Change your habits, change your life
When it comes to losing weight, most of us confirmed dieters are pretty much experts in how to lose the fat, we know about calorie counting, we know about correct nutrition, we know which exercises burn the most fat, in short we know exactly how to lose weight. But knowing how to lose weight and actually doing it are two entirely different things. If you just had to read a diet book to drop 20lbs, the diet industry certainly wouldn’t be as buoyant as it is today.
The truth is we are all creatures of habit and routine, our behavior around food is generally a conditioned response to events or simply habitual. That’s why it is so damn hard to stick to a diet for longer than a day! So rather than attempting to force ourselves past habitual, ingrained behavior with the tiny amount of willpower we posses why not do it the easy way and set ourselves on an automatic course to weight loss. In the end it is the quickest, surest and easy route to permanent weight loss. So here’s what you need to do:
Because most of our actions, thoughts and behaviors are based around automatic behavior that previously we have established unconsciously, we can use this automation to our advantage and this time consciously construct useful habits and routines. For example, an important part of healthy eating is consuming a well balanced breakfast that will see your appetite through until lunch time and give you energy to start your day. Many of us, however, are in the habit of grabbing a quick cup of coffee and maybe and slice of toast for breakfast or even foregoing food altogether. So, say we want to establish a routine/habit of having a fresh fruit smoothie every morning, well all you have to do to make this a habit is to do it every day for at least 30 days. The first 10 days will be difficult but I have identified 8 strategies that I’ll talk about another time that can get you through this start up phase, then the next 10 days, you will probably still experience some resistance but it will be easier, and then if you make it through the last 10 days you will have formed a habit for life. The same applies to any automatic behavior you want to install. It is best to concentrate on one or two new habits at a time, but very soon you will have changed your unhealthy, high fat eating routines to new healthy, low fat ones and consequently you will lose weight on auto-pilot.
Weight loss is 90% mindset. Mindset is 90% habit. Change your habits, lose weight.