Habit busting - why do we do what we do?

Well it's four weeks in now and I'm up to a grand total of 11 pounds off; it's started to slow down now but I'm not going to let this get me down.  Things are definitely moving in the right direction and I'm feeling a lot healthier and less tired than I was before I started this.  I think that an expectation of losing 1-2 pounds per week from here on in is both healthy and realistic so that I what I am going to aim for.

So, last week in addition to drinking more water and eating something healthy whenever I got a craving for something that was less healthy, I said that I would move around more so that's exactly what I did.  Two walks in a country park with the kids, a session at the gym and a tap dancing class were the sum total of my exercise and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  As I mentioned previously it's difficult for me to slot exercise into my day to day routine so walking with the kids worked well because it gave me the opportunity to spend some lovely quality time with them doing something we don't do nearly often enough.  The bikes that I mentioned in last weeks blog have arrived at work now so as well as keeping up the walking I'm going to make sure that I add a couple of lunchtime bike rides in there too.  For a lazy person like me cycling is the ultimate exercise because you still get to sit down :)

So, lets get back to the subject of those pesky habits, the ones which make us do things which we really would rather we didn't do.  I've buried my head in behavioural science this last week and have been doing lots of swotting up on what habits are and why we have them.  Here's another sciencey bit :

 Habits are strong connections in the brain that are formed by repetitive behaviours and they are incredibly difficult to change once they become established.  To demonstrate this point I would like you to do the following test:

1. Fold your arms and note the position of your hands and which arm is on the outside.
2. Now unfold them and fold them again but this time the opposite way. Note your reaction to how this feels.

How did it feel when you folded your arms the opposite way?  Did it feel uncomfortable?  The way you first folded your arms is your habitual way of doing it and I bet you didn’t have to think about it before you did it.  The second way is more difficult and would have required a degree of thought before you could do it properly because you don’t have a habit pattern or the connections in your brain which would make it a subconscious action in the way that the first way was.  I love this exercise as it demonstrates perfectly what a habit it and why it is so difficult to change one.  Since I first tried this I have to admit that I've probably tried to fold and unfold my arms about fifty times.  Surprisingly, as the week has gone on its started to get an awful lot easier (I've had some really strange looks though and it's not anything which is likely to help me get on in life lol).  Understanding this has really helped me, especially with using the water thing to help stop snacking.  It's something which is now a lot easier than it was initially and it's something which is getting easier the longer I do it.  If you understand why you are doing what you are doing you stand a far greater chance of changing it in the long term. 

Did you know that it takes around 30 days of repeated self aware behaviour to successfully establish a new habit? That's quite a long time.  If you were one of the people that changed something when you first started reading this blog and you've stuck to it then you're well on the way to making it a long term change.  Well done!  I'm not going to introduce another change this week because I want to make sure that the changes I've already made "stick" so I'm concentrating on getting to the point where my changes require less thought.  Please don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the page if you have decided to make a change, or if you have any general feedback for me.  Have a great week and thanks for reading.

This weeks it's all about the balancing act....

So, here I am two weeks in, and I am over the moon to report that I have lost ten pounds.  This is largely due to the fact that I have almost stopped snacking completely because when I feel a tummy rumble coming on between meals, I have a glass of water, simple but very effective.  Like I said last week, I want to continue with it for as long as it takes for this to become habitual behaviour and I think it's starting to work :)

In addition to the extra fluids, I also said that I wouldn't deny myself anything that I fancied, but would make an extra big effort to eat something healthy before indulging.  That's exactly what I did last week and the biggest benefit I found was that it made me really super conscious of what I was eating. I've always been what I would call an "unconscious grazer".  I can think of tens of occasions where I've eaten something without thinking (because I fancy it not because I am hungry) and as soon as I've swallowed it I've thought "Bugger, I'm meant to be on a diet" and it's been a slippery slope that's hard to get off of.  In eating something healthy first I've found the either of the following usually happens:

• I eat the healthy thing and no longer want the item I originally craved in the first place
• I eat the healthy thing and then what I originally wanted but I don't feel guilty about it because I've also eaten a healthy thing too which is good for my body and that sort of redresses the balance.  Now before you all think I'm a total fruit loop I know that eating an apple before a Mars Bar really doesn't cancel out the Mars Bar, but by enforcing that little rule I've eaten an extra piece of fruit, where in the past I would probably have had two Mars Bars instead :) (incidentally I still have the three Snickers bars in my handbag that were there when I started this little project and chocolate has never ever had that long a life span in my posession before!).

