From skwigg's journal:
I just read this post from JillFit: However You Eat Regularly Is Exactly What You Get Good At
However we eat regularly–whether consciously or unconsciously–is exactly what we get good at doing. Whatever we practice is what we get amazing at. It becomes effortless precisely because it’s what’s been practiced.
With every day and with every meal, you are reinforcing that meal or that day. Three days in a row of drinking wine after work? It is now getting easier to drink wine after work.
Are you someone who does the weekly deprive-then-binge cycle? You know, Monday through Thursday is flawless and Friday through Sunday is a blow-out? When you do this week after week, you are actually getting GOOD at this. BETTER at this. You’re becoming a pro at this.
Ugh. How depressing!
And yet, how empowering …?
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Yes! Habits! Practice! You get good at what you repeatedly do, even if you're not doing it consciously. It pays to step back and look at what you're reinforcing. Is it what you want? Does it help you? I did the restrict/overeat cycle for years until I reached expert status. I could restrict with ease. I could overeat like it was my job. I never stopped to think about if I enjoyed that, or if it was helping me reach my goals. No to both!
Habits that weren't serving me:
- Dieting, any dieting, especially anything with clean/approved foods and dirty/villain foods.
- Eating when not hungry.
- Situational eating (my show is on, it's the weekend, I'm alone, someone bought donuts)
- Ignoring hunger for long periods of time.
- Snacking.
- Eating food I didn't even like.
- Overthinking.
- Counting calories or macros, using nutrition software.
- Eating to the point of discomfort or pain.
- Exercising an hour or two a day, six or seven days a week, until I was red-faced, queasy, and exhausted EVERY workout.
- Ignoring pain, illness, and injury.
- Thinking "now's my chance" or "starting tomorrow."
- Numbing feelings with food.
- Undereating all week to overindulge on the weekend.
- Either avoiding restaurants and parties or face-stuffing at restaurants and parties.
Habits that serve me well now:
- Eating satisfying meals when physically hungry.
- Loving everything I eat.
- Thinking about food as little as possible, tracking nothing.
- Rarely snacking.
- Eating mostly nutritious whole foods.
- No off-limits foods or food-shaming talk ("processed crap, junk food, garbage").
- Feeling feelings and questioning thoughts.
- Getting plenty of quality sleep and resting when I'm tired or hurt.
- Eating a similar amount and feeling similar hunger/fullness signals no matter what day it is.
- Eating the same way in a restaurant as I would in my kitchen (or at a party, or alone, or with friends, or in front of strangers, or on the moon, or in a tweedle beetle battle in a puddle with a paddle)
- Thinking of exercise like play and doing it to have fun and feel good.
Anybody else want to play? Which habits are really working for you? Which ones are you reinforcing right now that you wish you weren't?