Friday, January 25, 2008

Old Habits Die Hard

Inspiration strikes in odd ways. Today during my run I was very uncomfortable, burping up last night's dinner and listening to my stomach make angry growls over the sound of my footfalls and breathing. That's when the subject for this post (and for my continued dietary efforts) hit me in the gut.

I was feeling pretty good after making changes in what and how I'm eating and boasting of my "success" online. But I guess I didn't take it seriously enough. A few days of controlling my semi-binging and I thought I was home free. My concentration wavered, though, and I started eating without thinking and eating too much too fast once again. My tummy had to yell at me for me to pay attention!

So starting today I will treat this as I would any bad habit. An Internet search for "breaking bad habits" gave me two million results, many of which made similar, common-sense suggestion such as determining the payoff and trade off of your bad habit and making the choice to change your behavior. They also suggest doing something else in the habit's place for a while.

Here's my plan:

1. Determine if I am actually hungry. If I am, eat something healthful.
2. When I am eating ANYTHING, savor every bite, putting the fork/spoon down often
3. If I'm not actually hungry, do the following:

a. ask myself why I want to eat (boredom? craving?)
b. if I'm bored, find something to do
c. if I'm craving something without being hungry, remember the moment will pass and try to occupy my mind until it does

Okay, so this may seem like a bit much, especially for an athletic vegetarian who already eats very well. I don't have any unusual body-image issues; in fact I genuinely like the way I look. I've developed this plan for two reasons: a) I like plans b) I want to feel as good as possible and remain healthy well into old age

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