoke inhalations’ in daily life.
MOVING
Exercising when you’re hungry makes you only think of eating, and perhaps entitlement to overeat later. If so, a workout after you eat may be better.
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
Stand to treat.
Stretch to cure.
Smile to heal.
EATING
Temptations will keep coming back. So, don’t worry if you let one pass. If you can’t say no, say a small yes before turning away.
“I assist before I desist
so what I resist won’t go on to insist and persist.”Metacardio©
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
To cure a patient is to eradicate an illness. An honest doctor will tell you, from a strictly scientific standpoint, that only a few medical diseases can be cured.
To heal a person is to optimize the whole being, given all that is in, about, and around that individual. A true healer empowers you to heal yourself so that wholeness is restored for optimal living, with all the incurable imperfections that make life life.
Not many diseases can be cured,
but every person can be healed.Metacardio©
REMINDER:
Another Ex-excuse
“Covid has set everything back for me. I’ve never been this unhealthy.”
After swallowing our humble pie from a puny virus, the pandemic has exposed so much of our dysfunction. It has also awakened us to many potentials for a better future. You have to start by healing yourself first, starting now.
See you tomorrow.
. . .
Week 10 Day 7
Restate
MINDSET RESET
All about food
See EATING below.
You know.
MOVING
The life coach says, “Go to Hollywood. The walk would do you good.”
Want to get fit enough for Hollywood? Walk an equivalent distance over time, say, by 10,000 steps (5 miles) a day.
Sedentary Sickness Stopper:
Stand to inform.
Stretch to reform.
Smile to transform.
EATING
Mindful Mission — Pre-plan your grocery trip. Pre-decide what you WON’T buy. Shop in the perimeters, away from lure-in landmines and checkout-Charlie traps.
Size Matters Most — A typical food label “serving size” is often smaller than your personal ‘swallowing size’.
Mystifying Metrics — 1 gram (1,000 mg) of Carb or Protein gives you 4 calories. 1 gram of Fat gives 9. Generally, stay in the 5%-20% “Daily Value” range. Not all equal calories are created equal.
Friend from Foe —
Carbs are most fancied; sugar powder takes more lives than gunpowder.
Fats are most fattening; when saturated, they clog your arteries.
Proteins are most friendly; meet them, many are meatless and plant-based.Fat Facts — Saturated (fat) literally means stuffing and fattening to the max. Fully or partially hydrogenated fats are fake-out trans fats.
Belly Banking — Food label scanning is like a quick check on your bank balance. Calorie-dense foods demand balloon payments later. Junk foods are like junk bonds. Spend smartly within your calorie budget and save a bellyful.
Pre-Digested Food? — That’s ultra-processed food with a heap of health hazards. You’ll recognize it as it’s unrecognizable as anything in Nature.
Follow the Rainbow — Choose food with a great variety of natural colors and textures, and you can see as food, not gooped up, pounded down, and camouflaged roadside bombs.
THOUGHT FOR FOOD
The easiest way to deal with long but useful lists is to internalize them by living them. That way, you don’t have to remember anything. The list of things your body does every second is far longer than any lists you know, but you don’t even think about it, do you?
To form a habit, it takes a month to get it, 2 months for it to sink in, and 3 months to own it.
REMINDER:
Another Ex-excuse
“Can’t blame me for not remembering it all. TMI—too much info here!”
The whole idea of these 3 months is for you to choose, practice, live, and internalize what works for you day after day. Once you own it, you can forget about it.
It’s coming on 3 months. You’ll own it.
See you next week.
Metacardio© 2024
. . .
Coming Up Next :
Week 11 - Reintroduce. Return. Regroup. Redo. Refit. Recount. Replay.
A Free Enhancer:
Get the Metacardio® mobile app on your iPhone for all 12 weeks of daily prompts with illustrative graphics, animations, audios, and videos. (All non-monetized. No one could pay me enough to have this much joy.