If You Want to Lose Weight, Break Your Habits

One of the worst things you can do for your health is get into a habit.  We all have them, we do so many things on autopilot that it is surprising when they are brought to our attention.  One example is popcorn and soda at the theater, ordered mostly out of habit.  If you actually stopped and tasted the dry popcorn and sickly sweet soda, you might think twice about putting it in your body.

We not only have habits about what we eat, but also at what time we eat.  Our jobs like to control every aspect of our lives down to when and how long you have to eat.  Do you always eat dinner at a specific time?  Do you always have some kind of desert?  Do you make the same thing for breakfast every day?  Do you even have a decent breakfast?

Think back over the last week, what meals did you eat out of habit?  What snacks did you consume because you have a habit of going to the candy machine for an afternoon fix?  How much did you eat without even thinking?  Were you taught as a child to eat everything on your plate?  Most meals served at restaraunts these days are enough for two or more people, not to mention appetizers and drinks.

It is difficult, to say the least, to break these habits once established.  So what can you do?  How do you regain control over your habitual eating?

At this point I would like to say that before any drastic change in your diet, you should consult your doctor.  Many people may do more harm than good by radically changing their daily routing.  That being said, lets move on.

One way to get out of your habits is to force yourself to think about what you are doing.  You can do this by doing something completely different for a period of time.  I have found that three to five days is enough to get your mind whirring.

What do I mean by doing something completely different?  Lets just imagine for a moment that you have a decent diet, it encompasses all the food groups.  You eat bread, meat, dairy, etc on a fairly regular basis, but you do it mindlessly and want to change.  What I started, purely by a random thought, is to have a live food week.  During this week I would eat only food that is alive.  No, you are not to swallow goldfish or anything else currently pictured in your mind.  Live food consisted of only vegetables and fruit.  I drink only water.  Sometimes I allow myself some unflavored yogurt since it has live bacteria.  Thats it.  As much live food as I wanted, but live food only.

Just to make myself clear, as my definition of live food may differ from yours.  I ate no dairy, no meat, no canned or packaged foods, no bread, no coffee or tea, no sugar, no honey, no salad dressing.  Only fruit, vegetables and fresh vegetable juice.

The first time I did this I lost twenty pounds.  That may have been just leftover stuff in my bowels (an entirely different topic)  I had a fruit smoothie for breakfast, fresh vegetable juice for lunch, and a bowl of salad for dinner.  For five days I maintained my diet.  By the end of the week I was having dreams about hamburgers.  And on Saturday I went out for a nice meal, having achieved my goal.

What did I accomplish?  All during the week I caught myself following my habits and stopped before completing them.  I found myself looking at the candy machine and thinking there is no live food in there.  I drank alot of water and found that I enjoyed it.  And afterward I found myself thinking more about the foods I was eating and the amount that I ate. 

I have live food weeks several times a year just to make sure I don't fall into the habit of eating without thinking.  If your doctor agrees, I highly recommend this method of breaking your food habits.  Set a goal, maybe only 3 days to start, stick to it, and see what you discover about yourself and your eating.

A Clinical Laboratory Outbreak Investigation of Endemic Moist Eczematous Syndrome in Cattle in Jhapa District of Nepal

Nutrition

Nutrition