you
my little brother was very good at a few
things from very young age the first
thing he was really good at was making
everybody laugh with her trying like the
one time I told him he should have a
little bit of protein after a workout he
got all excited because he thought I
said poutine the second thing he was
good at was eating large quantities of
food come dinnertime it wasn't uncommon
for him to eat most of the adults at the
table now as you may have guessed as a 5
foot nothing little boy there is in fact
a downside to regularly out eating
full-grown men at just 11 years old I
could already see that if nothing else
changed my little brother was headed for
an adolescent life littered with teasing
and unhealthy eating as his older
brother I wanted to do something about
it as a nutrition or a kinesiology
student with an intense interest in
nutrition I knew that I had to do
something about it initially I wasn't
sure how but I was determined to find a
way now in March of 2013
I broke my leg while I was walking to
class and I slipped on some ice yes that
is the whole story I was walking there
was some ice poof broken leg no life
saved no purses returned no cool story
to tell well little did I know as I laid
there in that quickly melting puddle of
ice waiting for the ambulance to arrive
that this moment would forever change
the life of my little brother after I
had a surgery to attach a small titanium
plate and a few screws onto my fibula I
was given two crutches and told not to
put any weight on my leg for two months
this poses a unique problem as there was
still plenty of snow and ice on the
ground and I still had two months left
of class spread out over one of the
largest campuses in the country so with
that in mind I made one of the a
decision that any other hard-working
student my position would do and I
obviously decided to stop going classes
now with all this free time from
studying at home I had finally figured
out how I was going to help my little
brother I knew that what he needed to do
was very simple in theory but very
difficult in practice what he needed to
do was change his eating habits from
experience I knew the things that he
needed change and the things that he
didn't the problem was to communicating
this through somebody else would most
likely just end up like the childhood
game of telephone the message gets
passed along but with little
misunderstandings and misinterpretations
along the way there's not much left of
the original message and everybody's
just left confused and my little
brother's eating habits are left
unchanged so keeping that in mind I made
one of the best decisions of my life and
I decided to move back home for the next
two weeks and make every single meal
that my little brother would eat
educating him about proper nutrition
along the way while I was at home in the
kitchen I often found myself awkwardly
trying to maneuver holding on to two
crutches hot pans and sharp knives it
wasn't very easy I also had to make sure
to take little breaks every few minutes
to make sure that the swelling in my
ankle wouldn't become unbearable now
after just two weeks not only were the
results phenomenal but they were as a
result of a strategy that anybody can
use the reason we were able to see such
dramatic and positive results which I'm
very excited to share with you later is
that we changed his environment to match
his goal we made his environment work
for him instead of against him this
simply meant replacing all of the bad
options with healthy ones making this
transfer mate making this uncomplicated
adjustment enabled us to easily
transform his nutrition from the
standard American diet ironically
referred to from its acronym sad too
wholesome and nutritious without a hitch
because of the planning this wasn't the
least bit difficult to do when you
remove the unhealthy options wholesome a
nutritious food becomes both plan a
and Plan B the beauty of this solution
is that it takes willpower almost
completely out of the equation quite
simply if it's not there you can't eat
it an added bonus to this strategy is if
there's no chips on the counter calling
your name it's likely that you'll just
forget about them and completely avoid
the feeling of deprivation all at once
little bit of a brain block this may
sound a little bit too simple to be true
but I assure you it's not when you
remove the barriers to your success in
my little brother's case unhealthy food
and you replace or you pave the way
barrier free the road to success becomes
a much smoother ride
so set up your environment so that it
works for you instead of against you
this works well for any goal for my
little brother I was the environment I
made all of his food gave him the right
snacks and answered all of his questions
but what would that have looked like if
I wasn't there and how can you make this
work for you well to be successful you
have to minimize the difficult decisions
being made
say for example you walk it into the
lobby and on the left of those tables is
delicious chocolate chip cookies squares
and everything like on the right side is
fresh fruit and vegetables vibrant
colors chopped up nicely they're crunchy
and juicy
now you've been sitting in here for two
hours so you're starving you have a
choice to make should you choose option
A on the left or should you choose the
wholesome nutritious broccoli on the
right now given this given this C
scenario I think it would be very hard
for most of us to resist the temptation
of option A now this is a real-life
situation and it's one that happens all
the time
it's very important because of that
reason so when you remove the barriers
to your success it will just become a
little bit easier for you to not have to
make that hard decision in the first
place here's how you can make this
strategy work for yourself start off by
finding out what your personal trigger
foods are and make a promise to not keep
them in your house anymore so that when
the time comes the decision has already
been made for you now that's not to say
you can never have these foods again if
you really want one you can always just
go to the store and buy one or you can
keep it so that you're only having them
at special events such as this just
don't keep a stash underneath the
cupboard if you know that they're going
to be an issue for you that's how you
make your environment work for you
instead of against you that's how you
make healthy eating the default and not
the exception so if you have a personal
goal of eating better go home find all
of your junk food and a neighbor that
you're not particularly fond of and give
it all to them the basis of this
strategy worked for my little 11 year
old brother and it can certainly work
for you too
let me just finish off by sharing the
final results of my little brothers
lifestyle change let me also just point
out that I had one main rule that I
wanted to follow with the change at no
point did I want my 11 year old brother
to feel hungry or deprived here's how
that worked out after the first seven
days he had lost five pounds after the
second week it was eight pounds but it
didn't just stop there I went back to
write exams and he kept going after 20
days it was ten pounds and by 36 days he
had averaged half a pound a day to top
it off at 18 pounds lost
if everybody had their environment
working for them instead of against them
my little brothers level of success
would be the norm my hope is that one
day it will be thank you
you