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I felt good when I could exercise wherever and whenever I wanted. I was an active person; I felt energetic; I slept far better than I do now. I probably wasn't the fittest I've ever been, and my build ensures that I will never be either fast or strong by any absolute measure, but still I felt good about the things my body could do.
A friend mentioned in a filtered post that she is working to replace unhealthy eating habits with exercise as her relaxation-and-destressing drug of choice. Boy have I ever gone the other way. Probably more than anything else about my foot problems (and wow is there some stiff competition there), this enrages and depresses me.
How does one build a healthy habit?
I've done it, or at least I've destroyed an unhealthy habit. I used to drink immense quantities of sweetened carbonated caffeinated beverages. When I learned what the caffeine was doing to the pinched nerves in my belly, I switched from Coke and Mountain Dew to ginger ale and Sprite. There's no question that there was some physical addiction involved, yet I did it. Then I thought it would be a good idea not to drink so many of my meals, calorically speaking, and I switched to flavored fizzy water without anything else in it. Now... I enjoy drinking plain water! I'll drink herbal teas, too, and that fizzy water, and on good days I can have decaf tea. (I also drink alcoholic stuff, but here I'm mainly addressing what I reach for when I'm thirsty.) In general, if you look at what's beside my keyboard at work, it's healthy -- or at least not un.
The lovely bit is that I don't even WANT sodas any more. I'm not "depriving myself" or exercising "willpower" or "self-control". None of that. I don't desire those sweetened drinks one bit. Seriously.
How did I DO that?
Here's where I start guessing.
1) Slowness. I made small changes one at a time and stuck with each one for a while, rather than trying to make an enormous change or set of changes all at once.
2) Pain. Once I realized what caffeine did to me, and after I rid myself of it, any time I slipped I was brutally punished. That'll help just about anybody change their ways!
3) Acceptable substitutes. Back when I was downing more than a six-pack of Coke a day, and sometimes washing down some Vivarin with it, I also enjoyed drinking ginger ale. Switching over to that alone wasn't like switching to, say, carrot juice. When I ditched the ginger ale, I had fizzy water, giving me the familiar carbonated feel on my tongue and the familiar sense of fullness in the tummy.
4) No cost. In each of these steps, the healthy option cost zero extra time and zero extra money when compared with the unhealthy option.
I can't think of any more elements to this right now, though if you folks can come up with some, that'd be great.
But I have utterly failed to build other healthy habits.
- I'll decide it's a good idea to take vitamins, and I'll be reliable for a year or two... and then *poof*, I stop. I usually notice this when somebody mentions vitamins and I think hmm, gee, when was the last time I took those?
- I've tried to build a routine involving swimming, and that was miserable. In the last few weeks, when I've been very busy, I even abandoned the weights. (Part of that is because the house is so cold in the mornings that my overriding thought is how fast I can get to the office.)
- I decide to cut back on fat or on empty carbs, and I can do that for a while, but pretty soon I catch myself with a buttered white-flour English muffin instead of my oatmeal.
If I get overwhelmed and start to neglect things, my health is one of the things I neglect early.
Yet I've never gone back to Coke or even ginger ale. I don't suddenly wake up and find that I've got one of those in my hand. I would now pay extra (money or time) to keep it out of my hand. I succeeded there. It is absolutely effortless for me to maintain that one. Why? Is it possible to replicate that level of success in other healthy endeavors?
A friend mentioned in a filtered post that she is working to replace unhealthy eating habits with exercise as her relaxation-and-destressing drug of choice. Boy have I ever gone the other way. Probably more than anything else about my foot problems (and wow is there some stiff competition there), this enrages and depresses me.
How does one build a healthy habit?
I've done it, or at least I've destroyed an unhealthy habit. I used to drink immense quantities of sweetened carbonated caffeinated beverages. When I learned what the caffeine was doing to the pinched nerves in my belly, I switched from Coke and Mountain Dew to ginger ale and Sprite. There's no question that there was some physical addiction involved, yet I did it. Then I thought it would be a good idea not to drink so many of my meals, calorically speaking, and I switched to flavored fizzy water without anything else in it. Now... I enjoy drinking plain water! I'll drink herbal teas, too, and that fizzy water, and on good days I can have decaf tea. (I also drink alcoholic stuff, but here I'm mainly addressing what I reach for when I'm thirsty.) In general, if you look at what's beside my keyboard at work, it's healthy -- or at least not un.
