Translator: Maurício Kakuei TanakaReviewer: Adam Fitzgerald
My little brother
was very good at a few thingsfrom a very young age.
The first thing he was really good atwas making everybody laugh without trying.
Like the one time I told him
he should have a little bitof protein after a workout.
He got all excitedbecause he thought I said "poutine."
(Laughter)
The second thing he was good atwas eating large quantities of food.
Come dinner time,
it wasn't uncommon for him to outeatmost of the adults at the table.
Now, as you may have guessed, as a five-foot-nothing little boy,
there is, in fact, a downside to regularly outeating full-grown men.
At just 11 years old, I could already seethat, if nothing else changed,
my little brother was headedfor an adolescent life
littered with teasingand unhealthy eating.
As his older brother,I wanted to do something about it.
As a nutrition, or kinesiology student,with an intense interest in nutrition,
I knew that I had to dosomething 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 waswalking 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 lives saved.
No purses returned.
No cool story to tell.
Little did I know as I lay therein 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 plateand a few screws onto my fibula,
I was given two crutches,
and told not to put any weighton my leg for two months.
This posed a unique problem,
as there was still plentyof snow and ice on the ground.
And I still had two months left of class,
spread out over one of the largestcampuses in the country.
So, with that in mind, I made a decision
that any hard-working student in my position would do.
And I obviously decidedto stop going to classes.
(Laughter)
Now, with all this free timefrom studying at home,
I had finally figured outhow I was going to help my little brother.
I knew that what he needed to dowas very simple in theory,
but very difficult in practice.
What he needed to dowas change his eating habits.
From experience
I knew the things that he neededto change, and the things that he didn't.
The problem was that communicatingthis through somebody else
would most likely just end uplike the childhood game of telephone.
The message gets passed along,
but with little misunderstandingsand misinterpretations along the way.
There's not much leftof the original message,
and everybody's just left confused.
And my little brother's eating habitsare left unchanged.
So, keeping that in mind, I madeone of the best decisions of my life,
and I decided to move back homefor the next two weeks,
and make every single mealthat my little brother would eat,
educating him about propernutrition along the way.
While I was at home,
in the kitchen, I often found myselfawkwardly 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 takelittle breaks every few minutes
to make sure that the swelling in my anklewouldn't become unbearable.
Now, after just two weeks,
not only were the results phenomenal,
but they were as a result of a strategythat anybody can use.
The reason we were able to seesuch dramatic and positive results,
which I'm very excitedto share with you later,
is that we changed his environmentto match his goal.
We made his environment work for him,instead of against him.
This simply meant replacingall of the bad options with healthy ones.
Making this uncomplicated adjustment
enabled us to easilytransform his nutrition,
from the standard American diet,
ironically referred tofrom its acronym SAD,
to wholesome and nutritiouswithout a hitch.
Because of the planning thiswasn't the least bit difficult to do.
When you remove the unhealthy options,
wholesome and nutritious foodbecomes both plan A, and plan B.
The beauty of this solution
is that it takes willpoweralmost 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 chipson the counter calling your name,
it's likely that you'll justforget about them,
and completely avoid the feelingof deprivation all at once.
Little bit of a brain block.
This may sound a little bittoo simple to be true,
but I assure you it's not.
When you remove the barriersto your success --
in my little brother's case,unhealthy food --
and you replace, or you pavethe way, barrier-free,
the road to successbecomes 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 havelooked like if I wasn't there,
and how can you make this work for you?
Well, to be successful,
you have to minimizethe difficult decisions being made.
Say, for example, you walk into the lobby,
and, on the left of those tables,is delicious chocolate chip cookies,
squares, and everything you like.
On the right side,is fresh fruit and vegetables,
vibrant colors, chopped up nicely,they're crunchy and juicy.
You've been sitting in herefor 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 wholesomenutritious broccoli on the right?
Given this scenario,
I think it would be very hardfor most of us
to resist the temptation of option A.
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 removethe barriers to your success,
it will just become a little bit easier
for you to not have to makethat hard decision
in the first place.
Here's how you can makethis strategy work for yourself.
Start off by finding outwhat your personal trigger foods are,
and make a promise to not keep themin your house anymore.
So that when the time comes,
the decision has alreadybeen made for you.
Now, that's not to say you can neverhave these foods again.
If you really want one, you can alwaysjust go to the store, and buy one,
or you can keep it
so that you're only having themat special events, such as this.
Just don't keep a stashunderneath the cupboard
if you know that they're goingto be an issue for you.
That's how you make your environmentwork 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 goalof eating better,
go home, find all of your junk food,
and a neighbor that you'renot particularly fond of,
and give it all to them.
The basis of this strategy workedfor my little 11-year-old brother,
and it can certainly work for you too.
Let me just finish off
by sharing the final resultsof my little brother's lifestyle change.
Let me also just point out,
that I had one main rulethat I wanted to follow
with the change.
At no point,
did I want my 11-year-old brotherto 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.
(Applause)
[Make your environment work FOR YOU]
If everybody had their environmentworking for them, instead of against them,
my little brother's level of successwould be the norm.
My hope is that one day it will be.
Thank you.
(Applause)
After breaking his leg, undergraduate student Luke Durward used his time to return home and mentor his little brother on healthy eating. While illustrating his brother's dramatic transformation, Durward shares the obvious secret that is repeatedly overlooked by unsuccessful dieters. TEDxYorkU held its 4th annual event on March 4, 2014 at York University. The theme for the event was Combustion. Follow us on Twitter @tedxyorku In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)