TURNING HABITS INTO HEALTH: HOW 1 STEP AT A TIME CAN MAKE THE CHANGE (ISSUE 63)

By Diane Gold

Turning Habits Into Health is just another way of saying we are committing to nurturing ourselves and matching our behaviors with our current goals and game plan.

Habits, as we know if we think about them, are patterns of behavior reinforced through repetition until they are almost involuntary action. Here’s a short list of these responses: eating oily, salty or sugary snacks to satisfy a food craving; verbally reacting to a child because that’s how we were raised; using mind/body-altering substances (prescribed or not) because we are tired, bored, nervous or emotional;  shutting down our emotions because it’s safer than experiencing pain; acting out anger when someone challenges us; eating processed, unhealthy foods to escape; meditating before breakfast; brushing our teeth; taking our shoes off before we enter a residence; swimming after work; praying
before eating.

Obviously, diverse behaviors serve us at various times in our lives. Most of the time, we aren’t even aware these habits are developing. And, usually, we don’t focus on them until our body, mind or spirit call out in despair. Weighing too much signals that our bodies are imbalanced. Pain in our teeth makes us examine our oral hygiene and diet. Emotional over-reaction makes us look at our stability. Our comfort level with the questions of our position in the universe arouses our spirit and calls for grand examination.

Because we are all so universally tied to habits and we all have them, WarriorsOfWeight.com now honors moms, daughters, fathers, sons, teen girls, teen boys, grandparents in focusing on and educating about Turning Habits Into Health and discussing all the astounding techniques to help each one of us along the way.

Whether we speak about personal development techniques like tai chi, free dance techniques, music and its effects on balance, involvement in social change to get us personally where we want to be or the science of proper nutrition to maximize our bodies;
WarriorsOfWeight.com aims to share material for all our supporters. From now on, our new tag line is (drum roll, please)

Turning Habits Into Health!

And we are focusing on solutions for all of us.

So what are the ways to make this miraculous change in habit? Do we have to turn ourselves inside out?

The answer, of course, is no. The prospect of making the change may seem as if we have to climb a mountain. The actual journey, if approached step-by-step, is only as difficult as each individual step.

ACTION STEPS

1) Step 1 is to look as far as the first step. The first step is the beginning action step. It’s like the running a race. When we look at 1 more step, and only 1 more step, we get to continue without collapsing – for that 1 step only.

This step could be changing 1 meal to vegetable juice or overcoming the fear of crossing the street or drinking apple juice instead of wine. With all of these habits, there is a first step, the golden step, the one that will begin the habit change.

2) Step 2 is a repetition of step 1 except that we have actual experience doing step 1. We can note that the original habit began because we repeated the same action over and over again.

Therefore, changing the habit is going to require repeating the same action over and over again. Thus, we repeat step 1.

We know we have looked at step 1. We have also looked at step 2. They are the same. So are the next steps.

3) As we get used to this step, we can repeat it more easily each time. If we continue to take the step as a replacement for some negative action that is not supporting our goals, we will begin to replace the habit.

Our journey for change starts out as a cold mountain.

With repetition and confidence, as we begin to get familiarity and control with our new actions, our journey becomes a mountain of joy.

CONCLUSION

We can change a habit with 1 step. It is the way. There is nothing mysterious about it, and the technique is as straight forward as normal breathing. We always have our collection of habits, all of them. Whether we allow them to trigger depends on how well we have replaced them using any means necessary, but usually the 1-step plan.

If we follow each individual step on blind faith, we don’t get distracted with other thoughts. In time, we can take a look at what we’ve accomplished, but not while we are doing it.

ACTION STEPS: THE HABIT CHANGE PROCESS

This section overviews The Habit Change Process. The “snack” habit is chosen so that we can act out the process without getting stuck on which habit to change. The method of 1 step, then repetition of the same step, then repetition of the same step again and again can be used for all habits.