The lovely bit is that I don't even WANT sodas any more. I'm not "depriving myself" or exercising "willpower" or "self-control". None of that. I don't desire those sweetened drinks one bit. Seriously.
How did I DO that?
Here's where I start guessing.
1) Slowness. I made small changes one at a time and stuck with each one for a while, rather than trying to make an enormous change or set of changes all at once.
2) Pain. Once I realized what caffeine did to me, and after I rid myself of it, any time I slipped I was brutally punished. That'll help just about anybody change their ways!
3) Acceptable substitutes. Back when I was downing more than a six-pack of Coke a day, and sometimes washing down some Vivarin with it, I also enjoyed drinking ginger ale. Switching over to that alone wasn't like switching to, say, carrot juice. When I ditched the ginger ale, I had fizzy water, giving me the familiar carbonated feel on my tongue and the familiar sense of fullness in the tummy.
4) No cost. In each of these steps, the healthy option cost zero extra time and zero extra money when compared with the unhealthy option.
I can't think of any more elements to this right now, though if you folks can come up with some, that'd be great.
But I have utterly failed to build other healthy habits.
- I'll decide it's a good idea to take vitamins, and I'll be reliable for a year or two... and then *poof*, I stop. I usually notice this when somebody mentions vitamins and I think hmm, gee, when was the last time I took those?
- I've tried to build a routine involving swimming, and that was miserable. In the last few weeks, when I've been very busy, I even abandoned the weights. (Part of that is because the house is so cold in the mornings that my overriding thought is how fast I can get to the office.)
- I decide to cut back on fat or on empty carbs, and I can do that for a while, but pretty soon I catch myself with a buttered white-flour English muffin instead of my oatmeal.
If I get overwhelmed and start to neglect things, my health is one of the things I neglect early.
Yet I've never gone back to Coke or even ginger ale. I don't suddenly wake up and find that I've got one of those in my hand. I would now pay extra (money or time) to keep it out of my hand. I succeeded there. It is absolutely effortless for me to maintain that one. Why? Is it possible to replicate that level of success in other healthy endeavors?
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I've been unmotivated to exercise in the morning because it's so cold, but I've tried getting dressed in the (warm) bathroom -- that seems to help.
Bottom line, you have to force your yourself in the beginning, but most of the time the benefit of the change (i.e. more energy when you are exercising regularly) WILL become the motivating factor...
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If I understand what you're saying, it seems that with exercise, the answer is that there's no way to reach that level of success. But there are ways (such as getting dressed in a warm room) to make forcing yourself easier. Is that about the gist of it? (It would certainly match up with my experience.)
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Years ago I decided "I will work out on the Nordic Track every night that I am home" and while I hate it, with 2 exceptions (that I think most would agree are reasonable) I have done so EVERY DAY. If I'm so sick I just stand there for half an hour and barely wiggle my feet -- well, if that's the best I can do I've still done it. This decision was wrapped around deciding that Bally was evil, and realizing that if it involves "going out" then I will just not do it. Too many nights I'm heading home at 10pm or later, and stopping is either not possible or not easy. Of course, I don't have ANY problems going to bed right after working out and showering, so that helps. (And no, I'm not sure it helps. I see very few changes in my body -- but at least if someone says "why don't you..." I can say "I do". If I had to exercise in the morning I'd fail. I'm always sleep deprived, and when I finally wake up I Need to Leave For Work Now. So I'm guessing that for you, making exercise a habit for you would require "no cost" -- as in not the hardship of dealing with a cold house. If late evening doesn't work, what about just before dinner?
For the vitamins, what I started doing was tracking them (as well as the other drugs I take) in my day timer. I'm really supposed to take a set of 4 pills in the morning, and a set of 3 pills in the evening, but I don't often do that, but my daily habit is once I get to work to note various items into my day timer, including whether my next set of pills is the odd or the even set. So, except for the weekend, I'm quite likely to get half my vitamins. I carry them to work in old film canisters... but since I can forget to fill those, I have full bottles at work as well as home.
