HOW TO TURN BAD HABITS INTO GOOD HABITS
This morning as I gaze out at the snowy landscape (it's 1.7 degrees outside, and we got 6 inches of snow yesterday...BRRRR....) I'm thinking about 'habits'...and how much my habits have changed since I started this program.

And I'm thinking about the process we all go through to change our BAD habits into GOOD habits!

That's what it's all about here, isn't it?  It's not just about losing the weight. If that was all it was, we could do a lot of other programs.(Although to be totally honest, most stopped working for me, but at 58 my metabolism was slow as molasses in January....LOL)

No. We're here to lose the weight but we're also mainly here to learn how to KEEP IT OFF.

Who wants to do this over and over again? UGH...no thank you!
Once is enough for Week 1, thank you very much.

So we are looking for PERMANENT changes here. And that means changing our lifestyle and our day-to-day habits.

When a bad habit hits you, it's easy to tell....because it's usually a voice in your head (one of your 'negative' passengers on the bus...you know, Doubting Donna, or Negative Nelly, or Polly Pessimistic)....who by the way is part of the 'Fat Brain' crowd.

She'll start by telling you that you 'need' to eat ________ (insert food here) because you're down, or you're having a hard day, or you're sick, or you're frustrated or anxious or angry or....any one of a million emotions.

We're all human, and therefore we all experience lots of different emotions over the course of a given day. I mean, Life goes on, right? ....and you can't "freeze" your life like pausing a movie while you're working the program! You have to live your life!
And obviously NO ONE has wonderful days every day.
Even the luckiest of us have bad days when everything goes wrong. Or something totally unexpected happens, and you have to adjust, quickly.

So let's say you had a bad day at work. You're overtired, you're all stressed out, and you finally fought the traffic and got home safely, but now you're standing in front of the refrigerator trying to decide what to have for dinner.

Here comes Fat Brain. "You DESERVE to just get a pizza tonight. After all, you had a HARD DAY! Who wants to COOK, for pete's sakes? That will take too long anyway. You're hungry and you need to eat. NOW. So you blow your program today. You can make up for it tomorrow. Right now you need to eat, and there's nothing ready so you might as well just go with it and do what's easiest. After all, you DESERVE it, (watch out for those 3 words!), your boss really came down hard on you today and it wasn't FAIR, and you work so hard and you get so little credit...blah blah blah..."

You get the idea. The message varies based on your particular situation but the meaning is always the same:  "I NEED TO GO OFF PLAN BECAUSE IT'S TOO HARD right now".

Of course you KNOW better...but it's very very tough to argue when you are standing there staring at the refrigerator and you're hungry and tired and frustrated and maybe a little depressed and stressed....

So what do you do?

Well, this is where you can really SHINE and TEACH YOURSELF a good habit.

See that lettuce? Grab it. And that MF approved salad dressing? That too...grab it. Have any string cheese? Perfect. If not what about eggs or eggbeaters? These can all be a lean in a pinch...consult the meatless options list.

You can throw together an eggbeaters omelet in 5 minutes FLAT. And fill the center with healthy greens like mushrooms or diced zucchini or green pepper. And serve it with a side lettuce salad and your favorite MF approved dressing.  VOILA!  Dinner in a flash!

BETTER YET...you can ANTICIPATE (AHA! You knew I'd say that) that these days will happen, and you can have leftovers ready to go....from a meal you made ahead of time, maybe you doubled a recipe over the weekend (always a good idea by the way) so all you have to do is grab it, plate it, and stick it in the microwave. PRESTO, there's your L&G.

Bottom line? You quickly SUBSTITUTE a GOOD habit from a BAD one.

Now here's the best part.

What happens if you repeat this behavior often enough?

You 'train' your brain to AUTOMATICALLY think of the 'good' habit instead of the bad one!

You keep doing this and eventually...you WILL have a day when you're in the same situation, tired, stressed, etc....but instead of even thinking take-out, you're thinking "What can I throw together quickly that's a healthy OP L&G?"

You see what just happened?

You didn't even THINK about your bad habit!

CONGRATULATIONS!
You just changed an eating habit...for GOOD!

Or...here's another example. You 'always' snack while watching TV at night with your DH. It's just something the two of you do. And you snack on...not so good for you food. Sludge. Chips. Sweets. Whatever.

The FIRST TIME you run into this situation....remember your final MF meal of the day....and make it something really good. Have a brownie (always a favorite) or a peanut butter smoothie (love these) or whatever your favorite MF meal is. Grab it INSTEAD of the sludge and grab a big glass of water and put that where you can reach it and sip sip sip away at your water, and eat your MF evening snack S-L-O-W-L-Y and mindfully (try not to stare at the TV when doing this, remind your brain that you're EATING...this avoids the 'where did it go?' syndrome where you look down at your empty plate and wonder where the food went).  I like to make a nice cup of herb tea to go along with this last evening MF meal, too....it kind of makes it more 'special'.

Now, the next time you're in this situation, do that same thing with your MF meal AGAIN.

And again. And again.....until.....you build up a HEALTHY HABIT, and now, whenever you think 'munchies' when you're watching TV, your brain will AUTOMATICALLY think of your favorite MF meal instead of those chips or that sludge you used to eat.

You are TRAINING YOUR BRAIN.

That's what it's all about. THAT is when the real change happens.

You will get to the point (I promise!) where the 'bad' habit becomes....unusual for you to even THINK about.

Not that it won't happen...it still will, once in awhile, but every time it does you need to analyze 'what was different?' or 'what was special' about this time that you couldn't resist?

Maybe you ran into a feeling you didn't anticipate...one you haven't had in awhile. Maybe you had something unusual happen in your day, something you haven't had happen so you never really handled 'how you would cope' with that problem before.

Those are just OPPORTUNITIES to start to build good habits from bad again for that particular situation!

Think of it that way. Every time you have a craving it's an OPPORTUNITY, it's not a bad thing! It's your chance to CHANGE the way your brain works.

And once you change your brain....your thought patterns...you can change your eating habits for GOOD, and then losing the weight and KEEPING it off become easy.

YOU CAN DO IT!