Making New Habits and Breaking Old

The secrets to success are found in your daily routine. This is because nothing will change until you decide to change it. Most things take time to achieve, so the small steps taken every day will determine how quickly you will get there.

If you consistently eat a few more calories than you expend, you will gain weight over the weeks and months (and years!). But if you consistently eat fewer calories than you burn, over the weeks and months your body will burn its fat stores and you will lose weight.

If you want to save your muscle fibers, use them daily or see them waste away. If you want to write a novel, spend time each day working on it. If you want to learn a new language, practice daily. And the list goes on.

So when I say to myself I want to lose weight and improve my health, but I do not eat fresh foods, drink water, exercise or track my calories, I am showing myself and others that I do not ACTUALLY wish to lose weight. I wish to remain sedentary and eat snacks and read about other people's successes wistfully. This is what happens every single day - my motivation to change is not as great as my motivation to stay the same. The habits I have set in place are very strong and deviating from that routine feels wrong even if it means I am self-sabotaging my goals.

What I would like to do is manage my household well, manage my health well, and develop a routine that can carry over to my working years. I need solid morning and afternoon habits that happen automatically in order to keep everything running smoothly, and I need productive weekends where meals are planned/prepped, cleaning is accomplished, etc.

Saying this is all well and good. Doing this is another matter. Habits are literal neural pathways in the brain, creating a loop of cue-routine-reward, so altering habits is tough and eliminating them is darn near impossible. Having a clear goal in mind and visualizing the process of getting there is a great way to start. And working first on "keystone habits" can help other good habits fall into place. Two such keystone habits are keeping a food journal and exercising - both of which helped me back in 2011 when I lost thirty pounds, and they are both what I'm working on again.

I recently found myself back up at the weight my body settles at when I'm not paying attention to my daily calories-in/calories-out - 190 lbs. I'm out of excuses for this. I have a good income, I make my own nutritional decisions. I have a fancy gym membership and a car to get me there. I have an entire world of knowledge in the palm of my hand 24 hours per day.

I have read back through this blog and I've noticed one thing I have been missing. I am WILLING to change. I am no longer going to underestimate the daily consistency needed for long-lasting change. I'm no longer going to underestimate how much work it takes to overcome years of ingrained habits.

This weekend I have made a great start. I joined a DietBet on Thursday (starting weight 193.3 with a goal of 4% lost in one month), and I've tracked my calories since then. I did Zumba for the first time in forever today and really enjoyed myself! I managed to limit my intake of sugary cake, cookies and ice cream despite two birthday parties this weekend, but still had fun catching up with family and looking through old photo albums.

I've lost this weight before, and I stopped short of my goal. But this time I'm looking FAR beyond my goal weight. I'm looking 50 years into the future. There is no "end goal". The portion control, daily exercise, adequate water intake does not stop once the scale shows me the number I've been craving to see. If I work slowly and retrain my patterns of behavior the weight will work itself out and I will be overall healthier for it.