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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?
no subject
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!