Dieting is hard. It’s a tough committment that many people can’t make. However, if you ever want to live healthy and have good physique, you might want to start changing your eating habits right now. Problem is that it’s easier said than done.

When I started changing my diet, it was tough man. Real tough. Especially living on an university campus, finding healthy food was difficult and often expensive (or so I thought). I ate nothing but chinese food, burgers, fries, pizza, pasta and all that shit daily.

The more I kept eating this way, the shittier I started to feel in general. I finally stepped up and got my diet in check.

Immediately change your portions.

This is something you can do right now. As in, this instance. You don’t need to eat until your stomach can’t hold anything more. Remember, the size of your stomach is about the size of your fist. Try not to expand it any further.

Eat until you’re satisfied, not until you’re full. If anything, drink more water so you feel full quicker. It’s gonna suck but within the first 3-4 days, you’ll adjust.

Make a slow transition.

Face it, unless you have the willpower of a buddhist monk, chances are you’ll utterly fail if you make an abrupt transition to eating healthy. That’s why you should start slow and take it one step at a time. I started eating lettuce in my burgers (how insignificant), then slowly started to eat broccoli.

Eventually I started to drink water exclusively instead of soda and juice, and from then on I ended up on a balanced diet of good stuff. You just have to eliminate and replace things little by little until it just becomes habit.

Get an enforcer.

Eating well in one meal is easy but you have to keep it up. The temptation to eat poorly is irresistible and we break our habits often. On campus, my roommate was my enforcer. He made sure that I wouldn’t slip since I had a tendency to do so.

There were so many times that I’d try to sneak in a donut or large fries and he’d snatch it away from me. I won’t lie, I got into a ton of confrontations with him whenever he just threw away my food infront of me. A month or so later, I was fairly glad he did.

When we can’t do something ourselves, it’s okay to ask somebody for help.

Imagine the results.

What would you look like 4 waist sizes down? What about with 6 packs or more? Imagining the results have been a great source of inspiration for me. What could be the benefits be if you started to eat healthy and getting fit? More energy? Girls noticing you more?

Think of all the possible benefits and concentrate on them. You’ll grit and bear it and force your way through your diet for a while until it becomes habitual. Plus, when you start to see results, they’ll inspire you to keep on going.

Any of you doing any diets? What kind of pitfalls did you guys encounter and how did you get through it?

If asteroids or nukes won’t destroy humanity, it will probably be procrastination. Something about just sitting down and doing work makes us want to do anything, except our work. Sometimes I feel like a million different things pop up in my life whenever I actually have to do something productive and I end up getting distracted. Here are a couple of methods to boost productivity and get you doing things.

Get your mind fresh

Get rid of all the junk in your head and get cracking. Wash your face with cold water, take a quick nap, or take a walk outside. Whatever it takes just rid your mind of all the thoughts and feelings that have nothing to do with your work. The less useless shit you have to think about, the more focused you will get.

Rid yourself of all distractions

Set yourself in a place where you can be alone and there is some nice peace and quiet. Want to know if you got any new notifications on your Facebook? Delete the bookmark. And if your work doesn’t require any use of the internet, disable it so you won’t keep opening up your browser to post comments in forums or read your favorite blog between work. Get away from televisions, music, food, and especially your bed. Just being anywhere near a bed will distract you as you’ll be inclined to lie down for a bit, and we all know what is “a bit”. She’s quite the temptress.

Set short time goals

A nice way to feel like you’re doing something with your life is to set short term goals. That way, you can use them as building blocks to complete your main, overarching goal. They’re easier to attain and they give you a sense of accomplishment, which will inspire you to keep going at it.

Initiate “The Fear”

Depending on the severity of your goal or the work that needs to be done, a great motivator is fear. What are the consequences of you not finishing your work or accomplishing your goal? Will you be okay screwing up? Sometimes, it isn’t that important. But other times, such as studying for finals or paying your rent, the need to getting your shit together becomes crucial. Fearing failure and its consequences makes you tense and really gets that adrenaline going.

Learn restraint and exercise self control

Basically, if you can’t control yourself, you will never succeed in life. Now that we have that out of the way, you need to tell yourself that you have priorities. I know it’s really tempting to go out with your friends on a Saturday night, but if you have a queue of things that need to be done, finish that first. No amount of advice will change you unless you tell yourself that you need to get yourself together. Force yourself, or get a friend to hold authority over you. Saturdays will always be here so is it really worth the consequences of not meeting your goals?

If you can do it today, do it today

My grandfather always said to me, “Why put something off for tomorrow when you can get it done today?” Stop making excuses of finishing something another day if you can clearly start and finish right then and there. There are 24 fucking hours in the day and unless you’re a hot single mom with 3 jobs and 2 kids to feed, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to get your work done.

Don’t think: Just do

Okay, I’m going to shower, then eat a snack. After I’m done digesting, I’m going to take a quick  trip to the store. Then when I’m back, I’m going to organize my closet and workspace. Then I’ll get to work.

Sound familiar? When you plan out work like that, you will rarely if ever get ANY of those done. It’s best to just do it. If the thought of the work or goal comes to your head, set yourself up and get to it.

What other methods do you use to get yourself focused and ready to go?