This is post is part of my Weeklongs Project.
For the past week I ate a vegetarian diet.
Typically I stick to a paleo/4 hr body hybrid regimen, so the departure from meat wasn’t easy. Pretty much every day looked like the following:
Breakfast: 3 eggs
Lunch/Dinner: Mixed greens salad with veggies and tofu or hummus with a whole wheat pita.
I didn’t notice any significant difference in how I felt. Even if I had, I’m not sure if the sample size of 5 days is long enough to substantiate any conclusions.
The most interesting observation surrounded my discipline allocation. During my normal regimen, I have no problem stiff-arming unhealthy garnishes: cheese, fatty dressing, crackers, those awesome little chips you can put in salads. Saying no every single time is pretty easy at this point.
But the past week this was much more difficult. A bowl of mixed greens with walnuts and balsamic vinegar just wasn’t cutting it. So I’d fold and tell them not to hold the feta cheese. I’d justify this move by the fact that I was still abstaining from something I wanted: meat.
This got me thinking about the existence of a discipline reservoir and the existence of discipline allocation habits. Do we only have so much discipline we can exercise in a day? Around certain activities? If this is the case, are these thresholds our habits create? Should we be strategic with our discipline as we are with our energy? My intuition says yes on all fronts, but I think a deeper dive is in order at some point.
The art of discipline is extremely interesting to me; it’s the foundation of high performance in all arenas of my life. My health, effectiveness at work, and moral compass are all enhanced and defined by discipline. Thus I’m excited to think more about my observations from this past week as I continue to this project.
For now, I’m going back to my normal eating regimen. If I need to pick where I’m going to fold, I’ll take grilled chicken and turkey over garnishes every time. That cheese was really good though.
