Tuesday, September 27, 2011

How do you do it?

How do you change your ingrained habits to ones that are better for you?

For me, this question is about diet and exercise. For someone else it might be stopping smoking, drinking, impulse shopping, etc.
I am not a stupid woman. I know that the basic formula for my goal is eat less and exercise more. I also know that anything I say after this is an excuse, but let's face it, change is hard, especially when you don't want to make the change in the first place.

Once upon a time I didn't mind cooking. Sometimes I truly enjoyed it, other times it was just a daily task like making the bed and wasn't a big deal. For quite some time now, I've almost hated it. My husband and I aren't picky eater but there are some things we either A) don't care for, B) don't eat because it disagrees with us, C) are easier or better to order in a restaurant or D) has become very expensive.
Starting with A, neither of us cares for peppers or zucchini. Hubby prefers most canned or frozen vegetables to fresh. We like salads, but not every day.

As we get older, the list in B grows. Anything in the melon family which includes cucumbers, disagrees with me. I like garlic, but it stays with me forever. More than just a little isn't just unpleasantly aromatic on me, it causes indigestion. Avoiding fried foods isn't just health conscious, they also don't "sit well" if we eat them as we used to do, especially later in the day.

The list in C would include seafood and many fish entrees. Living in Michigan, we like lake perch which are small fillets. I like tilapia and farm raised catfish but hubby does not. He can't get the appearance of catfish out of his mind or stop thinking of them as bottom feeders despite them being raised in controlled conditions now. When I mention how odd looking crab and lobsters are, he can overlook them. My point is that I order these fish entrees in restaurants, he does not.
And the last category, D...doesn't everything fit into that category now? I bet most people in my age group remember when chicken was really inexpensive. Can you say that about any meat now? I just bought a pound and a quarter of ground round and paid $5 at Kroger.

I am giving up the All or Nothing mind set that I so often get when I decide that "this" is the week we are going to follow a better eating plan. When I tried to follow Weight Watchers in the recent past, I would do ok the first few weeks when my motivation was high and then fall apart when family would eat something I shouldn't have. Yes, I know that on WW you can have anything, you just need to plan for it and count the points. If it was the end of the day, the allotted points were already consumed and I gave in to temptation, that downslide was likely to continue into the next day or two.
I am going to try to avoid magazines and news that tell us one week to eat and drink {fill in the blank} for our hearts and the following week tells us that too much of this causes memory loss, toenail fungus and snarky blog entries. Photobucket Moderation will be my goal. I think if I am going to make changes that I can stick with long enough for them to become my new ingrained habits, it is going to have occur this way.

How have you successfully exchanged poor habits for better ones?

And one last question...do you think that donut graphic means
  • No donuts
  • Don't eat a donut with a bite out of it
  • Don't eat more than one bite of a donut
Donuts are not my weakness so it was safe to end with that question. Don't press me on ice cream though.
Photobucket

4 comments:

Blondie's Journal said...

It really is all confusing, isn't it? But you are right...it's all about eating less and exercising more. and that last part gets me every time. I'd like to think I get it in my daily routine but I'm smarter than that. So then I go on the mindset that I have to accept myself as I am, and that is sometimes just a bandaid.

I agree with you on the cost of meat. We should all try to eat more pasta, rice and beans and when the meat isn't moving, maybe they will lower prices.

XO,
Jane

Sewconsult said...

No Donuts, because one leads to 2, then to 3...
I am just better off with none. I am struggling with my effort to change my habits. I have one good day of new schedule and over extend myself (yesterday). Then today, I ache all over and just want to lay on the heating pad and do nothing. Of course, that's not the right answer. So, I have a list of things to accomplish. The days that my body will allow, I go for the harder tasks and the days like today will be for the small tasks with rests in between. I hate feeling old when I am not old. I am not old. I AM NOT OLD! (yet)

Chatty Crone said...

I KNOW the answers the problem for me is DOING the answers.

I think if you do it right - you can eat a lot - only problem is it doesn't taste as good as a donut.

I am trying to find my mojo - have you seen it?

Sandie

Debbie said...

I'm just like you. I KNOW how to do it. I just don't always do it.

The prices... Oy!!!

And the donut graphic for me means, "Do not go near the donut shop because you have the spine of a jelly fish."