How To: Break Bad Habits and Build Good Habits
Resolving to exercise more, lose weight, eat healthily and so on can lead to a constant uphill battle. If your lifestyle is naturally sedentary and your eating patterns have been constant for years, the "new you" will struggle to constantly find motivation to do things differently - old habits are hard to change.
Instead of trying to make resolutions, then, focus on making good habits - and breaking bad ones. Here's how:
Breaking Bad Habits
1. Look for "the moment it all goes wrong"
With many bad habits, there's a specific point where your good intentions become derailed by events. Sometimes, you need to work back from this point to figure out where it went wrong - because this is what you need to tackle first.
For example:
You know you should have breakfast every morning, but you're always racing out of the door late. "The moment it all goes wrong" is when you switch your alarm clock to "snooze" for the fifth time, finally rolling out of bed at the last possible minute.
2. Focus on what you'll gain, not what you'll lose
If you're contemplating giving up cigarettes, limiting alcohol to weekends only, becoming vegetarian, cutting out junk food ... don't think about what you'll be missing. Instead, focus on the health gains or increased energy that you'll enjoy.
For example:
If you're becoming vegetarian, don't think of all the foods you can't have, and lament over the loss of bacon sandwiches. Buy a good vegetarian recipe book and try out lots of new meals using ingredients you've not cooked with before.
3. Replace the bad habit with a good one
Getting rid of bad habits often involves cutting something out of your life - maybe an unhealthy snack, hours of TV-watching, or cigarettes or alcohol. To stay strong and keep the bad habit from creeping back, you need to plug the gap with something else.
For example:
You always want something sweet after lunch - and invariably succumb to a candy bar from the vending machine. Instead of cutting out the sweet treat completely, replace it with a piece of fruit.
Creating Good Habits
1. Make it part of your routine
The best trick when building up a good habit is to make it easier to stick to the habit than to avoid it. This means working your new habit into your daily life, so that it becomes as much a part of your routine as brushing your teeth or having a shower.
For example:
If you're trying to build up a habit of daily exercise, cycle or walk to work - or get into the routine of going out for a walk in your lunch hour. If you exercise at the same time each day, you'll find yourself geared up for it without any conscious effort.
2. Set a time limit
If sticking to your new good habit for the whole of 2009 seems daunting or impossible, set a time limit. This could be anything from a few days to a few months. The crucial thing is that once you've picked the time period, you need to stick to your habit throughout.
For example:
If you're cutting out junk food, try being disciplined for just two weeks. After that time, you can choose whether or not the health gains you've made are enough to encourage you to continue.
3. The chain method
When you're trying to establish a daily habit, try marking off each day you achieve it on a calendar. The idea is to build up an unbroken "chain" of successful days. The longer the chain gets, the more will-power you'll have to maintain your good habit.
For example:
If you're determined to meet your five-a-day target every day, put a tick on the calendar each day you succeed - and watch the success chain grow!
Have you successfully broken a bad habit, or established a good one? What tips do you have for us?
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Why in the hell would anyone make a New Years resolution?
If it hasn't been important enough to you before today, why is the New Year going to be any different?
It won't. You'll fail.
You need real reasons to set goals. The fact that our arbitrarily chosen calendar happens to indicate that a new year has begun is not a reason.
ReplyAlso if you're becoming a vegetarian you might be an idiot. Just something to consider.
It sure as hell won't make you any healthier than someone who eats animal products.
A little science for you: Our bodies evolved over millions of years to EAT MEAT.
Now, if you're swearing off animal products out of some misguided notion about what constitutes ethics, then fine. You're still an idiot but at least you're not pretending that there's some rational, objective reason behind your decision.
ReplyBooyea,
ReplyYou are so mad about all of this, why? You like eating meat, we all get it. So why are you so rude to those who do NOT. You made your choice, let others haver thiers..........
Thank you, LG... I'm not sure why there was so much vehemence in Booyeah's comment, but I agree: To each his or her own.
ReplyBilly and Booyeah are tools for the "Center for Consumer Freedom" and "ActivistCash". These organizations are run by Rick Berman, a lobbyist for the food, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries. In a 1999 interview with the "Chain Leader", a trade publication for restaurant chains, Berman boasted that he attacks activists more aggressively than other lobbyists. "We always have a knife in our teeth," he said. Since activists "drive consumer behavior on meat, alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine," his strategy is "to shoot the messenger. ... We've got to attack their credibility as spokespersons."
