A Step-by-Step on How to Ditch a Poor Eating Habit

When you embed a new habit into your heart you’re becoming a new version of you.

Pearl One

Back when yo-yo-ing was my lifestyle, I would never have called myself “smug.” Most of the time, I was dealing with too little confidence, rather than too much.

But.

To be perfectly transparent, I remember losing ten or fifteen pounds, and turning moderately smug. As if I were too cool for school. As in, I’d never have to deal with weight issues again! (Awesome, right?)

And – in my opinion – feeling smug is the very precursor to the downhill slide into re-gaining the fifteen + more.

Like all of us trying to lose weight, I was on an elevator that went up and down through the years.

And back then I didn’t know that what I put into my mind and heart was far more important than what I put into my mouth. I didn’t know that being smug would never be a helpful thought or feeling. It would always be the beginning of a downfall.

Thankfully I figured out trashing the smug thought was vital, and instead think, I’m always learning. I’m always discovering. I slip and that’s okay. I’ll just meet the new day and go for it again. Over and over and over.

I know that a lot of Thrivers are having amazing success. And don’t get me wrong, I love hearing about the awesome strides everyone’s making, but consider nestling this phrase into your heart forever.

♥ I’m not smug about losing.

♥ I’m not smug about losing.

♥ I’m not smug about losing.

If you’re having what anyone would deem “victory!!,” don’t be lured down the smug-pathway. It might seem like allowing ourselves to feel a tiny bit smug is the pinnacle of “success”, but it’s really the precursor to a downward spiral back into overeating-land.

I’m not smug about losing. Let’s don’t me smug together. ♥

Pearl Two

Welcome to the Holiday Healthy Weight Challenge! If you’re not yet on-board, please join us!! This is my first year for a holiday challenge. This will be fun.

We currently have 12 weeks and 5 days before Thanksgiving (U.S.). If you live somewhere else on our beautiful, blue marble, jump in and play along anyway. For example, Canada’s Thanksgiving is in six weeks and six days on October 10. I’m inviting all of our planet’s countries like Switzerland, England and Australia: you guys come along too! Fyi: the U.S. Thanksgiving is on 11-24-22.

Thirteen weeks and five days is a perfect amount of time to focus on Thanksgiving-you.

The Best Therapy Available

I’ll never stop saying that I’m a huge believer in journaling. I’ve mentioned that in a lifetime long, long ago I was a private practice therapist. I absolutely revere cognitive-behavioral therapy, but writing about our issues produces tangible gems too. It’s inexpensive, and I think, tends to be considered “second- or third-rate.”

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of journaling, it’s the real-deal.

If your hand gets tired of writing jump onto the laptop. (I love typing out my thoughts, but journaling experts often say that handwriting is better.)

For those on the Healthy Weight Challenge, let’s go! Write about the following:

When you wake up on Thanksgiving morning, how would you like to feel about your health, your weight, your fitness and so forth? List at least three ways you’d love for Thanksgiving-you to feel on the big day.

What habits did late August- and September-you do for Thanksgiving-you? How did she create a successful month for her later self? Be super specific like: I want to habitually “eat before I eat” so that I never again face a table full of gorgeous food when I’m ravenous. My days of being way too hungry are over!

What is most important to you about losing weight? (Look gorgeous for a new job? Drop your BMI score? Get off certain meds?)

What do you wish were more important to you? (You might write, I wish I cared more about working out, not eating after 6 pm, or eliminating evening-eating all-together.)

Keeping it positive, tell yourself: I deeply care about working out, I deeply care about not eating after 6, and I deeply care about how I’ll feel on January 1. Don’t say, I wish. Say, I do. (Seems like a small distinction but it’s huge.)

A challenge. Consider taking on this new thought for the next seven days: I’m shifting into a new me in fall 2022. (Be specific.) I will be eating a small salad for dinner, or eating like“Elaine” for lunch (Elaine on Seinfeld would ask the waitress to combine two small salads to make one large salad), or I’m giving up evening sugar.

Our new thought about a “new me in the fall 2022” will be a habit in it’s infancy. Be gentle with the new activity that you’re shaping into a habit. Don’t tell it that it’s annoying or anything like that. Treat the beginning of a new habit like a newborn for the week to come.

In my case, I’m working on my fitness. So, I’d write: I’m shifting into a new me in the fall 2022. I will write very specifically about how I will start the process of daily movement involving sweat. Let me know if you want the particulars.

Let’s challenge ourselves with small habits to reap huge rewards by November 24! ♥

Pearl Three

We’ve set August aside to talk about habits in Pearl Three. Because my posts are already too long (sorry), I’ll just say this.

Throughout the last many years, I began to slowly notice how ideas for – in our case – smart eating can be found almost anywhere. The “Elaine” salad from Seinfeld is the perfect example.

I find new nuggets, suggestions and aha moments when I speak with friends, listen to a podcast, or even glance in a fellow shopper’s grocery cart. Lol. I did exactly that when I watched a woman – who looked to be in her 40s and in great shape — in Costco toss two large bags of a salad kit into her cart. So I immediately said, “Those must be really good.” And she proceeded to tell me how to prep the kale salad kit for the most nutrition minus the excess calories and fat.

We can learn new pieces of information almost anywhere if we stay open to the incoming intell.

Where have you learned helpful ideas? And what was the tip? We’d all love to know!! ♥

Pearl Four

Food! Let’s say that you (really me) created a not so great ice cream habit for yourself. At this stage of the smart eating game, I weaned off the ice cream habit due to my braces relatively easily. In retrospect, I simply didn’t give the ice cream habit time to truly sink in.

Today I can go straight from ice cream to (a better choice) smoothies: almond milk, frozen banana, frozen blueberries, ¼ cup vanilla yogurt. Tasty.

But back in the day, that would have been a total joke: I would never have accepted a smoothie in place of ice cream.

Here’s the plan that would have worked for me:

To start, somebody would’ve had to explain to me that the ultimate goal was getting off the hard stuff for good (which would have made me frown and think, why would I have to give up ice cream for good?)

Heavy sigh. (You see what I was working with?)

Next I’d recommend beginning by substituting sorbet for ice cream. Not for a week or two, but for the amount of time it takes to create a sorbet habit instead of an ice cream habit. I’d also begin “backing up the clock” meaning that if I once chowed my ice cream at 10 pm, I’d move my sorbet habit to 9 pm. And I’d go to bed early with a book.

Then I’d swap smoothies out for sorbet. And again, I’d have a smoothie every evening for not weeks, but months. I’d also back up the clock again. So I’d have my smoothie now at 8 pm. Again, I’d go to bed early with a book.

Finally if I still wasn’t ready to give up having an evening dessert, I would substitute in a handful of baby marshmallows, a little dark chocolate and two or three nuts. (This actually was my dessert for quite awhile until I gave up eating in the evening all together.)

You could use this exact strategy with chips, cake, candy, cookies, chocolate. Name your addiction and you absolutely can slowly wean yourself off. ♥

Pearl Five

Success is all about going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill ♥

I’m spending the weekend bagging up still-in-great-shape clutter, and taking the bags to my local animal-rescue thrift store. I know I’ve mentioned this, but giving away treasure is so much easier when I know the items will help those I care so much about (the fur-people).

I hope you have a weekend filled with good sleep, sweet animals, and plenty of “fuel-food.”

♥, Wendy

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