OBJECTIVE

Replacing 1 snack a day with healthy food instead of cookies, chips, soda, anything else. (If you only eat raw food, have an allergy to 1 of the foods; please substitute. If you don’t usually have a snack, please add it for 21 days, just to be part of this process.)

1) Buy veggies (the culinary term “veggies” which would include mushrooms): carrots, broccoli, onions, garlic, spinach, mushrooms.

2)  5 minutes ahead of the broccoli, steam sliced carrots. Then add broccoli and steam for another 7-10 minutes.

3)  In another pot, use some water to brown sliced mushrooms, re-adding water several times as needed. so they don’t burn.

4)  Once the steaming is complete, in a wok or saucepan, heat a small amount of olive oil, add garlic to cook, 30 seconds later, add onions.

5)  In a couple minutes, add mushrooms, steamed carrots and broccoli.

6)  Add low-sodium soy sauce or amino acid liquid, a few drops of sesame oil, black pepper, rice vinegar, if you like.

7)  Stir fry until everything is tender.

8)  Add spinach for 30 seconds.

9)  Remove from the stove.

10) When cool, separate into 7 snack bags, 1 for each day of the week.

11) Refrigerate.

12) Now, you have a mid-afternoon snack for the next 7 days.

13) Set a phone/computer/clock alarm to facilitate this snack.

14) Do this for 7 days.

15) Repeat 1) through 14) for 2 additional weeks in a row.

16) Congratulations. You have gone through the steps to change a habit. Keep it up, and it is changed.

17) Grab your certificate below!

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition.

She is more excited about the idea of looking at 1-step until that 1 step is completed. She says,

“When the mind is focused on 1 thing, it is not focused on 2 things. Of course, we need to do a physical act to make the concentration happen, as opposed to intellectually thinking about it.

“When we want to take a step for our betterment, whatever it is, if we focus our attention only on this 1 step; we are less distracted. Imagine walking a tight rope, for example. Because the risk is so great that we would become injured with less than 100% concentration, we concentrate.

“If we don’t take the same care with changing a habit, we can get off track. Easily. So, concentrate on the physical action we have decided would be in our best interest. And we will be happy with the results.”

WATER FOR WEIGHT LOSS, EMOTIONAL EATING TURNED TO HEALTHY HYDRATION (REJOICE IF YOU HAVE AN ADEQUATE WATER SUPPLY) (ISSUE 61)

By Diane Gold

Everyone knows that water is great for weight loss. And this would be helpful because there is so much emotional eating going on. Why? It helps hydrate our skin, our membranes, our very cells so that we can get the food (oxygen) to the blood effectively and the nutrients we ingest to absorb into our intestines. And it curbs food cravings.

Did you know that a huge amount of our world population does not have enough water or has to walk to get it? According to Kathleen Parker’s article, quoting Charles Fishman’s The Big Thirst (on my pending reading list), we, Westerners, use 18.5 gallons a day flushing our toilets while there is only 1/100th of 2.5 percent fresh water on the planet or, if the oceans were broken down into mass, 2.5% of the Earth’s mass. Not a lot.

So, the first thing to do is to hail the Universe if you have enough water to drink and to consider being frugal with it so that we can make money with it and fund sending workers to third-world countries to create water infrastructures so that everyone can live more easily with water.

Next thing we need to do is to consider this simple concept: drinking 2 cups of water before every meal has been clinically proven to reduce calorie intake by 75-90 calories per meal and to increase actual weight loss by 33 or so %, according to Brenda Davy’s study in the clinical trial reported to the 240th Meeting of the American Chemical Society (August, 2010) by Davy of Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA.

PRELUDE TO HABIT

Let’s look at what happens when we start to feel the twinges of hunger. These urges might be immediately after eating, 10 minutes after eating, an hour after, 3 hours apart or more. The amount of time between cravings is a non-judgmental number. The craving begins as an itch, which shows up when it shows up. If we don’t judge ourselves, we won’t be judged! Its intensity determines the level of self-control we need to master it.

