I am reading a very good book, "The Power of Habit" - Charles Duhigg.
To sum up this book the first part of the book speaks about how habits form, how to identify habits, and goes through some great examples of how habits play a role in our lives. It introduces us to the Habit Loop, where you will learn to identify how habits form. Then you get to the second part of the book where it goes into depth about how to change habits. It goes through great examples of how organizations have changed habits by focusing on 1 thing. This one habit they chose was the focal point of change through the entire organization. This book teaches you how to identify, form and build off of good habits. It also goes into depth about how you can never really get rid of bad habits, they are always going to be there. Each example in this book first identifies the habit loop, then takes you through it. Habit Loop - Cue, Routine, Reward.
Does anyone have any suggestions on other books/magazines/articles/quote that may have helped you or played and important role in your life? Sports are 90% mental and 10% physical. This can be applied to diet/excersise. Everything we are trying to accomplish generally comes down to mental.
Why do I bring this up? Well the book talks about dieting and why dieters tend to fail so often. Sometimes it comes down to trying to change everything to quickly instead of being focused on 1 thing, and letting that 1 thing be the catalyst of change. You should be laser focused on one (few) things, this one thing will effect other things. Sometimes dieting fails because we are focusing on the wrong thing. Many of us are trying to lose weight, right? But ask yourself this what happens when you lose all the weight and reach your goal? What next? You may have a great routine in place to lose weight, your reward for your routine you are building is stepping on the scale and seeing it say you weighed less than before. But what happens when you get to the point where you no longer need to lose weight? Will it be as much a reward to step on the scale and see you weigh the same? I only ask because maybe the reward and the goal should not be about weight loss. While it is easy to focus on weight loss being the goal, if you take away the reward will you keep doing the same routine? Honestly? Ask yourself that? Would you keep doing something if the reward was bad? I would not. That is why although I always lost my goal weight I never kept it off for more than a few years. It is precisly because I focused on the wrong goals, my routine was good, I identified the correct cues, but my reward was not so great. The old habits were still there. The cues were still there.
If you want to live healthier I say forget about weight for a moment. Your weight is only a symptom of an overall problem. You have gained weight because you did not excersise much, you ate the wrong kinds of foods, and yes some of us do have medical conditions that make it harder (but not impossible). But your weight did not lead you to eating the wrong kinds of foods, your weight did not lead to you not excersising. I say this because if you develop a plan/habit loop to get of the symptom (excess weight) and then you successfully treat that symptom (being overweight) well than what good is the plan/habit loop once the symptom is treated? What we need to do is treat the cause of the symptom and not the symptom itself.
