MyWeightLossForLife.com

Archive for June, 2007

You’ve committed to changing your diet

You’ve made a commitment to improve your diet in order to improve your health. Whether you’re giving up a particular food or trying to work in more healthy foods, you’re making a change to your eating habits. How strict do you need to be? If you’re anything like me, the idea that you simply can’t have a favorite food (even if it’s junk!) isn’t very appealing. However, you know that you need to eat better.

Your commitment is for a lifetime

Because you’ve committed to making a permanent change to your eating habits, you’ll need to look at what you eat, and why, more carefully. You’re not simply giving up sweets for the month only to go back to munching on candy bars daily, are you? There’s not a lot of point in that, is there? The point of developing a habit is so it becomes, well, a habit.

No, that doesn’t mean you can never eat sweets (or some other junk food) again.

What it does mean is that you’ll

1. Prove to yourself that you can do without the food you’ve chosen to give up for a month,
2. Reduce your cravings for that food,
3. Enable you to eat the food in moderation, when and if you choose to.

I’m giving up sweets for the month. Does that mean that I’ll give them up permanently? No. What it does mean is that I’ll reduce the amount of sweets I eat, even after the habit-building month is over.

Cheat only after 30 days of habit-building

This is an important point. You need to give yourself the month to develop your habit before deciding to break it. Otherwise, you’re more likely to give up entirely. Besides, you want to prove you can do it, don’t you?

Schedule your cheating

Okay, you’ve completed your month of habit-building, and you’re ready to allow yourself the occasional treat. How do you do that without falling back into old habits?

One technique is to schedule one day a week as a cheat day. On that day, you can allow yourself to indulge, guilt-free.

Another idea is to allow yourself one treat a week. This is more flexible, allowing you to splurge on the spur of the moment. However, be careful that your treat stays once a week!

Too much cheating can lead to falling back into old habits

Adhering pretty closely to the habit you just created is important, at least in the few weeks after your initial month is over. Too much cheating, too soon, can lead you to quickly fall back into your old eating patterns. It’s all too easy to become accustomed to cheating again.

Too-rigid adherence can lead to giving up out of frustration

Beware of erring in the opposite direction. Denying yourself for weeks or even months is a recipe (pun intended) for disaster. Eventually, you’ll be so tired of doing without, you’ll binge, and then it will be even harder to get back on track. Remember, moderation is key! I don’t look at these changes as a diet, but as a way to re-train myself to eat better for the rest of my life.

Although this is geared to men specifically, it’s a good guide for putting together quick, inexpensive meals. Packing lunch from leftovers is a great way to save calories and money.

I like to cook a little extra for dinner and put it away right then for lunch the following day. Keep some plastic containers and sandwich bags on hand, and you’ll always be ready to pack your lunch. If you’re watching your portion sizes, this is also a great way to remove temptation. Dish out what you’re having for dinner AND what you’re packing for lunch. That can help eliminate the temptation to go back for seconds.

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As I mentioned yesterday, I’m working on giving up sweets this month. While this doesn’t mean that I’m giving them up forever, it is a way for me to prove to myself that I can give them up. After my month is over, I’ll likely indulge occasionally, but I’ll know that the cravings are something that I can manage.

Twelve Habits

I was thinking that it might be useful to throw out a list of other habits that are beneficial, in case you’re interested in trying a new habit this month as well and giving up sweets doesn’t appeal to you.

1. Give up a “weakness” food. We all have them, the not-so-healthy food that you just can’t resist. For me, it’s chocolate, in just about any form. Whatever yours is, can you give it up for 30 days?
2. How about junk food? Can you give up chips and such?
3. Work on getting more fruits and vegetables into your diet. Maybe you can plan on trying at least one new vegetable or fruit a week during the month. Try to have a serving of vegetables and fruit and almost every meal.
4. Exercise daily.
5. Walk 10,000 steps a day.
6. Give up second helpings. I did this one a while back, and the habit has still stuck. I think this has done more than anything else to help me keep my weight steady through the stress of the last months.
7. Switch to whole grains. You’ve probably heard this one before, but change from white bread, rice and pasta to the whole grain versions.
8. Switch to a lower fat dairy product. Whether it’s milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. Try a lower fat version for a month.
9. Give up sugared drinks. If you can’t stand diet drinks, switch to water.
10. De-stress. Whatever you choose to do, take time each day to wind down and deal with the stress of your daily life.
11. Eat breakfast. If you’re not eating breakfast already, you should start. It gives you the energy to get started and gives your metabolism a jump-start.
12. Close the kitchen. Set a time every evening when the kitchen is closed, and commit to not eating after that time.

It’s no accident that I listed twelve habits. If you were to choose your own twelve get-healthier habits and commit to one per month, how much better off would you be this time next year? I bet a lot better off.

Getting There

I’m a firm believer in setting up rewards to help get through the rough spots. The only trick is, don’t make it a food reward!

I like to give myself a small daily reward for staying on track, such as getting to spend some time doing something I enjoy. For each week, I like to plan something a little bigger, like a movie or another outing. For a monthly treat, I usually plan on buying myself something I really want, but I don’t break the bank.

Decide on a healthy habit you want to build and commit to doing it for a month. Then, plan out some rewards to help you along the way. Post in the comments and let us know what you’ll be working on.

I’ve been thinking of re-vamping the habits section of the blog. I think one week is a bit short a time period for developing a new habit. I’ve done some reading, and many people claim it takes 3-4 weeks for a new habit to be formed.

So, I’m going to switch the habits portion of the blog to monthly, rather than weekly. Hopefully, this will give me (and any of you doing them with me) a better chance to build a lasting habit.

For this month, I’m planning on giving up sweets. That includes candy, cookies, ice cream, etc. It also includes sugar in my tea and even pre-sweetened cereal. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how many extra calories I consume just from sweets, and it’s a lot.

We’ll see how things go for this month. Good luck!

Sorry for the extended absence. Things have been hectic here, and a lot has gone on that I’d rather not talk about online, but needless to say, it’s kept me from blogging for the last couple months.I’m back now, and looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. To start off, I thought I’d make a book recommendation.

Body Clutter

I’m a fan of the flylady website. She does a great job talking about how to get rid of clutter in your home and in your life in general. In this book, she talks about all the “clutter” we carry in our heads, and on our bodies.

Definitely a good read!