The Effects Of Habits On Weight Loss
Habits make or break your weight loss. I am going to walk you through 10 steps of successfully creating habits. Starting with the why question and leading through implementing new and healthy habits.
1. Why create a habit
Whether we like it our not habits control our lives. They can be little things such as brushing your teeth to big habits like eating habits. Anywhere you look in your life you will see that there are habits that are formed and determine how you do things.
Don't let this scare you though. The good thing is new and good habits can be formed any time. This means that habits control your life but you are in control of the habits.. The challenge comes for you to form those everyday habits into positive and productive habits. Habits that will take your weight loss where you want it to go.
2. Process to creating a habit
The question now is how do you create a habit. There was a study done by NASA involving sunglasses. There was a type of sunglasses that the NASA wanted to test with the astronauts. The only issue is that they messed with the astronauts vision. NASA decided to try an experiment with them. They had the astronauts wear the sunglasses for 30 days straight, no taking them off. After that period of time they found that the astronauts eyes and mind had adjusted to using these sunglasses without creating any problems.
Here is the interesting part of the study. If an astronaut would take off the sunglasses for one day before the 30 days were complete, their body would return to normal. That astronaut would have to restart the 30 day count and any days completed with the sunglasses were lost time.
Here is what this has to do with habits. To create a habit in your life, you need to do that habit for 30 days straight. This means you cannot stop you diet or exercise routine even one day during that 30 days. Just like with the NASA study, you will have to restart creating that habit in your life if you take a break..
3. What a habit will do in your life
As I mentioned before habits control your life from the little things to the big things. Lets take eating as an example. If you create a habit to eat good then you will have the desire to eat good food rather then eat the bad food. It's important to know that the greatest thing that a habit will do in your life is create an intense desire to do what the habit wants.
4. Using Habits
The good news about how habits work is that you can make them work for you. The bad part is that habits can work against you. There needs to be careful thought and consideration into what habits exist in your life. Ask yourself the question if the habits that control you now are the ones that you want and need to reach your goals.
5. Types of Habits: Removing
After you decide and go through the list of habits that you have in your life you will probably see habits you don't like. The first part of removing a habit from your life to recognize that the habit exists and that you want to remove it.
6. Types of Habits: Creating
The next step is choosing the habits you want in your life. Think about what you want to accomplish in your life. What habits do you need to do that? Make a list of the top 5 people you admire. Write down the five habits they have in there life that you could create in yours to lead you to the same success. I find that if I want to know this information that the best option is to talk to the person and ask them what they think is important. You might be surprised in what you learn by doing this.
7. Replace Habits
To remove one habit you will have to replace it with another. They are like roots in your life. If you try and pull one out of your life then you will need to replace it with another. For example, let us say that you have a habit of drinking soda pop and you have decided to quit. What you will need to do is replace it with something else like drinking water.
8. Start Small Habits
One issue that many people run into with trying to create habits is that they start to big. Let's take exercise for example. You want to create the habit of regular exercise in your life. You go down to the local gym and sign up for a membership. You decide then to pump weights three times a week. The problem that lies in this solution is the reason that most people don't continue to workout. It's because they are focused on the solution the wrong way. Instead of creating a habit of exercise, they just start to workout and then quit within a short period of time.
The correct way to go about choosing this exercise goal would be to begin doing a little workout for 15 minutes a day. This could include walking or riding a bike. The goal with this though is to do it 30 days straight without stopping, because we know that this will create a habit. The habit will become part of you and you will have the desire to exercise everyday. This is the power of a habit.
9. Build Habits
Build your habits one at a time. Imagine that each month of the year you created one new habit and replace one old habit. I know that it probably isn't as fast as you want things to change, but at the end of the year you would have 12 new habits in your life. That is enough to completely change your whole life. Imagine what would happen over 2 years, 5 years, or 10 years.
10. Always Move forward with your Habits
It is always good to keep moving forward, same with your good habits. In physics you learn that either something is gaining momentum or losing it. There is never a time when things just stay where they are. The habits you choose to do and move forward with will always need to be evaluated and changed. Make sure to always evaluate and choose whether there is a better habit to have for your weight loss or to improve a habit that you already have. By doing this you will always be in charge of your habits which means you will have control of your life.
Alexa Cooper and 10Steps To Weight Loss are dedicated to the MENTAL aspect of weight loss. Once the mind is set in place for Weight Loss the body will follow. 10 Steps To Weight Loss has set it's mission to give people tools and enable them to change their thinking to take weight loss to an amazing new level.
