Habits are a great tool to live a healthy lifestyle. You can sneakily manipulate your brain to do what you want, even when you are not motivated and exhausted. Did you know that about 40 percent of what you do each day aren’t actual decisions, but habits? This fact is really powerful and exciting because you are in charge of the habits you form so once you form healthy ones, you will subconsciously be making healthy decisions. Brilliant!
Picture yourself toned, healthy and happy. Set the right habits, and you’re there girl!
To be honest, working out is not hard for me anymore. Not because I’m just awesome, but because I have formed this habit and stuck with it. It feels natural and normal and would feel strange to skip.
Another example, since sweets are my weakness, I allow myself to have one sweet per day. That’s by no means impressive but keeps me on track. Whenever I get hardcore and don’t allow any sweets, I end up deflated on the floor devouring chocolate cake. This habit of one sweet per day allows me to skip out on tempting office treats, or something I don’t absolutely love. If a cookie comes with a boxed lunch, I actively choose whether I want to have that sweet now or wait to treat myself later.
I have the habit of eating at least one serving of veggies and fruit a day. I try to have either fruit or veggies with each meal/snack.
You get the picture? Habits help me stay healthy, and they can help you too!
I read an incredible book by Charles Duhigg called the Power of Habit which further explained the power of forming healthy habits.
The book explains how you shouldn’t create new good habits, but revise the old bad habits. Habits are explained in a three-step loop: cue, routine and reward. Revising an old habit is easier by keeping the beginning and the end the same but simply changing the routine in the middle. For example, if you are stressed out and eat as a way to calm yourself, your habit may look like this – cue:stressed out, routine:eat food, reward:momentarily less stressed. However if you change the routine in the middle you could see different results. If you change your routine to handle stress better it may look like this – cue:stressed out, routine:exercise, reward:less stressed. Of course, this explanation goes further in depth but is an interesting way to look at habits and how to recognize and change them.<