Of course, different proteins (histamines and newly found proteins) cause the nerve fibers that control itching (apparently, there are itch grids on our skin where these fibers connect) to be stimulated. But, I was speaking about itching as an analogous to cravings. As we sometimes, automatically scratch, often times, we automatically eat to satisfy our hunger.

ACTION STEPS: THE ANSWER

As soon as we feel that twinge of hunger, we have to continue to notice it exists so that there are fewer and fewer times we are already eating food before we realize we have had a craving.

Once we start to notice the urge, it will be easier and easier to pick it out of our urge line-up. We won’t push it away, thinking it will go away as we quietly walk to the kitchen. We will acknowledge and embrace it.

1) And go get water, 16 oz. worth.

2) Drink it (2 cups of 8 oz. each) at a gentle speed. If we slow the process down, we can maximize the effect the drinking process will have on our appetite.

3) Taste the water as it is going down. Since water has no taste, we will have to be mindful of its subtle flavor, created by the minerals that accompany the water, itself.

4) Take a moment to realize that we can single-handedly change our actions to our food craving, by ourselves, with the power of our minds. The sensation that goes with food can be directed. How is different for everyone, but we can alter our actions. By the act of noticing, drinking and tasting!

5) Take a moment to jump up and down with happiness that we can be instrumental in changing our hormones so that they work for our health, not to put us in a position of weakness.

EPILOGUE AND FUTURE CRAVINGS

After we begin, it will be get much easier for us to recognize and acknowledge it when we have a food urge. Whereas before, we might have felt we had to sneak to eat, we will no longer have to sneak, since our first line of food defense can be healthy, wonderful water. Whereas before, we might have felt guilty for eating mindlessly, we can feel pride because we are eating as part of a technique.

We can take a giant step toward hydrating our body, being the master of our urges and setting our bodies up to lose weight, in the process.

CONCLUSION

The act of making change takes time and effort. That includes water for weight loss. The biggest effort is in training the mind (changing a habit) that when we have a food craving, we need to embrace it. We need to drink 16 oz. of water, slowly. This is great in theory, but…

What if we consistently find ourselves eating before we remember to drink?

We will work to remember the next time and be twice as grateful for the opportunity.

What happens if it’s not possible for us to drink 2 cups of water at one time right from the start?
We can drink what we can drink. The more we drink, the more we will be able to drink more. The more food cravings turn away from emotional eating and towards drinking water before eating, the happier and more self-confidence we will be. The more weight loss becomes our personal reality, the more we will become iron-clad believers.

What if we don’t have a supply of water to our home?

We can walk to get it and get happy exercise along the way.

For those of us in the United States and some other countries, we can be extra thankful that we do have water readily available. 2/3 of world families do not (National Geographic Society Geography Awareness Week, 2010). They have to walk to get their water; they have to transport it on shoulders, backs or holding buckets.

No need to feel bad that we have it; let’s use the water that is right in front of us: for weight loss, for hydration, for detoxification, for balance. And let’s be thankful for every sip.

FEEDBACK

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom.
She feels fortunate for having grown up with an adequate water supply. She says,

“Feeling a food craving is something we’ve felt from childhood, since we have to eat to sustain. Emotional eating shows up after that. What’s new for us now is that we have the ability to change what we do with those cravings.

“We can tell ourselves to take an action. We can adjust the command we give ourselves. Even if it is as small as immediately taking a sip or two glasses of water. Any 1 step is monumental toward changing a habit. When we take a first step, as when we are babies, it is foreign, scary, difficult. Step 2, as Jaren, 1 of the big connections in my life used to say, may be scarier because we know what lies ahead.

“Step 3 and beyond are more and more familiar and possible to achieve with less difficulty. We are swaying our emotional eating into healthy drinking, 1 step at a time. This is how we change an ineffective habit to 1 that is beneficial to us.

