There’s a few irrefutable facts about humans:
- We want things now
- We don’t like change, even change that might benefit us
- We’re creatures of habit
- We do things either seek out pleasure or avoid pain
It’s easy to say “you just need to eat this and you’ll lose weight”. But the underlying problem is that eating is often tied to emotion and habit.
We are the result of our collective habits. The main driver behind our current state is what we perceive ourselves to be and the insistence that the status quo will remain how it is.
We detest change. We will fight back against it tooth and nail in order to keep things nice and ordered in our minds. All our ducks in a row. Don’t rock the boat. Steady as she goes.
Any mention of change is met with fierce push-back, because it can be viewed as an attack by the person for not living their lives how they should.
So the change we undergo if we are ready for it should be gradual and incremental. A lot of people will jump in both feet and change everything at once.
Instead, do this:
- Track what you are doing. Keep a log of the food you eat.
- Do this over a week.
- Identify ONE food that crops up the most in your food log.
- Is the food heavy in calories?
- Is the food tied to a habit that you could easily minimise or eliminate?
- No? Then choose another one. Keep going until you find something you could change fairly easily.
For example, I had the habit of buying a coffee from a cart every day. Along with the coffee I might buy a big cookie.
I didn’t even usually want the cookie, over time I got sick of it actually. But I kept buying it because of the habit. So I told myself if I skipped the coffee and cookie visits, I would save about 50 bucks a week.
I stopped going. Over a week or so, the desire to go get the coffee diminished. And because I didn’t get the coffee, the cookie went wanting as well.
A new behaviour had been installed.
Choose ONE thing at a time. Minimise, eliminate or even trade it in for a habit that might benefit you.
Because in order to improve your body, a change in habits is required.
Over time this adds up to a literal shift in identity.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a new result”
Coach Grant