I know that none of the above is an exact science and all I'm actually doing is forcing myself to be a lot more self aware and responsible than I was before.  It's working...

So, new for this week is another change that I want to make.  To put it simply, I want to move around more.  I do like to exercise however two small children, a full time job and a husband that works a varied shift pattern makes regular exercise difficult.  At least, that's the excuse I've been telling myself for some time now.  So I'm going to stop trying to justify my laziness to myself and make time to be more active.  I'm lucky enough to live near some fantastic parks and open spaces so I am going to make the effort to go out and do more with the kids.  We had a fantastic stomp around the local country park tonight at a time when we would usually be vegging out in front of the tellybox.  Also, is it really sad to be excited about your workplace getting "pool" bikes that can be hired out for a lunchtime bike ride?  Well, we have some on order, baggsy first go!  I'm planning on getting out at least twice a week at lunchtime when the weather is good, that fits in perfectly with the rest of my routine and is not affected by the kids/hubby/work issue. If I carry on with my first two changes and can enforce this third one I reckon I'm on for a stone in total off by the end of the next fortnight....

If you've made any commitment to changing your habits in order to achieve a health goal leave me a comment, tell me all about it at the bottom of the page, thanks for reading xx 

Taking responsibility is the first step towards making changes stick :)

After using this page to commit to doing something differently, I'm really pleased to say that I've stuck to it religiously.  My item for change last week was to drink something at the first sign of hunger to see if I was merely thirsty and not hungry and I have to say, it worked like a charm.  I've lost seven pounds and am completely surprised by this as I'd expected a couple at most!

This week I will continue to do the same.  I've learned quite a lot about myself during the last week and I've faced up to the fact that I am responsible for ensuring that I lose weight if I choose to do so.  In the past I have always been very quick to come up with a reason why perhaps I haven't dropped pounds, and the truth is there are no excuses.  You simply will not lose weight unless you are in control of what you are putting in your mouth, and if you are not making healthy choices it is not the fault of anyone/anything other than yourself. 

That said, I recognise that everyone has food habits and triggers for overeating and these are incredibly difficult to change.  I've done quite a lot of reading on the subject of behaviours and habits as part of my research for self improvement and I strongly believe that in order to be successful in the long term, breaking bad habits and introducing healthier ones is vital.  I mentioned in my earlier blog that I had successfully lost weight and become healthier in the short term on several occasions, however each time I have done this the weight has always gone back on because I've let the bad habits elbow their way back in to my daily routine.  So, this time it's far less about being on a "diet" (grr, hate that word), and more about looking at the psychology of eating and establishing healthier eating habits. 

So, I'm going to continue with the water this week as I'm quite enjoying this.  In addition to losing that fabulous seven pounds my skin is looking incredible and I have got bags of energy.  I've also noticed a marked improvement in a stomach condition I've had for a while so all round this has proven to be a great change to make and I'm carrying on until this becomes a new habit.  By that I mean it should be a subconscious thing, reaching for the water glass instead of the biscuits, does that make sense?  At the moment it's a conscious decision thing because I am applying thought to it. 

In addition to carrying on with the water, this week I am not going to deny myself anything.  You might think that's a strange thing to declare for someone who is trying to lose weight so here are a few more details.  I am not going to deny myself anything at all, if I fancy chocolate or crisps I can have it, I just have to eat something first which is healthy.  If I still want the chocolate or crisps afterwards I can have it and I will not feel guilty about it in the slightest.  It's just about testing the "craving" and seeing if I still want to eat the forbidden fruit after chomping on some healthy fruit first :) (thank you Mo for this fantastic tip). 