“We have learned determination in life and in satisfying our food cravings. We are able since we have made to here. Now, we have to begin.”
____

Dedicated to the memory of Gertrude Gold, whose birthday would have been January 16. Once retired from entrepreneurship, she supported theater, music and arts, many international causes, worked at Planned Parenthood, typed Braille books for the Library of Congress. Mostly she was the great family giver who taught me always to stand up for myself and forgive. Miss you, Ma.

FOOD CRAVINGS: HOW TO MAXIMIZE THEM FOR OUR GOOD HEALTH (ISSUE 60)

By Diane Gold

Before we talk about food cravings and how to maximize them for health, I’d like to say that this article is about FAITH, not faith in someone or something else, but faith in ourselves that we may not be able to see yet. It is similar to that faith that many people attribute to a supreme entity; yet, we are going to use faith in ourselves for this lesson.

I want to mention a video clip I saw this morning. It pictures a just-turned 4-year-old girl pumping herself up by speaking positive statements to herself in the mirror. Many call these daily affirmations, you know, the kind where we tell ourselves we are amazing, happy, talented as we watch our mouth in the mirror as we say the words. This act, many have demonstrated, solidifies our belief in how amazing, happy and talented we actually are.

So, here’s a little girl, Jessica, standing on the bathroom counter, looking into her bathroom mirror, saying, with enthusiasm and self-assuredness,

“I can do anything good. I like my school; I like my dad; I like my cousins; I like my aunt; … I like my mom; I like my sister; I like my haircut… I can do anything good; I can do anything.”

DEFINING CRAVINGS

Let’s define cravings, since we all have them. A craving is a strong desire, which we all have. Synonyms for cravings are appetite, which we all need to self-sustain, and yearning or yen. If we all used our appetite for health, we would all be in good shape. But, when we talk about food cravings, we are generally speaking about following our urges without using self-control.

CHARACTER TRAITS

Like any other habit, we can change the way we act once we get our cue, which, in this case, is the food craving. So, let’s examine what we cravers have in common, for the most part.

Here are the traits that usually accompany a food craving person.

1)  Our food craving is a special cue that demands immediate attention on our part.

2)  We enjoy pleasurable sensations. We may also be experiencing what used to be pleasurable and just going through the motions.

3)  We consider the pleasure from food more important than our own health, so we are strong- willed in that we do what we decide.

4)  We are risk takers, and, like the casino gambler, we bet that eating healthier foods and amounts tomorrow is reason enough for us to gamble with our health and maintain our same habits now.

5)  We believe that eating what we currently believe to be the best pleasurable food at the moment is not such a big thing.

What we don’t count on is that, if we do this for day after day, month after month, we will seriously impair our health. But, we were willing to create a habit in the first place, so we have the ability to create another 1 or change the original one.

These traits shows we are seekers of good times, able to live for the present. They also lead to adventure and following our hearts. All of these traits are usually present in people who have not adjusted their urges to parallel how they want to look and feel. They are strong qualities that can be easily used to maximize what we do with our urges for health.

WHAT RESULTS FROM OUR CURRENT ROUTINE

When we have food cravings, and we are in the habit of acting only 1 way to them, we end up causing 1 or more of the following things to happen: we gain weight; we don’t like the fact that we gained weight; we don’t like how we look; we are replacing our sad/angry/lonely/frustrated with food; we get sick as a result of not eating well resolution.

Understanding why we act on our cravings in a way that ends up unhealthy for us is not necessary in order to add a new act to our repertoire of what routine we go through when we get the food craving cue. The important thing is what we do with the cue.

Think of a band member who is playing the wrong note because she has gotten used to playing that particular note and even enjoys how it sounds. When her band leader corrects her, she will have to change her habit to balance the group. In order to keep her job and continue playing the music that she loves, she will make the change.

It’s a little different with food, although not very. The biggest difference is that we are both the band leader and the player.

So, let’s say we have just experienced 1 of the results from our eating current routine, listed above. Let’s say we have gained weight and don’t like it. The easiest way (and 1 of the only ways) to change a habit is to tweak the routine. We have to keep at the front of our mind our weight loss goal.

