Old Habits Die Hard (hard enough to feel the pain)…

You know what I mean; chocolate, alcohol, laziness, even
what you eat for breakfast. We all have habitual actions
that we often feel a little embarrassed by, such as buying
a chocolate bar and a can of coke every time you go to the
petrol station to fill the car up… that one used to
be one of my worse habits, I just knew it was not good for
me, but I just couldn’t quit it. It was like I was on
auto pilot.

Do you get home from work, immediately turn on the TV
instead of doing your workout?

Do you go out on a Friday and Saturday night, just because
it is the weekend, and then spend the rest of the weekend
in bed regretting your excesses?

One of the biggest challenges as a fitness professional is
to get my clients to change their eating habits so that it
compliments their training efforts. One common hang up
relates to breakfast, getting them to stop eating cereal
based breakfasts is like putting a heroine addict through
cold turkey!

The problem is our bad habits can cause us a myriad of
health problems, such as weight gain, obesity, type 2
diabetes, a weak immune system, and poor structural health.
All of which cause a great deal of misery.

Brain researchers at MIT in the US have discovered that
once a poor habit is established, certain neural patterns
are created in the brain which ingrain the habit to
becoming almost completely automatic. We just don’t
even think about the action, we just do it. These patterns
can be erased just as readily as they are created in the
first place, BUT the patterns can be rekindled much quicker
the next time round.

Obvious stuff really, when you think about how many people
relapse back into a smoking habit, or poor nutritional
habits.

Breaking habits can be tough though. The fear of social
alienation if you stop smoking (where will you get the
office gossip from, if you are not smoking with your
co-workers!). Not going out on a Friday night can cause a
similar fear. Not having that glass of wine with your
evening meal each night, it has become so ingrained that
you would feel uncomfortable if only water was available.

Thankfully there are solutions to these problems, and it is
not just down to will power. Pattern breaking is simply a
matter of becoming more conscious of each action that you
take. A simple example:

Do you drive the same route to work each and every day? I
bet on many days the journey to work does not even
register, it is just like you are on auto pilot. You have
no idea of how many cars cut you up, or even if you
indicated at the right moments, or even indicated at all!

Breaking this habit is a simple act of deciding to take a
different route to work. I have about 5 different routes to
the gym and have actually gone further out of my way, just
to get in a new route, it keeps me focused.

For the more serious issue of eating and drinking habits,
simply get into the habit of stopping just before you
consume something and make a judgment on the quality of the
item you are about to eat or drink. I use a 3 point grade
A, B or C type foods.

A’s are your good clean foods like fresh fruit and
veg, meat, fish and water plus some diary items like eggs
too. B’s are not so good, slightly processed products
including breads, pasta, cereal based products C’s
are the junk food, including sodas, highly processed items
like cakes, chips, burgers, pizzas etc.

This simple process makes me more conscious of my food
choices, allowing me to make better choices and ones that
compliment my exercise habits.

One other common poor habit is laziness or procrastination
from exercise, this is because you may associate exercise
with hard work, pain, or you have low self efficacy. To
break this habit you may find it useful to find a purpose
for actually doing your workouts…

Getting involved in a sport may just give the reason you
need to start doing your workouts. Rather than simply
working out to lose weight, why not make your workouts more
focused towards a sport, so that you improve your speed,
agility, flexibility, balance and strength. You may just
find that the side benefit is that you’ll lose that
weight after all.

One of my current clients came to me a few months ago with
really poor motivation, the habit to workout just
wasn’t working. It was becoming a real struggle to
get to the gym to do the workouts. I simply asked her one
question – has there ever been a sport that you
thought would be just so cool to do? Immediately I saw a
spark of excitement in her face, she told me she always
wanted to do rock climbing, but never had the belief that
she could do it. Fantastic we had just found her motivation.

Two weeks later after the change of focus and some
adjustment to her routines, she joined a local club and got
right back into the workout habit. 30 days later she had
dropped a dress size and was really enjoying her time in
the gym, plus doing great with the climbing too!

So you see habits can be broken down, simply by recognizing
the patterns, then making a conscious decision to do or try
something else. Yes it is NOT easy, but don’t you
think your life would be fuller, richer, more interesting
if you didn’t spend so much time on autopilot?

So start right now, decide what different route you are
going to take to work tomorrow, stop yourself before
consuming anything and really SEE what you are eating, and
start making better exercise habits by changing the focus
to an outcome that really excites you!

The best of luck

Tim

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Tim Goodwin is a fitness professional specializing in help
the busiest people achieve more with their amateur sporting
interests, and at the same time ridding them of excess body
fat. Visit http://www.getfit.lu/success.html to get a free
18 page report "How to lose weight even when you are really
busy" containing a full 4 week program which you can start
today!