Habits – Where from and where to?
I met a lady a month after she decided that she was tired of being fat and short of breath all the time. She had already made the decision to go healthy and she was seriously committed to changing everything in her life that made her fat. She told me her definition of insanity: “Doing exactly the same thing, but expecting different results”. She realised that to go from fat to thin and from ill health to healthy, she had to make serious changes. She was a huge woman and it was wonderful to see her a couple of months later walking around like a person of normal weight.
Habits are not always what come naturally. As humans we do not operate by instinct only. We often modify our behaviour consciously for logical reasons. A good example of this is habits relating to hygiene. I brush my teeth after breakfast and before going to bed everyday, out of habit. I take a shower and shave everyday, out of habit. This is definitely not natural, but it is easy for me to do it as I am “in the habit” of doing it. Should I not do it for a couple of days it would drive me nuts because I am used to having clean teeth and a clean body. I have grown accustomed to smooth teeth and a non-sticky skin and clean hair. I don’t find it difficult at all to take a little time each day for these hygienic chores.
Once a new habit is established it is easy to stick to it. Relating it to food and taste, a good example is the amount of sugar we have in our coffee. We all have “programmed” taste buds to what is “just sweet enough” , what is too bitter and what is too sweet. We can taste sweeter coffee with the first sip and the same with bitter coffee. Many of us have changed to no sugar at some stage in our lives and it is actually amazing how a cup of coffee that may seem to us bitter the one day, could taste quite sweet a couple of weeks later. It all has to do with the habits we have and to which we have become accustomed.
This fact, the fact that habits can be changed, will enable you to change the trajectory of your health status. You can, like so many other people have done, change bad eating and lifestyle habits, into good habits. The bad habits made you fat and put your health at risk, the good habits will change all that into a thinner and healthier you.
As easy as it is to stick to a habit, so difficult it may be to change a habit. Changing habits is not easy as your whole body and all your senses will protest. You must prepare yourself mentally for the onslaught of the senses and that “old person” inside you that will protest: “give me what I am used to!!” The good news is that, by persistently ignoring these “voices”, they do go away. At that point the habit is broken and your body and senses get used to the next habit.
At one stage in my life I changed from full cream milk to skim milk. I stuck with skim for a couple of weeks and got used to the taste. When using 2% low fat milk a couple of weeks later, I thought it tasted wonderful and I started to have that in my coffee. Then later, when I was having coffee at a conference full cream was the only milk available and I had to take some. The first cup was nice but at the end of the day, after having four cups, I found the coffee too creamy, too rich to the point of actually nauseating me. I made a conscious decision to ask for low fat milk the following day.
We suggest a similar solution for the common habit of snacking on chocolate after dinner. Note that you cannot still be hungry after dinner – if you had proper meals during the day. It is your taste buds that control all your actions the rest of the evening. The plan is to gradually adjust your taste buds.
Get rid of all the chocolate slabs in your house. Give it to the domestic worker because you forgot her birthday. All of them.
Get two packets of SPARKLES boiled sweets, coffee sweets or any other favourite boiled sweets (suiglekkers) you like.
After dinner, when your taste buds ask for the usual chocolate, suck a sweet, maybe two or even three. Boiled sweets are low in calories and fat. Follow the sweet with coffee, decaf or tea, depending on your usual preference.
Keep this up for two weeks and limit yourself to only one for the next two weeks.
After this plan your dependency should be broken and if you can discipline yourself to a maximum of two small blocks of chocolate in the evening it would be perfectly OK to have it in your home again. If the plan should fail – start over.
When you experience serious cravings it is always good to remember that you will not die…. and you stand to benefit greatly by looking good and feeling healthier.
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