ACTION STEPS

It’s time to use the character traits listed above to change our habit of bolting to eat when a craving arrives.

We have established that most of us, in some ways, are attentive to cues, pleasure lovers, strong-willed, risk takers and willing to create habits. All we have to do is immediately react to our urge cue with a new action. Much in the same way we must combat our fear when being attacked, we must automatically, whether we want to or not, get up and do something new upon feeling our craving. We have the will, and we’ve automatically done something before which is what created the habit to begin with.

1) We need to act with NO THOUGHT. Our mind will trip us into thinking. When we are thinking, we are not doing. We must be doing.

2) What we will do for our craving is go to our refrigerator and get a cup of already made steamed vegetables that we cooked at the beginning of the week to have available for snacks.

3) We can add a few drops of sesame oil and a little liquid amino acid soy-sauce alternative, for flavor. If the blandness of steamed veggies is screaming out, stir-fried veggies cooked in a drop of olive oil work, too.

4) Eating with chop sticks and chewing at least 20 times per bite, preferably 45, slows the eating process.

5) Always take a container of these veggies to work or school for 2 planned snacks, am and pm. The veggies can also be used to curb a craving at any time during the day. If we find that we need 3 cups, 2 for snacks and 1 for a craving, we will have them available.

CONCLUSION

Be confident that change is possible as long as there is a start-to-finish method in place. Even if this is the first time we ever exhibited self-control, we have a specific method with a specific action step: a systematic approach. Therefore, we all will be able to take charge and maximize our health.

Maybe we won’t succeed on day one, but day two brings another opportunity. An attempt must be made each time we have a craving so that we can get our current routine to match our current goals. What’s the worst that will happen? We will eat healthy veggies for snack. In having these veggies nearby, we will create a new habit. Our success might start off slowly, but our results will be positive, with the patience we will establish.

We will find new, exciting flavors in our veggies, too. That is something to look forward to.

Make sure not to warm our veggies, even if we think there is time. This is food kung fu. Get used to cold veggies since there is no time to spare between the food craving, our cue, and our satisfaction of that craving with a healthy action.

Microwave ovens rob nutrients from our food, and stoves take longer than our craving will wait. Eventually, when we have changed our habit from “cue to instant eating” to “cue to patience to eating healthily,” warming our veggies may be an option.

And, finally, rejoice, this is a food adventure and the next chapter in our self-mastery.

FEEDBACK

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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom.

She believes we can change a habit but changing our routine, as long as there is a system in place in which to do it. She says,

“We always create habits, so we are practiced at this aspect of behavior. We are also not new at changing the ways that we act. We do it all the time, based on how we feel, how we must act in social settings and how we consider others who might be affected by our actions. So, we are experienced.

“All we need do is prepare what we are going to do, smile or frown and do it. The next time, it will be easier, and the next time, even easier. Pretty soon, we will be accomplished and moderately comfortable at the new action step, so much so that it will become our new habit.

“To succeed, we must have faith in ourselves and begin!”

BAD HABITS: HOW TO CHANGE A HABIT (Issue 41)

By Diane Gold

I have been studying bad habits for some time, but closely since I realized that what was not addicting to me in my first and second decades felt different in my fourth and fifth decades. And after having lived a period of time as the girlfriend of someone self-destructive to someone emulating the behaviors myself and getting through that.

Eating too much in college or drinking a lot when I was studying jazz in school and going to the clubs at night were no big deal to eliminate from my life at the snap of my fingers. Everything was fun, experimental and easily controllable. As luck would have it, there were no addictive triggers. (showing at that time).

True, I did gain 20 pounds during college and struggled to get it off, but it did not feel the same as later in life when I began to develop chemical triggers with deep cravings. So I learned that one’s capacity for habit (like an addictive trigger) can alter itself or turn itself on or off at various times in one’s life.