Thanks to everyone who read my blog last week, I was really surprised by the number of hits as I'd thought perhaps a few friends might scan through it but to have a count of nearly 500 really surprised me.  Don't forget to comment/let me know if you have something about yourself that you want to change.

PS, have set up lottery on line for the next 5 weeks.  I haven;t won it yet but I'm "in it" now :)

“If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.”

I've always quite liked this quote by the life coach Tony Robbins, a) because it makes me feel inspired to do something differently, and b) because it's true.  It's been a while since I last heard it mentioned until I was lucky enough to spot it as a status update by a friend last week (you know who you are, thanks v much) and it really got me thinking.  So much so that I woke up thinking about it at four o'clock this morning! 

Being on holiday from work last week meant that I had quite a lot of time to reflect on the things that I really wanted to change about myself, and why I hadn't managed to reach any of the goals I had set myself. There are only a few, and they are things that I would consider to be realistic things to achieve, but I haven't got anywhere near any of them:

• Health and fitness; achieve and maintain a sensible weight and establish a regular and varied fitness regime that I can stick to
• Achieve total organization; this is about the home/work/social life balance and ensuring that I give each area the attention it needs to run smoothly
• Win the lottery, (ahem)...

Ok, that last one probably won't happen. But, as they say "you've gotta be in it to win it" and that means buying a ticket, something I very rarely do.  So that needs to change in order to increase my chance of getting what I want, and it illustrates that Tony Robbins quote perfectly doesn't it?

When I think about the reasons why I haven't achieved goals in the past it's usually been because I've set out an ideal for myself but have failed to act properly on it. I often try to make a great big sweeping change and then find out that it's too big to be maintained.  I've tried every diet plan on the market and stuck to none of them for any length of time, and when I look at why I can see that it's because I have tried to totally turn my lifestyle on its head and for me this is completely unsustainable in the long term . 

I  When I had my lighbulb moment at four o'clock this morning I decided that actually, making one small change at a time has got to be way easier than changing everything at once, hasn't it?  So, writing this blog is my commitment to the small changes I believe will help me achieve my goals, and I'm tackling the health and fitness issue first.  You'll notice that I haven't called it a "diet" and that's because I have the perception of a "diet" being something that you embark upon until you hit a certain weight and then it all goes out the window and you revert to type until you get back on the "diet", let the yo-yoing commence!  For me this is not about dieting, it's about tweaking what I do and making it healthier in order to achieve long term health and longevity. 

Each week I am planning on introducing one small change and sticking to it.  Change number one is water, here's the Sciencey bit:

"If you have ever eaten everything in sight, yet didn't feel satisfied afterward, you might have experienced receiving mixed brain signals. The hypothalamus controls both hunger and thirst, so it sends the same signal whether you are hungry or thirsty. To understand which signal your brain is sending, you must learn to understand your body better. Pay close attention to the last time you had a meal compared with the last time you had something to drink. It might be that empty feeling in your stomach only needs some water for satiety."

(taken from www.livestrong.com article on the difference between feeling hungry and thirsty)

Instead of reaching for the biscuits in my desk drawer, or the Snickers bars stashed in strategic places at the first sign of a hunger pang, I'm going to try drinking a glass of water and see if that makes a difference.  Ok, I know that this is hardly groundbreaking stuff, however I can cope far easily with drinking more water than I can with following a diet that either makes me feel ill, or is unsustainable in the long term.  At most, I might lose a few pounds, and at the very least it might just give me the lovely glowing skin I want that doesn't mean spending a fortune on cosmetics :)

I'm a realistic kinda gal and I know that you never always get everything that you want in life, but I'm also a positive person who believes far more in "can do" than "never gonna happen".   As a of social experiment of sorts, I would really like other people to share in this with me, to see if they can also change one small thing at a time and make a big difference to their lives, so this is my invitation to you to join me.  If you have a goal that you want to achieve, simply commit to making one small change this week which might help you to get there.    Tell me what you are changing, and I will update you next week on how my change has gone and what the outcome has been.

I don't want what I've always had, I want something better and I'm the only person that can make that happen.

Thanks for reading