Knowing what I know now: how to choose a habit.

On the post about reinforcing habits for life ( http://arlinghaus.typepad.com/blog/2012/01/i-take-it-back-that-on-off-habits-thing.html ), Christine asks in the comments:

       "Do you think these exercises - habit listing and making steps a few at a time - could work for someone in the weight loss phase as well as it does for your weight maintenance phase? I haven't started eating habits work but have a stellar exercise habit in place since November. Mostly I stress eat so I would probably start with a few habits to begin that relate to those weaknesses. Maybe you would say of course. . . or maybe it is too slow an approach for someone who has 40 lbs to lose. I am going to reread your journey of weight loss soon. But knowing what you know about yourself now, might you have taken this approach from the start? Thanks."

Knowing what I know about myself now.... What do I know now that I didn't know then?

   - that the habit of exercise would not cause me to lose weight on its own, but would give me confidence to change my other habits, which in turn would give me more confidence in my physical training
  - that I would learn not to fear normal hunger, even to embrace it
  - that my husband was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to help me reinforce my new habits, if only I would not give up on them
  - that success is easier and more rewarding when it is measured primarily by behavior (did I do what I planned today, or not?) or performance (how many minutes did I run today?) than when it is measured by numbers on a scale or measuring tape or clothing tag
 - but that the numbers on the scale (and other objective measures of health and fitness) were and are still helpful in selecting behaviors to measure myself against. If I succeed at adopting a new habit, that is real success, but if the habit does not improve or maintain my health, I know I should add or substitute a different one
  - that I would be motivated to work on many habits at once by consistent weight loss, but that maintenance would require me to take them only a few at a time
  - that I could make permanent (or, realistically, indefinite) changes more readily than I could make temporary ones.

Christine, the "right" answer to the question is probably "One permanent habit at a time is definitely the best way to go for losing weight." But I would be lying if I said that is how I did it when I went through my forty-pound weight loss. I did that in about six months, primarily by counting and tracking total calories and preplanning my day's menus -- the guiding principle being "Have whatever I want in whatever combination seems right, as long as I keep the daily calories under such-and-such." I did the calorie-tracking thing because I knew that limiting calories would make me hungry, and I had recently had an epiphany of sorts that, having tried all manner of other diets that promised I would not have to be hungry, I was ready to try being hungry for a change.

(Double meaning absolutely intended.)

And it did not take long for me to realize that in order to meet those calorie goals, I had to develop certain behaviors. I remember that one of the first new behaviors I tried was toting my midmorning snack around with me, because I was nervous that I would get hungry while I was out, and that this would require me to eat something not on my plan. I discovered that if I had the snack with me, knowing I could have it at any time, I felt so much less fearful and less inclined to eat in order to *prevent* hunger. Anyway, the truth is that I did a lot of my weight loss using a not-very-sustainable behavior (calorie tracking), but that along the way I learned about the importance of sustainable ones. I am not sure I could have found it so useful had I not been losing weight so quickly that the weight loss itself was exciting and motivating.

Then again, maybe I should not be so dismissive about the calorie tracking. Perhaps the daily calorie total is a little bit like the numbers on the scale that I mentioned above: a secondary, objective measurement against which the usefulness of behaviors and habits can be evaluated (provided that you have the time and inclination to do it -- and by the way, it isn't something that needs to be done every day).

In other words, success can be measured by asking the question, "have I strengthened my desired habit(s) today or not?" But the habits themselves can be measured against the question, "Has this habit resulted in physical improvement -- has my performance improved? is my weight trending the way I want it to? am I bringing my caloric intake closer to the number I want it to be, or did this habit make it easier to hit the calorie goal?"

So I guess if I had it to do over again (! Let's hope not) I would still count and track calories, but I think I would distance my sense of success a little bit more from the calorie total. Success means reinforcing good, permanent habits. Tracking calories, like stepping on the scale, is a way to find out if the habits are good -- not a way to find out if *I* am good.  

+ + +

As for you and your situation, Christine, the first thing I want to say is WAY TO GO on the exercise. I know it sounds a little bit like silly cheerleading, but this is exactly what I did -- got the confidence to change my eating habits only after having established a working exercise habit. I am a real believer in the power of physical strength to transform itself into personal strength.  