Teaching and consulting in music, tai chi and stress relief have allowed me to study the habits of others. In general, what I found was that people change a habit by replacing it with a new one. I, for one, broke my cycle of excess by going to sleep early. When I woke up, my urge was gone.
The result? Eventually, a new habit is formed, that of immediately taking an action that takes us away from the behavior we want to eliminate.

We have to keep in mind that when we do something over and over, our synaptic pathways get worn in a certain way to crave and satisfy, which is why we always have a tendency to that particular habit. That’s why we have to form “parallel patterns” (in the words of Julia Layton, contributing writer at How Stuff Works) so that we become satisfied, replacing the old with the new behavior, eventually.

Old triggers will still occur. It’s what action we take when they do that determines whether the new reward gives us enough pleasure to sustain the new behavior.
The expression

“build a life which is actually more enjoyable than substance use”

is quoted as the result we are looking for in a description of a substance abuse program at St. Jude’s. This is the similar to

“Build a series of habits that erase or greatly minimize the desire for bad habits. ”

To this day, though, I know that (I’m using alcohol, but this applies to any object of destruction) having one drink of alcohol will light up my synaptic pathways which are molded from habit, lying in wait to trigger cravings. I’ll have one drink on day one. Then, on day two, it will be easy to have one or two drinks. The third day, it will be three drinks. This pattern will occur exactly as outlined, as sure as the letter b follows a in the English alphabet, once the cycle of giving in to the craving has begun.

Then, I will have to go cold tofu and kick the cravings.

THE SECRET

How? I will eat a salad and drink water at the first sign of any craving. This will stop the urge and calm down the urge cycle. This works for food in the same way. It changes the need for that greasy, salty, sugary food because we have nourished the body with
a blander, more wholesome taste. It will also mean agreeing with myself not to have the object of the craving for a few years, at least.

Having gone through the process of giving in to the craving and kicking it before, I won’t bother going through it now since the work is hard and, most of the time, borders on massively hard. I can go do tai chi, stick my feet in the ocean, write an article, call an offspring or friend, drink the water or eat the salad very happily. I can even ramp up the writing of my book on, you guessed it, cravings.
__

Getting back to studying others, I have watched people dance, play music, do tai chi, run, start a conversation upon feeling a craving they wanted to get rid of. As long as they stuck to the new behavior; they had a chance of forming a new habit and bucking the old.

The trick is to do the new behavior within 30 seconds of getting the urge so that it doesn’t build up in the mind. Not allowing time to lapse will help us not to get sucked into the behavior we want to dump. That’s the key.

ACTION STEP

So here’s an awesome action step. Carry a pocket watch or one of those timers the dentist gives us to time brushing our teeth. Immediately start it. This will make us aware that we have mere seconds to take action. This action should precede dancing, doing a kung fu form. It should not precede calling a friend or accountability partner for help. Always reach out first. But get busy and go for a run. Do it. New pleasure feelings will arrive. The previous craving should be gone.

Doing a movement activity works often because it produces a new set of chemical reactions which suppresses or lessens the “crave” hormones and increases the pleasure neurotransmitters.

For help with habits, check out WarriorsOfWeight Consulting, for 5-weeks or 10-weeks, for moms, daughters and you. Click the image below.

GO AHEAD. CLICK THE ENTER SIGN IN THE DOORWAY.
___

In doing research for this article, I came across this below flow chart by Charles Duhigg, author of the book, The Power Of Habit. He says,

“If you can diagnose your habit, you can change it.”

He talks about how he used to leave his desk and go buy a cookie every day. He gained weight and wanted to do something about it.

He decided to log how he felt when he craved the cookie, what time of day it was and what the rewards were, following his flowchart

Click here to download.

So, he couldn’t kick the habit until he learned how his habit worked. He learned that every habit has a cue (a trigger), a routine (the habit you have) and a reward.

