Habit and Tracking Method
In this assignment, although I found it helpful to log my entire day, I specifically was interested in tracking my food related habits. One of my goals this quarter is to cook more and depend less on ordering food via Doordash. During this tracking exercise, I wanted to note both the moments that I ate, as well the means to which I accessed the food. I tracked my behavior over 30 minute intervals.
| Day 1 | Day 2 | ||
| 9:00 AM | Eat Cereal | 8:00 AM | Eat Smoothie |
| 1:00 PM | Order Lunch | 11:30 AM |
Lab Meeting (Lunch)
|
| 1:30 PM | Eat Lunch | 7:00 PM | Cook |
| 4:00 PM | Order Groceries | 7:30 PM | Cook |
| 5:00 PM | Cook | 8:00 PM | Eat Dinner |
| 5:30 PM | Cook | ||
| 6:00 PM | Eat Dinner | ||
Here I highlight the food-related behaviors in my measuring me, but for my entire day measured, please view the document here. The reason I tracked my entire day was to supplement my understanding of why I engaged in specific food behaviors. Specifically, what were the situations that would contribute to whether or not I ordered food. For example, what did I do when I was short on time? Did I have the time to cook and prepare for cooking? This context was crucial in helping me figure out how to make it easier for me to form habits in the future.
Main Learnings
During this process, I found that I ordered food only one time over the course of the two days. What lead this to occurring was being deep in a homework assignment, being hungry, and not having anything in my kitchen for lunch. Therefore, factors that impacted my the success of my behavior change goal included time, affective state, and environment (more details outlined in Habit System Models). In turn, another takeaway from this process of logging my behaviors was noticing the circumstances that led to food behaviors, and habits I seem to have already formed. For example, it appears I opt for quicker meals in the morning to be able to start my work day sooner. It also seems like I am off to a good start this year, since both days I cooked food for dinner. And because I logged this behavior, the process of reflecting on it is motivating for me to keep it up.
Next time, I would add more detail in my logging surrounding what I cooked and ate. This would give me deeper insight surround habits formed surrounding when I eat what types of food, which could be used to help me make behavior changes that improve my nutrition.
Models