The second thing I want to suggest is to try imagining yourself in the future, "cured" of whatever unhealthy eating behaviors you wish you were liberated from. What does that look like? What is the key difference? For me, I knew I ate too much at meals and generally thought too much about food; the terminology that I still feel summed up my problem behavior was "gluttony," an inordinate attachment to food. I selected my habits with an eye towards beating that tendency into submission by facing my fear of hunger.

You have identified (to me) "stress eating" as a problem behavior. Can you imagine yourself as a person who doesn't do that anymore? What does it look like? Have you got other ways of coping with stress in that imaginary future? Have you, when you are not stressed, prepared your environment (e.g. by removing comfort foods from the places where you typically stress-eat) so that, when you become stressed, it is easy to avoid falling into stress eating? Have you, when you are not stressed, set clear and objective boundaries for yourself (such as set times and places for eating and not eating) so that, even when you are stressed, you can detour around the food supply and find other ways to cope? Have you reduced the frequency of stress events to reduce the number of temptations? Imagine that permanent future as clearly as you can.

Then make a list of behaviors that you can experiment with, starting with one. I really think you can do any sort of thing, but I suggest that you start with something that is clear and objective and that can be practiced proactively and at least daily. *The more often you find opportunities to practice each habit, the faster it can become second nature.*

  The thing about stress eating is that stress does not necessarily happen to us daily. The first habit you try probably shouldn't be something like "When I am stressed, I will do such and such instead of eating" because that means you have to wait until you are stressed to practice it, and that is kind of the worst time to try something new. Instead, it should be something that you practice daily in order to develop the habit, knowing that the real test of the habit will be when the stress arrives.

Let me give you an example. I never really suffered *much* from stress eating or emotional eating, with one exception: when my husband would go on a business trip and leave me with the kids for a few days, I would feel lonely and sorry for myself and would tend to order pizza ("for the kids," har har) and eat an entire medium pizza by myself, chewing sullenly while zoning out in front of the Internet. This happened roughly once a month. Not frequently enough to develop a "habit" of "when Mark is out of town I eat the same amount I usually eat, not a whole medium pizza at one sitting." I could make a *plan* to do this, but a plan is far more easily derailed by temptation than is a habit.

The *habit* that counteracts this very destructive behavior -- along with other destructive behaviors -- is a daily habit of portion control at dinner. The habit is defined very clearly: My dinner has to fit on a plate of a certain size. So every day for a long time I emphasized the habit of filling my 8-1/2 inch dinner plate, once, and stopping when the plate was empty. I would have had a few weeks of this behavior under my belt before it would be "tested" by the next spousal business trip. Then, knowing that I wanted to reinforce the habit, I would have had a few choices. I could skip pizza night (although the children expected it). I could order pizza, although I would not need to order as much of it. I could plan to eat a plateful of pizza and no more, which would meet the standards of my new rule and would count as success. I could get a salad and put the salad on half my plate, filling the rest of it with pizza, which would probably feel better. I could order a sandwich and coleslaw and chips instead of pizza, since that would fit pretty well on the plate and look nice. Any of these would look like "success" according to my defined habit. But the point is, that the habit was defined and practiced many, many times outside the stress situation, and then it was strong enough to carry me into the stress situation and out the other side.  

How to tell, then, whether the one-plate habit is a good habit for me? Well -- a good test would have been to find out if, indeed, I managed to stick to it even when stressed by my husband's business trip. Indeed, this habit survived the business trip, and many others. (Later on, I added another relevant habit, that of partitioning my daily dinner plate so it was at least fifty percent vegetables, which also cut down on the loneliness-induced pizza consumption. It did result in a lot of loneliness-induced Brussels sprouts consumption, but that is rather less destructive.)

So to sum up: start with a habit that seems a good candidate for a *permanent* habit. Make it one that is clearly and objectively defined, and one that you can practice at least every day, whether you are stressed or not. But make it one that somehow counteracts one of the behaviors that you identify as a problem behavior for you.  

How does that sound?

Comments

[Christine]

Thank you for this thoughtful answer. This weekend I am going to think through the first habit change priority. Toss some prayers my way! This is definitely a struggle to overcome gluttony and laziness or an excessive need for comfort. Thank you!

[bearing]

You bet, Christine! And thank you for asking a good question that I enjoyed elaborating on.