He spent time noticing when he urged for the cookie: 3:00-3:30 pm, it turned out (the cue). When he got this urge, he’d go get the cookie, and, upon further examination, he noticed he would also spend 10 minutes or so socializing with colleagues in the cafeteria while eating (the routine).

In order to figure out his reward, he did an experiment. One day, when the cravings arrived, he took a walk around the block. The next day, when he urged, he went to the cafeteria, bought candy and ate at his desk. The following day, he went to the cafeteria, didn’t buy anything and just talked to friends.

He realized his reward was the socializing. Now, at 3:00-3:30 pm, he gets up, goes over to a friend’s desk, hangs out for 10 minutes and goes back to his desk. The cookie urge is gone, and he is getting his reward, socializing.
__

We all want different rewards and crave things for different reasons. One person’s habit may be harder to change than another’s. It may take me 3 months to figure out that I was buying the cookie to have a reason to talk to my colleagues, when it took Charles a day to do it. The habit that we want to change may show up 10 times a day, instead of Charles’ habit, 1 time a day.

But, it is possible for us to change the habit. We just have to act quickly every time we have an urge.

ACTION STEP

Imagine if every time we felt an urge to eat, we walked out the door or got up from our desk and ran around the block. If we were of school age, we could ask permission to go to the women’s bathroom where we could run in place for 60-120 seconds instead.
We’d be burning calories, we wouldn’t be allowing ourselves to sit with our same old frustrating urges and do our same behavior and we would be strengthening and toning our muscles while running. (Wheelchair folks can do this, too.)

CONCLUSION

We can take many actions to change a habit. We can talk to people or we can do some type of movement or exercise.

All the actions boil down to the one key of replacing a behavior with a behavior. When looking for literature on how long it takes to change a habit, there is as much variation as there are people who write about it. That’s because we are all so different.

To change the habit of leaving a light on when we leave a room is far simpler to change than the habit of eating salty, oily, sugary foods with every meal. Adding a salad to every meal could solve both conditions. It could be the consequence of not turning a light off and the healthy action that helps us to change our bad eating habit.

So, ACTION STEP

Add a salad to every meal. If we already eat salad at every meal, add 2 snack salads during the day, or increase the size of 2 of the salads.
__

Back to how long it takes. I’ve heard 18 days, 3 weeks, 28 days, 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, 3 months, 6 months. These are all correct. It’s also correct to say that many habits are not broken but just suspended. This answer affirms the synaptic pathway scenario that cannot be changed theory.

The bottom line is that it is possible to change a habit. We have to act as if we are in a marathon. Because we are. As soon as we feel the urge to do whatever we don’t want to do; we have to run, jump, stretch, call a friend, lock the refrigerator and give the key to our neighbor. Whatever it takes, we have to do it now.

For help with habits, check out WarriorsOfWeight Consulting, for 5-weeks or 10-weeks, for moms, daughters and you. Click the image below.

FEEDBACK

Please leave a comment and LIKE this article.

DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR

Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Moms For Healthy Daughters, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert and a dedicated mom.
She is convinced through research and through personal experience, that we have the power to change ourselves. We just have to do it. Diane says,

“We fuel ourselves with the power to change ourselves. Although the journey may be different for each of us, It is not dependent upon anything else. Even if our living quarters are no bigger than an automobile, we have the ability to become strong and change our body, mind and spirit through meditation, exercise and studying. It is up to us to take that opportunity. “

Welcome to Warriors Of Weight – Change A Habit is the only website and inbox magazine focusing on habits and how to replace the ones that don’t support us.

Our missions is to supply you tools that can give each one of us a philosophy from which to move: take one step, and we will succeed.

To change a habit, all we need do is step. Once we have taken that one action step, we are in a new place with a new perspective. We can always take another step. And another.

When we focus on one step and only one step, we don’t complicate the action. It may not be easy for us to make that one-step move, but it is right in front of us should we choose it.

Please join us on this wonderful journey where we will learn from each other and give the ultimate gift to our ourselves and others, that of understanding with compassion and love, how to change a habit.

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Love, D