Kaizen

If you've followed my blog lately, you'll know that I've been working hard to get by abdominal muscles back by eating low carb, lifting weights and minimizing temptations by not reading food blogs etc. After staying on that track for 1 month or so, I felt deprived and craved to go back to my old habits.
At work I've been learning about lean manufacturing and one of the lesson that hit home is that for professional or personal goals, I can take a smaller steps to change instead of big dramatically quantum leap style which they call "innovation". '
An example of innovation is the cabbage soup diet where you can loose 10 pounds if you eat only cabbage soup for 1 week. The solution requires an individual to drastically change a behavior to get the result yet less likely succeed because you'll be hungry for real food.
To implement Kaizen (Continuous improvement), one would make small changes and gradually reach the goal. For example, if I've never floss my teeth in my entire life, I'll start by flossing 1 tooth a day for a week and 2 teeth a day for 2nd week and gradually progress to flossing the whole mouth. It's not as flashy as the innovation strategy but likelihood for backsliding is also less. The concept of a long steady journey isn't anything new. It's just that I'm used to and prefer instant gratification.

For stronger abs I'll commit to

1. Exercise: Abdominal plank, once a week for 3 x 1 min hold
   
2. Hold my stomach in when I'm typing and walking
   
3. Diet: Eat 1 bite less of all fatty food