Over the years I have collected articles and studies that I believe are relevant to one’s well-being and health, and I will occasionally be referring to same in my blog as references. One such article appeared in the AAA’s monthly magazine, Car & Travel, the May 2011 edition, entitled “Angst, Lethargy, Unhappiness – All in a Day’s Commute”, by Tom Vanderbilt. That article discussed that the most time we can tolerate commuting to work (round trip) is  around one hour a day (without traffic), and that beyond that time, the commute starts to make us miserable. For me, my commute to work, for many years, was over 2 hours daily, without traffic, but now with telecommuting, I can now cut down on the days I am subjected to drudgery of commuting . The article suggests that if you want to feel happier, lessen the duration of your commute as much as possible, and definitely below an hour.

There are also studies (I will find them later), that show that the longer the commute, the more weight we tend to gain since we are more apt to eat in the car during our commute, and what we eat, tends to be the junk variety.  To counteract that tendency, I employ a few strategies: (i) I do not eat in my car commuting to or from work, and will wait to eat breakfast at work, (ii) I have unsweetened ice tea in my car, which I drink to work, and have water on my return home (I never have any soda, sweetened drinks like Gatorade, fruit juices, etc., even if they are the diet variety), (iii) before leaving work I sometimes have some peanut butter or nuts as a snack to hold my appetite in check, and (iv) I carry a mint spray in my car in case I need a little fresh taste in my mouth. All these strategies have helped keep me from eating during my commute. Another strategy, which I will discuss in greater detail in future blogs, is that I have set in place a system wherein dinner only takes 15 minutes to prepare, so that is the first thing I do when I get home, and helps me to better deal with the sense of hunger caused by commuting.

The other article I wanted to share, is a NY Post article, from September 27, 2014, entitled “Can Where You Sit in a Restaurant Make You Thin?” by Susannah Cahalan. In that article, she refers to the finding in a book from a Cornell Professor, Brian Wansink, entitled “Slim By Design”. Professor Wansink’s findings are that people eat healthier if they sit by the window, or in well-lit areas, where they might be more conscious of people watching them eat and what they are eating. He also found that people eat less healthy at tables further from the front door, in darkly lit areas of the restaurant, or in booths, presumably where less people can see what they are eating and watch them eat. He also suggested staying away from buffets, which I also believe in, since one tends to overeat when things are plentiful. Particularly at breakfast, I always try to order off the menu, rather that get the buffet, but that is not always possible. So here are some tips: (i) use smaller plates, (ii) decide ahead to time exactly what you are going to get, and what portion size, (iii) get all your food at once, which will take away the temptation for seconds, (iv) stay away from bagels or white bread, so if you want bread only get whole wheat or multigrain slices, and make sure they are toasted, (v) stay away from fruit juices, as they contain lots of sugar, and instead get fresh fruit, making sure to drain any liquid they are contained in (but if you want fruit juice, then dilute it with water, particularly, sparking water), and (v) have lots of water with your meal to fill you up.

Hopefully these articles and tips will help you not to gain weight from your commute, and provide you with some helpful guidance when dining out.

Often people who are overweight are thought as lacking the willpower and discipline to lose weight. From my own experience, I know that is not the case, and there are ways to enhance one’s willpower and discipline simply through better planning. In an August 17, 2011 article by John Tierney, published in the New York Times, entitled “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?”, Mr. Tierney discusses how decision fatigue (to me, indecision) wastes energy, and makes it harder to have the mental energy for continued self-control, willpower, and discipline.

The article refers to experiments by the social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, who studied mental discipline, and whose studies showed that each person has a finite amount of mental energy for exerting self-control, and when a person is fatigued, it makes it more difficult to sustain one’s self-control, willpower, and discipline. The studies pointed to boosting one’s mental energy through increased energy input (like through sugar intake), but also pointed to making one’s mental energy last longer by lessening the amount used on each decision, with the idea that each decision uses a certain amount of a finite amount of mental energy, so lessening the amount used for each decision makes that energy go further. Let’s call it mental efficiency.

For me, improving one’s mental efficiency has worked best (because, e.g., increased sugar intake which can increase your weight), and that matches what I have experience in my business dealings. In my experience, the hardest thing for a business to deal with is indecision. If something is negative, you can come up with a course of action to fix it, and if things are going well, one can look to do the same thing, or look what improvements can be made; however, if one does not know what to do, that is the most stressful position to be in, which causes the most stress for a business.

So how can better planning help one’s willpower? Easy – if each decision one makes takes up a certain amount of their mental energy, one can lessen the amount of cumulative mental energy used by making many decisions easier, thereby using less energy for those decisions. In practice, what that means is that you decide ahead of time what you are going to do, what you are going to eat, how long one is going to exercise, etc.

What I have done, and continue to do, for example, is decide on the weekend what I will eating for dinner each night, and then go about preparing and planning my evening meals for the upcoming week on the weekend, including preparing the food for each night’s meal in advance so dinner will be ready in 30 minutes once I get home from work. Also, when I travel, I always pick a hotel that has a gym with the exercise equipment I use, so I know in advance that I will be exercising when I travel, and am comfortable in the equipment that will be used. I also make it a point to travel with a scale, so every day I understand if I am gaining weight, losing weight, or have staying the same. The whole point of these types of action is that I have shifted these decisions to a time when I have more mental energy use on these decisions, so that during the week, when I am confronted with many more decisions, I do not waste energy on those decisions, which gives me greater mental energy to maintain my self-control and discipline for other matters that come up doing the day. Call it mental energy shifting. So start planning ahead, making those lists, and filling up that calendar, and you too should find that extra mental energy to enhance your self-control, discipline, and willpower.