If the EngMuf is that tempting, perhaps it should be a treat. You've met a particular goal (finishing NaNoWriMo? Eating oatmeal for 'n' days in a row without complaining, even to yourself?) so you get an EngMuf today. (Thomas is the BEST brand!) Or maybe if you switch to the whole wheat EngMuf, that can be 2n/3 days...
Thomas English muffins RULE!
I can either exercise in the morning before my shower (advantage: no extra shower) or in the evening after work (advantages: might be warmer, not feeling stressed about getting to work). Maybe changing my shower time to evenings would solve all of this. Except then I'd have bed head. :-)
When I could run, it felt like that was "no cost" to me. In truth, it cost me the time I spent dressing in my running clothes and doing the run, but it didn't cost any more time than that, because I needed no extra showers or commutes to a gym. The closer I can get to that, the better chance I have of sticking with it.
Pills are weird for me. I treat medicines very seriously and I almost never miss a dose of those, even if they're new to me or they're on an annoying schedule or I'm traveling. But vities I don't treat that way. Maybe all I need there is an attitude adjustment. :-)
I would love to have a little pill dispenser stuck to the wall in my bathroom. Y'know those mechanical things that will give you one straw or one toothpick in a restaurant? I want that, for pills. Push the button, get one. I could load up vities in one of these, a supplement my doctor suggested in the next one, my regular meds in another or two, and all told I'd be be MUCH faster at snagging what I need in the morning. I'm in the bathroom at home at least once each day, for the shower. Heck, vities should be easy: I could take them at any time of day!
Re: Thomas English muffins RULE!
I have one any-time drug, the vitamins should be taken with food (more easily absorbed at that time), and I have some empty stomach meds. Since I'm a snacker, given the choice between 3 hours after I eat and 1 hour before, it _has_ to be 1 hour before, so I do that when I get up, and then grab something when I get to work, doing the vitamins then. Due to tiredness, if I didn't put my little case on top of my bite splint box, I'd probably forget it more times than not. When I'm on special meds, I have to set my watch to beep at each dose time, hope I hear it, and hope I remember why it's beeping.
Reading your last paragraph, I couldn't help but get an image of a lab rat hitting the button hoping for a treat this time...
Re: Thomas English muffins RULE!
Your meds schedule sounds annoying. Grr!
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First, I think a lot of people benefit from short term changes, which is kind of what you did when you gave up the soda. Turning it into a real way of life took time, but the initial step of stopping was quicker and then you had habit and side-effects and things like that to help. It's kind of the difference between keeping a New Year's resolution, which seems to rarely happen, and giving up something for Lent, which seems much more successful.
So maybe you could set yourself a short term goal, with whatever motivation you think will work. Tell yourself you will swim or do weights (or whatever it is) every day for one month. Maybe you can put aside some money and put Rob in charge of rewarding you if you do it or announce it here in LJ and make it clear that you will update once a week so that you have a negative consequence if you fall short. But somehow encourage yourself to do it over a short period and then give yourself the opportunity to keep reinitiating that challenge. Hopefully the accomplishment after the first month will make it easier to put yourself on the hook for another month. Its not a perfect solution, but that's what I've got. :)
Maybe I'm just a lazy and cynical guy, but for me the pain reinforcement is the easiest one to live by. I don't think it's a coincidence that the soda was the thing you gave up, because pretty quickly your body started working with you to keep the change going, rather than tempting you to cheat. This also has a long history of people giving up smoking or drinking or whatever by making a bet with someone else, so that there is a real cost to "losing." So maybe you can use that to your advantage. Pick somebody you trust and make some sort of deal with them. You'll work out three times a week for a month or else... well, something. Something you have to give up or do for them or... well, whatever. I'm out of ideas because I don't know you well enough to know what a good incentive would be. :)
But I think the bottom line is to pick somebody who can help you through the process. Rob or a friend on LJ in general or, heck, me for that matter. :) Commit to emailing me regarding your progress once a week or you'll buy me a car or something. ;)
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I think what I really need is a different attitude about them. If they're important, I should treat them as important. I get back out of bed if I realize I haven't taken a prescribed medication in the evening. I get frantic about refills. If I did the same with vities, I'd have a higher success rate.
