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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?
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