Do you shop in the same shop each week? Do you go to the same hairdresser/barbers every time you need a cut? Do you eat the same foods in the same place in the same way and in the same amounts every day? Do you exercise too infrequently? Do you over-indulge on alcohol at the weekends?
These are all habits. A habit is just a learned behaviour that has been repeated until it becomes automatic.
When losing weight you will have developed some great new habits but you are probably still holding onto some of your old ones. It is a great exercise to write down a list of your HEALTHY and UNHEALTHY habits.
For example, under HEALTHY you might have ‘I eat five portions of fruit every day, I drink a lot of water, I stick to my Diet plan every day.’ Under UNHEALTHY you might have ‘I eat too many biscuits, I eat too often, I am always nibbling.’
It is the UNHEALTHY habits which need the most work to break. When you look at your list of unhealthy habits, imagine if you were to successfully change one of them every week until you have got rid of them all. How many weeks would it take?
When you think that you have spent a lifetime finding and using these habits, changing them in a few weeks is very quick indeed. But, if you can let go of an unhealthy habit for one day, all you have to do is repeat the process the next day until you have changed it completely.
Some of our members try to change too many habits too quickly. Taking on so much is virtually impossible to achieve. Choosing to change one habit at a time is much more realistic because it is much more achievable, it brings a greater satisfaction and keeps you highly motivated.
Habit changes can be very simple. Start with a question. Ask yourself this: “Which one habit can I change today to greatly improve my chances of losing weight?" Ask yourself this every morning and then do it.
You might have to work on the same habit for several days but you will achieve your goals.
So, lets examine an unwanted habit - eating two chocolate biscuits with coffee every morning at 11 o’clock. This repeated behaviour has become automatic, but follow our 6 top tips and you will soon break that bad habit:
1. Change the time. Eat the biscuits at 12 o’clock if you choose. When 12 noon comes you can choose not to eat the biscuits, you have never had them at this time before so why should you start now? Repeat this on a daily basis and you will find that the habit will go after a few days.
2. Change the quantity. Choose to have one biscuit instead of two. Then change to having none at all. Set yourself short-term goals and stick to them.
3. Change the speed. Eat very, very slowly. It can take you so long, become so boring and monotonous that after a few days you will take no pleasure in it and give up.
4. Change location. If you always have your coffee and biscuits in a particular place, then change the place – go into a different room.
5. Change the accompanying activity. Do you read a magazine or newspaper? Are you watching television? Change these – change the coffee or tea to a glass of mineral water. Changing all the associations breaks the automatic behaviour.
6. Change the quality of the experience. Buy biscuits you don’t like as much. Make the coffee weaker or stronger. So that the experience is not just so "good".
Eventually you can replace the biscuits with a really good feeling of achievement which is far more fulfilling.
Of course you don’t have to do all of these things, just try one until you find the one that works for you. These tactics might seem small, but they raise the automatic behaviour to a conscious level. They give you the opportunity to make choices and decisions and to successfully let go of an unwanted habit.
It is much better to have a choice than to have no choice. And remember: repeat it and you keep it. Repeat the change and you break the habit.
When you have successfully gotten rid of an unwanted habit, celebrate – acknowledge it and reward yourself (with a non-food treat). This will reinforce the change and the more you reinforce it, the stronger it gets.
Your unwanted habit will become so weak it will simply disappear.