Now about the exercise... *sigh*
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Also, if I can make it REQUIRED then I'll do it; otherwise not so much. Scheduling is key; if I can put something off I will, so I have to have either a specific time to do something or a specific daily event to do it before. Biking to work is good for me, because I'll do that every work day; when I was working from home, "I will go on a bike ride every day" wasn't very successful, but "I will go on a bike ride every day at 3:00" got around the "I can't go out now, it got dark!" problem and was therefore more successful. I've recently fairly successfully attached my non-biking exercise to after work & before dinner (this doesn't work if I don't go home right after work, or if we have unusual dinner plans, so it is only fairly successful).
One thing that I find helpful is keeping records. This works better for big or variable things like exercise than for tiny things like vitamins (because making a little checkmark on your vitamin chart is just about as much effort as taking the silly thing).
I also find that it helps to be able to phrase the habit positively -- "Drink water" instead of "Don't drink Coke". When I find myself drinking too much sugary stuff, I institute a "water first" policy, where when I think I'd like a Coke or a glass of juice or whatever, I will drink a glass of water first to see if it's just that I'm thirsty or if I really want the other thing. Diet changes in general might be easier to cope with this way; rather than "I will not eat English muffins" try "I will eat 3 different vegetables each day" (or whatever).
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- Don't set standards too high for any one item or event (lowers "starting" hurdle)
- Do set standards pretty high for reliability (helps keep habit)
- Scheduling an event at a specific time is powerful
- Adding something instead of denying myself something is particularly powerful for dietary changes
Way cool. These are all good things to play with.
This week I've been on a Thou Shalt Drink A Lot kick, and even though the water cooler in the office is broken and we're out of little bottles, it's still working moderately well. Perhaps I could look at that as adding something instead of denying. If I drink a lot of water, THEN see the sugar-laden treats someone brought in to the office, I'll eat fewer treats. Fewer is perfect. I like treats; I just shouldn't be living on them. :-)
not all habits are alike
--is exercise boring? what would make it less so? some people listen to music, watch exercise videos, listen to books on tape. Other people go to classes, have an exercise buddy, etc. (I *do* realize your options are limited.... )
--is exercise valued? do you do it in a nice location, with comfortable clothing, adequate equipment, etc? One friend of mine told me how she brings the timer from the kitchen when she uses her treadmill. I was agast! It's not just an issue of having to remember -- but this just doesn't reflect the important place that exercise holds. I suggested that an attitude change seemed in order: if you were decorating your exercise temple, what would be there?
-- what is the alternate plan? It's all well and fine to say I'll do xx minutes xx days a week -- but what about when I'm sick? what if you get home late? if the exercise is outdoors -- what about in winter or in a rainstorm?
--record and adjust. I think for me writing it down helped immensely. I could go back over the week, review whether I'd met my goal, and plan times for the following week. If problems came up, what were they? What kept you from doing it? Work on those bits as separate issues. I really did not have a huge sense of failure when I didn't meet the goal--- I was usually CLOSE, and I can celebrate CLOSE while working to improve.
--one week at a time. I guess I've always hoped that exercise could be a habit and not take effort. I've never found it to be so. Yes, I've had periods of time where I got used to the time it takes, and adjusted to it. But there was still a sense of using will and planning each week to get it to happen.
Regarding food: when I want to work on improving food, the main component is substitution, and it is quite challenging. It's actually quite a bit of work to keep myself adequately stocked with enjoyable and healthy food -- it takes a lot of food, it takes hauling it around. I'm not happy with a box of whatever in my deskdrawer-- So I often carry around lots of food (like, for just one day).
Big congratulations on the complete change from soft drinks -- thats a huge benefit. (I've never allowed myself to form a habit of drinking them.) I often wonder whether people who drink soda (and coffee) regularly see it as desructive....
Moria