ReplySee my post on the diet-blog article "The 5 Worst Fast Food Value Meals".
Hey Booyeah, not sure what your hangup is, but you sure do have one.
ReplyGoogle "IQ and Vegetarians" ...and there'll be my answer to you regarding idiocy.
The Ornish Diet is practically a very low calorie diet with only 10 or 20% of the calorie intake coming from fats. I read at http://www.projectweightloss.com why this diet is the solution to live a healthy life and lose weight. You can have whole grain cereal with a fat-free yoghurt and an orange juice for breakfast, and for lunch baked potatoes with fat-free cheese and spinach, a potato salad with fat-free dressing, broccoli, a green salad, and a fresh fruit.
ReplyHey Ali, I like the chain idea. But I have to say I agree with Billy, why should anyone arbitary day make a difference.... but somehow it does in our minds and it does serve as a powerful motivator for people. Personally, I've also found it's really powerful though to resolve never to do anything with 100% zero defect. My motto is that so long as I'm making healthy choices 80% of the time, that's good enough for me. When I tried to stick to things 100% - one little infringement and I'd get the 'what the heck syndrome' and bye-bye - there went my diet again.
ReplyWhy wait until the New Year to make a resolution? It's simple, for many people it is a symbol, a new year, a new me. I can't fault the practice as long as it gets one more person healthy.
ReplyOops, that was meant for Billy.
ReplyI agree with you, Cari, trying for 100% is not going to work for most people, and almost everyone in the long term. I like how the No-S Diet takes that into account, and I think that more self improvement plans should take that into effect.
I always get frustrated with New Year's Resolution people because they clog up the gym and irritate me. But I'll admit that when I decided to get healthy, it was a New Year's Resolution. It was mostly just a timing thing more than anything...I had just come home for semester break and realized that all my clothes weren't fitting right and I freaked out.
As far as forming new habits, I like to form new ones slowly. I pick one thing that I want to change (one of my more recent ones was starting to squeeze in a quick workout during my lunch hour) and just focus on doing it every day. After about two weeks, I don't have to really think about it as much. The main thing is to not beat yourself up if you screw up once or twice. Just go back to doing it the next day. I used to be one of those people who said, "I'm going to start eating right today...I'm having bran flakes and fruit for breakfast" and then I'd take my brother and sister on their paper route and we'd stop at Kwik Trip afterwards and I'd get a donut and a cappuccino and say, "Well, there goes my diet for the day; might as well eat whatever I want for the day". Now, if I eat something high-cal during the day, I'll cut back a little more the rest of the day to make up for it.
ReplyHi!
I agree with the person who basically said if it takes a resolution to make one more person healthier then go for it.
ReplyTo add to your tips Ali, I think it is of the utmost importance to choose an eating plan that is going to support your body's needs. It's great to replace a junk food snack with a healthier one, but if that healthier snack is not eaten in the context of an overall good eating plan, a person will most likely end up feeling hungry and unsatisfied an hour of two late. This isn't going to be something that will establish the habit of eating the healthier snack. While I agree that any step toward a healthier diet is an improvement, and is to be applauded, it's going to have to be something that actually satisfies your body's needs for it to become second nature (habit). The Zone Diet provides excellent satisfaction from meals as well as optimal support for your body's needs. The first changes people notice within days of beginning the Zone Diet and Lifestyle are improved mental clarity, lack of hunger and cravings, and increased energy, all things which will make a person want to keep doing more of the same to continue enjoying these benefits. The Zone is a great way to establish healthy habits!
For those of you who have a goal to loose weight this year, these are some reasons to take the tiny steps it takes to reach your goal.
More people die in the US of too much food than too little.
Your body is the baggage you must carry through life. The more excess the baggage, the shorter the trip.
Feed sparingly and defy the physician.
Gluttony is an Emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.
The rest of the world lives to eat, while some of us eat to live.
Please everyone, Never Never give up trying to eat Healthy. You were blessed with one body, treat it like a temple. Re-establish a purpose and the pounds will shed. You are worth it!!!
ReplySavanna ( Professional weight Loss consultant)